Jon Carney Vice President of Sales - La Flor Dominician Premium Cigars Orgin Series Episode 12

Episode Summary

In Episode 12 of the Origin Series, the two Mikes sit down with Jon Carney, Vice President of Sales for La Flor Dominicana (LFD), to trace his unlikely path into premium cigars. Carney grew up in his family's restaurant business in Maine, came to Florida to attend UCF with the goal of one day running Disney — he even worked at Walt Disney World as a bellman, valet and a Pirates of the Caribbean "pirate" for six bucks an hour — then spent three years opening Olive Gardens for Darden Restaurants before a quarter-life crisis sent him back to grad school. A job at the Orlando shop Havana Sensations (owned by Ed Santoro), where LFD made up roughly 40% of sales, turned a hobby into a career and introduced him to Tony Gomez, then LFD's sales rep. Carney joined Litto and Ines Gomez in 2011 covering New York and New England, and was promoted to VP of Sales at 28 — at the time likely the youngest sales executive at a major cigar company.

The conversation digs into what the job actually involves: managing seven in-house reps plus Terry Coleman's West Coast brokerage, hiring and training into four empty territories when he took over, keeping a consistent message between reps and retailers, running cigar seminars and virtual factory tours, and coordinating shipping when demand outstrips supply. Carney is candid that the hardest part isn't logistics but aligning your own vision with that of family owners who have decades of success behind them — and he points to LFD's low turnover as evidence that approach works. He also details the growth of the Dominican factory and farm, now roughly 250 employees with new art, HR, printing, packaging and barcoding departments, with Tony Gomez and Litto running operations on the ground.

Carney recaps his first Pro Cigar Festival, explaining how the week moves from Punta Cana and La Romana (near the massive Casa de Garcia operation) up to Santiago, with two LFD farm-and-factory tours, the traditional Dominican dinner, the White Party at El Monumento, and the closing gala. He shares the story of going incognito on his own factory tour until guests realized who he was, and of a consumer who noticed the rolling room was producing nothing but Maduros — LFD playing catch-up because three of its top-selling SKUs are Maduro-wrapped. He also addresses why the limited-edition Andalusian Bull remains hard to find despite increased production.

The episode closes with the show's four standard questions — Carney picks John Cena and Winston Churchill as dream cigar companions, names the Padrón 1926 No. 1 Maduro as his all-time favorite cigar (LFD as his desert-island brand), and chooses "the Governor" from his family's Maine restaurant chain as his fictional pick. The hosts and guest smoke through LFD's new La Volcada (San Andrés wrapper, tango-inspired name from Litto's Uruguayan upbringing), the 1994 (named for the year Litto and Ines entered the business), and the rebranded Reserva Especial, which Carney notes is closely related to the Andalusian Bull blend.

In This Episode

1. 01
   From Maine restaurants to Disney pirate
   Carney's upbringing in the family restaurant business, studying hospitality at UCF, and his years working at Walt Disney World — including a stint as a Pirates of the Caribbean pirate.
2. 02
   Discovering cigars in Orlando
   Smuggled Cuban Romeo y Julietas, CAO flavored cigars, and a job at Havana Sensations that turned a hobby into a career.
3. 03
   Joining La Flor Dominicana
   How a friendship with Tony Gomez led to a Northeast sales rep role in 2011 and a promotion to VP of Sales at 28.
4. 04
   What a VP of Sales actually does
   Managing seven in-house reps plus a West Coast brokerage, hiring into empty territories, cigar seminars, events, and shipping when demand outpaces supply.
5. 05
   The hardest part of the job
   Aligning personal vision with family brand owners Litto and Ines Gomez, and why that keeps LFD's turnover low.
6. 06
   Inside the LFD farm and factory
   A 250-employee Dominican operation with new art, HR, printing, packaging and barcoding departments, run day-to-day by Tony Gomez and Litto.
7. 07
   Pro Cigar Festival explained
   How the Dominican festival moves from Punta Cana and La Romana to Santiago, with factory tours, the White Party at El Monumento, and the closing gala.
8. 08
   Four questions and what they're smoking
   Dream cigar companions, best advice, the Padrón 1926 No. 1 Maduro as his favorite, and reviews of La Volcada, LFD 1994, and Reserva Especial.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

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Transcript

Every day I'm hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling. Every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling. Welcome to a Cigar Hustlers Podcast, where we take a closer look at the people of the cigar industry, with your host, Mike and Mike. Hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, every day I'm, every day I'm, every day I'm, whole love.

Hi, I'm Mike. And I'm Mike also. And this is a Cigar Hustlers podcast. That's really kind of corny.

We might want to drop that. Whatever. We can fix it later. Okay.

All right. So we got a good friend of mine, the vice president of sales for LFD cigars, one Mr. John Carney. Say hello, John.

Hi, guys. How's it going? I thought your introduction, the unison and kind of harmonizing. You liked it.

That Mike did with the with the laughter was beautiful with your with your baritone voice. Oh, thank you very much. So, I think you guys should keep that up. I appreciate that.

Yeah, we, you know, we try and keep it keep it real here, right? Right. Oh, you're very quiet today, Mike. Sorry, it's been a long day.

Alright, so, obviously this podcast is more origin-based, and we want to know more about what you did before you got into the cigar industry and what you do now in the cigar industry. But before we get into that, let me ask you, exactly how old are you? I actually, I just had a birthday. Coincidentally, I was down in the Dominican Republic for it as well, so I don't remember all of it, but I believe I went from 33 to 34, and I'm 34 years old just recently, so 34 fine years so far.

Hopefully, there's much more than 34 left, but we'll see. So you're 34 years old, and you find yourself as the Vice President of Sales for La Flor de Minacana. Yeah, I think, so I've been in this role now for about five years. I've been with Lito and Inez, the owners of our company, since 2011, and I started with them when I was 27, and I took this position over right before I turned 29, so I was 28 at the time.

So I think at the time, I didn't really advertise this, but I think it was a claim to fame that in terms of either the medium to large sized businesses in the industry, that I was the youngest sales executive, so I didn't go around bragging because I had a lot of stuff that I was doing when I got promoted, like replacing territories, filling in with sales reps, which we have a good sales team now, but I didn't go around bragging, "Hey, I'm the youngest sales executive," because that's a good way to not be a... To not be a t-shirt or something. Yeah, well, it's a good way to not be the youngest sales executive by doing that, so it wasn't something that I bragged about, but in my head, I was sitting there, I was like, hey, I'm one of the younger guys in this industry, let alone in this type of position, so at the time I took that over, it was 28. There's definitely been a lot of learning curves over the last six years in the role, and it's been great.

You know, it was really unique to have the opportunity and be given that trust to learn and grow, so that was definitely unique. But yeah, at the time I was one of the younger and I believe I still may be, but I think I look, depending on how much steak I might be eating or wine I'm drinking for anyone that follows me, I think sometimes I look younger and older depending on the bloat level. So how did you find yourself into that position? Did you have soft supple hands?

I mean, I don't get it. Well, I was a drug runner for about 15 years prior to this. I started at 13. No, I went to UCF in Orlando, Central Florida, just south of here, and I grew up in the restaurant business.

My family owned restaurants from the time I was born, and I worked in them from the time I was about 10 years old. So, I grew up in the hospitality and restaurant industry, and I came down to Orlando for college, As colleges go, UCF was the leader in the hospitality industry in the world, being the second largest school in the country now, and also the national champions of football, for anyone who's curious, UCF Knights. Only undefeated? Yep, only undefeated team.

So I ended up going there because of the hospitality background, and my goal was I wanted to be the CEO of Walt Disney World. So that's kind of why I came down here. That was my goal from the time I was in probably middle school. school yeah career day not really career day but we're going around in our english classes and we had our guidance counselors in there and everybody's saying hey what they want to do some people are firefighters musicians whatever it was and i said ceo of walt disney world and uh sorry of disney and the teacher was like she goes that's oddly specific and i was like well that's exactly what That's what I want to do, but to liven that up, when I graduated high school, in the high school yearbook, my buddy Cole, who actually just got married a few years back, he's a big cigar smoker too, and his brother actually came down to the Dominican Republic for me, with me for my birthday that I mentioned earlier, and he said that his goal was to work for me in my casinos and in my yearbook, so that I was going to be a casino owner.

So I found a, through a couple different things, I ended up working at Disney for several years as a bellman and valet, I was also a pirate, Pirates of the Caribbean for a bit, yeah, I did that part-time, it was a good time. The stuff you learn on this podcast is just fucking fantastic. I'll tell you, man, the Disney thing, it was awful. It's one of those stories.

Change that whole CEO. Yeah, well, the CEO thing would have been great, but the problem is, when anybody tells me and asks me what my coolest job ever was, Other than saying, hey, being in the cigar industry now, which appears incredibly cool and really awesome, and most of the time it is, I'd say, oh, I used to work for Disney World as a pirate, and I was like, oh, man, that's so great, oh, it was terrible, I was getting paid six... I would just say I was a pirate. Yeah, I was getting paid six bucks an hour, you were working at a theme park dealing with annoying people the whole day, I mean, imagine when you were a tourist, how irritating you probably are towards the people that are working.

I know I'm terrible when I travel around, so dealing with me's all day was challenging, especially for six bucks, but there's no other job that's cooler than that. Working at the ride, I was in the retail shop, I did parades and stuff, so I did do that, I never got into the casino side of it, so maybe that's still ahead, but the cigar culture down in Orlando was something that I got into my freshman year at college through a really good friend of mine. Mike's family was pretty affluent, so they went on a lot of vacations throughout the year, and they'd always sneak back Cuban cigars, so we started smoking, you know, a little Romeo and Julietta, the Corona sizes, and then he got me onto the CAO flavors, and then I was kind of hooked, because they said the cigar culture in Orlando is huge, and the retail business in Orlando is kind of like a Disney world of cigars. So that's how I got started in enjoying cigars, and then after college I worked for Darden Restaurants, I was open new to Olive Gardens for them as a sales manager, and I did that for about three years, and that ended crash and burn in a flame of excellence, ended relationships, it was the quarter-life crisis at 25.

So I went back to grad school, really got into cigars and started working at a small cigar shop in West Orlando. for a bit as I was called Havana sensation it's not open anymore a friend of mine Ed Santoro owned that and that's kind of how I got not just into cigars that's how it went from a passion and something I did every once in a while a few times a week to it became something I did every day and that that shop really you know introduced me to the people that got me excited about the And realized that it could be a really good job, and then taking the opportunity from there, Tony Gomez, Lito's son, who's the maker of our Chapter 1, Lenox, Chapter 2, and coordinated with his dad on the Andalusian Bull, he was our sales rep, and I think he was your sales rep for a period of time too. And Havana Sensations crushed it with LFD stuff. Yeah, huge.

Yeah, it was about 40% of our business was LFD, so I was surrounded by LFD, and that's when I was really introduced to it. And Tony, as I said, was a sales rep, so I had a relationship with him. And at that time, I was just, you know, kind of run like a frat house at times. You know, we did events, it was a party.

So I ran into Tony one night, we were doing an event, and, you know, we just hit it off and stayed close over the next year, and then it turned into me being offered a position with them as a sales rep. I was rep for the Northeastern United States where I did New York and New England, but I mean, I never dreamt of one, there being a job in cigars, especially premium cigars, I had no idea what that was, the only cigar lounge stuff I knew was what I knew from the local area, I'd never been to cigar lounges anywhere else before, and I was an idiot, so I had no money, so I couldn't travel anywhere, so I stayed around that area, but the, you know, the really fun part of it was, I was going in and finding that it was a great job. It was a really thriving business in the northeastern United States. One of my biggest territories of the territory I had was New Hampshire, which is super cigar friendly, very similar to Florida.

Cigar bars, you can smoke outdoors at restaurants. So that was fun. So it really introduced me to another culture and then story for another podcast, how it ran into this role and this position. One thing led to another and I ended up being promoted to another culture.

I went into the vice president role, and I'll say the most rewarding part of this, for me personally and professionally, was the day that I got to call my parents up, because they thought it was a bad idea from the beginning, they're like, cigars, like, what are you going to do? What are you doing with your life? Yeah, and I dropped out of grad school to do it, so they're like, come on, you spent a lot of money on that, what's the deal? And then, you know, I was the rep for two years, but the day I got promoted, I got to call up and say, hey, you know, I got a promotion today.

And they're like, oh, really? Yeah, what are you, head pirate now? Yeah, head pirate. Like, well, to what?

Because at that time I was also, I was getting out of the cigar business when I got promoted. I was going to go back into the family business and restaurants back up in Maine. We didn't own any, but there's a chain of six restaurants my dad runs, and he's very actively involved in the political side of it through the National Restaurant Association. So I was going to go back and get more involved in that politically and try to figure out what I was doing.

But then the opportunity arose for this position, and I was able to do that. So when I let them know about it, their understanding was that I was leaving the cigar business and moving back to Maine and I was living outside of Boston at the time, so I called them up and it was like, oh, another, my parents are like, oh, another whirlwind idea, what's going on? And they're like, what are you getting promoted to? And I go, vice president of sales.

And they're like, really? So I go, yeah. And I go, I'm not moving. I go, I'm still going to be coming up to Maine for a short time when we figure it out, but I start next week.

I'm going to be down in Miami and coincidentally one of my one of my dream job as a kid before I wanted to be CEO of Disney Company was I wanted to be a pilot for Delta Airlines okay that's what I wanted to do until I realized that I hated math and I had a local friend of our family that came to Embry-Riddle down here in Florida and I saw how much math stuff they had to do I was like this is just miserable I don't want to go through these courses to learn how to fly a jet. And the reason I wanted to do that to tie everything together was at Disney, they had this ride called Delta Dream Flight, because Delta used to be the preferred airline of Disney. Walt Disney World, yeah. Yeah, and Walt Disney actually was going to build a runway, and the area is still there.

I don't think it's been built in, but if you can get around, you can see it's towards the entrance of Magic Kingdom when you're going in there. There's this area that was set aside as a runway, and what he was going to do was have a runway so planes and jets and tourists could just come straight to Disney World. It was in Disney World. Oh, wow.

What a difference that would have made. Huge. And it changed. Obviously, that's why Orlando has become what it is, is because of what's going on in Disney.

So all that growth was a part of his dream and his vision. But they had a ride. There was Delta. So you go on, it was like you were riding on a Delta jet around the planet.

So I used to pray at night. It was like, "Oh, I want to be a Delta Airlines pilot. " So, when I got promoted into this role, from when I was younger, from that ride, my dad had started me a SkyMiles account when I was like four years old, so I had a Delta SkyMiles account, and I started to have to travel the country. Only four-year-old I know that has it.

Yeah, so I just fast-forward 24 years, I'm 28, and I'm starting to travel around the country, and I'd always, as I said, I'd always pray, like, I want to travel around the country and be a pilot for Delta. I got the better end of that deal, because now I fly around the country on Delta, and I'm not the pilot, and I get to sip on cocktails off and on, so I kind of look back, and everything I've ever asked for, anything I ever thought about, or things I set my goals towards, I've got to do at least a little bit of it, and maybe not the CEO of Disney World, but I got to work there, I'm not the pilot on the plane, but it's more fun sitting in the passenger seat on Delta, so a lot of the things that I'd envisioned, there's more to go, but what brought me to this has been They're really unique and a lot of things I wanted to experience as a kid I'm getting to do now. That's awesome. That's cool.

So, VP of sales, what do you think is the most difficult part of your job? Because I think that you've got a lot of difficult portions, however, there's got to be something that really sticks out just for you. I'd say, so I work for a brand that is family-owned, husband and wife, mom and pop essentially, And they're the faces of the brand, and they're the ones that built the brand. I would say probably the more unique challenge on a side that people don't generally get to see is representing individuals in the business and representing their views and their goals on a daily basis because everybody goes into something and you have your own idea of how you want to do it.

Right. And I think one of the more unique challenges, and I'm not saying it's the hardest thing, but I say one of the more unique challenges is working with people who have 24 years worth of success, and they have a view of the way they want to do things, and fitting your views in with that, and working into what their vision is. And I don't think that's an easy thing for people to do, and I'm not patting myself on the back because I've been able to do it for seven years, but I'd say that's definitely one of the more challenges. It's everybody every day, especially in the society we live in, you want to do whatever you want to do when you want to do it.

And the reason why is because I think it's the right thing to do. You know, my views and my opinions aren't always the best and aren't always the best way of doing it. And the way we think of things being done isn't always necessarily the best. But when you have a family that you work for that has a track record of success and a track record that they have with the brand, I'd say putting, bringing in new things and working with the brand.

And working together on that is one of the more unique challenges. I said, I don't think it's hard, and I think it makes us better. Right. All of us.

You know, it's definitely made me better working with them. I hope the same in reverse for them. So I'd say that's probably one of the more unique challenges that people don't get to see. Because they kind of have a vision.

Yeah. And I said, probably the hardest thing is just the amount of time out on the road. Right. You know, people see me around.

I'm always at a cigar event, or I'm traveling here and there. Right. " I've been home three times in the last month, so I'd say that's probably the biggest challenge, is having a normal existence on that end, but I wouldn't trade it for anything, but as I said, on a personal level, the biggest challenge for me is working with people's vision and how to do that. Now, we've been successful with it, and that's been one of my big growth areas personally, but that's, I think, the biggest challenge in the cigar industry as a whole.

You see some, you know, this isn't to call other people out in other areas, but you see some revolving doors sometimes, and when there's a revolving door, you can tell it's somebody stepping in there, you know, you want to bring, there's definitely been my signature on our team and on our company at LFD, there's definitely my, you know, my focus is the way we run the team, the way we do things, I've definitely left an impact on that, and I do, but you always see a lot of revolving doors sometimes in the cigar. And people jump in, they're like, oh, gung ho, this is what needs to be done, this is what needs to happen, and whenever you jump into a situation where something needs to improve, whether it's, you know, for us it was making sure we had consistent sales representation, and that was through leadership of making sure things were communicated correctly and making sure they had the right person in the right role, there's a lot of people that jump in like, this has to happen today, and, you know, the reality is, it doesn't have to happen today, and the way this industry works, sometimes things go a little slower and you have to be on The same thing when you're dealing with a customer, I walk into your retail outlet, I'm not going to tell you how to run your business, so how am I going to work with you to try to influence you to do more business with me with it fitting with what you're doing, because that's what success is about, and that's how you'd feel successful with our brand, so I see a lot of that in the industry, and I see a lot of the times, there's some areas where I say this situation could be really successful for this person if they could just see that their vision, It has to align with the vision of their brand owners, and I think that's been something that's worked out really nicely for me and for Lito and Inez and for LFD over the last seven years. For sure. I mean, one thing that LFD does well is they don't have a high churn ratio.

You're absolutely correct. I mean, we had Tony first, and then he moved up and moved over to the DR, and we've had Leo ever since, you know, so that's really true. And you're right, that isn't common in this industry, for sure. If we were having this podcast, you know, six, seven years ago, this wouldn't be the same type of discussion.

I mean, there is a lot of turnover, you know, in this industry, and that's been something that's been, you know, I ignored that as probably the biggest challenge, but I took over at four empty territories. So I spent time, you know, working through, you know, with Lito and Inez, making sure we interviewed, hired the right people, went through the right processes to make sure these people would want to be around. So, on the actual logistics of the job, that was the biggest challenge from, you know, from the last five and a half years that I've been in this role, I don't quote it a lot of times, I've been in the company for seven years, I've been in this role for about five and a half, so that's where the six comes from, but that was probably the hardest actual task of the job when I took it over, was hiring and training new people across different territories and different parts of the country every week, so that was, logistically, that was a big challenge, but the rewards of that are great, Because now, you know, now the images, you know, you said we don't traditionally have a lot of turnover, you're not a company that has a lot of turnover, so for me that's really rewarding to hear that. For sure.

So, what is, so explain a little bit more about what you do exactly for VP sales. I understand that you obviously have a lot of correspondence with every single salesman, right? You have to, for one, you have to hire some of those salesmen, and then you're obviously always flying around with those salesmen, correct? The number one job, the number one task in my job description is to post as many state pictures on Instagram as possible.

Well, then you do that well. I mean, you must be up for a raise at this point. I exceed the expeditions. No, I work mostly with our sales team.

You know, the way that I manage our team is I want them to essentially be directors and managers of their territories, so I give them a lot of responsibility within their territory. I'm not there to micromanage them doing their jobs, I have expectations that are set up, and this is what we need to do, but with that we work together daily, you know, via phone, email, communicating the same message, because I'd hate for a retailer to get a message from my salesperson and then not get the same message from me and make sure that we're on the same page, so a lot of that, a lot of the work is working with the sales team, making sure that we have a clear image and a clear voice, that's huge, coordinating shipping, making sure products are coming in, making sure things are long, making sure things are long. The last year or so, we've been in a spot where the demand for the product's been far outweighing our ability to supply things, so having a clear voice and a clear vision on that and a clear direction has been even more important, so that's been bigger in the last few years than it even was before, and that's been good for our team, so a lot of that, I do a lot of events, I go around and do a lot of cigar seminars, I haven't done as many at the beginning of this year, just because we're trying to get our heads on straight for that. It's from a crazy 2017, but I do do a lot of cigar seminars when I go out there, and we'll do cigar-to-see type tours and virtual tours in stores, so I do a lot of that, a lot of educational things.

Sometimes the educational processes involve tasting liquors, and also involve a lot of smoking cigars, but yeah, mainly I manage the sales team, manage our sales strategies, manage our events, making sure we're all on the same page. We're doing a lot of expanding now, so a lot of more marketing things are happening in stores that we'll be unveiling throughout 2018, which will take some more time, but with empowering your team members to make decisions and being involved in the process with them while not micromanaging has been huge, and it's really made for a lot of successes for us on the road, not just product-wise, but in terms of personal and professional growth. How many salesmen do you have? Oh my gosh.

Gosh, we're about to have one less if Lou doesn't pay attention over there. No, I have, we have seven in-house sales reps and we have one brokerage on the West Coast, they operate essentially as sales reps for us. They've been, his name's Terry Coleman, Terry's been with us for 15 years I would say. And they represent our products and our brands very well, so they essentially are managed like an in-house rep.

And then Tony Gomez, Tony still actually covers Miami, because it gives him an excuse to come back to Miami once a month, because if not, I'm not sure if he would, because he spends most of his time down at the factory working there on blends and new packaging and managing the factory, which is becoming quite an impressive operation. Our base, which is our factory and farm, has always been bigger than the final product, and that's what's allowed us to consistently grow and keep the product consistent at the same time, It's making sure what's producing it is always fertile. So that's been quite a bit of management down there. I mean, we just opened up a pretty significant art department down there.

We have a human resources department at our factory. Printing areas, packaging rooms, barcoding rooms, that's all new in the last year and a half. So there's about 250 employees down there to manage. And Tony and Lito are the ones that are making the decisions down there with help of an executive team down there as well.

That's been really resourceful for us, but there's definitely so much more going on down there over the last several years than there was before, so, you know, it's, we're not just, we're down in the Dominican Republic, it's work, it's not hanging out on the beaches all the time. Again, people get to see the pictures we post. It's got Lito riding around on the little, uh, it's, it's not just Lito riding around on horses, uh, you know, there is that, but that's for pictures, uh, but no, there's a lot of work. He does this video when he's on the little two-wheels, he did have that Segway, yeah, yeah, the little hoverboard thing, yeah, I think those things catch on fire.

Yeah. He's still got it in the office. It's plugged in. But no, there's a lot of work that goes on down there.

So they have their hands full as much as we do here domestically, too. So you just got back from Pro Cigar, right? Can you tell the listeners what Pro Cigar is? Because I'm sure that some people know what it is, but I got a feeling that a lot of people don't know what it is as well.

So Pro Cigar is essentially a trade group of the manufacturers, the top manufacturers in the Dominican Republic. And every year they put on a massive cigar festival celebrating the cigar culture and celebrating the history and the future and the present of the premium cigar business in the Dominican Republic. And now this year was the first year that I actually had a chance to go. That was your first time.

Yeah, generally I take one of my vacation weeks that week, it's the same week as my birthday, so I always generally take that off and it's a good chance to kind of take a break because it's sometimes a slower time of the year. It's always like the third week of February, and it's an incredible festival. So I had the opportunity to go down, we brought some guests with us, and it was definitely a unique experience. When I go, I've been to the DR now probably 12 or 15 times, and to our factory at least, you know, 13 or 14 of those visits.

And when I go down there, generally I'm taking down my sales team, we're having a sales meeting, talking business, you know, explaining what's going on in the factory, you know, educating. Why you can't get Andalesian Bulls? Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, yeah.

Educating on those things. Right. So, it was fun this time to go down, because for about the first day and a half, nobody even knew that I worked for LFD, other than the group that was with us as guests. So I got to see our farm and factory as truly just a guest.

Right. With no other obligations. However, that ended about halfway through the tour day, when there was somebody in the back that couldn't hear what was being said. And they were like, oh, I can't hear what's being said.

It's too bad I can't hear it. And I said, well, this is happening. We're in the aging and fermentation room. And then we went over to where they were stripping the veins out of tobacco and they were sorting it.

And I started answering questions. They're like, have you been on this tour before? They're like, how do you know this? They're looking at each other going, who is this young guy?

What the hell are you doing? Yeah, so I had my American flag hat on. I was dressed incognito. S.

And they're like, "Oh, that's so great. " Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little tour in the back while Lolito was talking, which was good, and we got to create some good friendships that way as well, but it was fun for that short time to be incognito and just be down there for fun for the week with the group that we had down. And it was kind of funny on what you were talking about, you were saying how back-ordered on Andalusian Bowl. So that's a limited edition product.

Right. So just because I got Cigar of the Year doesn't change. It's a limited edition. It doesn't mean everyone likes it or we like it, you know, in regards to our, you know, the inability to supply the demand for it.

We are making a ton more of it than we ever did. It's just the demand is so high on it. Yeah. But it's funny at the Pro Cigar this year, one of the guys that ran into me and met me, he and his wife were sitting on the bus with us on the ride back.

He's like, hey, I've got a funny question to ask you. He's like, I noticed. He goes, do you guys make any non-Maduro cigars? And I said, why you ask that?

He goes, well, I was in the rolling room. He goes, all the rollers, there was like 120 of them. He goes, all the rollers were just making Maduros. He goes, I didn't see any natural cigars.

I go, well, coincidentally, I go, it's funny you notice that. I go, we just had a really crazy 2017. I went, our top-selling SKUs, three of our top-selling SKUs are all Maduro wrappers. I go, so the supply was very low on it.

I go, so what you were watching us do is us playing catch-up. I go, so everyone was doing that. I go, we're in a fine spot on everything else. I go, but you were witnessing catch-up.

I go, it's funny that you noticed it because nobody else brought it up. And honestly, I noticed it because I knew we were doing it, but I didn't really think of it when we were walking through the rolling room with the group. So it was kind of fun to watch what's happening in the business here is actually being reflected on what's going here. It was also rewarding being in sales to know that, you know, that product is going to be readily available here sometime in the very near future.

So that was a fun, you know, a fun question and unique that the consumer picked up on it. Yeah, no doubt. So, the other portion, so Pro Cigar is like a week long? So, it does kind of span the whole Dominican Republic.

It starts out in Punta Cana and La Romana. Okay. Down there you have Casa de Garcia, which makes Monte Cristo, those products. They, that's a huge factory down in that area, it's massive, I mean it's a, it's as big as you can get in terms of premium cigars, so the trip starts down in that area, and the celebration starts there, there's some golfing that goes on that first part of the week, it starts, I believe it starts on Sunday, it goes Sunday, Monday, and then Tuesday, they transport everyone, it's about a four and a half, five hour drive up from Punta Cana, La Romana to Santiago, which is in the northwestern part of the country, which is kind of the mecca of premium cigars, everything in the country.

Everything kind of revolves around that area. Santo Domingo is the capital, but Santiago is the place where cigars are at, so the celebration happens there, and there's multiple tours every day, there's different tours, we're fortunate that we do, we're one of the very few that has two tours, we do two tours during the week, just because we have a very unique and different experience, it's small, everything is, everything we do is in that one place, you know, from manufacturing, So when you see the farm, the tobacco goes straight to where the factory's at, and it has a really beautiful courtyard area, and it's really, really inviting and hospitable to host a group, so we're fortunate to have two trips each time. And then each evening, there's celebratory dinners. One night's a traditional Dominican-style dinner.

The second night's called the White Party, which is one of the most popular parties in all of the Dominican Republic. People from all the areas from Santo Domingo and around the country come to buy tickets just for that evening, and that's hosted at a really historic site called El Monumento, and it's the only event that's actually allowed on that property throughout the year, and only dinner event, and then the final evening is the gala dinner, which is all high-end, dressed to the nines, and then it ends at the end of the night with a rave party, essentially. Nice. Yeah, it was like Daft Punk or something was there performing, it blew my mind, so that went on until like 2:00 in the morning, so great time.

I'm not saying to just promote what we're doing and what the country's doing. I mean, I've never been to anything like that before. I had high expectations going in, and the hospitality that was shown by the Pro Cigar group, the organization was incredible, everything was timed perfect, and then the hospitality that Lito and Inez and Tony showed at the farm and factory for me was unmatched and really blew it out of the water. So I highly suggest, if anyone has a chance to go, Pro Cigar, just searching on Google, it was definitely a memorable experience.

Right. No doubt. I think the only thing I really got out of this interview is John Carney the Pirate. Because I'm definitely taking that with me.

For sure. For sure. I'm going to commandeer your cigar. So, we have a couple of questions.

You obviously, you're not a listener yet, but we're working on that. And we are in how many countries at this point? Twelve countries. Twelve countries.

We are in twelve countries around the world. That's pretty impressive. You know, I'm going to pat on our back for that one. Not too shabby.

So, we have a few questions that we'd like to ask. Four. We're up to four. Four questions that we'd like to ask.

Everybody who's on the show. Yep. And you're not prepared for it, which I really, really like. Perfect.

And fire away, Mike, when you're ready. Just, I have one comment, Mike, before you go. Certainly. I think it's obvious from how much I talk that I'm just not a good listener in general.

So it might be better that I'm not a listener yet, but I did download the podcast and I'm subscribed to it. Boom, there you go. Now when you fly, because you can't drive the plane, you can listen to the podcast. There you go, you can catch up on all the bullshit that everybody else says.

All right, fire. All right, first question. What one person, living or dead, would you like to share a cigar with? You know, I was just having this conversation, and I'm going to give you two answers to this.

Just having a conversation. My number one living changed recently. I always wanted to have a cigar with Michael Jordan. I still do.

I think that would be fun. But I've changed it recently. I want to have a cigar with John Cena. Ah, very nice, man.

Does he smoke cigars? John Cena smokes cigars. He's a really nice guy from what I heard. He does smoke cigars.

And his father is a huge cigar smoker. So I'm going to start by enjoying a cigar with him sometime. He lives up in Massachusetts area. But I think enjoying a cigar with John Cena is at the top of my list right now.

Big wrestling fan. He does more make a wish than anybody else in the world. Yeah, ever. He holds a record for it.

I just think the stories you would have while you get him down to smoke a cigar would be incredible. So my number one living now is John Cena. I think just to make people jealous on a passed away cigar smoker, you gotta pick Winston Churchill. Right.

Just again, the stories he has, how his upbringing, how he became who he was, he was a pretty out there guy, he had some really strange hobbies, so, and he's, you know, he's a face of premium cigars nowadays. Right. So I said, passed away Winston Churchill would be good, and then, that's with celebrities, and then living John Cena, passed away non-celebrity, it'd be fun to have with my grandfather, my dad's dad, I never got a chance to meet him. Right.

I don't know if he was a cigar guy, but that would be cool, so non-celebrity, that would be it, but yeah, Sina, Churchill, Grandpa. Sina. What's really cool about this interview is I can literally just say one thing and then, you know, you just kind of take over, which is fantastic. But that's the whole purpose of this podcast, so you're doing fucking awesome.

All right, question number two, best piece of advice anyone ever gave you? No, wow. Wow. I wish I'd written some of this stuff down.

You know, one of the best pieces of advice that I ever had was that, you know, time and success, there's no path. I can't say the right words or where I got it, but I know where it came from. You know, it's not a predetermined path. If you're looking at success based off of other people, you're never going to be successful in your mind.

I try to gauge my success and I try to gauge success in life based off of trying to be better than myself the day before so if I can continue to be focused on being a better person or working harder than I did the day before and if I'm always competing with myself then I'm not worried about what's going on around me as much and I would say probably the last eight years I've worked really hard for myself. It's hard personally to not concern myself with too much of what's going on around me, being aware of it because you don't want to affect other people's lives, but if you focus on personal growth and focus on being a better version of yourself every day, you're going to get to where you want to be and then the outside is going to look in saying, "Hey, I want to do this. " So I hope that's what successful people do because I hope to be a successful person someday. Well, it works for you.

So I would say that's probably the best piece of advice. The pirate device president of a large cigar company. Exactly. So yeah, just try to be better than yourself every day and move forward without judging your success on what other people are doing.

Envy is a really bad thing. Awesome. Very good. Alright, next question.

What is your favorite cigar? Ooh. So, I've always been partial to LFD. I've been a big LFD smoker since the early 2000s.

It obviously expanded a lot more in 2007, '08, and '09, when I got into smoking a little bit fuller body products, not smoking CO flavors anymore, but I've always been partial of the, it's always been my go-to cigar, however, my number one favorite cigar in the history of the world is the Padrón 1926 number one Maduro, so that's my favorite go-to, if I were to have, they say, "Oh, you're gonna smoke one more cigar for the rest of your life," I would smoke Padrón 1926 number one Maduro. If they said you can smoke one brand of cigars for the rest of your life, I would pick LFD because we've got a lot of things offered in there, and it's been my everyday cigar for 12 years, but yeah, Padrón 1926, number one Maduro. That was a long answer. That's awesome.

We love long answers. " You covered that already. You did a great job. You did a great job.

It's the first time I've ever answered that. Really? And you heard it here first. All right, final question.

What fictitious person would you like to share a cigar with? Fictional character. Fictional character. Could be a TV show, movie.

Somebody from a book. Yeah. Cartoon character. Would somebody pick Fred Flintstone?

That's a really good question. Fred Flintstone's cool. Then he changed it. He did change it.

Fictional character. You have to listen to find out. Man, that's really, really challenging. Mike Fictional Characters, Smoking a Cigar So, my dad works for this brand, it's called Governor's Restaurant and Bakery, up in Maine, and the governor is this little guy, he's a character, he's made up, he's the governor, and he used to have a cigar in his mouth, and when all the anti-smoking stuff started going on 20 years ago, they ended up taking the cigar out of his mouth, but there's still some pictures of him smoking a cigar.

And I used to work for that company when I was in high school, after high school and a little bit in college during the summers, and the governor always had a cigar in his mouth when I knew the governor growing up. So I would love to have a cigar with the governor when he was still a cigar smoker. That's awesome. That is a great answer.

And it's really cool. So occasionally I'll post a picture up online. It's not on any of their branding and stuff anymore. But yeah, the governor always had a cigar in his mouth, a very regal guy, and he had huge cheeks.

He was always puffing on a cigar and eating a piece of strawberry pie, so I'm going to pick the governor for fictitious just because of the history. That's awesome. See, I would have thought you would have gone a totally different direction. Yes, what do you think I was going?

I was going to peg you for, looks like you'd be a Stallone guy. No, I was going to say Tommy from Peaky Blinders, or maybe, you know. Well, here's the thing. So I was thinking about like movies, I was thinking about TV shows, obviously I'm huge in Peaky Blinders.

Right. So the reason I didn't go that way, because there's so many that I want to, So narrowing it down quickly to one, the Governor would be a cool, fictitious character. You know what made me think of is when you mentioned Fred Flintstone, I was like, what would be a cool cigar thing that I always, that kind of was something that was part of my history, that would be really cool, but I mean, celebrity-wise, any Denzel Washington character, driving around in the car during training days, any of the Shelby Brothers and Peaky Blinders would be fun, endless amounts of cool, like the Transformer from Transformers. So if you're searching for me on social media, my Instagram account is @L as in Larry, F as in Larry, F as in Larry, F as in Larry.

frank d is in david c-a-r-n-y l-f-d carney uh i'd say my instagram account is kind of a a focus of travel food and cigars and occasionally wine um but you'll see pictures of places that i'm going food i'm uh food i'm eating most of the food i post is food i cook uh which is kind of fun that's a hobby of mine so i have cigars on there too uh it's all lfd cigars now occasionally Certainly, there's something on there, but mostly all LFD when I'm traveling around with cigars, and then that's my social media on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook's not as fun as my Instagram is, Instagram's the best way to do it, but you can find my Facebook through there, but there's not as much fun on Facebook, unless you're into steak, wrestling, the New England Patriots, and anything Boston-related sports, if you're interested in that, you can direct message me on Instagram, and I'll give you my Facebook. But please, as I said, disclaimer, there's about 18 to 19 weeks of the year that you'll hate me because it's all New England Patriots. That is awesome. Hey, what are we all smoking, by the way?

What do you got? So, Mike, you're smoking the, Mike One is smoking the La Volcada, which is our new release that came out right at the beginning of the year, slowly seeping into the market, anticipate probably summertime, we'll start to see a little more exposure on it. Right. Just because the demand was very high on it, but La Vocada is a tango-themed cigar.

The La Vocada in the dance, the tango, which was created in Uruguay, which is where Lito grew up, that is the part of the dance where the man dips the woman, so that's kind of fun. He actually danced the tango at Pro Cigar this year, but that's a medium, full body, real rich, got a San Andreas wrapper, real rich fillers in it, real fun smoke. I enjoy that a lot because it's not too strong, but it's definitely got some strength to it. Mike Tu, what do you got there?

He's got Coronado, I believe. Oh, sorry, 1994. Yeah, that's actually my favorite everyday blend. 1994 uses a little lower priming San Andreas wrapper, which is similar to the La Volcata.

It's a nice straight, medium-bodied cigar, and 1994 was the year that Lito and Inez got into the cigar business, so that was released in 2014, and I smoke that every day. If you haven't got your hands on that before, I'd highly suggest trying. It's very good. Yeah, price point's nice on them too, they run six to eight bucks and then I'm smoking our Reserva Special which was our second line of cigars that came out in 1996 and it was just recently rebranded about a year and a half ago with really fresh white boxes.

It may or may not have had a blend change, some people say that it has, it technically hasn't, I can't tell you if it has or has not, from my understanding it hasn't but it's definitely got a really unique Ecuadorian wrapper So we're on it, Dominican Binder and Filler, and this was a blend that is closely related to our Andalusian Bolt, so that's been a really big success for us, and the reason you and I, Mike, are smoking La Volcada and Reserva Speciale are because these were from my Pro Cigar Pack, so I don't actively have these right this moment, so we're smoking two items that are probably a few weeks away from being back to normal, but I happen to have them in my Pro Cigar Bag that I brought up with me. Thank you for sharing. That's pretty much it. Alright, if you like what you hear, please give us your feedback, or if you don't like what you hear, give us your feedback, we want to know what we can do to make it better.

But the more we like to hear that you do like to hear. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You know, we don't really ever plug how we can be found, right? No, it's on the intro when we post the thing, but no, we don't.

Okay. If you want to go ahead. Well, I mean, I can be found at CigarHustler on Instagram. FloridaCigarClub_Mike on Instagram.

And if you like what we're doing, please share it with your friends, you know, the more people that listen, the more people we can provide education about the cigar industry is what we want to do, and that's kind of our goal here, so. That was new, that was nice, I like that. Thank you, I just thought of that. I think the, you get to see, with social media, you get to see a lot of faces from the cigar business, and you get to see some of the stuff they do in their lives, and you know, I follow a bunch of people from the cigar business who are my colleagues.

I follow peers, and it's fun to watch their travels, watch what they do day to day. It's really interesting. However, a lot of the time I get caught, even with people who I consider very close friends in the business, I think we get caught and we don't realize what they did or who they are to get to where they were at. And I've been listening to some things recently where people were asking some questions like this, and you got to really see, hey, this person, this is where they came from, this is what they did.

It was some interesting facts that they had, and you don't get to see that on the social media, and I think what you guys are doing here with the podcast, bringing it to a little more personal level, is really unique, because you mentioned some of the other guests you have on, and I follow those guys on Instagram, and I consider most of them friends, and I'm like, wait a minute, I don't know any of this stuff about them, I'm like, I'm their friend because I saw them post a picture of a salad last week, or a piece of steak, or a cigar, and they are. I don't think anybody that we have had on the podcast has posted a salad, just for the record. No, no, I said that just for the health conscious crap. Maybe Matt Hunt.

Yeah, maybe Matt Hunt. Because he's real bougie. He didn't eat, but he just posted a picture. Right.

But yeah, it's cool to hear personal stuff, different way people are thinking, and that's the side of the business that you don't always get to see. So thanks for having me on and giving me the chance to do it on my own. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for coming on, man.

You're a great friend. We obviously have a good friendship outside of the cigar industry. But you didn't know he was a pirate. I did not know the pirate, but now I know the pirate.

I know the pirates. So I'm going to take that and fucking run with it. There's so many good pirate stories too. I said we could go on and on and on on that stuff.

Just have a pirate episode. That is fantastic. Pirate Talk with John Carney. So, you know, thank you again for coming on, man.

And that's pretty much it. That would be a wrap. Thank you. Pleasure, gentlemen.

Thank you. Boop. All right, gang, that's it. Show's over.

Time to put out that cigar and get back to work. Ain't nobody gonna do it for you. Everybody get hustlin'. They told 'em, don't you ever come around here, don't wanna see your face, you better disappear.

The fire's in their eyes, and their works are really clear, so feed it, just feed it. You better run, you better do what you can. Don't wanna see...

Show Notes

Jon Carney explain to us this week how his dream of being a pilot led him to a job as a pirate and then ultimately to LFD Cigars!

You can follow us on IG @Cigarhustlerpodcast or go to our FB page at A Cigar Hustlers Podcast.  Leave us your thoughts and comments or suggest a gues you would like to hear us have on the show!

You can follow Mike Szczepankiewicz on IG @cigarhustler and Mike Palmer @Floridacigarclub_mike.