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Recorded at the Ten86 Cigar Lounge in Hawthorne, New Jersey, the lizards smoke a Partagás Lusitanias with Rob Ayala from Friends Of el Habano & Bond Roberts. The guys discuss Rob's history and passion for the hobby, FOH’s famous forum, Bond Robert's online auction house, the pitfalls of doing business with Habanos S.A., and FOH’s Nudies new world releases // Plus: Rob's Favorite Cigars (Cuban and Non-Cuban), Best and Worst Runs of Cuban Production, Blending Cigars, Friendship/Partnership with Hamlet
Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Rooster pba, Senator Pagoda grinder, and bam bam, a full house of lizards.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar with a very special guest, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 56th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We're gonna smoke a cupitt cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating.
We welcome on Rob Iowa from Friends of Al Havana and Bond Roberts to discuss his history and passion for the hobby. F Ohh is famous Forum BRS Online Auction House, the pitfalls of Ho Bono's essay and F o h's. New world releases all among a variety of other things for the next two hours. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we smoke the Parus [00:01:00] Lu Luci.
A double Corona from Cuba tonight on the pod. The Parus Luci, uh, 49 ring gauge cigar by seven and five eighths inches. And, uh, we have a very special guest with us tonight. Rob Ila El Presidente from friends of El Ho Bono. F o h as it's. Famously known, used to be known as Friends of A Bono. We could talk about why that changed.
But, uh, friends of El Bono and Bon Roberts among many other ventures, you're a busy man, Rob
**Rob Ayala:** guys, uh, fantastic to be on. Thank you so much for the invitation. Busy. Yeah, I mean, uh, uh, I've always been someone who gets bored easily, so I, I, uh, I see these fantastic opportunities to work with fantastic people on fantastic projects.
And, um, at this point in time, I, you know, I don't see a reason to say no. Um, it's just a lovely way to spend time. [00:02:00] His working on great projects with great people. He's an optimist, boys.
**Gizmo:** Oh yeah, .
**Poobah:** Well, it's great to do something that you love and it sounds like you love the business and that's, that's fantastic.
So many people go through life and, you know, they're doing something that they love 50%. Now, maybe I'm being, uh, presumptuous, assuming that you love the cigar business, but it sounds
**Rob Ayala:** like you do. I love the cigar people and it's a unique set of people. Yeah, I think, as I was saying it, um, a couple of weeks ago, cigar people are unique.
You don't find it in the wine industry. You don't find it in the whiskey industry. Um, lovers of the Leafs, they love to share, they love to laugh, they love to travel, love to catch up. And, and, and that's key for me. And I don't, if you. If you don't love people, you have no right to be in the cigar business.
I can't see how you could succeed.
**Poobah:** Yeah. It's different because you, [00:03:00] you, I think we would all agree you spend time, um, smoking with people and that's a conversation and you're making like this investment in the time. Cuz it's about time where, you know, you can have a whiskey with someone and be in and outta that conversation in 20 minutes.
So different with cigars.
**Rob Ayala:** Mm-hmm. . Yeah. It's very cheap. Uh, let's light
**Gizmo:** this. . We wanna smoke. We've been waiting on Let's cut this thing boys. Okay, these guys really wanna smoke. See we're getting on the, uh, think grab already Ibid cold. Draw the wrapper. So this came out of a, mine came, ours came out of a 50 cab that I got.
Uh, it's Ebo January 20. Rob, you said yours is 21?
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. Uh, sou. July 21. It's, it's perfect drawings.
**Gizmo:** Mine is perfect. Draw mine's perfect too. Yeah. Yeah. So I find that maybe 30% of these, 20% of these I have a draw issue. Sometimes. Maybe
**Rob Ayala:** more. [00:04:00] Yeah, you're going. Well, um, look, it isn't draw an interesting subject.
You could give the same cigar to five different people and you'll get five different interpretations of the draw. Uh, but I agree with you. I mean, I, I prefer a slightly easy draw. Just you've got that Cuban, the typical Cuban drawer. You need to pull on the fine with that, but, but off, yeah. Just a, a touch of tightness.
Yeah, just a little bit. Yeah. Maybe it's cuz I'm getting older, but I just would, I don't, I don't mind it being, it's a little bit more open to that these days. It's
**Grinder:** getting a lot of, uh, cedar on that, on that
**Rob Ayala:** cold. The cold draws delicious
**Gizmo:** on this. The cold draws really nice on these. Yeah. How's, how's the cold draw?
**Rob Ayala:** Pagoda as it looks red. I'm in my own world, man. You guys can keep drawing cold. .
**Rooster:** The warm draw is pretty good too.
**Rob Ayala:** It's excellent. And by the way, this is one of the first ones,
**Gizmo:** which [00:05:00] is', yeah, you've had a bad, bad luck withdrawal. This is very nice. All right boys, let's light this thing. The part against Luciana famous cigar, um, comes in a variety of different packaging options.
Uh, we always talk about the 50 cab. Uh, it also comes in a dress box of 25 and a dress box of 10. Uh, and again, it's 49 ring gauge by seven and fives, eights inches. And I smoke. I try to smoke one of these every Sunday watching football. That's kind of my move with these cigars. It's a nice tradition you have.
Yeah, it's not terrible. Hey, Rob,
**Rooster:** do you prefer a loose with a, with age on it or do you like
them
**Rob Ayala:** fresh? Um, I think they're very different. And to me, I prefer Lucy with three to five years on. That's it. Um, I prefer that over a vintage Lucy. I, there's that, [00:06:00] there's that, there's that sourdough bread, coffee paprika mix that you get at that three to five year mark.
That all just, it provides a real richness to the cigar. And I can also appreciate a vintage Lucy, but I think it loses some of those characters, which I enjoy. Yeah. And you find that some people absolutely adore vintage cigars. I, and in saying vintage Mon Christo number two is I prefer Mon Kristen number two and three to five years again.
Cause I don't wanna lose that, that coco aspect to it. I don't wanna lose that, uh, that short red aspect to it. So different stroke to different folks. For me, illus at three to five is perfect. Another
**Senator:** question, Rob, do you pursue these in a 50 cab or a dress box or you kind of agnostic to how they come, or do you have a preference?
**Rob Ayala:** I, I love, I love 50 cabs. I love tobacco. On tobacco. I, I love the aroma [00:07:00] of a 50 cab. Uh, it's, it's just intoxicating. Uh, and, and maybe, maybe it's a cerebral thing, uh, but I, I do prefer a 50 cab. You're in good
**Senator:** company. I think we have a strong, strong preference for any stick that comes in a 50 cab over a dress box that's crammed in.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I find that the, I mean we talk about it sometimes on the pod, but the 25 count dress boxes, it's almost like the dress boxes are like a quarter of an inch too small and they stuff 'em in there and they almost have like a pseudo kind of box press on them, which I don't think happens in the 10 count, but it happens with a lot of 25 count boxes.
Yeah. Yeah. So look, I seek out the fifties myself.
**Rob Ayala:** I don't know. Yeah. Well I'd love a lot more fifties, uh, at this point. At the moment I, the moment from, I do, I do
**Grinder:** have quite a few
**Rob Ayala:** rough . I have seven. Yeah. I'm
**Gizmo:** a degenerate
**Rob Ayala:** Rob. I'm sorry Rod. Now [00:08:00] you are cornering the world market
**Gizmo:** bastard. So what are you guys getting on the light? Rob mentioned some notes. I think he's right on point. Yeah.
**Rooster:** Getting some pepper. A little bit
**Rob Ayala:** of
**Grinder:** pepper. Yeah. It's very creamy for
**Gizmo:** me. Yeah, mine's super creamy. Yeah, sourdough is a good note. The sourdough
**Senator:** is a really good note. Yeah, it's actually, I mean I've smoked several of these and I've never really picked that out, but it's spot
**Gizmo:** on.
Yeah, it's
**Rob Ayala:** really quite good. Even a Bren clock. Gentlemen. Even a Bren clock. Yeah. So Rob, um,
**Gizmo:** I find your, uh, you know, I've told you this when we spoke before, but I find your, your, your business fascinating. I find your retail operation fascinating. And the forum, obviously, which is pretty revered, uh, in the cigar community.
It's been around, how long has it been around now?
**Rob Ayala:** We started 20 years forum. Close to it. Yeah. Yeah. 18 years. It's been around, uh, 2004. So, um, we, we started the forum.[00:09:00]
We wanted to see if we could build a business that had a corner store feel or a, or a bnm feel, a local feel, but on a global basis. Um, yeah, os is too small. Australia's way too small, um, to, to run a, a great retail operation. We just don't have the clientele. We just don't have the, the, the legislative support, um, the taxations too high, blah, blah, blah.
So we wanna see if we can do it on the global base and a forums a fantastic ways wise of, of communicating with your client base. And that's how we started. And it's also forums a very good discipline to have in business because it, uh, it forces you to, to deal with people. Uh, it's your front of house, it's, you know, it.
Most people, most businesses in our game, their website is their secondary [00:10:00] operation. For us. It's your pri it's our primary operation. So, and being a primary operation, it's your, it is your prime focus. Uh, so we treat it very differently.
**Rooster:** How much is a Lucy in Australia?
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. What are the taxes? Except the taxes are kind.
Yeah. What's the tax on the converting it to US dollars. B 85 US dollars. Pro Loo. Wow. Wow.
**Gizmo:** Jesus. Yeah. So I guess a cohiba is about a thousand .
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. Uh, ASTI sticks is now 107. Be 130 US dollars. That's crazy. That's a Sieg one. .
**Poobah:** Mm-hmm. . Wow. Wow. That's crazy.
**Senator:** Does no one in the Australian government smoke cigars?
Why? Why did, why are the taxes so aggressive there?
**Rob Ayala:** They, they went through a, um, a period of, in 2011, uh, when Cola Roxon was our health minister and the, [00:11:00] in the labor government, and they rant up taxes at, uh, 12 and 5% per annum plus cpi. And they racked it in for four and half years. And before you knew it, we pay in terms of taxation, $1,691 a kilogram.
Um, so what's that? 1,250 US dollars a kilogram. So a box of loo, the box of loo 20 fives the taxes, 900 Aussie 750 US dollars or thereabouts on a box of Lucy Tanyas. Wow. So most Aussies will buy their cigars offshore and, and ship them in, which is completely legal and, and hope that they, that their box misses the misses, the customs agents on the way in.
But even if they get picked up once or twice out of every four, at least the average down their cost structure,
**Rooster:** right? I mean, it would be beneficial for [00:12:00] the government to lower the taxes. So people don't bring in these boxes from offshore. You,
**Rob Ayala:** you'd think so. You, you, you'd think so. But we, look, we do have politicians who come and I've, I used to supply a lot of them.
I cut them all off when they passed this legislation and well done. And of course then they went to plain packaging, which was nuts. And, and to have plain, to have politicians contact you and say, Rob, can you give me a good price in that box of Kaji or bus? Now, can you send in the original packaging? And, and these are the same bastards who actually, uh, pass the plain packaging laws.
So I said, no, we don't do politician. Uh, we have a no toss in that. Wanker. . Good for you. Bravo, bravo. We don't do politicians. We don't do politicians. And yeah, so because they're, but when I asked that direct question, why, why the tax act, [00:13:00] why the plant packaging, why does ze pursuit? Their answer was always the same.
There is no votes in tobacco. And so,
**Poobah:** right. It's all politics. It's not common sense.
**Rob Ayala:** It's all politics.
**Poobah:** Yeah, we know about that here. It's, uh, , our politicians play politics
**Senator:** except here, uh, tobacco spends. We, we donate. Exactly. . That's exactly right. A lot of disposable income folks who are smoking these, so. Oh yeah.
Yeah. They're
**Rob Ayala:** happy to
**Poobah:** collect that. They're happy to, they're happy to collect it, that's for sure.
**Gizmo:** That's for sure. So Rob, back back to your history for a second. Um, so how did you get into the cigar business? Like what did you do before the cigar business? How'd you get into it? What, what's, that's one part of your story That I don't know.
**Rob Ayala:** I was, uh, I was, I'm a banker by training. So I was ex banking until 1993, almost 1994. [00:14:00] Uh, commercial property banking. And then, um, we just came out of the recession and. They, I was heading up a banking division and we managed to, well, we, our bank screwed a client. He's one of the, one of my best friends these days.
And I re, it was the hardest phone call I've ever had to make is letting him know that, um, we have now reneged on a deal. And then I resigned from backing that same day and I only had him at eight clients. I mean, it's commercial properties, big dollars, but small number of clients. And another good friend of mine called me that same day and, uh, man from Singapore and says, what are you gonna do now?
So I have no idea. So, uh, I went and worked for him in Singapore and we did international trade for a couple of years. He ran a, a very big business with his family company in electronics, in, uh, in cotton and manufacturing. Hot, no, like, like, like [00:15:00] a lot of Indians in that part of the world. They've done, they've done exceptionally well in building multinationals, um, in many industries.
The last
**Rooster:** name was Powan,
**Gizmo:** right? Is that what you said?
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah, Boses, yeah. Matt. Yeah. Matt Boge. I was just in Singapore a couple of weeks ago. We caught up with him again. Yeah, yeah. Boge, he, um, and so he, he is always been a mentor of mine and a great friend of mine and I've worked with him for, for two years.
Uh, partly as a negotiator in effect, negotiating different projects in different industries. And then, uh, we're having a cigar. In Crown Casino in Melbourne. We, we were looking at a poly staple fiber plant down there, the supply, he had a factory in Indonesia making Gantt clothing. Um, and anyway, looking there, and I just we're having cilo threes and I said, Manu, I can't do this too much longer.
I've got a young son, Ben. Um, I'm spending too much time away on the road. [00:16:00] I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to resign. And he says, what are you gonna do? And I said, you know what? Australia's a monopoly at this point in time in terms of cigars. No voice, love cigars. I said, I'm gonna see if I'll give this a crack.
And he said to me, I think, I think I'm a Hio dealer somewhere in the world. And when someone of Indian Origin says, that means one of his family members is a Hio dealer somewhere in the world. Yeah. . And, um, and indeed he was. So we started parallel importing to tobacco in 1996 into Australia cigars. And by 1999, 2000, we was such a pain in the art that, um, PCC came knocking.
Uh, they had a new ceo, a Bell Gonzales or Daggle, and he had, we had a lovely meeting in Brisbane and he flew, [00:17:00] And we got on, well, he saw my operation, he knew where I was getting the cigars from cuz he could see the, the tags on them. And he said, uh, he went to dinner, always remember this dinner. He said, I really like you.
He says, I think you are great for the cigar business. I think we can do some business together eventually, but first I'm gonna have to, he always maybe put his fist together. He's, I'm gonna have to crush you. I said, well, that's lovely . I said, how about you do this, Abel? How about you go away and try to crush me for say six months?
And um, and if you don't crush me after six months, we'll have dinner in Sydney. But it's your shout. You might have to call. He goes, fine. So they put people on the road. They tried to shut us down. They tried to undercut us on pricing, but their model was all wonky. It was, it was, it was, it was fairly, fairly old school.
Um, and he gave me a call after six months and said, let's get together. So we got [00:18:00] together in Sydney and I've been with PCC ever since. We cut a deal then. Wow, cool.
**Gizmo:** Amazing.
**Poobah:** So how much, how did, did, do you have an, like, do you have a certain amount of exclusivity? A certain amount of allocation agreed with as an agreement with them?
And how, how much of Australia, I mean basically does PCC have exclusivity in the region?
P
**Rob Ayala:** on the island? PCC are the, are the authorized distributors. For, for the Asia Pacific and pcc have a, have an operation in Australia. Um, fantastic people run their operation here. Gi Angelopoulos, uh, Brett Hogan, fantastic.
Operators. I got a CEO is dag hobo in, in Hong Kong. I've got excellent relationships with all of them. Uh, in terms of volume, certainly we're the largest without going in the numbers, we, we are the largest, um, we're one of the largest in the Asia Pacific in terms of allocation. They just do the best they possibly [00:19:00] can.
Especially, you know, today, specifically for this last two years, effectively, um, we've been one of the best supplied operators in the world. And, and that's completely down to the goodwill and the relationships that we've built over that time. Um, the friendships that we have, they understand how it, how important it is for, for, for us to, to have stock and they just do everything they possibly can to, to make sure that occurred.
**Poobah:** Yeah. And with the, with the loyal customer base and the end user pull through that you're getting, um,
**Rob Ayala:** That's great. And, and you know, through the, through the good times or when there was plenty of stock and, you know, we, and there's nothing wrong with it. I mean, look, hey, I started the parallel import, so, you know, all those years ago.
Um, but once, once we got married, I didn't sleep around. Yeah. Um, [00:20:00] so I've always been right. I've smart, I've always been, and even if we were outta stock on this line and, you know, or that line and we had the opportunity, we, we never did. So I always gave them, you still, I gave them my word and I stayed loyal.
And, and there were times you'd think, Jesus, you'd think they give us some more stock of this so that blah, blah, blah over those years. But these last two years, you, you come to appreciate how, how they remember those things and, and how loyalty is rewarded. And they have rewarded me for that night. I certainly appreciate it.
Well,
**Poobah:** great. Must feel great to, to have that kind of relationship and, uh, uh, loyalty matters. Hey guys, loyalty matters still. Yeah. Yeah, it does.
**Gizmo:** You know, it pays off. Listen, the thing that, you know, bam, bam. And I just came back from Cuba. The one thing I learned is the one thing I learned. Is that the industry is so small, it's everyone knows everyone else.
Everybody knows everybody [00:21:00] else. It's so tiny. So I, I have to imagine that, you know, of course we, you know, I would think that it's bigger than it is, but it's really just, it's really a very tight knit small community of people. Yes. How, how
**Rooster:** is your inventory level like, like this, like currently?
**Rob Ayala:** Um, awful. Um, so we, it, but it's not just out.
I mean, let's go through, you know, everyone's working on a, on a two to three week timetable. You know, we, we used to have everyone, I mean, from pcc, any distributor in the world really doesn't know what is just relying on the next shipment coming in the top ups and shelves, the top ups, and reap, uh, the next shipment coming in from Hobans.
There is no stock supply wholesalers used to have or distributors used to have, you know, they used to a minimum three months, ideally six months worth of stock. Now, now it would be three to six weeks at best.
**Poobah:** Yeah, so that makes [00:22:00] forecasting a lot of fun.
**Rob Ayala:** There is no forecasting, there's begging, right?
**Poobah:** forecasting is, is not even
**Rob Ayala:** happening. , once upon a time you'd say, look, I don't wanna take 2000 sticks of that. I'll take a thousand of that. I want the, they, they, they. Now let's drop that. Now we wanna reduce that order, this size there, we wanna do this. Now you say whatever you've got, whatever you've
And I think, but the distributors are in the same boat. They're all in the same boat. So, and I mean,
**Gizmo:** why,
**Rooster:** why do, why do you think that is though? I mean, is it more because the demand is higher or the supply is lower?
**Rob Ayala:** Supply supply wasn't great before Covid. It was good,
but
**Rob Ayala:** it wasn't great. There was still huge holes in the portfolio.
I mean, you all saw that even, you know, back in 2018, 2019, there was few huts, COVID came. [00:23:00] The, the tourists didn't into Uber, the factory shut or went into a production cycle where they had to reduce the number of people rolling on the floor. The women weren't working cuz they're looking after the kids or their elderly.
I mean, the schools were shut. So, but in, at, at the rest of the world, Cigars boomed. People were smoking more from home, they were buying more online. The retailer shelves were slowly being, uh, decimated than the distributors. Warehouses were being decimated and Havanas wasn't being resupplied. So Hobans got empty.
Now how now you've got production at what we're estimating, and you probably know better than I do, you've just come back from Pavana. I reckon production would be about 40% are normal. They, they can't catch up. There's no [00:24:00] catch up here. Um, and, and that's why you're still seeing Now I've got photo last week from Know Doha, the duty free at Doha still empty.
There's duty free stores all over the world that are empty. Now there are some guys who are doing much better than others. I mean, I can see them. They're trying to feed their La Casa Hobans as best they possibly can, and, and they're top retailers as best they possibly can. But outside of that, it's, it's doggy dog.
Uh, and I don't know how they're gonna catch up.
**Rooster:** So bam and Gizmo just came back from Cuba. So did you guys notice like the factories, like
**Gizmo:** lack of employees? No. Great question. Honestly, empty tables, we were expecting to, and Rob, I didn't get to tell you this before we spoke today, but uh, you know, when we were there, we actually got a really detailed behind the scenes tour of LA.
And we actually sat with the director of La Corona for about two hours, uh, and had a cigar with him after the tour. Um, and his claim, and, you know, I, [00:25:00] who knows if this is true, who knows if this is true. Uh, um, I'm, I'm assuming his piece of it
**Rob Ayala:** is, you
**Grinder:** may upset Rob by saying this, by the way,
**Gizmo:** because he's a, he seemed like a really honest, nice guy.
I may upset Rob, but he said that in LA Corona right now, they have, they have 350,000 rolled cigars ready to be packaged. They just do not have the packaging. Um, and he said that they're operating somewhere closer to 80 to 90% of pre covid levels. That's great news. He also said, and this is the, this is the number that's harder to believe is that, uh, that there's a million rolled cigars on the island that they just don't have the packaging for.
Now I don't know if that's cuz Cuba doesn't pay their bills. Yeah. Or they can't get the supply, they can't get it off the island if that's just not true or if it's just not true. Very possible. That could be very, you know, that could be very possible too. But they were, we were walking the floor. There were no, and we were at, uh, LA Corona and then on a few days later, we actually did the same thing at Elto and got a very behind the scenes tour of Elto.
And, I mean, production was brisk. Every rolling very brisk, every rolling [00:26:00] disc, uh, desk was full. There were no empty seats. So that was really good. I don't know if that means anything, but that's really good. It was good to see. And it was good to hear. That's
**Rob Ayala:** a, that's a turnaround in three months. Uh, which is, which is needed.
Because you would've seen the photos three months ago of, of part elita with the chairs on the benches. Um, and, and just people not there. They need to, what are they, so you're saying they've got a million rolled cigars on the island
**Gizmo:** that they have no packaging for? They can't get the packaging. Yeah. For one reason or another.
I don't know if you know, you know, Cuba doesn't have lines of credit, so I'm assuming everything's cash. Um, but they just can't get the packaging to do it. They can't get them.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. Well we could use those to guys. We could certainly, what, what did what? Oh, that is by the way,
**Poobah:** that answer that, hold on that answer.
Cause we're New York guys. That answer is phenomenal. . [00:27:00]
**Gizmo:** So well boxes. Oh no, no, no. That's so well
**Rob Ayala:** played. We could use, we could use those. We use cigar. We could use those cigars. Yeah. It's uh, I was gonna ask you, what were they, did you see anything interesting being rolled outside of the normal D four s Monte twos that, uh, one lo pair.
Did you see anything interesting being rolled? Anything? A lot of
**Grinder:** the one Oh
**Gizmo:** nines were being rolled. Yeah, they were doing the one oh nines. The, uh, I guess the regional, I don't know which one of the, the Ramon
**Grinder:** has a 1 0 9 Ramon. That's
**Gizmo:** the Ramon, yeah. Yeah. I think it's the Ramone. They were doing a lot of those, uh, the usual stuff.
Pyramid extras they were doing, yeah, they were doing a lot of pyramid extras and uh, what they call the behi saloon at Elto. I mean, both of those rooms were full. Um, we were watching them roll. Oh yeah. Uh, which was obviously very, very cool. They were rolling all the different kinds of, of behi cigars and Yep.
Um, you know, who knows if they, if you'll, if we'll see those anytime soon based on the packaging issues, but maybe they should do what you're doing, Rob and just bun bundle it in an nuity and [00:28:00] no bands, no boxes and just ship 'em out. I'd be
**Rob Ayala:** suing. There you go. Um,
**Poobah:** Now that's a New York movie.
**Rob Ayala:** No, I, uh,
**Grinder:** Rob, I was, uh, I was curious, uh, about your comment earlier about, you know, the people in the business and the people who, not necessarily in the business, but smoke cigars. What about smoking cigars? Have you experienced draws a, like, set of principled people together? Or not even principles, just enjoyment?
What about this hobby, this passion brings that kind of people together? I think I
**Rob Ayala:** noticed at first, in the early days, um, I mean, people always picture the gas smokers as being know CEOs, executive surgeons, whatever, uh, entrepreneurs. And, and I found a [00:29:00] ton of, I found all those people, isn't it that they've always smoke the guys.
But what I loved about this hobby was the teachers, the, the ambos, the ambulance drivers, the, the carpenters. The woodworker, the tradies. But I did notice the union officials, but I did notice they're all passionate about what they did. It, it didn't matter what they did, it's just they seemed to be in that top 10% of what they did.
And they did everything with, with a passion. They spoke with a passion. You could see it in their eyes. You could see when you sat down over to God, the. That could be working in fields. You had no idea about it. Like you, you couldn't have a conversation about, about what they do on a day to day basis. But when you start over as cigar, you, you're talking to a person that is passionate and not about you guys, but I love talking [00:30:00] about talking to people who are passionate about anything.
Uh, you know, it, it's what life's, is there anything really better than a conversation, like a great conversation that's that's full of heart and uh, and full of learning. And, and that's what got me in this, that's what I loved about cigars and, and the people who smoke cigars. That's some of the most interesting bastards in the world.
Look at Kenny Garett and those guys. I mean, they, they're just, um, they're completely off the chart. How, how, how many, the cigar world is full of eccentrics and passionist and they're all in this, this beautiful hobby of events'. And it's such a rich tapestry that you're doing. I think people do themselves a disturbance if they don't sort of reach out and, and spend some time in that environment and meet some of these people.
I agreed
**Poobah:** and it's, it's cigar smokers [00:31:00] are, they're social animals of, of sorts. You know, they. Uh, most of them, um, tend to be social animals. And one of the things that, that Senator and I, and, and that he spoke about so many times is that the cigars kind of the great equalizer in a room at times. You know?
Um, and this is something you've
**Senator:** always talked about. Yeah. I mean, I, I think a, a lot of what you're saying, Rob really resonates with me and I love the passion piece. I think when we've talked about it, this hobby is the only reason that I've been, and I think a number of us in this room able to meet folks from so many different walks of life and different experiences, different career paths, um, that I would never encounter in my normal bubble of, you know, my career and the type of work that I do and, and the area I live and the, the folks that are around me.
And so, um, when I mentioned the great equalizer, you know, you just sit down in a cigar lounge [00:32:00] and it doesn't matter how much you make, it doesn't matter how much that cigar is in your hand. You bought that cigar because you really enjoy it and the passion that you have for it, you just have kind of this instant bond or connection with everybody sort of in that room.
And sadly, I think just the way society's gone, um, it, it's become that much more poignant right now where we live in a society where everybody's just on, on their phones. Yeah. Online, I mean, human interactions like a dying breed at this point. It's
**Grinder:** actually vital now more than ever.
**Senator:** It is. Yeah. And I think this is one of the last few things that exists that force people to really have that dialogue and conversation and, you know, get off the internet and agree.
All the nonsense.
**Grinder:** Also, everyone in this, we all met each other here through this hobby. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** We wouldn't know each other had it not been for this, the lizards would never have met. Yeah. Yeah. And we would not be sitting here with a, with a, with a guy from Australia right now
**Rob Ayala:** with a podcast, . And, and, and to be fair, Jen, um, I will, in my business life, [00:33:00] I will never do anything in the future.
That's, that's been more rewarding than o h simply because I, I get off on seeing how many friendships have been made on that forum over the years. How they travel the world to catch up with each other, how they call each other when they're down. Or they lend a hand when someone's fallen. Um, and it, it doesn't matter whether you're in the States or the uk and they're also there.
Cigar smoking can also be quite a lonely habit in that if you don't know any cigar smokers, if you cannot get in touch, if you don't have a lounge or you don't have anyone in your immediate social group who shares that hobby, or you may be working on a mind site in Asbe Start, or, or, or Marley or, or somewhere such as that.
The ability to hop onh or other forums, Buth is the one I'm familiar with, of course. [00:34:00] And to feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself and, and to share experiences and to provide support, uh, it it's, to me it's, I'm really proud of that. I'm really proud of our members. I'm really proud. Of, of how we've made or how they've made.
Cause they're the ones who build it, how they make life better for each other in this hobby. Yeah. That there's a
**Poobah:** lot of merit in that.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. very well said. And that's also, that's also the genesis of why we started this, was to really, it was, you know, the idea was give a guy who, like you said, Rob, who maybe is in a remote area or doesn't have access to a lounge like this, or a group like, you know, a group of friends that he can sit around and smoke with.
And he's able to sit in his garage and put us on every week, and we always kind of say, there's a chair right here, that, that person sitting there, you know, having the conversation with us. Yeah. And it's awesome. And, and, and we
**Poobah:** do this too just for context. I mean, we, we do this because we, [00:35:00] and, and it dovetails with this conversation.
We do this because just, we like to do the podcast. Yeah. I mean, this isn't something that we're doing, you know, to monetize to a, to an extreme level or something. We do it because we love to do it. We love to have these conversations and we love to meet people and talk, talk to people and learn from each other.
Yeah. Guests on the show. It's, it's an opportunity
**Grinder:** to disconnect from your world for an hour. And it's also reward rewarding, and there's immense value in that. For me,
**Senator:** it's that bam, it's, it's disconnecting from the world, but it's also connecting to the world. True. In the sense that I think the thing that is always the most fulfilling about this, the amount of listener email and, and Rob, I'm sure you get tons of, you know, notes from folks on the forum.
Have talked about, you know, the impact that that's had on them. And we get that similarly with the podcast of just people talking about how something they heard us talk about were described that we love, made their weekend trip. It resonates with them, [00:36:00] with their, you know, friend or family member that they went away with.
Just stories like that. It, it really makes it
**Rob Ayala:** worthwhile. No, and to be fair, when, when, yeah, so when I got the invitation to do this, I, I didn't even hesitate. What you guys are doing needs to be supporters. It's, it's so important to be done and congratulations they're doing it and I wish you every success, but you know, the industry, and I use the term broadly, I actually hate the team industry, but the hobby needs to support each other and, uh, and promote communication and promote quality and quality broadcasting.
So, congrats. Thanks Ben.
**Rooster:** There's not, there's nothing better when you get that listener email. You know, we, I remember this one email we got from a truck driver that he drives long distance and he's alone in his truck most of the time and he's driving like six hours, eight hours a day. And the pod really
**Gizmo:** [00:37:00] is a great way for him to
**Rooster:** pass time, you know, while he is smoking a cigar.
And hopefully not drinking, but just .
**Grinder:** Yeah. Hopefully
**Rooster:** he's not
**Gizmo:** doing the spirit pairing as well. , let me see what this bourbon tastes like. .
**Rooster:** So it's great to hear that. You know, it's, we look forward to all the emails that we get and,
**Gizmo:** uh, you know, great feedback. So Rob, you mentioned, uh, you mentioned quality and I, I wanted to talk about something that you've kind of been, become known for and, uh, you know, everybody loves when they see the stickers on the, on the boxes.
Oh, yes. Um, , uh, on, on the, on your site, on the secondhand sites, the secondhand box will pop up and there's a, a red sticker on it and okay, this is serious. So let's talk about the, uh, the f o h grading system you came up with. So what was the genesis of that? Um, obviously there's, there's really three levels of it.
**Rob Ayala:** The, the genesis, it's pretty simple. Yeah. The genesis was, um, [00:38:00] as we grew, people wanna say what's good at the moment, Rob, what's good at the moment. And as we grew, I. You gotta put in, you gotta put in five systems. So yeah, that work And Cause then they'd ask d or they'd ask Lisa what was good, uh, what do they recommend?
So as I was going through the warehouse, when the warehouse, you know, we had six months, they stock, you could actually go through master case after master case. And, and, and people make way too much of a deal out of this. But effectively, if you
**Gizmo:** are buying, that's us included, by the way. I wanna say that's us included.
Yeah. Yeah.
**Rob Ayala:** If you, if you No, no, it's nothing more than if you guys went into, into Pagus in Havana, um, or another retail store, like cut her balances anywhere and they, they said, okay, you want a box of might twos and they'll give you how mean 16. There's 22 boxes to a master case of might twos. And you can look through each [00:39:00] one of those boxes of Maori twos and you can put them in piles.
Love these. This is the quality, heres this level, the quality, heres this level, the quality here is this level. And I really wouldn't buy these here. Right? But that's all we were doing and we're just grading them based on quality. Now does that tell you that it's going to be a spectacular stick? No, but you've got a much bloody higher chance of getting a spectacular stick outta these in a general rule than you do out the ones over here.
And it's not a visual, it's about a rhyme. If you're about construction, it's about this in general. And that's all it was. That's dead set. All it was. If you are running into, we did nothing more than, than you would do if you had the opportunity to greater Mark the case. Which ones would you take home? Um, all of them.
Yeah. these days. I would, I want 'em all these days. I would.
**Gizmo:** Well, you know what's funny? We, so we, we did a, we did an up and two, uh, [00:40:00] probably 20 something episodes ago. Uh, and it was a Lu 14 box of up and twos and uh, obviously that, that, that's a big Puba thing is Love 14. Look at him over love's.
**Rob Ayala:** That's a classic pba that's an absolute classic box of Butman too.
**Gizmo:** So we had a listener friend of ours, uh, out in Denver, uh, who found one on Bond Roberts, which we're gonna get to in a little bit. Obviously your, uh, major role in that, partner in that, but, He showed me the pictures of this box that he had, he was bidding on and he said, don't bid on it. I want this box and son of a bitch.
I start looking through the pictures and there's the red sticker on that love 14 box of up in twos. Man, I was so depressed that I couldn't get 'em, couldn't get my hands on that box cuz I'm a loyal friend as we discussed. You are. I'm a loyal friend. I said I wouldn't bid. I didn't bid. But yeah, I was, uh, I saw that red sticker man and I was like, ah, I wish I, those,
**Poobah:** those are the 14.
L u b [00:41:00] 14 are legendary. Absolutely fantastic cigars. Thank God I have a box and a half .
**Gizmo:** So, so just for the listener, so we're talking about, uh, Rob's, uh, grading system. Uh, so you have three grades on there. So there's psp, which is the highest grade. You have hq and then you have clearance, which is kind of what just normal stock, everyday stock right
**Rob Ayala:** now clearance is, is, no, there's also one other grading called rejected of which, which we
All right. We go back. No, we'll use those um, as seconds We use 'em in the store. Uh, we'll discount them out. We'll do different things such as that. But we let people know in, in terms of it. This is a price, but there's nothing wrong with clearance. Clearance is great. Clearance is is just stock that these days, clearance can be everything because we just don't have enough stock food that we go through.
And Greg, most of the time, um, but clearance is, clearance is what I. Every day, [00:42:00]
**Gizmo:** uh, most of the stuff I buy is, is clear and stuff, but obviously now I know there's, you know, you're not getting enough to grade. Let's say, you know, pre covid, pre covid days or pre supply issue days, what percentage of a, of a master cra or what percentage of cigars was getting a PSP grade?
**Rob Ayala:** You know what, it's, it, if you could pull three or four boxes of PHP out the master case, you'd be going really well as a 22 box master case at 24. Say for, um, say for a pyramid, you'd be going really, really well. There were times though those, uh, those 14 up and twos, I mean, you could get, you could get 1214 PSP ASPs out that, um, they were just divine.
You know, the TB for Pet Coronas from I think oh seven, if I remember correctly. Again, just what a great run. You have great runs of stock that you get plenty out. Love that cigar. Yeah. Yeah. But they're then you, then you [00:43:00] go through, through others. Yeah. And you, you may not see a, in any, in any master case, they just let them cut it.
Um, less these days, quality has improved. Yeah. Quality has improved.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I was gonna say that I, you know, going, you know exactly that. I, I think the run of cigars from say maybe mid to late 18, 19, 20, 21, I mean, widely delicious, said to be. Some of the best stuff coming out of Cuba in a very long time. Do you remember a period as strong as this of, of product coming out?
No. I know there's not a lot, but what is coming out?
**Rob Ayala:** There's, well, even, even nine 10, which is probably the last full year of, of a good, a good range of product. I've told many, many about members this, that you could pretty much order from anywhere in the world and be, you're gonna get a decent Yeah. In, in thousand 19, 2000, 2020, the requirement for grading [00:44:00] has diminished as the improvement in quality has increased.
Now, of course, now that Herba has gone dico on pricing, um, you know, if you're gonna spend, if you're gonna spend six or $700 on a, on a box of money, Christo twos, then you know, you probably want someone to run their eye over it and, and make sure that you bring home something that's, that's, that's at the topic top end from the pyramids.
Excuse me. Pardon? But yeah, it, yeah. Go.
**Senator:** Oh, I was just gonna ask, can we talk a little bit more about the years and I, I asked this, this question because gonna go there too. I feel like this is a big source of debate. Just we know where you're going, blizzards in the room. I know where you're going. Um, and, and I say that because there's one school of thought that.
You know, age cigars are always the best cigars that no matter what stick we're talking about, the more age the better it gets. There's another school of thought that's, um, sometimes age actually doesn't necessarily do as many favors for certain [00:45:00] cigars. And sometimes a younger, you know, cigar with just a few years of age may actually smoke better than that same stick with more age on it.
We have this debate amongst ourselves all the time. I'm looking at Rooster in the room, the connoisseur corner , uh, at Rooster as a, a connoisseur with, uh, some heavily, heavily aged, uh, inventory at his humidor. But I ask this, I'm just curious, maybe if we just bite off the last 10 years, um, it kind of what your perspective is on, um, you know, how much age is really needed for some of the brands that we smoke.
A lot of, like pagus up men, Monty. Um, and then over the last 10 years, you know, what years have really stood out to you as, as kind of overperforming, let's say, and years that maybe have underperformed that, uh, maybe you don't pursue, uh, as, as aggressively, I'm just curious.
**Rob Ayala:** That's such a hard question. I, until, well, pre covid, you know, I was looking at, [00:46:00] I'd be inspecting 200,000 cigars a year.
Yeah. Of, of, of everything. I,
**Gizmo:** I want that job, . Oh my gosh. Are you hiring Rob?
**Rob Ayala:** Not right now. But you get, you get, you get a little bit disillusioned in, in when you have a bad run of cigars. I don't think it has much to, I don't think it has that much to do with years.
It really is about consistency in, in, in runs. Um, you've got some great box codes, which bring out some superbs to go
in a period of time, but you go back in six months later and that same box coast is producing rubbish in that singer. Right. So, and, and people don't talk about that. They, they, they always [00:47:00] remember the, the fourteens. Yeah. The up and fourteens Ls. But you know that, and they're, they're great, but, you know, you go, you go to the next year.
In fifteens they weren't as good and they're still coming out above me. I, I don't think there is such a thing. A, a great, great year. I think there, the in or the consistency of her bonos production isn't there. It comes down to the factory, it comes down to the factory manager. It comes back to the culture that he puts into that factory while he is there or she's there and, and what they're producing.
We saw the, we saw the, the turnaround in Trinidad in 2018 two, late 2017, 18. Um, [00:48:00] they're made in Pinal de Rio, predominantly, and they went through a couple of years of absolute crap. The, the rays, the colonials, even the undies that were coming out of there were rubbish. And we called it, cause I see them, I used to see them every week.
It was just rubbish.
**Grinder:** That was prior, prior to
**Rob Ayala:** 2018? Yeah, just for a couple of years, three or four years prior. And we've called them and how do you have a premium cigar that, how do you come out with these paper bark, flaky, thin, fr almost green rappers on them and called them a premium And then all of a sudden, bang had changed.
It changed almost overnight and fried that production for the last couple of years, since 2018 has been the perb generally been. Compared what they were for the previous three years. It's So what changed? Uh, the culture changed. Someone paid attention to it. Changes like that don't occur without [00:49:00] a focus and a vision.
Uh, and I've seen that when I remember correctly, you, the manager, the manager at up and ran that 2014, I knew quite well. Uh, passionate. Absolutely passionate. He was in there. He had everyone, everyone talking off the same reading, off the same page, which would say brilliant. And, and what was coming out was superb.
Rome and Julietta went into a hole in 2000 and what, 4, 5, 6 sevens eight
**Gizmo:** still haven't come out. Yeah. Geez. They're still in that. I think
**Rob Ayala:** they're still in the hole. They had, they had, they had a really nice run RJ Churchills in 1617 at, uh, a Knights run of, of, um, of r and j exhibition fours. I think they were Paus in 2014.
We're just, Dunn saw some of the best r and j exhibition fours ever produced. [00:50:00] And that went for 18 months. That run. Who was, who was in charge of that? We'll never know. We will never know. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah. So you're saying you're, so you're saying it's about the runs, it's about who's managing the factory at that time?
**Rob Ayala:** It, it's, it's more, yeah, it's far more micro. Its more, it's more about the runs. It's more micro than people, than people make it out. People, people pull about years and, and, and, and this, it's, it really is micro, uh, in terms of what's going on internally in that factory who's putting, cause it, it's all about attention to detail.
It's all about saying, no, that's not acceptable. That standard's not acceptable. That no, we're not gonna accept that that leaf or those bas into this blend, you know, someone, it's, it's about someone saying no and someone getting away from quota and looking at quality and looking at consistency and, and, and unfortunately, pretty much every one of those [00:51:00] cigars that had those great runs never, it might last 18
months,
**Rob Ayala:** but it just doesn't continue.
I just haven't seen it compare. Um,
**Poobah:** there's just too much turnover. It sounds like there's turnover where you don't have the
**Rob Ayala:** politics management turnover. Yeah. And, and the internal politics of a factory are phenomenal. You know, it makes the bold and the beautiful look like amateur out . Um, it, it. You don't, you, you have to bring everyone along with you and, you know, when they were being paid 20 a month and you have to incentivize them and you need a charisma and you need systems, uh, internally because, you know, if you've got 40, 40 rollers in a room, sticks to them [00:52:00] are really no.
In a normal situation. Sticks will have their head down going gangbusters and, and, and be passionate. And, and half of them couldn't really care, really couldn't really care. It's about, you know, I mean, at least a third of them, their boyfriend broke up with them the last two weeks. They'll probably , you know, it, it's a, it's a real mix.
Yeah. Um, you know, it was just, to me it was always dispiriting when you used to go to a la gto, any of the factories know in the, in the early two thousands or late nineties and, and find half the workforce trying to sell you cigars in, in the bathrooms or selling from the tables, um, and doing that. And that's how desperate people are.
Oh yeah. Yeah. It it's, it's probably happening right now, isn't it, Rob?
**Gizmo:** I, I, I didn't wanna say anything, but that's still happening, .
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah, I'm sure it is. And it has to because you, you know, and this goes, this goes, this [00:53:00] goes all the way through to, I think you had, you had Dan on a couple of weeks ago in terms of the facts that, that, that, that, that going now, and it's almost impossible to stop any of this, the inconsistency, the facts, et cetera, while you've got people who can't get by on their wage.
**Gizmo:** Yep. Plus the inflation and everything else is terrible. And That's right. That's really is stupid. Like they kept saying while we were down there, Rob, it's Cuba. It's complicated. it's complicated. Yeah. So boys, we're coming into the second third here of the hall. Luana, speaking of a good run, these cabinets have been fantastic.
This is a great cigar. It's very, very good. I would cons, I would say it's medium. What do you guys think? Yeah,
**Grinder:** it's my only, it's my second Lucy of all time really? That I've ever had. That's it. This is my first Lucy of all time. So Rob, they, they keep cigars from me. . Oh boy. Here. They don't, here we go, Rob.
They don't let me smoke the [00:54:00] good
**Gizmo:** stuff. Here we go. Here's what I'll do, Rob. I'll go, Hey guys, you guys should join. Ohh. And, and get on 24, 24 and here's what time 24 24 comes up. So, and, and, and, and you know what? He'll go, bam. Bam will go, no, I did that once with you. Bam. Bam will go . You know what? Can you just get me a box?
No. To be, to be
**Rooster:** fair, 24 by 24 is a little
**Gizmo:** complicated. It's very complicated. It, it's,
**Rooster:** could you make it a little easier? It's complicated. It's
**Gizmo:** a little
**Rob Ayala:** complicated. More complic, Cub C
**Gizmo:** Rob, how's your Lucy?
**Rob Ayala:** It's, it's good. It's got some construction issues. Yeah. And so in terms of the, the rappers splitting, um, the weather's fine today, so I have no idea why. I mean, if it was Ken, if I gave this to Ken, I'd never hear the end of it for
**Gizmo:** review. So, Ken. Ken by the way, for, for listeners, Ken, uh, so Rob and uh, and Ken Garett do, uh, o h reviews.
You can find them on. I think you put 'em up, uh, weekly, right? It's a weekly thing or every other week We [00:55:00] try. Yeah.
**Rob Ayala:** We, we try, we try put 'em up weekly and
**Gizmo:** they're like, you know, they, they're, they're like 10 to 12 minutes and they kind of hit each third of the cigar and the first five minutes they just yell at each other, which, which is very entertaining.
I'm
**Poobah:** ave I'm actually a fan of the . I'm a fan of it. I, and he, he doesn't wear shoes. He does not like to wear shoes. Yeah. What's with the feet rub? He loves his feet. His feet are all in the shot.
**Rob Ayala:** I don't like that. Sometimes I don't like that. I, I, I, I mentioned, I mentioned that, um, the cigar world is full of eccentrics.
Yeah. . You have one of the great eccentrics there. Always remember Simon Chase, the great Simon Chase pulled me aside of a national hotel once, um, in Havana. And, uh, he says, come over cigar and, and, uh, you know, when you meet one of your heroes, Simon, it was great. I only spoke to him a couple times before. He said first time actually got together.
He looked at me, he said, don't stop doing what you do. Um, [00:56:00] because Yeah. Yeah. And what he meant by that was, okay, smoke cigars in bare feet, have a laugh, uh, tell her bans are up themselves. Um, do all of that. Yeah. And call it, and call it like it is because the cigar world needs a little bit more of that. It did at the time.
I think there's plenty of it now, but, uh, yeah, I was interested, I was interested guys, you said it, it's a medium body for you. Is there really a Cuban cigar today that it's full body?
**Poobah:** Uh, that's a good
**Gizmo:** question there. Some of the
**Grinder:** maduros. The MedU number one. Yeah. The part,
**Gizmo:** maybe touch on that very few. What about, I don't wanna say it.
Uh, I don't wanna say it's like full full, but like if part of this 8 98 8, oh yeah. The eight full,
**Rob Ayala:** medium full. I'd like to try some. If you ever store a 22 box, I haven't seen a 22 box yet. I know they have been sold. [00:57:00] There's not too many of them around. But even the Mag 46, which is always found relatively, I find.
Coming back towards that medium level. So I'm intrigued
**Grinder:** to see True. I agree. Where we're true. I agree with that. Where we're heading. The flavor profile is a full flavor, but medium
**Rob Ayala:** bodied. What what
**Poobah:** about, what about the money Crystal? What about the, the, uh, what about the linear? Oh, well, yeah, those had some, they're rich.
I tried to remember back. They're re if really? Were they? Yeah, but they're rich. That's a good, they were rich. They were full bodied, but they weren't strength. Like an 8 98,
**Gizmo:** I think a medium fall at most. Yeah.
**Rooster:** Nothing. Not like a Nicaragua for,
**Rob Ayala:** we'd call them full. Um, we call them Rich. We pull them full flighted.
Full body full.
**Poobah:** Yeah.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah,
**Gizmo:** yeah, yeah. But yeah. What about Bbf? Definitely.
**Poobah:** I don't find that cigar as strong as everyone says it
**Gizmo:** is. No, it's
**Grinder:** not
**Rob Ayala:** strong. It's flavorful, but it's not strong.
**Gizmo:** It's a medium cigar. Yeah. The petite Coronas a
**Senator:** [00:58:00] whopper. Yeah. That can get, oh,
**Grinder:** so I bought a beautiful box with gizmo's help on Ohh.
Of 2016 Boulevard Petite Coronas. Outstanding. Outstanding. That's
**Poobah:** strong. That's a strong, that's maybe one of the, all right. So I want Rob's opinion is the Boulevard Petite Corona. It's a good cigar. One of the stronger Cuban cigars, nicotine wise, strength wise.
**Rob Ayala:** One of my favorite cigars and certainly now we're talking.
**Gizmo:** So we're coming into the segment now where Rob is gonna settle all of our arguments. Yes. No, no. He's settling this
**Poobah:** argument Great because I think the Boulevard, petite Corona packs a while.
**Senator:** Agree. So too. The only thing I find though is with age that punch that it packs mellows out, really mellows out and is more my speed.
Yeah. But young it can, it can kick you around at the, the
**Rob Ayala:** last three of that It does, uh, b Corona juniors, another you at, uh, young. It can really knock you around and look and with you in regards to the BVA belly cost of peanuts, which is one of my favorite cigars. I smoke a lot [00:59:00] of them. I also find they've gone from medium full to back to mass media, just over medium body.
But I question myself on that because maybe, you know, as you, as you get older, you lose taste buds. Your taste changes too. Yeah. Your taste changes. So is that, is it a physiological thing or is it a, a different tobaccos? It wouldn't be a blend change cause they don't like doing blend changes. But the different tobaccos, different treatment of those tobaccos, I'm not quite sure, but I'm finding bbf to be nowhere near as strong as what they were back, you know, in, in the late two thousands.
In the 19, in the 1990s. No, absolute. So
**Rooster:** Rob, what are your top five?
**Gizmo:** Top five cigars right now?
**Rob Ayala:** Is smoke on a regular rotation.
**Rooster:** Yeah. You, your daily? Yeah. Like your weekly rotation.
**Rob Ayala:** Uh, weekly rotation. I, I'd love bbf. I'm old school. Yeah. Bbf i'd, low postelection number two. Punch. Punch. [01:00:00] I think the punch punch are exceptional.
I love the
**Gizmo:** punch. That's controversial in this room, Rob. That is, uh,
**Rob Ayala:** very controversial. Pipe down.
**Grinder:** Pipe down. I wanna hear
**Rob Ayala:** his list. , . They, they went through a long period, I'd say a decade of being so, so to pretty ordinary, which I wouldn't, I wouldn't buy a box, but, but 2, 2 18, 2 19 Ford on the punch. Pancho, is it hard to beat?
I love those cigars. Uh, I love those cigars, but again, it's been a run. It's been a run. Um, and, and, and I, that run doesn't seem to have stopped, although there's not too many around at the moment, so. Yeah. Uh, a ball oft Corona Punch punch one per number two. Bbf, uh, D four s have been, you been, they've been amazing at the same time.
Yeah. Consistent. Yeah. You want, you want a consistently good cigar. We, we've talked
**Grinder:** about en nauseum, how that is one of the most consistent Cuban cigars made.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** The
**Rooster:** four. And it's, and it's tasting [01:01:00] really good, fresh, like the, even the 21 box,
**Gizmo:** you know, it's phenomenal. Yeah. They're great. So Rob, uh, one of our favorite topics, I'm sure it's one of yours as well, cuz you're in it every day, are the fine people at hi Bonos and, uh, their decision making process and, uh, how they come to, how process is being
**Senator:** very
**Gizmo:** generous.
Yeah, I'm being very generous with that word, but I mean, they did this crazy price increase given the circumstances. There's another one coming in January. We just saw, you know, on a lot, most of the lines except, uh, what Trinidad and Cohiba, another increase coming. Um, I saw like, for example, RAs, which I know be in this room.
We've gotten eight or 10 of those cabinets from you this year and they are gone and those are going up like 14 or 15% apparently. Um, what is going on? Over, over at Hi bonos Rob, give us the, give us the inside scoop.
**Rob Ayala:** The, there is no inside scoop because distributors are scratching their [01:02:00] heads. Um, retailers are pulling their hair out, uh, all over the world and I feel sorry for those.
Got serious bricks and border enterprises, um, and heavy investments cause it's very hard for them to, to pivot. Uh, however, I can only, I can only guess that they've, they've sat down and done the numbers and worked out that they won't be able to get back to serious, like, full production in terms of they get back to full production for a number of years for one reason or another.
And until they start seeing stock STEMI piling up on shelves around the world, maybe that's when they'll work out. They've got the balance right, or they believe they've got the balance right. Is it, is it greed or is it need, and I suspect it's, it's somewhere between the two. They've gotta perform with the joint venture.
They need, they need the cash, but [01:03:00] at the same time, what, what are they producing? 40% of their portfolio, 45% of their portfolio. They've gotta produce their portfolio. And, you know, and, and the problem with her, one of the issues with her banners is that there is no transparency whatsoever. They don't tell anyone anything.
They don't tell the distributors anything. Um, it's, it's just, they make these grand announcements. They will launch these beautiful news to guys and no one sees them for two years. Or they do a little batch that comes out and then no one needs 'em for two years or maybe ever again. In fact, there are some cigars that have never been released, but they've announced.
Uh, so, you know, you, you, in the end, if you're in, in the business, you've worked out that you're dealing with the dysfunctional operations, that's got inherent issues. And if you are waiting for the next order to come through as a [01:04:00] hobans retailer without doing anything else, then you're in serious trouble.
You, you need to have pivoted and you can see it. Now you got Thebans trying to sell non Cubans and get, and get, uh, non Cuban, not distributor ships, and trying to get some non Cubans. If you've got Cuban havanas distributors, Doman was the best one. You know, Doman, you've got Harbans distributors chasing down NC, non Cuban suppliers for distributor ships left, right, and center.
Uh, of course it doesn't help too much for them because a lot of those major non Cuban brands and smaller ones, having got the excess capacity to supply Europe or Asia to meet that Hobans football and they won't have it for years to come. Uh, the US is still booming as a cigar market. It's going exceptionally.
**Poobah:** So saying, are you, are you saying that it, so [01:05:00] are you saying that the, the overall European market is just short, generally speaking?
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. Yeah. I've never seen, if you look at, if you look at, um, the Spanish market, take the Spanish market, you'll find in most of the stores there at the moment, you'll find.
Some Monte Bos, you'll find, uh, vaga fea, which is distributed by tobacco area. There you'll find po pi address and you won't find, you'll find bugger all else except last month, every store had our Torah, winter . That's
**Poobah:** interesting. That's interesting. Very. That's interesting. Now, now is Asia, is it not short, but fat with demand, therefore
**Gizmo:** fat?
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah, everyone's fat with demand. Asia's exceptionally short of cigarettes. Um, no different to Europe. Uh, you know, no one's got enough. Uh, no one's got, you're selling [01:06:00] the same stuff every week, every other week if you get a special peor comes through, even if you're a London High Street. Yeah. So if you're a London High Street retailer and they launch this brand, new cigars come out, your allocation will be three to four boxes.
Right. There's just no depth to the volume. Um, and that's why you're saving for a million cigars ready to go. That's all fine and Danny, but if they're Monte twos D fours and there, well then it's, they've been in regular supply now for, for the last two. Mind you, some, some major net retailers who are motor mine, they're outta 90 twos and, and D four s for significant period of time.
So
**Poobah:** it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like solder having a, when they get in a, a liata and they're not having a big party and having, and getting Miatas and. Having a release party at a, at, you know, at, in a retail [01:07:00] setting.
**Rob Ayala:** No, you, yeah. Because it takes a away do the launch if you have to, if you have to cut them in half to spread them ran.
Right. Um, yeah.
**Poobah:** There's nothing to, you've got nothing to, that's what I'm saying.
**Gizmo:** The new el Half
**Poobah:** Corona. Half Corona.
**Gizmo:** Like,
**Poobah:** this is
**Rooster:** great
**Gizmo:** Oh my God. It's
**Poobah:** the, it's a disaster. Yeah, it
**Rob Ayala:** is. It is. The, it is the, it is the greatest smoke and mirrors trick in terms of quantity. I love these releases here. It is. It's one of the great trick. I mean, not since Jesus and the Lives, and Bishop has, has this gone on? Yeah.
**Poobah:** But you know, the best, the best is when they say they're gonna do an EL and they're gonna, we're only making 13,000 boxes and then all of a sudden 26,000 flow onto the
**Rob Ayala:** market.
Yeah. Well, you, we love those days, right? You, we love that. But I love, you know where they did, what was it? The Trinidad, uh, rub Robusto [01:08:00] travel humor, which is a beautiful travel humor. And they're gonna do 10,000 of those. Well, if they did, if they did 1500, I'd be surprised. And that's now that long ago.
One's now forgotten about it, so they just move on. This classic, the, the, the delivered edition, Romeo and Julietta number two. I mean, really, I mean, I think Europe had them for about six weeks and that was, they were gone, they were finished, and they, there's no, there's no depth in terms of supply in specialties, uh, if you say them at all.
**Gizmo:** So you talked about needing to have other enterprises and obviously you're an entrepreneur. Rob Bond Roberts was a, uh, a pretty revolutionary, uh, idea, uh, as far as being an auction house. And I know, you know, you and I spoke about this, there's plenty of other auction houses, but really one that was accessible by anyone in the world and you can buy and sell, you know, Cuban cigars, uh, from, from anyone in any market.
It [01:09:00] for me, I know Rooster certainly bought a lot on there, um, over the years, and so have I, but that really transformed, um, being able to transact safely in, you know, uh, secondhand aged product. So how did that come, how did that come together for you
**Rob Ayala:** guys? Rob Fox and I have always wanted to do business together because we like each other, we're great and we want an avenue.
We can, we can do some business together. And it, it was just nice for both of us to do something outside. Well, for me specifically to do something outside of her battles. Uh, imagine having a business in Cuban cigars. We actually don't have to invite her battles to the party, uh, which was really nice for us.
So we, we've both got great client bases. We, it took us two years to put it together. Uh, we had to put the team together. Andy Ryan, obviously my son Ben involved in it as [01:10:00] well. Uh, and now we've got two other staff who've come in just getting the systems in place. And I, I love, I love the fact that now we launched, of course, we're just about to launch Bon Roberts and then Covid hit and we thought, oh, Jesus.
And we launched in April, 2020, which is the, at the beginning of the, the big covid shutdown. So we thought no one's gonna, no one's gonna be able to ship cigars or no one's gonna wanna buy cigars. We didn't know there was the biggest boom and cigars since Ciara Fish Magazine came out. And, and so Bon Roberts went quite ballistic quite quickly.
Uh, and I think we've just sold our 10000th box on Bond Roberts, um, this month. So 10,000 just, and just over two years. So 10,000 boxes have been sold them on. It's been remark.
Plane in terms of, I, I expected we'd have a lot more [01:11:00] issues in terms of our dispute resolution mechanisms, et cetera. But in 10,000 boxes, we would've had about 50, 55 disputes in that period of time. And condition, condition that's arrived or, and spirit's can fit for various thingss. Again, we talked about that cigar community.
I mean, sellers have to be vetted, sellers have to be approved, and most sellers are a good, decent people who go above and beyond in terms of the way they declare the packaging they put together, how they ship a box cetera. So it's worked quite well.
**Gizmo:** So how do you guys deal with, I know we, you know, we, we talked at nauseum a few weeks ago with Dan about those fake boxes coming up, but how do you guys deal with people trying to list fake stuff on Bond?
Roberts? Obviously, some of the stuff is so obviously fake that, that you guys, but, but let's talk to more sophisticated, um, fakes. I mean, how do you guys deal with [01:12:00] that and, and Yeah. What's your
**Rob Ayala:** process there? We, um, process is every, every box gets vetted before it gets put up. Yeah. As, as best you can vet them.
Uh, we've been caught out. I, unless I've been caught out, we've discovered, I think we've had two or three boxes of facts in that 10,000. They've gone through the process and which is, you know, something's gonna slip through. Yeah. Uh, eventually one was, uh, a box of FIA releases. The bands didn't look quite right when the buyer got them.
And we went straight to fia, we went straight to fia. They clarified it for us. Um, the seller didn't know, and this is a classic, the seller actually bought those in good faith, uh, from a private US collector. He's in the it, he didn't know. [01:13:00] Um, and, and, and the irregularity, you wouldn't have picked it up unless you, you really were into that cigar unless you were distributor.
So we reversed that transaction. There's a, the recent, the recent box of, uh, of cos, um, that had the same issue that, that Dan purported or the Dan Dan has, um, has been discussing and been investigating with Greg in terms of that. We bought that box and we've taken it back to Europe. It's been magnified, it's been photographed.
It's been analyzed and it's currently in Cuba being assessed. So we have, cuz we also wanna know, Um, what's going on? We want, we want some definitive answers in terms of, of that issue. And that issue has changed our policies, which comes out in January in [01:14:00] terms of when listing boxes from 21 on or 2021 on that, you're gonna have to, you're gonna require black lights, um, uh, photographs in, in terms of that.
And guys, I can tell you in six months time or 12 months time, there'll be another issue that'll come through as the focus, get better at it and we'll, it's gonna try to stay ahead of it and, and do the best we possibly can. Um, but in terms of, in terms of authenticity on vr, well, you guys spent some time with Andy Ryan and, um, we haven't met Ben, but both of them are in terms of, in terms of being some of the best guys in the world to, to identify these issues, we have them and we do reject a lot of boxes.
Not because they definitively fake, but they just don't meet the criteria. There's not enough, there's, there's [01:15:00] enough questions being raised. And Cuba being Cuba doesn't cut it. Yeah. Doesn't cut it. Uh, and that, so when, when a, when a dispute is rised, uh, it goes throughout dispute resolution room, it gets.
And it goes to the following, uh, the evidence comes through in photographs from both. So photograph and evidence from both, from both parties. And if they can't sort it out themselves, it goes to our board meeting. We have a board meeting every Tuesday, and it gets raised and discussed the board meeting, and we look at it and we, we go through the evidence there and we make a determination on it.
Uh, not every buyer is correct, by the way. Um, and it, we communicate them, communicate with them in terms of, yeah, we, we believe this transaction should be reversed, or we think that your expectations are slightly, uh, uh, yeah, a slightly overblown for the following reason to [01:16:00] the go. Bang, bang, bang be,
**Poobah:** and not every seller, you know, to your point before, not every seller is, uh, has bad intentions.
If, yeah, a very, very, very good counterfeit box happened to slip by
**Rob Ayala:** him. Yeah. These, these are good people. So we, we actually haven't come across a seller on the platform who's gone out intentionally to sell back cigars. Um, they've been weeded out at the, at the, at the seller. At the seller period. Yeah.
Where are you buying your cigars bomb? Who's your industry context? What are you doing here? Your first boxes are really heavily supervised. How do you handle those transactions? What's your correspondence? Uh, did it get delivered on time? All that, all that gets assessed. All that gets assessed. Yeah. And of course, once you've got 20, 30, 40 transactions up or 30, there's probably less scrutiny on you because you've, you've proven, you've proven yourself that now the guys who have been caught out and, uh, all the [01:17:00] three I know very, very well, a really good people who just themselves got caught in that process.
Now, does the buyer have to suffer that? No, of course not. Uh, we, we look at the situation. We address the issue, we change our policies, we make, we make sure the buyer or the seller understands what's going on. In both cases, the seller has gone back to his original buy or his original seller and got his money back.
Yeah.
**Poobah:** And gotten to the root cause. Yeah, maybe.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. And in the end, we all learn something. All parties learn something, and, and we put, we change that policy so it doesn't occur again, or we minimize the chances that it occurs again.
**Gizmo:** So in addition to br you guys have also, uh, launched Ohh, has launched a few years ago, launched the Newies, which was the non Cuban blend that you put together with Hamlet.
Right.
**Rob Ayala:** Hamlet, I've known Hamlet since he was 23 years of age. Yeah. [01:18:00] Um, and we've always been very close mates. Uh, I wanted to. I, I knew, I knew very little about non Cuban tobacco and non Cuban cigars and Hamlets. Went to the United States, worked for Rocky and Rocky's been great for Hamlet. Um, we had our first nerdy cigar blended by Hamlet, but through the, through the Rocky operation Nicaragua.
And I loved it. Yeah. And the second one's better than the first. And we are just going, but that's, our Nudies isn't very simple. Nudies is no box, no bands, no bullshit, just cigars that Hamlet and I enjoy in sizes that are difficult to obtain at a, at a decent price point. You can them every day before you got turning up.
I was doing a co. So I loved that process. I love that process of blending. I love that process of discovering and, and we loved thin gauge cigar. Cause you can't get a [01:19:00] thin gauge cigar on a regular basis outside of a poor loving yoga Monte Carlo outta Cuba at the moment. Um, so we wanted car lots. We wa um, Landeros and Cs every wanted of them at a, at a, at a price point that you could smoke them every day.
And we achieved that. So, so our next, but we couldn't, the goodness sake, we couldn't do, we just couldn't get a 50 plus ring gauge to work. Um, it it with a non key and blend. We couldn't, and no other, other manufacturers have been able to, but we couldn. Until recently, and we've just about, I'm actually flying out, um, two weeks time to sign off it actually, Foxy is flying out as well to, to sign off it some new blends for 2023, and we've actually got a Ka nazo, uh, which is tweet and it's glorious.
Um, and there's no pepper bite to it. And that's taken four years to get to that point, to be able to blend that cigar that makes a Cuban cigar [01:20:00] lover want that cigar. But I wanna bring a can na cigar that's a 92, 93 point cigar every goddamn time, and I wanna do it under 12 bucks. Yeah. And that's what we'll be doing, because that's what, you know, we, we started before about talking about how I, uh, well, I started before about how I love the fact that teachers and taxi drivers and, and guys like that, my favorite clients never, the clients used to come in and buy a box of Poro every week, or a box of Romeo and Julieta Churchills every week.
There's plenty of those guys. My favorite clients with the teacher or the taxi driver used to come in by two Monte fours and one ka buso. And that was gonna be a great one. Yeah, that's awesome that, that's what a cigar smoker is. That is someone who loves smoking scars. That's someone who. Doesn't care about pretense.
He just loves, that's his time is earned. That right. And, and, and both happy. And I would love to produce a, a line of [01:21:00] cigars when I, and when I blend these, I, I, i, I still have Marty and those guys in the back of my head. I want to blend great cigars at a cheap price point or cheaper, inexpensive price point that people can smoke on a regular basis that are as best that we can make.
That's what Nudies is. And,
**Poobah:** and are you looking to, are, are you gonna distribute those and retail those on Bon Roberts? On Ohh, no, that's
**Rob Ayala:** locally. That's Ohh, uh, that's, that, that's just, Ohh, that's, that's, um, that's Tammy's and my, um, little, little enterprise that, that, that we love because there may be cigars there that we, we don't wanna blend an, a cigar that meets the market's needs or meets the market's requirements.
We don't wanna blend to a whiteboard. And a lot of blending is to a whiteboard, by the way. So we, the draw's gotta be like this. We, it's gotta be, can have it more tight. The, we, we, we, [01:22:00] it's gotta have this amount of paper, this amount of sweetness. It's gotta be this sort of body. No. If we both love it, that's what we're putting out there.
And if you don't like it, but if you don't like it, don't worry about it. And, and that's the way we'd like to do our nudies program. Nudies program only needs to satisfy two people and that's.
**Poobah:** Go, go with your gut. Go with your
**Gizmo:** gut. Go with gut. And I love your love sizes you're making too. I love the sizes you're making that Oh, love the sizes.
To have a landero, you know, under what, under 15, under 12 bucks. I mean, it's just, it's great because they're just so infrequent. We talk about that all the time on the podcast. Lawns, tales, landeros, those thin lawn, love those cigars.
**Poobah:** We love Lawndale.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah, I love lawn styles. And, and to be fair, I, there are certain times that we started with lawn styles and, and, and a Carlo or 38 gauges and 36 s, because if you can make that work, well, if you can make that work in an NC in, in a Dominican or a Hondura [01:23:00] or a Nicaraguan, you're doing pretty well.
Now, mind you, there's been a lot of really good ones since the last three or four years that'll come out. Uh, it's not as difficult it used to be. Cause people, it somehow the penny dropped. You don't have to put Lee her in them. Yeah. Um, you can just use very good visa and, and, and get, gets really good cigars outta them.
Now, now getting to, okay, that's all fine. But you can't play, you can't play with. With a seven eye and the entire round of golf either. So we wanna make a can nazo, and I tell you what this is as, this is as close to a con b SLA sticks that I reckon I've had anywhere in a non Cuban world. So, and that's what we're trying to bring to market.
We would love to try that cigar. Yeah, I'd love to. I'm thrill to you guys. Yeah. Um, but this is so good that we've, we've, we're so excited about this blend that both Rob box and I have dropped all tools and are flying in in two weeks time. Wow. That's [01:24:00] how excited we about this. That's a big deal We look forward to.
We're gonna do it until next week. Yeah. Guys, let's organize some for you. Id love to do it. So that's what,
**Gizmo:** that's what you noticed what's happening? Bam. Bam is pointing to me book it to figure out how to get these cigars book. It's going back to our
**Bam Bam:** earlier Twentie ,
**Rob Ayala:** but they're all outta Miami, so it's easy.
**Bam Bam:** Perfect,
**Gizmo:** perfect. So I, so another, another thing on Hamlet, just really quick. I, you know, so it's pretty well known in the industry now. A lot of rumors were happening, but it's kind of out there now that Hamlet, uh, that he is now, uh, I guess working with you, uh, and, and the foxes, uh, exclusively, or I guess as a consultant.
Correct. And there's, yeah. No, we, yeah, there's even more
**Rob Ayala:** to come. Yeah. So we, we asked, we asked Hamlet to assist us with, um, The, the launch of the bond, Roberts line of [01:25:00] cigars, which are be coming out next year. And, and we we're working with, and it'll be announced next year, we're working with one of the great, one of the great growers, uh, in the world.
Um, we're working with some superb tobacco and again, we, we want to be in a position to produce a cigar and then a line of cigars
**Bam Bam:** that,
**Rob Ayala:** that meets the needs. That really, that really resonates with, with Cuban cigar lovers and non Cuban cigar lovers. Now, rich, deep, minimal pepper, um, sweet. Um, just gorgeous.
And that's what we, that's what we're trying to do and I think we've nailed it. And so BR will come out and that will be, that'll be, again, that's a different line of cigars and that'll be distributed, uh, in Europe. Um, [01:26:00] that'll be distributed throughout Asia then and Ravi's going be, be one of our major distribution points.
Uh, that's ci. So Coh. Yeah. So, so if you guys didn't know, RAVs and I are very close, mate. We go back a long, a long way. I mean, for two guys who we both started in 1996. Yeah. So we've competed, we've competed together all these years. Uh, we've.
**Bam Bam:** We, we really, I
**Rob Ayala:** think we really respect each other. We certainly enjoy hanging out together.
We've shed enough hangovers together, uh, and long lunches. Um, but he's, he's one of the really decent people that, that I know. So he'll be doing our, our BR international distribution as well. So that's a, and of course, I mean, we talked about broken clocks, you know, and, and had before we had all this planned before the Havanas block, we had all this planned before all this went through [01:27:00] Bon Robert's plan, before Hobans sort of started falling apart in terms of production, et cetera.
And, and it's just an excellent time for us to do it. And from a retailer's perspective, I never want to be in the position to have to rely on for balance ever again. Um, and we vert the right, we've, we've got the, we certainly have the, the distribution methods. We, we, we certainly have the knowledge and the experience and the right people in place to position ourselves where we don't need to be.
Mind you, I'll always sell. I'll always sell. I'll always sell Hobans. Don't get me wrong. I love Cub Cigar. That's what we always
**Gizmo:** say too. We'll, shit. All over Hobans. And then we'll say we love hobans, some
**Rooster:** words, cigars. What is your favorite
**Gizmo:** non Cuban.
**Poobah:** The video. The video just paused.
**Rob Ayala:** No, I was gonna say I've had, cause you know, I was in, I was in Miami for [01:28:00] two weeks in, in May this year, and all I smoked was non Cuban cigars.
And, and there was so many really, really good ones. Um, but still my favorite, my favorite non Cuban cigar that sounds silly is, is still Theron 1964 Wow.
**Gizmo:** A man after
**Poobah:** our own home. Yes. That's the, that that's a, you
**Bam Bam:** know, and
**Rob Ayala:** you talk about, you about Rich, you talk about Rich. Yeah. You talk about rich figures.
Yeah. And, and I, I love the fact that it is so rich and it's, and I know it's, it's relatively one dimensional, but the dimension is so brilliant and you put it in a little format. What more could you want out of a cigar than that? Yep. Now you put that, you put that, you put that in a, a Toro format and a, you wouldn't be able to maintain the intensity.
Or if you tried, you'd end up with cigar. That's [01:29:00] a one trick pony. But, but, but way too big. The way they've just blended that sipe and it delivers every time. It is one of the, it's one of the great, was it per half Corona in the world? Um, and I just think that's just a master. A master pace of blending for that.
**Poobah:** Well, that's, it's music to our, it's music to our ears in this room. Cuz we agree.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. We're huge Padro guys here. Yeah. Yeah. Huge padro guys. Yeah. And we smoke, we smoke a lot of, uh, 64 line thei, the diplomats, the Churchill, the one that we're on right now that you should try. The monarchy. The monarchy is stunning.
What is That's a Lawndale. It's a, it's a lawnsdale. Unbelievable. Yeah. Fantastic. Cigar Monka.
**Rob Ayala:** Okay. It's on my list.
**Poobah:** 64. Maduro Maduro .
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** 64. So, uh, so with the Bond Roberts cigar line, Rob, is that kind of where you're, [01:30:00] uh, kind of putting it pricewise, competing with those kind of, uh, cigars like, uh, Padron and mm-hmm.
da off and whatnot or No?
**Rob Ayala:** Um, I don't think we've made that decision at this point. You know, it, we pricing meant no. It, look, you know, it, we, we want it to be, again, something that
people will buy because they smoke it as a regular cigar. I want no part, really don't want any part of, of going after a market that's a. That's not part of my own personality, which is, you know, I don't want, I don't wanna produce a 35, 45, $50 cigar. Um, it's, it's, it's not in my world, mind you, three years time, I'd change that mind.
But right now it's not, it's not, it's not me. I can, we can we just get back to makings to gas and delivering cigars that [01:31:00] people can smoke every day without checking their bank balance. Um, because what's going on at the moment is, is for me in the hobans world is relatively sickening. And cause I've seen too many friends being forced out of the market, being forced out of the hobby.
Um, and, and they've been, they don't wanna leave. They've just been told that they've, and the way they feel, they've been told that they're not good enough or they don't earn enough to smoke a Cuban cigar. And you know what, that's gut wrenching because it's not what I'm about. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Do you, um, do you see them shifting more toward new world cigar?
**Rob Ayala:** They're being forced to shift to new world cigar? Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. Uh, it gives them a this, and I say, look, hey, the obstacle is the way. Yeah. [01:32:00] This gives them an opportunity to go and explore something they wouldn't normally have explored. So, you know, glass half full, take it as a whole new learning experience and, and they'll find things that they love.
And I hope, I really do hope that they fall in love with a whole range of non-G cigars and, and it comes back to bite HSA and the ass, the shortage,
**Poobah:** uh, compounds that whole problem with people with cigar, smokers being priced out of the, priced out of the hobby because there's, there's those kind of run, ofthe mill, whatever it is.
If you go deep into the Monte Crystal line where there's not as much demand, um, or into the portfolio brands, um, on the lower end of the catalog, those aren't available. So it's not even like you can downgrade your cigar, you know, your Cuban game [01:33:00] to a low kind of a lower portfolio brand level smoke.
Those aren't even that available. No. So it compounds it, you know, it's like there's a price increase, but it's price increases on the most popular stuff and the cheaper stuff is there. But some of it's not even being produced. Like a Swash Supreme was a affordable cigar at one time.
**Rob Ayala:** It's, it's very much akin to, it's of of, of going, of walking into a party into a door and no one wants to talk to you.
Yeah. Yeah. And so you, you're wandering around, you're wandering around, and to be fair, no one's giving the time of day. You walk out that door and it leaves a, it leaves a bad taste in your math. And so
**Gizmo:** I have a, I have a quick comment, glass half full, and I, I just wanna pose a, a counter argument here to the pricing thing.
Now not talking about Cohiba and Trinidad, which I [01:34:00] obviously that's, they're so ridiculous. But to me, if I'm paying, let's say 15 bucks, let's just say cuz it's easy for a D four Yep. That is still in line pretty close to, in line with any of the other quality REOs that I'm able to get Cuban or not. And for 15 bucks that, that hour that, that cigar is giving me that enjoyment, I don't think that, that's too crazy a price for that cigar.
So I think that in some ways the price increases are in line with maybe the value that I get out of those cigars. Maybe I'm different. Certainly it was a jolt, the kind of increases that they did in such a short time. But I mean, am I crazy? I don't think
**Senator:** you're crazy. I, I think some of the price increases, to your point, meet the value that they provide.
The D four is a great example of that. The thing I think that becomes problematic is, is kind of even the, the perception I, I think Rob was talking about the taste [01:35:00] that this leaves in people's mouth. I think one of the things that our listeners tell us surprises them. There's this perception that Cuban cigars, even before these, well before, these pricing greases are really expensive and hard to get.
And there there's this high barrier to entry, to even getting into enjoying havanas. And I worry not even as much about the person who's forced out right now by these price increases, but the thing that breaks my heart even more is the young cigar smoker that's trying to find their way and is never even gonna give.
A HIBAs a shot because they see some of these prices and they just assume that as a category as a whole. Mm-hmm. , it's un, it's just so inaccessible. Yep. That it's not worth, I don't wanna spend $20 on a cigar that I have no idea whether I'm gonna like or not, but that they feel more comfortable spending 10 or $12 on a cigar to figure out whether they like or not.
So for me, the perception that this creates, [01:36:00] I think in the long run, is gonna spell real problems. When you think about like the next generation of cigar smokers that may never give this the same try where you think about when we all had our first Cuban cigar, I mean, we were able to spend $10 to get a D four.
The stakes were so low, whether we liked it or not, we weren't worried about the outcome. I think, you know, years from now, someone that's gotta spend $20 to just get their foot wet with, in the Cuban market, that's gonna really deter a lot of people. That's what kills me.
**Rob Ayala:** It's
**Bam Bam:** a lot. And the timing before the price increase allowed us all here to stock up our cabinets and it was a great advantage.
But to your point, were the new guys gonna, do you know, what options did they have? They're gonna go New World or Rob's new cigar line. ,
**Rob Ayala:** I think. I think it's also fair. Or others. Yeah. Or
**Grinder:** others. Yeah. I think it's also fairly regional though, because the, the elasticity, I think for the price increase in North America of Cuban cigars, there is some elasticity.
There's the people that are smoking [01:37:00] Cuban cigars. To Gizmo's point are more, are, are probably gonna be okay with an extra dollar or two that they're paying for that Cuban cigar. We also have the wonderful new world market here for a lot of those people that a lot of those teachers and taxi drivers, they're never, they, they, that perception is already there.
So they're smoking new world cigars out of the Dominican outta Nicaragua, out of, you know, Honduras and they're loving them and they, you know, they'll continue to try New World cigars and enjoy them and maybe they'll have a Cuban era there. But the price elasticity in in North America, I think is, is there, whereas in somewhere like Asia or Europe, you're kind of mostly smoking Cuban cigars.
So there, it's the, the capacity is the market really is smaller because you're only focused on that one kind of havanas portfolio. So yeah, you're immediately priced outta the market as much. You don't have as much.
**Bam Bam:** And that goes to Rob's point that he made earlier where the European market is shrinking or truncating.
[01:38:00] Right. Because of this.
**Rooster:** Yeah. And imagine if the US the embargo ends and they start supplying to the us, it'll never end. I mean, this , it's never ending .
**Gizmo:** I hope it ends one
day.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Rob, we just threw
**Rob Ayala:** off. That's right. There's nothing, there's nothing wrong with the $16 D four. Yeah. Cause I think that's probably where it should have been priced. Uh, all along what's wrong is how you communicate with your, with, with the client. Um, and, and to, and to give and to change that over 35 days or 45 days was a disgrace.
I mean, I don't care how you turn it up upside down. It was a disgrace. It it, in terms of, you know, you run a marketing campaign for a year, an education campaign let's this become politicians. It's not a marketing campaign, it's education campaign for a year. And you say that, look, it's one of the great cigars in the world here is, you know, in terms of the echelon of [01:39:00] cigars as a robusta, it is in line with the top end or better than the top end olivo.
It's in line with very good for drawings, et cetera. There we're gonna call it a $16 to go, but you go, you go knock the price up 25%, 25%, and then you come back, what is it now? It's May and you come back five months later and tell the world you gotta knock it up again. What, another 10, 15% in January? Yep.
Then the only impression you are given is an industry in disarray or a company in disarray. You're not giving any other impression. There's no education, there's no, there's no discussion points here. And, and, and that's concerning. Um, I, in, in terms of when are they gonna stop, does that mean that like generally their price increases come in May every year?
So does that mean there's another price increase in may? Oh God. Uh, what, what, what is there? What is
**Gizmo:** that? I mean, yeah, they're gonna raise the price twice a year.
**Bam Bam:** This is just insanity
**Rob Ayala:** now. [01:40:00] Its, so basically they had the marketing meeting, uh, distributed marketing meeting in June. There was no, there was no discussion of, of, of a,
right. So, and of course they normally don't discuss price increase or distributors don't discuss it with retailers. Cuz what the retailers do, they go and rate everything they can possibly get up front, um, to beat the price. But it, these days you can't do that anyway. Cause enough stock, they don't have the stock to give it to.
So yeah, my, my biggest issue is just a lack of transparency. A lack of lack of direction. Um, I don't know, what do I tell the, what do I, so we have a BM as well. Yes. Not just online. We have a BM locally. So what do you tell your guys who come in on, uh, on, on, on the, on the 15th of January and their D four just got up another $3.
How much abuse can you, how much abuse can you take as a, as a Cuban [01:41:00] cigar lover? Divot, you know, you're forcing a lot of these people to go out and, and look at other things. Mind you, look, 30% of our client base couldn't care. Yeah. Mm-hmm. They'll just, 30% of client base couldn't care. And I'll, I'll just spend the dollars.
**Pagoda:** But the, um, the other issue is I think in the US market for the new entrants who do want to try Cubans, uh, firstly obviously it's, uh, very difficult to procure them. Uh, but, uh, in addition to that, uh, if somebody wants to try a particular cigar, he has to end up buying a box. And I think, um, the alternative is, uh, they can go into a retail store in the US and pick up a single, you know, or at least try one or two cigars of any of the new world.
So I think, uh, I think the long term, uh, ramifications that, uh, you know, could be a, a, you know, a different market in time to come because the quality of the new worlds have been improving [01:42:00] day by day, and
**Rob Ayala:** there's no question about that. It's, it's, it's, uh, you know, 10 years ago you would struggle to, to have a decent trust outside the major brands, a decent nc uh, under the, over the, a $10 decent nc.
Now there's, there's heaps. There's heaps. It, it's, the market has changed dramatically. Uh, or the quality, the blending, the blending, the blending process has gone. And look, you still have all those private labels, um, who go and order a private label from some of the majors. And there's only six pri. So there's only six blends, and you might have a hundred private labels going and getting six.
Or, or, or going to a major manufacturer and they get given one or six plans and that's their private label and, and they're happy with that. There's no shortcut to real blending. And I do respect people who go out there and, and really spend [01:43:00] the time to blending something that they love and taking it to their re to their community, to their retail network in the US and get it done.
Um, but I don't think you guys realize how special you have it in the US in terms of the ability to walk into demands and, and buy a stick, sit down and smoke. It is almost unknown of. In Asia and Europe. Wow. In terms of accessibility. Wow. So what was unheard of? It's crazy. Yeah. Uh, that is, that's
**Bam Bam:** insane.
**Gizmo:** And we were thinking we had it so good when we were in Cuba. Oh yeah. You know, bam, bam. And I sat down at the, the best restaurants we were at. You're sitting there with your steak, you light up the cigar and nobody even looks at you. Funny. They were
**Bam Bam:** bringing Trinidads around in one of the restaurants.
Yeah. I box them. Amazing.
**Rob Ayala:** Just open Which one? Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Esmeralda. Esmeralda Ess. Very
**Rooster:** good. No less.
**Rob Ayala:** Did you type your black lot?
**Bam Bam:** I couldn't fit it in a luggage. [01:44:00] It's a good question
**Gizmo:** actually. You know, the other thing that's true, you know, the don't gotta say too, Rob, that we've learned on the podcast here is that exactly to your point. So we came into this, uh, doing this and, and we've all been, uh, loving Cuban cigars for the last few years especially.
And we came into this and we alternate every week a Cuban, non Cuban. Right. And we were really anticipating that the Cubans were gonna blow it out of the water. And not only have we had some. We come in and, oh, what's cigar? We spoke today. We pull it out. Oh God, what's this gonna be like? We've had some really crazy revelations about quality, big surprises, huge surprises.
And actually, if you look at the data over the last 60 something episodes, Cuban and non Cuban are like almost identical on the average rating. Neck and neck. Neck and neck. Like everything I think is average out like an 8.0. Is that true? Yes, it is. And you're, you're rating two pba. Yeah. You are. When I'm rating You gotta look at the spreadsheet.
Yeah, it's on the website. But, um, it's, it's been a real revelation. The other point I wanted to make too, Rob, for listeners out [01:45:00] there to, uh, to, to Pagodas point about needing to buy boxes. Actually the one thing I think is cool on, on 24 24 is that you also offer quarter boxes and half boxes. So somebody who wants to try something without having to buy all 25, you can get six sticks or 12 sticks or whatever.
**Rob Ayala:** Um, split 'em, split 'em with a mate and, and, and do that. But in terms of the biggest problem with ncs, always what, or from, from an outsider looking in. Cause I used to love back in the 97, 98, 99, 96, 97, 98, 99. So I used to love the Tony Bajai cigars. Um, some of the stuff that Tony Bajai was doing was great.
Some of those Lalor Kobo, wave Maduros the Ernesto was doing were Superbs cigars. But the minute they got popular and the minute the production had to increase to meet demand is a minute they. The quality went out the window. Um, and it, it's one of the big, you know, popularity comes with a curse. Yeah. You gotta be able to manage it in, in terms of [01:46:00] production, uh, and maintaining, maintaining discipline in what you're delivering.
Um, and I, that's what I love about for John so much is, is that if they don't have it, they don't sell it consistently. There's no shortcuts. Yeah. The shortcuts, yeah. If you're a retailer, well then you have to wait, uh, until they're ready. Um, which huge kudos.
**Senator:** I, I think what you just said there, Rob, is so important.
I think the most underrated thing just about cigars generally is consistency. It's so underappreciated. I mean, the fact that you have to have a scoring system for boxes of Cubans, in a perfect world, they would all be consistent. There would never even be a need for it. And the brands that do that better than others deserve all the credit in the world.
**Gizmo:** And
**Poobah:** Petron is, and Petron does that top of the line. Petron does that, those standards are so high.
**Rob Ayala:** The curse with Cuban cigars. But people love Cuban cigars that [01:47:00] it's a little like, it's a little bit like a golf shot, isn't it? Yeah. I dunno if you guys play golf, but you know, you could be a hacker and you can, you could be scoring 109 and you hit that one shot, that one shot.
Just goes this close to the pin and that's, and you go home and for the next week, all you think about that one glorious shot, not your scorecard. Yeah. And it keeps you going back. And with Cub Cuban cigars, I, we had a St. Louis, St. Louis Ray double crown the other day with Kenny on, on one of our reviews.
It was a 98, 99 point cigar. Wow. You just occasionally on a Cuban cigar, whether it be a D four or 8 98, you get a 97, 98, 96, 97, 98. That just keeps you coming back. Cause you know what, it's almost impossible to get that level of perfection when, when you hit, you don't, it's hard to describe when you smoke it, you know it cuz you've all had it.
Oh yeah. It's just that, that one [01:48:00] glorious piece of perfection that keeps you coming back.
**Poobah:** Like a, like a Vegas, Virginia Classic Classico 2011 . That's
**Gizmo:** the one, Rob, there you go. Speaking of, we only brought, we only brought you on, we only invited you on to just bribe you and just asked, do you have any of those hidden around the warehouse that you can maybe Great question.
Speak out the back door to us. Great question. Those s you have, those doesn't have to be a PSB box.
**Rooster:** We
**Rob Ayala:** don't need the sticker. You guys would know, I, I love the VA classicals, but would I be wrong in saying that 30% of those were plugged? No, no. In those, in those good years. Not the 2011, not the elevens, not the 11th.
The ones we had not feeling before that. No, before that. Before that. Before that they were rooster's. The
**Bam Bam:** only guy who would know. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** You're entering I a 2001 box. Smoking. Great. Yeah.
**Rob Ayala:** Excuse me. Yeah, .
**Gizmo:** Oh, let me ask you, so that slr,
**Rooster:** was that the Churchill that you smoked? Double Corona. [01:49:00] Double Corona.
**Rob Ayala:** What, what year?
Uh, I b a narrow I 7
**Rooster:** 0 7. Yeah. I'm on Bond Roberts right now.
**Rob Ayala:** Get me a box please. . Yeah. Seriously.
**Poobah:** The but the chase, it's, you're, you're talking about Yeah. You know, you, you have that there are these Cuban cigars that are so special and, um, these runs that laddering back to the runs you're talking about. And these runs and, and, uh, it is, it is like a
**Rob Ayala:** golf shot. Yeah.
My busto of all time. I still remember smoking on the balcony 15 years ago, and it, it was, it was honey dripping with cream. I still remember, I can still taste it, honey. It was the closest point to a hundred points cigar that I've had. And, you know, I, I still judge every cava a buso against that one moment.[01:50:00]
Um, Which is unfair, but it's that one moment that keeps reaching for a Hebrew or bus just in case. Uh, it's totally unfair, but Cares , it's who cares?
**Bam Bam:** Who cares?
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. Who cares? But it is, and I don't find that I, like, I've had, I just don't find a lot of 96, 97, 98 point NCS that I've come across yet, and I look forward to coming across those.
I just don't get that, that that magical shot that you get from, from Cuba. And mind you, it's, it's, I'm sure it's completely by accident outta Cuba actually. Just everything, all the stars and, and the moons aligned on the day, uh, to get it done. I don't think that's, and, and Hamlet hamlet's very good. Like he, he says blending with Cuban tobacco is the easiest thing in the world because the tobacco is smooth, rich and sweet.[01:51:00]
And it's so easy to blend with. You don't really have to blend. Anyone can do it. It's not that difficult to do. Uh, it gets And it's a p Yeah, it gets it. I, I love, I love Nick blenders cuz they, it's far more of a challenge if you're a nick blend. Yeah. Uh, to get that balance right. Cuz it's very Yeah.
There's not many Nicaragua and PS for a reason. Yeah. You need to, you need to blend it out. You need to blend it out.
**Poobah:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** It's. So guys, we're coming to the end of the part, Lu. Mm-hmm. . I'm curious what everybody's thinking of this experience today. It's an amazing, fantastic smoke.
**Bam Bam:** No issues
**Gizmo:** here. No barn issues.
The draw is, uh,
**Rooster:** it's slightly little bit on the, on the, like a medium, you know, like little tight, but not bad. I kind of like it, it's not like completely open, uh, but burning great, great
**Gizmo:** flavor.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah, I, I unfortunately had to put mine down.
**Bam Bam:** My wrapper [01:52:00] exploded, . Oh. So it was, uh, busted.
**Poobah:** Yeah. My, uh, just the build on that, my wrapper exploded as well.
Yeah. So, so, um, uh, so I don't know what that, that, that, did
**Bam Bam:** you take the band off too
**Poobah:** early? No, no, no, no.
**Grinder:** I tried to take
**Poobah:** the band off to save it, actually. Yeah. You would save it with taking the band off, but the, uh, it, it, it, it was very good all the way down until I just started having that issue
**Rob Ayala:** also.
Very good. So, so my, my rapper explained as I said before, and, um, it's still exploding here.
looking at them. Yeah. So, so we got, we got eight people here and three have got construction issues from rappers.
**Rooster:** And this
**Gizmo:** is about a what, $30 stick? Yeah, probably. Yeah.
**Rob Ayala:** Right. Yeah. Plus, yeah. So that's what they gotta get right? We'll
**Gizmo:** just have to, we'll [01:53:00] just have to use the hi Bonos money back guarantee.
Rob, we'll just, uh, package these all up and
**Rob Ayala:** send them. It would be paid, it'd be paid in PEs. Yeah. Uh, .
**Bam Bam:** I'm, I'm going back to my ra.
**Gizmo:** So are you guys ready to do the, uh, formal list rating on this thing? Oh, yeah. All right. So Rob, we're gonna need a whole number from you, zero through 10. And, uh, you can go Last courtesy, guess courtesy.
You can go last, please. All right. Roa, you're up. So I'm gonna give it an eight. Okay. Yeah, I'm in, I'm an eight. Mind didn't explode, so,
**Poobah:** no, no. I'm an happy with it. It, it's, it's everything that the cigar is and should be where it is. Uh, but because of that, because of the construction issue, I give it an eight.
**Gizmo:** Okay. I'm gonna give it a nine. Mine was delicious all the way down. No problems. I really enjoyed it. Senator,
**Senator:** this is tough for me because, uh, I mean, Rob doesn't necessarily notice, but I, I, I'm obsessed with Parus. It's easily my favorite [01:54:00] brand. I love the LU 10, but I have to say, I, I, this was not as complex as other loosies I've had and I'm not sure why.
I mean, I have a cabinet that's, uh, 2020 and I feel it's more complex than this. I, in the very final fourth, the rapper also did explode on mine. So it pains me to do this cuz this cigar most days for me would be a nine. Um, but I'm gonna have to give it.
**Pagoda:** Um, I'm giving it an eight as well. And, uh, for me it did explode.
I just moved through it and then it somehow just, uh, got back together. Um, uh, I really enjoyed, uh, the last, uh, third, uh, more so than the middle. Uh, enjoyed it in the beginning as well, but an eight for me. Okay.
**Gizmo:** Grindr? Eight. Eight for Grindr. And Rob, what's your
**Bam Bam:** rating? And, uh, bam, bam needs to, oh, I forgot.
Bam. Bam. Rob, I forgot. Bam, bam, bam. You see
**Rob Ayala:** Rob done . Did you see that? Rob ? Take notes.
**Bam Bam:** Take notes. He's been [01:55:00] very quiet, Rob. I have. So I intentionally smoked this very slow, slower than normal because I wanted to really experience this whole cigar. I'm giving it a nine. I got a, a little bit of baking spice, a little salt.
It was for me. Fantastic. And I'm taking this all the way down nine for me.
**Gizmo:** Awesome. All right. Rob, what's your number?
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah, salt is six. Um, in that I smoke a fair few. Lucy, this wasn't the best one. The role had a, a tough day at the office on this one. Um, they, they got the first half right that, that sour do, that, uh, that sweep for pre mix.
It was actually really nicely done that first half. But then they, they, they screwed up the, they screwed up the blend on the back end on this, and it just became. Hot and dirty. Um, ashy, they lost interest. Uh, they screwed it up and so they get it sticks. Ooh,
**Bam Bam:** tough, tough grader. That's a tough one. Yeah, Rob's a
**Gizmo:** tough grader.
Wow. I like it. All right, boys. The formal wizard [01:56:00] rating on the particle Solicitating is an 8.0.
**Rob Ayala:** Nice. What? Yeah. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Good score. Yeah, it's a good score.
**Poobah:** So
**Gizmo:** Rob, eight points cigar. Rob, I wanted to ask you, oh, sorry, Senator. I was just gonna say, I
**Senator:** mean, this goes back to the pursuit, right? Because I think all of us, Rob included, have had loosies that score much higher than this one.
Mm-hmm. , and, you know, it was satisfying enough, but we're left wanting more and we know that if you pursue these enough, you're gonna find that magic one that's gonna do the job.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. And I think that, I don't know, for me, that makes the, the Cuban cigar chase, we've talked about this like, like, you know, senator and and p are really into wine.
To me it's like, it's kind of like that journey, like you're just chasing that thing. It makes it more intriguing that sometimes you hit and sometimes you don't. Or going back to the golf analogy, like that's what makes Cuban cigars. Really interesting to me. I don't know. And
**Senator:** for the listener, when you hit stock up, it's just like wine.
When you find that just perfect blend that year, just a good crop you wanna stock up by the caseload. Great advice. And it's the same thing with boxes of
**Gizmo:** these. Just call Rob, he'll [01:57:00] get you a master case. .
**Rob Ayala:** I think that I'd I think that when you blend a cigar and when you roll a cigar and, and then and the not and the NC world because they, because they roll cigars in pairs.
Someone does the bunching, someone does the wrapping. Your consistency is far better than, than the Cuban cigar world where one guy, one girl does the entire, one woman does the entire thing. Yeah. So one guy does the bunching, one girl does the bunching in the nicarag world and they just seem to get it right.
Especially you have small teams, so you've got 10, 10 pairs. You can actually maintain that consistent. The, I'm a big believer on how cigar should start, cuz you remember that. But also how it finishes is, is important. So if you screw up the finish of a cigar, you haven't done your job. Um, you've gotta blend that finish road.
It can't be two overpowering. It's gotta have a level of interest. It's gotta have a level of integrity and DNA for that to go. And this is why this one here didn't do it. They didn't blend the back end. Right. And they get a fail. [01:58:00] Not a fail, but it was good to go. It wasn't great.
**Rooster:** I got a question for you, Rob.
That's a good, that's very, are there any, uh, years that you. Avoid in Cuban
**Gizmo:** cigars, like, let's say the dark
**Rooster:** period. What's your opinion about that? Or 2017 maybe wasn't a, a great year, 20 16, 20 17. What's your opinion?
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah, I, I again runs so I can go back to my notes and tell you which ones to buy in 2017 months.
Um, it, which were great, but I mean, we, everyone, everyone knows that the late, the late 1990s wasn't a special time. Um, 2004 I thought was pretty ordinary. Uh, 16, 17, not their best of years, generally just producing a lot of cigars, but Jesus, a lot of rubbish coming through it. I suppose Trinidad took that down too.
Yeah. I mean, Trinidad in those years weren't great, and there's always exceptions to the real people. Say, I bought a boxer from the DOS 2016. That was brilliant. [01:59:00] That's fine. Congratulations. But the reality is that there's a lot of rubbish produced at the same time, and it shouldn't be thousand 16, 17. Yeah.
I, I wouldn't be rushing out. Right.
**Rooster:** So 2004, 20 16, 20 17 and obviously
**Gizmo:** the dark period. Yeah.
**Rob Ayala:** Right. Yeah. And the dark period. Um, but again, there, there are plenty. There are plenty of exceptions. You get the box for the right price. Yeah, have a crack, but. I wouldn't be putting my money down on, on too much there.
To give you an idea, the, there's lots of 2016, so they up in part Coronas, who's a up in part Corona fan. What big fans? Yeah, so, so again, the PC of 16, they're, again, my clients are completely divided and nagar. Um, some love and a lot of up in particular are fans, [02:00:00] but they're not quite sure about that year of them.
16 was a bit troubling. Not an all cigar, just some,
**Rooster:** I have a D four, it's a 2016 box. It's phenomenal. Same smoke's. Great.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. Generally they, they continually improved from 2005 on, um, and the biggest jump for me in improvement year on year was, uh, 2, 6, 7, and eight. They just went to another level in that and they've been building since then.
Um,
**Senator:** I'm actually curious, along with what Rooster asked around certain years, um, are there Cuban markers or brands that you would say fair better on the consistency front than others? We've talked about in the new world space, Padron being kind of the, the benchmark for consistency. Are there certain Cuban brands that you think odds are more times than not, they're gonna be consistent than others?[02:01:00]
**Rob Ayala:** No . No, that's depressing. It
**Bam Bam:** has to be
**Poobah:** parus. Well, no, but I gotta ask a question. So like, Parus Parus, okay, so the alphabet series in Parus, it couldn't, you ar couldn't you argue that that maybe is more consistent than what Marni puts out?
**Rob Ayala:** So we were doing, we were doing, sorry, they were doing some, uh, do do was it uh, they were doing some Bbf Outta Parus.
It was about 2016, I think it's 2 16, 17. Yeah. Where you could, you could squeeze every bbf that came out of potus. You could squeeze between thumb and forefinger and touch your fingers. Yeah. And we put in a complaint. We didn't, we filmed it and throw it through to PCC and p across the, cuz we'd normally expect nothing to come back from that sort of, um, complaint.
But it turned out there's a [02:02:00] massive, massive little business going on. People just, just taking out filler to make their own cigars at home. Yeah. That's wonderful. What . So they really cracked down, you know, we went through that period of it, that period of underfilling of cigars in 6 15, 16, 17. A lot of cigars were underfilled and some people today will say they're underfilled, but this was nothing compared to what it was during that period of time.
And it was a complete scan going, uh, internally. So yeah, that was through Parus. Parus has, look, partis is a good factory. Generally Parus does good cigars. But you're gonna say that the most consistent. Yeah, maybe. I mean, look, they're up there, but I couldn't put them above Elto. I couldn't put them above la I mean la um, the Beto cigars, the dip twos that came out with those Beto cigars, anything that was made, anything that were made at that period of time, uh, when Beto came out, you can pick up a dip two [02:03:00] from that same period.
Those dip twos are probably some of the greatest dip twos in history. I
**Gizmo:** dunno. Why? What period is that? Yeah, what
**Rob Ayala:** year is that? What are we talking, uh, I've lost, I've had a mental block here. Are we talking, are we talking two? Are we talking 15? I'd have to double check there, but it, they are some of the best dip twos.
Just look at the, the production period for BTO and, and buy DTS from that period. My God, I've never seen Dip Twos better pre right to that or post that. Um, and, and the smoking of the stunning So again, runs, yeah, runs, runs. What is, what
**Rooster:** is Boto?
**Rob Ayala:** A Diplomatico bto, which is a PCC regional release should be an ah, interest.
**Gizmo:** Ah, yeah. We haven't had good luck with dip twos, so I'd I'd love to have a dip two that blew me away. Yeah, it just hasn't happened.
**Rob Ayala:** Well, you know it bit two and not everything that you buy or not every [02:04:00] blend is gonna resonate with your palette either. Um, there are certain cigars that that members, um, speak volumes about, but I just don't get it.
I just, I just, I just can't get, it took me years to get La Gloria Kubo law number twos. I went a decade. I couldn't understand what people were going on about. Uh, we
**Gizmo:** love that cigar .
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. You love that cigar? Yeah. Yes. There's there's something on my pallet that doesn't get what you guys are getting and that's fine.
I just, I just, I'm just not wired that way. We love the number
**Rooster:** four. Oh my god. Number two and the
**Bam Bam:** number three. They're incredible.
**Senator:** But it is a very different flavor profile. Yes. And we talk about how it's floral, that cigars, it's
**Gizmo:** very unique. It is. Rob, when was the last time you saw MD four s come up?
**Rob Ayala:** Um, it'd be two years now.
Yeah. But I've seen, I've seen them in Europe with, uh, 22 box code on the forum. Yeah, it's, [02:05:00] I know that's good. Europe. Again, again, this is depth of production, so someone's gonna make, cause basically they get a quota. You the factory, we get a quota and make 10,000 sticks or whatever it's gonna be. Wait for the boxes to come in, send them out.
And that doesn't mean they're gonna be made again for another 12. And 10,050 is nothing. Yeah. Um, so what's that? 800 800 boxes. So, and off they go around the world and they come up on shelves and people think they're back in stock. But the reality is no one's got another quota for production for another 12 months or 18 months.
No one knows.
**Gizmo:** So
**Poobah:** it's sad.
**Gizmo:** That's sad. And that just happened with Sir Winston's too. Everybody was really excited that Sir Winston's were popping up and there wasn't much out there. No.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. It, again, it's Loaves and Fishes. Yeah. Um, it's, it's just pretend. Yeah. And gone. It, it's, and we're seeing it across the board.
There's just no depth to production outside of the, of your money Twos, your defor, your MoHos, your money for your [02:06:00] money ones, they seem to have that in regular production, but outside of that, it is just, it's a classic shell game. Here it is. Bang. And there's Scott and it's not there next month.
**Gizmo:** Wow. So, back to the Lutia.
One last question for you, Rob. What was the best lutia you've ever had? Oh, T
**Rob Ayala:** cabinet 2005 had the most beautiful resta rappers that just looked like a rub with vase. On them, but just Rada not dark, just red. Just red dirt rappers. Gorgeous. And, um, I, I think I finished the last one of those, uh, two years ago.
And the great, I, I don't think I had anything less than a 96 points hour outta that goddamn down cabinet. Wow. And I love it's add that Toon Robert's, my favorite rapper, . It, it's my favorite rapper. I, I love a red rapper. I love that ro [02:07:00] though, that proper red, red rapper on a cigar, uh, thin light oil on it.
And it just imparts a beautiful finishing touch towards cigar. That's unique. Sometimes
**Rooster:** you see them on the Parus el box. Yeah. Like the reddish, reddish brown rapper. Beautiful.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. Yeah. And that's why they, you see them on the, on the, also the parus, uh, E twos. And if you see, if you see a, if you see a Aldo rap on a, on an E two specifically if it comes from Elto, they had that beautiful run of Elto E two s for, for two years.
And majority were along that Resto or Colorado, Colorado, resto Rapids. And they're still hardly sought after because they just exceptional gas.
**Gizmo:** When we were at Elto last week, there was, uh, one of the rooms had finished boxes of E two s. Unbelievable. There must have been [02:08:00] 300 boxes just stacked full of,
**Bam Bam:** and they won't leave the country
**Rob Ayala:** for a
**Poobah:** year.
I have to say that, that, well, that particular cigar, even if you're not a fan of larger ring gauge cigar cigars, that that particular smoke, uh, is just outstanding. It's outstanding, uh, most of the time, uh, especially with a little bit of age. It's
**Rob Ayala:** uh oh, absolutely. I mean, kudos to them. Whoever blended that cigar hats off.
That was a remarkable blend. Whoever blended the Rio Sec, the ho de macho Rio Secco, forget the size of the cigar. Forget the gauge. But what are unique cigar and at their best, and they're fairly consistent, but it is what a beautiful flavor profile. Anyone who can actually engineer a gingerbread type. In a cigar and do it consistently.
10 outta 10.
**Bam Bam:** You're, you're singing my song now,
**Rob Ayala:** Rob.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, 10 outta [02:09:00] 10. So we gotta get some of those too. Rooster has a big list for Bon Roberts tonight. Rob ,
**Rob Ayala:** enjoy .
**Bam Bam:** Good
**Gizmo:** luck. All right, Rob, thank you so much for coming on tonight, man. We really appreciate your time and your insight and, and your support.
Thank you so much for, uh, for coming on and joining us for the pod tonight.
**Rob Ayala:** Fabulous conversation. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Um, it it's just great talking cigars. Who, with people who love cigars and, um, continue doing what you're doing. Um, it's, it's. Thank you.
**Gizmo:** Thank you, man. We need to do this again. Yeah. When you come to New York, we'll, we'll, we'll do some NCS that maybe we'll get you close to the 98, 99 point nc.
We have a couple for you that we want you to try.
**Rob Ayala:** Yeah. Yeah. I love the journey. Yeah. , it'll be messy, .
**Poobah:** We're all for that.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, an 8.0 tonight on the part Luciana. Again, Rob, thank you so much for [02:10:00] coming on. We really, really appreciate it. And uh, hope you come on again soon.
**Rob Ayala:** Cheers. Balance. Take care.
All right
**Gizmo:** boys, we'll see you next week. Keep smoking. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You could find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, lounge lizards pod.com. That's lounge lizards p od.com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us hello@loungelizardspod.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizard's Pot. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.