THE INTERVIEW - SMOKERS RD CIGAR RELEASE AND MORE… VIDEO RECAP | MY CIGAR PACK

Who’s on the episode

Alexander (My Cigar Pack / Cigar Yard) sits down with Rafa and Jorge, founding members of Smokers RD (a Dominican cigar community with a big international following). They light up Florinata Lancero, and Alex calls out that Rafa designed the My Cigar Pack + Cigar Yard logos, plus other brand assets you see month-to-month.

How they connect cigars to what they do

Jorge shares his background in wine & spirits and how that naturally led into pairing tastings with cigars (especially with whiskey and rum).

He talks about how his palate evolved: starting out getting “punched” by full-strength cigars, then gradually building up. His personal sweet spot now is medium body / full flavor.

Rankings, reviews, and “just smoke the thing”

They get into how the cigar media landscape changed over the last decade : more reviewers, more competing scores, more noise.

Their main takeaways:

• Rankings can help, but your palate is the real boss.
  
• If you find a reviewer whose “wins” and “misses” line up with yours, that’s a useful reference.

Smoker RD’s approach is practical: buy it, smoke it, decide for yourself.

What Smokers RD is

A quick origin story:

Started as a group of friends smoking together (early 2010s), eventually formalized with structure (president, treasurer, activities, etc.).

Built an Instagram presence that grew globally (they mention around 50,000 followers).

They shifted focus over time to promote Dominican cigars, while still clearly stating they do not discriminate by country, they smoke Nicaragua, Honduras, U.S., wherever the cigar is good.

The big tease: the Smokers RD cigar

Alex brings up the Smokers RD cigar project:

• They’ve been working on it for ~2 years, sampling and refining.
  
  
• They recently finalized the size and the blend, with Enrique (called out as super collaborative and receptive to feedback).
  
  

The vibe: it’s not about money. It's about building something the group is proud to put their name on.

Factory Direct idea

They also mention a potential Smokers RD Factory Direct exclusive collaboration down the line, once the cigar project is ready.

How My Cigar Pack segments strength

Alex explains MCP’s strength-based curation (one of the brand’s “disruptive” points):

Originally: Mild / Medium / Full

• Later simplified (post-2019 era): Mild-to-Medium and Medium-to-Full
  
• Core promise: you choose by strength preference so you’re not forced into cigars outside your lane.
  
  
• Brick-and-mortar respect + Cigar Yard positioning

They spend real time on this (and it’s important):

• MCP encourages people to support local cigar shops because that ecosystem is essential for brands to grow.
  
• Cigar Yard exists for availability + service, not to become a discount/catalog race to the bottom.

They talk about keeping brand value intact (no huge markdown culture), and focusing on efficiency, customer service, and access to stuff you can’t find locally.

Their philosophy on rating cigars

Smokers RD emphasizes they rate cigars in real-world conditions, restaurants, homes, outdoors, wind, beach, because that’s how most people actually smoke. Their ratings are averaged across multiple members with different palates, not just one voice in a quiet “lab” room.

Closing

They wrap it up like friends: more collaborations ahead, likely another episode if viewers want deeper Smokers RD content, then lunch and more cigars.

If you want, I can convert this into a tighter “blog post recap” format (H2 sections + short punchy paragraphs) that matches the MCP site voice.

Watch the full video above and explore more cigar content from My Cigar Pack.