Episode 21 Jarrid Trudeau Kristoff Cigars

Episode Summary

Episode 21 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast welcomes Jarrid Trudeau, Vice President of Kristoff Cigars, along with Florida sales rep Jeff "Jerry" Groover, for a loose, funny origin-story conversation. Jarrid walks through his path from Bryant University business school and a planned law career into retail management — an executive development program at Target, then a senior planning/merchandising role with Christmas Tree Shops under Bed Bath & Beyond — before a chance meeting with Kristoff founder Glen Case at a cigar trivia night at the Humidor Cigar Shop in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Having coincidentally read an article about Kristoff the day before, Jarrid swept the trivia, impressed Case, and two years later became the company's first in-house sales rep, eventually stepping off his own territory to help run the company.

The conversation covers what Jarrid actually does day to day: building infrastructure, hiring and training reps, and his three rules for any salesperson — show up, don't be a dick, and ask for the order. He talks about why sales managers shouldn't be treated as event "draws," how short visits with retailers build credibility, and his recent Tobacco Business magazine interview (and the editor's polite note about his profanity). There's plenty of industry ribbing too, including a long-running joke about his one-sided friendships with Casey Peterson of Crux Cigars and Spencer of White Hat Distribution, plus an infamous story about Groover driving the wrong way around a roundabout in a RAV4.

On the cigar side, the crew smokes the new Kristoff Corona program — Connecticut, Habano, and Original Maduro coronas packaged in a space-saving tray and priced aggressively under $6 — and Jarrid explains the strategy: coronas were largely abandoned by the industry after being priced too close to robustos, so Kristoff renegotiated costs and streamlined packaging to bring the size back at a price that makes sense for quick smokes. He also revisits his first premium cigar, a Kristoff Original Maduro bought on his 18th birthday that thoroughly kicked his ass, and names the Partagás 150 Lancero as his all-time favorite — a Cameroon-wrapped rarity gifted to him by a collector at Club Humidor in San Antonio.

The episode closes with the show's standard questions: who he'd share a cigar with (Winston Churchill, then Caligula), the best advice he ever got (from his first Target manager, Lenny Thompson: "you don't know what you don't know"), and which fictional character he'd smoke with (Sean Connery's Allan Quatermain from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or Dante from the Divine Comedy).

In This Episode

1. 01
   Meet Jarrid Trudeau and Jeff "Jerry" Groover
   The hosts introduce Kristoff Cigars VP Jarrid Trudeau and Florida rep Jeff Groover for an origin-story episode.
2. 02
   From Bryant University to Target to Bed Bath & Beyond
   Jarrid's pre-cigar career: business school, an abandoned law path, Target's executive development program, and managing Christmas Tree Shops.
3. 03
   Cigar Trivia, Glen Case, and Getting Hired
   How winning a trivia contest at the Humidor Cigar Shop led to a two-year courtship and Kristoff's first in-house sales rep job.
4. 04
   First Premium Cigar at 18
   Jarrid's first cigar was a Kristoff Original Maduro chosen for its pigtail and uncut foot — and it wrecked him.
5. 05
   Sales Philosophy: Show Up, Don't Be a Dick, Ask for Something
   Managing reps, building infrastructure, adding value on store visits, and the Tobacco Business magazine interview.
6. 06
   Industry Ribbing: Casey, Spencer, and the Roundabout
   Stories about Crux's Casey, White Hat's Spencer, Tobacco Grove, and Groover's wrong-way roundabout adventure.
7. 07
   The New Kristoff Corona Tray
   Why Kristoff brought coronas back in Connecticut, Habano, and Original Maduro at an aggressive sub-$6 retail price.
8. 08
   Standard Questions
   Caligula over Churchill, Lenny Thompson's advice, the Partagás 150 Lancero, and Sean Connery's Allan Quatermain.

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 Cigar Hustlers Podcast, where we take a closer look at the people of the cigar industry, with your host, Mike and Mike. Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Hustle.

Yeah, so, you know, what's going on? That's good. Hi, Mike. Hello, how are you?

I feel like we're really kind of hitting our stride here. Yeah, they're getting a lot easier, more fun to do. " And, you know. We just don't care, no.

Yeah, I think that makes a big difference. Trying to know which one does right away. Oh, well, we'll just go. Well, what were you gonna do?

No, no, it's peaking again, which I was told was bad, but... Well, fix it. I've got everything on I'm supposed to have on. I don't believe you.

I'll turn that. I don't believe you. Look at that. That's not good.

Well, yeah, but the good thing is I can fix it after now. It won't be as good. Yes, it will. So, as you were literally saying.

That is the longest sexual innuendo I've ever heard in my life. I just totally fucking... It's peaking right now. I have on everything I'm supposed to have on.

But it's still peaking. That's not good. That's true. Well, I can fix it after.

Holy moly, that looks really bad. It looks really bad. We're right at what we know we're supposed to be doing. We're doing a good job at it.

Turn that down. By the way, it doesn't work at all. Yeah. Turn off his mic.

Oh, come back six weeks, Jeff. By the way, it's the first time we've had four mics. Ooh, turn it off. Turn it off.

Let's see. He's number two. I'm out. Oh, see?

Oh, no, no, no. Still fucked. See? All right, Jeff's back on.

I'm back. By the way, good morning, Mike. We haven't gotten that far yet. Oh.

But hi. I wasn't talking to either of you. I was talking to my microphone. Oh, wow.

That's nice. Hey. Wow. That's rough.

Are you ready to start? Yeah, let's go ahead. One, two, three, go. Hi, I'm Mike.

And I'm Mike. And this is a Cigar Hustlers podcast. I really hate that part. Oh, you sound like you're fucking dying that time around.

I don't like that part. Jesus Christ. We have a special guest in, we have two guests in the studio, the studio today, Jared Trudeau of Christophe Cigars, and one, Jerry Grouper, the the handler of jared judo today yeah handler driver yeah the yes the nice valet man valet so say hi so hi everybody hello so this is a podcast about origins and uh you know what's kind of you know what's really kind of remarkable about this is we were talking prior to the first That's the first time he came around, which I don't know, when was that? Like, months ago it seems.

Probably six months ago or more. Yeah, something like that. So, you know, we were starting to talk about building a podcast that was kind of origin-based. And then after we hung out and watched you and Jerry get kind of drunk and we were having a good conversation, it was like, see, like, Jared would be a guy that you'd want to interview on the podcast.

And that's kind of, right? Yeah, and you're about to find out how mistaken you were. How fucking wrong could you be wrong? You have made an error.

Fucking fantastic. So tell us a little bit about yourself. I mean, you know, you did a great job telling the story, but if you need help, I'll guide you along. It looks like you were at Bryant University.

Yeah, yeah, I went to college. That's cool. And now I sell dead plants in a tube for $10. So you can imagine how proud my parents are.

Fucking peaked. Yeah, I peaked too early, guys. Yeah. Didn't you go to school to be a lawyer?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and they must be disappointed. Yeah.

They're super disappointed. So, let me walk you through, so I'll get through that part of my life through the eyes of my disappointed parents. So, you can imagine, so we grew up, we didn't grow up, my family and I, I have two brothers that were born the day before my first birthday. Right.

And we grew up in New England, and we didn't grow up super privileged, and so we always knew, like, if we wanted to go to college, especially a private college, So I ended up doing well in school somehow, and I got a full scholarship to quite a few private schools up in New England for business. I always wanted to go to school for business. I always wanted to be an attorney. And so I went to Bryant University, which is one of the three B's in New England of top business schools.

Bentley, Babson, Bryant are the three B's, as they call them, and they're all solid business schools. I also know the three B's, and they're much funner than your three B's you speak of. Are they? What are your three B's?

You don't know the three B's? No, I don't even know what you're talking about. Breakfast, back rub, blowjob? Three B's.

I've never heard of those. What you always order for your birthday or... For his pickup? Oh, sorry.

That was airport pickup. Sorry, continue. So, yeah, so I ended up going to a good business school, graduated really strong, and I ended up, I was going to go to law school. You know?

" Yes! " And in 18 months, you'll be a salaried executive making X amount of money. And I said, well, that sounds like a fucking lot better than getting coffee for, you know, partners and law firms for 10 years until I can actually make some money. And so I said, you know, I'll do that.

So I went in this executive development program. I worked for Target for a few years. And then I got headhunted and went to Bed Bath & Beyond to manage a concept for them called Christmas Tree Shops. - Yeah!

I wonder how that worked then. - Yep. As a senior manager for them, I did a planning and merchandise direction and stuff like that for that. For that chain.

And then I met Glenn. So Target is affiliated with Christmas Tree Shops? No, no, no. Bed Bath & Beyond owns Christmas Tree Shops.

I used to stock the things that went Dixie. Did you? Yes. Maybe you should go back to that.

It sounds like it's your passion. But there's probably like a 14-year-old that's doing a better job. Yeah, that would take your job. Much more nimble.

Much more nimble. I can't bend over much. I picked it at first. I love you, Jack.

So, that's where that, so that's where that kind of came from. Bed, Bath, Mian, Owns, Christmas Tree Shops, Bye Bye Baby, Harman Stores, several different concepts. So, why did you leave Target? So, I left Target because Target, so, they had...

Fuck Target! No, no, no. No, they had made a series of, number one, I got headhunted, right, so I wasn't like applying for jobs or anything like that. And when somebody calls and says, hey, you can go from, you know, making X to Y, and also you'll be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, and also, you know, I was thinking Bed Bath & Beyond, like bright, shiny, clean stores selling $75 plates to, you know, yoga moms after leaving Whole Foods, I was like, that's a pretty fucking good gig.

So I was like, I'll do that with like, you know, $150 basket size instead of a Target $30 basket size. So the stores will be shiny and clean and bright and beautiful. Well, then they said, we're going to send you this Christmas Tree Shop Concepts, which is a seasonal discount merchant, 30 to 60,000 square feet. Right.

That literally has an assistant manager in every store that's responsible for ordering every case of merchandise that comes into the store. So, Mike, if you're the assistant manager for planning, you forget to go down the jelly aisle. Well, guess what? The store doesn't have any fucking jelly this week.

You know what I mean? Or you forget to buy something. So it's a disaster, right? So a lot of my job was looking at, and I worked at like 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning before the trucks got loaded and stuff like that.

And I would literally go in there before any customers were in stores, and I would push merchandise via the computer screen, you know, the old IBM black with green writing, you know, and you got, it was like a tweet, you got like 40 letters to describe what this product was, no picture, no catalog, no nothing, you had no idea what it looked like, you just knew the category, and the subcategory, and that was supposed to tell you. " I gotta buy like a thousand cases of that, and it turned out to be like a ceramic lamp, right? Like a wolf with puppies and stuff like that. And they still have them in inventory.

And you can still buy one today if you're interested. So they're on clearance at this point, 'cause they can't move the 7,000 that you purchased. Yeah, but it was interesting, and it was kind of like the Wild Wild West, 'cause I'm used to Target, you buy a water bottle, another water bottle, And the water bottle shows up in the next truck to replace it, this store you have to physically order 3,000 cube trucks to send. Right, and this was, you said this was in the 80s?

No, no, fuck off. I was talking about the fucking computer, I was talking about you. No, no, yeah, no. Like an IBM fucking green dot piece of shit.

They probably hadn't updated the computer systems since probably the 90s, you know, and so it was just crazy. And so, I met Glenn at a cigar event as a customer, and-- - He wasn't shopping at the Christmas tree store or the Wolf Puppy? - No, no, no, no, no, no. He wasn't there, he's never been there, I don't think.

And so-- - That's a lie. - We met at an event, and he was doing cigar trivia, and for every question that he asked, he, for every question that he asked, he gave out a free cigar. So he was asking, you know, like, what's Kristoff named after, blah, blah, blah. And it just so happens, there were a hundred guys at this event, and it just so happened that I had just read an article on Kristoff the day before, I didn't know he was going to do trivia.

So out of these hundred guys, I'm the only one who fucking studied. So I'm raising my hand, I'm answering all these questions. Oh, and he's thinking this guy knows everything. Exactly, he's thinking he just discovered like Will Hunting of the scar business, right?

When meanwhile, I just read this stupid article. Oh, you like them apples. And so, exactly. And yeah, do you like apples?

So he, uh, so he's like. So it's like you researched, you just kind of screwing around, and you just walk into the right guy, and bam. " This was probably six or eight years ago that we met. And he's...

It wasn't seven. It might have been. It's somewhere in the middle, maybe. And so he's like...

Six or eight. It could have been six. It definitely was not seven. Yeah, it was.

Not seven. Possibly six. Even number of years. And he, and he, and so I told him, I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I want a job.

He's like, well, what do you do? And I'm like, well, I, I work at Target or I work for Target. Right. And he's thinking, like I said, like, oh fuck, this guy's like bagging groceries and stuff.

Right. And he's like, this cigar is so fun. Right. And I'm like, no, I just cheated on the test, you know.

And I don't bag groceries. And I don't bag groceries. So he said, make a resume. I'm like, well, you know, I got a resume, right?

And send it to me. And so I sent it to him, and he goes, there is absolutely no way I can afford you. And I said, you're totally right. And he's like, maybe in a couple years we can figure this out.

And I said, sure, yeah. You know, like checks in the mail. I'm sure I'll hear from you. So I wrote my name and phone number down on a piece of paper and gave it to him.

And when I ended up a couple years later, he called me. We stayed in touch. He called me every few months. A couple years later, when I ended up accepting the job as their first in-house sales rep in New England, or in the country, I got to his office in Chicago, his wife cooked us dinner, her name is Terry, she's awesome, and my name and phone number written in my handwriting were taped to his computer monitor, fully two years after meeting him, and I'm like that's the guy I want to work for, you know what I mean, and through thick and thin from being, I was their first My market helped pay for the next one, which helped pay for the next one, we were fully in house, and a few years ago I was able to step away and give up my territory and manage the company full-time with Glenn.

Hmm. So. So, but you met him when you were at Target, and then you went to Christmas tree shops, right? Yeah, yeah.

Wow, that's pretty crazy. Yep. Yep. Yep, yep.

So, um... I mean, you tell your story really, really fucking fast. He talks fast, I think he's very fast. You know, which is kind of crazy.

Okay, well that's it, we're 12 minutes in. And, I mean, I just want to refer back to when you were being headhunted with the big fish in the small pond, I, too, I caught a large fish one time in a small pond. Thank you, Jeff. Did you?

Thank you, Jeff. And what kind of fish was it? I don't know, I just made that story up. So, Erik, I got a question for you.

What was the name of the shop that you met Glenn at? It was the Humidor Cigar Shop, and this was their East Greenwich location. So, is that like your spot? That was my home shop.

As a matter of fact, I bought my first We bought our first premium cigar there on my 18th birthday with me and my best friend Kyle, whose birthday is the day before mine. And we went in there and bought our first premium cigar there. What was it? It was a crystal.

Of course it was. It was a crystal. No, and there are vouchers, there are people that can vouch for this. He was a fanboy.

So Dave Mooney, who is the guy who is working in the store, he works for Philips & King now, he's the husband of the owner of the shop. He was recommending an Ashton Way Label Churchill to us, and I said, I had been stealing cigars out of my dad's golf bag for years, since I was like 15, and he's like, well, it's your first cigar, you should get something mild, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, fuck that, I want something that looks like it has balls, and you know, Kristoff, in the package, it's dark, it's got the pigtail, the uncut foot, and it looks really unapproachable, and most importantly, because it has the pigtail, you don't need a cutter, and I didn't want to buy a cutter, because I was broke. And so we bought two original Christophe Maduro's, and it kicked our asses. Me and my buddy Kyle, who's the guy who I went, still remember to this day, and so does Dave Mooney, the guy who works at the store.

Yeah, and that was when you knew that you needed to be in the cigar industry. No, no, that was when I was sure I didn't want to have anything to do with cigars ever again, because I felt miserable the next day. Because we just, it was too rich for our... Did you vomit?

No, no. My first cigar, I definitely vomited. Yeah, yeah. That's like a pretty common experience.

It's like a rite to passage, I think. If somebody could figure out a way to not have that happen, like we would have like double the cigars in the world right now. Because a lot of guys... They get that first one.

Yeah, they get gun shy after that first one. Well, I mean, like I was fucking stupid. I did like a Casa Magna or some shit. Like, oh yeah, number one cigar of the year or some shit.

And I'm like, okay, I'll just smoke this. I'm like, wow, I feel great. And then, you know, I don't know, we went shopping or something. or something i'm like i'm gonna die it's the worst and you can't stop it yeah and your head just like a million pounds it was miserable i throw up after every cigar do you yeah it's really awkward when we're driving together it's like jeff stop smoking in the car please i'm tired of you vomiting can we talk about the rotary can we talk about the roading it's a roundabout the roundabout it's a roundabout i feel like we need to talk about the roundabout say it like that you're supposed to drive on the Well, that was the problem, right?

So, we were driving. Okay? And just so all the listeners... I wasn't there.

It's like three listeners. All three of you know what I'm talking about. Just so all three of you know what I'm talking about. Are the authorities listening?

Yes, they are. This never happened. Jeff Groover is... Jerry Groover.

The most preposterous driver in the history of drivers. Jeff will literally... We literally have a notepad with a pen that he's writing orders on or something, and he's got his headphones in and he's dictating text while writing and at no point are any of his limbs touching the wheel of the fucking car, he's, and we're careening through traffic, we're accelerating, no hands on the wheel, driving like with his knees or something, but I don't know how he's driving with his knees because he's not looking at the road because he's looking at the pad that he's writing on. I'm taking orders.

It's terrifying. So, last night. Sounds like fun. That's the broker I want, just for a record.

That's how you get shit done. It's terrifying. And I'm sitting there, and I'm like, braking on my side of the car, because I just want it all to stop. And so, that's driving with Jeff Gruber.

I like how you merged the two names. That's nice. That's Jeff Gruber. Now, when Jeff Gruber goes fully Jerry Gruber, it's a different story.

It's a different story, like we just are experimenting the road, really exploring the space, so last night, so last, so last night we're driving back from dinner and visiting seven shops all over the world, we did eat at Ruth's Chris, that's nice, yeah, not a Kristoff expense by the way, that was a personal expense, yeah, yeah, we don't get to eat at Ruth's Chris, I'm not allowed to eat for the rest of the week now, I don't own the budget, so we are going, and And we're approaching a rotary, or a roundabout, and we're just sitting there at this yield, and I don't know what's going on, because I'm not in Jeff's head. I don't know what's going on either. And we're sitting there, and there's nobody coming. And I'm like, this is a yield.

Jeff has got to know that it's not a stop. And even if it was a stop, we've been stopped for long enough to where he would have gone already, so I don't know what he's doing. I don't know what he's doing, but I see the brain of Jeff, at this point, Jerry Grouper, I see the brain working, and I'm thinking, what are we doing? And all of a sudden, he goes, "I've never seen a roundabout from the other way," and just turns left, just turns left.

So instead of going the right way, he goes the other way. Well, he waited for another car to be coming before he made this turn. That was more of a challenge that way. And so, this guy, who is coming the other way, the wrong way, well, no, the right way, but the wrong way for us, but it's his word against ours, right?

If it's around a boot, I think you're supposed to go on the other side. But also, at this point, it's his word against ours, right? We're both going opposite directions, it's only the two of us, there's nobody else has social proof around him, so we're just sitting there, and this guy's looking at us like this, and we're both like, "What's your problem, man? " And throw his hands up, and we took a major offense.

Major offense, like, what are you so mad about? Haven't you ever taken a chance in your life? Like, we want to see what this looks like. We're experimenting.

And so we both acted like he was going the wrong way, and I guarantee you this poor guy got home and is like, was I going the wrong way in that round time? Like, you know what I mean? And he was going to think about that for the rest of his life, because we were so incensed that he was mad at us for doing this really stupid thing, but we both thought it was a great idea. Maybe we started a trend.

Maybe not everybody's going to start going. Who knows? It'll be chaos. It'll be chaos.

Well, there was still a major problem. Well, the major problem was that there was a median on the road that we were going into with like an eight-inch curb and grass and trees and shit, and then the side of the road we were supposed to be on. Well, having gone the wrong way in the roundabout, it deposited us on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic. So we very, very, very sveltelly climbed in the off-road, and RAV4s are known for their off-road prestige, and we climbed the curb and drove over the median horizontally and onto the right side of the road and then proceeded to our hotel.

See, now that's the Jerry Gruber that I want on the fucking podcast. That's the guy, man. And by the way, he made up that entire story. That's never happened.

That's not true, huh? Not true. So you guys... Full deniability.

So you also have said to me before that you are good friends with a couple of good friends of mine, Casey and Spence, right? Yeah, we tolerate them. We tolerate. Casey from Crux and Spence from White Hat Distribution.

White. Spence is the only guy in the cigar business that literally can't say the name of the cigar company he sells for. Yeah. Like, it's Hiroshi Robina, and he'll say it, Robina, Robina, he'll say Hiroshi, and then he'll say Hirochi, and he just literally can't pronounce the name of the company he works for, which is hilarious to me.

Maybe he just likes to mix it up. I don't know, but it's… Maybe the beard gets in his way when he talks. You know, I think the first thing that Spence would say to you is that, first of all, that isn't the company that he works for, the company that he works for is White Hat Distribution, and then the brand under White Hat, one of them that he represents, is… The only one that he represents. Well, Soneros is not attached to Hiroshi Rabanne.

It's a White Hat production. It's a White Hat production. Yeah, I think he was dropped on his head as a baby several times. I've been corrected on that, so I'm just conveying that message.

Sure, and it's important in the branding of his organization that he refers to it as White Hat, but, I mean, you know, I know, we all know. Spencer Sells, Hirochi, Robinas, or Robina, and we all know what he does. You want to talk about how they put you in a spot when they do it? Yeah, so these fucking guys, right?

See, we are doing an FTG. Yeah, so we are at the trade show last year, the year before or something, and we're in the West Cape, it was last year because it was at the West Cape, We're in the Super Sportsbook, like, Smoking Room, and Spencer and Casey both come to hang out for a minute, and they're like, we want you to show us around New England, blah, blah, blah, because they knew I lived there, and I'm like, I'm not going to show you around, but I will give you the shops to call on, I'll think about who I think your product would do well at, I said, I'll even call ahead and introduce you and let them know that you're coming in, I said, I will do everything for you, but I'm not getting back from the most stressful week of the year for me, but it takes the most stressful week of the year for me. And immediately going on the road with a sales rep for a company I don't work for. Right.

You know what I mean? Like, we're friends, but... Not that good. What the fuck?

Yeah, exactly. I'm still not that good a friend. And even more so after this. " And I look out the window and they're in a fucking Ford Explorer.

Just picture them with the car and just going. Yeah, that's exactly what they're doing. " And so I had to physically drive them around New England showing them accounts when I specifically said I wasn't going to do that. " They kidnapped me this morning, and-- And I'm like, "They're good guys, and do business with them or not, I don't care.

" And so that's what we did, and they've never done anything for me, either of them. Between the two of them, they have done not one thing that has improved my life at all. If anything, they've done the exact opposite of them. Yeah, they've inconvenienced me a great deal, several times.

3 miles away from me. Casey got lost, and it ended up taking us three times the amount of time it should have taken us to get home from the airport to get to the store that we were going to, and he never brought me home. Marissa, my girlfriend, had to come to the store and pick me up and bring me home. Casey never did the only thing he ever thought he was going to do for me, he never even achieved that.

So yeah. No shit. Yeah, just altogether a failure. It's just a very one-sided friendship.

Oh, that is fucking fantastic. And his brother, or his family, has a shop in Minnesota, Tobacco Grove, which is like fucking incredible. Like it's an awesome, awesome, awesome store. His father's Hulk Hogan.

I've wanted to get into that store forever, and I'm like, "Casey, Jeff, who owns Crux Cigars, is your partner and family member, and he owns Tobacco Grove, and we don't sell our cigars in Tobacco Grove. " and Casey was like yeah sure I'll take care of it and meanwhile fast forward a year we're still not we still weren't in Tobacco Grove so I'm like fuck you and I got on a plane I got on a plane and flew to Minnesota and I'm in Starbucks in the Minnesota airport and Casey texts me and he goes hey are you at Starbucks in the Minnesota airport and I turn around like oh hey Casey and he's like I'm like what are you doing he's like oh I'm flying out to Florida or something like that I'm like oh cool he's like what are you doing here i'm like i'm gonna go fucking call on your shop here because you still haven't been able to get me in and you own it you know like you know casey doesn't own it but his you know it's what he does so i'm like so i went and now we sell christoph in that store you know no thanks no thanks he literally did nothing literally did nothing for me yep oh that is fucking so the only favor that could have possibly benefited me in the business So, in this world he shit his pants on immediately. Yeah. Yep.

That is fantastic. Yeah, so that explains our friendship. It's very one-sided and neither of them have ever done anything for me. Casey's podcast was kind of reserved too.

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. But we were still a little, we were kind of red and green.

We were very new. We were very new there. Yeah. Yeah, you guys seem to have your stuff together.

And he, uh, Casey sat in on Spencer's too and that didn't help either. Yeah, that's true. That is true. I feel like the first, I mean, even ten podcasts were kind of rough.

But, like, you kind of had to get punched in the mouth. Like anything in life. You needed that experience, right? And you can't, it's like you could take them down, but what kind of fucking fun is that?

Just leave them up there and just let them sit. Just let them go. Just let them bleed. Just let them bleed.

The first one, it sounds so bad. Like De Niro and Heat, when the guy's fucking around, he fucking decks him, and he says, "No, just stand there. Let it bleed. " Is this the time when we're gonna start doing a movie?

No, no. I thought, 'cause the reference, it was like a segway for us to start saying. No, sorry, no segway. People are talking, talking.

Oh, they're gonna start doing the movie quotes. We can start now. So, you're the vice president, huh? Yeah, yeah.

We never really said that. Yeah, so I... I've always sort of been quietly in the background, you know what I mean? Like hiring and training and managing the sales reps, and I have a really solid partner, Ward, in the office.

He's the operations manager. And so he is able to measure everything that I need to get measured for the sales reps to make sure they have the information they need on the accounts and stuff like that. So I've always been kind of an infrastructure guy. That's kind of always been what's important to me.

Oh! Oh, that's new, I haven't even seen that yet. Look at this. You can get an autograph at that point.

So, Mr. Palmer just handed me, was this tobacco business? Yeah. Tobacco business.

I've never fucking heard of him, but apparently we have the magazine. We have the magazine. And here you are. Your hand looks normally large in that picture.

Look at you, you're so handsome. And you have tiny hands. That's a good picture. I don't have tiny hands.

It's like a three-page interview with how he runs the sales department. Yeah, but I guarantee you there is nothing in this interview about Casey and Spencer. No, nothing about Casey. Not one fucking thing.

No, not in the public space at all. So the funny thing is about that, so tobacco business is legit. It covers the cigar business, but it's not just cigar business, it's I think relatively, but not like super, super new. Is there an issue number or something on it?

Volume number 20, volume 21, number 3, May, June 20, May, June 20. 2018 so there but they cover tobacco e-cigarettes cigarette business they carry like everything not just premium cigars gotcha um and they do marketing and it's like it's real deal like it's pretty i just never read magazines yeah yeah well you should read tobacco business but hey i read it i read your interview it was a very good interview what's cool is they actually sent it to Powstanie cigars which is interesting well i think they spelled it wrong so they're very uh So the guy, Ben, who's like the editor or whatever, he's a super good guy, super nice guy, but he's really polite, really polished, he's British too, so that always adds that other level of politeness and polish, so we did this whole interview, which was like an hour and change or something like that, with like a million questions that I prepared for and things like that, and didn't prepare for largely, and we do the thing, and at the end of it, he's like, you know, Mr. Trudeau, thank you so much for that. I'm in sales, and so is the guy who was with Antoine, he's like, and we sell ads and stuff like that, and some of this stuff really helps, and we appreciate it, and hopefully we can use a lot of this interview, and I said, well, what do you mean, like, hopefully you can use it, I just did this whole fucking interview, and he's like, and he's like, well, I don't know if you know this, Mr.

Trudeau, but you're partial to quite a bit of profanity, and I'm like, shit, like, I should have thought about this, like, this is print media, so there was, so, like, they asked, like, my top three, like, sales tips, right, and every single one of my work, One of my sales reps has heard this before, and it's show up, don't be a dick, and ask for something. Yeah, and that's my three things that I tell every sales rep when I hire them. I said, if you show up, if you're not a dickhead, and if you ask for an order, you're going to be better than 80% of the sales reps. If you do that with any sort of acumen, you'll be better than all the sales reps in your market.

And so they asked me that, I told them that exactly, and so they did show up, act and be professional. I'm like, no, that's like the most that you could possibly do. If you act and be professional, that's like, you're a rock star, next level shit. I'm saying the bare minimum, like, don't be a dick.

No, what's the company motto? Quality, Consistency, Availability. No, the one we made up. Oh, the cutting edge of Mediocre, Jeff.

Well, that describes our, that describes our relationship. Understood. The cutting edge of Mediocre, that's our performance in this market. Jerry Gruber.

By the way, I do have a very important question. Sure. - What direction do you think that Ben drives on a roundabout? Does he make a left or does he make a right?

- What? - Oh, 'cause he's English. - Ah. - Ah.

- I don't know. - I guess it depends on what fucking country he's in. - Yeah. - You would think that that would put way in into his decision.

S. last night, and we were going the English route. S. We don't know where the fuck you were.

- Yeah, you were somewhere else. And I just saw you, like, just your brain just, like, I really want to do this. Like, this internal monologue of, like, I really want to go the wrong way in this roundabout. This is, like, a great idea.

But I really shouldn't because that way is just certain death. And then, yeah, but you just did it anyway. So good on you, man. Yeah, we made it.

Nicely done. Yeah. You know, there are other stories that I have about Jerry Gruber, but I won't bring them to light. We'll have to have you come back on.

Maybe we'll do a redemption with Jerry Gruber. That would be cool. Get 'em, you know, maybe get 'em a little drunk. We've started redoing some of the batter.

Batter? Is that a word? Batter? We only had one.

I think it's more worser. More worser, exactly. English Fish and Chips has batter. Oh, okay.

Well, the one bad interview we had, we redid. Yeah. And it turned out really well. And it's doing really well, too.

Yeah. It's doing really well. What is this called? A Cigar Hustlers Podcast.

The big sign on the wall. Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah.

Unprofessional. That's cool. Well, I'm, and this is a, you know, the beginning, how I'm like, and I'm like, this is a Cigar Hustlers podcast, you know. I was listening.

You said it at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got a great memory. He's got a great memory.

He said that before. All right, so you want to get to the questions? What are we smoking? Oh yeah, what are we smoking?

What are we smoking? Here, there's your shameless plug for your viewers. So, Mike and I are smoking the Christophe Connecticut Corona. Which is actually really fucking good.

And other Mike is smoking the Habano Corona. It's very good also. So this is a size that's really important. Does no one care what I'm smoking?

Because, and Jeff is here also, in case anybody forgot. And so, and so, so back to the podcast. What are you smoking, Jerry? I'm smoking the original Criollo Torpedo.

Which, Jerry Grouper and the Criollo Torpedo, Both have in common a long, thin head. Jerry Grupper is smoking the Kristoff equivalent of himself. Thanks, Tabitha. Anyways, so this Corona is a new SKU that we came out with.

It comes in a little tray that's one and a half boxes wide. And it has the Connecticut, the Habano, and the original Maduro all in Corona sizes. And these are designed to be sold sub $6, right? 75 or $6 or something.

Retailers? Wow. 99. Right.

99, you're going to buy a Robusto over a Corona. Right. Well, some. The majority will, yeah.

The majority will. The average cigar smoker. The cigar nerds will pay for the Corona because they know there's value in that size. I wanted to do one that merged it, right?

So if it's really hot outside, or if you like smaller Vitolas and you want to buy it at a price point and not feel like you're getting wrecked over it by spending $3 more for a Corona than when you could just get a Robusto, I wanted to do this. So one of the ways that we did that was by streamlining the packaging and doing it in a tray, replenishing it in bundles, and also we negotiated the price down for that size because of the tobacco differences and things like that. We're coming after you, AJ, last call. That's pretty smart.

Yeah, and we waited until everybody discontinued their Coronas, you know what I mean? So before, Corona was the size that people were just like, Coronas just really don't sell in my store. " Do you know what I mean? But now, there's so few out there that we want it to be in there, and we want it to be in there at an aggressive price point.

And they sold out very, very quickly. It's really good. And I think it's, I think this Connecticut is probably the best smoking cigar that we have, that we're making right now. I mean, I think it's delicious.

On our defense in the sellout, we only had the one tray. Just one bundle? We had one tray, we had the sample tray, and it sold out immediately. Yeah.

Back order coming to a retailer near you in about seven, eight months. Seven or eight months. Seven or eight months? Fantastic.

They're shipping right now, you can buy them in one. Oh, that's good, that's good. Yeah. So, like, I go to CityWalk a lot with my kids, you know, Russell, because it's really close to my house.

And I always need, like, a short, quick smoke. This is perfect. So it's kind of a pain in the ass. Like, I've been, I mean, I've been looking for stuff that's fairly inexpensive, that's not huge, because if I got a bail on it, if we decide to go in the park or whatever, you gotta fucking put it down, right?

So yeah, this is definitely a good fit for that. Yeah, and I was sick of buying them, right? Like, we used to make Coronas, they would send me three bundles of Criollo, three bundles of Maduro with no bands on them, every month, to my house. We never sold them, we didn't make them, nothing.

It was just for me, and I just started, yeah, that's my whole gig, right? Yeah, so I, and I would take them with me when I traveled, because when you do a sales call, like I only see some of these accounts once, twice a year, and they want to sit down and smoke a cigar and hang out and talk for a minute, and so I don't want to rob them of like, I don't want to feel like it's a, like a shiesty sales call where I come in with my sales rep, take an order, thank you for the business and leave. I want to hang out and get to know them and learn their business, yeah, we have, yeah, we have. So I brought these Coronas with me from home so that we could smoke, so that I could smoke with every customer, and it takes 25-35 minutes, and then we can go on the road without feeling like we just popped in, got an order, got what we wanted, and said thank you very much, see you in the morning.

And Jerry's actually smoking, which is a fucking anomaly in itself. He has the biggest cigar at the table. You bring the best out of him. Thanks for noticing.

For the first time in his life. You should have saw that banana for the first time. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of fucking, I couldn't tell you the last time I seen Jerry smoke. Yeah, he's a consummate professional.

He's just a business. Well, between the note taking and the texting and he doesn't have a free hand to hold the cigar in the car. Right. I know.

I want to get one of those like harmonica things, you know, to hold my cigar. To continue doing what I'm doing and then still have the cigar right at, you know, my face and it would be awesome. That would be awesome. Yeah.

But getting back to what you were saying before, it's definitely difficult as far as, like, not being a local guy, going into an area, wanting to touch as many consumers as you possibly can. It sounds really creepy. And, well, you know, you gotta reach out to them, reach, whatever, whatever you want, twist it as much as you want, fuck you. There's one solid theme this morning, and it's...

So, you know, but like, 'cause, I mean, I feel that pressure too. Like, you know, you go out, you got a couple events or whatever, You want to hit those other shops too and then you still miss a couple and you know like I'll just smoke in the rental I don't give a fuck I'll take the cigar with me but you know this definitely makes sense as far as a size if you have to get if you got a bail on it's not the end of the world. And it's hard because it's like honestly in in and I'm a firm believer and I'm like I said I've always been an infrastructure guy I've always been the kind of guy that I just I manage business I try to give my reps what they need to succeed I don't try to do their jobs for them I don't micromanage I don't do any of that stuff. They're adults getting paid well to do a job, and I expect them to do that.

That being said, when I'm in a market working with sales reps, I really want to make sure that I'm hearing what the customers are saying, and I only have a split second to, you know, I walk in and immediately you get judged by the customer, you know what I mean, and they have some sort of opinion about you. I only have 25, 35 minutes to build an opinion where I can add, where I, the customer leaves, when we leave, the customer has the opinion that I'm adding value to their business, whether directly or indirectly through supporting my sales rep, you know what I mean? And I really think that that's important. " You know what I mean?

Nobody cares. We're not going to sell double the cigars because Jeff and I are both at an event. What we're going to do is make deals that we might not be able to make otherwise, I'm going to be able to see what he's doing in his market that works, to bring to my other sales reps, I'm going to be able to help him solve problems with problems accounts, stuff like that, so that's really where I value the whole idea that sales managers or vice president of sales or whatever are like, you know, a draw for an event, it's just bullshit, we're just a guy, our job isn't that, that's the owner's job, that's the sales reps, I want the sales reps to be the rock stars, I want the sales reps to be the rock stars, I want We want to help them do their job better and help our customers make more money. That's what my job is.

So is Jeff the number one rock star, or no? Oh, far from it. Yeah, no, no, yeah. I didn't think so.

Yeah, Jeff's right at the cutting edge of mediocre. Yeah, right at the cutting edge. Jeff, let me tell you, so I have, the entire company is in-house, except for Florida. Jeff is the only independent rep that works for us because Jeff is spectacular, is a spectacular independent rep.

Even as an in-house rep, he would be great, but he refuses and has told us no 50,000 times. Well, and you're a liar. You've asked what you can do to make me more successful. I apparently needed a driver and you still have yet to...

Provide a driver, yeah. That's what, yeah. To make Jeff more successful and to keep Jeff alive for an extended period of time, we really need to get him a chauffeur or something like that. Or a Tesla.

You gotta buy a Tesla with the self-driving thing? That would be awesome. That's a good idea for you. I mean, he's a DUI away from a fucking driver.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah.

Oh, no, it's, it's going to happen naturally. Just get Uber. Just get Uber from shop to shop. You know how expensive that shit would be?

I really, it's cheaper than a chauffeur. I was like, can, is there like an Uber level, like diamond, platinum, emerald level or something where you pay like five or ten thousand dollars a year and then you, I wouldn't have to have a car. Oh, unlimited. Right.

And no gas and no insurance. You've got to find a retired guy that'll work for cigars. Right. That'll drive you around for a box of cigars a week or something like that.

We're going to Pensacola today and the guy's like, fuck you, no, we're not. And I'm like, uh, check the status. I'm diamond, emerald. Diamond, Emerald.

Yeah, that would never work. Get in the car. Yeah. Here's a cigar.

It's a horrible idea. No, you need to find a customer in a store that's retired and doesn't mind visiting shops and just loves visiting cigar shops every day and that will drive you around for a couple of boxes of cigars a month. If any of the three people listening are up for the task, just call me. Reach out.

Reach out to Jerry. You can hook him up with Dennis. Hashtag @JerryGruper. Hook him up with Dennis.

Hashtag, yeah, @JerryGruper, 696969. Old man Dennis. That they'd be dead in fuckin' one day. Well, he's got the three days for dialysis, but he's got the other days.

Yeah, you know, what's that, like, Monday, Thursday? Monday, Wednesday, Friday? Yeah. Tuesday, Thursday, he can drive?

Yeah, there you go. Get a really old guy. Deal. That's a move, man.

All right, so we got some questions. We got some questions. Standard questions we ask every guest that comes on. Okay.

And we don't give you any advance notice. Well, you know, you don't listen to the podcast. You don't know the fuckin' name of it, for God's sakes. No.

And there's a three-by-five sign on the wall. Yeah. Okay, anyway, first question: What one person, living or dead, would you like to share a cigar with? I think Winston Churchill would probably be pretty cool.

Yeah. I think that would be a cool one. But honestly, because he smokes cigars, I think that's probably why I said that. That's the fucking problem.

We had that same answer yesterday for the same reason. But, you know what? Let me think. Oh, you know who would be really cool?

Who's that? Caligula. I think Caligula, who named his horse a senator, was such a psychopath, I would love to have a cigar with Caligula and find out what his story was. Just chat with him.

Yeah, man. Cigars isn't what he was smoking. Will you please ask me that same question so I can answer? We did ask you that question.

Ask me again. Oh, ask you again, sorry. Mr. Groover, what one person living in your dad would you like to share a cigar with?

Definitely an alive person. That's a good answer. That would be very fun. No, you would just put it in their mouth and they would just smell.

Weird. Push on them and get them to inhale and exhale. Okay, definitely an alive person. Caligula though, that's who I want to have.

Nice, next question, that's a good answer. What's the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you? The best piece of advice came from a guy named Lenny Thompson, who was my first manager at Target. He was, he was, had been in the retail, he was about 60, almost 70 years old, and he was in the retail business.

And I mentioned just offhand, hey, I'm going to, you know, maybe I can impact this at the corporate level. And Lenny said, I've been in this business for 50 years and I haven't been able to fix it. You don't know shit. And he said, and you don't know what you don't know yet.

So shut the fuck up and listen. And that was the best advice I ever had. Kind of know what you don't know and that you always don't know shit. And as long as you approach life never knowing anything about anything and not pretending like you know anything, You will learn a lot, and people will tell you what they want.

Conscious incompetence. Exactly. Like mediocre. Cutting edge mediocre.

Yeah, that's where you live. Just don't know anything ever. It's a very stress-free way to live your life. I'm not accountable to anything because I don't know anything at any time, and I'm always learning.

It's like every day is my first day. It's awesome. All right. What's your favorite cigar?

Not that we make or just period in the world? Answer the question, please. My favorite cigar, my favorite cigar of all time is the Partagas 150 Lancero. No shit.

I think, and I, and I, I used to have a couple and I smoked them for special occasions or something like that. And last year, a guy in Texas was asking me what I like. And I said, I'm a big Cameroon guy, really like Cameroon. And he said, what's your favorite Cameroon?

I said, the Partagas 150, specifically the Lancero, which they made the fewest of them. He had the same amount of boxes of a $30 cigar when it came out, right? Right. And he got up and walked out, and he came back 15 minutes later, and he gave me a Partix 150 Lancero.

" That's my favorite cigar of all time. So, was he a retailer? No, he was a customer. Just a dude.

He was a customer, but he was a collector at a club humidor in San Antonio, which is a huge, huge operation. These are beautiful stores, and this guy has a stand-up cabinet humidor in every one of the club humidor stores. They have locker members, and then they have this guy, whose name is Dan. Dan Cruz is his name, and he had this stand-up humidor.

Write that down. He invited us to his office, which is gorgeous, and he has a smoking conference room in his office that's right down the street, and he had, like, crazy stuff in there, like, old, old, old stuff. So he went there to go get the part, I guess. Probably, but that's my favorite cigar.

That's my favorite cigar of all time. Nice. Very nice. He's nailing him.

He is. What fictional character would you like to share a cigar with? What fictional character? Ship.

Let me think about that. Fictional character. Book, movie, stepbrothers. Book, movie, yeah.

A TV show. Comic. I guess I would like to have a cigar with, do you know, did you ever see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Yes.

Yeah. Do you know Sean Connery's character in that movie? Yeah. Who's the like hunter, safari guy who like, what is his, do you remember what his name?

I don't remember the character's name. What character he was? Nope. We can find it real ways.

Yeah, neither do I. Truth machine. If one of the three customers listening right now call in with the answer, you win a cigar. This isn't live.

Oh. Never mind. Great job, Jeff. Smooth.

You're just hitting him out of the park today. Fucking smooth. What if I called him right now? Can I win my own five pack?

Yeah, sure. No problem. I'll give you a five pack right now. What's the phone number?

And who is the captain? Who is the captain that piloted that crazy submarine to? Fucking going on the truth machine. Well, crap, now I'm going to find two things.

Oh, man. " Is that where she is? Does she need a ride or something? I need to go to Africa, which is no context whatsoever.

So you need to respond with a simple K. Yeah, call me when you get back. I don't know what that could be about. What is that?

Was he a fake? I'm trying to remember if he was a fake character. Alan Quartermain. Alan Quartermain.

And the guy who drove the submarine was Captain Nemo. Yes. That guy, Sean Connery's character in Elite Extraordinary Gentlemen, would be the guy that I would do. That's fuckin' insane.

Yep. Yeah, you do, huh? Yep. I like that guy.

And he was the protagonist of the 1885 novel, King Solomon's Minds, and its sequels. Yeah, there was a series of movies. He wasn't in them. So what about him, specifically?

But that, not that guy, but that guy portrayed by Sean Connery. Okay. I think I mostly want to have a cigar with Sean Connery. I think that's what it is.

That guy was like a safari, adventuring, like world-traveling, like Indiana Jones guy before Indiana Jones ever existed. He was the pre-Indiana Jones. He could do a safari and stuff like that. I just think that that would be really, really cool.

Or, or, or, secondary answer, the guy, the protagonist of the Divine Comedy. Yeah? Yes. What's his name?

Well, it's supposed to be Dante Alighieri. It's supposed to be the guy who wrote it, but searching for his long-lost love or something like that, but he went through literally the bowels of hell and through purgatory and through heaven. I think that would be really, really cool and interesting to talk to that guy. Fucking answers are fantastic.

They are, they're very good answers. I mean, this is one of the easiest podcasts I've ever done. I wish we had another question. Yeah, well, the final question is: how do people get a hold of you, your social media?

So my social media is ChristopheJarredTrudeau on Facebook, on Instagram it's @JarredChristopheCigars, J-A-R-R-I-D, is how you spell my first name, and our Instagram for Christophe, obviously like ChristopheCigars, follow us on Facebook, and then on Instagram it's @ChristopheUnderstoreCigars and on Grinders it's @JarredClown. Gross. I don't know what Grindr is. That's fantastic that you do.

Mm-hmm. Frank told me. Yeah, I get it. The road is lonely, Jeff.

That's what he's doing on that damn phone when he's driving around. That's true. He's just swiping. He's just swiping.

He's hoping for it. That's why he has to pee at every truck stop we drive past. And I'm like, that's a long pee, Jeff. You've been in there for 15 minutes.

I've learned a lot of hand signals. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I get it.

I get it. Well, hey, thank you very much for coming on the show. Yes, thank you very much. It was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun. You're busy, and you got a lot going on. So, and Jerry, thank you for being almost on time today, it was very nice of you. I did my best.

Like, that was pretty fucking good. We were on it. Yeah. And we'll have to do this again and hang out.

Cutting edge. Cutting edge. Yeah, what you lack in natural ability, you make up for it with effort and enthusiasm. And we appreciate that very much, Joe.

Yeah, we do. We do. I think that was a backhanded compliment. It sure was.

It sure was. Like, did you just pull that off the cuff? I mean, you've said that before. Oh, yeah, I've said that before.

Oh, yeah, I've said that before, yeah. He said that to everybody. Yeah. That was funny.

Yeah, but faced with relentless incompetence, I always have that one in the holster. Man, thank God we got this recorder. I go back to that and fucking, you know, revisit it until I have it memorized. Yeah, no, that's a good one to remember.

He said it to my brother every day. I don't know where he's at, but he's liking all my Instagram stuff at the moment. Oh, nice. Sitting around the doctor's office.

Yes, exactly. Whenever he wants to race that Corvette against the RAV4, I'll take him any day. See, there's the story. Oh, there it is.

There's the story. He wouldn't talk about it. No, I think we told this. No, no, he downplayed it.

" He didn't catch a fucking light. He ran a red light. Did not. Probably went the wrong way.

I totally, totally believe it. He flat out-- Jeff must win. Would you like to tell the story or do you want me to tell the story? I thought the podcast was ending.

Until next time. See, that's what I get. That's what I get. Stonewalled.

Yeah. If I don't leave you wanting more, I'm not doing my job correctly. So what's fantastic is like, I hope that the three listeners listen to this, and then go back to the Jerry Gruber, Jeffrey Gruber podcast, and then hear the difference in the person. Because it's so ridiculously significant.

What was Jeff saying? " Well, I mean, it was a little more elaborate than that, but, you know, it was more political, I felt, like, you know, he was running for office, you know? I mean, he said a lot of facts, a lot of good things about him, but it was only the good things. Right, right.

Vote for Jerry Gruber. Vote for Jerry Gruber. Vote for Jerry Gruber. Right in.

A right in candidate. A right in candidate. Yeah. I could win.

Yeah. Oh, definitely, you could win. You're like Captain America. Alright, so, is that it?

That's it, we're done. And then we have the thing on the end? Yeah, well, but unless you want to say it again. That's okay.

I'll skip it this time. All right, that's it. That's right. That's it, folks.

That's it, folks. The show's over. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can leave them on our Facebook page at CigarHustlersPodcast. You can follow the show on Instagram at CigarHustlersPodcast.

You can follow Mikey at CigarHustler. And you can follow myself at FloridaCigarClub_Mike on Instagram. Make sure to rate, comment, and subscribe on whatever provider you listen to the show at. Thanks for listening.

The End.

Show Notes

This week Vice President of Sales Jarrid Trudeau with Kristoff Cigars stopped by to have a talk with us in the Studio!  His Driver Jerry Grouper was also in on, the lets say the weird conversation and stories!

More about Spencer Drake and his feet!  Casey Haugen from Crux and his bad timing!  Kristoff's favorite things they ever got from Target!  and much much more!

Always we welcome your thoughts, comments (good or bad), and guest suggestions on our FB page, "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast".  You can follow the show on IG @cigarhustlerspodcast.  We can be found on IG @cigarhustler and @floridacigarclub_mike.

Please rate, comment and subsribe on whatever provider you listen to the show on.

Thanks for Listening!!