Interview with Tim Ozgener, President of CAO International
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Bob - Feb 18, 2010
- 12 min read
By Bob Tate
We’ve been intrigued with rumors circulating around the pipe community that CAO might become the new distributor of Dunhill pipe tobaccos in the USA. There have been comments that CAO would increase its presence in the pipe tobacco business in 2010, rumors of new tobaccos, possibly bringing back the old CAO tobaccos, CAO meerschaum pipes and possible Dunhill distribution.
We had a great conversation with Tim Ozenger, President of CAO International (he’s a very friendly and accommodating chap). We talked about the aforementioned rumors and a few other things. Find out which rumors are true and which are not. So without further ado, here is our conversation with Tim:
PipesMagazine (PM): Tim, at the beginning of 2009, there were a lot of rumors that CAO was getting out of the tobacco pipe industry. Is it true that CAO made the decision to no longer be involved in the pipe industry or was it more related to Scandinavian Tobacco Group merging with CAO and there being a switch from Dan Tobacco to Scandinavian Tobacco Group?
Tim Ozgener: Well, Scandinavian Tobacco Group acquired CAO and in the acquisition they stated that they were in the cigar business and were not interested in pipes, although they are the largest producer of pipe tobacco in the world. So pipe smoking is still of interest to them, but they wanted us to focus more on cigars and pipe tobacco in the future instead of pipes. My father retired from the business, but still has some pretty tight relationships with some of the more important carvers in Turkey and he continues to purchase pipes from these carvers in Turkey. It was just made clear that that was not a part of CAO and more of, a kind of, personal decision. So my father has continued to receive pipes from these carvers.
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PM: Towards the end of 2009, CAO introduced 4 new pipe tobacco blends based off of the Flavors by CAO line of cigars; Cherry Bomb, Moontrance, Eileen’s Dream, and Bella Vanilla. What prompted CAO to start producing pipe tobacco again and how successful have those new blends been?
Tim: As I’ve said, our parent company, Scandinavian Tobacco Group, is the largest producer of pipe tobacco in the world. So it was just natural given their resources that we should try and come up with our own pipe tobaccos and also given the success of our Flavors by CAO line. Those cigars were actually based on, initially, pipe tobacco flavorings and blends. Then they were converted into cigar flavorings as well, but we wanted to make them so that they were the Godiva of flavored cigars so you could taste the tobacco, but also have the subtle essence of the flavoring and certainly when you put it in your mouth you had some flavoring. So it was only natural to try and re-introduce those flavorings as pipe tobacco since that was kind of the genesis of the actual flavorings that we’ve used for our cigar line. That’s why we decided to do it and get back into it. We just introduced it and the quality of the tobaccos is excellent and we’re very pleased with it.
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PM: So CAO is going to try and get back into the pipe industry?
Tim: Well, certainly pipe tobacco. It’s something that we’re interested in pursuing and hopefully these new aromatic pipe tobaccos, people will enjoy the quality of them. No matter what it is that we’re going to want to get into, we want to make it of a high quality standard. That’s how we built our business; just trying to improve the smoking pleasure for people because we find smoking to be a great way of de-stressing and relaxing and it’s kind of a your time to unwind. So that’s what we want to do. We want to provide products that maximize smoking pleasure and hopefully these pipe tobaccos will do so for those who are fans of aromatic pipe tobaccos.
PM: A lot of pipe smokers loved some of the old blends and based on the previous success of some of those blends such as Midnight Ride, Old Ironsides, & Patriot Flake, is CAO planning on bringing some of them back or does Dan Tobacco own the blending rights?
Tim: We worked with Dan Tobacco on there, we have a very good relationship with Dan Tobacco and they make very good blends there. But it’s certainly something that if we receive a lot of feedback or e-mail about, which our e-mail is CAO@caointernational.com, that we would welcome feedback if people would like to see us re-introduce those blends. If we hear enough requests about it, then we like to listen to our consumers.
PM: That’s great to hear. I know a lot of pipe smokers really like those three blends. So maybe once they read this interview, they’ll start sending some e-mails to you.
Tim: Which were the ones again that you’re hearing a lot about?
PM: Midnight Ride, Old Ironsides, and Patriot Flake.
Tim: OK, I’ve written them down now. So if they don’t move, you’re to blame Bob. [Laughter from both of us]
PM: Well, I would hold off until people start sending e-mails to you [more laughter]. I know that they miss them, especially the Old Ironsides. That’s the one that I hear a lot about. That was your most Latakia heavy blend.
Tim: That’s right, it was. It was pressed to.
PM: That brings me to this. For about the last 6 months or so, there have been a lot of rumors flying around the pipe industry that CAO will be the new US distributor for Dunhill pipe tobacco. Can you confirm or deny these rumors?
Tim: We had been hoping that that would be the case and we would have liked to have distributed those pipe tobaccos, but unfortunately it’s not up to us. It’s been something that has been BAT [British American Tobacco]; sort of, the ball is in their court. As of right now, we don’t have the green light to go ahead and distribute those pipe tobaccos. So as of now, all I can say is; that we would’ve liked to, we thought we were going to be able to, but we haven’t received the go ahead to do it from BAT. So I’m not sure where it’s at right now.
PM: Are negotiations still open with them for that?
Tim: Again, I’m not really sure where it’s at. The ball is in their court and we just haven’t received the approval to go ahead and start distributing.
PM: Is CAO planning on making a bigger presence in their line of pipes or are you just sticking to tobacco?
Tim: I think right now CAO would just be in the position of sticking to pipe tobacco.
PM: I’ve noticed that there are still quite a few CAO Meerschaum pipes floating around. Is that just old stock that you are moving through?
Tim: I mean certainly if people are still interested in Meerschaums and acquiring CAO Meerschaums, we still have them. And as I mentioned before, my father still has been receiving some pipes, primarily from Ismet Bekler, who is considered to be the star of Meerschaum carving. So if there was ever some demand for it, certainly the consumer can go to the retailer and ask them for it and the retailer can call us at CAO and we can help them in procuring Meerschaum.
PM: That’s great. What are some of the plans that CAO has for being more involved and re-establishing themselves in the pipe tobacco industry?
Tim: I think primarily, as we discussed, we would be looking more along the lines of how to grow the pipe tobacco portfolio; which is why I still encourage people to send their feedback and their request of what they would like to see in pipe tobacco, what they think is kind of a gaffe that’s missing out there. You know, it’s one of these things that we’ve kind of built our business on, listening and responding to our consumers needs, our retailers’ needs. So we do have that resource of having a wonderful factory to produce pipe tobacco.
But again, the feedback, we like to listen and respond to what our consumers have to say. If consumers e-mail and say we’d like you to release something similar to what you had in Old Ironsides, Midnight Ride, or Patriot Flake or maybe even something different, then we would be welcome to hear that kind of feedback. So I think that that would be a sort of a way that we would look at to try to gain some momentum utilizing a positive resource that we have in the ST (Scandinavian Tobacco Group) manufacturing facility that they have.
PM: Will CAO be releasing any new pipe tobacco blends this year?
Tim: Right now, we don’t have anything in the works. But that’s not to say that we may not release something that is for the trade show [Editor’s Note: the trade show is IPCPR in New Orleans in August]. But as of right now, we don’t really have anything on the plate. Although, I remember going around and seeing a lot of people smoking the Old Ironsides and liking that, so perhaps that might be something that we might look at re-introducing at the show. Certainly when you have an interview like this or when you, hopefully, hear peoples feedback looking for certain items, then it adds more fuel to the fire to try and introduce things that may fill a niche in the market.
PM: Since your talking about the trade show, will CAO be having more of a presence at pipe and pipe tobacco shows this year?
Tim: I don’t think that our portfolio is wide enough for us to have a presence at the pipes and pipe tobacco shows for the time being. So I think that, generally we have some retailers that come over there and offer our pipe tobaccos at such shows. But maybe in the future.
PM: What is your take on the FDA taking over tobacco and the new bans on flavored tobacco products?
Tim: Well you know that part of it can be a slippery slope. I don’t think that it’s good news for us in general. And certainly if we look and see what has happened in other countries, then there might be some more specific oversight and test that go with that and I think that things can change rather quickly if they increase taxes in Roll Your Own (RYO), then RYO product could be introduced under then guise of pipe tobacco.
PM: You know that that has already happened?
Tim: Yeah.
PM: And you’ve heard about the H.R. 4439 Tobacco Tax Parity Act of 2010 to raise the tax on pipe tobacco by 775% to be taxed the same as RYO tobacco?
Tim: Yeah, that was what was bound to happen once they found out that this kind of adjustment was made.
PM: I’m not sure if you are aware or not, but we have created a petition opposing H.R. 4439. By signing the petition, it will automatically find your representatives and send them an e-mail and after you sign it, at the end you can also have written letters sent as well for just $3.00.
Tim: OK, I’ll have to do that then.
PM: Let all of your employees and friends know about it as well. Right now the bill is held up in committee. But if this goes through, cigars are going to be next and it’s going to be a never ending thing unless we smokers and tobacco users start standing up and letting the government know that we’ve had enough of these unfair and ridiculous taxes.
Tim: Yeah. Look, if you were to go to a liquor store or anything and you are under the age of 21, you would have to show your ID before you bought a flavored vodka. I don’t understand why it can’t be the same way here. If you are going to buy a flavored cigar or pipe tobacco, why can’t you just show your ID to prove that you are of age so that you can make your own decision to buy flavored or non-flavored tobacco?
PM: Yes. That is the most logical solution to the problem.
Tim: Yeah. I don’t see why we can’t. There are probably a lot more people dying of alcohol related accidents.
PM: Yes, I agree. What is CAO doing to combat all of the newest anti-tobacco legislation?
Tim: We’re members of the CAA (Cigar Association of America), we also contribute to the IPCPR (International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers Association). We’re board members of the IPCPR as associates, which means distributors and manufacturers. I just came back last week from a meeting with the IPCPR board discussing legislation for 80% of the time. That is something that we’re very active in any way that we can in any sort of segment of the business. In fact, we have seats on the board of the CAA as well. We’re major contributors to these organizations. So we’re involved; I mean any sort of organization that also starts that are state led organizations, we are also very active and involved too. New York just started a state group (New York Tobacconist Association – NYTA) that we’re going to contribute to. So we’re very active. We’re very active within our state. We have great relationships with our politicians, whether they’re in the US Senate, State Senate, or US House or State House and those that are running for Governorship of our state. So we like to take a very active roll in the politics and how we can help with any sort of legislation that may be passing that could be negative for our industry.
PM: That’s really great to hear. Tim, thank you very much for your time and it was a pleasure talking with you.
Tim implied that if CAO received enough requests, they may bring back some of the old favorites in their tobacco line. So as they used to say in the old TV days, “keep those cards and letters coming!”
E-mail CAO with your feedback and suggestions at CAO@caointernational.com
[*Editors Note: The e-mail address that we previously had listed (CAO@caocigars.com) was incorrect. It must have been the old e-mail and is no longer active. The link has been updated to a working e-mail address which is CAO@caointernational.com. We apologize for the mistake.]
Written by Bob
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
