A Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 290 PCA Recap Show

Episode Summary

Episode 290 is the Cigar Hustlers' PCA 2023 recap, recorded the night after the crew flew home from Las Vegas. Mike and Boots debrief with Palmer on how the show went from a brand-owner's perspective — sales for Powstanie, Fosforo and Fable came in roughly where expected, more new accounts were opened than anticipated, attendance felt up over last year, and there were noticeably fewer "tire kickers" looking only for free samples. They also grade the PCA itself: the opening-night gala with a cigar line featuring Matt Booth, Espinosa, Saka and Justin Andrews, open bar and a Guy Fieri meet-and-greet was a real step up, and the switch from paper to plastic badge tags was a small but welcome fix. The association's own wall-to-wall Instagram interviews got a mixed review — a good idea that still needs a dedicated host.

The cigar talk centers on what actually impressed them on the floor: the Volstead and the box-pressed Quinquagenario from Powstanie, the two new Don Doroteo "Salt of the Earth" releases (including a Cameroon the guys call "money") and the brand's elaborate booth with tobacco displays, chopped tobacco offered in pipes and a family-made honey rum, the Red Meat Lovers line now in four vitolas, Papa Saka as the likely most sought-after Dunbarton release, Charter Oak, Matapo, and the new Crowned Heads V1 and Espinosa Las Calaveras. Pricing comes up repeatedly — several standouts are great but creeping expensive.

Along the way there's plenty of industry color: Erik Espinosa's genuine off-camera generosity, Hector Alfonso thanking the podcast at media night, Nick Melillo's knighthood (and busted foot), Brett Frye, Sean Coleman, and the running gag about a certain drawing sent in an order form. Celebrity sightings included Chad Ochocinco, Alonzo Mourning, Chazz Palminteri, Karl Malone, Ike Taylor and Guy Fieri, plus a Delta-terminal encounter with Orlando Magic players Jonathan Isaac and Wendell Carter Jr. The guys also break down PCA news: the 2024 show moves to New Orleans with smoking restrictions relaxed, the final half-day is being cut, and they argue Tampa would be the ideal long-term home. The episode closes with a retailing philosophy segment on why "my humidor is full" is a cop-out and how shops should actually hand-sell and educate customers.

In This Episode

1. 01
   How the Show Actually Went
   Sales for Powstanie, Fosforo and Fable landed near expectations, with more new accounts opened than anticipated and fewer freebie-hunters than past years.
2. 02
   PCA's Improvements — and What Still Needs Work
   The opening-night gala with cigars from Booth, Espinosa, Saka and Justin Andrews, open bar, plastic badge tags, and PCA's own Instagram interview push get graded.
3. 03
   Erik Espinosa and Industry Relationships
   Stories about who in the cigar business genuinely has your back, and how a decade of relationships changes how the show floor works.
4. 04
   Celebrity Sightings at PCA
   Chad Ochocinco, Alonzo Mourning, Chazz Palminteri, Karl Malone, Ike Taylor and Guy Fieri all turned up in Las Vegas.
5. 05
   Best Cigars Smoked at the Show
   Powstanie Connecticut, Volstead and the box-pressed Quinquagenario, the Don Doroteo Salt of the Earth Cameroon, Red Meat Lovers, Papa Saka and Charter Oak.
6. 06
   The Don Doroteo Booth Experience
   Tobacco plant displays, mist and flames, chopped tobacco smoked in pipes, and a family-made honey rum made it their favorite booth of the show.
7. 07
   PCA 2024 News: New Orleans, Half-Day Cut
   The show heads to New Orleans with relaxed smoking rules, the final half-day is eliminated, and the guys pitch Tampa as the ideal future host city.
8. 08
   Retail Talk: 'My Humidor Is Full'
   Why that line is a brush-off, and how good retailers hand-sell, ask what a customer smokes, and actually move new brands off the shelf.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

Linked items are in our shop. Mentions without a link aren’t currently stocked or couldn’t be matched with confidence.

Transcript

I ain't got nothing to read. It's, uh, 290. Welcome to another great episode of Cigar Hustlers Podcast, episode 290. Sorry, who's just sitting in for Phil today?

I'm gonna go around the room. Around the room. Can you flex? Can you flex?

You know, I feel like I did a lot of flexing in the last episode, so I'm gonna try and dumb it down a little bit. A little less flexy? Yeah, not gonna be so much this time. Well...

Yeah. How's the live chicken eating going? Is that going well? You know, it's better than the four gallons of milk.

All the dairy? Yeah, it's definitely better. It's definitely better. And I gotta earn it when I, you know, I gotta chase them like Rocky.

Right, right. That burns the fat. Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, it's good. So is Skip doing that diet too?

He looked great in the couple of photos I saw. You know what? I didn't ask him, but it looks like he's down about 20 to 30 pounds. Yeah, you could tell.

Yeah. I saw it first in his face in one photo, and then there was a picture later on in the week of, like, waist up. I went to Adrian, I went, "Does he look thinner to you? " Yeah, he's definitely down some LBs.

Hey, look good. All right, so we're actually recording as we just landed last night and we're here recording now to kind of that way we can talk. We can talk. Well, it's also fresh in your guys' minds.

Yeah, I mean, you stared at me long enough upstairs. Well, I mean, we're just sitting there and I come up with these questions like, I can't answer that. Just kill us. How's PCA?

I mean, luckily Greg got here first. I asked him a couple of questions. He knows nothing. Did you?

Yeah, he doesn't know really. He's oblivious. No, no, I just, did it go well? Yeah.

Did you sell as many cigars as you had hoped? He stayed there. And what did he say? " What a political answer.

Right, exactly. You know what, I, that's a, that's pretty accurate, that's pretty accurate. I think that we did, you know, we did, as far as Polsonia and Phosphoro and Fable are concerned, we did fairly well. Good.

I think that, I guess that, you know, when you always, you have expectations and you expect that you're going to do a specific thing, right, and we did along those lines. Right. The psychopath in me always looks at it and say, "Okay, what were the mistakes that we made? How do we get better?

What did I do wrong? " I just, that's just not, I'm just not built that way. Right. You know, how do I achieve the next higher number is really what I'm kind of looking at.

You sound just like you did last week. Really? Just the way you're carrying yourself. He did a good job.

He did a great job. He was very funny. He was very funny. I'm still going to kick his fucking ass when I see him.

He's expecting, he's expecting that. No, I love Chet. He was happy to be on the road today, by the way. Chet was fantastic.

It was a, it was a great show, great episode. I mean, I was laughing, Skip said he laughed so hard that he almost pissed himself. No, no, he, no, he did. Oh, he did.

He did piss himself. Poor Brandon over there is, uh, Phil, he couldn't stop laughing long enough to even say anything. The fact that he ate the money on the, listen, if you haven't watched the YouTube episode, Just the intro alone, you have to plug this in because Palmer was playing Greg, Chet was playing me, and Brandon was playing Phil, and it's fucking hilarious. It really is.

Greg is spot on. I feel like all of them were spot on. Right. You know, they really were.

Phil's just eating the money was fantastic. He was hungry. That's all he had. Yeah.

I mean, the best part for Phil was the fact that he had Brandon as playing him because he didn't say a whole hell of Right. Where Phil does say a lot. Right. He was so busy laughing, he couldn't.

Watching me and Chad, he's just laughing, and he couldn't. Every time we cut to him, he's just giggling. Yeah. I feel like you had to, if I'm going to critique a little bit.

No, no, go ahead. You had to let Caleb in on what the fuck was going on, because when he... No, he thought you were really here. Yeah, because when he took over, it was meh.

You know, you kind of lost it at that point. He had to know, he had to be in on the joke. I assume he would recognize that there wasn't your voice or stuff, but I guess he hasn't really heard it enough. You know, Caleb isn't, I feel like Caleb is the weakest link on the Down to Her podcast.

He's a psychopath, don't get me wrong, he's doing crazy stupid shit, like eating the fucking jalapeno or whatever, but... Wait, you think he's a psychopath? Hold on, but Jerry and Geo, well, first of all, Jerry is, he's next level. He's a psycho.

They are fucking your quintessential super troopers. Oh yeah? Yeah. They had a great time.

That was what was really important to me is to make sure that they got to see who they wanted to see and talk and have a good time. And then Boots, you know, gave them, Boots being the man that he is in the industry, gave them the tour and showed them stuff. And then when they found themselves at Met Walls, like they couldn't get things done, they couldn't get things done. I'm like, "Bro, where do you need to go?

Who do we want to talk to? " You know, like Eric Espinosa and stuff like that. I mean, he'll talk with me and we'll bullshit and stuff, but Mikey gets a different- You're the guy he beat at Cornhole or whatever it was. Yeah, that's what he always wants to talk about.

That's what he tells everybody. And that's not like an ego flex thing for me. No, no. That's just a- I've had this 13 years of built relationships where all of their walls are down, and they know who I am, and we have a good friendship.

You know, one thing that I said to Eric, who is very upset that he hasn't been on the show lately. We just called him that long ago. No, he's upset. No, I don't think we called him.

Eric Bay? Oh, no, he has not been on the show forever. Here's what's awesome about the cigar industry. There are a handful of dudes that will go out of their way for you and have your back, whether you buy and support them or not.

And Erik is definitely one of those guys. He is, he is, yeah. You know, I distinctly remember a time when we weren't an Espinosa, we weren't carrying Espinosa at the time, and I was traveling in Tennessee, I think I might have been with you, or it might have been solo. I think it was, I wasn't with you in Tennessee, but I remember that trip though.

He said, hey, if you get jammed up, I think he said hi, you know, my sister or my sister-in-law or something is close by, yeah, you know, because he knew that I was, at that point, I was in kind of uncharted territory, you know, so he's definitely, he's one of those dudes, you know what I mean, he's just a fucking good guy, so. I think we started carrying them when Jack went over. Maybe. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Yeah, I think this trip, I saw a lot more of Erik Espinosa's side of helping, of being- Yeah, who he actually is. Yeah. Not just the character, like, the real person. Yeah, you gotta, you know, when it comes to guys like that, you gotta meet aggression with aggression.

" I'm like, "Motherfucker me! " I'm like, "What are we yelling about? I don't know! " He's awesome, man.

I really got to give it to him. Yeah. It was like celebrity year. Was it?

There was a lot of people there? At PCA. Well, I saw everybody Boots had their photo with. I mean, so there you go.

But there was no photo with you guys with Guy Fieri. I ain't got fucking time for that circus. Yeah, he got one with Guy Fieri. Oh, that's right.

With the guys. Yeah, with the down to hearth guys. That's right. Yeah, they really like, that was like that and Palmitary was their highlight.

Chaz Bonamana. Yeah, that guy. Shaz, Palmer, Terry. It's like Palmer, but with a Terry.

So there were those two guys. Chad Ochocinco was there, which was like a unicorn for me. Oh, because that's your guy from the gym? No.

Oh, that's not. Who's the wrestler at the gym? Oh, no. That's Omos.

That's George's name. He's not a cigar guy. He's not a cigar guy. I don't know.

Sports Palmer. Yeah, sports. I don't sport. No, but you know.

I didn't know who that guy was at the basket. You took pictures at the airport in Salt Lake City. Mike Szczec City. Yeah, a lot of people.

Judah. Well, I saw the name. Well, hold on, you're jumping ahead. He could have walked past me.

Sorry, he said sports. We're trying to get all the sports together. Okay, well shut the fuck up for one second. You went to the end of the trip.

Right. Okay, we're at the beginning of the trip. Sorry, okay. The love of God.

See, that's the one thing Chet didn't do is he didn't scold you enough during the podcast. That's, you know. I didn't interrupt him. There was no reason.

Yeah, he just shut up and let him fucking do his thing. Well, except when he started talking about your wife and the kids. No, no, it's not. The football thing.

You got nervous. We're not going down that road. No, no, back. Let's go back this way.

He's like, okay. Oh, okay. So, Chad Ochocinco. Chad Ochocinco was there.

He's kind of like a unicorn for me. I've always seen him, like, as a cigar guy and shit. And he's one of the guys that I've admired in the game of football because nobody's been able to create space as a wideout like Ochocinco. So, I didn't get...

Oh, wait, did I get a... I did actually get a picture with him, and I FaceTimed the boys. Oh, did he talk to you? Yeah, I said, hey, you know, do you mind talking to them for a second?

He goes, yeah, sure, man. Does he care walking with me? I'm like, sure, no problem. So, of course, Jack doesn't say shit, which drives me nuts.

So then I go, he likes to play safety, and he says he can cover you. He goes, you can't cover me, man. I'm like, yes. In Ochocinco fashion.

Big Surce was there. Leon Surce was there. Ike Taylor was there. Yep.

Zoe. That was the one I was going to lead into, but I just want to make sure I covered everybody else. Carl? Carl Malone was there.

You know, we were in the gym with him again. That dude fucking works out, which is nice. Chaz Palmateri, Guy, and... I thought we saw one more.

I think... I feel like we did. A little guy with the dog was there. Shorty was there.

Shorty was there. Ike? I mentioned Ike. There was a couple other basketball guys too.

Yeah. So, okay, so we're walking, and I'm like, yo, that's Alonzo Mourning, and he's just kind of roaming around, hitting up shit, now he's like one of the most famous Miami Heat players of all time, right? And he's a super nice guy, very generous, does a whole fucking thing for the community, I mean, you know, he's been, he's cool, right? So I'm like, hey, we should go get a, we want to go get a photo with him?

He's like, yeah, of course, he's like, yeah, boots is like, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm like, where is he? And I could spot him.

I'm like, the fucking tall guy. Right. You know, you can't miss Zoe. So, so we walk up to him and he's like, hey man, you got a second for a picture?

And he fucking did like this. He closed his eyes real quick and did like that. And you know, the Ben Affleck photo that you always see where he's holding a cigarette outside? Right.

Like that was the look that Zoe made. And he kept walking, and he kept walking, he's like, yeah, okay, man. And I was like, yo, after we were done, I said to Boots, I go, that was the realest shit. I fucking feel him in that.

Because there were so many times we were just like, I don't fucking, I don't want to talk, right? Just please, just give me, I just want to make it from the car to the office without being confronted by the modern decay of Western society. Mike's Cigar Booth, please. I just want to hang out.

And I even said, hey, you want some cigars? He goes, bro, I don't need any cigars. I'm like, okay. But it's mine, though!

No, but that's where you could tell where he was at, at that point. He's just like, fuck, man. You know, geez, Louise. And he still sucked it up.

And he still did, you know, he still put on a show very briefly. He smiled for the photo. Yeah. So, I don't know.

For me, I was like, yeah, man. Thank you. And I understand. understand you know so that was pretty fucking remarkable uh what else do you want to know let's let's get into the details did you see david garofalo we i saw him when i was in the parking lot oh we didn't speak to him no no boots was getting all gassed up he's like run him over no bad he's a good guy you know i was about to roll down the window i was like roll it up no no no uh did you talk to booth there was no photos with booth you know i didn't really see him uh i got to talk with him for a while but yeah but mike but mikey was super busy and i know he was busy selling and stuff and truthfully booth was uh super busy you are you are boots today booth oh booth he said third person yeah no matt booth was super busy too i mean even when i was over there they were pulling him and left right yeah forward down i mean he was they were pulling him pretty hardcore so the pca did a couple things right this time around they did this gala at the The beginning.

Right. Well, don't they always do an opening night party? They do, but they did it right this time. Okay.

They had like a line where you can get cigars. You got cigars from Booth, Espinosa, Saka. Am I forgetting anybody? Justin Anders.

Yeah. And then they had like a paleo lighter that you can grab. And then there was a Guy Fieri fucking meet and greet. Yeah.

Fucking jerk me off, whatever the fuck. Right. Right. Because everybody loves Guy Fieri.

He was there every day. It looked like. At least the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I know that for a fact. I think it was three days, yeah, because then he went to the World Series of Poker or whatever.

Oh, did he? Yeah. So, yeah, so that was awesome. And then they had open bar.

And then they had, like, people running around with appetizers. Right. So, it was, like, free booze. Everybody was there.

Right. And I'm like, okay, that's a step in the right direction. Yeah. The tags are no longer paper.

They took the paper tags. Oh, did they? And attach them to plastic so they didn't rip and look like complete shit. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah. You know, those two things definitely- The two strap hanger, more comfortable than the single. Right. Yeah.

So those two things definitely resonated with me saying, okay, at least PCA is hearing the feedback and they're trying to make adjustments. I still feel like they got a long way to go. Right. But- They did- Oh, go ahead, sorry.

But they did cover some improvements. Yeah. They did a lot of interviews on their own on their Instagram. I saw that.

I mean, dozens and dozens of them. I did see that. I don't know how I feel about it. Yeah, 'cause it kind of steals away from the other guys, huh?

I don't know if that's the case. From the media people, you think? Yeah. I don't know.

You know what? I don't know if that's the case. I think it's good that they did that. I think that they just got to fine tune it somehow.

Yeah, they need a person that does it instead of just going, "Here's the microphone. " Because you could then, when you do that, you could see the guys that are seasoned and handling themselves and the brand. I was going to say, 'cause some of the guys were comfortable doing it. Right.

" Right. Right. Yeah. So, you need somebody to fix that filler.

Right. You know? And I think, I don't know if Boveda Rob, formerly Boveda Rob, was the guy that was handling that or not. Oh.

But he might have been. I didn't see him. I thought I saw his photo once, but he's a slender guy with a big beard. I mean, it could have been just about anybody.

It could have been anybody. Yeah, that's about 99%. " He goes, well, you know, he's a larger guy, he's got a beard and a hat, or he's got a larger guy bald with a beard, I go, dude, you just named 70% of the people in the fucking cigar industry. Yeah, right, that's a lot of the people here.

So, thanks for dumbing that down a little bit. Right. Didn't even narrow down the hair color. Yeah.

Wow. You know, I would say that I opened more new accounts than I thought. Oh, did you really? That's good.

Yeah, that was cool, and, you know, I think attendance was definitely up from this year to last year. Right. It's still got to go a ways. The difference was there weren't too many tire kickers.

I didn't, I didn't have to shoo too many people away. Right. I was about to ask you if you turned anybody away. Hey, so, oh yeah, there's a couple.

A handful or something. There's a couple that you can read, you're like, oh, you're completely full of shit, you just want free cigars. Right. Right.

Sometimes maybe I'd give them a cigar or something like that, but I wouldn't waste my, you know, 20 minutes bullshit and tell them what's going on and stuff like that. Like, just say you want the free cigars. Hey, I don't want to go to the song and dance. No, we're thinking about your brand.

We've heard good things. Yeah. We need to try one. Yeah, I really want a sample.

Do you have a sample? Right. That would cinch it, I think. I'll tell you what, let me light this up and I'll blow it in your face.

Oh, it smells nice. How's that? How's that? So, how was your birthday?

Did your birthday go well? Oh, my birthday went great. Thank you so much for harassing everybody. You know what's funny is you actually upset a lot of people.

Yeah. Oh, because you said it wasn't your birthday. Yeah. And they're like, they felt stupid.

Oh yeah. Well, I didn't ask anybody to other than, did anybody sing? I was trying to get a group to come sing to you. Nobody's saying.

Okay. That was the only thing I had set up was I was trying to set up singing. Nobody's saying your, your wife was in on that because I got her to approve it. Like, Hey, I think I'm going to do that.

She goes, Oh yeah, yeah. You should definitely do that. I mean, Wes from crown heads went around and took it and ran with it. He's like, Hey, happy birthday.

He did it for like four days in a row. I'm like, and you know, when I fixed, I corrected some people like, Oh, well, happy birthday. You know, They just kept going. It was just early.

That way I could wish you a happy birthday at the PCA. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

So, yeah, it was fun. It was entertaining. You know, you guys up to your fucking shenanigans over here. I like to thank everybody who reached out to me and asked me why I wasn't there.

I thought that was nice. I got a lot of messages. I just told them the truth. I told them that you're working your way out.

You don't want to be a part of this anymore. Oh, good, because I told everybody that you got mad at me and said I couldn't come. Perfect. So it worked out well.

Yeah, he's just not. He goes, oh, I'm gonna go talk to him. Sean Coleman was very upset I wasn't there. He was gonna say something to you.

I love Sean. He wants to be on the show. Oh, yeah? He goes, you guys never have me on the show.

He didn't even say that to me. Oh, he did to me? Really? When, uh, when we called Boots to try to get Jamie on the phone and talk to 75 other people before he found Jamie.

Sean was one of the people he handed his phone to. I was all the way on the other side. Well, I asked if you were near Roma and you said yes. You know, I mean, technically I am.

I'm in the same building. Here's what's crazy, man. It's nice to have the big wigs on, your Knicks, your Sokka's, your Skips, your Michaels, your Erics, your Black Star Line, even Howie G, those dudes, the guys on the top of their brands, but there is so much shit in between that people don't really talk about or have them come on. So it may not be a draw as far as a name to listen, but when you listen to them and you get some more in detail, inner working stuff, I think that those things are fascinating.

Like, I mean, the more compliment, I got so many compliments about Danny coming on from Tobacco Plaza in New York and, and fuckin' Allen. Oh, Allen Schumer. Yeah. " So, it's cool to see that this is a platform for everybody, and everybody has the ability to kind of say their piece and stuff like that, say what they want to say, and we just let them go.

Like, let them do it. Right. So, I want to talk to Jamie. Nobody ever talks to Jamie.

Yeah. And I want to talk to Arlen, too, but I know she gets nervous because she doesn't think her English is that good, and I didn't want to put her on the spot. Well, she doesn't like to speak English. Right.

I mean, she does, but she holds back. Right. " I'm going to tell you, the Volstead was fucking awesome. Yeah.

We smoked a bunch of those. Yeah. We smoked, that box press Volstead, when that thing drops, holy shit, dude. Good, huh?

That thing is fucking ridiculous. The Quinquan Gennaro? Quinquan Gennaro, right. Yeah, I stole a couple of those, you know, smoked those, fucking money.

It was good. Yeah. I had it where you're going. Uh, the other thing that I thought, I haven't, we haven't smoked everything yet.

Right. Obviously, because we were busy as shit. And we were waiting for Palmer. Yeah, and we wanted to smoke them with you.

But, aw. I did smoke one of the new Don Doroteos. I thought it was fantastic. Didn't there just one?

They have two new... Two new ones? I don't know if they're both under the "Salt of the Earth" platform. Yeah, they are both "Salt of the Earth", but one's like a "Criolo"?

Criolo? Criolo. Well, I know one's a Cameroon. The "Smoke a Cameroon" is fucking money.

All this stuff's good, just a little pricey. Yeah, sometimes, you know. You know what's cool? They have this big tobacco thing that they were taking the tobacco out of, like the chunks.

Yeah. And then they were letting people smoke them in pipes. Yeah. Did you really get to share a pipe with somebody?

No, they were giving out pipes. Oh, okay. Jerry. Jerry got to smoke it.

He said it was great. So, the other thing that was cool was, you know, the relationships that have been established over the course of a decade are fantastic. " He brought them right over. Same thing with Garrett.

"Hey man, if I knew I couldn't get away, can you grab me a couple? " Nice. You know? That was fucking fantastic.

Yeah. I appreciate that. We're good guys, man. Yeah.

Made it a lot easier for you. Very grateful for the friends that I've obtained in this industry. So what was the best thing you smoked there? I know that you said there's several you haven't smoked yet.

Take yours and Roma's out of the... That's fucked up. No, it's not. First of all.

Because everybody knows you're going to pick one of those. Okay. The best thing I smoked there was the Postana Connecticut. Of course.

Yes. Obviously. Outwork everybody. And then the Volstead after that.

And then that Volstead. Well, very good. I mean, John Guarnero. I think the Queen Quaginero is better than the Volstead.

Oh. Yeah. But that's going to be a limited though, right? Yeah.

There's only so many of those. That's going to suck. First cigar he's done out of his house, or away from his home. What did I smoke that I was, you know, I didn't smoke too much other than that.

I would say that Don Doroteo Cameroon was fucking money. Yeah, their cigars are good. And you said that one's only $16? I think so, something like that.

So, I mean, remember, the other one was really good, too, but the hard part was that it was so expensive, so now bringing it back down into the right bracket, you know, that might help out a lot. The Red Meat Lovers was really good, I smoked that. Is it a new one, or is it the same one they've always had? Well, it was original, smoking, yada yada, and now they've got four different vitals.

Oh, so now it's a production thing? Yeah, now it's a thing. Saka's making them? I like that black one too.

I think the biggest one that Saka is going to have is going to be that Papa Saka. Gotcha. That's going to be the most sought after as far as out of his group. Is that an LE or is that regular production?

I don't know. They didn't say. I just bought some. Oh.

And then what about the, uh, you said something about the Matapo. Yeah, the Matapo was great, but we smoked that already. I smoked it here, I didn't smoke it at the show. I think we only got one of those, I think you smoked it.

I don't know if we got another one. The Charter Oaks. Is that the Charter Oak one? No, the Charter Oaks are really good, too.

But again, I didn't smoke those at the show. I smoked them here. Right. Isn't there another new one that he's coming out with, too?

Knight Rider? Knight Rider? It's like Knights of Columbus or some shit. He's a knight now.

He's been knighted. Yeah. By the Ethiopian something or another. Yeah, he's a knight.

That's why it's called that. Sir Nick Malillo. I would have been calling him Sir Nick the whole time I was there. Yeah, the Ethiopian something.

His foot was all fucked up and shit. His foot? Yeah. Oh.

What was that? Mike, you had to carry him. Did you carry him? No.

Oh. I didn't know you might have. You're that guy. I was trying to get him to do it.

You're that guy. You would carry him. I was like, hey, he'll carry it. Hey, I kept telling him.

He's like, no, no, I'm good, I'm good. I just want to make sure that everybody I go with has- What's important to me is that everybody we bring has a good time. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, I wanted to make sure that Jerry and Gio enjoyed themselves, that they got to see and do all the things that they wanted to see and do. Right. And, I mean, that was really my priority. Obviously, opening up accounts and talking with customers and retailers is important too.

Did you pick up any new brands for the shop? No. No? No new brands.

I saw Wildfire. They won an award for best small booth or something. Because they had that camping thing? They had an RV, I guess, there or something?

Jeremy's cool. You know, the hard part with, this is what I love. " Yeah, no shit, buddy. Everybody's humidor's full.

Everybody's humidor's full, right. So you either A, like my product and you make room, or, you know, just tell me you're not interested. Hey, these are the guys. I like your chairs.

" I think this is going to work. Right. You know, if somebody would come to me and say, "Hey, Polsana doesn't sell on my humidor," I would say, "Well, do you bring it to consumers? Do you show it to your customers?

Do you, the guy who's got three cigars in his hand and they're all Habano, do you say, "Hey, you should probably try this too? " I got something else you might like. Right. Because this is really good too.

Or do you just set it on the shelf and think it's going to sell? Right. you know there are a handful of companies that will just sell that way it but it doesn't make any it doesn't make you a better retailer if you just leave it right now you want to educate your consumers i love the guy that comes in and says help me pick something out right well you know what but more the majority of the time even with your retailers when you walk in say hey would you need some help the answer is going to be no right right so then you still have to kind of go back I can say, hey, let's see. So what do you grab and what do you normally smoke?

You got to open up that. You got to break that ice. Right. Not to say, okay.

Yeah. All right. See you later. Good.

Good. I'll be over here by the register. Yeah. I'll just wait to ring you up, sir.

You know, because the guy doesn't want to inconvenience you. They get nervous. Right. Yeah.

You start piddling, straightening stuff. So what do you got? What do you got over there? Well, you don't want to hover.

Well, once they acquire a couple. No, no. If they're on one side, I go to the other. Or you just say, hey, what do you normally smoke?

Right. You know, that's usually my next step. Do you need help? No.

Okay, what do you smoke? Right. This is what I like. Oh, that's good.

This one's good. You know, I can make some recommendations if you want to try some other stuff. Right. I don't know.

But as my boy Skip says, what the fuck do I know? Right. What's your question? What were you going to say?

Didn't you smoke the V1 from Crown Heads? The V1. No, I didn't. No?

They have some new V1. He's great on the names. He's great on the names. It's like, you said it was a Cuban one, but it's not.

It's like a mixed between. The new Espinosa, the Las Calaveras. Yeah, the new Espinosa, the Las Calaveras. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about?

There was, so, the difference that I saw from this year to last year is, the new cigars, truthfully, weren't like, out there, like, in your face. Right. Right, like they were the year before, they were like, oh, try the new cigar, try the new cigar, try the new cigar. Like, this year was a little different.

" Well, you know, I think that here's what happens as a brand as you kind of get going. You're excited, you think that, you know, page two on your business plan is fucking champagne and caviar and, like, life is good, right? " Right. The good news is this time around, I didn't really see a ton of influencers as you normally see.

Oh, really? No, there wasn't. I think that some of the guys, some of the guys and gals that have grown up a little bit as far as the influencers have found their way with a company, and they're now theirs. Yeah, they work specifically for somebody.

Yeah, and they promote within that company, which makes sense. I don't see many of them on social media anymore either. Yeah, because the reality is that it doesn't fucking pay well. Right, right, right.

You're lucky if you can get free cigars. Yeah, you better be passionate about what the fuck you're doing. Right. I heard Melanie was there again this year.

She was in the Fuente booth, I think. Yeah, she's, they hired her. Eric Bay did something funny on that one. I'll tell you about that on the Patreon.

Yeah. When he did his. I think somebody told me. Yeah, it's, it's out there.

You know, out of, out of all the booths, though, I think my favorite booth was the Don Doroteo. Oh, yeah? Did they have a different one from the TPE? Yeah, so.

I saw the group, I don't even know, I saw the group shot today, it looked different. It was slightly similar. Yeah, it was similar, but they had this whole setup for the salt of the earth, where they had like some tobacco plants kind of growing a little bit, and all this mist coming out, and there was like little flames and stuff, it was a pretty cool production looking kind of thing, and then they had where they would chop the tobacco, whatever that thing, it looked like a root, it was all tobacco in it, they would chop that, let you smoke that, and then they also had this type of rum that you could drink as well with the, With the pipe thing? With the pipe thing or with the cigar, so it was something made with honey.

It was something that's made back in their family. Do they have the Dorito commercial up again? No. Like, hey, have you tried this yada yada?

I'm like, no. And then I see him pull out a bottle. I'm like, oh no, I'm good. I already say enough as is without drinking.

That's all I fucking need. If they can get him drunk, he will buy more cigars. I got a good Pete Hernandez story. Oh!

That will also be on the Patreon. There's going to be a lot of good stuff on the Patreon. Oh, I would imagine. There's definitely some great shit that we can talk about on the Patreon.

Are you going to talk about the whole Espinosa thing on the Patreon? I don't know what you're talking about, but I can if you want me to. Oh, okay. Well, you know, I'll make you pay.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can talk about that, sure. Sure. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here.

You know what's even funnier, too, though, is like, at 11 o'clock I'm out. I'm going to bed. If I'm in... Oh, really?

You didn't stay up late? No, you didn't. No, I kept it on point. You know, the reality is that, I mean, I love hanging out and bullshitting and stuff, but I got shit to do.

I want to be, you know, I got to hit the gym in the morning on specific days, and I want to be at the showroom floor at an appropriate time and not feel like shit, right? Because things are a lot easier if you do that. Oh, I'm sure. If you're rough around the edges and you fucking, ugh.

Come drag your ass in, right? Yeah, man, it's no good. It's no good. So, yeah.

The last night, I think you stayed up till 12. Yeah, the night that we didn't have to go anywhere last night. We didn't have to get up the next morning. Yeah, and I got to sit down and bullshit with Skip and I got to catch up with Charlie a little bit, which I always enjoy.

Yeah. Yeah, and then who else was there? You know what was really cool that we had a good time with the majority of the time was Nick from Cigar Dunn. Oh, yeah?

He hung out a lot. Yeah. Super nice guy, man. Yep.

What else you got? Is anything from the media night not Patreon? Espinosa, Media Night? Oh, we got to hang out with a couple of guys from Canada.

When I saw that, I told everyone, I'd go, this is what I miss, this, this thing right here. Yeah. Walking around the floor and everything, that's different, but that kind of stuff though. Yeah, because it's an extremely intellectual conversation when you hang out with all those guys.

Right, right. It looked like everybody was taking turns telling a story or talking or something. Oh, yeah, yeah, that went down. You know, what's funny though, is some of those stories I've already heard like seven times.

Oh, yeah. Oh, really? Yeah, I could almost do them verbatim. I could probably do the Skip Ashtray story verbatim at this point, you know, and, but, you know, I don't mind hearing it.

Did S-Binoza hang on boots again like he did last year? No, he was too far away. Oh, are you talking about the, uh, that was a media night? Yeah, so everybody hung out outside with us.

That was almost like a, we all used to work at Drew Estate night, and now we're all here. No, it was, it was solely, it was supposed to solely be like media guys and like really close friends. Hector thanked everybody for coming and he mentioned our podcast, so, yeah, it was cool, that was actually pretty, I think that was probably the best part of the whole thing, he did call Down to Earth, or Down to Herf, Down to Earth, which is funny, yeah, but dude, Jerry and Geo, yeah, are by far one of the funniest for you guys, hilarious, man, we had a great time with them, they told us about this crackhead that they see all the time, his crackhead Phil, and apparently this guy, you know, him and his girlfriend, this is That's how he got addicted to crack, and I'm gonna, I'm not gonna do this story any justice, so I'll just fucking run through it real quick. Okay.

Yeah. Apparently, they both wound up blowing Mickey Rourke in Las Vegas or some shit, allegedly, allegedly, allegedly, of course. And that's how they turned to crack. And then he also needs to crack it.

I don't know how, how A went to B, but, you know. Oh, well, have you seen Mickey Rourke lately? I have plastic surgery, it's a little rough. So the dude's a mess, and, uh, apparently, he, they're like, oh, we'll get him to do a blip for his Cigar Housers podcast, they'll give him like five bucks or something.

Oh, perfect! i'm like absolutely absolutely i'll give i'll give you a little a little piece of the media night okay with jerry so i'm sitting there and eric oh jerry and geo were obviously they were there but they weren't in any of the photos yeah that was our last night there so eric's like talking like maybe five feet away from me right and jerry's sitting right next to me and geo and uh jerry's been on like this kick of like hey you want to smoke crack like the whole time right i'm like dude stop not why eric's talking and he's like well maybe he wants to smoke crack i'm like dude please just i don't want him to hear you jerry and geo are fucking hilarious yeah yeah they really are and they're really good guys yeah they're awesome bro and uh it's funny because because i think skip somebody was gonna be a hard time like what do you just pick up scragglers along I'm like, yeah, you know, what happens when you travel around and you meet somebody that you like, you just become friends, you know, it's when we went to Buffalo, they were good dudes, I hung out with them the majority of the time, you know, they were doing the podcast, I'm like, yeah, of course I'll go on and we had a good time talking and then we just kind of developed a friendship, you know, so that happens, that happens more often than not, you know, what's even funnier, though, is they always say, hey, so, you know, if anybody ever asked me where to buy me, I never recommend Cigar Hustlers. I'm like, 'cause I never want a retailer to think that now that we're friends, they're gonna buy from me. " Right, buy where you buy.

If that's where they, you know, I won't have it, if it's my shit, I won't have it, they'll have it first. Right. You know, so go and support your retailers, man. Don't be stupid.

Yeah, it was funny, like, every time I took Jerry and Gio around to each person, like, I took them over to Justin, you know, everybody. " And I was like, "Oh, this is Pustania security. " Yeah. And it's nice to walk around with a little bit of an entourage, not gonna lie, it feels good.

Oh, you usually leave Buzz and Woody far behind. You know, I had a squat. " They were all, we all got the little tags and stuff. Right.

Gio looked bigger than you. He's definitely gained some size. Has he? Yeah, it's Deltony work, though, right?

Yeah. He got so mad. So, like, I'm looking at him and said, "Hey, listen, you got to focus more on your deltoids. " Like, I was being honest.

Right. I wasn't trying to be... He's trying to be just critiquing him. Yeah, just trying to give him...

Help him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jerry took that and fucking ran with it.

" I mean, just continued to hammer this poor... I'm like, Gio, I am so sorry, dude. I was not... I didn't mean to mention it, but like...

That was not, you know... Oh, and every time we met somebody like Eric Espinosa or Nick Lowe, he's like telling, he's like, yeah, this guy's over here on Roids, like talking about Gio. Yeah, and he's calling him Trent and fucking D-Ball and all types of shit and fucking, he's just, you know. Crap, I had a question, I lost it.

So I made sure that I gave it back to Jerry every once in a while, you know, and then Gio would look at me like, what, why are you doing that? I'm like, listen, he tees off on you all the fucking time. Don't worry, I'll even it up a little bit, you know. Gio is like the boots of the, of the, of the, of the trio.

Oh, it's not Caleb? Maybe when they're all together. Maybe because Jerry was bored that Caleb wasn't there, so he just went to town. Well, Jerry and Gio are partners on the squad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, yeah, they'll call me on duty sometimes. Yeah, so they're together the most. Right. But they're, they're awesome, man.

Well, who's Jerry? Jerry says he's me. Jerry says... No way.

That's what he said. Gio is you, Jerry is me. I mean, from a physical standpoint, Gio is definitely more me. Right.

Right. But I would say, Jerry is probably more me as far as, um… His position? Yeah, just on the show, and yeah, where he's at. I would say Gio is more you.

Oh. And Caleb is more boots. Jerry is super, super outspoken. Like… Yeah, he doesn't shut the fuck up.

Dude, there is no filter with him. Yeah, kinda like me. Well, he's a cop, so, I mean, talks to weirdos all day long. All the time.

I didn't expect some of the stuff he was saying when we would go to different booths. I'm not going to talk about this. I'll talk about it on the Patreon, but I'll give you a little bit. We went over to Nova.

The lady? Jerry is on a different level. Look, there are just some things that we're not going to say to thousands and thousands of people. I'd rather intimately tell it to the 15 to 20 that I know aren't going to go to town with it.

That's why we're holding some of this stuff back. Yeah. What time are we on? 38.

We can ramp it up. Okay, well. Oh, dude, a couple things. The news that came out of the PCA, we talked about a little bit last week, part of it, but they're going to New Orleans next year?

Yeah, we called that, we fucking called that six months ago on this show. But wasn't there something wrong when they had it there before? Did you and Greg didn't like it or something? Well, the one bad part about it is that everybody's kind of separated and shit.

Right. You know. Because you can only smoke at the convention and in cigar. Well, they're lifting that for the whole thing.

Oh, for the city? So you can smoke outside and everything? If you look, if you notice, Half Wheel covered that legislation was lifted on specific times for cigars in New Orleans. I thought that was just inside the cigar shops.

I don't think so. I think that it's lifted all the way around. No one's going to give you a hard time. " You know, meanwhile, next day, hostage situation at Caesar's fucking palace, someone gets grabbed, he blows out the fucking window and he's launching shit out the window.

Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. So, I didn't even make the news here. Oh, really?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, I'm like, yeah. So, good luck with that.

You know what I mean? Look, if you're stupid, you can find yourself in a bad situation. Anywhere. Yeah.

Right. So, don't find yourself in a bad situation. I, believe me, as far as the PCA is concerned, I would like to get the fuck out of Vegas. Oh, right, yeah.

You know, they've also flirted with Nashville, they're also flirting with Tampa, I would love Tampa. Tampa would be great. You know? Yeah, that would be great.

Why not? Because that's a cigar town, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. They tried it in Orlando once, but that, I mean, Orlando's so not smoke friendly. Right. And, you know, there aren't that many locations where you can go and...

Right. Tampa or Miami would be perfect. Except what's his name? Yeah.

Yeah. Fuck that guy. And they're cutting out the half day at the end. They are cutting out the half day.

Yeah, which makes sense. That makes sense. Nobody goes the last day anyway. Well, the hard part though is your booth breakdown.

That's the only thing that's gonna be an issue. Because you gotta wait for the crates, you gotta wait for all this bullshit, and then you gotta, you know, unless you pay the union workers to do it. But the problem is, especially when it comes to the Roma stuff, all of that stuff is extremely delicate, And you don't want to see just jammed into a spot, you know, and not put back properly. Well, it's probably going to change if it goes in New Orleans or somewhere else, right?

Because the union workers are different there? No, it's the same shit. I don't know if it's a different state. So it closes on the third day, and then the morning of the fourth, instead of being a half day, they start bringing out all the crates that morning.

Or the night before. Yeah, they could do that. So when you come in on the fourth day, and all your crates are sitting there waiting on you. Right, that would be perfect.

That would be the best idea. If you guys want to use that, feel free. Write that down. I tried to get Caleb to be Scott Pierce, but he said he's not fast on his feet.

He couldn't think. He couldn't do that well. That would make it funnier. He's not that fast on his feet.

He goes, I'm not that fast on my feet. I don't think I can do it. It would have been funnier. You're right.

He had no idea what the answer to the question would have been. Do you want to talk about the ride home? Sure. What happened on the ride home?

Oh, nothing. You guys said no delays on the way out and no delays on the way back. Oh, yeah. Everybody was bitching about that shit and we were perfect.

Because you had the early morning flight. After that, the airport locked down for a little while here. It was at Crown Heads. Everybody from Crown Heads had a delay.

Oh, man. Ben Lee, this morning, was 22 hours at the airport. Oh, damn. I'm so glad we didn't have that happen.

He goes, "Nobody else is here. The curse is real. " Doesn't get out. Oh, God.

Well, Carney, he made his flight a little early and then he got stuck in Atlanta. On the way back? Yeah. Who the fuck made his travel plans on the way out?

He stopped like nine times when he was flying. Did he? He kept checking in different airports all over the country. Torn in the world.

I asked him, like, who the hell does your flight arrangements? I'm going to tell you a little life hack, and I said this to my brother as we got out, because it's, because Delta has like a two leg, they all have two legs, whether it's United, Delta, unless you want to suck it up and jump on a frontier plane, which I'm not fucking doing, because I will be brutally in pain, Delta can, there's one of two ways you can get back to Florida. One is you fly all the way to Atlanta, then Atlanta, Orlando, or you do Salt Lake, Utah, Utah to Orlando. I'm actually going further away.

I am a fan of the Utah to Orlando. Yeah, it's nice. Because here's what happens. There's no fucking crazy weather.

Oh, that's right. There's no absurd in this. And if you got stuck in Utah, it's a beautiful fucking airport. Right.

It's that, you know, everything is clean. It's not like the cesspool when you land in Vegas. Did we stop there in TPE? Is that where we went?

Salt Lake? No. Uh-uh. I went there one time with you.

Well, PCA last year. Oh, PCA last year. Oh, did we go to Salt Lake last year? Yeah, I think we did.

Did we? It was one of them, either PCA or TPE. We have definitely landed in Utah, but yeah, it was PCA last year because Adrian was with us. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You guys stopped off and you ate food at like the Bojangles or some shit restaurant or something. Yeah, yeah, because I have a magnet. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, so, uh, yeah, the ride home.

One of the bad things that happened. Yeah. Me and fucking Mikey got stuck next to each other. Oh my God.

Going to Salt Lake. Oh, right, somebody's in the center? It's like an hour and 30 minutes. Yeah, the flight seats, the seats were tough to get on the way back.

So we did, so the only ones who were available were Comfort Plus, and they didn't charge us for them, which was nice. But we were emergency exit, and I took the window, no one was in front of me, I'm like, this will be fine, I'll just deal with it. And Boots was in the middle. And there was a flight attendant on the aisle seat.

It was right where you walk in, the door. And she was a pro. " And she's like, "Don't. " She's not having any of that.

She's this tall. She had plenty of room. Seasoned veteran. But then Boots instantly kind of cowered back.

" So I fucking died over here. I'm like, holy shit. You should have answered a trade with yours. It was not Comfort Plus.

No, she wasn't fucking moving. Where was Greg? On the window. Greg was in another window somewhere else.

Oh, another window. Yeah. Well, at least he could have split you two up, though. Yeah.

Dude. It's Ronnie. So, we ended up... Oh.

Hey, I'm podcasting right now. Oh, go on, touch later. All right, bye. Yeah, I'm going to have to cancel the event up here.

We're really busy. I bought a lot of stuff. Was he there? Did he show up?

Did he check in? Are we doing the lake? What? Are we doing the release there?

Yeah. I need to iron that out. He just called to cancel. I need to iron that out with him.

Was he at the show? Yeah. Was he? Yeah.

We didn't give him a ride this time. Obviously, right. You don't want to hear about that. " And he fucking affected me.

" Did he bring the yellow shirts? The yellow pee? I did. Oh, I thought maybe he brought them.

No, I gave him a... Everybody in the booth got the gold piece. Right, I saw Rand, but I saw he had one, so I thought like last year he brought all the Hustler. No, I made sure that we got him one extra one.

Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Brett Frye is a great guy, bro. Yeah.

Yeah, he was in a lot of people's pictures, too. He really is a great guy. The second most photographed guy at the PCA. Right.

I am a little angry, though. Why are you angry? About the little post thing. Oh, that's great.

We need to cover that. What? So, I sent an order to Brett Frye, and I just drew him a big picture. The end of the dick.

Yeah. And he said, well, you know, someone, Palmer and Mike asked me, what do, what is Boots? Right. What Boots eats.

Right. Or what Phil eats. Right. And they sent me this on this paper.

So he. Oh, you just sent it. That wasn't part of the joke. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh. So he thought that I, he actually asked that question. That's what I thought.

Why would he ask that question and why would. Oh, maybe he's going to send him a gift or something. No, I just drew him a dick. He sent him stuff before.

So he's so upset, he's been upset about this for weeks, for weeks, and I'm like, dude, you think I would fucking do that? So then Mitch, I thought you had two, I thought he said, like, what does Boots like to eat? Like, he wants to send him something else again, because we shit on him all the time. Like, nobody sends him anything.

I'm going to send him his favorite Twinkies, or Ho-Ho's, or whatever it is he likes to eat, and you send a picture of a dick. I will tell you, Brett Frye did, he gave me a bundle of BDPs and wanted me to hand all those out at the show, which I did. i did thank you mr fry gave me i saw the video of who shot just oh uh by the way you have a cigar for me from vso horny he made but he's part of a video i don't know why he posted that see he becomes a brand owner and now he's like pinky up and everything you give this i kept telling him i was like dude i'm out here supporting you tell everybody to interview you're a great brand owner you sold out quick right interview him and then he's like at one point he's like hey i'm talking here can you back up i'm like oh my god dude he got so upset Boots was so upset, so when I saw him with Tyler later, I said, hey, just want you to know, you pissed him off by doing that. He's like, oh, I didn't mean to.

So, he's been upset for weeks about this whole dick thing that I sent to Brett, and I didn't do it intentionally. So, he sends to Mitch Smith this letter and said, make sure you say that Mike and Mike, something about something he dicks or something, and I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Well, I've been upset about this. Oh, it was in his prize pack.

I'm like, you didn't even give me a, you didn't even give me like, nah, he wouldn't do that. You didn't even, you didn't even fucking bring it out to me. I thought you did, I thought it was funny. Why would I do that?

See? Because it was funny. See, he thought it too. It was funny.

You would do that. I wouldn't draw a penis, but I would have said something else. This is what, yeah. Yeah.

I would, I, have I ever done a fucking prank to you? You know, when you said it like that. Yeah. I thought about it, I was like, no.

Exactly. Right, now that you're explaining it, you're right. I was like, the fuck? At the time, I couldn't figure out if it was Palmer or Mikey.

No, I didn't know anything about it until he saw the photo. I was simply sending Brett a penis. I heard him say something one day about, I'm drawing a penis, Greg, don't bother me, or something like that. Yeah.

So then I texted Brett. Sending a penis. After me and Mikey were having this conversation, I was like, you tricked me. He's like, you motherfucker.

For weeks I've not slept. I told him, I was like, I've been in so much trouble now. This is not fair. I see penises in my sleep now, I've been so upset.

Look, you owe me. It's hard keeping the children in line when you're at PCA. Dude. You know, this guy leaves his phone on the fucking plane, he lost his Chaz fucking, well, I don't even know the guy's name.

Chaz Palmetary? Yeah, he left his poster in the bathroom. You know, the guy is just a mess. I almost had it back.

It's in Salt Lake. You know what Tia goes through now. I mean, holy shit, it's a full-time gig. Well, there's a lot going on on the plane, bro.

You're sitting for four hours. What's cool is Jerry, well, that was where we met Judah, so we sit down at this fucking, in the terminal or whatever, and I look back and I'm like, I don't know enough, I'm like, damn, he's a basketball player. I've seen him. Oh, in Salt Lake.

Yeah, and I'm like. No, no, in Vegas. Yeah, we were in Vegas. Oh.

I'm like, I've fucking seen him. So, I mean, we watched a lot of the playoffs, but he's either a Laker or he's a magic guy. I think he's a magic guy. So I go to look it up.

Right. And of course, the fucking internet's not working, so I can't look it up, I'm sleeping, I guess he's sitting directly behind me, yeah, so Boots was sitting across where he could, excuse me, stare at him, and then he switched seats so he could sit behind, and he could sprawl out a little bit, so I'm like, man, I'm pretty sure that that's a magic guy, so then we get on the plane, and I'm like, did you see the basketball player? And he's like, no, who? Well, because I said that one guy, I said, I know who that guy is, he works for the Magic, and there was, because he had like a, I call him the handler, but the relations guy.

He was wearing all white, and he got pizza, I was like, be careful, bro, I mean, white pants, you're quite the gamble there, my friend. So he said, yeah, the dude you were talking to, I think he's a handler for Magic or something. I said, oh, well, I think that there was a Magic player there. I'm like, he's the guy with the mohawk.

He's like, who? He starts going nuts. So I'm like, don't worry, he's gonna be on this plane, so he comes out, and I said who it was, and he goes, oh, that's, what's his name? Jonathan Isaac.

He goes, oh, that's Jonathan Isaac. I said, oh, yeah, and I look him up, I'm like, yeah, that's him, 'cause I can connect to the plane at that point. That's totally him. He goes, oh, he was a seminal, blah, blah, blah, like, he starts rolling, so he walks in, and he's giddy as a schoolgirl, and he's not saying shit, I go, go Knowles.

And he's like, yeah. And I said, Magic 2. I said something, but it was so faint. Trudeau, Trudeau, I'll touch you.

I love you. Well, another one walked in, too, before him, though. " Wendell Carter. Wendell Carter.

I don't know. That was Wendell Carter. " I see him. There he is.

There he is. So Boots is talking to his poor wife on the phone, and he gets close to him, he's like, "I gotta go," hangs up the phone, and asks for a picture. " And then here comes Jonathan Isaac. " Like real low, 'cause I didn't want to alert everybody.

Right, right, right. Holy shit, yeah. Yeah. " Click.

" I was like, oh, yeah, dude, sorry, I need to get a picture with you. Such a fan. It'll be fine, but you'll understand. It's crazy, man.

I have your picture next to my bed. So, how was Greg? We didn't talk about Greg. How was Greg, I think.

Did he show up on time? Because the other king said that he was late all the time. Well, the difference is that I don't care, because he can't affect my plans if we're staying on base. Right, right.

So, I could tell you that there were a bunch of times where he was calling me, and I was in the middle of something, I just didn't answer, I'm like, I fucking, there's no way I'm gonna, you know. Was he calling you from the other side of the booth? Um, just where, if he was somewhere else, kinda, you know, even if he was, yeah, I mean, I could do it on my fucking name of a call. Well, I mean, he saw us seeing, seeing X-Po.

Seeing it on the plane, yes, that was nice. You know what was great? I'm gonna tell you, it wasn't day one, but day two, Matula had figured it out. " Yeah, no shit.

Part of the team. He started kind of working it a little bit. He was kind of back into a groove. It took a while for him to get to it.

" He did write one order that's complete wood. There's no CC info. It's just a fucking business card to follow up with. " I don't even have a cell phone number.

Hey, so you place this order in the show. Just the name of the store. He's like, who? Fuck you.

I'm going to tell you, that was my first time ever meeting Matul, even talking, like I've never heard him on the phone or anything, right? Right. He's a great guy, man. He's a very nice guy, yeah.

I'm going to tell you, man. I like him. We have, we've built a team along the way. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Between Jeff, Matul, and kind of Sean. I mean, Sean's just a long time. Does Sean check out at dinner any night?

He's like, I go to the bathroom and he never comes back. He disappears from time to time. It's fun to have him around, but he's, you know, it's not like he's not, you know, but we, I can sit down, you know, I can talk with Jeff and say, all right, here's where we fucked up. Here's where we can do better.

I can look at Matul and say, okay, here's where we fucked up. Here's what we can do better. Right. And, you know, and I'm not just saying this is where you fucked up.

Right, right, right. I'm saying. This is where we fucked up. Right.

Here's how we need to do things better. Right. And holding myself as equally accountable as everybody else in the party. You know, the only one I struggle with is Greg.

He's just oblivious in all fucking life. I'm saying. I still can't get him to park out back after all these years. I'm like, will you park your car out back?

I'm like, you look like a douche parking out front. You look like a douche. You know, I like the, I like the booth where you've got Pustania, you know, Fosro, Fable, and then you've got Roma on the side of us, right? I feel like that booth, to me, is just so well organized, has such a good array of people, you know, attitudes, everything, like, it's just an awesome booth to go to.

When you go to all the other ones, and you got your couple of guys that you know, and they got good attitudes, everybody else is just kind of like a zombie, but when you come over to the room, it's like, everything's clean, everything's organized, everybody's chipper, everything's great, you know, it's cool to talk to everybody. And it's great to work just fucking hand in hand with them, just to be so fucking dialed in, like, I could go to Michael, you know, and talk about, we could talk about a retailer, we could talk about what's going down, or whatever the case may be, if he has an issue with something, and I can help sort it out, or vice versa. Right. Or if he thinks that someone might be a fit, like you need to talk with them or whatever the case may be, and you know, John as well, and Lightweight Heavy too, you know, all of those guys are such an integral part of this whole thing, this whole operation, and being on the same page with all of them just makes...

There was no pictures of John D. Oliver either. No, you know, I don't, I don't know what to tell you with that. I mean, at least there were pictures of Sean.

I love it when people ask me for a photo. That happens every once in a while. I'm like, hey, can I get a picture with you? I'm like, yeah, man.

I just don't feel like I'm that guy. This is my good side. I'm going to tell you, it was hard to get it. I was trying to take a picture with him at one point, but he was so busy writing orders, talking to people.

I mean, dude, they had an appointment like every 15 minutes. Oh, I'm sure they did. He's your data guy. Yeah.

I was going to say, he's the guy now. And then even when he had some downtime, it wasn't like real downtime. It was like, now we're breaking down the booths and we're doing all this stuff. He couldn't really get a moment with him, and he didn't really go out because he had, um, his other half was there.

His wife? Yeah, well, you gotta have that. Yeah, she works for Rocky. Rocky, that's right.

Yeah, you gotta have reasonable expectations. Like, there's just no way that you're gonna sit and follow and hang out with somebody the whole time. It's just, you know, and sometimes you won't get to really see them at all. Right.

You know, like, I had intentions of bullshitting with Booth. Right. That didn't happen, you know? I tried to bring him over at one point, but he, he even told me, he's like, "Dude, he's like, I cannot get away from this booth like yeah, I had to take him to the bathroom.

Well, that's a mistake, though. That's a fucking rookie move on your behalf. Yeah, I should have fucking done that. That was an hour fucking deal.

Like we were going to the bathroom. It was literally like maybe 100 feet, 200 feet to the door. Right. And we must have talked to like 20 fucking people.

Yeah, we went to the bathroom together at the Great Smoke and I ditched him halfway across. Exactly. You just got it. I just got to go.

I don't have time to do this. You got to realize when you're like, fuck this. This is out of right now. come with me no i'm not no i don't have that i have to be i'm going i don't have that kind of time bro people don't want to see me i don't need to stop i enjoy the time i get to spend with him because he's you know it's not the matt booth character anymore like it's you know i get to talk to him about other things other than just cigars right he's stopping every two seconds he has to click back into character yeah once we get back to the booth area right you know that was you know character area but um and then justin andrews is there he's always a good guy i love Justin.

Yeah. He's funny, man. Right now, he's in the meeting. Yeah.

At this very moment. Right. It's an elite optimization for releases or whatever. Something.

Yeah, something. Organizational. Yeah. So.

All right. Well, let's wrap this thing up. That's probably a full show. We do it within an hour?

Yeah. 58. So there we go. See, that was the other thing where you guys fucked up.

You didn't do a full hour. You couldn't hang. You couldn't hold it without us. Well, how many times could you say how many books you read?

Yeah, how many times could he make fun of you? Why did he make fun of you? Hold on, I read another book. And all the news was stuff about different cigars.

That's kind of foolish. He should have had like a bowl of cereal to open up. There's only so much, you know, so much time you can do, only so many things. He's had that muscle suit, we've had that crown for two years.

Yeah. God, I wish he would have dressed up as Greg on the regular, on the show. Well, Greg doesn't do the show. " Yeah.

He clammed up. He doesn't like it. He doesn't do well. His eyes opened up wider, and he was like, uh, uh, uh, uh, I'm on the show?

Right. Somebody had to be the real person to keep the show moving, right? Yeah. Otherwise, I'd just be sitting here counting money.

All right. Well, let's zip onto the Patreon. Let's get some of this stuff out of the way, and we'll, uh, we'll, we'll shore up everything for next week. You got it.

All right, guys, thank you. Don't miss it. This is the real PCA info here. The deets.

All right, guys. Bye. Thank you for your suggestions that you have for their shows. These broadcasts are presented and made public as entertainment in the hope that they will be entertaining to the audience.

Show Notes

Title: Cigar Hustlers Podcast - Episode 290: PCA Recap

Description:

Join us for an exhilarating and in-depth discussion as we bring you a captivating recap of the highly anticipated PCA (Premium Cigar Association) Trade Show 2023. In this 290th episode, your hosts dive deep into the vibrant world of premium cigars, unraveling the most exciting highlights and latest trends from the event that all cigar enthusiasts eagerly await.

Tune in to Episode 290 of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast for your ultimate PCA recap experience. Stay informed, inspired, and enriched as we delve into the passion, craftsmanship, and camaraderie that makes the world of premium cigars so extraordinary.