I came across Kentucky Gentlemen Cigars (KGC) at the 2007 International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers (IPCPR) trade show in Houston, Texas. What initially drew my attention to the booth was a cigar called the Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon cigar. Many of you already know of my affection for Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon, so it was no surprise that I sauntered over to the booth for a closer look-see. It turned out that the KGC Company ages their tobacco for the Blanton’s cigar in bourbon barrels from the Blanton’s Company. Further, they made the cigar especially to be smoked along with a nice dollop of Blanton’s bourbon.

But the Blanton’s cigar was only one of the several lines of cigars offered by this company. They have maduro’s, natural’s and even a barber pole, all tipped with Kentucky fire-cured tobacco. Most of their tobacco is imported from the Dominican Republic, but their signature process is the inclusion of the Kentucky tobacco. They are even experimenting with growing Cuban seed tobacco and Connecticut broadleaf in Anderson County, Kentucky.

I was able to talk the ever-busy company founder, Allen Mobley, into taking some time to provide this interview. So, sit back and get acquainted with a true Kentucky Gentleman.

DOC: Do you have any background in the tobacco industry and, if so, how did that lead you into the premium cigar business?

ALLEN: I grew up in Kentucky and my entire family was involved in the tobacco industry. We grew tobacco on our family farms. That was a lot of hard work in those days and we keep photos of my grandparents and other family members in the factory along with a lot of the tools used back then to remind us of where we came from.

DOC: What is it about Kentucky that made you decide to locate a cigar business there?

ALLEN: When my wife and I had twins, I decided that I wanted to raise them in Kentucky instead of California, where we were living at the time. Initially we had considered entering the wine industry in Kentucky, which is really growing but there were quite a few wineries around Lawrenceburg and Lexington so we decided to go back into the tobacco business.

Our premier cigar is the Blanton. This is a licensed product with the Blanton’s Bourbon Company. I spent a lot of hours sipping Blanton and rolling cigars to develop a blend that gives a cigar that complements the bourbon without overtaking the flavor of the bourbon itself;

We also offer a Churchill cigar that is made with Dominican binder and long-leaf filler and a Connecticut shade wrapper. This cigar, as well as the others that are not Blanton’s all have a tip on them that is made from Western Kentucky dark tobacco that has been fire-cured. This tobacco won't burn but it adds a terrific flavor to each of our cigars. Some folks like to just roll it around in their mouths for a minute or two prior to lighting it just because it tastes so good.

Our Robusto is similar to the Churchill in its make-up with an added layer of Columbian filler. It has a larger ring-size. It also has been "fire-tipped" as well;

The Kentucky Colonel is our Maduro Churchill. It has Dominican and Mexican filler, a Dominican binder and a Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro wrapper.

We also offer a very high-quality Twist cigar. It contains Dominican and Nicaraguan filler and a Dominican Binder. The wrapper is both Connecticut Shade and Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro. The unique quality of this cigar is that it burns very evenly and produces the kind of long ash that is typically not found in a twist.  Since the Maduro wrapper has more oil it often will cause a twist to burn unevenly but we've added a Connecticut Shade pre-wrap as well as the Bourbon-Barrel aged tobacco to develop a cigar that burns like it should.

Our newest cigar, only offered for a limited time is the Mint Julep Cigar. This is a Robusto sized cigar where we've taken the fire-tip and added a Kentucky mint flavoring to it so it's got all the features of a good Mint Julep - great bourbon and Kentucky Mint. I think it surprised Allen Mills, our Marketing guy, when he first tried it. He wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was but it came out with a bit of a bite at the beginning and smoothed out to a very nice smoke by the end of the first inch or so.

DOC: What makes your company unique in the cigar industry and what do you consider to be the strengths of your company and your products?

ALLEN: The most unique part of our company is that we used as much Kentucky content as possible - Western Kentucky dark tobacco for the tips, Kentucky bourbon to age the tobacco, Kentucky mint on the tips, and Kentucky cedar for our cigar boxes. We are also hand-rolling these cigars in Kentucky, which is very unusual. When Cigar Dave interviewed me in Houston at the 2007 RTDA show he couldn't believe a "white boy in Kentucky was rolling cigars". Now he's one of our biggest fans.

Our company's biggest strength is the fact that we're pretty aggressive. We are going after this market in as many ways as possible. We're pursuing distributors in as many cities as possible, we're doing events (cigar-rollings, store openings, trade-shows, etc.) as often as possible, we have a presence on the internet and are also providing shipments to current retail customers on a daily basis.

DOC: You are the only company that is using Kentucky tobacco in their cigars. What characteristics does Kentucky tobacco have that make it a perfect fit in your blends? Also, how long will it be before you are offering more Kentucky-grown tobaccos in your blends?

ALLEN: There are two types of tobacco currently grown in Kentucky - burley and dark. Burley is typically used in cigarettes and dark is used for dip, chew, snuff, etc. We can't use burley due to tax issues and dark won't burn, believe me we've tried. We have been experimenting with Cuban seed grown in Kentucky; in fact we've raised two crops of it here at Ripplewood Estates, my home. It will be several years before we know if it's any good, as we won't use any tobacco that's been cured for less than five years. Who knows, we may have a great all-Kentucky product in 3 or 4 more years - or I may just have fertilizer for the next year's crop.

DOC: How important is aging the tobacco, either before or after it is rolled into cigars, to the overall quality and flavor of your cigars?

ALLEN: As I mentioned, we don't use any tobacco that's less than five years old. If you smoke what I would consider to be "green" tobacco it will produce a burn in the back of your throat and the veins just aren't smooth enough. We age our own tobacco for 3-6 months in Kentucky bourbon barrels as we discussed earlier.

ALLEN: So far we've been able to add two new distributors to our network this year and hope to add several more before the end of the year. Your listeners can help with that by asking their local tobacconists to contact their own distributors about carrying our product. If they buy direct instead of through a distributor we can sell direct to their local tobacconist if they'll contact us. We'll be at the IPCPR (RTDA) show in Las Vegas this year and hope to have 2 more new products to debut at that show. Can't really tell you about them right now but they're going to be good.  We're also working on some other events that could really bring us some national attention and I can let you know about those once the details are nailed down.