Cigar Culture Interview: Amanda Micallef – Part 3

This is the third and final part of our interview with Amanda Micallef, Vice President of Marketing at Micallef Cigars. If you haven’t had a chance to read the first installment, you can check that out here.

SMOKE INN: Can you tell us about the Cigar Tasting Passport and where that fits in?

MICALLEF: So, the Micallef Cigar Tasting Passport is a sort of game, if you will. The idea stemmed from people trying the entire Micallef portfolio. I was new to the cigar industry 3 years ago and one of the things that I found really interesting and unique was how many people saved bands. We really want to encourage people to try the whole portfolio and I liked the idea of giving people a place to put their bands and jot down their thoughts. We set up a contest in which people filled out their passport, included their bands and then had the option to write down where they were when they were smoking, some flavor notes and take pictures and send them in. Each passport gets entered into a drawing and the prizes are gift certificates from any of our brick-and-mortar stores. It’s cool and it end also diverted the traditional sort of marketing spend. We paused some traditional print ads and things like that and put that money into this program instead. As a result, now we’re able to spend more dollars with the brick-and-mortar shops which is something that we’re really proud of.

I think it’s really important that we invest in these brick-and-mortar cigar shops, or there will be no cigar industry. You’ll have nowhere to go in and buy and smoke cigars. People will smoke if they’re only able to smoke at home. So, I love that we were able to use some of our marketing spend to invest in this and supporting those small businesses. [The Tasting Passports] created this whole ecosystem that we love. The thing that I wasn’t expecting that has been such an awesome addition was that so many people filled out the flavor notes and exactly what size and where they were when they were smoking. That information has been awesome from a company standpoint. It gives us a more personal connection, to have a better understanding of where people are smoking what they’re choosing to smoke depending on where they’re smoking and then what they think about each cigar has really provided us with a with a whole plethora of added information that I wasn’t really anticipating.

SMOKE INN: That’s great, I think it’s another unique aspect of Micallef Cigars as a brand too, it sort of helps solidify that tight relationship with the customer you’re wanting to forge, right?

MICALLEF: Yes, exactly. The idea of all of these things is to keep people engaged so we can learn from each other and stay connected.

SMOKE INN: What’s something that you want people to know about the Micallef brand that might surprise them?

MICALLEF: I love this question. You know, when you are part of the brand it’s really hard sometimes to know what people don’t know about us. But one of the things that I’ve been surprised more people don’t know is that Micallef has its own factory in Estelí [Nicaragua]. All of our legacy cigars are blended by master blenders down at the factory and it’s something that we’re really proud of. There’s certainly a lot of great brands that don’t manufacture their own cigars. So, I think that for especially for a young company, the fact that we both manufacture and are the sole U.S. distributor is significant.

SMOKE INN: That was something that surprised me when I first started learning more about cigars. The fact that so many companies don’t necessarily manufacture all of their cigars and that the sources of tobacco are so diversified. Does Micallef source all their tobacco in Nicaragua where the factory is?

MICALLEF: So, we don’t own fields, but we do control from seed to harvest. The Gomez Sanchez family is a Cuban family, so our cigars are very much in keep with Cuban tradition, using Habano and Cuban tobaccos. The Gomez Sanchez family has also been close with the family in the San Andreas Valley in Mexico, which grows much of our tobacco, for generations. A great deal of our cigar, in fact, comes from one farmer in the San Andreas Valley, we contract both of his fields. Then we also contract fields just outside Estelí near our factor and we use some Dominican tobacco and Honduran tobacco, depending on precisely what we’re trying to create.

SMOKE INN: It all ends up in your factory though?

MICALLEF: Yes, fermentation, aging, production all happens in our in our factory in Nicaragua. Over the last 5 years or so we’ve reached a scale and rhythm. We know the farmers we work with, there are established relationships. So it’s consistent and predictable, which is nice.

SMOKE INN: What are you most proud of when it comes to the Micallef Cigars brand?

MICALLEF: That we are very much a family-oriented brand. I say that for several reasons. The Micallef family has partnered with the Gomez-Sanchez family in cigar making. We work together closely and we also to really focus on the families at the factory that work for us as well. We are a brick-and-mortar first cigar brand. What we mean by that is, we work with real cigar shops. Of course, our cigars are available online through shops that also have brick-and-mortar presence. But we don’t work with any of the big commercial, e-commerce only sites. The vast majority of the cigar shops we work with are family owned, like Smoke Inn. So, that’s really what we what we’re about. What we stand for is is working with family-owned businesses and supporting the brick-and-mortar shops that are providing people a place to experience cigars.

SMOKE INN: It seems like that family business connection and the atmosphere a cigar shop and lounge provides is an important part of cigar culture, in a way that’s different from most consumer goods. People appreciate the consistency and respect to tradition.

MICALLEF: Absolutely. Obviously are some big companies involved in the cigar space but on the ground it’s a lot of family-owned businesses in the premium cigar space that people go to. We like that and we want to help see it continue.

SMOKE INN: That’s really nice to hear! So, what’s your favorite cigar and drink pairing?

MICALLEF: Ah…The Migdalia Special Edition and bourbon neat!

SMOKE INN: Are you going to The Great Smoke?

MICALLEF: Oh yes, we’ll be there. It’s a great event, both from the consumer perspective, but also from a brand perspective. The team at Smoke Inn does a fantastic job putting it on. It is without question the easiest event for us to attend. They make it so simple and it’s a good time.

SMOKE INN: Any new products on the horizon that you want to tell us about?

MICALLEF: New products, yes, but I’m not going to tell you about them [laughs]. Actually there is something… We’re going to release a product at The Great Smoke which has never been available before. So keep an eye out for what we drop at The Great Smoke. We have a few other interesting things lined up for the year ahead and everything is coming out in the first half of the year. So..soon!

SMOKE INN: Excellent. Before we wrap up, is there anything else you’d like Smoke Inn readers to know about you or your brand?

MICALLEF: At the end of the day, the message we most want to share is that we’re a brick-and-mortar first brand. It’s not really about us alone. We want anybody reading to know how important it is to buy cigars from these brick-and-mortar cigar shops and when you buy online, order from these family-owned shops that honor the prices and the traditions of the manufacturers. We need to support them so that in a decade we still have these shops and lounges to go to. They are on the front lines fighting a lot of regulation and taxes, so they need our support. Historically, where consumers choose to spend their dollars really will matter.

SMOKE INN: Yes, there’s something to be said about people getting together to smoke. The social aspect of cigar smoking is so important, isn’t it?

MICALLEF: Yes, and COVID caused so many things to be put on hold or postponed. But that has also helped give rise to a more robust digital or virtual community now which I think is awesome. Now when you have events like The Great Smoke, you’ll have people who already know each other from online, now meeting in person. Sometimes they’re meeting for the first time, for others it’s a sort of reunion every year. It’s a great event. It’s really, really fun to see people getting together to smoke who don’t normally get to spend time together in person. It’s really special.

SMOKE INN: Great, that’s all we had for questions. Thank you so much for giving us so much of your time. We look forward to seeing you at The Great Smoke in March!

MICALLEF: Of course! I appreciate the thoughtfulness around your questions. They were a lot of fun to answer and and you went places that not everyone goes. So, thank you too!

Smoke Inn is Your Cigar Shop

We hope you enjoyed the third and final segment of our conversation with Amanda Micallef. We greatly appreciate the time she took out of her busy schedule in managing marketing for two separate companies to speak with us. Micallef Cigars is a really unique brand putting out some fantastic product. We heartily recommend you get yourself a Micallef Cigar Tasting Passport right here and make your way through their superb portfolio. You might start your tour with the Micallef Collectors Edition or Amanda’s favorite, the Migdalia Special Edition.

And, as always, if you’re local or happen to be visiting South Florida, be sure to reward yourself with a visit to one of the country’s best cigar shops in person. We’d love to see you.

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Cigar Culture Interview: Amanda Micallef – Part 3