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It's like having a smoke in a cigar lounge WITH 5 CIGAR NOTABLES. Light up you best celebratory cigar (perhaps La Flor Dominicana Andalusian Bull, rated #1 cigar of 2016 by Cigar Aficionado, BTW?) for this virtual smoke sesh featuring:

- Cigar Aficionado Hall of Famer Litto Gomez, Co-owner of La Flor Dominicana (LFD)

- Tony Gomez, LFD Vice President

- Sean Knutsen, Boveda CEO

- Tim Swail, Boveda Executive VP of Sales

- Drew Emmer, Guru of Strategic Relationships

One of the top premium cigar brands, LFD creates some of the strongest smoking profiles and full-flavored Dominican cigars around. LFD is known for its consistency thanks to the cigar maker's vertical integration—from farming its own tobacco to producing its own cigars in its own factory. LFD's highly skilled artisanal cigar rollers produce distinctive cigar shapes and limited-edition designs.

Recorded at PCA 2024, the preeminent event for premium cigar and pipe industry.

00:00 This is Box Press

08:28 What's it like to be Litto Gomez's son?

13:00 Creating a successful cigar business from nothing

20:31 Litto Gomez knew nothing about cigars when he started in the cigar business

20:54 Versace silk shirts, gold chains and Dominican cigars

24:59 Litto and Ines Gomez cold called cigar stores

29:31 The cigar brand that didn't grow during the 1990s cigar boom

32:40 You'll know you made it when you don't pay the bill

35:06 A cigar maker is only as good as your last cigar

37:58 $100 cigar—what a cigar should cost

38:23 LFD Cameroon Cabinet #3

42:09 Creating the world's first cigar NFT and Alex Martinez of Mane Street Cigars

46:42 The Cigar Merchant in Atlanta was an early adopter of LFD cigars

50:53 Tony surprised Litto Gomez with a 70th birthday party on the eve of the 2024 PCA Show

56:58 Litto Gomez made his own vacuum chamber

1:00 Litto Gomez talks about his dad's factory accident

1:08 Tale of two different perspectives on life

1:14 LFD cigars and Boveda 2-way humidity control

What is Boveda? Legendary cigars brands like LFD protect their blends with Boveda 2-way humidity control—that brown pack that you find in the box with your cigars. Boveda preserves the flavor and character of premium cigars by keeping them at ideal humidity. At home, continue to use Boveda in your humidor to keep cigars well-humidified or they can be hard to light, burn to too fast or get moldy. With Boveda in your humidor, you'll enjoy full flavor and a perfect smoke from every cigar.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bovedausa/

X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/BovedaInc

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bovedainc/?..

- The first time we met Litto-

- On the line.

- I think it was at a cigar store,

probably in the Midwest maybe.

Maybe the Chicago area.

Or whatever.

And I remember meeting Litto.

Tim and I were there.

Litto was there doing his thing

and introducing ourselves.

You're probably wondering,

"Who the hell are these guys?"

But we were just trying

to meet and get to know

an up-and-coming, really.

He has really already arrived.

Of course, we were brand new

in the industry at the time,

but I just remember that conversation,

just the respect that you gave us

and the ability to, you know.

We were probably wondering,

these two are gonna be here

this year and gone next year

is probably what he was thinking.

But we were telling him about what we did

and everything else.

And that was the first time.

I wish I remembered the store.

I don't remember the store.

- And you know what?

There's few cases like that,

that I have seen over the years.

And like Michael Frey, for example.

Okay?

- Yes.

- Michael Frey, he came into

the industry in a moment

in which there was no cigars for anybody.

You wanna open a store

and there was no cigars for you, okay?

Because nobody, none of the cigar makers

had enough cigars for the

traditional customers.

- Sure.

- And Michael and Robert Frey,

they were coming to every event

of the industry and hanging out with us,

with every cigar maker.

They would be in every event.

And they had the store.

It was open already.

- Yeah.

- And they were with us all the time.

And that's how they got cigars.

I mean, these guys-

- Smart.

Smart guys.

- They are in the industry

and they come to every event.

- They just built a relationship-

- And they're nice.

I compare you guys with Michael,

and it's a couple of more cases

in which these people are doing it right.

I mean, they come to the industry

and they're part of every event.

And they meet and they

introduce themselves to,

whether you're a supplier

or a possible customer,

I've seen cases like that.

And the people that have done that

were successful.

- Yeah.

- That's half the battle

is being there, right?

You gotta be there.

You gotta be present.

- Yeah, you become a part

of the family somehow.

- You gotta be interwoven in the fabric

of everything in order to-

- Exactly, exactly.

- To be there.

- And for some reason,

everybody liked you guys, you know?

- Yeah. (laughs)

- Well, there's a difference

between just wanting

to be in the business,

to be in business as

opposed to having a passion

and a real desire and

care for the industry.

We're fans.

So we're first and foremost,

Tim and I are cigar fans.

We love the product.

And we felt like we had a place

in the industry passionately

to really solve problems that

really existed out there.

So we come from that point of view

with a deep level of care

and passion in the industry.

And so when we meet you two,

and for example, meet Litto, it's like,

"Wow, this is an honor to

meet someone who's made it

and who has a following

and people covet their

cigars and all of that."

- But also has the passion.

I mean, what you've

done with your business

has been significant.

I mean, you went all in

and bought your own farm,

started growing your own tobacco.

Not everybody goes down that road.

Some people just build brands

and have other people make them for them.

But you went all in.

And that's a huge sacrifice.

- Yeah.

- That's a passion play.

- The first story that

you said that I remember

that clicks in my mind was

when you were talking about

the early days when you started.

And it's a business

lesson that's really key.

And you were talking about those cigars,

the thousands and thousands of cigars

that didn't meet your qualities.

I was thinking Ben Hogan when

he ripped up his golf clubs,

when he didn't wanna put his name on them.

But you tell that story when you were,

just the quality standards

and the demand for excellence

with your name on it, you know?

- It is, and I'm gonna

go back to you guys.

And they have this structure.

Like every time this guy see you,

they tell you something nice, right?

- Yes.

- How elegant you look.

They're programed to be successful.

- Oh, I love these guys.

I feel like a million bucks.

- You never see them,

you don't get a compliment

from them, okay?

Yeah.

Yeah, you guys know your shit.

- Litto always tells me,

you like the Boveda guys

because they always laugh

at your stupid jokes.

I said, "Fuck them."

(all laughing)

- One of the funniest guys I know.

- I know.

- Fun to be around because, one of the,

I mean, look at those three.

These guys are creative.

You guys are seriously

very, very creative.

But you did a skit.

When you guys were on

trying to reach the stuff

and you couldn't reach the cigars,

but your dad, he could reach them.

You panned out and your dad was,

all that stuff is creatives.

People need to look that one up

if they haven't seen it.

- That's a great one.

- Have you seen that Drew?

- I have not.

- It's a skit.

Look at some of their skits.

These guys are brilliant and funny

on the skits that they put together.

Yeah, they're good.

You guys still do those?

- We haven't done one in a while.

We really-

- Gotta bring that back.

- I was thinking about that yesterday.

- I gotta put pen to paper

and come up with some.

We'll do some soon.

- And most of the stuff we've done

comes up like in a minute.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Tony come, or Litto come.

- Yeah, we do something.

- You do something, yeah.

- Something just come and

it just happens naturally.

Yeah.

- We gotta do it.

- Well, it's-

- So like-

- Go ahead, go ahead.

- Oh, I was just gonna say,

it shows the fun that you're

having doing business, right?

It's a way of life.

It's a sport of business,

and you just have to enjoy the journey

along the way every time,

because it's not easy every day.

- And very different it makes.

Like, yeah, you're gonna

work for a paycheck, right?

Happiness on Friday.

- Yeah.

- But there's nothing in

your soul that attracts you

other than that paycheck

you get on a Friday.

How sad is that?

- Yeah, very empty.

- It's pretty empty.

- Yeah.

- Because the check,

the money from the check goes away.

And then you got nothing

in your soul, okay?

So unless you find something

that you're passionate about,

you're gonna have a really boring life

for the rest of your life

if you don't look for

something that you like,

something that you love,

something that gets you out of bed

like very quick in the morning.

And you wanna get to work in a rush

because you wanna accomplish something.

And then if you happen to accomplish it,

that's what fills your soul.

Everything that's material, okay?

You buy the car of your

dreams today, right?

And you get on it and

you get out of the car

and you look back at

the car and you love it.

And then in the next five, six days,

you keep turning back

after you leave the car

and you look at it,

"Man, that's beautiful."

After a week, it's just a machine

that takes you from point A to point B.

There's nothing to it, right?

Now, the things that fill your soul

because you accomplished something,

okay, those are the

things that make you alive

and make you happy and stay with you.

So if you're happy with what

you accomplish every day,

if you're happy with yourself,

like that's what fills you up.

There's nothing else.

And I know every time, you know,

I give a diamond to my wife, right?

And she treats me like very

nice for three or four days.

After that, she treat me like shit again.

(all laughing)

One day, I gave her a

frame with a picture of us

on a really nice trip.

Man, that thing, she was

talking about that for a year.

- Let's just be conscious

of there's a guy that

just got engaged here.

- Yeah, that's right, let's not ruin

the sanctimony of marriage.

- I'm not only talking

to them, I'm talking to you too, okay?

All right?

- I do have to write a book

one day of the advice from my father.

There's some doozies in there.

- Come on.

- The words of my father.

- Well, that's an interesting segue,

because what's it like to be his son?

- That's a loaded question.

- No, I'm just thinking

about the reputation in the

cigar industry, the story.

I'm very curious to

hear about how you felt

when you started in the business

and how your expectations have been met

or missed over the years.

But to come into the game as a son

and to have a guy who,

you won't like this,

but people treat him like a legend.

- Yeah.

- So how's that?

I mean, just how is that?

- I mean, first off, like

it's an absolute pleasure.

I think when I gave a speech the other day

at his birthday party, I touched on it,

but just to watch this guy, it's awesome.

The way he makes things happen,

he's got a certain way about him.

And like I said, they don't

make him like him anymore.

I've learned a lot of

incredible lessons from him.

I've also learned about a lot

of things not to do. (laughs)

But no, he's unbelievable

in like every facet of it.

He's an unbelievable person

in the way he accomplishes things,

the way he sets his head to a

goal and he makes it happen.

The guy's got no education.

He didn't finish high school.

He grew up on a dirt road.

And he'll walk into Dominican Republic,

he didn't know a single

thing about making cigars.

And look at him 30 years later, you know?

It doesn't make any sense.

He shouldn't have accomplished

that, but he did somehow.

So it's awesome.

And it puts you interesting position,

because everybody has

so much respect for him

that it's gonna fall on me too.

Everybody's nice to me just

because he's my father.

But you have to deal with

that in a certain way

because you want people to

respect you for you also.

I don't want to just be respected

because I'm Litto's son

for the rest of my life.

I wanna be Tony Gomez too.

So that's the kind of the

thing that's always there

in the back of your head,

like you wanna accomplish

your own things too.

You wanna contribute.

- Look over your left shoulder.

- Yep.

- We didn't plan that.

We didn't plan that, but we got Litto's

For My Humidor poster is

looking over your left shoulder.

So the expectations from

when you were starting,

when you took the chance

and your reflection on

how your life has either

met those or missed them.

- Let me go back to the previous question.

I imagine that you come into an industry

and there was somebody before

you that built something

and then you come into it.

And it's probably complicated.

It's probably not easy.

But you're building a name for yourself.

You have nothing to,

whatever your reputation is

has nothing to do with me.

And you became your own person.

You have your own style,

which is an accomplishment by itself.

- By itself.

- Okay?

It's just you, it doesn't

matter who your father is.

You are you,

and you are loved and respected

because of the way you are.

And you stayed with the way you are.

You never tried to be someone else.

And that, to me, it takes guts.

It takes security in your own self-esteem.

And it's something that is powerful to me.

And I admire that.

I admire the way you have conduct yourself

and the respect you got.

Learn not only with consumers

or within the industry.

- Thank you.

- You build your own name.

And that's hard to do

when you have somebody previous to you.

- I know, definitely.

- And that's a great thing

that has been going on.

And Litto seems like he's is gonna,

junior seems like he's gonna have,

he has his own personality.

- I mean, oh, yeah.

- It's kind of scary, but he

does have his personality.

Things I do, and you just

mentioned my education level.

Just because the way I

do things is orthodox

because I have no education,

I don't never follow a chain of command

by these people under me.

And I jump everybody else.

Like I go straight to the

people that are working,

and I sit down with

them and I talk to them.

And if the guy that's just

under me doesn't like it,

just get out of here.

- Yeah.

- Okay?

I don't want filters.

Everybody has a filter.

Everybody protected us.

So I go directly to the people

that work for me at the lower end.

And I talk to them.

I talk about their families.

I talk how their life is

and what problems

they're having with work.

And I want that information unfiltered.

- Sure.

- And it doesn't look good.

When you're in a structure

and you get a size,

you got the structure.

One thing you have 10 employees,

but another thing's you have 350,

so now you have a structure, right?

Because you can't talk

to 350 people every day.

Like you gotta have a

structure of command.

But I don't really,

I do it because I have to do

it because I don't have time,

but to speak to everybody,

but I don't follow it.

- Sure.

- I'm very orthodox

in the things that I do every day.

- Well, it's a great trait of leadership

of connecting with your people

and having the interest in the care.

- Yeah.

- Doesn't matter who they are,

but it can be on the personal level,

but also just how they're

doing within their job as well.

- About three weeks ago, I

met with a few in my office,

a few our employees in

the sorting department.

And I'm speaking to them.

And this woman is telling me,

"You know, Litto, you

are a business person.

And yet every time I go

across you and you say,

"Hi, how are you?"

And then I found out about her life.

I explain to them, listen.

And I told her about my life,

about my first job in

Canada when I immigrated,

that I got to walk a mile every

day from the last bus stop

to get to the factory in

the middle of the winter

with the shoes from Uruguay

that were not prepared for the weather.

And by the time I got to the

factory, my legs were frozen.

And it take more than half

hour to feel my legs again.

And I'm telling this, woman start crying.

I said, "This is where I come from.

You can't tell me about

having issues at home,

because in my house when I grew up,

we will eat when there was food.

So I grew up very poor.

So there's nothing that you're living

that I don't know how you feel about."

And I know exactly.

And this woman started crying.

And and she goes, "Litto, I have no idea

that you went through that in your life."

And you know what?

It's a great, great experience to,

that being able to communicate

with your people like that,

and that they get to

know who you are also,

because most people think,

this guy's from a wealthy

family or something.

You got everything on a silver platter.

And you know what?

It is a great level of

communication and feelings.

And every time I see those

women, after we had a talk,

and I feel different about them

and they feel different about me.

- Human connection was real.

- Exactly, yeah, exactly.

- There's something like

very unique about you

that I've noticed over the

years, which I think is really,

it's a cool thing, is that everybody

at the company loves him, obviously.

Like from the Miami office

staff to our sales force,

but even down to the cleaning

staff at the factory,

from top to bottom.

But the unique thing is,

even the people he's fired over the years

and perhaps fired brutally,

still fucking love him.

- Yeah.

- They all do.

- Remember the guy that worked

at the printer upstairs?

- Yes.

- Not the guy before,

the guy was in charge.

What's his name?

A cool guy with an earring.

- Hanley.

- The guy before Hanley

that was in charge in the cool guy.

Really cool guy, okay?

And that day, Jochy [Blanco]

and I went to cigar lounge

in Tamboril, okay?

The guy, a lovely guy,

the guy that owns a cigar lounge

and he was inviting us for a long time.

So Jochy and I got together and said,

"Let's go to his lounge."

And we show up there

and this guy was there.

- Yeah.

- Okay?

And the owner of the lounge,

he called a saxophone guy

to come and play for us.

And then there was, you know,

women come, and former employees of us

that work at the factory.

And some of them were

working at the factory still.

And we are in a social environment

with the music playing and smoking cigars.

They're customers of the same place

that we have been customers, okay?

- Interesting.

- What an interesting mix that was.

- That's cool.

- And this guy was there,

the guy that I fired.

And then the conversation

started talking about the past

and how we started.

And Jochy helped me

tremendously when I started.

And we were telling the

owner of the lounge,

who happened to be the husband

of the country's general attorney,

a very powerful woman in the

country, in Dominican Republic.

She's the most powerful

woman after the president.

She can put anybody in jail.

A very powerful and very brilliant woman.

And the guy that owns the

lounge is the husband, okay?

And so we have this

interaction with, you know,

some of our employees,

some Jochy's former

employees now work for us.

And stories in the past, how we started,

and the story went back to our

childhood and our, you know.

And these people that

are either working for us

or former employees, they had no idea.

I mean, Jochy's story is amazing.

Like Jochy's story is amazing.

- He's been around the block, huh?

- Yeah, and even though he's

from a comfortable family,

okay, his father was a powerful

guy, very well-respected

and economically well off.

But when he heard his father died,

Jochy was not in a good

position economically.

And his father asked him to

protect his nine brothers,

and there was no money left

when this father died, okay?

So Tony, I mean, Jochy's

story is an amazing one.

These guys, our employees,

they're listening to all this.

- When you first went down to the D.R.,

you didn't know what you

were doing really for cigars,

but you picked that out.

And then did you approach Jochy first?

Because you've got a lot of mentors

that are within the industry

that had a lot of experience,

and what did they think

about you coming there raw

and they weren't intimidated

by the newcomer coming in

as a competitor, really.

But yet they were open to you to-

- He was a very strange bird down there

when he first showed up.

I don't think they'd ever

seen anybody quite like him.

These old pictures of him

that he'd be down there

with like Versace shirts

and like this kind of stuff.

Like, "Who the hell is this guy?

Who does he think he is?"

- Yeah. (laughs)

- I'm taking the flight to

Puerto Plata back in those days.

Not Santiago,

there was no airport like now-

- Sure.

- And there was few cigar

makers always in the cabin.

And there with this Gianni Versace

silk shirts would open up to here.

And gold chains and-

- Miami Vice.

- Yeah, Miami Vice.

And this guy, see, I

didn't fit the profile,

the profile these guys are making.

And this guys are looking at me and say,

"Who's this guy?"

- What is this?

Yeah, that's great.

- And so some were very reluctant.

Like some were like, "Yeah,

this is a mafia guy from Miami."

You know Daniel Núñez, right?-

- Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

So happened that I went to buy

a Bello Connecticut Shade.

It was owned by General

back in those days.

And I meet Daniel.

And I went with one of my cigar rollers

and he looked at the wrapper,

and because I didn't

know shit from wrappers.

- Yeah.

- And so he look at the wrapper

and said, "This is good."

So I said, "Okay, I'm gonna

take this Bello tobacco."

And then I paid him in

cash with $20 bills,

and I lived forever.

He thought I was a drug dealer

from Miami.

- 100%, 100%.

- He was a nice guy, Daniel Núñez.

- He's a gentleman, a gentleman.

- That's great.

You're sitting there going.

- And these guys are legit.

- Let me open my briefcase

- I can account for every bill.

- But some guys were very reluctant.

I understood why, okay?

I get it.

- Well, back in those days,

people didn't show up in open factories.

- It was unheard of, it was unheard of.

- If you weren't in for generations,

you didn't come into it, you know?

- Right.

- And so it didn't even make

any sense for you to be there.

- Right, so they were worried.

They were skeptical.

But some of the guys did.

They saw something in me, okay?

That made them trust me or

think that I have a future in.

And one of them was Jochy

[Blanco], Carlito [Fuente]

and my tobacco suppliers,

people that I love so much, so dearly,

because of the support they give me.

- Was it hard?

- And the trust.

I mean, I show up as a guy,

nobody knows who I am.

So my tobacco supplier,

I will go and pick up two

beds of tobacco for the week.

And when I finish those,

I go pick up the next

week, we go pick up more.

And this guy is giving me credit.

"Take it, you pay me when you can."

He doesn't know who I am, right?

And so they saw something,

which I don't know what it was back then,

because I didn't have much of a profile

of a successful cigar maker, okay?

But they did see something,

and they opened their hearts, their doors.

- And this was at a hard time, right?

Because you're talking the mid-90s,

which is the boom.

The boom is happening.

- Showed up

right before the boom, really.

- Yeah, it probably would've been tougher

if you would've waited three years.

- Oh my God, yeah.

Yeah, completely.

- You came in the perfect time

- Yeah.

- That's when you came in,

then 100 other people came in.

- Right.

I come in, and so this is the thing.

I'm trying to make cigars in Dominican,

and finally, we get it right.

And now we're packing and

putting the first cigar

in boxes, right?

So we have some cigars to sell.

So Ines [Lorenzo-Gomez]

and I have a booklet.

It was published by Cigar Aficionado

with a list of retail shops in the U.S.

Name of the shop, the

address, the phone number.

And so we started from the

beginning of that little booklet

and we started calling.

We called 25 people and 24 would say no.

And I introduced myself.

I said, my name is so and so.

We just opened a little cigar factory

in Dominican Republic.

We would like to send you some samples

to see if you like them.

And then we will give you a

call to see what you think.

And we'll send the samples,

and then few days later,

do a follow up call.

And out of 25 people, 24 would say no,

one would say yes, right?

And then a few months after

that, maybe a year after that,

the cigar boom comes.

It just exploded like so fast, right?

So now you call 10 cigar shops

and all 10 say yes.

- Yes.

It's a big difference.

- Right.

So what does it do for us?

It gives La Flor the

opportunity to be in the shops,

to be exposed in the

shelves of the stores.

- Yes.

- Fast forward the next six months,

more than a hundred

cigar factories open up

in Dominican Republic only.

- I remember those days, yeah.

- So now, and those cigar makers,

they had the same opportunity.

They all went to the shops

because the traditional brands

were nowhere to be found.

- Sure.

- There was a much bigger

demand that they could supply.

So it opened the doors to

all these new brands, okay?

So now, we're in the middle of cigar boom,

but I had 12 rollers,

and I couldn't bring one more roller

because there was not one

extra pound of tobacco,

the good quality tobacco that I could use

because our suppliers, they

have no inventory anymore.

And they have to split, okay?

So much goes here.

My traditional customers, I mean,

the supplier's traditional customer

in our case was Fuente and La Flor.

- You were grouped, so they gave you

the pretty good credibility then on that.

- That was my supplier.

He was financed by Fuente

and he would supply Fuente and La Flor.

So that was lot tobacco for Fuente.

And Fuente didn't have cigars back then.

I mean, Fuente's shipments

would get to stores

and they will hide it.

Cigar shops will keep it

for the preferred customer.

You not see Fuentes in shops.

So this guy would have his tobacco,

but he didn't have inventory.

He couldn't give me one

more pound of tobacco,

additional to what he was giving me.

In fact, if Don Carlos Fuente

would've picked up the phone

and call this guy, "Hey, listen,

I know you're selling tobacco to Litto.

I need that shit."

I would've been out of

business immediately.

- Oh, sure.

- I needed that tobacco for real.

- Yeah, and they were selling everything.

Everyone was selling everything.

- Yeah, back in those days,

I mean, people would go to a store,

they ask for Fuente.

They didn't have it, they didn't smoke.

Like it was crazy.

- Must've been frustrating to one degree

because here, the demand was there,

but you just couldn't

turn on the cash machine.

- Yeah.

So I spent the whole cigar

boom with my 12 rollers.

no growth whatsoever.

- Wow, wow.

- Millions of cigars on back order.

We're producing 300,000 a year.

- Wow.

- And I needed money.

We needed money.

- Sure, oh yeah.

- It's not like we started

with a million dollars

or anything close to that, okay?

We set up a company like

less than $150,000, okay?

And even though I'm

struggling to meet payroll,

but I cannot make another

thousand cigars with tobacco

that didn't qualify for a blend.

I could not do that.

- Couldn't do it, yeah.

- Yeah, so we didn't grow

in the whole cigar boom.

We started growing in '98.

Got the boom tapered down.

And it was over,

and the supplier of the

traditional brands was coming in,

in plenty of supply, okay?

Plenty of quantities.

So at that point, that was a big question.

Who's gonna stay in the shop?

- Yeah, that's right.

- Yeah, that's right.

Well, you were able to,

it's all staying power

at that point.

- So Dominican Republic,

we are the only company that

wasn't there 35 years ago.

We're the only ones.

In Nicaragua, with maybe Rocky [Patel],

Abdel ["AJ" Fernandez],

couple of brands at the most.

- Sure.

- Okay?

All the other factories that

were open, they're gone.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Okay?

Everybody's gone.

And why is that?

Well, you know what?

We respected our blends,

and we respected the people

that are buying our blends

and didn't take tobacco, we

share cigars, we share tobacco

in order to sell a few more boxes.

That takes a lot of commitment,

because you're making cigar to make money,

or you're trying to build

your name and your brand.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Yeah, you kept the integrity

of the brand.

- To become a cigar maker.

- Well, it's in it for the long haul,

not the short term.

- I earned a reputation.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Love you, baby. (laughs)

- Yeah, that's a great story.

That's a great lesson, yeah.

- That was what made the difference in us.

All those gone, and this

company's still here.

- Yeah, with sustained power

and what's the relationships

and the integrity.

- It was the respect for your name,

the respect for the consumer

that actually was buying,

choosing your cigar.

And Jorge [Padrón] and I was

talking last night, right?

These brands are coming to the market,

but there hasn't been a new

cigar maker in a long time.

- It's rare, it's rare.

- Yeah.

- It's still the same.

- That's a different

level of commitment to

go open a factory and-

- Yeah, yes, when you say new cigar maker

opening their own factory,

a lot of brands have come

where people are contracting with,

but they don't have their own factory

vertically integrated like you guys.

- Exactly.

- That's a whole different animal.

- There's a lot of great

factories out there

that do private labels and all that.

So it's much easier today-

- To enter, yeah.

- To start a brand.

- But yeah, to open a factory,

that's a whole different beast.

- I'm happy this guy did

it, because I don't know

if I would've been able

to pull that one off.

- Yeah, it's amazing.

It takes a level of grit.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Stick-to-itiveness just to stay with it.

But it's the long term

vision that you had and said,

"Hey, we're in it for the long haul,

not the short term" is everything.

- Yeah, exactly, yeah.

And I knew it was gonna take a long time.

It's hard, it's hard.

- Yeah.

- I remember one day,

I went to a place in the Carolinas

to do a cigar dinner, right?

And I get on a plane,

I send cigars for the dinner,

get in a hotel for a couple of days

to do this dinner in this place,

and you do the dinner and

you speak to the people

that attend and everything.

At then at the end of the

night, they bring me the check,

they bring me the bill for my dinner.

- Wow.

- And wait, what do you do

with something like that happens, okay?

Well, you can either get upset to the guy

or think what I thought at the moment.

Man, I gotta work a lot harder. (laughs)

I gotta work.

I gotta fix this.

And the only way I'm gonna fix it

is just keep focusing and keep working.

- Sure.

- One day, it's not gonna happen.

- Yeah.

- You know?

- So you took that as a

sign that I'm not there yet.

- Not there yet.

Keep working, bro.

- Yeah, that's right.

- Keep working.

- 30 years later, we have a birthday bash

for you last night.

And we have a hundred drinks,

and I have no idea who

the hell paid the tab.

We were trying to figure that out.

- Oh my God, yeah.

- Who paid for all that?

- I went to pay the bill last night

and it was taken care of.

I spent some time today

trying to figure out

who paid for that.

- Oh, that's awesome.

- Well, it wasn't us.

(all laughing)

- So that's a good comparison.

- That's amazing.

- You finally made it.

- Yeah, you finally made it.

- That is awesome.

- It's amazing.

Well, that person who did it

would never admit it anyway probably.

- Didn't do it for the recognition.

- Yeah.

- The funny thing is,

I still think that I gotta keep working.

- Yes.

- Because, and don't

let this ever trick you,

you are as good as your last cigar.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

- Don't let any of that

thing go to your head,

because whatever it took

you to build something,

it goes to shit in one minute.

- You told me that.

It's one lesson I always

remember that you-

- That's good.

- Well, you know,

it's one of your stories about,

I think I forget which blend it was.

If it was the 2000 Series

or something, I don't know.

You released it and it

did really, really well,

and you were on a hot streak for a while,

and maybe you kind of

rested on your laurels

just a little bit.

And then it kind of started to crater.

And you're like, "What the hell happened?"

You realized I got comfortable.

- Yeah.

At first, I was finding reasons for like,

9/11, terrorism.

Now, just bullshitting myself, right?

- Yeah.

- So stock going down in the company.

And then one day, I was looking

at myself in the mirror,

I said, "What the fuck you doing?

You haven't done nothing in two years."

- In recently, yeah, yeah.

- Right.

What are you doing?

- Yeah.

- Wake up, go back to work.

Idiot.

(all laughing)

I'm in front of a mirror insulting myself.

Right?

And went back to work.

Ligero come out, Double Ligero come out.

Boom.

- But I always remember,

every time we come out with a project

and no matter how successful it is,

it might have been hugely

successful, but whatever,

it's like a week you enjoy

it, but then, what's next man?

- Thinking about what's next.

- Back to the grind.

- Well, that was great self-critique,

which a lot of people don't

have the ability to do that.

But you've seen over the years,

you've seen some brands come in

that have gotten really hot,

but then they disappear.

And they have issues.

They have issues with draws.

They have issues with quality.

They change it from what it was.

They don't have the standards.

And you see them all the time.

I mean, I can think of one,

I'm not gonna name them,

but it's like, came in

and was a bright star

and just went out as fast as he came in.

But it got complacent.

- Yeah.

- It is.

This is a continuous work.

And we cannot let our eyes

out of what's important,

which is the cigars we're making

on the day-to-day basis, right?

- We've always had

admiration for cigar makers,

because it's not easy because

it changes year to year.

I mean, you're relying

on a natural product

and you're trying to keep

consistency in that blend.

- Yeah, a lot of moving parts.

- Oh, there's a lot of moving parts.

And that's what the beauty of going down

and visiting the factories

is you have a whole new

appreciation for what

goes into making a cigar.

And it's amazing, okay.

They should cost $100 each

after you watch the process,

and the painstaking

investment that it takes

to get the tobacco and age it for years,

and then all the hands that touch it

and the packaging and everything.

- Yeah, you go to a cigar factory

and you start to realize how brilliant

the good factories are

and the good owners are,

how brilliant they are,

because it is not a simple operation.

- Is that the same cigar that

it was when you introduced it?

Hasn't changed?

- That's the same cigar

he is been smoking for,

I don't know how many years, but like-

- How many years has that been out?

- Yeah, when did you

come out with that one?

- '97.

- Oh, in '97.

- So the year that you guys got started.

- Yeah, it was our founding year, yeah.

- I swear to God, every now and then,

he lights up one of those cigars and like,

I'll just like catch a little whiff

and like I'm a little kid.

- It brings out the memory.

- I just remember

being a little kid and like,

because he is always smoked,

as far as I can remember.

- That consistency-

- It happens all the time.

It's so cool.

- The consistency

is incredible.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Well, that's one of the

cigars that, you know,

if anything goes wrong,

we know immediately.

- You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're smoking a lot of them.

- Do you have a backup to that?

If that's your main one,

do you have a second one?

- Well, anything that's Cameroon,

it will always be in my preference.

- Everything.

- Everything that's Cameroon.

- Love the Cameroon.

- Yeah, what a great wrapper.

- So good.

- So here we are, it's

What was your very first RTDA show?

Because it was called RTDA

for people that are

listening and watching.

The show association has changed.

But what was your first year

having a booth and going to the show?

- It was very interesting

because people go by your booth,

and they don't even look at it.

I mean, it was a little tiny booth,

like 8x10 or something like that.

And my wife and I, we hang the flag

with the name of our company

and we have a few boxes there.

And people would walk by, and obviously,

they don't even pay attention.

And I remember one day Diana-

- Silvius?

- Huh?

- Diana Silvius?

- Up Down [Cigar]?

- Somehow, you know?

- Yes.

- I was standing outside

the little table there,

and Diana comes by and looks at me.

"What do you do here?"

"See, our company in

Dominican is our brand."

"And who makes this for you?"

I said, "No, no, we make it

in our little factory in Dominican."

"You make it?

Okay.

Show me what you got there."

She come by.

I give her my business card, right?

She's looking at me like,

I mean, she was busting

balls all the time,

especially if she knew you knew.

And she was busting balls,

and yeah, she light up this cigar.

Shoot.

"Why did you open your factory?

Why didn't you ask somebody

to make the cigars for you?"

"No, I don't like that.

But that's a lot easier.

I mean, you don't know how to make cigars.

I mean, you have family in the industry."

- What a stupid idea.

- Yeah.

- While she's smoking the cigar,

she's puffing on the cigar,

and she goes, "Let me tell you, young man.

This cigar is fucking fantastic, okay?"

And she put another.

And then as she leaves the booth,

she's going around

telling everybody how good

La Flor cigar is.

- That's great.

- This is Diana.

- And people listening to her.

- She was legend at that time, oh yeah.

- She's a legend.

- There's certain people

here and there that you run into

that they kind of like early adopters

and visionaries that

see something, you know?

And that reminds me of like

when we first came out

with the NFTs, right?

You had a list of people that you thought

were gonna be the ones all over this.

A lot of the bigger retailers and whatnot.

And the first one goes to auction,

there's bidding war,

and it gets to the end.

At some point, it far surpassed

anything I expected these to go for.

It's in the 80,000 range.

And the guy I see aggressively bidding,

like a guy who seems like

he's not gonna be beat,

I have no idea who's bidding.

I have no idea who it is.

And this guy ends up

winning the first one.

And so immediately, I'm

talking to [Jonathan] Carney.

I'm like, "Carney, find

out who is this guy.

Find out who this is."

And it's this guy, Alex Martinez.

He owns a shop in New Jersey

called Mane Street Cigars.

And I'll be completely honest with you,

I had never heard of them.

I had no idea what this was.

And I look into it, you know?

It's a nice little shop,

blue collar shop in New Jersey.

It's nothing like tremendously

fancy or huge or anything.

And I'm like, "What the hell?

This is not what I was expecting at all."

And then the second one goes to auction,

and he's back in.

- He's back in.

- And he is, once again, will not be beat.

And this guy buys the second one.

And you gotta be fucking kidding me.

What's going on?

Who is this?

- Amazing.

- So unexpected.

And this guy just had,

he understood and he had this vision,

and he's making a killing

now with those cigars.

And some people just-

- They see it.

- There's visionaries

out there, they see something.

- That's right.

- They surprise you.

- That's amazing story.

And how many of those

lots did you do again?

- We made seven.

- Seven lots, it's been.

- He had the balls to

get the first two, man.

- Amazing.

- He would've gotten the third one too.

He was trying to go for a third one,

but he had like a price limit.

And then after the second one,

everything went above that,

that floor that he set.

- It went higher, yeah.

- That's amazing, the story.

- Yeah.

- But that's it.

And then, I mean, getting

Diana's in Chicago,

I mean, it was like-

- She's a player.

- Right.

- That was the shop in the country

at that time is what I

remember, Up Down [Cigar].

- Yep, legendary, legendary.

- And then, you know,

people like Robbie [Levin].

That's by the second RPDA.

I mean, I already have a

friendship with Carlito [Fuente],

very close friendship.

And Carlito would send me customers.

Robbie will bring customers to our booth.

Buy this brand.

- Wow.

- Wayne Suarez, I don't

know if you remember Wayne.

- Yeah, of course I remember Wayne, yeah.

- Wayne will bring customers.

- Ah, then that's amazing.

Good story.

- They'll bring customers to us.

- You were obviously making good product.

because they understand

what good cigars are.

- Jorge Padrón would bring customers.

And I'm looking at Ines [Lorenzo-Gomez]

and I say, "You believe this?"

- Were you friends with

Robbie at that time?

Were you friends with

Jorge at that time too?

- I was not that, I mean,

we spent time together in

events like The Big Smoke.

People remember it was

seven, six Big Smoke.

- Yeah, I remember that.

- And we were in all of them.

And we would hang out

in all of them, okay?

I had this very close friendship

with Carlito in Dominican,

but we were hanging out together.

Robbie, Wayne.

- Wayne, yeah.

- They were very close with

Billy O'Hara and Joe Howe.

Joe Howe, the original owner,

not the original dealer,

before Billy that owns

Jack Schwartz in Chicago.

And it was a group that we

were hanging out together.

And I mean, these people were helping us.

They were building our company.

- Weird little industry, huh?

- Customers, man.

- It is, isn't it?

- It only happens here.

- I'm going through this

and I'm falling more and more in love

and respect more this industry

because of the kind of

people that are in it.

It continued like that for many years.

And there was a few cigar shops.

I can name like The Cigar

Merchant in Atlanta.

I mean, the guy that used

to own that, Todd Trahan.

That guy, he saw something

in us from the first year

and he purchased everything that,

every size that we had.

And he put two of the same

facings in one next to each other

and give us a lot of space in shop.

- And this is the most

important cigar shop in Atlanta.

And you walk in the door,

and the guy will take you

to the La Flor Dominicana.

- That's great.

You need ambassadors like that, right?

- Right.

What happens when such a

important store in the city

is doing that with your brand

is that he's building a number

of smokers of your brand,

which will go around to

the other shops in the city

and ask for the brand.

- And ask for it.

- So now, every shop in the

city have to have your brand.

- Yeah.

- Okay?

I had a few guests in

this ProCigar Festival,

because we expanded the factory.

You saw the difference.

And there was a few people like that

that were key for us

at the very beginning,

that trusted us as a

brand that could succeed

and got behind and build our

brand in different cities.

Some of them are not even

in the business anymore,

but I invited them to come

because they're friends.

I still communicate with them.

- Yes.

- I'm still in touch with them.

And they are out of the

business for more than 10 years.

And I keep in touch with them,

and they're so fucking special to me

that I wanted them to see what happened

with the little company that they trusted.

- That they trusted, yeah.

- 30 years ago.

And I invited them.

And it was a small group

and we had a great time.

I mean, they had a great time.

- That was the best ProCigar ever, man.

- That was a good ProCigar.

You guys did a nice job, very nice job.

- And these guys are

talking to each other.

I remember all times when

they were in the business,

some of them still in the business

and some of them are not.

This is not a move to sell more cigars.

This is something that I will never forget

those people.

- You wanna show

appreciation.

- As long as I live.

- Yes.

- As long as I'm alive.

And so I was so happy to have them

and show them what happened,

because they were so special to us.

Yeah, it was a great time, a great time.

- It was a beautiful festival.

- Yeah.

Well, that ProCigar was meaningful.

We were so thankful we

were on that particular day

in the tour when you surprised your dad

with all the separate rooms within-

- The museum tour.

- Yeah, the museum

within the barn, and that was really cool.

- Yeah, man.

- Yeah.

- Most people don't know that journey

that you were on from Uruguay,

you touched on it when

you went to Toronto,

then back to Uruguay and then Miami

and the businesses there.

So you talked about passion earlier,

but you demonstrated that

in completely discreet

industries along the way,

from the restaurant business into-

- Jewelry.

- Nightclub

and jewelry and so on.

So it didn't matter what it

was for you at that moment,

it was, and you've said this,

be the best that you can be in the world.

And you put all your

energy behind each one

as a passionate thing for you

at that moment of your life.

And then the final one was the cigars

that kept for 30 years.

- It took him a while but-

- Ongoing, yeah.

- You found a good landing spot.

- I found it, yeah, I found it.

I found it, yeah.

And Tony, I mean, even

if you do nothing else

for the rest of your life,

you're cool with me, bro.

What you did there, like man.

- Yeah.

- That was never, never, I mean,

I'm trying to think what

he's gonna do or something.

I know there's a surprise,

and I don't like to blow surprises.

I wanna be surprised,

and never, never imagined that-

- You were surprised?

- I was very surprised.

I was fucking moved.

- Yeah.

- You deserved it, man.

- I was shaking.

I was shaking.

- You deserved it.

Yeah, it's tough.

What do I get this guy for his birthday?

What the hell can I get him?

There's very few things you

could really do. It's the 70th.

So I figured that's something right there.

- That you were able to pull it off,

knowing that you did

that the night before,

but you were working on this and curating

all those archives and things.

- Yeah, yeah.

- That's amazing.

- You had people helping you obviously.

- Of course, I could not-

- Put it together

and they had to keep it

a secret at the same time

and smuggle things into the

farm to set up in the barn.

I mean, and you did it the night before.

That's orchestrated.

That's like amazing that

you were able to do that.

The night before at ProCigar,

it's not like he had nothing else to do.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- He had a little bit going.

- It's a tight week, right?

- It was the only way, or

else he would've seen it.

It had to be a surprise.

There's no other way.

- Yeah, yeah.

- No, it's special.

- We got him good.

- Yeah, you got him good.

That's what you kept saying.

"I got him, I got him good."

- I did, yeah.

Finding something that you just wanna give

the best you have, whatever

that is, may not be enough.

But at least you give it your best shot.

- Yeah, that's right.

- Best of your ability.

- Right, exactly, yeah.

That's what it is.

I met people in my life that they just,

they do shit that they like

and they do give it their best.

And that they find the place

which is their confidence, they find it.

- Yeah.

All that is put to the test-

- Your best, whatever it is,

whatever it reaches,

it can reach up there,

can reach here, but you give

it your best, you got no more.

- All that is put to the test

when you face extreme hardship

along the way and you didn't

quit in those moments,

you plowed through and persevered

beyond measure on all them.

And in the cigar, it's not like,

"Hey, it was boom, cigar boom.

Here we made it."

No, that presented challenge

in and of itself in a big way.

And then afterward, I

mean, all of it just shows

and demonstrates your resolve

and people respect that,

your employees respect that,

but the other people in the industry

really respect that now.

And you can feel it with all of the main,

everyone in this industry has

such an admiration and respect

because those are the people who know

and understand the commitment you had

through the tough time, early on.

- And people respect that a lot.

Like people do respect.

I remember, I mean, I

was calling suppliers

like the Olivas, the Perez,

the big suppliers.

- Sure.

- Very respected suppliers.

I dare to call them at the beginning.

They wouldn't pick up the call.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And then, okay, they

don't pick up the call.

Well, I gotta go to work,

I gotta keep working.

Don't get upset.

Just gotta keep working.

It was the same shit.

It was the same shit

like when they charged me

for the dinner.

You gotta keep working.

One day, they're gonna pick up the phone.

And eventually, your name

start to be mentioned

in a good way, and then

now they hear the name

and then one day, they pick up the phone.

And then you get access

to that beautiful materials

that everybody wants.

But it all had to happen when you earn it.

That's what it is.

- Yeah, you earn it, yeah.

- You earned it, and one day,

they'll pick up the phone.

And they'll do business with you.

Why?

Because now,

you put the work in.

And the name sounds in a good way

and they wanna do business with you.

And then one day they

tell you, "You know what?

Doing business with you

gives me a good name."

- The reverse happens, right?

- It's a beautiful thing.

- Sure.

- It's a beautiful thing,

because it'd give me a good name

if I buy tobacco from this guy.

And one day that guy tells you,

it gives me a good name

if I sell you tobacco.

And it's a beautiful thing

that is like a mutual feel.

And they can trust you in

telling you how they feel about.

So I mean, so many great

things have happened,

and it's all just because

you just stay with it.

Just do your work.

- Believe in it.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You ever have a cigar that

you don't want it to end?

- Oh, many times.

Yeah, many times.

- That's the way this interview feels.

This conversation feels that way.

- Uh-huh, okay.

Thanks for sharing that.

- I don't want it to end.

It's just a beautiful thing.

- Litto wants to control

every bit of quality so much

that now, the boxes that

you guys do and produce,

the ashtrays that you,

you know, all of these,

some of these stories that we heard

that weren't even part of the tour

about you mixing up stuff

in the kitchen at home

or something like that

for the ashtrays that you guys are doing,

- The guy's ridiculous.

The guy needed a vacuum chamber

to suck out all the air

bubbles from the resin.

And so he starts looking

online to like buy one,

they're pretty expensive.

And he says, the funny

thing to me is that,

which would never occur to me, but to him,

he just thinks, "Well,

I'll just make one myself."

Who just thinks I'm gonna

make a vacuum chamber?

Like build one, I don't know.

How do you do that?

He built one.

- Yeah, on top of all the

other things he's got going on.

But I'm gonna figure out how

to build a vacuum chamber.

- Nobody, not many.

- That's awesome.

- Let me tell you something.

In my life, I mean, I

learned there was no,

in my family, I watched my grandfather,

my grandmother and my

father and my mother.

And I never knew any

other way to make a living

than work your ass off.

I never understood any other way.

When I make a living, you go to work.

- Doesn't happen without you.

- In my family,

my mother, my father, our family,

nobody ever took a penny

from the government

since we immigrated to the United States.

From day one, even if you

don't speak the language,

whatever, you just go to work every day

and you make your money,

you make your living.

Never heard of any other way

of making a living than put your work in.

- Where he grew up in Uruguay, right?

Uruguay's like a very,

it's like a very socialist

mindset out there, right?

Uruguayans are not

extremely ambitious people.

It's totally opposite to the America,

the American mindset of like work

and do something, be successful.

You guys are very content.

They have enough to survive

and that's just how you are.

There's nothing wrong with that,

but that's the mindset there, you know?

And I remember, I was

there some years ago,

and I still have some family

there on my mom's side,

and they still live in the

same house where she grew up,

which was around the corner

from where you grew up.

And I remember speaking to the neighbors

and it's the same neighbors

that have been there

for 60 years or whatever.

- Been there forever.

- "Are you Litto's son?

Oh my God, wow, that's unbelievable.

Nice to meet you."

And people tell me stories about my dad.

They'd be like, "Your dad was so strange.

He used to tell everybody that someday,

he's gonna be really successful

and rich and all these things."

And everybody's like, "Nobody

talks about that here."

I don't know where did he get that from.

He was just so weird.

He would work and he'd save up

and he'd buy like one nice pair of pants,

like a really nice one.

He'd wear it every day.

Nobody did that there.

You just did what you could

and you got by and that's it.

And nobody had like big dreams like that.

And for some reason, you just did.

I don't know where it came

from, but he always did.

- 80% of the town work in

this one factory, right?

My father worked at that factory, right?

My father was a,

a good life guy in back in Spain.

His family had money.

He never worked in his life.

Very good looking guy.

His life was all about having fun, right?

And he met my mother.

My mother from a very

poor family, no education.

My father's family didn't

want my mother, right?

But my father got married anyways,

so he had three kids, right?

And so they were living in

my father's mother house.

And father.

It was not a good setup.

Like they hated my mother.

And my father has three

kids and never worked, okay?

So they were living from

my grandparents, right?

My mother hated that setup, right?

She wasn't happy.

My mother's parents were

already immigrated to Uruguay.

In South America, like many

Europeans back in those days

immigrated to South

America, Argentina, Uruguay.

And so my mother finally

convinced my father,

put pressure on my father to

immigrate to Uruguay, right?

So my father goes to his father

and asked him for a

loan to open a business

so he can support his family.

And my grandfather say no to my father.

So my father had to get on a

ship and immigrate to Uruguay

and start working for the

first time in his life

with three children.

- Wow.

- He started to work in a

factory in that town, right?

And then by the time I

was like eight years old,

he loses his right hand in an

accident at work up to here.

I watched him to learn how

to write with a left hand.

- Interesting.

- To tie his shoes with one hand,

on the left one.

Sometimes, he was really pissed off

and cursing and really pissed off.

And I go, "Dad, what's going on?

What's happening?"

Say, "I'm so stupid.

I can't learn fast enough."

That was his problem.

He was pissed at himself

because he was not learning fast enough.

He was not pissed at his

luck in life, at his faith.

He was pissed at himself, right?

And I saw him, he never

accepted a favor from anybody.

He never stopped working.

An American company,

the owner of the company

found a job for him that he could do,

kept him as an employee.

And he worked for the rest

of his life in the factory

and never missed a day of

work, never accepted favor,

never asked anybody for money.

He owned his own life.

So freaking proud of himself.

- Sure.

- Right, I never got money from my father,

but you know what?

I don't know.

You're from my generation.

The fathers in our generation

didn't hug you every day

and tell you they love you, right?

- That's right.

- You have to figure out

that they love you because

of little things they do.

They wouldn't tell you they

love you and hug you every day.

And it was a different

level of communication

between dad and the

son in that generation,

in those times.

So we had to figure it out.

And so communication

between my father and I

is not the same.

There's a lot of distance

between one and the other.

But what I got from him was,

just to watch him because it

was not a lot of teaching also,

but it was watching him

and take example of what

he does in his life,

of who he is and how do you fall

and get up and keep going.

And he was my hero.

Like if you wanna be

somebody's hero of a child,

you're gonna be his hero

no matter what you do.

You're gonna be his hero, right?

And my dad was my hero.

I learned a lot so much from him.

Honesty, more than everything else.

Just fucking brutal honesty.