ACHP Special Episode: An Intimate Sit-Down with Pete Johnson

Episode Summary

A long-form, unusually candid sit-down with Pete Johnson, founder of Tatuaje Cigars, recorded during an in-store wine-tasting event. The conversation opens well before cigars: Pete's early band (the Amazing Albino Hermaphrodites, shortened to "AH"), dive-bar gigs at Al's Bar in downtown LA, and how he left Maine for Los Angeles with $3,000 from running a college print shop to chase music — including a "tour" that lasted exactly one show. He also talks about his late father, Pete Johnson Sr., the "Pete Johnson Sr. Has a Posse" stickers, and losing him the previous November.

From there the episode becomes a masterclass in brand building. Pete explains that he kept his job at the Grand Havana Room through his first four trade shows, and that the real tipping point came at the 2006 Vegas show when his booth was flooded and his retailer count jumped from roughly 125 to 350 — driven in large part by the "happy mistake" of the Monster Series. He shares the moments that felt like arrival (Diana Silvius of Up Down in Chicago, "the Colonel" at Club Humidor in San Antonio), contrasts his four-year climb with Dion Giolito of Illusione catching fire in year one, and insists you have to blend a cigar for yourself first or you're in the business for the wrong reason. He talks at length about Janny Garcia — why he makes a point of crediting her as the one who took the risks and runs the U.S. side of My Father — and how La Dueña was created for her as a broadleaf-sweetened hybrid of La Riqueza.

The back half digs into the unglamorous realities: being stuck running IT, servers, QuickBooks and rep software instead of blending; grooming a nephew to take over the day-to-day; California registration rules, FDA user fees and the UTL lawsuits; why he funds the CRA over magazine advertising; and why he refuses to inflate Miami production or sell it through discounters. He defends keeping longtime brokers like Pete Hernandez, Steve and Moe rather than going in-house, remembers Paul Hernandez, and tells hard stories about terms, bounced CODs and retailers who paid other vendors with his money. Plus: the Sex Tooth project with Andreas (Sex Tooth) of Hung Jury, the forthcoming Tatuaje documentary featuring George Brightman, Aaron Sigmund and others, trademark battles over the "Monster" name, and a genuinely useful education on wrapper priming — why broadleaf and San Andrés aren't always dark, how color grading works, and how Pepin's early bet on Habano 2000 from Oliva Tobacco changed the industry.

In This Episode

1. 01
   From Maine to the Sunset Strip
   Pete's band the Amazing Albino Hermaphrodites, the flyer that landed him a bass gig, and a tour that lasted one show.
2. 02
   Pete Johnson Sr. and family
   Memories of his dad's storytelling, the "Pete Johnson Sr. Has a Posse" sticker, and becoming a stepfather to three boys.
3. 03
   Four trade shows to a breakthrough
   Keeping his Grand Havana Room job until the 2006 Vegas show, when the Monster Series flooded the booth and tripled his retailer count.
4. 04
   Janny Garcia and La Dueña
   Why Pete insists on crediting Janny's risks and U.S. leadership, and how La Dueña was blended as a broadleaf-laced take on La Riqueza.
5. 05
   Running a brand vs. creating cigars
   Servers, QuickBooks, rep software and reports eating the time he'd rather spend on blends three years behind schedule.
6. 06
   Advocacy, California and the FDA
   Why he cut advertising to fund the CRA, plus product registration in California, UTL lawsuits and four-and-a-half-cent user fees.
7. 07
   Reps, brokers and retailer relationships
   Sticking with Pete Hernandez, Steve and Moe instead of going in-house, remembering Paul Hernandez, and getting burned on terms and CODs.
8. 08
   Trademarks, tobacco and wrapper reality
   Defending the Monster and coffin-box marks, plus color grading, priming, Sumatra's rough years and Pepin's early bet on Oliva Habano.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

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Transcript

All right, so we got the one and only Pete Johnson from an amazing albino hermaphrodites in the house. So that was my tattoo artist that gave me that name. Yeah. Yeah.

" Right. He actually let me use it. Make sure, whatever. But we actually, because we were kind of embarrassed by the name, we actually went by Ah.

Hmm. And we did a couple shows under that name, because we were supposed to go incognito. Right. And played a bunch of dive bars that are actually no longer there.

They were no longer there, but there was a bar called the Al's Bar in downtown LA that the Chili Peppers got signed out of, Jane's Addiction got signed out of, and we were supposed to do this show at Al's Bar and no one's supposed to be there. Right. We show up, we got on stage, and there was a band, a girl band called L7, and they had a song called Wargasm. Okay.

And we played Wargasm as a cover song. And, of course, they got up on stage, so it ended up being that people knew that the show happened, but we were supposed to be not there. Got it. Ah.

Ah. So, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts that you're on. Yeah. Over the course of the past month or so.

I listen to a lot of your podcasts. I heard about that. I don't know if I fully believe you, but, you know. I do.

I don't know, he had a lot of details he went over with me. He has been, okay, so he's been paying attention. A. A.?

Was it like a "fuck you mom and dad" approach? No. Why did you go? Music.

You just want, that was like, hey. Well, okay, so there was a moment in my musical career, if you could call it a career, that I said, oh, you know, New Jersey, New York, that's the hotspot for music, you know, Skid Row, Bon Jovi, they were getting, big bands were getting signed out of New Jersey. A. A.

for like two weeks, and I fell in love with it. " I went home, worked a summer job, into the fall, running a print shop for the local college. Made like 3,000 bucks running their print shop. That's cool.

A. So, like, how does that look? Like, do your parents get pissed off or upset? So you're like, oh, he's got, no, you go.

Yeah, my mom, she told me, and I feel guilty for this one, but my mom told me that when I, when she drove me to the airport, and I was going with a girl I knew from school, like she wanted to go to LA, and I wanted to go to LA, we weren't girlfriend and boyfriend, we were just friends. We were both big Duran Duran fans, go figure, me being a Duran Duran, playing heavy metal, hard rock, but I still appreciate the music. So I had to meet with her parents and they had to meet my parents and it was one of those interviews like well you're both moving out there together and my mom drove me to the airport and she said she cried the whole way home from Boston, she dropped me off at Boston Logan and she drove all the way back from Boston Logan crying, so I felt a little guilty, she talks about it in the documentary that we're doing, but we get to LA and I get a job. " You were looking for leather jeans?

I was looking for tight, skinny jeans, yes. You know, back then Metallica was wearing these really German brand of tight skinny jeans. Everybody was obsessed with it. But there was a place called Lip Service that made their own version of them.

Kind of a horrible version of it, though. Right. But they had a flyer on the floor and it says, band looking for bass player, going on tour. Right.

I was like, I'm going to answer this fucking thing. Right. And I called these guys. A.

They were out of San Diego. A. We went out on the Sunset Strip that night. And they clicked.

They said, do you want the gig? And I said, fuck yeah, I didn't know any of their songs, they heard a couple demo tapes that I brought with me, and I moved to Hamul, California, which is like in the middle of nowhere outside of San Diego, and we were living in the guitar player's mom's garage, our living room and garage, and we practiced in the garage. That was for the one day tour. Well, we did that, yeah, we did that for about a month before we went on this tour, and the tour ended up being a day.

" Tour over. Tour over. " Because I still had the apartment. I had no money, but I still had the apartment.

We went back to the apartment, and the girl I moved into that apartment with, she moved out. And there were three girls in the apartment but she subleased to like one girl and then she subleased to two other girls, so it ended up being five guys and three girls in a one-bedroom apartment, right on Hollywood Boulevard. That's cool, man. Yeah, it was stupid.

But yeah, I mean, a lot of stupid shit happened during those days. Hey, Mikey, your camera keeps going in and out of focus. Does it? Can you see me now?

What if I did this? Is that better? For the moment, it appears. Okay.

Let me know if it goes out of focus. What it was is Pete waved his hand in front of it, so I tried to focus on Pete. Oh, I did? Yeah.

Gotcha. Okay. Don't do that. It's a wide angle.

I know. He's a lot bigger in person. When we bought these things, I mean, it's always been kind of a learning curve, right? That's a fancy one over there.

Yeah, that's the teleprompter for the news. Our Lord and Savior, Mike Palmer. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah. That's why he's so good at reading on camera. I'm like, what's he reading? How does he do that?

He just memorized everything. He's talking right into the camera. I was always kind of interested about how your parents took it. I understand how your mom took it, but I got to meet your dad before I met you.

Yeah, I heard that story today, actually. Did you really? Yeah. From your dad?

No shit. That you guys were at the Grand Lux Cafe having breakfast, and you run into... That son of a bitch. Greg, you're not supposed to say these things.

We're supposed to save this for the podcast. No, that's cool. My dad's a storyteller. He was a storyteller.

He was extremely proud of you. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, he's like, do you know who Pete Johnson is? And I was like, yeah.

Never heard of him. Do you know who he is? Never heard of him. I was like, yeah.

He's like, he's my son. I was like, oh, okay. And that, I think, was the time when you were gonna open up the vault, like the bank that was gonna be a retail store. And he had the little stickers of him.

Yeah, yeah. Pete Johnson Sr. has a posse. Yes, that was my only Tatuaje swag that I had for like a decade, was that one sticker.

It was on the filing cabinet in the office for a hundred years. But we had the Obey version, and then the Andre the Giant version, which was Pete Johnson Sr. has a posse with his weight and his height. That's what it was.

He loved that though, he got a kick out of it. Yeah, he seemed like a great guy, man. I'm sorry, it's a tough loss, no matter how old you are. It was last November actually.

Yeah, Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

This sounds like a Brian Gumbel thing where you're going to make me cry, is it? I mean, I can't guarantee it, but I'll transition on to some lighter stuff. Okay, good. So, like, you talk about brands and they always kind of need, like, something that pops, right?

And obviously the big pop for you was the Monster Series. Yeah, big. Right. How long...

Happy mistake. Right. How long did you go before that pop happened? And did you ever have moments where you're like, "Fuck, man, I don't know.

I don't know if I can keep doing this"? Well, the first three, actually, first four trade shows, I kept my job at the Grand Havana Room. I figured I'd go into this whole thing thinking I was going to make an extra paycheck. Maybe an extra scratch and I'll keep my job at Grand Havana.

This will be helpful for my future. And then, by the fourth trade show, it was in Vegas in 2006, we got into the trade show, and I was wearing a blazer with a t-shirt underneath, and I took off the blazer, turned around, put it on the table, and I turned it back around, and the whole booth was flooded with people, and I was like, holy shit, and I went from like 125 retailers to 350 in like a few days, and then everybody was coming in the booth going, we want these cigars, I go, you got to get in line, man. Like I got these new cigars from Nicaragua. Right.

They're not the same because I want to make something different in Nicaragua. But, you know, we have those now that I can get you. But this other stuff, it's available to the people that have been with the brand for the last three years. Taking care of the retailers that supported you.

And I remember Diana Gitz from UpDown. Diana Silvius. We knew her as Diana Silvius from the famous brand that she had. " They're like, you can't ignore it, there's a historic, historic store in Chicago, historic retailers, like you can't ignore that.

And there were moments like that in the early days that like, I don't know if you remember the Rumbos in Texas? No. Sure, shit, I'm blanking on them. Well, you're a lot older than me, Pete.

Well, no, but the Rumbos, why am I blanking? In San Antonio. Okay. Steve, you want to help me with this?

Keith Rumble? Keith Rumble, boy, this is a store name. Why am I blanking? Damn it, Steve, Pete would know.

" in my store and i was like holy shit like those are the moments that you really feel like you made it you arrived you've arrived but it took four trade shows it wasn't like oh my god this is a big success right it wasn't like dion from allusioni that you know he's got his retail store in reno nevada and he comes to me and says hey i want to do this cigar for my store so i make him a cigar for a store and then he comes back to me and says hey i want to do this as a national This is all in 2005 to 2006 and in 2007 he comes up with his own brand, I give him the phone number to the factory that I was working with at the time to make that particular cigar and he comes out with his brand and gets really quick ratings from Cigar Insider and Cigar Aficionado and boom, he's a hit the first year, like by that time my brand was doing good because I had legs already a few years, but he instantly popped. So he got, he hit fire the first year. Got it. Took me four years.

That's still not bad. I mean, we've been at it for about 10 years, and we're thinking like, any moment now, we're gonna do it. Yeah, it's, it's not an overnight thing for a lot of people. Oh, yeah.

Dion caught fire the first year. I mean, he had good cigars, and he was maybe overly picky, but he nailed it and did well with it. But, you know, it's not, it's just, you can't, you can't go into this business and think that, If you're going to make a cigar and sell it, you've got to make it for yourself first. Right.

If you make it for yourself first, when no one wants to smoke it, you get to smoke all of them. Right. And you share it with your friends that really appreciate what you do. But if you have the mentality of like, I'm going to make this widget, I'm going to sell a bunch of them.

Right. You're going into the business for the wrong reason. They always fade away. Yeah.

Over time. Okay. In almost every podcast that I listen to... Old and Krusty.

Old and Krusty. I like them slightly dry. You always mention, you always bring up Yanni. Yeah.

Is it important to you that she gets acknowledged as the owner of the company? Like, do you feel like that she ever gets slighted in that fashion? Because I feel like you put forth an extra effort to make sure that she gets the respect that she deserves. Yeah, because you know what it is?

She was the catalyst for that family. Right. Like my brand for the family was their catalyst in the sense of here we are in the United States and we're making cigars for some kid with tattoos. Right.

And I had the relationships. So I knew people from all the magazines and I knew all these people and I knew all the other cigar manufacturers. So they welcomed me, but they didn't really welcome the family. But when it comes to the family, she took all the risks.

She left Cuba by herself. So it was important that people know that like she was the one that, that. Worked three jobs, saved all of her money to make sure that her dad could, you know, could get to Nicaragua, and then they could save more money and eventually they could finally get the whole family up to the United States. So it's, people have to know that, like, this is a, like a real, like, family, and also, like, the truest sense that she's really doing a, like, a substantial amount of work in the United States for that company.

So, she has nothing to do with Tatuaje, it's all my father, but people should know that this is a true family business, it's like Jaime's running the factory, and Pepin's pretty much retired, but Jaime's running the factory, running all the farms, running all the logistics in Nicaragua, but she's doing everything in the United States, and she's got a great team of people that are making sure that that happens, so it's important that, you know, this is not a man's industry. There's a lot of great women in this industry, and people have to recognize that. So it's always been important, like when there was a Don Pepin cigar and a Jaime Garcia cigar, so that's where La Duenia comes in. I wanted to make her a cigar so she could have a cigar, because she was always the one on the road.

Pepin and Jaime weren't traveling, she was the one in the cigar stores meeting people, and like, you should have your own brand. That's how La Duenia came up. I thought, when that came out, man, I thought that was an amazing cigar. Thank you.

- I didn't know that you did it, to be honest. I had no idea you blended it. No one told me that. - She was a big fan of La Riqueza.

- Okay, that makes sense. - And I knew I wanted to kind of do a hybrid of what La Riqueza was. I didn't obviously want to just put La Riqueza with a lot of Duane in your band. And I love Broadleaf.

You know, screw it. Let's put a little Broadleaf in the filler and make it a little sweeter. Maybe a little stronger in some cases, but mid-priming is not going to be too strong. But the most important thing was to get something really balanced.

And sometimes it's tough to mix that amount of broadleaf to get a balanced cigar. Of course, especially San Andreas. So it took me about a month to get the blend perfectly fine. But then I worked on samples for about a year just to make sure the rollers were, you know, bunching them correctly.

When you start using broadleaf in that capacity, you're always worried. And especially when you're not using draw testers, now they have a few of them. But when you weren't using draw testers, you're always worried that the bunchers are going to over bunch. Especially if it's a heavier cigar, you know?

Okay, now, you also talk about how you didn't want kids. You didn't want kids? No, I didn't want kids. Yeah, in my past relationship, I didn't want kids.

Eventually, you know, life happens. Right. I become single again. I had no business getting into another relationship, I really didn't want to.

But you got the kids, you got the whole, but now I got three boys. You got the package. Yeah. That was a, that was a tough transition for me because I wasn't ready for it.

Right. I wasn't sure if I was mentally prepared for it. You're not my father, fuck you. Well, yeah.

Yeah, and I didn't want that either. Right. The most important thing is, you know, respect your mom. Right.

You know, we can be friends, but if you disrespect your mom, we're not going to be friends. Did you ever want more kids? After that, did you ever have a moment where you're like? No, the jokes came up, you know, like, maybe, nah, nah, that's not.

Yeah. So we did dogs. Like, like a light moment, like, okay, and then there's, you know, but that's more on your end, or more on her end, or what? No, no, that's, that's, that's kind of personal, but no, yeah, but...

I got it. No, it was, it was never, it was never, you know, like, oh, we should think about it. No, we, we joked, like, joked. Right.

I mean, you had three. Like... There were three there at the time. So let's raise the boys.

Yeah. And three boys. And they're good kids. They're good, really good kids.

They're Mopar kids. I love that. Yeah. Challenger and a Charger.

Yeah. I gotta help. How do you know that? I know everything, buddy.

When it comes to, I mean, I wanted an interview. They like muscle cars, yeah. Yeah. But he doesn't get the red key.

One's got the scat pack. That's true, yeah. The red key. You know, by the way, he has his own house.

He's moved out of the house. Oh, so he has the red key now. No, I never gave him the red key. No.

Oh, dude, the Red Key's worth it, by the way. I got a Hellcat. You know, what's funny about the Scat Pack is actually more powerful than the Hellcat without the Red Key. Yeah, I believe that, for sure.

You've also mentioned that you don't want to- You dug deep, by the way, damn. Yeah. I'm pretty open, but man, you dug deep. He's like, oh shit, he's striking things.

I don't want to talk about that. Like I said, if I ever cross a line or anything, just back it up. No, you're good. You're good.

No problem. It's all a very innocent conversation. Of course. Am I sweating yet?

No. We're going to put some hot wings down in a second. Oh, that'd be fun. Do you want to do this forever?

I mean, there are moments in the cigar industry that you get frustrated with the cigar industry. Yeah. Alan Rubin from Alec Bradley gave me a quote one time. And Alan Rubin called me one day and said, hey, just so you know, I own this trademark, and I didn't even know how to answer him, I was like, Alan, I had no idea that you had that mark, my cigar is not called that, but I kind of understand what you're saying, let me do some research.

So we met at the trade show, this was 2007 actually, and I said, you know what, you're doing me a favor. I said, "I don't think that there's anything wrong with what I did, but you're doing me a favor, because people are starting to call it that brand, and it's not that brand. The brand is called Veracu. And everybody's calling it Lotto Occidental.

Lotto, he owned Occidental. " So I changed the band to West Side to avoid confusion with my own customers, because I wanted them to know that the brand is Veracu, not Lotto Occidental. And he goes, you know, this is how the cigar industry should be, and he goes, you know, remember that 99% of us play well in the sandbox, and there's always 1% that doesn't play well, and just avoid those people. For sure.

Yeah. For sure. So who replaces you? Who replaces Pete Johnson?

I don't know. Maybe one of the kids. Maybe my brother's son. Maybe my nephew.

Yeah? Yeah. He's a good kid. He's a junior in college.

He really loves the industry. He's digging, coming to the trade shows. I always say that, like, I might let someone else run it, but I'm always going to be there making sure they don't fuck it up. Right.

Finger on the pulse sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, again, the Serenity Street's tough some days. Like, you get frustrated with the drama. Oh yeah, there's always something.

There's always a drama, and I've been through a lot of it over the 22 years of having the brand. And I saw a lot of drama before I had my own brand. I mean, shit, I was part of some drama that had nothing to do with me, with me but i happen to be i happen to be in the dominican republic one time and i got a phone call from a friend said hey whatever you do don't take a free trip from anybody in the dominican right now because there's some some shit going on and i'm like okay so i learned my lesson like okay someone invited me down the dominican republican i kind of i should have never said oh yeah sure i'll go right i should have said i'll meet you down there i'll pay for my own way um so over 30 32 years in In the business, you see a lot of shit happening, and some days you get frustrated, and I think more than anything, for me, is the untruth in the industry, that bugged the fuck out of me. These untruths?

No way. Oh, no way. Get out of here. No way.

Never. Yeah, there's just too much bullshit. There was a time where, you know, Jesus Fuego? Hazus and I became good friends early on when his brand was doing pretty well.

And we were like, let's go on a no bullshit tour and just spew all the bullshit. We're going to tell everybody's fucking lies. Of course, that would have been a bad idea, but there's a lot of it. Everybody's got some grandfather and everybody's got something.

And sometimes when you're telling the truth about something, people are like, oh, that's a fucking bullshit lie. I'm like, dude, this is the fucking truth. When I first wrote my black label story, when I went to Cuba, people were like, oh, that's a bullshit story. I go, dude, it happened.

There was a guy on a fucking Schwinn. He fucking lived it, yeah. He gave me the fucking cigar. Right.

It's really simple. It's like, just because I said it's on an island south of Florida, that made it bullshit? No, I didn't want to tell people I was in Cuba. Right.

Do you think those experiences have made you kind of more guarded throughout the past 20 years? It's been the last 20 years of you kind of going in this, in the industry. Yeah, you get burned a lot and you start becoming more guarded and more introverted. Right.

Like when I was younger playing music, I wanted to be on stage in front of thousands of people. Right. And eventually I started being like, I love conversational stuff, one-on-one podcasts, you know, one-on-one conversations, I love that. But put me in front of a room where I got to talk to a group, I fucking hate it.

Right. Like I don't like the microphone anymore, I used to love it, but I used to be able to hide behind my bass guitar and my hair, I don't have that hair anymore. I got photos though, I got photos of you with the hair. Pretty kid, huh?

Yeah, you're cute. Not anymore, you gotta understand, I'm 120 pounds heavier than that photo that you showed me. 120 pounds heavier. That's a lot.

I was 145 pounds soaking wet, I'm 265 now. Right? Yeah. Can't eat what you want all the time?

No, no, that's pizza, dude. Pizza and pasta. I fucking absolutely love it. Yeah.

All right. So, if everything works out with the nephew, hypothetically, the cigar industry is not what it was 20 years ago. It's vastly different. I mean, at that time, you were new, different, edgy, you know, guy with tattoos.

What's he doing in the industry? Right? Retailers are different now. Information that's given to us is different now.

How do you kind of navigate a kid who has had really no experience with all of that? It's not really about taking over the company. It's really about taking a lot of the things that I do and managing it so I don't have to do that stuff anymore. So QuickBooks?

You want to take over QuickBooks? I do everything. I'm the director of IT. The servers in my office, I built them.

Like, the software that we use for the reps, I put that together. Like, all this shit, I managed... You did the software too? Well, I didn't build the software, I managed to...

You structured it. structured it to make sure it worked properly. I made sure that the system was running great, and I'm in that system every morning to make sure the system's running tip-top. Right.

" I'm like, give me a moment, can I log in remotely, I love technology for that purpose, because I can be anywhere in the world and log in remotely to the server in Los Angeles and fix those problems, but it's really about taking away the responsibilities of the bullshit that I do, the day to day, because I'm constantly overseeing certain things, running reports. I would love to spend more time going back to the creative, because there are projects that I'm three years behind on. Like, oh, hey, when's your jar coming out? It was supposed to be ready for the 20th anniversary, I think it's going to be ready for the 25th anniversary, shit like that.

Like, I don't have time for it, because I'm constantly stressing about making sure that the reps are getting paid, the taxes are done for California. Yeah, you're stuck in the business, and you can't work on the business. yeah right so it's really finding someone that can eliminate a bunch of the crap that i just overstress about right that i'm when i should be just finalizing projects so you would still go out and do events you would still i mean you don't do that as much as you used to yeah i think my body doesn't like it as much anymore right uh you feel it like today my back's been killing me because i was standing up all night i didn't sit down once last night that's wild so as soon as i When I got back into the hotel room, I lay down in bed, I couldn't go to bed for like an hour and a half because my body was just aching. Right.

Why didn't you just sit down? Yeah, tonight. That's why I sat down today. Okay.

Yeah, but you should have sat down last night. It was actually, we came early just to fucking chill because it was one of those moments of like, I need to just decompress, have a cigar, and relax. And I love that, sitting down and having a cigar and just not thinking about anything. But waking up every morning at 6am and then going in immediately into the system and making sure that it's running fine.

So, you know, the reps are synced and we don't have to worry about an order coming through in the wrong way. I think the parlay is always tough too. Like, if I, I'm obviously not as big as you guys are, right? But if I have to do, you need a lighter?

I got one. It's fancy. If I do like an event that's kind of out of the state, I don't like, I don't like to hit other stores, like I'm this kind of surgical. Yeah, go in, go out.

I'm fucking in, if there's a flight that night, I'm on it, you know, I want to be next to my wife as soon as possible and with my kids, you know. Absolutely, yeah, no, like, dude, I have a sick dog at home, I want to be home with my sick dog, like, but I know I have to be out there, so, I mean, we're driving back tonight, because why not? Right. We'll get home at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, but who cares?

Right. We're home. Of course. There's nothing better than your own bed.

No, I totally, I couldn't agree more. So, like, I just don't, I don't know how you do that. Like, I guess there's some politics to some degree. Like, you want to make sure that retailers never feel slighted, but I guess at the end of the day, if you're just kind of genuine about what you're, like, look, man, you know, I'm doing this one, and I'll catch you on the next go-round.

Love you, buddy. I don't, I don't know. I don't have that. Yeah, I told my brother a long time ago, because, you know, it was always events, events, events.

And I'm like, you know, I don't want to do events. I just want to go visit people and thank them for our business. You know, like, thanks for the business. Right.

Like, let's go into a shop and hang out. Right. And even if no one recognizes me, let's just go hang out with the cigar store owner and smoke a cigar with him and buy a cigar off his shelf and do nothing but that and thank him for his business and walk out. We don't need to be about the sale.

It's not about the sale. Right. Because when you start focusing on only the sale, you miss a lot of what it means to be part of like a culture. Sure.

And so the cigar industry is an odd culture. It's a very tight-knit group. Yeah. But at the same time, if you make it only about selling that widget, you lose the feel of what it really means to actually put your head down on a fucking pillow at night and actually sleep good.

There's so many times that you get out of an event, and you feel like, you know, that's not me. Like, me is just me hanging out. I mean, you could leave an event, and you'd be like, well, that fucking sucks, too. Like, this is, you know, like, that's always the worst.

When you, you know, you put in your time and your effort, and you show up to a place, and there's three people there, and like, you know, the owner doesn't really care, or like... I've done a lot of those events over the years. Yeah, that, that hurts, man. It's just like, you know.

Yeah, I mean, you know, in the early days, you figure that no one really knows the brand. Sure. And it's always nice to meet people that have never heard of the brand. I'm like, I always feel like, oh, there's one more person that might, you know, be willing to try the product.

Yeah. So it, there's always that chance that, I mean, for me, always, it's like, it's, it's a pleasure to meet people that have never tried it. But usually they're like, well, sell me a cigar. I'm like, hey, what do you like?

Right. And they tell me a certain brand. I'm like, yeah, I got nothing for you. I'm sorry.

I cannot help you. Hey, I smoke Opus X. I got nothing for you. I don't make Opus X.

I don't make anything like Opus X. I like Cuban Cohibas. Yeah, well, that I could probably turn your mind on that one. I loved the black that you made.

I didn't get to ever smoke the original jar, But then you re-released it in like a plastic jar? Yeah, melamine, melamine, yeah. Well, yeah. That thing was fucking amazing.

Yeah, that was a big run too. That was a lot of cigars. Do you still make those or no? No, that was a one-time run.

Well, we still make the cigar. Right. But it's now in a box. A box of 20.

Still looks the same. Right. Just no longer in the jar. Gotcha.

There was a point in time where I realized that I needed to expand that line because it was a, it was a good blend and I wanted people to taste it. What's your favorite size though? Well, still the Corona Gorda is one of them, but I like the Casadorian. Yeah.

I'm a big fan of that size, 6 3/8 by 43. I'm a nerd when it comes to sizes. Like if you talk to other cigar companies, actually I've had a lot of conversations with other cigar company presidents or owners, and they're like, what's up with you and all these weird sizes? I go, dude, I'm a traditionalist when it comes to this shit.

Like, it's not 5 3/4, it's 5 7/8. Right. Like, why the 1/8 of an inch? Just because it's always been done like that.

Do you struggle to find the molds? No, the molds are easy. Yeah? Yeah.

The molds are really easy because you could get a 52 ring gauge and a seven inch mold. Right. So now all you have to do is cut it down to the right size. God, that makes sense.

That's easy. On a straight Parejo, it's really easy. But when you start talking about shapes, I've been struggling. You know the Belanc that we do?

No. The Britannica? And like, you know, what's funny is, like, I don't know nearly as much about Tatuaje as I probably should at this point, right? Because...

That's okay, so I got one more person than I... Yeah, you do, you do, you do. And you know, what's even funnier is like, all the customers that come into our store really don't know a ton about Tatuaje, right? No, it's relatively a small brand, in the grand scheme of, if you think about my father, and then Tatuaje, if you go back to 2008, I remember having a long conversation with Yanni, we were both going through marital things that year, and we spent like an hour and a half on the phone just talking about life, and talking about business, and we were very open with each other about how sales were, and we were running neck and neck, like the same size company.

and then we were pretty neck and neck up until about 20 2012 with florida las antillas right and that's that was a game changer that was like a game changer i actually i remember crying after i heard that they won right because i was like relieved you know you get that moment of like fuck i don't have to work as hard anymore because now they're on their own path but i always i always felt like i needed to prove myself in the factory and be their best client but when they We finally got the number one, it was like, now you're your best client, now you don't have to worry about me, now I can ride in the back of the train and be fine with it. Well, the pressure's on too, right? Because you have to continue to produce, I mean, if there's pairs, there's families involved, and you want to make sure that you're facilitating that. Yeah.

So when I knew that they were going to be their own best client, I was like, this is a fucking relief. So why is it like with the TAA, because you do TAA too, right? Yeah. So the Flor de las Antillas San Andreas wasn't really announced, though, on the TAA, like, press release.

No, it's not, it's a, it's available to the TAA members first. Right. It's not my brand, so, I mean, I shouldn't be talking about it, but. But, I mean, you're, I mean, you're kind of affiliated.

I know the gist of it. The inner workings. It was made available to the TAA members first. Right.

And if they bought it all, then so be it. Got it. But it's technically not a. TAA Exclusive.

A TAA Exclusive. Got it. Okay. And I don't do the TAA Exclusive right now.

Right. Thank you. I do a PCA Exclusive. Right.

My main concern is making sure the organizations, the bigger organizations that actually fight in some way for what we do, are getting money back. And I know the PCA, where the money's going, sometimes. Right. I have my questions with that one too, and then the CRA, so I make sure my efforts go to the CRA, I stopped a lot of advertising because I wanted to make sure that any excess money that I had from marketing could go into hopefully flipping a little bit of the bill to help pay for a legal bill, so I'm a, scale-wise, taught-wise, the smallest company that's a board member of the CRA.

But a board member of the CRA, and I'm going to say this out loud, ratio, I donate the most. Right. If you have to look at numbers. Right.

Like, I'm way ahead. That's wild. Yeah. Just because I believe in the industry.

Right. I mean, this is like, this is all I got. Right. If, you know, they tell me one day, hey, the FDA is going to crush us and we're not going to be able to sell cigars, okay, I got a savings, but what am I going to do?

Right. You haven't really raised your prices. Nah, I won't. I mean, Miami prices have gone up because I pay the rollers more now.

But realistically, Miami prices at this point are competitive. Yeah. You know what I mean? They're actually cheaper than most Negroian cigars.

Yeah. Isn't that wild? Yeah. And I said one time that I'm going to raise Miami prices.

We don't pay tariffs in Miami. Right. So it's one of those things that I... Miami to me is, for lack of better words, that's my Opus X.

Right. You know, that's my, that's my special product that I really cherish and I really protect as much as possible because I don't want it to be, you know, I don't want it to be on things like Cigar Page. Right. Sorry, Cigar Page.

Right. I don't sell you, I know. You gotta have a big retail store soon. Yeah, what, 66,000 square feet?

Yeah. Yeah. In Bethlehem, PA. Only to piss off CI.

That was it. That was it. That's the strategy. I don't need to get in the middle of their fight.

Oh yeah, no. But, uh, yeah dude, I just, uh, the industry means too much to me to like just like not do something. Right. And it's not like I have an excess amount of extra cash, but at the same time, I know what I can afford, and if I have to eliminate a page or two or three or four in a magazine, to put more money to maybe help, I'll do it.

But I have my moments of frustration. Right. It's not easy to be in a room with... I mean, the fucking UTL in itself.

Well, that was a pain in the ass. Yeah. And the way that the lawsuits were filed, it seems like shit's messy as hell. Yeah.

Like, I decided to take a backseat on it. Right. But I knew that, because my father is my importer and my manufacturer, and I could not even register any of my UTLs by myself. They have to.

They have to. Right. And I'm an authorized user on the account, so I can register it, but I couldn't register it because they're my manufacturing and, you know, an importer. Right.

So I'm like, okay, I'm protected either way. So like, if, if they win the law, let's say they win the lawsuit and it only goes, it only protects the people that are in the lawsuit, I'm protected because my product comes from them. Right. So I was like, I'm also in California as a, as a retailer, I mean, as a, as a distributor.

Right. I've probably put a target on my back in California, so I didn't want to ruffle any feathers. Would you ever pull out of your office out of Cali, or that's going to stay forever? Potentially.

Yeah. I mean, you're here now. You're in Florida. I'm in Florida, but, you know, the retailers, I came from a retail background, so I understand, like, the costs that go into running a retail store, and I understand the frustration of, like, when someone gets a shipment and the shipping is $86 for 14 boxes.

It's wild. You're like, come on, I can ship that same box for $23. You know, like, even if we make $5 of shipment to pay for the box and the tape, at least our shipping rates are way cheaper, and everything's getting to every retailer in the country within three days. So, I'd rather do that.

But California is tough, man. It's not an easy state to do business in. Do you have like strategies to, when you distribute like a Monster Sears or something like that, like half goes to Florida, half goes to Cali? Yeah, it's about a 65-35 ratio, but now we've been covering Texas also because Texas is within three days either from LA or from, from Cali, Cali, sorry, LA or Miami, so if you talk about West Texas, that's, you might as well be in Arizona.

Right. At that point. That goes out of LA. Right.

So we've been picking up about 70-30. Right. The ratio is 70-30 because we're going to cover more on the east side of the country. Do you, like, catch shit from retailers that are like, "Hey, where's mine?

" I mean... Yeah, that's always the trouble because, like, sometimes the delay in the freight that goes out to LA, that gets delayed and we're already starting to move the product from here. Right. But we shipped the furthest distance first and the Florida retailers get it last, but they usually get it the same day that the other guys get it that they were shipped four days earlier or three days earlier.

Like the new Boris Karloff, we actually had him sit in the warehouse in both locations for a week before we moved him. That way we shipped at the same time. A. Because California is still a big market for us.

Right. Arizona is a big market for us. That's where you started. Yeah.

Yeah, I can't ignore California. That's why I had to register a small portion of my portfolio. It's a big portfolio. It's not for everybody.

But there are certain brands we could see that obviously do better there. And we're like, okay, we'll make sure that these ones get registered. And I think the California retailers appreciate it, but I'm like, whatever you do, like, at the first of the year comes, make sure you hide all that other stuff. If it's not on my list, just don't put it out.

I mean, I can't, it's wild that they're gonna, that we think that they're gonna go knocking on these doors and going after. You never know, I've lived through it, because I actually, when I was working retail in California, when the cigarettes and the flavored cigarette ban came into effect, I happened to have one pack of cigarettes I forgot about in the store that I was working at, on the shelf. I think it might have been like a, some like mint flavor, Nat Sherman, or something like that, I can't remember what it was, or Al Capone Sweet, maybe it was that, and the guy came in and goes, I'm with the state, and showed me his badge, and he goes, just check in to make sure you have all the tax stamps on all your cigarettes, okay, and by the way, this is not on the list, so I'm gonna have to confiscate it, I'm like, take it, it's one pack. They took it.

Oh yeah, they took it. That's the worst part. Knowing that they can come in and just take it from you. Yeah.

And this is shit that we paid taxes on. Right. Tobacco tax that we're never going to get back. So like, that's the fear part for California.

Right. It's like the thousands of different brands that you see on the shelf and maybe half of those are going to be registered. Right. And they walk in and go, hey, you know.

We're going to take all this. All this is illegal. We need to take it. it and then the fines like fifty dollars fifty dollars fifty dollars and then if it's on the if you get another fine it doubles and if it and it could go up to like ten thousand dollars and you're like come on and they don't even know what they're doing it's like when the fda came in they had no clue what the fuck they were gonna do right with anything they were they just hey we're gonna collect user fees from you guys right give us what is it four and a half cents every cigar four and a half cents four and a half cents you know if there's ever a time where where the the ruin comes clean and it's really vacated right and then all the manufacturers go back and say you were never allowed to take that money from us we want our money back yeah a lot of money well good luck with that yeah right you never know all right um one kind of last question then Don't let you off the hook.

No, dude, I'm open. I know this is an hour and a half podcast. We're only at 55 minutes. Hour and a half, max.

Yeah. So, Pete Hernandez. Ah, yeah. Yeah.

I want to talk about Pete. I prefer Paul and Steve. I'm going to get to Paul. I'm going to get to Paul.

But the reality is that the only reason why we opened back up to Tuahe... Was Pete? It was Pete. Really?

Yeah. Now there you go. Pete got axed from DTT. Pete from Tatuai.

As you know, like how the world works when it comes to brokers, more often than not, brand builds and, you know, whatever the reason is, you decide to start going to people in-house, right? That's usually the design. Most brands do that, yeah. Right.

Not me. Yeah, no, not you. Not you. I got Mo.

- Yes, I love Moe. - Everybody loves Moe. - I love Moe before he was tat Moe. - Yeah.

So, for one, why do you not do that? - Listen, these guys I grew up with, I've known them before they were Tatuari salespeople. I've known them when they were CAO sales guys. I know them where they were working for all these other companies back in the day.

They're family to me, like, and if the numbers are there, why do I care about going in-house? Right, as long as you're good with them getting paid. " Because you're Pete from all these other brands, and all these other things. But I only fired one rep, a kid's name's Taven Johnson.

Good kid, but he ended up doing drugs at an event. And I felt horrible that I had to get rid of him. Right. But he thanks me, because he ended up cleaning his life up.

Gets his shit together. Got his shit together, and ends up working for another bigger cigar company, and he's doing really well with that cigar company. Actually, I think he won salesman of the year, one year. You gotta be careful with that, you usually get fired the next year.

No. That's usually number one. " And again, I go back to the whole thing, it's like, if these guys are producing numbers, why do I need to look elsewhere? Right.

Yeah. Everybody's happy. I wish that everybody had that mindset though, you know, like that's the crazy part. Having a good group around you that trusts you and believe in you is way, way more important than just, you know, hiring some guy out of Coca-Cola or, you know, Budweiser to sell cigars for you.

Okay. Just because you can save a few bucks. I totally agree. Yeah.

I want to talk about Paul. I still have his phone number in my phone. I still have his picture in my profile. I never got to meet him.

That was before my time. Yeah. But I hear about this guy all the time. I want to get your perspective.

Paul was great because, you know, we had the brand Cabayuan in the first few years and he would go into cigar stores and lay a Cabayuan down on the counter and the retailer wouldn't even pay attention to it. " And I was like, "You didn't care about it. " Paul was brutally honest. That's how the whole Hernandez family is though.

Paul was the funniest shit too, man. He used to do this thing at the Great Smoke back when Abe started the Great Smoke where he'd bring this machine, he was working for Fonseca at the time, he brought this machine that would like, like a draw tester, but it would like, like, He put it in the holster, and then he would light the cigar, and it would puff, puff, puff, and it would perfectly light your cigar, and he had a line of people waiting for their free cigars, and people would be like, "I just want my cigar," and he's like, "Get in the back of the line, dude. " He didn't care. But yeah, Paul was a tough one when we lost him.

How did you find him? Part of the old group, dude. Like, I knew these guys from the trade shows. I'd run into them, and we became friends, and they were all, like, CAO reps.

And I used to hang out with the guys from CAO a lot, so I met all these guys early on, so when it came time to have my own brand, and shit, I gotta get some salespeople, well, who do you go to? You go to who you know, and I knew all these guys. , and I knew, you know, Tom Poehler, I knew the Poehler family, and I still think that I picked a better Poehler out of all the Poehlers. Because one of the other Polars works for my wife's company, but Tom will tell you he invented everything for Julio Aroa.

He's the guy. Yeah. No, I've known these guys forever. So it's like, it's easy.

And I usually choose the path of least resistance because I don't like the stress. So sometimes it's just easier to like, okay, yeah, this is going to work. And like when Moe, when there was a guy named Ted also that was in the tri-state area and it was the question was like we can go in house with these two guys and Moe and I were sitting at the Holtz bar in Philadelphia and he goes just trust it and like I was kind of unsure and I remember getting in the car and I was like I told Casey and Dan, I said I just don't want to do it. I don't want to disappoint these guys.

Right. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to hire them. Right. And then fuck it up.

Right. So it was like really like, you know, it's easy when you have just a broker because you're paying their percentage. You got to do what you got to do, right. You go out and sell, you're going to pick up other brands.

Like, I don't want to bring an in-house guy and have him be disappointed. Right. So it was a struggle at first and then eventually it's worked out great. Right.

And Moe's picked up a bigger territory now. you know ted passed sadly last year and uh we split up the territory brought in a new guy named adrian to cover a part of where ted was at and mo got a piece of that also um but yeah he's doing great man he's his territory might be a little too big right but uh he likes getting on the road so do you feel more protective of of pete and steve because of paul oh yeah yeah and i like I like Steve better than him. Oh, I know you like Steve more. I learned that over the past eight months or so.

No, again, I give Pete shit, but I mean, we all do actually. But yeah, when Paul passed, it was really like, you know, this is family. Steve left. We had a great rep in Georgia, you know, the Georgia area when Steve was up there.

And then he came back to Miami, like we lost a rep in Georgia. We were struggling in that territory for years. Finally, we have a new rep in that area, and he's doing really well, and someone that I used to sell cigars to, he was a retailer at one time, and he gets the brand, he understands it, and he's doing really well with it, but we struggled in that territory for a long time. So yeah, Stevie, even when I need him to cover at the office, he'll come in, you know.

But you take care of your guys, man. Like, that's fucking pretty good. That's important. That's amazing.

Because you don't, like, I'm going to tell you, I have seen Pete. I mean, if you go back to what Pete repped five years ago. Yeah. Tonto was the only one.

Yeah. I mean, like, he used to cover Fuego. What else do you guys used to cover? I mean, there was so much, you know.

I mean, yeah, Quesada was a big one. P. Ernie, yeah. A lot of these guys at one time had a Lugione.

Yeah, Lugione. Yeah, Aladino. I always think, listen, if they're going to lose these guys, then maybe they'll work harder to sell more Tatuaya products. I think, well, you've always kind of been the cornerstone, right?

You've always been the bigger brand, I would say. Sometimes. I mean, like, we use Perales, Mike Perales Impact Force, and my father uses them also. But Mike's like family also is like it's hard to like steer away from that right so you know like definitely my father's the cornerstone for Impact Force right but they do really well for us also mm-hmm it's hard to it's hard to compete against three number ones right like and I'm not I'm not looking to have the stress level of of shipping that much product either yeah it's still kind of a win even if it's not your brand yeah right it's what's good for the factory is good no ultimately it's great for the factory and it's great for everybody that's in the factory like so when robbie levin came to the family and said i want to make cigars with you the first thing that everybody talked about was like what's going to happen with tatua he's going to get pushed to the back right and i didn't see it that way like i really like robbie's validating right everything that i've been doing right like this is a guy that was one of my mentors and here he is coming And when it went into the factory that I helped, you know, boost up, this is validating my work.

So it ended up paying off. I knew I was always going to, you know, have first dibs at certain things, because I knew the inner workings of where the factory needed to shift. Like I saw the movements that were, the chest moves that they had to make to make sure that they had certain tobaccos, I saw that before anybody else because I was in the factory so much. So it was easy for me to pivot.

Right. Do you ever blend with, like, hey, we have a lot of X, Y, Z? All the time. Right.

This is what we got to produce. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's smart. Like, out of necessity, we make small cigars out of necessity.

What are we going to do with all that scrap wrapper? Right. You know what that scrap wrapper works on? It's 4x40s.

Right. So you make a lot of cigars with a 4x40 scrap wrapper, you know? Was Sex Tooth in the Hung Jury too or no? Yeah, he's, no, he wasn't in the band.

He's in the documentary, though. Okay. Yeah. He's cool as shit, man.

I got to talk to him. Oh, no, yeah. Andreas is great, man. I've known him for shit a long time now, and we met later.

So, by this time, I was already in the cigar business, working retail, and I was a member of the Grand Havana Room, and his brother became a member of the Grand Havana Room. Of course, fast forward, when I had the brand, he was really supportive of the brand, and I was always supportive of what he was doing with his music. And I still have his original CD that he gave me, but one day, it was one drunken evening on their patio up behind, they live just behind the comedy store in LA, and there's like this back patio of their house that is just really peaceful, and it's kind of like an inner sanctum, like this is where we just shoot the shit and do nothing for hours and drink wine and smoke cigars, and Andreas doesn't drink anymore, and I was like, I want to use your name. " I go, dude, I think "Sex" should be a fun project.

I go, "But it has to be a reflection of you, so we need to go deep and figure out what sizes you like. " Nice. And he actually had one size that he wanted to call fast and slow. " I think it's a little bit slow.

Right. Because that small one is actually a little kicker. Yeah. So you need to go slow while you're smoking something you think you're going to go fast on.

Was it like a cigar that you built out of necessity to help him out on something? Was he looking for like another revenue stream or just a fucking legit passion project? Nah, it's a passion project. Yeah.

It's just like everyone, I told my brother, I'm like, I'm going to do a project with Andreas. And he goes, what? Right. And I go, yeah, it's going to be called Sex Tooth.

He goes, is his stage name? I go, yeah. I go, this is going to be fun. But we're gonna make a legit, you know, we're gonna make a legit good cigar, and we're gonna price it right.

It's good. It's damn good. 50. That's incredible.

50. I was super impressed with him, because like, I like to walk... Oh, he's a brilliant mind. Definitely on the spectrum.

Right? That's perfect. That's probably why I gravitated towards you. Because I walk into the PCA and I try my best to have high energy, right?

Because it's very easy to get kicked in your dick, fucking thrown in the dirt, you know what I mean? So I go in with a high tempo, right? And I don't even remember what I said to him, but he instantly clapped back at me. I was like, "Oh, I like you.

" He's good. I'll tell you, he makes one of the best espressos you'll ever drink. Really? Nah, dude.

He's like a master when it comes to coffee. Ooh, we're going to get him a green apron for next PCA? Yeah, well, that was the whole joke. It's like, you know, poor man's luxury, that's the theme.

And we were like, you know, we should put you in the booth next year, playing your guitar. Well, we'll put a Louis Vuitton trunk in front with money inside of it. And you're looking for tips, but you somehow have a Louis Vuitton guitar and a 1960s Gibson. You know, this is gonna be weird, because the guitar is worth most people's, like, life's, you know, life's work, you know.

Yeah, no doubt. But he's just, he's got a brilliant mind, I just love having a conversation with him. But he was doing a movie, Higgin Machado, the UFC guy. Yeah.

He did a movie called, wow, Blow for Blow. Kind of a, you know, family movie, but fight movie, like family drama. Right. And a lot of fighting going on.

Yeah. " Right. He likes short, fat cigars, and I was like, I don't have anything in production aside from like the Kohonu Series A, which is a 5x60. So I made him a special batch where the band's actually up where a band should be normally.

So he could promote it in the movie. And you know, they thanked me in the movie for supplying cigars for it. That's cool. I didn't know he did acting too.

Yeah, he wasn't really into acting. He got into acting. He was a poet, musician, and then they asked him to do this part, and he's good friends with Billy Worth, one of the Lost Boys. I don't know if you remember Billy Worth.

He was the guy with the long black hair from the Lost Boys, and Billy helped train him, like, so he could figure out how to do all this shit. Right. So, the two brothers, they're an interesting two characters, man. They know everybody.

Like, I don't know half of Hollywood. They know all of Hollywood. Yeah. That's cool.

" I could give a shit, but they have a personal relationship with the guy. They have pictures of everybody you could think of in their house, like Keanu Reeves with their mom inside their house. Well, he's easy to get along with. No, yeah, they're just good people, man.

And he's a great conversation. You can sit down and have a conversation with him because he's really versed on everything. Oh shit. And I love people like that because I'm not versed on a lot other than maybe a few cigars.

Right. But like George Brightman, I don't know if you know who George Brightman is. Yeah. Yeah.

George Brightman is a super big mentor of mine. I don't think he likes us too much, but yes. Really? Yeah.

Oh, George, he has me block. Really? George has me block. Well, George was like the encyclopedia of cigars.

He's super intelligent. He knows a ton. And, like, George is one of those guys that I, I, with this documentary I'm doing, that's a hand-rolled, Tatuaya version. Right.

It's really a story about my growing up during the boom, but it's also the people that were around me. Right. So George is one of them. He's in it a lot.

Aaron Sigmund, the guy that does all the coffee table books. Mm-hmm. They used to be the editor for Smoke Magazine back when I was back around. Tony Barhani.

Connie Bahia. Right. I don't know if you remember Bahia Cigars. We put him in the documentary.

Tim Osgener, of course, because he had an interaction with Tony back then. Right. John Huber. A little bit of Carlito.

Just a mishmash of everybody. Can we get George, like, a camera? Have you seen him on some of the podcasts? Yeah, it's horrible.

That's always our story. Sorry, George. Yeah. You've got to get a better camera.

He's got a vast amount of info, right? And he can talk for hours, but-- The wealth of knowledge that he has, so he's actually in-- He's got him a good chair. " Right. " So there's, you know, like Carlito's in the documentary, because they caught a snippet from the first one, I'm talking about my tattoo of the Opus X tattoo that I got.

Right. So they made sure they put in that snippet. That's cool. C.

Newman story, they made sure to capture some stuff from like Savona from Cigar Aficionado, talking about Tatuai, because they knew they were going to do the Tatuai thing. So it's a, that's a fun project, but George was, you know, George is that guy that you can have a conversation with, because you just have to listen. Yeah. There's sometimes I disagree with him.

Yeah, we make fun of him. I think that Palmer would say that he created Davidoff or something like that, but it was a joke. You know what I mean? Like, you know?

Well, you could say that same thing about Tom Poehler. " You are the founding father of Julio. All right. I'm gonna let you off the hook, dude.

Do you have any questions for me? What do you want to know? Yeah, what am I smoking again? I have no idea.

No. That's the war baron. The War Bear. The new Grand Perfecto.

But it's got... Yeah, it's... You said San Andreas on the band, or the... Yeah, it's a...

The ribbon. Yeah. What's the wrapper again? Ecuador and Habano.

Ecuador and Habano. Yeah. Which I'm sure came from Oliva. Probably.

Yeah. You know, what's funny is, like, Jeremiah asked me a question, too, about the San Andreas, and, like, it's probably Turin, I actually confirmed it later. Yeah. But I honestly don't know.

Yeah, there's not a lot of producers, and the Terrence's like the biggest, so it's easier to get from them. Yeah, but what's really kind of funny for me is, that was never my aspect, my part of that. I always counted on Skip to provide the tobacco. Yeah, to make sure you had that wrapper to use.

Yeah, and I know that whatever he has, it's gonna be good. Yeah, and that's what Skip's good at, he's going out and searching for, because we had a conversation about this. He's the brand, or the factory, that's going and looking for the exact tobacco that he needs. Right.

As a polar opposite, you look at the Garcias, they're growing all this shit, and we have all access to all this stuff, but then, like, it's not always that we're going to have dark broadleaf. Right. So we use, you know, those Rosado, mid-priming leaves to make different cigars. that's a misconception in the industry.

Everybody thinks that broadleaf is going to be dark, and everybody thinks that San Andreas is going to be dark. It's not the reality. You can get blonde broadleaf. It's going to darken up naturally because of the sugar levels and the way it ferments, but you're never going to always get super dark unless you start cooking it.

You don't want that because it becomes like an onion leaf. Or onion skin. And a lot of your consumers this day, I think, are getting smarter to that. I think it's important for the consumers to ask questions and be knowledgeable about what they're smoking because if you go into it, there's some people that just want to smoke a cigar and they don't care about it.

Right. But the people that want to know about it, you should educate about what they're, because the more knowledge they have, the more power they have, the more they can make choices. Right. And they realize like, hey, I don't like that wrapper.

I've tried multiple cigars with that wrapper, I want to stay away from that wrapper. " And there's some guys the complete opposite. So, the more knowledge they have, the easier your job is, and you can instantly put them into something that, you know, they might like. " As long as you're getting data from the reliable source, right?

Because, like, that's always a big problem. - Yeah, I mean, when we started using San Andreas, it wasn't Tarrant, like, it was another place, it could have probably come from Tarrant, but it was coming from a broker, so we don't know, I don't know, but I would always see Alejandro, and I would say, hey, you know, the stuff I do with San Andreas probably tastes better if it was yours, and then he would laugh, and then one day, hey, by the way, we're getting all our San Andreas from Tarrant. Okay, cool, I don't even know if we still do, I'll be honest, I don't know if we still do, because there are other people that have access to that. And that's not essentially what you do, you know?

I'll promote Oliva Tobacco. Right. " I go, I know it, they have this Habano, and I was like, Habano 2000 got a shitty fucking track record, you know, like, burn issues in the early days, eventually that leaf corrected itself, they figured it out, so I had Pepin roll me every cigar in my line with the Habano, and I was like, it's not enough of a change to really, you know, like, make people go, wow, this is way different, I'll notice it, but at the same time, it's a good change. It burned better.

Back in those days, the Corojo was burned like shit, crooked all the time. So when I switched, I made sure to tell people, because I didn't want people going, "Oh, you're still using Corojo? " You mean like Ashen Heritage? Yeah.

Don't worry, I'll say it. Yeah, I didn't want to be that guy, because I'm a bad liar when it comes to that shit. Yeah, the problem is you can just never keep it straight. More lies you tell, it's harder to tell the truth.

dude i don't fucking remember anything you know what i mean like if somebody says oh we met i'm like okay it was i wasn't a dick right like no you're awesome okay oh dude i've had moments where i've had moments where people are like i met you 10 years ago i'm like dude i don't remember i might have been a fucking complete asshole right yeah like i might have been in a bad state that well i mean i could tell you the first couple years of us trying to meet the twi i couldn't get a fucking sample i was laughed at for like i didn't understand it like the whole gamut i remember when uh latier came out and i don't remember who the guy was but you know we're still in our infancy but we were super excited about it like oh this looks pretty cool like can we try a cigar and uh might have been my brother my buddy robert he's like the gatekeeper could have been long hair beard i don't remember dude this big guy gene gene's like a comedian he's like he just likes to bust people's balls so i was like you know hey can we try something he's like no we I don't have any for you. I'm like, okay. Well, it could have been Andy, too. And then, like, I remember just kind of stepping away, and as we're walking away, fucking watch other people come up, boop, you're just samples, like, mother fuck, dude, damn.

Yeah, I think a lot of times, the guys, if they didn't know that the retailer was, like, maybe placing an order with us at the trade show, we wouldn't give a sample out. Of course. It's tough to read. It's tough to figure out, right?

Like, you don't, it's not Halloween trick-or-treating, you know what I mean? Yeah, usually if you catch me, I'm always the guy that, "Hey, give me a sample. Give me a couple sticks and put them in a bag and give them to these guys. I don't know.

" Well, I think that more often than not though, even when you have that kind of guideline, you're still doing yourself, you're still helping yourself because more often than not, the retailer that's coming around looking for the sample, 70% of them are going to be fucking just there to take the cigar. I've watched it over the years, even when I was in the retail side, trade shows, I'd go into booths, and hey, can I get a sample? And they're like, no, like, like, you know, I'm legitimately looking for your product to put in the store and have a good conversation with them and warm up to them. And then, okay, yeah, here, try it out.

And I'm like, well, I want to order this particular line. Right. But I've seen a lot of retailers over the years, like, they just come to the trade show to, to grab, grab, grab. Yeah.

" You ever get wood where somebody sits down at the trade show, they write the whole order, and then they just don't give you credit card information and ghost you as far as contact? I bet you Steve's had that. Yeah, I mean, we get that a few times. He sits wild.

Like, why did you sit down? Yeah, yeah, I've had multiple conversations with people like, "Oh, we want to have a meeting with you," and I'm sat down like, Are these guys gonna actually buy products? What the fuck's going on here? Yeah.

But never writing really a big order. Right. There was one time where it was early 2004. I had Jaime Garcia in my booth rolling cigars while I was running around the trade show buying for the Gran Havana room.

Right. Because I still had to do that job. " because we call him Sir Winston's SWs. He wants to order.

And it was Barton from Ambassador. Okay. And he goes, I want to order your product. And I said, okay.

And he wrote this order, and I looked at the order. I was like, holy shit. Like, do you want all these at once? I was, like, scared.

I didn't know the guy. We became best friends. Like, he's one of those retailers I can count on, and he's truly family, you know. But he took a chance on a small brand, and he's always been there.

Right. Even when we were small, he knew he had something special. Right. But he wrote that order, and I was like, I can break it up in two shipments.

He goes, no, ship it all at once. I go, are you serious? Right. He goes, yeah, here's my credit card information.

I go, I don't even know if I can charge a credit card yet. Like, I don't even know how to do that. How do we do this? Back then, it was like, oh, we're on, you know, it's terms, and you sent a check-in.

Yeah. Like, when we finally did credit cards, it was like, oh, we're getting advanced. Right. Right now, we're really advanced.

Yeah. I had a retailer lose a shit on me, because I wouldn't do terms. You know? It's a small company.

Yeah. It's just... It's like, hey, you don't do terms? Like, no.

He's like, what's happened with this industry? He's like, I don't fucking know. I didn't know that that was a thing, but like, I can't... How many times have I been burned on terms?

Right. Like, fuck. I got burned on terms on guys that got monsters. When I was doing the Unlucky 13, I would pick a retailer, and like, hey, you seem to be doing good with the product.

Here's the Unlucky 13. Oh, you sold all the product? Yeah, but I'm going out of business. Like, what the fuck?

And then, you know, that starts to hurt. You have to write off bad debt. I had one retailer in Florida. He owed me like $1,800 for years.

I never bugged him. Right. I knew the guy in the industry, and I had friends that knew him pretty well, and he's pretty stand-up. And he came up to me at the trade show.

I was at the bar, at the Circle Bar in the Venetian. Right. And he came up to me, he goes, you know, I've owed you money for like four years, and you never bugged me. And I went through some hard times, and now I'm in a good space, and he fucking handed me a check.

No shit. And the check cleared. Damn. I go, that's a fucking man.

Yeah. He also took care of business. He didn't have to either. He could have just said about it.

You wrote it off. Yeah. I mean, he should have probably checked in. You know what I mean?

Like, hey, I know I still owe you this. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's admirable that he did that. But like, I don't know, I've lent some money out every once in a while.

There's always the term people that like, hey, it's net 30 and like, it's net 60. It's net 90. Yeah. It's like, oh, it's net 90.

Yeah. I did a project for a retailer who's no longer in the business. But as an apology, I go, "Dude, what's going on? " And it was a big project.

Right. And it was a pretty historic release that we did. He sold everything. " Right, for paying everybody else with your money.

For paying everybody else with your money, and sorry for being net, you know, 150, I think it was. Right. Damn. Yeah.

Yeah, well, that was tough. That's hard, especially when you're growing. When you're a growing company, you can't afford that. I don't do CODs anymore, that COD thing, just completely, I got burned on that so many times, the check would bounce, and this was before UPS started covering the check, because they would first check to make sure that it went through, and then they would distribute a check to you.

I stopped that a long time ago, because I got burned so many times, but the business sometimes just really frustrates you. Hell yeah. And I, I, that's the, the hard part of the business for me, like I, I don't want the stress level, I just want to, I just want to sell a cigar that means something to me, I don't want to sell a widget. Right.

I want to sell cigars with a reason, like I got an order, I was telling Steve, I got an order from a distributor in an international territory, and they wanted 800 boxes of mummies. Holy shit. And I said, no. Right.

I go, I can get you 50. That's a big difference. Like, I can get you 50. And he goes, yeah, but it's a big order.

I go, yeah, but I know they're going to that territory, and there's billions of people in that territory, and they'll probably get lost in that territory completely, but I also don't want 800 boxes of mummies out there that shouldn't have been made in the first place. 50, I can peel off an extra 50, but don't ask me for 800. You come to me and say, hey, I want 500 boxes of, you know, the Lancero samplers, that's easy, regular production. You want 500 boxes of a Broadleaf Taino, sure, I'll make you that.

But it's regular production, but don't come to me and ask me for something that I need to protect. Right. Because I've been through so many, like, dealings with people trying to sue me over the name, well, one particular company, and that I'm like-- Monster Energy. Yeah.

I'm like, you know, if someone's gonna try to step on that, I'm gonna protect it. Right. So I have to be that asshole. Kind of like when, you know, Fuente dealt with Opus.

Right. With the wine. And they won their battle. And now they own Opus X.

And then someone uses anything with X on the box, I kind of understand that they're protecting their mark. Right. You know, X is kind of weird, but, you know, anything that revolves around that, I'm like, okay, yeah, they're gonna do whatever they can to make sure they protect it. So anything with Monster, I'm like all over people.

Right. I don't want... I think that's fair. I spent enough money on lawyers to protect it and not have to deal with big, you know, a big corporation that was trying to bury me in legal fees.

Right. And they could have, the one that, yeah. They couldn't have won it, because I owned the mark. Well, they could have drug it out where it was a big-- They could have buried me in legal fees.

Right. Yeah. They could have actually sued me, taken me to court, and hopefully the only good outcome is a judge look at it and go, "This is bullshit. " I even offered to sell the brand to them.

Right. Like, that was one moment that I was like, I think they might be trying to get in the weed business or the vape business. Right. Class 34.

Right. Tell them it's for sale. I don't need the name Monster. Right.

I'll sell it to them. Exactly. If they're willing to pay for it, why not? Right.

They didn't bite. They knew they didn't have a case, but then they started trying to go after me for trade dress. Yeah. So I'm like, come on, man, give me your Pantone color.

I'll stay away from your Pantone color, but I'm not gonna, that's wild, man. I think one year, one of the years of the multiple years that they're coming after me with bullshit, it cost me about 50 grand, that was one year, so yeah, it's uncomfortable. Yeah, fuck yeah, dude, that's a ton of money. I understand why you're protective of it.

Especially that name. I mean, Tatua, obviously, I register that pretty much everywhere. But you're protective of the coffin box, too. Yes.

Because no one ever had that. No one ever did it. And I'm like... Because you reached out to Z.

He was, you know, totally innocent. And he fixed it. Yeah. He fixed it.

I reached out to multiple people when I did the Corojo line, just with the simple word Corojo. I went to Christian and I said, hey, Christian, do you have any rights to the name Corojo on a band? He goes, no. He goes, but that's how the cigar industry should be.

Right. The fact that you called me and asked, and then I called a few other people and said, hey, you guys have any rights to the name Corojo on a band? They're like, no, no one does. I go, okay, cool, I'm going to use it.

Because to me, it's a seed varietal, and I mean, if someone had it, and they had registered it as a brand, then okay, I'll stay away from it, but I think one of my biggest pet peeves in the cigar industry is when people say Maduro. What is it? Maduro what? Like, give me a seed.

Oh, and they have Connecticut, they have San Andreas, they have Corojo, and then they go Maduro. I'm like, "Dude, you You left me hanging with the Maduro. What is it? Is it Corojo Maduro?

Is it San Andreas? Is it Rodley Maduro? What the fuck is it? Don't leave the consumer hanging either.

You told them most of the story. Why did you leave off that part? Why did you cut that part out? There are moments where you say things, oh, it's Maduro.

But you tell people the rapper. Who cares? All right, anything else? Did you ask about the cigar?

That was it. Oh, we talked about Sumatra. What was your beat for Sumatra? Because you guys were talking about Sumatra on your podcast.

Yeah, you know, for me... And it had to do with La Union. You thought Sumatra was like a cheap wrapper. Yeah, so a lot of times Sumatra for me comes across as extremely bitter.

And I think that... Maybe in the lower priming. Yeah. And, you know, as time has kind of progressed, it's definitely improved.

The higher primings are definitely better. " So I stayed away from it. " Now it's ripe. But we were also looking at lower prime and stuff back then, and I realized that I liked the higher priming on Sumatra.

" But I always say that if you're buying from Oliva, But it's, nothing's cheap. Right. Yeah. I believe that too.

It's a good, there are great rappers of mine, I give them a lot of props because like, I always make sure that, hey, it's not only with tobacco, I mean, it's not only with cigar, it's only with tobacco, it's a different family. Right. They make, they grow great rappers, and they were one of those, go back to the earlier story, they were one of those families that helped us get into a new position with Havana. And if you talk to guys like Gus, there's one big reason why a lot of people use Habano, and that was because of Pepin.

Like, Pepin was one of the first guys that really said, "Fuck it, yeah, I need rapper, let's take a chance on this Habano," that everybody was avoiding, and then all of a sudden everybody wanted Habano. Right. So, Gus would always tell you that Pepin helped their Habano sales in the early days. It's something similar that's really happened with Sumatra.

I think you see more Sumatra now than ever before. Yeah, and again, I shifted to Sumatra because something else was being in short supply. Like, I always run, like, when I know that there's something going to be in short supply, I'm like, okay, I gotta pivot a little bit. And Sumatra was there, San Andreas was there, and okay, now I know that there's broadleaf, so I'll make sure that there's broadleaf set aside for me to do these projects.

But yeah, you have to pivot. You just can't go into the factory. Anybody who wants to get into the cigar industry on this side of it, you can't go into a factory and expect that you're going to get dark excels on everything. You know what I mean?

You have to understand what the capacity of the factory has and say, "Okay, listen, not every cigar can be that color unless you start dipping it into Right. Yeah. If you don't dunk it in juice, you're going to get natural effects, so you have to move around the color grade. Right.

And also, you can't expect, when you say, okay, I only want Rosado, that you're always going to get a Rosado. You're going to get Rosado Clara, and you might get a Rosado Oscuro in the same batch of cigars, but then it's color grading from there. Right. I mean, in Cuba, they would just color grade and then put a different band on it.

You can put a different band on it. In this case, you're color grading it for the box. And I hope to stay within a range. Like, I don't want anything outside that range.

I'm sure they're the same way. Like, listen, man, try to stay here. But if we go outside too far, and it's too much, then it looks like a different cigar. And there's been moments like, hey, listen, the wrapper that you put on the cigar was too dark.

It's not supposed to be that dark. What am I going to do with it? Right. I'll call it Reserva.

Yeah, that works. But it's still a Habano, it just happens to be a darker priming of it. Right. It might taste a little different too.

You know that wrapper we used on Kohonu, that's actually the same wrapper that we used on that because it's the higher priming of Habano. Right. But it's not supposed to be that high, but they accidentally rolled a thousand sticks with that higher priming. Right.

So either you smoke them all or you decide to do a project with it. Right. Sell them to a retail. Hey, listen then.

I got this limited run. It's all run, but it's all, all it is is the color grade. All right, anything else to add before I let you go? We got five minutes.

Is there anything you want me to say? No, not at all, man. I honestly do that. I appreciate the wine tasting.

Yeah. This was a lot of fun. I wanted, you know, my brother and I wanted to do something different for you, right? I wanted you to have a relaxed atmosphere.

I wanted you to be around, you know, customers that wanted to be around you. And, you know, we always try and make something different. Yeah, that's smart. Yeah, you know.

You got to know your audience. Yeah, you know, I didn't want you standing up for six hours. Thank you. The sit-down wine tasting was nice.

Yeah, you know, peddling your cigars and stuff. I mean, I think that this was, I just wanted it to be more comfortable for you. So, I wanted you to have a good experience, because again, you know, we've been in the industry for like 16 years, but we haven't really cultivated a relationship. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, this is good. Yeah, I thought that this would be cool, and I promised Steve. So you didn't get to keep Johnny Tobacco, by the way? No, I got a big one up there, though.

Oh, you do? Yeah, he sent me no. But you didn't keep the one that you had to train, because I thought you were actually taking that home. I was going to take it, but, like, Matt looked at me, he's like, dude, this is for, I think it was for San Antonio.

A Club Humidor. Yeah. And he was like, you can't, because I had a car. I'm like, I can just throw this in the fucking Grand Cherry.

Yeah, why not? It gives a shit. I was like, okay, fine. so but yeah i mean i had fun with that you know going around and dude i actually thought you were really taking it home yeah no you gotta dude you gotta have fun at these at these conventions man you know yeah dude that's why the last day for me at the trade show i i kind of miss the extra last day yeah because the shutdown day was always the day where all of us would wander between booths and we do like a crawl right yeah i remember one year that uh skip rolled through the booth and And then soccer rolled through the booth and we got hammered.

I remember that. That wasn't that long ago. No, it was like three years ago. Yeah.

We were hammered. Yeah. That was awesome. Because we're like, I hate checking bags.

So I'm like, I'm not fucking checking a bag. Right. And we got to drink all this booze. And we had like three bottles of whiskey.

Yeah. Destroyed. Yeah. That was really cool, man.

Because I was there. I walked into it. Eventually I left. I was like, I'm not staying for this.

Some guy that actually, I'm blanking on his name now, but a friend of Saka's, and he wanted a certain cigar made from Saka, and Saka agreed to it while he was wasted in the booth, and he thanked me the other day. I think it was Jeff. Yes, it was, yeah. He goes, thank you for that, by the way.

Yeah. He goes, Saka made him, and I sold out of him real quick. Right, frog juice. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's important at the shows, dude. We've got to have a good time, man. You know, there's just too much shit going on.

Yeah, and you know, like, listen, Skip and I, at one point, we didn't have a good relationship, and I'm happy that it's actually turned into, you know, a very cordial relationship, because, like, I don't need the drama, right? There are some people out there that create too much drama, and I try to avoid them at all costs. He's one of the greatest guys I know, man. He will give you the shirt off your back, his back for you, you know?

Very cool. I know you've had a long relationship with him. I mean, the fact that you guys started back when… When you were in Esteban's house? Yeah, we were, the factory had just been created when they started making postaña, so he's always been great to us.

I will say that when I saw the name, I had no idea how to pronounce it. I kept on calling it the Punxsutawney Phil. Right. Hey, I've heard worse, you know, but listen, Tatuaje, like you should fucking talk.

Oh, no, dude. Trust me, I've heard the worst translations of that word all over the place. Just say tattoo, but if you can even try to say it, if you even ask for it, thank you. Yeah, I invited my friend out tonight.

Unfortunately, he couldn't make it. He's like, oh, well, who's there? And I said the brand, I typed it to Twihe, and he goes, what the fuck is that? I'm like, exactly, yeah.

No, you should come, though. You have a good time, but. Yeah, even when you spell it phonetically, people still don't even understand how to spell it. No, absolutely.

Totally lost. But yeah, I mean, dude, I'm very fortunate, and my brother and I were very fortunate to be with Skip. Skip's always kept it 100, like, completely online. They were honest with all of it, and so was Michael, you know?

Yeah. And that isn't something that you see all the time in this industry. That's true. You know?

I mean, that goes back to the family. Right. Yeah. They could have ditched me a long time ago.

Right. I mean, I'm in a different position now. Right. Obviously.

But in the early days, I was their fucking worst critic. Right. Like, I was on them about everything. They reset a standard.

Yeah. And that's probably why they helped become what they are. That's, when they got Robbie coming in, I said, you can't fuck this up, because he's gonna put you into a different level, so you have to make, and he's got Fuente already making cigars, you can't, you can't do anything to fuck that relationship up, so, and they've had a great long-standing relationship with the people from Ashton, and it's worked out great for everybody, everybody. I mean, it just shows that, you know, good people in the factory produces, you know, from a factory that produces good product, everybody wins.

That's it. Everybody wins. 100%. Yeah.

All right, I'm gonna let you get on the road, but thank you so much for coming up, dude. Oh, dude, thank you. We appreciate you, man. We had, I hope you had a great time tonight.

I had a great time, man. And, you know, more to come. Awesome. All right.

I appreciate the support. I'll trick you into another one of these, maybe. Who knows? Who knows?

Just don't, don't be upside down. We pay on time. No, you're good with that. I know you do.

Absolutely. Thank you, bro. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Thank you, guys. We'll be right back.

Show Notes

Mikey outdoes himself again with a rare, up-close look at one of the industry’s true icons. This special episode dives into the personal side of Pete Johnson of Tatuaje Cigars — the stories, the growth, the moments that shaped him beyond the blends. A can’t-miss conversation with one of the most influential figures in the cigar world.