Cigar Hustlers Podcast **Bonus Episode: Inside the World of Camacho with Jack Heyer**

Episode Summary

In this bonus episode, the Cigar Hustlers sit down with Jack Heyer, Brand Activation Manager for Camacho (part of Davidoff of Geneva), for a loose, unscripted conversation about what life on the road actually looks like for a cigar brand rep. Jack explains the difference between being "the Camacho guy" and a buttoned-up Davidoff ambassador like Alex Weghorn — Davidoff events get soil pH and caviar pairings, while Camacho gets scorpions, barbecue, and an approachable, "the red one is stronger than the yellow one" color-coded lineup that Jack calls idiot-proof in the best possible way.

The guys swap war stories about the reality of the job: awkward shop visits where you praise an account that hasn't ordered since 2019, reps who set a cigar on the counter and back away because of FDA rules, the endless requests for hats off your head, and why the best cigar lounges are the ball-busting, Facebook-Marketplace-chairs kind of shops in places like Tuscaloosa, Jasper, and Philly. Jack also gets candid about burnout — 40 barbecue events in a year, gout at 30, and learning to pick his spots now that his health insurance is tied to the industry.

Jack traces his path into cigars: writing reviews and co-hosting the podcast at Cigar Dojo, a stint with Alec Bradley, then Drew Estate, and finally Camacho, taking over the role from predecessor George Rami. Along the way he shares his half-written post-apocalyptic FDA-robot novel starring Steve Saka and Hector Alfonso Espinosa, Rocky Patel clone theories, and memories of Juan Cancel's chaotic late-night podcasts.

The closer is the story listeners come for: during a beta-test trip to the new Camacho guest house and the inaugural Camp Camacho, an over-served Jack promised the team a Camacho tattoo — and woke up committed. He negotiated cigars, a first-class ticket, and a real tattoo artist, then chose the scorpion logo as a tramp stamp. He's since added a Baccarat tattoo (a 7 and 2, the worst hand, gotten before he realized Baccarat is a card game, not dice), and he's angling to appoint himself global Baccarat czar.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Meet Jack Heyer, the Camacho Guy
   Jack explains his Brand Activation Manager title, being called the wrong name for years, and why he just goes by "the Camacho guy."
2. 02
   Life as a Brand Rep on the Road
   Awkward shop visits, FDA-era rules about handing out cigars, hat requests, and forgetting whether an account even carries your brand.
3. 03
   Camacho vs. Davidoff Culture
   How a Camacho event with scorpions and barbecue differs from a prim Davidoff pairing led by Alex Weghorn.
4. 04
   Favorite Kinds of Cigar Shops
   Why Jack prefers gruff, ball-busting lounges in Tuscaloosa, Jasper, Mississippi and Philly over Ritz-Carlton settings.
5. 05
   Burnout, Gout, and Toning It Down
   Forty barbecue events in a year, turning 30, and learning to pace yourself when the party is your job.
6. 06
   From Cigar Dojo to Alec Bradley to Drew Estate
   Jack's career path, co-hosting the Cigar Dojo podcast, and his unfinished sci-fi novel about FDA robots hunting the last cigar.
7. 07
   Bad Ideas Workshop
   Self-lighting cigars, "DavaCash" retailer credit cards, and other joke business pitches the hosts happily beta test.
8. 08
   The Camacho Scorpion Tramp Stamp
   The full story of how a night at the Camacho guest house led to a scorpion tattoo, a Baccarat follow-up, and a career.

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

Everybody stand by. Industry is in the house. It's what I've been and who I am, all the ways I've grown. Blood in the sweat, tears are regretting my stone.

P. Yeah, I'm dead. It's my destiny. Make way for the King.

Another Mike and Mike production. In 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 0. Cigar Hustler is the goddamn fucking best! There's more than one.

You want more? There's more. Just hand me en esta línea, Karole. We ran into Pedro over Rocky Mountain Cigar Fest weekend, and he ad-libbed happy birthday, which you never hear.

He was like, happy, goddammit, that's right, birthday. I was like, that's good. Adding a little, like, I thought this song was pretty streamlined. He was Marilyn Monroe in the song.

Nice. That's the version I want now on my birthday. Goddammit. He would record it pretty, we should put him on Cameo, that's a good idea.

That would actually be like some- We're on Cameo. You guys are? Yeah. We actually- Shows how much I'm paying attention.

We've done one. We've done one. We've done one. That's good.

That was like 20 bucks. That was, yeah. That's right. Yeah.

That's incredible. I'm gonna, I'm gonna expense you guys saying mean things to Wasp. Pick up your phone. Hey, why do you have $300 on Cameo on your expense report?

I had some very important Q2Ks I had to send out. I had to- I needed special people to help me. I had to deliver some things. I had to get the message across.

I had to deliver some tough news. Yeah. Hey, it's the guys from Cigar Hustler. You're fired.

Yeah, I was just gonna say that. Hey, we're gonna part ways. It's not you, it's us. Well, not us, it's him.

Thanks so much. Good luck with the health of Timo. Terrific. Just an incredible start.

I couldn't be better. See, and we're off and running just like that. But we should probably introduce our guest. Certainly.

Go ahead and start. My name is Jack Heyer. I'm the Camacho. Did you say it right?

Yeah, I said it right. Okay. He said earlier people say his name wrong, but he doesn't correct them. I don't correct them.

I didn't know if he just let it fly. He was wrong. There was one time. I just kind of let it ride.

I had one coworker. We worked on the same floor. He called me Nick for two years. You son of a bitch.

You got to correct him. Well, I didn't kind of realize it until it was way too deep, and I was like, I can't be the one to tell him. Yeah, you get to a point where it's too late. I was like, he thinks the word great.

I'm probably saving his phone as Nick, I gotta just let this go. And then somebody was like, did you just call Jack Nick? And it was like the end of The Usual Suspects. He was like, oh my god, everything's a lie.

What happened? Dude, I'm Jack Hiram, the Camacho guy. That was a friend's episode. So you're the Camacho what?

I'm the Camacho Brand Activation Manager. Thank you, that's important. Brand Activation Manager. I just say the Camacho guy, because that sounds, it's a lot, it's very corporate-speaky, you know, I'm just the Camacho guy.

That's the Camacho guy. I like Brand Activation Manager. Sure, it's very long. It just kind of is like, come on, like, you would put that on a poster?

We got the Camacho brand activation. Yeah, I called your brand ambassador, and I feel bad. I mean, I'm fine with that too, but that also feels a bit presumptuous for Camacho. Yeah, except Greg told me somebody named George was coming.

George? I'm serious, Greg told me... No, I said Nick was gonna be here. No, Greg told me George this morning.

Nick Hire. No, that's perfect. Greg told me George this morning. Okay, all right, we're gonna...

That's fine. George is my predecessor, he was the emeritus. You totally missed the joke on that. So he was doing the thing, you know earlier I said my name was Nick, that was what he was referencing.

You like to correct me all the time. That's perfect. I said Jack was coming as soon as they said somebody was coming. You guys are like, no, no.

His name is Jack. I know his name is Jack, I know Jack. Jack. I don't know Jack.

What's even kind of funnier is Jack was the guy that you had correspondence with when Drew Estate was doing the whole marketing thing. Yes. Yes. And they contacted us.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. I remember because a lot of people were just like, yes, we'll take whatever. Do you guys really look at people that were like, that's interesting.

Yeah. We'll talk to our people. I was like, damn, these guys are, like, these guys are good. These guys are mysterious.

Like, holy cow. Like, fuck these guys. I just thought it was, I was like, wow. There was one guy that was just like, I was like, hey, can I get your, like, address?

I'd like to send you stuff. And he's like, yeah. What kind of stuff? I was like, what are you, I'm not gonna send you a bomb, I was gonna send you, like, cigars, dude.

I didn't, I did not correspond, I was like, alright, that's, that's fine, man, I'm not gonna, what does that look like? I'm not gonna chase you down. How often are you sending things? Yeah.

Yeah, for your address. Before I let it go, getting back to the whole letting somebody else call you fucking Nick for two years, I went, so I go to the same gym, I've been to the same gym for like seven fucking years. Yeah. And there was this guy, I called him Joe.

Yeah. " I've been in his shoes where you're just like, ah, he seems like such a nice guy, he means well, I didn't stop him the first time, and then it's like time for him. Now we're in, it's too late. I'm not that, I'm not a nice guy, because I looked at him and I said, you motherfucker, you son of a bitch, are you fucking kidding me?

This whole time you let me call you Joe? And your name's Phil? Fucking ridiculous! No, that's me, that's totally me, just like, yeah, whatever.

It's a nickname I go by. Whatever you want to call me, man, because I live in constant fear of calling somebody by the first name, so I actually learned a good tip. there's this guy that we hire for barbecue events and he just calls everybody old boy he's like old boy would you hand me that name old boy so i was like i don't know if i have the same gravitas like i don't know if i can walk around and pull that off and start old boying people he's like i was like do you know my name he's like what are you talking about old boy i know you we've known each other a while you're nick right you're nick yeah nick i know you like a brother old boy so i always am just like hey i have a question for you specifically because i have just It's a terrible, I have a good face memory, terrible name memory. Yeah, I'm saying that.

And I'm in a very name kind of thing. Right, I get people nicknames. So I go into a cigar shop, and I'm like, alright, I got two names for sure, who are the two names that I need, I'll get those two names in lockdown, everybody else is just, oh boy, Randy, maybe, hey, man, perhaps, perhaps Randy. You could probably get away with dude.

Dude, bro, I could bro. You could bro. I accidentally called a guy Champ, like, thanks Champ, and I was like, what am I, the guy from Monopoly? Yeah, was he seven?

He's seven years old? Like a Newsy in the day. Come here, little buddy. I was like, oof, I just Champ'd him.

I hate that. You know, I think it's crazy too when you meet somebody for the first time that you have had multiple levels of correspondence with on social media. Yes, that's tough. I'm like, oh, you're, oh shit, I had no idea.

Yeah, that's what you look like? You look at this little circle on my phone, and I, no, you're a lot taller than I thought. He's taller than on my phone. So weird.

I always think that that's weird. When you know that you know somebody, and you're like, do I have to introduce myself to you, or do we just kind of get to start? Yeah, like, where are we at on this? How you been?

Yeah. Or like, I'm the worst at meeting my buddy's girlfriends. I'm like, I know who you are, and I'm just like, hi. Are we shaking on this one?

We're semi-familiar. Are we side-hugging? Let's do like a little wave. Like a quick little, hey.

Yeah. Hey, champ. Hey, champ. Just go with champ.

Good seeing you there. I'm making direct eye contact with you. I definitely haven't looked at your Instagram before. This is the first time we've met, and this is how I'm meeting you exactly right now.

Nice to meet you. I haven't heard anything about you in great detail this first time that we're meeting. I always struggle with that, too. Yes, he's never introduced you in conversation as, my fucking bitch.

I've never heard about how annoying you are about the dishes. This is the first time I'm meeting or hearing anything about you. I hope you don't look like your mother in 5 years. It's so nice to meet you.

" I'm the worst about just saying shit that is not true at all in like casual conversation. " Every time I come in here, they scream at me for two hours. Not you guys. Yeah, not you guys, but these guys scream at me for an hour every single time.

I walk in, I'm like, oh man, you know, Carlos was telling me you guys are a great account for it, and then I go in the humidor, there's like a box on the floor, I'm like, oh, okay. It's fucking bleeding out, it's got like two cigars on it, one of them sideways. I've done that, we went to, um, I'm kind of a stupid guy, I, in my mind, we went to Byrne, we were in, me and my cohort were going to Smoke, La Homa, and we were at Byrne, and I was like, we do great business here. They're like, we don't carry a single thing you guys make.

I was like, thank you guys for being great partners. Thank you so much. They're like, oh, no, you're stupid. I looked at your account, and you haven't made a purchase since 2019.

You've never bought anything from us. I was like, oh, okay, that's good. That's good. So have you considered taking on Camacho?

How many SKUs? It looks like you're ripe for about 14 of them. I got some cutters in the car. We can put something together.

We can do a custom promo for my shoes, maybe. I only have the one shirt. I can't offer you the shirt, but the shoes I feel good about. I will leave barefoot, no problem.

That's the thing that happens to me constantly, is just like people are like, nice hat you got on there. I'm like, isn't it a nice hat? Thank you. I'm not giving it to you, I just have the one on my head.

Right. My hair looks quite terrible underneath it, sir. I'm glad you like the hat. Didn't you give somebody a hat at a shop off your head?

You know, yes, probably. But you know what, I'm not gonna lie, it's a pretty cool hat. I don't want the hat. I'm never gonna...

I like the hat. Is the hat available in size? So I have a rule. If you make it into my notepad, like if you see me actually put, I say you'll get something by the next Olympics.

That's always my rule. I think that's fair. I will follow up. It will get sent out.

You might have to give me a couple like, and I said, don't feel bad because I will send it to you. And I don't mind if you annoy me because as soon as you make the list. Right. But if you're not on the list, it's not.

It's not. It's a fake thing. It's a fake hat thing. " I'm gonna get that.

I'm gonna send you one. We're making more. There's some coming. You know, in this economy, it's really hard to get textiles or commodities.

It's really tough. I'll blame the FDA for everything. FDA said no more hats, guys. Sorry.

This is the last one. But the other guy said he'd give me a hat. He's not on the FDA. That's why he's not there anymore.

I'm on the FDA committee for actually that. For Camacho. I get the big Camacho FDA calls and they just said this. I said this, I technically, this is a crime right now that I'm wearing this.

It's a federal offense. The FDA told me that this was the last hat. This is like, this was grandfathered. We had, we had to file this hat away right before the deadline.

And this was the last hat. Oh my God, dude, some of that shit was so funny, man. But when it first popped, you had reps coming in and they would put a cigar on the counter and like step away. And I'm like, the fuck are you just about that?

I'm like, there's nobody else here. Like, what are we, what are we doing? Like, are you really? They're always watching.

What is going on here? Oh, it's deadly. And different companies handle it in different ways. You know, some are like deadly serious, like a transaction must occur for any stuff.

And then I always envy like the, you know, the kind of smaller company that's just like you show up, the trunk pops open, and there's just like a t-shirt cannon full of cigar. They're never going to find us. Come on. Don't give a fuck.

You mind if I hook the guys up? There's like 800 cigars. You're like, all right, great. That's perfect.

FDA came around. They're like, oh, there's got to be a lot of money in this industry. Then they're like, wait a second, where the fuck is the money? You know, we really need a judge to fucking slap us in the face and be like, that's a bad idea.

And that's pretty much what fucking happened. You need a lighter? No, you're good? No, I'm bleeding somehow, which is exciting.

I think I got a paper cut. That's, you know, this is the kind of grinder I am. You're not going to get me out of the game. Wasp said, are you hurt or injured?

I said, coach, I'm hurt. I'm not injured. And here you are. And here you are.

And here I am. Bleeding all over our chair. I don't think I'm bleeding that much. But I was just like, oh, this is good that I'm bleeding on the podcast.

Hopefully I don't make a big deal about looking at my hand. You're like, dude, you're fucking lying around. We got to cut that out. He licked his hand 75 times.

He kept sucking his finger. He was a great guy. The show went great. But the Camacho guy had a weird baby thumb thing where he always called somebody champ and then he started sucking on his hands.

Dude, I would just clip that so that I had him repetitively fucking sucking on his finger. Actually, the first Camacho event I did, and I got a little too nervous for it. We sponsored like a, there was like a motocross thing in the Everglades. We sponsored him.

And there was this guy like, hey man, you want a beer? And it was not, I'm not like a man's man. Like if you give me a beer that I can't like twist the top off. Right.

It's going to take me a minute. Like I'll get it sorted. But like, I'm not just saying like I suck. And I was like, thanks.

And he was like, you need me to open that for you? I was like, no, dude, I'm good. " I was just cutting blood sugar. I was trying to cut and light cigars with one hand because I just had one hand that was like, and I was like wrapping like cellophane around my hand.

" And I was like, bleeding on a yingling. " I'm, my, my, my brand activation career is off to a terrific start, can't wait, I was fully activated at that moment, fully activated, these are the Liberty ones, yes, are you not paying attention? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I had a Palmer moment, I feel like we're not on the same age, I had a Palmer moment, well, Liberty, I don't have too many, you know, cool limited-y, like, hey, here's this one from, I haven't been around that long, check out this super rare, yeah, I made the This is a triple Maduro from 1997, the original blend. So I got some, you know, Liberty 21, our last Liberty, I was like, that's a nice, that's a nice, that's as much as I can do in the like, super cool, rare department.

Perfect. I mean, hey, I'm down with that. Whatever, I don't give a fuck. I'm getting a hat before you leave.

Are you talking about what you're talking about? Yeah, that'll work. It smells terrible. It's funny that you talk about your first ever kind of experience, 'cause I just ran into, I don't know the Xeno guy's name, 'cause I call him Scott.

That's not his name? That's not his name. That's exactly Scott Pearce, 'cause he told me that, that Saka thought he was Scott Pearce, so I'm like, alright, Scott, for like 30 minutes. That's gonna be your name moving forward.

So I went, they were giving out like little Topo Chico's. Yes. And I'm like, okay, perfect, I can fucking, 'cause I don't really drink and I'm like, water's perfect. So I go over there and I, and they're like, hey, we don't have a bottle opener.

I'm like, wait a second, we got a hundred thousand dollar fucking van. We got a, we got a cooler. Specifically designed for Topo Chico. I don't have a single fucking Zeno bottle opener in the region.

I mean, like, what? Well, they're so expensive. We used all our bottle opener money on the van. Can we talk about, like, next meeting, maybe?

Yeah, can we get an opener, maybe? Something linked to the fucking cooler? I don't know. That is the perfect amalgamation for the cigar business.

No matter how, and Davidoff, we're pretty organized. Yeah. There's always like that thing, you're like, you got the whole thing here, and you didn't think about the bottle opener, but he's gotten pretty good. Did he pop you for you?

I just took care of it myself. Yeah, of course. You're a man's man. You can open things off.

Yeah, look, my hands are fine. No blood. No, actually, I used the Xikar scissors, like the old school ones, before they got destroyed and turned to complete shit. And they have a bottle opener, so I was like, oh, pfft.

Whatever. Oh. Yeah. But now they're not as good.

Topo Chico has a bottle opener, though. What? I think they still have a little bottle opener. It does.

Listen, guys, I don't want to talk about politics, all right? This is a nice, this is a family show. I don't want to get too contentious. Oh, fucking yeah.

Yeah. But the Topo Chico, the thing is, and I don't want to, you know, I don't want to get too deep on this, but it's just got the right amount of carbonation. I didn't think the water would matter, but it just has the right amount of bubbles. It's like, you know, not too much, not too little.

But the periation, it's just garbage. It's just way too many bubbles. It's very European. I don't need that many bubbles.

You know, I'm a red-blooded American. I like too many bubbles in me. I might start tap dancing or something. I like doing a thing.

I'm like, do you have any? I usually go for Pellegrino. Do you have any? And they're like, no, I got Perrier.

I go, French? Please. Fucking French. Honey, grab your things.

We're leaving. We're out of here. And I go, okay. And then we leave.

Yeah. I always have wondered, the people that are like, can I get a Diet Coke? And they're like, is Diet Pepsi okay? Like, I want to meet those guys that are like, absolutely not.

Oh, my wife's like that. My wife would like to bring Pepsi. I love that. It's like, no, I refuse.

I go, yeah, that's fine. She just looks at me. I'd rather you spit in my face than give me a Diet Pepsi in this. What am I, a fucking savage or are you out of control?

You have to draw the state lines like, no, this is a Pepsi household, all right? I'm not gonna change it for anything else. So how long have you been doing this? So I've been with Davidoff for about a year and a half.

Okay. It's great, man. And there's been no, hey, listen, tone it down, no termination clauses? There have been...

I have kind of realized that my mental and physical health and career success. I was actually talking to Wasp about this earlier. I was like, it's kind of hard because I had built my reputation a little bit before I ever got paid as a cigar guy. This was just a fun thing.

Wait, you get paid? Yes, ish. Before I did this, I was just kind of like a weekend blow-off steam, The show up to Lizona Palooza and drink 300 beers kind of guy. Nice.

Right. " Right, right. " Frank the Tank. And I was like, no, like, I swear, I'm like, pretty normal.

I'm like, yeah, no, come on. But it's like, I'm getting older, I'm not like old. But last year, I turned 30, and we did 40 barbecue events. I immediately got gout.

And I was like, what am I? Like, I used to make fun of people. I was like, what am I, like a medieval king or something? You got the rich man's disease.

Yeah, I was like, this is ridiculous. And I was like, and it's even more humiliating. Like, I don't know, like in Game of Thrones, like, kings get gout because they're eating so much. Right.

way worse when you're in O'Hare and you're like hobbling like you got hit by like like oh man what's wrong did you twist your ankle or something no I did three barbecue this week and drank four IPAs now I can't walk for five days so it's like you know and when your doctor's like you are you don't look good and the last time we told you that you're 30 and uh your liver says 55 so I've toned I've toned it down, I've toned it down, but you know, reasonable, you'd be reasonable, I'm just like, I can only, you can only do so much, you know, and there's some of those guys, I don't know how they do it, some of the guys that are just like, it's like, like Frank Gore, you're like 20 years in, and they still got the same engine, I'm hung over for five, six days now, so I'm like, I pick my spots, that's, that's, I haven't gotten in too much, you know, hot water, and I haven't had too many sit down conversations that are like, hey, you can't, I did get, I used to make my own event graphics and I thought it was hilarious because I would make just terrible event graphics because you know if we send you a graphic and it's like a little like hey we have an event right if I post that 50 times nobody cares nobody's gonna even look at it or see where I am so I was making my own graphics and they're like hey so we're like a giant company with graphic designers you can't just like make horrible graphics we have a team for that you can't like make horrible graphics we have like standards and I was like oh I've never had standards before right this is remarkable weird well i mean did you see justin andrew standards with the fucking uh oh yeah do you have one of those own cutouts that you should put up i would like to but i'm you know i'm a low ego kind of guy right i've been working i've been working on getting on i'm like i don't need a picture of me on the poster but like sometimes people are like who are you again are you like the photo guy or something i'm like well i'm i'm not saying i'm a draw but i'm like i guess i'm the guy for this right they're like oh okay that's what's your name Nick? Was it Nick? So I got to work on that a little bit as a brand ambassador. Brand activation manager.

You got to pump yourself up a little bit. You know, I can't just be like, oh, it's just little old me. But I'm also like, you know, I'm like, I'm not like Rocky Patel. Like nobody's, nobody's like, honey, cancel the plan.

Jack is coming. And he might tell some dick jokes or something. Like we, we got to, you know, so I know my place in the. We're not going on the cruise.

He's going to be there Friday. We have a big thing Friday. So, you know, it's kind of, that's, that's the, when you're like a, you're like a brand ambassador, but you're not the, I'm not the guy. I'm not even the guy.

I'm like, there was like five guys before me. I'm like the guys, I'm like the current guy, you know, that's, are you going to teach us how to retro hill? I, I do do that, which is just terrible, but I have to, that's a Christian thing. I have to be like, do you guys know how to smoke cigars?

And then, you know, you're at certain places where they're like, yeah, dude, like, right. But can you retro? Like, but do you do that? And then some people are like, no, actually I don't.

And I'm like, oh, thank God. That's my thing. Now I have a thing. No, at least I can be like, hey, have you smoked a cigar before?

Right. But Camacho's a little different. You know, like we have a Davidoff guy and he'll talk about the pH of the soil. Who's the Davidoff guy?

His name is Alex Weghorn. That sounds like the Davidoff guy. Yes. He's very prim and proper.

Always in a suit. He knows like the pHs of things. And for me, they're just kind of throwing me out there and they're like, hey man, whatever dude, just fucking, yeah, entertain the people, we have scorpions, dance monkey, there's scorpions out there, do the thing, do the thing with the stuff, we're gonna put a scorpion on the category, it's gonna be great, perfect, yeah, so that's, you know, but it's a different clientele, a Camacho smoker does not really, they're not like, hey, they're like, this is a good cigar, I like this one, this is a good, this is, yeah, that's exactly it, right. We used to say that like a Davidoff pairing is like caviar, and there's a champagne, and you know where the champagne is from, and a Camacho pairing is like, this is what we're drinking, that it's like, I kind of say it's an idiot-proof brand, you know, it's like, hey, I think it's a good thing, it's approachable, you're like, hey, the yellow one, that's not as strong, the red one, that's stronger.

Right, and that's why it's red, and this is yellow, we make it easier for you. Okay. And it's like, all right, that's good, that's it. I mean, yeah, that's a good, like a level up for, you know, a regular cigar consumer.

But it's the best, it's the best for me because then I get to hang out with those kind of guys, you know, like I'm not too, obviously I'm not too prim and proper. So you get to, you know, kind of be with the every person. Now, people are like, whoa, do you get to go into any really cool places? And I'm like, I get to go to a lot of really cool cigar shops.

Not a lot of them are located at like the Ritz-Carlton, you know, we're in like Tuscaloosa a lot. We've been in Tuscaloosa a lot, and Mississippi. You got us some shit ones too though, right? Yes.

It's like, yes, but those are the best kind of guys. My favorite cigar shop is like, if you moved anything off of the wall, you would see the stain on the wall. And it's like, if it has hot water, like if you turn the hot water handle and something happens, it's like, ah, we might not be in the right place. My kind of cigar shop that I would hang out at, if you turn the hot water handle, nothing happens at all.

There's no reason to have it, you know, it's like just the cold water. And the chairs, it's like, we got new chairs a couple years back, it was a big deal at that time. We found them on Facebook Marketplace, slightly used. At that time, it was pretty huge for us that we got those new chairs, and that's kind of my, that's my favorite.

There's no tape on these at all. That's my favorite, like, place to hang out in, and I like to be, you know, my ideal cigar shop to hang out in. people are really mean to me there because then that's the kind of right you want to be like you know yeah it's a ball busting kind of shot yeah and that's why i like you know going like philly or something where it's like hey right a guy comes in it's like this guy what the hell let's kick his ass how's your wife how's the kid i'm like this is perfect this is exactly what it should be this is a sacred thing that we have to defend for as long as we can get away with it for like It's like five more years until like you have to smoke in a cone, like a cone of, you know, with a vacuum on top of it. Cone of death?

Yes. I like that. It's an FDA thing. It's an FDA thing.

This is something that they're working on. I was working on, so when I, before I was a, uh, before I was an employee of any cigar company, I worked for a cigar website called Cigar Dojo, and I never finished it. What? You worked for Eric Gooderms?

Yeah. So that was where, so I lived down the street from them and they had a website. In Denver? Yeah, and I was like, hey, I live like 15 minutes from you guys.

Can I like hang out or something? And they're like, actually, dude, can you like review cigars? I was like, I don't really know a single thing. They're like, we'll give you the cigars for free.

I was like, you'll give me the cigars for free? This is incredible. So I did that for some years, and I just had a day job. And then eventually I was like, might as well.

I'm already here. But I was writing this science fiction short novel in which this is in the future. The FDA created a robot and it's policing everything that could possibly be bad for humans and then it becomes post-apocalyptic because humans are their own worst enemy. Right.

So I actually got like three or four chapters in and then I got a real job. Got another job, right. I had to actually... Do stuff.

But in that, you guys would have loved it. I mean, the premise of it is Hector Alfonso from Espinosa and Steve Saka get together and they hear that there's one cigar left in the world. And they go on a quest to find the last cigar. And they like go to Coop's garage and Coop is like operating like a pirate radio station.

He's still podcasting like 25 hours a week. And like the FDA bots find him. And he's like, you guys, you guys can escape through the... Through the cellar.

Go through the cellar. And then he, I actually wrote this part, but he was like, I got some lead for you guys. It's 93, box worthy. And he's like, and then they take him out.

There was a whole chapter. So I had a theory that Rocky Patel cloned himself in like 05. Right. Because he'd be at everything for years.

And I'm like, there's no way there's one of them. There's got to be like five or six of them. Right. So we'd kind of catch, we'd run into Rocky at like a show or like an event or something.

And we kind of catch him, maybe a little tired, and I'm like, that's one of the clones, that's like, that's like, he was too tired, I could tell that that was, and then there was like a Mad Max Drew Estate thing, where they had like a whole, like kind of posse, and I got pretty far into it, I probably should finish it, if I ever get fired from anything, if I ever have a nice unemployment gap, I think I'll go through with that and get that sorted out. So how long have you been micro dosing? Uh, maybe he didn't really write the book. It's all in the mind.

I really didn't write as much of it as I pretend to. I think there's like a half a page down, but in theory, it's basically done. Nice. And that was, that was my, yeah, that was my cigar industry start was the cigar dojo and just writing funny articles about, you know, what different cigar guys wear this and I hosted their, I co-hosted their podcast for a while.

And then I worked for Alec Bradley as a, as a, I don't know if I would even call myself a sales That was my position, but I was just kind of a cool dude on the west coast rolling around, and then I got a job at Drew Estate, and then I'm here, that's the whole, I met Bradley, he's the greatest, he's fucking cool, he's the coolest dude, he's so chill, he had a mustache for a long time, I went full stash, and then he saw me at a show, and he was like, or the big smoke, and he was like, I'm thinking about going full stash, he would never claim this, I don't think that he would admit that I went full stash, and then he just had a more powerful stash, right, I have no choice but to just take my hat off to a more, you know, I had to bow down to a more powerful stash. He's stash alpha dominant stash. I had to, I had to, I had to, all right. So when we see him, we gotta go, so is that the Jack stash?

Is that the Jack, so Jack inspired that, correct? And he would, he would deny that that was the case, but that's exactly what happened. I was breaking his balls at the Lake Country thing, and like, there was a company, I don't even know the brand, I'm like, oh no, dude, you don't know they were making it out of races. They're like, really?

I'm like, I have no fucking idea. I'm just fucking with you, dude. You're just like saying stuff. Yeah, I'm just randomly fucking, it's like, oh, I'm like, dude.

Didn't they try to sue you a couple years back? Wasn't there a lawsuit or something? I don't remember that. Dad doesn't tell me anything.

I would just play along with it. Oh my God. I think they got a fine and rare. Do you have a fine and rare?

I don't know. No, theirs was rare and fine. Rare and fine. That's good.

Is that good, right? Yeah. 20%, all you lose change at 20%. It's just a little different.

It's a little different. Yeah. Is that a big fucking, whatever the hell shape they're called? I don't even know.

to know. Have you guys gotten sued yet? You have to have been sued yet. Nobody's...

No. I'm shocked at this. So are we. You're doing your damnedest to at least get a quick little...

Here's what I can tell you is that we don't run from the conflict. We kind of run towards it. So if someone's kind of fucking upset or butthurt or whatever the case may be, I'm like, look, you want to have a conversation? Yeah.

Like, let's talk about it. Want to come on the show? It'll be fine. We can talk about it on the show.

We can talk about it on the air. We'd love to have your lawyer behind the paywall. We can Patreon the Right. The deposition.

Yeah, all of a sudden you hear in the background. Don't say that. Okay. Okay.

We're being told- We're being told- You cannot answer that question at this time. Being told that that's gonna have to be clipped out of the Baywall portion of the show, but that's alright. And we got a disclaimer at the end and shit, so. You know, we do a good job.

I think very detailed disclaimer. Can you just disclaim anything? It's just like a verbal, like, I disclaim, please, Davidoff of Geneva, don't be mad at me. I say alleged a lot, too.

Yeah, and we throw- I'm a huge alleged guy. That was all alleged. Allegedly, or if I say something... Allegedly, this is what we heard.

If I say something, then I'm like, oh, that could give us some fucking trouble. And allegedly. That was alleged. Yeah, allegedly.

That was all alleged. That 20-minute story that we just told. It's all hearsay. Maybe it's fake.

It's from Jack's book. That video that we popped up, that was an alleged... That was... Who knows who recorded that?

Completely horse shit, but maybe factual. It could be anything. Yeah. That's my favorite.

I mean, I'm a big gossip. I don't, I don't like talking shit, but I do like sharing information. How do you not talk to Jack Taranio every week then? I do love Jack and the Jack, whatever that was.

We'll cut that out, don't worry. I do love Jack and the Jack, the bing, bing, bing, bing. You can't get a stroke on the show, we don't know what happens. " Dude, you can't tell anybody what I just heard, but this is...

This is what Jag said. What I just heard. I can't repeat this. I won't tell anybody, but this is what is allegedly happened.

Allegedly. Or just like, yeah, man, this is... The issue is, is that I don't really do a lot of research on anything. And most of my facts just come to me from an old guy at a cigar store.

And I just am kind of gullible, so I'll just take them at like face value. Yeah, believe it. Like, the last debate, this guy was like, "They're sending an animatronic Biden up on the stage, and he's not even gonna be there in person," and I was like, oh, I was like texting my fiance, I was like, it's fucking crazy, apparently they're sending, apparently Biden's not even gonna be there, apparently they're doing this on Zoom or something, and I saw him, I was like, oh shit, I guess that's really him, I probably shouldn't take that on Facebook, I'm gonna be the most scammed, like, grandpa of all time, you know, 'cause they're getting more sophisticated, I was really able to sniff out Nigerian princes. Right.

30 years from now, they're going to be able to clone my niece's voice. It's me. I need the credit card information. No problem.

Here you go. What? My social? Yeah, okay.

It's one, two. Cigar hustlers said that they get a 10 and 2 on that deal. Okay. That sounds right.

We'll put that in. Okay. That sounds good. Oh, and they get some cutters and lighters?

All right. Yeah, I remember saying that. Send some hats. They said it was no problem for the FDA stuff and the hats.

All right, that's okay. Send the hats, send the fucking hats. They talked to President Snoop Dogg and he said that everything was totally fine with the whole hat situation. We like to, when somebody comes after us and they say, hey, that wasn't true or whatever, we say, well, look, man, we don't fucking fact check.

Our fact checker is off. He quit, actually. We don't fact check. The Bored Monkey was off that day and he was also putting on the...

The Bored Monkey was gone. Hey, Bored Monkey, could you put on a clip of that water skiing squirrel real quick? You guys should start doing just that kind of stuff. " Oh, that's crazy.

That's amazing. What's really kind of fun is we never have a fucking topic. We just kind of wing it. I think that's the best way to do it.

Oh, my God. It'll sort itself out. It's 100% real. " I've been dying.

His LinkedIn might have had a little bit of a gap, and I gotta see what that was about. I already had gout. I'm trying to tell you this. We haven't got a lot of gout information about Jack.

And it's like, nobody really cares. And then like, they've probably done that same interview 37 years ago. Yeah, sure. It's insane.

Hey, Steve, Sakai, Liga Privada, was that a cigar that you made? Yeah. Yeah, no, no, if it's Sakai, he's gonna answer in a fucking humble, curmudgeon-y, fucking angry way. He's like, yeah, you know, I've talked about it a thousand times, and you know what, I didn't really have a lot to do with it, but I was everything in it.

Let me tell you, you know all about it. Yeah, so I was the brand, but I really wasn't. I was just there. yeah so that's that it's a better way to go you know more loose free form and then if you get a lot of structure some of the other guys do that you know you don't have to have like a you know we don't have to talk about our favorite you know cigar bands or anything like that let's just let the some of the shit that i don't ask social media don't ask the band question some of the some of the shit that i see on social media when i see the clips from the other podcasts i'm like are we similar to them because this sucks this is fucking bad this the bit this was the highlight This was the best they had?

They had to go back in and clip that 60 second portion. This is what they wanted. They didn't tell anybody to go fuck themselves on this 60 second portion. We had three go fuck yourselves in the last episode.

Well, my podcast is really interesting because we smoke a cigar and then we say what we think about it. Right. And then the first third of the show, we talk about the first third of the cigar and then the second third. Right.

And then we do the finale and the great finale is we ask people how they like their steaks cooked. It's really controversial. Yeah, really. Really.

We really like to get into the beef stuff. Riveting stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, actually, I sous vide my steak.

Whoa. Whoa. This guy over here. Look at this guy.

Bored Monkey, put the sous vide video up. Bored Monkey, can we get a sous vide spelling real quick? Spell check on sous vide? All right, well.

I want to talk to you guys about an idea I had. Go ahead. Tell me. Was this a microdosing idea or just a random?

A lot of my ideas are pretty bad, but with every bad idea, there was a really great idea at one point, so verbal disclaimer, verbal trademark, if anybody tries to steal this idea, I will come after you, with the full might of whatever lawyer I'm related to, if they'll send an email. " Okay, so... Like, you did what? Let me send you this podcast episode I did.

Oh, okay, you shouldn't have said any of that. So, I'm trying to think of the next, you know, I want to create a self-lighting cigar. And my thought was, like, to put, like, the paper on the end, it's just super flammable. So you just light that up, and then it just...

And then it, boom, lights itself. I think that the technology, it's gonna be like Avatar, where it's like he had the idea for the movie, he just had to wait for the technology to catch up with it. I think that that's my next greatest hit. Some type of battery or something, like if I can...

I don't know, I think that when you, we can't really, we can't really get too much into the logistics because the idea falls apart pretty quickly once you actually try to work. I was trying to think of maybe the box, like you could have, you know those old school, like when you had the actual cigarette lighters? Right. If you could just like, you should just like bar the end of the cigar in the box.

But then if you get into that, it's like, well, couldn't you just have a lighter? Like, didn't you guys give away like 7,000 lighters last year? But I was thinking like the actual cigar itself. I don't know.

Maybe you just like, and it just lights. Oh, hit the end? Well, because you can't use a lighter to light it because then it's not self-lighting. No, no, we just like hit the end on the counter or something.

There's a strike or something on it. Yeah. A striker built into it or something. Oh, a striker built in.

I feel like the flavor of the cigar would be pretty terrible. Like the first third you gotta kind of ignore it. Just the first third, you just let that go. It's an unfinished foot because it is unsmokable for the first 20 minutes or so.

Dude, let's be honest, there's a lot of shit that's in this industry that's un-fucking-smokable, but people will smoke because, woo, you know. That's what, I really, I'm trying to take a lot of the artistry out of cigars and go full gimmick with this beautiful handmade product. So here's what we did, we found the fucking biggest pieces of shit for leaves that we could assemble, because we know that you don't really give a fuck about that anyways. We soaked the end in kerosene, and all you gotta do is just hit it really hard.

You wave it in the air. It could be like a beer opener thing. There you go. A Zeno one.

Oh, wow. Why don't you put that in the pocket? I'll take that for later. We're all going to be in Turks and Caicos one day on a beach, retired, collecting self-light and royalty checks.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. That one lights itself. Hey, now. You got to pay your...

$2. I get $2. I get my $2. $2.

The cigar's $47. R&D costs us $12 million. We're going to make money on this thing. Eventually, we have a pretty good...

It's a long game. It's a 10-year deal, break even around eight. I had another pretty good idea that was a bad idea. Are you sure you want to give all these away?

I'm actually not so sure. We have like seven listeners. We'll put this part behind the paywall. Okay.

But I was thinking, what we should do, I'm going to call it Dava Cash, and we should just give all of our retailers credit cards and just let them run it up with whatever. Right. What are the Swiss great at? Banking.

Boom. All of a sudden. All of a sudden, I don't even need to sell the cigars anymore, baby. We got, we have these, we have absorbed the industry's debt.

They're not, I mean, and if they default on it, guess what? You know, Zeno Davidoff was a retailer at heart, so we just absorb a bunch of cigar stores, baby, boom. I hear this is how CI started. Oh, well, maybe, I don't know, I don't want to get to it.

I got to be honest, I don't think it's that hard. I think you can walk into probably 80% of the retailers and say, hey, you know, we're just gonna take over, and they're like, okay, can I stay? Oh, thank God. Is it right if I just sit here and smoke some cigars then?

Because that's what I've been doing for the past decade anyways. Yeah, that's good. Actually, we shouldn't have given you $80,000 in credit card debt to do this. We probably could have just, we probably could have just asked day one.

Yeah, just walked in. Just walked in with this fucking new staff. All right, perfect. Now that's, that's how we workshop.

That's how we beta test these ideas and get them to the next level. There you go. That's exactly it. That was, that was, uh, another one of the groundbreakers for me.

I think that could work out pretty good. I think it's a good one. Yeah. Another idea I had this one, this one's actually a joke.

This one was actually a joke. Actually a joke. I was like, what if we just stopped paying taxes for like two years? Like, two years, we stop paying taxes, we just see if they catch us, and then if they do, by that point, we're in.

We're great. We're so far ahead of the game. That one, a lot of people didn't think was that. The other two was like, hee hee hee.

That one was like, hey, you should stop, you definitely shouldn't tell this on a recorded medium. You should not let that one go. You're getting audited for the last 17 years. You should probably not tell anybody that idea.

Hey, I was contacted by the IRS today. I don't know, they said something about me not paying for the past two years. I pay my taxes, I think. I don't know.

There's no way of knowing. You have a guy, he says he does it. I have a guy, his name is Nick. He says he's been really hitting the ground hard.

I do that a lot. That's a classic move of mine, where I just am like, future me is way better equipped to handle this situation. Like, future me will love to fold this laundry when I get home from this trip. He's got this.

" I really should have prepared for this situation that I knew about well in advance. " That's good, you just kind of, you know, when it comes to problems, if you ignore it long enough, it'll either go away completely or significantly get worse. Yeah. And I'm a gambler at heart, you know?

Let's see, which, what way is this going? It feels like, I mean, at this point, it feels like 50-50, it could go either way. Yeah. Let's take that gamble.

Yeah. All right. Well, do you want to wrap this up? This feels like a good fucking podcast.

Did we start? I don't even know what happened. Yeah. I think we started.

We recorded it. Oh, is this the way we recorded? Oh, I hope so. Last thing I want to hear is...

This is just the pre-show. Oh, we got to, you know what? Sorry, Jack. You got to ask the serious questions.

We got to start all over again. Yeah, do you remember everything you said? Yeah. Do you remember the next one?

Half of it was good. I've actually had to do that once or twice, and the nice thing is when I go back, I'm like, you know what, I really, I think we can kind of find, we can really fill in the details. I had the outline, but you guys would just have to like laugh the same amount. That would be the hardest part.

We had to do that with John Kearney right before we got the new gear. We called and did an interview with him over the phone when he left LFD, and then nothing recorded. Not a damn thing recorded. Not a damn thing.

No sound, no video, nothing. Hey, we gotta do it again. Yeah, we gotta call you tomorrow. So we don't even have a backup to the backup at this point.

But listen, if you started the entire thing over again and you acted like this is the first time here, Palmer would laugh at everything. He doesn't remember anything. Yeah, I don't remember anyway, so. He's got no idea.

You're like the guy from Memento. Right. You just have different tasks throughout the day tattooed on your body. What the fuck is that?

I have a podcast. What's the black magic? Am I a wizard? You know what's really kind of funny, though, is like when we fucking on our Patreon, when shit went sideways, I picked up the phone with him and I'm like, did we say anything really bad?

And I'm like, you're asking the wrong guy. No, I don't think so. All of a sudden, I'm fine. So Jack Tarano's on Patreon.

I'm like, hey, did we say anything bad? He's like, uh. Yeah, dude. At 22 minutes, at 48 minutes.

When you said this, I'm like, oh, yeah, we did say all that shit. Like, oh, man, I guess it's pretty fucking funny, though. I had one of those, Juan Cancel used to do in his office like a 1am podcast, and there was a day where he was like, oh man, the podcast last night was unreal. And I just had zero memory of like microphones existing in there.

And I was like, dude, there was a, he's like, oh, you weren't on it. I was like, oh, thank God. Oh my God. I was like, dude, you can't be doing 1am podcasts.

You had to go hard in the paint back in the day if you keep referencing Juan Cancel. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I never call him when I'm in the region that he's in. I'm like, oh, yeah.

I got to maintain. Actually, Juan, I'm three years sober. You are? I thought I saw you.

No, no, no, no. Left the stuff behind. Drops like 80 pounds, fucking lean mass, just fucking jacked the shit. Juan's a legend, dude.

He is. I met him like 100 fucking years ago on one of these Drew Estate things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

So when I became a co-host of the Cigar Dojo podcast, Juan would do these port authority, like, he'd have these big port authority, like, charity events, and he was such a good guy, and he would have literally tons of guys from the industry. Everybody would go up, and they would do this event. " We're like, what's your, like, Wi-Fi? Like, can we get a speed test?

He's like, oh, it's perfect. We're like, are you gonna be using a phone? No, I'll do a, I'll have like a headphone plugged in. Oh, geez.

Okay. It's like, so, but you're sure that, no, the Wi-Fi is great. So, to the point where we made the poster, you know, and it had all the guys' faces on it. And we call Juan, you know, he doesn't pick up until five minutes before.

So then I just had to pretend to be all of the people on the show, so we just did like a thing where I would just come out and come back in and just pretend to be like Jonathan Drew and at that era, that was like the two hat, JD, do you remember when he would wear the beanie with the hat on top? So I, you know, it was a good shtick, I had like six hats on and then I would just kind of try to run the list and that was, they were like, hey man, we need you as like a, in case Juan can't sell schedules guests, like a backseat. Could you just be here and be like our relief pitcher in case? And then I never left.

That's how I'm still telling dick jokes to this day. That was my legacy. I get it. And then Camacho said, we need this guy.

We need this guy. Well, I could tell the whole Camacho story, but that might be, you know, that's like a whole 10 minutes on how I got this specific job. I'll give you 10 minutes. Go ahead.

And we'll end on that. He didn't want to tell it. I know. That's exactly what I wanted to tell him.

It's like, oh, good, they're wrapping up. I would tell the story, but it's really, really good. It was funny because I told Wasp, I told Wasp, I was like, I always have to tell this story on a podcast. Oh, do you?

Well, then don't fucking say it. It's such a good story, though. The listeners, in case they hadn't heard it. So I was at, Camacho opened up their guest house and they had had, they hadn't had anybody down there.

They had a brand new factory, brand new guest house. They said, "Hey, we want you Cigar Dojo guys to come down and do like a beta test of the, and kind of like, you know, tell us what works, What doesn't work, we're gonna take you guys all around. So the first night, I was over-served by Nick, the bartender down there was a little, yeah, no, it was me, it was myself, and I, uh, I woke up the next day and I was like, oof, like, uh, that's a little hazy, I don't really remember all the blocking and tackling that went, and they're like, dude, you made a lot of promises that there is no way you're gonna be able to keep last night, and I was like, like, what? They're like, you promised us a Camacho tattoo.

I was like, I'll do it, like, you'll do it? Like, alright, so if we get, I was like, I have a couple stipulations, you know, I had a whole list of things, I was like, I need a, you know, a lot of cigars, I would like a first class plane ticket back, I was like, I would like if I ever show my tattoo at a Davidoff board meeting, I would like to be granted entry, and I was like, and then you guys just pay for the tattoo, and it's gotta be a real tattoo artist, I'm not just making any old, you know, Tom, Dick, or Harry down in, you know, I want Don Lee's, I want Don Lee's best. You know, I really want the Ink Master down here. I want the guy that's $5 an hour.

Yeah, I really want the nice... 50 an hour. " Like, "Okay, we think we found the guy. " The needles?

I'm like, ah, man. I actually hadn't thought about the needles. It'll be fine. It'll be totally fine.

So we're doing like a live podcast because we're giving away a trip to Camp Camacho, the inaugural Camp Camacho. So we do a podcast down there and we're wrapping it up and, you know, I kind of forget that it's happening. So that's what I always like to specify. People are like, oh my God, were you hammered when you got your Camacho tattoo?

No. I was sober when I made the decision. When I came up with the idea, obviously I was not in my right state of mind. sure right but this guy walks in and he looks like a shrinky dink t-paint like he literally was wearing a top hat nice and he had dreads but he was like 4 11 and he kind of walks up to us he goes in perfect english not even an accent i don't speak any english we're like it was like a family guy but he was like no i'm serious guys like i only don't speak any english like ah and then that was it that was all he had and he put he printed out the camacho logo and he had like You know, Goldilocks and Three Bears, he had like, one that was like, it was like offensively small, I'm like, all right, if I'm gonna do it, and then he had one that was like, like, it would have been my entire back, I was like, all right, I can't do that, so I picked what I thought was like a reasonable sized, you know, but it wasn't, it's a lot bigger on the, as it turns out, when you transfer it from like a, like a piece of paper to your body, and then he was like, all right, where do you want the tattoo?

And he was like, what, here, here, here, I was like, I know, like a normal option, but the, the funniest option would be the tattoo. I knew, I was just gonna say that. So I have a Camacho tramp stamp to this day. Now it was pretty funny back, I say it's like a bell curve.

Like when I got it, it was really funny. Right. And it like has slowly become less funny. And I'm like, I think it's gonna like bottom out in like seven years when I'm like, like I have to wear like nice clothes to work.

Right. And then it'll come back when I'm like a little old grandpa with like a scorpion tramp stamp. When it's kind of faded. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like used whore. The best part was I was like, it's kind of getting there already. The skin was a little bit more taut and people are like, oh, you were young. I was like, well, I was 27.

I think I was like 25 or six. I was like, yeah, it wasn't that. People are like, ah, you know, we've all been 19. I was like, well, it was 18 months ago.

But I was like, I was like, look, I live in Colorado. There's no, like, I take my shirt off like three times a year. I was like, I don't work for a cigar company. So I just would go to like, you know, Rocky Mountain Cigar Fest.

It'll be a big, funny joke. C. Newman was like trying to pitch like ad space, like on my human body, they're like, we're looking for like a diamond crown. And I was like, I don't know if I can get into this, like, sorta.

But then, you know, I, George Rami, who was my predecessor as the Camacho brand ambassador. That's who Greg said was coming. Yeah, so he got a he got a promotion to like an in-office gig and the Camacho brand ambassador position opened or brand activation manager, I'm sorry. Yes.

And I was like, you guys, I really need this job. I was like, I don't even know if I can negotiate salary, at least now it seems like, oh, well, he's the guy, so he has the stupid tattoo, but he's the guy, so it's not that crazy. I was like, you know, if I'm selling software, this looks a lot more screwed up. So I was like, at least now I'll have the thing.

Sure, now it makes sense. And it's like, you know, in a situation like this, it's funny to tell the story, but it's always horrific when we'll just be in like Jasper, Alabama, there's a great cigar shop there, and the rep will be like, Jack, why don't you tell them about your tattoo? " So, it's a scorpion, that's bad. Oh, that's good.

We can all agree that a scorpion's cool. And there's literally been guys, like there was a guy that worked at the shop who did not make eye contact with me the rest of the night. " So, since then, I actually also added a Baccarat tattoo because... Did you really?

Yeah, I did. What I found was at Davidoff, if you want to take something, if you get a tattoo of the logo... This has just been... It might be a unique to me experience.

If you get a tattoo of the logo... It's like you throw it in the universe if it's a tattoo. Yeah, if you put pen to paper on that bad boy, three to four years later, you're gonna... It might work out.

So, yeah, we were down there on a trip this last year. So at what point did you say, you know what, I really want fucking Baccarat, what the fuck? So here's the thing, Baccarat currently, you know, doesn't have like a, I was like, I'm gonna be global Baccarat czar, perfect, I was like, I'm appointing myself Baccarat czar. And this is how, this is how stupid I am, is because I had never looked at the band, and I don't like card games, I like to gamble in like sports maybe, but I don't like gamble gambles, so like if I go to like a casino with somebody, I bring like 20 bucks, I put like it on black, and then I lose, and I'm like, I'm not like a bad sport about it, I just like, I don't like games I like to bet on like, you know, a football game where I'm like, yeah, I don't know what's gonna, they got a good O-line, I think I know how this is gonna go.

So I had never looked, I thought that Baccarat was a dice game. So I'd been joking about getting a Baccarat tattoo. I was like, ooh, I'm gonna get like, or like a fuzzy dice earring. And people would, nobody would laugh at it.

And I'm like, this is hysterical. Why does nobody think that this is funny? People just don't understand me. So I was down there.

I was like, all right, I'm doing the Baccarat thing. And they're like, all right, pull up a logo of the Baccarat. So I was like, Baccarat dice. And the playing cards kept coming up.

And I'm like, so I was like, can somebody give me a background i looked at i was like oh my god it's a card game no no preparation and then you know we're down in honduras so we had the tattoo artist was legit it was a different one he actually had his whole setup um and i was like all right this guy looks legit but i was like i don't really know how i feel about like face cards like i don't know if i like trust this guy with like a full face right so i was like you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna do seven and two because it's the worst hand you could be dealt right i was like that's so metal of me um so i You get that. And then afterwards, somebody's like, do you know like the rules of Baccarat or anything? Like you got a Baccarat tattoo, it's not even the Baccarat logo. Like what?

And I was like, no, what's the rules of Baccarat? They're like, oh, you're actually trying to get like a nine. So like in the stupid way that you got it, you actually kind of like, you kind of like back ended yourself into a Baccarat tattoo. So that's, that's the next plan.

Next time you guys see me, I'll be global czar of Baccarat activation. Yeah, but you do have the back right tattoo. " Not exactly what I wanted, with this tramp stamp, for this one to be the most feminine one. Not exactly what you want to hear.

You know, so that was the latest development. I just want you to know, you didn't want to talk about that story on the podcast, we're gonna cut the whole fucking thing out. That's great. That's perfect.

This is perfect. This is just for us. You know, the tattoo thing does work though. Bam.

Exactly. See? And actually you're the second... And now, he's the national sales manager.

Perfect. Yeah. Are you guys hiring? I could...

You want to get another tattoo? You got a lot of space. You got a lot of space left? The pay is fucking terrible.

Yeah, sure, go ahead. Yeah, I'm the Pustania activation manager. There you go. Oh yeah, neck tattoo is the fucking way to go.

Exactly. At that point... Maybe cheek. Cheek is a teardrop.

I get a teardrop every trade show. Look, at that point, if you put a tattoo across your neck, you're either A, unhirable, or B, you're a fucking billionaire. Yeah, you're so secure in your employment that you're like, this is just, I don't really care. You know what, I did this, I wanted to see if they'd fire me, I'm still here, apparently I'm fucking essential.

Teflon here, knock knock, they're not getting rid of me, fucking pee right there, dude, fuck. We had, so there, the, uh, there's like a family that still owns Davidoff and one of the, they're, you know, it's the daughters, the son had worked in America for a long time and I'd never met him and he lives in Switzerland now, but he was there. And then our, our VP of sales was like, Hey Jack, I'd like to introduce you to Tom, like the most important guy you're going to meet, you know, as far as all of this. And I was like, very nice to meet you, sir.

And then he was like, Hey Tommy, you ever hear that story? And he's like, yeah, Jack, show him there. " So I think that this is, I think that this is the ceiling for me, but I'm all right with it. This is where you're at.

I think that's, I was like, man, that could have been, that could have gone any other direction, but that exact way. But you know, it'd be funny as fuck though, if you stay with Davidoff forever, and like you kind of got older, and like these tattoos acquired, and then you're like the head fucking guy for Davidoff. With all the tattoos. but you're always in long sleeve because you never know.

Turtle neck. This is not, yeah, fucking all the way up to here. Like, yeah, no, I'm very. Jack, we're ready to put you on the board.

On your forehead. Tell him the tattoo story, Jack. Go ahead. This is Jack.

Jack, show him your tattoos. Just every year. Show him all of them. All of them.

He's like a fucking breakaway fucking. Japanese yakuza at this point. He's got everywhere. That's exactly right.

Like with every year of service, we had another tattoo. Well, Law was like, dude, I'm down to get the Xeno Nicaragua logo. I was like, I have to tell you, I really regret this, man. I know we make jokes about it, but I just have to make jokes about it.

Looking back. I have to make, they're like, have you ever looked into like tattoo removal? I was like, bro, the next day, the same day. And they were like, that's so dark that you're just going to have like a scar, like a scarred outline of the.

I've thought about giving it like a little hot tub back there or something, you know, I'm giving them some nice accommodation. Right. Build on it, build on the list. That's the next step for me, logically.

I like it. All right, well, let's wrap this up. Let's go upstairs and fucking, I guess we should get to work relatively soon. Right, sell cigars or something?

I think we should probably sell some cigars. Well, thank you so much for coming on, dude. This was, I treasured this. This is a fantastic podcast.

This is fantastic. Yeah, you know, now I just, I hope that you compare this podcast to everybody else's podcast. And I was like, this one was okay, but it wasn't fucking like the hostess. No, I actually feel that exact way.

Yeah. There was no actual like preloaded questions. We were just guys being dudes. Yeah.

That's what it was meant to be. Yeah, it's a lot of work. We don't like the work. No.

It's like the authenticity of it. You stay ready. That way you don't have to get ready. Exactly.

You don't have to prepare. Exactly. We've got this podcast. We didn't have a tattoo artist here.

Hey! No, no, come on in. Pepe, come in, Pepe. Pepe, what are you talking about?

Bored Monkey. Bored Monkey. Speak when spoken to, Bored Monkey. All right, let's go.

I want to see the tattoo now, though. Oh, you're weird. I'll show it, too. We need a picture of it to put on the podcast.

I'll show, I'll flash the, I'll flash the, I'll flash some leather. It's real, it's really large, too. Oh, wow, look at that. It's still there.

It's nice that I've developed some clothing around it. Well, at least it doesn't say Camacho. Yeah, it's very ambiguous. It could be anything.

Yeah, who knows? I'm a big scorpion fan. A Cigar Hustlers podcast, its owners and its sponsors take no responsibility for the opinions or statements made by the talk show host or their guest. Statements or show topics are not necessarily the beliefs of Mike and Mike Productions or the podcast providers and opinions between talk show hosts may differ.

It is not our intention to libel, incite, or hurt anyone's feelings. We invite you to write the show's host, Mike Szczepankewicz, with any feedback or suggestions that you have for their shows. These broadcasts are presented and made public as entertainment in the hope that they will be entertaining to the audience.

Show Notes

In this special bonus episode, we sit down with Jack Heyer from Camacho Cigars to dive deep into the bold and unapologetic world of one of the most iconic brands in the industry. Join us as Jack shares insider stories, the latest from Camacho, and what makes their cigars stand out from the rest. Whether you're a seasoned aficionado or just curious about the craft, this episode has something for everyone. Don't miss this exciting conversation full of passion, cigars, and a few surprises along the way!