Welcome to another episode of "Smoke Rings." I had the opportunity to talk with Robert Caldwell about a special release from Lost & Found: Secret Stash. This cigar will be featured in January's Mystery Cigar Sampler Packs as the guaranteed rare cigar.

[Shane Ireland]: Hey everybody, I'm Shane Ireland here yet again with my friend Robert Caldwell. Good to see you, man.

[Robert Caldwell]: Likewise, it's been a long time.

[SI]: Yeah, absolutely. We have something extra special from the Lost & Found portfolio here today. You gave me a call a couple weeks ago and asked us if we were interested in a limited amount of Secret Stash, five packs in the Corona size and five packs in the Toro size. The word Secret Stash came out of your mouth, I immediately said yes, and here we are. Tell us, I mean, for those of us that may not know the difference between the Caldwell brand and the Lost & Found brand. Lost & Found being like its namesake, primarily an outlet for cigars that you source pre-aged from a variety of manufacturers. Why Secret Stash? Why was this not a release in the regular line? How did you find these particular ones? Tell us about 'em.

[RC]: So Secret Stash started completely accidentally. I had a retailer that, you know, I was sourcing really aged, gorgeous cigars and we were using a lot of them for Lost & Found. And then I would send stuff over to a retailer and he was buying really good, really aged stuff. And then, you know, 300/400 bundles of 10 when they'd come in, there'd be no rings. And then he was doing his own thing with them. And then so, at one point, I think there was like a 4" by 44 that came in and I was shipping them out to him. And I'm like, well, I'm going to hold a bundle because it's just a great size.

[SI]: Yeah.

[RC]: UPS comes, they pick it up, fire a cigar, and I'm in my office with my guy Trevor, and we're both just sitting there smoking a cigar, just looking at them. I'm like, these are really good. And then, so I get home, and the minute I get out of my car, I light another one in my driveway, which I don't do. And then I finish that cigar and then I light another one. And then my wife comes out and she's like, "Ah, what are you doing?" Because normally I won't just come home and light a cigar right away and go sit on the back porch. And I was like, "You know, these cigars are really good." She said, "Ah, whatever." And I'm like, "Yeah, well I sold them all and shipped them." And she said, "Well you should start saving some of the cigars that you really like. The really old stuff that you find." And then I'm like, "Okay." So I text Trevor.

[SI]: Just for your personal consumption?

[RC]: Yeah, yeah. I said, "Hey Trevor, reverse, call UPS. Send them back."

[SI]: Really?

[RC]: So we intercepted the shipment, sent them back, and I took out half of them. Shipped the guy half of what he'd ordered. And I'm like, "Listen, the cigars are too good. I'm-"

[SI]: Keeping some.

[RC]: Yeah. "You're not getting them all." So from there going forward, whenever I'd find batches of cigars that I really liked, I just set them aside.

[SI]: That's amazing.

[RC]: So that became 20,000 cigars. And then a couple years ago-

[SI]: So like a year's worth of your own consumption?

[RC]: Yeah.

[SI]: Six months, eight months.

[RC]: Six months. So, a couple of years ago, I had all these cases of cigars in my warehouse and they were just sitting there and I'm like, well that's a lot of cigars. And then I said, well, I'm going to release them and they're my Secret Stash, which they truly were. So that was the origin of the brand where Secret Stash were really aged, very special cigars that I found and fell in love with. So this release is different in that we produced these in a very small quantity that can't be replicated and used ultra-aged tobacco. So these particular ones have a medium color, Arapiraca wrapper, and very aged Dominican binder/filler. They're very special cigars that we produced about a year/year and a half ago. So they have a pretty good age on them. But the tobacco inside of them is aged something like 30-35 years.

[SI]: Incredible.

[RC]: Thirty-to-35 years of combined age, so they're really aged tobaccos. When you light the cigar, this particular cigar, it does have a pretty good amount of nicotine, especially for the amount of age that the components have. But it kind of hits immediately and then it just calms down and it smokes really smoothly and very beautifully. So we were able to do I think something like, 300, so 1500 cigars of this one and this one was like 400. So it was like 2000 and 1500 cigars on the production, something like that. So smaller productions, one-time iteration, just these two sizes on this blend and something very beautiful. And that's something that we will continue to do.

[SI]: Yeah.

[RC]: We have access to these kinds of smaller runs and might find stuff that's offered to us that's very special. So, you know, to me it's kind of the crème de la crème of what we have access to on the Lost & Found side. Whether it's production tobaccos that are too small to really do something with or stuff that I find that I largely just don't want to sell to anybody else, you're going to know that it is one of those ultra specialty cigars by coming under the Secret Stash brand.

[SI]: Interesting. So where were these produced?

[RC]: These were produced at El Maestro, so William Ventura, the Old Man's Factory.

[SI]: Fantastic. Now when you're talking about the tobacco, the raw material being well-aged before production and then having, you said more than a year/year and a half of age post-production; as a cigar manufacturer, how difficult is it to get a hold of material that's that aged pre-production?

[RC]: Well, it's hard. But if you're doing smaller batches, it's not that hard. For example, if you wanted to do 20,000 cigars, it's much harder than if you want to do 1000 cigars. This quantity to do a brand in a box in a big way would be very hard. So 22 Minutes To Midnight has a combined age between 27 and 31 years on the components.

[SI]: Incredible.

[RC]: But those are a very small amount that we're able to produce per year. There's not a lot of tobacco. And that was kind of a bigger score for us with what we were able to do. But then outside of that, there's nothing else that we can do with anywhere near that age.

[SI]: Yeah, interesting. So the differences in size, is that something you initially sought out to do more than one vitola with? Is it kind of like, is that how the sizing grades out in the wrapper leaf that you had available?

[RC]: Yeah, we had a certain amount that was larger that we were able to use for the 6" by 54, 6" by 52 Toro. And then we also had the smaller stuff that we were able to use for the Corona. And really all the leaves are the same size.

[SI]: Sure.

[RC]: You just have to cut around. So these were able to be used for smaller cigars-

[SI]: Because it was part of the leaf, so it would've technically been binder grade or something like that.

[RC]: Exactly. So we had to kind of cut around and do something without, where they weren't able to be used for the larger size cigars. So we ended up with these two very different sized cigars.

[SI]: This is my first time smoking this iteration of Secret Stash and I started with the Corona because that's my jam and what I normally gravitate toward. In your experience with the different vitolas, how does that blend and how do those materials change between the sizes? Like what is the experience like? Is there a difference in experiences?

[RC]: You're going to have a much more dense flavor on these little guys, but you have a bit more spice on the bigger ones. So these are going to be, you know, more like an espresso versus a cappuccino with an extra shot.

[SI]: Ah, okay.

[RC]: So the Coronas are going to have a lot of power to them, but they're going to provide a bit of a softer smoking experience while the Toros are going to offer a much more amped up flavor for a denser smoking experience. I probably would prefer the flavor on this one more, but I don't, I'm not a Toro guy, so I smoke Coronas. And so, therefore, to me as a fuller-bodied experience, it's perfect because I couldn't smoke a cigar that had this level of strength with this size. I'd just get burned out halfway through.

[SI]: Sure, sure.

[RC]: So to me it's a perfect little shot of espresso-style cigar.

[SI]: Man, I will also say too, especially coming from the-

[RC]: Macchiato, actually.

[SI]: There you go, a little bit of cream in there. The Corona so far, I will say, is shockingly complex. I mean, complexity is something that I personally think a lot of guys are after. But whether I'm smoking a cigar or a pipe tobacco, it's usually the difference between having an amazing experience from something that is maybe a little more monochromatic and where I can appreciate the flavor, and the sort of blend that I go back to over and over and over again that I buy boxes of or stack in the cellar deep; the latter is what I would consider more complex. And I would say a couple minutes into this, the first thought I had is that I need to go buy a bunch of them. It's also a unique flavor profile. Like I'm struggling to articulate or to pick out exactly what it is about this that is so appealing. Initially it was a burst of nuttiness and like you hear that a lot, but this was unique. It wasn't like peanuts. It wasn't the sort of nuttiness I associate with air-cured leaf or Burley pipe tobaccos. It was sweeter than that.

[RC]: Yeah. To me, it's like a dark-roasted hazelnut.

[SI]: Yeah, imagine if Nutella wasn't cloyingly sweet. This has got a lot of depth. There is a lot of spice there and a lot of creaminess. You can taste the age of the components as well. What else would you describe in terms of the flavor profile, like why was this a cigar that you produced specifically to be in your Secret Stash?

[RC]: Well part of it is the age of the tobacco. So that's something that we look for. But also the uniqueness of the smoking experience; you can't quite put your finger on it or it's smoking a little differently to you, you know. The first Secret Stash, the 4" by 44 or 4" by 42 that I recalled from the customer, that's a cigar that the whole time I smoked it I looked at it and I was confused. It was like I went back to being a novice smoker and I was learning by smoking the cigar. Because it wasn't a profile that I was used to.

[SI]: Yeah, yeah.

[RC]: And I know exactly what that cigar had been in its prior life and it was actually a cigar that I used to buy by the box when I was a consumer. And then it was no longer produced. And it was like 15 years later on that original cigar. But it had a very interesting flavor, and the whole time I smoked it, I smoked it very slowly and it was like a new experience. And so any of the Secret Stash, if you guys can find any of them out there, they all have that uniqueness of profile. And so, the other, like the correlated brand that we had, to Secret Stash, there's another one called Antique line. And the Antique line were really old cigars that were very special.

[SI]: Yep.

[RC]: But they didn't maybe have that exotic element to them like Secret Stash did.

[SI]: Gotcha.

[RC]: So Antiques, you can find out there. Sometimes there were 25 boxes, sometimes 50 or 100 boxes. So also very small. All of those were found cigars, but they provided much more classic experiences. And Secret Stash are all just a little bit curious and strange. For me, as a smoker, my utility for Secret Stash is when I'm going to sit down and really have time to enjoy a cigar because they have a level of complexity and just a very unique experience where I want to sit down and really just nurse the cigar and pay attention to it while I'm smoking it.

[SI]: Yep. This cigar definitely deserves your undivided attention. So you mentioned the wrapper and you mentioned the age of some of the components. Is there anything else in the blend here material-wise that is noteworthy or unique or maybe that we as consumers probably seldom see? Or is it literally just the age?

[RC]: Just the age. All the components that are used, I guess are, nothing especially exotic in the blend. It's just the age.

[SI]: Now my follow-up question to that-

[RC]: Oh, and actually something unique to the age also is that these are all bales of tobacco that the old man William procured a very long time ago. So he's been sitting on the tobacco for a long time, which is kind of fun.

[SI]: Actually, now I have two more questions. One is, in that instance, so William procures this tobacco, sits on it for a long time; what goes into maintaining that when you're deliberately aging leaf for that long? Like, what kind of conditions is it stored under, is there any additional treatment that needs to happen over those long periods of time? Or is it literally just letting nature do its thing?

[RC]: Letting nature do its thing, and I would say that all of the tobacco components in here weren't deliberately aged that long.

[SI]: Yeah, sure.

[RC]: So they were not necessarily lost, but they were just kind of there. And maybe there's a half-bale of this, half-bale of that. And then, you've met William. You go down and say you did this project, and you have all these cigars, and want to continue to iterate that. And by the way, from the time when we were procuring very aged cigars, we had about a year and a half where we didn't have anything under the Secret Stash line. And then we released the Lancero. And then these are the next two coming from that. So talking to him about the project, he's like, "Oh, well I do have these small amounts of, you know, X, Y, Z, that are just sitting there."

[SI]: Yeah.

[RC]: For the Lanceros, we acquired the tobacco and they were produced for that very reason of finding, you know, a more aged tobacco. But for these, there was an opportunity to use stuff that had been squirreled away. And the old man is notorious for also having tobacco squirreled away and he doesn't tell you he has it because he doesn't want to sell it to you. He just wants to smoke it himself.

[SI]: That's pretty good, that's pretty good. And my last question on that is, in your experience as a cigar maker, are all aged components treated equally? I mean, do you come across aged stuff and you're like, "Meh." Are there levels of age not necessarily directly correlating to a special experience? You see what I'm saying?

[RC]: Yeah, when we were doing Long Live the King in the beginning, one of the tobaccos in it was Pelo d'Oro and we were using like 5/6/7-year-old Pelo d'Oro to produce the cigars. And then we couldn't get any more of that. And then we got 15-year-aged Pelo d'Oro.

[SI]: Oh, okay.

[RC]: And we didn't tell anybody. We just put them in the cigars. It tasted the same.

[SI]: Yeah, sure.

[RC]: You couldn't tell the difference between 7 and 15 years, or 5 and 15 years. They smoked very similarly so, it really depends. And then also some of it after so long isn't what it once was.

[SI]: Yeah, there's got to be some sort of peak, right? And downhill-

[RC]: There's a peak or it goes from being something that you would know how to work with to something entirely new. Because it's just lost so much of the spice or nicotine or flavor that it once had. And then, on the aged cigar side as well, I mean, one of my largest excitements was at a trade show. I had somebody approach me to introduce me to somebody from another very famous factory. And they had 200,000 cigars and they were special sizes.

[SI]: Yeah.

[RC]: They were Perfectos and Salamones and just-

[SI]: Oh wow.

[RC]: Beautiful aged cigars. And they wanted to get rid of them. And they offered me a very compelling price. All different wrappers. They had Cameroon, they had Salamones that were Cameroon.

[SI]: Oh wow.

[RC]: All for a really nice price. And so I go to the factory and I get a bundle of everything. And they're gorgeous and I bring them back to our factory, and I'm sitting there with Henderson. And he didn't want to smoke 'em. They were too pretty. And so we went to dinner and then we get the Maduro whatever and have dinner and then think, okay, we're going to light the cigar.

[SI]: Yeah.

[RC]: Dead.

[SI]: No.

[RC]: Light the next one, dead ... dead. They were all dead.

[SI]: Just past their prime.

[RC]: They were just gone. It was just smoking air. They were past their prime, they were too old, and probably were stored with sub adequate levels of moisture that they probably should have had or maybe they were kind of completely out of the production and they were just neglected somewhat. So, you do encounter that problem as well, you know?

[SI]: Yeah.

[RC]: And then the other thing that's interesting is sometimes you find cigars where you're like, I'm not really interested in that cigar because it's not good. And then you smoke it and you're like, that's a good cigar. So we have had a lot of stuff over the years where you wouldn't, you know, because when I look at these inventory sheets or I find out what people have, I go after the stuff I know is great and I expect it to be greater. Or old limited editions, stuff like that of blends that are fantastic.

[SI]: Yeah.

[RC]: But every once in a while you'll get something, and actually the first Secret Stash was that. It was a cigar that, if I were to tell you the brand name that it was sold under back then, you would have just said meh. I mean, a good cigar. But meh.

[SI]: Sure, sure.

[RC]: But it was a great blend under that brand. There was something that was very special that that brand produced. And then the age just did something magical to it. And then when we smoked that cigar, I smoked that cigar originally when I got the sample in the Dominican Republic that I picked out for this retailer, and it was just a great cigar. And it was something that I avoided on that manufacturer's list because it didn't stand out to me, but the size did.

[SI]: Yeah.

[RC]: So I'm like, all right, I'll grab a bundle of that. And I smoked it and I'm like, this is a really good cigar.

[SI]: Interesting.

[RC]: And then when I got into Miami and I had the time to sit down and really enjoy it, I was just like, what the hell? And you would never have expected that from that cigar.

[SI]: That's so funny.

[RC]: I'll tell you what it is after.

[SI]: So my last question on the Secret Stash in general: First of all, again, this is an amazing smoke. It's super complex. I'm going to be stashing these myself. For those of us that, I will say right now, these are ready to smoke. I'm sure you would agree. Like smoke them right away. Try them if you like them, grab more. And on stashing them, how long are the legs here? How much longer do you think these have of continuing to improve?

[RC]: A long time. You could probably run these five to 10 years.

[SI]: Really?

[RC]: They got a lot. I mean, they'll continue to smoothen out.

[SI]: They've certainly got the power.

[RC]: They've got the power. So they have enough character that they'll be able to stand up for at least five years of age.

[SI]: Interesting, interesting.

[RC]: And for me, I would age them longer. They're ready to smoke, they're ready to go. But I like a smoother, bit lighter cigar. And a cigar which has this much nicotine and it still has a fair amount of spice and everything in it, it's a little bit above what I would typically smoke. So, like I was saying, I'll smoke that one. But this one to me is maybe a bit much with the size more than anything. But the power that's on this little guy, to me, it's still a powerful cigar.

[SI]: Yeah, yeah.

[RC]: And I like something normally, you know, a couple steps down in terms of that. So I would set that cigar down for my personal taste a bit longer. Because again, I'm a lighter smoker and I think that if you were to age that cigar a couple more years, you'd get something that's really magical for a lighter-bodied smoker.

[SI]: Interesting.

[RC]: And right now, if you're a medium-plus-bodied smoker-

[SI]: It's right in the sweet spot.

[RC]: It's right there. But if you're a guy like me that likes mild-to-medium, you can rest that cigar a little bit longer and you'll get something just magical out of it.

[SI]: That's fantastic. I look forward to smoking one every now and then and seeing how they improve over time. But yeah, I do tend to prefer medium-to-medium-full smokes. And this is definitely in the sweet spot at the moment. Fantastic. Robert, thank you so much.

[RC]: My pleasure.

[SI]: Secret Stash from Lost & Found will be available within January's Mystery Cigar Sampler Packs for your enjoyment as the guaranteed rare stick among four other mystery cigars. Give them a shot. Very special smokes. Thanks guys.