Episode 64 Jeff Mouttet Riverside Cigar Shop

Episode Summary

Episode 64 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast features Jeff Mouttet, owner of Riverside Cigar Shop and the adjoining Match Cigar Bar in Jeffersonville, Indiana, just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky. Jeff was in Tampa for the Senate subcommittee field hearing on premium cigars hosted by Senator Marco Rubio and stopped by the shop on his way to the airport. He talks about eight years in retail, how he originally refused to put any cigar in his humidor that he hadn't smoked and loved (an all-boutique, know-the-brand-owner approach), and how FDA deeming regulation forced him to start carrying mainstream names like Montecristo White and Romeo y Julieta as new boutique releases dried up.

A big chunk of the episode is a detailed recap of the Rubio hearing. Jeff breaks down testimony from Dr. Brad Rodu of the University of Louisville on tobacco harm reduction — arguing premium cigars fail all three of the FDA's own addiction criteria (frequency of use, youth use, discernible health impact) — plus testimony from Jeff Borysiewicz and Drew Newman on the farming and retail sides, and the Small Business Administration's account of the FDA ignoring small-business impact review. They also discuss Tobacco 21 legislation, why premium cigars risk being "squashed like a bug on a windshield" by mass-market regulation, and why legislative or judicial relief is the realistic path.

Skip Martin of RoMa Craft Tobac takes over as "surprise interviewer" in the second half and turns the show into a masterclass in small-business retail: the value of an MBA and business-plan literacy, why taking on a partner purely for capital is the worst mistake a new shop owner can make, what Jeff learned from a failed second location, and why uncertainty in regulation is worse than a bad law. Jeff explains why he opened in Indiana rather than Louisville or Lexington (their smoking bans require 75% of gross annualized sales from tobacco, impossible with a bar), how Derby and Oaks week makes May one of his top two sales months, and how he curates a top bourbon program as a non-drinker. Also covered: the upcoming Craft 2019 release — Riverside's 10th anniversary cigar released for their 8th anniversary, a Lonsdale on the Cro-Magnon blend with Candela and Ecuador Connecticut wrappers — plus the five questions and why seven of Riverside's top ten selling cigars are RoMa Craft.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Meet Jeff Mouttet of Riverside Cigar Shop
   Eight years of retail in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and why the hosts rarely get to interview actual shop owners.
2. 02
   Curating a Humidor Under FDA
   Jeff's original rule of only stocking cigars he'd personally smoked and loved, and how the deeming regs forced him to add mainstream brands.
3. 03
   Craft 2019 Release
   Riverside's 10th anniversary cigar on their 8th anniversary — a Cro-Magnon-blend Lonsdale in Candela and Ecuador Connecticut, with a May 3 launch event.
4. 04
   The Marco Rubio FDA Field Hearing
   Jeff recaps testimony from Dr. Brad Rodu, Jeff Borysiewicz and Drew Newman, and why the FDA's own data undercuts premium cigar regulation.
5. 05
   Tobacco 21, Mass Market vs. Premium
   Why a sub-$1-billion premium category risks collateral damage from rules aimed at cigarettes and mass-market cigars.
6. 06
   Skip Martin's Retail Masterclass
   Business school, pro formas, the advice Jeff ignored about taking on a partner, and what a failed second store taught him.
7. 07
   Why Indiana and Not Louisville
   Louisville and Lexington smoking bans, the unworkable 75% tobacco sales exemption, and why regulatory uncertainty is worse than a bad law.
8. 08
   Derby Week and the Bourbon Bar
   How May becomes a top sales month, preparing for 10X traffic, and how a non-drinking owner picks barrels for Match Cigar Bar.

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

Welcome to episode 64 of a Cigar Hustlers podcast. This week, we sit down and talk to Jeff Moutet from Riverside Cigars. Hope you enjoy the show. Be watching out for the surprise interviewer towards the end.

Okay, John. So I want to talk to you about something that you casually mentioned but I haven't addressed just yet. Uh-oh, what'd I do? You did something.

Don't do it all. Save it for the year. We're on. We're on.

We're recording. We're officially, see now people know you're in the room. Now they know you're here, and you're not even being interviewed just yet, so now they've got to wait until next week. Oh, that's right.

It's a whole other week. This is a separate show. Yeah, and if it's like an eight hour interview, it's fucking... You want to be good for the rest of the year.

Yeah, we just don't have to do a single podcast ever again. Ever. This is going to be the final podcast. So anyways, you went ahead and you casually dropped this during one of our podcasts, so that we had a great review on iTunes.

You know, so I look at it, and I'm like, wow, that was really well said, you know, whoever looked at it, that was really nice, and then I look at the fucking review, and it says, Mike P on it, I'm like, motherfucker, I didn't realize you put my name on until it was too late, you can't take that shit back down, it's a fantastic review, it's very well liked, and, you know, they said I was funny and you were angry, yeah, yeah, I was like, oh wow, that son of a bitch, who wrote that? Right, so you're telling me you never reviewed your own shop on Google? No, I mean, I guess I would. I don't think that I ever have.

Tell me your microphone up for him a little bit. So, you got to talk right into it. Yeah, you just got to kind of take it, Mike, you got to be right in your face. So, um, so we have we have a couple special guests tonight, and it's going to lead into a few- Cigar Houser Podcast After Dark episodes.

Yes, yeah, because when Skip comes into town, it's a fucking tornado. He's a great potato of my life, and he likes making everything very, very interesting. The fucking, I don't want to get ahead of it, because that's going to be the next episode, but the message said, be ready for anything, and you know, I wasn't ready for everything. We're going until 3am.

Yeah, 3am. So, but we do have a very good friend of mine, Mr. Jeff Moutet from Riverside. You said it right.

I know, I'm a professional. Thank you. In Springfield, Indiana. In Jeffersonville, Indiana.

So say hi, Jeff. How are you? Hi, everybody. I'm doing great.

So this is cool because we don't get to interview a lot of retailers in the industry. We only get a handful of people that actually fucking come out here that are retailers. But if you're in the industry and we think that you've got a good story to tell, we'll definitely put you on the spot. And this just kind of worked out really well.

Here you are, you're in Tampa, and you decided to come out. Why are you in Tampa? In Tampa for the Senate subcommittee hearing with Marco Rubio. And decided to come down and see you guys.

But don't ask me any questions about retailing because I don't know what I'm doing. Bullshit. I'm just figuring it out as I go along. The fuck out of here.

He's giving up sleep to be here. I mean, he has to go from here to the airport. But I think that, you know, I mean, Jeff has been my roommate in many adventures into Esteli, Nicaragua. He snores.

Yeah, I do snore. Any night terrors? Any night terrors yet? No, I guess so.

Well, see, here's the thing, is that Skip wears us out to a point where I just, you know, you fall asleep, you know? So, I don't know where I was going with that, now that you totally fucking put me on blast. We have Robin Quivers back in the house. Oh, look.

You gotta put the mic, there you go. Hello? Oh, there you go. Oh, okay, alright.

You're on. You gotta get up to it. So, yeah, so we know each other pretty well. Pretty well.

We've been through, how long have you been in retail there, Jeffrey? We're coming up on our eight-year anniversary. Nice. That's why we made him a 10-year anniversary cigar.

Right. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute, okay, now this is a good space, this is a really good space to clear the air on this, because every time for the last three years, about five or six months before our anniversary, I ask Skip for an anniversary cigar. Right. " Yes.

And by that point, it was too far gone to let it go, so we just let it happen. So Skip is obviously in the room, and we don't have a mic in front of him because he's not supposed to fucking say anything for this entire podcast, but he can't resist, so I'm sure he'll be timing it from time to time. We only have a four-mic show, too, so we don't... Yeah, the struggle is real.

But this is our second podcast downstairs in the non-spoken, non-smoking, smoking lounge. With the ashtrays. More ashtrays this time than last time. So you've been in the industry for eight years.

Eight years. I mean, you've definitely seen a lot of dynamics change as far as, you know, what's hot, what's not. How do you decide to... what makes you decide to carry something new?

Let me ask you that. Well, that calculus has kind of changed over the last couple of years with so much not new stuff coming out anymore with this FDA stuff living over us that it's been really tough. My original concept was I wouldn't put anything in the humidor unless I smoked it and thought it was really special. I mean, for the first five years, I did not put one cigar in the humidor that I didn't smoke and think was really good.

Of course, I didn't carry any of the big names at all. I carried all boutique, all small brand, all stuff that pretty much I knew the brand owner or I didn't carry it. Now that, by necessity, has changed with the FDA landscape and all that going on. But you still had consumers coming in asking for your Monte Crystal Whites and your Romeo and Juliet's and shit, right?

Yeah, so I broke down and started carrying some of that stuff. Yeah. I mean, it's just a given. There's nothing you can do.

Skip's taking fucking pictures. Oh, God. He's like a little fucking tourist. He's as giddy as a schoolgirl.

Stop talking to him. He's not really here yet. I'm just letting people know what's going on in the room. You're like interrupting yourself now.

I can't help myself. I'm excited. I don't even have to do it anymore. Yes.

Yeah, it's true. Okay, so obviously you've integrated some things, but still new shit's coming out. I think a lot of, as FDA has kind of progressed, and like when we first heard about it two or three years ago, it was like... Everybody locked up.

Yeah, like a fucking atom bomb went off and nobody was going to make anything new, and then like reps would come into the shop and they're not supposed to give you cigars, so they'd casually leave them on the fucking counter. I'm like, dude, give me a fucking break. You know, like that shit would legit happen. But now, as it's kind of progressed, and I think that we've learned that FDA doesn't know what the fuck they're doing, so a lot of guys are still making new stuff.

Well, and a lot of that depends on how you read the proposed legislation and the rulemaking, and people are going to read it how they want to read it. I mean, the way Skip is reading it, dark-air-cured tobacco with vegetable gum, same box count, and you're good. And General and Altevis don't want to read it that way. They want to read it down to the Viso, Seiko, Lajero from this firm and that firm.

Both sides to their benefit. So, it's really convoluted the landscape a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. So, are you excited about anything else new that's coming out?

I mean, I heard that there's something that's coming your way. And I'll just tell you right now, I get a fucking ton of DMs and private messages and bullshit about... I have no idea what you're talking about. About this cigar that's coming out, and it's going to be coming out in a couple of weeks, right?

A couple of weeks, a couple of weeks now. So what do you got? So our 10th anniversary cigar on our 8th anniversary is being released. The event is actually May 3rd, but we've obviously done quite a bit of pre-sale for them.

Right. So I think they're shipping in two weeks. And what is it? Craft 2019.

Ooh! Which, uh? It's based on the Cro-Magnon blend, it's a Lonsdale size, and there are 14 different patterns on the cigar, are they half and half Candela and Ecuador, Connecticut, Skip? So half of them will be Candela and Cro-Magnon, yeah, amazing, hardly ever happens.

We got the door open too, can you hear the chirping in the background or no? A little bit, it's not bad. It's nice. Ambiance.

It's romantic. Just added sound effects of the nature. 10 o'clock in the morning and they're going to be jamming out to the evening sesh. Right.

I tried to cover the air conditioner. It's got that fan that won't blow off. You know there was a remote on top of the air conditioner? Really?

Batteries dead, of course. But don't use the bathroom in here. Not yet. It's clean, but it doesn't work.

Yeah. Well, thank God we can smoke. No, we're not smoking. There's no smoking.

Nothing has happened. There's no smoking in here. He came down today and he smells like smoke in here. What's in here?

Like, nobody smokes in here, Greg. How can you, first of all, how can you leave the cigar store and go into anywhere else and say that it smells like smoke? Right. Like, that's not fucking possible.

I said that's the mold, Greg. That's the black mold. Yeah, exactly. It's the cancer that's in the fucking walls that you're smelling.

That's what's over there on the wall. So, like, I mean, you know, we've had a couple of adventures together. Like, I wasn't, I honestly didn't think that you were coming today. So, like, I'm totally not prepared for this podcast, so I'm doing my best to wing it and provide as much content and information to kind of lob up to you so you can talk about it.

Well, I totally didn't think I was going to come either. Right, but you would, you know... Being with Disastre over here and... Fucking disaster.

I mean, and honestly, I'm in Tampa, I'm only an hour and a half or two hours away from you, and, you know, I couldn't resist the opportunity, even if it means two sleepless nights in a row. You'll recover. I'll recover. You'll be fine.

I'll recover. I'll sleep when I'm dead. So what's been the hardest hurdle for you as a retailer? Because you've been through some shit, you know?

Well, you know, I was kind of joking at the beginning, but I was kind of not joking at the beginning. I worked at a retail store for two years, and all I really learned there was what not to do. So I really never learned. I mean, I had an idea in my head of all the things that I saw that were wrong with that shop that I wasn't going to do, and I never really, I just kind of learned as I go along, and I'm still learning every day, I mean, I try to, to the best of my ability, try to find something to get better at every day, and whether that's providing really good customer service, or getting a website up, or working on a consistent communication plan with our customers, I've worked on all that stuff.

He took notes in our last patio session. I did take notes in our last patio session. He did take notes. We both took notes.

But, you know, if you can get a little bit better every day, you don't have to know it all to start. That's true. That's true. I mean, you know, the business, what the fuck is the quote?

Now I'm going to fuck it up. Improving the business is the business, you know? And that's kind of like, that's definitely the design. If you do focus on that, yeah, you'll get better.

And you'll see more revenue and all of that kind of builds up. I mean, I'm only buying my shop back for the third time now in eight years, so it's not bad. If this can be the last time, I'll be all right. Hopefully, you know, hopefully it is for you.

I mean, one more lawsuit to settle and we're all good, so, you know, what's the worst thing that could happen? Right. So, like, I mean, you did try with the second location and that's obviously difficult too, right? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, all of it's kind of a process, right? You know, as you kind of go through, you make mistakes along the way, you know, you take... Well, I can't talk about the second store because it's still in litigation, but... All right, well, hey, I guess my point is...

I guess, yeah, yeah, I guess my point is that... Just in case. But Mike P loves it. But Mike P on iTunes loves it.

It's a great hit. Yeah, Mike P is a huge fan. But, you know, I guess, well, my point was that, you know, nobody's perfect, right? Every retailer always kind of makes mistakes.

I mean, a lot of the retailers don't even fucking try, right? And, you know, you're one of the select few that actually does try and make changes in growth and continue to produce, right? And, you know... Well, we're in a unique spot, but not all that unique when you look at other retailers in the world that are trying to compete with Amazon or Walmart.

And I try to learn from them and I know you've learned from them and we're not so much from the day we opened I've always said we're not selling cigars, we're not selling booze, we're selling an experience. And you have to create an experience for your consumer. And that's what we've really tried to do over the last eight years and get better and better at that. There's a lot more to run in the retail operation than just creating an experience for people.

Well, and that's where the learning process comes in. Yeah, absolutely. And employees. What's she laughing about?

Mike's over making some noise in the gas trail. It's like a dog. This is weird. I'm adding sound effects to the show.

So you got one solid dude in your shop, right, that's an employee for you, right? Right. Justin. Justin.

I mean, and I think that a lot of people don't understand that, for one, how difficult it is to find somebody reliable. And for two, like, how dependent you become on somebody like that, because, you know, if you had no Justin, you wouldn't be able to get on a plane, right? Right, right. And it's, you know, that's, especially with the bar portion, it's exponentially more difficult to find reliable help.

Right. I'm really, really lucky and grateful for somebody like Justin that comes in and works 40 hours every week. He's never late. There's never money missing out of the till.

The customers all love him. I mean, that's just, you know, that's pure luck. Makes sense. Of course, we've got 4X on the calendar two nights a week, too.

Yeah. You know him, right? Blaka? I don't know.

4X? I don't know if I met him or not. Thoroughbred Cigar Distribution? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he's a good dude. He's definitely a good dude. What about you? You got something to say, Michael?

I've only met Jeff one other time, I know. The legend of Jeffrey. Little to nothing about him. He's my little spoon.

Well, I know who he's in my many adventures. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Well, tell a story about an adventure.

Well, I can tell you that when I was... Which one time? I mean, which one time? Is he a cuddler or does he...

It depends. It all depends on the day, you know? Oh, it depends if he's snoring or not. Yeah.

Jeff's on fire with his cigar. He almost leaned into the microphone and his old cigar was smoking. I can tell you that when I was fucking driving my brother-in-law up to North Dakota, All of a sudden, I'm going across this bridge, and I'm like, holy shit, we're like right at Jeff's spot. " That's literally exactly what happened.

What in the fuck are you doing here? So I just rolled in. He's got a really cool spot. You know, he's got a lot of bourbon, you know, and I really think that a bar aspect really kind of helps as a cigar store because, you know, it alleviates some of the pressure of the churn as well as increases overall gross sales, both in cigars and added revenue.

Right. I don't know. What other good stories you got to tell? I can tell stories on you.

Yeah, tell something good and embarrassing about him. Oh, yes, please. Something that his wife has not heard yet. Oh, great.

Should I fucking sleep on the couch? I don't know any good stories about you. Who does anything? Oh, see, that's what a good phrase.

You haven't hit the night terrors yet, you haven't gotten those yet. I haven't got the night terrors yet, that's true. Just the snoring. Just for the record, it's been a while for the night terrors.

Yeah. You know? It has. You know...

Fucking nom. You know, there's some shit that I don't necessarily want to disclose on the podcast, but, well, you know, it is what it is, I guess. No, no, we don't, it's just sometimes, you know, it happens. We just live, you know, my life is an open book, you know, I should have came to that reality when I put the mic in front of me, right?

So, you want to hit him with the five questions? Sure, we can do the five questions. All right, it's only 17. So, now you've listened to the podcast before, right?

I have. Okay, so you are aware of the five questions? I am aware of the five questions. Although I didn't know I was doing a podcast tonight, and I haven't prepared anything for the five questions.

That's true. So he's stalling to hit the questions. Okay. Okay, we'll hit him fast.

Okay, one person, living or dead, would you like to share a cigar with? Winston Churchill. See, he's prepared. Yeah, he's definitely prepared.

Okay, what fictitious person would you like to share a cigar with? Roland from Stephen King's Gunslinger. Why'd you pick that guy? Because he's a badass.

Skip for the win, because he is a badass. So, like, I mean, I know that you read a lot of books. Do you read a lot of fictional books as well as? About half and half right now.

Oh, I do have something to tell you. I mean, you definitely fucked up my life. " Oh. Yeah, so now, um, you know, because I'm a big believer in personal development and I like all that shit, I'm fucking, I'm in, I'm in, I'm, I feel like I'm dating Gary V, I'm involved.

Everything that I listen to is fucking Gary Vaynerchuk as Skip shakes his head no. We should have that motivational discussion on the podcast. What do you want to talk about? I wish we could recreate that.

That would be awesome. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how we would. We agreed, but we disagreed.

Oh, yeah. For two hours. Yeah. It's funny because he's all about like, you know, he poo-pooed on everything that I say, but then he's rocking the fucking Gary Vee shoes.

I'm like, wait a second now. That doesn't fucking make a lot of sense, you know? He's rocking those- I'm actually in the middle of Blue Ocean's strategy that I think maybe Skip recommended. Yeah.

Or maybe someone, I don't remember who recommended it to me. I'm going through crushing it right now. And it's really interesting trying to figure out different avenues for this business and how to apply all that stuff to the cigar business. Yeah, because the shitty part about, you know, any form of advertising is a lot of it's restricted when it comes to tobacco sales.

Right. So even though it's a... I mean, if you were really crushing it, you would have already finished the book. I mean, I guess you got a point.

He's busy cold plunging everything. No, no, no, cold plunging. You wanna know, I can tell you why I haven't finished the book. So I, the book, that's the book that I listen to in my car when I travel.

The fucking problem is, this motherfucker releases a new podcast every goddamn day. Every day? Every day. Like, he's a content fucking beast.

So, I'm like, oh, I'll listen to the podcast today, you know, and then I listen to the podcast and then I listen to the book, so it takes a little bit longer to get through it. But, um, he's pretty impressive, man. I like his perspective. Is that the guy that curses?

Yeah. Ah, yes. Yeah. Guy that curses.

I love a guy that curses. Yeah, he's just being real. You know? So yeah, so thanks for, uh, I tagged you on one of his things recently, too.

Did you? Yeah, I don't know if you noticed it or not. So, all right, sorry, continue with your question, sir. Um, what's your favorite cigar?

And if you say a fucking Herrera Esteli, I'm going to beat you to death with this fucking microphone. I don't want to be a fucking shill. Pretend like he's not here. Cormagnemic.

Yeah. Because as soon as you went to my fucking humidor, you grabbed three of them. I know, I did. Because I haven't had one in like 45 days.

That's crazy. Because somebody can't make enough. You've got to buy in bulk. I do.

I've got ten bundles coming this week. You've got to expand. I'm trying. And then you've got to hoard some.

But they want me to pay for them. Yeah, that's true. That's a whole process. And I got other people that want money, too, one in particular that we're not going to talk about.

So what else is that? Best piece of advice anyone ever gave you. Yeah, what's the best piece of advice, other than buy some K-Swisses from Gary Vee, that anybody ever fucking gave you? That doesn't count?

No. The best piece of advice anybody ever gave me. See, I told you I wasn't prepared for this. I like that.

Probably the best piece of advice I've ever gotten is that my influence over anything ends at the tip of my nose. Yeah. And I can't control anything anybody else does. True.

Very true. So, not real profound, but it helps me get through a lot of stuff where I want to bitch and moan and scream and yell, and I find out usually when somebody pisses me off, it's not their fault really. It's my fault for having an expectation of them being a certain way and they're going to be how they are and that's their responsibility, not mine. Lower your expectations of people.

Of other people, yeah. You don't get so pissed off. Exactly. Who told you that?

I don't remember. Yeah. Okay. I don't remember.

Skip's smiling over there. I don't think it was Skip. I would have thought it would have been something I told him. I already gave you the image.

What else do you want? Very true. Okay, so you have the craft coming out. You're working on a website.

You want to plug the website so that if anybody knows how to get in touch. com. All right. It is open.

It is online. We're going to open up Craft 2019 for reservations for the people that have already reserved probably later this week. Cool. And the website is up and running and operational.

Very nice. And that's thanks to you kicking my butt over doing it, by the way, so thank you. Yeah, dude, you know I'm here for you. I'm happy to fucking help any way that I can.

I should have said, you fucking sissy, just go do it. So, I did it. You gotta take the leap, you know? What about on Instagram?

Do you have an Instagram name or anything like that? Riverside Cigars. Riverside Cigars, and then what about Facebook? Riverside Cigars.

Riverside Cigars. And Match Cigar Bar. All right. There you go.

So, how's that? For a little short... I think this is kind of, this is, you know, this is a good approach, because like, you have this podcast, and then, this is, the documentary of World War II is coming up right thereafter, so it's like an eight-hour episode. Yeah, this is where I'm gonna take over the production.

I can think of like, 30 more questions to ask Jeff. Okay. Because, I mean, look. All right, so go with the top five and fucking ask them.

Well, okay, so this is, like, real talk. I've been into a lot of cigar stores in probably something like 20 different countries, and there's not a lot of great ones. True. And people all the time say, "Hey man, I want to open a cigar store.

What do you think I should do? I've got $14,000 saved up. " But actually, I started interacting with Jeff when he was finishing his MBA, and there was a lot of questions going back and forth about is this going to be useful, I'm going to be in business for myself, I'm not sure why I'm going to finish this because I don't need a degree to go into business for myself. " So my first question for you, Jeff, would be, from business school or from your undergraduate degree, what are the things that you find every day differentiate you from, say, someone who didn't finish school?

You know, for all those entrepreneurs that say, you know, I bootstrapped myself, and school didn't matter. School of hard knocks? Yeah. Because it does matter.

Right. It does matter. But, you know, the most important thing I think I learned from school, and this is not something I necessarily learned there, but the terminology that people use in business school and in business, That is not really -- how do I explain this? Okay, pro forma scared the hell out of me, right?

How am I going to do a pro forma? I don't know what a pro forma is. I don't -- blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, you go to school and you learn a pro forma is a bunch of fucking guesses stacked on a bunch of fucking guesses stacked on a bunch of fucking guesses that nobody's ever going to know where you came up with, what your assumptions were, where you went with that.

And every little piece of a business plan or a prospectus or any business paperwork is full of pro formas and things like that, and the confidence that gave me just to learn that, oh, that's what this means, that's what this means, that's what this means, I put a business, you and I had that conversation, I put a business plan together that I never thought I'd be able to put together. Yeah, I mean, so, I can tell you the biggest piece of advice you didn't listen to, because I distinctly remember this conversation. I distinctly remember it, too. Here it goes: Don't have a business partner.

Maybe it was, like, 2009? Nine. Nine or 10. Yeah, and the discussion was about the capital raise for opening the store, and I said, "Look, You're way better off opening small with the capital you have and pouring your capital back into it than getting a partner because a partner is going to own you for 50% of everything forever.

They're never going to work as hard as you. Unless you find a partner like Greg, who's your brother. He's never going to go away in my life. Exactly.

You can't get rid of him. You can't get rid of him. If you came to me and said, "Hey, I like Mike Palmer. Mike Palmer's got $200,000.

" I would say, "I love Mike Palmer. That's the dumbest idea. " And for the record, that was the first time I bought my store back. But that isn't something that you learn in business school?

It should be. Right. Just like in high school, you should learn how to balance a checkbook. Right.

And use a debit card and do all those basic things in life. Right. In business school, they should teach you. Why would they want you to learn that shit, bro?

Fucking, you know, they want you to be in debt. So, the biggest piece of advice you'd ever listen to was, there's no amount of capital worth bringing a business partner in just for money. Right. Now, you can bring a business partner in because they compliment you and do things.

Like for example, my business partner in Roma, Mike Rosales, is a completely different guy than me. I trust him. He works as hard as me. He has a completely different skill set than me.

He looks at things completely differently than I do. You still have to have one person that's in charge. I mean, Mike would never argue with the fact that when push comes to shove, and anything that we're kind of across the table from, I'm going to have the last say in it. Especially if it's in my area, which is the overall general business, if it's in which store to open, how to do sales, how to manage salespeople, I don't even get involved in those decisions because Mike ultimately makes those decisions.

Now stop fucking talking about you because this is about Jeffrey. Well, yeah, so that was the first piece of advice I didn't listen to. Well, actually, the, well, that I didn't listen to, correct, but the first piece, this is all Skip's fault, by the way, I want this on the record, because I was, I was essentially whining to Skip that I really wanted to open a cigar store, and I saw everything that was wrong with the one I was working at part-time when I was going to school, and I remember the exact direct message on Twitter, sorry, that I really want to open a cigar store, but I don't have a quarter million dollars or access to a quarter million dollars. Right.

" Yeah, I mean, we put this store together on a shoestring. Yeah. Which is the way to do it. Yeah.

And plow your money back in. What you do have to have is the ability to work for a year or two without making any money. Or in his case, eight years. The second piece of advice he didn't listen to was to sell his house, buy his partner out, And then he would have had a lot less to lose in his divorce, but then that made his wife cry, I had to listen to that for two hours coming back from, and hear about it for three years, yeah, so yeah, second piece of advice he didn't listen to, I didn't have any choice in that particular piece of advice, the third piece of advice was, hey, I have this opportunity to open up another store, should I do it, and I said absolutely, right, and that store filled, still a great piece of advice, right, because you learn a lot more from that failure, sure, and we've had We had this conversation together, the three of us, where you look at it as a failure, you look at how much money you lost, you look at all the reasons why you shouldn't have done it, coulda, woulda, shoulda, but how much better is your core store for all the lessons you learned in the second store?

Very much so. Very much so. And it's hard to look past the monetary aspect of it and everything else that fell apart with that, but the core store is stronger than it ever was. So, what's the next question?

Well, let's ruminate on that one a little bit. Okay. You know, he did listen to that piece of advice, turned out to be a failure, great piece of advice. Right.

And he's definitely learned a lot because of it, right? Right. True. You know, the biggest thing, I think, you know, we've all learned together, because we're kind of like a mentor group, I would say.

The biggest thing that we've learned together as a group is not to beat yourself up. Yeah, which is hard sometimes. It is. And Jeff's the worst at that.

Hey, I'm not the worst. I'm just close. He beats himself up, even though, you know, I can't say out of those 5,000 stores I've been into that there's any that I would like to be a customer of and hang out on a daily basis, and your store is one of those, Jeff's store is one of those. Right.

Jeff Borswitz's Davidoff in Tampa, definitely one of those. Oh, wow. Such a baller store. Yeah, it is.

So, the next question I would have, if this is me teaching you guys how to do a podcast. Yeah, go ahead. This is podcast 101. I'm just surprised Mike hasn't interrupted me yet.

Yeah, you scared him. He's dumbfounded. I don't know what you're doing. It's such good information.

I mean, not the best rep in Florida. We know that's Gruber. Right. But maybe the second best rep in all of Florida.

For sure. For sure. For a short period of time, at least. It was a good run.

It was a good run. I mean, the abuse that's on the road is just fucking horrendous. But there again, in that failure, you learned. Oh yes, definitely.

You know a whole lot more about this business than you thought you did. Oh, sure did, yep. Because I can tell you right now, the first piece of advice that I gave Mr. " Don't do it.

Well, let me tell you, I spent six months working in Chow Main in my previous life, and other than the fear of being kidnapped by taxi drivers, And the fact that I was afraid to eat anything other than whenever I would travel to places like China, I would bring this humongous, you know, Price Mart, you know, Costco kind of thing of peanut butter. Right. And that's what I would eat. Nice.

No fish heads for you? No fish heads for me. Not even rice? I could maybe rice if I had saw it prepared in front of me.

That's right. But I had lost my train of thought. But the next thing I would ask would be, so today you came to this field hearing that Marco Rubio had, what were your thoughts of that in terms of, you know, everybody talks about what the future of FDA in our business is. A lot of times you get all the second hand information about what's happening in Washington.

Today we had a presidential candidate, senator, from this biggest cigar state, arguably, who was talking pretty intelligently about cigars. What were your overall thoughts of the hearing? " And I've never heard anybody, politician or otherwise, say that. I mean, that's like when someone says, "Just the tip," right?

" So on the representative side, there were two people from the House of Representatives, and Marco Rubio. And Marco Rubio. And on the witness side, who was there? Dr.

Brad Rodu from the University of Louisville and their Endowed Chair of Tobacco Harm Research, Harm Reduction Research. Yeah, so tell us about what he... Well, Brad's actually a friend, well, a colleague of one of my customers in my store, and he has spent the last 10 years or so looking at tobacco harm as a whole, tobacco harm reduction, and he's spent the last couple of years pointing out the hypocrisy of the FDA's That's regulations and what they're actually, what they're saying and what the data and the research actually show, and the data and the research aren't showing what the FDA wants them to show, and they're doubling down on what they want to show anyway. And this is their own studies?

This is their own studies that say that the addictive qualities of nicotine, well, all three of the concepts that make something addictive, premium cigars don't meet any of them. What are those three things? As you drink your Diet Coke. Yeah, as I drink my Diet Coke.

The bourbon bar. You think I'd be good at this. You think I'd be better at this. 7 cigars per month.

Yeah. More or less. More or less. Muscle manos.

Muscle manos. Just like us, right? 7 an hour. Right.

What were the other two? I don't know. I'm not an addict, so I don't know. He was talking about the way that you consume.

So we're kind of getting into the Skip Podcast. No, the Skip Podcast is going to be five hours long, no matter what. No matter what we do. He's going for the record.

The point being was... The point being that premium cigars don't meet any of the qualities that the FDA is looking for, and they're addictive. So they're not addictive. They're not addictive.

And what was the other reason why they passed the tobacco control act? Child use, yeah, child use, which they, even the FDA's own studies show less than 1%, it didn't even register on their scale. Right. Right.

And there was one more. So why regulate it? Yeah, that's the whole, the gist of everything, is kids don't use it, it's not addictive, there's no discernible negative health impacts. That was the third one, there's no discernible health impacts, so it's not addictive, there's no discernible health impacts.

There's no discernible health aspects and children aren't using premium cigars. It's not a gateway to cigarette smoking. Right. Forty percent, I think he said, of all cigar smokers had never even used another tobacco product.

And the average age of first premium cigar smoked was twenty-four and a half years old. Right. And so how did you feel in terms, so he was one of the witnesses, another witness was from the Small Business Administration. We're gonna go.

We'll be back in a little bit. Well, and that's, Skip, you and I had that conversation, or actually, I had that conversation with Glenn Luke this morning, and my question to him was, isn't there a law on the books that says that any government regulation passed has to pass a review of its impact on small business? And I thought that had disappeared, but I guess that's part of the basis of the lawsuit that the CRA has filed, that they've failed to consider the impact on small business. And he reiterated that, that they've tried to work with the FDA, and the FDA has essentially ignored them.

Yeah, he basically said, A, they didn't really ask us beforehand, B, after it came into pass, it was two years before they really accepted what we were trying to tell them, and when they reopened the matter... Yeah, they didn't respond to their new letter. Right. So, I thought that was pretty interesting.

I think Jeff Borsowitz and, was it Wes Newman? David, I think. Dave Newman. Yeah, so they were kind of from the industry side.

What were your take on their testimony? Well, I was glad to hear Jeff's testimony that it didn't devolve into what I thought it might devolve into. I thought that was nice. But their perspective was really good.

I thought Jeff, especially from the farming aspect of it, that was Drew Newman. Drew Newman, yeah. Drew Newman, yeah. Yeah, it was Drew.

I thought Drew handled the retail end of it real well, I thought Jeff handled the farming end of it, of it really well, because they don't talk about it, I thought of this the other day, it'd be like the FDA asking orange farmers to put the sugar content on every orange, on every orange. Right. Right. They couldn't do it because there's natural variability in that product, and the same thing as you were talking today about Viso and Lajero, tell me the difference.

Right. Not tell me the difference, give it to an FDA inspector, and have him tell you the difference. Oh, good luck. And then have him take last year's crop, and this year's crop, and tell you the difference.

Right. Put that on your chromatic spectrograph analysis machine. " Because those people are looking for jobs when they get out of the FDA in the healthcare business or big pharma. Well, yeah, politicians too.

They don't want to be on the record for anything pro-tobacco. I mean, one of the things that we talked about, there's this Smoke 21 legislation that's starting to pass in a lot of different states. Right. I don't know, it's like the flavor of the month, you know, change tobacco use.

Most of these guys can't balance a budget. They want to prevent people who can sit on a jury and send someone to jail for the rest of their life from making a decision to-- Or go to Iraq or Iran and kill people. Yeah. They don't even want to hear that anymore.

They don't want to hear the military thing anymore. We've completely forgotten about, you know, these kids that sign up and go catch a bullet and fucking shithole Stanistan or whatever. But then we want to lower the voting age to 16. Yeah, exactly.

And legalize marijuana. But the most salient point, when I asked Jeff, you know, what was the point you thought you made that had the most resonance was his point about the difference between mass market cigars that are owned. You know, you can go to 7-Eleven and see 30 products, and they're all three companies. Right, right.

And then you can go to his shop and see aisles and aisles and aisles, you know, 1,000, 1,500 different brands. Right. And, you know, most of them are small family companies. Right.

7 billion industry. Premium cigar, premium cigars, our category, is less than a billion of that. Yeah, definitely. Mass market cigars are so much bigger than premium cigars.

I mean, we're, and that's the point, if you ask me what, Borshwitz, the biggest point you made, was we could get squashed, Through, nobody's necessarily targeting premium cigars, we just get squashed in the byproduct of going after mass market cigars and cigarettes. Yeah, absolutely. Like a bug on a windshield. Yeah, and he brought up the Cuban cigar thing too, which apparently is the main thing a lot of people are talking about.

But, you know, it would be great if you could get these politicians to simultaneously vote for 21-year-old access since it's happening. In a lot of places, I don't necessarily agree with that, but if you could combine those bills together, it would give a lot of cover to some people who are kind of on the fence, I think. So we had that conversation on the side. Alright, the next question I'm going to ask you, if Mike has a clipboard with paper, and there's absolutely nothing on it.

One more aside here on the FDA stuff. The FDA, if given the opportunity, is going to regulate us to the nth degree. The FDA exists to regulate, that's their... Yeah, we're a rounding error.

Yeah, that's their reason for existence. We're not even big enough for them to put any significant amount of time into creating a specific regulatory regime just for us. Which is why we're going to need legislative relief at the end of the day. Exactly, or judicial relief.

Or judicial relief. So what's the question for him? So the next question is, your store is located over the bridge from Louisville, Kentucky. Correct.

Correct. So the majority of your market really comes from Louisville. About half and a half. But you're actually in Indiana.

Correct. And so there's two questions. One is, why did you not start a store in Kentucky, but you did start it in Indiana? And then the second question would be, you have this huge event that happens in Louisville, the Derby.

And how does that affect what happens in your store in terms of preparing for this huge influx of business What's your business for essentially what's a Superbowl in Kentucky? Well, part one... I was so going to ask that question. It's written down on this piece of paper.

On that blank piece of paper? The answer to part one is Louisville and Lexington have smoking bans. Neither of which, I know Louisville's for a fact does not exempt cigar stores or cigar bars. It's actually, there is actually a tobacco business exemption, but 75% of your sales have to be of your, this is a long story, but 75% of your gross annualized sales have to be from tobacco products.

So have you had discussions with city council people or other people in Louisville about why you started across the border? " Yeah. And he did. " Their position is that they have given us an exemption, we just need to find a way to make it work, but there's no way to make it work unless you don't serve alcohol, which, unfortunately, I don't really want to do this again without being able to serve alcohol.

Yeah, no shit. Yeah, it's a big buffer against the variability and the seasonability of cigar business, and that buffer really helps you stay afloat. And there's no way that you could run a cigar bar and have 75% of your gross annualized sales. Additionally, the health department enforces that ban, and the health department will give you, I've got a 50 email thread with them.

They will not give you any answers. They were specifically, I asked, gross annualized sales, does that mean I get a year before you say anything to me? Right. Because gross annualized sales is a year of sales.

Right. We don't know, you'll just have to open up and see. Well, the bane of business is uncertainty, so if they come in and say, "Well, we decided that your gross annualized sales, we're now going to do them weekly. " No, we decided daily.

Well, let me ask you a question. Why is uncertainty worse than a bad law? So, I mean, I completely agree with you, and I think that's something people who don't have a business don't understand, but let's say they come up with a law and say you can't have alcohol and cigars in the same business. " Why is uncertainty worse then?

Well because... You having a good time? Yeah, this is great. A bad law...

By the way, this is what I do at home. I'll sit on the... You can ask Garland. I sit on the porch and listen to this podcast and go, "Those fucks!

" I want to ask this guy this question, so... Nice. You know, I should actually check in with you before. " Is there anything you want me to ask in particular?

We can just FaceTime him and send him a microphone. A bad law gives you the opportunity for a reasonably intelligent person to find a workaround. Uncertainty takes that away from you because if you find a workaround, they can come back and say, "No, that's not it. " And if there's no law on the books that says this is the way they have to interpret it, if a law is on the books and you find a workaround, you found a workaround.

Right? Right. If there's an interpretation to a statute that they are open to say this is our interpretation, this is our interpretation, this is our interpretation, this is our interpretation, the uncertainty can kill you. Yeah, you can't invest, you can't borrow money, you can't build something, you can't do anything.

So the Derby, how much of your business is done in the month of May versus, most retail shops I would say, begins to start to pick up in April, gets a little better. October, November, big holiday season, dead in the winter. May and December are our best months of the year, depending on, Derby's a little bit weird in that it falls on the first Saturday of May every year, so sometimes the week leading up to that is the last week of April, and that will kick April into the lead as far as our best sales month, but it's one of our top two sales months every year. We probably have -- there's a quarter million people at the Oaks the day before the Kentucky Derby, and there's usually about a quarter million people at the Derby.

Fully 60 or 70 percent of those are out-of-towners. A lot of them are looking for cigars. A lot of them are looking for a place to smoke cigars. So we do quite a bit of our business on that.

Do you think I'll ask them some questions? So, how do you prepare for when your business goes from X amount of customers per day to 10X customers per day? If you're asking, I mean, if I know in advance that it's happening, I mean-- I mean, don't you have to assume that it's going to happen? Yeah.

Clearly, we increase staff, we increase orders, we-- I mean, we prepare for it. We're ready for it. Okay, I'll ask you a more interesting question. I thought you'd have something there.

But I would add that out if I was the producer. I'd get Roma Craft to make me a Craft 2019 release, that's what I do. That would have been better for February, though. So, okay, here's another interesting thing about Jeff.

Jeff owns one of the best bourbon bars, Match, it's connected, it's a separate business, but it's connected to Riverside. Mm-hmm. He does. I've spent a lot of hours with Jeff.

Jeff drinks Diet Coke. Yes. Jeff doesn't drink. He does.

So what is it like being like, you know, the guy from Cheers owning a bar, selecting barrels of bourbon, selecting specific things for your, I mean, you smoke, selecting cigars for customers is a natural thing. You said you only wanted to put something into your store. I was about to say, yeah, he only put something in the store he smoked. Right.

But you don't put bourbons in that you drank. Yeah, because you don't drink. So how do you select the bourbons for your bar? How do I do that?

Well, number one, I've actually, number one, we've got a great staff, and my bar staff is as knowledgeable as nearly anybody in the Kentuckiana area as far as their bourbon knowledge and their craft cocktail knowledge, I rely on them a lot, but I also go on every barrel pick, and three out of the four times I've identified the one they were going to pick before they picked it, by just smelling it and knowing what I know about bourbon, and it's not like I never drank. I just don't drink anymore. And as far as... I've tried.

Believe me, I've tried. As far as how do I do it, I do it standing upright, which I never would have if I drank an Onde Bar. I'd have been doing it from the floor. But you do bet on the...

I do bet on the Derby. So do you provide a pick? The Wagers just came in with popcorn. Do you provide a pick every year for the Derby?

I provide a four-horse pick every year for the Derby. What's more interesting, the Oaks or the Derby? Derby. Period.

Why? Derby period. The Derby is one of the only horse races in America that has 20 horses taken off from the gate. They actually have a second auxiliary gate.

And literally, as you increase the number of entrants, anything can happen in the Derby. The Oaks will typically have 9 to 12 horses in it. The Derby will almost every year have 20, unless there's a late scratch. And the uncertainty with 20 horses crashing out of a starting gate, all 20 of them trying to get to the rail to save ground, makes for some exciting betting.

Boom. There you go. Okay. Last question.

Should have been Mike and Mike's last question, but as one of the best small retailers in the country, what would your best piece of advice to another cigar retailer be if they were getting started? Or if they're, don't do it, or if they're finding that they've lost their passion or they're not doing that well, what would be your advice for someone like that? If you want to make a small fortune, no. If you want to make a small fortune in the cigar business, start with a large fortune.

I think my biggest advice would be to be yourself and do what you do and do it well. Get as many partners as possible? Get as many partners as humanly possible. Buy your store back as many times as you can before you take a penny out of it.

Get the thrill of buying your store over and over again. But really, the one thing that drives me crazy about this industry is everybody's worried about what everybody else is doing all the time. Sure. On the retail end and on the manufacturing end.

Yeah. I mean, I'll engage in some of that sometimes. Right. " We do what we do, and we do it to the best of our ability.

I don't give a shit what Joe Blow down the street is selling. " I don't care if John Drew's in his store. I don't care if Skip Martin's in his store, because we do-- I would never be in that guy's store. I know.

I'd be in your store. Do what you do and do it well. I mean, have a plan. Mine was half-assed, but I had a plan.

Do what you do and do it well. We still took the leap, you know? Don't worry what everybody else is doing, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Right.

Because if you're not working on your store, what would you say? Which part? Which part? The store is, the business is the business, or what?

Oh, the improving? Yeah. Improving the business is the business? Is the business.

Right. I mean, so if you're not at your store, concentrated on your store every day, if you're worried about what Joe Blow down the street's doing, you're going to fail. Right. Or we're going to fail.

I'll put it this way. You can visit a lot of other stores. When you walk into a store, what are the things you look at as a customer and someone who has some inside on the retail side, whether it's a good store or whether it's not a good store, what are the things you look for? You know, I'm really kind of -- that was good.

We're going to need another bottle of wine. We're going to need another bottle of wine. I already got another bottle of wine. I know, I'm watching, I'm watching.

You know, that's a really good question. I'm always more concerned. Thank you. I generally ask good questions.

You generally do. You need to bring props. I'm always more concerned with the feel of a store and the atmosphere of a store than the -- I mean, and there are some stores that I go into and I sit there and I wonder how the hell they're pulling this off. One specific store in Indianapolis I walked into and I'm sitting there watching the three staff they had for every customer that came through.

One person lighting their cigar, one person cutting their cigar, two bartenders, two girls circulating, three guys in the humidor. Well, I can tell you how they do it. They're just laundering cash. That's what they're doing.

Well, no, I found out how they did it because we had four cigars, three drinks, and a Diet Coke, and the tab was $270. That's how they do it. And it was $5,000. That's how they do it.

That's how you afford a quarter million dollars of ventilation, and your air smells like friggin' cinnamon and vanilla when you walk out of there. Right. They got a dry cleaner for your jacket. I mean, that's what it takes.

But, you know, it's, the thing I really wanted to do when I opened my cigar store, because I've been in a lot of cigar stores, and I smoked cigars like you for 30 years before I opened a store. And I didn't want, I'm not going to call names, but I didn't want one of those hard-edged, all chrome and glass, disco-looking cigar bars that you walk in and you immediately feel intimidated. Right. But I didn't want one of the shitty rat hole places where everything's worn out, and everything's beat down, and nothing's been cleaned, and everything's got a layer of dust on it, and you go in the back of the humidor.

The old guy, death waiting room. " Right, now they don't cut cigars here. I'm watching General Hospital, leave me alone. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

RoMa Craft? Whoa. Never heard of her. You leave Luke and Laura alone.

So being one of the premium retailers in the country, what's the best selling brand in your store? RoMa Craft. Damn it, I did it again. I did it again.

Seven of our top ten cigars are RoMa Craft. Well, thanks for joining us here, Jeff, at Mike, Mike and Skip's. Thanks for thinking for the skip's podcast. All right, well, hey, you know, I guess that'll pretty much wrap it up.

That'll pretty much wrap it up, right? Yeah, I'm tired. This is awesome. Jeffrey, thank you so much for coming on.

Yes, Jeff, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. No sleeping, driving all the way over. You know, I appreciate you coming out and, you know, taking the extra ride over here.

And, you know, it's -- It's been on so long, it's probably time for him to go back to the airport. What's another sleepless night? I'm glad you got to finally check out the shop, even though it was ever so brief. And, uh -- Birthday's tomorrow.

Oh, Jerry's birthday's new shit. Yeah. Wow. If you were a good friend, Mike, you'd know that.

Yeah. I'm usually on top of that. A little happy birthday? He just looks at Facebook and sees there's my birthday tomorrow.

What's wrong with that? He does. He does. He does.

I get that thing. Here's the thing. I don't understand what's wrong with that. What?

What's the big deal? It's just like his Facebook calendar for birthdays. Yeah, no, even his wife. I get that standard happy birthday on Facebook.

Just fucking boom. Really? Oh, I do, I do. I love it.

I eat it up. Yeah, but not even a photo collage, nothing. Oh, wow. Not even a photo collage.

Nothing. That's the standard now. Well, you know, I mean, like, for me, like, as far as I'm concerned on social media, like, I don't like to promote and fucking talk a ton about, you know, my wife and kids, it's just not, that's not what I do there, like, that's not my realm, you know, a lot of people who are, feel like that they want to show off their family, I mean, I'm proud of my fucking family, I love my wife, I love my kids, above everything else on this planet, but that doesn't mean I have to fucking boast about them every goddamn 10 seconds, and to each their own, if that's what you want to do, good for you on Facebook. I will say this, with Arlen sitting here, whenever Mike comes to Nicaragua, or really any time I spend time with Mike, but particularly when he comes to Nicaragua, like every 10 fucking minutes he's on FaceTime with you.

That's true. " How come you don't FaceTime me? How come when you're in the States you don't FaceTime with me every 10 minutes? Yeah, so I set the standard in that house, causing fucking problems.

It's usually just like at nighttime for the boys to FaceTime you, goodnight, 'cause I know that's important to you. Well, that's obviously not true now, is it? Maybe, maybe, now I'm stopping. I'm not calling anymore.

She's shutting down. It's me shutting down. She FaceTimed you a lot every day. Yeah, well, yeah.

I mean, it's disgusting. No way! I'm like, seriously, again? Really?

I like when Mike's in the bathroom and he hears phone ring and he's FaceTiming at least 40% of the time. Now, Brittany, you're handling this really well, because I know somebody would be crying already. At least 40% of the time, it's Brittany and center frame. It's the two kids, the two boys, throwing shit at her, climbing on top of her.

She's just got this completely blank, exhausted look going. Defeated. See what I'm doing? See what I'm dealing with?

I hate you. I hate you, you're good. That's cool, I'm here on the patio. Usually the kids get sick when we get sick.

Skip, run a podcast. Every time. Thanks for joining us. Yeah.

Probably maybe the most interesting hour of the Hustler Podcast ever. You think so? Why would that be, Skip? The questions were so good.

Yeah, you know, next week's podcast. Week after next. I want to hear this marathon. I need to download the marathon.

It's probably in the next three weeks. Yeah. I got all kinds of information. I'm ready to go.

Only if you bring up the strip clubs. We can talk about the All-Need Stripe Club, I don't care. Fantastic. I've lived a full life.

I've got a couple of stories that I want you to talk about, so. All right. All right, let's cut this off and start the next one then. Yes.

All right, thanks everybody, bye. Hello, this is a prepaid collect call from the Correctional Institution. This call is subject to recording and monitoring. To accept charges, press one.

To refuse charges, thank you for using T-NetX. This has been a Cigar Hustlers Podcast featuring Skip Martin from Roma Craft Tobacco, a Mike and Mike production. m. for a new episode.

Please rate, review, and subscribe on whichever providers you use, and be watching out for the videos soon, folks, on YouTube. Thanks for listening. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike squared, squared, squared, squared, squared, squared, squared.

Show Notes

This week Jeff Mouttet was in Tampa for the Senate Committee Meeting and decided to drive the two hours east to be on the show.

We hear all about his Shop in Jeffersonville Indiana, what happened in Tampa and his views on the future of the cigar industry.

Halfway through this weeks episode we get a guest interviewer drop in and finish the show for Mikey and I.

As always we welcome your thoughts comments and show ideas on our FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast".  You can follow the show on IG @cigarhustlerspodcast, Mike @cigarhustlers and Mike Too @fcc_Mike.

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