Finest-Import GmbH and the love of the product
Right now, everything in Cuba has been destroyed by the hurricane. What do you think?
I only realized what had happened after our vacations. We are mobilizing as many customers as possible. Thanks to Intertabak, we were made aware of the Camaquito donation campaign. We are actively participating and collecting.
How do you collect? The campaign runs until 26.10.22.
The customer has two options for donating. Enter the amount directly. Or buy Cuban cigars of which we donate 10 %. The donation campaign runs from 18.10 to 26.10.2022 . We will donate 10 % from all orders of Cuban cigars. The customer donates without paying more. It is a sign from us and all those who love Cuba that we are not letting them down. We live just as much from tobacco growing as they do. At this time, we need to move closer together.
Mr. Strasek, you've been in the business for 21 years, were you ever on the verge of giving up?
No, never, for me my business is not a must, but a pure right. I was able to turn my hobby into a profession. A privilege that few people have.
How did you come up with the idea of opening a specialist store for cigars and spirits?
I learned a lot from Charles Hofer, the founder of Charles Hofer SA. Charles ran the Tabacaria in Olten and also had many catering customers. One of his sales events was the Big Smoke at the Farnsburg in Ormalingen. I worked there in service. Charles sparked my fascination for cigars. After dinner, 50 people smoked a Partagas Lusitanias. They all lit the cigars at the same time. It was winter and it was -10 degrees C outside. Nobody wanted to open a window and the ventilation could barely keep up. I can still smell that aroma today when I think about it.
That's how the business turned out. I traveled to Cuba several times and always took a few cigars with me. Little by little, a hobby turned into a business.
Her store is located away from the big cities, in Murgenthal. A town that doesn't exactly have many walk-in customers. What made you choose this location?
In my early days, I traveled a lot. I worked in the restaurant trade and knew many other restaurateurs. You were still allowed to smoke in restaurants. I often drove to Zurich with 50 boxes of cigars, we smoked one at my expense and I was able to sell the rest to customers in the restaurant. These customers would then call me when they needed a refill.
In 2000, I was still working in the restaurant business and on my days off, Mondays and Tuesdays, I dealt in cigars. I needed more and more space and decided to open a store. The fact that the location was here in Murgenthal was due to personal reasons. At the same time, the location wasn't important, as I hadn't had one before and business was still going better and better.
Today, customers from all over Switzerland also visit us. They often plan a day trip to see us live. For me, it's still an advantage not to be in a city. This size of store would certainly no longer be affordable in the city of Zurich. We are very well connected, you can be in Zurich, Berne, Basel or Lucerne in 30 minutes. Murgenthal has never turned out to be a bad location.
Shop at Finest-Import: Here is the location
When I look around you, I see more bottles than cigars. Are you more of a spirits or cigar retailer now?
That's right, the smallest part of the store is the customer humidor. The spirits and utensils take up more space. However, we generate ¾ of our turnover with cigars.
However, the combination with spirits has proven to be extremely valuable. The cigars do better in the warmer months and the spirits in the cooler months. A combination that complements each other perfectly.
I started with wine and a few spirits. Nowadays you can get good wine on every corner, so I only have specialty wines or large bottles for our events. Spirits have been dormant for a long time. Believe it or not, I didn't like whisky at first. I rather liked the sweet rums. But as it happens, tastes change. More and more suppliers were added, more and more brands. The diversity of the store became broader. In 2019, we were voted Best Whisky Shop. We are Laddie Crew members and in the Century Club.
But the focus is clearly on the cigars. We are Habanos specialists, we live, love and celebrate Cuban joie de vivre and enjoyment. And we appreciate the fine art of rolling cigars.
In addition to Cuban cigars, we have many more. We are also a Davidoff, Arturo Fuente and Patoro Depositary.
You have been on the market for over 20 years. How has the cigar world changed during this time?
A lot has changed. Some brands no longer exist, others are no longer imported. As always, it's been a rollercoaster ride since we started working with the Cubans. Sometimes you can stock a lot of cigars, sometimes almost nothing. And then you usually wait 5 years for the new products. I find that the most difficult thing. Everyone is so well connected online these days that we have to keep giving explanations. Customers see the new product that Habanos S.A. is presenting. And then they call me or write to me. They want to pick up the cigars straight away or reserve them, preferably by the box. But the fact that it sometimes takes up to five years for these new products to reach us rarely makes customers happy.
The cigar world is currently in turmoil, with price mark-ups and poor availability currently dominating the market. How are your customers reacting?
The price adjustments were not all that surprising for them. It had been looming for some time and I had been communicating this for some time. However, the huge mark-ups on the super premium brands, such as Cohiba, Trinidad, Linea d'Oro from RyJ or the Montecristo Linea 1935, did come as something of a shock to customers. However, the niche brands, the simpler and less well-known ones, were not increased at all; everything remained the same.
Availability is also not solely dependent on the last two years. Unfortunately, the harvest has been poor for two years in a row. At the same time, the markets around us have been fished out for some time. We call this customer group cigar brokers. Most of them come from Asia and buy cigars for others. They prefer to buy 10 boxes at a time. Switzerland, with its expensive franc, was the last to be approached. The fact that the franc is currently even more expensive doesn't stop the cigar brokers in the slightest. Their customers from Asia have the money.
And Swiss customers fall by the wayside?
I can't speak for all specialist retailers. We are trying to counteract this somewhat. We no longer set all the lights to green. This means that not everything we have in stock is available in the online store. We ask our customers to contact us directly to tell us what they want. If our entire stock were available online, we would have sold out a long time ago.
What do you think will happen in the near and distant future?
Everything will return to normal. The merry-go-round will continue. Higher prices, scarce availability - we've seen it all before. This time, too, everything will return to normal. Now we are slowly getting used to the high prices. Some will stop smoking or change cigar country. The warehouses are filling up and new customers are starting to smoke. An individual's priorities shift and we get new, different customers. If we look back 60 years and do some research, we see that the cigar stores from back then still exist, they have survived. It will be the same for today's specialist retailers.
My advice to everyone, whether retailer or customer, is to stay cool and true to your own philosophy. With cigars, it's like everywhere else, everything is changing and sooner or later will fall into place.
I'm already on my second round on the up-and-down carousel of Cuban cigars. But I've still managed to grow in that time.
One final word: help! A word we rarely use, we are all too proud. Recognizing when someone needs help and doing the right thing is a fine art.
Resources on the topic
>> Cigars, spirits and wine online store
>> You can find the whole series here
>> The Habanos cigar: 4-part film documentary with eBooks
>> Photos of this article: FotoWerk 132
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