Foundry Tobacco Co.: Compounds, Elements & Musings (Video)

Creative Director Michael Giannini gives us a tour of Foundry Cigar Co.’s extensive Compounds, Elements and Musings line.

Transcript:

How are you doing? I’m Michael Giannini. This is Foundry Tobacco Company, and what you’re going to see is some of my creations this year under Foundry Tobacco Company. So let’s go check out the new Foundry releases for 2013.

So what I’ve had to do in my life, and there’s only one trauma I still have, is learning 108 elements on the periodic table. So to vex those demons, I’ve created my own periodic table. And so let me tell you, what I have here is twelve different front marks. Six of them are for brick and mortar, six of them are for catalog and Internet, and what this does is 12 blends, 12 front marks, 18 different blends. So let me take you through these.

The first one is Carbon. Carbon is the center of the universe. So for me it’s a 6 x 60 cigar. 77 count is the atomic weight of carbon. I like diamonds, because I like to wear diamonds. And that’s how I put diamonds on a cigar. You want to know what the blend is? It’s Nicaraguan, it’s lower 48, just smoke it. I want you to have the experience that I have in the factories. The adjusted retail is 4.99 for this cigar. It’s a great smoke.

What you do with an element is when they combine together they create a compound. So here’s H2O. The idea here is I want you folks out there to try all three of them and have a debate with your friends which one you like better. What you notice here is the typewriter keys, okay? Each key differentiates the different wrapper and also the different blend. But the typewriter keys to me are the old Three Stooges when they didn’t have cufflinks.

This is hydrogen in my world. Hydrogen reminds me of the old William Shatner who was scared to fly and he saw a gremlin on the plane wing. That’s my gremlin. It’s a gremlin with an H2 bomb. A beautiful bell-shaped cigar. Again, if you want to know what the blend is, it’s Nicaraguan, Ecuadorian, and Mysterioso. So I was able to try some different types of tobacco and blend it in with Nicaraguan and Ecuadorian to bring out the different taste, kind of unique and different.

This is one of my favorites. I travel so much that this is the element Uranium, but as I go through TSA, they have so many x-rays of me, so actually that’s my salute to the world. This is a 7 x 70 cigar. So when somebody says to you, “Hey man, put that cigar out,” just show them the band, they’ll get their answer.

This is Helium. Helium in the periodic table does not blow up. In my world, because I’m a guy, I like stuff that blows up. I like to see an old airship blow up. And that’s helium to me.

This is Titanium. In my factory, the folks there don’t really like devils. So originally it had a devil design on this. So in a way to kind of get them un-superstitious, I created the diablo forte, the devil’s tail. But what’s unique about this, and I’m going to tell them eventually that, “Hey, man, nothing bad happened.” But the idea here is there’s two different shapes, the same blend, but they both smoke differently, and I wanted to show you the difference of a unique shape of a cigar in the same blend.

This is Plutonium. Plutonium to me was Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, and it’s a stick of dynamite. So what you see here is a stick of dynamite. Inner tube from a tire, take the fuse out. You open these guys up, there are four different blends.

This one is Europium. So to me, my interpretation of Europium, I’m going to Europe on a trip, I need a steamer trunk. But how I played this off was, what you see here is a merman who’s been fishing all day and having fun with some mermaids. There’s a ghost ship floating around. He just wanted to take a break, so he just hopped up. He’s on vacation; he’s just hanging out. That’s Europium.

This is Gold. Beautifully recycled pine wood box, golden wrapper. People are still looking for gold and mining for it, and that’s my homage to the gold miners.

Argon. I have no idea what this gas does. It doesn’t matter. To me it was just a really cool design. I call it the burning [lamp 04:44]. Very unique black and copper design. Again, if you want to know what the blend is, it’s Honduran, Nicaraguan, and Brazilian.

This is Xenon. Xenon to me reminded me of the ’50s Flash Gordon. It’s a UFO. And you can kind of hear it [whistles]. And that’s Xenon.

And this box is Vanadium. And why I designed Vanadium is we have a wonderful PR person called Victoria McKee Jaworski. I wanted to create a v-box for her. So when you open this up, there’s 10 cigars here, 10 cigars here. And that’s what Vanadium is. Very unique shape, a serious cigar, great taste, unique design.

And that’s compounds of elements and musings.