Alex for those who don’t know who you are, give us your 2 minute elevator pitch.
AB: Here’s my two minute elevator pitch… I was born and raised alongside my brother Ivan in the Dominican Republic, where I still spend half of my time, although most people that don’t know me think I’m from California. I’m usually working on my projects or surfing, probably the two single things I love to do the most. I’m really into sports, traveling, and living life to the fullest.
How did you start smoking cigars?
AB: I was drawn into cigars at a very young age. My father would smoke cigars/pipe when I was a kid and I remember how captivated I was by the aroma. That interest grew on me enough that I snuck into his studio as a teenager and lit one up. That’s when I truly fell in love with it, so I started learning about the craft, visiting factories and collecting cigars, anxiously waiting until I was 18 to smoke them all. The rest is history, for I’ve been working with cigars essentially since I graduated high school.
You’re the founder of Mycigarpack.com – an online monthly cigar subscription service. What was the concept before the company came to fruition? and how were you going to compete in this already crowded space?
AB: I’m one of the founders, alongside my amazing partners who I could not do this without.
On a personal level, I wanted to develop a subscription based program since 2012, when I created a model for a different industry while in College. In 2018 I was serving my last year as Director of Business Development for Procigar and started to encounter different opportunities for potential independent ventures. These ventures didn’t take off for whatever reason, but we (one of my partners) had the momentum and the drive to build something. He asked me what I thought we could do to improve the way cigars are sold online and if a cigar club would work. That’s when everything clicked and we just went straight to the drawing board. From that day and ever since we’ve been working on My Cigar Pack and Cigar Yard (our sister company – online retail).
At the time, and actually even now, I didn’t believe the space was crowded. I saw some names essentially execute the same concept online catalogs have been carrying for years with their clubs or pre-paid services: ridding inventory excess, basically taking what brands didn’t want or hadn’t been using because they’d have it in their aging room from a private label that ceased to exist or something along those lines. Aside from this traditional model, when we started planning mid 2018, there weren’t more than a couple truly specialized subscription services, and when I say this I refer to those uniquely focused on the developing the program itself, not just as a mechanism to reduce inventory.
I have a lot of respect for some of the players out there right now, I’ve even reached out to them, since we’re always looking to grow and understanding united we can have a better and stronger impact. Going back to 2018, I thought that the diversity that was out there at the time and that was developing was very interesting, but I wanted to dig deeper on how we could really give it a foundation and purpose that extended beyond providing a unicorn that a consumer would have and never get more of it again, or something that trascended beyond simply supplying people with different cigars.
My Cigar Pack was designed to provide a different combination each month, introducing products that members could try through a fun and informational experience without any prejudice or bias. Creating 3 different combinations of 5 cigars every month is excruciatingly complicated, trust me, if it were for us we’d be doing 1/3 of the work, but we wouldn’t be convinced we’d have most dynamic offering as we believe it is now. We believed it was crucial to add an element of diversity and rely it on solely on the factor we believe smokers really have a say in: strength.
Working directly with the manufacturers, offering free cancellation, allowing users to pause their membership and not even provide an option for pre-paid plans, bringing a different combination every month, and providing the member with the option to select their preferred strength from a mild combination, a full combination, and a medium which is essentially a mix, are some of the elements that I believe make us stand out from our competitors.
How do you curate the perfect experience for new members who are looking to get themselves a pack or get a pack for a friend?
AB: The curation of the perfect experience doesn’t exist, because everyone’s unique and different; something that’s great for someone may be horrible for the person next to him/her. We transmit the best experience we possibly can to our members by providing a canvas for brands and manufacturers, who are the real experts, to curate their products.
We work hand in hand with the brands and manufacturers because they’re the real experts. They designed their products and have been working with them for years, so they understand when to place a certain cigar and how to match it with others better than anyone.
What have been some of the difficulties you’ve personally experienced being in this industry?
AB: I believe difficulties are encountered every day, it’s just a matter of how we confront them. There’s an insurmountable number of setbacks and challenges we encounter as a collective, but when you work with a team you believe in so much, they just denature to small bumps in the road.
Let’s get a bit personal. What is it about the tobacco industry that draws you in? What do you love and hate about this industry?
AB: The diversity in this industry is beautiful. You’ve got brands that are very formal, with their representatives wearing suits and handling themselves with pure formality, equally, there’s brands that make you want to get tattoos and go skateboarding after smoking a cigar with them. I love these opposing facets and elements of distinction, because they both have their place making up this beautiful community.
I think hate is a very strong word, but if I had to point towards something I don’t like it would be when people in this industry make it about themselves, when it never has and never will be. It’s sad to see people creating what may seem like cults just to sell stuff or sell themselves. This industry is about the people in general and the experiences. Brands aren’t even about themselves, they’re about their respective teams and how they translate their collective message into the community.
If you had the power to change anything in the cigar industry what would it be?
AB: Misinformation: there’s way too much of it out there.
It seems like every day there’s a new self-proclaimed expert that hasn’t spent a day with the real experts who have been working directly with tobacco for 3,4,5 decades and humbly claim they’re not even experts yet. There are a lot of sources out there and just because these are all over instagram and have a large following base doesn’t mean they’re well versed or are close to being experts in any way shape of form.
There are a ton of Brand Ambassadors in the cigar industry. Do you feel they are doing a great job through social media to garnish support for their brand? Is there anything they could do better?
AB: I believe brand ambassadors are actually doing a really good job in representing their brands. There’s always room for improvement, but that will come naturally to each.
If you were to offer advice to someone who is new to the cigar industry, what would you tell them?
AB: Try as many different cigars as you can and do so multiple times, some negative experiences deserve second chances or revisits.
What’s your favorite all time smoke? Also give me your top 10 best cigars you will never forget.
AB: Wow. Curve ball alert!
Favorite all time smoke? I have many, actually. Each and every one as special to me for a particular reason. I cannot answer this even if I wanted to.
Now, 10 cigars I’ll never forget is also very restrictive, because to me every single cigar out there is like a first love, one never forgets it. There are probably 5 cigars that I can name as really special to me…
- Arturo Fuente Flor Fina 8-5-8 Sun Grown 2002: My first cigar.
- LFD Double Press Maduro TAA – I believe 2012: My first box (of the same cigar). I still have it somewhere, one of the coolest designs and one of the most memorable cigars for me.
- Aging Room F55: This cigar was out of this world, and most importantly, changed the game for Tabacalera Palma, which was released when I started working there (or in the cigar industry in general).
- Prorotype V 1-5: This was my first and probably most hands-on blending project. I wanted to understand blending as best as I could, and since I had all the resources in the factory, I figured I’d just start playing with blending. I seriously worked on it for more than a year just for fun, and the name was just something to distinguish it and make sure nobody touched it in the aging room.
- La Galera Brand: The complete LG lineup is dear to my heart because it was Jochy Blanco’s first and own brand since I had started working there. I was part of the team that developed that brand. I won’t ever take something like that for granted, it’s a life changing experience.
Should we look out for anything new in the near future from mycigarpack.com?
AB: That’s the beauty of MCP, we have something new every month. It can be new brands featured in the packs, awesome giveaways, engaging content, platform improvements, you name it. We’re seriously working day in and out to grow and to connect with our community as best we can.
Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
AB: My Cigar Pack’s sister company Cigar Yard (online retailer) is launching a new website in the next weeks. We’re confident it’s going to be a game changer.
