I recently had the chance to sit with a very close friend of mine, Jonathan Fiant of J. London Cigars to chat about the man behind the cigars and his background in the industry as a cigar collector turned brand owner.

[Tyler Caldwell]: Let's tell the folks here what J. London is. Where does J. London come from? What's the background?

J. London Background

[Jonathan Fiant]: J. London comes about from my years in the industry of treasure hunting, collecting, and my desire to have something unique and different. It's a culmination of that.

I was going to London twice a year for rare cigar options when I had a shop inside of an exotic car club. I fell in love with the city of London, the culture, and the cigar community over there, combined with the history. I used to be a sports car collector, so I always like to find something unique or different. Whatever I do, if I'm going to put my name on it, I want it to be something special. It's something I have to be proud of because it represents me.

[TC]: In your treasure hunting for rare cigars, how many older '70s and '80s Davidoff Cubans did you get your hands on?

[JF]: I did get my hands on a few boxes of Davidoff Cubans, but I had cigars as far back as 1901.

[TC]: Oh, wow.

[JF]: I dealt in historical-level cigars, such as the year when Teddy Roosevelt became President of the United States. Obviously he was a cigar smoker, Rough Riders, so there's all that connection. I was chasing history. I had cigars from Nazi Germany with the Third Reich tax stamp on them. Obviously, that was a horrible time in the world, but it's still a part of mankind's history. It was never boring. And every time I smoked something, I was literally smoking a piece of history. That was just one of my inspirations.

[TC]: That's really cool, man. In between there and creating the cigar brand of J. London, what got you into the idea of wanting to start a cigar company?

[JF]: I had my own shop inside the exotic car club, but before that I'd also run a cigar shop in Houston, Texas. I managed it, consulted in the industry, and other tasks. Then I got an opportunity: the owners of a car club approached me and they were building out this 12,000 square foot social arm. Three bars and a restaurant with an executive chef.

[TC]: Was this also in Houston?

[JF]: Houston as well, so they built out a little closet for me, and I stocked it with some of the rarest cigars in the world and was featured in the cigar journal because of it, but I wasn't necessarily looking to do my own cigar line, and then people just kept after me because I kept pairing their palates so well.

For years they thought I should have my own cigar, and then finally, I was like, if I am going to do it — because I know the battle, it takes so much work, sacrifice, traveling, and a ridiculous amount of money to really do it right — I needed to work with the right people, people that I already had belief in or faith in what they produced.

George Rodriguez of Rodrigo Cigars happened to come into the private club through Char, who owns En Fuego Cigars in Las Vegas. They were working together at the time. I had heard of Rodrigo Cigars, a small boutique company that I knew was made by William Ventura. I got to know George, who is a great guy. And I was like, alright, if I'm going to do this, George, I'll pay for you to take me down. I want all the right introductions to the right family. I already had respect for William. He connected us, and the rest is history. We're coming up on 10 years here.

[TC]: Yeah. That's crazy, man.

Gold Series

What was the experience like creating your first blend? Did you already have something in mind?

[JF]: I never had a clear vision of what I wanted in regards to the cigar other than that first blend, which made the process challenging for creating future blends.

I now have some clear visions of certain things I'm going after. But for that one, I wanted something that was elegant, creamy, and smooth. I wanted it to be like an old-school Davidoff, something that you could smoke that was almost like smoking a vintage, aged cigar. Something that was that level of smoothness. Soft and velvety on the palate; that's the Gold Series.

Even though I had that vision of what I wanted, it still took six months for us to get it right. The first week when I was down there with them, I just took down a bunch of different cigars, and I wanted to get to know William's palate and have him get to know my palate. Unfortunately, I'm not fluent in Spanish, but regardless, every master blender has a different way they process or articulate something like flavor notes. I wanted to make sure that we were on the same page for communication.

We were all smoking the same cigars. Henderson Ventura, the younger son who has ADVentura Cigars, was kind enough to translate for us, and it all worked out. We did that at the end of the first week.

I told William I wanted a double wrapper, which was something that way back in the day Davidoff had done on some of their cigars, so this would have been a time when William was actually working at Davidoff. I had known a lot of the history and obviously, I had great respect for his experience with the old-school Davidoffs back in the day. I wanted a double Ecuadorian Connecticut, and I remember William having this look on his face of intrigue.

When we tried it, I was the only one who said no to the first iteration. It was close, but it wasn't right. Three months later, I came back to the factory, and we went in the wrong direction with the fillers. Finally, the third time after giving more feedback and smoking more together, we made sure that we were understanding each other, and he made that final tweak that made it the Gold Series. That was it, and we launched it.

It was a $30 cigar then because you had to get it from me in the private club. And we sold out. It was just for my clients. That was it. We didn't go nationwide, and we didn't sell it to anybody else. You just had to know me. And that's how it was for most of the time.

[TC]: That's very cool, man. You've got the Gold Series, which I'm personally a big fan of the Lonsdale size. It is up there as the top cigar of the year for me, I tell everyone about it. If you want, like you said, that creamy, vintage Davidoff style, and a lighter Cuban-esque style, it's all-around perfect.

Telephone Booth Series

Let's talk about the Telephone Booth Series. It's a very interesting project. How did that all come into play?

[JF]: I'll back up a little bit. We had just done the Gold Series. That's all I had. And then it finally started going nationwide. I left Houston, Texas, and moved back to Pennsylvania. I had a mentor who believed in me taking J. London nationwide. We started there with the Gold Series and then we ramped it up, tripled our business, and things were going great. We were thinking about bringing on a broker when the factory fire happened.

Boom, we lost everything. I had started working on new projects, but I was stuck. Remember how I said I had that clarity for the Gold Series of what I wanted? I didn't have that for a sun-grown or a Maduro cigar. To get me out of that quagmire, I figured let's just do something totally different. I'm going to do this 12-part series, with all different blends. That way it just forces me to get out there and have fun experimenting with different tobaccos. That's really how the Telephone Booth series came about.

I wanted a London-inspired design, so I went for a street-level artistry series. That's exactly what we're doing. We're getting some really good blends out of it, and the consumer is getting to be a part of the journey. They get to experience the artistry and see how we're evolving. I'm working with a new factory for that project: the Tejada family in the Dominican Republic, which has four generations of growing and processing but this is their first cigar factory.

I was the first one to bring cigars from this factory to the U.S. And we started working together a couple years ago, but I've known the oldest son, Juan, for years and years. He and his wife were also at my wedding in the Dominican Republic. We actually met at Saga one night years ago, smoking cigars, and we got to become friends.

We're still working things out. We're all learning together. They really allow me to have a lot of say when I'm there. They're open to anything I wanna try, which really creates something unique for the customer.They can see that journey as the factory's evolving, as I am evolving with different blends and different sizes.

Mr. London Series

[TC]: I really feel like the folks at home watching this should know that you do have a very special cigar available called the Mr. London. You've told me the story about it before, but I would love for you to explain that to the folks.

[JF]: Absolutely. I was able to meet Eladio Diaz 10 years ago. He was the master blender at Davidoff for over a quarter of a century, as we know, and is probably the most well-known master blender in the world.

When the Gold Series was finalized, William Ventura and his family wanted to celebrate with me. I was in Santiago, DR, and we went to a place called Rancho, which unfortunately is no longer there. It was right by the monument. It was a steakhouse, cigar bar, and nightclub all together. It was absolutely fantastic. A lot of Eladio's family came to celebrate with me.

Now, 10 years later, I could finally do a project with Eladio. Obviously, while I was at Davidoff, I couldn't, but now that he has his own factory, we were able to release the Mr. London, and that is a character that is going to go on this journey. This one is called the Introduction. So we have the Super Robusto, and next year we'll release a different size of the Mr. London, introduction limited to just 400 boxes. I will also work with some other master blenders down the road, and Mr. London is going to kind of go on this journey.

[TC]: That's really cool.

[JF]: A friend of mine created this design for when you take off the top band where you can see the character on it years ago. He actually started out as a fan of J. London Cigars, and then we got to know each other. He's a really great guy and a talented artist, and I wanted to honor him. I didn't want to put this on a cigar band only. So that's how the Mr. London character came about. There are seven different tobaccos in that cigar, so it's a very unique, delicious medium-bodied smoke.

[TC]: It's got a lot of complexity.

[JF]: Yes. There's a lot going on.

[TC]: That's always a thing that I look for in a cigar. With every couple puffs I want to be racking my brain thinking about what I'm tasting, and I definitely get that with the Mr. London, so I'm looking forward to the next release of it. What's next on the horizon?

Future J. London Cigars

[JF]: We're bringing the Rippers soon. It's been sold out, but we're bringing in two new sizes that have been rolled. They're aging, and later this year, we'll have them out in a Toro and then a short fat Robusto. That is Martinez in New York City. They're U.S.-made cigars, in the $12 to $14 price range. It's absolutely delicious.

When we launched it a couple of years ago at the trade show at PCA, we sold out of it. It was a fun project because that was actually my next concept that we designed after the Gold Series. That came out because the Telephone Booth was delayed with the factory fire. I needed to have something out to stay in business until we could get the Gold Series back up and running.

That dagger in the band has so much detail in that dagger band. The same amount of detail went into the blending of that cigar and we worked with Jesus very closely. And it was a pleasure to work with him as a second-generation cigar owner and master blender. His family history is really interesting. When I do events, I delve a bit further into learning about him and his background.

I'm working on some more things with Wiber Ventura. I was just down last week in the Dominican Republic with him. Besides that, we're working on bringing back the full Gold Series line and releasing some Sun-grown and Maduro stuff as well.

[TC]: Oh man, a Gold Series Maduro, that would be interesting. Cool.

[JF]: We're going to have a lot of fun with it. I put a lot of pressure on myself, I think. We did so well with the Gold Series that if I'm going to do a Gold Series Maduro, it's got to be just as great.

Jonathan Fiant's Cigar Collection

[TC]: Before we get things wrapped up here, I'm kind of interested to know, going back to this collector mentality here, you've obviously collected a lot of cool cigars. What is something that is a prized possession? What is the favorite of your whole collection?

[JF]: For me, I'd say the time and place of what they each meant are what I consider my favorites. For example, I have a cigar that was by Jose Cejas and it was the Mi Dominicana. That one was because I knew a brother of the leaf. He passed away. I got to speak at his funeral and his wife had a humidor, and all his cigar buddies each got to pick one. There's that emotional tie. I'll never smoke that one because every time I look at it, I remember this gentleman and the conversations that I had with him.

On the flip side, I had the Original Liga Privada No 9 that Jonathan Drew actually traded me at a PCA. I had some Platinum Crowns in my pocket. He traded me a Liga No 9 because when I was running a store before I had my own shop, we were one of the top 50 first accounts to ever open up with Drew Estates, back in the day.

On the Cuban side, I've owned the Cohiba Behikes, which are always sought after and known, but there's the 1901 cigar. I actually smoked one of those. At that point, it was just too far gone, but you're smoking a piece of history. I do have a couple of Cuban Davidoffs in there from the '80s that obviously are, at this point, a part of Davidoff for history, and then there's some older stuff.

I keep a few of the cigars from Nazi Germany. There's one from a Brazilian box, with Brazilian tobacco, which is really unique. We smoked some and sold some of those. There are even a few private Cubans that are custom-made or diplomatic cigars that are in my collection.

On the J. London side, I have a cigar that we made only 500 of for my wedding. It was nicknamed the Blue Prince because of my blue eyes. My wife was happy with that. That came in an individual coffin in a super rare Solomon size. That was released for my wedding.

[TC]: That's really cool.

[JF]: I have a few more things in the works on the J. London side down the road to continue with that collecting side because that's just something I do for me.

[TC]: John, I really appreciate you coming out here.

[JF]: It's a pleasure, my friend.

[TC]: Everybody watching this, make sure you check out the J. London selection on Smokingpipes. We're very proud of his cigars and very proud to be a partner carrying the product.

Of course, the Gold Series Lonsdale being my personal favorite. We want to find out what your personal J. London favorites are in the comments. I'll catch you next time.