Episode 70 John Oliva from Fuente and JC Newman Cigars

Episode Summary

Episode 70 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast features John Oliva, the Central and North Florida sales rep for Arturo Fuente and J.C. Newman Cigar Company. Despite the last name, John clarifies he's not with Oliva Cigars — his cousins own Oliva Tobacco Company, the Tampa leaf house founded in 1934 that has supplied Fuente, Newman and most of the industry for decades. John spent 25 years in the luxury automobile business (Mercedes, BMW, Infiniti) as a technician and then in service management before longtime friend and predecessor Mike McKinney nudged him to throw his hat in the ring for the Fuente/Newman rep job about a year prior to recording. He also shares a practical trick for killing cigar smoke smell in a car using the AC on recirculate, plus his passions for hunting, night predator hunting with thermal optics, and NRA instructor certification.

The heart of the episode is John's recap of two recent factory trips. In the Dominican Republic he toured the Fuente operations, Chateau de la Fuente, and the Villa Gonzalez tobacco storage facility — including tobacco from Buen Vecino, the Fuente farm in Estelí. He describes the Fuente factory as "Disney World" and details the company's vertical integration, from box factory to cello. The most meaningful stop was the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation complex, where he explains that 100% of every dollar donated (including proceeds from the annual toast packs) goes directly to the children and community, with all overhead underwritten by the Fuente and Newman families. The program now runs through high school and has produced teachers and doctors from the surrounding villages. In Nicaragua, he visited the J.C. Newman factory in Estelí (formerly PENSA), praising its ground-up efficiency, and stopped by PROSENICA, the Oliva Tobacco operation run by Gus Cura. He also confirms Fuente's planned Estelí factory is currently on hold, while farming there continues under Felix Mesa.

Along the way John tells the family story that ties it all together: his grandmother was a hand roller in Tampa who rolled Fuente Hemingway perfectos and was invited to move to the DR when Fuente went offshore; his grandfather worked tobacco in Tampa, last at Villazon, in the same building Oliva Tobacco occupies today. Years later, John had his grandmother re-wrap a stash of cracked Hemingways using leaf from his cousin John "Ito" Oliva Jr.

The guys also dig into IPCPR trade show politics — brands releasing show deals 45 days early, the "if the deal is 40-50% off, the brand is probably dead" rule, and the first-day spending crunch — and smoke the Arturo Fuente Casa Cuba Doble Dos, the last cigar Carlos Fuente Sr. oversaw start to finish, alongside the Diamond Crown Julius Caeser. The episode closes with the five questions, where John names Casa Cuba and Diamond Crown Julius Caeser (Corona) as favorites, and picks his grandfather, Stanford Newman and Carlos Fuente Sr. as the people he'd most want to share a cigar with.

In This Episode

1. 01
   Who is John Oliva (and which Olivas)
   John explains he's from the Oliva Tobacco Company family — not Oliva Cigars — and how a 25-year career in luxury car dealerships led to repping Arturo Fuente and J.C. Newman.
2. 02
   Killing cigar smoke smell in your car
   A dealership-service trick: run the AC on max recirculate and spray under the passenger front dash to clear smoke odor through the vents.
3. 03
   Hunting, guns and the family farm
   John talks NRA instructor certification, night predator hunting with thermal and night vision, and the old Oliva shade-tobacco farm in Quincy, Florida.
4. 04
   IPCPR trade show deal wars
   The hosts and John debate brands releasing show deals 45 days early, day-one spending, and why the steepest discounts usually signal a dying brand.
5. 05
   Touring Fuente in the Dominican Republic
   Chateau de la Fuente, the Villa Gonzalez tobacco warehouse, the box factory and Fuente's vertical integration — plus the farm's Oliva origins.
6. 06
   The Cigar Family Charitable Foundation
   How every dollar from toast packs goes straight to the kids, with the Fuente and Newman families covering 100% of overhead, and the doctors and teachers the program has produced.
7. 07
   J.C. Newman in Estelí and Fuente's Nicaragua plans
   Inside the purpose-built Newman factory (formerly PENSA), a visit to PROSENICA, and why the planned Fuente Estelí factory is on hold while Buen Vecino farming continues.
8. 08
   Smokes of the episode and the five questions
   Casa Cuba Doble Dos — the last cigar Carlos Fuente Sr. oversaw — and Diamond Crown Julius Caeser, plus John's favorite cigars and dream smoking companions.

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 a Cigar Hustlers Podcast Episode 70 this week we sit down and talk to John Oliva of Arturo Fuente and JC Newman cigars. Everybody sit down and get comfortable. Show is about to begin. so you uh officially launched our youtube video let's start there yes yes sorry i wait on music to stop and how and how did 15 at last count i just started i mean today's the first day today's the last yeah the last day today's the last day today's the last day today's the last day and then we're gonna shut it down we're just turning it off now that's fantastic I'm proud of you.

We have gained one more subscriber on YouTube. And the funny part is that you lost a few minutes at the end of that last video. Yeah, we had a slight technical problem. And now we have a little bit of a different layout today.

Because we have a guest. We have a guest. We have a guest. We have a guest.

Mr. John Oliva of Arturo Fuente. C. Newman.

C. Newman. Yeah, I've got to include that one. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Get a little closer to the microphone, John. Yes, sir. Thank you. I'll give it back to you if you need to.

Alright. He's like the fucking Gestapo of the podcast industry. That's why I wear the headphones. You know?

So come closer. I want to put out a quality product. Everything. We're trying.

We're getting there. Nice gulp there. Oh, sorry. Gulp.

Man, pressure. John, on the microphone. You have to like be in your mouth. You have to yell at the poor guy?

Make your life all easier. I want people to be able to hear him. He's such a lovely voice. You're a big fan of the podcast, right?

Yeah, yeah. So you were listening down in Esteli recently. Yes, I was. Definitely was.

Spotty, you know, service down there. Right. Yeah. You gave Palmer an erection when he said that you were down there listening to it.

C. Newman bus. Yeah, yeah. No, spent a lot of time on the road, of course, and, you know, enjoy you guys.

You're one of my favorite stops and a good group of guys. Yeah, it's plenty of time to listen to that stuff. Thanks, man. You guys are doing a great job with it, too.

That's what it's for. We make it for the industry, people. Right? I mean, it's kind of blanketing.

Lord knows nobody else wants to do it. I think that it's also kind of like a sneak peek. " Wow. Man, you gotta call them.

They do creative stuff, too. No. Come on. They're the only one that's ranked higher than us on Podbean.

So there you see them as competition. We're after them. We have no competition. We're after them.

We're in a league of our own. We're after them. There's no crying in podcasts. So, all right, so you kind of came out of nowhere into the cigar industry, huh?

Yeah, yeah, to an extent, been around cigars for a long time, for a couple different reasons. But yeah, I've been around, been around both families for quite some time on the personal side. Go ahead and throw that out there. Everyone always does the whole Oliva thing.

Oliva working for Fuente and Newman. Right. " Yeah. But no, my family's been in Tampa for years, longtime Tampa family.

And cousins of mine own the Oliva Tobacco Company. Okay. So, for the listeners out there, not Oliva Cigars, Oliva Tobacco that's been around since 1934. Right.

They've done business for a very long time now with the two companies that I represent, Fuente & Neumann, along with most everybody else in the industry. Okay. Now, what did you do before you were into the industry? Well, at least on this side of the industry.

Well, yeah. Basically, got out there in the workforce pretty young, actually even moved out of home before I even graduated, and was always mechanically inclined, my brother and I, And actually got into the automobile service industry at car dealerships, luxury dealerships. Nice. So for the first seven years or so, I was a technician, you know, engines, electrical issues, things like that, and then progressed into front office type things and management.

So I did that for 25 years, brands like Mercedes, BMW, Infiniti, things like that. Which actually kind of reminds me that when I did the advice from the hustler as far as smoking in, if you were to hypothetically smoke in rental cars. Only hypothetically. Yeah.

Now you had a response for that, another tweaking as far as another way to kind of circumvent the smoke smell in the cigar, or in the car, right? Definitely. Definitely. It's something that we all battle with.

If you love cigars, you know, riding with the windows down sucks in the summer. But yeah, your AC, most cars these days have a filter, but any time you run your air conditioning on ReCirculate, it recycles the air from inside the car, and pretty much without fail, no matter what you drive, when it's on ReCirc, it's pulling the air from the passenger front floorboard, and this is actually something we did in the industry as well, between filter changes. It's a trick. Just run your AC on max, open up all the vents, put it on re-circ, and get under that passenger front dashboard area and spray, they make chemicals that are made for it, but Lysol will work, and just spray, you know, 20, 30 seconds, just up in there and let it come out of the vents, just douse it, and it'll do a good job of taking care of it.

And you get that clean linen smell. Yeah, pretty much. That's fantastic. Yeah, but yeah, that'll help some people out there.

All right, so you start off as you're in the auto industry, and then what happened? Just in the auto industry my whole life, been smoking cigars pretty much my whole adult life, probably got into it pretty seriously in my early 20s, and just actually, just like everybody else, going to stores and buying cigars, and probably, jeez, about 19 years ago now, I met a good friend of all of ours, Mike McKinney. Yes. Another big fan of the show.

Yep, yep. He listens all the time. He also wanted me to throw in there, he is glad that you guys didn't have this going on, because he said he has a face for radio. That's what he told me to say.

His podcast was pretty good, and we went for a good period of time. Yeah, yeah, I've got some big shoes to fill. But yeah, I was actually just buying cigars at a local shop that I used to frequent near where I lived, and happened to run in on a night that they were doing an event. Talked to Mike, didn't know him from anybody, and when we introduced each other, he recognized the last name, and he was the only one that got it right on the first try, not Oliva Cigars, but, you know, the right Olivas, as we like to say.

The drinks the batter and the phone like crazy. He knows his shit. But, yeah, so, pretty much, we just kind of hit it off, you know, he obviously knew my family from being in the industry, and very proud to say that he's been a very, very dear friend. You know, I've watched his daughter grow up, he's, we've been to each other's house numerous times, and just kind of, you know, I'd like to think for at least like the last 19 years or so kind of grew up together.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, made that connection with him and just started going to a lot of events and seeing him there and then kind of, you know, got to know the Fuentes and the Newmans, you know, pretty well over the years. So, you know, you guys know Mike, he's a, we'll probably refer to him a lot because it's a common, you know, personality we know. We know, but, uh, you know, when this whole thing came up a year ago, he told me, uh, he goes, you've been interviewing for this job for 20 years, you just didn't know it.

Right. So, uh... That makes sense? Yeah.

Pretty cool. He's a good guy, for sure. Definitely. Are you good now?

Yeah. Because, I mean, you know, we're over here on the podcast. You guys just keep talking. Welcome back.

You're supposed to be the pro, man. I mean, he's moved his chair like four fucking times at this point. He's gotten up, gotten a charger. Just smack into the microphone again, Michael.

He's just so unprepared. Maybe we could drink something. No, I didn't know it kills the phone, in fact, last time it didn't kill the phone. Wow.

Nice. I don't think I need the phone to go off, and then we have no video. What kills the phone? The camera?

The camera? Evidently, yes. Okay, well, I just wanted to get that clear for our listeners. Yes.

Yes. Yeah, we can view the feed on the phone. Yes. So I know everybody looks nice and thin, because we had problems last week.

All right, we covered what you did before. He's into guns, too. He used to have a small gun company? Not a gun company.

It's actually a couple of years ago, my girlfriend did something really nice for me. She's, she He knows that a lifelong passion of mine is guns and hunting and that kind of a thing, and she actually signed me up to go get certified by the NRA to be an instructor. So I was starting to kind of get all that together when this started happening last year. Oh, gotcha.

And then McKinney came and fucking snatched you. Yeah, yeah, or just, you know, he kind of kicked me in the tail to throw my hat in the ring because it was something that I wasn't even considering doing. Right. He and I used to always joke about being in the industry, and I said, "Man, I can't.

There's only one issue. I wouldn't work for any two companies other than the one that you work for, so you've got to keel over, which I don't want you to do, or you've got to move on. But yeah, no, I'm into the gun thing. Started doing a little bit of that.

Been an avid hunter since I was 12, 13 years old. Used to do a little bit of competitive shooting with handguns. And a bunch of years ago, just on like a local club level, nothing professional or anything, and you know, big proponent of obviously the Second Amendment, and just thought that by training some people it might be a nice way to at least ensure that not everybody who runs through the pretty basic program out there, yeah, yeah, try to put some quality training out there to help the gun community, but yeah, yeah, but no, that's one of the things. The things, the outdoors and the hunting, that's one of the interests that I share with one of my cousins at Oliva Tobacco, John Jr.

or John Ito, as a lot of people know him. Oliva Tobacco grew shade tobacco in the panhandle of Florida for many, many years, ending around the mid-70s. Actually, my father, when he was in high school, he used to go to Quincy during the summers with John Ito's father And actually oversee the curing barns. They were doing a lot of Candela up there then, too, so...

Because it was faster. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Tobacco has always been somewhere in my life.

Up until last year, it was just, you know, pure enjoyment. And now the hobby has become the career. So you almost started off like a gun training program? Not a program, but basically it was going to be like a side business.

I was going to do in addition to doing what I did in the automotive industry, but it's had to take a backseat, we're actually talking with a few people in the Fuente offices, there's a few people that want to get their permit, so might do a little private course for some of them, but yeah, hopefully as I kind of settle into the role and learn to kind of set some time aside and turn the weekday thing off, would like to try to do a little bit more of that again, but right now it's pretty much It's not much limited to my personal time, we were actually up at the, I meant to say, the family that owns a tobacco company, actually hung on to the farm up there. Oh, no shit. Yeah, yeah. 's got pretty much a sportsman's paradise up there.

So, you know, during deer season, that's what goes on up there. But it's nice to have that year round. We went a few weeks ago because he took a trip recently to New Zealand for a hunting trip. We had a hunting trip, and he and Joe, which is the CFO for Oliva Tobacco, they had to sight in some rifles before the trip, that kind of thing, so I met those guys up there, we hung out for the weekend, and then, in addition to deer hunting, I do a lot of nighttime predator hunting, so like coyotes and bobcats.

I was going to ask you about that, I remember when you were talking about that. Yeah, yeah, so got a few toys for that, you know, we use night vision and thermal scopes, which is heat-seeking type stuff. Not the alien predator. No, no, no.

But if you saw that guy out there, he'd shoot him, too! We'd give it a go. I think we all know how that would end. Yeah.

So, no, that's a big part of my enjoyment, the things that I do in my leisure. Mr. Palmer hunts predators at night, too, but usually they're at the bar. I was going to say.

What was that? What? Yeah, he's out there in a lot of places. If you follow him around, if you don't get to get out and have some fun on the weekend, you can live vicariously through that guy.

The president. I got to keep busy. Mr. Press.

I got to keep busy. He likes to throw a bunch of jabs at me throughout the week via Facebook and all these other things. So I figured I'm just going to start fucking hitting them back via podcast. Oh, well.

Well, if you do it here, I mean, he's got to address it, right? Yes. You can't just let it roll off his shoulder. Exactly.

I have no idea what you're talking about. So we got IPCPR coming up. What are we? We're like almost a month away, right?

Yeah. And we were just kind of briefly talking about this shit. But what's kind of funny to me is some of these big brands and manufacturers are already releasing their deals to other retailers, which in my personal opinion is kind of fucked up because... They're stupid, but don't they always do that though?

Yeah, but it just seems like it keeps getting earlier and earlier each year. And, you know, these are the same guys that are going to complain about... Law attendance. Right.

And all that other shit. Why go to the show if you can get to special without spending the money? Right. So I don't know where I was going with that, you know, but, you know...

Well, we were talking upstairs a little bit about that, and it's tough, you know, I've been around for a long time, been around both families, but just, you know, officially for about a year now in the industry, so I've taken full advantage of this new guy thing I got going on, you know, to throw observations out there and things like that, and, you know, even within our companies, we announced the deals just ahead of the show, but what we were talking about up there, you and I, Mike, was that, you know, it seems that people are trying to beat everybody else to it, and you've got to wonder, where's the end going to be? You know, trying to get the guy's dollar before he gives it to somebody else. Well, you know, the crazy part is, sorry, I don't mean to cut you off, but you know, in all reality, your first day, you have day one and day two of the show, like your day one is your biggest day, always, always. So, you know, and then as the days kind of progress off, you start to slow down, taper off, you know, so obviously, they're, you know, they're just trying to get ahead of that curve, no matter what happens, I'm assuming, even with the bigger guys, that those days, they want to have a big day before day one, you know, because day two, three, four are all going to be the same.

The shop owners only have so much money to spend, so that and plus the fact that buy yours instead of buying the other guys, then a lot of yeah, that is true. The other catch is that a lot of these motherfuckers don't have vacation because they're shop owners, right? So they go out, they spend on the first day, then they get fucking plastered and hammered. Right, for the next three.

And then, you know, they kind of stumble in the next day and like, you know, do I have syphilis? I mean, like all these things kind of play out, you know? So it's hard to say if they even come around on the additional days, right? But like for me, you know, like the War Bear, we're going to release it at the show.

right that's kind of a can't buy it before no you're not going to be able to buy it for if we have things if we have product afterwards i'll release it to the other retailers but you know i want to incentivize if you have any left after the show right right yeah you won't have anything right god willing i hope not you know so um but yeah i mean you know you guys do a pretty good job of that um as well as your package deals at ipcpr always have like um at least in the past Like little goodies, right? Like if you do acts, you get specific Don Carlos or, you know, specific Opus X. Some of the fun stuff. Yeah.

We try to do that, and, you know, we were talking upstairs, too, before this, just, you know, we don't want to lose that content, so we'll bring it up. You know, the show, you know, again, for a first-timer from inside the industry last year, I've been to shows before, but, you know, when we go there, that's the hardest we work all year long. It's been a year long, and probably for you guys, even owning a business and a brand, I'm sure that's probably your toughest week and leading up to it, so you've got that sweat equity in it, you've got that financial commitment to it, and on the industry side, I'd like to think that most people are cognizant of that and kind of behave accordingly, but you're right with retailers, some of them it may be work/ their vacation for the year, but I'd say the majority. I think everybody owes it to themselves to be on their A-game, and I think that those of us in the industry owe it to the consumer side of the industry.

Of course, the customers that we're selling to at shops, and what we all do during that week shows up in shops across the country in the weeks and months afterwards, and I just think it's something that everyone really should be giving their utmost attention to. Right. And, you know, again, rookie, you know, opinion here, but, you know, going back to just releasing deals, you know, what, we're 45 days out from the show right now? That's crazy.

It's just, you know, and I can understand some guys, maybe that's their best shot is to jump out first and hope for the best. But, you know, at some point we have to support, you know, most immediately the show and then the organization behind it. You know, I'm real big on that. On the retailer side, when I would just go in as a retailer, I learned pretty quickly that there are certain shops or certain brands or manufacturers that will have fucking crazy deals, like 40% off or whatever the case may be, 50% off.

Normally, those brands are the ones that are fucking dead. So it's funny to kind of see how some retailers can get duped into that and say, oh, this is a great deal. You know, but at the end of the day, you're fucking stacked on something that you can't move. A bunch of dogs.

Right. And, you know, you blew your fucking wad on a product that really makes you kind of look bad as a retailer. So I'm always kind of intrigued to see who's going to jump the shark this year. You know, it happens every year.

So you got the biggest deal? Yeah. Normally when the deal is through the fucking roof, you're dead. Who was it last year?

I don't remember off the top of my head who the one was last year, you know, and the reason why that is because I've kind of pulled away on a retail level because of the fact that I'm, yeah, I'm in the Roma booth. I mean, I've been in the Roma booth for, I don't know, eight years just because I've always been helping them out, but now as a brand owner, I've been there for, I think, three or four years, something like that. I don't know. Who keeps track of these things?

I just count the grays in the side of my head, and then I realize I'm getting fucking old, you know? All right, so yeah, IBCPR. Here comes the fucking chaos. Can't wait.

I'm going to do my best to take my gym regimen, which should be interesting. At the show? Yeah, I've done it before. I've definitely done it before.

You're just going to have to get up earlier. Yeah, but the beautiful part about it now is, at least if you stay at the Palazzo, it's in the sands. Like last year when I worked out, it sucked because you worked out and then you had to get in a car, you know, get ready to get in a car and then go all the fucking way over to slapdick Vegas Convention Center where shit got stolen. Ever tell you that story?

Yeah, the big speakers. Yeah, my speaker got jacked from the booth. Fucking awesome. I think Charlie lost a fucking drone.

Oh yeah, I did hear about that. In a locked office. Nice. Good old Las Vegas Convention Center.

So kudos to Las Vegas Convention Center. And my hat's off to you. You know, obviously listening to the podcast, I always hear you guys, that's great that you've found a way to stay on your gym routine. Yeah, man.

You know, I was never huge in the gym, but always did something very regimented. And this job, I mean, that shit's just out the window right now. It's impossible sometimes. You know, I think I might go back to the basics and, you know, you can do push-ups anywhere and, you know, just got to start doing a little something again.

For sure, you know, when we went on the road last time, I think I pissed off Palmer. I really did, because like, you know. Really? How did you piss me off?

You know, I was like, alright, I'm gonna go work out, so I'd work out, and then we would go, and you could tell that he was just like. Well, you just, you didn't want me to eat until you were able to go eat. I mean, I could have just eaten and watched TV while you were working out. You can join me in the workout sesh.

I'm too old. Things hurt. There's damage on different parts of my body. Ugh, it's terrible.

I'm a mess. So to kind of jump off subject, I want to talk about my left lane hustle, like I've had this conversation with Nick Melillo. Left lane hustle. Yeah, so like, whenever I drive on 95 and shit, I'm the fucking guy that's doing just 10 over, sitting all the way in the left lane, smoking the cigar, and I make everybody fucking drive around me.

Is this not my exit? So, no, that's a totally different strategy. This is not my exit, so that's, you know, this is me just not giving a fuck. So, I was driving down on Deltona Boulevard, and it's a fucking cop trap.

Oh, I know where you're going, okay. And I'm doing 35 miles an hour, right? Which is the posted speed limit. Right, which you don't want to go over it, because...

And there's more than one sign that tells you how fast you're going now. Right, and where is this at? Right, just right down this road. This road right here.

Yeah, okay. So, you're talking about where you get off on the highway, and then come up to the shop. Okay. So, you know, I get off and I'm driving down the road, I'm doing 35, I smoke my cigar, life is good.

i got no complaints you know uh and this guy gets 12 31 o'clock he's heading into this guy gets right on my ass and uh i'm like whatever dude it's a one lane road you know so um this dude gets right on my ass gets so pissed off he speeds off into solid hits it and then goes as he goes down like not even 100 feet there's a pickup truck like a brand new gray pickup truck lights up blue and He's on the red lights, pulls this guy over. They've all got in those new trucks, those are pretty cool. Yeah, and so as the guy's getting pulled over in the plaza, he's flicking me off. I'm like, dude, it's not my fault, you're a fucking idiot.

You were trying to help him out. Yeah, just go to the speed limit. Go to the speed limit, you're all going to take it. So, if you're ever in Orlando and, you know, there's some asshole on I-4 and he's just doing 10 over the speed limit in left lane, that's me, just for the record.

Nice, nice. I love that story, it makes me happy that I really pissed that guy off. Because that was over a week ago. Yeah.

Well, it's just an affirmation that you were doing it right, you know? Yeah. You know the deal. That's it.

Well, yeah. It's just an affirmation, Michael. It's very nice. Hey, filled the time.

So you want to do this skit? You want to do this skit now? You ready for this skit? Jesus Christ.

Okay, so this is-- Wait, I just took two trips recently. Oh yeah, you did two trips to DR Nicaragua. I will update on the car. On my car.

Okay, tell us. Tell us about the car. That $15 part that I ordered from Amazon-- It was a trick! It doesn't fit.

It's the wrong piece. So now to send it back I have to send the guys photos of why it doesn't fit. Nice. Yes, they said, "Send us a photo of why it doesn't fit.

" It's some Chinese guy. So I'm going to take a picture. Oh, it's your people. It's about twice the size of the one that I need.

Really? Yes. When we got, when Drew and I got the old one out, there's a section of it missing. I mean, there's another piece that was still on the inside that we didn't know that had come off too.

That had come off too. Right. So there's a piece about that big, in the middle of the plastic thing that's missing. I told you what to do with your fucking car.

Just leave it on the curb for the dumpster to fucking throw it away. Well, so I ended up going to Discount Auto Parts and they ordered me the part though. Oh, that's cool. A little more than $15.

They called the same dude. Probably, probably. Yeah, how much was it? 50 bucks?

Yeah, it was 50 bucks. Nice. But I can return it if it doesn't fit though. Oh, that's good.

Well, you know, they'll break it down for you. We'll walk you through it. Yeah, we'll walk you through it. Nice.

So you want to talk about your trips? Yeah, yeah, we can definitely do that. C. Newman's in.

" I got some shit to talk about here. I got some stuff here. No, no, calm down, calm down. Let's talk about, let's talk about our car shit.

So, yeah. I'm worried about that skit. Yeah, me too, me too. This was a little harder to come up with.

He doesn't even fucking prepare us. Like, I've never, I don't even know what we're talking about. That's why it's so good. You've got to turn the tables one day, man.

You can just flip it on him. See the only thing is he's not that creative. He's got the headphones. He's got the script, you know, no advance notice.

Right? First of all, not that creative. Look at I created this shit. You did.

Yeah, told me one day. Hey, let's do a podcast. Boom. And that was it.

Fucking created. Make it happen, Palmer. Exactly. Now see what you can do with that, Palmer.

Go ahead. Take that and run with it. My son wants that war machine, by the way. Bring in the Captain America.

I'll bring you the Captain America. Fucker. Negotiations. I meant to work that out with your wife when she was here, but I forgot.

Ruthless. Because your wife will bring it in. If I give it to you, never seen Captain America. You're probably right.

Okay, so you went to Esteli and the DR before that. Okay. So got to go see the Fuente operations in late March. Really looked forward to that.

Like I said, been a cigar smoker my whole life. My grandparents on my father's side were in the tobacco industry their whole lives. My grandmother was a roller for a few different companies throughout the years. Yep, she worked for Fuente, rolled perfectos, and that's kind of just a neat little quick story there.

You know, when you're a kid, you don't really know what you have around you as far as heritage and history and that kind of thing. But, you know, as I became, you know, an adult, and especially once I got into cigars, you know, I was like, man, this is pretty cool. You know, my grandmother rolled cigars forever, and my grandfather always worked tobacco for, you know, all the major people in Tampa. The last place he worked for was Villazon back in the day, yeah, yeah, and interestingly enough, coincidentally, they were in the same building that now Oliva Tobacco's in, so when I go to see my cousins, that's where my grandfather worked, you know, his last job full-time working tobacco.

That's pretty crazy. Yeah, yeah. But my grandmother rolled her whole life, you know, up until towards the end, obviously, when the hand-rolling in Tampa kind of ceased. But she was working for Fuente.

And I remember hearing the story, you know, a long time ago, when Fuente made the decision to go offshore over to the DR. You know, according to my father, you know, they asked if she wanted to go over there with them and be one of the first ones to go down. But, you know, she had, you know, three kids, obviously were adults and grandkids, and I guess just it wasn't a good fit for her. It's not like you could FaceTime back in the '70s either.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. It didn't work that well. The rotary phone and trying to figure out those international calling codes. Yeah, $75 later.

Exactly, exactly. But, but yeah, you know, and didn't know much about, you know, details about what she did other than she rolled cigars, but once I got into them, had a real neat opportunity that, for me now, Now, especially with what I do for a living, is just an awesome memory. Just like all of us, she probably got a couple of cigars and ended up with a cracked wrapper or something like that, and I was hanging on to those back then, I don't know why, but I'm glad I did. A couple of them were Fuente Hemingway's, so the Perfectos, that's how I found out she actually rolled those, which are not easy to roll.

Yeah, and had some cracked cigars, and started talking to my grandmother and hearing stories about her being in the industry and being a roller. and just eating that shit up, you know. Right. And, you know, one time I went and visited John Edo, my cousin, over at Oliva Tobacco.

And I said, hey, man, you got any tobacco here, you know, that's kind of cool or special? And he goes, you know, man, that's all we do. So he gave me a hand of this tobacco that, looking back now, was, you know, some kind of super risotto they had, something really, really cool. So, you know, one day my grandmother was going to visit my dad, And I drove out there and told her, "Hey, I got tobacco.

I got some cigars. " So she still had her chiveta and everything. And we set her up in my dad's kitchen. Awesome.

You put your grandmother to work. Good for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad's a real nice, my dad's a big-time cook.

My dad's a big-time cook. He brought out his big butcher block cutting board and we set up a light for her and she sat there and unwrapped all those cigars, She took that tobacco out of the hands, did what she had to do to it, and rewrapped a bunch of pretty cool stuff. Oh wow, she fixed them. She rewrapped them with some tobacco that my cousin gave me, and so there were some Hemingways there.

Had a decent little stash of those, and ended up sharing those with some buddies that I'd met actually after I met Mike that were shop owners and pretty heavy-duty cigar enthusiasts. " You know, it was great tobacco on a great cigar, but I think, you know, the memory for me and, you know, the connection to it was huge. Of course. Oh, yeah.

Makes a big difference. You know, it was like everybody was like loving the cigar. And I had a few Cubans, too, that I had, you know, had from back in the day had, you know, screwed up wrappers, so I think I've got one of those cigars left that, you know, I'll just never smoke and just hang on to. But, yeah, getting back to the trips, being into cigars for so long and knowing Carlito and Cynthia and, you know, knew Carlos Sr.

a little bit, met him a few times, but he was a pretty quiet guy and never got a chance really to talk to him a whole lot, but knowing everything about the Fuente story and the Newmans and then, you know, of course, the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation, I'd always been dying to go down there. And, you know, over the years I'd see Carlito when he was in town at events and, you know, a few times was like, you know, "Hey, what the heck's going on there? " And it's, you know, you just don't pick up the phone and make that happen. And, you know, life's in the way and it's, you know, busy.

So, had a lot of pent up excitement and interest in getting down there. And now, especially, of course, working for the family. So, got to go check out the Fuente operations, saw everything. Right.

Including Chateau de la Fuente, which another little fact that everybody might not know is the Fuentes bought that farm from my cousins. That was an Oliva property. Okay. Wow.

And whenever Carlito decided he wanted to pursue that project, they've had a... I feel like your cousins fucked you. You know what I mean? Like, you know, they own all this shit.

All this stuff. He could have just slid in at a VP somewhere or something, you know? Well, that's the thing, there's not a lot to do within that organization unless you want to go, you know, work on a farm somewhere, you know, there's no sales force or anything like that, so yeah. They could have just sent you a check.

I mean, they could have put you on the board and just sent you a check. They could have been charged with predator control at the farm or something. Yeah, that's it, you know, it'd be kind of cool. You could sit up in a tower with your sniper rifle and pick off rabbits.

Might be a little different down there. Slightly. Yeah, bigger rabbits. But yeah, so to get down there finally and see the whole operation was pretty, was pretty nice because I got to see the farm, got to see the Fuente factory, which is Disney World, you know, there's no other way to put it, there's, I've only seen two factories now, and, but I've seen a lot of pictures of others, and, you know, I don't think anyone does it like Fuente, hence the whole, only Fuente is Fuente thing.

How did the cigars come out that you rolled? I saw you were down the rolling zone. They look good. Do they?

They're wet, you know, they're still wet, you know. So I'll probably burn one or two of them just to kind of see, you know, how they came out. But yeah, I got to roll some cigars at the Newman's factory in Esteli. But yeah, the Dominican was great, seeing, you know, where everything comes from and just seeing that, you know, truly everything that Fuente does, they're vertically integrated.

You know, they've, I don't think they necessarily ever wanted to be that way, but, you know, as you guys know, owning businesses, you know, relying on other people Yeah. And the issues within other organizations will affect you. Very true. And, you know, they have the, number one, the dedication, and then, of course, you know, the resources and the determination.

You know, they do everything, you know, from cello, we saw the box factory, you know, all the boxes we make ourselves down there. But just to see how it all comes together, it's, you know, extremely impressive. So from a technical side and a cigar guy and a cigar salesman, you know, that was, you know, great in its own, very educational. Right.

But probably the best part of the trip to the Dominican was seeing the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation Complex, which, for the listeners that might not know, the Fuentes and the Newmans back in 2001, after operating in the Dominican for a while and seeing what was going on in the communities, they just had this urge and this calling. And, you know, they feel it was a responsibility to give something back. So, since that time, they've been operating the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation. The nice thing about that is anytime someone goes to an event or buys those toast packs that they put out every year with the two cigars in it, every dime of any money that comes into that charity goes straight to help those kids down there.

That's awesome. All of the expenses, and there's a lot of them, those are underwritten 100% by the Fuente & Newman families, so when you buy a toast pack for 50 bucks, that 50 bucks goes straight to making something happen, you know, no one's drawing a salary, we don't pay a marketing company or a management company or anything like that, but going down there and just seeing that, you know, because when you go to the farm, as you're coming up to it, you know it's getting close, they're telling you, hey, you know, it's a little while longer, Brad, are we there? You know, that kind of thing. And you see what's going on in the community, and then, you know, you pull up to Chateau de la Fuente, and it's, you know, it's like someone pulled the curtain back, and you're not even in the same place anymore.

Right. But they're doing great things down there. They started off by wanting to add a wing to an existing school there and give the people a clinic, you know, for the kids down there. And then, you know, that grew, and then, you know, they're taking the kids a little further through the education.

and then the kids are graduating the program, but they're not happy, they're sad. And Carlito and Eric Newman start looking into, what's going on? This is supposed to be a good thing. Well, they're going right back to what they came from.

We take for granted here. I mean, if you do your part and show up, you can get an education in this country, at least up to high school. How about the fact that you can fucking eat here without a problem? And have clean water.

Unless you live in Michigan. So you can't have clean water. No clean water. Yeah.

But yeah, you know, so it grew over time. And, you know, not to mention, you know, in areas like that, the villages, it's almost like, you know, it's, you know, it's different, you know, clans, like different families, things like that. And, you know, there's stories down there where, you know, when they were first getting going and bringing the kids in the area together, you know, to go to school, you know, kids bringing knives, seven, eight year olds, you know, you've got kids, Mike. Right.

Yeah, it's kind of frowned upon. Because they're told, you know, if you see someone from the other area, you're supposed to, you know, attack them, you know. So they had to overcome a lot of that, so the education went from not only the children and helping them, but kind of working with, you know, the household unit. You know, you've got a kid who's getting the best education he's ever gotten, but he goes home with homework and, you know, the parents can't read or they don't understand math, you know.

um they've really done an awful lot um it's actually progressed they can go all the way through high school there um it's been around enough now that uh there's several uh kids from those villages that are full-blown doctors now no shit there's one that's working on a neurosurgeon stuff now that's pretty impressive we're in the teacher's lounge there at the complex and the group of ladies that were in there that were teachers and you know they told us that every Maybe one of them had gone through the program as kids, went and got their teacher certificate and came back, and now, you know, they're giving back to the community, so it's kind of, it's broken that chain or that endless cycle, and it's just really, really neat to see that, they're working on a technical school down there, there's a room, they had, you know, probably 20, 30 computers in there, and the kids are drawing and playing around on computers in, you know, this remote, mountainous area in the Dominican, so, the cigars were great, it's awesome, you know, I need that for my dad. I think that just kind of reaffirmed to me the caliber of people that I'm working for, because they don't have to do that. Running that alone can suck up a lot of time and resources, and they still gotta find a way to make almost 35 million cigars on the Fuente side, and just down in Nicaragua on the Newman side, they're doing about 25 million or so a year. So, I mean, I think I already know the answer here, but which part of the trip did you like better?

Did you like DR or did you like Esteli? They were both great in their own right. You know, I just started with the Dominican because that was the first one I went to. Just got back from Esteli last week.

They were both great. The Newman's operation in Esteli, which the hotel recently was known as Pensa. C. Newman Cigar Factory down there.

Right. It's very well run. The big takeaway I had from there was the efficiency. It's laid out nicely because they built that one from the ground up.

Right. Fuente, over time, as they've grown, they've added on and added on and added on. And a lot of people saw in Cigar Aficionado, I'm sure, you know, the latest incarnation where it looks like you're walking into the Columbia restaurant. But the Newmans, you know, they were actually able to design that place for efficiency and do it from the ground up, the people there have a lot of pride in the work that they do, that was my big takeaway, they're pretty grateful and, you know, appreciative, and they understand that what they do daily, you know, affects the company and the enjoyment of the cigars by the end user, so didn't enjoy one over the other, they're definitely, you know, both great, they're just, they all They're different.

All right, so McKinney comes up to you and says, "Hey, we're gonna go. We're either gonna go to Esteli or DR. We can only go to one. Where are we going for the weekend?

" Man, you're not gonna get me with that, man. No, it's, you know, obviously there's gonna be, hopefully I'm with the company a long time, but each one's a little, it's just a little bit different. I'd say the Newman side's a little more technical. It's more about the cigars, the Dominican probably has a little bit more going on as far as enjoying your time and things like that.

So you do DR? I'd like to do both. He'd definitely do DR. DR.

It would be DR. There's a lot more going on in the Dominican Republic than there is Esteli Nicaragua. Wait, you've been to both, right? You've been to DR?

I haven't been to like the DR aspect of the factories or anything like that. I've only been down there for like a honeymoon type scenario, but like, you know, honeymoon scenario, actual honeymoon. So your wife finds out you went down there. She went with me.

Oh, she was part of the scenario? And I know for a fact that there's a lot more stuff in the Dominican than there is in the SLE. Oh, yeah. You know, I'm a big ocean, you know, beach kind of guy.

So, yeah, if you were going to go hang out for a weekend, you have probably a little bit more to do in the Dominican as far as that goes. So I do the DR. Dominican, Dominican. So, Mike, when you have a next trip, John would like to go to the Dominican.

So yeah, if you guys had to choose. Just so you know, he has to choose which one, because we know Mike's listening. Now the Fuente, there was going to be a Fuente factory in Esteli. They were talking about that a couple years ago, and then we had this kind of political upheaval and all this bullshit going on in Nicaragua.

So is that totally botched now, or is it still in the works? No. They've kind of put any progress on that on hold. You know, because I listen to the podcasts, I listen to Mike's, I know he told the audience that Fuente has been growing down there for a few years, Felix Mesa handles, who has his El Galan brand and owns a shop down in Miami, Carlito kind of tapped him to run that operation down there, they're very actively farming and that kind of a thing, but as far as a factory, for right now, those plans have been put on hold, but it was pretty cool, on the Dominican trip, one of the places we went to was Villa Gonzalez, where we had to store all the tobacco, and it was pretty cool to go in there and see on the shelves, they've got a lot of stuff.

We have tobacco from Buen Vecino, which is the name of the Fuente farm in Esteli, so, they're gonna do their thing, it's, you know, that was my first trip to Nicaragua, so I was talking with Rich Dolak, which is the VP of operations for Newman, and he's also heavily involved with Fuente, and, you know, we would just be, you know, we're at the hotel the first night, eating dinner, only people in there. Next night, walked to, what is it, Palazzo? You were in the Palazzo, nice kind of restaurant, past the Cathedral, and you kind of go up a little bit. We went there the second night, only people eating in there.

Eventually, we saw another party come in, and I just asked, you know, is this the norm? And Rich was like, no, it's still, you know. Fucked up. Yeah, well, you know, we felt pretty safe down there, you know, because of, you know, the hobbies we talked about earlier and all that.

I'm, you know, I look at security, and I'm an aware guy. You've got to be situationally aware, but I never felt unsafe, but it just kind of seemed like there wasn't a whole lot going on, and the hotel was for the most part empty. Right, what did you say, at Los Arcos? Yeah, yeah.

That's like the standard go-to. Yeah, I hear that it's either that or the Hex, and I guess the Hex is, you know, maybe considered to be a little nicer, more modernized or something. There's a small place called Los Altos that's pretty badass, too. Really?

There's a couple of rooms, but it's really nice. But yeah, so Fuente's going to do that, you know, Carlito's told the world, and he's been interviewed, and there's been articles, you know, that's, you know, they were there once before, as many people probably know, and didn't go too well, there was a little bit of, you know, unrest a long time ago as well, and they got burnout, and, you know, Carlos Fuente Sr. had just made a comment to Carlito that, you know, hey, if I was 10 years younger, I'd go back. You know it's you know it's a part of their history and you know Carlito likes to say he's like a chef with the cigars and we need as many ingredients and spices as possible and you know you can't you can't deny that you know Nicaragua's you know puts out you know some good tobacco.

So it'll be interesting to see that's going to be a whole nother chapter and I'm excited because that's going to happen you know on my watch so it'll be it'll be nice to to see that develop. Very nice. Okay apparently our camera only records that the I started it back up, but we lost a couple of minutes there in the middle. You fucking blew it again.

I didn't blow it. The thing only goes for 30 minutes, apparently. This is your deal, Palmer. Come on.

You know, as head creator, as Mr. Creativity-- It's the second time we've used the camera, okay? There'll be little bumps in the road as this goes. What are we all smoking right now, by the way?

What are you smoking? Well, I'm smoking the Casa Cuba, the Doble Dos, and I believe that's the one you got as well. Yeah, I love that cigar. I got the same, too, but the little guy's up front, I have one.

Palmer's not smoking, man. This is the smoking, not smoking lounge. Greg can't yell at me during the video. He's trying to hang you out again.

I'm on Greg's side, apparently. So we were playing the video, and Greg yelled. He's like, stop fucking smoking down there. And I'm smoking in my half of the room.

And I didn't smoke, Greg. But yeah, this is the Casa Cuba. This is the Doble Dos. I do have a full ashtray on my desk over there where I smoke by the door.

I'm not doing another video without you fucking smoking. All right. I've laid the gauntlet. But yeah, Casa Cuba, this is the Doble Dos, it's a limited release size, it's only been put out a couple times, some of those special deals you were talking about that we do, but the interesting thing about that cigar, for people that might not know, is that's the last cigar that Carlos Fuente Sr.

oversaw from beginning to end, before he passed away. Right. He decided to do that as a nod to the old way of doing things, how they used to deal with Cuban tobacco, the bands back then, it's still beautiful, but, you know, a little understated from some of the other stuff that we put out down there in the Dominican, but a phenomenal cigar, it's an Ecuador Havana wrapper, and actually, my personal favorite. Yeah.

Don't always get to smoke the Doble Dos, they're pretty limited. He likes us. If someone's looking for something like that on their retailer's shelf, probably the Doble Trace, we've got it in four sizes, and it's all named after Domino Hand, the Trace, Quattro Cinco, and Sace. For the video splits, I'll throw in this little Fuente commercial.

No sponsors. Yeah, no cigar sponsors, goddammit. C. Newman side of things, a Diamond Crown Julius Caesar.

Yes, those are good. That's also got an Ecuador Havana on it that's made for the Neumans down in the Dominican by Fuente. That was originally released, that line, back in 2010, and the likeness on that cigar band is of Julius Caesar Neumann, who started the Neumann Cigar Company in 1895. He's got his grandsons, Eric and Bobby Neumann, running it now.

His son, Stanford, ran it until he passed away, and now Erik's son, Drew, is involved with the company as well as general counsel and getting more involved every day as fourth generation, so they're very proud of the fact they're the oldest cigar company in America since 1895. And if they had cousins, I'm sure they do, they'd probably work for them. You know, they take care of their cousins. So also, while I was in Nicaragua, got to go visit, you know, going back to the cousin thing, got to go to Prosenica, which is obviously run by Oliva Tobacco Company, it was neat to see that.

Is that where you took the picture, outside by the sign? Yes, sir. Changes its name every like seven years. " Do you know who I am?

Do you know who I am? Look at the card! Yeah, John Ito wasn't down there, but there's a gentleman named Gus Cura that basically oversees and stays down there, And runs that for them, but got to go see that, which was pretty cool, I'm pretty sure you've been there as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, no, it was great.

It's a cool operation. Yeah, got to see it all, which was really, really nice. It's just not as nice as the Dominican Republic. There's not, you know, not near the beach.

John's like, fuck you guys, I'm never coming on this thing again. No, you know, it's, I know there's other reps out there that represent more than one brand. But this job is a little unique. We represent two of the probably most recognizable names in the industry.

Being the rep that covers Central and North Florida, which obviously Tampa is a part of that, which incidentally is the home to both families. So it's interesting. During the interview process for the job, that was something that they brought up quite a bit. And, you know, it's probably safe to say that there's some things that I get called upon to do that the guy out in California or up in the Northeast doesn't really have to mess with, but, you know, out of sight, out of mind is sometimes good when you're working, just so you can do your job, but I'm never out of sight or out of mind.

Right, so you've moved bodies is what you're saying. That's great! Cut the grass. No, but, but yeah, no, it's, you know, you're dealing with two families, you know, you go into shops, And sometimes the shop is biased one way or the other.

Right. I can see that. You know, those, you know, sometimes there's some obstacles there, but, you know, challenges are something I thrive on. That automotive industry that I came from is not known for being an easy industry.

I don't think there's anything out there that's more numbers-driven and results-driven, and that's a 30-day cycle. They count their business by the month, and you're analyzed nine ways to Sunday, so in those 25 years I'd like to think that I was able to hone a good set of skills and kind of a personal work ethic, I hold myself to a pretty high standard, try to be professional but still have fun, that's why I love coming places like this, we can kind of break it down and have a little fun with it, but yeah, no, two families, two different missions. they've been partners since the mid 80s you know the Flint days didn't have the capacity or the time anymore to do their machine-made stuff so that's how Carlos Sr. and Stanford Newman got together and they said you know Stanford you want to do this machine-made stuff for me and we'll do your hand rolled and so they're partners you know it's not competitors in any kind of way and it's just great because I strongly feel and felt this way before I was even in the industry That both families are dedicated to the industry, they're respected, there's a great family story behind each one and, you know, story is important, you know, you can look on the other side and some of the conglomerates and things like that, it's, those people might not have the opportunities that we do to forge relationships and partnerships and, you know, that's a great thing to have in my bag when I go into a shop is both sides of the house, they want to be partners with everybody.

They truly do, and business is business, and things are black and white, but that's one of the things I try to convey when I'm out there, a new shop that maybe is just getting going, or an established one, we're starting to see some people that are making decisions to kind of break ties with some of the big multinational companies and things like that, especially the ones that are coming to town and wanting to compete with you, but still sell you their cigars. Right. Which is interesting. Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting.

You know, we're probably going to be dealing with some of that in Tampa here pretty soon. You know, it's coming. C. Newman has to offer, is that, you know, we can do as much as, you know, someone's willing to want to do with us.

And, you know, it's not just about sales. Of course, that's, you know, you guys that own stores, you gotta sell cigars, and you know, obviously we want to sell them too, but I'd like to think it can be just a little easier and more enjoyable, you know, just working with good people. Very true. You have to swallow away from the microphone, it is so loud.

I'm scared to touch the water bottle, I don't want Palmer on me. He yelled at you like three times from the mic. He couldn't hear me, he was talking back here, he couldn't hear anything. You ready for your skit?

I don't want to do the skit. We don't have to. Go ahead. Go ahead.

You worked hard on it. Oops, upside down. Same deal as last time. Front, back, back.

What is this? Okay, so... Face down. Give John his copy.

Is this John's copy? That's John's copy. Don't look! You're playing Mikey, obviously.

John's going to play the part of Greg. And I want to be clear to everybody that Mike and I, Mike 1 and I have no idea what we're about to do here. This is a reenactment of the meeting yesterday when the video was completed. All right, actually, it's Friday.

Okay. Okay? I'm not in on this, I'm just watching. No, you're Greg.

You get to play the role of Greg. I get to be Greg? You get to play the role of Greg. I need to go borrow the hat and the glasses and some of that nice jewelry he's got.

You can put your sunglasses on. I thought about bringing a hat down. And you can be angry, because he's angry. Yes, yes, you're very angry.

He's not angry, he's focused. No, you're Greg. Okay. Yeah, you're Greg, so you're angry all the time.

Angry. Okay, you ready? Okay, the video is done. Want to watch it?

How do I look? What did this cost me? You look great, Mikey and Greg, not a penny. I love it!

Seriously, did you get my good side? Yes, you're fine. Calm down. Okay, pretend this is the screen, so this is where we're watching the video.

I look fat! This really cost me nothing. Oh my god. It's your turn, Mikey.

You made me look fat on purpose. What happened to my finger? Where does this end? Oh wait, I fucked this up.

up more cold plunges i need more cold plunges didn't cost you a dime greg mikey calm down we didn't even talk about my workout flexes you gotta this is too good it had to cost something is it tax deductible this is why i stay downstairs now you mean this is why we make you stay downstairs now And if I carry the one and do an ROI for 10 years, spreadsheet. All right, so this is done now? Yeah, now you go to that, okay. You made me look fat on purpose.

This is why we don't have meetings. That's exactly how the meeting went. You are so stupid. When I tried to show the video to everybody, you get it.

A day in the life, huh? Except Brittany was there, too. I mean, you forgot some shit, though, because as soon as the video turned on, I fucking picked apart, like, five things That were fucked up. I'm not bringing that up.

And now they're, oh yeah, smooth. Now they're fixed, though. Yeah, well, you know. Pretty much, you can't see that.

You want to hit up Mr. Oliva with the, uh-- You want to do the five questions, John? Five of them, huh? There's five questions.

I lost count, yeah. All right, what's your favorite cigar? I get to pick two. On the Arturo Fuente side, I mentioned earlier, it's the Casa Cuba.

Just a phenomenal cigar with a great story, and it's right up my alley. On the Newman side, I'd say previously it was the Diamond Crown Maximus. It's an Ecuadorian sun-grown wrapper that my family provides for the cigar, but I'm starting to take a liking the Julius Caesar quite a bit, especially the Corona size, which is the hardest one to get. We're usually back-ordered on it, but I like thinner ring gauge cigars.

All right, well, which one you don't represent? Yeah, what's your favorite cigar that you don't represent? To be real honest here, I don't smoke anything that's not from Fuente or Newman. Haven't in years.

Put a portfolio that large of those two companies. Alright, I'll let you have the hook on that. We make a lot of great cigars, and yeah. Alright, well one person, living or dead, would you like to share a cigar?

Stop interrupting me. Nah. Fuck you. I think the only person who knew I was doing this was McKinney.

Yeah? Yeah, we don't get briefed or anything like that. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.

That's the difference between a good company and a shit company, you know? They give you the freedom to be you. What's his name down here? Yeah.

Can't even say his name. Okay, well, one person, live in your dead, would you like to share a cigar with? You know, I listen a lot, so I've tried my best to think of this stuff, and I'm going to give a couple. First, on the family side, I told everybody the story about my grandmother rolling cigars and my grandfather working with tobacco his whole life.

I would love on the family side to smoke a cigar that my grandmother rolled, you know, Not rewrapped, but actually rolled from nothing for me with tobacco that my grandfather handled and actually be able to sit and have a conversation with my grandfather in Spanish. My parents divorced when I was pretty young and I never got the chance to learn Spanish. I know I've heard you talk about that before, how that can be a challenge going down to some of these places. So one way or another, I got to fix that, maybe try to get another trip and maybe stay a while and be forced to start learning it.

But, yeah, never had a chance to smoke a cigar with my grandfather. He passed away before I was really into him, and it would just be great. I remember going and visiting my grandfather with my dad, and they'd sit there in the kitchen and talk in Spanish, and my brother and I would go sit on the couch and watch TV. But to be able to sit there and do that and communicate with him in his native language would be great.

And then, you know, and I realize these are the same answers Mike McKinney gave last year, But I had an opportunity and did smoke cigars with Stanford Newman for basically a whole day at one of those Cigar Heritage Festivals that they do in Ybor every year. When he was still alive, he came out to the event for the day and sat under the VIP tent that they always have out there. So I got to hear a lot of cool stories from him, but being inside the industry and working for the company, I think it'd be great to share some cigars with him and get his take on the industry. And, you know, that guy probably knew a few things, he was in it for a long time.

Right. , as I said earlier, met him a few times, very brief conversations. One of them was to let him know that, you know, I was the grandson of a lady that worked for him at some point. But, again, being inside the industry, being able to sit down with him as an insider now and an employee of the company would just be great to smoke a cigar with him as well.

It's kind of remarkable when you think about like the decisions that were made in the life of your whole family and you still found your way back to the same industry, you know, with the same people. Well, yeah, it's, you know, I believe in karma. I'm not a big church goer, but, you know, I do, you know, pray every morning, every night. Very thankful for the opportunity.

You know, also got to thank my man, Mike McKinney. Great friend for many, many years. We're gonna edit this part out. Slip something else in there.

But, you know, actually, the way this whole thing came about with the job is he was on that treacherous panhandle trip, which you guys are on that. You know, one way out, one way back, it's brutal. And now I know why that, you know, Mike and I spent a lot of time on the phone. You know, we'd chat, you know, endlessly, especially when I had the opportunity on my end.

" And he was hinting around and ultimately just kind of flat out said it, and, you know, he had to push me a bit. You know, I got to say that because of the relationship that I've had with both families, I'm sure a lot of people, you know, would say, man, that's got to be the best thing you had going, your family sells them tobacco, you know, both families, you've been around forever, but, you know, there's no one in this world that's harder on me than myself, it's just kind of how I'm wired and, you know, I just was very dismissive, I was like, man, they're never going to do it, I'm too close, you know, what if it doesn't work? You know, there's these relationships that go back, you know, 80 years or so, and, uh, but, uh, but no, it ended up working out very, very well. Awesome.

All right. Best piece of advice anyone ever gave you? You know, we all get a lot of good advice in this life, and it's, uh, you know, I've thought about the questions, you know, I've obviously cheated a little bit, but, um, you know, I'm gonna just kind of go back, again, to my work ethic and what I've learned over the years and, you know, getting out there as a pretty young guy and having And I'm going to make my own way and climb the ladder, you know, it's hard not to be cliché, you know, be good to people, you know, until they give you a reason not to be, and then just something of mine that I've adopted a long time ago that I try to share with people, if someone seems like they need a piece of advice or we're talking about life or something, I make it a point to learn something new every single day. This job gives me a lot of opportunity for that, even with my previous cigar knowledge, but just even personally, you know, you're reading something, there's a word that you don't know, you know, look it up on Google, do something every day to just try to learn something and then that kind of goes into, you know, part of, you know, my morning and nightly prayer is just to be a little bit better person than you were the previous day.

Awesome. Yeah. The day he learned it was a lot more fun to listen to this than to be honest. No, this has been great, guys.

It's a day, and thank you both for inviting me on. Yeah, of course, dude. One more question. We wanted to have you on before.

Right, you just couldn't work it out with the timing. Right. What one fictitious person would you like to share a cigar with? Man, I thought about this one long and hard.

You know, probably keep it pretty casual and cool. Just probably be cool to smoke a cigar with Scarface, I think. Yeah, absolutely. That guy's got some comedic value, some good one-liners.

You might not want to be around towards the end of that story. Yeah, you might not make it out of the meeting. You don't want to piss them off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, don't want to get shot at and go down like that, but yeah, I think it'd be kind of an interesting, funny guy.

You know, maybe the guys from the Goodfellas or something, you know, but they're real people. Those people exist. Oh, that's true, you can actually end up with those guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, well, I mean, that pretty much concludes it. That's it. Thank you so much for coming on, dude. Yes, thank you, John, very much.

You know, you're a great guy. You know, we've had a short period of time, but together, you know, about a year, a little over a year, right? A little under a year. June 18th is going to be my year.

Oh, it's my anniversary. But the relationship's been great, man. We appreciate everything you do for the shop, and you know, we recognize the fact that you're a hard worker, and you know, don't think that that doesn't go unacknowledged, because we definitely appreciate you. Well, I appreciate that.

You know, again, you've got not only a retail shop, but a brand, and I hear your stories. You know what it's like out there on the road? Oh, yeah. It's fucking brutal.

It sucks. You know, you got to prove yourself to people, you know, nothing's given, no matter who you know, or anything like that. Never go out on the road again. And, you know, going behind someone who did it, you know, for basically 20 years, had great relationships that, you know, were 20 years strong.

Right. You know, it's tough, but I appreciate that because I really do try to hit on every cylinder, dot every I, cross every T, and it's not always easy. You know, the phone's always ringing, and you know, when you have good cigars that everyone wants, you're never telling anybody what they want to hear, but, you know, again, my big thing is just, you know, I appreciate, you know, people like you, your brother's, you know, fantastic, and, you know, John in the shop, everyone's cool. Greg's okay.

Yeah. Greg's a good guy. Just maybe a little misunderstood. But, but no, I mean, it's, it's, I appreciate it.

It's, it's nice to know that it's recognized when someone's trying hard. Absolutely. Tell Mike we said hi. Send me to talk to him.

We miss him. Yeah, yeah. He wants a debrief tonight. So, you know, I don't think you guys should let him go on this video thing.

I mean, maybe I'll drag him out one day. Drag him out here. We'll put him out. Nice.

Could have had him call in. I could have hooked up the phone. Could have had the call in. The first call in?

Yeah, we can do call-ins now. I thought you guys were against that. I am against it. He's against it.

That doesn't mean it won't happen. It's another technical thing to, you know, potentially fuck up. Right. I mean, you can't even get the fucking camera right yet.

It's only the second time. You want people to call in. I can put in a commercial. Hey, I've got to know, what's the scoreboard?

How far do we get? You're over an hour. You're over an hour, an hour five. Really?

Yeah, nicely done. In video, you're only 21 minutes. Yeah, that's probably for everybody's benefit. Thanks, guys.

All right, everybody, thanks. Bye. Hello, this is a prepaid collect call from the Correctional Institution. This call is subject to recording and monitoring.

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Show Notes

This week we sit down with our long time friend Mr John Oliva from Fuente and JC Newman Cigars.

Another episode of the Not Ready for Prime Time Cigar Hustler Players!

We start talking about the IPCPR and Industry news!

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