ACHP: Episode 392 – Tech Turbulence, Cigar Drops & The Hustler Summer Tour
Episode Summary
Episode 392 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast opens with the crew running through the week's event calendar — Harrisburg Beer and Cigars, the Pennsylvania Crawl at the Vault, a whiskey pairing at Blend and Barrel in Sanford, Florida with Posagna, and a ticketed July 5th Hustler Experience private barbecue dinner with Skip Martin of RoMa Craft, which will include a live podcast taping and a RoMa sampler pack for the 24 ticket holders. They also plug the limited-edition Independence Day BDP tank tops at chpod.com.
The centerpiece of the first half is a surprise phone call to Jack Torano of Espinosa Premium Cigars, who ribs the hosts over their Patreon-only ranking of favorite Espinosa personnel (Tyler, Jack, Hector, Richie, "five guys we don't know," then Gavin), the long-running "Juan Jennings" gag, and the Hustler network's Buffalo-based sister show. Torano's call drops mid-conversation — fittingly, since the crew had just been debating the newly announced Trump Mobile and its $47.45 T1 plan. That leads into a long tech and news block: the Apple WWDC announcement of digital IDs in Apple Wallet for TSA domestic travel, the Thursday Google Cloud/Cloudflare outage and what it says about internet fragility, the manhunt for the suspect in the Minnesota lawmaker shootings, and media literacy in an age of unfiltered information.
The cigar news segment covers George Rico of Gran Habano being appointed to the PCA board following Max Bichler's resignation from both the board and his role as national sales manager at Rocky Patel Premium Cigars; Eladio Diaz announcing his second core line, La Diana, from Tabacalera Diaz Cabrera, with an Ecuadorian Habano 2000 wrapper, San Andrés binder, and Dominican Criollo 98, Negrito and Peruvian filler across three sizes; Sir Passion Cigars' veteran-themed Queen of Battle Toro from Tabacalera La Isla; and Espinosa shipping three releases — Knuckle Sandwich Chef Special 2025 (Brazilian Mata Fina, $16), Knuckle Sandwich Puro Nicaragua, and the 601 La Bamba Warhead Independence Day ($18) — all from the San Lotano factory in Estelí/Ocotal. They also discuss Peter James Company discontinuing its leather cigar cases and share their own real-world answer to cigar travel: a Ziploc bag or a RoMa Craft ruck case.
The episode closes with "What's the Score?" — guessing halfwheel scores on Patrick Lagreid's reviews of the Tyson 2.0 Undisputed Habano Toro (which scored 87 despite serious combustion and burn issues) and the Gurkha Year of the Snake by Oscar Valladares (89, strong first two-thirds, weaker finish) — followed by Shops of the Week (Harrisburg Cigars and Cigar Vault Oakdale) and Listener of the Week, Mitch Smith.
In This Episode
- 01Events of the Week & Hustler Summer TourHarrisburg Beer and Cigars, the Pennsylvania Crawl at the Vault, a Blend and Barrel whiskey pairing in Sanford, and a July 5th ticketed Hustler Experience dinner with Skip Martin of RoMa Craft.
- 02Surprise Call: Jack Torano of EspinosaTorano calls in to razz the hosts over their Patreon ranking of Espinosa staff, the Hustler network's Buffalo sister show, and the infamous 'Juan Jennings' bit before his call abruptly drops.
- 03Trump Mobile & the Celebrity Telecom TrendThe crew debates whether the Trump Organization's $47.45 T1 plan can survive against Mint Mobile and the major carriers.
- 04Apple Wallet Digital IDs and the Google Cloud OutageWWDC's digital passport IDs for TSA checkpoints, plus what Thursday's Google Cloud and Cloudflare outage revealed about internet fragility.
- 05News Roundup: Minnesota Shootings and SportsThe manhunt for the suspect in the Minnesota lawmaker shootings, media bias, and the Desmond Bane trade to the Orlando Magic.
- 06Cigar News: PCA Board, La Diana & Sir PassionGeorge Rico replaces Max Bichler on the PCA board, Eladio Diaz announces La Diana, and Sir Passion Cigars releases the veteran-themed Queen of Battle.
- 07Espinosa Ships Three New ReleasesFull blend, size and pricing details on Knuckle Sandwich Chef Special 2025, Knuckle Sandwich Puro Nicaragua, and the 601 La Bamba Warhead Independence Day.
- 08Peter James Cases & What's the Score?Peter James retires its $945 leather cases, the hosts share how they really travel with cigars, then guess review scores for the Tyson 2.0 Undisputed and Gurkha Year of the Snake.
Brands & Cigars Discussed
Linked items are in our shop. Mentions without a link aren’t currently stocked or couldn’t be matched with confidence.
Transcript
and go welcome to episode 392 of the cigar hustler podcast hi hi michael how are you All right, fine, how are you today? We're going to have a surprise call here, we're going to call Jack Taranio, just so you know... Well, now it's not a surprise. Oh.
Well, surprise. Surprise. I need you all to act surprised when we call him. Act surprised when he gets to the point.
But he's texting me Hari, so we're going to have to text... Oh. We're going to have to call him soon. You want to do it first?
Yeah, we'll have to do that first, I guess. All right, let's do the events for the week, and then we'll call Jack. Okay, events for the week? All right, these are the events for the week.
Mike and I will be at Harrisburg Beer and Cigars this Friday night. m. Yay. And then Saturday, we're part of the Pennsylvania Crawl.
It's very slow. I don't know how you can go faster. Yay. Well, it's a crawl.
m. We have to be there at 9. 30, but we have to be there at 9. Okay.
m. until we leave for the airport. Okay. We're there for all day.
All day long. Then June 26th, I'll be at Blend and Barrel in Sanford, Florida for a postagna and I put Doral, but that sounds wrong. , and then finally on July 5th, we have another Hustler Experience event here at Cigar Hustler, it makes no sense, with a private dinner ticketed with Mr. a.
Chip Martin of Romacraft, it's a barbecue dinner and a sampler pack full of Roma cigars, be a live taping of the Cigar Hustler podcast, Mike. Yes. Just so you can get ready. And ticket holders will get up to 15% off any Roma product on the day of the event by showing your ticket.
Really? Only 24 tickets will be sold, so get them early. Get there early. Bada boom.
Get your tickets now. And. And. There's more.
Guess what? There's more. 4th of July is coming around the corner, sir. Boom, boom, boom.
Are you prepared for 4th of July, Mr. Palmer? I happen to be, yes. I'm getting a lot of use out of my preparedness.
As you have, an Independence Day BDP tank top. Yes. Yes, we made limited edition BDP tank top shirts. Tank tops.
Tank tops. Not shirts. The tank tops. They're red.
They're awesome. And if you buy one, you get the second one 40% off. So I could buy the original BDP shirt and the tank top? That's correct.
You can buy the original BDP and the independence BDP and get 40% off on one of them. That's quite a deal. Yeah, it is. com and get your shirt today.
Go there now. Right now. All right, let's call Jack. Oh, we're calling Jack?
Yep. Surprise. Oh, my God. He's so surprised.
Get the headphones out. Now, still, you have sound in one side of your ear on these things. Only one ear? Say something.
Oh, yeah. Something. I'm okay with that. Yeah, that works for this.
Durr, durr, durr, durr. He says hurry. I can't believe we're calling Jack. I can't believe we're calling the Jack.
You're calling. Oh. Oh, oh, oh, hello? Hello?
Cigar industry portal, may I help you? The one and only Jack Tarano of Espinosa Cigars. How you doing, buddy? You guys got headphones.
You're all grown up. Yeah, it's been a little while, and I know that you missed us, and you guilted me into this, and here we are. Here we are. I'm so surprised.
You know, the show needed some flavor, so we figured, one of a little bit. But we figured, why not call Jack Tarragno? Yes. Well, I mean, the Patreon had a lot of flavor when you went after Gavin.
That was quite entertaining. Yes, without going too far into detail, because it is Patreon material. But what we did is we ranked our favorite Espinosa guys. By the way, I'm sitting here with Hector, and he's shaking his head right now about your ranking.
He says I was third. Oh, wow. Well, yeah. Number one in our hearts.
Yeah, number one in our hearts. Yeah, just third on paper. He's, according to the Espinosa org chart, he's on the same level that Boots is on your chart. Wow.
Wow. Wow. Well, you know, if he didn't drive recklessly and, you know, possibly die, maybe he would have been number two, because then he would have been a PCA and, you know, he could have bonded a little more. You had to ding him.
You had to ding him for driving. Absolutely. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Even him. So there's a penalty for that. So yeah, so Gavin ranks kinda low, yeah, and I got a little aggressive text from Gavin as well. Did you really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he said Greg's my number one or something like that. I go, that means nothing to me. Yeah, we don't even know who Greg is.
That means nothing. Gavin doesn't know who Greg is. Yeah, Gavin doesn't know who Greg is. Yeah, exactly.
Do we have a Greg? I think he said he loved Boots. Oh no, it was Boots. He goes, "Boots is his number one," and then he listened further into it about the $10 million ball tickling.
He's like, "You know what? " Wow. Boots is your favorite. Does he still have to pay for the $10 million?
Of course. I still think that the funniest thing in that was you ranked everybody and you said it's Tyler, it's Jack, it's Hector, Richie, five guys I don't know, and then Gavin. I thought that was great. Yeah, exactly.
100%. 100%. So, anything else fun and exciting that you're going on, other than the fact that you're enjoying the Patreon, and you're having a good time with that? Oh yeah, absolutely.
I don't understand why anybody in the industry is not a member of that. This show is peanuts compared to the Patreon. I agree. I totally agree.
And this is a great show. Yes. Yeah, it is a great show. Wait till you hear this.
It is a great show. This week's Patreon is good. You know, you know, having Palmer reading local sports or whatever, or the national sports scene is quite entertaining. Of course.
There's nothing better than when he said Juan Jennings for me, though. I just want you to know. No, no. I remember that.
Yeah. You talked about Jawan Jennings and you called him Juan. Oh, Juan. It was spelled J-U-A-N.
Fucking Juan Jennings. He was in cigar mode. I just want to know, to this day, people that hardly listen to this podcast, they mention to me Juan Jennings. Oh, nice.
Yeah. Cinco de Mayo, Juan Jennings. It doesn't matter. Juan Jennings, yeah.
I heard that podcast and Juan Jennings got deported. Juan Jennings, he's out of here. He's out of here. Well, thank you for always being a fan and a great friend, dude.
We appreciate you and you're always welcome on the show, especially if you want to tell us. We appreciate you. We appreciate you guys. Let me ask you a question.
Uh, did you receive the new stuff? Did I see what? Did you receive Chef Special? No, not yet.
No, not yet. We must be lower on the list, uh, than you are on ours. Yeah, you know, yeah, exactly. You know what it is?
I think Hector was in charge of that. I was in, I was in, I was in Buffalo or you guys would be, uh, yeah, Hector says he, you don't need to use his name anymore, just number three. Oh, number three. I was on one of your sister shows in Buffalo, and I took a little shot at Palmer on there, so you guys may want to listen.
Oh, yeah, we'll have to check out that down to her for sure, 100%. That down to her was fun when it came to the topic of you guys, and I had to take my little shot at Mikey Palmer. And I know the shot, and I won't ruin it. I won't ruin it for you, Palmer.
for you, Palmer. You're going to love that. You're going to love that. Oh, boy.
All right, brother. Well, thank you very much, dude. Go ahead. Oh, that's it?
No, what else do you want? What else? Keep going. We got to go.
We got to call Hector. We got to call Hector. We got Gavin. I'm next.
Hector said good luck. So what are you saying? Go ahead. Continue with the down to her.
That you guys had good insight picking those guys up, man. Those guys are a lot of fun, their podcast is, I don't want to say as entertaining as yours, but it's right up there, because they know how to make it flow and add fun to it, and it's not like normal cigar podcasts. It's really cool. Yeah, I agree, man.
It fits right in in the Hustler family. They did an interview with me when I went up there a few years ago, and they were really cool, and I gotta be honest, you gotta give Boots credit for bringing them onto the network. So, Boots is the guy. Appreciate that.
Never mind that. I don't want to give Boots credit for anything. That is a terrible idea. I don't like it.
Those guys suck. What were you guys thinking? What were you guys thinking at all? So, yeah.
Absolutely, man. You gotta give credit where credit's due. Always. You know?
Well, you haven't called me in two months and you want me to give Boots credit? Jesus Christ. Yeah. That's it.
It's a new dawn. I told them to call you today. So, who's entered the portal? Who's entered the portal?
You guys know better than we do. Dude, there was one guy from Rocky Patel last week that you kept calling Bichler or something. Max Bichler? Max Bichler.
Bichler. Bichler, I like Bichler. Bichler, or Bichler if you're Mike Palmer. Exactly, Mr.
Bichler. Exactly. Can't wait to see him next year. Which is kind of interesting because, you know, we're well into the year and usually you don't see that many transitions.
You know, enter the portal was something that we were trying to cover Q1 of the year. Right. And you're already kind of approaching end of Q2, so. Is our boy, uh, is our boy still in the portal?
Which one? Oh, come on. I need to, I need to bring up the name. He, he, he...
You're talking about Casey? No, no, uh, uh, no, uh, uh, you gotta give me something to go off of here. Our buddy in Houston, the McAuliffe rep. Oh, uh, uh, I think he is...
I think he's still in the portal. Yeah, I think he still is. Still in the portal. He won't leave.
I feel for him. Grass isn't always greener. That's the sad thing. Well, listen, you can't say that.
You could say that if he left to go to another company, but he didn't leave willingly. It's not like he was looking for greener grass. But didn't he leave prior to that? He was in another organization, I believe.
He was grazing on the McAuliffe grass and didn't want to get out of there. Do they have grass? They don't have grass. I think I lost them.
You lost who? Their headphones don't work. Oh, we're hearing well. Well, all right, boys.
It's been fun. That's it? Jack, did you pay your bill? And he's gone.
He's gone. We were still talking. That was it. Verizon cut him off.
Oh. We were still talking. Well, now Hector's number two. We were still talking.
You should call Hector's phone. Yeah, call Hector. Hector's Number Two. New Number Two.
We have a phone call powered by Verizon. Wow. Alright, I gotta take these headphones off now. Yeah?
I don't like them anymore. Unless if you watch the old shows upstairs, it looks so much better without. You don't want them to call Hector? Well, you can call Hector.
We're gonna call Hector. Ask if he's in charge of paying Jack's expenses for his cell phone. He's not gonna answer. There's no way he answers.
Call Eric. I can't believe Jack would think we would just hang up on him. Yeah. " Yeah.
Should I answer? Hey, this is Hector, go ahead and leave a message. Wow. Here's a call marker, go fuck off, okay?
Alright, well there you go, Jack Toronto and Hector from Espinosa Cigars. All right. If you're a telemarketer... All right, trending news...
What? That was incredible. Trending news, tech shifts in cigar industry highlights. In this episode, we break down...
I gotta speed this up, this is too slow. Top trending stories from the intense manhunt for Vance Boatler to the suspect behind the deadly shootings of Minnesota lawmakers, To Apple's big announcement about digital IDs in Apple Wallet for domestic travel, we also unpacked Thursday's major internet outage and what it revealed about our online infrastructure. And the announcement, Trump Mobile Cell Service, we said that today. On the cigar front, we've got big updates, George Rico joins the PCA board, Eladio Diaz unveils La Diana, and Espinosa rolls out multiple new releases including Chef Special 2025 and the patriotic warhead Independence Day.
Plus West Tampa Tobacco, Dark Time is hitting shelves, and Peter James Company is retiring his iconic leather cases. Oh. 0 Undisputed, Habano Toro, the Gurkha Year of the Snake by Oscar Valladares, and then we have two Shops of the Week, two Listeners of the Week, so light one up and enjoy the show. I don't think you're going to do well on either one of those scores.
Those are tough right there. Tough cigars. Well, I've got to notch it up here. You guys are getting too good at this.
Before we start real quick, I'd just like to know, what cigar are you smoking? Me? I'm having a Posagna Habano Corona Gorda. Nice.
Are you smoking one, Palmer? No, not at the moment, no. Okay. I just wanted to see what the new cigar was versus, we already did the Patreon, so.
Yeah, I moved to that one. That's what everybody's gargling with. Yeah. I moved to Posagna Habano.
S. telecom providers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. A big part of what we've done has been focused on technology for people who have been undeserved, whether that's been in crypto or anything else, but one of the places where we felt there was lackluster performance was in the mobile industry. Okay, you go, is this like another Obama phone?
No, no, this is not associated directly with the president, this is his son. Oh, so he's building a new corporation. Donald Trump Jr. 45 a month plan on apparent reference to President Donald Trump's term as the 47th and 45th President of the United States.
With Trump Mobile, we're going to be introducing an entire package of products that people could come, they can get telemedicine on their phone for one flat monthly fee, roadside assistance in their cars, unlimited texting to a hundred different countries around the world, Trump Jr. said the announcement, timed to coincide with the 10 year anniversary of the day, Donald Trump took the golden escalator down to announce his two thousand, he has a golden escalator? Oh, yes. Probably.
Sounds great. Yeah. To announce the 2016 presidential run marks the latest expansion of the Trump family business into tech, cryptocurrencies, and media. It's happening.
The Trump organization is... That was timed perfectly. If you guys want to use that for your commercial, feel free. Organization and a main holding company for President Trump's private businesses, and it is run by his eldest son, Eric and Donald Jr.
The Trumps emphasized the new mobile company's focus on American-made devices. -based services. It's gold? Gold-hued, gold in color.
Yeah, it's not real gold. So they've announced they're starting their own telecom service, like every other celebrity is doing now. Like Mint Mobile? Oh, like, well, that's just the one, Ryan Reynolds?
Yeah, isn't there another one? I thought there was another one. I don't think so. Ryan Reynolds is Mint.
Yeah, he's Mint Mobile. Okay, so here's my question. Yes? Do you think it fails?
Boots? No, not with that guy. You don't think it fails? No.
You think it works? Why do you think it'll work? Just because it's Trump? Yeah.
Yeah? Yeah, I mean, first of all, the pricing's great. Okay. 45.
45. Yes, yes. And then, I mean, secondly, he's the president, right? So right now, he has all the infrastructure plans for any type of telecom towers or needed telecom towers in areas or whatever, so I'm sure he's going to probably pass some bills or grants.
You don't think that's an abuse of power? Mmm. That sounds extremely illegal. It does sound extremely illegal.
I would feel like an abuse of power would be only for his needs. Yeah. I mean, he's kind of helping us out, because don't get me wrong, I mean, your call just dropped on Jack, right? - That's 'cause I'm on the Trump plan.
- Are you switching? - Yeah, that's a new one. - Boots, are you switching to Trump Mobile? - If it's a good coverage, yeah, sure, I'm in.
- It's the best coverage. - It's the best, it's got the best. - It's got the best signal. - I'm in.
- A huge signal. - A huge signal. - There's gonna be signal. You're gonna have so much signal, you're gonna have cancer in less than six months.
- I mean, my bill now is $400. - That's, yeah. 95 per phone, you could have like 17 phones. - Yeah.
- Well, do you have, or is that, do you pay for your phones monthly or whatever? Yeah, monthly. Yeah. Oh, that's the charges for the phone.
Yeah. On top of that. So you, but you think it'll work. Yeah.
You think that he said Trump is a work. Yeah. I think anything that guy usually touches is pretty good. Okay.
Have you ever heard of Trump vodka? I've never had that. Is there a Trump vodka? There was.
Oh. That didn't work apparently. You ever heard of Trump University? Was there a college?
Was there? Oh, there was. There was a school. Oh.
Okay, so I'm like, listen, you know. So you might want to keep one phone on, like, AT&T. Look, all I'm saying is, okay, but what about you, do you think it'll work, or? Well, I don't know, you listed all those other things that didn't.
I mean, look, the reality is that if you're a businessman, you're going to have businesses that succeed, and businesses that fail. Oh, I think all the Magnum people, or MAGA, whoever it's called. Magnum people? The people that like Magnum PI?
Those people. They're a huge fan base of Magnum PI, and they happen to like Trump as well? Yes, they're all in Hawaii. Not to be confused with the Trojan people.
Yeah, right. Yeah, completely different people. I think there'll be a surge here, people have signed it up, and then as they find out, maybe it's not that good. Yeah.
It probably dies off, we don't hear about it after a year or so. I honestly don't think it'll succeed. I don't think it'll succeed. You know, I don't think that he's been in that landscape.
I love it, I love it. You're fine, dude, you can come in. Ziggy, you can come in. You're fine.
It's open to a studio audience. Look, we got ginger sitting over here. Feel free to move about the cabin. Yeah, it's just like Family Matters.
No, I don't think it succeeds, you know, I just, this is a whole field of technology that's kind of succeeded forever, and unless you can really provide something that's new and extremely valuable, you're just another person in that landscape, and you're going up against giants that have been in this industry. Supposedly Mint Mobile does well. Yeah. Does it say who he's partnering with?
Okay, but Mint Mobile was designed to really kind of provide value as far as low cost. Right. And then they had the character, right? So that works.
This isn't less than Mint Mobile. I think it's about the same price. I think they have a $47 plan. 99.
Is it? 99. I don't know. We only had somebody who could look this stuff up while they're smoking their cigar.
99, that's the same price as the $47. So you're not, again, there's nothing, you haven't added anything with the, for more value. He shouldn't be allowed to put his name on it. I understand it's his family's name.
He shouldn't be allowed to call it Trump Mobile. Yeah, it doesn't sound, it doesn't sound like a good idea. Like none of this sounds. No, I mean, because it's obviously directed to him.
So I mean, he's going after his fans or supporters. Well, they're calling it T1 Mobile. T1 Mobile? Yeah, it's, the company is called Trump Mobile, but the, like, yeah, they serve the, the, it's a T1 phone or something.
Yeah, it's called the T1 mobile. I don't know, I don't think it's going to work. And it's working with all three major companies with 5G. Right, so he's just attaching to the other.
So you, you work on the AT&T, MC, whatever, Verizon. So you're on their towers, obviously. Well, you can't put up his own towers. Why not?
He's got Trump Tower. Because that's a lot of money to go around and put up towers everywhere where there's already towers. Right. So that's my point.
Again, same scenario. You're not going to add value in that realm if you're using other people's... Well, the way it works now, does like AT&T own their own tower and then somebody else has their own tower? I think they're all on the same tower.
I think they do. Yeah, no, they're all on the same towers. Right. Somebody else owns...
They're all on the same towers? Somebody else owns the tower. Have you been flipping? I know they...
Yeah, I've been flipping. I used to work on some of the mobile towers, on the cell phone towers. Yeah, I've got a friend who works on the towers and I've got friends who they get paid a monthly lease, let's say, for the tower to be on their property. Right.
You also get 24/7 roadside assistance through Drive America. Yeah. Right, and telemedicine. Yeah, telehealth services.
I'm not sure what that means. Yeah. I call order pills, I can do that with Walgreens. No contracts, no credit check.
Yeah, nothing is, like nothing, I'm not like, oh wow, that sounds awesome. Well, it's got the Trump name on it. You know, like, when your phone rings, it plays Hail to the Chief. Free international calling.
Hail to the Chief? Yes. Yeah. Wow.
When it rings. When he calls, does he call? He calls everyone who has one. He calls every T1 person?
Yes. Once a month. Once a month? Once a month.
Hey, this is President Trump. It's probably going to be a recording, I'm wondering. I just want to say thank you. Thank you for taking this huge call.
Hello, this is President Trump. I don't think he has that accent. Yeah. Oh, you don't think it's going to be a call center?
Oh. It's an Indian guy? Yeah. Great.
Ah, we're racist again. And we're back. Yeah, we're back. Okay.
All right, news on the manhunt for the gunman who shot Minnesota lawmakers. Did you guys hear about that last week? I did. I briefly saw it.
I don't know any details. I don't know, like, where the lawmaker is, if he's Democratic or Republican or anything. I know nothing about that. I know it happened in Minnesota.
Yes. And that's the only reason why I know. The search continues for Vance Bautler, 57, now in the FBI's most wanted list, suspected of killing Minnesota State Representatives, Melissa Hortman and her husband, and critically wounding State Senator John Hoffman and his wife. The attacks carried out while Bautler posed as a police officer occurred early Saturday morning.
Authorities believe Bautler may still be in the Midwest, possibly Minnesota or South Dakota. Probably South Dakota. Nobody goes there. Nobody's, yeah.
What are you talking about? That's where Mount Rushmore is. Yeah, but they only go there for the bike thing. Other than that, nobody goes.
Have you seen Mount Rushmore? It's a lot smaller than you think. You don't go to see the mountains? No.
I've never gone, no. I've never seen it either. What'd you bummer? You're older than us.
I helped build it. Oh. You chiseled it. I knew it.
We know that this man who will kill at a second, Warren Senator, Amy Klobuchar? Nobody's got a Smith or Jones name anymore. Bowler was last seen fleeing Hortman's home in a fake police uniform, driving a vehicle made to resemble a squad car. So he's in a fake uniform driving a fake police car.
com. The guy was caught last night. Oh, an update. Wow.
He was apprehended? He was apprehended. Where was he? Hold on, let me check.
At his farm in South Dakota. At his farm in South Dakota? We don't know if that's true or not. Governor Tim Walz called the shootings a politically motivated assassination.
Ginger's like our half-baked guy on the couch, apparently. You know, he was wrong about the cruise ship. He was totally wrong. So this guy could still be running wild somewhere.
The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to Boutler's capture. Unless it's already been done, then they... But apparently he's been apprehended. " I made some choices, and you guys don't want to know anything about this, but I'm going to be gone for a while.
Maybe dead shortly, so I just wanted to let you know, I love you guys, both, and I wish it hadn't gone this way. It hadn't gone the way? He flat-out cold-blooded murdered people, I mean... Yeah, but you wish you didn't have to.
Okay. I don't want to say anything more and implicate you in this way, but I love you guys, and I'm sorry for all this trouble that I've caused. And I killed some people. Authorities urged the public not to approach Boutler and to call tip lines with any information.
So why, so do we know why he randomly, or why he picked these people? Well, at the time I pulled this story, he was not caught, so. Okay, it says motive, they do not know his motive yet. He just kind of.
When do you have to shoot the husband and the wife there, I mean. He just lost it? And he cannot, it says that he said, he said, the suspect said that he cannot afford a private attorney, Because he only makes $540 per week and has no other sources of income. Well, he bought a fake police car, a fake uniform, and a gun.
He's been saving his money. You think this is a hit? You think this guy is like a paid assassin? Yeah.
Well, then he would have had a real police car and a real uniform. Not necessarily. I've seen the movies. Would have had to look believable.
I've seen the movies. In the movies, they have real uniforms and real police cars. What about like Manchurian Candidate? That's an old movie.
They didn't do it back then. Like he was, his brain was wired where he had to go in. Oh, is it one of those, like the Winter Soldier? Yeah, exactly.
Put it in terms of the current, you know, community. Community? Manchurian Candidates, a little old movie. I mean, our listeners are normally 25 and above.
Yeah. Well, so they like Marvel. So some of them like Marvel, yeah. I like Marvel.
Winter Soldier, he was brainwashed. I mean, look, this is a terrible tragedy, obviously. Yes, it is. Right.
And even though we're kind of poking lightly at it, like, you know, what motivates a man to do something like that? Well, well, if he is not a assassin, the only thing that's probably motivating him is they probably made some type of law that hurt his family or somebody he knows close to him. Yeah, I'm not willing to go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole on this one. No, I don't.
I just was kind of like the other guy, right? The guy that shot the head of health insurance guy, the health care guy, it's fascinating times we live in, man, it really is, there's incredible things going on that can be quite nerve wracking. Senators and congressmen obviously don't get any type of protection. No, no, they do, they have teams.
This guy walked right up to the front door. He's a lawmaker, though. Well, that's a congressman or a senator. Yeah, I guess you're right.
Knock, knock, knock, they open the door, bang, bang. Maybe they were off getting McDonald's, bro, who knows? It's like state police or something to protect them. Not secret service.
I don't, you know what, dude, I honestly don't know anything about the story other than the fact that this guy killed some people. Right. So, I'm not going to speculate, but, you know, it's kind of crazy, dude, it's just crazy. And the information online, it's on CNN, by the way.
Okay. That's where I got my story. Yeah, it's a, it's very vague. Like everything's very vague and information.
Well, you know, here's the other thing that's kind of crazy is we live in this world where we get raw data 24/7 fed to us all the time. Nothing checked, nothing filtered, you know, none whatsoever. And then even to a point where the things that were checked and filtered were appropriately or inappropriately filtered. So that we would believe them, and they were wrong.
Oh sure, they're all slanted in a certain way. So now we live in a society where nobody really knows what's right and what's wrong. And a lot of people have decided to pick a side. And no matter what that side says, they're gonna defend that side.
It's just, it's crazy. You know, so like, I don't know where the evolution goes in all of this, or what the progress is when it's all said and done. But you would guess that, I guess you would hope that humanity starts to kind of identify information as not etched in stone, right? Like...
Just not believing anything in here? You know, maybe believe some of it, but at least be curious enough about it to ask questions and not be solely invested in something just because it's your team per se. Right. If I see a story somewhere that would affect me or that I'm interested in, the first thing I do is I Google it and see if it's true.
Right. But it could still be false even if it's on Google. Right. Well, yeah, but normally it's the original one that you find out is not false.
Right. Do other countries have the same process we do with our media? Like, do they just do the raw and filtered stuff? No, a lot of countries have controlled propaganda that they release.
Canada has certain websites you can't get to, so that you only find out certain news things and stuff. Yeah, like you can't get the... They can't get like news from America and stuff like that. Yeah, you can't even get PBD Podcast up in Canada, which is insane to me.
Right. Yeah, China has no social media other than the one that they allow you to use, and it's mostly cartoon stuff. Do you think that's better? No.
No, my Chinese exchange student knew slanted Chinese history. There were certain things we would tell her about, and she's like, "No, that's not how we learned it. " You know, and it was like some massacre in Cambodia or something. Well, that's the, I mean, you know, but that's all, it's all perception.
" I'm like, "What? " She goes, "No, they're not. That's not what they call it. " Oh, yeah?
What's it called? " Are you sure about that? You sure? You sure about that?
Now she lives in Australia and she's like, "Oh, you guys were alright. " Oh, once she got out. Yeah. Crazy.
Outside the walls. Now she's outside the wall. Oh, I like how you did the little accent on the end. Wall.
What? Who? Me? Palmer.
You did it unknowingly, I think. Oh. Outside the wall. Outside the wall.
Alright, new Apple Wallet feature will allow digital IDs for domestic travel. No more Costco cards. No more Costco cards. We've abandoned the Costco cards.
Tech giant Apple on the day two of five of the annual Worldwide Developers Conference, the WWDC, where announcements are being made about what is ahead for its devices. One of the major announcements made on Monday was that the iOS users will be able to create digital identifications with their passports, which can then be used at the Transportation Security Administration or the TSA checkpoints for domestic travel. Now, the digital ID features will be available in Apple, will be available in Apple Wallet this fall, when the new iPhone operating system rolls out, Apple said. When ISO 26, what are we up to now, anybody know?
Who knows? Yeah, I lost count. I'll keep track of this. We're on, we're on 16.
I know that Mitch Smith downloaded the new one, he goes, yeah, there's, it's just clear. There's things that are clear on it, transparent. They also provide convenient access to a traveler's most relevant information, such as maps to navigate airports, find my to track important items and report missing bags and more. It's a digital ID is not a replacement for a physical passport and cannot be used for internet.
S. passports and present it at a select TSA checkpoints in the USA. A TSA spokesman told Fox Business travelers who may not have a state issued real ID will be able to present their digital ID using their iPhone and Apple Watch for real ID compliant passage through travel. TSA Airport Checkpoints.
Nice. So it's only approved in America. Yeah, it's only for domestic travel, but you have to have a passport to make this thing. Okay.
So if you don't have a real ID, but you have a passport? Yeah. I guess you could. Yeah, very possible.
I guess it is. Does it concern you at all that this is happening? I don't know if it concerns me. I mean, it's a natural progression.
Pretty soon there's going to be something built in a chip in our arm or something. Give me that. Just wipe your arm over the thing. Like Blade Runner.
" People will be chopping off hands. Oh. Well, I mean, if you walk up with a hand, Michael, and you, you know, go scan this. No, you chop off the hand, you get the chip, you put it in yours.
Oh, sure. Well, yeah, I mean, there's been movies where they did that. Yeah. How do you feel about teching?
I just, I feel like this thing that they've rolled out, I mean, yeah, it's always has to have some type of start to evolve. I just feel like it's making travel difficult. More difficult? More IDs?
More IDs? Yeah. Seems like a solution to the real ID problem. Well, I love, I have clear.
I love clear. Yeah. Yeah, that seems pretty efficient. I think I have clear.
I don't even know from time to time. More often than not, well, this is the one time that is where I get agitated with clear is you go in, you get the scan, and it's like, wait, it's you. Oh, we got to randomly prove that it's you. I'm like, son of a bitch, what's the point of the clear?
Right. Yeah, you took my bank account money. Right. Somebody else had my eyeballs?
Yeah, is it a different eye all of a sudden? Right. So silly. So whatever, it's just progress, you know?
Yeah. What about the people that don't travel often? They just need a real ID. Yeah, they just need a driver's license.
That's updated at the start. Oh, okay. But I mean, everybody has a phone, so. Yeah, you don't have, yeah.
Okay. Look, more, like that's the funny part to me, is more often than not, everybody has some form of identification. Right. Yeah.
I would assume. Well, you have to. Costco card or something. Or at least a Costco card.
Right. Yeah, but no, seriously. You know, I think that that's kind of a thing. You know, you should probably have an ID.
How do you not have one in today's world? How do you not have an ID? Yeah. I don't know.
I mean, that would make me concerned about who the person was if they really don't have anything. Yeah, you're not getting on a plane without ID. Right. Not in this day and age.
No. I don't want you on a plane if you don't have ID. Right. Exactly.
Because we can't stop them when we're all the way in the back. They're not coming past us. You know what I mean? We're by the stowage.
Right. So our upcoming trip. Speaking of which, speaking of which, speaking of travel, you have to check in earlier. Oh, yeah.
On your phone or we're going to be in the center seats in the back. Is that how that works? Yeah. There's still a cattle call boarding with Southwest, I believe, unless something's changed.
All right. I'll download the app. Yeah. I mean, you think that we would have a friend We have a friend that we could call, but...
No, we don't have a friend anymore. Apparently we don't. All right, the internet went down on Thursday. I'm sorry, can you get this knife out of my back here?
Right, exactly, because I can't take it on the plane. Yeah. And on this week's Patreon... Oh, that's weird, there's a gherkin knife.
Knife in the back, check out. We'll be covering. The internet went down on Thursday, here's what we know now. It went down.
Now back to you, Bill! We're getting a better picture of what happened on Thursday when a large swath... A swath? swath somebody pulled the plug of the internet went down yes i've got to kick the plug out oh shit went down and it's painting a picture of how fragile our internet ecosystem really is michael oh really when key cogs malfunction one crucial fact to understand lots of commonly used sites and services rely on a few major hosting providers yeah that's what it boils down to and if something goes wrong the downstream effects downstream effects can prove substantial as the outage Each event unfolded Thursday, early speculation centered around problems with two popular hosting platforms, Google Cloudflare platform, GCP, and Cloudflare.
Not familiar with Cloudflare. Yeah, me neither. But apparently it went down too. Some dark web stuff.
Any major problems with providers like this will result in lots of your favorite online sites and apps going down. Down Detector on Thursday saw users report issues at Twitch, Gmail, Discord, Nintendo, Switch Online, Spotify, and dozens of more platforms. Sounds like it's all game stuff. Gaming stuff?
Well, Spotify is music. Yeah, but still, it's not like American Express processing went down or, you know, you couldn't get into the USPS or something. Oh, it's probably the Harbor Science Center for Kids that did that. What?
You guys haven't seen The Accountant 2? No. Oh, okay, I'll leave it alone. Oh, yeah.
I didn't like the first one. The second one's great. The first one is okay. I'm not taking his movie, right?
He liked that other movie that time. What was the movie that he liked? Did he say it was great? I can't remember.
What was it? Great movie. Oh, Gladiator 2. Oh, it was real.
It was real. It was real. It was factual. It was from history.
It was a terrible movie. It was. They can't help it. It was real.
I eventually watched it. Oh, I watched it. I was like, this is god awful. Really?
They went, Denzel? No. Come on, we discussed this. What are the odds that in the first movie, the guy gets captured?
He's made a slave, turned into a gladiator. When his son is captured, turned into a slave, made a gladiator, and starts a revolt, I mean. But it wasn't even, but we never, did we draw the conclusion in Gladiator 1 that he was his son? No, we, they say that in 2.
That's what I'm saying. He was supposedly, he was the young boy, yeah, they never said anything about it. So she did talk about the kid's father at one point, but now that you know, it makes sense that she was talking about him, but in the first movie you didn't know. So, he's just out here dropping loads, Russell Crowe, I mean, like, I don't know.
Apparently, cheating on his wife and his kids. Yeah, yeah. Running around town just everywhere. Can we talk about his adultery?
I mean... Right. It's too foun, no, too foun. Hashtag not my gladiator.
It's too soon to fully declare what caused such a widespread issue. The internet, we take for granted every day, is complex, but a representative from Cloudflare, hmm, there's that name again, did blame Google Cloud. It wasn't us, it was them. It was their fault, not us.
See, we're all in the Google Cloud. No, it's not us. All right. The outages persisted on Thursday, and a company blog post is pointed to a third-party vendor.
Oh. We use the same towers, is what it is. They put Trump Mobile up in it. Yeah, the T1.
Is it just a coincidence, T1 was the Terminator 2? T1, the T1000? T1 Terminator, yeah. It was a T1.
It was a T1000. Oh, that was a T1. Yeah, I know. You may be talking about the ride at Universal Assist T2.
It's gone. Right, but maybe that's what he's referring to. Yeah, it's gone now. It's really cool, the new one, I like the new one.
The Bourne one? Yeah. This is a Google Cloud outage, a spokesperson wrote on a statement to Mashables. A limited number of services at Cloudflare used Google Cloud and were impacted.
We expect them to come back shortly. The core Cloudflare services were not impacted. An initial incident report from Google Cloud noted it had issues with its API management. Of course it's API.
It's always API. I could have told you that. You could have said that to him right now. I bet it's API.
The company reported the issues had been fully resolved about three hours later after they began. Okay, so are you okay with... I'm sorry. I like you have questions for every story.
This is a lot of information. Go ahead. So are you okay with this just kind of being openly spoken about, like, as far as the in-depth detail or whatever? Well, they haven't said how it went down, they're just speculating on all the causes, are you concerned with some type of tech- Cyber attack?
" Oh, we can knock out the API, it's fine, we knock it down. If we knock out the API, they will have no music for two days. No video games. We take over country.
No video games. That might be the best thing that ever happened to all of us. It might be. Shut down all the video games.
All the kids get up and start reading books, looking around at the daylight. Everybody gets bicycles again. No more classic clans. Bicycles?
Do they still make bicycles? Yeah, now they're motorized. Right. I was going to say, do they have pedal bicycles?
I got to say, it's one of the scariest things on the planet. Oh yeah, they're so fast. Yeah. They're a lot faster than when I used to.
You're seeing these kids get on these electric bikes, and they're going 30 miles an hour. There was a kid on the beach with a girl sitting on the back of it, had to be going 40 miles an hour. Yeah, it was zero hesitation. No helmet, no protective gear.
Yeah, no helmet, no protective gear, they're wearing bathing suits. And the five mile an hour zone for cars apparently does not apply to electric bicycles. Yeah, it's not the same. Not the same.
Yeah, we had a kid, we were practicing football, and we had a kid on his motor, his electric bicycle. Motorized bicycle? His electric bicycle, just drive right through our practice, just to be an ass. Oh.
" Yeah, he figures nobody could catch him. Yeah, just hit him with the foot. Baker Mayfield did that to somebody during one of the practices, before he was a buccaneer. I had to look at the footage, but he goes out and he dings the guy right on the helmet, like that's exactly what you should have done to said bicycle kid.
Right, yeah. But yeah, no, it's a, it's pretty intense, pretty, um, it's a lot, it's kind of scary. How many balls were on the field at one time when you were having a practice? Uh, when I'm having a practice?
Yeah. Ten? I would say, uh, six to eight-ish, eight, maybe? Still everybody, you should have as a practice, if you see the kid, everybody pick up a ball and everybody throw, somebody's gonna hit him.
If somebody, if we, if someone drives through this practice... Everybody can get to a ball, get to a ball and throw it at him. Before we get started. If you knock him down, you get an extra dum-dums.
At one, you get two dum-dums. You get two dum-dums at the end. Yes. Yes, two dum-dums.
Two dum-dums. None of that bullcrap cotton candy flavor. You don't like cotton candy? No, that's the worst one.
No, the root beer is the worst one. We've had this talk, it's the root beer. What? The root beer is gross.
No, it's not. Root beer is gross. Root beer is great. Root beer, as a rule, is gross.
I don't care if it's candy or the actual liquid. You're a horrible person. No, I don't like root beer. Yeah, you are.
You're evil. I don't like root beer. Root beer is great. You know, in the A&W, when they used to have those restaurants where you got the frosted mug and it looked good, still doesn't taste good.
It was terrible, huh? It was terrible. Whoever invented that. It's like bad coke.
I'm buying you a root beer coat. Is that root beer on it? Sport coat or a tie? Yeah, a little sport coat with all the root beers on it.
I'm going to look that up as soon as we're done here. Next week, you'll be wearing a root beer jacket. This show is sponsored by A&W root beer. So yeah, well, I mean, I'm glad that they were vague about what happened, But it's still, I don't know if I, that's a, I have to report it because everyone wants to know what I went down.
What's crazy is that they did report it because stuff like that happens all the time. I think that you should just put, yeah, but this affected stuff like upstairs, it affected a lot of our systems that we use in the shop. Yeah. There were things that stopped working.
Oh, I think you should have just propped a guy up. You could have AI generated a face and said, Earl is responsible for this. Oh, just pick somebody. Yeah.
And now, and we're handling Earl accordingly. Earl has been removed. Yeah. Earl is no longer at Google and is being recruited by Apple.
Google Cloud Share. Yeah. Yeah, he's been recruited by Trump Mobile. By T1.
T1. Okay. All right, Boots Trending News. Oh.
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. This just in. Hello, peoples. The Memphis Grizzlies are trading Desmond Bain to the Orlando Magic in exchange for Contavious Mike Caldwell-Pope, Cole Anthony, and several draft picks, according to ESPN's Shams Charania.
That's really hard to write. Oh, yes. These are sports names, not my fault. Per Charani.
Per Charani. In addition to Caldwell-Pope and Anthony. He played with Juan. Juan Jennings?
Yes. The Grizzlies will receive four unprotected first-round picks and one first-round pick swap. Memphis will get the number 16 selection in the 2025 NBA Draft and 2026 first-rounder, Máser, which originally belonged to the Phoenix Suns, and unprotected first round picks in 2028 and 29. The pick swap is for the 26th draft and will lightly protect.
No idea what any of this means. And will be lightly protected. Lightly protected, yep. Perhaps even more importantly, Bain is signed for another four seasons with five year, 207 million extension.
He signed before the 23-24 campaign. Yes. The Magic potentially have a core in place for multiple seasons. Yep.
Caldwell-Polpe, 32, moves to the sixth team of his 12 year NBA career. Anthony. 7 points per game. Sucked.
And shot 34% on threes. Terrible. Anthony, 25, was Orlando's 20 first-round pick. In 2020.
In 2020. First-round pick, number 15 overall. 8 points per game, shooting 35% from long range. Sometimes good, sometimes shit.
That was Cole Anthony. Is that the end of the story? That's the end. How do you feel about the, you know, dude, I can't believe you pulled that for him.
Because we were talking about this earlier today. Well, I figured I'd give him the sports story, because I have no idea what it is. It was Orlando Magic. That was a perfect fit for him.
Well, I saw something about Magic. Yeah. Yeah. How do you think, well, how do you feel about the Bain acquisition?
I like the Bain acquisition, I just don't like how many first round picks. You gave up a lot? I think you gave up a lot. 41% overall on three point.
That's not bad. No, no, it's not bad, but I like Bain. I like Bain. I think Bain will be a great pick.
Bane from Batman? Yeah, that's his last name. If my last name is Bane, I'm coming out with the mask all the time. We're in trouble.
We're still connected. Was that Jack Cohen? No. No.
Hector? No. No, still nobody. Tyler?
Let me just disconnect it from the- Keep guessing. Was it Tyler? Keep going. It was Tyler.
Was it one of the five people whose names we don't know? It was- Could have been, you don't know, you don't know their names. It was five of the people that we don't know that rank above. Ranked above.
Ranked above, Gavin. Oh, we say great stuff. Yeah. So, I mean, I think the Bane acquisition is pretty good.
Yeah. I think that, you know, you're keeping your- It's a good addition to the movie. I like that episode of Batman. Keeping your core magic people intact is good.
Yeah. You know? Who do you think they should have won for? The Joker.
Man, I mean, I've always been- He's not going anywhere. Joker? They're looking for a three-point shooter. I mean, I always like Buddy Heald.
Yeah? Yeah. It's my favorite person in the NBA that they should go for. You know what's funny is Palmer just said the Joker in reference of Bain and he didn't even realize that there's actually a guy that we call the Joker in the NBA.
Yeah. Nope. No idea. And he's really good.
No idea. Is there a penguin? He's Serbian. Yeah.
He definitely can't afford the Joker. How about a penguin? The penguin just got fired from New York. He was the head coach.
Oh my God. Yeah, he does look like the penguin. I don't know how you fire that guy. Yeah, I don't know.
take away his penguins take away his what take away his penguins take away his penguins penguin yeah are you referring to the original penguin no no i like the danny devito penguin yeah that well that's as original for me oh sorry the actual originals burgess meredith or something like that i don't like adam west batman all right you know we can't hear ginger in the background though so we can't we can't engage don't engage don't engage yeah let him rant all he wants because No one can hear him anyways. All right, okay. Are we moving on, or is that it? I think that's it.
You guys done being sporty? Yeah, we're done. Oh, okay. Done being sporty now?
We can move on? We're done being sporty. All right, Mikey has a story about hockey again with the sports, and John McTavish. Mikey, what happened with John McTavish?
Well, this is kind of social media trending, right? Ooh. Whatever you want to call it. I don't know.
So, yeah. Social media trending. So, my father-in-law is big into NHL. And whenever he kind of pops into town, he popped in a few, like a month ago.
And hockey made it on the television. Now it's hockey. Now we watched the Stanley Cup. We're watching everything.
It's exciting. Yeah. And the Florida Panthers are kicking some ass. They were doing great.
And they're playing up against the Edmonton Oilers, which is a Canadian team. So you have Canada, you know, like the apex of hockey, right? Supposed to be. Supposedly, or it used to be, playing against a Florida team in the overall finals, right?
Not one Canadian player on Edmonton. Really? I'm pretty sure. There's no Canadians?
No, no. That's interesting. So, Florida, I think they went up 2-1 in the series. So, what do I do?
I instantly start thinking, who do I know that's Canadian that I can harass about this? Oh, is he a hockey fan? And John McTavish. He's Canadian?
Well, I don't know if that automatically makes you a hockey fan. I think it does. It has to. Yeah.
Okay. We're American. We eat cheeseburgers and bacon. Yeah, but that's food.
It's not a sport, though. No, but if you eat Canadian bacon and eat those fries, they put gravy on. I feel like if you live in New York, you're a Yankees fan. Like, it's baseball, baseball, baseball.
Okay, all right. But not every single person. Yeah, but like, you know, Canada, every single person's a hockey fan. It just is what it is.
Well, your reference is a state compared to an entire country. Yeah. It's gotta be people in Canada that don't like hockey. Yeah, but what's the overall population in Canada?
Probably way less than what's in Texas. Probably like the same as New York City. What's the overall population in Canada? Same as New York City.
Yeah, right. Less than Texas. They're just spread out more. How many of the population in Canada like syrup?
40 million in Canada. All right. 40 million, that's not a big number. Don't we have that in Florida?
What's the population of USA? Way more than that. Billion. 340 million.
Right. So we have them beat. What's the population of New York City? So if we just went man for man, we could win.
There's 8 million in New York City alone. Okay. All right. So they're close to New York City.
Yeah. They're like the upper northeastern region. New York. It's not New York City.
It's New York. 2 million. Okay. So I mean like, you know.
All right. So you call John McTavish. Yes, I call John McTavish. Mike Cavish, and been breaking his balls about...
Hockey ever since. Yeah, and then they came back, it's 2-2, and then the Panthers won two nights ago, so now it's 3-2, and we're coming back to Florida. I think it might be tonight. No.
It's tomorrow. It's Tuesday. It's Tuesday. Tonight is Indiana, OKC.
Yeah. That's basketball, Palmer. OK. So yeah, so he's...
OK. I hope you got... Please, I hope the guy got that. Yeah, I got it.
Is that when Bane is playing? That's where Bane is, yeah. Oh, and the Joker. And the Joker, yeah.
Just not the Penguin, he's out. Penguin's out, no more Penguin. How about the Riddler? Is there a Riddler?
Uh, yeah. Oh, that's nice. So maybe you'll start watching basketball now, Palmer? Yeah, only if they dress up, only if they dress up like the characters.
Superheroes and villains. You know what, that would be a great publicity, though. To have them all dress up like their name. Yeah.
You'd have to sign a deal with DC. Well, one time, Joker did dress up like the Joker. As the Joker? Yeah, he had the suit.
Probably paid a fine. Maybe. So yeah, so I'm giving McTavish a hard time. If things go the way that I think they're going to go, like I thought that if Oilers had won this last game, it was done.
Edmonton would have won. Well, Edmonton did win the last. No. No, Florida won the last one.
Yeah. So right now it's 3-2. Yeah, 3-2. So, if the Panthers win, I think we need to call John on the show.
And we burn syrup. Burn syrup. And get his feelings. Not burn syrup, syrup's delicious.
No, they're practically our 51st state now. You didn't hear about that? Are they? Yeah.
I thought they took Buffalo. Did they? Damn. Did they?
Canada took Buffalo? Actually, I heard in negotiations as of recent, we were trying to give up California to Canada or something like that. Right, something. Please take it.
It's not worth it. We'll take the first round pick. What are you talking about, man? California's good.
There's still a lot of good things that come out of Cali. We never get the votes from them or anything. So what? There's still good tech?
There's good people in California. Well, I didn't say there was bad people, I just said California as a whole state. Yeah, you just hate California. It's the Mexicans he hates.
They're not there anymore, didn't you see? We cleared everybody out. We cleared everybody out. Ice went through and took them all.
Yeah. Gotcha. It didn't even matter, it was just kinda, you know, they winged it. Just a sweep, sweeping.
They said, do you know Spanish? Yes, you're outta here. You're outta here. He must not be an American.
No, they just reversed the sign down at the border there for him. They threw the border there for them. Oh, they confused them all and they went back. Yeah.
This way to America. They turned the sign around. Will you turn? Yeah.
That's not right. All right, Cigar News from around the world. You guys are not right. I'm not with them.
George Rico has been pointed to the PCA board. Oh, perfect Rico. George Rico, president of Gran Habano, has been named to the... There was a lot of jokes that I could have done here with your story.
Yeah. But I didn't. Jorge Rico. Yeah.
Is named to Premium Cigar Association board. His appointment, I'm thinking of the jokes now, comes as a result of the resignation of Max Bichler, who was elected to the board in April, tomorrow, June 13th, will be Bichler's last day as a national sales manager for Rocky Patel Premium Cigars, Inc. Previously, Bichler told Halfwell he intended to take some time off and also resign from the PCA board seat. That wasn't mentioned in the story last week.
No, I slid that in. Yeah. You think they'd have mentioned that instead of he was on The Amazing Race? Yeah.
You think more cigar related would have been more important? Right, one has some validity and the other one is insignificant. 2017, he was on TV. Yeah.
I'd like to thank the board for their confidence in me today and for this great opportunity, said Rico in a press release. I look forward to working with the PCA board and all of the PCA members to explore new ideas that will help our treasured industry thrive and grow in the coming years. Bichler and Michael Herklots of Fierro Tego were elected to spots which have a three-year term that ends in 2028. Rico was a logical choice, it just made sense, as he ran for one of the positions.
George brings a deep experience of the industry with him and has been working with the board already on several projects, said Todd Naif, president of the PCA board. He's very persuasive, I heard his name, I heard he's very persuasive. Todd? Yeah.
What happened to the little guys, he not in charge of PCA? Oh, this is the board. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was just on recently, I just saw him on a- He was just on somebody's show. Joshua Burski?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Joshua Burski, yeah, my little friend, he's funny. He'll be a great addition to the team. " Well, he shouldn't have walked up and introduced himself to me directly. Claudio Diaz announces...
Oh, that was it? That was the end of the story? It was a very brief story. That's all there was to it.
Okay, so here's what I got to tell you. George Rico is now on the board and Bichler is out. Yeah. So, like, if I ever leave one of these companies for whatever reason, one of these several successful companies, instead of stating something like, "Hey, I was on Amazing Race" or did a podcast...
You were on Amazing Race? all these other things. Yes, he was. Oh, nice.
No, Mr. Bichler was. Which season? Seven.
Now my jokes are going to be dead because you guys just wrote it out. No, he did, not me, I did not interrupt it. Now I'm moving on. Now I'm moving on.
I thought you were giving us insider stuff. That was it. I thought I was being serious. Go ahead.
Continue forward. Next story. Well, our friend Eladio is making a new cigar. Yeah.
Perfect. Okay, perfect. Eladio. Eladio.
Eladio. Today, Eladio Diaz announced the upcoming release of his second core line called La Diana. La Diana? Yes.
Whoa, what a change. According to Report by Cigar Aficionado The blend uses an Ecuador and Habano 2000 wrapper Okay So is there like a 2000, 2001, 2002? No, just 2000 Just 2000? Yeah Was it like an exceptional year that the wrapper came out really good that year?
Yeah Prolific And then we stopped making it after It's like, this was so amazing This is so amazing This is it Boop, it's over And then we canceled it Mexican San Andres binder and a filler that contains Dominican Criollo Criollo 98 Again, stop making it after 98. How come, this is an honest question, how come some of them they mention the year, some of them they don't? Because that was a peak year with good harvests. It was an exceptional year, it came out really well, so everybody should know that after 25 years we found some more of this and it's just sitting around.
Well, I mean, you know. Kind of makes it hard, yeah. The reality is, is it honest or is it horseshit? Right, yes.
Because I've heard stories that it's mostly horseshit. Allegedly. Well, you know, the problem is that it's all third world country, right? Right.
And there's no checks and balances. Right. So you're going solely off the word of people. They put this piece of blue tape over the top of it.
No, this one, yeah, yeah, 98. 99. Yeah, 98. Held it forever.
Held it forever. And this one, this one's a 93. It's been in the pylon room forever. It's been in the pylon room for so, so, so long.
Oh, and they also added Negrito. I'm sure that's a... Negrito? That's what it says.
That's what it says. Is that like that? Along with Peruvian Palo de Oro. Oh, there's cocaine.
Diaz says the beginning provides a creamy, sweet, and spicy profile that evolves into the strongest and most complex blend he has ever made. It's pretty complex, I'm not gonna lie. I'm gonna, uh, listen. You've had it?
No, I'm just saying. All the stuff you just said, there was a lot. Here's what's funny. If there's any validity in any of that stuff, it should be a really good cigar.
Really? Honestly. Well, it's a lot of you. It's a lot of DM.
But a lot of the Eladio stuff that came out, we didn't like. But this one's special. It could be. It's 25 years old.
Even if it's not 25 years old. Yes. Like it could be an actually good cigar. Sounds like a good mix.
It's very possible, yeah. I'm intrigued to taste it. Ginger is bored out of his mind behind you. He's pacing, he's walking around.
That's fine. Will we be able to taste it? Very distracting. Will you buy these?
Probably not. You know, Michael, it's offered in three sizes. Does Alfredo still handle that? Is Alfredo?
Was he supposed to? He was handling that. I don't know. That doesn't really...
He doesn't really pitch anything anymore, so... Yeah, he just brings candy. But he did, yeah, he came up, he tried to... A lot of candy.
He made amends, he made amends. Oh, did he? He came up! I know he came up, I didn't know if that made the amends.
Yeah, I'm fine, my love can be bought with M&M's. Oh. You know? Uh, speaking of which, Greg just pulled up with a bag full of M&M's.
And, uh, and, but he, I love him regardless. Oh, all right. 5x46. That's a great size.
Everything that you've said so far about this, I'm intrigued. So, what you're saying is that there's no way this cigar can be bad? I'm not saying that. No, any cigar can be bad.
It could still be bad. I mean, everything that he just said could be inaccurate, right? But, as far as Vitola and specific leaves that are being used for this blend, it sounds like it should be pretty damn good. Well, he's making three sizes.
A 5x52 for $11. Okay, wow. That's a good price. 50.
5x46. Right. Is it Corona Gordo? Yeah, that's the one I want to try.
They're being produced by Tablicalera Diaz Cabrera's factory in the Dominican Republic. Of course, because it's Eladio Diaz. Right. And are scheduled to ship to retailers during the first week of July.
" Diaz's mother decided to take her son to Panchito's small cigar factory, which was named La Diana. In honor of his granddaughter, Diaz would spend eight years working and learning under Bilorio, a company representative said images and official details of the new line would be available, would not be available until Thursday. That was a nice story. Do you think he's been smoking cigars since he was seven?
Probably. Third world country. Third world country with the timing, you know, been a long time ago. I'm willing to bet that he's been smoking cigars since he was seven.
And how old is Eladio? I don't know. He's 57. Do you know that or you just throw that in?
No, I just throw that in. It's like the same age as me. I've been smoking cigars when I was seven. Let me see if I can figure that out.
Would they have this on Google? I don't know. His age? Sure, Eladio Diaz.
He's probably got a wiki page. Really? Oh, I like his tip. I'm going to move on while you're looking at his age.
I guess because he's been in the cigar industry since he was seven. He's 71 years old. Oh, I was... No, you weren't even close.
Sir Passion Ed's Queen of Battle. 71. That's pretty, yeah. I mean, think about that for a second.
Hold on, before you move on. Okay. There's a strong possibility that this guy has been smoking cigars before double digits. Sure.
64 years. He's 71 years old. Right. I think he's 72 this year at some point.
Right. He hasn't had his birthday already? I don't know. I don't remember when it is, but he's got that wonderful birthday cigar.
Yeah. And he's still handling life? He's fine. Health-wise.
Oh, we're good then. Isn't that interesting? It is interesting. Just saying.
Just saying. But we're ridiculed no matter what for smoking cigars. Right, they're bad for you. I think I've asked this question before.
Have you ever known anybody that has died from smoking cigars? Cigar death? Yeah. You mean cigar-related?
Yeah, like they got cancer from cigars, or... Well, I don't think they can prove where you get it from. But no. No.
And if you get breast cancer, they don't know where it came from. Your breast. Yeah, but they don't know what caused the cancer to grow in your breast originally, other than unless you have hereditary issues. Right.
Genetics. Okay. All right, June 14th, Sir Passion Cigars will release its second cigar. It's called Queen of Battle, a new 6x50 Toro that uses an Ecuadorian-Canadicate seed wrapper over an Ecuadorian Habano binder and Dominican fillers.
I only pulled this story because I've never heard of this company before. Is that Juneteenth? June 14th? June 14th.
Like the company's first release, a 6x50 Toro called Valor, Queen of Battle, is made at Tablical Era La Isla in the Dominican Republic. Heard of the factory, heard of Valor, isn't, oh no wait, is Valor also one of the John Kearney cigars? Don't they have one named Valor too? No.
They haven't, yeah, I think Hu and Young had something new coming out. Called Valor? Called Valor. I think so.
What was the new Crown Heads that came out last year? I don't know. Or two years ago? I don't know.
Alright. Thought I'd start with a V. Company says, oh, we have them upstairs. Yeah.
It's not Valor, it's Valakari or Vendetta. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The company says that all the tobaccos used for this release were aged for five years.
Well, at least that's more reasonable. 99. It comes in boxes of 10. This is a regular production release.
S. Infantry Branch, which is nicknamed the Queen of Battle. The first units were authorized on June 14, 1775. In 1875, Sir Passion's logo is similar to the insignia worn by some units, Sir Passion is a veteran-owned business and donates a portion of its profits to the veteran support charities.
What about the blend? We went through that earlier. What was that? I wasn't listening.
I was looking at Ecuadorian Seed something. Ecuadorian Seed something? Yeah, I don't remember. It goes back up.
It's up there now. It's in the ether. We have a lot of smells of cigars to go over now. They released a bunch of them.
But you pulled this because you're interested in it. No, I pulled it because I've never heard of it before. Okay. I was just curious if you had heard of them.
And when I looked at the pictures, I don't recognize the gentleman either. What's the name of the company? Queen of something. Oh my god, I gotta go back.
Sir Passion. Sir Passion. Yes. I have not heard of Sir Passion.
I haven't either. Interesting. There's a lot of companies out there. There are.
There are. Espinota Ships Chef Special 2025 Knuckle Sandwich Puro Nicaragua. We didn't get it. And Warhead Independence Day.
We're still waiting. Still waiting. Espinosa Premium Cigars has begun shipping in three of its new releases today. The Knuckle Sandwich, Chef Special, The Knuckle Sandwich, Puro Nicaragua, and the 601 La Bamba, the Warhead Independence Day.
The Knuckle Sandwich, Chef Special 2025, is a 6x55 box press toro that uses a Brazilian Modafina wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and filler the first couple of years. We kept things very approachable, said Hector Alfonso, Sr. Master Blender for Espinosa Premium Cigars, via a press release when the cigar was announced in April, but with last year... Formerly number three on Cigar House's podcast, Ranging of People We Like in Espinosa, now number two?
And number one in our hearts. And now this Brazilian Montefino, we're turning up the flavor. This year's blend has a richness we know our fans will love. Pricing for the Knuckle Sandwich Chef Special 2025 is set at...
anybody? Anybody? - Oh, $16. - Bing, bing, bing, $16, you don't get to play because you got it right on the nose.
- Bam. - $160 per box is produced at the San Lotano factory in Oktol, Nicaragua, which did not burn down, with production limited to 2,000 boxes of 10 cigars. The Knuckles Sandwich Puro Nicaragua is a regular production line that wears black, silver, and red bands. Very fancy.
- Yep. - With a silver foot ribbon. - I'm interested in that one. - As for the blend specifics about where the tobacco comes from, from or varietals were not being disclosed as being offered in three sizes?
And? We're not saying. We're not saying. Wait a minute.
The Knuckle Sandwich Puro Robusto 5 of 52. Boots, you want to let you guess first? Price? Yes.
99. Michael? The Knuckle Sandwich Robusto Puro Nicaragua. $14.
50. Michael wins. He's closer. 99.
51 cents. 50. Exactly. Hey, winning is winning, buddy.
The Puro Nicaragua Toro, 654-1450. The Knuckle Sandwich Puro Nicaraguan Gordo, 6x60-1499. There's also proofs at the San Latino factory, which we mentioned in number now. Okay, so you got Chef Special coming out.
There's one more. Oh, sorry. Running out the new releases is the 601 La Bamba, the Warhead Independence Day, a special addition to the line that the company describes as a cigar I've had two. , again, master blender for Espinosa cigars, number two in the hearts of Cigar Hustle Podcast.
Number one in our hearts. Don't get him, he'll get a swelled head, stop. The box price, six and a half by 55 Turo. Unless you're a telemarketer.
Dressed in a red, white, and blue color scheme, the blend is a departure from previous Warheads, releases, uses in a dark Ecuadorian Maduro wrapper over a Nicaraguan binder and fillers, the company says the tobaccos were selected for their strength, balance, and complexity, with the intent of creating something more than just a cigar, but something that is a statement of growth and appreciation. We wanted to create something, you want to do Hector's voice? Me? Wait, wait, I don't know who the quote is from, hold on.
It's gotta be Hector. It's Eric, Eric, hold on, I can do Eric. Oh, okay. I'm gonna go to Mikey while you do it.
No, no. Oh, you want to write on him? Yeah. Okay.
Bro, we want to make something not only special, but different for our loyal customers, says Eric Espinosa, president of Espinosa Premium Cigars, via a press release. I can't wait, oh yeah. Press release, how'd they have his voice for a press release? I don't know.
I don't know, you have it. When the cigar was announced in early April, it's a cigar that rewards loyalty and sparks curiosity. These cigars are also made at the San Latino factory in Octel Nicaragua, which is apparently fireproof. They're production limited to 2,500 boxes of 10 cigars.
Pricing is set at, oh, who wants to guess the price of this new lovely Warhead? The Warhead? The Warhead. The new Warhead.
Limited. You can only get it if you're one of their big friends. 18 bucks. Oh, we got it on the nose!
That's what I was going to say. That's what I was going to say, good job. $180 per box. Even with the release of these three cigars, Espinosa Prima Cigars still has a number of new cigars to be shipped, including the 601 La Bamba Warhead, one re-up, the 601 La Bamba Warhead, six re-up, and the 601 La Bamba Warhead, 11.
Bing, bing. Okay. Now you can talk about them. Wait, hold on a sec.
Can we talk about how there was no Hector's voice in that whole thing? There wasn't. I don't know how to do Hector's voice. You got to work on that.
Yeah, I got to work on Hector's voice. All right, so Chef's Special? Yes. Nika Puro?
Yes. But it's also a Knuckle Sandwich. Knuckle Sandwich, Nika Puro? Independence Day?
Yes. Warhead? No, Independence Day is the Warhead. No, Independence Day is the Warhead.
No, and then the standard 601 La Bamba Warhead. Oh, you're talking about the re-up. Oh, but the re-ups aren't available yet. They're coming.
Oh, I thought that was it. The three that are coming out now is the Chef's Special, the- Nika Puro. Yeah, and Independence Day. Independence Day.
Which one is the best, or which one do you think will be the best? Boots. The Nika Puro. The Nika Puro?
Okay. Knuckle Sandwich Puro? Yeah. Do you think- Why?
My microphone is falling. One, I mean, I haven't seen a lot of that, right? Like, put out. I think we talked about this before.
A Nika Raguan Puro cigar? Yeah. Everybody does it all the time. Right.
But this is- But it doesn't happen all the time. But it happens all the time. I've seen it quite often. So it's happened all the time, but it doesn't happen.
Okay, so go ahead, continue. Keep going. I mean, I love knuckle sandwiches. The actual sandwiches or the cigars?
The cigars. Do you have a favorite in the knuckle sandwich line? Yes. Would you like to share?
Yeah. I do. Yes, I do, but I'm not telling you which one. I really enjoy actually the Connecticut.
The Connecticut. Yeah, I too enjoy their Connecticut. Okay, so you think that Niky Puro is going to be the best one? Out of those three.
Okay. The La Bamba has always been a little tough on me because it is such a intense cigar with pepper and everything. So that one's always been really hard to smoke. Okay.
And I think the Chef Special is going to probably be like... I don't remember it having a lot of pepper, but it was very strong. Which one? The La Bamba.
So which one are you excited about? I would like to do the La Bamba Warhead again. Or, yeah, the Independence. The Independence.
While I'm wearing an Independence BDP tank top. A limited edition BDP tank top? Yes. Order years now to get your segment on 40% off.
com. Excellent. I've had all three. I like that one more than the other.
You've had all three? Certainly. I don't think I've had the Chef Special. I don't know what to tell you.
You hang out with the wrong people. You know what? But I will say that that's the one I'm most excited about. The chef's special?
Uh-huh. Because you haven't smoked it yet? No, because it's Brazilian Matafina. Oh.
He likes Brazilian Matafina. Yeah, it's normally really good. He likes to smoke it while he's getting a Brazilian. What's that mean?
Wow. I'm not exactly sure what a Brazilian is, but they do the wax, but I know what to think. Oh, my God. You're getting a Brazilian?
Yeah. A Brazilian wax? Yes. Is this one of those weird house things you do again?
Yeah. Did you see how quickly he backpedaled once he realized? No, I don't know what it is. I don't know exactly what it is, but I know what to think.
Oh, I went on my secrets. He's like, oh, shit. He lobbed it up there, and he realized, like, he went to go pitch. It was an easy pitch for us to knock out of the park.
And, like, he ran up to the baseball and grabbed it real quick and said, no, wait, wait, wait. I don't know. I don't know. I don't even speak.
I don't know Brazilians. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I know there is a Brazilian waxing you can get. Oh, clean. You have no idea.
No, I don't know exactly what it is. I don't know if it's all the hair in the front, all the hair in the back, all the hair everywhere. I have no idea. Yeah.
Yes. Okay. Interesting. Yeah.
Interesting. I'm sure in another show you'll let us know exactly what it is. Well, I'll find out. Somebody is going to tell me now.
I'm sure you're going to... I'll probably get a call from Skip later today. It's probably going to be on your TikTok now. Oh, because I mentioned it.
If you think that Palmer knows what a Brazilian wax is, comment below and say Palmer is lying. He knows. On any platform. Comment on all of them.
Yes. That's good for the show to get comments. Yeah. And maybe you'll be entered to win something.
Who knows? Ooh. Okay. Are we done?
Yeah, we're done. 601 Independence when they come in. I like the fact that we're all differently excited about different cigars that Espinosa just came out with. Well, now Jack knows what to send to who.
Yeah. No, he's gonna send me all of them because I bought them all. Ah, yes, yes. Yeah, that's how that works.
I think one or two of them we already did on the Patreon, I think. Maybe the Warhead. I think we did the Warhead. Yeah.
I deep down got excited. The second one. He was sending us cigars. Yeah.
When you speak low, we can't hear you. Oh, I'm sorry. I have the microphone. I know.
And the headphones. I can hear you guys very intense. Perfect. Oh, we don't have headphones.
In my ears. So what did you say? No, I said, man, deep down I got really excited thinking he was going to send us cigars. Yeah.
No, it's not happening. If we ever got a package... No, I think... No, we did.
Brett Fry used to send us cigars. Never mind. He no longer takes my calls. Oh, I talked to him last week.
Yeah. I used to call him to be friends and be nice, so I called him every week to be friendly and be nice. He stopped answering. Aww.
Yep. I like Brett. Uh-huh. Okay, moving on.
A moment with Mikey. I'm zipping through a story. No, I'm zipping through a story. Why?
Because we're running long, and I need to get to the- What's the score? Yeah. Okay. This was a brief story about Tricky Ricky.
Peter James is discontinuing, I thought this was an interesting, Peter James discontinuing its leather cigar cases, Peter James company has announced that it will no longer be producing its signature items, leather cigar cases, the company said that rising costs of both labor and materials have led to exit the segment, it says that there are 40 of its flagship black label cases available, be it's website, the last of its existing information. These particular cases were made in Italy using Saffino leather for the exterior and lambskin on the inside. There's a cigar compartment that can hold five cigars, as well as pockets designed to hold a lighter, a cutter, as well as a larger storage pocket. The case is designed to be used with 60 gram Boveda pack, which is placed in the slot behind the cigar storage area.
While the cases are listed with a more than 35% discount, they still cost $945. God dog. They sound pretty amazing. They look beautiful.
Until he said that last sentence. I think they're a little expensive to carry around your, you know, $9 to $12 cigars in. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, there's a market for it, but maybe that market is extremely small. Like, you're talking about a percentage of a percentage of a percentage of a consumer. Right. You know?
Right. Is that why you found it interesting? Yeah, I thought there was going to be more tariff information, that had something to do with that, but that's probably factored into it. You know, it would probably help if you read them before you...
I don't have time, Michael. You said it was interesting. Very busy. Okay.
Alright, hold on, there's been deep gratitude for the unwavering support from our customers and community over the years, and yes, there's also great excitement as we look ahead to new chapters still to be written for Peter James. Okay, so you're going out, and you're going to meet up with a couple of buddies, and you're going to have some cigars, and you're catering. You're bringing the cigars for everybody. What do you carry your cigars in?
Me personally? Yeah. I have a handmade leather cigar case. You've seen it, but that costs like 50, 60 bucks, and it holds five cigars.
James Peter. No, it's not a James Peter. It's kind of outdoorsy looking, it's just leather with a leather strap. That's what you bring.
Yeah. And I don't like bringing it, but I mean, you have to, because then what do you do with it? Then you got to lay it on a table, and then you're worried about, you know, like if you're out somewhere, worry about it being picked up or something. It's, once you get so many cigars, and it doesn't really fit in your pocket that well, you're cramming in your back pocket if you wanted to.
Right. It's just an awkward thing. It's better with the plastic bag, and then you just, you're done. What do you, if you're going to meet up with people, what do you bring to smoke cigars with?
Your chest? Oh, thank you. Thank you. Stuff on your chest.
Yes, he's doing his job. I bring two, there's two different things. It depends on where I'm going. Okay.
If I'm just going somewhere, like it doesn't really matter. Yeah. Then I bring a Ziploc. Okay.
If I'm going to like a cigar lounge or somewhere, I guess nicer, or maybe somebody's house and I have like a select of cigars that I really want to share or have, I bring this, I got one of those Ruck, those Ruck carry cases from Roma a while back. Oh, okay. I carry that. I used to have like a little sling bag that I would carry sometimes, but I really like the Ruck bag better.
If you're going to a cigar lounge, you probably shouldn't bring cigars. I always bring cigars. You ever go to a cigar lounge? Yeah, I buy cigars at a cigar lounge and bring cigars.
I mean, it also carries my lighter and cutter and tools. I got to be honest, here's a big secret as far as if you're going somewhere, what do you use to carry your cigars? Just put it in a plastic bag. Just put it in a plastic bag.
There's no sense in having this eloquent travel case or whatever the case may be. You know, you're gonna get rid of those cigars, and then you're gonna be stuck carrying this thing if you're out for a long period of time. So I don't understand the point of that. Now, to be fair, let's say, I always have cigars in my car.
That's always in a travel case. So if I'm going to a friend's house or something like that, I may take the travel case out at that point and bring it in. But other than that, if I know that I'm going to be somewhere, like the travel case will be one place and I'll just put specific cigars in a bag and bring the bag and done. Yeah, or like if I'm out with my wife, I'll bring a couple cigars in my pocket.
Yeah, ooh, that's dangerous. Is it? Yeah, you can bend them and stuff. In your pants pocket?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that'll snap like crazy. I've done that more than once.
Oh, I've never had that issue. Okay. All right, now it's time to play What's the Score? What's the Score?
0 Undisputed Habano Toro reviewed by Patrick Lagrid. Oh, everything about this is going to be difficult. Patrick, Gurkha, Tyson, hmm. Have you smoked it?
No. I have not. I know where there is some. Yeah.
I know where there is some, too. I'm still not interested. Still not interested. 0 Undisputed Habano Toro reviewed by Patrick Lagrid.
0 Undisputed Habano Toro, Country of Origin is Dominican Republic, Factory Tabricolera El Artista, Wrapper, Ecuadorian Habano, Binder Indonesian Filler, Nicaraguan Undisclosed Criolo 98, 6x54, Round Cigar MSRP is $19. It was released in May of 2024, number of cigars released is 2,000 boxes of 15 cigars. And then he also smoked three cigars. Alright, first clue.
Wait, wait, wait, we gotta start off the red. Oh, I thought you got a clue first. Oh, okay, I'm sorry, go ahead. Am I going, is it my turn first?
No, I think I won first last time. Yes, you won last, you won last, didn't he win last week? I won last week. Oh, then you go first.
Okay, I'm gonna say, shit, 86. 86. Alright, Boots? These guys are really nice.
I mean, I'm gonna go 89. 86, 89. 2689. All right, first clue.
0 Undisputed Habano Toro does the opposite. But we don't know if that's good or bad. Yeah, right. Exactly.
Does he like that or does he not like that? You don't know. I'm going to stick 86. I'll stick 89.
All right. While I took a few retro hails in the first third, they weren't particularly remarkable or beneficial to the experience. Okay, so he doesn't like it. All right, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna, it's gonna lose a point for me.
So, 85. I'm gonna go 85. Booty? I'll go, I'll go, I'll go 87.
Ooh, a two point move. Yeah. It's cause I moved down a point. Yes.
None of the three cigars hit me with much of a nicotine punch. Okay. Yeah, so he's already, he was underwhelmed off the rip, and he's been underwhelmed this whole time, but nothing has really changed. I'm going to continue with 85.
Boots? 87. Alright, final thoughts. 0 Undisputed Habano Toro credit.
The profile was not what I was expecting for a cigar billed as having a Habano wrapper as instead of leading with the typical flavors of wood and pepper, the cigars started with creaminess and built those other two in by way of a steady The profile still gets to the point where it's easy to identify as a Habano-forward blend, it just takes a fresh way to get there, but I also have to hold the cigar accountable for its construction and combustion as two cigars were rife with problems, leaving one cigar to show what the cigar should do. Not only was combustion an issue in the first two cigars, but both had issues keeping their burn lines even, something I don't find in many cigars these days. So I'm left with a cigar with an impressive profile that can be quite good at numerous occasions and brings a seemingly new expression, a profile I enjoy, but a cigar that suffers from an issue seemingly plaguing the cigar industry as of late, if you're open to dropping $20 on one of these, you could come away with a pretty good flavor, experience, if you're willing to tolerate some pretty rough combustion issues. Damn.
This final thought was quite long. Huh? What are we currently at? You're at 85?
85. And he's at what? 87. 87?
Okay. Keep going. Somebody make a decision. Well, he goes first.
Yep, you go first. I think I'm going to go back up. I'm going to go stick at 86. Boots?
I'm going 89. Big mistake, Boots. It was 87. Oh!
Nobody gets that one. I was closest. Okay, we're doing closest to the pen. Okay, you got it.
I was closest. All right. All right, the next cigar. Well, what's crazy about that whole description, that whole thing, is he fucking hated it pretty much the whole time until the end.
Now, Palmer purposely gave you indications not telling you that he liked it or he hated it. He was just telling you things about it. Oh, right. Like CNN.
Yeah. Certainly. That's the way the game is played, gentlemen. Great.
Alright, this cigar is also reviewed by Patrick. A double Patrick. Double Patrick. Is this a historic one?
Uh, this is a little older, yes. No, it's not. Nope. It's, it's, it wasn't in this week's thing, but it's not that old.
Oh, I thought you were gonna, I thought you were always gonna do a new one and a vintage one. Well, there weren't any good ones, and I was trying to find two Patrick ones. Okay. Because we had not done Patrick.
Okay. Alright, the cigar reviewed is Gurkha Year of the Snake by Oscar Valladares. Okay, Honduran. Honduran, Serial Origin, Honduran, Factory, Oscar Valladares, Tobacco & Company, Wrapper, Undisclosed, Habano in parenthesis, Binder Honduras.
Is that Habano in parenthesis? Yes, it does. Binder Honduras, Filler Honduras, it's a 6x52, it's round, 1995, release date is March 2025, number of cigars released, 750 boxes of 10 cigars, that really doesn't make an average. It always, I think it makes a difference.
As far as the review, how many cigars they made? Yeah, because what's the price? 95, I said. Yeah, I mean like, I think at that point, if you're reviewing it, and you're like, oh, it's 20 bucks, but it's extremely limited.
Okay, I get it. All right. Vote. Fuck.
He goes first. Yeah, you go first, Esteban Boots. Oh, I go first? Yeah.
I'm going 87. I'm going 88. Alright, the first clue. First puffs of the Gurkha Year of the Snake by Oscar Valladares has woodiness and pepper with a dry earth-based note, a very enjoyable combination that doesn't steer my palate in any particular direction to figure out the blend behind the profile.
Which is a standard Habano. 87. 87? What are you going with?
I'm gonna, I'm holding fast right now, 88. 88. 88. Nothing surprising yet.
At the midway point, the cigar makes some rather pronounced changes. First, it picks up some smokiness in the retrohale, while the flavor gets just a touch ashy. The flavor gets ashy. Boots?
I'm staying at 87. I'm gonna go 88 still, because I feel like I'm gonna move up here. To be honest. Right.
At first, reminded me of Cheerios, but then things get a bit smokier and the pepper gets sharper. Now, not only hitting my taste buds, but the top of my throat with a bit of irritation. That's a really weird description. Bitch.
So, I'm sticking at 87. I think I'm going to jump down. I think Boo's just playing an average. I think I'm going to jump down to 86.
Down to 86. So, 86, 87. Yep. Yep.
The Gurkha Year of the Snake by Oscar Valladares is a thoroughly enjoyable cigar, one with a profile that leans into the Honduran roots, this must be the final thoughts, offering a profile rooted in earthiness, woods, and pepper with an interesting thread of creaminess that flows through those core flavors, first two-thirds of the cigar, very enjoyable, and may be a bit pedestrian in how the profile is established and involved, it checks the boxes, plays the familiar notes, and does so pretty proficiently. If anything, the final third comes up a bit short as the flavors separate into individual components instead of a cohesive group. While I didn't ever make note of the cigar being overly harmonious or complex, it is interesting to see what happens when the complexity and the harmony it did have erode as the cigar goes from being perfectly enjoyable to harder to embrace. And that final third tightened up, this could be really solid cigar.
For now, it's a good two thirds that I gladly smoke again. These guys get paid to write these reviews, right? Yeah, what's wrong with them? These guys are great.
Their, their writings are very good. I'm sticking at 87. That's a pretty good number. That's a pretty good number.
Oh, man. I'm going to go back to 88, because I don't think I can sit at 86, I don't want to take 87 and match him. Yeah, and then it wouldn't be in a tie. Yeah, that's stupid.
Well, it'd be a tie either way. If you were wrong, you'd be closer to the pen, and if you were right, you'd both pick the same one anyway. I know, I just can't, for whatever reason, I just can't. Well, no, if we tied, he would win for today.
I think the rule is, I think the rule is you can't do the same number. I think we should incorporate that. You can't pick the same, no? No?
Nah, nah. I'm gonna go 88. Boots, what'd you say? 87?
It's 89. Oh! Should've went up one, Michael. Oh, it's okay, I got one closest, I got one off by a...
That should be like, we should be keeping score totally and do like a monthly thing. I'm off by a point. So, like, that would be a half a point, 'cause you didn't get right on it, but you won for the day, so... Maybe we'll start doing that next week.
Okay. All right, Shop of the Week, Michael. Shop of the Week? Yes.
Harrisburg Cigars. Harrisburg Cigar and... BL Luxury? Or Cigar Vault?
The Vault Oakdale. Cigar Vault Oakdale. Listener of the Week? Listener of the Week?
Yes. Mitch Smith. Mitch Smith. That's a good listener.
Mitch Smith, Listener of the Week. Not Hector? We appreciate his listening. Because he's our third favorite Espinosa guy.
Number one. All right, it's been episode 392. Thank you everybody for listening. Thanks, bye.
Bye. Goodbye.
Show Notes
Episode Title:
Episode 392 – Tech Turbulence, Cigar Drops & The Hustler Summer Tour
📋 Episode Description:
In Episode 392, we’re lighting up the mics and breaking down a packed week. From Apple’s big digital ID update and Thursday’s internet meltdown to the Trump Organization’s new telecom venture—there’s no shortage of tech drama to unpack. Plus, we update you on the intense manhunt for Vance Boelter and what’s next for domestic travel with Apple Wallet.
On the cigar front: big drops from Espinosa (Chef Special 2025, Warhead: Independence Day), Eladio Díaz’s new “La Diana,” West Tampa’s luxury “Dark Time,” and Surpassion’s military-honoring “Queen of Battle.” We talk George Rico joining the PCA board and say farewell to Peter James' iconic cigar cases.
We also dive into our “What’s the Score?” segment with reviews of the Tyson 2.0 Undisputed Habano Toro and the Gurkha Year of the Snake by Oscar Valladares.
Plus, two Shops of the Week, two Listeners of the Week—and all the summer event stops from Harrisburg to Florida to our July 5th Hustler Experience with Skip Martin. Light up and tune in!