- The last time you put that Claro Olmec in my hand- - Yeah, you want this one? - No, you smoke it. I'm smoking his [Robert Caldwell's] Long Live The Queen. - Good. - But I'm not gonna tell anybody on the interview, so, just pretend- - You can tell it, I don't care. - No, you like that guy? - I love him. (crowd chattering) - Yeah. - I love him. - Tell me about him real quick. - You know, as brand owners- - We're talking about Robert Caldwell.
- And he started, you know, with his brand before I launched. You know, when you get guys that are cool, - He's a cool guy. - You can relate on so many things, because it's lonely sometimes being brand owners, because you're kind of on your own island. - Well, you're peerless. You don't have people to talk to that are doing the same thing you're doing.
- Correct, yeah, so, and then it's tough to relate, even though sometimes you work with people, they're just not going through similar experiences all the time, and as a small company brand owner, you have to wear so many hats, and you're juggling a lot, so, it's nice to be able to talk to other brand owners that are going through similar experiences, and I love his creativity. You know, he's passionate, so, we always- - Well, now, he gets to focus on what he's really good at. - It's awesome.
- Yeah, how are you? - It's pretty cool. I'm good, I'm well, you? - Yeah, really good. I can't thank you enough - Yeah. - For the time you spent with us last year. - I had a lot of fun, and- - We cut some great content out of it. - I showed that Connecticut clip, everybody loved that clip. - That Connecticut description that you went through the history, - Yeah. - And the evolution, and the terroir, and the whole trip.
It's like those are like, mini TED talks, or mini classes - Yeah, you know, - That everybody can benefit from. - You know, I did a talk at the beginning of this show. - Yeah, I saw you on the schedule, I didn't make it, I'm sorry I came in later. - Yeah, you would've loved it, but it seemed like everybody responded to it pretty well. - Yeah, you do a nice job. - I try, you know, I tried to do it in a way where I'm not reading from a tele, you know, from notes, or- - Like the interview.
- Correct, I wanna make it- - It very much is a conversation. - Exactly. - You pick somebody out, and you're having a personal conversation. - Exactly, yeah, and halfway through, I looked out into, there was about 1,000 people there, and I saw everybody locked in, so, I said, "Okay, I think I'm doing what I wanted to do, and keep people engaged." - Well, and it's interesting talking to Robert Caldwell.
He's talking about being in a position where he's doing what he loves, and I gather from the conversation we had last year, and the general vibe of your personality, you are doing precisely what you love to do. - Yes, yes, I've... - It's a dream. - I fell in love with cigars very early through my grandfathers, you know, that was when I smoked a cigar with my grandfather for the first time, that was it.
You know, that was a coming of age, and being from Connecticut, you know, Connecticut doesn't have a good rap or image sometimes. - Oh yeah, I have Dan [Murphy], Dan's my connection to Connecticut. - There you go, and, you know, the one thing I always say we do have, we have good basketball. - Mm-hmm. - And UConn's looking good right now. - Very good, yeah.
- We have great pizza, and we have amazing cigar tobacco, and when I learned the history of cigar tobacco in Connecticut, that was the beginning of the end, so, I've, you know, dedicated my life to it. - Yeah, you fell in love.
- I fell in love, and that love and passion just led to where I am today, and it goes with other things in my life, being in love with history, with ancient civilizations, with culture, with, you know, I have this strange love for Ethiopia and the history there, and that's led to amazing things, you know? - Yeah, and I now know how to say, El Güegüense. - Yes. - It doesn't sound like a pasta sauce anymore. I know how to light a cigar without drowning the foot with the nuclear part of the torch.
You taught me that, and actually, one of your videos taught me that. - Yeah, this flame is about 2,000 degrees. - It's a lot. - It's a lot. - Yeah. It's nice to have a kiln-dried cigar when you start, when you start smoking it. - You know what? - And that cigar, I have smoked so many of those.
Little plug for Cigar Jones, Minnetonka, Minnesota, the Olmecs, they're going through the Olmecs like crazy, because I stand in the- - I know, we're trying to keep up. - I stand there, smoking an Olmec, - Yeah. - And guys will ask me what I'm smoking, and I go, "Yeah, you gotta understand this," and I go off on the heads. I talk about this is the - The Olmec heads. - Earliest artistic rendering. - The mother culture of Central America. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
- You taught me a lot. - Very mysterious. - Thank you. - The Olmecs. Very... (chuckles) My pleasure, my pleasure. (interviewer laughing) I thought you were saying, yeah, I said, "Very mysterious," and you were saying thank you for that. (interviewer laughing) You are a mysterious man. - Yeah. - Yeah. You know, I love that stuff. - It's not about me, it's about you. - You know, to be able to complement the blends, you know, it all starts with the tobacco and the blends for me.
That's always where it starts. So then to be able to complement these blends that I love so much with artwork, with things that I'm passionate about, it just works. - Well, you build the story around the blends. - Yeah, I mean, I have an amazing friend and art director in Nicaragua. His name's Alex Garcia. We met back in 2003, 2004. He's an amazing... Started as a street artist in the North of Nicaragua with graffiti, you know, North of Nicaragua, falling in love with hip hop culture, right?
There was a tradition there of mural art, and then you had an influence of the States in hiphop. - Yeah, I would never have taken you as a hiphop guy. - Amazing. Me? - Yeah. - You know, hiphop, wow. You know, I grew up in late '80s, early '90s. - Like, gimme an example, gimme some artists that were central to your development. - I mean, there's a group called Black Star, that's one of my favorite hip hop albums of all time. It's Mos Def and Talib Kweli, the album's called...
It actually came out a bit little bit later in '98. That was after Tupac [Shakur] and Biggie Smalls [Notorious B.I.G.] had gotten murdered. It is one of the best hip hop albums of all time. A Tribe Called Quest, man, they're's some Public Enemy, KRS-One, D-Nice, they're from Boogie Down Productions. D-Nice is a big cigar smoker. Jay-Z, of course. You know, they're all, it's interesting to see, as they've evolved, their love for cigars have evolved.
So, there's so many hip hop artists that love cigars. - Oh yeah, oh yeah. - And Drew, we shot a hip hop video, you have to see. Music video. - I gotta see this. - You would love it. In 2019, with good friends of mine called The Reminders, and they sent me a song in May, and in June we were in... I said, "We gotta shoot a music video." - And you shot it in Nicaragua? - Right in A.J. Fernandez factory, on the fields. - Beautiful. - It's unbelievable.
- So, there's a connection between the culture of cigars and the culture of the music? - Oh, big time, big time. - Yeah. - Big time, big time. So many hip hop artists now, you know, they're in their 40s and 50s, and you know, have - Yeah, that is true, they're old now. - They're old now. 51 years, hip hop is, you know- - You're still young though. - 45, 45. - Yeah, that's pretty young. - You don't- - For what you've done, that is young. - You know, I started when I was 18, so.
- Yeah, and you did every aspect of the industry, the retail, the introduction from grandpa, the retail experience, the- - Yeah, yeah, started working the Calabash Shoppe in Hamden, Connecticut, 1996. I was 18, just graduated high school, and I used to go into the shop, that was the... '96 was what we call the height of the Cigar Boom. - Yep. - And I used to walk into the shop, and- - The year before Boveda was launched. - It's amazing, yeah. - What'd you come up with for this year?
- So, we actually are introducing, I'm actually discontinuing El Güegüense. - Oh. Por qué? - Yes, because I came to a point, you know, El Güegüense was introduced in 2015. At that time, nobody knew who I was, or Foundation, except for the hardcore guys that were smoking at the time, and the hardcore group of retailers, and that's what, El Güegüense that was the target market when I first launched. I knew they would get it, but obviously, it's a lot to pronounce. - It's complicated.
- It's complicated, so, the brand, compared to all of our other brands, hasn't really, you know, grown the same over the past 10 years, so, I said, "For the next decade, we need to start anew." - Have you known for a while that you were gonna phase that out? - Mm, it happened over the past- - Because you really get it, if you're in Estelí, - I love it, it's my baby. - You get it, but if you're a Nicaraguan, you get it, I mean, it's... - Nah, yeah.
- In Spanish, it's difficult to pronounce, but when I came out with it, it's Nahuas, it's indigenous to Nicaragua. It's not even a Spanish word, El Güegüense, so, it's hard for Spanish people sometimes to say it, but I needed to be true to Nicaragua when I released it, and that was my artistic, you know, non-business. - Yeah, cool. - Obviously, I knew it was difficult at the time, and then I just got the opportunity recently to work with Pepin Garcia and My Father, so, I've-
- This is new? - New. So, I'm discontinuing El Güegüense, - Oh, this is exciting. - And the Maduro, and we're launching, at this show, The Wise Man, Corojo and Maduro with Pepin. - Dude. - I have to get you some of these sticks. - That's a great idea. - It's unbelievable. I've known Pepin for 20+ years, you know, incredible. I worked with, you know, my other brands with Abdel [A.J. Fernandez], so, I have these amazing partners on the manufacturing side.
- Well, do they all have the same reaction to you like you had to Robert [Caldwell], when you saw him. I mean, there's that... - You know, we're- - These are real- - They're tobacco guys. - But these are real artists. - Yeah, truly, so. - Yeah, and it fits. - Yes, it does, and it's- - Oh, you gotta be stoked. - Stoked, stoked. - Yeah. (laughs) - Stoked, excited, and the reception has been incredible. - How do you keep somebody from not coming along and buying you, you know?
Is it just people popping all the time, hitting you up for- - No, I don't, you know, I'm doing my thing. You know, it would be tough. - Oh no, this is- - It would be tough to sell. - And I watched that team, - You know? - You know, you have great presence in the front of the room. You got a beautiful booth. - My team is stellar right now, yeah. - Your team is top drawer.
- Yeah, it's, you know, I've learned over the years, it's been, you know, challenging at times, but we really have a great synergy going on. We're more organized than we've ever been at the show. - Well, and I walked, we had a little lull in the action yesterday afternoon. - Yeah, yeah. - I walked by your booth, and everybody's meeting with each other. - That's when I'm, yes, yes. - You were having, like, a staff meeting. - Yes, yes, you know? - Yeah. It was cool,
- There's great synergy. - And everybody's, like, in the deal, they're passionate. They capture... The contagion of your passion for this game runs throughout your team. That's cool, that's hard to do. - It's hard to do, it's hard to do, but I'm on the, you know, front lines with them, so, we come to the show, we set up our booth. - Yeah, you set up the booth. - You know? Yeah, with them, I'm with them, you know, I'm not- - Yeah, you do everything you expect them to do. - Correct, correct.
- Did you write any orders? - If I gotta sweep- - Did you write any orders at the show? - Yeah, I write a few, but, you know, I'm there to try to, you know, help. I'm moving around constantly, because I'm hoping to get them to, you know, take it to the next level with the orders. - And you're emerging as a personality in the industry. It's cool to watch the thing bubble up. I mean, you did the seminar before, at the PCA, that's big. - Yeah, yeah, that's really great, it was awesome.
- This was a conversation with Michael Herklots at the beginning of the show. - He's amazing, Michael, yeah. - We sat down and talked about his trajectory, the way he approached this, the way he was involved in various capacities in the industry, and the advocate, and the ambassador that he's become for the whole industry is the same kind of trip that's going on with you. - He's one of the most amazing orators. - He's a great raconteur. - He was at Nat Sherman. - He's a great storyteller.
- He supported us from day one, and he's such a amazing orator, and he's also amazingly knowledgeable about the product, about the leaf, so, I got a lot to learn from him when it comes to, you know, public speaking, and the use of language. He's phenomenal. - I've known his story, and I've known him from a distance. I actually met him personally, and he sat in that chair, and we had a conversation at the beginning of the show. Super gracious guy.
We got to the end of the conversation, I went over to thank him, and he said, "You know, I've been thinking. There's some things we could do to help the whole group," with some very specific shorts about the cigar industry, the cigar community, the ethics around the business, the family foundation of the whole thing. It'd be fun to get you involved in that. - I'd love to. - Yeah, that'd be good. We're gonna talk about that. - I'd love to. Anything Michael's involved in,
I'll support. - Yeah. Yeah, he's a standup guy. - Stellar. - You're a stand-up guy. - You're a stand-up guy. - No, I, oh. - The whole team here is a stand-up group, - And then I saw the most recent- - And you got great coffee, too. - Yeah, you like that? - Oh man. - Yeah. - I've been needing this the whole show. - Yeah, we've been here the whole time. You're welcome, you're welcome to an espresso anytime we're in the room. - This, I finally got out, I'm glad I got to get out.
- (laughs) That's awesome. - Because it's, yeah. - Yeah, so, I'm gonna come by and get some sticks. I gotta try this. - Please do, I told the guys, too. Please make sure you come by - Yeah. - So we can interview. - The chap that came over on your behalf is a lovely guy. [Michael] Floyd? - Floyd, he's a character, huh? - Yeah. - He just came on board. He used to work with- - But, no, no, to listen to him talk - Yeah. - About how much he loves that, - Yeah, yeah. - Is so...
Because that's what we have at Boveda. - This was a big deal for him, Michael, Floyd, he worked with Alan Rubin at Alec Bradley for, I think, eight years, and he was always on the phone. - Yep. - So, he's first time in front of customers, and it's a lot for people that are not used to being, - Yeah, yeah. - You know, talking to people, and he's done a great job. - Yeah, lovely guy. - Yeah, and he looks like he belongs in Las Vegas. - He sure does. - Yeah. - Viva Las Vegas.
♪ Viva ♪ ♪ Las Vegas ♪ - What do you think about the floor this year? - We had a really good experience. It's a shift for PCA to be here in the spring. - Yeah. - I think... - It's a transitory time. - Day 1 was great. - Yeah. - Day 2 was good. - Yeah. - And today's a great day to have a sit down with people that can't get out of the booth. - Yeah, we have more time to really talk with people. I think they should have it at the beginning of the quarter next year instead the end of the quarter.
- I think that's a good idea. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, there's a lot of retailers that aren't cash flush until summertime. - Yeah, so, I think they're doing it April next year, so. - And New Orleans. - We launched there. It's gonna be our 10th anniversary next year, so. - Oh, let's do something around your 10th anniversary. - We would love it, so. - You're a gem. - Thank you so much, yeah. - I appreciate you. What else can we do for you? - That's it, man. - Yeah. - You guys have done enough.
- Yeah, but- - Make sure somebody comes by so I can get you guys some sticks. - I'll be there. (upbeat rhythmic music)