Smoke signals: Abilene man's podcast, 'The Cigar Talk,' has international reach

When the smoke clears, the words end and the mic is turned off, what's left is an Abilene man who leveraged his passion for cigars into a podcast heard around the world.

"I talk regularly to listeners from Canada, Australia, Europe," said Rob Jones, creator of "The Cigar Talk" podcast.

During the interview for this story, a listener from George West, which is south of San Antonio and on his way to Amarillo, detoured through Abilene to stop by The Leaf, a show sponsor and Jones's home cigar lounge.

It was a chance to shake Jones's hand.

"We have a guy that comes up from San Angelo and smokes with us regularly," Jones said. A fan in Baltimore also has passed through recently to smoke a stick – a nickname for a cigar – with Jones.

Far-flung fans

Available on the website live.cigartalkpodcast.com/home, Apple Podcast, Spotify and other podcast platforms, the weekly show lasts 90 to 120 minutes.

As of March 29, there have been 178 episodes.

Since about Episode 18, friend Bryant Falconer has been Jones' sidekick.

A regular segment is their top smokes for the week, along with interviews with cigar company owners and others in the industry. The sometimes irreverent, not-safe-for-work show covers auxiliary topics, including hard liquors, coffee and sports.

Jones said "The Cigar Talk" has about 8,000 monthly downloads, plus another 7,000 of the YouTube video version.

That may not sound like much compared to the estimated 200 million monthly downloads for top podcaster Joe Rogan, but the podcast has advertisers.

"We're not Joe Rogan," Jones said. "But one of the reasons that we're successful is that we are very, very niche. You're not gonna listen to Cigar Talk unless you are a hardcore cigar smoker. And that is a certain community."

"The Cigar Talk" listeners are 97% men between the ages 25 and 55, Jones said. The state with the most listeners is Texas (6%), followed by New York, Florida, California and Georgia.

Despite the male domination, women appear in episodes.

Recent female guests have included Cynthia Fuente-Suarez, vice president of Arturo Fuente, a third-generation cigar company named after her grandfather; Cynn Coburn, who bought Dissident Cigars in 2021; and Anastasia Psomiadi, Ph.D., founder of Sisters of the Leaf Greece.

"Our show is very pro women in the business because we believe that it just grows the business and the dream," Jones said.

Cigars as the great equalizer

More than the craftsmanship of quality, premium cigars, Jones loves what cigars represent.

A cigar is like a magnet. Some are repelled by the smoke and aroma, while others drawn to it.

"The community of cigar smokers is a special thing because we call it the great equalizer," Jones said. "Because when you come to a cigar shop and hang out and smoke, you might have a guy who's a street sweeper, a doctor, a lawyer, a pilot, but it doesn't matter. Because we're all just here to smoke a cigar.

"We could have diehard Republicans or Democrats or atheists or pastors come in here and have a great conversation. So, where else can you do that?"

Jones smoked his first cigar about 10 years, and the appreciation was not immediate. When he lived in Houston, he traveled to his Lubbock hometown about every eight weeks to see a friend. Instead of going to a bar, they met at a cigar lounge.

"We would just go in and buy like a $20 or $25 cigar because we figured that has to be good, right?," Jones said. ".... The cigar never did anything for me. I didn't enjoy it. It was just a symbol of friendship."

The change came with about the fifth cigar, when a tobacconist picked out a $10 cigar for him. That's when "the light came on," Jones said.

"You hear people talk about different flavor profiles, just like wine or coffee. And so you start a journey of trying different cigars," Jones said. "Everybody's journey is different."

Case in point: Jones and Falconer shared their topped 25 smokes for 2021 at the end of that year, and only about three cigars overlapped their lists, Jones said.

"It's a never-ending process, because what I smoked seven years ago, I hardly ever smoke now," he said.

Podcast logistics

It's also a never-ending process to run, manage and promote the podcast. Jones, who works in the transportation industry, is self-taught.

He originally planned to write a blog about cigar lounges, interviewing owners as he traveled for work. He then decided recording conversations would be more appealing.

Using an iPhone, Jones recorded a podcast intro on Dec. 15, 2018, sharing it on Facebook cigar groups.

"I literally had zero equipment, and it sounded horrible. I bought some pretty expensive equipment, and I didn't know what I was doing. So, it still sounded horrible," Jones said.

What attracted listeners to overlook the lackluster sound was "the interaction, the stories, getting to know these people," he said.

Through trial and error, he has dialed in the production for audio and video platforms, working in a back-yard portable building converted into a studio and cigar lounge.

Jones promotes the program through guerilla marketing on social media platforms and his private podcast community on a Discord server where people can visit in chat rooms.

In January, he attended the Tobacco Plus Expo in Las Vegas to network and set up his podcast studio for in-person interviews – eight in two days.

"What was really awesome was while I was interviewing one person, I would have one to three people sitting waiting for their turn to be interviewed," Jones said. "... that was flattering."

Jones also does an after-show private episode that is unfiltered for subscribers of his Patreon platform. Those subscribers to Lite'em Up Crue pay a monthly fee to access the private podcast.

"I tell everybody, 'It's like a plant.' You have to take care of it," Jones said about nurturing the podcast. "Because if you're not engaging with those people that are a fan of your show, why would they come?"

The podcast's success is ironic because Jones has a speech impediment he said. It is not obvious to a casual listening of the show, and he's turned it into part of his persona.

"A lot of things, I can't say. And, usually, it's the pronunciation of cigars. So, the cool thing is we've actually made that into a saying that I'm speaking LaBuckian, because I grew up in Lubbock."

Banking sponsors

"The Cigar Talk" podcast also has stuck with sponsors, who see it as a way to reach a concentrated pool of potential customers.

"When we do an ad spot on the show, everyone that's listening is your customer. There's no hit or miss," Jones said.

Since starting, he has become selective about show advertisers.

"We got our first sponsor within the first year. And that was the biggest mistake I ever made because I was so desperate to get a sponsor that we let a cigar company I've never heard of be a sponsor. And the cigars were absolutely awful," Jones said.

Now more discerning, he focuses on "amazing" cigars based on construction, flavor and a price point that "is friendly to your blue-collar workers. And the company itself has to impress me with the way they do their business," Jones said.

Once he finds such a "gem," he reaches out to the company for advertising that is not scripted 30-second spots but stories, sometimes lasting several minutes. Fast-forward through the ad, and you miss the story.

"We just have a conversation about what makes them great and tell people to go try them," Jones said.

Live-stream fundraiser for Cigars for Warriors

An eight-hour conversation is planned for Jones's inaugural Streamathon 2022 on May 7 to raise money for Cigars for Warriors.

The nonprofits sends care packages of premium cigars, cigar accessories, coffee and other items to U.S. troops on deployment overseas.

Inspiration came from Jerry Lewis's Labor Day telethon, which benefitted the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The live, nationwide fundraiser partnered with local TV stations to collect funds.

"When I was a kid, we used to go door-to-door raising money for Jerry Lewis. And then we would take it to the news station," Jones said.

For his Streamathon, he'll don a tuxedo, have a stylishly-dressed female co-host and broadcast live from The Leaf's private lounge.

"We're going to have raffles to raise money. We have all these cigar companies that are donating stuff that we're going to raffle off," Jones said.

He has previously raised donations for Cigars for Warriors, but this is the first live fundraising broadcast.

He supports the charity because soldiers who have received the care packages said that smoking cigars while overseas "is a time where we can sit and talk with each other. It's almost like being back home," Jones recalled.

It's that sense of community around cigars that makes the podcast rewarding, he said.

"I love the community. I love the interaction I have with people who listen to the show. I've gained a lot of good friends," Jones said.

Laura Gutschke is a general assignment reporter and food columnist and manages online content for the Reporter-News. If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Abilene man Rob Jones turns cigar appreciation into podcast