Sean Kremenetski and Mitul Shah are two gentleman in the early chapters of what they plan to be an epic success story. What follows is some Q&A with Sean, the co-founder of Fable Cigars!
Fable Cigars is about stories, so what’s your story? How’d you break into the cigar scene?
Mine and Mitul’s stories are connected. We grew up together, having known each other since my first (his second) year of high school. His family’s cigar business had just taken off and we spent a lot of time in his flagship shop, Cigar King of Rockland, in Rockland County, NY. We became cigar smokers in our late teens and had about 30 years of palette evolution between us.
When we hit our thirties, we thought about going into business together. At first, the conversation was about running a shop. But I couldn’t commit to staying in one place, so that was out. A brand, however, well that can be run from anywhere…
Which factory produces Fable Cigars and how’d those relationships come to be?
Our cigars are manufactured in Nica Sueño, the factory primarily known for RoMa Craft Tobac. Besides Fable, Nica Sueño also rolls cigars for Powstanie (owned by brothers Mike and Gregg Szczepankiewicz and Guaimaro, which was blended by Nica Sueño’s tobacco guru Esteban Disla.
Our relationship with Skip and Mike, indeed any relationship that we would have forged, is owed to Mitul. He is a true tobacconist, which has enabled him to be a top performer for many brands that were reaching out to us once word got around that Mitul wanted to get into blending. Fortuitously, Mike Rosales was at one of Mitul’s shops at the same time Mitul and I were having a planning meeting for what would become Fable. He overheard our conversation, expressed interest in having Nica Sueño make our cigars and suggested that we travel to Nicaragua, meet Skip and figure out if we can work together.
We did that, bundling our trip to include a stay in Granada as guests of the Mombacho brand and the grand opening of their new factory. We partied for a couple of days, I got a pretty bad case of food poisoning from an evil shrimp cocktail and after a brief stay at a Nicaraguan hospital (a much better experience than one might imagine) we made our way to Esteli. Long story short, we clicked with Skip and his methodology. He wanted us to learn every element of blending, from the cultivation of tobacco to the rolling process, to getting to know the smell, feel and taste of each wrapper, binder and filler leaf we wanted to work with. This is the way we wanted to approach things, so at that point the decision was easy.
What was your inspiration for Fourth Prime?
When we are asked this, it’s become amusing to think about, because there was no eureka moment to the idea. We wanted to be true to our brand concept and have wide appeal. Being mathematically inclined, our conversations naturally evolved to talking about the number 7. While Mitul is a spiritual person and I am an atheist, it is nevertheless hard to ignore that 7 appears throughout history in a variety of self-contained contexts. It’s a significant, recurring number that permeates everything from faith (across multiple beliefs) to human accomplishment, to media, mathematics and even the practical number of days in a week. Once we realized how relatable that number is, it was time to connect it to Fable.
"Though we are still fresh in the game, I'd call Fable Cigars a big personal success."
How would you characterize the Fable Cigars experience to someone that’s never tasted it before?
We’ve read a lot of reviews that broke the smoke down into a wide range of flavors, some that we can’t even taste ourselves! However, we do agree with the more consistent characterizations: the cigar is a medium to full body and full flavor smoke. It has broad sweet and savory notes, dominated by those that remind one of coffee, chocolate and peppers. The most agreed upon element is that each vitola is a flavor bomb, with these notes grabbing you from the beginning and not letting go.
What’s your greatest success to date? Biggest disappointment?
Though we are still fresh in the game, I’d call Fable Cigars a big personal success. The experience and our decisions along the way, from the relationship with Nica Sueño to the dedication of multiple blending trips to Nicaragua, to having two amazing IPCPR shows back to back, all reflect a degree of temperament and patience that is nice to reflect on.
"Long story short, we clicked with Skip [Martin] and his methodology."
Mitul and I have different perspectives on what we would each consider to be our biggest disappointments, but neither of us like to dwell on the past or make it available for public consumption. It’s something we are only comfortable discussing in a more intimate setting. Perhaps one day that will change, but not yet.
What’s one thing that most people don’t know, but should, about Fable?
The Fourth Prime logo is seven lines. If turned sideways, the logo reads P for Prime. People always get a kick out of that when we show them.
What’s the next chapter for Fable Cigars?
This is a complicated question, one I think a lot of small manufacturers and brand owners are considering in the current landscape. The FDA is a looming shadow over the industry and our next chapter isn’t as clear as we would like it to be, until the industry gets a better understanding of the new cost of admission. We have a great blend in mind and we hope the government lets us share it with our community.
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