California online cannabis retailer, Driven Deliveries (DRVD.OTC), partnered with Pabst Labs today to distribute its Pabst Blue Ribbon cannabis-infused seltzer to 92% of the state of California through their e-commerce platform.
Your mileage may vary on this one, but PBR brings images of hipsters in ugly sweaters and even uglier glasses sitting in downtown bar patios, tilting these cans while doing their best to look as ironic as possible. It’s a singularly mid-oughts drink for a singularly mid-oughts crowd, and it’s hard to tell whether or not this translates into shallow into 2020.
From a rebranding perspective, why not? This company is more than a hundred years old and they’ve likely gone through a number of different images and formulations, so getting their watered-down moosepiss infused with cannabis and sold through an e-commerce portal seems like a fairly safe bet. Likely for both companies, as Driven can get the ironic former hipster crowd, who’ve been in on cannabis since day one.
“We are a young company partnering with one of the oldest and most venerable brands in the beer category. Pabst Blue Ribbon’s brand presence in the cannabis-infused beverage category will be a catalyst for growth in this important segment. We are proud to make this fine product available to the vast majority of Californians, as we do for the best cannabis brands in the state,” said Jason Gloria, VP Of operations at Driven’s Budee and Ganjarunner e-commerce platforms,” said Jason Gloria, VP of operations for Driven’s Budee and Ganjarunner e-commerce platforms.
Personally, I’ve never had any problem with hipsters: cultural appropriation is the new black, as they say, and if you wanted to protect your identity and personal signifiers from ironic semiotic misuse, you should have made them irony-proof—like the Conservative Party of Canada, Donald Trump, and Pabst Blue Ribbon. You need nuance to be ironic.
One of the first hits you get when googling Pabst Labs is that Pabst Blue Ribbon does not manufacture, sell, or distribute cannabis or cannabis-related products. It’s apparently a bit of an issue if they have to get out there and say it. Instead, they have Pabst Labs, which was founded by a group of experts in the cannabis beverage space, and they’re using the PBR name for brand leverage, appealing to that scarf wearing, bad sweater donning ironic neckbeard swilling PBR and complaining about how Kraftwerk sold out after Autobahn.
“Pabst Blue Ribbon has an incredibly loyal and passionate based of customers who are open to change and embracing new ideas. We’ve spent a long time creating a quality product for both new and experienced users and believe the entry of an established brand will help kick-start the cannabis drinks category. We are excited to be partnering with Driven’s Budee and Ganjarunner e-commerce platforms to help expand our CA footprint and to be able to offer PBR Cannabis Infused Seltzer delivery within 90 minutes in select markets,” said Mark Faicol, Pabst Labs Brand Manager.
The drink itself is a 12 ounce, non-alcoholic lemon flavoured seltzer possessing 5 mg of THC, 25 calories and 5 grams of sugar, and can be ordered at budee.org and ganjarunner.com for on-demand and next-day delivery in most California markets.
—Joseph Morton
