Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 268 Part 1 Sometimes They Coma Back Again

Episode Summary

Episode 268 Part 1 opens with a loose, four-Michael roundtable as host Michael "The King" Stepankiewicz, producer Mike Palmer, cameraman Phil and guests Skip Martin (RoMa Craft Tobac) and Mike Rosales recap the weekend surrounding Greg's wedding. The first half is pure cigar-family storytelling: the quirky rules at the historic Howey Mansion venue, the single guest bathroom and the off-limits bed, groomsmen etiquette (and the unopened bar of soap), a DJ who took every request, flaming donuts, the after-party at the Mission Inn, a family brunch with "Bopshi," and a highly rated Super Bowl LVII watch party — including a breakdown of Jalen Hurts' performance, the Chiefs' offensive line spending and Mahomes playing through a high ankle sprain.

The back half turns to real industry talk. Skip explains a side project he's "executive producing" with Jeff Moutet, built from odd lots of aged tobacco sitting at the factory — old Mata Norte, the Criollo Nicaraguan wrapper used for Aberration, plus German and Cuban leaf — and his blending philosophy of building a simple grid of wrapper/binder/filler variations and making small batches until one wins. He also talks about turning a Sabertooth concept inside out into a French-themed, charity-tied limited release in the vein of Don Bosco, with proceeds possibly going toward scholarships at the English expat school his daughter Fiorella attends in Nicaragua.

Most substantively, Skip details RoMa Craft's leaf-sourcing problems. The Pelo de Oro wrapper used for Intemperance BA didn't meet his standards after the split with a former partner, so Intemperance BA is shelved and roughly 18,000–20,000 cigars were dumped at cost rather than released. He describes hunting aged, properly fermented leaf, a planned trip to Brazil, and how a Sumatra education from Ernesto Perez-Carrillo's team led to the upcoming Volstead. He also unpacks the industry's quiet substitution of Dominican, Nicaraguan and Ecuadorian "broadleaf" for genuine Connecticut broadleaf — and says rather than swapping leaf silently, RoMa Craft will launch a separate Pennsylvania broadleaf Cro-Magnon line late in the year, with current Cro-Magnon inventory likely exhausted by spring. Plus: tightened quality control and a rising segundo rate under new sorting leadership.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Four Michaels and a Rack Above
   The crew introduces guests Skip Martin and Mike Rosales, jokes about everyone at the table being named Michael, and runs the sponsor read.
2. 02
   Howey Mansion Wedding Stories
   Parking attendants, one bathroom for 80 guests, the bed you can't touch and groomsmen who didn't use the soap.
3. 03
   Reception Review: DJ, Donuts and Speeches
   Honest feedback on the best man's speech, the request-taking DJ, the flaming donuts and the cultural dance sets.
4. 04
   Family Brunch and Super Bowl LVII
   Post-wedding brunch drama with Bopshi, then a breakdown of Jalen Hurts, Mahomes' ankle, the Chiefs' O-line and the halftime backlash.
5. 05
   The Jeff Moutet Collaboration
   Skip describes blending a one-off cigar from odd lots of aged factory tobacco and his grid-based approach to blend development.
6. 06
   Charity Release and Nicaraguan Scholarships
   A Sabertooth-derived, French-themed limited run of roughly 10,000 cigars with a dollar per cigar earmarked for charity or school scholarships.
7. 07
   Pelo de Oro Problems and Intemperance BA
   Why Skip pulled Intemperance BA, scrapped tens of thousands of cigars, and where he's searching for properly aged wrapper.
8. 08
   Volstead, Broadleaf Honesty and a New Cro-Magnon
   Learning Sumatra from Ernesto Perez-Carrillo's team, calling out fake 'Connecticut broadleaf,' and plans for a Pennsylvania broadleaf Cro-Magnon line.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

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Transcript

Let's just waste the content. What's about Kenny? Welcome to the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, episode 268, with your host, Michael the King, Stepankiewicz, and his producer, Mike BDP Palmer. This week, we would like to welcome back to the show international cigar celebrity Mr.

Skip Martin and Mike Rosales. Michael. Michael Rosales. That wasn't Michael.

That's not around there. And me, I'm Phil, your cameraman. My favorite part of Greg's wedding was when Skip nuzzled Boots' neck. Do you know everyone at this table is named Michael?

Oh. Yeah. Oh, that's right. You are too, aren't you?

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com. Also, I didn't get to have mine installed because of the wedding, and yeah, that whole shit, but it should be happening this week, I'm very excited about it. Is it this week? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll reach out to him, make sure that we get it ironed out. I think you guys could use a rack above in the office upstairs. I think that you could use a rack above at your house. I don't have enough shit.

In the garage. I don't use garbage. I don't collect stuff. You don't use garbage?

What are you saying? Are you saying that I have garbage in my house, sir? There's a pretty good chance. Oh, yeah, he saw the garage because he was there yesterday.

You've got six different things, you've got at least two different robot vacuum cleaners right next to each other. Oh, one's a mop, though. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, it's too much.

One is a vacuum and one is a mop. It's too much. I thought you didn't use the vacuum anymore. Or do you not use the mop?

There's one of them you're not using. I don't use the vacuum. Oh, okay. You need to declutter your life.

I do. I'm all about decluttering. Are you? Mm-hmm.

Feng shui. Well, we can clutter your life a little bit. I'll give you some of my shit. No.

That'll be perfect. For Christmas. And you could take my shit and put it in your house. It would be empty.

A rack above was Steve that you met at the wedding, the guy missing a couple of fingers off one hand? Uh huh. That's the rack above guy. He's the rack above guy.

That's his product. Yeah. Well, my uh, so like, I have one closet that has one box that has a Christmas tree that folds up like this. We use the same dead Charlie Brown Christmas tree every year.

I don't see how nice it would be on a four foot shelf though. You could put it up on the floor. There's a massage table in there. That's, I don't like extra, I don't like stuff.

Mike can tell you. Yeah. It's very simplistic. I'll throw it away.

Tell us, Michael. Or give it away. Or give it away. I haven't used this in a couple of weeks, if you want it.

And then I just throw it away. It's a refill for the... It doesn't matter, I'm not going to use it. Let's buy a new one.

Do you have a coffee maker? I have like five coffee makers. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, I feel like that's a little complicated, you know.

It's not complicated at all, they all have a place. They all have a specific meaning? When I got my last coffee thing, the new Fellowes pour-over thing, I had to put the cold brew thing up in the pantry. It's time to - what's it doing in there, man?

Because there was only so many spaces on the counter. What's it doing in there? You're not going to use it. Why is it there?

I use it every now and then. Has it been past three weeks? He's not going to give it to Michael, he's got his own coffee set up at his house. So, no, let's talk about the cold brew.

Let's break this down. Yeah, he's got a small Starbucks. Mike could run a coffee store out of his house. Right.

He's a fucking barista, are you kidding me? Quite the impressive set up. It's all delicious. " Exactly.

Yeah. It's world class. It is. It is.

You want to talk about the cold brew? No, it's pretty dope. Only second door is bourbon. Oh, the cold brew in my house.

Yeah, the nitro. It's really good. Got the NO2 going. It's nice.

It's good shit. Oh, 'cause you got the new thing at Christmas. That's one of those things that sounds good on paper, but like the nitro cold brew, we have, so we have two beer taps at the office, and they switched one of 'em to, 'cause we weren't going through the beer fast enough, they switched one to cold brew. Cold Brewing.

Right. You're not a fan of it? I don't like it as much. I think it's money.

Well, you know, the one that you had, it's got more foam to it. More foamy? Yeah, ours doesn't have that much. Crank it up.

We need to adjust that. Yeah, you just gotta gauge the nitrous, that's all. After Sean sends me his lighter, I'll tell him to adjust the... 3% sugar in milk anyway.

Oh. So it's like, it's gotta be really, really strong. 3? 3.

I mean, 88. You're really specific there on the paper. You've seen him measure the cigars. 3 sugar there.

I was saying, you know, it's like one-seventh. One-seventh. Okay. So we had, I mean, we've had a fun weekend so far.

We're, we're hanging out. There's a lot of bonding going on. Yeah. A lot of shopping.

Unfortunately, unfortunately. A lot of shopping. Arlen's in the studio, uh, and she understands a lot of shopping and Skip of looking at her. Notice how she looked away?

Well, she started with the fuck you eyes and then drifted away. As any loving wife would. Stop talking about that. And unfortunately, Phil didn't make it to the wedding, but Boots was there.

Well, Phil wasn't invited. Yeah, Phil wasn't invited. It's that cutoff, so he didn't have a big tent. I heard he was pretty salty.

He was on the list right after Jeff Moutet, who also did not get him. Jeff Moutet was, yes, also not included, unfortunately. But he was in Cuba. Well, he went to Cuba to his excuse.

Smoking Postanas. Right, with everybody. Yeah. I mean, it was the Cryin' Baby or Keanu.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. So they had the Cryin' Baby won.

We went with the Cryin' Baby. The Cryin' Baby was the... Keanu didn't get invited, which I was a little upset about. Yeah.

We should at least have him park cars. The guy looked just like Keanu. He's going to be so excited that he was mentioned on this podcast. Are you kidding me?

Oh, he's very upset that he didn't get to meet them because they... Yeah. Well, he could have done it today, but he was tired. Right.

So busy. We have a beef with a guy parking cars. I heard, yeah. Yeah.

Right. Okay, so. So, we pull up, he's there. He's the first experience you have at this.

At the Howie Mansion. At the venue. Yes. So, he's leaning against the thing, looking like.

Not giving a fuck. He just got picked up off the highway. So, we kind of say, hey, you know. He goes, park anywhere you want.

So, we pull up right behind Greg's car. Turn off the engine, get all our stuff together. We get out of the car, he waits until right when I was getting out of the car, he goes, oh, but you can't park here. Like, well, you literally said it anywhere at once.

You led with anywhere. And he's like, we can't have two rows here. And I'm like, there's clearly a space here. He's like, well, we can't have two rows here.

So I'm like, okay. Of course, when we came out of the wedding. There were two rows. There were two rows.

I think he just, I think he just didn't like maybe the way somebody looked at him and decided to pull a power move, I don't know. Could be. But yeah. It's a weird mansion.

So this, so do you know the story behind the mansion? Here's what I heard allegedly. So apparently this is the guy who figured out how to pasteurize, pasteurize, what the fuck, orange juice. Okay.

So, it's old and ancient and all this other fucking shit, but like, there are specific rules that are, that go on in that place that were fucking kinda, I'm like, "No, just shut the fuck up. We're gonna, I'm gonna, no, I'm doing whatever I want. " The lady running it was a little bit of a Nazi. A bit of a Gestapo.

Yeah, a little bit. A little intense, you know? There was a couple of 'em. You should have seen the really old curmudgeonial lady that was in the office when I met.

So I got there early to do the dinner rehearsal. Oh, the pictures? Yeah. And I got there pre-morning shit, so I had to take a poop when I rolled through.

And the only bathroom they'd let you use is in the office. " So that was a real office, not just set up like a bedroom. Yeah, no, that's where she worked. I had a beef with the bathrooms, too, because where the venue was downstairs, there's one little one, you know, kind of guest bathroom.

That's the bathroom in the office. For 80 people, right? And I'm like, hey, there's a line of like six people, drunk bridesmaids, little kids holding themselves. I mean, it's like a whole thing.

I'm like, you know, there's got to be another bathroom. No, there's not. In this whole place, there's no other bathroom. I went to the bathroom.

No. Wow. That's something I told you? I'm like, there's not one upstairs?

Because I heard there was one upstairs. No, there's no one. You can't go upstairs. I'm like, that's not what I asked.

Is there a bathroom upstairs? Yeah. Can't go upstairs. Okay.

So I asked the waitress, I said, hey, is there another bathroom? She goes, well, there's a staff bathroom. There's one in the kitchen, yeah. So I go back through the kitchen, and it's literally nicer than the- The one in the front.

Yeah, it was quite spacious. Yeah, it's spacious. Except for the sinks on the outside. Correct.

But you could have a whole thing in there. Yep. You know, you could rest, a nap, whatever. Yeah.

Or get a snack. Bang a bridesmaid, whatever you want. I'm sure things would happen. Yeah, I'm sure that that wasn't going on.

There's like a little seat, a settee thing. I'm like, this is fancy. So then, of course, I go out to all the, I go out to the other bathroom. I'm like, hey.

So pretty soon there's like, there's a steady stream of people into the staff bathroom. Right. So then I heard, I was coming past one of the staff. So, like, somehow they found out about the kitchen mat.

They've discovered the bathroom. I know. Those rat bastards. Yeah, so.

Well, that's fucking weird. It just seems like, it seems like there should be a, like, a number of bathrooms per guest. Like, if you can have a hundred guests, you should have at least two. You know what, what's kind of funny is, I bet that they have, like, there's some type of permitting that has shown, yeah, well, we have all these toilets, but then they don't let you use them.

They don't let you use them, right. And when we were upstairs, I'm glad that we're dissecting all the things that went wrong, but it was, first of all, it was a lovely one. It was lovely. Oh, it was great.

It went awful. It was a fantastic experience. Well, you can break down some of the cool shit, but this is some of the weird shit that we got to experience. So we're upstairs as groomsmen, right?

And... You can't go on the bed. I heard the bed was pretty... All right, I'll just leave then, okay.

I mean, is that where you were headed with the bed? I was going, yes, yes. This is a podcast. I'm trying to tell the story and you just cut me off.

What I'm pointing out here is, It wasn't just a thing you noticed, I heard from like five, six people, there was a thing with the bed. " I'm like, "What if I want to jump on the fucking bed? instigate her. If you hadn't told me, I would've never even thought.

If you hadn't mentioned it, I would've walked right past the bed every time. I would've left the bed alone. Now I'm inclined to fucking... Now I have to see why I can't touch the bed.

i want to go under the bed i want to move the sheets you know but don't mess up the sheets yeah no no no no no so did you none of your damn business wouldn't you like boots boots didn't i saw boots on the bed yeah boots did but phil didn't no phil wasn't it here's here's what's what here's what's with the class i'll tell you about the groomsmen that drives me nuts driving up a wall okay okay i'll tell you the thing that set me off about the groomsmen okay all right So I went to go use the bathroom in the bedroom that I can't touch the bed, and there's piss all over the toilet seat. Ooh. So. Well, you know who that was.

So I'm not going to say exactly who it was, I'm not going to say exactly who it was, but I'm going to tell you this, I fucking know that it's only one of six men that are in the same room that are sharing this bathroom. And then, here's the second thing that make matters worse. So it's like an episode of Knives Out, who pissed on the toilet? So, well, it becomes a Seinfeld episode for me, right?

So, now I'm pissed off that there's piss on the seat, especially because it's only six fucking slapdicks in the other room, number one. Number two, I go to wash my hands, and I unwrap the fucking soap. Ooh, that's not a good sign. So that means, and I know pretty much all of the groomsmen have been in this bathroom at this point, that none of them use the soap to wash their hands.

I'm like, you guys are a bunch of fucking savages. I'm like, what the fuck is wrong? You know, there's gonna be, we're gonna be shaking hands, you guys are all touching this shit. like what the fuck be somewhat clean this is why everybody gets nabs just you know can't i can't you rat bastard me too it was remarkable so go ahead is that why greg's son came around with the hand tennis one of the people that left the bathroom and i fucking caught him in the hallway i said you motherfucker you didn't wash your hands he goes yes i did now you just fucking lied to me this is how we're starting his family is this how he has a stepson yeah axel the dude with the ponytail yeah the ponytail in the sort of maroon suit listen i'm your uncle don't you lie to your uncle i'll murder you oh that's right now you're right that's right uncle mikey uncle mikey so the gridsman wearing the black belt set off a little bit oh i couldn't couldn't i could not see anything else really the the large scott scott so they're wearing all white and he head to toe yeah and i noticed he had a black belt here's what's lame about that right what's lame is the excuses and shit that you hear about it you know i couldn't find one in my size like no i can come i can understand that if you had two months to prepare for this that's what i don't understand then you could have gotten the white belt yeah you know what i mean he was out like a thief in the night too he was gone before dinner yeah i don't think he ate he just also had But he always does that when he's here though.

He sort of drives up, shows up in the middle of the night, hangs around for a while, and then poof, then he's out. But he normally has his kids with him. He really kind of walked, so he was at our wedding, and at our wedding, he fucking, I love the guy to death, he hit us both, let me see the full disclaimer, he caked us. I don't know, every time you talk shit about somebody, it's like, okay, but time out, time out, but I love him like a brother, but fuck that guy.

What it is, it's like, I don't know, like when you're good friends with somebody, you can openly say the things that fucking piss you off about them, right? Whatever the case may be. Yeah, right. You know?

So, yeah, I mean, Boots definitely knows, and Phil definitely knows, 'cause I'm happy to let him know of all the things that he does that drives me fucking nuts. So, at my wedding 12 years ago, he fucking booted both Brittany and I in the face with our cake, and then he vanished afterwards. We didn't see him. so I'm explaining to him I just want you to know I'm expecting my brother and Alex to experience the same thing as far as the cake is concerned and he's like oh I can't do that utter panic starts kind of hitting his face that's why he left there that's probably why he split if I leave before the cake I can't really put the handfuls and walked up and wadded us that's a big ham they cut the cake without even letting anybody know Arnhem was there When they cut the cake?

Yeah. Did Greg and Alex cut the cake? I didn't even see. Estuviste ahí cuando cortaron el cake?

Pastel. There's a picture. She said no. I did see a picture of it happening.

Oh, you gotta try the donuts. Oh, did you see a picture? Yeah. Highlights of the wedding?

Highlights. Flaming donuts. Flaming donuts were amazing. Did you see them on fire?

Yes, I saw them on fire. I didn't see them on fire. I missed the fire. The boys ate four or five helpings of the donuts.

Oh, but they were delicious. With the ice cream? With the ice cream. Yeah, that was money.

Now, the lights, the little lights, foam lights that you get at the end too, the kids fucking love those. They beat the shit out of each other. And then, Mr. Michael over here went ahead and stamped my son with the butt end of it.

He's got a gash on his forehead. I was like, make sure when you go to school tomorrow, you let them know you kick my ass. Matt Hunt selling cigars at the wedding was high class right there. You know, you gotta pay for the gas, it's for getting out there.

It was either that or pasta sauce, it was fun. It's an hour drive, and you know, and everybody was wearing... You want some sauce on those donuts? And the grills, when we're wearing white, you didn't want to push the sauce.

The red or the white, I got both. It's best you didn't push the sauce. The weather was nice. The weather was perfect, it was a little windy, but...

I'd prefer that over a fucking... It was a nice breeze, yeah. And it was short, it was mercifully short, which I always am a fan of. You know, not the long-drawn-out.

It was comical, too. There was a little, there was some nice, you know. There was some comedy relief. Yeah.

The guy that was wearing the referee, too, he did a pretty good job. That was requested. Yeah. Okay.

He was saying something about falafel or something, though. Waffle. They both said waffles, and when I got to the same word, I said waffle. To you, waffly, waffly, merry, waffle.

Yeah, I've never seen people mess that up like that. Yeah. I don't know if this is a requirement of his licensing, but he likes to mention who he's, you know. You're supposed to say that.

He likes the power invested me by... He likes to mention his... Universal Life Church and the state of Florida. It's a real church.

It's a real church out in Colorado. Praise God. It's part of, yeah, it's part of, you have to mention it. Mike, he gets us.

Here's the one thing that you fucked up on. You didn't give them, you made them say too many words at the same time. Like you were trying to rush through that? The second part, I had written pause in the vow section.

Wow section. You know, do you, Greg, pause, take, Alex, pause. No, but the best part is when you had to flip, you had to flip around your notes so they could read it because they couldn't get it quite right. Yeah, they couldn't quite get the wording.

Yes. Okay, right here, it says right here. No, I've learned that from translating. Yeah, you have to do it in short.

Yeah, you got to do like three words. Otherwise, it's just, okay, basically what he said was. Exactly. Do you?

Yes. Do you? You start, you fucking, what was that? Spaceballs.

Do you? Yes. Do you? Yes.

Good. You're married. Kiss her. Kiss her rap.

Alright, let's fuckin' move on. Yeah, so I think the wedding was cool, then the Mission Inn Hotel was kinda nice, we hung out afterwards, but we didn't see you, you were busy for a little bit, you were a little wrapped up, and then you came out. You guys went to bed early. Here's the deal, here's the deal with how I know how to hang out with the tornado that is Roma Craft, okay?

If come by fuckin' 1:30, if you're not downstairs, I'm fuckin' out. m. fuckin' ordeal. , I know that I probably could have gotten away with like a 3 or maybe a 4, but if you're, what time did you go to bed?

So it's Monday, Greg and Dana, and Boots, and his wife, and Chet, I think they left about 2:20, 2:30 or something, I think I went up about an hour after that, so that's still pretty early for you, 3:30? I'm surprised they let them carry on with the boombox as long as they did, yeah, there weren't a whole lot of guests at that hotel. No, I don't think. There was a big Indian wedding going on there.

Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I think. I mean, it was booked. That's why we stayed somewhere else.

I think that it's the way that the acoustics are pitching. So, like, because you guys were in that little cubby hole, it went out to the golf course. It rejected out towards the golf course and not really hitting the hotel rooms. So, I mean, my hotel room wasn't that far over, and I actually stayed on my patio and smoked a little bit and hung out, and I couldn't hear any of that.

I mean, it is North Florida. I'm sure they've seen some wild shit. Yeah, you know what I mean? Listen, if you're not selling math and competing with the hotel, they're really not going to care.

They've seen some wild shit. Yeah, but we were literally like right underneath the actual entrance of the hotel. Yeah. But you couldn't hear it.

It was cool. Couldn't hear it. Yeah, it wasn't bad. So donuts were the best.

That was a highlight for me. Yeah. That it was short, brief, which was a highlight. Yeah, except for the bridesmaid's toast.

What'd you think of my speech? Give me some feedback. It was all right. I thought it ended a little abruptly.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I feel like, I mean, look, had I just read it on a piece of paper, I would be like, yeah, that's touching, whatever, you know, but after the beautiful speech that the maid of honor gave, the heart-touching, hurricanes, dead people, not even her primary language, he gets up there and it just seemed a little short, it seemed a little half-assed, compared to hers. I expected it to be longer. You did? Yeah.

Huh. You got to a point, and I was like, okay, here comes something else, and I was like, and that's it, congratulations. I got the message. Yeah, the gist of everything was well done.

Yeah. Yeah. What'd you think, Michael? I thought that it was good.

Yeah, he didn't like it either. Okay, perfect. You know, I don't know, man, I didn't have a lot to deliver on. I just felt like, hey.

It was like, it was like the lyrics were right, but I wasn't feeling the tune. Yeah, the sincerity of it? Yeah, I wasn't feeling the tune. Well then I delivered exactly how I wanted to deliver, so it was perfect, all right, great, oh, exactly, great.

I would have been a little sad if I was Greg. Yeah, I was hoping for like a tear, something, you know, a little something. An endearing story about when you were young. Yeah.

I don't have any of those. And now you get to pass, you and Brittany get to pass him off to somebody else to take care of him. Oh, that would have been good. Yeah.

No longer our responsibility, we're very sorry, and it's not yours. I feel like I'm losing a son, but getting a crazy sister-in-law. Crazy sister-in-law. Well, let's, I'm actually, I found out about the chickens the night before, because he talked about the coop.

I did want to mention, I forgot to mention, I was going to bring up kayaks too, because they went kayaking, you know what, here's what really fucked me up on my speech, I'll tell you, assholes chiming in, oh the chickens, I'm like, hey, what the fuck, I might have been my drunk wife, and that was, no, I think it was the other side. oh thank you twerking wife 80 king palmer twerking highlight you know so so i kind of you know at that point i had really you know i'm like i'm kind of losing my train of thought now because you guys like i put my pieces together briefly right you know i'm like i know okay i can do this no problem right so here's my advice to you after greg gets a divorce and he's getting married so the next time next wedding just write it down i didn't want to write i know you didn't want to but I know your heart's in the right place. I just think I need to get better at it. I think I need to practice the delivery and stuff like that.

By the third or fourth marriage, you'll have it down. You use the same thing every time. I just think that I can shoot it off the hip if I have some cliff notes really pieced together and practice it. I refuse to do that on this one.

He could have thrown in a few Spanish words, you know, just for cultural outreach. Right. Like, what? That's the other highlight of the wedding for me, honestly, is how we went from, you know, kind of North Florida, Gator Billy, Good Times, to the cultural stuff.

Yeah, that was really cool. Those were my favorite parts. I was a little disappointed that every song that they did had the same song pattern. Like they didn't, they didn't...

Mike wanted to show off a different dance moves. Yeah, it was all the same. He had to do the same dance. That's okay.

But it was good. It was entertaining. You don't get to see that all the time. Harlan had a good time dancing.

Yeah, she was close to twerking. No, she was doing... If they would have had the taxi song on there, if Taxi would have hit, she would have been out there. The taxi would have hit, they just didn't know.

" If they had had a better DJ, they would have known. Yeah. You got to know your audience. That's true.

But, you know, I think that the, no, it's something that you don't see all the time, and I thought it was kind of neat, but you could definitely tell, like, from that point on, like, there were two different types of groups. Yeah, right. But like, the guy with the stilts in that group, if they'd have shown up earlier, it would have been better, I think, because that's when the party kind of really got... Yeah, that was a nice touch.

I liked when the band came in with the guy. Well, the one thing, here's the deal with this DJ. He comes up to me at the beginning. I said, "Hey, listen, if you need any help with anything, as the best man, you try and solve any problems, right?

" He passed out those cards that you basically gave him requests, and he played literally every request. Because good DJs never take requests. " Oh, that was the day, probably, they called when we arrived, right home from the bachelor party. Yeah.

And they never got back to him as to what they wanted to hear. I mean, I swear to God, if he'd have played "Put Your Right Foot In, Put Your Right Foot Out". Hokey pokey? Or the chicken dance.

Like, if he was doing like a bar mitzvah at a roller rink, I would not have been surprised. " Okay, but so, you know... The hokey pokey. I say that because I don't really think that that's so much on the DJ as it is to the lack of kind of communication.

No, it was 100% on the DJ. How would he know what to play? Probably the worst DJ I've ever seen. Well, when you book them, you should go through that stuff.

But that's what I'm saying. They tried to work that out, and then he said that there was no reach. I kind of disagree. I feel like the people planning the wedding have a whole lot of other stuff going on.

It's like, if they had specific requests, you know, I would say... Well, you got to know what you're going to come out to, what the... Right, so they had those things ironed out. The mother...

Yeah. The mother-daughter dance, yeah, and then like the groom's dance, and then like you, you got to have all that stuff, so when you, then once you have all that ironed out, you go into, okay, give me your, give me your mix, like what kind of... I mean, what Alex said, what she really wanted was rock music. I did hear that the night before.

Yeah, so... There you go. I think, I feel like the DJ delivered. No, not even on any level.

I literally could have put any song on my phone and hit "create a station" and it would have been better than, it would have been three times better than what he did, right? Boots? Yeah, Phil agrees. That's Phil.

That's Phil. I think they would have had the Mike and Mike Productions DJ. Phil has not changed the camera angle once. I mean, if you were there, you would know.

Right, right, right. No, Boots was telling me about all the music. Oh, okay. All right.

We have the exact same setup that guy had. The guy had speakers, board, lights, everything would have been the same. I know. Except it would have been Chet behind it instead of that gentleman.

Chet was on strike. He wanted to enjoy the party. He wanted to enjoy the party. I understand.

He looks good too, man. He dresses up nice. Sharp. I heard he was fat.

Who? Chet? Boots. Oh, we're talking about...

Oh, wow. Did you hear Boots was fat? I did hear someone say... My friend Boots.

" It wasn't that Boots was fat. It wasn't that Boots was fat. Oh, okay. It was that the vest only came to a part of his belly, and then the other part of his belly...

He was trying to show off them guns. It just seemed... Okay, yeah. It had appeared, the illusion of...

It had appeared. It was kind of like Rihanna's costume made her look pregnant. I had to pick him up off the ground. Yeah, his groomsman thing made him look pregnant.

You know, what's really remarkable... Like, when Rihanna came out, everybody goes, "Didn't she just have a baby? " Same conversation I heard about Boots. Identical.

Yeah. The problem with Boots, Boots was really trying to tie it down before the wedding, I mean, there was a couple days there, you know, out of a month where he was really tight on the foot, yeah, he was really, I mean, a couple days after that he wasn't, but there were a few days that there were some attempts that he was, you know, he's pretty dedicated, did he show up in one of those wrestling, like the single ed thing, yeah, no, the bags that soak out all the sweat bags, the sweat bags, suicide fringe. I know you're out there! Oh, what's amazing is now it's not just two of us beating our boots, it's all four of us.

Vision Quest, yeah, yeah. Vision Quest. I only remember only The Lonely King from Journey or Steve Perry. That's the only song I remember from that movie.

All right, so... Super Bowl. Yeah, Super Bowl. Super Bowl kind of turned into a little bit of a thing.

Oh, no, we missed brunch. You can't skip over brunch. Oh, brunch, yeah, we did have brunch. Brunch with moms?

Oh, yeah, you didn't attend brunch. Oh man, the outfits were great. Mom showed up. Mom was flexing.

Yeah, my mother always tried to drop the hammer on me. Your mother got a little uppity with the staff at the wedding. Oh, I'm not surprised. She told them she was not being paid attention to enough.

She needs more appetizers and drinks to come by her. Love that. Well, I can tell you when we hit peak, what's her nickname? Bopshi.

Bopshi. When we hit peak Bopshi was when they put electric slide on. Yeah? Oh, she went out there?

They had to play it twice, because she was so in the groove. Oh. She was like, run that back. Exactly.

It was like, this was her moment to shine. And she just did her. " So I don't know if, Bob, she was, maybe she was inebriated, maybe she wasn't, but she was, she had driven back to the hotel in my aunt's handicapped van. She was the driver, and my aunt was in her wheelchair in the back, and something had happened where, Bob, she took quite a turn.

Didn't lock her down? And I had to go and pick her up and get her back in the chair. Your mother kept swatting me on the ass when I walked by her, too. Oh, you're a contestant on The Price is Right, buddy.

Apparently, yes. I'll be your father after all, Michael. Oh, that's great. Well, because Skip's about to take my wife who went in with her friend, perhaps, in mid- Oh yeah, he kept telling your wife to turn around.

She caught me mid-ass slap and gave me a look like, "No, you don't. " This is the first and last ass slap. " Just don't waste them on the same day, space it out. It has its own center of gravity, that ass.

Yeah, so brunch. Yeah, so that was kind of a unique kind of thing, because it was brunch with the family. Yes. And she had gotten there and had the tables all selected out.

Meanwhile, there's like this Valentine brunch that's going on over here that we're setting up for that had all the good food, but then the basic brunch that we had was just like, you know, you want a waffle, a pancake or, you know. It's your Hampton Inn special, but with a cook. That was an upgrade from Hampton Inn. It was a little nicer than that.

Hampton Inn special with a cook. Yeah. So then, but there was this, there was like a little tension when we went to go sit down. Oh, yes.

Yeah. So I was like, we can go in the other room. Like, hey, you know, like Mike's like, Can I just pretend I'm with the Valentine's Party? Well, so, you know, my mom's got this thing where there's this immediate family post-wedding thing, 'cause she did it in mine, too.

And, you know, this is where the groom gets us. It's like sitting with Mickey Mouse, right? So the groom will come down and sit with-- She wants to show him off. Yeah, you know, like, this is her moment, and she has these two tables reserved for immediate family.

" It's a family to me, so if you don't want me to fucking sit at this table, I'll go sit over there. " I'm like, "Oh, great. Thanks. Thanks so much.

" I'm like, "Okay, great. " what i mean either one of you yeah uh it's not going to be an issue don't worry if you don't want to cover theirs i'll cover theirs for fuck's sake you know so but it was um yeah it was it was comical for me it's always it's always interesting any type of interaction with babshi so you know she's been but she's been trying lately i'm gonna give i will give her that there has been more effort on babshi's end when it comes to like child involvement and she was really liking the pictures with the kids yeah so i think you had them all bathed and cleaned up and everything She was really taking a bath to get some quality pictures. Those kids are bathed every fucking day. I know, I'm just kidding.

Every day. But they're still savages. They are savages. Yeah, but, you know, those kids are savages.

The little dress that got all, that got chocolate milk spilled all over, so. Oh yeah, oh, we did have that too, yeah. Yeah, so she had a special dress on. Teddy.

Right? She was in her nightie because she refused to get out of it. That was a cool dress. Yeah, it was cool, right?

Yeah, she's a princess. But then somehow, like I kept, she was sitting next to, It went over, and I could just kind of keep scooching the cup up, right? And I was like, that's going to fall eventually, and sure shit it did, so it went all over. And then it was like, my dress is wet.

Yeah, that happened. That definitely went down. It was good shit. Yeah.

Anything else from the brunch? Well, I can see why this is the number one cigar podcast. We totally are number one, which is insane. Yeah, it just happened.

But for all the people who didn't get invited, Keanu. Mikeiano. It was a cigar hustler's wedding. We basically just summed it up for you.

Yeah. Some drinking, a little smoking. Yeah, a lot of smoking. A lot of smoking.

I got kicked out for smoking. Where? Did you? Yeah, I was on the edge of the door window thing.

Oh, they had to open them up, yeah. And she's like, "You're going to have to move. You're going to want me to move two feet that way? Yes.

" So I stood two feet away, blew the smoke into the room. Not intentionally, but. It just happened. It was the wedding Nazi lady.

Yeah. She was having none of that. She's tough. Smoke Nazis.

Like, didn't you guys used to smuggle slaves through down here in the illegal speakeasy bar? But there was a speakeasy bar in the basement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it used to connect to the house over on the corner.

But they had like underground railroad tunnels or something going through there? Yeah, sometimes. He's like, they explained that one of the tunnels linked to the friend's house or something. And I'm like, so was he fucking his wife or something?

That was the first thing I said. So the gardener could come over. Yeah, like, come on, man, give me a fucking break. He went to go hang out with his boy.

He had all the old pineapple cymbals all the way down. Yeah, so then we did a little Super Bowl action at the house. That was probably, that's maybe the best Super Bowl party I've ever been to. Oh, wow.

Ever. I think so. Thanks, thanks. I've been to a lot of Super Bowl things.

Well, the food decoration and layout spread was pretty dope. That is 100% all Britney. I was going to say that's Britney. Yeah, she went nuts.

I mean, this is kind of formulated quickly, right? " And that was the end of it. I didn't think any more of it. You guys are going to come, or whatever, and we'll watch the game.

" I thought we were gonna get a sushi boat. Next time we'll have a sushi boat. Yeah. I did get my Fritos and yeah, the problem is that skip will be there and I can't do a sushi boat because then I have to do two different spreads at that point, you know, which we'll do if you want, but now I'm throwing away way more food, my favorite part of the whole Super Bowl, because every call or uncall everybody would argue about it.

And I'm like, look, let's just ask Jax. Jax calls every one of them correctly. No, he even called the score. He's the ultimate arbiter.

The touchdown pass to AJ Brown. Yeah, he called that. He's pretty good, man. " I'm like, I don't know.

" Son of a bitch. I'm so stupid, you know? Oh no, the halftime show. This is the most inappropriate halftime show ever!

That's what he was saying. And then he started reenacting it. Yeah, I thought the halftime show was great. I thought the game was fucking fantastic.

It was a good game. I think, I don't like the way it ended, but... It would have ended in the same fashion. I mean, it's football.

Yeah. I just don't like taking the knee. It's like, you're in the championship game, man. game man throw for a touchdown yeah but then that's why i'm not an nfl coach everybody who had money on that game was pissed right like if i could throw the touchdown mckinnon took a knee right at the one weren't the eagles the favorite anyway yeah i think they were yeah they were the plus three three and a half they'd already beat the spread but it was remarkable i thought it was a great game i mean i enjoyed the game my home's the champion for sure i mean playing through it playing through a high ankle sprain for two games you can't take that away from somebody you know And I gotta be honest, I think that, as far as Jalen Hurts go, I'm kind of a fan at this point, some of the fucking throws that I saw that kid do, I'm like, my fucking God.

I'm gonna give you a stat that I read on Facebook, so it has to be true. Yeah, it's totally the truth. Of all the quarterbacks that made their debut at the Super Bowl, which this doesn't even make any sense, they've never won another, they never made another appearance. They can't beat you, because they all at some point made their first appearance.

So if they played the first time ever in the Super Bowl, they've never been back. And they lost, they never came back, is what you're saying. Yeah, I think that's what it's saying. That would make sense.

I mean, first of all, I think that Jalen Hurts is very capable of breaking that trend. Yeah, because I think that on a psychological level, a lot of quarterbacks can be broken with that situation, right? Plus all the other variables of getting there, right? But, that kid's pretty fucking talented, man.

I was, you know... And he doesn't have a lot of help on that team. No. The defense didn't show up for the Super Bowl like they had all year, but...

But I mean, if they just add a few pieces to that team, they're gonna be like... Or... They could be two or three. He was the only running threat.

Hear me out on this. Hear me out on this. He's a free agent, maybe he comes to Tampa. Or Dallas.

Or Dallas. If he doesn't want to play in a Super Bowl, he's definitely gonna shoot it. No, I'm sure they're gonna throw a ton of money at him. Yeah, they have to because, you know, those throws.

I don't know if those fans deserve Jalen Hurts, that's the thing. Well, Eagles fans are tough. Just like Alabama didn't deserve him, I don't think Philadelphia deserves him. Even trading, Dak for Jalen, straight up.

Would you take it? Um, not if you had to pay him a ton of money. Straight up. Same salary, everything.

No, I think they ought to get rid of DAC, get a good, decent quarterback, and put money into a lot of other things. Okay. Well, they were saying that the Chiefs spent $100 million just in their offensive line this year in salary, which is huge. It showed off.

Yeah, I mean, he had time. Zero sacks. Zero sacks. And I tell you what I noticed in that game is the tackling on the Chiefs.

Yeah. I mean, they were wrapping up and tackling. So many times now in the NFL, you see them hitting, but you don't see them tackling. But you don't see him tackling it.

Yeah, and if you hit the wrong portion, then they just bounce off and keep going. I mean, there were a lot of like third and, you know, where they stopped him right before the first down. Yeah, they were using leverage. I mean, the one thing that was really kind of remarkable, too, was Mahomes' run in the center.

He went up straight through the O-line, and he took out like 30 or 40 yards. " Yeah, but it just seemed like Philadelphia wasn't going after him at that point to make that play. They didn't have any pass rush. Yeah, it was crazy.

But for me, it was a good game. It was fantastic. The worst part of the Super Bowl for me was when I opened up Facebook. I hadn't touched my phone the whole game, and I opened up Facebook, and I'm like, oh, fuck.

See, I know that we were all having a good time if you weren't on your fucking phone. It's so toxic, though. I mean, everything on Facebook. Yeah, worst halftime show ever.

I left going, man, that was such a good time. Whenever I get back to the hotel, I take a shower, I'm relaxing, and I'm like, toxic. That's horrible. Yep.

That's, I mean, that's standard approach, you know, sadly. But I had a great time. It was a great, it was a great Super Bowl. No, a good time.

Great little event. Yeah. You know, I needed a weekend too. It's been a tough six months.

Yeah. Me and Arlen needed a week out of Nicaragua. Well, I'm glad that you guys came to, I'm glad that Greg got married and that worked out. Nice.

So now next time you need another week out, you come back and we go. All right. Well, we'll be back for the baby, I guess, in April. The baby?

The grandbaby. The grandbaby. What grandbaby? Tiarella's niece.

Oh. But that's not here? No, but I'll be back in the States. Okay.

All right. I'm sure Jeff will try to wrap it into an event. Probably. It'll parlay.

It'll be a match cigar bar event. " I'm like, no. I'll get to it. I'll get to it.

I'm like, I'll get to it. It's okay. So, I mean, if you want to talk a little industry jive, so you do have a couple things going, right? That's one thing, which is kind of exciting.

Yeah. I'm more just kind of like an executive producer of that. Right. So I get my name on it, but I didn't really put much work in.

But is it happening out of Nico Sueño? Hang on, before we get into that. Are we going to smoke another cigar? Because I'm like...

Well, this is for the Patreon. It's for the Patreon. You can light it up. Light it up right now.

So we're gonna review the Aganorsa Supreme. If not, I'm gonna go over here in this bag and get something. Open it up. The bag?

No, smoke it. Okay. Yeah. All right.

You can tell us how you feel about it, you know? Do you need to take a time out? No. Okay.

Now we can go into it. Okay. Do you have another sponsor for a live read? No.

No, no, no. We just have the one. Why do you think we're number one? Because there's no sponsors.

Okay. So you were saying? Where were we at? So there are a couple things that are going in the pipeline with Roma, right?

Right? This one's not Roma, obviously, but Jeff Moutet... Well, so... We'll give some background.

We were sorting through the tobacco system. Jeff's son... Yes. and Skip's daughter met at Weasel Fest, the first go-around in Austin, Texas, right?

Yes. And then they springboarded into... Glad you're here, Michael. Hey, we're gonna get together, and she moves to Indiana, and now they become a thing.

Right. So, fast forward, but she's pregnant. That thing becomes a baby. Yeah.

And so, then Jeff is saying a lot of... Wait, she is 27 years old, so... No, I mean, there was some time. Honestly, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

I like how you're back-buttling. No, they were, what, two and a half years together? They're in a relationship. Yeah, they've been together two and a half years.

I'm not saying it's like fast, I'm just saying they met at the first Weasel Fest. Right. Which was three years ago, right? Yep.

And then, now they're at this point in their lives. So anyways, so Jess spent a lot of time down at the factory in Nicaragua and going back between SLE and San Juan. " And so, that was three or four months ago? Yeah, I mean, Jess asked me for a while to do a project with him.

And now he lives next to you, so there's no escaping him. I can't put him off now. I think he mentioned it when he was on the show with you that time. Yeah.

No, but there's all these kind of tobacco, you know, so, you know, a hundred pounds is generally how you store tobacco. Right. And there's a bunch of them that aren't a hundred pounds, which gets on my nerves. Okay.

So, like, there's some old Monta Norte, there's some, this, this wrapper we used for Abaddon that we've had for six or seven years, it's a Criollo, Cicaraguan wrapper. " Write that down. I said, listen, wrap, binder, filler, one, filler two, filler three, filler four, change the binder to this, change the binder to this, make 50 of each, or 20 of each, or whatever. Right.

I said, one of those is gonna be it. And they're like, oh no, but we should do this, that, the other. And then, I guess about two months down the road, they're like, you know, actually the best one is one of those first ones. I'm like, I told you.

Okay, so you just came in and said, hey, hand me the ball, I'll put it up, and then you guys can just fucking join the victory. Yeah, so I don't know which one it's going to be yet, because sometimes, especially with really aged tobacco, when you wet it, to work it, it changes a little bit. So you have to let it dry out before you kind of really know how the blend's going to work together, especially if it's mild tobacco. So, anyway, it'll be one of those, and then we have… You dropped the Frenchie.

Surprise. yeah so um I got a call hey this you know we're having a hard time so a lot of this um a lot of this Habano is not dark enough for Aquitaine it's not the right texture for Whiskey Rebellion what do you want us to do and I said uh you know let's I said let's do as so we were doing saber tooth and I said you know what And do a Don Bosco kind of version of Sabertooth where he'd turn it inside out. So, you know, Aquitaine is a region in France, and everybody calls De Oliver a Frenchie. Now, how pussy hurt was Tyler when you fuckin' did that?

Did you see the little tear comment that he made? Because he has that be so horny, right? Oh, no, that's the best. Oh, hang on.

You want to finish this? So anyway that's why we were doing that. We're going to find some charity to go along with it because it'll be kind of a one-time deal, but kind of like Don Bosco. That's cool.

Can we do 5,000 boxes? Let's go. I think we're making 10,000. 10,000 cigars.

Because if we do a dollar cigar, it's $10,000 to some charity. That's cool. I think it may... Mike and Mike Reduction is always...

We're at 501c3. Exactly. Hey, you know what? No.

But that's cool. You know what? Brittany helps run the auction for St. Mary Mag, the whole thing.

And that's awesome. Because you know what? That's the community that you're kind of growing up with. That's something that Fiorella's in.

And they're super appreciative when you do something like that. Well, the thing about the school is it's an English expat school, but they have scholarships for Nicaraguan kids. to go there and it's it's interesting because Fiorella is Nicaraguan and she's a native Spanish speaker who learned English just during COVID but because she doesn't look Nicaraguan like even like in her Spanish class they're like you know Spanish is the second language like the Spanish is not her second language right um but she she ends up translating a lot for the other kids no shit in school so um i think if we could do some scholarships for some kids it would be nice that's cool Anyway, so we have that going. We have, not to skip past the Tyler story, but...

Yes, we can't skip past the Tyler story. No, it's pinned. It's okay. Okay.

We've got, we've got, so we've had challenges without a Padaca. I mean... That's the Intemperance BA. Yeah, nothing we're making is less quality than anything we've ever made.

In fact, I think in a lot of ways we're doing better in a lot of ways than we ever have before. I would agree with that statement. But I had to make a call that, you know, with the exit of our old partner, there were a lot of weird things that happened with tobacco, I'll just leave it at that, and so the Adaparaca we have doesn't meet my standards, you know, I thought, I always thought we had six, seven years of Adaparaca, which we had, but it wasn't the quality, I don't know if it got switched out or what, it just got mismanaged, I don't know, but it's not, the cigars we were making six months ago, So, just the wrapper quality is not there, so we had to make a lot of, like, there were more than half of the cigars we made where I said, I'm just not going to lose out. We're not releasing them.

So, yeah, so we basically threw away 18,000, 20,000 cigars, and we didn't throw them away, I mean, we sold them for like 50 cents to some, you know, or 80 cents or whatever it was we sold them for, but the, so Adaparaca's on the shelf. until we find some more and the problem is it has to be aged properly so we found a couple of different people who had old auto paraca they didn't want it like uh perdomo had some but it's mostly binder so we may yield some wrapper out of that and it's really good aged natural which is hard to find it's not cooked um but luciano is working on something with that with binders so If any wrapper yields out of that, we'll be able to make a small amount of BA. But until we, actually we were planning a trip to go to Brazil, the guy who used to run GK in Esteli is now running Brazil for, not Lancasterly, in a tab. So we're going to make a trip down to Brazil and talk to them, maybe talk to Jesus Fuego's family.

But most people don't like Ataparaca, so it's hard to find the kind of Ataparaca we use. " It's like that ad, the TV dad, you know, like the TV dad ad, where he goes, oh, maybe we should do this, and they ignore it, and the TV dad says this, and it's like, oh, that's great advice. You know, that's a great idea. Yeah.

You know, I was thinking, you know, hear me out on this. No, but Volsa is really good. I'm excited about that. It's a hybrid Sumatra, so it's actually not the original Sumatra, which I'm not a big fan of.

Is that going to be released at PCA? It won't. It'll be before PCA, I think. Yeah.

uh we don't really we don't really tie releases at pca yeah a lot of it will probably get sold at pca right um and then we have um we have a broadleaf problem right so now right now we're using and i've been looking for broadleaf every year i've spent four or five trips in in the The Dominican speaking to Frank Miller and his team to find real Connecticut broadleaf. What's happening in the industry, a lot of people, you know, won't say this, but a lot of people who made Connecticut broadleaf cigars in the past have started switching it to other broadleafs. I fucking hate that shit. Because now there's Dominican broadleaf, there's Nicaraguan broadleaf, there's Ecuador broadleaf, there's...

Just say that you're doing it, though. Why not just say what you're doing? Yeah, we went, we went, some guy was like, "Yeah, I got a box ready to go. " So if I went there and swore up and down it was Connecticut Broadleaf, I'm like, there's no way this is, you know, sure as shit, when you get into it.

As soon as I smelled it, I knew it wasn't, it was Pennsylvania Broadleaf. But it had the elasticity. That's a huge difference. Right?

It had the look and it had the elasticity, but it didn't have the aroma, right? Or the flavor. Right? So you start, when you really kind of get into it, and that's really with any, you know, there's some, a lot of these hybrids that are out there, like if you smoke them one-on-one, they just really lack in, you know, one way or the other, right?

Whether it's the depth of the flavor or the texture, right? Yeah, so, about seven months ago, I found at Grand Island, he was preparing a lot of broadleaf for a different company, for Altidus, I think, and I said, "Hey, just take the thickest, best of it, you know, three, six thousand pounds, whatever you can do, and just keep fermenting it slow and low. " Yeah, you want it done the right way. Yeah, so we're going to come out with a Pennsylvania broadleaf project.

The blend is awesome, so if this wrapper is as good as I think it's going to be, then we'll come out with that closer to the end of the year. But instead of just changing our broadleaf to Pennsylvania, we're going to actually come out with a new Cro-Magnon line. That's cool. Yeah.

So we actually have a lot, we have a decent amount of BA and Cro-Magnon right now in the pipeline. Right. But once that's gone, it's going to be gone for a year or two at least. No, we've exhausted a lot of, like the Averis, like I think the Averis is sold out, I think, um, each other piece is done.

So, I mean, we have it, it's coming in, but it's already accounted for. Right, right, right. And, but there is a decent amount of, there's probably another 150,000 to 200,000 chromagnin. Yeah, I think based on, based on the numbers, I think we'll probably be done with, with chromagnin probably at the end of March, first part of April.

Yeah, and now that we have our own pre-industry, we were taking a lot of the light-colored Connecticut broadleaf, the stuff that was on, wasn't really chromagnin. We put it back into a Pallone, so now it's got like a year more in Pallone, and it's been real low, and we're gonna get a lot of wrapper out of that too, but, I don't know, we, you know, Arlen's sister kind of took over as our sorting, our Rasaga, the, you know, the person who sorts the cigars for packaging, and she's just like super hardcore. Yeah. So our Segundo rate went up a lot.

And instead, you know, instead of saying, hey, no, you know, don't, don't be so picky. Right. I went back to the rapper ladies and said, look, you know, this is the standard. You know, I don't know what it was before.

You know, I have never been that concerned with the way the rapper looks, but I get it. I get, I get why, you know, because especially now it's like, well, Esteban left, so the quality is going to go down or whatever. Right. So I'm like, let's go the other direction.

Right. The quality is going to go up. The Cigar Hustle's 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.

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Show Notes

In a long awaited return Michael Rosales and Skip Martin of Roma Craft Tobac sit down for a long two part chat.... more information that you won't get anywhere else.... if you want the behind the scenes info you have to join the Cigar Hustler Patreon