Wana’s Total Wine Bet Meets a 0.4 mg Cap

Wana Brands put three hemp-derived THC sparkling drinks into Total Wine & More in March 2025. The listing used the 2018 Farm Bill path that treats hemp with low delta-9 THC as a legal crop, not marijuana.

Those cans sat down in wine shops just as liquor retail turned hemp drinks into a full cooler set. A federal cap of 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container is now set for December 11, 2026, a line every Wana can on that shelf already misses.

Wana Landed in Total Wine in March 2025

The Boulder, Colorado, edibles company, a subsidiary of Canopy USA LLC, announced the Total Wine placement on March 12, 2025. The chain listed 12-ounce cans in Arizona, Texas, Indiana, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Nebraska, and New Jersey, and on totalwine.com. Shoppers could also buy the wider Wana hemp line at shopwanderous.com, the direct marketplace Wana opened in August 2024.

Joe Hodas, president of Wana Brands, tied the listing to the company’s growth plan and to alcohol-free demand. Brooks Jorgensen, president of Canopy USA, said the wine chain opened a path to “cannabis-curious consumers” who were already shopping for a drink that is not beer or wine.

Expanding our retail footprint through a partnership with Total Wine & More reflects Wana’s commitment to growth and innovation, while reinforcing our mission to enhance lives through plant-powered products.

Joe Hodas, President, Wana Brands, in the March 2025 announcement

Illustrator Beto Val drew the can art. Each formula mixes CBG, CBD, and THC from hemp, a stack Wana sold as a consistent effect rather than a mystery milligram.

THE THREE CANS ON THE SHELF

• Lemonade Balance Blend: 5 mg CBG, 5 mg CBD, and 5 mg THC in a 12-ounce can, sold as a social, mood-lifting pour.
• Strawberry Lemonade Balance Blend: 10 mg CBG, 10 mg CBD, and 10 mg THC, the heavier of the two lemonades.
• Raspberry Tea Relax Blend: 5 mg CBG, 5 mg CBD, and 5 mg THC, aimed at an evening wind-down.

Canopy Growth had already flagged the beverage launch on August 23, 2024, when it congratulated Wana on Wanderous and on the sparkling line. The Total Wine deal was the first time those cans sat next to wine in a national chain rather than in a hemp shop or a mail-order box.

Liquor Stores Now Run the Category

By early 2026 the three-SKU experiment looked small beside the set around it. Headset, which tracks hemp THC drinks in alcohol retail, counted THC beverages in 110 locations across 14 states at the large independent wine-and-spirits chain in January 2026, with 680 products and 166 active brands on shelf. The top five brands held only 10% of that distribution, a spread that left room for a name like Wana and also left the cooler crowded.

Andrea Starr, Total Wine’s senior director of merchandising for THC drinks, said THC beverages and nonalcoholic drinks were two of the chain’s highest-growth categories. Angela Weber, the chain’s chief merchandising officer, told a Beverage Forum audience in May 2026 that Total Wine was leaning into hemp THC and backed rules for moderate doses of 10 mg or less. Where the law allowed it, she said, stores were giving the set 28 to 32 feet.

NielsenIQ, measuring mainstream retail rather than dispensaries, found THC drinks reached $239 million in mainstream retail over 52 weeks, up 135% from the prior year. Half of U.S. adults said they were interested in trying a cannabis-infused drink, and 28% said they already had.

NIQ’S MAINSTREAM TALLY

• Category total: $239 million in measured retail over 52 weeks, up 135% year over year.
• Liquor stores: $132 million, the largest of the three biggest measured channels.
• Convenience stores: $55 million, with grocery and food stores at $49 million.
• Adult interest: 50% of U.S. adults said they wanted to try a cannabis-infused drink.

Kaleigh Theriault, NielsenIQ’s director of beverage alcohol thought leadership, put the growth against a soft alcohol year. Off-premise alcohol was about $110 billion and down 3.3% in the same window. Ten-milligram drinks took 51% of THC category dollars, five-milligram drinks took 22%, and drinks below 5 mg were the fastest-growing dose tier, up 211%.

Nothing in beer, wine or spirits is putting up numbers like that right now.

Kaleigh Theriault, Director of Beverage Alcohol Thought Leadership, NielsenIQ

Texas, one of the nine states on Wana’s original Total Wine list, showed how fast a liquor channel can move volume. Headset logged 95,628 THC drink units there from January 1 through January 21, 2026, across 211 stores, at an average $12.80 a unit. One retailer rang up $1.2 million in three weeks. Florida, also on that list, showed 50 stores, 32 brands, and a $14.77 average. Those are category tickets, not Wana’s own ring, but they are the kind of ticket a wine shop chases when beer pallets start to look slow.

Congress Capped Finished Hemp at 0.4 mg

The legal trick that put a 5 mg can in a wine aisle is older than Wana’s sparkling line. The 2018 Farm Bill defined hemp by a limit of 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight. Processors learned that a wet drink can stay under that percentage and still carry a dose people feel. Liquor stores could sell it in states that did not slam the door.

Public Law 119-37, signed November 12, 2025, wrote a different test for finished goods. The Congressional Research Service describes a rewritten federal definition of hemp that, among other changes, excludes final hemp-derived cannabinoid products with more than 0.4 milligrams combined total THC and similar-effect cannabinoids per container, the innermost package that touches the drink. Products pushed out of that definition fall under the Controlled Substances Act as marijuana. A liquor store cannot treat marijuana like a seltzer.

A bipartisan group of 39 state and territory attorneys general had asked Congress in October 2025 to close the 2018 language, arguing that intoxicating hemp had spread through ordinary retail without the age gates and testing used in licensed cannabis shops. The new cap answers that complaint with a number so low it does not leave a sessionable drink behind.

FROM THE FARM BILL TO THE CAP

1. 2018: The Farm Bill sets hemp at 0.3% delta-9 THC by dry weight and opens a path for drinks that stay under that percentage.
2. August 23, 2024: Wana launches Wanderous and the sparkling hemp line.
3. March 12, 2025: Total Wine lists the three Wana cans in nine states and online.
4. November 12, 2025: Public Law 119-37 rewrites the hemp definition, including the 0.4 mg finished-product cap, effective 365 days later.
5. January 2026: Headset counts 166 THC drink brands across 110 of the chain’s stores.
6. May 2026: Total Wine’s merchandising chief describes 28 to 32 feet of hemp THC space where state law allows it.
7. September 2, 2026: Public Law 119-103 delays most of the new hemp rules to December 11, 2026.
8. November 12, 2026: Products with cannabinoids a cannabis plant cannot naturally make still lose hemp status on the original date.
9. December 11, 2026: The 0.4 mg per-container cap is scheduled to apply to naturally occurring cannabinoids, on the same day the continuing resolution’s funding runs out.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that infused food and drinks can take 30 minutes to two hours to hit, a lag that already complicates a can sold next to beer. The 0.4 mg rule does not write a serving standard for that lag. It simply pulls most of the current milligram counts out of the hemp column.

How Wana’s Cans Compare With That Limit

Wana did not bottle trace THC. The lemonade and the raspberry tea carry 5 mg of THC in each 12-ounce can. The strawberry lemonade carries 10 mg. NielsenIQ’s scan data says those two dose bands are where the category makes its money.

WANA DOSES VERSUS THE 0.4 MG CAP

Wait, Raspberry is 5 mg, so 12.5 times, not 25. Fix silently in the table: Raspberry Tea Relax Blend should be 12.5 times. I must not ship a wrong cell.