Even though his Mormon upbringing prohibited smoking of any kind, Vance Taylor was always drawn to cigars. The future founder of Stoic Cigars smoked his first cigar one frigid winter night in Utah. While working in the dental industry, he eventually became known as “the kid with the cigars”. His cigar line honors the natural connection smoking has with the meditative practices of Stoicism. Taylor talked with Cigar Life Guy about his “genetic” theory of cigar smoking, the surprising number of dentists who smoke cigars, and the uphill battle of building a cigar scene in Utah.
First Premium Cigar Experience
Cigar Life Guy: Tell me about your first premium cigar experience.
Vance Taylor: Such a great question. Growing up in Utah, there’s not much of a cigar scene.
I also grew up in a Mormon family, so we didn’t smoke anything or drink caffeine -nothing like that. But I always had this weird affinity for cigars or the idea of cigars. It was almost to the point where I would crave them even though I had never smoked them or anything else. I’ve never had a cigarette. To this day, I’ve never had a cigarette.
When I was 28, my now ex-wife and I found out that we were pregnant with my oldest. I connected with a buddy of mine, who smokes everything, and I figured he could hook me up. At that point in my life, I had left the Mormon Church. I’ve been living my own life on my own path. There were no religious or moral hangups for me. It was just something I had never done, and I didn’t know how or where to start, but I had always craved it. In fact, I had been traveling for my career pretty regularly. It was the early 2000s. A lot of higher-end hotels where I would stay for work would have cigars and humidors in the lobby where you would check in. I would have a physiological response when I saw those. I would salivate. It was really weird (laughs). I’m kind of tied to this notion that there’s something genetic about cigar smoking. I’m not sure, but I don’t know where that craving comes from otherwise (laughs).
Anyway, my buddy hits one of the two or three cigar stores in the Salt Lake area. It’s an old, old shop called Jeanies, and he asked them, “What should I get for my buddy who’s never smoked a cigar before?” and they sold him two, ACID Kuba Kubas. He brought those with him, and we went and saw a movie. This would have been one of the early Iron Man or Avengers-type movies. Afterward, we decided to light the cigars in his car. This is February in Utah. It’s freezing outside. Although he smoked cigarettes and weed and hookah and other things, he didn’t really have a lot of cigar experience either. So we lit these things up with the heater running and the windows up, and immediately hot-boxed the entire car. We were forced to get out of the car. We stood there, huddled up, fully grown men passing around a cigar like kids ditching gym class. I loved it. Neither of us knew what we were doing, but I seemed to be a natural in terms of being able to puff and produce good smoke, and not accidentally inhale, and not make any of the common rookie mistakes. After a few laps around, he started passing his turn, and I smoked the whole thing. I took the second one home with me, smoked it the next day, and went on a journey learning about this magical thing we call cigars
Dentists Smoke Cigars
Cigar Life Guy: You have a background in the dental industry. What else did you do before the cigar industry, and how does it help inform what you do now?
Vance Taylor: It was a job that I didn’t intend to get. It was a placement through Workforce Services while I was still in college. I just needed a job to work while I was going to school. I was answering support phone calls for a little desktop Windows-based dental software company, based out here in Utah, called Dentrix. I grew up in the industry. It ended up being a subsidiary of a global healthcare company called Henry Schein. I spent almost seventeen years there. I spent the last four years of my career with a midsize company that did SAS technology for dental billing and ended my career as their Chief Growth Officer. My whole career was spent in sales and marketing, so productization, marketing, and pricing. There are not a lot of similarities between the dental industry and the cigar industry, although you’d be surprised how many dentists smoke cigars. It was cool because I was always the cigar guy. At any trade show or conference, or convention of any kind, the smokers would come and find me wherever I was. I always had cigars for everybody. I built several important relationships early in my career with high-ranking executives because I was “the kid with cigars” (laughs). Cigars definitely informed my early career success. Now, as a cigar brand owner, my experience building a brand story and going to market has been really helpful for the Stoic Cigar business.
Challenges in the Cigar Industry
Cigar Life Guy: What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced in the cigar industry?
Vance Taylor: It might be easier to list the things that aren’t a challenge (laughs). That’s tongue in cheek. Obviously, it’s an incredible industry. I would say that the biggest challenges have been related to the supply chain. Also, my own inexperience with a business that sells a physical product. Technology is very different because you build it once. You continue to invest, and you have an R&D budget and scale challenges. But it’s nothing like a business where you have to pay to make the thing you’re going to sell. You can’t sell until it’s made, and you can’t make it until you have cash, but you can’t get cash until you sell it. The fact that it is a physical product that you have to buy and sell, coupled with the fact that the supply chain is so fragmented. One person makes the box. One person makes the band. One person makes the cigar. One person makes the cellophane. It all has to come together harmoniously and on time, or else you can hit a cash flow challenge in a hurry. So that’s the big challenge. Just to be able to get into the rhythm and flow of the industry and keep proper expectations for timing and deliverables.
Stoicism and Cigars
Cigar Life Guy: Your motto is “Smoke Mindfully”. Tell us more about how Stoicism and cigar smoking go hand in hand.
Vance Taylor: I think they have a lot more in common than people might immediately recognize. I think cigar smokers are naturally a bit stoic. It doesn’t mean they’re not fun. It doesn’t mean they’re not social, but anybody who has ever bought a cigar and gone off on their own to cut it, light it, and smoke it in private has experienced a Stoic practice of meditation. There are all sorts of ways you can meditate and spend some time unraveling the quagmire of your mind to get clarity on things and to understand challenges, and to plan and stabilize. Cigar smoking is certainly one way. I think there’s a lot of stoicism in what cigar smokers do already. Those in this country and around the world who are practicing stoicism and aspiring to be more mindful and finding routines around pausing and meditation, and taking those moments, I think they can be potentially assisted by adding a cigar as a tool in their practice. It’s easy to create a routine that’s based on that daily cigar, or thrice daily cigar, or whatever your routine is. Maybe you start the day with a cigar and coffee to organize and plan your day and thoughts. Maybe you end your day that way or both. Lots of cigar smokers have this routine already, so I think it can act as an instrument in the meditative practice that is central to stoicism.
The Utah Cigar Scene & Cigar Community
Cigar Life Guy: You hail from Utah, a place not often associated with cigar life. What is the cigar scene like in Utah?
Vance Taylor: Well, if you find out, tell me (laughs). I’m not very connected to any cigar community locally. Part of it is where I live. I’m not in Salt Lake, where there is more cultural diversity. I’m down in a suburb between Salt Lake and Provo, and there’s nothing of the sort around here. In fact, I have a home cigar lounge which I built next to my house on my property. So I have a place that is climate-controlled where I can work and smoke, and do all the things I need to do. I’m sort of expanding the community myself. I’ve introduced several local people to cigars. I’m working on that right now. There is a shop in Salt Lake called Beehive owned by the guys who do Apostate Cigars. They’re much more plugged in to the cigar scene because they have that retail storefront. Our plan is to spend more time with those guys and get plugged in that way. Utah has an 86% tobacco tax, so right off the bat, it’s not a friendly place for cigars from a cost perspective. That makes it challenging. Also, there’s no indoor smoking even if you’re in a cigar lounge or cigar shop. There is absolutely no indoor smoking allowed in any sort of commercial space. It has to be private. That really limits the ability to grow the community here.
Cigar Life Guy: What is your favorite aspect of the cigar community and the cigar life? What makes cigar smokers so unique?
Vance Taylor: It’s a long list. The thing that impressed me early and continues to amaze me is how a cigar can act as an equalizer across political spectrums, as well as sociological and economic classes. It creates an equal footing for individuals to engage as a community. You can walk into a cigar lounge and see an electrician and a politician and a professional athlete, and a CEO all sitting at the same table having a conversation about something topical. Cigars immediately dissolve pretense and create a space for this natural coming together. I find that fascinating. I have many stories of own of meeting people that I maybe never would have had the courage to approach or talk to because of their celebrity status, but because we were both there for cigars or we were engaging on the subject of cigars it just broke those barriers down naturally and organically and created a space for us to connect. I love that aspect of cigars and the cigar community.
Cigar Life Guy: What is one of your passions outside of cigars? What would people not know about you?
Vance Taylor: I’m a big family guy. My kids are super important to me. I also got remarried a couple of years ago. My wife is very involved in the cigar business and lifestyle, which means she’s got a real job because someone has to pay the bills (laughs). We don’t have kids together, but I have three kids who are younger, and she has three kids who are older. We are really passionate about family time and travel, and trying to build something that we can leave as a legacy for them. As a couple, we love to travel, explore, and play golf. We went on a couples’ golf honeymoon in Portugal after we got married. We spent every day playing full rounds of golf, so we’re really into that as well.
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photo credit: Stoic Cigars