I tried 5 different Uncle Arnie's Cannabis Infused Beverages. Here are my thoughts.

Posted 07/09/2024

A California Cannabis beverage company started in 2020 has quickly gained a foothold nationwide in dispensaries and is becoming a commonly recognized brand among stoners. Their drinks are known for their potency, fun flavors, and colorful bottles and cans with an old-hippy aesthetic. In fact, their mascot is a fictional old hippie named Uncle Arnie, who drives an old Volkswagen van and wears a tie dye t-shirt . “Arnie” seems to be named after the drink “Arnold Palmer '' since their original and most iconic flavor is an iced tea lemonade. The company has also expanded into Hemp-Derived THC beverages that can be purchased online. Their main website only will reference these Hemp-Derived products. As previously stated in my deep dive into delta-8 THC, The Bud Breakdown cannot recommend hemp-derived THC products due to the lack of research. For this review, I tried 5 flavors of Uncle Arnie's from my local dispensaries, each with 100 Milligrams of natural Marijuana-dirived THC.

Wide Range of Flavors

Uncle Arnie boasts many fun, almost candy-like flavors in two sizes. Some flavors come in a 2 ounce “shot” size, while others come in a larger 8 ounce beverage, all with 100 milligrams of THC, of course making the shot size about 4 times more potent by weight. One complaint I did have was that every flavor seemed slightly too sweet and artificial, with each flavor masking the cannabis taste in varying degrees. Every Uncle Arnie's beverage seems to have a different vibrant artificial color to them as well. I tried the original 8 oz Iced Tea Lemonade (Arnold Palmer), the 8 oz “Smackin’ Apple” Beverage, and the 8 oz “Pineapple Punch”. I also tried the strawberry kiwi, and the blueberry “night cap” in the 2 oz “shot” size. The larger drinks were drunk in a 5 minute period over ice. Out of the three 8 ounce beverages, the “Smackin Apple” was my favorite, with a strong artificial apple flavor that reminded me of apple juice. The spiced apple flavor did well to mask the infused cannabis. The original Iced Tea lemonade was a close second, with an extremely drinkable Arizona-esque flavor. The original does have a noticeable cannabis aftertaste. The “Pineapple Punch” was my least-favorite flavor out of the 8 ounce bottles, with an almost nauseating sugary pineapple flavor that lets the cannabis flavor come through almost immediately.

When it came to the shot sized Uncle Arnie's, I tested them in a few different ways. I made a cannabis mocktail out of the Strawberry Kiwi shot, mixing it with sprite, and ice. The result was a bright pepto-bismol color drink that was quite fun and enjoyable. The flavor reminded me of a strawberry flavored sprite from a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine, with only a slight cannabis taste.

The Blueberry Night Cap shot was unique in that it was the only flavor to also include 25 milligrams of CBN, with Uncle Arnie’s marketing it as a sort of relaxing sleep aid. Due to this, I drank this beverage about an hour and a half before bed. The flavor reminded me of a blueberry Dum Dum, with almost no cannabis taste.

Delightfully Potent in Record Time

It is clear that one of the goals of Uncle Arnie's was to create a beverage that gets you not high, but stoned. For this, I say thank you Uncle Arnie's! In my previous cannabis beverage review of Artet Cannabis Aperitif, my chief complaint was the abysmal, bizarrely specific 37.5 milligrams of THC in the whole 750ml bottle. Any daily Cannabis user will have to drink the whole bottle of Artet to gain a decent high. This highlights a greater issue in the Cannabis beverage corner that I believe is holding many companies back, underdosage. Uncle Arnie's takes the opposite approach of other Cannibas beverage companies like CQ, Zero Proof, Tonic, Senorita, Vibations, ect. by targeting serious and seasoned users, not cannabis beginners and that is one of the largest keys to their success. I believe we will start to see more and more potent cannabis beverage options after the success of Uncle Arnie's. Every Uncle Arnie that I tried got me delightfully high after drinking at least half of the bottle. Drinking the whole Uncle's Arnie's will absolutely turn your reality into a dreamlike bliss for hours. Now everytime I think of good ol’ Uncle Arnie, I think of the wacky high-times I had after drinking them. The high felt similar in all flavors, save the blueberry nightcap, which boasts a sleepier, more relaxing effect with the CBN that had me sleeping like a baby. Arnie’s association of good intoxicated times is what has people talking about this product. The dosing problem extends to other cannabis ingestible products. The 1906 Company is a great example. They sell pathetic 5 mg THC tablets in categories such as “boost”, “bliss”, and even “love” and “genius”, suggesting these pills will make you feel these ways, when in reality 5mgs of THC would make most stoners feel jack shit.

Not only do Uncle Arnie's drinks get you stoned, but the effects come on surprisingly quick. The bottles claim a 20-40 minute onset time. After reviewing these drinks, I can confidently say that the stated onset time is very accurate, while the drink does reach its peak at about an hour to an hour and a half. I do wonder how Uncle Arnie's achieves this relatively fast onset time.

A Total Vibe for the Common Stoner

Aside from the Fun Flavors and Potency, Uncle Arnie's success likely comes from their excellent California-hippy style that resonates with many seasoned cannabis users. The glass bottles are colorful, and unserious. The about page on their website says that “Uncle Arnie’s all of us, none of us… it’s an idea, see, about being free to tune in to the frequency of your own station and stay there awhile. No commercial interruptions!” In so many words, there is a little gray-haired wise hippy in every stoner.

Their branding echoes another pathos of Uncle Arnie's, affordability. Their bottles don't look brutally modern, clean, and simplistic like many other cannabis brands trying to convince people that weed should be premium branded and priced. Uncle Arnie's is for those REAL pot-heads who know that getting stoned shouldnt and need not be expensive. While pricing does vary-state to state, you can grab an Arnie’s for around $11-$14 before taxes in Illinois. Overall the bud breakdown is happy to recommend Uncle Arnie's to seasoned stoners. Newbies should probably start by drinking a 10th of a bottle and wait 2 hours for full effect.