Rocky Patel might not stand out while he's browsing through premium cigars in a cigar shop. He spends a lot of time going through the humidor, intensely studying everything he sees, his eye trained on finding quality cigars. But despite this quiet, discerning nature, Rocky is not an overly plaintive man. It's just that he wants to know everything there is to know about great cigars.

When he's not busy studying cigars, however, Rocky's true personality shines. He's perpetually smiling, and his boundless energy is infectious.

In fact, he's one of the most enthusiastic people you'd care to meet. Enthusiasm for cigars, enthusiasm for food, enthusiasm for life - he's got it.

There's no hiding the fact that he's excited about the way things are going, both for himself and his company, Indian Tabac, and he wants to share that excitement with you. He's dying to share it with you. In fact, Rocky's willing to travel across the country just to tell you just how excited he is.

You see, Rocky is on a mission. He's criss-crossing the U.S., showcasing the newest line of box-pressed cigars from Indian Tabac, which he started along with his partner, Phil Zanghi III, in 1996. In fact, Rocky's road show would run most people ragged, as he's journeyed to 157 cities in 192 days. Visiting each new city, Rocky sniffs out the local cigar hot spots, and then goes about doing what he does best - chatting with customers and mingling with merchants and managers, talking tobacco - while making sure to enjoy every minute of the day.

Of course, as co-owner and president of Indian Tabac, Rocky's in the fortunate position of being able to mix business with pleasure. The company started with a chance meeting between Rocky, then a successful attorney, and his partner Phil, an ex-boxer with an entrepreneurial spirit, in Los Angeles' Grand Havana Room. The two were watching a Green Bay Packers game (a native of Wisconsin, Rocky's a die-hard Packer backer) and smoking cigars, when they began to discuss Phil's dream of owning his own cigar company.

Impressed by Phil's ceaseless energy, Rocky decided to take a chance and gave up his day job as a lawyer so that he could dedicate himself to the creation of Indian Tabac. Soon afterward, Phil moved to Danli, Honduras, to work with tobacco suppliers and set up the company's factory, while Rocky took charge of the financial and marketing needs. Through hard work and strategic alliances with some of Honduras' top cigar people, men like Gabriel Larzidabal and Nestor Plascencia, Indian Tabac has developed into one the best boutique brands in the industry in a startlingly short time.

As the millennium approaches, the company is poised to make even greater gains in the cigar world with the release of its newest cigar, the Box-Pressed Super Fuerte, which blends Honduran, Nicaraguan, and Costa Rican tobaccos in a Habana 2000 wrapper. The result is a complex, medium- to full-bodied cigar with a tremendous, spicy flavor that builds from the start. Quality bunching and construction give the cigar an impressive heft, and the box-pressed shape feels great in the hand. The way Rocky tells it, his current tour of the country's top cigar stores is simply an extension of Indian Tabac's plan to develop this new line.

"When we came out with the new box-pressed line," he explains, "we first worked at making a great cigar. Then we developed what we felt was a good marketing and advertising strategy. But after looking it over, we decided that there was a step missing. That step was actually getting out and putting these great new cigars in the hands of actual cigar smokers."

The idea was to avoid only introducing the cigar to shop owners; that could be done at trade shows, Rocky reasoned. His notion was to hit the road, meet the cigar public, and show them just what kind of cigar Indian Tabac produces.

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