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Photo Credit: Rigby’s Cigars & Lounge<\/em><\/p>\n I typically start these cigar articles off talking about the cigar maker and how they came to be a label. Then get into the cigar we had and what the club rated it. But in 6 \u00bd years of the Paris Smokeasy Cigar Club, we have never had a sponsor for one of our Cigar Nights step up the way First Federal Community Bank, SSB<\/strong> did! Three of our club members have ties to First Federal: Executive Vice-President and a Board Member John Brockman<\/strong>, Duwane Mathews<\/strong> – Bank Risk Officer, and Dr Wally Kraft<\/strong> is a Board Member. These three gentlemen along with James Welch<\/strong> \u2013 Senior VP Commercial Loan Officer at the downtown location, Bow Willis<\/strong> \u2013 VP Commercial Lending at the loop location, and Rustin Watson<\/strong> \u2013 VP Commercial Lending at the Mt Pleasant location, all showed up to Rigby’s<\/strong> with their cooking trailer. Duwane, James, Bow, and Rustin cooked enough fish, hush puppies, fries, with all the sides to feed the entire club a Catfish dinner. Unless another sponsor challenges them with ribeye\u2019s or bbq, they will forever hold the title of \u201cBest Sponsored Event Ever!\u201d<\/p>\n For the second month in a row, the Smokeasy invited a new to the club cigar company to be our guest and to present us with their line for the first time. We love cigars, a good drink, and the added bonus – being a Texas based cigar company. Micallef Cigars is based out of Weatherford, TX.<\/p>\n I got to sit down with Al Micallef<\/strong>, owner and founder of Micallef cigars, the day after the smoke night to ask him how he got into the business. Al is originally from the Detroit, Michigan area and grew up around manufacturing. He had been working in the auto industry when he left to help a family friend with their silicone business that he eventually bought and moved to Texas. He is what I would call a serial entrepreneur. He started with a lemonade stand, had a Christmas tree lot, was a rust cleaner salesman, and now owns a silicone business, which is one of the largest employers in Weatherford, he has somewhere between 10-12000 cattle, Reata in Sundance Square Fort Worth is one of the largest restaurants at 4 stories and 20,000 square feet, well you get the point, serial entrepreneur. All that with a JD (Juris Doctor) law degree too. I asked Al how he got into cigars, and he said, \u201cif you count rolling up oak leaves in a Detroit Free Press newspaper at age 12 and smoking it.\u201d He is an avid cigar smoker and was sitting at a cigar lounge in Fort Worth when two Cuban men\u2019s car had broken down in front. They came in the cigar place asking if they could roll some cigars and sell them with the tobacco they had with them. The cigar lounge allowed them to, and Al tried some. Typically, fresh rolled cigars aren\u2019t top shelf quality as they need to age before smoking, but Al asked if they could make 1200 cigars for him. It wasn\u2019t long after the handshake was made, and the Gomez Sanchez Family started blending and rolling cigars in the traditional Cuban style (triple cap, triple fermented) under the Micallef label. Al had gone to Nicaragua and bought a factory for them to be made at. With his background in manufacturing, he streamlined the leaf to customer process cutting out unnecessary costs. He ended up with one of the best price points in the market for a premium cigar and the brand took off.<\/p>\n For the Smoke Night, we welcomed Lauren Koper<\/strong>, National Sales Executive, and Jason A. Fields, Inside Sales, from Micallef Cigars to come give us the run down on the label, the different blends, and what we were smoking for the night. We had the Micallef Cigars Leyenda Toro<\/strong> in a 6\u201dx52-Gauge. It is a medium-full bodied cigar with an Ecuadorian Habano Wrapper, Nicaraguan Binder, and a Nicaraguan, Dominican Republic, and Honduran Filler. On their website, they list their \u201cAccolades & Ratings\u201d receiving the following: Rated 96 Cigar & Spirits Magazine, rated 94 Cigar & Spirits Magazine (Special Edition), Rated 92 Cigar Aficionado, rated 92 Cigar Insider, rated 91 Cigar Snob Magazine, and Rated 90 Cigar Journal Magazine. Cigar Authority does their rating by customer rating input and the Micallef Black won Cigar of the Year for 2023! With 70 people present (see the sponsor that fed the club\u2026. everyone came out for this event it received a Redneck Ratin<\/strong> of 89<\/strong> out of 100<\/strong>. Rigby\u2019s now carries the Micallef line, so go check them out on the square to see how good these cigars are. We also welcomed Travis Frank<\/strong> to the club this month, and no Travis you will not get fed at all the future events.<\/p>\n Again, we want to thank our sponsor for serving our community and the club. First Federal Community Bank just celebrated their 100th year in 2023 serving Paris and the surrounding areas. It\u2019s easy to see why they have been in business so long.<\/p>\n Written by: JD Marrs<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0 Sponsor: First Federal Community Bank<\/em><\/p>\n Hosted by: Rigby’s Cigars & Lounge<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.micallefcigars.com\/<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.ffcbank.com\/<\/p>\n #parissmokeasy<\/p>\n #cigarofthenight<\/p>\n #rigbyscigars<\/p>\n #micallefcigars<\/p>\n #FFCB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CIGAR OF THE NIGHT \u2013 MAY\u2019S CATFISHED SMOKE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,22],"tags":[1766,888,1320,17,5335],"class_list":["post-23383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-local-news","tag-al-micallef","tag-greenville-tx","tag-paris-smokeasy","tag-paris-tx","tag-rigbys-cigars-lounge"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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