Alcohol Is Fun. Hangovers Suck. Here’s What I Drink Instead.

A first-person review of the hemp-derived THC cocktail base I poured at our Cannabis Cup in New York. What’s in it, how it hits, and why I haven’t stopped pouring it.

There’s a moment at almost every event when the bar opens. The bottles come out. The wines, the whiskeys, the canned cocktails, the beers. The room shifts.

I’m not anti-alcohol. I drink it. I just don’t always want it.

That was the situation at our Cannabis Cup in New York. The bar was open. I had the option. I was off the clock by then. But I knew what alcohol would do to me at this particular event. It would soften the conversations I actually wanted to remember, slow me down for the rest of the night and ruin the morning after.

So I reached for the bottle on our table instead. Black currant color. 750ml. Hemp-derived Delta-9 THC.

I poured it for myself, then for the colleague next to me, then for the friend who walked over, then for the four other people who saw what we were doing and asked what it was.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I slipped another bottle to Josh Kesselman, High Times’ publisher and a good friend who’s famously not a drinker.

“You know I don’t drink,” Josh said.

“What you don’t know yet is, this isn’t booze. It’s weed.”

He laughed and took the bottle home.

By the end of the night, the bottle on our table was empty. Nobody was drunk. Everybody was happy. The next morning, I woke up like I’d had a tea.

What’s actually in the bottle

The bottle is Black Market. It’s a hemp-derived Delta-9 THC beverage built like a spirit, not like a seltzer. The 750ml flagship gives you about sixteen 1.5-ounce pours. Each pour delivers 5mg of THC and 10mg of THCV. Onset is ten to fifteen minutes. Black currant flavor with a custom terpene blend the brand calls the “Black Market Bite.” Functional ingredients in the mix: L-theanine, lion’s mane, electrolytes and B vitamins.

Black Market is made by cannabis people. Co-founders Adam and Jason held the first medical cannabis grow license issued in Puerto Rico. Heidi Minx, the brand’s CMO, is a longtime cannabis operator with a background that runs through the Sonoma County Growers Alliance, Conception Nurseries and Juva Life before landing at Hightails, Black Market’s parent company.

The THCV is the move

THCV is a rare cannabinoid that tends toward clear-headed, social, energizing effects rather than the couch-lock that bigger doses of THC alone can produce. At 5mg THC plus 10mg THCV per pour, the lift is functional. You feel it in fifteen minutes. It doesn’t take you out of the room. It puts you further into it.

Most hemp-derived THC beverages on the market are seltzer-style, low-dose, single-cannabinoid drinks. They’re fine. They also tend to bottom out at a certain point in the night because the format doesn’t have anywhere to go. Black Market went a different way. The format is a spirit. The cannabinoid load is dialed for social use. The taste profile is built to mix or sip neat.

How it tastes

Real black currant, deep and a little tart, with the kind of botanical depth that makes you want a second pour. The “Bite” is the terpene blend doing its work, a small herbal sharpness on the back of the tongue that keeps the drink from reading as sugary fruit juice. On ice with a splash of soda, it pours like a Spritz. Mixed with lemon-lime soda, the brand calls it a Dirty Sprite. Straight up over ice, it sits next to anything on a craft cocktail menu without looking out of place.

I’ve been making one cocktail with it more than any other. Here’s the recipe.

Bright, herbal, a little tart. The kombucha gives it the acidity a sour needs without the citrus going one-note. The honey syrup smooths it out. Black Market does the rest.

The honest comparison

I love a cocktail. I love a glass of wine with dinner. None of this is anti-alcohol propaganda. But the math is what it is.

Who it’s for

Anyone who drinks but is tired of paying for it the next morning. Hosts who want a bottle on the table that gets passed around. Cannabis people at industry events where alcohol is the wrong tool. Anyone who’s spent the last few years going dry-ish and looking for a real alternative to the seltzer aisle.

The bigger point: hemp-derived THC beverages have mostly been a seltzer category. Seltzers are fine for a poolside afternoon. They’re not built for the dinner, the Cup, the networking room or the 2am drink. Black Market is. That’s what makes it different.

The verdict

Buy a 750ml. Keep it in the fridge. Pour it the next time you want a drink that doesn’t end in a hangover or a four-hour nap. The 90ml minis (10mg THC plus 20mg THCV per bottle) are for the bag.

I drank Black Market at our NY Cannabis Cup. I drank it again at home a couple of days later. I’ll drink it again this weekend. That’s the most honest review I can give.