Rob Dietrich, Master Distiller and Blender for Metallica’s Blackened American Whiskey, has also been an integral part in the success of Metallica’s new cigar, the M81.

In an interview, Dietrich said, “That project started in 2020 during lockdown. James Hetfield lives an hour and a half away from me in Colorado and so I was up there, spent a lot of time smoking cigars on his back deck. I have a friend, Jonathan Drew of Drew Estate Cigars, he’s the owner and founder. The more I was smoking cigars up there with James I thought, ‘I need to get Jonathan in on this—let’s make a cigar.’ Let’s make something special.”

Dietrich has said cigars are part of the “original social media” explaining, “[Cigars] certainly fit in there. That is certainly how we connected, was over cigars. It truly is a brotherhood. James has what he calls a ‘fellowship,’ some of his buddies that come up. He has a fire pit at his house and we sit around, we smoke cigars, we talk life, we talk about everything.”