Episode 33 David Mealey Nat Sherman Cigars

Episode Summary

Episode 33 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast welcomes David Mealey, Florida sales representative for Nat Sherman Cigars. Before the interview, hosts Mike and Mikey vent about how badly TV shows get cigars wrong — from a laughably fake "same farm" monologue on NBC's Shades of Blue to the Paul Giamatti character's father on Billions claiming he keeps his cigars at high humidity "for the funk," despite the show filming scenes inside the Nat Sherman townhouse in Manhattan.

Mealey then walks through his unusual path into cigars. He spent most of his career in golf — a PGA professional in Ohio, then a tech rep and sales rep for Callaway, Top-Flite and Hogan across Florida during the golf boom — until the industry shifted to quarterly product launches and shrinking sales forces. In between, he launched a buffalo chicken dip product, appeared on Shark Tank (he turned down the offer), and grew distribution into Publix, Costco and Walmart Neighborhood Markets before a co-packer's unlisted ingredient forced a 20,000-pound USDA recall. He found the Nat Sherman opening listed under golf jobs, became the company's fourth sales rep about three years earlier, and describes Nat Sherman's long employee tenure and family-company culture, plus his own relationship-based approach to selling retailers only what fits their business.

The heart of the episode is the "elephant in the room": the Cigar Aficionado story framing Nat Sherman's parent company Altria as pro-regulation. Mealey explains the FDA comment-period submission, the nine-page supplement that went unpublished, and the argument that premium cigars must be carved out from cigarettes and vape — defined by single-leaf wrapper and binder and weight per thousand — to close loopholes. He stresses that Nat Sherman supports the Cole-Bishop Act and exemption, calls the CA piece a hit piece, and says the blowback lasted only a few days before retailers went back to chasing IPCPR orders. The hosts and Mealey also spar over cigar media generally — buying reviews, Cigar Aficionado's Top 25, and halfwheel scoring and Charlie Minato's burn-issue reputation.

The episode closes with the show's rapid-fire questions: Mealey would smoke with Charles Barkley on a golf course, lives by Jerry Rice's "somebody's working harder than you," names the Padrón 50th Maduro (first gifted to him by Don Patel at Cigars on the Ave) as his favorite cigar, and picks Roy McAvoy from Tin Cup as his fictional smoking partner.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Cigars on TV, Done Wrong
   The hosts pick apart bogus cigar dialogue in Shades of Blue and the "higher humidity for the funk" line on Billions, filmed partly at the Nat Sherman townhouse.
2. 02
   From PGA Pro to Callaway Sales Rep
   Mealey's golf career, moving to Tampa, tech repping on driving ranges, and how constant new-product cycles reshaped golf sales the way they now pressure cigar retailers.
3. 03
   Shark Tank and a 20,000-Pound Recall
   His buffalo chicken dip brand, turning down the Shark Tank offer, landing Publix and Costco, and the USDA recall that ended the business.
4. 04
   Joining Nat Sherman
   Finding the job listed under golf, becoming the fourth of now nine reps, and why Nat Sherman's long employee tenure and family-company roots attracted him.
5. 05
   Relationship-Based Selling
   Mealey's philosophy of selling retailers what fits their shop rather than forcing full-line placement.
6. 06
   The Altria "Pro-Regulation" Controversy
   Mealey responds to the Cigar Aficionado article, explains the FDA comment submission, the unpublished nine-page supplement, and support for the Cole-Bishop Act.
7. 07
   Defining a Premium Cigar
   Why single-leaf wrapper and binder plus weight-per-thousand definitions matter for carving premium cigars out of cigarette-style regulation.
8. 08
   Cigar Media, Ratings and Reviews
   Candid talk about Cigar Aficionado advertising, the Top 25, halfwheel scoring and whether anyone actually buys by the numbers.
9. 09
   Rapid-Fire Questions
   Charles Barkley, Jerry Rice's advice, the Padrón 50th Maduro, and Tin Cup's Roy McAvoy.

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 hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin', hustlin'. Every day I'm hustlin', every day I'm hustlin', every day I'm hustlin'. Welcome to Cigar Hustlers Podcast. We're taking a closer look at the people of the cigar industry.

This week, episode 33, we have David Mealy from Nat Sherman Cigars. Hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling, every day I'm every day I'm every day. Take another drink. Take another drink.

Take another drink. Because I already started it now. Because why not? Why not?

At least we don't have to talk about what we did. What are you talking about? We already talked about that the other day. We haven't done anything new.

I got a couple things to talk about. Oh, look at you. You haven't lived life since our last taping on Saturday? No.

Nothing. Nothing's happened to me since Saturday. Just laid on the ground. Just laid on the ground on a watch TV.

It's Wednesday. It's Wednesday. That's four days! Nothing happens in four days in my world.

I'm sorry to hear that. Okay, ready, one, two, three, go! Hi, I'm Mike. And I'm Mike, too.

And this is... The Gosslers Podcast. We should really change that, really. Well, you know, you come up with a better idea, and we'll do it.

All right. So, fucking A. All right. Introduce our guest.

You want to start that right now? Oh. Well, not unless you've got something else you want to talk about. So, what have you been doing in the last four days, Michael?

Nothing, really. Perfect. We have Mr. David Mealy from Nat Sherman with us.

Say hi, David. Hey, everybody. How you doing? So, before we get into that, I do want to talk to you about one thing that kind of pisses me off.

Something I did? But maybe it should be an advice from a Hustler thing. No, it's not long enough. Okay.

So, you watch NBC shows or anything like that? Um, yeah. So, I watched Shades of Blue. You ever watched that one?

Yes. With Ray Liotta and J-Lo? Yes, I'm not watching the new season, but yes, I have watched it before. I've watched it before.

So there's this scene in last week's episode where they sit down with this fucking guy and he offers cigars, right? Got Jim following you? So they cover the bands. I'm not sure what the one that he was- With their hands or- Yeah, yeah.

So he hands- But you can still tell what it is. It looks like Alec Bradley Mundial to- I was gonna say, he hands it to Ray Liotta. I'm like, that was kind of easy. Right.

The other one, I think if I took the time on to really focus on it, I'd figure it out. I'll figure it out. But, like, here's my fucking issue. Okay.

The guy picks up the cigar, which was clearly a piece of shit cigar. Prop cigar, maybe. And he says... No, it was a real one.

It was definitely a real one. And he says, you know, this is one of my favorite cigars from the same, all grown from the same farm. You know, some fucking bullshit spiel. I'm like...

Not even a real farm. I'm like, can you at least, if you're gonna give that much effort into... If that's going to be a focal point, can we at least make something sound relatively correct? I'm sure it would have been to actually look up the name of a farm that they could eat.

I mean, he could have just said, you know, I don't fucking know. Any Spanish name would work. Spanish sounding name. I mean, not even the whole farm thing, just like a specific amount of age, I mean, or, you know, this is a habano seed.

Just something, instead of the bullshit that he kind of, I was like, man, you guys just totally fucked this fucking show. Thank God it's over. It's got one episode left. One episode left?

Did they? Never. I don't want to ruin the show. Go ahead.

No, because I'm not watching the new season at all. It looks like now they have kidnapped the guy that was stalking J-Lo and the Fed that had a thing for her. Last season I watched, he had to hook her, dress up like her, and he called her J-Lo. I think that, yeah, well, I mean, some of that comes into play, but he's never held hostage.

Oh, they didn't grab him? I thought I saw them grab him. Have you seen the show Billions? I love Billions.

You watch that show? They filmed that in the townhouse a couple of times. Yes! The Funk.

Down stupid. Which is another thing that was fucking stupid. The Funk? What the hell is this guy talking about?

" Which is fucking stupid. So he likes the plume to show up on? Plume? Mold?

What's the funk? What the funk is he referring to? I don't fucking know what he's talking about! That's the thing!

That's new lingo. It's new cigar lingo. It's just like, I mean, and you're in the Nat Sherman fucking store. Right, so somebody could help you out.

In Manhattan. Could have had a technical advisor. Like, hey, help us with these three fucking sentences for a show that has probably the best dialogue of all shows right now on television, I would say. For sure.

I love that show. It's a good show. Dollar Bill's my dude. I like that guy.

I'm getting some crackling. I think it might just be in the headphones. Hi, David. How are you guys doing?

Good, man. Good. Thanks for coming in today. Absolutely.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about what our podcast is about. It's more about the people of the cigar industry than it is cigars in general. We kind of want to know what you did beforehand and how you found your way into the industry. So, yeah, that's kind of where, that's kind of the jump off.

So, what did you do before you got into the cigars? So, my sales background comes from the golf industry. Okay. I was a sales rep for Callaway Golf, Top Flight Hogan, for about seven years total, down here in Florida on the West Coast, from Naples all the way up to Gainesville, here or there, in the middle of the golf boom, really.

: Prior to the internet and things like that. : Right. : When salesmen were important, if you will. It's changed quite a bit.

The internet's changed that quite a bit. And actually, golf companies themselves have changed it quite a bit. : Yeah. : They come out with new products every three to six months.

It used to be once a year. We had a big trade show here in Orlando. January, all the new stuff came out. It trickled out over the course of the year, but you saw everything then.

Now what you see new in January is old come June. : Wow, that's fast. : Yeah. It's changed so much.

It's how fast can they get something new out on tour, get guys talking about it, playing it. And how do you look at a guy who owns a shop and say, hey, pro, I need you to buy six of this. Right. And he knows exactly.

Well, I'll give you two more of those at free. You can net them down. Okay, now I got seven of that old piece of shit to sell, and you want me to sell six that you're telling me is better than this. Right.

And it's $100 more. So that's changed a lot. And guys know that. Guys being the golfers know that.

That's going to change. So I'm just going to wait six months, and I'm going to get that thing for $200 cheaper and trade in whatever. So it's really, really changed that industry. When I was with Callaway, we had 120 reps across the whole country.

They got about 60 now doing the same thing, just because it's just changed so much. The industry's changed a lot. Would you say that some of that's very similar in the cigar industry, is the what's new concept constantly rushed on a quarterly basis? Not with every company, obviously, but...

Yeah, I mean, it's very similar. I mean, this, coming over here, you know, going on three years now, it's a very, very different industry, but to that, to what you're talking about, absolutely, I mean, you can get online every day and see something is new, it really, you know, what's, this is new, this is new, and we're obviously coming out of the trade show a month ago, and that's all about new, new, new, new, and it's, it amazes me, exactly, like, how can some, how can someone at a retail shop keep up? You can't. You cannot keep up.

So that's where, you know, my belief, you know, as we get into a little bit more is more, it's a relationship-based business, or it needs, I feel it should be. I met with you guys the very first time, and I, you know, my goal was to kind of change that a little bit. Let's make it a relationship-based business. Right.

Here's what I have. Here's what you need to have to do business with me. No, I'm, you wouldn't do business with me because of this, you know, this, that, and the other thing, but what's best for your business, not what's best for, Nat Sherman says, hey, the These are the best selling things and you need to carry all this. Right.

That's not how I have done it from day one, even with Callaway. You know, a lot of people would say Callaway, Taylor made some of these guys, it's like milk in a grocery store, you got to carry it. Right. Well, that's to an extent.

I may have to carry one or two, but if we have a great relationship, yeah, I'm going to stock a lot more of that. " Right. so, you know, just trying to make it more of a relationship-based business. And I think that, you know, from our company aspect, being a family-owned company for so long, for 87 years, that wasn't, you know, that's what made it such a good fit for me and an attraction to me when I was getting into the industry.

So, what made you jump into the cigar industry? Well, I just, you know, a change, more than anything else, you know, I was looking for a job, once they changed that and changed our, the way we were paid as sales reps and stuff like that, and it just, it just became more, much more corporate driven than it was before, and I'd always smoke cigars on the golf course, it was, you know, I knew enough to be dangerous, but not nearly as much as I know now and I'll know tomorrow. It's really different. I didn't know much more than a wrapper, binder, filler, and then that was about it, and I, you know, what I, what I smoked myself, I, so I saw this opportunity, to be honest with you, looking under golf, this actually opportunity came up listed under a golf, and I saw this, and I talked to my wife, and she was like, David, this is perfect for you, you know, and so, so I went after it at that point, it took a, it was a process, there had never been a rep in the state of Florida, Fournette Sherman.

There was only a couple reps at the time. We've continued to grow and grow and grow. Once I did a little research on who they were, I didn't know much about them either. I knew some of the common brands, again, as a casual smoker.

Not a guy that went in and hung out at cigar shops even. I would go in and buy my stuff from cigar shops. I had a couple places in Tampa where I live. I'd go to Edwards and buy some stuff from there, Tampa Humidor, Cigar Castle, places like that, and would just go take them to the golf course and go play golf and do it that way.

" And then, you know, the timing just worked out. And they were looking to add, you know, at that time, and that was November, October, November of about three years ago, '15. Well, I got to say this about Nat Sherman, you know, it's kind of common in this industry, I mean, I guess not common, but more often than not, the reps tend to kind of be churned, right? You don't last long.

Six months, maybe a year, and then gone for some fucking reason. Some reason or another. Whether your numbers aren't what they're looking for or anything like that, but you've already been with the company for three years, you know? It's over the hump.

So, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, that's obviously not the design of what Nat Sherman does, which I think is admirable, you know? Yeah, they, you know, the office themselves, the average tenure in the office is like 20-some years. It's really insane.

Our accountant, accounts payable department, she just retired after like 27 years. She went as far, I mean, she would be the one that answered to Nat back in the day. " and this and that, and Ursula was her name, and she was the contact. So the tenure with the company is very, very long.

The sales force side of it is young in the aspect that we just really started it eight years ago, when Michael came over from Davidoff and added a sales rep here and there and stuff like that. I was number four, and now we're up to nine, so we're growing, we're growing that aspect, and I think it has a lot to say for, like you said, for the company itself, how to take care of their people and what we're doing. So who the fuck is David Lafferty as far as Nat Sherman's concerned? What's his role?

He is the Executive Director of Sales, I believe is the official title. That is a very bougie title. So I know I told you this story, but I want to get it on tape too, so tape. The reel to reel is running over here.

On record. Yeah. Get it on record. Somebody actually asked me last week if we record on tape.

On tape? Yes. Yeah, no, we get the whole... Get the reel to reel running over here and cut and paste the little pieces together, right?

Yeah. Excellent. That's all we can afford. Low budget show.

So, my man David Lafferty has met me, like I said, probably five or six times at this point, And it took him like the sixth time to eventually remember my face, right, which is pretty fucking funny. You have the same story about quite a few people. Yeah, I'm just, I'm insignificant is what it is. That one is?

Maybe you just have one of those faces. Yeah, nobody really cares. You change your hair often. But it's just, that's not true.

That's an outright lie. No, no, because in my little time-hop thing on my Facebook, you always have different hair. Ah, maybe I was going through a couple phases, I guess. Yeah, the beard, the long hair, the man bun.

But fucking, so what's really funny to me about David not knowing that is, like, I think the first time I had a conversation with him, we were down in, Sirius Cigars was having their event, like their major fest, and he was, Ron does this thing where there's a dinner, right, for all the reps and manufacturers, they all go to his house. David Lafferty's talking about Bill Clinton, right? And the fact that Bill will remember everybody's name and information, you know? Like, he remembered David from one time to the other, you know?

And then I'm like, so over a span of, like, two years, I'm like, this fucking guy doesn't even remember the fuck I am. Which is fucking hilarious. Not that I'm anybody significant, but it should be, like, at least, like, hey, what's up, man? Like, you know, I kind of know you.

I met you, but I'm sorry, I don't remember your name. I don't know who. I'm David Lafferty. Right, exactly.

Right. But it was just more like a, hmm, well, maybe he's not good with names. I'm terrible with names. I don't remember somebody's face, but no names.

" Yeah, but the fucked up part is, there's only, it's only on one side, so, and for whatever reason, this year, whenever it ran, like, there was a Zykar ad on the other side, and all I could see was Zykar. " Yeah, I ripped my Zykar thing off, just so it went on one side. You work for Zykar, too? I'm supposed to remember your name.

What's up, Zykar? What's up, Zykar? Are you the president of Zykar? Well, yes, I am.

Thank you. All right. So, obviously, I mean, is that it? Like, you did seven years of golf, and then...

I played golf prior to that. I was a PGA professional prior to that, actually, in Ohio. I moved down to Florida about 15 years ago. So, I was in the golf business pretty much my whole life.

You know, I started out picking range balls to play golf for free, worked my way up through the PGA program, but the fact of the matter is, is obviously golf is very seasonal up there, so I would winter down here a little bit for around that PGA show time, and I visited different areas, I visited, you know, everywhere from, you know, Boca, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, all of it, and when I found Tampa, I was like, if I'm gonna move, make this move, Tampa's the place. I liked Tampa. It didn't seem as touristy, obviously. Still some transplants, but a lot of born and bred Floridians, if you will.

So I fell in love with Tampa and I decided to make that move. Came down then at that time doing basically what they call tech repping. It's basically working on the driving range with a manufacturer trying to sell their clubs at Demo Day's events, pro shops or country clubs and stuff like that with the intentions of getting into the sales position. I got one of those relatively quickly.

In November of that year, I moved down here. In January, that company was bought by Callaway, was acquired. Of course, I'm thinking I'm the new guy, first in, first out type deal, last in, first out. But I was putting up some good numbers, and I was able to stay on board, change my territory a little bit.

So golf has been the priority or been my number one thing. I do have somewhat of a celebratory story I did. In that meantime, I had started a product. I think we had talked about this, we were on the show Shark Tank, which was a great experience, I took a food product that we actually got an offer, I didn't take the offer, a little bit of a backstory about that, about 60% of those deals you see close on that program don't actually close when everybody does their due diligence, but for mine at that time, it's just none of those people really had any connections in the food industry, and mine was a food product.

So on TV it looks like a rah-rah thing, but in the end I didn't take the money. I landed up landing Publix at that time, which for those who are familiar, that's the big dog down here, one of the top five grocers in the country. Great subs. Great subs.

So what they wanted to, what they were willing to offer me for a piece of my business was pretty much covered by that first order. So it didn't make any sense. So I grew that for a few years until I had my co-packer that makes the product for me decide to do cut a corner and make a change an ingredient and when you're dealing with a product like that or product had chicken in it is USDA controls that an inspector found an ingredient that wasn't listed on the tub and it forced me to do a a recall of about 20,000 pounds of product. So when you recall a product like that, it's kind of hard to get it back on the shelf that fast, and a place like Publix, it's the next guy in line type deal.

So while they were willing to work with us a little bit, it takes a while. I just didn't feel like I could trust this guy again, and by the time you find another one, get him approved by the USDA, they just weren't willing to keep the product on the shelf. So I did that for a few years in between the golf and the cigar thing. Great experience.

I learned a lot from it. I learned a lot from it. I took a product that I was making at home and got it into over 6,000 locations across the country. We were in Costco.

We were in every Publix. We were in Costco's in the southeast, Walmart neighborhood markets, a lot of the big, big companies. What was it? It was Buffalo Chicken Dips.

So it was everything you'd get in a chicken wing but on a chip. We were the first ones to bring it to market. Publix actually knocked it off shortly after they came out with their own in the deli. " To me, that was a compliment.

" I mean, I went as far as, I had negotiations with a company called Reckitt Benckheiser, which actually owns Frank's. We're all familiar with Frank's Hot Sauce. That was one of the ingredients I used. I put that shit on everything.

I put it on my eggs this morning, actually. But they, I was going to use them as kind of like a, you know, you see a made with two baby rays and things like that. I had, I mean, I negotiated a deal where we were buying it by 55-gallon drums, and, you know, I saw all aspects of that side of it. But that was fun, and it was very rewarding as far as getting a new account.

But as a salesman at heart, it's tough because you're only selling for, like, a three-week period out of the year. They review that category for three weeks. It's not like, hey, I got a new product. Okay, I'm going to see that type of product in March.

Well, it's November. What am I going to do? So you had a three-week window that you saw all these guys, and you had a chance to pitch your product. So after that, it was scheduling trucks and doing this, so the reward for me is being out there and interacting, not only with the retailer, the partner, but the consumer.

We did a few tastings here and there and did the state fair to get the brand out there and things like that. But the actual selling part of it was very minimal. You sold it in and that's all automated. They know that the Deltona store is down to one, okay, ship them a case.

No one goes in and counts inventory at those places. And now robots even pick the order and put it on a pallet and ship it out to the store. No shit. Publix's new warehouse, the one in Lakeland, is all completely done by robots, similar to some of the Amazon stuff.

Skynet. Skynet. Skynet with food. Definitely Skynet.

So it's a great experience, but that's really the extent. I went golf and then the sales side of it, but again, I was a PGA professional is how I really got into the business, had a huge junior program, had a couple of kids go on to play at the collegiate level that were in my junior program that eventually grew up, obviously, and that was a lot of fun, but Florida brought me to Florida, obviously, because of golf being all year round, so that was my move to Florida. Yep, and that was, like I said, 15, 16 years ago now. You can't play in the snow?

It's hard to play golf in the snow. You lose the ball. It's hard for me to play golf, period. Yeah, I'm not good at it either.

Alright, so I want to get to the elephant in the room question. Why do you hate cigars, David? There was some news regarding Altria, which is the big corporation for Nat Sherman, right? Yeah, it's our parent company.

And they, you know, in a nutshell, they kind of said that they're pro-regulation of FDA and there has been a tremendous kind of back and forth with people and their perspective on things. I just wanted to know if you wanted to say anything about it. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that, you know, we came out, there was an open period, open comment period, so to speak, where you could submit comment on before the, The Deeming Regulations were to take effect or whatever they were going to do, and Altria's stance is that if there's going to be regulation on premium cigars, they feel that it should follow XYZ, and that's essentially what we said in the article, and it's old news, so to speak, this is the same stance they've had to an extent, the stance actually softened, originally it wasn't nearly, it wasn't what it came out to do.

It's not going to be recently, but basically what we're saying is if you're going to carve out this category and if there's going to be regulations, we feel that premium cigars are different, and this is how we feel they're different, so they are not looped into, you know, cigarettes and vape. They need to be carved out. I think the feedback or the, you know, there's been, there was blowback for sure. Some retailers are like, hey, we've reached a point where this has been going on now for three years, something's bound to happen, and you called out the turn of the punch bowl.

" And while that is how the article reads, I will tell you that. " What that doesn't read is that we actually, you know, they didn't allow us to give our nine-page supplement, which you can find everywhere. Basically says that if there is going to be regulations, here's how we think it's going. It should happen.

And that we do support the Cole Bishop Act, and that's my biggest soapbox in this whole deal. That is the act that is on Congress's floor right now that is pro-exemption. So we're not totally against exemption. We support this bill.

We put money into it. It's public record. But if there's going to be regulation, this is how we think it should happen. I think this is how we think it should happen, because if you let them, in my eyes, if you let them do it how they want to right now, it reads much more like a cigarette regulation than anything, and a premium cigar is different, so the letter basically states, you know, and the IPCPR letter I think calls it out great, and the letter from Michael Herklotz, the VP of cigars, calls it out basically saying that there are some things that we think need to be in there, and that's, you know, the weight of a cigar, what defines a premium cigar?

It's a single leaf wrapper, single leaf binder, X amount of cigars per thousand, you know, per weight, you know, six pounds per thousand, things like that, to try to eliminate some of the loopholes that, like, some of the stuff like DeJarm and some of that had years ago when the cigarette exemption came out. So, there was blowback, without a doubt. I think that it, you know, this obviously will, you know, bring it up to a few people again, but I think in the end, when people read that, they understand what we were trying to say. The CA piece, Personal Opinion, looks like a hit piece.

It just comes out with that title. And we were the one of 4,400 comments that they decided to talk about. So, bad press is good press. It was a fun few days of taking some phone calls, a chance to talk to retail partners.

After the first two or three days of phone calls and people starting to understand what we were trying to say, the phone calls were just a few days. Mike Halls turned to, hey, this is all great with all this press and this and that, but where is my IPCPR order? Like, I need product. So, in that regard, it's business as usual.

I've had a chance to do some, I don't want to call them round tables or town halls, but come to a couple of the FCC event last night, and it doesn't even come up. So I don't know how much the consumer really knows about it. The industry knows about it. But it's business as usual for us.

The timing was awful, I will tell you that. We had a tremendous trade show with a complete rebrand of our families and some new packaging, some new looks that is starting to hit the shelf now. So you came out of there a million miles and running and you had to hit the brakes for a couple of days. But, you know, in the end, again, we support regularly, you know, we support an exemption with the Cole Bishop Act.

If that's not going to happen, here's how we think it should, you know, it should happen. So, but it's, it's been fairly positive in the end. I think a lot of people had the knee-jerk reaction of they took one headline and a story and didn't really see... Didn't read the whole thing.

Didn't read the whole thing. Right. Nobody reads the whole thing. No, nobody does.

That's why they invented headlines. I've never ever read the entire article on a single half wheel. I just go right down to the review little square. Oh, really?

That's it. I don't want to hear about fucking frozen butter stick flavor profiles. I don't give a shit. Fall berries.

And I can tell you right now, at this point, by reading that little box review, I can tell you who did the entire thing. Looking at the score, and exactly what they wrote. But if they have burn issues, or if it's flaky, or anything like that, it's instantly Charlie Monop. Yeah, without question.

And he wrote an article too, you know, he came back, Charlie did, a response to it, kind of saying what we said, this stance hasn't changed, it's the same stance they had in 2014, but to our benefit he did say that the change has softened. So... Yeah, but that's, you know, second page news, right? It doesn't hit as well as the first one.

Absolutely not. And then, you know, absolutely not. I mean, for CA, it was a million click-throughs for sure. Phones started blowing up instantly.

So just for the listeners, because you keep saying CA, what is CA exactly? I'm sorry, Cigar Aficionado. Okay. Do you guys advertise with Cigar Aficionado at all?

We do. We do. Evidently not enough. Do you think that would change moving forward with the way that they handle the situation?

As far as I know, no. We are still committed to do that through the year. I don't know. We review it every year.

But I know the marketing plan for the year has not changed. We'll continue to advertise, and that's a benefit to our retail partners. We want to drive people into the doors to have them asking for Nat Sherman, Metropolitan, Timeless, whatever it may be. And again, there's other avenues to do that, but they are the Cadillac in this industry, if you will.

Right, but that's kind of like a unique standpoint where these guys focus on reviews and kind of promote, and their main source is obviously through advertising, and that's how they kind of make money. But then to, even if the content in the article was not as blatant as the title, the title still remained of, you know, Nat Sherman hates cigars, right? I mean, I don't understand how you could do that and still take that check every month, right? It just doesn't work.

There's so many rumors going around that, you know, you could buy your review with that company. Well, I mean, that's obvious. So, but maybe they're trying to show their, like, editorial... But that's kind of like blackmail!

Like, I'll tell you what we can do, we're gonna fuck up your brand, you know, like, that's definitely illegal. Well, no, no, no, they didn't fuck up the brand to get the money, but they were showing their editorial power, prowess, or whatever you want to say, by writing an article against a large advertiser. Do you read CA? No, I don't read it at all.

I look at the pictures. Do you look at CA at all? No. I look at the pictures.

I don't know. I'll glance through it. I read more of the online stuff than I do the actual magazine. When I know we're having an ad, so to speak, I'll check it and see, hey, are we in the first third, the second third, are we on the last page of the ad?

Or see what we're next to, just to kind of see what type of placement you get. So and then that's been that I've heard that from a few people remain nameless, but it said that, you know, that CA did you guys wrong, but they're in the business to sell magazines and sell clicks and yeah, but I think at this point, not too many of the industry guys, at least the guys that are more involved, really look at CA for anything, with the exception of the top 25 at the end of the year, right, right, which is complete bullshit, too. But that's neither here nor there. I mean, I could say that I check half-wheel all the time, right?

That's where I know if I want to know something. I mean, I'm looking for something, because their website's so friendly to use, it's so easy to find stuff. And even though the reviews are completely fucked, they're still bar none when it comes to information in this industry, you know? And we started, we began advertising with them last year, and we'll continue, obviously we were on a lot of the banners there and stuff like that.

" I mean, some guys take them out, they mail them, they take them out, they set them on the counter, and if they sell some, they sell some, at the end of the day, when they're not sold, they put them out for distribution at the table or take them home, so... Right, right. We don't carry them at all. No, it's not what comes here, I think.

If they give them to us. Yeah, yeah. I just like the pictures. I look in the back to see who I know at the different events.

Oh, I saw that guy. I'm like, "Oh, I know him. Oh, look. " But you would never go to a magazine for a review?

No, I do look at the scores, if I know the person who's associated with the cigar. Yeah, you want to see what they rated. But you're never going to look through... I don't base my purchases on their ratings.

Right. Yeah. I mean, something like 80 cigars they rate every month, too. I mean, there's a lot of cigars.

There's a lot of cigars, but a lot of, you know, a lot of people use it, and that's, that's a big piece that people will take in the industry and say, "Hey, this was rated this, this was rated this, this was top," a lot of people use that in their marketing. When I say a lot of people, a lot of manufacturers. Oh, they do. " 92 sounds better.

Right. I was really worried about your 84. Yeah, well. I don't know, that still happens?

Not as much as it used to. I don't listen to people then. You don't listen to people when they come in here. I've never seen that.

I mean, maybe in the past. When it comes to half-wheel, I've seen people do it. I got an 88 on half-wheel. That's like a fucking hundred.

And it tastes like Captain Crunch cereal. you know, the reviews say it tastes like dog shit, but it got an 88. So, like, you know, I actually said this to a friend of mine, that if you just add a minimum of plus seven, that gives you like a realistic gauge for your rating. So, if Monado gives it an 88, you add 7, you got a 95, you're crushing it.

So, alright, you wanna get to the questions? Questions, we have questions. We have questions? Yeah, so that means you never listen to the podcast.

I have, I've texted both of you, I've listened to the podcast. Actually, you know what, we're doing quite well in the last two days, it's been like 127 people. Yes. We're trending up.

We can no longer say that we have 10 listeners. That's right. I've listened to two. Djibouti has dropped off.

Djibouti's gone. Djibouti's gone. But Switzerland's up. Sweden is like our number three country now.

We have five questions. Five. I thought it was three questions. So wait, hold on.

What are the two that you've listened to? McKinney's and Patty and Mario's. And who's? Patty and Mario from Surreal.

Oh, yeah, that was a good one, too. I may have caught a half of another one in the car. They're the number one show on Spotify right now. Patty and Mario's are going to be like, yeah.

All right. All right. Get ready. Here we go.

First question. What, one person, living or, I should just record this. You know what's even funnier about this shit is that even if you listened every single time and you had the questions, you still might not have an answer. It's like, fuck, I didn't think that I'd be on, you know, I'll throw the questions at each other and we've done this 30 something times now.

Ah, that's a great question. I have no idea. Right, alright, well one person, living or dead, would you like to share a cigar with? Living or dead.

Living or dead. Charles Barkley. I could get Drew to stay terrible over here for you and get Big Willie and, you know. I bet you'd be fine.

So why Charles Barkley? I just, I love his rhetoric. I know it would be on a golf course. Golf's, you know, one of my passions.

And he's a big cigar guy. You know, I see him out there smoking them all the time. So I just think, I think it would be like, you know, three great worlds collide. Nice.

Very nice. Best piece of advice anyone ever gave you? Best piece of advice anyone ever gave me? I'm going to go with something that I, there's a quote, if you will, Jerry Rice always said, no matter how hard you're working, somebody's working harder than you.

Right. So I've always taken that one. And then I've always gone by the, you know, as an outside sales rep, I still think you're sort of an entrepreneur. You know, the way I look at it is I'm the president and CEO of this territory.

I don't fly everything up the flagpole. I make decisions and I go with it. With my gut, I've been doing it for a while, sales period, and I always went with, you know, do today what you're willing, no one's willing to do today to gain what you're going to gain tomorrow. So, I've always gone, I've always gone with those two type things.

Oh, it must work for you if you're going on three years now. All right, what's your favorite cigar? Padrón 50th Maduro. Nice.

Nice. When did you decide, when was the first time you had that? Not until I was actually in the industry. No shit.

Don Patel gave me the first one. Oh, Don Patel, you motherfucker. Cigars on the Ave in Winter Park. Winter Park.

That guy, he's a legend. He's a trip, man. I love that dude. Yep.

All right, next question. What fictional character would you like to share a cigar with? Book, movie, TV, cartoon. Oh, man.

We've had characters off of restaurant signs. A fictional character. Mm-hmm. I didn't know this one.

This is one of the new ones. That's right. Dead air. Dead air, dead air.

Yeah, dead air is terrible. Is dead air a character? It wouldn't be on this show. From a fictional character, let's go with Kevin Costner's character in, why can't I think of my golf movie?

Tin Cup? Tin Cup. In Tin Cup. Roy McElvoy.

Let's do some tequila and try to tee it up in a tour event the next day. Nice. Very good. All right, then the last, go ahead.

So everything's pretty much golf-oriented. It is. Golf, cigars, cocktails. Alright, the last question is just how do people get ahold of you?

Social media, email, phone number, whatever, your personal address. You get Zach's address. He's down the street. Yeah, Zach lives right around the corner.

It's just David A. Mealy on Instagram. I think Twitter is D. Mealy and David Mealy on Facebook.

All right, that's it. That's all my questions. Yeah. Well, you know, we appreciate you coming on.

I know that you got here, obviously, before me today, and you were out there for a few hours, and then you still came out here and did the podcast with us, so I truly appreciate that. No, I appreciate you having me, man. You know, and thank you for all the information and the poop, as it was, straight from the source. The poop.

The poop. And I guess that concludes this podcast. Yes. All right, thanks again, David.

Yep. Thank you. Bye. To accept the charges, press 1, now.

That's it folks, show's over. If you have any questions or suggestions for guests, leave them on our Facebook page at CigarHustlersPodcast. You can follow the show on Instagram at CigarHustlersPodcast, Mikey at CigarHustler. And you can follow me at CigarHustlersPodcast.

And you can follow me at FloridaCigarClub_Mike. Please rate, review, and subscribe on whichever provider you use. See you next time.

Show Notes

Fresh off the PR nightmare we have David Mealey from Nat Sherman Cigars with us this week!  Get the real poop and behind the scenes info on Atria announcement!

We also learn how Golf was tunred in to his dream job and stellar carreer!!

We welcome your questions, comments and guest suggestions on our FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast". You can follow the show on IG @cigarhustlerspodcast, Mikey @cigarhustler and Mike @FCC_Mike.

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