This cigar podcast could save your or a loved one's life.

Following his own mental health crisis, Adam Levine founded the League of Fat Bastards Cigars. The boutique Nicaraguan cigar brand gives away 40% of its profits to men's mental health initiatives; hosts events where men can get real about their lives; and encourages intentional discussions about mental health over cigars.

Interview by Drew Emmer at PCA 2024, the preeminent event for premium cigar and pipe industry.

What is Boveda? League Of Fat Bastards Cigars recommends Boveda 2-way humidity control for wherever you store cigars. Boveda preserves the flavor and character of premium cigars by keeping them at ideal humidity. Boveda prevents cigars from drying out and mold growth. With Boveda in your humidor, you'll enjoy full flavor and a perfect smoke from every cigar.

Feel better about storing cigars, use Boveda. Click here to get emails: https://hubs.la/Q01BLsBF0

00:00 This is Box Press

00:24 How did the League of Fat Bastards Cigars get its name?

00:45 Creating space for men to chew the fat

01:23 Organize cigar events with celebs and athletes to normalize mental health struggles

01:47 LOFB Cigars gives back 40% of profits to men's mental health groups

02:15 Using cigar smoking as therapy

03:10 Living in London in the heyday of Cuban Cigars

03:34 Adam Levine had a severe mental breakdown

04:46 Create a movement to help men live their best lives

05:16 Only cigar brand produced over Zoom?

05:51 The Goldilocks cigar blend, Serie L made in Nicaragua

06:40 League of Fat Bastards is an everyman cigar on purpose

07:06 What cigar should your first cigar be?

07:26 Discover the joy of cigars and provide an opportunity for men to open up emotionally

09:20 Why did this happen FOR me?

10:56 LOFB Cigars packaged with Boveda

11:50 Reusing Boveda packets from cigar boxes

12:22 Keeping cigars at the perfect humidity maintains their condition

13:13 If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, call or text 988

- I like that.

Hey, you can sing; I like that.

He's got a sweet voice.

♪ I get so emotional, baby ♪

- Maybe that was my calling.

- Yeah, I think you missed that, man.

- And here I am at PCA

talking to Adam Levine.

And this is, without question,

the most enjoyable thing

that I'm gonna say all day.

- Yes sir.

- The League of Fat Bastards.

- Thank you kindly.

- You gotta tell this story.

How did that happen,

League of Fat Bastards?

- Okay, so I think the best way

to introduce the whole concept

is to firstly understand

our mission of why we exist.

100% of the reason why we exist

is to make a positive global

impact on men's mental health.

The name League of Fat

Bastards, very simple,

comes from our belief that

we need to find a new way

for men to chew the fat, right?

So chewing the fat, little bit

of an Aussie colloquialism,

- Ah, chewing the fat.

- It's sitting down,

and chewing the fat,

having a conversation.

- We're chewing the fat!

- We're chewing the fat right now, man.

- Right now in real time.

- In between you singing

and sort of serenading me

and telling me how nice

I smell, which I love.

It's all good, and I appreciate that.

So, seriously the whole

brand is predicated 100%

around supporting men's mental health.

It's a very serious

process that we go through.

We do that primarily

through organizing a range

of on-premise events,

where we will bring in

high profile individuals,

sportspeople, personalities,

and get them to share their journey

that they've been through

so that it can start to

normalize that conversation

amongst the men that are there.

So the other really important

part of what we do, Drew,

is that we give back

40%, that's 4-0 percent.

- Four zero?

- Four zero percent of

the profits that we make

from the sale of our cigars

to NGOs and organizations

that support war vets,

that support first responders,

that support nurses,

medical staff, EMTs-

- All those trauma people.

- All those individuals who

are of service to others

but are suffering themselves.

- So we believe that there's

an opportunity for us

to use the camaraderie around cigars

as a way of creating a

movement to help others

deal with that trauma.

- Beautiful.

- That's the core mission,

man; that's what we're about.

It's very simple.

- And with that being said,

if that's your purpose,

if your primary purpose is

not to sell a pile of cigars-

- No, you're wrong!

Our primary purpose, and I'm gonna swear,

is to sell a shit-load of cigars.

Because the more cigars we

sell, the more profit we make,

the more money we give back!

- More money you give

to the cause, yeah.

- Oh my God, I wanna sell

millions of cigars.

- So how'd you get

onto cigars in the first place?

- So, yeah, interesting story,

I started in cigars being

a passionate cigar smoker

when I was 25 years old.

I'm 53, thank you very much.

- You look good.

- Thank you very much.

- Yeah, nicely done.

- Thank you.

And I was living in London

with my wife at the time,

and it was the heyday of the Cuban cigars,

and I was living in a very famous street

called Jermyn Street, J-E-R-M-Y-N,

where JJ Fox [James J Fox] is.

And I remember going in

there for the first time.

I was blown away.

Long story short,

that passion continued

all the way through,

but the reality is that in 2019,

I had a very severe

mental episode, myself.

I had a breakdown, and I was suicidal,

and it was a very difficult period for me.

But part of the recovery

process, believe it or not,

was some lessons that were told to me

around how to get through that.

A couple of those were things like,

"Adam, stop and smell the roses."

"Adam, don't be afraid to be selfish

"and take some time out

to be kind to yourself."

"Adam, find an opportunity

to declutter your life.

Make things simple."

And amazingly for me,

I was actually able to

achieve those things

when I was sitting and enjoying my cigars,

stopping to smell the roses,

obviously appreciating,

being mindful about the 300

hands that touch the cigar

all the way through the process,

enjoying conversations with men,

other buddies who were cigar aficionados

or cigar connoisseurs.

And so, when I got through the

other side of that process,

I suddenly thought, hey, why

don't we do something positive?

Let's do something different with cigars.

Why can't we use that as an opportunity

to create a movement of people

who want to help men get through life,

and live their best life into the future?

So that's what was the instigation.

That's how we started it.

- When did you start this?

- We officially launched in the U.S.

on the 17th of February.

We've been distributing

for a little while in Asia

out of Singapore,

but it had been a two-year project.

I think we're probably

the only cigar brand

that's been produced over Zoom

because I was in Australia

and Joya, as you know,

up in Nicaragua, and it was

the back end of the pandemic,

so there was no travel.

So Juan Martínez is just

the most amazing individual.

That family is fantastic.

I can't tell you how appreciative I am

of them and what they've done.

They're great people.

They, basically, would send me samples,

and then, Juan and I would

be on the Zoom together,

and we'd actually be

talking through the blends.

And we did that through about

sort of 10 or 15 different blends,

and we came to what I

call the Goldilocks Blend.

So it's something-

- This is the Goldilocks Blend?

- That's what I call it.

- The Serie L.

- Serie L.

- So the Goldilocks Blend, Serie L,

we're gonna have a Serie

O, we'll have a Serie F,

we'll have a Serie B, yeah?

- But the Goldilocks

Blend for this, for me...

Well, you tell me.

- No, I'm impressed.

- You tell me.

- This is a delicious cigar.

Immediately my brain starts

going, okay, who's making it?

I have-

- Well, it's Joya that makes it.

Joya de Nicaragua, right?

So they're the manufacturers.

So it's got a 100%

Nicaraguan filler and binder,

so mixture of Estelí and

Jalapa filler and binder.

It's got an Ecuadorian

- It's yummy.

- Thank you so much, and that's the idea.

The idea was, and I call it Goldilocks,

so I wanted it to be an everyman cigar

because importantly for

us, given our mission,

we wanted to be able to cater

for both those individuals

who were rare cigar enthusiasts,

and those that were

serious cigar enthusiasts.

So someone that would enjoy

cigars on an irregular basis

wouldn't find this offensive.

They would say it's approachable.

They would say it's not-

- Well, you're not gonna get blown away

if you've never had a cigar,

and you end up having your first.

If this is your first cigar,

you're gonna love cigars

for the rest of your life.

- Thank you.

I really, really, really-

I can't tell you how much

effort was put into that.

- That's accessible.

I think that's all

about, creating something

where you can discover the joy of cigars.

It's interesting because

Joya de Nicaragua,

the joy of Nicaragua.

- Absolutely.

- You're talking about,

discovering the joy of cigars.

And we've had more than a

few people sit in that chair

and repeat the mantra in this industry:

This is not a cigar.

This is a moment in time

shared between friends.

That's gold!

- Absolutely.

- Especially if guys get real.

- And that's what I wanna do.

I wanna take it to the next level

because the camaraderie

in the cigar sector

and the cigar industry is

strong, as you know, right?

So for us, for me, it was

an obvious avenue for me

to use that camaraderie

to provide the education

and to provide the opportunity

for people to then open up.

The problem is that guys

get together, you know,

we'll have a drink, we'll have a chat.

Sometimes things come out,

sometimes they don't come out.

But as you know, in a social

circumstance, it's interesting.

He or she who talks first

generally sets the tone

of the conversation,

and so our aim is when we

have our guest speakers

and we go deep quick,

it brings that mood into a serious state

where it's deep quick

so people can open up.

We also provide,

interestingly, online resources

where people can actually, you know,

go to read a little bit about, understand.

We're gonna create actual

physical location resources

where people will be

able to get information.

So we want to create this community

where not only are you enjoying the cigar,

not only are you learning to open up,

but you actually have additional resources

that can go back as well, right?

So it's a closed-end solution.

- Chewing the fat.

- Love it, man.

- Beautiful.

What a great idea.

- Thank you so much.

- What a unique angle on what

cigars can do for people.

- And d'you know, it's funny you say for.

So this is a really interesting concept,

and everyone should try this.

So we all go through shit

times, a 100%, right?

We all have a shitty day.

There's all that crap happens,

and we say, "Oh, why the

hell did this happen?"

You know, "Oh, woe is me, woe is me."

You know, "Why me?"

Rather than saying, why

did this happen to me,

I think we need to change that and say,

why did this happen for me.

So you look at a circumstance

like we went through,

or I went through, and I sort

of say it was a terrible,

terrible dark place, but

I look back and I say,

well, why did this happen for me?

And I can see now why it happened for me

because it gave me the opportunity

to create this amazing brand

and to start to do some good in the world.

You know, when people say they

finally found their purpose?

- Yeah.

You found your purpose.

- I reckon I have.

- That's beautiful.

- And quite genuinely, and I love it.

And it's so important to me

to be able to be passionate

and interested in something.

I can't believe that we can,

that I can do something like this

and also create some good in the world.

Like it really fills me with joy.

I've got-

- No, it's terrific.

It's terrific.

It's League of Fat Bastards.

40% of the profits, sales of this product

are going to support those

that have been traumatized

in our emergency services.

- Correct, those that serve us.

- Veterans, people that have served us.

We're gonna serve them back,

give them an opportunity to talk.

Oh, and look at this!

- Boveda.

- They're packaged with Boveda!

- And we do that, and I have to say,

the Boveda company, how

do you pronounce it?

- I say Boveda, but we

don't care what you say.

- You don't care?

- No, you can say-

- the "B Company."

- The B Company.

- The B company, the big B?

- The big B.

- The big B, the one we all love,

have been amazing in their support for us.

- Be the B.

- Be the B! (laughs)

I gotta say, seriously, the

crew that you guys have got

are fantastic.

They're a great team.

They're a hundred percent

supportive of what we're doing.

We actually deliberately decided in this,

and I'm gonna take a big risk right now-

- Go ahead.

- And open this box.

Ah, look at that!

So we have in here

a large 69.

- Yeah, it's good.

And it's still supple;

it's hanging in there.

- So what we decided though,

was to put the large bag in,

Not the small.

A lot of retailers will use

the smaller sort of bags,

which is fine.

- But they can repurpose this.

They take it out of this box,

they put it in their humidor,

they can-

- Exactly, it's gonna

last for a long time.

Talk about repurpose,

it's very interesting.

I saw a photo from someone

who had bought a box of ours,

and I saw them with a

whole range of cigars

in one of the League

of Fat Bastards boxes,

and I thought that was so cool.

People are reusing our box

because it's a nice

cool little box you can-

- It's a very cool box.

- It's got the, you know,

the magnetic sort of open.

But for us, you know, the

humidification process

is actually quite a serious business

because number one, it's

about quality, right?

So in my mind, people can

get interested in the cigar

because of obviously our

mission and what we do,

but people will come

back and buy the cigar

because it's a good cigar.

And part of that is making

sure the product we deliver

to our customers, to our

clients, is in perfect condition,

is maintained well, and clearly,

the right humidification is part of that,

particularly as we're

shipping around the world

and moving things around.

So, our partnership with

Boveda is super important,

and we really do appreciate it.

- What a privilege for us

to be involved in this.

You know, we love Juan Martinez

and all the people at Joya de Nicaragua.

They're class act.

I'm thrilled to have a chance to meet you

and talk about this very unique angle

on what cigars can do for us.

(groovy music)