Episode 89 Justin Andrews Deisel Cigars

Episode Summary

Episode 89 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast features Justin Andrews, Senior Brand Manager at Scandinavian Tobacco Group and the man who runs Diesel Cigars globally. Andrews explains what his job actually involves: managing Diesel worldwide, overseeing contract manufacturing across STG's three factories, and developing exclusive collaborative products for retailers and even competitors — work that keeps him on the ground in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Honduras for much of the year.

The conversation digs into how Diesel blends actually get made. Andrews describes himself as a "cigar whisperer" rather than a blender, working back and forth with A.J. Fernandez until they land on a profile, with final approval resting on him. He details the unique challenge of Whiskey Row — forecasting how many bourbon and sherry barrels would be needed for a cigar neither he nor A.J. had ever aged in barrels before — and why the line went out of stock for six months. He also talks about Whiskey Row Sherry Cask and Hair of the Dog, plus the logistics of blending for a brand that sells in the millions while still being treated as boutique.

Andrews tells his origin story: an unpaid Craigslist internship with Cuban physician Lou Rodriguez in 2008 that grew into a 50/50 partnership at Lou Rodriguez Cigars, roughly 350 accounts with no sales reps, a "Smokers Connecticut" blend ahead of the San Andrés boom, a booth next to RoMa Craft at their first trade show, and a buyout that led to a year as a Cigar Rights of America ambassador before he landed at General Cigar. He also explains the Diesel bar giveaway — a hundred custom bars with built-in humidors and trap doors, pitched by colleague Matt Davenport — as a goodwill play to win over brick-and-mortar retailers wary of Cigar International.

Lighter segments cover being homeschooled in Fayetteville, North Carolina, growing up near Fort Bragg, sports as a social outlet, and stories from Estelí: a drunken former CFO, a car overheating on the road to the airport with Hector Alfonso, and hanging at consultant Alex Svenson's house. The five standard questions close it out, including Andrews naming Diesel Whiskey Row as his daily smoke and Espinosa Crema as his morning cigar, plus a tribute to Svenson as the most powerful behind-the-scenes figure in the industry.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Who is Justin Andrews?
   Andrews lays out his role as Senior Brand Manager for Scandinavian Tobacco Group, running Diesel globally plus contract manufacturing and retailer-exclusive collaborations.
2. 02
   Estelí trips and factory life
   Stories from Nicaragua including Cigar 101 training trips, factory visits to AJ Fernandez and Plasencia, and a very drunk former CFO.
3. 03
   From Craigslist intern to 50/50 partner at Lou Rodriguez Cigars
   How a 2008 unpaid internship with Cuban physician Lou Rodriguez turned into a partnership, 350 accounts and an early Connecticut-shade hit.
4. 04
   Cigar Rights of America and Big Smoke
   Andrews explains how being CRA's top ambassador two years running got Lou Rodriguez cigars into Big Smoke New York and Las Vegas without an ad budget.
5. 05
   Blending Diesel with AJ Fernandez
   Why he calls himself a cigar whisperer, how blend approval works, and the forecasting nightmare of barrel-aging Whiskey Row and Sherry Cask.
6. 06
   The Diesel bar giveaway
   The origin of the 100 custom bourbon-themed bars with built-in humidors, and how the program opened doors with skeptical brick-and-mortar retailers.
7. 07
   Homeschooling, sports and Fayetteville
   Growing up near Fort Bragg, being homeschooled through eighth grade, playing varsity ball at public schools, and the J. Cole connection.
8. 08
   Five questions
   Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, Whiskey Row as his daily smoke, and Alex Svenson's advice about not worrying who gets the credit.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

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Transcript

Welcome to A Cigar Hustlers Podcast, Episode 89! This week we sit down to talk to Mr. Justin Andrews from Diesel Cigars. Sit back and relax.

Here comes the show! all right episode 89 starting up now yes cigar hustlers podcast so nervous why are you nervous i'm not really i'm just actually kind of tired and uh angry and it's You're irritable. You're always irritable. It's been a long fucking week.

But, you know, it's over now. Hopefully. We'll see. Should we introduce our guest?

Yes, please. Let's get ready. Let's jump right into it. He's sitting here.

We don't want to talk about him and he's, you know. I'm wearing the Justin Andrews outfit, by the way. Oh, look at that. Pulling it off a little better.

I didn't get the memo. So, go ahead. He wears a size smaller just to make it look better. This is a fucking XL, pal.

Yeah, whatever. I got the tag to prove it. I had your wife wash it in the hot water to shrink it up. Yeah, that's it.

Shrink this shirt up. Yeah, so who the hell are you? You know, that's the question, and that's the hashtag that good old Jack Taranio started. Who is JA?

So, one of these days, this is my 10th year in the industry, so maybe by year 20, you know, people actually know who I am. Yeah. Did you get to fire Jack by chance? Wow.

They're right into the hard parts. We're starting to jump right in, because that would be funny. No, I mean, Jack reported to me, which I enjoyed immensely. Oh, yeah.

But Jack and I both kind of knew it was coming, but the company also knows that Jack and I were pretty tight. Yeah. So I was, I think, for my own deniability, I was kind of left in the dark. But I kept talking to Jack like, hey, you know, if I was a betting man, I think this is coming.

I don't know. I got a podcast that says otherwise. He didn't have a fucking clue. He came on like a week after.

No idea. Yeah. Well, he had his little tour of media the week it happened, so his story changed a little bit, I think. Well, he was going to try and be here, but I guess he kind of fucked that up.

Yeah. I don't know what's going on, man. I texted. It's been an odd week.

I said, where the hell are you? He's like, what do you mean? I said, Justin's here. He's like, oh shit.

Yeah. So, um, I don't know. He's, you know, he's in Miami, so. Or maybe he's just fucking with me and he's close.

Who knows? Um, yeah, so, you know. Oh, I hope he's late. And then you're gonna give him a hard time?

Oh yeah. I was late for the last show that Jack did. That's right. And he's all right.

And he's all right. That's right. So now Mike Palmer is always late. That's right.

Always late. Um, yeah. So, Well, you know what's kind of funny is I don't think a lot of people actually know who the hell you are. Yeah, that's right, I didn't answer the question.

So, yeah. So, Justin Andrews, I guess my corporate title would be Senior Brand Manager for Scandinavian Tobacco Group, which I don't use that one a whole lot. That's a hell of a title. Yeah, so my day-to-day, I guess probably what consumes most of my time is brand management of diesel.

So I manage the brand globally, which is pretty cool. I also handle some of our contract manufacturing, so obviously we make cigars for a lot of people across all three of our factories, so I spend a lot of time in Central and Latin America. I also do part of our kind of like, you could call it a collaborative kind of department to where we make exclusive products for shops and other competitors and things like that. So, and when I'm not doing all of that, for whatever reason, I like to get out and travel and go see people and do events and do podcasts.

So, yeah, what the hell? Yeah, so this is, that's pretty much what I do. That's it? Yeah, yeah, that's the day of the day.

I'm just going to break you, I'm going to make you comfortable here, don't you worry. So, I mean, the first time we met, we were in Esteli. Yeah, and you're hanging out with a group of people, I think? and you're doing kind of a fucking tour and a little bit of work and there was a crazy cat involved, right?

There was. Some shit like that. And then, of course, there was the particular night where Skip kind of holds court. Yeah.

Right? He lets everybody know that he's the fucking man. Type A just jumps out there. Right?

Just kind of murder balls, you know, starts breaking down in fucking corporate terms and shit. I'm like, I don't know what any of this shit means, but I think it sounds good. But yeah, so when you go to Esteli and stuff like that, is it only, were you blending that time? Were you just kind of fucking around with some guys, just giving them a tour?

So that was actually a really good trip. So I was down there working on some stuff that's coming out in 2020, but it was right around the time where we were kind of finalizing production on Whiskey Roast Sherrycast and also Hair of the Dog. So, I took a trip down there to meet with AJ, just kind of do some final quality control stuff, talk to him about 2020, and we looped in a group of guys from CI, all the new hires from like the Dallas store and all over, so they kind of looped me in down there to do a little Cigar 101 training with those guys, so we take them to our factory, we take them to AJ's, we take them to Placentia, so yeah, that was a good trip. And I think the first night you came over to our consultant, Alex Finson's house.

Yes, that's his name, yeah. We sat in the backyard with the leopard. Yeah, that's it, yeah, whatever the fucking cat, I can't even think of the type of cat it is. It's, I always forget the name, but it's some sort of like miniature, you know, sphinx.

Is that man coon? No, but it's like. It's got an odd name, it's um. And it's super aggressive.

Yeah. Oh, good. Not the best pet. You can't pet it.

Yeah. But you want to. Yeah. It's like, man, I don't know if I can, it's like, no.

Beautiful cat that you just can't pet. It just kind of sits there in paces or just, you know. So that was a good night. We sat out there, they cooked, we had some rum.

I think Skip got our former CFO a little wasted. Well, he was, I mean, I was going to bring that up. I'm glad that you did. Yeah, for one former CFO.

And for two, he was fucking hammered that night and he was hammered at AJ's place as well. And that was the night where he went fucking really off the deep end, which was awesome for me and for Hector as well, because he was with me over Espinosa. And he, I mean, dude, this guy, this fucking, you know, if I was in charge, I'd do this. But, you know, what the fuck do I know?

Like, that would be the end of every sentence. And, you know, he probably doesn't remember any of it because he had to be at a level of blackout drunk. Yeah. Wow.

And unfortunately, that was his one and only trip to Nicaragua. That's too bad. I wonder why. " Right, he'll take care of you, everything will be fine.

" In what world does he do anything that I said? Right, he supersedes all, you know, or at least the majority. So, yeah, so that was, I'd like for my name to be mentioned, but not in those types of conversations, so that was... " Exactly.

I can handle it, you know what, when I get back to the office, we're gonna talk about this. Yeah. Yeah, that would go over so fucking well. So that was an interesting trip for you to...

Yeah. An interesting time to be down there. Yeah, because for me, you know, I don't really care. So when he starts going off, I'll just fucking feed the flame.

You know, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Fuck that guy. And yeah, yeah, you know what? I don't know why they're not listening to you.

Yeah, what the hell do you know? Tell me more. So, you know, I would just keep him going. And Hector's like, Jesus Christ, get me the hell out of here, man.

You know, because Hector can be quiet sometimes, you know, and I don't know how he earned Mr. Warmth. I don't, you know, he's actually a really super Super nice fuckin' guy. He is.

Crown Heads, Wes is definitely Mr. Fucking Warm. Oh yeah. Hands down the fuckin' curmudgeon of the cigar industry.

Super nice guy, but very, you know, he's rough right. Just dry, very dry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he sent us a handle though, so that was nice.

I was with Hector in Buffalo, was it last week or the week before? And he did pretty good. Yeah? I'd peek over every once in a while, and he was talking and laughing, so maybe he's coming around a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny, we did an event here, and he kind of hit out front and stuff like that, which is pretty funny, like, he just wasn't, he doesn't get that vibe, but, you know, the more and more he becomes in the spotlight, the more people want to fucking talk to him, so, you know, he's gonna have to start dealing with that shit, you know, I mean, because I love Hector, I love bullshitting with him, you know, if he's, if there's 20 people in the fucking room, you know, I'm going to him to sit down and hang out, you know, but only 20, if there's 25, I'm gonna find somebody else. You know, so, all right, so sometimes I get sabotaged on these. I told you, that was legit. All the information is true.

Just for the record. If I can't find stuff about a guest, I'll just make it up. Yeah, so I asked them if somebody was a car salesman. That was Wes.

That was Wes, actually. " All right, so you're going to answer that question. VP and Lou Rodriguez, 2009-2014 Cigars? What's that?

Yeah, so that was my introduction into the business. Lou Liga? No. No.

So Lou was, or was, I always talk past tense with him, but Lou's still around, alive and well. Okay, still alive. A Cuban physician whose uncle, Gregorio Vasquez, owns a company in Nicaragua called G&G Cigars. Okay.

So he used to make a lot of the overrun stuff for AJ, used to make Burger and Argenti, the moosh. No shit. He used to make King Cigars, and so Lou got the idea one day, he's like, you know, I've been smoking Padrones for 40 years, I should give this thing a shot, make my own cigar. And I interned with him as a junior in college, come from a family of tobacco farmers, but cigarette and chewing tobacco.

" So that was free? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And literally thought cigarette tobacco was the same as cigar tobacco. No shit.

Yeah. Had no clue. Had never smoked a cigar before. This was in 2008.

So, yeah. Started... It's practically the same thing. Yeah.

So, learned a lot. Learned that I didn't know anything. Right. But for whatever reason, Lou had...

he told me he had about 23 kids apply for the position. No shit. I thought you'd tell me he had 23 kids. No, no, no.

They don't have a TV or anything like that? I've been an intern for something else. I don't know, maybe it was my good looks or charming personality that got me the gig, but yeah, did that. No shit.

Man, that was, God, it's funny, it seems like a lifetime ago. But it's a significant portion of your life. Sure. I mean, at least seven years, about, six maybe.

Yeah, six, around six and a half, yes. Yeah, so it started out as an unpaid intern, and six years later, we were 50/50 partners. No shit. Wow.

Yeah. So it was pretty cool. Did that end bad? No, no.

It was good. Well, it didn't end good, but we ended on good terms. Right. He's a very, very wealthy doctor, and he owns a locums group, so he staffs ERs as his specialty up and down the East Coast.

So it was never about the money for him. Right. , this was with no sales reps, no terms, no nothing, we were like the poor man's padron, basically. Right.

And you're talking 2010, 2011, you know, back when, before the San Andreas Mexican rapper, Nicaraguan binder filler, before Eric came out with Kramer, we had what we called a Smokers Connecticut. So we were kind of innovative in that aspect before the boom. I mean, us and Roma Craft, our first show was in 2011, and we were actually side by side, which was pretty cool. So yeah, as we grew and demand became higher, events, and people started buying a lot of product to get Lou, Lou kind of stopped showing up, he was, you know, a little more worried about kind of the lifestyle.

Right. And at that point, for me, it had become a job, and pretty serious, and so I kind of saw that the walls were kind of closing down a little bit. So he bought me out of my equity stake, and I took a year off, and then landed at General. I wonder if I can get my brother to buy me out.

That'd be awesome. So, yeah, well, hey, man, I mean, you know, it worked out pretty well for you then. You wound up at a pretty good place, you know? I mean, what says Cigar Rights of America?

What did you do at Cigar Rights of America? So, during the year that I took off, I was an ambassador for Cigar Rights of America. Okay. And, actually, the year prior to that, too, so… What kind of level of abuse was that like?

It was brutal, but I did work it to our advantage, though, so we never had enough money nor the desire to advertise with Cigar Aficionado, so we never got invited to things like Big Smoke, obviously. " So in 2013 and 2014, I signed up more people for Cigar Rights of America than any other ambassador in the country. No shit. And so for two years straight, we had Lou Rodriguez cigars at Big Smoke New York and Big Smoke Las Vegas.

Fucking A, man. Good for you. So you sign up for a year, you get a cigar. You sign up for three, you get two.

It was a good way to get our product out there. No shit. Yeah. Well, good for you, man.

So, I mean, you're obviously, you know, you're not just a pretty face. That's what I tell my girlfriend all the time. You're still girlfriend, huh? I see.

It was too early. I shouldn't have brought her up already. I didn't tell her I was gonna be on the podcast. Oh, okay.

All right, cool. Fair enough. I'll let that die there, then. You were homeschooled?

I was. Man, good. Somebody doesn't fuck around. Man, do my research.

This is cool. Yeah, I've never got that question. So yeah, come from Fayetteville, Fort Bragg. We had a military family, and my mother was a teacher, so when I was coming up, the school option in the part of town we were living in, because my father was starting a business, was not really where you'd want your kid to go to school.

" So she homeschooled my sister and I up until eighth grade, basically. So yeah, but there's a stigma out there with homeschoolers, for sure, and a lot of times that's correct, but in Cumberland County, where I'm from, because of the military base, we had 2,500 homeschoolers in the county, so we would do stuff like Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, we'd have tutors, and we'd have science tutors, math tutors, things like that, so I was fortunate that, one, my mother probably knew she didn't want to be around us every day, all day, but that we had tutors come in and teach us. You know, some pretty essential things. That's cool.

So, yeah, it was kind of like a good little social group there. So, when you got to high school, did you find that you were ahead of the regular high school kids? I would say so, just because, again, when you're one teacher teaching to 30, 40 kids, maybe, and everybody learns at a different pace, I was able to get that one-on-one attention, whether it was with my mother or a tutor, and we did standardized testing at the end of the year to kind of gauge where you were. But again, if you've got one teacher, two students, those two students are always going to come out of the majority there.

There's no hiding in the back of the classroom. No, but I was really into sports. I played baseball, basketball, football. In homeschool or outside?

So the cool thing in Cumberland County, if your school "didn't offer" a sport, you could play at whatever school offered the sport closest to you. So in eighth grade, I was playing varsity basketball and baseball for an academy there in town, and then as that shifted, I went and played football and baseball at a public school. So I kind of got the best of both worlds there. Yeah, because I think that sometimes the downfall of homeschooling is you always have the question of will your kid be socially inept, you know what I mean?

When you went back into high school, that was going to be my next question. Was that a struggle for you? Was it like hanging out, making friends and shit like that? But, if you're doing sports and shit, you already had friends.

Yeah, you're already kind of, you know, you're kind of used to that as well. Yeah, I think I was kind of the exception with that. I come from a big family, very social, vocal family. My parents were involved in the community, so it was, I was used to being around a lot of people and I did things like public speaking and things like that.

So, it was definitely a little easier for me than some. Now, we did have those kids that when they came out of the house, they couldn't make eye contact, they're a little odd, so I didn't really hang out with those kids a whole lot. But sports was a big kind of gateway to that social thing, and again, when you're a jock and you're kind of big, there's not a lot of anxiety when it comes to fitting in and stuff. So you didn't get to meet J.

Cole, though, because you didn't go to middle school. Man, you know, it's funny, everybody asks me that. Well, that's the only, you know, that's Fayetteville, you know. He went to, so he's, I think he's a little bit younger than me, maybe two or three years.

Yeah. But his high school, E. Smith, we absolutely would beat the brakes off of in baseball and basketball. No shit.

So, I'm sure our paths crossed before he was J. Cole. Right. But yeah, no, never met him.

I like to think that you've fucked them up in some kind of sport. He does still play in a rec league there, though. No shit. Yeah, yeah.

Dude, he's fucking talented. He's like one of the best rappers, in my opinion, like top five. No joke. He is.

He put Fayetteville on the map. Yeah. And Mike Palmer, he agrees. He's a big Jake.

I have no idea. I believe it. I have no idea. Alright, so what kind of factories do you get to fuck with?

J. Fernandez. We kind of brought that up already. But what else do you get to do when you get to the epicenter of the cigar world, Esteban Nicaragua?

So obviously I spend the most time with our Nicaraguan factory. And then I would say probably the Dominican and Honduras would be a close second. But as far as like our friendly competitors, I guess you could say like AJ, I mean AJ I would like to think of as almost an extension of our factory. Because we do so much with him and so many brands, so he's who I've worked with the most.

I have been able to do some stuff with Plasencia, I've been able to do some stuff with, well, I've talked to guys like Justo Aurora and things like that, yeah, I think that's, I mean, you just named, like, the fucking biggest ones, so that's pretty cool. Yeah, those, and we, again, we're such a big company that we try to keep as much production as we can. Right. But we do have like strategic partners, guys like Placencia and AJ.

That's cool. So who gets to decide the blends for diesel? That'd be me. That's you.

Yeah. You don't like, "Hey, this is the cigar. " Nothing. No.

You're the guy. That's it. That's awesome, man. That's pretty cool.

Yes, well that's, I mean, originally when Michael Giannini hired me, I didn't have a title or anything. I was just the tobacco guy. So I was fortunate with Lou Rodriguez that I got to go spend, you know, sometimes 15, 20 days down in Nicaragua, and I would just live at the factory. That's tough.

And it was tough, especially for a gringo that didn't speak a lot of Spanish. Yeah, no shit. So it was kind of trial by fire there. Yeah.

And, again, you know, I don't like to throw that term, you know, blender around that often. I'm more of a cigar whisperer. Like, I'll kind of whisper to AJ, "Hey, what if we do this? " But as far as the final say so and final approval of a blend that relies solely on me with the brands and our other brand managers have that ability to a lot of times they don't take advantage of it just because you know we have experts down in the factory and stuff like that but typically with AJ he'll send me you know a couple bundles and and it'll be kind of like hey you need to pick this one and and there's been a lot of times where I've gone back and been like bro this isn't this isn't really what I was looking for.

And then he tells me I don't know tobacco, I tell him he doesn't know the American consumer, you know, and we go back and forth. But fortunately, he and I usually land on the same thing. I mean, he's the genius, but I'm the one that's got to sign the check, so it's, yeah. That's awesome.

Okay, so, well, man, my next question is going to be how do you decide to blend, but you kind of fucking, you know, said that too. I guess the unique part is for you, you have to produce a lot of cigars, right? And that's kind of where it gets difficult, you know? And I mean, I've got to give you kudos.

I think you're doing a good job in what you're doing. So, you know, how do you kind of determine, I mean, let me ask you, how many do you average that you have to produce, like, as far as quantity, if you don't mind giving that information? And does that affect your overall blend at all? Typically, no.

So, I'll give you a couple examples. So, like, if you look at some of the original diesel stuff that I wasn't involved in, like, you know, original, unlimited, Heart of Darkness, things like that, those are, I would say, as typical as any everyday blend that we make at Punch or we make at Partagas, and all those are well in the millions of cigars produced a year. With a brand like Whiskey Roe, now that's where the challenge came in, because I had to kind of predict a forecast to determine how many barrels we needed, and that's where it gets really tricky, and we were out of stock last year for almost six months, and obviously, it sold well beyond any of our expectations. But that's where Whisky Row is really unique when it comes to the blending process, because AJ and I had both never aged anything in a bourbon barrel or a sherry cast barrel.

So that was a huge learning experience. But overall, I mean, Diesel, without getting into specifics, when somebody asks you, you know, what's one of the best boutique brands out there as far as, like, distribution and awareness, I would argue that Diesel probably sells more cigars than those people. Yeah, for sure. And again, if you look at, I mean, again, the machine that is Cigar International, and when they started it going direct to consumer, I mean, that's a huge leg up when it comes to that.

So now that we've got the best of both, you know, we've got distribution at retail, and I'm very hard on the price protection and making it a level playing field. Right. But I reaped the rewards of having a brand that's been around for 10 years that a lot of people knew. So it's been good, and retailers have been happy, too, because, you know, again, as much as we promote and as much as we advertise and create shelf talkers for a retailer, it's nice to have somebody walk in the door and go, "Oh, yeah, Diesel.

" Right. And now I can buy it from you. Right. So that's been a big benefit.

Yeah. I mean... All right, let's stop for a break real quick. Okay.

It's been a few minutes, though, just so it doesn't go off in the middle of a question. Right. All right, we'll be right back. Want to become part of the show?

com/cigarhustlerpodcast and pick which tier works best for you. We'd love to have you as part of the show. Okay, we're back. Yay!

With Justin Andrews from Diesel Cigars. Who? That was quite the big break. Well, you know, we had the camera problems.

Right. Well, so for me, you know, I think your cigars are really good. But the big deciding factor for me was when we fuckin' kinda hung out on Esteli, dude, you know, and that was just kinda the fit. Do I ever, like, I have, my shop obviously is a hybrid of two, right, 'cause we have online as well as in store, which I think that a lot of retailers should be doing at this point.

- Yeah. - So, for me, do I ever think that I'll be able to move a tremendous amount of diesel online? The answer's no. That consumer, that whole thing has already kinda been mapped out, right?

Like, I'm 10 years behind that game, so I don't ever look for it to be like a gigantic mover online, but it does do really well in the store, and you know, you got some cool shit going on, man, you know, like, I mean, how did you come up with the concept of giving away a fucking bar? Yeah, yeah. First, I appreciate you saying that. And, you know, again, it's not just lip service.

Like, I do get passionate about it because, you know, for 10 years it's been my life. And so, to get the opportunity to take a brand like Diesel, I did take it very seriously. And, I mean, we joke, but like, I'm not married, I don't have kids, and as a washed-up former athlete, like, I was so used to, like, zoning in. And just, you know, live, eat, and breathe it, that I've kind of transferred that into cigars.

So, no, I appreciate you saying that, because it's been, I got to tell you, three years ago, when I'm launching, when I'm presenting these ideas to our VPs and board of directors, and they're looking at me like, "Who hired this kid? " Fortunately for me, it has worked, so now I get a little bit of credibility and can kind of stroll up and down the halls like I'm somebody. Which they quickly, you know, knock me back. Yeah, they like the shit all over you.

Get us some coffee, kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, by the way, good for you, but Diesel is here before you, pal. Yeah, so the bar idea is pretty cool, and I actually have to give credit to a kid who works for us, Matt Davenport, and he actually worked in retail for about six years, during college and after. This kid is so dedicated to cigars that he got a golf scholarship to Christopher Newport University in Hampton, Virginia.

And his junior year, they made the team take a tobacco-free pledge, and he wouldn't fucking sign it. And so they kicked him off the team. Wow. So this kid is legit, and he's kind of like the do-it-all guy for our company.

He's the liaison between the sales team, marketing, he's a really bright kid. So, I said all that to say, when I'm going through this process of developing Whiskey Row, and when I discovered that we had the trademark Whiskey Row, and my buddy Kaveh was starting a bourbon company, like all this stuff was coming together, and I was talking to Matt, I said, "Matt, I'm tired of doing the same shit over and over. " And if somebody comes to a diesel event on a Tuesday night or a Thursday night, the odds are they've already got the Drew Estate hat, they've got the cutter, they've got, so I was like, what can I do to kind of create items that go with this bourbon thing? And so that's when I started working on the bourbon barrel lighters, bourbon barrel ashtrays, you know, things like that, and I was like, but we need, we're missing the big grand prize.

You know, I was looking at humidors and, like, humidors made out of, you know, bourbon barrels, and I was like, it's almost like a bar theme is what I'm going for, and Matt goes, why don't we just build a bar? No shit. And just like that. Wow.

And I was like, no shit, man, and it was funny because I was just at, like, I don't know, Pottery Barn or something, and I saw these, you know, people have in their houses, these bars where you keep your booze and stuff, and I was like, dude, what a great fucking idea. Like, you walk into a shop, there's a bar there, you can win that bar, along with the, you know, the barrel ashtrays and the lighters and things, and so we started, we just started developing it, and then it was like, man, I'm tired of people that don't smoke cigars stealing all my good stuff out of my humidors, I was like, let's put a humidor inside of it, and let's put a little trap door, and it just, and again, this whole time, there's guys, I won't mention their names, but they're pretty high up in our company, they're like, this is stupid, this will never, how are we going to ship it, it doesn't make sense. So it makes sense. Logistically, it's a nightmare.

Logistically, it's a nightmare. How are you going to build it? And whose wife is going to let them have a bar? " So we only made 100 of them.

But, bro, I'm telling you, it has gotten us in the door at places where retailers typically just would have never even given us a shot. And it was kind of my way of saying, "Look, I know for 10 years this brand probably has not been something you've been a fan of. " Like, let me kind of meet you halfway, let me show you, you know, that we're in this to support the retailers, and it's not like I'm making a profit on these things, they were not cheap to make, but it was kind of a goodwill thing of, hey, not only are we going to give you a really good cigar, which I think, I don't have to give anything away to sell this cigar, but here's just a little something extra to drive trial and awareness. That's an attention grabber, man, for sure.

For sure. Alright, so, you know, I gotta, so, like you said before, you're kind of an athlete, right? So, you can handle yourself pretty well. Do you think that you would win in a fight against Jack Taranio?

Or, you know, like, if it went down, and it was fucking serious, you know? I don't know. Jack's got me... I don't know who's taller.

I'm 6'2". Well, I was when I was at my MLB combine. I probably shrunk. I was at my peak.

I think Jack's got me on height and probably some LBs there. Yeah, but he's a little older. He's got those giant arms. I don't know if Jack can throw hands anymore, man.

I don't know. You've got to have him on speed. " He's like, "You know what? " You know what?

even if Jack is pretty passive and cool, I think if you got him pissed off, he could bring some pain. Yeah. Well, he told that story on the show about the guy he beat up at the movie theater. Oh, yeah.

Well, he didn't beat him up. No, he was going to. He was ready. He was ready to kick his ass.

The guy back down. Yeah. " Yeah. A Cuban from Miami that lived in Chicago, in fact, I'm sure Jack's got some stories.

He could probably be scrappy. Yeah. But I'm about 30 years younger than he is, though. Yeah.

You can take that. You can take that. So, I'm going to make that happen for our next event. Jack Taranio versus Justin.

Fair enough. Do you want to ask the five questions? Do you have those? Oh, yes, I do.

I mounted them on the computers from last time. Nicely done. Yeah. Okay, so.

We have five questions we ask everybody who's on the show. Okay. Same five questions. Okay, so the first question is: What one person, living or dead, would you like to share a cigar with?

Oh, good question. You know, I'm a big Tiger Woods guy. Yeah? He doesn't smoke.

No shit. Yeah, I just bangs horse. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, he bangs anyway.

Not anymore. Yeah, not yet. He's done with the pills. Allegedly.

Allegedly. I'm sure him and his new girl have an arrangement, I'd say. Like, hey, listen, I'm gonna step out to the bar every once in a while. It happens every once in a while at the Waffle House, so.

But I'm gonna fucking Uber, so. But yeah, I always go back between him, and as a North Carolina boy, Michael Jordan, obviously. Right. So, yeah, either Tiger or Michael, probably.

Those are great answers. They are great answers. Yeah. Excuse me.

Okay, what one fictional character would you like to share a cigar with? Ooh. Fictional. Somebody from a movie, or a book, or...

TV show. TV show. Dirk Diggler. Dirk Diggler.

Jack Darno in his prime. Fictional. See, I'm a big Seinfeld guy, but you can't really consider it that fictional, because that was a show based on his life. What about, you know, Rambo's out this weekend.

What about fucking Rambo? Have a cigar with Rambo. That'd be pretty cool, I think. I mean, you know, you might not, if it's Rambo 1, you might not get out of there a lot.

He might think that you're, you know, he might have flashbacks and go fucking hate you. And Sly's a big cigar smoker. Is he? Oh, yeah.

He's a member of Grand Havana Room there. Oh, yeah, of course. And he is in there, from what I've heard, when he's in town, he's in there every day. But does he like smoke Cubans?

Because I feel like that shit doesn't count. He smoked, the reason, so here's the reason I know that he's a big cigar smoker. Well, in New Orleans, Crescent City, Armando sent me a picture years ago of him and Sylvester smoking Lou Rodriguez cigars. No shit.

Armando was a big account for us, he's a big boutique guy, and he sent us a picture one day and it's him and Sly with the fist up and they're both smoking Armaduro. Oh, that's pretty dope. So, apparently, he's got some good taste. Nice.

I mean, I don't know if I can tell the story or not, but I know that an actor reached out to Skip and said, "Hey, you know, your cigars are really badass. " I think we've talked about that before, I don't think so. George Clooney reached out to us for the Amazon basin. No shit.

Sure did, his agent. Mike's a huge fan of his tequila. I am, it's not his tequila anymore. Oh, that's true, but he did start the company.

Fuck yeah, Casamigos is the shit. And he needed another, like whatever his cut was, a quarter of a billion dollars or whatever he got. Right, yeah. Yeah, it is good tequila though.

Hey, good for him. Fucking A. Go ahead. Alright, what's your favorite cigar, Justin?

My favorite cigar, no bullshit, I smoke it every day, is the Original Whisky Rope, and again, people are always like, yeah, okay, you know, that's bullshit, and I'm like, if you had the ability to blend a cigar, would you not blend it to your profile, and I'm like, I busted my ass for a year and a half on this blend, like, obviously it's going to be what I like, so, I mean, as far as my everyday smoke, it's that. I smoke, I was telling Eric the other day, I smoke probably a crema every morning with a cup of coffee recently. No shit. Yeah, cause it's, you know, I like Connecticut's with a little bit of a kick.

Right. Kind of ease me into the day. The Espinosa? Yeah, the Espinosa.

And then... And it just feels good because, you know, you had to fire Jack and shit. That, you know, I feel a little guilty, so I gotta support him a little bit. " That's right.

Guilt, a guilt cigar first thing in the morning. That's awesome. What's the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you? Hmm.

You know, it's funny, the same guy, Alex Svensson, told me, and a lot of people don't know who he is, but he is, hands down, the most powerful guy in our industry. Yeah. Nobody knows who he is. Without a doubt.

And he told me, and I was like, Alex, like, you know, Jonathan Drew's running up to you, Jorge Padrón's running up to you, Carlitos, like, but, like, none of these retailers know who you are, none of these consumers know you. And he said, he's like, you know, you can get a lot accomplished when you're not worried about who gets the credit. And I think that's an old Ronald Reagan quote. But that kind of stuck with me, with a lot.

That's very true. Yeah. And so, and I do a lot of stuff with other brands, too, within our portfolio, and people ask me, oh, did you do this or do that? And it doesn't matter because, again, it's good for the team, it's good for the whole, but if you really kind of remove yourself from that, and all of us have an ego, all of us want, you know, a little bit of appreciation for what we do, but if you kind of remove that, and just go at the task at hand, you can really get a lot accomplished.

Right. That's more recent advice, but that's stuck with me. So I saw him at IBCPR and, like, I didn't fully understand why the hell he was there. I was like, you know, what are you doing here?

And he's like, are you kidding me? How could I not be here? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know, I mean, I know that he handled fucking all of it, but I didn't think that he'd have to be at the show, you know?

Yeah. So yeah, he-- So you thought he was above that? No, I just didn't think-- Or just something he would do? 'Cause like you said, retailers don't know who he is, so-- No, but vendors, so he meets with anybody from Zykar to Lotus to, you know, the companies that we make cigars for, I mean, he's a busy guy at the show.

" So, who are you going to ask? Who is he? For the listening audience, they don't know who he is. com, which later turned into Cigar International.

Oh, wow. This is a guy who, at like 13 and 14, would save his lunch money to go buy cigars. Right. He's a renaissance man, you know, big dude, 6'5", 350, super bright, but at one point, he controlled all of the purchasing for Cigar International, Scandinavian Tobacco Group, but he was able to, you know, again, he was able 20 years ago to get with guys like Jonathan Drew and develop an acid cigar that was exclusive for CI, to get with Rocky and create, so he was able to develop those relationships.

And so, for a guy like me, when, you know, I want to talk to Jonathan Drew about something, boom, there's, you know, he's the guy I go to. Right. When I took a tour of the Padrón factory, which not a lot of people get to do, he was the guy. Right.

So, he's, but he definitely, he probably wouldn't even like that I'm saying this, to be honest with you. Right, yeah. But he's definitely a behind-the-scenes guy. But, I mean, tobacco knowledge is through the roof.

Crazy. That guy was, you know, if you, like, I can only tell you what Esteli has been like for the past 10 years, and I can see the growth and development, like, the past few years when I've gone back down, like, holy shit, we have 5G, or not 5G, but it's like, we have data access, you know, on our phones, wow. You know, he's one of those guys that was there when there was fucking nothing, you know. J.

Fernandez, as well, so he gave him his first shot with a Cigar International cigar. There you go. Yeah. Wow.

Last question is, you want to tell people how to get a hold of your social media, email? Sure. Don't give out your phone number. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

com. It's got my information on there. We've got Diesel Cigars on Facebook, Instagram. And then usually you just type in my name, Justin Andrews, Diesel, and it'll pop up.

I think I still have my handle from college, so it's like justintime11. Nice. Super professional. But… That's the way to do it, man.

You know? I'm consistent. I don't like to change a whole lot. But yeah, I'm out there.

God. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all over the place. I think when you go into that formal kind of introduction, you lose something. People don't get really to understand who you kind of are when you just leave it blank.

@JustinAndrews. Right. @Slapdick117 or something like that. So yeah.

Well, that pretty much concludes it. Yeah. Right? Yeah, it was a great show.

That was quick and painless. Right? It was easy. It went by fast.

That's 45 minutes. Boom. Man, I really enjoyed that. Those were good questions, too.

It's almost like as if we know what the fuck we're doing. Dude, seriously, man. It's so crazy. I mean, Jack kind of set the bar pretty low for this.

He told me not to expect the whole lot. Yeah, he talked it down, I'm sure. He said your partner here would be late. Yeah, he said he's going to be on time.

I was here waiting. I think the first time Jack did a show, we had the tiny table, no video. We're way more professional now. We're two years deep, and we're not making a fucking penny.

All for the love of cigars. But no, thanks for having me. This was fun. I appreciate the unique questions.

Sometimes it gets a little redundant. I get tired of hearing myself talk. Yeah, no shit. Yeah, we want to learn about you not going to stay-at-home fucking school and shit.

You know? Right. Very interesting. The producer's a fucking mad scientist.

You guys got scars to sell out there. Yeah, we gotta go do an event. Oh, we didn't even talk about the fucking Z-Man thing, though. Well, we'll do it for our regular show next week.

Oh, okay. All right. 'Cause we'd have to take another break. We can do more research then, and we can figure out what he says, and then we can contradict both.

Have you guys seen the Steve Harvey skit about Willie Turner? No. Getting fired? Do yourself a favor and watch it, because that reminded me of that.

It reminded me of that. Really? Basically, it's how different people handle getting fired differently. Okay.

I made a mistake and told our VP of HR that that would be me one day if they ever tried to fire me. That was probably not my brightest moment, but thankfully he had a sense of humor. Look that up. It'll shed some light on that situation, probably.

All right. Cool. Well, again, dude, thanks so much for coming out. I know that's not easy.

You were all the way in California, you came all the way here to Florida. You know, sales rep was sick and dying, so you know, we had to figure out a few things, but you still made it, and you know, I appreciate everything you do. I also appreciate the ride home from Esteli to the airport, and that was really nice of you, so. That was an adventure, too, man.

Yeah, we got pulled off on the side of the road, the car overheated, because, you know, did I ever tell you this story? No, no, I mean, I've heard about you get pulled over, but not because the car overheated. Yeah, so the car just kind of died, and the problem is that in Esteli, when it comes to adding fluid, You just fucking add as much fluid as possible and not even think about it. So the transmission fluid was overfilled and heated up.

So it just stopped working. It just shut the fucking car down. Thank God Hector understood that, which, you know, was way out of left field because I wouldn't. I'm like, oh, we're fucked.

That's it. Like, I thought for sure we weren't in the best spot. You know what I mean? It's like, this is not fucking good.

Yeah, that's the first time that I've ever had an incident like that happen where I didn't either have to pay the cop for protection or got robbed. I mean, every single, so I was just like, well, here it comes, like, this is, you know, that's why I always keep like 20 bucks in my pocket because you got to give them something. This is where we lose our shit. Yeah.

So, no, we were pretty, we were pretty fortunate in that situation. Yeah. Car cooled down, started right up, I'm like, fuck, fuck, yeah. When we got to the airport, I'm like, hey, listen, you're on your own now, pal.

Appreciate the ride, but I'm out of here. Yeah, that was good shit. Anytime you want to go back, man. Have a fucking A, man.

Well, this coming up here, I probably won't be going. My brother will probably go. I got a baby on the way. He's got a baby on the way.

Oh, congrats. So, yeah, she'll be here end of December, and I usually go first part of the year. So, it all depends. You know, I want to go.

I like to go. You know, I like to be involved with every aspect of it, and bullshit with Skip, and Skip will give me a hard time when I fall asleep on the patio. I don't have a job on the patio, but if I can't, Greg will be the substitute. I see Skip more in Nicaragua than I do in the States.

But it is, man. Honestly, that's my favorite part of the job is kind of go down there and get re-centered. You don't have to worry about the foam all day, every day. Even for us as the big evil empire, as Skip likes to call us, when you go down there and meet our people, I mean, again, to them, you know, this is their livelihood, and they're just as passionate as any other cigar roller or buncher, so it's cool to kind of go back and get that perspective.

Absolutely. " Because it happens. Yeah. But it's all part of the culture.

It's part of the fun. It's part of the game, man. You got to do whatever it takes, you know? All right.

com/cigarhustlerpodcast to get all the swag needs from the show. This has been a Cigar Hustlers Podcast, a Mike and Mike production. m. for all new episodes.

Hi, I'm doing, I'm Hustoy Raw. Yeah, we just don't have to do a single podcast ever again. Perfect. I'm good, Mike and Mike, how are you guys doing?

I don't even have to try to hit the record. He's not even going to try. We're going to cover a lot of ground here, Mike. All right.

Try to keep up. That's a sign of a good podcast. It'd be like four cigars when I walked in a door. All right, end this.

Show Notes

This week from Diesel Cigars we get to sit down and talk with Justin Andrew the Brand manager from Cigars International.

We cover his rise to fame as the power and blending genius behind Diesel Bourbon Barrel and Sherry Cask Cigars! His humble beginning as a military Brat to getting shake down for cash by Nica Rebels!

An episode you certainly do not want to miss!!

As always we welcome your thoughts, ideas and gust suggestion on our FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast". You can follow the show on IG @cigarhustlerspodcast, Mikey @cigarhustler and "Mike Too" @fcc_mike.

Remember to always please rate, review and subscribe to the show!