(upbeat music) - Hi. Do you need a cut? Come on in. (indistinct talking) - First time. - First time? Don't put it in your mouth yet. There. This should be great. There you go. - This is how I actually lost my hair. Ma'am, may I prepare it for you? Okay, so what do you wanna do is you want to get the outside lit first. So you gotta make sure that you don't wanna put the flame directly on the on the cigar. - Oh I see, really? Oh, great. - So he is toasting the foot. - Right.
- Right, is that how you say it? - Yep, yeah you can toast the foot. You basically want to get the edges lit first. You can rotate it lightly. Obviously this is a single torch that gives you a lot of, a very focused and very precise flame. So since this is your cigar, I'm gonna introduce a little bit of oxygen to make sure that it's actually lit. And when it makes this, whoop, when it makes this little yellow, or sorry, gray circle around it, it means that it's ready to be lit.
So I'm going to pass it to you. You're gonna take two puffs and don't worry, the flame is gonna jump up. Take two short puffs. One more, exhale. One more. Perfect. - Okay, so then I want you, Kevin, I want you to do this. Look in that camera right there. Lean in a little bit. Look in that camera and smile. This is a gentleman that's enjoying his first cigar. Don't inhale the smoke, just let it linger in your mouth. That's doing enough. He's from Somm Cigars, I'm Drew from Boveda.
We're happy to have you on board as a cigar smoker. And now you have to get up and get out of our interview. - Okay, sorry. - Thanks, Kevin. - No, I wish you well. - Thanks for enjoying your first cigar. - I wish you well. Yeah, welcome aboard. Cheers to you. - That was great. - That's-- - I love it. - Did you plan that? - I wish, you can't pay for that kind of advertising. (Drew laughs) That's incredible. I actually had someone, now that you bring it up.
About two years back at TPE, I was being interviewed and a guy randomly walks into the interview and goes, "These are really, really great cigars. In fact, I brought a bunch of them into my store." He's like, "He's a great guy." And he just leaves. It was just a random-- - Just a cameo. - Yeah. And, (Drew laughs) I just stood there and the guy goes, did you pay for this, right? And I'm like, no, I like, this is completely unplanned and incredible - Spontaneous promotion. - Correct.
- All right, well thank you. Now back to our original broadcast. Sitting with Vlad Stojanov from Somm Cigars. Let's go to the name Somm. - Sure. - Okay, sommelier. - Correct. It kind of relies heavily on my background in hospitality. I got into cigars through wine back in 2009 when I was still in Europe. I did my introductory training, which took about six weeks and we had two full days of cigars.
One day was just pure theory and then the second day was, you didn't have, you know, one of my earliest mentors basically started off, you do not need to smoke cigars to pass this, this is part of your tool set. You should be aware of it. Here's six or eight Cuban brands that were present at the market, that was about 90% of it back home.
So you need to know where they fall in, what are the general profiles and what they pair, because this is part of your, this is a revenue stream for you, this is a potential profit center, so you need to be aware of it. Unbeknownst to me, I had a phenomenal first cigar. It was a Cuban Punch Punch. - This was your very first cigar? - First cigar, very first cigar. - In a class. - 15, yes, 15 years ago. It was actually about this time, it was March. I could actually look up the date.
I don't think it's too far from where we are now. - The beginning of a relationship. - Correct, a love relationship. Absolute love relationship. So, that Punch Punch was a medium bodied, medium finished cigar. Anything fuller than that is fuller, which at the time I think was like Bolivar, Ramon Allones, some of the Cohiba stuff, I'm probably forgetting something.
And then, anything lighter than that, or in that same term was, it was Partagás at the time, Montecristo, and then anything lighter was basically, Hoyo de Monterrey and something else that I can't remember now. And then I tried my first cigar. My dad's been enjoying cigars since '92, so I've, it's not, it wasn't foreign to me. I've just, I've never smoked anything, never smoked cigarettes.
And, I went from one cigar every six months to one cigar every three months, to one cigar every month, to one cigar a week, to one, however many I smoke now. And-- - However many. - Correct. - It's personal preference. - It is, it is. And of course, my love of wine continued to grow. 2015, I moved to the States. I did my sommelier certification here as well. Before that I did my Habanos training. I competed in the European Somm Championship.
I competed here in the under 30, the, Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, which was a young sommelier competition, under 30. Placed third on the West Coast, which, all right, not bad. I was happy with it. And in 2017, I ended up bringing a European brand on board here. I worked with them for about five, six years. I expanded that business, brought it from zero shops to 180, did 100s of events, met thousands of great people and built some relationships, which is what this business is truly built on.
And then refined my palate, I wanna say a little bit. - So this is very limited quantities in my perception from reading about it. - So yes and no. It is all three, all three blends are regular productions, regular production. But like all fine things, they're produced in limited quantities, which were actually put on each box. On the bottom of most of the boxes you can find when they were made, how many were made, how many were rolled.
And this is probably gonna be, I always like to highlight my partners. So this is some of the old stock that does not have barcodes. - 250 boxes rolled December 2022. - So I brought some old stocks specifically for the show, primarily because they do not have barcodes. And retailers love barcodes, makes their lives easier. So all the new stuff has barcodes. I decided to use them for the, for PCA, typically bring those out for events. Now the Rioja, this is named BDX.
So after Bordeaux, shorthand for Bordeaux. - Ah, okay. - It used to be-- - And the color. - Correct, as well. - Yeah. - And then, if you actually look outside, it truly captures my love of both. It is a grape bunch transforming into tobacco leaf. Very, very emblematic of it. And a lot of the things translate almost one to one from the cigar world to the wine world. Right, we mentioned the terroir side of it. The blending piece, the artistry, the skill, influence of Mother Nature.
And then obviously depending on where you grow those certain varieties, you can end up making something completely different. - Right. - Going back to that Honduran broadleaf, a Honduran broadleaf versus Connecticut, two completely different flavor profiles. - Right. - This gives you a beautiful-- - This is really exceptional. - Very, thank you, thank you, Drew.
Very, it gives you, if you're a bourbon lover, you'll know exactly what I mean when I say bourbon mash or like cereal grain, like sweetness undertones. And then raisin and plums. We don't really talk about fruit flavors in cigars often. But this is a very jammy-- - But you had me, when I took that cold draw, the raisin and plum was like, oh, there it is. - Really, and how
often do you run into that? - But you gave me the word as I was experiencing it and it registered, I was like, yeah, that's what it is. Raisin and plum. But in the burning of the tobacco, it's different. - It is. So, okay, I'll have to, I'll just touch upon it very, very briefly. But when you light up a cigar, multiple cold fermentations. So two cold fermentations happen, and then two warm fermentations happen.
There's different, I won't bog, I don't want to bog down your viewers with a bunch of these numbers but, if you ever wanna learn more, there's a phenomenal book. And in my opinion is one of the greatest books written on tobacco from Didier Houvenaghel, "THE CIGAR, FROM SOIL TO SOUL". And he'll break down the actual fermentations of how-- - Cigar from Soil to-- - To Soul. Soil to Soul. - Sold. - Soul. S-O-U-L, yes. - Soul, okay. - Absolutely beautiful.
It gives a rich history in the tapestry of the world. And then in the second book, it actually dives into the, the perception and how do you perceive those flavors. And you touched upon on one of those notes, so you said the words. Our ability to perceive flavors is incredible. Where we mostly lack, and a lot of this is to a point, it is also culturally driven. We can perceive flavors, but we have a hard time connecting to the actual word. - Right.
- And that is just a skill that you're, you develop over time. Visual aids are really good. - I don't know that I would've arrived at those words unless you said them at the moment that I was experiencing it. - But you knew there was sweetness in there, right? - Yeah. - There was something that was very, very pleasant.
But you were, you couldn't quite put your finger on it. - But I've always been challenged to, I listen to people like Charlie [Minato] from halfwheel will talk about cigars, and he'll rip through a bunch of descriptors and I'll be like, yeah, that's, but that's not my translation. It's almost as though this is the language and there's a translation going on sensually in here. - There is, so, okay, we're gonna take a step back.
And from an actual physical perception, your sensory plate, your bulb is located right here. So when we're trying to perceive these chemical components, like the molecules that actually carry the aromas, we're lucky that when we're enjoying cigars, it's in a gas form. And gas expands to occupy whatever-- - Space. - Space it's located in. Right, if I remember my sixth grade chemistry.
So with this, what you want to do, you want to use your retronasal passage, which is just a very fancy way to say, this is how you push it through the back of your throat, up your nose to hit your sensory plate up here. Now we're lucky because in gas form, it's a lot easier to do it than it is with food or wine or spirits, because they're solids or in liquid form. So when you do it, you want to, the way I suggest, so, you exhale about 85 to 90%, you close your mouth and then slowly exhale.
You wanna exhale slowly through the back, through your nose for a couple of reasons. A, tobacco or smoke in general is going to be hot. So it's gonna be a little aggressive on your palate. Going back to my mentor from 15 years ago, I still remember his words. We probably all smoke cigars a little faster than we should. - Right, I know I do. - As just as, just part of life. And the way he put it very romantically is, you should be smoking it on the edge of it almost going out.
If you've ever smoked hookah-- - Oh, no, that's a great, that's a great piece of advice, oh. - Very, very, if you've ever smoked hookah, the philosophy behind it kind of translates. So you take hot smoke, it goes through cold water, and then you're enjoying colder room temperature smoke, which you should be really trying to do with this. Retronasal, experiencing it retronasally increases it probably 20, 30%, 20 to 30% at least to what you're, people say up to 80%.
Sure, I won't go into percentages just because it increases your perception, we'll leave it at that. - Yeah, but it's a totally different way of thinking about smoke. - It is. So, and then you'll be able to pick up a lot of these things that you won't be able to pick up just using your palate for perception. Aside from that, you experience palate fatigue to a point. So your body, your palate gets used to sensing these flavors.
So it starts, I don't wanna call muting them out, but kind of tuning them out and looking for extra stuff. So after a while, and, of course, cigars provided their blended to be complex, they'll experience a transition. And this started off with, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm going from-- - No, this is great. - My personal, so. - This is awesome. - When you first lit it up, the dominant or more apparent notes were the dark chocolate. - Yeah. - The earthiness from the San Andrés. - Right.
- The milk chocolate, and then baking spice in it. And I'll go for the spice rack. So it goes cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, allspice. That's really where it's going. It's going in that baking spice rack, but then, about, four, five puffs in, quarter of an inch, half an inch, now it's going into the plum and baking spices. The earthiness really isn't as apparent. - That's true. - And, as the cigar progresses, it'll gradually change.
That sweetness will probably be the most apparent in the second third, about halfway through. And then once you hit that last third, it'll actually change to spice driven one. But when I say spice, now I'm going into black and white pepper. - But this, you're describing a level of cigar consciousness that transcends the average smoking experience. I mean, to think about it that way, it's inspiring.
It's, I have, I love cigars, but I love cigars with a different set of descriptors and experience than you do because of your training. - Thank you, Drew, that was a very nice way of saying that I'm a nerd. I appreciate it-- - No dude-- - From the bottom of my heart. - I, and I-- - I kid, I kid, I kid. No, but really, really, that's-- - No, you are a total nerd, I love this. - So really that, that comes down to our tasting, our way of perceiving things and remembering all those flavors.
Think of it as a Rolodex. And for all those younger listeners, it's something you flip through and there's like an actual address book, right? The contact card of our times. Think of it as you-- - It's a catalog of experiences. - Yes, that's actually a great way of putting it. - Yeah. - Phenomenal. So the more adventurous you are with food and the more you actually pay attention to it, the larger your Rolodex of flavors that you can recall. So Charlie [Minato] has a fantastic palate.
And, I did a tasting with one of my other cigars and I said, pencil shavings. And because it's one of the calling cards of an aged Bordeaux, a graphite. And people started laughing and I go, they're like, "Well, pencil shavings what does that mean?" - Well like it was pejorative. They look at it as though it's a criticism. - Yes. And I go, "Well, no this is--" - But there is a certain smell. - There is.
- If you, when you think about back in the day when we used to grind those little pencils and you'd smell the cedar and you'd smell the lead together. - That's exactly what I told them. - It's a very unique sensory experience. - And I told them, "Remember guys, #2 pencil." - But everybody said, you even remember the way the eraser smelt. - Yes, yes. I still love that smell by the way. - Yeah. - But I'm like, "Look, there is that note." And they're like, "Oh my God, I remember it."
So our sense of recall is one of the most powerful senses that we have. And you know, to mention Charlie again, when he goes, you know, grandma's pie on a window sill, that's a very powerful-- - Very powerful. - Sense of recall that he has of a very, very distinct note. I, for example, love finding jasmine and floral notes in cigars. And it's few and far in between. But I remember the smell so distinctly. We had it in the backyard in our summer house.
We had a jasmine tree that when it would bloom the entire, you know, neighborhood would smell beautifully from these floral notes. So when I pick it up, I can nail it from a mile away. Almonds, marzipan, right? Almonds and sugar paste. - Mmm. - So, I had a sweet tooth as a kid, I still do. My mom came back home and I was probably like six or seven, for whatever reason, her and dad went next door to the neighbors and she brought marzipan back home from a trip to Germany or somewhere.
So I got into it and ate about two pounds worth of marzipan. Oh, that must have felt good-- - Went, I mean, - During a coma. - It felt really, really, yes, a full on sugar coma, I was sick for like three days. But again, it was exceptional. I can smell, if someone was four booths over and there was marzipan-- - You can smell marzipan? - I can pick it up. - Yeah. - I did not have marzipan for like 15 or 20 years
after that. - But you entered it into the central processing unit and it remains resident there for recall. - Exactly. - Yeah. - It, etched itself into my brain. So if you ever wanna practice your ability to pick up things, I suggest either you can download like a cigar flavor wheel. A visual aid really helps. Okay, now I got myself into a corner. So, in order to create great ways of remembering things and creating memory pathways, you should assign multiple attributes to it.
By being able to look at something and then look at and say, let's say roasted walnuts, roasted almonds, having a visual moment where it says roasted almonds with a sensory perception, with a cigar on top of engaging multiple senses at the same time creates a stronger neural pathway, which ultimately helps with recall. So it's a very, very, think of it as a muscle. You exercise it, and my God, does the exercise feel good. - Right. - The other thing is, be adventurous with your food.
If you're mostly eating chicken and asparagus, you're gonna have a slightly smaller Rolodex than someone who is cooking all the time and experiencing Thai food and Indian food, and any of the other cuisines that heavily rely on spices. You know, Northern African cuisine, I mean Middle Eastern cuisine. Like these are all things that are, that will help your sense of recall. And then lastly, and this might require a little bit more effort, is paying attention.
So how often do we really give something 100% of our attention? - Rarely. - Exactly, so, when I did my blind tastings during the tests, one of the tricks that they told me is, before you start, so they will always ask you, are you ready? And you can buy time by saying, I just need, you know, I'm not ready yet, which gives you a 30 second bump.
So in those 30 seconds, they say you do the following, you focus on the sensation of your feet within your shoes, and I don't just mean you're standing there. I mean the actual sensation. How is your arch touching the actual sole? Give it 15 seconds of undivided attention. And when you have that, then you switch that focus to the wines. And you can have just an, like laser-like precision and attention.
So if you try to do that with the cigar, I guarantee you will pick up flavors that I'm probably not picking up right now. Someone actually said mint in one of these, and I thought about it and he goes, "Mint, like you find in rye whiskey." And I'm like, "I see it. I can see where you're going with that spiciness of the rye and the herbal/minty flavor. I can see where you're coming from it." Until they mention it, I've smoked thousands of these, I did not pick it up.
So a very, he was in a better, he was a better tester than I was at that moment. - So, this is just a remarkable expansion of consciousness around flavor, around-- - Are you a movie buff by any chance? - Yeah, I love movies. - Okay. "The spice expands consciousness." I just watched Dune 2, and I'm a big nerd. So this was great. - Yeah. - I love that. It really is a fun, super, super educational, it enriches your life ultimately. - It's an experiential embellishment to life.
One of the more overly simplified expressions that's come up numerous times in conversations with people that have been in the cigar industry for a long time is, this isn't really a cigar, "This is a moment in time, shared with a friend." - Beautiful. - And now you take that as the frame, and then in that frame you start putting colors on a canvas and, and it starts to come alive.
Your descriptions of this from cold draw to initial light, to I'm still in the first third, and I tend to, I'm smoking this a lot slower than I normally do because I'm a more aggressive cigar smoker. And I don't know why that is. It's consciousness, I'm not really paying attention. - So I trained myself, and my girlfriend actually enjoys cigars from time to time. And, when I told her you should take, you know, aim for like a puff every minute.
So textbook, this is a 45- to 60-minute cigar, that's a Robusto. That means 45 to 60 puffs. I try to slow it down to maybe a minute and a half, and it'll stay lit. From a combustion standpoint, it'll stay lit and it'll get you closer to that, you know, dancing on the edge of it going out. She put a timer on her phone. She went, "Siri put a timer for a minute 30." whenever that timer went off, she would take a puff. And I watched her and I loved how she approached it in a very meticulous manner.
- Well it's almost a zen kind of a-- - It is. - Of an approach to-- - It was a reward. - Yeah. - I did it the other way around. So I love reading. - Yeah. - I would treat myself for every, depending on, depending on how fast I was reading, every, every page and a half or two I would take a puff and it was my little reward for finishing those two pages. And it was, it gets you into a little rhythm. But to your point, we don't really, we don't consciously do it.
We enjoy it, it's great, it's in the background. And that is also one of the things I love about all three of these blends. Especially the Rioja blend and our Robusto. And this is a little-- - I got all distracted from your-- - We got distracted, I'm sorry about that. - These wonderful representations of your craft. So, okay. This is the first of a series of conversations that we're gonna have together, I hope. - I hope so, too.
- Because I'm fascinated and I want to continue to unwrap this present. Let's go back to the imaginary bundle. - Yep. - And talk about the presentation and the opportunity for people to interact with your craft. - Absolutely, so the imaginary bundle holds five, five of the new, the five cigars from the newest line, which is the BDX Connecticut or White Bordeaux, BDX Blanc. White Bordeaux is a style of wine that is not as widespread as the Red Bordeaux varietals.
And when I say Red Bordeaux, and it's in its widest definition, it would be a Cabernet Merlot blend. - Mhm. - And then in its truly, you know, proper definition, it would include all of the other permitted Bordeaux varietals. So with this, the White Bordeaux typically has a lot of creaminess and offers those previously mentioned almonds, which is really a calling card. Almonds, peanuts, and walnuts, like roasted nuts really. That's like one of the calling cards of the profile.
And it is present in there. We'll go back to that scale from one to five. It is a 4.5 or five in terms of flavor, but in terms of body and strength, it is 1.5 or two. Ethereal in its lightness. It's just purity of flavor owing to its actual blend composition. So Ecuadorian, Connecticut on the outside, Ecuadorian Habano for the binder. And then in the filler you have Jalapa Estelí, Jamastran, and then Piloto Cubano. All aged for three years at least. - Sounds delicious. - And it is.
I just went through all of them when we were, when I was in Honduras blending this, actually let me rephrase that. When I was in Honduras, losing eight Dominoes games in a row, I ended up going through eight, 6.5x54s throughout the day trying to get bored of the profile. My question, when it comes to a larger size, and again this is completely personal, I always look at a larger size and go, will this size deliver the experience that is going to be better than smoking two shorter cigars?
- Mhm. - And I wanted to see if I will get bored of the profile. I did not, I gave up after the eighth because we lost eight Dominoes games in a row to two incredibly well-versed Cubans. And it was a fun experience. Now this is available in two sizes. In a 5.5x52 and a 6.5x54. Comes in a beautiful pack of five and the actual outside label is meant to evoke a wine label. - Yeah, no, I see that. It's a bottle of, like all fine things produced in limited quantities.
- And I gotta be honest about that little tagline. So, it was kind of an, an homage to my previous life but, back home I grew up in Serbia so, for those of our, you know, geographically challenged people among us it is, you look at Italy, you cross the Adriatic Sea and you'll have Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Montenegro. So Montenegro has the largest single continuous vineyard in Europe, which is 1,000s upon 1,000s of acres like in one go.
And on one of their regular production wines, to give you an idea, it is commonly produced something, you know, think of like Kendall-Jackson, something you can find everywhere. On one of their bottles, they actually wrote that in Serbian, "Like all fine things produced in limited quantities." And all the bottles were serial numbered, then it would say bottle X of whatever it was. So I turned it around and I found bottle 127 out of 1 million, 700 34 something.
And I looked at it and said, well, they're not lying. - It is a limited quantity. - It is a limited quantity. I mean the quantity is in the millions, but still. - Yeah, it's finite. - So I really, I took it to heart and just made it as a good little laugh. So when I was putting the design together, I thought of that and I said, you know what, I think that would be a little inside joke between me and like six other people on the planet. But it truly does inform everything I do.
The Honduran broadleaf is rare. It's not widely available, it's only used in three cigars. And I think it'll be, it'll just get rarer and rarer. I enjoy it immensely. And I think this blend really highlights it. For the blue one, which is Rioja, named after the Spanish wine region of Rioja. It's meant to evoke the Gran Reserva wines. The Gran Reserva has spent five years before their release, typically three years in oak and then two years in the bottle.
This has at least, all the tobaccos in there are between three and four years. Actually some are older, but I didn't want to go into the months, so. This is made it Eladio Diaz's factory, and is my ode to Dominican Republic. I am a huge lover of Corojo, but I know it's a polarizing tobacco. People either love it or hate it, which is fantastic. So I blended a little bit around it. You have a Mexican Sumatra binder, which gives you a ton of this beautiful, beautiful nuttiness in there.
I truly love it. So we go back to those almonds and roasted nuts, and flavors like that. And then inside you have four different fillers. So Habano 2020, Ligero '98, '99, and I won't disclose the fourth one because the factory asked me not to. - Okay. - It is something very special and rare. And it really is the star of the blend. The overall profile is full flavor, right? We go back to one through five. It's a solid five, the body is a three.
So medium bodied, medium strength, and everything's blended to size. So the Toro, the 6x52 is going to be a little bit more spice driven in the first third where you'll get the baking spice portfolio, right? So you'll get the cinnamon, the nutmeg, the cloves, you'll get a ton of those roasted nuts that I mentioned. Creaminess, cedar, and an oak. - Is that common to blend to size? - Um, I don't-- - It's an intriguing question because I'm curious. - So-- - That's the first I've ever heard it.
- So, what that really means is you're, kind of go back to the drawing board and make sure that that is the best size to represent what you're trying to do. And we're using the same blend, right? Without adjusting stuff necessarily, rather than just ratioing it out. I don't know how common it is. From what I can tell, not, you know, depending, I don't think it's done at a larger scale for one simple reason.
I started with the Robusto and the BDX format here, and it took me about three months to figure out the Robusto, sorry the Toro and the 6x60 Box Press. Mostly because I didn't fly it back down to Honduras. We were doing it, they were sending me samples back and forth and we were tweaking it that way. But typically when I'm blending stuff, I go down and I spend a week or two making sure that it is what I wanted it to be.
Again, if you're making, you know a million cigars and you're trying to add three more sizes and you spend two months working on it, I don't think that's realistic. I can afford to do it because I'm, you know, like all fine things it's produced in limited quantities. So I can afford to, then I want to make sure that it delivers the experience that I want it to. There is a little bit of a difference in the Rioja, especially, because it's the same exact blend, carbon copy.
The Robusto is a 5x54 and the sweetness is a lot more apparent in the first third. But the spiciness that you get in the first third of the Toro size is now in the middle. And in the last third it goes back to creaminess. The Rioja, the Toro sorry, on the other hand goes spice, creaminess, spiciness. - But there's a level of intentionality that to this kind of discussion that transcends my understanding of cigars. I mean this is lovely.
I mean it's a very, I mean you jokingly refer to it to a sense of nerdiness. Like we've now got an astronaut in the cigar blending community. But it's remarkable the amount of thought and consciousness that you're crafting into this art. - Thank you, I haven't thought about it, honestly, that way. - Yeah, no it's just, it's a very different approach. - I pay attention to those details and the tagline under the logo is actually selective by choice.
And it truly does inform everything from what I work with, who I choose to be a partner with, hopefully, who the retailers are as well. Because I try to position myself not as an outside vendor, I try to position myself as a strategic partner. And that means that, let's talk about where we want to be next quarter, two quarters from now, a year from now, three years from now, five years from now, 50 years from now.
- So your energies are devoted to you, the lines that you've created and you're also still helping others? - A little, no, so I've refocused in the last whatever it is. Started a year, basically, maybe about no six months, basically quarter four. - So now it's all on your-- - It's all on me. - Creativity. - I have independent sales reps that cover Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas. I'm gonna add a couple more.
I have some great partners that I'll have some press releases coming out and I truly do try to position myself as a partner. And that means, I wanna have a conversation and make sure that we align long term. I'm a big believer in long-term alignment and long-term incentives as well. And Drew, I'm sorry if that's, I think it's burning a little. - No, I did that because I banged it into the microphone when I dumped all the ash on the table. (Vlada laughs) So it was operator error.
- It's also a little dry, like you guys can't tell from over there but-- - Well, we're very sensitive-- - This actually does-- - To dryness here at Boveda. - This actually does curl a little bit due to humidity. Luckily, Boveda keeps it all solid and at the right humidity level. Speaking of which, I'm actually going to do, well, we'll talk about in the future but, one of the, one of the events that I'm going to do, my events are a little bit different.
I don't do it as it usually, it's not a selling event, it's experiential. It's driven as something different and unique. So for May, early June, I'm going to do an event that is going to use Boveda and it's going to be the same cigar that's going to sit for four weeks at 65 [% Relative Humidity (RH)], 69 [% RH], and 72 [% RH]. Now, before the guests light them up, they won't know which was which. - Blind tasting. - Exactly.
I'll know which ones they are and I'll go through it, and they're truly going to taste them blind and see if they, if they see difference. - Well now you're gonna take consumer experiences and you're going to end up with data points-- - I love numbers. - Against humidity. - Exactly. And I'll share with you guys and we can see-- - That's great. - How it happens. - Yeah, no that's fascinating.
- Because something that I've only, I've never kept data points on this but I know by experience experientially is how the humidity impacts your smoking experience. I know that across the board, I prefer to keep mine at 65 [% RH]. It also helps that Vegas is so dry. So really, if I really want to get it to 65-- - Yeah, yeah. - It's not really that different. - Yeah, and we're exposing these right now to some-- - Yeah. - Pretty harsh, even though we're in an air conditioned-- - Yeah. - Facility.
- Which is even worse because that sucks out the humidity and then the cold air and everything and, Vegas is not, the convention show rather is not kind to cigars. - No. - So that is a very, it's rough. Luckily, I've kept all of them in, Boveda with the Humi bag, with the big Humi bags. - Yeah. - And they fared much better than those who did not use them, so. - So if-- - If you don't use them, I suggest you start doing so. - So thus far it's been a fascinating introduction to a perspective.
A very sophisticated, I think it's fair to say a sophisticated perspective about the craft of cigar blending and the management of sensory experience. There's almost a revivalist sentiment to your interest in this craft, the sommelier's approach. It's really almost jarring to my experience of cigars. And I'm grateful that you took the time to sit with us and to have this, the beginning of this conversation. I made a comment to Jeremiah Meerapfel yesterday, that he took the wrong way.
My comment was, there's a very small percentage of the population that's ever gonna have an opportunity to enjoy a Meerapfel cigar. That's what I said to him. Let's make the same comment to you. There's a small percentage of the population that's ever gonna have an opportunity to have this experience. His reaction was, I was talking about price because it has very expensive, or relatively high value cigars, okay?
My point was there's just not enough, I mean I don't walk into a cigar store in Minneapolis and run across Meerapfel cigars. I'd have to be in certain markets, certain preferred vendors that have developed a relationship, you know, and have the clientele to support that kind of, that kind of consumption. What's the picture for your blends? - For this year, it's probably going to be limited to between 50 and 75 accounts split around the nation.
- That's a small number. - Small number, but the reason why I want to do it is because of those previously mentioned events where I have, where I have, I do a lot of events throughout the year and I have, I have, I've done 21 events since January of this year. - Wow. - Since January 16th. - All experiential events? - Yes. - And I wanna make sure that those accounts can actually have an experience that is-- - So you're training them how to do experiential events. - Correct.
Something very, very different. Aside from that, we have plenty of online vendors should you choose to, should your local tobacconist not carry it, please ask them. I probably had about 20 to 30 people come up to me at this trade show and say, my customers have been asking-- - Right. - About this, I wanted to stop by. - So if they go to sommcigars.com-- - There's a store locator, we have plenty shops that will ship you can find @sommcigars.com.
The store locator gives it geographically broken down from East Coast to West Coast and anywhere in between. I do believe I will do Midwest, I'll do probably East Coast between end of April, early May, and then Midwest probably May, June. And then I'll go, actually no, I'm not doing Texas in August again. I've done that before. I went to Houston, I can still feel-- - Oh yeah. - I can still feel the humidity.
- Yeah. - So, you can find them, you can find a little bit more information about the blends and if you are a social media person you can follow my personal account, which is vladthesomm or the sommcigars itself. - Vladthesomm. - Yes. In fact actually, I didn't know they would actually do it. - They put it on there. - I put it as a joke and they actually did put it on there. - Vladthesomm. - I love it, so it was really, really good.
I post a little bit of these very short educational videos, kind of like, hey, this is how we perceive flavors. Kind of what we touched upon. - Yeah. - I would love to do a much longer format, mostly because I can't condense it in a minute. So that would be very, very interesting to do, Drew. - So, I'm thrilled to meet you, thank you. We will support you with humidity control to the Nth degree.
Whatever we can do to be involved in this continuing conversation, the development of this perspective on cigar experience. - Thank you. - Just fascinating. - There is an analytical component. You're trying to analyze something using an imperfect tool, your palate. And the perception is colored by your previous experiences, right? What have you enjoyed? How are you feeling that day? How big is your Rolodex of flavors that you can recall?
And all these other, you know, ambient things that are outside of your control. - Well, but it's interesting, in Minnesota, if you're fortunate, you go up North in the summertime and you get to experience the Aurora Borealis. I don't know if you had that experience in Europe, but if you've never experienced it, you don't have any imprint in your sensory experience-- - Correct. - To be able to draw upon. Fair? - I love it. Extremely fair, you actually, that is a perfect analogy.
So your palate is one of the most complex ways of perceiving the world. And also one of the simplest in a way that your palate would always refer to the last thing you experienced. And if you ever want to test this at home, take a PB&J, right? So peanut butter and jelly, take a bite into it where you hit the jelly and then the, or you, right, bottoms up, you go peanut butter and then jelly, so-- - You go toast-- - Yes, yes. - Peanut butter and jelly.
- But what happens in the perception is you experience-- - It skips the toast? - Well no, it goes through because it's, toast is relatively neutral, right? Apart from the slightly grilled notes, it doesn't impart, yeah, if you use sourdough and things like that, that might raise the acidity a little bit. But what really happens when it hits the peanut butter, which on a scale of one to five, that's a solid five, right? In terms of like how it coats your palate and everything.
But then it gets cut by the acidity, the sugar, and the fruitiness of the jam. Now flip it upside down and hit the jam first, and then hit the peanut butter. - Totally change the experience. - It will feel like you're eating wallpaper paste. - That's fantastic. - And that just shows your, how simple your palate in terms of that going from Point A to Point B can be at times. - Spectacular. Well, we hope that as time progresses with this, and this began when? - Year and a half ago, maybe two,
I don't even remember. - So 18 months to two years ago. - Yeah. And I only had one blend, it wasn't-- - And here we are. - Yeah. - And you're doing these experiential events. Tremendous to meet you. - Thank you, Drew. - Thank you. - Likewise, an absolute pleasure. And thank you for having me on the Boveda show. - And well, we're gonna do it again. I just-- - I'm looking forward to it. - There's so much here to unpack. This is a delightful smoke, sommcigars.com. Vladthesomm or Vlada Stojanov.
- Yep, oh you nailed it. That's right. - Yeah, yeah. Everybody says Stowjanov but the J is actually right as a Y. - Yeah. - You're right. - No, I-- - Thank you for that. Very, very nice. - I'm just thrilled to make the acquaintance and I hope we're friends for a long time. - Likewise. - Yeah, awesome. - Thank you very much. - Thanks buddy. (upbeat music)