I remember my first cigar like it was yesterday. I was 14 and a girlfriend gave me a Montecristo No. 2 Cuban she had taken from her father’s humidor. My friends and I stared at it for a week before we got the stones to actually smoke it. We fired it up and passed it around. After several draws I remember feeling dizzy and like I was about to cough up a lung. Despite feeling a bit sick, I loved the flavor. The next day I picked up some books and started learning about cigars and all of the mistakes I made the night prior. 1. Don’t inhale. 2. Start with something mild. 3. Take your time and don’t smoke it too fast. Then I got to the etiquette section. Before I knew it, I was captivated by the cigar culture and was back at the shop later that night pawing through the walk in humidor. Being so young, my budget was extremely limited and my first humidor was an old cigar box the shop owner gave me that I converted into a humidor with a homemade humidifier. I bought some extra books as well as a sampler pack and started on a journey that would forever change my life. In fact, since that day I have smoked at least one cigar everyday.

What started as a hobby, quickly became a passion. I would sneak out onto my roof from my bedroom window every night with something special from my humidor and sometimes after school I would venture over to the cigar shop. I was not just smoking them, but I would take them apart any chance I got. Often times the shop owner would give me some broken cigars to play with and I would study everything about the components of a cigar while reading every book and article I could get my hands on. With college fast approaching, I selected DePauw University in Greencastle Indiana. I came from a long line of executives and entrepreneurs and DePauw had an excellent reputation for producing some of the world’s most respected CEOs. An economics major, my days were spent hitting the books and I still found time to unwind with a cigar in the basement of my SAE fraternity house. At the time, my ambitions were to enter the consulting field (a lucrative job at the time) and retire as soon as possible to start my real dream, a cigar shop.

It was my senior year when things started to change for me. I was on spring break in Jamaica with some other folks from my school. It was the last day and I was making a trip to the cigar shop to pick up some Mario Palomino’s (at the time this Jamaican cigar was fantastic and could only be purchased in Jamaica). While there, I encountered another person from my trip who was making the all too familiar mistake of buying a fake box of Cohibas. I stopped him immediately. When he asked me how I knew and what other cigar I would recommend, it turned into an hour long conversation about cigars. Within this conversation, the gentleman mentioned that his brother had just purchased the website www.cigar.com.

When I returned from my trip, I quickly changed gears to prepare for my interviews. At the time, the job market was terrible, especially for consulting. Feeling the pressure from my family and school to nail something down, I changed gears and started considering opportunities in banking before freezing completely like a deer in the headlights. I found myself unhappy with my career choices and found the card I got from the guy in the cigar shop in Jamaica. I called his brother to inquire about opportunities with Cigar.com and before I knew I was interviewing for a telemarketing position. The company was still young and I would be working for close to minimum wage as I cold called people to sell them cigars. The money wasn’t great, particularly with my background, and I was eating three steady meals of ramon everyday, but I was having the time of my life working with cigars. My family and friends thought I was crazy, but I could not have imagined working anywhere else.

All of my studying and smoking quickly paid off as the company grew, and overtime I worked my way through the ranks to my current position as the Cheif Merchant for Cigar.com. Today I spend my time working directly with every major cigar maker as a buyer as well as taking an active roll in product development. My cigar education has continued, but today is focused more around tobacco, processing and cigar making. Between our customers, employees and vendors, I am still learning something new about cigars everyday.

What I love about this industry is how it is always evolving. New brands come and go all the time and cigar makers are always experimenting with new ideas in aging and fermentation. Cigars are one of the country’s oldest businesses. I love the tradition, but most of all, the comradery of cigar enthusiasts. I look forward to updating my blog and interacting with everyone on the forum!