Zach Van Ginkel’s cigar journey began in Des Moines, Iowa, when he was a teenager. After serving in the military and studying business, he and his partner, Andray McCuien, intended to open a cigar lounge, but COVID disrupted that plan. Instead, they shifted their focus to creating their own line of cigars, and Hermanos de Armas Cigars was born. Van Ginkel talked to Cigar Life Guy about how the longing for the camaraderie he experienced in the military drew him into the cigar world, patience as the key to success, and why paying $10 for a smoke is actually a discount.
First Premium Cigar Experience
Cigar Life Guy: Tell me about your first premium cigar experience.
Zach Van Ginkel: I was 18 years old because at that time, you could smoke at 18. I was in Des Moines, Iowa, where I’m originally from. I smoked that cigar with my dad at a cigar lounge formerly known as Bars and Cigars. It’s now known as Iowa Cigar Company, a little shop in West Des Moines. In terms of which cigar it was? I have no idea. I couldn’t tell you (laughs). Chances are, whatever cigar I decided to buy wasn’t extremely memorable, but that was my very first ever premium cigar.
Starting Hermanos de Armas Cigars
Cigar Life Guy: You had planned on opening a cigar lounge. How did that evolve into starting your own line of cigars?
Zach Van Ginkel: It kind of evolved out of necessity. We were planning to start our cigar lounge right around COVID. The goal was to create a cigar lounge that was heavily involved in the blending process and making our own house blends. Our own brand, if you will. When COVID hit, uncertainty was everywhere. Everything was closing. Commercial real estate prices in the area where we were looking to start a cigar lounge never went down. It just didn’t make sense for us to continue on that path at that time. We pivoted about a year later and formed HDA Cigars LLC. Instead of starting a cigar lounge, we pursued the path of building a brand and, maybe at some point in the future, opening a lounge. Now it’s completely changed. We’re not thinking about opening up a lounge. We’re just focused on the brand.
Cigar Life Guy: Aside from being ex-military, what did you do before getting involved in the cigar industry, and how does it help inform what you do with Hermanos de Armas Cigars?
Zach Van Ginkel: Yep, prior military, but then I spent the subsequent 13 or 14 years working as a government contractor. That last year and the entire first two years of our company, I worked in business development with the goal of understanding traditional business development and traditional business practices. That way, I could utilize those practices in HDA. I finished my bachelor’s degree in business during COVID as well, again, with the goal of opening my own company. At that point in time, I thought it was going to apply to a cigar lounge. Instead, I used a lot of those principles for my cigar company.
Cigar Blending and Branding
Cigar Life Guy: What should the average cigar smoker know about cigar blending? How can it help them appreciate a premium cigar?
Zach Van Ginkel: I would say that the adage that says, “200 hundred hands touch every cigar” is genuinely something that is understated when people are upset about paying ten dollars for a cigar. Understanding all of the processes, all of the time, and all of the labor of love that goes into growing the plant, curing the plant, rolling the plant, building the boxes, and designing the bands. Shipping the product, then distributing the product, and then hand-selling the product, there are a lot of people involved in the process of putting a cigar on the shelf. When you look at it holistically, and you look at how each one of those is a handmade product, I would say that paying more than ten dollars for a cigar is really a discount. There are not very many products here in the United States that are 100% handmade, that have that much labor involved, and sell in that $10 to $20 range.
Cigar Life Guy: What is the most important thing to convey about a brand? How do you want the cigar world to perceive Hermanos de Armas Cigars?
Zach Van Ginkel: When we created HDA and everything we’ve done up to this point comes from a place of genuine desire to be part of the cigar industry. It also comes from the place where we are creating cigars for our taste. By “our” I mean Andray (Andray McCuien) and me, the two owners. We are creating cigars for ourselves. When we launched our cigar brand, neither one of us had retail experience. Neither one of us had cigar rep experience. Neither one of us had ever owned a brand before. We were true outsiders in the cigar industry. When it came time to make strategic decisions, the ultimate compass for us was creating cigars that we liked and hoped that other people would like as well. Everything that we’ve done from a brand perspective has come from a genuine love for the product that we create, rather than an exercise in understanding the market, playing to the market, and playing to what the consumer is most likely to enjoy. Instead, we’re creating cigars that we enjoy and, fortunately, a lot of consumers share that taste.
Camaraderie in the Cigar World
Cigar Life Guy: You are a proud veteran-owned brand. How is the camaraderie in the military similar to that of the cigar community?
Zach Van Ginkel: The camaraderie that Andray and I experienced in the military was something that we really longed for after we got out. The ability for us to travel around the country and share stories, share a cigar, and really connect with people on a human-to-human level, puts us back into the feeling of deployments, long hours stateside, or long shifts where everybody was able to connect over something as simple as a cigar. It allows us to connect with people we wouldn’t be able to connect with in any other walks of life, similar to the military. The military is a mixing pot of people from all over the country. All different types of people and backgrounds, and we all came together for a common goal. Sitting down at a cigar lounge or at an event, or simply people meeting over a cigar, is a very similar experience. Our desire to go into the cigar industry came from our desire to experience the camaraderie we experienced in the military.
The Cigar Industry and Beyond
Cigar Life Guy: What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started in the cigar industry?
Zach Van Ginkel: I would say that patience is absolutely key. One of the things we never thought about was the hyper-attention to detail and the hyper time frame expectation that we’d become accustomed to in the military and our professional lives, which is something that is far more fluid when you’re working with Central American countries. Patience is something I’m still working on every day when it comes to timelines. When it comes to projects that we’re trying to put into action, we were looking at one to three months initially. We’ve now changed and are looking 12 to 18 months ahead. It’s allowed us to be a lot more fluid with our plans, which is really a necessity.
Cigar Life Guy: What is one of your passions outside of cigars? What would people not know about you?
Zach Van Ginkel: I’m a big golfer. I’m not a good golfer, but I am a big golfer. I enjoy golf, although now that I own a cigar company, my opportunities to golf are far fewer than they were before starting HDA. I enjoy getting out, traveling, and hitting up different courses around the country.
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photo credit: Zach Van Ginkel