Fields and Miller’s story was featured in a recent edition of The Battalion, the student newspaper at Texas A&M University, where Fields is a sophomore and Miller is in the process of transferring from the University of Houston.

Fields started smoking cigars soon after his 18th birthday and recognized a business opportunity as the head of the A&M cigar-smoking club. He and childhood friend Miller decided the cigar store idea was too good to pass up while sitting in an Irish pub in April. With help from friends, a lengthy business plan and enough patience to go through the tobacco sales regulations in the state of Texas – plus a loan from a local bank co-signed by their parents – they opened in September.

The story noted that students, faculty and area businesspeople make up most of the clientele and with no dedicated cigar shop in the College Station area, they’re doing well. “We got a three-year loan,” said Miller in an interview with reporter Rick Rojas. “But we will pay of the loan by next spring.”

Fields and Miller may be young, but they know the first rule of real estate: location counts. Their store is in the same shopping center as the popular Harvey Washbanger’s, a popular laundry, pub and restaurant complex.

Thanks to their unique status in the area and their proximity to the campus (across the street), they haven’t had to spend much on promotions. But the store was already the site of an event for the new Kinky Friedman cigar line with the Kinkster himself on hand to sign autographs and sell a few cigars.

“It has far exceeded our expectations,” said Fields. “We won’t do this forever. But we look to expand and grow as much as we can.”

And reassure the old folks that the love of the leaf is being passed on to steady hands in the next generation.

Davidoff stores heeding the founder’s advice:
Following up on our story yesterday about special editions of name brands being created for individual stores – namely the new Punch Vintage for Holt’s – it’s worth noting that while the concept may have started as early as Zino Davidoff’s 1946 Chateaux line, his concept has not been lost on the company that bears his name.

Perhaps no brick-and-mortar retail store group not tied in with a national retailer (a la Cigars International or J-R Cigars) is more aggressive with the acquisition of exclusive blends of name brands than Davidoff of Geneva’s Madison Avenue and Columbus Circle stores in New York. Under the direction of store manager Michael Herklots, a one-man cigar-retailing hurricane, the two Davidoff stores in New York now offer between them five cigars you’ll have trouble finding anywhere else:

• Cullman Signature Series:
Davidoff’s Madison Avenue store is one of just a handful of U.S. stores which carry the small-batch Cullman Signature Series, made by General Cigar for the former builders and owners of the company. There are two different blends, both with rich flavors, offered: one with nearly-black Cameroon wrappers and the others with the famous Connecticut Shade wrappers from the General-owned farms in the Windsor Valley. Only three sizes are available: Robusto, Toro and Lonsdale and go for between $150.00 and $157.50 for a box of 15.