Episode 47 Jack Torano

Episode Summary

Episode 47 welcomes back Jack Torano of Torano Cigars for a loose, unscripted hang with the Mikes — his second (or third, depending who's counting) appearance on the show. Rather than a product deep-dive, this one is a rambling industry insider conversation: what makes a great retailer partner (Jack praises Vince at B&B in Philadelphia for building brands instead of asking "what can you do for me"), the upcoming multi-vendor event at Sabor Havana in Doral where he'll feature Torano and La Gloria Cubana, and the general grind of a Florida-to-Northeast event tour.

The heart of the episode is a long, funny riff on the cigar industry's fantasy football league, where Jack — self-appointed president of the "FTG" (Fuck That Guy) club alongside Hector Alfonso — recounts his running feud with commissioner Danny Vasquez over a lopsided trade, a lobbied vote, and a golden "poop trophy." It's affectionate ball-busting from start to finish, with plenty of name-checks of industry friends like Mike Rosales, Skip Martin, Pedro Gomez and Robert Holt.

Jack also delivers genuinely useful advice for anyone considering brokering cigars: expect brands you build to eventually go in-house, be careful about accepting an in-house role that can't pay what a multi-brand book does, watch out for last commission checks, and understand that a rep's success is driven as much by the strength of the portfolio as by work ethic (Jeff Groover is cited as the Florida benchmark). Co-host Mikey shares his own early results as a new broker — six new accounts in 30 days after a dead October — plus stories from the shop, a practical joke pulled by Nick Perdomo-adjacent reps at Caribbean Cigar, and the odd plane conversation about UCF football and a father "pulling strings" from beyond the grave.

Rounding it out: the crew debates whether to take a podcast sponsor, why they refuse to script interviews (the best episodes are "mini herfs"), travel upgrade envy, Nicaragua hotel rates in Estelí, and an upcoming Florida Cigar Club holiday party at the Torano Lounge.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Welcome Back, Jack Torano
   Jack returns for his second/third appearance and the hosts joke about the five-episode "jacket" milestone and past guests like Steve Saka.
2. 02
   What Makes a Great Retailer
   Jack explains why Vince at B&B in Philadelphia stands out — retailers who build brands versus those who only ask what you can do for them.
3. 03
   FTG and Industry Pranks
   Stories from the "Fuck That Guy" crew, including an elaborate practical joke staged at Caribbean Cigar that had the whole room measuring shelf space.
4. 04
   The Fantasy Football Feud
   The extended saga of a lopsided trade, commissioner Danny Vasquez lobbying for yes votes, and the infamous golden poop trophy.
5. 05
   Advice for New Cigar Brokers
   Jack's candid counsel on brokering: brands going in-house, commission risk, portfolio strength, and why Jeff Groover succeeds.
6. 06
   Mikey's First Months on the Road
   Co-host Mikey reports six new accounts in 30 days and what surprised him about selling cigars for a living.
7. 07
   Events and Travel Tales
   The Sabor Havana multi-vendor in Doral, Club Macanudo giveaways, airline upgrade stories, and Estelí hotel prices.
8. 08
   Why This Show Isn't Scripted
   Jack critiques scripted podcast interviews and argues the best cigar shows feel like a herf, not a Q&A.

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. 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, 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. Pussling, pussling, pussling, pussling, pussling, pussling.

Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby. All right, it's time. Good. Is there music?

It's already played. They should fade in later. Put that shit in later. Yeah, we don't do that live bullshit or whatever the fuck.

But I will tell you this. Wait, Mueller, you have something to say? No, no, no, go ahead. I just grabbed the monster out of the fridge.

Yeah. And it's going to be a fucking problem. Why? Because, like, so when I take one out, I put one back in.

You didn't put one back in? It's a small number. You keep like three or four of the sugar-free monsters in this fucking fridge, right? Right, right.

There's one left. There's one cold one there. Oh, so now there's none. No, no, I put one back.

Oh. But it's almost at a point where I'm gonna reach in there and I'm not gonna have a cold fucking monster. And you know what? And what happens when that happens?

Nobody will fucking care. Nobody's happy. Nobody's happy at all. Nobody's happy.

Nobody's happy. I don't drink them too often. Yeah, I've been lately. Yeah, lately, like the past couple weeks, I've up my monster game, but whatever.

Okay, sometime in the cleaning of the office, my backup pair of glasses have been disappeared. So we're just running this, but I don't even know if it's out. We'll keep that in mind, but they're probably thrown out. That's what I figure.

Everything's blurry. So. So. Is everything, am I knocking at the door?

So check this out. No, no, no. Oh, okay. Check it out.

All right. What? First of all. Hello?

Hello? First of all, we have one of the most respected men in the industry. Where? Who?

In the clean office. There's somebody under the desk? In the clean bucket office. Well, hey, look, he's one of the guys that I respect the most.

Steve Sock is here? No. No, Sock was on the one time. I don't know who we'll ever see him again.

We'll never be back again. We heard his whole life story, so no. I'm a two-timer now. This is my second at best.

This is your second time. Is it coming to jacket or something? No, the third time. It's the third time?

Five. Five to get the jacket. Five to get the jacket. Okay, well, that's cool.

The legendary Jack Taranios in the house. Yay! Big Jack. Oh, we can do the thing.

Oh, okay, okay, ready? Oh, dude, I want you to have Mike. And my mother named me Mike, too. Oh, you're working on that now.

I'm working on this, though, yes. And this is the Cigar Hustlers Podcast. With Jack Taranio. Jack Taranio.

Brought to you today by Taranio Cigars. Yes, Taranio Cigars. So, the time that we had Saka in here... You need your credit card yet?

Yeah, no, I left that out front. The time we had Sock in here was a fucking catastrophe because both ACs were broken in the fucking shop. And he sweats in the air conditioning. Right, so it was like you're mopping himself through the whole thing.

He carries a terrycloth towel with him. I don't understand how he hasn't made Sock of towels. Like, he just did the post of fucking some beanies or something, yeah. I'm like, how has he not made a sweat rag with a fucking Sock of swatch on it?

Maybe the beanies absorb sweat. Well, again, again, I have my little travel humidor, and it's got Make Time to Burn, it's got Roma Craft, and it's got the Saka Squatch. The three stickers. I need the Powstanie sticker.

Either Powstanie or the Hustler. You need both. I need both. I need both in my life.

I feel like you need both. Last time I was here, you said grab them, and I forgot. Well, we'll make sure, and eight months later, now we're ready to take care of that. Exactly.

Hey, I got Popsockets, too. Check this shit out, huh? This is great. Look at that.

What is that? You can hold the back of your phone. It's a girl thing. It's fantastic.

It's fucking amazing. Girls love them. Oh, yeah. Okay.

You know, my fucking... Did you mass market those? Are you giving those away with, like, box sales? I'm just giving them away on occasion and stuff.

Shit like that. Nothing crazy. I'm sure they're available at B&B. They will be available at B&B.

My wife would like one, by the way. Well, she can have one. They will be available at B&B the upcoming next week. It should be an interesting shit show.

It always is when you're in Philadelphia. Are you going to be up there? Yeah, man. With Vince?

Yeah, I'm going. I love Vince. Vince is awesome. Yeah, Vince has got to be your number one guy, right?

Is he getting close? He's up there. I don't know if he's number one, but he's like top five. He's top five.

If he hears this, he'll do whatever it takes to get number one. And now he knows that there's a list, and he's on the list, but not on the top. top you know what that is the one great thing about vince at b&b is and i can't say that enough about because there isn't enough good retailers out there that have that kind of mentality like i can have a conversation with vince and he's like okay you know i really want this to be a focal point and build this and kind of grow this whereas other retailers are like what can you do for me yeah you know um and vince definitely doesn't have that mentality so i like vince man we're hitting some shit already we're five minutes in i like it nice yes good stuff all right so We have nothing to talk about. No, I got some stuff.

I got some stuff. You got a board? Are you going to take notes? In case, you know, if I get sidetracked, I like to write it down so I don't lose it.

Okay. He draws pictures. I mean, you're the president of the FTG Club. The fuck that guy.

The fuck that guy. Yes. Me and Hector Alfonso. Hey, when we're down there, we can go.

We can do--oh, dude. Oh, dude. Listen, there is nothing. It is not for broadcast, though.

No, no, no, no. But Mikey and I are going to do Miami in a week or so. The stories that come out of there can be repeated, and they often are. It's just not live.

We can't go live. We've talked about Facebook Live, but... Yes. The basis points.

So, we have the president of the FTG. Oh. We've had Hector as well, who was a fucking hoot. He's a two-parter.

One of the best podcasts. He was giving away secrets and shit. Yeah. The guy lives life.

Military secrets from... Fuck that guy. That's what I thought. " Yeah, that was awesome.

I can't wait to get him back up. Yeah, he really takes notes down there, 'cause he has a little book with everything written. You can't fucking talk about it, you can't, you know? First roll at FTG, you don't talk about FTG.

You make people wanna come in and be a part of it. That's true. Have you been down there? I haven't been down there lately, I gotta go.

We were talking about going down there, but I might have a problem with that. Oh. Yeah. So...

You mean your wife has a problem with that? No, my son's Christmas thingy is... Oh, is that week? The 12th or the 13th?

Is that where we're going? Yeah, because we're not coming back, I don't think, until the 15th, or at least I'm not coming back till the 15th, because I gotta do that radio show. So I, um, So you're heading down to Miami, uh, Mikey? Yeah, but I wanna, I wanna go with the week.

Is this Mikey one and two, or two and one and two? He's number one. He's number one. Paul's number one.

Yeah, the 12th is in the middle of the week, or 13th is. Yeah, I'm going down the week of the 10th. Okay, so I might not be able to go. Okay.

I haven't told Joan yet, anyway. Johan? Johan? His name is Johan.

Who's Johan? Florinata. Florinata. Me and him are, we're gonna hit a bunch of shows.

Yeah, so I need to do like a Florida tour here pretty soon and it's overdue and I was going to do it when I got back from Philly in New York, but I think I just fucked that up. Yeah, we had a nice time at Caribbean recently with Nick Malello. Ah, I like that guy too. So they played a little bit of a practical joke on us.

Really? Yeah, apparently they had scheduled an event last year and Malello didn't show up. Like, cancel at the last minute, and Alan, Alan wasn't too happy. He shot the ghost.

Ooh, that is like... Alan's been known to hold a grudge. That is the guy. Alan Creven is not the guy you want to fuck over, because, holy moly.

Yeah, yeah. Alan, Alan is... He's Old Testament type shit. You're dead to me kind of guy, you know.

He is. He put the kibosh on them, and... Yes. So, um, I show up there, and, uh, there's Malolo.

Malolo's being serious, and eventually, they head outside to talk. Ooh. And they're out there for half an hour talking. And you know Alfredo Cruz?

Yeah. Who's representing. That fucking guy still owes me cutters, by the way. You ever given you a cigar?

We did like a sampler packs, and we sold the sampler packs, and we forgot the cutters. Like, they left without them. " We've lost him. He's in a relationship now.

He found a girl. That's it. Because he lost all that weight. Yeah, yeah.

So as a retailer, I try and do the right thing and go through the channels of the broker, I'm just going to fucking supersede his dumb ass and go right to the source then. Yeah, so Alfredo's sitting with us inside, let me finish this because it's kind of funny. Sorry, sorry. And then we'll head out.

And basically it's a lot of industry guys there. Right. God, I can't remember. Pete Hernandez?

No, Pete wasn't there that, yet. He wasn't there yet. No, maybe he was. I mean, maybe he was.

But me and Hector and this other guy that represents, God, I can't think of his name. He's going to kill me. I can't think of his name right now. So we're all sitting around.

They go outside. They come and talk. And Alfredo's sitting in front of me. And then they storm back into the store.

And Malolo starts with, Alfredo, get up. We're getting the fuck out of this place. And now we're all sitting there. And Schumacher comes in behind him and says, no, no, no, you're not leaving until you get all this fucking shit off of my shelves.

Get it out of here. Take it with you. Yeah. So now we're all straight face to me.

Yo, my God, it was brilliant. They were up for an academy on this one. And we're all like, so like I told them later, I said, I looked over to see how much shelf space is going to be available. You know, you're playing a practical joke where I love Nick Malala, but I could give a shit.

You know, I'm looking to see what kind of shelf space we're dealing with. And, and, and they played it for like five minutes. " You know, I, ever want to fucking insulting each other and and building and then uh nick and alfredo didn't know where to hide alfredo was oh yeah because he didn't know he didn't know he wasn't on the outside and uh as they start heading outside malello and schumann start laughing that uh that they got us and they got us good they got us good but like i said everybody was taking measurements on the It was the shelf space. It was, you know, I'm real sad to see Nick go, but there's like eight facings that are clearing out of that section over there, so it was a lot of fun.

It's like that scene of Billions that you like so much. You never know what'll happen at FTG. You never know. Yeah, a good day of "Fuck That Guy" is, what were you going to say?

It's like that episode of Billions that you like so much. I want you to tell me to go fuck myself good and loud. I'm going to yell so loud, they're going to hear me in the back office. I love Billions.

I'm going to poke you now. You can poke me all goddamn, I'm sorry. So I've been binge-watching Game of Thrones. Yeah?

Catching up on that, huh? I've seen the last season, and I saw two episodes of the season before, and I was hooked. Oh, I thought you were watching it backwards. " And then everybody that I tell that to that's a GOT fan, like Hector likes to refer to it, they're like, "What do you mean?

you haven't seen seasons one through five or one through six. No, I really don't care to. You're out of your fucking mind. And they start really getting aggressive.

You haven't seen The Red Wedding? Oh, man. So they finally browbeat me enough that I'm an episode one, season three now. Oh, wow.

Really good show. You've got a long way to go. I never wanted to like it because I thought it was kind of dorky. Right.

And now I'm a dork. And now you're just accepted. Now I'm just a dork. They're like the rest of us waiting another year before it comes on TV.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, it's like April now, right? Oh, is it April 2019? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, we're getting close. That's like the first portion of it or whatever, right? Oh, they're gonna split it up? I thought they were doing two like eight, I don't fucking know.

No, it was two eight episode things or some shit. I don't know. Whatever. So, I got something I want to talk to you about.

Okay. All right, this is gonna be good, too. We're gonna fucking, we're gonna knock this thing right on the head. So, you're part of a fantasy football thing, are you not?

Oh yeah. I know where you're going. I'm part of three. I know which one you're talking about.

Let me tell you why I don't partake in fantasy football when it comes to the cigar industry. And I don't do anything with wages or cash or anything like that. I do a couple things with family and friends because, you know, at the end of the day they can get pissed off and we can just get the fuck over it because there's nothing on the line or whatever. So nobody's going to do anything kind of scandalous or anything like that.

Did he tell you I was mad at him? No, no, no, I follow the Facebook, I stay on the up and up, I stay on the up and up, don't give away our sources of anything. All right, all right, but yeah, so... Your source is Rosales, don't fucking, I know your source.

Look, I have many sources, and you're not going to coach me into giving up any names, whether you guess them or not. So, anyways, I don't partake in these things, and the reason why I don't partake in these things is because shit could get fucking serious, and if you have people involved, people get upset about it, especially if something that went down may or may not have been completely kosher, and it could have a long-term effect, not only on a personal level, but from a business standpoint, too. Yeah, no, it won't. No, this won't.

This won't. I'm not saying that this is... Danny thinks I'm mad at him, but I'm not. I love Danny.

Well, I think that you're mad at him. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But there's, there's, um, you know, that's not... Get that motherfucker on the phone.

That's, um, you know... We could only do that, Danny. That's just kind of a comparison as to why I don't partake. Like, this is just an example of it, right?

So... So you've made this about you, so now let's move on. No, yeah, and you're right, I don't want to make it about me. It's always about Michael.

It's always about Michael. So, touche. So, tell me, what happened in this Fantasy Football League? So, apparently we, and my only beef with Danny is, Danny loves to heckle, as we all do.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we love to heckle. Right. So, he didn't like getting heckled.

Aha! He didn't like getting heckled. And that's what I kind of, the last time we spoke was that, brother, you spend your life Busting balls. Busting balls.

Oh, yeah. I bust your balls and you're all offended. Because when I bust balls, it tends to have a little truth in it, you know? And, you know, it was, I don't know what the breakdown is, but there's 12 teams.

And there are, like, four, five, six, I don't know how many industry guys. Right. Then there's some Roma fans. Right.

And then you got Rosales and Danny. Right. From the company. Right.

So, my beef was, initially, that he proposed, he tried to like take my best receiver, my team sucks, dude, my team is just awful, I was drafting, at the same time, two different leagues, and instead of at least getting one good team, they both suck, so my team, and I don't care, listen, it's for cigars, if I won that league, I'd tell them to raffle it off between the, I don't need cigars, it's the fun of it, and you know, I'd take Danny And I'm like, "Dude, you're offering like a bench player for him. " So then he goes on there and proposes a trade to a Roma fan, who's not going to say no to Danny Vasquez. So the joke started that you offered him a hat, you offered him a t-shirt, you sent him some swag. What the fuck?

It wasn't a fair trade. And that wasn't a problem. We were heckling. And they're trickling him about that.

Right. The problem was that me and Hector voted no against the trade. Right. So, as it stood, nobody -- Danny's the commissioner of the league.

As it stood, nobody was even thinking about voting. So the two no votes would have nullified his trade. Danny goes on the degenerate weasel fantasy football page and lobbies for yes votes. The only person that knows who votes yes and no is the commissioner.

Right. But as a commissioner, I called him and I said, "Brother, as a commissioner, you can't do that. " And he understood. He said, "Yeah, I get it.

I'll never do that again. " And so, on that page every once in a while, we joke about the trade went through because he lobbied for the yes votes and boom, he got it. I mean, he already shipped the swag, so the fucking trade had to go through. It had to go through at that point.

It was happening. It was happening. So, the trade went through. We kept going, went back and forth about something.

And then there was another comment on there, probably three or four weeks ago. And I joked about that. And he got all defensive. Like, you know, stop fucking heckling me here.

So I sent him a text message. I sent him like, are you serious, dude? I'm just busting your ball. At the end of this, to Danny's credit, he said I overreacted.

And he apologized. That's the last text message. Yeah. To, not to my credit, I never responded.

I just wanted to fuck with him, so I never responded and I forgot about it, so he probably thinks not, but I love Danny, I love Danny when he was a voyage kid, I love Danny, Danny knows I love Danny. He is a great guy. And that's what fantasy football is, you heckle. To kind of come to his defense, it's a tough position, as a commissioner, and now you've got so many different variables in there running this thing.

Like, it would almost be better if somebody else was, like, nobody likes the fucking commissioners. No, no, no, no, no, no. And my thing was, dude, it's you, it's Mike. You put up the poop trophy on the comment, and then it was deleted.

That was it. That was the one. There it is. Okay.

So then, when he, so behind the scenes, he started, there you go, now you're reminding me, behind, I put up the poop. Yeah. The poop trophy. The commissioner's trophy.

The commissioner's trophy was a pile of shit. It was gold though, it was nice. Yeah, it was nice, it was laminated and real, real nice, and he started sending me messages, you know, like calling me a chick, or continuing to call him out, and I said, "Dude, you love to heckle, and that bothers you? " And I deleted it.

He did. And that was what threw me off. " I fucking wish Danny could listen live to this. Right?

You know, he's threatened to come on, but we're too far away for him. You know, he goes to Disney and some shit. " He's threatened to come on. " He really doesn't have much to say.

Dude, I think in this atmosphere, if you opened him up, and you kind of let him loose, he'd be funny as fuck. It would've been great if he was here. Oh, dude. Oh, dude, it would've been a surprise.

Well, now he's committed. Now he knows. Now the statement has been said. Oh, he's gonna do it, and he can counter back.

Yeah, he can counter back. " I did not do that. Or whatever. Jack was mean to me.

Jack was mean to me. Jack put up a piece of shit. Jack's probably the nicest guy in the industry. Yeah, that fucking guy was so mean to me.

Piece of shit. Now I've got to call him. Hey, man, just want to know, we're going to air this shit on Tuesday. You're going to air it.

It's a nice show on Tuesday. I ripped you again. Danny, we love you. Danny, we love you.

Great. There goes my LEs for fucking next year. I'll plug him when I put it up. You want to craft?

Not going to happen. I'm like, "Oh, cool. " Now, the other thing I want to talk to you about, which is kind of something that you kind of dabbled in, was brokering, right? Because my dear friend Palmer here is… I was a broker?

No, but you know the experience of sales, right? Oh, yeah. And the fun of it, the good and the bad. So, like, what's… Is there good?

No, of course there's good. You want to know what's good? We're sitting here right now, having a good time. Oh, absolutely.

Oh, absolutely. You know what's good when you represent Aromacraft? That's what's good. That's true.

When you represent a brand that nobody wants or needs, it's tough. But that doesn't fall on the salesman. I think that that falls more on the brand owner. That is the owner of the company.

Right. The owner of the company always looks at the salesman and says, you know, what the fuck's going on. Right, which I think is fucked up. It is.

You know, because, so what kind of advice do you have for a guy that's going out on sale? I'll run the other direction, other than run the other direction, don't do it, do something else. Keep your day job. I will tell you, Mikey, I wish you the best, brother.

Thank you. It's not an easy road, and as a broker. No, it's not. I mean, you know, you've got the superstar of Florida, Jeffrey Groover.

Yeah. And what drives him is the brands. You know, he's got, on top of his work ethic, he's got some major ammo. And he's gotten dunked on the head, too, man.

Oh, sure he did. Everybody started at the bottom of it at one time. Well, but like, you know, a lot of times it'll happen as a broker, you take a brand, you build that brand up, and guess what? They're going in-house.

A lot of times. That's not a lot of times, that's always. No, that's usually how it works. Yeah, as a broker, that's something you've got to accept.

Right. " Thank you so much. Appreciate it, thank you. " Yeah.

And if you're doing really well with other brands, you've got to say no. Right. Because that one brand's not going to pay you enough in-house. Right.

And then the more fucked up part, too, is if you say no, they're probably going to fuck you on your last commission check. Just for the record, you're not going to get that money. No. No.

What do you mean, no? No. Okay. They wouldn't do that.

I haven't heard those stories. I have. I have. You may have.

But Mikey started out with a couple good ones, so Gabby's a good guy, and the Flor de Nata, you know, he's got a couple good brands, so... I'm a big fan of Johan, so I like Johan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, these are good people, and, you know, build a little bit, don't get too big. Johan's a good dude.

You know, Groover seems to pull it off, but I mean, Groover's probably got ten different brands. At least. Probably has more than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, he's been doing it a long time. Yeah. A lot of hard work. You know, and it's tough.

I mean, as somebody like Jeff, you've got to have brands that sell. Right, yeah. Because basically he goes into a store and he's going to get an order. Is it going to be on your brand?

Right. Right, yeah, he's going to come out with something. He's going to come out with something. Right.

I like giving him nothing. Fuck that guy. And he'll like it. And he'll get nothing and you'll like it.

And he'll come back again. He'll say, bring me some lunch or something. And that is the advice. Keep going back.

Yeah. You know, I know a couple of brothers in Deltona that I came like nine times, sold my soul. They made Rui, Rui had to show up 12 times. " By the way, buy one, get one fucking Naya if anybody wants any of it.

Jesus Christ, we finally came, this shit's still collecting dust. Son of a bitch. Oh shit, am I gonna... Oh no, we did it.

That was it. Once I got you guys on board, I was out. We never saw him again. Always leave on a high note.

I've burned that my whole life. Fucking A, man. No, but you know, it wasn't you that sealed it. Miguel took care of that for you.

It was all about Miguel. That's what I heard. That's his story, so I'm just gonna read you that. That is Roberto's story.

You know, you guys had to pull the trigger the day Miguel was with me, and I'm like, oh god. Son of a bitch. We love you, Miguel. Here's the order.

Don't give it to Jack. Hand it to Miguel. You know what? That is true.

I mean, Jack put in a lot of time coming in for that friend. But hey, look at us now. We're well-established. We're good friends.

We were always good friends. I don't care if you would have never carried it. That is true. And eventually you got the sympathy order.

That's an eight times? It's the order that keeps on giving. It's still there. It is.

It is. Can't get a room. Always a little piece of Jack in. The Rebuso's pretty good though, you know, Nenea.

Okay. This is the most off-collar podcast we've done to date, by the way. They're getting more and more, like, obscure. They're just more, how do they become more real, I guess.

So you know, the last time I was here, I had the story of the movie theater. Right, yes, yes. So I got another story on my flight, and I just have to end the show with that story. So give me a heads up.

All right, all right. Well, I was listening to the older episodes the other day, Stuffing Traffic, And we were so much more professional in the beginning. Yeah. Hi.

Were you really? It sounded like he even had a special radio voice that he used. I don't even know what the fuck he's talking about. Well, it was.

Like it never happened. Bing, bing, bing. Right. It was all structured and we were just asking a lot of questions.

Well, there was definitely more structure to it. Yeah, now we're usually laying down in here in the chairs. Microphone hanging off the table. I'm drinking today on the show.

So, you know. So, Mike and Mike. That was taken, right? Yeah, that's an ESPN thing.

Well, they're gone now. Oh, they're going off ESPN? I'm sure the trademark exists. Whatever.

We're not making any money. Fuck 'em. We can do whatever we want. Nope, nope.

We're not selling anything. 'Cause you won't let me get a sponsor. No, 'cause you, no. You know the Hot Ticket?

You guys don't have a sponsor? No, the Hot Ticket Podcast? Why not? He won't take one.

He thinks he's selling out. Yeah, I'm not selling out. I'm gonna be as raw and as honest as I want to be. The two guys on Hot Ticket just got a sponsor.

That's it. I do my own thing. Fuck it, what? The two guys on Hot Ticket just got their first sponsor.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember who it was. That's cool. Yeah.

Cool story, bro. Flor de nada. Flor de nada. So now, if it's some bullshit cigar, and they're like, hey, this is a great cigar, what happens then?

It's a company that sells them overseas or something, it's some Cuban thing or something. But, you know, good for them. Yeah. Yeah, that's just it.

It's not one brand. Yeah. So it's like... I like the hot ticket.

Is that Danny? Is Danny texting you? No, this isn't live. He doesn't know what's going on right now.

That would be funny. It would have been great if he was alive and he'd call. We could call him and put him on speakerphone. So, where are you traveling now, as we lost you to your phone?

I was gonna call Danny. We are, um, um, well tomorrow I gotta, when I, when I booked this one, I didn't realize that the big multi-vendor in Miami was Saturday. m. flight, and then I got an all-day multi-vendor down in Miami.

Is that a direct flight back to Miami? Or do you have to go to Atlanta to go back? No, Miami, it's a direct flight. No, well, I used to fly my son up from Fort Myers.

They used to do a direct flight from Fort Myers to Orlando. Was that Aer Lingus? No, it was an AirTran or something. But then they stopped, and you had to go to Atlanta, change planes, and then fly back down to Orlando.

Oh, that sounds like awesome. Yeah, when he was young. No, he can't get off the plane. But it was like 40 bucks, I mean.

Yeah, my budget allows me to fly non-stop. Wow, you're a very important man. Yeah, he's Jack Tronius. He's Jack Tronius.

He's Jack Tronius again. Still employed. Still employed today. Crushing it.

Crushing it. So, what's a multi-vendor in Miami? Smoke This, Sabor Havana in Doral. Oh, okay.

I've been there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great store. They're setting up today.

I've been watching them. It's actually pretty cool. I mean, they gave me a... We're going to feature Taranio and La Gloria Cubana, and they gave me the secondary band, smoked this, and we sent them to the factory, and they...

That's cool. And we got a beautiful Macanudo golf bag that we're going to raffle off. That's nice. I'll get you one of these for the store.

Does it say Macanudo or say M? Club Macanudo. Club Macanudo. It says Club Macanudo.

I had to set it off once. It says Neon. The new ones have the big M. They have the big M.

For Inspirato, but they don't give me the new ones. - I'm going by last year's stock. - The struggle. - The struggle.

- At least he has a job. - All right, well, hit us with your story. Come on. - So I meet this guy on the plane who's kind of across the aisle from me, and he's a little on the chatty side, you know?

And so there were two interesting ones. One was real quick. This guy is in first class with his four kids, all of them from about four to eight years old. - Nice.

He's taking up, each one of his kids has a first class ticket. So the guy that was in front of me was number one on the upgrade list. And when he saw that all these kids were first class, he made a rather loud, rude comment. You know, like, I didn't get upgraded because of these fucking kids.

And the father turned, but I was like, oh, this is going to get good. I'm going to get my phone out. This is going to get good. But no, the father didn't do anything.

I don't know if I would have been the father of those kids. I would have fucking blasted that guy. And then, so then I got the guy next to me that, because of that little event, you know, we exchange pleasantries, and he starts, I mean, I'm a big guy, he assumes I'm a football fan, or played football at some time, this guy was like 6'8", he was, you know, I'm not comfortable in coach, he was super uncomfortable in coach, and he starts talking about UCF, UCF. And his story is that his dad graduated from UCF like 40 years ago.

And all he remembers, I didn't even know UCF existed 40 years ago. Yeah, I didn't either. But, and he says that his dad, all through him growing up, would tell him, UCF, they're gonna have a good football team one day, son. They're gonna have a good football team.

Well, dad croaked 10 months ago. And he's giving his father all the credit for UCF. " You're a dad from beyond the grave. Was this pre or post the quarterback blowing out his fucking knee?

I heard that. They haven't lost yet though, right? No, but that was last week. Two weeks ago, I think.

Two weeks ago. Was it two weeks ago? Yeah, two weeks ago. So, yeah, so, and he wouldn't let it go.

Right. Like, I kind of chuckled when he said it, and he's like, no, no, no, my dad was such a UCF fan that I know he's up there, and I know he's, I'm like, okay, wow, okay, where do we go from here? Did you give my numbers to a therapist or anything like that? Where do we go from here?

And then he recommended a couple of, like, self-help books or something. I'm like, what strikes you about me that I, that I'm not buying your fucking story? What were the self-help books? I'm intrigued to see what direction he was going.

How to talk to relatives that have died. How to talk to relatives that have died, very religious. So he had that look of him, those guys that show up at my door on Sunday morning, wanting to... " So it was.

Lord, please don't drop the plane. Dad, Dad, if you're up there, can you fly the plane today, please? We've ventured too far into politics and religion, so... Did he feel the self-help book didn't get him into first class?

I mean, what the hell? No, he wasn't, though. He was on no upgrade. That's what I'm saying.

But, yeah, Dad couldn't pull the punches. Dad's worried about the UCF football team, but you're right in coach. That actually would have been a good line. You're cramped over here.

Dad didn't give a shit about you. But UCF's gonna win this weekend. Hey, right? Good stuff.

Put some money on the game or something. You got anything else to add there, mister? No, I got nothing else to say. No, you got to add something else, man.

Come on, Michael. Oh, we're at 30 minutes. So wait a minute. It's a slow week for me.

Is this a track thing for you? Is this a victory one? Can we go like 33 minutes? Yes.

Yeah, 30 seconds. Okay, give me, how long you been doing this brokering stuff? Yeah. Since the end of September.

So really October, November, or December. Well, not December yet. So October, November. Give me a good story.

I don't have any good stories. He does. I went up six accounts in the last 30 days. He fucking does.

You've opened up six accounts in 30 days? Yeah, in the last 30 days. Nothing happened in October. But towards the end of November, things started opening back up.

So you feel good? Yeah, I'm feeling better. You went that direction? Yeah.

Yeah, so far. I'm not disappointed or looking to quit or anything, no. Okay. It was a little harder than I thought it was going to be, to be honest.

Well, who do you quit to? What? Who would I quit to? Yourself?

Well, I still have my other job, my other business that I do with China. I still do that. But as long as I can answer the phone or send an email, I can work from any shop or in a car or whatever. Okay.

So I still do that. Do I know about your job in China? Do you want to go to China? I don't know.

I set up factories in China for US and Canadian companies. Do you really? Yeah. I've been going to China for about 18 years now.

Nice. It's a big deal. Nice. That's a real flight.

You ever get upgraded? I used to. In the old days, I used to go like six, eight times a year, so I was always at least business with the ice cream cones coming down the aisle and all that kind of stuff. Me and the wife went to, last year was the first year I went Executive Platinum, and we did Amsterdam.

He just fucking drops his dick on the table. Oh, dude. So, there's good, there's good and bad. We get upgraded, we go Miami, Dallas, Dallas, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Philly, Philly, Miami, and we are upgraded on all four flights, and two of the flights are triple sevens in these private pods.

Oh, I haven't done a five. Cessie, my wife, is living large. " That's the problem. That's the problem.

Once you've been up front. Dude, give me the finer things, man. The year before we went to Spain, back with the commoners. Yeah, I go once or twice a year, so now I'm in the back.

So when you're back there, you spend the whole time dozing off and looking at your watch, and how long is this going to take, and how long is this going to take? Dude, we didn't look at our watch one fucking time. At least now, though, the seats in the back have the TVs in the back of the seat a lot. When I first started going, it was down the aisle, the one screen, like you're watching a movie run.

And some guy's holding up his newspaper, some guy stands up during the big scene, it was terrible. " She's set the bar now, pal. Well, my wife, when I first started dating, I used to use my miles to fly her back and forth from Missouri, and she would get bumped to first class, so then she got spooled fast, so she got off the plane one time drunk, and this guy who said he was going to take her to his island down in the Caribbean, I'm like, no, she never rode first class again. That'll be the last time.

That's the last time you're sitting up front. Guess what? You're going to Uber? You win to white slavery or something?

No, you're not good. I met this guy, he's great. Take me to an island, he's so nice. He says you can come, too.

Yeah, right. I'm sure I'm going. Yeah, bring your husband, sure. Yeah, exactly.

Well, it was boyfriend then. So yeah, bring your boyfriend. Take your boyfriend with me. You just had an anniversary or something, right?

Birthday. Birthday. My wife's birthday was yesterday. Yeah, I saw it.

That was a nice little tribute you put on Facebook. Thank you. That was very nice. She gave up her birthday to spend the day with us at the hospital.

His dad had a procedure yesterday. Okay. Is he all right? Yeah, yeah.

He turned out okay. She took the day off of work, and... I can talk to the guy on the plane to say approval. There you go.

Right. No, he's okay. I was starting to kick my ass this morning, so dad's fine now. Oh, so he's good.

Yeah, he's back to normal. Like it never happened. Yeah, just like it never happened. Where, where yesterday?

Stop touching me, I'll kick your ass. That's a pretty good sacrifice, man. She went out and did it with you, you know? Well, we had surf and turf last night for dinner.

I cooked her steak and lobster. Nice. I didn't get the invite. Hot fudge, it was just for two.

Hot fudge, lava cake for the birthday. Could have been for three. We actually had a third. I had it for lunch today.

She had half, I had half. Oh, very nice. Steaks came in packs of three, unfortunately. Womp womp.

Womp womp. You're buying steaks in packs of three? Publix? Oh, okay.

Top Sir Lines? Very good. Costco, man. Costco meat department.

There's no Costco around here, though. You've got to go way over to the other side of town. There's no Costco in Orlando? Well, yeah, but it's way over in Altamont.

It's like 45 minutes over that way. 25. It's your wife, buddy. Drive the 45.

She's worth it. We've got Top Sir Lines in Publix. She is worth it. Oh, we left the phone in.

Son of a bitch. Let's see if it gets another one. That was two rings. Nice.

Steve Saka. It's Danny Vasquez. He knows we're talking about him. His ears are ringing.

That's awesome, dude. Well, that's it. That's all we got. That's all we got?

So who do you want to open up as a broker? Like, what guy are you like, that's the guy? Well, I email Corona once a week to Joe and Jeff. Good luck with that.

You want the Jeff B. I even showed up one time at Sandlake and sat there for an hour and a half, and that's how I got the email address. Nice. I finally got rid of you.

Just give him my email phone. Give him my e-mail phone, believe. What's the name of our Monday show? FTG?

FTG. So, you know, I mean, hey, you could do it, another 12 more hours sitting in the lobby, maybe, you know. Well, just once a week I'll show up over there, not maybe. That's cool.

Show up on Fridays. And we'll see. You know, let them know how great Florida Sun Grown is, I guess. I don't know.

Well, this is the podcast. Robert Holt was telling me. This is the one. We're off the air, right?

Yeah, exactly. Robert Holt said to have my wife call. He always has his wife call. Robert Holt.

I love that guy. Yeah, I just did an event with him the other night, over at Executive. He's a cool guy. He's a cool guy.

He's a very nice guy. Did you see the big post he put up about me on Instagram the day after? He gave me a nice plug. He was very nice.

I don't think he has any representation here. He's doing it, right? Yeah, he's doing it. Yeah.

He won't take him on. He's got some nice cigars. I know he does. Yeah, he's got some nice cigars.

Yeah, he does. I like how this just got awkward. That was awkward. It did, it got awkward.

Might have been a good pickup for you. Yeah, I know. Yeah, it would be. I'm saying.

We've been tap dancing around, but nope, I don't think it's going to happen. So, anyways. Anyway, on that note, you want to conclude the podcast? Yeah, let's shut it up now.

And if he doesn't pick you up, fuck that guy. Fuck that guy! Fuck that guy! There you go.

There you go, that's all in it right there. All right, wait. Jack. Jack, thank you very much for coming on in.

Thank you guys, man. you guys, man. I love you, buddy. I love this.

I can't wait for my jacket. Three more times. You're almost there. I think no one's got three as shown.

Do we count the first one? No, the first one doesn't count. Okay, then everybody's at two. Never made air.

Who's that? Florinata. He's been on twice? He's been on twice.

He's made the air twice? Yeah, he's made the air twice. Really? Yep.

We've been doing this too long. It's time to quit. This is episode 47. You got anybody coming in?

Right now? You got like... Somebody commented today, you posted that you were, you had your screen there and you were waiting, and somebody said you got your next four guests already. Yeah, I don't know who that was either.

Somebody wanted to know if we had the next four ready to go. I don't know. It was Aaron from the club, but I don't know what he was talking about. I'll see you tomorrow.

Well, this is all time to post. The Florida holiday, Florida Cigar Club holiday party's tomorrow. Cutters. At the only Taranio, yes, the Taranio Lounge.

Yes. The legendary Taranio Lounge. It is. Yes.

Alex picked up the Caffey line. So it's Caffey Cutting Light, Florida Cigar Club Holiday Park. Talk to that guy. What's wrong with him?

We're gonna trash the place, take all the Taranio stuff down. Yeah. So, yeah. Alex is a great guy.

He is a great guy. Alex and his wife, Penelope. Penelope. Good people.

Very nice people, yeah. Penelope. Penelope. They're good people.

Penelope. Penelope. So yeah, you are very comfortable. I'm just he does Knocks my feet down.

I don't like his feet on my chair if this are you ever gonna go video on this I want to he doesn't want to Like then how would we do that? We wouldn't tape it and edit it just Facebook live and they can watch it when we do it the problem is though Sometimes you have to edit these things because some people say shit Oh, that's racist. You can't fucking say that! You know what I mean?

You'll lose your job! You know, here's the thing, we want you to stay employed, and we don't want to be the direct fucking cause of you losing your job, so we're gonna crop that section out of it. Hey, that's racist! Only one industry person was like that.

Even still, you need more than one example? The other one, he died. Holy crap! You've had a guest that died?

Yeah. Not an industry guy. We purposely taped him, We knew that his time was ticking. It was a regular that showed up here at the shop.

But he wasn't racist. He was more like a chauvinist. No, no, there was some racist. Maybe a little, but not too bad.

No, no, more chauvinist. More old school. I don't want to call him racist. I'd just call him...

You guys, man, I didn't know you were that large. You had Trump on there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

He was tweeting about it. Can you edit that part out? That's why we can't get Skip to come on. Oh, you know we did mention Skip last week once.

Oh, we did? No, we did not. He has. One time.

He has been in the store once. He has been in the store once. It was pretty comical. Skip would be a fucking great guest, dude.

We mention him every week just because he listens. He's my dude. It's not because he listens. He's my dude.

He is truly one of my favorite dudes, man. Mine, too. Eh, I can do it without that fucker, but... Fantasy football.

I kicked his ass two weeks ago in fantasy football, so it's like my only win in the last six weeks. " I'm like, "Oh, okay, cool. You ain't got time. " And then he saw that he pissed me off, like, you know, he kind of upset me about it.

" Once you're out, you're out. That's a done deal, buddy. You've been replaced. That's it.

The tribe is voted. You're no longer allowed. It's over, pal. It's over.

So, I'm gonna see him in New York and Philly and stuff, too. So, that'll be entertaining. Yeah, he came into one of the FTG shows, and we vented about it. It was right the week after the Danny thing happened.

So we got to vent a little bit. And that was the other thing. That was the one thing that Danny came back and he said, yeah, I heard from a bunch of people you've been talking shit about me. I said, brother, the only person you could have heard it from was Mike Rosales, and I told you what we said to Mike Rosales.

We've talked to no one else. Danny, no one gives a fuck about our fantasy. You know, I'm not going around the country. Everybody's asking every shop.

" Let me tell you about this shit trade that happened. That Danny Vazquez is a whiny little bitch. Now we're all fucked. You crossed the line.

You're never getting anything. Now we're all fucked. Great. So, we love you, Danny.

You're in with Chief Hava, man. You don't have to worry about Danny. I don't know, man. You know, that guy, he's at the fronts.

He can alter shit. You know, shit's a good package. No, we never know. Oh, man, sorry about that.

A little typo. Yeah. You're going to get boxes of Naya's. That's all you're going to get.

Fucking hit the credit card for 50 grand or some shit. Like, oh, my bad. My bad. It's supposed to be 5,000.

I'm sorry. Send a box of avarice instead. Like, oh, wait a second. That could happen.

So, I love you, Danny. Don't hurt me. You just told him what to do now. He just gave him all the ideas.

That guy's pretty creative. Like the news, saying how the terrors get into things. Danny's a sharp dude. I gave him no ideas.

" Yeah. " Koi? Koi. Are you gonna be sitting there shipping and receiving, or is there more to that job?

" Right. If you're willing to up and move to Austin, absolutely. Right. You couldn't be working for anybody better than that.

So, and it seems like a marriage maiden has a lot of money. It seems like a marriage made in heaven. Those guys, he fits in really well with them. Yeah, it seems to be working out well.

Can't play fantasy football worth a shit, but he's good at what he does. He's got his name on the t-shirts now. It's good to be the king. Yeah.

Everybody vote yes. Everybody vote yes. I got two no votes. Everybody vote yes.

Oh, fuck. I'm making fun of him again. Jesus Christ. He could have just went and said, "I got 17 yeses, Jack.

" Yeah, he is a commissioner. He's a commissioner. He's accelerated, too. It was a secret ballot.

He said, "Click, here's a trade. " No time for fucking voting! No time for voting! Oh, yep, no, I, you know.

Commissioner, is it okay? Yeah, it's okay. Whoever, I mean, you've seen the trophy they had for the, if he doesn't win it, he might lose some sleep. I mean, he's, he's, he's a competitive little fucker.

It's a big deal. You know. I like this. This is a great podcast.

Yeah. Somebody said last week, we're like the Seinfeld podcast. Our podcasts are about absolutely nothing. Well, you know.

But they go good places. But they go good, yeah, but they sound good. Because we don't want to, I don't want to just give the fuck in, all right, so tell me about the new cigar you got coming out. Oh, dude, I did a podcast that won't be named, but everybody on the show had a script, so they would ask me a question, and then in answering that question, unbeknownst to me, I would elaborate a little bit on that answer that would cover the next question, and it was like they weren't listening to me.

So then they'd ask the question. Like two or three different times, their follow-up question was what I just finished saying. And I'd look at them like, can we say it again? I just explained that to you.

I just said that. So that was, and they said, what did you think about the show? And I said, you know. You guys suck.

One thing I suggest is throw those scripts out the window. Well, at least they asked you for feedback. They finally did it. They finally did it.

But, dude, throw those scripts out the window. The best thing about these podcasts is when it becomes like a little mini hearf. It's just a bunch of people shooting the shit. You get the best stories.

You get the best crap. You get whatever the hell. You get people saying shit they shouldn't say. It sucks for me when you get the opposite.

When the person sits down and they're just like, well, and they give you your fucking quintessential fucking answers. I'm like, all right, cool. Thanks, man. Yeah, Mikey cut it like quick.

And I can close it. All right. Thank you very much for coming in. If you ain't gonna be real, it's over.

We're gonna fuck it out. And we're done. And we're finished. We're done.

We're over. So. All right. Well, cool.

That's it. All right, now we're done. Are we back at 30 minutes? No, we're almost at 50.

Nice. We have to two parties. All it took was 50 minutes of ribbing Danny. We got there.

You're losing those boxes again. I'm totally fucked. It's all right. Again, I love you, Danny.

I love you, Danny. We all love Danny. We all love Danny. He's still got a little thin skin on him, but we all love Danny.

He's a good dude. I've slept with him. You slept with him? In the same room.

Oh, that's right. In a foreign country. In a foreign country. I'm glad you elaborated on that.

I purposely dropped it that way, in that design, so, you know. In Nicaragua? In Nicaragua. You guys share rooms?

Shared a bed. Do whatever it takes, man. Shared a bed. I think that...

Those were like $32 over there, you can't get your own fucking room. You can't get another room. They didn't want to, Jack, that's what it was. First of all, hotels are not like Unless you want to fucking sleep in The worst hotels in Esteli But they're not like 30 They're like 80 80?

What do you get, the gringo rate? 80? The most I think we've paid at the Hex is like 42 bucks Damn This is all you coming, brother When we were down, it was Nicoprosa and everything Everything was booked Everything's double Have you stayed at Los Santos? Yeah, that's the best spot.

Gretel's place? That's the best spot. I love Gretel. Uh-oh.

It looks like you got more than that. No, no, no, no. She's actually, I think she's dating somebody from Drew Estate. No shit.

Pedro? No, no. Everybody's dating Pedro. This guy?

Yeah. He's in town next week. Is he? Yeah, somewhere he's gonna be.

I forget where it was. I run into him on airplanes. Oh, yeah? I run into him everywhere.

Well, he's gonna come in for the corona thing, probably. Pedro is a ball of energy, man. Maybe we can get him back on. The mayor of Esteli.

Yeah, I'm here next week, but not the week after. " And he always does that. Right. You know, you and Robert Holt do the finger thing now.

Is that like something they teach you at... I stole it from Robert Holt. Did you? That's something they teach you at celebrity school?

I don't know. Make sure you point at the other guy? The guy that won the humidor. This guy.

Just in case people aren't sure. Don't show which one's which, it's Zach Guy, don't look at me, look at that guy. Alright, I'm gonna wrap this shit up, bro. Alright, we're done, that's it, thanks everybody, bye.

This is the Operator with a collect ball from... 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 at a Cigar Hustlers podcast. You can follow Mikey at Cigar Hustler and you can follow me at FCC_Mike.

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Show Notes

This week Big Jack came by again!  One of our FAVORITE guest!

More stories from the FTG sessions in Miami, where he has been, Travel problems for a man of his caliber and our usual Bullshit!

Don't miss another great show!!

As always we welcome your comments, ideas and 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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