Cigar Hustlers Podcast 267 The Great Smoke
Episode Summary
Episode 267 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast centers on a phone interview with Abe Dababneh of Smoke Inn, who previews the 17th annual Great Smoke — a four-day "Mardi Gras Madness" extravaganza running March 16–19, 2023, with the main event on Saturday. Abe explains how the event grew from a couple hundred attendees to roughly 3,000, why it's built as a themed production rather than a herf (last year was a Hawaii/volcano theme, this year Mardi Gras), and how the team sits down the Monday after each show to log improvement points — 106 of them after last year's event. He also details the virtual broadcast, hosted by Michael Herklots with Kim Keeney and Paul DiGracco of KMA Talk Radio, and the ticket swag pack worth $400-plus including over $350 in cigars, hats, ashtrays, cutters, lighters and more. The hosts give away a Great Smoke ticket (live or virtual) to a listener who comments "The Great Smoke" on the episode's YouTube page.
Around the interview, the hosts recap a bachelor party weekend in an Orlando-area Airbnb that included a stop at Cigars on the Avenue and a tapas dinner at Jaleo, plus Phil's Fun Fact about Winston Churchill commissioning an oxygen mask that would let him smoke a cigar at high altitude.
The news segment covers a Powstanie Cigars price increase effective February 13 that moves the Habano and Broadleaf lines into the $12–$13 range, a CDC-touted survey claiming a majority of U.S. adults would support banning all tobacco sales, Scandinavian Tobacco Group's new budget-priced Shady Moose (an Ecuadorian Connecticut-wrapped cousin to Chillin' Moose, $4.79–$5.49), the Cigar Association of America naming Brian Fojtik SVP of Government Relations, the debut of Santana Cigars' San Andrés line from Miami retailer Andy Santana (made at Tabacalera William Ventura), RoMa Craft's teased Aquitaine EMH Frenchie with its reversed dual-wrapper design, and the contents of the CRA Spring 2023 Freedom Sampler. The hosts close with an explanation of why their Cigar of the Month Club price rose to $34.95, along with Listener and Shop of the Week shoutouts.
In This Episode
- 01Interview: Abe Dababneh on The Great SmokeSmoke Inn's Abe calls in to preview the 17th annual Great Smoke, a four-day Mardi Gras-themed event March 16-19 with the main event on Saturday.
- 02Virtual Great Smoke and the Swag PackMichael Herklots returns as host of the virtual broadcast with KMA Talk Radio's Kim Keeney and Paul DiGracco, and every ticket includes a $400-plus kit with over $350 in cigars.
- 03How the Great Smoke Improves Every YearAbe explains the post-event debrief that produced 106 points of improvement last year and why themes change annually.
- 04Ticket GiveawayListeners can win a live or virtual Great Smoke ticket by commenting "The Great Smoke" on the episode's YouTube page.
- 05Weekend Recap and Phil's Fun FactThe hosts recap a bachelor party weekend with Cigars on the Avenue and a Jaleo tapas dinner, then Phil shares that Winston Churchill had an oxygen mask built to accommodate cigar smoking.
- 06Powstanie Price Increase and CDC Tobacco SurveyPowstanie's Habano and Broadleaf move into the $12-$13 range as of February 13, and a CDC-published survey claims most American adults would back a tobacco sales ban.
- 07New Releases: Shady Moose, Santana Cigars, RoMa Craft FrenchieSTG launches the Connecticut-wrapped Shady Moose, Andy Santana debuts Santana Cigars' San Andrés line, and RoMa Craft teases the Aquitaine EMH Frenchie.
- 08CRA Spring 2023 Freedom Sampler and Month Club PricingA rundown of the sampler's contents from Padrón Black to the Andalusian Bull, plus why the hosts' Cigar of the Month Club moved to $34.95.
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
Dude, dude. I like to take naps. He does like to take naps. I mean, we all like to take naps.
He actually just takes the naps. He takes them no matter where he's at. He's a nappy. He's a nappy poop.
He's the napper. We make a scarf for him, we call it the nappy poop. Oh, that'd be nice. Better overhead garage storage with a rack above.
Why must we damage our home just to gain overhead garage storage? A rack above, it's changed the status quo by creating a superior freestanding overhead garage storage rank Yes! Yes! Yes!
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
Yes! It's installed in any garage. It travels with you. Aha.
No matter where life takes you, A Rack Above will be with you. I officially have my appointment scheduled. I'm not, I'm not done. Oh, I'm sorry.
com. Are you finished now? No, I'm done. I just want you to be finished.
I'm finished. Okay. Are you finished? Are you finished?
Okay, I'm finished. Do we have an official date? Thursday. This week Thursday?
Yeah. Yeah, I should probably tell my wife, too, before she listens to this podcast. Yeah, probably going to. When did you talk to him, since the weekend?
Well, after he dropped off the rental car with me. Oh! So we drove home together. Oh, so you guys worked it out then.
Yeah. I imagine this is all based on him getting his racks on Wednesday, though. I would assume so. Right, so as long as they show up Wednesday, we're good for Thursday.
Yeah. Right. But, you know. You never know.
Shipping and things. I mean, it's American-made, I believe, so it's not like we're waiting on a boat or something. Yeah. So they should be here.
Right. Nice. Hmm, Woosa. I was a little tired today, man.
I had no energy. I went to the gym. Ugh, it was terrible. It was a very late Saturday.
That's what it was. Yeah. I think that's what really kind of fucked me up. Did you power through the day, Sunday?
I mean, you have a lot of children. Yeah. I powered through the day, I didn't, and then went to bed at eight, fell asleep at nine, and was up at two. No, we finished The White Lotus, Locus, what the fuck is it, White Lotus?
Lotus, Lotus. Oh, the first one. Season one, yeah. Yeah, so we can talk about it now.
We can talk about it. Spoiler alert. It's the wife. The wife.
The wife died. No, she didn't. Yeah, she did. No.
And the wife died. No, it was the hotel guy. Wait, no, wasn't it the wife? Oh man, you fucked this up.
Is it season two, the wife dies? No, no, no. I haven't watched season two. The wife doesn't die.
I thought the wife died in season two. Stabbed the hotel guy. I could swear. The hell guy took a shit in his suitcase.
Right, I guess when it was the wife died in season one. No. Because it starts with him leaving and his wife is already dead. He's leaving the island.
No, his wife is not there. Oh. I don't know. I saw it a long time ago.
I like Paul Zahn, that guy, the actor that's in it, plays the dad. Yeah. Yeah, I like him. It's, you know, it's a, how do I feel about this show?
It's pretty good. I liked it. It's pretty good. I watched episode one of the first, or the second one.
Didn't really, didn't like it. Yeah. It's cool to see how the characters develop and change, and it's interesting their perspectives and all these other things, you know, like the guy, one guy's a douchebag, you know, he kind of flirts with the girls, but he's not cheating on her, you know, he doesn't have any intention of cheating on her, but he's just an asshole. He's just an asshole.
Yeah. He's just kind of a fucking ass. Was it nice to his wife? Yeah, he's got to work on that.
He's got to work on that. And I hope he does. That was the one thing that kind of discouraged me at the end was he wasn't cognizant of it, of his douchebaggery. Right, his thing didn't change.
Maybe he was cognizant of it after he murdered him, after he killed the guy, but it doesn't, you don't state that, but I think a lot of things aren't stated in that movie, show, whatever it was called. It was good. Stifler's mom is the only character that made it to the second one. That's good because she's awesome.
Stifler's mom, I don't remember the actor's name, but everybody knows her as Stifler's mom. Everybody instantly knew who I was talking about. Alright, before we get into more shit about our life and the exciting weekend that we have, let's give our dear friend Abe at Smokin' a call. I don't know if he's gonna answer.
If not, do we just go on with the... We'll give him a chance to call back. I hate the Facebook ring. Yeah.
Hello, sir. Instant answer. Oh, look at that. Three rings and he's there.
Honest Abe. Good afternoon, Abe. Gentlemen, how we doing? Mr.
Abe. We are doing quite well. And how are you doing? Mr.
was my father. Oh. We thought we'd call and try to sell you cigars over the phone. How's your Mondays?
I don't know about yours, but mine's ugh. Well, we're kind of dragging ass, but we're powering through it. Yeah, there's no other choice, man. Manic Mondays.
That's it, man. No matter if you're happy or you're sad, you're tired, you gotta push through, right? That's the art of a champion. The show must go on.
That's it. So, what do you got going on? I think we're getting pretty close to something, some kind of big thing that you're doing. I don't know.
What's it called? Click, he hangs up. Did I lose you? No.
No, we're here. Did you hear us? Did you hear? We heard there's something big you got going on.
Yeah, what's going on? You mean, are you guys talking about The Great Smoke? Yeah. Oh, it's that time of year again, The Great Smoke.
Yeah, man. Yes, the great smoke, man. We are in the grind, the home stretch, coming there, man. Mardi Gras Madness is here.
Another four-day epic extravaganza starting on, let's see, 18th, starting on the 16th of March, and going through the 19th with the main event on Saturday. As always, an amazing time. And we will also be, once again, broadcasting it virtually for people all over the country who want to enjoy it from the comforts of their own home in man caves, Michael Herklots, who has now become the official face of the virtual Great Smoke, will be back with his co-hosts, Kim Keeney and Paul DiGracco from KMA Talk Radio, and they will bring the event basically into the living rooms and man caves of people all over the country, making them feel as if they were there live themselves. So last year was our first time trying to do this live and virtual thing coming off the pandemic broadcast, and it went over very, very well, so we're back doing it again this year.
Fantastic. Is this the fifth one or the fourth one? Which one? The fourth one, what?
Virtual? Yeah, no, no, no, the Great Smoke. Seventeen? Seventeen!
Oh, wow! Apparently I've only been to four or five of them. There's five of them. There's their 17th annual one, yeah.
Abe's been around for a while. Yeah, apparently. Right. You know, I remember being the young buck, and every time I was in a room full of people with, you know, an industry, like, you know, people who, you know, are in this business.
Now I'm that old guy in the room. I mean, not entirely. Yes, you are older, but you're not the old guy in the room. You know what I mean?
I've officially entered elder states. Elder states. The one thing that you really do that I think is very remarkable and probably the best approach is at the end of your Great Smoke, you review all the shit that went wrong. Right?
Every year. What could you do better? Every year. And you know what?
That's exactly how you get better at doing these sort of things. So I'm intrigued. I'm going to go. We're going to go check it out.
I want to see the improvements and where you kind of make your changes and stuff like that. You know, most of these, sometimes it's customer feedback, but to be honest with you, most of these things are internal things that most customers probably aren't aware of. Okay, right, yeah, they don't see the problems, right. No, we see it and we want to enhance the experience and we think of things that will make the experience better.
Because, you know, while something may be inconvenient or took too long or whatever, most people will complain about it. They're having a good time, everything's good, but we see something, man, we could make this better, and we literally sit here that Monday after it's all over, and it usually takes about two to three hours, and like last year there were 106 points of improvement for this year, so it's kind of a, yeah, it's kind of a, I'll tell you something funny though, because we start looking at it, you know, when we start working on The Great Smoker, and multiple times this year we'll look at like, yeah, number 46, like, what does this mean? I don't know. What the fuck was it?
What does this mean? And we can't even remember, yeah, we can't even remember, we type it all into a back-end stuff, but we can't remember, so now next year we have to remember to be a little bit more thorough on our notes, because when we look at it like six months later, eight months later, it may not be fresh in my mind. Right, note 107, be more thorough in notes. Right?
We experienced that a couple times this year, it's like, wow, I can't remember, what exactly was the problem here? Yeah, that happens, man. Yeah, especially with 106 of them, so yeah, but it's evolved, it's become really a thing, in my opinion, one of the best events in the industry, and we just keep trying to make it better, and we know it because people coming more and more every year, it's gone from like really a couple hundred people to now 3,000 people, and, you know, the accolades and the praise that we get from just our own industry people, you know, the manufacturing stuff just keeps telling us we're doing it in the right direction, but we've always been experience driven. You're not coming to a herf, you're not coming to a social guy, this is like a production, I mean, we got stuff going on, we got shows being put on, yeah, so we're excited about it, man, and honestly, you know, I don't want to jinx it, but you know, we've had some snafus and some, you know, side balls, you know, curveballs, which is common, but nothing, everything's kind of fairly smooth so far, you know, a lot of work, a lot of work, but not clear.
So, you know, you get better at planning and you get better at foreseeing things, you know, it's when you have a major change, it's always the problem. You know, the first year we moved to a new location, that's always a problem, because now you don't know how the people work there in the floor plan and what things you undersee. And then we did the digital experience, it was all virtual, that was never done before at all. But last year we never did virtual and live.
So, but once you kind of get one under your belt, as long as you're not making major changes, and most of it's, you know, you're not making major changes, and you're not making major changes, and you're making major changes. The style changes or tweaks or improvements, it's not as stressful. Right. That's awesome, man.
Well, we're going to be there again. We went last year. It was fun. We had a great time.
We got roped into working with Booth last year. That's the one thing is, you know, you can get sucked in. As being industry people, you can find yourself shoveling things along with other friends in the industry. Like, hey, what are you doing?
Come here, you know. You got to get disguises this year. Yeah. We should wear the mustache and the...
Oh, the glasses. They'll never know who, they'll never know what's up. Come with this, guys. That's fantastic.
Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, it's all right. No, you go.
No, I was just gonna say, it's gonna be great to see you guys again. So, you could, look, one thing, one of the coolest things we made about The Great Smoke is when we came up with the idea in 2020 to start steaming them. Because steaming The Great Smoke has enabled us to really make it a completely different event every year. Last year you were transported to the island tropics of Hawaii with volcanoes up on stage and fire dancers and lua girls, and then this year it's going to be Mardi Gras.
Next year it's going to be something completely different. So, that's really been a great twist on our event to really make it feel like a whole new experience every time people come down. Absolutely. Do you have a list of themes for like the future ones?
" No, we have the next two, three years actually booked. In fact, we have next year's date already under contract with the team. Well, you have to understand, too, so we tease the team at the end of this year. So we already have the logo, the art, all that stuff there.
That's smart. I think next year is gonna be fun. That's smart. But, you know, they're all fun.
I mean, that's the kind of cool thing about it. We get there and we just, it's fun. The problem with this now is we already have to start working on stuff for the swag pack. And, you know, I mean, for anybody who's unfamiliar with this event, you know, when you get a ticket to this event, You get literally $400-plus worth of stuff with your ticket, whether it's virtual or live.
If you're watching it from home, we ship it to you. If you're coming down line, you get it the day of the event. And, you know, the value of cigars alone, we added up the retail, it's over $350. And then there's a plethora of hats and ashtrays and cutters and lighters and rally towels and bottle openers and shot glasses that all come with the theme of the event on them.
So it's a pretty badass kit, and I think we're going to send you – we're sending all the media people out this week so they can see it and share it with their fans. And then all the regular ticket holders will get theirs the first week of March. We'll start shipping them. So when you get your stuff, you'll get your kit.
You won't have to worry about going around, you know, getting stuff and stuff like that. And, you know, you'll have your lanyard, you just walk right in like a rock star. I love it. Oh, that's great.
I love it. And you want to do something special for the listeners and viewers of this show? I believe. Yeah, man, I'd like to offer you a ticket to give away how you guys want to do it.
It's up to you, but it could be virtual or live if they're local, or if they want to come to town, we can give them a live ticket. If they want to enjoy it in the comfort of their own home, we can give them a virtual ticket. It's really easy, so I'm just not sure how you guys want to do it, yeah. Perfect.
I think that we're going to keep it really simple. All you've got to do is comment the Great Smoke on this episode on our YouTube channel, and then we will pull for the winner next week. Yep, all you guys got to do is let me know who you pick as a winner. Okay.
All that person has to do is go to our Smokin' website, create themselves an account, if they don't have one, if they do already have one, just leave their first, last name and email. But once their account's created, we just drop their ticket right in their account. Easy peasy. Perfect.
That's great. This is awesome, man. I can't wait to come down and harass you and see you running around like a chicken with your head cut off like I did last year. That's typically the routine, man.
That's typically the routine. But when it's all over, man, it's all worth it. Absolutely. So nice to see everybody coming together and enjoying an awesome day.
It really is. It is. It's always a good time. I appreciate your hospitality, man.
I always appreciate you welcoming us. That's a big gesture on your behalf. And I'm very grateful to become your friend and to meet you and have that opportunity, man. I appreciate you guys as well.
And thank you for letting me, you know, share the information with your fans. Of course. com. You can find out everything that's going on, whether it's live or virtual, and there's a fax page if you have any questions.
com. There you go. com. All right, Abel, we'll let you get back to work.
We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Let you keep running the empire. Thanks, fellas. I appreciate it.
We'll see you in about 30 days. All right, Abe, thank you. Be good, Jeff. All right, bye-bye.
Abe, dubba-dubba-dubba-dubba. Oh, so he's sending out media packs for us. No, I don't think so. I don't think we're going to get media packs.
I bet we do. Maybe. Maybe. Because, I mean, we're on there, he's got our name, he's got our addresses from last year.
Maybe. It could happen. Well, it's not, you know. Except you're, you're not under Skippy, he always calls you Skippy.
Yeah. Skippy. S-K-I-P-P-Y. Z-B-B-Y, Skippy.
I thought it was Zippy. It is Zippy. Maybe he just looks up Cigar Hustle and sends him here. Well, in case you're listening, it's 829 Deltona Boulevard, Deltona, Florida, 32725.
But I already told him I was going to buy my ticket, so... Just in one to 829 Deltona Boulevard. Phil's throwing up hand signals. Look, man, I'm not here to drive back for anything, you know what I mean?
You know, he's a good guy, he's always been very nice to me. It's nice though, you know, to get one, so I wasn't going to ask for one. You matter? I matter.
Yeah, I get it. No, he's very nice, because, I mean, everybody knows they do KMA radio on Saturdays, and I'm a fan, I watch it, and I will see things in the show that I think might work for us. Yeah. So he always answers, I always send him a message, and he answers like that.
Johnny on the spot. Right. Now, I mean, there was about that little landier, the little, uh, not landier, the lapel microphone thing that he did on his other thing, took a couple days to get the information together, but he didn't forget, and I didn't harass him for it, I asked him the one time, and he goes, no, I don't know, but I will find out, and then it took him a couple days, and he goes, oh, I'm so sorry, it took so long, here's the link, the old guy in the industry, right, yeah, the old guy, I'm pretty sure I'm older than him, probably, or at least the same age, yeah, but he's been doing it for, he's been doing it a lot longer, 20 years, probably, retail, yeah, oh, at least, I mean, shit, I've been doing it for 13, fuck. Right, I mean, you were just seven when you started.
Yeah, here I am. There you are now. Yeah, I'd leave, I'd color in my coloring book at school, and then I'd just go to work. Right, just start talking to you a little bit.
Check out a team. Hey, you got a sandwich? I'll trade you two cigars. Alright, so hey, there you go.
So there's Abe. So that's Abe. So you want to tell them how they went, just tell them how they went more time, and then we'll do it again at the end. Yeah, so just go onto our YouTube channel, go to this episode, I believe it's episode 267.
267. " And what's great is if you're there, if you can make it in person, that ticket will cover you in person. Not airfare, if you live out of the state. Not airfare, no, you're on your own with that shit, don't get the fuck out of here.
Or, if you want, you can just take the virtual ticket as well and get the goodies and hang out at the house. And marry you the cigars. Yeah, yeah. And all the swag.
Yeah, you can get drunk and sit in your underwear. I still use the ashtray for last year. Yeah, I still, I do too, actually. Oh, I saw it on your patio.
It's very nice, it's very nice ashtray, yeah. So yeah, so check it out. Hit the comment. Hit the comment.
The Great Smoke. Oh, Great Smoke. Three words. I mean, if you fuck up the spelling and it's, you know, something weird, I'll still count it, but it's got to be close.
It's got to be something, you know, you have to understand what it is. Yeah, I have to get the gist of it. And put, you know, the great man or something, we'll just think you think we're great. Yeah, yeah, that great man doesn't count.
Then you just get a thank you. Yeah, but just hit the like button. Right, exactly. Go you.
So, you want to talk about what we did this weekend? Yeah, we had a weekend. We had a weekend of post-40 bachelor party. It was very exciting.
How old is Tater? He's over 40. Oh, is he over 40? So then Boots, when he went, he was the baby then.
Boots was the youngest. Boots was the youngest. Yeah, because Chet's 45. I'm number two on the youngest.
Right, because you're 38? Yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
So what did we do? We went, we, what do we normally do? Went to the cigar store, went to Cigars on the Avenue. Well, it was Greg's bachelor party week.
Yeah. For, yeah, for his. For his, his wedding. Yeah.
Right. So we went to Cigars on the Avenue. Guys had a few drinks. I got a van.
Yes. A fucking. You know, the van was almost my favorite part. Yeah, it was, you know, cause you're all together.
You're hanging out in your bullshit. There was a lot. Yeah. So there's nothing to do in the van except find somebody to pick on or make jokes or so.
Right. Witty banter. Yeah, witty banter back and forth. Yeah.
So, yeah, we piled everybody in the van because Boots refused to drive. He was like, "I will not. " So I went and rented a van. Well, he was afraid he wouldn't get any cool people in his car.
If there is not any cool people in the group. You know what, though? He's right. He wouldn't have got that.
He would have had Shindo in the car. But Shindo was probably the funniest person there. He took the heat very well. Yeah, he's pretty funny.
Yeah. He's a pain in the ass sometimes, but he's a fucking nice guy. When he gets a little liquored up though, he starts repeating himself and he gets a little angry at Greg, which was hilarious. Yeah, well, there's some deep-seated shit there, you know what I mean?
Yeah, I mean, long time known each other, it's some anger buried deep, deep. They're practically the same person, you know what I mean? Right. So, Cigars on the Ave, we hit.
Yes. And then, we went to Haleo, where we had dinner. Spelled with a J, apparently. Yeah, I wouldn't know that place if it wasn't for Skip, just for the record.
Oh, so that's where he took you? Yeah, yeah, that's where we went. And Greg wanted the Bazaar, he goes, you know, Bazaar Meats is one of his favorite places, so that's the guy. Gotcha.
Oh, the guy who owns both? Yeah. The one in Vegas? Right.
Ah, okay. " It's not in English? They have no idea what's going on here. It wasn't even Spanish, I don't think.
And what was even more fantastic was some of you guys ordered stuff and you didn't realize what they were, They just wound up in the middle of the table. Oh, that's an appetizer apparently. Who ordered that? Why do we have 17 appetizers and nobody has an entree?
It was fucking amazing. But I got to try this pork. Well, I mean, well, it's a tapas style. So, I mean, you got bites of other people's stuff when you get the good stuff.
I really liked you guys all hand feeding me. That was fantastic. With your forks. Well, we know how you like to, you know, all use one fork.
We just pass the fork around the table. You know how much I hate using my hands. Right. You don't want to get them dirty.
I understand. You could almost eat everything there with your hands, though. You could have. Yeah.
If you wanted to. It was fantastic, man. It was. I think the pork was the best thing.
Now, I didn't try the octopus. The octopus was really good, too. But the pork was fucking amazing. It was.
It was good. It was like some kind of special pork, too. At least I'll tell you. I believe them.
Only fed acorns. Fed acorns. From Spain. Only so many allowed to leave the country at one time or something.
Like they're on a plane with a clicker going. No more pigs. No more pigs on the plane. You know, you seldom get to have those, if you're a poor person like myself, you seldom get to have those experiences.
You only get to have like one or two a year, right? Oh, look at you. Two a year? Oh, my birthday.
I do something nice on my birthday. Oh. I'll tell you, on my birthday I had a fucking Wagyu steak that was ridiculously expensive, but I was like, fuck this, it's my birthday. It's my birthday.
It's my birthday. It's my birthday. And the other counterpart to that is that I'm not a big drinker, so I don't drink a lot when I go out. Right.
Yeah. If you had three drinks when you're at dinner and had a normal meal, special meal, you're at the same price that I'm at. Right, exactly. So I crushed it with a fucking Wagyu steak for my birthday.
It was amazing. It was, but I wasn't, I'll tell you what, I wasn't super, after I tasted it, I'm like, yeah. Yeah, you're like, oh, it's good, but it's not $400 good or whatever it happened to be. But the pork, the pork that we had, that was fucking worth it.
It was delicious. I like that white sauce, whatever that stuff was. Yes, the honey aioli. Whatever it was, I would have eaten any of you there if you would have put that on your arm.
That stuff was delicious. That's all it takes? Just some sauce on your arm. So, if I needed you to eat, Phil, cover him in that white sauce.
Okay. I'll just cut it down. I'm going to make a phone call. It'll be here next Monday.
It might be two or three different meals. Yeah. Yeah. Large man?
It's not a one sitting meal. Yeah, yeah. Be a lot of to-go boxes. A lot of to-go boxes?
A lot of doggy bags. He's very quiet today. That's because, you know what? Just let him be quiet.
It's fine. I got him the new mass that he can breathe in and everything. You cut the whole kind of jagged. Well, the "O" was the obvious one, and you could smoke off to one side.
It's okay. I wouldn't expect anything different from you. Hey, look, you can breathe. It's not sweaty.
You're welcome. I haven't been smoking my cigars. There you go. There you go.
You're welcome. Don't pull your nose so you can see who you are. Put it back on. It's like COVID.
Yeah. Put it back on. His camera's not even on. He's looking at his camera.
I apologize. There were already people at the dinner that were confused about... Very suspicious. Yes.
It was Tater, I believe. It was Tater. Because we watched one of the episodes upstairs in the house. Yeah, well, we didn't get to that part yet.
So yeah, so we had the dinner at Haleo, and then what we did was we had a gigantic fucking house. What's great about living close to Orlando is, you know, all of these Airbnbs are fucking everywhere. Tons of options. Yeah, so I actually, it actually took me several days to find what I felt was the appropriate house.
And that was the one? That was the one. That was the one. Because here's what I wanted.
I wanted to make sure that everybody had a full bed, full-size bed. Right? Right. I wanted to make sure that we did have activities in the front, like a game room.
I appreciate the bed there. But they had to qualify. Wow, you weren't there. Boots was.
Oh yeah, boots, boots, he told me that. Yeah. Oh, he told us. Yeah, I feel bad we didn't invite Phil, but it was only so much room.
Like, there's a pool table option, the basketball shooting and stuff, even though we didn't really use those things, but I wanted to make sure that they were there if we wanted to use those things. And then what was the most important to me was the back patio. Oh, well, yeah, because we can't smoke in a house. Well, more often than not, you go to a lot of these places, and you get just kind of a standard table and chairs on the patio, right?
Whereas this had lounge chairs and whatever the fuck they're called, cushiony and, you know, that whole thing. Some loungers or whatever they call them. So, and it was a, it was a quiet, it was fucking quiet, there's no, we turned on the phone, we had jamming out the music, nobody fucking complained. No, and there were people next door, we saw them the next morning.
Yeah. They ain't got a bitch. And those houses are incredibly close together. It's like, listen, motherfucker, you're on vacation.
Right. You have to deal with it. So, I don't know, there was a cop out front when we got there, though. Yeah.
For something. He's probably banging somebody in the neighborhood or something. Oh, yeah, might have been. You know.
Somebody gave a ticket to him and they're paying, and they're like, okay, I won't give you the ticket. All right, so where are you staying? I'll come by. I'll come by and you can pay for the ticket.
My camera's off. Right, my chest camera's off. Wasn't me. Or maybe the POV thing, I don't know.
POV thing? With the camera, just kept it on. Point of view, yeah. Point of view, yeah.
I couldn't remember what POV stood for. I slept in a spaceship. I had the spaceship room. Spaceships, you know, spaceships are nice.
It was, it was kind of cool. Yeah, you know, if you've ever been abducted. I heard that they're very accommodating. Oh yeah, well that was nice, I mean.
I mean, yeah. And I thought maybe when I sat up, I'd hit my head in the morning, but no, there's enough clearance. Beautiful. Yeah.
It had its own light under there too. Yeah. I didn't find the switch until next morning, but still. And you watched the podcast in the theater room?
Uh, yeah, we watched part of it because Greg wanted to watch you shave your head. Oh. But he didn't get to that part, he was too far in. Oh.
Huh. And then they watched Wakanda forever after fucking 4:30 in the morning of everybody going. Well, it was on from what I understand, but there was not a lot of watching involved. They fell asleep.
Yeah, and Chad ended up sleeping in there. Really? Yeah. He just said, fuck it.
Well, he fell asleep, missed the end of the movie, woke up, I think he said at 5:30, and just went, ah, just fucking just rolled back over in the chair. I mean, those chairs look pretty comfy. They're like the chairs next door, except they vibrated. That's nice.
Yeah. That's nice. Greg called it the ball shaker. The ball shaker.
Yeah. Yeah, 'cause he had had a couple of drinky drinks. So, yeah, I mean, it was a good time. It was, it was a lot of fun.
It was good bonding. Bonding. Yeah. You know?
We all come together. 'Cause then we gotta deal with this bullshit next week. Right. So, who else gets married?
When will you do it again? Dude, we can just do that randomly. I mean, you know. Oh, like a retreat.
Yeah. Oh, that'd be nice. Yeah. We can totally do that.
I'm not paying next time, though. Oh. I'm not fucking paid this time. Oh.
Oh, never mind. Yeah. You better see somebody about that. Never mind.
Terrible idea. We should never do it again. See, cheap bastard. You own this place.
That's why. I don't want to spend my money. I can only write it off once. Well, and then after that, just Sunday, we got home, took care of the car, returned the rental.
We went to Golden Corral for breakfast. Oh, yeah. Boots was very excited. Oh, he started chanting.
He started chanting in the car like a five-year-old. Golden Corral, Golden Corral. He loves it. He was super.
He was stoked. He was very excited. He picked up the tab. He was very excited when he went in.
He didn't know what to do. Yeah. It was a steal for him. It was.
But he ate so much he passed out in the car. Yes. And that's why you get photos. That's why you get photos taken.
Comatose. It was funny because I put up the photo and then other people put up photos of him sleeping in other places. Really? Yeah.
Chet put one up. Dana put one up. Not me. No.
No. And I have him. Well, Boots appreciates you. I have him.
He didn't know everybody else was doing it. He'll be up next. Not me. I'm gonna pull at him to the show at the end, a nice little montage.
Well, I took a little nappy poo on the patio. I just, you know. Yeah, but that's your thing, though, at your house. I mean, it's like being at your house for you.
Yeah. You usually pass out when there's a group on your patio. So I hear, I'm always gone before I fall asleep. Allegedly, yeah.
But I wasn't out long. Maybe 20 minutes or so. No. I did tap out first at 3:30, 3 o'clock, 3 o'clock I went upstairs.
Yeah, I went right after you. Oh, did you? Yeah. So yeah, good time had by all.
And now his life is over. And now his life is over, he's got four more days. Yeah, he's being pulled in five different directions. Yeah, five different directions, he's got a lot going on.
I wonder if he got the DJ thing worked out. It's not my problem. Oh, I know it's not. There's no DJ, they don't have to speech, right?
I'm winging the speech. We can excessively overcharge him for our DJ. I'm fucking winging the speech. Oh sure, why wouldn't you?
Yeah, I'm not. You guys, uh, this is Greg. I'm not doing that. Oh, I have the, uh, ceremony on my phone already.
Huh. The, the website from my church has options for different religions. Oh, and I tried on my referee outfit yesterday, and, uh, it's, I mean, cause the shirt is a good seven years old. It doesn't fit.
I had to order a new one. Oh. It'll be here tomorrow. I, my shoes are a little too big.
I'll put big socks on. I tried to order other ones today, and they said, no. I don't like it. We're sorry.
Just flat out no. Yeah, sorry. We can't complete your order. I'm like, oh, okay.
Big shoes it is. Oh, yeah. I purposely tried on yesterday. I figured that way I've got five days if I have to order a new shirt.
Very wise. Right. Very wise. All right.
Well, here we are. Ready to start the news? Let's get the news going. Can I get my fact in?
Oh, yeah. Sorry. Phil's fun fact. We were doing the interviews, though.
All right, hold on. Welcome to Phil's Fun Facts. Every show, it's 16 minutes after the start of the show. Phil gives his fun fact.
All right, Phil. All right, fellas. Did you know that an oxygen mask was created for smoking cigars while flying? Really?
Actually, no, I did not know that. In preparation for his first high-altitude aeroplane flight, Winston Churchill ordered the creation of an oxygen mask that would accommodate cigar smoking. Wow. And ladies and gentlemen, that has been Phil's Fun Fact.
That's a good one. It is. I didn't know that. Yeah.
You looked that up by yourself, Phil? Yeah, I did. Was there a photo of what the original one looked like? No, I could probably find one, but no.
No. Did he use it? I mean, I would guess. I thought on the original flights they used to like pass out cigars to the men.
We were men. That would be awesome. I don't know why I don't still do that. Because one time my father and I had a layover in somewhere in Kentucky, and we paid the fee to get into whatever their little perk room thing was, and the lady working it was an older lady, but she was like one of the original Pan Am flight attendants.
Yeah. And she just regaled us with stories of the old days. And that was one of the things. She goes, oh, we used to only could be a certain way.
Others had to wear the same size. We used to pass out cigars and bourbon on the plane. Wow. She had to be in the industry for like 50 years.
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it was a long time ago, too. But, yeah, she was way, way back. I'm going for private jet status here, man.
We'll smoke on our plane. Don't worry. Oh, on the Powstanie plane. Yeah.
Posture plane. BDP plane. Whatever it works out there. Maybe.
Whatever it is. Can we smoke in Mabu's helicopter? Of course. Probably.
Yeah. Well, why not? And free jewelry. Yeah.
Everybody gets a bracelet and a cigar as soon as you get on the plane. Oh, nice. Oh, lovely. He'll be back, you said today.
Yeah. On the 17th of March. Yeah, he's coming. Oh, that's nice.
Yep. Get him to tell me what the numbers are. You know, your brother was very surprised I didn't know what the numbers were. I'm sorry, we're talking about the numbers on the Who Shot Your Cigar Bandit.
Nobody knows. Well, apparently there's four people. Nobody knows. There's four people.
There's four people? Four people. Yeah. He knows, you know.
Yeah. Matt Booth knows, and Brittany knows. All of that is correct. So there's four people.
One of those people has definitely forgot. Who do you think that is? Matt Booth. You think so?
Yeah. You know what? I think he's the wink link. The weak link, yeah.
I think he's the one I get it out of. I don't think he caves. Even if he knows, I don't think he caves. He probably doesn't know, but he'll act like he's not going to tell me.
He forgot. You're right. He forgot. " Yeah.
I go, "No, no. " We go, you tell. We go, you tell. Okay.
Maybe at the TPE, I'm going to get it from there. Okay. I have one. I'm going to bring it.
I'll maybe remind him. Well, I mean, apparently, if you guys are looking for them, Embargo Cigars has them still. Right, yeah. So go check out Embargo Cigars.
They have 398. 398. Isn't that what? Because they were 400-something in Foochabat.
So stop asking me about them. They're at Embargo. Embargo. In Arizona, if you want to drive there, go check out.
Abe Prohman. There goes my treasure chest. The Lancero King of Arizona. Or the Sausage King of Chicago.
The Sausage King of Chicago. You know, Abe Prohman? All right, let's go. Let's get some news going.
Thought me and Boots were going to have that forever. Nope. From the four corners of the world, all the cigar industry news you could possibly need. The Cigar Hustler Podcast Report with Mike Toon.
Lead start today, Michael. Well, Poshik Cigars announces a price increase. Oh, there it is. No disclosure on what it is yet, though.
Effective February 13th. Effective February 13th. There's going to be a price increase on Habano and Broadleaf. Price increase on Habano and Broadleaf.
Do we have a flat percentage that we know? No, but the cigars will now be in the $12 to $13 range. $12 to $13 range for the cigars retail. I don't have the numbers in front of me.
10. 10, Habano, oh, for both. They're the same, though. No.
Oh, no. Habano and Broadleaf are not the same. Yeah, they're in the $12, $13 range. They have to jump up.
There's nothing I can do about it. You can't have it. It costs Zumba's. You want to make an omelet?
You got to break a few eggs. I don't know what to tell you guys. Okay, listen. You know, you think he would have moved the camera to you, but he's over there texting.
No, yeah, he's busy. He's looking up another Phil's Fun Fact for next week. When were the... Too late?
Oh, he just went to two. He just went to two. I wonder if there's a picture of William Churchill Oxygen. I was looking for the mask.
It's too late. You know, we find one. That could be your match for next month. You got to do your research.
I'm not going to find it. Wifey. Hello, you're on the podcast. Oh, perfect.
Hello, Brittany Stepankiewicz. Nice to have you on the show, ma'am. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Oh, certainly. You're always welcome on the show. Um, I was actually just watching the podcast from last weekend. Oh, Jesus.
Oh, perfect. I didn't, I didn't make a note because you definitely said something incorrect. Oh, okay. Well, you can talk about it later.
Love you, bye! I'm sorry. Uh, I was just calling to let you know that, uh, the boys have decided to wear Chargers, their Chargers shirts tonight, since every boy going tonight has a Chargers shirt. Excellent.
So maybe you could pass that on to, uh, Derek and, um, Erik. You got it. Derek and Erik, if you're listening to the show, uh, wear your Chargers shirt this evening. I will let them know right now.
Tomorrow. No, tonight. Tonight. I know, she said, yeah.
Yeah, tonight. Tonight, where are tonight, Eric and Derrick? Yeah, yeah. Are they twins, Eric and Derrick twins?
Well, this comes out tomorrow, but okay. Right. Eric and Derrick and their father Rick? Okay.
Really? All right, I'm going in to get Teddy. I will... All right, give Teddy our best, please.
I will. And tell her, don't touch the glass door, use the handle. There's no fucking use. I can't win.
I just, I can't. Goodbye. Love you, bye. Love you, bye.
Love you, bye. All right, there you go, Brittany. She's gonna call back, tell me she loves me too. She normally does.
Okay. All right, back to the news. Okay, we covered the Poshik price increase. Yep.
Okay. Majority of Americans support banning all tobacco products, the CDC says. Wow. Well, the majority of Americans are assholes.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, is touting a new study that says the majority of American adults support banning the sale of all tobacco products. 3% of those adults support a ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes. Give me a fucking break. Where do they do this, Paul?
California? I don't know. Americans, it says. S.
Food and Drug Administration announced plans to both ban the sale of menthol cigarettes It's based on a survey of 6,455 adults from March through April 2021. That's not a big selection of people. Don't smoke. I'll tell you who's going to fuck this up.
Yes. I went to a restaurant yesterday. Yes. Oh, you ate out all weekend.
Yeah. Wow, look at you. I know. And there's...
I went to that acorn, pork, and yeet. And there's this clear apparent sign that says, It says, no smoking and no vaping in the restaurant, right? This is a regular restaurant? Yeah.
It's at the porch in Winter Park. Wow. And some douchebag is sucking on his fucking battery in the fucking restaurant and blowing clouds of smoke and then trying to be like sneaky about it. It's floating around in the sky.
Yeah. Yeah. I got cotton candy scents coming down on me. Oh, it's cotton candy.
Whatever the fuck it was, right? And you know, this is not okay, cause you're gonna fuck this up for everybody else, all you're gonna do is just piss off people who are sitting in the table, around you, in or around you, that don't want any part of that, get the fuck up, and go smoke outside. Like, fuck man, you're gonna have, the Karens are gonna unite, they're gonna become a Megatron Karen, like a Mega Karen, and they're gonna work on banning this. And you're a lazy piece of shit that can't get up out of your fucking chair.
So, do us all a fucking favor, take your fucking battery, get up, and go smoke it outside, with your fucking beer. I got no problem with that. Cigarette people always go outside. Yeah, you're the same, you're in the same category.
Cigar smokers, you're one of them now. Yeah, you gotta go out fucking side, because if not, you're gonna piss fucking people off, and you're gonna lose your battery. Period. Thank you, camera two.
All right. This is based on how we did that. Respondents were asked two main questions. To what extent would you support a policy to prohibit the sale of menthol cigarettes?
Or B, or also B, to what extent would you support a policy to prohibit the sale of all tobacco products? Well, this is R&D, huh? Yes, and they were allowed one of four answers. Strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat opposed, strongly opposed.
Yeah, this is your standard survey shit. So the author states that they weighted results based on demographic data, such as age, race, gender, location, and income. It also asks respondents about cigarette use, menthol cigarette use, and non-cigarette tobacco use. If they used it?
Oh, the people who did the survey? Well, they don't, you know, you're not going to do the survey if you smoke because you know how it's going to come out. Right. What do you mean they're not supporting me?
I thought I should be able to smoke anywhere I want. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. All right, Michael, the Shady Moose is launching March 1st.
Ooh. Phil loves the mooses. Yeah, the Shady Moose. This is a new moose, the Shady Moose.
Oh, nice. Scandinavian Tobacco Group has announced a new line called Shady Moose, which is described as a cousin to the popular Chillin' Moose. It's going to be in Connecticut. It uses an Ecuadorian Connecticut.
Oh, my God. Well, like, who didn't figure that out, Michael? Here I am just sitting here. It's the only one they don't have.
On left field. Use the Nakedoran Connecticut Shade Wrapper over Mexican binder and fillers from Colombia and the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and the United States. I just want you to know, I have no idea about the Chillin' Moose, and the Moosie Moose, and the fucking Moose, I don't know what they are, I don't know what wrappers they use, I may have seen one of them in the past three years, so I have no idea what the wrappers are. Well, Shady, it's the Connecticut Shade Wrapper.
Delicious. They're okay for a budget cigar. It's like a cut-in-your-grass type cigar. 49.
"With Shady Mousse, we built a great, anytime, anywhere blend that takes the smooth-smoking properties of the Connecticut Shade Cigar and amps it up with the right amount of complexity and spice," said John Hackham, brand manager of Chillin' Mousse in a press release. Nice. I'll just put down my pen. That's very exciting.
CAA names Brian Fogetic, F-O-J-A-T-I-K, Fogetic, as SVP of Government Relations. Hmm, Senior Vice President. Thank you. Cigar Association of America is one of the three main cigar industry trade groups as named Brian Fogetic as its new SVP of Government Relations.
As part of the new role, Fogetic will work on both federal and state, his name makes me laugh, Federal and state issues that will work with CAA's 46 different state lobbyists as well as federal lobbying team. We did a thorough search and interviewed many highly qualified candidates from around the country, said David Osgo, O-Z-G-O, Osgo. Hmm. CAA president and a press release, Brian's extensive experience with tobacco issues and enthusiasm for CAA and the opportunities that now exist within the cigar world made him a standout.
I look forward to working with him. Finkel is Einhorn. Prior to joining CAA, Fogetic most recently served as the national local contributor for the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, NATO. N-A-T-O.
NATO. That's what they call it, NATO. Oh, it's NATO. S.
Tobacco Company, Najoy, in an e-cigarette company, and Reynolds America. Sounds like a cigarette guy. Not a cigar guy. Nice.
We're very excited. He was the one that did the poll? That's what I was thinking, too. It was his poll from the previous stories.
Like, I gotta get in here and save these, 'cause now I have a job. Uh, oh, uh, by the way, Scott Pierce, our favorite guest, is going to be on, um, um, somebody else's show, I forget who it was. How 'bout that cigar? Bear?
Elosofumar? Coop? No, it's not Coop. It's not developing palate.
Smoking tobacco? No, I think it's Bear. I think it's gonna be on Bear's show. Because, uh, it's not, how 'bout that cigar?
They're having a cooking show this week. Oh, with aprons? I don't know, they've got a chef on. Oh, lovely.
What's the chef's name? I don't know. Guy Fieri? No, not Guy Fieri.
Could be Guy Fieri. You may or may. They're going to pair food with cigars. What's the other guy that killed himself?
Bourdain or whatever? Oh yeah, it's Anthony Bourdain. It's going to be Weekend in Birdies Anthony Bourdain show. Santana Cigars.
Carlos? No, Santana. Santana? Santana Cigars debuts with San Andreas Rat Line, you like San Andreas.
I'm a fan. Yes. Andy Santana, he named his cigars after him. Here's the problem with San Andreas though, you gotta really work that filler, if not, it just tastes like everything else.
There was a very lovely picture of him sniffing something. Oh. The standard, you know, the standard, I'm making cigars, so, you know, I'm smelling the tobacco. Let me smell this leaf.
He didn't have a leaf, it must have been filler, because it was like, it looked like he was smelling somebody's dreadlocks he cut off their head. Oh, nice. I saw a picture of Leo from LFD. Oh, yeah, yeah, my friend Leo.
Pretty sure he was, like, inspecting a leaf in a photo or something. Oh, I saw that. And I was just like, just put that down. Just put it down, Leo.
You're not. Stop it. You know what? I wish I would have taken a picture like that when I was doing the BDP.
I'm inspecting. I ain't smelling the leaf. You're standing over a roller table. Oh, standing in the.
I love it standing in the field. Oh, I did one of those. Me and Chet in the field in Nauru. Yeah.
Oh, nice. Yes, yes. That was good. See, Andy Santana, Miami-based cigar retailer, announced that he's becoming a cigar brand owner, announcing he launched a Santana Cigars company today.
He said he's starting this because he wants to have something that nobody can fuck with. Oh. Which seems to be the standard reason. It's a good approach.
Most retailers get into making their own cigar. Is that what he said? Yes. Really?
Allegedly. Oh, okay. We don't fact check. So we didn't say.
The company's first line is the Santana San Andreas, which was developed by Santana and William Ventura. Oh. Tabla Calera, William Ventura, the factory that is producing the line, he uses a Mexican set. The one that burned down.
Right, so they need to build up the new factory. A Sumatra binder and a mix of Dominican Corojo and Criollo tobaccos in the filler. The company calls it hardy and bold, yet smooth and balanced. Oh, hardy, bold, smooth, yet balanced.
Yes. Oh, and complex. Well, it's going to be, if it's bold and smooth. Bold and smooth.
It's got to be complex. Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. Let's see, the San Andres box- Did they copy our last, uh, they might have everybody copy us, I don't know.
We're just over here setting the precedent. Setting the standard for everybody. Let's see, his box-press Robusto is gonna be $12, the box-press Torpedo is $13, and the box-press Toro is going to be $13. So he's in with the new post-chick prices.
Hmm, nice. Right. After starting his career in cellular phone sales, which is where all cigar people started, Santana found himself unsatisfied and decided to enter the cigar business by purchasing Absolute Cigar Shop several years ago, which he expanded to a second location. Santana says his love for cigars was developed by his grandfather, Manuel Montero.
Charlie Monado is asking me questions. Oh, you already sent out your press release. Yeah. Tell them it's too late.
We already reported it here. I don't need the story. Tell them we already reported it. We don't need the story, but thank you.
But he wants to know what the percentage is in growth. Percentage. What's the... Well, do these changes?
Well, up to $14 is what you just said. I'm like, you know, you're media. Go back and look it up. Why do I gotta answer these questions?
His father was a roller in Havana, Cuba, who often took Santana to Pinar del Rio. Pinar del Rio. Pinar del Rio. The province where premium cigar tobacco was grown in the country.
Now, Santana is honoring his grandfather with his new company, saying that it has been born out of passion and history. While the line is abuing at Absolute Cigar Shop, Santana Cigars has opened up the line to other retailers. The second line is already in the works. Oh, it's that fast.
The Santana 1997, which honors the year that Absolute Cigar Shop was founded. According to the company's website, it uses a true Connecticut wrapper. Oh, everybody's coming out with a Connecticut because you came out with a Connecticut. Shady's coming out with a Connecticut.
Now this guy's coming out with a Connecticut. It's the year of the Connecticut. It's the year of the Connecticut. You know what's weird is it kind of always happens that way, for whatever reason.
Yeah. Well, you said this, you said that earlier. I said that earlier. It's like San Andreas comes out, and then everybody's got a San Andreas.
Cameroon. One of the years Cameroon, everybody came out with a Cameroon. Oh. All right, going out with a Cameroon.
Would you like to announce next year's and see if everybody copies? Right now? Sure. I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Not 2023, 2024. I don't want to get ahead of myself. You don't want to announce that now? I don't want to do that.
Okay, but you have to do it here first. I'll do it here for you. Okay. All right.
Thank you. Let's see. According to the Gummies website. Oh, he said that.
And described as offering strong flavors and complexity, while living in the mild to medium range and strength, so it's also very complex. Yet simple. Yes. Refined, yet complex.
Right. Roma Craft Tobac teases the Aquitaine EMH Frenchie. The Frenchie. You know, I didn't get the connection when I saw Frenchie originally.
Really? Yep. Didn't even hit me. No shit.
I feel very upset, that's why I pulled the story, because it's not a long story, it was only a photo. If you ever wonder what a reversed Aquitaine EM Sabertooth tastes like, you'll have the chance to try it this summer. Earlier today, Skip Martin, co-founder of Romacraft Tobacco, showed off a picture of the upcoming Aquitaine EMH Frenchie. It's the company's 5x56 EMH size, but with two different wrappers.
The main wrapper is Ecuadorian Connecticut, and the accents are Ecuadorian Habano. If that sounds familiar, it's probably because the Aquitaine EMH Sabertooth uses a similar design, albeit with the Habano as the main wrapper in Connecticut, Shea Tobacco as the accent. The Aquatane blend uses Nicaraguan tobacco from Condega, Esteli, and Pueblo Nuevo from the filler, same as the Cro-Mag. Bizarro.
What was the name of the flash that went bad, the yellow flash, what was his name? Bad Flash. No. Angry Flash.
The Bad Flash? The Flash, yeah. The Bad Flash. You talking about Nightcrawler?
No, no, Nightcrawler was a guy they could transport, or poofy poofed in the little purple thing he had the tail. Bad Flash, name. It's Bad Flash. It's not Bad Flash.
Bad Flash. Martin declined to provide... Not a human torch. Reverse flash.
This is like reverse saber tooth. Yes. Martin declined to provide more details to Cigars or Podcast, but the Instagram post indicated that Frenchie would be released this summer. As for the name, is it reference to the nickname of John D'Oliver?
Correct. Who works inside sales for the company? Yeah. I love Frenchie.
Good guy. He's a nice guy. He's a great guy. Yeah.
Very nice. You know what? Now he's taking pictures with gloves on, too, so he's confusing me that it's not lightweight heavy, so I call him out every time. Oh.
" - Someone else's hands. - Our client. - Oh, it's a group chat. - Our client.
CRA Spring 2023 Freedom Sampler, shipping to stores next month. - Who? - Freedom Sampler. - From who?
- CRA. - Oh. - Are we getting that this year? Do you have to ask for that?
They just send it. - I feel like you gotta ask for, like, somebody represents the sales, whether it's Diamond Cram. - Right, because a portion of that goes to someone else. Yeah, yeah, and then they expect you to, I don't think they expect you to make any money on it, I don't fucking know, something.
You're supposed to send the money to them, or something, or it'll be because you bought the cigar, that's how they got their money. That's how they got their money. Oh, that makes more sense. Yeah.
You wanna know what's in it? Sure. Alright. The Oliva Siri V Melanio Diadema.
Okay. Ashton VHG Torpedo. VHG? VSG, sorry.
The VHG. The VHG, completely different than the VSG. Oh. Just a little bit better.
Instead of the Virgin Sun Grown, it's Virgin Hydration Grown? Hydration grown or something? Hypobarian. Oh, Hypobarian.
Yes. Oh. Let's see, Alec Bradley, double broadleaf, limited edition Figurado. Okay.
Not the Alec Bradley from the magazine People over at Executive. No? No, no, it's not his cigar. It's a completely different cigar.
Oh. It doesn't have the foot band. Oh, God. That reminds me of a joke saying that people are standing behind Alec Baldwin and not in front of him.
Right. Yeah. La Flora Dominicana Andalusian Bull. Okay.
That's why you can't get them. Oh. They all go in these samplers. Oh, in the CRA sampler.
Diamond Crown, Julius Caesar, Pyramid. Oh. The, what is it, tell me what the Padrón is so I can give a fuck. 60 by Rocky Patel, My Father S, Special Toro, Fuente Fuente, Opus the Undefeated.
Okay, that's a good one. Padrón, Black, number 52. There he is. There it is.
Tatuaje, Limited, Robusto, Especial. Nice. Padrón Black. Very exciting.
Yes, Padrón Black. Padrón Black is really good. I don't think I ever had that. They're a, well, then you can buy the sampler.
Yeah. Yeah. They're a total of 4,000 CRA Spring Freedom Samplers, which will be expected to begin shipping on March 1st, Rocky Patel Premium Cigars is handling the fulfillment of these packs. There it is.
Oh, we won't get them, we don't care, Rocky Patel. Oh, Michael Wasp may swoop in, who knows? Oh, that's true, he might pop in. Yeah.
He still owes us. Does he? We did that favor for him that day. Huh.
Makes sense. Each sampler comes in a custom Boveda bag that includes a Boveda humidification pack, as well as, And cigars. So you get more than just a cigar, you also get a Boveda pack. Which is nice.
Yes. Everybody loves a good Boveda pack. Yeah, Boveda. Boveda, Boveda, Bivida, whatever you want to say.
See, the Spring 2023 Freedom Sampler does not include a CRA membership. That's extra. You got to pay an extra for that. You want to do that?
There's additional costs. Something that has been included in some previous packs. Oh, they figured... No.
We're excluding that. We're giving you enough now. You're not a member. No, no.
You're not a member. Right. CRA member companies donate the cigars to the organization, which sells the packs. The policies from the sales are used to fund CRA, one of the three main cigar trade groups, while the CRA spent many years trying to brand itself as a consumer organized, akin to the NRA.
Completely different. Right. Those are guns, not cigars. I heard about them.
Its most tangible impact has been a six and a half year old lawsuit, which has helped fund, which it helped. Most tangible impact has been a six and a half year. Oh, the sale of the things pay for this long ass, drawn out thing. Last year, a joint lawsuit filed by the CRA and other The two cigar trade groups scored a major victory against FDA's regulations of pre-beam cigars.
What happened? I don't remember anything coming to... Is that where we don't have to put the "this will kill you" in the box? I think so.
Okay. For that particular part of the lawsuit, the CRA paid the legal bills for Michael Edney, the lead attorney in the case. And that is the news. You think he's a member?
Who, Michael Edney? Yeah, you think he has a membership? Probably. I mean, they gave him money to do that.
He's the attorney. Oh, we have a brief Florida story. Can I have my camera real quick? Dog the bounty hunter has moved to Florida.
So if you're on the run and you're wanted in the state of Florida, be careful because Dog now lives down in Punta Gorda with his sixth wife. They got tired of the cold weather in Colorado and could not afford to move back to Hawaii. They could not afford? I assume.
How could they not afford? It's very expensive to live in Hawaii. Give me a fucking break. They could afford.
I don't know. He's Dog the bounty hunter. He's a bounty hunter, bro. He doesn't mean to make sure.
That's pretty quick. I don't think so. You don't think so? He's not as fast as he used to be.
He got in trouble for saying that racist stuff on the phone. Everybody took his sponsorships away. He doesn't have TV shows anymore. I'm sure there's a lot more people to catch down here than Colorado.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I mean, Pod's legal up there, so there's less criminals. Punta Gorda. I would assume, you know, Punta...
Oh, maybe he'll join the whatchacall down there. The whatchacall? The private cigar club down there. What's that?
I can't remember. Red Circle. Red Circle? Yeah.
Oh, Red Circle. Oh my God. Not everybody knows you're in the Red Circle. That's the Inner Sanctum Cigar Illuminati people.
Right, I know, exactly. I shouldn't have said that on the air. Was that the group down south? I'll just cut that out.
I'll edit that out. Red Circle. No, you let it go, just let it go. Oh, okay, nobody will know?
Let it happen. It's that secret if nobody knows. I got a message from the Illuminati last week on Instagram, they wanted me to join. Oh yeah?
It happens all the time. They wanted you in, huh? Well, you know. And you're like, yes.
How many people do you think take fucking fault for that shit? I don't know, there's a weird guy with a picture of a pyramid with an eyeball at the top. Hey, Jay-Z's in that group. It's gotta be a good business.
Well, it might have been from him. We should start our own. Our own Illuminati? Secret Society.
Call it the Red Circle. Red Circle, Secret Society. If you'd like to join the Red Circle, just comment on the YouTube Red Circle. No, we need a monthly subscription.
Yeah, we get 'em and then we'll raise the price. You know, you suck 'em in and get 'em in value. Yeah, yeah. Brilliant.
Hashtag Red Circle. Oh, you were gonna talk about that. We're going to talk about that. You want to talk about that briefly?
We have a few minutes. Talk about what? You were going to talk about the Cigar of the Month Club thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Since you have three minutes. Hi. He sounds to my eyes. Hi, I'm in the red circle.
So... Hi, I'm in the red circle. 95. And...
Because Poshik raised their prices and we get our cigars from Poshik. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All runs downhill. I gotta tell you, for the most part it was very well received from our consumers.
We really appreciate you guys sticking on and continuing to support our club. We do our very best to give you the best cigars possible. I run the math every month and I'm like, fuck, this is another negative. It literally says, fuck.
This is negative. Because I go on the, here's what I do. I go on the humor and I'm like, oh, let's do this one. How much is all that?
Oh, fuck. Oh, wait, that's $70, $80, $90, whatever the fuck, I'm like, oh, I gotta make some adjustments. So, I appreciate... And we don't have enough of that one.
I appreciate the majority of you continuing to stay with us so I can continue to send you awesome cigars. Great cigars. Thank you. Well, thank you, Boots.
Phil. I mean, Phil. Is Phil in the Month Club? Is Phil in the Month Club?
I'm gonna tell you yes, 'cause... Phil's not in the Month Club. It would be less money if he was in the Month Club. Yeah, yeah, we don't want him operating on discounts.
I have a small question with the Month Club. You get one. Okay, just one small. All right, so you can either pay one of two ways.
This is not the question. Okay. You can pay monthly? Yeah.
Or you can buy it for a year? Yes. Okay, let's say I had bought it for a year, but my year's not up yet. Do I get an increase?
No. Okay, that was the only question. You already committed. I understand that, but some people could, you know, pull the big dick move and go, You know, I'm going to need another $75 out of you.
Nah, man, that's called extortion, and I'm not for that. Well, I just wanted to make that clear for everyone. Yeah, I know. Even with the raise, though, I think it's great.
It's still a fucking lost leader, man. That fell, he's all in. Oh, yes. I think that Phil's a good guy.
" You know, I actually had a renewer, an annual renewer, and I reached out to him, and I told him that it was going to be more, and that was his response. He's like, "You know what man? " That's very nice of you to say. Say his name.
Can I know who it was? No, you don't. You told us on the other show. No, I didn't.
That was a totally different guy. Oh, it's not him? Yeah. Oh, well then fuck him.
Don't, no fuck him. He's a good guy too. He really likes that one kind. The Broadleaf?
Yeah, that's just silly. You know, four out of five dentists recommend the Habano. I believe them. Those dentists are smart.
They are. I love the Habano. So do I. I actually smoked both every day.
I always forget, was yours the Habano or yours? Mine was the Habano. Oh, okay. Mine was the Habano.
But I smoked the Broadleaf the majority for a long time. I used to like the Broadleaf, but lately it has switched to the Habano. More Powstanie Habano. Yeah.
I started the day with a Powstanie Habano. Oh. Yeah, man. Do you have a Shop of the Week?
A Listener of the Week? Make the man who said he would take it, make him the listener. Does he listen to the show? We don't even know.
Make him listen. Francis Saleto. Oh, he does. He listens to the week.
He's also in the Florida Cigar Club. - Good dude. - Francis Saleto. - I apologize if I'm screwing up your last name.
- That sounds about right. - But then again, you're not gonna get my last name, so we're even. - Oh. - Right?
- Right. - Am I wrong? - No. - Yeah, I don't even have vowels in my shit.
I mean, you know, there's no vowels in your name at all. - It's just terrible. - It's like that juice sick guy, whatever it is. - The juice sick guy.
- 49ers, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - You have no vowel?
- There's vowels. - No, there's no vowels. - I was gonna say, there's an I in there. - There's an I.
- Just in the end. - There's an E. It's still in the name. Not really.
You can leave it off. It's still sound the same. It's just a joke. I was just kidding.
Jeez Louise. Shop of the Week. Shop of the Week. Lake Country Cigars.
Lake Country Cigars. Bing bong. Bing bong. Shop of the Week.
Shop of the Week. All right. Tell them one more time how they could possibly win a ticket to the Great Smoke Mardi Gras. You could possibly win.
Thank you. You might as well just let me do it. All you have to do is comment on our YouTube page for this episode, "The Great Smoke," and you will be entered to win. You have up until...
" Okay. You have up until... So it's easier to find. Perfect.
You have up until... No confusion. the end of this week. Till Friday.
Yeah, till Friday. We'll go till Friday. Friday. And then we're going to announce the winner on our next show.
Next week. Next week. So, if you want to go to the virtual or in-person of The Great Smoke, just comment, and you could win. Apparently the 17th annual.
17th annual. I really didn't know I'd been around. Yeah, Palmers are four or five, I was like, oh man. I've been to four or five.
I was gonna correct you. I forgot about he used to do it in his parking lot. Yeah, I was gonna correct you. But it has been four or five years since he's been at the fairground.
I'm just gonna let this happen. Let it go. Yeah, so don't miss next week for that. You would have been much better saying, and how long have you been doing it?
Well, I guess you would have been better. Oh, how about uh, Dome's next week for the juice? There's a big thing happening this weekend. What's happening this weekend?
For the, for the good news. Oh, are we good? There's gonna be a lot of news next week. Oh, that's right.
Superbowl? Well, that. The wedding. It's kind of like a Superbowl.
The wedding? The wedding. The wedding of the century. The wedding of the century.
Can't wait. Yeah. Very excited. Is that what the red circle is doing?
No. Oh my god, let's stop. Stay away. I can't tell you that.
All right, say goodbye, guys. All right, everybody. Thank you very much for an episode 267. Oh, here are you.
Oh, 267. All right, thank you. Bye. The 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, 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 Szczevankevic, 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 Husto-y-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 Ho-Jo, the- Ho-Jo! It's the Ho-Jo! Demandre- You didn't even let them fuck it up all the way. I couldn't get past Ho-Jo!
I don't even have to try to hit the record. He's not even going to try. We're going to cover a lot of ground here, Mike. All right.
Try to keep up. That's a sign of a good podcast. You'd be like four cigars when I walked in a door. All right, end this.
Show Notes
This week we talk to Abe from Smoke Inn and if you go to YouTube you may have a chance to win a Smoke Inn ticket! Gregg's Bachelor Party details....and Industry News!