Second Time Around w/Carlos of @naked_cigars

Sticks: 

• Purple Pledge, by Casa Carillo (aged almost a decade). Tina highly recommends and argues its largely underrated, Carlos gives it an “good, not exciting” and Gary a "just ok". 
• Blood Medicine by Crowned Heads. Rated good-great by Gary and Carlos. Tina rated it a full-bodied bold cigar w/slight after taste and an acquired stick. 

Stories: 

• Carlos discusses his history with cigars, PCA and more! 
• Revisited: We discuss cigar facings and the dynamics which collide to bring them to consumers.
• We discuss the importance of fully utilizing the rep to bring the cigars to local markets while maintaining a virtuous relationship within the cigar ecosystem.
• Uh, oh.. what if there is a problem with your cigar? We discuss that and the importance of speaking up!   

This episode was recorded at the new venue, Aria Lounge at Puro in Chandler, AZ. 

Transcript

0:00

Okay. All right. Go. It is Monday again. How about that? Start in the middle of a sentence. Get everyone hooked. I know. What were they talking about? Here we are sticks and stories at Piro and Chandler. That's right. Yeah. Air by Perro, which is, so technically there's a separate name for the rooftop. Then the rest of, yeah, go ahead. Okay. So yeah, air by, by Peros. Is this the rooftop bar? Ah, and then there's Puros. Okay. It's too bad I would've figured it out eventually. It's too bad we don't film this because Yeah. Tina's your own little show going on mind. Nevermind. You're gonna, you're gonna do it this way. You are absolutely right with what you said before. Be quiet. I am not here for your entertainment kind of are. Well, you're doing a great job though. Yeah. Oh my God. I'd pay for this. I think. Why is it not working? Oh my God. What? That's my brand new lighter. You can't break it there. And go ahead there. It's worth the price of admission right there. It was my old, I'm not here for your entertainment fellow Yeah. Kind of are today. Whether you've meant, meant to be or not. Anyway, it's Monday again. Yes, it's, thank you for having me back. We are on the rooftop at Puro Air by Puro here in Chandler, Arizona. It is a beautiful day considering what we normally have this time of year. Oh yeah. Beautiful. Monday, Arizona. Great. Yeah. Temperature. When I pulled up and walked up here, I think, the thermometer said it was 78 degrees. This is perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't get any better than this. And what a hell of a location This moves to out too. Yeah. And, and in the evenings, the sunset's, it's pretty awesome when Oh, I bet it is. Yeah. Oh yeah. So the, the people at, at Puros have very graciously let me, bring you guys up here to shoot. Thank you. Shoot. So this is kind of cool. It's a fun, fun way to see Chandler. Yeah. And thankfully the construction next door, has a, has stopped knock long enough for us to do this. Yeah. It may start halfway through the podcast and you'll hear all kinds of noise in the background. Well, don't they normally leave work construction people at three o'clock? Well, it's not three. They're, they're eating lunch probably right now. Yeah, that would be my guess. Yeah. So, oh, I know what I wanted to ask you. What do they do at microchip? I, I have no idea. Like, he just wants, he, it's a setup. It's a setup. We're not gonna talk about that. We pass microchip on the way. So we're driving over here and there's this big ass building that's got microchip on it, and Tina goes, well, what do they do there? You don't know, know Gary? They make microchips. Well, that would bet know. Yes. That would be the guess is that they actually make them there. But, but we have a lot of companies here, here in the valley that, that do random all, all kinds of semiconductor stuff. Yeah. Who knows? Okay, so thank you so much, Carlos, for allowing us into your space here. This is the first time I've ever been to Chandler. So Chandler is a considered a suburb. Uh, it's its own town. Okay. It, the Chandler pd, that's Chandler City Hall, right over there. Yeah. And then the police department and the fire department. That building you see with the, with the white roof right over there. Yeah. That's the headquarters of the fire department. Oh, okay. Oh, neat. Yeah, they're their own city. Well wait, with the dome right there. Right here? No, the white here. The brick building with the white. Oh, this one right here. Fire department. Okay. So it's pretty big. How many, what's the population that you see? Oh, I have, I have no idea. It's. It's gotta be on par with, with like Mea Gilbert. I probably smaller than Mesa. I, I don't know the exact numbers, but I, I'm gonna guess that it mesa's probably bigger, especially when they annexed all that space down there by the airport and all that. So, welcome to another episode of Dixon Stories. Again, we're at Pirro and Carlos, we are, so excited that you were able to do this again. I lost. This recording before, because my computer crashed, there was a memory issue. So now we're recording directly to the software and hopefully we'll get everything. We did do a test before and so we're, we should be good to go. And last time we were, what did we have on the, on the Lost podcast was the EP Carrillo Purple. Yeah. Which I loved. Yeah. Which I thought was a good cigar. Yeah. I thought it lacked a little bit of oomph. I thought it was. Certainly a good cigar, well-made cigar, but it, I thought it lacked a little bit of, I dunno, what, what did we say about it before that? It just, it was good. Just not exciting. Not, is not, I mean, I think just like most cigars, I think it could be an acquired, but again, it is, you know, whatever people's palette is. So what I like may be very different from what you guys like. So yeah, I just thought that it was a little bit flat. I thought it had good flavor. It was made nice. It just wasn't, it, it, nothing about it stood out. Like the, like the battle born and the Pledge of allegiance. Yeah. Those had something unique about them that kind of made them stand out from Korea. Yeah. Anyway, all of that to say that today, 'cause we don't have those again. We are all smoking the crown heads blood medicine B positive. Which is a cigar that lately I've been a little bit of a kick on. Mm. It's a good cigar. I like it. Why did they name theirs this? 'cause I think, don't they have like kind of funky names like this for Crown Heads in general? I, so my understanding is that it had something to do with some maybe late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, snake oil salesman in the Nashville area. Mm. I, I don't know the complete story. But that's kind of my, what I had heard is that's where the name come from. I do know that it is a, an Ecuadorian hano wrapper. Okay. Which, to your point, right, that Hano wrapper is what gives it a little bit more of that, that black pepper bite that we were talking about, before we started recording that. It is, it is kind of spicy. Yeah. It, it does have a little bit of a, a black pepper spice to it without being overpowering. But it, you notice it right away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say, to me it tastes full, like it's not really a medium mild at all. It's a full body, it's cigar. Would you agree with that or is that how they describe it? I don't, so I don't know how they describe it necessarily. I, I, I. My impression is that most of the crown head cigars tend to trend to the stronger end. Mm. Right. They're probably their mildest cigar. Might is still gonna be a medium bodied cigar. Yeah. Okay., Fuller flavor, A little bit more bite, little heavier, a heavier bodied cigar. So, yeah, I would say this is probably in that realm, in that medium plus medium to full whatever people want. Whatever word they want to use for that in between. Yeah. Are there any other notes that you would say about this? Like, is it like oak, like, I know you said peppery, which I definitely taste when I first, finally got it lit. We were having technical difficulties. Actually, I was. So you broke two elevators today and now you can't smoke your cigar? I don't know. You're on a roll. No, she's smoking the cigar just fine. It was the lighter that was out maneuvering it. That's correct. Yeah. It has been corrected. Well, it's also windy up here. The wind has nothing to do with the fact that you couldn't strike the soft flame wind. You were like, well, I mean, I'd never used it before. So gimme a minute to adjust myself to using that lighter that I've never used. Who's buried in Grant's Tomb, Tina. Okay. You and you. In 30 minutes, you'll be right beside him. Oh, Jesus Christ. So last time I know we talked a lot, well, we had some really good, conversation about cigars the last time, but, when we were, I'm just trying to remember kind of our, line of conversation. We were talking specifically about, I think we were talking about the combination of, you know, how a cigar comes to market, and then we also, talked a little bit about PCA. So if you want to talk about PCA first and then we can kind of talk about that later topic. Yeah. So, pCA is really for retailers, it's an industry. It's an inside industry show. It's, it's an opportunity for, the big companies to release new stuff, to showcase whatever they want to, like new products, new product lines, line extensions, new cigar, lines. Sometimes, they'll use PCA as sort of their platform if they're rebranding something like, a couple of companies will, every so often will. Put new labels and it's the same cigar, same blend, it it, same company. They just wanna refresh the brand. They'll usually make that big intro at the PCA show. Also an opportunity, pre COVID it was very important. Retailers would go to the PCA show to work out what their big purchase was going to be because manufacturers were trying to launch these new products and so they would want. They're intro buy, right? So, yeah. You're company X and you make 12 different, cigars. You want your retailers to buy, at least half of those, so right six to nine of those cigars. And in order to get them to buy in, you give them special pricing. Yeah. So, you know, you have show pricing. Then COVID hit. I think the big trend post COVID was that a lot of small companies were kind of struggling and the cigar industry is really, the lifeblood of the cigar industry is the brick and mortar store. Yeah. And they wanted these people to be able to buy these deals, so as long as they were willing to reach out to their reps or to their factory reps or whatever to place those orders, they would give them the show deal without having to be at the show. Especially if you were a, a smaller operation and, and, you know, getting to the, to the show was kind of a hardship for you. Yeah. This is a, a way of doing that. And that's basically also the opportunity for a lot of the manufacturers to get to know the retailers, to see who, and in some places where you have, brokers mm-hmm. That move your product, it's an opportunity for the principles of these. Different cigar companies to spend time with some of the important movers of these brokerages. Right. To, 'cause they're gonna hash out their own deals. Yeah. So I mean, that's basically all it was for, so I saw too, like on Instagram, on social, maybe on Facebook too, but mostly on Instagram. There were quite a few and some of the people reached out to me, but they were like small little boutique shops that, or not shops, but cigar brands that came, that came out. So what do you think that means for them when they're, when they show up at PCA, the, the newer boutique? Well, it, so I think it's, it's tough for small brands to really make a big intro at PCA because it is very expensive, right? So, yeah. Which is why some of the smaller, cigar brands will go to a show like TPE, tobacco. Was it tobacco products, et cetera, or tobacco products? Extra what? Whatever TPE stands for. Yeah. It's a smaller show in Vegas and they cover a lot of stuff that you would see in head shops, right? Yeah. So there's companies that make glass pipes and that make vape machines and all that stuff, but increasingly, they've had a growing portion of that show that is dedicated to premium cigars. Because it's a lot cheaper. Yeah. To have a booth at that show than it is at PCA. Yeah. That's Total Product Expo. Total. Total Product Expo. Yeah. I would've never thought it used be called like Yeah. It used to be called like Tobaccos plus Expo or Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. But so you, you see a lot of these smaller boutique brands going to shows like TPE because Right. Having a big, having a big, booth at PCA is very expensive. Yeah. And then you gotta move all that stuff out there. And, so I think it's hard for small companies to get a foothold at PCA. In fact, I know some of the guys. So my experience with that was talking to the guys from, from War Fighter early on. Yeah. Bef when they were really kind of starting out, they were going to PCA, but they were going to PCA to just go to the show and then they were handing out business cards and samples to talk to people about their brand because they couldn't afford a booth. Yeah, right. And then once they got some traction, then they could start, they started doing, booths there. But yeah, for small companies who are just starting out, that's a very expensive proposition. Hmm. So. I think last time you, we were talking about, I, I think it was, this conversation we were talking about how, there's one, well, I don't know if we wanna talk about that in the podcast. I'll talk about it and we'll see. We can always delete this part. But anyways, there's one brand, one, tobacco player out there. And I wanna say we had this conversation, but anyways, there's a, a particular brand that, I don't know. They were having problems having their reps here, in other places as well. So the rep would actually, and you, you probably know exactly who I'm talking about, but the, the rep would be here and they would set up business, but they would call Miami and Miami would actually, you know, get the commission on it. Yeah, that's, that is a, it's a terrible business practice when you have, you know, factory reps that are calling on customers and then. That customer maybe for some reason can't get ahold of the rep. Yeah. And then he calls the, you know, the main number, the main, wherever it is, and places his order there, and then they cut the rep out of his commission even though it's part of his territory. Yeah. That's, that's kind of, that's not a great way of doing business, which, which I think. So not all brands do that, of course, but no, there was one in particular that they, you know, they found it hard to keep their reps, you know, throughout the states because of, you know, because people were getting their commissions cut. Yeah. And so, I, I can tell you having been, on the spirits side of it, right, I had a territory I would call, call my accounts, and I would tell them, Hey, listen, if you, my normal day to come and see you is on Tuesday. Yeah, if you have a particularly busy week and all of a sudden it's Friday and you need to place an order for either a Saturday delivery or for the following Monday, just call the main number. You can call me, but if for some reason you can't get ahold of me, right, you can call and just give them your account number, place your order, and then we'll, now did I, was I aware that my manager was probably gonna. You know, say, Hey, what's up? Like, what's, why aren't you calling on your accounts? Yeah. Then I, that's a conversation I can have as a rep. I can go, no, no, I saw him. He was, they just did, for whatever reason, they did a lot of business and he needed stuff for in the InBetween time. Like an event or something? Yeah, maybe. And then they'd be like, oh, all right, well that's a reasonable answer, but if it happens every single week right now, you're, you got a problem. Right. So, but. The cigar brand that you're talking about, it was kind of a known thing that they would do that. And, you had retailers out there that didn't care and would just call the factory to place their order and to cut the rep out of his commission. So I really don't think it's necessarily the retailer's fault. I think it's like the, the company that would've. You know, because why are you, 'cause that's gonna make your people upset and cause you not to have as much business. I think. Yes. I mean there's definitely more on the company than on the retailer unless the retailer knows and is doing it on purpose. Yeah. Unless he's being a dick. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. And so here's the other part that I don't know. I don't know if calling to the factory. My guess is that the reason for retailer doing that is maybe whoever the factory rep is that he was talking to on the phone you don't like him, was giving him, giving him better prices. Oh, okay. Right. So incentivizing him to cut out the rep. But again, that's a company problem. Yeah. Not a retailer issue. Yeah. And, but you know, that's dirty. If the retailer has a good relationship with the rep, he'd be like, Hey, are you aware that your, your company is doing this to you? Yeah, I would do it. I would definitely say, Hey, I, you know, respect our relationship as par partners in this whole thing. Yeah. And just to let you know, your company is being a dick. Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it's not a good business practice. No. Which is why everyone leaves that place. Yeah. Okay. So, so we did talk about it last time, I guess. Yeah. We did touch on it briefly. Yeah. And then, what was the other thing you wanted to talk about besides, the PCA and then Oh. About how, cigars are brought to market? The testing that's done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so, right. That was a big part of our conversation. 'cause you did a lot of that before. I've, I've done it. And you still do it. I've done it three times now. Three separate times and, mainly because. Like, I knew guys that were working for these companies and they would get these prototypes and I was part of the, you know, at least taste testing it. Right? Yeah. So I have had nothing to do with blending. I have nothing to do with the marketing or the package. None of that. That's, I wanna make it perfectly clear. Yeah. I was only at the user end and so. The was. Cigar companies will normally, they'll have availability of, either it's a wrapper or some sort of very particular filler leaf, something that they want to showcase because it has some quality that is interesting, that's flavorful, that's pretty, that's whatever it is. And so then, they will build a cigar around that thing, right? Mm-hmm. So like in the case of Peruvian Pelo Deto, right? It's, it's a very, very specific, very blonde, very light colored filler leaf. You can't make a cigar out of it, and it's very expensive. It's hard to grow, but it does have a very unique sort of sweet, characteristic to it. So they'll try to build a cigar around that in the filler. Mm-hmm. Maybe you have some really awesome, Crop of Sungrown wrapper or a Maduro wrapper that is particularly fabulous, and you want to, you wanna build a cigar around that. So then what you do is you, the blenders will put together a couple of, maybe three or four different blends using that product in, in whichever position they're, you're gonna use it, they'll put it in the. Yeah, sometimes. So early on they will burn samples of it and just smell the smoke coming off of the, the burning tobacco, which is what you always see in the ads, right? But then they'll produce a cigar, they'll let them age and marry together for a little bit. How long? Depends on, you know, them really good guys, guys who are really, really good at this don't need that long. They can start to kind of do the math problem in their head of what this is going to marry together like. Yeah. Yeah. And then, so you'll have, you know, a batch A, B, C, and D. And then everyone that's involved in the tasting, they'll give you a bag with two of a, two of B, two of C, two of D. And then the ask is, alright, when you smoke these, write down your impressions of each one and then give us the feedback on what went right, what went wrong, what you liked, what you didn't like. And then they would all take this consensus and start kind of, you know, compiling. Yeah. Feedback and then they would fine tune it from there. They'd say, well, nobody liked D so that one's right out. Mm-hmm. A they kind of liked, but it seems to be burning kind of funky. And we weren't able to, everyone said that they liked the flavor, but they had to keep relighting it. Okay. Maybe that's a binder issue. Yeah. And so then they'll do the same thing a second time. There'll be a, B, c, D of batch number two, which had all of these sort of tweaks to it. Mm-hmm. And they'll try it again. And then take that feedback and narrow it down to maybe two, and then they'll make a decision. Mm-hmm. And then once that's decided, they'll make another batch usually, and let them marry together for a little while and then they'll smoke those just to verify that their, what they thought they got out of the first test mm-hmm. Group is what they're actually getting out of the production. Once they say, yep, we've been able to replicate it. This is the blend. This is what we're putting together. Yeah. Then they go forward and start putting into production and then people have to decide how many, to your point before we started recording, how many labels do we wanna put? How pretty do we want this to be? Yeah. What price point do we want this at? Gary doesn't like those flashy labels, by the way. I do. Well, they're just a pain in ass. I think he doesn't like, like three and four labels on a salon, which, oh, that's right. One is so, because we talked about that the last time. Yeah. Which I don't disagree with you if, if you can't. If you see more label than cigar. Yeah. This cigar needs to be about a dollar cheaper and you need to lose some labels. That's right. Yeah. Can you tell us a story about, the label issue? You remember we talked about this before? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that was, so again, one of the, one of the things that happens at, any of the shows, T-P-E-P-C-A, when these principles go to the shows, they're there to meet people. They're there to meet retailers, they're there to meet the press, to talk to. P bloggers and podcasters, we talk about all this stuff. Yeah. And it just hap and I don't remember whether it was TPE or at PCA, but the issue was with, very specifically log. Mm. And, I was like, Hey, I, and I, right now off the top of my head, I don't, I can't remember, the gentleman's name, who is the guy who's blended the, the LA line. And, but anyway, he was at the show. And I said, Hey, it's a pleasure to meet you. I love the cigar, but I do have a complaint. The factory is putting too much glue on the label and when you try to peel it off, it tears the, it tears the wrapper. And I think one of the factory reps, there's a guy there who's like, oh, well we've been addressing that. And I, and I literally said, lemme see one of your samples right in front of 'em. Took the, the sleeve off of it, grabbed the. Label pulled it off and it tore the wrapper. He goes, there's too much glue on this. And he looked at me and he goes, oh, we'll we'll fix that right now. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, okay. I, because it's a great cigar. Yeah. I, but this is a consistent problem that happens all the time. And sure enough, I mean, that was, that was fixed. You know, because then he saw it happen at the show. Same thing with Casa Cuevas, right? Mm-hmm. They had. Was it a problem with the mold you said, or something like that? Yeah. That was a problem with, there was one cigar in particular. It was the Maduro Gordo that had a specific issue you would get to about halfway through the cigar, and the Maduros would split, or the wrapper would split, I should say. And it was consistently happening at the same place with different, different batches. Mm-hmm. And it didn't happen with the Connecticut's, and it didn't happen with the, the. The sun, the ano, but it was happening with the Mad with the Maduro. Mm. And I, it was a cigar that I liked. And so I happened to have, you know, was friends with, with Luva. And so I was able to send him pictures and I would text him and I go, Hey, look, this is happening again. It doesn't happen with the Toro, not with the Rab Busto, not with the Connecticut or the, but this one. And so then they went to the factory to look, and it turns out that there was a flaw in one of the molds. That they had used, and so they just made new molds, problem solved. Wow. But, but that kind of feedback sometimes doesn't go all the way up the chain through, through reps, through retailers, and a lot of people won't complain. And so you just end up. And this is the kinda the point that you were making is somebody gets, a consumer just gets frustrated and goes, well, I'm not gonna buy these anymore. This is bullshit. They just stopped smoking just keeps happening and I'm just gonna stop. And he's, because he is naturally gonna assume if it happened to him twice with the Gordo, it's probably gonna happen to him with the Rubo and the Toro and Right. He's not gonna, he's gonna kind of give up on the brand. Yeah. So, and there, and there goes a percentage of the sales. Right? Yeah. So, so by taking that feedback and, and like listening to it right. This is a small industry. These are small family owned businesses. They're pretty re responsive to feedback that they get. Awesome. So, yeah. So that was, that was that. But yeah, the, and once they got that fixed, it was problem solved. Right. Hmm. So today, Carlos, I don't, I know we talked about this maybe on the first podcast maybe, but, what would you say your top five cigars are today? Because I know that changes For me. It changes, it's changed from the time I started to the time that I'm, here today because, I've tried a lot more cigars. Thankfully because of Arizona, Arizona is one of the most densely populated cigar lounges shops in the nation to me, other than like maybe, Florida and in South Florida at that. Yes. Yeah. And so, here we've had the advantage of trying so many different ones because, you know, there's so many lounges. I love it here. Let's see. Or, or your top five. Yeah. Because I know there's so many. Yeah. It like we started out. Lately, I've been on a little bit of a kick with some of the Crown head stuff. The, the Casa 1910, from Mexico. The Hiro particularly, I think is, is a great cigar that I've been, leaning on a lot lately. The, the Dun Palon collection, the ma. Mm-hmm. What else have I had lately that really kind of, I love that you can pronounce all this stuff, by the way, because of your heritage. Yeah, I do have a little bit of an unfair advantage. Oh. Yeah. 'cause we talked about that too, didn't we? The, the, mm-hmm. San Andreas wrap. Mm-hmm. Versus yeah. That most people say San Andreas. Oh. 'cause I kept mispronouncing it. Yeah. I say San Andreas, but it's San Andreas, right? Because everyone naturally thinks of the San Andreas Valley in California. But that's Andrea versus Andrew in Spanish, which is Andres. There's no second A in it. Carlos, I think you have a photographic memory. I'm gonna just say that what. Do you and your, when your, when you and your girlfriend fight, do you, do you remember everything and then you win because you remember everything? No. No. I, I, in, in fact, you, you never win a fight with a woman. No. It's not gonna, I, I'm not trying to do that. No. No. In fact, for stuff like that, I have a terrible memory. I Okay now, useless facts. Oh, trapped in here forever. Yeah. Gary has a lot of useless facts, but they're fun. The stuff that you remember is so fun. Yeah, I, I can, I have all kinds of useless shit stuck in my head. But, yeah. Let's see, what else have I had lately? Whoa. Okay, so, uh, I did the review on the blue amber from Aging Room, which was. Kind of a, is that a PCA one or No, that's not, no. Okay. No, it's, it's one of their new limited edition ones that they have. I was a little conflicted about that cigar. Mm-hmm. Because I thought it was fantastic. I really loved it. However, I don't believe that I would spend $40 per cigar. No. But it was a great cigar. I, so those types of cigars, I don't think I'm Okay. I'm not spending, every now and then I'll treat myself to a $20, maybe $22 cigar. But the bigger ones, like 40, 30, 50, even 100. The only time I'm getting those is as a gift. Yeah, I, so I had the same feeling about the placencia year of the horse. That's $65 a cigar. I was like, Nope. I will never taste that. It was, it was a beautiful cigar, beautifully made Word 65. No, no. The Davidoff Royal salute, which is now like at $112 a cigar. Yeah, no, absolutely not. No worth, no the money, I'm not doing that. I even feel a little uncomfortable when somebody handed me one. I'm like, I don't think you want to give this to me, because I'm not, I'm not gonna say great things about, I mean, it's a good cigar, don't. It's not a bad cigar, Davidoff in general to me, I think is really good. But, again, my, the thing, the one that I like the most is the Rio. Yeah. Or the, the black label, the Nicaraguan. Mm. I, I, I, so here's my, my, this is just my opinion, but one of my big beefs with Davidoff is that at the price point that you are buying those cigars, once you get to about halfway and they warm up. They get spongy. There's no reason to underfill a cigar at that price point. Yeah. I, again, my personal opinion, but that's a big problem that I have, that if you're, 'cause how far down that cigar, you've gone through most of it already and it's still a fairly solid cigar. Alright. It's fine. Yeah. Right. And, and these, you and I are about halfway through this Crown Heads. It's still a solid cigar. Yeah. You get to a dab it off. When you burn it to this point, you can actually pinch it and flex it and roll it around between, yeah. I, between your fingers, don't like that. And it's spongy and there's, I don't believe there's any reason for that. So I've never noticed that with the ones that I smoke. The S sceo only because the ones that I've been smoking, that those ones are, you know, at the Cedar Room, they're like 15 years old or whatever. So maybe they weren't made like that back in the day. I don't know. I, I, I. Couldn't tell you. I think that that's been an issue or been part of their, how they produce cigars for a long time. Does it depend on the shape? Does it matter? No. Okay. No, I think it's, it's been pretty consistent across sizes. That, that's because this one is like, the one that I normally smoke has those chiseled ends, I forget what you call it, but, a perfecto that tapers at both ends. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I didn't notice it with that one. I, I, I think it's more obvious with the white label ones. Okay. But if I, in my experience at least, it seems like they all do it to some extent. Okay. Feedback. for Davidoff What else? Who else is, what other cigar have I been on a little bit of a kick lately. Smoking, I don't know. Let me look in my box. Let's see what's in the goodie box. There it is. The magic box. Here we go. So he has a big old box of cigars. There's about, 40 cigars in there. Yeah. The, it's a pelican case. It's awesome. Uh, let's see. Did like, when you bought that case, did it come with that cushion right there? Or you put that in there? Here's, here's the cool thing. I had to turn in because of my regular job. Yeah. I had to turn in a set of, night vision goggles. Yeah. And they never asked me for the Pelican case back. Okay. So I just kept it. So this is. I got this for free. I would love to. Your tax dollars at work folks? Correct? If I had a lot of money. Speaking of night vision, I love night vision goggles. I've only seen 'em like once ever in person, but I would love to have a car that had night vision. And does that exist, do you, in your military training, do you, do you, does that exist? You just wear the goggles? Yeah. You just wear the goggles? No, I want it like at nighttime, I wanna be able to see everything. And that's because they're strapped to your head? It's, I don't want that. I want it on my car. No, I want it on my car. No, I don't have that. That's not how that works. You wear it, it, it can work like that. If it was created, no, because then you'd be looking at like 12 different screens inside your car. Well, well that's the technology in the goggles. But in the, for the windshield. Well, nevermind. Oh, you, so I have a few EP Chorios. I was gonna say EP chorios. Yep. Wait, can I see that the one with your. You have the purple, which I love. Yeah. Battle Born., I have two of those. Yeah. Yeah. The, my father special. Oh. So I've had a few of the, Southern draw. That's, that's another one that I have in here. I love Southern Draw by the way. So which ones do you like? Rose of Sharon. So, Rose of Sharon a little mild. I like it. It's very mild. Yeah, it's very, but I still like it when I have a taste for something light. I'll do that. And then, Jacob's ladder of course is the polar opposite. Yeah. I, and I have, I have a very old Jacobs ladder in here that, Jared here over Perez gave me from his collection. And I believe that that cigar is part of the initial release. Mm. It's just been sitting in his humidor, the cellophane on it, which I know it's not really cellophane, but you know what I mean, is like a dark, dark brown color yellow. Yeah. So that's gonna be extra yummy whenever you enjoy it. Yeah. And then, I. What else is? Oh, and then my father's like, I, I, I find that I, if there's a single factory, I think that produces a lot of cigars that I particularly tend to like, would be my father. So whether it's you like the blue t, the blue, the blue label ones out of Honduras. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think they're pretty good. I, I'm not, those are not my favorites. Like, if somebody gives me one, I'll be perfectly happy with it, but, right. Like it's, it's not my. An absolute favorite of theirs, the elano that has that red label on it. Mm-hmm. I like those. The, Fonseca mx I think is very good of theirs. The, judge and, some of the, or the libi or the hundredth I, the hundredth anniversary one. Yeah, the hundredth anniversary one I thought was very good. Yeah. And then the TA stuff, particularly some of the Reserva TAs in. And I like them because they make them in the old traditional, like a Corona size. Mm-hmm. They're eros sometimes they have these panatella that are very long and very thin and they're hard to roll those cigars. Yeah. And I think my father factory does a great job with those, what are now considered kind of niche sizes. Right. 30, 40 years ago. This is the common, these are the common sizes. There were Churchills, there was re Bustos Coronas, and then occasionally somebody would make a big fat like a Gordo. But those were not industry standard. Yeah. And just, just like the ones I think that, Gary smokes, the seven by seventies, the ones that you, he loves so much. Nobody makes the, that's, that has never been an industry standard. It's not, but, which is what I like about those actually, because even though, and like, you know, I hate having a big cigar like that. However, I enjoy it every now and then because it's just, it's still good to me. They, they still make them well, like, for example, the Melanio v Maduro that is made over at specifically for, Fox. I didn't know how good that was. Remember I brought it in and Gary thought it was for him, and, he made me cut it. So we cut it, you cut it, and, I didn't, I was stuck on the O at first. I was smoking that for years and I was like, yeah, I don't even enjoy the other ones. And then eventually you cut that one. Someone actually gave that to me initially and I really enjoyed it. And so I think surprisingly, some of the seven by 70s are quite enjoyable, but since they don't sell as well, not a lot of people buy them and they tend to be a little bit cheaper than, like, the traditional sizes. Yeah. My. My only, I guess, consideration that I would say is a aesthetically right. Like I just, I don't want us to go hold a cigar that's that big. But, I also would say that they probably have to use a lot of, secondary filler. 'cause it's a lot of real estate to fill a cigar with. So I think that you have a lot of tobacco in there that is, s they're gonna use it there because they don't wanna use it anywhere else. Yeah. I think it's probably harder to, find a good balance with those of binder filler wrapper because of that, that, I, I think the big, well, and so that's the other problem is with a lot of cigar, a lot of cigar brands in the factories, you start rolling a cigar that's that thick. And seven inches long, you have to have a very big wrap leaf, right. To roll that. So, the availability of of wrap leaves to cover a cigar of that size. Oh yeah, that's true. Starts to cut into, whereas right, you look at, traditional leaves, wrapper leaves for a corona sized cigar that's a third or a quarter of the size. Right. And, and you end up with a much better. Wrapper to filler binder ratio. The thinner the ring gauge. Yeah. Which is why right. If you wanna smoke a cigar and really get so the impression and get the lan the flavor profile of the wrapper, you're gonna smoke a Corona or a Lan sero. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why Christina or Christine, smokes Lan ceros mostly because it is an excellent, you know, binder filler. It, it is a, it's an excellent showcase of the wrapper. Yeah. Yeah. When, when you have a thinner cigar like that, and then. Occasionally when you can find them and you don't see them very often. I know that Tatuaje does have them occasionally. I know Paul Ian has them. There's a size called the A, which is like a 46 ring gauge. Mm. But they're like eight inches long. It's a long thin cigar and, yeah. The an A size, if you can find it, is a really kind of an interesting, fun cigar to smoke because they, yeah. They're made so infrequently. Yeah. So, Carlos, can we talk a little bit? So this is the first time that I have been in the Perros. Gary, is this the first time you've been here? Yep. Can we talk a little bit about this space? They have the new upstairs. We talked a little bit about it in the beginning, but can you talk about kind of the whole shop and why you like it? Why you're a member here, right? Yeah. Okay. So I became a member here because it's close to where. I live. Right. It, it's, it's convenient, but I also know the guys who work here, the private lounge is quiet. It's really big. Yeah. And the, the, the outer part, lounge bar area has a balcony that looks out onto Boston Street out front. The humidor is by Boston. Yeah. Yeah. By, Arizona. Cigar shop standards is a smaller humidor. Mm. So Jared and the other guys have to do a little bit more work of kind of curating what's in there. So maybe did they listen to you guys and what you like and stuff? Or is it just like, no, I think you come in there and you're surprise sometimes. I, I think they're, they're pretty good at figuring out what they want, in the humidor they, whatever decision they're making, based on whatever metrics they want to use. But the point is that their, their selection's good. It's just not as big as you'll get in other shops in the area. And, and again, right, it's a bar. It, so you want, you have, a pretty broad range of customers that come through the door. So you have to have cigars. That are recognizable. So they're going to have Davidoff and Perdomo and Arturo Fuente. But then after you've sort of checked the boxes on the big names mm-hmm. Then they also have, and they don't have every size and everything. So like Crown Heads is a good example, right? Like they don't have everything. Yeah. They'll have maybe three lines. Yeah. And two sizes in each line. 'cause they just, there isn't enough real estate in there to have everything. So this is, same thing with like CASA 1910 mm. They have three or four facings of Casa 1910. Mm-hmm. Because that's what they have room for. I think this is maybe my fir no, probably my second Crown heads. I'm not a big crown heads person. Just 'cause I, I don't know. I just haven't developed a palette for this, brand yet. But this one is good. The one, the blood medicine is really good. Is this popular right now or? I th I think they're, they're fairly popular. I know that this, the, the blood medicine line was limited to just a couple thousand boxes, so they come out with it every year. It's just a little different every year. So that this is the 20 26 1. I think that we are smoking the last three that they had here. Oh. I feel special. And then, but the other ones they have that I like, the Broadway okay, so we're gonna wrap this episode of Sticks and Stories Up. Thank you again, Carlos, for being here. Thank you for having me. It was fun. Oh yeah, it's great fun and you know so damn much about cigars. I just smoke 'em. Well that's why we, I mean, right without guys like you, there would be no industry. We needed aficionado like you though. That's good. You're technically aficionado. You, you've been smoking them longer than. You've been a lot alive. Yeah. That that's, is that true? Pretty, pretty close. No, it's not. It's not. What year were you born? 76. Can't hear you in 76. You've only been smoking since what? How old were you when you first started? I'll be like 79 since I was 29. Okay. So, no, not as long as I've been born or here technically. Yeah. Or me either. Close enough. Yeah, I think I started when I was 24. Mm. So, yeah. Yeah. So 30, 30 some odd years. 32 years. Well, you've been consistent. Like I started in that range and it was just like off and on for every like three to five years whenever someone was celebrating. And then I started smoking serious seven years ago. Yeah. Meaning a lot. So I think, and, and we've seen it. I've seen it, but it, it's kind of a known thing with like in wine or with spirits, right? The big issue isn't that as human beings, our, our palates, yes. Some people have more receptive palates, right? So they can taste more things, but by and large, most human beings are kind of, we're all the difference between the person who tastes the most, barring some sort of neurological disorder or injury or something. With, uh, among normal people, the, the, the range between a super taster and, uh, your average person is really not that big of a range. So I think what most people lack isn't the ability to taste stuff. I think what most people lack is just sort of the vernacular, right? They definitions. Yeah. Yeah. They, they lack the vocabulary. So that's where having a flavor wheel. Is very helpful. Yeah. Right. Because if you taste like in wine, so if you taste something and it reminds you of maybe a cranberry or, uh, co cooked cherries or plum or oak or vanilla, right? Most people know that they taste something that they like, but maybe don't have the words to attach to what their. Uh, sensing. Yeah, I think that was what Lonnie was kind of getting towards, like the last time when we had him on too. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think, I think people do taste these different flavor profiles. They just maybe lack the, being able to use the words to describe what they're tasting. So, and especially in cigars, right? You have a lot of things that are. I don't wanna say repetitive, but they're common. Right? Tobacco normally will produce things like red pepper, black pepper, leather, wood, dark wood, right? When you smell the tobacco, sometimes you can have things like raisin or you can have that sort of musty barnyard smell to 'em. These are all things that are fairly common. It's just you end up kind of talking to the degree that you have those, the intensity of those things, but they're all pretty similar. Same thing with, it's no different in wine, right? Yeah. Yeah, I feel like even with the blood medicine, because there's like this aftertaste that I have and I don't know how to describe it 'cause it's, it's dissimilar to anything else I've ever had before. And I don't know, like what it is, it just tastes like there's something that was left behind and I don't, I don't wanna call it. But it tastes, there's something else there. It's like a aftertaste, but I don't know what it is. Yeah. And there are some cigars that have flavors to them that will be more reminiscent of like roasted meat, right? Or moldy feet. It could be, could be sweaty. Yeah. That's, that's not, and you'll, you'll get, you'll get that less in the burn and more in the tobacco, right. Where you have sort of a sweaty foot smell. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like that's, that sort of musty smell is not uncommon. I actually like the musty smell of cigars. Actually. It's weird. So I like the musty smell of cigars. But yeah, on that note, I think we're, we're all set for this episode and we had some technical difficulties once again. But it looks like everything got recorded. I'll be able to piece things together and I'm glad it worked out this time. Again, thank you for having me back. And again, thanks to the people here at Puro Letting us use the rooftop. Oh yeah. Thank you, Puro. Yeah. Great spot. Hopefully good to see you, Carlos. Hopefully the ambient noise wasn't too distracting with either the wind or some delivery van backing up or, I know, but we did helicopter flying by. I know. We heard some. That's always a good sound. Yeah, we heard some of the playback though. It sounded really good. But this software actually does a lot of that. It levels out things and kind of amps up the voices. Tunes out the background noise. I wish I could do that in real life. I wish I could just tune out the background noise of chatter and people talking. I think we all do. I think that's why we come to the cigar lounge sometimes so that we won't be distracted by all that craziness. Well, thank you for having me. Thank you.