Matt Hunt FQ Cigars Episode 2

Episode Summary

Hosts Mike Szczepankevich (Cigar Hustler, Deltona, FL) and Mike Palmer (Florida Cigar Club) sit down with Matthew Hunt, the young founder of FQ Cigars, for a long-form conversation about how a 26-year-old builds a boutique cigar brand from scratch. Matt traces the spark back to age 18, smoking a cheap Cuban with his brother on a Mediterranean cruise ship and then watching well-dressed men in the ship's casino — the moment that hooked him on the "class never goes out of style" romance of cigars. Back in Florida he became "Matt the cigar guy," buying cigars cheap in St. Pete and taking orders from friends at FSU and UF, before a chance meeting with John Oliva of Oliva Tobacco Company (founded 1934) at an engagement party revealed old family business ties in Cuba and opened the doors to Nicaragua at 19.

Matt explains the meaning behind the FQ name: Ferdinandez y Quiroga, his mother's paternal family who brokered Cuban tobacco and her maternal family who ran Ron Quiroga rum — historically the main rival to Bacardi on the eastern end of the island. The hosts also share the story of how they met, including the box of unbranded bundle samples Matt mailed to a shop ten minutes from his house because he wasn't ready to pitch a brand without boxes, and the mutual friend (Emil of Cordoba & Morales) who connected the dots.

The heart of the interview is the new FQ Proper, releasing February 3rd at Underground Cigars in Fort Worth, Texas with Don Wiggins. Matt describes asking NACSA (Nicaraguan American Cigars S.A.) for access to every tobacco in their bodegas so he could take notes on seco, viso and ligero by farm and year, then blending the cigar top to bottom himself: thick aged broadleaf, Honduran and Nicaraguan filler, a Honduran binder chosen for its sweet, aromatic character, and an Ecuadorian Habano Oscuro wrapper with a triple cap and closed foot. Because the closed foot and heavy fill make plugging a risk, he hand-inspected and personally signed every cigar in the release — his justification for the higher price point and the first cigar to carry his name on the band.

The episode closes with the recurring "Palmer Questions": Matt would smoke with Nat King Cole, shares two favorite pieces of advice ("no matter how hard you work, there's always someone working harder" and "live years like some people won't so you can live the rest of your life like most people can"), and names his favorite cigars — that first garbage Cuban on the cruise for the memory, and Nick Melillo's Highclere Castle as his current regular smoke. Along the way there are detours into his pre-cigar jobs (mall Easter Bunny, Newport Group 401k intern, server at Cocina 214, Procter & Gamble fragrance vendor) and an honest riff on entrepreneurship versus the nine-to-five.

In This Episode

1. 01
   The cruise ship cigar that started it all
   At 18, Matt smoked a no-name Cuban with his brother on a Mediterranean cruise and fell in love with the old-school elegance of cigar culture.
2. 02
   Becoming "Matt the cigar guy"
   Buying cheap cigars in St. Pete and reselling them at FSU and UF frat parties turned a hobby into his first cigar business.
3. 03
   Meeting John Oliva and getting to Nicaragua
   A chance engagement-party introduction to John Oliva of Oliva Tobacco uncovered old Cuban family ties and got a 19-year-old into Nicaraguan factories and farms.
4. 04
   What FQ stands for
   Ferdinandez y Quiroga — his mother's tobacco-brokering family and the Ron Quiroga rum family that once rivaled Bacardi in Cuba.
5. 05
   How the hosts met Matt
   The story of unbranded bundle samples mailed to a shop ten minutes away, and why he didn't walk in the door himself.
6. 06
   Odd jobs before cigars
   Mall Easter Bunny, 401k intern, restaurant server, and Procter & Gamble fragrance vendor — plus why corporate life never fit.
7. 07
   Blending the FQ Proper
   Matt details tasting every tobacco in NACSA's bodegas and building the blend: aged broadleaf, Honduran and Nicaraguan filler, Honduran binder, Ecuadorian Habano Oscuro wrapper, triple cap and closed foot.
8. 08
   The Palmer Questions
   Nat King Cole as his dream smoking companion, his favorite advice on outworking the competition, and his favorite cigars past and present.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

Linked items are in our shop. Mentions without a link aren’t currently stocked or couldn’t be matched with confidence.

Transcript

Every day I'm 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 Hustle real hard. Hustle, hustle real hard. Hustle real hard. Hustle real hard.

Hustle, hustle real hard. Hustle, hustle real hard. Hustle and hustle and hustle and hustle and hustle and hustle and hustle. Every day I'm, every day I'm, every day I'm, every day I'm, whole love.

Welcome to Cigar Hustlers Podcast with your host, Mike Szczepankevich from Cigar Hustler in Deltona, Florida, and me, I'm Mike Palmer from Florida Cigar Club. Sit back, light up your cigar, everybody get ready, let's get hustling. Hello, everybody. I'm Mike.

And I'm Mike, too. And this is a Cigar Hustlers podcast. We are here today with the ever-so-glamorous, ever-so-bougie Mr. Matthew Hunt of FQ Cigars.

Say hi, Matt. Hey, how you doing? Doing pretty well. Now, Matt's a pretty good friend of ours.

We've been putting up with each other for, I don't know, how many years now at this point? It's been, what, three or four years at least? We both know that you got a pretty good story to tell and we figured that it'd be appropriate to have you on the show. Before you start getting into it, I just want to give a little more background about you and kind of our friendship.

We've seen you come a long way in this industry with FQ Cigars. Your newest release, which should be coming out soon, if not already, depending upon when we release this podcast, is gonna be the FQ proper. We're really excited about it. We think it's a fantastic cigar.

You're a great person, you're very young, very ambitious, and I'm happy to have you as a friend. I love starting it out with compliments. Isn't that nice? Big fan of it starting with compliments.

I guess we're going to knock you down later. I'm all about breaking the ice. Perfect, I love it. You're going to feel good now, because by the end, you're going to feel like shit.

You're going to want to leave. I have a handful of mentors in this industry, and one of them by the name of Sid Skip Martin, and he's a big believer in the Ike and Tina method. So, you know, you can build them. Slap them down!

Alright, so Matt, the first question that I'd like to ask you is, what made you get into the cigar industry? So, when I was 18 years old, I was actually on a, well first and foremost, I want to say thank you guys for letting me be a part of this. We love having you. Thanks.

Nice. " So we went to some random cigar shop in Rome and picked up some cigars and tried our best to light 'em up. You just jumped on a cruise ship to Rome? No, so my brother was actually working as a singer and dancer on this cruise, and it was a Mediterranean cruise, and got a great deal because of the family situation.

But no, so it was an international cruise, and that's why we were able to get Cubans, and I remember we got into the lounge and lit 'em up, and of course, like, that was a surreal experience, just 'cause there with my brother in the middle of the Mediterranean, like, what work he dressed for. Exactly, exactly. You're just in it. But then it was actually when I went to the casino that I saw all these, like, 50-, 60-, seven-year-old men dressed to the nines, smoking and drinking, and I'm like, wow, what is this?

This is all this. I want to do this all the time. And that's where the suit was worn. That's where the suit was worn, yeah.

I have to wear suits. And yeah. So to kind of paint a bigger picture, Matt is a super bougie individual. He dresses to the nines 24/7.

You'll always find them in the suit. He has suit pajamas that he actually wears, of course. We all strive to be as Rico Suave as Matthew Hunt is in everyday life. It's my cross to bear.

And you do a great job of bearing. I appreciate that. I just wanted you to know. But no, so that's actually when I got into the whole cigar world and really just fell in love with that old school cool, the whole like class never goes out of style.

I mean, that's where that all originated. And then when I got back is when I really started visiting all the cigar lounges and getting to know different people and all the different brands. And yeah, and so that's actually kind of where I started having some ideas like, oh man, it'd be awesome, because of some old, old, very old family ties, I was like, oh, I wonder if I could start a cigar brand, I just love the whole idea. Okay, so you're 18 years old, you said, you know what, I like cigars, I had a great experience with cigars, and I want to get into the cigar industry.

How old are you now? I am 26 years old. 26. So not even 10 years ago.

Not even 10 years ago, yeah. And at what age do you think you were when you made your first cigar? Oh, no, that was like physically rolling a cigar? No, not you rolling, but you saying, hey, you know, well, before we get into the brand and the development of the name of the brand, you know, when you finally made your connections, how old were you when you produced your first cigar?

Well, so when I, after the whole, the whole cruise ship thing and getting into just smoking cigars and things like that, uh, I actually started going out to St. Pete and I ended up meeting people who, I was getting cigars for like two, three bucks a pop and then I would buy like 50, 60 at a time. I'd go visit my buddies at FSU, UF, going to the different frat parties, going out, whatever. And then at the end of the night, everybody be smoking, whatever.

And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go get my cigars. " And then they just started throwing money at me, and I'm like- You started to be known as the cigar guy. Yeah, I could be Matt the cigar guy. I could totally do that.

And so then, I started actually taking orders. " And then the way that it went from there, just to give a little bit more of the story, was I actually, that's when I really started having a lot of ideas of, man, would it be awesome to have my own brand, instead of having these other random cigars with no bands. Then I ended up going to an engagement party that I ended up meeting John Oliva, which, for those of you that don't know who John Oliva is, John Oliva is the CEO and president of Oliva Tobacco. Not Oliva Cigars but Oliva Tobacco which was founded in 1934 has been providing tobacco to the entire cigar industry forever and it was actually at this party that him and I got to know each other and then he started talking to my family and I had a 91-year-old great aunt that was there and they started talking and it ends up that we did business back in Cuba.

" But of course, me being a 19-year-old schmuck kid, I was like, "Wow, it's cool. " It's cool, I don't need your old man, I'm good. " I'm all hooked up already, thank you. Yeah, exactly.

I'm getting my cigars from St. Pete, come on, come on, come on. Yeah, from St. Pete.

All the good cigars get from St. Pete. Exactly, don't you know? Come on.

And so then, the next week, he actually sent me a box of like his own blend of cigars, and with a little note saying like, "Hey, if you're serious, come to Tampa. We'll have a conversation and we'll see what we can do. So then, literally, I think I got it on a Thursday, that Saturday, I went to Tampa, went to go talk to him, kind of told him all my ideas for what I wanted FQ to be. Did you know it was going to be FQ at that point?

I knew it was going to be FQ, and just because we kind of bonded on the whole idea of it being like a family thing and the Cuban connection and stuff like that. And it was funny because he obviously in the beginning, I don't know if he took me seriously, but just because like they, of course, they put me in contact with people down in Nicaragua. So that summer I went down to Nicaragua at 19 and had the opportunity to kind of meet some different people, meet some different factories and whatnot. But it's actually funny because I spent those first three years of like being in the cigar industry, but I was really just going and learning and visiting the farms and visiting the factories.

and I can still remember like a year and a half into it, I went back to the Garcia Vega factory down in Tampa, which that's their office, that's their headquarters, and when I started bringing them different samples, they're like, oh, you're like still doing this. You're like still. This is still going? You're still here.

We figured you were gone by now. Well, and it's so funny because then, of course, I was real chubby when I first started out, and then I gradually started losing weight, and they're like, oh, so you're not like, we thought you were just some random fat college kid I was gonna like play with cigars and I'm like well well now I'm just less fat and I'm almost done with college. Right. So yeah so that's kind of like how that all started and you ask like oh like when did I first make my first cigar and like when did I actually have a brand on it?

It was actually I would say it would have been in 2000 and I want to say end of 2012. Okay so five years ago so that would have made you three years in? 21? 21 yeah.

21 years old, make your first cigar, make your first cigar lines out. Yeah. Now, I mean, I don't want to deviate too much, because I really want to keep this going, but, you know, we actually have a good story as to how I met you, and I feel like it's-- I love this story, this is a good story. It's only, you know, I feel obligated to say this story.

Do you feel obligated to tell this story? Yes, it needs to be told. I'm a big believer in, you know, showing where you came from and how you've developed as an individual, and, you know, if you don't pay homage to the mistakes that you made in the past, Oh, God. Then, you know, it doesn't… About to replay them again?

Yeah, repeat them. Repeat them. I'm a big believer in you learn from your mistakes, so you've got to make them in order to become the successful individual that you are today. And then have the friends that will consistently remind you of these mistakes.

Absolutely. All the time. Absolutely. We've got to keep you humble.

So, I got a package in the mail from one said FQ Cigar Company of some samples, And the return of dress was of Lake Mary. Now, if you know the demograph of where my shop is, Deltona, from Lake Mary, it's about 10 minutes away. Just cross the bridge. So, I'm completely baffled as to why the person did not walk into the store and bring me the cigars in person, kind of making the introduction, because, I mean, after all, the cigar industry is more of a community as far as, you know, establishing relationships.

You know, establishing relationships, then, yeah, exactly, then it is just a particular cigar. So I open, I open up the package, I smoke the cigar, I'm like, wow, this is a really good cigar. And, um, a buddy, uh, a mutual friend of ours, which I did not know was a mutual friend at the time, walks in, his name is Z, and Emil of Cordoba Morales. And I'm like, dude, you can't, I can't fucking believe this guy, you know, this guy sends me cigars, and he's literally 10 minutes away, he doesn't walk in or nothing.

And he goes, "Oh, that's my friend, Matt. " I was like 12. I was like 12 years old. Come on.

Oh, I get it. He couldn't drive. He didn't have his own licensee. He had to get his mom to bring him after class.

So you came in, you know, you made an introduction. Actually, I think the day that you came in, the accounting store that used to be there was closed, and the person walked in, didn't speak a lick of English, and I didn't speak a lick of Spanish at the time. And, you know, you translated from me to him, because he was asking about what happened with the, where's the accountant, and I'm like, oh, well, he's gone, so. Yeah, oh my gosh, wow, I can't even believe that you remember that.

Came in with your suit and everything, looking all bougie. Yeah, yeah, killer. It was a, my suits have gotten to fit a little bit better over the years, I feel like I figured it out after a little bit. I used to not fit as good.

Found a good tailor. Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm kind of scared to go down that road then, because I'm sure that mine will look super baggy for the first two years. I know, not the best.

Well, you know, it's so funny to think back then, Because obviously I have to have an excuse with this story. And the reason, the reason why I did not come in was because I knew as a brand and what I wanted to do with it, I didn't want to be a bundle cigar brand, and I didn't want to start visiting shops from the get-go without boxes, and all I had was bundles. " I don't know. It's okay to defend yourself.

Well, exactly. I feel like if I didn't, I wouldn't be trying. Well, hey, if you never shipped them, we wouldn't be having this conversation today. Exactly.

So it all works out in the end. I just like to play hard to get, you know. Good job. Nicely done.

Nicely done. All right, so getting back... Because you're buying him, not the cigar. Exactly, come on.

So getting back to the name, where did the name FQ come from? So, FQ stands for Ferdinandes y Quiroga. And Ferdinandes was my mom's dad's family who dealt with tobacco in Cuba. They were actually more on, say, they would buy from the farmers and put them in touch with the manufacturers and sell to them directly, and then Quiroga was my mom's mom's family, they actually owned a rum company in Cuba, which is actually very interesting just because as I've spent more and more time down in Nicaragua with all these old Cubans, and also like just in the experience in the industry, you just meet so many old Cubans that you start telling the story, and I'm like, oh yeah, Ron Quiroga, like Rompinilla, Ron Quiroga, and they're like, oh, totally know that name, 'cause back in those days, it was actually the only competitor.

So you had Pacardi, which was all like in on the west side of the island, and then everything like basically towards Oriente was all Rompinilla, Ronquiroga, so it's just crazy because as you from the beginning I just did like oh it's got my two family names on it like it'd be cool, but then you start realizing oh wow this kind of has a little bit more clout in the sense of the historical side of it than just some random two Spanish names put together. gotcha gotcha um what's the next question uh get back to your microphone get back to my microphone but i have a next question i want to know can we talk about some of the other jobs that you did prior to or even during you um running the fq operation because i think that a lot of people see the cigar industry as you know all glitz and glam and hey i just hang out and i smoke cigars Yeah. But, you know, what people don't understand is the time and the effort that it takes, for one, to make that cigar successful in the industry, and what you have to do in the meantime to eat and to kind of pay your bills. So, when you were 18 years old, what were you doing at the time?

18 years, well, first off, I had just finished playing college football. I was up in Massachusetts for a year, couldn't deal with the cold, and ended up coming back to Florida. And, um, I was, at that time, do we want to talk about my job prior to that, or do you want to talk about-- I want, I mean, I'm gonna, I'm going through the list. Now, I, I couldn't, couldn't imagine it being too big at the year of 18, I mean, considering the fact that you were in college, unless you were some kind of jiggle or something.

Well, let's talk about, like, let's, uh, let's talk about my, like, my first job was pretty serious. Okay. Um, I was the Easter Bunny. Get out of here.

So, at, like, the mall? Oh, the mall, the Swan and Dolphin, I used to do daycares, like, I used to, I was kind of like, So you had like your own Easter Bunny suit? Well, it wasn't mine. I ended up working for this family friend of ours, and yeah, it was like an eight-foot Easter Bunny.

It was massive. Putting that information out in the open. Yeah, well, it just, it just, it builds. Good for you.

It's built who I am. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I am who I am today because of that Easter Bunny.

Yeah. And it's just amazing because like the stories you have of just, because kids are hilarious, and they just say, well, I remember I had like a little mouth that was like, and actually went into the suit. Ah, you know, I remember these stories now. The kids would be like, "Oh, Easter Bunny must be hungry.

" And of course, the Easter Bunny can't say anything. They can't actually be like, "Hey, what's happening? " So, literally, I'd have to wait till there weren't any kids around to lift my head up and there would just be like a cornucopia of food coming out of the Easter Bunny's head. Did you ever eat the carrot?

Of course not. Because I don't know what those kids' hands have been. So that was actually one of my One of my first gigs was doing that. Did that pay well, being Easter?

Actually, it was phenomenal. I paid like 25 bucks an hour. Oh, wow, no kidding. There's so many funny stories.

I don't know if we want to talk about that or if we want to talk about cigars. No, no, like the Easter ones. Yeah, no, but so there's, that was just a great experience with that. So what I was actually doing when I was 18 at that time, that summer I remember I had an internship with, I had a really good family friend who they, he was involved with the Newport Group, which is like an extended 401k company.

That was like my first taste of like corporate world, and as you can imagine, I would get my work done relatively quickly, and then I would stand up and go talk to everybody in the office, because I am essentially a social butterfly, that is what I am. " But no, and so I can still remember doing all the research online, seeing how to properly cut a cigar, how to do this, how to do that. So that was my time of the learning phases, before I even had the brand. " and so then uh and then after that i i mean through these years i mean obviously i was in college all this time i didn't graduate till actually last may because as you can imagine with having a brand i'm always traveling the teachers i had or the professors i had were very understanding and would always allow me to to miss class but then of course when i would come in they'd let me have it and essentially make me like teach class so um but besides i remember i I was a server.

I served at Cocina 214 in Winter Park. It's a buddy of mine's family. That's another place that I learned that I didn't love serving. Another job I had, I was one of those perfume people at the mall.

I've been waiting on that one. Oh yeah, exactly. Because this is the real one. So what did that exactly entail?

Did you dress like a cowboy? Was it like a statue? No, I got to suit up. I got to suit up and that was the best part.

I got to suit up and just hand out. Randomly spray people. Exactly, because everybody loves that. Everybody loves that.

My wife still talks about the perfume we gave her for her birthday a couple years ago. She still says that it's the best perfume I've ever had. I might know a thing or two. It's only because my mom had been in that industry.

She's still in it. She's been in that industry for a very long time. And so then she ended up knowing somebody who worked with Procter & Gamble. So I became a vendor for them.

And so I would do like Gucci and Dolce Gabbana and Hugo Boss and Art of Shaving. I used to do like all that kind of stuff. So, you know, just I'm people's favorite person when they go to the mall. Very true.

Exactly. Very true. So now, what about your recent endeavor? What was the last thing that you did?

Before we get into that, one of my favorite things used to be, say if I did a cigar event somewhere, and then people would see me at the mall and be like, "Cigar Guy! " What's up? You got any of those FQs in your mouth? Exactly.

They're like, "Are you still wearing that same suit from last night? " Yes, but smell how nice. Yeah, exactly, but smell how good. So was it the same suit?

No, it was not the same suit, because the one I wore for work was black, and I don't wear black, typically, outside of the workspace, and by workspace, I mean specifically to spray people with perfume. He doesn't, doesn't he? None of your suits are black. Correct.

Because you're super bougie. Exactly, of course. Bougie AF. Exactly.

If you want to start, let's do a men's fashion podcast, I'll be all about that. You'd be the guy. And then, so, and then recently, another endeavor I just got into, I was actually, so, I was very fortunate. So I do these events at this one boutique hotel here in Orlando, it's called the Alfondín, which the Alfondín is actually partnered up with Rollins, and it's this beautiful boutique hotel off of Park Avenue, and I got started with them like two years ago, and I ended up, of course, the event is essentially just networking, because you just meet all kinds of people, influential, affluential, anything you can think of, like they're usually at this event.

And so I ended up meeting these guys, all these, this big group of Spanish people that they were like, oh yeah, like if the whole cigar thing doesn't work out, like give us a call, and blah, blah, blah, and I was like, well, okay. And of course, I just didn't think anything of it because I'm doing a cigar thing, or I was doing other things, I had other jobs. And so then, like a year and a half later, when I got some scents, I ended up going with Pochic to distribute my cigars, had a little bit more time, I was available. in the sense of like, I thought being a 26 year old young man, I could do, I could do the cigar thing.

I could also get this other gig that seemed like a good opportunity coming from these guys. Ends up that the guy was the SVP of a raw material plastics company. And the position that he was talking about was, uh, for international sales for Central America. And so I went on with them.

I went, I was there for five months and, uh, and of course, like the whole time you're there, you're thinking about cigars the whole time because you're like ah well because you go into corporate america i guess when you've been when you have your own business where you control everything and you're always thinking of stuff and you're always just trying to like your mind's always running with ideas of potential things you can get into whereas you go to a nine to five job and there's so much bureaucracy and there's so many levels of having to get anything done or or just like preparation or just people like willing and able to do something you're going to be you're going to be let down because you're not the one who is you're not the guy gets to make the decision exactly that's the thing you could have every idea in the world nobody wants to be the guy to make the exactly and so that's that was something that was kind of tough but ended up that it just didn't work out because of something or rather happening that somebody wasn't going to give us residence there was no sales gig and blah blah blah and uh and so then as of what like two three four weeks ago i ended up um going back to cigars full And of course, it's like the last few months with postings has been unbelievable. So it's almost as if I had never even gotten that gig because we're still hitting the ground running, we're still running, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, in one aspect, when you're working in corporate America, you're just a cog, whereas when you're running your own business, you oversee the entire operation. Well, that's the interesting thing, too, is that say, because obviously, I think, I think entrepreneurial minded is such a buzz, a buzz term these days.

These days because everybody like you look at applications you look at different their job descriptions like oh we want somebody who's entrepreneurial minded it's like but do you know yeah you don't really do you know what that means you can control exactly and essentially you want somebody who comes in with ideas and is like essentially self-motivated and all these different things which yeah of course if you have an ideal worker that's what you'd want but then you don't want an entrepreneur because entrepreneur will go out and make things happen for themselves and won't typically work They work towards somebody else's dream, they work towards their own dreams and their own ambitions, and that's the thing, it's like, just like when I should have known all those years ago when I was doing that internship, it's like, oh, there's just, I just, like, when you get into that day-to-day, just your horizon and just, like, how far you can see ahead of yourself just gets shorter and shorter, and it's, you can see how people can get stuck, get stuck in that nine-to-five, and not, and of course, everything's relative, so there's people who love that, they don't want to go in, but if you're the type of individual who has If it has these ideas of grandeur and has these very high expectations and very high goals, I don't know if there's anything that you can really do besides being an entrepreneur. Right. Because otherwise, instead of just the ordinary obstacles that you face in entrepreneurship, in a nine-to-five corporate world, there are so many other obstacles besides the typical ones that you'll face. Because, obviously, everybody has their shortcomings, everybody has their weaknesses, everybody has their, I guess, their shortcomings.

Right. Because that's the thing, like, you keep, you try and, that's on a daily basis, I mean, you have to motivate yourself. Yeah. So imagine if you're in an office where constantly you're being, like, just rejected for every idea that you bring because it's like, oh, well, we got to go through this thing, and you got to talk to that person, you got to, where it's like, anything I want to do, I'm going to do it.

Well, you're probably right, because you probably have some horrible ideas. - Oh, that's true, yeah. I mean, I'm not saying I bet 1,000. I'm not saying they're all great.

- No, but the three of us in the room, we're all self-employed. We all work for ourselves, but it always looks better to be getting a paycheck from somebody else, you don't have to worry about it. - For sure. - The money's always there.

- There are pros and cons on both ends. - Yeah, but then when you do it, like you said, you're just like, "Well, this kind of sucks. " - Lost all my freedoms. - Yeah, I lost all my freedoms.

- All right, so let me, you know, now that we got kind of deep there, let me just reel you back in here for one second. - Welcome to the Mike and my entrepreneurial stuff. You're telling me I usually do that? Yeah, it's so crazy.

So this podcast really isn't about cigars, about a particular cigar, it's more about the person of the industry, but with that being said, just lightly talk about your new release, your FQ proper that you have coming up, and your blend, and then we're going to move on to some hard questions. Oh, here we go. All those were easy? Yeah, those were very easy questions.

Oh, cool, okay, awesome, sweet. So, the FQ Proper. So, this has been something in the pipeline for some time. I still think you chose the wrong name.

It's true. It's okay. It should be the dapper. Everybody's entitled to their opinion, Michael.

Everybody's entitled. But, no, so this is a cigar I thought that the name went perfect with what the brand is, and what I want the brand to be, and with the whole slogan of, like, class number goes out of style. And this is, like I said, this has been something in the pipeline for a very long time. Actually, the ones that we're smoking right now, they were actually manufactured not this past August, but August before.

So this is something that I've had aging in Nicaragua at Noxa for a very long time. But because of the FDA and because of life throwing you curveballs, they've had some time to rest. They've had some time to really get some good age on them. But what I had in mind with this one was this was actually the cigar that before I even sat down to start blending, I was given the opportunity.

And really I had seeked the opportunity. I went to, I went to the guys over at Knox. I'm like, hey, I want to smoke every single tobacco from every single farm, from every single region, from every single country that you guys have in your bodegas or in your warehouses. Like I want to really, I don't know, the first ones you have like with a phenom, I definitely had an idea.

I was like, oh, I want it to taste like this. I don't know how to get it there, but this is what I'm looking for. Whereas this one, I wanted to be able to say like, oh, I blended this top to bottom all the way. And so that took a good chunk of time to be able to go and take notes on every single seco, viso, ligero from every single farm and from different years and things like that, and what I ended up getting was just an amazing product because I was able to go into their bodegas and get some of the oldest tobacco that they had, and that gave me the opportunity to use in the filler some really thick broadleaf, some really thick Honduran, and some really thick Nicaraguan tobaccos that I feel if you try to use them, if they were a little bit younger, they would just They would just combat, and they probably would just give you this empty cigar.

They would be so combative that there would be no bouquet, there would be no harmony, there would be no nothing. " So is this something you can add to your line on a regular basis, or is it a limited release? No, no, so the proper is... If the tobacco is that old, you would think you would...

Well, the thing is that, and correct, but like I said, this is already essentially a year old, so now instead of using tobacco, say from 2011, 2012, now we're gonna be using from 2012, 2013. Right, and it's not like you're dealing with a company that has an inventory issue. Correct, and that's the thing, it's like, and Knox has just been unbelievable with me because, I mean, this little chubby 19-year-old kid. And Knox is the factory that rolls your cigars?

Correct, Knox, yeah, it's the Nicaraguan American Cigars SA. And so they really gave me a great opportunity, and like I said, this is something I blended top to bottom, and this is the other portion of this cigar, so like I said, it has the filler of the Honduran, of the Broadleaf, the Nicaraguan, Binders Honduran, because once I got that chance to start smoking the Honduran tobaccos, I just fell in love with the aroma it gives, and that candy sweetness that you can just pick up from any cigar. I feel like any time you have a Honduran tobacco and a cigar, it's like, oh, I know this is in there 100% because of how rich and how just like characteristic it always is. It's always very sweet.

It's always very aromatic. And then I went with the Ecuadorian Havana Escudo wrapper just because, I mean, it's just a gorgeous wrapper. It doesn't look too dark. It doesn't look too light.

It's something that you'll have both people that are like, oh, if they like a darker cigar, they'll reach for it. " Right. And so the other thing that just like, is very special to me on this cigar is, my big thing was like, I wanted to give a reason for making a cigar more expensive. Because, obviously, you try to grow value in your brand, and you're trying to just, like, continually grow equity in your brand.

Right. So, something that I did was, I actually hand-selected every single cigar that people will smoke from this line. Ooh. Wow, look at that.

I mean, you've got to keep that whole bougie thing going, you know what I'm saying? That's it. And that's the thing, it's like, a lot of the big companies can't do that. They can't say that their brand owner went there to Nicaragua, spent weeks, and just sat in the back with headphones on, just, like, cranking out.

Right. Hand inspecting everything. And the quality control. And so, that was something else.

It's like, if somebody were to come up to me, because I've heard people ask these questions, like, oh, why does this cigar cost this much? I have no reservation telling them, because I touched every one of these motherfuckers. Right. Because I actually went through and inspected every single one.

And the thing with the proper is that you really need to keep an eye on them, because since, like, it has the triple cap, it has the closed foot, The closed foot, they went a little bit heavier on the cigar in the sense of how much tobacco they're putting in there. So you really do need to go to every single one and make sure it's not plugged because that's a very easy mistake that a bunter can make because if they're just trying to pack it with tobacco, it's very easy to overfill a cigar. And so that was something else that like the whole thing, and you can see it on the band that actually says like hand-selected and blended by, and it has my little signature on there. But that, I mean, this is the first cigar I put my name on.

Well, you signed each one though too, right? Put your little name on each one? Yes, a little fine point pen. Well, I think that this is your best blend so far to date, and that's not giving any disrespect to the Phenom No.

1 or the No. 3, because I think those are both great cigars as well. But the proper is every bit of amazing, and the first release is going to be when? February 3rd.

February 3rd? Correct. And that's an event in... In Texas?

Fort Worth, yeah. Fort Worth, Texas. Underground cigars. Underground cigars, Mr.

Don Wiggins. There it is. All right. Very nice.

So thank you for lightly touching on that. I really appreciate it. I mean that. I feel like that was pretty light.

Come on. It was light for you. Let's just put it that way. Now comes the good questions.

There we go. All right. So we have a set of three questions that we ask every single person who we bring into the studio here to interview. These are the Palmer questions.

The Palmer question corner. Oh, we should make that nice. But can you sit in the corner when you do it? I'm practically in the corner at this moment.

Okay, first question: what person, living or dead, would you like to have a cigar with? You know, outside this room. Right. Ken's either one of us.

Because obviously those would be my first two choices. Duh. And you could just say Mike and then we'd both feel good. Well, that's not going to happen.

I'm not going to make you feel good. You know what's funny is that, so this guy actually smoked cigarettes, but I feel like in a perfect world, And, Michael, I would hope that you would, I would hope both of you guys would know this at this point, Nat King Cole. Okay. Nat King Cole, I think that just what he did for the music industry, what he did for the African Americans, what he did for like, I mean, he, and even like as a Cuban growing up, it's like, you know, I mean, some of my favorite, some of my favorite songs are like the songs that he did in Spanish.

They have a statue of him in Cuba because he was one of the first Americans to do like a full, like full records in Spanish. Granted, he doesn't have the best accent, but the effort was there. Yeah, he tried. Yeah, and so.

And they're good songs. Exactly, they're amazing. You have not spent a full night till you've sat around with Matt Hunt, get so drunk that you have to shove one eye because you're singing double and have him just sing Nat King Cole songs. Yeah, just like serenade you, gently serenade you.

Yeah, exactly, that's it. We tried to periscope, but... We attempted. We just started periscoping each other.

Then we'd watch each other's periscopes. We have a lot of fans. A lot of fans. Viewers, too.

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, Nat King Cole just... and you talk about... because me, I feel like with FQ Cigars, I feel like I always try to embody my brand.

And I think that my brand embodies me in the sense that, I mean, why do I wear suits all the time? It's because I'm literally a hundred year old man. It's like I love... You're an old soul.

But I just love that whole, like, elegance and just, like, timelessness of it, and when I think of timeless elegance, I, he's probably up there with somebody who I, man, there's never a bad time to listen to a neck and go. Gotcha, gotcha. All right, question number two: best piece of advice anyone ever gave you? Mmm, wow.

Told you they were hard questions. Yeah, this is heavy. Well, I love that it's just like, oh, so answer this. Hopefully you don't make anybody upset.

That's it. Yeah, that's it. Right, no, no advance warning. You know, people have opinions, you piss people off, it is what it is, then they move on.

So one of my favorite things, I actually, and it's just one of those things that I don't even know where it came along or what it was, but one of my favorite things that somebody had told me, this actually goes back to like my football days and the whole idea of like going to college and playing football and stuff like that, was no matter how hard you work, there's always going to be somebody working harder. Right. Which I find that to be fascinating. Okay.

And I think that as a competitive person, which I am a very competitive person, playing sports is like my whole life and I mean anything I ever do it's always competitive, is that just makes me work so hard and it's just a crazy thing because I have no idea where it came from and actually there's another one that I'd like to share that it's actually another anonymous quote that I'm a big quote guy, I'm a big like, I love the idea of like, and I just a phrase and then critically thinking on it. " Right. Oh, very nice. Which I think that, I mean, like on the surface, it's like, "Oh, okay, we get it.

" But you really think about that phrase, I mean, I can, and this really helped me when I was in college, when I was spending my Thursday, Friday, Saturdays going to different retailers, I mean, it's just that it's just that it's just that it's interesting to look back now, and not to say that I'm making millions of dollars, not to say any of these things, but, yeah, it's one of those things that it's interesting to look back now, and not to say that I'm making millions of dollars, not to say any of these things, but, yeah, it's one of those things that it's interesting to look back now, and not to say that I'm making millions of dollars, not to say any of these things, but, yeah, it's one of those things that it's interesting to look back now, and not to say that I'm making millions of dollars, not to say any of these things, but, yeah. It's incredible how much value I have in my life now, and how much… Well, you're further along than somebody who's normally your age. Oh, well, and even besides that, Mike, is that I… Experience-wise. Exactly.

Those nights, and the people I've met, and the things that have come from those nights of hanging out, and the different opportunities of, like, traveling and trips, or just, like, or even nights I've been able to go to people's houses and drinking, like, with you, and just… And singing. Yeah, and just singing my little heart out. He has a beautiful voice. I appreciate that, but it's just, it's incredible.

Or we were just that drunk, I didn't know. It's incredible to really, you dissect that term, or like that phrase of, oh, living some years, like most people won't, because what 19-year-old, 21-year-old, even now, 26-year-old kid wants to be sitting at a cigar lounge Thursday, Friday, Saturday, when all of their friends are getting weird and forgetting their credit cards at clubs and this and that. But then now, I mean, it's incredible to have my friends be like, damn, dude, we should have done what you did. We should have been going and like, and not to say that I didn't enjoy what I was doing at that time, but everything's always relative.

So, yeah, it's like, oh, yeah, maybe the posts, like the social media posts look dope and like all these different, like it might have seemed like I was having a great time. But no matter who you are, you're always, always seeing what other people are doing. That's a very difficult thing, but you're always aware of everybody else's situation. So I'm sorry, that was another light dissertation.

Very heavy answers. So it's going to be a two-part podcast. Will this be the first two-part? The first two-part podcast.

Final question, what is your favorite cigar? My favorite cigar. Not yours. Obviously.

Because that would be my go-to. My favorite cigar. That I've ever had, or just like one that I smoke on the rack? What is your favorite cigar?

Every answer has had two answers. Every speaker has had two answers, or every question has had two answers. Yeah, you take the question as you like, and you answer it accordingly. There's no guidelines.

There's no rules. No rules here at the Cigar Hustlers Podcast. Beautiful. Love it.

So, my favorite cigar I've ever had was, had to actually have been that first cigar. Yeah? Yeah, just because. The $2 St.

Pete cigar? No, no, not the $2, the one that I had with my brother. The Cuban on the cruise. Oh, the Cuban on the cruise ship.

I mean, it was just garbage. I mean, the most disgusting looking thing I've ever seen. It was just horrendous. With that little red label.

It wasn't a Cohiba. It wasn't a Monte Cristo. It was nothing. What did it say?

Nothing bougie. Right. Nothing bougie about that cigar. I was, it started with an S.

I can't remember if I see that. Something green, probably. I actually have a picture of the band. I just don't remember.

But, but it wasn't so much the cigar. Right. It was more. The experience.

Oh my God, being able to smoke with my brother in the middle of the Mediterranean, the night that I just, like, fell in love with the whole ideal of cigars and the romanticized vision of cigars, it's like, no, it's like a lot, and that's one thing for me, it's some of my favorite cigars, that hasn't even been about the cigar, it just happens that cigar had brought me these experiences, and that's, for me, it's like, that's why most of my cigars, or whenever I try and do events and stuff, it's like, I always try and make every single person I ever talk to, I want to know about their life, I want to make this the This is one of the best smoking experiences I've ever had, because that doesn't even, you could actually be smoking somebody else's cigar, but you're going to remember this moment in particular with me, because that's the important part, and it's going to make the cigar taste so much better, and then the other, okay, so then for my favorite cigar that I'm like, I smoke on the regular, I would definitely say, hmm, let's see, this is hard, because I've, recently I've been actually going through my humidor of like all the, all the IPCPR cigars that I've. The stuff you've picked up along the way. Yeah, and one that I've actually been enjoying a lot because I weaseled my way many a times over to their booth was actually the High Clear Castle by Nick Malillo that I haven't been posting it lately because I feel like I've been smoking too many and I don't want somebody to be like, yo, where the hell did you get all the cigars? Hashtag let's hang out.

I know, hashtag let's hang out. Which, I mean, as you guys know, I mean, Nick's doing great things and the whole story behind that cigar is phenomenal. That's for another podcast. Correct.

But it's a very, very good cigar, and that's what I have secretly been smoking on. That's a great stick. I really love that cigar, too. I smoke that cigar a lot.

That's it. That's all the questions. All right, well, let me end it by saying we love you. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

You breathe life into this industry, which I think is something that sometimes it's missing, because you get stuck in the old, mundane, same mainstream bullshit, and you don't see too many young people aspiring to create their own cigar, build their own business, and I thank you for that. I think the cigar industry should thank you for that. I think that you're doing great things, and I wish you more success as we progress into the future. Thanks, man.

If you like this podcast, all that we ask is that you tell your friends about it, and we would appreciate your feedback. So if you have anything positive or negative to tell us, please let us know so we can make this podcast better for you. And that's pretty much it. And, Mike, you want to say bye?

Goodbye, everybody. Matt, again, thank you for coming in. Absolutely. It was a pleasure.

Appreciate that. This is episode number three. Yeah, but we may alter this. This may be episode two.

Oh, maybe episode two, maybe episode five. Because of his release, so we'll see. It could be episode 75. You never know.

You could never see the light of day. Remember, aging. Aging. Aging.

We just want to rest on the show for a while. That's it. That's the beautiful part about not being a live podcast as you can do. 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 ya. Everybody get hustlin'.

Show Notes

Origin Series...Matthew Hunt from FQ Cigars sits down with us this week and lets us know how he got into the Cigar Business and where his company is headed.