Cannabis Weddings - Sitting Down with Lucas from High Bar Toronto

We had the privilege of sitting with Lucas over a Zoom call to discuss everything High Bar! If you haven’t heard about High Bar yet, then you MUST read this Blog! An innovative company, High Bar is your personal cannabis bartender that serves your guests homegrown, clean, legal cannabis at any of your events. 

Tell us a little bit about yourself and High Bar.

Well, my background is events. I have been doing events since I was about fifteen years old, whether it was DJing, MCing, or creating event buzz for various events in the GTA, and then I transitioned into corporate and personal events, but I have also been an activist towards legal and regulated cannabis. The reason I have been an activist is because my mom was using medical cannabis to help her with appetite, so I was introduced to not just the recreational side of cannabis growing up but also the medical side of it and it really helped me. See, as an entertainer I really took on a lot of the anxieties of planning and hosting events but then after the event is completed, I am bouncing off the walls from the adrenaline of it all so instead of a glass of wine or something to relax me, cannabis has been that calming agent for me. With that in mind, I started creating the concept for High Bar, I wanted to call it Canna-bar back then, but it was not until 2017 when I registered High Bar and started really putting things together for events. We were extremely fortunate that we were able to do corporate, weddings, even birthday parties and able to evaluate what would work or what did not work, and then reassessed everything to be even better. We are really excited for the next year because we have some incredible services that are going to BLOW PEOPLES MINDS!

The bar was always designed to be cannabis friendly but also non-offence to non-cannabis users. Just like I do not drink alcohol at a function does not mean you can’t serve alcohol, and I’m not offended by it, so I created an alternative that was healthier than alcohol and an alternative to guests that don’t drink alcohol. Sometimes guests have that pressure that they must consume alcohol because that is all the hosts are providing but now that we have High Bar, we’re really getting hosts the opportunity to really cater to all of their guests.

Do you have cannabis sommeliers?

Yes, we have both male and female cannabis sommeliers who are there to engage the guests and answer any questions they may have that are so knowledgeable that they really help the clients on the day of, but even assist the clients on the process on how to choose the right bar that will be the most beneficial for their event. With cannabis, you have to remember that it’s a fruit, so when you’re serving it, each cannabis has different affects so you need to find which cannabis will be most beneficial for you. 

Can we infuse your cannabis with drinks?

We have a service called “The Infusing Experience” where we have a device with the push of a button to inject precisely 1mg of THC and CBD or just CBD into any beverage. It does not affect the taste or smell of that beverage so we can make any non-alcoholic beverage and infuse the cannabis into it. For those who have never consumed cannabis, after about 10 to 15 minutes of consuming it, you start to feel the full affects, just like if you’d had a beer or a glass of wine. After you’ve had that beverage, you can make the decision if you want another cannabis beverage or a non-cannabis beverage, just like beer or alcohol. What we’re trying to do is educate clients to find that sweet spot. If you go beyond that sweet spot, just like with alcohol, you only ruin the experience and regret it the next day. Now, obviously those who consume cannabis regularly won’t want or need such a low dose because they will have a higher tolerance, so we also offer other services that will cater to those guests as well. We have pre-rolls that are sealed in a childproof, air-tight tube, which allows guests to take a joint, go outside, take one or more puffs, put it back inside the tube, go back to the party and not smell up the entire room.

What are your thoughts on edibles at weddings or events?

Cannabis catering experiences will never work at a wedding or corporate event, that’s more for at-home experiences with a private group. For a wedding structure, we don’t recommend edibles or infused food in any way, shape or form, and the reason is because the onset is too light, meaning it could take an hour, it could take six hours, it might never come into affect because it all depends on so many factors, like what you ate before, if your stomach is full or empty; all these factors alter the affects in the long run.

Do you offer self-serve or is there always a bartender?

There is always a bartender on-site or a cannabis sommelier. We will always pass the beverages or items to the guests ourselves so no one can come up to the bar and take anything. Everything we offer throughout the night is one to one so your guests can truly enjoy what they’re drinking or smoking intimately.

What are the legal ramifications or legal items your clients could have?

Everything is legal, so there aren’t any legal ramifications our clients might have, but we always recommend our guests get liability insurance whether servicing cannabis or alcohol, simply as a precaution. We make sure that all the cannabis we share is legal, we stay away from illegal market cannabis at events because they aren’t regulated. The biggest risk to smoking cannabis is that it has mold or full of pesticides or other chemicals, which give you negative side effects, which is why all of our items are made to order for our clients.Do you offer self-serve or is there always a bartender?

How do you find clients are using High Bar in terms of when to serve? Cocktail hour? All night like an alcohol bar? Maybe as a party favour?

We actually offer all of those options, so depending on the time sometimes we will recommend having the infused beverages during the regular hours, and then the pre-rolls at the end of the night which can double into party favours for the guests to take home. It’s really up to the client in terms of what they feel comfortable with. There is still a stigma around cannabis so what I find is that there are a lot of wedding clients that are booking us for their sweet table because a lot of the older guests will have left by then but I think that’s a big mistake so you don’t want to cater to the guests who leave early. You want to cater to everyone, whether they’re newbies or not, which is why we’re really excited about these drink infusions because then everyone can try it at the beginning of the night instead of alcohol and really enjoy it.

You want something new for your event, this is the way to do it! Contact Lucas from High Bar today by clicking here. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed with everything they can offer to make your wedding a success!