What Are CBD-Infused Drinks?

With the CBD craze fully settling in across the land, CBD drinks have become the most recent focus of an industry intent on creating ever-more products. It’s easy to infuse drinks with CBD from home, and pretty much every city has at least one store these days with CBD-infused drinks on its shelves.

What are CBD-infused drinks? Are they legal, do they get you high, and what are they good for? While we’re at it, what about CBD-infused alcoholic beverages, and is it possible to make CBD drinks at home?

These are all fine questions, and we’ll get to them each in turn. Let’s start by explaining what CBD-infused drinks are and go from there.

What does “CBD-infused” mean?

CBD-infused is just a fancy way of saying “CBD-added-to.” So, any product you see advertised as “CBD-infused” just contains CBD — in one way or another.

There are actually lots of different ways to infuse CBD into drinks. It’s only recently that certain manufacturers have figured out how to keep CBD suspended in liquids, and many CBD-infused drinks on the market have a tendency to separate.

The CBD-infused industry is undeniably taking off like a rocketship, though, and it’s only a matter of time until stable, reliable CBD drinks are widely available in every major grocery store chain around the nation. We’ll need to wait for the federal government to make up its mind regarding hemp first, though.

Will CBD water make you high?

No, as long as the CBD water you’re drinking isn’t advertised as containing THC, you won’t get high. Some CBD water products might contain up to 0.3% THC, which is the legal limit described by the 2018 Farm Bill. That’s not enough to get you high, though, and CBD doesn’t have any intoxicating attributes.

In the end, it’s all a matter of where you bought it. CBD drinks bought online or in most stores can’t contain intoxicating concentrations of THC by law. CBD drinks bought at recreational or medical cannabis dispensaries, however, can contain any amount of THC, and they usually at least contain some.

Will CBD drinks show up on a drug test?

No, CBD drinks should not make you test positive for THC or any other federally restricted drug. If you consume high quantities of CBD drinks that contain full-spectrum hemp extract, failing a drug test is certainly a possibility, but a very remote one.

You’d have to drink an incredible quantity of CBD-infused drinks to test positive for THC even if they contained up to the federal limit of 0.3% of this restricted, intoxicating cannabinoid. THC also leaves your system pretty quickly if you don’t use a lot of it, further reducing your chances of testing THC-positive.

What are CBD drinks good for?

People mainly use CBD drinks to relax. Already, CBD is being viewed as an opposite of caffeine to reach for when you want to chill out rather than get hyped up.

At the same time, though, CBD coffees and other caffeinated hemp drinks are also gaining popularity. CBD doesn’t cancel out the effects of caffeine, but it might change them or make them less intense.

The other major category of CBD-infused drinks we haven’t covered yet is CBD alcoholic beverages. CBD beers are the most popular, but CBD wines and even CBD hard alcohol are now reasonably prevalent around the nation. Some “CBD beers” don’t contain alcohol at all, but others (the kind you buy at a bar, not a dispensary) do.

Do CBD drinks help with anxiety?

Plenty of imbibers of CBD drinks have reported that these non-intoxicating beverages help with anxiety. The research is still out on the link between CBD and anxiety, but there’s certainly a lot of enduring interest being poured into the subject.

Can I drink alcohol with CBD?

We don’t know enough about the subject yet to say one way or another whether it’s safe to drink CBD and alcohol together. Based on an abundance of anecdotal testimony and an intriguing lack of hospital admissions, though, it appears that drinking alcohol with CBD isn’t much more dangerous than drinking alcohol normally.

It’s worth noting, though, that CBD and alcohol are dependent on the same limited enzymes for metabolism, potentially lowering the threshold for alcohol toxicity. Since it’s the toxicity of alcohol that causes it’s desirable effects in the first place, this fact may prove a double-edged sword.

What are the side effects of CBD drinks?

Scientists have tried and failed to establish any major side effects of CBD. This cannabinoid appears to be reasonably benign under most circumstances, and this doesn’t change when CBD is drunk.

Speaking of drunk, though, alcoholic drinks can always have side effects — CBD or no. Drink responsibly in full knowledge of the fact that nothing in hemp can stop alcohol from being inherently toxic.

Can you get addicted to CBD?

Research hasn’t been able to establish that CBD has any habit-forming properties. On the contrary, CBD has been researched extensively for its potential to counter dependence on other substances.

There isn’t enough evidence at this point to conclude anything regarding CBD and alcoholism. It’s a hot topic of cannabinoid research, though — that much is undeniable.

How do make your own CBD drinks

There are a few ways to make CBD drinks at home. Let’s list them out:

• Add a CBD tincture to any drink, and stir — the simplest option
• Get CBD isolate or a water-dispersible CBD extract online — the expensive (but pro) option
• Make your own CBD drinks with hemp flower (the creative option)

CBD flower drink recipe

Maybe you’ve tried other methods of making CBD drinks, and you’re on the hunt for something new. Or, perhaps you’d prefer to skip straight to the option that gives you the most creative control over the process — mixing a drink using CBD flower. Here are the steps:

1. Begin by using our guide to making Secret Nature CBD flower coconut oil. The important part is heating up your buds to activate them.
2. Alternatively, you could put your CBD hemp nugs directly in a reusable tea strainer that you then submerge in hot water.
3. Hot drinks will be best either way — homemade CBD flower coconut oil won’t mix well in cold beverages.

That’s about it. CBD is easier to drink than you thought, and this ingestion method isn’t that different from what you’re used to. Try a CBD drink the next time relaxation is on your mind and you’re in search of an innovative solution.