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The Island Takeover Part II: Cayman Cigars Returns · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

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  The station where our veterans voices are heard.
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  MBR talk. Hey, thanks for supporting our
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  channel by watching and listening.
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  Find this on the web at MB Radio dot US.
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  Yeah, and why boarding and why built?
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  Waters up your vanilla gorilla, big dog.
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  And if nobody at home knows who this guy is, this is the big
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  dog. And he did get a tip from the
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  Brooklyn products early and they had travel issues.
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  Not being scared of anything like this one.
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  Muscle kills hands. There's another girl in my
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  minimum. Touchable.
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  Now we just sort of the. City.
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  Ranchers. Elbows harder
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  Yo-yo, yo, what is up? What is up?
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  Happy Sunday, Happy Fun day. Two things I got to mention.
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  One on 1st. I hope I can hear you.
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  Yeah. OK, Happy Sunday, Happy fun day.
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  There you go. Two things I want to mention
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  about the wrestling world. One is POC from.
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  AEW known as Neville in WWE and. Then one of my good friends.
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  One of our former guests yesterday.
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  One of our former guests, the Metal Maniac, Jeff Miller.
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  Has passed away last night, yes, that's a big shock to a lot of
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  us. Oh, everybody.
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  But as far as I do know, he did have some health issues.
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  I found out. Yeah.
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  Yeah, cancer. Because he was telling somebody
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  about it. Actually, if you read his
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  Facebook post Tommy Fiero. Yes.
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  He but he always spoke very highly of Tommy.
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  That's one thing Jeff always did was speak highly about him.
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  Because he was always on Tommy's carts.
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  Yes, so we send our condolences to their families and friends.
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  I mean losing Jeff for us was a big thing as well.
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  Known him for years. My mother-in-law was his number
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  one fan. Great.
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  Tore the house down with Jimmy Snooker every night they went
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  out. I mean from beginning to end
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  when he got linked up with Jimmy, they, they basically went
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  everywhere together and tore the house down from here to Japan
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  and back. So that's a shout.
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  Out to Hawaii. That's a huge loss for the
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  industry. Shout out to Hawaii.
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  On a career lighter, yes guys, as you see, I am not.
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  I'm not smoking. Because you.
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  Can't came in cigar. I'm just getting over being
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  sick. I don't want to smoke something
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  new and not be able to properly give you guys the feedback.
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  I can slowly start smoking a small 1.
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  So we're we're getting places. I have a little bit of taste
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  back now. Doesn't taste like crap, so
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  we're getting there. I disappeared from the show.
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  I got to go take a. Shit.
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  So again, where, where we're getting somewhere.
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  You know what I mean, guys? We're we're getting somewhere.
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  This from last night. Yeah, so.
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  A. Little bit of housekeeping, go
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  check the Instagram. You've seen our schedule.
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  Next week is Bootleggers Coffee. The week after we are actually
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  with another podcast as well, The Puro's Music Podcast.
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  She will be on our show. Then we have a special Wednesday
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  night show on the 21st with black stogies.
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  Then we have I have somebody taking care of that.
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  Then we have RM cigars as well that we'd be doing a live show
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  with on the 25th, which is that Sunday or the 28th I think I
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  forget the dates. We are also sitting down with
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  Daniel Lance as well from Domain Cigars, Pariah Cigars, I mean
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  you name it. Furman Perez is not made out of
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  the same factory. He is familiar De Isla, so there
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  is a lot going on with him. We're going to talk to him in a
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  couple weeks. We got the macho birds coming on
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  sometime in the next two months. Yep, I'm working on somebody
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  else as well. We got to try to hit him up and
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  settle a date down. They're supposed to come on
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  quite a few months ago or last year, but we had to come here
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  instead. So we got to hit them back up.
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  But yeah, on that note, guys, let's take a quick little 3 or 4
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  minute break, pay our bills and then come back with our guests.
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  Saying what is up, what is up? Happy Sunday, Happy fun day.
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  You don't forget the Giants game is on at one O clock today.
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  New York Giants, one O clock, one O clock.
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  And we got a special guest with us today from Cayman Seagal.
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  Let's bring them in. The interview of the week is
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  brought to you by Jersey Mike's, a sub above.
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  So we are back guys. We are live with a returning
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  guest this week. Turnbuckles and Stogies returns
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  to the island with Cayman Cigars.
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  We have Scott and Anthony joining us.
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  Let's bring them up now. What's up gentlemen?
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  How are you? Hey, guys, Guys, how are we
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  doing Good. How are you?
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  Fantastic. Awesome.
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  Great to see you again. Yes, yes, for.
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  The cigars, they're really good. I smoked the the small one when
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  I first got them. I'm smoking the second one
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  today. Awesome.
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  Which one? I'm smoking them broadly.
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  It's the big one. Nice.
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  Yeah, I'll. Be I'll be dabbling in those
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  when I'm fully there and ready to take on a full cigar again.
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  So I'm almost there. I'm like right on the right on
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  the cusp of being better because the other day I couldn't even
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  smoke a little one of these without it tasting terrible.
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  So, Anthony, we know everything about Scott.
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  I want you to tell us about you. Before we before we get going
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  though, guys, hey, I just wanted to, to, to to let you know you
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  have our, our symphonies Symphony sympathies for the the
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  passing year, friend Jeff. I heard that in the opening.
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  And yeah, I never had the pleasure of meeting, meeting the
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  gentleman, but he sounds like, you know, a, a, a straight up
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  dude and he he'll be met. He was on a card with me and my
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  mother-in-law was a big fan of his and she's like, I want to
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  meet him, my wife said. I said come on let's go.
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  She went in the back and they hugged and he kissed her and
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  they've been, they were friends ever since.
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  I had to call him and tell him that she died and he was like
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  get the fuck out of here. I was like Nope, he passed away.
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  Yeah, well, that's always tough to hear, but you've got our
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  thoughts and our condolences. Thank you.
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  Thank you. Do I have to tell us what you do
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  for Scott? And well, so I've been in the
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  cigar industry or around it for about 20 years now with Scott.
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  I run operations for them. So basically oversee all the
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  production of our cigars, run marketing, and then also
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  interact and liaise and help run the team overall.
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  So that's my main job. But in the industry, I've been
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  blessed to have been able to be, you know, a Rep at one point, a
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  shop owner at one point, you know, been director of digital
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  marketing for Cigars International and all of their
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  affiliate cigars. So, you know, I've kind of
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  played different roles throughout time across the
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  industry. But yeah, love working with
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  Cayman. Cayman's been a great honor of a
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  lifetime, and doing the work we're doing with Scott's been a
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  lot of fun. Yeah, we had a blast.
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  The last time Scott was on we, I said to Joe, I want to back on
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  it again. Yeah, you.
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  Know that's good people. You haven't.
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  Made time to come back on 'cause it's great.
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  So what shop did you own? So I owned one in Arizona for a
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  little while, called Ford on 5th.
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  Owned it with my wife Melanie, and we did that for a couple
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  years. And before that, like I said, I
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  was, I was a Rep for the Southwest in Midwest.
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  Well, yeah, kind of into the Midwest territory.
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  So I worked for LA Florida Minicana and ran like 9 states
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  for them, you know, Arizona being one of them, but Texas
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  being the primary one and all the affiliated states kind of
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  around those areas. So kind of the fun part is I've
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  got to see both sides of the industry, right?
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  You know, from different elements.
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  And honestly, actually started, actually, I forgot about this.
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  I started with a blog in the industry.
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  That's how I got into the industry to begin with.
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  Long, long ago in 2008, started one with my buddy Rob, who
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  actually works with Scott and us as well over at Cayman.
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  And that's how we got into it. Wow.
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  So you've been doing this 20 years, huh?
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  Yeah, yeah, so close to like I said, you know, we started the
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  blog in 2008, but a couple years before that I had started.
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  So I was a teacher by trade. And so at night time I went to
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  this local shop of mine with my dad and my buddies and I met Rob
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  over there. It's called Casa Fuma.
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  I was over in Arizona. It's now one of the Foxes.
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  So if you ever in Arizona, some of the bigger Fox or cigar
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  chains out there is Fox Cigar Bar.
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  So I started working nights for them just to kind of pay down
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  some of my cigars. You know, teacher salaries
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  aren't necessarily the strongest salaries.
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  So did that and I fell in love with it.
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  I was an English teacher. So the way that I got into the
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  blog part was Rob worked for GoDaddy and wanted to build a
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  site and A blog for the industry, but he wanted someone
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  to edit the articles and really kind of help with overseeing
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  that part. So that's where him and I
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  interconnected and that's where I started to learn all the
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  digital marketing that I ended up doing for a lot of these
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  companies. You know, down the line was what
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  I did on the blog there. And then kind of like I said, it
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  just took a a pretty wild journey from there.
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  OK. So Scott, I want you to tell us
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  about the cigars you sent us. I have the two.
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  I have both of them here. Don't show them here.
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  Yeah, I got it right here. You've got the the doubloon and
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  the broadside. No, we've got the the
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  broadsides. Oh, the broadsides.
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  Yep. Yes, we had the, I believe the
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  doubloons we had last time you were on.
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  I thought so. I I thought that was the case.
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  Yeah. The broadsides are the
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  broadsides are our newest offering from the, the, the
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  absolute artistry of Esteban and Anthony Diesela in Nicaragua,
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  you know, working their magic. And that that came into the
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  broadside cigar. And it's our, in my opinion, our
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  our most full body cigar, at least to me, I'm still on my
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  learning curve, you know, when it comes to cigars.
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  I haven't smoked a whole lot that that I would consider to
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  be, you know, too, you know, kind of like a velvet hammer, if
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  you will. But the doubloon, I think is a
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  super full bodied cigar, but it's packed with richness and
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  fullness and density. I'm sort of geeking out and
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  going back to my wine description days when I was in
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  the wine industry. But that's kind of the, the, the
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  nuances that I get from this cigar.
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  It's big, it's bold, it's powerful, but to me, it's not in
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  the least bit bitter or harsh. They, like I said, those, those,
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  those guys down there literally work their magic and, and
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  created this wonderful full bodied cigar that we're that
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  we're happy to have introduced a short while ago actually.
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  Yeah. What was it?
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  PCA this past year, correct? That is correct.
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  Yes, Sir. Yep, we had you on last time you
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  were talking about it. Exactly exactly.
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  The the broadside is is a box pressed so it's got 4 literal
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  broadsides and it's wrapped in broad leaf.
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  And then the the name actually originated from a a sailing term
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  in the Caribbean and and other places where mostly pirates back
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  in the day, they would bring their ship broadside against an
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  enemy to maximize their cannon fire because remember the
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  cannons were along the side of the ships.
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  So they bring their ship broadside to the enemy and then
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  fire away you. Know I didn't even think of
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  that. That's actually.
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  It's a bit of a a bit of a nautical reference.
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  To with the rest of your your lines as well.
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  It all kind of tells a story. Correct, correct.
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  We wanted to really cool with, with the, with the cigars.
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  We wanted to celebrate Cayman's history and, and it's, it's got
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  an amazing history, you know, without being, without being
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  cartoonish, you know, we wanted to, we wanted to really reach
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  down to, you know, literally all the way back to 15 O 3 when
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  Columbus first discovered the islands.
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  And, and it's got such a rich, colorful history to draw from.
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  We wanted to celebrate that as we introduce the cigars to the
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  world. Yeah.
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  I mean, even from when we had your, your first cigars that you
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  had sent us the, the sovereign, the.
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  Sovereign. Yep, the Mariner.
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  Monarch, I think we sent as well.
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  Monarch. Yeah.
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  I mean, you know, for a company that at that point I had only
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  kind of heard rumblings of when you guys had sent us those
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  cigars and we started smoking them, you know, I was like, for
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  a company that I'm only hearing rumblings of, I've never seen,
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  I've never really heard of until that point, the cigars were
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  absolutely fantastic. And that, you know, we, we both
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  kind of came to that general consensus decision of like these
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  are fantastic cigars. Like these are something that
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  everybody could afford price wise to put in their humidor
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  because they're not, you know, they're they're not overpriced.
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  You're not trying to kill anybody's pockets.
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  But at the same time, for the price, you're getting such a
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  great quality cigar that is enjoyable.
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  Now I know the you sent us the robusto and the Gordo of the
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  broadside. Do all your other cigars come in
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  gordos and toros as well or is this one only?
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  Is this one only the the only Gordo you guys do?
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  So we, we do Gordos and actually as of right now in all of our
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  lines, we do the same 3 sizes, right?
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  We do a robusto, a Toro Gordo and a Gordo.
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  And basically the way that we approached it, right?
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  It's just a lot of the industry experience that I've had and
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  some of the other folks have in our team.
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  You know, we, we looked at what sold the most in the operations
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  that we've worked in as far as sizes go.
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  And, and really these are the sizes that are traditional ways
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  that people like to approach cigars, right.
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  One of the things that we're looking to do and the kind of
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  the next step for us is actually we're probably going to shift
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  the size of our Toro Gordo because right now it's a little
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  bit. It's we've got a 6 by 60 and a
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  six by 56, which are which are really kind of close at the end
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  of the day. So we're going to line our Toro
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  down the line with a 6 by 52, which has kind of been a request
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  that we've been getting a lot of.
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  Because a lot of a lot of retailers, what we've kind of
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  been finding is that they like, you know, the Gordo or, you
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  know, they like the Toro Gordo, but because they're similar,
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  right? They're like, they'll always
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  get, yeah, they'll get the Robusto and then one both sizes
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  or, you know, sometimes they'll bring in all three.
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  But it's just kind of one of those things where we've gotten
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  those requests and we're like, yeah, it makes sense.
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  So we're we're playing around with those blends right now.
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  Those will probably be coming out later, not this year, but in
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  the next year after the trade Showtime when we have to run new
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  productions, right. But yeah, so that that's one of
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  the new iterations that we're working on.
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  We've got a couple new things that we can talk about today
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  that are kind of fun, but that's just one of the things that
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  we're thinking through right now because we do like to play with
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  sizes, but we're trying to find the sweet spot of the market,
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  you know, for where all of our customers are at.
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  Well, and then, you know, Speaking of like the the stuff
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  you guys like to do that's new or or different sizes, you guys
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  did the release with Daniel as well, the croc crocodile, I
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  believe it was. The Tortuga.
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  That was it. Tortuga, Yeah.
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  Right, right. That was how did.
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  How did that go? Did that, did that sell very
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  well? Did people take well to it?
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  It's gone. So yes.
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  Wow, you have any? Anymore in.
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  That one's created to be limited, right?
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  So we only did a couple hundred boxes of it.
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  And and to your point, Guy's point, really we're about
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  creating value on our lineup. The Tortuga is limited.
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  We'll roll out each trade show. And so we do lower numbers on
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  it. It is a more premium product.
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  It's got a whole fit and finish that's just different from the
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  rest of our stuff. But yeah, we sold out of all the
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  boxes that we put on market this year.
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  So we're going to go a little bit bigger this upcoming year
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  and we'll have a a new blend for it.
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  But yeah, we we love that cigar and Scott can kind of give the
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  story of Tortuga and the name and why it's so special.
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  That's. Really cool though, because you
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  know, a lot of companies like we interviewed crown heads and they
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  did I believe it was the year they released the Broadway.
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  They didn't do a whole lot of boxes, not realizing it wasn't
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  good, not realizing how fast it was going to sell.
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  So that when they did the Moonflower release this year,
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  they doubled up the amount that they would have ordered and
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  still sold out of that. So like it's, it's good when you
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  can release either a limited or a new production.
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  And let's say you only order 10,000 boxes or 800 boxes for
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  the show and you sell out. Now you know you could have
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  went, you know, 1600 or 2400 boxes for the show because you
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  know it'll move. Yeah, exactly.
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  And it's about finding that balance between maintaining that
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  true sense of a limited edition cigar and keeping it special
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  and, you know, obviously making sure that you know, enough
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  people can can get exposed to it.
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  And we've just had the one release of Tortuga again to, to
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  celebrate the the Khamanian heritage when when Columbus
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  discovered Cayman in 15 O3, he was on his fourth voyage to the
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  New World. And he came up to the the
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  biggest of the three islands. And he wrote in his, his journal
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  on the ship that there were so many turtles in the water around
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  his ship that you could walk on the backs of turtles from his
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  ship to the shore without getting wet.
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  So turtling was a huge industry in Grand Cayman for centuries
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  and came out and happens to be on the, the spice trade route
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  through the Caribbean. So it also had a few lenses of
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  freshwater. So sailors knew that they could
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  pull up to K man, get freshwater for their for the ships for
• 24:56
  drinking and other purposes and also harvest fresh turtles that
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  could be jerked or salted or dried and provide a, a protein
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  for the rest of the journey. So K Man became a, a sort of
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  like a provisioning stop on the, on the the spice route in the
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  Caribbean. So for centuries, turtles were
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  fished and and used not only for their shell, obviously, but for
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  fresh turtle meat that could be utilized in different ways.
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  So that was about the only industry other than fishing for
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  many, many centuries. So we wanted to honor that by
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  creating this special cigar and named it the Tortuga.
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  Well, that's like when I went to Granada Wrestling, they had
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  turtle meat and I was like, man, what the hell is this?
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  They said no, eat it. And I'm like, they said no, eat
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  it. It's really good.
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  I ate it. And after I ate it and they
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  waited like 20 minutes, they were like, did you enjoy that?
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  I see. Yeah.
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  They said you just ate turtle. I said, Oh my God.
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  And I never had it again. I can't find it.
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  But I can't bring that home because I can't even bring Bambi
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  home because of the wife. So I'm.
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  Sure. Yeah, I've, I've had it.
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  It's it's different. But, you know, if that's in, in
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  in their case back then, you know, if that's all you have,
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  that's what you do. And, and and they did it.
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  And some of the older folks on the island still can, can fish
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  turtles and, and then, you know, the the old, old OG comedians
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  still, you know, make turtles Stew and, and turtle meat and
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  that kind of thing like their ancestors did back in the day.
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  And not very many of them these days, but a few of the older
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  Islanders still do that. Now let me ask you, this being
• 26:44
  that you you live in the islands and do you need a fishing
• 26:49
  license to fish for turtles or or no?
• 26:52
  I think it's grandfathered into literally a handful of people
• 26:57
  that are allowed to do it because there's just so, you
• 27:00
  know, the the those that generation is, you know,
• 27:02
  literally dying off. And the new generation is not
• 27:06
  not so much focused on that. And actually one of the biggest
• 27:10
  tourist attractions and beneficial operations for the
• 27:13
  island itself is they've gone into sustainable turtle farming
• 27:17
  at the northwest part of the island.
• 27:19
  They actually have what the old, old schoolers call it, the
• 27:22
  turtle farm. And basically they raise
• 27:24
  turtles, sea turtles in captivity and then release them
• 27:27
  into the ocean, into the sea rather to to repopulate.
• 27:31
  And where I live in Grand Cayman on 7 Mile Beach, turtling season
• 27:36
  is happening as I speak. And we have on our literal small
• 27:40
  stretch of beach, we have 31 wild turtle nests.
• 27:44
  And so those will hatch over the next three to four weeks.
• 27:47
  And those turtles, you know, they'll head to the ocean.
• 27:50
  They're just programmed that way.
• 27:51
  They climb up out of the sand and they see the moonlights and
• 27:54
  they see the horizon and then boom, they make a beeline for
• 27:56
  the water. And, you know, not a whole lot
• 27:59
  survive, but that's the program. So that happens quite often
• 28:03
  naturally on the island and, and our hope in the future with some
• 28:09
  Tortuga sails once we're profitable.
• 28:12
  And of course you know that our our mission is to donate all of
• 28:14
  our net profits to charity. I think with Tortuga we could
• 28:18
  take a look at some turtle centric charitable operations
• 28:22
  both on the island and and abroad.
• 28:25
  Well, that's good. I, I like that.
• 28:27
  And I told you this the last time, I like that you donate the
• 28:31
  Nets to, you know, charities and things like that because a lot
• 28:36
  of people don't, they take it and they pocket the money and
• 28:38
  they they call itself a rich cigar guy.
• 28:41
  There's no rich cigar guy. I don't care who you are.
• 28:45
  None of them are rich. They live the rich life until
• 28:49
  the cigars are going down. But so let's get back to you,
• 28:54
  Anthony. You said there's some new things
• 28:55
  going on with Cayman. Yeah, there's a couple things
• 28:59
  And you know, we'll all the deals will, or I should say all
• 29:03
  the Super details of it will obviously materialize a little
• 29:05
  closer to the show. But like I said, we're going to
• 29:09
  have a new Tortuga this year. You know, we'll have a little
• 29:12
  different. The packaging will be the same
• 29:14
  type of exquisite packaging. We'll do some color changes
• 29:17
  there, but the fun part is the way that Tortuga came about
• 29:22
  originally is when we go to blend, right?
• 29:25
  So when we went to blend the balloon, we've got a little
• 29:29
  panel that we work with down there.
• 29:30
  We work with Anthony, Diesela and Daniel, and we work with
• 29:35
  Esteban. Really, Esteban's a mastermind.
• 29:37
  We give them the idea of something we'd like to do, and
• 29:42
  then what Esteban does is goes OK, and then he goes and creates
• 29:46
  kind of a portfolio for us on the fly of what he thinks would
• 29:50
  hit those different zones that we're trying to aim for in a
• 29:52
  cigar. And when we do that, then what
• 29:56
  we do is we get together, we start smoking through and we
• 29:58
  start taking notes. Daniel being the nerd that he
• 30:03
  is, and he'll probably get on this with you and his show if he
• 30:05
  talks about it, but he's got this great program now that's
• 30:09
  actually app driven where you can put in the different flavor
• 30:12
  wheel elements of the blend that you're smoking.
• 30:14
  You can put in all these different smoking notes and then
• 30:17
  it aggregates everybody that's been smoking it anonymously and
• 30:22
  creates which cigars coming out the top.
• 30:24
  So that way it's real, you know, blind in the sense of like, hey,
• 30:28
  this is truly what everybody that smoked it really thinks
• 30:30
  about these couple different blends and which ones really
• 30:33
  hitting. Now, of course, when that
• 30:34
  happens, you want to go with the consensus, but also there might
• 30:37
  be one or two of those, you know, other style blends that
• 30:40
  you tweaked on that you're like, that's really good.
• 30:43
  I want to do something with it. And that's exactly what happened
• 30:46
  with Tortuga 1 is that we had a, an amped up version of the blend
• 30:55
  for doubloon that was spicier, bolder, a little more in your
• 30:59
  face, but you know, still had a lot of that richness that we
• 31:01
  loved and wanted in doubloon. And so we're like, we got to do
• 31:05
  something with this. And so when it came time for
• 31:07
  Tortuga, we played around with that specific style of that
• 31:12
  blend. And so really it's a special
• 31:15
  version of that blend that came out.
• 31:17
  And so we thought, hey, you know, that was so much fun.
• 31:19
  Everybody really responded well to it with Tortuga.
• 31:21
  Like, you know, Scott said, we sold out of it.
• 31:24
  So for the second Tortuga, we're going to do that again, only
• 31:28
  this time with broadside. So we've got broadside, which we
• 31:32
  love. And as Scott said, it's our
• 31:33
  newest fullest most to me, it's one of our most savory type of
• 31:38
  cigars. And that's really what we were
• 31:39
  going for in it was that we wanted something that really
• 31:42
  kind of touched all these hallmarks of a great full cigar.
• 31:46
  And so the new Tortuga that we'll have coming out is a
• 31:50
  variation on broadside that plays to those strengths and the
• 31:55
  cool part. So I'm actually a smoking one
• 31:57
  right now. It's a sample of it.
• 31:59
  But what I haven't seen done really before that Daniel did
• 32:03
  that's pretty unique is he took the grand Perfecto size we've
• 32:07
  been using and then he's soft box pressed it.
• 32:09
  So it's got a soft box press to it.
• 32:11
  So it's going to be a really fun project, you know, coming out
• 32:16
  and that's the first project that we got.
• 32:19
  And then we've got another core line that we're working on right
• 32:23
  now and it's going to be more into that medium full flavored
• 32:28
  area where a lot of our cigars go, taking it a little bit of a
• 32:31
  different direction than we've been before, but we're super
• 32:35
  excited about it. We actually got some samples of,
• 32:39
  you know, three different styles back in what was our meeting.
• 32:42
  Scott, I'm blanking. I was going to.
• 32:44
  Try. Yeah.
• 32:46
  So back in our meeting in July, Daniel came to our meeting.
• 32:49
  We meet in California with Scott's dad every year over in
• 32:54
  the San Diego area. And Daniel brought down all
• 32:58
  these. And so it was great.
• 32:59
  We had the whole team. We were able to smoke through
• 33:01
  and we went down to one of the local cigar shops and shared
• 33:03
  some of them out too to have get feedback just with people, live
• 33:06
  action style and ended up finding one that we are really
• 33:11
  excited about. So we've got a new blend, a new
• 33:13
  core line that will be coming out to at the trade show that'll
• 33:16
  be, you know, regular production year round.
• 33:18
  It'll be the first cigar that comes to market 2 for us that
• 33:21
  will have the true 6 by 52 size of a Toro.
• 33:24
  So that'll be the first Toro that's in that new 6552 format
• 33:28
  for us. So those are a couple of those
• 33:30
  new projects that are coming online.
• 33:32
  And then like I said, later in the year as we start to refill
• 33:35
  our product, we'll be making the transition from 6 by 56 to 6 by
• 33:39
  52. Wow, that's a lot of that's a
• 33:43
  lot of stuff going on there, but how the hell do you do it all?
• 33:49
  It's just fun. Honestly, when you're having
• 33:50
  fun, it's not work right? Like it, You know, you heard
• 33:54
  that expression all your life, right?
• 33:55
  Like if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your
• 33:58
  life. And honestly, that's really the
• 34:00
  truth of the work that we're doing here at Cayman.
• 34:02
  It's such a great mission, it's such a great story and creating
• 34:06
  cigars and finding out what people like and working with the
• 34:09
  team we've got. It's just, it's really not work
• 34:13
  at the end of the day. It's just a lot of fun.
• 34:16
  And like I said, we've got a great team now.
• 34:17
  We've got a couple great sales guys that have been in the
• 34:19
  industry a long time that are out there crushing it for us.
• 34:23
  So we've really just started to hit a great stride where now
• 34:27
  we're, like you guys said, you know, last year and like when
• 34:31
  you first talk to us, people are starting to hear about us more.
• 34:33
  What we're finding is that more and more people are starting to
• 34:36
  hear about the brand, the mission, like the mission, which
• 34:39
  is what we really want them to fall in love with.
• 34:42
  And you know, the great part is it's not just a great mission,
• 34:45
  it's a damn good cigar. Or at least that's how we always
• 34:47
  like to say it in. Turn 100% and that's you know,
• 34:50
  as long as if you have a good product behind a good mission
• 34:53
  statement or behind a good business owner, it's going to go
• 34:58
  far because you can tell the the passion behind it.
• 35:00
  And you know, you guys teaming up with Daniel and those guys
• 35:04
  over there also adds a big aspect as well because as you
• 35:08
  guys know, he's all over the place well.
• 35:10
  Daniel. Was.
• 35:11
  Just in California, you know, he's, he's all over talking
• 35:13
  about, you know, like the brands that are coming out at his
• 35:16
  factory now, like Furman Perez, and he just sent us a package
• 35:19
  with two new brands that are coming out of his factory.
• 35:23
  We'll be talking with him again. So he, you know, we, I asked him
• 35:27
  about your, your collaboration with him because I had spoke to
• 35:30
  you guys, I think right after him or right before him, but he
• 35:36
  was, he was telling us that you guys had something with him
• 35:39
  eventually coming out. You know, he's just, he wasn't
• 35:42
  saying what it was. He just said, you know, we have
• 35:43
  a few different companies we're working with new stuff.
• 35:45
  And then you guys came on and released the, the Tortuga after
• 35:49
  that. So having, you know, people like
• 35:52
  that in your corner who are really always promoting,
• 35:54
  promoting, promoting and pushing product is a big thing as well.
• 35:58
  So just so you guys know, we have a unlimited edition coming
• 36:03
  out now of our own cigars. It's the.
• 36:07
  We decided to do a our own limited like little run just to
• 36:11
  see how it works. Yeah.
• 36:13
  But we decided to go with like a little pig size.
• 36:17
  Awesome. Was our first we just kind of we
• 36:20
  sent them five size. We didn't go down to Florida to
• 36:22
  meet with the guy. We got on the phone and we're
• 36:25
  like, listen, this is what we like, this is what we're looking
• 36:27
  for. Send us 5 different, you know,
• 36:29
  samples. And we went through the IT was
• 36:32
  off the first five samples and we went OK, we like this one, we
• 36:36
  like this one, we like this one. This one was OK.
• 36:39
  And then we smoked that pig and we both kind of looked at each
• 36:42
  other and was like, I think that's it.
• 36:46
  Because, you know, like you guys.
• 36:47
  Ever does a feral right as a limited?
• 36:50
  Edition, like you guys, you know, we did the Tortuga size,
• 36:53
  which is that same like big beefy perfecto where I'm like
• 36:58
  nobody uses that small little chunk size unless it's a
• 37:04
  addition to a line or like you guys said, limited edition.
• 37:08
  You know, nobody starts out with something like that.
• 37:11
  I'm like, you try it, you see how it works and if it doesn't
• 37:14
  work, hey listen, you move on to the next one.
• 37:17
  Yep, You know, the way we're doing it is we're not stuck with
• 37:21
  a whole bunch of product. Yeah.
• 37:24
  And and that's really the key, right, is that you want to have
• 37:26
  enough to always keep your customers happy and you want to
• 37:29
  make sure that you've always got supply because the terms on
• 37:32
  shelves matter. But at the same time, you don't
• 37:34
  want to be sitting on so much that you don't have the
• 37:36
  resources to put into other. Right.
• 37:37
  And that's, that's what's nice. You know, the person we're
• 37:40
  working with, I can call them and say, hey, listen, you know
• 37:42
  what, I need 2 bundles and I can have two bundles sent to me to,
• 37:46
  to give or send out to whoever, which you know, is, is nice
• 37:50
  because somebody's like, well, you need, I said, yeah, you do.
• 37:52
  I said when you don't have that kind of capital, you have to
• 37:55
  find where you can fit in. I said, and once you find where
• 37:58
  you can fit in and you build that capital, then yes, you can
• 38:01
  eventually buy 1012 thousand cigars.
• 38:04
  Like like you said, you know you want to have enough to put on
• 38:07
  the shelves, but you also don't want to have 10,000 cigars or
• 38:11
  9000 cigars you're sitting on that won't move.
• 38:15
  Absolutely. And now how is how is the
• 38:18
  turnover rate for your guys's cigars as far as like are you,
• 38:23
  you're not sitting on a whole lot of product at one time or is
• 38:26
  it, is it always like is, is there?
• 38:29
  I guess the way to phrase it is, are the shops ordering a lot?
• 38:34
  Are the they're they're catching on is what I'm I guess is what I
• 38:37
  would ask is how to phrase it correctly.
• 38:40
  Yeah. I mean, so you know every shop's
• 38:43
  variable, right, you've got and you guys know this right.
• 38:48
  In the industry we've got obviously big players that are
• 38:50
  big operations. They order at a different
• 38:52
  magnitude than the smaller mid size boxes.
• 38:55
  Each size at a time, yeah. Yeah.
• 38:58
  You know, wild stuff like that. So what we've what we've done
• 39:01
  purposefully is we've been very careful in bringing on big, big
• 39:06
  guys at a fast rate just because that gets really wild in
• 39:12
  predictability, right? Because how they want it, it's
• 39:15
  not just even the quantities that they want as much as it is
• 39:19
  quantities and potential, you know, sweeteners that they want
• 39:23
  with the deal to like, you know, advertise it with their stuff
• 39:26
  and all that. So there's a lot of there's a
• 39:27
  lot of variable there. So we've been very careful to
• 39:30
  roll that part out in a very controlled way.
• 39:33
  The part that we love obviously too is we spend a lot of time
• 39:36
  with smaller mid size shops all across America and and those
• 39:40
  guys are more predictable. A lot of them them have a pretty
• 39:42
  regular cadence. To your point, you know, their
• 39:45
  turns come fairly routinely. You know, you're looking at
• 39:49
  usually once every month, month and a half you get an order if
• 39:53
  they're doing well with your product, if they're doing
• 39:54
  exceedingly well with your product, it could be quicker
• 39:56
  than that, but it's a pretty regular cadence.
• 39:59
  So what's nice is that as you get data and one of the things
• 40:03
  that we really try to be in our operation is data-driven, right?
• 40:07
  As we look at inventory and forecasting, because having
• 40:10
  having owned a shop, having worked as a sales guy in the
• 40:13
  industry, there's nothing worse than having customers who want
• 40:18
  your product, but you can't supply them your product.
• 40:20
  That was one of the things at La Flor Dominicana, right?
• 40:22
  And, and they kind of did it almost intentionally, but they
• 40:27
  were always, you know, back stocked on key items.
• 40:30
  And so you were always like fighting for that shelf space
• 40:33
  because you didn't want to lose it.
• 40:34
  But at the same time, it was so popular, it was always out.
• 40:37
  So our, our kind of commitment internally is not to get
• 40:40
  ourselves into that position as best we can.
• 40:43
  And so, so far we haven't. But to your point, it's, it's a
• 40:46
  mixture between, you know, not sitting on too much product, but
• 40:49
  having just enough to make sure that we're always in good supply
• 40:52
  and knowing when the production windows need to happen.
• 40:56
  And that's the other tough part 'cause it takes time to process
• 40:58
  that leaf and do the themes with it that we need.
• 41:01
  So you need about a three to four month runway, depending on
• 41:04
  what blend it is of ours to get the numbers we're looking for
• 41:08
  the production and get it up into Florida for being able to
• 41:11
  sell. So, you know, we're always
• 41:13
  trying to think, you know, anytime we get close to running
• 41:16
  low on something, we have to order it in enough time to know
• 41:19
  that we've got about three to four months coverage.
• 41:21
  So that next hit comes up, right?
• 41:22
  So let me ask you, where are you located?
• 41:26
  At Anthony. So I'm in Arkansas so over in
• 41:29
  Bentonville area. OK, OK.
• 41:33
  I went to the Razorbacks pretty. Good.
• 41:36
  Nice. Yeah, Actually I just moved here
• 41:38
  about a month ago, so up until then I was over in Arizona.
• 41:41
  So this area is a little bit new for me.
• 41:44
  But yeah, love it so far. Razorbacks are right down the
• 41:47
  road and obviously very much Razorback country out here.
• 41:52
  So Scott, I want you to tell us how did you find Anthony and to
• 41:58
  bring him on? What did you look for in him to
• 42:00
  bring him on? Oh man, well, first of all, I'm
• 42:05
  just so grateful that the, you know, the planets lined up to
• 42:07
  make it happen. And it was a, it was a, an
• 42:13
  interesting journey and, and, and one that I'm, I'm glad
• 42:16
  that's resulted in what it is. And, but, but before I, I, I do
• 42:20
  that, I, I just wanted to touch on a little bit about what
• 42:22
  Anthony said and about what you two were talking about in terms
• 42:25
  of kind of the structure of the company and, and how we
• 42:29
  developed it. And we sort of reversed
• 42:31
  engineered it when we all got together to figure out, hey,
• 42:34
  this is what we want to do. The first thing that's really
• 42:37
  important. And, and it may be other cigar
• 42:40
  companies out there, I don't know.
• 42:41
  But one thing came in cigars is not, is a rich man's folly.
• 42:47
  This was not a project where dad had a successful company, which
• 42:51
  he did and he sold it in 2015 for a, a, a nice amount, which
• 42:56
  was wonderful. But it wasn't like, you know, I
• 42:59
  got a pile of money. I've always wanted to own a
• 43:00
  cigar company. So yeah, I guess I'm going to do
• 43:02
  that. Not, not at all.
• 43:05
  We this came from the story that I told when we were together
• 43:08
  before about the story about the farm and, you know, how we
• 43:10
  wanted to find a way to give back to the island.
• 43:13
  You know, Cayman Islands have been so beautiful and wonderful
• 43:15
  to us for, you know, 50 years almost.
• 43:18
  We wanted to find an entrepreneurial way to give back
• 43:21
  to the island that has been so wonderful to us.
• 43:24
  And that of course morphed into Cayman Cigars in the United
• 43:27
  States where we apply that same charitable mission.
• 43:30
  And when we were setting up the company in the United States, we
• 43:34
  said how can we be what other cigar companies aren't?
• 43:38
  What can we do that they don't? How can we be of maximum service
• 43:44
  to a brick and mortar entrepreneurial retailer out
• 43:47
  there who who's either really successful or maybe struggling a
• 43:51
  little bit? We love, we, we love that
• 43:53
  entrepreneurial spirit in this country.
• 43:56
  And dad, dad created that with all the companies he's created.
• 43:59
  You know, he learned that in the military from his service in the
• 44:02
  Navy. He brought that over into the
• 44:04
  leadership of the companies that he created.
• 44:06
  So I know that they say a rising tide lifts all boats.
• 44:10
  And when you think about it, you know, our operation and what we
• 44:13
  do in partners with our retailers allows everybody to
• 44:18
  sell more cigars, make more money, great for the retailers,
• 44:22
  but also great for us because that's how we can give back.
• 44:25
  The more cigars we sell, the more money we make and the more
• 44:28
  money we give away. So it, it obviously benefits
• 44:32
  everybody. So I just wanted to, to throw
• 44:34
  that out there that, that was the, the whole spirit of the
• 44:37
  creation of this company. How can we create jobs, increase
• 44:42
  this this industry and have some fun doing it and then at the end
• 44:47
  of the day be able to donate back to to some worthy causes
• 44:51
  and to. What you said about your dad,
• 44:54
  Your dad is the CEO or you the CEO?
• 44:56
  I'm the CEO of Cayman Cigar Company, CEO and president
• 45:00
  Cayman Cigar Company. Yep, Dad, Dad and I Co founded
• 45:03
  it in the United States. It's also owned by Dad and
• 45:08
  another Canadian partner in Cayman Islands, because any
• 45:12
  ownership of a company in the Cayman Islands requires a 60%
• 45:15
  ownership of a Canadian. Right.
• 45:18
  So, so a fellow that we've known for 50 years and Dad owned the
• 45:23
  company in Cayman and then dad and I own the company here in
• 45:26
  the United States. OK, OK.
• 45:29
  But to do that, you know, we needed we needed to find good.
• 45:32
  What? What's that?
• 45:33
  I said no, that's interesting that in, in Cayman you have to,
• 45:37
  you have to have 60% ownership from a a native there that's.
• 45:42
  Correct. That's pretty cool, no?
• 45:45
  Absolutely, absolutely. And and we've got our
• 45:48
  classically trained cigar rollers down there, but
• 45:50
  ultimately we want to hire more come onions and put more of the
• 45:54
  more countrymen creating jobs for them in in retail and and
• 45:58
  and all sorts of different things down there.
• 46:01
  So again, ties in with that entrepreneurial spirit that we
• 46:04
  have, how can we create jobs and better more people.
• 46:08
  And, and to do that to, to kind of tie, tie this into a bow for
• 46:11
  your question. In order to do that, we needed
• 46:14
  to have really good people. And, and, and we're thankful
• 46:17
  that we've got an awesome sales team, a great marketing guy.
• 46:21
  And with Anthony, we've got a wonderful operations director
• 46:25
  with his cross industry experience.
• 46:30
  Anthony was a, a consultant when we first met and he was giving
• 46:35
  us some great advice and we we were really enjoying everything
• 46:39
  he had to offer. And that turned into some
• 46:41
  additional conversations. And then when we realized that
• 46:44
  we really needed to to if we wanted this company to be
• 46:47
  successful, we knew that we were going to need a major push with
• 46:51
  some major players in the industry.
• 46:54
  And so we decided that we were going to allocate some capital
• 46:59
  for that in order to do it the right way, not the fastest way,
• 47:03
  but the right way. And so we, we, we offered
• 47:07
  Anthony of some further conversations.
• 47:09
  We got to know each other a little bit more.
• 47:11
  We realized what a great fit Anthony was for the company, our
• 47:14
  vision, that entrepreneurial spirit.
• 47:17
  And it just was a no brainer to offer him the position that he
• 47:20
  now holds. Wow.
• 47:23
  So, Anthony, have you been down to the Cayman Islands?
• 47:26
  I have, yeah. I've been down once, so I
• 47:28
  haven't been down a bunch, but yeah, I went down, got to see
• 47:32
  the whole operation down there, see the farm, see once again how
• 47:36
  they're growing tobacco down there and the other plants that
• 47:40
  they're doing down there, and then got to see the recovery
• 47:43
  operation as well at Beacon Farm.
• 47:44
  So it's great. It's really kind of the best
• 47:48
  thing that you can do for anybody on our team.
• 47:50
  And actually we do that when any team member comes on as we try
• 47:53
  to get them down there as soon as we can because we want them
• 47:56
  to have that mission really central in their head of like,
• 47:59
  hey, this is what we're supporting.
• 48:01
  This is what we're growing. This is really kind of the
• 48:03
  trajectory of what we want this business to be.
• 48:06
  And to Scott's point, that's the real beauty of it.
• 48:09
  We've got some real talent on the team now.
• 48:12
  All of us have come in, you know, at as Scott mentioned, you
• 48:15
  know, we run this operation entrepreneurial, there's funding
• 48:19
  behind it, but we try to treat every dollar like it's a start
• 48:22
  up. So that way we can get as much,
• 48:24
  we can get to profitability as quick as we can on stuff, so
• 48:27
  that way we can get back more quickly.
• 48:29
  So all of us came on and took, you know, ourselves out of the
• 48:33
  equation as best we could to really try to build this up and
• 48:36
  make it something. And to give them that experience
• 48:39
  to go down there and see the operation was central to that
• 48:42
  because you want them to really buy into what we're trying to
• 48:47
  achieve. And thankfully everybody that
• 48:49
  has come on gets that. And that's made for great sales
• 48:53
  guys out there 'cause not only are they well known sales guys
• 48:56
  in the industry, but they're also guys who truly value.
• 49:01
  And one of our sales guys has had actually a recovery journey
• 49:04
  as well. So not only does he he get the
• 49:07
  Kamanian mission, but he also gets the recovery mission
• 49:10
  because he's been on that journey too.
• 49:12
  And so it's just a real special place for that.
• 49:14
  We've got quite a few people in our operation that have come
• 49:17
  from recovery themselves. Yeah, it and that's great.
• 49:20
  It's paid it forward. It's allowing that to really
• 49:24
  kind of be the central thing, and it's always keep us
• 49:26
  grounded. More of an an initiative.
• 49:29
  So they're on that they were on that journey or still on that
• 49:32
  same journey that, you know, they're understanding.
• 49:35
  Like you said, it's part of the mission of the recovery and the
• 49:38
  giving back. And you know, for those people,
• 49:41
  it really hits close to home. Now.
• 49:43
  Let's say absolutely. You mean recovery like and and
• 49:48
  I'm not putting it out there as nasty like alcohol and drugs or
• 49:52
  drugs. Yeah, yeah, OK.
• 49:53
  OK, no, because, you know, some people hit us up and go, bro,
• 49:57
  what are you talking about in recovery?
• 49:58
  That's why I wanted to point that out.
• 50:00
  So. Yeah, absolutely.
• 50:02
  Absolutely. For people that did alcohol and
• 50:06
  drugs and now you're giving them a good job.
• 50:08
  Correct, because most of us, myself included, I'm sober 17
• 50:12
  years now and, and I was one of the lucky ones.
• 50:15
  You know, I, I, I kept my house, I kept my marriage, I kept my
• 50:19
  family. I'm, you know, I'm one of the
• 50:20
  outliers to be honest with you. And, and when, when I got
• 50:24
  involved in the 12 step community down on the island,
• 50:27
  that's, that's where I first started going to a a meetings
• 50:30
  and NA meetings and got to know some people down there.
• 50:33
  And that those conversations turned into my family supporting
• 50:36
  this little shoestring operation down there, which in turn
• 50:40
  created Beacon Farms, which is staffed entirely by Canadians in
• 50:45
  addiction recovery. These are people that were
• 50:48
  called unemployable. These people burned every
• 50:51
  bridge, destroyed every relationship that literally the
• 50:55
  wreckage of their life was almost incomprehensible.
• 50:59
  But we were able to, with some funding and A and a good idea,
• 51:03
  create agricultural jobs which never existed on the island.
• 51:06
  So now all these people who were, were basically told they
• 51:11
  were, they were unworthy of anything, are now learning
• 51:14
  agriculture and heavy equipment maintenance.
• 51:17
  And we have, I think like $6 million worth of brand new farm
• 51:20
  equipment that we imported down there that never existed before.
• 51:24
  So now they're learning about planting and soil science and
• 51:27
  heavy equipment maintenance and, and making the, the things that
• 51:31
  we do on the farm, like coconut oil and coconut soap and, and
• 51:34
  some of the jams and jellies using the, the Peppers and the,
• 51:38
  the, the things that we grow on the farm.
• 51:40
  So work again, that entrepreneurial spirit.
• 51:42
  We're creating jobs for people that otherwise wouldn't be able
• 51:46
  to do anything and unfortunately would choose the easiest path,
• 51:50
  which is to go back into addiction because it's the
• 51:52
  easier, softer way. It's like, well, you know, screw
• 51:55
  it, I can't find a job. No one will hire me.
• 51:57
  Everything's a shit show. Well, I guess I'll go back to
• 52:00
  drinking and drugging because that's what I know how to do.
• 52:03
  Well, luckily we, we've been able to salvage a few of those
• 52:06
  folks and they're employed with us today.
• 52:09
  And that carries over into the mission of the cigar company.
• 52:12
  Not everybody in the cigar company is in recovery, but a
• 52:15
  few folks are. And and that's again, that's
• 52:17
  just one more, one more incredible asset of, of a
• 52:21
  mission like ours and a vision like like that.
• 52:25
  All right, on that note, guys, we got to take a break and pay
• 52:27
  our bills and we'll be back. Came in cigars.
• 56:51
  What's up? What's up?
• 56:52
  Happy Sunday. Happy fun day.
• 56:53
  We are turnbuckles of stogies pot.
• 56:55
  I am the big dog. This is the vanilla gorilla.
• 56:58
  And our guest today is from Cayman Islands, Mr. Scott and
• 57:02
  Mr. Anthony So. You're running the show today.
• 57:06
  Yeah, because Joey doesn't feel good.
• 57:08
  You're running the show today, Sir.
• 57:10
  So Anthony, tell us more about Cayman, like besides what you
• 57:16
  already said about what's going on, what, what can we expect
• 57:20
  from Cayman cigars being at you to direct about police?
• 57:24
  Well, that's actually a great question and a great segue,
• 57:27
  although I'm going to pitch it over to Scott because it's one
• 57:30
  thing to talk about earlier and that is once again, we're
• 57:34
  thinking about retailers and customers, how to create the
• 57:36
  best value form, right? And one of the things that we've
• 57:40
  seen a lot about there that we've enjoyed obviously being
• 57:43
  people who enjoy the industry a lot too.
• 57:45
  Are there sampler bags out there?
• 57:47
  So another thing that we're thinking about project wise is
• 57:50
  how do we continue to make things accessible and a lot of
• 57:54
  fun for our audience. So Scott can show up, but we
• 57:57
  we've got a new bag that's coming out.
• 58:00
  We're using it right now just to put cigars in and get a feel for
• 58:03
  it. We've got the design on it, but
• 58:05
  we're going to be creating sampler bags of our products as
• 58:07
  well. So you can buy one at the
• 58:08
  register. You can buy one in the humidor.
• 58:11
  But yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it.
• 58:16
  That's it. It is a very nice bag.
• 58:20
  Oh, and to your point, on the backside, right, the cool part
• 58:22
  is, is that we always like to tell the story wherever we can,
• 58:25
  right? So on the back, it's got a
• 58:26
  little bit of the back story of what we're doing and what we're
• 58:29
  about. And it's something that, like I
• 58:32
  said, we like to keep, you know, front.
• 58:34
  It's in front facing as best we can.
• 58:36
  So that, that's one of the things that, you know, excites
• 58:39
  me about Caiman, like I said that we're doing, you know,
• 58:42
  besides the blending and coming up with ideas, it's also about
• 58:46
  getting more, you know, market penetration, getting the, the
• 58:50
  brand out there, right. So we're doing a lot more events
• 58:53
  now that we've got more reps out in the field.
• 58:55
  We've like I said, we've, we've grown, you know, last year when
• 58:58
  we probably first started talking to you, we had maybe 25
• 59:03
  or so accounts in the US at that point, it was early games for
• 59:06
  us. But you know, now we've got over
• 59:07
  100 in the US. So it's growing, it's picking up
• 59:12
  steam, which we love. And to your point, you know,
• 59:16
  we're trying to make sure that we grow it responsibly where we
• 59:18
  can keep product in. We actually expanded our
• 59:21
  warehouse down in Tampa. We are in a industrial park.
• 59:25
  We had a facility that was working pretty good, but we're
• 59:28
  outgrowing it already. So we switched up to another one
• 59:31
  in there. And we just actually, that was a
• 59:33
  whole experience for us. We've been doing a lot of work.
• 59:35
  Our whole team's all hands on deck on that.
• 59:38
  We've got a great warehouse team and warehouse manager in kind of
• 59:44
  a an operational manager piece that does a lot of those back
• 59:48
  end system pieces. His name's Rob.
• 59:50
  Like I mentioned him earlier, he's a buddy of mine that I've
• 59:53
  known for a long time, but he set up a system for us to do
• 59:56
  inventory forecasting and sales tracking.
• 1:00:00
  So really those are kind of those are not the sexy pieces of
• 1:00:03
  what we do right, but they're the the important pieces of what
• 1:00:06
  we do and the stuff we're talking part.
• 1:00:08
  Of of your operation. Let me ask you this other
• 1:00:11
  question. 100% absolutely. Mr. Director of Operations, let
• 1:00:15
  me ask you this other question. How often are you on the road
• 1:00:19
  away from your house? Well, that's the beauty of why
• 1:00:24
  I'm liking operations instead of sales, right?
• 1:00:27
  Sales guys are on the road all the time.
• 1:00:29
  They're out there hitting it. I am going basically to the
• 1:00:33
  operation down in Nicaragua a couple times a year at key
• 1:00:36
  points for production. And then I'm on the phone a lot
• 1:00:39
  in the office and then you know, as needed, I get rolled out
• 1:00:42
  where I'm needed. But really the main road warrior
• 1:00:47
  aspects of what we do is our EVP of sales, Jared, he's a road
• 1:00:53
  warrior and his buddy, his counterpart Sean, both of them
• 1:00:57
  are ex STG, one of them's ex Ashton, one of them's ex LFD as
• 1:01:00
  well. So you know, just a, a pedigree
• 1:01:03
  of great sales, But those guys are on the road golly, I, I'd
• 1:01:07
  say pretty much every week they're out there.
• 1:01:08
  I mean, Jared, especially as of late, is out there all the time.
• 1:01:13
  So and that guy that's also good though, do.
• 1:01:16
  You guys have anybody in New Jersey and New York or no?
• 1:01:20
  So Sean is on the East Coast, he's up in Rhode Island, and
• 1:01:24
  he's been focusing so far on, there's a couple bigger players
• 1:01:29
  like up in New Hampshire, Maine, up close to those areas.
• 1:01:34
  Yeah, Kirk Kendall's operation, yeah.
• 1:01:37
  And then Pennsylvania, obviously, as you guys know, is
• 1:01:40
  a huge cigar market. So he's been focusing Atlantic.
• 1:01:44
  Is all right in right in that like 20, 20 mile radius all
• 1:01:49
  around each other is right there.
• 1:01:51
  And then it's crazy because in that area where all those guys
• 1:01:56
  are, there's also those smaller shops.
• 1:01:58
  Too, which is insane. Like I go to small shops in
• 1:02:01
  Allentown like the new tobacco village.
• 1:02:04
  You guys don't deal with them. Tobacco Village.
• 1:02:07
  So I don't think we do anything with Tobacco Village yet.
• 1:02:10
  Are you? That's like Lena's operation
• 1:02:12
  over. There.
• 1:02:13
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep.
• 1:02:15
  So when I worked for Cigars International, I was I went in
• 1:02:19
  there pretty routinely because she was actually one of the best
• 1:02:21
  boutiques in town. So I love boutique cigars.
• 1:02:24
  If you want boutique cigars, go see Lena.
• 1:02:26
  I mean. That's what I tell everybody.
• 1:02:27
  She's got a small shop, so you're not, but she's got a
• 1:02:30
  whole lot of stock from the big brands to the boutiques.
• 1:02:33
  It's insane. You're not in there with her
• 1:02:34
  yet, right? Not that I'm aware of.
• 1:02:36
  I don't think we've gone and seen her yet or I don't know
• 1:02:40
  that we haven't seen her is that I don't actually.
• 1:02:43
  I'd have to double check on that.
• 1:02:44
  I'm not sure on that. Well, here's the here's the
• 1:02:46
  thing on that. That's why I'm saying it because
• 1:02:48
  I'm going out there this weekend.
• 1:02:50
  If you want, if you can tomorrow morning, send us a pack that'll
• 1:02:56
  get to us by Thursday and I can bring it to her on Friday and
• 1:02:59
  say here, this is from my buddy Anthony and and Scott came in
• 1:03:04
  cigars. I want them in here.
• 1:03:06
  Yeah, yeah, we'd love to do that.
• 1:03:08
  We can definitely do that. They're having a smoked toba
• 1:03:10
  fest in. Two weeks?
• 1:03:12
  No, they're having. A smoked toba fest this week.
• 1:03:15
  Oh. That's right.
• 1:03:16
  That's right. I'm sorry.
• 1:03:17
  They're having a smoked toba fest this weekend.
• 1:03:19
  OK. Yeah, yeah, we could definitely
• 1:03:21
  get some stick done to you. However, you said the UPS, I
• 1:03:26
  tell you USPS but I won't see you for two weeks.
• 1:03:29
  And at least they send it UPS, I get the the tracking.
• 1:03:32
  Send it to UPS. You can send it to me and Joey
• 1:03:34
  and I can take it down to and say, hey, listen, they're on our
• 1:03:36
  show. They're good friends of mine and
• 1:03:38
  I love their cigars. If you get them, I will call you
• 1:03:41
  up and I will send you Vimo, Venmo, whatever it is, and I
• 1:03:45
  want my cigars. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great.
• 1:03:48
  We'd love to do that. We'd love to work with Lena and
• 1:03:50
  then Reamer over there and all that, like I said.
• 1:03:53
  So is there a limit on how much they have to order?
• 1:03:57
  No. See, that's good for her because
• 1:04:00
  and there doesn't like a limit because what it is is she has a
• 1:04:05
  few people and they want her to place a limit like of 20.
• 1:04:12
  Like a minimum. Yeah, minimum.
• 1:04:14
  I don't want a 20 boxes, I want two boxes well.
• 1:04:17
  We can't prove it. And that's, that's well.
• 1:04:18
  Then take care, because I don't need you.
• 1:04:19
  Then I got other people. Coming right.
• 1:04:21
  And that's good though, when they have no, when you guys have
• 1:04:23
  no minimums, because it doesn't give a shop a whole lot of risk.
• 1:04:27
  Right. They sit on a lot of product
• 1:04:29
  where they can order 1 box of, you know if they know
• 1:04:32
  Connecticut still, they can order you know, 1 box of your
• 1:04:34
  sovereigns and then put it in there and see how it sells all.
• 1:04:38
  Right, so now I'm going to get back to the cigars I'm smoking
• 1:04:41
  because this cigars. Really, I think, I think I'm
• 1:04:44
  going to take a chance and light one up.
• 1:04:46
  Smoke the small one. That's what I'm going to do.
• 1:04:48
  I'm not, I'm not. I'm not going to smoke a big
• 1:04:51
  one. That I'm smoking now is Toro
• 1:04:55
  correct The big one? The big one is I, I, if I
• 1:04:59
  remember correctly, I think we gave you the 6 by 60, which is
• 1:05:03
  our Gordo and then I gave you the Robusto.
• 1:05:05
  So you got like both? Ends of the the 6 by 60.
• 1:05:09
  Yep, so. Tell us about these cigars being
• 1:05:13
  that we're on here and we're smoking and talking and I love
• 1:05:17
  talking about the business because Scott, Scott, because
• 1:05:22
  when I get off of my Scott, Jim, Joe, we're going to have them on
• 1:05:24
  again. And Scott, anytime that you want
• 1:05:26
  us on, anytime you guys want to come on, you guys want to come
• 1:05:29
  on, all you got to do is send one of us a Yeah, let me know
• 1:05:33
  and I answer you with Joey and come up and say hi, Joey and in
• 1:05:36
  the bottom. Up which I have no idea why it
• 1:05:38
  comes up like that. Anytime you want us, you want to
• 1:05:41
  come on. We got all next month open all
• 1:05:43
  December and then we start January.
• 1:05:45
  Oh, that's wonderful. Well, thank you guys.
• 1:05:47
  I appreciate that very much. Thank you.
• 1:05:49
  And it's, it's things like this that that help spread awareness
• 1:05:52
  and, and get the word out. And, and you're right.
• 1:05:54
  When you have good, when you have great cigars, Yeah, it it,
• 1:05:57
  it does make it easy when you have awesome cigars, in my
• 1:06:00
  slightly biased opinion. And thanks.
• 1:06:02
  For the light about it, that's really great.
• 1:06:04
  So tell us about the cigar. My finger in the flame.
• 1:06:11
  So the cigar so broadside. How that came about, we, we
• 1:06:17
  looked at the portfolio, we looked at what we had in there
• 1:06:20
  and with it's got kind of hit on this earlier tooth of doubloon,
• 1:06:25
  right. And I think you guys were
• 1:06:26
  talking about it a little bit too.
• 1:06:27
  But with doubloon, it was the way that I envisioned doubloon
• 1:06:31
  and then how I got to broadside. But doubloon was meant to be
• 1:06:34
  kind of like Mexican hot chocolate, right, where you get
• 1:06:37
  sweetness, you get spice. But that's what San Andreas.
• 1:06:40
  Yeah, Yeah. That's what I like about San
• 1:06:42
  Andreas and I wanted it strong, but I didn't want it over the
• 1:06:46
  top, right. So I was thinking medium, medium
• 1:06:48
  plus on it. But that left an opportunity for
• 1:06:52
  us to really come up with a broad leaf.
• 1:06:55
  That was one thing that I, when I looked at our portfolio that
• 1:06:58
  we hadn't done yet. It's a big thing in the
• 1:07:00
  industry. And once again, to your guys's
• 1:07:02
  point, if you're thinking about price points, we actually come
• 1:07:05
  in on the broadside a little bit cheaper than a lot of guys do
• 1:07:10
  with broad leaf. And that was kind of one of the
• 1:07:12
  things we wanted to do. We wanted to come in with a
• 1:07:14
  really great broad leaf at a really fair price.
• 1:07:17
  And so that's how the journey started.
• 1:07:21
  Now with the rest of it, what happened is we went down there,
• 1:07:25
  I took a couple of cigars, I took a couple of broad Leafs
• 1:07:28
  from the US, you know, market that I liked and I went down
• 1:07:33
  with Esteban. I'm like, hey, Esteban, these
• 1:07:37
  are a couple broad Leafs that I really like.
• 1:07:38
  But here's what I like about them.
• 1:07:40
  And here's also what I'd like to tweet.
• 1:07:41
  This is where I kind of want to take it differently.
• 1:07:44
  And Esteban smoked them. And working with Esteban is one
• 1:07:49
  of the coolest experiences. I, I always say he's a savant
• 1:07:53
  because. And when he smokes, it's almost
• 1:07:57
  like you see his eyes and himself going to this different
• 1:07:59
  place. Like he just gets transported
• 1:08:01
  away for a bit and he smokes for a couple minutes kind of in this
• 1:08:05
  state of just being somewhere else.
• 1:08:08
  And then he tunes back in and he's like, OK, I know what
• 1:08:12
  you're looking for. And then he goes and like what
• 1:08:14
  he'll do at first is he'll go and replicate the cigar that you
• 1:08:19
  gave him. He'll like dead nuts, replicate
• 1:08:21
  that thing without knowing what those guys have blended.
• 1:08:24
  He can just replicate stuff insane, insanely on point.
• 1:08:29
  And then he's like, all right, here's how we'll tweak it.
• 1:08:32
  And so he'll give me a couple of notches above where I'm going
• 1:08:35
  for a couple notches below. And then one that we usually
• 1:08:38
  call Dolce, like sweetness, we've got out of that sweet spot
• 1:08:41
  of where we think we want it to land.
• 1:08:44
  So usually I got a Fuerte, A Dolce and the like the lighter
• 1:08:49
  one, which I'm blanking on what we call that one now.
• 1:08:52
  But anyway, we get kind of a light medium version of it and
• 1:08:55
  or a spot on version. And that's where we start to
• 1:08:58
  play together and start to go, OK, let's change this or change
• 1:09:02
  that. You know, the important thing
• 1:09:04
  that I love to call out here is that I've been in the industry a
• 1:09:07
  long time. When you hear a lot of people
• 1:09:09
  talk about it, right, You hear a lot of like US, you know, cigar
• 1:09:12
  guys that you see as like the brand faces talking about their
• 1:09:15
  blending sessions. And you know, they're, they're
• 1:09:18
  blending in the sense that they're tasting.
• 1:09:20
  But honestly, when it comes to the blender themselves, like
• 1:09:23
  it's an Esteban that's really doing the work.
• 1:09:25
  I mean, that's the type of person that you really want to
• 1:09:29
  see in the praises of. Because what most people don't
• 1:09:31
  know about Esteban necessarily is that him and his brother Raul
• 1:09:35
  have been running every major factory down in Nicaragua for
• 1:09:40
  about the last 30, really almost 40 years.
• 1:09:43
  And so ironically, about 70% or 60% of your humidor in any given
• 1:09:49
  shop has at least some part or at least more than 1/4 of a part
• 1:09:55
  that has a cigar that one of those brothers created at one
• 1:09:58
  point for someone. And so really these guys just
• 1:10:03
  live it. And that's, that's what that and
• 1:10:05
  that's honestly the journey that I took when I work.
• 1:10:09
  When I heard Daniel was working with Esteban, that was the
• 1:10:12
  moment that I went to Daniel. Daniel and I had been buddies
• 1:10:15
  for a long time. He actually used to come to my
• 1:10:17
  shop when I had my shop. We first met, you know, over a
• 1:10:20
  decade ago in Phoenix and became good buddies.
• 1:10:23
  But when he's like, hey, I've got a new operation, I'm working
• 1:10:26
  with Esteban Disla. He's like, would you be
• 1:10:29
  interested? I'm like, absolutely.
• 1:10:33
  And that's why, honestly, we've actually switched all of our
• 1:10:36
  production. I guess it's another piece to
• 1:10:38
  say is that we haven't, you know, put it out there, you
• 1:10:42
  know, fully. But in a lot of ways, we
• 1:10:44
  switched most of our production, even from the Dominican side
• 1:10:47
  over to the Nicaraguan side. And that's just because of, you
• 1:10:51
  know, what we've experienced in the partnership there.
• 1:10:55
  But Esteban's a huge piece of that.
• 1:10:57
  And it's really his expertise that created the the broadside.
• 1:11:02
  He took the vision, he ran with it and then he let us, you know,
• 1:11:05
  put our stamp on it with different, you know, ideas, But
• 1:11:08
  then he created it and it's a wonderful, you know, cigar.
• 1:11:12
  I think it it's my favorite currently in the portfolio.
• 1:11:15
  I smoke that thing daily by the. Way is it a way through it?
• 1:11:22
  How, how did you come up with the name Broadside?
• 1:11:26
  What? What gave you the idea to say,
• 1:11:29
  hey, call us the Broadside or how did you come up with that
• 1:11:33
  name? Well, Scott gave a lot of the
• 1:11:35
  nautical elements of it, right. And really that was kind of my
• 1:11:39
  thought process when we came up with it too, was what do we do
• 1:11:43
  to keep AK Manian theme in there?
• 1:11:45
  But you know, can maybe be a play on words with broadleaf and
• 1:11:49
  also the box press aspect. And as Scott mentioned, all
• 1:11:52
  those aspects kind of fit the term broadside.
• 1:11:55
  And what I like about broadside is that it, it's got a, it's a
• 1:11:58
  powerful word, right? When you say it, you know that
• 1:12:00
  you've got these naval battles in mind, at least I do.
• 1:12:03
  So for us, it's like I knew this was going to be a full
• 1:12:06
  horsepower, kind of like a cannon blast of a cigar.
• 1:12:09
  And so it just, it just made sense.
• 1:12:11
  It, it just really kind of clicked for us when we did it.
• 1:12:15
  And that's why we chose the name for it.
• 1:12:18
  You know, sometimes it takes us longer, like the new one that
• 1:12:20
  we've got coming out, there'll be a comedian theme as well.
• 1:12:23
  And it took us a while to kind of go through it and figure out
• 1:12:27
  what, what fits our motifs, what kind of fits into the world and
• 1:12:33
  how do we then represent it with the banding and the, the boxing
• 1:12:36
  and all that. So I'm, I'm not going to reveal
• 1:12:38
  the name today, but that'll be part of the new blend.
• 1:12:42
  But yeah, it, it, it's kind of the fun thing.
• 1:12:44
  I, I get to learn comedian history.
• 1:12:46
  I think that was one of the, to your point earlier about going
• 1:12:51
  down to the island, that's the theme that you get to also
• 1:12:53
  experience when you're down on the island.
• 1:12:55
  Scott loves to show the history of the island.
• 1:12:58
  You get to go to some really famous spots on the island.
• 1:13:01
  And that was the thing that I, as the operations guy, when I
• 1:13:05
  went down to Scott, I'm like, hey, Scott, when I think about
• 1:13:08
  future branding of our site, when I think about our
• 1:13:10
  marketing, when I think about, you know, the names that we want
• 1:13:14
  to use, what are the things that stand out to you about the
• 1:13:17
  island? And, and so we just had these
• 1:13:19
  conversations every day when I was out there as we passed
• 1:13:22
  different art on the street or we passed different buildings,
• 1:13:26
  you know, about the significance of it, the people involved, the
• 1:13:30
  historical figures. And so we've got this list of
• 1:13:33
  different things that resonate with us.
• 1:13:36
  And then we just, you know, you have to go through and do the
• 1:13:38
  due diligence on it and then you do that work.
• 1:13:42
  But that's that's the fun of it is that you get to play around
• 1:13:44
  with it. And we'll have some goofier
• 1:13:46
  names down the line. There's some ones that have kind
• 1:13:48
  of been fun to us for different future projects that we'll play
• 1:13:51
  around with and stuff like that, that are more ton in cheek and
• 1:13:54
  fun. But so far we've been about
• 1:13:56
  really establishing the brand as a legitimate, you know, as Scott
• 1:14:00
  said, a non cartoonish brand that has a lot of like, you
• 1:14:03
  know, good tradition behind it. Well.
• 1:14:05
  See, I like that because you guys are keeping it under the
• 1:14:09
  Cayman Islands. You're keeping it to Cayman like
• 1:14:12
  you're keeping it to the comedians, you're keeping it to
• 1:14:15
  what they live about, to what they do.
• 1:14:18
  And that's what I like about Scott because when we had Scott
• 1:14:21
  on the first time, he explained everything to us.
• 1:14:24
  And we bet you came on Anthony, because Scott can get a break.
• 1:14:28
  But you know, it's nice to know that you're learning the way you
• 1:14:34
  should rather than they drove you to the dogs and say, here
• 1:14:37
  you go, you got to do. Well, you know what I mean.
• 1:14:39
  It's where. You have to get the OK from him
• 1:14:43
  to say, hey, let's do this, if it's OK, Obviously he's got a
• 1:14:48
  nice dad because dad's got to give the final OK.
• 1:14:51
  It's nice that you know, you guys are are keeping the history
• 1:14:56
  of the the islands and, you know, teaching people that
• 1:14:59
  there's more to the island than just what we know as because we
• 1:15:04
  all know, and I said this last time you.
• 1:15:06
  Got the Cayman Islands? By the way, we all thought the
• 1:15:08
  Cayman Islands was this fictitious place that rich
• 1:15:12
  people put their offshore bank accounts.
• 1:15:14
  Let's be honest. Well.
• 1:15:17
  We all, we all knew that It's not, it's not untrue.
• 1:15:21
  It's. Not.
• 1:15:22
  That that's right. It's that is not.
• 1:15:23
  That's how. We all knew.
• 1:15:25
  That's how we all knew the Cayman Island.
• 1:15:27
  It does, yeah. It does history behind it.
• 1:15:31
  There was a time there was a time that, yeah, people, people,
• 1:15:36
  you know, weren't too concerned about where you parked your
• 1:15:38
  money. And but but in in all fairness,
• 1:15:43
  there was a a movie that came out probably long before you
• 1:15:45
  guys were born. I remember it called the firm
• 1:15:48
  Tom Cruise movie and and it was filmed on location in the Cayman
• 1:15:53
  Islands. And of course the premise of the
• 1:15:55
  film was about money laundering and and Cayman did not like that
• 1:15:59
  in the least. And they've been battling in all
• 1:16:02
  fairness for a long time to to promote the islands, as you
• 1:16:06
  know, a yes, it's got a lot of offshore accounts and it's a
• 1:16:10
  safe, secure place for people to incorporate, create businesses,
• 1:16:14
  you know, invest that kind of thing.
• 1:16:16
  So they've been working a long time to kind of combat that
• 1:16:19
  image of a, a sunny place for shady accounting, shall we say.
• 1:16:24
  And but, but to their, to their credit, they've, they've done
• 1:16:28
  pretty well. And, and also to, to tag on your
• 1:16:30
  point really quick, you, you, you were mentioning just now
• 1:16:33
  about the history of the Cayman Islands and the history of the
• 1:16:38
  islands is really important to us.
• 1:16:40
  But also remember that we are making history as we speak
• 1:16:45
  because we are, we, we, we are growing tobacco on an island at
• 1:16:52
  sea level that has never been done before.
• 1:16:56
  We are growing different types. We don't know what's going to
• 1:16:59
  work. We're planting different strains
• 1:17:01
  of tobacco just to see what works.
• 1:17:03
  We're analyzing it, growing it and composting it because it's
• 1:17:07
  not yet ready to be incorporated into a cigar.
• 1:17:11
  But we will make history. Make no doubt about it, we will
• 1:17:14
  have the world's first premium cigar made with Kimanian grown
• 1:17:19
  tobacco. I was the funny, I was going to
• 1:17:21
  ask you about that when you guys mentioned the tobacco earlier.
• 1:17:24
  I was going to ask you if there's anything in your line
• 1:17:28
  now that has that tobacco in it. No, not right now, but we are
• 1:17:32
  working towards the goal. Two goals, having the world's
• 1:17:36
  first premium cigar made with tobacco grown generationally in
• 1:17:42
  the Cayman Islands, because we're on our fifth generation
• 1:17:44
  right now analyzing it and, and, and all of that.
• 1:17:47
  But then also we intend to put the Cayman Islands on the world
• 1:17:51
  map as the newest official, if you will, tobacco growing region
• 1:17:57
  in what, 100 years, so. I got to hit you up with this
• 1:18:01
  because this is always looking for new.
• 1:18:06
  That's BAMF. He's looking for new tobacco.
• 1:18:09
  Oh, I'm sorry, you cut. You cut out there.
• 1:18:11
  I could you say that again? Yes, Ishmael Alaban BAMF cigars.
• 1:18:17
  He's always looking for new tobacco.
• 1:18:21
  Well, and that to your point, that's one of the, you're saying
• 1:18:25
  that he's looking for new tobacco.
• 1:18:27
  Yeah, he's a he's a cigar. He owns his own company.
• 1:18:31
  He works with BAMF Cigars. He works with like tobaccos from
• 1:18:34
  Spain, Zimbabwe. He looks for all kinds of new
• 1:18:36
  tobacco, so he's always in the the market for something new
• 1:18:41
  when it's obvious, like you said, when it's ready to be
• 1:18:44
  used. You.
• 1:18:46
  Know and you guys put it out then there's you know you have
• 1:18:48
  that market like you said you'd be able to run with and do these
• 1:18:51
  collaborations with different companies and you know say hey
• 1:18:55
  this is this is made from you know Cayman cigars farm in the
• 1:19:01
  Cayman Islands well, if. You're up.
• 1:19:04
  Early tomorrow. Can you hear me, Anthony?
• 1:19:14
  It it cut out for just a second again, sorry.
• 1:19:18
  Microphone higher up what? Yeah, you're kind of frozen
• 1:19:20
  there too. Can.
• 1:19:22
  You hear me now? Oh.
• 1:19:24
  Yeah, now it's real. Soft on your side, big dog.
• 1:19:27
  Yeah, it is soft coming through hold.
• 1:19:30
  On Can you hear me Now? It's not the same, a little bit
• 1:19:36
  better. Put it up here like I do.
• 1:19:38
  I get collared. You had it all the way.
• 1:19:43
  So get that beard, revenant you. Know I want to trim it but again
• 1:19:49
  I don't. This is this.
• 1:19:51
  I will say though, this is even though I'm I'm still getting
• 1:19:55
  over being sick. This is a very delicious cigar
• 1:19:58
  from what I can what I can taste from it.
• 1:20:00
  I'm getting like a almost like a really strong chocolatey note.
• 1:20:06
  It's yeah. What's interesting to me about
• 1:20:09
  the broadside is that it does have that, but it's it's just a
• 1:20:13
  really unique. I have a hard time like
• 1:20:17
  isolating stuff in it. Other than that, I just like to
• 1:20:20
  say it's very savory. It's a very savory.
• 1:20:22
  That's what I. Was saying when I lit it up to
• 1:20:24
  him, I'm like getting a really like chocolate bar note almost,
• 1:20:28
  yeah. I got a little molasses.
• 1:20:31
  Yeah, that very, that's where that's that really rich
• 1:20:35
  sweetness is. But I can.
• 1:20:36
  It's hard to pinpoint just one. Yep.
• 1:20:40
  Like it's, it's, it's interesting, but it's good.
• 1:20:43
  That is the magic of the Dieseler brothers.
• 1:20:46
  Being that to the Director of Operations, I asked Scott this
• 1:20:50
  the first time it was on. Do you do it for you, or do you
• 1:20:57
  do it for the consumers? The blending, yeah, we.
• 1:21:04
  So that's a great question. And the honest answer is
• 1:21:10
  ultimately I think we kind of talked about a little bit
• 1:21:14
  earlier, there are certain blends of these variations that
• 1:21:17
  I like better for my palate that I'm like, oh, that's money.
• 1:21:21
  But when I have the group looking at it, it's a different
• 1:21:27
  one that ultimately that we picked for the consumer because
• 1:21:30
  everybody's unanimous said that's hitting everybody's
• 1:21:32
  palates in the right way versus where it might.
• 1:21:35
  So like, I love bringing Rob on these trips with me.
• 1:21:38
  Almost every time I go down there, I take Rob with me.
• 1:21:40
  And the reason why I take Rob with me is because him and I
• 1:21:43
  have been counter points to each other for years.
• 1:21:46
  He likes punchy, strong tobacco. I like full flavor, more
• 1:21:52
  balanced and nuanced. And like, there's been so many
• 1:21:55
  great cigars where I'm like, I love this one and Rob's like I
• 1:21:58
  hate it. And then like, there's ones that
• 1:21:59
  he loves. And I'm like, yeah, it's OK.
• 1:22:01
  And so that that's what you learn, you know, having owned a
• 1:22:04
  shop, being a sales guy out in the field, right?
• 1:22:07
  Is that your palette and what works?
• 1:22:10
  Your palette isn't always what works best for a shop.
• 1:22:13
  And that's one of the things that I have to remember when I
• 1:22:14
  was a shop owner too, is that there are stuff that I like that
• 1:22:17
  I bring in because I liked it. But ultimately, I was looking
• 1:22:21
  for what worked best, approved most of our audience, and you
• 1:22:25
  try to find that sweet spot. So really, to answer your
• 1:22:27
  question, you're blending for the consumer to the best of your
• 1:22:31
  ability. And then if you're lucky, that
• 1:22:34
  also coincides with what you love as well.
• 1:22:36
  Or in my case, sometimes you just bring it back as a special
• 1:22:40
  project later on so you know. This question being that you
• 1:22:44
  owned the shop and because we haven't had anybody that was a
• 1:22:48
  Rep or a director of operations or manager that owned the shop.
• 1:22:53
  So let me ask you this, being that you owned this shop and I
• 1:22:57
  came in and you didn't know Scott and I said, hey, Anthony,
• 1:23:00
  check these cigars out. Would you smoke it with me or
• 1:23:03
  tell me you hold off, I'll smoke it another day?
• 1:23:08
  Well, and when I owned my shop, I was, it was either like I
• 1:23:13
  said, my wife or myself in there.
• 1:23:15
  And it really just depended on how busy it was, right?
• 1:23:17
  Because I want to smoke that cigar with you and go through
• 1:23:20
  that experience if I can with you.
• 1:23:23
  Because once again, I was on the other side of what you just
• 1:23:25
  painted, right where I was a sales Rep going in and knocking
• 1:23:28
  on the door. The best thing you can get as a
• 1:23:30
  Rep is that time with the owner to be able to smoke a cigar
• 1:23:35
  doesn't always happen though. So, you know, if you are a
• 1:23:38
  single store, you know, single owner type operator, it's kind
• 1:23:42
  of a mix. And so sometimes you have to
• 1:23:43
  say, Hey, I'm super busy. If you want to come back at this
• 1:23:47
  time, you can set a time where it made sense.
• 1:23:49
  Then they can come back and smoke with you or, you know,
• 1:23:52
  just depending on their schedule.
• 1:23:53
  If they're just in and out of town, then you're like, Hey, let
• 1:23:55
  me, let me do this and then I'll get notes back to you.
• 1:23:58
  And, and I'd follow through, right.
• 1:24:00
  I mean, for me that was important because I understood
• 1:24:02
  the work it took for them to come in and do that type of work
• 1:24:05
  as a sales guy. So I always try to operate that
• 1:24:09
  way. If I can, I'm going to sit down
• 1:24:11
  with you and I'm going to smoke that cigar with you because I
• 1:24:13
  want to understand it. I want to understand what the
• 1:24:15
  vision is for that line, especially if it's a whole net
• 1:24:18
  new theme like you're talking about coming in.
• 1:24:21
  So I I want that time with the Rep Now, at the same time, the
• 1:24:25
  reps got to also understand that coming in, they've got to the
• 1:24:29
  best reps call ahead and pick times and you know, you know,
• 1:24:33
  we'll communicate with you. Other ones will kind of cold
• 1:24:36
  call you and walk in. And sometimes you have to right.
• 1:24:38
  If you can never get a hold of a shop store owner, sometimes you
• 1:24:40
  ultimately do have to just walk in and hope.
• 1:24:42
  But I was the type that if you called ahead, you know, I'm
• 1:24:45
  going to try to clear out time for you.
• 1:24:46
  I'll try to have somebody there also that can offset so I can
• 1:24:50
  sit there with you. But it didn't always it It
• 1:24:53
  happened both ways, let's put it that way.
• 1:24:55
  But I tried, Joey. We were doing.
• 1:24:59
  Well, I, I worked, I worked for a small company out of Florida
• 1:25:03
  for like 6 or seven months during COVID.
• 1:25:07
  I was the Northeast sales director because it was the
• 1:25:10
  owner, his VP, one other guy and me like it was that we were like
• 1:25:16
  the top three. But then his, he had another guy
• 1:25:18
  who kind of was like his right hand who just kind of would go
• 1:25:22
  to the shops down there for him and stuff like that.
• 1:25:25
  And getting in front of the owners a lot of times was hard,
• 1:25:30
  you know, because you would either, oh, hey, you know, I
• 1:25:32
  need to set up a timer. They'd be like, oh, just come
• 1:25:34
  by. So you go by.
• 1:25:35
  Oh, well, I'm busy. I'm like, I understand.
• 1:25:38
  Like, oh, leave me something. I, I would leave him something.
• 1:25:40
  I go back like 2 weeks later. Hey, you know, I left you.
• 1:25:43
  Oh, I didn't get a chance to smoke yet.
• 1:25:45
  I'm like, well, I'm here now, let's smoke it.
• 1:25:47
  No, no, no, OK, later, smoke it later.
• 1:25:49
  And then I would never get anything back.
• 1:25:52
  And I had him calling me, yo, what's going on with?
• 1:25:53
  I'm like, bro, I can't, I said, I can't even cut the cigar and
• 1:25:57
  force it in their mouth. They say because they don't
• 1:25:58
  obviously don't want to sit with me.
• 1:26:00
  And it's not that they didn't like me, it's just the fact that
• 1:26:04
  either they didn't want to smoke it yet or they wanted to let it
• 1:26:07
  sit or they didn't really want to bring it in.
• 1:26:09
  Let's they just took the cigar because I was the Rep for it and
• 1:26:14
  they liked me. Let's put it under the bus here
• 1:26:17
  because he wasn't the greatest guy that owns the company.
• 1:26:21
  Well. And he still owes me money.
• 1:26:25
  You got it, I. Gave it to you.
• 1:26:26
  It is what it is. It's.
• 1:26:28
  All done. So guys on that note 27 if you
• 1:26:34
  now we can talk after the show, it's up to you.
• 1:26:37
  But it's 12:27. This has been turned by yes five
• 1:26:40
  we appreciate came in cigars coming on Scott the CEO.
• 1:26:44
  Thank you. Director of operations.
• 1:26:47
  On that note, guys, have a great weekend and don't forget Go
• 1:26:50
  Giants. Hi, I'm Beaker with Military
• 1:26:54
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• 1:26:59
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• 1:27:04
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• 1:27:07
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