David Blanco. Blanco Cigars Episode 13 Origin Series

Episode Summary

Episode 13 of the Origin Series features David Blanco of Blanco Cigars in a long-form conversation with hosts Mike and Mike. Born in Chicago as the first generation of his Cuban family in the United States, Blanco grew up around cigars, dominoes and Cuban coffee, enlisted in the Army out of high school as an airborne infantryman, then used the GI Bill to study criminal justice, political science and paramedic medicine. He served as a Cook County Deputy Sheriff before joining the Chicago Fire Department as a fire paramedic — and explains why the broken judicial system pushed him away from police work.

The heart of the episode is how Blanco Cigars was built, lost and rebuilt. When the mid-90s cigar boom hit, friends kept asking him to buy cigars, so he pitched his father and his uncle Francisco on returning to a family tobacco business the Blancos had left behind in Cuba in the 1800s. The family matched his investment — well into six figures — and Los Blancos incorporated in 1998 with a factory in Ybor City, Tampa, staffed in part by Cuban-émigré cousins. The first cigar he ever blended was the Los Blancos Premier Selection Sumatra, an Indonesian Sumatra-wrapped morning-coffee smoke. When his uncle's Agent Orange–related illness forced him out of the factory in 2000, production moved to Nicaragua with the family's relatives — the Plasencias — where Blanco spent 12 years learning from his mentor Avelio Oviedo Dominguez, the former Cuban rollers' union president and H. Upmann production manager.

Then 9/11 hit. His father was mobilized to Washington, eventually serving as Paul Bremer's security chief in Iraq, while David deployed to Afghanistan; the company closed its doors for roughly two years and lost its accounts, sales force and investment. In late 2004 he restarted from zero on a shoestring and went full-time on cigars, weathering the housing crash, SCHIP and the FDA. He talks candidly about why distribution and good salespeople — not making a good cigar — are the hardest part of the industry, and shares his father's advice that relationships sell cigars more than blends do.

The back half covers international headaches (Australia's plain packaging laws and punitive taxes, EU registration, a Dutch ban on embossed bands), Blanco's culture-first five-day Nicaragua factory tours through Estelí, León and Granada, and his rapid-fire answers: a cigar with Jesus, Yoda as his fictional pick, the Blanco 9 Lancero as his desert-island smoke, and a top five that includes the Tatuaje 2003 Cojonu, the Dog Walker by 7-20-4, the Liga Privada T52, the Oliva Serie V Lancero and a Cuban Partagás 150th Anniversary. He closes with upcoming line extensions, an America Bourbon barrel-aged cigar with Grunt Style founder Dan Alarik, Grunt Fest in Texas, and his blending work for Hiram & Solomon and Warfighter Tobacco.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Chicago Roots and a Cuban Cigar Family
   Blanco describes growing up as the first generation born in the U.S., surrounded by dominoes, Cuban coffee and cigar smoke on Chicago's inner-city streets.
2. 02
   Army, Sheriff's Badge and the Fire Department
   From airborne infantryman at 18 to Cook County Deputy Sheriff to Chicago fire paramedic on the West Side, and why he turned down CPD.
3. 03
   The 1990s Boom and Founding Los Blancos
   Friends constantly asking for cigars led him to pitch his father and uncle on reviving the family tobacco business, incorporating in 1998.
4. 04
   Ybor City Factory and the First Blend
   The Los Blancos Premier Selection Sumatra — an Indonesian Sumatra-wrapped morning cigar — was the first blend he ever created.
5. 05
   Moving Production to Nicaragua with the Plasencias
   His uncle's Agent Orange illness forced a move to the Plasencia facility, where he trained under master blender Avelio Oviedo Dominguez for 12 years.
6. 06
   9/11, Two Wars and Closing the Doors
   His father's mobilization and his own Afghanistan deployment shuttered the company for about two years, wiping out accounts, reps and investment.
7. 07
   Rebuilding Lean: Distribution Is the Real Battle
   Restarting from zero in 2004 through the housing crash, SCHIP and FDA, and why relationships and good salespeople beat great cigars.
8. 08
   Plain Packaging, Embossing Bans and Global Markets
   Australia's plain packaging and heavy taxes, EU registration fees and a Dutch ban on embossed bands complicate international sales.
9. 09
   Nicaragua Factory Tours and What's Next
   His culture-focused five-day tours through Estelí, León and Granada, plus line extensions, an America Bourbon barrel-aged cigar and blending for other brands.

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

Every day I'm hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling. Every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling, every day I'm hustling. Welcome to a Cigar Hustlers Podcast, where we take a closer look at the people of the cigar industry, with your host, Mike and Mike. Hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling.

Every day I'm, every day I'm, every day I'm. Oh, love. Hi, I'm Mike. And I'm Mike also.

And this is Cigar. We missed out. Okay, we'll do it again. Do it again.

This is Cigar. Cigar. Cigar. I fucked you.

You did. I was. Cigar Hustlers podcast. Damn it.

We have a Mr. David Blanco on today. Hello, hello. Thank you for having me.

Blanco Cigars. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for being here. So, obviously our podcast, which you don't know yet because you haven't listened, but is about… Rut Row.

Rut Row, right? No, that's okay. We're doing pretty good. Actually, before we jump into the conversation… We picked up another follower today.

Ooh! So… Fourteen. So, and what is that, Podbean or iTunes, or which one is that? Podbean.

iTunes isn't as friendly with their information. Right. They just tell you how many listen and then how many subscribe, why they're listening. Okay, so what do we have statistically?

Give us an update. Okay, on Podbean, we are in 13 countries around the world. We are in the United States, United Kingdom, Nicaragua, Australia, Canada, Dominican Republic, we're big in Jordan for some reason, Belgium, Ireland, and then 15 people listen in Other, Ireland, we have seven people in Ireland. Ah, that's impressive for me.

I'm happy about that, you know. Yes, yes. The fighting Irish. The fighting Irish.

So, let's see here. A couple of scrappers. I hope that they're getting, you know, having some Guinness, getting bombed, and then just listening to the podcast. I think they're recovering right now from St.

Paddy's Day. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I had to pull that Arabic out of my butt there for you guys.

Over in Jordan, that was for you guys. That's very nice. Very nice. Jack Taranio is our biggest show so far.

Hey, Jack. Oh, wait. Now you threw Doug Hauntlet down. Challenge accepted.

All right. Okay, Jack, you're going down. That was pretty good. I mean, he talked about this movie theater conflict that he had, and I'll tell you what, I've been getting feedback on it.

I know Jack. Jack's a good guy, man. He and I are buddies. But don't talk during the movie that Jack is watching.

So what's kind of different about this, our podcast right now, between you and us, is that everybody else we've really kind of had on before, I have a bigger relationship with. And, you know, we've met a couple times, but we're not really established. There's that time in the gay bar. Right.

You know, I don't really talk about that too much. I got you. I post it more on Instagram than I do talk about it on my podcast. But, hey, you know, whatever, if you want to walk through that door, that's fine, you know.

So, obviously, this is an origin series. We want to know a little bit about yourself. Looks like what I got here is, for starters, you were born in Chicago. Is that correct?

I was. Hey! Alright. And Deputy Sheriff of Chicago, as well as a Fire Paramedic of Chicago?

Correct. It's Cook County. He's the county of Chicago. Deputy Sheriff of Cook County.

Why don't we start there? How did you get into... Wow. Okay.

Yeah, we're starting at the beginning. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Yeah, here we go. Genesis Chapter One.

So, Dave Blanco started humbly in Chicago, growing up as a kid in Chicago, but my family was Cuban in heritage. I was the first one born in the city of Chicago, actually I was born, the first generation born in the United States, and- So no ketchup? Yeah, no ketchup. No ketchup, still to this day?

Yeah, no ketchup. Okay. Just curious. Yeah.

I need to get all the facts out here, you know? So, being born in Chicago as a regular American kid, you know, I grew up in a regular inner-city neighborhood and grew up wanting to be the police, fireman, you know, all that kind of stuff. The whole shit bang. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cigars were always around because of the family's heritage. At that time, I'm not going to divulge my age too early, but at that time. We have that, by the way. On the planet.

Yeah, yeah. We'll put that out there. It'll all come out. Jack, I'm taking you down.

I have an excellent producer. He bets him well. A lot of research. So, you know, they were always around.

We had the old men playing dominoes, wearing wife beaters. Right. And smoking cigars. So it was always something that was around me.

You know, I always understood the smell of cigars, and it was something I was always just part of the culture. Right. Drinking Cuban coffee and all that stuff. But I was a kid running around playing stickball in the street, you know, playing catch and all that kind of stuff.

Right. Just like the movies. That's it. That's it.

Fire Hydrant? You did the Fire Hydrant? Oh yeah, we did the Fire Hydrant. We played Ding Dong Pitch and we sketched.

Do you even know what sketching is? What is sketching? Ah, see in the winter, in the winter we would grab hold of somebody's back bumper and just ride like we're skiing. It's called Skitchin.

That's the Chicago, or probably an inner city term. That's the Chicago way. Yeah, it's Chicago way. I grew up in the, I mean, I was born in Boston, but I grew up in the mean suburbs of Coral Springs.

Oh, wow, watch out. You had the bloods and crips out there, didn't you? Yeah, big time, yeah, big time. Alright, so there I was in Chicago, growing up, and I wanted to be the police growing up, and I wanted to do the military thing, kind of, sort of.

You know, it was kind of, I came from a military family. Right. So, fast forward to 18 and graduated, joined the military and raised my right hand and became an airborne infantryman and volunteered for all kinds of cool stuff and special operations and whatever I could do and we did that and then I used my GI Bill to go to school. You're jumping way too far ahead, so let me bring it back.

I wasn't doing a cigar yet. I'm going to bring it back. I'm at like 1920 right now. So what made you decide to become a firefighter, sheriff?

I haven't even done that yet. He went from... I just went from the military to school. From high school to the military?

Oh, so we are... Yeah. So you did military before you did this. 18.

Just graduated high school. High school, went into the military. That's right. All right, so then you're on track, because I thought that we were like...

You were blitzkrieging through everything. No, hell no. Holy shit, what's going on here? Not in my first row yet.

You don't listen to the show either, do you? What? You don't listen to the show either, do you? You mean, this show?

No, I don't. Where was I? I live in. I live in a fucking show.

You were 18? Yes. And you joined the military? I did my military thing.

Jumped out of airplanes? Yeah, I did all that cool stuff. What branch? Army.

Army. Army, yeah. The only branch. No, I take that back.

My brother was a Marine. Listen, I had to talk to him real slow. Those are planes. That's good.

Listen, it all says US in front of our tab, on our name tag. Right. Just as Marine, Air Force. We're all on the same team.

We all have different jobs, but they're similar, and we all help each other. Complimentary. If you guys out there that's not Army, I still love you. Except the Coast Guard.

No. No, they're good, too. They're good, too. So, yeah, I went to college and studied criminal justice, political science.

Okay. And I figured I'd throw in a paramedic medicine major in there as well. A little parlay? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm rounding myself out for law enforcement because that's the goal, right? Mm-hmm. So, graduate and, well, I continue to study and I get a job as a Cook County Sheriff and you put your They called me first, so I took the job and did that, and before I knew it, Chicago Police and Chicago Fire Department called me at the same time, and I had my paramedic license, and I said, "You know what? " After all of that, yeah, it wasn't so much the criminal justice system as law enforcement.

It was the judicial system that's broken in this country. And so as a result of seeing too many people get off because they've got very good lawyers, I didn't want to be a part of that problem, I couldn't fix it, and since I couldn't fix it, I didn't want to be part of the problem, so I said, you know what, this isn't for me, and I had aspirations of going to federal law enforcement and stuff, and I said, you know what, I can't, I don't want to be a part of this, so I went to the fire department, instead of taking the Chicago police job, I went and I took the Chicago Fire Department job, did that, and I was a fire paramedic, and then I was promoted to paramedic officer and ran an ambulance in the ghetto. It was lots of fun. I'm sure it was.

Oh boy, oh boy, west side of the city of Chicago, for I think about seven years, but while I was there, here we go, here's where I weave the tail, right? Here it comes, this is now the mid-90s, so I'm giving you kind of an idea how old I am now. So, about that same time, this crazy magazine comes up and starts, and these yuppies start smoking cigars, and I think the magazine was called The Cigar Fisciano. Oh, okay.

I've heard of it. Yeah, yeah. Crazy little magazine started back then. Don't they do stories on the most famous cigar man of the world?

Who would that be? If I watch Fox News. Skip Martin. Was that a plug?

Does he have to pay for that? No, he doesn't have to pay for that. He's our biggest fan. Okay, I got you.

He listens to the podcast. I love the podcast. Hey, Skip. How you doing, buddy?

He's our number one fan. That's right. Skip and I gotta go share a big hamburger in Nicaragua. He knows where I'm talking about.

He loves the hamburgers over there. We should mention Skip every week. You know what I'm talking about, Skip. What is that, like a hamburguesa or some shit like that?

I saw that. No, no, no. This is legit hamburger. We got a guide on there.

It's called Finca. Oh. Darren's place. Yes, Finca de la Mesa.

Yeah. That's awesome. He's awesome. Have you had his burgers?

Right, then you know they're huge, like a pound and a half or something like that. Yeah. He doesn't do breakfast though. No, no, and by the way, you have to make sure you have reservations.

That's very important. Oh wait, we're in Nicaragua, so he's watching this, or listening to this. Oh, he might be listening. Hey, how you doing, buddy?

Darren's probably listening. Darren, love you, man. Keep up the good work. So anyway, back to the story.

We keep getting sidebarred here. It's okay. I have no idea where I was. Judicial system is broke, you're going to be in the fire department.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm in the fire department. So, yes. Cigar aficionado.

Cigar aficionado. So at that point, suddenly, I had been smoking cigars since 18, growing up, because it was, like I said, always part of the culture. But I was the only kid my age doing it. Everybody thought I was crazy.

You know, they were smoking cigarettes, and they were, you know, smoking pot, or whatever they were doing. My vice was smoking cigars and drinking, because I was in the military, and it couldn't, you know, that wasn't acceptable or allowed, so I was like, "Guys, I can't do that. " Right. So that's what I was doing in college.

Totally fine. In college and everything else, yeah. Right. So, suddenly when it became hip, you know, "Dave, how do you smoke a cigar?

How do you cut a cigar? What's a good cigar? What's a bad cigar? " Because I had been smoking and suddenly I had cigars laying around and everything else and stuff was given to me by family and everything else.

" Then again, and then again. " Can I get a bundle? I didn't get a bundle. These are mine.

Well, I'll buy it from you. Hmm. The plot thickens. And enough of that, enough of people said that to me, and it happened enough times that I went to my father and I went to my uncle, Francisco, and I said, you know what?

I think this might be an opportunity to get back into the family business that our family had left in Cuba since the 1800s. My immediate family was the only family that came here from Cuba. My father, my grandparents, they were fleeing the regime, of course, in 1960 with Fidel Castro, obviously, the revolution. Excuse me, the rest of the family didn't get out until, I think, '62, and they went directly to Nicaragua to continue to grow tobacco.

Oh, no kidding. Yeah, so my immediate family fled here for political asylum issues, and so that's why I ended up being born here in the States, The rest of the family that was in Cuba either hasn't gotten out because we still have them there, or they went to Central America so they could continue to grow tobacco. So having said that, I approached them with the opportunity and the suggestion that I would like to get back to the family roots in business. And they were like, "Absolutely.

We'd be more than happy to become your partners as long as you do this. Invest everything you own. Then we know you're serious in your mid-20s that you want to get in the cigar business. " So, challenge accepted.

So $20 later. Yeah. What? Mid-20s.

Well, you gotta remember, I was already a sheriff, so I had been a sheriff, I was working for the Chicago Fire Department. We make decent money. No, yeah, for sure. But you gotta save it, too.

Absolutely. I mean, if you saved it in your mid-20s. God bless you. I won't save it, trust me.

That's my drinking problem that you mentioned. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that was cheap. 58.

Oh. Those were the days. Schlitz. You know, all that crap that you drink that you just do it to get buzzed.

Old Milwaukee's best. Yeah, that's right. Mad Dog. You guys remember hams?

Oh, I've had hams. Oh, from the land of Scott and Water. What about Mickey's Ice? Mickey's Ice?

Mickey's Ice. Yeah, the Bumblebee? Natty's Ice. Natural ice.

I was doing Point Beer from Wisconsin and all kinds of Line and Kugel back in there, you know, all that kind of cool. So that stuff was fairly inexpensive. Oh yeah, absolutely. Pitchers were like five bucks, old style, you know.

You know, old style is a Chicago thing. No, yeah. Yeah, it was like five bucks a pitcher. So you drink your face off.

Anyway. So you saved up. Saved up. I'm all in.

My parents, my father, my uncle. So how much is all in? Oh, that's a real... We need to know.

That's a good question. Well, we were into the six figures all in, all of us together. Way into the six figures. Let's put it that way.

It was a family. Yeah, my father, my uncle. It was called Los Blancos. How much was yours?

A third. No, it was equal. We all did equal. That way it was, everybody was in.

Okay. So we opened up our factory in Ybor City. So my uncle, Francisco, was running the factory. We all had our specific roles.

He had the factory responsibilities. My father was all the back-end, administrative, legal, taxes, everything corporate, everything on that side of the house. And my job was to A, sell, be on the road, sell, blend, because my interest was in blending, so I had to learn all about the tobacco, but I couldn't run the day-to-day operations and do all the sales. So I got as much as I could into the manufacturing side, and then my uncle ran it.

So I made sure all the blending was the way we wanted it, I designed bands, I designed boxes, logos, anything and everything, marketing, and so forth. And then I went on the road and had all the material to sell. So we all had our specific jobs. Okay.

That was in 1998. Thank you. That's going to be my next question. There you go.

That was the one we incorporated. So that's when you started. Right. Well, we started talking about it in '97.

We did a little stuff, but we actually incorporated and opened the factory in 1998. So what was the first cigar that you made? The Los Blancos Premier Selection Sumatra. That was the first cigar I ever made.

Okay. Indonesian Sumatran wrapper, Nicaraguan, Honduran filler binder combination. I still love that cigar to this day. I actually blended that cigar first because when I sat down and decided, okay, here we go, day one, what am I making?

And my response was, well, I start the day with a cup of coffee, better make a cigar for coffee. And that's where it started. So that was the cigar that we started with and it was for the morning coffee. So, two years later, unfortunately.

So, we're moving along. We're growing the brand. The brand's growing. I'm on the road.

I'm killing it as much as I can. I'm a one-man band on the road. And we're spreading, you know, some shops out there. So, at this point, you were out of Chicago completely and you were in Florida?

Okay. I should probably clarify that. So, my uncle opened the factory in Ybor. Okay.

My father and I were still in the city of Chicago because we were still working on - I was still working on the fire department, as a matter of fact, so was he. Did your uncle already live in Florida? Yes, he had retired. He was a 20-year military dude, and he retired.

So the cigars are like a side hustle. Yeah, well, he was retired. He was, you know, he was young still. Why can't I turn that down?

Sorry guys, that's my what's up from Nicaragua, as we say. And my grandparents had retired down to the Tampa area, which is why he moved there, To be near them. My father had also bought a home there, so the intention was once he retired, he would move to be close to his parents as well. So since we had a family base in Tampa, in Ybor, and that was Cigar City, right?

So Frank opened the, we call him Frank Francisco, opened the, was running the factory there, and we're moving along. Now my father and I were still out of Chicago, but I was on the road anyway, so it didn't really matter. Yeah, it didn't matter where you were. I could do administrative work anywhere, you know what I mean?

Right. My uncle was watching payroll and stuff like that down there, and my father would handle the licensing and importing if we needed raw material and whatever it was. Right. Because we were rolling there.

Right, you were rolling in Florida. Right, and we had cousins that had come out of Cuba that were rollers, and so we would employ them, and then they had friends, and so this is how we got our rolling base, our employee base. So, that lasted about two years, '98 to 2000. In 2000, my uncle suddenly began to have medical problems as a result of his service in Vietnam.

So, let's just say he ended up not being able to walk after 20 years, exposure to Agent Orange, and he ended up in a wheelchair, and he could no longer run the factory. So, we had a quandary here: what to do. So, we called up that family that left Cuba and went directly to Nicaragua, and had been there since the '60s, and that family, my father and he, our cousins, called them up and said, "Hey, we need to move production. " That gentleman's name is Nestor Plasencia.

I've heard that name. There you go. So this is the family that I was lucky enough to be related to and was able, through my father's family back in Cuba, be able to move our production. Otherwise, we would have had a serious problem.

Right. So we went down there, integrated our production into their factory, and that's where I met my mentor. His name was Avelio Oviedo Dominguez. One of, if you're in the business on this side, One of the main men with regard to blending and rolling from the old days in Cuba.

Okay. He was the rolling union president in Cuba before the revolution, and I believe he was the production manager for the H. Upman factory, if I remember correctly. Master blender, master roller.

This guy was an icon. Anybody on the manufacturing side, if they were in the industry, knew who he was. Okay. I had 12 good years with him to sponge all the knowledge that I could possibly get from him and that he was willing to give me, which was a lot.

I mean, I really tried to learn everything I could because the gentleman was old as it was when I met him. He was already up in his 70s. Right. And this is like 2000?

Yeah, 2000. And so I had him for, I think, 12 good years. And I wouldn't be where I am today without the knowledge that I was able to glean from his lifetime of work and experience in the industry. So he helped me continue to blend and enhance my blending capability and broaden my horizons with the tobaccos that Plasencia has available, which is approximately 150, 60, actually it's 167 different varietals of tobacco from about 15 different countries, not to mention all the tobacco that they grow in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica.

So it's a humongous operation, but this is the genesis of how I got into the business. So now we're chugging along 2000, and then 9/11 happens, the next catastrophe for our family and our business, particularly my business, because I was still a member of the reserves, as well as my father, and the day of, I had just gotten off shift with the fire department, and I was married at the time. My wife woke me up and said, I literally just got to bed like half an hour to an hour. She says, you've got to watch.

Something's happening. Some plane hit a building or something in New York. So, of course, I got up and I watched a second plane crash into the building live. Shortly after that, my father had called me.

My phone was ringing. C. now. I have to be there tomorrow.

I have to report. It was mobilized and activated immediately. And he said, well, I'm gone for at least a year, maybe two. Here are the keys.

It's all up to you, kid. That was it. So here you go. That's it.

Here you go. So I was like, okay. My uncle's already been out for two years, or a year, and now my father's gone. I don't know when he's coming back because I don't know how old you were during 9/11.

I was in high school. You were in high school. You were an adult. Yeah, I was an adult.

Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew what was going on. It was all like up in the air. So when he said he's gone, I was like, well, he's gone until further notice.

And he told me at least one, maybe two, but really we don't know. Right. So I continued to plug along the best that I could. Now I'm handling the back end.

Everything. Yeah, thank God I had the family running the factory down there because I didn't have to worry about production at that point, but I'm running the back end and I'm doing all the sales on the front end. Meanwhile, the whole world's going to hell in a hand basket because everybody's freaking out. Right, yeah.

And I had to drive him because there were no rental cars for him to rent because all the planes have been grounded. Right, yeah. Well, I got trapped in Minnesota, actually. Oh, no shit.

I was on the road working. I didn't even know that happened. Yeah. Yep.

So, at that point, I come back, I have a nice long drive back to think about how the hell I was going to keep this all in all the plates in the air. Right. And figure out, okay, I'll attack this, you know, one day at a time. And that lasted for about six months, I think.

And then I was called. Mm-hmm. And that sealed the deal. He sealed the deal.

At that point, I had to close the doors. Right. So we closed the doors almost for two years. No shit.

Because he did a first year with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and he was traveling around doing protective security detail for them, and then he did such a good job, they said, "Hey, we want you to go over to the sandbox, over to Iraq. We're going to be invading this country called Iraq. " And who ended up being the ambassador during the entire invasion. So while he's doing that, I'm off to Afghanistan.

My mother was really happy. Oh, I'm sure. Absolutely thrilled. Not to mention the companies in, you know, I had to hand the keys.

" Hey, you're in charge. You're in charge, Bob. No, it was basically, it was just basically, here are the keys. If that phone rings and somebody orders cigars, just ship them for me.

Right. That's it. That's all we could do. I mean, I literally had no option but to just hand those keys over.

And there wasn't like, back then, you know, I'll put an email blast out and let everybody know the situation, what's going on, no, it was like, poof, we evaporated, we didn't go to IPCPR, back then it was RTDA, I still believe, and, you know, it's a trade show, and we just vanished. Right. " Didn't we have a cigar business? Yeah.

Well, my father was doing other things as well, you know, and I was doing other things as well. He literally looked at me and he said, you know, maybe this wasn't meant to be, you know. Right. You know, we gave it a good shot.

You know, by the way, all the investment is gone now because we lost a huge investment when we closed our factory. Right. The rest of the investment for all my travel and everything else, now we had zero accounts left pretty much. Right.

You fall off the shelf if you're not visiting people, you're not talking to people. We're not talking to people, they just thought we would close up and we closed a shop and we went out of business or something, didn't see us at IPC, so it was basically, if we were going to do this, it was start at zero again, with no investment like we had before, we had already thrown hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars at this, now we're going to try to do this on a shoestring, so I was like, well, I've never given up at anything in my life, I've never quit at anything in my life, that could be It could be a blessing and a curse, and I decided I'm not going to start now, not to mention, I had invested everything I owned into this, and I was going to make it work, and I was going to be successful from hell or high water, I was going to do what I had to do to make this work, because I was successful one night we had a close. So it wasn't an issue of, I didn't have good cigars, I didn't have a good marketing scheme, or I didn't have a good business model. Life just got in the way.

Yeah, the world. The world happened. The world got in the way. The world happened, and this is life.

So the option was, you know, cry in the corner and go do something else and say, okay, you beat me, you got me. Or how I look at things in life is this is just another challenge. Right. And I'm going to make it work.

If I built it once, I could build it again. Right, but in all fairness, crying in the corner sometimes is a pretty good option, you know. We know where you stand now. You just told everybody a lot about you suffering.

No, I'm just joking. Yeah, right. Exactly. So yeah, like the crying game thing in the shower.

Yeah, you know. Cue the music. So I decided, no, we're going to do this. Well, I'm going to do this.

And my father supported me. Right. So I threw myself into this now full-time. And the only thing on the side was the military.

I stayed as a reservist, but this was it, full-time cigars. And since 2004 on, this has been my full-time job. And we have crawled, scraped, walked, and jogged, and now are running back into this business. And not to mention, there was a few other hurdles that all of us had to endure during those times.

It was the crash of the economy, it was the housing crash, it was the S-chip that Obama signed into law, and then it was, oh yes, the FDA. So we've had a few hurdles since 2004 up to now. For sure. We've met them all, and all those challenges, and that included the closing of our factory previously, and two wars, and so we've had a few hurdles.

For sure. In our family history, as relating to our company, and our lives, but also affecting our company, but we've survived them all, we continue to grow, and we are stronger for it, because it caused me to learn how to run this thing very lean. Right. I had to tighten my belt and figure out how to do things without the funds that I initially had.

And then when it was, you know, people couldn't, you know, pay their mortgages and they were walking away from their homes, they weren't too concerned about things like cigars. Right. So we had to be very creative on how we ran our business to be able to get by on the lean times. So do you have a sales force now?

We do, actually. That was another thing. I lost all my sales force when we closed the doors. Right.

" We moved on, we have other things in our portfolio. So that's why when I came back it was me, back on the road doing it all myself. Okay, so when you came back it was just, you're the only guy? Yep.

Army of One. That's right, Army of One as they say. Now, for those of you out there that know that saying Army of One that used to be on commercials all the time, we always used to say Army of One. One is an acronym because the Army is known for acronyms.

The one stands for Officers, NCOs, and Enlisted. So, that means everybody in the Army, but Army One really doesn't mean you're one, it's an army of everybody. But yeah, so, slowly but surely, and that was always a struggle, I'll be honest with you, in this industry, salesmen, sales reps, whether they're brokers or in-house, are very tough to find good ones. You guys just mentioned Mr.

Jack Taranio before. He's a great one. He's a really good guy and a great salesman, consummate professional. I could name a whole host of other ones, but for as many brands as there are on the market, there are not enough good salesmen to be able to handle them all.

I think that's in any industry. Distribution is the key. That is the biggest and hardest part of this industry. It's not manufacturing a good cigar.

There are a lot of great cigars out there that nobody's ever heard of because they don't have the distribution or the sales force to get it on the shelves. That is the difficulty. Not to mention the shelf space. You can't make a shop big enough to say I have all the cigars and all the brands that are out there.

It's impossible. That's true. So I learned early on that a key to success in this business, and my father did give me a little nugget here, and he told me, and he said, "Listen, Dave, You could have the greatest cigar on the planet, the best cigar on the planet. If you're a jackass, nobody's going to buy it from you.

You could have a mediocre cigar, and if people like you, you got a shot. True. That's very true. What that told me was, it's not really all about the cigar.

It's about the relationship. So, the people that are successful in this business, it's about marketing and their relationships through their marketing and advertising. So, people do business with other people that they like being around, like doing business, and enjoy doing business with. Right.

Sometimes you have to do business with people you don't like to, but if you didn't have to, you wouldn't. Right. And in this industry, there are so many brands out there, you don't do the business with people you don't want to, because there's enough that you can. Yeah, that's very true.

So, for me, the key was creating those relationships, maintaining those relationships, and growing those relationships to where we could grow our business. And that takes time. That's why in this business, it's a grind. I travel two to three weeks at least every month.

And sometimes I do a month at a time, and then I'll take a couple weeks off. But I just did a 30-day trip, and I'm back home now for five days, and I'm going back on the road for three weeks in April. And it's all over the planet. So, what have we grown into?

We're all over the United States. We're in Canada. We're in Europe. We're opening up the Middle East, hopefully, this year.

Cyprus, I count that as well. We're in Cyprus. We're in Africa. We have some sales in Australia.

And Asia is next. That's the next one in my sights. So now, before you came, before we started recording the podcast, you were actually talking about Australia. Can you tell a little bit about some of the experiences that you've had with that?

It's very tough. Yeah, so I shipped product over there to our last distributor, and they ripped open the entire box. I guess the invoice or something didn't match, or the weights or something, I don't know. It was some discrepancy.

So they, of course, immediately rip open the box and basically destroy, open up all the boxes. I mean, they just ravaged the thing. And I only know this because the distributor took a photo and sent it back to me. And I was like, oh my God, they even like took bands off the cigars, took the cigars out of the cellophane, ripped the cedar linings that we had off some of the cigars.

I mean, it was, I was like... Looking to see if anything was inside the cigars. I don't even know. If the weights were off, that's probably what they were doing.

Who knows? So I was like, oh my God, how is he going to sell this product? He's going to have to, I mean, they literally didn't even put it back on, put it, you know, they didn't have to reassemble anything. They just threw it in the box and handed it to them.

Right. I was like, how is he going to sell this product? And he goes, and I didn't know this at the time. He goes, oh, I was going to have to take all that stuff off anyway.

I was like, what do you mean? He goes, oh, yeah, we have plain packaging laws here. Plain packaging laws. They have to take off all the bands, everything out of the box.

As a matter of fact, he was asking me, from now on, if you want to just send me bundles, save yourself the boxes. Because I can't use them. I've got to throw them away. Yeah, like, thanks for telling me I've got to save some money.

Yeah, I mean, it was just starting to do business with them, so it wasn't the end of the world, but I was just like, I couldn't believe that they have to sell everything nude. Yeah, that's insane. Nude. Absolutely, everything looks the same.

So, from my understanding, from what I understand, and I guess you guys are being heard in Australia, maybe I'll get some feedback on this. Yeah, my buddy Dave Burke, have you ever heard of him, Cigar Jukebox? I have not. Oh, he's a good dude.

He's got a good little podcast, too. He pairs music with cigars. That's interesting. Yeah, that's a little shameless plug for him.

Nice. Well, I'd like to talk to him one day, and maybe that's part of that new relationship building process. Yeah, absolutely. But you ask them, or you'll get feedback, how many actual cigar shops still do exist in Australia, because from my understanding, most of it's online.

Right. People just get, you know, other guys in the country, some guy imports them, and then people order through him online. So, it's crazy. Canada's bad, but not that bad.

Right. But I understand that they're talking about plane packaging now, Europe's instituting something like the FDA right now, with registration and everything else, and that's an- Oh, good, that's worked out. That's my line. Total cluster.

Oh, good. Oh, good. Yeah, total cluster, because the European Union, every country has its own deal. Right.

There's a central registration, but then there are registration fees in every country that are different. I'm sure it's going to work out just fine, you know, a little over-regulation, you know, totally different countries, mixed up, you know, cancer dollars living together? You know what I just heard from my distributor in Holland? Sure.

No embossing on cigar labels. Ooh! They will be restricted. Does the embossing cause cancer?

No, I guess it's a marketing issue. So, no embossing, that will be illegal on all cigar bands and any packaging. If it is packaged or has a band on it that is embossed, it will not be allowed to be sold. allowed to be sold what guy is sitting there in a meeting go you know what the problem is it's embossing can you imagine right it's embossing what are we going to do change the labels the bands we're just going to make bands specifically for holland now you're just going to write your name well i think that's what they're trying to do they're trying to press the issue so that you know you don't have to sell there it's a step towards plane packaging they're actually talking about that what's the advantage of plane packaging in australia it's it's an issue level playing Is that the main field for everyone?

No. It's safer. They say that this is the band and the package and the box. It's all artwork, but we say it's artwork.

But what they say is it's a marketing scheme. Well, yeah. No, no, no. Well, we don't want you advertising it.

Oh, sorry. No, we don't want to lure people with your marketing and advertising to smoke because smoking is bad for them. What does a Coke can look like in Australia? I have no idea.

It's just... Aluminum color. Soda. It's a soda.

They just want to restrict all the marketing ways and techniques that we have. To make our cigar look appetizing or, you know, appealing to people, well, that's bad because it's a bad product, but- They just throw them all in one big bin at the shop when you get there? Pretty much. I don't know if they have any shops, but you might want to ask somebody over there.

Dave knows. Dave gives you good insight. And the taxes that they pay when we input is ridiculous. Oh, it's over 130% or 40% or something like that.

I can't remember exactly what it was he told me. And how are you going to go? I'd like to have a Blanco cigar. Which one is it?

I don't know. point at one and he knows which one it is that he took the label off but what an ultimate hustle if i lived in australia like oh yeah you want the opus it's that one over there it's a padrone till it's gonna be 75 true story true story i'm starting to see some opportunity a little overregulation we're moving to australia crush it just see somebody listening to this in They're in Australia right now with their eyes getting really wide. Have I been getting screwed this whole time? What?

All right, so do you want to move to the three questions? The four questions. We have a set of questions. Oh, I got a bonus question?

Fourth? Oh, yeah, we just started incorporating it. All right. That's good stuff.

I'm good. I'm down. He sort of answered the first, or no, he answered one of the questions already, but that's okay. Get ahead of me again.

He doesn't know. He doesn't listen. The answer is C. Damn!

Damn, he hasn't listened. All right, I knew it. See you on the show, goodbye. Thank you for listening.

Okay, first question, what one person, living or dead, would you like to share a cigar with? Wow. Wow. You don't want to make dead air space here.

I like the dead air when you ask the question, because it shows that... Jesus. We stumped the Schwab. Jesus, huh?

Jesus? Yeah. That guy's all right. How do you pick him?

I mean, literally? If you could talk to the Son of God and have a cigar with him, you get the answers to all the answers to everything. He'll know who shot JFK and everything. He'll know everything.

All right. Jesus. You know, I never had, I never thought about it, but of all the greatest people on the planet and everything else, I would think it's Jesus. All right.

Yeah. Wow. Now we can never ask this question again. We'll never get a better answer.

Yeah. All right. Question number two. What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?

Oh, that I listened to, or I didn't listen to? You can go either way. How? The greatest advice?

Man, I don't even know. I don't even know the answer to that question. Let me think about that. Can I pass for a moment?

Let's go to the next one. I don't think you can fucking pass. Oh no, I'll answer. Can I think about it?

We're not moving. Okay. " We'll just also sit back, turn the mics off, and we'll be back in a moment. Wow.

Now, a word from our sponsors. I was going to say, if we had a commercial. We don't have sponsors. Fuck 'em.

Wow. That's one way to go. Well, that's kind of why we built it. We didn't want sponsors.

Okay. All right. No commercials. If you'd like to sponsor, you can reach it.

Yeah, you can call us all you want because we won't fucking take you. We won't answer the phone. We won't take your money. I really, ah, Jesus.

No advice? No advice. There's been so much advice. How do you pick the best advice you've ever received in your life?

Well, you just gotta kinda go with one. Hmm. I can't. Alright.

I can't. Alright, so we'll just move on. Yeah, if I think of one, which will probably come to me, I gotta cipher through, I gotta filter through all this stuff. I'm not gonna let you answer.

Okay. Fine, we'll be that way. Be that way. I got it.

So Mike, first of all, you just made the first two questions, and I don't see a piece of paper or anything that- Well, this is- You got it down pat, huh? This is our 12th or 13th family members. Holy shit! All right, I kind of thought of it.

Is it tight? No, you're good. We haven't gotten to the next question. That's right.

All right, so let's just say it was probably the advice of joining the military out of high school. Yeah. I think that was probably the best bet. Okay.

To join the military. Yeah, out of high school. It makes a man out of you. Okay.

I think if more people did it today, or if it was mandatory like in Israel, I think our society would be better off. Only because it helps those kids that are, not that I was a lost soul, but it helps provide focus. It helps you grow up, teaches you responsibility. And I wanted to do it, but of course there was all that intrepidation.

You're 18 years old, what do you really know? So I asked for advice. And I could have joined the Navy, and joined the Air Force, and joined, I could have joined anything I wanted. But not the Coast Guard?

Yeah, no. That wasn't, that was still part of the Department of Transportation back then. So the military, it didn't count as military. But now I would say it's in there now.

Yeah, I would have to say that would probably be it, join the Army, and do it at that age. All right, there you go. All right, there you go. Next question, what is your favorite cigar?

Oh, Christ. You're like asking me to choose between my children. - Yeah, pretty much. - We don't have a favorite.

- That's the new question, you have to pick your favorite child. - Okay, so, can I help you guys with this question for the next guy? I would rephrase the question to this. - Go ahead.

- If you were stranded on an island or something like that, and I could only have one cigar, what would it be? - Well, if you listen to the podcast, we actually get to that point when somebody can't answer, what's your favorite cigar? - Okay, well, that would... - But you don't listen!

- You're right, you're right. But that would be a way to do it. Thank you. You're welcome.

Oh, good. Because that way it would be like, well, they're all good, but if I only had one cigar to have on an island, then it would be this. Go ahead. Hit me with the island cigar.

I will. I'll answer in that direction. I would probably say the Blanco 9 and Lancero. Okay.

That would be it. And one that isn't yours? No, I've asked that question. I've definitely asked that question all the time.

And what I do is I can't give you a number one, but I give my top five. And that's what I do for people. Okay. It's kind of like my cigars.

I like this one for coffee. Yeah, I like this one for beer, I like this one for whatever, so my top five that I don't have anything to do with manufacturing or blending that I enjoy, in no particular order, there's not one through five, it's just top five, because I'm giving plugs to other manufacturers now, so you're welcome guys, we'll start with Pete, it's the Tatuaje 2003 Kohunu, I would go with the Dog Walker by 724, Kirk Kendall, good dude. Mike Cigar. The Dot Walker is awesome.

Well, it was back in the day. See, this cigar has changed. It was the T52 back in the day. That one's questionable if it stays on the list anymore because I've noticed a change.

So, like an original blend. Yeah, T52. The Oliva V Lancero. Okay.

And then there is the Unicorn that I'll never have again. The Pardegas 150th Anniversary from Cuba, Figueroa. Okay. And that one, I had two boxes of that, and they'll never be, I'll never get them again.

All right. So those are the top five. So, and just so everybody knows, what are we smoking right now? Can you tell everybody?

You're smoking the Blanco 9 in Robusto. All right. And Mike's having the same thing? Same thing.

Absolutely. And what about you? I'm smoking the first third in Toro. This is a Cigar Obsession, first third in Toro.

All right. Next question. Next question, the final question. What one fictitious person would you like to share a cigar with?

It can be from a book, movie, TV show. TV show. Wow, man, you guys, I wish I had listened, because I would have thought about these. I'd probably have to say...

Yoda. Yoda. Oh, that's interesting. Very good.

Yeah, man. Very nice. So you're a Star Wars guy. Well, Star Wars, Trek, all of that.

I was thinking about Captain Kirk, too. Yeah? Yeah. But Yoda won.

Yeah. I've been called Captain Kirk. Yeah? Yeah, not for the reasons you think, though.

You know, Captain Kirk was like, went all over the universe, and no matter what planet he went to, he was always with the woman, no matter what color she was, that's me, so that's me, I'm kind of colorblind when it comes to women. So you're not married anymore? No, no, happily divorced, happily, happily. If not, we just blew him up completely.

Yeah, no, no, no, so I've had girlfriends from all over the planet, I had a girlfriend from Nigeria, Philippines, you name it, China. China, Poland, Germany, so they call me Captain Kirk because color is irrelevant. Very nice. Very nice.

Beauty comes in all colors, man. It's true, so very true. That's all the questions. You keep looking at me.

All right, so that concludes the podcast, I believe. How would you like people to get a hold of you? You want to give out your social media? com as our website.

We have information about our tours. We do tours to the factory, five-day, four-night, all-inclusive tours, if anybody's interested He's been going to the factory. My tour is a little bit different than anybody's. I've been doing it for a long time.

I know what everybody else does, but I've never done what everybody else does. Is the trampoline involved? No. Okay.

But I'm like the Anthony Bourdain of the cigar world when it comes to the tours. Okay. We stay in the cities. We visit Granada.

We go to Leon. We go to the beaches. We go to Esteli. We do all the cigar stuff that everybody does.

Right. But then I show you the culture. We stay in hotels. We go to restaurants.

We go to clubs. We go to the casinos, we go, next one, we're going surfing down the volcano. Oh, shit. Yeah, man.

Into the volcano? No, no, not into, down the side. Yeah, we're going to surf down the volcano. Yeah, that's cool.

So, we do all kinds of cool tourist stuff, and I get to, what's important for me is I get to show you the culture, and what's going on with the people there, because it's your dollars from your hobby that supports their livelihood. So, you get to eat at the same restaurants, you get to see their nightlife, you get to go to the casinos if you want, and that's the other thing, we're really flexible. It's really flexible. We take up to 10 people at a time and go, "Okay, who wants to go to the club or is it going to be dancing tonight?

Is it going to be the bar? " Right. What do you guys want to do? But no trampoline.

Yeah, no trampoline. Son of a bitch. That's a liability issue. It's liability.

Yeah, yeah. You don't want to go in the... The one place we don't want to visit is the hospital. Ah, yeah.

It's not there. So, and then we go to the beaches and we spend a night at the beaches and then we say Leon. Leon is the oldest, one of the oldest, that and Granada. It was the former capital of Nicaragua when it was owned by the Spaniards, when it was colonial.

Mm-hmm. Granada was the other major city. We go there too. So we show you a bunch of the country and we delve into the culture and the food.

That's the other thing. The food is awesome. So I show you a lot more than a lot of other factory tours provide. That's awesome.

Because they're all about the cigars, cigars, cigars. Yeah, cigars are a huge part of it and we show you that. But I can do that in two days. Right.

com is our website. If you want to follow me on Facebook, go to my public page because my private profile is maxed out at 5,000. So I realized I had to create a public profile, because that's unlimited, so you can like and follow on that, it's David Blanco, The Man. Oh, very nice.

There's no spaces, no spaces. Not David Blanco, Captain Kirk. No, no. David Blanco, The Man.

I was going to say that. Well, this whole podcast, it was about The Man, right? Right. It just happens to be David Blanco, The Man.

No spaces, that's very important, you won't find me. David Blanco, The Man. Other than that, well, if you want to follow me on Instagram, or anywhere else, Instagram is David Blanco, 006. All right.

Oh. And Twitter is just David Blanco Blanco Cigars. You're big on social media. You do a lot of videos.

I do a ton of social media. That is the new way of marketing and advertising in our industry. It's just, with all the restrictions that we have now, not being able to market in certain areas, whether it's printed magazines other than cigar publications. Embossing.

Yeah, embossing. All kinds of stuff. We can't even sponsor sporting events now or anything else. You know, we can't do a lot of stuff.

Right. has become the conduit to the public and, for me, the world, because people watch us and, as you guys are experiencing now, listen to you guys all over the planet. What reach? If you put a value on that...

Oh, yeah. When I first looked at the list, I was like, somebody in Jordan is listening? Yeah, man. I mean, what does it cost you?

The cost of the internet connection? Yeah. So, I mean, it's a new way of doing business in general, not just for our industry, but the planet. We're probably more global in that manner.

So, yeah, man. All right. Very cool. What else we got?

Is that it? That's it. Your little thing there at the end. Yes.

If you like what you're listening to, please give us your feedback and share it with a friend. We would truly appreciate it. And what else? What else am I forgetting?

Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions? Or if there's someone you would like to hear us interview that we have not interviewed, feel free to suggest that. Let us know. Let us know and we will get a hold of them.

Yeah, for sure. And that's it. That concludes it. David, thank you very much for coming on the show.

Yes, David, thank you for coming in. Thanks for coming in. Guys, it was a pleasure. Appreciate it.

It's interesting to hear, you know, your life story in less than an hour, you know. That was the convinced, abridged, cliff note version. The short, short version. Yes, right.

But you know, we appreciate you coming on. And mic drop. Is there anything new going on, David, you want to talk about real quick? Yeah, absolutely.

I got a ton of stuff going on. I'm going to be coming out with some line extensions this year. The FDA would be damned, because we've got some ways to do that, and I have a buddy who owns a company called Grunt Style, his name is Dan Allerick, if you guys aren't familiar with it, get familiar with it. I've got some of those shirts.

There you go. Dan Allerick used to be a drill sergeant with me at Fort Benning. He was an E-6 staff sergeant, I was an E-7, I was a senior, and he started this little t-shirt company, you know, selling t-shirts out of his trunk, and now he's worth probably, the company's probably worth over $100 million. Right.

And he's doing real well, and he's getting into the spirits business. Oh, very nice. This past year, he started with another buddy of his that's also a veteran called America Bourbon. Very nice.

So, I am going to be doing America Bourbon barrel-aged cigar. Oh, very nice. Oh, very nice. Tying that in right there.

Good stuff. So, if you guys are going to be in the Texas area in April, the 7th, we've got something called Grunt Fest. It's a big fest for grunt style. They do them all over the country.

We are going to be there promoting and pairing his bourbon with his cigar and we're going to be working on the bourbon barrel aged cigar. And I'm doing some other stuff for other people. I make cigars for a few different companies. I blend for Hiram and Solomon.

Okay. It's a Masonic oriented cigar. I blend for another company called Warfighter Tobacco. We have one called Licencia by the Antwans.

I do some private labels for people in Europe. They're wanting some line extensions. So, we're coming out with new product all the time, new sizes in certain things, and we continue to plug along and grow the brand, and you guys are essential in helping us do that, so I want to thank you guys for helping getting us out there. My name, our name, the company's name, this is Team Blanco.

This isn't just the Dave Blanco Show at all. There's an army behind me. But Dave Blanco is the man, no spaces. Well, I said that because we're going to be, I'm going to be doing some other stuff personally, like I'm doing, I might be doing some stuff with my buddy eventually, with apparel.

Oh, very nice. So I might be doing some other things. So it's not Dave Blanco, Blanco Cigars. Right.

It's Dave Blanco, the man. Right. Rather than just, you know, I'm not singular faceted, there's Dave Blanco in the military, there's Dave Blanco in it. Right.

So it's just the man, not in the ego sense, just the guy. Right, gotcha. So. All right, cool, man.

Well, that's pretty much it, concludes the show. Thanks for the show. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you so much.

Thanks. Thank you, David. Bye. All right, gang, that's it.

Show's over. Time to put out that cigar and get back to work. Ain't nobody gonna do it for ya. Everybody get hustlin'.

They told 'em, don't you ever come around here, don't wanna see your face, you better disappear. The fire's in their eyes, and their works are really clear, the fire's in their eyes, and their works are really clear. So beat it. Just beat it.

You better run. You better do what you can. Don't wanna see no blood. Don't be a macho man.

You wanna be tough. Better do what you can.

Show Notes

This week David Blanco of Blanco Cigars in Clearwater drove over to sit with us.  We spoke with David about his early years in the Military, Law Endorsement and how 9/11 and the War in Iraq almost closed their budding Cigar Empire!

You can follow us on IG at @cigarhustlerspodcast or leave thoughts, comments and guest suggestions on your FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast".

Mike 1 can be found on IG at @cigarhustler and Mike 2 @floridacigarclub_mike.