I wanted to share an article with y'all that I had the pleasure of writing for Smoke Magazine; it was in the recently released issue, Fall 2010. It is talking about the new class of cigar owners and their new approach to the business. It's a long article...hope you enjoy!
Here's the link to the article on Smoke Mag's site.
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There has always been a David and Goliath scenario painted into the landscape of the tobacco industry. Every few years a new crop of small cigar companies rises up with hopes of securing a place within the business. On rare occasions they challenge the titans, sometimes they remain small and focus on limited production runs, but most often they depart as quickly as they arrived.
These small cigar companies, typically referred to as boutique, focus on limited production runs, extreme attention to detail, and rarely carry more than a handful of blends. Boutiques provide a great service to the cigar industry and its smokers by providing variety, forcing the big boys to remain sharp, and by remaining more accessible than the larger companies. This accessibility is one of the largest distinctions in the recent classes of boutique owners and can be attributed to the use of social media.
Over the last few years, there has been a rise in the use and popularity of social media within the world of cigars; this new media has provided smokers a stronger connection to the makers of the cigars they smoke and an inside look at what is involved in the manufacturing process. Cigar forums, Twitter, Facebook, and cigar blogs have all provided increased exposure for the cigar brand owners. The vast majority of brand owners utilizing social media are boutique, while only a small percentage of large companies recognize the potential impact and have embraced the shift. This distinction has shaped the recent classes of boutique owners in an obvious way and will only help increase their industry sustainability. Ultimately, of course, it’s the consistency and quality of the product that makes the final decision.
Yesterday’s Boutiques, Today’s Big Contenders
The late part of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st saw a handful of companies make the successful transition from boutique outfit to legitimate household name: Alan Rubin of Alec Bradley, Litto Gomez of La Flor Dominicano, Rocky Patel of Rocky Patel Premium Cigars, and Ernesto Perez Carrillo of La Gloria Cubana (who’s now started over again) highlighted this class. Each new wave of boutique owners seem to become more and more unique as the industry swells with less family companies and more entrepreneurs.
Alan Rubin got his start in the industry after selling his bolt, nut, and screw importing business - he began selling Bogie Stogies to golf shops and later tried selling Gourmet Dessert Cigars. As both of these failed, he was facing bankruptcy, until he was introduced to Hendrik Kelner of Davidoff; soon thereafter, Occidental Reserve was born. Litto Gomez was a jewelry store owner and would likely still be today, had he not been robbed and held at gunpoint - he put the store up for sale the next day after the terrifying event. Los Libertadores was born in 1994, Gomez’s first cigar. Rocky Patel left a lucrative job as an entertainment lawyer to start Indian Tabac. From this group, only Ernesto Perez Carrillo has a traditional cigar family background.
When Rocky Patel began Indian Tabac in 1996, he produced 150,000 cigars; it is believed that he is now nearing an annual production of 20 million cigars. In 2002 he changed the company’s name from Indian Tabac to Rocky Patel Premium Cigars and debuted the 1990 and 1992 Vintage Series. Rocky now boasts over 40 blends, spends over 300 days a year on the road, maintains two factories, recently acquired a 50 percent stake in E.O. Brands, distributes two other non-RP brands, and has received ratings as high as 95 - and he started as a lawyer in Los Angeles, during the saturated cigar boom of the early ’90s, with no tobacco experience. He is a true boutique cigar success story.
When asked about his wild ride, Patel is clear as to what led him to become an industry giant. “It requires extreme dedication and passion, being relentless about quality and consistency,” he says. “You must remain creative and work harder every day than the past. And I spend an inordinate amount of time in the procedure of the curing and fermentation of tobacco and I keep a large inventory of ligero, viso, and wrapper.”
The success of Patel, Gomez, Rubin, and Carrillo added a few more bricks to the small batch road, and another class soon followed. Pete Johnson of Tatuaje, Dion Giolito of Illusione, Sam Leccia of Nub, and Eddie Ortega and Erik Espinosa of E.O. Brands have all proven to possess an extraordinary amount of sustaining power. In just a few short years, their cigars readily line the shelves of cigar shops, online distributors, and smoker’s humidors across the world.
As a select few continue to carve a place within the industry each year or two; it provides a constant reminder that there is a lot of room within the cigar industry, and no one should be taken lightly.
Hard work is a part of every success story, but lately another component has been added to the formula - the ability and willingness of boutique brand owners to readily connect with smokers. Owners are more accessible now than they ever have been. Just spend a few minutes on forums, and you’ll find detailed information about a cigar, with most of it coming directly from the owner. Pop onto Twitter and follow the right folks, and you’ll find ongoing dialog between smokers and owners, and stop by any number of successful cigar blogs, and you’ll find interviews with just about every brand owner out there - new and old alike. Though this is not a new development (forums have been around since the internet), the use has considerably increased and is impacting and shaping the industry in new and profound ways.
The New Class and Their Use of Social Media
The freshmen class of boutique owners has been paying attention; they learned well from their predecessors and have fully embraced the new outpouring of social media. This new class is well represented by Bryan White of 13th Floor Cigars, Clint, Jerry, and Mike of 262 Cigars, Henry “Don Kiki” Berger and Al and Mike Argenti of Berger & Argenti, Sean Williams of El Primer Mundo, and Brad Mayo of Jameson Cigars.
There are a great number of similarities among this new class - one of interest is that, aside from Berger & Argenti, none had previous experience with tobacco. Sean Williams got the bug from a cruise ship cigar bar, Clint Aaron got turned off by corporate America, and Bryan White wanted to start a family business. For various reasons, they all ended up in the same place - boutique brand owners looking to find a place within the cigar industry.
13th Floor Cigars is based in Arizona and is owned by Bryan White. The process for his first blend began in 2009 and the Foundation Series was released in 2010. For the blending, he turned to Willy Herrera of El Titan de Bronze in Miami. Before entering the cigar industry, White was in sales in the hardware and software industry. He has focused his early efforts on establishing a following and has freely spread his cigars around the country to smokers through Twitter and through contests on blogs. White’s Foundation Series combines an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper, Ecuadorian binder, and Nicaraguan filler, creating a creamy, slightly spicy, and cedary core. The construction and attention to detail is superb.
262 Cigars approached Alec Bradley and their exclusive label program back in 2009; out of that conversation came their first blend, the Paradigm. Prior to choosing Alec Bradley, Clint Aaron, Jerry Ernst, and Mike Justice established a team in 2008, all entering the cigar industry for the first time. The company is founded on the idea of a smoking revolution and is in response to the Cuban embargo enacted by John F. Kennedy, on February 1962, with the 262 name coming from this date. Their second blend, the Ideology, a milder offering, was recently released. The Paradigm utilizes tobacco from five different regions and presents a complex flavor profile of nuts, spice, berry and a muted espresso.
Berger & Argenti is another brand that many people may not be very familiar with. They just released their third and fourth cigar this past summer, and their cigars are sold exclusively to brick and mortar stores. However, the Berger and Argenti names, taken separately, are anything but new to the industry. Mike Argenti got his start in the mid-’90s, when he partnered with Nick Perdomo, Jr., while Henry “Don Kiki” Berger is the founder of Cuban Crafters and Tabacalera Esteli, a 205 acre tobacco farm and factory in Nicaragua. Their first four releases are the Clasico, Entubar, Entubar Maduro, and Mooch. The Clasico was recently named Best of the Best by the Robb Report. They are based in Miami and provide an incredible attention to detail in all of their products.
El Primer Mundo is owned by Sean Williams, who, as of just a few years ago, was not even a cigar smoker and had no intentions of ever being a part of the industry. But he smoked a cigar on a cruise ship and was never the same. Only a few years later he has completed his fourth blend, and has worked with both the Plasencia family and Willy Herrera of El Titan de Bronze. He is quickly making a name for himself, having taken over the distribution of his own brand in mid-2010 and receiving some strong ratings from various publications. Based in Atlanta, Sean is another highly accessible brand owner via social media. His newly released Liga Miami offers a rich, full body with notes of coffee, cedar, and a slight hint of burnt cherry and spice.
Jameson Cigars, based out of a new factory on Miami’s Calle Ocho, is operated by 28-year-old brand owner Brad Mayo. Brad began strong by releasing the now popular Red and Black Label, soon followed by the Declaration, which debuted at the 2009 IPCPR trade show. The Red Label received a panel average of 93 from Smoke Magazine. Brad works with Luis Sanchez of La Tradicion Cubana for his blends. The Declaration is a Dominican puro that utilizes a Habano wrapper and a Criollo binder, both from 1998. The flavor profile on the Declaration is leathery with a slight spice and sweet melon. Brad also started RockStone Premium Coffees last year.
Illusione Cigars harkens back to an older Nicaraguan taste profile - from before the 1979 revolution when many of the fields fell into neglect. These small-batch cigars are all culled from the Jalapa valley and Esteli region to create strong bold smokes. The company is run out of Dion Giolito’s cigar shop, Illusione Cigars, in Reno, Nevada. Each Illusione cigar line is given a particular number that is its own personal Da Vinci Code, a Giolito’s Code if you will: the ~68~ refers to 1968, the year Dion was born; the ~888~ is what the name Jesus adds up to in Hebrew numerology, harkening to Dion’s faith; the ~F9~ stands for “finesse,” which Dion wanted the taste profile to be, while 9 stands for the (since demoted) 9th planet, Pluto.
This may be one of the more closely related and practically alike classes the cigar industry has produced. They have embraced social media and regularly communicate with each other; 13th Floor and 262 regularly talk via Twitter, helping promote each other’s blends on their respective coast. Every brand owner is also attached to a well known blender - 13th Floor and El Primer Mundo utilize El Titan de Bronze, 262 works with Alec Bradley, and Jameson joined with La Tradicion Cubana, while Berger and Argenti use their own master, Henry Berger. Finally, none of these brand owners, with the exception of Berger & Argenti, had previous experience in the cigar industry before striking out for their first blend.
Though only time will tell, this new class has been very well received by the cigar community. Willy Hererra of El Titan de Bronze has enjoyed his work with 13th Floor and El Primer Mundo, and says this new class is “open to new ideas, thinking outside the box.” Willy considers himself to be a boutique company as well. Willy’s grandfather began El Titan de Bronze in 1995 and they now have four lines, with Willy being involved in the blending of each. “We manufacture everything in Miami, and my rollers roll a maximum of 125 cigars a day,” says Herrera. “You know, it’s not that hard remaining boutique in Miami because there’s a certain value and mystique that people are willing to pay and wait for. They know they are getting something special and if and when they come by the factory they can meet the roller who rolled their cigar!”
Though this new class doesn’t share the tobacco experience of their predecessor class (Sam Leccia was a sales representative for Oliva prior to beginning Nub, and Dion Giolito and Pete Johnson were both tobacconists before forming Illusione and Tatuaje), they seem to be fast learners. These companies don’t represent the entire freshman class, and other key names will surface in the next year or so, but these guys are growing quickly, establishing excellent contacts, and are acquiring top grade tobacco, and, as a result, are releasing some excellent cigars.
There will always be an entrepreneurial spirit behind the cigar industry, with both cigar families and new unknowns entering into the brother and sisterhood. The success rate seems quite small, but it also appears to be widening from the added exposure provided by social media. Boutique owners are not going to drastically cut into the profits of industry giants, nor are they going to overtake the palate of the casual smoker that walks into their bricks and mortar before golf each week. And, thankfully, this isn’t their intention; they seem to be satisfied with their small, though growing corner of the industry. The next time you walk into your local B&M, or place an online order, take a look at some of these boutique blends; you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
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