House of Puff Evolves: Introducing The Spritz

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[Cold open] Kristina Adduci: I have never experienced that before, and at House of Puff we always sort of love that — you know, like a shock-and-awe, a little surprise. It's a fun kind of form factor. Holly Hager: What's awesome about it too is that it's not just for the targeted consumer. How many places are there — parks, hotels, theaters, restaurants... [Intro music and applause] Bryan Fields: What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, with me as always is Kellan Finney, and this week we've got a very special duo, the House of Puff team — Kristina Adduci and Holly Hager. Ladies, thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today? Kristina Adduci: Great, thanks for having us. Kellan Finney: Excited again. Bryan Fields: Yeah, I mean, listen — two-timer here, and we're joined by Holly. This is Holly's coming-out party. Holly, welcome to the coming-out party. Holly Hager: Thank you very much, it's a nice place to come out — I love it. Bryan Fields: And Kellan, I know you have some questions for the ladies today, but before we dive in, I want to ask — ladies, I know Kellan might think you have some West Coast loyalty, but if we had to choose East Coast versus West Coast, maybe more specifically where we currently reside? Kristina Adduci: I think that's a leading question, Bryan, but I do think there's significant loyalty on the East Coast — I'll take it. Holly Hager: Yep, East Coasters all the way. I will never not be a New Yorker, no matter where I live. Bryan Fields: But it's nice, because you've both probably spent a lot of time learning about the cannabis industry from the West Coast — we'll give you that, Kellan. Kellan Finney: Thanks, thanks — he's reaching so hard. Bryan Fields: So I think it's really important that we give a quick synopsis of what House of Puff is, and then, Christina, if you could take us back to the origin — how you and Holly met and how the brain trust was formed. Kristina Adduci: House of Puff has been around since I really like to say 2019 or 2020, when Holly came on full-time, but it all started because I was a late consumer of cannabis. Holly and I had both come from backgrounds in the art world — we had art businesses prior to this. When I went to consume for the first time, I loved the way it made me feel, but I didn't feel like the products were for me or marketed toward women like myself — they were confusing, hard to use, and quite frankly kind of ugly. So I went through my Rolodex of artists I'd interviewed over the years to come up with an MVP. At the time it was our beautiful one-hitter pipe — still our hero product to this day — rolling papers, and a beautiful candle we made with Joya out in Brooklyn. It sold out pretty quickly. Holly and I had actually met at Art Basel years ago — she's a phenomenal art writer. After working with her at my magazine, we formed a beautiful friendship. Around the time I was getting ready to sell the magazine, I was putting a rolling tray up on Instagram, and Holly saw it — she didn't know I was a cannabis consumer. We met, and I was there pitching the art magazine, but Holly wasn't interested in that — she was interested in what I was doing with House of Puff, because we had never told each other about our cannabis consumption. That's where the love affair began. Bryan Fields: Holly, is that accurate from your side? Holly Hager: Let me share the details of how we met. We were on a panel about feminist art in the shadow of a twenty-foot-high neon orgasm sculpture — a fun way to meet. Right after that, for two years, we collaborated closely every month promoting important but underrepresented women and BIPOC artists. When I saw Christina post a rolling tray, I had been using cannabis for a while under the New York medical program, using it all the time, but I never told anybody — certainly not people I worked with — because I was afraid of the stigma. I became a House of Puff customer. I knew it was more of a side hustle for her at the time. She never said a word about seeing my order — not a word. Later, when I approached her because I knew she was selling the magazine to focus on House of Puff, it was bizarre that we'd never talked about cannabis together — we'd had drinks, worked together for two years — but that's how real the stigma was. That's really what brought us together, to destigmatize and demystify cannabis. Kellan Finney: In those early days, was the plan always to build off the rolling tray and accessories with a THC product down the line, or did that come later? Walk us through the evolution. Kristina Adduci: It was a pragmatic approach. Holly and I were very new to cannabis, so we knew the regulatory constraints around launching a THC product right away. We'd been approached by producers on the West Coast, but with our design background it felt natural to start with beautiful accessories. Holly really led the charge — from supply chain to product design, working hand-in-hand with artists. Pretty quickly we were up to seventy-five or eighty SKUs. But the whole time, we knew when we entered the THC market it would have to be something special — and it was really Holly's consumption preferences that led us to our first THC product. Bryan Fields: Holly, your preference was that you're not a smoker and didn't love edibles — take us through that. Holly Hager: I have an autoimmune disease that affects my lungs and also gives me chronic pain, so I use cannabis every day to manage it. I'm not someone who can get real work done high — once my edible hits at night, no more work for me. So I relied on topicals during the day and started experimenting with sublingual tinctures and sprays — anything that wouldn't affect my lungs but would give me pain relief. I'm also a lightweight, so I wanted something where I could really control the dosing easily. I travel a lot, and I'm a woman of a certain age who likes to be discreet about consumption. I could be in pain anywhere, so I didn't want to be constrained — you're not going to whip out a tincture bottle at dinner. I wanted something on the go that was discreet, that I could use anywhere — a movie theater, a train — no matter where I was feeling pain. Bryan Fields: I love that. Before we get to the product, I want to stay on the educational side, because your content is so well done and so influential in helping people understand the industry. Was education a fundamental focus from day one? Kristina Adduci: It was all Holly. This was right around the pandemic, and a lot of the dispensaries and stores carrying us started to close, so we had to figure out how to reach consumers who were all at home. Holly came to me and said we should launch a blog. I said we're a team of two, we don't have time — but during the pandemic we took SEO courses, and we're good writers, so we started seeing real traction and ROI on the blog. Then Holly said we should launch a YouTube channel. Again I pushed back — no budget for a fancy camera — but then it dawned on me that YouTube is the second-largest search engine and everyone was on their phones watching it. So we launched our first video off an iPhone — a simple how-to-roll-a-joint video. A reminder: we're all in our cannabis industry bubble, but so many mainstream consumers still don't know the difference between CBD and CBN, or what a terpene is. Holly's a former teacher and really wanted to bring it back to basics. Our target audience wasn't legacy operators who already knew all this — it was women, the cannabis-curious, people at home like me. A lot of the how-to-roll-a-joint videos at the time were bros in their mom's basements, Rolling Stone or High Times style, and I wanted to see someone like me — a woman of color — teaching me how to roll a joint, because I'm still not great at it. Within a year we became one of the most-watched how-to-roll-a-joint videos out there. But credit where it's due — it was all Holly's idea. Holly Hager: It might have been my idea, but Christina is the one who executes. I'm comfortable behind the camera, not so much on camera, so we make a perfect duo — I write, produce, and edit; she performs. But it's a big back-and-forth between us. The key was showing cannabis in a completely different light. We're closing in on 3.5 million views on our channel. Most of our YouTube audience is actually male, not female, so these videos appeal to everyone, not just women. When I first joined House of Puff, I spent half an hour in my kitchen trying to figure out which end of the one-hitter to smoke through until I called Christina to walk me through it — and I'd been consuming cannabis on and off since college. A lot of people are like that. Kellan Finney: You've done a great job avoiding direct marketing on the YouTube channel — has that always been the plan, and has it gotten harder to resist monetizing as views grow? Holly Hager: It's frustrating, but when you get demonetized or shut down once, like we did, you realize you absolutely cannot directly monetize in the current environment. We use it as a strong referral channel instead — it's built a lot of trust and expanded the market by creating new consumers who now know what questions to ask when they walk into a dispensary. I was terrified my first time in a dispensary, even as a grown woman. Bryan Fields: I think that's such a powerful feeling, and seeing someone like Christina on screen is comforting for people experiencing this for the first time. Holly, I was surprised more men search for this content than women — are there certain videos with a stronger female audience? Holly Hager: It's pretty consistent, though we're gaining more female followers — women are harder to bring into cannabis because of the stigma. We also have a lot of seniors who grew up around cannabis as a taboo thing and are still adjusting to the idea that it's legal now. Bryan Fields: Any videos you thought would smash that didn't, or the opposite? Holly Hager: Our gummy video did really well. The cannabutter video didn't do as well as we hoped. Product reviews haven't performed as well either, probably because those products are siloed to one state, so there's a smaller potential audience. Kristina Adduci: We did one on concentrates — rosin versus shatter, dabbing — and I wasn't sure our beginner-focused audience was ready for that level, but it exploded. Turns out a lot of people don't know the difference and are very interested once they've already done joints, vapes, and edibles and are ready for the next level. Bryan Fields: So let's get into the new product. Was there any data or analytics behind its development, or was it more anecdotal from your own audience feedback? Holly Hager: It was anecdotal product testing more than analytics. I found a similar product on the market — not as clean, didn't do all the tricks — and every time I pulled it out of my bag, people, including some very anti-cannabis people, would ask what it was and want to try it. Christina, a die-hard smoker, would always ask for it in a cab, on the train, at the theater. We did that ad hoc testing for about three years, and it brought in both men and women who'd never smoke, and even super-legacy consumers loved it. Kristina Adduci: We also loved the reaction — a lot of people, even lifelong consumers, had never seen anything like it. Especially people in New York. At House of Puff we love that shock-and-awe, that fun form factor, so that contributed to deciding: if we find the right partner, we're doing this. Bryan Fields: So can you explain to our West Coast audience what the actual product is? Kristina Adduci: Yes — it's a pocket-sized oral THC spray, sublingual. It comes in two formulations: our Social Spritz, which is two milligrams THC to one milligram CBD — like a personality drink before a night out — and it's minty, like an old-school Binaca, so you get a little high and fresh breath. And our Serenity Spritz, a beautiful pink formulation — I don't think I've ever seen a pink sublingual spray on the market — which is one-to-one-to-one THC, CBN, and CBD, with a tropical, lush flavor that takes the edge off the day. Bryan Fields: What was the development process like for such a unique product? Holly Hager: It was a long one. We wanted to do it for years, but a lot of processors just weren't inspired by it — they were more interested in traditional products like pre-rolls. We kept refining what we wanted until we met Ilan from Lunada, a New York processor, at our annual Hamptons party this past August. By the end of one lunch we had a handshake deal. He immediately understood the vision and had ideas for how to produce it cleanly — much cleaner than the butane-processed spray I'd been using. This one is ethanol-processed, and we're actually moving to CO2 processing for our next batch, because health and cleanliness were huge priorities for me given my own health issues. Bryan Fields: What's the typical first reaction when you show people the product? Kristina Adduci: Most of the time it's, "Wow, that tastes delicious — how high am I going to get?" People don't want to be blitzed in the middle of the day, which is why we dosed it low, at two-to-one milligrams. We check in thirty minutes later and they're smiling ear to ear, sometimes asking for another spritz. Even older consumers, who are usually more nervous, respond really well. Someone recently even asked if we could spritz their mocktail. Bryan Fields: How exciting is it to finally bring this to market after such a long journey? Kristina Adduci: Entering the adult-use market in New York is really exciting, and we're filling a real gap — there are maybe only two or three sublingual sprays in the state. We don't like calling ourselves a cannabis brand; I'm not a "canna-mom," I'm a mom who consumes cannabis. This spray is really an ode to luxury consumption — whether you're at a concert or the park, it's about living your life the way you already live it, with a discreet product you can enjoy anywhere. That's why we built House of Puff in the first place. Bryan Fields: The packaging and presentation are so aesthetically pleasing — how much did your art backgrounds influence that, and which took longer, packaging or formulation? Kristina Adduci: I'll take packaging and let Holly take formulation. We're lucky to have an incredible team of artists and creative directors, though Holly and I had final say on everything. Our senior advisor Kyle Mayan, who's worked with Formula 1 and motocross, helped with packaging, and Billy Richards from Skyscraper Creative helped with naming and feel. When you open it, it mimics unwrapping a bottle of Patrón, wrapped in beautiful tissue paper — packaging experience is very important to us. Our CMO Amy Dennis and the rest of the creative team made sure packaging was just as important as formulation. Holly Hager: On formulation — funny story — the first time we were testing flavors, we didn't realize the sample actually contained THC. I was doing a wine-tasting-style taste-and-spit, but was actually swishing it around and absorbing it, so by noon I was completely stoned. It ended up being one of the best lunches ever. Kellan Finney: Are there plans to expand the portfolio — thinking of something like Mr. Beast and Feastables, or Logan Paul and Prime, building a creator-trust platform into a product line? Is this the grand opening of something bigger? Kristina Adduci: We have plans you'll all find out about soon enough. We're not stopping at the Spritzes — the feedback's already been incredible, and we launch in two days. We have a lot in the pipeline that will complement the Spritz, because House of Puff is really about the cultivation of luxury cannabis consumption. Bryan Fields: Any educational YouTube content planned around the launch? Holly Hager: Of course — we wouldn't be House of Puff without a video. It won't be like any cannabis video you've seen before. We'll leave it at that. Bryan Fields: Are you focused on growing in New York first, or looking at other states for the Spritz? Kristina Adduci: We have an exciting partnership, which most people don't know about yet, with Etain, which is going public soon and opening a gorgeous location in White Plains. You'll see things at that shop you've never seen before at a dispensary, involving the Spritz and an incredible video we're producing for the shop-in-shop concept. Bryan Fields: Let's do a quick segment — "Which Partner Am I" — who's more likely to text late at night or early morning with a new idea? Holly Hager: That would be Christina. Kristina Adduci: I call them my ideas. Bryan Fields: Who's more likely to want to redo a video clip? Kristina Adduci: Holly. Bryan Fields: Who's obsessed with analytics and comments on content performance? Kristina Adduci: Holly Joy Hager — don't tell my middle name! Bryan Fields: Who's more likely to push the boundaries of content or products in the future? Holly Hager: Probably me — she's a rule follower. Kristina Adduci: Yeah, I'm a compliance nerd. Bryan Fields: What's one thing about working with each other that we don't know? Holly Hager: She seems easy-breezy, but this woman is on point every minute of the day — it's difficult to keep up with her. Kristina Adduci: Holly is very thoughtful and compassionate, and doesn't need accolades — she'll tell me months later about spending time with old interns or paying for someone's help out of her own pocket. She's one of the most giving people I know, but she doesn't shout it from the mountaintops. Bryan Fields: Three people, dead or alive, for a Spritz session? Holly Hager: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Gertrude Stein, and Michelle Obama. Kristina Adduci: Helen Frankenthaler, an amazing abstract expressionist artist; Jackie O, so we could talk gossip and fashion; and Stephen Colbert — nerd that he is, I adore him. Bryan Fields: What's the most expensive lesson either of you has learned? Holly Hager: Believe someone when they tell you who they are the first time. Kristina Adduci: Work-related, sort of building on Holly's answer — if it smells like bad money, it's probably bad money. Bryan Fields: What question do you wish more people asked you? Kristina Adduci: I wish more people asked me about my mom — she's the idol of my life, the reason I'm an entrepreneur, and I could talk about her forever. Bryan Fields: If you could put anything on a billboard to reach billions of people, what would it be? Kristina Adduci: A Spanish phrase — ganas — do it with pride, give it your all, go all in. Holly Hager: Be kinder to yourself and everyone around you. Bryan Fields: Last one — how do you see the evolution of consumer preferences impacting the cannabis industry, especially around destigmatization? Holly Hager: I think we're still in cannabis 2.0, partly because of prohibition, but as we move into cannabis 3.0, where brands become real brands and shopping feels more mainstream, cannabis should eventually become like wine — just a normal part of a life well lived, not the whole story. Kristina Adduci: I agree. My prediction is high potency out, low potency in. There's a belief that higher potency gets you higher, and for some people, sure, but low-potency products combined with cannabinoids and terpenes in a good form factor can help a lot of people, including with anxiety and health issues. Budtenders always ask how much THC is in something, and I think we need to rewrite that narrative — cannabis-curious or nervous people aren't going to start with a twenty-milligram vape or gummy. Bringing people in through a low-dose message will help destigmatize and demystify cannabis. Kellan Finney: I think you'll see what happened to tobacco in the '90s happen to cannabis in the next decade — lighting something on fire and inhaling it isn't great for long-term health, and with form factors like the Spritz, beverages, and gummies, we're on the verge of decoupling the image of cannabis-as-plant-you-light-on-fire from the experience of consuming THC and other active ingredients. Bryan Fields: I agree completely — the consumer base isn't that long-haired, grungy stereotype anymore, it's a much wider audience, including people who don't like smoking but want to experience cannabis. Low-dose products in comforting form factors solve the comfort hurdle, and for someone like me who drinks less these days, a quick Spritz instead of a few beers has been a real game changer. Bryan Fields: For those who want the product or want to watch your YouTube channel, where can they find you? Kristina Adduci: We go live February 1st. The first dispensaries will be Union Square Travel Agency, Herbal IQ, and Gotham, with Etain opening by the end of February in White Plains. We'll keep updating as more dispensaries come online — follow us on Instagram at House of Puff, and our YouTube channel is House of Puff. We'll have a blog post constantly updating with dispensaries as they go live, so keep an eye out, and we'd love to hear what your audience thinks. Bryan Fields: Awesome, we'll link it in the show notes. Congratulations again, and thanks for taking the time. Kristina Adduci / Holly Hager: Thank you, you guys are the best.