What Happened AT THE PCA1
Episode Summary
Recorded live from a "hermit crabbed" booth on the floor of PCA 2026 as the trade show winds down, Episode 513 of A Cigar Hustler's Podcast features host Mike Palmer and co-host Mike Sztefankiewicz with guest Skip Martin of RoMa Craft Tobac, plus a drop-in from Sam of Ceniza Fina. The first stretch is classic Hustlers banter — listener comments, podcast swag at chpod.com, AI chatter about ChatGPT outages, prompt-writing, and the crew's AI-generated "three monkeys going to PCA" video — before the conversation turns to the trade show itself.
The heart of the episode is a 10-question PCA debrief. Skip, whose first PCA was in Nashville in the late '90s, explains why the show peaked several years ago but still matters: it's a relationship-maintenance event, not a buying event. He lays out exactly how he and Mike run retailer meetings — setting a realistic annual number with each account, committing to specific SKUs, and holding the retailer accountable as a partner — and notes that RoMa Craft doesn't even bring cigars to the booth because the conversation is about process, not product. He also touches on the value of being recommended by a retailer's own staff, name-checking a conversation with Michael Fry of Las Vegas.
Industry talk covers whether the business is growing or tightening (Skip's read: more new brands but smaller consumer budgets), the quality of new entrants and why many won't make it, booths getting smaller and smarter (a shout to the Lure Cigar setup and the Mareva/booth video ads), overhyped releases including the Undercrown Dominican and Swisher's LT Green, and the standout smoke of the show — La Flor Dominicana's Carbon Flower. The most substantive segment is on pricing: tariffs, shrinking margins, and whether retailers can keep defending keystone markups when duty costs get doubled at the register. They close on venue — Vegas vs. New Orleans vs. the upcoming St. Louis move — and whether smoking will be allowed outside the convention hall, which Skip argues is half the value of attending.
The episode wraps with a round of "What's the Score?", the crew's guess-the-rating game, using Brooks Whittington's 2021 halfwheel review of the Protocol Elliot Ness Natural — a cigar that ultimately scored a rare 74 thanks to loose draws, burn issues, and a linear oak-and-leather profile.
In This Episode
- 01Live from the PCA FloorMike Palmer and Mike Sztefankiewicz set up shop in a borrowed booth as the show winds down, joined by Skip Martin of RoMa Craft Tobac and Sam of Ceniza Fina.
- 02Listener Comments and Podcast SwagThe hosts read YouTube comments and plug chpod.com merch and the show's Patreon.
- 03AI, Outages and Influence FarmingChatGPT and X outages, Claude, prompt-writing, and the underwhelming reception to the crew's AI-generated PCA monkeys video.
- 04What PCA Is Really ForSkip Martin explains why RoMa Craft treats the show as relationship maintenance and account planning rather than a selling event — and why their booth has no cigars in it.
- 05Is the Industry Growing or Tightening?New brands keep arriving but consumer budgets are shrinking, and most newcomers underestimate what the business actually takes.
- 06Booths, Hype and Standout ReleasesSmaller booth builds, the Lure Cigar fishing-lure display, overhyped Undercrown Dominican and Swisher LT Green, and praise for La Flor Dominicana Carbon Flower.
- 07Tariffs and the Keystone ProblemHow rising tariffs and fees compress margins and why doubling duty costs at retail may make keystone markup unsustainable for box buyers.
- 08Venue Talk: Vegas, New Orleans, St. LouisWhether the show's value depends more on off-floor gathering spots and smoking access than on raw attendance numbers.
- 09What's the Score?The crew guesses the halfwheel rating on Brooks Whittington's review of the Protocol Elliot Ness Natural — a surprising 74.
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 Hustler Podcast, Episode 513. I'm Mike Palmer, your host. Here we are again on the floor of the PCA. The show just ended.
With me today is my co-host, Mike Sztefankiewicz. Well, the show's still going on. Yeah, we've got time to sell. What the f*** are we talking about?
Oh, it's only 3:30. I thought it was 4 o'clock. You've already paid the rent. Yeah, exactly.
So it's only 3:30. Let's stop petting the mule. The show is still going on. Let's stop petting the mule and load the wagon.
Yeah. Yeah. Whatever that means. Whatever that means.
Let's do that. But as you can see, with us today also is Mr. Skip Martin from Romacraft Tobac. The grand poobah himself in the building.
So, Mikey, how do we get some- I've got my people bringing me my- Oh, excuse me, excuse me. Thank you, Sam. Thank you. Very nice.
Sam has a little brand out of the Dominican. Ceniza Fina. I think he was selling like hotcakes over there. He was, he did a good job.
Well, whenever Rosie wasn't around, I think it was selling pretty good. Right. Distracted by a little hugging. Rosie's great for keeping it selling, but you don't expose the customer immediately to Rosie.
No, no, it is an acquired thing you have to get used to. So, Michael, how'd you get some of that CHPod swag? What you want to do? Actually, you ought to have Sam sit down with us.
I think they said they want to fit him. An audience over here pretty good. Sit down with us, Sam. You can sit.
You might not be on camera, but they'll know you're here. There you go. com where you can get all of our swag, buy one, get the second one 40% off, spend $100 a more and get free shipping. I do have some comments.
Buttersoft t-shirts? Buttersoft, baby. You have one on today? I do.
My pressure is a privilege. Let's see here, couple comments from last show. Let's see. Do you hear me?
Stark humor. Are they really? Yeah. That would be funny.
You're so light. Yeah, we... We crashed, we've commandeered a booth. We hermit crabbed a booth here.
Yeah. I feel a little bit like somebody we know. You know? You just, hey, you're here in our booth.
Here's our booth. Yeah, here's our booth. My farm in Nicaragua. This was empty, so I just took it.
TheBuzzinator19 says, "I thought you guys were at a Cigar Expo, not a gun show. Mikey's rocking those pythons with the side camera angle. " Very nice. No homo.
" Texas Southpaw says, Triple G chose Michael Joseph as an alias, might as well have chosen McLovin. And Craig Vanderslice says, Curious, are your two microphones named Mike and Mike? That's a great question. It's Mike and Mike's Mike and Mike.
Correct. That's correct. If you want to hear your comment on the show, comment below on this YouTube and we may read it off on our next episode. Or Mike's Mike's?
Why is Mike the only Mike that's got a little Russian hat on there? Well, here's an interesting fact. My name, legal name, my legal name is Michael. Oh, that's right.
He's Michael too. Rosales is Michael. Right. And Michael and Michael.
Right. It's really four Mike's. It's Quad Mike's. Does it say Mike on there?
It does. He doesn't drive. He has people. But only debt collectors call me Michael.
Alex, more drink. Okay. com. com Cigar Hustlers podcast for all of our inside stuff as well.
Now, let's get into... We have a little bit of news, and then I have 10 questions about the PCA. Okay. Alright, so speculation is swirling around the death and disappearance of staff at a secret government laboratory.
Should be right up your alley there, Skip. Okay. You should know something about this. Sounds more like Jeff to me, but yeah.
Alright, here's what we know. President Trump in a speech mentioned that the people were dying. Holy shit, Rosie, what the, did you put three bottles in here? Three.
We wanted that, every action. That was part of this. He may be drunk by the end of this. You want to see the bomb go off.
Take bigger sip. This is, I'm telling you, how many bottles did you put in here? This is, this is three. It was your doctor that did that.
This is three-fourths rum and a little bit of coke. Your doctor did it, you had to put more than what we've been in here. Take another big sip. You'll be fine.
This is going to be off the rails by the end of the day. Well, it's only an hour long. You thought I wouldn't notice? Oh, we knew you'd notice.
All right, on TV, Trump said, "I just left a meeting on that subject, so pretty serious stuff," Mr. Trump told reporters Thursday. Hopefully coincidence, but some of them were very important people, and we are going to look at it. Social media has recently lit up with theories about the disappearance and death, Which occurred over three years and involves several researchers and other staff tied to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
So I've heard about this. Okay. So these are like people who are like experts on like what we used to call UFOs. Yeah.
And like just randomly they've all started to go missing like X-Files style. Really? That's what the story says, yes. So what do you think is going on?
What do you think the theory is? Don't know. That's it? That's all yeah?
You don't even have a theory? You've got to have something. You're gonna have something. Look, man, the truth is out there.
Hmm, so you watch X-Files, we know that. Fuck if I know. Are you a Mulder or Skelly? On the list of things that affect my life, this is way down there.
This is way down at the end. I got bigger fucking problems. Oh. Okay.
All right. So, UFOs. UFOs. The real question would be is if the talk host lady's mom was involved in UFO research or not.
Oh. Who's that? You guys talked about it for three weeks. Oh.
Oh, yeah. The tacos? Talk show. Oh, talk show.
Talk show. It's the drink. I got really hungry. It's the drink.
His tongue is starting to get... Believe me. Oh, perfect. All right.
All right. Well, maybe this is more interesting. OpenAI ChatGPT has been down over the weekend. Yeah, that product sucks.
I use Claude. Claude's not down? That's anthropic. Think maybe Claude took ChatGPT down?
Could be. Attacking the other guys? If one AI attacks another AI? Yeah.
Right. That's a good story. How do you disrupt it? Oh, you know.
Coming after us next. You know what? Okay. I'm gonna ask.
Okay. Speaking of AI. Sure. I saw this today.
I am located 50 meters from the car wash. Okay. Should I walk there or drive there? Well, first of all, you have to drive there because you have to wash the car.
Right. Yeah. That's exactly right. But it doesn't know that your goal is to wash your car.
Right. " Then it would know. So it all is in how you ask the question. But I thought it was an interesting question.
Where did you see that? For AI. I saw it in the AI Discord. In the Claude Facebook thing?
Yeah. I joined that. I saw that you were a member too. Dude, I'm deep in the game.
I'm deep in the game. Deep in the game. Deep in the game. Some people talk on there and I'm like, this is well beyond my scope.
And some of them are just idiots. Yeah. Like, how do I do this? It's like, maybe ask.
Ask Claude. Ask Claude. Half the questions here, you could just ask the AI. Ask the AI and it will solve the problem.
Step number one, know that you can ask questions. Right. To the AI itself. That's pretty funny.
It's a good point. I've had people here at the show ask me questions about photos they've seen that I obviously made with AI. You did? They weren't real?
No. What? By the way, my three monkeys coming to PCA and doing a podcast in the car did not get enough. I probably laughed a good five minutes at myself at creating that, and the whole irony of I told you guys you should use AI for something other than that.
Right. And then you did it, yeah. And then I think I got like 12 likes and three comments. Yeah, that was it.
And I don't really count likes. Yeah, they don't qualify. But I was really underwhelmed by the response to that. Isn't that funny?
It's okay, because sometimes we make stuff and it doesn't track. You know what I mean? It's part of it. Yeah.
So it's okay. It's just where we go from here. I think it was the boot with the knife that didn't make sense. Well, I'm surrounded by champions, so I just know that making those kinds of things is Mike.
Yes. Right? Yeah. That's definitely his niche.
I noticed which one was me right away. Which monkey? I still don't know which one's me. You're the one in the middle.
Greg had the one with all the jewelry. I was the one with the white beard and the white hair. So go to my Facebook and like this, because it's a very good point. I'm going to like it right now.
I don't think it would be the other one. So there's one with a bunch of jewelry and there's the one with the white beard. Yeah, I'd be the other one. You should be the other one.
But I was driving. His only response to me wasn't, "I'm not a monkey" or whatever. " Yes. Like, the monkey has a bracelet on.
I would never wear that. Yeah, be reasonable, your whole thing fell apart on that one simple fact. That's the way he is, no matter what I do, he goes, that doesn't look like me. I wouldn't do that.
I just liked it right now, and then I'm going to say, amazing, amazing. Yeah, don't just like it, you have to comment. Yeah, because the likes mean nothing. Share it, you should share it.
I'm influence farming. You're doing a great job. Yeah, you're doing a great job. 18 likes now.
Now 18? We're up to 18. All right, OpenAI experienced a possible outage Monday with thousands of users reporting issues, according to DownDetector. , according to DownDetector, with tracked outages by collecting status reports from multiple sources.
Okay. I think this is going to happen more and more. Yeah. As AI gets democratized, I think that the user load is going to overwhelm it.
I think what they're doing is they're getting you kind of, it's like free testers, and then once you kind of start integrating this into how you do things, I think they're going to start charging more for it, and instead of doing it with a subscription, they're going to do it with like a data use model, and it's going to end up being a very expensive thing for anyone who really uses it. Yeah, that makes sense. I can see it going that way. I mean, you're already seeing it being dumbed down a little bit.
And we're in that bottleneck mode, where people are starting to try it, and then the people who've been using it for a while are all getting mad because it's getting clogged up. Right. Yeah, well, we all need our images, you know what I mean? That's true.
X was down also over the weekend. Again. Again. Just can't hang.
Probably the same reason, people are using things more and more. Okay, all right, what's the next one? All right, well, Disney's finally found out their prices are too high. What?
And they've lowered them 22 percent. No way. Yes. Stop it.
They're doing a temporary price reduction. Who is? Disney. They finally have reached a threshold where it's affecting sales, and now they've...
In the parks? Yes. The theme parks are going to reduce their pricing. Yes.
Why don't they just let the lines move faster? Yeah. Filters are out the riff-raff. Right?
Someone must have heard you. You summoned... Oh. Oh, he is here.
I love that guy. Yeah. Oh, is that a friend? Yeah.
All right. All right, now we're into cigar news. Unless you guys want to talk more about Disney. That was it.
There's not a lot going on right now. Well, you know, I mean, Takana is a briefly cover. The last time I was at Disney, I think, was with him. Oh, yeah?
And it was $25,000 for three days. It was great. When are we going back? We need to go back.
Hunter told me, I want the Mike and Fiorella experience for the grandbaby. The full Mike and Fiorella experience. I'm like, you better start saving. Right?
I bet it's the best way to go. That's the best way to go. By the way, today's Eden's third birthday. Oh.
Oh, no kidding. Happy birthday. My granddaughter. My first granddaughter, Eden.
Yeah, not Caden. Eden. I said happy birthday. Oh, you looked at the camera.
I thought you were talking to Caden. No, I wasn't talking to him. I was talking to the camera. I called her to tell her happy birthday, and Hunter asked her, do you want to talk to Skip?
And she said no. Wow. She was busy. We've got to work on that.
She can't be bothered. Yeah. Well, you know, some people like you. I'm like, well, one day you're going to want to be on my good side.
Yeah, you just realized you just made a terrible mistake. She's like, fuck that, I'll just be, I'll just, I'll make my connection through Tiarella. Yeah, I'll wait in a little bit of time, you know. Okay.
Next. Alright, one of the questions. Alright. Alright, what's the first thing that hits you, good or bad, about the PCA?
How about the PCA? I mean, the good is, you know, seeing the people that you only get to see once a year. Right. You know, I've been, my first PCA was 1997 in Nashville, '97, I think '96 maybe, and it was a lot different then.
And this is, you know, it peaked maybe five or six years ago, and then this is kind of like not as big as it used to be, but, you know, the people that I want to see, the friends that I see, you know, You know, shaking their hands, you know, that's what I like about it. Yeah, real buyers are here, for sure. Yeah, I mean, look, we don't come here to sell cigars. Right.
I mean, I look at the numbers, Mike looks at the numbers, but, and I told you guys this yesterday, is that this is the chance you get to look them in the eye and say, listen, this is how our business together is going to look over the next year. You tell me what you need for your store to be successful and Mike and I are gonna help enable that. So if you're gonna do a million dollars and 50,000 of that's gonna be Roma, that means you need to buy $25,000 worth of inventory this year. I know when you need to buy that, that means you need to probably put an order in here so you don't miss this, you don't miss this.
You need to be ahead of the curve on this and we're gonna be a partner. And we're going to be a partner. And every time we talk from now on, by the way, you better answer the phone. This is how those conversations are going to go.
You've told me that this product, this product, this product are really important. So every time we talk, we'll talk about those three products. You know, you've told me you want to do 50,000 this year with Roma. That means I'm going to hold you to 25,000.
Not because that's what I need, because we're going to sell our million cigars to somebody. Mike could pick up the phone today and sell everything we have in our warehouse in two days. But if you're telling me that's what you need to make your number, we're going to be a partner to you and we're going to help you do that. But you have a role in that, too.
Right. And the best place to have that conversation is here. Right. And then they remember why you're different than everybody else, because they just walked around here and had 30 bullshit conversations.
Right. We don't even have cigars in our booth, because the product speaks for itself. This discussion is about the process, the relationship. And we get orders, but for you guys, you're in a different kind of mode.
Sam's newer. You guys are a little more established. You guys are coming off a great year with a lot of great reviews. So it's a great time to sit down with new people.
I saw you guys. I was just talking to Michael Fry from Las Vegas. That's a huge retailer. We are not in that account.
We've never gone to him and asked to be in that account. But someone in his store said he needed to come talk to you. So the fact that you're in that store, we're not. That is a big thing.
That is a huge thing. He was a cool guy too. And that would only happen here. He's a great retailer.
Yeah. And that would only happen here. So that's the good positive. The negative is you got to run into the people that you would go out of your way to avoid if you weren't having to be in the same floor with them.
You just got to pretend to be on the phone. No, I don't. I walk straight at them. Nice.
You know, I make them go the other way. Yeah. Yeah. I had a, I had a couple of those.
Yeah. I had a couple where I'm walking and I- Not once do I avoid it. Yeah. " Exactly.
So. Alright, question two: Does this year feel like the industry is growing, flat, or tightening up? I think the industry is tightening up. I think that it's both, I think there's two things there.
I think that it's growing, but I think that the budget is less for all the consumers. Right. Personally. I mean, you're seeing new brands, so when you stop seeing new brands, then that's a dying industry.
When it's no longer something that people want to get into, then that's a dying industry. And I think the quality of the people getting in is better than it has been in years past. You know some of these guys are going to make it. You know a lot of them aren't, right?
Yeah. Because they're not willing to do what it really takes. I mean, you know, they don't understand what this really is. Yeah, and they tend to be in it for the wrong reasons.
It's like, "Oh, we can sit around and smoke cigars. " I could be a cigar celebrity. Yeah. How hard can it be?
You get to show up, smoke cigars, go to another store, smoke cigars. Right. You know, Rosie was talking last night about another retailer saying, you know, it was about women smokers and whatever. And it's like, you know, she starts telling her, no, you don't understand.
It isn't easy, but it can be done. And the lady goes, well, tell me how to do it. And she goes, fuck that. You know, it took me 20 years to figure it out.
I mean, I'll tell you, but you've got to earn it. Right. I'm not just going to hand you the playbook. Right.
Right. I think that's fair. All right. Who's winning the booth game this year?
What was the best booth that you saw, Al? In general, the booths are less, they're more like pieces instead of huge structures like they used to be. Right. People are getting smart about the expense of it.
Yeah. The best booth, I think the Lure Cigar guys did some really cool stuff for a new booth. I haven't seen it. They had like this huge fishing rod and a big lure that he made in his garage, He's a good guy.
He's working hard. Yeah. Blue Cross. Yeah.
Yeah, Lou's a good guy. There's some cool booths. Okay. I don't really have a booth.
I mean, I like this Marifel booth. Yeah? The Secret Tower? Yeah.
The video that keeps playing is a little bit weird. There's a couple of them that are questionable. Like the most interesting man in the world? Yeah, he is.
Pulling up to his mansion? Yeah. I mean, if this was true, it would be like three fat guys sitting on the back of a tailgate of a truck. Right.
You know, shootin' guns or somethin'. I don't know these cigar smokers. But I guess that's who's buying $100 cigars. -Yeah.
-Yeah. -Alright. -Okay. -Yeah.
-But the booth is nice. -Yeah. And I like those guys. -Yeah.
-What's the most overhyped release you've seen so far? -Oof. -Overhyped. -Overhyped.
-The Swisher LT Green. Yeah? What's that? It's got a lot of hype.
Does it really? Yeah. From Swisher? Drew State.
I know Drew State. You know what's funny is the one I was thinking of was the Undercrown. That's the one I'm talking about. Oh, the Dominican?
Oh, is that? That's the same one? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I was like, ugh. It looks nice. I'm like, I'm not. The, uh, probably, I think the coolest one I smoked is the LeFleur Carbon Flower.
That was pretty dope. Interesting concept. Interesting concept. It's not very strong.
I thought it would be stronger. It's more like kind of their Knox or their chapter one, but it's beautiful. The whole concept of the black and silver version of the LaFle label is really dope. I think that'll really sell fast.
Alright, what's the one trend you're seeing everywhere, blends, packaging, pricing, that's not going to go away? I mean, you know, they keep doubling all the tariffs and fees to maintain keystone, and I don't know how long you can keep doing that. If the tariff in Nicaragua on December 10th had gone up to 100%, would they have keystoned it? Right, so if there's 30 or 40 cents of tariff in a cigar, that's immediately 80 cents to the consumer.
You know, we don't mark up one penny more, so our margin percentage has dropped. I think, for some reason, the retailers were really hanging on to that Keystone, and I don't know how long that's a sustainable thing. Well, the big successful retailers are the ones that are selling cigars above Keystone. Well, I think if you're selling onesie twosies, you've got to sell above Keystone, but I don't think it's competitive for your everyday box buyer to have to pay double the tariff.
Right. Right. Okay. Which one brand of cigar nobody's talking about yet, but they will be after the show?
Hmm. That's a good question. You know, to be honest, man, nothing really popped my way that I was like, ooh, wow. You know, now, to be fair, we've been in the booth.
Yeah, we don't get out a lot and walk around. So, for me, it's Ceniza Fena. Oh. I think that's a good answer.
My guy, Sam. That's a legit answer. That's a legit answer. Because I'll tell you what, I smoked that broadleaf.
Yeah, I had one too, it's really good. That broadleaf was really good. So, I'm going to go there. I would have said Polsanic, but everybody's already talking about that one.
Sure. All right, all right, all right. Okay, what's something about the PCA that people outside the industry don't understand? I think people think it's just a buying event, and for us, at least, it's more of a relationship maintenance event than a buying event.
I think that's fair. I think that there's way more to it than just buying. Sam, do you think there's way more to this than just buying? Yeah, definitely.
We come out to, like Skip was mentioning earlier, to see people that we only get to see at this event, people that are based out of the DR in Nicaragua. We get to come and see them once a year, catching up with them. There you go. Yeah, I totally agree.
It's nice to put some faces with the voices you've been talking to on the phone for the last eight, nine months. Not only that, but also what's working for retailers. Like, they can, you know, having that conversation, hey, this is a technique that's kind of tracking, and, you know, I think there are a lot of similar designs, but, like, there's a way to refine things to make them better. Also, I mean, the way that a lot of the guys, for me, like, as far as how they will eliminate products and move on from it, there's a technique to doing it without totally bastardizing the brand.
Right? So seeing that and learning that from other retailers and how they do that is pretty, pretty intelligent. All right. Finally, when we look back at PCA 2026 a year from now, what's going to be the headline story?
What's everybody going to be talking about that happened last year? I don't know. I mean, there's always a discussion around is Vegas better than, you know, New Orleans? Is New Orleans better than, you know, St.
Louis or wherever we go next? You know, at the end of the day, you have to figure out how to give value to the attendees. Right. If the attendees do not come to spend money, or set to, or prepare to have good substantive account conversations, Then it's not worth it for us to spend the money to keep coming here.
So I think that's the story every year. It isn't about attendance to me. It's about quality. It's about, you know, do the retailers feel like they're getting enough to justify leaving their stores for four days?
And then are we getting enough to justify spending the money to be here for four days? What do you think of St. Louis, of the idea of having it there? It doesn't really matter where it is to me.
The big thing for me is always, are there places outside of the show where you can gather where people are going to be at? Vegas, it's always downstairs at the bar, right? Here it was at Cuban Creations, or even some of the events here were really dope, right? Like the gathering events.
In St. Louis, if they're making an exception for us to smoke in the convention hall, does that mean that we're not going to be able to smoke anywhere else in town? Right. It's gonna be challenging.
Yeah, and that is almost half of the value of being here. Right. Right. Good point.
Good point. All right, now it's time for what's the score? Ooh. You familiar with the game?
Do you know how to play this game? Do not. 88. Okay, so...
What are you doing with the cigars yet? It doesn't matter. So here's what's gonna happen. Sam's off camera, but we're gonna bring Sam into this...
Turn it slightly. I don't need to be on the camera. Okay. Can you just pick up the pole and just turn it a little bit?
We'll take Palmer off. Do, do, do, do, there he is. There you go. Now you can sit back and relax.
So here's what we're going to do. We're going to play What's the Score? This is what I do to all my friends. I make them funny pictures.
Can't wait to see mine. You don't have one yet. I don't have like... So I'm not a friend.
You are a friend. But there's like four that have like desolate pictures of them. You know, we don't talk enough. Hey, Greg.
We can fix that. Will you get Tyler to bring me a Coke Zero? Coke Zero from Tyler. - He's from Tyler.
- So we're gonna do, we're gonna do, so he's gonna say the brand, and it's a half-wheel review, and then we're all gonna guess the score. I'll go first, 'cause that's the toughest spot, and then we'll send a skip, and then you can go, we'll pick a number. We're gonna pick a number three times, or four times, and the last one will be our final one, determining if we can guess the proper rating of this cigar. - Okay.
- Okay? - Okay. - Okay. - All right, first cigar is from April 30th, 2021.
Brooks Whittington is the reviewer. It is the protocol, Elliot Ness. - What natural cigar? - 86.
- Oh, I'm supposed to go first. - 87. - 85. - Okay.
- All right, cigar reviewed is the protocol. Elliot Ness is from Nicaragua. It's made at the San Latino factories. The wrapper is Nicaraguan Habano.
Binder is Nicaraguan Habano. Filler is Nicaraguan Criolo. 6x52 Toro, $1,195. They smoke three cigars.
- The trade show is now full of. - I'm going to I'm going to go 88. 86. I'm going to say I can't pick the same as you.
Yeah, you can. Oh, okay, yeah, 88. Absolutely, you can. All right, clue number one.
The cigar delivers a really attractive presentation with that milk chocolate brown wrapper, noticeable oil, and soft box press, definitely eye-catching and well put together in hand. I'm going to stay 88. 87. 87.
88. Okay. Clue number two. Once it settles, the oak and leather combination is steady and reliable throughout all thirds, backed by supporting notes like earth, dark chocolate, and coffee that keep it grounded.
I'm going to pivot up 89. 87. I'm sticking with 88. Okay.
All right, next clue, the draw is consistently way too loose across samples, and the flavor profile lacks evolution, staying repetitive without much strength or complexity to elevate the experience. 86. 86. 85.
Woo! All right, final thought, the problems with the protocol Elliot Ness natural begin even before I lit the cigar, and unfortunately, the issues never really improve. all that much. When the profile is not bitter it is extremely linear with flavors of oak and leather easily overwhelming any complexity and nuance that may exist and a sweetness that is so generic that it's more frustrating than enjoyable.
In addition to all three samples featured my problematic construction with extremely loose draws and a burn line that will not that will not needing many corrections was never anywhere close to razor sharp. Protocol has had some very enjoyable You've seen several blends in the past, but this release is far from the top of the list. 82. 85.
83. 74. Yes! What?
Ha! Champion! That's probably the first time I've ever seen it. The 70s?
Yeah, they're out there. They're out there. They exist. There's some 70s.
There's a 47. Okay. All right. Anything else to add?
Anything else you want to say? No, man. Did you spend the week with you guys? We didn't really spend the week together.
This was a weird PCA for us. Well, Jamie didn't invite you to dinner every night, so... There was that. Let's go get some fried chicken.
It's fried chicken night at the Roosevelt. Okay, we can do that. We gotta see what this breakdown looks like, though. Well, they're not gonna have our crates here in time anyway.
Yeah, I gotta ask my supervisor what he wants to do, so we'll figure that out. What about you, Mr. Sam? What about me?
Anything else to add? Anything else to add? Oh. Not much.
Go out and smoke some Roma Crafts, some Paustani, and some Ceniza Fina this week. That sounds like a good idea for everybody. Okay. Well, hey, like and subscribe wherever you're viewing or listening to this show.
And thank you so much, guys, for coming on. I like that you slid in. That's amazing. The pressure is a privilege.
The pressure is 100% a privilege. That's why we came. We slid in. Let's try and skip some pressure.
Yeah. He didn't cave. He doesn't budge. Other than putting more coke in the...
Yeah. He softened it. He softened it. All right.
All right. Thanks, everybody. See you on the road tomorrow. Are we doing...
Show Notes
In Todays Show, Disney Finally Takes Prices down….American Scientists mIssing with no Trace? Open AI down or did Claude Take it out? Then 8 questions with Skip Martin on the PCA 2026!