Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 308 Guilty

Episode Summary

Episode 308 of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast opens with the story the hosts dubbed "Guilty": a prototype Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust cutter that sat on Mike's desk was accidentally listed and sold on eBay by Greg — for about $150 — with a Cigar Hustler return address, prompting an early-morning text from Steve Saka himself. Rather than blow up, Saka turned the mishap into a promotion: he shipped a replacement cutter and set up a 48-hour giveaway where every Dunbarton box purchase earned an entry, with Greg forced to hand-sign an apology on each box. The hosts run the drawing live inside the Sakasquatch Facebook group, pulling winner number three of 28 entries, Gregory Dietrich, who also becomes Listener of the Week.

The crew smokes the Halligan, a Dunbarton/DTT shop exclusive delivered by Brett Frye, along with Cinco de Cincos, and teases a Patreon call with Brett to break the Halligan down in detail. Along the way they plug the upcoming December 9th SBC event at Smoke on the Water in Weston (Shop of the Week) and tease an upcoming Rojas giveaway and the wrap-up of a charity fundraiser.

The news segment covers Luciano Cigars naming Mark Reddy CEO and promoting Ed Trevino to VP of Sales; Javier Estades being re-elected chairman of the Cigar Association of America; the FDA raising tobacco penalties 7.7% under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act (with premium-cigar-only companies largely insulated thanks to the CAA v. FDA victory); the Crowned Heads Mil Días Bellicoso Fino 2023 (5.5 x 52, Ecuadorian Habano wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, Costa Rican filler, $12.95, 1,500 boxes of 12); and Boveda raising prices on 60-gram and 320-gram packs for the first time since 2005.

The back half is classic Cigar Hustlers banter: Phil's Fun Facts on Winston Churchill's cigar-loving comeback to a scolding letter, Christmas light disasters and 3M hooks, Elf on the Shelf, a Dylan Scott show at House of Blues, great white sharks migrating to Florida, and the world's tallest teen committing to the Florida Gators.

In This Episode

1. 01
   The Stolen Dunbarton Cutter
   Mike recounts getting a text from Steve Saka after a one-of-a-kind prototype Dunbarton cutter was sold on eBay with a Cigar Hustler return address — and Greg was guilty as charged.
2. 02
   Saka Flips It Into a Giveaway
   Saka sent a replacement cutter and turned the mistake into a Dunbarton box-purchase giveaway, with Greg signing an apology on every box.
3. 03
   Live Drawing in the Sakasquatch Group
   The hosts go live on Facebook and use random.org to pick winner number three of 28 entries, Gregory Dietrich.
4. 04
   Smoking the Halligan
   Brett Frye drops off Halligans and Cinco de Cincos, and the crew lights up the DTT shop exclusive with a Patreon deep dive to follow.
5. 05
   Phil's Fun Facts: Churchill
   The weekly trivia segment covers Winston Churchill's famously cutting reply to a woman who told him to quit cigars.
6. 06
   Industry News: Luciano and the CAA
   Luciano Cigars names Mark Reddy CEO and promotes Ed Trevino to VP of Sales, while Javier Estades is re-elected chairman of the Cigar Association of America.
7. 07
   FDA Penalties, Mil Días and Boveda Prices
   FDA raises tobacco penalties 7.7%, Crowned Heads ships the Mil Días Bellicoso Fino 2023, and Boveda raises pack prices for the first time since 2005.
8. 08
   Holiday Banter and Florida Stories
   Christmas lights, Elf on the Shelf, a Dylan Scott concert, migrating great white sharks and the world's tallest teen heading to the Florida Gators.

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

Welcome to the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, episode 308, the number one cigar podcast with the world-famous cast, where we bring you the latest news and insights into the world of premium cigars. In this episode, we dive into the big stories of the week. The King, Andy Stefankiewicz, and Director of Social Media for Cigar Hustler, Mike "Woody" Palmer, are two dynamic individuals who co-host the Captivating Cigar Hustlers Podcast. And me, I'm Buzz Lightyear.

So grab your favorite smoke, sit back, and join us for another exciting episode of Cigar Hustlers Podcast. Do you want me to explain the intro? Sure. Yes.

You were up here with your friend on Friday. Yes. Greg. You introduced him to everybody in the room but me and Boots.

Oh, yeah? Yep. Yes, I did. No, you didn't.

I was standing there. You completely buzzed past me. And then when he came in, you didn't introduce him either. Oh, so that was your passive aggressiveness?

Passive aggressiveness. I told him you were my best friend. Oh, I didn't hear that part. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. All right. Well, then it's just Buzz Lightyear.

And then there was Boots. Wow. I didn't introduce you to him? You did not.

No, he introduced himself, but I didn't at all. But I understood, because you were actually, when I came in, I think you were in mid-conversation. Oh, yeah. But the old toys never, you know, never get, you know, always getting, like it's a PCA.

You guys are too much. " Yeah, I don't want to live in pizza land or world or wherever that is. Pizza planet. Okay, I got one, please.

Buzz. Maybe you'd like to put your product in front of hundreds, if not thousands. You wouldn't do this each week still? Nah, it's fine.

All right, the joke's over by now. Kiss her ass and move on. What are we smoking this week on the Patreon? I don't know.

I don't know either. I don't know either. The box is there. I don't know which one everybody decided on.

Did it explode? No, it didn't. He had Phil's wife videotaped it just in case. Oh, yeah?

That's what he told me. Two, please. Thank you. So, Mr.

Brett Frye has delivered Cinco de Cinco's and some Halligans. Ooh. We're gonna move right to the Halligans. Ooh.

Because there was a little bit of fuckery in Cigar Hustler Land this previous weekend. Oh, that's right! At least now I got an opportunity to elaborate. The good news is I've cooled off since then, so I'm not as agitated.

His bruises have healed nicely also. 4 grams so i got a text early in the morning from mr one said steve sucka and he said hey I said, hey, did you sell my cutter on eBay? Wait, your Dunbarton cutter? Yes, my Dunbarton cutter.

The one you don't let anybody use? The one that sits on my desk, yeah. So I said, hey, uh, no. Why?

And he said, well, somebody just told me that they received it from you and the return address at Cigar Hustler. I said, okay. Oh, wow. They put, they, the return address?

Yeah. Okay, I said, okay, go to camera too, so we can have a conversation about this, so it's not like some fucking soliloquy. So, I said, okay, well, Greg has a tendency to go on these eBay swoop thing, he probably grabbed a bunch of stuff. You said too long, he'll put you on eBay.

Yeah, yeah, you know, and I will find out if it was him. So, to kind of fast forward, just to make this not a huge 30 minute ordeal. Yeah, long answer. Yeah, he was guilty as charged, we came to the conclusion.

Probably figured it's sitting there in a box, it's been there for three, four months. Here's the thing. He doesn't want that. Here's the thing.

I love my brother to death. Right. He is who he is. You know, and he's not, he has no idea what's going on.

He doesn't know anything about the industry. Nothing. Nothing about the industry. Someone will jump and go, why'd we get this?

It's the new cigar from Dunbarton, Grant. Yeah, it's like, oh, okay. When did it come out? Who's Dunbarton?

Yeah, who's Dunbarton? Yeah, who's Dunbarton? So, but he does, he does have, he does keep us in line here. He keeps things running.

He's the back end of the house. Right. So, it was an honest mistake. But what we did, or actually what Steve did, was he went ahead and said, okay, here's what we're gonna do.

For one, I'm gonna send you a new cutter. It's great. Oh, did you get it? You got a hold of the guy.

No, no, I got a new cutter. Oh, Steve Sakka. I thought you meant Steve upstairs. No.

So Sakka sent me a new cutter. He said, "Okay, and here's what we're going to do. " So, with that being said, I have all of this information collected. It was a lot.

It was a decent number, yeah, for sure. Greg had to sign, Greg had to sign each box with an apology. Yes, that was the other punishment. Yes, this was done so Steve can be entertained as well, Mr.

Sakka, and Greg did sign every single box, but some of his Greg's, he's always adamant about two G's at the end, but when he signs, it doesn't... I think he got tired of signing. He just said, brr. Because there was 10 on Friday alone.

Yes, so, well, I don't know... Except the only bad part is now, now he thinks he's famous. He's a big deal. Yeah, now he thinks he's a big deal.

But he's famous in the worst kind of way. Right, right, exactly. Famous for doing bad stuff. So, I don't know if there's a way to go live inside of...

Dennis the Menace. Cigar Hustler? Oh, there is a way to go live inside of the Saka Squatch group. Oh, uh, yeah, I guess I'm not in it.

Let's see this here. Ba-bam! Ba-bam! Hello, people.

Let's see. We're gonna keep it, we're gonna keep it simple. Hello, everyone. Hi, I am Mike from Cigar Hustler and Cigar Hustlers Podcast, and this is Mike.

Hi, I am Mike, also from Cigar Hustlers Podcast. And I can't show you Phil because he took his mask off. But look, I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm going to try this real quick.

I have 28 total entries for the Dunbarton tobacco. Wow, half of them went Friday then. Yeah, sack of squash. Well, there was only 48 hours to really do it.

I think you had it to the end of the day Friday. org right now. Michael, that's porn. Oh, yeah.

You spelled it wrong. You spelled it wrong. And it's going to be randomized from 1 through 28. Oh, God.

The tension is just... I'm excited. Are you ready? I don't even know these people.

I don't even well bought it. Is there one person watching? Two. One.

Now we're down to one. Oh. Somebody tells you like, how's that Sokka? How's that Sokka?

Should've called Sokka. The answer is number three. Number three! Congratulations, number three.

You are the winner. J5 alive. Hold on, I lost my Excel sheet. Number three, congratulations, we will send this out to you.

Number three is Gregory... Stepankiewicz. Dietrich. Oh, so close.

So close. Dietrich. Do we need to check the identity? That could be actually...

Totally different, Gregory. So congratulations, Gregory. We are going. When I go back upstairs, we will send that out to you.

The prize going. Brett Fry is watching. We are about to smoke the halogen. Delicious.

Brett Fry. Can't tell you took the thing off. Brett J. Brett J.

Delicious. Oh, I thought it was an ink smear on the thing that's actually a halogen on it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Steve Socker, for doing that for us.

Yeah, it's a very nice man. It was a great little pop-up kind of event and thanks so much for being so forgiving as far as how that situation kind of played out. Very appreciative of all of that. And congratulations to Greg.

And congratulations to Gregory Dietrich. Dietrich. Dietrich. Sorry Joshua, you did not win.

Sorry, very sorry. Stay tuned next week, see what Greg fucks up this week. So yeah, so hey, there's always another week. Greg can always screw something else up.

You know, You never know. Anybody want to be a fan? A ceiling fan? We're going to get back to going on our podcast.

So thank you very much, everybody, for supporting the store, for contributing to the giveaway. And thanks again, Steve, for being so cool about it and giving the goodies away so we could turn a negative into a positive. So, all right. Thanks, guys.

Call me if you need me. You know where to find me. Ring, ring, ring. Ring, ring, ring.

All right, is that the show? We're done now? Post for 30 days. Your live stream will be watchable for 30 days and then deleted.

I still need the photo of Greg with the thing across it for the poster for this episode. The Simpson looking thing. No, no, no, the other one. Guilty.

Guilty. Guilty across it. Guilty. Guilty.

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I was not meant to. Well, that's pretty cool because that cutter, you can't get.

You can't buy. It's not for sale. They're just all of the prototypes. 50 fucking dollars.

That's all he got? Yeah. Wow. That's what he sold it for, so...

Greg needs more scotch. Yeah, is that the price of a bottle of scotch that he drinks, then? So, hey, it's over. It's a case.

It's over, Johnny. I need to reorder my Dunbarton tobacco products. Oh, yeah, we don't have no more. Yeah, we sold a lot of boxes.

It was pretty remarkable. So, now that's done. Just so everybody else knows, I haven't forgotten about the fundraiser for my kids. Oh, that's right.

We will announce the winner for that next week. Number three! Oh, sorry. Thank you very...

Got excited. Well, we got a few things... Not camera three! We got a few things to give away on that.

We got the ashtrays and some other stuff. Oh, strippers and cocaine. I saw somebody asked about the Roma giveaway the other day on... Is there going, no, like, is there going to be a Roma giveaway?

Oh, okay. Yeah, there actually is. There is a Roma giveaway. I haven't talked about it, but that was just somebody speculating.

Oh, okay. So, yeah, there's going to be a thing for that. Soon. Soon.

Very soon. So, yeah, I'm glad, I'm so glad that's over with, with the whole debauchery. Now, I'm going to light up this hall again, and we're going to get down to that. It was cool that Saka flipped it, though.

Yeah. You know? Yeah, it worked out well. Marketing genius of the tobacco world.

Is that something that he learned from being inside of the industry, working for other people in the beginning? Or is that just him? You'd have to ask Steve. I don't have any idea.

Why don't you ask him at the PCA? Yeah, why don't you ask him? You want me to call him? He may answer.

Steve, the question I have for you is... I'm not calling him. I'm embarrassed enough as is. I'm not fucking...

I'm not gonna fucking do with that. He's still trying to get over those Ronnie weekend. Yeah, that's true. That was an intense Ronnie weekend, I'm sure.

You wear the eggplant suit, apparently, the entire weekend. So, I got my Christmas lights up. Yes? And I used that little fucking 3M hooky things, there's the indoor/outdoor special ones, they made these really big ones, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna do that.

Okay. Yeah, they all came down. Oh. They all fucking came down.

Like, two-sided tape on them? Did you clean the area with alcohol before? Well, that would make, I would understand that logic, however, that wasn't the part that broke off, the plastic side just blew off the grip. Oh, yeah.

Maybe have really heavy lights. Yeah, super heavy. Super heavy. Were you trying to, like, hang for them and do pull-ups?

Yes, I was with one finger. One finger on each other. And remarkably, it didn't work. Do you have gutters?

In certain areas, yeah. They have, like, some, you can use gutter clips, too. I did that. You did that?

Yeah, but the other things, as far as. Didn't stay, huh? Yeah, so I went, and I had to go back up, drilled everything up. Oh.

Then we had rain for, like, five days. Oh, it rained, yeah. It was horrible. It was horrible.

Blew up two inflatables. They're dead. Oh, filled with water? Yeah, I don't know.

Oh, did you see the water stains out in the front of the room? Mm-mm. There's a roof leak, your brother has decided. Ah.

The building gets a new roof. And it goes all the way through the floor above us, and to our roof in the other room. Oh, remarkable. Yes, we have a stained tile in the other room.

Mm. Which he says is not his responsibility. The stained tile? Yeah.

Probably not. Triple net lease, or whatever. We should have read that lease better. I gotta end, don't worry.

I told him, you're gonna have to talk to my partner, Greg, I'm not handling this. So yeah, I got the lights up, and then I got them up again, which is fantastic. Spent the weekend putting lights up. Put my lights up, and then I put my lights up again.

Oh, nice. Did you duel the floating candlesticks in the house into Christmas? No, we've removed, we have eliminated all Halloween stuff. Oh, you should have left the floating candles for Christmas.

As of right now, I can tell you that there is a serious overhaul going on in the house as far as Christmas decorations. It is going down. That's what my wife is doing today on her first day of break. Finishing the trees.

" Well, isn't it like traditional for Thanksgiving to be the first day, like that's official, and then you start putting out the Christmas stuff? In some places, yeah, because I saw a lot of articles about HOAs having issues with people putting lights up early. Look, man, I don't give a fuck. I like putting my lights up early.

November 1, the lights go up, right? I like to put them up ASAP. Now, they may come down, apparently, but at first, I want them up right away. It makes the kids happy.

They're excited about it. You know, the elves have already returned. Oh! Oh, yeah.

Oh, the shelf. Are you running three elves? No, we got Duel Elves, just the two. You have Snoop on the stoop?

No, but I'm down with Snoop. I want Snoop on the stoop. That's pretty dope. Oh.

Do I have Kringle with the jingle? Oh, there's a Kringle? I don't think so. I'm thinking, I'm copywriting that right now.

And then... Kringle with the jingle. Only shows up when there's bells. Then I don't know what else happened this weekend.

Drawing a bit of a blank. Hmm. We had Basketball Friday. That went well.

We won. Yeah, so, I don't know. That's all I got right now. But lights are up.

Did you get that one thing from Home Depot? Oh, we had a birthday party at your house. That's what we did. No, they don't have it.

Oh, birthday party at Boots is on. Yeah, for Ava. Oh. Yeah.

Were you invited? Nope. Why didn't you invite him? Never invites me.

Why didn't you invite him? He must have meant capacity for the room. Why didn't you invite him? Well, truthfully, I didn't invite a couple people because everybody's busy.

So I just thought he would be busy. Oh, so this is Pat. Steve cuts the grass for me, what am I doing? So now he's being passive aggressive.

What night was it? It was Saturday, no, it was daytime. Oh, we were free in the daytime. You gotta pick up on these things.

I heard him talking about it weeks ago, but then it just slipped my mind. We went and saw Dylan Scott Friday night at the House of Blues, or Saturday night at the House of Blues. No, it was Friday night, it wasn't even Saturday, it was Friday. Oh, the country thing.

Yeah. I saw you post that. The country thing. It was sold out, but even sold out, that place is so small or intimate, whatever you want to call it.

It's not bad. No, it wasn't bad at all. Except you got to stand. I'm a big fan of that.

Yeah. You don't like standing? Well, not for four and a half hours. Yeah, House of Blues is kind of hard sometimes.

I like hard rock. It's the same concept. Yeah. And then next to us, we're a group of drunk kids.

Oh, yeah. So the girls get drunk. And the poor girl kept asking, I need water. And her boyfriend, bring her back a shot.

So about three songs into Dylan Scott, she fell down and they had to leave. He obviously wanted to get the fuck out of there. He knew what he was doing. We gotta get to the hotel, hurry up.

But all seven of them had to leave, so it was perfect. Oh, seven of them. Yeah. Why would they all?

Because one girl fell down, they all left. I'd be, no way. Part of it, the sober girl was chasing the drunk girl's hand, trying to get her drink before she dropped it on me. I like his water, her whole...

Dude, if I showed up with seven of my friends, Right. " Well, unless they all came in the same car. There's a thing called fucking Uber. I mean, what, you know.

Other kids, they were barely, they couldn't have been 22, 22. So they have the app. Yeah. Oh, yeah, they probably are very familiar with the Uber.

Right. All right, I'll see you. Oh, okay. Well, they all sort of cleared out right after she fell down.

Oh, we gotta go. What happened to the kids? " One fell, and they all left. Do you guys, um, do you guys do anything for Christmas time with cigars?

Like, you guys do anything special for yourselves, or is there any tradition that you do with cigars? I smoke them? Is there a certain cigar you like to buy around Christmas time that you like to smoke just because it's Christmas? No.

No? The SBC. Because it comes out around Christmas time. Yes.

Does it come out every year? Huge fan. No, no, I think it was the first time. This is this year, huh?

Yeah. That is true. SBC, on December 9th, two weeks, two weeks, yep, smoke on the water, should be interesting, yes, dying to see the show you guys shoot, Daniel's on, okay, should be a train wreck, we, um, we already talked about the fall of the house last year, right, and figured that out, uh, no, we talked about a couple of times, I think the last time we talked about it, you had just finished it, but I was halfway through, but I have now finished it also, mm, okay, it was good, I thought so too, I didn't get to the last episode that the The flashback of the young couple with the baby was the main guy. You didn't understand that?

I didn't pick that up. Oh, wow. I think they sort of tried to hide it because they never said his name until the last episode. No way.

Yeah, I didn't catch. So then the kids that climbed the fence was him, too. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I didn't catch all that until near the end.

Oh, you weren't paying attention. That was... I don't know. But they didn't say his name until the last episode.

" Well, oh, maybe I missed the part. I missed the part. The first episode, I was sort of still feeling it out and I wasn't really paying attention when it was on. So I guess I missed that.

Hey, what ever happened to Yellowstone? Wasn't it supposed to resume in November? It's coming back, I think, next year now. Next year.

Oh. There's all sorts of stuff about who's going to be in it and you can't even tell at this point. I thought they were going to resume in November and kill... Jamie?

Kevin Costner's character. Oh, I don't know. I don't think so. He's doing another TV cowboy show.

Oh. A different one. different one obviously there's a difference of opinions there well the whole reason why he stopped was because of the divorce right oh did he yeah is that why yeah he was getting too much time away no no no no no no because she was going for the money oh so technically what he was trying to do is quit right so that way that money didn't come into play oh our man i'm trying to remember what else i did on sunday i'm just drawing a blank football oh i did actually cut the cut the yard Steve didn't make it last week because of the rain, and so I did that Sunday. Nice.

Did you do any Christmas decorations yourself? No, just my wife putting the stuff in the house. We'll put up the laser lights eventually outside, but that's really all we do. Oh, you do the one little thingy?

Oh, no, we have three or four. Oh. Man, so they're everywhere. Every year she buys another one.

It's like an Orlando nightclub. Yeah, that's what it looks like when you drive by. Playing as you drive by. You know there is a house in my neighborhood that does that with the music.

They start at 6 o'clock every night, they go till 10, and they have music that plays super loud and the entire house flashes to whatever the song is. You know what I've been thinking about doing, and I don't know if it's possible or not, but maybe buying a cheap little projector, and then just looping It's a Wonderful Life on the wall of my house, like on the outside. I thought that'd be dope. Wonderful life?

Yeah. I saw a projector at Halloween, my neighbor across the street had it, where it made different things show up in his window from the inside. Yeah, we've had that. I've had that before.

Well, this was like really high-techy-techy, clear. Yeah, makes it look like ghosts and all types of other things. Yeah. Couldn't you loop "It's a Wonderful Life" on the window?

That'd be cool. I'm sure you could, but the problem is the tree's in the window, so I just want to put them in the window. Do you have a big blank wall? Yeah.

Oh, the side one as you walk to the front door on the left? Yeah, that would work. We wouldn't really see it, though. No, I was going to do the, I found other walls.

Oh. Hmm. We'll see. We'll see.

Who knows? I think he's getting ready to do four. Damn it, man. I know I did something else yesterday, and I cannot fucking remember what it is in the life of me.

We had basketball practice, and then we came home, and we went somewhere else, and we had a small window of time in order to get there, and then we got there, and I don't remember what the hell I did. I didn't talk to you, so I don't, I couldn't help you here. Yeah. I don't know.

You talked about Phil being the hype band for Howard G. I didn't red light today. Oh, I didn't. I'm doing longer ones now, like 20 minutes.

That's probably what the problem is. Oh, it could be. Should have red light. Are you supposed to go longer than 10 minutes?

I don't know. Oh. Figure longer is better. I know what I did.

What'd you do? Did you look at your notes on your phone? For one, no. No, but I touched my phone and it reminded me.

Ah. Wow. We took our Christmas photo. Oh, for the card.

Yes. Ah. Is it just an online card this year? No.

Okay. No, and it's very good. Oh. It's very good this year.

This is going to be fantastic. And then we had Mika's birthday. The suspense is killing me. Oh, that's right.

Yes. At Kyoto's or whatever it was. Yeah, Kyoto's. At Kobe.

Kobe's. I said, hey, listen. I go, you know, everybody said, hey, we'll go wherever you want to go. And she said, oh, Kobe.

I said, okay, listen, this year we'll go to Kobe. But Kobe is like, that's like kitty foo-foo shit. That's something that you go to when you're in your teens, and it's like, oh, I'm going to have something elegant. Don't pull on your wings.

It's going to be hibachi. If you tear that, you're in trouble. Gobble, gobble, gobble. It rests on my face too much.

So I said, next year, you've got to step up your game. Oh, yeah, she said she wants to go to Ruth Chris. That's fine. That's what she said.

She said that on the Facebook post. Perfect. Did she really? Yeah.

Didn't your mother pick Kobe's one time? No, she hates Kobe's. She hates a bunch. I went there with you one year...

Now we will bring her. I think he picked it one year for his mom. I went to Kobe's with all of you, me and Adrian, one year, and your mother was there. Yeah, and she hates it.

There's a TikTok video where this little girl's watching the guy, I mean little girl, like maybe your daughter's age, maybe that little. " And everybody starts laughing in the whole restaurant, 'cause she said it loud. Nice. I don't know where she got that from.

I don't know. That's what mommy and daddy say. Well, let's get rolling, buddy. Let's get on to some news.

We got a new Phil's Fun Facts. Hold on. Oh, he's got it on. Welcome to Cigar Hustlers' podcast feature, Phil's Fun Facts.

Hello, peoples. All right, fellas. Did you know that Winston Churchill, famous for his love of cigars, once received a letter from a concerned woman who urged him to stop smoking cigars because they were bad for him. Church here reportedly replied, My dear Lighty, you are ugly.

Wow. That's what he said. And what's more, you are boring. But my cigars, well, they are delicious.

And always faithful. And they don't talk. He never wrote me again after that. They're subtle one-liners.

Nice, subtle one-liners. All right. Well, let's see what's going on in the industry. Wow, wow, wow.

From the four corners of the world, all the cigar industry news you could possibly need. The Cigar Hustler Podcast Report with Mike Toon. Luciano Cigars' name's Mark Reddy, CEO, and Ed Trevino, VP of Sales. Wow.

Luciano Cigars has announced that Mark Reddy will be the company's new CEO while Ed Travino has been promoted to VP of sales. Mark has been a crucial collaborator since our initial launch, said Luciano, president and co-founder of Luciano Cigars. Via a press release, his insightful advice and unwavering loyalty has been fundamental to our growth. As a brilliant leader, his strategic approach is already proving beneficial to our team.

We're thrilled to have him back with us. Back with? Apparently he left. I didn't know.

Oh, they worked it out. According to a press release from the company, Reddy brings over two decades of experience in business expansion and brand building to the position. And he did a quote. It's very long.

Two years? Did you say two years? No. Oh.

I thought I heard two years. Also announced, Ed Trevino has been promoted to the post of vice president of sales after previously serving as the company's director of sales. Oh, that's like a college intern position. The change elevates him to a corporate leadership role and he becomes a member of the company's board.

In this new role, he will concentrate on the company's growth objective while working with the executive leadership team. As director of sales, his previous job, he concentrated on the company's growth objective while working with the executive leadership team. Trevino, who joined Luciano Cigars as director of sales last year, has over three decades of experience with the company saying he has been instrumental growing the Luciano Cigar client base. So what's the difference between director of sales and vice president of sales?

That's the only thing I can figure is that he's on the board now. Like you think he got shares of something? I don't know who's all on his board and what his board. Is there shares at Lucio?

I don't know. Well, they can't be worth mine. I mean, whatever he says they're worth, I guess. It's like, you get shares, you get shares, you get shares.

Everybody get shares of Lucio. So would you move somebody on to shares and say, hey, listen. Maybe it's paid less now. Yeah, I'll give you a portion of the company.

Oh, could be. I guess. Maybe that's why he came back. Maybe.

Where did he go to? Where'd you go? He has over three decades of experience with the company saying that he has been instrumental in growing, blah, blah, blah, cigars, client base with the sales and leadership skills, captaining. Is that a word?

Captaining? Captaining? Captaining? Captaining?

Captaining? Captaining? No, he's the captain of. Captaining?

Six in-house reps and three... No, you're right, it's cap... Can you say it already? Ready?

Yeah. Cap. Cap. Tain.

Tain. There you go. Six in-house reps and three brokers throughout the nation. Wow.

Javier Estedes re-elected as Cigar Association of American Chairman. He, too, is back. The CAA. Everybody's coming back.

Hey, so it's not you. We're sorry. We fucked that up. Javier, the CEO of Tabla Calera USA, has been re-elected as the chairman of the Cigar Association of America for another one-year term.

But we're sorry, but we're only one year sorry. Yeah, just one year sorry. We're not five year committed sorry. He was first elected chairman of CAA in November 2015, leading the Cigar Association Trade Association.

That's the C-A-A. C-A-A. C-A-A. He's earned extensions to his service in 2018 and 2019.

He continued to serve in the role through 2020 when he succeeded by John Miller, president of Swisher International. The other thing, he was re-elected to position following news that Miller was not the CEO of the Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar Cigar We still have challenges ahead, but CAA is ready to continue fighting against improper, overreaching efforts by the FDA and state and local governments. Let's see. In his role as CEO of Tabacalera USA, STD oversees a number of premium cigar entities, including Altidus.

He's also responsible for JR Cigar, one of the largest online retailers for premium cigars, cigar accessories, humor, et cetera, and the Casade Montecristo collection of cigars. There's a lot of stuff here. All right. 7%.

For what? The FDA? Yes. 7%.

Is that across the board, or is that a certain one? Across the board. S. Food and Drug Administration has announced it has increased the penalties that tobacco companies and retailers pay if they are found in violation of various federal laws regarding tobacco products.

Okay. These changes are part of the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 2015, which regulates how agencies can increase penalties in response to inflation. So somebody decided we can get more money out of these people. Well, it's about normal, right?

Eight percent? I guess, but if the thing happened in 2015, why are they doing it eight years later? Since 2015, they could have increased it. Oh, they've never increased it.

No, now they just finally decided we're going to up it. Yeah, there's that one guy who's like, where can we find the money? Yeah, we're not getting money from that other stuff anymore that they said we can't do, so we've got to do this. Oh, no one's touched this for...

We haven't increased this in how long? How long? Oh, yeah, raise it. Due to the cigar industry's victory in Cigar Association of America versus the United States Food and Drug Administration, companies that only produce or sell premium cigars are unlikely to receive these penalties, as they are subject to the few rules that would result in a penalty.

Huh. Like, selling the honor, age minor, and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Mildius Bellicosso Finos, 2023, shipping.

Oh, they just came in. Oh, yeah, they came in on Friday. Yeah. During all but one of the previous five years, Crown Heads has released a La Crema in a limited edition Bellicoso size.

This year, it's switching things up and using the size for limited edition release of the Mildias line. 5 by 52 Bellicoso, the same size as the Bolivier Bellicoso Fino, a popular Cuban cigar. Blend wise, Mildias uses an Ecuador and Havana wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and fillers from Costa Rica. 95 per cigar, and production is limited to 1,500 boxes of 12 cigars.

You know what I missed on the soundboard? What? Your wife is in me DMs. Is that gone?

Your wife is in my DMs! I think you got rid of it. Yeah, I think so, because it was on this screen here. Yeah.

That was good. That was fantastic. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

If you say my wife is in my DMs, I will... If you say your wife is in the DMs, I'll put it back on. Nah, it's okay. Well, it was with...

I know, but we do what we can. Oh. We do what we can with what we got. Your wife is in my DMs.

There you go, 32 minutes. He just did that. Boveda increases prices. What?

10 for the pack now? Son of a bitch. Only one. Boveda has informed retailers that it has increased the price for the 60-gram pack, The standard Boveda size and the 320 gram humidification pack, the largest pack the company makes.

We have not increased prices on these items since 2005, yet cost of manufacturing has been steadily on the rise. In an email, we have absorbed these costs as much as possible. We have reached a point where we must pass on some of the increase to our partners in order to maintain the quality. In order to make more money.

These guys must have all been hiring the same consultants. " Wait, what? Everybody else has increased their prices seven times by now. You haven't done it once?

All right, now we have a couple Florida stories. Oh, a couple. Oh, wow, that was it, huh? Light news?

Light news. Where are you going for Thanksgiving? Let's ask that, since we got a little bit of time. Maybe down in Orlando.

We have friends from out of town. Jeff and Becky are here with their family. Ah, so you're going to go there? We're going to go there.

Okay. Yeah. And what about you there, Philly? I've got a couple of Thanksgiving's.

He's having a party. He's not inviting me to. Yeah. Yeah, probably.

Like, you didn't even pick up on how he threw shade at you, which is awesome. Oh, no, I wasn't even paying attention. Yeah. Because he did.

He totally threw shade at you. He said, "I'm usually busy, so he doesn't ask me"? Yeah. " Oh, yeah, I kind of have an override, yeah.

I mean, we got a gift for her, but we just took it back because we didn't get rid of it. You returned it? Yeah, we returned it. Yeah.

That's what we did Sunday. What'd you get her? It was some toys or something. I'm not good at picking girl toys.

Yeah. I have old boys. I'll tell you what, she crushed it, man. She got like everything Barbie.

Yeah. She's got the Barbie jet. She's got the Barbie boat. She's got the Barbie spaceship.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Barbie theme. Yeah.

It was, it was hella Barbie. And then she got like this little triage thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Like a doctor's screening. Oh, okay. Yeah. I call it triage.

I understand. Yeah. Yeah. It was beautiful.

Cake was fantastic. I like cake. You missed it. The cake was amazing.

I'm sure it was good. Cake was fantastic. And then there were cupcakes, too. I had both.

There were so many of them. And there wasn't a lot of people there. So I had that. Was Greg there?

No, Greg was working at Ryan's house building something. I don't know. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

So you could have slotted in for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could have slotted in for that. I guess so.

Great White Sharks are heading to Florida. Yes. They get invited to a party at Boots Houses. Oh yeah, for Ava's birthday?

Yeah, that's what it says. They're coming to town. Daytona Beach, Florida. People across the country love Florida, and it turns out sharks do too.

Ocean Research recently spotted a 10-foot, 460-pound great white shark swimming along the Daytona Beach. Well, it followed that one guy, just like it did in Jaws, right? The one guy? Yeah, the guy, it followed him.

Follow him from everywhere? Yeah, that's what he was trying to do. Let's see, are they following Bob Huter? He is the Senior Advisor for Science and Economics.

That's the guy. Yeah, Bob. Yeah. The shark likes Bob.

It's kind of like winter snowbirds. The sharks start heading south in the fall. The temperatures drop up north. We have probably about a dozen species that are on the move right now.

The one that is most prominent is the one we work on at Ocean Research, the white shark, otherwise known as the great white shark. Of course, it's the most famous one. Right. Because of jaws.

That's the one that you would study. Yeah. You get all the money that way. Which one do you want to study?

I'll take the big one. The biggest one. Yeah. That'd be the whale shark.

But that falls into whale category. Yeah, it doesn't eat people. It's not shark shark. It's never eaten people before.

Does the Meg one have a name, or is it just Meg? The Megalodon? Yeah. That's what it's called, the Megalodon.

That's not a real thing. Megalodons are real. No, it's not. Well, not alive ones.

No, it's not a real thing. But they were dinosaur type sharks. But we don't know that. They're not in existence right now.

Yeah, they're supposed to be down at the bottom of the ground. Okay, give me a fucking break, you flat earth motherfuckers. You're so full of shit. You haven't explored 80% of the water.

You don't know. Oh my God. Well, he's right about that. Okay.

All right. Yeah, you're right. Megalodons exist. It could.

Well, there's two less because Stratham's killed Dua. Yeah. Right. Jason Statham?

Yes. Stratham? Whatever his name is. The bald guy.

Listen, if you haven't figured it out now, he has a pronunciation issue, okay? I have a pronunciation. I have the problem. You have a pronunciation.

A pronunciation problem. Pronunciation. What is this? How do you say it?

Pronunciation. Yeah, that. Yeah, that. Whatever.

You know what? I'm going to talk to Jason Stratham at the next party of Boots' house just so you know. Oh, good, good. I'm sure he goes.

I'll FaceTime you. Oh, that'd be nice. That'd be nice. So anyway, the migration starts mid-October and runs through November to early December.

But early December, all the sharks are here by then. off the Florida East Coast, and then great numbers of them go all the way around the Keys and into the Gulf of Mexico, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. Fantastic. All right, the world's tallest teen plays high school basketball in Florida.

Oh, yeah. 7'6", IMG. Gainesville, Florida. I've been to Gainesville?

He lives in Gainesville. Oh, but IMG is not in Gainesville. He plays for IMG. Of course he does.

He's still in high school. It is a high school. It's a high school. It's got a dorm, gym.

It's solely based on sports. And you gotta be either Schollard or a bougie motherfucker into getting them. Or genetically. That's what I said, Schollard.

Seven feet, six inches tall. Yeah. The world's tallest teenager pledged to join the University of Florida Gators basketball team earlier this week. Oh.

Yep. At around seven feet, six inches tall, he was confirmed 2021 the tallest teen in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. His dad is six feet, eight inches tall, his mom is six feet, two inches, and his brother is six feet, nine. Wow, his brother, he has a brother 6'9"?

His brother is 6'9". Well, normally there's not, you know, two of them, that's all. If he's younger, he'll be better, because he'll probably be more angry. Oh, yeah.

That's usually how it goes. Is that what happens? Yeah. Oh yeah, IMG Academy, right here.

Venus and Serena Williams? He played basketball at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. He announced his decision to join the Gators on Wednesday night, yet he still has not signed a commitment letter. What do you, what do you do when you're, like, how do you think that guy feels?

He's a fucking boss. 16, 17 years old. This guy can't fit into any fucking clothes. He's doing great.

He has special made clothes. Yeah, he gets some tailored to them. The big and tall store. Yeah.

The guy's... It's all that awkward stuff like the guy from the one movie war. Have you seen him play? No.

It's the most awkward looking thing. Is it? Because he literally just like catches it, turns, dunks. There's no other kid that's close to him.

He just stands down by the hoop. Yeah. I'll wait here, you guys bring it back. Let's go get it.

Go get it and bring it to me. When he runs, it looks like slow motion, but he's really covering a lot of ground. Right, the big steps. Man, I got to tell you, I don't have the tallest kid on the planet, but Jack's playing basketball.

Holy shit, man, that kid is, he is all over the place. Super aggressive, defense, making shots. It's pretty impressive. Well, he's an athlete.

Yeah, and it's not even what he loves to do. He doesn't even, he doesn't love basketball. He loves football. But he likes to compete.

Oh yeah, he likes to crush his enemies. Don't you need to be careful that he doesn't get hurt in one or the other so he can focus on football? No, I mean, you gotta play. It's kind of like Michael Jordan when he picked up baseball.

He didn't like really, really love baseball like he did basketball, but he loved to compete. Right. I ask him up when he gets hurt. He'll be fine.

It'll be fine. Do you let him get in the cold plunge? I do. Oh, good.

Oh, my God. Changes of water. I do let him get in the cold plunge. It's freaking cold.

It's good for him. All right. Well, that's all I got. That's all you got?

Well, hey, listen. What else do you want to talk about? It's okay that we're going to run this a little short. I'm going to tell you why.

We were a little short last week, too. 55 minutes. So now we're going to do 45 minutes. Three, four weeks from now, it'll be a 10-minute show.

This is a Thanksgiving week. Oh, yeah, it's a shorter work week for most people anyway. So, at least we're still here. We used to do a show every week.

I'm sure there's a lot of podcasts that aren't doing it. Even during COVID, we just had a bigger table. So. That was so ridiculous during COVID where we sat at the end of the, we sat at the opposite ends of that giant table we had upstairs.

Did we? Yeah, we sat six feet apart. Listen, I'm not proud of all the dumb shit we did, but we still did it. We still did it, I just spilled my drink.

I don't have all the answers, but we're going to try and figure it out, you know, we're just not going to sit and do nothing. So we have one or two more weeks for you, I think, so okay, we don't have to plug it hard yet. One or two more weeks. Your event down on the night.

SBC. The SBC event. Oh yeah, well we keep mentioning it's December 9th. Well I understand, but I was going to talk about it more if it was like coming up soon.

Do you have a listener of the week? No, that's your job. I have a listener. I brought 40 good minutes of content to the show.

You did? Yes. All right, I'll... You've got to bring 20 minutes.

All you've got to do is just 20 minutes. Oh man. That's it. That's it.

Now I've got to do 18 minutes. Almost. So, I'm going to tell you. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Why are we just, we can't just do this? Wait on the 18 minutes. All right, 18 minutes now, 18 minutes, 18 minutes. All right, so my Listener of the Week?

Yes. Is... Oh my god. That's the wrong button.

You changed the screen. That's the wrong button. It's my new best friend, Gregory Dietrich. Oh!

Yeah! How do we know he listens to the show? He's gonna. Oh, he's gonna.

Yeah. He's gonna have to to win? No, he's already messaged me. He's gonna relive.

He wants to relive this moment and see how he won. Oh! Well, he can go to the Facebook page. Yeah, but no, that's just the live.

He wants to see the whole show. He told me. I'll make that the clip. Yeah.

He wants to see the whole show. All right. So there's that. I got a nice message from John McTavish over the weekend.

Oh, do you? He was watching an older show. Oh, I was talking to him. I messaged him too this weekend.

Oh, he messaged me. He messaged me. I don't know, either way. Oh.

He's thinking about you guys. He enjoys the show. Yeah. He's a nice guy.

Did he message you on Saturday when you had downtime? Yeah, I believe it was, during the party. During the party time, I think it was. Oh, then that worked out great.

Yeah, it worked out great. We had time. Perfect. A lot of free time.

Perfect. We sat there with the wrap presents. Any minute, honey, he's gonna call him by any minute. Yeah.

Nothing. You got a Shop of the Week? That's your job too. Oh, I have a Shop of the Week.

I have a shop of the week. Oh, do you? What is it? I do.

Smoke all the water in Weston. I knew it. Oh. I knew it.

W-E-S-T-O-N. Oh. He spelled it wrong on Facebook. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. I? Yeah. I.

Weston. And the funny part was, Ed could correct it. You gotta love that. She can't even say it, but she knows how to spell it, though.

It was amazing upstairs during the meeting that she couldn't say iron. Yes, it was. I like when those little words pop up. Sharon?

" I thought she said Aaron. Aaron. No, I-Ron. I-Ron?

Oh, like Iron Man? I-Ron. Oh, I saw the Blue Beetle Saturday morning. Oh, yeah?

Oh, it was terrible. It was terrible. It was terrible. The Blue Beetle?

It's a Marvel superhero. Yeah. Oh. But it's a Mexican kid.

Is it? C. C. It's a Mexican kid who gets powers from an Egyptian scarab in Mexico.

Yeah. Wow, don't go there. Well, listen, you got two minutes out of me, so there's 16 minutes in limbo here, and it is what it is. We're going to cut this off.

We're going to give Brett Fry a call on the Patreon. Oh. And we're going to talk about the Halligan. The exclusive.

DTT Cigar. We would cut it with your fancy cutter, but... It's upstairs. I got a new one.

Well, yeah, but no, that's Greg Dietrich's cutter. No, I got two. Oh, oh, what a nice man he is. Yeah, he sent me a replacement for the one for the theft.

Oh, I thought he just sent you one for Greg. No, he sent me one for the theft. Oh, well then, Greg Szczepankevicz, do not touch that. Oh, it's gonna have a sign on it, don't worry.

They're friends. Greg, do not touch. Do not touch my fucking gut. Oh.

All right. All right, guys, we gotta go. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. A Cigar Hustlers podcast, its owners and its sponsors take no responsibility for the opinions These are statements made by the talk show host or their guests. Statements or show topics are not necessarily the beliefs of Mike and Mike Productions or the podcast providers and opinions between talk show hosts may differ.

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

Show Notes

Welcome to Episode 308 of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast! This week, we've got a packed agenda, diving into the latest happenings in the cigar industry and beyond.

First up, we'll address Gregg's latest mishap—what could he have possibly done this time?

In industry news, Luciano Cigars has made some significant moves, appointing Mark Reddy as CEO and Ed Treviño as VP of Sales. We'll discuss what this means for the company's future.

Also, Javier Estades's re-election as Chairman of the Cigar Association of America is making waves. What impact might his leadership have on the industry?

The FDA's decision to increase penalties for tobacco companies by 7.7 percent is a hot topic—how will this affect the landscape moving forward?

Shifting gears, we'll update you on the highly anticipated release of the Mil Días Belicosos Finos LE 2023. Find out when they're shipping and what aficionados can expect from this release.

But wait, there's more! Boveda is increasing prices—what's the reasoning behind this move and how might it affect consumers?

In non-cigar news, we'll take a fascinating turn toward Florida's waters—Great white sharks are making their presence known near Daytona Beach. What's driving these magnificent creatures closer to shore?

And finally, let's talk basketball! The world's tallest teen is playing high school basketball right here in Florida. Join us as we discuss his extraordinary height and his plans for the future.

Tune in for all this and more on Episode 308 of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast. Grab your favorite cigar, settle in, and let's dive into the world of cigars and beyond!