ACHP EPISODE 500 ROCKETS, JAGS AND THE 1% FOR 500
Episode Summary
Episode 500 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast brings the full crew — host Mike Palmer, Phil McGuffey, and show creator Mikey Szczepankewicz — back together to mark the milestone. They open by noting that only about 1% of podcasts ever reach 500 episodes, then walk through the show's most-watched moments: the Intuition Beer episode (72), the Skip Martin interview (238) and a special with Steve Saka as the most popular guests, and the fan-favorite episode 279 where Phil went missing in the Nicaraguan jungle. The guys also talk about how they prep long-form interviews (using the Pete Johnson episode as an example), why they prefer the natural chemistry of the core crew plus occasional drop-ins like Matt Booth, Sweeney and Oliver, and why they'd rather earn loyalty through customer service than compete on discount-site pricing.
Between the anniversary talk, they attempt a live call for TPE intel, read listener comments, tease a surprise CHPod shirt drop and a possible swag points/giveaway program, and push PCA 2026 New Orleans (April 18–20) retailer and media meeting appointments. Off-topic banter covers the Artemis 2 launch and its 10-day lunar flyby with a Canadian crew member, satellites that could beam sunlight at night, and the NFL's unanimous approval of the Jacksonville Jaguars playing their 2027 home season at Camping World Stadium in Orlando during a $1.4 billion stadium renovation.
Cigar news runs deep: Quesada Cigars' new sweet-cap Suspiro line (Connecticut and Oscuro, made at Tabacalera de Esteli/Dominican Republic, 15-count boxes), a modest across-the-board price increase from Hiram & Solomon ahead of the PCA, Macanudo adding mixed-filler color-blend bundles (with a discussion of what "Cuban sandwich" mixed filler actually means for value pricing), Graycliff's new Tasters sampler of 3x38 versions of six core lines — Double Espresso, Chateau Grand Cru, Crystal, Espresso G2, Heritage and Royale — made in Nassau, Bahamas, plus a candid take on how catalog discounting damaged the brand, and Black Label Trading Company's new Macabre (Mexican San Andrés wrapper, Ecuadorian Habano binder, Nicaraguan filler, rabito pigtail cap, three vitolas) debuting at the PCA.
The episode closes with "What's the Score?", scoring Charlie Minato's Halfwheel review of the Warped / Gellis Family Cigars Isla del Crocodilio Blanco — a $18, 6.5x55 Dominican limited edition with an Ecuadorian Connecticut-seed wrapper, Brazilian Arapiraca and Ecuadorian Habano 2000 binders, and Nicaraguan filler — praised for creamy, nutty, bready flavor and excellent draw but dinged hard for fragile wrapper and cap construction.
In This Episode
- 01500 Episodes and the Top 1%The crew celebrates hitting 500 episodes and notes only about 1% of podcasts ever get there.
- 02Most Popular Episodes and GuestsRundown of the show's biggest hits, including the Skip Martin interview, a Steve Saka special, and Phil going missing in the Nicaraguan jungle.
- 03How the Interview Series Gets MadeMikey explains the month of prep behind long-form interviews like the Pete Johnson episode and why other shows miss the good stuff.
- 04Swag, Comments and PCA 2026 AppointmentsA surprise shirt drop, listener comment reads, and how retailers and media can book meetings at PCA New Orleans, April 18–20, 2026.
- 05Artemis 2, Sunlight Satellites and the Jags in OrlandoOff-topic talk on the Artemis 2 lunar flyby, night-to-day satellite tech, and the Jaguars' 2027 home season moving to Camping World Stadium.
- 06Cigar News: Quesada Suspiro and Hiram & Solomon Price IncreaseQuesada's new sweet-cap Suspiro in Connecticut and Oscuro blends, plus Hiram & Solomon's modest pre-PCA price hike.
- 07Macanudo Mixed Filler and Graycliff TastersMacanudo's value-priced mixed-filler color-blend bundles and Graycliff's new 3x38 Tasters sampler, with a hard look at what catalog discounting does to a brand.
- 08Black Label Macabre and What's the Score?Black Label Trading Company's new Macabre with a rabito cap, then scoring the Halfwheel review of the Warped/Gellis Family Isla del Crocodilio Blanco.
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
" So that you guys will know when I die. Oh, okay. It goes red. If the red light flashes, we're all in trouble.
Oh, boy. Show's over. Show's over. That's it.
We're done. 500, no, 501. Still great content, and here we are just wasting. No, no, I'm recording.
He's recording. This is all part of the show. Okay. But we cut this part off.
Don't. Let it happen. Just leave it, please. Welcome to a Cigar Hoser Podcast episode 500.
How does this work so I don't shoot in my face? Oh, no, this is 500? Is this the 500? Oh, God.
Yes. Get down in the trenches. Dude. The Chinese are here.
Are you out of your mind? Jesus. I'm so fine with it. Now I can't read the teleprompters everywhere.
Someone's got to take me to the hospital. You're going to have to clean all that up. Well, I sweep ash off the floor in most days. Oh, my God.
There's going to be remnants of that? I don't know, we need it upstairs, I'll get it all up. Keanu will be down here. Yeah, plus it's Keanu claims the room, but I do have stuff all over the teleprompter.
I like the celebration. Give Keanu something to do for two months. I'm Mike Palmer, your host, and on today's show, we have the whole crew back together for the 500th episode. Back from his new movie, Under a Tree, Illegal Love, Phil McGuffey.
I bet he hadn't heard that yet. No, that's great. Then the creator of the show, the man who, without him, we wouldn't be as successful and unpaid as we are. To keep the show moving, Mr.
Mikey Szczepankewicz. Hi. Welcome, gentlemen. Thanks for the contract.
Thank you for having me. Episode 500. All right. No Preston joke, huh?
No, it's only Tuesdays. Oh. Okay. Only for the Tuesday show.
But now they have a new drinking game when he says something stupid. Hammered all the time. When you say he, you mean Preston? No, no.
You there, Feathertop. Wow. Wow. Preston doesn't say anything stupid.
Okay, I didn't say it did. Yeah. Alright, do you guys know only 1% of all podcasts make it to 500? Really?
Most people have quit and given up by now. Not us! Oh, that's an interesting fact. In for all the punishment.
We're in for the... We're the top 1%. We're in 1% of all podcasts ever made. Wow.
Our most popular show is on YouTube. I only checked on YouTube, because they keep track better. It's still episode 72, we're in Tuition Beer, our most popular guest is episode 238, Skip Martin, followed closely by a special episode with Steve Sakka. Right, wow.
And then my personal favorite episode is 279, when Phil goes missing in the Nicaraguan jungle. That was great. That's still the fourth highest rated episode we have. Yeah.
Oh, Phil. You know who Phil is, huh? Well, you were missing. Well, you were missing.
And you were Karen. Karen was here that day. Oh, I don't like her. Oh, we loved Karen.
I think we might bring Karen back this year. Karen was amazing. I don't like Karen. I can't wait to see Karen again.
She was great. We loved Karen. I have to see if we still have Karen's hair. You were speaking briefly before about the podcast artwork that was recently released and that you said that you, go ahead, what were you going to say about your mask?
Oh, I mean, I know the mask is gay, but I do like the artwork that Palmer came up with. Yeah. Yeah, that turned out well. Yeah, my beard was on point and, you know, it looked good.
Listen. You wouldn't want to see the original. I'm sure. Dude, why are you taking all the fun away from me?
Oh, sorry. 'Cause it was fun for me. The first image was way more amazing. Like, the size of your head was just so massive.
We don't have a picture of him with the mass, so I had to take one out of the video and he happened to be turned just the correct way to where your head looked huge. Well, yeah, and his head is bigger on that camera, that image, too. Well, first of all, he has a gigantic dome. No, not bigger than Palmer's, though.
Yeah, I wear a bigger hat, apparently. That's true. But I think your face might be a little fuller than mine, but it looked like about the size of that light. I think it's just the top part of your head is bigger than his.
He's just massive. He's more mass. You're mass. You know?
Yeah, yeah. You're like outer planet-sized head. You know what I mean? Jupiter.
Yeah. You're more like Jupiter. Yeah. I'm like Mars.
Yeah. He's more Martian. You know? Yeah.
With that thing, Mikey. Go feel it. Mikey is more Uranus-sized. Always go to the Uranus joke.
If you wanna talk planetary information, you gotta go Uranus. Alright, so now that we've done 500 episodes, we've had just about everybody that you could have We have on the show. Mm-hmm. Anybody left?
Anybody else left you would like to have on? Not really. Nobody. No, man.
You know, um... What about Guy Fieri? Nope. It'd be cool to have, but...
It would be cool to have, but yeah. I gotta be honest, I like the intermingling that we've kind of incorporated as of late. Right. Where we work people in, and it feels, it just feels more natural.
- Yeah, we could do a Guy Fieri work again, that might be fun. - Yeah, no, but like he's not gonna know anything about the show. It's not like he watches or anything, you know what I mean? - What if we dress up Greg as Guy Fieri?
- Very close. - Still not as cool. He's just not a guy, I mean, he would be cool to have, don't get me wrong. - Right.
- But I'm not like, hey, you know, we really need this. - Right. - Like, I really believe in us, and I like, honestly, the three of us together, I mean, a lot of us together have the best chemistry, and then throwing in the additional guy every once in a while, no matter what the spot is, that's always entertaining, right? It's like, oh, it's just a different look, right?
Like Sweeney or Oliver was really good. Oliver was really good. And Greg doesn't belong back there, right? No, he did not do as good a job.
No, he belongs in this chair, so whenever he's gonna fill in, we're gonna put him here. Put him up front. But like, I don't know, I enjoy that. So, I don't look at anybody in the industry and think, "Man, we really need them on the show".
I love having Matt Booth come on. He's awesome, you know? So, if we had another person come in, would you do any more of your interview series like you did? Or would that be more like if we did a special event down here?
" - Yeah, I need about a month of prep, because I'll listen to every podcast, and, and every, you know, because, like, That's where you find the good things to talk about, right? Sure. When we covered Pete Johnson, I knew everything about him, and I knew the questions that other podcasters missed when they were interviewing. I think that that's extremely common, right?
Well, he would say something and you thought of something that should follow, but the other show didn't pick up on it, something like that. Yeah, yeah, like he would, you know, that's what's always intriguing to me, is the person you interview sometimes will give you this gem, right? " Like, that would have been something we could have, we could have jumped, I could have jumped on that. Right.
So, you know, you take the opportunity to go through everybody else's stuff, it makes it, you can really hit, you can hit everything that they wanted to talk about. And you can know what's important to them, so. Speaking of things that we're supposed to have jumped on, we still haven't called Joe Pasquale. I know, I was thinking about that.
If you want to call him now, you can. I don't remember why you were calling him at this point, but... It's TPE coverage. Let's give him a call.
Oh, okay. Maybe even like a Burt Kreischer. I mean, he's everywhere. He was here.
No, I know. Oh. Sorry. Yep, you know, I'll elaborate on that in a second.
Let me see if he answers. Does it sound okay? Yeah. These are new microphones.
Well, they're same, but we removed the lapels. Oh, okay. Trying to eliminate that crackle. Okay, well...
Your call has been... We tried to call Joe Pasquale. We're trying to get, we're trying to get in-depth TPE intel. - You could try the Cigar Guys, they're all there.
- Oh, yeah. - You think they'll be funny? - Whoa. - You think they'll be funny?
- Maybe Jared. - If you have Jared's number, call him, I'm not sure if Alex is here. - Okay, so here's the thing. The Cigar Guys are there because TPE asked them to be there.
- Right. - You think it's gonna be a... - Oh, yeah, they won't say anything bad. - You think it's gonna be 100% unbiased?
- Unbiased. - Yeah, not like there's nobody there, they're not gonna go, you know, there's nobody here. - Yeah. - Is Jack and them not there?
- The food is terrible. - I don't know. - I don't think Espinosa went this year. - Oh.
- I didn't hear anything about it. - So. - Okay. - Yeah, I would like, if I'm gonna get somebody on the phone, I wanna get somebody who doesn't care.
- Right. - And they're gonna tell you exactly right. - They're gonna say something? - Yeah.
And Joe's definitely that guy. - He's there as a retailer, I'm guessing? - Yeah. - Well, Justin Andrews is there.
Same scenario. He's not going to answer the phone. He's going to, and he's going to give, if he does answer, he's going to give you his, his corporate response. Yeah.
It's a great day, we're showing this cigar. Yeah, look at this diesel. All these diesels. All right, on today's show then, we are go for launch.
Jags are coming to Orlando. Oh, yeah. And in cigars, we have some new PCA cigars, a price increase just in time for the PCA. PCA.
" But first, Mikey, how do we get some of that CHPod swag and what are the non-funny comments you would like to read today? Wow. You didn't hear the ones yesterday. "Mikey's great.
" Oh, is that what he's reading? Yeah. Those are the ones he reads. Listen, just because you feel that they're not funny or they're not worthy, I respect all the viewers and listeners on this show.
So, I'm going to look at three, and I'm going to at least read off three, or at least I'm going to try and read off three. I'm just going from when you said if they're funny and we like them, we will read them on the show. I get it. I get it.
And now you've aggressively attacked me about this, and now I am going to defend our viewers. Maybe there's another one about somebody else that likes tuna and macaroni together. Maybe that was a good one. Mitch Maduro.
I don't understand whose it was. I wasn't going to call him out. Say his name. I know his name.
You say his name and you respect his name. All right. He's a good person. Somebody else who likes toast or something, you can mention that.
Okay. Palmer, why don't you pick a couple? First of all, because then he's got to do more work. I got to do more work?
Oh, that's hard. I didn't want to trigger you. I would have them prepared in advance. Oh.
Like and subscribe wherever you're viewing or listening to this show, for starters. There's going to be a new shirt dropping. Oh! It's a surprise shirt.
Oh! Like a gift box with a question mark above it? No, no, no, no. I'm going to, I'll drop it, and what I'm going to do is if you're a CHPOD member, if you've already placed a purchase, you're going to get an email notification before it comes out to anybody else.
Oh! And then I will wear it on the show. Oh! I forgot to do that one, Phil.
It's going to be, it's a good one. So is this another limited run, pre-sale type thing? It's not going to be a pre-sale, because it's really funny. I mean, they're all limited to an extent.
It's got to be a 500 episode shirt. No, well, we're too late. Too late, he's already designed it. I was given a tip by someone, some other shows and influencers do like a type of point thing.
You know, you buy so many shirts, you get so many points, and then when you get to a certain level you get a prize. Palmer, you just got another job. Like a raffle thing? Kind of, yeah.
Okay, we could do something like that. Well, the one that they took was a car, and I was like, there's no way we're giving away a car. It's the raffle thing, that's a raffle thing. Where you buy, when you buy, you get...
You buy the swag, you get 10 points per shirt. When you get the first one to 100 points, it's a car, but we're not giving away a car. No. We were trying to give away an experience with Palmer and Phil.
Yeah, we tried that. Well, that was a pay thing. They had to buy that. Oh, yeah.
But you're still available. You know what? Comment below and tell us what you think a big giveaway would be that we should do. Maybe we'll entertain it.
Also, we haven't done the review of the reviewers for the smaller guys. Oh, that's right we haven't. However, we're really close to PCA, maybe we wait. Yeah, I wouldn't.
Let's wait till after PCA, that way no one gets their feelings hurt, even though we're not trying to hurt feelings. That way nobody gets their feeling hurt and sees this in person. Yeah. Yeah.
That's the important part. Okay, let me see here. That would create better content, though. Yes, but it makes the show awkward for us.
Oh. Okay. So, I haven't read these yet today, just so you know. It's usually what happens.
So, at Marty Cigar says, The Peaky Blinders movie seemed like its only purpose to set up a spinoff focused on Tommy Shelby's son. That's probably accurate. I haven't finished the movie, but... Oh, he still didn't finish it?
I started again last night, I got about, I'm like, okay, 15 minutes off, so I got, I have 45 minutes left, so I probably have 30 minutes left, if I devote two more days to it, maybe I'll be done. 15 minutes at a, yeah, 15 minutes at a, at a queue, so, um, uh, Mark, at Mark Palmer said Raul Castro is Fidel's younger brother, which I feel like we knew. Right, but there's a new guy in charge, we knew that. Yeah, Raul quit.
Yeah, he's like, I don't know. It's too hard. No food, no power, no gas. I must go.
He's muy duro. Can't get a carburetor from my car. I'm out. I'm going to Miami.
Muy duro. Where I have my money. Right, where I have my money hidden. At SunTrust Bank.
@epicureansmoke says, Boots, new mask. Looks like he's about to announce the new king of Bourbon Street. Also, mono-gay. I think he's referencing the city that we were talking about.
At David Morris says, "Gotta start incorporating landmarks into the geography quiz too. " Wow. Thanks a lot. Still in New York.
We got a couple of Phil's here. I'm going to keep this going for a second. Oh, yeah. It's always great when Phil's in it, huh?
At David Morris also said, "The more I watch this, the more I understand why Phil owns his own business. R. violation. That was funny.
I don't deny that. That was funny. People probably complained to his wife all day long. And last one here.
Last one here. Wow. T-Money, guessing Phil has never sat in an exit row, the self-preservation king would trample kids to get off the plane. Yeah.
So, if you want to hear comments, if you want to hear your comment potentially on the show, If you're watching the show, comment below on this episode, and we may read it off. Like and subscribe, obviously, wherever you're watching. com, where you can buy one, get the second one 40% off, and you get $100 more in free shipping. And maybe even get a shout out for picking up some swag.
If you're going to the show, if you're going to PCA New Orleans 2026, and you're a retailer that does business with us, a retailer that wants to do business with us, a customer that wants to get your retailer to do business with us, Hit the calendar link below. Somebody who wants to do business with us. To somebody who likes Postanya, hit the calendar link below. We would love to meet with you.
We're gonna give you a free Winged Hazars hat just for the meeting. But you gotta sit in the whole meeting. You can't just come and get the hat, you know, obviously. And if you're a media guy and you wanna meet with us, you wanna do an interview, set an appointment as well.
There's a separate link for you too. We picked up a few more appointments yesterday. We got some more rolling in, so we're running out of space. One at a time.
So, make sure that you book ASAP. Did you see Drunk Chicken Cigars pulled our story on them, the video, and put it on their Instagram page? Did they? Yes.
They commented on our feed. And now, they are booked solid for Saturday. Did we say something bad about them? No, no, we just, we did their press release.
Oh, okay. Yeah, we covered it. About the two new cigars they have coming out, and they put it on their Instagram page. Oh, nice.
I thought it was cool. Yeah, that's fantastic. Look, at the end of the day, we like to poke fun and have a good time, and we always say things about everybody, but we want to cover real cigar information, cigar news that's going on in the industry, and hopefully that shines some light on some of these other brandos, manufacturers, retailers, media people, all of it. You know, it's really kind of funny, I was on social media or something yesterday, and I saw this thing where...
" And just because the deal's there doesn't mean it's the best deal. I need to find out with free shipping if there's any taxes, whatever. And then I determine which one and that's how I buy. And, you know, they're all talking about discounts and all this other stuff.
And I'm like, yeah, like we're not in that conversation. But then today I saw Steve's up there working hard, right? And I saw I, you know, I saw a few responses from some of our customers and it was like. They were going off all day yesterday.
You know, hey, thanks for everything you do for me. Right. Thanks for always taking care of me. Appreciate you.
Thanks for always looking out, you know. And I'm thinking to myself, man, that's who we are. And I don't want to be in the conversation with the other dudes, so. Sure.
That was pretty, that was a pretty cool thing, right? So, I don't know, I wanted to bring that up and mention it now because you were kind of talking about the other stuff and, I don't know. No, it didn't. It makes sense, right?
Sure, yeah. Customer service, taking care of people and just looking out for our customers, our media guys, our media friends, other people in the industry, whether they're brand owners, manufacturers, whatever. I do like they think that Steve basically lives here. I mean, the messages for Steve specifically come in all night long.
Oh, like it's his phone? Yeah, like it's his phone and, you know, he's just, you know, he lives here. I mean, dude, look, which is great. Listen, Steve bought into the culture, he believes in us, and he operates at a temple that you do, and he operates at a temple that I do.
Right, yeah, he took that concierge thing and just ran with it. Yeah, and it shows. Right. So, very grateful for all.
It's neat when you see the messages addressed specifically to him. Right, where's Steve? Like, he's not here, he has a family. Hey Steve, thanks for the message.
I would take four of those. Yeah. Steve's not here. Yeah.
He's not here right now. That's what I have to do on Fridays. I'm like, okay, this is Palmer Friday. Steve does have today off.
What can I do? Yeah. As it is 7 o'clock on Sunday. Right.
He's not available right now. Right. I remember they come in at midnight. Oh, yeah, I'll take 17 of those.
Yeah. All right, let's get going with the show. All right, Artemis 2 is a go. It is taking off by the time this show airs.
It will have launched into space. Are you guys watching this? m. this evening, I believe.
Yeah, yesterday evening. Well, yes. By the time this airs, it will already have taken off. But they're sending four people up to do, I think it's 10 days.
It takes 10 days to go around the moon and check all the sides out and look for a landing space or something, I imagine. See what the dark side looks like? Well, but it's still going to be dark, so I don't know how they're going to see anything. Don't they have, like, special lights or whatever?
Nope. I heard them talking about that on the radio. Somebody asked that question, like, no, there are not giant floodlights. Mounted on the outside of the spaceship.
- No? - No. - Did you see that we're really close to this, man my throat's a little messed up today, that we're really close to having satellites up in space that can direct sunlight to the other side of Earth when it's night, and you can do this via an app? - I saw that, okay, was that today?
That might be an April Fool's thing. - No, no. That's a James Bond movie, but they could narrow it down even more specifically and use it as a laser. No, this isn't a laser.
This is about putting light in specific areas and it costs like a thousand bucks or something like that. That's what I saw on social media. It could be fake. Why do you want to make night time, day time?
If you're operating and doing work in specific areas or crime scene. " - They have lights. - Dude, I have seen it before, where there's, like, the police will come out and they'll make a conversation and they'll say, okay, so this, it went down and we need to discover evidence and stuff, however, we're gonna wait 'til daylight so that we can kind of view all these things. - Right.
- Like, now you can potentially expedite all this stuff. - So, okay, let's say, God forbid, my neighbor gets killed. - Yeah. - And they need, they need light.
- Mm-hmm. - So then the cop pulls out his phone, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, all of a sudden it lights up and now I'm awake at three o'clock in the morning Because it's daylight, not because they can't sleep. It would beam just on his house, but yeah, I'm sure that's going to happen. Well, there's got to be an overflow.
The houses are closed. It's going to happen. It's going to be an inconvenience for you. Or say, it's three in the morning and I really want to wake Palmer up.
And I just go, beep, boop, boop, boop, a thousand dollars. Amazing. Dude, I love where your head's at on this. Any of us can do it?
I mean, I can download the app from Apple and I can have the sunlight? Right. Like, I don't know if it's there yet, but that would be awesome. That's awesome.
I want to have enough money where I can make my enemies miserable. Right. Like, the sun is... Well, not that Palmer's an enemy, but...
The sun is still here. It's 2 o'clock. Oh, I'm up. Everybody else should be.
Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. It's 2 o'clock in the morning. Just fucking Justin Andrews' house. Right.
Oh, yeah, with your hands up all the time. Dude, how awesome would that be? There's been a bunch of stories recently, I don't know if they're fake or not, about girlfriends who are torturing their ex-boyfriends and stuff, and then they end up in jail. Oh, God.
They're torturing them? Well, like one put an ad in the paper that he's selling a car or something with a phone number at an unbelievable cheap price, so he gets all these phone calls and stuff. Oh my God, that's amazing. Or the, I mean, you guys probably heard this one, the guy buys it, he goes and buys a car for $500, takes it to the airport and parks it in the extended stay parking and just never goes back for it and registers it in his ex-wife's name.
You know what this is? This is just an upgraded version of when you ride on the bathroom stall for a good time call. Right, exactly. This is just a high tech version.
So then she gets all these tickets and bills from the airport for thousands and thousands of dollars because the car's been there for six months. You know what, I like where all this is going and you guys are giving me some great ideas. I'm just gonna say that right now. I like the one where you buy a bunch of keys on Amazon, just blank random keys.
" And you put somebody, like I would put your phone number on them, and then just scatter them through town and airports and things. That's incredible. Then people are calling you constantly going, "Hey, I found your key. " But at this point, you can block, you know, you don't have to...
Well, you gotta block every number that comes, that just means they can only call you once. Yeah, what if they text you? "Hey, I found your key. " I think if you're blocked, texting doesn't go through either.
Yeah, but like silence your unknown callers on, isn't the same, they can still text you. Right. I just like the old-fashioned for a good time call around the stall. I gotta be honest, I don't know what kind of time span this light thing is happening, but I hope that I become financially wealthy enough where I can utilize this.
You know, I would mess with Greg, no, I would mess with people I don't like. That was such a quick response, Triple G spot, the problem is like it would take, one day of daylight at night is not enough, you would have to set it up. so that it kicks on at, like, 8 o'clock at night and runs until, like, 5 o'clock in the morning. Like Alaska.
And then you would have to run it. That's a lot of money. And you would have to run it for a solid week, at least, to make somebody miserable, until they figured out how to work around it, you know? Right.
So. They're saying, and I don't understand why, that when this rocket takes off, or when the rocket took off, you could see it from far, far away. Yeah. I mean, you see the map with the rings.
Well, they're showing a map, and they show the rings, like, okay, we can obviously see it from here, but, like, you could see it from maybe Savannah, Georgia, or even a little further away. It's a big one, or is it just because the time of the year that we're doing it? Who knows? Clear skies.
And now there's a pink moon tonight, which is a good effect to launch, so we don't know how it works. They didn't see the pink moon coming? No, for some reason, they don't know about it until the day before, until the time they know it's coming. Hey, we predicted this anti-gravity thing happening in August, but, you know, you know that thing that we were gonna launch yesterday, or today?
Yeah, pink moon, question mark, might be a problem. Yeah, we don't want to get in our way. Sorry. Oh, yes, it's 10 days.
Oh, there's one Canadian. What's a Canadian for? Is he the expendable one in case something bad happens? It's good to have one, at least one Canadian.
Three Americans and one Canadian? Yeah, he's the one that brings us back down, you know. You're trying to show, look, we're trying to mend fences here. We're showing unification.
Oh, 51st state. 51st state. Well, no landing is, oh, on the moon. I thought they didn't schedule a landing.
Like, what are they going to do with them? Just let them float around with them when they're done? Correct. Mabel syrup.
And then within the next two years, if this goes well, we are going back to the moon to land for something. Awesome. By the way, your TikTok post got a lot of flack, saying when you said that there wasn't, that we didn't land on the moon. People started breaking down the science.
Of course they did. Yeah, I got a video sent to me from Epicurean Smoke so that we don't have to discuss it at the PCA. Oh, okay. Just to show you that we did land on the moon.
Right, right. Right. That's amazing. But it's a girl explaining there's this guy that says all the reasons I said that we didn't and then she explained to each one.
All the reasons why you didn't. Yeah, he covered all the bases. You found the exact video. Good for you.
Good. All right, so we landed on the moon then? We got that established? Well, that's what we're going with today.
I like that we're not committed to anything. We're not committed. We can change opinions. Sure.
We don't have to dig in. Right. You know? As long as we're talking about outer space, there is an app that shows all the space junk in outer space.
Apparently, there's a lot out there. We have talked about that. I feel like this is deja vu. Yeah, we were talking about...
No, we talked about space junk. Italian waste management. You know, like the mobbed up waste. Hey, yo, let me go clean that up.
Go get that dead satellite. Will P. Hernandez floating in the space. What was that guy's name in South Florida?
Wayne Huizenga or whatever? Wasn't he like the big waste management guy? Oh, I don't know. I don't know.
Don't say his name. Used to own the dolphins? You should know that he used to... Wayne?
I don't know. That doesn't sound... Wait, Box? I don't know who that is.
How do you not know this? You're a dolphins guy. Yeah. It doesn't sound familiar, though.
Okay. Maybe. You know why it's good to be a dolphin guy right now? Why?
Why? Because the Jags are coming to Orlando and he may get to see them play locally. Wow. The NFL unanimously approved the Jacksonville Jaguars to play their 2027 home season at Camping World Stadium in Orlando.
Mm-hmm. 4 billion renovation to the ratty old stadium they're playing at in Jacksonville. Wow. Well, that's good for us because I just dropped my Bucks tickets.
Tickets. I got rid of the season tickets. Then you can go see the Jags. It'd be nice to just drive 20 minutes up the road, go see a game, and then go home.
Right, you're used to watching football in Bad Neighborhoods, so you'll be fine. Yeah, well, that's where the UFL games are. Oh. Well, yeah, we don't have another stadium here in town.
Yeah, well, when it was XFL, we used to go to those, so. Oh. Currently, they're talking about coming over the day of, like, all of them on a bus. It's a two-hour drive.
Yeah, but I guess there's things they have to do to get ready. I mean, I don't know, they were talking about the radio this morning, I don't know if it's a good idea or not, will they all be, legs be tight or something because they get a chance to stretch because they rode a two hour car ride or something? I don't know. I'm sure they'll probably come over before two hours.
Yeah, they're not showing up at noon for a one o'clock game, you know what I mean? Right. No, but I mean, if they leave early, let's say they leave at eight, they're here by 10 and what, the game starts at one, that's still only three hours. It's probably entirely up to them.
If they wanted to book a hotel and just stay there, I'm sure they could. Yeah, there's a lot. Don't know. Well, I think the team wants everybody to ride together.
On the bus? On the bus. Oh. That way, you know, the star player doesn't get in an accident by himself and nobody, and he doesn't show.
DUI or something. He gets lost, you know. Pulls a tiger wound. Hooker bites him by accident.
A hooker bites him by accident? Oh, really? On the, really? You never know, it's a bump or something, construction area?
Is that what, yeah, I'm gonna leave that one alone. Okay. No, go ahead. Is that what happened to Magic Johnson?
Glad you said that. He's basketball. Glad you said that. Glad you said that.
That's terrible. That's how he got it, yes. That's how he got it. You know, just to- Was it a male or female?
I'm sorry. Just to briefly recap here. Was that a thing with him? I'm sorry.
I don't know. Phil said, Phil said, I don't want to say this. And all I had to say was, oh, go ahead and say it. It comes right out.
Racism homophobia. Racism homophobia. How was that racism? Just because he was black.
It actually wasn't. It wasn't. There was no racism. It wasn't either.
It was just really. We were going with it though. So. You got AIDS.
Maybe. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to all you hookers out there. I think you all have AIDS.
I apologize. All hookers have AIDS. Great. And just for the record, he never had AIDS.
He never had AIDS. He had HIV. There's a difference. Well, yeah, that thing, too.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, what's the difference, really? Let's get serious here.
There's a big difference. I think it's like dead or not dead. Yeah. Don't you get a shot on the peepee no matter what?
No shot, no peepee. No, no, it's just if you work out. Just if you work out, Wendy. Just if you work out.
That's where you get your testosterone booster. Yeah. Oh. In the peepee.
In the peepee. Yep. Sounds like your words. You have a video for us today, Michael?
Nope. He doesn't. No video. Look at that, Mr.
Preppy. Just send us a picture. It's basically what you did yesterday. I didn't send you a picture.
It was just a picture. That video was two seconds. That was a good picture. Some guy going pfft, pfft, pfft.
I'm going to have a video for you in two seconds. Oh, please continue forward. It's going to be like a home-a-la-ta-top. It's going to be Magic Johnson driving a car.
Yeah, that's all his feed's going to be now, Magic Johnson. Oh, it's going to be Magic Johnson, because that's what we talked about. He won't get rid of this like me. All right, then we're into Cigar News.
Oh, we're just fast-forwarding. Well, I mean, that's the next thing. We can sit here for 20 minutes while he looks for a video. Okay.
Give me two seconds. All right, we'll just sit here. One 1,000, two 1,000. I got one for you.
Oh, there it is. Let me just record it. Oh, you got a screen record. Oh, there's music.
I can't play that long. Is there another Fratello? Because that was good. He might be fun to have on the show now because he's doing all those little videos.
He's very opinionated now. Is he leaving tonight? Fratello? Yeah.
Leaving where? Is he going to the moon? Oh, no. He's just an accountant, I found out.
That's so depressing. He's just an accountant. No, he's like a rocket scientist, he's a rocket accountant. Yeah.
Hey, how much did this cost? A lot. That's one of those $10,000 hammers, put it back. Hmm.
We bought two. How many zeros? I don't know, hold on, let me sell these lunar cigars. Hold on, let me get my scientific calculator out.
Yeah. All right, we'll go on to the news, go ahead. Sweet Cap Quesada Superio, shipping in April. Oh!
A new line from Quesada Cigars is named after a traditional Spanish dessert: the Quesada, we'll say cake, is a new brand that will be available in two different blends, each of which have a sweetened cap, the sousapiro, we're going with cake. Cake Connecticut is made of a Connecticut seed wrapper covering a Dominican binder and filler tobaccos grown in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. We'll be available in two different Batolas and will come packaged in 15 count boxes. You think people are doing more flavored stuff because vapes might be going away?
No, I just think that they're looking to try and touch into another area. Another market? Yeah. I'm not sure, Mike, but I think you have ash on your shirt, or is it just sparkles?
Okay, yeah, ash. It's probably ash. It's glitter, it's glitter. Oh, from the Magic Jones?
No, he worked out this morning. He likes to, you know, paint himself with glitter. Oh, is that what he does? That way everyone see them coming in.
I actually didn't. Flex is in the mirror in the bathroom. I actually didn't work out. Pow!
Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle. I don't see anything funny. The Connecticut Short Robusto, it's a 4x50. How much is the Robusto?
We'll only go with the one size. Quesada. Flavored. Sweet tip.
Yeah. You want to go first or you want me to go? Sure, I'll go. Six bucks.
Uh, nine dollars. Twelve, 25. These are expensive ones. Yeah, super expensive con leche.
It will be packaged in 15-count boxes. It will be available in two sizes. Oh, this is the darker one, the Oscuro Robusto. Same price, so we're not going to ask.
It comes in a Toro with a little mini guy. Both cigars are regular production releases, produced at the Tapico de Esportante factory in the Dominican Republic. Oh. A cake is a delicate meringue dessert, though the word also means "sai" in Spanish.
Well, that's confusing. Perfect. You mean C? Sigh, S-I-G-H.
So it can either mean this fancy dessert, or it can mean you're just going, ah. I got a good one. It's just a picture. Oh, just like yesterday.
But it's a... It's a meme. Is it a meme? Now he's sending memes.
Hold on. I'm gonna send it to you. My phone still has confetti on it. Oh, nice.
" Wow, look at that, you know, I tried doing a postaña on it for our graphic, but ChatGPT kept turning it the wrong way. This wouldn't work, you had to Photoshop that, you'd have to work with some skills. " And then it apologized. But in our photo, I am in the background smiling, smiling.
I did see that, I saw that on the thumbnail. On the thumbnail? Yeah. Yeah.
So. That's pretty creative. He wrote into a different group. Anybody know what cigar he's smoking?
Wow. That's hilarious. All right, Hiram and Solomon are announcing- I forgot and I still delivered. When I forgot, I still delivered.
There you go. That's not a video, it's a picture. That counts. No, it doesn't.
Yes, it does. No, the thing is, you provide a video. I can't do that right now. I did it.
Just saying. It counts in my eyes. One thing. 500 episodes.
One thing. It's just the one thing I do? One thing he does. Just one.
Just the one. No, I haven't. During the show. Yeah.
You do the things. The clippies. The clippies. There is one thing that ChatGPT said we should do to increase, so I'm really mad at ChatGPT lately.
Oh, yeah? You should provide many, many clips. I'm like, well, fuck you, we do that too. How many more do you want us to do?
Yeah, how many exactly? Exactly, what does he do? Is anybody I meet, oh, I watch your clips. Do you watch the show?
Oh, the clips. I'm like, oh, you and everybody else. Oh, you have a show? Yeah, you have a whole show, it's not just 30 seconds.
Wait a second, how do you deliver a new clip every two hours? It's something fresh and you guys are always in different outfits. Like, yeah, no, we do a podcast every day. Every weekday.
We do a 30 second clip every hour. Yeah, like, oh, let's do another 30 second clip. All right, Hiron Solomon and they are announcing a price increase. Prices are going up.
Hiram Salomon has announced that it will be implementing a modest price increase in the coming weeks. The founder and CEO of Hiram Salomon said that most any individual cigar will increase is... As a percentage base? It's a percentage, yes.
Okay. Modest, he says. Three percent. That was the number I was going to pick.
I'll go five. Five? Good. Congratulations.
He went the right way. Nice. Though only a few cigars in the company's portfolio didn't see any increase, He did not get into specifics about how much any particular line would increase. The company will be implementing the increase right before the 2026 PCA Convention at Trade Show.
McAuliffe is adding mixed filler color blend bundles to their lineup. Yes, I saw this. Did you see it? Did you read the article?
Wait, where did you see it? I did briefly see it. I did read some of the article, not the whole thing. Because at the beginning of the article, it says this information was gathered from the Cigar Coop website.
So we're not covering the story because we don't have permission. And we don't want to say we are plagiarizing. I thought I saw it on Half Wheel. It was Half Wheel, but Half Wheel said they got the information from Coop.
Oh, okay. Well, we got the information from Half Wheel. No, I don't think that's how that works. You want me to get on ChatGBT and get a fake consent form for you?
Yeah, you know how he is. Well, I'm going to cover it anyways. Okay, because I have no idea what that means. Because, like, the price point for the cigars are really low.
It's like six bucks or something like that. And I thought that was pretty good. And we're actually working on, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but we're developing a product that's going to be value incentivized. And I'm like, ooh, man, that's a low price.
That's a person we've got to compete against. That's a competitor in that space. But then when you kind of, I looked a little closer at it, and it's a mixed filler combo. - So what's that mean?
- That means that it's like a, so they call it like a Cuban sandwich. - Oh, okay. - So it's long filler tobacco and short filler tobacco kind of mixed in. - I thought they meant mixed types.
- No. - Which wouldn't make any sense at all. More of a style of tobacco. - I mean, look, it's still a good value on a cigar.
- Sure, sure. - But the reality is it's not all long filler. - Right. Long fillers where the cost is gonna be a little more.
Did you say mix color as well? Color blend bundles, they do those color blends where they do like the red, the blue, the orange. So it'll be a mix filler blend from those type of cigars. They've been pressing harder on the color labels.
That's been more of their thing. Okay. I think that a lot of brands are kind of doing that now too, like the blue, the red, the purple, the black, you know? Like, San Parai does the colors, no actual names.
Yeah, we don't want a name, we just want a color. Right. " Like, the purple what? Right, right.
The one with the lines. Right, still need to narrow it down a little bit more. The purple one with the lines, right? Right.
I'll take the brown, round one, you know? The brown? The big, long, blue one. Right.
Ooh. I don't know. I don't know what that was about, but okay. Well, I thought he was in his ASML, so I just left it out.
I thought he was going with the brown color. Got it. Yeah. And you got excited?
I was just, you know... A little bit? Emphasizing. A little bit.
A little bit. You're like, ooh, yeah. Ooh, now I'm talking about it. I mean, you know, you did jump into Gary Sheffield's arms last night.
I did. No, I wish I did. Kind of. You saw Gary Sheffield at a baseball game.
He has no clue who that is. Well, I recognize his name, but I didn't know how he jumped into his arms. He used to play baseball. Oh, the one with the basket.
Yeah, the one with the basket, yeah. They wear the little shorts and the tank top. That's correct. Did he have the shorts and the tank top on?
No, he was like low-key. Incognito. Yeah. You were gonna say in disguise.
Disguisio. Yeah, but Phil over here identified him. Of course he did. And then leapt into his arms.
Oh. Because he loves... He loves celebrities. You know how he goes?
Phil loves celebrities. Yeah. Freaks out. Well, this celebrity's different.
Why? Because he's old? Well, when I grew up, you know, he's one of the baseball players a lot of kids emulated. Did you have his picture on your wall in your bedroom?
Actually, I did have a poster of Gary Sheffield. I believe it. Yeah. Who's your top three from growing up that you're like, man, I would just, I would let this man coddle me?
Oh, coddle. Yeah. Coddle? You said you'd jump into his arms.
Um, Allen Iverson. He would not let you, Colin? Yeah, no. Allen Iverson is not, is not messing around.
He doesn't sound like a cop. Yeah, he is not. He's not cuddly. Not okay.
He wouldn't, no, okay, I like, but I like that that's where you went off the jump, okay? Michael Jordan. All right. That's a given.
Basketball player. Both basketball. Yeah, I mean, you know, we had a conversation about, Uh, Griffey, uh, Ken Griffey. Okay.
Ken Griffey Jr.? , not senior. Not senior? No.
Okay. You know who senior is, but not junior? No, I know who junior is, but senior. So you went two basketball, one baseball.
Yeah. Okay. Technically, one of the baseball players also played baseball. No football, huh?
Uh... That is true. I mean... Efrigerator Perry.
Football? No, I met, like, one of my favorite players of all time. Who, Dan Marino? No, Sam Addison.
Who's that? He used to be a corner for the Dolphins. He makes that beer. Oh, okay.
He makes that beer? Sam Addison's beer. Does he? Sam Addison?
Sam Addison. They shortened it for, you know, they had to fit on the bottle. Okay. The extra S-I-O-N just didn't fit.
You guys ever had a Greycliff cigar? A hundred years ago. Yeah. Yeah, another way it is, I've had one, but a long, long time ago, where they're coming out with a new sampler, if you want to try them again.
Well, this is one of those brands that really kind of got destroyed, I believe, by catalogs. You know what, you're probably right. Yeah. And they're only made in Jamaica.
Yeah. Jamaica? Jamaica. I thought it was, uh, uh, what's that?
Bahamas? Yeah, Bahamas. Oh, eh, it's an island. Hold on, I'm looking at it real quick.
Yeah, I don't think it was Jamaica. Oh, it is Bahamas. Yeah. Oh my God.
Very close. Oh my God. It's the next one over. It's Bohemian.
It's the next one over. They're very close. Not Jamaican. You have to stop at one to get to the other.
Oh, so they're not Jamaican cigars? No, apparently they're Bohemian cigars. Oh, okay. Still odd.
Next month, Great Cliff will release a new sampler called Tasters that includes three by 38 versions of their six core lines. The Tolos develop both as a way to give fans of the company a short 10 to 15 minute smoke during their lunch break, or when time is limited, as well as to give consumers that might be not as familiar with the Greycliff a snapshot of the following lines, or if it's cold, they can take them up in order. Oh, yeah, and not be masculine and smoke the full cigar. Right.
Is there a price on this? Yes, there is. Oh, I'd love to guess this one. Back in the day, at the trade show, when it was called IPCPR, before, I mean, it was not RTDA, what it was, era, it was IPCPR era, Greycliff had this gigantic chandelier hanging from the rafters, and that was one of the first things you saw, and you're like, oh my god.
So, you know, like going to the show and being new, when you saw that, you're like, I'm out of my depth, I'm out of my depth. Greg, we should buy these. We need this chandelier. It's impressive.
We should buy these, it's shiny. Now, when you see a chandelier that size, you know that you're paying too much for the cigars, that's the problem. I've smoked in a Greycliff Lounge in China somewhere. Yeah.
Still didn't like the cigars. Okay. But inside the samplers are going to be their double espresso, their Chateau Grand Cru, Crystal Espresso G2 in the Heritage Royale. Taster's version retains the same blends with their larger counterparts with production handled by Great Cliff Factory in Nassau, Bahamas.
In addition to the offering samplers to retailers, Great Cliff will also utilize it in their Taster's Lounge when they do samplings or have a tasting. It's hard to come back. It's hard to recover once you've gone the catalog way, you know? Right.
Well, because then you get, you know, I can buy this online for half that price. Right. And so then what happens is the retailers stop carrying it because, like, I'm not going to compete in anything. Yeah, I can't compete with that.
And then eventually what happens is that brand slowly dies. Right. It's very sad. I don't think it's sad.
It's very sad. Well, they chose that route. It's not sad anymore. It's no longer sad.
Well, they went for the money. They cashed out to get the money. And I understand it. Because this is tough.
This whole game is tough. I had heard of a story about Greycliff that a lot of their downside was they had like a whole beetle incident. You think maybe that was that like pre-catalog? I don't know, man.
Maybe they sold the catalogs to get back out there? No, it's hot in the Bahamas. That can happen. It's hot everywhere.
Hotter in the Bahamas. I think so. Bahamas are the hottest pot. It is hot.
It is hot. No air conditioning. Yeah. There is no air conditioning.
There's no AC there? No. Zero. It's outlawed.
Is it outlawed? I don't think it's outlawed. Interesting. It's an environmental thing.
Yeah. I don't want Freon. Yeah, no Freon. Kills the fish.
I don't think there's any environmentalists there. Kills the fish? So why doesn't AJ just buy the fish? Why doesn't who?
AJ. Well, he would have to move them over to his place. Yeah. But this is a completely different island.
Why would he buy the fish to save the Bahamas? Maybe he just buys the island. You see that blue one? He might own it, we don't know.
AJ Fernandez buys Bahamas. Could be. Yeah, it's not big. Yeah, it's not big.
Right, he can, you know, just write a check or look for the change in the cushions and the trucks. Here, take this necklace. Take this necklace. It's mine now.
Only AJ Island. Only, we will rename this Only AJ. Only AJ. Someone quickly, make me a sign.
Make me a sign. All right, Black Label Trading Company does not need a sign, even though they have a new cigar It's called the Macabre. The Macabre? Macabre.
Macabre. That sounds familiar. That's because Jonathan Drew was in Macau that one time. He was in Macau.
And now you're mixing. But his last name's not really Drew. Completely still upset. I'm sorry, yeah.
Jonathan Sanz. Still upset about that. You felt lied to? Yeah, I feel lied.
I feel like I've been lied to. I feel like I've been deceived and tricked. I get it. He has a different last name.
Did he just get that or? No, he always had it. He always had it. He just convinced us all his last name was Drew.
Wow. Yeah. Say yes. I actually knew that.
Wow. Oh, well, you used to be friends with him until he was told he couldn't come here anymore. He didn't tell me that. I mean, we still get along.
I still see him. I still say hi. Yeah, but there were a couple of years where he didn't say hi. He distanced himself.
He was falling in the pools. Like we have AIDS or HIV. Wow. I was just trying to, it's a callback.
You know, you distance yourself when somebody has AIDS or HIV? No, I don't personally. Well, but other people? Sometimes.
Some people do. Back in the 80s. When it first came out. You distanced yourself.
Well, it was weird. I didn't. People did. Stay away.
It's like COVID, but you wear masks somewhere else. Did you distance yourself from somebody with COVID? At first, maybe, when you were scared of something? I was never scared.
I don't know, because the only person I knew that had it was my wife. Lies. And you're not distancing yourself. Lies.
I did sleep on the couch instead of the bedroom. Lies. You knew I had it. So you kind of distanced.
So I kind of, I guess I did. But I would still go, yeah, but I don't come to your house on a regular basis. No, but he did. He came in and blew us all up.
He did, remember that? Yeah, I remember that, then we all got it. He played it off, too. Right.
" Right. Palmer came to my house with Chet and suits. Oh, that's right, that's right, we brought him supplies. Yeah, that was the joke.
That was a whole video. That was totally different. Yeah, but we had suits on then, so that was him screwing around. You had Tyvek on, that wasn't a real suit.
It's the closest we can get. Listen. Painter suits. Listen, we operate in the confines of what's given to us.
That's right. All right, this cigar next month will be the all-new black-label-traded company Blend. The Nicaraguan company will release the black-label-traded company Macabre Blendwise. It's a Mexican standardized wrapper over an Ecuadorian habano binder and fillers from Nicaragua.
It is produced at the company's own factory in Esali, Nicaragua, not the Bahamas or Jamaica. Ovea Negra? Yes. On debut, there will be three Vitolas, each of which has a Rabito Cap.
What is the Rabito? I mean, I just now know what a 109 is, so now there's a Rabito, I gotta figure that out. I don't know. You don't know what that is either.
I've heard of this one, I just don't know what it is. R-A-B-I-T-O? Correct. How do you spell Macabre?
M-A-C-A-B-R-E. So they're coming out with a Robusto, a Coronagorda, and a Toro. There'll be 800 boxes of the Robusto and Toro, but only 650 boxes of the Corona Gorda. Macabre is quintessential black label, rich, dark, and elegant, with a perfect balance of strength and flavor, says James Brown, the godfather of soul.
Oh, and also the creator of Black Label Trading Company. Rabido means like a pigtail. Pigtail cap. Why can't they just say pigtail?
We all know what a pigtail is. Because! It's a Rabido. Is his real name not Brown either?
Is it Brown either? It's not. It's probably not. It's blue.
Why wouldn't it be Brown labeled Trading Company? If his last name was Brown? Yeah. That's a good point.
So this is where I've heard it before. It's usually described, Edgar Allan Poe's poetry or stories is normally described as Macau. Can we just talk about the fact that he's an Abbott, Edgar Allan Poe? No, no, no.
No, but I know I had to read some of these things in school before. We don't work on that type of level on this show. Yeah. Oh.
You could mention an artically written Playboy, that might be appropriate. The famous poem, poet, Edgar Allan Poe. Well, I think they mentioned this in Peaky Blinders recently. Peaky Blinders?
I'm on season six, when the little girl's having the sightings or whatever in her dreams of the gray man. Yeah. I think they say the word macabre in it. That's why I was like, man, that sounds so familiar.
Well, probably, that sounds very that time. Yeah. Interesting. Sorry.
These are on a first-come, first-served basis at the 2026 PCA Convention and Trade Show, which takes place April 18th to the 20th in New Orleans. First-come, first-served, you better get them. Once they're gone, they're gone. That's a good approach.
You know, come to the show and, you know, whatever. Come right over, because it's the first-come, first-served? Yeah. Ours are, too, by the way.
No, what we do is we offer, we incentivize access to the LEs first when you purchase specific packages. Sure. Yeah. But once those are gone, they're gone.
Once they're gone, they're gone. Right. True. So she come see us first.
Yeah, and then go see Brown Label. And then go see Black Label run by the Brown family. Yes. That's pretty good.
I like that. To be exact. Man, they got slammed. Don't ask them for a Carole Bashan.
They got they got hit last we got to throw something and always uh they got hit last year with higher terrorists than anybody else because they yeah then when they came in they got jumped oh yeah they shipped at the uh high time like there was a weekend where you got screwed and they right that's when they're shipped right i'm like that sucks man i'm sorry to hear that yeah it's too bad okay couldn't buy another pair of those boots i guess they're lovely boots i couldn't pull those off I don't think you could pull those off. I don't wear anything. Wow. I wear like the black t-shirts.
Okay. Right. Glad you clarified that. Because I got you excited for a second?
No. Yeah, he thought maybe he had no pants on. I just love the fact that he wants to coddle Allen Iverson. Wow.
Allen Iverson would kick your ass. Maybe 21. The minute you got close, he would whoop the shit out of you. I wouldn't coddle.
I would just like to shake his hand. I told you I wasn't coddling anybody. He ain't letting you shake his hand. AI?
Never happening. How about you, fans? Stay back. Stay back.
I hear you had COVID. Stay back. I got this three-piece for you. Wow.
Yeah. All right, it's time for the industry's favorite game. What's the score? We should do one episode that's just a long what's the score.
It sounds brutal. Yeah, it does sound brutal. That's like having Oreos with just the cream filling. Eventually, you get tired of it.
Just one time. I don't want to do it every day. I thought about making this episode. You get tired of that?
And Bill does not get tired. Yeah. He smears the cream on himself. Yeah.
He bathes that. " I don't know about smearing it on myself, but... Guess what? Guess what?
I found the double stuff you had in. Wow. Now I'm the double stuff. Wow.
All right. Today's cigar... I'll get the strap on. I'd like you to double stuff me as well.
Wow. Have a go there, then, Jim. Okay. All right.
March 31st, 2026. 26, Charlie Manado Cigars, Dominican Republic, Limited Edition Review, The Warped Cigar/Gellis Family Cigars, Isla Del Crocodilio Blanco. Crocodilio. I like the name of this one, it is a new review from today, so this is the one we're doing.
Nice and fresh. Nice and fresh. The guy's dropping reviews. He's at TPE.
It's pretty impressive. Well, he does them in advance. - Even still, it's impressive. - There's four of them.
- Charlie Monado reviewed this. - Yeah, but you don't know when he actually reviewed it. - I get that. - This is when it published.
- I'm just saying, it's impressive. - How is it impressive? - Hey, let's just shit all over him. - I'm not shitting all over him.
I'm looking forward to seeing Charlie. - You know what? - This is the year we hug and take a picture. - You know, the fact that you're at TV and still dropping reviews, Palmer doesn't care.
- Man, Palmer was so close to the hug. - Well, I just don't see it being an accomplishment it needs to be addressed to. - He's not impressed. I'm impressed.
He's not impressed. You should have said you were impressed, Paul, and we probably got the hug. Guess what? I'm still getting the hug.
No hug. I'll force the hug. Oh. He'll kick your ass.
He brings Alan Ivers. Is that what you're trying to do? Alan Ivers is his bodyguard. Oh.
Yeah. I'll tell him I'm a friend of Phil's. Yeah. That's not going to go over so well.
It's not going to help. It's not going to help, huh? Okay. 88.
Crocodilio. Crocodilio Blanco. Uh, 85. So, it's Isla Del Crocodilio Blanco.
5x55, it's an $18 cigar, and they smoked three. $18? Little man. What was the wrapper?
The Crocodilio. If you were paying attention to not looking at your phone, I wouldn't have to read it again. I'm sorry. It's the Blanco, so it's a Canadi.
That's all it says? Okay. Well, you hope it's not discolored Habano. What's the size?
It's Rapper, Ecuador, Canadi. Want me to just read the whole thing over again? Yeah, just one more time. Okay, see, the cigar we're doing is...
Don't come forward, it's gonna be blurry. It did, it did get blurry. I like the autofocus. Binder is Brazilian, Ataparaca, and Ecuador and Habano 2000.
Two binders. Yes. Filler is Nicaraguan. It's a 6 1⁄2 by 55.
It's round. Ooh, it's big. It's an $18 cigar. There's a box of 15.
Released on March 4th, they made 1,500 boxes of 15 cigars. 87. 85. You know, you could at least let me finish reading the reread instead of just cutting me off.
I was just trying to help you. How is that helping? Helping would be if you paid attention in the beginning. We know you only have so much breath left.
I already apologized, and I said, man, we're here now, so then I just needed to get the intel for me not paying attention, just the stuff I need to know. Here's clue number one. I need to know wrapper, I need to know Vitola. It's on the last episode of the Cigar Hustler Podcast, we hope you enjoyed this.
We made it to 500, top one percent, and we quit. Now we're out. Nobody goes to 501, it's just ridiculous. Hartmann and it went to red.
Number one, Isabel Carcadillo Blanco offers a balanced Connecticut profile with creaminess, nuttiness, bread, and wood layered with light pepper and saltiness. The smoke has an airy quality that helps separate flavors, making it enjoyable and nuanced experience. Oh, I'm sorry, are we boring you? I always get tired when we start doing these.
I start yawning on these. It's because I need more oxygen because I've been talking so much. Is that what it is? Yes.
Okay, that was clue number one. Do I need to read it again? Uh, start over. Yeah, I wasn't hearing anything.
80... Got a bunch of different flavors, blah, blah, blah. 88. 85.
Clue number two. Did you see this? Because you're really hell-bent on 85. No, I just, I don't know why I'm not moving off.
Well, I'm really not, I didn't hear what it was, so I'm going with 85. Clue number two, performance is solid where it counts. With a great draw, strong smoke production, and mostly even burns, the retro hill adds extra depth with more pronounced pepper and richness, keeping the profile engaging from start to finish. 90.
87. See, now he just went off 85 because you gave him a hard time. No, I mean, Charlie's nice. He's gonna rate it higher.
Charlie is not nice. You're very nice, Charlie. Very handsome man. I don't know why he thinks you're ugly to people.
Charlie is legit. The biggest issue is fragile construction, particularly with the wrapper and the cap. Not Rabidot or 109. Rabidot.
Which showed cracking and unraveling across multiple cigars. This led to some inconsistency and occasionally impact on the smoking experience. Oh God. Get off of him.
When he yawns like that, get off of him. It's so hard sometimes. Like, look, being on the three thing all the time makes it really hard for the clips. Well, I just, I only do it for this section.
I get it, but like after he rattles off, flip to the two of us or something. Oh. Yeah. Hello.
See, just keep working is what I need you to do. I need you to not just hit the button and then check out, okay? Wow. Thank you.
Why are you attacking both of us now? Just attack him, not me. 86. I like when he talks from over here, it looks like there's chicken over there.
I'm not flipping you Palmer, stop talking. Because I can't see anything but the feathers. 86. Oh, 85.
It's been a while since I've been this impressed with a cigar from Warped or the Gellis family cigars. Really? The Isla Del Crocodilio Blanco continues its sights, long history of rating blends with connections. The Connecticut Seed wrapper is quite well, but it's more than deserved.
The flavor profile in the first two thirds shows what happens when the individual flavors are allowed to breathe, making it easy to find a lot of their nuance and see how they interplay with one another. Intentionally or not, the final third shows a completely different side of the cigar, a much better ending than it would be a start. That said, the fragility of the, fragility, of the wrapper is an issue, one that was inescapable from the start of each cigar. Hopefully, there's a solution for the wrapper that doesn't negatively impact the flavor profile.
Now play with us? Did you were just on him that whole time? Yeah, now I'm on you. Oh, I like that.
That's much better. He would rather you were just on him the whole time. Yeah, just be on him the whole time. Wow, that's weird.
Is it? Yeah, super. 87. 87 is my final score.
This is the final clue? That was it, that was his final thought. He liked it, but he didn't like it because of construction. Yeah.
Eighty-six. You went the wrong way. Oh, man. Ninety-one.
It's 1991 with cracking issues? Just the cap cracked. Wow. You leave Charlie alone.
Wow. My friend, Charlie. I will leave Charlie alone. I like Charlie.
He's my friend. No, he's not. He called me Rockstar last year. That was a year ago.
What is he, your dad? No, his dad's dead, thanks for saying that. No, my dad's dead, thanks a lot. Oh, geez, here we go.
We're not all lucky like you and still have a father that's alive. Yeah, that is forever. Hey, Rockstar. My mom's almost dead, so why don't you bring that up, too?
Why don't you bring that up, too? Yeah, why don't you bring that up? I don't know anything about your mom. Oh, yeah, we just talk about her all the time.
Other than you guys do males. Other than the fact that she has no idea what's going on and that she's dying? Well, you guys always say we're all dying. She keeps falling down and cracking bones and things.
Oh, is she? And refuses to go into her. Fracture her eye socket. Refuses to go into her home.
Oh, God, what's she? She had a brain bleed before that. Oh, my Lord. I don't know it.
Can't kill this old lady. It's a battle axe. Jesus. She's mean, and God doesn't want her either.
You picking me up on Fridays for my nails? I gotta take her for a haircut this weekend. Oh. Listen to her tell the barber that we took her car, and she's been going there for 20 years.
Neither one is true. Alright, anything else to add? No, I was gonna do some different things for the 500 show. I was gonna do, like, comments from celebrities, but we've done that for your birthday and other things, so that seems stupid.
Then I had a couple of messages, and I couldn't think of a funny one, so I scrapped that idea. that idea so that's it wow we went with the uh confetti i like the confetti it was good yeah even though it triggered my ptsd even even though uh even though phil has not experienced all 500 episodes as he was uh correct he came in later yeah he was a later add-on i did yes uh congratulations to the both of you for making 500 oh you as well to you as well there is uh no I have no two finer gentlemen that I would rather be with doing this podcast. You mean sex-wise? As well as sex-wise.
I don't like the last part, but thanks for doing the show of it. Let's make you feel uncomfortable. See, that's what happens when you make a nice, positive compliment to Palmer, he instantly discounts it. I didn't discount it.
Oh, you can put your wiener in me. Should we all show our wieners for the fight? No, this is getting way too dark, I was trying to end with something nice here, I was trying to end with something nice. Yeah, just rewind it.
Where are we going next? What are we going to do next? With what? The show.
We're coming here tomorrow, what are you talking about? I don't know, I mean, he's got to have a plan to go somewhere, I mean, you know, we're making shirts left in right now, selling those like crazy. We go five days a week, we can't do seven because of all of our schedules, there's no way we could get two more shows in. So what's the next step?
I think that there's still things that have to happen here for more efficiency. I'm talking about figuring out ways to muffle the echo, getting better with sound and mics, and I do have a surprise that I'm working on establishing. It's to be determined when it happens, though. It's going to be great.
I don't know what you just said, because it was so cryptic. It's going to be great. Yeah, you didn't give us any details at all. It was just like the numbers on the Hushacha.
Because when it... I'm going to tell you what... Listen. Yeah, tell us the numbers for the Hushacha.
Yeah. You know what? I don't care about what you're talking about. Just tell us the numbers.
When it hits, when we do it, a lot of people are going to see it and they are going to laugh and it's going to get us a lot of attention. He's getting rid of both of us. Great. Yeah, Phil, both of us.
No, it's probably just me. It's a joke for me. I guarantee it. You'll see.
Okay, no, no hint at all, huh? Make sure you like and subscribe. We're reviewing or listening to the show. com for all your chpod swag.
check out the calendar links below and thanks so much for your time we hope that you we you had a great experience on this episode with our edgy entertainment and we're at 500 so more to come you know he doesn't use that word on the other show well because it doesn't yeah well they educate and entertain like us it's more you guys should record the 45 minutes i have to sit here and watch before start the show what do you mean well you guys are telling each other how great each I don't know how great each other is and what you, you know, your coaching experiences since you saw them last. Do you not see him every time you go to practice? Of course he does. I see him on Wednesday.
And then when he comes home for dinner? Only on Wednesday. So you don't see him every time you go to practice or games? No, I see him, sometimes I see him on games on Fridays, but like, dude, that guy's running around all the fields, making sure everything's good.
Well, I know, but it just seemed unusual that when you guys sit down and do your 45 minute chit chat before you even start planning what's going to be in the show, it's like you guys have not seen each other since last Monday. We really haven't. I told you what it was, Palmer. It's a pump up.
Well, yeah. I mean, that's what they're doing. Right. You're great.
No, you're great. I did this. No, I did this. I like your socks.
It's a... Compliments of shirts. Oh. It's like a production meeting, for one.
And for two, I take back everything nice I said about both of you. It's gone. Forget it. No, no.
I mean, the back half of it is your production meeting, where you guys finally decide what... That's what I... That's my favorite part, because I've sat here and listened to this other whatever that is going to be called. Then all of a sudden, one of you will go, okay, what are we going to do on today's show?
I'm like, oh, god, that means we're like 10 minutes to start. We got to recap all of the stuff that's going on. Palmer, you should just- The other stuff has nothing to do with the show, though. All of the things.
Can't you guys meet for breakfast or something and work that out before I come down here? Who has that kind of time? Palmer, you should just do a sound check, let the microphones record, hit the record button, and call out a new show, like the sweet spot or something. The sweet spot.
You know, I could set the wireless mics on the table, they wouldn't even know. They have no idea. Oh, except now they're going to look, but I might do that next week. All right.
That'd be funny. Mikey will forget. All right, guys. Thank you very much.
Keep watching the show. Apparently, he's got something under his, um, always under his hat there. So always. All right.
Thanks. We got to go. Bye. Bye.
Bye.
Show Notes
Rockets, Jags and the 1% for 500
On todays show
We are a go for Launch!, Jags come to Orlando for a year, and in cigars we have some new PCA cigars, a price increase just in time and we wrap the show with a what’s the scoreTo Make a PCA Retail Appointment Click the link below
https://calendly.com/mike-v-0/powstanie-meeting-pca-2026-booth
If You’d Like To Make A Media Appointment Click The Link Below
https://calendly.com/mike-v-0/powstanie-media-meeting-pca-2026-booth-4841