Tilray has been purchasing breweries and distilleries as it waits for federal legalization before introducing THC-infused beverages.
Tilray (TLRY) – Get Tilray, Inc. Report and Anheuser-Busch InBev BUD recently ended their partnership, but the Canadian cannabis company’s push for THC beverages is only just getting started, according to Chief Executive Steve Irwin.
The company recently purchased SweetWater Brewing of Atlanta, the country’s 11th largest craft brewery, and Breckenridge Distillery, the Breckenridge, Colo., liquor producer, with an eye toward making THC-infused beer and spirits.
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“The free option at play is that these attributes will later be translated into THC businesses in addition to our beverage alcohol businesses,” Irwin said last month on the company’s fiscal-second-quarter earnings conference call. THC is the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
The company plans to leverage those companies’ production capabilities as soon as the U.S. market is enabled and opens.
“Upon federal legalization in the U.S., much like our MedMen investment, we’ll continue to explore THC options in the U.S. market once additional clarity is available,” Irwin said.
In August Tilray reported that it had invested in MedMen, MMNNF the Los Angeles operator of cannabis dispensaries.
The company also recently acquired a second SweetWater brewery and taproom.
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“I look at the whole bourbon category is such a fast-growing category and one day to be able to come out with a bourbon that’s infused with THC under the Breckenridge name, which we would have an alcohol business, we’d have a THC business,” Irwin said.
Anheuser-Busch apparently “did not want to do THC products,” Irwin said, leading to the break between the two.
