A couple of the most common questions we get on our instagram are related to international shipping and product development. When it comes to the former, the answer is straightforward, but for the latter, answers can be just as diverse as the results that can be achieved. In this episode we discuss a little bit of everything; from MAC's recent backpacking trip that claimed the life of two would-have been amazing cigars to the process of how a blend is actually selected for going into market.
A couple of the most common questions we get on our instagram are related to international shipping and product development. When it comes to the former, the answer is straightforward, but for the latter, answers can be just as diverse as the results that can be achieved. In this episode we discuss a little bit of everything; from MAC's recent backpacking trip that claimed the life of two would-have been amazing cigars to the process of how a blend is actually selected for going into market.
00:00
this is episode 13.
00:04
13 is 12 plus 1 14 minus one
00:09
quick maths man
00:10
this time we're talking about
00:12
what it's like to deal with
00:13
international shipping and the process
00:16
of creating a blend from start to finish
00:18
we
00:20
have first-hand experience and we're
00:21
going to share that with you stay tuned
00:26
all right this is episode 13.
00:29
welcome aboard kids and gentlemen i
00:32
shouldn't say kids for legal reasons
00:34
uh how are we doing
00:38
i mean you're talking to the young guys
00:40
you know
00:41
the 20
00:42
oh yeah three-year-old
00:44
can i say cliche things like for sure
00:47
and a hundred percent
00:49
yeah and like it's lit
00:51
and you can use the
00:54
and like and like and like conjunction a
00:56
lot you have to say it every sentence
00:58
and like look at what i did to my fiance
01:02
oh i didn't show that on camera that's
01:04
horrible
01:05
i i had it on it i had it in my backpack
01:08
for an adventure
01:10
and it died on the way back
01:13
on the way back you're the worst you're
01:15
the worst
01:16
ugh
01:17
the thing is i had it in this very tin
01:20
and i took them out
01:22
because
01:23
i had to cook in this
01:27
so
01:29
yeah so let's talk to us a little bit
01:31
about your uh
01:34
your trip and how how you how do you get
01:36
cigars involved when it's so
01:39
uncomfortable to be carrying different
01:41
things and cooking your food and you
01:43
know it's like you're you're you're in
01:45
the wilderness in the wilderness you're
01:46
running out but did you do did you sleep
01:49
in like like tents or you know what was
01:53
the structure tell us tell us a little
01:54
bit about that it was intense
01:56
get it
01:57
intense
01:59
it was very intense yeah uh camping
02:01
intense backpacking with my full load on
02:04
my back
02:05
carrying my cigars inside and my camera
02:08
both i had two uh
02:10
two mess tins one for cooking one for
02:12
eating
02:13
uh and both of them for boiling water
02:15
and making coffee through filtration
02:19
and i had the cigars in my eating tin
02:22
and my camera and my cooking tin because
02:24
one stainless steel the other is
02:26
aluminum i'd rather not lose the camera
02:28
again
02:29
if you know my drift
02:31
and yeah
02:32
it just
02:34
it just goes in there and they made it
02:36
to the valley just fine
02:38
it's on the way back where
02:40
uh
02:42
i was running a little short on time and
02:44
they had to cook in
02:46
uh in on the trail
02:48
so i just tossed
02:50
my
02:52
trusty cigar yard bag
02:55
into uh
02:57
the top uh the
02:59
the brain of my pack for those of you
03:01
who do backpacking you know what the
03:02
brain is uh and
03:05
that's
03:07
that's where it that's where they died
03:09
the fiat looks and uh
03:11
and one of the cigars hostos gave me
03:14
when i visited his factory
03:16
yeah but you gotta you gotta be clear
03:18
you gotta you gotta let everybody know
03:20
that they died because we we were trying
03:24
very hard to sell the fact that you can
03:26
take your pack
03:28
anywhere
03:29
and and these these packs are you know
03:31
these pouches are very resistant but
03:34
you were on like you underwent extreme
03:36
temperatures
03:37
um
03:38
and by the extreme i mean extreme for
03:41
the dominican republic i mean what was
03:42
it
03:43
it went below zero celsius it went below
03:45
zero celsius so fahrenheit i want to say
03:47
it was like what two or three degrees
03:49
fahrenheit it was like negative two
03:52
negative three my tent was frozen frosty
03:54
frozen like
03:55
uh okay so if i pushed it you could see
03:58
icicles and they're not just high
04:00
schools like solid ice that you could
04:01
pull off it was kind of weird looking
04:03
but
04:04
it was uh
04:06
a lot of fun
04:07
and well i mean it's i think it's a good
04:10
it's a good uh point to let everybody
04:12
know that it has technically snowed in
04:16
the dominican republic in the past oh
04:17
yeah so
04:19
guys
04:20
uh we are not on a tropical island but
04:22
we have we also have the tallest
04:24
mountains
04:25
in the entire caribbean so
04:29
altitudes of
04:31
uh over three three kilometers up
04:34
uh
04:36
you do feet i don't know
04:38
let me google it quickly
04:40
it's it's a lot of feet
04:45
oh
04:46
it's three it's like ten thousand twelve
04:49
thousand feet
04:51
uh
04:52
it is
04:55
come on piccolo
04:56
is like at least 10 000. i literally
04:59
googled
05:00
feet and it gave me meters
05:02
because it just knows what's what's a
05:04
useful measurement
05:09
meters two feet
05:13
there we go
05:15
it's ten thousand feet
05:18
so that's it but is that the exact
05:21
height of pico de
05:27
a little more it's i but it didn't go to
05:28
picobot anyway
05:30
yeah yeah but still it's it's the
05:32
highest it's the highest point it's 3098
05:35
uh and
05:47
from there
05:48
and that is a long trek it's over 30
05:52
kilometers
05:53
and uh the way back was about 24 or so
05:58
through marawi so we sort of made a c
06:01
figure
06:02
to get to uh
06:05
from start to finish and it was a
06:06
three-day journey a lot of fun
06:09
i did some bushcraft at camp because i
06:11
luck i love that [ __ ] and some people
06:13
were looking at me funny because
06:17
because they're not used to seeing
06:19
someone not bring everything they need
06:21
and instead make it when they're there
06:23
so 10 pegs for example i made a few
06:26
people were like oh i forgot some tent
06:28
pegs what am i gonna do and here i am
06:31
just making them so that was fun
06:36
sounds like a good time and uh
06:37
definitely a very bad marketing um
06:41
approach for our pouches just oh dude it
06:43
yeah like it was a third extreme
06:45
temperatures a 30 pound pack and i had
06:48
some stuff on it and i went over
06:51
over 15 miles with it on my back
06:54
it's it's very good at protecting from
06:57
the elements of humidity and friction
07:00
but you can't stop crushing it's still a
07:02
bag
07:04
like it's it's not crush protective
07:07
i mean i've sat on it before i'm just
07:09
i'm just saying i'm just trying to make
07:10
up for your really bad promotion here no
07:13
i'm just kidding it does make sense but
07:15
uh that sounds like a fun experience i
07:17
mean you know um
07:20
just uh
07:22
venture off real quick to um
07:25
international shipment experience given
07:26
this is going to be a
07:28
short episode um
07:31
because we have the live event with uh
07:34
with john and the hot ticket and a
07:37
little bit we're gonna have to make this
07:38
short and sweet
07:40
so we've got some questions
07:42
on the
07:43
we've got some answers on
07:45
you know our question on what to talk
07:47
about today
07:48
and one of them was touching on shipping
07:50
to
07:51
international destinations and you know
07:54
there's one that really comes
07:56
to
07:58
you know to be highlighted initially and
08:01
that's
08:02
that's australia that's the first thing
08:04
i'm going to touch base on and it's
08:06
it's
08:07
it's really far but it's it's my dream
08:10
country it's where i would love to
08:12
eventually you know live or or or at
08:15
least for for
08:17
some time because i love all the the all
08:20
that it
08:22
provides you know it's it's got great
08:24
surfing it's got good people it's got
08:26
like very outdoorsy culture
08:29
um just very interesting and the the the
08:32
wilderness and just you know how
08:35
how everything there's run essentially
08:37
deadly
08:38
yeah it's essentially deadly i love it
08:40
and you know we we started shipping to
08:42
australia and you know we were
08:44
pleasantly surprised on on the efficacy
08:46
in in usps and
08:49
and you know it's always under fire but
08:51
uh i'm sure you bring one of these to
08:52
australia
08:53
destroy you actually
08:55
don't believe you can but uh
08:58
that's actually one of the things that i
08:59
enjoy but i'm not gonna get into that uh
09:01
very touchy subject but point is
09:04
um
09:05
yeah man since uh early september we
09:10
we uh saw a halt of shipments by usps to
09:14
australia which has
09:16
not been it's essentially a ban
09:19
from australia and has not been lifted
09:21
it's funny though that you can ship
09:23
through like ups and there's other
09:26
couriers that ship there but
09:29
the cost is obviously not affordable
09:32
it's not the same so usps was like a
09:34
fraction of what you know ups charges
09:38
you for for the minimum weight so
09:41
it's like 100 per shipment for ups so
09:44
you can technically accumulate a few
09:46
packs there is you know we have we've
09:48
had a few of our loyal members that have
09:50
been accumulating their renewals and
09:52
they're like just hold on to it hold on
09:54
to it and then you know when they
09:56
accumulate four or five they're like all
09:57
right just send it through ups or send
09:59
it to a to a courier address in miami
10:02
that they can fight forward or it's
10:04
called that
10:05
but
10:06
you know we're constantly monitoring it
10:08
we lost a lot of members obviously we
10:10
want everybody to get your cigars so
10:12
we're going to keep working and keep
10:13
insisting on it
10:14
so
10:15
you know it's it's not up to us but
10:18
we're gonna keep following up to it um
10:20
you know different
10:22
international countries
10:24
um
10:25
don't they're not aware that we ship
10:27
there you know and there's it's funny
10:30
because every every one of them works
10:32
with
10:33
very punctual conditions that we're
10:36
going to keep private right now but
10:38
every country has and understands their
10:40
their conditions for shipments so what
10:41
we're going to do is in the next couple
10:43
of weeks we're going to honestly it's
10:46
probably going to be ready by the first
10:47
week of february so next week we're
10:50
going to have an international
10:52
destination segment
10:54
on our my cigar pack website
10:56
where everybody can see a map
11:00
of a global map
11:02
and
11:03
and you know not just
11:05
i'm in america just literally a global
11:08
perspective
11:10
where
11:11
highlighted areas on where we should
11:13
that have highlighted areas where we
11:15
ship so you're going to see
11:18
live updates on you know if we have
11:20
anything paused if we have anything that
11:23
we cannot ship any country that we can't
11:25
ship to you're going to be able to see
11:26
that
11:27
um so i think that's uh that's gonna
11:29
cover a lot of questions and a lot of
11:32
uh inquiries on that but
11:35
you know i don't know if you you're
11:36
gonna have to
11:37
add something to this mic but that's
11:39
it's pretty straight up man we do what
11:41
we can in terms of content creation i
11:43
think we can reach australia okay
11:46
because that's my field
11:48
so
11:50
yeah
11:51
i don't think we have an issue reaching
11:53
australia or any part of the world maybe
11:55
germany uh they're usually very strict
11:58
on uh
12:00
on youtube stuff but for the most part
12:03
we should be fine uh and if and if your
12:05
country doesn't let you watch our videos
12:08
you can vpn your way through for sure
12:12
or you're living in the wrong country or
12:14
you're unfortunate enough to be living
12:16
in
12:17
the wrong country i will i will agree
12:20
there if if if that is the case then it
12:22
is the wrong country
12:25
yeah just do what everybody from
12:26
california new york is doing just move
12:28
to miami really how bad is it getting in
12:31
terms of how crowded it is it's been
12:33
horrible but hey
12:36
i'm not a miami native myself so i can't
12:40
the point is i'm not moving
12:42
i'm not moving for their reason and with
12:45
their conditions i'm generalizing here
12:47
but i'm just poking fun um
12:49
anyway let's transition to how we come
12:52
up with blends how the process is
12:55
involved and i think this is probably
12:56
going to take a little bit more time
12:59
um than
13:00
what we really got we've got like five
13:03
minutes left before we hop off to hop on
13:06
a different
13:08
live virtual platform uh thingy but
13:12
you know
13:13
i think i think we can look at another
13:15
question and then leave that for episode
13:18
14. i'm gonna pop you know what open
13:20
mind i'm going for it i'm gonna answer
13:22
express
13:24
are you are you really i that's a that's
13:26
a really good subject to like it's bold
13:29
it starts like any creative project you
13:31
gotta know what you want and what you
13:32
want to achieve with it then you have to
13:34
find the pieces that will put it
13:35
together are you creating it yourself or
13:38
are you sort of outsourcing so by that i
13:40
mean are you aganura salif and you can
13:42
grow this [ __ ] in which case you
13:44
dedicate resources
13:46
product development for years until you
13:48
find the leaves you want that will give
13:50
you the exact notes you want so
13:52
basically every cigar is a tasting note
13:54
first you that's the goal you're trying
13:56
to achieve a tasting note that's why
13:58
it's centered around it so again if they
14:01
want to try something special
14:02
like let's say a maduro and they're not
14:04
growing any maduro well
14:07
since their whole business model is we
14:09
grow our tobacco that's why our cigars
14:11
are so good very similar to la flor
14:13
dominicana they're going to have to get
14:14
on and it's going to take years but in
14:16
other cases sometimes you buy the
14:18
tobacco ready to roll and you just put
14:20
the pieces together find the right
14:22
supplier usually when it comes to that
14:24
most of the hard work is vetting vetting
14:26
vetting vetting sample sample sample
14:28
samples and it takes it takes a while a
14:31
few months
14:32
to sort of
14:34
get up a working prototype and then
14:37
about a year to finalize everything else
14:41
so
14:42
from vision to execution
14:46
creating a cigar can take anywhere from
14:48
a year to
14:50
a decade
14:52
uh you definitely see you definitely see
14:54
it that some special projects some
14:56
tobaccos are grown
14:59
for
15:00
projects that will happen 10 years from
15:02
now and hey like some some manufacturers
15:04
can't afford that some growers can
15:06
afford to hold on to raw material that
15:09
long
15:11
and some can't and uh that's that's what
15:14
that's why we have a lot of
15:16
uh price differences for very similar
15:19
products arguably and that's because
15:22
every year is a whole year's worth of
15:25
wages for your for your factory workers
15:27
with upkeep because and with uh service
15:31
costs so you're keeping these in a
15:33
basically in a storage facility that is
15:35
conditioned for storing tobacco and that
15:37
costs money so extra age tobacco is uh
15:40
is a commodity
15:42
uh so yeah that's a great way of putting
15:45
it so did i do you think i got it right
15:47
express answer
15:49
i think you got a fantastic express
15:51
answer so
15:52
i think we can touch on it briefly um
15:56
next episode how
15:58
what's the time
15:59
right now it's 44 for the episode
16:02
the episode uh actually i don't have a
16:04
time code
16:05
16 minutes and seven seconds yeah we're
16:07
new okay yeah
16:09
this is gonna be again short and sweet
16:11
um you know we've been doing a little
16:12
bit of
16:13
longer episodes but
16:16
you know we'll give this a try with a
16:17
shorter uh and sweeter
16:20
no um just gonna cap it off yeah talking
16:23
about um
16:25
just mentioning briefly
16:27
one of the things that was answered on
16:29
the question which we talked about and
16:30
then
16:32
someone said dave
16:33
and i'm pretty sure they're referring to
16:35
dave from cigar club and
16:38
cat's out of the bag dave is out of
16:40
cigarclub.com
16:42
are
16:44
one of our main competitors but
16:46
one of our best friends as well uh
16:50
fantastic collective love what they do
16:52
love how they keep us in check and doing
16:55
great work consistently
16:57
um but dave is out and it is time to
17:00
start poaching him to come over to my
17:02
i'm just kidding we can't we we can't
17:04
afford dave dave is uh pursuing other uh
17:07
ventures right now and it is amazing
17:11
how he uh
17:13
you know
17:15
you know
17:16
the work that he did for cigar club was
17:18
amazing uh the way that we've become
17:20
friends in the last couple of years has
17:22
been you know gratifying
17:24
dave is a great dude and i'm
17:26
one thousand percent sure that our paths
17:30
will meet very very soon i mean he is
17:35
uh still
17:37
keeping his feet wet with cigars he's
17:39
got different releases
17:41
um
17:43
you know coming along this year so you
17:45
know we we'd be honored to have those
17:47
and
17:48
to keep working together with uh cigar
17:51
club and you know
17:54
dave's a great guy kudos to dave and uh
17:56
good luck to whatever you do and
17:58
hopefully our paths cross
18:01
soon and fast and uh
18:04
creatively and efficiently and
18:06
we'll have a good time
18:07
i think that's a great bow to put on
18:09
this one cheers dave
18:11
didn't really get to meet dave uh while
18:14
he was yeah you will well while i was at
18:16
cigar club uh
18:18
but i know certainly you've heard plenty
18:19
about him so cheers dave
18:24
and we
18:26
are done with episode 13.
18:28
see you everybody
18:30
um
18:32
just uh
18:33
we can't really
18:35
make uh the uh brand sessions public
18:38
because that's part of it
18:40
secret sessions we're going to go record
18:42
now have a great time
18:44
don't miss next month it's probably
18:46
going to be with booth so whatever see
18:48
you rock and roll rock and roll out
18:52
hey guys it's alex and if you enjoyed
18:54
this episode or any other one from the
18:56
podcast check out our website
18:59
smycigarpac.com and cigario.com where we
19:02
provide the most dynamic cigar
19:03
subscription service in the market by
19:05
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19:07
delivering them to your door and a
19:10
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19:12
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19:14
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19:17
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19:18
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19:20
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19:23
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19:25
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19:28
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19:31
see you soon