Marijuana-infused soda pulled from stores after bottles explode

A brand of marijuana-infused soda was pulled from three different Washington state pot stores after the bottles began exploding.

“It sounded like a shotgun going off,” Zach Henifin, manager of Top Shelf Cannabis in Bellington, told an ABC News affiliate. “You can actually feel it, it was that explosive.”

Mr. Henifin said he received 330 bottles of Legal brand pomegranate soda, a brew infused with cannabis that’s made by Mirth Provisions of Longview. The next day, the bottles began to blow up, he said.

The bottles were then put in a steel box outside the shop, where they continued to explode over the next week or so, he said.

“It’s almost like a bomb box because they randomly go off during the day,” Mr. Henifin told the affiliate.

Nobody was injured, but the reason for the exploding bottles is still unknown.

Mirth Provisions founder Adam Stites said two other stores reported similarly with the bottles.

“It was simply the fact that [Mr. Henifin’s] batch had a higher yeast concentration and one of the byproducts of yeast is excessive carbon dioxide,” Mr. Stites told ABC. “Sometimes when you’re creating new products in a new marketplace there’s a little bit of a learning curve and that’s what we’ve experienced.”