- There's a story inside every smoke shop with every cigar and with every person. Come be a part of the cigar lifestyle at Boveda. This is "Box Press". (cheerful jazz music) - Welcome everyone to another episode of "Box Press". I'm your host, Rob Gagner. Nirka. Did I say it right? - Yes. Welcome to "Box Press". - Thank you so much. Thank you for having me here. - Congratulations to you and your husband. - We're newlyweds still, so... - I know, like, how many months is it?
- A year and six months. - Okay, so it was 2020 that you got-- - Yes. we had a pandemic wedding. We were one of those. - You had a dumps, dumpster, what are they called? 2020 Dumpster Fire or something like that. I have no idea. - Oh yeah. - But the thing is that we didn't wanna wait, you know. It's like we, - No. - we wanna make a big celebration afterwards because people like Charlie from halfwheel, - Right.
- he was, like, he was talking from, since my engagement that I was gonna have probably a 2,000 people wedding - Right. - in the D R. And I was like, we can have a party later on. - Right. - But like, we just wanna get married. Like, it doesn't matter if it's a big or small gathering, it's, it's just-- - To you guys it didn't matter. - No. - But did it matter to the rest of the family? - Well, the family was there, so... - I know, but like, my mom wanted me to have a big wedding.
- Oh, but my dad knows for sure that we're making another one. - Okay, so you, you already are married. It's been a year and a half out. - Wait, we, so we said five years. On our, on our fifth-year anniversary, we're gonna have another wedding. - Can I come to it? - Yes. My dad makes the greatest parties ever. He's a-- - I'm just, it's gonna be the first time in history that somebody invites themselves to a wedding. - Would you like to come to my wedding, Rob?
- Nirka, I would absolutely love to come to your wedding. I am so honored that you invited me. That makes me feel super special and I can't thank you enough already. I'll be there. In what year will that be? 2025. - Five, 2025. Exactly. - Abbey, clear our schedule. We're going to the Dominican Republic in 2025. What month and what day? - Well, I have to see if it actually fits the same day, but it would be probably the last weekend of November. So Thanksgiving time.
- Oh yeah, I'll totally do Thanksgiving in the D R., especially with your family because it's gonna feel like I'm just at a family reunion. - Yeah and you know what? My dad makes the most amazing deep fried turkey. He's famous for that. - No way. - He's super famous for that. - Okay so, in the deep fried turkey world and realm, it's a firefighter's nightmare - I know. - because there's a lot of people who don't know what the heck they're doing.
Has your father ever gotten to the point where he's been like, this shit is getting out of control? - Not at all. - And I've gotta call somebody. - No, not at all. He always has his thermometers. It's all, it's all very controlled. He's an excellent cook, my dad. I don't know if, you know, they say that you kind of marry someone that resembles your dad. I married a chef, so... - Oh yeah. I married my mother, in my wife. It's really scary sometimes.
- I don't think exactly like my dad, but in that way they both love food. So the moment they met each other they were just like, they forgot about me. They forgot I existed. - Yeah, it's not important anymore. - Yeah. - Because now it's just him and I. - Yeah, yeah. - You gotta build a relationship without you in it-- - And they cook together all the time. - And food was that catalyst. - Yeah, exactly. - For me and my father-in-law, it was real estate.
He's a real estate salesperson and so am I. So immediately my wife went, you guys are talking about real estate. Okay, I'm, I'll, I'll see you later. - I'll be, I'll go to the spa, I'll go shopping. - Yeah. - And you're gonna still, you're still gonna be talking, right? - Oh yeah. Yeah. - I know that feeling. I was like, to my dad's wife, Mónika let's get out of here. We're not needed. We're not needed right now. - No, no. It's not personal. It's actually a really good thing.
(laughing) - I love people to see real life. Have you ever entered a like La Caya's office? - Right. - There's ash everywhere. We're super messy with our ashes. - So my keyboard on my old Mac computer doesn't really work with the O and the space bar. And I swear to God it's because of the amount of ash that is inside that keyboard right now. (chuckling) I'm not kidding. They actually bought me a new Mac this year and I was very thankful. Because-- - I can imagine.
- My just, when I would type, I'm like-- - Yeah because you're typing with your cigar in your hand-- - that is not what I typed. This keyboard is possessed. And then right now when you said that, it just sparked like, there's just so much ash in there that, like-- - I use an additional keyboard just not to damage the one on my Mac. - Yes. - That's-- I, I, I also got the wireless keyboard. - Yeah, that's, that's the trick.
- So that I don't screw, because it's much easier to replace the wireless one - That's a trick. - than it is the one inside the laptop. - And then I have like on one of the drawer in my desk, you know, something that I can actually, - The vacuum? - That I, yeah, that I can actually take it off. - Do you vacuum or brush? - No, brush, I brush. - Okay so, back in the day at Boveda, we called it the Salt Mine Days. We were underneath a gas station that had no windows.
So we called it the salt mine because we deal in salt and that's what makes our products so powerful and it's underground, so it was kind of like a mine. - That's amazing. - And back in those days we were able to enjoy fine cigars while we worked. I probably shouldn't say that on air, but we're probably gonna edit that out. (chuckling) But we literally went on Amazon and bought vacuums specifically for, handheld vacuums, specifically for vacuuming up the ash that we would create.
Sean, Tim, myself. Everyone had one inside their office to use at their disposal whenever shit would hit the desk. - I have one of those, those handheld ones in different places of my home because we have a German Shepherd and whoever owns a German Shepherd knows they shed a lot of hair. - Yeah. - Every single day. And when they're actually changing, their, their fur, it's, it's horrible. So I'm, I'm constantly doing that. - Did you ever watch "Friends"? - Of course.
- That I've, I, I know it's a dumb question, but every once in a while I have to check because "Friends" is running probably - I know. - on its 30th anniversary since the last time it aired. And I just have to know if I'm dating myself or not. But it's the Monica vacuum and when Monica cleaned the big vacuum with the smaller vacuum, she said, "I wish there was another little vacuum to clean this one." It's kinda like the perpetual rabbit hole of like, how far can this go? - Yeah, yeah, totally.
- You like the floundering, you like the flubs, you like the ashing because it's real life. - Yeah, it's, you know, sometimes in this industry and many industries, people just, just, they know you from what they see and sometimes on social media and so on, and sometimes that it's not very realistic in a way. - Sometimes it's like, I think it's like, 90% of the time it's not realistic. - Yeah. - Because it's so edible.
- Exactly. - Like you can edit it so well to the point where you've cleaned and scrubbed the entire, like, identity out of it to make a new identity. - But like, I don't know if it was two or three weeks ago, I was in the traditional company from my family, which is where we grow tobacco and that, that is the one in charge of growing tobacco processing and so on, and I was there super early and I was like, you know what, I'm not wearing makeup.
I had kind of one of these seed thoughts and I was like, I'm gonna film myself doing what I do with my cell phone here on a, not like, on a, not a daily basis, but whenever I come. And I just did it with my phone. I was like, I want people to see what the real me does without the editing of the marketing team and so on, because I want people to actually see the work behind the glamour of, of what marketing teams sometimes want to show. - I think that's a really smart move.
And I think that's also something, too, that I really focus on this is I can ask you all sorts of different questions and you probably already have a canned response for me.
So it's my job to try to ask you the questions and have the conversations we're having now, so that it's more interesting, because if you just hear about your success and how polished you are and how good the cigars are, at the end of the day, it's not relatable to the customer and it's in an un-, you can't obtain that level of connection - Of course. - as a regular human being.
So it's my job to try to make sure that the really holy veil or the big veil of, like, this is so grand is slightly removed. - But you know, the, the, I don't wanna say the cool thing, but something very different from us is that actually we don't have a marketing approach to cigars. And I think that's why I'm able to connect with people because I tell the story of how things happened and I think slow, like, very slowly, but that's what, what has made us get known in a way.
Because we don't launch cigars every year. We don't do things by the book, but when we're telling people, we're just telling our story. There's nothing written in a way that sounds like a marketing approach because we're just telling how things happened. And, and I, I see that what you're doing is the same way because at the end of the day it's, it's an industry based on connections.
- Right. - This is one of the industries that you actually go to a cigar lounge and you can connect with anyone and you don't know their background, you don't know anything about them, but then you connect because you enjoy the same thing. - Right. - And I've never seen that in any other industry. - That's so true. I've actually tried to figure out if there's another industry or another product that connects polar opposite of people and kind of disarms that divide. - Yeah and I've never seen it.
Cigars only. - I think it's been said before, but I'm sure there's a lot of people that might say it would be really great for politicians to sit down over cigars. - I totally agree. - Or like, leaders of worlds. - Yes and powerful organizations that change regulations. - Do you think it would be, like, a cool project for us to see if behind closed doors we could take diplomats and put them inside a meeting room and hand them,
like, you know, Saga Blend No. 7, teach them how to light it, start smoking it and say, okay, the meeting can begin now and just see what happens. - That would be a cool experiment, but I don't know if it happens the same way if you're not eager to know about it, if you're not passionate. Because I think that the connections, you get them because you're actually eager to know about the industry or you're passionate about it in a way.
- I'm going from the standpoint of how the conversation's gonna go - Okay. - with you and I, because I'm assuming that, like, when two world leaders get into a room that the tension might be kind of high and I'm hoping that you and I could be the fumbling idiots that come in and light cigars and make them go, oh, this is different. - Yeah. - Only because of the cigar, not because we want to know anything about it. - Exactly. - But only because the cigar is in the room.
- If you put in the room people like you and I who actually know this, we have this lifestyle, I think it would be a complete game changer. - As a newlywed, what things have come up that you thought, oh crap, nobody told me marriage had this in store for me. - You know what? Nothing that we've, that has come to happen. It's not something that I was in a way sort of prepared for it because I'm a bookworm, like, the biggest bookworm we've ever heard.
I already have, I've, I've already read, like, this year, like 70 books. - Wow. - So... I read a lot of marriage, couple books before, during the relationship, during the engagement, while we were married. So, and we, we did, you know, one of these classes, couple classes, that the church makes you do. - Yeah. - And since it was pandemic, we took it, like, for four months.
So there was a lot of talking before getting married that we were actually really prepared for it, like-- - Yeah. - So it went very smoothly. It's, it's been very smoothly - That's awesome. - and we knew that certain topics like kids or money are kind of things that get people into a weird spot. But we talk it on those classes and it, and it's been amazing. - That's awesome.
I had the exact same experience from a level of comfort because both Abbey and I knew what we wanted and had those intense good conversations. - Conversations before. - Exactly, so during the marriage counseling class, they gave us a financial worksheet book, - Yes. - Basically. And I said, we've already talked about all this. We already are doing half of this stuff. - That's amazing. - So let's go ahead and change question nine.
Instead of talking about savings, let's talk about savings, monetary savings from the level of how much we're willing to spend on our pets should they need emergency surgery. My wife started getting teary-eyed and right from that moment I knew I struck a chord that we're gonna have to face and we faced it right in that moment. - Yeah.
- And now when it reared its ugly head later on in my life, I wasn't fighting the battle of trying to understand her in a time that was intensely emotional for her and instead I got to lean on her and say, whatever you wanna do, Hon, I support you. - Because you already knew it was important for her. - Exactly. And it sounds like you had that kind of insight into everything that you were doing to get ready to be married. - Yes.
- Which is so powerful because as we know, since you're a business owner and I have to orchestrate these interviews, the more planned you are and the better you are at doing that one specific thing, the easier that it gets. - It is. It is. And, and I, I truly believe that people sometimes have the situations because they don't plan, they don't talk and they don't really take the time to prepare.
Marriage is, is, I don't wanna say business, but it's an important decision in life if, like, if you want to actually get married, there's things you have to do. - Takes preparation, - It takes preparation. - It takes preparation. We could totally pull a Vegas classic taken right out of "Friends" just like Rachel and Ross, (chuckling) but that would be very, very detrimental. - Yeah. - And thus, not be a successful marriage.
And I or, or anyone else who'd be asking for an annulment from that whole situation. Because you really just wish there was a forget me pill - Yes. - that you could take sometimes after a Vegas night. (chuckling) - I agree. I agree. - I've never really done anything so bad that I've regretted doing it to the point of it restricting me from moving on. Has there ever been something that you, you regretted that you actually found out later on that it really held you back from growth?
- No...no. I'm, I'm a very strong believer that everything happens for a reason. So even the hard things that, that I've experienced in life, when I, when I see it, you know, after it has happened, I can see that it made me either stronger because I actually take the time to analyze why is this happening to me, and, and don't become a victim of the situation. Just like, why is this happening to me? - Right. - And, and, and I don't know if it's a woman thing.
I think that it might be a woman thing, but we're very harsh with ourselves, - Yes. - so I overanalyze everything a lot and, and I, I always try to take lessons from what happens to me. So I, I don't regret anything. I don't regret decisions and, and I've made a lot of bad ones. - We all have. - I've made great ones, I've made great ones as well. But it, it has shaped me into the woman that I am today. And every year that passes I like myself even more.
So I feel my, more comfortable in my own skin and it's because of all that insight that I do with myself, that I go in and, and ask myself, of every single situation, good and bad, I ask myself, you know, what am I learning? Is it making me grow? And I analyze whatever decisions that, that I'm taking. Like, is this actually gonna be helpful or not?
Like, the older that I'm getting, I'm actually getting rid of all the things that you actually do because you feel like you have to do them and I'm doing more of the things that I actually wanna do and that I believe that will take me into the future that I've been constantly dreaming. So every step that I take or most of the steps that I take, it's towards that. I'm consciously, it's a very conscious approach. I have a very conscious approach to life.
- It sounds like you take a very active approach to trying to build up your bank of wisdom. - Yes. From reading, from experience, from analyzing myself. I don't, I, not even on the cigar industry, yeah. I don't, I don't compare myself to other people. I just, I wanna be the best version of myself and, and that dream that I say is just, I wanna have a happy life. That's, that's me.
My family has this very different approach to life of being, like, good hosts, very helpful, like, giving, giving a lot because we're very blessed and even when we were, we are not very blessed, it's just something that, it's ingrained in us. That's our approach to life, that we can always make a difference. - I call it being a servant, so-- - Yes, exactly. - Like, it's like, you know, the term is, like, "Servant Leadership". - Oh, I love that book. - Yeah. - I love that book.
That book is amazing. - Right. - I think it's the only leadership book that I actually recommend. - Because really anything other than that is either stuck inside the paradigm of power - Yes. - and dictatorship. - Exactly. Exactly. You gain, you gain much more by actually serving people that actually just, like, dropping it because you have the position or the power level to do so. - So we know you as Nirka Reyes. You are the sixth generation of a tobacco growing family. - Exactly.
- Now what most people may or may not know, depending upon what level of cigar smoker you are, as a cigar maker and grower and processor, you have the choice to either make cigars for other people - Yes. - or make your own cigar. - Yes. - And some people do both. But what's really interesting about your story is that you decided to start out making cigars for everyone else, never releasing a name brand that you put your name on.
And then all of a sudden outta nowhere you stop producing cigars for everyone else and only the majority of what you do now is produce your own Saga cigars. That decision is not a light decision to make because it has financial implications. - Yes. - It has identity crisis implications, and it has a strong need to be led by a sense of authenticity. How and why and how did you make that decision?
- Well, the thing is, De Los Reyes Cigars is my family's six generation growers, I'm a second generation cigar maker. Since starting making cigars was my dad's dream. De Los Reyes Cigars is, is the beginning of a dream. And I saw the passion that my dad had for the industry, but I didn't see it on the cigars we were making. They were soulless products. So I was like, this is not what we should be doing. It's not. And since he told me to take over, I was like, this is what I, what I wanna do.
I want just to stop making all these cigars, all these million cigars for, a lot of them were for private labels, mail order companies, and I just wanna stay, because we stayed with some private lines, but just the ones who I believed had the same philosophy as us, that they, they truly believe and had the passion that the cigars were art craft, not just mere products. And those are the ones that I stayed with. And then started also developing our own cigars. So it was a very hectic process.
It took, it wasn't just like a, a year change. It took us a lot of time to actually get the factory to a level that people understood what we were doing. But it's just, I do things from the heart and I couldn't do things just because of a cash flow or a profit. And my family said, because we do have a family board, and my family said, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna follow your gut. Let's see how it, how it goes. And it was difficult at the beginning because I did cut the cash flow.
We were making millions of cigars. I, I believe it was around 13, 14 millions of cigars. - Yeah. - And then I drop it to two. - Oh my God. - It was a very radical change. It was a very strong change. And then having everyone that we stayed with focusing more on quality...quality. I don't need you to make 700 cigars today. I just want you to make the best cigars you can make. And some people couldn't stay on that train because they didn't understand it and they left.
But the ones that stayed with us, they love it. And, and, and, and it's something magical to everyone that visits our factory now. The feeling that you get when you visit it is, it's such a magic vibe that you feel and the, the family environment that you feel in it. And every single other private label that we've, that we've started after that, has that same feeling. It has to be someone or a group of people that are very passionate about the cigar industry and committed.
Like, I don't blend cigars for someone that says, I just wanna have a, a private line. I wouldn't do it. Like, you have to come, I have to sit down. You have to come to the factory, you have to meet our, our employees, you have to sit down with them. You have to know our production manager. You have to know him on a, on a name basis. They have to know you. You have to sit down and blend with us. And you have to pick your blend. I'm not picking it for you.
Like this is, this is the way that we do things because otherwise how are you gonna sell it if you're not involved in it? Like, I don't believe, like, I truly believe that to be in this industry, you have to be a little bit crazy and love it and, and be passionate about it. Otherwise it's, it's just empty. - I totally agree with all that that you said.
And it reminds me of the music world where my favorite band, Dave Matthews, hired a producer to come out and make an album and he later on went and said, the album really should have been named after the producer because it wasn't the Dave Matthews Band. And that's kind of like what you're saying. If the cigar is blended by you and then I put my name on it, it's really not my cigar. - It's not. It's not.
- It takes a lot of wisdom and a lot of core identity and a lot of authenticity to be able to run a business from that level. - And I have a great team. I have a great family. De Los Reyes Cigars. I, my general manager, Jean-Michel Louis is a Belgian. He says that he comes to work and it's like Disneyland every day. Like, it's our, it's our dream world. We have fun and there's, there's always something to solve.
That's why I say that we have to be sometimes crazy because tobacco is a natural thing and it changes. But it's so great and so fun that, you know, we really enjoy it every day. - I can just see it. - Yeah. - It's like, I can feel it almost across the room here. - Some people have said, like, when they visit us, like, hey, you have to do a reality show about your day-to-day because it's, it's so raw and fun because we're very into it.
Like, we go to this place and then we do another thing and then we're on the blending room, but then we go to the rolling to the galera, to the galera area and we're, like, talking with the rollers and the bunchers and, like, I want you to try what I'm doing today. That this is the type of relationship that we have. Like, they want us to try what they're doing right from the table. This is the type of relationship that we have with everyone.
- And, and if you had more of a relationship that was like a, a power dynamic, like I'm the owner and I'm, I demand good quality, you wouldn't have your rollers offering you cigars right from their table because there's a level of trust that they have to have in you that when they hand it to you that you don't put them down if it didn't hit the mark.
- Hey, the other day we're doing, like, a photo shoot with different collaborators and so on and I was laughing because we were talking and one of the oldest couples that we have there from buncher and roller, I was saying, you see this, it wasn't always like this. At the beginning when I came into la galera, they were like, ah, he come, here comes the little girl. Because that moment that you were describing, I was 22 years old. Just 22.
And they were like, my father went away and now it's a little girl playing with us. They didn't believe that I could smoke or that I had a palate and I actually had to gain their trust. And after a while what the, the one that I was talking to, that girl, they were like, oh look. She actually can smoke because I was smoking one of the cigars from the table. That it was a ligero cigar. And it was like, oh, you know, like, there's something there. She can handle it.
And little by little and the way that I, that, that I build the relationship with them, it, it paid off. - How can you, the young one, be wise enough to help run the ship when really what you're saying is I'm not running the ship. We all are. - Exactly. - And all I'm trying to do is play project manager, so that the ship is functioning at its most efficient.
- And the good thing is that we're very hands-on in a way that if something's happening with a shipment and we have to stay late hours, it's not just like the, you know, like, the people from packaging. Managers sometimes have to stay. We have to stay. At the beginning, I even slept sometimes on the couch in my office just to get things through and, and I, and that level of companionship and not being, you know, the jefe as we say in, in Spanish, it's, it's what gives us that, that environment.
- That's a huge edge to your brand, to your identity. That is the only thing that the consumer needs to know in order to connect with your brand. - I've never thought about it, but that's, that's how we roll at De Los Reyes. - As much as you've said probably that you don't want to have like a marketing thing that pegs you, I think what you need to have is just an authentic voice to your identity. - That's why I just speak my truth. - Because that's how customers connect. - Yeah. - They connect.
I, when I worked in retail, I connected when the brand owner came in and I got to see their character as a human. It did, it, it amplifies my enjoyment then of all the hard work that they put into this. Because let's be honest. Just like anything, we can kind of take it for granted.
- No...that's, that's one of the reasons why I like that people come and visit us or come to the Pro Cigar Festival, for example, that I'm one of the members, because they can actually see the behind the scene and the effort that it takes to make just one stick, just one cigar. How much goes to create one good cigar. And not just making a good cigar. That's the easy part. But continue to make that cigar and the crop after crop, you can have that same level of a stimulation on your palate.
That's the tricky part. - Amen to that. That is not an easy feat. - I need your lighter. (chuckling) - My-- - Wow, we didn't have a lighter for you. My bad as a host. I apologize. - Thank you. - You're welcome. And you can keep that over there. - Thank you. - That's the one cool thing about being the host, is that I have more time to actually smoke the cigar that you bring me. And I've gotten to a point now where I'm not so nervous about the interview that I actually can enjoy the cigar.
When I first started doing this, people would ask me, like, oh wow, you smoked the Karl Malone cigar. How was it? And I'd go, I have no idea. The whole time I was worried about what question I was gonna ask Karl Malone next. Do you know who Karl Malone is? - Of course I do. - I didn't. - You didn't? - No. I come from a very ignorant sports mindset. - I grew up among guys. I had to know all sports. - You live among all guys. - Like, I, I only had brothers growing up.
- Oh, sure, like your siblings - Yes, yes. - were just brothers. So sports was like this, like, constant current - Exactly. - of knowledge that was coming into your ethos. - Yes and aside from that, he, he parties very hard at every Pro Cigar Festival. So he's a very well, well known figure in Pro Cigar. - Karl. - Yeah. - You're talking about Karl. - Yes. I'm talking about Karl. He comes to the parties. - He's a partier. - He's a partier. - I know.
- He even took his shirt off, I think one of this, oh, an all white party. Yeah, he did. - I love it. The guy, I remember when his daughter launched, sorry, him and his daughter both opened up Legends Cigar Lounge. - Yeah. - And I remember seeing on Instagram, the all-white party that he brought to the cigar lounge probably inspired by the, by that Pro Cigar event.
- White party. Yeah. - Where it's an all-white linen party and I could totally see the vibe that he was jiving in and I can totally, in my head-- - It's his favorite, it's his favorite party. - See him taking his shirt off, whether it be at that event or at Pro Cigar Live. - Yes, yes. - Yeah. - I've seen it. (chuckling) - I love the fact that you gave me just a little bit of a secret about Karl Malone that probably not a lot of people know. - Oh no, there's, there's videos about it.
- Yeah. - I'm sure. - But not, like, it's not circulated enough. - It's not, yeah. It's not spread wide enough. - Yeah, it's kind of like that hidden Easter egg that's lying out there somewhere. - Yeah. - But if you're that much of a sneaker head, you might find out about. Are there other little tidbits about maybe some of the people we see inside the industry that hey, you have a little Easter egg about them that you can spill the beans on live on "Box Press"? And it's no judgment.
It's all coming out of pure love and respect. - No, no, no, yeah. But something, like something cool that I can say about the, the cigar world, but in the Dominican side is that in a way we're kind of related even though we don't share the same blood, but we've known each other so long that it's a very familiar vibe. For example, you talk about Karl Malone, his cigars. La Aurora makes it, right. - Sorry, what was the name? - Karl Malone Cigars. - Yes. - La Aurora makes the cigars,
right? - Yes. So Guillermo León, - Yep. - is my oldest brother's godfather, just to give you an idea, okay. Or I think it was like two months ago, I was in Liana Fuente's wedding and she's one of my dearest and most amazing peers, friends and one of the most amazing persons that I know in my life. She's a great friend and she's from the Fuente family, Liana Fuente. And my dad is married to Mónika Kelner, which is from the Kelner family from Davidoff.
So you see, in a way-- - It's like a cigar royalty happening right now. It's like a true dynasty that's just, like, you know, the, the, the, the royal bloodline is not breaking as we speak. We're keeping the bloodline true to its heart. - Aw, come on, no. It's, it's just that at the end of the day, what I was saying, it's connection. Like, we grew up together. It's, it's like a family thing. We, we connect because of this and, and we all support each other, which is very weird.
I don't know if it happens in all the countries, but if one of the members of Pro Cigar needs some molds to make the cigar because they had to increase production and the order of the molds is not there, we lend each other things. - That is one. So everyone out there listen hard and fast because there's one reoccurring theme that I see in the cigar world is exactly what you just said. When you're in the D.R., it's like you're inside "Cheers".
Everybody's family and everyone's there to help you have a good time. - Yes, yes. - Any other country, possibly, if you skip over to another country, you're not gonna be in "Cheers" anymore. You might be in a, a rougher bar or you might be in a really swanky hotel and guess what? You forgot the sport coat, so you're not welcome. - Yeah, and, and like, my dad made a restaurant in Santiago. It's named the same way as the cigars.
It's Saga. Any given day, you go to our restaurant, you'll find a cigar maker. Any given day. - That restaurant or a restaurant. - This restaurant. - That restaurant. The Saga Restaurant. - If you, if I go to the D.R.-- - And you go to Saga. - Gotta go to Saga Restaurant in what city? - At evening in Santiago. - In Santiago. - If you go to Saga Restaurant in the evening, you're gonna find a cigar maker there.
- Let's talk a little bit about how you even got your job because it was not handed to you and it was not easy. You went ahead and asked your dad, can I go ahead and start taking over the business? And he said, "no." And you had to go out behind his back and apply to the HR Department of the Saga brand. Tell us how and why you even decided to do that. Because that's a, a risky and bold move to go against your dad's wishes. - First of all, the Saga brand is mine. Mine, my baby.
It was De Los Reyes, it was actually at that time, the, the, the company was called Corporación Cigar Export. I changed it back to De Los Reyes Cigars, which is the original name. And my dad just, it's not that he don't wanted me to work. he just wanted me to focus on, on studying, because I just got back from Switzerland. That's where I learned, learned my German and I started in college and he was, like, You can work later on, so on and so on. I was like, no, I wanna, I wanna get to know it.
And since he said no, he always told me and I think that his, his teaching backfired at him, that a no is just a way to negotiate a yes. - I love it. - A no is just a way to negotiate a yes. So I just went to human resources and, and I applied. And then the, the human resources lady, she was like, okay, so we're gonna start, like, a peripheral training. You're gonna work with every single department. And then at the end of all that, I ended up being my dad's assistant.
- Was he shocked the day that you be, came in to be his assistant? - No. - No. - He knows I'm strong-willed. He, he says it all the time, that when I have my mind in something, there's no one that can take me off that road. He says this all, he says all the time. - I love it. (chuckling) So good.
- And in a way, because my older brother also worked in the industry, Augusto, he's named also like my father, he worked in the industry on the premium side and, but my father, my siblings, when it was the decision to, to have the transition for De Los Reyes cigars, they were like, Nirka is the one for the job because it doesn't matter how good of a business man, woman you are, you really have to be the most passionate person for the job and I was.
And, and they, they're like hands on, like, you are the one. Like, none of us can do it. And that's, that for me is like one of my pillars, that they believe in me. - And your right hand is Jean-Michel. - Yes. - Tell us a little bit of how that right hand got developed and why it's so important to your physical identity. - Well, Jean-Michel and I, because one thing, when I did that peripheral training and ended up being my dad's assistant, I actually left the factory after that. - You what?
- I left the factory. I stopped working at the factory for a period of time and I did banking. - Oh. - I did banking. And then my dad started developing other businesses in Dominican Republic and he was like, I need you. I need you to help me with, with the factory again. And I went back. So in that moment, like, I don't know if it was like four months after Jean-Michel came into the picture. So we kind of started that journey together. We had another general manager back then.
Jean-Michel was just the marketing manager. But we, we went in together. So there's been, like, he lived the transition with me of changing the factory. He thought it was the right decision. Like, we were the Three Musketeers. The other, the, the general manager's name is Pedro. He's not with us anymore, but he still comes to a factory, I think, every single day. - Nice. - But we've built a relationship where we are very different, age wise. He's Belgian. I'm from Dominican Republic.
We have very different ideas. And I think there's such a richness in it because when we can come into an agreement, it means that usually it's the best decision because of that difference. And also because of the strong passion that we both have of doing things right about the tobacco industry, about the art craft and making things that leave a footprint. - Right. - We say that we don't make cigars. We make reasons to enjoy life. - You don't make cigars. - We create reasons to enjoy life.
- You create reasons to enjoy life. - To enjoy life, yes. - If there's ever a great tagline to put next to the Saga brand, it's that one right there. - And so he's been, I don't know, it's like the way that we, it's when you have a stronger relationship with someone like that, it's like, kind of like what we were describing. That level of companionship, like in a marriage, We just know.
- Right. - Like we, we, we look at each other when we're blending and we know it's the right one, it's not the right one. And, and it has come with 11 years of working side-by-side of doing the same projects of, of working side-by-side. Because as I said, I don't believe in, in roles. - Right. - And, and he's, I believe, one of my biggest supporters because I get sometimes crazy ideas and he is like, I don't know how we're gonna do it, but let's see how can we make it happen.
So that's, that's why he's, I think he's the best person for the job and I wouldn't have dreamt of someone better than Jean-Michel. - That's so cool. - He's amazing. We've become friends. It's, it's, we've traveled the world together. A lot of stuff has happened that we get lost in weird roads in Europe driving.
It's, it's been an amazing journey and, and seeing all the effort that we've put on changing the status quo and what we did and seeing how things are going now, seeing that we made the right choice and how people are recognizing more and more the work that we do without even advertising it. It's just a mouth-to-mouth thing. It's, it's very, it's very empowering. - I know you don't advertise. I...I don't see the brand in, in any of the publications. None of that. And why is that?
- Because we don't take a marketing approach to, to making cigars. We just want-- - Is a marketing approach not the right approach to take? - Not for our company. I, I won't say it's not the right approach, but for our company it definitely isn't. Because when I'm telling you that I'm not making cigars, that what we're making is reasons to enjoy life, we wanna be that rare gem that you discover and you fall in love with. - Like-- - So if we're, like, everywhere and you're seeing us everywhere.
- I like it. I like it. - You don't get to have that experience of actually hearing a friend say, hey, have you tried this Saga cigar? I really, or I saw this packaging and I really love it. Have you seen it? It's so cool. - So on that level then, everyone out there that's probably watching this, they all like to hunt for that boutique cigar. And boutique is such a crazy word that just like the word love has lots of different meanings. - Yes, it does.
- So let's go ahead and just throw them a little bone. - Okay. - If you like to hunt for that cigar that maybe isn't on everyone's radar, you just got woke to the Saga cigar and now you have a reason to seek it out. - Yes. - Because it's an opportunity to enjoy life, have good in it, have a good experience. - Totally, my dad, and my dad has another, another one of those quotes. He says that an ordinary day can become or have an extraordinary moment with the right cigar.
It can change. It can change it with a cigar, it can be changed. - It's, that's so true because half the time when you ask somebody what was your favorite cigar, it was wrapped around an experience that was so outside of the cigar that it had nothing to do with how the cigar was blended or constructed. - It's like that. - You have multiple senses as human beings and so when, when more of them get fired up, then the experience just tends to get more intense. - Yes. Yes. - And more memorable.
I love it. - But there's also something very unique. So that alone time when you're smoking your cigar by yourself and you're actually taking your time to listen what the cigar is telling you, it's like that meditative moment that you have, just you and your cigar. I strongly recommend that one, too. - That is super wise wisdom. And I think there's no better way to end this whole series than on that note.
So Nirka, I wanna say it's been a pleasure sitting down talking to you and getting to know you for the first time. And I have to say, this goes down in my book as the first time I've met somebody and been formally invited to their wedding in 2025. (chuckling) - It's been such an amazing time that I've had with you. It's been a pleasure, so thank you for having me. And you'll get the invite, the formal invite once the date comes closer.
- Appreciate that. - And it's been, it's been, it's been a wonderful, like, I feel, like, so relaxed now. Like, I don't even feel that I'm on a trade show right now. - I love that. I love that. And just a tidbit here, because you said that you were a bookworm. - Yes. - And you opened up that way and I appreciate you telling me your identity. But I want you to show off to the camera that your identity is wrapped up in the packaging that you chose to release some of your cigars in.
- Yes. - It's not just a box and they're not just cigars because remember what's the tagline? We create what? - We don't make cigars. We create reasons to enjoy life. - This is such a good tagline. - So this is the Saga Short Tales. It puts together two of my loves, are books and cigars. - It literally has pages. Okay, I'm being actually blown away right now. - It literally has pages. Each book is a different cigar, a different blend, a different story, a different size.
So the pages tell you the story about cigars. About the cigars. - Oh my God. So you just said that you don't like to have marketing, yet you have marketing inside your books. - It's stories. It's just people like to have more knowledge about the things they like and we wanna give it to them. - Okay, I'm gonna reframe the word marketing for you because it's getting like the word love. I think what we're looking for is giving people a connection - Yes. Yes. - to what you're doing.
And that's what I love to do. - And give them something different. - Exactly, what you're saying is you don't want to connect with the people that enjoy your cigars the same way. - Exactly. - You wanna do it in your authentic voice. - Exactly. - And I think there's nothing more powerful than that because you have a true identity. - Thank you. - And so you have the big one and you also have a smaller one.
- Oh yeah. - And all of them have pages in which it's an actual real book that then also has the morsels of cigars inside of it for you to enjoy. - Oh, this is the pocket book. This is the pocket book. It's actually the smaller version. - That's the Gideons Bible, right? (chuckling) - Of the third book, so it doesn't actually have pages here. So what we did is on the back, we actually put this story. - I love it. - It's for the small purses, for the pockets of the gentleman.
- And what a cool way, because packaging does matter, in making it feel special. - Yes. - That when you handed somebody a, a cigar, you're not just handing it to them. You're presenting it to them in a manner - Exactly. - for them to have a cool experience. - This is the best presentation that we can have. I don't need cards. - No. - This is it.
- I think, too, the other thing that gets said and overlooked a lot, especially because we deal in humidity, is there's no other easier way to humidify a cigar than to put it in an airtight container like a Tupperware. But guess what, when you have a wood humidor and you go and crack the lid and you feel the heaviness of the wood. - Yes.
- And you hear the creak of the hinges and you go ahead and you get a rush of, of aroma, of some cedar, some tobacco, some kind of barnyard area, you know, fermented leaves, - Yes. - You already start the smoking process that cannot be replaced. - The sense of-- - Or ever duplicated by anything that is not a wood humidor. - It is. I agree. - So for all of you out there that don't think the wood humidor is worth it, I say that's just another opportunity. What did you say about a no?
It's a, it's just another opportunity to negotiate a yes. - A yes, yes. - A no to a wood humidor is just another opportunity for you to actually be able to grow in your cigar hobby. - And try it and be convinced that it's the right change. - It, and there you get, you went and said a definite, which is the right change. Just like science, it's fact. - It is. - But it just may not be where you are at in your journey. So that's okay. - And that's fine, too. - That's totally okay.
But in our eyes it's the right path and it's the path that we're gonna keep going on. So Nirka, I can't thank you enough for this unique interview experience that I just had. - Likewise. I can't thank you enough. It's been the greatest time. - I, amen to that. That's another episode of "Box Press". You heard it here live, right here at PCA 2022. It's the fun times that we get to have. It's like a family reunion.
Even though we didn't even know each other, we're gonna be at the same wedding together. So if you like it, go ahead and like it and subscribe it because these stories are only getting better and you're gonna miss out on a really cool experience. Peace and enjoy. (cheerful music)