For twenty years, I lived in Los Angeles, making movies and building a digital marketing company. Then I decided to move home to Texas and join our family businesses. I lead our marketing efforts in long-standing companies. I am very familiar with them, but for a single exception, a three-year-old cigar company, Micallef Cigars. 

  

Many friends call me a foodie. I drink wine and whiskey. I enjoy both a food truck taco and a Michelin star restaurant.

 

But Cigars? I wasn't so sure it was for me. 

  

So many questions were bouncing around my mind… 

  

Would I like how cigars tasted? 

Would they make me cough or sick?  

What would I talk about with other cigar smokers? 

Are they going to engage me at all?  

Is my hair going to smell like smoke?  

Are all my clothes going to smell too?  

How do I even light the damn thing?  

Hell, what end do I light? Or cut? 

​

I'll try most things once. I smoked a few cigars and learned how to cut and light (you cut the head and light the foot). It didn't feel natural. In fact, at first, it was downright awkward. To put it bluntly, I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. 

​

And then something changed.

 

I was a few cigars into my cigar exploration. I didn't even notice at first. I was smoking and talking. About a third of the way through, my cigar hit me and was good, and I felt good. The conversation flowed, and the cigar no longer felt like an awkward thing in my hand.