Cigar Hustlers Podcast 393 Smoke, Spice & Social Media Slander
Episode Summary
Episode 393 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast opens with Mike and Palmer recapping their sales trip through Pennsylvania — a beer-and-cigars event in Harrisburg with retailer James Garcia, a stop at VL Luxuries, and two visits to Cigar Vault Oakdale outside Pittsburgh. The centerpiece is an elaborate practical joke: Jack Torano asked the guys to deliver a profane "message" to James Garcia, who then pretended to explode in rage, threatening to pull both Espinosa and Pasanian product off his shelves. The hosts call Jack live on the show to unpack the setup, the year-plus of fake online feuding that inspired it, and their promise of long-game retaliation — alongside a walk down memory lane through past pranks including the fake Bang Energy sponsorship and a fabricated Dojo podcast award.
The Pittsburgh recap continues with praise for Cigar Vault Oakdale's nearly all-boutique humidor, owner Norm and manager Miguel, and the shop's participation in "The Crawl," a bus-based multi-shop cigar road trip where roughly 60 smokers rotate through retailers on tight timeframes. The hosts also plug upcoming events: a Pasanian and Dalmore pairing night at Blend & Barrel in Sanford, Florida, and a private barbecue dinner and live podcast taping with Skip Martin of RoMa Craft, plus Ginger's reminder about the BDP Independence Day tank top.
The news block ranges well outside cigars — U.S. strikes on Iran's Fordow nuclear site and Operation Midnight Hammer, Tesla's $4.20 flat-fee robotaxi launch in Austin versus Waymo and Amazon's Zoox, and the Kevin Durant trade from Phoenix to Houston — before returning to industry stories. Nicaragua cut its highway speed limit to roughly 31 mph, which the hosts note could slow cigar logistics between Managua and Estelí. Davidoff's parent company posted flat revenue while producing 10 million fewer cigars, with Zino up 28% behind its brand ambassador, and the hosts also cover the new Patina x Viaje Verdigris collaboration shipping next month.
The show closes with "What's the Score," where the hosts guess published review scores blind. They tackle the 601 La Bomba Warhead II (La Zona-made, Connecticut broadleaf maduro, a pepper bomb that scored 87) and the Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2025 (Ecuadorian Habano over San Andrés and Nicaraguan filler, also 87), with a running debate about whether reviewers' flavor notes — sawdust, pencil lead, leather tack — mean anything at all. Shop of the Week is Blend & Barrel, and Johnny from Cigar Vault Oakdale gets a shout-out for gifting Marsh cigars destined for a Patreon review.
In This Episode
- 01Pittsburgh & Harrisburg Retail TripThe hosts recap events at a Harrisburg beer-and-cigars shop, VL Luxuries, and Cigar Vault Oakdale, praising the Pennsylvania retailers and terrible Pittsburgh traffic.
- 02The Jack Torano PrankRetailer James Garcia pretended to rage-quit Espinosa and Pasanian on Jack Torano's orders, and the hosts call Jack live to dissect the setup and vow revenge.
- 03Podcast Prank HistoryA look back at the fake Bang Energy sponsorship and the fabricated Dojo 'best podcast' award that fooled Mike for months.
- 04The Crawl and Cigar Vault OakdaleAn explanation of Pittsburgh's annual multi-shop bus crawl and why Oakdale's nearly all-boutique humidor and staff impressed the guys.
- 05Upcoming EventsA Pasanian and Dalmore pairing night at Blend & Barrel plus a private dinner and live taping with RoMa Craft's Skip Martin.
- 06World & Tech NewsU.S. strikes on Iran's Fordow site, Tesla's $4.20 robotaxi launch in Austin against Waymo and Zoox, and the Kevin Durant trade to Houston.
- 07Cigar Industry NewsNicaragua's highway speed limit cut to 31 mph, Davidoff's flat revenue on 10 million fewer cigars, Zino's growth, and the Patina x Viaje Verdigris collaboration.
- 08What's the ScoreBlind score guessing on the 601 La Bomba Warhead II and the Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2025, both of which landed at 87.
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
And we're live. We're live. Welcome to Cigar Hustler Podcast, episode 393. Bam.
I figure what I say after that. What do I say after that? We've got fully animated boots today because Ginger's here. Oh, yeah.
That's right, he wasn't here last week. Yeah. Was he? No, he was here last week.
Ginger? I have clips of him disappearing in my background. Kind of in and out, in and out, in and out. Yeah.
Nice. Well, hello, Michael. Normally, you talk about... Well, we're going to talk about...
Well, I had that after this part we're adding in today. Oh, okay. So, you want to talk about our trip? Talk about our trip, yes.
Let's talk about our trip to Pittsburgh, lovely Pittsburgh. Yeah, we went to Pittsburgh. Everything is 38 minutes away. Everything is 38 minutes away, no matter if it's 5 miles or 50 miles.
Or across the street. If it's across the street, it's still 30 minutes. It's still 30 minutes. Yeah.
Terrible traffic, construction, and everything else you can think of. Yes, but one of the great things about Pittsburgh was the retailers. The people! Yeah.
The people were amazing. I didn't think I'd ever say that. About anywhere? About any trip, anywhere.
Oh. You know, you normally just meet a couple of good retailers. Right. And then you have a couple of...
Like that sounds... You get kind of, you know, you walk in, you get kicked in the dick, and we was okay. Everybody was so happy to see us. It was very nice.
But nobody's answering the phone today. Just throw that out there. Oh, yeah, they're all dodging you? Yes.
Like the plague. Yes. Hmm. Well, don't give up, Mike.
No, no, no. You never give up. You know? No, they've already all received a phone call and a text message and or an email.
Yeah. And then circle back, call again. Yeah, well, today was the thank you for taking the time to meet with us. We really enjoyed looking forward to working with you.
Yadda yadda. Yadda yadda, blah, blah, blah. Right. Oh, that's nice.
Well, we had two great events. Yes. Yes, they were great events. We were at Cigar Oaktale Vault, Cigar Vault Oaktale.
Well, the first one we did was Beer and Cigars in Harrisburg. Yes. That was the first event. We're going to do it chronologically.
Okay, you want to do it chronologically? Yes, but if you want to do it how we visited, yes, we went to Oaktale. And then we went to Oaktale. And then we went to VL Luxuries and then we went back to Oaktale.
Okay. So, yeah, James was, James is pretty amazing, man. He is. I really like James.
Yeah. He does a great job taking care of his customers, you know. I didn't realize how big the beer part of the operation was. Oh, I knew.
Well, you had been there. No. Oh, you had never been there? Uh-uh.
Ah, gotcha. The flipping right now must be crazy. It's like a, uh, a Walgreens-sized store full of alcohol. Yeah.
So, we did an event there, and it went extremely well. Yes, he has a nice crowd there. " Right. No questions asked.
" He knows I don't like him. Everything will be fine. Right. He didn't say he knows I don't like him.
I thought he did. No. He said it'll be totally fine. Oh.
I was like, okay. I love that I live with Palmer. You weren't there. Maybe he did.
So I forget about this. I totally forget. We got into the event. We're talking with people.
I put a note in my phone to do it. Did you? Yeah. And I didn't really...
I forgot. So then we got the text. Right. And...
Did you tell him? " Right. And James kind of lost it. Uh, yeah, he did there for a second.
Yeah. Like he was angry? Yeah, like he was infuriated. Oh.
Yeah, like he was gonna go, "Jack, Jack Taranio? " Fuck that guy, I can't stand him. " Right, yeah, if you guys are associated with them, your guy's stuff's out too. You know, the sad part is that I'm so immune to all of that, I'm just like, alright, well, whatever.
Yeah, well, you just went, okay. I guess we'll just leave now. I guess we'll just sell what's left. I guess this is the end of the account, James seemed like a good dude, but we'll leave now quite well.
I don't know him that well, but I think I knew him well enough where it was kind of odd. Yeah, yeah, but he did a great job. He was, you know, he was convincing. He did, yeah.
" And I'm like... But he could never tell us what he did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. " You guys talked to him?
" Guy's never done anything but good to us, ever. " Listen, if he's a good person today, he's probably a good person then. Right, but I was trying to think, when could he have done something? Trying to get some reasoning behind it.
Right. Yeah. Maybe it was a Jack impersonator. No, so...
There's so many of those out there. So yeah, so we're like, hey, okay, well, hey, sorry if you were pissed off about that. Yeah, we won't bring up his name anymore. Yeah, I guess we won't say it again.
Did he just keep going? You feel like it was a setup? Oh, it was. It was.
That's the way it turned out. It was a setup. It 100% was a setup. So let's call Jack, 'cause Jack is very excited about this.
Yes, there's some history behind this. This is the ending of the joke for Jack. Yeah. Well, it's the ending of the joke for Jack, but the beginning for us, unfortunately, for Jack.
Yeah, Jack doesn't understand the retaliation of this group. There will be blood. Yes. This will not be forgotten.
Forgotten. I got two roadcaster pros here. Forgetting is good. Either one.
How do you have two? We only have one. I have no idea. Well, the old one, the new one.
Oh, I thought he meant he had two that showed up. He has two on his phone. Maybe Ginger has a roadcaster pro over there. Yeah, maybe he's doing his own podcast.
He's doing his own podcast over there. A podcast within the podcast. Yeah. I'm here now.
He just records us and releases it early. I'm here now watching. I'm here now with Cigars Podcast. They are calling Jack Taranio.
Hello. " Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Oh, God. How you guys doing? Good, Ben.
How you guys doing? Good, man. So, you played a little joke on us. I did.
You did. How did it work out? It worked out pretty well. It worked out pretty well.
James is very convincing. I'm not going to lie. You know? The sad part is that we're so accustomed to just the mental abuse of retailers, and we're just like, I guess we're fucked here.
Okay. Well, he kind of threw me for, he kind of threw me for a loop when he was not only throwing Espinosa out, but Posanian. Yeah, yeah, by association, we were done to. Yeah.
Were you guys listening on my end? Uh, it was on speakerphone. Yeah. Well, you didn't catch what I said at the end?
No, he was yelling pretty loud and pretty aggressive. What did he, what did you say at the end? I said, I love you big guy. Oh, yeah, I heard that.
I heard that, but I didn't know if it was you just being a smart ass to him. You know, he, he, he then wrote, he wrote me back right away and he said, he said, I love that you ended and I love you. It actually came across as you being like, uh, Hey, well, fuck you. And I love you.
You know, like, like you weren't going to go away. Like you were some obsessed dude. So that all, that all, that all started over a year ago. It all started with a couple of posts that we would jab at each other.
And then people started asking me, and him, dude, you and Jack really hate each other. And he got a kick out of that. So he would call me and tell me, dude, there's somebody else, there's somebody else that thinks that we hate each other, and this and that. And then that kind of went away.
Right. And, uh, and, but when you guys told me you were doing an event there, I thought, this is a good time to rekindle it. Let's bring that back. Let's fuck with the Hustler boys and bring us back.
And you did, you fucked with us pretty good. It was a pretty good job. He said, he texted me, they are really uncomfortable right now. You know, I don't think, I mean, I didn't feel uncomfortable, to be honest.
It was a little awkward when he said, we're out too. I'm like, well, what do we do now? It was probably, yeah, I mean, it's more uncomfortable for Palmer than it is for me. I was just like, all right, whatever.
You know, like, it was nice to know you, buddy. I'll see you at the show. Let me tell you, everybody was in on it, I'm telling you, I had alerted Tyler Jones, I said, this is going to play out perfectly, and then at about Friday night, at about 8 o'clock at night, he sends me a text, they haven't passed along the message, and I'm like, fuck, so I texted you guys, did you give him my message? Yeah, you forgot.
And then five minutes later, he's on the phone yelling at me, which is hilarious. He messes with his customers pretty good too, man. The phone was missing, and there's all kinds of things. Oh yeah, he stole customers' phones.
Yeah, they have a good relationship there. Yeah, there was a lot of back and forth with him in the country. And he's very convincing. " Yeah, I didn't think he had it.
" Yeah, he went and got the lamb chops. " Oh, listen, I'm glad I could bring a little excitement to your event. Yes, thank you. It would have been good if the customers would have been in on it, too.
You know, revenge is the dish best served cold, buddy. You already got your text. The gauntlet has been laid down for it. I got your threat.
He does not understand. Yeah, okay, all right. The tampons in the mail was just... What do you normally fly, Delta or something?
United. United. United. All right.
Okay. I'll make some calls. Make some calls. It's going to get interesting now, buddy.
The do not fly list is coming in effect. You know what? You know what? You got a practical joke played on you.
Let it go. That's it. It worked out well. Why do you got to retaliate?
I don't understand. It was great. Jack, I don't think you understand these two guys. Yeah.
Have you ever seen Swordfish? Have you ever seen Swordfish? Like John Travolta, the theory was, you know, they send a bomb, we drop a nuke, you know, that type of theory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we live by that.
That's our motto over here. So, so it's going to be good. It's going to be good. We'll all have a good laugh.
Well, yeah, listen, listen, if you guys get me, I'll laugh about it and it won't be, I'm going to get your back. It is what it is. I got you. Let it go.
Oh, that's very passive of you. Let it go. You're such a passive guy. That was by reply to your veiled threat of, you know, the gauntlet has been laid, all I wrote back was, gotcha.
Yeah. That's it. And you did, you got us. And it was very good.
It was very good. You know, and James is a very good actor. He was very convincing. And I thought we were done.
I'm like, okay. I'm like, alright, that's it, it's over here, we drove three hours, now what do we do? It's over here, we'll just clean up our stuff and we'll be on our way, good to see you James. " Oh, that's what I wanted to do, Jack.
When was the phone call? Boots would have fucking had my back. Boots would have had my back. Really?
You just wanted me to get violent and intense. Just immediately. Should have taken a swing at him, Michael. If you would have fucking knocked out James Garcia, it would have been the greatest story in the history of fucking history.
Nobody talks to Jack like that. Boom! Lay him right out. That would have been the best story in the cigar industry.
Well, we tried to get intel from him as far as what had happened. Like, what is it? He just screws everybody over. And I'm looking at him and I go, Jack?
Everybody? I said it like that. I'm like... Do you mean Hector?
Like Jack Tarano? 7'1", Jack Tarano? That's when you knew there might be something up. Yeah, something didn't make sense.
I'm like... Yeah, Mike the Greek took a swing at him and they're friends. I'm like... Are we talking about the same Jack?
I'm like, he's been nothing but great to us, is exactly what I said to him. Are you sure? Can you describe the Jack that you're talking about? That was the direction I went.
I didn't think that, you know, Nagasaki didn't cross my mind as far as, you know, some swinging on James, like, no, screw you, and then go to punch him or something. We're out of here, Mike. Yeah, fuck this guy. Leave all that shit here and let's go.
Yeah, screw him. And instead, I want it the civil way in trying to discuss with him as to what type of person Jack Taranio really is. How you could mediate this thing with a... Exactly.
Exactly. I feel like I can fix this. And that's where my mind was going moving forward. I'm like, wow, now I got to make Jack and James friends.
I feel like it's fixed this. Can we get an order for Jack out of this? Yeah. Did you not get the Independence Warheads?
Because ours took over a week. Yeah, we still don't have ours yet, so we will send you ours if they show up. Yeah, that's okay. You guys don't have yours yet?
No, they came in. No, they came in late. Oh, Jesus Christ. When you arrived, yeah.
Yeah. And that's why Richie's, you know, number four or something like that, or number, you know. That's what it is. Yeah.
Yeah. He had an opportunity to climb on that ladder, but he didn't. He screwed it up. So.
Man, you know, I can tell you that he was on top of the wearing. His house for some other manufacturers. Yeah. For some other reasons.
I believe it. I believe it. He definitely doesn't know where his bread is buttered, man. Yeah.
Uh-huh. Hurtful. Hurtful. Hurtful.
You gotta, you know, well, you can't, you can't, you know, all of a sudden, you know, put him in the Alfredo corner. No, no. You can't do that to him yet. I won't yet.
I'm just gonna, he's just getting a demerit. That's all I'm saying for his shipping. It's just noted. He's getting digged.
He's getting digged. With M&M's. He doesn't get a pass, so. Okay.
All right. Well, we'll let you go. We're going to get on with this podcast, but good job, buddy. And good luck.
Well done. And good luck. Like I told James, I love you guys. I love you.
We love you too, buddy. We love you too, James. And we will pray for you. Bye.
Bye. Bye, Jack. There you go. Back to back, Jack Taranio.
Jack doesn't even understand. He does not. I wasn't there for the phone call. I must have been in the back talking to somebody.
I don't know. I thought you were in the front. I don't remember the phone call. He stood up, and he was like, bah, he was yelling, speakerphone, the whole thing, like, oh, he's pretty angry.
Yeah. You take the headphones off if you want to. I don't want to. He likes them.
I don't like them now. They're uncomfortable. They give me a bit of a headache. All right.
I took them off for you. Yeah, Jack doesn't understand that we're the type of people that will wait eight months. Yeah. Oh, eight years.
It could be eight years. Yeah. You never know. He's working for somebody else, and all of a sudden, boom.
Right. Got you, man. Gotcha. Unplug his respirator at the hospital.
Like the all-infamous Bang joke. Yeah, I mean, that went on for a year and a half. We were sponsored by Bang Energy. That got to be expensive for me.
Our sponsorship. Oh, you had to end it. " Buying t-shirts and jackets and having Bang send here. Oh, God.
Jesus. Yeah. Fuck. I hate you too, Paul.
Even your wife was in on it. She even knew. Oh, God. I don't know how you never caught on.
Everybody knew but you. I just believed you. I'm sorry for believing you. I'll never believe you again.
Yes, you will. Because you also won an award one year. What award did I win? Oh, God.
That year they gave it all those awards. From Dojo? Yeah, from Dojo. Yeah.
We got the best podcast or something. That was not true. No, that wasn't true either, but you thought that was... I believed it at the time.
You believed it at the time too. Yeah. Man, that's actually a bad one, Palmer. Thanks so much.
That one's mean. You got the best podcast award, and then that was fake. Come on. But on that one, I made the fake thing and sent it to him to try to clue him in on the joke.
Right. And he got so excited, he thought I had seen it online and it was real. Oh my God. And then I was like, oh.
So you know what has happened now? Because of all these years of abuse, when he sends me an order, I vet the shit out of it. I'm like, okay. When he says, oh, I got a $5,000 order, I'm like, okay, what'd they buy?
Yeah. And then he's like, oh. Show me the text messages. Yeah, I'm like, I'm going to need to see exactly what it is.
And he shows me what it is. I'm like, this is not a $5,000 order. This is shit. All right.
And I throw something at him. See, look. Look at how angry he's getting. I'm not angry.
Flustered. He's turning red. That was him ruffling his feathers. Want to go to the events?
Yeah, let's go to the events. All right, this Thursday, I'll be at Blend and Barrel in Sanford, Florida. Did we move the camera up? Because I can't really see this.
Nope, you just moved down. I'm shrinking. m. doing a Postana and Dalmor pairing night?
Yes. a. Chip Martin from Roma Craft. Tickets are still available, it's an event in our private lounge with a barbecued dinner sampler and a live taping of this wonderful show, the Cigar Hustler Podcast.
Yes, an interview with, an exclusive interview with Skip Martin. Oh, yes, the other one, the first one we did was three, four-parter? It was long, it was like three hours, four hours. Oh, it was like two o'clock in the morning time we got done.
We won't let it go that long. Well, no, I mean, the people are going to be eating, so they'll start leaving. Yeah, after about an hour and a half or so, if he keeps talking, I'm just going to move the mic away from me, and I'm just walk away. Oh, just get up and leave?
Yeah, yeah. Let's say show's over. Yeah, that's it. Okay, okay.
Done. Next. Oh, that's all the events. That's all we got.
Oh, are we talking about the one that's next Friday? Well, did we cover Oakdale? Cigar Oakdale? Cigar Oakdale?
We didn't cover the event. No, that's right. True. We went on to...
You must acknowledge. Right. So... There's somebody at the door.
Yeah. So, Cigars Oakdale became part of The Crawl in Pittsburgh. Yes. So, which is a multi...
It's not multi-vendor. Multi-shop road trip? Yes. Is that the way to describe it?
Yeah. Where all these guys piling this bus, 7 o'clock in the morning, and they go to a shop, they stay, Normally, it's a two-hour visit, but they squeezed us in until we were an hour visit. So they come in. They all sort of file past you.
60 gentlemen, and you do the best you can to get them to buy something as they walk past you to go to the humidor. And then they move on to the next one. Yeah. I got to tell you, though, the shop, Scar Vault Oakdale, is beautiful.
It is. It's a nice shop. And he's almost 100% boutique. Yeah.
I don't think there was any of the legacy brands in this humidor at all, I don't think. Yeah, well, and Norm is extremely involved, like he's very, I mean, like, but when I say extremely involved, like, anybody can be extremely involved in their own business, but he's extremely involved in, like, knowledge of the industry, right? Yes. For the short time the shop's been open, yeah, I mean.
Yeah, he's obviously been a cigar guy before then, and, you know, he's tuned in, so that's awesome, and Miguel is awesome, too. Yes. Even though he refused to fix the toilet when it blew up, you know. Right.
He put on the one glove. Yeah. And it's not his job, Norm. That's not his job.
It's not his job. Okay. So you'd be nice to Miguel. I'm guessing Miguel said that as he fixed the toilet.
No, no. Miguel didn't fix the toilet. They had to call a plumber. Oh.
Perfect. They did. I mean, things happen. Things happen.
That's the way it works. You know, the day 60 people have to poop in your toilet, it just doesn't work. It's a lot of poop. Do you think you guys would ever go on a cigar crawl on a bus, like where you can't get in your own car and leave?
No. Probably not. There was, I understand, Skip has done the bus when he's on the bus. Yeah.
The guy from El Nacho Libre or whatever, what's that brand called? Jack Fuerte Libre? Yeah. Yeah, Greg.
He was on the bus with them. Well, he helps his partners in the crawl. Right, well, we found that after the fact, yeah, he's part of. And they have Crawl Masters?
Is that what they were called? Crawl Masters. Crawl Masters? Those were the guys in charge of, they had the black shirts on that said the crawl embroidered across the thing.
It's a yearly event that they have up there in Pittsburgh. Sounds cool. Yeah, we should do it every year with Oakdale. Okay.
Honestly. I would like to do maybe a little different, but, not the entire event, but how we handle it. I don't know if what I want to do would work, but it seems like it would be better. We did one massive talk with everybody instead of 60 individual talks, but I don't know if they were because they didn't all come in and like shuttle right to us.
Individual is good though because you get personalized. Yeah, sounds kind of lazy to me Palmer. Well, you know, just the one time. This is what I deal with.
That way you get everybody, I mean, instead of just the people that walk up to the table. Here, gather around. Well, Mikey likes to sign his autographs and everything, so he wants to do personalized. Yeah, we had that set up for him, but he refused to let that happen.
I didn't refuse. One guy pulled out his butt cheek, and Mikey was off the table. " I did not refuse to sign. I just knew that nobody would ask me to sign.
Well, if I would have offered to the German gentleman who bought a box, he probably would have wanted a signature. Okay. But he didn't want it on his own? The German guy?
There was a gentleman there from Germany. Okay. What does that seem on to him? I don't know.
No, it was just nothing. You know how he feels about the Germans. Oh, that's true. Yeah.
Nazis. Yeah. Well, it's a Polish cigar. Whatever.
Yeah, it is. It's a Polish cigar. Oh, that's true. Maybe he didn't want the autograph.
I forgot about that part. See? The past is the past, Bootsy. All right.
Maybe not. He had nothing to do with that. It's Iran now. He was quite enamored with you, though.
He enjoyed speaking with you. I had a good conversation with him. He was a good guy. Nice.
The wave at the end was a little weird, but, you know. Wow. There was no wave. There was no wave.
There was no wave. There was no wave. There was no wave. It was just kind of a statue of a hand.
There was no wave. He was a very, very nice man. He was. You're a terrible, terrible person.
But Palmer actually got nervous because of him, not because of James. Yeah, it was the first day, or the second day I got nervous. Yeah, James didn't really make me nervous. I was just like...
Yeah, what are we gonna do? I mean, he's pissed off, okay. Yeah, like, fuck, alright, well... Like, Norman, just keep talking to people?
Like, close the account, like, I gotta take all this back? Right, because we're not buying it back. Yeah, it's not happening. You gotta blow it out.
Is there a cigar shop across the street? That's it. There's someone nearby where I could uh, okay. We got their money, I've eaten my lamb chops, so I'm out.
But he's such a good guy, man. It seems so odd because he's so nice. He really is a good dude. Why is this the one guy you hate?
You know, like, we've had good conversations obviously over the course of the years on the phone and just kind of at PCA, but there's something different when you get to see a retailer kind of acting in their own environment and how they act in that environment. Sure. And, yeah with him i'm just like that's pretty impressive dude you know kind of a sub-character yeah he he's well you know he was the go-to guy he solves all problems right it's i go to james everybody goes to james everybody customers employees everybody parking lot people in the plaza whatever you know other shops that have problems yeah oh did he own the building no he works for nick oh nick was also a great guy he was you know he might own the complex But James is fucking badass, for sure. So, okay.
Oh, and Sunny D alcoholic seltzer is delicious. Oh, he had the Sunny D heart. There was a lady there giving out samples in the beer side or the alcohol side of the operation, and I went back a couple of times like, "That was really good. " Yeah, and Palmer lit up like the 4th of July.
Oh, yeah. I had to, but it's not orange. That was my problem with it. It's not orange.
It should be Sunny D color. And speaking of 4th of July. He didn't leave any potato chips on the floor or anything, did he? No.
Okay. No, there were no potato chips. But speaking of 4th of July, time has almost expired for you to get your BDP Independence Day red tank top. Still with 40% off on the second one?
If you buy one, you get a second shirt with 40% off. Oh. com and get that squared away ASAP. My name's Ginger, and I'm doing it right now.
Oh, thanks, Ginger. That was nice of you. Sizes are true, though, so if you're an extra large, order an extra large. All right, let's go.
Next. All right, I was on Simply Stogie's about a month ago. Yeah? But last week, my episode came out.
Oh. Okay. But the cool part is, and I didn't know they do this, this week, their episode, they go over last week's episode. Oh.
And talk about me, whether they liked me or not, what I did right, what I did wrong. They evaluated my appearance on their show. Okay. Appearance, like how you dress?
And they evaluated your appearance on their PCA footage they did of you. Oh. So if you want to go listen to that, it's almost funnier than the other show. Oh, you're not going to tell us.
Yeah. No, no, you got to go and listen to it. It's only an hour. With a regular show, I think it was an hour and a half or two hours or something, but I really enjoyed it.
I didn't know they did it, and I stayed up last. That was one of the things I was doing when I wasn't sleeping last night. I listened to the show. It was, it was really good.
We decided to paint our house, so we're painting now again. The inside or the outside? You just painted it. Oh.
I was going to say, you just painted it. Yeah, you just painted the outside. I was going to say how good it looked when you, when you picked me up for the inside. You know, we're, we're changing the inside now, and I'm changing the outlets all by myself.
Nice. From white to black. Perfect. And I'm not turning off the power when I'm doing it.
Oh, if there's footage of you screaming like your brother, uh, please have. I don't scream. " Well, he got hit with more than regular hodgepodge. Yeah, I just got a little 110 action, that's all.
Who cares? You know, what's 110 amongst friends? Yeah, yeah, it's nothing. I'll miss you.
You'll miss me? In case you die. I'm almost done. Oh, God.
Yeah. So, are you painting all the walls black? Yeah. Oh, you mean like you're almost done with the project?
Yeah. Oh, I thought you meant with life. " Well, I mean, I'm probably- Talking about death again. I'm starting to freak out over there.
I gotta be past halfway at this point. No. Maybe 40%. There's more behind you than in front of you?
Yeah, you think I make it to 80? Yeah. You don't think so? No.
I don't. From a genetic standpoint, I'm my father. I don't think so. Yeah, you're more like your dad than your brother is.
Yeah. He didn't make it to 70. Now, he wasn't as healthy as I am, but... That's true.
Will 72? Who knows? Only time will tell. All right.
This week, we cover all the big hits, our upcoming events at Blend and Barrel. Oh, we did talk about that already. This is out of order. Exclusive dinner with Skip Martin and social media.
S. strikes on Iran's nuclear site to Tesla's robot taxi. Oh. Down the blockbuster, the Durant trade, Nicaragua's odd speed limit change, Davidoff's cigar production dip, a spicy new patina collab, and two bold cigar reviews.
Buckle up. It's loaded show, folks. Nice. I'm buckled.
My mother keeps calling for some reason. She keeps calling? Yeah. You want to take a break and call her back?
No, not really. Okay. N. S.
Attack likely caused very significant damage at Iran's Fordow nuclear site. Well, you would hope so. Well, yeah, I'm sure there was a lot of damage. Well, from what I read after this, the government over there is obviously downplaying it like, eh, just a little bit, you know, we can paint, it'll be fine.
Yeah, we can paint. It'll be fine. Some new outlets, you know, everything's good. We're going to get it from China.
S. S. S. struck the site early Sunday morning using six B-2 bombers to drop 12 Bunker Buster Bombs on Fortos, each way and around 30.
S. struck the site early Sunday morning using six B-2 bombers to drop 12 Bunker Buster Bombs on Fortos, each way and around 30. S. struck the site early Sunday morning using six B-2 bombers to drop 12 Bunker Buster Bombs on Fortos, each way and around 30.
S. struck the site early Sunday morning using six B-2 bombers to drop 12 Bunker Buster Bombs on Fortos, each way and around 30. He's got 30,000 pounds. S.
will pay a price for its strikes, Iran's nuclear sites. S. N. Security Council meeting.
There has been no word yet from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Well, just to hit on this, this afternoon they tried to attack an Air Force base. Who is they? Over there.
Iran. Iran. Iran tried to attack one of ours? Yeah, they tried to send missiles over and then our defense systems over there took them all out.
Yeah. So far, that's it. That's all. Our military expert, Boots from the Navy.
Yeah. You know, look, I think all of us kind of connected. And, you know, I'm not, I don't begin to portray myself as some type of global news economic expert. Yes.
But if I put the pieces together from a bird's eye view, this is what I have seen, right? For starters, we had a tariff agenda with China, right? Oh, 125, oh, 145. You know, like this whole back and forth.
And then all of a sudden, China backed off. And then we backed off, right? So that meant that, hey, listen, we need each other, we need, from my interpretation, like business, we need to go back to business as usual, we should act somewhat diplomatically. Okay, and then Israel hits Iran.
Bam. Right? Bam. They actually said bam.
Yeah. And then, and then, and then, and there was, and the stock market didn't move. Right. It didn't plummet.
It didn't shoot up. Nothing. It just kind of, whoo, kind of moved. It's natural course, like 2% up, down, whatever.
Actually, Bitcoin went up. Okay. And then we went in afterwards and we mulled over everything and even hit some of the things that I guess Israel hit and said, "No, don't worry, we got it," and we pounced a little bit harder, right? Right, right.
And China gets its oil from Iran, right, I think? I believe so. Well, I mean, we do to a point, too. I think a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people.
And there's a close tie there to some degree, right? So I think that there was always a fear of if we attacked Iran or somebody attacked Iran, China would intervene and then you would have this whole World War III scenario. Knock on wood, it doesn't seem like that's happening. " Like, hey, listen, this is a problem, the whole death to America thing, you know, we need a regime change here, they're about to have nuclear power, you know, nuclear bombs, nobody wants that, and they're like, alright, well, go ahead, you go do what you're gonna do, I'm thinking, that's what it looks like to me.
Now, I could be totally off base here, I could be completely wrong, but it would make the most sense. What I have heard, six months ago, the lady who's in charge of national security or international security, whatever she is, I think it's a lady with the gray swoop in her hair, said they do not have weapons of mass destruction. Whatever. So, now he's at this meeting, the G7 or G whatever it is, and they were supposed to be negotiating, I don't know, to get in and inspect or get rid of or something, and they just walked away.
And at that point he went, well, just get the bombers ready. Yeah, they gave him two weeks. Yeah, gave him two weeks, and then nothing, they just say anything, go, well, okay, well, just blow the fuckers up. And you're right, I heard China and Russia were like, well, if you do that, we're going to back up them.
Right. And, you know, it's going to be bad. And then we bond them and they're sort of going, I don't know anybody in Iran. Do you know anybody in Iran?
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't think. Is there an Iran? Is there an Iran?
Right. I mean, he announced two weeks ago, or whatever it was, Trump did, everybody in Iran needs to evacuate, or he picked a city or something, you know, I'm not saying why, but you know, you might want to leave, might be a good time to go on vacation. Yeah, the city that he picked was where their big leaders were having a meeting, and they took out a lot of them. So now their military is, is not defeated, but hurt.
Didn't we invade them? I mean, have a battle with them already and we beat them up? I think we helped put this guy in power who was a problem, to be honest. Oh, did we?
Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. I mean, Desert Storm was with Iran, right? Yeah, no, but a long time ago we did have one and we took out the leader because he was a problem like this guy. Oh, there you go.
I don't know. I heard the Shah was good. There was peace with the Shah. This, currently?
No, in the '70s, late '70s. Yeah, until he was gone, and now when the religious people get in charge, it's the problem, because there's really no negotiating with him, like, we'll give you a bunch of oil, and he goes, no, no, Allah says I have to do this, or whoever they pray to, I think it's Allah. It's really kind of hard to negotiate with anybody if the saying is death to America, oh my god. Right, yeah.
You know, like, I don't know how we can talk, if that's how you feel. Was this the guy that Trump was having talks with a couple of years ago, and he slid the piece of paper across the table, and it was a picture of the guy's house or something? And that was where he said, you know, let all our, you know, if you touch another hair on an American, you know, slides the thing over, I know where your house is. Yeah, I don't know.
Probably. Maybe. It's somebody in the Middle East. Maybe it's not.
That's such a, that's such a gangster move though. It is such a gangster move. So, all interesting. I hope it doesn't develop into World War III.
I don't think it will, but you never know. I don't think it will. Did you hear the report on how, I mean, Sunday they were explaining Operation Midnight Hammer or whatever they called it. Yeah, I like that.
I mean, there was, you know, planes took off from Missouri in two different directions. One was a real one, one was a fake one. A submarine launched missiles over, you know, at the same time they dropped in the bunker bus. Right.
You know, the 30,000 payload bomb wasn't enough. Let's, you know, send some other stuff from the submarine over there. Well, you got to head them on the down, baby. Come on.
Yeah. We made a big hole. Shoot them in there. I just want you to know, before I go to bed, I'm going to look at Brittany and I'm going to say, are you ready for Operation Midnight Hammer?
Might come from the left, might come from the right. You never know. You never know. And the submarine's right on the bed.
It's going to be intricate. Just close your eyes and hope to get through this. It's going to be involved. And what, they're threatening to attack Florida first?
Is that what they said? Yeah. Good luck. Yeah, what the hell?
Why are they picking on us? What do we do? We're the foot that sticks off the bottom, but we're closer? Yeah, because we're closest?
Yeah. Ridiculous. Well, we'd love to see each other. Get something in the middle.
Really make a statement. There you go. Yeah, you know? Yeah, like, uh, Arkansas, I mean, who's in Arkansas?
And on TikTok, they listed the top five best targets. Arkansas's not really in the middle, by the way, but that's okay. No, that's okay. He wants them to shoot Alcatraz in the New York Hermes.
S. bombers obliterated three Iranian nuclear sites and alluded to the possibility of regime change in Iran. Maybe put somebody else in charge. , however, are now assessing how significant of a blow it dealt to the Tehran, Tehran's program.
Well, I hope that, I hope that there's peace in Iran, obviously, I hope that, you know, that somebody gets put into power that is good for the people, you know, you never want to see. Somebody has taken over, I forget what country they said, somebody's taken over their TV airwaves or whatever it's called, and is just doing over and over something They're talking about revolt, rise up people, overthrow your government. That was the time. Oh, that's probably implemented by our CIA, you know?
It's probably the Harbor Science Center for Kids. You guys still haven't seen that movie yet? No. Accountant 2?
I started to watch it. I started to watch it when we came home. Yeah? I think on Saturday.
What are we talking about? Accountant 2. I got about five minutes in, and I looked at Brittany and said, "Alright, put it on whatever you want. " You passed the poster.
I'm just not a big fan of that actor. You just gotta get a little bit more into it. It wasn't that it wasn't compelling for me, it was just that I was cooked. I watched the new Captain America the other night.
Oh, did you? I didn't like it. He doesn't fight as well as Chris Evans. I haven't watched it yet.
Like, Chris Evans is kicking people in the head, he's kicking people in the waist. I mean, he just can't get his leg up. Oh, that's it for you, huh? Well, okay, he doesn't have, he refuses to take the serum.
They have the serum. We talked about this one. They do have the serum. Yeah, he was offered the serum.
" He needs the serum. He needs the serum. You know, here's what we gotta do. What does the serum do?
Make some super soldiers. Super American. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, when he got the original.
Yeah, he refuses to take it because it's not, then it's not really me. All right, so here's... Where are you getting your ass kicked, dude? Okay, so here's what we gotta do.
We gotta put him in a position where we inject him, right? Like, he's about to die. Right. Wow.
Wow, Boots. That's just the way you said it. Wow, Boots. Doesn't take much over there, huh?
Yeah. Instantly lights up. He's like, yeah, ooh. You're like, he's about to die.
Right. And the only way to save him is hit him with the Deca. The Lanervar. Look at him.
Look at him. No ditty. No baby oil. I mean, he fought the Red Hulk.
I don't know. How did he win? I don't. I don't.
I started to watch it with my kids and we watched. Well, they watched the whole thing. I took a brief siesta at the end. I was too tired.
Well, I watched it over two nights. Is the red one stronger than the green one? They don't explain why one's a red one's green first, but the red one's Harrison Ford, so he's cooler. The red one's supposed to be bad.
Oh, okay. That's what it is. Ying and yang. They do bring back the guy from Hulk who got the stuff dripped into his head.
He's the bad guy. Leader. Yeah, I hope I'm not. What's his name?
Leader. Oh, is that his name? Yeah. Oh, I don't know.
Yeah. From the original Hulk movie. Yes. A hundred years ago.
Right. Right. Three Hulks ago. Well, and Harrison Ford's supposed to be.
Oh, the bodybuilder. What? The original Hulk? Is that what you said?
No, no, no. Not Mufraig. No, the movie. The movie, the original movie.
Three movies ago, there was, I don't even remember who was playing Hulk at that point. The little blonde guy, I can't think of his name. No. Yeah, yeah, he was the Hulk.
No, he wasn't. Yeah, and he swallows, oh, you're talking about the first one, the very first one. But the guy who got the stuff in his head was from the second one. Leader?
I don't think it's Leader, I don't think it's his name. He was the guy that tried to help him get the Hulk out of him, put him on the table, electrocuted him and stuff. Eric Banner? Eric Banner was in the, yeah, that was the very first one, the bad one.
The second one where he's at the college and he throws a zip drive. None of them were bad as far as I'm concerned. Oh, I didn't like the first one. And then Ange Lee, it's like a little 80 guy.
Ange Lee was the director. Oh, okay. Who was the actor in the second one? It says Eric Banner.
He's like a... That's the first one. No, yeah, the second one was... The little blonde guy.
He's not blonde, but he did a... I think he's blonde. 25th Hour, he did... Yeah.
Yeah. He's a good actor. Yeah, he's a good actor. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Edward Norton? Yeah, there you go, Edward Norton. Wow.
That's the one where the guy gets the stuff dripped into his head. Oh, was it? Yeah. I just want to know I love the people that tell me that they're yelling at the podcast when we don't have the answer.
Oh, sure. All right. Makes me so happy. I mean, I do it at, you know, when we're watching game shows or something.
" We heard you! Yeah. So. Okay.
All right. Moving on. Elon Musk announces the launch of a new business venture. Yes.
Do you know what this is? We talked about this once. Automated cars. Right?
No. Well, kind of. It's a taxi service. Yeah.
It's official. Tesla's in the robo taxi industry after revealing that Tesla would begin rolling out autonomous cabs this year. Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk announced the company is officially launching its robo-taxi He was on Sunday, June 22nd. So yesterday.
Company called Apology? And a post on ex-Musk Apology? Yeah, this is after the Apology. This would be a good name for the company.
So he's already assuming something's wrong, he's gonna just call it Apology? No, he apologized on Twitter to Trump, so now he is doing more things with his company now. He didn't really apologize. I should have said some of the things.
I may have said some things. I may have said some things that may have said some things. " Well, maybe that's his way of apologizing. He is from another country.
All right, the service will debut in Austin, Texas. Oh. 20. Each ride, that's it.
What? That's it, I know! That's pretty cheap. 20 because you get pot inside the taxi?
Oh, maybe. Maybe. 20 flat fee, Musk exclaimed. With the launch, Tesla will now look to make up ground on Waymo, which is the current king of the industry.
Waymo claims to have taken 10 million paid rides in all and services several major cities, including Austin, where Tesla is debuting on Sunday. So Waymo is already an automated taxi service? Taxi service? Yes.
Oh, I didn't know they already had this. Me neither. Well, it's obviously not in Florida. Right.
Meanwhile, Amazon is also expected to get into the industry this year. Of course they are. 2 billion to acquire Zooks. There's a lot of companies.
About five years ago, and it has since built a plant in Silicon Valley The company that is expected to produce 10,000 RoboTaxis per year are called Skynet. Skynet. However, Amazon and Zook are not as far along as Waymo and Tesla, with the duo set to begin its service in Las Vegas later this year and then in San Francisco next year. Did you guys go on the tunnel?
I walked down there, but it was closed. It was closed? Yeah. It's not as, uh, didn't we?
I think we did do it. No. I don't know if you had a dream that you did it. I did it with somebody.
Oh, maybe I did it, I don't remember. Because we found out that there's only one tunnel, so there's four or five cars, they all shoot left, and then they turn around and they all come back, shoot right through the same one. Right. So, like, if you're the first car, you have to wait on the other three or four to get through.
Yeah, I didn't do that. Maybe we saw a video, I think I saw a video. Okay, so who do you think will be the king of autonomous vehicles? Will it be Waymo, Elon with Tesla, or Bezos with Amazon?
Boots, you first. Elon. You think? Yeah.
Why? Well, I mean, he always does everything better anyways. I mean, Bezos, you know, did the rocket thing too. Yeah.
Didn't really do anything. Didn't really do anything, okay. Well, not like, you know, Tesla. It was like the first females in space or whatever.
All-female. I'm not going to comment on that. Okay. Okay.
I don't know. So, you think Elon? Yeah. And you?
I would like to know what the other one's charging. Yeah. 20? I mean, it's a flat fee no matter where you want to go.
Right. It's interesting. That just seems odd. So, who do you think will win?
I mean, that's got to be a great prize. Yeah, I think Musk. You think Musk does it? Does it?
I think so, because he's more well-known, people have heard of the Tesla cars, maybe there's a little more familiarity, or, you know, think it's safer. You think Waymo actually did 10 million... Rides? Yeah.
I don't know. I've never heard of them. I've never heard of them either, but they're in cities that we don't go to. Not that we don't go, but we have not been.
We know people in these cities. It says, "The price is likely a deliberate reference to cannabis culture, a connection frequently made by Elon Musk. In his social media posts, Musk has previously incorporated the number 420 in the Tesla's Model S pricing and joked about its significance. While Musk has also said that 420 represents a 20% premium on Tesla's trading price and was a coincidence, the frequent use of the number in his endeavors suggests a playful nod to cannabis culture.
I don't think there's anything, no coincidence. 20. Somebody went, whoo-whoo. Right.
I mean, how does that not get by? It was deliberate. But how can that be cost-effective? I don't know.
I mean. But, I mean, does it have to be for him right now? Maybe later it goes up to, you know, 25 cents a mile or whatever the taxes charge. Yeah, maybe it's like a balloon loan.
I don't know. I think Elon will dominate in this market, to be honest. Yeah. But he has flying cars first.
Oh, that'd be awesome. They have flying cars. Yeah, but it's not something everybody can have yet. I think he'll be the, eventually the Teslas will fly.
Big box. Teslas will be flying cars. I would like that. That would make me happy.
Well, no, because he'll have one first. Elon? Yes. Okay.
All right, moving on. If I was making flying cars, I'd make sure I had the first one. Yeah. Okay, moving on to the next one.
All right, Suns trading Kevin Durant to Rockets and Blockbuster Deal. The Phoenix Suns have agreed on a Blockbuster trade, sending 15-time NBA All-Star Kevin Durant Durant to the Houston Rockets for Jalen Green, Dylan Brooks, the number 10 pick this year's draft, and five second-round picks, sources told ESPN on Sunday. The trade can be formally completed when the new league yearly begins July 6th. Durant was on stage Sunday at the Fantastic Fest at the Javits Center in New York when news of the trade agreement broke with fans surprised by the announcement.
Being part of the Houston Rockets, I'm looking forward to it, Durant told Kay Adams on Sunday. Crazy, crazy last couple of weeks, but I'm glad it's over with. In addition to getting two starters from the number two seed in the Western Conference and a 2025 first round pick, the five second round picks headed to the Suns are the number 59 selection in this year's draft. Two in 2026, one in 2030 from Boston, and one in 2032, sources told ESPN.
Is it standard to reserve so far in advance? I mean, they'll look at five, six years from now. It depends upon the superstar status of who you're acquiring. So you're just looking for more stuff?
It's a strategy. I mean, the real question is, did they get value by taking on Kevin Durant? And for how long is he going to still be in the NBA, you know? Well, let's say something happens and they're not playing basketball in 2030.
They're not playing basketball? Yeah, for some reason, the sport just goes away. I mean, it's probably not. It won't.
But, I mean, you're gambling on something five, six years from now. Yeah, I don't think the NBA is going away. You never know. We could start World War III, maybe all the basketball players have to go fight people.
Then we just, we put scrubs in. Yeah, like the replacements. The replacements. Yeah, exactly.
Oh, like the replacements. Oh, the movie. And they're all rich anyway, so you know how that works. Yeah, they're not going anywhere.
You don't get drafted. So you don't think that Kevin Durant was worth what they gave up? No. You know, Phoenix's team is pretty much nothing but guards, right?
And to have Kevin Durant come is... He went to Houston. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. To have Jalen Green and Dylan Brooks come, you're just, how are all these guys going to play?
There's going to be no rebounds, there's going to be no blocks. I mean, not one guy is over 6'7", so you play a team like OKC that just won, OKC's going to run all over those guys. OKC won, but Halliburton went down the first. And it wasn't a fun game.
Halliburton? Yeah. I don't know, man. The way OKC was playing, I don't think there was even a chance, to be honest.
Yeah. They played really good defense. They played all-round great. I don't know.
I don't like the trade. You gave around five second-round picks. Jalen Green was the number one pick. Right?
And Dylan Brooks was a first-rounder as well. So basically, you know, you gave up a lot. Right. Yeah, I feel the same way, man.
" Yeah, that's smart. For Kevin Durant. Well, you got a future. Right.
But if Houston gets a ring, if, yeah, I mean, they better be a contender this year because of it. If not, it was a lot of money spent, a lot of, a lot of stuff invested. Yeah. He'll be gone in two years.
Two years. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. How old is he?
47. Say he looked kind of old in the photos. He's not 47. It's probably like 32.
Yeah. I'd say probably early thirties. How long do you normally play professional basketball? To what age?
About his age. 32? Yeah. So you think he'll squeeze two more years out of him?
I'd say mid-30s is when you kind of start to pack it in. Yeah. Well, his age, usually they're bench, you know, role players. They're not superstars anymore.
They're on the bench, veterans, signing the league minimum for veterans and helping guys out, you know, learn the game of basketball. Yeah. How do you feel about that, Palmer? Yeah, how do you feel about that, Palmer?
Betrayed? Yeah. Terrible idea. Terrible idea?
He's too old. He's too old. He's too old. Are they going to have him coach?
Yeah, maybe coach him. I'm mad coaches don't make as much as players. No. But they still make a lot of money.
Some of them make more than some of the players. Yeah. Well, is he a good coach? No.
Are we talking about Kevin Durant still? Yes. I have no idea. Well, as far as Palmer's concerned, basketball's going to be gone in a few years.
Yeah. I mean, it could be. Who knows? Yeah.
I don't watch it. I wouldn't even notice. It's going to be like the Twinkie era. There's a whole new sport.
Didn't they bring Twinkies back? They did bring them back. I won't get one in Publix right now if you want to. Yeah, they didn't go.
They couldn't take them away. Yeah. Well, they had a bunch of them, and they don't go bad, so what else are they going to do? Right.
Right. Might as well sell them. Yeah, make some more. Right.
Makes sense. All right, Boots Training Sports. Do-do-do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
This just in. Hello, peoples. Hello, peoples. Oh, we got ink.
Who are you on? Out loud, you gotta read it out loud. I know, I know, I know. On you.
Okay. You want it on Palmer? Yes. Thank you.
Why does it always have to be on me? I'm trying to text my mother from her phone calls earlier. Mers Glavavich drops 42 in bizarre finish as Knicks outlast the Heat. New York, in a game that felt more like a fever, dreamed in an Eastern Conference clash.
The New York Knicks is edged out of the Miami Heat, 121 to 119, behind a monstrous 42-point performance From the little-known Latavian guard, Devor Mrzglaevich Zantravisky, the undrafted rookie, who signed a 10-day contract just last week, torched the heat with a mix of step-back threes, off-balance floaters, and at least two shots that might have defied the laws of physics. Honestly, I just tried to put ball in basket, he said, post-game, wiping blood off his eyebrow from an earlier collision with Miami's bruising forward, that guy. What's the guy's name? What's his name?
Zazic Ndomblany. That's probably pretty close. Despite the Knicks holding a 17-point lead in the third quarter, Miami surged back led by Bam Abadio. Adebayo.
Man, you better get that name right. And newly signed point guard, Alvis Klischmann, who's behind the back. It's fast. To Jimmy Butler in the fourth.
How old is this story? I don't know. It's got to be old. Fourth.
Nearly caused a Madison Square Garden security guard to fame. But in the final seconds with the game tied, he pulled up for 34 feet with heat center Zabonki de Flores in his face. Swish. Guard interrupted.
Thank you. A legend was born. I can't even pronounce his name, Julius Randall said, shaking his head, but tonight, that kid was unguardable. Knicks fans might want to start learning it, though, slowly.
Murs Glosvich Zontrevsky, or just stick with the money. He says he's fine with that, too. This has got to be like a two-year-old story. Yeah.
Are those real people? Yeah. You pulled the article. I made it up.
Completely? Completely. Really? ChatGBT, make me a story about basketball, use a real team, and give me names that are hard to say.
And there you go. I thought I didn't know they were real people. Nice. Steve bet me upstairs, he goes, he's gonna know, he's not gonna read that.
I go, he's gonna read what's ever on the paper. Yeah. And he read the whole thing. He did a great job.
He did a great job. So those are real names? Yeah, but they're not on all those teams. Well, nobody's ever gonna believe you about anything ever again.
Yeah, exactly. Big Bang Incident, now this, this is unbelievable. Yeah, dojo podcast. Dojo Awards.
We got the number one podcast of 2023, I believe. Oh, God. Alright, Nicaragua cuts highway speed limit to 31 miles per hour. Oh, my God.
Why is this a cigar industry story? I mean, I've obviously never been, but was it just like the Autobahn before? You could do whatever you wanted? Did you put that in chat?
Uh, no, so... Oh, this is a real story. I mean, okay, so you land in Managua, and it's, I think it's like three hours to drive to Esteli, and it's mainly on this highway, and there's a lot of solid lines where you can't pass, and if you pass, you're gonna get pulled over. And there's a lot of police stops along the way.
Like, document check stops? No, they're just there. If they decide to- If they want to stop you. Yeah.
Donation checks. No, no, you can't say that. Oh. Alleged.
Yeah. Um. Right, because they're big fans of the show. Right.
And I'm going to tell you right now, you're not doing 31 miles an hour. You're doing 60, 70, 80, 90 miles an hour going down the sun. What was the speed limit before? Is this a dirt road or a regular road?
It's a regular road. What was the speed limit? Yeah. I don't know.
But it wasn't 31. Well, no, right. Well, maybe the story says. Okay.
Earlier this week, the Nicaraguan government cut the highway speed limits to just 50 kilometers It's about 31 miles per hour for cars, trucks, and SUVs, meaning the maximum speed limit in the country has been cut in half, so it must have been 62. Yeah, 60 miles per hour. S. Co-president Daniel Ortega hinted at a move earlier this year, saying that the country needed to cut down on traffic-related deaths.
In addition to those changes, the government has lowered the maximum speed limit for motorcycles to 25 miles per hour and will no longer allow children to ride on motorcycles. Oh wow. Are they like riding on the back of them? Oh yeah, all the time.
Well, China, they can get a family of five on a motorcycle. Oh yeah, I mean, you see the same thing in Nicaragua. A popular form of transportation in the country, Danielle Suchar-Zomer told Bloomberg that the move will slow down traffic, forcing more gas to be consumed And other expenses like per diem's costs that will eventually be passed on to consumers. Another price increase coming because we have to pay more for gas.
Right. This is the second time the country has reduced the speed limit. This month earlier it dropped the maximum speed from 80 to 50. Okay.
Ah, so it was 80 before. Then it went down to 50. That's 40 miles an hour. People are still crashing.
Now it's down to 30. You think it's a speed limit? Is that a speed limit? It's a speed limit.
I'm saying, do you think it's the speed limit that's making them crash? No, but what else are they going to do? Well, the problem is that if you do get in a car accident and it's really bad, I mean... There ain't nobody coming.
Good luck. Right. Yeah. So, I don't know, man.
It sounds like it's probably a power move. Does this mean we're going to take longer to get our cigars? Yes. Well, they'll have to, yeah, I guess.
I mean, what else are they going to do? I mean, 30 miles an hour is awful slow. That's like, that's like driving to Fort Lauderdale going 30. Yeah.
The whole time. Like the speed limit you're supposed to do in your neighborhood. Yeah. It'd be like waterboarding.
So what took you three hours is not going to take you six. Ugh. You know? Maybe even seven.
Jeff Moutet's back in country. Yeah. He mentioned the speed limit in his post. Did he?
Yeah. Well, it looks like he made it there safely. Yeah, he's standing on the beach with a funny-looking little hat on. Floating in the water.
Yep. Loving his life. Living a good life. Davidoff revenue remains flat in 2024.
Cigar production drops by 10 million cigars. It remained flat, it dropped by 10 million cigars? Production was down, but prices have increased. Prices went up, so they came out even again.
So we're making the same amount of money, just not working as hard. Well, we'll just skip this story, no? I mean, go ahead. No, no, that's the story.
Go ahead. That's really what it is. We'll continue, though. Well, okay.
7 million. 2 million. While the figure is lower in Swiss francs, exchange rates simply explain why Davidoff describes this as, "a slight increase". 9% more, Michael.
8 million produced in 2023. Davidoff says that this was planned because it rolled more cigars prior to the implementation of the European Union's track and trace requirements for cigars in May of 2024. Right. Despite the 21% drop compared to 2023, Davidoff says that it's working to add more production capacity at the Diadema Cigars in Honduras, factory in Donnelly, Honduras.
This follows an expansion of the Dominican facility that was completed last year. So, same scenario, you rushed production, you produced more to get ahead of regulation, something that I'm arguing similar in the fact of the tariffs in Q1 of this year, which would mean that come Q3 and Q4, you have lower influx of cigars coming into the United States, which could be accurate, to be determined, which means that a little bit of a slowdown. So, kudos to Davidoff for making less and still making more. Right, making less and still making more money.
Yeah. How do you feel about it, Boots? About Davidoff? About the fact that they're producing less and still making the same profit margin.
I think it's horrible. Yeah? Why is that? Because it's Davidoff.
Oh, you hate Davidoff? Yeah, I just don't think they're... Well, they're Dominican. He hates Dominicans.
He hates Dominicans. No, I don't hate Dominicans. You've said that numerous times throughout the seven years. I hate all Dominicans.
But you hate all Dominicans, cigars, and the people. I have one Dominican friend. Just the one. Just the one.
Wow. It's pretty intense. No, I just don't think... I know this one black guy, I let him come to my house.
Yeah. Not me. I have plenty of friends. I just think, I think that the cigar shouldn't be that much money for that cigar.
You think it's overpriced? I think it's overpriced. I think their whole pricing structure is wrong. Okay.
How do you feel about Zeno? I do not like Zeno. I had one Zeno before. Oh.
A Zeno Platinum. Wow. 1% and the Navidoff brand was up by 15%. It did not give figures for Avo.
It's for AVO. But as I understand, the Xeno brand is up because of La Ream, their brand ambassador, spokesman, I don't know what I said. Yeah, there's one guy in a yellow van and he is out there just beating the drum for Xeno. And he showed up to our event to pop in and say hello.
Yes, he showed up at Cigar Vault Oakdale. And he's a hell of a guy. He's a very nice man. Thanks military.
And we are going to carry Xeno here eventually. He didn't just sit on base. Yeah. I like, I like Avo.
I don't like Xeno. He's dead. Yeah. He's no longer with us.
He died a couple of years ago. I had a Xeno in Colorado. Yeah. The yellow one?
No. He had the platinum. Oh, platinum. Sorry.
You're going to like the Xeno Nicaragua. It's good. It's Nicaragua. You know, we didn't get any.
I should have, I should have weaseled a couple off of them. I like those. Yeah. So it's a Puro.
Nicaraguan? I think you're going to like it. Okay. Okay.
We'll try it. And they got a great guy who's working his butt off for him. Nice. Right.
Yeah. Law's amazing. He's a great guy. Yeah.
We're losing boots. He's getting tired. He's getting tired over there. Yeah.
There's a lot of numbers. Okay. A lot of numbers. I don't know.
They do okay, okay. Patina Y. Viso? Is that how you say that?
Patina E. There's a Y. Yeah, like and E. Is that an and symbol in Spanish?
Yeah. Oh, I wasn't aware. Patino and Viso Horny Verdegris? Verdegris?
Shipping next month. Yeah. Already? The owners of Patino Cigars and Viso Horny, well, they were already made.
Oh. When they made the announcement, the production was already finished, I believe. Have worked together on a new cigar that will ship to stores next month. It's called the Patino and Viso Verdegris Robusto that uses an Ecuador and Habano wrapper Over in Ecuadorian Sumatra, Seed Binder, and fillers from Nicaragua, it is made at the Nicaraguan American Cigars Essay, each cigar will have an MSRP of $13, and production is limited to 300 bundles of 10 cigars, which will be distributed by City of Palms.
The project was announced last week while Moe, founder of Patina and Tyler, founder of Viso Horny, were both in Esteli, Nicaragua, while at Noxa, the pair announced how they got to know one another and the time they spent learning about cigars in Nicaragua. On the front of the bundle is a drawing that pays tribute to the pair's Midwest roots. On the left is the Milwaukee Art Museum, a nod to Jeffrey, while on the right has the Chicago Skyline and a nod to Moe. The bundle also has the chemical compound code for turquoise.
In keeping with the vertigrass theme, the cigars have a green-colored ribbon. Very testosterone-esque. I wasn't going to mention. When you give a chemical combination like that.
Just saying. Should have been copyrighted, I guess, but... Just saying. Can't really copyright a...
Yeah. So 3,000 cigars, that's it? 300, yeah, 300 cigars, 300 bundles of 10, yes. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. They should sell very quick. Yeah, it's super limited. Yes.
They should sell quick. Or is there any coming here? Uh, no. Okay.
No one called us. Yeah. No one offered them to us. Yeah.
They don't like us. Yeah. So. I'm just kidding.
They like us, but they never called us. We're going to get another phone call. What? We're going to get another phone call.
No, we're not. All right. It's time for everybody's new favorite game. What's the score?
Oh! Today we have two lovely cigars. Okay. First up, the 601 La Bamba Warhead 2.
Oh my God. Yeah. Where did you go? Aren't we on like 10 or 12?
1975 for the Warhead 2. Reviewed by Brian Burt. Okay. We wanted a Brian one.
We found a Brian one. Okay. Does he not work there anymore? Is that why he had to go so far back?
He stopped reviewing cigars apparently in the early 80s. Okay. All right, the Cigar Reviews, 601 La Bamba, Warhead 2, Country of Origins, Nicaragua, Factory, La Zona Cigar Factory, did not burn down. Oh, it was not, at that point it wasn't AJ's, it was made by La Zona.
Correct, La Zona. 50. Box of 10, $105. Date released, July 29, 2014.
Okay. Number of cigars released, 2,000 boxes of 10 cigars. Number of cigars smoked for review, two. Two.
Oh. Only two. Very limited cigar. This is not going to be as good as the other reviews because there's only two, not three.
Well, maybe in 2014, they only did two cigars. Who knows? All right. First.
Who went first? You went first last week. Boots, first score. What do you have?
Oh, uh, 91. Okay. So first of all, now we're gonna keep score of this, right? If you would like to keep it on your phone.
Okay. And it's closest to the pin, right? You want to be closest to the pin without going over? No, going over is fine, as long as you're close to the pin.
A tie, if we're both close, then it's a wash, it's a zero. okay nobody gets points all right okay stating the rules of the game here no problem and uh how many weeks are we gonna go until we determine a winner let's go to the episode 400 so what happens after we return a winner we don't do no more no we'll keep it going we'll reset but but something will have to happen well maybe i'll get to play and somebody else can pull the stories no wait you're the story guy what do you mean something will have to happen i don't know why can't i play I won't play. I never get the play. I'm always the last one picked.
Something will have to happen for the loser. Shave his head. No. No.
He doesn't have hair anyway. No, Mikey doesn't care about shaving his head. You're right. He doesn't.
Okay, but we'll figure that out. It won't be too bad. It won't be too bad, but something will have. Too bad?
Pink slips. Yeah, we'll see. Okay. Pink slips.
Okay. We're raising for pink. Tattoo. The loser gets a tattoo.
No. I'm not getting a tattoo. Maybe we can both disagree on that one. Okay.
Big babies. So, I'm at 88, just so you know. 88, 91. Yes.
All right, first clue. Parts of the burn line are a little over-eager, spiking ahead of the rest of the slightly uneven burn. The gray and the white ash is a little loose and flaky in the first inch, though nothing falls off until I roll it off in the ashtray. Okay.
I'm staying at 91. So, he says nothing about the flavor. The flavor, he's just talking about the overall construction of the soda. Well, that's what I happened to pull.
I mean, maybe he did say something about the flavor, but I did not choose to enlighten you. Okay, so you like to make things difficult for us. Yeah, certainly. This is Palmer.
The flavor selections of this group of reviewers is ridiculous. Getting notes of Kraft Singles. Right, exactly. One of them I read, they had flavors of leather tack, which I assume they mean horse.
- Saddles and stuff? - Yes. - Who is licking the horse saddle? - Yeah.
- You never licked a horse saddle? - Never in my life have I licked a horse saddle. - You used to be like a horse guy. - I understand that.
There's no reason to lick the saddle. - Yeah, why would you lick the saddle? - You want to make sure it's good? - What do you lick, the underside that's against a horse, or the side on the top where you hit your ass?
- Make sure he's salty. - On top where the butt is. - Yep, no need in that. - No?
Okay. - Nope. - There are flavor profiles they allude to, which no one is actually really. - I'm gonna stick 88.
Continue. - 88, still at 91? - 91, yep. I hate to call the cigar monotone in flavor because it's anything but that, however, the pepper is just so in your face, strong, it's hard to discern much else.
Standard Lozona Originals. Boots? I'm going to 90. You went down one to 90.
And you're at 88 currently? Yeah. Okay, what were you going to? I think I'm going to stick at 88.
You're going to stick at 88. Yeah. There is a slight harshness, almost a bit of a sour note. While not completely unpleasant, does add an interesting overlay on the rest of the flavors.
Well, these guys like licking leather off horses, so I'm going to stay at 90. Well, that might not have been him. I forget who had the leather tack. Stay at 90.
I'm going to come down to 87. Ooh. Boots, what are you at? I'm at 90.
It's 90. All right. The Warhead 2 managed to live up to the theme of the La Bamba line. The Bamba line, being that proverbial pepper bomb that people usually describe strong, in-your-face Nicaraguan blends as, the burn line was not the best, requiring a number of touch-ups throughout the cigar, but none were severe enough that they affected the flavors.
However, the profile of the Warhead 2 was nice, putting forward a flavorful and intense white pepper note, combined with some other delectable notes that complemented the pepper well. While not everybody enjoys really strong and bold cigars, there are plenty of cigar smokers who do. I think that those in the latter group will find that the 601 provides the punch they're looking for with enough finesse and depth to not be boring or one-dimensional. That was the final thought.
90. 90? Yep. Could you speak up, please, it's hard to hear.
90! Thank you very much, Michael. This is a yodel. I mean, that final thought really just confused me even more because it's overbearing and it's powerful.
They always say stuff like this. It burned kind of inconsistently. It was more one-dimensional, but he didn't want to say it was one-dimensional. That's just how he read it.
Just from the clips, the information he gave me. So I'm going to stick with 87. 87. Oh!
Bam! I'm really good at this game. These guys don't, where are the 90s at? This guy's like, oh, it really sucked, it really sucked, but I loved it, buy more.
What are you talking about? He's given us some 90s already. There's been some 90s. Yeah.
There was one. 91s. Well, I mean, realistically, how many 91s should be in existence? He's got a point.
Do they ever reach 100? No. No. Nothing has ever hit 100.
That's horrible. All right, the next cigar is reviewed by Brooks. Okay. 86.
Because it's really hard to find another one by Brian. That's fine. All right, cigar reviewed is the Rojas Street Tacos Cinco de Mayo 2025. Oh, I like this cigar.
Okay. This is a good cigar. S. Connecticut broadly.
50, a box of $20, $125. Lease date is April 2025. 2,500 boxes of 20 cigars were released. They're $1,250 a piece, and there's 20 in a box?
It's not $125. I'm just reading the information, Mike. It's $250. I'm reading the information.
Okay. Number of cigars smoked? Three. Okay.
All right, here we go. First clue. Oh, wait. Score first, sorry.
Boots? I mean, these guys can't. Just to be honest, their scores are kind of messed up for me. So I'm going to go with 86.
I'm going to go with 91. Oh. He's playing the odds, is that. No, that was the number I was going to pick.
Oh. All right, first clue, almonds and powdery cocoa nibs take over the main flavor after a few short puffs, followed by a secondary note of gritty earth, pencil lead, cinnamon, sourdough bread, coffee beans, and sawdust. Boots? I think it's really gross that they've tasted sawdust.
And he's eating a pencil and... Well, when you're a kid and you're in school, some probably have. I couldn't tell you what a pencil tastes like right now. 87.
So he went up one? Yeah, he did. He went up one. I'm gonna come down one to 90.
90. Other than slightly wavy burn lines that don't come close to needing correction, there are no issues when it comes to construction so far. Boots? 88.
He just goes up everyone, he goes up one every time? All the things he's saying are good. I'm gonna stick at 90. 90.
The first and third cigars feature increasing amounts of spice on my tongue and black pepper on the finish, which have a noticeable effect on the overall balance. Boots? A couple more, you guys will be at the same score. I'm going to stay at 90.
So, 88 and 90. Yeah. There seem to be two very different profiles over the three cigars. This is the final thoughts?
Did I give three clues? You gave three. Alright, this is the final thoughts then. Do I need to start over?
No, we're going to do. Featured enjoyable flavors, but also suffered from a combination of aggressive spice and pepper that gets bad enough to affect the overall balance in the final third. Third, the best cigar of the three, my second cigar, also had some of the aforementioned, a big word, aforementioned spice and pepper combination, but it was not nearly as strong or aggressive, which allowed more nuance and sweetness to emerge in the profile. I'm not sure which profile this cigar is supposed to have, but if you are a fan of spicy, pepper, he smokes, then the first two examples will be right up your alley.
I'm sticking at 88. 88, Michael? I'm going to go 89. Oh.
I'm going to go 89. Score on this one was also 87. Oh! We win.
1-1. You were fine. Yeah. Okay, but I was spot on, so I got a full point, and he was off, so he gets a half, right?
Right. Okay, so these guys, I don't know, man, the way they rate cigars is crazy. Yeah. I've smoked this cigar.
This cigar is good. Okay, but like all the things that they said make sense to me. I just don't, okay, but I'm just saying like some of the cigars that they've rated are almost matching the same number as like the La Bamba or the Street Taco, right? And I've smoked many of these cigars that we've talked about, and some of them aren't even in the same ballpark.
I don't think you can compare a cigar to a cigar as far as their score goes. They're grading this on the uniqueness or the whatever of this particular cigar. Just because this got an 87, and the other one got an 87, I don't think you can go... Doesn't mean they're as equally as good.
Correct. Yeah, I agree with that. Merits, that's a word I'm looking for. They're judging these cigars on their own merits.
On however they figure out their score system, which I have no idea what they do. You should have just stuck at 87, bro. I should have. You would have had it.
You would have had a whole point. But I did not get a whopping zero today. No, you did not zero out. Right.
Yeah. All right, this week, Shop of the Week. Michael? Who do you want to pick, buddy?
The Blenden Barrels Shop of the Week, where I will be on Thursday doing a pairing event with some whiskey company. Okay. And Listener of the Week. Do you have a Listener of the Week?
Yes, I do, Michael. Okay. Shia Goldberg from Blenden Barrels. He listens every week.
All right. Nice. And Johnny from Cigar Vault Oakdale, shout out to Johnny, gave us these delicious Marsh cigars. Nice.
Old school tobacco, we were told. That we were going to review on Patreon. Old school tobacco? And we got something to talk about, too, so it should be a very interesting show.
All right, guys, thank you for listening. We'll see you next week. All right, bye. Bye.
Goodbye. Welcome to the Cigar Hustler Podcast, the show brought to you commercial-free. But a massive shout-out to our amazing patrons on the Patreon. Thanks to your unwavering support, we're able to do unfiltered, unbiased opinions.
All things cigars, personalities in the cigar world. Your backing makes it possible for us to keep it real. For our listeners, cheers to you. com and search the Cigar Hustler Podcast.
F*** that one up.
Show Notes
This week on Episode 393, the boys gear up for Blend & Barrel this Thursday and a sizzling private dinner with Skip Martin on July 5th. Mike dives into a wild takedown by Simply Stogies—apparently their aftershow is better than the interview! We cover massive stories: U.S. strikes Iran’s nuclear site, Tesla drops robotaxis in Austin, and Kevin Durant’s shocking trade to Houston. Plus, Nicaragua slams the brakes with new speed limits, Davidoff slows production, and spicy new cigars from Patina and 601 La Bomba. Two reviews. One warhead. All hustle.