Recently Robert Caldwell of Caldwell Cigars and Lost & Found Cigars was here with us to chat about Lost & Found's latest release: The Layover, a compact smoke tailored for travel days.

[Tyler Caldwell]: Let's talk about The Layover. I like that the box here says, "Life is the little things." You get a lot of cigar in a little package. What is the story behind The Layover?

The Layover's Inspiration

[Robert Caldwell]: I like small cigars by nature, with small ring gauges. In my time traveling and in weather where you don't want to be inside too much, I was leaning toward smoking lots of Manzanitas from our collection, and then I started using longer cigars of ours and chopped off a couple inches. You've probably seen me do that. I started taking Churchills or Coronas and cutting off an inch, inch and a half, because I was looking for a bigger cigar experience outside of what is naturally a smaller cigar. Then I came up with an idea: Why don't I develop a cigar that gives you a really nice, big cigar experience, but made for a shorter amount of time to be smoked?

We started working on this blend about three years ago, playing awhile with the project. I think it's a very good solution for people like me or for people that want to have that big cigar experience in a shorter amount of time. This is probably my favorite cigar we've released in the last year and a half, maybe two years. It hits my profile in every way. It's medium in body, it's creamy rich, and it's got a fair amount of spice, but not too much. It's a nice smoking cigar. It usually takes me about an hour and 15 minutes to smoke it. I'm a slow smoker, but a lot of guys are saying 45 minutes to an hour.

[TC]: Sure. I would probably be that guy because I am the opposite; I smoke cigars very quickly. What I do like about this is the flavor profile. The retrohale on this just reminds me of that corn chip flavor profile, which is very unique.

[RC]: I'm not sure what component gives it that flavor. I actually didn't identify that before, but I agree with you. I do notice some of those elements sometimes in other cigars. They've never been described as that flavor, but a lot of guys will say something like Frosted Flakes, and a corn cereal element, that they are getting sometimes out of tobacco.

The Layover's Components & Negrito Tobacco

[TC]: What is this cigar comprised of?

[RC]: The Layover has a Dominican Negrito Añejado wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, and filler tobacco from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.

This is the second cigar that we've used Negrito on in production. We started using Negrito actually far before I started this project, and even before I had the Wynwood Cigar Factory, I was given that tobacco to smoke in pure form and I fell in love. The first project that we did, of course, was The King is Dead. Then, from then to now, I never used it on another project.

It's a tobacco that I find very enchanting. It affords a very different profile, I think, than other tobaccos. The seeds were commercially cultivated and the tobacco was grown in the Dominican Republic, and then it just fell out of favor over the course of time. When we found the leaf, it was being grown originally as a test crop. It wasn't used at all commercially, and as I mentioned, it took a very long time to use it. It's much easier to use solely for wrappers, which is what it's mainly grown for, but on The King is Dead we also incorporated it into the fillers, so you get a much stronger Negrito profile on that cigar.

The Negrito utilized in The Layover has been aged a lot longer, so it has a different profile compared to The King is Dead. You'll notice it's a softer smoke than The King is Dead, and it's got a little bit more oomph. It's medium but it's got a really long, deep flavor, which is very nice. The Negrito allows the cigar to be a bigger-bodied experience without having so much of the spice that you have on other cigars that are that rich.

Negrito is a beautiful tobacco. It's very finicky and I have a love-hate relationship with it. I hated it because I could do nothing with it at first. Then, when we started making cigars with it, originally I was very satisfied with The King is Dead, but I feel like over time that's gotten to be a much better cigar than it was and that's all due to the way that we processed the tobacco in the beginning. The Negrito that we were using was lighter in color, not by leaf selection or anything, but due to fermentation, and now we've added additional fermentation processes to the Negrito that we use. We get a much richer, deeper color, which also translates in the flavor.

Box Press Cigar

[TC]: The Layover is a 4.25' x 54 box-pressed cigar. Was there any particular reason why you chose the box press over a regular vitola?

[RC]: This is a travel cigar, my friend. Have you ever been on a boat and tried to put a round cigar on the corner of a table? It doesn't work. It rolls right off. So we chose that shape to keep it from rolling off the table.

The real answer to the question is that I'm not a big ring gauge guy, but to be able to deliver the big cigar experience, I felt like I needed a bigger cigar, just shorter, and so for my palate in particular, this is a 54 box press, which translates to something around a 48 to 50 mouthfeel on the ring gauge.

[TC]: I would probably be in that same boat. I generally gravitate toward smaller ring gauges myself. With the box press, I feel like it definitely combines and marinates the flavor a little bit more, especially with this blend. This is a beautiful cigar. It works out really well. I can definitely get the meaning behind it and see why it's perfect for the traveler and everything like that. The ash on this thing is burning wonderfully.

Discover The Layover by Lost & Found

[TC]: Is The Layover something that's gonna be added to Lost & Found's core line?

[RC]: We originally launched this size, but it's a multi-part series, so we will be releasing additional sizes one at a time. It'll take us a little while to get 'em all out. When we release the next one, this one obviously won't be around anymore, and then hopefully at the end of the series, we'll keep it as a small collection of regular, mainstay cigars.

[TC]: If you guys are out on your travels or if you're just pressed for time, and you need something that's a delicious, big-bodied experience, check out The Layover by Lost & Found, and let us know what you think.