- What is it today at PCA 2024 that's animating your spirit? - That's a good question. I'll be completely frank with you. My professional life, or let's say, the glasses I see through typically reflect my state of mind at a particular time in life. We go through life as children growing up into teenagers, growing up into young adults, then some growing into parents, young parents, so on and so forth. And the way we see things dramatically change with life. It's a gift. It's a natural process.
It's an enormous responsibility, and it's an even bigger privilege. And so I think much of this is brought into the arts, which we're creating, an enormous part of this is brought into the arts, which we're creating. Now, the art which we're creating has several facets to it. Part of it is history, knowledge, experience, how you build a cigar, how you grow tobacco. And this is an amassment. Is that a word in English? An amassment. Amassing something. - It will be from this point forward.
- Yeah, from that one. - Yeah, we will adopt that word, an amassment. - How to bring together the combination of years and generations and centuries of knowledge and experience and bring it into a product. Another facet of that is the lens through which you're seeing something at a particular moment and the way that you're projecting it into the future. Because the future, even though you have a past attached to it, also has an independence.
Some people call it free will, other people call it whatever they may. But the reality is the human being has the capacity to separate itself from the rest of the animal kingdom because of some kind of particle from God, which gives it the ability to get off the roads of what's known into something completely different. And I think that answers your question.
The way I see things today, in this particular moment of my life, is based on where I stand in my personal life as a father, as a husband, as a patriarch. Unfortunately, not having a father and a mother anymore, not having grandparents anymore, being the eldest of a family, being the patriarch of a company, very fragile and very sensitive situation to be in, obviously.
But it also brings you a certain type of responsibility and a certain type of commitment to sustaining values, to sustaining respect. And that's where I am in my life today. Yesterday I was speaking to somebody on the floor. They asked me, "If you had to in one sentence, explain the frame of mind of the cigars or the frame of mind of the way you process things right now in terms of tobacco, what would that be?" And today, it would be respect.
The word that I'm clinging onto right now, and for the past year or two for the moment, and which I'm very, very adamant on, is respect. Because I believe at this stage of my life that there are so many things that are encapsulated in that, which leads to happiness, which leads to liberty, which leads to peace, which leads to serenity. And that's the frame of mind that I'm looking for right now. - Well, it seems to be the frame of mind that you're in.
It just feels that way to meet you and to listen to you. And I love the word amassment, and I'm serious if it isn't a word, we're going to make it a word. - We're gonna have to look that one up in the dictionary. So whoever's watching this, please pull out your phones, Google amassment, and if something comes out, send me an Instagram message or something. - We'll have our staff look it up while we're talking. But if it's not a word, we're gonna make it a word.
But to aggregate all the things you talked about, the frame of reference you are elucidating, I think you are intentionally, and that's a great word, intentionally it feels like you're in that. And the word that is on the front of my mind about it is serenity. There's a serenity about being on purpose and being in alignment with your values and being, projecting from your heart into not just some academic exercise and how to make spectacular cigars.
I mean, there's nobody in the room that's gonna argue with the fact that it's a premier storied tradition of cigar excellence that you've been a part of, and that you continue to. - I'm a happy person. The work we've done over the last, let's say my career, which is basically 25 years, let's say, 20 years of leading and running the family business, and then maybe five, 10 years of actively working within the business before that, I'm happy. I'm content.
What we've managed to build with our partners is magnificent. Today, I see, for example, one of the main brands that we've been developing in the eastern hemisphere of the world, which is Arturo Fuente, one of my father's very, very best friend Carlito Fuente. And the amount of satisfaction I get from understanding and seeing the combination of 20 or 30 years of development, of education to the market, and seeing the satisfaction in the eyes of the consumers.
You need to remember that we were doing this in Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East, where 15, 20 years ago, nobody, nobody would smoke a premium cigar if it wasn't a Cuban cigar. Nobody. And that was quite interesting because you came with a different offering to the table.
As good as it may be, it was considered a lesser product by consumers, which had been, I don't wanna use the word indoctrinated, but let's say they were used to consuming a certain type of product, and they were having a hard time considering something else. Same thing happened in the wine industry, by the way. I remember as a small child, there would only be Bordeaux on the table.
And even if we pulled out the best Burgundies, sometimes it was challenging, yet alone, Spanish wines, yet alone, Italian wines. And my goodness, if anybody ever spoke about American wines, and here we are- - Sacrilege. - Sacrilege. And here we are 20 years later, 30 years later, and you know, California's are definitely part of the most prestigious offerings there are. Italy has some of the most elegant wines in the world. Spain has some of the most delicious wines in the world.
So the cigar industry followed the same trajectory. And being part of that change, being an engine of that change was very, very difficult. And today, I can sit back, I'm very, very upset and very sad that my father's not next to me, to be able to sit back and see the fruits of the work that's been put in, sit next to his friend Carlito and puff on cigars, and kind of look back and say, "You know, we did it."
And not in terms of the business, but in terms of changing the entire mentality of three generations of cigar smokers at the same time. That is an unbelievable achievement. And something which we're absolutely proud of. And you need to realize that in 1964, when we started importing non-Cuban cigars in Europe, because we happened to be the distributors of many Cuban cigars in Europe, my grandfather launched Cohiba in the European markets. We were very involved in Cuba.
My grandfather was best friends with Che Guevara before the revolution, and he was the largest exporter of Cuban tobacco in history. We had a huge role to play in Cuba. But to see that he brought in cigars from the Dominican Republic and later from Nicaragua and through him and my father, and then later on, my brother and myself, created a change in the industry in terms of the consumers, in terms of what was accepted. That's an enormous satisfaction.
And I'm sitting here at the PCA in 2024, and I've spent the whole morning with international distributors, people from all walks of life in every place in the most remote places in the world. People from Australia. I mean, this is the other side of the planet. And these great cigars are now being appreciated at their just value. They're being appreciated at the level which they should be appreciated. Don't be surprised that I use the word content or satisfied.
It's an enormous satisfaction to see this happening. That's on one side. On the other side, I've been developing cigars over the last 20 years, but putting them onto market, and I see what it does to people. I see how much satisfaction it brings people. I see how much curiosity people have. I see how much love, how much affection and friendship that creates. And there's nothing to say. Nothing to say.
When you are able to create emotion, when you're able to create the human links, I call them the golden links between human beings, between people. There's no money in the world that comes close to the satisfaction of what that brings. And I've been blessed, I've been blessed to feel this. I've been blessed to be part of this. I've been blessed to be living this. And content is what it does. - Well, in a sense, well, as I'm listening, there's two extremes, one is isolation and one is connection.
And I think I'd be interested to hear what you think about this. I think you've been involved in an industry that has a privilege of creating connections between people. - I believe that the world at any level is a series of contractions and dilations, contractions and dilations. I think that you don't have a connection without having the isolation as well. And these are cycles that one has to go through to be able, well, - It's natural. - It's a natural cycle.
You need to go into an isolation to be able to create certain things. It's not possible to create a cigar without a certain amount of isolation, whether it's in your thought process, whether it's in the static, in the noise, which is going on. And so I think they're related, to be honest with you. Nothing is complete without the cycle of both of them happening together. - So you mentioned your father and you talk about missing him. How long has he been gone? - My father passed away 20 years ago.
- 20? - Yeah. Mine, 1992. And how different is that craft today than it was when he was in the center of it? - I think he would've been very proud of the direction the industry has taken, some of the industry, some of the industry. I believe that he would agree that the industry has never been better in terms of what it's capable of delivering to the consumers. The quality of the cigars today is at a level which I've never seen it. And I think that's spectacular.
A lot of people speak about the old days, the nostalgia. "Oh, Cuban in the 1930s, 1950s, 1960s. Yes, the, 1980s, 1990s. Those cigars are gone and will never be back." I completely disagree. You know, I still have vaults of cigars from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. And I'll be honest with you, when I look at the quality of what's coming outta the factories today, the good factories, what Fuente is producing today, I don't think anything ever came close. I'll be honest with you.
Where I'm very worried and where I'm strongly opinionated is on industry becoming too big, tobacco becoming a problem, people cutting corners because you have these explosions in demands in the business. And this is a very, very big problem, which I'm very worried about. Same thing happened during the boom. I mean, now it's disastrous. Last year, for example, there was no tobacco, very little tobacco coming out of Ecuador because of environmental.
Indonesia's gone, the Connecticut shade from the valley has disappeared, Sumatra, Indonesia has disappeared. The old style Cuban wrapper has disappeared. Cameroon's one of the only, if not the only of the old style wrappers, which our family and our partners are keeping alive by the thread of it. But this is very, very scary. And so basically what you end up with, is you end up with a lot of manufacturers using a lot of the same tobacco. This is very, very, very dangerous.
And this is something where I definitely yell and scream all the time, and people know me by it and I'm very opinionated. Beware about the tobacco, be very, very aware. Another thing I'm very worried about is this whole story with ring gauges. The way I've seen the industry go in the last few years with the bigger and bigger ring gauges, I'm against it. I think it's not natural. I think that nature produces tobacco in a certain way, in a certain form, in a certain size.
I think that the balance of cigar up to a certain ring gauge is God's particle. It's natural, it's how it should be. The balance of the tastes are at a perfection for a reason. Once you start wanting more and more and more, you start genetically modifying seed to get bigger plants, to be able to roll bigger ring gauges. And I believe that you're losing a lot of the elegance. You're losing a lot of the balance in the product. And I think that it was done for the wrong reasons.
You know, wrapper is the most expensive leaf of a cigar by far. By a multiple of many, many, many, many, many. It would make sense that certain manufacturers would promote bigger ring gauges, because you blow up the amount of binder, sorry, the amount of filler that you have in a cigar, the wrapper becomes less importance. But this is not what is creating the balance. There's a reason why, for example, typically, you take a Fuente, for example, typically, you are in very traditional ring gauges.
There's a reason for this. Carlito being one of the master blenders of the world. There's no question about it. There's a reason people like this don't go crazy in the ring gauges. There's a reason why in the Meerapfel cigar, the biggest ring gauge I have is a 52. And that's by far the biggest. You know, I have 50s, I have 48s, I have smaller, in today's world, smaller ring gauges, because I don't believe that you can create balance, I don't believe it.
And so this is another one of my, where I'm very verbal about it, is the whole swing in the ring gauges. Now, saying that there are exceptions, there are people out there that have managed to create relatively balanced and decent cigars in the big ring gauges, but in my humble opinion, it has certainly not been the majority. - Yeah, I've always, and I'm a relative novice at cigars compared to the experience that the people I've had a chance to speak to in this forum.
- And I'm sorry to interrupt. - Go ahead. - I don't make cigars to sell them. I never have, never will. My point is not whether I'm doing something to please the consumer, because he's asking, if I don't believe in it, I will not do it. End of story. And that's very, very important. It pleases some and it upsets others, but it's who I am. And you are gonna get who I am, and I am gonna be what you are gonna get. It's as simple as that.
And therefore, what we create, what I create is what I believe in, what I strongly believe in. And some people believe that I'm opinionated and hardheaded. I don't see why they would ever believe such a thing. But the point is, that's what it's gonna be. It's not made to appeal to the masses, it's made to appeal to those who agree with my palate. - Well, and it's arguable that there's probably only 10 or 15% of cigar smokers that'll ever have an opportunity to smoke a Meerapfel cigar.
- Why is that? - They're just not, I don't see them everywhere mass produced. - Let me tell you something, my dear friend. Six years ago, when we were getting ready, because I started developing this product 20, when father passed away. Six years ago, we had the financial department of the company gather around the table and they said, "Okay, how are we gonna price this cigar?" You know, these are the oldest tobaccos on the planet on a production cigar by a mile.
These stocks are, you can't put a value on on this. How can you put a value on something which is 20 years old, 25 years old? You know, some people make small batch runs. This is on a production cigar. The closest thing to this is going to Christie's or Sotheby's and buying a cigar on auction, okay? So there, ah, we're gonna, and I said, listen, it's very simple. I wanna price the cigar as low as we can possibly go. I don't know if it was $50, $60. I don't know exactly what it was.
They said, "You're out of your mind." The cost to keep this tobacco for 20, 25, 30 years. You know, we cannot do this. And my answer was, "We are gonna produce cigars to an offer experience." And I do not wanna cater for the half a millionth of a percent of the world who could afford to pay $1,000 or $2,000, $3,000 for a cigar. That doesn't make any sense. There is no reason that someone who can save up a bit of his money, instead of buying five cigars at $10 or six cigars at $10.
If once a year he could save up a little bit and have the experience of enjoying Meerapfel cigar, I wanna be able to offer that to him. So forget your craziness as of what the tobacco is worth, or what's the cigar is worth. It's all about offering the experience and that's what I want to do. And it created mayhem and the company, but we stuck with it, and we went with it, and they respected my will. And that's what we're doing. - And it works. - That's besides the point.
The point is, anybody in the world can, well, anybody in the world, all things being equal can go out if you can find it. That's the only problem. - That's the the point I was making. - The only problem is if you can find it, because there's 613 boxes of each SKU, there's only X number of SKUs. There's only whatever hundred retailers in the world that have been selected that, you know, we can't do more. It's, you know.
- Being that small of a production, do you find there are individuals that traditionally come back again and again and hoard that product? - We try that it doesn't happen. Because it's all about giving a special experience to somebody. We try for it not to happen. We're trying to, we're trying to get away from, for example, what happened to Pagani or Bugatti or to Patek Philippe. We're trying to get away from that. Where the guys who buy a Patek, you know, they're big accounts.
Whatever comes into the stores, they collect, they put away, and that's it. They're the Patek buyers. Or the guy who buys the Pagani or the Bugatti, he's first on the list to be able to buy the next Pagani that comes out. And sure, the cigar is definitely in the same philosophy. It appeals to the same kind of, but we're trying to get away from that. We want everybody to be able to experience it. And I think it's important. And that's why we priced it.
I mean, it's funny, I'm gonna say priced it so low, and some people were like, oh my God, it's crazy expensive. And of course, it's a lot of money. But in terms of how we see it, and in terms of the value of the tobaccos and everything, we kinda say we priced it so low that as many people as possible could access it and could be able to have that experience. And that's important for us.
- We gathered to remember a friend that had passed away about a year ago, a gentleman, 55 years old, lover of cigars, a close friend of Vartan [Shahverdian] out in Arizona, who I'm sure you know. He had a collection of cigars and his pinnacle of his collection are all the Meerapfels. And all the other cigars were liquidated in the process of these friends. And then the crown jewel of the collection, the crown jewels of the collection was this pretty massive collection of your cigars.
It was his idea of the quintessential cigar experience. He just loved your cigars and calmly, peacefully, cooperatively, a group of about eight or nine gentlemen figured out a way to share these cigars and compensate the estate for them and so forth. Just spectacular to watch a sense of reverence to an art. I mean, it's a very special experience to enjoy one of your cigars. - We've been blessed. Joshua [Meerapfel] and I, we've been blessed.
We grew up with the finest cigar makers in the world as mentors. And these fine gentlemen not only make the best cigars in the world, they also select the finest tobaccos in the world, which some of it came from our fathers and grandfathers. And if we're able to add a stone to the edifice and be parts of a world which, let's face it, being part of something which is part of us, that's what we all aspire to. My father left way too early. I understand yours did as well.
- He was 79. I'm the younger. - It's still way too early. - Anytime is early. - You aspire to making fatherly figures proud. I was a very young man when he passed away. Very, very young man. And the closest thing to my father was the mentors I had around me, the Carlito Fuentes, the Edgar Cullmans, my grandfather, of course, that was still alive.
And so I spent many, many years and in a way still today, try to make my mentors proud because I believe that it's this search of making our mentors proud, that rewards us with elevating ourselves, striving for being a better person and doing better things and being more successful in what we do, not in terms of monetizing it, in terms of improving our arts.
And I think that was the biggest privilege in my life, is being able to try to follow the footsteps of these giants that definitely inspired me, and still today, push me to try to become a better person and perform whatever it is that I'm doing in a more adequate way. They're never happy. My father was never happy. My grandfather certainly was never happy. Carlito's never happy with me. But I think that's the whole point. And I think you only understand that very late in life.
You understand that's what, and I see your eyes. - Oh, totally. - I see your understanding that. - Litto made the point yesterday. Litto Gomez made the point. He pointed at me, we were having the conversation, he pointed at me and he said, "We're close in the same generation." He said, "Our fathers didn't tell us that they loved us every day. Our fathers showed us in their actions and in their comportment, the way they handled themselves, the example that they gave." He makes this point.
And I thought, you know, that's spectacular. I can count the times my dad said, "I love you" on one hand, but he said, on numerous occasions, "either I'm not happy with this or I'm proud of you." The last words he said to me was, "I'm proud of you." - That's actually the last words my father said to me as well. - Hmm. - Sometimes you wonder if they know what's gonna happen. And it's the final gift that they give us as sons. This industry is the most wonderful and beautiful thing.
The consumers are very fortunate that they can experience it through the products and through gatherings, through the accessibility. What's one of the only industries I've ever witnessed where a consumer and a manufacturer would spend time together. You would typically not see somebody walking around with a Louis Vuitton bag having a conversation with Bernard Arnault. You would typically not see somebody driving a Ferrari, sitting down with a CEO of Fiat or the Scuderia Ferrari.
The cigar industry is all about love and respect and connection. And that's why you have gentlemen like yourself and like Carlito [Fuente] and Jorge [Padrón] and Litto [Gomez] and myself, and all of the people around you today that are so excited to come here. They're so excited to come here. Why am I so excited to come here? Because I get to sit with our consumers. I get to sit with my consumers and share a cigar with them and listen to them and hug them and give them a kiss.
What other industry in the world would the CEO or the president or the owner of a company get so excited to sit down with his customers? This is the best industry in the world. - It's been a real blessing for me. I mean, the gentleman that I've met, the families that I've met, it's just been remarkable. And the inclusiveness and the brotherhood and just the consideration that people show each other, it's unusual. You're very correct in that. It's not like anything else I've ever experienced.
- There's not very many industries like this. You have intergenerational businesses, which is becoming very rare. And around this floor here you have businesses which are 30 years old, 50 years old, a 100 years old, 120 years old. Our family's been in the business for 400 and some years. Where in the world do you find this? Where in the world do people dive and lose everything and decide, you know what? this is exactly where I want to be and I'm gonna rebuild it from the ashes. Happened to us.
Close to every generation for the past 400 years. What are the probabilities of something like this? Many people don't know. We were pirates in the 1600s. The name Meerapfel comes from an old named Aramean name Araphel. Araphel means smoke. We're trading tobacco from Spain to the new world. It means smoke. They were Jewish pirates in the 1600s that were trading across the Atlantic.
Then they had to, there was the, what do you call them in Spain, had to get away in the early 1700s, arrived to Germany to a village called Meckelfeld. And like many families, they arrived to Germany, they Germanize the name. Araphel became a Meerapfel. What does meer mean? Meer means the sea in German. So they went from smoke to Meerapfel. Apfel is an apple, the sea apple, Meerapfel. This is crazy history. It's insane history. Where do you find something like this? - It's wonderful.
- And who in their right mind would keep a name like Meerapfel. Nobody can pronounce it. It's wonderful. People usually would change it to something like Smith or Jones or, I don't know. - Yeah, they do a rebranding. - A rebranding of it. But excuse my French, fuck it. This is who we always were, this is who we are. You know what, if you can't pronounce it, forget about it. - Do your best. - It doesn't matter. It's not what it's about. It's not what it's about.
And with that family heritage and that family tradition, there's no surprise that things are what they are today. - Yeah. - There's no surprise that you have all of these wonderful people on the shop floor today. I mean, right around you, who do you have here? You have Oliva. - Yeah. - And some of the Olivas are still circulating there. You have Fred [Vandermarliere], which has also been in the business for ages. You have Carlito [Fuente], which is right there.
And you have Rocky [Patel], which is over there. And you have Litto [Gomez], which is over there. And you have, these are all family businesses and they're all there and they're all happy to be here. Don't be surprised. There's a reason why when you smoke a cigar, there's so much pleasure involved. And I can tell you something, it's more than just the cigar. - Hmm. - There's some fairy dust in here, I can tell you.
And that's all the love and the passion of all these guys in the industry which care so, so very much. - So having no understanding of any of the tradition or any of the families. I'm in a cigar store, I'm with a group of people. We're smoking cigars, we may be playing cards together. We're having a good time. Without knowing, we get a taste of all that you describe, all this tradition. - Of course. Why do you get so emotional when you smoke a cigar?
- Do you get so emotional when you eat a piece of bacon? - No. - Alright, so why? - It's a great question. - You get emotional when you drink a Coke? - Not at all. You get emotional when you bite into a tomato? - It'd have to be a really good tomato. - Because the person who did it then is putting a lot of love into his tomato. - Yeah, the love comes out. I think it's because of the love comes out. - Of course. It's what I call the fairy dust.
The guy who's making it, the guy who's behind it, there's a piece of him, the fairy dust, there's something going on. - Well, it's certainly a privilege to share some fairy dust with you. - It's my privilege. - I could talk to you all afternoon. I could care less if we break now or if we keep going. But I don't want to impose. What a privilege. - It's my privilege. And I have to say that and I said it once, I said it twice. And actually, the proof's in the pudding.
There's a reason I put Boveda to take care of my cigars. There's a reason for that. - What is that? - It works. - Simple. - You know what the product is. You know how fragile Cameroon is. You need a hell of a system to keep this thing protected. You don't have a choice. If you wanna smoke it at this level, it has to be perfect. - Love those Cameroons. - Thank you. So do I. - Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. - Thank you very much.