Rocky Patel’s Road: From small-firm lawyer to selling 30 million cigars per year

In 2022, Cigar Aficionado rated the Rocky Patel “Sixty” the No. 1 cigar within the free world. That’s a outstanding feat. The trade’s preeminent publication considers about 700 cigars for its annual survey, and its reviewers have no idea the id or another particulars of the stogies they’re smoking.

Rakesh (“Rocky”) Patel, the model’s president and CEO, credit many issues for his success as a cigar maker, together with classes realized from his days training legislation in Los Angeles.

“From the time you plant a seedling within the floor to the time you get a cigar within the field takes 4 to 5 years,” Patel tells me in a current cellphone interview. “300 totally different palms contact the tobacco. If you happen to cheat the method alongside the best way, or take any shortcuts, you don’t get the outcomes.”

Patel, 64, says this mirrors the necessities to turning into a profitable lawyer. It’s about “consideration to element. When you find yourself studying a doc or drafting a pleading, it’s important to be very exact. You need to be good.”

From lawyer to cigar maker

Patel’s background makes him an unlikely cigar trade magnate. He was born in New Delhi, India’s capital metropolis within the north, and he grew up on the nation’s west coast in Bombay, now Mumbai. In 1974, his household got here to the USA, and Patel went to highschool in Inexperienced Bay, Wisconsin, after which to the College of Wisconsin.

Seeking to escape the chilly and snow, Patel headed to Los Angeles for legislation faculty. However “not eager to be a ravenous pupil,” he says, the would-be lawyer selected Southwestern Regulation College. This manner he may work as a legislation clerk through the day and attend the night program.

Regulation faculty wasn’t some deep-seated dream for Patel nor impressed by a objective to vary the world. His motivation was easier: “I wasn’t able to go face the true world.”

He provides credit score to the rigor of the night program for his drive right now. “I labored each day in a legislation agency, after which at 5 at night time, acquired in my automotive, tried to eat a sandwich; 6 o’clock began legislation faculty, was accomplished at 10 o’clock; after which within the library until 1 o’clock. That work ethic was instilled in me.”

Patel landed at a small agency in Beverly Hills that did leisure and plaintiff’s product legal responsibility work. The workplace was positioned near the Grand Havana Membership. It was there that Patel smoked his first cigar and have become a founding member of the membership.

Whereas there he could be approached to put money into a startup known as Indian Tabac Cigar Firm. The hook was that the enterprise had a license to commerce off the famed Indian Bike Firm title. However the enterprise confronted all method of issues—together with discovering that there was no such licensing settlement in spite of everything.

The enterprise was a black gap for cash. “I saved writing checks and saved writing checks and never getting something again,” says Patel who knew one thing wanted to vary. “So, I ended up taking on the corporate after a number of years.”

The naysayers had been considerable. Cigar companies are “‘handed down from era to era,’” Patel was advised. “‘You need to be of Cuban descent. You simply can’t get into the cigar enterprise. You’ll by no means make it.’”

As a part of the turnaround, Patel would carry the numerous steps of cigar making in-house. He recounts an assortment of quality-control issues brought on by counting on others in manufacturing.

In 2003, with the entire sides of producing now below Patel’s management, it was time to place his title on the cigars. Indian Tabac was now Rocky Patel Premium Cigars.

This 12 months, the corporate is celebrating three many years in enterprise. In August, its “thirtieth Anniversary” cigar will likely be launched to commemorate the event. Patel revealed in a 2022 interview with Cigar Aficionado that he sells almost 30 million cigars a 12 months in near 100 international locations.

Along with the “Sixty” getting such excessive marks from Cigar Aficionado, a lot of Patel’s different choices have rated very properly within the journal’s annual “High 25” listing. In 2024, Patel’s “Conviction” got here in at No. 7. It carries a $100 price ticket.

The publication’s reviewer famous {that a} high-priced cigar shouldn’t be at all times a assure of high quality. However he says that Patel has pulled it off, writing: “We discovered the Conviction good, a medium-to-full-bodied cigar that’s an outstanding performer, delivering an opulent core of cocoa powder and darkish chocolate taste. And it’s a cigar that builds in taste, getting higher and higher the longer it’s smoked.”

Regulation diploma not going up in smoke

Patel’s cigars are produced in Nicaragua and Honduras the place he has tobacco farms and big factories. Not surprisingly, with a world operation this huge, plus headquarters in Naples, Florida, and palatial cigar lounges—Burn by Rocky Patel—in 5 U.S. cities, I inform Patel I’m positive he’s nonetheless getting mileage out of his legislation diploma.

It’s humorous I ought to point out that, Patel says. “A few half hour earlier than this interview, I used to be reviewing contracts. I’m persistently coping with attorneys. I’m persistently reviewing contracts,” he shares. “The authorized training helps in lots of, many various components of what we do. Whether or not it’s an acquisition. Whether or not it’s a deal.”

Patel has additionally had a hands-on function in a number of circumstances introduced over a number of years by cigar producer and retail teams within the U.S. District Courtroom for the District of Columbia, difficult numerous makes an attempt by the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration to control cigars.

Patel tells me that laws sought to be imposed, which he known as “de facto prohibition,” would have price his firm $80 million to conform and wipe out 80% of the premium cigar trade. The challengers have loved large success of their battle, he says.

This consists of, earlier this 12 months, the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirming a decrease courtroom determination, placing down as arbitrary and capricious, FDA laws addressing gross sales, promotions and distribution of “premium cigars.” The federal appeals courtroom agreed with the district courtroom that the FDA had not thought of proof that “premium cigars” have fewer opposed well being results than different tobacco merchandise.

Left open within the appeals courtroom’s determination and despatched again to the district courtroom to find out is the definition of a “premium cigar.” Usually, concerns embrace the character of the tobacco, manufacturing course of and weight.

Patel shares a narrative about his early days in enterprise and first journey to Honduras.

“It was the Wild West,” Patel explains. The Contras and Sandinistas had been at battle. He recollects that everybody had a weapon on them, and there have been landmines to fret about.

One among Patel’s native companions fired a number of rounds from a gun by his automotive’s sunroof. “Tat, tat, tat, tat,” he says, imitating the sound.

“That is nuts,” Patel remembers considering. “He thought it was cool. I didn’t assume it was so cool.”

For Rocky Patel, it was a “Toto, I’ve a sense we’re not in Beverly Hills anymore” second.

Randy Maniloff is an lawyer at White and Williams in Philadelphia and an adjunct professor on the Temple College Beasley College of Regulation. He runs the web site CoverageOpinions.information.

This column displays the opinions of the creator and never essentially the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Affiliation.