Lemonnade is the sativa-leaning sister brand to Cookies, started in 2015 by Berner and breeder Brett Wilson, who works as Growing Passion. It makes flavor-first flower, pre-rolls, extracts and live rosin vapes around lemon-bright cuts like Lemonchello, and its name hangs over dispensaries in Sacramento and Denver. The founding bet was simple: sativa smokers were stuck with the same few tired flavors.
Berner, Brett Wilson and the sativa gap
Berner and Wilson built Lemonnade on a blunt read of the market. Nobody was really focusing on sativa consumers, Berner said at the 2020 launch, and most sativa flavors on shelves were extremely similar and old. "The sativas already on the market were limited and all pretty much tasted the same, so it was past time for something fresh," he added that September.
The pair spent four years in research and development before the first storefront opened. The house line is plain about priorities: weed grown for smokers who care about flavor above all else, with a menu built on taste, potency and smooth smoke. Lemonnade sits inside the Cookies family rather than beside it, from shared genetics to shared shelves and co-branded drops.
The Original Lemonnade and the Lemonchello line
The namesake strain, The Original Lemonnade, is Wilson's cross of Lemon OG and Gorilla Haze, bred under the Growing Passion name. It became the parent of the Lemonchello family, which crosses The Original Lemonnade with Cherry Pie, the Durban Poison and Granddaddy Purple cross made by Cookies co-founder Jai.
Lemonchello comes in numbered cuts, and both Lemonchello 10 and Lemonchello 28 sit on the Sacramento menu. Londonchello was bred by Cookies and Lemonnade together. The Sacramento stores list a deep bench of house strains beyond those: Cake Mix, Yellow Fruit Stripes, Lion's Mane, Blanco, Lemon Pepper, Lychee, Tang Eray, Ooh Lala and Medellin, plus the original Lemonnade.
Ooh La La with Run the Jewels
In July 2020 Cookies teamed with Killer Mike and El-P of Run the Jewels on Ooh La La, a strain named for the lead single from their album RTJ4. Lemonnade bred it, pairing its sativa focus with the duo's taste for indicas.
The release came as flower, pre-rolls, vapes, extracts and blunts, sold at Cookies stores in Merced, Modesto, La Mesa, Oakland and Redding, at the Lemonnade store in Sacramento and at the Cookies shop in Detroit. Berner called the duo "legit cannabis enthusiasts."
From Fee Drive to Denver
The first Lemonnade dispensary opened on July 19, 2020, at 1115 Fee Drive in Sacramento, with 3HHG Group and Hayk Serobyan as the local retail partner. It opened with more than 15 exclusive sativas, plus hybrids, indicas, infused products and an apparel line, and the rollout plan that summer called for two Portland stores and more California doors.
Portland came that September, when the Magic Castle dispensary at 11321 SW 64th Avenue rebranded as Lemonnade and debuted Lions Mane alongside Cake Mix. Magic Castle president Alex Eliasyan pitched the flower as top shelf on the level of high-end cognac or champagne.
Southern California followed in October 2020 with a 1,500-square-foot store at 12800 Wentworth Street in Arleta, run with retail and cultivation partner AmericannMade. It opened with a Terpene Wall display and seasonal gear from Cookies family brands Collins Ave, Grandiflora, Runtz and Run the Jewels. AmericannMade COO Casey Reinholtz promised an experience "whether in the store or at the moment of ignition."
Sacramento now has two Lemonnade doors: the original on Fee Drive and a South Sacramento shop on 47th Avenue, each under its own California retail license. Lemonnade Denver, at 4500 Washington Street, mixes Cookies collaborations with local Colorado brands across flower, concentrates, edibles, pre-rolls, carts and drinks.
Rosin vapes, hemp drops and a THC iced tea
Lemonnade's newer hardware runs on live rosin. The Lemonchello 10 all-in-one sold in California holds a full gram of live rosin blended with live diamonds, pitched with the line "Taste your weed, not your hardware." Online, Cookies' hemp web shop carries a Lemonnade line of THCA-blend flower in 3.5-gram bags, 2-milliliter disposables and diamond-infused pre-rolls, in flavors like Lemon Beltz, Watermelon Mojito, Tahitian Lime and Guava Gelato.
Collaborations reach past flower, too. In March 2024 Green Monké and Cookies launched Original California Iced Tea Lemonade, a 100-milligram THC drink in a 12-ounce can, stocked at Cookies and Lemonnade stores in California. The parent brand's full arc is in Cookies: How Berner Turned One Strain Into a Global Cannabis Empire.
For adults 21 and over.