Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 282 FIRE
Episode Summary
Episode 282 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast opens with Michael Steponkiewicz, Mike "Reverend BDP" Palmer and cameraman Phil recapping their road trip to Fredericksburg/Richmond, Virginia for the Powstanie Corona Gorda release party hosted by Bob at Hogshead Cigars. The travelogue covers the rented Audi, a midnight Denny's run, a hotel that lost their suite and offered two rollaway cots instead, and the friends and listeners — Brian and Dina, Corbin, Patrick, "Weasel King" Kevin and David Morris — who drove hours to attend. There's also a movie segment on Fast X, Sisu and Air (the Nike/Michael Jordan film), plus Phil's Fun Facts on the chemist behind the first oral contraceptive.
The news block leads with Scandinavian Tobacco Group's Q1 2023 results: roughly $285 million in revenue, a 1.3% increase over Q1 2022, EBITDA around $68.9 million at a 24.1% margin, and CEO Niels Frederiksen's warning that U.S. handmade cigar sales are slowing after record 2022 imports. The hosts also note STG's $72.5 million acquisition of Alec Bradley and its deal for Swedish nicotine-pouch maker XQS. Their analysis: pandemic-era buying loaded up consumers' humidors, and with inflation squeezing budgets, smokers are burning through existing inventory and thinking harder before buying new releases — which they predict will thin the herd of brands and retailers.
The biggest story is the fire that destroyed an Arturo Fuente tobacco warehouse — "warehouse number three" — in Villa Gonzalez, Dominican Republic, with roughly a million pounds of tobacco lost and no injuries. It sits next to the warehouse that burned in 2011. After offering sympathy to the Fuente family, the hosts push hard on the obvious question: what fire prevention, sprinklers, monitoring or local fire-department capability exists at these facilities, and why did it happen twice? A surprise live call from Alan of Caribbean Cigars delivers the episode's best story — throwing a price-shopping customer out of the shop over Arturo Fuente Chateau, Añejo 77 Shark and Opus X Shark pricing, and the customer badmouthing him at another store afterward.
The episode closes with West Tampa Tobacco Company shipping its third core line, Red — a Mexican San Andrés-wrapped, Nicaraguan-filled full-bodied blend made at Garmendia Cigar Company in Estelí, offered in Robusto, Toro and Gigante at $8.99–$10.99 — along with commentary on the contradictory press-release quotes from Rick Rodriguez and Gus Martinez. Caribbean Cigars is named Shop of the Week.
In This Episode
- 01Virginia Road Trip & Hogshead Cigars EventRecap of the Powstanie Corona Gorda release party with Bob at Hogshead Cigars in Fredericksburg, including the Audi rental, Denny's and a hotel that lost their suite.
- 02Listeners, Friends and Industry BanterShout-outs to attendees who traveled for the event and friendly back-and-forth with other cigar media.
- 03Movie Talk: Fast X, Sisu and AirThe crew reviews Fast X (and Jason Momoa's Joker-inspired villain), the Nazi-era action film Sisu, and the Nike/Michael Jordan movie Air.
- 04Phil's Fun FactsThe Mexican chemist Luis Ernesto Miramontes Cárdenas and the San Andrés connection to the first oral contraceptive.
- 05STG Q1 2023 Results and U.S. Cigar SlowdownScandinavian Tobacco Group's $285M quarter, $68.9M EBITDA, the Alec Bradley and XQS acquisitions, and a warning that U.S. premium cigar sales are cooling.
- 06Why Cigar Sales Are SofteningThe hosts argue consumers stocked up during 2020, are now smoking their inventory, and are buying five-packs instead of boxes — predicting some brands and retailers will fold.
- 07Arturo Fuente Warehouse Fire in Villa GonzalezA million pounds of tobacco destroyed in warehouse number three, next door to the 2011 fire site, and a blunt discussion of fire prevention and insurance.
- 08Live Call: Alan of Caribbean CigarsAlan tells the story of kicking a price-shopping customer out over Fuente Chateau, Añejo 77 Shark and Opus X Shark pricing — and earning Shop of the Week.
- 09West Tampa Tobacco Red LineRick Rodriguez's new full-bodied San Andrés-wrapped Red line from Garmendia in Estelí, in Robusto, Toro and Gigante at $8.99–$10.99.
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
- Let's go. - You're a tool. - You're a tool. - Welcome to the Cigar Hustler Podcast, where we bring you the latest news and insights from the world of premium cigars.
In this episode, we dive into the big stories of the week. We also discuss the latest cigar releases, trends, and hot topics in the cigar world, and We share our thoughts and opinions on everything cigar related. So grab your favorite smoke, sit back, which I can't right now, but I will. - You don't sit back, Phil.
- And join us for another exciting episode of Cigar Hustlers podcast with your host, Michael the King, Steponkiewicz, and his producer, Mike, Reverend BDP Palmer. And I'm Phil, your cameraman. Does anyone know a place that can clean and make my Playgirl collection less sticky? - Oh my God.
Phil's ad libbing over there. Excellent, Phil, nice job. Oh, camera one. Then we'll do that.
Yeah, I was just putting them here nicely. All right. A rack above, better overhead storage with a rack above. Why must we damage our homes just to have overhead storage?
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You weren't paying attention. I just went with it. A rack above is the last storage system you will ever need. I'm actually listening to you, but go ahead.
A rack above is easily disassembled and reassembled in any garage. No matter where life takes you, a rack above can go with you. com. So supposedly, he had built the site for online purchases.
Really? Oh, a rack above. Yeah. Yes.
And he told me about it in the midst of going to the event or whatever. Oh, yes. So I haven't had an opportunity to look at it, but he was super excited. Oh.
And I'm curious to see what it looks like. I watched his video at Hogshead. Did you? He put up a video.
Well, you had downtime at Hogshead. Yes. I don't have downtime at Hogshead. No, no, no, you didn't.
I just want to see if there's a, it says now shipping, buy now. Oh, did you click buy now? I did. Oh, you just bought another one.
Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah, no, he's got a little simple, here's a two-car garage and a one-car garage. Oh, great, if you go to the website, it's right there. It's right there, you can click on it, and we'll ship it to you.
Well, we won't ship it to you. He'll ship it to you. Yeah, yeah. They're very heavy.
Michael will pick it up, though. It's super heavy. Super. It's aluminum.
It's not that heavy. Huge. so strong. Thanks.
We'd like to thank the Anonymous fan for our Tom Arnold video. Oh, I saw it. It was nice. Tom Arnold is the Anonymous fan.
Well, it could have been. I don't know. It was just sent to me. I didn't say who it was.
He's an avid listener to the Cigar Hustlers podcast. Apparently all over his house. They listen to it at his house. Yeah.
He loves it. He does. Can't get enough of it. He just finished FUBAR with Arnold's.
He asked if there was more than one podcast video about cigars, though. He's concerned. Well, the others don't really portray as talking about cigars all the time, right? That is true.
They're sports and snack foods. Yeah, they're talking about the snacks and cracker jackies and bubble gum. Right. A guy came in to Hogshead.
So we had the event at Hogshead. Yes, it went really well. Yeah. " What did he say?
I think he said he did. " Pretty funny. It's pretty funny. You should have given them a cracker check.
A lot of downtime, I guess, in the cigar industry. It's pretty funny. Lately there is, I guess, yeah. A lot of panic.
A lot of panic going on. Nobody panic. Everything's gonna be fine. Everything's fine.
I'm fine. We're fine here. The fire around in the office. There's fires, there's famine.
I was lost in the jungle. Yeah, Phil got lost in the jungle. It was terrible. Yeah.
Did you see that Boots was trying to convey, ask for questions for Phil? I did see that. I didn't see that. I saw some of the questions.
Yeah. Yes. Oh, man. Some of them were interesting.
Are you going to do it? Are Phil going to do the questions? I liked Ben's. I liked Ben's question.
He only told me one. Oh, I didn't see Ben's. Yeah, he only told me one. Ben's was really good.
Phil can answer that one. I like Steven's. Steven's. Steven?
I'm saying the wrong name. Steven Wells. Steven Wells, yes, I like Steven Wells. Steven Wells had a good one, yeah.
Yes. But the other ones, Boots said that he's going to talk about on the Patreon today. Oh. But he did tell me something about some type of jello wrestling with Karen.
Yeah. That won't happen. Oh yeah, Karen and Phil Jell-O wrestling. No, that won't happen.
That'd be a great idea. I think it was yoga lights. So Ben and Phil will not, I mean, not Ben, so Karen and Phil will not be uniting? No.
I believe that's called the hermaphrodite. We might be able to find some video footage of that. I'm sure that exists in the interwebs. Yeah, I'm sure I can find that.
Like. Unbelievable. Very possible. You doing okay, Phil?
You feel good? You get your back up to strength? Yeah, yeah. I feel a lot better.
Did something happen to your hairline? You're wearing a hat now. Oh, yeah. You guys like that?
Look, check this out. This is this nice Powstanie red hat. You're wearing the P. The white P.
That's nice. That's nice. It looks very good. It goes with your red nose.
Yeah, very fancy. Thank you. So we went to Virginia, Fredericksburg, Virginia, to see our friend Bob. Quite the travel experience.
We had the release party of the Postana Corona Cordas at Hogshead with Bob. With Bob. Was it cold? It got a little cool at night.
It was perfect. But it wasn't frigid. No, there was no wind. You know what I mean?
Well, you never went outside. I had to get to the car. Yeah, but the wind had stopped by then. Well, I was driving with the windows down.
It was cold then, I had my jacket on. You were in the backseat. Boots told me that he made you guys run an Audi. Yeah, Boots did make us rent an Audi.
Yeah, he did make us upgrade the car. How was that? He's like a kid, Boots is like such a kid, man. It's a kid with money.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I went the fancy car. I wound up paying for the Audi, though.
Oh, did you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, Boots is like kind of scrambling in his wallet, like looking, sorting out for cash. I'm like, let's get in the fucking car.
What are we doing here? What, what? I got under singles. One.
What level are we at? Two. It's like... Now I messed up.
I gotta start over. No, it felt like it felt like my kid buying baseball cards or some shit, you know what I mean? Right, okay, you gotta give me the money. All right, okay, it's gonna be $4.
86. What do you mean? 86. No, there's tax.
What is tax? I don't pay taxes. Welcome to the Republican Party, buddy. That's all it took.
So, you know. We got quite the compliment from Coop. Did you see that? I did see that.
That was very nice of him. He's making friends now. See, you came after him aggressively for no reason. He wasn't aggressive.
He's a sweet man. Friendly media banter. Coop is a sweet man. Yes, friendly back and forth media banter.
You know, I hit the ball to him. He hits the ball back to me, and I hit it back to him. I think that's good. You guys should keep that up.
Well, let's see what he's doing this week. Let's see what he's up to. Oh, he's got Sokka on. Does he?
Yes. Oh. Okay. Sokka gone.
But yeah, he said we did excellent coverage of the entire trip, Not just- Yeah. Now, was he mad we didn't do the airplane selfie? You know what's really kind of funny? Is I wanted to do a whole video.
Like a real video. Yeah. And here's what I realized. When I'm working- Yes.
I'm not real videoing fucking anything. I'm busy- No, you know what though? If you would have told us you were going to give that little speech in the beginning- Yeah. I would have liked to videotape that.
It was a nice speech. But by the time you started, by the time I get the phone out, you're five minutes in. I'm at a point where I can do it. Yeah, I'm not, you know.
Settle down, everybody. I must bring on the speech. For future, we will know there will be a speech. Always be ready.
I'll have you mic'd, and we will be ready to roll. Ooh, I'll be mic'd. Mike will be mic'd. Because I did videotape you doing something else, but the sound was so bad.
It was terrible? The sound was terrible? Well, you can hear everybody else in the background, you know. Well, if you want, I can dub over it.
I would like to, thank you. I didn't say that. Oh, you just threw it away? So, once I post, I usually get rid of it.
Interesting. Okay. It takes up space on your phone. Apparently I have all those files.
So, yeah, apparently you do. Not anymore. So, Bob is fucking... Very nice, man.
Bar none, man. Very, very nice. He is one hell of a retailer. Made sure we were comfortable, we had drinks, we had food.
Apparently, if you want cheese pizza, you're a psychopath. Yeah, everything's fine. He takes care of customers. What's that about?
Huh? He said, is pizza okay with you guys? " Only cheese, huh? " Right?
" You don't like anything other than cheese? Bob, he is a psychopath. No, all the meats from pizza meats, pepperoni and that kind of stuff, it upsets me stuff. Yeah.
I could do ham, but I wasn't going to order ham and pineapple, that'd be a whole different type of psychopath. You heard it here first, Scar Hazard Podcast, BDP that's not like meat. But Brian and Dina came out to see us, they drove like what, four hours or something? Did they say four hours?
I think it was like three or four hours, something like that. Yeah, it was far. Because they've been there before. Yeah.
They're awesome. They are, they're very nice. Got to meet that guy, Corbin, he's a really good dude. Oh, and was that the young guy with the beard?
Who asked all the questions? Who works at... No, no, no, that was the other guy. I think that's Patrick, his name is Patrick.
We're now, yeah, we're now friends on Facebook. Oh. He friend requested me. Oh, very nice.
Those are tight. Yes, we did a lot of chit-chat. That's cool. Yes.
I gave him your home Android. Weasel King Kevin was there? Weasel King Kevin, which one was he? He actually has it on his truck, it says...
Oh, that guy, yeah, yeah, yeah. It says Roma Weasel. Roma Weasel, yeah. He made sure to move it right out front as soon as he could.
So people traveled to come see you guys. That's great. Well, and I think that goes to show, you know, the... The reach.
Just how good Bob is, too. Right. You know what I mean? Oh, and David Morris came.
Oh, David Morris did come. There was a lot of people there. A lot of good people there. So, they went very well.
We had a little confusion with David Morris, but we worked that out. Yeah, we sorted it out. We were curious. We had some questions.
Sorry, David. For the love of God, I'll never do that again. Okay. Fair enough, David.
Fair enough, David. We get it. The hotel was a fucking disaster. Yeah, I couldn't believe how fast that young lady spoke.
So, Boots wanted to go to Denny's. After the event, Boots was hungry. He was hungry. He was hungry.
I would have been perfectly content with going home, but... I would have been okay. I wasn't hungry. Is that him?
It's Ronnie. Hey, she, she, she. Oh, we're not talking. You want to take the call?
I don't care. You can take the call. You want to connect? Or just hold it up to the microphone.
I don't know. You should pick it up. I'm podcasting. Is it live?
No. It's never live. But you're recording right now. I have you on the mic.
I'm being recorded? Yes. Look at that haircut. It's not live.
No, not live. But we're not going to edit it. Yeah, we're not editing Mike Palmer: I need Palmer's phone number because I have some issues with him that I want to address face-to-face, and I want to call... Mike Palmer: He cannot have my phone number.
He can call me at the shop. Mike Palmer: All right. I'll make sure that you get his number. Mike Palmer: Thank you very much.
Enjoy the rest of your show. Mike Palmer: Thank you, sir. I love the haircut. Mike Palmer: It's not a haircut.
It's just styled by my daughter. Mike Palmer: It's Spike Weezy the baby is what you are. Mike Palmer: I think the problem should be hashed out on the Patreon. Mike Palmer: I love this.
Mike Palmer: I'll talk to you, brother. Mike Palmer: All right, man. Later. Do not give him my phone number.
Why? This should be hashed out on the Patreon. Somebody was weirdly nice to me yesterday after beating me up the day before. Oh, dude, you know, you gotta love Ronnie.
I don't have that much free time to spend on the phone with Ronnie. It's okay, then you just hang up when you're done talking and saying. Let him know, hey, that's what I know. When my time is up, I'm just hitting the end button.
You should make it to where when anybody ever has a question or a problem with you, they have to address it on the show. Sorry, you have to call me between the hours of 3:00 and 5:00. It's the only time I'm available. Monday.
Monday only. Monday only 3:00 to 5:00. So we went to Denny's. Yes.
And if the slogan is "Virginia is for lovers," it's not for hospitality, right? I mean, we came to that conclusion at Denny's. What was wrong at Denny's? " Boots said they were very unresponsive.
Yeah. We got all our food. Everything was right. We did get our food.
It was right. Relatively fast. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Just no thank you. Didn't they come by and see if we needed anything else once? I don't know. I don't think they did.
I asked a question once and she just kind of... Well, the young lady wasn't waiting on us. She was waiting on the lady behind us. I feel like she was agitated with us in general.
It could have been. I mean, three guys come in in matching clothes at midnight. Well, we all have the super piece. We got a lot of questions in the airport and everything about it.
Everybody loves those. Oh, what's that? What's that? Oh, look, Superman.
Oh my God, is that her? And then we say it's a cigar. Cigar. And then like, oh, oh, never mind.
You are the devil. Yes. Next time you guys should do something like, hey, we're going to be a Bad Boy 7, so we'll sign autographs now. Should have said we were in a band.
Yeah, have you never heard of the Postanias? That's us. We're the Postanias. We're the Postanias.
Yeah. Big Polish band. Big, yeah. See, we're a huge deal overseas.
Huge in Poland. Yeah. Huge. We have over a million followers on Polish gram.
Polish gram. So, we could, It's called PG. So we go to our hotel, and this bitch behind the counter is on speed. Something.
Yeah. She's a very, very fast talker. She's got to be close to 300 pounds. Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah, around there. Sure. Right? She's a very stout woman.
She had, she sounded like, oh, oh, solo. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, she didn't. It was kind of high pitch.
She's talking like this. And she would speak so fast that you had to wait for your brain to register it before you could respond. Yeah, it was a second after process, what did she say? It was like a subliminal message.
Yes. She was obviously very, very nervous. I don't think she was nervous. No, no, I think it was.
And she had a certain amount of things she had to say to every customer. Because she rattled the same thing off to us as she rattled off to the guy in front of us, except for the part you're about to get to. I think she really loved the person in front of us. I think that she was enamored with the guy that was in front of us.
Maybe, maybe she was. Yeah, she was all about him. Maybe. " Like, went nuts.
Is that a thing in Virginia? I told you, the guy at the gas station was asking that to everybody. " Oh yeah? " Yeah.
" One guy said Clearwater, and then they chit-chat a minute about Clearwater, Tampa, St. Peter, Abel, somebody said something else. " I know exactly where that is. That's the episode of the cigar world, isn't it?
That's exactly what he said. Yeah, yeah. I get it. So, we go to get our room.
Yes. And, you know, we're budget-friendly when it comes to the traveling. We're all in one room. All in one room.
All in one room. All in one room. It makes the sex a lot easier. That's right.
Nobody has to leave. You just jump from bed to bed. It's fine. It's very easy.
Yeah. Right. So, and she says, hey. Boots is very generous.
He's very soft. Very soft, man. He was worn out because he was the last one to wake up the next day. He was.
He was. He was exhausted. He's not here to defend himself. He's exhausted.
You get wondering how he got his, where he didn't have clothes on. Yeah. What happened? So weird.
So she says it in her speed reference that we don't have the sweet room. I'm sorry, we don't have your room anymore, we only had the one king. Yeah, we don't have the two queens and the pull-out couch, you just have the one king bedroom. One king bedroom.
And I'm like, are you fucking kidding? We're looking at each other going, what? I said, do you see the size of the three large men? Like, we're just, like, how's that?
What, does it just pile in? How's that gonna work? She said, well, I can bring you cots. Right, rolaways.
Right, rollaways. I can bring you rollaways. Now, I'm already trying to, at this point, I've opened up my phone, and I'm trying to figure out alternative methods, but it's past midnight. Right.
So, it's really difficult to check into a place. Right, to make a reservation, because then your next day. Right. Yeah.
For that night. Right. So, I'm like, okay. So, we took the room.
So, we go upstairs to the room. We go to the room. Yeah. It's a very tiny room.
Yeah, it took me two seconds to come to the conclusion. Yeah, there was not floor space for two rollaway beds. Yeah. And then the two rollaways.
If there would have been, it would have been, floor space would have been all bed. Yeah. No walking. We could have jumped from bed.
We could have played floor is lava and no one would have lost. Right. If the guy in the corner had to go to the bathroom, he'd have to walk across the other two to get to the tiny little bathroom. Exactly.
Right. So, needless to say, I was like, we're not staying here, so. Well, wait, she brought the beds. She did bring the beds.
One of them looked like Hannibal Lecter's fucking carting them out type of a style. One was the standard folded up with the clips would have opened up. The other one was a stand-up mattress strapped to a frame or something. You're just kind of leaning against the wall and you sleep like fucking...
It had wheels on the end, so it moved across the room like that. Exactly, as the Hannibal Lecter. Maybe it was her bed for the guy that was in front. It came with a straight jacket and a mouth guard, so you wouldn't eat the other people in the room.
That's how they fit too, one that's stand-up. And she was the one that delivered it. Right. Pancakes at seven.
Pancakes at seven. Okay, I'm going to leave now. Do you want me to leave? So I got on the phone and I called the Hilton property.
" "And I need to find a room. " So they connect us. Right, very easily. Yeah, no problem.
Boop, boop, boop. There you go. Here you go. Answered phone, "Hey," explained to him the situation, and he says, "Yeah, I got that room.
Just buy it on the app. Yeah, go online and make the reservation. And even though it's past midnight, I'll fix it. Right.
Like, we're on our way. I'll be right now. We're fucking on our way. An hour and 15 minutes later.
Yeah. And yeah, so we drove back to Richmond. Right. And we had a beautiful suite.
Oh, it was a lovely room. Fantastic. Lovely room. No problems.
Nope. And then Boots wanted to eat at Fall Line or something. Front Line, Fall Line. I don't know, he saw a picture of chicken covered in syrup and he just became a name.
Oh, it was great. We're gonna go have brunch. We're having Saturday brunch, fellas. They've got chicken and syrup.
Yeah. So it was the restaurant in a Marriott. It was, yeah. Again, with the Marriott's.
Yeah. He said it was nice. It was good. It was okay.
It was all right. It was okay. Mine was so hot, I couldn't even taste it. Oh, really?
Yeah. I mean, the potatoes weren't, but the sandwich was. Potatoes were delicious. The egg and everything was so hot, and then it wasn't, it wasn't bacon.
It was more like, what's my name? Turkey bacon? No, no. It was bacon, but it wasn't thin bacon, it was really thick bacon, so they tried to make it crispy, which means they just burnt it.
I enjoyed my food. I did. I did. But, you know, next time we got a fun.
I wasn't thrilled with it. The potatoes were really good. I wasn't thrilled with this. I think Mike Goshen, somebody was telling me about a barbecue place that we just didn't have the time to do it.
David Morris told us about someplace on Facebook. Country Kitchen or Country Store. Boot said there was some type of wedding. There was.
There was. There was a very lovely Indian wedding about to take place. Lovely ballroom decorated up because you had to go seven miles to the bathroom, and it was over by the ballroom. Yeah, so we went and crashed the wedding.
Right. And we all learned how to do the ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding. Yeah, it was amazing. What is it?
Ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding. There you go. Just remember that he's the racist one on the podcast. When they come for you.
When they come. When they come for us. And they will come. We will serve you up without question.
Him. It was him. It was him all along, take him, take him, please, we have nothing to do with this, whatsoever. And then they give us Mercedes when they take him.
Yeah. Oh, the Mercedes from the wedding? It was a beautiful Mercedes covered in flowers, it was lovely. They were making like a little circle outside around the thing going to different places.
I told them that I knew Matul, I knew, I know. Did you mention Matul? You guys know Matul? And they go, ugh, the king of New York.
Who does not know Matul? Of course I know Matul. It's fantastic. Somebody asked me if I knew Sean.
They said the two of them are always together. Oh, yeah? Sean and Matul? Yeah.
Really? Yeah. Interesting. It was funny.
One lives in California. I don't know what to tell you. I mean, apparently they go together in these things. I don't know.
Plus ones. Yeah, maybe it's always just plus one. So I did go and see Fast and Furious X on Sunday. You did?
I did. I wasn't. No invite. What are you doing with the paper?
Someone else invited me. No, no. We don't do the time. We do it after we do this.
Someone else invited me, sir. Oh. Yeah. Okay.
I was going to be the weird dude to invite. You told him you'd come with people? I'm like, "Okay, cool. " I was at the beach, I can go.
We did a beach day. How was it? There's a lot of bad acting. Is there?
There's a lot of bad acting. Is it the same people? Don't tell me. Yeah.
Do they just continue to act bad, or this movie, they're like... I mean, there are some scenes that are good. Look, if you're going to see Fast and Furious X, you know what you're getting yourself into. Yeah, yeah, you're not going for the X.
There's no Oscar awards here. You know what I mean? That's true. It's cars and CGI and explosions and, you know, whatever.
I'll tell you one thing, though, that I did notice. Jason Momoa's character, he is based strictly off of Jokers. He is Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger. Oh, is he really?
And they have legitimately clipped scenes and used them as focal points. And you could, I could, at least I could fucking tell him. I'm like, okay, I know exactly where that's from, what, you know what I mean? Right.
And some of the shit that he says. Well, like, ten movies, we're sort of running out of stuff to say. They make him, he's the, he is a, he's a joker. He's the modern day.
Modern day joker. Yeah. Yeah. His outfits, he's in a purple car, I mean, the whole fucking thing.
You know why he's in the purple? I saw an interview with him. What? His mother hates that color.
So that's his private joke. He normally paints his nails that color. Oh. He told the producer, go, I'll do the movie, but the car has to be purple.
Really? That particular shade of purple. His mother hates that color. He has to incorporate that into the movies.
In the movies, excellent. Well, it looks like it was done because it's kind of Joker-y, if you ask me. He's the Joker. Right.
So... It's supposed to be the last one. Oh, it's a three-parter, though, bro. Oh, is it?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Now that he's getting the cash. Yeah, this is a whole parlay, because, you know, Momoa's going after The Rock, he's going after Jason Statham, he's going after all of them. Oh, he's in all the movies, all three of them.
Oh, normally they kill the bad guy at the end. Or make him part of the group. They didn't kill him. Are you making this one either?
No, there's a cameo at the end. Spoiler alert. He's in the next one. He's in the credits.
Oh, that's what he'd be in the next. Yeah. Or he's in a whole spinoff. He's in the whole Hobbs and Shaw, yada yada, without.
Oh, yeah. I don't know if Vin Diesel and they were friends yet. I don't think they are. Supposedly Vin Diesel and what's the gentleman's name that died?
Paul Walker. Paul Walker. Right before the first movie came out, they were sitting in an airport, on the ground, waiting on a plane, and they were talking about how great it is to be not known. You know, because people are stepping over them as they're before the movie comes out.
Right. And Paul Walker said, you know, if we could do 10 of these, that would be something nobody's ever done 10 sequels. Really? So, yeah.
So he went to make sure he did 10 for Paul. For Paul. Right. Do it for Paul.
Well, apparently now he's going to 13, though. Yeah. It's not as nice a story. Now he's making two more.
Look, man, it's all bullshit at the end of the day. Well, I'm sure. " They mention him. Go home to Brian.
They always mention him. You know what's really kind of fun to me is that every other person that's jacked that's in this movie, they are fully clothed. None of them are allowed to compete with the size of Vin Diesel, period. Jason Momoa, they have the guy who was in Reacher, he's in there.
Oh, is he really? Yep. John Cena's in there. Yeah, John Cena's his brother.
All these dudes are jacked, fuckin' jacked, right? None of them are allowed, there will be, you will, none of them will have a tank top, there's not a single… Benzie doesn't go shirtless, though, ever. No, but he's always, like, sleeveless, yeah. Tank top, life beater.
Yeah, his standard, you know. It's his thing, right, family, family, family, 10-sequel show about family. Oh, it's about family. Right.
So, but it's worth, I mean, it's entertaining, you should go see it, yeah, until it comes out. Yeah, you can watch it at home, you're not missing out, right, yeah. Me and Boots watched Sasu. Oh yeah?
Sasu. Sasu, sorry. What is Sasu? How was it?
Because I wanted to watch it. It was good. What is Sasu? It's like John Wick kills Nazis.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The old guy. Yeah, it was good. Other than that guy made a lot of money to have only one line in the whole movie.
He didn't talk the whole time? The whole time. Oh, that's epic. What was the one line?
Would you like fries with that? No. And then he killed everybody. " What's it?
That's it. Yeah. No, he actually said, "I would like to convert these into small coins," and he started the assassin movement for- Oh, is this a prequel to John Wayne? No, it's not.
I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I just tied them together. No, it was during the Nazi war, yeah.
The Nazi war? I'm sorry. The war against the Nazis. The war with the Nazis.
You're so well-spoken. I'm trying to make two of us race. He's got a head injury. He must be concussed.
Yeah, he's clearly concussed. Yeah. But it was great 'cause- He thought it was from war of Nazi. You gotta watch it.
I'm not gonna tell you anything about it. Okay. Oh, I told you you got one line. I know that he made it to the end with the gold, I can tell you that much.
Well, of course. I mean, of course it's gonna be a happy ending, right? Is it? You can't make a movie with the Nazis.
Maybe they're making three more. Maybe they're making three of 'em. Can't make a movie with the Nazis? I saw Schindler's List, it was not that happy.
It was pretty sad. Pretty sad movie. It's all about the Nazis. Yeah.
My goodness. You can't make a movie about Nazis and not be happy. What was that one little guy that dressed like Woody from Toy Story, Dave? I don't know his own name, but it was Woody.
I think his name was Dave. A lot of good people. Oh, Boots told me about this guy, that was a Splinter guy. He called him Splinter because he's Woody's son.
I feel like I made him a little nervous when he was, like he was trying to, he was trying to go at me. He had his hand on his gun. A little, a little tiny revolver. He was trying, listen.
Like a Mattel? 22 cal? I mean, I probably would have survived. 38.
22. He was trying to come at me all aggressive, thought that, you know, he's gonna rattle me, or whatever. " And you could tell that, at that- There's something about prison in there. At that moment, he had realized, he had done fucked up.
That he was pressing the wrong person. Hey, it's not gay in prison, man. What are we doing for the Patreon, buddy? What are we doing?
What are these? Mr. Robot Fumador. Mr.
Roboto? Go ahead, Palmer. Go ahead, Palmer. Break a move.
I don't do a robot. No, I'm old. Things break. Feels good.
Feels light. This one doesn't feel light. It ain't a light cigar. Let's see how it catches.
Let's see how it catches. That was a terrible throw, but an excellent catch. Yes. It was a good throw.
It turned right at the right moment. Oh, man. They were throwing in the dirt. Sometimes the receiver makes the quarterback.
Sometimes the receiver makes the quarterback. Oh, it drowns, it rolls off. 3 grams. Just for the record.
It's a Toro. I'm finishing my post on ya, Connecticut, here. So, getting ready to move on. All right, we got to do Phil's Fun Facts.
Yeah, I love Phil's Fun Facts. All right, and then we'll go to the news. Oh. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Phil's Fun Facts.
Hello, peoples. Hello, my peoples. All right, well, here we go. Luis Ernesto Miramontes Cardenas.
Excellent. Okay. What a long name. That was the name.
A 25-year-old Mexican chemist came up with the Mexican San Andreas tobacco. Really? Used. Why?
Come on, read it! Used in one of the first... Read it! First three oral...
Contraceptives. Contraceptives. All right, that's it. Oh, my God.
From the four quarters of the world, all the cigar industry news you could possibly need. The Cigar Hustler Podcast report with Mike Toon. STG reports. S.
cigars slow down. Yeah, no shit. S. 46 Million in Revenue during the Q1 of 2023.
Nobody buying. 3% increase compared to the first quarter of 2022. So how is it? It went up.
So how are sales down? Well, it's talking about importation. Importation is still up. This is how much money they generated.
Oh, you just charge more for the cigars. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Let's see. While we're riding, it looks like, whoa, guess what?
93 million. They threw out the EBITDA. They threw out the EBITDA right away. Put the EBITDA right in.
Right away, right away. 93 million. Justin Andrews can comment on this. Do you think he's in the process analysis for lead optimization meeting?
I bet you he picks up. Bro, I just pulled that out of thin air. That was nice. You got that.
93 million? 3 million EBITDA? He should call. I'm going to call.
Are you already paired? Yeah, I was pairing as you were talking. Oh, look at you. I was like, let me get on this.
Quickly. 4% in the same quarter last year. Free cash flow before acquisitions. Shh.
Let's get the real story. Let's see. Oh, he sent the voicemail. I hope, though, at the meeting, his phone rang, he forgot to silent it, and everybody looked at him.
" Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. And it's gonna be Justin. We had EBITDA questions is what I'm writing. While the numbers may not seem all that exciting, there was a rather eventful quarter for SCG due to two acquisitions in February.
5 million. But the EBITDA was $69 million. Yes. And they spent more on the one guy.
That's the profit. Yeah. So this comes off, this is, the profit is after. So they're not negative for the year.
No, no, the profit is after. Oh, this is after. Yes. This is what money was left after they bought all these people.
They announced an agreement to purchase XQS, a Swedish manufacturer of tobacco-free nicotine pouches, which we talked about several weeks ago. Very exciting, yeah. STG remains on track to deliver on the 2023 guidance and results for the first quarter, being up against strong comparisons in 2022, said Neils Fredrickson, CEO FTG. Oh, we could ask if Neils was there.
Like NPH? We want to talk to Neils. Put Neils on the phone. Can I have Neils number?
Can I have Neils number? Can I have Neils number? Neils Fredrickson. Mr.
Fredrickson. S. once again in decline. S.
reach record levels in 2022, there's evidence that the consumers will have not been purchasing the cigars at the same rate now. Look, listen, this is how this thing works. 2020 hit, everybody bought cigars, where we thought everybody was going to fucking go sideways and everybody was hunkering down into their shelters or whatever. I don't know what we were thinking, but cigar sales surged.
I miss those days, actually. Those are good days. Those are good days. Yeah.
It really wasn't that bad having COVID. It's almost like I would use the cigar industry as a precursor to the economy. Oh! Yeah, sure.
So, that surged, and then all of a sudden, the economy surged, too. Right. Put a bunch of money in. Right.
It was great, you know. I won't let you know it's just going to pay us back on your taxes. Yeah, yeah. Guess what, pal?
It wasn't free. Now, all of those people have cigars. Yes. Because most people, not all, but most people have a tendency to buy cigars and save cigars.
Yes. They put them in these little Tupperware things, but it's fantastic. They stick them in the shelf. Yeah, and they collect them and they hold on to them.
Okay, so when they, when eggs cost $75, you don't have the money to buy more cigars, but you have... You have cigars though. You still have cigars. Ah.
So what happens? I smoke the ones I have. And they start burning through your inventory a little bit. Yes, they keep warm at night.
People haven't stopped smoking cigars. No, no. That's like saying, you know, people have stopped having sex. This is not going to happen, right?
Okay. I'm sorry, that didn't mean to bring out a sore subject for you. Look at you. Trigger.
I could have said trigger. Or trigger alert. Trigger alert. You know what I mean?
It's like, people are going to drink booze. Right. Booze always sells. They're going to go have that, find the fucking high-end bourbon or whatever, or they'll just drink the shit that's in a plastic bottle.
You can get drunk off of that, too. Yeah, it's okay, you know, I must still do my thing. So, you know, you're starting to see that what's new might not necessarily excite somebody. They're a little more cognizant, your consumers are a little more cognizant about your purchases.
Oh, like, hey, what is this? Right. Exactly. Yep.
What is this? It's another $20 cigar. It's not, it's $10. I thought it was $20.
No, no. 99. No, I'm just talking about the people not buying cigars. Yeah.
So, you know, when funds come back up. Right, when they have more money. They buy those, they'll go back to some of their buying. They won't be the same as 2020, but their collections will go up.
Right. So do you think maybe... But people are still buying cigars. Well, my question is...
Go ahead. You were just saying that before people were seeing things that were new, so maybe that excited them, so now they see things new, then maybe that's not exciting them. Do you think maybe the industry kind of changes where the new is not cool anymore and you don't go back to the old stuff? I don't think it's the fact that it's new where they don't get excited anymore.
I just think that it's new and then they analyze. Based on what's come out? It's like, okay, this is new. Will I like this?
Maybe I need five. I don't need a whole box. So I connect with this, right? Is there a reason for me to purchase this, you know?
Right. I honestly think that that's what's going on. So people are actually thinking about their purchases. I think that there's a little more thought behind the purchase.
Yeah, and you know, I think that, you know, the herd's about to get thinned, bro. I think that you're going to see some brand owners and some manufacturers are going to fall off. You're going to see some retailers that are going to fall off. You're going to see a couple of guys go away.
And that's okay. Yeah. It's part of the cycle. Right.
The Circle of Life. Yeah, it's like when, you know, you have a fucking Simba up in the air. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm a ma, I'm a ma, hold me up. No, I want you to pick me up. That's not happening.
Why not? Come on, give it a try. Blow out both your delts. Right, exactly.
He can sing the ba-ba-da-ba-da and then you can hold me up. Okay. There I go, ba-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da. No?
No, no. It sounded like the Indian wedding again. So, I mean, I could have easily told SDG that for, you know, a quarter of a million dollar They paid a salary, without question. Yeah?
They didn't need, you know. They don't need all those peoples? No, I'm like, hey, listen. I don't know.
Listen, you guys want to make more profit, come here. Neil Frederick, the CEO of FCG, made a big announcement. He did? Yes.
Huge, huge, huge announcement. I already read it. You weren't paying attention. Yeah, pay attention next time.
That was it? That was it. Yeah, you had one job. That's what they have an hour meeting for every day.
No, no, that's all about the new stuff. No, that's the process analysis for lead optimization. That's what they want to talk about. Basically, that's the new stuff.
What is it? Product. What is it? Lead product.
The process analysis for lead optimization meeting. Process analysis for lead optimization meeting. Look, STG. Yeah.
Palome. The Palome. The Palome. We're here for the Palome.
Here for the Palome. Listen, STG, we'll save you time. Can you get us into the Palome once, you think? Maybe just once.
We'll save you a whole meeting for six months. You can come by Cigar House's podcast. I'm going to tell you right now, if Justin Andrews actually had the ability to get us on a meeting, I would go to a thrift store, buy a plaid suit, something that didn't fit me, where it would be high waters, and I could reenact the Ben Affleck scene of Good Will Hunting. Oh, Good Will Hunting.
" I would just rattle off types of shit that just made no sense. Oh, we forgot to announce, we all watched Air on the trip. We did watch Air. Fantastic movie.
You guys watched it on the way there, I watched it on the way home. Fantastic movie. Boot said it was good. It was a good movie.
Boot said it was good? Yeah, that's what he said. I enjoyed it. It was indeed a fantastic movie.
They really made Buck Knight look like a fucking idiot, though. Which one was Buck Knight? He's the guy who owns Nike. Oh, yeah.
He didn't make him look... Phil. Phil Knight is his name, but everybody calls him Buck. Oh, yeah.
That's why I didn't know if he knew. Yeah, he was very concerned about the board. His name was Phil. Yeah.
I don't know. I gotta deal with the board. You gotta talk to the board. Well, cause you gotta remember, Nike had never reached that type of status yet.
Yes, they just went public. Right. They just went public. It was a different type of public.
The way that they released, it was like Class A stocks or some shit like that. Yeah. So that's why he was so nervous. He's like, man, I'm just like, everything's going great.
They weren't the big deal as they are now. I don't want to get kicked off just because we're going to have Michael Jordan. Right. I need the whole 250,000.
One guy. But Matt Damon's character, I mean, he was really like a guru when it came to basketball. Oh, yeah. Speaking of basketball, fucking Miami, he's just fucking crushing shit right now.
Boston Celtics look fucking stupid. If you want to do sports, you want to do sports? Go on, how about that cigar? It was a brief tap.
It was a brief tap. But by the time I go on to how about the cigar, which will be in June, we might be in the finals, I don't know what's going on. Oh, they love to talk about it. In June?
Yeah, I think it's like the middle of June. They have Lauren Tilly on this week, I wonder what kind of sports are you going to talk about with her. Or snacks, maybe we'll talk about snacks. Oh, snacks.
They don't do snacks. When I go on there, I'm going to say, what are we talking about? Are we talking about sports? What you need to do is be dressed in a sports outfit with snacks and cereal in front of you.
I have my number one winner for cereal, my snack winner, and I'm currently in, I just want to cover all platforms of cigar media. Oh, and music, I have music playing, and then have some music playing. You guys want to talk about cigars? Cigars?
I wasn't prepared. I'm obviously on the wrong show, I'm not prepared. This is not Cigar Hustler Podcast. I'm so unprepared.
I'm so unprepared. I've got snacks, I've got candy, I've got music. What do you guys want to do? I want to talk about the process analysis of the lead optimization.
Can we cover that? Can we get Neil Fredrickson on the phone? I need Neil on the phone. I was told Neil would be here this week.
Yeah, someone told me that we would be co-hosting. Is there a way that I could be Neil in the chat? Neil Fredrickson. Neil Fredrickson.
Yeah, I'll work on that. All right, the big story this week, Arturo Fuente tobacco warehouse destroyed in fire again. Again. Uh-oh.
On Wednesday, one of a Turo Frente Tobacco Warehouse located in Villa Gonzalez, Dominican Republic, caught fire. Carlos Carlito Fuente, who refused to comment, told Cigar Hustler Podcast- He refused to comment? He wouldn't come on the air. Oh.
Yep. That the building caught fire earlier on Wednesday and burned into the night, completely destroying the building and the tobacco inside, though no one was hurt. The warehouse, which the tobacco company considers to be tobacco warehouse number three, I don't know what other people consider it to be, but they consider it to be number three, contained roughly a million pounds of tobacco. Not one or two.
No, not one or two. Number three. Number three. The warehouse is located in the same complex where Fuente suffered a tobacco fire in August 2011.
Notably, warehouse number three, which they call it, is located next to the warehouse that caught fire in 2011 incident. So wouldn't it be next to an empty lot? They will rebuild. Oh, they rebuild it.
Oh. Yeah. Maybe they added sprinklers to remember. Maybe they rebuild it completely.
Maybe they put the fire back in. Yeah. The only warehouse affected as part of the fire was warehouse number three. Warehouse number three.
They want us to all know it's number three. There's a third one. Third one. Yeah.
Next door to the one that burnt before. Not two, not three. There wasn't two this time. Fuente told Cigar Hustlers podcast that the cause of the fire is still unknown.
It's really hot. Mmm. Electrical? I'm just waiting for you to finish this article so we can break this down.
Okay. As in the damage to both the building and the tobacco inside. However, photographs from the scene show a large warehouse on fire that is missing a large section of its roof, as well as a significant portion of the outer large brick wall. The facility is located in Villa Gonzalez and is part of the complex that includes numerous other tobacco warehouses, which will burn later in the years.
It is not in the same location as the company's manufacturing facilities, which are located in the San Diego de los Caballeros Dominican Republic. Nice. Okay, what do you want to say? Okay.
First of all, this is a tragedy. I'm going to get my disclaimer out of the way. He follows us now. They start for me.
I'm going to get my disclaimer out of the way. Okay, disclaimer. This sucks. It's very unfortunate.
Very unfortunate. Right? Fires are not fun. Our hearts and prayers go to the Fuente family.
We're glad that no one was hurt? Yes. Now, with that being said. Uh-oh.
And it was excellent photo coverage. Like, somebody had camera rights. Here it comes. How the fuck does this continue to happen?
This is not the first time there has been a fire. Now, the other one was 2011, so it has been, what, 12 years. Okay, do you think that maybe the person that was running the building, number two, has now moved to number three after 11 years? I mean, there's gotta be, there has to be, you know what I mean?
Like, this doesn't make any fun. Don't you take steps, like, you have a fire, it can happen to anybody, when a fire happens to anybody, don't you take steps to make sure that it doesn't happen again? Yeah, we don't want this to happen again. Did we get relaxed on our fire prevention?
It's like, eh, it was 12 years ago. How'd the fire, how'd the fire, how'd the original fire happen? The first one? I don't know, nobody knows.
Something got hot. It's just a mystery again. Something got hot. So we're seeing, I don't know, man, it's just, come on, come on.
How much tobacco was lost? A million pounds. Come on, somebody do it. He really doesn't listen when I read these stories.
No, he doesn't care. I just said that. He doesn't love you, you told me that. I'm just trying to find out the evidence here today.
I mean, Phil would be happy if I died, then he could be over here. Yeah, he would try and slide right in. I would keep him there. I'd find a replacement.
I just want you to know. Because he's not that funny. Yeah, I wouldn't let Phil. Who do you think would be the replacement?
I wouldn't, you know what, I don't, I got so many problems in front of me right now, I don't think about the problems that don't even exist. Open tryouts. I'm not gonna lie. Open tryouts.
You gotta be willing to do all the work. Yeah, it'd be like live, like, with Regis and Kelly or whatever. Oh, with Regis Leafs? I would sub people in.
Rotate people in? Yeah, and then I'd eventually pick one. The show would suffer. The show would suffer.
Strahan fucked over that whole. Kelly, didn't he? Yeah, he thought Kelly literally didn't live. Yeah, he signed another contract with another.
I think so. Oh, wow. Red circle. Uh-oh.
Red circle. Who's red circle? I can't tell you. Answer, answer.
It's a mystery. Lead optimization. It's actually Alan from Caribbean Cigars. I told him I was sending him 10 boxes.
Corona Gordy, he couldn't stop me. Oh, great. So now he called. Cancel, cancel, cancel.
You know what? I'm answering it. Hold on. Alan, you're on the podcast.
Oh, I don't want to be on the podcast. Why not? Why not? It's the number one podcast.
I heard that some other shit went down on your shop recently. That is true. That is very true. You know, it never stops.
Yeah. What happened? Well, so, I don't know. Do you know Joey from Puerto Nicaragua?
Yeah, he used to work with you. Correct. So, Joey's in the shop, but we're just, we're just shooting the shit. And he's eating lunch, actually, at the store on Friday.
" He goes, "We're gonna fire. We're gonna fire. We don't have those. " This is pre-fire.
He goes, "Yeah. Do you have chateaus? Yeah. Do you have double chateaus?
Yeah. " So already now, I'm a little perturbed. Okay. So, I'm just, you know, just fishing for prices.
Oh, I guess I got a good deal. By the way, do you have any 77 Eye of the Sharks? I said, well, you kind of like named three stars there. We have Eye of the Sharks, we have Anejo 77s, we have Opus 77s, and we have Opus Sharks.
So, you know, the eye of the sharks right there, they're $40. " I said, "Oh, well, then you definitely aren't going to want the Añejo 77. They're too much money for you, too. " So, now, Joey's listening to this, and I am looking at him, and he has now put his head down, and is just shoveling the food in his mouth, because he knows that I am just loading up now to just fire it.
and so sure enough this guy looks yes the guy looks at joey and goes you believe this fucking guy and then now joey is he doesn't even know what he wants to crawl under the table and so uh i go believe this fucking guy get the fuck out of my store he goes what i should get the fuck out of my store he goes i'm not kidding you uh i said listen if you don't get I'm gonna call the police, you're trespassing. You're out of here. He goes, I'm not trespassing. I said, yes, when I'm the owner of the store and I'm telling you to leave, you're trespassing.
That's the way it works. He finally walks out, he walks out, and then he opens the door and sticks his head back in, and he says, I'm gonna give you one more chance. I can't get the fuck out of here. Nice.
He's gonna give you one more chance. One more chance. Right. One more chance.
The funny part of the whole thing is an hour later, Steve Hernandez calls. You know Steve? Yes. The sweeter of the two brothers.
Yes. Correct. The one that actually works. " He goes, "Yeah, I'm here at Subor Havana," which is another store down here.
" But he's my friend. - Oh my God. That's amazing. He went to another store to talk shit about you.
He didn't talk about you. Of course, yes. Apparently, apparently that's what happens. And probably went there to buy, right?
And that's some Chateau's. That's probably where you got them at the beginning. Did Sabor have the number 77 in the aisle? Right.
Yeah. So, yeah, that's the latest installment on how we treat customers. Amazing. Amazing.
I love that. Yeah. Oh, you know who was talking to me? I think it was Brian.
Brian from Cavalier? Yeah. " That's right, you're a legend. You were a legend.
I know a legend more infamous than anything else, I think. That's it. You have a national platform. Now everybody knows who you are.
Look at that. Well, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, quite frankly. Well, you know what? " Good point.
Fair enough. And there you go. So, well, thanks for sharing. Any press is good press.
That's it. Thanks for sharing that story with us and I'll give you a buzz when we're done here. Okay. Well, you know, carry on boys.
All right. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Later.
I fucking love that. I love that. I love having my phone just linked to the... Sure.
I never knew it was a good call. I'm like, I'm answering it. Maybe that was Robbie. It sounded like a Robbie.
Sounds like Robbie Doyle. Are you kidding me? You know who I know? I'll give you one more chance to sell me this address.
All right. All right. Listen, I'm going to give you one more chance to sell me this address. I'm gonna give you one more chance to pick up the, let me buy the 77 Anejo, Eye of the Shark.
All right, Michael, next story's just for you. Wait, but can we, oh, I thought we were done, I'm sorry. I don't understand the fire. Well, see, things get hot.
It doesn't make sense. And then they burst into flames. At this point, I'm probably checking employees and seeing if there's links from the last fire to the, there's got, like, something is wrong. Is Smokin' Paul, does he work in warehouse number three now?
Like one time, one time I get it. Right. One time is a tragedy. Can I ask a question?
Two times, I don't care if it's a decade apart. I have fucking questions. I have fucking questions. They got lax on their fire prevention.
Things do not make sense. And I'm sure I'm going to get phone calls on this one. But look. From Carlito?
If it looks like a fucking duck and it quacks like a duck, it's probably a fucking duck. So you have a million pounds of tobacco. In one building. Is nobody, like, doing walks of this building or anything?
Like, just sitting there, no one, just unattended? No, you gotta turn it. Yeah, they rotate it and stuff. Right.
If it's in P-Loan, it's gotta be rotated. So there's gotta be people. Unless it's sitting in boxes. There has to be people around.
Well, it happened at night. So people aren't around at night. I don't think it's a 24 hour a day. How is it?
I don't know. It just doesn't make sense. There has to be time when there's nobody there. It doesn't make sense.
Just like 30 minutes, it's gone. Well, it's tobacco, for God's sake. All it needs is, you know, a little bit of heat. It's a little bit of heat.
Is there an insurance company that will cover Fuente at this point? How many years has... Do you think they have insurance in... Of course, they have to have insurance.
I would assume that they have insurance. Of course. Yeah, I mean... That's why it's being documented.
So what... Oh, wow. So just a question. I didn't say that.
Yes. That was Phil. No, Phil said that. Phil said that.
That was Phil. So another question. Yes. How many years has tobacco been around being put in these barns?
Well, what was it last week when they used to bring it over on the boat with the other things? Yeah, that was when, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's when they started bringing it.
Wow, there's just no technology in these barns. You didn't say that. I said he said that. Yeah, Phil said that, yeah.
No, Phil said that. No, no, there's no technology. You haven't seen these barns? I'm surprised it was made out of rocks.
Yeah. Actually, when I saw the video, I saw the video, I was like, wow, that's actually a pretty nice building. Yeah. What the fuck happened?
It was a building. Yeah. Right. What happened?
You know what I mean? A lot of these things are just barns. And the sad part is that everybody will be like, oh, I'm really sorry about that. You know what I mean?
You need real friends. You need real friends. You need real friends. Honestly.
We should go see Carlito. " Maybe that would be a good job for you. You could be fire prevention monitor for the tobacco industry. No, you don't have, I don't even have to be fire, I could just be the real friend.
You know what I mean? Fire prevention monitor. Fire prevention monitor makes money. Fire prevention monitor makes money.
You surround yourself with fucking yes people, and you go fucking, that's all you get. You know what, you're exactly right, Michael. Oh, thanks. Yes.
Phil, don't be right. You're right. I see what you guys are up to. You're exactly right.
You know what? You're right there, too. You know what? I think that we will be hosting the replacement next week for you.
We'll start a little tonight. A vacation. It's a vacation. Well, maybe the guy that was watching the barn for Carlito, he probably doesn't have a job anymore.
He probably got some free time now. That guy's probably got downtime. Right. I mean, fuck, bro.
Have you been driving through Tennessee, Phil, and seen those old barns out in the fields and stuff as you drive down the highway? Yeah. That's generally what they look like. Abandoned.
well yeah no but that's during the curing process right that's during one of the things nice little bodegas normally like no but when once it's already been cured it's sitting in a fucking pologne or in boxes that's when it's in that building it's not being cured in that building oh yeah they did that too but they did i mean i know it's not all hanging in these things yeah so like what the fuck man so they hang it to dry it and then if they dry it then it goes to this barn I guess, yeah, because maybe because the Pallones heat up, but, well, I guess there's some type of chemical reaction that happens, somebody had to have fucked up, whether, whether something happened, somebody fucked up, there needs to be a metal building, and, and not only has somebody fucked up, I just mean, do you have a building left after the fire, not, not only has somebody fucked up, somebody has fucked up again, right, so either a new guy wasn't chained properly, or B, probably same guy is the last guy from before, and building two is now in building three, yeah, and well, and we're so sorry no fire building two man is he like a charge of building three is he like the idiot cousin that that fucking mama made me hire something i'm like what is it what the fuck he's luigi fuente luigi fuente think so right curledo kind of looks like mario like like fredo fuente yeah like a fredo fredo he was stepped over and you know as the older brother right yeah because he was incompetent right and he can't fire him right can't fire him where can he do the least At least amount of damage. Put him in charge of building three. Just stick him over there. Nothing happens in building three.
It's only a million pounds. Yeah, it'll be fine. It's the smaller building. It'll be fine.
And then sure as shit. Right. He has a cigarette and flicks it over on the pile. Boom.
That's not my problem. You think they allow smoking around there? No. Yeah.
Inside the curing room? I'm sure they do. Unbelievable. Well, that seems ridiculous.
I'm sure they do. We have a building full of things that burn. Let's all smoke in here. All right.
I'm sure they do. I mean, the fumes alone would ignite. Look, I don't know what to tell you. We don't fact check anything, by the way.
No, we're not fact checking anything. We don't know if they smoke, don't smoke. But I can assure you, I'll have a phone call. But we surely do know that there's absolutely no fire prevention.
Yes, no fire prevention. Tell you what, fire prevention, in building one now, and only one left. Just give me one big sprinkler. I don't know, just something.
Or a fire extinguisher under the sink. Yeah, yeah, fire extinguisher under the sink. I mean, you destroy a pallone or some shit, you know what I mean? Right.
You know what? You don't even destroy that pallone. You actually take that pallone, covered in fire extinguisher, fucking schmegma bullshit, and you make a really rare cigar out of it. Fire blankets.
This was the survivor of Building 3. The Opus Survivor. Yeah, Opus X, Building 3 Survivor. Right.
Yeah. Fire blankets. People are gonna love it. It's gonna taste amazing.
It's got plume on it already. You see the one picture of the fireman just standing there watching the place burn? No, it's burning. I do not touch it.
And his mask was a piece of cloth that had around his face. Yeah, I believe it. We're actually all out of water. We're all out of water.
No water. No agua. I mean, if I'm building a donation, like a foundation, like if there's going to be a foundation going for the Fuentes at this point, I'm aiming towards beefing up the fire department. I'm just saying.
Oh. You know what I mean? The local fire department? We need donations for the fire department.
We're going to get you a truck. It's going to be amazing. We're going to get you like oxygen tanks. We're gonna get all types of things.
Yeah. It's going to be amazing. Very nice. Yeah.
And water. Lots of water. Do you know water is the only thing you have a recipe for that you can't make? Really?
How do you make water? Hydrogen and two oxygen atoms. Yeah, so go make one. I can't look.
I got a machine right over here that fucking pulls water out of the air. Oh, it needs to be emptied. Look at that. I make water.
Yeah. Right there. Right here in the air. Perfect.
Uh, we're out of time. Go to the next story. You want to the next story? No, this is This is Pedro Bonisfield time.
Oh. West Tampa Tobacco Ships Ruddline. What? West Tampa Tobacco.
Tricky Ricky. Pretty Ricky. Pretty Ricky. I like Tricky Ricky.
Tricky Ricky. Oh, this is the one that he talked about a couple weeks ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, "Well, you haven't heard from him.
" Here it is. Here he is. West Tampa Tobacco Company is being shipping its third and newest core line called Red. The blend starts by borrowing the same Mexican- It's called Red.
It's called Red. The other ones are black and white. You think there's a cease and desist on that? On Red?
The movie Red. I don't think so. No, it's a different industry. It's totally different.
Oh, okay. That makes it up. Totally different thing, right. Yeah.
Okay. And you have a Red Hat you had on earlier. Yeah. You got a cease and desist from the hat?
Yeah. Well, that was the Pustania Red. Yeah. Are you going to cease and desist on the Pustania hat?
The blend started by borrowing the same Mexican San Andreas wrapper that was used in the birth control that you mentioned earlier. In the original thing, yeah. Yeah, used by the company's first Attic Series release. By that scientist.
By that scientist with the long-ass name. Yeah. The binder and filler come from Nicaragua. You just spit up all over yourself?
Maybe they make you charge of fiber, but you just spit on all the tobacco. Oh, there you go. Oh, my God. That will do more than what happened.
But the different barrels and those news in the Attic series. The cigars are produced at Garmandia Cigar Company in Esteli, Nicaragua. The line is being released in three Vitolas. Let's see, they're doing the Red Robusto, the Red Toro, and the Red Gigante.
99, respectively. West Tampa Red gave me the opportunity to sit down with the factory and really focus on creating a blend that I enjoy, said Rick Rodriguez, apparently didn't like the first two. " Red will be a reflection. I think that's a fuck up right there.
That's a huge mistake. I think. Well, apparently he learned his lesson and he made the red one. The one he likes.
Ah. Ah. Cigar fans. Red will be a reflection of what I believe is the next piece to lay in the West Tampa puzzle.
Full body cigar that delivers the full flavor consumers have come to enjoy from West Tampa. Are you enjoying the full body from West Tampa? They're not in the store anymore. So the answer is, oh, I'm very sorry.
West Tampa Tobacco Company continues to focus on serving the global cigar community, said Gus Martinez, president and co-owner of West Tampa Tobacco Company via press release. It's important that we take a global approach when blending our cigars and ensuring our cigars are available to all the markets. Now, wait. The one owner, Gus, says they're taking a global approach when blending.
Yeah, good luck with that. Yeah. Rick just said I made the one I like, not the one everybody else likes. Yeah.
I mean, you got to get your bullshit on the same page, man. Not working together very well. You guys have to at least discuss what you're fucking saying. Hey guys, Rick just did a press release.
He did! I have to do one too. What should I say? We believe...
Something with global. Global sounds good. It's gonna be global. It's important that we take a global approach when blending our cigars.
That sounds good, right? That's good. Well, Rick said the opposite. Fuck him.
Send it anyway. Send it anyway. Send. Hit send.
Send. There wasn't a person to read the quotes and say, wait a second. I have Gus's. They're opposites.
Neither one of these makes sense if we put them together. Yeah, yeah, let's just do that. Let's just do that. Let's just send it anyway.
Let's see if anybody picks up on it. Right. Oh, sorry. We did here.
You got a shop of the week, Michael? Yeah. You don't know what's going on? It was on the pairing thing.
Nobody knows. Easier to replace me because I don't know what's going on. Yeah. Uh-oh.
Ready when you are, what's shop of the week? Caribbean Cigars. Oh. Congratulations, Caribbean Cigars, your shop of the week.
Service with a snarl. I have a listener of the week. Do you? Yes.
The man that told Alan, you heard him on the podcast. Listener week, the man that told Alan-- He told Brian. He told Brian later. Oh, he told Brian later.
" Oh, that's great. Please, continue to talk about us in all the shops. Absolutely epic. If you're up there hogshead, tell Bob we said hi.
Yes. There's a big thing going on this week, right? Yeah, we're doing the-- We mentioned that in the beginning, I believe, but go ahead, do it again. We're doing the Posagna Corona release, Corona Gordo release at our shop.
The Florida release. Yeah, well, we're releasing it at our shop, finally. We did the Hogshead. We've shipped the product.
It's going to be in store. It's not going to be online just yet. Maybe online the following week or something. Excellent.
Yeah. Gotta give everybody time. Gotta give everybody time. And here comes Boots now.
Don't forget, on the Patreon, he's going to talk about all those questions. Oh, on the Patreon. Oh, and we're doing the robot. Hey, Boots.
We're doing the robot. Hey, Boots, come on in. Oh, nice, he's in. Yeah, good, thanks for coming.
Thanks for coming in. Don't sit on Phil's lap. All right, well, let's get going because we're running out of time. Why are you rubbing his leg?
Why are they taking her clothes off? All right, and that's it. That's it, that's it. All right, we're out of here, we're out of here.
Listen, we're not cucks, pal, okay? That's right, we don't want to watch, for God's sakes. Cover your eyes, Michael. All right, I'm stopping the recording.
All right. Bye, peoples. Bye. Is this dick out?
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Show Notes
In this exciting episode of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, we delve into the latest updates and stories shaping the cigar industry. Join us as we discuss STG's Q1 2023 results and the cautionary warning of a potential cigar slowdown.
First up, we dive into the unfortunate incident that rocked the industry: the devastating fire that destroyed the Arturo Fuente Tobacco warehouse. We explore the impact of this significant loss on the brand and the industry as a whole.
Additionally, we bring you exclusive coverage of the much-anticipated world release event for the Powstanie Corona Gorda. The Hogs Head Cigar Lounge hosted this unforgettable gathering, and we take you inside to experience the excitement, the aroma, and the camaraderie of fellow cigar enthusiasts.
Tune in to this episode of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast to stay informed and entertained as we navigate the latest happenings, challenges, and triumphs within the world of cigars. Don't miss out on this insightful and captivating discussion!Cigar Hustlers Podcast