Episode 42 Part #2 Nick Melillo Foundation Cigars

Episode Summary

Part two of the Cigar Hustler's Podcast sit-down with Nick Melillo, founder of Foundation Cigar Company, opens with a story he says he'd never told publicly: hand-painted custom cigar boxes made by his Esteli-based art director for hip-hop legend Nas (an Illmatic-themed Anaconda-style box, delivered backstage in Aspen) and for DJ/photographer D-Nice of Boogie Down Productions. Melillo also talks about his friendship with hip-hop duo The Reminders, who performed in his booth at the trade show, and his lifelong love of hip-hop, reggae and jazz.

The heart of the episode is a deep tobacco-nerd conversation about Tabernacle Havana Seed CT No. 142 — Cuban-seed tobacco grown in the Connecticut River Valley, where Foundation keeps its office on a 50-acre tobacco farm. Melillo explains the history of Cuban seed brought to Connecticut in the 1870s, the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station's work breeding disease-resistant varieties, and why the 142 seed was chosen. He details the challenges: root rot, blue mold, a rainy season that produced thin broadleaf, and the extraordinarily narrow fermentation window for a thin leaf with a heavy layer of "grasa" — roughly two and a half to three years in pilones of 7,000–8,000 pounds, with the risk of losing an entire pile if temperatures run too hot. He compares the flavor to broadleaf: Cuban spice up front with river-valley earthiness and a touch of sweetness, and targets a release just before Thanksgiving 2018.

Melillo then covers Highclere Castle Cigars, the collaboration born from his friend Adam's Highclere Castle gin project. He describes the June launch at the castle with Lord and Lady Carnarvon and 30 British retailers, the Carnarvons' visit to Nicaragua (staying with AJ Fernandez), the Downton Abbey and King Tut history on the estate, and the blend itself — Connecticut Shade wrapper over a Brazilian Mata Fina binder, which he pitches as an elegant evening gown hiding something much bolder. A bolder Highclere line is teased for the next trade show. He also explains why he still hasn't opened his own factory, citing FDA uncertainty and not wanting to give away equity, while praising the access he gets working inside AJ Fernandez's and Tabacalera Oliva's operations.

The final stretch is a candid, non-partisan look at the 2018 political unrest in Nicaragua — the April protests over social security increases, viral videos of violence, road blockades that crimped production and created backorders, and how Estelí and the cigar industry fared versus Managua and the south. Melillo argues the industry is the economic lifeline of the region and hopes for peaceful, free elections. The episode closes with lighter talk about keto and ketosis, Alfredo's 60-plus-pound weight loss, and the running gag about Skip Martin and the elusive Loch Ness Monster cigar art.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Custom Cigar Boxes for Nas and D-Nice
   Melillo shares the previously untold story of hand-painted Illmatic-themed boxes delivered backstage to Nas, plus a self-portrait box for DJ D-Nice.
2. 02
   Hip-Hop, The Reminders and the Trade Show Booth
   How a canceled Mos Def show led to a friendship with hip-hop duo The Reminders, who ended up performing in Foundation's IPCPR booth.
3. 03
   Tabernacle Havana Seed CT No. 142
   The story behind Cuban seed grown in the Connecticut River Valley and the 142 variety developed at Connecticut's agricultural experiment station.
4. 04
   Growing and Fermenting Connecticut Cuban Seed
   Root rot, blue mold, a rain-thinned broadleaf crop, and the razor-thin two-to-three-year fermentation window that makes this leaf so rare and expensive.
5. 05
   Highclere Castle Cigars and the Carnarvons
   The castle launch in England, Lord and Lady Carnarvon's trip to Nicaragua, Downton Abbey and King Tut history, and the Connecticut Shade over Brazilian Mata Fina blend.
6. 06
   Why Foundation Still Doesn't Own a Factory
   Melillo on FDA uncertainty, equity dilution, and the advantages of running his own teams inside established Nicaraguan factories.
7. 07
   Nicaragua's 2018 Unrest and the Cigar Industry
   A first-hand, non-political account of the April protests, roadblocks, production delays, and how Estelí compared to Managua and the south.
8. 08
   Keto, Ketosis and Skip Martin Ribbing
   The crew's turn to keto after Alfredo's dramatic weight loss, plus the running joke about Skip Martin and a Loch Ness Monster cigar.

Brands & Cigars Discussed

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Transcript

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

Welcome everybody to part two of the Nick Malello interview. I don't think that we talked about this on the air last time, but you made a special box for one of the rappers that I admire. He's like top five at least. Oh yeah?

Yeah. Who's that? Nas. Oh, wow, yeah.

This is actually the first time I'm talking about this publicly. Yes! Kind of a big deal. You know, friends of mine, called The Reminders, are a hip-hop couple.

They're actually married, and they're a hip-hop duo. And I actually met these guys. I always wanted to see Mo's Def. okay okay i actually saw him for the first time uh september at red rocks okay but long story longer longer like five six years ago i saw that moe's was playing in denver so i actually booked up a trip especially from nicaragua to come up and see moe's he canceled last second but they somehow booked nas so of course i said i gotta keep this going so i literally landed in the airport you know 10 o'clock my buddy picked me up and we went over to the concert and opening act not bad next it wasn't nick grant was it i don't know who it was nick grant yeah that kid's pretty Is he good?

I'll have to look him up. I think it was a local, local guy. And then these two, this couple comes on the stage and just completely just rocked it. And like the interaction between, I felt like I was in Brooklyn in 1998 watching, you know, Moe's and Talib Kweli, Black Star for the first time.

Right. And they just, I mean, floored me. And then Nas came out and played, but I ended up making it. We were meeting the reminders at the merch table later on, and then we just ended up becoming friends.

We ended up meeting another time and went out to dinner, and we just talked for, you know, three hours straight. We just, you know, felt like I knew them for a long time. So fast forward, this was like two years ago, they were open up for Nas again in Aspen at the Belly Up. Okay.

So, of course, I knew Nas is a big cigar aficionado. So, I had my man, Thief Operandi in Nicaragua, my art director, and I said, "Thief, you know, I'm gonna be, you know, backstage and whatnot. " So, he hand-painted just a beautiful Ilmatic, the cover of Ilmatic Anahuwense box. Nice.

Nice. And it just came out beautiful, and so I ended up going to the concert, and man, they protect Nas like the President of the United States. My man Nas has got some like serious, serious protection, but I was able to make it, you know, because I was backstage with them, but he had his whole separate area. " She was from Nicaragua.

ah the hookup and then you know i was able for it that was just amazing so um it was real quick you know because he was on the move but um yeah made one for nas yeah kind of a big deal man yeah it was cool it was cool that actually was the second one we ended up making um a box special It's become a good friend of mine, D-Nice, remember Boogie Down Productions, KRS-One, D-Nice was like 15 when he started Boogie Down Productions, and he actually met a friend of mine on a plane, and then we ended up all meeting for dinner one night, and man, I wish he could see these visuals, but I'll post them at some point. The D nice one I posted, but D, we ended up using a picture, which is, D is a very famous DJ and also photographer. He's become a very incredible photographer and DJ. I mean, he did the White House party when Obama was leaving and is just an incredible DJ, but we ended up using a picture, which was actually a self-portrait of him.

" It's cool. It doesn't get any better than that. No, so. That's pretty fantastic.

Yeah, so. I'm lucky to be working with some, you know, good artists from Esteli and friends of mine. And your friends were at IBCPR this year, right? So, yeah, the reminders were in my booth this year.

Yeah. They actually, strangely enough, go out to Vegas every July because good friends they grew up with. All their kids, all the kids get together. They have three kids.

Just unbelievable. Some of the most well-behaved. smartest children i've ever met and uh don't want to bring them by my kids kids can be tough but they were out there you know at the same time and they came and uh grabbed the mic and and rocked a nice little set there yeah that was fun that was fun yeah i hope they come back next year so you're best friends with nas no no no definitely not definitely not definitely not Definitely not. You know, I definitely admire his music.

I haven't had, you know, really time to hang out with Nas too much. But that's still awesome. It's awesome, yeah. You know.

That's good stuff. Because, you know, I grew up with all this music, of course. I love hip-hop, love reggae, love all music, jazz. Grandfather's a jazz drummer, big band drummer.

So, yeah. Very nice. Music is definitely, I think all, it's like comedians, all comedians want to become musicians, musicians want to be comedians, I think it's the same as cigar makers want to be musicians sometimes, and the musicians want to be cigar makers. Yeah.

So. Very nice. Yeah, come on. So what the hell, so what do you got going on, man?

I mean, we got this new Tabernacle's about to drop. New Tabernacle, I gotta grab these guys, these guys won, yeah. I saw that. What were you smoking?

It's got some type of seed or something that you saw? Yeah, so it's Cuban seed grown in the Connecticut River Valley. As you know, we have our office on a 50-acre tobacco farm right in the heart of the Connecticut River Valley. That was always my dream to have, you know, be right in Connecticut.

Coming from Connecticut, tobacco history there, be right in the middle of it all. So we're in an old farmhouse from like early 1900s on an old farm. A lot of the area around us has been, a lot of the farm, like Amazon has a million square foot fulfillment center up the street, UPS is up, but around us you can see all the tobacco farms because all those places used to be tobacco farms. So anyway, I've been working in the Valley for, you know, some time since like 2004 and working with a lot of farmers.

You have Connecticut Shade, which has really gone down in production over the years because Ecuador has taken over a lot of that production. We have Broadleaf, which is actually the opposite. There's definitely not enough Broadleaf in the market these days. And then you have Cuban seed that was brought up to Connecticut and from my research between 1870 and 1880, there was a bunch of different seeds that were brought up.

Nobody knows exactly from where in Cuba they came up, but we know they came from from Cuba around that time and so I've been working with different seed varieties there because a lot of the tobacco is susceptible to root rot in the valley so we've been working on really making working with seeds that are stronger, resistant in the field, better yields in the field which makes the the actual plant stronger and then you know healthier and healthier. And, to me, that's where a lot of the flavor comes from, those oil pockets. I call them little flavor pockets. So root rot is defined pretty much as how it sounds.

Yeah, yeah, it's just one of the sicknesses that will attack the plant. You know, you got to be careful of blue mold there, also because you have, you know, a lot of potato farms there. And when you have a lot of moisture, thankfully this year we didn't have a lot of, there wasn't much of any blue mold, blue mold but usually you get it with a lot of moisture you know and this year was man the rains this year there was a lot of rain and that's why this year the crop in general for like broadleaf is very thin right because you had much more cloud uh cloud cover and a lot of rain so there's so much rain and so much moisture that root system doesn't get a chance to really establish itself um and then the leaves and structure of is is much much thinner so but then you also have things And things like root rot and but in general the Cuban seed for one reason or another has been more susceptible to this so the experiment station in Connecticut is where the seeds the seed station the state of Connecticut and they've been working with farmers on all different crops to support the farmers to you know in the interest of you know Connecticut and the crops to be healthy and strong so they've worked with a lot of these different seed varieties. So this one's called the 142.

I love the time clock in the background, by the way. It's awesome. Yeah, so the 142, which was a combination of two different Cuban seeds over the years, and the 142 was the strongest that came out of this, yeah. Now, you were saying earlier when we were hanging out that there's a small window?

Yeah, this is what, you don't see this tobacco used on many cigars, you know, where you'll see, you know, Mexican, you'll see Ecuadorian, Sumatras, or Habanos, and, you know, this, because it's so difficult to ferment, it's, we're literally on, like, three years right now, of, from when it was purchased to, you know, it's not quite ready. The stuff that you guys will get is stuff that I polled that was the most farthest along, and that's difficult because you never know when it's going to be ready, which makes it difficult in the marketplace because everybody wants them, and it's tough, and the show was coming this year, so I knew it was going to be ready before next year's show, so I wanted to definitely show it at the show this year, and we're looking at it just before Thanksgiving right now for the release, so we're hoping. We're going to be in Nicaragua next week, so we'll get the final… Just like everything else in the Cigar Industry. We're going to release it in November, which means December 18th.

December, maybe January. We'll be seeing the cigar. So, the leaf compared to broadleaf is much thinner. Right.

Broadleaf is heavier. It's got a heavier vein structure. It can take very difficult to ferment broadleaf. I would put it up there as one of the most difficult to ferment also, but it can handle high temperatures.

It can handle more of the heat. Whereas this leaf is much thinner, but then you have this thick layer of, we call it "grasa" in Spanish, the fat of the leaf. So you have to cure that down. The window is this big of when it's ready.

If you take it below that window, it's not going to be right taste-wise, you know, it's going to taste on the green side, it's not going to burn properly. If you take it past that window, it will literally disintegrate on you. You know, you've taken the cellular walls and broken it down to now where it just literally disintegrates, and then you lose a lot of the flavor. You know, that happens a lot of times with tobacco, you know, people over-ferment tobacco.

That's also a problem, because then you end up, you know, once you bring the heats up really high, you start losing everything to the elements. You know what I mean? It's like putting pasta sauce, you know, a can of pasta sauce in there, putting on heat, you know, if you turn those heats too high, eventually everything's evaporating, which is very different than my great-grandmother's pasta sauce, you know, of course, fresh ingredients, but you're at a low simmer for hours, and, you know, that's what you have to do with this. And you can literally lose, you know, we're usually at 7,000 pounds, 8,000 pounds for pilones.

If you're not careful in checking it, you know, every day, after two years, you know, two and a half years, if you bring it up too high, you could just lose the whole thing. So that's why it takes so much time, because that's the last thing you want is, you know. Is it real expensive because it's so hard to work? it is i mean well it's because you know of the time that it takes right so imagine you know you're putting all this money up front and before you're turning it into you know cash flow again right it's you know you're looking at two and a half three years wow that's a long time it is a long time and if you go a day too long you're like oh crap there goes that pile start it over start it over but it's put some more seeds in it's you know it's worth it i think it's very unique the flavor of it, because you have that, you know, this Cuban sort of element to it with a good spice, but then you also have the element of the river valley, you know, so you have some earthiness, you know, you have a little sweetness to it, but it's definitely more on the spicier side to me than the broadleaf, you know?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So it's, call it Tabernacle Havana Seed 142. 142.

Yeah. 90 times better. Did 141 not work? Is that what it is?

Well, that's the batch is the 142. 142. Well, no, it's the seed. Oh, it's the seed.

Actually, the seed is called 142. I don't know how they came - that's not a name that I came up with. They actually crossed 34 and it was like one - they don't add up to 142, no. So I wasn't able to really find out the origins of where they came up with the numbers.

It would be terrible if they tried 140 different ones that didn't work. " You know, it's going to be some fucking, I just got to write it stupid one day and wrote down, I meant to write down 12 and put a four. It's interesting to see how all these countries classify, that every country has its own. 2.

Its own classification, yeah. So what else is, what's new? What other than that? Are you working on anything else?

I got some things in the works. I definitely think you're going to be seeing this year's new Highclere Castle for next year. A little boulder? A little boulder, a little heavier.

I love that. Highclere, we just launched it at the castle in June. So we're now actually selling. It's one of the only foreign markets I've opened up at this point is England.

So we launched in June, the owners of the castle, Lord Carnarvon and Lady Carnarvon, actually hosted myself, my partner Adam, in the project, and about 30 retailers from throughout England, which was super cool, because a lot of those retailers and shops, some of them were just ancient, you know, really old, which is cool, going back to the beginning of tobacco, you know, new world tobacco history. " You gotta meet the Loch Nix Monster. You gotta meet the Loch Nix Monster. We ended up planning a trip.

They came down to Nicaragua to visit me, and we just hit it off, and Lord Canarbon is just really down to earth, and just the history. You know, if you see Foundations brands, I definitely love history and culture, and it just fit in with everything else. So I gotta know, so they went down to Esteli, did they stay at like Los Arcos? No, they stayed with me.

I actually stayed with Abdel. Abdel Fernandez actually put us all up because he's got an amazing pad. Right, it's a nicer experience. I can only imagine what it's like going through the castle.

Well, let me tell you, and that's the sort of thing, you know, you look at it, and that's, of course, my first perception of, you know, I'm thinking a lot of highbrow, might be a little, you know, snooty kind of, but it was the complete opposite meeting. And they're 5,000 acres, they're very much involved in agriculture, and he's really down to earth. What kind of cars did he drive? Dude, he was driving around in an old, like, Mitsubishi, Azuzu, there's Azuzu Trooper type cars, that's what he drives on a daily.

Of course, he's got a Rolls Royce from like 1920, but his daily, you know, his daily... It's for the parades. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, it was great.

Him and his wife had us over for dinner. She cooked for us the night before, and then we enjoyed, you know, a nice scotch in Highclere Castle Churchill, watching the sunset on this, you know, sheep grazing in the back. It was surreal. I mean, it was absolutely, you talk about, like, meditation, you're just on that property, and you're just at peace.

They have these cedars that were brought from Lebanon from the 1700s. It's just unbelievable. And I got into the history of cigar smoking there. They have a smoking room that's been there forever.

The library was always a place. If you see, this is where they filmed Downton Abbey. The first episode of Downton Abbey, the ending scene is them smoking cigars after dinner. So these guys are the real Downton Abbey.

Right. And his great-grandfather discovered King Tut's tomb. Kind of a big deal. With a cigar in hand, you know, he was the one that, hell, he was an amateur archaeologist.

He was a race car driver. This is when, like, race cars was first a thing. And he got into, I think, a bunch of accidents and was all kind of shaken up. " Started spending time in Egypt, became an amateur archaeologist.

Well, he went severe on the dryer, didn't he? What's that? He went severe on the you gotta go drier climate. Yeah.

Desert is as we're going. Yeah, and but that time I think was like the end of them discovering a lot of these tombs and a lot of them thought, you know, pretty much everybody said there's nothing really left. Right. Right.

And he had met Howard Carter and man, you know. Boom. Boom. King Tut.

And they actually have a full replica of the tomb at the castle. No kidding. Unbelievable. That's pretty bad.

There's a book I got called Egypt at Highclere, which is really cool. Yeah. Oh, man. So just the history of just talking to.

He came last year. We visited a few shops in Connecticut. Just to see that experience, we visited one shop. We're in the shop.

Talking. Somehow, I was there with Dave. Dave loves history. Talking to the shop owner.

We get into a whole discussion about Cleopatra, and in walks this guy, tattoos all down the side of his face. Both sides, tattoos all over the place. He walks in, sits down. " So we walked out of there, and Lord Carnarvon was like, that was incredible.

Right. That was one of his favorite experiences of the whole trip. You just never know. Yeah.

Yeah. " Nice. That is fantastic. " So unfortunately, on a million, on a million, on a million.

No M's are smalls, right, not in the cigar industry, yeah. So, yeah, so I'm hoping probably for the show next year, new Highclere, you know, the Highclere we ended up doing with beautiful Connecticut Shade, the binder is Modifina, Brazil, you know, people, it's interesting to see the people's thoughts on Connecticut Shades in the industry, having released, especially, Especially the hardcore guys, there's definitely, they tend to lead towards darker rappers and whatnot, but I always tell them with the High Claire, it's like, that Connecticut wrapper is that beautiful evening gown, it's elegant, really nice to look at, but under there is that black lace, Victoria's Secret, Modifina binder, holding everything together. With a whip. With a nice whip.

That's my new selling point. You get some spice in there. That Connecticut shade is so thin, so that Modafina gives it more body. You can use heavier filler tomacos.

Don't be fooled. Don't be fooled. Don't be fooled. It's amazing.

Don't be fooled. That would be easy for me in the morning. That's pretty much it. Flavor country.

Flavor country, baby. Flavor country. Are we getting an Egyptian cigar to you anytime soon? That would be interesting.

Yeah. I just can't wait to see the Loch Ness Monster. It's gonna be fantastic. This is like Beetlejuice.

You've said it, what, three, four times? So elusive. He's pushing it in. I will not give up.

I'm gonna be relentless until I see a pewter design of a Loch Ness Monster. It's like the Loch Ness Monster with your head and the little hat. That's what the scary part of it is, is having my face on that. It's gonna be fantastic.

Yeah. You have any tattoos? No, I don't. Where's your first one?

Well, there you go. What is the other nickname for Nessie? Nessie. Nessie, yeah.

I like Loch Ness Monster better. Loch Ness Monster, fantastic. Call it Nicky. So I asked you this.

When did you do the podcast with us? Was it like six months ago almost? Something like that? If you give me my mic, it's fine.

Is it January? I think it's January. Yeah, I think it was January. I think it was January of the year or something.

Something like that. Yeah. So I asked you this before. Oh, snap.

Yeah. I'm going to ask you this question again. I don't know what you're going to ask me. I acted like I knew, but I have no idea.

You had that minute. We have five questions. No, you already had the five questions. You already had the five questions.

Yeah. When the fuck are you going to open a factory? I don't know why I just did that. You know, right now, I really have the best of both worlds.

I hear all that. With my schedule and starting up, you know, the business on the state side. Right. I've been on the Nicaragua side for so long, so a lot of people are just discovering, you know, what I've done on the state side.

Opening up the office, I have been able to really establish my own team. That was one of the things working with, you know, even AJ and TOPSA is being able to, they opened their doors completely to me, you know, having access to, you know, amazing inventories of tobacco. And then being able to do what I want to do within these factories, and you know, they know my experience, of course, and I've worked with a lot of them for so many years, I've been able to work within these factories, have my own teams, and do things the way I want them done. So that's been great, you know, and then having all this FDA stuff, you know, initially five years, sorry, three years ago when I launched, you know, there was a lot of that.

There was a lot of that concern, but then also, you know, the investment side of things was much bigger, and I didn't, it was pre, pre-valuation at that time before I started the company, and, you know, the money needed to start both ends was a lot greater, and then I didn't want to start, you know, losing the company, you know, losing 30, 40 percent of the company to start. Right. You know, I would have rather, I think, just, you know, go get a job for somebody. I had a lot of job offers, you know, coming from different companies, so I said, you know, let me hold off.

Right. So you've held off. I've held off. So if I get a, you know, a really clear definition of what's going on with the FDA, I'd love to start one right away, yeah.

Good luck with that. Yeah, that's the, you know. And what about, um, what about all the shit that's going on in Nicaragua? Man, yeah.

Wow. Deep. That was deep. Deep.

So what's going on? S. Embassy's closed and... Oh, man.

Oh, you actually have hair. That's so weird. I've never seen you without a hat. I do, I know.

Oh, wow. I've never eaten a little bit. It does exist. It does.

It's amazing. And it looks worse when I have my hat on, 'cause then I... Oh, that's a good look. That's a nice look right there.

You like it? Yeah, that's fantastic. I'm gonna keep it like this. Just don't take pictures.

No, no, no, no. No problem. I gotta get the spike look going on. I'm missing that.

You know what? You master it. It takes you a couple seconds to do. Nicaragua.

It's tough to see, man. It's tough to see, you know, so many friends, families. Of course, we all have businesses, you know, down there. It's definitely complex, political.

I'm not a politics guy. Right. So I've been trying to stay out of it, but you know, a lot of people were just not happy in April of what was going on, and it's kind of a shame because there's been so much good going on in the country since I've, you know, I landed there 2003, you know, infrastructure has evolved so much, GDP's up, tourism was up, cigar industry, you see what was happening, you know, 2003, there was no cigar tourism, there was, Right. You know, not as many brands or factories.

And remember back in the 90s, it was Hoy de Nicaragua, Padrón, you know, maybe you had La Finca. Right. So, a lot of positive stuff, but in April, you know, people really rose up and were really upset with the president that he was really trying to squash the opposition. Right.

And they announced the 5% increase to Social Security, and there was a lot of protests that started, and a lot of people felt that, you know, the government had sent out some political, you know, groups, and they were caught on video beating the shit out of a lot of people, a lot of the protests. I don't know if you saw that video, but this video spread, you know, in April, within two days on Facebook. Everybody has Facebook in Nicaragua, you know? The kid, you know, begging on the streets to, you know, he's got Wi-Fi.

Everybody's got it. And, you know, that was one of the cool things people were doing. They had the new parks, you know, had Wi-Fi and, you know, all this stuff. And they're on the phones.

Yeah. And then, you know, if you knew about the history of Nicaragua, you know, people went through a lot in the '80s. You know, the Samosa family ruled Nicaragua from, I think, late '20s to 1979, you know, and then you had crazy, crazy. Can we swear on this?

Yep. Crazy shit going on in the 80s up to the early 90s. And people want a free Nicaragua. And when they saw this video, I think a lot of people in the middle that were, you know, you had pro-government people, you had people that were anti, but you had this huge group of people in the middle.

" Yeah. And, man, it got, you know, violent clashes with police and whatnot, and unfortunately it turned bloody, and then I think it was just kind of mismanaged from the beginning. You know, they had a, I think within the first two weeks, a live discussion with the president, his wife, the student groups, and all these other groups on live TV, and they just laid into 'em, and I was cringing watching it, because it's just not what should have happened, like, there should have been, you know, negotiations happening behind the scenes to make something happen, and then it's just not what should have happened, like, there should have been, you know, negotiations happening behind the scenes to make something happen, and then, you know, it's just not what should have happened, like, there should have been, you know, negotiations happening behind the scenes to make something happen. And, uh, you know, he's taken full control back, cleaned up the streets, and, um, you know.

That's kind of where it lays right now? Yeah. So, you know, I wish they would have just let these protests happen initially. Right.

And, you know, whoever was, you know, of course I'm sure the government denies the first, uh, you know, the videos at first that they weren't involved, or whatever it was, it should have been resolved. It's early on, and this thing would have been over. Right. But, you know.

Have you been down there recently? Since this has been going on? I haven't. It's been like a month and a half, and I'll be down next week.

So you've been down there since it's been going on? Yeah, I was down there when it all went down. Oh. Do you feel safe when you're there?

I didn't feel like I was in danger, but it was basically clashes with police and protesters. Right. So if you weren't in... Protesting or a police officer.

Yeah, I mean, they were, I mean, there was marches happening, a lot of the students led a lot of these marches, and then they really tried with, you know, kind of civil disobedience and tried to shut down the roads, and were trying to shut down, you know, transportation from north to south, and most of May, you know, things were shut down. This is why we're kind of behind and, you know, have some somewhat of a, you know, backorder issue, because May, you know, production was down, there was a lot of shit going down, and most of the country was blocked up, so, I mean, they had a, I think it was on Mother's Day, the whole country shut down, it was a Thursday, it was a nationwide protest. Right, yeah, I remember seeing it on the news. We just had Casey on a couple of weeks ago.

He was talking about extra protection cars when he goes and stuff. Extra what? Protection cars. The factory he does business with sent extra cars with them.

Plus Placentia. Yeah, Placentia. Yeah, I mean, yeah. That kind of stuff's not really needed.

Nick's is, you know, as Nicaraguan as a whiteboard. That's true. That's true. What does that mean?

Yeah, Casey would stick out considerably more than Nick would. I mean, you're practically a native. Yeah, I mean, you guys are there a lot. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you definitely have a, you know, yeah, I'm sure, I think Placencia had issues some time ago, I don't know if it was in Nicaragua or Honduras, yeah, I mean, I haven't, I'm in touch with everybody on a daily basis, you know, the production floor, all my friends and whatnot, so, Esteli, Esteli is its own world, you know, you're in the north, most of the population.

The population lives in the South, you have a lot more groups down in the South, you know, political groups, different groups, political groups protesting, not from the student groups, but other, you know, political groups that wanted to, you know, be involved. They've kind of, you know, the student groups, I think, were pretty genuine in what they were going for initially, which is, you know, don't suppress the opposition. You know, keep it open, but then you have other groups that are trying to mess with everything, and then you have the geopolitical situation, you know, it's like, Jesus, it's a lot. Is that centralized in Nicaragua, or is it kind of spread out?

Two hours north, yeah, so you're in Managua, you go two hours north to Esteli, and then you go, you know, another 40 minutes north, you're in Condega, and then another two and a half hours, three hours, you're in Jalapa. So it's basically to the north. Most of the population lives in the south. Nicaragua is, you know, the size of the state of New York, six million people.

It's very small. And again, most people are in the south, either in Managua, León, the colonial cities of León, or Granada. So it's definitely was more intense there. You know, everybody in Esteli, it's like, you're in Esteli, you're in the mountains, you're 800 meters up.

You're all on the same baseball team, why are you gonna be fucking everybody up? And then the cigar industry has come such a long way and I think has done so much for the community. So many people survive off of it. If there's no cigar industry, I mean, you're not eating, literally.

I mean, there's no, I mean, it would be, you know, you'd be going back to like '85 if that starts happening. So I don't think anybody wants to see that happen. So it's relatively safe. May was kind of crazy.

But I think it's been safe. I mean, you talked to Skip, right? Has he been? Yeah.

What's he been saying? Nothing. Anything? Yeah.

Nothing. No, nothing lately. Well, because that's why I talked to him in normal. He was big on posting all those videos when it was going on.

I mean, it looked pretty scary for me. Well, because he was he was right, you know, towards the center where his place is, is like two blocks from the town square, and that's where a lot of the confrontations were happening, and people were like running supplies from his block into the center when it was first going down. So it was getting, you know, it was getting kind of crazy. So, I mean, I'm not for the violence, you know, in general on any, any side.

Right. Because I don't think, you know, you're battling military that's got AK-47s, like, you're going out there with, yeah, but, you know, I think it, yeah, I mean, I just don't think that's necessarily the way to go. Right. I think that's why you have such a high death toll right now from that time is because, you know, but at the same time, I don't know, people are definitely expressing that there's something, something not right.

And the government is kind of like, I don't, you know, I don't know. Does it take the same amount of time to get to Nicaragua still? Or to Esteli? Yeah.

Yeah. Because all the roadblocks have been cleared. You know, they kind of just sent in paramilitary troops to clear everything and keep the roads, keep the roads flowing. Keep the roads open.

Yeah. So they've been trying to force, you know, early elections. I don't think there's any sign that, you know, he wants to give that power up. You know, I don't know.

When's the regular election supposed to be? I think we're looking at 2021 or 22. Oh, wow. Long time still.

Yeah. So, I'm just hoping leading up to that point, you know, there's, can be open and peace. Free elections, yeah. Right.

And I, you know, I don't know, you get too many foreign, too much foreign involvement. I don't know if that could be, you know. Stay out of it. Well, it could be, could be a lot worse.

Yeah. And then, you know, you gotta remember, there's all that Iran-Contra shit that happened in the '80s, so... Right. You know, if it gets too sketchy, you know, people are gonna, they'll start freaking out.

Right. I don't know. I don't think there was any exit strategy that was really given to him either, proper. Right.

You know, military's behind him, police is behind him, he's got a big family. I mean, if you're him, you're not going to go out to regular popular, I mean, your life is in jeopardy, so you feel the safest, you know, it's not only that you just, you know, you want to stay in power, but you got no real option without being in more danger, so I know the Catholic Church was involved, and I don't know, man. They got their own problems. They do, man.

But it's a tough one. I think the dialogue breaks down pretty quick. I see how dialogue works just within small companies. You can only imagine dealing with governments and central banks and different political parties.

It's just a shame, because everything was going so well. I wish they were advised a little bit differently, because it would be a non-issue solution. I think everybody wants to go back to the way it was. I think the government is kind of like, no, let's go back to the way it was, but then you have just too many people that, you know, now have lost their lives and, you know, people that are just upset and, but hopefully, I don't know.

You know, recently, you know, I'm a big student of, of, you know, East, East African history, Ethiopia and that part of the world, Ethiopia and Eritrea just announced after 20 years, a peace treaty, not many people have seen it, because it doesn't make, you know, big news, but it's, so it's like the Berlin Wall coming down in East Africa, and these countries were not communicated, you couldn't even take a flight there, you couldn't even make phone calls. They finally made peace. 80,000 dead, man, after 20 years. That's kind of a big number.

That's a big number. You know what I mean? It's like, at the end of the day, you know, both sides, whatever side you're on, it's like, you know, a lot of people don't have to die. You don't have to die.

I mean, it's just too much. You know, that's the last thing you want to want to see. I think we're in the 300s in Nicaragua, but it's like, I don't know, man. Crazy.

It's crazy. Crazy shit. So we'll just end it on that note then. Oh, great.

Happy positive? Yeah. Happy positive. Yeah.

Great. Well, so, you know, hey, dude, I appreciate you coming out. Always a pleasure to be here. Sticking around, hanging out.

Let's hang out. You know, I wish I got to come here more often. Yeah. Yeah, what the fuck?

But I love what you guys are doing. It's Alfredo's phone. We'll blame Alfredo. You got to blame Alfredo for everything.

He's pretty good lately, man. Alfredo's on his shit right now, man. And the guy's down 63 pounds and he's got me, I'm on my fifth day, I'm in ketosis, mild ketosis, that's where you want to be. You know, I remember the colors.

I think that we all, all need to, oh yeah, I gotta get purple, very purpley, that purple stuff. I think that we all need to thank Rosales for that. He, uh, he spawned that. Dude, he did.

And I remember I ended up getting into it. He had spoken with me like a good, at some point, um, maybe a year, when did he start that? So, he spoke to me, and then it didn't click, and I ended up seeing a documentary called The Magic Pill, and it was basically about all ketosis. It started indigenous tribes within Australia, massive amounts of diabetes, heart disease.

" Right. Your diet that you've been eating for thousands of years is the correct diet. Right. And it sort of hit me, the biggest thing that hit me was the doctor on it, saying that cancer's main food source is glucose.

Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Oh, wow. And it didn't hit me until I heard that, because I've always said, there's got to be something, you know, that we're eating or something we're doing, you have all these high cancers.

And then when he said that, I said, "That makes perfect sense. " So it follows this woman around that has breast cancer and gets on this diet, shrinks the tumor, kid with autism starts, they do the trials, you know, the autism kid, sugar in the morning, apple juices, you know, all those things are just high sugar. They changed the child's diet. Of course, the first four days was living hell, but then after the kids eating broccoli, you know, eating properly, communicating, that completely changed the whole demeanor of the child.

Crazy. Just eating, yeah. You don't have sugar, I mean, it's just not natural a lot of times. It's like, eat real food, that's pretty much it.

Right. You get all these fancy names and all that, I looked at it, it's just like, you're eating vegetables and meats and fats. Right. But everybody is convinced everybody that fat is bad.

Right. So eat the low, you know, the low fat one, which has got, you know, 35 grams of carbohydrates. Right. And it's the worst stuff you should be eating.

But Alfredo has been, I'm kind of using, I was out, I started it back in February, I lost 22 pounds, and then I fell out of it back in August. And then traveling with Alfredo, I said, I'm gonna use it as a catapult to get back on it. So I'm day five. I already feel, you know, you can feel it.

I feel better. I don't feel bloated. I don't feel, you know, lethargic. We're gonna change the cigar industry.

We're gonna be lean, mean, fucking healthy machines. Everybody's gonna have to buy small and medium shirts. Right? It's gonna be, yeah, it's gonna be crazy.

You're gonna fast forward 10 years from today and, you know, there will be no double XLs. And then if you see it, people that have the issues that are cigar smokers, many times, it doesn't have anything to do with cigars. Cigars, yeah. Or you can see people getting...

It's the pie that they ate before they smoked a cigar. Right. And God bless all us cigar smokers. A lot of us are big guys.

Pretty big guys. That's why I don't make smalls or mediums anymore. Right. Waste of time.

Thank you for that. Waste of time. But... That's 110-pound soaking wet.

Yeah. Fucking 6'3". Six foot three. Yeah.

But I gotta get on it. You've been killing it. Yeah, I've been trying. Yeah.

You know. But I appreciate you guys. Appreciate you too, bud. You guys are doing a great job.

So, #LockneckMonster. LockneckMonster. Bring your artwork, Kelly. For the record, we did mention Skip again, which gets mentioned on every episode.

Skippy Dippy! He's my dude, man. I know, but we gotta get him in here, it's a thing. Who's wrong for this episode?

Skip Martin. I think we need to do a challenge with Skip on the keto diet. That's never gonna happen. Mike's gotta get, get, uh, what's he gonna post?

He likes being the anti. You know what I mean? He does. He loves it.

He relishes in it. Is that the word? Relish? Yes, a little relish.

He relishes in it. Relish on everything. God bless him. He can't give up his rum.

Rum's made out of sugar, so. I'm glad he's alive. I'm glad you're alive, Skip. Yeah, I think we're all glad.

We're all glad Skip's alive. Get on ketosis, Skip. Mild ketosis. I think he gets on ketosis at this point.

He dies in a week, so let's not do that. No, no, he'll be fine. You know, this guy dropped 50 pounds in three months, Alfredo. Yeah, that's pretty impressive.

I mean, he's strict, but, you know. You gotta be. You gotta be. I never even knew about ketosis, that your liver produces ketosis.

Who the hell knew? Right. First thing you have to do when you're in ketosis is tell other people that you're in ketosis. Right.

So you can annoy the shit out of everybody. " He's cigar-smoking, he toasts his motherfuckers. Isn't that the vegan rule? Vegan, you know, vegan is an ancient Navajo word.

You ever know that? No, I didn't know that. You know what it means? " Awesome.

Yeah. " "Bad hunter" it is. " Better note than, you know, the other stuff. All right, thanks everybody.

Yeah, thanks guys. This is the Operator with a collect ball from Emma Riekelle. To accept the charges, press one, now. Alright folks, that's it.

Show's over. Thanks for listening. You can send in any of your questions or suggestions for guests to a Cigar Hustlers Podcast Facebook page. You can follow the show on Instagram @acigarhustlerspodcast, you can follow Mikey @cigarhustler, you can follow me @fcc_mike.

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Show Notes

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