Between Two Humidors Episode 011 > Robert Caldwell

00:01 Ruggles:
Welcome to between two humidors.com podcast. My name is Jonathan Ruggles and I'm very excited to introduce my next guest for episode 11, Mr. Robert Caldwell. Robert started the Caldwell Cigar Company in 2014 with infamous brands like Long Live The King. The King is Dead. Blind Man's Bluff, Anastasia, all Out Kings Long Live the Queen and more incredible quality cigar brands.

00:37 Ruggles:
Subsequently, Robert and his partner Juan Yalo, sold to Laci Enterprises in March, 2024. This is a long form conversation touching on multiple topics like what's the scariest city he's ever been in LA Cure, coming from artichokes and we talk a little marketing as well. My thanks to Robert for his time and energy.

01:09 Ruggles:
We had a great conversation and I think you're really going to enjoy it. Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Thank you so much and enjoy the episode. Well, Robert, very happy to be here. I think we first talked in earnest about five, six months ago. I think

01:33 Caldwell:
<affirmative>

01:34 Ruggles:
Trying to get this off the ground. I think we both were gallivanting around the world and Okay. I'm gonna look up. Yeah, <laugh>. So certainly appreciate your flexibility. Glad we could finally get here.

01:48 Caldwell:
My pleasure. Yeah, and sorry it took so long. I, I'm, I actually like, I've been on the move for like 20 years, <affirmative>, I just kind of don't stop traveling. Yep. So it's very difficult. But the time difference with Oregon's very intense. A lot. So it's like nine hour difference with Europe. Yeah, yeah,

02:07 Ruggles:
Yeah, yeah. It's all good. So I think what I need to do and what I want to do is I want to thank John Pugh, the owner of the Cigar Chapel, for really kind of putting this together, making the introduction, although I did meet you last or this year at PCA in Vegas, although you met thousands of people, but I did shake your hand and got a really nice Caldwell lighter. I don't know if you remember that

02:32 Caldwell:
Well, if I'm being honest. No,

02:34 Ruggles:
Of course not. I, I

02:35 Caldwell:
Otherwise would've. But this PCA was crazy because we had just sold, so the whole thing's kind of a blur. Right. But otherwise I would've

02:44 Ruggles:
Of course. Yeah, of course. But yeah, no, John Pugh and the Cigar Chapel carries a, a lot of your portfolio. So the other day when I told John that we are gonna have this interview, I said, John, I need a special Caldwell stick. Like got, I mean, they're all good, but I need something that has a story. I need something that's really good. So we start rooting around this humidor and next thing you know, he pulls out an a series long way of the king mofo.

03:21 Caldwell:
Wow.

03:25 Ruggles:
And so I'm gonna light this up and I'm pretty excited about it. So here's one of the things that I've learned about you so far, is that you are a marketing and branding guy, which we have a lot of those out there, but you're good at it. But I think one of the things that I am gonna comment on right now is your attention to detail. So as I went down the rabbit hole of looking up this mofo along with the king, I realized that you did cigars for warriors and that you actually, the box itself had milestone years for our US military.

04:05 Ruggles:
I looked at that and I went, oh my God, this guy pays attention to detail. I'd like to know how you put that box together. What gave you the idea to put those US military dates and milestones on the box? I'm gonna fire up this mofo.

04:21 Caldwell:
Well, so the project arose because we were giving, like donating a lot of cigars to CFW and we wanted to do something bigger that had more impact for them in terms of marketing, but also in terms of, you know, generating additional revenue for them outside of just donating cigars and stuff to them. Yep. But we wanted it to be something, you know, that was kind of those twofold things, but, but that would get consumers involved where they could support the project as well. And then the dates came about for two reasons. First of all, we, we wanted to have the box detailed in, in a, in a more interesting way, but we also wanted to like peak people's curiosity to start figuring out why they were on the box.

05:00 Caldwell:
So that's why we printed them was for people effectively to look them up. And I get a, now I can take off my sunglasses for a minute because the sun's behind a cloud, but we wanted people, we wanted to peak interest and have people look it up and, and get curious of what it meant.

05:13 Ruggles:
Well, it worked, I think it worked really, really well. And so is that a charity you guys still support?

05:20 Caldwell:
Yep, yep. Yeah, we still, actually, we did, we did an additional production of that brand. So we did, I think, I don't remember how many boxes it was. It might have been a thousand for the first one or 500. And we did a subsequent run, I think at the end of last year. And we'll continue to do so. So I think it's a great organization.

05:39 Ruggles:
Absolutely. How did you learn about that organization? What kind of triggered that collaboration with them?

05:45 Caldwell:
I first learned about them just visiting retailers when we were launching the brand like 10 years ago. Okay. And then they do a very good job of making themselves known. So they, you know, they're at all the trade shows and they come by your booth. And then typically they'll ask you if you wanna donate, you know, your leftover samples or this type of stuff from the show. Okay. And then, you know, we just hit it off with 'em. And then we did, we, so that year, I think when we did that one, we did that one, and then we did another one that we just, I think we did like 15 or 20,000 cigars that we produced and donated. I can't remember exactly what we called those, but we just had a little series.

06:19 Caldwell:
They were like half Corona size. Yeah. You know, where guys would get a five pack. But they're a very assertive company or organization in terms of trying to get us to be involved with 'em, which is very good. 'cause you know, I don't think it's that people don't wanna participate in these things, it's just things get busy and things get lost. So they do a very good job of following up.

06:41 Ruggles:
Well, that's outstanding. Well, that really caught my attention because my dad was in the army, went to West Point, graduate 65, went to Vietnam, and then subsequently my son is in the Navy. He's actually being deployed for seven months. A little nervous about that, but that's okay. So anyway, I just want to call that out, Robert, that is pretty awesome of you and your brand to have that collaboration with our military. So thank you for that. I think that's pretty awesome.

07:08 Caldwell:
Yeah, absolutely. Our, our pleasure. Yeah.

07:10 Ruggles:
That's awesome. So, well, so I, I sent you some topics, some questions. We try to be organic, but you know, as I was doing some homework, you know, who is Robert Caldwell beyond the memes of, you know, open shirt, hairy chest necklace, gregarious, <laugh>, cigar aficionado guy. I wanted to kind of learn a little bit more about you. And so I listened to some other podcasts that you've done, some other interviews that you've done.

07:41 Ruggles:
There were some, some things that kind of struck out to me or, or kind of got called out to me. One of them was, and I think it's, it's kind of an interesting duality, is you don't like a lot of people yet at the same time, the cigar business is really about people. I wondered if you can kind of <laugh> talk about that a little bit in terms of that duality.

08:13 Caldwell:
Sure. So I've, I, I mean, I've never really had a lot of friends. I've always been a loner my whole life. And it's, I, I do, I like, I think I generally dislike humanity. It's not that I don't like people, I just kind of dislike humanity or something. Or I maybe I have a hard time relating with a lot of people. I'm kind of a bit of a weird person also. Like I, I'm not good at small talk, that type of shit. So it's so on that, in that regard. I don't know, I just kind of like do my thing. And it's very interesting to be thrown into a highly social environment like the cigar industry when you're, I mean, I'm, I'm like the guy who stands in the corner and doesn't talk to anybody normally.

08:49 Caldwell:
Yeah. So if you put me in a social event, I'm in the fucking corner.

08:53 Caldwell:
I don't talk to anybody, but I am a very personable person, but I just don't like to talk to people. So the cigar industry is very weird for me because it's like, it's very cumbersome in that regard. And it, and it really like it. It's, it's very, it's very difficult. I'm, I'm very good at conversing. I mean, I, I am good at holding a conversation, conversation, you know, kind of working the room. So that comes somewhat naturally to me. Yeah. Even though I dislike it. So I think I am pretty good at socializing, but I just, I mean, it's something that I prefer not to do.

09:25 Caldwell:
And then the cigar industry, I mean, it is very difficult because having it be something that I don't like to do when I, not now I don't do it. But I mean, my first like six years when I was traveling like crazy in and outta stores Yeah.

09:39 Caldwell:
Events all the time. I mean, it just, it, it would just, it would fucking just wear me out. Like, it would just, like, it would defeat me. And I don't even know. I mean, it was as much as I enjoyed meeting the consumers Yeah. You know, I, 'cause I do enjoy, like, going to the store and meeting people is just like, and then I, I get home and I just like fucking locked myself in my house and not talk to anybody for a week. So a bit of a challenge. Challenge. Yeah. I, I was even, you know, easily overcome. 'cause I can just kind of throw myself in that setting and I'm fine.

10:11 Caldwell:
But, but I mean, it's slowly like, just sucked the life out. Well, a hundred percent. And it's not just the cigar in the street. It's like, you know, if I gotta go to a fucking bird, like if I know everybody there, it's one thing. But like, meeting, I don't like to meet new people. <laugh>, I have my little safety, I got my safety zone of like, sure. You know, if I go to a social event, I, I'm kind of like, I'll clinging to the couple people I'm comfortable with and then everybody else, like, I don't, I don't wanna meet you. I don't want fucking anything about you, my mouth. I don't wanna

10:36 Ruggles:
Talk, talk to you. Right.

10:37 Caldwell:
Nothing. Right. Nothing. Right. So, well, I, I'm, I'm typically socially like the guy that leaves without telling anybody, the Irish say hi to everybody, couple of five minute conversations and find a fucking back door and just disappear.

10:49 Ruggles:
Yeah. See you. Bye. Yeah. Don't even know. I mean, you're going through that and, and I'm, I'm thinking to myself, how in the world did you do PCA conventions? I mean, you talk about small talk, my god. I mean that yeah. That had to just grate against your personality. If you see someone, you know, oh my God, please come over so I can at least have something beyond, you know, tell me about your latest cigar.

11:11 Caldwell:
Yeah, yeah.

11:12 Ruggles:
Oh my God. Okay. That's good. Yeah, that's good. I, and by the way, I, I get that a lot of people think that I'm gregarious and super social, and the older I get, it's like, no, actually I'd rather just stay at home. I, I really don't need to meet people. But anyway, there, there's a pathology to that, which that, that could be with a cocktail, but <laugh>. So I was telling Matt a little bit earlier this morning, I said, I've been really excited about our conversation that I was gonna do a social media post this afternoon and say, Hey, we just recorded with Robert Caldwell.

11:47 Ruggles:
It was a great conversation. But then I'm reminded that <laugh>, you're morally opposed to social media. So <laugh>

11:56 Caldwell:
Well, you know, the good thing is like, since we sold the company, there's people that do that now. Yeah. So, you know, post it and tag us and then ask them to share it or something. But they should, they should be. Yeah. I, I dislike social media verbiage

12:09 Ruggles:
Morally opposed. Right. That's a

12:12 Caldwell:
Yes. Morally opposed to it.

12:13 Ruggles:
That's a strong stance. Like Yeah. Which, which aspect, or in totality,

12:20 Caldwell:
I think that it's done a tremendous job of like reinforcing people's lack of self-esteem. Mm. So one, secondly, I mean, the addictive nature of what it is and what it was created to be is incredibly toxic. And then third, I'd say, like, playing off of that, like the distraction that it creates for people in life is very bad. And part of that's socially the way that they interact with other people.

12:51 Caldwell:
Right. And then part of it's, they're on their own. I mean, people, they, they get distracted from their own lives. Mm. You know, and you're here one time to sit by and screen for six hours a day doing fucking nothing except feeding your own insecurity or allowing yourself to be distracted in a very toxic, that, that's probably the most, the biggest ization that we have in the world in terms of like living our life is, is Right.

13:17 Caldwell:
Social media. And, and I would, I would add to that some other things that are, that are there as well. You know, like I look, you know, shopping online excessively, Netflix, like all this shit's kind of just made to get us to just sit there and do nothing except that. And I think it's just, I think it's just a super tragic thing. And there used to be a lot of people that felt that way a couple years ago, but then the pandemic kind of broke that. Right. And I think it just pushed everybody over the edge. And now it's completely acceptable to just, you know, just go through life checking the box.

13:51 Caldwell:
It's very weird. So I just like it.

13:54 Ruggles:
I can get behind that actually. I can get behind that a lot. I've kind of copied Joe Rogan's philosophy around social medias. Go ahead and post, but don't read any comments. Don't give a shit. You, I don't care what you say, I'm not gonna see it. I'm not gonna read it. Doesn't matter. So I think that's a very healthy, functional approach to social media as a, you know, a distribution portfolio in however you want to use it. But in terms of getting any kind of strokes from that, or ego or whatever, like no, no, none of that matters.

14:30 Ruggles:
Just use it as a channel. Yeah.

14:33 Caldwell:
And it's very conflicting because, I mean, I think tobacco's getting a lot more difficult right now on social media. Like, we have a lot of our content that we create that gets flagged and taken down. But our brand wouldn't exist in the way that we do without having had social media to be the accelerant.

14:50 Ruggles:
Sure, sure.

14:51 Caldwell:
You know, imagine building a cigar brand. I don't like just going store to store and trying to create awareness.

14:58 Ruggles:
And that's really the paradox, right? I mean, the paradox of building a cigar brand is, you know, whatever your attributes are for your brand, whether it's edgy or however you want to think about it, it does kind of conflict a little bit with, you know, online flagging and, and terms of service and, and all that kind of stuff.

15:17 Caldwell:
Yep. Sorry, I'm gonna try to find something to block the light because I'm afraid that the, I'm afraid that the, the iPad's gonna overheat outside with the direct somewhere.

15:26 Ruggles:
Ah, yeah. No worries. No worries. Well this mofo smoking real nice so far. It's, it's quite delicious.

15:34 Caldwell:
I've never smoked that size. I made, I made just a, I I probably made a hundred of those. I, I made him kind of just for fun and sent 'em to him.

15:41 Ruggles:
Well, I love

15:42 Caldwell:
It. It's really, really good.

15:43 Ruggles:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad he got it and I'm glad he let me smoke it. Mofo Where did that come from?

15:51 Caldwell:
It was actually supposed to be, sorry, hold on. Lemme close this door. It was supposed to be mad ms because they just, it was the, the, the blend code was so MA dmf.

16:04 Ruggles:
Oh, that makes sense. So then

16:05 Caldwell:
We, yeah, then we just kind of, we just kind of liked that and left it that way. And then we received a cease and desist from my father's cigars because they thought that people would be confused somehow. Ah. Because they have my father.

16:18 Ruggles:
Ah, okay.

16:19 Caldwell:
So then the closest thing to people were already calling it the motherfucker 'cause it was mf but that was just for mother. Interesting. And yeah, so then we just kind of, just next in line was multiple, so we just switched to that.

16:34 Ruggles:
Okay. Well, I like it. It works. So let's stay on the people front. So, good description on kind of your personality. That makes total sense to me. I heard you say once that you're kind of a bad manager or you don't like to be a manager and yet building a cigar company, you, you do need to manage people. How did you, how'd you kind of balance that? Or how'd you overcome that?

17:03 Caldwell:
I didn't. I stayed as a fucking horrible manager. I'm gonna switch seats too, actually now. Sorry. I just, I'm, I'm really concerned this thing's gonna overheat. Yeah. I, I never was a good manager. I had Jeremy McDonald who now owns Wildfire Cigars, who's a very good people person. And I think a good manager. He helped us out manager.

17:27 Ruggles:
I really liked Jeremy McDonald. I've actually interviewed him. Yeah, he's awesome. Yeah.

17:31 Caldwell:
Super good guy. Super good guy. But outside of that, I mean, I had my, my business partner, Juan, that helped kind of manage the production end of it, you know, and then Jeremy managed kind of the front side until he started Wildfire. Yeah. And then after, after he left, we just never had anybody managing the salespeople, which I think was fine. 'cause we had guys that were kind of independent and did their own thing. Sure. But I don't know. I mean, I'm just, I, I think I thought I was good at it my first several years.

18:02 Caldwell:
And then one day I just woke up and I realized that I'm not good at this or, or if I were to be good at it, it would take away from the other things that I need to do with the business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so that's why you have a manager. But I don't know, I just, I, I really do think, I thought I was good at it for the first couple of years because I, I, I'm a good leader and I'm good at inspiring people to want to do well, not good at managing <laugh>.

18:25 Ruggles:
Yeah.

18:27 Caldwell:
I can micromanage them, but that's not fucking management. No. You know, micromanaging is like just a waste of everybody's time. And I think that that's a i that's a completely not productive, you know, it, it benefits no one a micromanager, which is what I'm good at. But then that's bad for me, bad for the company, bad for

18:48 Ruggles:
It's a lose lose. Yeah. No, no, no. Nothing really good. Comes outta micromanaging to be honest. No. You know, do you know who Simon Sinek is? <affirmative> you ever heard? Yeah, he's really good. I really like listening to his stuff on the leadership and, and managing is not leadership. How'd you, how'd you get to know Jeremy McDonald? I think he was actually, was he my third or fourth interview? We had a great conversation. How'd you get to know him?

19:14 Caldwell:
Well, I had a cigar factory that I started in Miami with Christian Aro prior to doing Caldwell. And then there was a portfolio of brands of which mine was one that were sold by a company called Tabis Uni that Christian built. So Christian and I were partners on one brand. And then that sales team basically represented our brand. The CLE are all brands and then Asylum. And Jeremy was hired as the California rep Yeah. For, for, for that company.

19:45 Caldwell:
And then he and I just fucking hit it off. And then c and I, you know, it didn't work out. And then I was going out on my, on my own and I said, Jeremy, you wanna come with me? And he's like, yep. So yeah,

19:58 Ruggles:
Jeremy's

19:58 Caldwell:
A, we took a couple people.

20:00 Ruggles:
He's a, he's a kick in the pants man. We had a really great time. He was up here in Bend I think this past spring. And he got to know the Bend nightlife pretty well. In fact, I think I can publicly say he said he found the love of his life at one o'clock at one of our bars, which is pretty funny.

20:20 Caldwell:
Yeah. <laugh>.

20:23 Ruggles:
Oh my god. Yeah.

20:23 Caldwell:
Jeremy loves Ben. Jeremy was coming out like when he was working with us, he was going out to bend a couple times. Yeah. For a year or like, maybe three times in like six or eight months. And then he mentioned to me Cigar Chapel and he's like, dude, you gotta come to Ben. It's a really cool place. And then I came out and I loved it. So I've been out there probably at least, at least four or five times. So Yeah,

20:45 Ruggles:
It's magical.

20:47 Caldwell:
Mine too. It's a great place. Yeah.

20:49 Ruggles:
Bend is a magical place. And in fact, I've got some exciting news to share. I'm not gonna share it now in totality, but I'm gonna be doing something summer of next year. We're gonna be doing something. I'm gonna keep you in the loop on that. I think I'm gonna check your schedule when you're gonna come out to Ben. 'cause we're gonna do something fun in summer of 2025 with the chapel and some other things. I'm gonna keep it vague for right now.

21:18 Caldwell:
Perfect. Yeah, let me know. I, I don't like to travel spring or fall too much. Well, I like to, I like, like that's when I like to enjoy my life, but summertime's fucking hot everywhere. Yes. So then I try to find places that are not quite as hot. And you guys are a little bit, I know it gets pretty warm out there, but not like, not like where I go between. So, well,

21:39 Ruggles:
There's,

21:39 Caldwell:
My plan is to come. Yeah.

21:41 Ruggles:
There's also a difference between warmth and humidity. Right. So we, we've got a bit of a

21:46 Caldwell:
Fire. Yeah. You guys can jump in that river and shit.

21:48 Ruggles:
Absolutely,

21:50 Caldwell:
Absolutely. Tubing. I've never done that. I could do that.

21:53 Ruggles:
Oh my God. Yeah. No, you light up a stick, you have a nice cold beverage and you get in your tube and you float down the river and it's absolutely fantastic. You got two hours of just floating and smoking and drinking and talking and it's beautiful. It's

22:10 Caldwell:
Wonderful. That sounds nice. Yeah.

22:12 Ruggles:
Yeah.

22:12 Caldwell:
Alright. We'll have to, if the dates work, count me in. Absolutely. Is it gonna be July or August?

22:18 Ruggles:
That's gonna be August.

22:20 Caldwell:
Ooh, that's even better. Yeah, I, because July's a little complicated for me, but I, but I'm kind of available. But then August is pretty open, so, okay.

22:27 Ruggles:
Let's talk to you. Might that Yeah, no, I'm pretty excited about it. So let's talk about travel. So again, it kind of took us a long time to get here. You, you were going places. I was going places. One of the things I shared and I've learned about you now, your wife is Spanish. Is, am I correct in that? Yeah. Okay. Correct. And where's she Madrid? Is that where she's from?

22:46 Caldwell:
She's from Madrid.

22:47 Ruggles:
Okay, awesome. So in 2019, I took my family, you know, flew into Barcelona, did that whole thing. And then we, we took a car, drove down to Marbella, which was absolutely, if nobody's been to Marba, you gotta go to Marbella. I

23:05 Caldwell:
Mean, that, that's where my house is.

23:07 Ruggles:
Oh, my G and Porto Bonous.

23:09 Caldwell:
No, I'm up in the hill behind that actually.

23:11 Ruggles:
Oh my God.

23:12 Caldwell:
So like, when you're in Porto and you look up at the hills Yeah. Because the house is up in the hills. I I'm on one of those.

23:18 Ruggles:
So Yeah, obviously you have a house there. It's absolutely beautiful. And the people Yeah. Are great.

23:24 Caldwell:
The, and the food's killer.

23:26 Ruggles:
I was just gonna say, the food is absolutely incredible. I, we went to a steakhouse and I want to say it was called, it wasn't Volcom, but it was something like that. I, I should look up the restaurant. And it was one of those places where you walk in the restaurant and there's a museum of meat behind the glass. And you just look at this beautiful beef. Oh my God. And you pick out what you want. Okay, I'm gonna take that and that. And they bring it out on a, a big board. Is this what you want?

23:57 Ruggles:
I mean, it was a whole experience. It was fantastic. Then we went, yeah.

24:02 Caldwell:
You know what's cool with Marbella? 'cause like the city of Marbella is kind of shitty. Well, when were you there?

24:07 Ruggles:
2019.

24:08 Caldwell:
About what time are you there?

24:11 Ruggles:
Oh, August.

24:14 Caldwell:
Okay. You might've gotten a little bit lucky. Like there's, it's, it's a, it's a, like the population 10 x is in summer.

24:24 Ruggles:
Yes, it does.

24:25 Caldwell:
With tourists. So it's, it's a bit difficult. And then we get a lot of like, just like real shitty like Euro trash tourists, which is the summer. And now I've, I've only had the house for two and a half years, so maybe it was different before the pandemic. But I mean it's, it's, it's like really difficult to be there sometimes in the summer. Mm. Just 'cause the, the level of tourism that exists. And then also like, it's a lot of just like euro trashy, tourist <laugh>. But it's, I mean I, I was going like I I, I did an olive oil company with a friend that lives in Marba that's from Marba.

24:58 Caldwell:
So I was going down quite often. Okay. And I never really liked the city environment. And then I, there was a great opportunity on the house, which is why I bought it during the pandemic. Sure. But what's really special there is like the proximity to everything. Like you can, I mean you can take Tarrifs 45 minutes away, you can take a ferry and half an hour tap. We did that.

25:18 Ruggles:
We did that.

25:18 Caldwell:
Yeah. That's cool as shit. TFA iss amazing. Yep. Malagas not bad. Granada's. Very cool. Svia, which I think you mentioned those in the email, but great cities too, a couple hours away. Yep. The Mediterraneans very nice. Like Marba is not that nice of a beach 'cause they built the city on the sand. Right. So there's no beach left. But if you go like towards Tarifa, great beaches and then it's the most mountainous region in all of Europe. Even more than Switzerland in terms of density of mountains in a state. The state of Malaga, which Marve is inside, is the most mountainous.

25:50 Caldwell:
Really. Okay. So there's, yeah, there's very good snow skiing in Granada. So there's like a really, really good ski resort there and very inexpensive as well. And then if you like to hike, which I love to hike or dirt bike or whatever, <affirmative> like the fucking mountains. I mean, 'cause my house, like you walk outta my house, if you get in your car 15 minutes you're at the beach. But then you can walk out of my house like through the backside of the neighborhood. And then you just hit trails that go for several hundred miles. So you can go dirt biking, four-wheeling, hiking and you get to five, 6,000 feet altitude.

26:27 Caldwell:
So it's pretty decent. That's fantastic. Elevation gain. So it's a really cool outdoors area. Well

26:31 Ruggles:
It kind of sounds like bend, although we don't have the ocean obviously. But I can go from my house to the mountain snowshoeing in all of 19 minutes. I mean, it's absolutely fantastic. I mean, you've been here, you know, so Yeah. Well let's go to Madrid. How did you meet your wife? Was this at the bar at a grocery store? Like

26:49 Caldwell:
At a bar? I, I was in Morocco I guess with a couple friends from my birthday. And then I, I had been going to Madrid I for basically 20 years, I mean a couple times a year. And then, so I had some friends, like two of my very good friends came over, actually Jeremy came as well with me to Morocco. And then we came back to Madrid and Jeremy left and another friend came in and we were doing the weekend there. And then I was in a bar with my friend Rachel and another friend of mine and my wife was at the bar.

27:20 Caldwell:
I went over to get a couple drinks, started chatting her up and then we kind of hit it off. And then coincidentally, she asked me what I was doing in Madrid and I said I was coming back from Morocco where I'd spent my birthday. She asked me when my birthday was. I said the day before yesterday, she said bullshit, pulled out my id and then coincidentally we had the same birthday,

27:39 Ruggles:
No shit.

27:41 Caldwell:
Yeah. 10 years apart. So that was that we hit it off. And then, I mean, kind of the rest is history.

27:46 Ruggles:
I like that she called you out.

27:49 Caldwell:
Yeah. She thought well, and she thought I was a liar when I took out my id. 'cause you know, we say like, my birthday's November 7th, so it says 11 seven, but in Europe at seven 11.

27:57 Ruggles:
Yeah. They

27:58 Caldwell:
Switch it. Yeah. So she, then she thought, so then she said I was a liar, was the first thing. And then I had to show her

28:04 Ruggles:
This is the American way of

28:05 Caldwell:
Differently. Yeah, exactly.

28:07 Ruggles:
Of date formats. Oh, I love it. Exactly. That's a great story. That's fantastic. Okay. And how many years ago? How many years? What did bliss?

28:17 Caldwell:
Nine years? Well, we've been married, I think seven, but I met her nine years ago. Okay. Neither one of us wanted to get married.

28:24 Ruggles:
Of course not. She's

28:25 Caldwell:
Kinda like <laugh> kinda fucking happen. <laugh>,

28:28 Ruggles:
Does she smoke cigars?

28:32 Caldwell:
She, well she did. Not much, but she'd smoke like little half Corona or something here or there. Okay. She's got very long curly hair and it like, she doesn't like the way the smoke sticks in her hair.

28:45 Ruggles:
Absolutely. Right. I know that. Yep.

28:46 Caldwell:
So she'll, she'll, yeah. I mean, she'll smoke like one or two a year maybe now, but when she first, I mean, when she was coming to Miami, like our first year, first year she'd smoke with me like three times a week. And then she just got sick of Right. The smelling her hair. Yeah. Or having to wash her hair, you know, more often than she wanted to or

29:04 Ruggles:
Whatever. I understand. My wife's got very curly hair. She's got actually some Greek ancestry. She looks like a Greek goddess and same thing. Yeah. I mean, that hair just captures the smoke. Yeah. So I I I totally get it. So you, so yeah. And then did, have you ever been to Rhonda? You've got a, you've, you've seen <affirmative>, the, the canyon and the bridge in the

29:24 Caldwell:
Gorge. Yeah. It's super cool.

29:26 Ruggles:
Yeah.

29:27 Caldwell:
Like incredibly cool <affirmative>. So I've been up there. I, I went one time. I just as kind of a day trip, something to do. And then I went back with, I guess I went back with my wife's mother when she came to visit us. And I might've gone, I might've gone with my mom too when she came to visit, but I can't remember. But it's really cool. So

29:47 Ruggles:
Yeah, it is. So this wallet right here, I don't know if you can see my wallet, but I actually got it at the, let's see, Plaza do Toro in Rhonda. So this came from a bull in the ring.

30:02 Caldwell:
Oh, very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very cool.

30:04 Ruggles:
Yeah, very, very cool. So yeah, I'm a big fan of Spain. So when I was younger, I actually spent some time in Belgium and with my dad for a couple years. And we did a lot of traveling. Never actually got to Spain, but did a lot of other European travel. So I want to take my kids to Spain. And it was, I can see why you love it. I mean the people are great. The country's great. It was fucking hot. The humidity was pretty off the charts. Especially in Seville in Mali. Yeah.

30:34 Caldwell:
No, those months, like if, if you're on the beach, like it's not bad. Right. Like Marvea Mar's got a really nice microclimate. Yeah. So we have a very moderate kind of August. It can get, you know, to 90 ish, but then it cools down at nighttime and you have a breeze every afternoon. Just tolerable. But se severe and like Granada, Granada will hit 120 degrees in the sun. It gets real hot there. Brutal. Yeah.

30:59 Ruggles:
Brutal. That's too much. Yeah. This past summer, I surprised my wife, 'cause she takes it every year. Her and her sister go to Greece for about three weeks. They've got some ancestry. And this year I had talked to her sister and I said, Hey, do you mind if I crash your your trip? She said, no, not a problem. So they were over there for about 10 days and then I went over and surprised her at the Athens airport. She had no idea I was showing up.

31:31 Ruggles:
And it was absolutely fantastic. Nice. I was there for about a week. It was the, it was the longest, shortest trip of my life. Oh. My 27 hours to get there. But it was worth every moment of her surprise at the airport.

31:44 Caldwell:
That's awesome. Yeah,

31:45 Ruggles:
It was really great. So it's nice to talk to a fellow traveler who really, you know, and, and I've heard you talk about, you know, about learning cultures, learning food, learning music, learning about the people. To me it's been a fascination since I was six years old when I actually knew the differences. And it was, it was just, I love it.

32:05 Caldwell:
Yeah.

32:07 Ruggles:
Now,

32:07 Caldwell:
Yeah. Which I think the best education you can have in life is traveling. But not, not not, you know, a lot of people, they travel and they kind of like check the fucking box or they'll go to like whatever city and then they wait in fucking line to go to whatever fucking monument. Right. And they kind of just do what they're supposed to do. But I think exploring, traveling and exploring are like, I've never, I mean, I've been a lot of places, but I've never gone into one. I I went in, I went into Vatican when I was 19. Okay. I'm trying to, that might've been the only, that might've been the only thing I've ever done touristy ever anywhere.

32:44 Caldwell:
Like, I, I don't like to go see things like that. Like I just go experience. I think that they do have value, but you can find a picture of that shit on the

32:51 Ruggles:
Internet. Exactly. But

32:52 Caldwell:
Where, what I think the best is, is just go somewhere, walk around, sit down in a cafe, order a fucking coffee, smoke a cigar, watch the people drop into the mom and pop shops. It's the best, you know, get lost. Like that to me is traveling. 'cause then you understand the culture. And I think that's very special. And I think, you know, it's very helpful for life education. But also, I mean, for like, for business, if you're, if you keep your eyes open and you explore, you see things that influence, you know, you could, you could see an opportunity like, oh, why don't we have this in the us Right.

33:24 Caldwell:
Or why don't they have that here? Right. Or you see things are done a different way and then you can come back and, you know, implement that and what you do here. So I, I think it's, I think it's just the coolest thing ever is is moving around and learning other cultures.

33:38 Ruggles:
A hundred percent. All right. I got a question for you. So in all your travels in all your cities and all the towns, where's the one place where you, where you were either a, scared or B like super uncomfortable? Like, get me the fuck outta here. What's the one point? Because I've got one, I wanna hear yours.

34:02 Caldwell:
I was in Beirut, Lebanon like 10 ish years ago. And when I got there, I met a group of people and they kind of adopted me for like a five day trip. Like, I mean, very cool. Like, I was coming into my Airbnb at 11 and there was a group of girls coming out of the building and they were getting into a car and they spoke to me in French. And I'm like, I don't speak French. They're like, what are you doing? You know what, whatever. Like, hit it. Hit it. And then I dropped my shit in the Airbnb, came back, went to a nightclub. Yeah. Stayed out till 5:00 AM and the next morning, like my phone buzz says, we're gonna brunch.

34:34 Caldwell:
And then, so it ended up being a group of people and they invited me to, you know, I don't know, just dinner, lunch, this, that, all this shit for like five days.

34:43 Caldwell:
So the last night prior to leaving, we went all the way to the south of Lebanon and we go to a town. And what I knew was, you're not supposed to go there like a, to that part of the country. And so we get there and then the girl that was driving the car takes out a piece of paper and writes something on the paper and then puts a phone number or something. And I'm like, what are you doing? She's like, well, I'm putting who I'm visiting and my phone number just, and I'm like, in case of what? And she's like, well, you know, like if I <laugh> it's kind of suspicious and maybe they will like pull out the car and fucking blow it up.

35:19 Caldwell:
Or like, I'm like, what the fuck? So there was a, the reason I was concerned was that what I read was that part of the country was all Hezbollah controlled and you're not supposed to go there. And then, so I walk into a house and what year is this?

35:33 Ruggles:
What year is this?

35:36 Caldwell:
2014, 15. Okay. So I will go into a house. It's a bunch of guys like my age, they all have beards. They're wearing fucking scarves. And then I sit down and, you know, they're, they're like smoking weed or whatever. I light a cigar and I'm like, with this group, and then this is kind of this thing. And then so I, you know, I'm like a little uncomfortable. And then they noticed I was uncomfortable. And then they asked me why I was uncomfortable. And I was like, well, my understanding is that this part of the country is all Hezbollah like controlled, right?

36:07 Caldwell:
And they're like, yeah, yeah, it's, and I'm like, no, no, no. But my understanding is like, everybody down here, you know, is kind of like Hezbollah. And the guy's like, yeah, we are. And I'm like, oh, <laugh>. And then so they, they were kind of fucking with me a little bit.

36:21 Caldwell:
And then they said, listen, you're American. You don't understand what Hezbollah is. You understand what it's based on your media. Right. And we get that right. But they, they, they, they basically told me like, you're not in any danger. Like, ha ha ha ha like kind of a laugh. And then they shared with me their perspective of what they were as freedom fighters, which I guess I can't really have an opinion on that 'cause I'm not sure. Fair sure. And it was, it was, it was very awkward, like 15 minutes for me. But they were really kind of fucking with me. But they were all Hezbollah fighters. They just happened to be my age.

36:52 Caldwell:
And weirdly, one of them was also an actor and had been in Los Angeles the week before. What? And was with a friend, like my best friend that I grew up with who's a fucking producer.

37:06 Caldwell:
What, he's gone out there to meet with his company about a possible like acting job in la. And the guy was a fucking Hezbollah fighter. It was crazy. And then so <laugh>, that was that. Like, we had a great time, smoked some cigars, ate good food. I go back up to Beirut, I get to my Airbnb the next morning. I fly to London. I land in London and like they, you know, I have global entry. And then the UK version is called like border force entry. Okay. And I land in London. I go to the machine to, to come into UK and it wouldn't let me in.

37:37 Caldwell:
So I go to a customs officer, our immigration officer, and he is like, no, your border force has been canceled. I'm like, okay, <affirmative>. And then I fly into the us I go to whatever the shit is that you come in, what's it called?

37:52 Caldwell:
Global entry. Yeah. And, or Clear. It doesn't work either. And then, so I go to a regular line and then the guy says, your global entry's been canceled. What the, like why? He's like, well you have to request Freedom of Information Act if you wanna know why, but you've been canceled. And then the foia, yep. This was before we knew that people were tracking our cell phones and listening to us. Oh. Because that was probably like six, seven years ago that people figured that out. Or maybe eight. And then I told everybody, I'm like, they're fucking listening to us on the phones because they either had to have heard my conversation or they had to have known where I was and who I was with.

38:24 Caldwell:
Correct. Because it's too weird that I have both of these things canceled at the same time. And everybody's like, oh, you're crazy. Like conspiracy theorist, all this shit. And then within like six or eight months, or a year or two years, everybody kind of knew that that was happening. But I'd say that that was my most uncomfortable I've ever been because I mean, for 15 minutes I thought I was gonna get fucking kidnapped. That's a big or beheaded.

38:45 Ruggles:
Right. Or whatever. Which is just a very odd feeling. And you've, yeah, you've traveled a lot. You've been to a lot of different towns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of cities myself as well. So been to South America, bueno Aires, was in Cordoba for a while. Lived in Europe, been to China, Shanghai, Beijing done a lot of travel. The one place as a six foot three large man who is fairly confident.

39:17 Ruggles:
The one place where I was like, oh my God, I do not feel safe. Which is a very odd feeling. It's not a sensation that I have ever really had. And it's not like you're at a party and you're uncomfortable. It was more of like, this is a safety issue. Like, I'm literally not feeling comfortable in my environment. And that is such an odd sensation. This was in 2008 and I was in Baltimore, Maryland, <laugh>.

39:50 Caldwell:
Hmm.

39:51 Ruggles:
It was about 11 o'clock at night. I was on a business trip and had a local friend and he was kind of taking me around. It was 11 o'clock at night. And I am telling you, Robert, I felt outta place so uncomfortable. I did not feel safe. And it was the most awkward, weird feeling. What alone in the United States. I mean, yeah, sure. You could go other places because it's not your culture, it's not your people. And maybe it's late at night and you're by yourself, which I've done numerous times.

40:23 Ruggles:
And how awkward is that? I'm like, we, I'm done. Now we, we can just go

40:30 Caldwell:
<laugh>. Yeah. You know, like my, my top 10, three of them were like those type of situations. 'cause I had, I had one where I came out of like when there was the refugee thing going on in Europe and I came out of a subway at like one in the morning. The subway stopped running. Like I, it was the last training. I came out of the wrong stop. And I was at effectively like a camp of, of like fucking Syrian refugees. And I just kind of came up right in the middle of it. That, and so that was very bad. And then I had another one in the Balkans 20 years ago that was, I was detained for like 24 hours by Alicia.

41:08 Caldwell:
Oh. So those, but the other seven of my top 10 experiences and my worst experience is the one that I told you, the Lebanon one, I think. Yeah. Followed by the Syrian refugee camp. Oopsie <laugh>. The Balkan thing wasn't that bad, but like the other seven in that list are all United States.

41:28 Ruggles:
Yeah. That's wild.

41:29 Caldwell:
You know, I understand your Baltimore thing. I had a New York thing that was weird. Like during, during the pandemic a Chicago thing. One time, Baltimore, I understand exactly what you're talking about. I made the mistake of going to San Francisco like a year and a half ago and going into Haight Ashbury nighttime. Oh. Oh. Because I didn't know it was as bad as it is <affirmative>.

41:47 Ruggles:
It's bad.

41:48 Caldwell:
I always looked at San Francisco as kind of like, I don't know. Or even, you know, Portland, you can say it's like you look at these zombie world cities and it's like, it's fucking Portland. It's zombie world. So okay, there's a bunch of junkies zombies. But then you don't, when you get into it, you're like, well, they have fucking syringes. Yeah. And box cutters or whatever. Or a broken fucking bottle. Right. And so, so I understand entirely like what you just described in Baltimore. And I felt that before Baltimore. Like I'm just, I'm not, this was a mistake I need to get outta.

42:17 Ruggles:
Yeah. I mean I'm, I'm sure there's lovely people there. I just didn't see 'em. <laugh> <affirmative>. I, I know there's lovely people there. All right, so let, let's stay in Europe for just a second because I overheard you talk about, we're gonna shift gears a little bit, but let's go to Turkey. You get your dress shirts made in Turkey from a tailor. And I heard that and I'm like, oh my God, who's the guy? Because my torso my chest. Like I, I, I can, I can, I can go to Nordstrom's, I can go get a shirt.

42:50 Ruggles:
It might fit. It's not gonna fit. Well who's your guy in Turkey? Let's give him some love. And I want to go to his site. Does he have a site?

42:57 Caldwell:
Man, if I, if I could fucking remember, I'd tell you.

43:00 Ruggles:
No way.

43:01 Caldwell:
Yeah. And I, and I tried to find it, but I cannot remember.

43:09 Ruggles:
You gotta have an old receipt or something.

43:13 Caldwell:
Well, I, it's been like seven years probably since I got it. So it's been a little while. But yeah, if I can find it, I'll, I'll flip it your way.

43:21 Ruggles:
Yeah, please do. Because nothing like a nice tailored shirt.

43:25 Caldwell:
Yeah. And they're very cheap there. You know what Turkey does is that they'll like, they'll have like dress shirt stores like in Paris and <affirmative> London and all these fancy places and you go and you give your measurements. Yeah. And then they actually make them in Turkey. 'cause they still say that they're made in Europe, which they are because half of Istanbul is Europe. Yeah. But they, they're super high quality and then you're paying like 200 or whatever you're paying or 300, you know, in a high street somewhere. But then you can get them made in Turkey for 25 or 30.

43:56 Caldwell:
So they just have outstanding tailoring.

43:58 Ruggles:
Yeah. And it's good for them and very true. It's, it's a win-win situation. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So what are you doing these days now that you've sold Caldwell, you're doing what you love to do? Like what are you doing? What's, what's your typical day look like?

44:15 Caldwell:
There's no typical day unfortunately <laugh>, but, well, I guess what I consistently do is there will be con there will be a consistency soon next year. This year has been kind of fucking crazy. 'cause it was like the first few years was my wife was living in Madrid 'cause she was getting a master's in interior design. And I was in Miami trying to wrap up the okay sale. And then we had the trade show and then we had integration with a company that bought us. And then we had to shut down our warehouse in Miami. I had sold my house a couple years ago and then I was like, I had all my shit.

44:47 Caldwell:
Well I got rid of most of my shit when I sold my house, but I still a lot of shit here. Yeah. I had to bring it over to Europe and then summer hit and I was expecting to get an investor visa in Europe in the late spring. Okay. So I was planning to get a second property 'cause I don't wanna be a Spanish tax resident. So my idea was to go between Spain and Italy. 'cause my wife's kind of like over being really in Miami.

45:17 Caldwell:
But that's kind of like the only option. 'cause I'm from Miami and there's nowhere else that I think I could live, but I'm kind of over Miami too. So then we were looking at options today and she said, why don't we just do Italy, but then I need this visa 'cause I don't you, if you can, I can get a marriage visa, but then I have to be a Spanish tax resident and I have to stay in the country for 365 days without leaving. Oh. So that's cumbersome. And then the taxes there are crazy. So the solution was like this investment visa. Ah. But then rather than taking the three months that I thought it was gonna take, I just got it like a month ago.

45:49 Caldwell:
So then our whole summer was kind of fucked. 'cause we planned to be like in May or June looking for something and then kind of like settling in over the summer. Yeah. So then I just kind of stayed on the run all summer. <laugh>,

46:02 Ruggles:
You're on the lamb. Yeah.

46:04 Caldwell:
Yeah. Through winter. And then now I have this fucking visa. But then even though you have the visa, Spain takes forever. So it's like, okay, you get the visa and then, and then there's a, it's like a five-year visa and this clock starts ticking down. So now I'm at like four years and 10 months, but I still don't have the fucking visa in my Hmm. Because all the bureaucracy, 'cause they're just a really ridiculous those things. So

46:25 Ruggles:
Wait, that five years starts at application or it's

46:29 Caldwell:
Starts at approval. Okay. And then you, and then after approval you have to wait five weeks to go in for fucking biometrics and whatever bullshit.

46:37 Ruggles:
Live interview, then

46:38 Caldwell:
You have to wait Yeah. Another five weeks to get the visa. So I'm still under the same rules I had prior. So Europe has a 91 80 rule. So if you don't have a visa or not a resident, you cannot study more than 90 of any 180 day like moving target worth of time. So, and I'm always butting right up against it. So right now, like I, I left Europe last week and my, I left on the 90th of my 180 day like period. And then if you violated it, you get a fine and it could fuck with your visa. So I can't go back to Europe till like December 20th now.

47:10 Caldwell:
Okay. And then I can't get my visa in my hand until actually beginning of January. So I've kind of been in this very uncomfortable limbo of being a little bit homeless. But, so that's the inconsistency, which sucks next year, that'll, it all gets fixed in January.

47:27 Ruggles:
You'll get through all of this red tape and, and and, yeah.

47:30 Caldwell:
Yeah. But on the business side, what, I mean, I, I used to kind of do like a little bit of everything. So I, I would, you know, I would, I would be very involved with the factory on logistics, ordering all this type of shit. So I don't do that anymore. I'm only involvement with the factory is Okay. Lending cigars. And then I used to be in Miami probably 30% of my time. And when I was in Miami, I was in the warehouse helping, packing, shipping, whatever administrative stuff I could to kind of keep my finger on the pulse, but also, you know, be a good leader of the company.

48:05 Caldwell:
And then also, you know, I have the time available, why not do that? So yeah, now that's gone. I don't deal with a sales team anymore, so now it's gone. So really my focus has been just branding, product development and marketing,

48:19 Ruggles:
Which you enjoy doing.

48:20 Caldwell:
Which, which I enjoy doing. So now I get to focus on what I enjoy doing and also what I'm good at because like, I would help in the warehouse, but I maybe hurt almost as much as I'd help. Ah. So I, I, you know, I, I'd like pick the wrong product or you know, I'd fuck up orders. I think what I was helpful was like when we had, you know, six pallets come in that had to go on a shelf. Like I'd go in and I'd rack six pallets of product <affirmative>, you know, and I could try to help where I could, but sure there was a lot of components.

48:52 Ruggles:
Interesting. So you're a little bit like Elon Musk. You got your hands in a lot of different plots, kind of homeless couch surfing between your apartments and your homes in this country and that country.

49:04 Caldwell:
<laugh>, that's a long reach, that association. But I'll, I'll, I'll take, I'll take, I'll take that part of it. I wish there was more in common

49:12 Ruggles:
<laugh>. I don't know if you do, do you really? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But that's a whole nother conversation. Who knows?

49:19 Caldwell:
I, I think he has a very fulfilling life.

49:22 Ruggles:
I think so too. I would imagine.

49:23 Caldwell:
Yeah. He seems to like what he does.

49:25 Ruggles:
I did read his biography by Walter Isaacson and it was a really good, but do you remember when he did that interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin with New York Times and he was on stage and he told the advertisers to go fuck themselves. Do you remember that? Yep. So, yep, I, you know, I heard that it was actually about that time I was reading his book and it was so jarring, right? It made all the headlines. You know, Elon Musk tells advertisers and specifically the CEO from Disney, was it Eisen or I forget his name.

49:56 Ruggles:
Iger. That's right. Bob Iger. Iger. And he told him to go fuck themselves. And everyone's like, oh my god, how could he say that? Da da. Read his book. You read the book and you learn how that guy grew up and you know exactly why he told those advertisers to go fuck themselves. And it's such a great story. And here's the bottom line. If anybody wants to read the book and doesn't want to hear it, mute this part. But basically he was bullied as a kid and he swore that he would never be bullied again. And he's pretty much has the ultimate fuck you money.

50:29 Ruggles:
So I think he's accomplished that.

50:31 Caldwell:
Agreed. He's my favorite guy in the world and has been forever for 10 years. I do love that guy.

50:39 Ruggles:
I'm with you. I can't say 10 years, but I definitely admire him. I think he's done a lot of good for culture. I think he's done a lot of good advancements in technology and just contributing to humanity. Kind of bringing that word back up again that you said, I think he is a good human. You know, his proclamation about birth rates, I don't know if people are taking that seriously, but they should. Our birth rates are not good for sustaining our human race.

51:10 Ruggles:
But anyway, again, that's a whole nother rabbit hole. Have you ever seen him watch? Well,

51:16 Caldwell:
You know, you know, you know what? I think additionally, like, I mean the guy's always done what he wanted to do and pretty much always done what he said he was gonna do. And he was willing to risk, like imagine making whatever, $250 million by the time you're 30 and then risking it all because you wanna shoot fucking rockets in outer space. I mean, he's always just like, I, I I think that he, he is not scared to lose everything following his dreams. And I, and I, I, I would be hard pressed to ever put myself in that category.

51:46 Caldwell:
'cause I think at a certain point you would want to be more conservative. Like, okay, fuck it, I can survive forever. Yes. In a very nice way, risking some of my money or using other people's money or whatever it is. But this guy time and again, just kind of puts his money where his mouth is. And I think that, I mean, fuck, I don't know. If you had $250 billion, would you risk it? I mean, no, nobody would like, I'm gonna protect all this shit that I have now. And he just doesn't give a fuck. And back to the, back to the, like, living life one time because he's just doing that, you know?

52:17 Caldwell:
And I think that's really amazing. Yeah,

52:18 Ruggles:
It is. Yeah. It is really amazing. Alright, let's, let's think about PCA 2025 in New Orleans. Let's shift gears. You're gonna be there? Yeah.

52:29 Caldwell:
Yep.

52:31 Ruggles:
You got any, I assume you're gonna have some kind of cigar to talk about.

52:37 Caldwell:
Yeah. I don't know if I'm at liberty to say what we're doing, but we have, we do have two, two releases coming from pca. But I would have to check with the <laugh>

52:47 Ruggles:
Ownership.

52:48 Caldwell:
We can talk about that.

52:49 Ruggles:
Alright, well I, I'm also gonna assume that these sticks are going to be delicious. I think your attention to detail on tobacco in finding these rare tobaccos, again, I think that's kind of a Caldwell characteristic. It's been written about. It's been talked about. So I'm not trying to flush fluff your feathers, but I think that is something you have a good reputation for. So could I assume the tobaccos are gonna be coming out and these two new cigars are gonna be first rate?

53:23 Ruggles:
Is it gonna be good, good stuff?

53:25 Caldwell:
Absolutely. Yeah. We don't, I mean, we don't really work with anything. That's not first rate. We have, and we have, we have before, but like on our premium, like the Caldwell lines, like King is dead long, king, Eastern, queen, Anastasia, we, we kind of just only work with like, kind of the most fucky tobacco. So we can find it in very, very well aged. So these are on those categories. Okay. So they'll, they'll, they'll be very, very good, very well aged

53:52 Ruggles:
About it. Let me ask this question. Will they be an extension of a current brand or are you gonna introduce potentially a new label?

54:05 Caldwell:
One of them is an extension. I I I'll say that.

54:07 Ruggles:
Okay.

54:08 Caldwell:
And then one of them is kind of both at the same time.

54:12 Ruggles:
That's fair. That's fair. I don't want to get you in trouble, but are you excited about 'em?

54:18 Caldwell:
Very much so. And one of them, one of them, we actually had everything produced before the fire a couple years ago. Ah,

54:26 Ruggles:
Okay.

54:27 Caldwell:
And then we lost all of it. So that was like ready to go. Cigars were made, packaging everything there and then we lost it all on the fire. And then we didn't have production capacity to really add anything new for the next year. Okay. And then last year we were negotiating the sale and so we didn't wanna like front run stuff that should maybe wait or whatever. I mean there's some complexities to selling where, you know, you shouldn't launch new products and this type of stuff. So we kind of held some of the stuff tight.

54:59 Caldwell:
And then this year, you know, it's been an integration. So one of them has been a really long time coming. So I'm very excited to get that out and I think that'll do really, really well. And the other one we as well lost the packaging on it. So that was like next on deck. So these are two releases. One of 'em again was locked and loaded and lost in the fire and the other one was supposed to follow six months behind that. So these are these, by the time these come out, they're gonna be like three years a after due I guess.

55:26 Ruggles:
Alright. And you're gonna keep Cigar Chapel at the top of the list, right? On. Who's gonna get these?

55:31 Caldwell:
Absolutely. <laugh>. Absolutely.

55:33 Ruggles:
Gotta keep our, our, our boy John's super happy. It's interesting that he's actually just ex, he hasn't extended his humidor, but he is added some more rack space in his humidor. And I gotta tell you, I have not been to the amount of lounges I'm sure that you have or the amount of humidor and the retail brick and mortar that you have. But my god, the, the level of variety that John Pugh has put in his humidor here, the chapel is it's top shelf. It's, it's incredible the amount of brands that he has.

56:08 Caldwell:
Yeah, I agree. He is got a pretty good size humor, but he makes the space work in a much bigger way.

56:13 Ruggles:
That's it. Yeah, that's it. So in keeping with, you know, the Caldwell brand and all that it represents and it represents so many good things I am curious to learn. Is there a cigar brand that you look up to or that you admire or you could look at and go, that's a good brand, they make a good cigar, it's constructed well, their tobacco's good.

56:47 Ruggles:
I'm just curious

56:49 Caldwell:
If you had to Illusion.

56:51 Ruggles:
Illusion really?

56:52 Caldwell:
Yeah. Yeah.

56:54 Ruggles:
Why?

56:54 Caldwell:
I think I, I mean he's just got very consistent cigars. They taste very good and then to be a Nicaraguan brand but not be over the top Nicaraguan. 'cause so many, like I, I feel like, I mean he does have some stuff that's too strong for me, but it's a, a very refined Nicaraguan cigar. And I mean pretty much everything that I smoke of his, I can appreciate some of them I love, some of 'em I appreciate. But I think that's a killer, a killer brand on the product side for sure.

57:22 Ruggles:
I love his labels. I've recently got into Ellucian, the Maduro, the Hano, and I love 'em I app. So they're, they're delicious and they're really well constructed. And they're very consistent.

57:40 Caldwell:
Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.

57:43 Ruggles:
Interesting. Interesting. So how do you find your tobaccos? I mean your network has gotta be incredible. I mean you've gotta have a really great network of resources and people do people call you and say, Hey Robert, I gotta a barn. Like, I mean how do you find these, these rare tobaccos?

58:01 Caldwell:
Well, when, when we, when we started looking for tobacco, we looked like we, we basically, the two questions were like, what do you have that's not out in the market in a big way? So smaller crops, experimental crops, stuff like this, which was what we built our core brands on. Yeah. And then also, what do you have that's very well aged? Okay. So those were kind of our two first questions and we went out and found the tobacco. And then since then, I mean we still search for tobacco, but we have several vendors that we get stuff from. And some of them, some of them grow it, but then a lot of them are just like third party.

58:31 Caldwell:
They just source it and then they let us know when there's really cool stuff available. And then we do kind of put our feelers out when we're looking for stuff. And then you do get randomly a guy coming by bringing like a bag of leaves of whatever the fuck. Yeah. You know, so it's, it's kind of like all over the place. In the beginning I think that we were like soliciting much smaller quantities stuff <affirmative> that we could work with versus now. 'cause we've grown a lot so we didn't, you know, we need to make a certain amount of cigars now for it to make sense.

59:02 Caldwell:
Sure.

59:03 Ruggles:
Just the economics stuff,

59:04 Caldwell:
It the lost and found. Yeah, the lost and found manufactured stuff is smaller quantities. So we can use much smaller stuff or like limited editions or this type of stuff. But we have, our metrics have changed a little bit over the last 10 years in terms of what quantity we can actually use. 'cause in the beginning it was like, it doesn't matter how little of it you have, we can have a use for this because we weren't scared of making 7,000 cigars or whatever it was. And then now, I mean it's, it's very, if you do too little, you piss off too many. Sure.

59:34 Caldwell:
So we kind of stopped pursuing those things and then, you know, but like our 10 year anniversary that we just released, we made a very small, like 3000 or less than 3000 cigars. So that was one of those where we wanted to get something very, very old.

59:52 Caldwell:
Very, very special. Yeah. And, and quantity really didn't matter 'cause we wanted to make the best cigar that we could make regardless of quantity <affirmative>. And I'd say the other one that works still like that is Anastasia. Mm. But the numbers are big, you know, it's like our first Anastasia production was 70,000 cigars, but split between four sizes. And if you compare that to one of our core lines, it is very small, but the core lines that we have, we wanna make sure that we can continue to produce that. So we don't wanna have, you know, butter started available for three years and then gone.

60:24 Caldwell:
But then Anastasia, we don't care if it does, if it does burn out after three years, we just move on to the next one. So that's the only brand that we have that we've iterated. So we're on our, our third, we did one like very small production or on, on your project, but we're on our third like produced brand, big produced brand, which is the yellow label one. And then when that runs out, then we'll move on to the next blend. 'cause we will run out of that probably next year.

60:52 Ruggles:
Interesting. We had one of our, sorry, I don't know if you heard that phone in the background. We had a a, a chapel guy forget his phone yesterday. So that's what went off there. Matt <laugh>.

61:03 Caldwell:
No worries.

61:03 Ruggles:
Where where's that phone coming from? Our phones are, are done. So are you, are you, do you think you're gonna collaborate with Jeremy McDonald? We mentioned him earlier. Are you gonna do something with wildfire?

61:16 Caldwell:
Oh, probably not. You know, Jeremy, Jeremy's got his own way of doing things, I think. And then also it's not to his advantage to do that. It might be okay, you know, like short term maybe sell a bunch of cigars. But then long term in terms of him building his own brand, yes. Completely separate from us. It's not a, it's not a good long term decision for him. Maybe in the future if he gets much bigger. But I mean, I think through probably the first 10 years it doesn't make a lot of sense because he spent his first year or year and a half trying to disassociate himself from our brand because he was known as Jeremy from Caldwell.

61:55 Caldwell:
Now he's Jeremy from Wildfire. Right, right, right. So did Jeremy with Caldwell again, it might confuse bunch of people.

62:00 Ruggles:
Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Yeah,

62:02 Caldwell:
Yeah, yeah. So I mean I would, if he ever wanted to do it, I would do it. But we have, we have talked about stuff before and even like, I mean at some point we were talking about doing production for him or with him to make a cigar, you know, with us, but sold only as a wildfire. But then he thought that that was also confusing. So we kind of just stayed apart. Yeah. On, on that side.

62:28 Ruggles:
He needs to build his brand. Well I mean I'm just, I'm looking at a couple of the cigars John's got in his humidor, the Padron Fuente, which is, I haven't tried that stick yet, but it's supposed to be amazing. And then the LA Union with my father and Todd, I think those have been selling pretty good. But I love to see these brands collaborate and make something together and kind of do a stick for each other. And I don't know, it's pretty fun.

62:53 Caldwell:
Yep.

62:54 Ruggles:
Awesome. So where, how long you staying in Miami this time? And where are you going next

62:59 Caldwell:
One day? <laugh>. Okay. I arrived last night. I was in <inaudible> Columbia this weekend. And then I go tomorrow to Georgia for Thanksgiving with my family. Where

63:10 Ruggles:
In Georgia are you going

63:12 Caldwell:
Helen? It's called, it's like in the north part of Georgia. It's a state park. They have these little cabins that we, they've, they like for 25 years. Fuck, maybe 30 years, maybe 35 years. Yeah. Like aunts, uncles, cousins, everybody gets together and they rent all these cabins. Well that's, and then that's interesting. They just kind of like, I mean it's nice but it's fucking painful too, you know, so,

63:37 Ruggles:
Well I'm going to Savannah on Wednesday, so I'll be in Savannah, Georgia,

63:41 Caldwell:
But I wish I was gonna Savannah on Wednesday. <laugh>, I'm gonna like kind of the middle of nowhere, like Foothill Appalachia, nothing going on except family drama. Three day intense. And then I come back on Friday.

63:54 Ruggles:
On Friday. Well, what's your beverage of choice?

63:57 Caldwell:
I'm not a drinker, so Oh, alright. Drink. I drink water when I smoke. I'll drink a coffee before sometimes. Yes. But then I drink water when I smoke.

64:06 Ruggles:
Yeah. Well, all right, well I'll make sure and have lots of coffee, but

64:09 Caldwell:
On, but on the alcohol realm, yeah, I get taste stuff every once in a while. Sure. And my favorite thing in the world is am Maro. I dunno if you know a Maro, it's like a, I don, it's like an Italian bitter. You gotta, you gotta drink it. It's the best. How

64:22 Ruggles:
Do you drink it? It's like in a pair teeth, like just a little small GA glass or

64:26 Caldwell:
I think you're supposed to drink it like neat, like that buthuh with ice. It's, fuck it. Awesome. 'cause with the, and it's low, it's like 22% alcohol. Do they spell, like, how do you

64:36 Ruggles:
Spell, how do you spell it? Huh?

64:37 Caldwell:
A-M-A-R-O

64:39 Ruggles:
Amaro.

64:41 Caldwell:
Yeah. And there's different types of amro. So there's, there's like dry amro that have no sweetness at all. Okay. Like T bronca is, is a dry amaro, but that's very high alcohol. And then they have ammas that are much sweeter and then they have like really sweet ammas. But what they do in Italy is like, you'll have all the herbs from the region and floral botanicals. And then, so that little region will make an amaro using what's basically in the backyard. So you get different expressions based on different regions.

65:15 Caldwell:
It's not like a standard recipe. So there's thousands of different, tomorrows, A lot of 'em are very small and some of them are anus. Some of them are like with licorice, like the collab, tomorrows or like tons of licorice roots in it. You know, they have thyme, rosemary, oreg, all this shit. It's there. It's very special. So sometimes I'll sip that a little bit, but I'm not, I'm not a drinker.

65:36 Ruggles:
Oh, that's good.

65:37 Caldwell:
But if I were, I, I drink Amaro, I like bitter shit. So I drink like Amaro, it means bitter and Italian.

65:44 Ruggles:
Okay.

65:45 Caldwell:
But it's bitter and sweet. But I, if I drank, I drink like Amaro and bitter shit.

65:51 Ruggles:
I'm gonna have to check that out. Cyber

65:52 Caldwell:
Shit. Yeah. Yeah. There's not many you can find in the us. I always buy it for gifts for people because I think it's just the coolest thing ever. It's like, like, you know, gin is made with all these different botanicals. So if you imagine gin Yeah. But built on like a rum base or like a much darker base. Okay. But with sweetness I can't. So it's a, it's like a, a caramel colored laur I guess, or liquor or whatever. Okay. It can be sweet or it could be completely dry or somewhere in the middle. Super heavy botanicals.

66:26 Caldwell:
Hmm. It's very cool.

66:28 Ruggles:
Interesting. Interesting. Well I've learned this year that there's two things I cannot drink. And one of 'em is gin and the other is red wine. And for whatever reason, as I've gotten older, my body just does not like it. Do not drink that it, it does not respond well to gin or red wine. No idea why. But I do like a good chardonnay and I do like a good whiskey. But if you come to bend next summer, I'm gonna have to figure out how to get some of the amoura.

66:56 Caldwell:
Okay. A watered down Italian Jagermeister.

67:01 Ruggles:
Oh.

67:01 Caldwell:
It's kind of like a category of, of like, but it's much smoother.

67:06 Ruggles:
Okay. 'cause you say Jagermeister and you see my reaction. Like, oh,

67:10 Caldwell:
The reason I say that is Jagermeister is all botanical based. It's dark, but it's much more syrupy. Yeah. I mean it's much more intense. But Jagermeister was built as, as a medicine. It wasn't built as like a, like an alcohol drink. It was built for digestion. Ah. And amaros also built for digestion. That's why all the botanicals are in

67:29 Ruggles:
Almost like a lemon cello.

67:30 Caldwell:
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like after dinner in Italy they'll ask you, do you want like after dinner drink is a ma or lemon cello. Yeah. But a Maro is fucking amazing. And you can get like, the spectrum is very broad,

67:44 Ruggles:
Broad portfolio

67:45 Caldwell:
Versus dry and very, very like fruity versus not fruity. Very herbal. Not herbal. So you can kind of experiment.

67:53 Ruggles:
Interesting.

67:54 Caldwell:
There's a brand they sell here called No Nino, N-O-N-I-N-O. Which is I think, the best one that they sell here. And then there's, there's, there's Anmar that they make out of artichokes here. That, that they sell here.

68:08 Ruggles:
They wait, say that again? They make it look,

68:11 Caldwell:
It's made not artichoke. Yeah.

68:13 Ruggles:
That, that was not on my bingo card.

68:16 Caldwell:
Lemme see what it's called real quick. If I,

68:19 Ruggles:
I've never heard, have you heard, have you heard of a liquor made out of artichokes? I have never heard that, but I

68:28 Caldwell:
<laugh>. Yeah. It's a type of a moral

68:30 Ruggles:
Interesting. It's

68:31 Caldwell:
Called snar. CYNA.

68:34 Ruggles:
Snar. Amro made out of art joke. That would, well I can't quite see

68:40 Caldwell:
It. Where the fuck is the camera?

68:40 Ruggles:
That's a, oh there it issar.

68:43 Caldwell:
That's an Amaro.

68:45 Ruggles:
It is.

68:45 Caldwell:
That you can buy, like, you can probably get that at total one because they use it as a, as a like a, you know, a lot of these like mixology places. Ciar.

68:55 Ruggles:
Interesting. Okay. This thought just occurred to me. 'cause as you said, <laugh>, you're going to Georgia for Thanksgiving. That's interesting. I'm going to Georgia for Thanksgiving. Have you ever been to Greece?

69:08 Caldwell:
No. I'd like to go. I keep planning to go, but I haven't been. You

69:13 Ruggles:
Should go and you should go in late June of next year

69:18 Caldwell:
Because you're gonna be there. Maybe we'll come over <laugh>. My wife keeps like pushing me. The problem is from Miami, it's, it's not that easy to get to. Meaning that there's no direct flights and that, well maybe there's fucking is, but there's not. I fly only like long world.

69:33 Ruggles:
So wait a

69:34 Caldwell:
Minute, you then from Madrid, they're really bad flights. It's like you leave at fucking midnight and you land at three in the morning happens.

69:40 Ruggles:
Yeah. Well I'm coming from Bend, Oregon, so I think I can top you on that. Yeah.

69:44 Caldwell:
<laugh>.

69:46 Ruggles:
But yeah,

69:46 Caldwell:
I'm sure. Well,

69:47 Ruggles:
I'll send you a couple links because last year or this year I went to Edra, which is spelled YDRA. It's like Hydra, H-Y-D-R-A. But it's called Ra. That was great. But my wife actually loves to go to Hawky and that's spelled like chalky. C-H-A-L-K-I. But you pronounce it Hawkey. And apparently it's, it's just absolute paradise. The water in Greece is unbelievable. You get in the ocean, you don't do anything.

70:19 Ruggles:
You just, Bob, it's, it's so salt filled you, you just bob in the ocean. That's awesome. And it, it's like an elixir of youth. It's absolutely incredible. Yeah. So a little pro tip for you. Maybe think late June you should go to Greece. <laugh>.

70:37 Caldwell:
Sounds good. No, my wife's been on me about that for like a year and a half.

70:41 Ruggles:
Well, she sounds smart.

70:43 Caldwell:
Yeah, I was actually gonna do my investor visa on Greece, but I don't speak Greek and I speak Spanish fluently. So.

70:51 Ruggles:
Well, here's all Justin.

70:53 Caldwell:
I, it just seems easier.

70:54 Ruggles:
Here's all I'll say. I would, I would be very eyes wide open and trust your gut on doing any kind of business in Greece. Yeah. You can look it up on your own.

71:04 Caldwell:
Well you can say the same for all the Mediterranean. Yeah, that's fair.

71:07 Ruggles:
Yeah, that's fair. They're all, yeah, that's fair.

71:09 Caldwell:
Yeah, that's fair. You need a good lawyer.

71:12 Ruggles:
You do. That's what I do. Do need a good lawyer. So I'm gonna switch gears and then maybe we will wind this down. So, what'd you say? Nine years married, you guys gonna have kids?

71:24 Caldwell:
Never.

71:25 Ruggles:
It's good. Never, ever. That you're resolute in that it's 'cause like if it's the maybe that's, that's not a good space. No,

71:33 Caldwell:
I check, but I like, I, I do a pulse check every January. 'cause my wife's 10 years younger than me. And like, women change their mind. And especially because a lot of the, my like my girlfriends my age are like, like one of my best friends had a child at like 39. She was never gonna have a kid. And then, so like every January I'm like, I I bring up the conversation. 'cause if she ever wanted to have one, I wouldn't take that from her. But then every, every January she's like, fucking disgusting. Don't ever mention that to me again.

72:03 Caldwell:
But every year I bring it up like just checking. She's like, nope. So, but I think

72:08 Ruggles:
That that's prudent, you know, just do do the level set. Just make sure you're aligned.

72:13 Caldwell:
Yeah. I mean I, I think like I, 'cause we were both resolute on never having children and then so if, if she decided at one point that she did want to have children, but she was scared to bring it up to me and then she spent the rest of her life wishing that she would've, and then she never voiced it to me because she knew I'm opposed to it. I think it's really bad. So my conversations are always like, I'm happy to, like, if you want a kid we can like, no problem. Like I like, 'cause I, I don't want them, but if I had one, I I I would be fine with it. Yeah.

72:43 Caldwell:
So I just want to make sure that, you know, it's like, I don't know, it's like if you had a kid and it's like, you know, if there's ever a problem like come to dad. It's like with a wife, it's like, if you ever change your mind, I want you to know like, I mean, so we, we actually have like a conversation, probably 10 minute conversation every January about

73:02 Ruggles:
<laugh>.

73:03 Caldwell:
All the reasons she doesn't want to, but the door's open all the time that, you know,

73:08 Ruggles:
Because those maternal, because

73:09 Caldwell:
I just think it'd be a really bad thing if I <affirmative> if I put her in the corner where she felt like she could never have one because she knows I don't want them because she doesn't want 'em either. But things change.

73:19 Ruggles:
I was just gonna say those maternal instincts, those could change like a, when I mean it it, you just don't know.

73:25 Caldwell:
No. And our dream is actually to slow down enough to get animals. And I mean we, like, we both prefer animals to human beings. Okay. <laugh>. And we'd love to have, you know, I don't know like, like I, I don't know where where we end up, but whenever we know where we're kind of gonna like put down roots. Sure. I think would be to try to get some type of like, you know, if you're in a city then like an hour away you can get a rural property and you get fucking, you know, you rescue a bunch of animals and you have a bunch of dogs and horses that are old.

74:00 Caldwell:
She'd love to do that. She'd love to rescue a bunch of animals.

74:05 Ruggles:
Other them. Well, have you ever thought about, you know, doing a kind of a two in one shot doing animals and, and growing your own tobacco down south?

74:17 Caldwell:
No. I don't think I could ever live in, in any country that produces tobacco in a, in a, in a like, I mean I was obviously the US we produce tobacco, but I mean yeah, Dr. Nicaragua ura. I I would never live there.

74:31 Ruggles:
No.

74:34 Caldwell:
I might feel differently had I not grown up in Miami.

74:37 Ruggles:
Yeah, you have <laugh>, you've got some strong feelings on Miami. I've actually, of all places I've been, I've never been to Miami. I've been through the Miami airport, but that's not Miami.

74:48 Caldwell:
Well, and it's funny 'cause it's like, you know, like a lot of Americans, they go to Latin America and I, parts of Latin America are very amazing. Like Bo like Columbia is a fucking amazing country. I go there often. I have business partners, tons of friends my whole life. My friends have always been Colombian. But I mean, you go to Central America or you go to, you know, Dr and it's like, you know, like you, there's nothing exotic about it to me. I mean, okay, like they have mountains and beach and like some natural beauty. It's all filled with fucking garbage.

75:19 Caldwell:
Like there's trash everywhere. That really bothers me. But then like culturally, like if you wanna experience Dominican culture, like drive 30 blocks that way and it looks just like Dominican Republic, you know? Yeah. It's like, so I don't know. I mean it just, I don't know. Not not nowhere. I like if you gave me a mansion in Dominican Republic to live in for free, I wouldn't,

75:45 Ruggles:
I wouldn't do it. That'd be different. Oh, you wouldn't do it? What kind?

75:50 Caldwell:
No, there's, there's, there's, there's one area that's called Casa de Compo where like the bushes have a retreat that's kind of like, it's in Dr but it's not really Dominican Republic. It's a country club. Like there maybe. But I

76:04 Ruggles:
Mean, do you know who Juan Lugo is with Don Dote cigars?

76:08 Caldwell:
I've heard, I've heard the name, but no.

76:10 Ruggles:
Well, funny enough, he lives in Bend and this guy is awesome. You'd like Juan, he's got a great story. He's got a pretty amazing family legacy in the dr which is, which is pretty awesome. Alright, I think I want to close this out and it seems very appropriate for me to ask this question. Given what you've done with Caldwell on the marketing branding front, being the marketing branding guy that you are, let's, I wanna do a little exercise. So let's just say that New York University Stern School of Business called you and said, Hey Robert, we'd love for you to come in and do a couple classes with our business students on branding and marketing.

76:54 Ruggles:
What would you tell those kids? 'cause they're still kids. What would you discuss with these kids trying to learn branding and marketing? What wisdom could you impart?

77:06 Caldwell:
You know, so I didn't know I was, was good at this shit until I was, if that makes any sense. Like, I never, I never had, I never studied branding or marketing. I never, like I never really paid attention. And then about 15 years ago, I became very good friends with an artist, but he's not just an artist, he's a fucking amazing artist. And artists have a very unique way of having perspective. They see things that we don't see. Mm. And so I'd be walking down the street with this guy and he'd take a picture of something and I'm like, what are you taking a picture of?

77:38 Caldwell:
And he's like, well, look at the combination of the colors that they used. It's perfect. I'm like, okay. Then walk down the street a little farther and then you'd see like, he'd take a picture of something else.

77:48 Caldwell:
I'm like, what's what he, he's like, I love the font <laugh>. So, and I'm like, yeah, I mean, it's a good font. But the more time I spent with him and the more time I saw him appreciating different things that like we just fell naked on my eye, like maybe, yeah, it looks good, but I don't know why. I don't know why that's special. I don't know why it's calling my attention, spending a lot of time with him and then a couple other friends that are the same way, like kind of shifted the way that I see things. And then I started following the behavior. So I started like scrapbooking shit that I thought was cool that I'd see and paying attention to fonts and colors or like listening to songs and then something pops in my head from the song.

78:26 Caldwell:
And so my my, my way of seeing things like my eyes, sorry, it was fucking motorcycle, my eyes got very wide open to seeing and appreciating and understanding the way that people put things together that made us attracted to them.

78:44 Caldwell:
And so I think if you're starting trying to create something from zero as like a student, maybe it's not the way, same way as just like understanding how to interpret things that you see with your eyes that understand why you appreciate. And so the perspective that I have, like with branding and marketing and stuff is like a very street level kind of education that came to me largely from this association, but it, it caused me to understand what worked and why it worked, understanding why I was attracted to it, but from understanding why he thought it was interesting and explaining it to me.

79:19 Caldwell:
So now, I mean so much of what I do and like I'll see things all the time and then now I'm that guy. So I'll see something and then I'll take a picture of it and somebody asks me and then I explain to them, ah, but I think it's just like eyes wide open.

79:33 Caldwell:
Like what is it about something that makes us attracted to it? You know? And I think like the best, one of the best examples of this is like, you know, perfume industry perfumes are sold only on packaging and nobody really gives a fuck about the bottle because when you walk through a fragrance department at a store, the bottles might or might not be out, but what's out is the box that it comes in. And then, so what's, what is it about that box that's so attractive and well, it's the color palette that they use, like the combination of colors plus the font of what they use to get us attracted to it to wanna purchase it without smelling it or seeing what's inside.

80:11 Caldwell:
And that's exactly, I mean, kind of like what, what we do with cigars, like we wanna make somebody attracted enough to a product that they want to try it, having not smelled it or tasted or know nothing about it, just draw them to it. So I mean, I guess my advice would be just, you know, keep your, keep your receivers open, you know, and, and what's around you. I mean, you don't, I don't think you need to study anything. You just need to absorb what's already out there.

80:38 Ruggles:
Okay. That's fascinating. My brain's going in so many different directions. I'll never be able to look at a perfume ad the same way again. That, that's a really good analogy. It kind of makes me think of Steve Jobs when he was studying fonts in calligraphy at Reed College. Like that's how we got his start in thinking about how to design a computer and that the design of that, the aesthetics and what people see had so much more importance than maybe even to the function of it.

81:09 Ruggles:
Obviously it needs to work. You need a perfume to smell good for you to buy a second bottle. You need a cigar to be delicious and have a good burn for you to buy a second cigar. But to start the first purchase, it's gotta look good and it's gotta draw. It has to turn something in you to go. That's interesting.

81:29 Caldwell:
Yep.

81:31 Ruggles:
Huh, I like that. That's good food for

81:35 Caldwell:
Thought. I, you know, I always, I always like correlate it to attraction, you know, like nobody, like I don't walk down a street and see a girl and think she's interesting and smart and intelligent and educated and caring. You walk down the street and you're like, man, that girl looks good. And the girl, it doesn't have to be a beautiful girl. It could be a girl that's just very well dressed. Yes. You know, a girl that's well put together or a guy or whatever it is. Yeah. But there's, there's something that wants to get you to the next step and then there's something that has to keep you coming back.

82:06 Caldwell:
So to me, like, you know, if you're marketing a product, you, you get people's awareness, branding a product makes them wanna try it. But then you have to have the, the, the actual experience be fully well-rounded and that they appreciate the flavor of what you did or whatever to get them to come back to the table because if not, you just kind of sold air.

82:28 Ruggles:
Okay. That's really good. I think we just gave a complete summary of branding and marketing in about three minutes. <laugh>. That was pretty good. Robert, we've been all over the place. I really like our conversation. Thank you so much for spending some time and energy with our time today.

82:48 Caldwell:
My pleasure.

82:49 Ruggles:
Awesome. Well I know, thanks for having me. Yeah, you're welcome. I know I'll see you in New Orleans. I'll be there. And I'm looking forward to the two, two new sticks that Caldwell's gonna be releasing. Super excited about that. By the way, this mofo is just smoking so good. I'm getting into that last third, which apparently has a little kick to it. So I'm pretty excited about that. And have a great night in Miami tonight. And I'll just say in general, save travels wherever you go.

83:21 Caldwell:
Thank you. Likewise.