Episode 95
This Cigar Project Was Born the Day My Father Passed Away | Jeremiah Meerapfel | Box Press Ep. 95
Get out your handkerchiefs! A cigar talk to share with your dad or other influential man in your life. In November 2003, Jeremiah Meerapfel's father Richard died suddenly of a heart attack. Richard was heralded with saving Cameroon/Central African wrapper tobacco from extinction in the early 1990s. Jeremiah and his brother Joshua carried on their father's work. In honor of their father, the Meerapfels launched a new cigar category of limited-production UberLuxury cigars. For the rest of us, if you've smoked a cigar with a Cameroon wrapper, Jeremiah has probably touched, farmed, cured, processed and shipped that tobacco.
Cigar makers like Meerapfel protect the flavor and character of their hand-rolled cigars with Boveda. Boveda are those brown 2-way humidity packs that you find in cigar boxes. Cigar smokers use Boveda in humidors to make sure the cigars inside stay well-humidified or they can be hard to light, burn to too fast or get moldy. With Boveda in your humidor, you'll get better flavor from a cigar. Boveda has been keeping cigars tasting great for more than 25 years. Boveda Protects Your Premium Cigars. Guaranteed.
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00:00 Cold open
00:59 Wears the Borsalino hat worn by his father and grandfather
01:50 Cameroon wrapper is the most challenging premium tobacco leaf to grow
05:50 The trauma of the sudden death of a father
08:04 Carrying on your father's legacy
10:46 I know I could never fill my father's shoes
17:34 Balancing fatherhood and family
21:19 Every day, make a difference in a positive way
28:51 The first Meerapfel cigar released in 80 years
30:17 The first sustainable cigar box in the world
32:59 Cigars made from the oldest tobaccos
34:35 Boveda integrated into UberLuxury cigar packaging
40:12 "If you don't do it with passion, don't do it at all."
Transcript
- There's a story inside every smoke shop,
Speaker:with every cigar, and with every person.
Speaker:Come be a part of the cigar lifestyle of Boveda.
Speaker:This is "Box Press." (upbeat guitar music)
Speaker:- Welcome to another episode of "Box Press."
Speaker:I'm your host, Rob Gagner.
Speaker:We are live at the PCA 2022 show,
Speaker:and I am sitting across from a legend in the industry.
Speaker:If you've smoked a Cameroon cigar,
Speaker:it has probably been touched, farmed, cured,
Speaker:and processed, and then shipped by this gentleman.
Speaker:You have a very unique look, Jeremiah Meerapfel.
Speaker:Thank you for being here on the "Box Press" podcast.
Speaker:- Rob, it's a pleasure.
Speaker:- Your hat and scarf is just
Speaker:a striking look that I absolutely love.
Speaker:Is that something that you've always had or is it something
Speaker:that kind of grew on you as you got a little older?
Speaker:- Nothing grows on you when you're a Meerapfel.
Speaker:You know, we're a 400-year-old family business,
Speaker:11 generations, and innovation is a very peculiar thing
Speaker:in our family because it takes a long time.
Speaker:The hat was worn by my father, by my grandfather.
Speaker:The actual same Borsalino hat
Speaker:was worn by my father and my grandfather.
Speaker:I think Borsalino started its operations in the 1800s,
Speaker:if I'm not mistaken and it's been a trademark
Speaker:of our family for many, many, many generations.
Speaker:- So it's been going on from father to son, father to son.
Speaker:- It has, it has, you know, when you also,
Speaker:when you're living in Europe,
Speaker:in Belgium, with the rainy weather,
Speaker:you want to have a hat on your head to protect-
Speaker:- It's utilitarian, right?
Speaker:It's absolutely utilitarian. That's awesome.
Speaker:But because your family has been growing and using
Speaker:and sourcing Cameroon tobacco and basically
Speaker:been the pioneer, that's no small feat because in Africa,
Speaker:it's a whole different political climate.
Speaker:But your dad really went in there to help
Speaker:figure out how to grow Cameroon wrapper.
Speaker:What were some of the challenges that he had
Speaker:with communicating with the people in order
Speaker:to get the job done so that we could enjoy
Speaker:this beautiful tobacco you guys distribute?
Speaker:- Yeah, dad had no issues communicating with the people.
Speaker:On the contrary, that's the reason he was there.
Speaker:He fell in love with the people
Speaker:of Cameroon very early on in life.
Speaker:When he was 18 years old, he moved to the eastern parts
Speaker:of Cameroon in the rainforest where he was one
Speaker:of the only peoples to be included in the culture
Speaker:of the Pygmies, of the tribe of the Pygmies,
Speaker:which were in the rainforest of the Ituri.
Speaker:And that was the beginning of everything for him.
Speaker:Once he was included in those tribes
Speaker:and he fell in love with the culture and the peoples,
Speaker:he dedicated his entire life later on into making his way
Speaker:and taking over the operations of the French monopoly
Speaker:that were controlling the Cameroon wrapper
Speaker:in Eastern Cameroon, and finally, buy them out
Speaker:in the early 90s and his dream became reality.
Speaker:He was able to build the villages and the schooling systems
Speaker:and the hospitals and all the other infrastructure
Speaker:to help the peoples that have been,
Speaker:his brothers, his sisters, his uncles, his aunts
Speaker:for the better part of the majority of his life.
Speaker:And that's what Cameroon meant to us as a family.
Speaker:Cameroon was our family.
Speaker:It was our family because it was my father's family.
Speaker:And later on became ours.
Speaker:An extraordinary culture,
Speaker:an extraordinary peoples and an extraordinary country.
Speaker:Does it have challenges? Of course, it has challenges.
Speaker:Very, very different than what you would see here in
Speaker:the United States or in any of the civilized world actually.
Speaker:You know, who would think that
Speaker:the number one killer would be a mosquito?
Speaker:Who would think that you would have gorillas, which
Speaker:are both frightening and dangerous to human beings?
Speaker:Who would think that elephants could cause mayhem
Speaker:walking through the village and destroying everything?
Speaker:Who would think that you would have black panthers
Speaker:that need to be caught or else?
Speaker:Who would think that drinkable water is a challenge?
Speaker:Until we built the wells that we built
Speaker:and the filtration systems and that without them,
Speaker:thousands and thousands and tens of thousands
Speaker:of people fall seriously ill and die.
Speaker:The environment can be very, very different
Speaker:and very dangerous, but it's all made up for by
Speaker:the beauty of the people, by the beauty of the culture,
Speaker:and by this unique leaf, which my family called
Speaker:the sacred leaf, which is not probably,
Speaker:which is certainly the most challenging leaf
Speaker:of premium tobacco to be grown anywhere on the planet.
Speaker:- Right, that's what I mean.
Speaker:That's a very difficult area to grow tobacco,
Speaker:that challenge there.
Speaker:So I mean, just to take that-
Speaker:- Well, you have no running water,
Speaker:no irrigation, no electricity.
Speaker:- Right. - No tractors.
Speaker:Things are done with your two hands like
Speaker:they were done a hundred years ago or 500 years ago.
Speaker:Things are done the old way, the traditional way.
Speaker:And I don't know what it is with our family,
Speaker:but we like the UberTradition.
Speaker:- But a good challenge is rewarding when it's overcame.
Speaker:- Well, it's very rewarding,
Speaker:but there's a lot of drama involved.
Speaker:My father lost his life at a very young age.
Speaker:He passed away due to an expropriation
Speaker:in Central Africa in the Cameroon East region
Speaker:of Eastern Cameroon and Western Central Africa.
Speaker:We lost everything so many times
Speaker:and this is a business model which we've chosen
Speaker:to insert so much passion and so much of who we are.
Speaker:There's not many people, I believe,
Speaker:that would be so adventurous to follow their passions
Speaker:to a limit which costs you your life.
Speaker:On the other hand, you're right.
Speaker:I agree with you, Rob.
Speaker:When you're able to bring out of nature
Speaker:at a very hefty price, something which is so noble
Speaker:and so special, it brings a lot of meaning
Speaker:into the choices you've made as a human being,
Speaker:both personally and professionally.
Speaker:- Yeah, man.
Speaker:Yeah, I just can't, you know, express in words
Speaker:the gratitude that I have for your family to take on
Speaker:that responsibility or to even accept that challenge.
Speaker:- When we burn the leaf, we put a lighter to it,
Speaker:a flame to it, and those aromas come out.
Speaker:The white ash, the goosebumps revealing the magnesium,
Speaker:the sugars, the coffees, the chocolates,
Speaker:that distinct Meerapfel Cameroon smells and taste
Speaker:and those fumes are coming up and going towards the heavens.
Speaker:The smile it puts on our faces, on our hearts,
Speaker:they enlighten a lot and I would have it no other way.
Speaker:- Well said. Well said.
Speaker:When you decided to carry on
Speaker:in your dad's kind of legacy, right?
Speaker:Is that a good way to say that?
Speaker:The generational legacy that is your last name,
Speaker:was that a choice had you not made it,
Speaker:that your dad would've been okay with,
Speaker:had you gone off and done your own thing?
Speaker:Would he have been okay with that
Speaker:or was it always something that you knew
Speaker:you were going to do and that was your passion?
Speaker:- It's probably the hardest question
Speaker:anybody's asked me in my life, Rob.
Speaker:When you're born in a family
Speaker:with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years
Speaker:of tradition, to be perfectly honest,
Speaker:I think it's a mixture of everything.
Speaker:There's a mixture of responsibility.
Speaker:There's a mixture of obligation.
Speaker:There's a mixture of passion. There's a mixture of,
Speaker:it's not explainable.
Speaker:It's something which you're born into and which
Speaker:is infused into you since the moment you're born.
Speaker:My earliest memories,
Speaker:I must have been maybe 1, 2, 3 years old.
Speaker:I don't know. I was a very, very small baby, a child.
Speaker:I was sitting on my father's lap whilst
Speaker:he's smoking a cigar or my grandfather.
Speaker:Cigars have been present in my lifetime
Speaker:since my earliest ages, since my earliest days.
Speaker:It's like a part of you.
Speaker:It's like a leg, it's like an arm. It truly is.
Speaker:So the question is a difficult one
Speaker:because when something's part of you forever,
Speaker:the only thing that is spoken about
Speaker:in the household is tobacco and cigars.
Speaker:The only thing that's spoken
Speaker:about socially is tobacco and cigars.
Speaker:The best friends of my father
Speaker:were Carlito Fuente and Robbie Levin,
Speaker:and our vacations were spent with tobacco people.
Speaker:I wasn't 15 or 20 years old at that time.
Speaker:I was a newborn baby at that time.
Speaker:So with all the goodwill in the world, Rob,
Speaker:I really wouldn't know how to answer that question.
Speaker:- Well said, though.
Speaker:I mean that, was there ever though a time
Speaker:that maybe you thought you wouldn't be able
Speaker:to fill his shoes or step into that role?
Speaker:- I know I could never fill my father's shoes.
Speaker:- True. - And I know I'll never
Speaker:be able to fill my father's shoes,
Speaker:but I sure as hell try every single day
Speaker:of my life to make him proud.
Speaker:He's no longer with us physically, unfortunately.
Speaker:But even now, today, I wake up every single morning
Speaker:of my life and try to make my daddy proud.
Speaker:I think that's what many people do
Speaker:and there's no difference to me.
Speaker:- Was there a time that your dad actually expressed
Speaker:to you how proud he was of you that made you just kind
Speaker:of like, just melt and kind of think, "Oh my God,
Speaker:I couldn't feel much better than I do right now."
Speaker:- First time anybody's asked me that question,
Speaker:and therefore it's gonna be the first time I ever answered.
Speaker:There was once a few days before he passed away,
Speaker:a few days before he passed away,
Speaker:he told me he loved me for the first time
Speaker:and he told me that he was proud of me for the first time.
Speaker:And that in itself,
Speaker:for me was very unusual and very shocking.
Speaker:And he was in the Dominican Republic.
Speaker:He went to see, it was his birthday.
Speaker:We spent his birthday with Daniel Núñez in the morning,
Speaker:and then we had lunch with Guillermo León,
Speaker:and then afterwards we had dinner with Carlito Fuente
Speaker:and it was almost like he was saying his goodbyes.
Speaker:It was a very, very unusual moment.
Speaker:The circumstances were very unusual.
Speaker:(crowd chattering softly)
Speaker:Yes, Rob, he did once.
Speaker:- Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker:It's just, my father passed when I was six.
Speaker:So that yearning for that male role model in your life,
Speaker:I always feel like I'm kind of living in the legacy
Speaker:and the stories of, so I too have to always think,
Speaker:am I doing what my dad would be proud of me doing?
Speaker:And there's no doubt that I am, because it just,
Speaker:I don't know, it's a feeling,
Speaker:but you still ask the question.
Speaker:As a human, as a man, you still ask the same question.
Speaker:So we're very, very smart intellectual beings,
Speaker:but we also fall into the trap of those
Speaker:psychological hurdles that we have to jump over.
Speaker:Do you have children now yourself?
Speaker:- I do, yes.
Speaker:I have two beautiful- - Do you have a son?
Speaker:- I have two sons. Yes.
Speaker:- Two sons? - And a daughter. Yes.
Speaker:- Are they going to be taking over
Speaker:into the business as well, just like you did?
Speaker:- I have very little doubt in my mind
Speaker:and I truly believe that they will.
Speaker:But I express to them every day that they
Speaker:can choose whatever it is they want to choose
Speaker:and whatever they feel that's special to them
Speaker:should be pursued at the highest level, whatever it is.
Speaker:- Right. - You know,
Speaker:they should do what they want to do.
Speaker:But obviously there's a secret place
Speaker:in my heart that is reassuring me every moment
Speaker:that they fell into the magic potion.
Speaker:(both laughing)
Speaker:- How old are they?
Speaker:- They're very young.
Speaker:I started late, so I have a 10 year old,
Speaker:a seven and a six year old.
Speaker:- As you're shaping your children,
Speaker:because I try to use the word shaping
Speaker:because anytime that we tell our children what to do,
Speaker:I just recently had a baby boy-
Speaker:- Mazel tov. - Three weeks ago.
Speaker:- Congratulations. - Thank you. So I'm-
Speaker:- This is big news. - Yeah.
Speaker:- Where's the Scotch, so we can celebrate?
Speaker:- And I have a daughter who's a year and a half old.
Speaker:Her name's Nora and I just had Finley three weeks ago,
Speaker:so I'm building my family too, just along with you here,
Speaker:Jeremiah and my wife is teaching me
Speaker:the whole positive nurturing, not the negative
Speaker:because being told what to do is oftentimes
Speaker:just the opposite of what we want, as a father,
Speaker:how do you navigate the desire to tell your kids what
Speaker:to do outta love and sacrifice, to not see them get hurt?
Speaker:What's the Jeremiah rule of thumb to follow,
Speaker:so you don't fall into the psychological trap
Speaker:and keep your kids always making
Speaker:their own decisions with your helpful guidance?
Speaker:- Rob, I have no idea how to answer that question.
Speaker:You can sit here and talk to me about tobacco
Speaker:or cigars until the moon falls down,
Speaker:but on educating the children, I have no idea.
Speaker:I think that I'm trying to do the best I can,
Speaker:but the reality is, I really don't know.
Speaker:I can tell you one thing though.
Speaker:They will have been infused with a lot of passion,
Speaker:tradition through their, coming out of their ears
Speaker:and the notions of value and respect.
Speaker:I have no patience, no tolerance,
Speaker:no nothing for a lack of values and a lack of respect.
Speaker:- Yeah. - And if it's the thing
Speaker:that I manage to infuse or to mold
Speaker:like the words you didn't use, but to mold into them,
Speaker:that's what I will mold into them and hopefully,
Speaker:one day, those values and those traditions
Speaker:and the love of those values, the respect
Speaker:of those values will be what makes them
Speaker:stronger human beings and valuable human beings.
Speaker:The rest, I don't know.
Speaker:- Yeah, I'm so glad you said that
Speaker:because I'm trying to pick up tidbits
Speaker:from other fathers to figure out how to do this.
Speaker:But I'm right there with you thinking
Speaker:I don't know what I'm doing and I'm hoping
Speaker:it's not creating a problem for my child
Speaker:because all I want for them is the best possible life.
Speaker:You didn't know you were gonna come on the show
Speaker:and talk all about life and not cigars.
Speaker:- That's perfectly fine. - Okay.
Speaker:- And it's quite refreshing to be honest with you.
Speaker:- Good, I appreciate it.
Speaker:As you are obviously navigating this life
Speaker:with raising children, you navigate the business world,
Speaker:which many of our listeners have to do both.
Speaker:It's business, you have to work, you have to provide,
Speaker:you have to do something productive for your life.
Speaker:And then you also have to figure out how to carve out
Speaker:some time to make some memories with family.
Speaker:What is your kind of hard and fast rule?
Speaker:Are you a type of guy that's when I'm done with work,
Speaker:I'm done with work and I'm into the family?
Speaker:Or is it really easy for you to blend both and get
Speaker:a lot out of both and be very successful in both areas?
Speaker:- I'm in a very peculiar situation
Speaker:because my work is my family.
Speaker:And so I'm engaged with my, let's call it work.
Speaker:You call it work, I don't see it as work,
Speaker:but because this is my life. - Right.
Speaker:- And this, my entire life is built around-
Speaker:- So your career here- - What I'm doing, yes.
Speaker:- Your legacy.
Speaker:- So for me, six days a week,
Speaker:24 hours a day, this is what I do.
Speaker:This is what I love doing.
Speaker:I try to include my children as much
Speaker:as I can into this world.
Speaker:I try to show them and I try to share with them.
Speaker:And just like I was brought up with a lot
Speaker:of respect towards understanding that this is how it is.
Speaker:Growing up in a family such as ours,
Speaker:that's one of the sacrifices that,
Speaker:if you wanna call it a sacrifice that you
Speaker:will make as a child, is that the environment,
Speaker:the daddy that you have is a daddy that's also married
Speaker:and also a father to a very strong tradition,
Speaker:which he's maintaining and a passion which he has,
Speaker:which is just as important to him than everything else
Speaker:because it's part of it, it's part of the picture.
Speaker:I always laugh, I say I have four children
Speaker:and I do have four children.
Speaker:I have two sons, I have a daughter
Speaker:and then I have my business. - Yeah.
Speaker:And what we call the business now,
Speaker:what you're calling a business
Speaker:is something which needs time.
Speaker:It needs nurturing, it needs education.
Speaker:- Just like a kid. - Just like a child.
Speaker:There are so many people who depend on it.
Speaker:In Africa, there's close to 40,000 people that depend on
Speaker:the organization which we are running there.
Speaker:The impact is on hundreds of thousands of people.
Speaker:When we run the clinics or the schools
Speaker:or the freshwater projects or whatever it is we're doing,
Speaker:we're changing the lives of hundreds
Speaker:and hundreds of thousands of people.
Speaker:We're saving the lives of thousands
Speaker:and tens of thousands of people.
Speaker:So if you don't see it as part
Speaker:of your children and part of what you do,
Speaker:you're probably not gonna have a very happy life
Speaker:and you're probably not gonna excel
Speaker:in what you're doing at a very high level.
Speaker:My children respect this and they understand this
Speaker:and they're also part of this,
Speaker:and this is why I think that it's not easy to grow up
Speaker:in a family business environment where things
Speaker:have been done hundreds of years in a certain way.
Speaker:But I believe that it's an education
Speaker:with very severe but very strong values.
Speaker:And hopefully they'll accept to infuse those
Speaker:into their daily lives later on and make a difference-
Speaker:- Right. - To people around them
Speaker:later on because at the end of the day,
Speaker:we're here for a finite amount of time, whether that's days,
Speaker:hours, weeks, years, whatever it may be.
Speaker:And there's one thing you wanna make sure you do,
Speaker:and that's a difference. - Make a difference.
Speaker:- Make a difference in a positive way.
Speaker:We have that power to help so many people, right?
Speaker:And it's such a waste and such a pity not to do it.
Speaker:And some people think, huh, but wait a second.
Speaker:You know, what can I do?
Speaker:Ladies and gentlemen, don't think you need
Speaker:to change the world in a massive way.
Speaker:Take a dollar out of your pocket,
Speaker:take one minute out of your time.
Speaker:That's all it takes to get the domino effect going
Speaker:and making an enormous difference around you.
Speaker:- I was doing it this morning because I was struggling
Speaker:to try to find some equipment that we needed,
Speaker:and I was asking the security guards,
Speaker:the hotel staff for help and I made sure I went out
Speaker:on my way to just thank them for their time,
Speaker:because guess what, in hospitality,
Speaker:they probably get a demand here and there.
Speaker:But if somebody can actually thank them
Speaker:for the time that technically they're paid to do,
Speaker:but it's just like you said, it's a respect.
Speaker:You engaged with my request, you helped talk through it.
Speaker:You didn't provide a solution,
Speaker:but you just helped me get to the next level.
Speaker:I owe it to you to at least thank you for that time.
Speaker:And so I always tried to make a conscious choice
Speaker:of looking them in the eye and saying,
Speaker:"Thank you for the time."
Speaker:If it was on the phone, really just saying,
Speaker:"Thank you very much for working through this."
Speaker:I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker:The domino effect happens right there. That's the start.
Speaker:How can you make the difference?
Speaker:It's how we treat each other.
Speaker:And that's gonna make the domino effect
Speaker:and it's gonna ripple out and I hope to God,
Speaker:and it doesn't start with me because guess what?
Speaker:I got it last night when I was sitting around hanging out
Speaker:with my buddies, loving up on me, talking, whatever.
Speaker:So the domino effect just keeps going.
Speaker:And I want to make sure I'm the piece that tips over
Speaker:and knocks another domino into another good domino.
Speaker:I don't wanna fall out of the domino and stop the train
Speaker:from the good vibes happening throughout the world.
Speaker:- Rob, one of the, I think things that keeps people
Speaker:like us engaged and in this industry,
Speaker:one of the most surprising things is
Speaker:the engagements that factory owners
Speaker:or tobacco men have and it's not surprising.
Speaker:It's not surprising because the way
Speaker:you share emotion in the cigar industry is so powerful.
Speaker:And the effect you have on people around you is so wonderful
Speaker:that I think it explains a lot about the engagement
Speaker:that we have and the reward that we have.
Speaker:And at the end of the day, there might be a little bit of,
Speaker:a little bit of an egoistical side to all of this,
Speaker:whereas I'm searching for pleasure by making people happy
Speaker:and that happiness makes us, it's immensely rewarding.
Speaker:- Right, there's no better,
Speaker:like when I was a funeral director,
Speaker:there was no amount of money or amount of anything
Speaker:that could get me the gratification that I got
Speaker:from helping somebody through a difficult time.
Speaker:A position that they couldn't navigate,
Speaker:I was able to come in and help them.
Speaker:So when you talk about being able to deliver
Speaker:some happiness and enjoyment, relaxation, a break,
Speaker:whatever you want to call a cigar gives you,
Speaker:or the experience gives you,
Speaker:you are delivering that to thousands,
Speaker:to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.
Speaker:What, if we just take a step back and just look at that,
Speaker:what a cool job, and you don't call it a job,
Speaker:but what a cool life then that we get to live.
Speaker:- Yes. - Jeremiah,
Speaker:I want to thank you for just coming in,
Speaker:sitting down with me and talking.
Speaker:I know you have cigars that you're launching.
Speaker:It's a big project.
Speaker:It's something that isn't light.
Speaker:In fact, the band, you know,
Speaker:there's the band people have talked about like bikini bands
Speaker:or cutouts and you took it to the next level.
Speaker:There's nothing like that band.
Speaker:It's like a stained glass window.
Speaker:And really what the art is is the wrapper,
Speaker:the wrapper that you and your family have poured your time
Speaker:and energy and blood, sweat, and tears for centuries into,
Speaker:and I think there's no other better way for you to have
Speaker:a wrapper on your cigar than the way you did it.
Speaker:Was that a conscious choice or am I just hopping on
Speaker:the philosophical bandwagon here that I'm vibing on?
Speaker:- This, the Meerapfel Cigar Project comes from a,
Speaker:it's been 20 years I've been developing this project,
Speaker:19 years to be exact and the idea behind it is to say,
Speaker:listen, I owe something to my father and to my grandfather
Speaker:and to my great-grandfather and so on and so forth.
Speaker:And I owe to bring something to the table,
Speaker:something innovative, something different.
Speaker:But it's very, very hard to do so when every generation
Speaker:of your family has shifted the course of the industry,
Speaker:literally shifted the course of the industry
Speaker:and for me it was a lifelong dream to try
Speaker:to create a new segment in our industry.
Speaker:But creating a new segment is
Speaker:not something you can take very lightly.
Speaker:You need to actually bring value.
Speaker:You need to bring meaning,
Speaker:and you need to justify creating a new segment.
Speaker:It's one thing, creating a product which has
Speaker:a different type of packaging or a different kind
Speaker:of marketing or a different kind of, and that's one thing.
Speaker:It's another thing creating a product,
Speaker:which is actually a different product.
Speaker:You can drive around in a Mercedes and a BMW,
Speaker:they're different products.
Speaker:They're packaged differently,
Speaker:but they're in relatively similar segments.
Speaker:- Right. - But you can also walk into
Speaker:the Pagani factory or to the Bugatti factory.
Speaker:And yes, it's a car, it has four wheels,
Speaker:it will take you from A to B,
Speaker:but in essence it's a different niche.
Speaker:It's a different,
Speaker:it's a different industry, so to speak.
Speaker:And what these people have done
Speaker:and the European luxury world was very,
Speaker:very strong at doing this.
Speaker:Chanel was very strong at doing this.
Speaker:Richard Mille and Patek Philippe
Speaker:were very strong at doing this.
Speaker:A lot of these, you know, what I call UberLuxury brands,
Speaker:were very strong at doing this,
Speaker:was taking a product and deconstructing it,
Speaker:deconstructing every single element of the product.
Speaker:And I use Pagani, it's a very easy example
Speaker:to understand, because you take a car
Speaker:and you basically break it down into pieces
Speaker:and either you reinvent the pieces or you bring them to
Speaker:a level which is never been touched before in the industry.
Speaker:And then you reassemble this.
Speaker:And this is what was missing in my opinion
Speaker:in the cigar industry, was the UberLuxury segment
Speaker:of let's bring things to a level which has
Speaker:just never been achieved before in
Speaker:a complete deconstruction of the product.
Speaker:It was not easy.
Speaker:20 years is a long time to develop something like this.
Speaker:The band is definitely one of the pieces.
Speaker:We have a patent on that band,
Speaker:on the way that it's been done
Speaker:and the reasons why it's been done.
Speaker:We had to bring it into the IROS Spatial Industry
Speaker:to get it to that level.
Speaker:So this is not something that is possible
Speaker:to do in a band factory because of many reasons.
Speaker:What inspired me was my heritage, the lace of Belgium.
Speaker:Belgium is very known for its lace, the Bruges lace.
Speaker:And what is it?
Speaker:It's the capacity to see the beauty of what's behind it.
Speaker:And so you were spot on when you were speaking
Speaker:about the wrapper. - Thank God.
Speaker:How do we actually take something and make lace out of it?
Speaker:Like the lace that a woman would wear.
Speaker:On one hand, you can dream of what about what's behind it.
Speaker:It's very romantic, it's incredible.
Speaker:It's showing just a little bit, but at the same time,
Speaker:it has a nobility to it, it has an elegance to it.
Speaker:I worked very, very closely with a partner,
Speaker:John van Tintelen, who's a band maker in the Netherlands.
Speaker:Very specialized, very, very, very high end,
Speaker:very specialized and he was definitely part of the R&D
Speaker:and the innovation in this and, you know, enabled us
Speaker:to bring this to the next level.
Speaker:The boxes, boxes I went crazy with, you know,
Speaker:how do you make something which actually looks good,
Speaker:but at the same time is different?
Speaker:I didn't want to use cardboard, recycled cardboard.
Speaker:I didn't want to go in that direction
Speaker:because it's definitely not UberLuxury.
Speaker:So I had to stick with wood,
Speaker:but I didn't want to touch wood.
Speaker:Wood is a disaster.
Speaker:It deforests the planet. It's wrong.
Speaker:And if we could do something to change that,
Speaker:how do we do it?
Speaker:So we started experimenting.
Speaker:Finally, we found a very, very precious wood out of Japan,
Speaker:which is kind of like a bamboo, which is used for their,
Speaker:you know, $5,000 knives and the food industry,
Speaker:because it doesn't, it's also very interesting.
Speaker:It doesn't play with the taste
Speaker:or the smell in any which way, shape, or form.
Speaker:And we created a, I believe the first sustainable box
Speaker:in the world, cigar box in the world,
Speaker:which has no impact on forests
Speaker:or deforestation in any which way, shape or form.
Speaker:And this just goes on with everything, the ribbon.
Speaker:And I'll just, I won't go into all of the details,
Speaker:but there's not a single element in the entire product
Speaker:which has not been brought either by reinvention
Speaker:or bringing to the next level, to the UberLuxury level.
Speaker:And we were very proud when we could bring out
Speaker:a product where we could say,
Speaker:"All right, Meerapfel has now created
Speaker:a new segment in the cigar industry."
Speaker:- Yeah, that's a big ask, but you did it really well.
Speaker:- And well, I don't know if we did it really well,
Speaker:if we would've done it in a year or two,
Speaker:we would've done it really well.
Speaker:- No. - We took 20 years to do it.
Speaker:- No. - So, let's say that
Speaker:we managed to figure it out after a generation.
Speaker:- I totally disagree. (Jeremiah chuckling)
Speaker:Because anytime something's new and really getting rebuilt
Speaker:from the ground up, if you did it in a year or two,
Speaker:it would've already been done before.
Speaker:So the fact that it took you 20 years
Speaker:actually to me seems like a short timeline
Speaker:because it probably should have been something
Speaker:that didn't get finished and on your deathbed,
Speaker:you would've had to pass it to your sons.
Speaker:- In a way, that's what happened,
Speaker:but through the previous generation.
Speaker:My father had been putting away tobaccos his entire life
Speaker:and when he passed away 19 years ago,
Speaker:which is the moment I started working on this project,
Speaker:we continued putting away tobaccos.
Speaker:One of the elements I did not speak about,
Speaker:and I won't go into detail,
Speaker:is that this product uses the oldest tobaccos
Speaker:on the planet as a production cigar.
Speaker:These are not batched cigars,
Speaker:these are not one off, 100 bucks cigars.
Speaker:This is a production which is using tobaccos at a standard,
Speaker:which typically wouldn't be able to be done
Speaker:by anybody in the world simply because of
Speaker:the nature of the tobaccos that are being used.
Speaker:So again, I think dad actually,
Speaker:without knowing it planted the seed in terms of,
Speaker:I don't think I know in terms of what was gonna happen
Speaker:in the next generation and it took 20 years,
Speaker:which is considered a generation,
Speaker:but it finally came to fruition and to maturity.
Speaker:And I'm gonna tell you a little secret
Speaker:that nobody knows and this is gonna be
Speaker:an exclusive for you today. - Yes. My ears perk up.
Speaker:- We manufactured in the box and nobody knows this.
Speaker:You can see it,
Speaker:but it's not easy to see and nobody knows it.
Speaker:We haven't ever said this,
Speaker:we manufactured in the box a segment to be able
Speaker:to maintain humidity control for the cigars.
Speaker:Why did we do it in a hidden way?
Speaker:This product is not about show offing anything.
Speaker:It's not about advertising anything.
Speaker:It's about getting the product
Speaker:to the level of the UberLuxury.
Speaker:And so on the bottom of the box,
Speaker:and this has never been released yet,
Speaker:it's never been showed to the world yet.
Speaker:On the bottom of the box of the 25-box count,
Speaker:we actually engineered a slit.
Speaker:There's a fake bottom onto the box and inside
Speaker:that slit there is a Boveda humidification system,
Speaker:which is maintaining all of the moisture levels,
Speaker:all of the, what we're specialized in doing.
Speaker:- Right. - To be able to keep
Speaker:these cigars at the level which they need to be.
Speaker:I mean, you're talking about very,
Speaker:very, very expensive products.
Speaker:You're talking about extremely difficult cigars to find.
Speaker:I mean, most people in the world
Speaker:will never actually see a box of these cigars.
Speaker:They will only be in a few of
Speaker:the finest retailers on the planet,
Speaker:in Monte Carlo and in Hong Kong
Speaker:and in London and in Paris and in New York.
Speaker:It's going to be a very, very, very, very,
Speaker:very small production every year.
Speaker:Consistent production, but small production.
Speaker:So we need to maintain the product at a perfect,
Speaker:absolutely perfect level and like I said,
Speaker:either we reinvent things or we push them to a level,
Speaker:which is what is available in the world.
Speaker:And actually we actually used your system
Speaker:to be able to do that for the hydrometer.
Speaker:- Wow. I'm glad we could provide that.
Speaker:- And I appreciate that you could provide that
Speaker:because without it, we would've had a problem.
Speaker:We would have a challenge getting the product to the level
Speaker:we needed it, to the retailers and to the consumers.
Speaker:- Wow. Yeah.
Speaker:No wonder why when typically on this show,
Speaker:we smoke while we talk, but now I'm really glad we're not.
Speaker:Because your cigar is way, it's, I don't know how to say it,
Speaker:but you know what I'm saying, right?
Speaker:Your cigar is not a cigar, you just sit down,
Speaker:light up, and have a conversation.
Speaker:- No, no, it could be,
Speaker:it could be, I mean- - But not, in this setting.
Speaker:- But you want to do it in an environment-
Speaker:- Right. - And in a moment where 100%
Speaker:of your senses and the experience goes into the product.
Speaker:- Exactly. - It would be a waste
Speaker:and it would be a pity not to do it.
Speaker:- Disrespectful. Yeah. - Honestly, yes.
Speaker:Because at that level of product,
Speaker:at that level of product with that level
Speaker:of precision and that level of nuance,
Speaker:you don't wanna be sitting in an environment where
Speaker:there's a huge amount of cigar smoke around you,
Speaker:which is playing with your taste buds-
Speaker:- Yeah. - With what's going on
Speaker:on an olfactive level,
Speaker:you want to be concentrating on what you're doing
Speaker:and enjoying the moment with someone or without someone.
Speaker:- Right. - But in a very specific way.
Speaker:Absolutely. - After,
Speaker:I didn't even know any of this stuff,
Speaker:Jeremiah, I didn't know any of this.
Speaker:- You see, the Meerapfel family
Speaker:is not very good at marketing or advertising.
Speaker:- Right. - Or anything of the sort.
Speaker:We've always been very much behind the scenes
Speaker:for the last 400 years of our involvement
Speaker:in the tobacco and the cigar business.
Speaker:You know, most people don't know that in 1876
Speaker:we opened up a cigar factory in Southern Germany
Speaker:where we were manufacturing Meerapfel cigars.
Speaker:So this is not the first time a Meerapfel cigar comes out.
Speaker:This is actually a tribute to the factory of 1876,
Speaker:where- - 1876?
Speaker:- Yes, where my great-great grandfather, Meir Meerapfel,
Speaker:established the first cigar factory of the family.
Speaker:The tobacco, we were doing a few, 300 years before that.
Speaker:But the cigar factory was only in 1876.
Speaker:- Only. Yeah, yeah. - Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, just a short, short time ago.
Speaker:It was an actual thing.
Speaker:I haven't had a ton of opportunity to travel to Europe,
Speaker:but I have gone to Spain and when I was there,
Speaker:just to be able to look at buildings that, like in America,
Speaker:we just don't have a frame of reference for how old that is.
Speaker:And as I sit across from you, I get the sense
Speaker:that I'm looking at an old historic building
Speaker:that I just have to take a moment and stop and look at
Speaker:and not pass by without looking at it on the street.
Speaker:And if I get the opportunity to pop inside of it,
Speaker:which I think we kind of did with this conversation,
Speaker:that it would be a huge treat and blessing
Speaker:to my experience as a human through this life.
Speaker:So I don't think there's any better way
Speaker:to close out this conversation than that.
Speaker:And I can't thank you enough for being patient with me
Speaker:and also just having grace and gratitude with sitting down
Speaker:with me and talking about some difficult things
Speaker:and peeling back the onion and letting me
Speaker:step inside the building that is far beyond
Speaker:just what my frame of reference is.
Speaker:- Rob, it was a true honor (upbeat guitar music)
Speaker:and a true pleasure to sit with you today.
Speaker:And I want to thank you for your time and the opportunity.
Speaker:The discussion was special and I always say this,
Speaker:I say this on my shows, I say this to everybody
Speaker:and it's coming from the heart.
Speaker:If you don't do it with passion, don't do it at all, Rob.
Speaker:- Absolutely. I agree.
Speaker:That's another episode of "Box Press."
Speaker:This was something super unique and I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker:I can't say much more than that.
