Keef Brands is the Colorado company that put cannabis in a soda can before almost anyone else, and it has been refining that idea since 2010. The lineup runs infused sodas, energy drinks, sparkling waters, mocktails and gummies, sold through licensed dispensaries across a dozen states.
Where It Started
Back in 2010, Boulder-based Erik Knutson set out with family and friends to build the first cannabis beverage company in the United States. He mixed an early batch of Keef Cola and handed a prototype to his Grandma Dee, 85 years old and a lifelong non-consumer. She opened it, took a sip, then took another. That was the day the brand started.
Sixteen years on, Erik and other founding members still run the company, and the pitch has not really changed: cannabis as the social drink at the center of the table rather than the thing you slip outside for.
What They Actually Make
Classic Soda is the backbone — Bubba Kush Root Beer, Original Cola, Orange Kush, the grape Purple Passion, Blue Razz, Pineapple X-Press, cream-soda C.R.E.A.M. and soda-fountain throwback Mr. Puffer. Xtreme takes those same flavors up to a higher infusion, and the Energy line covers citrus High Octane and tropical FLO.
From there it splits by occasion. Sparkling H2O runs zero-sugar Mango, Blood Orange and Blackberry Coconut at a balanced 1:1 ratio. Life H2O stays under 50 calories with minor cannabinoids — Blueberry Lemon with CBN, Cranberry Lime with THCv, Strawberry Kiwi with CBG. Mocktails cover Lemonade, Fruit Punch and Pineapple, and Bottle Cap gummies rebuild the soda flavors in chew form.
Why The Cans Behave Differently
Keef infuses using microemulsion, which pulls oil-based cannabinoids into water. Two things follow from that. The dose sits evenly through the whole can, so there is no shaking and no hot spot waiting in the last mouthful. And absorption is quicker: onset lands around fifteen minutes, where a traditional edible can take up to two hours.
Drinkables are their own lane now. Colorado's other early infused name, Dixie Elixirs, worked the same era from the edibles side, and Cannavis takes the liquid idea toward a syrup you mix yourself. Keef's bet was always the ready-to-drink can.
Where You Can Get It
The dispensary side covers Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Puerto Rico, with a Canadian storefront as well. Production runs through licensed manufacturing partners in each state, and every batch is lab-tested for potency and purity.
Those products stay in-state by law — Keef does not ship marijuana across state or national borders, and it says so plainly rather than burying it. In early 2023 the company opened a second lane: a hemp-derived Delta-9 line, 10mg to the can, that ships direct to most of the country under the 2018 Farm Bill.
The High Rise Read
Sixteen years in a category that has churned through a hundred hype brands is its own argument. Keef is not chasing novelty. It is running familiar soda flavors a first-timer recognizes instantly, which is exactly why it keeps landing with people who bounced off edibles and wrote the whole format off.
The compliance posture is worth noting too. A brand that keeps its dispensary line and its shippable hemp line genuinely separate, publishes the states it will not ship to, and tests every batch, is a brand that plans to still be here. Start with the Classic Soda — that is the one that built this.