April 20 THC and cannabis guide, from gummies to drinks, part I

USA Today

18-04-2025

April 20 THC and cannabis guide, from gummies to drinks, part I
April 20 is on the horizon, and that unofficial holiday certainly looks a lot different in 2025 than it did in years past.
Marijuana is legalized for recreational use in 24 states. Moreover, the 2018 Farm Bill made THC products legal across the country as long as they're sourced from hemp and contain no more than 0.3 percent THC by volume. That's led to an explosion of gummies, seltzers, sodas, coffees, teas and tinctures that promise low-key highs and low-calorie buzzes.
This has been a boon to me, a football writer and beer reviewer whose scope has been pried open thanks to the influx of cannabis products. I've had the opportunity to try a ton of THC products -- mostly seltzers and other beverages -- and write about them. So now, on the eve of 4/20, it's time to spread that knowledge and hopefully help folks find the cannabis they're looking for in what's become a packed marketplace.
Bear with me, this is gonna be a long one, even if it's just part one. Part two follows on Saturday and part three, you guessed it, drops on Sunday -- April 20 itself.
If you want a simple, sweet addition to spice up a boring drink: Nowadays
Nowadays was one of the first to create a THC spirit, packing anywhere from 2.5 to 10 milligrams of cannabinoids into a single 1.5-ounce serving. And, as far as I can tell, it was the first to make it actually taste good. While the brand has a lineup of perfectly cromulent seltzers, it shines brightest in the DIY confines of its mock-booze, allowing you to rip off a shot solo or add it to a La Croix to make it, mercifully, actually taste like something.
Nowadays comes in a few different flavors. The holiday-themed cranberry? Pretty good. Brand new cherry? Like drinking a shot of candy. But the original citrus remains stout. Here's what I wrote about it back in August.
You know where that citrus flavor comes in handy? When it's replacing the non-existent flavor in a La Croix. A can of the brand's key lime, on its own, tastes like homework. But drop a shot of Nowadays in there and it's much more interesting. It binds to that limited citrus flavor to create a more flavorful drink that gets closer to a soda at zero calories.
This wasn't limited just to Key Lime. I had success with Berry as well, and Coconut was fine, if a little weird. I had a pile of La Croix left over from my healthy Cokes taste test (horrible). Nowadays helped me finally clear that out.
There's a little roughness to the texture, but it's as easy to drink as it is to mix. While my palate is limited, Nowadays is the THC [spirit] that tastes the least like weed, giving it the most utility for a mixed drink.
If you're looking for a balanced middle ground between sweet and seltzer: WYNK lemonades
The regular, five-milligram WYNKs were fine -- a little dry, but they were trying to be seltzers, so that made sense. A series of lemonades promises bolder, sweeter flavors on top of the double dose of THC at 10 milligrams. Despite that, the can clocks in at zero calories, which is nice but slightly foreboding.
The first sip brings the promised flavor along with the heavy carbonation of a seltzer. Together it's a slightly disarming combination, but it works. Neither the strawberry nor the lemonade feel especially authentic, but they're sweet and sour in a way that makes sense and leaves you with something easy to drink.
That works well with the dry finish of a seltzer. You get a dense rush of bubbles, but the tart lemon and sugar-ish strawberry keeps you from making the "ah" sound you'd typically make after each swig of a seltzer. Just me? Nah, you know what I'm talking about, I'm sure.
As is, it's crisp and tart and makes the original Wynk flavors feel bland by comparison. It's a carbonated lemonade that gets you high. Well, in this case a low-key buzz that makes me feel much less social than the lower dose.
When you need a quick pick-me-up (or let-me-down): CQ
CQ, short for cannabis quencher, was a quiet go-to for me facing sleepless nights. Why? Because it delivers a steady dose of haze-inducing cannabinoids in a tiny package.
CQ's best product offers 100 milligrams of THC in 2.2-ounce bottles. You can add a splash to a cocktail or drink it straight. It's a bit concentrated and acidic, which lends it to the former better than the latter. Even so, it not bad on its own and, since you're drinking a thimble-full at a time, barely noticeable. For someone not looking to drink 12 ounces of bubble water an hour before bedtime, CQ feels like a cheat code.
If you want a pleasant THC buzz and flavors that take you back to family trips to Olive Garden: Wana
Am I the only one who remembers Olive Garden once having a completely banging strawberry lemonade? I mean, it was probably just Minute Maid off the gun, but something about it tasted incredible as a child. Maybe it was pairing it with unlimited breadsticks.
ANYWAY, Wana has some incredibly tasty blends that offer different effects in delicious 7.5-ounce cans.
Strawberry Lemonade: B+
The can says "Balance Blend," promising a drink "more balanced than a lemon bird jockey." Sure. OK. That's helpful.
I'm not especially looking for balance. I'm looking for something to take away the anxiety of a couple nights worth of bad sleep. At 7.5 ounces, Wana promises five milligrams each of THC, CBD and CBG. Importantly, that smaller can means I'll be up less often to pee should it do the trick.
It pours an inviting pink and smells great; a little tart citrus and a lot of fresh, just-about-to-go-bad, slightly mushy strawberry. The first sip highlights the cane sugar that's No. 2 on the ingredient list. This is a solid lemonade on its own. It's sweet and just a little tangy. The strawberry comes through in a big way, undercut by the slightly sour lemon lurking below. The carbonation is light enough to keep things crisp and never burns your tongue.
It's a proper sip even before the THC. That THC can be a bit unbalanced. Sometimes it's a gateway to my REM cycle, leaving me to space out in bed and drop immediately into a dreamscape. Sometimes it just makes me a little less tense. That knocks it down half a grade, but it's still worth seeking out.
Relax Blend Raspberry Tea: B+
For a raspberry tea, it smells a little more organic than the typically canned Brisk you'd get, loaded with artificial flavor. But that gives it an almost stale vibe, like one of those Danish sugar cookies with the jelly in the center left in the tin long after your grandmother filled it with sewing supplies.
Fortunately, that doesn't apply to the taste. The raspberry is muted and comes off as almost medicinal with a low-key tang toward the end. The tea itself is fine -- not quite fresh brewed, not quite the syrupy, artificial flavor of a macro canned tea. All in all it's close to what you'd expect from a Lipton or the like, with just enough acidity to remind you there's something not quite kosher about this beverage.
That CBD combo works wonders. While there's a minimal pleasantness, it ushers me to sleep much more easily and deeply than the balanced blend of the strawberry lemonade. It seems to last more than four hours as well, because when I get up to pee at 3 a.m. I'm able to effortlessly fall back asleep. Which, hell yeah.
Uplift Blend Lemonade: A-
Well, after the Relax Blend worked wonders I'm a little trepidatious to drink this before bed. This one pours with a little carbonation, which quickly sparkles away after being poured into a mug. It smells a little weedier than the other two varieties. Not "someone loaded a bowl here" weedy, but enough to remind you this isn't regular lemonade.
Whoa. This is good lemonade. It's tart and rich and just sweet enough to keep you coming back. That cannabis smell doesn't transfer to the taste. The one concern is that finish falls a bit flat; it's full bodied all the way until dipping off just a bit as those bubbles dissipate.
It seems to hit a bit faster than the other two varieties. I'm a little fuzzy and have a bit of a headache, which is new. That doesn't last, but the heightening sense I'm definitely high does. This blend doesn't bring the fatigue other cannabis drinks, even the caffeinated ones, do. I'm still tired since it's 10 p.m. and I am old, but I feel like I could roll through another couple hours of low impact hanging out without issue.
Well, a minor issue. This is scrambling my brain to the point where I began walking around my bathroom, lost in thought while brushing my teeth, and didn't even realize I was moving until I tripped over a scale. Glorious doofus behavior. Bring on the weird dreams.
If gummies are more your thing, Wana's got you covered there as well. While they suffer from the same slightly herbal, slightly weed-y taste most THC gummies fall into, they're potent and moderately tasty. I've used them as sleep aids or just to get through the final four hours of a long road trip (as a passenger).
If you're taking your THC on the go (and like handy, old-school sachets): Wims and 1906
It's tough to separate Wims and 1906. They have extremely similar packaging; a small, plastic packet you snap in the middle to squeeze droplets of concentrated THC into a glass of whatever you've got handy. 1906's Off Duty sachets are unflavored. Wims offers unflavored along with a pair of craft cocktail-inspired versions to spice up a plain glass of tonic. Let's talk about them.
1906 Off Duty: B+
The pack is an aesthetically pleasing off-white and the sachets snap satisfyingly -- though you need to add some pressure to squeeze the actual liquid out. While it says unflavored, stealing a nip from the last drop shows there's still that minor cannabis aftertaste most folks who've been around the legal THC seltzer shelves will recognize. It's neither good nor bad, just a part of the process like hops to beer.
In this case I'm mixing it with a Celsius Arctic Cherry hydration powder. The drink mix on its own is totally fine -- and in this case I'm fighting off the early stages of a cold so I'm up for whatever B vitamins I can cram into my immune system. There's a slight layer of bubbles after squeezing in the Off Duty, but it appears to fade nicely into the background of about 10 ounces of drink.
True to the label, you can't taste it once it's in the drink. It slips undetected into the artificial cherry without a trace. My first sip is at 8:35 p.m., and despite the fact I'm drinking slowly I can feel a gentle brain fog rolling in around 9:15.
For Wims, the unflavored strikes a similar, useful balance. But the flavored packs set it apart -- not always in a good way. Let's talk about the two flavors I sampled.
Wims Ginger Lime: C
I'm mixing this with lime La Croix, because I have it left over in my fridge and god knows I want it to taste like something or, barring that, at least serve some purpose. The tonic itself smells sharply like ginger and less like lime. Taking a quick nip of the last drop clinging to the packet backs this up -- this is sharp, spicy ginger in concentrated form.
It adds a little sweetness and spice to the bready, citric-acid heavy artificial lime of the La Croix. The two don't mix together as well as I'd hoped -- I'm happy to blame the La Croix for that one -- but this sinks into six ounces of barely flavored seltzer and leaves an impression. It would probably do better with something that offers more of a contrast and less of that acidic flavor, which goes head to head with the tart and spice of ginger lime.
Still, that ginger gets stronger as the drink goes on, leaving a minor burn at the top of your throat. Thinning it out with more seltzer helps, but that sticky, fiery aftertaste remains. It's a bit of a bummer, but still drinkable.
The downside is it didn't quite produce the pleasant buzz for which I'd hoped. My sleep was fitful and I still spent a couple twilight hours worrying about things that don't affect me, unable to put them out of my brain long enough to slip back into dreamland. But asking that from four milligrams of THC may be overshooting to begin with.
Wims Lemon Basil: B
Let's try again with the La Croix, this time with berry. Does it taste like berries? Kinda! If you've never had them and asked a friend to describe a raspberry to you, you might get there. But raspberry-lemon-basil sounds pretty great. Let's start there.
The satisfying crack of the packet leads to a easy mix with the seltzer. The berry smell is the primary thing wafting off the top, but there's a little citrus there that promises more contrast than the lime-on-lime of my previous mistake.
The end result is pretty good. The basil is muted but shows up enough to make things interesting at the end of each sip. There's a little sweet, a little sour and generally enough bubbles and flavor to make the drink worthwhile. It's slightly syrupy but a nice port in a storm of blandness that is a La Croix seltzer.
If you're looking for a little more flavor than Wims or 1906 on the go: Triple Drop
Triple emerged as a fairly basic lineup of seltzers, each promising three milligrams of THC in some familiar flavors. They were... fine. Triple Drop ups the THC content to five milligrams and gives you room to freestyle in a concentrated, half-ounce form.
Triple Drop Cherry Lemon: B
In order to maximize this I'm adding it to something devoid of flavor. And since I'm out of La Croix, I'm gonna do with something purposely flavorless; Liquid Death sparkling water.
It squeezes easily from a simple-to-tear pouch, even if the color is a slightly off-putting darkish yellow. But that makes a cloudy lager-y looking drink when mixed with ice and about 12 ounces of water, which is nice. Taking a quick nip of the last remaining drops reveals a sweet, dense and juicy syrup that reminds me of Little Hugs fruit barrels.
It doesn't quite turn sparkling water into a soda, but there's a little more flavor here than in most dry seltzers. The Triple Drop adds modest cherry lemonade sweetness, though it's a bit hit-or-miss even after a proper stir. It might be better with less water -- and easier to drink before bed -- but dropped into a typical can of water/seltzer.
Ultimately, it hits in waves -- sometimes like a juice box, sometimes like a can of La Croix. It's weird that it mixes like that, But it's still solid enough, even at its weak points, and more versatile (and potent) than the canned Triple I'd reviewed before. That's an improvement. 30 minutes after finishing the glass, I've got a low key, mild buzz that goes great with my just purchased Golf Story for the Nintendo Switch. Wonderful combination. Highly recommend.