A Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode315 Fabien Ziegler

Episode Summary

Episode 315 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast welcomes Fabien Ziegler — "Clean Fabian" — now with Aganorsa Leaf after 19 years at Drew Estate. Fabien opens with a tobacco-growing primer: Aganorsa is the largest grower in Nicaragua and number two in the industry behind Plasencia (whose Honduran operation matches its Nicaraguan footprint). He walks the hosts through the cigars he brought: the Signature Selection Corojo, built around a single leaf of media tempo — the rare, thick, oily "half-time" leaf made famous by the Cubans; the Anniversario Maduro and Anniversario Connecticut (the Connecticut debuted at the 2023 PCA show), box-pressed 6x52 toros that sit at the top of the portfolio around $15–$18; and Rare Leaf Maduro, made only from the top 2–3% of the harvest and sold only to Aganorsa "select accounts."

The technical heart of the episode is fermentation. Fabien contrasts Aganorsa's approach with the industry norm: most factories wet the leaves as they rotate pilones, running hotter and faster, while Aganorsa adds no water and lets pilones sit two years to two years and two months at 112–115°F. His argument is that water plus heat strips oils from the leaf, which is why Aganorsa maduros look lighter than others yet weigh slightly more and taste oilier. He also takes on the confusion between strength and flavor scales, noting Aganorsa makes mild-strength cigars but nothing mild in flavor, and touches on Drew Estate's stalk-cut claims, JFR Corojo vs. Maduro appearance, and Aganorsa's core Validation line pricing.

The conversation turns personal and candid: Fabien tells the story of asking to cut back from 20–25 road days a month, being told no, and handing in his resignation after 19 years — then spending four years out of the industry smoking hookah by his pool, watching his health scores improve, and discovering which industry "friendships" were real. He talks about ego in the cigar business, an Intertabac run-in with a fedora-wearing manufacturer, his father's advice that your word outlasts any company, and what drew him back: conversations with Terence Reilly and daily tobacco lessons from Paul Palmer. Brett Frye of Tobacology calls in to vent about the PCA show's spring date colliding with March Madness and northern retailers' slow season. Fabien also previews a March 29 Fuma tasting event at Cigar Hustler — deconstructing and reconstructing a cigar leaf by leaf using Criollo 98, Corojo 99 and Corojo 2012 (Cerberus) — plus a 25th anniversary limited release coming in 2024 around $25–$27. The back half drifts into Buccaneers playoff talk, the XFL/USFL merger killing the Orlando Guardians, and Florida State's bowl protest.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Aganorsa Leaf as a tobacco grower
   Fabien explains that Aganorsa is Nicaragua's largest grower and second in the industry behind Plasencia, producing roughly 120,000–150,000 pounds of tobacco a year.
2. 02
   Media tempo and the Signature Selection
   A breakdown of media tempo — the rare, thickest, oiliest 'half-time' leaf used by the Cubans — and its role in the Aganorsa Signature Corojo.
3. 03
   Anniversario Maduro and Connecticut
   The box-pressed 6x52 Anniversario line, the Connecticut released at PCA 2023, and why Aganorsa's priciest cigar still lands at $15–$18.
4. 04
   What makes Rare Leaf rare
   Rare Leaf uses the top 2–3% of the crop and is reserved for Aganorsa select accounts, but is available year-round rather than as a once-a-month drop.
5. 05
   Why leaving Drew Estate after 19 years
   Fabien recounts 20–25 road days a month, asking to be home more, being refused, resigning, and four years away from the industry.
6. 06
   Ego, friendship and honesty in the cigar business
   Stories from Intertabac and the road about industry ego, fake friendships, and his father's advice to put your word above any company.
7. 07
   No-water, two-year fermentation
   The core technical argument: skipping water in the pilones and fermenting for two-plus years at lower temperatures preserves oils, flavor and even cigar weight.
8. 08
   Brett Frye calls in about the PCA show date
   Tobacology's Brett Frye vents about the spring PCA trade show conflicting with March Madness and hurting northern retailers.
9. 09
   Fuma tastings and the 25th anniversary cigar
   A March 29 event at Cigar Hustler deconstructs a cigar leaf by leaf, plus news of a limited 25th anniversary release priced near $25–$27.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

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Transcript

Welcome to Cigar Hustlers Podcast, episode 315, the number one cigar podcast with the world famous cast, where we bring you the latest news and insights into the world of premium cigars. In this episode, we dive into the big stories of the week. P. Palmer, are two dynamic individuals who co-host the Cotivating Cigar Hustlers Podcast, and me, I'm Phil.

So grab your favorite smoke, sit back, and join us for another exciting episode of Cigar Hustlers Podcast. Yay! Camera one, please. Welcome to the Cigar Hustler Podcast.

Just a heads up, we're still proudly sponsor-free, but a massive shout-out to our amazing patrons of the Patreon. Thanks to your unwavering support, we're able to deliver unfiltered, unbiased opinions on all things cigars and personalities in the cigar world. Your backing makes it possible for us to keep it real for our listeners. Cheers to you.

com and search a Cigar Hustlers Podcast. Yes. No. It's two mics in front of mics with a guy.

It's Mike and Mike Productions. Mike and Mike Productions. Camera two, please. And we have a Phil.

And that's Phil. By the way, Phil, your PCA ID says Phil. Oh, thanks. You're welcome.

We did that today. Nice. Perfect. And we have clean Fabian here today.

That's right. That's right. It was the first thing I noticed when I saw you, dude. I was like...

He's clean? He was... I miss the pajamas he used to do during COVID. I was just talking about that to him.

I just said, "Hey, you know, look at how far you've come. You're so well-groomed. You know, that's a shiny - like you polished that head today? I mean, my goodness.

That's really close. Yeah, I took 17 minutes and I actually shaved my head. I like that. I had 17 hairs.

Used to be dirty, Fabian. Used to be. Now that's right. Long, long time ago.

Do you have that palm shaver or do you do it with a regular razor? With a regular razor. Oh, okay. He's a professional.

He's been that way for years. Down to a science. Fabian has seen me through some shit. Yeah?

Yeah, yeah. Fabian has seen me through a lot of shit. I mean, he has seen me fucking break down in tears at a fucking table. Oh.

Yeah, like the whole shebang. Why were you crying? What? Why were you crying?

We've never seen you cry. I was pretty upset. I was upset at a company. Not a company.

I don't know if we're allowed to mention things or not. I don't know what you're comfortable with or what you're not comfortable with. We don't know what you're saying. I am comfortable with everything.

All right. Oh, okay, so go ahead. Take your pants off. Again?

Oh, so I can put my pants back on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay, all right, okay. What are we smoking?

Let's get into that. Let's get into that. Oh yeah, what are we smoking here? What do you like to smoke?

Of these four, we have four amazing Agonarces. Okay, so I usually start with a nice citrus mint hookah. Right. Oh, okay.

Oh, but today we're talking about Agonarces tobacco. So we're talking about Agonarces tobacco, the largest grower of tobacco in Nicaragua. Really? In the industry, the number two.

Number two only after, can you guess? Oliva? No. Do you have a guess?

Is there Mike? Number two. Who's the number one? Cigar House of Publicat.

Cigar House of Publicat. But they're number two. Let's see, anywhere in the country, Dominican Republic would be Fuente. Well, no, no, in the whole industry.

In the whole industry. We are number two in the whole industry. We are number one in Nicaragua, but number two in the whole industry. So Cohiba or something in Cuba or something?

I will say that they have farms in Nicaragua and farms in Honduras. Placencia? Yes. Hey!

Oh, hey! Oh, yeah, that was an easy one. Why wouldn't I think Placencia? I think Plasencia.

Yeah. So if you really look at it, if you compare Plasencia Nicaragua to Aganorsa, Plasencia is about 70% of Aganorsa. But the problem is Plasencia in Honduras is the exact same size as their Nicaragua. It's so funny because when you said it, I'm like, wow, I thought Plasencia was the number one guy.

They are. They are. Yes. In the industry.

I like that. I like what you did there. But in Nicaragua, we are number one. I like this.

All right. So we make a lot of tobacco, and thus we have a lot of cigars, and we make a whole bunch of different cigars. And I brought a few to highlight, right? Right.

So we'll start with this one right over here in this box. This is the nice signature, and it's a Corojo signature. Corojo. Now, the important thing about this line is it has a special tobacco in there, which is called Media Tempo.

Have you heard of Media Tempo? Yeah. Okay. Would you like to tell me about it?

I don't know anything about it. No, I've heard about it. Oh, you just heard about it? I've heard about it.

Oh, okay, all right. Half-time. Media Tempo was made famous by the Cubans. Yeah.

And it was a leaf that is used in their bajiques, which, whether it's the 52, 56, 54s, it's the top of the top. Not every single plant, not even a single tobacco plant creates a media Tempo, which is, in a sense, the best of the best of the best. Wow. So it is the thickest, the most oily, the most flavorful, and we have one leaf of that in our signature line, and this is a Corojo, this signature line comes in a Maduro and a Corojo, but the red packaging is Corojo, so this is, that's what this is.

There's that one. Yes. Nice. Then on the other side, we have the special Anniversario, Anniversario Maduro, and then Anniversario Connecticut, which both of them used to be full boxes, but someone's brother, you know, He ran into me and asked me for a Connecticut, so I opened the box, and he took one.

He likes the Connecticut. 99. Oh, it's not too bad. That's, yeah, in states that have no tobacco tax, states with tobacco taxes varies a little bit, but is the Anniversario, I really enjoy that Connecticut, that is the one we released at the show, at the PCA show in 2023, and it was a real, really good, the Maduro was released the year before, so they're box-pressed, I believe both those sizes are 6x52, and box-pressed Toros.

Now, I also brought a rare leaf. Now, rare leaf Maduro. So here's the special thing about rare leaf. It's rare.

It's rare. It's very rare. Why do we call it rare leaf? So first of all, in the Aganorsa world, we have two types of accounts.

Yes. We have a regular account and we have what we call a select account. Ah, which one are we? You are a select account.

Let the man talk like that. Okay, you are a select account and what select accounts are? I didn't want to throw him to the wolves. What if he didn't know?

I was just trying to help him. He knows. He didn't know. I'm in marketing.

He knows a lot here. He's in marketing. He knows. I'm in marketing.

I'm not in sales. Oh, that's true. There you go. Most of the stuff I make up anyways.

Team Green, by the way. Team Green. By the way, hat on the table is bad luck, bro. You gotta take it off the table.

Oh, it is? Yeah. Oh, okay. All right.

Well, then it's on the head. Team Green. Perfect. Okay.

So, Rare Leaf is a cigar that we only make and we only sell to select accounts. And select accounts are partners' accounts. They're accounts that do big business with us, and we go out of our way to give them a special cigar, which is a rare leaf. Oh, we're over here now.

What makes a rare leaf? Well, since I started the whole show by saying that we're the largest grower of tobacco in Nicaragua, on average we make about 120,000 to 150,000 pounds of tobacco every year. Wow, that's a lot. And after that whole tobacco, all that, all those cigars, all that tobacco is processed and, you know, put in different categories and whatnot, the top 2 to 3% of the leaves, so again, it's like the media tempo, but on a higher scale, so the top 3% of the tobacco, so the thickest, the most oiliest, which, a little bit later, I could always, I could tell you why our tobacco is always oilier than all other tobaccos, that's a story for, you know, 20 minutes from now.

That's an amazing stock-cut. Stock-cut, stock-cut. No, we don't stock-cut anything. It's a joke.

Yeah. Yeah. That Rare Leaf is only used for the Rare Leaf cigars, thus, we don't really make too many of them, but we have them at all, anytime, so it's not like other brands who have their special, exclusive cigars that they only deliver once a month, or every full moon, or breast cancer, appreciation month, or whatever. Oh, I don't even know what you're referencing.

And this right here, you can order stuff every month and twice on Sunday if they want. So we have a Corojo and a Maduro, but this is the Maduro. So I brought a little mixture. You guys pick which one you want to smoke.

What do you smoke? I'm going to smoke a Connecticut. You're going to smoke a Connecticut? Yeah, I'm going to smoke a Connecticut.

So if you pass me a Connecticut, I will smoke the Connecticut. That's right. Is this your first cigar of the day? This is my second cigar of the day.

I had my first cigar of the day was the JFR Connecticut. So now I'm going to be a little bit stronger Connecticut, this is not your average Connecticut, if I could describe this cigar in one word, it would be meaty, okay, meaty, meaty, you're, you're feeling like you're smoking a cigar, it feels like the box press feels really, really good, you want to chew it, lots of flavor, lots of strength, it's not necessarily overpowering, but a lot of flavor, okay, what are you going to go, that was a really good description, he really did, he really sold those well, thank you, Connecticut, I spoke to J. I've heard of our Connecticut already this morning also. So did he.

Right. I think I'm going to go with this one. You're going to go Mediatempo? Mediatempo.

Mediatempo. Mediatempo. Signature, Corojo, Robusto. Baby Phil, what are you doing, Baby Phil?

I'm going Signature. I've never smoked that before. This one? Yeah.

Oh, there you go. Oh, nice. You caught it. We practice.

Should I do the Signature? You should do a Signature. I've smoked all that one. No, no.

Why don't you do something different? Do the Maduro. Or the Rare Leaf. Do the Rare Leaf.

Out of all of them, the Rare Leaf would probably be the strongest and it would be a medium to full. We're gonna do Rare Leaf. I've had this before. Oh, thank you very much.

That's a ribbon. You get the ribbon too. And you can have the ribbon. So yes, as I was saying before, yes, Fabian, we've known each other for quite some time, yes.

How long? How long? Well, the first time I was here is like tattooing cigars. Yeah, TNT.

Oh, back in the other days. Yeah, back in those days. 14 years ago. Wow.

Yeah, it's a long time. Yeah, he used to work for a company. Okay. That, you know.

That's still around. It's still here. They're not going anywhere, unfortunately. It got bought once.

It got bought once. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My cigar hustler is the goddamn fucking best.

Okay, yeah. Didn't get bought by that company. No, no, no. But you know who that was, right?

Who? That was Pedro. That was Pedro. Oh, it is?

Yeah, hit it again, hit it again. A little liquored up, Pedro. Secret Hassler is the goddamn fucking best. That is Pedro.

That is definitely Pedro. So we did a show with him. Uh-huh. And then, you know, he said, well, what do you think?

I'm like, well, you listen to it. And you tell us what you think. And he listened to it. And he's like, what do you think?

And I said, well, you're a little half in the bag. And, you know, maybe we let that one go. Maybe we don't play that one. So we kept a couple of clips.

Okay. Yeah. So that was two beers. Two Beer Fatal.

Yeah, that was two beers, and it was the Nicaraguan beer, which, what is that called? Latonia. Yeah, that's it. 0001.

Yeah. It's like two Michelob Ultras or two of those Corona 0%. That was, yeah, that was all it took. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, now does someone have a cutter and a lighter? Oh. I have this lovely cutter.

Oh, the special one. I've been using it. Look at this beautiful cutter. My scissors have been broken.

Oh, nice. Again? Why do you keep breaking scissors? Yeah, this has no fuel.

Oh, fuck. Oh, that's the famous Dunbarton. Yes. It's the famous-- Oh, I heard a story about this.

Is this the actual cutter, or this is a replica of the actual cutter? Well, that is the cutter. The original one was sold, so that's the one after. Oh, okay.

That's the replacement. It's a replacement of the original, which was on someone's desk for a long time. And if something doesn't move here in 37 days, it gets sold. Yeah, it just finds its way on eBay.

There's a business to run here. Yeah, money to be made, baby. Let's go. Everything's for sale.

Right. Everything's for sale. Yeah, man. So, you were part of the Decepticons for a while there.

Oh, I like that name. That I was. And now, and then you, what happened there? Are we allowed to talk about that?

What the fuck happened? You were there, and then there is no more. I left. Dirty Fabian was no longer dirty.

You were there a long time. I was there for 19 years. Wow. That is a long fucking time.

One more, you would have had a retirement. Well, yeah. Yeah, but here's the thing, right? So, you start working, and you start doing something, and what you're doing starts working, and sales happen, and whatnot.

So I had a pocket full of business cards, whether I was a sales rep, I was a regional manager, I was director of sales, I was director of marketing, I was director of international sales, I was director of marketing consumer engagement, I was director of marketing for events and what not. I did it all, I did a little bit of everything, so it's good, and for me, it's always very important to get information from the streets, right? So there's a lot of people who like to stay in the castle and the big white towers, the ivory towers, and then there's people who get information on the street because if you get information from the street, most likely it's going to be a little truer, and you can react and change if things need to be changed, right? So I spent a lot of time on the streets, and it got to about 20, 25 days a month on the road.

That's a lot. That is. I would say that's a lot. Especially in February, because you don't get those extra two days to relax.

Well, this year you get an extra day. My son told me. It's a leap year. Oh, is it really?

Yes. He's very excited about it. Yeah. Imagine those guys who were born on February 29th, like 16 years ago, who are only four.

Four, right. That's what he said. He goes, so what happens if that was his, like, he was asking me those questions? And I go, I don't know, he celebrated the fucking March 1st.

Yeah, you pick a different day. So, literally, there's a guy who was born in, you know, in 1900, February 29th, and he's celebrating his, like, 26th birthday, or 28th birthday, like, right now, like, this year. It's gonna be cool. He's just figuring it out.

He can now buy drinks. Yeah, every three years he can come out of his coffin and party, I guess. So, I'm sorry, so go ahead. So the streets, 25 days a month?

So the way I set up my schedule is always six months in advance, right? Because since I was doing a lot of events and a lot of promotions, you want some leeway to schedule things in cigar stores and barn smokers and all that stuff, and I started doing stuff internationally. And when you're an international and you want to go from country to country, you have to make sure that the guy who's picking you up at the border is ready to pick you up at the border. Right, right.

Get the buses all set up and everything. Exactly. So you need a lot of leeway and whatnot. And I had no problem.

I was working 20 days, 25 days, and I was telling them I need to be home a little more because there's paperwork that they wanted, there's reports that they wanted, and there's meetings that they wanted. And I think, you know, for me, COVID didn't happen fast enough, because after COVID, everyone started doing things remotely and through Zoom call, and I was asking for Zoom calls back in 2014, and they're like, yeah, no, we need you in this meeting, so whatnot. So there are times where I was on in Europe all week, I would fly back on Monday, fly back on Sunday, be in the office on Monday, and then Monday night, start flying back to Europe. And, you know, every week I would do that instead of spend a whole month in Europe and visiting stores and when I was, you know, it's a lot of, in my mind, wasteful money, all these tickets back and forth.

Right, all the back and forth. So, as I'm scheduling my trip for beginning the first, you know, 2020, the first six months, I dropped down to 15 days, two weeks on the road, and two weeks I was in the office and I was going to be around for all these meetings and so I went around and they're like, yeah no you're doing a great job being on the road 20 25 days keep it up and i'm like yeah i don't really want to do it thank you very much uh they're like well if you don't do it then you know you might need to you know go somewhere else and i'm like okay all right uh then uh let me work on my letter of resignation and that's that and i guess for them maybe it was like a game of chicken that they thought right they didn't think you would do it exactly you know and well after 19 years i mean Yeah, they're probably thinking, nah, he's not going anywhere, he's not going anywhere, yeah, get him a new suitcase, he'll be fine, my guys smoke sweet cigars, he doesn't know anything, but this was partially along the way, I mean, Nick had gone, Steve had gone, I mean, like, you were one of the last of the- I was one of the last, yeah, I mean- Of the old guards. Myself, there's always a conversation between myself and Joey, Joey Reisenbach, who is in the The marketing department. He's the one who does the beautiful logos and all that stuff.

We were hired pretty much on the same day, and he's the last guy. I mean, in the true, true Drew state, I mean, there's Jonathan Drew, and then there's Joey. Right. And that, you know, everyone else is newer.

Right. So, I was one of the original guys and whatnot, and it's not like I was asking for more, or more money, or I was asking for, you know, a cushy corner desk, or I was literally saying, I'd be in the office seven more days than I actually am, and you're asking me to be in the office, but you're asking me to be on the road, and finally, they're just like, I'm just like, you know what, so here, let me just take my schedule, I just turned in that you don't want, and here's my letter, and I'm out of here. That was it. Yep, and they're like, oh, okay.

Wow, he did it, look at that. Yeah. I guess he's leaving. Yeah.

What are we doing now? I never knew that story. Yeah, so. You just kind of disappeared.

Well, I called after, you know, I checked in on you and see nothing, but I didn't want to. Ask or pry at that point, right. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I was happy.

I had just bought a house, you know, 18 months prior, I was with my beautiful wife, my beautiful girlfriend, which now is my wife. And I never saw her. And then I realized, I'm like, Oh, crap, this house is a beautiful house. I have a pool.

My wife is beautiful. I like hanging out with her. So, you know, in the first eight years of hanging out with her, since I was on the road all the time, it felt like eight years was like one year. And then I stopped working and I stayed at home and then that first month felt like three years in that relationship, so it went backwards or something changed.

You started dating, finally. But yeah, I mean, I finally got to know who I was living with those four days, right? So I was by my pool, in the pool usually every single day other than, you know, when it was raining for that one hour because I didn't want to get hit by lightning, but I was in my pool smoking a hookah and smoking a cigar and hanging out. COVID happens, and everyone needs to be, you know, sequestered for like 15 days, so I had a good friend, Jared, and we sequestered together, and we did a little podcast, fun show on Facebook, for 15 days, we were smoking a hookah, it was two guys smoking a hookah, and having fun, and you know, I mean, the thing that I miss is, I was on the road for a long time, and I met a lot of good people, and you know, you and your brother, I mean, a long, long time, 10, 15 years.

" Nice. " Thanks, Dad, right? It's all those air miles in those small hotel rooms and the crap food you have to eat at 11 o'clock at night because all the good restaurants are closed, right? " So in four years, I actually gained three years.

That's right, with the clock ticking, that's fantastic. Yeah, exactly, I put a stop on that clock and the days went by, so yeah, so I mean I feel a lot better, I'm happier and whatnot, and for four years I smoked a hookah and I smoked cigars and I told everyone that ever called me, I would never go back in the cigar industry, there's too many nut jobs. There is. I have a lot of friends and I'll talk to them when I'm in their area and this and I, whatever, but there's a lot of nut jobs, crazy people, and lots of ego in this industry.

Oh my God. Oh yeah. Yeah. Dude, it is so nice to have you on this podcast because it's like, you know, like for one, you're totally honest and you're a breath of fresh air and like, we go back a long fucking way.

And it now, at least I don't sound like I'm fucking completely insane. And it's, you know, it's like, cause I will say it and people are like, Oh yeah, whatever. He's angry. No.

Yeah. Yeah. He's very, he's, he's agitated. So angry all the time.

So, so mad. I'm like, no, man, you don't get it. Like you have to understand the shit that goes in this fucking industry. Yes.

And And how full of it so many people are. You know, at the end of the day, what are we doing? We're sitting around smoking dried up leaves. Yeah.

And yet people think that what they're doing is more important than the dude who carries the nuclear football, the dude who has brain surgery, you know, the dude that has to figure out the right way sewage goes down, you know, pipes and all that stuff. We're hanging out smoking dried up leaves. So, put a smile on, you know, turn out. Just have a good time.

Right. Do you know who I am? Do you fucking... No, I don't.

I don't smoke cigars. I have no fucking idea who you are. Like, not a clue. I'm not going to use real names, but the people who know, know.

Yes. So... If you know, you know. I'm in Dortmund, which is the big inter-to-back show.

Right. Okay? Which is the PCA, IPCPR, RTDA show, which is the main show here in the US. Right.

The Inter Tobacco Show is literally the biggest show of tobacco in the whole world because PCA is usually two halls in Las Vegas. The Inter Tobacco Show is seven halls. Wow, that's a lot of halls. So there's a crap ton of stuff.

There's two halls of just premium cigars, there's a hall of just cigarettes, there's a hall of hookah, there's a hall for accessories, there's a hall for CBD and all that stuff. I mean, it's insane. Everything. m.

, three days, that's it. No one ever walks the whole show, and people, you have the Europeans, the Asians, they're down every 15 minutes, they have the thing, and you gotta have a, if you haven't got a meeting, you gotta figure it out in those, all right, okay. Right. So, I'm walking up an aisle with another manufacturer, and I've known this other manufacturer since I've been in this industry since 2000, and let's just say that this, you know, he always wears a nice, you know, guayvera, nice, nice, and he's known to wear like a fedora, like, okay, okay, all right, you know, and he has, you know, sometimes he has cigars in his pocket, and he always holds the cigar out in a certain way, so you could see which cigar he's smoking and whatnot.

And, you know, I'm talking to him, and this and that, whatever, and then there's these four Germans that are walking by, and I've known these four Germans because one of the four is actually an owner of a cigar store in Germany, a crazy, crazy dude, which I fell in love with. He actually introduced me to Facebook Live. I did my very first Facebook Live with him in his store, and apparently it was like two months after Facebook launched Facebook Live, right? Oh, wow.

We will launch the Facebook Live! We will go and we will conquer! The other three guys later on, I find out, work in a store, but they've heard crazy stories about me, right? Legend of Facebook.

Legend of Facebook. So one of the guys comes back, he's like, "Oh my God, it's so great to see you. " I'm like, "Hey, how you doing? Good to see you.

" And, you know, I forgot the other guy. ", and I'm just like, "Hey guys, you know, this is so-and-so", and they're like, "Yeah, we know who this guy is. 25 years ago, he was a farmer. " Simultaneously, I felt amazing and bad at the same time, but you know, it was That's what I mean about there's a lot of ego and there's a lot of craziness and whatnot in this industry.

I'm in a different company now, but I still put my pants on the same way, and I smoked different cigars, but you know what, I still treat the same people the same way as I did 15 years ago, whether they buy a box of cigars for me or they don't, that doesn't really matter. We're friends, and we're friends, and then there's business, and then there's business, and the true friends, they can separate business from friendship. Right. Absolutely.

So that's that. And I truly consider you and your brother friends. Been on the Christmas card list, baby. Exactly.

Exactly. It's always Mike. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I mean, so that was kind of, that had to be remarkable for you. When you had finally, when you said, "Hey, fuck off," right? Politely. And then you were kind of did your hookah thing.

I mean, we were watching that for a little while, right? And then you kind of faded out. Yeah. You know, but we could check in from time to time.

Yeah. It wasn't like it was, I mean, you're a friend that, we just pick right up where we left off, we don't have to fucking communicate every day, hey, how are things, or whatever the case may be, we're good, right, were there some that fell off, that really kind of surprised you? Yeah, and then on the other end, there are some that I truly considered friends and whatnot, in which they totally forgot about me, and because I was no longer there to help them out in a certain way, Right, right. You were no longer a decepticon.

My friendship was not as good or favorable or as important to them. I was like, wow, man. I could read people pretty well, and I was just deceived by a lot. There's more people I was deceived by than people I – and at the same time, there's a few people which I didn't really spend too much time with, which right when I saw them again, they – I just started right where we left and whatnot, and now I value those guys even more, so I mean, it's really, really cool, yeah.

Well, you couldn't help me back in the day anyways. Like, your hands were fucking tied. There's no way. My hands are tied, but I think, in my own way, I helped you by just being truthful.

Oh my God, yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. " I remember you came up to us and you said, Hey man, that was, that was pretty cool, man, you know, and that was the best thing that you could have done for yourself, and you know, and you were representing the company at that time, so.

You know, here's the thing. My dad taught me this a long time ago, and my dad worked for the same company for 60 some years, right? He started as a sales rep and he ended up as the president, all right? Wow.

And the company that he worked for got bought out twice and this and that, whatever, and then they started buying other companies and whatnot. So, but he told me, he's like, companies may come and go. But the one thing that never does is your word. Right.

So if you ever have a chance or if you're ever walking down and you're in the fork in the road, first of all, pick up the fork, but the second of all, you always go with your word above the company because that will never stray you the wrong direction. Right. Because at the end of the day, a company, if they're bought or sold or whatever, you're just a number, you're just a digit. Exactly.

And they don't give a shit about you. Yep. Yeah. Try explaining that to people, you know, and they don't get it.

No, they don't understand it. You know, so, which by the way, because I'm angry when once this podcast goes live, I need the link because my dad is like my number one fan and he's seen every single podcast that I've done. So I want to take five seconds. Dad, thank you very much for all the knowledge that you've ever given me for all these years.

Uh, and sometimes I've, I've listened, well, I've listened all the time, but sometimes I followed through and sometimes I I should be following through a lot more, but thank you for all your support and your love, and I love you, and I love mom, so I'm glad you're watching this. How old's your dad? What's the timestamp? My dad is 85.

My dad's 85, and my mom's 84, and they're completely healthy and whatnot, and they live in West Palm Beach, and I see them as much as I can. Good for you. Wow. Holy shit.

So I'm sure he'll be happy when I say that because he then forwards that podcast to all his other friends and whatnot. So props, dad. Right. Yes.

I see. My son loves me. Yes, I do. Yes.

Yes. Right. Let's see my, uh, okay. So yes.

Go ahead. I feel the question you're about to ask me. Oh, and the feeling that the question you were about to ask me was remember 20 So 20 minutes ago, you said that Aganor said tobacco is different than any other tobacco. Exactly is what I was thinking.

And why is it so oily? Why is it so oily? Okay, so here's the thing, right? Is it stock cut?

Okay, it's stock cut. Yes, because Drew Estate claims that what they do is they chop the leaf, and they hang it by the stem, and it's stock cut. That's what makes it so oily. Well, what they do is they cut the plant, and then they shove a stick through the root, through the plant, They cut through the plant and then they hang the plant upside down so all the nutrients flow to the leaf.

Right, that's what they claim. Listen, when I was there, I went to a barn in Connecticut which I actually saw stop cutting. But that's what they've always done. Okay, yeah, so that's that, all right, okay.

So let me first start off. So anyways, please tell us about that. Yes, let me first start off by saying every manufacturer can do this simple step, But decides not to. So in my 20 plus years in this industry, I visited eight different factories, five of them in Nicaragua and three of them in the Dominican.

So by no means am I saying I visited every single one of them. I have never visited a one from Honduras, but I'm kind of figuring they would do the same thing as Nicaraguan and Dominican Republic. Because in the world, there's Cuba, and then there's the New World, which the New World is the Dominican, Nicaragua, and Honduras, and Costa Rica, and whatever, all these other ones. So what they do is, and Mike, I'm sure you've been to a factory, and Mike, I don't know if you've been to a factory.

- No, I have not. - Okay, so I'm just gonna talk to this Mike in front of that Mike. - Certainly, go right ahead. - So you've been to a factory, and the person goes, whoever's showing you the tour, you end up in front of a Pallone.

So, polon is a big pile of bunches of tobacco, and each bunch is 50 leaves, and this is where the tobacco is after it's picked, and it's green, it's hung, it's air dried, or fire cured, but mostly air dried, it turns brown, and then these leaves are then put in bunches of 50, and then these bunches are put on top of each other in this big polon, and that's where the fermenting of the tobacco happens. Yes. And I'm sure that one there in front of the pologne, then they find this other place where they're moving bunches from one pologne and they're creating a second pologne. Right.

And as they're moving bunches of leaves from one pologne and creating a second pologne, they're spraying them with water, they're dipping them with water, and then they're, you know, they're… Waving them, drying them. Drying them or getting the excess water off. Gotta do this, yeah. And please stop me at any time if I'm completely wrong.

No, you're good, you're good. And then they put in this new pallone, and then, you know, you're, like, you're told, and I've told this story a whole bunch of times to people when they went down to Cigar Safari, right? So, I've been part of those people telling me stories, and then you go, okay, all right, we check these pallones, and there's, the pallone has to get to a certain temperature, and it's in the mid-120 to 130, and, you know, and then you have to rotate them, and then 9 to 12. And if it goes 12 months later, then look at these beautiful dark leaves and all the imperfections have been burnt off, there's no more ammonias, and now we're ready to roll the cigars and this and that, whatever.

Okay, if you were to do, you were to come in to Aganorsa, which you are welcome anytime. Is there a trampoline? There is no trampoline. Kind of a deal breaker.

A lot of weights. I know. Is there weights? No, but you can...

It's a flex, guys. But there's lots of tobacco you can move around, right? I can move around, right? So yeah, I mean, bales.

Free labor. We have 50-pound bales, we have 75-pound bales, and we have 100-pound bales. Lunges? Yeah, you can do lunges.

Yeah, I mean, by all means. If you can help us move bales from one side to the other, you're probably going to move a lot more, a lot faster than the Nicaraguans we have now. So we can make an additional couple thousand cigars while you're down. And you can pay me like three bucks.

Exactly, exactly. Or we'll give you a free cigar. Okay, perfect. Oh, perfect.

I love cigars. So you come to Nicaragua, you come to our factory, and I'll take you and we'll show you, I'll take you and we'll show you these beautiful pallones, and then I'll find an area where they're taking these bunches of leaves and they're moving it to another pallone, and you're seeing that them, they grab the bunches, they shake it up, and then they put it in the next pallone, and so the leaves that were on the bottom are now on the top, and then those on the top are now on the bottom. And then I'm going to tell you, okay, all right, so these beautiful pallones, we check the temperature, it's always between 112 to 115 degrees in the center, and then we check it, and then, you know, we rotate it, and then you're going to go, "Hey, but, Fabian, where's the water? " Our secret ingredient is time.

Our polon takes about two years to two years and two months for the whole tobacco to ferment, okay? Why do we not add water? Mike, Mike, you guys take showers every day. Hopefully, yes, right?

Okay, almost every other day at least. What happens when you take a shower, okay? You're washing off all the oils off your skin, right? Okay, I'm not saying that other manufacturers are washing off the oils off the leaves, but anytime you add water to a leaf and then you shake the leaves out, Right.

You have a better chance of the water solution with the oil to drip away. Right. And then if the pallone is at a higher temperature, you also have a higher percent chance of burning off some of these oils. Okay?

Okay. So without water, our pallones are always going to be 8 to 10 degrees lower. And because ours takes about two years for the whole production to do, we're not cooking them or we're not speeding up the process. So if you look at our Maduros and you compare our Maduros to any other Maduro from any other manufacturer, our Maduros are always going to be a little lighter because in a sense, we're not doing anything to the leaf that is cooking them or adding anything to the leaves, right?

And sometimes if you look at JFR Corojo and JFR Maduros, other than the band, they almost look identical because some Corojo is going to be a little darker, some Maduros might be a little lighter. So you have two cigars that kind of look the same, but at the end of the day, our leaves are richer or oilier, so anyone who listens to this podcast that has these very high-tech, very special little scales, you know, cooking scales in their kitchen or whatever, I challenge you to grab any Aganorsa cigar and any cigar from any other manufacturer, the exact same size. Our cigars will always slightly weigh a little more, because there's always going to be a little more oil, thus, a little more flavor in our leaves. And the last point is, manufacturers did a shitty job about describing cigars.

You have a scale of strength, and then you have a scale of flavor. But we use the same words in the strength of flavor. So there's a lot of people that come into stores, and I'm sure that's your biggest headache, when you guys are in the store and someone's like, Hey, I want a strong cigar. Well, strong flavor-wise, or strong strength-wise, right?

So, Aganorsa doesn't make any mild-flavored cigars, because our tobacco, with the oilier, always starts at a medium. So, we make mild strength, but our mild strengths start at medium flavor. Gotcha. Yeah.

" Okay. " Did they buy some? And then you have the Romeo and Juliet as you want. Well, I mean, it really depends upon the level of type of fuckery that you have introduced yourself to me as, and if you know it all, I am not going to interject, right?

Not gonna correct them at all. No, no, no. I mean, I had a guy, one day, complete asshole, you need a light? Yes, I spoke too much.

I'll show you in front of you. Oh, thank you. He was a complete asshole, and he told me that he knew exactly what he was doing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he picked up a Fuente Gran Reserva, and I'm like, okay, no problem, uh, rung him up. This is, I mean, this is probably 10 years ago.

The guy then goes into the lounge. Is that the last guy you rung up? Yeah, that's the last guy. Probably.

He's the reason why. I gotta be honest, bro, I don't think I have a key to the place. He doesn't, you don't, you don't have a key. If I did.

You called me last time. If I did, I would, I wouldn't. It's not like you're the first one here. Yeah.

That damn guy 10 years ago messed everything up. Yeah, that was it. This is the guy. " And he was shitty to me in the humidor.

" He goes to sit down in the lounge, and the Fuente, the Gran Reserva has a Connecticut, or a cedar around it with a ribbon. So he removes the ribbon, but he keeps the cedar on it. And I just said, "I'm just gonna wait. I'm going to let this happen.

This thing burned up right in front of me. " What's going on with that? You just lit the wood, sir. Is it broken?

Oh, dude, there's wood around that cigar. Oh, there's cedar. You didn't know that? Man, too bad.

I'm so sorry. It's a rare one. They don't usually do that. You wanted extra cedary flavor.

He's looking for that. I mean, that's got to be toxic. Come on. That's no bueno.

So why why does he have his baby mask? I don't know why he has the baby mask. No, there's not. I told you there's not one today.

Oh, we're not doing that. Yeah. Oh, it looked like it was specific. That was last week's.

Babies never listen. Oh, yeah. Babies never listen. Babies never listen.

I wonder why he put it on. All right. I like the vein on the side of that thing. That's nice.

He's about to explode. He does Phil's fun facts and he's disappointed we don't have it. He's just so mad. No fun fact, huh?

No fun fact. So you would say you would argue that by weight. I weight your cigars way more. Way a little more, yeah.

A little more. Interesting. Yep. Okay.

Have we ever weighed? I'm sure that we have. I mean, this cigar feels heavy. But you could always add more tobacco.

Like a manufacturer could add more tobacco. Yeah, but by adding more tobacco to, you know, the same kind of ring gauge will stress out the flow. It will stress out the flow and it could be plugged, right? So, yeah, so that's that.

Well, the real, yes, yeah, that's true. I mean, but I think that also the question there would be: are manufacturers in general putting less tobacco in their fillers than they should be? And I would argue that a lot of them are. There's that one guy.

There is that one guy. " Your cigar weighs half the weight of the other one. It's, you know, you're coming in light, dude. And he told me that it's the fermentation process, and I said, okay, I guess we're done here with this conversation then.

Well, yeah, the guy spent like, you know, more time than you in Nicaragua, so he knows what he's talking about. What the fuck do I know? I'm just the guy that sells them, and if I'm buying them from you, you should, you know, like, one of the best, like, some of the best conversations I have in this industry is with other retailers, like, like, Brett, Brett Frye at Tobacology. Oh, he's got a… Brett Frye!

Oh, we were going to call Brett Frye. Yeah. We were going to call him? We were going to call him.

Oh, yeah, because he was… He has a PCA problem. Yes. So, you know, when I have conversations with him, I'm like, man, he's fucking right. Yeah.

Yeah, that's 100% correct. Dude, absolutely. Yeah, you're at, you know… So, like, when I talk to him from a wholesale side, and he says his point of view, I'm like, yeah, man, I got no response to that. I got nothing to that.

Yeah, absolutely. You want me to call him real quick? Yeah, he had something he wanted to say. You know, the cool thing with Brett is, so, first, I was born in Switzerland, right?

S. culture, I always wanted to meet some guy called Mac, okay? Someone called Bud, right? And someone called Bubba.

And I wanted to say, "Hey, what's going on, Mac? " And the very first time I went to Brett's store- We caught all of them. " One of three. Since then, I've found a Bud, but I have not found a Mack.

But my wife's last name is Mackinich, so I'm kind of there. Very close. Very close. We can default on that, I guess.

All right. Brett and Bubba. Let's give Brett a quick call. He's not going to answer.

Actually, there's a gentleman across the street that has a friend named Mac. Oh, he does? Yeah. Wow.

I could make your dreams come true. Oh. I'm coming back for an event here. What's up?

Hey. Say he answered. Hey, you're on the phone. The aliens are here, Brian.

You're on the podcast. Oh. Brett Frye. And you're on the phone.

That's Clean Fabian. Clean Fabian. You know Clean Fabian? He used to be...

I do know Fabian. I don't know what he quotes, though. So, do you know what Fabian smoked? I'm smoking an Aganorsa, Connecticut Toro right now.

Yeah, 'cause we're out of shisha, so... Yeah, yes. So... We're validating.

Yeah, we're busy validating. But you had some grievances in regards to the PCA, and you wanted, at that point, you wanted to express yourself, and we wanted to give you the platform and the opportunity to do that. Would you like to do that still, or have you cooled off? I mean, I've cooled off, but absolutely I would.

- Absolutely I would, because we're being told that the reason the PCA was moved to the spring is so folks would be not out of their shops during a busy time. So we moved to what can only be called winter, where we're at, and it was scheduled for arguably the busiest weekend And of college basketball in the country, there's something like a hundred and thirty games. Brett, I don't want to talk for the PCA, okay? But you're completely wrong.

It's only the third busiest weekend in Las Vegas. The weekend before is the busiest, and then the weekend of New Year's is the second, and then the weekend we're all going is the third busiest. The busiest. Oh, fantastic.

I can't wait. Yeah. Yeah. And, mind you, moving to the spring where literally the top half of this country is coming off a downswing of part-time smokers not smoking in our stock.

Not everybody lives in Florida. Not everybody runs a shop in Florida. Right? Not everybody.

Yeah. Some of us have people that don't smoke with this folk. It's just the way it goes up here. You know what?

All we do is wear blue jackets and try to push the good, push the good on the rest of this country, but nobody, nobody cares because of a few loud people. You know what? I've decided I'm going to be loud now. That's what I've decided.

I'm just going to be loud. I'm just going to walk around screaming about how much it stinks for me to be here at this time. I look forward to seeing you, Brett. Oh my God.

I can't wait to see the screen. You too. Thank you so much. We started off kind of mild in this conversation, and you got triggered, which is fantastic for me.

I really appreciate that. And just don't take it out on any of your customers. Maybe an employee, if it's warranted. It's always warranted.

It's always warranted. Let's be honest. You know, you can call me to love, not just quick button. You know that, right?

Yeah. Well, you know, I could. I guess I could. I guess I could.

Hey, Brett, like four or five years ago, I'm watching a baseball game on ESPN, and it's the Nationals and the Phillies, and they're announcing and whatnot, and I'm like, there's this, like, guy that keeps yelling, like, over the announcers. I'm like, I don't know, Brett's gotta be in the stands or something. You never know. The next inning, there's a picture of, they have, this is the guy that's been yelling, and you were there arguing, and probably you were yelling at Bryce Harper, because that was the year when he left the Nationals to go to the Phillies.

Is that true? Is that true? Yeah, we won the World Series in 2019. And you were the guy.

He lost his mind. Listen, if people make Philly decisions, they need to know about it. That's the way it goes. Papelbaum is the, Papelbaum was the only person who stood up to that Joker, that prima donna, the only person, I'm telling you.

At what level of beard did you have at the time? Like where, are we talking full length or was it? Um, it was somewhere between Lumberjack and Wizard, it was really, it was really different. Lumberjack and Wizard.

Yeah, yeah, I hadn't gained the full powers, I was like canned off. Yeah, I just hadn't gone there yet. You're figuring it out. I love that.

Okay, well, the PCA has now heard your grievance and we'll make sure that we tag them for you. Super big. So, okay. And then I'll send it to Coop as well.

Make sure that Coop, because apparently they listen to him because now they have your free media that comes in. Oh, that's right. Well, you might want to wait another two weeks till he's done with his top 25 of 2023. Oh, we're not done yet?

I thought he's still got personal of the year, company of the year, factory of the year. He's got all those. Were we even mentioned at all? No.

No, no. I mean, we were pretty aggressive. Can you open that door a little bit? This is very smoky.

Brad, I can't wait to see you, my friend. You too, buddy. I hope you're doing well. I'm loving it.

I'm loving it. He's doing fantastic. He's clean Fabian. Yep, clean Fabian.

Yeah, he looks very nice. He has a tie and everything on. He's been working on his biceps. He's got one big arm.

I got my Tom Cruise lookalike Magnum PI shirt on going on right now. He's on right now, yeah. He was super impressive when he walked in, I was like, dude. Yep.

And he was way early. Yeah, not only that, the guy showed up like three hours early for the podcast. It's not the Nelson Mandela effect, it's the Terrence Riley effect, it's pretty crazy. That's right, yeah, I know, I got my khakis on, yeah, I mean, it's weird.

Listen, let's not give Terrence any fucking credit here, okay? I'll tell you what though, I'm a big Paul fan, buddy. Me too. I love me some Paul.

Me too. I love me some Paul. Me too. Me too.

I love me some Paul Paul, buddy, let me tell ya. Let me tell ya. Let me tell you. Me too, man.

Me too. " And I love that hour. Every day, I love that hour, because I learned so much from that guy. Oh, he's a man.

He came up to a golf tournament one time, and we just drove around and made fun of people and smoked cigars. It was the best golf tournament I've ever had. It was absolutely awesome. It was awesome.

That was awesome. He wore a live air in case you were wondering. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. All right, brother.

Well, we'll let you go, man. I appreciate you, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate you, too.

Bye, buddy. Later, Brett. Brett Frye of Tabacology. He's still on that alien attack in Miami.

He texted me all weekend. Yeah. I said, I told him, like, look, I don't know, man. I think if it was really aliens.

I engaged. The problem is I engaged. He sent me some things. And I said, if there was really aliens, we'd have some serious footage.

You know what I mean? Not that kind of blurry image. There's like 8 million aliens. What are you talking about?

Yeah, but not like... The ones that attacked the mall down in Miami. Yeah, not the dark, scary kind from a spaceship. Yeah, the 10-foot-tall...

That's a totally different alien. Oh, yeah, not those aliens. They actually came out with a thing about that. They disproved it.

Oh, everybody's disproved it. They had to. Well, I mean like actual Miami media, like the newspapers. Well, actually, the police department came out and said, yeah, no.

Right. I mean, but there were 75,000 police officers at this mall. Yeah, but has anybody ever been to Miami? Everybody was getting, no, look, dude.

I live in Miami. There's an active shooter, there's so many cops down there. Look, everybody was gunning for overtime is what that was. Okay, so the question is, did the Miami department speak in English or in Spanish?

I would say more Spanish than English. Okay, so it's the truth. So whatever they spoke in Spanish was the truth, because the majority of them don't speak English, right? So yeah, whatever they're speaking in Spanish, that's the truth.

Yeah, it had to be legit. All right. 100%. Yeah.

" Tyler tagged him in the post and asked him what was going on, and Hector hasn't said anything. He wouldn't engage. No. " Yeah, I'm not getting on that.

I'm not allowed to say. You know, I gotta say, like, when I was invited to talk on this podcast, especially on today, I thought we were gonna talk about the Buccaneers, man. The best team, the best team in the NFL, I mean, we've won our division three years in a row, granted, the records were 13-3, 8-9, and 9-8, but we've won our division three years in a row. I was waiting for it.

And right around the same time as Mike started buying season tickets, so the whole Buccaneers crew wants to know if you're buying season tickets next year. Oh, yeah. Okay, so we're going to win the division again next year. All right, perfect.

Good to know. We have been, we have had tickets. At least the last three years. Longer than that.

I'm only giving you credit for the last three years. So for three years. So we've had it over three years. But, you know, I got it for my son because I wanted to cultivate a fan.

" And it was reasonably priced. And then I fucked up and then I bought front row tickets because they became available. And now every year I kind of cry a little bit. I mean, I didn't cry when Brady was there.

It was amazing. If I didn't go and I could sell the tickets, it was awesome. So it was awesome. Okay.

Selling the tickets this year? A little tougher, huh? A little rough. A little rough.

Where are the Cowboys coming to town? Well, we were hoping that they were going to come to town. Well, so my neighbors are big Cowboy fans. Uh huh.

So I told them, I said, hey, if it winds up, we're all going. Because Brittany wanted to go. She goes, I want to go to the game. I said, okay, fuck it.

I mean, she never says, I want to go to a game. Okay. So when she goes, hey, I want to go, I'm like, okay, cool. We're like, let's all go.

All right. And then, of course, Philly fucked the dog and they stopped playing and went five, lost five out of the last six and now we're, you know, I mean, it's better for the Bucs, because our odds are better, I would say, to beat Philly, I'm just deciding if I go to the game or not, I don't know. Oh, so it's still 50-50 right now? Yeah, I'm up in the air.

Is the wild card game in Tampa? Yeah, it's Monday night. Yeah, Monday night football. Monday night football.

And then they win that. In my books, they won everything. Right. The season ends after...

Then they would go to Philly. No, Philly's coming to Tampa. Oh, Philly's coming to Tampa. Philly made the wild card.

Yeah, Philly's a wild card team. Dallas took the division. So you get at least two... Well, right now you get one, but they probably charge you for three, right?

No, they charge as you go. Oh, okay. Oh, and Miami, they charge everyone for three already. Oh, really?

How's that going to work out? I don't know. I really sunk. I will tell you this, what really kind of fucking sunk is the XFL.

Yeah, you saw the merger. Yeah, you saw the merger. Yeah, so the XFL merged to the USFL, and now they're the UFL or something. And they dropped the Guardians.

We had bought season tickets. To the Guardians? Yeah, the Orlando Guardians. Oh, I thought it was the Cleveland Guardians.

No, they're the football team. Oh, okay, all right. And I'm going to tell you right now, the fucking most fun I've had in a football game was this goddamn Orlando Guardians. Because everybody in the stands, well, who was there?

There's not a ton of people, but they're all Guardian fans, right? Right? Like, if I go to the Philly game, I know I'm going to be surrounded by Philly assholes. Right?

Right, right, right. That didn't happen. The kids could run around, and there was no pressure. They enjoyed themselves, so I upgraded.

I got five tickets to cover my whole family this upcoming season. We're over on the shade side. I took front row. " They cut the team.

Why? Team Gunn. They merged the USFL and the XFL. Oh, and there's two teams in Tampa?

No, and they dropped like four from each. Oh. Yeah, because they brought all the teams from the USF. So they were like, oh, Orlando.

I went to the original XFL championship game. Oh, wow. I believe it was Tommy Maddox was the winning quarterback. I don't even know which team it was.

It was at the LA Coliseum. And every other person had the "he hate me" jerseys on, and the dude didn't even play. Yeah. I mean, it was phenomenal.

What a great name. Oh, dude. Like, at one time, I had a hat of every single one of them. It was like the Birmingham rage and the Cleveland Colossus and whatever.

I mean, but yeah, it was, you know. So my kid was not. Yeah, the Las Vegas STDs, you know. Right.

Yeah. So he, so Jax was not happy when they were fucking gone. He was very upset. So I got an email saying that they're going to refund my money, so I bought a new TV for the family room.

Oh, nice, I upgraded, yeah, now he can't use that TV, so I'm like, he's got his own player, I'm like, no, you don't get to touch that TV. So he's very, he's more lost twice. So yeah, he's upset about that, he doesn't know if he's going to the playoff game, it's just, I'm like, dude, like, we fucking do a lot for you, bro, like, you know, you're, you continue to ask, give me some fucking space here, so I don't know what I'm going to do with, I don't know if I'm going to go to this game right now. So, we'll see.

It's a Monday night. It is a Monday night. It's a school night. It is a school night.

So, you know, I mean... And he can sell the tickets. That means nothing to me. I could sell the tickets.

They sell easy. They would sell very easily. Yeah. Especially with Philly in town.

Yeah. Well, the one bad part is they've lost five out of the last six. " I said, "I don't know. The Philly fans are idiots.

" And he goes, "Yeah, not when you lose the last five out of six. " I'm like, hey. It's still playoffs. I guess you got a point.

I guess, yeah. Did you see our offense this week? Yeah, it was rough. They definitely struggled.

So I think a team might win with a minus one, you know? I mean, it's going to be golf scoring in this game. Well, I think, I like Baker, man. I think he's a good quarterback.

You and I have had some conversations. He's got a lot of heart. He's grown on me. He's definitely grown on me.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Well, unfortunately, he hasn't grown and he still can't see over his start. Neither could Drew Brees.

Or Doug Flutie. They're going to pay him. They're going to give him a two-year deal. It's 50 million.

Who else is there? You got to suck up. I mean, look, Brady took some money, and they kicked that down for a couple of years. So they got to offset that.

And I like Baker. I do like Baker. Justin Fields, he's going to become available. He's always hurt though.

I don't want that guy. Yeah, why do you want somebody else's problem? That's not everybody else's problem. Yeah.

He's always hurt. Yeah. As fun as he is to watch, guys always fucking hurt. Put all the money in the defense.

Come on. Deshaun Watson's coming available too. Defense is the only reason why we won the fucking game. I know.

I know. Put the money in the defense. I love the, was it the Larry David and… Levante David. Levante David.

Yeah. Antonio Cromartie. And Cromartie and then White. Whatever the two.

Devin White. 45 and 50. Are you a Bucs fan? 45 and 54.

He knows the last name. I know 45 and 54. Those are the two dudes. Shaq Barrett.

And then there's a Yaya, Yaya Ding Dong, whatever that dude was. I love Yaya Ding Dong. He got a sack over the weekend. I'm like, whoa, who is this guy?

Vida Vea. Vida Vea. Vida Vea is a lot to cheer about tonight. Yeah.

He did a great job. Well, because he's from Washington. Is he? Yeah.

Washington, Michigan. I didn't even know the final college game was tonight. Washington against Michigan. It's going to be a big game.

They don't really understand, you know, because they don't go by records, right? Like, there's an undefeated team, Florida State, who didn't even make the playoffs, so I don't even understand, but whatever. He's a big Florida State fan. He's very, he's very...

Baby? Yeah, the baby's very, very sour about that. Yeah, so... You know, well, they did lose, didn't they lose one game?

At the end? Yeah. The bowl game, they lost the bowl game. Yeah.

Because they didn't play 27 people. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a protest game. Which I think was a shit move.

Well, it was a protest. okay yeah i get it i understand that i understand what they were doing they said well hey fuck you we're not gonna play right i get that now i'm gonna tell you right now if i'm a fucking team owner and i see a bunch of guys that didn't get their way so they didn't play fucking football i'm not paying them millions of fucking dollars to play on my team well basically i can see the type of attitude they have the university don't pay them nothing other than but the nfl will pay Yeah. A lot of those guys are entering into the draft, right? Yeah, but okay, so you got a lot of guys that are entering into the draft, they didn't play.

Yeah, do you remember Johnny Menzel with "Hey, pay me, motherfucker"? Yeah, he didn't go number one because he was a douchebag. And I think that a lot of the Florida State guys, it's gonna cost them millions of fucking dollars. All right, we're just gonna pass this.

Yeah. Well, hey, we'll see how it goes. Let's see if a Florida State guy goes top 10 in this draft. Yep, we're gonna pass.

I'm telling you from an unbiased opinion. I get it. Like, here's the one thing that I will give fucking Tua credit for. During fucking COVID, during the fucking draft, when everybody was doing their Zoom fucking, from their couches as they were being drafted, they're all in gym shorts and t-shirts.

Motherfucker was in a suit, fucking sitting there, waiting to get drafted. I'm like, that's my guy. That's my, I wouldn't, that's the guy that I would aim for. The guy who's gonna show up no matter the fucking circumstances.

Yeah, but you know what they called him today in Miami, in the Miami newspaper? It's two-a-turnover. Yeah, because he threw the pick at the end. I guess.

I don't know. I didn't even watch the game. Josh Allen's got 22-turn interceptions. Which the funny thing is I'm talking to our rep, Jeff Gruver.

Phenomenal guy. Great, great dude. I love Jeff. Big, big Miami fan.

And we were having a discussion. I'm working on Aganorsa varsity jackets, and every rep was able to pick their colors. And he's like, oh, I want to get the colors of the winning team in Florida. I'm like, oh, Tampa Bay?

The Bucs? He's like, no, no, Miami. I'm like, well, last time I checked, the Buccaneers had more championships than the Dolphins did. And he's like, yeah, but we went undefeated.

I'm like, ah, yes. In the '70s? So what? Still an argument.

Who was alive back then? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. They wore, like, leather helmets.

Palmer was alive. I was alive. Oh, so did they really wear leather helmets? Yes.

Oh, okay. They look like the guys on the Olmec. They look like the Olmec. Yeah, they look like the Olmec guy.

Okay. Bob Greasy wore that leather helmet. Who? Bob Greasy.

Yeah. He's a good guy, huh? Was he Greasy? Bob Greasy.

No, no, he wasn't Greasy. He was quarterback. He wasn't that Greasy. Oh, he wasn't?

No. Okay. Yeah. He didn't do the two-year fermentation process.

Oh, no. No, no. He just did the standard. What is the standard?

Two years to two years and two months. Wow. That's what water does. It speeds up.

Speeds it up. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you could go hyperthermic in 70 degrees of water, right?

But you couldn't in 70 degrees air, right? So then by you telling us that, is there a difference in the cigar smoking now that you're doing because you're smoking Aragonosa versus what you were smoking before? You know, I tell everyone, it's like at Thanksgiving, there's a children's table and there's the adult table. For 19 years, I was at the children's table.

I was smoking those sweet cigars and this and that, whatever, and you know what, people, okay, 20 years ago, when you, there's two major steps in a cigar smoker's journey, okay, number one is, I'm gonna start smoking cigars, and number two is, I'm gonna try traditional cigars. 20 years ago, there was only one major step, which was I'm going to start smoking cigars, because 20 years ago, before 2000, in a sense, people started smoking cigars with Romeo and Giulietta, Reserva Real, with Macanudo, with all these mild, mild, mild cigars. Then acid comes, and you have Tatiana's, you have CAO Flavors and all that, so then there's a whole new group of people that when they start smoking cigars, they start smoking cigars with sweet cigars. And then that's when the major step number two happened is when a guy who smokes a sweet cigar then gets introduced or wants to start smoking a traditional cigar because as we all grow up, we all know what sour, sweet, bitter, peppery, all that stuff, but we never grew up understanding what tobacco tastes like.

You don't necessarily understand what tobacco tastes like until you start smoking different types of tobaccos, different types of cigars, and then you're like, oh, okay, I like Nicaraguan, I don't really like Dominican, Hondurans, okay. So you start getting the intricacies of each of the tobaccos because as we know each country is known for a specific intricacy, right? So there's two major steps and some people go through the steps faster than others. It took me 15 years to go from a sweet cigar into a traditional cigar.

I was handed Liga Privadas, I was handed Undercrowns. Yeah, I smoked them. Did I really know what I was smoking? When I was smoking, I just knew I wasn't smoking something sweet, and I wasn't appreciating what I was smoking.

Now, I'm smoking traditional cigars, and through the help of actually Paul Palmer and a whole bunch of other people that I talked to, I actually enjoy traditional cigars a lot more than I enjoy sweet cigars. I still smoke a few sweet cigars here and there, but I enjoy traditional cigars because I try to test myself, "Oh, is this Corojo 98 or Criollo 99? Oh, is this Dominican that I'm tasting? Or is this Honduran?

So as I grab a new cigar, someone gives me a new cigar, and they're about to tell me about that cigar, I'm like, hold on, let me cut it, let me light it, and let me ask you, or let me tell you what I'm tasting, what I think I'm tasting, and then you can tell me if I'm right or wrong. And that's how people learn about these cigars. And I've taken that to heart because now as I'm seeing new people, and the cool thing is I've forgotten the date, I wish I had the date, but I'm doing an event, a big time event here at Cigar Hustler. End of March.

It's at the end of March, I think it's the last Thursday of March, right? Or Friday. Or last Friday, last Friday, maybe the 29th, I think. Sounds about right.

Okay, so I'm coming here and at Aganorsa Tastings, we do something called Fuma Tastings, and there's going to be- March 29th. " I mean, we've all heard that saying, right? Sure. " But after you go through this Fuma tasting, you will truly understand what a well-balanced cigar is because of the different leaves that you will be trying one at a time will affect different regions in your mouth.

So March 29th, come down, call Cigar Hustler, put that in your calendar, do a Fuma tasting with myself, you will never taste another cigar, or you'll taste all your cigars after the Fuma tasting will be completely different, and you will enjoy your cigars to the next level, and I mean, it's phenomenal, I mean, I can't stress this enough, it's one of the things that really excites me about being at Aganorsa, because every manufacturer does events, and there is the buy from You buy this, that, and the other, you're gonna get a hat, you're gonna get a steak knife, you're gonna get a backpack, you're gonna get a car, you're gonna get a whole bunch of stuff, but at the end of the day, I think manufacturers should dumb down a little bit the extra stuff and give more information to the cigar smoker because the cigar smoker actually is taking time out of their schedule, they want to enjoy a cigar, and in my mind, if you're going to buy a cigar smoker, you're going to buy a cigar smoker, because the cigar smoker actually is taking time out of their schedule, they want to enjoy a cigar. And in my mind, if I understand what I'm enjoying a little bit more than what before, it's a win-win for everybody. Yeah. March 29th.

March 29th. Perfect. Yeah, well, it's better than the… Sounds pretty cool. I mean, you know, listen, nobody's getting anything free, right?

No. The reality is that if you're getting a hat and you're getting a cutter and you're getting all these things, you're probably paying more for that cigar, right? Yeah. So there's that.

And a lot of cigar smokers are uneducated, so that's kind of cool that you're doing that type of event. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, here's the cool thing, the last cool thing about Aganorsa, right? So, yes, we have a lot of tobacco and we grow cigars and whatnot, but it is one of our core beliefs of Eduardo Fernandez, who owns Aganorsa Tobacco, that he wants every cigar smoker to be able to smoke all our cigars.

Now, our core line, yes, we have JFR, but JFR, a lot of people still don't know that JFR is made by Aganorsa, right? So when I talk about the Core line, it's the validation line. It's the line that we have. 99, right?

99. So in a sense, the guy who smokes the $9 cigar will have one or two things throughout the year to celebrate. So he wouldn't necessarily mind splurging a little bit more. And in our mind, splurging $7 more is very doable compared to going from $10 to $27, right?

Right, right. So, in a sense, when we say it's our most expensive cigar, on the shelves, it's nowhere close to that particular store's most expensive cigar. Right. But you can get the different aspects of it and you can treat yourself a little bit and whatnot.

99 in states that have no tobacco tax. Now, with that said, we are coming out with a new cigar this year. We are celebrating our 25 years. I don't really know when the cigar will be released, probably sometime in the summer, but it will be our 25-year anniversary cigar.

It will be a one-time release, will have only X amount of boxes, and most likely that cigar will be around $25 to $27 on the shelf, but with that said, that's our first splash into the ultra premium cigars and whatnot, but still, you know, we're still focusing more on the meat and potatoes aspect, because, you know, Mike, your average cigar sale is probably $10, $11, $12, right? Yeah, I'd say it's slightly higher at this point, maybe about 13, 14 bucks. Yeah. After the COVID and the bullshit.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you're perfectly in that category. That's what we're focusing on. I mean, it is what it is.

Even though we've been growing tobacco since the mid-90s, we're still really well-known for our leaves, and we're still out there talking about our tobacco and our cigars, and that's why I'm going out there doing podcasts and all that stuff. And doing all these events and whatnot, but I want to give information, and at the same time, I want people to try, because at the end of the day, here's the coolest thing with these Fuma tastings, right? So predominantly, we have two main tobaccos. We have Criollo 98 and Corojo 99, and then if stores carry the Cerberus, which you guys will be carrying Cerberus, then we will also try the Corojo 2012.

So what happens is as they're trying one each individual, and then we'll be trying two together, and then ultimately we'll try all three of them together, the final question is, which one did you like the best? And why is that a very important question? Because whatever they tell me, then, you know, most of the people, I guess, may not necessarily know anything about Aganorsa. And when they want to go into an event, yeah, they want to support the store and whatnot, but they also want to buy cigars that most likely they're going to enjoy.

They're gonna like them, right. And the rep can, you know, use all these crazy labels, and this and that, whatever, and oh, this is a go-to, this is our best seller, blah, blah, blah, but again, we all have different taste palettes. Right. But here, your taste palette is telling me what was your favorite, and depending on what you like your favorite, then I'm gonna put you towards what line you have a better chance of tasting what you really, really enjoyed.

So buying the cigar after the Fuma tasting, most likely you have a much better chance of enjoying that new cigar a lot better because you told me what you enjoyed better. Nice. Are we over an hour? Oh, so I got to stop talking.

At this point. Okay, Mike, time for you to talk. It was a great show. Thank you very much, guys.

Thank you very much. Well, quickly just to kind of wrap things up. I'm going to say really fast that, for one, I love you, man. You're a hell of a guy.

You've been a great friend for all these years. And, you know, that's not ending anytime soon. Nope. And I think that one of the best things Aganorsa could have fucking done was hire you, dude.

A hundred percent. It's nice. Thank you. They are extremely lucky to have you, dude.

It's a great match, man. It's a great match. And like I said earlier, I was telling everyone I was never going to come back in this industry. And when Terrence called me and he's like, "Hey, I'd like to talk to you," I was interviewing Aganorsa more than he was interviewing me 'cause I knew whatever he was gonna ask me what to do, what I could do, I'd done it, right?

So whatever they're missing, I've already done it, and I did it for a big company, right? Right. But I was not gonna go back in this industry for just anybody, and 15 minutes into this conversation, I realized how much of a stand-up guy Terrence is. And that he believes, well, I gotta look up to him, you know, I mean, and he's always validating and, and I wish we would use my bicep instead of his for our logo, but you know, I mean, we can work on that in the later years.

Yeah, but, but I, I realized that he thinks like me, it's things get done. It doesn't matter who got it done, just things get done. And I truly enjoy this because I'm not here to get the credit for anything because I couldn't care less. At the end of the day, I just want to sell more cigars.

And, you know, I don't want to deal with bullshit. There is bullshit here and there. Always. But ultimately, we're here to sell more cigars.

We have the tobacco. That's one of the best things is, as a manufacturer who wants to grow, they're always looking to get more tobacco, right? And the manufacturer has to buy tobacco two, three, eight years ahead of time to plan. Here, if we need more tobacco, we just go next door and we just grab it, right?

Right, you don't have that problem. That's the cool thing. A. for that picture, yeah, it was Compton, yeah, it was, okay, nice, nice, I like it, yeah, we went, yeah, we went hard in the paint, and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you guys, man, so, So my phone's always on, and I enjoy solving your problems just as much as catching up with the Bucks or how the family is and whatnot.

So much love. Absolutely. All right, well, let's… Oh, there's another mic in the show. Oh, there's another mic.

If you could push for like an LE edition cigar called Baby Giraffe, that would be fantastic because Terrence really needs his own individual select brand. I mean, he could do specific events for it or whatever, but a Baby Giraffe cigar would be amazing. It would be good. Yeah.

All right. I will put it in the suggestion box. Yeah. If you could do a Zoom meeting about it, that'd be fantastic.

Perfect. Yeah. Even better. Does Agrenor also do the Zoom meetings?

No. No. I mean, we could. We have the capability of doing it, but I mean, you know, we just do our meetings.

Here's the coolest thing, right? I mean, I know there's so many cool things, but it's like going from a company where they told you what your opinion was to a company of, well, what do you think? It's like the very first time that happened to me, I was just like: Wait, wait, wait, what? Like, you didn't tell me what I should be like, no, we really want to know what you're supposed to think.

We want your opinion. I'm like, wow. And then at the same time, anytime they're having a meeting, it's like, oh no, we got to wait for Fabian. It's like, Fabian's got to be in this meeting.

So ultimately, it's like, okay, well, I came in to help out with like two or three things, and now I got like 19 things, and oh, and by the way, I'm working on the PCA booth now, okay, so whatever, but you know, it is what it is. I hope that you have March Madness bets, apparently, because Brett Fry is going to be very excited. Always pick what, is it for a 12th seed to beat a 5th seed or something? Is that how it works?

I don't know. But I was told, I was told there's more 12 seeds that beat 5th seeds than anything else. Oh, interesting. Put your money on it.

Yeah. I'm good. Yeah. Alright, so let's close this out.

Thanks again for coming on. Palmer, what else do you have to add? That's it. Episode 315.

Yes. 315. Mr. 315.

315! 315, baby. No, nothing to have. This is great.

All right, cool. All right. Thanks again, bro. All right, thanks, Fabian.

Peace out. A-Town. A-Town. A Cigar Hustlers podcast, its owners and its sponsors take no responsibility for the opinions or statements made by the talk show host or their guest.

Statements or show topics are not necessarily the beliefs of Mike & Mike Productions or the podcast And opinions between talk show hosts may differ. It is not our intention to libel, incite, or hurt anyone's feelings. We invite you to write the show's host, Mike Szczepankewicz, with any feedback or 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.

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Show Notes

In this riveting episode of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, Episode 315 features a special guest, Fabien Ziegler from Aganorsa Cigars. Tune in as Fabien delves deep into his journey, discussing the profound reasons behind his departure from Drew Estate after 19 impactful years. He shares insights, stories, and the turning points that led him to venture into the world of Arganosa Cigars.

Discover the secrets and craftsmanship behind Aganorsa Cigars that have garnered acclaim and admiration among enthusiasts. Fabien passionately unravels what sets Aganorsa Cigars apart, elaborating on the meticulous processes, the commitment to quality, and the essence that makes them stand out as the epitome of excellence in the cigar industry.

From the core philosophy to the artistry woven into each blend, Fabien passionately articulates why Aganorsa Cigars have earned their reputation as the pinnacle of cigar craftsmanship. Join the conversation to delve into the nuances, the flavors, and the journey that defines the legacy of Aganorsa Cigars.