Can a THC Drink Feel Like Travel? Highlandia Is Betting On Escape.

THC drinks as an escape has become increasingly normalized in the places travelers already stop: festivals, event venues, convenience stores, and, in some states, bars and breweries — even in states that haven’t legalized adult-use cannabis. I traded a beer for a THC seltzer at Hopfields in Austin, Texas, during a stop-through for a wedding. Target sells canned hemp-derived THC drinks in all of its Minnesota locations. Chicago’s United Center, where the Bulls and Blackhawks play, sells them during concerts. Wisconsin and Minnesota allow hemp-derived THC beverage sales at bars, restaurants, and breweries, pushing the category closer to everyday social drinking.

“Los Angeles has always been known as the cultural epicenter with NYC right behind it,” Warrender says. “But what’s really interesting is how hemp-derived THC has opened up entirely new regions. States like Minnesota and Wisconsin were early to embrace low-dose hemp beverages as a normalized, everyday offering.”

In the right state, it can be part of a gas-station stop, a liquor-store pickup, or a bar order. A representative from Circle K told MJBizDaily last fall that it planned to sell hemp-derived THC beverages in as many as 3,000 stores nationwide in 2026. Total Wine now has an entire “hemptails” beverages section. For travelers, that means the category is no longer limited to dispensary runs and festival sidelines.

Highlandia’s travel-minded branding makes sense in that context.

“Highlandia was born from the idea that cannabis isn’t just a product, it’s a place you go,” Warrender says. “We wanted to create a fictional destination that feels like a mental escape: softer, lighter, more present. But we didn’t want it to live only in imagination. The goal was to build a world that could manifest physically, through pop-ups, festivals, even real environments.”

Photo: Highlandia

Warrender describes Highlandia’s sense of place as “grounding but surreal,” like where “a desert oasis meets a futuristic retreat.” The drinks themselves come at a sessionable 5 milligrams per can, or a more packed 50 milligram option. There’s also a bottled version designed for mixing into something of your own choosing. Warrender can see a future where hotels, festivals, lounges, and even airlines embrace THC beverages as an option alongside alcohol.

Hemp-derived THC, which hasn’t had to go through the same regulatory hurdles as cannabis or even alcohol, has had a bit of a moment since the 2018 Farm Bill legalized sales at the federal level. They’re now an accessible way for people to unwind, whether you’re taking a staycation or flying across the country to see the sights in a different state. New production techniques like nano-emulsification, which Highlandia uses, means that the effects can set in as fast as the effects from alcohol in a cocktail. An escape during your escape, if you will — and one that’s much cheaper than a premium economy seat. Eight years in, things could rapidly change.

The same loophole-era ease that helped put these drinks in coolers and on menus is now drawing more scrutiny. A federal ban on hemp-derived products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC is set to be enforced in November 2026. This would effectively kill the entire market category outside of states that carve out their own regulations, similar to states that allow medical and adult-use cannabis.

Still, Highlandia and other new brands are going ahead with national launches. Founders in the industry are banking on the federal government backing out of the ban before enforcement starts. After all, it’s much harder to take something away than it is to ban something that people aren’t already familiar with. The hemp beverage industry is predicted to be worth $4.1 billion by 2028, and the hemp THC market as a whole was estimated to be valued at $28.4 billion in 2025, according to the legal advisory company Clark Hill.

It doesn’t have to be the choice between an outright ban and an unregulated Wild West.

“We actually want regulations,” Warrender says. “We want guardrails in place so that people look at us as legitimate industry.” He adds that Highlandia and its parent company Urb, which has the travel-adjacent tagline “Fly High,” take on their own extensive quality and dosing tests that go above market standards. But he also acknowledged how shaky the moment feels: “We don’t want to burn a ton of cash either because we could be dead in November.”

Photo: Highlandia

That uncertainty is important for travelers to understand. Hemp THC drinks are still one of the easiest cannabis-adjacent products to find on the road, but they’re also fleeting thanks to loopholes, state-by-state patchworks, and the speed with which consumer demand outpaced regulation. That’s part of what makes Highlandia’s travel branding feel so smart. The company is selling a fantasy of escape just as the legal version of that escape starts to look less guaranteed.

Will it stick around? Maybe. Maybe not in exactly this form. The demand is clearly there, and the traveler fit is still obvious. But if federal action reshapes the market, hemp THC drinks could end up looking more like the rest of cannabis: uneven access, heavily state-dependent, and far less casually available than they seem right now. Highlandia may be selling an escape. The bigger question is whether travelers will still be able to find it as easily on the way there.