Tomas
Baldonado

The Story​

After 11 years of being away from the cigar industry, developing, educating and marketing fine wine & spirits followed by premium foods distribution, training chef's and wait staff , Tomas  set out to pursue the passion he once had for the premium cigar industry but he did not set out to become a cigar maker. Tomas has always possessed the soul of an artist and craftsman, with a need to build and create things and experiences that do not yet exist. After more than two decades at the intersection of premium tobacco, fine wine and spirits, and the culinary arts, education has become the natural next chapter: the place where a lifetime of hard-won knowledge finds its greatest purpose.

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His career began in the cigar industry at the age of 19, in 2000, a world he would inhabit, leave, and return to with far deeper understanding. From there he moved into the wine and spirits industry, spending nearly a decade building knowledge and fluency across wine & spirit categories, developing his palate, and refining his ability to communicate complex sensory experiences with clarity and elegance. A brief chapter in the fine food industry followed, rounding out a rare cross-disciplinary expertise that few in the hospitality world can claim.

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In 2018, Tomas set out to reignite his passion for the cigar industry by creatin his own premium cigar import company. Over a period of 8 months Tomas worked toward that goal, a mear two days after finalizing all of this permits and licenses he found himself out of work. Rather than being defeated Tomas pivoted and founded his own boutique cigar manufacturing operation, a decision born not from comfort but from necessity. With a building already leased, licensing complete, and no remaining capital, he did what entrepreneurs do: he adapted. He brought a desk from home, two space heaters against the Oklahoma winter, and an uncommon willingness to solve problems.

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Over the next 8 years Tomas set out to not only manufacture some of the best cigars in the world, but also to create an entirely unique business model, one that will serve as a proof of concept and a foundation for his future. What emerged was something the industry had never seen. Rather than training new rollers to work around the failure points endemic to premium cigar manufacturing, where even a master roller with a decade of experience averages an 80% success rate, Tomas reverse-engineered the entire process from failure backwards. The goal: eliminate the variables that cause failure, so they never need to be trained around at all. The result was a boutique micro-factory model capable of operating anywhere in the world, in as little as 700 square feet of space, with a local workforce, at a 99% production success rate after only a couple of months of training, rather than the 10+ years it takes to be considered a master roller using traditional methods.

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With that proof of concept firmly established and some of the world's finest premium cigars to show for it, Tomas made a deliberate choice: to stop building with his hands and start spreading the knowledge. The Craft Master is that transition, a premium experinece, education and training platform that brings the same rigorous, process-driven thinking to the people who serve, sell, and celebrate premium products every day.