Tranquilitas vs. Hiyo: A Side-by-Side Look at Ingredients and Effects

Hiyo has done a genuinely good job making the "sober curious" moment feel fun instead of like a compromise. Their cans show up at parties, they lean into the social side of things, and I think that's a smart angle. But Hiyo and Tranquilitas are actually solving pretty different problems, so I wanted to lay out exactly how they compare.

What's in Hiyo

Hiyo is a non-alcoholic, 0% ABV seltzer. It's non-cannabis derived, so no THC or CBD. Each can has around 1,700mg of what they describe as bio-available adaptogens, nootropics, and botanicals, and the ones they name are ashwagandha, L-theanine, lion's mane, lemon balm, passion flower, and ginger. It's a wide, kitchen-sink kind of blend, and to their credit, it's USDA organic, non-GMO, and vegan.

One thing worth knowing: Hiyo doesn't publish individual dosages for each of those six ingredients. You get the total, 1,700mg, but not the breakdown.

What's in Tranquilitas

Tranquilitas has five ingredients: 250mg magnesium as magnesium glycinate, 200mg L-theanine, 3g inositol, 2g taurine, and saffron extract. Fewer ingredients, but each one is there at a dose we can actually point to research for.

The real difference: breadth versus depth

This is really the core distinction between the two brands. Hiyo is going for breadth, six different botanicals working together to create a general "relaxed, social" feeling. That's a reasonable approach, and a lot of people genuinely enjoy it.

We went the other way. When you combine six ingredients into one blended total, it gets a lot harder to know if any single one of them is actually at a dose that does something, or if it's mostly there for the ingredient list. Ashwagandha, for example, generally needs to be in the 300 to 600mg range in studies to show real effects on cortisol and anxiety. If Hiyo's blend is spread across six ingredients totaling 1,700mg, it's worth asking how much of that is actually ashwagandha, and whether it clears that bar.

We didn't want to make that same tradeoff, which is honestly part of why we chose not to use ashwagandha at all. We wrote a whole post about that decision if you want the full reasoning, but the short version is: we don't think most people should be taking ashwagandha daily and Tranquilitas is designed to be part of your daily routine.

What each one is actually good for

If your goal is a fun, social drink to have at a gathering instead of a cocktail, Hiyo is built for that moment and does it well. It's designed to be part of the vibe.

If your goal is something you can reach for regularly, in the afternoon at your desk or in the evening winding down, and you want to know precisely what you're putting in your body and why, that's exactly the gap Tranquilitas is built to fill. It's less about the occasion and more about consistently supporting a calmer nervous system, day to day.

The bottom line

Neither one of these is trying to be the same product, honestly. Hiyo is a social mocktail with a wellness angle. Tranquilitas is a daily functional drink with ingredient transparency. If you care about knowing exactly what dose of what you're getting and why, that's where we think we pull ahead. If you're mostly looking for something to hand someone at a party, Hiyo does that job well.