Fall 2020 PCA Magazine

PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG AUTUMN 2020 | PCA The Magazine 41 atmosphere that’s fun, energetic and vibrant.” He’s quick to emphasize that it’s also “an atmosphere where you can buy our shirts and our brand. We go from tee shirts to long sleeve, tomechanic’s shirts to eight different styles of hats. We have four different styles of lighters with our logo; we just keep branding.” With plans tomove to a larger, above-ground location (the current store is subterranean), Rectenwald is constantly looking for opportunities to continue building his brand and defining the brand as an integral part of the community he serves. Know your clientele Our final example comes from California, where a family of enterprising brothers sought and succeeded in establishing their brand of family and community as the backbone of their business. Set amid bucolic rolling hills dotted with California live oak trees, Thousand Oaks provides the backdrop for landmark retailer Old Oaks Cigars and Wine. The purveyor of fine wines and spirits, and an enormous selection of premiumcigars, has been serving the greater Los Angeles area for more than 20 years. Brothers Arseen and Albert Chrikjian opened their first store, the Smoke Zone, in 1996. It was a success from day one, and they soon began the search for larger quarters. That led to acquiring the free- standing building a fewmiles down the road, where they were able to realize their dreamof adding high-end liquor to the burgeoning cigar selections, under the rebranded name of Old Oaks Cigar &Wine. The spacious walk-in humidor is bursting at the seams, packed floor to ceiling with stacks of cigar boxes, virtually any brand of cigar one could ever want, from the everyday and familiar to the rare and hard to find. They specialize in everything fromFuente Fuente Opus X to Padron Family Reserve; from AJ Fernandez, Tatuaje, andMy Father Cigars, to Rocky Patel, Illusione and Caldwell. They also carry all of the offerings from classics such as Punch andHoyo deMonterrey, Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta , Macanudo and Partagas. The selection is practically endless. But what sets Old Oaks apart is their house brandHand Rolled cigar. Albert narrates the brand’s history: “When we purchased the store 20 years ago they had a roller, which we inherited. But it was less than 1 percent of the business. We started improving the blends, purchasing different types of tobacco, until it became consistent. Now I would say it’s 30 to 40 percent of our business.” Arseen adds: “My customer base is not stuck on only one brand. They come to us for what we provide, which is our house brand. For 20 years we’ve had our own cigar, so people come for those, and then they buy, in addition, the other cigars. When we started with the house brand it was maybe a thousand cigars amonth, then it became 10,000 amonth. It’s something that nobody else has, so we’ve built loyalty to that brand. Customers send other customers. Businesspeople come to the area, they try our cigars, and when they go back home they call us and they order them. We ship themall over the country.” The same can be said for their deep inventory of top- shelf scotches and bourbons, expanding their image and brand to another market. Connoisseurs fromaround the country peruse their website in search of such rarities asMacallanMBlack ($9,000), Macallan Fine and Rare 52 Years ($50,000), Macallan Exceptional Cask ($75,000) or even the over-the-topMacallan 65 Years in Lalique, for a cool $120,000! Yes they’ve sold them all, but you can also buy the best of more down-to-earth brands like JohnnieWalker, Famous Grouse, Balvenie and others. In addition to numerous brands of scotch and bourbon, as well as vodka, rumand tequila, Old Oaks is also known for their own single barrel bourbons. Rather than attempt to create their own products, they partner with well known brands of spirits to purchase an entire barrel, or single cask, which is not reproduced by themaker, giving them, in essence, their own private label bourbon. Their reputation and their sales volume afford them the opportunity to purchase an entire single cask from some of the top distillers in the country. Currently they are featuring their own cask of Knob Creek 15 Year Old Bottled for Old Oaks, attesting to the exclusivity of the product, and adding to the cachet of the retailer. The house brands serve to keep the regulars coming back, to recommend Olds Oaks to fellow lovers of cigars and spirits, and to burnish the image of Old Oaks as a premier purveyor of quality products. But the Chrikjian brothers feel that it is the sense of community they created which sets themapart from their competitors. “Our vision of how this came about, howwe would brand ourselves, came fromwhen we opened our first store,” says Albert. “We pay attention to each and every customer. People get to know us, and we get to know them. Everybody feels they are special, and they are. We ask everyone their name, so when they come back we’d remember them, and they say, ‘Hey, they already knowme.’ We create a village atmosphere where people feel comfortable, so that after three or four hours in the lounge, they leave looking forward to coming back and doing the same thing all over again the next day.” In the final analysis, as with all the examples mentioned, they are the brand. If you look at the commonalities, each store has created a house brand cigar and other branding accessories using what has defined them. Whether froma preconceived plan, taking cues from their locale or highlighting their unique personalities, each store has set itself apart by offering a unique brand experience unlike any other in their area. For all, it has been a formula for success. Brothers Arseen and Albert Chrikjian of Old Oaks Cigar & Wine in Thousand Oaks, California, combined a location move with a total rebranding. They now offer high-end liquor and wine in addition to a humidor that is bursting at the seams.