Michael Rosales of Roma Craft Origin Series Episode 14
Episode Summary
Episode 14 of the Origin Series features Michael Rosales, co-founder and sales side of RoMa Craft Tobac, recorded before a store event with a small studio audience including Jeremy Fondy of Cigar Cartel and Adam Acree. Rosales walks through a career that began nowhere near tobacco: University of Oklahoma, a foreign exchange stint in San Jose, Costa Rica, and then a real estate career in Austin. A friend's wedding took him back to Costa Rica, where he developed and sold condos and befriended local cigar rollers — the start of everything. He also credits his wife Jamie (who he met in a developmental psych class and who now handles the company's back end with Angela) for getting him through school.
When the housing market collapsed in 2007–2008, Rosales turned his side interest into a hustle: importing Costa Rican tobacco and bringing rollers — starting with Raul Disla, now of the Nicaraguan side of the business and formerly with AJ Fernandez — into U.S. cigar shops for custom-blend events (roughly $4,500 for 2,000 cigars, with the shop hosting the roller). During this period he also launched his own brand, Adrian's Costa Rican Cigars, named after his son, which remains his sentimental favorite cigar and carries a predicate date under FDA rules.
The RoMa Craft origin comes next: Rosales met Skip Martin, a former Dell employee, Navy veteran and owner of the Have a Cigar shop in Galveston that was destroyed by Hurricane Ike. Skip asked him to recreate a discontinued broadleaf cigar he'd bought from Camacho's factory. Costa Rica couldn't do it, so Raul sent him to his brother Esteban Disla, then at the Scandinavian/General Cigar factory in Nicaragua. The result was Cro-Magnon — initially 5,000 cigars sold direct to consumers off Skip's Twitter following, with five-packs going out to bloggers. A broadleaf shortage led to a trip to the Nicaraguan tobacco festival, where Jonathan Drew vouched for them at NACSA and Gustavo Cura of Oliva came into the picture; the fallback Habano wrapper blend became Aquitaine (named for the French region where the Cro-Magnon skull was found). Intemperance followed as a price-point line built on consistently available wrappers.
Rosales also details the company's lean structure — roughly 280 U.S. accounts plus a strong German/European footprint handled by essentially one and a half salespeople (with Danny Vazquez of Vojo joining after the FDA pushed him out of his own brand, following Koi's departure) — and how the factory grew from Esteban's back patio with four pairs of rollers to Nicasueño with about 12 pairs, 70+ employees and over a million cigars a year including contract work for Powstanie, Fable and Guayamero. The episode closes with the show's four questions: Jesus, "it's not what happens but how you deal with it," Adrian's Costa Rican, and Captain Jack Sparrow.
In This Episode
- 01From Oklahoma to Costa Rican real estateRosales traces college, a foreign exchange semester in San Jose, and a condo development deal that put him around Costa Rican cigar rollers.
- 02Meeting Jamie and the family side of the businessHow his wife got him through school and later joined RoMa Craft to help build out the Austin facility and run back-end operations.
- 03Bringing rollers to America after the crashImporting 2,500 pounds of tobacco a month and placing Raul Disla and other rollers in U.S. shops for custom-blend events during the 2007–2008 recession.
- 04Adrian's Costa Rican CigarsRosales's first brand, named for his son, why it ended, and why it's still his favorite smoke.
- 05Meeting Skip Martin and the birth of Cro-MagnonA Galveston retailer wiped out by Hurricane Ike asks Rosales to recreate a broadleaf blend, leading to Esteban Disla and the first 5,000 Cro-Magnons in 2010.
- 06Broadleaf shortage, Jonathan Drew and the Aquitaine blendHow a tobacco crisis and an introduction at NACSA produced the Habano-wrapped Aquitaine as a hedge against broadleaf scarcity.
- 07Building Intemperance and a repeatable brandDesigning a price-point line around consistently available Connecticut Shade and Arapiraca wrappers, plus lessons on consistency and always having a partner at the factory.
- 08Scaling the company and the four questionsFrom Esteban's back patio to Nicasueño — 12 pairs, 70+ employees, 280 accounts, 1M+ cigars — before the show's closing rapid-fire questions.
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. 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 too. And this is a Cigar Hustlers podcast. Hey, you didn't fuck me up this time.
I did not. I did not. We have a very special guest today as well as an audience in the studio, in the room. What did you do?
You had a problem? I had to do the primary problem. Reset. Okay, we're going.
We're going. The Row & Roma Craft, one of my mentors in the industry, Mr. Michael Rosales. Yo, yo, what's up?
How you doing, everybody? What's going on, man? As he's taking this interview, I think he's Instagramming, you know. He's Instagramming, texting.
No, he's just hanging out. And our audience is one Jeremy Fondy of Cigar Cartel and Adam Acree of, I guess we could say Degenerate Weasels, right? Of a Degenerate Weasel. There's one said degenerative.
Well, thanks for coming up. All the way from Chicago and South Miami and Florida. That's right. Where's he from?
He's like in between. He's like Coral Springs, Fort Lauderdale-ish. Just way down there. But you know, he travels, Germany travels everywhere.
He does, he's everywhere. Yeah. So today's an event night with Roma Craft and Michael's super excited to be on the podcast. He just couldn't wait.
He was so anxious. As soon as he came in, he ran right into the back and, you know, mic'd him up and we're ready to go. Do it. Very ecstatic.
Very ecstatic. So, Mike, we like to ask, obviously, how you got into the cigar industry, so, this is the origin series, if you could tell us, what did you do before you got into cigars? How about we start there? Before cigars?
Like, how far back do you want to go? You want to go, like, college era, or you want to go, like, professional life era? How much time is between college and cigars? There's nothing.
Actually, so, let's go. So, I went to the University of Oklahoma, and then at the end of my last two years, I did a foreign exchange program where I went to San Jose, Costa Rica. When I was done, I came back to the States, got into real estate, moved to Austin, and then kind of started my professional career in real estate. See, I just summed it up.
Super simple, right? So… Okay, well thank you for listening. We appreciate everybody coming in. So during that time, so this kind of transitions into the cigar situation, right?
So about four years later, I go back to, I go back to Costa Rica, a friend of mine's getting married, and during that time, we had a great time for the wedding, and then the family kind of shows me this land that they have, and I said, you know, what are you guys gonna do with this piece of land? They said, we want to develop it, but we don't know how. So I developed some condos on there, we sold them. And so on my graduation night with my dad back in 2000, I had my first cigar with my dad and so anyway, so kind of celebrating the success of the real estate transactions that had happened down in San Jose and so I'd have a cigar, found a roller that was making cigars out on the beach and it was just kind of started hanging out with these people while we were kind of building the condos during this whole process and so eventually what ended up happening was my first cigar with my dad.
What ended up happening is transitioning into the rollers wanted to come into the United States so I started bringing rollers up into the United States and then had to kind of source tobacco. So is there a particular roller that you brought up? The very first one was Raul Dizla, he actually runs the Natsa factory. Okay.
He used to run, actually he ran AJ Fernandez and he also runs Natsa, he actually is the, all the stuff that comes out of the Natsa factory he helps deep soccer. Right. So, Raul Dizla worked for me in the United States. So, after the real estate market kind of crashed, I just transitioned into bringing these tobacco rollers up into the United States and putting them in cigar shops, and I would import in the tobacco.
Okay. We just like fast forward over like a whole lot of time. Yeah, I know. It's cool.
So, I mean, because there's a couple things here that I want to pull you back into. We're going to dial in. I want to bring you back. Okay, let's do it.
So, you know, before you even go down there and do all those transactions, you meet somebody in Oklahoma, I think, right? Like a redhead, I believe. Right? In Oklahoma, you meet your wife, right?
I met my wife and Jamie. We had a class in my... So, I had one, two classes I had to take to finish up my degree. And so, it was a developmental psychology class, something.
And I was failing and she was passing. " And I said, you know, so I had to work on it. Next thing you know. So yeah, so we met in college.
So, she pretty much, so in a nutshell, I mean, it's safe to say that if it wasn't for Jamie, you would have never graduated college, for starters. It's really her degree. Just, you know, it has my name on it, but it's her degree. That's an absolute fact.
And to this day now, I mean, obviously she's put up with you for, I mean, that was what, 2000? Yeah. Well, I guess we would have met in '99. Okay.
Right before you... Yeah, before 2000. Right. Like you're on the cusp of failure and then she comes and saves the day.
She saves the day. Which is fantastic. Yeah. And like to this day, is she part of the factory or part of the company in any...
She wasn't for a long time. So, she, in her professional career, was the executive admin to the CEO of a company that got bought a couple of years ago. And because of how much I travel, because of how much, you know, kind of gone from the house, she has a lot of skill set, so we brought her in, so she kind of handles all the back end stuff, her and Angela do a really good job of, you know, taking care of, you know, so when we, so how it ended up happening, her company sold and they gave her a payout, and then we were actually building our facility in Austin. So she had experience, she also has a background in real estate, and because she had helped their company build out, I don't know, like a five-story building, I mean, a pretty good-sized building, and so we needed her expertise to help us with our facility in Austin, and so we talked to her about coming on board, and we hired her, and that was kind of, so she kind of helped her and Skip kind of facilitated the whole build-out.
So, kind of jumping ahead, obviously, you know, I just kind of want to paint a picture for people that don't know what Roma Craft is and, you know, kind of educate them on the operation and kind of your success. So, the company is pretty big as far as accounts that you're in, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I would say it's a small number, but you're super efficient at what you do, and the fact of the matter is that there aren't a lot of people that are in the office, right, there isn't a big business, you don't have a big sales force, you don't have a big design, right? Right, yeah. Right, so the, the, thanks for the, yeah, yeah.
That's awesome. You're talking. Keep going. So your sales team is, consists of who?
So we have, recently have brought up, from the minor league, we have Danny Vazquez, who had a cigar, what was it called, the Voyage? Voyage. Yeah, so we brought up, we brought up Danny. Prior to that, we had, we had Koi.
Right. And so Koi has moved on to North Carolina, and, and so Danny had announced, It was announced that he was letting his company kind of go because of the FDA and, you know, the struggles that, you know, a small brand can have, and so we flew Danny down and kind of hung out with him for, you know, a weekend, and, you know, he's got a good skill set. His personality is a lot like mine, so if I can get him, you know, on task and give him some direction, I think he'd be a good asset for us. Okay.
So, essentially, so you and him are the only two people in the sales force? Yeah, so for a long period of time, so the way that it kind of works, so it's Roe and Ma, so Skip Martin and Michael Rosales, Skip handles the factory with Esteban, and then for, you know, for the longest time it was me and Angela and Jamie. Right. So they handle AP, AR, they do all, they pick, pack, and chip and all the back end stuff.
All back end stuff, right. So I handled all the sales for a long period of time. And then, I guess we brought on, when we opened up our facility in Austin, we brought up, we brought on Koi. So, about the last four years or so, everything went directly through me, through all the accounts.
Right. And then, from that point, when we brought on Koi, it was really more of a, you know, maybe he'll, you know, where could he really kind of fit in? You know, kind of, you know, here's the thing, no one is really going to really care about your business the way that you do, right? So, giving that up, you know, or having help is really hard because you know eventually they're going to fuck it up, right, because they're not going to put the time, effort, hours that you have done from the beginning.
So, anyway, so we brought on Koi and we really thought that he was going to be kind of in the back end, kind of warehouse, and then, you know, so because of the way of our model and our structure, we get shipments in from Nicaragua every two weeks. So there's once, you know, they do all the fulfillment for about a week, there's about a week of time that's kind of like downtime. So I started helping Koi take some phone calls, call accounts, let them know what they had on back order, what was coming, and those types of things, and then eventually it kind of turned into a sales job. But he was not a sales guy, he was just really kind of support.
Gotcha. So with Danny, we have higher expectations because he's a little bit further along in his career. Right. So, Anyway, so I've always handled all the sales, and so now what we're trying to do is really, you know, figure that out.
Right. So in essence, you're kind of a small organization as far as numbers are concerned, but you're in how many accounts? Yeah, so I would say about 280 accounts throughout the United States, and then we have a good footprint in the Europe market, mostly in Germany. So, I mean, that's a fuck-ton of accounts for one and a half people to handle.
Sure. Right? Yeah. Okay.
So, now that we jumped ahead, now we're going to jump right back. Let's do it. So, Raul Dizla, you bring him into the States, and he's rolling tobacco for it, rolling cigars. " So he comes to me and says, "Hey, my visa is about to expire.
My mom's Puerto Rican. " And I wasn't really looking to really kind of do this. But the opportunity came in. It's like, listen, if I could figure out a way to get Raul into the United States, get him rolling cigars, then the factory in the back end could make the cigars that we would create for the cigar shops and create their custom blends.
So it was a great setup. So for about $4,500, the shop got basically 2,000 sticks. It was a good margin for them. The only challenge was that they had to kind of host him and get him to and from and back, make sure he got fed.
Feeding is important. Yeah, it's a big deal. But the challenge, logistically, was a bigger task. So most shops would say, "$4,500, I get 2,000 cigars, I get a guy to come in here and basically custom blend I can make a cigar on site, and I can get instant feedback from the guys, my regulars, and kind of really kind of hone in on product that they would buy, you know, day in and day out.
And so for me, it was a great way to basically kind of really establish those relationships with those customers, and then also keep the factory kind of busy and kind of, you know, really keep, you know, basically create a system that would keep the factory, you know, going. Right. And this is a factory in Costa Rica, this is pre-Roma, and so, and then also, you know, kind of satisfy what Rao needed, and it really turned into a bigger, a bigger thing, so I started bringing other rollers in and having them, you know, the challenge was, is, you know, people in Dallas and Houston and Lubbock and in all these other places, you know, so it ended up kind of turning into, well, we want them for two weeks, but can we have them for a month, and can we have them for, you know, longer periods of time, and so I was all for it. Right.
Now, here's the deal, you know, so if you import the raw goods in, and you pay a much lower S-chip tax, because this is all about kind of the 2007, 2008 timeframe, so just as S-chip was kind of getting going, the raw good tobacco cost is much lower, but once you turn it into a fixed good cost, you know, it's, you know, you got it, now you have to pay the difference, you know, and then in order to technically manufacture cigars, you have to have permits. So anyway, so during that time, I really didn't care about all the other stuff. I was just, you know, that was a whole other issue that I was kind of putting off. And this is your hustle.
This is the hustle. So this is how you get, you know, so I was just trying to really satisfy, you know, who cares what the, you know, the government's trying to do. I'm just trying to make some money. I'm just trying to eat here.
Support the family. I mean, you know, that's it. You're talking about a time when, you know, recession's hitting, housing market's collapsing, you know, you gotta eat, right? You gotta figure out what you gotta do to survive.
And I was a lot fatter back then, too. I was always hungry. Shit. Shit, I'm always hungry now.
I'm always hungry. Alright, so you're going along, you're producing these cigars, and you know, you have like a small army of people that you're dropping off to random retail shops, and you're producing sticks. Yeah, so in that time frame, so Skip Martin, my partner, had recently been hit by the hurricane. Right.
So Skip is also from Austin, and so… So you already knew Skip before this? So when you say that he got hit by the hurricane… Well, he had a cigar shop. Okay, he had a cigar store. In Galveston, Texas.
Okay, what was the name of it? It was called Have a Cigar Shop. Okay. And it got, what happened?
It got smacked by the hurricane. What hurricane, do you never remember the name or anything? I think it was Ike. Yeah, I think it was Ike.
I think you're right. Okay. I think you're right. We don't fact check.
Right, well, yeah. We don't fact check. All right, so you run into, so your friends with Skip at this point? No.
Not really. So Skip hung, so his, he worked for Dell, which is based out of Austin. Right. Round Rock, Texas.
I've heard of that company. Yeah, it's a good size company. Or at least it was. I think it still is.
Yeah. " You know, 'cause he was a big cigar consumer, you know, so he was, he was the whale. So when Skip Martin would come through and you had something new and fancy, you wanted to put it in front of him because he wouldn't buy it. Hey, check this out.
How many boxes do you want? So he was, at that time, was looking at reestablishing a cigar shop in Austin, and so he had found a couple pieces of, well, some areas around town where he thought a good shop would be and started asking me my opinion, just like I was asking his opinion of cigars and tobacco. Right. And so we just kind of clicked, and so he had asked me, I mean, this is kind of fast-forwarding a little bit, but so the question came up, he said, "Hey, you know, I used to buy these, I used to go down to factories," and especially, he was a big Camacho shop, so he would go down to Christian's place prior to them selling, and he would buy up all the stuff that, you know, that they had made that didn't sell, or, you know, blends that just never really came to anything.
And so he would bring them in and basically sell them in his shop, and that was kind of his side hustle. And so he said, "There's a cigar that I really, really like. " And I said, "Well, you know, let me see what you got. " And so...
The answer's always yes in sales. " You know, I mean, yeah, I mean, you're talking about a cigar that probably had, you know, five or six years of age on it, and so, I mean, I don't know, especially with the tobacco we had on hand here in the States, I mean, it's not like I had, you know, a full arsenal of, you know, really excited tobacco, right. And you're still working with Raul at that time? Yeah, Raul and several others, and so we kind of, we really kind of honed in on, you know, a Habano wrapper, a Maduro wrapper, like a Habano 2000 and, you know, some kind of Maduro wrapper.
And then, you know, a good variety of Nicaraguan, whether, you know, Esteli, and, you know, Pueblo Nuevo, Condega, you know, whatever. They kind of run-of-the-mill stuff that everyone uses. So we didn't really have, you know, nothing really exotic. They didn't have anything from the Dominican or Honduran, which if it's coming from Christian's factory, it's going to have, you know, a lot more Honduran than most other types of tobacco.
" And I worked for the factory in Costa Rica, and it didn't work out there. " So the Taranio family sold, and Esteban stayed on. So, Raúl and Esteban both worked for the Torano family and the Dominican, that's where they're from, and then when they were, you know, I don't know, 18, 19 years old, they brought them to Nicaragua to help them establish a tobacco culture in Nicaragua, and so, so they were with them for a long, long time, and they sold, and that's kind of when Raúl decided he wanted to go off and do his thing, but Esteban stayed and ran the factory. So, anyway, so… These two brothers are totally different people, right?
Yeah, I mean, I really think, you know, Raul, I mean, they have, their whole life is tobacco. Right. But their skill sets are completely different. I mean, I think, you know, Esteban's expertise is definitely pre-industry, which is, you know, before it gets to… The table.
The table. The rolling table. The bowling table? You know, and Raul is really good at blending, so...
Right. But they're, I mean, they're brothers, I mean, it's like you and Greg. Right. They're completely different, right?
Totally. And very competitive. Very competitive. So, I mean, it's kind of funny to me that Raul's like, "Yo, call my brother up.
" You know what I'm saying? We're at the end of the day... Well, just that the tobacco is just greater here, in Nicaragua, not here, but in Nicaragua, over there. Right.
You have better access to it. Yeah. So anyway, so there's a guy in Chicago called Tessa Cigars. I don't know if we have an audience guy.
We've got a Chicago guy. Yeah, he may be familiar with that in our audience. He says yes. He's not excited.
So Chris Kelly. That doesn't work on radio. No, it doesn't work. Yeah, you had to speak up.
So Chris Kelly, him and his father owned a cigar company called Tessa Cigars out of Chicago. They had a factory down there as well. So I ended up staying with Chris for a couple weeks while I was working on some projects and got with Destaban and we worked on making this cigar for Skip, we're recreating it, and I came back with Cro-Magnon. So that's it.
So Cro-Mag starts, right? Yep. So how many do you produce for the first round? I want to say there's around 5,000 cigars.
Well, first, I mean, you come back with like a bundle of, you know, so there's, you know, like three or four different variations. " And keep in mind, you know, at that time he was smoking, you know, La Florid, was it TL 700's or 660's or whatever they call them, and you know, he's eating them like candy bars. And so, whenever we decided to go ahead and do it, you know, we made 5,000 cigars. And so, this is 2010.
So, we make 5,000 cigars, they come in, and... And at this point, his retail shop, at least brick and mortar, is gone. Still nothing. It's gone.
Yeah, it's all gone. He did have, though, so whenever the hurricane had hit, he was big on Twitter to get news out and to kind of broadcast, like, what was going on on the island because there was no, you know, all communication was down, so a lot of people started kind of following him just based on the content that he was putting out along with, you know, the cigars he was smoking and what he was, you know, doing and, you know, his activity in the cigar business as a whole, you know, he was, He was friends with Doc Diaz who also had a podcast out in California that he went to the trade show and kind of represented him and kind of did, you know, similar to what this was at the trade show for Doc Diaz. So he's technically... I don't know what the fuck this is, by the way, but...
Is it a podcast? No, I hear you, but I don't know what it is. But, you know, the idea was... Everyone's showing Jordan right now.
So his background, aside from working at Dell and being in the Navy, he, you know, was kind of technically was a blogger. Right. I don't know if this is a blog, I don't know if this is a blog, whatever you call it. He has a retail shop.
Right. That's underwater. And he was a heavy, yeah, exactly. And he was a heavy cigar smoker.
Right. So, you know, so he had a, there was a lot in common, you know, with me, you know, and so it just kind of worked. And so we decided, he said, I think we could sell these. I said, we can't sell these.
He said, watch. So he starts posting this shit on Twitter. Right. And next thing you know.
Boom. Boom. People are like, hey, I want some of those, I want some of those, I want some of those. But his buddies, in that same, you know, you're talking about, you know, Brian Hewitt, who also had a blog, you know, there's a bunch of guys that, you know, Barry Stein and a lot of these other guys that have blogs as well, bought a five pack from us, and so, so I imported a man, cleared them, and he'd have his little daughters over there stuffing little, you know, little five pack samplers, and, you know, next thing you know, we went through 5,000 cigars, and he goes, let's do another run, so then we started doing it, so it just kind of came out.
And it kind of evolved from there. Right. So, you start producing, and he's retailing, you guys are retailing the cigars, so you're selling them actually from factory to consumer. At that time, yes.
Which is pretty nice. Yeah. And then eventually you get to a point, what happens when you say, hey, you know what, we're on to something, we need to start wholesaling to other retail shops. So, the conversation came up with a lot of the retailers who had supported me with Raul, and I was like, hey.
And at this point you're working solely with Esteban, correct? correct yes okay on on the chrome magnum right yeah so uh so technically at that time it was called adrian's chrome magnum cigar uh that's how it was kind of see i didn't even talk about adrian's yeah well we really fast forward over a lot we're getting into the nitty-gritty well yeah the nitty-gritty oh we're gonna go back okay but go ahead keep going i don't want to stop you so these shops are are like hey what's this what's the cigar that you're that you're putting out it's I'm like, well, it's not my cigar, technically, like, it's not something I can sell to you, so, well, yeah, but, you know, we supported you, you know, with the Adrian's thing, we supported you with Raul, and so people were starting to call and go, well, you know, I got guys that got this five-pack from you of cigars, and, you know, they're asking me, have I had it, and how come you're not bringing it to me, and so, you know, I go back to Skip and go, hey, man, I'm starting to get a lot of heat from some of the retailers, you know, and Skip's like, well, if I'm going to open up the, So, the shop in Austin, you know, why would we open it up? And I'm thinking, well, why would we open up a cigar shop when we could, you know, open up distribution, right? So, anyway, so after kind of arm resting a little bit after that, we decided to go all in on the factory.
So, actually, what had happened was... What had happened was... What had happened was... That's the bond call.
So that was, so this is kind of, so the cigars were made October, September 2010, they were imported in at the end of December 2010, kind of going into the 2011. So around, we had about April or May of continual products coming in on a very monthly basis, right? So everything was coming in, we were selling, it was turning, and it was just, it was like, it was a pretty strong price. " No more tobacco in factory.
" Send him to Walmart and buy some more tobacco. Call up Costco. Somebody's got to have it. So he's like, "No, I mean, it came available early in, you know, really the way tobacco kind of comes up is, you know, kind of that, December maybe until February March you know that's whenever the supply is available once it's been picked over sorted through and everything's kind of you know for that year for that crop after it's gone through fermentation and everything else like it's it's it's kind of you're done you got scraps right if there's anything left and so you're talking about May June and you know there just wasn't anything available so Skip calls you know from from him He being a retailer, he had all these connections, right, so he calls, you know, whoever he knows, but I, you know, the one guy that really stands out is Jonathan Drew, because obviously at that time, Liga was hot, and it had Broadleaf, and, you know, we decide to go down to the Nicaraguan Tobacco Festival, which was the second year, we just happened to show up at the same time that was going on, and so, we go over and talk to Jonathan and several other people, and they both kind of keep going on.
We'll go talk to Gustavo Cura. Well, we were already talking to Gustavo Cura, but there's still no tobacco available. Right. So who's Gustavo Cura?
So he runs the Oliva out of Tampa. He runs, he's the guy that if you want tobacco for. So there's the Olivas, but he kind of runs, you know, he makes the decisions. Right.
It's like the godfather of tobacco. So he handles all major, you know, like all pylones and importation of raw materials. The Olivas do as a whole, but he runs there. He's the guy.
He's in a dimly lit room with a big fedora on. No, no, no, no, no, no, but definitely, you know, but he can, he can make or break the ability for you to continue making cigars. For sure, so, so we love you, Gus, if you're listening. You download this podcast, we appreciate you.
I'm sure Gus is listening. Of course he is, he's number one downloader. Right, yeah, for sure. So we go, so Jonathan makes a phone call and says, "Hey, these guys are the real deal.
You know, Just help them out if you can. Right. Like he kind of vouches for you? He kind of vouches for us.
Right. So, which was a really good thing, because nobody at that time had really kind of done, you know, that much for anybody. So, I mean, making a phone call is a nice, look at the yellow cello on the cigar, it's amazing, it's awesome. I like this, thank you, Jeremy.
So, we go through, and they give us the tour of the facility at Nicoprosa, you know, and Skip's like, Dude, this is the Mecca, this is the Holy Land, so we go through and we select out, at that time it was about 330 pounds of broadleaf that was going to be available, and I think 500 pounds of Habano wrapper. So we ended up coming up with, so after we selected out the broadleaf, you know, we said, you know, we need to really kind of look at what's a plan B when the event that we come up through, they kind of explain the process of why broadleaf is not always available and why the yields are really crappy and why it's just not always available. Right. So you kind of, so you walk in, you buy these balloons, right?
And you figure, hey, well, okay, we're good to go, right? Right, so then we say, well, what about, what happens if it's, if we don't have anymore? Like, what happens if we come into the situation where it's, it's, it's not available? Right.
So we said, well, let's look at the Habano wrapper. And that's when we decided we would create the Aquitaine version. So, Cro-Magnon is the broadleaf, Aquitaine is the Habano version, Aquitaine is the region of France where they found the Cro-Magnon skull, so it kind of all comes together. Right.
So you, you, you know, the idea would be we would create something that would always be a little bit more constant because Habano is, you know, it's, it's a little bit more, They're more healthier, the conditions are better, and it just kind of grows a lot more than what the broadleaf is. Okay, so before you were producing Roma Craft, and before you were doing Raul, the production with Raul inside of Texas, you had your own cigar, right? I did. Yeah, it's called Adrian's Costa Rican Cigars.
And why would you name it Adrian's? It was after my son. Oh, okay. Well, I'm not, I mean, I'm great on radio because I got the face for it.
So, you know, it just kind of made sense, you know, at that time that was something that, you know, I never really wanted to be, you know, want to kind of, I wanted to create something, I wanted to leave something for my kids, and I thought that that would be a really kind of cool way to do it, you know, you know, I had a lot of friends that were, you know, that benefited from their families doing very, very well, that whenever they got of age, they had the ability to do it, you know, I had a lot of friends that were, you know, that benefited from their families doing very, very well, that whenever they got of age, they had the ability to do it. That's the ability to go work for, or do things with, and so I've always wanted to create that for my family. Right. Okay.
So, where were you making those cigars from? Costa Rica. So, those are Costa Rican. And you actually sold them to retailers, I'm assuming, right?
I did, yeah. I mean, because I've seen that every once in a while, you'll see them pop up. Yeah. " Right.
I'd still be making them now. I'll be making them now, so, you know, and that's something that, you know, we've talked about it, it actually is predicate date, you know, with the FDA, so I just don't know if I really want to, you know, go back to it, it's got a lot of emotional… I think it would be fucking awesome. Yeah, so I mean, who knows, when my son is of age, he comes to, he works at the office a little bit, he's really more interested in video games, he's only 11, so, but it is what it is. So I was making those cigars in Costa Rica, started bringing them in, and so the whole, the reason why the relationships with the cigar shops had started was the collapse of the real estate market had taken a shit, so I thought if I could get, you know, 25, 30 accounts that would carry the product that I could get some mailbox money, while we kind of all waited for the cycle to kind of go through, and it took a little bit longer.
Slightly. And so, it ended up just becoming, though that was my job, so I just, you know, full force into making the cigars and putting them into market. So then, as I'm doing these events and getting around and then, you know, helping the Raul getting into stores, it just kind of evolved and I met Skip and then we created Roma. So, you just explained kind of how you made the Cro-Mags and the Aquitains.
Where does the intemperance line come into play? So, we wanted to have a cigar that was price point, but also work with wrapper leaves that were constantly always available. So, Connecticut Shade, always available, Arapidaca, you know, if it's done the right way, it's not super always easy, but it is a lot more than most. Okay.
And that's just how you create the intemperance lines? Yeah, so Esteban said he had a really crazy good blend that he wanted to work on for the Intemperance, and you know, that's not a cigar that at that time smoked a lot of, so we just, you know, said, hey, if you like it, let's, you know, it was actually really good, so like, let's go with that, and Skip was in love with the Intemperance Brazilian, and so it just kind of worked out. But the whole purpose of that line, we knew then, so when we kind of mapped this all out, it's like, okay, so if we're going to build this company, you know, what are the things that didn't go really well with the Adrian's, what were the things that were really good, what are some of the issues that you think are going to happen, and how do you kind of navigate through those challenges? And so, price point, availability of product, you know, consistent branding, good imaging.
You know, those are all things that we kind of scripted out, so we kind of, you know, had this really good vision before we even kind of launched, and that's whenever, you know, it's like, hey, Skip, by the way, you can work with some of the best factories, and, you know, the reality is that, you know, you say, hey, send me up, you know, a thousand boxes, you know, a third of that's going to be really, really good in what you wanted, and a third of it's going to be kind of mediocre. Right. You know, it's good enough, but it's not quite great, and then the last third of it is just going to be completely off, but it's like, that's not. That's not even the cigar, right?
So that's the challenge is getting people how do you stay on course and on track to where it's repeatable and sustainable. And so that was one of the things that we kind of agreed at an early time was one of us would always be at the factory, right? So to make sure that, you know, it's consistent every time. So at the time when he came, when Skip moved down to Nicaragua, did he speak Spanish at all?
No, and that was really the challenge, because I was, you know, when we get on these conference calls and kind of figure out what was going on, he had, he'd worked in Panama whenever he was with Dell, so he had a good understanding of Spanish, but he couldn't really communicate, so he would be, you know, in these meetings and say, well, what did he say? And I'd be like, well, this is kind of like what he said. Well, that's not what he said. It's pretty close.
Like, you know, when you translate it, that's exactly what he said. However, it's not what he said, if that makes any sense. And so it's like, hey, you really need to learn how to speak Spanish because, you know, I can't continue to, to, you know, to do both. And so he just said, you know, so he, he, he trucked on down there and, you know, he still doesn't speak very good Spanish, but he does his best.
So when you started off and Esteban was handling your production and you were producing the small amount and you were selling it directly to consumer, where was the factory located? Okay, so Esteban still worked at Scandinavia. Okay. So, because of the amount of people that work at the Scandinavian factory, Esteban and Raúl have trained a good amount of people on how to roll who now have become supervisors in other factories, and those are their friends, and that's their circle, right?
Right. So, Esteban wouldn't make the cigars in the back of his house, so he would go borrow a press and borrow a mold and, you know, a couple molds. And it started off, you know, them just kind of drinking some beer in the back of their house, and, but whatever it became, when it started getting bigger and bigger, you know, he would call and go, "Hey, I need to buy, I need to buy my presses, I need to buy my molds," and we would send the money down, and, and, you know, and he would go in and he would invest and grow as we were kind of growing. And, um, so the first factory was Esteban's house.
At his house, yeah. So, his garage was his tobacco bodega. So, in the back of their house, they actually had kind of an area, like if you were to wash your clothes and you had a wire hanger, so there's like a washer and dryer kind of area, and there they had this concrete slab, and so… Like a storage facility. Kind of like a storage facility.
We actually ended up getting built out to what it is now. Before that, it wasn't that way. And so, as you know, it kind of made more sense to kind of build it out and make a complete, uh, basically like a, a mini factory. Yeah.
So it was, what is it? About 25 by 10. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah.
So it's, uh, had like these kind of barn doors, metal barn doors that slid back and forth and put in some, some rolling tables and some bodegas and some, some areas for storage. " And so they spent the next, you know, six months or so renovating that, tearing out concrete and painting it and turning it into what is now Nicasueño, which is a really nice facility. So you start essentially with one guy rolling cigars. You eventually get a couple pairs going and then eventually you jump to the factory and how many pairs do you think you have at the factory now?
I think we have 12 pairs now, and that's at capacity, but I think total employees, I think we have about 70, 72. And how many cigars do you think you're producing annually? We say a million. Yeah, it's a million.
That's a nice number. Put around there. 2, maybe a little bit more, because, you know, the stuff that we do for Europe, the stuff we do with Powstanie, Fable, and, you know, but Roma products, you know, Guaymaro. It's obviously the lion's share.
Yeah. For sure. The bulk. For sure.
Well, you know, I love you. You're a big mentor to me and I appreciate you coming on the show. But before we let you go, we have four questions. Wow, I just felt like we just totally unplugged right there because we're just getting into it.
Well, you want to keep going? You want to keep going? I don't know. Well, I can keep going all day, man.
I know we've got an event going, we've got about 20 minutes before the event starts. We've got to get ready. We've got to go power up. Dude, we can have you back.
We could do part two. We could talk about more. We could talk about more. There's more to cover.
I personally cannot wait until Skip hears the podcast and then critiques the living fuck out of this interview. What's he going to say? I mean, I'll let you know. Okay.
All right. He'll say it was good, but you know, I would have done it better. I would have done it better. Should have asked this question.
Should have asked that question. Yeah. Okay. Which is good, because, you know...
Why don't you get him on the show? I would love to have him on the show. Calling you out. He's asked a few times.
I mean, you know, he was in Texas yesterday. He just got on a plane and went back to my home. I don't know why you didn't bring your mics and everything to do it while you were in Austin a couple weeks ago. I wasn't there.
My brother was. No. Before that. How long ago were you in Austin?
Before that, we weren't doing it. Yeah, we weren't doing it then. Okay. All right.
You guys have really come a long way since you first mic'd up. Thanks, man. Oh, you should have seen the original equipment. It was pretty bad.
Was there duct tape involved? If there wasn't a duct tape, then it wasn't... Probably. Porzy and Emil, I mean, they really got the fucking shit end of that deal.
They really, really did. All right. Well, I can't come back on until they come back on or we do theirs. Yeah, they should have...
We should do that. We should do a redemption, a Crow Morales redemption podcast. All right. For sure.
Very good. So hit me with the four. All right. First question.
All right. One person living or dead. Question number two. No, I don't know.
Well, one person living or dead would you like to have a cigar with? Living or dead, who would I like to have a cigar with? Yeah. I don't know.
Adam turned all the questions on me today, and I had no answer. I hadn't even thought about it before. Yeah. It's hard.
It is. Who thinks of this shit? I don't know. I'd like to burn room with Jesus.
I think that'd be pretty cool. Really? Yeah. That's two Jesus's in a row.
He's going to be very busy smoking a cigar. Yeah? Jesus has already been done? Okay, hang on.
Let me redo that. Scratch that. I'm sure he could do two. I'm sure he could.
I mean, who wouldn't have, you know. He was a wine guy. I feel like it doesn't qualify. Okay.
Yeah. That was Mike number one who said Jesus didn't qualify. Okay. All right.
What, he wasn't? He might be one of our listeners. I don't know. You should have a list of guys that have already are on the board so that way nobody has to, you know.
No, I think Jesus can stay. Jesus is a good answer. You can use Jesus. All right, we'll stick with Jesus.
That's what you went with? All right. What's the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you? It's not what happens, but how you deal with it.
Right? Right. And I think that that that's right. So Esteban calling us going, hey, I don't have any tobacco.
Right. So instead of being like, well, OK, that was a good run or whatever. Got to go. Got to go.
We're done. But, you know, you could have cancer. You could hit, you know, you could, you know, some of the worst luck. But, you know, there are people who have the ability to kind of see through that and get past that and kind of react differently and have a positive attitude.
Right. To kind of power through, you know, to me, that is one of the, you know, I've, listen, you know, I've never had to file bankruptcy, you know, but in the real estate market, you know, I've made shit tons of money, and I've lost lots of money, and, um, but at the end of the day, you know, I'm very blessed to be where I'm at today, right, so, you know, instead of saying, oh, hey, I'm the victim, and woe is me, it's all about perspective, and, you know, and how you look at it, so that's, to me, that's the best advice anybody's ever given to me. Excellent. Excellent.
Very good. Okay. What is your favorite cigar? My favorite cigar is mine.
No, the Adrian's Costa Rican cigar to me is probably my favorite cigar. No shit. You still have some of those? I have a very small amount of them.
It's, I mean, it's, I mean, when you create something, it's the pride and joy, right? Right. So, what are you gonna say about that? If, if it was not...
Your brand. Your brand. My brand. Whatever cigar that I smoked with the night that I had my first cigar with my dad would be the other one.
Right. Whatever that was. Because that was a very impactful moment for me. For sure.
I mean, that set you down this path that was, at one point, a side hustle and has now grown into what it is today. Okay. Question number four. What fictitious person would you like to share a cigar with?
Ooh. Fictitious person would I like. Yeah. TV, book.
TV. Hmm. I don't know, something that would give me some brownie points with my son, so one of the Marvel characters, I guess. Which one?
I don't know. I mean, there's so many. I don't know. Wolverine's a cigar guy.
Yeah, but I'm not letting you off the hook. Come on. Yeah, Wolverine, that guy. Bullshit, you loaded that.
Yeah, I like it. Thank you. God damn it, Mike. You had one job.
Son of a bitch. I'm sorry. Okay. Wolverine.
I feel like that's, you know, I'm going to tell you what I said to John Carney. He's like, you like Peaky Blinders? He could have gone that direction. He could have gone fucking Tommy, you know.
He doesn't smoke cigars, though. So he's a cigarette and rum. He's a cigarette. So what?
Yeah. But there could be, I mean, you watch, you fly around fucking everywhere. And I know that you watch a lot of Netflix and all this other bullshit. So there's got to be a character.
Oh, I know who it would be. There it is. Captain Jack Sparrow. There you go.
Oh, there you go. From Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh, that guy would be a hoot. I mean, why not?
Fuck yeah. I mean, what about the rum? Hide the rum. Yeah.
So that's my guy. Excellent. Very good. That's it.
That's all the questions. That's it. Thanks for having me on, guys. I had a fun time.
We appreciate you coming in. You had a great time. You had a good time on the bike house? Very nice.
Thank you so much for coming out, dude. Like I said, you are a mentor to me and I appreciate all the bullshit that you put me through. One day you too will be a better version of you. Right?
I work on that every day. Every day. Thank you to our studio audience. Oh yeah, thanks.
Thank you for making any noise at all. They were super quiet. I think they're asleep. It goes off.
Alright, that's it. Alright folks, that's it. Show's over. If you like what we're doing, please tell your friends about us.
Leave feedback. We always like to hear if you like the show or not, or if you have any suggestions for guests that we might possibly bring on at a later date. You can find us on our Facebook page at A Cigar Hustlers Podcast, or you can follow us on Instagram at Cigar Hustlers Podcast. Thanks for listening, but get the fuck back to work.
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Show Notes
Michael Rosales was in town for an event with Cigar Hustler so we took the opportunity to have him sit down with us for a chat! Listen in a find out not only how he got into the industry but how he met Skip Martin and how Roma Craft was born!
You can follow us on IG @cigarhustlerspodcast or leave thoughts, comments and guest suggestions on our FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast".
Mike 1 can be found on IG @cigarhustler and Mike 2 can be found @floridacigarclub_mike.