- Here we are with the

"Show & Tell" at PCA 2024.

Joining us today is Remon Mansour,

a guy who had an idea.

And we did an interview last year,

we had a conversation

about what you're up to.

And I just came back from

your booth down there.

Dude, it has blown up!

- Thank you.

- And this guy right here-

- We're blessed.

- Yeah, you're blessed,

- You got it.

- and you work your butt off.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, what'd they say about luck?

It's something about when

hard work meets opportunity

or something like that,

you make your own luck.

- Make your own luck, I mean,

like I said, thank God.

You know, you put in...

You know, you put in the hours,

you put in the work

and you kinda let it be

and, you know, whatever happens, happens,

right, in life and-

- So if you didn't see

the previous episode,

he came up with the idea

of having a self-contained humidor

to put into non-traditional

places like liquor stores,

golf courses, what have you.

Is that fair?

- That's right.

- Yeah,

so he has this idea,

he comes in with his scratch

pad and all his stuff,

he's hanging out at the show.

And we were fortunate to be in your way

and you told us about your idea,

and we were really blessed to be involved.

And so, that whole category

in your business has taken off.

I think, in talking to you a few times

I've seen you in the last year,

it's exceeded your expectations,

it continues to grow.

If you're interested,

you go to cigarbros.com,

you can see all the goodies

that they've come up with.

This came out of a family

that's had a Cash &

Carry in San Diego area.

And your latest brainchild.

I was laughing so hard

when you came over and stood on the box,

or you had the big guy.

- That's right, Alan.

- Yeah, he just gave me a hug.

I went down there.

You had just a giant human being

standing on this humidor.

Tell the story about this

and how you came up with it.

- Essentially, with the original concept

with Cigar Brothers,

we set out to simplify freshness.

That freshness should be automatic,

it should be included.

If you go into a retail store

and it used to be,

you know, you walk into any shop

and you question whether

or not a cigar's fresh,

and you're pinching at it, and...

And so, when we tried

to go into non-traditional retailers,

the first step was how do you make sure

that freshness is never a question.

And we think we accomplished that.

Our units are climate

controlled, they're in tubes.

And rest assured you reach

into any of our humidors,

you know you're getting a fresh stick.

And so we're doing that

and thank God we're in 37 states,

we're in about 1,300 locations now,

a bunch of customers waiting.

And we're just trying

to keep up,

- Fantastic.

- We're trying to catch up.

And so, that's doing its thing.

The evolution to that

became for the customer

that wants to take cigars home.

And that's a whole 'nother world of maybe,

you know, questionable, maybe, traditions

with keeping cigars fresh at home.

And there's a lot of

misconceptions with cigars.

And there's a lot of

automatic set of rules

that everyone thinks that

they need to abide by

or they should, because of what's...

You know, you have to have a...

You have to have a humidor

before you can have your

first box of cigars at home.

You have to season your

humidor and all that.

And which is a,

it's all fine, it's all beautiful.

It's a beautiful industry.

But there's a learning curve,

and there is kinda that barrier for,

I would say the majority of America

that maybe wants to,

you know, jump into the world of cigars,

just doesn't know how or

doesn't have the time.

And so, I developed

the first prototype.

And we launched this last PCA,

and it's a, essentially a

humidor made out of EPP,

highly durable, super lightweight,

includes a Boveda, airtight, waterproof,

and you know it's fresh.

You keep cigars in there

and a single pack is good for over a year.

And freshness is never a question,

especially if you reach in the humidor

and that Boveda pouch is soft

it's done, there's your answer.

No question about it,

your cigars are fresh.

And so, we had a really,

really good response to that.

- So this was first

- And-

This was first.

And then the evolution to

that became number of sizes.

- Okay.

- So now that one holds 80,

we brought it down to one that holds 5

one that holds 10, 20, and 30.

And they all kind of,

depending on if you're on the go,

if you wanna have a variety of cigars

and maybe a cutter and a lighter,

maybe get the size 10.

And so, these all launch May 1st

and we're taking pre-orders today.

But in this

and in what we do,

essentially we're not really

in the humidor business,

we're in the cigar business.

And we try to develop

the right humidor

for the right customer.

And so, this evolved

to our collaborations.

And here's one we did with Oliva.

- Okay, this is beautiful.

And I love this, because I love Oliva.

So tell us about the

collaboration with Oliva.

- So we have 11 companies

we're collaborating with,

and this is an all-in-one solution

for anyone that wants

to bring cigars home.

Any brick-and-mortar can carry this

in just in a easy buy.

- This is loaded

with Oliva cigars?

- That's loaded today

with Oliva cigars, you can open it up.

- I just wanna look,

I'm not gonna take any

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- Promise I won't take any.

(Remon laughs)

(Drew laughs)

- Oh, you're welcome to.

(Drew giggles)

- So this is the Oliva Serie V Melanio.

Ho ho, that is a great stick!

So how many different cigar houses

are doing collaborations with you?

- Today, 11, and we got

a whole line of guys-

- Only 11

so far?

- So far 11 brands.

- Dude, that's pretty amazing progress.

When did you come out with this?

- Maybe four weeks ago

we started the collaborations.

(Drew laughs)

Yeah.

- Four weeks ago!

Oh, there they are.

Those little beauties,

They're packed in here.

The Melanio Vs.

Of course, there's a Boveda pack in here.

I'm sorry, I interrupted you, keep going.

- No worries, so to us...

- So you could ship this?

- We are shipping this.

So we developed...

It starts with where we

want these to be placed.

Besides brick-and-mortar,

we believe an important place is where is,

you're maybe someone

that may be newer to cigars,

- Yeah.

- maybe goes

into other websites

and you wanted to-

- And they don't have

a humidor.

- And they don't

have a humidor,

and so...

- What's this retail for?

- They range from about $150

to $250 depending on the brand.

So-

- And that's with cigars

in it?

- With the cigars

fully loaded.

- So this without cigars...

- That's 50 bucks.

- 50 bucks?

- Yeah, exactly right.

- And it's durable.

- Absolutely, yep.

- Yeah, I mean,

it is super convenient.

You can stand on it.

- Yep, so, matter of fact,

this is our shipping

box as well as a humidor

because it can take

damage, super lightweight.

We slip it in a bag,

it's no UPS driver's gonna damage that.

And so, what you know is when you order,

whether you're ordering just a humidor

or one with cigars,

if it's shipped in our box,

- It's gonna be good.

- it's gonna be fresh

and it's gonna be undamaged.

Because this thing is very-

- Which is a big deal

with cigar shipments.

- Yeah.

- Because I can't tell you

how many online cigar purchases I've made

where the box shows up

and it looks like it's been

through a meat grinder,

(Remon laughs)

you know, with half a brick of sticks

hanging out the side of it.

So, and no offense

- Yeah.

- to the online retailers,

but if they don't pack them just so,

that corrugated, it can be a nightmare.

- Absolutely, and then what happens

if it's sitting outside

for a couple of days

and you just, you weren't home.

- Well, and this is also insulated.

- Exactly right, so you

can leave this bad boy

out for weeks.

- Even in Minnesota?

- The-

Probably.

- Maybe.

(Drew laughs)

I don't know if I would.

But the idea is

on its way to you.

- It's gonna make it safe and sound.

- It'll make it safe.

And then you bring it in

and then the Boveda will

do its thing, and then...

- So if I buy one of these,

when I go to buy more cigars,

do I buy the cigars from you?

- Well, you'll buy them

from our retail partners.

- Okay.

- So we wanna support

retailers, whether it's

brick-and-mortar or online.

So today for example, we have...

Wooden Cork is one of our partners,

they're a liquor online store

and they have an amazing liquor website.

And if you went

to their website today

and you're going to check out

and you bought your favorite spirit,

well, the website would

recommend a good pairing

of your favorite cigars

- Oh, awesome.

- that would go to it.

And so, that's who we wanna support.

- Yeah, that's great!

- So these guys're not

really in the cigar business,

but they can be.

- How long's that

collaboration been going on?

- This is just in a few weeks.

We started with one

test, which was a Romeo

[Romeo Y Julieta] box.

- Yeah.

- In two weeks,

simply on their checkout,

so when someone's buying

their whatever they're buying

- Yeah.

- and they're going to check out

and they're not there for cigars,

and then we only had

- it's like people

that bought this also like that.

And so you show them

- Yep.

- This opportunity,

- It goes good with that.

- How successful's it been?

- And-

It was $170 add-on for that box of Romeos.

So they're checking out

and it recommends it.

We were curious,

would the customers see it, understand it?

- It's one thing to open it

- And then-

- and look at it,

it's another thing to buy it.

- Yeah.

Well, they click and buy.

And in two weeks I

think they sold 55 boxes

or something like that,

of just that one Romeo.

And so, the owners of of this

website were just blown away.

- Yeah!

- They couldn't imagine

that they would all,

in the matter of, you know,

overnight being now

in the cigar business.

- That's great.

- Yeah, and so we're-

- Great performance.

- Yeah, yeah.

- What a great test.

- Yes, we were happy with it.

- So now you have that data

to share with other people

when you're standing over at

your really impressive booth.

I love the way you've

merchandised these things

to show the story, to tell the

story about what's possible.

You're making it easy

for people to buy cigars.

- Absolutely, and we think what we...

We think with this and

going into this direction

and with a variety of sizes,

that tomorrow's buyer

or tomorrow's customer of cigars

likely could be where he's got

four or five or six of these at home

with his favorite brands in them.

- Yeah.

- And he's consuming them

right out the box.

He has one in his car, one in his office,

and that's how he or

she enjoys their cigars

rather than maybe a bigger humidor at home

and then they-

- Right.

- So it just opens it up

to all kind of good-

- Well, you've got

a really good seal.

I mean, one of the things about humidors,

I usually use a Pelican™ case,

you know, I've got like,

- Yup.

- a 40-count Pelican case.

The seal on this box

is as good as the seal on my Pelican case.

- Yep.

- There's a little more surface area

than there is on the

gasket on my Pelican case,

so I get it.

I don't know what you call this material,

but it's really effective

at keeping the...

There's no leaking.

- Yeah-

- That's a really big deal!

Because so many wooden

humidors naturally leak.

You know, sometimes people buy

our 72 or 75% humidity packs

because their humidors leak

and they live in like, Arizona

or Nevada or somewhere.

They gotta compensate

for the leaking in the box.

It's a big deal, you've accomplished that.

- We hope so.

I think we have, I think, two things.

One, it was important,

you know, that I got the

stamp of approval from Boveda.

I sent the first ones

out to Jay [Fifield] to,

you know, test these.

- Jay.

- Make sure that they don't-

- You love Jay, don't you?

- I love Jay,

that's my man, there.

(Drew laughs)

So it was tested,

and just like, I had hoped,

you know, it works.

- Dude, if you're getting

that much adoption that fast

and you've only been really doing this

for four or five weeks,

we gotta do this again at the next show

and compare notes to see where this went.

Because that's, that's

with one line, right?

That's with one collaboration

that they did that volume.

- Yes.

- At Wood and...

- Wooden Cork, yep.

- Wooden Cork.

So it's gonna be so much fun next year

to compare notes.

If you'll still talk to us at that point,

you may have some people

- Of course I'll, yes.

- that we need to talk to

instead of you.

(Remon laughs)

I hope we always have access to you.

- No, you'll always have access,

that's for sure.

- All right,

that's Remon Mansour.

This dream, we get to come to PCA

and watch dreams come true,

not only with the

self-contained stand-up humidor,

that was at least the first brainchild.

I'm sure you had a lot

of ideas before we met.

But that idea was dynamite

and you did an awesome

job of executing that,

that's still going gangbusters.

This idea launched how long ago?

- So last July was when

we introduced that.

- That's not even a year old.

- Not even a year old, yeah.

- Okay,

so this isn't even a year old

and this is going well?

- Thank God, yes.

- Okay.

And then, this baby

with the brand collaboration,

these cigar houses are getting wise

to making it easy for their customers

to enjoy their cigars and know

that they're gonna be fresh.

We couldn't be happier

for you and your success,

it's a treat to be associated with you.

You're one of the most stand-up guys

I've met in the industry,

- Sure.

- it's just a privilege to know you.

- Oh, likewise, I mean,

you're an amazing man,

your whole team,

- Yeah. We have a good bunch.

- Through and through, you

guys are all very great guys.

You know, I was talking

to the team earlier.

And I personally believe

to truly try to do something

and make it work and be successful

is that it has to be an element of honesty

- Yeah.

- in your product

and what you do through and through.

And if you can do that,

and I think things work out.

Things, you know, turn out right.

So there's no shortcuts.

And so, you guys really...

Your product in itself,

you can't get any more honest than that.

And I was explaining that to them,

is Boveda itself,

when you reach into your

humidor and it's soft,

you know it's working.

And if it's hard,

you know you need to replace it.

It doesn't get more

honest than that, right?

- That's right.

- And so,

I appreciate that,

I appreciate your team,

(calm Latin music)

and I always love talking to you guys.

- And we've successfully gotten

through another interview without crying.

(Remon chuckles)

It's really a privilege

to know you, buddy.

- Likewise.

- Thank you very much.

- Really appreciate it.

- Next year

we're gonna have a

checkup from the neck up,

find out how you're doing.

- All right, can't wait.

- Thanks, Remon.

(Remon chuckles)