THC Drinks Explained: Wynk Founder Angus Rittenburg on the Future of Cannabis Beverages

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Summary

Laurie Forster, The Wine Coach, sits down with Angus Rittenburg, founder of Wynk, to explore the rise of THC-infused beverages. Angus shares how Wynk’s innovative technology creates crisp, zero-calorie drinks with unique flavors, while also unpacking the importance of dosing, consumer education, and navigating cannabis regulations. From flavor to function, this conversation reveals why THC drinks are becoming a refreshing alternative to alcohol—and what’s next for Wynk as it expands across the U.S. 

Takeaways

• Low-dose THC beverages offer a refreshing alternative to alcohol.
• Every can of Wynk is zero-calorie and made with all-natural ingredients.
• Flavors are crafted to taste exactly as promised—no surprises.
• THC in beverages is absorbed more quickly than in traditional edibles.
• Beginners should start low and sip slow when trying THC drinks.
• Wynk comes in 2.5mg, 5mg, and 10mg options to fit different comfort levels.

Wynks Tasted

Mandarin Pomelo 5mg

Tangerine 2.5 or 5mg

Raspberry Lemonade 10mg

Find out more about Wynk drink at: https://drinkwynk.com/

Transcript

Laurie Forster (00:28)
This week we're gonna change gears a little bit and we are gonna be exploring the world of THC infused beverages with founder Angus Rittenberg of the Wink brand. these beverages are seeing lots of growth. So I figured I would check it out, talk to Angus, find out more about these beverages, taste a few of them and let you know what they're all about.

In the meantime, I'm gonna introduce him in just a second. I wanted to remind you about a couple of events I have coming up here in September. On September 24th, my virtual wine tasting, Fall in Love with the Rhone Valley is happening. It corresponds also with the release of my fall wine pack. You can get it at thewinecoachclub.com. And if you wanna taste it with me, you can join me on the 24th for that virtual tasting. And then on the 28th, I have an information session

about my Tuscany wine tour in 2026. We're going to be joined by my travel partner, Pascal, and the local guide who will be joining us on that trip. That trip is October 2026, but the information session, September 28th. Go to thewinecoach.com slash events. You can get info on both of those events and sign up for either right there. All right, I'm gonna bring in Angus Rittenberg, co-founder and CEO of Wink.

He created this new brand focusing on adult beverages through innovation, brand formulation, and manufacturing. He started Wink in 2021 and quickly launched in many, many more states. His expertise actually comes from the tech center. This is fascinating. Leaders like Tesla, SpaceX, and Google, he has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Victoria.

When he's not focused on growing the Wink brand, he loves traveling to remote destinations with friends, family, and flying on planes.

Laurie Forster (02:24)
Angus, welcome to The Sipping Point.

Angus Rittenburg (02:26)
Thank you, Laurie. I'm excited to tell you all about Wynk

Laurie Forster (02:28)
Yes, well, I've been doing this podcast for many, many years, and I've had wine professionals, beer professionals, spirits professionals, but you are my very first person to come on with a beverage that's infused with THC and CBD. So this is exciting. I can't wait to learn more. How did you come up with

the idea since your background is in tech, how did you come up with this idea to create a company with these beverages?

Angus Rittenburg (02:53)
Yeah, prior to Wynk, I worked in tech in California, a bunch of well-known companies, Google, SpaceX, Tesla, and really focused on mechanical design and innovation. I left Tesla trying to start something on my own, and I didn't have much cannabis experience at all. I was an alcohol consumer, but not a cannabis consumer. One thing that I noticed though was THC beverages were growing in Canada, but they weren't

They barely existed in the US. So I trying to figure out why this was. And the challenge when we started Wynk in late 2020, early 2021, was in order to do THC infused beverages, you had to produce them in each state that you sold. And the product had to be produced under the state licensed cannabis frameworks. So if you wanted to create a THC beverage brand, you had a real problem. You'd have to get a processing license in each state.

Laurie Forster (03:35)
Mmm.

Angus Rittenburg (03:42)
Every state's program was different. You'd have to build a facility, get it approved, build a whole canning line, which is very expensive, and then do that in every single state you wanted to sell. The other issue was that there was limited distribution in each state. Some states had less than 50 dispensaries, so you had less than 50 places to sell. And that kind of presented the opportunity for me. With my background in tech, I'd said, well, we could build a...

53 foot tractor trailer with everything, you know, you need to produce THC beverages and instead of getting licenses and building facilities in each state We could use our mobile production system partner with existing license holders that had space and really bring the production technology to them so that was the original idea and then You know, got really interesting when we started formulating and experimenting with THC drinks

Laurie Forster (04:25)
Mmm.

Angus Rittenburg (04:31)
I had tried a bunch of Canadian products. We were formulating our own. And for myself and my two co-founders, Casey Parzik and Sean Chien, none of us had cannabis experience. And we tried high dose and it was just way too intense. Like the effect was overwhelming. We tried medium dose, you know, 20 milligrams, still too strong. And then we tried...

two and a half milligram, very, very low dose, similar intensity of effect as a light beer or a glass of wine. And that's when this turned into a interest in the technology to a very, very honest interest in the product itself. And what we found was that these low dose THC beverages are a really compelling alternative to alcohol. I don't think any of us had the thought that we'd quit alcohol, but.

it created a great solution for a variety of occasions that alcohol wasn't the best solution. And that made us insanely passionate about both the product and the underlying engineering problem. So that was sort of the initial premise for Wynk, was let's solve this technology problem. And then it became an extreme passion for the category of low-dose beverages.

Laurie Forster (05:37)
I love that. one of the things I noticed, and I have your summer flavor here that I'm going to sip, which is the Mandarin Pomelo. That was, it's going to be a seasonal flavor as I understand. But one of things that I noticed is that at least in this, in the traditional flavors that I have here, you're, blending both THC and CBD. So curious is that, was that like trial and error or what was the whole impotence to put them together?

Angus Rittenburg (06:04)
We did a lot of survey work in the early days to see if consumers wanted CBD in addition to THC. It's obviously not cheaper to do, so we were very intentional with adding CBD. And what we found is a lot of consumers did desire THC to be paired with CBD, and it has a balancing effect.

where THC can create a lot of anxiety or intense hunger, a lot of these sort of effects that you don't want CBD as a way, at least in the consumer's eyes of balancing it. And so that's why the original Wynk SKUs and our two and a half and five milligram SKUs that we sell today all have CBD. We recently launched 10 milligram and there are a lot of consumers that don't want CBD. So we use that as an opportunity to create a THC

It also made sense from a formulation standpoint. You kind of end up with too much in the drink, too much cannabinoids in the drink. So 10 milligrams THC only and a lot of consumers ask for that and enjoy it.

Laurie Forster (06:51)
Okay.

So I just took a sip of the summer seasonal here and it's delicious. And one of the things I do love about these drinks is that they're zero calories and the flavor is really good. Sometimes zero calorie things just don't live up to the hype or the taste. What do you do to get such great flavor in a zero calorie drink? And is that something you guys were also envisioning was, you

A beer is 100 calories, a glass of wine, 120. So is it like calorie consciousness as well?

Angus Rittenburg (07:30)
Yeah, maybe we start with why. Why is Wynk zero calorie? Coming into the space in 2021, that was what was so interesting with THC. People have spent decades trying to find a way to do zero calorie alcohol. It's not possible. And so what we saw with these beverages was an opportunity for the first time to sell consumers an adult beverage with an undeniable effect, but be able to do it with no calories. THC unlocks that. And that's, you know,

Probably the single most interesting thing to me about Wynk is the ability for a consumer to walk into a liquor store or bar and have an option for the alcohol occasion with no calories for the first time. So we're very intentional about making Wynk zero calorie, zero sugar, and all natural. It's a brand promise, if you will. If you buy Wynk, you should expect that of the Wynk beverages, and we'll continue to do so.

Laurie Forster (08:14)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (08:20)
The way that we do it, there's a little bit of magic. Can't share all our secrets. But I think the important thing with Wynk is that we use all natural ingredients. We make them very clean, clean and intentional. If you buy Wynk and you're getting black cherry, you should have a pretty clear expectation of what it'll taste like, and then we deliver that. What we've tried to avoid is really esoteric flavors that...

You can't come into the experience with an expectation because it's so bizarre. So you'll find that all our flavor systems are fairly straightforward. And when you buy a black cherry, a juicy mango, a lime twist, they'll taste the way that you expect. I the last piece on formulation, we.

Laurie Forster (08:46)
Mmm.

Angus Rittenburg (09:01)
definitely ride a, there's a very tight balance between masking the cannabis flavor. We're obviously adding, you know, extracts to the drinks and it can be very tricky to cover that up and not make it taste like, you know, weed, for lack of a better word. And so, you know, we try to add just enough flavor to mask it and make it taste like, you know, a normal beverage.

Laurie Forster (09:16)
Yeah. Yes.

Angus Rittenburg (09:24)
but do it without loading it with sugar, which many others do because it's very easy to hide the flavor with sugar. It's very, very tricky to do it without sugar. So it's a very creative formulation. We do formulation in-house and we have expertise there. But we continue to be able to deliver these zero calorie beverages in a way that they just taste like normal drinks.

Laurie Forster (09:33)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (09:46)
And then with our 2.5 and 5 milligram drinks, similar intensity of effect of beer or wine.

not the same effect, but the same intensity. Those are modeled after La Croix, Waterloo, Polar, just lightly flavored seltzers, very true seltzers. And then with 10 milligram, we were answering a lot of distributor, retailer, and customer feedback. When those three things align, it means you should do it. And that feedback was to get into lemonades, deliver more flavor, deliver more THC. And so that's exactly what we did. And with 10 milligram, we have a normal

Laurie Forster (10:10)
Hehehehe

Okay.

Angus Rittenburg (10:21)
a strawberry and a raspberry lemonade. They are very flavorful, very, very intense flavor, but still true to the Wynk ethos, which is zero calories, sugar.

Laurie Forster (10:26)
Mm-hmm.

And, and correct me if I'm wrong on this one, but was doing a little reading a couple articles about, did you also innovate the way the THC is dosed in the seltzer? Is it done from the bottom of the can? Did I get that right?

Angus Rittenburg (10:44)
Yeah, Winx had an interesting evolution in the way that the products made. As I mentioned before, we started with 53 foot tractor trailers. In 2021, 2022, we had two of these trailers running around the country. We'd...

take the trailer to a licensed processor in a single state. We'd show up for two to three days, produce 30 to 70,000 cans, and then move on to the next state. And we'd let them sell through the inventory, and before they ran out, we'd come back and restock it. So that was the original production system. It was traditional canning with a couple nuances to fit the regulations. But we ultimately outgrew it. Wynk was in 12 markets. We had two teams running two trailers all over the

Laurie Forster (11:09)
Mm.

Angus Rittenburg (11:27)
country and we just couldn't produce it fast enough. So we designed a sort of next generation of the technology and that was to take traditional beverage cans, empty, from any can supplier and we built a machine that you can punch a hole in the bottom of the can.

insert a one-way valve. was very subtle. Most consumers would never notice. And then we could fill them at home on our canny lines, undosed. So it tasted like Wynk. It looked like Wynk, carbonated. Everything was done. It just didn't have THC. In doing so, we could produce it at scale at our facility and ship it across state lines to our partners. And then we designed a small dosing machine that you could load a case of 24 cans at a time into this machine in the state.

inject a very small amount of THC into the can, precisely dose it.

Laurie Forster (12:11)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (12:11)
And

at that point, it'd be ready for sale. So we switched from producing in every state that we wanted to sell to producing everything at home and then just dosing in each state that we sold. So that was sort of the second generation of the production technology. But in 2023, the regulatory landscape changed. And the way that it changed allowed us to use THC derived from hemp instead of marijuana. It's the same THC molecule with the same effect.

But because hemp is federally legal, federally legal.

We could dose the cans at our facility and then ship across state lines and sell them through alcohol licensed retail all over the country. So as we exist today, we, it's, you know, from a production standpoint, very close to traditional beverage. You know, we produce at scale. We have a very large facility. And then we sell through, you know, licensed alcohol wholesalers in each state. And it shows up, you know, at your local liquor stores, bars, restaurants, just like alcohol.

all.

Laurie Forster (13:07)
Yeah.

Well, while you were explaining, took a little sip of the tangerine, which I think is delicious and true to flavor. And so I guess you're saying now that so many more states have opened up, you can produce all in your one, you know, your one location and ship out from there. Are all states allowing the hemp derived?

Angus Rittenburg (13:26)
It's very complex, very dynamic, but today we ship to about 20 states. We sell through retail in about 20 states. We should be around 23 by the end of the year. And that makes up...

about as many states in the US that you can currently sell these products through licensed alcohol retailers. We hope that more will come and we're seeing regulations change state by state in favor. We also sell online and we ship to about 40 states online. But it's amazing, I was in Chicago.

last week and Chicago's a really good market for us and it's good because a lot of our business is on-premise. So can find Wynk on the menu at bars and restaurants and I was at a very nice bar, Wynk was on the menu and I was with our team and I was joking, you know, in 2021 when we launched.

Laurie Forster (14:05)
Wow.

Angus Rittenburg (14:14)
We launched in Ohio through the medical dispensary market. I couldn't even go to a store and see our product on a shelf because I couldn't get in because I didn't have a medical card. Now I can go to Chicago to a bar or restaurant that I'd be at anyways and order it off the menu. It's changed so much and it's, you know, having ridden this wave over the years, it's really amazing.

Laurie Forster (14:23)
Mmm.

Wow.

Yeah, you talked about the team that you founded together and did you all replace alcohol with these drinks or do you still maybe have a beer now and then and a Wynk on a different occasion?

Angus Rittenburg (14:47)
I'm still a huge fan of alcohol. think there's always occasions for alcohol and I enjoy it. I drink light beer. I really like scotch. The scotch one's kind of ironic because all the products we make are very light. Scotch is like the exact opposite. Yep.

Laurie Forster (14:59)
Yes, intense.

Angus Rittenburg (15:02)
But yeah, I still enjoy alcohol. What I found with Wynk is that, you know, there's maybe new occasions or different occasions that I wouldn't typically have an adult beverage that I now can with Wynk. I also, you know, it's just probably cut my alcohol consumption in half. There's just so many occasions that it works really well for me. And I think many others are finding the same, but still a huge fan of alcohol and I think I always will be.

Laurie Forster (15:19)
Mm-hmm.

good. We don't want to be out of business. We don't want to be out

of business. So if if someone's never tried maybe THC in general or definitely not and some of these drinks and I know it's probably different for every person how it affects you. But, you know, maybe they're a little scared or they just haven't done it. Explain a little bit more about the two and a half and the five milligrams versus the ten.

Angus Rittenburg (15:44)
Yep.

Laurie Forster (15:46)
in that, you know, people, all have heard crazy stories about somebody taking a gummy or something that was super high dose and having like this terrible experience, maybe even, you know, ending up at the emergency room or whatever, people that don't know what they're doing. You know, this, these are not even in the realm of those kinds of situations. Explain to people what, what these are like.

Angus Rittenburg (16:06)
Yeah, there's a really important difference between these beverages and traditional edibles, and specifically the edibles that everybody has a horror story from. The key difference is that your body absorbs THC from beverages much faster than edibles and much more reliably. So most consumers report beginning to feel an effect in 15 to 20 minutes, which is similar to alcohol. And then the offset.

is about an hour, hour and a half. And so you're sort of riding this curve of effect that is a lot more similar to alcohol than traditional edibles that take much longer for your body to break down. That's really important because it makes it really controllable and repeatable. And so that's a huge benefit to beverages over edibles.

Laurie Forster (16:43)
Mm.

Angus Rittenburg (16:50)
It's a easy way around that usual horror story where it hits you six hours later and it lasts for a day. Nobody wants that. And then in terms of doses, it's confusing for many consumers because these drinks are in milligrams whereas alcohol is usually percentage by volume. But we always tell consumers start with a two and a half. It's a very small dose. Regardless of your tolerance, even if you're a new consumer like I was in 2021.

Laurie Forster (16:55)
No.

Angus Rittenburg (17:13)
It's, I always say it's similar intensity of effect as like a light beer or wine. So you, if you have one much like with beer or wine, you're not drunk.

with a two and a half milligram drink, you're not high or out of control in any way. But you can start there. And the nice thing with these beverages is they're sessional. You can have one if you choose. You can have multiple. You can have multiple over a long period of time. And so it's a good way to sort of dip your toe in and see where your tolerance is.

Laurie Forster (17:26)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (17:38)
many consumers find that it's not enough. And so we offer five milligram. And if that's not enough, we offer 10. But starting with two and a half, you can experiment and stack multiple up over time to learn your tolerance. For me, having been in this business for five years,

Laurie Forster (17:51)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (17:54)
My favorite is still the two and a half. I haven't built a tolerance, so to speak. And that's my beverage of choice. But we have a lot of consumers that are new to cannabis. They're professionals, and they love the 10s. It just affects them differently. Two and a half's a great entry point.

Laurie Forster (18:09)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Well, now you mentioned the, I saved this one for last, the lemonade's and the 10 milligram product. So this is the raspberry lemonade that I grabbed to try. So you were saying that this was a request from the stores, from the consumer, you know, what brought this all together? What were people looking for just to have one drink instead of two or, mean, these are no calories, so no harm, no foul, but.

Angus Rittenburg (18:37)
Yeah, it was a hard decision for us. know, Wynk's tag is seltzer with a Wynk of THC. It's always been playing on this notion of a low dose drink. And, you know, up until the end of last year, we thought low dose was five milligram. But what consumers are telling us is that for many, 10 is the high end of low dose. And so we expanded into 10 milligram. But, you know, it was really just con...

Laurie Forster (18:43)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Angus Rittenburg (19:02)
consumer feedback. There's many consumers out there that need more to have the effect that they want and we want to make sure that we're delivering that. The other side of it though, I don't think we'll ever go over 10 milligram through the licensed alcohol route to market. And my fear is that once you get over 10 for a new consumer, it can really be too much and that horror story experience, which we never want to through beverage.

Laurie Forster (19:24)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Angus Rittenburg (19:25)
So we go up to 10. And I think in the future, I...

Many of the states are regulating five or 10 milligram caps through the licensed alcohol channel. And I think it's for that reason. You know, you have uneducated consumers with easy access. You want to make sure that, you know, you're not going to give them a bad experience. In the dispensary channel, you know, where it's educated consumers going to a place where they can get education. I think they'll always be, you know, higher dose beverages available. And there's a strong market for that. When we were selling through dispensaries, did

Laurie Forster (19:53)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (19:56)
drinks up to 100 milligrams. Which in the dispensary channel, for the dispensary consumer, there's a lot of demand there. But when we left the dispensary channel, we made a very intentional choice to self-regulate and not do more than 10.

Laurie Forster (19:58)
Wow.

Yeah.

And

I think I know the answer to this question, but you have to be 21 like you do with alcohol to purchase, correct? Okay, gotcha.

Angus Rittenburg (20:18)
Exactly. Yeah. So everything that

we sell through retail is at, you know, a retailer that has an alcohol license is in the habit of age gating. in some States we could sell outside of that channel. We self-regulate not, not to, we want to make sure that people selling Wynk are, you know, in the habit of, of checking IDs.

Laurie Forster (20:35)
Yeah. And I'm just so impressed at how you can get the intensity of the flavor. This is the raspberry lemonade with zero calories. It's just impressive. So whatever your secrets are, they're working, Angus, they're working. I know that, you know, obviously you're in some states on-premise, but if folks want to check out Wynk, see more about the different flavors, the drinks, the different strengths that you offer,

how can they go and find you and see if their state is one of the 40 that they can order to.

Angus Rittenburg (21:05)
Yep.

So our website's drinkwink.com, D-R-I-N-K-W-Y-N-K dot com. There's a lot of educational content on there. We have a very active blog where we're posting sort of in-depth research on topics that consumers often ask about. ⁓ We also have a store locator, so you can find stores near you. And then if you choose, you're able to order online.

Laurie Forster (21:21)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (21:27)
and have it shipped directly to your door. It's more expensive online. It just costs us a lot more to get the product to consumers. Many choose to just, for the convenience, they'll buy it online, see if they like it, and then go find us on their store locator.

Laurie Forster (21:40)
Okay.

Well, you know, a lot of times when I'm doing these interviews, we'll say it isn't rocket science, but I kind of think you found a way to bring rocket science to these drinks. So I really appreciate that. I think your story is amazing and the drinks are great.

Angus Rittenburg (21:48)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (21:55)
And I just thank you so much for your time and I look forward to seeing what's next for Wynk.

Angus Rittenburg (22:00)
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity.

Laurie Forster (22:02)
Awesome. Cheers.

Angus Rittenburg (22:03)
Cheers.

Laurie Forster (22:04)
Well, I loved having Angus on and found it really interesting to learn more about the innovation of his company, how he grew, and also just the THC beverages in general, how they work. And I love that they're calorie free and made with clean ingredients. you want to check him out, go to DrinkWink and that's W-Y-N-K dot com.

I'll post a link to that on my website as well as the beverages we shared. And don't forget to go to thewinecoach.com slash events, check out my virtual tasting on the 24th, Rhone Valley wines, some of my favorites the information session about my Tuscany tour on September 28th. All right, until next week, cheers.