Cigar Hustlers Podcast 244 Weaselfest Cleanup

Episode Summary

Episode 244 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast is the post-Weasel Fest debrief. Mike and Mike (with Phil chiming in from the board) break down the annual RoMa Craft gathering in Austin, Texas: the travel down, the chaotic hotel waffle line, P. Terry's burgers, the beef "dinosaur" ribs served at the event, the VIP dinner at Bob's Steak & Chop House, and the hangs at Castle Rosales and Skip Martin's HQ. The main party was held at Fair Market in downtown Austin, and the guys praise the indoor/outdoor layout, the swag, Skip's F-100 on display, and the live music — with rapper Mad One singled out as a standout and Scarface closing the night.

The heart of the recap is people, not product. Mike runs through the friends and customers he finally met face to face: Andrew McCreary, Broderick (a former Dell colleague of Skip's who runs the "Traveling B" YouTube channel), and long-haul truck driver Sean Wilson, whose almost scientific daily routine — one cigar a day, planned showers, meals and stops — was the most fascinating conversation of the trip. Also name-checked: Mitch (a Patreon supporter who recognized Phil purely by his voice), Dex at Cigar Vault, John McTavish of Cigar Surgeon, Jeff Moutet, Lou Liga, Mike Williams, Deon, Nick at Cigar Den, photographer Daniel Castro, and Jay the coffee guy, whose nitro cold brew tutorial has Mike eyeing a tankless nitro setup for the shop. There's also a long, very Cigar Hustlers argument about whether Mike "ditched" an after-party at Skip's house, plus a plea for Mike Toon to stop skipping trips.

Elsewhere: a quick plug for the newly arrived Micallef Black Cojonú now on CigarHustler.com, with the full review going up on Patreon; a review of the new Elvis film; Rod Easter's critique of it; and Mike's meeting with his son Alex's future in-laws — including a mission to convert Ed off Montecristo White.

The news segment covers the big one: reports that the Biden administration is considering blocking Nicaraguan imports, and what that would mean for the many factories based there (Drew Estate, My Father, Perdomo, A.J. Fernandez, Padrón, Joya de Nicaragua, J.C. Newman, Oliva, Plasencia, RoMa Craft Tobac and more). The guys compare it to the failed Cuban embargo strategy. They also cover St. Petersburg, Florida's proposed beach smoking ban — which, thanks to HB 105's unfiltered-cigar exemption, likely won't apply to premium cigars — and a bizarre Flagler County story about a man stabbed during a fight over lighting a cigarette with a toaster oven.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Micallef Black Cojonú just landed
   The new Micallef Black Cojonú is in stock at CigarHustler.com, with the full review dropping on the Patreon feed.
2. 02
   Travel, food and the Elvis movie
   Flight-watching Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, P. Terry's in Austin, the Home2 Suites waffle war, and the beef ribs and Bob's Chop House VIP dinner at Weasel Fest.
3. 03
   Weasel Fest at Fair Market
   The layout of the downtown Austin venue, swag bags, Skip's F-100, and live sets from Mad One and Scarface.
4. 04
   The people you meet at Weasel Fest
   Meeting Andrew McCreary, Broderick of the Traveling B, Mitch, Dex at Cigar Vault, Mike Williams, Daniel Castro and more — plus why introducing yourself matters.
5. 05
   Sean Wilson's trucker precision
   A long-haul driver who has his route, meals, showers and single daily cigar dialed in to a science.
6. 06
   The after-party dispute
   An extended back-and-forth over whether Mike skipped an after-party at Skip's house, and a push to get Mike Toon on future trips.
7. 07
   U.S. weighs ban on Nicaraguan imports
   What a Biden-administration import ban would mean for Drew Estate, Padrón, My Father, Plasencia, RoMa Craft and the rest of Estelí — and why the Cuba embargo suggests it won't work.
8. 08
   St. Pete beach smoking ban and Florida news
   A proposed St. Petersburg beach smoking ordinance that likely exempts premium cigars under HB 105, plus a Flagler County toaster-oven stabbing.

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

Got a lot of stuff in that ashtray. Yucky. Not my cigar. Welcome to episode 244 of the Cigar Hustler Podcast.

Post-Weasel Fest. Post-Weasel Fest. All the Weasel Fest information you ever wanted to have. Oh, over there.

He has it. Right? Who? You.

I didn't go. I haven't? I didn't go. I asked him for a quote, he said it didn't suck.

That's his line. That's his standard. Quote. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, squared.

You too can become part of our podcast family by investing in our show or any of the shows on the Hustler Universe Podcast Network. Put your products in front of thousands of listeners every week on 13 different podcast providers all around the world. com for pricing and more information. Also, please remember to rate, review, and subscribe on whichever provider you use.

And Michael. Hit the bell. Hit the bell. Thank you for that.

For the Patreon. Lovely. Yeah, it's for the Patreon. We, so we just got these in.

Oh, these are big. The Micarita Black Sokakons. People have kind of been harassing me. Sokakon, Sokakon, Sokakon.

People have been harassing me about them. com. We're going to review them. Right now.

Now, so you have two ways of doing this. com and just buy them. Jump right on. Or B, you could jump right on to our Patreon, subscribe to that, and Thursday we'll tell you if it's worth the shit or not.

Oh. Either way, you're going to find out. So. That's my two cents.

Right? Yeah. What do you think? I have no other patrons.

I don't know how I wound up putting these. I think we were talking about, and they found their way into my thing, and these are busted, but whatever. Do you have no ashtray? Yep.

Listen, I am the talent. I don't know how many times I have to tell you guys this. In the other room. In the other room, Phil.

Not the other day. Take off the headphones. God's sakes, don't leave with the headphones on. So while he's getting you an ashtray that you're just shitting all over the table.

This is me not giving a shit. Oh, my lord. I'm sorry, I will clean up my mess, don't worry. You just sweep it in the floor is what you do.

If I don't clean it up, I'll get yelled at my... That's not his ashtray. Yeah, where's my pan? I want my frying pan.

The pan's in there. Oh, you want your frying pan? Yeah. I always have my frying pan.

Frying pan might be back over there. Someone stole my frying pan. I don't let anybody use the frying pan. This is getting serious.

Things are getting elevated. See it over there? Past the Febreze, to the left of the sunglasses. By the alligator, or by the gorilla.

Oh, I was thinking the camera was right there on the holder. So, I'm going to tell you right now, I was going to have a special guest on today. Yeah, who was the guest? Yeah.

His name is Phil. Oh. Because he went to Weasel Fest and was going to say, all right, well, you should switch chairs with him. Oh.

And then you should take over. Oh. And I knew how you would answer to that. You'd be like, that's fine, whatever.

And you'd kind of get up and move. However. I didn't get up and moved. I know.

Right out the door. Yep. However. Yes.

Given the current circumstances of our current transaction. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You now, once again. Yes, work for you.

We need to talk rate of pay, by the way. You slid that in. I need a slight raise. You slid that in.

Because I haven't had one in nine years. You're going to have to speak to Greg about that. All right. I don't handle that sort of thing.

I think my lighter's out of fuel. I have to put me back in payroll. I did too well today, apparently, so. Yeah, and you bragged about it as soon as you walked in.

I was like, okay, well, I just did well, because that's good, right? I mean, I said, well, guess what, bust here. I don't know if that's good around here or not. You just fucking walked yourself into employment.

So Palmer covered today so we could do our team builder, because we've been threatening to do it for four quarters now. It's damn near a year and a half at this point, and we've overthought it is the problem. I'm like, why don't we do a fucking... Why don't we do a...

See, first it was gonna be a break room. Yeah, which was cool, which would've been fun. But they died during the pandemic, and then it's a liability issue. Right.

And then a, what was after that, was it the... Escape room? Escape room, which have weird hours and it does not work with the schedule here. Yeah.

And there was something after that. But I like the whole Tuesday morning type of a scenario. Right, yeah. You know?

Right. So... You still won't be going to those, by the way, though, as an employee. As an employee.

I have to establish that now. I have to establish that now. Fine. The cigar rule goes back into effect though.

No, the cigar rule does not. Oh, then I'm not doing it then. Oh, that's where you stand your ground? That's where it is.

That's the line. I need a line. I gotta get something out of this. You're getting employment.

It's over there. Phil, lighter over there. Listen, if you don't stay busy with me, he's gonna always find shit for you to do. Him?

Phil? Phil, yeah. Yeah, with the podcast studio, production company. Oh, I always have stuff down here to do.

Yeah, there's always something. Phil got his hand. He did it on purpose. He watched the screen as his hand went across.

Yeah, check out my hand. You know, if you were Union, Phil, that would have just got you 50 bucks. Easy 50. Easy 50.

So I gotta tell you, you know, I was on the flight and I watched Elvis. Oh, the new Elvis show. Before I get into Weasel Fest. Yeah.

Oh, that's on HBO now. Yeah. I gotta tell you, I thought it was really good. Oh, really?

I thought it was really good. You know, my boy Rod Easter, he's like, this is bullshit, I didn't like this, it's not, the story isn't accurate, and he was saying some other things, I'm like, but for like a guy from me, he was dead before I was born. Oh, true. You know what I mean?

So, I don't know, like, I know, obviously I know of him. You know who he is, but you don't know a lot of the information. Yeah, my parents' fucking wedding song was, you know. Love Me Tender.

Suspicious Minds. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, it was, I think it was Love Me Tender. It was an Elvis song.

You know what I mean? Teddy Bear. Love Me Tender. I don't remember.

I think it was that one. No, no, no. Jailhouse Rock, probably. Yeah, Hound Dog.

Maybe Hound Dog. I want to play house with you. So, I watched this movie, and I'm like, wow, this guy really got fucked over, hardcore. But he kind of let the guy, which isn't right, but, you know, it was a good, it was a good show.

It was a good movie. I really liked it. I think that you should watch it to tell me how stupid I am. Well, can you turn that down, Phil?

It's picking up on the mics. Yeah, why'd you move it to Meglodon? You need to go one more to quiet. This is a sheer fuckery podcast, you know?

We're kind of running in several directions at this point. I think you turned it off. Whatever. Whatever, it's fine.

Let it roll, baby. Let it roll. Well, it's, uh, what is it, two o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, so... Yeah, the audio will be up by four, I would imagine.

So anyways, though, are we doing the Patreon? Oh, we are doing the Patreon right there. Yeah. If not, we, you know, well, you can't, we gotta buy these again.

I'm smoking again. That's fine. We didn't pay for these. I'll charge these.

Fuck it. So, I'll save mine. Okay. If we don't do it today.

So yeah, you know, Elvis was fantastic. Right. I saw him in concert. Did you?

Like live. And now you're dating yourself. Lakeland, I was very young. Lakeland Civic Center.

Yeah, at the end, like the tail end of his career, he started fucking pelting cities. It was Fat Elvis. It was Fat Elvis. Yeah.

And he was, you know, like this big way over there. He was just crushing at that point. Right. But I don't want to go too far into the movie.

Right. Oh, I'll have to watch it then. It's definitely interesting. That colonel guy was a prick.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fuck that guy. Did Tom Hanks play the colonel in the movie?

Mm-hmm. Okay, I remember hearing something about that. Mm-hmm. So, all right, yeah, so we did Weasel.

So, the Flight Out, you watched Elvis. Yeah, there and back, it was a two year. Okay, well, did you have peanuts or pretzels? I don't, I don't think I had, I don't know, they had the little fucking cookie things.

Oh, I like those. The little bilatis or whatever, some shit. I had those. Those are pretty good.

Yeah, those are good, I like those. Yeah. I try and stay kind of dialed in with the, you know, eating nutrition, blah, blah, blah. It's just two days.

Like, all bits are off. Let's be honest. It's travel, two days. You eat what food you can find.

With Phil, you can fucking forget it, right? Is that right, Phil? Macaroni and cheese every day. What, I don't eat good?

No, no, I'm just saying that you're not, first of all. All bets are off, that's what you said. First of all, no, you don't eat good, for your words. But, I'm gonna tell you, you know, you're an influencer.

" You had a choice. I know I had a choice, but, you know, it's like... What was the other choice? It's like Pookie...

Not eat it. It's like Pookie working in the fucking crack room in New Jack City. You know what I mean? He really likes the birthday cake M&Ms.

He's eventually gonna fucking lose it. For whatever reason, the peanut M&Ms, I'm kind of... Are you getting on those now? Alfredo brought me a shareable pack last week, I crushed those two.

M&Ms are your thing. Yeah, I would say so. I would say so. So, yes, do you see what I'm saying?

I didn't even offer the Sweet Tart Nerd Robes, but you ate that. Yeah, they were there. Oh, you ate those too. Like, he picks candy that I would never pick, so now I'm curious.

At least with the M&Ms, you can pretend they're kind of healthy because of the nut. Yeah, yeah. Nerd rope, nothing. I'll tell you what, the Sweet Tart Robes is legit.

Oh, it's good. Yeah, but no, no. Yeah, try riding in the car with him. I come out with a bag of Cheez-Its and a Diet Coke, and he's got four different kinds of beef jerky.

Yeah, this is crushing. Oh, Eric, Candy. Well, I got all the salty, I gotta have the sweet. For the chocolate milk or something.

We should probably just cover the food off the rip then, at this point, you know? Right. What else did we eat? Well, for one, we had fucking breakfast at the Home Two Sweets, which was like fucking Thunderdome.

Wow. Yeah, the waffle line was atrocious. Oh, yeah. I mean, give me a fucking break.

Just give me a fucking waffle. Because people don't know how to do it. You should have just started making them, just flip that line fadget. They were doing okay, but you know what, it's like, what happened, here's what, and I would do the same thing, so I'm not, but I'm a little judgy, because I'm not that person at the time, but when you're traveling with your whole family, you know, the mom or the dad stands there and just pelts out four or five fucking waffles.

I'm like, fuck me, man. Just take both of the same, let's go. Move along. Come on, pick it up.

You know, split it with your kids. No, but I understand. I get it. I totally fucking get it.

I'm drinking the syrup. Let's move. I'll tell you, we had for the first time, we've gone to Austin so many times and never eaten at a little burger joint called P. Terry's.

No, we didn't when I was there. That shit was really good. Did you go make the donut place? No, we didn't do the Dona Place.

We didn't do the Bona Place. So, but the food at Weasel Fest, style and switch again, they had beef ribs this time. I think we had those with Skip. Did we?

Yeah. Like the dinosaur ribs. Yeah, yeah, of course. We have eaten said food before.

Oh, okay. Oh, you mean last year at the Weasel Fest. No, but it was the year, yeah. I don't remember if beef ribs were there last year or not, but they were there this year, and it was fucking dope.

The food there was fantastic. And we had like, I don't know, those are the two ones that really kind of highlighted me. Go ahead, Phil. Anything?

What about the VIP dinner look nice? Oh yeah. Oh, the Bob's, Bob's Chop House. Yeah, that was really good.

The filet was really good there. I feel like I should have went with the... Tomahawk? No, it was a prime rib or something.

Well, you had a filet. Yeah. I feel like the better move would have been the prime rib. But Ray, Ray one, two was there and he, he easily influenced me into the filet.

oh so and uh that that's other than the mac and cheese was banging other than we had pizza when'd you have pizza at the after roma deal yeah they're like marco's pizza that's like standard shit oh marco what else we didn't really eat anything else no i guess not oh we had well jamie cooked food oh yeah oh yeah yeah but dash you didn't go to glad he was here It keeps me on tap. Didn't go to Castle Rosales? We did go to Castle Rosales. Castle?

Yeah, I guess it's Castle Rosales. Yeah. She approved. I called it a castle.

It's a castle when you know that you can go to a bathroom where no one's looking to poop. Oh, it's like seven bedrooms and four baths or something. Yeah. I'm a seasoned veteran of Castle Rosales.

Yes. So, Jamie knew what I was up to. Bathroom upstairs all the way down the line. Yeah, go to the guinea pig room.

That's what I called the guinea pig room. Yeah, next to the guinea pig room. Well, the guinea pigs have their own bathrooms, so they're very hardly ever in there. Very sneaky, very sneaky stuff.

So, yeah, the food was fantastic. The fucking party was at a place called Fairmarket in downtown Austin. The concert. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And the layout was really, really cool. Because there was like a metal tin industrial area where you could get your merch and you could get your... That was down the stairs.

You got your swag bag, you can go in there, there was like a booze stand there, you know, there were all types of little things there, Skip's truck was there, the F-100, and then you would go outside and hang, so like, what was cool about that is you didn't have to stand outside under a tent the whole time, you could go inside and go outside, you know. So it was like an air conditioning area. Well, it was fanned. Oh.

Better than nothing. Yeah. I mean, the bathrooms were cool. Yeah.

They had AC, for sure. Yeah. But, which is also actually fucking nice, you know, instead of going to a, some portal lit or some shit. Right.

And then, I think there's, there's one rapper who I thought was fucking amazing. I think his name was Mad One. Yeah. Mad One.

The bigger gentleman. Yeah. He's on Spotify as Mad One. I gotta look up his songs.

But when he was fucking blasting some shit, I'm like, damn, this guy's fucking dope. So, he was really good. All the kids say now, dope. I don't, I feel like the adults say that now.

Oh, do they? The kids, I think, well, I feel like if I say, hey, this is dope. Mike is like, what the fuck are you talking about? What the fuck is this guy?

It's not dope. I don't even know what word they're using. No, idiot. It's not dope.

I saw your children now started their own band. Oh, yeah. Jax is doing the sax. I saw that.

Yeah. And his sidekick's doing the trumpet. His sidekick, his best friend, is doing the trumpet. Trumpet, yeah.

Yeah. They're just crushing. Yeah, right. I saw the concert online.

And football season is, we're about to get our first game going on Friday. Oh. Man, I'll tell you, I don't know if I want to do this anymore, man. Oh, too late now, you're in.

You might have to think about that next year. This may be my last season. We'll see. It's fucking stressful, man.

I don't know if I can... Oh, no. What are you gonna do now? Did you see that?

You're just bringing up the other kid, you're all coaching on just one team next year. Bringing up Eric's kid. I know. I just don't know, man.

I don't know if I wanna do it. There's a lot of responsibility that I don't... Sorry, sorry, Eric. I know he promised you and you can bring kids on, but it's way worse.

There's a lot of responsibility that I don't do, that I should be doing, and I'm just like, maybe I'm not cut out for this. Oh, you mean there's something you should be doing besides. Yeah, I don't stay, no, I just don't stay on top of the contact with the parents and what's going on. Oh, the things with the, oh, there's coaching things that you're letting.

Yeah, yeah, and I'm just like. We'll get somebody who does that job. Well, unfortunately, Brittany doesn't. Oh, well, there you go, she's fine.

And I just don't, I don't think that that's okay either. Plenty of time, she also has a free time. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, what is she doing, right? Right, that's crazy. She's not part of the team, she didn't go to Topgolf today. I told her to come to, she is part of the team, I told her to come to Topgolf.

Oh, she said she wasn't on Facebook. Fuck, you guys are gonna be the death of me. " I am the other half. We'll do like a team eulogy.

Yeah, the guilt that both of you guys lay on me, my goodness. You'll be fine, Michael. So that's it? That's everything?

No, you segway out of it talking about the fucking band. Oh, we're talking about music. So, yeah, the music was fantastic. Right.

Scarface came on, he did a fantastic set, and we went back to the office, we hung out there for a little bit, shot some shit, we ordered some pizza, had some pizza. Oh, after the fair market thing, you guys went back to the office. So the event as a whole, it's, you know, listen, nobody else is doing anything like that. It's fucking remarkable.

No, nobody else does that. You know, and I think that as they kind of progress, they're going to adjust and figure out what the best fit is for them. But, you know, I think that it's, it's a great thing. I really do.

And I enjoyed myself. Phil, you enjoyed yourself? Yeah, I think that event as a whole, I mean, you guys know, I'm, I'm only three years into cigars. But all these other cigar nerds, or whatever you want to call them, I mean, if you're not going to that, you're missing out.

I mean, I liked it, and I'm not even really big into the world yet. Right, and there was some mention that Phil was recognized by his voice, I heard it. Yeah, how'd that go? Yeah, so...

So they're obviously a fan of the podcast. Mitch, who is a Patreon. Yes, Mitch's a big supporter of the show. But he likes broadly about...

He recognized my voice. Oh. Yeah. At HQ.

" Should've worn your "I'm Phil" shirt. I should've. Should've. I am Phil.

I am Phil. So, here are the quick, here's some quick highlights with interactions with people that I had that I think was fucking fascinating. And really, to me, that's the most important part. And I'm sure I said that last year, just kind of interacting with people and really getting to know people.

Because like last year, I really got to have a good conversation with Mitch, and that's really kind of where our friendship kind of developed, right? Right. This year, I didn't get to hang out with him as much as like, it just didn't, you know, I got to hang out with him in the last day before we got to fly out a little bit, but in general, we were just never in the same area, right? Okay, that happens.

So, first of all, I got to meet Andrew McCreary for the first time. Oh, in person. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Which is fucking awesome. Yeah, seems like a very nice guy. Yeah, he's always been down to earth, you know, he's been a customer forever, and, you know, it was just cool to finally interact with him right so that was fantastic i got to meet a person that worked with skip for at dell oh wow yeah guy's name is broderick and i'll plug his youtube he's got a youtube called the traveling b right i think it's traveling b i can verify that but i'm pretty sure that's what it is well well you're talking about it's i mean like this guy he has seen a lot He's been, you know, he's traveled the world, working with Dell, and you could tell that he's, you know, pretty remarkable, and as well as the fact that he has been friends with Skip for so long, you know, that's, that's pretty impressive. Yes, the traveling, you know, he has two channels.

So, I, you know, I'm like, give me the details. I'm like, how was, you know, tell me some of the, tell me some of the juice on the meetings and stuff at Dell. And I got downloaded a little bit. I'm like, that's not a That's my boy, Skip.

That sounds exactly like Skip. And he's like, yeah, man, but we became really good friends and we started, you know, kind of rapping. I'm like, well, I'm glad you made it down. So, like, I hung out with him a lot.

Older guy or younger guy? Older guy. There's two Traveling Bee channels with the exact same name. Really?

I'm subscribed. I'm subscribed to him. Has he got a beard? Yes.

So, one has five videos and 55 subscribers? I think he just got started. Okay, because the other one has 176 subscribers. Yeah, it's the other one's the 55.

So, it's the 55. Yeah. So he just started getting going, it's about like, you know, he travels to places, and I think he's documenting food and like interactions and stuff like that, so, but yeah, he seems like a really, really cool guy. So I talked with him a fuck ton.

Oh, the most remarkable conversation I had. Yes. So even though, even though everything that Roderick brought into the table was absolutely remarkable, I'm going to tell you, the guy who really fucking fascinated me the most. Was, who's number one a cigar hustler david garofalo was there he was not there oh not david garofalo no no sean wilson oh i know the name yeah because you see him all the time on facebook he's a truck driver he's you know he pops in from place to place he showed up a day early with his truck okay this fucking guy he has his job down to a fucking science where everything is fucking He's fucking perfect.

Everything that he does, how his entire operation is, for the day, he has it so that his time off, weighs out perfectly with hotels, everything. This guy has thought of fucking everything. You can tell that he's been doing it for a long time, and it's just like absolute master of his craft. Oh, wow.

" You know, but when you, it's like, that's one thing. Right? Right. But when, when a guy really fucking breaks down the science and the logic and the approach to every single thing that he does in a day, down to his cigar smoking, it's fucking absolutely spectacular, man.

I'm like, I was just so fucking taken away by what this guy was having to say. So, for example, I mean, this sounds wonderful what you're explaining, but it's a little confusing on the words. First of all, I'm not going to be able to give it any justice. No, no, you're not going to do it justice.

I understand. He has his timing set up to how he smokes his cigars, how long he's going to smoke that cigar, when he's going to, you know... So, does he smoke while he's driving? He smokes one cigar a day, and he has figured it out how it makes sense for him...

Oh, time, like where he does it during the day. Right, to get through it. Okay. He knows where to fucking shower, how to shower, he knows where to use the bathroom, And, like, all of those things sound like, okay, whatever.

Imagine living your life on the fuckin' road. Oh, I'm sure, yeah. You know what I mean? And you could tell that the way that he operates is with fuckin' precision.

He knows exactly what he's eating, he has that planned out, he knows, I mean, to how many times he's gonna eat a banana a week, like, all of it. Wow. Yeah, it's fuckin' amazing. Like, if I had to live on the road, I'm calling Sean.

I'm like, "Hey, listen, you know, how do I, you know, what's the, What's the right approach to this? Like, I would, here's my schedule, I'm bet, you know, like, I would bounce. So he's got to do the same. He has kind of a route, yeah.

A route, a route, a route. To some degree, yeah. To be able to hit the same places. Right.

When I used to drive back and forth to Missouri, when Adrian still lived there, it just worked out, because the gas would always run out at the same time, or you'd get hungry at the same place. " Yeah. " But yeah, he's got it set up where he goes, "This is the clean place, this one's This one's got the good food. Right.

Right. Here's how I avoid this. Here's how I avoid that. Right.

There's driving going to be here at this time. So I'm going this way. All of that shit is dialed the fuck in. And I'm like, wow, that's fucking.

They just get the truck to drive for him. Yeah. Then he's out of a job at that point. No, no, it's still his truck.

He just sits back in the truck and it just goes to the next stop and stops. Right. Right. I got to see Dex again.

We got to arrive a little bit in the day before hanging out at Cigar Vault, which is always cool. I love Dex. And he went to the ULT game. Texas is big on their college football.

Yes, yes, they are. You know, especially Austin. And I'm going to forget names. So I'm just going to apologize in advance if I forget anybody.

But I'm going to say John McTavish, Scar Sergent. Oh, yeah. I'm like, here, come on. Let's do a clip real quick.

Right. That was fucking fantastic. Jeff Moutet Riverside was there. Lou Liga.

Oh, yeah, he popped in there at the end. I was surprised he was there. He just didn't look happy, though. He never looks happy.

No, but you know, with Lou, you can, like, I would prefer angry, energetic Lou than just kinda, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, you know what I mean? See, the time he was here, it was, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, Lou just sent to the table. Are you okay, Lou? Is everything right?

Yeah, I'm fine, thank you, yeah, I'm good. Need another beer? No, no, I'm not. I want Lou to tell him to go fuck myself.

Something, just give me, just fucking. Some emotion. Don't, don't give me the blank. Oh, make fun of his shoes.

He really likes his shoes. No, I started attacking his shoes. Oh. Right off the rip.

Such a mean person. That's not blue enough. That shoe is not blue enough for the rest of your gear. It's got blue in it.

I'm like, no, no, it doesn't qualify. Not fair. So, Cigar Vault was really cool. That's a cool little spot in downtown Austin.

I know I'm forgetting shit. I heard you missed an after party. What after party? Uh, first night after party.

Did I? I think it was first night. Yeah, I heard you missed an after party. Yeah, we went home.

Oh. What after party? Everybody went back to Skips, I think it was. Oh.

Yeah. You're usually so big on the after parties. That was what I caught hell about in Vegas, not going to the after party with you. Yeah.

But no, you didn't go to an after party, because you were tired. I think it was like two, though, already. Yeah, listen, you know. Well, after party's an after party.

No, when it becomes one, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning. Oh, there's a time cut off for the after party. We know, we know, listen, you're not the only. But it didn't start until later, though.

You've got to expect, when you're there with Skip, after the party starts at 2, it goes till dawn. m. is if I'm hanging with Skip. Something brought to my attention.

If I'm at Skip's, and it bothered you. No, no, it didn't bother me, but they told me that you ditched on an after-party after hearing how you gave me the crap on the podcast. First of all, I don't think that we ditched on an after-party. I didn't know that anything was going down.

Oh, Phil did. " And he left like 20 minutes before us. I don't even think Skip was there at that time. We didn't know about it at the time at Cigar Vault, but then I had heard about it from the, I forget the ball-headed guy's name, the big tall guy that was with us at HQ at the end.

Mickey. Mickey. Yeah, but we weren't aware of that, for one. Right, yeah.

No one had said anything to us. And I'm not about... I'm just telling you what I heard, Michael. I wasn't there, obviously.

Let me clarify. Obviously, you can make your statement, and then I can happily defend it. I was not aware that there was an after-party at Skip's house, for one. And for two, this is the night before the event, okay?

" Because I know that there's a million things going on. Everybody's fucking, it's a stressful fucking thing, right? " You weren't asking to be entertained. I didn't ask.

The person that told me said that they and you didn't go to the after party. Now, I assume that meant you knew about the after party. If you didn't, then fine. I obviously wasn't there.

First of all, I was unaware of said after party. Okay, you've already made that apparent, Michael. And I would have happily attended the after party. So, calm down.

But again, I, look. Calm down. People tell me things to bring up on the show. Listen, this is me being calm.

You seem to be a little upset. I'm not upset at all. That I brought it up. If you want me to, I mean.

So just forget, let's just move on. If you want me to look for, if you're looking for rage, I'm not looking for rage, I don't know if you're gonna get there, I'm not looking for rage, I'm not looking for rage, I'm like, why would I, why would I purposely look for rage? Why would you poke the bear? Right.

So, I didn't, for one, I didn't know, I was not aware of said after party, and nor would I look to Michael or Skip and say, well, what are we doing now? As they just fucking took care of dinner, as we just, you know, like as all of these other things kind of unfolded, I wouldn't be like, all right. Oh, you got to be up early to worry about this shit? Cool.

Let's go hang. You know what I mean? Now, if Skip. We're moving on.

You've already established it. No, no. I'm going to continue to elaborate on this. Now, if Skip or Michael had invited me over, of course I wouldn't have went.

Right? Okay. But just because they had people over their house and we didn't know about it at the time doesn't mean that I'm upset about it either. Right, no, nobody said you were upset about it.

But I'm going to, I'm going to fucking, if you, you fucking wanted it open, I'm going to open up the whole thing for you. Whatever you want. And I want to be perfectly clear that, you know. Okay, everything perfectly clear.

I wouldn't be upset if. You didn't know, but you're not upset you didn't know, and you would have went if you had known. Okay? All on the same page now?

That's about it. Okay, good. Yeah, okay, I feel good about that. All right, have a good night, guys.

Thanks. All right, thank you. This has been episode 244. Keep it to 30 minutes today.

What about, uh, Mr. Mike Williams? I love Mike Williams. Mike Williams is my fucking guy.

He was a, he was a gentleman that, he won, I gave away my cigar safari thing fucking a hundred years ago, and he won it. Your trip? Yeah, like, no, I gave my, the cigars that, like the stuff that you couldn't get. Oh, yeah, yeah.

It was like Velvet Rat before it came out, Ratzilla, UF4, like all this shit. So I just raffled it off at a giveaway. Okay. Like, no need to purchase anything, enter your name, done.

Right? Right. So he won it, and I finally met him at Stogie's Houston, probably eight years ago. So every year, I see him, and we get to hang out, and, you know, he's just a fucking good dude, you know?

And Deon, because those two guys, they're thick as thieves, they usually roll together. Right. So, and Deon's a Pats fan, so that also helps. But, yeah, I feel, and I'm still forgetting people, Nick, Nick, Nick Rosario, Cigar Den, yeah, no, not Nick Rosario, yeah, Nick at Cigar Den, I'm glad Phil was there, thank God, thank you, Phil, thank you for being there, thank you for being a good friend, a good supporter of Roma Craft, just all the way around, just solid, no problem, yeah, if you could just run that computer, you'd be fine, yeah, no, I can do that, he can do this, he does it for his show, we'll put him over there, we'll put Mike over there.

We can do that next week. Yeah. This is me shutting down. I'm shutting down.

No, I'll sit over there and run there. You guys can run the show next week. We'll see how it goes. Let's see how good you are without me.

Mike, I'm going to tell you right now, you're an integral part of Cigar Hustlers podcast. Thank you. And you matter. And Cigar Hustler again now.

And now Cigar Hustler. And you matter. And I work for you. All right.

Yes. And my friendship is important. Yes. Your friendship is important to me.

Oh, I was going with the first part too. Yeah, so. What, Phil? Can you come on the next trip?

Yeah. I'm gonna tell you right now, this whole you not going to places, it ends. Oh. It ends.

Oh. I'm done with it. Yeah? Yeah.

You need to figure the fuck out. Oh. And you're going. Why is this?

Because it's important for you to go to these places and be with us and enjoy these things. Listen. We're all gonna die. I got news for you.

Oh, I did. A hundred percent. Here's a statistic... I'll die before either one of you.

Hopefully. Unless Phil keeps... If everything works out the way that it's supposed to, yeah, technically you're supposed to go first. I'm gonna go first.

However, regardless of who goes first, statistically speaking, 100% of the people on this earth, that's 100%. Yes, 100% of the people do die. Will die. At one point or another.

And you're over here just kind of missing out on opportunities to be with your friends. And you gotta figure this shit out. All right. You do.

Okay, I've said one, and that's it. I'm going to leave it at that. I've said what I said. Okay?

You want me to talk to Adrian? I'll talk to Adrian. You can talk to Adrian. Okay.

Okay. So what else from the trip? We got to get a pull-out couch and three of us, I'll happily sleep on the fucking pull-out couch. Well, I saw in the, when he FaceTimed me, you guys are only using one bed anyway, so it was a whole nother bed day.

Yeah, of course. It's perfectly available. Right. And I'm going to tell you right now, if you're in the room, we're just going to merge the beds.

Fuck. Oh, just push them all together? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll take the crease.

Whatever. The other two sides are going to be He's fucking filled with fluids anyways, so... Oh. Look at what I'm shaking his head now.

He's so excited. He's such a homophobic. He's so excited. He's so scared.

Uh... Daniel? You wanna keep naming people? Yeah, but you, like, you gotta work on, like...

I don't know his last name. The photographer. You only do so many names. Oh, Daniel Castro.

Yeah. Fuck yeah. Another great guy. I mean, look, you could go on...

Yeah, we could fill the rest of the show with him throwing out names. And you could name... Oh, he's a great guy. I had a lot of fun with him.

And you could name the majority of the people, right? Right. Daniel was definitely, I mean, Daniel, I was pissed off that he didn't meet us at PCA. " Oh.

Was he at PCA? No, he lives in Vegas, though. Oh, gotcha. Yeah.

And then we met another cool dude named Jay. He wasn't that younger guy, was he? Yeah. So he was at PCA the year before.

Yeah, with cameras and shit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's him. Jay, the coffee guy.

Yeah, so that's what I was about to get into. So, you know, there's this guy named Jay, and he does it. He does coffee for a living, so I start fucking, I'm like, okay, because I want fucking nitrous upstairs. Right.

What's the best way to do nitrous? And he goes on like this 30 minute diatribe of two different ways to really kind of do nitrous. Right. And I think that he's pretty much got us about to spend some serious fucking money on a nitrous pool.

Oh, imagine it's expensive. Yeah. And then I looked at it and said, well, we're gonna need two pairs. This is cool because now I can just share this information with my wife and she'll get the download and she understands.

I really want one of these for the house as well. It actually pulls nitrous from the air so you never need a tank. Oh, that really sounds expensive. Yeah, but it is fucking awesome.

And then all you do is you mix your cold brew, which I would do the one time and then of course she'd be doing 'cause that's how our life works. I just make things for her. Right, exactly. So tune in next week for Brittany's rebuttal.

The French toast. We got to get the French Toast back, I'm kind of missing that. You know, I thought about it too late, but I was thinking. Damn it, with this lighter.

What's with the lighters? I thought about it too late, I should have set it up where I was over at your house eating French Toast one morning while you were gone. That would have been funny. Me and Adrian are over there just eating French Toast with your wife and the kids.

Yeah, that probably would have killed you. That would have been it. So, I'm bringing my wife. Murder.

I don't care. Murder. Yeah, I can't spell murder without French Toast. Can't spell murder without French toast.

So, yeah, it was a, hey, listen, it's a fucking great time. I hope that they kind of dial in on the date a little earlier in advance than they did this year, but it wound up being the same as they did last year. And just be ready and go. Just fucking go.

And if you're there, you know, if you come, if you say, hey, Mike, I'm gonna say, hey, how are you? What's going on? But if I only know you via Facebook or social media, just please just come up and introduce yourself. I mean, like Instagram, a lot of people don't put their face out.

Right. Or you're just a round circle to me, you know, so... Right. Or their name isn't something where you're going to recognize their real name.

Yeah. Like Jarrett from Omerita. Like, I've never met the guy, but he was like... Oh yeah, I've only talked to him on the phone.

" Like, we've never really met in person. You know, I'm like, "Hey, what's up, dude? " You know, makes life a lot easier, just for the record. So, just throwing that out there, you know.

Anybody else from media show up? Was Charlie there? there no no charlie no charlie that's true nobody from half wheel nobody from half well just you and the surgeon mm-hmm it's strange i think somebody would have showed up yeah and like charlie's in fucking dallas oh so it's a it's not a few hour drive right how did he not go well cigar hustlers podcast was there yeah that's what he said that's what he said oh and cigar surgeon yeah i only have One more thing. Sure.

Slide in. Slide in. You missed out on the most intense Jeep game of all, I think. It was pretty intense.

Why? Who was playing? Oh. Well, me and him, of course.

Right, right. Oh, just the two of you. And then Greg, at the end, tried to slide in. Yeah.

Like he was going to beat somebody. Oh, it's true. He likes to just grab him at the end so nobody else gets to him. He won on the way home.

He did. Oh, did he? Yeah. But yeah, the Jeep game.

I mean, we missed our exit. Oh. A couple times. Yes.

I mean, and we had like an Audi rental. Yeah. Because when we got there. Oh, we had an Audi.

SUV it looked like. Here's the problem with fucking rental cars on Labor Day. Oh, yeah. You go in, it's fucking, there's nothing there.

Right. " Anybody want a minivan? They're not really, they're not really, they're not really washing it, they're just hosing it down with water and kind of sending it in. Right.

you know, some people would pass on the minivan. I'm like, listen, if it gets to us, we're fucking, I don't give a fuck. Right. Give me the minivan.

Yeah. Yeah. So there were these angry people in front of us. Well, you know, you could tell that she was a bit of a Karen and she was with her daughter, you know, who's probably, I don't know, 13, 14 years old.

Yeah. So Karen in training. So yeah. So, so this, so the minivan pulls up and they say, no, we don't want it.

And I'm like, They're like, okay, well, we'll take it, but it doesn't go to us, it goes to the next person, after the angry Karen. So she gets, you know, it gets passed, and they take it. I'm like, okay. Then another car pulls up, and it's like a Mazda SUV, and I fucking hate those things.

Like, it's just because of the overall usability of the fucking front thing, right? Okay. The Nissans have a tendency to be pretty nice, stuff like that. Things you learn as you rent cars.

Right. So they get in that Mazda. And then like 20 seconds later, this Audi fucking four-door sedan pulls up. Leather sunroof fucking equipped.

So I'm like, oh, fuck yeah. The guy goes, you all right with the Audi? I'm like, absolutely. So we start walking to the Audi.

And I look back at them and I go, this could have been you. We get in the fucking car to drive off. Yes. He's hitting her husband now.

Still yelling at him. He's like, they got the Audi. They got the Audi. And his Mitsubishi dammit thing.

Mazda. Mazda. Well, there, I start with that name. So, did you have a fun weekend with your, uh...

Uh, yeah, the, uh, the in-laws, uh, had heard of me and, uh, said I was famous. So, I think they're just trying to be flattering. Oh, so you're a big deal. I'm a big deal, yeah.

Yeah, you're kind of a big deal. Uh, the guy that, uh, blew you and Rosales off... Yeah. he hangs out with him in his group called Holy Smokes.

I gotcha. So, yes, he had already heard of me. So the in-laws is a cigar smoker? Yeah.

Yeah, he is. And you've never smoked a cigar with him? Uh, I just met him. And we had, uh, we had, uh, breakfast together.

How long have you been marrying? Me? No, no, no. They're not really my in-laws.

They're gonna be Alex's in-laws. Oh, that's right, that's right, that's right. It'll be Alex's in-laws. Adrian's parents were deceased a long time ago.

That's right. That's where I got sidetracked. Oh, no, no. This is the, uh, this is the parents of the young lady.

The new, yes, the new acquisition. That's right. Yes. For somewhere along the lines, I convinced myself that you had to meet Adrian's parents for some reason.

They were Alex's future-in-laws. You've explained that. Yeah, and Adrian has already met them twice. I've got out of it two times.

Right. I wasn't going to get out of it a third time. Is he older or younger than you? Maybe a little older, but not much.

He may be in his 60s. What does he smoke? He's going to listen to the show. I'm not a, no.

You're not going there? I saw, the last pictures I saw that Alex showed me, he was spoken to Monte Cristo White. So it's important. Yes.

Oh, I will. As an in-law. I will, yes. I will educate him.

To teach him his ways. Yes. Yes. It's okay.

It's been discussed. Right. It's okay. It's okay if you smoke something.

There will be more visits and more smoking and he wants to come out here and see what is Cigar Hustler. Awesome. What's important is that he smokes something. Yes.

Right? Yes. So he's already walked through the door. Yeah.

He's been to, over there, he's been to the church place. Right. Grand Cathedral. So yeah, he's been there, and a couple other places.

Now, you can show him the way. Yes. Right. Fantastic.

You gotta start somewhere. Right. You don't have to be great at the start, brother. No.

You gotta start to be great. Okay? So, kudos to you, in-law, meeting famous Michael. Ed.

His name is Ed. Ed. Ed. And a very hard-to-say Italian name that I'm not even going to try.

Ed. Yeah? Yes. And Elise.

His wife's name is Elise. Oh. Maybe. Could be.

Could be. " Did you guys eat at an Italian restaurant? No, we ate at first watch. We had breakfast.

Oh. Brunch. This was... This is not a good first outing.

I feel like this did not go... Why? It went lovely. I paid for breakfast, and then, you know, a slight fight for the check.

Well, technically, he's gonna be paying for the wedding. So good, I'm glad you covered the omelettes, pal. Yeah, exactly. That's how it's supposed to work, Ed.

He's like, you know, I don't know if you have any other kids or whatever. Alex lives at their house now. Is he paying rent? No, in his own room.

So the kids can save money. Ed, you need to fucking charge him rent. Stop it right now. Just something.

Just something. He does do the cooking for the family, I find out. And I didn't even know how Alex could cook, so. He's like, yeah, dad, there's a lot of shit you don't know about me.

I doubt it's Italian food, though. No. We had the whole no pineapple on pizza conversation. I don't know if I could do that.

I feel like that's a big step. You're counting on someone that you don't really know to make food for you. Oh, well, Alex and her have been dating for two years. Regardless.

You know what I mean? " You know what I mean? Well, maybe that's how it started. " And they're like, "Oh, this is good.

" But it could be that, but the dynamic at that point, it could be very awkward. Well, if it's bad, you don't let him cook ever again. You can't walk that back. You know what I mean?

You don't want to start the, well, you know, it's going to end, you know, and then you give him shit about it if it's bad. But that's how the family rift starts. You can't do it. No, no, no.

He's that kind of guy. He's very sarcastic. He's very funny. Oh, we would like Ed?

I would like Ed. Oh, yeah, you would like Ed. Okay. All right.

Plus, he knows a lot of people, I think. Oh, okay. All right. We had some talks about China and stuff that I don't want to talk about here on the air.

But he's not in Boca, or something, he's not like a retired fucking... No, they just moved down there from New York City last year. Right before, two years ago, right before the pandemic. Yeah, Staten Island?

Actually, yes. Yeah. I believe so. Right, exactly.

All the signs are there. We're pointing towards mobbed up. All the signs are there. I am now connected.

You're now connected. No more who's driving the car. It's like, let me call the guy. Well, hold on, I got a guy for that.

I got a guy for that. We're not taking a car, I got a guy. They'll show up. It's going to be no problem.

I'll call my in-laws. I'll call Ed. It'll be fine. It's going to be great.

He'll call Vinny, and then it'll all come over. What are you worrying about? What are you worrying about? Don't worry about it.

I got this lovely wedding dress fell off the back of a truck over here. Check this out. It's perfect to fit you. It's going to be great.

It's going to be nice. It's going to be fantastic. Phil, bring the size 10. Yeah.

Oh, you got to ask him for favors on that day. Oh, he can't say no. He can't say no on that day. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Uh huh.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to ask him for papers all day long. Yeah.

You gotta, you gotta come up with a list. You gotta come up with a list. What do you know? You can't say no today.

It's on the movie. Yeah. You're not. Today's the day.

You can't say no. Today's the day. You can't, you can't deny me anything today. Yeah.

I love where your head's going. See, we're going to set this up. Oh, this is going to be great. Suddenly this wedding's become a lot of fun for me.

I can't say no. Walk in there like Luca Branzi. Today is the day of your wedding for your daughter. Congratulations on your wedding day.

All right, let's do a little bit of news. Okay, let's do some news, okay? I kept it light because I figured we wouldn't have enough time, but now I have too much news. All right.

Good. From the four corners of the world, all the cigar industry news you could possibly need. The Cigar Hustler Podcast Report with Mike Toon. S.

considers ban on Nicaraguan imports, Michael. Yeah. Did you guys talk about that at Weasel Fest? You know what?

We didn't. Oh. It was supposed to be a joyous moment. I figured it might come up somewhere.

I figured Skip would want to pontificate on the... Pontificate? Yeah, pontificate. Pontificate?

Something like that. He would like... Okay, go ahead. I can hear you with your fucking wrapper.

Could be a major disruption to the premium cigar industry where it be implemented. The Biden administration is reportedly considering blocking the import of Nicaraguan products into the United States admits increasingly strained relations between the two countries. Which makes no fucking sense. Let's read on.

S. government publication, two top officials told the publication that the administration, considering the import ban as relations between the two countries, continue to deteriorate, the article does not indicate whether it would be a complete or partial ban, though it effects could be felt across several sectors of the economy. S. 3 billion dollars worth of goods from the country, with the top import being apparel, gold, electric machinery, meat, coffee, sugar, and cheese.

I didn't know we got cheese. We're not even on there. We're not even on the list. We're not even on the list.

I'll tell you right now, your cheese, we're shutting it down. No more cheese. No more electrical machinery. All the good machinery comes from Nicaragua, apparently.

A lot of t-shirts. You better get that coffee hole. You got a lot of Hanes t-shirts from there. You're right.

When it comes to cigar imports, Nicaragua remains the leading exporter to the United States. Get this all sorted out. In the most recent number released by the Cigar Association of America from January 1st to May 31st. This is all the statistics where he's before.

J. C. Newman, Pensa, Oliva, Agronosa, Leaf, Plasencia, Aroma Craft Tobac, and many others. S.

is Nicaragua's largest trading partner, would certainly be felt by the Ortega Murillo government. The report, let's see, the report quotes Ryan Berg, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who said, "It would mean a significant cut in financing for the Ortega regime. " Okay. Can we just take a fucking break here and review from history and see how that didn't work with Cuba?

Because they're still fucking there. I mean, I'm no fucking, look, I'm not intelligent here. I'm very not, you know, I'm going to tell you off the rip. I'm very stupid.

But I know that Cuba still exists. And the Cuban market for cigars is still in high demand as far as Europe is concerned. So, like, what are you really doing? Well, the rest of the country, they don't have anything that they ship out, do they?

I mean, other than the Cuban cigars, what else does Cuba have that they trade with people? Old Chevys? Rum? Do they make rum?

Yeah. Oh, they do make rum. So just rum and cigars? Old Chevy's.

Old Chevy's. That's what you see in all the photos. Sugar? I don't know if they make sugar in Cuba or not.

Yeah. But they're still there. That's kind of my point. Right.

Well, they're not going to go away. Right. But, you know. And not only that, but you're going to make a ton of people, because now you're going to put a bunch of people out of fucking business.

Right. And you're going to have more problems at the borders. Well, they'll just ship other places, I'm guessing, like Cuba does. But if the demand isn't there.

We're the biggest consumer of Nicaraguan cigars. Right. So you're going to take that hit. So if the demand isn't there, what do you have?

People are going to start fucking dying. People are going to get poorer. They're going to have more poverty. And then people just fucking start leaving.

From what I learned from The Smoking Truth last week, the sanctions and things that we put on countries are made to make the people mad so they will try to overthrow the government of the countries. That's the strategy. Right. The cameraman's quit.

He's out. He's leaving. He's gone. Voice of an angel over there.

All right. He's out. He's gone. The things also comes, and look, he's back.

Oh, he's returned. Let's see. S. at low import tax rates.

Oh, so they get a tax break on the sugar. Yeah. In June, the sanctions are imposed on Nicaragua's state-owned mining company and the sanctions... Do you need to take that?

It's Jimmy. He's upstairs. In the months ahead of the elections, more than 40 opposition figures, seven of whom were presidential candidates, were imprisoned. Oh, well, then I'd get rid of them, doesn't it?

A representative from the Premium Cigar Association told Cigar House of Podcast that the organization has been actively monitoring the deteriorating relationship between the two countries with an eye toward protecting the importance of premium cigars as part of the ongoing advocacy efforts. Right. Maybe that's why Skip started making cigars in the Dominican Republic. I don't think so, but hey.

You never know. Could be. You gotta jump ship, you gotta jump ship. That's true.

Open a new factory. I mean, the real, I guess you start kind of breaking things down on a statistic level. Like how many cigars can you produce? How many cigars can you house?

How, well, how long do you think this will last? You know, there's a whole fucking thing. Right. Well, I mean, how long is a Cuban cigar embargo going on?

I mean, forever. True. Yeah. But then you find another market.

Right. Or you ship them in from another country. Ship them in from another company? Country.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Yeah. That's what we'll do. I'm going to take care of this. I'm going to take care of this.

Don't worry about it. How many you got? 2 million cigars? Ah, that's one boat.

Yeah, we'll get that over here, no problem. Phil, call the guy with the boat that we know. You know, hey, just make sure you ask me on my daughter's wedding day. I can't tell you no.

That's the day I'll ask you. Yeah. St. Petersburg, Florida moves toward beach smoking ban.

Ugh! Not cigars. St. Petersburg, Florida is likely to ban all smoking on city's beaches.

Last week, St. Petersburg City Council unanimously approved a draft ordinance that would ban nearly all smoking at public beaches. Those caught in violation of the ordinance could be fined between $93 and $500. Why 93 is such an odd number?

I don't know. It depends on how many cigars you're smoking. " Why is Phil Stanley? I think 93 is a palatable number.

Oh. Smoking cigars in the beach will likely remain legal. Oh. We're fine.

So there you go. Yeah, yeah. Screw those guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's right. Ban the cigar, the smoking. That's right. I told you.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 105 into a law, a bill that allowed Florida municipalities to enact their own smoking law, something that was previously preempted by state law. HB 105 contained an exemption for unfiltered cigars, which do not contain plastic, means unlikely St. Petersburg proposed law could ban smoking premium cigars. Because it's just leaves, man.

It's just leaves, bro. It's just leaves. I think people give you the dirty look. I mean, I always dig a little ashtray, and then you throw the butter, and you just cover it back up.

Yeah, throw that away. It's a leaf, lady. What do you want? Somebody says something to you?

Yeah. Not a lot of people say something to me. Just one lady one time. Yeah.

Yeah. We have a Florida story. Another Florida story, I guess, because we're at 52 minutes. Yeah.

All right. We've got to wrap it up. We've got to wrap it up. This is Flagler County, Florida.

Bunnell man was arrested Thursday after a fight over cigarette ended. m. after receiving a 911 call about the attack. A man told deputies Andrew Buckley, 29, attacked him after the two, after the two, who are related, gone to an argument over Buckley using a toaster oven to light a cigarette, an investigator said.

Buckley knocked the man to the floor and began punching and biting the victim's neck, deputies said. Buckley then wrapped his arm around the victim's neck and began to choke him, record show. Joke in record show, Deputy said a woman who was also a family member tried to get Buckley to stop eventually grabbing a knife and stabbing Buckley in the back. According to investigators, the woman told them Buckley is a known drug user and had been awake for several days prior to the attack and believed he was going to kill the victim.

While Buckley ran before deputies arrived, he was eventually tracked to Shady Lane home in Daytona North and arrested. No, it's close. According to the sheriff's office, Buckley faces charges for domestic violence, domestic violence battering. Why didn't I light a cigarette with my toaster?

Well, he didn't, I checked the man after two, Buckley knocked the man on the floor began, oh, he was, was Buckley using, oh, Buckley tried to light the thing, I got confused on who was lighting the cigarette. Yeah, that's how the fight started. Well, I thought the other guys were trying to light the thing. Right.

Maybe Buckley like toast or something. I'm a toast fan. I can't get toast now, I got cigarette ashes on the ashtray and the toaster. I mean, you're really hitting that type of low at that point though.

Toaster oven too, it's got like the door, how far do you gotta stick your face in there? Yeah, like if you need to, you know, it's got to be like a 305 or some shit. It's nothing, it's nothing good. I mean, I don't really, I'm not a fan of cigarettes anyways, but there's definitely tears, you know, like Aunt Meek and her Virginia Slims, you know, that's definitely a little more proper of a cigarette.

It's longer, easier to light with the toaster oven. Yeah, it probably would have worked out well, you know, but 305s? Have you ever tried to light anything off a stove or an oven or anything? I can't say that I have.

No, never happened. Not even a cigar and a gas grill. I got, now I got the stove that's, uh, it's like magnets or something. Oh, magnets.

Yeah, it's called something. It's bougie. We got gas. I mean, I could light it off.

Gas would be nice. Yeah, I could do that. I like gas stoves. Yeah, I do too.

I like the heat. But the electric one heats up very fast. Does it? Yeah.

With the, with the magnets. What's it called? Home Improvement Man. Phil.

What's a magnet oven stove called? A microwave? No. Something.

I don't know. I was always going to say like Megatron. Okay. Well, I'm sure my text messages in my Facebook will be filled with the answer.

Yes. But yeah, yeah. Probably filled with. With the magnets.

With the magnets. All right. That wraps up episode, because I'm spitting all over the place. Episode 244.

Yes. Cigar Hustler Podcast Post Weasel Fest. Weasel Fest Edition. Do you want to say anything else, Phil?

Induction range. Ah, yeah, it's induction range. Induction range. He Googled it.

He Googled it. Induction stuff. With the iPad, they run the cameras. Yeah, the cameras aren't working anymore.

Yeah, the cameras are. But we know what it is, so. Right, it's induction. All right.

All right, that's it? That's it. All right, guys, thank you very much. Oh, there we are.

Thank you very much. Bye. Bye. A Cigar Hustlers podcast, its owners, and its sponsors take no responsibility for the opinions or statements made by the talk show host or their guest.

Statements or show topics are not necessarily the beliefs of Mike and Mike Productions or the podcast providers, and opinions between talk show hosts may differ. It is not our intention to libel, incite, or hurt anyone's feelings. We invite you to write the show's host, Mike Szczepankewicz, with any feedback or suggestions that you have for their shows. These broadcasts are presented and made public as entertainment, in the hope that they will be entertaining to the audience.

This has been a Cigar Hustlers Podcast, a Mike and Mike production. m. for all new episodes. Hi, I'm doing, I'm, who's the way raw?

Yeah, we just don't have to do a single, uh, single podcast ever again. Perfect. I'm good, Mike and Mike. How are you guys doing?

The Hojo, the... Hojo! It's the Hojo! You didn't even let him fuck it up all the way.

I could get past Hojo! I don't even have to try it. I'm gonna try it. We're gonna, 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

Weaselfest Update, Some Industry News and show update