Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 274 All Saints Cigars

Episode Summary

Episode 274 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast splits into two halves: a loose, news-driven round table with Michael "the King" Steponkiewicz, producer Mike "BDB" Palmer and cameraman Phil, followed by a 30-minute sit-down interview with Mickey Pegg, founder of All Saints Cigars. The front half covers the Patreon smoke of the week — the Viaje Honey and Hand Grenades Corojo Falchion — plus shop and listener shout-outs, a Phil's Facts segment on the CIA's reported exploding-cigar plots against Fidel Castro, and a typically chaotic Florida story about a newly detected mosquito species, Culex lactator.

The industry news block is dominated by the announcement that the 2024 PCA Convention & Trade Show is moving from July to March 22–25 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the first time it's been at that venue since 2018. The hosts break down what a March date means for retailers, for TPE's February slot, and for the TAA, and speculate (as an unconfirmed scoop) that PCA 2025 could land in New Orleans. They also run through the week's TAA exclusive announcements — Joya de Nicaragua Cuatro Cinco, Rocky Patel, Kristoff, Fuente Fuente OpusX-adjacent chatter aside, Quality Importers' Xikar cutter, and the Espinosa Murciélago TAA release — and a 6% price increase from Paul Garmirian Cigars.

The interview with Mickey Pegg is the substance of the episode. Pegg walks through his path from Georgetown Tobacco in Washington, D.C. in 1989, to Davidoff, a short stint with Felipe Gregorio, then national sales manager and VP of sales at CAO, before launching All Saints around 2017 with partners Frank Leo and Martin Cordway. He's candid about the business mechanics most brands won't discuss on air: using brokers instead of a salaried sales force, which territories he still covers himself (New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast and Florida), fulfillment handled out of Naples, roughly 400,000 cigars produced last year with a goal of a million sticks by 2025–26, and an investor group capped around 8% equity so he and Frank never answer to another boss.

On product, Pegg discusses the Mitre (belicoso-style) and Vesper (4.5x44) vitolas rolling out across all four All Saints lines, the double-binder Nicaraguan construction and why one binder comes out for certain shapes, the Solamente 23 small run, and the candela-wrapped Firecracker made with United Cigars that sold out — including how much of a headache sourcing the candela became. He also talks about blending at Tabacalera Tabacos Valle de Jalapa/Tavacusa with Rocky Patel's tobacco library and the team keeping his "bowling bumpers" up, his COVID-era approach of hand-delivering cigars in igloos and running customers' cards through the nearest retailer, and his deliberate decision to avoid chasing limited editions until the core lines are established.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Patreon Smoke: Viaje Honey and Hand Grenades
   The hosts light up the Viaje Honey and Hand Grenades Corojo Falchion, weigh it at 15.5 grams and debate which end of the pointy shape to cut.
2. 02
   Phil's Facts: The CIA's Exploding Cigar Plots
   A rundown of the roughly 600 attempts on Fidel Castro's life, including poisoned cigars, exploding mollusks and the famous exploding cigar at the UN.
3. 03
   PCA 2024 Moves to March in Las Vegas
   The 2024 PCA Convention & Trade Show shifts from July to March 22-25 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and the guys break down what it means for retailers and for TPE.
4. 04
   TAA Releases and Industry News
   Coverage of the 39 TAA exclusives including Joya de Nicaragua Cuatro Cinco, Rocky Patel, Kristoff, the Espinosa Murciélago, plus a 6% price increase from Paul Garmirian.
5. 05
   Mickey Pegg's Industry Origin Story
   From Georgetown Tobacco in 1989 to Davidoff, Felipe Gregorio and VP of Sales at CAO, Pegg traces the road that led to founding All Saints.
6. 06
   Running a Boutique Brand: Brokers, Territories and Fulfillment
   Pegg explains why he uses brokers instead of a sales force, which states he covers personally, how fulfillment runs out of Naples, and how investors are capped at roughly 8%.
7. 07
   New Vitolas, the Firecracker and What's Next
   Discussion of the Mitre and Vesper vitolas across all four All Saints lines, the double-binder construction, Solamente 23, the sold-out candela Firecracker with United Cigars, and a 2024 blend in progress.
8. 08
   Surviving COVID and Building Brand Recognition
   How Pegg delivered cigars out of igloos in his car during 2020 and why customers now ask for 'All Saints' rather than 'a Mickey Pegg cigar.'

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

In air. Mm hmm. Waiting on you. Mm hmm.

Waiting on the man over there. All right. And three, two, one. Three, two, one.

Bra. Welcome to the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, episode 274, with your host, Michael the King, Steponkiewicz, and his producer, Mike BDB, Palmer, and me, I'm Phil, your cameraman. If I remember correctly, the last time that I was someone's type was when I was donating blood in the blood drive. Oh, your poor wife.

One, please. Better overhead garage storage with, oh, with a rack above. Very aggressive. It was.

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407-474-1214. Tell them the Cigar Houses podcast people sent you, for the love of God. So Anne-Marie and John, my angry account, they're in town, and they won a rack above. " As a matter of fact, would you like to touch it?

And they're like, look at this thing, it's fucking awesome, I go, I know, I told you it's awesome. So, John's like, how much am I, how do I get, how do I get this to the New York, I'm like, we can get it to New York, John, we can get it. Yeah, it's just a little shipping issue. Yeah, no problem, we get it there, you're good to go.

Not a problem. You can put all kinds of things on there. So, stay tuned after the show, we're having another special with Mickey Pegg from All Saints Cigars. We have to do it this way, are we going to do it this way?

Yeah. Yeah. Why didn't we do it last week? We did Manbooth.

Oh, that was only last week? Yeah, I know. It seems like so long ago. It was just last week.

How was that one? I haven't heard anything from it. Did anybody comment on it or what? No, not really.

Very quiet, huh? Very quiet. I feel like a lot of people might have been on the old spring break last week. Maybe.

Maybe a little catch up. Yeah. Are you sure we're on 274 for the show? Yes.

What are we doing for our Patreon? I don't know. What are we doing? We are doing, give me this, the Viaje Honey and Hand Grenade Corojo.

Oh, Corojo. Is this a, oh, no, the size, sorry, Corojo is a leaf. I put these, the shape is pointy. That's what it is.

It's pointy. That's actually what I wrote for the description. Before I cut it, I was trying to figure out which end to cut this. So, these, what's really kind of funny is these normally.

Does this work as a condom? Yeah, it's a condom. No, it's a diaphragm. Be reasonable.

You gotta shove it out there and then it catches. It catches, yeah. Oh, so that's why it slides on and off, that's the applicator? Yes.

Yeah, it's a base there. There you go. Ah, nice. So normally these are gone as soon as I put them on the site.

Oh. But they weren't gone. Spring break. It could be.

I don't give a shit. You know, I haven't smoked one in forever, so I'm excited to kind of smoke this. Ah. And we're going to do special pricing for five packs on the Patreon for patrons of the Patreon.

Yes, don't give a shit. Do you need to put the foil on to weigh it? Ah, who gives a shit. We normally weigh with cellophane on.

What's the weight for pointy? 5 grams. I don't have pointy on my thing. Exactly.

I don't know. I think it's like a 6x54. Last week we had a weird shape, too, so there was no actual size. But I'm excited to smoke this one.

It was sitting there, I'm like, man, fuck it, let's go smoke these. What was the weight? 5 grams. What's your question?

Do you cut the end of it to smoke it? Not the smoking side. Is he not listening to the show? We just had a whole discussion over here.

Not the smoking side. You cut the rounded end. The cap. No, this should, you know, I mean, your draw at first should be pretty rough, but you don't need to cut it.

No, cut it? Oh, the light in? No, no, no. It's just, no.

It'd be like with a fuzzy foot. See, you're coming in so aggressive on my guy. Well, he took the mask off. It made me very upset.

I'll put it back on, Jesus. Wait and see what the next one is for April. Oh, God. Oh, you already ordered it?

No, I need to do that today. Did you see it? So you know what it is. I know what we're getting.

I gotta be honest, it's the highlight of the fucking show for me. I don't know why I get so angry with the mask. What makes me so, just the joke that he, that you set him up for, and you know, the fact that he doesn't read it before, I just love all that. No, no, they gotta be face now.

Yeah. The last type I was of was when somebody needed my blood. The last time I was somebody's type. I can't get blood.

You can't get blood? Oh, I guess you're never anybody's type then. Like, 'cause you have AIDS? No, I was in Europe during the mad cow disease era.

And now you're a mad cow? No. They don't know if you have it until you have it. That's what's wrong with it.

So you don't have it? It's a mad cow. As of right this second, I don't because what happens when you have it? You're mad.

You start moving a lot? What happens? Die. Oh, you die?

No, no, no. The guy on that one show had it. Denny Craig. You usually die quickly.

Oh. It makes you crazy, like dementia. Yeah. So I went on a show this week.

Oh, Drake. Yeah. We hijacked the Facebook Live. With the VP of the Miracle, Reinerd, the other three squirrels in your pod, we hijacked.

I like the fact that I have a squad that kind of just rolls, "We're rolling in! " His biggest mistake was, he started liking our comments. He started engaging. Oh boy!

He liked it, like, "Oh! Green light! " Gas on the fire. We had to go get Chet.

Chet, Chet, come on, come on, Chet. Chet, he's responding. He's responding. He's responding, it's a good time.

You know, I'm gonna tell you, that was a good, it was a fun podcast, it was... It was different. Yeah, you know... Very, very limited with the peoples that watch it.

Yeah, and he's obviously educated, you know what I mean? All of them were. Yeah, it was cool. I had a good time, you know?

But I guess it makes a difference too when you're totally open and honest all the time, because I fucking am, right? I felt like they were gelling because of that. I left for the first hour because he started, you know, tell us when you were born, you know, the, oh, he went way, way back. So I was conceived in the back of a Buick station wagon, 1983, in the back of a Corvette.

How would that work? On it, on it, on it, on it, on it. Oh yeah, your dad. My father blasted my mother.

And there I was wrong. You're doing it wrong. And there I was. I was going to be talking about something else.

Man, I'm out of fuel. Damn. Oh, I think this one is too. Wait, incoming.

Oh, look at that. Uh-huh. Phil, Johnny on the spot. Uh-huh.

I'm not using this fuel on my SC DuPont, by the way. Please ignore. Let me go to the other camera. Please ignore the man behind the curtain.

He's not important. He's not, he's not using that. I'm using this lovely Espinosa lighter from Espinosa. I'm using the orange ST DuPont fuel for my ST DuPont, I swear.

So it does not violate the warranty. I swear. I went boating over the weekend. I'm going to tell you right now, if I fucking send this thing in and they say, well, we watched episode 274, you're fucked.

Oh, so you watch us. Oh, so you watch. Yeah, that's why we're looking at it. Well, that's great, because we like to talk about sponsorship.

Oh, I have something. I have news. You have news? I have news.

News-ish. Camera's on you. You know, I did those videos for Adrian's High School or our production company did the videos for Adrian's High School? Yeah, well, you.

Right. The HVAC guy got an award last week and he called the people. He goes, "How did I win? " I don't know who the award was from.

It was from National HVAC Teacher Organization or something, whatever. Okay, so he does the AC guys? Yeah, they have an HVAC class at Adrian's school. They teach air conditioning.

They have two of them. One of the guys won an award. " And that was you? That was our videos.

So what, did you get a hand job out of that, or what? Nothing? No, well, I got a lovely plant. A fucking plant?

I've gotten a meal. A sandwich? A bottle of booze. Square pizza.

Oh, what kind of booze? It was a bottle of rum, I don't remember what it was. No, it wasn't a sandwich, they have a culinary class there, and they cooked me a three-course dinner. Some eggs?

No, it was a three-course dinner. I don't remember what it was. It was some type of meat and two vegetables and some cornbread. Well, I thought we thought everything was like split though.

Where's my third of the sandwich? I did all the work. You didn't get any. And you didn't show up for the three trips I had to take to do the work.

Wow. But now we could parlay into paying gigs at other schools. Oh, very nice. I just want you to know that if I'd have got the sandwich, and you didn't do any of the work, and it came one of the Mike and Mike Productions flag.

It wasn't a sandwich. I would have given you a third of the sandwich. It wasn't a sandwich, and it came to the house. Whatever the case may be, I would have put in Tupperware, I would have brought to you the next time.

You know what? I have leftovers. I'll bring it tomorrow. Yeah.

My wife has been coming. It has been hard in the paint for me as of late. She was going to call in, but she's, you know, obviously doing stuff with John and Marie this week. But I'm going to tell you, let me just recant.

Do you have like a list? I just like to recant everything that I've said in the past. The car when we drove over the cones, that was entirely me. I am very sorry for that.

That was totally me. But you know, she feels that I paint her in a bad light. " Yes, yes, you do. You do.

I do? You do paint her at night. Really? Uh-oh.

I don't think that I do. I'm more scared of her than you, just so you know. You should be. I know, I know.

But I will tell you that, you know, I couldn't tell you the last time I had a protein shake. I couldn't tell you the last time I had to handle my vitamins. I mean, she even-- Oh, she stopped doing work. No, she does all these things still.

Right. She cooks my chicken for my meal prep. This is his recant. I'm just saying.

And his mending. Mike, I had the best fucking wife on the planet. Your wife sucks and your wife sucks in comparison. It's just, I'm just saying what it is.

It's just, it's just factual. Is this the script? No. Is it, is, are you reading it off your phone?

No, no. I just want everybody to know. She's reading it off his phone. I love my wife.

She did. And my wife is amazing. Read all of this. My wife is amazing.

So, she's like, I'm going to come in with John and Anne-Marie. I'm going to stop in. Yes. Oh, you know Anne-Marie was supposed to watch, come in to watch live last time she was here.

She wanted to come in. Heard her foot or something. Yeah, she's had... How's the foot?

Emory, how's the foot? She's got knee issues, but she's feeling a little bit better. Oh, now it's the knee? I thought last time it was the foot.

Now it's the knee? Yeah, I don't know, but you're making me feel like I'm a terrible friend now for not verifying foot and knee, but I'm pretty sure it was just knee. If it's knee, if it was the foot, now it's a knee, it's going up, now it's gonna be all... I'm pretty sure it was just knee.

Oh. Yeah. I thought it was the foot. I thought she had like a boot on.

Did she have a boot? Yeah, she did have a boot on last time. Maybe she did do the, yeah, you're right, it was the foot first. Oh, now it's the knee, and it's going to be the hip, and then, I don't know.

Then you'd be like me. But she wanted to come in today. She'd be like our friend Boots, you got to get those new bionic hips. Phil.

No, Boots has the fake hips, everybody knows. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're Phil. Yeah, Phil has the mad cow disease.

It's a matter of time before he goes "mrrr" and then keels over. Right, just goes crazy over there. It's a poof, poof. I feel like he'd give blood.

No, that's a question they ask. Say no. No, you're fine. Oh, okay, and then I kill someone?

Okay, thanks a lot, fellas. Here we go, Mike at Mike Production, just killing one person at a time. What type of, what's your blood type? You know what, I don't even know.

I've never, you don't even know your fucking blood type? No, I know I'm not the universal one. So you're not that important? I bet Tia knows.

Yeah, Tia would, Tia would know, Tia would know, Tia would know, that motherfucker, he's AB positive. You know, what else did I do? I had a pretty easy weekend, which is kind of nice. Super chill.

" That's because we invite you to something sometimes and then you guys don't show up. That's true. Maybe that's why. What are we going to turn down?

What are they doing? Well, are you coming to the baptism thing thing? No, because we got to go to, I can't say what it is in case they're watching. Oh, see what I mean?

Oh, that's right. The other thing thing. But here you go. There you go.

Still getting you a lovely gift, just like Jack Toronto. What lovely? I'm not getting anything. No, for the children.

Okay. We've already worked it out with your wife. She's approved it. You getting me popcorn?

No, I'm not. Jack Toronto threatened to send popcorn. That doesn't arrive in time. He told me that's what he sent it.

I know. He showed me. Oh. Oh, he told me.

Yeah, he said, check this out. I said, oh, that's nice. This is for the kids. They're going to make a mess of your house.

I'm like, okay, what else is now? If he doesn't send it by fucking April 8th, though. I'm going to tell you right now, I am going to, we're going to call him on the show, here's what we're going to do, we're going to call him on the show. He's at the, he's at the TA this weekend with everybody else.

Because he berated me for my brother's wedding, and I had nothing to do with that shit. And then when he runs into Greg, what does he do? Oh, Greg, I love you so much. Oh, you know, it's okay, I wasn't invited.

I gave him a pass. That was nothing. Nothing. I do have a question, something that's been going on social media.

You got one question. Okay. Okay, why is How About That Cigar, Coop, Bear, and Smokin' Tobacco, they're all just doing each other's shows lately, the last couple of weeks. I saw that.

You see then, this week on How About That Cigar. But they're not calling us. See, that's the other part. Well, at least they're not calling me.

I mean, everybody calls you. Well, Coop's not calling you. No, he's not. He refuses to acknowledge you.

Oh, yes. Why? He's probably rescinded my media. Yeah, ranked number one.

You got, you know. Hey, guys, we got into it the other day about the number one. They did have a back and forth. That's what he's mad because we're number one?

Yeah. Yeah, basically. Well, he's saying that it doesn't check out. Don't be mad, join 'em.

Right, it doesn't check out because the math doesn't work or something. Anyone know how I got the information to make us number one? I'm like, it was not my website. I had nothing to do with making us number one.

Right. I could, if you want. You should just blast it over. Well, that's what it is.

He wanted to hang out when he was, I told you, right? Yeah, yeah. I just couldn't make it work. I was on a Sunday or something.

I had to do a Catholic school thing thing. Right. Thing thing. A lot of thing things.

It must be time for Phil's Facts. Are we at 16 after the show? We're at 16. Oh, I noticed he put the mask back on and he got his thing on.

He was getting ready. Ready for his bed. I'm ready. All right.

Do we have a music for Phil's Facts? Oh, no, but I didn't do that. Something stupid. That's stupid.

Oh yeah, okay, I'll get some. Hey, do you want new music? Sorry, Phil, we'll get you in just a second. Do you want a new intro and stuff for this show?

I mean, we've been having the same music since the day we started. No. Okay, just ask. I like my music.

Okay. Yeah. Did you see the new intro I did for the other show? No.

It's nice, it's good. Okay. That's why I just wanted to know if you wanted us to have a new one too. Go ahead, Phil.

Okay, here we go. Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. 16 after it's time for Phil's Vex! All right.

All right, fellas. This is a long one. Oh, great. You only have until 17, just so you know.

Okay. Giving a different meaning to close but no cigar, the CIA and Cuban exile groups spent 50 years trying to kill Fidel Castro. They tried poison pills hidden in cold cream jars. They placed explosive mollusks painted in vivid colors in one of Castro's favorite diving spots.

The one that captures our attention, of course, was the idea of having a New York City cop give Castro exploding cigars during a visit to the United Nations in September of 1960. The idea, some say, was that when the cigar exploded, Castro would be shamed. Others reliably report the cigar had enough power to take Fidel's head off. Never happened.

Another idea in 1960 was to contaminate a box of Fidel's favorite cigars with poison, but the cigars never reached Castro. By one count, Castro survived more than 600 attempts on his life. That's it. Are you saying that's where they got the close but no cigars?

Yes. Where did you get that? Did someone hand you that or did you look that one up? I looked it up.

Nobody's handed me a name lately. I thought it came from back in the 20s when they had a county fair or something. They used to give cigars away as prizes. And you throw the ball.

Close, but no cigar. That probably makes the most sense. That makes more sense. Not Fidel exploding on a cigar.

I did hear the exploding cigar thing, but none of the multicolored painted mollusk down in the water. 600 attempts. What kind of half-assed fucking operation? That's embarrassing.

Right. We didn't get it done? 600 times? I feel like they didn't want to get it done.

Yeah, it was something. They lined it up so that, you know, did you, like, they asked the person who, the person who's gonna handle the assassination plans, they probably put crayons in front of them, and if they ate the crayons, they're like, yeah, you're our guy. You're the guy, you're the guy. Okay, figure this, you're expendable.

You gotta figure this one out, kill Fidel. They're like, what? Fidel? I gotta kill Fidel?

Fidel? Who's that? Fidel? That fella who's dating my aunt?

It's crazy how far technology has come, huh? I don't get it. They don't use exploding cigars to try to kill people anymore. Oh, now we could just send a tiny little rocket through the window.

Right. Well he's dead now. No, I'm not talking about Fidel. That was 601.

They got him with the last one. Finally got him. Finally got him. Now we have bullets the size of this pen that can go through windows and turn left and then up the stairs and hit him when he's in the toilet.

Like the Guardian. Oh yeah, just whistles, yeah, Guardians of the Galaxy. You know what I started to do this week? Kill Fidel, it's already been done.

No. Oh. I started... Kill his brother.

to watch John Wick's over again. Oh. Oh, all four? Because you're worried for number four.

Yes. I started to watch them with Jax and Brittany. You watched them with your kid? I watched them with Jax.

Wow. Jax is okay. Alright, listen. Can't wait for this.

Just a lot of killing. Yeah, man, what the... And it's not even gratuitous or like really bloody. I break it down.

I'm like, look. I'm like, here's what's really cool about this Benelli. You know, like, this one has a bullet on the side of the shotgun, and he's going to slide it in while he's fucking working through this entire room, just axing everybody. Right.

And I'm like, you see it? You see it? You see it? And then I'm like, you see how it's gone?

He goes, boop. And he's like, okay. So we watched number one, and he almost walked away. I lost him for a minute.

Yeah. When did I lose him? What, at the end of the movie? What are you talking about?

No. Oh, I don't know. He quit during the movie. He quit and walked away.

Jax or Junwick? Jax. Oh. Yeah.

He quit. Okay, at what part? Because it was just a bunch of killing? No.

Was there like a nudie scene or something? No. When the dog died. Oh.

Right at the beginning when the puppy was killed. Right. " And he gets up and walks away. " Like, that's the turning point of the whole movie.

You gotta sit back down. So I had to bring him back, like, listen, this guy- This sets up the next 17 movies. I'm like, this guy is about to go ballistic on everybody because they killed his fucking dog. Right.

You can't, if you walk away now, you're emotionally scarred for the rest of your life. Yeah, but he gets him back. He, he, there is redemption for Daisy was the dog's name, by the way. Oh.

There is redemption. And what movie does he explain the dog? Is that the first one still? Number one, yeah.

Number one. So here, so I don't know how this- I saw that scene the other day on TikTok. So I don't know how it all ties in, but I feel like there's a lot of things that are intertwined in all of these movies that kind of lead up to how this is going to end up. Oh, probably.

Is it over? I did, I don't think so. They just did another one, didn't they? Yeah, they released four, so I'd like to go see number four with at least Brittany and Jax.

I don't know what I'm going to do with the other two kids, but... No, that's what he's saying, number four is supposed to be the end. Is number four the end? That's what they say.

They can only end if they kill him. Well, he's got to get the Mustang back. Right. Oh, and he didn't kill Common, so I feel like Common should come back.

He might have asked for a lot of money. Oh, yeah. He probably didn't go. So, you know, like, you start picking up on all these little nuances throughout the show.

Oh, yeah. Oh, shit. Oh, okay. All right.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm excited. I want to get, I got to get one more out, you know, and then I'd like to try and take them this week to go see number four. I started watching The Night Agent on Friday. The Night Agent?

It's on Netflix. Okay. It was really good. 30.

I watched episode 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. 30. I got to go to bed. And then got up and finished 10 this morning.

But at the end of the episode, I'm like... Who's in it? People you've never even seen before. Nobody important.

No, nobody big. Is it one of those, like, read the word movies? No, no, no. What's the show that Keither Sutherland's in now?

It looks like 24, but it's not. 48. Is it? I've heard good things.

It takes two days. Twice as long. Twice as long, you got more money. Yeah, 20 episodes.

I heard a thing the other day, that he is one of the worst actors that anybody's ever worked with. Keillor Sutherland? Yep. He's a prima donna, and he likes everything done his way, and he doesn't show up on time.

Green M&M's. Green M&M's. Right, goddammit. What about, did you watch that Luther yet?

On Netflix? No. Oh, I did. With the devil?

It was good, right? It was good. It's a show? It's a movie.

It's a movie, but it's a series of movies. I can't find the other movies, though. I don't think they come out yet. I think they're going to release them.

No, they've been out before, I thought. I thought there's been one and two out before. Because, I mean, they set that up to go to the next level. Oh, I don't know.

I've only seen that. I don't watch Netflix that much anymore. Right. Unless it's like Burt Kisher, you know, some type of comedian thing, because they all come on that.

He's got a movie coming out. Yes. Oh, yeah. Did you see the Chris Rock stand up on Netflix?

I've seen parts of it. I haven't seen the whole. I saw the part where he slams, what's his name? That was the best part.

Yeah. Will? That was the best part. You know, I feel like what happens, these guys crush it with the standup, and then they go over and over and over again, and I'm just like, alright, you're not, it's just not, you're not funny anymore.

Yeah, you can't beat the dead horse. The only guy who I have seen consistently show up that makes me fucking laugh over and over again is Chappelle. Well, cause this shit's original. Yeah.

Yeah. He's not taking other people's jokes. He's a fucking genius, you know? Right.

But, yeah, Chris Rock, I'm like, oh, I saw that one coming, you know? But the difference about Chappelle, too, is like... And Kevin Hart, too. I just don't think he's funny anymore.

No, because it's the same stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it's the same thing over and over. Chappelle stuff's real, though.

It's like, what's going on right now. Right. And it's all real. Yeah.

Like, when he did the Kanye stand-up on SNL, I fucking died. I thought it was hilarious. He's like, cancel me. I don't care.

Mm-hmm. My ratings are fucking magnificent. Yeah, somebody's gonna pay me somewhere. Right.

So yeah, just skip to the end for the Chris Rock thing. It's like us here. There was a couple things that were funny, but I'm just not like... They're still the number one show.

The number one coop. On two different services. Boom. And we don't know how they figure it out, we don't care.

We don't, yeah. We don't sweat the details and we don't fact check. That's right. All right.

If you look at the list, it shows us at the top, that's all we know. Well, let's get rolling into some news, buddy. Not a lot of news. Bing bong.

Is everybody at the TAA? Nothing to report. No, no, we have some things. " Those came out on, oh, I didn't even see it, I saw the list.

They like a review as to what they have to do to make a list of all the cigars. Oh, they had a... They just couldn't say they have one. Oh, we're going on the news?

Yeah, we're going on the news. Okay, I'll talk about it later. From the four corners of the world, all the cigar industry news you could possibly need. The Cigar Hustler Podcast Report with Mike Toon.

Hoya de Nicaragua, Cuatro Cinco, Edicione, American return for third TAA release. Okay. Quality Importers adds a TAA exclusive Zykar Cutter. Okay.

60 by Rocky Patel, announced as a TAA exclusive. Okay. Kristoff, TAA exclusive. Still not excited, continue.

Fierro Teigo, timeless TAA, returns for the 2022. All right. Paul Garmancia, Cigars. PG.

Have you heard of that? I haven't even heard of that. Yeah, yeah, he's a big deal. Oh, he's doing a price increase.

How much more can he... I mean, his cigars are... Six percent across the board. His cigars are expensive as fuck to begin with.

Are they? Yeah. Well, it's just... I didn't do the story again.

Same thing. Rising cost of labor, raw materials, packaging... Due to the unforeseeable circles, that's right. I'm charging you more money.

Yeah, congratulations. Yeah, but the big story this week, Michael, is a PCA 2024. It's not the Silicon Valley bank tanking? That's not cigar.

2024? Yeah, the 2024. They're moving it to March 22nd to the 25th, but still in Vegas. Yes.

What happened to the other spot? Okay, here. Go to number three real quick. Listen, here's some inside baseball shit that you ain't gonna fucking hear anybody else, 'cause no one else is gonna say it, but they'll say it now, 'cause I'm gonna say it.

We're the number one show. That's why. After Las Vegas, the next PCA, it's gonna be in New Orleans. So that's 20-25?

Yeah. They haven't announced it yet. We're number one. You're fucking welcome.

We're number one. Alright, back to camera two. Where did you get the information? I'm never, I don't give up my fuckin' sources.

What the hell? It's cause we're number one. Oh, we went back to what? I'll tell you what.

If it happens, you fuckin' know. You heard it here first. That I fuckin' know. And I told everybody before anybody else knew.

If it doesn't happen, I'm a complete schmuck. So there you go. It happened right here. Nah, that's two years away.

No one ever. New Orleans. Number one show. Just wait and see.

Premium Cigar Association, PCA, has announced that the 2024 PCA Convention Trade Show will take place March 22nd to the 25th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. While the dates in Exhibition Center are subject to significant changes, the Saturday through Tuesday format of the trade show remains the same. It's a smart move. You're moving in on TPE, who really doesn't give a fuck about us anyways, and nobody wants to be in Vegas in fucking July.

Nobody. It's hot. It's the summer. Like, as a retailer, you want to be in your store?

It doesn't work. I'm going to miss the Summer League, though. We'll be okay. We're going to be all right.

You'll be fine. This marks the significant change at a PCA convention trade show, which historically has been hosted during the summer for most of the last decade. The event has been held in July. At last year's trade show, the PCA told the members it was considering two options in 2024: New Orleans in April or Las Vegas in July.

The other chose a different path. So they just went with July or they went with April or March. They didn't do either one, didn't they? Oh, I was gonna say they decided to do March in Vegas.

Yeah, and then they're gonna do New Orleans. With the move to March, the board really feels that this is an optimal time for the industry as retailers will be able to place orders before the busy season hits and get the new and exclusive products on their shelves when the demand is a hash. No, if they come out, if they do the show in April, you're still not getting the stuff till the fall. Look, man.

Maybe they can say what they want, but they don't know what they feel. So, listen, apparently, you need like a ratio of 90% of the fucking people to say, can you move it out of the summer? And then they'll do something different, which is great. Now, look, I'm not totally shitting on the PCA.

They do a lot of good things. They fight for our rights, and yada, yada, yada, and all that's important. Well, that one guy on your show, he really loved it. One guy was very passionate about that.

If he's watching, a tip, look at the camera when you talk. when you talk. No, I liked that. You liked that he saw his forehead?

I liked his anger. I could feel it. I mean, so much to a point where I'm like, I don't fucking think I need to be on the PCA thing when that thing goes down. I guess I should show up.

You send an email and go to the thing. Yeah, I was kind of convinced. He'll be there. He brought you in.

What was his name? I don't know. It was a cool name. Tom.

No. Fredo. Nope. Rick.

Nope. And there was actually... Julio. No.

Jim. I'll go back. Phil? No.

No, it can't be Phil. Mace? Not Phil. Richard.

Mace. Mace. Mace. I don't know.

I was so confused with the names. And who was the lady that breathed heavy? I don't know. Yeah, we don't know her name.

She just breathed really heavy. She'd make a noise, they'd cut to her, she didn't say a word, and then they'd go back away. Right. Or the wind would blow.

Like, there's a lady on the show. Ah, that was good. That was a good show. See, Greg Zimmerman, president of the PCA executive committee, plus, we anticipate that many retailers who are not able to attend the summer Remember, when business is at its peak, we'll be able to attend the industry's largest event.

This will mark the first time the trade show has been at the Las Vegas Convention Center since 2018. J. Fernandez booth. The hard part about it...

I remember when that happened, they evacuated the building. That was pretty funny. Was it a big fire? I don't think it was...

I think somebody's cigar set something off or something. You know, the hard part is... Everybody smoking fire. You want to release, you want to have the PCA when winter is gone because the entire north of the new world is not smoking.

It's fucking frozen. So you have to do it. You can't bring it to January or February. So it doesn't make sense.

Right. Well, February is TPE. You can't do it then. You could go after TPE and hit it.

I don't think they do it at the exact same time. Well, they could, but it'd be another city. Look, TPE... Well, if it's in March...

Listen, TPE doesn't give a fuck about cigars. No, no, no, they don't. They don't. They don't.

We're this big in that whole... Ooh, cog. It's got a shiver. So if it changes in March, then you could say that everybody's gonna not go to TPE.

I think so. Yeah. I think so. Yeah, that's what they're planning on.

It's why they moved it up. Yeah, it's... " "You want to fight? " And I think that we need some type of dance-off between the head of TPE and the TPE.

The head of TPE. You're just dying for a dance-off. You want me and Coop to have a dance-off. Oh, man, that would have been amazing.

I would have been walking around going, challenge, challenge, clapping my hands, challenge, challenge. And then we'd have DJ Chet just busting it out. I mean, I would ask for a rap battle between the two of you, but I think that wouldn't have gone well. No, it would have been great.

So some type of dance-off I think would have been great to determine who is the king of all media, cigar media. You know what I mean? I don't want to be thinking. I'd rather just be a thorn in his side.

A thorn in his side. That's right. Tan pants at the white show. Who does that?

Number twos. Number twos. Number twos. Not number ones.

Number twos. Number twos are the thorn in the side? Is that it? No, no, no.

Number twos wear tan pants at the white show. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We would not. We would wear white.

We would wear white. We would have backup white in case our white got stained. For many years, the organization and attendees have looked to move the trade show to earlier time It's time of the year to give retailers more time to take advantage of the traditional discounts offered around the trade show to make the trade show more attractive to attendees who don't want to go to Las Vegas during the summer. But normally the trade show discount deals and shit, I mean...

You can get those without knowing. That happens a lot. Yeah. And a lot of them, you can get duped into buying some stupid shit.

If the discount's really good, I just want you to know, you're about to get fucked. This is what it is. You're gonna be sitting on all that stuff, no one wants it. There are also two competing trade shows that take place in Q1, the TAA, which is going on right now.

Aha, the TA. The TA and the TPE. In the press release, Zimmerman mentioned that the Tobacconist Association of America, a smaller retail organization, will be moving its annual event, which typically takes place in late March. Zimmerman did not mention the new TAA.

Oh, so they got the TAA to push theirs back. Yeah. Oh, it's nice. Everybody's playing along.

It still doesn't make sense if you're going to TAA to go to PCE. PCE. Oh, you don't think if you go to PCE? What about the PTA?

Are they involved in those or no? No, PTA, no, no, no, PTA. Or no FBI. No FBI?

No, but there could be some guys from the CIA there. What about the FDA? No, they don't like the PCE. They had a booth.

They had a booth once. Oh, they did, that's right. Questions, comments. Nobody went there.

Why is everybody throwing shit at us? Yeah, I was gonna say, people threw shit at us when it was. Hey, there you go. We hate you.

We hate you. I don't care if I'm messing up our cigar industry for no reason, it's no scientific evidence. So do you think, what do I think? Okay, wait, this is 2023 now.

So then next year, the TPE, no cigar people. TPE is cheaper to go to, right? I'm not go to, but to display it. You know, I'm going to tell you right now, here's the way I stand.

If I'm going out to Vegas in March and not July, I'm not going out to Vegas in January or February for TPE. Right. No, no, I understand you. Yeah, so, okay, but I'm looking at it from a retailer's standpoint.

Well, right, that's why I mean, retailers. Not media coverage, because God knows, we don't really cover this shit anyway. We don't really cover this shit anyway, so what do we care? We hang out in the Espinosa booth a lot, and we assessed the two new cigars.

Oh, we'd love to find out if they're going. The two new cigars that came out. We don't have a place to sit. Well, we're not going to TP.

Oh, that's true, we won't go next year. Yeah. So, what was your question? That was it, I think, I don't remember.

Oh, so, I was thinking there was another year before it happened, but it's not. It's not, it's next year, because I was thinking, would there be some tapering off, but they've already had it, so no. It's gonna pull the bandaid right off. Yeah, they're just gonna, just, alright, just go right out.

Nope, not going. Man, we're done. " What happens to the people that have already bought? Because some people at the end of the TPE had bought for the next TPE.

Oh, they're fucked. Right. Nope, no refunds. No, no.

Sorry. Sorry, no COD. Sorry, you lose your deposit. But the real question, the real question.

Yes. Do the big four go back to PCA? Does Drew Estate go back to PCA? Oh, it's right, because now they go to TPE.

Mm-hmm. Oh. Dun, dun, dun. I think they should come back.

I think they should, too. Baby, come back. Pool parties. Don't, you can't use the music.

We get in trouble. That's it? That's where I got to end it? No, that wasn't a song.

That was not a song. It was just a statement. He was just talking. Just talking.

We only went to one strike. We mentioned it. Everybody should have at least one strike. One strike.

But if you get two, it's too close to three. If you get three, you're gone. You're off the reservation. Then we got to change the name of the show again and make it the background yellow.

No, we're on the Cigar Hustlers podcast. No, no, we're Podcast Cigar Hustlers. Podcast Cigar Hustlers. The number one cigar.

The number one cigar show. Joe Stella. The number one podcast. So it's going to start with a cigar, so we get on that rating for the cigar shows.

So a cigar muscler, in case you're muscly. A cigar muscler. Cigar muscler's podcast. Right.

I'll start working out again. Shit. Yes. All right, got a Florida story.

Yeah. Other than that, it was all TAA announced stuff in the news. Of the 39 TAA releases, how many of them do you think people are going to be excited about? None.

None. That's why I didn't cover them. We can't get them and we won't see them. I think maybe two.

Which are? So like the Espinosa. Because you named five and I'm like, okay. Mm-hmm.

Like the Espinosa Murciélago that came out for TAA. Yeah. Did you smoke that? No, I haven't yet.

Is it a different? How did you not fucking smoke it? In the drawer for you to get when I die. Oh, perfect.

I'm going to look at Eric and say, where the fuck is my TAA Espinosa? Because that way you'll think of me every time you smoke one for the week. I'll be very upset about it. I'll cry a little.

Try a little each time you like one. But is it a different Murciélago, or did he just put the gold bat on it? Are we getting inside baseball on things now? Do you want to really talk about that?

Patreon. Yeah, yeah, I want to know. Oh, she said the Patreon. I would say...

Is it a special Vitola? No. It's the same Vitola? Yeah, it's the box press.

So the band probably changes the flavor of what's going on there. Cigars on the App smoked one yesterday. He had one. That motherfucker gets everything.

You know what I mean? Golly. He gets everything. I mean, whatever.

He's a sweetheart of a guy. He is. All right, Florida story. Here we go.

Florida story. Florida. Florida's home to over 90 types of mosquitoes. Oh, yeah?

But we have a new one. Oh, we won. Now there's 91. One came in.

The pink mosquito. The species of mosquito normally found in Central and South America is now growing population in Florida. Species is known by a scientific name of Kulix lactator. Lactator?

Oh, my God. It's a lactator. Lactator. Oh, it's a milk.

It goes for the milk? Yes. It was first discovered in 2018 in southern Miami-Dade County, but has since been found in Collier and Lee Counties and may have spread elsewhere in the state, according to the scientists at the University of Florida. Can we milk the mosquitoes?

Milk mosquitoes. I see a whole market coming. Anything with a nipple you can milk though. I have nipples, Greg.

Can you milk me? Scientists say there have been enough research about the species to determine its potential disease risk. It's a disease risk, and Florida is home to about 90 mosquito species, including as many as 17 non-native species. Some of them are disease spreaders, spreading illness like West Nile Virus, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Dengue Fever, and...

All right, help me out here. Chikanooga Wuga and others. Chikanooga Wuga? C-H-I-C-U-N-G-U-N-Y-A.

That one sounds... Chikanooga Wuga. Chikanooga Wuga, that one sounds serious. I'd hate to have Chikanooga Wuga.

Go to camera three real quick. There's gonna be a new Campbell's Soup. Listen, chunky chicken noodle. I just want you guys to know, Florida is filled with chaos and disease.

To death. So many mosquitoes. It's so bad here. Please, just don't come.

Don't come. It's not worth it. We are the redheaded stepchild of the United States. Oh, that's for sure.

You don't want to be around us. I don't want to. It's not worth it. Not worth it.

It's too dangerous. Hurricanes. I can finish the story. Scientists say the Q-Lex Lactator is part of the insect group that transmits West Nile virus and St.

Louis encephalitis. This has gone straight to the lactator. And the encephalitis? No, St.

Louis. St. Louis. Encephalitis.

The St. Louis version. But it's not known whether Q-Lex Lactator... Does it come with a specific rib style?

Did you bring these here, probably? No, no, my wife might have them. They're contributing to spreading those diseases in Florida. They also say that detection of non-native species of mosquitoes is increasing, with six of the 17 in Florida being detected in the last five years.

They also say climate change may be improving the chances of more tropical mosquitoes. It's the global warming. Establishing in Florida. Also, April 1st starts alligator mating season.

Oh! They start on April? Yes. They know when the date is.

They know the date. That's when they start getting lamorous. Right. Yeah.

That's exciting. Can I ask you a question? Is there a guy... We have dinosaurs here.

It's chaos. Dinosaurs... They just killed that one in my neighborhood. Yeah, I know you told me about that.

Oh, they killed a dinosaur. Man did. I've nominated him as Alligator Wrangler for the neighborhood. We have Velociraptors here.

It's gaining popularity on the Facebook page. The Alligator Wrangler? Yeah, the Alligator Wrangler. He's in charge of all alligators now that they come in.

You know, the Tyrannosaurus Rex? It's here in Florida. I just want you to know. And it runs around.

It does have little hands, too. It does. But it's on his belly. The Alligator Wrangler?

No, no. The Alligator. Oh. The Tyrannosaurus Rex Alligator.

Did he bring the Lactaid Mosquitoes? No, no, no. Lactaid? It came from Lactor.

Yeah, Lactor. Lactor. Lactor. The lactate.

Lactate's a milk. That's why I said it. Lactor is the one that takes it. That's why I asked him if we can milk it.

No. But he can milk you. He's a Lactor. Oh.

You think there's a guy that just follows these mosquitoes? Ah, we have a new breed here. Right. I mean, they catch 'em.

He's got the one. He's got the one. He's picking 'em out. He's like the Monopoly guy.

He's got the fucking... Oh, what is this? This is a new one. This is a new one.

This is a new one here. I must give it a name, Gulex Lactator. Lactator. My wife is pregnant, she's lactating, I thought I would call that that.

I'll call it the lactator. We put him over here in this pile. Lactator. In the history books forever.

Yes, I am famous. I am famous. Gulex Lactator Biscito. We will call it the lactator.

Do we have a shot of the week, Michael? Uh-oh. What time are we at? 41.

Oh, we're perfect. Do we have a shot of the week? I have a listener of the week. Uh-oh.

I don't have a Shop of the Week this week. Listener week is Mr. Adam Acri. Oh, the birthday boy.

The birthday boy. Oh, did you see his wife's lovely post to him? It's her best friend and her lover. Oh, really?

Yes. I said, I know I said happy birthday, but he's just my friend. I put that up on her Facebook. He's just my friend.

We're not having sex. I'd like to bring that public right now. I'm not having sex with Adam Acri. Are you sure?

I'm positive. I'm positive. I don't know about that. Nope.

I got questions. Nope, I'm pretty sure. He's a handsome man. He is, but that beard would be rough.

You think so? Yeah, I don't know. Would you like it a little bit of a beard? No, not on my, my skin's very delicate.

Oh, you like it gentle? Yes. And it'd be caressed? Yes.

Okay. It's good to know. You should know, Michael. Come on.

I know. Act like you don't know. But I have a little bit of beard. Yeah, but it's not big like his.

Oh, it's okay. Yeah. Very manly. Very manly.

So he drives all that big, heavy equipment. He does. He does. A lot of heavy equipment.

Very masculine men. Still not having sex with him. And this is why we're number one. Yeah, I never heard Coop say he didn't have sex with people.

What about a shop here? Got a shop, Michael? Uh, no. I'll just pick one.

How about Cigars on the Avenue, because he gets all the good stuff. No, I have one. What? Oh, hold on.

Hold on, gong, gong, gong, gong, gong. Blue Havana in Chicago. Oh. I think we made him.

We already made him. We haven't talked about them in years. Oh, there was the man that came to see you. We can talk about him for a minute.

Yeah, who was that? He came from Milwaukee. And I missed him. S-H-U-L-Z was his last name, I believe.

First name was Paul. Paul Schultz? Paul Schultz. Schultz?

Schultz. Paul Schultz. He's very excited. He read about you in a magazine.

I'm not sure exactly what magazine is. Ash Quarterly. I feel he doesn't get that up. The 2023 Man of the Year, Mike Steponkiewicz?

Well, but the cigar, the Posania cigar. Oh. Not about you specifically, but about your cigar. Oh.

And he just got back from Poland when he saw the article, so he's very excited. Oh, well, I'm sorry I missed you, Paul. Your brother was very entertaining for the short time, yes. Oh, yeah?

Yes. That's good. Yeah. We don't let him out much, so.

No, no. We never praise him, so stop saying he's good, Mitch. Never praise him. Stop saying you like his cigar better.

Mitch. I gave Mitch access to the website, by the way. That shit went sideways. Doesn't everybody have access to the website?

He got so angry. What? No, I gave him the back end. And then things got jarbled up.

And he's like, it wasn't me, it wasn't me. Is that why it crashed? Is that where the first one crashed? No, it was after the crash.

I feel like it was you, Mitch. But it's okay. I'm not mad. I'm not mad.

Because Greg Cigar is not getting enough praise. He probably did enough praise. I'm not mad, Mitch. Only thing they can buy now is the Habano.

Or the Broadleaf. I'm gonna need to see Abuza Habano purchases from you, though. That's all I'm saying. Hey, you got anything else?

No, that's it. Okay, remember, after the show today, we're going to have Mickey Pegg on from All Saints Cigars. It's a nice little 30-minute bumper. It was a nice little interview.

Oh, we get in early because we have that thing. Yeah, well, it worked out well. All right. All right, it's been episode 274, remember.

On to the Patreon. On the Patreon today, we are smoking the Viaje Collection Edition. Is that what it says? Yes.

Honey and Hand Grenades. Honey and Hand Grenades. Falchion. Thank you, patrons of the Patreon, for all your support.

Come see the juice. And please join us. If you are not a patron of the patron, we talk some shit on that show. Wow, we're talking shit today.

And we have discounts for specific products. Okay, he's gonna say where he got the information. So they pay, the patron practically pays for itself. Right, so it's almost like it's free.

Yeah, it's practically free. Do it now. Do it. Do it now.

Alright, let's go. And we say who Phil is on the other show too. Yeah, we talk about someone else. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh. Alright, we gotta go, bye! You want to do the intros? Welcome to Cigar Hustle Podcast Special Edition.

Today, we're sitting with Mickey Pegg from All Saints Cigars. Yes, I started to say All Saints and Sinners. Sorry, but I would have been wrong. Yeah, I don't want, I don't need that phone call.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hey, uh, right, no, if you want to get a phone call, you just get a fucking email, right? Are you kidding me? It's bad enough that my cross looks like the Florida Lee. Oh, yeah, it's a St.

James cross. nice so you're at TPE right yeah I saw you every time I saw you and you kept walking and then I was like I'll just catch him next time then you walked by again I was like hey and then you just kind of kept going I was stalking you guys I didn't talk to you no I was stalking oh you were stalking stalking stalking we just hang out in the Espinosa booth so were you just were you just playing or just kind of roaming or what no no we had we were in the pavilion so we've gotcha He was, I think, our third year in the Pavilion, so... We were just sitting at Espinosa, for the most part. Yeah, just on the other side.

He's got the company chairs. We'd go back and forth, Espinosa, Room 101. Yeah, we'd harass Matt Booth, and then we'd walk... That's probably why we always saw him.

Right. Yeah. And then harass Jack, like he didn't get enough at the end of the trip, and then... Yeah.

Or Richie. You know what, what's really cool with Richie is he's very easy going when you see him. Oh, yeah, if he knew the... Oh, no, I'm thinking Alfredo, never mind.

When you see him at the shows and stuff, he's always, he's very, hey, what do you need, can I get you anything, whatever, you know, but when he gets into business, he's like, hey, get the fuck out of here, I need the chairs, I need the chairs. When you take the pan out, it's time to do something. Like, Mikey's got the pan, we gotta move. , let me ask you that.

Yeah, so, you know, we... You gotta push the mic a little closer to him. Yeah, we... He's got such a deep voice, it really, it doesn't...

It carries well? Yeah, it carries well. Now, I mean, we, with, when you talk about tonnage and the amount of dollars that we did, we're very happy with the amount of orders that I took, not so happy with, but where I was really excited as a young company, as you guys know, is that the people that were putting in deep second and third orders in some of those territories I haven't really been to yet, or I've done events with these people yet, so, you know, that's a force multiplier that you got to do to keep the stuff going to get the second and third turn, we were very happy with. So, you can look at it in a bunch of different ways, but I would've liked to have gotten more orders, I could tell you like people from the East Coast where I'm pretty much, pretty dominant, yeah, there was a lot of people that weren't there or I did follow up orders with, so I was happy with our numbers before I did those follow up numbers that we, I don't think we put into TPE because we were happy with those numbers, so we'll just put those in another kind of column for organic March.

If that means anything. Yeah, so you don't have a sales force or anything, or do you? No, I have brokers. Okay, so you, I mean, that is kind of a sales force.

It is a sales force, but just, we have a solution for Arizona right now, working on something for SoCal, because that's a little peculiar, you know, California's California. And then, you know, most of my guys are, so I got the flyover states with Tommy Klein. With Tommy Kline, Garrett, now Andrew and Raul, doing those other states, the other flyover states, I have this guy, Mike King, who's doing great for it, Tommy Kline's doing great for it, Tommy King, who's in the Mid-Atlantic. Who's your favorite broker?

Who's your favorite broker? You gotta have one you like. Nobody listens to us. Yeah, this is not a… You're the number one podcast.

No, no, we're very low. Not if you ask who. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Am I going on the Patron, or am I going… You can say who your favorite is, no?

I'm not telling you to pick a kid. If you thought for one second this was gonna be an easy fucking podcast, it's between Tommy Klein and Mike King. It really goes back and forth. So whoever has the best numbers for that month, those are pretty consistent on a yearly basis.

That one's your favorite. Yeah, so when you're paying your broker more than you're paying yourself, you're a little happy. Those guys got paid more than I did last year. Yeah, welcome to running your own business.

Right. 54. So, do you have representation in Florida, too? No, I don't.

All right, don't pick Alfredo. Just so you know. Alfredo Cruz is off the fucking. Terrible.

Well, the only guys I'd want to use, I think, are at capacity. You know, am I going to try to talk to them in a couple of days down in West Palm? Yeah. A little bit of schmoozing?

Yeah, I do a little bit of schmoozing, because right now I kind of handle what I, it's a weird kind of map. You know, it's the old days, like Arizona, I was talking about Arizona earlier, and I got a solution, I didn't go there because I didn't have a solution there, I didn't want to go have to sell it twice, it's hard enough to sell it the first time, let alone twice, yeah, it's like when we were strategized about me possibly coming in here, it was like what's our plan, and I love that, so it's like when I go in with somebody like Abe and all these guys, we lay out a 12 to 18 month plan, you know, what's our thing, how are we going to coordinate these things together, and if somebody's going to bring all my And if you're a product in, or a good majority where I have a great representation, 24 SKUs is great, a really good representation, we need to have a plan, like what's the deal, when am I coming in, when are you coming back in, what am I going to do? Yeah, so normally what I do, if I have a broker territory, is we go in, we make that sale, and they're going to support the brand. Now it's my job to support them.

So first thing is the broker will do a soft pop-up or something like that, and then I'll come in with an event. Follow that up, and then other things that we're doing with social media and those pieces like that, we'll do. So, if I don't, it's like the old days when I was running CAO, if I fire somebody, guess whose territory it is. It's yours.

Congratulations. So, New England is mine, South, East, Mid-Atlantic, if you want to say it, is mine, and Florida's mine. So, what I'm doing with Florida is I, this is not the route I take, as you know, I was born and raised in Daytona Beach, My family, my mom, and stuff lived there, but it's basically, if you came out of Tampa, go across I-4 to Daytona Beach, take 95 down to West Palm or Boynton Beach, and then go across Alligator Alley over to Naples, because all my stuff is fulfilled out of Naples, that's it. All your stuff is fulfilled out of Naples?

Yeah, La Polina does my fulfillment. Oh, they do my fulfillment. I'm in charge of the distribution. You know, Scott Bufi had that old situation where they kind of did a little bit of both, so ideally, you know, there's distribution, there's fulfillment, so they do the fulfillment, and we got a fulfillment contract with them.

Right. Very similar to what Nick did with Alec, or Alan Rubens, or Ralph Montero, more so. Right. So, it looks like I'm going to have to pay attention to that little route from Tampa down to Naples now.

Oh, on the other side. Yeah, on the other side, so it's a little bit, would I like to be in Jacksonville? Absolutely, would I like to be in some of these other kind of suburbish stuff that kind of fall off That route, absolutely, but I got enough to keep you busy because I want to guarantee that I'm going to be in those territories right now, which is never enough, you're never enough, but three turns a year, like that was part of my with Abe and or two guys or any of those that they're going to see me at least three times a year, right? And we're going to do something.

We're going to do an event or whatever we're going to do and try to do something unique and special. And we're growing into the uniqueness right right now, you know, um, so you're, you're heading down to the Great Smoke. Yeah. Okay.

So I'm going to go down either late Thursday night or first thing Friday morning. So Friday morning is going to be a little bit easier or I mean, yeah, Friday morning. Right. Well, you guys are going on Saturday.

We're going Saturday morning. Yeah. It's a there and back. You know what I mean?

Yeah. But it's, you know, after, after a night with, uh, Boofy and Justin, you know, good luck. Well, we did it last year. Yeah.

Yeah, we did it. We did, you know, the, the Boofy of new is not the same Boofy of old, you know what I mean? where he would fucking get blackout drunk and disappear or whatever, and then you'd have to go manage him or whatever. Yeah.

Go look at a car or something. Yeah. You know, like, Oh, he has a guy locally that he likes who brings a car here now. Okay.

Yeah. Uncle Johnny. Yeah. He did that somewhere out in the Midwest too.

It was pretty funny. I'm on a sales call and then all of a sudden I'm getting ready to make the sale and Boofy shows up with some car. No shit. Another car fanatic.

One of the, it was, it was Arkansas somewhere in Arkansas, Fayetteville. One of the first podcasts we did with him. No, Oklahoma. He disappeared in New Orleans, and he lost his wallet and some other shit, and I was like, what the fuck happened?

Oh, yeah, that's right. And he actually broke the whole thing down. So, you know, I think that that guy's kind of in the past, he's not... Well, he's a father now, and...

Yeah, he's grown up a little bit. He's grown up something. He's grown up a little bit, you know? He's got the helicopter.

Yeah, now he's got the helicopter. He's got that STG money, right? So, you did CAO. Yep.

That must have been fun. It was fun. Yeah, it was. It was great.

, and that was a great experience. It still looks the same as it did when I worked there. I started there in 1989. There really weren't that many tobacco shops.

Fucking how old are you? 1989. Yeah, well, I graduated college and, well, I was a class of '91. Who's older?

Who's older? He's probably about the same age. Who's older? I'm 54.

Oh, I'm older then. I'm 55. You are the older one. Sometimes I say I'm 52, but it's not like I'm hiding my age.

You know, that COVID year kind of locked me in. Plus, that was my football number in college, so I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm 52. I said I was 54 for three years. My wife goes, no, no, you're 55 now.

Like, oh, okay. Fine. I'm 55. But I'll be 55 for the next three years.

So you did that when you were young. Yeah, so, yeah, and I was chasing dreams of working on Capitol Hill. And then, you know, just real quick, you know, I love telling the origin story more than Skip does. - Is that I had a chance to go to Davidoff, and we were going from a broker to a direct sales force, they were going through some changes, and I was the new guy, and I didn't say no, and I traveled, I haven't traveled when I was in the political arena, and at one point I did have Florida, that's how I met Abe, and then I started doing all the appointed merchant trips, and then this guy, Raymond Schur, who was the global brand ambassador, and the last close friend of Zeno before he passed away, so I had to do the Dominican trip, so that's how I got a little bit of a I had a short stint with Felipe Gregorio, and then Tim came in from CAO and brought me in as national sales manager, and then I became vice president of sales, and then they sold.

A year later, I was gone. A year after that, everybody else was gone. Feel the growth. Feeling the growth.

Feeling the growth. Feeling the growth, yeah. And then I went to, I was already doing the weekend warrior program, University of Pennsylvania, because Jono was paying for that, Tim's dad. And I finished that, it took about two years.

I just finished that up, got all my registrations, all that stuff, and sold mutual funds for Lincoln Financial. And then finally, I'm like, if I'm gonna work all these hours, I'm gonna do something I love. So around 2017, got into the point of me and Frank Leo, my partner, putting the money together. Oh, you gave the name up too easy.

Oh, okay. It was the secret investor. The one you don't hear about is Martin Cordway. Oh, he got it up too!

I have a whole list of people I was gonna go through. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Let's just act like he didn't give up the name. This is why the origin story gets really old and the fact that I've concise it down this.

Damn, he gave it up to eat. So who are those guys? No, Frank, you get a lot of, you know, Frank, he does the Rocky Mountain Cigar Fest with me. He's gonna do The Great Smoke.

This is the first time we actually have a booth at The Great Smoke. I went for the last two years. I was one of the original. Yeah?

When I was at CAO, I was one of the original Great Smoke guys. How long has All Saints been in Smokin'? In Smokin', I wanna say a year and a half. A year and a half.

Okay. So still fairly new. So I went into the warehouse first before the new warehouse. And then shortly after we got into the stores.

Okay. So that's the... Oh, we're in the warehouse. Is that just online?

Is that what it's considered? Yeah. So you can virtually get anything, any of our SKUs from them because of that. And then not all SKUs are represented in the stores.

Right. Obviously the way that he runs his customer service. So that's been a big force multiplier for us. And it was actually the first show I was on.

Oh, his show. Yeah, his show. Kiss My Ass Radio? Kiss My Ass.

Kiss My Ass. KMA. KMA. And it was still in the iHeart.

Oh, excuse me. It was still in the old studio. I was on that. I did that once.

I did it twice. Fuck you. He's 55, so. More time to do it.

You said you're a big deal. He invented iHeart Radio. Right. Right.

Before that, it was iStomach. You know, somebody. That's a terrible idea. Go further north.

You know, somebody commented on the podcast about, like, one of the listeners. Yeah. They made a comment that cigar hustlers had a foot fetish thing going on. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That was Palmer. That was not. Oh, where was that? Somebody reached out to me.

Is that why you wanted me to sit next to you? No, no, no. Yeah, of course. Please remove your shoes.

If you feel my foot, go over. Just ignore it. Just relax. It's going to be okay.

I got front foot. We have a black leather couch in the front room. We need you to sit there afterwards as well. Just for some photos.

Where's the brass pole? Just for a couple of pics. So now we know who his private investors are. Damn it.

There goes my whole thing. No, we don't really keep quiet. Wait, is there another one? I mean...

Well, there's two. Do you have another one? No, no, no. Are you talking about investors or partners?

What was it? You're listed as having an anonymous partner, I think. Did you say that? It's on there, Michael.

How's the wording? Flip that paper. No, you're peeing. Who said anonymous?

We've never been anonymous. I don't know. With an anonymous partner. Right.

Anonymous. That's online somewhere. It's on the interweb, so it's gotta be true. It's gotta be true.

Well, I often tell my children, like when we go to do something cultural, and you see these big benefactors, and it says anonymous, you know, that's daddy. I did that. What a great thing. Look, I don't want to brag, I don't like to brag to anybody else, but the anonymous guy, he's me.

Yeah, that's me. Do you have any other names we can guess? No, I don't think he came all up now. So how did you meet those guys, in the financial world, or?

No, no, so Martin and I go way back to college, just became really close friends, like a brother to me. Yeah. Because when I went off to college, I went to Lopez twice because I got kicked out once. Oh, I got kicked out of a college once, too.

So, and then went off to college and then we became really close. Matter of fact, he's the godfather of my oldest daughter and the only godparent in our family that's not blood. Right. That whole thing is hard, bro.

Yeah, it's a lot like, you know, you pick one, I pick one. " And I'm like, Godfather, just do it. And we're pretty tied in with the Catholic Church. He didn't have to have all that stuff done to do it.

Right. So, yeah, and that's how I met-- It's a pain in the ass. And that's how I met Frank through him. And matter of fact, when I left CAO, we were trying to put something together then.

I was just, to be honest with you, I've talked about it before, the black dog was on my lap so bad. Like, I didn't have a creative idea, I didn't have any motivation. The black dog. Yeah, Churchill used to call it the black dog.

The bad days were the black dog. Gotcha. Listen, I'm young, and I'm very stupid. I've been in the cigar industry for too long.

It's an old Churchill saying that I kind of... Winston Churchill was big during World War II. Oh, I've heard of him. I thought he was just a cigar.

No, no, no. Just a cigar size? Oh, it's a real guy. Or what size is it?

Six and seven eighths? Right. 47? 7 by 50?

We never know how big this guy is, right? So, and I'm glad we didn't do it then, Because we would have had a lot more hands on our pocket. So, you know, me and Frank, we're the most visible, I'm obviously the most visible of the three. Martin, you don't really hear about too much.

He does a lot of stuff behind the scenes. 8% of the company. - Oh, that's not right. - With a cap of about 8.

We didn't want another boss. - Right, yeah, yeah. - And so, you know, Frank and I are always having lane conversations. Martin's not in any of the lanes, and no disrespect to him.

He just, you know. - It's just not his thing. - Yeah, he put his money up and we put our money up and, you know, it's not his thing. Well, we were hoping to get some marketing stuff out of him.

He's starting to do that. So, you know, so from there, the whole theory with getting the investors were, listen, there was the old Tom Sawyer, you pay me 10 bucks, I'll let you pay my fence. - Right. - Right.

- Well, a bunch of old kooks, they're not old, sorry Lenny. They are-- - Lenny doesn't watch. Yeah. Lenny listens, and so does- Lenny, like and subscribe, god damn it.

Yeah. Become a patron, Lenny. Yeah. The $50 level would be nice.

Well, that's what we ought to do is guilt our investors into being patrons, you know? Yeah, exactly. They won't let me in the store until everybody signs up. That's right.

We're gonna need members of the private lounge. I mean, this is crazy. We put that thing on Fred Brewery that one time. Did we?

Where he had to come to the shop like 17 times before you buy his cigar. Oh yeah, and then he fucking sold out. That's like almost any shop now that carries a good excuse. Oh, but we kept count, though.

This is my fourth visit to Cigar Hustler. This is the fourth? The fourth and the second time that I did my flight arrangements around my trip. I appreciate the efforts.

You're almost, you're getting it. Thank you very much. The one in December got canceled, so I had to change my flights. I know, man.

What a fucking bummer, dude. No, but I mean, it's like, you know, I'm going to tell you something, because we're totally candid with you. I'm very, we're very open. I mean, I've had only like a, I've only had a couple conversations with you, but I don't know.

" "Your boys fucked me! " So I changed my trip to Florida, I changed it to Nicaragua, 'cause I had some stuff I had to work out before we closed out the year, and I knew I was gonna be back there in January, but, you know, those are, I typically like to be there before the factories close, and there after they open, take COVID out of it, just to make sure, you know, these conversations that we end the year on. Right, they remember what you talked about before, right, and they don't. Let's review, yeah.

No, no, not a damn thing. But, you know, being a squeaky wheel, you get the grease. Right, yeah. And that helps especially when you're an absentee owner of a brand, you know, I'm a brand owner, or I guess Skip would say designer, whatever you want to call me, that's what I am, but you know, I want to have as much hand, and Tavacusa gives me that ability to do that, I couldn't have that with some of these other people that make cigars, like you've dealt with Skip, you know, who I deal with, they're almost the same way, like, I call it blending, like, bowling with your kids, you know, you took your kids bowling, they put the guardrails up?

Yeah. Right. So the ball doesn't go in the gutter. Right.

Amika helps, Amika and Herbert make sure that my ball doesn't go in the gutter, what we're working on. Right. Right. Yeah.

So that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

I like, that's a good, uh, good analogy. You know, Skip always told me, I'll throw you in the pool, but I'll make sure you have the floaties. Right. Okay.

Or teach out, well, that's how I learned, I learned how to swim here in the ocean. They'd swim in the ocean. My uncles made me go back and forth, like get a breath of air. No shit.

Finally, you learn how to swim. But yeah. So, so what do you got in the pipe? Are you working on something new?

The most recent thing that really kind of came to market was in two of our lines, finally the Mitre Vitola came out, which is like the Bellicosa type torpedo, and I call them Mitres in all four lines, just because it's kind of a Pope's hat. I got that from a buddy of mine that works at Wooden Indian. And then all this stuff was supposed to ship in October in the Vespers. Welcome to Sky Industry.

And so the Vespers just now started shipping, which the Vesper is a Vatola, it's a four and a half by 44, that we're calling that Vatola Vesper in all four of our lines, worst kept secret is we're doing Solamente 23, which was a small run that we did in the very beginning, which was an accidental run, we'll be at the show, try to get the Vespers in four or five packs, debating that right now because of the price point. - What's the price point? - They're about 960 retail, so it's up there, you know, it starts getting around a Robusto, a Toro, especially when you're a brand owner, and you're trying to keep, you're not as linear as you'd like to be, so, you know, there's a couple components, as you know, and the price of a cigar is the tobacco, or the amount of tobacco, the amount of time, and all that stuff, and the other thing, you know, when you talk about the amount of time, it's the amount of time the tobacco's aged, and then the amount of time before you roll it, just a lot of different factors in time, but the most important is the amount of time, the amount of time the tobacco's aged, and then the amount of time before you roll it, just a lot of different factors in time. The first one is the time it takes to roll it.

So for the torsador to do what they do. So it's a harder roll. It takes a little bit more time than it does. Right.

This one? A little more finesse. Yeah, it takes a little bit more. You know, it's got one less binder in it.

All my cigars have two binders. Typical Nicaraguan, Cuban-esque, you know, that kind of basic architecture. Right. But, you know, in order to make that work, you had to, you know, when you do that shape or that size, that Vitola, you take one of the binders out.

Gotcha. So, and then we did the firecracker with United, that sold out, and suppose, I guess it sold out on the streets. That's what I'm hearing. Everybody's asking me, you know, I didn't have a list.

I shipped them all 300 boxes to United, and that was that. So that was a great example of, for us, was there was a lot of people that were experiencing the firecracker for the first time. Well, I'll say it's for the first time, for the first time. Yeah, so it's kind of like double-edged, though it's good as a, like marketing as well.

Right, yeah, there was no profit margin in that, but, you know, at the end of the day, what it did with the doors that it's already opened for us is great with the right people, mostly all the right people that we want to be with. So what's been the hardest thing that you've done, that you're like, "Fuck, I didn't really see that coming," and it was the most strenuous of so far of doing this? You know, so, I just got asked that question and... Did you?

Was it on a podcast? Cause if it was, I don't know, I wanna, I don't know if I want the answer. No, no, no, it was, but, did I have, no, everything that's hit us, we knew it was gonna hit us one way or another. Right.

What I will say this, and I didn't say that, is that the, that firecracker was a lot more work. Yeah, than you anticipated? Yeah, just because, it all had to do with the candela. Right.

It all had to do with that candela, we had it, we didn't have it, we got this, and this wasn't what they showed us on the quality, and, you know, And then they were like, oh, I thought you wanted to make $3 million of these. No, not $3 million. Oh, yeah, so you only need a half of bails. We need a bale.

So we're like, all right, so we committed to buying a bale. They're like, all right, well, we'll just sell you half a bale. We got somebody else that wants the other half, and it worked out, and the quality was there. Right.

So it worked out again. There's always fuckery. Yeah, and then I wanted to make sure that the blend worked right because it was based on a St. Francis blend, and we kind of amped it up a little bit.

And how do you make a Candela smell? Tastes good. Remove the candela. Blend the hell out of the candela.

It's Ometepe, same thing, just put a bunch of other stuff in there. Fill it up. Fill it up. So, we got one other special project that we're, that we would like to get launched this year.

Yeah. That we're talking to some fun people about. Yeah. I can't, I can't really talk yet.

Oh, guest, no guest, guest now. Yeah. That's where we ask the question. - No, I know, I should have said that off air, but no, yeah, so.

- Why? - I just don't want to do a lot of LEs, I don't want to do a lot of that stuff, it's just, there's a lot of people, there's a perception about how big our brand is out in the market right now, and it's very good, and I'll take it. But the reality is, and somebody like you would understand, and even other retailers, when I had that conversation, they understand that the perception of our brand is a lot bigger than it really is from those people, the driving forces on social media. So a lot of people have to experience our core line first, and I don't want to have any, you know, we're simplistic in the way, there's four lines of cigars, and there's six Fadolas, and that's it, they're all basically used to say molds.

We'll get a little crafty here and there, but I want to do some more projects, but I don't want it to be the bane of our existence. Right, yeah. " Or people know me. Right, yeah.

" Right. And I'm like, "Yes, that's what I want. " Right. You know, what was funny was, our first container came on time, and I know I shared this with Mike and Greg.

Our first container came in in February 2020, and we were very excited. St. Patrick's Day, we're going to do this big press release. Well, you know, COVID hit, so I kind of freaked out a little bit, and I said I'm not going to sell direct to consumer, so what I did is I loaded up my car with igloos, delivered cigars, and I had about 40 accounts, and the closest account to that person, I gave that credit card to that retailer to run it.

They're like, so wait a minute, you're not delivering cigars to me, you're giving me the credit card number, then you're invoicing me afterwards. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to send you 40 invoices. Like, one idiot's like a perfect example. I'm not gonna send you 40.

We'll put it on there. Right. And yes, and I trust you, you're gonna give me a check. I don't want a credit card.

Right. I live one mile from you. Right. I can find you if I need to.

There's a handful of retailers you can trust with that. And I got a lot of good faith out of that. Yeah. Was I chasing good faith?

No. Was I happy that it worked? Yes. Did I keep doing that?

Yes. Would I put the, it's like the blue ocean theory. I would've put that in the model from the beginning. But I was just trying not to go crazy.

Right, right. Because we didn't overspend during that time. We already knew what it was going to cost us to exist that year, and there was a lot of costs that we didn't take on because of that. And I slept in friends' houses because you couldn't get into hotels, and they were so excited, so on a Thursday or Friday night, whether I was in North Carolina or Florida, we're at a pit, you know, a fire pit, smoking a cigar and having some food.

And, you know, I was a little bit of the entertainment, so my buddies could show off, "Hey, my buddy's got a cigar," and that kind of went out, and I noticed there was no COVID in Florida, So I started to spend a lot of time. Yeah, we didn't have any. From North Carolina down. For the most part.

So how many are you producing now and what's the goal? I think we just did like 400,000 cigars last year. That's pretty good, man. Yeah, I'd like to hit that million stick mark in a year, probably like 2025.

It would be nice, 2026 with the reality of that. That's the big, hairy, audacious goal, you know, is that. And plus where we're at, what we're doing in the facilities, The facilities that we're using, that capability should be able to happen there. There's certain tobaccos that I am using, because most of that comes from the library of what Rocky has access to.

So the 27 million cigars, about six of them came out, six million came out of the Tavacusa factory, that's his boutique factory. And then I obviously have to source tobacco here and there. There's certain tobaccos that I'm using in certain cigars that are like, we can keep up with the growth of this cigar, but don't plan on using that. And your future blends.

Yeah, so I'm working on 2024. My blend for 2024 is what I'm working on right now. So it's got to be different. A different core line?

It's different, but I'm also working with some fun tobaccos. Right. And then I had this other opportunity that I was alluding to earlier, that there'll be a lot of tobaccos that I don't have access to directly. I mean, I could probably get it.

Right, you can find them. Right. SDG? I mean, you're friends with SDG, right?

Oh, I'm really good. Uh oh. Nah. I love the movie.

I love Justin. Yeah. I get a lot of great ideas from those guys. Yeah.

We can ask Justin on Friday. He fucking walked it back. Did you see that? Does he answer the phone for him?

No. There's no... Probably not. There's no animosity.

There's a lot... Yeah. Yeah. No.

God dammit, Mickey. We almost had it. Almost. It's okay.

It's all right. You just go ahead and express your feelings. That's why we gotta do this the last call today when I got bourbon. Go get some booze.

I gotta drive. I gotta drive. I'll Uber. I'll drop you off.

You just go on executive, it's not far. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's right up the street.

We can get them to come and get you. Yeah, of course. Oh, they have a van. We can have Edgar drop you off.

They have a van. She knows exactly where it is. We'll get Valkenberg's wife to go. Somebody drive my car to the hotel tonight.

Yeah. We can handle all these things. It's no problem. It's no problem.

Go to my locker next door. So the other thing that you're working on is not affiliated with the factory that you're working with, The fact that you're working with currently? Uh, yes and no. Yes and no.

Yes and no. Okay. Do not confirm nor deny. Huh.

Interesting. Very interesting. Is it with one of these names on Palmer's list? No, no, it's not.

Is it Noxa? Is it Noxa? I mean, you know, there's only one. No, everybody thinks I'm working with Noxa.

Oh, really? Just spend time with Skip. Maybe it's Skip. No, I would know about it.

It would hurt. That's the other secret. We're trying something. something we're yeah i mean i had a conversation with him last week you know yeah you know what's uh but again you guys would be the first to know about that too so yeah yeah he would have said something yeah definitely you guys would be the first ones we've talked to yeah if we you know if we get any legs under that conversation absolutely okay well where are we at on time you got an idea we're at 30 perfect like we've done this before it's so crazy so weird well is there anything else you want to add before we let you off the hook and you know damn we were so close No, I think the only thing is, is hopefully we could have a conversation about me coming in and when I could come in and kind of have that conversation with the local locals.

Well, it's getting late. It's getting late, Mickey. We've got to get to the great smoke. No, but stay tuned because, no, we had some really neat, instead of not just doing, "Hey, come on in, buy five, get one free," and all that bullshit.

Because we're kind of pigeonholed to that a little bit right now as we grow into swag. We don't want to become a swag company. but we're going to do something we've got to do our swag is that unique right now right but when we do get to that point we want to have that you know we're spending all our time and money on tobacco right yeah my brokers then me right well my travel gets paid first before i get paid so we've got to pay for my travel yeah so that that's that's where we're at so right um we want to grow into it but also you know when you're somebody that's excited and so much a force And if you have a multiplayer in the industry for a brand making kind of situation, when somebody comes up with a unique idea, like some of the conversations we've had, that's where you get excited and like, we'll figure out a way to pay for that, we could pay for that, and if it grows and we like it, then maybe we could take it off the market, but you guys do a little bit, you do a little bit more grandiose things, so we can afford to do something like that with you guys. Yeah, of course.

Give away a car. Or the right customer. A Porsche. Oh, a Porsche.

Like Vicente. Yeah, well, now you're talking about that. He could find money for that. He's got investors.

Right. Who's got it? We'll call Lenny. Lenny, we need a Porsche.

Lenny, Lenny. No, Lenny's got plenty of houses and Porsches. Oh, just give us one of your houses, Lenny. We'll just take a house.

Well, we wanted those guys to get on the internet and post social media. Right, right. They didn't do it, except one guy I went to college with, or two guys I went to college with. The other guys are just from a business acumen, from the background.

Right. These are ex-COOs, CFOs of really large companies that sold. And they're all mostly in the VC area. - Right.

- So that, you know, looking at our books, and looking at the business infrastructure of our company. - The EBITDA. - Yeah, you're always looking at the EBITDA. - Always looking at the EBITDA.

- The EPS, yeah. - Well, everybody was looking at it three weeks ago, or two weeks ago. Well, that's so many, two million, what can I get? From us, you ain't getting shit.

But, yeah, you know what I mean, so that we're getting that. We thought we were getting this, but we got something else that people would pay, Especially from my old, you know, grad school days, people pay a lot of money to have these people serve on boards and give them direction and the things to think about when you're building something, you know, even from something, you know, from your P&L, you know, to, you know, your cogs, you know, whatever. The whole thing. Yeah.

All right. Yeah, I mean, we definitely have to establish a game plan to bring you on, you know, obviously what our plans were originally didn't work out, so we have to figure it out for sure. But, with that being said, anything else to add, Mr. Palmer?

No, we just appreciate you doing our little schedule change. Oh, thank you guys. Thanks for having me. Of course.

Well, we are the number one show. We are number one. Number one show. Boots.

I mean, Phil? No, no, he's Boots today. Oh, your Boots? Boots right now.

Oh, okay. He's got the shirt. Boots. Hey, hey, hey.

You know what? I don't. Nothing to add. What about, have you ever smoked a Pustania?

Yeah, you know, I smoked my first one last year at the Great Smoke. Yeah. He was in the booth with Bufi. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, I was. I was being a fanboy that day, so Abe said come in and take, you know, see what, put your best foot forward if you can make it, make the cut next year. So I was going around taking pictures with everybody, so.

Oh, we got sucked into free labor, yeah. Right. Not this time, pal. Not this year.

Not with STG money. I'm not fucking lifting a single thing. You better have a goddamn sales force. That's all I'm saying.

And we had to get his table clothed and everything for him last year. That's it. That's it. All right, well, Mickey, thank you so much for coming on, check, we appreciate it, thank you, check out All Saints Cigars, if you guys, well, this is gonna be on after The Great Smoke, but if, you know, we'll be at The Great Smoke, and so will Mickey, so make sure you check 'em out.

Right, it'll be on next week. Beautiful. All right, thanks, guys, thank you. Pax.

This has been a Cigar Hustlers podcast, a Mike and Mike production. m. for all new episodes. Hi, I'm doing, I'm Who's Toy Raw.

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

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

I couldn't get past Hojo! I don't even have to try. He's not even going to try. We're going to cover a lot of ground here, Mike.

All right. Try to keep up. That's a sign of a good podcast. It could be like four cigars when I walked in a door.

All right, end this.

Show Notes

On this week's episode of The Cigar Hustlers Podcast, we bring you the latest news in the cigar industry, including the big story about the PCA 2024 expo moving to March. We discuss what this means for cigar enthusiasts and manufacturers alike, and speculate on what new developments we can expect to see at the event.

We also have a special interview with Micky Pegg from All Saints Cigars. Micky shares with us his journey in the cigar industry, how he got started making cigars, and what sets All Saints Cigars apart from other brands.

Tune in to this episode for all this and more, and don't forget to light up your favorite cigar while you listen.

#cigarhustlerspodcast #PCA2024 #AllSaintsCigars