The Big Question On Flavor

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How does a cigar blender truly build flavor? Welcome to the world of Perdomo Cigars. We deliver the most authentic, in-depth cigar education to you, the cigar enthusiast. Recorded at the Perdomo Studio in Miami, Florida, brought to you by third and fourth generation master cigar makers. This is the Perdomo Podcast. Your hosts, Nick and Nicholas Perdomo.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Welcome back to the Perdomo Podcast. Thanks for coming back. I'm Nicholas Perdomo with Perdomo Cigars, and I'm alongside my dad, Nick Perdomo. Dad, how are you today? I'm doing great. How about yourself? I'm doing great. We have another gem today. And this is a big question that people have been asking really for since we've started the podcast, but I think they've been asking this question since you got into the cigar industry. And the question is, how does a cigar master cigar blender truly build flavor? Right. And so we're going to bring you guys back to Nicaragua with us. And a great blend isn't simply just choosing wrapper, this wrapper from this country, this binder from this country, this these fillers from this region, whatever it is. It takes a heck of a lot more. And you know that very, very well. And the whole thing is it's dosages, it's consistency, it's all the things that you've taught me since I was a little kid. And that if you want to give a little bit of an insight before we go to Nicaragua and we show everybody how we truly come up, and you being the master blender, how you create all your blends.

What We’re Smoking Right Now

SPEAKER_01 1:32

I'm going to, but I just got one question for the audience and for you. What are you smoking? I am smoking a beautiful 5x54 Robusto box press in our 30th anniversary. This is the Sungrown. And what are you smoking today? One of my favorites.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

I'm smoking a Robusto from the Perdomo Legacy line and a fine, well-aged Connecticut shade wrapper. It's really creamy and just perfect for this time of the day. I'm enjoying it.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Beautiful. And also here we have our beautiful Perdomo 30th anniversary Maduro, all bourbon barrel-aged wrappers, 15-year-ge tobaccos, celebrates my dad and my mom's 30th year in business over four years ago now. This brand's been out. So we're very blessed and very grateful to have it. But going into this, Dad, I think it's one of those things, you know, going back when you, if you can, if you can talk a little bit to our audience in terms of the mindset, in terms of how you try to build flavor. And just before we go to Nicaragua, what you've done over the years to create the flavor as a master blender.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Well,

Terroir And Lot Numbers Matter

SPEAKER_02 2:31

I have to give a lot of credit and it to the tutelage I got from really some great masters, including my father, my uncle, Sarah Gonzalez, God Rest Your Soul, Aritzi's Garcia. These are masters. Can you get to imagine 85 years in the industry and took me at a very young age together with my whole family going through all these processes? The word master blender is a is a big title. It is. And it's a title that everybody seems to use in the cigar business.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

And it takes a lot of work. And it's not just Nicholas brought up a great point. It's not just putting filler from Jalapa, Esteli, and Condega together and and making a cigar. We we actually dissect it. And it's done through science, but a lot of it has to do with the terar of the grounds, the mineral contents, the amount of nitrogen, it's out of potassium and so on. I'm not going to get too much into it because it probably bore people, but it's very important because those are the flavor characteristics. So for example, Jalapa is very known for its aromatic, sweet characteristics, together with Cundega, which is going to be a little more heavier earthier tobacco, and then you come into the powerhouse of Vestalie, but they're different, even in the region. So when we do it, we do it by lot numbers. So we have consistency in the blend. That's the reason that champagne, Perdomo Reserve Champagne, has been out for 26 years, consistent every time. People who love them tell us every day, yeah, Perdomo Habano, you know, 25 plus years, a lot 23, 25. We just don't throw stuff against a wall and hope it sticks. You know, the average brand has a life expectancy of about 18 months. And I'm proud that all our core brands, over five of them, have been for in the industry for decades and continue growing. And that just shows the great amount of work that our team does. And I can't take all the credit for it because we have a great smoking panel, all our blenders. I would say every one of them are masters. I'm probably the junior one out of all of them, and I've been doing this for over three decades. We have people who have been doing this four, five, six decades. And that really helps build a great team and a great, you know, a great flavor team that we have. And then what we're trying to do is we're trying to layer these flavors. So there's complexity, there's sweetness, there's aroma, there's richness. We're smelling the tobacco. We sit in rooms and we let other people smoke the cigars so we can smell the bouquet and aroma. It's it's a long process. It's not just, you know, coming around, I'm a master blender. I can tell you everything from every blend from what fields they are, from what lot numbers they are, because they're all different depending on where you're at. We know that if you're down by a water source, a lake, a river, those grounds underneath are going to be lighter because they're going to be siftier because you have erosion. Those tobaccos are not going to have the same strength characteristics. They're going to be different. So we just don't take tobacco from that region and go upstream 10 feet and if weather be sick and say it's the same. That's why blends falter a lot of times and they they become different. And that's why we've mentioned on the previous podcast. I hear smokers all the time going, you know what I love about your cigars, they're consistent. Everyone, regardless of flavor, tastes the same, regardless. And to me, that's the greatest compliment. It means our team is doing a great job. But I also hear I love this brand, but it changes all the time. Sure. And all cigar makers know what that reason is. You know, you just can't be working, like I said previously from bale to bale. You have to have consistent stocks of tobacco. When you guys come to Nicaragua, you'll see it.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Yeah. And so today we're going to take you guys, we're going to show you guys well-age wrapper tobaccos, binder tobaccos, filler tobaccos, and really the dosages. The dosages, how we use different grades. You'll see secos and you'll see different visos, the different ligeros, the filler tobaccos, and you'll still see the different grades by size, grades by the textures, and so forth. And so that's really the biggest thing. Because the whole thing is, Dad, we can create whatever blend we want. We have all the tobacco, we have everything. But how do you create blends to make millions and millions of cigars? That's a big thing, and that's something we're going to show you guys. But a blend must deliver all the balance, the flavor, the aroma. And again, to your point, the consistency, and that's everything. And the quality and depth of the inventories of tobacco, which is what we're going to show you guys, is paramount. But the more tobaccos that we have, and again, going back in terms of the well-aged tobaccos that we talked about in terms of aging tobaccos in the previous episodes, the more tobaccos we have to work with, the more opportunities we have to deliver really rich, flavorful type of cigars. And so I can personally say when I blended Perdomo Legacy in honor of you, man, it was like it was like being in the greatest grocery store in the world that had every single condiment, every single ingredient, every single cut of beef, whatever I wanted. I had and I went, my gosh, this is unbelievable because I know the stories about working bale to bail. You told me it many of times, but it's the truth. So today we're going to show you guys just a piece of incredibly well-aged wrapper, binder, and filler tobaccos. So, Dad, without further ado, let's go back to Nicaragua. We'll see you soon. Welcome

Estelí: One Blend From Many Leaves

SPEAKER_01 7:39

back, everybody, to Estley Nicaragua here in our pre-industries at Tobacco Lair Perdomo. So, what we want to talk to you guys about today, like we were mentioning earlier in the podcast, is how really you how you build blends and how you really become a master blender. My dad doing this for 34 years. I could honestly say, outside of the fact he's my dad, he's been doing this, he is the master blender, and he is a pioneer in Nicaragua, that's for sure. And history will treat him fairly one day. But Dad, one of the things I'd like to look at and what we want to talk about is we have all this tobacco. We have tobaccos from Esteli, we have tobaccos from Condega, we have tobaccos from Jalapa, beautiful wrapper tobaccos. So, Dad, if you could take it away and talk to our viewers really about what we're looking at here.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

What I'd like to ask the viewers is when you look at all these three tables of tobacco, how many different types of blends can you make? And if you could put it in the comments section, it'd be interesting in what you think. But here's the answer. But still put your comments in because they're very important to us. This, all these tables of all these different tobaccos, believe it or not, a lot of people that come on our factory tour say, Oh, you can make 20 different blends, 10 different blends, so and so on. In reality, these three tables make one blend. One blend. So this blend is the Perdomo Legacy. So I'm gonna explain it to you. We have seco, viso, and lieto tobaccos, we've talked about in the previous podcast. Secos are lighter tobaccos. So you have small, medium, and large seco's from Esteli, which is part of the blend of the new Perdomo legacy. We also have visos, which are a little thicker and more strength tobaccos, small, medium, and larges. We have five-inch tobaccos, six-inch tobaccos, seven-inch tobaccos, and we have to grade them by the sizes, width, and textures of the cigars. These are all from the Esteli Valley. When you come over here, these are more sweeter, aromatic tobaccos in the same sequence from the Jalapa Valley. When we come behind Nicholas over here, these are tobaccos from the Condego Valley. We think these are the three best valleys. Some of these tobaccos have been marked when my son was in high school. So we have a lot of tobaccos here that have been here for 15, 16 years. So just because tobacco is old doesn't mean it's good. It has to be in great installation centers like we have with good flows of oxygen humidity. Another thing we have to do is we have to grade the binders. So we have binders that are over here, and we have small binders and large binders. That's how we grade the binders. The binders are basically what go underneath the wrapper and go over the bunch, which is the blends of the cigars, which you see in these three tables behind us.

Wrappers And The 10% Rule

SPEAKER_02 10:09

We're very unique and we like to use three different wrappers. And the reason we use three different wrappers is if you love the blend of the cigar, the wrappers in part up to 10 or 15% of the flavor. So, with that being said, that also adds a lot to the flavor. So if you love the Connecticut, we think you'll love the Maduro, we think you'll love the Habano. And one of the unique things about us in blending is we use normally three different wrappers. We have a Connecticut wrapper, a Habano wrapper, and a Maduro wrapper. And our Habano wrapper, we call it sun grown, but we came out with something new for the legacy. We have a proprietary seed blend that our genetic departments have developed since 2019. We've been working on. And mostly shade grown tobaccos are light in color, like you would see in the Connecticut. But this is a cross-strain of Cameroon and Habano seed, which we call Nicaraguan shade grown or NSG. We even split the hairs even on that. We have a dark wrapper for the Nicaraguan shade grown that goes with the regular legacy line. And we also have a little bit of a lighter one that goes to the new father and son line, which will be sold worldwide here starting in September. And the reason that we have a darker and lighter is the Nicaraguan father and son, when Nicholas and I blended this cigar, we wanted to impart more of a sweetness to it. And we added it has more of a Cameroon flavor, where the regular legacy line more has more of that Habano flavor and a little more punch to it. And the reason that we use these different wrappers is if you love the blend, you can try different types of flavors because the wrapper can part upwards to 10 or 15%, like I've noted in previous podcasts, and that's important. So you can taste all these flavors. So believe it or not, making one cigar takes all this room to be able to do it. It's no different than a great chef. Look, I don't cook. So if you give me salt, pepper, garlic, basil, and a dump ton of ingredients, I'm not going to be able to make a great meal because I don't know how to cook. And this took a lot of years. It took me over three decades learning from my father, my grandfather, guys like Aristides Garcia and Sarah Gonzalez. And I've been really teaching my son. And my son, even though he's only 33 years old, is as advanced as I was when I was 50, because he started at a very young age, much younger age than I did. So, Nicholas, to make one blend, especially for the Perdomo legacy line, this is what it took us when we initially came up with this line. And I know you remember it well.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah, dad. And it was it was a blast. But it's one of those things, and you having over three decades of experience, there's a tremendous amount of trial and error. I mean, we have we have the science simplified to a certain degree, but also too, it all blended comes from here. It comes from your heart. And after learning trial and error and knowing what works and what doesn't work, that's really where the success comes from. Like as a company, when we blended Perdomo 10th anniversary, you know, I know 10 years into the business, it was all about showing 10 years of quality and making a smooth cigar, making something very approachable and rich and balanced. And then, for example, now moving all the way up and years later into Perdomo Legacy, I was inspired to make a cigar in honor of my dad for his 60th birthday, but also for all he's done for our cigar industry and even our company, of course. And so when I wanted to make something, I was inspired by the richness. And when you look here, you see all these beautiful tobaccos from Esteli, really high primers, especially when you start getting into the Lejero tobaccos, which is really what's what's fundamental outside of the Nicaraguan shade grown wrappers. And then you look at jalapa, like my dad said earlier, sweet, aromatic, really gives that beautiful aroma, that bouquet to the cigar. And then when you look here, and I could be a little bit biased, but my favorite, which I love, is just Condega. It's really a mix, like you taught me when I blended and you gave me the cheat sheet, which I appreciated. But really, it was when you look at Esteli and you look at Jalapa, this is really a cross between Esteli and Jalapa. You get the sweetness, you get that bouquet of aromas, and but you get that nice, really rich, full, dense type of tobacco flavors that Estely is so well famed and known for. So it's something we wanted to really show you guys, but it is incredible when you look at everything. This is one blend. And this is specifically Legacy.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

And we can show you the different tobaccos and the color characteristics of the wrappers, believe it or not, grown under shade, and look at these deep, dark, rich brown, reddish hues. And then you come over here and you you look at the same seed, but you can see the difference in the tobacco. It's lighter, but it also has a different type of flavor. Same thing with the Connecticut. When you look at this, if you smell this, it literally smells like honey wheat bread, but these tobaccos are very old, no bitterness, really creamy vanilla type flavors that people love in their cigars. And blending is very difficult, as we know, Nicholas. Yes. It literally takes us two to three years to come up with a cigar. Sometimes I see brands coming out every week. I'm not smart enough to figure that out, but it takes a long time to do this. And a lot of it is not just because of the different valleys you grow on, that's super important, but also the different lot numbers that we grow tobacco on, different mineral contents, different different nitrogen levels, potassium levels, phosphorus levels that give us the flavors. And the most important thing is how do we cure that tobacco? How did we ferment that tobacco? And after all the fermentation, we age that tobacco. And after aging, to construct the blend to be able to get the flavor characteristics that we wanted and that you wanted to build a superior cigar. And we just wanted to show you just a little insight on blending. It's a lot more complex than this, but it's I wanted to show you literally how difficult it was and how much time it takes. And not everybody can be this master blenders that we did, that we always hear about. And it took us it took us a long time to do this. And I was blessed. I have a lot of tutelage because I come from a long lineage of cigar makers. And I passed this on to my son, and I'm very proud of this. And I'm also very proud that our dosages or blends are always consistent because when we grow tobacco and we age tobacco and we store tobacco, we really try to lock the flavors of whatever dosage or blend we make. And we think that helps you and the retailer and really enjoying and savoring a phenomenal cigar.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah, and you just said something very important. This is something key. And I know that we get complimented and we take it very personally, we're very grateful for it. But consistency is everything. And you look at the science behind it and you look at how everything is literally measured out proportionately based on the blends, so that you, the consumer, our retail partners, have the most consistent cigar possible that you either sell or you smoke. So it's something that we're very grateful for. But it's as much as as scientific as this is, as much as you have to be so detailed, this it comes from here. When you blend a cigar and you make a cigar, it really takes time, it takes effort. And I could tell you, this is something so that we're so passionate about. And we really wanted to show this to you. But Dad, I think it's a good time to jump back to Miami, jump on the the Falcon and and get back over to Miami. So let's we'll meet you.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

The American Airline Falcon. Yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Welcome

Back To Miami: Recap On Dosage

SPEAKER_01 17:14

back to Miami Lakes, Florida, here at Perdomo Cigars, and specifically at the Perdomo Podcast Studio. Dad, that was pretty awesome. What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 17:22

I love it. I love it. It's great. You know, you look at those tables and guys get to see how complex the job is together with everything and how you come up with these, with these, these projects kind of in a in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, it's true. And it's, you know, going back and I guess given somewhat of a recap, you know, you you you take these cigars and you a true master blender builds flavor through the precise tobacco dosages. If you guys really get what I want you guys to see, and I think you guys are still awed by how much tobacco you just saw by the different grades, by the different wrappers, binders, fillers, everything. And amazing, that takes just one, that's one blend. Those are the tobaccos that we use based on size, based on the grade that we use for Podomo Legacy when I blended those cigars for my dad in honor of my dad. But just imagine all the other six brands that we have that utilize multiple wrappers as well. It's pretty astounding, it's pretty incredible. But again,

Side By Side Testing For Nuance

SPEAKER_01 18:24

it's all about dosage. So when you guys look, and you know, one of the things I was thinking about, Dad, is you know, one of the greatest things you taught me, and we didn't talk about this when we were in Nicaragua in the video, but you taught me how to smoke cigars side by side. And we were testing some different types of tobacco. We have brand new seed varieties that we have that we we just did nestally. As a matter of fact, we had 21 different hybrid seeds that we grew this year. And so I I you told me you said, I want you to taste this visa from Jalapa. We created a blend, but I want you to smoke it with this visa that we use of this special seed that we're not ready to announce yet, but it's something we're working on, it's something we're gonna have.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

It was planted right next to that seed, same grounds and everything. You saw the difference.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Yeah, and we were smoking the cigar side by side. I'm like, wow, there's similar seed, there's similar sweetness, but there's also a lot of difference. There's a little bit more nuances, a little bit more body, a little bit more of a richer, deeper type of aroma, and all these things. So there's a lot of it's critical thinking, right? And in terms of how you distinguish every like you always say, smoking's subjective. But at the end of the day, it's one of those things where even if you smoke a cigar, and I've heard many consumers, they've told you, they've told myself over the years, you know, I smoke brand X, brand Y. I I only smoke their Robusto because their Churchill, it doesn't taste the same. And so we go back to dosages, right? And so one of the things, and bringing up smoking cigars side by side, for example, you as a cigar lover and the lover Perdomo cigars, if you smoke, for example, Perdomo 30th anniversary and you love the Maduro and you you smoke Epicures, try the Torpedo 7 by 54, right? Longer cigar, my dad's favorite cigar size, but you you cut that cigar and you smoke them side by side, you're gonna go, these cigars taste the same. And that's the beauty behind the brand, because I think a lot of people they smoke maybe one or two different sizes because there's so many decades. They're like, these are the two sides because the other brands they seem maybe a little bit watered down, but not for us in Perdomo. When you look at that and you look at those different and those different types of tobaccos, and then those three full tables that we used, or four tables that we used, you see that that's five different sizes. Five different sizes by the size of the tobacco, all the way from Robusto, all the really the grand bellicosa for Perdomo legacy. But just think about it. And when you guys look at it, really think about now in terms of blending the dosages that we use and understanding the materials and the tobaccos that we use, but it all goes back to inventory,

Deep Inventory Makes Great Blends

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Dad. And a deep inventory of properly well-aged tobaccos, that's what really gives us the possibilities to create more.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

No doubt. And you brought up a great point with the tables. You look at all that, and like I said earlier, everybody thinks you can make a hundred different cigars, and you have to look at size with texture, zones, development of the grounds, mineral contents, and so on. And our genetic team has done an incredible job with different seed varieties that we've worked with, and we're blessed. We have 18 phenomenal farms that are extremely fertile. We have two more that are coming up. And one of the things that we do differently is we develop our farms.

Building Farms With Soil Science

SPEAKER_02 21:39

We bring our own heavy equipment, we do our own soil analysis, we go through everything, and we decide hey, we're gonna build a farm here. We have a farm right now that we're that we're building, it has upwards, I'm not kidding you, at least a hundred million volcanic stones in there. And we've been working over seven months pulling these stones out. It's a tremendous amount of work pulling. The rock. Yeah, those stones are so important because they're volcanic and they you can imagine the amount of minerals that were laid under compaction because of those stones. And when you look at the ground, it almost looks like potting soil. It's so fertile, so beautiful. It doesn't have a even a hard pan because you can literally go 200 feet deep and it's just as rich and black as it is on top. And those are the things that make Nicaragua so unique. So it's like a great chef. You know, you're playing and you're playing with all these great ingredients, the best of the best, and you can really come up with something great. Even though, like I said in the video when we were in Nicaragua, I can't cook for nothing. Thank God for my mother and my wife. But with that being said, I do know how to blend cigars, and it's something that I have a very pat big passion with. And you know, it's hard to blend cigars because I'm not blending for exactly what I love. I have to love it. And you brought up a good point where it's got our name on the band, but I'm also thinking about what you guys like. It doesn't have to be uh just a powerhouse, a kicks you in the head, because some people like that. I'm trying to produce balance, I'm trying to produce complexity, I'm trying to produce something that if you want to smoke another one right after because you love the first one so much, you're gonna love the second and the third one just as much. And that makes it really hard.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah. It's like our, you know, we have a good friend in Nicaragua, Gustavo Cuda, and he always says, whenever he, you know, I gave him a Perdomo Legacy, and he was like, he's doing this in his pocket. He goes, This is the cigar where you go like this in your shirt pocket, and you and as you're smoking it and you've already taken 10 puffs, you're reaching for the next one because you want to find it. You want to make sure you have that one to back it up so you could smoke more cigars. And that's truly the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

What a compliment from a from an industry leader, one of the greatest growers of tobacco. His father grew tobacco in Cuba before, and the guy is a cigar lover. And when you get compliments like that from Gus, it really shows that you're doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

It does. But, you know, going back now, many different episodes, and before we wrap this up, you know, a premium cigar, it looks simple, you know, and we talked about smoking with our eyes, but really it and going back, just think of the different components and the materials and the leaves that we use to create a blend. But again, just a little refresher for you guys. Don't look at this and judge the cigar really by just the wrapper. There's no doubt in parts 10 to 15% of the flavor, but you got to start doing this, really start thinking about the dosages. Now, now we talk about blending. Now we talk about dosages, we talk about the well-aged tobaccos, we talk about all the different components and the flavors, but that's really what it is, and that's what creates consistency. And again, we talked about this in previous episodes, and we're very grateful for your comments always about our consistency as a brand, but that consistency is is it's it takes time, it takes patience. You guys are buying cigars that were planned many, many, many years in advance.

Final Thoughts And Your Comments

SPEAKER_01 24:59

And so I hope that you guys enjoyed this video. And please leave us any comments. Also, please like, share, and subscribe to our Prodomo YouTube pages, Facebook, Instagram, follow our personal pages as well. And again, please leave us comments. We we look forward to hearing from you guys. We look forward to answering any questions or just any comments that you have in general. But we appreciate it, Dad. This was a great episode. I loved it. It's awesome. And so we hope that you guys enjoyed it and we're looking forward to seeing you very soon. Take care. Take care.