It\u2019s noon on a Tuesday, and Law Ream is smoking a cigar.<\/p>\n
A limited release Camacho, he says, a swirl of smoke escaping the corner of his bearded mouth. It\u2019s spicy, with sweet notes of chocolate, leather, cedar and espresso.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur job is pretty great,\u201d he tells his colleague, Alex Weghorn, inside a hazy room at the Corona Cigar Co. in Tampa, once a global hub of the cigar industry.<\/p>\n
This is how Ream and Weghorn spend their days \u2014 as brand ambassadors for the cigar company Davidoff of Geneva USA. The Tampa Bay-based pair travel the country promoting products that range from a few dollars to hundreds.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, we just get to smoke cigars and hang out with people,\u201d Ream said. \u201cThat\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not it. Not really.<\/p>\n
With rates of loneliness higher than ever, and people around the country siloed along political lines, Ream and Weghorn say cigars are a vital connector. Step into a cigar lounge \u2014 no matter who or where you are \u2014 and you\u2019ll be welcomed, they say.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll see a 25-year-old kid who just started a job smoking with the CEO of his company, sitting next to your garbage man having a cigar with a guy that owns a law firm,\u201d Ream said. \u201cIt\u2019s the great equalizer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The job is part-educator, part-influencer and part-salesperson. Ream is an ambassador for Camacho Cigars, a popular brand Davidoff acquired in 2008. Weghorn promotes Davidoff\u2019s luxury cigars.<\/p>\n
Weghorn calls himself a storyteller. He can tell you about the seeds and soil that produced a particularly strong harvest of tobacco in the Dominican Republic; about the yearslong aging and fermentation process; about all the hands that sorted and rolled your favorite cigars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would call myself a super-nerd,\u201d Weghorn said.<\/p>\n
Both men stumbled into the industry. After leaving a job at a health food company, Weghorn began working behind the register and helping to run social media for Central Cigars in St. Petersburg. Ream, who grew up in Miami, worked in photography and marketing before making the switch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis job feels quintessential to Tampa,” said Ream, who lives across the bay in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
A century ago, the city was home to more than 200 cigar factories that filled the brick blocks of Ybor City and West Tampa. Just 25 of the buildings remain today and house offices, apartments and a boutique hotel. One \u2014 the J.C. Newman Cigar Co. \u2014 is the last operating cigar factory in the country.<\/p>\n
The job\u2019s not perfect, Weghorn said. There\u2019s the unavoidable stuff. Emails, meetings.<\/p>\n
The smoke lingers on clothes and hair, though Ream said he doesn\u2019t notice it anymore. \u201cNose-blind,\u201d he jokes.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s travel \u2014 lots of it. Ream drove a trailer across 33 states to visit more than 100 cigar lounges in the past year and a half. He spent 160 nights in hotels. Sometimes, while on the road, he\u2019ll smoke four or five cigars a day for two weeks straight.<\/p>\n
Weghorn\u2019s record? Eleven cigars in one day (though nine were \u201cshort-form,\u201d he said, which take less time to smoke).<\/p>\n
Neither have a favorite cigar, but certain memories stand out.<\/p>\n
Ream recalls a Davidoff Winston Churchill Limited Edition 2022, smoked alone on his patio with a Miami Hurricanes game on in the background.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was enjoying it so much I had to turn the game off,\u201d he said. \u201cI sat there in silence and smoked it nonstop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weghorn remembers a $600 Davidoff Oro Blanco that made him think, \u201cThis is not a cigar you taste. This is a cigar you feel.\u201d He was on a work trip in North Carolina and hadn\u2019t enjoyed one in days. The smoke overwhelmed his fresh palette.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mental Rolodex of flavors was spinning so fast, I couldn\u2019t grab just one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, Ream said, it\u2019s less about the cigar and more about the company. He\u2019s smoked with TV producers and CEOs, construction workers and bikers. There\u2019s often a misperception that cigars are reserved for the old, rich and powerful.<\/p>\n
\u201cCigar lounges are one of the last places where you can have a decent conversation,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re inclusive, the political discourse is open, no one is sitting on their phones. It\u2019s just people across spectrums \u2014 political, socioeconomic, whatever \u2014 having actual conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s not just business or politics,\u201d Weghorn agreed. \u201cIt\u2019s life lessons. How to be a better person.\u201d<\/p>\n
All it takes, he said, is a question.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you smoking?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s noon on a Tuesday, and Law Ream is smoking a cigar. A limited release Camacho, he says,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1920,67498,67499,67505,67500,67504,67503,276,67506,2737,45880,135,137,136,7029,67501,67502],"class_list":["post-138415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-cigar","tag-cigars","tag-corona-cigar-co","tag-crops-originating-from-the-americas","tag-davidoff","tag-habits","tag-herbal-and-fungal-stimulants","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-individual-psychoactive-drugs","tag-smoke","tag-smoking","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tobacco","tag-tobacco-products","tag-tobacco-smoking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}