Seth Rogen digs weed. Let me take that back. Seth Rogen absolutely loves weed. He recently lit up with Conan O’Brien on the last episode of the host’s TBS late-night show. Rogen’s got his own weed company and is rolling in success, along with rolling in joints. For those reasons, it’s not at all hard to believe that Seth was high while recently appearing in the front row of Adele’s CBS TV concert special, “Adele One Night Only.”
There were a few surprises during the course of that special, apparently. Adele helped one gentleman pull off a surprise proposal that night, and as it turns out, Rogen was very surprised to be front row at an Adele show while the thing was being taped for TV. Here’s how he boisterously explained (to Jimmy Fallon) how this happened. Let’s just say that weed wasn’t the reason, but it still came up in conversation:
“I was in the front row of the Adele concert. And that is as surprising to me as anyone because I had no idea I was attending the taping of an Adele television special at all. I got an invitation, ‘Do you want to go to a small Adele concert?’ is what I remember absorbing. And I go to my wife Lauren, ‘You want to go to this small Adele concert?’ ‘Great, sounds fun’ … So, if I’m being honest, I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, I smoke weed, Jimmy.”
Rogen continued while adding that he “smoked a ton of weed” that night, and then, when he and his wife (Lauren) arrived at she show, “we see camera cranes.” That was when he realized that this was probably going to be on a TV show, but he reasoned, “Maybe it’s not that big a television special.” That’s when he saw Oprah at the show, and then Rogen thought maybe he could “just sit in the back.” However, that’s not what the powers in be had in mind for him, despite not being “equipped mentally to deal with doing this right now, really.” The situation progressed to where “I sit down, there’s like a camera literally just pointed at my face.”
Sounds surreal. And as one might expect, Rogen rolled with it. He stars as Santa Claus in Santa Inc. (which is currently streaming on HBO Max), and you can watch him at the aforementioned Adele concert in the below video from Entertainment Tonight.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” William Shakespeare once wrote in Sonnet 18. While he was expressing his desire for a woman, the poetry makes me think of a cannabis drink I recently tried and had big feelings for. Hear me out.
Generally speaking, I have conflicted feelings about cannabis drinks. That’s not a knock on the product category on its face — in the last year, in particular, cannabis drinks have become a force of their own in the legal cannabis market, growing into a popular way for people to imbibe, especially those who are not keen on smoking. In that time, cannabis-infused beverages have also significantly increased in quality, thanks to advancements in emulsion technology. No longer are they stratified cocktails with a layer of oil sitting on the top. These days, the science has been narrowed down, the molecules shrunken. When drinking one of the many cannabis drinks on the market today, one could be forgiven for not even noticing there was cannabis in it at all, flavor-wise.
Where my skepticism comes in is the actual popularity of these drinks. I have written elsewhere, particularly on this website, that I’m a flower gal — smoking actual weed is far and away my favorite way to consume cannabis. That said, I’m a regular partaker of almost every ingestion method under the sun, which includes cannabis-infused drinks from time to time. But even though I enjoy them, I will admit that I struggle to find out where the drinks fit in my routine.
Edibles, particularly gummies, are easy for me — I pop one, chew a few times, and I’m on my way, usually to my bed or couch to watch a movie. Smoking precedes just about everything for me, including social activities, while dabbing is something I reserve for particularly taxing days when I just want to shut off completely. The drinks are harder to place in my mind because they are marketed as a social product, often as an alcohol replacement. While that is certainly true for some people, the fact is that, for many, ingesting weed is not the most social activity. Edibles and drinkables heighten all my senses, yes, but they also help me turn inward and focus more on my own thoughts and feelings in my body, rather than engaging with anyone else. I prefer the quick pop-in-my-mouth, sit back, and relax fix that a gummy offers rather than the slow sipping of a drink. In my mind, there are other, better ways to enjoy a beverage, especially drinks with more socially-minded intoxicants in them.
I know I’m not alone in that conundrum, but out in the wider world, the numbers tell a different story. Cannabis consumer data company Headset claims that current 2021 sales for cannabis-infused beverages total $123.9 million, compared with the sales in the same category in 2020, which clocked in at $79.3 million. That’s a year-over-year sales increase of 56.2%. Clearly, the appeal of these drinks is catching on.
Courtesy of Cann
Tove Lo x Cann
Which is all context to write this: Last week, I finally found a cannabis beverage that made me truly, genuinely get it. Cann, which is the largest purveyor of cannabis drinks in California, recently debuted a new drink in partnership with pop star Tove Lo, who is also an investor in Cann. The drink is exclusive to dispensaries Sweet Flower and Airfield Supply Co. Called “Passion Peach Mate,” which leaves little to the imagination, it’s exactly that: a carbonated, naturally caffeinated, cannabis-infused peach-flavored drink.
It’s absolutely perfect. It’s also the first to market for caffeinated cannabis beverages.
Infused with five milligrams of THC, the 12-ounce canned drink offers a lower dose option that is perfect for nighttime socializing, owing to the caffeine, or daytime drinking, also owing to the caffeine. That, in my mind, makes Cann & Tove Lo’s Passion Peach Mate” the tour de force that it is.
My first thought when holding the marquee-bright yellow and pink can in my hands was, “Wait, how did they legally combine THC and caffeine?” As an older millennial, I am a veteran of the unregulated Four Loko days. I asked a friend, who tipped me off to the fact that it was because the caffeine came from mate, a caffeine-rich drink made with dried holly leaves from South America. In California, it’s okay to combine THC with naturally-derived caffeine, it turns out.
The result is, basically, a fully enmeshed version of the hallowed stoner tradition, “wake and bake,” which involves someone smoking weed first thing in the morning, often while drinking coffee. The body high and head change from smoking weed balances the jolts and jitters from caffeine. For many, it is a really comfortable and fun state to be in. Four Loko capitalized on those good vibes and turned them up to 11, which proved to be too high-octane in the end, especially for regulators, who eventually put strict alcohol and caffeine limits on drinks that contained both.
The Passion Peach Mate high and buzz never approaches anything resembling the intensity of a Four Loko bender. It’s much more mellow on both fronts and gives the drinker a euphoric altered state. It’s this gorgeous mind-and-body feeling that reminds me of Shakespeare’s sonnet — drinking the Passion Peach Mate is like tasting a summer day in a can. It also goes down much smoother and is more delicious than other options, on top of it.
Taste-wise, it’s lightly carbonated, and the bitterness that usually accompanies mate, which I generally enjoy, is instead replaced by a not-too-sweet peach flavor. It’s delicious and, unlike many alcoholic beverages or other cannabis-infused drinks, easy to drink to the very end. The flavor isn’t too overpowering, tastes nothing of weed, and is not something the drinker will get sick of.
Case in point: I had three in one sitting!
Crucially, it is also infused using nanoemulsion technology which makes smaller THC molecules so they are absorbed into the bloodstream faster and with more of its bioavailability intact. This means it hits faster but it also fades faster, in some ways mimicking the onset times for alcohol. It costs $20 for a pack of four, which is priced similarly craft beers or canned cocktails.
The bad news is that, at present, it’s a limited release through just Sweet Flower and Airfield Supply Co. I can’t even order it from my home in San Diego, which upsets me. If you’re reading this, anyone at Cann, consider this my plea for your company to make the Passion Peach Mate a regular in your cannabis-infused drinks line-up. You have a winner on your hands.
West coast rapper and weed legend Berner went from spitting on tracks with other California weed rap icons like Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, and B-Real to founding one of the world’s biggest cannabis brands and retail spaces, Cookies. Now, the rapper-turned-entrepreneur has his sights set on developing the best cannabis rolling papers that a stoner could ever long for. Developed over a three-year process, Berner “put a lot of shit in my lungs to find the right paper.” That dedication shows with his newly released VIBES.
Available in four varieties — including Organic Hemp, Hemp, Ultra-Thin, and Rice — VIBES presents different rolling papers geared towards specific needs. That level of care and attention to detail ensures your joint comes out a bit better than it would with your standard zags.
“It just compliments the herb,” Berner says, “and that’s what our whole mission is. We want to make the ultimate experience when it comes to blazing. We took our time to find the right resources, to find the right materials, to find the right paper… it’s stuff not in the market.”
You might not think all that’s totally necessary, and if you’re a casual smoker you’re unlikely to notice a major difference in the experience. But if your preferred smoking method is the classic joint, you’re going to want that fine attention to detail. I’ve tried out both the Rice and Organic Hemp VIBE papers and the Rice has quickly become my go-to, anytime I’m rolling a joint. I don’t use a roller, I grind up my weed and roll it myself and the texture of the Rice VIBE keeps the stickiest weed from becoming a hassle to roll. It’s a hack I didn’t know I needed!
This week, I linked up with Berner to talk about VIBES’ new products, how bud-tending has changed for the worse, and his secrets to rolling a perfect joint.
Cookies
Why do we need a better rolling paper at all?
I’ve been smoking cannabis for over 22 years, maybe as long as 25 years. In that time, people like Raw came to the table and brought quality rolling papers and educated the market on the difference between materials in the paper, what makes paper special, and what compliments the flavor of herb. All that time, being a connoisseur, understanding what was in the market gave me a chance to understand what wasn’t in the market.
When we came out with the Ultra-Thin VIBES and now with the Organic Hemp VIBES, that quality of paper is just next level. How thin it is, how clean it is, how pure it is. We took our time to find the right resources, to find the right materials, to find the right paper, and also come up with some innovative SKUs like the Cubano; the Cali, which we are dropping soon — it’s stuff not in the market and that’s what we’re working focusing on right now.
What makes a rolling paper perfect?
My thinking is it all starts with what you’re smoking. What makes a perfect paper to me is pairing it with the perfect herb. Certain bud I’ll get that’s extremely flavorful, it’s perfectly cured, I’ll put it in a Hemp VIBE knowing it’s not tough to roll. That’s the biggest thing, how is your rolling experience going to be? That’s why we have our different SKUs.
For instance, our rice paper is for that stickier, thicker, crazier herb that’s just gonna be a problematic roll. The paper is just a little thicker, it burns a little better with a stickier bud. And Ultra-Thin and the Organic Hemp is perfect for that connoisseur head sesh that you tuck away and hide for yourself. For me, it’s all about pairing.
COOKIES
I know you have your history as a Bay Area bud tender. Has bud tending changed for the better or worse? These days there is a lot less interaction because of prepackaged products.
For the most part, it’s changed for the worse — because everything is on a screen. You wait in line, you look on a menu, and pick what you want. But at the Cookies store we tried to implement some of that old school 215 vibe, that’s why when you come into our stores you have a dedicated budtender that sits with you through the whole experience, helps you look at things, that’s why we have the jars on top of the table, we’ve designed those custom for you to pick up and smell the bud and look at it. Fully transparent, not like some of those square jars out there.
When you’re done with the experience they send you to the cashier, and the cashier’s sole purpose is to ring you up, but that personal experience with the budtender, we try and keep that there. And its cool to be able to implement that in all our stores around the world because we don’t want that shit to go away.
As a budtender, you use to be able to open up a jar, let people smell it, even give them a bong hit if they weren’t sure they wanted to buy it and that’s missing big time. It’s changed for the worse but we’re trying to keep that vibe alive.
Walk us through the steps for how to roll the perfect joint
First step is you need the best bud possible. You need something you like and enjoy, if you’re gonna smoke you might as well do it right, start off with the best bud you can find that fits you and your body.
Second, you’ll need a tool like our Santa Cruz Shredder — the teeth are designed by a NASA engineer, it’s next level, it’s produced here in the US. I’ve been using our hemp shredders and that gives you the perfect fluff. You need to grind it right, you don’t want to be left with chunks or dust, there is a fine balance. You get the perfect bud, shred it to give it the perfect fluff.
I take a tip and put it in a cylinder, I take an Ultra-Thin VIBE or my Organic Hemp VIBE and I roll that bitch nice and loose. I like it nice and loose for air flow, I hate a pregnant joint. A tight joint that you have to hit hella hard is a bad joint. I want to pull on it softly and get nice rips, so a perfect joint is all about airflow!
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