ACHP Episode 377 Oscars, Cigar Updates and Earthquakes

Transcript

Welcome to the Cigar Hustler Podcast, the show brought to you commercial free, but a massive shout out to our amazing patrons on the Patreon. Thanks to your unwavering support, we're able to do unfiltered, unbiased opinions, all things cigars, 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 the Cigar Hustler Podcast. Welcome to the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, episode 377, where cigars, industry talk, and unfiltered opinions collide. Sit back with your co-host, Mike Steponkiewicz and Mike Palmer as they bring you this week's trending stories in cigar news. And me, I'm Boots the Engineer, making sure these two don't burn the place down.

Grab a cigar, sit back, and let's get into it. I wish they had lights on them, so we knew which camera was on. Bing. I don't know who it was on.

Well, Mikey gets the most camera time per his contract, so it was on there. That's true. Plus, you gotta tell them what's going on, Michael. What do we got going on here?

What do we got going on? I thought you were going to start with that. Do you want me to start with that? Well, you did the last two weeks, so I assumed it was yours.

All right, so let's see here. Okay, so Thursday, March 13th, we're going to have Michael Herklotz in the building. Did we just roll? Did we just keep rolling?

Yeah. Oh, okay. We're going to have a special event. We're going to have hors d'oeuvres and hors d'oeuvres.

Oh. We're going to have a complimentary drink and you guys are going to hang out. We're capped to 20 people. We're going to hang out, smoke cigars, and talk with Michael Herklots.

Nice. And then... Yes? What else?

What's the other one? That's the next event. Well, on the 21st, we have the Base of Cigars. Base of Boys.

Oh, Base of Boys. I like that. Base of Boys. We have the Base of Boys coming in.

They're giving away a watch and a humidor. It's a month-long event. Come in, buy just one of their cigars with your purchase and you get a raffle ticket. There you go.

And then we have PCA, the cigar event. Do we have one more event in March? Is that the Bentley cook-off the last of the month? I don't know.

I think we're having a John Carney, he's gonna come cook us all dinner, I think, at the end of the month. Ooh, we're having a John Carney gonna cook us all dinner at the end of the month. Bentley. That's a great title.

Yeah. That's fantastic. He has new t-shirts. We're looking forward to that as well.

Now PCA is coming around the corner here. April 11th through the 14th. April 11th through the 14th. So if you're a retailer and you want to set an appointment with us, reach out to us, email Mike at...

com. com. Yes. And we'll set up an appointment with you.

And if you're media and you want to set up an appointment, message Mike as well and we'll get things going here. Just message me. So just message Mike. Message me.

Yeah. Everything. If you need help with the hotel reservations, message me. If you need a car, message me.

Or the food in the area. Anything covered. If you have food in the area, message me. I am going out for beignets one day, so if everybody wants to go beignet shopping, I really want to beignets.

There'll be beignets. I really want a beignet. What the hell's a beignet? Yeah, right?

It's that powdered sugar fried dough thing. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it looks delicious. I've always wondered what it is. Ah.

What are we doing for the Patreon? For the Patreon, you just snagged it. Show it. Put up the hand thing.

Show it. We are doing. I want to say blue star, but it's not. It's gold star.

Uh-oh. How's that? Show the label. There you go.

Perfect. The new United Gold Star cigar. We're doing the gold star. All right.

This is where I put a big task on boots, where he cannot show me smoking a cigar throughout the entire event. Oh, God. All right. In the news, the Oscars weren't the only thing shaking in California yesterday.

There was an earthquake, rocked Burbank. Oh boy. The award season ended yesterday with the 97th annual Oscars. The BOI is gone.

Okay. You know what the BOI is? No idea. You will when we get there.

And then Boots has his trending fact about Hulu. Bam. Cigar news, Romeo and Julieta turns 150. We have some Middle Eastern cigar debuting.

Crown Heads is bulldozing into a big cigar. CAA says things are down. Okay. They're not good.

United's getting a gold star, maybe. And Cuban cigars are doing, oh, not and, but Cuban cigars are doing more than raising prices. And finally, CLE is cutting their roster. Or are they really?

Interesting stuff. Yes. Let's see what's going on this week. Let's go.

All right. 9 earthquake centered in Burbank sent last week shaking across Los Angeles region Sunday night. The earthquake, which occurred at 10:13 PM, brought light shaking, as defined by the modified Mercantile Intensity Scale. S.

Geological Survey, light shaking can disturb dishes and windows and feel like a heavy truck was struck a building. Weak shaking may have been felt over a much broader region. Apparently shaking is the technical... Shaky, Shaky?

measurement term for earthquaking though. Okay. Weak shaking may have been felt over a much broader region of Southern California, including the rest of San Fernando Valley, the Los Angeles Basin, which is where all the fires were. Okay.

And the San Gabriel Valley. m. Just proved God hates California still. Yeah, so California's still not getting a break.

No, they normally have mudslides and fires and now earthquakes and all they need is a volcano to get the trifecta of the natural disasters already for 2025. Now, normally, doesn't like a small tremor or something like that lead into like a bigger earthquake coming or something? You may be referring to aftershocks? Yeah.

I don't know. There's aftershocks normally after... I feel like they're like the little, there's like gentle rumblings, and then all of a sudden like they're gearing up for a big one. This could be the big one.

I'm sure there's some type of precursor. Precursor. It's a precursor. Word of the day calendar that we got.

I did my dictionary day word and precursor. He's very impressive. Doing so well over there. Impressive.

He had his fact of the week a little early today, so I've got high hopes. Okay, okay. All right, the 97th Academy Awards ended this year's awards. The first season with a bang on March 2nd, 2025.

The biggest story of the night came from Anora. Who? Anybody know what that was? No idea what Anora is.

I didn't know if that was a person or a movie. Okay. Apparently, it's a movie. Dominated the Oscars.

The film won five of six awards it was nominated for. Anora won for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Screenplay. This also meant a huge night for director Sean Baker as the writer, director, and editor of the film. Okay.

Yeah, there were all the awards, and only one guy did the work. Just the one dude? Just the one dude. Did you watch the Oscars?

I forgot it was even on. Did you watch the Oscars? No, but I saw some clips. Okay, so somebody saw clips.

Did you see any clips? I saw some stuff on TikTok, but it was cool. There was a guy there, a long-haired guy, sort of looked like Weird Al Yankovic, but much younger. " So do something kind of cool.

So they would zoom in and like ladies would spin in their dress or flip their hair and it would go from normal speed to super slow-mo and it just looked pretty cool. But other than that, that's the only clips I saw. That was the highlight for you. And I saw Kieran Culkin give his speech.

Macaulay. Macaulay's younger brother. Yeah. Apparently he's an amazing actor.

The Home Alone good? Yes, the one who peed the bed. Right. Yes, that one.

That was in the previous episode here. Yeah. that yes we did okay so yeah i mean like dude i didn't watch the oscars so i you know i don't really and i've never heard of this friggin movie so well that's why i don't watch the award shows we talked about this when the grammys or emmys or somebody else was on right nobody knows what the shows are anymore yeah the grammys you don't know who the singers are oscars i don't know but the oscar's supposed to be the big one supposed to be who was hosting uh well we have that uh Oh, well, then continue forward. Okay.

Let's see. Baker took home four Oscars. This feat tied him with Walt Disney for the most Academy Awards won by a single person in a single night. Due to Honora's sweep of the awards, several heavily nominated films left with few awards.

Amelia Perez was nominated for 13 Oscars, but only received two. Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Zaldano. The Best Original Song for El Ma. Both Wicked and The Brutalist received 10 nominations, Wicked took home two Oscars, I do know what that movie is, for Best Costume Design and Best Production, The Brutalist won three Oscars for Best Original Score, Best Cinematography and Best Actor, Conan O'Brien hosted the ceremony and delivered a fresh style to the Oscars.

He's funny. He is funny. Yeah, but he dissed Adam Sandler from what I understood. I did see, I did see that.

He talked about the way people aren't dressing up for the Oscars anymore. Right. And then Sandler stood up with his traditional hoodie on and his basketball shorts, and they had a little fight back and forth, and then he left and invited everybody to come out for a pickup game of basketball out at the park in the front of the church. That was probably a skit.

Well, yeah, obviously it was, because he was miked in the audience. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it was a skit.

Yeah, they don't slap anybody anymore. They just do stuff like that. Yeah, they're not allowed. That's okay.

No more slapping? No more slapping. That's why Chris Rock wasn't there? Yeah.

No, he was not invited. No, he was there. Will Smith. He was there.

Did he have armed guards with him? No, I don't think he went up on stage. Yeah, Will Smith's still not allowed back to that, right? Yeah, I don't think so.

He's bam. Harrison Ford backed out at the last minute. He has shingles. Oh, boy.

Yes. At his age? That's not good. That's not fun.

Just like Miguel Chadell. Yes, just like Miguel Chadell. Miguel Chadell had the shingles and his boots wouldn't talk. And he couldn't go to the Oscars either, apparently.

He also missed it. Also missed the Oscars. A. skit he did.

A. firefighters come out and deliver jokes. I did see that. He said, some jokes are even too hot for me to handle.

A. firefighters deliver jokes about certain people in the audience. Gotcha. That was kind of cute.

Okay. He added his own zany, risky spin to the night. However, it was just O'Brien adding humor to the night. Many presenters were also very funny.

Bowen Yang. Yeah. Stole the show in his Wicked Costume while presenting Best Costume Design, and Amy Poehler delivered snappy jokes while presenting the Writing Category. Okay.

I mean, I don't have much on the Oscars, but. Yeah, I know. I mean, I think the award shows have sort of run their course now, and they're not, I don't, I don't know what the ratings were. Maybe we're just old.

Can you check the ratings there, Booty, for the Oscars, see how they did? What were the Oscar ratings? I think any more, it's more an international audience. Yeah.

Oh, I want to watch the Oscars. I want to watch the Oscars, see if they want some food. I like the worms. I like the worms.

But the movies are, like, Kieran Culkin won a Best Supporting Actor for a movie I'm familiar with because of TikTok, but I don't know what the movie's about. It's when him, I don't remember, Sandberg, I think is the guy that was in it, where he plays his brother or something, I don't know. Have you seen a movie recently that kind of stuck out to you? You're like, this is a fucking great movie.

Uh, yeah, but I can't recall it at the moment. It was an older movie. We've been watching older movies. That doesn't help me.

I'm talking about new movies. Yes. There was a new movie. If you say Gladiator 2, I swear to God.

No, The Gorge. The Gorge? Yes. Oh, was that any good?

It was supposed to be terrible, was it? It was really good. Yeah? Yep.

Apple TV. I saw this morning, The Plane is on Roku channel. I want to watch that. The Plane.

The Plane. It is with Gerard Butler. Okay. He's a pilot, and he lands a plane on an island that is controlled by a drug warlord or something, came out in 2023, and then he has to fight to save all the passengers.

So it's still old. Two years. Yeah. It's something I want to watch, not something I've seen.

You know what, so we went to the movies, and I saw Mufasa. Oh, is it real life? Yeah, well, real life is still CGI. Yeah, CGI, but it's not cartoon.

Yeah, animals don't really talk. Not animated, I guess. Yeah, it was CGI or whatever. And I feel like Scar got a bad rap, man.

You mean in the original? Yeah, the whole shebang, like I watched this movie and I was like, wait a second, this doesn't make any sense to me. Like, you know, spoiler alert, just so you know, so this guy, well, this lion. Oh, so wait, I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, so this is not The Lion King again, this is a young Mufasa growing up?

Yeah, this is a prequel. Oh, okay. Like the Star Wars way. Yeah.

So just to kind of briefly surmise here, Scar before his name is Scar, he saves Mufasa three times. Oh. He saves his life three times. Does he betray him?

Yeah. But then he fixes it by trying to save him again, right? So he saves him three times. And at the end of the movie, he's like, I'll never say your name again.

You can live here, but I'll never say your name again. Like, of course he's going to kill him at the end. Mufasa says that? Yeah.

Oh, okay. Yeah, Mufasa was a complete ass. You know, there's a real scar. It's a real scar?

It's based on a real lion. Yeah. That killed like 300 hyenas, a hippopotamus, red, run all the alligators out of wherever he was in charge of and stuff. It sounds like a real king.

Yeah, but he had that slice on his eyeball from a fight with another lion. It was just, listen, I'm going back to the movie here. It's just complete horseshit. I'm like, how did we treat this guy?

He got shafted. It's kind of like the Karate Kid, if you watch it from the other side, where Johnny is the good guy. Yeah. This punk kid comes in, he tries to start trouble, steals his girlfriend.

Yeah, that's exactly what it was. It should have been a, you know, they could have made it a better story. Called Scar. Yeah.

What was his name before Scar? Taka. Taka? Yeah.

They should have called it Taka. Yeah, where like Mufasa was the bad one. Right. I would have been okay with that.

The evil king. The evil king. So he became king because he was more attractive. Right, more handsome.

More handsome. I don't know, it's the way it works sometimes. It's the way it works sometimes. So you're saying that Trump is more attractive than Kamala?

He's not the king. I mean, he's the president. But you're comparing a man to a woman, I would say he's more attractive than Biden. But you would say that, so you do find him attractive?

No, I say he's more attractive than Biden. So, in order to say that though, you're saying that he's... No, it doesn't mean he is attractive, it means compared to the two, you know, a five is better than a four. Gotcha.

So, if you had to have sex with either Biden or Trump, you'd have sex with Trump? Obama. Obama? Oh, a little jungle fever over there, huh?

Skinnier? Yeah. Cigarette guy? Younger?

Younger. Is he younger than Trump? At this point, I don't know, when he was president, I'm guessing when he was president he probably was. So you're talking peak years?

Yeah, yeah, it's best physical shape. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Makes sense.

Can I go on now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. S.

Treasury Department announced it will not enforce a Biden area small business rule intended to curb money laundering and shell company formations. In a Sunday evening announcement, Treasury said it in a news release that it is not imposing penalties now or in the future if companies fail to register for the agency's beneficial ownership information. Oh, I know what that is. I know what that is.

Yeah, I know what that is. Yes. Database that was created during the Biden administration. Despite efforts by small businesses to undo the rule in the courts, it remains in effect on Sunday.

President Donald Trump on his Truth social media site. I didn't know he had that. Yeah, he's had it for a while. Praised the suspension of enforcement of the rule and said the database is outrageous and invasive.

The Biden rule has been an absolute disaster for small business nationwide, he said. He said, "The economic menace of BOI reporting will soon be no more. S. " okay i understand are you done or no i'm okay so you didn't say like comment okay well you started talking before i could say something that's fair so um so michael what do you think about that so what do i think about that so like from a logistical standpoint i understand the process of the boi right however it is complete horseshit man it is so it's just it's so much intel and I'm like, whatever.

I don't understand why I'm forced to do this. And then if you have four or five businesses, you got to do it for every single business. Are they checking the information? I mean, let's say, let's say, because sometimes when people call her, we'll give them fake names.

Right. Oh yeah, all the time. Let's say they might make them a name. Right.

Yeah, someone's going to check over. How many, how many? 32 million companies, it said. S.

Well, no, well, they're looking for registration of 32 million companies. Okay, I mean, so I would assume that there's probably somewhere in that realm of... Yeah, that's a number they picked somewhere. Right, somebody had to pull that.

Sure. So, yeah, no one's going to... Yeah, who's verifying 32 million names? AI.

AI. I'll ask AI to make me up a name. Yeah, it's very reliable. Right, so, you know, make me up a name that your AI buddy will think is a real name on his AI thing.

No problem. Beep, beep, boop, boop, boop, Michael Gonzalez. It's a company, dude, not a name. No, you need a name for the company.

Oh, got it. Michael Gonzalez is painting. Gonzalez and Gonzalez, L-L-A. L-L-A?

It's a different one. Totally different. Yeah. Completely different.

Got it. But it'll recognize it. Right. But you'll know that the L-L-A, the other one will go psst.

It didn't feel like the BOI thing was going to come to fruition, you know, just talking with other people. Right. Accountants and stuff like that. It just seemed like, oh, they were going to do it, and then, oh, they hold on, it doesn't have to happen right away, and oh, but you can do it voluntarily, like, well, I'm not volunteering.

I'm not volunteering anything. I hate that. Right. You know, so.

You already have all my information somewhere. Yeah, somebody can look me up, it's not that, it's not that difficult. I'm a citizen. I get texts all the time from people, random bots or whatever.

I'm getting a lot of them now that I have tolls, the unpaid tolls. That's fake, yeah. Well, yeah, I know it's fake, because, well, first, the phone number is some foreign country. Right.

The Florida Toll Service is going through Afghanistan to collect money. That's not, yeah. That's not happening. They're gonna get better at that though.

Hello, my name is John. Right. Yeah, they say don't even click the link. That's how they get you.

Cause then you're in. Then you're in. They asked, my son's like, what is this? I think he got a text.

He's like, don't, don't you dare. He has unpaid tolls? Yeah. I don't have a car.

Yeah. Or a license. Don't you dare do that. So.

Okay. We never got back to the ratings and the Oscars. of the Oscars. I guess Boots said there was nothing really on there.

It just said that it peaked over a million in the UK is all it said. Yeah, see, I think foreign people are more enamored with our movies. So they're hiding the data? Yeah.

It didn't really come up with that. All right, well, then I'm going to ask Grock. Did you ask Grock? No, I don't have that.

All right, well, you're asking Grock. We have Boots' trending topic is connected to the Oscars. All right, that's just in. The ratings for the Oscars.

It's just in. No, he's kidding. Please, continue. Um, yeah.

" What was the Oscar ratings for yesterday? " Perfect. Can you find it? I sent it to you.

Go ahead, dude. Alright. Hulu's streaming service was restored following a significant technical glitch that disrupted access for thousands of viewers during the 2025 Oscar Awards. , according to reports from Down Detector.

The 97th Academy Awards broadcasted live on ABC streaming on Hulu, where hit by the technical failure, preventing many users from watching the event. , thanking users for their patience and assuring them that the problem had been resolved. Thanks so much for hanging in there. Our team took the necessary steps to resolve this, so you should all be set after rebooting your device, the post read.

, leaving many viewers frustrated as they were unable to access the live broadcast. While the issue was resolved relatively quickly, the outage served as a reminder for the vulnerabilities that can affect streaming services during high-profile events like the Oscars. Despite the glitch, Hulu was able to restore functionality before the ceremony's conclusion, allowing viewers to resume watching the awards. Damn.

So another streaming service failed because of the massive amount of people that want to watch. Yes, things aren't working out so well for the... No, you'd think they would have learned after Netflix's problem with the fight, but maybe we can't cover the bandwidth. But it's not like Netflix is going to help them.

No, but they knew it was a problem, so you think they could have, you know, tested it or something. Speculation of the ratings is between 16 and 20 million, but it's not verified. Is that good? I don't know if that's good.

Last year's was about, it was nearly 20 million views, so... That's the same. Maybe a slight decline, is what it, if you're in the 16 to 20 million range, I'm guessing that's slightly less. S.?

S.? Well, that might be worldwide. Yeah. S.

population? I don't know offhand. It's just billions and billions of people. 95 trillion.

Let's see, while Gronk looks that up for me, it's, yeah, I mean, I don't think that, I honestly think that they're losing popularity. Yeah. I think all those award shows are. The peak time was about 2004 and it was about 40 million.

Yeah, but there were some great movies, you know. Yeah, the movies are just, you know, same movies. I mean, we still don't know what norm is. At least back then you probably still heard of the movies.

Yeah. S. population is about 346 million. Right.

About 20 million? Not even 10 percent. S. world.

We are the world. We are the world. Can we sing that? Because a lot of people sing it.

They wouldn't know who to sue us. We'd probably get sued anyways. We haven't been sued yet. Just like the Oscars, nobody knows what that is.

Can we make some money first before we get sued? Oh no, they sue us now where we don't have any. Shut us down beforehand? How do they shut us down?

We don't have any money. They could totally try. They have no assets. Come and take it.

Come and take it. There's nothing. Come and take it. Oh, hello there.

We're taking this camera. It doesn't belong to the company. That's true. All right, so they have the lights.

It's a loner. Romeo and Juliet Amante celebrates 150th anniversary. This year marks the 150th anniversary of Romeo and Julieta's cigar brand in celebration of this milestone, Habanos, this is all Cuban this week, Habanos SA has announced the Romeo, the real one, Julieta, Amante, Amante is Spanish for lovers. Lovers.

The cigar measures six inches by 53. Not a seven by 52, it's a six by 53. That's Cuban measurements. Not a six by 52.

It's the so... Big word. Sobra Saliente Vitola. Perfect.

Okay, okay. And the Cuban Vitola naming system, which has been used for various limited edition cigars, including the Por Lorenza Sobresente and the Romeo and Juliet Capuletos in 2016 edition. Well, it's Capulets, but it's Spanish. Well, your tone changes when you get Spanish.

Yeah, you're like Capuletos. Capuletos. In 2016, Edición Limitada, due to the differences in packaging, you won't confuse the Amantes and the Capulets, the new Amantes has a unique band that features 150 in the center, while the secondary Romeo and Juliet band covers the foot, it will come in boxes of 20, it's unclear if it's limited or not, depends on how many they sell, they don't know if they're going to make it. It could be limited, it might possibly be, depending upon the sale.

Right, if we don't sell many, it's limited, if we sell a lot, then no, everyone can have it. Yeah, it's a Coraline product. And if it's limited, we have a new cigar coming out. Yes, the cigar was announced at the start of the Festival de Habano 25, the annual Cuban Cigar Festival.

Typically, these releases come with no information about when they will be released or how much they will cost. So, there. There you go. We're gonna make a new cigar.

We don't know when we're gonna release it. It could be limited, possibly, and it's gonna be slightly bigger in diameter than what it should be, as a 6x53. Maybe. Perfect.

Possibly. And you're going to see that it's different because it's going to have a secondary band. Got it. All to this USA, which sells the non-Cuban Romeo and Julieta brand in USA, and its ownership ties to Habano's essay, has announced its own Romeo and Julieta 150th, because, you know, Cubans don't share well, so...

A three Vitola line made in the Dominican Republic. We, too, will make this 150th. Cuban anniversary cigar in the Dominican Republic. It's like, that's so petty.

I love that. Yes. You know what I mean? Like, you know what?

, so we're going to go ahead. You're going to announce 150? We're going to announce 150. You're going to put a foot band?

We're going to. You're going to have the Amante? We're going to have the Amante. It's going to be amazing.

It's dominant in the male version. We're crushing over here. We're crushing in America. 150 years for you, 151 for us.

Yeah. How's that sound? That's what Luciano likes to do. Slightly better.

That's what he does. Underrated, it's called underrated. All right, Diplomaticos Genos Edición Regional Fonseca goes on sale next week. It might as well just be a Mandarin for you.

I mean, I don't know, you know, it should be fucking... Ching chong, chong chong, chong chong. Last night in Havana, Fonseca TAA, Cypress LTD, the distributor of Cuban cigars for the Middle Eastern, showed off the Diplomatico Genoso Edición Regional Fonseca ahead of its release next week. Fantastic.

So again, another cigar we'll never see or get to smoke. There's going to be only in the Middle East, so we're done. It's probably got a plug ratio of about 33%. Yes, Addition Regional Cigars are signified by a secondary red and silver band that reads Addition Regional.

The Addition Regional Cigar is noted with the Addition Regional. In case you were wondering, this is a Regional Cigar. Yes. Often the cigars do not arrive at stores during the year they are selected for sometimes multiple years later.

Great. Listen, the cigar industry is an absolute train wreck. I don't know what to tell you. And it's even worse when it's just Cuban market.

Right. S. market's slightly more on time. We're gonna make an anniversary cigar that may or may not come out the year of the anniversary, maybe a couple years later.

Here's what I can tell you about it. It's gonna have a secondary band and it's gonna say regional on it. So that way, if you need it, you can get it in that spot. You'll know which one it is.

Not the 150 one. That's not it. It's a different one. Yeah.

All right. Back to some good old American cigar companies. America. Juarez Bulldozer LE 2025 slated for March.

Oh, that's now. Yes. The last time Crown has released a limited edition Vitola for its Juarez line, it was quite small. Next month, the company will release a new Juarez limited edition that will be quite large.

5x58 Gordo with a pigtail cap. It's important to know that, a pigtail cap. I like that. He uses a Mexican San Andres wrapper over an Ecuadorian Sumatra binder and a filler tobaccos from the Dominican Republic.

Wow, they actually said, well, they all were. They probably would have. That is not in fashion at the moment. Mexico, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, oh, the tobaccos, fillers, tobaccos from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Nicaragua.

And Nicaragua. Brownhead says, "It's a modified version of the standard Juarez blend. The regular blend does not list any Mexican tobacco in the filler. " Not bad.

It's limited to 1,500 boxes of 12. Any idea what John Huber sounds like? I do. I don't...

I can't place his words at all. It's kind of standard. We have a quote. Yeah.

"We hadn't done a limited Juarez release since we did shots in 2022," said John Huber, co-founder of Crownheads, in a press release. This time, rather than go with a smaller format like Shots, we went the opposite direction. We wanted a big bang flavor Ford profile to accompany the larger 58 ring gauge, so we amped up the original blend, then box pressed it and finished it with a big tail. Crown Ed says the Bulldozer will ship to stores next month.

Juarez and Lines inspired by Johnny Cash's performance of Cocaine Blues. Oh. Michael, think a few lines? I don't know that song.

Cocaine Bulls. Cocaine and I'm sad. The other Patola's names are references to parts of the song and the story it tells. Got it.

So just sing about the other one? And I named a pet bull named Juarez. And hopefully someone will make a cigar for it one day. Perfect.

Thank you. Thank you for your addition. Oh, and the la-da-da-da-da-da, that goes into the bridge. CAA says 2023 cigar imports were how much?

2. You can see the screen. 2 million lower than 2022. Wow.

Not, okay. It wasn't 426 million lower. Yes. 2 million lower.

Go into the story. I'll explain why in a moment. Okay. 569 million that the organization originally reported.

Somebody made a boo-boo. Oh, geez. Somebody messed up. And when I say we're good, I mean we're not good.

We're not good, yes. Yes, the $467 million, that's not really what it was. Yeah. It's far less.

That change means that 2023 was not a record-setting year like we said it was last year. Got it. For premium cigar imports as previously reported. This is indicated, I'm going with reported.

Instead, 2023 is now the third highest year on record after 2022 and 2021. The reason for the change is, we sort of fucked up, is due to how the CAA, a trade organization, estimates premium cigar imports for the Dominican Republic. So they estimate those. They don't even really...

Just wing it. Just wing it. Just guessing. Carry the one.

Carry the one, add the two. Apparently, they should have subtracted the one. Record setter. Right.

S. The price of the cigar determines which code is used, and we misread those. Oh. Confusingly, non-premium cigars, large machine-made cigars, also use those HTS codes.

In Honduras, Nicaragua, there are a few machine-made cigars, it doesn't really matter there, we don't really count those separately. But in the Dominican Republic, where billions, billions of machine-made cigars are made, the CAA must estimate the number of premium cigars by using data from manufacturers to determine which of these cigars are premium cigars, and the English to Dominican translation apparently does not work even with numbers, which were machine-made things. Thanks. The CAA has said that rising prices led to some misclassification of cigars, an error it acknowledged and corrected in 2024.

So it's not their fault. We fucked up. We fucked up. No, it's because the prices, they're misclassified.

It's not our fault. It's not our fault at all. We didn't do it. We didn't do it.

Somebody else did. We're the CAA, not the PCA or the, there's another one too. There's a BAA. Yeah, the ZAA.

The FAA. It's the FAA's fault. The FCC? And the FCC.

X, Y, Z. The updated data confirms what many of the premiums of our industry has confirmed antidotally. 2024 was good, but not that good. Oh, antidotally.

What did I say? Antidotally. What did you say? Anecdotally.

CAA has also provided a second-to-last update regarding the 2024 numbers, because we may have messed up there, too. Just a little bit. Okay. S.

78 million premium cigars, maybe. Possibly. Possibly, maybe. Carry the one thing.

7 increase over the revised 2023 numbers. Okay. 7. That's a smidgen.

The CAA data shows that Nicaragua is up compared to 2023, though the Dominican Republic and Honduras are both slightly down. Yeah. Well, I mean, Nicaragua continues to dominate, you know? They are the dominant.

Yeah. Delicious. Delicious. Because he hates Dominicans over there.

Yeah. He doesn't like Dominicans. People and cigars. No.

He hates Dominican people and cigars. That's not true. And the food. And Dominican food.

No, I like the food. They don't make the jelly donuts like he likes the strawberry. Mike, he likes the strawberry jelly ones. The strawberry jelly.

Yeah. Yes. Okay. All right, United's Gold Star gets a new Vitola goes regular production.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

United Cigars has announced that its Gold Star line, previously an annual limited edition, will soon be offered in three regular production Vitolas because it does so well. Yeah. The blend remains the same as recent limited edition releases of Gold Star, And Ecuadorian Habano 2000, Intermedio Rapper. What does that mean?

Intermedio Rapper? That's Spanish for intermediate. Yeah. There's all sorts of new tobacco types coming out.

Right. Yeah. Have they discovered new tobacco? Is this the Nick Malillo thing in the cave with the Indiana Jones people and stuff?

So what they did was they put vibranium into the ground. Oh, more vibranium. With the Hibano. They got it from Skip, because he owns Wakanda.

Yeah. Skip Martin forever. And they grew it successfully, and then what they did was, through the fermentation process, they removed the purpleness from it. Oh.

Yeah. Purpleness. So now it's not vibranium anymore. Now it's intermedio.

Wait, vibranium is not purple? Yeah. The little flower is purple. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the purple. So they crush up the flower, it's purple. Is the flower from the vibranium? I thought they grew that separately or something.

You know, I don't want to get into the details with you. Oh, we can't give you the information. Yeah. I completely understand.

But when they use it to incorporate the tobacco, it's called inter... Someone will send us information throughout the plane of this episode to explain this. He'll explain what they're... And they'll call us idiots.

Yes. Intermediators, blah, blah, blah, blah, idiots. Mike, all right, thanks. Yeah, just listen to the rest of the conversation.

Go on. Yeah. And an Indonesian Sumatra binder along with Connecticut broadleaf and tobacco grown in the Dominican Republic in the filler. He won't like it.

It's got Dominican in it. Yeah. I see a little uptick with Dominican tobacco being used in a lot of these. It's because there's so much of it because you don't like it.

Well, that's because they found more. Everybody's not willing to pay $16 for a $10 cigar, so. Here's what I think you're seeing is I think that you're seeing a lot of cigars being made out of Henderson's factory once it-- This is from Henderson's factory. Right, there you go.

Well, you saw it because it's in the blue there. I actually can't see that part. But more often than not, a lot of, you know, like smaller to medium producers, Henderson's catering to them, and some of the cigars he makes are pretty good. So, you know, he's building that.

That's kind of his book of business, and it's working well for him. So, I'm not surprised. That's why you're seeing the uptick in Dominican. Okay.

The Ventura family will continue to produce a line, this time at the Tablical Era William Ventura Factory in the Dominican Republic. I appreciate them not using some kind of weird Spanish name in the title of their factory. Very nice for them. But William Ventura, I think, is different than Henderson Ventura.

I mean, I think they're all kind of linked to some degree, but they're different factories. Is Ventura like Smith over in Dominican Republic? No, no, they're like brothers or uncles or some shit. I mean, you can get Ronnie on the phone from Secreto and he can give you a 30-minute diatribe about the whole thing.

Yeah, we'll never come off the phone. That'd be ridiculous. Yeah. Each cigar is aged for one year prior to shipping the company says that it expects to ship three Vitolas to select stores in March okay so then they did this three years ago every or I guess one each cigar didn't have to do its own year right so it's been a year-long product project gold star Robusto a 5x52 is $12 gold star Toro which I believe is what we're smoking on the patreon that's correct 6x54 for $13 a gold star Dior Gordo, a 6x60, $14.

After the soft launch around a dozen retailers in March, it will get a national release at the 2025 PCA Convention and Trade Show, which takes place April 12th through the 14th. We may have got our dates wrong earlier. So is there a new Friday? 11th through 14th.

You said 11th. 11th is a Friday, so it must be Saturday, Sunday, Monday? Well, I looked online and it said 11th through 14th. Hmm.

11th might be seminars or something. Yeah. Oh, that's true. Yeah.

Gold Star pays our homage to the classic. It's a Domenico Tradition, While Pushing the Boundaries of Flavor and Complexity, said Oliver Nevad, Director of Operations at United Cigars. In a press release, every draw is a tribute to the passion and skill from the Ventura family factory. Our time together on the blend was driven by a true friendship.

I mean, I already kind of addressed it, so we're just kind of moving on. Habano's essay, More Cuban News, reported $827 million in revenue for 2024. Oh. All right.

7% increase. 7%? Probably something like that. Makes sense.

7%. The Cuban Cigar Monopoly says that it generated 827 million in 2024. 7% increase over the previous high set in 2023. It's crushing it.

I feel like we can skip this show. This whole clip. You want to skip this? Yeah.

Let's just wait for it. A couple of other things we can cover. That's a lot of things we can cover. Oh, yeah, with the scrolls.

Go ahead. Terrence Riley doesn't know how to book a hotel. Oh. Well, to be fair, I had that problem a couple weeks ago with a hotel that looked fairly nice that I left early.

Okay. So, yeah, he went on this whole diatribe on Facebook a few days ago. He stayed at, let me tell you, the Tampa Inn near Busch Gardens. That should have gave him the set-off right.

Yeah, and he said a lot of things. He didn't really say specifically what was wrong with the hotel. Don't be fooled by the photos online, they are misleading as the dating profile pics on the desperate and lonely, is what he said. So wait, stop right here for a moment.

So that means he's also familiar with dating apps. Yeah, that's true. He's married, isn't he? I don't think he's married.

I think I saw a picture of him and a lady he called his wife a couple weeks ago. I know he used to be, but I was surprised when I saw a picture of him and a very pretty blonde lady, I thought he called her his wife. I don't know. Maybe he is married.

Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. So, are you saying that he has no experience on a dating profile pic? No, I'm saying how does he have experience on a dating profile pic?

Maybe there is a space there that he went through. It's all alleged. We're not sure. We're not insinuating anything.

I know, but you're going after him, so I'm just going to sit here and entertain him. You're not the story. I'm just asking. I'm just talking about a – I was just simply trying to – A hotel.

Yeah, dissect a man that was so emotionally charged about where he was staying that he took to the Facebook. To the Facebook. To the Facebook. In order to say terrible things about me.

Do not stay at the Tampa Inn. Do not. I just want you to know I had a terrible time. Maybe the beds were too short.

And the Aganorsa budget that they have given me is far lower than what it should be. We've heard stories. We've heard stories. His per diem of hotels apparently.

Yeah, I mean, like, I don't, why isn't Terrence allowed to stay at, like, the Ritz or something? I figured he was staying at a nicer place. He qualifies. Who stays at someplace called the Tampa Hotel?

Yeah, Terrence Riley. Well, I mean, maybe, but that's kind of far away, but it is Bike Week in Daytona, do you think that, that's kind of a stretch, right? Where does Terrence live? I don't even know where he lives.

Miami. Miami, so, too far away. I did see he was in Tampa and it was late one day, but it was like a Saturday or something. I feel like you could book a decent room.

Yeah, I mean, it's far enough away from Bike Week. That Tampa, and it cost him $200. Is it spring break over there? Oh, well, he's getting a lot better for $200.

That's what I'm saying. Right. I wish I had headphones, I'd call him right now. You have his phone number?

Yeah, I would have Facebook messaged him. Oh. Well. You can call him, I'll tell you what he says.

He'll do his voice for it. Yeah. He says... He said that the bed was too short, and his feet hung off the end.

And he's tired, he's tired of it. And he's tired of it. And he's tired, and there was no ironing board or irons for him to iron his clothes. Oh, we're calling.

Oh, that's very professional. Perfect. Top notch here. Hello?

Hey, you're on the podcast. Oh, I can hear him. Hey, what's going on? Hey, we want to talk to you briefly about your hotel stay at Tampa Inn.

Oh, I don't recommend it. Oh, it does not get a gold star. Why did you choose to stay at Tampa Inn near Busch Gardens? Well, I looked for a hotel.

Almost always in my book hotels, I do it where I kind of see where I am. It's like 9 o'clock at night, 10 o'clock at night, and I'm like, okay, what's close by that's within a certain price range or whatever, you know? Yeah. So, in this particular instance, like there was nothing that was under $400.

So, and again, we're not talking like nice places, we're talking about like, you know, La Quinta is for 400 bucks, and it's like, Mike, what is going on here? So, I put in the map thing, I said, okay, under 200, and this place came up at 175, the Tampa Inn near Busch Gardens, that's literally the name of the place. And, you know, from the pictures, they were a little misleading. I was a little misled.

I'm not putting up bad pictures. They looked nice. They looked like the place was somewhere that one might actually want to stay for more than two seconds. And then, so I said, okay, well, it's under $200, you know, it's a good company, man.

I'm trying not to waste company money. And so I'm like, all right, so let's get this. So I show up there and it was the worst, like, it was the worst hotel I've been at since about 15 years ago. " Sorry about the microwaves.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. " You know, I was just like, "Oh, sure. Yeah, that's right. " And so, this place was the worst place I've been in since then.

I mean, it was, I mean, it was nuts. I mean, there was, like, cars driving by every, almost every hour on the hour, super loud music with, like, slowly rolling through the parking lot and then leaving, like, they were looking for somebody. It was like, it was this, it was some lady was passed out on the stairs, going up the stairs, or it was, it was wild. So, as a seasoned vet of the road, you see that the going average is $400.

I understand that you're a company man, you don't want to spend money, but you would think that, hey, I'm going to have to bite the bullet here and spend the money and get a decent hotel. Or drive a little further away. Or, yeah, or drive further away. No?

Like, why would you, like, you duped yourself, I would say. You can't hit home runs every time. And when, you know, again, I'm human too, you know. I can see why you think I'd be perfect.

There's a lot, you know. I know. But, you know, I am human. And in this particular instance, it would have probably been better to find another place or, you know, spend the money.

Gotcha. This just in, Taron Charlie Books' room PCA, the New Orleans Inn. near Busch Gardens. near Busch Gardens.

near Busch Gardens. near Busch Gardens. near the sundown. far from Busch Gardens.

yeah. Treasure Island. uh... alright, well, we'll let you go.

I hope you got a better night's rest, and uh, you know... it could have been much worse. I just laid on top of the sheets, the room was like... it looked like a halfway house.

It was terrible. It was the worst. It was scary. I was actually a little scared.

You were a little nervous. Yep, I was a little nervous. It was wild. I was yelling.

There was a cacophony of profanity. A cacophony? Yeah, every so often, it would splurge out from God knows where. So did you stay there the whole night or no?

No, I did, yeah, but I left as soon as daylight came out. Daylight, where it's safe to go outside. As soon as there was like a, you know, that way all the vampires would hopefully... Once the crackheads passed out, you left.

Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was it. I was like, alright, gotta go. You left nothing in your car, I hope, because your windshield was intact, the back end.

To be honest, that was another thing I was scared about, but what happened, which ended up benefiting me in a way, is somebody ended up like parking in front of me and blocking me in, but they were sleeping in the car, so I think that scared off anybody from, you know, actually breaking in. So I was like, how am I going to get out of here, but I saw the guy was just sleeping. No smash and grab. No smash and grab.

Okay. All right, cool. Well, I'm glad you're okay, sir. You're okay, sir.

Yeah, well, I appreciate that. I appreciate your concern. Make better decisions, okay? I'm trying.

I'm not going to make any promises, but I'm going to see what I can do. All right, brother. I'll talk to you later. Bye.

Take care, Mike. Bye. So, there you go. Terrence Riley survived.

He made it. It's so good. I just don't, you know, I just think that the emotional feelings on Facebook sometimes is a little weird. I think that I used to do that stuff back in the past, but I don't do it anymore.

You don't do it anymore? No, I have a podcast for you now. Oh. I'll tell you my emotions here.

Yeah. All right. We got a CLE story and then we have a Listener of the Week in the Shop of the Week. Okay.

I get more articles I want to cover too. All right. CLE removes five lines from the price list. CLE Cigar Company is in four retailers.

Then on March 5th, 2025, it will remove five lines from the price list. Those lines are... You know what they are? I have no idea.

Cigars from the Dominican Republic. A-Z-A-B-A-C-A-G. Azabach. Azabache.

Azabache. The CLE Chile. The CLE Prieto. I have heard of that one.

Signature Series. And the Aroa Jamistran. Jamistran. Jamistran.

No, it says Jamistran. Yeah, it's Spanish. The J is an H. Ham.

Well, they should make it an H then. That's just ridiculous. E. E.

in 2024 have created production issues that led to removing these lines from the price list. That said, the cigars are not discontinued. Oh, so they're just rebranding. E.

will make and ship the cigars, because the cigars won't be kept in inventory in Miami. Turnaround time will be roughly two months, though. Got it. You can get any of these cigars you want.

We need two months, you gotta at least buy five. So, we have the tobacco. We have the tobacco. We can make the cigars.

We're streamlining our boxes. We no longer have boxes that have J's that sound like H's. " Yeah, and I can wait 60 days. Yeah, I don't know if that's going to work.

I don't think that's going to happen. The change means that CLE branded portfolio will go from eight lines to four lines. Unless you want to wait two months, then it's still eight lines. Those four remaining are the CLE 25th Anniversary, the CLE Connecticut, CLE Corojo, and CLE Habano all easily said.

" Right. " Do they uniform them for cost reasons? Like it's easier to make one type of box and to make five different types of box? I think that it's more along the ability to see and identify the brand in a humidor, right?

So, you know, the question is which one's the right way? And I think that I have evidence on either side of saying this one's effective, this one's not effective. So, it's interesting to see that CLE's going that route, where they're trying to kind of unify everything. Right.

I wonder what box the other ones come in now. Yeah. A cardboard box. Bundle.

Maybe it's in a plain brown wrapper. Yeah, it probably just comes in a bundle. All right. Listener of the Week, Gavin Grantham from Espinosa Cigars.

our guy yes Mr. Gavin our newest Patreon member newest Patreon member yes right thank you very much for your support bro we appreciate you we appreciate you we appreciate Jack our number one Patreon salesman yes the best rep in the best national sales manager in the game and the best Patreon sales manager in the game as well shop of the week oh sorry we need him to like focus on you know another company that has a yes See, if you could branch out to another company, and we have all your employees. Oh, no, they have the new one. If they could start, we need them to tap into like Patel, Rocky Patel, or something where there's like a fleet of sales.

A fleet of Drew Estate. Like, hey, you know, you guys need to start looking into this. They talk about you guys all the time on the show. Yeah, you really need to consider, you know.

You should listen. Yeah, that'd be great. All right, Shop of the Week is Stateline Tobacco, 1168 Elton Road in Newark, Delaware. Nice.

Welcome back into the fold, sir. Welcome back into the fold. All right, what else you got you want to go over? Well, you kind of did all that, so I'll just mention my two stories on Patreon.

Oh, perfect. Good, because I have nothing for that. Okay, perfect. All right, it's episode 377 over there, Boots.

Is that what it is, 377, I believe? Yep. Yep. Thank you, everyone, for listening.

We've got to go to the Patreon where we're doing the Gold Star Cigar. Gold Star. All right, thank you. Bye.

Bye. tv

Show Notes

Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 377 - Show Notes

In this exciting episode of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, the guys dive into some hot topics from both the entertainment and cigar worlds:

Oscars and Earthquake: It wasn’t just the Oscars shaking things up in California yesterday; an earthquake rocked Burbank, making for an eventful day in the Golden State.

The 97th Annual Oscars: The award season came to a close with the 97th Annual Academy Awards. We talk about the highlights, the surprises, and the winners of the night.

The BOI is GONE: Big news from the Treasury Department—the Bureau of Industry (BOI) is officially gone. What does this mean for the industry? We discuss the impact of this change.

Romeo and Julieta Turns 150: One of the most iconic names in cigars, Romeo and Julieta, celebrates its 150th anniversary! We discuss their legacy and what this milestone means for the brand.

Middle Eastern Cigar Debut: A new player is entering the cigar scene from the Middle East. We talk about what we know so far and what this could mean for the global cigar market.

Crown Heads Bulldozing It: Crown Heads is making a big splash with a new release that’s already shaking up the market. Could this be the next big thing in cigars? We dig in.

CAA Says Things Are Down: CAA, the, reports a dip in their counting procedures?

United Gets a Gold Star: United Cigars Decides and LE Isn’t Going to stay an LE!

Cuban Cigars Raising More Than Prices: Cuban cigars are back in the news, but it’s not just about price hikes. What other changes are coming from Cuba’s cigar industry? We cover it all.

CLE Cutting Their Roster or Are They?: Rumors swirl about CLE cigars possibly cutting their roster, but is that really the case? We speculate and discuss what this could mean for the brand and the broader cigar market.

Special Guest Interview with Terence Reilly: We sit down with the one and only Terence Reilly for an exclusive interview! He shares some wild stories, including his latest hotel mishap. You don’t want to miss the hilarious and shocking details of what happened!

Listen to this packed episode for all the details, insights, and more from the world of cigars and beyond!