Shield Maiden, Tobacconist, Sommelier

Today we are talking with Michelle B. of Cigar South, here in the Grand Strand of South Carolina.  She is one of my favorite Tobacconists and she is also becoming a certified Cigar Sommelier!  Listen as she tells us of her journey in the land of the leaf expertise.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Liberty on Nicotine, the only podcast where the ash is long, the government should be small, and the cigars are absolutely non-negotiable. I'm your host, Tripp, coming to you once again from a place of deep reflection, mild sarcasm, and a firm belief that it doesn't involve coercion, taxation, or a warning label from three different agencies, it's probably worth doing. Today's episode is a special one, folks, because we are joined by a woman I have long referred to, not lightly, not casually, but with full Norse level respect as my tobacco shield maiden. That's right, Michelle is in the house. Now, Michelle isn't just holding down the fort at my local cigar shop with Cigar South. She's managing it, shaping it, and occasionally, to be honest. Saving some of you from buying cigars, you have absolutely no business smoking. She is working out of their Florence, South Carolina home base, spreading the gospel of good tobacco like a true leaf libertarian missionary. But today, we're not talking just about cigars, we're talking about the journey. Because Michelle is on the path to becoming a certified cigar somalier. Yes, that's a real thing. And no, you cannot major in it at a local state university, which already makes it indefinitely more respectable. Though the International Association of Cigar Somaliers, the AICS, this isn't some weekend watch a YouTube video and call yourself an expert situation. No, no, no, no, no. We're talking about one of the most internationally recognized cigar education programs out there. Their faculty are speaking at major cigar festivals in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. These places are where cigars aren't just a hobby, they're practically a constitutional right. And when you complete your program, you don't just get a fancy certificate. You join a global brotherhood and sisterhood, B O T L S and S O T L S, who are uh dedicated to the craft, the culture, the continued pursuit of the cigar excellence. It's like free market think tank, but with better smoke and fewer bad takes. So today we're diving into Michelle's journey, how she got started, what it takes to become a cigar sommelier, uh what she's learned along the way, and whether or not she's going to start charging me consultation fees for my own humidor. Spoiler alert, if she does, I'll argue it's taxation without representation. So grab a stick, pour yourself something worthy of a leaf, and settle in. Because this is Liberty on Nicotine. First, Michelle, how did you first get into the the leaf life, the cigar life?

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Well, I answered an ad. Um I was looking for a job when I first moved to the Myrtle Beach area. Um my history was in uh front of the house management for restaurants, bars, and I spent a lot of time learning alcohol.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Hospitality, I guess, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

I competed um in Texas bartending. Um so you know, if you stop and think about it, alcohol is a lot like cigars.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah, spirits and cigars combine perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

You have top shelf, and then you have what the gentlemen refer to as a dog walker. A cigar that you just smoke when you're puttering around.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

I I always call it my humidor filler. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

The low-end stuff that you generally would pass over if you had something better to smoke.

unknown 4:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

The three the two and three dollar sticks that you you put in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

And you know, a cigar doesn't have to cost fifty dollars to be a good cigar. It depends on your palate, it depends on your mood, what you're doing at the time you're smoking it. You know, if you're having a cocktail with somebody that you haven't seen in 10 years, you're obviously going to want to enjoy something a little more high-end.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

I mean, you have introduced me to cigars from$11 to$26. And I mean, the the the character and the uh the aging, all the background and so on, this information that you've got is absolutely incredible. And now you are trying to become a cigar somalier. And I had never heard of that. I I've heard of wine cigars or wine sommaliers, but not the cigar sommelier. And this is not an easy assignment, is it? No, sir. No. Now tell me how you got into this and and the process that it takes so long to get this.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

So when I applied for my job at Cigar South, the owner who is generational into tobacco, Southern, born and raised, great family, um, he asked me, Do you know anything about cigars? And I was honest. I said, No, sir, but I assume it's a lot like alcohol. Um I became the manager of Cigar South when we opened in March of 2021. And I had a lot to learn. I can't stand in a store. There's nothing worse than walking into a cigar store and having somebody behind the counter who doesn't understand, doesn't have any knowledge as to what they're selling.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

You walk in and you ask for a recommendation, or you know, you have a question about your humidor, bovita, et cetera, and somebody's like, oh, I'm just filling in, or I'm just here to run the register, I'm a body. Yeah, that reflects on the business, and it's not something that somebody's gonna word of mouth go and say, Hey, go see my friend down at she just there, just there running the register, and you know, that'll be the end of it.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Um a lot of it I was self-taught, and then I had I had been reading about bourbons and um cigars and pairings and alcohol. Um, I stumbled upon the Somalier, and Tobacco Ness University has programs where you could become certified online. Yeah, um, it's a wealth of information that people just would never stop to think about when they're standing in a humidor and it's wall-to-wall cigars.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

There's a reason the create the work that goes into creating, like you stop and think about a box of Fuente Opa Sachs, you look at the box and it captivates your eyes. They put so much work and time into creating the box, but what's inside the box is tried and true, um create created with love and work, and yeah, it's it's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

The craftsmanship, just I mean, the artwork that goes into it, the uh the the background um that they they put into the the history of it, and then the artistry of putting the these uh leaves and the cigars together themselves. I mean, you've got these different leaves from throughout the world in these different soil conditions, the the different uh temperament and and shades of the leaf, which also affects the flavor and um and then the aging of it and how it how it's done. You know, if if it's just sun-dried or if it's if they smoke it. Um and then then we have the things then you have people like Drew Estates who do who do uh infusion with different tastes into it. And I mean this is just uh it must be so much to keep up with. And yet you you're going through this this uh this class and it's teaching you, I guess, about all of this.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Absolutely. It it teaches you um humidor care, uh sales, um, marketing, how to care for your humidor, how to set it up so it's appeasing to the eye. And then it goes into um how the farmers seed and then how they uh manage their crops. It goes into the um how some plants are inside the greenhouse and some are outside, and then cheesecloth on certain ones for shade, and it it it's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

And you don't stop and think about it when you're smoking a cigar.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Well, they and it sounds like the people that have this these courses, they're so well known that they speak at uh these international uh establishments and and these these uh shows and events and stuff. They're experts tops of their field.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Absolutely. And the reason they created the Tobaccanist University is for you to have accurate knowledge, not what you're reading online, not what you're seeing on the internet, on it it's all tried and true, correct information that's put there to quell all the other noise that you find everywhere else.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. What was probably the most surprising thing that you you learned when you were going through this course?

SPEAKER_02 10:36

The history behind it. Ah yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Okay. Um I mean this is a this is completely a a new world uh a new world product because they didn't have that before they sailed over here in 1492.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Yes. Some of the seeds were brought from Spain. Indians have been uh you know, have been growing tobacco for centuries.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

So there's so much that go the things that they did before it was created into a cigarette or pipe tobacco, or it's been smoked for centuries. It's amazing now that even when we drive around South Carolina, yeah, like when I when you hit the back roads of South Carolina and you see the tobacco barns and the crops that are still being raised, I mean, those are generational tobacco farmers. Yeah. And you you're somewhere and you hear somebody go, oh that that cigar stinks. And I I'm like, well. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

We were laughing the other day. Uh uh, was with a group and we went into um one of the local lounges, and they had a sign up that said, No cigarette smoking.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

I've seen it. Yes, just right up the street. We were just talking about that at Cigar South the other day. Yeah um there is a different smell to cigarette smoke. Definitely, yeah. And then cigar smoke has a different smell.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

We and you know, I I understand why they have the sign. Oh, yeah. And you know, I I understand, but of course, there's gonna be that one person that's gonna go in there and feel some type of way about it.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

We we don't smoke inside a humidor because some of the cigars aren't wrapped. Yeah, and cigars pick up cleaning products, they pick up all kinds of pledge windex. Yeah, you have to be really careful what you're spraying around your humidor.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

And where you store your humidor. Oh, yeah. You know, there's always the one wife that loves the Yankee candle burning or spraying the house down with glade or that's it.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Well, I had I had the funniest uh story I've heard lately. I went and and tried out a new um a new lounge, and you're probably familiar with it as Goodfellas. I love the guys. I great guys. I love the lounge because it only has one TV. If it had no TV, it would be really excellent, but it's just got the one. But he told me a story, it was so funny because um you and I are familiar with the leaf. And uh he sold this guy uh the leaf and and he saw him, you know, hit the end on it, and he was like, excuse me, you need to, and he goes, I I've been smoking cigars for years. I don't I don't need and of course he lit the thing and the outer wrapper that just went in flames almost took him out of his eyebrows on a tick tock.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

I mean, uh I had another time when um As he's in flames.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

You're gonna oh you got it, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:11

He's got it. Don't worry about it. He knows what he's doing.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

And uh yeah, and I just I I love I love my cigar snobs that are in there saying, uh, you're you're not you're not lighting the foot correctly. And and in another one, well, you really shouldn't, you know, uh if you've got that type, if it's a torpedo, you should you should really cut it with this, and it should be this depth and so on. I'm like, come on. Some of these people probably have been smoking for years. They know what kind of draw they want, so they know the their own depth and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

But uh well, I do think with certain types of cigars, whether it's a figurato or a torpedo, I I think especially if someone's just starting to smoke cigars, a V cut is helpful. Yeah. Because the cap doesn't fall apart as easily. True. Um they can get a good draw on it. I I think, you know, but let them let them do what they want to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Exactly. And if they want to burn off their eyebrows, let them burn off their eyebrows.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

And I and you know, I know the gentlemen that worked down there, right? I can see their faces in the sky.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

It was so funny. He told me this story just before he went, jumped out the uh the door because he, and it was last week, because he had to go down to Tampa and go down to Florida. Uh-huh. And I looked at him and I said, Are you going down to uh the Tampa area to Ybor? And he gave me the side eye and he goes, Why yes? I am. Good luck. Yeah. So uh, but we were talking about um a now the previous episodes are gonna be covering this, but this gentleman's story is absolutely incredible. And um, I'm praying that you I know this is your your personal mission is to try to get their their cigars into your store. And um I smoked one and the aging of it, it was just it was exquisite. It really was. And I'm just like, they've got to get it now now now that you've got me, you know. I I got the taste for it. I'm just like, I can't wait to get that. That it was expensive.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

This is the berare. See, I always I always chop it. I can't. Is that the name of it?

SPEAKER_00 16:37

I believe so.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Um 1882 or something.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yeah, I can uh I can probably look that up pretty quickly too.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Caesar Ramirez is the gentleman's name.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Who created spent 30 years creating that cigar, yeah, perfecting that cigar.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Um he uses a third fermentation uh that Castro enjoyed in his cigars.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Now, is that a 13, a 10 or a 13-year um fermentation that we had? I can't remember. 13, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 17:15

I'm not sure which one I gave you. I had the sampler pack, and they sent me the sampler to give out to my customers to see what you guys thought. Family owned and operated and the work put into him creating that. I mean, his life story is yeah, uh, they could make a movie about him.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Just coming from Cuba, fleeing Cuba, and uh getting to the US and crazy.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

It yeah, we were discussing about the different stories from uh different Cubans that we've known in our lives that have fled to this country, and it's incredible. And of course, today uh we might be on the verge of something changing um there. They may have a change in regime and government, and and that'll change their economics and their relationship with the United States might bring them back to the glory that they once had. Because um, from my understanding, the lift that embargo. Oh yeah, because my understanding that their their their tobacco crop that's there has been deteriorating over the over the decades. Um improper um insecticides and and care for it that way. Um, they've also had some soil erro or soil uh not erosion, but uh where it's been not outline maintained, I guess, yeah uh correctly. And so because they've lost some of the best people and farmers that have been involved with it.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Uh so it's amazing, you know, when we opened Cigar South, it was during the pandemic.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Oh, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

And um the COVID, if you think about how COVID affected the United States, think about what it did to a third world country like Cuba or Nicaragua or, you know, Dominica. They didn't have half of, they didn't have a quarter of what we had for government, you know, mandates and medical care. They had a ton of hurricanes, they had a bunch of natural disasters during that time that wiped out tons of crops.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Really sl slowed things up in the cigar world. Yeah. A lot of smaller lines went down. They stopped making certain things because they were focusing more on other lines, and it really changed the game a lot back then.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, I remember there was a small cigar startup called Duras, and they they were wiped out during that time. Yes. And I was uh, you know, kind of looking at that. I I was surprised that um what was the one uh shoot, I can't think of their name, but they did they did come out on the other side of it. And then and um when they did, um their their price shot up about twice as what they they they were originally, at least two-thirds of of what the price is. And talking about prices, we've we've talked about this. We've had the um the prices have been severely hampered with um the tariffs. Yes. Yeah. And um, if people don't understand how tariffs work, uh when we tariff a country, that means that the citizens here in the United States pay more. Yes. Um, it doesn't mean it affects the other country at all, except that it supposedly uh slows down the amount of product that they can bring in. The only problem is when you tariff something, it should be because you're trying to protect your industry. And we don't have protection. Well, we don't we don't have a big cigar farming uh rolling manufacturing uh industry to protect here on the continent. So it seems a little ridiculous uh to us libertarians anyway, but um they say, well, it's uh in in regress in regard to XYZ, these types of crops and that kind of crops, and they group them and so on and so forth, which I I just think is strange. I would love it if, you know, being a free market capitalist, if everybody got rid of all their tariffs across the world, but uh it's a dream that'll never happen. So unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Um they do grow, they do grow uh tobacco for cigars in the United States, Connecticut, right? Yeah, um Massachusetts grows. Um the darker, the you know, below the equator, different suns, different soils create different cigar shades, different different altitudes too. Absolutely. So you know, when they're the with the tariffs, people who Visit a brick and mortar cigar store, they'll they'll come in and say, I can buy this online for this amount. Why is it this amount here? People don't take into consideration when you're visiting a brick and mortar, um, those online venues are set up in places where there's no tobacco tax or little tobacco tax. And there are states in the US that still don't have tax on tobacco.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

And when you walk into a brick and mortar and you saw something online for cheaper, or they gave you this great deal, or you're not taking into consideration that they're set up in Pennsylvania for certain places.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

Also, it's the fact that you don't know how that's been cared for.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Um, you can deal with some really reputable places, you know, you're comfortable dealing with them, and that's good. If that works for you, a lot of people like to touch what they're buying.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

They want to visit the humidor. Um, walk around. It should smell like a humidor, it should smell like tobacco and cedar.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

And the humidity, you can feel the humidity as soon as you walk in, and that's good because you know anything you pick up, like in my store, I can bet, I can touch it, I can move it around, you know, it's not gonna crack. It's properly humidored.

SPEAKER_03 23:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

And that's important, especially if you're taking it home and you're putting it into your humidor. If there's somebody that has a hundred-count humidor stocked with a lot of cigars, and god forbid they shop somewhere that's got tobacco beetles, that's gonna eat through your whole humidor.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've heard horror horror stories uh precisely about that. Uh the other thing, too, is when you buy online, you don't know, and they can't control it either. You don't know about their the travel process if it's going to be in a very hot, hot, dry truck and dry them out. And by the time you get them, you can't you can't smoke them for weeks because you're putting them in the humidor trying to reconstruct them, and even after that, and you light the foot, all of a sudden the wrapper starts falling apart.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Absolutely. And and we've all seen how UPS is so careful with our packages.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's that's that's a definite handle with care.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Let's bounce it off the wall.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Now, here's a conversation we had at the uh lounge the other day. It's uh I I had a friend of mine that was with me and he was poo-pooing cigarillos. And I said, you know what? You that's I there is a uh use a time and uh um I I love cigarillos. I it's not something I would have all the time, but I love to have them around just so I need something quick. I want yeah, something that you know I know I don't have I don't have 20, 30 minutes to to enjoy a cigar. I just want to have a quick smoke.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Um and uh perfect for traveling. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Traveling. Yeah, yeah. Um when you get into a venue when you go outdoors and they uh they give you a side eye if you're drunk you're smoking a cigar, but if it looks like a cigarette and you're smoking with cigarette smokers, they kind of give you a pass.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Right. Yeah, which is wrong. I love the I love to hear stories about my customers will come in and say, can we smoke on the beach? And I'm like, well, people smoke cigarettes on the beach.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

And you know, they're like, well, there's always that one person that tells us that we're smoking them out, even though we're sitting way far away from them. I I think you're right, you know. They wouldn't walk up to somebody and tell them to put the Winston out. But as soon as somebody lights up a gigante, they're running for the hills.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Oh yeah. My dad was a former cigarette smoker, heavy smoker, early in his life, and blames me for his giving it up because it's a long family story that somebody took his uh unfiltered cigarette case and put it behind the car and he drove over it. And um, I was blamed. I was very young at the time, and um defended myself later in life. I said, Okay, how old was I supposedly at this time? And they said, and I said, And you kept them up on the top of the well, yeah, yeah. I said, How did I get them? Well, uh I said, Do you think it could have been my older sibling that had well? She said, I said, and I didn't speak real well at the time. I couldn't defend myself, so maybe, just maybe, and I could see kind of a light good bulb going on at the time. And my mother pointed out something. She said there's a commercial that came out at that time, and it was uh a little boy following his dad washing a car or something, and um and oh, somebody calling him uh washing a car or something, and um, and then you know, it was it was called like father like son, and then the father lights up, and then the bull body lights. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I guess my dad really it really touched him at the time. And so she said that guilt really was what played into it. So I thought that was interesting. But the uh uh later on in life, you know, he always said, if you you you start smoking meme cigarettes, I'll kill you. And um I I just was like I always took that to heart, but I never thought about it. But later on, when he he saw that I was cigar smoking, he would always say, Well, if you're having a cigar, let me know. And I thought, okay. And I went up and I said, Well, I think I'm gonna have a cigar. And he goes, Oh, hold on. And he, of course, gets all range to go out there, and he's like, looking where the wind is. He wants to be downwind so he can smell the smoke as it goes in. I was like, Oh, okay, now I get it.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Right. You know, that's a it's amazing because a lot of gentlemen in like their late 20s and 30s are starting to smoke a pipe.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

You know, they had they have um their grandfather's pipes have been passed down for generations, yeah. Absolutely. There's so much the the tobacco that's coming out is so aromatic. It smells incredible. You open the jar and the angels sing yeah, like the black raspberries and the brandy and the vanillas, and it's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Well, even the uh you see these specialty shops, the the hookah shops, now Turkish tobaccos and uh Turkish flavored tobaccos and stuff are starting to show up as a genre for the Generation X uh crowd that's coming into it, too. Yes, that that have been you know introduced to the electronic vapes, which I think are disgusting, but yeah. I shouldn't, you know, poor poor Teresa out there. She's she's a vapor, but uh but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Well, I I think they're led to believe that it's safer than tobacco and it's not.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

No, popcorn lung and absolutely all those things, yeah. Um plus I just don't trust it. You know, if if you can't grow it, why you know where's it coming from? Some lab.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

The state of Texas, my son lives in Texas and he vapes. And the state of Texas has banned any vape made in China. So if you're gonna vape, you're gonna vape with something made in the United States. But old American chemicals. Right, right. So a lot of these vape shops there had to throw all this, they had a deadline and they had to throw all this merchandise away because they they were banned from selling it. If you got caught selling it, there was heavy fines.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

So they were basically just throwing, giving it away, throwing it away because they couldn't they couldn't sell it.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Crazy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

I can't imagine the money they lost.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

No.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

But then, you know, the good old made in the USA 50 bar or whatever it's called with the tootie fruity bubblegum, that one's good.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Oh okay, now that I've got you here in studio. What are what are some of your top recommendations right now? If you've got somebody walking into the store, uh, they have a they have a taste for the Maduro and you know something that's deeply flavorful. Um, looking in the range of say, you know, anywhere from$11 to$20 range for a cigar. What are your top top recommendations you'd have for them?

SPEAKER_02 31:21

I think the JFRs are really popular right now. They're they're Maduros, they're um just you you can't beat that cigar for$11.50 a cigar.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

And the construction um is incredible.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

A lot like a Liga Pravada.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Just nice and oily and they're they're perfect.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Um I think the uh there's so many out there at the moment. The not the J I have the JFRs. Um Villager has come out with a cream cigar. The Connecticut cream.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Oh yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

And what an underrated cigar.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Like that cigar is like the cream of an Oreo. It's per it's not like Tatiana artificial flavored, but it's just smooth, almost like a southern draw. Rosa Sharon.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Yeah, I mean, it it when you like the foot, you don't it it creeps in on you, but you get halfway and it's so deep, it's so good.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I like the Drew Estate Dominican, the Dominicanas are nice.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

I've got to try that.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

Yeah, okay. And uh Fratello is coming out with a cigar that's gonna be phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

And this is a Dominican for Fratello, and he hasn't done a Dominican.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

So those will be in shop soon.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Um, we ordered them yesterday. He he's proud of this. Fratello's a great line, too. There's so there's so many. Fratello's story is phenomenal. Um, he worked for NASA. Oh, wow. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Omar Fratello real rocket scientists that's working in in cigars.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Okay. You know, when he first when I first met him and he said I work for NASA. I mean, this guy is like huge. I did not think they let you in the spaceship out of the country. My rusty blonde moment, you were in the spaceship. Come on. But Omar's story, um, he left his job at NASA and he opened for Tello Cigar. And Omar is like for to have us. You should invite Omar on your podcast next time he's in town. Because I'm telling you, Omar, to talk cigars with Omar, he can he can go all day about it. He that is his thing, it's his niche. He's wonderful at it. He's hands-on. Yeah, it's his cigar company, he reps himself. You can walk in Cigar South. And matter of fact, yesterday, um, one of my customers came in and I was on the phone with Omar. We were talking about an order I was placing and some other stuff, and one of my customers came in and said, Hey, I really enjoyed that sampler you sold me from Fratello. He goes, What else do you have from them? Well, I showed him the Fratello area and we were talking. Omar got a Omar was on the phone. He said, Let me talk to him. And he just starts talking to the guy. I'm like, how's that for certain? You know? So just he's awesome. And his cigar line is great. He he really is hands-on into it, he's proud of it. Incredible. And his line, the cigars that he has, his um Oro and his he's got the classico, he is all under fifteen dollars, fifteen, sixteen dollars.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

So it's great.

SPEAKER_03 35:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Um the uh now I know they've had some events up in the the mothership in Florence.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

We haven't yet. Oh, you haven't. We're working on it. You're working on it. Oh, okay. We just opened Florence a couple months ago. All right. And um, it's doing well. Now, I've done like videos up there. Florence is way different. The the owners put did such a good job on that store.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

It it's the it's incredible. The holy grail. I mean, you walk in and it's like, oh um, it's got a little smoking area, which my store doesn't have, but you know, we've talked about putting an area outside because I really don't have the room in there.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Um pipe to uh accessories, they sell fils in up there, all kinds of high-end nice stuff. Um pipe tobacco, bundles, uh cigars wall to wall.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Um, we did get accepted by Padron. We're waiting to start up with them soon. So there's not too much we don't have.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

No, no. I mean that's uh and it's not your shit shop, it's not small. I mean, for a humidor, it's it's big and it has a huge selection. It really does. And I have to say the humidity uh is impeccable in there. Um so I have uh never had a uh uh mishandled cigar coming from that shop ever. Ever. And that's that's a rarity, it really is. Uh so it's a compliment to you. I I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

I appreciate that. We work hard at that. Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, and believe me, that's you know, that's my my number one destination for finding the fine cigars. And with that, uh, we're going to wrap up this really interesting, and I hope to have you back. And when you get that when you get that certificate, uh we're going to have a celebration, and we'll have a celebration here with uh with Liberty on Nicotine. So, everybody, thank you so much for tuning in to this. Uh, listen to some of our earlier episodes, and you're gonna see some more of my Shield Maiden of Tobacco uh and her her exploits. This has been another episode of Liberty on Nicotine.