Cigar Hustlers Podcast 221 Let Me Explain

Episode Summary

Episode 221 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast opens with shop talk and a recap of the Mikes' weekend at La Zona Palooza, Erik Espinosa's invite-only event at the La Zona factory community. They cover the retailer/consumer mix, the free haircuts and straight-razor shaves (including Tyler's new mohawk), the food and free-flowing cigars, and their visits to Boca Raton shops Strikes and True Ash on the drive down. There's also a running bit about a badly formatted sponsorship contract from the Cigar Noise Boys, and a long domestic detour about a missed Universal Studios trip — complete with a live call to Brittany.

The heart of the episode is a phone interview with John McTavish, aka "The Cigar Surgeon," of the Developing Palate review panel. Mike plays five clips pulled from McTavish's review of the Protocol Warbear (box-pressed) and asks him to defend each one. McTavish walks through what he means by "minerality" (comparing it to Ometepe tobacco), breaks down the different woods he tastes in cigars — barn wood, fresh/cedar wood, and tannic wood — and explains tannins as an unbalanced, bitter character borrowed from wine tasting.

The conversation goes deep on review methodology: how Developing Palate's 0–10 scale works as a satisfaction survey (5 = neither satisfied nor dissatisfied), why most cigars should land in the 5–6 range, and the "score inflation" problem in online cigar media. McTavish explains that burn line waviness doesn't cost points — only actual intervention like a touch-up or relight does — and estimates the Warbear's 5.6 would have been roughly 5.75 with a perfect burn and closer to 5.8 without the resistant draw he drew. He also compares the box-pressed Warbear to the 2019 Warbear Perfecto he loved, which narrowly missed his top 25 list, and notes he's a sub-50 ring gauge traditionalist who nonetheless prefers box presses.

The show closes with Listener of the Week Adam Acri and his wife Nicole, a birthday dinner at Luke's in Winter Park, and Shop of the Week Cigars on the Ave.

In This Episode

1. 01
   La Zona Palooza Recap
   The Mikes recount their invite to Erik Espinosa's La Zona Palooza, including the retailer/consumer crowd, free haircuts and shaves, food, and Hector Alfonso's hourly laps through the party.
2. 02
   Florida Shop Stops
   Quick impressions of Strikes and True Ash in Boca Raton on the way down to the event.
3. 03
   Sponsorship Contract Comedy
   A running gag about a crooked, upside-down, unsigned Cigar Noise Boys contract and its open-ended terms.
4. 04
   Meet the Cigar Surgeon
   John McTavish of Developing Palate joins by phone and talks about his day job, Texas vs. Canada ribbing, and the panel's transparency with review data.
5. 05
   What Is Minerality?
   McTavish defines minerality using Ometepe tobacco as a reference point and separates it from a metallic, under-fermented character.
6. 06
   Tannic Wood, Barn Wood, Fresh Wood
   A breakdown of the wood flavors McTavish tastes in cigars and how wine-style tannins signal an unbalanced, bitter profile.
7. 07
   How the 0–10 Score Actually Works
   McTavish explains the satisfaction-survey scale, why most cigars belong in the 5–6 range, and the score inflation plaguing online cigar media.
8. 08
   Burn, Draw, and the Warbear's 5.6
   Why a wavy burn costs nothing but a relight and resistant draw did — plus a comparison to the 2019 Warbear Perfecto he nearly put on his top 25.
9. 09
   Listener and Shop of the Week
   Adam and Nicole Acri's birthday dinner at Luke's in Winter Park, and Cigars on the Ave as Shop of the Week.

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

Here he comes. Welcome to episode 221. Which one's recording right now? None of them.

That one. Now we move to this one. There we go. Welcome to episode 221 of a Cigar Hustler Podcast.

Hey! So much going on over here now. So much, so much. You too can be a part of this podcast.

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Please. Mainly just subscribe to YouTube. That would make me happy. And like, and subscribe.

Our subscribe members are up a little bit. Of course. We continue to put in, provide great content, work hard. It's always, always, always growing.

Keep building, keep building. I believe you have something for me that I would like. Oh, would you like your present? Yes, I would like my present.

I've spared no expense, Michael, or work to provide you with this lovely gift. Oh, my goodness. It's a Yeti. You look at this camera in the mirror.

It's a Yeti cup thingy. It's very nice for you. For cans. You might want to...

It says Michael's on the back of it here. Michael's cigar. It's slightly new, it's got a Roma Craft on the back. We like the Roma sign.

Yeah, that's nice. That's nice. We're going to fix the Michaels right now, so. We're going to reattach.

Go ahead and go back to middle yadda yadda. Back to middle yadda yadda. Yeah. And we'll talk as I work.

Oh, okay. So what'd you do this weekend, Michael? We went to the La Zona Palooza. What a lovely shirt you're wearing.

Can you see it in this one? You can see it in that one. We went to La Zona Palooza. We were invited guests for the lovely Eric Espinosa.

He's texting me terribly. From Eric Espinosa, Hector Alfonso, Jack Taranio, our supposed cameraman who didn't use late. He's very upset. He's very upset.

Well, you got to be here on time. We have a busy schedule. Oh, wow. Well, they can't just work around our schedule.

Can't just work around people. No, no. Very, very, very, very busy. We left Thursday.

Struggling with the sticker. Grove down. We did. We did.

We hit a couple shops in Boca. Strike. Strikes. And what was the other place?

True, True Ash. True, we tried True. True Ash down in Boca. Both lovely.

Lovely establishments. Lovely establishments. Yeah. What are you doing here?

Tell you what, that Chris Hayes though, it strikes. You know, he needed a little better shirt, I think. Oh, really? I mean, it is a cigar shop, so I understand white does not stay white very long.

He's got to look like he's working hard. Yeah. And he was. It looked like a Target brand shirt.

You think so? I think the image he was trying to portray, because the shoes were good, the pants were good. Wow. You're a tough critic.

You know what I mean? You know what I mean? That was an upscale shop. People running around in suits and ties.

Now, he did not need a suit and a tie. But maybe a little nicer shirt. And I wouldn't have rolled up the sleeves. But it was late in the night.

He was... That's the working man. He was cleaning. That's the working man.

Yeah, but he's not the working man. He was doing such a good job interacting with people. He had everybody eating out of the palm of his hand. Yeah.

You gotta roll up the sleeves, baby. We're doing the work. Put in the work. I don't think that was the image that Ronnie...

This is great. Ronnie wanted him to do. I feel much better about this. I mean, Michael's is not a Pistania account, so, you know, it's good to just eradicate them.

I have a Cigar Noise Boys update for the contract. Okay. Which is where we got this can, by the way. Yes.

Yeah. Part of our deal. Part of the deal is we get to steal Tyler's things. Look at that.

Much, much, much better. Give me the view. Give me the view. I want this right here.

Right there. There you go. Look at that. Hijacked and now officially labeled.

Officially Cigar Hustler material. That's very nice. There you go. Love it.

Love it. I think I just solved the sound problem. Solizona. Yeah, man.

We had to put this right here like this. You got to unscrew the one. Oh, is that how this works? Yes, yes.

Oh. I have a smaller one at home. Ah. That I've had for years.

Gift from my parents. Look at this. Oh, nice. What is going on?

I hear sound. It's outside. Is it? No?

Oh, no. It's coming from here. Yeah. Oh.

Maybe that's not how you do it. Oh. Still working on the multi-camera things, how to get everything done. I feel like this should be cleaned.

Exactly. I don't know. I feel like my lip gets kind of close to the can now. You know, his brand new Espinosa lunchbox?

Yeah. Left that in somebody else's car. Oh, my God. What a hot mess.

Yes, okay, but anyway, I got another contract today. Okay. It came, first he called over the weekend, how do I, how do I sign this and send it to you? Yes.

So I told him, well, you print it, sign it, re-scan it, and then email it to me. Right. Oh, that would work probably. And he could just sign it on his phone without doing all of it.

I don't know, I don't know how that. That's easy to do. Okay, I don't know how that works. But anyway, he sent it to me today, upside down and crooked.

That is fantastic. Yes. Yes. He offered to redo it and I said, no, no, I can deal with this.

I can print it and then just turn the page over. Crooked. Okay, crooked. Well, you know, we all make mistakes, Michael.

Yes. He's doing a great job. He's making progress. Well, I'm not done.

Okay. There was problems with the contract. Okay. It was not made out to anyone.

Okay. Just an open-ended contract. We are paying, according to this contract, we pay $400 for one show. Oh my goodness.

And that's just a down payment, then we pay $33 a month. Oh. For an undisclosed amount of time. Indefinitely.

Yes. For the term of the contract, which there were no... Well, he's trying, Michael. He's trying.

He's trying. And he signed on the only signing line on the contract. Oh, that's good. He signed it to himself.

Perfect. So there's no place for us to sign. You know, he's not experienced in this sort of thing. Well, this is the fourth revision.

Listen. I'm trying to help them along. He's got a wonderful haircut now. Yes, yes.

So I have to. He's sporting the cigar. Oh, you know what? I will put it here.

It is my noble right to defend him. The cigar. Oh, look at you. Yes, he is now.

Now it's no fun if we're both not gonna pick on him. Now he's Florida Tye, so. I thought it was Hustler Tye. A Hustler Tye?

Yes. A Hustler Tye. Okay, cool. Let's do a Hustler Tye.

Hustler Tye. I like Hustler Tye. I call him Tye. It's cooler.

So we said, hey, I don't even know who said it, who started it. It wasn't me. I think it was maybe Sam and Rosie or something. I think it was Sam and Rosie.

Sam said from finance. He's like. One of the things they offered at the lovely Lozano Palooza was free haircuts. And a straight razor shave if you so needed one.

So they said, you should do a haircut. Yeah, he looked a little messy with the bangs and things. And Tyler was like, okay, I guess I'll do that. What kind of haircut should I get?

And I think Rosie went, bohawk. So boom, we're in business. We got a hair. He waited, and waited, and waited, and boom, got it done.

He waited, long into the evening before he got the haircut. That barber was busy. He was busy. He was very busy.

Free haircut, so he was going to pass up a free haircut. Super busy. Two, uh, only one G in shaving. Only one G in shaving?

Yes. Like, there's two L's in shaving. Super busy, how do you spell shaving? Right, how do you spell shaving.

Gotcha. Yeah, so, that was amazing. The food was amazing, the cigars were really good, they were amazing. Yes, plenty of cigars everywhere.

Hector was, uh, his- Free-flowing liquor and beer. Yep. Hector was his normal self. He made his best not to mingle.

According to the dojo I watched a little bit of, Hector had a timer and at the once every 60 minutes, he would get up and come out and do a lap with the peoples. That's a fucking outright lie. That's pretty accurate, I think. I don't think so.

Sometimes the loop was shorter than others, but sometimes it was just, sometimes I think he just popped out, made it to that first table, waved at some people, because we always yelled at him when he came out, and then turn around and go back in. Like, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. Don't announce me, and then back in the door. There's no way it was every 60 minutes.

He said once an hour. No, I don't want to put any words in it. I don't believe it. It was once an hour.

I don't believe it for a second. Yes. Jack Teranio was Jack Teranio. Always available.

Yep. Eric was always available. Always walking around, doing around, shaking hands, kissing babies. So many people there that you couldn't even mention them all.

And I know that if I start mentioning them all, I'm going to forget something and I'm going to feel bad. No, so let's just not. Yeah, I appreciate all of you guys. The staff was amazing, the young ladies kept everything clean, and they kept everybody fed.

Retailers were there, consumers were there. Yes. Now some people have asked how you get to go to this. I have no idea.

It's an invitation, like how much was the ticket? No, it's like, it's designed on the group of Erik Espinosa, like who I promote and post. Hashtag Espinosa every day, or whatever, smoke Espinosa every day, whatever it happens to be. Yeah, and then they pick you on your love of Espinosa cigars, I'm guessing?

Yeah, something like that, I don't know. Or if you, I don't know how they pick the retailers, I don't know how that works. I don't want to even guess at how that works. Well, I think that, you know, you should probably do something, if you do a brand with them.

Well, yeah, because everybody he introduced, all the retailers were retailers that did a cigar for the shop with him. Man, it's funny, listen to some of them. Please just spit. It's just a little leaf, you know, I had to give it a, you know, it's this low rated cigar that we're going to be talking about.

We'll talk later on here with our friend, the cigar surgeon, who's waiting to go on the show. He can wait. Did you ever get his number? You mentioned in the other show, you and him were going to exchange numbers.

Did that happen? No, he said if I knew his number, I would have called him. Well, then I thought, then you guys said, oh, well, we should exchange numbers. Oh, did we?

Yes. No, I never got it. Oh, I don't have his number either. Oh, I was calling FaceTime.

FaceTime, yeah. Yeah, he was, uh, he wanted, are you Zoom? Is it Yard, what, Yard Guard? Yard, Harder, Harder, Harder, Harder, Whatever the fucker.

I go, no, no, we'll just Bluetooth, we'll call you. He goes, well, that doesn't work well. And I go, kind of does for us. Yeah.

I don't know. We just Bluetooth through the board. He was like, good, it sounds like fun. What's the topic?

Well, Michael would like to talk to you about your review of his cigar. He goes, oh, shit. Yeah, this should be good. Okay, I'm in, he said.

So we didn't pre-play the drops for you for before, but I think you should hear them before we get him on the phone. Okay. Should I just run through them quickly? Yeah, burn through them real quick.

Okay, I'm done. Because I was going to do a whole thing where I was like, give me all your data and I was going to look it all up, you know, from previous reviews and how they break it all down and stuff. Right. I did none of that.

Yeah, I knew you would do that. I did none of that, let's be honest. So, I mean, the show is only 11 minutes long. It's not like it's a huge commitment.

Yeah, and I'm not really that angry about it, but it's fun to talk to him about it. Right, so I went through and picked out some of the highlights from his little two-minute thing. Yeah, I saw that you did that. Yes, yes, so here's the first one.

" This is gonna be so fucking good. So that's the first one. I am so excited though. Just the first clip.

Yeah, I have these numbered in order. Oh my god, Mike, you have outdone yourself. Here's number two. " It's number two.

Oh my god, this is gonna be so good. Here's number three. You are my fucking savior. Expectations in that first third that just didn't deliver in the second third.

And then the last third, I think, was really consistent with the second third as well. A little bit of earth settling on my tongue between draws, so I was like, eh. That's the longest one. You got so much, and it's so good quality, this is amazing.

Here's four. Not really my thing. I also had some issues with the burn is a little wavy, required a touch-up, and then a relay, or pardon me, required a relay in the second third. And then finally, this is number five.

So that was a, you know, that was a bit of a drag, uh, for me, kind of an average, average experience overall. Aaron, what about you? Perfect. So, average experience, burn issues, eh, on the flavor, eh, something about minerals and vitamins or something.

I'm gonna ask what, what the fucking, for a second, it was the second one you had, hit the second one again. Um, a lot of, uh, tannic wood and earth, and I was just like, eh. What is tannic wood? Tannic wood, earth?

When did he, earth? Earth, earth, earth, earth, sorry. Tannic Wood Earth. So when is he eating wood and earth?

He knows what it tastes like. Tannic Wood Earth. That's amazing, John. I can't wait to get you on the phone.

Now, I have nothing else pulled for the show. There's no news. There's no nothing. This is the show.

Okay. Okay. So what? Who gives that fun?

It doesn't matter how long it is. Right. It just matters how good it is. And I figured this could go long.

I mean, you know. Yeah. " What were you thinking about when this happened? And then boom.

And then he'll go on for fucking 20 minutes. Right. So he's not going to expect us to have, I assume, clips. He's not going to see that coming.

No, no, no. He's not going to see that coming. Not in a million years. Not in a million years.

This isn't just some regular slapdick show, John. Yeah. All right. I mean, it would be without Mike Palmer, but let's be, you know.

That's quite obvious. That's quite obvious. Make sure I connect here to the board, or do you want to call with your phone? But you can connect with your phone, because that way I don't have another appliance here I have to worry about.

Appliant? Okay. Another piece of equipment. I mean, already I'm running three boards and a flashlight, and it's like my arms cut off in one shot, so...

I just text Steven Hippelhauser, you blew it. I saw that. Keanu's sending me an order. Hold, please.

We just need to, you know, get, maybe. I know. This is why I tried to keep it in my, trim the fat a little bit. Do you need me to hit the button?

Procaster Pro connecting. Hold on. Let's see. All right.

There you go. Connection unsuccessful. Forget device. Try it now.

Excuse us for one moment. This is just take a brief. Brief moment here as we work on this. I did go to Universal.

Yes. And, yeah, Adrian later, she goes, they went to another concert. It was at Universal, honey. I don't know what to tell you.

I am very upset with you. Yeah, I understand. Believe me, I was very upset, too. Because you said to me.

All right, my Bluetooth is off. That you were going. Yes, we were going. It was all planes that we were going.

I don't give a shit. It's been three weeks since I've had these annual passes. Right. And I'm going.

Right. That was, that was the, uh, the argument Sunday morning. So I looked at my wife and I said, listen, I texted you early in the day. I said, listen, this is like Saturday, right?

Listen, it's not, you got to hit it again, I, it's not, look, it's not available. I said, Mike Palmer is going to Universal. We should go with him. I appreciate that.

We should meet him. Yes. And she's like, okay, I won't do the grocery shopping. I won't do any of the things I need to do on Sunday.

I'm sorry, Brittany. I texted him early, early Sunday morning, like at eight o'clock. We're gonna go. But as usual, he only reads what he wants.

And then, when I get there, I'm like, oh shit, we gotta call Palmer. Cause you're like, I'll, last night before. Yeah, we're gonna go early. We hung out.

Brittany said, we have the air conditioner guy coming, we can't leave till the afternoon. Yeah. That's not a problem, I'm gonna go early. And you said, I'm gonna be there, you just call me when you get there.

Right. And I'm like, alright, cool man, no problem. Did it go through? No, it has not.

What are you doing over there? Oh, fine. I have to do everything. I don't know.

Oh, there it is. You did it right that third time. They only did it twice, and it wasn't me. I didn't do anything.

So-- Hey, you connected? Yes. iPhone 2. Yes.

Done. OK. So then-- OK. So we get there at a reasonable time.

I call you, and you're like, I text you that I wasn't going to be there. I texted you very-- you know what? I can see the exact time. And you texted me two things.

They were not simultaneous. They were spread apart. It doesn't matter. It's not my fault you don't look, because I started doing the other thing when I really-- I saw the other stuff, and the other one was the original text that you made was already buried.

Buried, Michael, it moved up one space. No. Yes. Buried.

One space. Let's see. Let's see. 9:36 AM.

We aren't going today. Adrian is tired from yesterday and has work to do. It has work to do, I didn't know, it has work to do, I didn't know about. Yes.

And then you sent an image, and then you sent a text. An hour later. So this is what it looks like on my phone. It's gone.

Can't you scroll down? Why would I scroll down? I think this is the only text that you have sent me. Because I sent that at 9:30, sent the other one at 10:30.

It doesn't matter. I didn't even realize that the 9:30 text happened. It's not my fault. You don't look.

Does it not go off when I send text messages? It is your fault. It is your fault that you had not enough SAC to show up to when you said you were going to show up. I didn't want to go by myself.

You wouldn't have been by yourself. I would have been at 10 o'clock in the morning. We were there. I would have been there.

10 o'clock in the morning. And even you said, yeah, it would have been a little weird if you went by yourself. All right, just call John. Can we, can we just yell at John?

I'd rather yell at John. No, you just call. No, no, no, no, no. I can't just call John.

I can't let this go. You could have been there. We could have had fun. You wouldn't have been by yourself.

You could have called me and said, hey, I can't. I'm not going to go this early in the morning, because AD King Palmer does not want to go. I didn't want to go for the first time without her. " No.

You know, we, and then I fucked up, because we had to stay for Jason Derulo. " Because Jax wanted to see Jason Derulo. Yeah, that was a universal, honey, I don't know what I'm telling you, it's the last concert of the season. Oh, he just slid that in.

Oh, man, sure, just twisting that knife, yes. Yes. That's true. All right, looks like they're having a good time.

Sure does! So we were there for a very long time. That's what happens at Universal. Yeah, you stayed for the concert.

Mm-hmm. Thought we were a little tardy today? Uh, yes. Sleepy, sleeping?

Yeah. Let the kids sleep in a little bit. Is this his phone? Yeah.

So you did have his phone number? No. Hello? Brittany.

Yes? My love, how are you? You have a second, you're on the podcast. Okay.

He wants you to say something bad about me. I'd like to talk about the fact that we rented Universal solely for Mike Palmer yesterday. Mike Palmer yesterday. I have already accepted that fact, Michael, and I texted him at 9:30, Brittany, and told him I couldn't make it.

And you purposely stopped shopping. You didn't go grocery shopping yesterday. Now we're all going to starve this week. I've already given you a starve.

No, the meat, you know what? The meat was shipped today. You're not starving. And my foot, my foot hurts me, too, because I was walking.

I didn't want to disclose that. I wanted you to disclose that. I will send you some Dr. Scholes.

She is in foot pain. She hobbles around now. I have your address. What size shoe do you wear?

What size shoe do you wear? What size shoe do you wear? What size shoe? What size shoe, Brittany?

It's unbelievable. We can talk about this at our weekly support meeting where people have to deal with Mikey. You know, not only did we go to Universal for Palmer, but we ended up at a watch store in Kissimmee somewhere for somebody else in the cigar industry. Yes, we did.

We did. That had nothing to do with me. Just like this, we did. This is true.

We did do this. I'm closing my eyes for two minutes. I just pulled up to the house with the children. Oh, okay.

Well, I'll let you go. I just want to tell you that I love you and thank you for all your support. Is it an arch problem or a heel problem? It's a heel problem.

Yes, she was having a meltdown this morning as well. I believe she's an eight, by the way. Okay. You're an eight.

No, I'm I'm not, I'm not, I'm fine, I'm fine. The foot is fine, power through. It's Advil and it's good. It's not good.

Thank you. It's not good. It's not good. It's not good.

Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. Okay. Well, I love you.

Bye. Good luck with the children. I love you too. Okay.

Goodbye. Bye. Oh my Lord, Michael. I just want to slide that in real quick.

Oh, you do have it now. Can't get that one. They don't have that in her size. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's an eight.

Honey Women's. You know what? She's a nine. Nine.

All right. Her foot grew after the baby. Oh, that makes sense. Hello?

Mike, what's up? John. John McTavish, you're on the air. Mr.

Cigar Surgeon. The cigar surgeon. These are exciting times. Are you working right now?

What are you doing? I'm always working. What do you do exactly? Exactly.

I'm a corporate slave. You're a slave to the man. I'm a business analyst for an oil and gas company. Oh, so you always have gas.

They give you free gas? Yeah, that'd be nice right now. You would think, right? But actually, someone just asked that during a board meeting, is one of those feel-good meetings.

Someone actually made that comment. " And if you kind of hear the uncomfortable silence from the detector side, it's like, I'm just going to go ahead and assume that's a no, so no help with the $5 a gallon gas? Okay, cool. Wow, your fearless leaders have no sack.

I mean, you know, they could have said no. Well, it's Canadian gas. To be fair. It's more expensive.

Yeah, well, Canadian, I mean, well, I mean, we produce, I mean, this is Texas, man. Oh, you guys have your own guests up there? Oh. Canadian, Texas.

Canadian. You have a cowboy hat? Hey, come on. Are you a rancher?

A rancher. I am not, but we have the greatest outdoor show on earth. It's the greatest rodeo, the largest rodeo in the world. Really?

Wow. Oh, wow. That's a shame on Texas. Texas fucked up if you're doing that.

I'd be like, next time I go to Texas, I'm going to be like, you know what, I'd love to see the greatest rodeo on earth. However, I have to travel far north in order to witness something like that. Right, just give them the little nudge to the Texans. Tell Skip, put that down, I need you.

I'm ordering your wife to show us. I need you on this right now. No, no, just, okay, done, done. All right, good.

They'll be there in about an hour. If you don't wind up, Skip, you just have to throw in there that they also make their chili with beans, and I mean, you're done. Oh, the Canadians make chili with beans. That's true, you say that, chili with beans.

It ain't chili. Immediately on film. I don't eat either, so it doesn't matter. All right, we've already explained to the audience why we're calling you today, John.

And I want you to know that I'm smoking my current, I'm smoking a Warbear, a Box Press Warbear that I haven't had to touch up, and you know, it's just kind of rejuvenating me and fulfilling me and preparing me for this, this review of your review. Excellent. And I know that you have some hard points data and you sent me a lot of data, I went, I thoroughly went over all of it. And I have a lot of questions.

I have a lot of questions. He sent you data? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's all linked up on his page, apparently.

Oh. And I would probably know that if I ever went. We're great. Yeah, sure enough.

We're very transparent. In fact, you know, we probably have more discussion in internal debate and discussion than I think external about all of our stuff. I like that your show is seven to a minutes long, so it's not a huge commitment to listen all the time. Yeah, you can just bang it out real quick.

Well, so, I mean, but here's, here's so, and this will come up, I'm sure, but here's, here's a helpful point. If you see that the review time is over 10 minutes, you know it's a spicy one. Oh, a little tip there for our listeners. I was spicy.

I'm gonna go back and listen to all the ones just over 10 minutes. I was slightly seasoned. Oh yeah, you were spicy. It was a little jalapeno.

All right. So we, we have some, uh, some, some pulls from your review that, uh, Michael would like to discuss with you. Sort of point by point if that's, uh, that's okay. Yeah, we want to kind of break things down here.

And, but, you know, before we get into that though, I do want to say, I do want to say one thing, that we have continued to meet with Aaron and we continue to talk with you guys about developing pallet shirts that we wear on this show. Right. And still to this day, not a single shirt has arrived. Not a single one.

Not a one. We are also known to advertise on other people's shows. Yeah, he won't do that. So just to be clear, you have sent Postaño shirts to- I have not been asked for said shirts.

Close mouth, don't get fed, brother. Yeah, I have asked for developing pallet shirts in order to engage with my consumers and listeners for you, and nothing. First of all, I'm an OG member of Weaseltex, so, you know, let me ask you this, is Shmedium even in the trousers for Postaño? Well, we have his shirt special made now for tighter arms.

We could have a, we could have a, well, I think we might have a shmedium for you for, yeah, we could do that. You need a shmedium? I just, I like that athletic fit. You know what I'm saying?

You need to feel firm. I get it. It likes to be held in. It's understood.

Like a hug from Michael with a tighter shirt. Without question. Everybody likes to have it kind of hug around the delts and the biceps and the triceps, you know, the chest, but you want to kind of let it loose around the belly area. I want to feel, I want to feel that chest stretch.

Exactly. They're fitted like the lucky tees or whatever that thing is on TV now for the, for the older fat. Yeah, we can make that happen. No problem.

Yeah. We just need an address. That's right. They're a little better guys.

Larger guys. Yeah, send me the address. I would happily wear that shirt. And I'll spend the $75 in shipping and send it to Kim.

The taxes and everything that goes through there. No problem. Probably not good for him. Well, we'll roll up a cigar in the middle so he gets it on the back end.

No, no, no. We're going to put a fucking bag of coke in the middle of it. Oh! That's a $100 touch for me then.

And we'll label it baking powder. There you go. Right on it. It's fine.

It's no problem. Men's accessories. There you go. Men's accessories.

Men's accessories. Yes. All right, so... All right, shall we get started with the first bit of information?

Let's get into this. Let's get into this. All right, just a minute. Here we go.

" The "Oh, no" might be a permanent ad, just so you know, John. Oh, yes, that would be... Is that bad? " I know.

Okay. Nice. I love it. So, first, third, minerality.

What exactly is minerality? Let's start there. Nope. Do I still have you?

Yeah. Yeah, we're still here. Oh, I can't hear you. Cliff, here he hangs up.

I'm fucking lost. Man, we had a big lead up and I'm like, if we just dropped that, that'd be the worst. So, the way I describe minerality... Yes.

Can you hear me okay? Yeah, we hear you just fine. Go on. Sure.

All right. The, the way I describe minerality is, have you ever had like, um, like some... He's purposely walking into a valley right now. Oh!

Oh, this is amazing. I fear no evil. Okay. You need to go back to the...

Well, I mean, a good example is, um, have you, have you smoked a cigar with a little almost Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm sure you have.

Yeah. So to me, Omotepe has a minerality to it. It's a very distinct, that's how I describe it. It's not like stand, it's earth with, you know, metallic mineral qualities.

Metallic mineral qualities. Like copper? Yeah. Zinc?

So, oh, did he just type something? He just sent in a fucking... I just got the fucking day-ho. Maybe he's close.

Okay. So, I mean, when you say, so, if you have, I mean, metallic is definitely different than, I guess, mineral, right? Like when, when you have a metallic flavor. Metallic is definitely different than minerals.

Yes. Yeah. So, so if you're using that as your definition, like when you say metallic, it's more like something and it's under fermented or, you know, there's chlorophyll in the tobacco or something like that. So did you feel that it was under fermented?

You're throwing fancy tobacco terms at me. Listen, I'm just an online media guy, I don't know about that. Oh, he's stepping back up, that is stepping back up. I'm flexing.

Geez, take it easy on me. You know, what was really remarkable is, I would say that Aaron was my favorite of developing pilots. John has quickly launched into that position, yeah, without question. After the whole media panel and everything, I mean, Aaron was, you could tell that he was kind of gassed up and angry.

I don't know what was going on with him, but John was, you know, I don't know. He kind of earned his slot as far as I'm concerned. Well, good for you. Yes.

So go ahead. I'm sorry, John. Yes, please, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, no, I hear where you're coming from. It is not specifically metallic quality. It's just the best way I can sort of evoke an idea of what that taste would be like. You know, like it's a complicated flavor profile, minerality, and it's not something I get a lot.

But like I said, when I think of minerality or when I think of a tobacco that has minerality to it, I think of Olmetepe, because Olmetepe to me is a tobacco that has a mineral minerality quality to it. But you didn't get it until the tail end of the first third, right? Correct. That's correct.

So how does Donut, you know, and this is really kind of my concern with one of the way that everybody kind of broke it down, and it seemed like everybody was excited about the cigar for the first third of it. They enjoyed the flavor, and then it kind of went away. So that made me think like the indication was, I front-loaded it with something, and then moving forward, I took it away. Right?

Is that what you guys think? Well, yeah, I mean, listen, if I were to tie in, and I would love to tie in the flavor experience with the actual physicality and technicality of blending. Of the minerality, right. To understand how the cure is related.

I mean, yeah, and the minerality, see where that comes from. Like specifically, is it because, you know, some tips got broken off and put into, you know, the middle section of the bunch instead of the front section of the bunch? Like, that is a level of technical blending that is, or rolling that is so far beyond me, and the kind of stuff that I would argue with Skip about until six in the morning at the media house, but I don't have, I don't have that kind of understanding of blending. I wish I did.

Okay. But I could not relate to you. I could not tell you from a technical perspective if there's an actual technical error or if, in fact, that's how it's supposed to taste, because maybe that's how it's supposed to taste. He's doing well, I think.

I don't know. He's good. He's good. When he started talking to me, I was like, "Fuck, I'm over my head.

" Yeah. So, okay, good. Should we move on to the second point? Oh, no, no.

Before we get the second point. So, all right, go ahead. Let's go. Let's go to the second point.

All right, here we go. Here we go, let's see. A lot of tannic wood and earth, and I was just like, eh. A lot of tannic wood.

Specific tannic wood. Tannic wood. Earth. What is tannic wood?

And I was like, eh. Yep. So where did we go? How did we get tannic?

What is tannic wood? What is tannic wood? Oh, that's easy. So there's sort of three or four different kinds of woods you can taste, or at least that I've been able to taste in a cigar.

You can get like a dusty wood, the kind of wood I would describe as, you know, if you took a oak plank off of an old barrel, that sort of wood, you can get a barn wood. And what would you call that wood? What would you call that wood? Wood is kind of like that.

I typically describe it as barn wood. Barn wood, okay. Like that old, dusty, aged wood. Interesting, okay.

You can have fresh wood, right? So fresh wood is like something almost approaching cedar where it's got a little bit of sweetness to it, you know, it's not as intense on the palate, so it's not sharp, it's not intense, and you know, I don't know what tobacco you could connect that to, but that is, that's a very common flavor in a lot of cigars, especially Dominican cigars, you get a lot of that sort of fresh wood. Um, Tannic Cedar is what I would describe as, um, a casket, and to, oh, sorry, I missed that, I said a casket, the, uh, the internet, it was since we've seen the last one, the, the internet says that oak, walnut, cherry, and mahogany have a higher tannin levels than other ones. Ah, oak, oak, walnut, cherry, and mahogany.

Oak's nice. You an oak man, Jimmy? Jimmy? Yeah.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. I thought you were calling me, Jenny. He's like, "His name's John. I think I know his name.

" Yes. Tannins have a bit of an unbalanced, bitter word. Typically, tannins are used oftentimes in wine tasting, because the oak character in a wine can be overly tannic, which means it's unbalanced. So there's a bit of a bitterness to it, and that's what I describe as, especially when I describe as tannins in the cigars, you get wood, but it's a bit of a bitterness, so it's not balanced on the profile, it takes over the palate.

Gotcha. So like tannic acid, it says here, is moderately toxic. Would you consider the Warbear moderately toxic on the second third of the cigar? Where is he?

And I say this because at no point did the cigar dip into the subpar character. You know, like it might have had flavors that I personally didn't enjoy, but we didn't describe it as subpar. There was technically nothing wrong with the profile. Okay.

Okay. All right. Moving along to the next one. Of course it is.

Expectations in that first third that just didn't deliver in the second third. And then the last third, I think, was really consistent with the second third as well. Well, a little bit of earth settling on my tongue between draws. So I was like, eh.

You only have 11 minutes. You have to talk very fast. So the first third. I don't know.

It's confusing. So he said the second third and the third. Well, when he's an 11-minute show, you got to get every minute in there. Right.

So he liked the first third. Like the first third. And then something happened on the second third. And then it kind of translated into the third third.

The first third was the metallic where you may have, may or may not have accidentally front loaded it. Right. But he liked that better than the second third. Third third left some type of earthy taste on his tongue.

Right. Okay. Just so we're all on the same page. Uh huh.

So, okay. So what say you about that? Second third third third. John, what'd you got?

I like third third. That's so awkward. Third third. Just an awkward turn of phrase.

Final third. Fourth third. The fourth third. Final third?

Final third. Final third. Fourth third. So yeah, so you thought as, so as it kind of smoked and developed, you felt like it didn't really do anything.

I'm telling you right now, I'm on the second third of this fucking thing, and I fucking love it. I just don't get it. No, I would say, I would say that the profile became, I thought the profile just became more earth forward as it progressed. So, when I say the second third and the last third were sort of similar, that is, you know, I thought that the flavor delivery in the first third for me, subjectively, and then the second third, it was kind of wooden earth, and then the last third, it was more earth forward.

Right. Does that make sense? Sure. I see what you're saying.

So, but you honestly think that there's something different about the cigar as it has kind of progressed, right? Like there's something has changed, whether I was up to some shenanigans with the leaves. - Yeah, no question. Yeah, no question.

There was... - Okay. Go ahead. - I mean, the funny thing is, Mike, on the media show, I think you commented on the 2019 Warbear, which I actually thought, for me personally, I thought that was fantastic.

And that sort of narrowly missed, like by the end of the margin, missed the... So that's my only, that's my only sort of warbear frame of reference, 'cause for, I didn't smoke the 2020, was there, there was, there must have been a 2020. Yeah, that was the Toro, so you smoked the Perfecto. I didn't have the opportunity to smoke that.

You smoked the Perfecto. I smoked the Perfecto. Right, I mean, that's gonna change dramatically because of its size, right? But if something that it's the same size throughout the whole thing.

Because of its size and its shape, yeah. The size and the shape. Yeah. I honestly didn't look at any of the data that you sent me, but I was kind of curious about, and I asked this question on the media panel, was there a particular size that you gravitate towards, or anything that you feel like is more consistent higher on your reviews?

You mean like the general thing? For you, if you say, hey, I mean, like, look, the Perfecto's the same exact blend, right, but because it's a different Vitola and because it gets smaller on the tail end of it, you enjoyed it all the way through, right? But now that I've switched it to a box press, made it a little bit longer and kept it the same, added some shenanigans, and then kept it the same size throughout, you're like, it's totally different, second, third, and final third, because third third's not a thing. I would say, so that's interesting, if it is the first thirds, between the first thirds, the two profiles are radically different.

For me. And it's totally, it's a totally identical cigar. I mean, you know, obviously, different types, different numbers or percentage-wise, because of leaves, because of the size. Yeah.

The restrictions for the Perfecto. Yeah. Do you remember where you were at what point in your life on the 2019 when you were smoking? Were you happy at that point?

Did something happen? You know? You can go back and look through the date and time, but I tend not to do reviews if I'm, you know, having a bad day or having whatever, because, you know, I want to be as objective as possible. It could reflect in your review, right.

Okay. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But I mean, back to the question at hand, do I have a size preference?

I wouldn't say so. I actually, ironically, I tend to like box press cigars only because I find that box press is more comfortable or it just sits more comfortable in your mouth. Son of a bitch, this is a box press. I tend to gravitate, I'm more of a traditionalist.

Yeah, I'm more of a traditionalist when it comes to ring gauge. Like I would rather smoke a sub 50 ring gauge cigar and not, you know, I believe that comes from experience. But I believe that some 50 ring gauge cigars, you get more of a wrapper and flow for the blend, so that for me the blend tends to be more enjoyable than, you know, certainly 50 ring gauge or above, that's, I mean, that's a personal bias based on, you know, more than a couple decade, well, decade plus of doing reviews. - Oh, okay.

Well, I feel like we're still kind of at a stalemate here, you know? - Yeah. I mean, I'm fascinated that the blend is the same, because that's so, like, I would love to sit down with you, and if we could smoke a 29 inches, like, at the same time, because that would just be so interesting to sort of compare and see, like, if you felt, at that time, the flavorful problem was exactly the same, or if you could detect any differences. Yeah, absolutely.

I think that, you know, I think honestly what happens is when you smoke something of a little bit of a longer size, and maybe something that's the same gauge throughout, you know, you kind of adapt to it. Don't, to be honest, like, and it almost, it almost dumbs down because of how you smoke. You know, like, I understand that this doesn't taste the same from the beginning to the end, right? But I also understand that, you know, even my can of soda doesn't taste the same from the beginning to the end, right?

But I also understand that, you know, even my can of soda doesn't taste the same, like that's what my joke towards Aaron at the end of the meeting is it was the first third of the Whoppers as good as the final third of the Whoppers, you know, because it really isn't like your sweetness, just when we did our, when we did, when Aaron did a dissection of it, I can't remember if he, if he had the Vitolas in there, just to show if there's any Vitola biases. Um, and I, I mean, I think the majority of the cigars are reviewed by nature, either Rebooster or Toro anyways. And that could be why I think maybe that's why everything is kind of a low rating for you. Like you guys are like, you know, I mean, first of all, first of all, first of all, but let's address this because I laugh that let's address this because I laugh at how we've had scorflation in online media.

You know, like, I remember a time when people were getting in the hard court scale, they'd get like 88, 89. And I'm like, Oh, that's a, that's a really good score. And now it's like, you know, if you don't get a 93 or above, they killed your dog and they hate you, you know, and you're immediately called, like, what's going on? It's like, what are you talking about?

A 93 and above should be like one of the best cigars you've smoked in years. Right. So how does your rating system actually work? 6 out of what?

100. We'll set a 10. Okay. Right?

So that's like a solid, that's an F. That's an F. A 5? No.

I think that's, no. 6? No. Like a low C.

It's in the 70s. No. It doesn't work like that. 70's a C.

Yeah. Like 60's is a D. Oh, you mean because right in the middle is like a 50. 50's is like a F.

It's just like a F. All right. Well, most of the reviews are over 10 minutes. Did we lose it?

Three hours. Yeah. Oh, that's... All right, let's move on here because we're having a bad connection.

Yeah, I think we're having a bit of a bad connection. Okay, that's okay. Can you hear me okay? Yeah.

Yes. He's doing it in his basement. He's doing it on purpose. That's not really my thing.

I also had some issues with the burn is a little... What, John? Sorry? You're over-talking yourself.

Sure, I was just gonna say, yeah, I think this is a messenger thing, not an internet thing, because I'm sitting next to a one gigabit connection. 21 gigawatts? Oh, okay. You guys said exchange numbers like you said on the other show.

He's afraid to. I'm scared. All right. That's not really my thing.

I also had some issues with the burn is a little wavy, required a touch-up, And then a relay, or pardon me, required a relay in the second, third. I'm a little wavy. And right now, mine's a slight wave, like a little thing. Why is that, why does that bother people?

Why does that upset people? Yeah, I mean, I don't understand how that affects... Oh. Okay.

Yeah. So, for the record, I actually, I actually don't give a flying fuck about the burn. Okay. Like, like, like, even to the point of, if I have to relight a cigar, I don't care, I mean, unless it's excessive, like unless you like, you know, you've had to relight it three or four times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My only issue with relight is that it tends to, more often than not, impact the flavor profile. Okay. But there's just a whole subset of people out there who are just obsessed with, you know, is it a straight burn line?

What color do you have? How does the ash hang on? I don't care. I really don't.

I care more about the band than I care about the burn. Sure, absolutely. So did it, but did my waviness of mine... It didn't matter.

It didn't affect your point score at all? No, the only time a score will be impacted is, at least the way I score at burn, is I actually have to intervene. So if I have to do a touch-up or I have to do a relight, that's the only time a score is going to get knocked out. Okay, so you did have to do a relight though, right?

Or a touch-up? I did have to do a relight. So that did affect the score? Not a relight.

Knocked the burn down from perfect to good. Oh, perfect to good. Okay, so then just good. Good.

Not perfect. You know, so where do you think that that had moved me to? I would say from a seven to the five, Michael. I mean, it's possible.

It is. I don't know what the gravity of the overall score is. Yeah, you know what I mean? Scoring process.

I mean, our five star program is really way more scientifical. Yeah. So, go ahead. So, how did it impact my numbers?

It's easier. Let's start there. What was the good... Yeah, say he had got the perfect burn.

What would the score have been? Yeah, yeah. I believe it would have taken him from... What did I score?

Is it like a five... 6? 515? 75.

I think what, what impacted here is that there was an issue, at least from the cigar I reviewed, and this is absolutely not a reflection of, you know, and we say this all the time, in the handmade product, so sometimes you get one that has, you know, You get a bit of a resistant draw, and most of the time you don't. I happen to pull the short straw, and I got a bit of a resistant draw. He got the resistant draw. Oh yeah, he does mention it.

Yes. We didn't mention that clip. I think we're about to do that. So without that, um, yeah.

All right, all right, all right. So what about, so, okay. Yeah, so without that, uh, it would have been like a 5/8 instead of a 5/6. It was a perfect draw, perfect burn.

Yeah. Oof. Yeah, until you get two-thirds that are good, you're not going to break into that six-plus category. Wow.

How do you get like a perfect score? It's so hard. A six-plus category. You shouldn't.

Get into that six-plus category. Well, no, obviously nobody's going to get a 10. And that would be very rare and hard to do, I understand. But, you know, maybe like a seven or eight.

I mean, you should just stop smoking cigars and only smoke those going forward, right? Right. Yeah, if you can only find a 10. All right, final clip here.

Hold on, John, here we go. So that was a bit of a drag. For me, kind of an average experience overall. Aaron, what about you?

Well, average experience. Kind of a bit of a drag for you. My goodness. Yeah, you know, okay, so first of all, it's like when your dad tells you he's not mad, he's just disappointed.

I'm just disappointed, because I've smoked lots of postagna, like the Habano, and I love it, I think it's a really good cigar. Thank you. And like I said, I smoked the 2019 Warbear, and it was literally, like it just shaved by missing our top 25 cigar of the year that year. And to be frank, if that had been the 2020, it would have been like my number six cigar of the year.

So, you know, it was against some pretty stiff competition in 2019, but I think that was a, you know, I really enjoyed that. I thought that was a great cigar. But, back to the question about scoring, the range is from 0 to 10, and you gotta think of it in terms of a survey score. So like 0 being completely dissatisfied, and 10 being completely satisfied.

A 5 is I'm neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. So it's not a, I think there's an, you know, that adage of like, well, five sucks. Like, well, no, you should be able to disdain most, more cigars that we reviewed today should be in the five to six categories. Like 80%.

Wow. Okay. So you, so you're not satisfied nor dissatisfied, but the, satisfied, but, but wait, play that last clip again. So that was a, you know, that was a bit of a drag.

For me, kind of an average experience overall. Aaron, what about you? Okay, but you said it was kind of a drag. Kind of a drag.

Yeah, because it was kind of a drag because I was... Sorry, go ahead, John. No, that was because... Sorry, I didn't mean to talk over there, audio-like.

It was a bit of a drag because I've had really good experiences with Pustania before. So there is my own internal expectation, which doesn't impact the scoring, is, oh, hey, we're reviewing a Pasana, finally I can review a cigar that, you know, breaks out from the last 10 cigars I reviewed that sucked. Right. And then here you, here we are.

So he expected so much more. And then here we are. And then he was disappointed. I did, I did.

Like, he finally got the woman. I was, and that's my own. And she just laid there. Yeah.

Like, this is the one. It's just a full on starfish. Nobody likes the starfish. Nobody likes the starfish, no.

Except the shark guy from the movie, he's num-num, num-num, num-num, num-num, eat shark, eat starfish, num-num. All right, well, we will let you off the hook. I feel like, you know... You know, he did really well.

Yeah, he did. You did a great job explaining yourself, as I thought that you would. I don't think Aaron's gonna do as good next week when we call him. yes and i will say uh in terms of um you know being hard on you or whatever on the review uh i would highly suggest that you take some of the reviews yes because uh uh some of the videos we go full savage you know like if we're reviewing a cigar that's uh like 25 plus uh we don't hold back at all because you know it's four guys buying a cigar that's 25 and to And I'll be frank, if you deliver a below average experience with a $25 plus cigar, I feel completely justified at just laying into it.

Yeah, I mean, Stephen Wells, who had actually brought the Developing Palette review to my attention, he actually said to me, you know, it's for these guys, that's honestly not that bad. I was like, wow, holy shit. The Stillwell review was 15 minutes, I'm looking forward to that. The Stillwell review was 15 minutes?

Yeah, it's Stillwell star. 6 via fucking John McTavish, I'm hanging myself, you're gonna see the next fucking clip, yeah, it's not gonna be good for me, I'm gonna set myself on fire. Can you get folded over at the PCA? Yes, absolutely, I mean, that will happen, you know, so.

All right, John, well, thank you very much, we appreciate you being on, taking the time today to speak to us. Yes, sir. All right, bud, we'll talk to you later. We look forward to seeing you at PCA, and watching and learning more from you, from your reviews.

I can't wait to have a chat with you at the Media House at PCA. Excellent. Me too. Me too, brother.

All right, man. Thanks. Have a good one. So that means we're getting invited back to the Media House.

Oh, well, we're media. God damn it. All right. Anything else there, boss man?

Well, I think that, uh, that'll just about wrap up this episode, episode two, two, one. Well, this episode, uh, 221 of the Cigar Hustler podcast. Uh, we don't have anything picked up for the Patreon yet, so, uh, yeah, we're, we're running long on time today though, so, yeah, it's 4:30 already, I know, you're gonna be out of here in 25 minutes, 25 minutes, 25 minutes are gonna go. All right, everybody, thank you very much for listening.

Thank you to John McTavish for being on the show, and we will talk to you guys next week. Thank you for this can, darling. Oh, darling, you know, I like getting you a little gifts. Wait, wait, wait, you have to include the Listener of the Week before we go.

Oh, yes, Listener of the Week this week, hold on, hold on, I gotta get to the, uh, we didn't mention any of that. No, we didn't, we didn't. Go ahead, do it, do it. Listener of the Week, Mr.

Adam Acri. Adam Acri. And his lovely wife, Nicole Acri. The birthday boy.

The birthday boy, yes, we, we, we didn't mention, we need to talk about it real quick, because he likes to tell his wife when he's on, mention it on the show. We had a lovely time going out to dinner with him, with the Agrees. For his birthday. I have never, ever been to, had a dinner with anybody who all ordered a cheeseburger, which was very interesting.

Oh, it was delicious, too. It was a very good cheeseburger, but it was a little strange that we all ordered cheeseburgers. Well, Brittany had said how good it was. The cheese, and that was what it did.

And then the lady was telling me about the melted butter or the frozen butter inside with the short rib and whatever else, I mean. Yeah. How can you pass that on? It was really good.

It was. I enjoyed the burger. Very good cheeseburger. at Luke's in Winter Park, which is not a sponsor.

They'd like to be. We had some apps. I was a little disappointed that they didn't do like a candle and a happy birthday or anything. They kind of plopped it in.

Yeah, because there was some whispering, so there was something going on. I'm like, what the fuck's going on? I was like, you did tell them it's a birthday, right? And she's like, yeah.

I'm like, okay. But that dessert, I don't know what the hell that was either, but some type of sesame custard strawberry thing. I don't know. That was delicious.

White chocolate thing, whatever. Oh, and the shop we went to beforehand? Cigars on the app. Cigars on the app.

Shop of the week. Shop of the week. Cigars on the air. Yeah.

And we hung out late nights and had some smokes, a few drinks. I had a good time. It was very nice. Yes.

Yes, it was. It was a lot of fun. And you had to leave. I had to go get my wife.

Yeah. The people that took them to the concert had too much to drink, and they had no ride home. And then an Uber was going to be $150 plus from downtown. Sounds about right.

Yeah. So I picked them up outside of the arena and that stripper road where all the construction is there by the arena. Yeah. There must have been 20, 30 people there waiting on Uber's cars stopping in front of me, picking people up.

I had to change lanes a couple of times. Wow. They would have never have gotten home. Did you charge them $75 at least?

Half the price? There was some other fees that were paid. Ah. Yes.

Yes. Don't worry. It was paid. Some dues.

Some things were collected. That was paid. Very nice. Good for you.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys. That'll wrap up the show.

We got to go. Hold on. See you later. All right.

Go ahead. Okay. Now you say goodbye there. No, over there.

Goodbye. And thank you. Oh, all right. Uh, everybody.

Oh, I get the microphone. Thank you everybody for listening. And we'll see you next week. Bye.

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- Hi, I'm doing, I'm Husto-I-Raw. - Yeah, we just don't have to do a single podcast ever again. - Perfect. - I'm good, Mike and Mike.

How are you guys doing? - The Hojo, the... - Hojo! It's the Hojo!

- Demandre... - You didn't even let him fuck it up all the way. - I can't get past Hojo! - I don't even have to try it, he's not even gonna try it.

We're gonna cover a lot of ground here, Mike. All right. Try to keep up. That's a sign of a good podcast.

It would be like four cigars when I walked in a door. All right, end this.

Show Notes

John Mctavish is our guest this week and we discuss his latest developing palates reviewing of the Box Press WarBear!

it gets a little heated and we ask him to explain himself!!