I’ve worked with great brands over my career run by terrible people. I’ve also formed lasting friendships with great sales people who’ve worked for terrible brands. That being said, one of the most satisfying and warming feelings one can experience in business comes when an absolutely fantastic company hires one of your absolute favorite people and you get to work together on a project that absolutely inspires you.
Lucky for me, that all-encompassing, soul-inspiring experience happened this past Tuesday when my longtime friend Matt Freerks flew down from Seattle to present La Palina Cigars to Mission: a brand revived by CBS heir Bill Paley in 2010, originally created in Chicago by his grandfather in the mid-1800s.
Matt and I first met in Seattle six years ago, as part of the Westland Distillery launch, back when it was still owned by the Lamb family. As their director of sales, Matt was one of the architects of Westland’s success and a driver of the business that eventually caught Remy Cointreau’s attention. We got along so well that we’ve kept in touch ever since. What I didn’t know about Matt until recently was that he’s long been a cigar aficionado, hence why a few of his friends recently asked him to come aboard at La Palina as the new VP of sales.
As two people who care deeply about food, drink, style, and quality of life, I was very excited to learn about Matt’s latest project and prepared myself for an afternoon of both intense education and utter debauchery.
When La Palina originally started in the 19th century, the cigars were expensive and manufactured in the Bahamas. Today, many of the cigars are made at Miami's famed El Titan de Bronze factory, using tobacco from Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. Having spent the last six months dedicating myself to cigar knowledge and appreciation, I can say with certainty that I have yet to find a lineup that, from top to bottom, has impressed me like La Palina. To quote the brand’s website: “The draw is effortless, the burn even, the blends smooth and well-rounded, the construction flawless: it’s an unforgettable cigar experience for the discerning palate.”
Or, to quote Matt: “It’s a ten dollar vacation.”
Over the years, I have trained my mouth to take a beating. I’ve tasted 300+ tannic, young Bordeaux wines over the course of an afternoon. I’ve powered through 100+ samples of cask strength whisky, day after day, on numerous trips to Kentucky and Scotland. What I had never done before, however, was smoke ten cigars back-to-back.
Granted, not the entire cigar, but portions of stick, after stick, after stick, after stick. As difficult as it was, I think the side-by-side experience is a necessary one in order to truly understand the make-up of each cigar; especially since we deconstructed a number of La Palina sticks, comparing them to similarly-priced competitors as we removed the inner guts. It was something to see for my own eyes the long filler in every single La Palina cigar, even the most value-oriented labels, compared to some of the poor representations of cheap seco inside other brands.
When you sample that many cigars in one sitting, however; both the mouth and stomach crave sustenance. Matt and I also share a love for America’s great throwback steakhouses, having once bonded over our mutual adoration for the Golden Steer in Las Vegas. Hence, we headed down the street from my backyard over to the Smoke House in Burbank for gin martinis and prime rib.
I’ll have a full breakdown of La Palina once the cigars hit the store, alongs with all the specs. I’m very, very, very excited for everyone to try them.
(Also check out my colleague Steven Guerrero’s video review of La Palina here)
-David Driscoll
