Celebrating the First-Ever 820 With a Dinner Party

by Rachel Burkons

There's nothing quite like a mid-summer night’s al fresco dinner party, where long, warm nights meet a giddy glow born out of a meal, full glasses, and great conversation. So when the Cannabis Beverage Association launched its initiative around “820,” AKA National Drink Cannabis Day, The Clever Root set out to explore what an 820 dinner party might look like.

While an 820 celebration could be as simple as cracking open a cannabis beverage wherever you are on August 20 and enjoying the discrete social acceptability of the category, we believe that another benefit of beverages is that they offer a simple, no-fuss way to heighten your hosting. Swapped for champagne, they can add a new kind of buzz to your brunch; add them to an aperitif to enhance any happy hour; or simply offer them alongside water, wine, and beer as a welcoming option when guests walk through your door.

So we gathered a selection of cannabis beverages and invited some key tastemakers to join us for an infused beverage party in honor of 820. Fresh off their most recent global jaunt to Azores and France, we invited Alice and Clark, the real life couple behind successful YouTube and social media platform That High Couple. As their name might suggest, Alice and Clark have robust tolerances and represent a segment of consumers who will enjoy higher-dose beverages and may consume freely without monitoring their intake as closely. We were also joined by sommelier Brooke Gerstein-Salerno, who co-founded Oklahoma cannabis cultivator Green Bonnet Pharms and has spent many years working in cannabis, wine, and hospitality. Rounding out the group was my wife, who rarely consumes cannabis and has spent years brushing off my gentle recommendations that she re-explore cannabis beverages thanks to a few bad experiences with “Green Dragon,” a traditional high proof alcohol infusion and other high-potency drink formats of yesteryear.

As we talked, ate, laughed, and drank, the sun set behind us, and we realized that from the outside looking in, this dinner party probably looked pretty normal. Coupe glasses filled with cannabis beverages aren’t so different from those filled with cocktails after all.

Step One: Secure the Beverages

The most critical step in your 820 dinner party is, of course, the beverage selection. And with so many new and exciting beverages to try, you’ll find there are plenty of options for serving drinks, from simply grabbing out of the cooler, to serving in complex cocktails. Because most social settings include a mixed audience with mixed preferences, beverages are a great choice and offer something for everyone with a variety of styles and doses.

Here’s how we incorporated beverages into our 820 Dinner Party.

Grab and Go Selection

There’s no easier way to host than with a cooler filled with ice-cold beverages, so the center of our table was stocked with an assortment of products in an array of doses. This format also allows guests to explore freely on their own; just ensure that everybody in attendance knows that these products are dosed, and ensure the cooler is kept away from children.

As we put the finishing touches on dinner, our guests helped themselves, eager to try new products. Options included Fable’s trio of canned cocktails, Better Than Booze’s takes on a Gin & Tonic and Palmoa, a lineup of Mary Jones sodas in both low- and high-dose options, Malus live resin infused cider in its lowest-dose 1mg offering, Klaus, a ginger-forward RTD that’s mixable and sippable neat, and Squared’s version of a G&T.

Creamy Lemonade with Deep Desert

Making a non-infused creamy lemonade serves dual purposes: First, it is a delicious, versatile base that mixes well with a variety of flavors and products while allowing guests to fully customize their dose. Second, it ensures there’s also a non-infused option available at the table for guests to enjoy at all times if they’re not looking to consume any more cannabis but would still like a fun drink.

Made from a simple mix of sweetened condensed milk and lemonade combined to taste, this versatile base matched beautifully with the neutral profile of Deep Desert, a mixology-forward beverage with a delightful blue signature hue. We kept the bottle on the table for guests to top their lemonade with their own preferred dose, and by the end of the evening, the Creamy Lemonade had been mixed with nearly every other beverage on the table.

We found it was a particularly delightful match with Fable Best Zest, a spiced citrus cocktail that transformed into a complex Orange Dreamsicle when combined with the creamy sweet lemonade. We also loved the combination of Mary Jones’ newest flavor, Hatch Green Chili, with this sweetened combo. The first release that is a crossover collaboration with parent company and traditional CPG brand Jones Soda, Mary Jones’ Hatch Green Chili soda offers a true-to-chili aroma and a surprisingly sweet profile that adds both heat and vegetal complexity to the simple lemonade cocktail.

Apple Ginger Summer Sangria with Malus and Klaus

There’s nothing quite like a bountiful pitcher of sangria at the dinner table, because hey, who doesn’t love a drink with a built-in snack? Not to mention, there are few drinks more flexible and easy to make with whatever you have on hand than a “recipe optional” sangria.

But while the details can vary, starting with a solid core is essential in sangria, which is traditionally made with wine and a spirit or liqueur at its base. Our nonalcoholic infused version combines two drinks with distinct flavors, but mixing products together is easy when they harmonize so seamlessly. With its dry, true-to-cider flavor, persistent bubble and low dose, Malus makes a great base for a variety of mixed drinks (stay tuned for some cider picks this fall!). And while the spicy ginger profile in Klaus is delicious on its own, it also adds complexity and bold flavor to this drink. Together, Klaus and Malus offer spiced apple with a kiss of white pepper and a long, complex finish.

Combining this base with seasonal fruit and mixers is a simple template for year-round mixology. We opted for apple, plum, peach, and raspberries, mixed with 3 parts Malus: 1 part Klaus: 1 part Fever Tree Sparkling Grapefruit. You may adjust these quantities both to taste and dose. Exploring different ingredients with the help of the balanced one-two punch of Malus and Klaus make this simple sangria an easy hosting win for all seasons.

Mary Jones Root Beer (Or Any Flavor) Float

An infused drink dessert is a fitting way to end an 820 meal, and Mary Jones’ Root Beer made it a no-brainer: Infused Root Beer Floats all around! While this simple classic requires no recipe, it did inspire a lot of exploration, with each guest suggesting additional combinations until we decided that any of the Mary Jones sodas would make for an epic float. Orange soda float? Obviously! Grape? Great! It’s this brand’s fun versatility that will keep it an evergreen favorite.

Dining and Drinking the Evening Away

As we enjoyed our meal and drank all of the weed drinks, we couldn’t help but notice that while some things were very much the same as other dinner parties—empty cans, refilled glasses, and cheersing all around—others were very different. You see, cannabis invites a very different energy into social spaces than alcohol does. It fosters connection rather than clouds judgment; it inspires introspection and opens doors and teases out a quiet, meaningful social environment. And, yeah, it leaves no hangovers.

So as we raised glass after glass, we toasted to each other, to the future of cannabis beverages, and said, "Cheers to 820!”

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