Welcome Note

Welcome Back Gardeners to the 104th edition of Herbal Profiles!

Happy Friday yall! Hope everyone enjoyed the short week. I have begun to put together a directory of brands, it currently has a little over 200 brands in there! If you know any brands, please leave a comment on the spreadsheet or shoot me an email and I will get it added. I do plan to add some more columns like format (shot, enhancer, spirit, rtd, etc) to the spreadsheet as well as a ‘minimum thc’ column too. So it’s still very much a work in progress. But take some time and review it and hit me any brands you see that are not currently included!

And don’t miss the latest episode of the Free Spirits Podcast. 

Let’s get into it.

-Lars

The subreddit I moderate with Chris Fontes hit 1,200 subscribers! Subscribe over on Reddit and follow along there!

The Free Spirits Podcast with David Gonzalez and myself just dropped episode 13 of season 2 with Hyde’s Hail Mary Founder, Micah Hyde!

If you could take the time to drop a review of the podcast or even just share it with a friend or two, it really does help us grow and continue to bring you this show.

You can find us on Youtube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts!

Any comments or questions? Leave comment on this post or shoot me an email. Would love to hear from you!

News Roundup

• Vena Brings Back Happy Tonix THC Seltzers & Skinny Mocktails – THC Drinks Are Back - Vena has brought its Happy Tonix THC Seltzers and Skinny Mocktails back after selling out earlier this summer. The seltzers are 2mg THC/2mg CBD at about 40 calories, while the mocktails are 2mg/2mg with just 15 calories and no sugar. Both are positioned as fast-acting, low-calorie alternatives to alcohol.

• Alcohol Takes Another Hit: THC Drinks Rise as the New Social Choice - This piece looks at how THC drinks are showing up more often as a substitute for alcohol. It highlights how bars and consumers are starting to frame these products as part of the “California sober” lifestyle, while lawmakers continue to debate issues like youth access and labeling.

• Gov. Abbott restricts THC sales to minors through executive order - Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order putting a 21+ age restriction on hemp-derived THC products, including beverages. State agencies are now tasked with writing and enforcing the rules after lawmakers failed to pass similar legislation earlier this year.

• Colorado Hemp Beverage Coalition Launches to Lead Policy Reform for THC Drinks - A new coalition has formed in Colorado to push for standardized THC beverage regulations. Backed by Vicente LLP, they’re aiming to bring clarity around serving sizes, retail/on-premise access, and labeling as the category continues to expand.

• Milwaukee restaurant adds THC beverages to draft lineup - Doc’s Commerce Smokehouse in Milwaukee has added THC beverages to its draft lineup. The drinks, supplied by Pharos, now sit alongside beer taps and give customers another option when ordering at the bar.

• Marijuana May Help Heavy Drinkers Cut Back On Alcohol, New Federally Funded Study Finds - A new federally funded study found that cannabis use helped heavy drinkers reduce how much alcohol they consumed and lowered cravings overall. Researchers point to cannabinoids as a potential future tool in treating alcohol use disorder.

• Levia’s Originators to Re-Acquire Cannabis Beverage Brand - The original founders of Levia announced that they’re re-acquiring the cannabis beverage brand. The move brings ownership back to the team that launched it and sets up a relaunch under their direction.

• Hemp Beverage Alliance Launches Regulatory Framework Campaign in PA - The Hemp Beverage Alliance has kicked off a campaign in Pennsylvania to push for a regulatory framework on THC drinks. They’re advocating for limits, testing, labeling, and age restrictions, while also pointing to Minnesota and Tennessee as examples of how states can benefit from tax revenues.

📰 Got news? Submit it here! 📰

Any other questions or inquiries you can respond to this email or DM me on Twitter 

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Your Brand’s Organic Social Media Isn’t Working, Let’s Fix It

In the year of our lord 2025, most beverage brands organic social content sucks. Let’s call a spade a spade.

Scroll through Instagram or TikTok and you’ll see the same thing on repeat, cans on a table or an endcap, event recaps, people holding the cans, maybe a forced meme. None of it makes people feel anything. None of it builds cultural real estate. And that’s why most organic content in this category doesn’t land.

But there’s a playbook emerging from outside cannabis that THC beverage brands can steal from right now.

Lesson 1: Own Cultural Real Estate (Not Just Compliance Messaging)

First we need to think about taglines and owning real estate in people’s minds. I am mid 30s male & Maybelline’s iconic “Maybe she’s born with it” is still in my mind and I am not sure I have seen a commercial in over a decade. Well, the numbers back that up, it still has an 84% recall rate decades later because it embedded itself in culture. Beverage alcohol brands understand this, Dos Equis had “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” Budweiser had “Wassup,” and those moments became cultural moments.

THC beverages don’t have this yet. Most lean on dosage talk or generic wellness claims. What’s missing is a sound, a phrase, or a hook that people can remix on TikTok or Reels and carry into conversations offline. The opportunity is there for a THC brand to be the first to create something that lives rent-free in consumers’ heads.

Lesson 2: Episodic > One-Off Posts

This is something I personally struggle with in my own content as well, but people truly DO NOT care about your cans, your end caps, that new distro deal, etc. What the do care about? Being entertained, seeing something different in their feeds, or getting invested into a new community.

Local businesses are outpacing national brands because they understand the power of serialized storytelling. A coffee shop posting from the barista’s perspective or someone rehabbing a bowling alley & documenting that 60-year renovation can pull in millions of views, not because of the scale of the business but because of the structure of the content.

Most THC beverage brands treat their feeds like billboards, drop a photo, move on. Instead, think about your channels like a show. Document the arc of a product launch from R&D to retail. Build a recurring content series around consumption occasions or lifestyle rituals, where the product/can is not the focal point. Let your community influence the direction through polls and comments. Episodic arcs keep people coming back.

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Lesson 3: Build Challenges, Not Campaigns

Challenges are quickly becoming the next big brand strategy. 1st Phorm, a leading health & wellness brand, launched 75 hard in 2019 and it’s now one of the biggest fitness challenges out there. Bandit Running used a free marathon training plan to anchor an entire community.

For THC beverages, the possibilities are wide open. A “21 Days of Better Sleep” challenge tied to infused nightcaps & getting 8 hours of sleep. Or a creative series where consumers share art, playlists, or routines sparked by the product daily for a month, a detox from doomscrolling. You could create a journal to be filled out and sent with every 24 pack case. The psychology is simple: if people achieve a transformation while using your brand, they carry that identity forward.

Lesson 4: Employee Voices Build Trust

Behind-the-scenes storytelling increases customer connection by 73%. Local businesses know this intuitively, but most THC brands keep their feeds corporate and faceless. Consumers rarely see the founder who built the brand, the production team making the product, or the rep stocking the fridge at retail.

Hand the phone to your team for a day. Let your head of ops explain what it takes to keep cannabinoids stable in a can. Show a field rep’s reality of getting shelf space. People want to connect with people, not logos.

The Shift: From Attention to Participation

The real issue isn’t that THC beverage brands lack attention, let’s be honest our industry is really having a moment right now. Posting cans into the void doesn’t invite belonging.

The next wave of winning brands will create audio hooks that spread, stories that build over time, challenges that drive transformation, and content where employees and consumers, not the brand itself, are the main characters.

If your organic social isn’t sparking culture, building community, or giving people a reason to share, it’s invisible.

👉 In 2025, THC beverage brands that treat social like participation marketing, not just attention marketing, will be the ones that actually matter.

Recent Free Spirits Podcast Episodes ICYMI