Welcome To The Perdomo Podcast

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, I'm Nicholas Perdomo with Prodomo Cigars, and I'm alongside my dad, Nick Perdomo. Dad, how are you? I'm doing great. Great, Dad. We're finally here. Episode number one of the Perdomo Podcast Show. Dad, we've been getting a lot of questions these last couple of months, and you know, we have so much content that we want to talk about, and really from the cigar makers, right? In terms of education, in terms of the lifestyle, in terms of the prodomo brand, and even things outside of the prodomo brand, just stuff, even scientific type of things that how how to pair cigars, whether it be with food, drinks, and so forth. But Dad, it's been unanimous. The number one question that we've been getting is the new Prodomo Legacy, father and son. And I think it's a great opportunity for us just to continue to connect with the consumers. It's a great opportunity for us to give them the information that they've been asking for. So, Dad, it's been a pleasure doing this project with you. I think it's the first ever within a cigar family, the first ever um collaborative brand within the actual family.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, I'm super excited. It's uh it's a blessing when you can work with your son uh coming up and and making a brand together, which is great. And uh I'm beyond excited.

The Proprietary Shade-Grown Hybrid Wrapper

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, me too, Dad. And I think it all goes now to back to Perdoma Legacy. You know, in 2024, 2025, we started working and I started blending cigars years prior to make a cigar in honor of you. And uh, you're the most deserving person, not only within our family, but in my opinion, the entire cigar industry. So I'm proud that really one of the most popular cigars in the world today is an honor of you. But Dad, I think we had a great opportunity um to really create something uh between the two of us. Um, and I really found it was important, you know, for years, we've really never made exclusive cigars, right? Um, we want to make regular production items, but of course, because as we grow tobacco, there are tobaccos, certain lots within our farms that are small, that we can't use those tobaccos for regular production because there's just not enough quantity of those tobaccos, but for sure the quality's there. Um, and so our customers and our consumers have been asking us, hey, we'd love to have a limited edition prodomo, and we've been kind of not bringing it up, right? And so I felt that really going back, you know, I wanted, you know, you created this amazing tobacco, you and our geneticists, this Nicaraguan shade grown tobacco, and it's a cube Cuban Cameroon, uh, Cuban seed, Cameroon seed hybrid. And it's something that is ours, it's proprietary to us, and it's super special. All our sun grown, all our Maduro wrappers who grow them in the Jalapa Valley, lighter type of soils, and it produces thin, rich type of tobacco, it's perfect for combustibility and so forth, whether it be sun grown or Maduro. And you wanted to create really rich, flavorful wrapper tobacco, hence the Nicaraguan shade grown of this hybrid seed. And I had the opportunity to use it first before you. Sorry, not sorry. It's really my favorite tobacco, my for sure, maybe my favorite wrapper tobacco. I love all our tobaccos, but it's there's something so unique, and you know, it's it's so special, but what an opportunity for you. And I really wanted you to make and share with our customers a Nicaragua Shea Grown wrapped cigar with your touch. And uh, I think it's something very special, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, when can you come up with two of the greatest seeds and combine them into one and produce a tobacco that's extremely flavorful and it has the two essences the richness of the Habano seed together with the sweetness and aromatic qualities of the Cameroon seed? I'm so excited about it. And it's worked really good. And uh the new size that we came up with is simply fantastic. I think it executes exactly what we want, which is giving the consumer everything that we got to give to them from the beginning all the way to the end.

Engineering The 48-60-52 Shape

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah, no doubt that. And I think going into the size, right? We wanted to create something. We we worked on the blends, you created your Nicaraguan Shagrum blend, I created the Maduro blend, and then you and I collaborated together and created the Connecticut blend. And one of the things using the very rich, very well-aged tobaccos wrapper, binder, filler, we also wanted to create a size that was designed to perform from flavor concentration to flavor expansion, so forth. And Dad, we created a size. You and I, I remember we're sitting down, and the customers want to hear the stories, they ask about it. But with a pen and a paper, we started drawing out we want to make a six-inch cigar in length, but we wanted to make a six by forty-eight by sixty by fifty-two. And can you explain exactly what that means? A forty-eight by sixty by fifty-two.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yeah, exactly. What we wanted to do is come out with something very elegant, and we picked a six-inch uh cigar in length, which we thought was optimal for the flavor characteristics of this particular blend that we came up with with the new Prodomo Legacy Father and Son collaboration. And the second thing I want to do was something that would be really easy on the smoker's mouth, and 48 seemed to be just the optimum to put on the lips for the person that smoked the cigar and really enjoy it. Then we wanted this big symphony of flavors that we always discussed, and how did we do it? We branched it out with a 60 ring gauge, and we brought it back down so it could be easy to light into a 52, and the customer gets everything on that cigar. That cigar performs. Um, the dimensions are absolutely engineered for flavor concentration. That's exactly what we wanted. We also wanted to have exceptional balance, and we wanted to really enhance the overall smoking experience, and I think we hit a grand slam with that size. Then with the soft box press, it makes it so elegant. It's such a beautiful cigar. I'm like so excited. I've no said it twice, but in all the decades I've been in the industry, this is one of the brands that is just fired me up beyond belief. And I can't wait till the consumers get to enjoy this particular cigar. That is what's going to bring all the passion and really what I want to feel about this particular cigar. It's just it's just so elegant, beautiful. And more importantly, the cigar smoker gets to get an exceptional smoke experience from the beginning to the end. It's just the perfect size.

Why Wooden Molds Matter

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah, no doubt. And, you know, when we decided to make this cigar, and you and I penciled in a paper, and we drew out the cigar, what we wanted it to look like. We wanted it to be a parallel cigar with some figure, but really designed to perform for concentration, expansion of flavors to bring that harmonious balance. I think the biggest thing too is that, and I learned something, and this is very again, this is something that no outside outside of the factory, a consumer, a retailer will never hear this. And I asked you a question, you taught me something very important that I would have never thought of. I asked you, Dad, are we going to use for for molds? Are we going to use the polymer molds or are we going to use wood molds? And can you give the our listeners your response to my question?

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Yeah, we we like our rollers to work with whatever they feel more comfortable with, but I decided to use only ash wooden molds. And the reason I wanted the wooden molds was because wood is porous. And these particular tobaccos we're using, they're extremely oily, they're very opulent, they're very thick and and in texture. And what I wanted is when those cigars went into the mold, I also wanted some absorption of moisture so you the cigar smoker could really taste that cigar from beginning to end. So I decided to use wooden molds for that reason. It drops the moisture down about three percentage points. The cigar will age more uniformly, ferment more uniformly. And that's the reason why we mostly use uh wooden molds. And but I wanted to make this a hundred percent of wooden molds. You know, if you use polar molds, and you know, we have cigars that we've stored for for months on end and aging, that works great. And I just felt that this would be optimum for the cigar. I didn't want to leave any stone left unturned. We do that with all our brands, but this was something I thought was essential to do, and that's why I decided to use wooden molds solely on this particular line.

Primings & Flavor Differences Explained

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yeah, it's a great point, Dad. I think going into, you know, talking about and just giving a little bit of a you know story prior about Nicaraguan shade grown tobacco, um, going into your blend and saying, hey dad, you got to come out with the Nicaraguan shade grown blend, it's our our consumers, it would really satisfy everybody. I mean, you know, when you look at the Prodomo legacy today, this brand, um, you know, the flagship is the Nicaraguan shade ground, your creation, hybrid seed, Cuban Cameroon seed. And so if you could tell our listeners, you know, the difference between really this Nicaraguan shade ground that I used, for example, versus the Nicaraguan shade ground that you use in terms of the primings of the leaves, and explain why you did that and how you blended the cigar overall.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

First of all, I think what you did when you came out with the first one was exceptional because you wanted higher primings. Higher primings mean higher on the stalk of the plant, more sun exposure, more richness, more flavor. You hit it out of the park. 75% of that power and richness of the Cuban seed with hints of sweetness that really accent that cigar and makes it delicious. I decided because we wanted to differentiate, I would go more into the lower primings, little thinner tobaccos, more sweetness, actually, because of more shade from the leaves above them together with the shade grown tobacco. And I picked up more nuances of Cameroon versus the habano seed. I wanted that mixture, but I instead of being 70% in the habano side and 30% of the Cameroon side, I think we kind of flipped it around and I got it to be more of that Cameroon style tobacco that I really love also. And uh we changed it and it worked really great. And uh, I worked hard on it, and together with our tasting panel, we really zeroed down on that blend, and everybody seems to really love it, and I'm very happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yeah, I fell in love with the cigar between the 10 to 15 year age tobaccos, the the way you blended with the filler tobaccos on the variations between Condega, Jalapa, and Esteli. Um, just you nailed it, you hit it out of the park. But it's funny, Dad, when I smoked that cigar, and because of the lower primings and because it's a little bit lower on the stock, a little bit thinner, but still super toothy, very oily. You know, we always want every cigar to burn like Connecticut, right? Very, you know, just burn perfectly, just thin. And that cigar, to be honest with you, that wrapper, it burns so perfectly. It burns like Connecticut, and it's got such incredible flavor. And just that, again, to your point, the Cameroon influence, um, with that little bit of that habano back end on with that essence, that Habano essence on the back end, it was truly a special.

Building The Maduro Espresso Bomb

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, and that toothiness, for in case the customer, uh the consumer doesn't understand, or these tiny little bumps you see on the ash. And it's it's very normal for tobaccos that come from the Cameroon region, and that's where we come up with the word toothy, but I think you hit a grand slam with the Maduro version.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Well, Dad, after smoking your cigar, and I made sure that you made your cigar first, because I wanted to follow in the right steps in terms of blending, because to me, you're a master, and to all of the listeners who are lovers of Perdomo cigars, I know they concur with me, and you've earned it after three plus decades. And um, you know, one of the things I wanted to do was, of course, you always have wrapper grade, and then there's binder grade, but within the same primings that you used for wrapper, what didn't make wrapper and what made binder grade, I said I wanted to use that with the Maduro. So we used, I used, I decided I wanted to blend a very rich, I wanted to use a dark, very rich Maduro wrapper, higher priming, but I wanted to pair it with that lower priming. I know that the wrapper and binder would burn perfectly together because of that offset from thick to thin, but also I know that that Nicaragua shade grown is going to even boost a lot of that sweetness from that Cameroon influence to expand those cocoa chocolate flavors that that that the Maduro wrapper naturally gives. And again, I wanted to use I used a little bit different variation of filler tobaccos in terms of from Esteli, Jalapa, and Condega, but I hope you approve.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Yeah, the combination was superb. It was a genius move because you ended up offsetting that wrapper to be able to build more of the flavor of that wrapper. So a lot of people always ask, how much does the wrapper impart in a flavor? And there's ludicrous statements of 70% and so on, but it's about 10%, which is really astronomical when you consider it's one leaf. It's not even one percent of the tobacco producing 10 times as flavor characteristics. But I think what you did was amped it up to upwards of 12 to 15% of the flavor, which was really a great idea, and it really it's just so harmonious. That's that's the word. You got complexity, you got sweetness, you got richness. I call it an espresso bomb that's just delicious. Right. And uh I'm super high on the cigars. Look, we're known for our Maduro cigars and our seeds that we use for our Maduro. We don't, you know, it's we're different. And uh that cigar is a home run. It's a grand slam, is what it is. So job well done on that. Thank you. And uh I'm and it's a comp it's a competition sometimes, right? Because you're competitive by nature just like I am, and we want to do the very best we can. So I'm sure you were trying to kick my ass, and that's what you're supposed to do. If you weren't, you know, you ain't gonna be great if you're not trying to swing for the fences.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

So uh initially, yes, but I want to I think at the end of the day, everything needs to complement, right? I think our cigars need to complement each other. There's no question my my competitive DNA that you instilled within me has definitely thought of that. But knowing what I know, I think it's I think they both complement each other. But you know, we I catch myself and I've and I think it's great we talk about primings, right? And we're gonna get into it in other shows, but this is a very key word in terms of how people and how cigars are blended in terms of what makes a mild cigar, a medium body, and fooled cigar, and a full-bodied cigar. So I think in future episodes when we talk about that primings, and I and I I just wanted to bring that up because I know our our customers who are listening right now, they're gonna learn more and more about it.

Making A Connecticut With Real Flavor

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Sure, and they're and they're gonna hear it all the time. But I think it's important that they they get a little segue of what a priming is. So basically, the higher the primings, the higher it is on the plant. The higher it is, the more sun exposure, the thicker, the more richer and the heavier the flavors are. So we're always going in between the middle and to the top, depending on the type of cigar we're gonna make and the blend we're gonna make, regardless of where it comes from, whether it's the lush Palapa Valley, Condega Valley, and the SLE Valley. And it's one of the great things about working with Nicaragua. We have these three incredible regions, and uh that's one of the great things being a blender working in Nicaragua because you have farms that are literally a hundred miles apart versus other countries where everything is really right smack within five to ten miles of each other. How much different can you make the tobacco? So uh yeah, the the father and son collaboration, all three of the rappers are phenomenal. And then lastly, we decide we're gonna work together on the Connecticut.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

So, yeah, we did work on together in the Connecticut, and Connecticut a lot of time gets foreseen. A lot of people go, why didn't you guys work on the shade grown together? Nicaragua's shade grown. Why didn't you work on the Maduro? Because Connecticut, when you look at the expectations, and you're gonna give some numbers, of course, it's such it's the most popular wrapper. And uh, you know, it's so important because whether people have this misconception, it's the newbie cigar, it's for newer smokers, and we see quite the opposite on, you know, based on what we see, what our consumers are purchasing, whether they've been smoking cigars for five, ten, fifteen, twenty plus years, right? Um, but I thought it was very important too when we decided to blend together, um, you know, again, using the same priming of that Nickaraguin Shade Grown uh binder, right? And having that amp up and really supply even more flavor to the creaminess, that honey and spice, that cinnamon that you get from the Connecticut wrapper. Um, it's super, super special this cigar. And it's not it's not a light Connecticut. And because of the variations, again, and it's it's pretty incredible. You know, going back, you talk about the big three, right? Esteli, condega, and jalapa. The amount of variations, I mean, with all the brands that we've that we've made that you've blended, I mean, there's so many more variations of tobaccos that we haven't even touched yet, whether it be the from the Seiko Visa or the Lijero components of the actual tobacco, we have so many. How many, how many blends could we, how many more blends could we make that we haven't even thought about?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Quite a few. That's one of the great things about uh you know Nicaragua with all the different regions being so far, like I said earlier. And and I think the hardest cigar to make was the collaboration because we wanted something to be so flavorful, but what we ended up coming out with was not only a flavorful cigar, but a cigar that has such a nice, smooth, clean finish. Yep. Um, you know, we talk about soft, buttery, almond, vanilla that are natural in the tobaccos. And when Connecticut is fully cured, fully fermented, not 50%, 60%, but 100%, and then putting in the bale where those flavors interlock and marry and become harmonious and work with the blend with the tobaccos we got to play with, with the fillers and binders, it is an exquisite cigar. So when you go back to Connecticut, you know, we want that clean, smooth finish, and we're famous for it. I mean, if you look at brands like Perdoma Reserve, 10th anniversary champagne been out over two decades. Perdoma Habana, same thing, 20 plus years in the industry, still growing by leaps and bounds. Uh 20th anniversary, Connecticut, 30th anniversary, Connecticut. I think we've our team has become experts by working Connecticut and working it harmoniously with our famed Nicaraguan fillers and binders. I mean, I think we're one of the revolutionary guys who started Connecticut. When I first started in the industry, Connecticut was bland tart with light tobaccos, and we amped it up and we made Connecticut extremely flavorful because I believe it works so great with Nicaraguan fillers and binders. And I'm so proud of that collaboration we made. And I'll repeat it again: if you're looking for something smooth, clean, and just very flavorful, that Connecticut wrapper is phenomenal and it burns like baby powder because it's it's just so well-aged. It any tobacco, Connecticut gets a bad, bad, bad wrap. Oh, it's light, it's yellow, it must be light, it's bitter, it's tart. You know, in a lot of instances, those consumers are 100% right. And the reason is because Connecticut burns from the plant green. People, it's then so expensive. People, what they do is they bring it from the curing house, they give it one sweat, and we'll go into that later throughout the next podcast about sweating and fermentation and so on. And then they make a cigar with it. Well, of course, any tobacco would would would be tart and bitter if you did that. But the saving grace is that for a lot of people, is because Connecticut burns well, even raw, it it's it's an attribute because they spend so much money. But in reality, any tobacco has to be fully cured, fermented, and aged. And when you do that with Connecticut, it's a totally different animal. And I know a lot of expert smokers and older guys that are smoking Connecticut now and going back to it, less acidity and so on and so on as we get older. And uh look, even in our in our in our place, I mean, Arthur smokes pretty much solely Connecticut. He's an expert smoker, he's been with me for almost you know 20, 20, 25 plus years. He knows how to smoke cigars, and his favorite cigar today is Connecticut. It wasn't that way years ago. It's because he's grown into it, because he's seen the processes that we've done, and we all do. We all smoke Connecticut cigars, and that cigar is definitely another winner in the repertoire. And I'm very proud of it, and especially being able to work together with it.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

It was fun.

Aged Tobacco & Collaboration Lessons

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah, and a lot of trials and tribulations at the same time, but we got it done, and that's that's what it's all about. And the consumer and the retailer is going to win, and I'm very happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

We worked with really great tobacco. Again, going back 10 to 15 year age fillers, you know, looking, I mean, we were working bale to bale. We went from bales from 2011 when I was still graduating high school uh all the way through 2016. We wanted to use certified 10 to 15 year age tobaccos to give a little bit more of a softness versus where legacy, when I blended that cigar for you, I wanted to blend it kind of to your personality. Very aggressive, but balanced, you know, and I felt that that was important for me, and I really wanted to make the most flavorful cigar as possible. And I think we accomplished that with Perdomo Legacy. Now, Perdomo Legacy father and son is just it's just such a it's such a special blend. I'm so proud of it, and it was it was so much fun working with you.

Packaging Choices & Luxury Green

SPEAKER_00 21:14

It really was, and I think the job and the packaging was equally as important. Uh the colors, you know, everybody when we started putting pictures out of the brand, and it the pictures don't do it justice. No.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

And that green was just well, Dad, my question is going back now, looking at the packaging, right? When you when we look at the packaging and when we look at Perdomo Legacy, to me, it is artwork. It is the most beautiful packaging when you look at the golds, the foils, all these different things. And how could we use that? Because we wanted to use this brand under the legacy, just under the legacy name. Um, you know, we have the black and prodomo legacy, the red, the blue. Beautiful colors. Gorgeous. And one of the things is You being a watch enthusiast and you making me a watch enthusiast, um, you know, you took two, you know, we use green, but they're not both the same greens, right? Um, can you give a little bit of the thought behind it in terms of luxury products today, how powerful green is in the markets, and really just how you were inspired by it?

SPEAKER_00 22:22

It's super powerful in the luxury segment. I love green in general. It was really not used much in cigars, very few cigars, and a lot of marketing companies will tell you green and blue are bad colors. I think we proved that wrong with blue and legacy and the beautiful blue we use in 10th anniversary Maduro. And we decided collectively that green would be a great color. And I looked at watch brands like Patek Philippe, and I looked at watch brands like Rolex with their Daytona and the green, and we kind of made a we mixed a green that I don't even know if it has a Pantone color, to be honest with you. And I think uh the job that was done between you and Arthur and picking these were phenomenal, and it's so attractive. And what's even better is the cigar is better than how beautifully packaged the cigar is, and that's what it's all about. I've always thought that our cigars were wonderful and we would bring our packaging up, and we sure did. And I think we got the best packaging in the industry. I might be a little zealous saying that, but I believe that from the bottom of my heart. And this is this is just at the top of the pinnacle, and I'd love the way it looks. And coming in chest of 50, you know, I look I look back at you know, listening to my father's stories and cabinets of fifty and how elegant they were in the old days, these beautiful chests, and we're we're providing that to the consumer at a price point of only$15 a cigar using these types of tobaccos, it's unheard of. It's not the$75 to$100 cigar the consumer's getting pitched every day at, which I don't believe is fair. I think they're getting a tremendous bang for their buck, and I'm beyond excited about it.

The 50 Count Chest Humidor Box

SPEAKER_01 24:01

But Dad, even those 50-count chests, they're they're works of art. I mean, if I'm a consumer and I buy a chest of Perdomo Legacy father and son, I'm gonna buy bovada packs, put them in there, treat it as my own humidor. It's so versatile. It is versatile because we made the box.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Yeah, we made that box that it could be a humidor. So if you do use a pack, a humidified pack in there, it's going to make it's gonna keep the cigars, they'll be aging. It's extremely well-cured cedar that we've kiln dried to four percent moisture. It's the perfect aging box for the cigars, even though the cigars have been aged for for a lot of years. I mean, it makes it makes it's just it's just incredible. It's a it's a showpiece that anybody can have in their home and be proud of. And I'm proud of that.

Family Legacy & Final Thanks

SPEAKER_01 24:52

I'm proud of it too, Dad. I think we did a great job. And in closing, everything, you know, with our family today has been about legacy. And you look and you see that you know, there's a great chance, a great opportunity for Perdomo cigars to have future generations with your grandkids and so forth, and you know, I think that you could give me more if you wanted to. Kitchen's closed. But I think looking uh looking back, I'm just really proud of what we've done. And it took the third and fourth generation of Perdomo to create a Prodomo Legacy father and son collaboration brand. I'm sure that your grandfather and your father would be so proud to see what you've accomplished and to see what we're accomplishing, not just for their sake and in their honor, but for the future generations of our family. So I think the best is yet to come. And Dad, I'm proud and so grateful that I get to hang out with you some more, do these podcasts, educate our customers, our retailers and consumers, and really just continue to build the bonds that we've built over the years. And I think that we have something really special, and I just can't wait for this journey. And I can't, I couldn't be more happy to be on this journey with you, Dad.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Well, likewise, I feel the same way, son, and I'm excited about giving all the knowledge that I've learned through from my father, my grandfather, and the decades I've been in the cigar industry for all the cigar lovers out there.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah, so thank you so much, Dad. And to everyone listening, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for your support. Please like and subscribe to the ProMa podcast show. We're going to see us very soon. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys.