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  • 7/4/2025
Aaron Nosbisch was 13 years old when he smoked his first joint in a friend’s backyard in their Western Illinois suburb. It was an exceptionally risky high for Nosbisch, who knew that when he returned home, he would be facing his father—an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Over the next five years, if Nosbisch ever came home a little stoned—and he often did—his dad would pound on his smoking buddies’ doors and greet them with arrest threats.

“It scared the hell out of them, and lost me a few friends,” says Nosbisch. “Back then, the idea was that if you were involved in cannabis, you’re on a slippery slope down to demise.”

Now 31, Nosbisch runs one of the best-selling brands in the cannabis industry’s buzziest sector: the THC beverage market. Founded in 2023, Brēz is a low-dose cannabis drink infused with Lion’s Mane mushrooms, which many believe have health benefits including improved cognition and inflammation. The company brought in $28 million in revenue last year and $13 million in the first quarter of 2025. It’s outpacing nearly every other competitor, and at just the right time.

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Transcript
00:00Today on Forbes, meet the founder of America's best-selling cannabis drink.
00:06At 13 years old, Aaron Naspich smoked his first joint in a friend's backyard in their western Illinois suburb.
00:14This was an exceptionally risky high for Naspich, who knew that when he returned home, he would be facing his father,
00:20an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
00:24Over the next five years, if Naspich ever came home a little stoned, and he often did,
00:31his dad would pound on his smoking buddies' doors and greet them with arrest threats.
00:37Now 31, Naspich runs one of the best-selling brands in the cannabis industry's buzziest sector,
00:44the THC Beverage Market, and his dad is a customer.
00:49After losing his chief marketing officer job due to equity disagreements at Monk,
00:53an aromatherapy vape brand, Naspich leaned on his favorite pastime, getting high.
01:00He says, quote,
01:01It got to a point where I was like, wow, I'm smoking a lot of pot.
01:05I gotta make this profitable somehow.
01:08In 2018, he co-founded a CBD brand, which sold non-psychoactive products until the company's
01:15Facebook account was restricted for failing to comply with Meta's advertising policies.
01:20Though the business fizzled out, Naspich was inspired to start an agency called Lucid in
01:262019 to solve the complex problem of advertising federally illegal cannabis.
01:33Most social platforms have strict, conflicting, and sometimes arbitrary regulations when it comes
01:38to advertising cannabis products.
01:41Naspich says, quote,
01:42I just paid really close attention to Facebook's rules, figured out what was allowed, what wasn't
01:48allowed, and did the same thing with Google, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok to come up with
01:54strategies on how to compliantly advertise these products.
01:58By 2023, Naspich says his company handled advertising for 60 of the top cannabis brands,
02:05including low-dose THC beverage pioneer Can.
02:08The product impressed Naspich, quote,
02:12as a guy who used to drink a lot of alcohol and stop drinking alcohol.
02:16And he fell in love with the beverage sector, especially after seeing Can take off.
02:21He soon started dreaming up his own cannabis beverage.
02:25He says, quote,
02:27I took all of my experience in e-commerce, cannabis, and wellness, and I brought in the smartest
02:32people I know from past projects to hit the ground running.
02:35Launched on cannabis' high holiday, 4-20, in 2023,
02:41Breeze is a low-dose cannabis drink infused with lion's mane mushrooms,
02:45which many believe have health benefits including improved cognition and inflammation.
02:51It earned around $1.3 million in its first year and became profitable after six months.
02:57Breeze brought in $28 million in revenue last year and $13 million in the first quarter of 2025.
03:05It's outpacing nearly every other competitor.
03:08It's outpacing nearly every other competitor.

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