Event: CAO/Sucker Punch Sally "Lady Liberty" Bike Giveaway

Saturday, July 17, 2010
Nashville, TN


CAO Cigars invited everyone within listening distance (and a few from farther away) to Nashville this last Saturday to watch them give away the Lady Liberty customer motorcycle that they had been touring around the country for the past year. The bike was built by Sucker Punch Sally (SPS) in Scottsdale, Arizona, in a unique collaboration with CAO's marketing department. I drove out to from East Tennessee to be there for the big party and had the opportunity to sit down with CAO's Director of Lifestyle Marketing, Jon Huber, for a few minutes before the day got into full swing. He offered me a La Traviata Maduro and we both lit up to start the day off right.

Huber told me that a mutual friend introduced the vital parties of CAO and SPS a couple years ago. On a trip to Las Vegas, Jon and others from the cigar company visited Scottsdale and were impressed by what the bike company was doing not only with their bikes, but their business savvy and marketing. Partially inspired by the Nub Mini Cooper concept, Huber wanted to do something that was really cool. Over the course of 10 to 12 weeks, SPS put together the concept and actually built the custom motorcycle that CAO representatives to to over 110 cigar stores across the nation. In each store, everyone that bought a box of cigars was entered into a raffle; at the end of each night a name was chosen and that name went into a drawing of 6 names that would be semi-finalists. About 5,000 people also entered online and 1 name was chosen from there to be a semi-finalist. Those 7 semi-finalists were flown to Nashville for this party and bike giveaway event.

As we sat in Huber's office, the talk turned to a few other matters. I observed that Jon has really taken the image and marketplace presence of CAO to a different place through the use of social networking and marketing, especially Twitter and Facebook. Jon said he really enjoys this type of marketing and because it is fun for him, it is genuine for those of on the receiving end of it; if it became all about the numbers, he feels it would cease to work. I asked if there were any other "big deals" in the works in marketing and he said that most of that kind of thing was on hold while details of their parent company's merger with General Cigar's parent company are ironed out. We talked about his favorite cigars at the moment; he smokes a lot of La Traviata Animado and is a big fan of Dion Giolito's Epernay. He is also very enthusiastic about the La Traviata Maduro, which should be hitting stores between the second week and last week of August.

Because I had arrived early, I was able to get behind-the-scenes photos of the set-up and some of the only unobstructed (by people) views of the motorcycle that could be had all day. Promptly at 10:00, the doors opened to everyone else and the headquarters building became a sea of faces. Drinks were poured at a table at the back of what is normally a break room (cleared of chairs, carpets, and everything else for the occasion). Cigar Dave hosted a live radio broadcast from the event, interviewing Tim Ozgener (CAO's President), Jon Huber, Two-Foot Fred, and John Rich (half of country-music duo Big and Rich).

I got to meet the the Great Torpedo himself, the man in the Elf suit, Don "Cruz"ado, Stogie Review's own...Jerry Cruz. It was a pleasure to meet someone who has been doing this kind of work for a lot longer than I have and talk about the different aspects of the cigar world and the blogging world. I was able to lend a new nickname to him as well...I call him: the Blogfather (kind of goes along with the Don "Cruz"ado picture on their website). Allen Collier, a BOTL from the Nashville Cigar Club (NCC) and primary contributor to Cigar Blog.Net, was also on hand. Not quite as many bloggers on hand as there were at Cigar Expo or as there will be at IPCPR, but in some ways that made it all the better.

At approximately 12:45 Eastern time, the SPS bike was awarded to semi-finalist, Keith Henninger, which also signaled the end of the Cigar Dave show. A band was set up to provide entertainment for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. A wonderful spread of food was provided by Morton's Steakhouse of Nashville as well. I got to meet a lot of great people, 


By about 2:30, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the constant crush of people, the lack of comfortable seating, and the heat, which couldn't be overcome by the A/C indoors because of all the people standing around. Some friends from the NCC had already headed out to eat elsewhere and go to chill at Uptown's, so I headed that way as well. I was able to score a few cigars that I had not seen yet at my regular local shop and sat to relax with a La Flor Dominicana Air Bender Lancero while the other guys played dominoes. At about 5:30, I headed back over to CAO to deliver a couple "thank you" cigars to Jerry Cruz and Jon Huber. Then I set about the task of the three-hour drive home, taking only about 2.5 hours to do it.

A sincere thanks again to Jon Huber for spending a few minutes with me for the interview portion of this piece, and for providing some samples for a cigar review that will appear on these pages in the next couple weeks. Thanks to Jerry Cruz for the conversation and the advice...oh, the the La Paulina...a review of that will probably be showing up here as well. And a final word of thanks to Allen, Tom, Stogie and Mike from the NCC; it's always a pleasure hanging out with you gentlemen...and Stogie!


I took a bunch of pictures at the event, some of which are shown here. If you'd like to see the rest, they are available on my Facebook page.


Jerry Cruz's first of three videos about the proceedings is a tour inside the famous CAO Escaparate. The other two videos should be posted soon at StogieReview.com.

For another point of view on the proceedings, please check out Allen's article at CigarBlog.net.