(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.

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