Episode 78 Industry News

Episode Summary

Episode 78 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast is a two-Mike industry roundtable recorded at the shop, opening with stories from the 2019 IPCPR/PCA trade show in Las Vegas — including the convention's aggressive no-smoking enforcement (with a rumored $15,000 fine and expulsion for lighting up) and a near-miss when Mike was stopped in the hallway over a still-cellophaned HVC cigar handed to him by Lorenzo. From there the guys get into the grind of being a small brand owner: shipping the newly launched Powstanie Wojtek ("Warbearer") release, chasing down expired credit cards, and the frustration of being screened by shop employees who won't pass a message to the owner.

Mike recaps his guest spot on Cigar Coop's Prime Time, covering the questions Coop asked, why the Drew Estate falling-out pushed him toward building his own brand that nobody else could control, a teased SBC 20 project, and the promise that the podcast will never take cigar ads. They also riff on Steve Saka (and the running "Steve Flacca" weight-loss bet with Nimesh Desai and Abe Dababneh), the new red-banded, beefed-up Mi Querida release, and Skip Martin's appearance on Cigar Dojo.

Industry news includes Half Wheel's report that Maine raised its tobacco tax from 20% to 43% effective January 2, 2020, a rundown of state cigar taxes (Minnesota highest at 95%; Florida, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire with none), and Cigar Aficionado / Cigar Insider's top 10 best-selling brands list — Arturo Fuente, Padrón, Ashton, Davidoff, Rocky Patel, Perdomo, Oliva, My Father and Romeo y Julieta tied, and Montecristo — which the hosts argue tracks ad dollars more than real sales, noting Drew Estate's absence.

The back half is listener questions (dealing with burned bridges in the cigar industry, how each host got into cigars, pineapple on pizza), show stats from Podbean showing the RoMa Craft/Skip Martin episodes dominating the all-time top five, a #NameThePolishDude contest, and a preview of Wes Thornton of Crowned Heads appearing at the Florida Cigar Club's fifth birthday party.

In This Episode

1. 01
   IPCPR 2019 No-Smoking Crackdown
   A hallway run-in with trade show enforcement over an unlit, cellophaned HVC cigar, and how the $15,000 fine threat actually kept everyone in line.
2. 02
   Shipping Warbearer & Wholesale Headaches
   The realities of a brand owner chasing expired credit cards and getting screened by retail employees after an order is already placed.
3. 03
   Recapping the Cigar Coop Prime Time Appearance
   Mike breaks down his interview with Cigar Coop, the quality of Coop's questions, a teased SBC 20 project, and the decision to never run cigar ads.
4. 04
   The Drew Estate Falling Out
   Why a retailer's split with Drew Estate led him to build a brand nobody else could control — and why he holds no grudge.
5. 05
   Saka, the Weight-Loss Bet & the New Mi Querida
   Riffing on Steve Saka's bet with Nimesh Desai and Abe Dababneh, and the beefed-up red-banded Mi Querida release.
6. 06
   Cigar Aficionado's Top 10 Best-Selling Brands
   Fuente, Padrón, Ashton, Davidoff, Rocky Patel, Perdomo, Oliva, My Father, Romeo y Julieta and Montecristo — and why the hosts think the list reflects ad spend.
7. 07
   Maine Tobacco Tax Hike & State Tax Rundown
   Maine jumps from 20% to 43% on January 2, 2020, plus the highest (Minnesota, 95%) and lowest (Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire) cigar tax states.
8. 08
   Listener Questions & Show Stats
   Handling burned bridges in the industry, how each host got into cigars, Podbean numbers, and the RoMa Craft episodes topping the all-time chart.

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 Cigar Hustlers Podcast, Episode 78! This week we talk about Mike's appearance on Cigar Coop, we get a little industry news, get caught up on what we've been doing, and that's all we talk about. Enjoy the show! It'll be on here in just a second!

Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike squared, squared, squared. There we go, Earl. Earl, Earl's on. Tighten in the shot, Earl.

Tighten up the shot. Now, make sure that after, if we hit the 30 minute mark this time around. There is a note right here on my controls, uh, controls, whatever it's called here, uh, at 28 minutes. So we'll be at that.

Mission Controls, whatever this is called here. What's it called? Mission Control. Mission Control.

Mission Control. But, uh, welcome to a Cigar Hustlers Podcast, episode 78. Hey! Hey!

Oh, by the way, on the camera, we look very fat on camera, just so you know. We? Yeah, we, Tonto. Hey!

We. So, we need to move the camera where it's not shooting down. You think so? Well, then I'm covered by all the equipment, at least.

But I feel like, you know, I could argue the other point of that, because like, I feel like coming I feel like coming down, you look better. That's a girl thing with the camera. " Nobody looks good sitting down. It's very hard to look good sitting down.

Even guys with abs. We should just be standing up then. The whole time. Don't move.

" It's okay, it's a podcast for a bunch of fucking grown ass dudes anyways, so it's not always like, you know, I think we're gonna be okay. Everything appears to be working. We sound fine. And I don't really care what people think about me.

No problems, technical issues yet. Hope the lighting's better, Yolanda. If you could text me when you see the show tomorrow and let me know how the lighting was. Yes.

She is our lighting person. Well, there was something I forgot to mention about pre-IPCPR last week. Oh, please. So, I was in the hallway before the show started.

Oh, in Vegas. Yeah. You know, in the no-smoking hallway, which was a big deal. Yeah, it was a big deal.

I mean, there was a huge fine. There was a threat of a $15,000 fine and a banishment. Expulsion from the show. As well as 10 lashings.

Oh. So. So, I'm walking out. Wait, wait, you're walking out of the show?

Yeah, like we were setting up the booth that day. Okay, gotcha. Trying to get contacts in for the audience. I run into Lorenzo and Lorenzo hands me an HVC.

Yes. Like one of his new series or whatever. So I have it, it's still celloed. Yes.

" Why, do you need a light, sir? " Like she was pissed off that she didn't catch me. Yeah, it's just somebody gone home. " So I don't know if she was with the IPCPR or...

Maybe they put a bounty on people. If you catch a person, you get ten dollars. Ten whole dollars. You get a discount on your booth?

There could have been more. Maybe they get the $1,500 penalty. So, I mean, it was crazy, but it worked. Nobody broke the rules.

Nobody smoked, yeah. Because that, the other year that I went, we did technically smoke between the hotel and the conference center. We did whatever we wanted. Not only that, we smoked on the showroom floor when we weren't supposed to and let them yell at us.

We can't do that, okay. We did travel with our own music that year. Yeah, that was a good year. That was a lot of fun.

Someone stole, though. Someone stole our speaker. Someone stole our speakers back then. Bastards!

But that was the other convention center. The more affordable-- No, no, no. Oh, they stole it from that one, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was the more affordable convention center.

So, I mean, if the cost was an additional speaker, it was worth it. There you go. So, obviously, Warbearers are pretty much, we've shipped them. Whew!

I'm exhausted. We got a couple orders that still have some issues with expired cards and stuff like that. And this is kind of a comical thing for me. When you call a store, and, you know, as a wholesaler or a brand owner, and you reach out, and you say, "Hey, this is so-and-so" and I— Oh, it's who?

This is Michael Bosani. Yeah, I get that a lot. Wait, let's just play it out here. I'll be the shop owner.

Go ahead, call me. No, it's not the shop owner. Ring, ring, ring. The shop owner doesn't answer the phone.

That's the problem. No, no, right. So, okay, ring, okay, you go ring, ring. Oh wait, no, you're calling me.

This is really fucked up now. Oh, come on. Ring, ring, ring, ring. Let me just break this down for you.

Hello! Oh, jeez! Befe's working the register. " Michael who?

This is Michael Postana. This is where I kill you. Hello, Michael with Powstanie. You know, so-and-so plays an order with me at the show, or, you know, but the card that I have on file has expired, you know, I need a new card.

Oh, he fired him. The shitty part is they screen you. Some people will screen you. It's like, okay, I don't know, well, I'll have to call you back.

I'll try and get the information to him. I don't understand why is this so complicated. We live in a day and age where everybody has a fucking cell phone. Right?

It's not like… Oh, well, just like that. There you go. There's a cell phone. It's not like I'm pitching a sales pitch to somebody.

Like, I'm trying to… They've already placed the order. Right. This is done. This is the done deal.

This is the done deal. We've worked at all the details. Like, oh, here's a cell number. You know, like, it should be okay to give me a cell number, you know, at that point, or something of that matter.

Well… Do the employees here give out your cell number? Um… I know you have to give… The phone number is on the screen in the front of the humidor. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but you have to have that for a reason.

But, dude, we gave my cell phone number out on Kiss My Ass Radio. Oh, nobody called. Nobody called. I'm sorry.

But my point is that, like, it's not that, you know-- Let's give it out right now. Why? See who calls. I'm afraid to.

No, they can figure it out on their own. You don't have to call my employees. Call quick, 'cause they're dropping like flies right there. Ooh, yeah.

Ooh, yeah. We're down a key player, which should be interesting, so hopefully we can find some new help. So if you'd like to apply for a job. But in the meantime, we're just gonna be using the living shit out of Palmer, and he's gonna be working a full-time game.

Coming out of retirement, coming out of retirement. So. Going back on the clock. The amazing part that I didn't mention is normally when that happens, when you can't get in touch with the person with the credit card information or whatever the case may be, they have the most tendency to be upset when something starts selling really well and they don't have it yet.

It's like, well, you know, you're a fucking employee. " So, like, how many times do you think a call gets screened here that I never received the message? Well, I never tell you. Exactly.

99% chance that… I just pretend I'm you if I have a mic on the phone. This is mic. Oh, hey, mic. I haven't done that before.

They'll go, can I speak to mic? Well, that would be me, but… This is a mic, not the mic. This is a mic, but not the mic. But, hey, how are you?

Can I talk to the mic? Hmm, depends on what you want. Um, I guess I should just save that for the end, what I have here. Ah, go ahead.

You know, we were talking… No, I have it… I'm going to move that one. Because it's going to parlay into your coop conversation. It's a Coupe Conversation, the Tricy Tacky, Mi Querida, it's a fucking Mi Querida, you told me it wasn't. Somebody else called it a Tricy Tacky the other day, so was it on Coupe Show and so you called it a Tricy Tacky?

I might have called it that, yeah. So I haven't smoked it yet, I wanted to smoke it the other night. So it is the new Mi Querida? It's a Mi Querida, it's a beefed up Mi Querida.

With the Red Band? Yes. Yes. So, yeah.

From Mr. Steve Sakka, your best friend, your BFF. Steve Flacca. I call him Steve Flacca.

Oh, sorry. Because he's so skinny. He's losing so much weight. What happened from that bet?

Did they ever say who lost? No, so it's revised. The bet has been revised. There's three people involved.

Nimesh, Abe from Smokin, and Steve Flacca. Steve Flacca, it's not Steve Thinka? So Coop asked me who I thought was going to lose the bet, and I think it's gonna be Abe. Oh, that's right, you did say that.

And then that post, he didn't make it quite the pretty one. He didn't make it quite the pretty woman. He's very cute. You know, very cute.

The technology these days in these apps, I'll tell you. Well, they all have facial hair, but Sokka's the only one whose facial hair showed up on his female photo. You know, he took the time he did it right. He tried to make him as masculine as possible.

He's a smart man. The ring in his nose. He's like, "No, this isn't right. " He just looked like Steve with mascara.

Right. Exactly. We have a new friend from Poland that we haven't done. Oh!

" So, we're missing all of our people. Why are we missing all? All of our little people are gone. What did you do here?

When we moved, they got in the back seat of the car, and they've sort of-- Are they buckled up back there? I mean, it's been a few weeks. Well, you know, they're on the floor. They're on the floor.

They're on the floor. Oh, Jesus. Are they gonna survive, or what? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll get them, and they'll be up here. But you want the new friend out? I do. Does he have a name?

He doesn't have a name yet. Wojcik? No. There he is.

There he is. That's from our friend Hugh from Poland. Oh, did Hugh send him from Poland? Yeah.

Oh, it's a very nice paint job. Look at that, isn't it? That's lovely. Lovely.

I mean, and he was supposed to have friends here on this table, but he doesn't at the current moment. Well, you started giving them away, so I figured we were done with them. But giving what away? Didn't we get the...

We got it replaced. No, you gave Suck-A-Squatch away. I gave it to Coop. I know who you gave it to.

We didn't get another one? No. Well, Pete Hernandez threatened to send another one. Well, you, you know, don't you, can't you just call Mr.

Flock on the phone? Call him right now. Let's have him. Steve, you're on the air.

No, it's all right. I have to go get the cord, because we can do that. Well, the timing is right. We will get another...

Suck a Squatch. Suck a Squatch. I haven't mentioned Skip yet this entire podcast, so let me get that out of the way. Skip.

Skip. He did a very nice job on Dojo, I watched it today. Yeah, so, um, yeah. I thought he did pretty good, too.

He usually does. They have some technical issues, too. See, everybody has technical issues. I saw that.

Everybody. You fucking cracked me up, man. Bringing that up was awesome. See?

We're not ready. Okay, well. Okay, we're just gonna get into the Coop stuff. All right.

Okay. His first 10, almost 15 minutes, I don't know if he knows, but he's broadcasting. While he's setting up? Yeah.

And while the guys are all chatting? Yeah. No, he knows. Oh, does he know?

Yeah. Yeah, so it's kind of like a pre-thing. Well, it's him, you know, messing with the dials and the buttons. " Oh, crap, I fucked that up.

Okay, here we go, take number two. So, obviously, I was on Coop last week. You did a very nice job. I'm very impressed.

Thanks. These things were on earlier, though. You've groomed me really well. It was tough for me, too.

It was well past my bedtime. No, kid. I was sitting in the dark. My wife turned all the lights up.

Are you coming to bed? He's still on, huh? I was deep in the Espressos at that point, and I think I had a bang on cue and everything, I was... I think you started with a bang, but then you said something like it was too late, you couldn't have another one or something.

Yeah. Well, it went well, so, you know, but he makes it easy, like, he's got his shit together. He's got a lot of questions. He's got all of his stuff, and then, like, he didn't even, he even, you know, he's so versed in the industry that he asks, he deviates and asks, still asks great questions, you know?

Yeah, he does, he does ask some good questions. Not like this podcast. I like the Zoom thing where if you talk, it cuts to that person. Right.

Yeah, that thing's pretty cool. We're just one shot. Earl's doing the best he can over there with the one camera. Well, look, that's still on a credit card, okay?

That thing's costing us way more than what it's worth at this point. Well, Zoom's a paid thing, too. Yeah. But that would only work if we're both sitting with laptops in front of us.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that'd be kind of silly. That would be silly. Mm-hmm.

like you were at home. Coop was in one place, and the third guy was somewhere completely different. He was in Cali. Yeah.

I do like their very nice backgrounds. Yes. Well, they still don't compare to Charlie Minato's. So wait, I wanted to talk about two things that, like, so for one, yeah, I mean, Half Wheel's background is amazing.

It does. It looks like it's in like a pottery barn or something. It has nothing to do with the cigar industry. It's, you know, it's awesome.

So here's what, you know, I think that I need to do for like my patio if I continue to do these things, we should get one for us, but I don't want like Bosania or Cigar House or anything like that, I'm thinking like maybe we do, there's got to be something with like different stick figures where people like killing each other or something, something that's really entertaining, action figures would set them up like they're fighting, where people are looking at like, what the hell is going on back there, you know, man, I hope they zoom back to him. I'm trying to think of how your patio is where you could do that at. It's got to be something where I can... You'd have to do the corner.

Where I can bust it out and then put it back, right? Oh, so you just need a photo. Like a drop-down thing? Oh, we can do that.

So we have to set one up, take a picture, and then we can just take it apart. Well, it has to be in the background of me while I'm talking. You know, it would be cool if you did it from Greg's house with the throne and the battle-axe and the suit of armor. That's never going to happen.

I'm never going to Greg's house. No, we just can take the picture to make the background. I'm not going to Count Dracula's home. No, no.

You never have to go. I just have to go take the photo. No, I don't want that. I want something that's funny in the background.

That's not funny? Have you been in his living room? It is pretty funny. But, like, just little stuff.

I don't know. We'll have to figure that out. But I think we should-- I got to step up my game. That's quite obvious.

You do. The solid black background. Yeah, the patio stuff. Because your hair is all dark and everything, you get lost sometimes into the background.

Oh, I blend. You blend. It's like Homer Simpson going into the bushes. A couple of times it looked like you had a mullet because the black just disappears into your shirt.

All right. What else you got from the coop thing? Let's see, you mentioned an SBC 20? Yeah.

Are you thinking about doing that? Yeah, of course. Every other year. Don't announce that on our show.

Don't announce that on somebody else's. Really, really excited. He asked the right questions. I'm really excited about it.

You know, he's just a better producer than you is what it is. Hurtful. I mean, look, I'm, you know. So hurtful.

Well, if I brought up everything we talk about here... Here's the thing. Like, I don't want to talk about SBC until, like, we're further along. I mean, the War Bear just launched, you know, and it's going really well.

It is going really well. So, why would we start talking about something else? I don't know. I was waiting on Dojo to mention it as one of the most, you know, the sought-after cigars from the show, but no, he didn't.

No, we're kind of treated like redhead stepchild, you know, it's all right, but we're fine with that, it's true, I'm okay with that. Somebody asked in the chat room what you were doing, Coop, if you wanted to expand on the Drew Estate story, the falling out with Drew Estate. Do you want to do that? Um, eh, not really.

Okay, well there goes that idea. Just things kind of change, you know, I mean, there were, issues were there, man, how do I go about this? as politically correct as possible. It's just, you know, things were different.

You are the cigar hustler. At the end of the day, you know, I mean, I guess as a retailer, you decide to, or as a brand owner manufacturer, you know, you back a horse and if you don't have the ability to say, hey, look, man, calm the fuck down. You know, we want what's best for the company and what's best for you. If you just relax, and you just kind of give in to what people tell you to do, then you have an outraged fucking retailer that decides to build his own brand.

I mean, that's kind of what it boils down to. It's like, okay, well, I'll just build something. So the interaction or whatever, the falling out with Drew Estate is what made you start your own brand? I mean, the story is out there while you did it.

We were friends, Michael. We never really put it out, we never put the brand on blast that we did, you know. Oh, you just said the industry. But you made something nobody could fuck with, that was the idea.

Yeah, so, I mean, because it doesn't matter who the brand or manufacturer was, at the end of the day, you know, it could have been anybody. It was other people after that, you know what I mean? I understand. So, you gotta make something that they can't uh, can't control, right?

Yes. Man, I don't know how I feel about that one. I'm gonna be editing that shit out. I'll let you know.

Oh, what could the blowback be? Really, I mean, how bad could it be? Are we at 30 minutes? We're at 15, 17.

Ooh, and then we just cut all that out. It's like a six minute fucking podcast. I'm not cutting anything out. No more of these late-night phone calls with us.

Mike phone calls with, "Hey, that one thing we talked about? " Hey, sometimes some stuff's gotta go. Well, I prefer a little earlier notification. You don't understand how long it takes to edit the video.

I appreciate the sacrifices that you make for this podcast, Michael. I was up at 2 o'clock that night. Till 2 o'clock. Editing?

Well, once you get it all edited, you have to convert it to an MP4, I think is the video format we use. Yeah. And apparently that takes forever with the software I use. But it's not like I have to do anything, I just have to turn it on and let it go, but I have to keep coming back to it, because then the upload takes quite as long time, too.

Who mentioned that question? What question? Oh, I don't know, I didn't write that down. I didn't write that down.

But I think it was, it might have been, it was one of the guys, so it might have been like Southern Gunner, or Nexagrammin, or it wasn't Yogi, so it wasn't him. All right. Okay. But it was, it was one of the guys.

You gave me a new job on the Coop Show. Yeah? Yes, I would assume now I'm in charge of cigar media relations and making sure all the media people get the appropriate cigars. Yes, you are.

Because Coop got no war bearers at the show. Yeah. Did you send him a million? He needs two.

No, I have. I just got his addresses. I'm going to send one and two. I have his address.

I didn't have it. I got it Saturday. Oh, I already had it because he got a thank you note for being on the show. Oh, you're so professional.

Well, he's going to get some, so is Aaron. I'm gonna send the Guimara Rothschilds as well. Oh, I wonder what that tastes like. I don't know.

It's really good. That's all I hear. You really should try it. Oh yeah, maybe.

Maybe one day. Okay, next we have the top 10 selling brands according to Cigar Aficionado. Okay. You wanna discuss them?

You wanna guess? What do you wanna do? We're only at 18 minutes. Top 10.

Top 10. Okay, guest number one, then we'll go through them and you can give your comments. I'm never going to be able to guess number one if I can see you. Yeah, you can.

Arturo Fuente. Yeah, exactly. I can see it. Well, I guess that's the way...

Is Drew Estate on there? Oh, no. They're not on the top 10. Okay, so how is that?

It doesn't make sense. What doesn't make sense? How is Drew Estate not on the top 10 best-selling brands? Well, do you want to hear the top 10?

The Cuba Cuba is one of the hottest selling cigars worldwide. We don't have any fondness for Cigar Aficionado, so by the looks of this list, it would be also probably the top ten ad dollars spent. Okay, well, if it's ad dollars spent, then Rocky Patel better be on that list. Oh, he is.

He's number five. Okay. Padrón is number two. Okay.

Ashton is number three. Number four is Davidoff. Okay. Number five is Rocky Patel.

Okay. Number six is Perdomo. Okay. Number seven is Oliva.

You took the fun right out of this. Whoa. Go ahead. You're supposed to be commenting.

Well, you're just running down the list. All right. Number seven I said was Oliva. Number eight is My Father.

Number ten, Romeo. Number eight, Romeo and... Oh, there's a tie for number eight. There is number nine.

My Father and Romeo and Juliet are tied for number eight. And then number ten. Drum roll, please. I'm gonna put one in.

In 2028. Monte Cristo. Nice. Percentage of retailers naming these.

Oh, this was all brought up according to this, by retailers. That shit's just silly. But they are quoting a different source, so it is not even their information. They got it from Cigar Insider.

Just not even sure what that is. Cool. That's like the fucking, that's fucking silly. Like, the Who gives a shit what aficionado has to say about anything?

Well, it was interesting at the time when it came up. I forget when it came up. I think when you were on Coop it came up, and I quickly looked it up and printed it out. Oh.

Were you high or something? No. Okay, we have listeners' questions. Let's just jump straight to the listeners' questions.

We're at 20 minutes. Oh, man. Can't be cropping anything out of this one. Well, some of the questions I omitted, because they're silly questions, you know.

Right. Especially if they're from Nick's the Grammin. We do have from-- well, actually, his made the list. Oh, God.

Most of them are not industry-related questions. Oh, good. I'm looking forward to these. Okay, Yogi1966.

Yeah, John. Mr. John Gigalette. When will the show take phone calls from your loyal fans?

Well, we're working on the whole process thing, so that may be something that we do in the future. It's hard to do because we don't have a certain time we do this every day, or every week. Yeah, but you can say, hey, we're going to schedule this time, if you slot this time, the person can call in. But even that, because normally we would have done this before the meeting today, but now it's after the meeting because things happen around the shop, and so I don't even know if we can do that or not.

Okay. I think we're going to make it happen, but it's going to, that's when we kind of launch the whole, what the fuck is it called? I don't know how you pronounce it either. P-la-po-ping-yo-do-nyang thing?

Yeah, the bee-long-ding-da-pomp-pomp-pomp-poop-poop thing. Yeah, so it's a donation thing. Right, so that we can continue to be real and not require money because this is expensive as shit. Yeah, you made it quite apparent on Coop that we will not take cigar ads.

Yeah, so they're not going to be banging on me. No cigar ads. However, I did-- No, you go ahead. You did, you go.

Still looking for that ED guy, though. We're all about erectile dysfunction. I thought that was good. That was good.

That was funny. My wife actually laughed at that. She heard that too when she was walking by. What ED guy are you guys looking for?

You know, they're out there. They're out there. Could be you. All cigar guys have problems with that.

It's the tobacco. I did get an Instagram. From an ED company? " It's the cigar guy.

Oh, I get those all the time too. " Was it a good one? No. That's what we need.

We need a really It's going to be a bad one. And we'll say how good it is. And just back it. Oh, this is amazing.

This is amazing. This tastes like paper towel. Notes of bounty. Notes of bounty.

Tell you what, we're at almost 25 minutes. Let's go ahead and take a break. Earl, we're going to cut away here and go to the commercial, and then we'll be right back. Earl, you can rest now.

Take a break, Earl. Okay, we'll be right back. Bye. Hey, this is Mike Tu from The Cigar Hustlers Podcast.

If you're enjoying the audio version, make sure you get over to YouTube to The Cigar Hustlers Podcast. This is our Hustlers podcast, so you can see the madness in person. And we're back. And we're back.

Nice job, Earl. He's a hell of a guy over there. He's going to try to join the union. I know he is.

Probably. He's going to get his card from... Hey, if you join the... What is that union that all the actors are in?

No, Screen Actors Guild? Screen Actors Guild, yes. You know how that works? It's fucking crazy.

No idea. So you've got to be on like a shoot with other people from the Screen Actors Guild card. They're from the Screen Actors Guild. So you have to do it like four or five times.

So we both have to get one? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's crazy. I thought you couldn't even be on anything without it. No, like you can get like a temp card.

Oh. And you have to do like five times before. We should get temp cards. This is expensive.

Oh, fuck that, we're done. And then they get a piece of the action. It's not just like a fee? Oh no.

It's a whole thing. It's a whole process. I hate it. Oh, such a scam.

That's why we're gonna shoot our own stuff. Okay, here's the next question. We could do like a whole comedy skit of just me and you fucking hitting specific stores. Like, it could be like fucking Seinfeld.

We could. No, and we're gonna. I think that that would be pretty fucking hilarious. " Okay, why?

Well, because, you know, some stores are really, really bad and people are complete assholes to us. So, we wanted to really, you know, show that to everybody else. - So your store's really bad. - So your store's really bad, and um-- - Well, let me clean up.

No, no, no, don't clean up. - No, leave it alone. You haven't touched it for three decades. Why clean it up now?

- That's right. - So, yeah, I think that would be amazing. I don't know how we would do that. - Have you seen Survivorman, the way he walks in with--he's got that long stick with the camera mounted at the end?

- Really? - Because he only shoots himself because he goes out in the woods camping and stuff. - So he's just like-- - He's just carrying this thing around, so it looks like there's a cameraman, but his arm is always-- - Oh. - All right.

- I feel like if you walked into some of those shops, A, you might get shot. B, I saw a camera today online, it looks like a little pen, you stick it in your pocket. Yeah, yeah, they can't, they couldn't know that you were tabing them. You'd have to have them sign something after.

Hey, by the way, you know, we were recording this. Right, we were recording this, so you could just sign the fact that, we're gonna promote your store. Yeah, it's gonna be good exposure for you. Yeah, lawsuits would be tremendous.

That would be terrible. But we could shoot some fake stuff, you know, like some, like, reenactment things? I feel like we could do that. We started doing those, but then we didn't do any more.

No, like you were doing skits. It was a reenactment. But, like, I'm talking about, like, next level stuff. I think that'd be really cool.

We need, like, sets. Did anybody rent that space downstairs yet? Uh, no. I think you might be doing the paperwork, 'cause I saw a very humorous photo of the ID that Greg received.

So, anyway, okay. Oh, yeah, I saw that as well. That is, that was really funny. Dear Ned, he's just like, huh!

Okay, another question from Yogi1966. Who would win in a fight? You or Matt Hunt? Oh, I'd fucking destroy Matt Hunt.

Yeah, you just grab that tie, just yank him out. I mean, like, that's a really funny thing, 'cause, like, Coop did something like that, too, he asked me. I saw that, that was hilarious. Who would win in a fight?

And I'm, if I say not me, ever, I mean, what kind of a person am I? But who would win? Was it you against who? My brother, maybe?

No, it wasn't your brother. I feel like it was my brother. The air conditioner just kicked on. You can hear that.

No, it's a rain. Was it raining? Yeah. Who would win a fight?

I thought it was me or my brother. Oh, maybe it was. I think you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you said you. Right. Oh, but he would shoot you. Yeah, that was right.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I can't believe you didn't ask who would win a fight, me or you. Like, I'd kick your ass too, pal.

You'd kick my ass, I'm old. Damn it. I'm old. I'd shoot you too, though.

Yeah, you would. Yep. All right. And then I'd be dead.

It wouldn't be nice. I'd prop you up in that chair. It'd be like Weekend at Bernie's over here. That's right.

I'd have a little string to make your mouth move. If you play the music, I start to dance towards the treasure. It'd be awesome. I'd dress you just like that guy there.

Put that little hat on you and dress you up. Okay, next to Grahamin'. Yep. Pineapple on a pizza, yes or no?

He's such an idiot. Yes. I'm a yes. Yes.

I love Hawaiian pizza. What's wrong with that? It's delicious. Gives you a little sweet with your salty.

I like a regular cheese pizza as well. I'm not going to begrudge anybody for their pizza options. All right. Another question from Nick.

Toilet paper, over or under? Oh, my God. Over. I don't care.

It's just however I happen to put it on there. It's always over. I never put it on there. Under is stupid.

St. Pete Cigar Club would like to know. Justin. How do you deal with burned bridges in the industry?

Let's face it, we've all pissed someone off. Well, you might have just pissed somebody off with this episode, so... Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know, man. That's a great question.

It is a good question. The relationships that I've had in this industry, you know, that is a really good question. The past nine years, I've had fucking bridges collapse, and then, you know, I look back to rebuild them. I think one thing is that, I mean, I always try my best to understand where someone's coming from, right?

And I learned a long time ago to not get pissed off if you get shit on. It's just kind of the nature of the beast. It's just kind of business. It's like, okay, I'll take that one on the chin and fuck you too.

But I'm never going to be like, oh, I'm not talking that, dude. Like I couldn't tell you a person in the industry that I'd be like that I would completely avoid and I've had stuff where you know I've gotten mad immaturely and blown stuff out for sure and definitely gone back and apologize and made up that relationship and it's it happens you know I think you have grown immature since even since I've known you for I yeah definitely I mean, you're not necessarily the bad boys of the industry that you were at one time. I don't know if I was ever really the bad boys of the industry, but I would piss off, I get pissed off a lot easier, like I'm, you know, yeah, I'd be, I'm always angry, right? We've already determined that.

You're very aggressive. But I just think that, you know, nobody's really bad, nobody's really trying to, you know, I don't know, screw you over, I guess? Or as long as you never put yourself in the position to get screwed over, you should be fine. Don't take it personally.

Yeah, yeah, don't take it personally and do something about it. If you piss somebody off or somebody pisses you off, you might need them next month or next week or... I mean, yeah, but I don't even look at it in that scenario. Like, that's just overthinking the whole concept, right?

It's like, if somebody says, "Hey, you're an asshole," I'll be like, "Okay, cool. " And I'm over it. And it's like, you know, I've had issues with brokers and reps and stuff. I'm like, dude, you're the fucking worst broker or worst rep in all of Florida.

I was like, you're a great guy. I like you. I like hanging out with you. You're a horrible businessman.

Right? Right. I know who you're talking about. And sometimes, you know, but like I still do business with them.

I hope that the order goes in. Sometimes it doesn't. But I'm never, you know, like I'm never super angry about it. I mean, I'm just not, like, it doesn't make sense to get really mad, even with the previous actions of like the whole, since you brought it up, the Drew Estate thing, like, I'm not mad at those guys, I mean, they, you still care of their product, right, they made a business decision, so I made a business decision, you know, I lowered my overall inventory, I stopped promoting their products, and just kind of let them coast, like, people come in and ask for that product, I'm not gonna, I'm not stupid enough to say, well, fuck you, and, you know, I'm not gonna sell you that.

No, that'd be dumb. I mean, I wish them the best. You know, I think that it was a mistake on their end, and it worked out well for me. So, cool.

Right? I guess it's all about how you look at it. Perspective. Perspective.

So, yeah. Okay. Justin, that was a great question. Good question.

Okay, we have one more question. I purposely saved this for the last question. It's from Vcut Everything. Another good dude.

Yes. Uh, what got you both in the cigar game? Um, well, I mean, I've answered this question before. Sorry.

Yeah, I was just thinking that you did, haven't you? What got you into the cigar game? Uh, I sort of fell into it, too. Really?

I was annoying the hell out of my wife, and she told me I needed a hobby, so I started a cigar club. And, now, if your wife could go back into time, do you think that she would still, She would push you into... No, I don't think she would. Yeah, no shit.

" Just under 900 members? Hey, you got a, you know, super lucrative podcast that we got going on here, which is... I think she would be more excited about it if I actually made money. Right.

I don't know. So, yeah. Well, maybe... It's a long game.

Maybe one day for you. Maybe. Who knows. I feel the same way.

You guys were taking that first trip that I was running. You and Greg were both going to Nicaragua at the same time. Right. And you guys were trying to decide how to run the shop.

Because back then, you guys were the openers. Right. You were the openers. So you guys were trying to figure out what to do, and I just looked at Greg and I just sort of raised my hand.

I'm here every day anyway. All I need is a key. I'm like, all right. Oh, we can't do that to you.

Here's the key. And then there is history. So, yeah. I mean, I got into the – if you go look at Primetime Coop, my answer is on there.

It is, actually. You did the rest of that. That's the most recent. Everybody asks that question, though.

Every show that you do, that question comes up. How did you get in the industry? How did you get in the industry? Well, I own a gas station, and I bought a building across the street.

That's exactly how I sound, too. It's amazing. Keep going. Keep going.

You got more? And we were doing tattoos, and then somebody came on asking for cigars, so we went. We didn't do tattoos. No, you couldn't, because the city of the land back then would not let you.

Right. Right. It's Deltona. Oh, yeah.

It's not the land. I never know where I live. You're looking inside the berry. We don't fact check on this podcast.

No, we don't fact check at all. All right. I like, that's from old, there used to be a guy that threw the questions away, came out. There was a dude.

Nighttime TV. Anyway, okay, a quick show update. Yeah. We have just under 1,700 followers now on Podbean.

Hey-o! 4% from last month in downloads and viewership. For some reason, the most popular, well, probably because of the release, but the most popular day and time for our show is… Tuesday? m.

Yeah. , though. Kind of a weird time. At that point, everybody's done with work.

Like, fuck this. Fuck this. Fuck this. Tuesday, the Cigarister Podcast has gone up.

I'm checking out. Was that you? That was you. Yep.

See, in the last 30 days, we've added a viewer in Denmark. Ooh, Denmark! And Italy. I feel like "woo" is kind of my thing when you say that.

" I always get excited. Oh, can you do that in Italian? Do we have Wyoming? Tell me-- No, we still have Wyoming.

Man. Sons of bitches. And they follow us on Instagram! We sell to a couple shops there.

Maybe there's no Wi-Fi in Wyoming. We sell to a couple shops there. There's no Wi-Fi in Wyoming. Well, you probably already shipped them.

Let me go, we can throw the magnet and a card in there. Hey, we'll talk about you on our show. We really need you in the state. Top five episodes of all time.

Go ahead. And it's changed since the last time we did the top five. It's changed. It's changed.

It's been updated. It's been updated. So the top five episodes in order. Yes.

Do tell! Episode 66? Yes? Skip Martin, Part 1.

Is now number 5? No, no, it's number 1. We're starting at the top going down. Oh.

I feel like you should have gone the other way around. Okay, then forget I said that. Alright, let's forget you said that. Okay.

And let's go to number 5. Number 5, episode 68, Skip Martin, Part 3. Okay, so Skip Martin, Part 3 is number 5. What's number 4?

Number 4 is episode 50, Danny Vasquez. Danny, I feel like he's out there promoting it. I feel like he's out there promoting it. Jesse's husband was on that episode.

Jesse's husband. " And thank you, Danny, for promoting that. We appreciate you. Yes.

The, you'll see, that would be five, four, three, the number three show, episode 64. Yeah. Jeff Mouté. Jeff Mouté, Riverside Cigars.

Slash Skip Martin, fucking number. Okay, so everything Roma is pretty much just dominating. Right now we're four out of five. And they don't even sponsor the show either.

Right, but, you know, I mean, they kind of do. They kind of do, right, so, you know. Episodes, oh, in Skip's dojo thing? Yeah?

He did use your No Jack, No Taranio. You heard that as well. I heard that too. I was like, oh.

His was a little bit bigger though. Like, mine was a statement of, hey, we're done here. We were done here. Right.

He was making a cigar for him or something. Yeah, he was going to do that Cameroon project was originally with Jack Taranio. With General, but, oh, no Jack, no Taranio. No Jack, no Taranio.

That was a way bigger cut than the cut. Than just clearancing everything out of the shop. Yeah, than just purging Taranio products. Okay, the number two most popular episode, episode 67.

Skip Martin, part two. Okay, so the top five are pretty much everything Romacraft-oriented. And then the number one show for the entire time we have been on the air is episode 66, Skip Martin Park. And that's all information given off of Podbean?

All Podbean, yes. Podbean's the only one to share. I feel like it's different on iTunes, you know, I feel like it's different. They don't give the information?

I doubt it very seriously that it's any different. You can't give, listen. We should just change the name to the Romacraft podcast. Anything that I have learned, it's like you cannot give him so much credit all the time.

You gotta dumb it down a little bit. He's my friend. I feel like the Hirochi one's number one on iTunes. Me and Skip are friends now.

You guys are close. We're close, we're gonna hang out. Yeah, so you guys swingers? That should be, oh, we should change the intro and put drops in for people's voices, and I could cut that.

That's a lot of work. Palmer, are you a swinger? m. now, wait until you start doing some shit like that.

Yeah, audio editing is a piece of cake compared to the video. Really? Yes. Cool.

Yes. Throw it, throw it. We now have 65 subscribers on YouTube. Hey!

We got one more subscriber this week. Ooh! Ooh. But still not a lot of viewers.

I'm doing 48 and 50. Well, you know, I think that it's safe to say that this is a-- Back into the microphone, please. We're kind of working our way through all this. You're not throwing the paper anymore, and it's really upsetting me.

I threw it on the floor. You're on the floor. Yeah, you're gently putting it down. David Letterman!

That's who used to throw the cards. Oh, my lord, is Jeremy Gracie. You know, hey, we're doing a good job of navigating our way through this. I mean, we're getting viewers.

As long as the numbers are going up, I don't care how slow they go. That's it. We'll take one a week. One a week.

That's enough. Let's see, a little industry news. Yes. While everyone was at the IPCPR/PCA, I always say that wrong, Maine decided to increase their tobacco tax.

tobacco tax. Which is such a great idea. I mean... From 20% to 43%.

Nothing like more taxes on an already dying and hurt industry. The reasoning is now it's the same as the cigarette tax. Oh. Well, yeah.

It's even it up. Even it up. Even the plane. Makes sense.

The increase goes into effect on January 2nd of 2020. This is information from our friends at Half Wheel. Charlie with the lovely background. Charlie Minato with the lovely background.

I have every state's tax, you want to know who has the highest? That sounds like not a lot of fun. Who has the highest sales tax, do you think? California?

Nope. Alaska? Yes. All right, that was close.

You were close. Alaska? Oh, no, wait, no, no. No?

It's not Alaska. It's not Alaska. New York's gone up and down. It is Minnesota.

Oh. 95%. That's it? Such a deal.

Such a deal. There are only three states that have no cigar tax. There's three? There's three.

There's not three. There's three. There's not three. There's three.

Florida. Florida. Florida. We don't do anything here.

Wall of Swamp, baby. Wall of Swamp. Pennsylvania? Yes.

What's number three? Pennsylvania. Tell me the third one. New Hampshire.

Oh, really? Yeah, it's that pretty little state of New Hampshire up there. Oh. Okay, because I thought you were going to say Texas.

C. So there's four. So there's four. C.

is not really a state. Texas has a penny. What is it? Hold on.

These are alphabetical, apparently. New Hampshire, New Jersey. Texas. Oh, yeah.

1 cent. So yeah, a penny. Right. A penny.

Why even bother at that point? I guess you still raise a lot of money in a penny. Just to say they did it. I guess.

I don't know. You have to ask Skip. Go figure. Okay.

Funny you mention that. I have Skip on the line. Skip, please go right ahead. Please go right ahead.

If we did that we could just hit the play button and just walk away. We should do a skip call-in segment each time. Questions from Skip. Questions from Skip.

Questions for Skip. Oh, we should do that. Wait, can we do questions for Skip and then you just pretend you're Skip? But he'd just pick apart our fucking podcast.

So what else you got? So the questions, no questions, but let me tell you what you're doing wrong. That's all the information I have. What else you got over there?

You had something you were saving until the end. No, I was back. Wait, wait. There we go.

Feel better? I'll check my notes for you. Check your notes. Do we need to give this a little guy?

Oh, I have an idea for a contest. What do you have we can give away? Yell that. No, got that.

I had to have covered it. Nope, you said you were saving for the end. For the transition into the coop, but we must have talked about it. Nope, I don't think we did.

I can't tell you what I'm smoking. Ronnie judges me now on what I smoke. Who's Ronnie? Ronnie...

Oh, Haisha. Haisha, yes. Yes, I was smoking something over the weekend. He said it was a lovely photo, but why am I smoking that?

He's a special kind of crazy. I like Ronnie. He's my kind of lunatic. I like Ronnie.

Yeah. He's funny. Ronnie does lots of live videos. He does.

He does. He does. Sometimes I slip into him by accident. I'm like, oh, God, get out, get out.

That's funny. What do you have we can give away? I have a contest. I have a contest.

Whatever you want, bud. What do you want to give away? Seventeen of those dry cigars are on the table. Hey, don't judge my dry cigars, I'm gonna smoke those.

If you don't, I will. They're on the third day, just so you know. Oh, my goodness. Judging by the stack that's over here, then we'll never see you again.

I know, I smoke up here, dark initiative. I don't know, we'll give away, I mean, we're running low on Warbear. I'm looking at the light like that's the camera. We're running low on Warbear shirts, so I can't really give those away.

No, don't give those away. We'll come up with something, there'll be a prize, we don't know what it is yet. Okay. That'll be a prize.

We're going to name our little friend here. Ooh. Name our friend. Name our friend.

So, what is he exactly? Is there a name for what he is? I don't know. He's a Polish dude.

Polish dude? Yeah. Okay. So, on this week's post for the show on Instagram, #NameThePolishDude.

Yeah. And then a name. All right. And then, not next week because we're doing Wes at the end of the week, that next week's episode will be Wes from Crown Heads.

Oh, yeah, Wes. Do you know what time he's coming in? I have no idea. You might want to get him to come a little early.

I'm really excited about that. Did you ever find out from Cliff when they were coming? No. He was in here Saturday or Sunday when I was here?

Yeah. He just came in briefly to get something and then left, but he didn't say anything about being on, so. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been kind of buried with the wholesale shit. Yes, but you told me that one night you were texting him.

Yeah, I don't remember anything. He was down in the sun a lot, though. He got quite the tan work in there. Volcano Bay is the shit.

Yes, apparently. That's all, you know, I mean, as far as taking your kids to a water park, they have a little kids area that's got six gigantic slides and two small slides for little kids. So this episode brought to you by Volcano Bay. And it's one way in, one way out.

They will never ever back us and support us. But I will tell you right now that it is nice. It's really cool. The kids have a great time.

We got to get out. If I could go there every day, I would right now. Really? Yeah, man.

It's fun. It's fun. And the kids have a great time. Do they have a large enough staff where you don't have to, like, like at the birthday party we went to this weekend, if your kids were in the water, there had to be somebody there.

Either me, you, my wife, or your wife had to be there with the children. And this area doesn't really have lifeguards, but the water is really, really, really shallow, and lifeguards are on duty, but be a fucking parent and take care of your kids, you know what I mean? But is it the kind of thing where you can sit at the edge? So what I do is I stand at guard of the middle of this whole gigantic playground, and the kids go up and they pick a slide, they go down the slide, they come back and report to me what's their next slide, Then I can follow them to the next slide.

Oh. Yeah. That's good. If my kids were little, I had to do the slides, too.

Yeah, so I would make sure that they check in every single slide so I can watch them go down every single slide. Children love splashing the grown-up. Yeah. But it's pretty nice.

Not gonna lie. Big fan. You know, I love Universal. Is it packed?

I mean, is it... Yeah. It's busy. It's very busy.

But they have virtual lines for the big-boy rides. So you go up, you scan, with your wristwatch, and you're in line. Have you done all the rides with the children? I mean, do you and your wife take 10?

I mean, she's not going on a ride. She's not going on anything right now. She's pregnant. So she goes down the lazy river.

She loves that. I feel like she's getting worn a little thin. She's, you know, like, oh, that ride was awesome. She can't do that.

Did you and Greg hit all the rides? No, we hit a handful of them. Do they have the one that's like the flush in the toilet? " They also have a, oh, like an aqua coaster, which is ridiculous.

It's ridiculous, because you go up, you shoot up, and it's got to be like magnetized or something, because there's no way, physics just doesn't make sense, you go sharp down on this aqua coaster, and then sharp up, so... Oh, so there's no way the momentum of going down drives you up? Doesn't make sense, you can't go higher than where you went, like if this is your point... Oh, okay, you're here, then the next one is up here.

It's up higher, it's like, wait, that doesn't work. Yeah, so they, I mean, it's pretty brilliant. It's magic. Pretty brilliant, working on my 10.

Well, my little guy is super tan right now. Oh, he is. Yeah. He is.

It's pretty cool. Alright, so the contest, hashtag, name the Polish guy. Name the Polish guy. Name the Polish guy.

And then the winner will get a prize, if not the prizes. I'm just wrapping up, because we're about to go off the air. Okay. Because I have nothing else.

Do you have anything else? No, I feel like we covered some ground. You tried to throw me under the bus, and I feel like I successfully navigated that. I'm not sure.

I think you came off with a few scars. Just a little maybe. Yeah. Just a little.

Oh, this Friday's a big event here at the shop because this is going to fly. Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Florida Cigar Club fifth birthday party with Wes-- I keep wanting to call him Wes Craven. Wes Thornton from Crownheads.

Wes Craven from the thriller novels. Yeah, Wes Craven will be here. Wes Thornton. Wes Craven will not be here.

Wes Thornton. So that's it. m. here at the shop.

You know, there are 42 members of the club saying they're coming with spouses and friends. Nice. Could be quite the crowd. And we're going to start airing the podcast on Sundays here.

Oh, that's right. Which is nice. So if you want to see it on a big screen, skip-watch me on Coop, which is kind of creepy. And me or Michael may be here for that also, apparently.

Really? That's what you said to me. Well, you said you were, but I was just thinking. Oh, this Sunday.

Oh no, I don't think this Sunday. I will probably be here. Oh, you working this Sunday? I don't know.

We don't have any employees anymore, so I'll be working here this weekend. One's out of town, the other one quit, and then there's just the one guy. You know, we can't put him on a 48-hour shift. Sure you can.

Why not? Open the clothes. He's young! He is.

And, yeah, he's able. And he has ride issues, so, I mean... He can just stay here. We'll put a cot in the back.

It'll be amazing. Right back here. Right there on the floor in front of the table. Yeah, I like where your head's at.

All right. Okay, everybody, we're gonna wrap this up. Okay, let's wrap this up. This went longer than I really thought it would.

We're almost at an hour. Alright, thank you for listening. Keep sending in those cards and letters. We're doing a, um, nothing.

We're not doing anything. Good. Alright. Let's not do anything.

I like when you leave when I'm still done. This is where I leave, because I'm ready. Earl, tighten a tight shot on Michael as he walks out the door. This is me going.

Alright, see you later. Bye, guys. Hello, this is a prepaid collect call from the Correctional Institution. This call is subject to recording and monitoring.

To accept charges, press 1. To refuse charges, thank you for using T-NetX. This has been a Cigar Hustlers podcast, a Mike and Mike production. m.

for all new episodes with some of the biggest names in the cigar industry. You can follow the guys on Instagram at CigarHustler for Mikey, And FCC_Mike for Mike 2. You can also follow the show on Instagram @acegarhustlerpodcast and on the Facebook page and the all-new YouTube channel. Please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review on whichever podcast provider you choose.

Thanks for listening.

Show Notes

This week we sit down and chat about the past, take questions from the audience, some industry news and what we have been doing lately!

As always we welcome your post, show ideas and concerns on our FB page "A Cigar Hustlers Podcast".  You can follow the show on IG @cigarhustlerspodcast, Mikey @cigarhustler and Mike Too @fcc_mike.

Please remember to always rate, review and subscribe on which ever of our providers you use!