Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 344 It's Mikey's Birthday

Episode Summary

Episode 344 of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast finds Mike "The King" Stefonkiewicz and Mike "BDP" Palmer — now National Sales Manager for Foundation Cigars — in a loose, conversational mood as they celebrate Mikey's 45th birthday from the Mike & Mike Production Studio in Deltona, Florida, with Soundtech Phil on the boards. The first stretch is pure hangout: Palmer's trip to a Zach Bryan concert with his wife Brittany (shrieking teenagers, seat-kicking bros, a parking-garage brawl), babysitters and lawn guys, pool cabanas, and a rewired studio. The birthday gift is on theme — a grow-your-own-tobacco kit with Connecticut broadleaf seeds and a how-to book, a nod to Mikey's earlier on-air wish and a joke about the broadleaf shortage.

The news segment is thin but pointed. The headline item is Gurkha Cigar Group's trademark suit against Davidoff over the Year of the Dragon name: a two-week jury trial has been scheduled for September 15, 2025 in the Southern District of Florida, well after the Year of the Dragon itself has passed. The guys question the logic and cost of the case and float bringing an attorney on a future episode to explain why no injunction was sought. Other release news includes Caldwell Cigar Company's Long Live the Queen Maduro (Mexican San Andrés wrapper, Indonesian binder, Dominican and US fillers, made at the Ventura family's El Maestro factory in the DR) and the Joya de Nicaragua Cabaneta rebrand to simply "Joya Cabaneta," plus shipping notes on Asylum 12, Quesada, Cavalier Genève Blanc limited edition, Surrogates Big Ten Lonsdale Extra, and Liga Privada Único Serie Papas Fritas.

They also play their usual review-score guessing game on Charlie Minato's writeups — the HVC Selection No. 1 Connecticut (which scored a surprising 90 and was called one of the best cigars he'd smoked all year) and the My Father-made Fonseca Edición MX Robusto (89) — and note that Dunbarton Tobacco & Trust's new overseas-only line will almost certainly end up back in the US via the secondary market at inflated prices. The show closes with Shop of the Week Lake Country Cigars (Palmer appearing August 19), a Plasencia Alma del Fuego Ometepe event and humidor giveaway at Cigar Hustler, and Listener of the Week Romitron. Patreon members get a review of the Las Calaveras 2024 LC48 plus a promised call with Skip Martin.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Birthday Show & Studio Changes
   The guys open with new studio wiring, download-milestone awards, and Mikey's upcoming 45th birthday.
2. 02
   Zach Bryan Concert Story
   Palmer recounts shrieking teens, seat-kicking guys, valet regrets, and a parking-garage fight after the show.
3. 03
   Grow-Your-Own-Tobacco Gift
   Mikey unwraps a tobacco-growing kit with Connecticut broadleaf seeds and a how-to book, with jokes about the broadleaf shortage.
4. 04
   Phil's Fun Facts: Beef Consumption
   Phil drops stats on US beef consumption and pairs a ribeye with a good cigar.
5. 05
   Gurkha vs. Davidoff Year of the Dragon Lawsuit
   The trademark suit gets a two-week jury trial date of September 15, 2025 in Fort Lauderdale — long after the Year of the Dragon is over.
6. 06
   New Releases: Caldwell, Joya, and More
   Long Live the Queen Maduro ships from Caldwell, Joya de Nicaragua Cabaneta becomes Joya Cabaneta, plus Asylum, Quesada, Cavalier and Liga Privada shipping news.
7. 07
   Review Score Guessing Game
   Mikey and Phil guess Charlie Minato's scores for the HVC Selection No. 1 Connecticut (90) and Fonseca Edición MX Robusto (89).
8. 08
   Overseas-Only Releases & Shop of the Week
   Why Dunbarton's overseas line will still land in the US secondary market, plus Lake Country Cigars, the Plasencia Ometepe humidor giveaway, and Listener of the Week.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

Linked items are in our shop. Mentions without a link aren’t currently stocked or couldn’t be matched with confidence.

Transcript

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

Here he is. P. Yeah, I'm dead. It's my destiny.

Make way for the king, another Mike and Mike production in 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0. Welcome to the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, episode 344, recorded live at the Mike & Mike Productor Studio in Deltona Flora. Turn the music down a smidge, it's talking over you. Well, let's retract.

Turn the music down? Well, it starts out low, and then it picks up, so when it picks up, you have to turn it down. Okay, so like this. And then move that one down.

Yeah, but not all the way down. Okay, yeah, I'm just making sure which one it was. Excuse us while we worked some things out, we've changed some things again. Sorry.

All right, here we go, you ready? Go! Welcome to the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, episode 344, recorded live at the Mike & Mike Production Studios in Deltona, Florida. This is Cigar Hustlers Podcast, the show where two guys share their passion for cigars, business, and life.

Join Mike the King, Stefonkiewicz, and his co-host Mike BDP Palmer, National Sales Manager for Posting Cigars, as they talk about the latest cigars news, reviews, and interview some of the most influential people in the cigar industry. And me, I'm their engineer at Soundtech Phil. Whether you're a seasoned aficionado or new to cigars, this podcast is for you. So sit back, relax, and line up a Cigar with Cigar Hustlers podcast.

Cigar Hustlers Podcast. Welcome to the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, a show brought to you commercial-free, but a massive shout-out to our amazing patrons on Patreon. Thanks to your unwavering support, we're able to deliver unfiltered, unbiased opinions on all things cigars and personalities in the cigar world. You gonna say something?

Cheers to you. Your backing makes it possible for us to keep it real. He says that part over there. For our listeners, cheers to you.

There it is. If you would like to become a Patreon, I think he did too. com and search A Cigar Hustlers Podcast. I have some information about this upcoming Patreon that we haven't recorded yet.

Oh. Uh oh. What did I mess up that we haven't done yet? There's an individual who would like to speak on behalf of copyright infringement.

Oh. What did we copyright? No, one Skip Martin. Oh, oh, on the...

Oh, excellent. Yeah, so hopefully we can give him a buzz today and get him on. Oh, this show is going to be bananas right here, this show is going to be bananas, and for the Patreon, we are going to review: the Las Calaveras purple one, I don't know, the new one, the new one, the one that tastes like the best one from 2015, this is the LC-48, so that's the Sigmar 48, Phil? Heads up, Phil!

Sorry, I felt good about the throw. Yeah, it looked good, he's got all sorts of equipment over there now, he doesn't know what to do. It doesn't do. Oh, my scale is not here.

Uh-oh. It's on the shelf underneath your big shelf. Oh, yeah, there it is. Other side.

Other side. There it is. All right. You got it.

This show is gonna be bananas right here. Let's see. 6 grams. 6 grams.

Okay, I don't know what I've written down yet. This is the first show in 344 shows, I have really nothing to do with Zitter & Smoke Cigar, I have to read the mail, but, I mean, the mail, the news, everybody is thrilled to death that I have nothing to do, that's nice. Perfect. Doesn't it feel good?

Phil is very excited. I don't know, it feels very awkward. I had to find stuff to put on the table. That's nice.

Yeah, what the hell is that? That's one of our awards for 100,000 downloads. Oh. Wow.

I figured I'd bring it, the other words are plaques, they don't stand up. Okay. Thought I'd put our word out, and then I have to keep my guy. I want the YouTube one.

I have to keep my guy turned because he has no face on the other side. I want the metal YouTube one, you ever see that? No. You get it for like a million views or something like that.

We're not even close to anything. It's gonna happen. Well, sure, eventually. Yeah.

Hopefully before I die. At that point it'll be replaced by fucking like a tin foil plaque or something. Right, exactly. It's just too many people.

An NFT that you can't actually touch. It's an NFT. It's an NFT. It's an NFT award.

Look at it. There you go. So, we went to Zach Bryan this weekend. Oh.

Oh. That's a singer, right? Yeah, man. Okay.

Good for you. Did you have a good time? We had a great time. Brittany doesn't know any of his music.

Oh. Which was fantastic for me. Is it a universal thing? No, no, no.

Oh, it's a legit concert. Yeah, I had bought tickets for this, like, eight or nine months ago. I think it was sometime last year. And yeah, and it was funny because I don't know how this works.

I don't know how this happens, but for whatever reason, Brittany always finds herself dealing with some type of level of fuckery. So that you do. No, no. Just cause by you.

No, just like, she attracts the universe. She's like, right. There's always something have a tendency to gravitate towards her for whatever fucking reason. So, uh, there were a lot of young kids there.

It was like all like wide spectrum, right? Oh, at the concert. Yeah. Okay.

And we had like this, I guess it was like a mom and her friend and then like two little teeny bopper 13, 14 year old girls sitting right next to Brittany. Right. All right. And one of the, this one girl, this one girl that spilled her beer on Brittany.

No, that's, well, she's 13. I mean, it's a cushy thing. Who knows? She's little.

Every time when she decided to scream, she would face your wife and she would bellow out this like this Jamie Lee Curtis fucking shriek. It wasn't like a woo. It was like a Zach Brown thing. And she would go Zach Bryan.

Oh, and she would. I know who Zach Brown is. There's a totally different person, I guess. Yeah.

Okay. Now I have no idea who you went to go see because you said she. Country music. This little girl gave out a shriek, I mean, it would hurt my ear, and I was a couple of them, so eventually it got to a point where Brittany would look at me, like she would turn and then look away from this, like so that her ear could kind of be protected, and you could see the little girl picked up on it, like I would look at Brittany and I could see out of my peripherals, I could see this little girl.

Did she feel bad, or? Oh, she didn't give a shit, this girl. Okay, that's not bad. " No.

Mm-mm. And we had this group of four dudes behind us. Yeah? And one of them was-- By themselves?

Uh, they had, yeah, they were like-- There weren't four girls? No, there was like six guys total. Right. And they were all like, uh, I would say mid to late 20s.

Like somebody's boss gave them the tickets or whatever. And one of them kept kicking Britney's chair before the concert started. So you beat his ass. So I killed him.

" Well, he had walked away and they were making fun of their friend or whatever. Right. " Right. And that just kind of opened up this diatribe.

So we were having a good conversation with them. They named me Brad. They're like, "Oh, that's the type of guys that were. There was one guy that was just hammered and just going hard in the paint.

He started going hard in the paint with a 14-year-old. Was he a redhead? No, no, but he would get along with Ginger. He would definitely get along with Ginger.

He fits that. Fits that criteria. 100%. He's your friend that always totes the line that, you know, at any given point, he could say the wrong thing.

Right. And, you know, fists could ensue. Then you're in trouble. Yeah, you could see that as they were talking with the family, like the women in front of us and the moms and stuff, they're like, oh my god, please, please, concert just start.

I just want this to end. I don't want him to get in trouble. I don't want to get his ass kicked. I don't want to get kicked out of here.

Right. I've never gone to a concert with just a group of guys. Seems a little strange. Yeah?

Yeah. Weird. No, I mean, I guess I understand that to some degree, but... Well, yeah, I mean, it's not out of the question.

It just seems a little unusual. You know what, Bill, but in this, like, I like going and spending, you know, those moments with my wife, right? Right. And, you know, we're obviously well into our relationship.

It's certainly two decades at this point. But if it was, like, I could see me going to a concert with Chris, with Baldwin or something like that, like a dude thing, like, hey, let's just go. Like, they don't like this music anyways, let's just do this, you know? I guess you're right, as far as that goes, but it's just such a large group.

I couldn't see me, you, Boots, Chris, your brother, Chet, all these guys going, "Hey, let's go see Bananarama" or something. Oh, Bananarama's great. What about like a Wu-Tang concert? Yeah, I wouldn't.

I would bring Britney to Wu-Tang. Yeah, I wouldn't. I mean, I would bring my wife to everything. I only go to concerts if my wife makes me go.

Yeah. I don't like them. But what if it was the other way around? Like, a hundred years ago, she went to like this Pink and Justin Timberlake concert with all her girlfriends or some shit.

It seems different to a bunch of girls going. Yeah. So you think a concert is either a couple's or a girl thing? I guess.

I don't know. I'm obviously older. Kenny Bonnet's wife went down to West Palm Beach with her girlfriend to go see new kids on the block. They go every year.

Wait a second. New kids on the block are in constant rotation every year? Yes, every summer. He needs to make some money.

Donnie Wahlberg, she could have reached out and touched him. That's how close she got. Why didn't she touch him? She might have.

I don't know. I guess that's her favorite. My favorite. NYPD blue is over, so he's got to make some money.

Right. When I saw the photo, I asked Ken, I go, is she coming home? I saw how close you got to... A little ball tickle there.

Yeah. He got to the Wahlberg. Get up there. He goes, I think she is.

That's possible. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't want to keep her. Not at that point.

Yeah. He's just going to... He's just going to blow his... No, no.

Oh, Wahlberg. Oh, yeah. She's just the blonde he met at the concert. Yeah, he's going to blow his load and then move on.

Right. Yeah, it's not. Right. This isn't, I love you, you're the one.

But his, that is, I mean, she's, you know, a 40-ish, blonde, cute woman, that's his crowd. I didn't see any kids in the photos. Right. Yeah, they're all, they're all moms and wives.

Yeah, it's new kids on the block. Right. This, this crowd was all ages. Um.

Country opens up. All country. Yeah. Very kind.

A lot of boots and hats and stuff. A lot of boots and hats and stuff. Do you wear your, do you go with, uh, rip? Do you wear your rip clothes?

I did not wear my. Oh. I did not wear my ripped clothes. You didn't wear your ripped boots?

None of your boots? I was gonna wear my boots. Okay, why not? I was wearing shorts.

This is like the cigar thing with Palmer on his vacation. I was gonna, no, no, I was gonna wear my boots, but I was wearing shorts, and I know how stupid that looks because of my friend's boots. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, you know what, we just put on long pants at the concert.

You know what, though, I would love that picture. I think the last time I wore my boots was the concert I went to with Boots and his wife. Me and my Ariats with the fucking shorts? With shorts, yes.

It's Florida, you'd probably get away with that Florida. Oh, yeah, I would probably just blind in. You would not have been the only guy there, probably. People would be like, yeah, that tracks, yeah, no.

Sure. This guy's great! So, we go to leave, and we're in the parking lot. Right.

So, I have- And they yelled, "Hey, Brad! " No, no. So, I'm at a point where, like, I know where it's, alright, it's Mass Exit this time. Right.

Like, we gotta go. Sure. Right? So- Is that the arena?

Yeah. Okay. And I'm like, alright, alright, let's go, Brittany's had a few drinks, her friend, we ran into her friend, like a couple that we know, so they start kind of talking and stuff, and I'm like, come on, come on, we got a thing, babysitter's gonna leave, we must go, and we finally get in the parking lot, of course, boom, right, we're stuck, I fucked up the valet, I didn't realize, there's only, I wanted to valet, yeah, you got to, but. Especially at Concert.

Wait, Vallée's got to be slow at a concert. No, you're parking a little lot out front. No, yeah, Vallée's amazing. But you don't have to get out of the parking garage or the big parking lot jams.

Oh, dude, it's stellar. It is the best. The problem is, though, that sometimes they don't open the... The other side.

Yeah, and I'm used to going in on the other side. Right. So I fucked that up, and I'm like, oh, I don't see any cars in there, so we'll just park in the garage. So we're in the parking garage, we're stuck, we're like, we're lined in or whatever.

You can't move. But I got cigars. You have to pee. No, I have cigars.

Brittany had to pee. No, no, we're good. You brought more wine for Brittany in the car? Oh, first of all, Brittany is going prepared.

Car wine? She has a corksicle fucking... Yes, for the right home. Yeah, we're ready to roll, buddy.

Right, there's two of them, one for the right there, one for the right home. We're not fucking around. Right, not our first time. " get back in the car, get back in the car.

Oh, fight the pergola. Oh, my God. Yeah. A fight ensues behind us.

Oh. Like, oh, no. Nicely done, sir. Like, oh, no.

So I'm like, fuck. And, you know, part of me is like, oh, I got to, you know. No, you stay in the car. Yeah, I'm like, you know what?

Nowadays you get shot. I'm not fucking interjecting with a bunch of drunk fucking country bumpkin motherfuckers that are all gassed up, ready to go. Like, nah. Right.

I'm good. I'm good. I'll just wait for this to move forward because I got to get the hell home. Were you in the big SUV or your car?

No, we usually take my car. If it's just me and her, we take the charger. And his chariots. His chariot, right.

Yeah, yeah. I thought you were going to say some drunk girl grabs the car handle and gets in the backseat. No. I hate him.

Take me home. Get me out of here. Get me out of here. He's an asshole.

You two seem nice. Right. " Well, they have a hard time getting into the baby seat in the back. Oh, that's right.

Well, that's why I was asking. Is this Minnie Mouse? It was a funnier joke if you had the big car. Yeah, no.

That also has the Minnie Mouse seat. Yeah, but there's plenty of seats in that car. True. Not like you've got that many car seats in there.

Yeah. " Hey, they get room for everybody, come on! You know what, just leave Carl, fuck him, let's all get in this car. Let's all get in over here.

Look at this, it's so nice. Can I have a movie? Do you have, Zach Brown, we can play? Do you have any more of that wine?

That's really good, no, it's mine. No, we just charge a premium. What babysitter are you up to now? Still have the same one?

You had a recurring one there for a while. We have the same one, however, she had COVID. So we had to audible for the neighbor, and he came through. Oh, nice, neighbor.

Nice. He's my lawn guy, and he's my babysitter now. He's nice. A little bit of everything.

Oh, good for him. I was having him get acclimated to Bubbles, our German Shepherd, that way if we ever need the dog walking. Oh, throwing in the dog. Yeah, he's the trifecta.

Right. He's never allowed to grow up and move out of the house. Does he clean? I mean, you made me come over and clean the house a little bit.

He's still an 18-year-old kid, bro. Come on. Well, 18 is not really a kid. He's 18?

He's not... That's a kid. I don't care what you say. Yeah, but he's not going to be around that much.

Yeah, I know. Days are a number. Is he going to college in the fall or local? He's going to, I think he's going into like electrical work or whatever.

Oh, some type of internship. Apprenticeship, that's the word, right. Good for him. Good.

That could come in handy also. Hey. Hey, I got some switches in our working. Hey, just for the record, this is kind of fucked up.

Right, if you'd like to increase your experience. Yeah, hey, I want to get some reps in. There you go. How do you feel about running an outlet?

Yeah, just replace some things. It'll be fine. So he got along well with Bubbles. This is like the first time that Bubbles was actually out with him.

Ah, gotcha. And, he helped leveled up my Fortnite. Oh, oh, he played with your Fortnite account. " You don't spend any of the money that I've got on my account, but you can do anything else you want.

Yeah, well, I don't really have any money on my account. Oh, you don't have any money. Yeah, I'm very sorry. I don't do that.

Oh, not really. What about you? How's the grass? Uh, we, uh, we actually had a pool day, uh, with one of them.

With one of Adrienne's friends. She lives in one of the newer apartment buildings, apartment complexes, I guess, over by the Home Depot, and they have a lovely pool and the place is not full yet. It's like a resort-style pool with cabanas and stuff. Since the complex isn't full yet, the pool is not full yet either, so.

Did you get the cabana? We did get a cabana with a couch and two chairs and a coffee table. Did you rent it or did you just get the table? Nope, just first come, first serve.

Oh, do they have like service there or something? No, you bring your own drinks and food and whatever, but they have the built-in lounge chairs in the pool that you can move around on the ledge and stuff. Oh, I would like to crash this. Oh, well.

Yeah. Next day, I don't get invited all the time. No, no, no, just tell me where it is. I'll just show it.

Oh, you just show it. Well, you have to have a little key fob to get in. Oh. There's like some type of magnetic thingy bob.

Can you steal the key fob? No, I can't steal her. Why not? Because then she can't get in.

Ask her to get you one. How do you get out? Well, if you have to go to the bathroom, you have to take the fob with you, and you can get out, Yeah, but you can't get back in. Oh, there's not like a little button on the gate that you press to get out?

No. Oh, well, yeah, it's got like the, like a standard safety. Yeah, the button. Oh, there you go, Mike.

Just reach your hand around the gate, Mikey. You can't. They have it walled off. Oh.

With these ledges. They thought about it, though. Yeah, yeah, they figured that part out. We just gotta do it like Cabana Bay does it, where someone has etched out the space in the fence to just.

Oh, just reach in here. Just lift it open and push. Boop, and you're in. Oh, good for you.

But I did mow the grass, yes. I did a little on Saturday. I went on Saturday and finished it on Sunday. Oh, very nice.

Right. Adrian had some work to do and then he came up here and rewired the studio. Oh, and hopefully this is working. Hopefully there is no noise.

It looks a lot cleaner over here, I gotta tell you. Well, yeah, there's not all the wires don't come to here. All the wires now go to there. We've just taken, you've taken all the fuckery and you have shoved it off.

Right, yeah. If you look over there, you can't really get to the bathroom because of all the weather. That's fine. I'll just piss right here.

Oh, nice. Thank you. Yeah, perfect. I have started breaking stuff down in the other room because we don't need all those cameras anymore.

Uh-huh. And now, as far as your job here at the National Sales Manager. Yes, of Posting Cigars. You've locked in your first interview.

Yes, I have locked in my first, I have had a first podcast request. You had media reach out to you. Yesterday, yes. Look at you.

Yes. Oh. So that will be August 5th, for all of you. How about that cigar?

You're a big deal. Uh, apparently, uh, going that way, yes. Maybe they'll rank some of our cigars this time. Maybe.

Who knows? Oh, I have to send them some samples to smoke in the show. Who's number one? Who's number one?

Cigar Hustler, the podcast? Well, I was just planning to lose number one. And I've been, several people put me in different groups I've never heard of before, too, cigar groups. Oh, look at you.

I'm joining those, too, apparently. You're a kingpin now. Yes, yes. I have my weekly Jack and Hector call now.

They wanted to review things that happened on the show and things they would like to see or hear going forward. Oh, wait till you get to meet all, like you already met some of the retailers, but you met a lot of the good ones. Wait till you get some of the intricacies of some of the shitbags, and then you can have... None of your shitbags, just that's what he said, not me, just so you know.

I love all of you. No, believe me. Who have working credit cards and checkbooks. Yeah, well, these are the ones that I'm talking about.

Oh. That won't place orders with you or break your balls. I'm only going to see them once. But don't worry, because then you'll get to talk with him to Jack and Hector, you'll be like, you know, so-and-so, and boy, oh yeah, fuck that guy, that guy's a piece of shit, exactly, so that's gonna be fun for you, he's getting good with the buttons, he's doing well, right off the rip, yeah, I like the buttons, he's a button guy, yeah, I feel weird not having the buttons over here, I know, I see your fingers, and you're picking things up, and moving around, I'm a fiddler, I do, I fiddle with things, I fiddle and faddle, uh, well, Well, this coming weekend is your birthday.

It is. I have a present over here. I have a present. Oh, man.

And as you open it, there's an explanation that goes with the present. I'm not prepared. I got quaaludes, I got acid, and I got cocaine. Oh, that was good.

Oh, God. Oh, Joker colors. Or Hulk colors. SBC colors.

SBC. You know, it just worked out that way, but I like all those references, so. Oh, boy. Oh, hold it up.

Oh, boy. Hold it up. I'm not prepared to talk about this. No, it's just, you had mentioned on a show, a month or so ago, you wanted to grow your own tobacco.

Yes. So, I got you a small kit to grow your own tobacco. Oh, look at that. So there's a book on how to grow tobacco.

Very nice. Now, can we discuss what you've already received in the mail? No. From Nick Malillo?

No. Oh, because those weren't supposed to go the way it went. Oh, really? I had reached out to him also.

Ah. I was supposed to get those to give, so I had to get my own very, very quickly. Look at this, very nice. So, it's in a box still.

Yeah, yeah. It's a little kit to grow your own tobacco in a book, and seeds. Thank you very much. Connecticut Broadleaf Seeds.

I know there's a broadleaf shortage now, so that's a way you can conquer the entire problem. That's part of it, yeah. Right. Thank you very much.

It's very nice of you. Hi, you're welcome. You're a sweet man. You're a very, very hard man to get a present for.

I can see that. Because if, you know, when you get to be a certain age, and you have reached that age, when you want something, you usually already have it. This is true. Right.

Like, my wife cannot get me a present to save her life. This is true. She tries so hard every year. I do have a tendency to buy the things that I want.

Right. Immediately. Right. There's still kind of few and far between.

Well, because there's not many things you want. Yeah. I did have a conversation with Fred Rui. Yes.

And I did wind up buying that Remarkable 2 thing, where you can kind of write notes and stuff like that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw that upstairs. That thing's pretty cool.

That would have been a good birthday present, I guess. But it's expensive. Oh, I didn't know you got that from talking to Fred Rui. I guess he has one?

Yeah, he talked about it, and I looked at it a while ago when he got it, and I guess Frenchy has one. Yeah, oh. So, I'm going to go. Can't you shoot paper?

Does it? I like the organization of it. Does it send it to your computer or something after you do it? It's all LinkedIn, yeah.

It's pretty cool. And you can write in cursive and you can translate it over. Oh, that's nice. If you wanted to.

Right. It's just cool. I'm getting out of, I mean, I tried to find a piece of paper to write some down at my house and we have pens but no paper. There's no paper in that house.

'Cause we no longer keep a printer at the house, so there's no paper. Right. You might need to get a $20 printer with a $110 toner. Right, that's it, yeah, everything else is so expensive.

Just buy the printer, throw it away. Well, that's what we did here the last time, I mean, the first printer, when it broke, it was used to chuck and get another one. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you very much, man. That's very sweet of you. You're welcome, man. You can grow a tobacco at your house.

I'm sure Brittany will love being in charge of the watering program. Yeah, it's just one more thing for her. One more thing, one more thing, one more thing, right. Well, she stopped cutting up the grapes, so she had plenty of time.

Yeah, that's why she's like, I just, she wants me to choke. Right. She says they're too small. We're not allowed to talk about anything happening with you, we're not allowed to throw that out in the universe.

Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, we're not allowed to talk about that. So Phil, you want to do Phil's Fun Facts? We're after 16 minutes.

Let's go. What did he stop? He hit a button over there. He's looking to get the...

Oh, he's looking for the thing, yeah. He's busy watching the show, I turned to him, and he's staring at the screen, I'm like, that's cool. It's at the top, I think, on the second screen. He's doing so good.

Second screen, it's the first one on the left, I believe. Oh, fun facts. Same thing, you gotta turn it down before you're still talking. You're still learning.

Welcome to Cigar Hustlers' podcast feature, Phil's Fun Facts. Hello, peoples. Alright, American consumers ate a whopping 30 billion pounds of beef in 2021. 5 billion pounds, the more shocking number is that over 50% of the beef consumed in the US is eaten by 12% of the population.

That's 12% as men, ages 45 to 65. Shocker. So next time you light up the grill to put on a nice ribeye, grab a good cigar to go with it. 1% of this number just by himself.

That's 3,000 pounds. Leave some for the rest of us, Phil. 3,000 pounds annual. Phil's Fun Facts brought to you by Bray's Ranch in Waldo, Florida, and Cigar Houser's Patreon, where the true news and info come out every week in easily digestible 30-ish minute episodes.

For just $15 a month, you get full video access to everything the cigar industry doesn't want us talking about. com and search a Cigar Hustlers podcast. I saw a podcast that did a clip about cellophane. Should you sniff the cellophane or not?

And the guy's like, oh, I don't know. They're going back and forth. I'm like, holy shit. Like, that made the podcast.

Well, you should not sniff this all. Like, what the fuck? Yeah, and the other guy didn't even know. Oh.

How long was this? You thought you could smell through it? Rant. Yeah.

Let's call out the podcast. Dude, you know what? I would happily, but I don't know the clip. I just saw it.

I'm like, fuck. Oh, just, oh, gotcha, stumbled across it. You do that a lot. You stumble across these weird things.

I think it's because I do those posts. Right? Like, now they're worked into my feed. feed on youtube or on facebook i don't know it's on one of them tiktok or fucking i have to do all of them now so well we both do them yeah i don't see that stuff really but i might spend more time on tiktok than you probably see more porn shit than i do no no i i try not to like any of that lately my wife has sent me things from the tiktok shop yeah so i'm mostly seeing commercials now oh perfect yes for watch bands and this powder you sprinkle on the floor to get rid of smells in the house or something.

Look, you have three dogs. Four. Right. I mean, I'm only counting.

No, we have three. I thought you had three big ones. No, we have two big ones and a little one. Oh, that's right.

Three, right. Right, okay. Well, normally it doesn't smell. She's really good about doing that, but when it got hot, there was no way you were going to smell that.

Yeah, the reality is I think that you can still, like, you can do everything to clean the house, right, but it's still going to smell like dog to some degree, and you're not going to smell it anymore. Right, That's what I was about to say, right. Yeah, but if you came in, you would notice it. " Right.

You have a dog. Right. Well, that powder came out years ago, and it was carpet fresh or something they used to say, and then you would sprinkle it down and vacuum it up, and they stopped making it because it was bad for you. Yeah.

You were inhaling it in your lungs, and it was sucking up your vacuum. So I reminded her of that. She was like, "Oh, yeah, you're right. " Yeah.

Like the dogs running around, sniffing it up through their noses and stuff. Yeah, they got a coke problem now. Right. Yeah.

It's terrible, and I can't afford that. I can't call Coop all the time. I got Quaaludes, I got Acid, and I got Cocaine. Cocaine, that's right, too much Cocaine, too much, but yeah, he does, he does.

All right, well. On with the news! From the four corners of the world, all the cigar industry news you could possibly need. The Cigar Hustler Podcast Report, with Mike Toon.

Kirka versus Davidoff, Year of the Dragon Lawsuit is scheduled now for September of 2025. You know, when you look at the phone, I can see you, I don't get a single. I know. Just so you know.

Uh-oh. Oh, what? Oh, she wants me on the show. Oh, and I'm not attached.

Oh, you can hold it up to the microphone. Hello, we're podcasting. Oh, good. Oh, good?

Yes. You have not been on in so long. I know. I know.

And you were talking shit about my Garibaldis last week. Yes? Mm-hmm. Yes?

Yeah, you got it completely wrong, but that's fine. Yes, fact check. I'm assuming a football practice tonight. Yes, it's happening.

Okay. It's been canceled. All right. Is that okay?

What did he say? He said it's been canceled. For basketball, now we're doing basketball. He says now we're doing basketball.

Oh, I mean, I wish it was canceled tonight, but whatever. All right. Okay, talk to you later. I love you.

Bye, Brittany. Bye. She seems so happy. Three o'clock on a Monday, she has to call to find out if there's practice.

Yeah, well, we haven't had a lot of turnout of kids, like, the past consecutive weeks. It's just been Jackson, one of the kid. Oh. So, she's like, well, what the fuck?

Right. And now, of course... Is it not season? Is this optional practice?

Yeah, we're gearing up right now. So, the conversation was, well, if it's just gonna be these two kids, and, you know, we got other shit to do. Right. We have people in town.

Oh, who is it now? So, just skip it. John and Emory. Oh, okay.

Yeah. So, we'll just go hang out, you know, we want to hang out with them. Right, sure. So, but then, of course.

How was she doing? Everybody's going to be at this practice. Oh, yeah, everybody will show up. Yeah, the one you don't go to.

How was she doing? Last time she was here, she had foot surgery or something. She's doing great. No, she had knee surgery.

Knee surgery. And it was something, she was limping. Oh, good, doing great. Good.

One of our biggest fans. Yes. All right, let's see, where were we? Gurkha's enemy list and trademark lawsuit over Davidoff's use of Year of the Dragon has been scheduled for next fall.

Judge William P. Dematrablus. Next fall? Yeah, next fall.

Yeah, a lot of time. A lot of work has to be done to get this together. Is that this fall coming up? No, 2025.

So a year later, after the Year of the Dragon has happened. Right. It will no longer be an issue at that point. So it's like, uh, you guys gotta stop telling us, they're like, okay.

Okay, fine, we'll stop it, fine, we don't care now. S. Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Well, there's a number of ways that the trial doesn't begin on that date.

The parties could settle. Typically, legal delays could happen on the sides that would reject the option to use a magistrate judge to scheduling shows illegal matters to continue to move towards a trial. So I think you're right. " He gonna shit when he realizes it's shit.

Right. So the enemy list was filed by Gurkha late last year and centers around the Davidoff limited edition 2024 year of the Dragon Cigar, Gurkha Cigar Group. We've read about this. So like, what's the logic here?

Is it just the publicity that they're enjoying? I think that's it. Because it's gonna cost them a lot of money. Sure.

It probably already has. For what outcome? It's gonna cost the other guys a lot of money. Right.

I thought this was settled because of the wording or something, because it says Year of the Dragon and you can't trademark a... Phrase? Well, a calendar event or something. It'd be like saying you couldn't do a Christmas sale because we registered the word Christmas.

Hmm. Well, that would be 20% different, right? No, it doesn't matter. They're suing over the use of the Year of the Dragon.

Right. But they didn't invent that. It is technically... The Year of the Dragon.

I'll get an attorney to call on. Oh, okay. Next week. Yeah, 'cause I would be curious to understand why they're not speeding up the process to have it done before it's released.

Well, the defense could probably drag it out. " Yeah, but I think the defense... That's an injunction or something. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, you have to get somebody on about that. Okay. That's the only news. I'm looking to see if they have anything.

That's the only news you have? Everything else was releases and reviews this week. Well, what came out? Long Live the Queen Maduro is heading to stores.

Is that Caldwell? That just came out this morning. Yes, that's Caldwell. Earlier last year, Caldwell Cigar Company released the Long Live the Queen, a Cameroon wrap cigar that has an extension of sorts of the company's Long Live the King line.

Now there's a new version of the Queen. I wonder if it's the same, just a different band. Uh, no, it's a different cigar. Today, the distribution group, the new owner of what, Laudis?

Laudisi? Yeah. You don't know either? Spell it.

Spell it. L-A-U-D-I-S-I. Laudisi. Laudisi.

Yeah. Okay, we'll go with Laudisi. Perfect. The new owners of Caldwell Cigar Company are beginning to ship the long-lived the Queen Maduro.

S. Long Live the Queen Maduro is being made at the Ventura Family El Mastro Cigar in Dominican Republic. El Mastro? El Mastro.

M-A-S-T-R-O? Maestro? El Maestro? Is that the E in there?

M-A-E? M-A-E. Maestro? Maestro?

It means like the teacher. I know what Maestro means, Mike. Do you? That's the name of their factory?

Maestro? You said Mastro. I said it phonetically. I thought Maestro would have an I.

It's not A before E except after C. So there's a long live the Queen Maduro, Queen's Crest, which is a five and a half by 45. There's the Queen's Charge, the Queen's Coronet, the Queen's Chalice, and the wild card. Yeah, 'cause didn't they kill the Long Live the King?

The King died a while ago. The King died, yeah, the Long Live the King, and then there was Kill the King, and there was- Zombie King. Yeah, My Brother the King, Here's the Prince, the Dragon King. Targaryen King.

Right, all sorts of. False King. Tons of kings. So all the king was gone though.

All the kings are gone. Let's see. Child Killer King. Oh, wow.

That was completely different. Well, that was House Targaryen. Yeah, that's crazy. Uh, Hoya Cabaneta Lancero, completely rebrands the cigar lines usually means that the most defining visual features is likely to change at least somewhat.

When Hoya De Nicaragua. However, that's not the case when it comes to Hoya De Nicaragua. That's what it says. When Hoya De Nicaragua opted to rebuild its Cabaneta line in 2016, that absolutely did not happen.

Right. And now? Uh, the line was previously known as Hoya De Nicaragua Cabaneta, but now became Hoya Cabaneta. Ah.

That's about Day Nicaragua. Day Nicaragua. Yes. In addition to these, well, it's cheaper that way they make smaller bands.

Yeah. You know what? Less words. Less words.

We were going less words. What words can we remove? Let's take Day Nicaragua out. What do you think?

I wonder if that has something to do with legalities from the country. Like you can't sell it. They think they got sued by Nicaragua? Well, isn't that what happened to Nick?

Well, there's, I think there's something similar. Oh, that's right. Maybe they said, well, you can't say Nicaragua. You can't say Nicaragua.

What are you doing? Yeah. So now it's just Joy. Now it's just Joy.

Now it's just Joy. Now it's just Joy. Just Joy. But Absinthe was the Hoya De Garo.

Okay, that's the same cigar. Is it Joya or is it Hoya? It's Hoya. It's Hoya.

J's are pronounced as H's. Let's see what else. These are all news stories as of this morning. Oh, it's just so stupid.

Surrogates Big Ten Limited Lonsdale Extra is shipped. Oh. I love how you're just like, eh, whatever. " You just like the big, big stuff.

I like the stories, though, the news. Right. Apparently, no news this week. We made this cigar, we're gonna ship it.

Oh, okay. And we removed the Nicaragua. Right, we removed Nicaragua. Don't you have a weekly meeting with Jack and Hector?

There's no news on that side? That's not the stuff I'm allowed to talk about anymore on the show. I got in trouble one time because we said stuff we weren't supposed to. I thought we weren't supposed to do that.

Oh. Okay. Um, let's see. HVC, Selection No.

1, Connecticut, Yorker, Busto. It's a review. Okay. What'd they get?

What'd it get? Oh, okay. Wait, wait, wait. Let me guess.

Hold on. First, I'll tell you who reviewed it. Okay. Yeah, 'cause that does make a difference.

It does. I gotta go all the way to the, you know, all the way to the, you know, all the way to the... Charlie. Oh, Charlie reviewed it.

He did all the stories this week. Oh. Everybody was on vacation. So, I'm going to say that it got an 86.

Hold on, Phil? Yeah, Phil? HVC, Connecticut? HVC, Connecticut.

Yeah, 84. Ooh, he went lower. Under 90. And not that I'm nitpicking, Charlie, but the picture is upside down.

You are nitpicking. The picture is upside down. I thought maybe he was showing, like, maybe the side of it, the HVC, Nicaragua was upside down by mistake, but no, the entire band is upside down. maybe the guy's working a lot he's by himself right now apparently maybe he let the wrong side that's why the rating is not as good some sort oh here's what he's showing that's why okay fine charlie it's not really upside down uh there was some sort of weird film around the band on the final cigar it didn't leave any residue on the wrapper what it looks like is when they because you know they push those out of a bigger piece of paper yeah it's the edge it's the it's got a frayed edge on it uh so he gave you more information somebody just not yeah i normally just look at Does your rating still stand, Mikey?

I'm sticking with 86. And what did Phil say? 84. 90.

Wow! Whoa! The first HVC selection number one Connecticut Short Boost is one of the best cigars I smoked for review all year! All year?

Wow. Oh, well, let's see what's out there. Maybe he's in a good mood that day. What else did he review?

Asylum 12 is shipping, which if you look at the picture, I thought it was some type of Wi-Fi adapter. It does look like a Wi-Fi adapter. Completely black with a little, little tiny blue skull. Quesada's shipping.

It's a lot of shipping. A lot of shipping. Finally. Cavalier Genovese Limited Edition is shipping.

Fonseca Edition. Okay, here's another review. The Fonseca Edition MX Robusto. Okay.

Okay, let's see who shipped it. Fonseca Edition MX. It's a My Father's cigar. Okay.

Mm, again, Charlie. Charlie again. Mm. Very busy this week, Charlie.

Well, I mean, I'm feeling like- He just gave a 90 to HVC. Yeah. He's feeling pretty good. He's in a good mood.

I'm gonna go 88 on this one. Oh. 91. Oh, right in the middle, 89.

Ah. Wow. Well, I didn't think I went to sharp- Well, he lost 'cause he overbid. Yeah, he won.

That's how that works. Oh, it's right. Oh, Price is right. Price is right.

You went over. Well, I don't think I want the sharpness or dryness to increase. It almost felt like many of the flavors of my father's Fonseca Edition MX- Mike Robusto, we're operating with some limiter. Some limiter?

That's what it says, limiter. It's some limiter. Some limiter, limiter, limiter, limiter. Spell check.

Wow, we have a lot of time to kill. That's right. We're just gonna make it short today. 20 minutes, well, 20 minutes.

See, I read this last week. Oh, there's a wonderful story with my picture on it. That looks nice. All right, so that's it.

Te Amo, the original San Andreas Valley Cigar. That's a review. See, it looks this evening. And then we usually don't do accessories.

Necessories, there's a knife, Liga Privada, Unicode Series, Pancetta, Returns, Shipping. Well, obviously, we're going to have a very long Patreon. Dunbarton's new overseas line will only be available overseas. Yeah.

Which line? Dunbarton's new overseas line. Overseas. Oh.

We'll only be able to get it overseas. It's in the name! Here's what's really funny about that, is I guarantee you 80% of that's sold back into the US. Oh, sure.

Oh, yeah. Right. Oh, because, yeah, a lot of people here consume it. Yeah, they'll buy it and ship it in.

So, does it become more expensive? Like, do you have to buy it twice? Are you saying retailers are going to buy it or are you saying just consumers? Both.

It would be big on the black market. Okay. Or the secondary. So, yeah, so it becomes a lot more expensive on the secondary market.

I mean, even still, it's going to be at a higher price because their taxation is way higher, and then shipping over here is going to be higher. Right. S. just because it's just an exclusive, like a store exclusive?

Well, yeah, they're looking to cater to another market. Okay, maybe that tobacco blend doesn't do as good over to the- No, that's bullshit. Okay. They're just trying to cater to another market and another buyer, that's all.

Okay. If you hear, well, we think that this will do better for the European market instead of the US market, that's complete horseshit. Oh, I looked up the wrong cigar. Yeah, I just didn't know if, like, maybe they consume more Connecticut over there versus Maduro or something, you know.

They probably consume lighter cigars, but you know what? So does the US. Is this the Las Calaveras Edition Limitada? No, but it's not that one.

Not the Decimo. That's the 2014. All right. Well, hey, let's get into the Patreon.

Yeah. Well, you got to do a Shop of the Week. Shop of the Week, Michael! Lake Country Cigars.

I will be there. August 19th, I think. I got to book my flight. Yep.

August 19th? Is it the 19th? I thought you said it was changed because somebody else was going to meet you there. Oh, he thought it was in July.

Oh, July. August 19th. Bing bong. I will be there.

This Friday we have an event upstairs for Plasencia. For the Oma. At Cigar Hustler. The Oma Tepe Humidor Giveaway.

Yeah, we're giving away the Oma Tepe Humidor. 80% off the Oma Tepe Cigar. 80%. I'm sorry, 20% off.

Holy shit. You pay 80%. You pay 80%. You pay 80%.

You pay 80%. Sorry, I got all excited. You pay 80% of the price. Yeah, in-store only.

In-store only. Thank God, Mike, you got that. You can possibly, yeah, good thing you got that. It'd be a huge sale going on upstairs.

Get fired before I even started. Right. And you could win the Oma Tempe humidor with the lava rock built into it. And then we got some other cool things going on upstairs, so, we'll talk more about it in the upcoming month.

You got a listener of the week? It's not my job. Now I have no job. Actually, I pull the news.

When there is news. There's only one story. I have a secondary story, we decided not to cover that story, so that's fine. You have a secondary story?

Yeah, we decided not to cover that story. It's a little too political, yeah. So Listener of the Week, Michael! Let's see if you're still listening.

Romitron. He listens. I don't know. I haven't heard from him lately.

Oh, he texted me twice last week. Oh, did he? He still sends all the pictures. Does he?

He means he tags us all the photos. Yeah. And he smokes with our cigars. He sends pictures.

Sends pictures. Well, I get it in my inbox. That's why I figured that. Boots would like, or Phil would like special pictures, Romitron.

Yeah. He could send him special pictures. He don't have to do that. Send him special pictures.

That would make him excited. Make him very happy. Oh. Matter of fact, if anybody would like to send him special photos, Send him special photos.

Well, yeah, send him straight to... Tag them on his Instagram. MKE Palmer. All right.

All right, 45. I'm happy now, I'm 45. We're fine. All right, we got to go.

Thank you very much for an episode 344. Goodbye. Hey there, cigar enthusiasts! If you're looking for the latest and greatest in the cigar world, then you need to tune into the Cigar Hustler Podcast Patreon.

Join us every week. Wait, every weekly? Join us every week for insider news, exclusive interviews, and some of the most entertaining and incessant bullshit discussions you'll ever find anywhere. Whether you're seasoned aficionado or just starting your cigar journey, we've got something for everyone.

Do not miss out! On our behind the scenes stories, industry updates, and the occasional rant that will keep you coming back for more. So grab your favorite cigar, sit back and light up with the Cigar Hustler Podcast Patreon available weekly. Subscribe today and become part of the Hustler family.

Thank you.

Show Notes

In Episode 344 of the Cigar Hustlers Podcast, Phil takes the reins on all the electronics, Palmer is busy handling media requests for interviews, and it's Mikey's birthday! Join us for the usual jokes, pokes, and the latest updates from the cigar industry. Don't miss the celebration and insightful discussions in this fun-filled episode!