Jon Simons tasted his first premium cigar as a teenager and after eight and half years as Vice President of Warfighter Tobacco Co has never stopped learning. He and his partners are all ex-military and today’s warfighter remains their primary focus. Simons spoke to Cigar Life Guy about the company’s recent rebranding, the similarities between the military and the cigar community, and how the Warfighter Cigar Co. is here to stay.
First Premium Cigar Experience
Cigar Life Guy: Tell me about your first premium cigar experience.
Jon Simons: This one might get me in a little trouble (laughs). My first premium cigar experience was when I was thirteen or fourteen years old. It was my good buddy’s older brother and he drove a Buick Grand National. I thought that was the coolest car in the world at the time. I remember he said he was going to the local cigar shop to get some cigars and asked us if we wanted any. So we scrounged together our dollar bills and quarters and gave him some cash. We had no idea what we were getting. He ended up getting me a Montecristo. I don’t even remember the actual cigar, but I remember the brand. So we sat in his driveway right next to his Buick Grand National and I smoked the cigar. I had no idea if it was good or bad or if I did it right(laughs). That was my first experience with a premium cigar. I obviously didn’t learn anything until probably my early twenties. Then I realized there’s more than just a cigar. There are all these different sizes and different regions where the tobacco is grown. That’s when I started to figure it out.
The Military and Cigars
Cigar Life Guy: How did you get into the cigar industry? Aside from being ex-military, what did you do before and how does it help inform what you do with Warfighter Tobacco Co.?
Jon Simons: We were all military guys, but immediately before we started Warfighter Scott owned a gun store. I was working there with him and we were selling retail cigars. This was just to supplement the gun store because a lot of “gun guys” are “cigar guys”. That gave us more knowledge from the retail side of it. We looked at all the brands we carried- what they did great and what they didn’t do. We incorporated a lot of that into what we do now- packaging, how it displays, UPCs, and all that kind of stuff. Before that, I dabbled in a whole bunch of different industries trying to figure out what I actually wanted to do. Throughout the whole course of everything I’ve done in my life, I’ve learned bits and pieces from each different industry I was in and brought that into cigars as well.
Cigar Life Guy: You have a great rapport with your partners. How is the camaraderie of the military similar to the cigar community?
Jon Simons: It’s actually very close. The reason I say that it’s close is that you can walk into a cigar lounge, not know anybody there, and within ten minutes you could be cracking jokes. People are talking trash back and forth. None of it is malicious. It’s more about having a really good time. In the military, it’s similar to that. You don’t really know who you’re talking to at first, but after ten minutes you’re joking together. So it’s a direct correlation.
Warfighter Branding and Portfolio
Cigar Life Guy: You are a proud veteran-owned company. What do you want the cigar community to know about you and your products?
Jon Simons: We created a new sign that we’re sending out to all of our shops. The sign itself says, “Probably the best cigars”(laughs). We focus on getting the highest quality tobacco we can get to put out the best blends that we can do, but we also like to have fun with it. If you can’t have fun with what you do, what’s the point of doing it?
Cigar Life Guy: You have distinct branding. How do you want consumers to perceive your brand?
Jon Simons: The easiest way is what we put on the website when we started the company. We’re not heroes, but we got to serve with some of them. We got to stand on the shadows of giants. We could have named it “Scott Jansen Cigars” or “Jon Simons Cigars” or whatever, but we wanted to build something that was bigger than us. That’s why it’s “Warfighter Tobacco”. Today’s warfighter is the focus of everything that we want. Whether it’s them using that cigar to break that barrier and be able to open that conversation, and that way talk with other people and feel a sense of community. Also some of the charity stuff that we do. We help out the active duty guys and the veterans. So in both senses that’s the essence of what our company is.
Cigar Life Guy: Tell Us a little about the Warfighter Tobacco Co. portfolio.
Jon Simons: Right now we technically have nine blends that are out. We had ten, but we are rebranding one of them right now. Hopefully, that will be out by the end of this year if not next year.
Outside of that, we have what we call our Field and Garrison lines. That’s our core six different blends of cigars. In the Field line, we have a 5×6 Field Connecticut, a 7.62 Field Sumatra, and a .50 Cal Field Maduro which is more of a medium-bodied maduro. On the Garrison side, we have a Corojo, a Rosado, and an Oscuro Maduro. That Oscuro is going to be our boldest cigar. Out of our offerings, it’s the boldest. Then we do specialty cigars. We just released a cigar called The Night Shift which has gone over phenomenally. It has very different flavor notes than anything we’ve ever done. We put a little Candela ring on the cap of the cigar as a little homage to the green glow of the night vision. We have our Victory Cigar which is a Brazilian Mata Fina wrapper with Nicaraguan filler. That’s our super premium. It retails for $17.76 because that’s the price of freedom. The last one we call The Dumpster Fire Cigar. We believe in truth in marketing (laughs). So our Dumpster Fire is our version of a Cuban sandwich. We use the trimmings from our core line. We add a couple of long pieces- longer filler- inside to help with its construction and a nice Habano wrapper. It’s more of our everyday smoke or economic cigar or whatever you want to call it. It retails for about six dollars, but for a Cuban sandwich or mixed filler, it’s a phenomenal cigar. We have people tell us all the time how much they love it and I’m like, “Dude, if you smoke two back to back you might feel a little different” (laughs)
The Future of Warfighter and Cigar Accessories
Cigar Life Guy: Warfighter Tobacco Co. sells humidors, apparel, and accessories as well as cigars. What else can the cigar world expect from Warfighter in the future?
Jon Simons: We’re constantly working on new blends. We do have a rebranding in the works right now. We started about eight and a half years ago. We didn’t know what we didn’t know. Over time and learning, we realized our original band designs worked well, but they didn’t have all the information that we wanted on them. We did a slight redesign. We kept all the blends exactly the same. We didn’t change the tobacco blends or anything like that. We just changed the bands and the boxes. It’s a little more clarity for the consumer. Now it actually has the leaf on the band whereas before it was only on the box. The boxes have a little more information on them as well. We’re finalizing everything and they should start trickling out to dealers soon.
Cigar Life Guy: Anything else you would like the cigar world to know
Jon Simons: We’re not going anywhere (laughs). The cigar industry is really interesting. When we first started out and we were going to trade shows we had people that would ask, “How old are you guys?” This was our first year and then in our second year they would say “Ok, after year three come talk to us and we’ll start picking up your line.” They were like, “Cigar companies come and go. We don’t want to get behind a brand that isn’t going to be around.” At this last show, I was telling a retailer that it was our eighth year in business and he said, “Alright, two more years and it’ll be ten years in business and you’ll be an overnight success in this industry.”(laughs). We’re infants in the cigar world. Some companies have been around for 80, 100, 150 years. We’re eight and a half and have no plans on going anywhere. Being on the prior military side of everything, once we started going down the rathole and started learning about things that piqued our interest it was something we loved and wanted to keep doing. There isn’t anything that’s going to prevent us from learning and making the best product we can make.
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photo credit: Jon Simons