If you step inside the former Brewery 85 production facility at 6 Whitlee Court in Greenville, you won’t notice much difference at first. There are still the giant kettles and tanks you would expect to see in a brewery, along with the whizzing of cans going down the production lines.
But instead of beer, those cans are now being filled to the brim with cannabis-infused seltzer from Greenville-based brand Rebel Rabbit.
The company, whose name pays homage to both the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail and Looney Tunes, has just announced the start of production inside the two-building space spanning seven acres. Its founders hope to churn out up to 360,000 cans of cannabis-infused beverages per month.
It’s a huge leap for a company that was nothing more than a flicker of an idea two years ago.
“Equipment-wise, it is very similar to brewing beer,” said Billy Goldsmith, co-founder of Rebel Rabbit.
The key difference, however, is that instead of going through a fermentation process, this beverage is created by mixing water-soluble cannabis with a blend of ingredients, flavors and sweeteners to create flavor profiles like mandarin orange, lemon lime and grapefruit. In that regard, the drinks themselves should taste familiar to anyone who has hopped on the alcohol-infused seltzer craze spurred by brands like White Claw and Truly.
For Goldsmith and co-founder Pierce Wylie, there’s no reason why cannabis drinks shouldn’t see the same boost in popularity.
With both the federal and state hemp bills giving legal backing to products sourced from hemp and its derivatives, they are also bullish on South Carolina — and Greenville in particular — as a strong foundation for growth.
Their products cater to those who might be curious about cannabis, with both mild and regular dosage levels. They said those sampling the drinks should expect to feel the effects in minutes, so anyone worried about accidentally consuming too much should be at ease. The goal is to create something relaxing for social settings both casual and formal.
“We’ve found our customer base is somewhat surprising, in that it’s not the stereotypical ‘stoners’ or ‘potheads’ some people might expect,” Wylie said. “We get a lot of different people, from baby boomers going into retirement, to young mothers who used to drink wine but want to avoid the hangovers, to Gen Z 20-somethings, to people in recovery from alcohol.”
Goldsmith himself abstains from alcohol entirely and said it was the difficulty of blending in at certain social settings as a nondrinker that served as an initial inspiration for Rebel Rabbit. For Wylie, who has a background in behavioral psychology, the concept of harm reduction also plays a key role.
“We created this drink out of a personal need, and while there is plenty of clinical evidence supporting the fact that alcohol is worse for your body than cannabis, for us it really was just about creating something to drink when you wanted something other than alcohol,” Wylie said. “It’s about giving people options — as simple as that.”
