About Repuff
Repuff is dedicated to the preservation, repair, storage and protection of nature’s second greatest gift to humanity, the fine cigar. Today, Repuff makes and markets the Repuff Cigar Relighting Solution and the Repuff Tube. In development is the Repuff humidor, the Repuff glue, and a cigar-rescue product that rehydrates great cigars that just didn't get the right care.
Repuff was discovered quite by accident in the Fall of 2007.
Angelica, Repuff co-founder, was fond of making teas, all kinds of teas, herbal teas, fruity teas, ever nutty teas. One afternoon she concocted a tea that was most notable for its lack of flavor. A surprising lack of flavor given the strong flavor that the ingredients have individually.
Waiting for a phone call, I labored to finish this tasteless tea, a task of love, while sitting in our back patio and enjoying one of my favorite Ashton VSGs. The day was cool and the Las Vegas valley was clear of dust and haze making our view of the Strip the perfect setting for relaxation. I had just started the cigar and had almost finished the tea, when my call came in. I ran into the house holding tea and cigar in one hand and answering the phone with the other. I realized I had a lit cigar in the house, a major violation of spousal rules, so I immediately snuffed it out in what was left of my tea!
After the call, I looked at that beautiful cigar, laying there dead, the ash awash in tea, the tea destroyed by ash which struck me as a suitable end for the tea. I decided that I was going to finish that cigar. I knew it was wrecked and would taste like crap, but it was to good to waste. So, I dabbed it with a paper towel, put it in a tube and let it sit until it was dry enough to light.
The next afternoon, I pulled my sorry looking, half burned, stinky, tea infused cigar out of the tube and lit it up. After a good toasting and a lot of puffing to get it started, I noticed that the first real draw had a remarkably smooth flavor, not perfect, but a lot less bitter than I was expecting. In fact, it was about 80% of the cigar I started the day before.
We tried to replicate the experience using the same tea, but after brewing several pots and dunking several cigars, dabbing, drying, and waiting only to produce pitifully sad results did we realize it might not be the tea at all, and I asked the question, "What did you put in the tea?" Eureka, we found it!! A blend of potently flavored botanicals that when mixed together had very little flavor. It was that tasteless mix of botanical extracts that saved the flavor of the cigar.
Nine months of refinement passed before finding the purest ingredients and determining the concentration that truly neutralized any flavor. Once we found the right formula, we mixed up enough to serve our daily needs and went about our business of living.
It was not until the Super Bowl of 2009, as we cheered our teams, sitting in the Las Vegas Cigar Lounge watching Pittsburg defeat the Cardinals that a friend asked, "What are you putting on your cigar?" We explained that we were saving the cigar to relight later. In disbelief, they wanted try it too.
It was truly our cigar smoking friends that encouraged us to market Repuff, otherwise it would have remained to this day our own little private wonder.
And so it goes, Repuff was born.