THE BUZZ hits you fast. 

A few sips into a lemon seltzer, a few minutes of conversation about the end of a work day and the holiday cookies on the counter, and a mild high starts to take hold. A seltzer and a half later, and the most stoned decision to be made involved starting up a Tuesday night viewing of David Fincher’s film “Mank,” about the often-soused screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. 

Other people might enjoy these fizzy THC-infused drinks differently, but a local cannabis company thinks many are about to buy them the same way.

Theory Wellness, a cannabis company with three dispensaries across the state, is looking to make the process of buying and drinking cannabis look a lot more like the process of buying and drinking beer or the ever-more-popular spiked seltzer. Having received its final state approval last week, the Hi5 beverage dispensary in Medford will soon be the first dispensary exclusively dedicated to drinkable marijuana in the state and maybe the country. 

They’ve been leaning into the drinkable THC products since 2021 under their Hi5 brand of seltzers, sodas, and energy drinks, but the Medford store will also have offerings from cannabis beverage manufacturers CANN, Levia, and Good Feels – some of the 80-plus brands of THC beverages.

“Back in the day, THC had to bind to a protein, and that’s why edibles were so big and that’s why brownies and cookies were so prolific in the edibles space,” chief marketing officer Thomas Winstanley said on a tour of the site. “Over time, the technology allowed us to bind cannabis with water, and that water solubility allowed the rise of beverages. So it’s part of a technology evolution, but I think people were always looking to have an analogous experience with cannabis that they recognize – drinking socially and the habitual consumption of alcohol. And so this actually creates a lower barrier for entry.”

THC-infused drinks are a growing market, with the billion-dollar industry expected to almost quadruple in value by 2030. It’s into that small – just 1 percent of cannabis sales statewide last year – but expanding space that Theory is hoping to carve out a corner. Their sales of Hi5 seltzers and sodas have grown from 2 to 3 percent year over year at their own dispensaries, and they’re betting it will scale up.

Theory’s beverage dispensary and adjoining traditional dispensary will be its last license in the state, since they already have dispensaries in Great Barrington, Chicopee, and Bridgewater. Delivery will be on the menu, but the state is still working on parameters and the process for getting social consumption sites up and running, so there are no attached beverage bars. 

In the long-term, Winstanley said, the low dosage, quick effect, plus the analogy to other drinks means THC drinks may become a “cornerstone of that experience where, yes, it would be a lot more fun to go sit around with your friends and be able to drink beverages the way we do at bars at a consumption site.”

Because of cannabis regulations, picking up drinks from Hi5 won’t quite be the same experience as walking into a package store, grabbing a six pack of your preferred beer, paying, and strolling out. After walking through the door, an employee will check ID and get the customer in the system, but from there they can walk into the dispensary room. 

The beverage dispensary itself, built in a former Volkswagen dealership off I-93 along with the  full dispensary and the new home of Medford Center for the Arts, has the feel of a juice bar or modern bodega. Bright abstract designs along the walls, a modest footprint, and a counter behind which a wall of refrigerators will feature THC-infused sodas and seltzers.

Theory is aiming for something in between a corner store and a pharmacy, where you can either order ahead if you know what you want or take some time to peruse the options. No, there are no actual dosed samples on the dispensary floor – per regulations – but in case sampling sodas, seltzers, or energy drinks for taste is important to someone, they can try an unmedicated version of the drinks. (Reporter’s note: the lemon and lime Hi5 seltzers I purchased at another dispensary – because the Medford location is not yet up and running – basically just taste like a pleasant fruit seltzer.)

“Having lived in New York, the bodega was very present when we were starting to concept this,” Winstanley said. “And so really, it’s a very straightforward experience, where we’re not going to put tons of merchandising out, we’re not going to go over the top.”

The simplicity is the point. Hi5 drinks are still going to be sold at the larger dispensary next door alongside other cannabis products like flowers, pre-rolled joints, and edibles – but the Theory Wellness folks are betting that there’s a growing market of people who would prefer a discrete carbonated buzz while socializing with friends or family to popping an edible and waiting for the high to kick in or braving a cold New England night to smoke or vape outside a gathering. 

And they might prefer to buy their drinks the same way – with no blatant references to cannabis in the store or on the products aside from the hats and t-shirts off to the side featuring a cheeky instruction: “drink weed.”

“We always talk about the ‘canna-curious,’” Winstanley said. Because drinking THC beverages lets someone start and stop their dosage by just putting down the can, “this actually allows you to enter into a space where you can control the experience you want, and there’s no major waiting game.” Between the technology advances in THC binding and the growing cannabis drinks market, “something like this now can be a reality, where people can come and have a very similar consumer experience to something they’re conditioned to with alcohol.”