ACHP Episode 431 The Top Christmas Gift Of 2025
Episode Summary
Episode 431 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast features guest co-host John Carney of Bentley Cigars and Hooten Young filling in for Mike Palmer, alongside Mikey Pinkevich and engineer Boots. The first half is a wide-ranging non-cigar conversation: the executive order aimed at blocking state-level AI rules in favor of a single federal framework, the split reaction across party lines, the Tucker Carlson/Sam Altman interview, data privacy and subpoenaed AI chat logs, Elon Musk's plan to power data centers from orbit via SpaceX/Starship, the SpaceX IPO valuation, and a Chinese CAS Space launch that passed within 200 meters of a Starlink satellite (plus a primer on Kessler Syndrome). They also cover the surprise top Christmas toy of 2025 — the Nex Playground motion-tracking console and its Bluey licensing deal — and detour into Chris Collinsworth/Patrick Mahomes memes, Mahomes' season-ending injury, and 50 Cent's Diddy documentary on Netflix.
On the cigar side, the crew digs into Aganorsa Leaf's Supreme Leaf Toro 109, a 6 x 52 with a 109-style cap, Corojo 99-dominant all-Nicaraguan blend, made in Estelí, shipping February 2026 at $13.99 in boxes of 10. Carney explains why Aganorsa keeps releasing the same line in slightly different Toro vitolas — Toro in the 50–54 ring range is the best-selling size, and line extensions are far easier to sell into existing accounts than a brand-new SKU. He compares it to selling La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero extensions versus pitching a new line like Suave. The panel also ribs Aganorsa's "everything is Leaf" naming convention and jokes about Terence Reilly.
Other cigar news includes Principle Cigars' Haberdasher, a very limited 6 x 55 release with an Ecuadorian Habano hybrid wrapper, Dominican binder from Cotuí and a filler of three Dominican varietals plus U.S.-grown tobacco, wrapped in actual neckties and priced at $60 for a five-pack. The guys then dissect a strange boutique launch: Artista Cigars' "Midnight Lot," shipped unbanded to select retailers with no press release, no MSRP, and instructions not to list it online for 30 days — a concept the hosts think is doomed because nobody discovers a cigar organically off a shelf. The show closes with a round of "What's the Score?" guessing Charlie Minato's halfwheel redux review of the JRE Tobacco Aladino Fuma Noche Super Toro (final score: 84), plus talk about Bentley White and Bentley Green Half Coronas coming in February, direct-to-consumer ethics in the cigar business, and worst-Christmas-gift stories.
In This Episode
- 01AI Regulation, Privacy and the Federal vs. State FightThe hosts break down the executive order blocking state AI rules and argue privacy protection should be the non-negotiable part of any framework.
- 02Musk, SpaceX and Powering AI From OrbitDiscussion of Starship launching solar-powered orbital data centers, the SpaceX IPO valuation, and why Musk is years ahead of Bezos and Google.
- 03Chinese Satellite Near-Miss With StarlinkA CAS Space launch passed within 200 meters of a Starlink satellite, sparking talk of orbital traffic and Kessler Syndrome.
- 04The Top Christmas Toy of 2025The Nex Playground motion-tracking console, its Bluey licensing deal, and what the guys' kids actually want for Christmas.
- 05Aganorsa Leaf Supreme Leaf Toro 109A 6 x 52 Corojo 99-dominant Nicaraguan puro with a 109 cap shipping February 2026, and why Aganorsa keeps re-releasing Toros.
- 06Line Extensions vs. New BrandsCarney explains the sales math behind extending an established line instead of launching a new one, using LFD Double Ligero and Suave as examples.
- 07Principle Cigars HaberdasherA limited 6 x 55 with Ecuadorian Habano hybrid wrapper and Cotuí Dominican binder, packaged in real neckties at $60 for five.
- 08Artista's Unbanded 'Midnight Lot' ReleaseA no-band, no-MSRP, no-announcement drop the hosts call a social experiment disguised as a cigar release — and a bad idea.
- 09What's the Score: Aladino Fuma Noche Super ToroGuessing Charlie Minato's redux review score for the JRE Tobacco Aladino Fuma Noche Super Toro, which landed at 84.
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
Welcome to Cigar Hustlers podcast episode 431, episode five days a week now. I've been reading ahead. I know this is the welcome to the show, but I've read ahead. So there's some things that I found funny.
Welcome to Cigar Hustlers podcast episode 431, episode five days a week now. I've been reading ahead. I know this is the welcome to the show, but I've read ahead. So there's some things that I found funny.
But episode 431, new episodes, five days a week. Yes. That's right. You guys got some serious content out there right now.
I'm having a hard time keeping up. Oh, yeah. But my algorithm is, I'm John Carney from Bentley Cigars and Hoon Young, sitting in today for Mike Palmer, who had to go to Jacksonville for an appointment. Ooh.
Yeah. Here with me today is Boots, our engineer, who I hear isn't afraid of bears because he can run faster than a fifth grader. And my co-host, Mikey, I was mistaken for punch from chips last night, says Pinkevich. I was mistaken for punch for chip.
Oh, is he talking about Poncherelli? I have no idea what the hell that means. Poncherelli from chips? Oh, Poncherelli from chips?
Maybe. He says from chips, Ponch, is it Poncherelli? I don't know, Ponch? This is before my time, I think, anyway.
It's before all of our time. Yeah, let's move on to your things that matter. How can I get some of that CHPOD swag? John, thanks so much for asking.
com and check out our latest swag. If you buy one, you get the second one 40% off. If you spend $100 or more, you get free shipping. Now is the time.
Christmas is upon us. You're probably not going to get it in time, so you better apologize and then give them the apparel afterwards. Yes, for a New Year's gift. Yeah, New Year's gift.
Yeah, exactly. Or make sure you like and subscribe to all of our platforms. If you're on YouTube or Spotify, wherever, make sure you like and subscribe. com where we go a little bit deeper into some of these conversations.
Yes. So really, this is my third time co-hosting here on the show. Yes. I honestly feel like I should have some swag at this point.
Oh, yes. I've obviously supplied my own. Okay. Yeah.
And I've watched a lot about the swag from the last week. I even asked about it pre-show. Yes. But I think after three times you should get some swag.
You should get something? Yeah. Okay. I'm going to make you a "Pressure is a Privilege" shirt.
Yes. Perfect. Thank you. What size?
Double X right now. I'm trying to lose some weight. Trying to lose some weight. Solid double X?
Solid double X. Maybe triple? No. God, no.
I'm a triple. No, I ain't that big. No, not triple. Yeah.
No, I was headed that direction for sure. Yeah. But I don't know. If you look back now, we can look at the three times over the last few months here.
Right. The facial structure is shrinking down. The energy levels are much higher. Okay, that's good.
The bloating. No bloating. Yeah. Have you been fasting or something?
What are you doing? No, no. Just walking and drinking water. Yeah.
No dairy? Eating right. I love dairy, so I'm definitely eating dairy. You got to eat dairy if you're going to lift and put on some weight.
You know what I mean? Like actual lifting. I don't take steroids or anything like boots over there. So, you got to have dairy.
You don't do dairy? The shot pee pee guy now? You do dairy. Well, whey protein is dairy.
Hell yeah. You don't have dairy boots? I don't like dairy. It makes my stomach upset.
He eats a bunch of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups all the time. Yeah. He doesn't do dairy. Peanut butter.
Milk, chocolate. Yeah, exactly. Today's show, we have the newest update in the AI Challenge, what's the hottest toy for Christmas 2025? Even in space, there's traffic.
Then over in the cigar world, midnight seems the right time to launch a cigar. Can we have more Supreme Leaf cigars, please, and ever get an ugly time for Christmas? Then a quick, what's the score? And then a quick, what's the score?
We only do one on the weekdays. We do two on Mondays, going into Tuesday's show. The Tuesday show has two, and then the rest of the weekdays is only one. Yep.
So me and Mikey don't talk. And again, I'm John Carney. Seriously, where is my swag? Here we go.
I do. The swag is nice, though. Those hats are beautiful. Thank you.
And the new war bear, right? Yes. Stunning. I don't know if we talked about that on here, but- We do.
I'll plug it. Beautiful. Really well done. Awesome stuff.
Coincidentally, not the only stuff I've seen recently from other brands with like camouflage and things on it. Yeah. Seems like there's a theme going on right now. It's going around?
I think so. It's the end. We don't really have anything with camo. Well, we do have- Not you guys, specifically.
Other brands, too. There's been things with camo. The Warbear has camo, no? The Warbear is all black.
Is he talking about the steel cover? There's a steel cover. The metal cover. Oh, you're talking about the Warbear, the actual cigar.
Yeah. Yes, we did do a Cerakoted camo. Yeah, it's beautiful. Thank you.
I'm specifically talking about it. Yeah, it looks freaking great. Thank you, yeah. Yeah, it really does, man.
It stands out. And you know what's cool about it? I have a big deal about things that look good on social media when someone takes a crappy picture. And you want to make stuff that looks good when people take a crappy picture.
It's like black on black and never works. Right. Because if somebody takes a crappy picture, you can't see the black on black. Right.
" Yeah, it does if you have a professional shot done. I've seen some really crappy pictures of that and it looks great. So, really good. On the news, here we go: AI is already making strange bedfellows.
R. Martin wouldn't have written them. R. Martin is.
That's George Orwell. That's George Orwell. Last week, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at blocking states from creating their own AI rules, pushing instead for one national framework. S.
in a race with China, a view strongly backed by big tech. Not surprisingly, legal challenges are coming, especially since nearly half of the United States already have some form of AI regulation on the books. R. Martin is Game of Thrones, by the way.
Oh, really? Yeah. It's shocking that you never watched it. Really?
No. I've never watched it either. Are those books as well or no? I think so.
Yeah, they're books first. He never finished the books. Here's the interesting thing with this, though, I'd love to get into this one, what's interesting here is how the fight cuts across party lines, Democrats are calling the stronger consumer protections, while Republicans talk about streamlining rules to boost innovation, but not all GOP leaders are on board, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blasted the order as a subsidy to big tech that weakens states' rights, Steve Bannon went even further, calling AI the most dangerous technology in the history of mankind, in fact, I'm a And warning of a jobs apocalypse language, it sounds a lot like Bernie Sanders. Man, I'm tired of Steve Bannon.
Oh my God, he's exhausting. As for public, Gallup says 80% of Americans want AI safety prioritized, even if it slows growth, yet according to the Wall Street Journal, AI still hasn't become a top voting issue, despite companies pouring trillions into it. Bottom line, the AI war is just getting started, and it's not breaking cleanly along left or right lines. Okay, so, how do you feel about the regulation of AI?
Do you think it's going at the speed that it needs to? Or are they always going to be playing catch-up? What do you think? Did you watch the Tucker Carlson interview with Sam Altman?
No. There were some short clips that came out, and one of them, Tucker was pressing him on the gentleman who was like a whistleblower in open AI that got murdered, or had killed himself, allegedly. It made Sam Altman look really bad, the way that it was broken up. If you watch the full-length interview, you see why it looks the way it looks, the way that Sam Altman looked at it.
It kind of looked defensive, but he really wasn't. He was actually questioning if Tucker Carlson was questioning if he had killed him, and he accused him of it, essentially. " Anyway, the long version of the interview, you get to understand how Sam Altman, one, answers questions, and then two, where Tucker was coming from. And Tucker had no clue about any of this.
This is AI stuff, Sam Altman was walking, you know, rightfully so, running circles around him. The reason I bring it up is one of the unique things they spoke about, this was a few months back that Altman brought up that was going to be coming up and they were fighting for, was to get legislation passed to keep government out of regulating AI and keep them out of having control over it. And the main reason why they were doing that was for privacy, which I thought was very unique because right now, if you, You can subpoena all of the conversations that someone has on AI, if you're a court or the government, anything, literally anything, you can subpoena everything that's on there, OpenAI, Grok, all that stuff, and this is going back to what was going on at Twitter when Musk took over, you know, we can talk about people think Musk is crazy, don't like him, and Musk was fine, just an evil, you know, he wasn't an evil genius until he supported one party or another, and he, he got Twitter because they were controlling him. And Twitter was one of the main things that Elon Musk bought and turned into Grok, he had a long language model with information and data in it from decades of people interacting on Twitter.
So we got a lot of behavioral information from it. So, I would like to keep the government out of my personal life. And there's the AI things are very important. And one of the discussions they had was, you know, if this makes somebody being able essentially to bake a cake better or do other things or have a conversation.
And he goes, and then does a general somewhere maybe use AI to have a better technique or a better strategy for a war? Maybe, or probably, they most likely do use these things for strategies and to plug things into it. But I just don't see the government, I really don't want them involved in it, you know, and main reason why is privacy. What are you going to do with it when you're involved?
What are the regulations? And generally, if you look at historically, when the government wants to get involved with things, it ends up having more confidence. They don't have control over the people, one way or the other, either from both party lines. That's why I think you're seeing a mix right now.
It's almost like they don't even know how to react like Ron DeSantis saying, well, there should be the power to the states. It's almost like he's saying that because for the last three or four years he was saying like on the abortion thing that like the state should have the decision-making ability. Right. Completely different topic.
And we've been told on both lines that the abortion things was a different topic and not to be compared to anything. So we shouldn't start comparing this in my opinion. Right. Okay.
What do you think? Do you think that the government should be involved in in the regulation of AI? I think the government is going to be involved in the regulation no matter what you do. But do you think they should be?
I don't think they should be. I mean, I think he's right on the privacy stuff. But I mean, again, this is we're talking about Big Brother, something that's way bigger than what we are. So you just accept it for what it is and you say, okay, whatever?
I was in the military. Of course, I accept it. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Okay.
All right. Interesting. Very interesting stuff. Okay.
I here think that this is an area that should be, if there's going to be regulation, it needs to be on a federal level. Certainly not on a state level. I would like to keep it unregulated to an extent in terms of like the sharing of information. Regulation on this would be important to me in how they expand and grow data centers, you know, and then the absorption of power, energy effect on the environment or environment.
It has an effect on local communities. That stuff's important to me, making sure things are appropriately zoned. So I think federally, this is important. State level, very challenging.
And I think with this, if they do regulate on state level, you have 50 different rules that all these companies need to apply with. And we're already seeing this right now where certain states aren't conducive to business and people move out at different areas and businesses move out of areas. It's a different topic. So state level, very challenging.
Federal level, very challenging. Whatever it does needs to have guaranteed privacy caveats in it, whether that gets through federal legislation that puts in laws and information-sharing, but man, what I'd like to see here, sorry, what I would assume would happen here is, man, these governments, the government wants their hands on this, these three-letter agencies want their hands on this information, and they are going to use it against us. Right. My shirt size is double-X, by the way, not that anyone asked.
I did ask. I know. Yeah. But I didn't really say what it was.
I had to read what was in front of me. You said 2X. I can't do this thing with Palmer. We asked for 3X.
He's throwing stuff in here, man. Yeah. He's trying to catch me. He is.
We're going to catch you. It's going to happen. So, but the government's always going to be behind on legislation, especially when it comes to AI. It's going to be moving too fast.
Yeah. Right. That's why Altman had mentioned in the interview with Carlson. And by the way, if you have a chance to watch, it's about an hour long.
It's really cool. Tucker has like, if you want to hate on Tucker, this is one you can hate on him on, because this is like 30 minutes of it where he has no idea what's going on, and he has no real comprehension of what AI is really capable of doing, you know, he was talking to him about how Altman's creating life, and he's like, no, he's like, these are just computers, he was completing millions and millions and millions of decisions in seconds, he goes, but he goes, it's at the end of the day, it's a computer. So it was kind of interesting, different forms, but yeah, so I would recommend watching that if you have a chance, really cool, the Stan Altman one, and then what Elon's doing right now, there's some really fascinating things with AI about the electricity aspect of it. He's about to power AI centers from space, which is bonkers, and he's like years ahead.
This is going to happen in 26. Who's doing this? One of the reasons SpaceX is doing its IPO is because it needs to raise significant capital. One Starship can launch up 500 gigawatts worth of power in terms of satellite absorption, and they can put chips on each of them so they could launch them up, have them turn into satellites, and have the data centers there and they just shoot the data back down.
That way, because there's been some big discussions is there's not enough power on Earth to do this, and he's like, you're right, there isn't. And he already has 6,000 satellites roaming around that he can put these in. And Google's trying to get up in 2017. Jeff Bezos is the closest.
He's launched A satellites up, but Musk has got 6,000 and like 20,000 more on the way. He's two or three years ahead of him. And they're all going to have to buy and work from him. So it's pretty fascinating.
5 trillion valuation for SpaceX. Wow. Super bonkers, man. Big, crazy stuff.
That man, as I said, if we can look past, he'll be the most influential person in the history of humankind next to Jesus, to be honest with you, in my opinion, influence, I'm not saying holy levels, he won't touch that, but I mean, in a hundred years from now, if humankind exists, Elon Musk is going to be a big deal with these things, for sure, he already is right now, in my opinion, I mean, it's the thoughts that he has are just insane. You think he takes over the Mars project? He is the Mars project. Well, they just shut all that down.
Yeah, but not him. He's going up one way or the other. And he's got the companies to do it. Boring company is going to bore holes in the ground because you can't live on the surface.
Tesla's going to have batteries and solar power so you can collect a really pure form of energy. Starlink is going to be the communication so there's internet and there's communication to and from Earth very quick and they can place satellites and information. And then you have the AI technology that will create power, energy, and control the robots that are about to build the planet out in the next decade. They're going to Mars, man.
Like, the Mars project's happening. Not the specific Mars project. Musk is going to Mars with AI robots in the next two years, guaranteed. Have you tried the Starlink yet?
Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, it's real nice. The best thing about it is you have access in, like, remote areas.
True, it's fast. It's very, very fast. Just as fast as any, you know, any fiber internet down here. Very quick.
And the way I've used it, I've used it on my phone. You can connect to a Starlink satellite on your phone if you don't have any cell service, and soon they're going to be coming out with where your data's on there. I think they'll probably have to have 10,000 more satellites up there to control and be able to manage everybody, but unlimited power in space, solar. Right.
Sounds exciting. Yeah, space. Space. The final frontier.
Right. Mikey, what's the hot toy this year? You know what, I have no idea, John. What is the hot toy?
You're wrong. I'm wrong? You are. Nope.
Just relax. I'll tell you. It's okay. The hot toy of the holiday season comes from an obscure tech startup.
It's a device that gets kids off their butts and playing video games. You read that correctly. The next playground is technically a video game console controlled by buttons or joysticks, but players own bodies. And their movements, which are tracked by a camera.
It looks nothing like the PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch 2, the only gaming console is to outsell it during Black Friday Week, according to Sakana. 83 inch cube in pastel colors that weighs less than a pound and sits under a TV. The company behind it, Nex, started out by making the basketball shot tracking app home court using computer vision and AI. I've seen that one.
Yeah. Then, NexStutter stepped into developing a gamified workout app called Active Arcade before making the hard pivot into hardware. The NexPlayground sold 5,000 units for 2023, holiday season, and according to the Wall Street Journal, it last year sold 150,000 units. This year, it's on track to sell 600,000 and make 153 million in sales.
What put the playground on the map? On the map, word of mouth recommendations among parents that helped popularize his advice, and this fall, it licensed Bluey and released the new game, Bluey, Bust a Move, as the Wall Street Journal said, getting Bluey is like baseball teams signing Shohei Ohtani. Wow. That's a bold statement.
Isn't Disney on Bluey? Yeah, I think Disney. Yeah. I thought Nickelodeon Universal on Bluey.
Oh yeah, it is at Universal. No, Bluey's at Disney. You're right, Bluey is Disney. What's the one at Universal?
I don't know. It was like a ride. The reason I bring, I don't know what it is, yeah, Minions. Yeah, Minions.
Bluey's huge. Yeah. It's big. It's a big deal.
Yeah. That's a massive licensing agreement. It's because it's relatable to parents and to kids. And it's good.
Yeah. It's a high quality product. I mean, coincidentally, it's a traditional family, right? Yeah.
It's clever. It's in an Australian accent, so it sounds cool. But, yeah, big dory. Big deal.
Big dory. Big dory. There's a lot of weird words here that are mixed up today. Things are, there's letters missing.
Oh, yeah. Well, that always happens. And there's some sentence things missing. I think he might next time.
I know this was kind of, you know, we do this kind of last minute. Like, maybe he sends it over to me and I can put it in my own. No, no, no. Okay.
That's not fair. Where's the fun of that? I wouldn't get it. Yeah, we fix it.
I won't get invited back. Exactly. I think we can move on from this one. The Christmas toy.
You got any comments on this, guys? I mean, what do your kids want? That sounds like an Xbox thing back in the day, remember they had the camera? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like an upgrade thing. I mean, my little girl's still, she's kind of in the doll phase, you know. My oldest boy is in the clothes stage, talking about sneakers and stuff like that.
My middle guy's kind of all over the place, he's about dinosaurs and little stuff like that, you know. Sneakers, too, because they play basketball. They play a lot of basketball. I will tell you this.
There's this one toy that I think they want, and it's pretty funny. It's a step to go. It's a toddler thing. It's a little car that goes on the ramp.
Yeah. They're all past the age of this thing. Of the roller coaster ramp. Yeah.
But they have been at this friend's house that has it, and they just go on it for hours as they're playing basketball, running around, and then they go on this roller coaster, and then they go off of it. So, oddly enough, this thing is being requested for Santa, so there's a high possibility that it's going to show up in the home for Christmas. You know what's a really cool thing that I've seen, that the kids around my neighborhood have, and this might not be good for Britney, but it's a really cool thing, is the go-kart thing with no brakes. Have you seen this?
Oh, the electric ones? I don't know if it's electric, maybe it's electric, but it only has like an e-brake. Yeah, and you can skid? Oh, yeah, those are cool.
Yeah. Yeah, those are pretty badass. It's funny, that little track thing, you mentioned it, my daughter has one, she's had one since she was about two, and then her, my wife's, the oldest is six, and her youngest brothers are 12, they're twins, they use that thing all the freaking time. They jump on it constantly, they'll be playing soccer, kicking the ball around, and they jump on it, they'll stack it up, I'm not, hopefully I don't give them any ideas, but maybe you could use this.
Sometimes I actually stack it up on the deck so it's about two feet higher. Right. Make it a little bit longer launch on it. That's totally going to happen in my house.
100%. Yeah. Especially as you get older because you can get faster. So they're already thinking this, in my opinion.
Speed demons. Yeah. How do we go faster? I don't know.
My daughter's on the – she loves dolls. She likes dollhouse stuff. Right. For her, she's a little dollhouse.
She likes coloring things. You know, one thing we do do at our family is – I don't know if you guys do this, but we make sure that the worst gifts are the ones from Santa, like the best stuff we give, we make sure she knows it was from us. Right. So, you know, it'll be like, hey, Santa got you this coloring book.
Right. And then it'll be like, okay, and then mommy and daddy got you this rollercoaster toy. That makes sense. So we want her to make sure, you know, you never know who she's going to be around interacting with, Santa this, you don't want anybody to feel bad.
Right. Um, and you know, it's not because I'm worried about people's feelings, but I just, self-esteem is a big thing. You know, in a young age, you don't know what any kid's going through that she may interact with. That's fair.
Yeah, I think I said it before, the pet alive is the thing. Yeah, you mentioned that before, the pet alive. Pets alive. I saw an AI blue square that was being promoted on social media, I'm like, never happening.
A blue square? It was like this little stuffed animal thing that would talk and you could talk about your feelings or whatever to this thing. Oh, no way. I'm like, I'm out.
I watched that episode of Black Mirror. Have you seen that one? No. Miley Cyrus episode.
So, yeah, yeah, Miley Cyrus, they made this, like, yeah, this thing you could tell it's feelings, and yeah, absolutely not. That almost sounds like something that should be in, what's his name, Tom Segoia's Dark Thoughts. Have you seen that? No, but absolutely no way am I getting any of my children anything you can talk and tell it's feelings to, and it'll give you advice.
Hey, do me a favor, you like the workout, right, Cardi? Yeah. Watch Tom Segoia's Dark Thoughts and watch the workout one. The last episode.
Yeah. I'll check it out. You're going to probably message it and say that was the sickest thing you've ever seen in your life. Nice.
It's hilarious. All right, next one. Let's go. All right, so here's a story that Mike has specifically requested.
Spacecraft from China that was launched nearly slammed into Starlink satellite, SpaceX says. One of SpaceX's Starlink satellites just had a very close call in orbit, and no, it was not space junk. It was a freshly launched satellite, a spacecraft, riding in a Chinese kinetic one rocket, flew within about 200 meters of a Starlink satellite, which in space terms is basically a drive-by, 200 meters, it's pretty close, SpaceX wasn't thrilled, saying there was no coordination and calling the near miss completely avoidable. The Chinese launch provider, CAS Space, filed back saying they followed standard procedures and are looking into it and pointed out the close call happened two days after the launch was already over.
Translation, not a problem, but we'll talk the bigger issue. Space is getting crowded. In 2020, there were about 3,400 working satellites. Now there are roughly 13,000 and SpaceX owns most of the sky with over 9,000.
So I was off by 2,600 earlier. Starlink satellites dodged danger on their own, making 145,000 avoidant maneuvers in just six months, which sounds impressive until you realize that space traffic doing defensive driving full-time one actual crash could trigger a debris chain reaction called Kessler Syndrome, which is sci-fi speak for we broke space. The moral of the story is space is starting to look a lot like rush hour traffic, except it's 17,000 miles per hour. Oh, we don't know what happened.
We sent the wrong place. Yeah, this is not the first time this has happened either. Yeah, of course. They know exactly what they're doing.
Right. Oh, so sorry. Right. We send a Starlink.
Yeah. Just like the COVID virus. It's the same thing. Yeah.
Allegedly. There's a lot of space up there, right? Yeah. Right.
But there is 17,000 is not a lot of things that are up there in reality. And so either one, they're being just inherently... Malicious? Yeah, they're either intentionally being malicious or they're being negligent.
Right. Because you would say... I don't think Chinese people are negligent. that there's ways to not be negligent, right?
And SpaceX and Starlink is saying, hey, you could have maneuvered around this. We do it $145,000 every month, up 40,000 times a month. Right. So you know where something's going to be.
It's just basic science. Right. No, we're not scientists, so it's orbit, but they're a literal scientist that do that. They have scientists.
They do that, yes, and they specifically have that. Right. And they have a good space program. I mean, they launch things up all the time, they have rockets, you know, they probably have the second best space program in the world.
Yeah, all that space up there, you think everything would be in the same line. Yeah, no. Well, there's low orbit, different levels of orbit, and then you have, you know, there's, I'm sure there's levels of it where it's easier for transfer information and less chance of exiting orbit. Yeah.
Which is a problem too, so there probably is some area, but 17,000, I mean the circumference of the earth, the circumference of the earth at the, in the atmosphere is much bigger than it is on the bottom part, we have 8 billion people down here. Right. Yeah. So I mean 17,000 little things floating around, that's not taking that much space, give me a break.
Yeah, you think of the United Nations meeting, they'd be like, okay, China, you guys get this area, you know, and Elon, you get all this area. Right. You know, and that's it. Somebody's gonna work that out.
Because there's nobody else. There's nobody in charge though. Russia, you get one satellite. Sputnik.
The thing that I have the most question about here is this Kessler syndrome? Yeah. So it's broke, so it says we broke space is what they call it, and it sets up a chain reaction of debris. Right.
So I guess that what that is, is there could just be debris floating there and then the satellites run through it again as they orbit, because they're moving. Right. And they hit like this debris at 17,000 miles an hour, my question is how do they clean it up? It just hits Earth eventually, right?
You hope that it sucks it in, right? Yeah, something, it goes into, yeah, the Earth's atmosphere and burns up. Yeah. Or maybe the mafia comes out with a new dumpster program.
Yeah, a new space cleaning. Yeah. Hey, yo, hey, I gotta go to space waste management, you know what I mean, you know what I'm saying? There's definitely, wait, we probably won't be around for this, wait till we're a multi-planetary species and see what the freaking organized crime does with that.
Epic. We had this big joke that we were talking about the other day, a couple friends, and we were like, what if Elon Musk is this evil genius? And, like, he gets to Mars, and he gets humans that are up there, and they have, like, these fake AI videos. They're like, oh, man, we love Mars.
We love this. And eventually Jeff Bezos catches up to him and is able to get a satellite, able to set up a similar structure, and able to get a rocket to Mars. And then when he gets there, Jeff Bezos ends up being like the savior, being like, I told you all along this guy was an evil genius, he's like holding people against his will in Mars, there's like this alien species that's been created through all this crazy experimentation and stuff. I didn't know you microdosed, bro.
Yeah, yeah, no, I don't, but that's what I think about when I'm not, so imagine if I was. So I thought that'd be funny, that'd be a good movie, and then Jeff Bezos, the second richest man in the world, takes down the richest man in the world, who all of this was some evil plot for him to, Global dominance. Yes, absolutely. Well, now you just gave Netflix their new movie.
Yeah. The Battle of the Billionaires. I still won't beat 50 Cent on the Diddy thing. No.
That is great. Man, that guy's kicking ass. He's the, that's the number one viewed show on Netflix. Yeah.
And freaking Stranger Things came out at the same time. Right. Yep. He's kicking their butts.
That's incredible. We'll see what happens on Christmas Eve when the next show comes out. So they are gonna release it? Is that when it comes out?
Yeah. Why would they not release it? Well, I know there was this whole thing going on. You think he cares?
Do you think he cares? Fitzy does not care. I don't know. He doesn't care.
No. I don't think he cares, but I, you know, Netflix just did this big whole, you know, merger and all that. Yeah. Maybe Netflix would be like, you know what, let's not really, you know, mess with it.
They want the ratings. They know that they're going to get the, you're not going to turn off one of the number one thing that's, that's given attention to your platform. It's not going off, and he's come out and said in the last few days that it's not going away either. What did he buy Netflix?
To ensure that there was all, that it wasn't going away. By the way, what a wild thing. He got his hands on the footage because he didn't pay, Diddy's people couldn't pay to keep the footage and pay the photographer and they didn't own the rights to it. Isn't that crazy?
The videographers did, I guess. Wow. And they got it through that. That's why I was wondering, I thought it was like one of his kids doing the video or something.
He had a videographer following him around just in case, so he was trying to create... Did something happen? No, he was trying to create a, to make himself look good. Right.
Like after we win this, we're going to make ourselves look good, we're going to do this, talk about how we were getting... It's screwed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then it just went too deep, it went too deep. And 50 fucking got a hold of it. That's amazing.
Yep, the man's a beast. It's crazy, in the whole documentary, there's always a problem with payment with Diddy. Do you have a video for us? Oh, wow.
Do I have a video for you today? That's a great question. Is it a video of me accepting a Warbear t-shirt? It is not a video of you.
Is that Rin in there? I do have one video. video must be written in there by the way that's accepting with an e it's a it's a short video uh go ahead and watch it and we'll add the audio back to it later i'll send it to you cyberally two boots okay i just texted to you i can tell the screen's like really irking carney he's uh he's reading everything and grammarizing it and just it's just killing him He's got to drink some water to cool himself down. Go ahead and watch the video.
Where's your phone? He said he didn't have it, remember? No, I gave it to him. Oh.
It's seven seconds long. It's incredible. I don't have it. Oh.
Oh, that's amazing. So, the Chris Collinsworth meme and video trend, I mean, your best friend on social media with him and Patrick Mahomes is just amazing. Oh, dude. It's endlessly good.
It's incredible. So, when I saw, when I came across that, I was like, oh, this is, this is the one, this is a video for the clip. But, you know, what is Chris Collinsworth going to do now that Patrick Mahomes is out for the rest of the season? Man, those guys, first of all, if you think Gardner Minshew is not going to win a couple games, I mean, he's going to win, but it doesn't matter at this point.
They're out of the playoffs. Yeah, I know it doesn't matter, but I mean, they're going to wait till next season and they're going to fucking come back. What do you mean wait till next season? He tore his ACL deep into this season.
He's done for next year. He's not playing. Yeah, he's not coming back. Have you watched the NBA stuff?
Have you watched any of the injuries of the NBA and what's going on with Jason Tatum or any of those guys? No. So they're saying that medicine has sped up so much that these guys from ACL and MCL and all these type of injuries are coming back. Like, half the time than what they were doing before.
So, six months? Seven months? Yeah, I guess. He still misses part of the season.
He's still going to miss part of the season. It's like, if he got injured at the beginning of the season, he would have missed this whole season. Then they'll just go to a running game. I mean, they decimate people.
Running game what? They got, they're getting their ass kicked this season. Minshew's going to accidentally win some games. Yeah, he's good.
You know, he's good. He's good enough to be a really good backup. Collinsworth is freaking screwed. He's beside himself.
Yeah, man, it must have been brutal. He's got to start talking about Drake May now. Ah, Drake May is incredible. It's too bad that the internet wasn't as advanced as it is now when the Patriots were really, really good and then Brady was doing all this stuff because there was funny Brady stuff and us being Brady fans, you know, it wasn't as funny to us.
Right. It was funny to me because it was just everybody's a hater. Right. And I know this is how the Chiefs fans feel, right?
Right. Completely in reverse. And Brady had an injury too. He just didn't have it.
He didn't have it at this point of his career. Right. No, he was already further along. He was already further along.
And Brady had, you know, Brady was coming off a 16-0 season at the same time and age that Mahomes is at right now. So it's going to be a big adjustment and a big change for him. I was reading that they potentially might bring Aaron Rodgers in next year to have, like, a gap year and then try to bring it back in the next season after. He might not leave Pittsburgh, man.
They said last night he was done. He said that he was done after this year. This is his last year? Yeah, he just doesn't want anybody.
He didn't want to say at the beginning because he didn't want like a farewell season or whatever. What if they win? I mean, I guess if they win, finish on top. I don't think they're going to win.
Yeah, I don't think they are either. But Collinsworth memes are great, so it's kind of too bad they weren't around with Brady because there'd be so many good things. There's just endless funny. If you haven't seen him, watch the Chris.
Just search Chris Collinsworth, Patrick Mahomes, and you'll get some of the funniest stuff ever. This stuff is epic. Oh, it just brings a smile to your face too. It does.
Because it is, there is some truth to it. Oh, my God. There was a period of time where I don't think there's many sportscasts, Sunday Night Football, where he doesn't mention Patrick Mahomes at least once. Right.
And it's, you know, I know he's the face of the NFL type player, right? That's great, but I mean, it is hilarious because it's almost every single game. I'm like, he's not playing tonight. He's not, you know, what are we doing?
Yeah. And the thing was, they made a comment. I think I know you saw this one. Baker Mayfield had like a 75-yard touchdown run after breaking a few tackles and this and that.
Yeah. And literally, Chris Collinsworth was calling the game and said, you know, oh, sorry, he's calling another game. It was like, nobody else in this league or whatever could do anything like this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, there's like 20 of them.
Right. He could do it. Yeah. Baker did it four hours ago.
Yes. Yeah. Just happened. So, but that's a great video.
Thanks for the share on that one. It's a good one. It always brings a smile to my face. So on to some cigar news and some proper grammar.
Supreme Leaf Toro, 109, slated for February 2026. I guarantee you he's going to get all these Spanish words spelled correctly, but we can't talk about doing except and except and have that spelled correctly and put the right middle letters in it here. We don't like vowels. Well, he spelled it.
It was just the wrong word. Oh, brutal. I'm in trouble after this. Nothing's off limits, I said.
Here we go. Toro, 109, slated for February 2026. In 2016, the Supreme Leaf line has been offered in a 6x50 Toro and a 6x52 Toro, a 6x54 Toro and a 6x56 Toro, so you'd be remiss if you don't understand how Aganorsa Leaf can introduce another new Supreme Leaf in a Toro size. In February, the company plans to ship the Supreme Leaf Toro 109, measures 6x52, as the name implies it uses a 109 style cap, Which is a hybrid cap that combines the rounded finish of a Parejo and a pointed tip like a Bellicoso.
Blend-wise, the Supreme Leaf uses entirely Nicaraguan tobaccos and is described as a Corojo 99 dominant blend. 99 and comes in boxes of 10, and the Supreme Leaf is a limited-edition production line. Is it limited edition? Yeah.
Always. Yeah. Once the Vitola is sold out, retailers and consumers have to wait for a new Vitola to be announced on sale. I think that's why you keep getting the different sizes.
That would make sense. Yeah. That's right where you get them. And probably, I assume Agonors is pretty smart.
Terrence Riley is a very smart guy, general, in general. Very tall. Very tall. But he is very intelligent, book smart, and been in the business for a while.
We praise him too much anyways. I'm not going to let you get away with that. I'm not going to give him a praise on this one. It won't take all that intelligence to say that Toro is the number one selling size, whether that's a 50 ring gauge Toro or a 54 ring gauge Toro.
Anywhere from 50 to 54 is the best selling size of any cigar, best bang for the buck for consumers, so there you go. That's why you get those different sizes. " Right. Well, the 109 should be good.
I like 109 sizes, you know? 109? What does 109 mean? So it's like a classic Cuban-style kind of a rounded bellicoso, yeah.
What differentiates that from a regular bellicoso, not like the extreme tip? It's not extreme poignant, it's not extremely round, it's like in the middle of it, and it's usually a smaller gauge. Do you know where the term 109 came from? No.
Me either? No, I don't. Interesting. I never knew that's what it was called.
I learned something today. Yeah. The first time ever. I'm just out here just educating the world on the cigar industry.
But I will say this, the one thing that's perplexing to me when it comes to Aganorsa is that everything is Leaf. Supreme Leaf, Rare Leaf, Leaf Leaf, Aganorsa Leaf, Supreme Leaf, you know what I mean? Like, okay, we can just, let's just stay in the lane with Supreme Leaf, that's fine. Like, let's abandon Rare Leaf and let's call it something else, you know?
Let's, I don't know, Rare something, whatever. The Rare Giraffe. Yeah. Ooh, yeah.
Yeah. The baby giraffe. I think that they're missing out on a marketing opportunity without releasing the baby giraffe. Yeah.
Because that's what Terrence Riley kind of looks like. Do you think these limited edition skews are a majority going to places that consumers and retails that have already bought them? The Supreme Leaf? Yeah.
Well, we haven't bought them and I know we'll get them. We'll get them. You haven't had them before? No.
He's had certain ones. You've had all the Supreme Leaves. You've had all the Supreme Leaves. That's what I'm saying.
So do you think these are going to places that have already had it? Yes. Okay, so the reason I bring that up is because what I would do is I would slowly use that, say I have 500 retailers I sell this to, if I keep it around the same size, same shape, similar price point, then I can get them to be in, hey, I'll take 10 or 20 boxes, right? Right.
And then I can add another maybe 50 accounts because it's something that's unique, it's different, it's limited edition, so then I sell an additional like 1,000 boxes. by just adding 30 or 40 or 50 accounts. And then you don't lose many on the back end because you never overdid it. So I don't know.
There's some strategy with this, in my opinion. Well, I'm sure that they're going to open up newer accounts with it as well. I don't think it's just solely based on the supremely purchased guys, you know. Yeah, I'm sure there's some guys that don't take it.
If you change the name and you come out with something different and you don't keep doing that, then you put yourself in a spot where someone will like, Hey, you know, the Supreme Leaf did really well for me, but I don't know about the baby giraffe, you know, hey, you know, I'll give the baby giraffe a shot, let me, let me try five instead of 20. So you can go to someone and say, well, this way you can make new products, you can make new SKUs, but you don't have to rebrand and remarket it. Now I'm with you, there's a lot of it, it's like everything's Supreme Leaf, everything's Aga Norse Leaf, it's leaf, leaf, leaf, leaf, maybe something else. So what I would say is do these and do something else at the same time, potentially, but that's a good pitch.
One thing they're not running out on is tobacco. No, no. It's the Aganorsa family, you know. So, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, it's interesting. And, you know, they do do a lot of private label projects. They do a lot of stuff. They sell a ton of tobacco.
Some of the tobaccos that they sell are used in a lot of cigars that we all smoke. And I don't think a lot of consumers realize that they're big. But, yeah, I'm with you on it. But I think this is like one project they know we can sell 3,000 or 4,000 boxes.
We're going to grow it 20% this year by putting it in more places and we'll do these other things. But I'm with you. But I'm with you. It does seem like it's a lot of that.
And the way I would do it is if you come out with something new, it's not guaranteed they're going to bring it in. Like I got people that move a lot of LFD stuff. And if I put a doubly harrow name on it, I was like, we're going to do a 12th doubly harrow size, which there was like 11. Right.
Why? Because like, oh, you're selling to the same customer. No, it's a guarantee that I can get that person to put a line extension. So it's easier for me sometimes to sell a line extension.
LFD is a good example of it. The reason I bring it up is because Bentley's new, and Hooten Young's relatively new as well, so everything I add is new, practically. But when you're adding a line extension, or you're adding another edition of an existing SKU, there's less marketing. So then when I go out and pitch Suave, that's a more challenging push.
So LFD released the Suave this past year. I'm sure they put that in less retailers than the Double E-Harrows, for any different reason. and one, you have to pitch a new line. You have to get in there, oh, this does well, and I'll give that one box a shot.
So it's tough to build a secondary line or an alternative line when you have something that's built in, so it's kind of automatic. I can make 1,000 boxes of this and sell it overnight, or I can make 1,000 boxes and have it sit here while I try to move it to a few hundred retailers. Okay. That's my mentality.
Do both. Yeah, I agree. I mean, there's no shortage of tobacco. Right.
Yeah, do both, in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Okay.
Or like the Fabian lightsabers. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that Star Wars have a problem with that one, but yeah. You think the lightsaber is trademarked?
Yes. Yes. The word lightsaber? Yeah.
100%. Are you kidding me? Light beam? Everything.
Yeah, you name it. All outlets. Every single type of trademark you can get for lightsaber is possessed by Disney. You can search it right now.
Yeah. Just search lightsaber and it'll tell you. Maybe the Fabian beam saber? I don't know.
And there's probably backed up contracts, too, where if the trademark goes away, there's like a 3,000 year lease for someone to have the exclusive rights to not have, there's crazy stuff you can do with that. Neon Pole is probably taken. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's probably, yeah. Well, here we go, here's another exciting one.
Principles Cigars releases Haberdasher. Haberdasher? The joke about getting an ugly tie as a present has seemingly been found forever, around forever. That was the word that was missing in the intro.
It didn't say ugly tie, you know, it just said getting an ugly as a present has seemingly been around forever, but for its latest release, Principal Cigars is running with it and using some of those ties to wrap up a five pack of limited edition cigars, I believe, I believe that Punch has done this before, the line is called Haberdasher, named for the term for either a men's clothing retailer or someone who sells sewing items, it's described as a very limited edition release. with the cigars measuring 6x55 and using an Ecuador Habano hybrid wrapper, Dominican Republic binder from Katui. Ooh. Cool things about Katui.
One, I can pronounce it. Pachardo. Katui is Pachardo? Yeah.
Really interesting. It's been a growing area used in a lot of cigars mentioned in the last few years. Maybe I'm mixing things up. Katui is in the southern part of the Dominican Republic.
It's in the mountains. Oh, no, I'm totally mixing things up. Yeah, Katui was actually tobacco that was used. There was some tobacco used in it in the LFD 30th Anniversary Chisel.
Okay. So it's from Katui. It's not the guy. No, it's from Katui.
Katui, it's Dominican. Okay. S. grown tobacco.
Priced at $60 for a five pack, and as part of the theme, the cigar bands are designed to replicate a 1960s style shirt. They're now available at select retailers and via Principal Cigars website. Okay. Did you ever get an ugly tie for Christmas?
Oh yeah. Yeah? Who gave you the ugly tie? Myself, my dad.
Oh, you can't buy yourself an ugly tie. Like, who gave you a tie that you're not going to use and say this is an atrocious tie? My family. Yeah, my family.
Mostly I gave them, I bought ugly Christmas ties for myself, but I inherited an ugly tie that I'd given my dad for Christmas one year with my mother. We gave one of those light up ties. So hand me down. Yeah, so I used that for a little bit, but that was the only one I was ever given, and that was like a re-gift.
Well, I kind of took it, and then the other ones, I bought some really ugly Christmas ties for myself. Yeah, but those are intentional. Yeah, very much intentional. I'm just talking about like a gift.
No, I've never been bought one. I'm not a tie guy. I only wore ties for about four or five years and I stopped. Yeah, I'm not surprised.
But what about you, Boots? Have you ever... I don't wear ties. Did anybody ever gift you a tie?
No, I don't wear ties. Yeah? Yeah. I'm not surprised at that either.
Yeah. Okay, so two no ties. No. What about you?
Yeah, that's obvious. So what's the worst gift that you've received for Christmas? Let me ask you that. Oh, this is a good one.
Okay. My sister might see this if we clip this up a little bit. It's possible. But there was, right when I first got the cigar industry, not right when I got promoted, at LFD, my sister bought me a couple of different things, but one of the items she got me, a subscription to Cigar Fish and Auto Magazine.
Nice. Okay, good. I'm glad you're going that way. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. And I was like, I was like, I said, hey, I appreciate the thought, but I'm like, the company I work for spends like a quarter of a million dollars a year advertising. Right.
And I get like a hundred of these. Right. I was like, so I appreciate the thought, but I go, don't, don't give someone in the cigar business cigar things unless you are in the cigar business. You're like, you could give me a cigar gift and I would appreciate it.
Right. Like some, one of your cigars or something you want me to try or something. Yeah. If you're not in the cigar business, don't give someone in the business a gift.
Yeah, it's a terrible idea. Don't do that. What about you, Boots? What's the worst gift that you got for Christmas?
I don't know if I ever got like a worst gift, but maybe like socks or something. I mean, I know it's kind of vanilla. That's kind of a standard move, yeah. Socks are always good.
As an adult, I'm good with socks. Yeah. I don't know. Like, okay, thank you.
I'm going to use these. I'd rather have like a shirt. That's not a terrible gift, you know. I could buy socks.
That's easy. Well, it's like, but you know, but I totally agree with you. Like, I've gotten, like, Ultimate Cigar Book Guides and stuff like that from people, and I'm like, that's like giving a painter drywall for Christmas. Like, I don't, you know, don't, don't do that.
Like, we've got things that we like using. Right. I've been given some lighters before that I'm like, ah. Thank you.
Yeah. So, you know what, I have gotten an ashtray that I still use to this day. I probably had it for about seven years at this point. Was it a gift from someone who wasn't cigar related?
Yes, it was. It was, that was the, you know, there are always exceptions to the rule, I suppose. I think Ashtray is a good exception. I think that's a good one because it'd be something that's unique and they probably saw it and thought that it had something to do with you.
Yeah. But like, yeah, like a cigar journal, please don't. Yeah, don't do that. I don't need a book.
I don't need a book about tobacco. Yeah. It's kind of wild. I'd rather just didn't give me anything.
Give me a hug and wish me a Merry Christmas. Yeah, the Cigar Fissionado magazine was like, this is like two years worth of salary that the company I work with, partners with them on. Right. And now I'm getting it as a gift.
Yeah. Well, you just see how they're doing. Did you read it? Did you read it?
No, I'd already read it. I already had it. They sent it to us. Are you going to get some Bentley ad space in Cigar Fishing Island?
Oh, yeah, certainly. Yeah, it's going to happen. We're going to spend big. Yeah, we're going to go bold on that?
Yeah, we're going to go very, very bullish. Pustania, too. We're doing the same thing. Maybe we can split it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, they do have offerings like that. Where two people buy in and a pick. Multiple, you can go with three or four if you want.
Really? Oh, yeah, yeah. The whole thing, it's great. Are you poor?
Yes. So get together with three other poor brands and put it together. Well, it's also smart for them because they offered that a lot to some retail outlets, so if you see some retailer ads that are some shared pages, I think that was a program they did about five or six years ago, and really what it did was just kind of grow public relations, really, it's like, get these people in here, if you want to have them stop bashing you on your top 25 list, do something to be, you know, foster that, and I think they have. But yeah, that's interesting for sure.
That was it. That was the worst thing I can think of. That's pretty bad. I wonder what was on, what was, what they released today for the top 25 list?
Trinidad was... Is it Cuban? Six, no. The DR one.
The DR Nicaraguan one. Okay. And then they had Rocky Patel Emerald, which is actually a pretty good smoke. They slid that in.
Yeah. We knew that was going to happen. Yeah, Rocky Patel. And then the one before that, so tomorrow's 4, 3, 2, and 1.
Kirklotz dropped. Timeless. 10, yeah. Yeah.
But the number, so it's five, six, and seven. I can't remember what seven was. Okay. But we've yet to see...
Seven's far enough away where you don't care. Well, it's right in the middle. It's the one I forgot. Yeah.
But we have, Padrón's still going to be in the top ten, and my father most likely is going to be in the top ten, potentially an EPC, and definitely a Cuban, and maybe an LFD, who knows? We'll see what they're throwing around there. Trinidad was today, Emerald, Nassar, The Goat by AJ. Hmm, what was that?
The what? The Goat? Yeah. What is that?
I don't know. I just never heard of that. I have heard of it. I don't know much about it, but it's number seven cigar of the year.
Oh. AJ's got good stuff, man. So, products are good. And that's his, too.
That's one of the first times in a while they've had some that's straight up AJ Fernandez. So, it's an AJ, not by AJ. Yeah. Yeah, straight up AJ.
I think there's maybe some, like, New World I think has been on there, but I haven't had it. I haven't seen it around yet. Me neither. No.
Okay. All right. So, boutique cigar brand sparks buzz with midnight release. They may have some trademark issues with that midnight word.
Uh-oh. I know a guy. I know a guy. This is, you guys are causing problems over here.
A small boutique cigar company is turning heads this week after they got a cease and desist order from another company. No, this is turning heads this week after quietly rolling out a limited release concept that flips the traditional launch model on its head, According to industry sources, the brand has begun shipping a cigar known internally as Midnight Lot to a celeb group of retailers with no formal announcement, no press release, and no MSRP. Boxes reportedly arrived unbanded, cigars are unbanded, with only a simple lot cold stamp inside the lid, and instructions not to list the cigar online for at least 30 days. The cigar itself is such a feature, a dark, oily wrapper with Nicaraguan fillers with a profile described by early smokers as an earthy, salty, and pepper forward with a creeping sweetness in the second half.
Is the brand called Boutique Cigar? I have no idea. This is interesting. They're not allowed to say it for at least 30 days.
So they decided to release the cigar. They released it to select retailers. They're not allowed to say anything. It doesn't have a name.
They dropped it at midnight and called it Midnight. It doesn't have a band. Retailers participating in the program are encouraged to let the customers discover the cigar organically with the brand. Oh, good luck with that.
The word of mouth will outperform traditional marketing. One shop owner described it as social experience disguised as a cigar release. That's exactly what it is. Can we get an update on this in 30 days because know that the cigars have not moved?
How would you discover any cigar organically? Who is it? Who is it's the first question. I have no idea.
If I could find out who it was, and I could get a little bit more of a concept of what they're trying to do, not to put it online for 30 days. So my question is, are they a cigar club? Is this like a Privada thing? Well, they're trying to promote it in a retail store.
And I guess the theory is that you can just put a cigar on a shelf and not talk about it, not have a band, not have any attention sequence whatsoever, and it's going to move. That's what their belief is. And I'm going to tell you right now, that's a terrible idea. Whoever came up with that concept has an extra chromosome.
Like, that's not... Unless they've released who they are as a brand, or they might just say, "Hey, this is a new project they're working on. " So you would have to have some sort of concept given to it, right? " Yes.
So that eliminated the whole experiment. So are you thinking that they haven't said who's released it? Is it the Artista? I don't know, where are you getting the article from?
I just, I typed it in ChatGBT, search everything for the new Midnight Cigar. I don't know, I have no, this would be, this would be good to have Palmer for this one, because he wrote this. Yeah. And he has the info, and it would be interesting, it said that what we need to know is who it is, and then that could give me some sort of an idea.
But they're trying to make it so that they're not stating who it is. Yes. It says crowded with loud launches in bigger boxes, sometimes they realize that saying less gets people talking more. From Artista Cigars.
Interesting. Like, I like, I admire the concept, but that's not gonna work. Somebody has to tell you about that cigar. Yeah.
How do you, yeah, how do you organically find that? It just sits on the shelf. With no band. What's new?
We, it's still, that's still in a track sequence. Yeah. I don't know. I gotta find more of this.
It doesn't sound like a great idea. It's a terrible idea. Yeah, it sounds really bad. Yeah.
It's one of those ones. I've said this before, and it's got me in trouble, but I'll say it again. Like, this is one of those ones, if you would have just asked somebody prior to doing it, that it would have saved you a lot of trouble from doing it. But these retailers apparently bought it all, so I guess the laugh's on them, right?
I guess we'll see this in the discount bin, but we won't even know it. What did you make? What did you make, 50 boxes of this? I don't know.
It's 7,500 cigars is the rumor. 7,500 cigars. Yeah, so they've made at least probably 30 grand off of it. Wow.
That's insane. Crazy. No, no, well, they, so they sold 7,500. Allegedly.
It has to be a company that has relationships. There's a rumor mill on it. That's a terrible idea. Hey, you know what?
It's time to do the industry's favorite game. Yes. What's the score? What are you doing?
That's what I'm told. Oh, you're told to whistle? You said I was supposed to sing, but I decided to whistle instead. Oh, you're not good at singing.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star. I think that's trademark. You guys have a trademark infringement. You can't monetize this anymore.
Perfect. Well, we were talking over it, so it's fine. Oh, good. Yeah, you can probably block me out of that channel.
And we're not quite monetized yet, but we're close. Oh, really? Yeah. I thought you were monetized on Meta like I am.
Oh, on Meta I am. Yeah, I got like a whole six bucks a month. You six? Yeah.
Wow, it's grown. I'm up to 30. Really? Yeah, big time.
Look at you. Yeah, yeah. But YouTube is like right there. Can you loan us six bucks?
YouTube, I just, we launched a little show, it's not a media show, it's just a- The camping one? Yeah, the Fireside Live. Where you're really far away? Yeah, and we, uh, very far away.
So we had the show- Who's talking there? Who's that guy? YouTube, YouTube, man, YouTube shorts get tons of views. Yes.
Crazy. I had like 5,000 views last week. I don't get anything on Meta, I get like 500 allegedly. Right.
I couldn't believe it. It gets a ton of views. Yeah, some will pop, some won't. Yeah.
Do you guys have lapel mics? Yeah. You should use those. You want to know?
You should use them? You guys should. Maybe they're not on. Because you're so far away.
Well, it was the first show, so you got to look through the sound levels and stuff. The lapel mics, I think, what I was worried about was it being too loud. Right. So I monitored the sound.
I think I sounded a little better than what Mike did. Yeah. So I need to probably adjust it up a little bit more. But it was the first time we did it.
we did it now to show mics like i didn't realize i didn't realize neither the the mics we got a really good mics they're also uh magnetic as well as clips correct and mike would you get dji's magnetic yeah and mike's like man he goes if i knew it was magnetic he's like i could have put it up right here on my shirt right because it would have been a lot better so we learned a little bit we'll change some of the angles but we i mean we didn't throw it together but i mean it was put together quite quickly for your first episode it's great yeah you know i mean go back to our episode our first episode it's a train wreck oh the cameras look horrible yeah so uh So, I had a short clip that popped. Right now, it's over 100,000 views. It's insane. Really?
What was the topic? Florida License Plates. Oh, nice. That's the dumbest thing ever.
Yes. It's a great one, though. Yeah. And I'm just like, this is insane.
Yeah. It's got our biggest view. Of all the things that I've wasted my time on, like the Ozzy clip, that one did well, there's some of these that, you know, that would hit 20, 30k or whatever, like, yes, that's awesome. Florida License Plates, it blew it all out of the water.
It's the dumbest thing. So, uh, what's the score? What's the score? Well, you're gonna, you're gonna play, you're gonna rattle off the game for us, and you're gonna tell us the first thing, what we're doing?
Oh, this was a rhyme. Oh, yeah. Palmer set me up with a rhyme. Man, he's making me put in some extra work here.
He did. He likes to see the man struggle. What he's trying to do is make sure he doesn't lose his job. Right.
What's the score? What's the score? Lights are on, we're ready for more. Oh, right.
Big plays, fast takes, let's go. What's the score? What's the score? The score, what's the score, today's cigar, December 15th, 2025, Charlie Minato, Cigars, Honduras, JRE Tobacco, Redux Review, Aladino, Fuminoche, Super Toro.
Ooh, Aladino, 10 years ago, they voted. They said Redux, Redux. Oh yeah, do you want to go first, do you want me to go first? Redux.
You go first, this was like a day ago or something. Honduras, JRE, Redux, Aladino, Charlie is the reviewer. Okay, 88. 86.
Okay. All right, go ahead and read the first segment. I've never smelled this cigar, so. All right, Fumanoche Super Toro, Country of Origin, Honduras, Factory, Fabrica de Puros, Aladino, at Los Lomos, Yamastron, undisclosed binder, undisclosed filler, sorry, binder, filler, Honduras, undisclosed wrapper, probably Corojo, length 6 1⁄4", 54, shape, round, MSRP 15, Release Date 2024, Undisclosed Number of Lease, Number of Cigars Smoked for Redux, 1.
Oh, so it's... Clue 1. You ready? Wait, but he said 2015, and he said 2015.
No, no, he said 2025. He just did this on December 15. December 15, 25. Clue 1.
Visually, this cigar really stands out. The black and red silver band has a bold, sinister vibe, and the muted milk chocolate wrapper shows great character with its veiny texture. Construction overall is excellent with an easy light and solid performance through most of the smoke. I just don't understand the veiny description from Charlie all the time.
Well, it's important to identify if the wrapper is really smooth or if it has some kind of... You like talking about veiny things. No, he just always says it in his description. Yeah, and it gets you going.
I'm sticking at 88, even with the vascular cigar. Yeah, whatever. Clue two. The flavor profile in the first half is engaging and unique, with layered notes Fried notes of wood, salt, earth, and fleeting red apple sweetness.
Retro hails especially shine, bringing out creamy textures, pepper, and terroir that add depth and keep things interesting. You know, he pronounces everything way better than Palmer. Yeah, and? I'm gonna go 89, 89.
You're going up because of the terroir? Yes, because of the way he said it. The way he said it. If Palmer said I would have been 87, but because he said it that way, I'll go 89.
Well, I'll go 87. I'll keep you alive. I don't know the scores, so I could be guessing too, but I'm not guessing. You're going to know it at the end.
No, you're not allowed to guess, yeah. I'm going to see it at the end. Sorry, buddy. The second half loses some momentum, becoming increasingly bitter and harsher, with fewer flavor transitions, an uneven burn and rising nicotine strength also detracts slightly from the overall experience, particularly compared to the more dynamic first half.
Charlie does not like. 85. Yeah, he dropped him. Now what are you going to do?
You know, I'm going to go to 86 because Charlie does this all the time. Okay. He always, like, talks highly and then badly, but then he always comes back for some reason. All right.
Okay, 85, 86. Let's go. Final thoughts. Oh, we're at final thoughts.
We are. Okay. The Aladino Fuma Noche Super Toro, or perhaps just the Batch, continues to be an enigma for me. I consider JRE Tobacco Company to be one of the better and more unheralded cigar companies of the current era, but this is a cigar that I've consistently struggled to like.
The flavor profile seems a bit confused. It has the big, bold, and at times brash flavors of a dark, full-bodied cigar, but it lacks the body that would make this a more cohesive experience. I don't know if that would improve how I scored the cigar, but I think it would make it easier for me to describe the cigar as it stands. It's just missing the oomph to go along with the bite.
I'm going to stick 85. All right, so Carney, if you haven't watched this on a couple of episodes, this is how this works. You're supposed to point up or down from it. Don't do it.
Don't do it. He wants you to signal it. Just look at my waist, you can see which way I want you to go. Oh, 86.
92. Oh! I'm kidding, 84. 84!
You would have got it if you went down. Carter, you're a mean guy. I'm a mean guy. He said, look at my waist, I would assume that that's down.
Yeah, I wasn't looking at it. Co-host. Final score, 84. Boom.
Man. You lose again. You know, it was a horrible cigar to Charlie, and he still scored in the 80s. Yeah, still better than SBC.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, do you have anything else to add before we let you off the hook?
Jeez. I appreciate you guys having me on again. I know it's low-hanging fruit to ask me to come on and I appreciate it. It's very convenient.
Nonetheless, it's super convenient. Yes. Especially this time of the year. I'm available.
But no, I love coming on. It's a blast. We need to freaking do some grammar checks here. No, we don't.
There's some difficulties. Dude, if you watch... Okay, so the last episode, we had an audio problem. The first 20 minutes the audio was scrubbed so I had to AI in the audio it is the funniest thing because it's the last time with us no no yesterday's show okay yeah so if you turn it on and you watch 20 minutes you like our our like our dialogue changes as we're talking to like three or four different like slangs it's incredible so the messages that I got on the comment sections like I feel like you guys all just had a I don't know, like we need to talk to you about something, but it was classic.
So I can blame any of the reading things, one on Palmer and then two on AI. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.
The best story from here, I think, for people to be talking about outside of cigar things is that AI part we talked about today. We could have weeks worth of content just talking about it. Oh, yeah. I think a lot of shows do, but there's some big stuff going on with AI and it's getting big quick.
By the way, if you're not in on it, you're already behind, you might as well just give up and give in to the overlords. Give up, never give up. No, we're not giving up, we're already in the game. That's right.
But it's crazy how fast it's going right now, and it's about, when they solve this energy problem, the big discussion that people have had is how quick China's advancing in it. Elon's about to level the freaking playing field on his own with this IPO, and there does need to be some federal regulations on these things of who can do business how. Privacy is going to have to be the key, so I'll leave it on that note, when you talk about AI stuff, or if you're sitting here, you're having discussions with family or friends, or you're scared about it, just anything you do, protection of your information and your personal information is the most important thing to have in any type of regulation, and don't trust the states with the ability to keep your information private, or the federal government, let them look out for you, but don't have them be your immediate advocates, in my opinion, but no, I... Don't click the box.
We've got a big holiday coming up. Since I've been on last, we've had the Cigar Operations Clubs come out. Yep. That's been cool.
One comment I will make is, you know, we had a big discussion in the last show I was on about how I think the future of the business is direct-to-consumer. We're already there. Right. The major retailers and major brand owners are already direct-to-consumer.
And so aren't the retailers. Retailers are direct-to-consumer. And they have their own brands and lines. So there was one comment that made the, you know, the Cigar Operations Clubs direct-to-consumer.
They're now direct consumer. The company was started seven years ago as a direct consumer website and there's endless companies that operate that way, but I think there's an ethical way to run it too and I'm fortunate to be heavily involved in controlling that and protect the people that work with the brand. I respect when people are like, we're not going to do it because you're a website. I think those retailers maybe miss out because when you are spending marketing dollars on social media, on meta and all these things, this builds recognition.
You have a recognition for the brand, and you want to advertise that, so when people are on their phone, they walk in and see what they have there, but then you have to make the decision of, do I want to do it with someone that's putting 30 or 40 points off, so there's real ethical and good ways to do it, and navigating that, I think, is very important, and the big guys really aren't as much, because they don't have to, because the big guys, they don't care, and why would they? So, don't believe that, we've got Christmas coming up next week, I'm excited, the Fireside Live show is going on, we've got some fun things coming up with Bentley in the new year, too, so. So what's this great cigar that we're smoking? Oh, today, oh yeah, we, we smoked the Bentley, the Bentley White Half Coronas.
Those are coming out February. I like this size. Yeah, they were going to come out this year. I just pushed it back because of packaging.
Packaging is always what everybody's waiting on. Right. And so we smoked the Bentley White and the Bentley Green Half Corona today. So coming in the new year and then.
This is definitely a winter cigar. No, it's not. Be a man, smoke a regular cigar. Ridiculous.
Ridiculous. It's a good, how I like them is I'll light them up if I don't know how long I'm going to be smoking. It's a good quick smoke. Yeah, if I don't know how long I'm going to be smoking.
And then after I'm done with that cigar, if I smoke another one of those, it's because I also don't know how long I'm going to be smoking. So what I end up doing is going through like three half Coronas when I should have just smoked like a Churchill, but I didn't know how long I was going to be smoking. If I have limited time, you know what I started doing is I started taking the Justice, the Connecticut Corona Gorda, And then I cut it in half and I'll smoke the bottom half and then I'll light the second half later. Oh.
P. Palmer. Yes. This was episode 431.
And I appreciate you guys having me back. Thanks for coming on, dude. Have a great rest of the holiday season. Thanks, buddy.
And enjoy the cigars. All right. Thanks, everybody. Bye.
Bye. Heredishing the War Bear of Mass Destruction, The Shirt That Roars Attitude. com. The Cirelli comes in black, bold, clean, and built for battle, available in multiple sizes for warriors of every shape and strength, and remember, the actual image does not dance or move, but it definitely makes a statement.
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Show Notes
On today’s show we have the newest update in the AI challenge, What’s the hottest toy for Christmas 2025 . Even in Space there is traffic then over in the cigar world Midnight seems the right time to launch a cigar. Can we have more supreme leaf cigars please and ever get an ugly time for Christmas? Then a quick what’s the score!