(gentle guitar music)

- 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.

Box Press.

[Rob] Welcome to another episode of Box Press,

I'm your host, Rob Gagner with Boveda,

and I am sitting across the founders of Boveda.

This is finally happening.

We are celebrating 25 years in business,

and we have Tim Swail and Sean Knutsen.

Thank you guys for joining me.

- [Tim] Thank you.

- [Rob] Can you believe this is actually happening now?

- [Sean] Thank you very much.

- [Rob] Turning around,

you guys are on the other side of the camera.

Typically you're behind me watching me interview Karl Malone

or some other famous person

that I have no idea who they are

and laughing at how much I'm squirming in my seat

because I don't know what I'm doing.

- [Sean] Yeah. It's interesting.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- [Sean] Well, Tim and I,

by the way, correction there,

we are two of six original founders.

So we're- - [Rob] Correct.

- [Sean] Not the two founders,

but- - [Rob] Thank you.

- [Sean] Two with four other guys.

- [Rob] Let's get into that, too,

because the way you guys even got into this business

was very unique.

You met a gentleman that made wood humidors, small ones,

and this gentleman had made you guys some humidors,

and then you ended up inviting him over to your house.

So, take us back to that first interaction.

- [Sean] First of all, if you take a look at the six guys

that got together and formed a company,

it is nothing short of miraculous that these six individuals

coming from totally different walks of life,

hardly knew each other except for Tim and I knew each other,

so that connection was there, and other than that,

one of the main individuals

was an acquaintance with the other ones.

And so here are six people who had no idea who they were,

never even really got to know each other very well

before we formed a company.

It's kind of a dominoes of destiny scenario that happened,

that's, I think, really kind of remarkable.

- [Rob] That's amazing. - [Sean] Starting with a guy

who loved cigars trying to capitalize

on the cigar boom in the mid '90s

making really cool humidors in Minnesota here,

and trying to market those at the big industry trade shows,

the RTDA show, and so on,

trying to get interviews and trying to make it happen.

And if you remember in the '90s, cigars were the thing.

And so Wall Street was taking companies public,

people were getting into the industry to capitalize on it,

much like they do in the cannabis industry now

where it's like a influx of so many.

- [Tim] Hollywood glamorized it, you had all of the aspects,

you had the financial, you had the social,

all coming together to create this market

that everybody really got behind and created a boon in it.

- [Sean] Yeah, restaurants and everything.

So this guy was trying to just sell his humidor.

And so he was on the Joe Soucheray Show, and-

- [Rob] And that's a radio show?

- [Sean] Yeah, that's a radio show in the Twin Cities.

I don't even know

if it's still on anymore. - [Tim] I think it's still on.

Been around a long time,

but Garage Logic was kind of their theme.

You see the GL and the little round stickers

on people's windows.

So he had quite a following.

- [Rob] I know Garage Logic.

- [Tim] Yeah. - [Rob] Yeah, that's famous

here, in my opinion. - [Tim] Yeah.

- [Sean] Yeah, well, this guy contacted a friend of his,

who was a acquaintance, but he's retired, he's older.

David, the humidor maker, is younger,

Dr. Albert Saari had retired from General Mills.

He called him because he had a problem

and he needed to solve it.

Dr. Al came up with a concept to solve it,

recruited a friend of his, he didn't know David,

but Al knew Bob.

And then Tim miraculously turns on the radio one day

when he is driving down the road to hear an interview.

And because he enjoys cigars, he knows I enjoy cigars.

He listened to this interview, thought,

"Hey, this is pretty cool."

Tim called, I vaguely remember the phone call.

"Hey, I heard this guy on the radio."

And thinking, "Okay, yeah, whatever."

"And it's cool. We should go buy it."

Who doesn't want a humidor?

I mean- - [Rob] Right.

- [Sean] We wanted a humidor bad and let's just go get one.

- [Rob] So was that all he was talking about on the radio,

or was he saying anything about the humidity thing?

- [Tim] No, no, no. - [Rob] So just the humidor?

- [Tim] Yeah, just the humidor.

So he was in production, small quantities

using exotic woods and was making small portable humidors,

and he hadn't scaled.

The whole idea of what he was talking with with Dr. Al

was in the background

of hopefully something could happen with that at some point.

So when I heard him on the radio,

he was talking about these woods and how strong they were

in their really cool shapes and designs.

And so I didn't catch his name or his company name.

So I called the radio station and said, "Who was that guy?"

And they gave me his information.

I called him and he was super nice and just said,

"Hey, why don't you come out to my woodworking shop

and I'll show you around

and I'll show you the different wood options?

And you can choose your own."

So then that's when I called Sean and I said,

"Just had a great conversation.

What's your schedule like?

Let's go out and see this guy."

And was it Delano?

What? Maple? - [Sean] Maple Grove.

It was on Territorial Road

or Territorial Road in Maple Grove, if you're familiar,

just on the North side of 94.

- [Rob] I'm familiar. I'm from Maple Grove.

- [Sean] Yeah, over there, rural area, woodworking shop

out in the middle of just a- - [Rob] A corn field?

- [Sean] Kind of, pretty much. - Pretty much.

- Pretty much, we went out there

and there wasn't much of this guy's shop.

He was sharing a shop with Noel,

who is also one of the founders.

So Noel owned the woodworking shop.

- [Rob] Yeah, because Noel's a cabinet guy.

- [Sean] Noel's a total cabinet.

That's how Noel- - [Rob] Cabinet building.

- [Sean] Is rounding out the six founders, Noel,

because he owned that shop. - [Rob] This is so crazy.

- [Sean] And so there was,

he kind of didn't have anything to do with the business

in the sense of that,

but was connected to David because of that.

- [Rob] So Noel being a cabinet maker and

then all of a sudden

getting into the humidification business, bizarre.

To think that like where your life leads you,

you have no idea. - [Sean] Oh, yeah.

Like I said, going back, I mean, we're talking,

you can almost say a few short weeks.

Now, the concept of controlling the humidity

came back in probably early '96 or even 1995

when David originally had the problem.

But fast-forward now toward the end of 1996

is when we get got involved.

But the humidity, this product and technology

was not discussed or nowhere on the surface at this point.

When we went to see David,

he had these small humidors, they're really cool.

They're actually wood

and they're designed to go into a big jacket,

but we wanted something bigger, like a cabinet.

So we thought, because in Cigar Aficionado,

a company called Vigilant

was advertising these big cabinets.

We always thought, "Hey, that's pretty neat.

David, can you make this?"

He said, "Yeah, I can make that for you guys."

And this was in late 1996, September October-ish '96,

probably September of '96.

We said, "I'd like a black walnut."

Tim said, "I'd like a cherry wood.

Great, see you later. Here's a down payment or..."

And- - And that was it.

- [Tim] Roughly the dimensions

and- - [Rob] Just to get a humidor

made.

- [Tim] Yeah. - [Rob] Cabinet maker,

basically.

- [Sean] Yeah. - [Rob] Cigars.

- [Tim] Woodworker. - [Rob] He's making humidors.

Did he smoke cigars, too? - [Tim] Yes.

- [Sean] Oh, yeah. - [Rob] Okay. So he smokes

cigars.

Into the culture. - [Tim] He was into it, yes.

He was totally into it. Yeah.

- [Rob] So then how long did it take to get made?

- [Sean] Well, let's go October, November,

December, January, February, March, probably six

months later.

- [Tim] Yeah.

- [Sean] Boom! We got a call.

"David here. Your humidors are ready."

- [Tim] It was taking a long time.

We were both like, "Man, what's going on?"

- [Rob] Did this guy run out on us with our down-

- [Tim] I think he said it would be like eight weeks,

two months, something like that.

And then it kept dragging on and we're like, "Oh, okay."

- [Sean] It was late March or even early April

so we're now getting into the springtime,

Easter's coming up and all of that.

We went and picked up the humidors

and it was earlier in the week.

And then that Friday night,

Tim's coming over to my house in St. Paul

with a couple other, I think it was just four us.

And we said, "Hey, David,"

because this guy was pretty interesting individual.

He was very creative, super smart, interesting guy.

So you think of the destiny of Tim turning on the radio

to hear this thing at that moment in time,

us going there and then saying, "Hey, David,

why don't you come over to my house for dinner and cigars?"

And that was a Friday night. Remember vividly.

- [Rob] So you go to pick up your humidor

and then you invite him over for dinner

because you're having this thing anyway-

- [Sean] Why don't you come on

over? - [Rob] He's a cool guy.

- [Sean] Guy seems cool. Why don't you come over?

And the guys who were there

were just guys we went to college with,

we graduated from college with, and we were friends,

we stayed friends after college

and it was just a cigar night and steaks.

- [Rob] That's kinda risky though,

from a perspective of like,

you know how you kinda have pockets of friends.

And I kinda pocket my college friends as like,

"Boy, if you get in our inner circle,

we're gonna be talking about our old days."

So you really gotta hold your own conversation.

So this David must have had

a really good conversation background

because for you to invite him

into your kind of inner circle of college buddies,

it's like, hey, that could either go really well

or really bad. (chuckles)

- [Sean] He's a very personable individual.

- [Tim] Yes. - [Sean] He makes friends

quick.

And you're right, at least for me,

typically that wouldn't be natural for me to say,

"Why don't you come on over?

We've got a history here, you don't,"

and it's a little bit odd.

- [Rob] And you're gonna

make- - [Sean] There's another

domino in the trail that happened.

It's like, "Hey, come on over."

And then that night he came on over

and I remember him putting it on the kitchen table,

this bag with this handmade pouch.

- [Tim] Handmade pouch.

- [Sean] Of course we have no clue about a

saturated salt solution

and all that, but he explained it to us and said,

"I gotta show you guys something that's really neat

that I've had made with-" - [Rob] This is the first

reveal of essentially Humidipaks/Boveda to you guys.

- [Tim] To us. Yeah.

- [Sean] And Humidipak wasn't

even- His company name was Seiyge Cigar Box

Company.

So this is kind of poignant in history.

- [Rob] Not sage the way you would spell sage,

but Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em.

- [Sean] That's right. S-E-I-Y-G-E.

- [Tim] Yeah,

- [Rob] S-E-Y- - [Sean] S-E-I-Y-G-E.

- [Rob] Y-G-E. - [Sean] Right?

- [Tim] Yeah. Yeah.

So they would call it- - [Sean] S-E-I-Y-G-E.

- [Tim] See-gee, I mean, nobody ever got it right.

Nobody came out with sage because-

- [Rob] It doesn't look like sage,

it's not pronounced sage, okay.

- [Tim] But when David was there that night

and he put down this bag,

I remember it this way and Sean can clarify,

but I just remember him saying, "At the end of the night,

this thing's gonna be sitting at 75%."

So he had the prototype in there

with a hygrometer inside a bag.

And he said, "The hygrometer will read 75%

at the end of the night."

I think when it went in, it was in the 50s,

mid 50s, something like that.

- [Rob] External environment. Pretty common.

- [Tim] And lo and behold at the end of the night,

we went to that thing and it was sitting at 75%.

And we were like, "What is the-"

- [Sean] He had sodium chloride in there, obviously,

because that's table salt.

It's easiest salt to get.

And so that's what Al had made in the kitchen,

his kitchen and yeah, exactly.

"Watch and within a few hours here, this is gonna be there."

And we thought, "Oh, this is weird."

And it was in a bag.

And so, he actually shared his vision on it,

which was to say, "Hey, the cigar stores

would just sell these in the store

and just like, wow, disposal, portable."

We knew how the challenges

of being a cigar of, I say, connoisseur, or whatever,

we enjoyed it a lot.

But we didn't have a humidor.

And we had to go buy our cigars that night, that day,

because they would degrade and they would be dry up

and all of that.

So we saw that value in this really simple,

inexpensive, disposable product.

Here's what resonated in my mind

and I think it did in Tim's, too,

so when you're in sales, you can have a great month.

All right, that's awesome.

You get to the end of the month,

all right, now you're at day one.

You're at zero again.

Okay, and it's like, well, you gotta go at it again.

And it's fun.

Sales is a very difficult profession,

but it's very rewarding.

And the opportunity is great because you can make more.

And so we were both selling products

that we didn't get the residual on it.

And so, seeing this disposable product was like,

"Okay, this is pretty fascinating."

- [Rob] You invite David over for cigars and dinner,

and at the end of the night, what does David say?

So you guys see this technology, it gets to 75,

then what's next?

- [Sean] He could tell we were enamored with

this technology.

Like, this is great.

Because we had a passion for cigars and we knew, too,

Because we talked about it that night,

that this isn't just for premium tobacco,

I mean the implications from a packaging standpoint

and to commercialize it in various industries

to manage the moisture inside of packaging

to a specific point.

And knowing that we, because David told us

is we could different salts,

we could meet different humidity levels.

We knew cigars was key, big, exciting, and all that,

but it was more than that.

So he could tell that we were really enamored.

I think we hit it off in a very,

obviously this is a short period of time, okay?

You are looking at six people

who didn't know each other at all

in a matter of weeks, essentially to forming a company.

But David said, he's walking out and he said,

"Will you guys go into business with me?"

(Tim laughs)

- [Rob] What did you say?

- [Sean] It's like, well, it was pretty much in our minds.

I can't remember if we said, "Yes,"

"absolutely emphatically yes,"

or, "get back to you tomorrow."

- [Tim] Yeah, it was more of like,

"Hey, we're really interested. Yeah."

But I just remember the comment he made is he said,

"I don't have any money.

I don't know how to run a business.

And you guys seem like you're really professional,

successful at what you're doing.

I like you guys.

I need help in making this thing a reality."

In essence, I mean, that's the gist of the conversation.

- [Rob] Right. Was that kind of a red flag, though?

"Like I have no money, and-

- [Tim] No. - [Sean] Not at all.

- [Rob] No? - [Sean] No, not at all.

- [Rob] Man, somebody tells me, "You wanna go in business?

But I don't have any money."

I go, "What are you looking at me

to be the bank?" (chuckles) - [Sean] Oh, well yeah.

Well, look at it this way.

But he had all the cards, David really had all the cards.

He's really kind of the one that said,

"When you go into business, you get equity."

So bottom line is we said yes, okay?

And then he introduced us to Dr. Al Saari

and Bob Esse. - [Rob] Who is the chemist.

- [Sean] Al's the chemist.

He conceived of the idea. He recruited Bob-

- [Rob] He's the one making the saltwater solutions.

- [Sean] Yeah, he was a formulations chemist

for General Mills.

I mean, and really one of their senior chemist there,

highly respected, many patents that he's been awarded.

A lot of innovations that he's done for General Mills

and he worked in the frostings areas,

one of the areas that he worked with.

And in the frostings area, viscosity is important.

You use use thickeners, and so on,

so that you get the right texture in the frosting.

And that was a really key component

when you're making a saturated salt solution.

And so, Al's expertise

in terms of making the viscosity right

so that it actually could be mass-produced

and commercialized, and so that you would have a uniformity

from one packet to another,

and the blend, when you're at the factory,

making it in 500-gallon drums,

you need a homogenous blend, a ratio,

so the first pump that goes into the pouch

has the same ratio of salt as the last one.

And without the expertise of thickeners

to get the right viscosity,

you can't keep the salt in suspension.

And salt will just drop to the bottom

one pack would be of water, one would be too much salt,

the inconsistency would be there.

This was really key.

- [Rob] Because the salt-to-water ratio matters

right off out of the gate.

- [Sean] In terms of the capacity that you wanna get

in terms of how much water you wanted to give up

and how much you wanted to absorb.

- [Rob] So Dr. Al Saari is the salt guy,

Bob Esse is the packaging guy.

- [Sean] Yeah. - [Tim] Yep.

- [Rob] So how hard was it to figure out

what kind of packaging

you're gonna throw this in because I'm assuming it's messy?

- [Sean] Well, Al, the first iterations,

I would go to the grocery store and get film

that was underneath the like- - [Tim] The meat.

- [Sean] Ground beef, or chicken, or whatever.

And he would peel that film off and then he would seal that,

or crimp it, or what have you.

That was the first iteration.

And he knew that he needed a packaging engineer,

like Bob Esse, to bring it to the point

where this could be commercialized

to get films that were more effective, faster,

that would hold liquid.

The idea is you wanna hold the liquid,

you don't want liquid to get out,

but you want water vapor to readily go back and forth.

And up to that point,

those types of films really weren't around very much.

They were very limited.

- [Tim] Most things were in life were to either

keep it all out or let it all in, or-

- [Sean] So we went with other membranes,

or films, and so forth, that were adequate.

We've been using this one for 22 years

probably now. - [Tim] A long time.

- [Rob] We've been in business for 25.

- [Tim] Yeah. - [Sean] Yeah.

So after three years we finally got one that worked.

- [Rob] So it took three years to figure out

which one's gonna work the best

for this current application.

- [Sean] Yeah, because even the first ones

we didn't realize, too, is the seals over time

could leak, and so on.

So, we had a lot of issues.

I mean, here we're selling a product,

but when you're innovating, you don't-

- [Tim] You don't know.

- [Sean] Your accelerated testing that you do in the lab

doesn't necessarily translate always to real-world examples.

And so, we ran into issues.

I mean, we had some big ones, trust me, that were...

- [Tim] So, I mean, the film was really important

because you want speed of water vapor transfer

but you want strength of seal,

durability of the film in itself

to be able to hold take pressure and movement

because it's in portable pieces.

- [Rob] I've been at trade shows where I stand on.

And I say, "Look it, if you jump on it, it's gonna break

but if you just stand on it,

we have industrial-strength seals."

- [Sean] Tim and I did that for Carlos Fuente

at the Hyatt Hotel near the O'Hare Airport-

- You stood on the- - At the Big Smoke in Chicago.

We knew that Fuente was a juggernaut in the industry.

And Tim would hound him like white on rice.

It was like just non-stop. (chuckles)

That was great. - [Rob] If you were gonna go

into the cigar biz, Fuente is top.

- [Sean] Yeah. - [Tim] Yeah.

Go to the Michael Jordan,

go to the Wayne Gretsky, so. - [Rob] Exactly.

- Who controls the most amount of tobacco?

Who's hot in the market? Let's go.

- [Tim] Yep.

- [Sean] So we were sharing our vision.

And our vision was to give consumers an opportunity

to experience the cigar

in the same condition as where they're made,

in the Caribbean.

- [Rob] Beause Carlito has said that before,

he'll smoke a cigar in the D.R., tastes great,

he'll go and travel to events in the States,

smoke his product off the shelf, and it just doesn't have

all the flavor.

- [Tim] Missing something. Yes.

- [Sean] There are harsh

realities- - [Rob] So, he knew-

- [Sean] There are harsh realities that happen

when that cigar,

that container leaves the docks

in Central America or the Caribbean,

and they go through distribution,

they go through their checkpoints.

- [Rob] It's the gap.

You're not able to control that gap.

Once it leaves the factory-

- [Sean] That's right. - [Tim] You lose all control.

- [Rob] You got humidity and temperature changes

that are gonna go from 100% humidity if it's on the boat

to 120 degrees, 190 degrees in some cases.

So boy, your cigars are gonna get toasted.

- [Sean] Yeah, and even,

even if the wrapper is not cracked when you get there,

that whole process of temperature change

and the cigar is actually giving off

its moisture in the tobacco.

And along with that, you're getting some release

of those natural oils and sugars in there.

And it's just kinda degrading over time.

So you're losing some of the strength, and the oomph,

and the character and the flavor

that's in the tobacco itself.

And when we talked to Carlito about this,

and this is through talking to Dr. Al, and so forth,

and understanding the plant from a totally different way

that historically, or traditionally,

these time-honored and these experts

that really know their stuff.

And so Carlito recognized that

because he knew when he would get to the States that,

"Yeah, the cigars are good,

but they're not like they are there

before they go through that whole process of distribution."

- [Rob] Right, and what I think is interesting is,

as you burn a cigar, the part that's actually burning,

that's not the part you're tasting.

You're tasting just a few millimeters before it,

those oils and sugars are heating up,

and that's what you're tasting.

That's why if you get it too hot,

it's like bitter and- - [Tim] Bitter, yeah.

- [Rob] You burned all those oils and sugars too much.

- [Sean] That's right. Yeah.

- [Rob] So it's amazing that...

But you don't think of that. - [Sean] Well, yeah.

- [Rob] I didn't think of that.

I worked in a tobacco shop, I did the whole thing.

Come to Boveda and I'm like, "Boy,

this thing is not the same thing

that I remember at the tobacco shop

because now it brings on a whole new meaning, understanding.

- [Sean] Yeah, one of the most important things

is the temperature that you're burning your cigar at,

how much you're gonna enjoy it.

- [Rob] It's a night-and-day difference

after you actually give a minute to two minutes

depending, well, sometimes this cigar, three minutes,

four minutes to let it cool down.

And then two, Jochy Blanco, who we work with very well,

said slower draws.

Not like big ones to heat it up,

just nice slow draw and you'll taste so many more flavors.

- [Tim] So true. - [Rob] I digress.

That's just blows my mind because just that simple tip

can get you to totally change the flavor of a cigar.

- [Sean] We sat down with Carlito in Vegas.

I remember that you and me and, maybe even Bob, I think.

- [Tim] I think it was Bob, yes.

- [Sean] We shared our technology with him.

We told him what it could do.

That this can add moisture and remove.

He said, "That's good."

He said, "Because if you're just a humidifier,

I want nothing to do with this."

- [Rob] He didn't want a one-way humidifier.

He wants moisture to come out.

- [Sean] Too much moisture is bad.

Too little moisture is bad.

You need to just really hold it.

And so that really resonated with him

which was interesting because all the other major companies

that we sat down with

they're just like, that didn't connect with them.

- [Rob] They weren't thinking that way.

- [Sean] Because we were meeting with executives.

- Carlito's a tobacco guy. - [Rob] They weren't growers.

- [Sean] And he knows this through his father,

and through his grandfather,

and through his experience from the time he was a kid.

And so, he understood it in a different way.

And so when we shared it with him, bang,

now we had somebody who was genuinely interested.

And he said, "If you do what you say it'll do,

this thing's gonna change the industry."

- [Tim] This will change it. Yeah.

- [Rob] Is that where you stood on the pack?

- [Tim] No, that was- - [Sean] Not yet.

- Not yet, yeah.

- [Rob] We're getting back to that, eventually.

- [Tim] We're eventually getting there.

No, what was great is that Sean crafted the language

around oils and sugars, and the fluctuations,

and eliminating that.

It stuck with Carlito because he got it.

It was an experience that he already had.

So it wasn't a big leap for him to buy into,

"You're right. That's kind of what's happening."

It was like a light bulb went off.

And then when he said,

"If you're a humidifier, I want nothing...

I'm more worried about too much moisture

than I am not enough in a lot of the packaging."

And you notice that when you go to the Dominican Republic,

if it's outside raining

and cigars are sitting on the counter,

they are sucking up the excess humidity.

- [Rob] So had he invited you down

and you had already talked to him

and you were negotiating the deal.

- [Sean] Let's back up because Tim sent samples first.

He goes, "Just send me some of your product."

This is a absolute crucial component to the story

to get to convince Carlito that he's on the right track.

Because he said, well, he conceptually loved it,

understood everything, resonated with him.

So Tim got some samples down there to him.

- [Tim] Yeah, so I sent samples, and you have to realize,

Carlito is really hard to get ahold of.

I mean, this isn't like, "Oh, I just make a phone call

and maybe," it's like 10, 15 dials,

and eventually he got back.

And the phone never came my direction.

All of a sudden, one day caller ID and it's coming from-

- [Sean] It was late in the afternoon, if I remember.

- [Tim] Yeah, it was coming from Carlos Fuente, Jr.

And I'm like, "What the heck?"

- [Rob] "He's calling me?"

- [Tim] "He's calling me?"

Yeah, as a sales guy,

you're finally like, "Oh, this might be the breakthrough.

I hope everything's okay."

And so he had called and he said,

"Hey, I gotta let you know

that the samples that you sent to me,

I stored some Opus X with those,

let them sit for a little while."

And he goes, "I decided to pull one of those out

to smoke it."

And he goes, "It was so good.

It was so good it's like I wanted to eat the cigar."

He goes, "I don't know what you guys have or what you do,

but this is unbelievable."

He goes, "I just thought maybe it was mine,

my own experience.

So then I gave a cigar to my dad and I said,

'Dad, smoke this and just tell me what you think of it.'"

And he smoked it, ended up having a great experience

said, "That was a great cigar. What did you do to it?

Why was it different?"

And then Carlito shared it with him

that it was stored with, back then we were called Humidipak.

And that was really the spike and the catalytic convert,

the catalyst that kind of got us to a point

where he got over, right, the catalyst?

- [Tim] The catalyst. - [Sean] Yeah.

- [Rob] Definitely not the catalytic converter.

- [Tim] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That got us over the hump with him.

So there was all these little pieces to the puzzle

that were kinda catching him at the right time.

But then he smoked a cigar that had been stored with us

and he was, I just will never forget it,

he was like, "Oh, it's like I wanted to eat it.

It was so good." - [Rob] How do you get the guy

who makes some of the best cigars in the world

to enjoy a cigar even better?

- [Tim] He did. I mean...

- [Rob] At that point- - [Tim] Thank you.

- [Rob] I would be riding high. I'd be like, "Oh my God.

I impressed the toy maker so much just now that this is it."

So then what happened next?

- [Tim] Then we...

- [Sean] Well, he invited us down there.

So we're leading up to this O'Hare Hilton,

there at the Hyatt, the Hyatt O'Hare

for the Big Smoke coming up.

And we had, by this time we had gone down there

to see him to advance this.

I believe we went down there first.

- Yeah, we'd already been down, yeah.

- So we're getting close to now,

we're trying to put together this deal with him.

We said, "We wanna be in all your boxes.

Here you put the water drop on the outside

to indicate to the world that these are protected

with two-way humidity control and-

- [Rob] It's like the Intel chip sticker.

- [Sean] Yeah. - [Rob] It's like, "Here we

go. Let's go." - [Sean] Yeah.

- [Rob] These are protected.

- [Sean] So remember that deal with Lane Limited.

- [Rob] Yeah. Yes.

- [Sean] So product that was the previous generation

of our product.

The biggest cigar catalog in the world at the time,

there were others,

but this was by far and away, 1-800 JR Cigar.

On the very back cover,

they were talking about this Space Age Humidipak,

gooey stuff that leaks on everything.

And because on all those Lane Limited cigars,

the product leaked.

And so they had actually,

when Consolidated bought Lane Limited,

they contacted JR Cigar and said,

"Hey, we've got this whole inventory that's worthless.

You wanna buy it?"

He bought it for pennies on the dollar.

He says, "I'll make money with this thing."

And he said, "All you gotta do

is go on the back of your "MAD" comic magazine

and order up one of those x-ray vision glasses

to see through whether they're good or not."

Now that's what we did.

He said, "We bought these x-ray vision glasses.

We're not sure how good these glasses are.

So if you buy one and they're all leaked

with this goo on it, you own them.

There's no returns on this product."

- [Rob] So he's just playing Russian roulette.

Like, here. - [Sean] He's just saying,

it was like devastating for us.

- [Tim] Buy it at your own risk, but he announces,

I mean, this is like, okay, this is

a major setback for us. - [Rob] We know the problem

and you, the consumer, can take the risk.

You can either score big for pennies on the dollar,

or you got a gooey mess and thank Humidipak.

- [Sean] And we don't have a known brand at this time.

We're trying to introduce a whole new concept.

No one has ever seen a product at this point

that's in packet form, disposable to protect cigars.

As far as two-way humidity control-

- [Rob] Consumers don't really know you.

- [Sean] Nobody even knew that concept.

The owner of that catalog company, JR Cigar,

happened to go down to the D.R. and on the way back,

to or from, whatever, he sat in first class next to Carlito.

And he told him, Carlito said, "What do you think of this?"

And he says, "Whatever you do, do not do that, Carlito.

You do not need to use this."

"I'm being told by some really people

who are entrenched in this industry

that I am really making a major mistake if I do this thing.

I don't think I can do it.

I'm not sure that this is strong enough."

And so when we are at the O'Hare,

the Hyatt by the O'Hare airport for the Big Smoke,

we intercept him, like, "Carlito!"

We were like, because we don't know-

- [Rob] Because I'm sure he's dodging.

- [Sean] Oh, yeah.

We're like now we've got a group of us here,

him and his little entourage,

and Tim and I trying to show him,

"Look at how strong this is."

We're trying to break it.

- [Tim] We have a new film.

You got it, we have a new film. We've got new technology.

This is where we're at.

So we had him at the height of like ready to go

and now he's down here like,

"I've been told by somebody I really respect

I'm absolutely crazy to do this for my brand."

- [Rob] He's further down than when you first talked to him.

- [Tim] (laughing) Yeah, probably yes.

- [Rob] He's beyond that.

Like, "Okay, I'm interested."

- [Sean] He has a lot to risk.

They don't even take an order.

They just shipped at this time, ship cigars to retailers.

Retailers take- - [Rob] You get what you get.

- [Tim] They had an ARP,

an automatic- They show up, they buy them.

- [Rob] If you turn them down, you're an idiot.

- [Tim] You may not get another shipment.

- [Rob] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- [Sean] So we were doing our best.

Like, "Carlito, I get it.

This has improved. This is the ticket."

- [Rob] Did that resonate with him?

- [Sean] Yeah, well, it did.

We stood on the product.

We did what you were doing, I mean, we stood on this.

Carlito, "Here.

Try to break it." - [Tim] Yeah.

Try and break it.

- [Sean] As a matter of fact, do break it.

- [Tim] Do what you can.

I mean, he sat there, he was pulling on this thing,

he just couldn't- - [Rob] Is this the film

that we have now?

- [Sean] Yes. - [Tim] Yes.

- He was sitting there pulling, he couldn't.

It was like, (groaning) it was stretching.

- [Rob] No, you can't rip it, you can't tear it.

- [Tim] And he was worried about the contents.

"Okay. So what does this do?"

Explaining it's just salt and water

and food gumming agent, I mean, it's all FDA,

it's all food-grade ingredient.

So we did end up puncturing it

because he just wanted to taste it and it's salty,

it's very, very bitter, but yeah, he stood on it.

He couldn't break it, but...

- [Sean] He wanted this to work. He wanted to do it.

We knew that very much.

He wanted to pioneer. He is an innovator.

He didn't have to do it,

but he wanted to show the industry the future.

And he's got a number of these situations

when you go down to see the factory,

of the things that they would innovate or be first in,

and this is one that he wanted to be first.

So he did want it to work.

He created with his designer

an absolute stellar packaging.

- [Rob] It's gorgeous. - [Sean] Custom.

- [Rob] It's still available today.

- [Sean] And we still use it to this day.

And we allow him to use that Humidipak.

- [Rob] The water droplet.

- [Tim] The other part that we did with Fuente is,

the humidor bags with the picture of Carlos Senior

and Carlito on it, that was a concept that we brought to him

and said, "You could make money with this humidor bag.

So not only are we in your packaging,

but you could have the bags."

We've come this, what 25 years,

and now a lot of companies are selling cigars in bags.

Back then they were like, "I don't know about that."

Everything's real traditional with wood.

And in a bag that devalues it.

Well, it doesn't, but anyway.

- [Rob] The sampler packs

were like- - [Tim] Sampler packs, yeah.

- [Rob] Nothing you guys were just breaking ground on.

- [Sean] Yeah, we were. - [Rob] Introducing that

to the makers.

- [Sean] One of the reasons why he wanted us to test product

is because when we know that each Humidipak,

let's call Humidipak, as we got, had 18 grams

of weight to it, of filling, salt solution.

So when those would now come to the States

and be in a humidor,

sometimes those were over 20, 22 grams of weight.

So they're pulling moisture out of the cigar.

So clearly we knew that cigars sometimes

are going in there at a higher humidity.

And so in his quest and passion

to really have understanding and to seek understanding

of everything that's going on with the cigar,

that's the beauty about working with a guy like Fuente

who was into the tobacco so much,

into the quality and consistency, in collaborating with us,

we worked just really have an understanding

of how these aging rooms, because he had multiple

aging rooms,

is how different are they from one in the same time of year,

but in addition to that different times of year

and how the changes happen based on the rainy season or not,

in the Dominican Republic.

And so when we brought down

this more expensive instrumentation, hygrometers are cheap,

you get them for a buck or $2 or, or whatever,

they're very unreliable.

But we had a scientific instrument that Dr. Al

in our lab that we had that same type of stuff

they would use in General Mills that would do-

- [Rob] What's the cost of the instrumentation?

- [Tim] Four or 500, they were expensive.

Four to 500 bucks? - [Sean] Just under

1,000 bucks.

$800 maybe at the time, probably cheap now, but.

- [Rob] And the water activity machine, that's eight?

- [Sean] That's about six,

7,000, 8,000 bucks. - [Rob] Six, 7,000.

So you guys are going to Fuente with this stuff?

- [Tim] Yes. - [Sean] Yeah, we were using

those expensive water activity machines in the lab.

Did we bring the water activity-

- [Tim] Yeah, we did. Yes.

- [Sean] Yeah, that's right.

We brought that down there. - [Rob] A $7,000 machine

brought to Fuente.

- [Sean] Yeah, so we had the $800 hygrometer, the wand,

and then the water activity machine.

So we would say, "Here's the ambient right now.

And now let's splice up these cigars

and get readings on what the water activity is."

And so he was blown away at like, "Holy cow!"

And some rooms were a little bit more than others,

and so forth.

So he went on a quest to fix all that

to get more consistency.

- [Rob] Tell the story about the cigar overnight,

on the rolling room floor.

- [Tim] Yeah, so part of that test process that we did

was went into one of the aging rooms, like Sean said,

we did a wand, "Okay, it says it's about 70% in here."

He felt comfortable.

Or actually, he liked his aging rooms

to be a little bit more, so 72, I believe it was.

We pulled a cigar out, did a water activity on it

and it was dead on 69 or 70%.

It was perfect.

That's like, he's like- - [Rob] Ready to go.

- [Tim] "This is where I want it to be."

Then we left that cigar on the rolling table overnight,

came in back in the next morning,

did another water activity on it

and it was at 78 water activity.

- [Rob] Way above the mold threshold,

which is 72, 75 at the most.

- [Tim] Yeah, and you were looking around his factory

and all these cigars are sitting out there.

And it was a-

- [Rob] Because they didn't get into the

aging room right away.

- [Tim] Well, at the end of the day,

they don't put everything back in all the time.

I mean, he was saying, "Okay, this is what's happening

when they're exposed

in the environment of the Dominican Republic."

- [Sean] Not on the rolling table, by the way,

in the packaging area.

So they're ready to go into the box.

- [Tim] I'm sorry. The packaging area, yeah.

- [Rob] They're getting ready to be boxed

and they're put inside the aging room, right?

- [Sean] And this happens in every factory in the world.

I mean, all of them are down in the tropics, really.

So the humidity generally, depending on the time of year,

it's not always the same, of course.

- [Rob] Right. So we're going from 70 to 78.

- [Sean] And that's why Carlito loved this technology

so much is now we're gonna bring consistency throughout,

no matter what time of the year it is,

no matter what day or whether it rained today or not.

- [Rob] And how it ships. - [Sean] And how it ships.

These are gonna be consistent and they're gonna be so good

you're gonna want to eat 'em.

(all laughing)

And I wanna eat this.

- [Rob] So good you wanna eat it.

This is so good. This is very good.

- [Tim] But that did spur on,

so you were talking about how he changed things.

That was really the spark to help him say,

"I've gotta have an Opus X packing room

that I keep it at 65%."

- [Rob] And why was that?

Because you guys found out that the Don Carlos,

what we're smoking, is a Cameroon wrapper

and it can smoke way better at 70, 72,

and then the Opus smokes way better

because it's super oily and toothy at 65.

- [Tim] Yes.

- [Rob] Because in anything,

if it's over-humidified it'll mute flavors,

it won't burn off those oils and sugars.

If it's under-humidified,

they burn too quickly and get bitter.

- [Sean] So, cigar manufacturers,

traditionally always think of moisture content, okay,

they don't think in the world of water activity.

So they just think of moisture content.

- [Rob] And there's a difference between the two.

So moisture content is when we take this and weigh it

and then we dry it out and we see how much moisture

left the product.

- [Sean] How much percent water left the product.

- [Rob] In water activity

it's when we put it inside a machine and it says,

"This is how much water is actually in the product itself."

- [Sean] Yeah, water activity is measuring the water

that's really available, or active, or relevant,

because some water

is bound in the system. - [Rob] Changeable water.

- [Sean] Well, Opus, let's just use 14% moisture content.

In Opus to be at 14% moisture content,

and this may not be

the exact number, but would be,

let's say 65% relative humidity to reach that,

a Don Carlo would need to be at 70%

in order to be at that moisture content.

So the different tobaccos behave a little bit differently

and that's why some tobaccos should be in the mid 60s

and some should be closer to 70%.

Like a Cameroon wrapper, for example,

that's got the same moisture content as this

if this is stored at 65 and that's stored at 70.

And so we graph these.

So we would do isotherms in the lab,

Dr. Saari would do moisture absorption isotherms

to understand the relationship

of that ambient relative humidity

and how that impacts the moisture content.

And so you put that on a curve and now you understand.

And so that research that we did

really led to the idea of saying,

"Let's come out with a product now

that can reach different humidity."

We always had these available,

we just didn't market them in the cigar market

until 2004, 2005 when we came out with the brand Boveda.

But that research that we did with Fuente,

or not just Fuente, but all cigars,

because we would buy cigars all over the country.

We would do moisture absorption and isotherms

on the different tobaccos

to understand how each would behave differently

at different points in humidity.

We discovered and realized

that having different points in humidity for the humidor

is probably not a bad idea.

- [Tim] To be learning together at certain times

but a master at what he does,

it was a great experience, for sure.

- [Rob] Yeah, and you guys went down there

and he didn't call you until super late at night

to go to dinner.

- [Sean] Keep in mind, we were just barely barely

30 years old. I mean, we were probably 30, okay.

We were pretty young and raw trying to get a business going.

And every time it felt like we're getting some momentum.

And so we needed this kind of deal with Fuente,

wanted to put us on the map to give us credibility

and all those things were really important.

But the other thing is we're fans.

Think of being a, and you're a fan of cigars, big time.

- [Rob] Maybe. Just a little. - [Sean] Maybe.

And so that's kind of where we were.

And so we're thinking, "Can you believe it?

We're gonna go have a meeting with Carlos Fuente, Jr."

I mean, we were like on cloud nine.

- [Tim] Going to the Dominican Republic, never been there.

- [Rob] First time.

- [Tim] So excited to go down there.

We love cigars.

It's like, this is two kids in a candy store.

- [Rob] Had you ever been to a factory at that point?

- [Tim] No.

- [Rob] Never been to a cigar factory at that point?

- [Sean] No, not at that point.

- [Rob] So this is your first opportunity.

- [Sean] First total ever. - [Tim] First.

- [Rob] Oh, yeah.

Okay. - [Sean] Oh, yeah.

- [Rob] So set the stage.

- [Sean] I remember flying in because it was the

old airport, a tiny little thing and there were no jet ways

or anything like that.

You go down the stairway into the...

- And everyone-

- [Rob] Get off the plane outside.

- [Tim] Yes. - [Sean] People in the airport

are all lined up, they're cheering when they get there

for all their relatives, and all this kind stuff,

and was just different.

We never experienced that before.

So we got there-

[Rob] You thought, "Boy, these people really like

Humidipak. They're all cheering for us."

- [Tim] Yeah. That's right.

(all laughing)

- [Rob] Humidipak's here.

- [Sean] We're heroes.

- [Tim] No, but the experience, too, of getting off

that plane and then nobody came and picked us up, right?

- [Rob] You guys didn't ask him to send a big black car

and a limousine, or something?

- [Tim] Exactly, so- - [Sean] We had to figure out

how to get a cab. We didn't know where we were going

- [Tim] How do we get to the hotel?

- When we got into a cab.

- [Rob] You can't speak Spanish.

- [Tim] We don't speak Spanish at all.

It was an experience.

- [Sean] Gran Almirante is the hotel.

That's probably the only word

the cab driver heard and understood, so he took us there.

- [Rob] Gran Almirante. Okay, great.

- [Sean] Gran Almirante Hotel.

- [Rob] My Spanish is impeccable, so if you guys need help.

- [Sean] You can help us.

- Oh yeah, we got there.

We're waiting like, "Okay, Carlito he's gonna call.

He's gonna call, he said he'd call or whatever."

- [Tim] Yeah, he was gonna call us for dinner.

And I had left him some messages, but no-

- [Rob] Of course, the one-way phone call.

- [Tim] Yeah, the one-way. Yeah.

And we were waiting and waiting

and I can't remember.

We landed midday,

and so we went to the hotel and we were kinda...

- [Sean] Probably sat by the pool a little bit.

- [Tim] Sat by the pool, probably waiting and then-

- [Sean] Counting down the hours for dinner.

- [Tim] But had said, "Hey, I'm gonna pick you guys up

for dinner.

We're doing dinner tonight." And-

- [Rob] How nerve-racking to sit there for that many hours.

- [Tim] Well, we were keeping busy a little bit.

I think we walked down the street,

if I remember. - [Sean] Oh yeah, we did.

That's right. - [Tim] We walked down the street

to kinda check things out.

And Santiago's kind of a industrial little city.

It's not glamorous by any means,

I mean, there's just trucks, and buses,

and mopeds, and everything-

- [Sean] It is industrial all the way.

There is nothing glamorous.

We had nothing glamorous, nothing touristy about Santiago.

- [Rob] This is where business is getting done.

- [Sean] This is where all the factories, manufacturing,

Levi's was making the clothing there, everything.

Nothing pretty about it.

You don't wanna venture too far from the hotel

for all we knew, I mean, all that.

- [Tim] Yeah, so we waited, and waited, and waited

and it got to about like 9:30.

Okay, so, Sean and I, we've always shared hotel rooms

just because in the very beginning days

we didn't have a lot of money. So that was one way to save.

And so we've gotten ready for bed. It was like-

- [Sean] And us getting to bed, "He's standing us up."

- [Tim] He's gonna stand us up.

- We just got stood up.

We came all the way down here.

I wonder if we're even gonna get together.