Now that marijuana is legal for recreational use in Washington, stores have probably not been surprised to see pot-infused products flying off the shelves. But when there’s soda literally exploding on the shelves, well, that’s not the best way to clear out the inventory. At least three marijuana product purveyors in the state have had to pull a sparkling pomegranate soda made with pot after bottles started exploding mysteriously.

Employees at one store say the day after they first stocked the stuff, they came in that morning to find a bunch of broken bottles, dripping soda and shards of glass around the store, reports KOMO News.

Was it a vandal? A vengeful ghost? A thirsty raccoon? No one knew — until the workers witnessed the abrupt explosions themselves.

“It sounded like a shotgun going off,” said the store’s manager. “You can actually feel it, it was that explosive”.

Decked out in protective clothing, he treated the unexploded soda like a bomb and put it in a steel box outside the store while the staff cleaned up the mess. The pot pop continued to pop itself inside the box for the next 10 days.

No one has been hurt, but the store’s customers could have unopened bottles at home that might explode. Two other stores reported soda issues as well, the founder of company behind the soda says.

“It was simply the fact that his batch had a higher yeast concentration, and one of the by-products of yeast is excess carbon dioxide,” he explains, adding that the bottles had been pressure tested, but that there was just too much yeast building up in the bottles.

He says he’ll give a full refund to the shops, though it seems there’s a bone of contention over who will pick up and dispose of the volatile bottles.

The thing is, stores are supposed to quarantine marijuana products for 72 hours to allow state Liquor Control Board officers to inspect them for compliance… But what if the products refuse to cooperate and blow themselves up instead?

And although the soda company sent a driver to pick up the soda nine days after it started going boom, the shop’s manager says the driver only took a few bottles before they started exploding, and he abandoned the rest.

The company said it’ll pick up the rest of the bottles later this week, though by yesterday, most had already exploded inside the steel box.

“Sometimes when your creating new products in new marketplace there’s a little bit of a learning curve and that’s what we’ve experienced,” the soda company owner adds.

Exploding ‘pot pop’ removed from three marijuana shops [KOMO News]

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