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Recorded at the Ten86 Cigar Lounge in Hawthorne, New Jersey, the lizards smoke an aged Saint Luis Rey Regios with Dan from Cigar Salute. The guys do a deep dive on counterfeit Cuban cigars, they discuss Gizmo’s purchase of fake Cubans from a trusted retailer and how to avoid making the same mistake, and they review the current state of Habanos S.A.
Plus: The Legend of the Dr. Joe Show, Dan's Favorite New World Cigars, Bond Roberts' Impact, Cigar Aficionado Cohiba 55 Unboxing
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. 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, and tonight I'm joined by Rooster Puba. Pagoda, and bam. Bam. And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some whiskey, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs.
So take this as your 52nd 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 cubitt cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating. We welcome Dan from Cigar Salute for a deep dive on counterfeit Cuban cigars.
We discuss my purchase of fake Cubans from a trusted retailer and how to avoid making the same mistake. And we review the current state of a Bonos all among a variety of other things for the next two hours. So sit back, get your favorite drink, write up a cigar, and a enjoy as we smoke an age St. Louis, Ray Regio.
A Corona Extra tonight from St. Louis. [00:01:00] Ray from Cuba on the podcast, a uh, 48 ring gauge by five inch ci. The Cuban factory name of this viola is a Hermosa number four, and this boys is the only cigar that, uh, St. Louis Ray makes in regular production, which I know that's ridiculous. Our guest here, Dan, thinks is a sin and I think is a sin
Uh, and I can't wait to smoke this thing tonight. It's,
**Poobah:** and by the way, and Dan loves Hermosas.
**Gizmo:** I know he does. I
**Dan:** know he does . I don't, I don't think there's a single bad, uh, Hermosa, number four viola that Cuba makes. Yeah. You know, if, if you, if you look at them, uh, by Viola, uh, every cigar in that size that Cuba offers in my, in my opinion, is, uh, is a special cigar.
Wow. You Yeah. I
**Poobah:** like to learn about that. Yeah. The Schwa Supreme. That's it. That's a Osis,
**Dan:** right? Yes, sir. The, uh, Vegas Robina Feso, the, uh, h Chapman connoisseur, number one. [00:02:00] Uh, yeah. What else do we have? Uh, the poor lo yaga, uh, Pico dore, which, uh, I'm kind of on the fence about, but a lot of people love that cigar.
Hmm.
**Gizmo:** Well this is the first time I haven't had this cigar before. Oh, you haven't? No, I've never had. I have. It's good man. This is my first time having us. I was telling Dan last night, I've never had this cigar. I was really excited to do this on the pod today and with Dan. So hopefully get
**Rooster:** some, uh, fruit notes
**Gizmo:** out of this
I hope so. Alright boys. That's what it's known for. Let's cut this thing. See we're getting on the cold. Draw the wrapper, St. Louis Ray. So we're welcoming on tonight. Uh, a very close friend of of the lizards, uh, Puba and Dan connected. Dan is the, uh, proprietor, the curator of Cigar Salute, a fantastic online resource.
The Cuban cigar community, the cigar community at large. Uh, and we'll get into, uh, specifically why we decided to ask Dan to come [00:03:00] on, uh, very kindly. He decided to join us, uh, about some fake Cuban cigars that happened, um, in our world. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. But yeah, we're, uh, very, very happy to have you on.
Dan. Thanks for joining us tonight.
**Dan:** Glad to be here. Thanks for having me,
**Gizmo:** gentlemen.
**Bam Bam:** Got it. Yes. Honestly, the cold draw on this is fantastic. Wide open draw for me, eh, it's very good. I'm getting a lot of dry fruit on this guy.
**Dan:** Yeah. Uh, dried fruit, a little bit of a grassy note. Mm. A bit. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I get that.
It's delicious. .
**Dan:** Beautiful. You guys are smoking on 2000 sixteens, if I recall
**Gizmo:** correctly, right? Mm-hmm. , yeah, oms. June 16 is our box code. Yep.
**Rooster:** How's the, how's the band on yours? Uh, Dan, because some of, some of the s LR radios, like the middle part, like the gold emblem, has a lot of detail, and sometimes it's kind of like blurry.
**Dan:** Uh, this one's definitely on the blurrier side. This is a, [00:04:00] uh, or G uh, November, 2015. Um, the last one I have from, uh, from this particular batch, uh, this, uh, I find usually they're not typically, uh, overly, uh, detailed on the embossing. Uh, some, sometimes I do notice, uh, better embossing than others from, uh, batch to batch.
But, um, mostly on the special edition ones, you know, like the regionals seem to have the, the high quality embossing. Um, I'm not sure about the regular production ones though. I have to look at my more, uh, current boxes. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah. I haven't looked personally, I haven't looked at the band in detail on this particular cigar.
There is probably, cuz I haven't smoked that many of them. There is some detail on this one looks like. Yeah, but there's some mud You're saying it's muted. It's muddled, it's muted. It's muddled. Yeah. Yep,
**Gizmo:** yep. Like a crest or something,
**Poobah:** right? Yeah. Can we smoke isma now please, sir? ,
**Gizmo:** let's light thes lights.
Let's slide it up. [00:05:00] The St. Louis Ray REOs from Cuba. Again, it's a 48 ring gauge cigar by five inches. And, uh, very, very excited. This is my first time smoking the cigar tonight, so,
**Bam Bam:** so Dan, I didn't know who you were until I saw your face on the camera , but I know you, I know you now. I'm a fan of your
**Dan:** posts. I appreciate that.
**Poobah:** Thank you. Yeah. Speaking of being a fan of, uh, Of Dan's content. Um, that's kind of how I stumbled upon him. But, but indirectly through, through Dr. Joe and the Dr. Joe Show. For the listeners out there. I I, I reckon, I mean, is his content getting slightly dated at this point? Maybe, but, uh, it's pretty educational.
If you're interested in Cuban cigars. He was a really passionate, uh, guy. It comes through in his podcast, so it's kind of entertaining. Um, uh, cuz it's just him and [00:06:00] sometimes he's just yelling at the camera. are his, you just, you know, you're just like, you're just like, my God. He's like, I can't believe that this is going on.
But anyway. Are his videos still up? Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh God, I'm gonna mess them up. So I really enjoyed watching them cuz it was this, it's this quirky but informative, long form thing and that, and so Dan was kind of inspired to do, um, through like subsequent communications. After we connected, I started watching Cigar Salute and Dan's content.
I think, or how he approached it was somewhat inspired, and correct me if I'm wrong by Dr.
**Dan:** Joe. Oh, for sure. It absolutely was. Um, I feel like something like cigars, it deserves an in-depth comprehensive, uh, discussion. You know, how could you go through something as, as complex as the, as the cigar world without taking time to do it?
And how could you teach somebody or, or try to, um, convey a point or [00:07:00] educate without going into detail and giving people the information that, um, is, uh, either, uh, uh, scattered around the internet in all different places and maybe people don't know where to look, or, uh, somebody that's just coming into the cigar hobby and, you know, delivering.
Uh, a comprehensive piece of, uh, media to them, for them to, uh, to consume and, and study and, and, you know, uh, learn from. So that's just my style. I like to be, you know, detailed, thorough, and I like to, uh, take my time. Hmm. Yeah. And
**Gizmo:** we do the same thing. I mean, we do a long form podcast here, you know, and I love that about you guys.
An hour, hour and a half. So, absolutely. So I, let me, let me just say for a second, , this cigars unbelievable, dude. It's
**Bam Bam:** a flavor
**Gizmo:** bomb right off the bat. I mean, it's like pori. It's ridiculous. It's fruity. There's a little, [00:08:00] Hey, I hope it continues. I mean, this is a phen, this is off to a phenomenal start. Oh yeah.
Unbelievable.
**Poobah:** Mine's good. It's, um, oh, it's very, at this point, I mean it's very easygoing. It's got a lot of body, which is super nice. Um, yeah. It's very enjoyable. Right.
**Bam Bam:** Great, great. Combustion pago. You gotta love this one, huh? Definitely.
**Dan:** Loving construction. I'm loving it. Yeah. And this is great, you know, now I feel like I may might have made a mistake having a sip of the whiskey because, you know, I think it, you know, sometimes the whiskey can overpower the flavors, so I'm just gonna to, uh, keep smoking
**Gizmo:** for better.
The construction
**Poobah:** on it is actually, um, I think it's nicer. Superb. It's superb. Nicer than what maybe what would be expected for, for
**Gizmo:** these maybe. So,
**Rooster:** you know, I had a, I had a Juan Lopez number one this afternoon, . I thought that was like a fantastic cigar. Yeah. I mean, I love the [00:09:00] Juan Lopez, number one. Can I say And, and this after, after that, I mean, I didn't think the one Lopez could
**Gizmo:** be beat.
Yeah. This
**Rooster:** is what
**Bam Bam:** a start is up there. It is a little reminiscent of the one. It is
**Gizmo:** a bit, it is, yeah. The one Lopez can be
**Dan:** beat, I mean.
**Gizmo:** Oh
**Rooster:** yeah. No, I mean, uh, Juan Lopez, number one that I had today was for some reason, like, you know how you get like, I like it better than the number two, of course. But the one that I had today was exceptional in that side percent in the afternoon setting.
It was just, you know, it was really good. Very
**Gizmo:** satisfying. Dan, how's your
**Dan:** smoking? One thing I really love about the, uh, St. Louis Ray Regio is, um, I always find like a strong, uh, floral component in the cigar. Yeah. And that, that's something I love about Cuban tobacco. And I feel like St. Louis Ray does it really well.
It's really nice.
**Gizmo:** Dan's singing
**Dan:** my
**Bam Bam:** song right now.
**Gizmo:** I mean, it's just two too bad. Only have
**Poobah:** fal. It's floral. I mean, you can It
**Gizmo:** is, it is. Yeah. So great [00:10:00] suggestion, Dan, that we pulled this out tonight. Very nice.
**Poobah:** You know what I'm drinking with This is herbal tea, which is actually like pairing nice with it, which sounds really not that cool.
And it's, uh, not ,
**Gizmo:** not what I'm usually doing. It's a outta character. , little outta character for me, considering
**Poobah:** how much I drink. Um, it's refined alcohol, it's refined. Usually I'm knee deep in some cognac
**Dan:** by now. , there's some scotch. Goddammit, . Hey, there's uh, whatever works for you, you know.
**Gizmo:** So, uh, I guess let's get into it.
Boys. We're coming up on Halloween. I was telling Dan and uh, you know, scary holiday, right? Spooky, you got tricked or treated. There's . You get tricked or you get treated . Not only did I get tricked, but is there anything scarier or spookier than purchasing a hell No. Fake box of cohiba rub robusto from a trusted retailer.
Whew. Uh, that was, I got duped, man. And, uh, the only reason that I realized I had gotten duped was cuz I saw the conversation that [00:11:00] Dan and Greg were having, uh, about these, uh, uh, uh, serial numbers on these boxes that were, that were coming in that were wrong. And I went into my Tupperware and I pulled the box out and I said, holy shit, I got a fake box, looked amazing.
Everything about it looked great. And I called up Dan. I said, Dan, I'm gonna send you this box and I need you to put it under the microscope. And Dan did a full investigation of it, put it, put it under the scope, and, uh, and kind of blew up the internet a little bit on Reddit and, and elsewhere. Tell us a little bit about what you found in my box, how this whole thing started with this specific ring of really good counterfeit cigars, how they ended up in these trusted retailers.
And, and I guess let's start there. Let's start there.
**Dan:** Sure. This very well done counterfeit cigar, uh, this style of, uh, counterfeit cigar. It's really kind of been [00:12:00] replacing the, uh, you know, the, the old, uh, tropes about glass tops and, and the really, uh, you know, janky looking fake bands like over the last couple years you've been seeing it more and more, um, that, you know, with counterfeit cigars, they're, they're getting better and better at, uh, duplicating the real deal as far as, uh, aesthetics go.
Uh, more often than not now I'm seeing scenarios where, uh, it appears that the bands are either, uh, genuine bands that were stolen and, and, you know, made it into the black market somehow, or they are. Absolute perfect copies, which I don't believe that they are. I, I personally think that they're stolen, genuine bands, uh, because so like out the
**Gizmo:** back door of the cohiba factory, like stolen, like what does that mean exactly?
**Dan:** Well, that's certainly possible. [00:13:00] Um, you know, if you think about the economy of Cuba, especially right now, uh, it's certainly, uh, not too far of a stretch to think about, you know, a handful of, uh, you know, bundles of bands, uh, making their way out the back door because they can mean serious money for somebody, uh, you know, if they know what to do with them.
Yeah. And, uh, you know, the other thing that I'm seeing is that they're using, uh, with the, with the increased accessibility of custom roll Cuban cigars, it really isn't hard to get a bundle of Cuban robusto and slap a bundle of cohiba bands on them. And now you have. Transformed a $2 custom roll into a, you know, 25 to $60 cigar.
And, you know, the consumer that winds up with this [00:14:00] box, they light the cigar up and they get that unmistakable Cuban flavor where they, they, they know it's Cuban tobacco, but they're not getting the cigar that they paid for. Right. Yeah. And they're like, you know, so, you know, a lot of things can run through somebody's mind at that point where it's, oh, is this, you know, just a, a a, a bad batch?
Was it, you know, uh, were, were the cigars poorly stored? Or it's just need more time? Are they a little sick or whatever? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So they, they're very, very smart about how they can fool people. And, um, the devil is often in the details, in the way that you catch these. , uh, bogus examples, you know.
Um, as far as these specific counterfeits go, I originally stumbled upon them, uh, probably back [00:15:00] in January. Wow. Uh, one of my other viewers, uh, gentleman named Chad, he, uh, contacted me and sent me an email with some photos of a couple of boxes of cigars that he had purchased from, uh, finest Cuban Cigars.
Right. And, uh, I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but about three and a half years ago, I actually did an expose on finest Cuban cigars also. Yep. And ironically,
**Poobah:** that was , that was Dr. Joe's favorite retailer back in the
**Dan:** day. Remember? But Joe, Joe had a, oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh,
**Poobah:** yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he, he, he had that, um, it was, but I mean, I don't, I, it seems like things have changed over time in defense of Doc, Dr.
Joe. Uh, but anyway, you would know more about
**Dan:** that. So this guy Chad, he sent me, uh, photos of a box of, uh, Monte Christo Supremos, the, uh, you know, uh, the Ellie Edition Liata. Yeah. [00:16:00] Yeah. And, um, he sent photos of a box of, uh, Cohiba Tasman. So the first thing I noticed was, uh, that the packaging looked flawless, you know, uh, the, the Monte Christo Supremos, they come with that, uh, that graphic, uh, outer cardboard shell and everything.
And then it has that nice, uh, yellow lacquer box and everything. And, and the packaging, like, to me, it looked legitimate. Or if, if it wasn't from Havanas directly, then it was, you know, purchased from the same maker that makes the actual box, because. , it looked like you would not be able to differe differentiate between, you know, the, uh, the box that you got from finest Cuban cigars, or the one that you got from La Casa Delano in terms of, you know, visuals right.
And whatnot. All the, all the, uh, the paperwork was there and [00:17:00] everything, you know, like the little, uh, placards and, and, uh, the, uh, the, uh, haos, uh, rice paper with the, uh, storage, uh, and care instructions on it and whatnot. Everything that you would wanna see was there, right? But a couple of things caught my eye.
Um, and, uh, this is a, a, a tool that some of us use, uh, when authenticating cigars that, um, a lot of people aren't privy to, and that's using the serial number and, uh, comparing it against the box date to, uh, Check for, uh, accuracy in the sequence of the serial
**Gizmo:** number. So the serial number for listeners, by the way, is when you get a box of Cuban cigars or you see a picture of it, there's a white, um, there's a white label that comes across the top of the lid and down the side of the, the box of cigars with a barcode on it and a serial, a serial number on it that I think is what, 10 digits or 12 digits?
Dan? [00:18:00] 12. 12 digits. And then that, so that's what Dan is talking about referring to, um, comparing to the
**Poobah:** box code. Right. And the prefixes, Dan is what you're talking about, the on the serial, which indicates the year. Right.
**Dan:** Um, yeah. It doesn't always fit neatly into a specific, uh, year. Like, you know, the, the first six digits really are the ones that, uh, it, it, uh, narrows it down to roughly like.
you know, a 12 month period of time, but it doesn't necessarily line up perfectly with a year with the calendar. Right. You know, like they don't say January to January is, uh, like every serial starts with the first four digits are zero. So, you know, they don't say 0, 0 0 0 5 is 2021. Right. Uh, because it started in like September, 2020.
Right. Uh, but it is sequential and it does go up over [00:19:00] time. So one thing to remember is that you can sometimes have an older box of cigars with a newer cereal number in terms of sequence, but you can never have a newer box of cigars with an older serial number.
**Gizmo:** Mm. Right. Which is exactly what happened here, right?
**Dan:** Yes. The, uh, the serial number on this box of Monte Christo Supremos suggested that it was, uh, That it would have a box date from either late 2018 or early 2019. And the box date was October, 2020. Hmm. Right. So it was a
**Poobah:** three or a four
**Dan:** probably on there. It was, uh, I believe it started with, uh, 0 0 0 4 2 4, right.
Four. So exactly like you said, it started with the four. Um, so having that big of a difference in terms of, [00:20:00] uh, you know, versus the box date and the serial number. That to me is a red flag. Yeah. And Chad had taken it upon himself. Uh, he had a, uh, he had a fluorescent black light and he also had a microscope, and he was the one actually who pointed out, uh, on the warranty seal, if you shine a, uh, either a uv uh, flashlight, or a, uh, fluorescent black light on the warranty seal.
You will see a, uh, in, uh, in, uh, UV Inc. You'll see a coat of arms, uh, stamp in the center of the seal. Yeah, he was the one who pointed out, he said, what are these digits here? Uh, and there was, uh, six numbers on this UV stamp, and I said, those aren't supposed to be there. Uh, if you look [00:21:00] at a, uh, a, uh, UV stamp on a legitimate box of cigars, uh, that UV stamp does not have any digits present in it.
And after, uh, taking a look at it for a few minutes, I, uh, I realized what had happened.
If you look at the warranty seal on the box of cigars, all the way on the left hand side of the seal, uh, just right of where the, uh, the barcode sits, right? You'll see that same coat of arms that's, uh, shown in the UV stamp, right? But on that coat of arms, that's actually printed on the warranty seal, there's a little window in the lower left-hand corner for the first half of that box of serial number, right?
And then if you go to the other side [00:22:00] of the warranty seal on the right, you'll see another image of a bunch of workers in the field. And in the same spot, in the lower left-hand corner of that window, you'll see another area with the last six digits of that box is serial number. Mm-hmm. . Wow. So I realized that these guys had copied the uv.
and used the actual coat of arms on the warranty seal as a template .
**Gizmo:** Wow.
**Dan:** Wow. It was just, uh, too, it was, it, there was too many discrepancies that were just, uh, too far out of bounds with that old Cuba being Cuba, if you know what I mean.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, right. We say it a lot. We say it a lot. .
**Poobah:** Yeah. It's too many. It's, it's, these are different types of discrepancies than like, uh, a band.
Um, yeah. A band
**Gizmo:** being muddled, , uh,
**Poobah:** no, no. Yeah. A band or, I'm sorry, a ribbon. Yeah. Like the wrong ribbon being around a bundle of cigars in a [00:23:00] cabinet or something, or in a, in a varnished box. Do you know what I mean? Like that, that, exactly.
**Dan:** That's
**Gizmo:** the . So it's not
**Rooster:** happening just with Cohibas then it, it, all it, you're also about mon Christos.
Yeah. Is there any other brand that you, that you're seeing like counterfeiting.
**Gizmo:** Going
**Dan:** on. I've seen, uh, probably over half the co uh, probably over half of the brands Oh wow. In the Havanas catalog. God, uh, copied with these particular, uh, with this particular, uh, style of counterfeit, you know, whoever's responsible for these, I've seen, uh, a bunch of different brands with the same defect.
And like that's what do
**Gizmo:** you, what
**Rooster:** do you, I'm sorry. Uh, what do you do? I mean, what do you carry a, a, like a black light with you every time you purchase a box of Cohibas or, I mean, how do you prevent something like that? Like, other than buying only from L C D H and, uh, you know, I mean,
**Gizmo:** we're not, we're not privy to trust seller.
Not to interrupt
**Rooster:** everyone, [00:24:00] sellers, but Monte Fortuna, you know, for
**Gizmo:** our longest time was, yeah,
**Bam Bam:** I don't wanna interrupt everybody, but being a fairly novice cigar guy, not like everyone else in this room, it would be discouraging for me to want to pursue purchasing Cubans. Yeah. Hearing
**Dan:** all of this.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. And Dan said that to me the other night.
Yeah. He's in the same boat.
**Bam Bam:** I mean, what do you do? How do you know we're not smoking
**Dan:** counterfeits?
**Gizmo:** Right. Well, and, and this is where, and I I wanna get back to the cigar cuz this is delicious by the way. It is. But what's interesting, Dan, about this whole thing is that, you know, the first thing that I would say to someone who asked that question and probably you would say, is just know your vendor and know who you're buying from.
And that's where it really got crazy is that these ended up in the, the supply chain and, and, and the distribution of some really reputable vendors. Um, namely the one that I purchased from who Will, will kind of lay it out here cuz they not only admitted it, but you know, apologize for it on your thread on Reddit, which by the way, I'm [00:25:00] gonna share, uh, in the, uh, episode description of this.
So folks can go click the link in the episode description. They can see Dan's post, see all the photos, see everything he's talking about. So we're not flying blind here. I know, you know, we we're an audio podcast, but click the link in the episode description and you can see. Dan's investigation and his post, and then everything that Monte Fortuna came up with after that.
But that's the thing that's scary to me, is getting into the, the, the retail chain of these, um, of this. What's also scary
**Rooster:** is that, does Monte Fortuna even know that the, that they're
**Gizmo:** selling the counterfeit
boxes?
**Rooster:** That's a question. You know, I mean, it could be just coming in from, they may not know. A distributor could be mixing them in.
I mean, who knows?
**Gizmo:** Alright, let's hold on that for a second. Let's hold on that. While Dan thinks about how he wants to approach that question.
**Dan:** Listen, you guys, you guys gotta see these emails that, that people are sending us. Uh, Greg and I, um, [00:26:00] first off, Monty Futuna should not be selling Cuban cigars. It's just simple as that.
Um, these guys were told as, as Gizmo well knows, they were told. Months ago,
**Gizmo:** months ago.
**Dan:** Months ago, they had a problem on their hands and they chose to thumb their noses at us. And, and Gaslight and Gaslight, they all read from the same playbook, brother. They really do. Oh, well the things you're discussing aren't in the official s authentication processes, so therefore that's not a valid argument.
Or we only source from licensed TAB bono's distributors, or we only source from reputable distributors and we have been in this business for X amount of years. It, they all say the same lines and they all backpedal and they all lie. It's whenever they get caught like this. I mean, [00:27:00] um, you know, the Maya culpa was a little shocking when it came to Monty Tuna.
Yeah. But they're still lying. Yep. Okay. Um,
**Gizmo:** The thing that bums me out, Dan, is, is it took customers like me, right? We all were going through this, you know, um, way more folks than I I do. Who got the, got a box like I did from Monte Fortuna and who emailed and were gaslit about the authenticity of the box and they saying it's real.
And it was essentially that we were full of shit. And not only. To get a refund. They wanted us to pay for the shipping for the box to go back for them to then evaluate whether or not they were to get, gonna give us a refund. And it took you months later, blowing them up on Reddit for them to come out and say, you know what?
You guys are right now. We'll fix this simply because of the bad pr. Which, that's an, that's a, [00:28:00] yeah. Good demonstration of bad faith in
**Poobah:** my eyes. Yeah. And I'd like to just add something real quick, and this, this is a, a retailer who, by the way, it, you know, sponsored, uh, what's that guy's show? Cigar obsession.
Cigar obsession, I forget the gentleman's name. Brian Glen. Brian Glen. And, you know, the guy did his reviews or whatever, but they're actually like advertising as a retailer here in the us. They, and I always felt like they, their prices fucking. Pardon my French , but I I, you lying, you know, the, the prices sucked and it was for the guy who, you know, ordered an occasional, I, I, I don't know anyone in, in our community, when I say our community, like our small niche, our, our, this niche of Cuban cigar smokers that we hang with live in virtually or whatever the, the, that, that really frequent Monty Fortuna.
Like you would if you found something there that, and it was a deal only
**Dan:** occasionally maybe,
**Poobah:** but the price is always sucked. I don't know.
**Gizmo:** [00:29:00] Well, I'll tell you, I bought, am I wrong? Well, you're not wrong, but look at me. I, I'm, I got caught up in this. I'm, I'm not to the level of maybe you guys, you and, and Rooster and Dan are, uh, as far as acquiring and knowing your shit about Cuban cigars.
But I'm pretty damn good. And I'm a quick, I'm a quick learner and I got duped. I got duped big time by this because, you know, they had a. What? I don't know what, what the box code was, Dan. It was something 2020 of these co Hebrew. Oh, polyus factory. Parus factory U ao or I for two, I, I forget what it was. T t u i.
Yeah. Two, uh, two of 20. And I, I was like, shit, okay. I have a two year head start on the resting process on these cigars. You know, you, you, I figured, oh, I'm gonna wait five years to smoke these ribos. I threw 'em in my Tupperware, but that's why I bought 'em. Yeah. But you know, you know, poop is exactly right.
Like none of us would've normally pulled that trigger, but they enticed me in with the box code. And of course, here we are now. Yeah. But had you not
**Rooster:** seen this come up on the group, you would've never,
**Gizmo:** five years from now, I would've been smoking those ribos, wondering what was [00:30:00] going on. Yeah. So, all right.
Let's get back to the cigar. We're coming to the, uh, end of the first third here, boys on the St. Louis Ray. Fabulous. What are you guys thinking? It's fabulous. I love it. Dan. Great
**Dan:** suggestion, man. Thank you guys. Can I, um, Just, uh, get a, uh, survey amongst you guys. Have you guys seen the, uh, artwork on this particular dress box is probably my, uh, in my top three Cuban cigar, uh, artwork.
As far as, you know, the, the beauty of the, uh, outer lid and everything, just that imagery and what whatnot, the lithograph is, is gorgeous to me. Poop's, poop's, critiquing it right now. . Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful. The palm, palm trees .
**Poobah:** It's very
**Dan:** nice ti to the palm trees. Little, a little tidbit actually.
Uh, the cigar company, my father, uh, if you look at their logo, the My father logo, um, and on some of their bands like the, uh, the [00:31:00] and whatnot on the left and the right, and like the center of the band or the center of the logo on the left, they poached. Um, From the inner, uh, if you open up the box of the St.
Louis Ray mm-hmm. , if you open up the box and look at the, uh, the image that's, uh, uh, on the paper. Right. Uh, on they, uh, they poached that image of the, of the workers in the field.
**Gizmo:** Oh, yeah. I'm looking at it right now actually. With pagoda. Yeah. Yeah.
**Dan:** Here. And then on the right, they, they poached, uh, part of the, uh, the Kuaba artwork.
Wow. Mm-hmm. The bastard. I always, I always thought that was a little interesting. I tried, I tried to bring it up to them on Instagram and they never answered me .
**Gizmo:** They gave the middle finger to cigar salute. All right.
**Poobah:** I have a trivia question, but it's so easy. Go ahead. But we're talking about cigar. Dan, you can't answer cause you know the question.
We've talked about [00:32:00] it in the pod before, but who's the, who, who's the first, um, what was the first market to. They have artwork on their boxes.
**Gizmo:** Say Vegas. Romania. Oh, wrong. We went over this. We did. I don't remember. Oh, I don't remember either. Up wrong. I think it was Hutman.
**Dan:** Yes. Wrong think, I think it's Ram
**Poobah:** Ramon.
Ramone Rams, right? Am I right Dan? I think he saiding
**Gizmo:** trivia night with Dan.
That's a cool fact. You know, another cool fact I saw Dan on cigar, uh, Cuban cigar website was, um, that this, uh, that this marker was imported exclusively into the UK market from the 1940s until 1993. Wow. It was a exclusive UK Wow. Marker. From, uh, from, from Cuba. I'll tell you. It's a delicious bar. Yeah. It's very good, Dan.
It's so good. Really delicious. I'm glad you guys are enjoying it. The, it's, it's, it's so flavorful, but it, it's, yeah,
**Bam Bam:** the fruit, fruit kind of medium, the fruit notes, the dry [00:33:00] fruit dissipated a little bit. It's, it's leveling out nicely. It's smooth and creamy. Yeah. Um, and it's actually, I think, picked up in a little bit of a pepper a
**Dan:** bit.
**Gizmo:** You can also get some leather. Yeah. You know, you get a little bit leather toasted tobacco. Yeah. It's a long fruit. It's, it's a long finish too. The fruit is still
**Rooster:** kind of, comes through a, you know, a
**Gizmo:** bit. Right. It's like an apple apple, like a green
**Dan:** apple. But
**Poobah:** the, that floral note still remains.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It is very complex cigar.
Yeah. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So Dan, um, back to the, back to the abyss of this, uh, shit show with these fake Cubans. So my question for you, really, the question that I haven't asked you yet, even as we've spoken leading up to this, is how do, how do you guys figure that these boxes ended up in legitimate supply chains for the, for these retailers?
**Dan:** Desperation, as simple as that. Um, and, uh, lack of, lack of, [00:34:00] uh, due diligence. Yeah, just a perfect storm. Uh, if you look at what's been going on in Cuba since the pandemic started, uh, the island has been on a steady, uh, consistent decline in terms of the economy there. Uh, there's been a mass exodus of, uh, people, uh, fleeing to Central America, uh, Panama, Nicaragua, uh, and ultimately the US for a lot of people.
Uh, They call it, uh, I guess brain drain. A lot of people in the cigar industry left Cuba over the last two years. Wow. Uh, and I don't know if a lot of people aren't aware of this, but first off, over half of the, of the Havana catalog is not being produced at the moment. And also factories are currently operating at 30 to 50% capacity.
So the volume of cigars being produced is [00:35:00] greatly reduced, and the amount of, uh, talent and workers that they have is substantially reduced as well. So I think this is why we saw some of these price increases and whatnot, uh, to try and, and, you know, compensate for this to keep the, uh, you know, to keep the ship afloat.
But at the same time, retailers have long burned. Through their reserves. Yep. And you know, I think to really kind of get a grasp on, you know, how these, uh, these third party internet retailers, how they, how they got into such a tight spot. Uh, it's important to understand how Cuban cigars get distributed, uh, worldwide.
So the whole system, uh, was really kind of perfected by [00:36:00] a gentleman named Francisco Padron, who was the head of Cuba tobacco, uh, from 1985 until 1994 when Cuba tobacco became Havana's sa. And he headed Havana's SA for a short period of time before they pushed him out the door. But he was really the one that.
Solidified the one distributor per region that the Cubans would deal with only one distributor per market. And the distributor in that market was only allowed to deal with retailers in their particular territory. Right. You know, uh, hunters and Franco out of the uk, they're the only importer of Cuban cigars.
Yeah. In the uk. Yep. And they're not allowed to just start dealing with Australia. Right. You know what I
**Gizmo:** mean? Yeah. PCC D deals with the Asian, Asian market. Right. And then you have [00:37:00] Phoenicia. Exactly. And a bunch of others.
**Dan:** So because of that system, there's always been a gray market where, you know, retailers who have a surplus of certain cigars under the table.
they'll make a deal with another retailer in another territory. They're not supposed to be doing that, but it's always been
**Poobah:** done. Right. And they get better allocation for liata and harder to find cigars, higher end cigars if they get the standard production
**Dan:** out of their store. Exactly. Better the volume, the better the access.
Right,
**Poobah:** right. So it's like they were incentivized to move def four s Monte two s Yep. Those type of popular, um, global cigars out into the grain market.
**Dan:** Yeah. Yeah. And that, that's why you always see, uh, deals on some of the, the duty free stuff like those, uh, selection robusto or whatever. Yep. And the, uh, you [00:38:00] know, like Romeo number three, Tubo, you know, cigars like that, you always see 'em on sale because they're incentivized.
They sell a certain amount of that, then, you know, they'll be, uh, able to get a better rate in the future. from the distributor and also they'll get access to better stuff. Yep. Uh, somebody once told me for every four boxes of regular production, they get one box of regionals allocated to them. Right.
**Poobah:** Wow.
Right. So they're incentivized to, to move some of that other stuff out, bring in, it's good for the shop, you know, you have more variety in there. It's just good all around. You get access to better stuff, better margin on stuff. But now I guess, I guess it's what's happening is, is these guys aren't getting allocation as much allocation.
So that flow from these kind of like handshake deals to that, to the gray market vendor aren't happening cuz they're short any cuz they're short. .
**Gizmo:** Yep. Yep. [00:39:00]
**Poobah:** They're short. And, and so now since they're short, now the gray market vendor's super short with not a lot of options to get allocation to, a regular allocation to, to inventory.
So they end up, they end up exploring new options. And those new options get us to where we are with this, this, this box of, uh, of, of Cohiba Rub Robusto kind of, right. They're, they're,
**Dan:** they, I believe, uh, I believe that's exactly what happened. It's as simple as that,
**Gizmo:** you know? And to your point about allocation, you think, you know, we've talked about this on the pod before, Dan.
I know you're a member there too, but Friends of a Bonos is one of the premier retailers for P c c Direct, uh, for ho Bonos in, uh, the Asian market. Rob, uh, friends of ho Bono, friends of El Ho Bono, I guess it's called now, uh, in Australia and . I was on a Zoom with him, uh, on a Wednesday night. And we were talking about supply, and this is, you know, he's getting this direct from PCC who's getting it direct from Ho Bonos, and he said that he didn't know what cigars he was gonna [00:40:00] have to be put on sale the following Friday, just like a week out.
He doesn't know what he's gonna be able to sell or if he's gonna have anything to sell a week out. So now that's a guy that's like a primo, direct retailer from Havana's. Imagine what these gray market guys are going through.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I've got a question for all of you. So everything you're describing, what does the future hold for the Cuban cigar market?
How can we expect
**Dan:** what? Yeah. What is the 60 minutes? No, , Dan, Robin, we got Dan, Robin, bam. Bam.
**Poobah:** And we would like to know what the future
**Dan:** holds.
**Poobah:** Bam. Bam. For the Cuban cigar market. I mean, bam. Reporting.
**Bam Bam:** Bam. Bam is reporting here. Yes. Yes, yes,
**Poobah:** yes, yes. I mean,
**Bam Bam:** it's a serious question
**Poobah:** I would love to answer here, . I mean, how much time do we have?
How much
**Dan:** speculation?
**Gizmo:** No, really two words. Very bleak. bleak. But
**Bam Bam:** it's a big deal, right? We've, we've based our cigar [00:41:00] hobby on really, we're the center of our cigar. Hobby is the Cuban market. What do we
**Dan:** do? Well, me personally, I've been smoking less cigars. Uh, it.
**Bam Bam:** That's not what I wanted to hear. ,
**Dan:** I'm sorry.
That's, that's, that's what I got for you. Um,
**Gizmo:** bam is a very biased journalist. Very
**Dan:** biased. Yes. I, I feel bad for, for people that are just getting into it now because Yeah. Um, this, this gray market that existed for at least a couple of decades, uh, particularly for us folks in the us. Um, we were getting access to cigars for prices that are, you know, some of our European brethren could only dream of because we weren't paying taxes.
We still aren't. And we had, you know, on any given day, we could have access to almost the entire catalog because we had access to retailers who weren't [00:42:00] playing by the rules. Right. One thing I've learned over the last couple of years is that when you're only dealing with one local distributor and you know, you're only able to, uh, get access to the cigars that are available to you locally at your local, uh, LA Casa del Havana, or, you know, tobacconist, you know, in, let's say you live in like Spain or something.
Uh, there's a, there's a gentleman in, uh, who I speak to and, and he really kind of, uh, enlightened me on this, uh, asking about cigars. Uh, how come he can't find this and how come he can't find that? And I, you know, I haven't seen this in two years, and it's, I'm like, you know, and I'm sitting there thinking like, those were just on sale at f o h last week and you know, this, I can get this any day of the week.
And it's like, why is he having such a problem finding these cigars? Uh, a lot of, a lot of folks over on the other side of the pond, they don't, they don't really even know about, uh, the whole gray market system that we've had. Uh, Access [00:43:00] to for the longest time. And, uh, I feel like that system, we had it very good for a long period of time and we were able to access cigars at, you know, at low prices.
And, you know, having full reign of the catalog, we were able to build up collections that, uh, you know, you could have, uh, cigars from every brand in the catalog inside of a year if you wanted to. Right. Uh, I think a lot of that is gonna change for, for, um, newcomers. A because unless money's not an object for you, it's just, you know, you know, even looking at this, uh, St.
Louis Ray right now, you know, three years ago a box of these Rios was about between, you know, 200 and $250 the same box Now. would fetch probably close to $500 if it went up in the, in the [00:44:00] Cuban Exchange group right now. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's because of, you know, this cigar has always been kind of sporadically produced.
It's not, you know, they don't roll these every day of every week, you know, like they might kick out a couple of batches a year. And you know, right now Havanas is kind of prioritizing, you know, they're making their, um, their staples and their money
**Poobah:** makers Yeah. Their global brands. Yeah. The portfolio brands are getting kicked aside a little.
**Dan:** Yeah. Yeah. So we're in a, we're in a situation right now where, you know, uh, Rios or, or Schwa Supreme. Yeah. You're looking at, you know, four to $500 for a, for a box where they were, you know, half of that price a couple of years ago. Yep. Um, and now we have you. periods of two or three years where we don't see cigars like the Gloria Kuana, uh, gold Medal number four, or, you know, party is 8 98.
You know, we might see like a very, very, very small production [00:45:00] for the year. And it's essentially, you know, nil. Yeah. And, uh, that the other thing, the value up on those boxes. Absolutely. The
**Gizmo:** other thing I think they're doing too, Dan, is they're prioritizing, you know, uh, regionals, L C D H, and, and they're putting together these expensive presentation, like the packaging, the boxes, et cetera, to try to ch charge a higher dollar per cigar for essentially probably the same or maybe even inferior tobacco, but people eat it up because, you know, the presentation's so classy.
Yeah.
**Dan:** Like that, uh, that new Gloria Co uh, cabana, that's exactly what I was thinking about. Just came out. I mean, it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful presentation, but at the same time I would've been very happy to see more gold medal number fours go out. Yeah. Or absolutely. Um, or the, uh, the Panatella, uh, regional edition for the, for the, uh, Benelux market that was announced like two and a half years ago.
You know, they're running very far behind on, on some of those, uh, [00:46:00] previously announced regionals and whatnot. And the thing with regionals is, is that, um, the distributor, see, it might seem like they're prioritizing that, but those distributors paid upfront for those cigars, you know, they have to pay for those cigars upfront before the production even begins.
So if Ho Bonos wants to get paid from those distributors again, they gotta, you know, bring out an allocation of the last regional that they were paid for, you know? So, uh, they really, havanas has really kind of painted themselves into a corner and. You know, a lot of it is not their fault, but a lot, you know, some of it is as well.
So it's
**Poobah:** a combination den of, of, of lack of capacity that, that, from a production standpoint on the island sounds like, and they may, and they may have less yield of [00:47:00] like, actual raw material from the fields. Like, because they just don't have enough hands to cultivate maybe, or to roll.
**Dan:** Well, the,
**Poobah:** well throughout the whole process.
The roll to cult. Right. Right. I mean, no, it sounds like that's the case, you know? Yeah. I don't, it sounds like a
**Dan:** storm. Well, these, uh, geniuses at a bonos and, and, uh, not even so much Cho bonos as the Cuban government at large, when the pandemic was in its, uh, you know, when it was at its apex in, uh, you know, mid 2020.
Summer 2020, there were Cuban farmers, like workers that, that worked, these, these farm cooperatives in Cuba that weren't allowed to leave their homes to go harvest the tobacco. So there was tobacco that just sat on the plant that didn't get harvested because their coronavirus, uh, protocols, um, basically mandated that these guys, you know, stayed home [00:48:00] and weren't allowed to go to work.
So, well, I can understand that in some industries, others where, you know, you're in a field working outside, you know, and you, I don't think you're like right up against the, the guy next to you, you know? That's good point. Um, I can't say I've ever worked a tobacco field, but I don't imagine that people are, I don't imagine staying six feet away from somebody is too much of an issue.
Right. So, you know, some, oh, go ahead.
**Gizmo:** My apologi No, I was gonna say, I have a question for you, but I, I just wanted to, you know, we're coming in the last third here of the, uh, the Reggio dance. Only at his, uh, I know Dan's on halfway point.
**Dan:** I'm a slow smoker
**Gizmo:** man. That's just, it's all good. I mean, this is a very delicious cigar.
It's delicious. And I want a box. And of course, what Dan just said is, makes it cost prohibitive. And actually the smoke supply prohibitive, I
can
**Rooster:** sell you one for 600 current, current prices. .
**Gizmo:** Can I send you
a
**Dan:** check in two months? ?
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I'll pay you for it. And you deliver it. And then [00:49:00] I will tell
**Bam Bam:** you though, the smoke coming off of this, if you just take a whiff, it's really, it's delicious.
**Gizmo:** It smells great at this. It's, it's like pori. It really is A
**Bam Bam:** little bit, it's sweet. It's delicious. Yeah. Very unusual.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Pubes down to the lub. Yeah. This is a great
**Dan:** cigar. You know, that's cigar,
**Bam Bam:** that's, uh, That's something there. If he's taking it down, that's something. Yeah, he likes it. Poop is taking it
**Dan:** down.
**Poobah:** look at this. Are you accusing me of being particular? It could be the
**Gizmo:** herbal tea. It could be the herbal tea. . So Dan, I have a question for you. And, and this is a, this is a total hypothetical. Um, given what happened, uh, what we know is the dark period between say, 1999 and 2001 when, uh, it wasn't ha bonos at the time, or maybe it was when they were coming in, but they ramped up production so much to try to increase revenue and make the partners happy, et cetera.
And they brought in rollers and they very low quality control. Um, something that's been on my mind as the Cuban government and, and Haos, um, it kind of [00:50:00] suffers through the, the products of what they've created and also things like this hurricane that just happened and whatnot, the challenges that, that they've had.
Do you see a potential reality where there's another dark period here in in cigar output? Yes.
**Dan:** Uh, I don't think it'll be the same kind of dark period, though. I think the dark period will be no cigars for a period of time or severely severe, uh, severely reduced output. Um, and I also see the potential for a complete collapse of the government.
And if that happens, that's okay. Came, you know, what happens to the Cuban tobacco industry? See this whole, the coronavirus brought about a perfect storm of conditions. It, it, okay, let's, let's talk about real quick, the, the time leading up to the pandemic. So, um, I got into Cuban cigars around, uh, early 2014 [00:51:00] is when I started exploring, uh, Cuban cigars as opposed to strictly American market cigars.
Uh, 2000, early 2000 fourteens. When I, when I came across Dr. Joe and became acquainted with him, and he kind of showed me the ropes and taught me about Cuban cigars and everything, and when I got started smoking Cuban cigars, the sick period still mattered and whatnot. Where, you know, you, you know, Joe basically told me, he's like, you know, you get a box of cigars or something, then generally the rule is you let it sit for two years.
That's what I was told by Joe and I kind of, you know, I kind of took that to heart and anytime I tried a cigar fresh, uh, I don't wanna say I regretted it, but I noticed a difference between an aged Cuban cigar and, you know, for that two year period versus, uh, one that was eight months old or 10 months old, uh, as time went on.
when I got to like, uh, 2018, 2019, I was pulling cigars outta the box at [00:52:00] nine, 10 months that were, that were just blowing me away with how amazing they were. So we had these amazing quality cigars. The quality just, it seemed like every year the quality got better and better. Um, so, you know, going into 2018, 19, we have, uh, an incredible period of production where, you know, everything that's coming out seems to be just pure gold.
And, you know, we're at a time period where we're paying $70 for a box of Poor Lo Yaga Monte Carlos, or, you know, 120 bucks for a box of Monty four s or, uh, you know, 220 bucks for D four s. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. You know, co even, uh, Cohiba I paid in, uh, 2019, I think I bought a, a 15 pack of Cohiba robos. I think I paid about $250 for it.
Wow. You know, uh, Just the, uh, the prices that, that, you know, especially us here stateside, were paying, [00:53:00] were incredibly low. When you, when you looked at the caliber of cigar that you were getting, and the word seemed to get out, that the quality of Cuban cigars at that time was very, very good, uh, exceptional, even.
And when the pandemic hit, we still had this, uh, you know, the, the, the prices went up a little bit when, when the pandemic hit. But one thing that I noticed was that we had a lot of new blood come around that time when the pandemic started, a lot of people were working from home. I think a lot of people came into it.
And you have prices, low quality high, and now you have all these new guys coming in. They, you know, these guys, uh, a lot of 'em seem to come over from American market cigars, uh, where they were chasing, you know, high end, uh, you know, uh, American market cigars like Opus X and all the [00:54:00] different appendages that that line has, you know, some of the, uh, higher end DDoS and, and, you know, patron drone and, uh, whatnot.
So, and then on top of which you have the unpredictability of, of the Cuban economy. So the guys that are already into Cuban cigars, you know, they kind of look at the coronavirus and how it, you know, it's affecting everything. And they start thinking, you know, what if the Cuban government can't handle the pandemic, what happens to the cigar industry?
And so you have the guys that are already into cigars. They start loading up, uh, buying more than typical. , uh, the newcomers are coming in and they're like, wow, this is amazing. I, you know, I wanna build a collection. So then now you have all this new blood that's building a collection. And for a little while, you know, it was, uh, it was probably like manna from heaven for the vendors, but then when they blew through their [00:55:00] reserves and, uh, getting replacements for that stock started to be a problem.
Now you have all these people trying to chase the same cigars, and the retailers can't get their hands on 'em fast enough. So now resources become limited and whatnot. Um, and, uh, you know, prices start going up. And even before official markups on the prices, the secondary market saw large increases. And then another factor that.
it doesn't get discussed very often, but had a very big impact, in my opinion, was Bond Roberts. Yeah. The Bond Roberts auction connected. So
**Gizmo:** for the listener, the Bond Roberts is a high end auction site Yep. For Cuban cigars
**Dan:** and, um, you know, a lot of people dove right into Bond Roberts because of the [00:56:00] reputation of the people that started it.
You know, you have Rob from Friends of a Bonos on one hand, and then you have the Fox family who are, uh, you know, they're, they're, uh, tobacco man royalty, uh, legends from, uh, from Europe, uh, UK I believe, or, uh, yeah, they're from the uk. Is it? Okay? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yep. So you have this, uh, you know, this amalgamation of, of, uh, legendary Cuban cigar retailers coming together and they put together an auction site.
and what something that happened was something that I've never really seen previously and that was a, a mixing of the American and European market and they start mingling with Asian buyers who in Asia right now, uh, the cigar culture is exploding. And one thing I noticed was that, uh, some of these [00:57:00] gentlemen were willing to pay prices that, you know, a lot of us never would've paid.
Uh, so on Bond Roberts, I started seeing, you know, uh, I remember one time I saw, I realized Bond Roberts was gonna be an issue when I saw a 2017 box of Schwa Supreme go for $650. Yeah,
**Poobah:** this is interesting. I think you're bringing up a very, very, Point because Fox and f o h have access to probably the pick of the litter master cases.
I, I would think. Right? I mean, they buy enough, they get enough allocation and they're putting these boxes up on, um, , on Bond Roberts, and now there's visibility. I guess the point you're making is there's visibility into what the market is willing to, is willing to really bear. It's all born out for [00:58:00] everyone to see and Yeah.
And that created an issue isn't cigars and it's being driven by the Asian and you're saying that price, those prices are being driven by, by the Asian.
**Dan:** Uh, partially. I don't want to say it's all them. Well,
**Gizmo:** let's, let's just say, let's just say the thing that gives me absolute, that gives Credo, credo to what you're saying, Dan, is that ha Bonos aligned their pricing structure for both Cohiba and Trinidad to what people were paying in Hong Kong.
That was the entire price realignment for those two, uh, markets was to the Hong Kong market worldwide.
**Dan:** Yeah. I'm not sure what, uh, you know, how that decision came about. Uh, it's, you know, one thing that, uh, is important to, to factor into that is that Havana's SA is 50% owned by somebody from Hong Kong. Yep.
Yep. You know, and that person has never really, uh, they, [00:59:00] they made the buy through a Shell corporation and that person, you know, it's rumored that they're like a, like a big casino magnate, you know, uh, Nobody, I, I don't think, uh, the person's ever been publicly named. But, uh, since that, that that entity has a 50% stake in a bonos, it's hard to really tell what kind of directives they've, they've, you know, tried to push.
Uh, and that could very, it could have very well been them that, that started pushing in that direction. But, um, either way, you know, you bring up an excellent point. That product that was previously being designated to mostly the European market, and then, you know, by proxy the American market, you know, for the first time those markets are seeing, uh, their [01:00:00] allocations shrink and then allocations in other regions growing, and that lowered their access to cigars, which in turn, , uh, especially in the secondary market now you have the guys that, that do have, uh, you know, boxes to sell of certain cigars.
They're charging higher prices. And the newcomers, they want that box of Sir Winston, they want that box of Cohiba Bek. Mm. So they're willing to pay prices for it. That, you know, two years ago people would've gotten laughed out of a forum for it. Right. .
**Poobah:** Right, right. Yep. Yeah. It's, it's, it's the way it is now.
And it's, you know, one thing I guess for the listener is that is, I don't know, you know, what do you do? Smoke less Cuban cigars? Well, maybe, and maybe explore some new world cigars that, that you can rotate in. I mean, I [01:01:00] know we do. Oh yeah. We're, we're doing it now. Oh yeah.
**Gizmo:** We're all doing it. We're doing it.
You know, it's a great point.
**Poobah:** Yeah. It's, and so if you like, you know, hey, if you're gonna pay. There's, there's a couple David offs that we really like. Mm-hmm. not, not nearly the whole line. No. Uh, and there's, there's patron, a bunch of patron drones that we like. So if you really want a great cigar, I mean, they're out there for you.
I mean, Dan, I don't know, do you smoke? Is this sacri to even ask you this question? Are there any new, are there any new world cigars that you smoke, ever? That's a
**Dan:** great question. Come on, please tell us. Yeah, I do. I do smoke new world cigars occasionally. I just prefer not to most of the time , but honestly, But if you guys saw the new, the new World cigars that I would reach for, you guys would probably be like, what the hell's wrong with this kid?
you know, like, uh, Rocky Patel. Cause a lot of people call
**Gizmo:** them boring. Yeah. Don't say Rocky. Don't say Rocky Patel. Don't say, no, no, no. Rooster gets a little hot. I'm leaving the Pod
**Dan:** people
**Poobah:** [01:02:00] just, if he said Rocky Patel, we would've so many, so much ammo on him. ,
**Dan:** I'm gonna go unsubscribe from cigar salute now. . No. Uh, you know, I would go for like, uh, a Diamond Crown or an Ashton Cabinet selection or, uh, uh, maybe, maybe some of the, the DDoS, uh, my important, my, my, my, uh, checklist of what I want out of a cigar is pretty simple.
I want to be able to retro hale it without flame shooting outta my nose. . So that, uh, That knocks off like three quarters of Nicaraguan cigars for me right there. Yep. Yep. Uh, I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be bludgeoned with, uh, spice or leather. Um, and I, I don't, I don't wanna feel like I'm biting into a bell pepper when I smoke a cigar.
Um, so that eliminates for me. Opus X right there. Yeah. . Um, cuz the last three opus is, I had it, it tasted like I [01:03:00] was biting into a bell pepper. Dude,
**Poobah:** the, yeah. We haven't had good experiences with op
**Gizmo:** opus recently. They need age . Yeah. They, so they need to smooth out.
**Dan:** I smoked an opus, uh, probably about three years ago.
That was 21 years old Now. They're, now you're talking. Yeah. And it was in the cellophane still. Uh, my buddy Seabold, he's one of my, uh, YouTube viewers, he, he sent it to me as a gift and, uh, it was so old that the gold, uh, flake on the band had worn away. It, it was black and the spots that it was previously gold and this cigar was so powerful.
Yeah. When I took it outta the cellophane and I clipped ahead of the cigar, this, uh, this, uh, translucent, um, brown. , like amber colored resins starts spilling out of the filler. Wow. . Wow. And I got a little dab of this stuff on my tongue and I felt my pupils , like, uh, just . Is there video of this Dan ? [01:04:00] No, no, no.
Um, but, uh, this cigar still had so much kick to it after 20 plus years. Yeah. I was like, what the hell was this thing? Like new
But, um, so yeah, you know, for me, like, uh, Cuban cigars, they're just, uh, they're just the bees neese for me because I really enjoy the floral flavors and the, the, uh, you know, the complexity of them and they don't have that knock you down kind of strength. Yeah. That, you know, makes me, uh, makes me all geeked out on nicotine and, um, , they don't have that spiciness that like Nicaraguan cigars have.
Yeah. Um, that's not to say that I won't enjoy one every so often, but it has to be the right cigar. Um, something else that I like, uh, some of the brands I like, um, I really like some of the Caldwell cigars, uh, the Eastern Standard dosed firm us had it. Yeah. Yeah. [01:05:00] I've had that cigar. That, to me it, uh, it has a lot of the same qualities that I, that I look for in a Cuban cigar.
Uh, it can be retro hailed nicely. Uh, it has a nice. Uh, kind of, uh, floral, sugary taste to it. It's not overwhelming and it's, uh, well rolled and it's, it's a nice cigar.
**Gizmo:** We should do that on the pod. Yeah. Yeah. We should do it.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Yeah. The Eastern standards. So that's a, I'm kind of glad you brought that up cuz I'm kind of a, I wouldn't, not a closet fan of Caldwell, but.
Let's just say I have some, um, you know what I mean?
**Dan:** More, more secrets. Yeah. He keeps secrets
**Gizmo:** from us. more secrets. Dan. We, we keep finding out these secrets of Mr. Mr. Cuban cigar behind me. Wilber Puma only
**Dan:** smokes New World . Exactly.
**Poobah:** No, the biggest secret. The maker
No. What's his name's Rob, right? Is it Rob Caldwell? I can't remember. Yeah.
**Dan:** Rob Caldwell's. Yeah. Rob
**Poobah:** Caldwell. Yeah. [01:06:00] He's kind of a hotshot, kind of mover and shaker guy. I, and he runs this operation outta Miami and uh, he makes the artwork on his bands are pretty cool and he makes some decent cigars and he makes Lonsdale, which I love.
I like, yeah. Yeah. We love a Lonsdale. Yeah. You know, we love a Lawnsdale. Oh yeah. There's some Lonsdale out there, like long lived. The king, the king is dead. There's a couple of these cigars and that, that are, are, that I've smoked through and I've given to people as well. And they've, they've all actually liked them, so, There you go.
I
**Dan:** still have some.
**Gizmo:** Hey, should try.
**Rooster:** I I got a question, Dan. Uh, some of these boxes that came from Monte Fortuna, the counterfeit ones, did, did they not come from Spain? Somehow? That's what I read somewhere leading
**Dan:** up to that, the Monte Fortuna business. Um, when, when I discovered this defect with the, the UV stamps going on at finest Cuban cigars, I made a post on Reddit.
And then about a week later, I made another one on Cuban [01:07:00] Exchange. When I made that post on Cuban Exchange, um, we started getting people writing us, uh, you know, private messages, uh, saying that they found the numbers in the stamp on this box of cigars or that box of cigars. And then, uh, one of our, one of our, uh, buddies in, uh, Cuban Exchange, he had purchased over $10,000 worth of cohiba.
From these two gentlemen from Spain, um, that were operating out of the C S p uh, Facebook group. Okay. And he found the digits in the stamps on the, on those boxes. So he bought over $10,000 worth of boxes from these two guys in Spain. And they were flooding this group with, uh, with these boxes. And a whole bunch of other sellers had purchase boxes from these guys.
So, and we're
**Poobah:** flipping, we're playing. We're flipping [01:08:00] them.
**Dan:** Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh my God. So we started realizing that these things were making the rounds and once, once all these guys who found out that they had gotten taken, they started talking to their friends about these, uh, these boxes. So then we found out, you know, a lot of them were coming from.
or they were being purchased in Cuba anyway, uh, including somebody bought a box of, uh, counterfeit BK 56 Es from a, uh, LA Casa Delano in Cuba. Wow. That's scary. That's scary. Someone, someone bought a box of Bihi 54 s, uh, with numbers in the, in the UV stamp, uh, from a brick and mortar shop in Canada. Wow.
**Poobah:** And what, how about, how about cigar fish shindo with that, with the, uh, the, uh, the, that
**Dan:** festival release.
Don't even get me started. . That's
**Poobah:** a whole nother podcast. How about, how about that shit though? I mean, [01:09:00] I'm looking at that going, I'm going, oh my
**Dan:** God.
**Poobah:** I mean, su cigar fishing. First of all, would you just even just look at the. At the box code ,
**Dan:** that's oh.
**Poobah:** And everything. And then it's, that's insane. It was, and, and, and the, and I don't even think the bands matched in the
**Dan:** box.
Nope. The bro, when I saw that, I was, I was in Maryland. Uh, me and me and my girl had gone to a wedding the night before, and I was in the hotel room, uh, it was like seven o'clock in the morning and I was, I was in my bathrobe eating cookies, drinking bourbon, and, uh, cream soda.
**Gizmo:** 7:00 AM a man after
**Dan:** our own hearts.
God bless. God bless. Let's give him a round of applause. Let's
**Gizmo:** go. Dad. What a lizard.
**Dan:** I had, uh, I had just, I had just started, uh, I was about to watch, uh, a show called Power and, uh, on my phone. And, uh, I saw a notification from Facebook, and then I, [01:10:00] it was a picture, uh, still from that video with the, uh, with the, with the box code and everything.
I'm like, what the hell is this? and, uh, yeah, that, that's just, ugh, I, I'm disgusted by some of the things that I, I've been seeing as far as, uh, you know, what the, what the way that, uh, Haos and, and, uh, has been handling things, and then even for them to allow FIA to put those boxes out.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's crazy to me.
And let's, let's just say, by the way, for the listener, we did touch, I think we touched on that on an episode, previous episode, this whole crazy thing with cigar fish. And Otto and Dan and I were in the comments section teeing off about it. It did end up that not only those were, those boxes, uh, confirmed authentic, uh, by, uh, by cigar Fish and Otto, but also by Phoenicia saying that yeah, that all of these anomalies and everything else were actually a product of.
I don't know, whatever you wanna call it. Mislabeling or, I checked the UV
**Dan:** stamps, by the way. They're good. What's [01:11:00] that? I checked the UV stamps, by the way. There's no digits in them or, or blank spaces. .
**Gizmo:** It's crazy, man. So Dan, it's crazy. So Dan, I have a question for you. Um, I, and I know that you've kind of alluded to there being some follow up here with this issued extending beyond Monty Fortuna.
Yes. Now, I know you can't get into a lot of those details yet, but, but a is that true? Do, are you expecting there, there to be some more retailers who are outed, uh, with this counterfeit operation? Yes. Okay. Wow. And when do you expect that, that we and, and the listeners out there, uh, and fans of Cigar Salute, can start to figure out where some of these other boxes are coming?
**Dan:** Within the next few weeks probably. Okay. The problem is, and, and this is something I've always had an issue with when, uh, investigating counterfeits, um, a lot of people only care when it applies to them. You know, [01:12:00] so my point is, is that when it came to Monty Futuna, a lot of people shopped there Yeah. On Reddit.
So it was easy to get them to, to take a, a black light and check their boxes, or check out the serial numbers and be like, oh crap, I got a problem here. Let me order a black light on Amazon. Yeah. And don't feel bad gizmo because. Uh, we probably, if I had to add 'em all up, I would say we probably had at least over a hundred people in our inbox.
That's crazy. A about the issue.
**Gizmo:** And those are the, those are only the people, Dan, who have seen it somewhere, seen it on Reddit. We're not talking about the wider community who is just ordering stuff and smoking with their friends at home, maybe aren't plugged in on the internet. To your point, we're talking about a, probably a very small percentage of these boxes that have been found out, which is terrifying to me.
And it's sad that there's a lot of folks out there who think they have a wonderful box of Cohiba Bustos or Siglo six or or whatever it might be, that they think they have this great box they spent a lot of money for. They're proud of it, and [01:13:00] in fact, it's fake. Well,
**Dan:** some people just don't want to know, man.
That's true. You know, as far as, as far as they're concerned, they can show their friends or they can, they can, they can flash it on Instagram and, oh look, my band Sparkle all nice and everything. Oh, see that hologram, uh, you know, uh, I got my cohibas, I'm, you know, uh, So they, you know, some people just don't wanna know if they're fake or not.
Cuz as far as they're concerned, you know, the, even the fake box is accomplishing everything they want from that box, which is, you know, uh, oh, I look cool. I, I, you know, I look like I know what I'm doing. Well that's the thing
**Poobah:** with Cohiba, that, that is interesting cuz you're like a cohi, you love cohiba for what Cohiba is.
I do love Cohiba. Yes, you love co. You know, and, and that, that's always been true for you. And, and, and, but there's people who smoke cohiba and, uh, for the wrong reasons because it's like putting a Mercedes-Benz in your mouth. Um, and you know, Uh, [01:14:00] but I, the, I'm, personally, I would, I'm kind of glad that kohe is not my thing.
Do you know what I mean? And I, I've had, I've
**Dan:** had a That's your wallet's glad too. Uhhuh. Yeah. My wallet. .
**Poobah:** My wallet. My wallet is glad too. Yeah. Uh, my family, the, the, the, the kids 5 29 College Fund, um, all the, all that stuff,
But, um, uh, but I don't like, you know, it's not that I, I, I wish I'd liked Kohe as more. I mean, it would just be another nice thing to enjoy more. Um, so, uh, there're just my only point that I'm making is, is that there're just, there are people out there who smoke Koji for the status. I mean, I'm sta I'm stating the obvious.
Yeah. But, uh, I feel bad for the, the true really the, the, the guys who really, really do love the mark, you know, who really enjoy it and, and cherish it. It's too bad that this is happening. So.
**Dan:** Yeah. Yeah. And uh, especially, you know, [01:15:00] for me personally, um, I really love the small viola as a cohiba and those are the ones that are gonna be the collateral damage, uh, out of this whole price, uh, mess that they made.
Uh, with tripling the prices, you
**Poobah:** know, is it gonna discontinue 'em you think? Cuz they're just not gonna be any demand
**Dan:** or, I don't know, to be honest. Uh, it's hard to say, but who in their right mind is gonna pay, you know, $650 for a a box of Cohiba Pellas? Yeah. , you know, it's a 26 ring gauge by, by four and a half inch cigar.
It's a nice, it's a nice cigar, but it's not that much. It's a great cigar .
**Gizmo:** It's not that. Yeah, it's not that great .
**Dan:** Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I'll tell you right now, uh, if you, if you, uh, you, you know, something that's always like, uh, been a, a pet peeve for me is when you go to a wedding and somebody brings a box of cigars, and then, you know, an hour later you walk past the ashtray, there's an [01:16:00] empty box of cigars where, you know, and then there's an ashtray full of cigars that somebody took three puffs off of and put 'em.
In the ashtray. The cohiba panatella is the perfect like wedding cigar or, or party cigar in the sense where, like, especially a wedding, when you're constantly getting called in, oh, we gotta take pictures. We got, you know, uh, uh, happy hour. We got, we got dancing, we got dinner, we got dessert. You know, it's a cigar you can have in 20, 30 minutes, and it's a really, it's a really classy cigar and it's a very elegant ci.
But it's not, uh, a cigar that you're gonna get tied to for an hour and a half. For an hour. Yeah. Um, you know, if you really want to, you can stretch it for a good 45, 50 minutes. But, and if you
**Gizmo:** want to like bam, bam and pagoda, you could smoke that thing in eight minutes. Yeah. That sounds like a
**Dan:** cigarette. .
**Poobah:** No, let me tell you.
Hey, I'll tell you. So Dan mailed me, Dan mailed me was kind enough to mail me, uh, Cohiba Panatella. [01:17:00] And uh,
**Dan:** very nice. I think was an exi I might have sent you. Was it an ex exposito? It's weird. I didn't, I didn't get any. Those. That's weird.
**Poobah:** That was, that was, um, another
**Dan:** secret. . Look at you. Look at, look at you being all
**Poobah:** weird.
It is. Um, that's strange. The, uh, anyway, but, but, but he, you had sent me That's, and that was a great little cigar. That's cigar. Yeah. Great little cigar. Yeah.
**Dan:** Um, wonderful. That box was from, uh, Lato too. I think I sent you the one, the one I sent you was rolled at El Lato. Yeah.
**Poobah:** and there's a great little cigar.
I loved it. Yeah. So, you know,
**Dan:** utilities
**Gizmo:** have boxes to, to your point too, I mean, one other point I I I like about those small cigars is, you know, Dan, you're at a wedding in the wintertime or whatever. You go outside, you're, you're freezing your ass off. It's still a fine cigar to smoke cuz you're in and out, you know, it checks all the boxes to your point.
**Dan:** That's what I mean, you know, it's a, it's a, a cigar worthy of, of, uh, you know, it's a, it's a high caliber cigar in terms of the, uh, the quality and everything. [01:18:00] Yeah. But it's not a large format that you're gonna, you know, wind up putting half of it in the ashtray and, and, and disrespecting the cigar. Yeah.
You know, but, uh, I do fear that those cigars might suffer from this price, uh, change that, that Cohiba and Trinidad have gone through. The same thing with the Trinidad Reyes and, uh, the colonials as well. You know, a lot of people won't pay that kind of money for, uh, a box of Reyes. The colonialists wanna cigar.
I love the colonials Tremendous cigar. Tremendous. Yeah, those have really picked up in popularity the last couple years for a few years. Like people really slept on those. And then the last like two or three years, I noticed the colonial owls is just getting more and more popular. We reviewed
**Poobah:** that. Great.
It's a good, it's a good size. What's the ring gauge again? It's, uh, 40, 44
**Dan:** maybe. It's, uh, five and a quarter by 44. 40.
**Poobah:** Yeah. It's
**Dan:** nice. I wish they made more cigars than that. The tall, that's like the perfect Vito to me. Yeah.
**Poobah:** [01:19:00] Yeah, you're right. Well, 40, they have 44 ring gage, 46 ring gauge, 42 ring gauge. I love those ring
**Gizmo:** gauges.
So, um, so I, before we get to, uh, you know, I, I want to rate the cigar and then I want to give the listeners some action items, um, as they, you know, continue to purchase Cuban cigars and what to look for. But let's do the, uh, formal lizard rating on this thing. Boys, any final thoughts before we do that on this?
**Poobah:** Yes. And we're gonna have Dan re the cigar. Oh yeah. He's as well. And, and it's excellent. It's, it's round numbers, unlike Dave Portnoy. Pizza reviews, . This is round nu this
**Gizmo:** is round numbers, flat number. Dan flat numbers.
**Poobah:** There was, there was a rationale for this at the beginning of the podcast, and we've just stuck to it,
So,
**Dan:** okay. Uh, what, what are your, uh, what are your fields of, uh, what, what are your points that you, uh, review on? Like, do you just, do you do like, it's your personal construction as
**Gizmo:** a nine or No, it's a flat number. Your personal experience with that cigar at that moment. Right. How did that cigar do for you?
Okay. So we, we'll come to you last, Dan. We'll give you, uh, we'll give you guest privilege. We'll go to you last and, uh, , we'll start with Rooster. Thank you, [01:20:00] rooster. You're up. Yeah. So the, so this cigar
**Rooster:** actually, I mean, it did check all boxes for me. It was floral, it was fruity. I mean, basically that's what I look for in a Cuban cigar.
It was medium, not, not, uh, not like a full-bodied cigar or anything like that. Yeah. Um, I enjoyed it, loved it. Great construction, great burn. I did not have to light it, you know, at all. I mean, it was just the first light and that was it. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a
**Gizmo:** nine. Excellent. Yep.
**Poobah:** Puba. Yeah, for me, um, it checks a lot of the boxes.
It's not a hundred percent in my wheelhouse in terms of flavor profile, but I mean, it's great. Um, if I could, if I could, In the, in the mid to higher rates. I, I would, but for me it doesn't quite get there, um, for what I like all the time. Uh, so I, I'm gonna give it an eight.
**Gizmo:** So for me, for a Hermosa for this size, it, to me, it's [01:21:00] superb.
Uh, it's right up there with the Schwa Supreme. I definitely want to get a box of these. It's a nine for me for. Pagoda.
**Dan:** Uh, actually I really enjoyed the Ciara and I'm, uh, um, you know, I was even debating a 10, but I think it's a nine for me. Uh, you know, I smoked it two, the na and I think Bamba and I were looking at each other.
Oh, yeah. It was
**Bam Bam:** very flavorful, very
**Dan:** satisfying, very satisfying. You know, even with the floral notes, it was, uh, on the sweeter side as opposed to the saltier side, which was slightly a different experience for me. Uh, really, really enjoyed it. It's a definite nine for me. Mm-hmm. .
**Bam Bam:** Okay. Bam, bam. Yeah. I'm going nine as well for ev for every reason that everyone here here said, but what's unique about a cigar?
For me, of course, I pursue the floral and the dry fruit, but one, uh, smoke itself that comes off the cigar has a beautiful aroma. That's a home run. It's a, it's a home run. Great
**Dan:** combustion. Yeah. You know, even the ash, uh, stuck around. It was for quite some, some time for, for a Cuban. I think I was really impressed.
**Rooster:** Yeah. No, no draw
**Gizmo:** [01:22:00] issues. Perfect. That's great. Alright, Dan.
**Dan:** Uh, I'm also gonna go with the nine. Um, and my, my, uh, my, my reason for, uh, deducting a appoint is just because, uh, you know, it's not the, obviously not the best I've ever had, but I really always, you know, I find these to be very consistent. I always enjoy them that I have for years.
Um, and, uh, one thing I I love about Cuban tobacco is, is the floral component. And this cigar to me epitomizes, uh, that, that Cuban floral tone. And, uh, the best examples of Rios that I've had, it's almost like a, uh, a chorus of floral. Those three, you're getting like different types of floral notes that all kind of amalgamate together.
And it, and it, and it comes together in this cohesive, complex, um, blend and. also, I find the cigar has a [01:23:00] lot of strength to it, and you don't expect it from such a, a bright floral flavored cigar, you wouldn't expect it to be so strong. Yeah. But for me, me personally, I find these to, to be among the more powerful havanas.
Um, and, uh, right now as I'm getting into the last third, I'm starting to pick up like other types of notes, uh, like a very sugary, almost like a bubblegum type note. Mm-hmm. And it's, it's really interesting. It reminds me of pink bubblegum, , and it's combining with that like flowery taste. And, and it really, it, it really is a very enjoyable cigar.
I've, I haven't had a Reg Gios in a while, so. When Gizmo and I were speaking last night and when were talking about what we might, you know, have on the show today, uh, when I, when I threw out the idea for the Reg Gios and, uh, he agreed to it, I was like, oh, hell yeah. I'm gonna smoke a Reg Gios tonight. You know?
Um, I'm so
**Gizmo:** thankful. Rooster had the . Well, yeah, he had a great box. And actually I can't believe, I mean, you know, the serendipity of it that, that Dan had a box code [01:24:00] that was within, what, six months of, of, of art course. So worked out very, very well. You know,
**Rooster:** another cigar that's extremely floral is the Lgc,
**Dan:** the MDLs MD four.
Yeah.
**Rooster:** MDL number four. I mean,
**Gizmo:** that's one of my, yeah. Favorite favorite we got. We're gonna do that. We have to do that. Yeah. I mean, that is so f. I
**Poobah:** mean, that's unbelievable. That's diff That's different, that's different ballgame though, than a
**Dan:** cigar. It is different. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a's a higher, that's,
**Bam Bam:** in my opinion, it's higher caliber cigar,
**Gizmo:** there's no doubt.
Yeah. That's a king of, but, but I think it's a smaller ren gauge, but the flavor, the delivery of that insane,
**Dan:** phenomenal, oh my goodness. It's such an elegant cigar. Yeah. It really just, it really,
**Gizmo:** that's a perfect word for it. Elegant.
**Dan:** Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything about that. Smoke. Very
**Rooster:** slow.
**Gizmo:** Yep. Very slow
**Dan:** Yeah. You can't rush that one. Can't rush that I, they're doing, you know, I don't understand why they're not making them more. Yeah. You know, the demand is there. people
**Gizmo:** walk them. Indeed, most definitely. They do. They do want them.
**Rooster:** They're kind of getting [01:25:00] away with the smaller ring ages. Seems like, you know, I mean, it's, it, it takes a roller maybe the same amount of time and you get more bang for the buck if you roll a bigger cigar.
And especially, you know, for the American market, maybe for the European market, they're still like a smaller ring age. But in the US I don't know if, how many people really go for a, like a 36, 38
**Gizmo:** ring age. Yeah, no, you're
**Dan:** right. Uh, you know, that's, that's something I love about Cuban cigars though, is that it, for decades it was uns sui by American consumerism.
You know, think about everything about American market cigars versus Cuban cigars, okay? American market cigar. You go to the shop, you pick out what you want, you take it out of the cellophane. and you could smoke it that day, or you can throw it in your humidor and come back to it later. There's no waiting.
Um, there's [01:26:00] no, uh, there's no sick period or anything like that. Uh, there, there's generally no availability problems on a particular line, or you're not gonna have to wait, uh, years for it to come back out. I mean, some cigars might be more difficult to get than others due to the way that they're, uh, distributed to shops.
Like, you know what, what Fuente does? Yeah. You know, dropping, uh, Opus at, uh, Christmas and Father's Day, I think is when they start, uh, filling out allocations or whatever. But, um, you know, to, to me, uh, you know, Cuban cigars, it's almost like tending to a garden, you know, where you're adding new things to that garden.
And every so often you're, uh, you're, you're adjusting your storage. Uh, Techniques and whatnot to, to, uh, accommodate the, uh, conditions of that particular cigar. Like, you know, if that cabinet, if you're starting to feel the cigars inside getting too dry, you might throw the, [01:27:00] a BDA pack inside a, actually it's a bda, excuse me, I always pronounce that one.
Uh, or, uh, if the cigars are starting to feel too spongy, you pull that over the pack out of the cabinet and you, you maybe put it, uh, next to it instead or something, or just, um, but, uh, the, um, American. Attitude towards cigars and, and ring gauge. It seems, uh, circling back to my point, it's like almost like the, uh, the SUV craze in America
Where Yeah, the bigger is better, you know? Yep. I got my truck lifted with 35 inch tires and, and you know, uh, we're gonna
**Rooster:** send you an 80 ring gauge cigar. 1 1, 1 of the guys at this lounge, he smokes one every day. Every day. Pretty much 80 ring gauge. We might send him
**Dan:** along as
**Bam Bam:** well, ,
**Dan:** if you have any technical issues,
**Poobah:** if you have any room [01:28:00] at your, if you have any room in your, in your house,
**Gizmo:** we're gonna send him
**Dan:** along.
We'll send them with the cigar. Take them. Just take .
**Poobah:** No, but I think you're, you know, you're, you know, it's a fair point. I mean, you, you, you're, I I, I like how you described tending to a garden. I think that that. That's interesting, right? Because you're, you're tending to your humidor and you're, you're, you're, you're changing your storage based on what you're acquiring and, and you're staging cigars out based on maybe what you're gonna smoke, you know, if, based on the way they feel.
So, I, I just, you're right, it's kind of like this instant gratification and bigger is better thing in the American market where it's like, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna wa I'm just gonna walk in. What do I need to keep a humidor for? I'll just walk into JR. Cigar and, and buy this or that. You know, I've had people look at my tower and they go, what do you need all those cigars for?
I go, you just don't understand ,
**Dan:** you know, you know, get it. Why don't I need them? , ? Why don't I [01:29:00] need them?
**Poobah:** Well, right. Well like, well, what are you planning on? Like, having a, because they don't understand, you know, you've got stuff aging in there. You have stuff, you're smoking and it is like a garden, you know, and you're back filling your collection and you're, you're frontloading it and trying to, you know, Trying to keep a collection and I don't know if people do, people really collects like new world cigars, like people collect Cuban.
I
**Gizmo:** I, but I think it's different though. Do think it's, yeah, it's different, but I think it's different. . Right. I mean, to me, the Cuban thing, the thing that distinguishes Cubans, uh, for me to kind of go off of all your points is that it's almost, it, it's like more challenging, you know? It's, it's, it's more of a struggle.
There's a little more suffering. Well, the source of Right. You know, trying to keep your Cubans right and smoke them well and keep well, also, also the rolled fresh and, right. Yeah. And it's, so to me it's more of, it's more of a challenge, which I think makes it more intriguing to me. Yeah. But if you
**Rooster:** look at a, look at a Davidoff or a Padron, [01:30:00] there's already like five to seven years of age on the, you know, by the time it's on the shelf.
Yeah. So it doesn't require that much age. So you can just pick one up and smoke one. You'll be very satisfied.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So the, by the way, boys, the composite lizard score on the St. Louis Ray Rios is an 8.8 excellent score. Wow. Excellent score. Yeah. Strong Recommend. Let's go. Perfect. Excellent, excellent. Strong recommend.
So,
**Dan:** Dan, uh, oh, go ahead. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. Uh, I, I just wanted to, uh, to, to round out my previous point, uh, in regards to ring age and whatnot, and, uh, about, you know, the, the American, uh, cigar smokers, uh, that, that smoke American markets cigars. Uh, some of these guys, you know, the, my friends, you know, coworkers or whoever that I've tried to, uh, introduce to Cuban cigars, they don't enjoy them, uh, for reasons that you might not expect.
Uh, ring gauge maybe being one of them. But more often than not, they don't, they, some of them [01:31:00] don't find those cigars, uh, Cuban cigars particularly satisfying because they're so used to that blast of nicotine that you might get from a, uh, from a Drew estate or a. or a, uh, diesel or, or you know, like the, like a, like a standard, uh, you know, American market like Aga Hernandez or whatever.
Yeah. Liga. Yeah. I mean, they, these guys, they want to be, they wanna get that nicotine buzz. Yep. You know, and, and they don't, you know, they're not looking at cigars from like a connoisseur standpoint more than they're, you know, uh, looking at getting a nice head change from all that nicotine that's, you know, in these like la herro bombs, right?
That, that, you know, uh, so like these Nicaragua, uh, cigars that, that are popular these days with, um, you know, just loaded and loaded with, uh, la Herro trimmings and whatnot. And some companies do Nicaragua with tobacco really well. [01:32:00] Uh, and, and, you know, the cigars can be strong but elegant as hell. I mean, you know, like patron drone obviously, of course those guys are masters of course, at aging.
I mean, they, they have. Tons and tons of reserves of, of well aged high quality tobacco. Um, you know, Pedro is like a, a, uh, what's his name? Uh, Robert. Uh, Levin from, uh, Ashton. He calls his, uh, Ashton Estate Sun Grow, and he calls it the Velvet Hammer because it's, you know, elegant on the flavors, but the, the strength creeps up on you.
I think Pedro does that really well, but, uh, a lot of Cuban cigars don't deliver that same kind of ooph and a lot, you know, sometimes, uh, friends of mine that I've tried to introduce to Cuban cigars, they don't find the cigars satisfying because they're not getting that, that same level of, of, you know, they're not getting that, that the strength nicotine and everything
**Bam Bam:** because they don't, they don't know what to look for.
They don't
**Dan:** know what to look [01:33:00] for. No, but like,
**Poobah:** yeah, but that's not, but that's not necessarily true. They, well, yeah, they don't know what to look for, but they may just not want that maybe
**Dan:** and have access. I
**Gizmo:** don't think they're exposed to the, exposed to the, and they can't get tip Pagodas point.
**Dan:** When, when, when you go to a local shop, how many guys do you see retro hailing?
None. .
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. None. That's
**Gizmo:** a good point. That's a good point. Yeah.
**Dan:** That's don't hub. Uh, that really kind of sits more with the, with the Cuban cigar community. Uh, we tend to retro hale our cigars. Uh, at least sometimes, you know, not everybody does. And all the time, you know, all the time we do on, we do on the pond about it here, dry.
I take, yeah, it's a must. I think if I can't retro hell your cigar. I'm not gonna enjoy your cigar. We'll put it that way. So you want to ask why I don't smoke more New worlds? That might be the biggest reason right there.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, good point. Yeah. So, uh, so Dan, as we come to the end of the episode here, I want to leave the, uh, I wanna give our listeners and us, I mean, I open it up to you and [01:34:00] everyone here, but, uh, what are some action items that you can kind of give us and the listener, uh, to first source authentic Cuban cigars to the best of their ability, but also know and check that they have authentic Cuban cigars.
Even then they're humidor right now, that they already have, like I did, you know, what are some of the things that, that they, and we can do, um, to be better set up to not have fake Cuban cigars in our humidor?
**Dan:** Okay. Um, well, the biggest thing is, uh, who are your connections? You know, you want to learn how these cigars are distributed.
You know, I touched on it a little bit earlier. Yeah. But if you want to be. Certain that you're going to get authentic product, then deal with licensed sources. You know, learn about what La Casa del Hao is. Learn about Havana specialists and Havana's points. Um, you know, [01:35:00] if you stick with retailers who source only from official supply chains, then you're not going to have the issues that the gray market is dealing with right now.
Um, the other thing is, you know, being involved with Cuban cigars, uh, knowledge is always power. So right now there's a retailer, a gray market retailer, that they have more cohiba than I've seen anybody have in the last. . Uh, and they have stuff that I haven't seen on the shelf and God knows how long Siglo five cabinets, uh, they have medial siglo and, and Siglo six and, and Cohiba RAOs in stock and whatnot.
And this is a retailer that they're, their regular selection is dismal on a reg on any given day. They might, you know, they, they, they're, uh, a retailer [01:36:00] that picks up, uh, overstock from Spain and they sell them out of Canada. I'm talking about, uh, RSVP cigars right now. Something like that to me is a red
flag.
**Dan:** Yeah. Because,
**Gizmo:** you know, if it's, if it's too good to be true, it is. Right?
**Dan:** Uh, yeah. I mean, Siglo five, you barely see cabinets of those, uh, circulating in the last few years. So to see this guy who is as gray market, as gray market gets all of a sudden have. You know, quantity of siglo, five cabinets to sell that to me strikes, you know, it strikes me as odd.
Now I'm not, you know, I can't say for sure whether those particular cigars are counterfeit, but I could tell you right now that in general, a scenario like that, especially these days, is something I would avoid. Yeah. Um, so being patient and not necessarily making decisions with your wallet [01:37:00] are the ways to, you know, ensure success, uh, with, with, uh, your, uh, Cuban cigar?
Uh, purchasing hygiene is a, I guess the best way. What a perfect word. . What a perfect
**Gizmo:** word. Hygiene people.
**Dan:** Hygiene people. They get, they get attracted to a deal. Yeah. You know, like Monte Fauna had those cova REOs for 1200 bucks. Yep. And, . Normally they're going for about 15, $1,600 a cabinet right now. So that's like a 25% discount right there.
Um, that's a lot, you know, especially today when, when you know it's been proven time and time again, uh, that they don't need to discount the cigars a single dollar and they'll still fly off the shelf. Yep. You know, there's people that are willing to buy them at any price. Uh, a lot of the newcomers that have come in, they're very aggressive in their buying practices.
Uh, they check the sites every day, [01:38:00] and the second that something comes up, uh, they're making posts on Reddit. Oh. So Winston Instant back in stock at i Manus, boom, they're gone 10 minutes later. Yeah. Uh, I got so lucky last year with, uh, the La Gloria Cubana, uh, gold Medal number force. Uh, cuz it was like, uh, I think it, it was like a Tuesday or a Wednesday morning at like 10 o'clock in the morning and.
I just so happened to be at work and my buddy texted me, um, and he's like, yo, go on, uh, cigars of Cuba right now. They have gold medal number four in stock. I was like, are you serious? And I, that those were, those were off the shelf for about three years. And, uh, I stopped where I was doing immediately and I, I went on the website.
I ordered a, I ordered a cabinet of, of, uh, the, uh, LA Gloria Cubana. And uh, I texted my buddy and he got the text. About five minutes later he went to go order a box. They were gone. Yep. So, you know, it is just really kind of, uh, [01:39:00] being the right place at the right time. But at the same time, like, you know, that vendor in particular cigars of, uh, Cuba, they're one of the oldest, uh, internet vendors.
And, uh, they operate outta the same warehouse as Cigar One and Top Cubans. Those are top tier, uh, online vendors. And while they're technically gray market vendors, They, they, um, source about 90% of their product from their designated regional distributor. So almost everything you get from them comes from official supply chains.
And, uh, maybe, you know, maybe a, you know, some small amount of their cigars might come from another regional distributor, but they don't deal further down the trough like some of these other, uh, gray market dealers like Monty Fauna and whatnot. Yeah. Um, and, uh, you know, something that, uh, kind of aggravates me is, uh, [01:40:00] you know, people still wanna buy cigars from Monty Fauna even after this whole thing has come out with them.
And, uh, Machi, Futuna is still lying about, uh, the situation that they've found themselves in with these counterfeits. First off, we have found. From, and we have, you know, tons of photo evidence to back this up from, from people on Reddit, uh, PIs Extra and, uh, Cohiba Bahi, and we have it, uh, we have them dead to writes on that, uh, people who are getting, uh, U a o November 20, uh, boxes of PIs extra from Monte Fauna.
And
**Gizmo:** that, that code was retired at the end of 19, right?
**Dan:** Y Yes. Uh, despite what Phoenicia will tell you, uh, that code is dead, . Um, but, uh, so,
**Gizmo:** so really it's, it's about knowing, it's really about knowing your vendor, right? And, [01:41:00] and hoping that you're, you're working with a and you're purchasing from a vendor that, that is, that is doing the right thing and and operating above board, right?
**Dan:** Yeah. Um, I mean, right now it's hard to say, you know, as far as know your vendor goes because. Gray market vendors, we don't know where they're, we don't know where they're, they're necessarily sourcing from. And while they might have always been reliable for 20 years or 10 years, yeah. Um, you know, things could change, uh, rapidly.
Yeah. You know, given the, the situation that we have right now. So, uh, a lot of people don't like waiting for something to come up on f o h. Yeah. Or they don't want to deal with, uh, you know, a, uh, foreign tobacco list or a La Casa Delano because they have to wait for, you know, inventory to come in, and then they have to, you know, there might be a waiting list of people ahead of them, so it might take you a year and a half, two years to get that box that you've been chasing after.
Yeah. So you gotta be, you gotta be patient. [01:42:00] Yeah. That's, that's the safest way to do it though. So now, you know,
**Gizmo:** now let's say you have cigars on the way. You have cigars in your humidor, or you have a trusted vendor that you're pretty sure. , you know, that, that you're gonna get authentic stuff. You mentioned the, uh, the UV black light you can order from Amazon, right?
So obviously when, when folks click the link in the episode description, they can see the photos that you shared of my box on Reddit, uh, the counterfeit robusto and what to look for and what, you know, you also shared authentic versions. It was like a ab photos. So there's a lot of good information there.
Yeah. So that's a good tell as well, right? Is being able to put that black light on the box. Yeah. I mean, I don't,
**Dan:** I don't like to push it too much because I feel like people have become way too reliant on, you know, just checking for security tells, as far as like black light features and whatnot. Um, first of all, all of those features have been copied.
Yeah. As far as like, uh, you know, checking for the, for the, [01:43:00] the, uh, black light features in the, in the bands and whatnot, like those blue squares that light up and everything. Uh, you know, you, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yep. So, so that's been copied. That little c h b lot code that shows up in the cohiba bands that's been copied.
Yeah. Um, you know, just like the, uh, the UV stamp has been copied and, uh, just by going off, uh, aesthetics and whatnot, it could be, it could be tough to, to make that, um, determination, but, you know, we get lucky in the sense that no matter how well done counterfeits get, there always seems to be something little that gets screwed up.
Yeah. So, you know, these particular faces that came out, they would not have been identified if, uh, we didn't know that the place where the digits, uh, were in the UV stamp that they had started rubbing them. . Uh, and I, and I came, I [01:44:00] became hip to that because, uh, somebody in Cuban Exchange sent me a photo of a box of Ramona Iona specially selected that they purchased from a bogus Costa Rican vendor.
And I noticed that that UV stamp, uh, he showed me a picture of the warranty still under a black light. I noticed that UV stamp, there was a space missing where the digits would've been Wow. Uh, on all these other counterfeits that we were seeing. Um, so they're correcting their methods very quickly, uh, because I put a video out in March, uh, to the group about, you know, the stuff with the counterfeits and whatnot.
And I had to, you know, looking for the digits and the seal and every, and the stamp and everything. And by, uh, may or uh, June, they had already, uh, erased the digits from the defective, uh, from the bogus, uh, UV stamps. But, um, you know, familiarizing yourself with the serial number sequence, how that whole system works Yep.
And making the serial number system work for you. Um, [01:45:00] that's a great way to, uh, to authenticate, uh, right now because, uh, it's very difficult for counterfeiters to stay with current serial numbers because they would have to update the serial numbers every month, uh, or, you know, relatively regularly to, uh, get, uh, an accurate, uh, portrayal of how it's supposed to be.
Yeah. Um, and man, this shit. Yeah. These guys, this shit is scary,
**Poobah:** but it really is. There's a lot of, yes. There's a, there's a lot of incentive and there's a lot of opportunity right now. Yep. By the
**Bam Bam:** way. Yeah. Dan, I just went on the Cigars of Cuba website. Everything's
**Dan:** outta stock. Yep. That's a good sign that they're, uh, an authentic vendor.
Everything is,
**Bam Bam:** unfortunately, literally everything that we want is outta
**Dan:** stock. Yeah. . Yeah, it's a good sign. That's how it is right now. So when you start seeing a vendor that's flush with Cohiba, what does that tell you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and there might be a couple of exceptions. You know, there's, [01:46:00] there's certain great market vendors that have been around for 25 years, 30 years, and they have connections beyond what the average vendor does.
So you look at a guy, you know, like, like, uh, Ravi, uh, you know, that guy has got , he has got a, a hoard of product. Know, going back decades.
**Gizmo:** That's cigars of, that's cigars of a bonos. Yeah, that's, yeah. But his, his
**Rooster:** vintage
**Gizmo:** prices . Yeah. They're through the roof. Oh yeah, they're through the roof. Yeah.
**Dan:** He took his vintage section down when Bon Roberts went live.
I think it, and now he sells on Bond Roberts. Yeah. Oh,
**Gizmo:** he's, he's a part of, I think he's a part of his logo is on the bottom of Bond Roberts. That's
**Dan:** crazy. Yeah. Oh, I wasn't aware of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wouldn't surprise you, him and Rob have been friends for a long time. Yep. It's a good business
move.
**Gizmo:** Well, I mean, guys. What, what an educational, like, there's a lot to [01:47:00] learn. A
**Poobah:** lot to learn. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's absolutely, it, it's always a pleasure to, uh, to talk to Dan and, and, uh, all of us, uh, reach out to him, uh, for, uh, for support and, uh, education and advice. So thank you for coming on the show tonight.
It's, uh, this was
**Dan:** great. Was really Phenomen My pleasure.
**Gizmo:** My pleasure. I, I, I feel like this is gonna be the first of many and, and certainly as there's more updates and there's more progress here or, uh, you know, the opposite of progress, I guess, as things pr you know, happen. Um, Dan, we'd love to have you back on, man.
This is, this was absolutely fantastic and very educational for us, you know, so, and that's cigar, by the way. Thank you very much. That's St. Louis. That St. Louis Ray, I want more, was great.
**Bam Bam:** I want. Yeah, I would like to get more.
**Gizmo:** So, awesome guys. Dan, thanks again, man. You could check out Dan Cigar salute on YouTube.
Um, your email. Dan, do you mind sharing that with listeners that they can get in touch if they have any, uh, counterfeits?
**Dan:** [01:48:00] Yeah. Um, I can always be reached, uh, either on, uh, Instagram cigar onco salute. You can, uh, you can instant message me there. Uh, you can get at me, uh, via email, uh, cigar salute gmail.com.
Uh, those are the two easiest ways to get ahold of me. Awesome.
**Gizmo:** And, and listeners can certainly always email us as well. We're glad to help. Um, you know, feel free to reach out. Tell us, you know, if you do find, uh, that you have a box of these regards, certainly share it with Dan, uh, and, and us if you'd like.
Um, you know, the more information that Dan has to complete this, uh, investigation to keep it going, the better, you know?
**Dan:** Yep. Yeah. Um, you know, anybody who, uh, might be listening to this, uh, if you, if you have, uh, purchased. From, uh, gray market vendors in 2021. In 2022. Uh, I greatly appreciate it. If you could take a look at your inventory and, uh, just check, um, your warranty seals and your serial numbers for the, uh, the [01:49:00] defects that are covered in the, uh, the Monty for Tuna Reddit post, which I believe is still pinned up.
There it
**Gizmo:** is, and I'll put it, it's in the episode description of this episode, so listeners can just click on that. It'll open right to your, your post. You'll see my comments and all of our comments, all the, uh, all the Reddit folks going back and forth, you know, that'll be there.
**Dan:** Very cool because, uh, uh, Greg Springer, I just wanna shout him out real quick because Greg is the one who, uh, who saw that these, uh, these fakes that, that, uh, that I had, uh, talked about earlier in the year.
He was the one who, who, uh, made the connection to Monte Fauna. Um, and, uh, you know, Greg and I have been working together on this. The issue with the red, with Reddit and whatnot. Uh, And he and I have been trying to collect as much data as possible for people. We're trying to get a snapshot of how the market actually looks right now.
We, you know, so it's not just Monty Fauna that we want to know about, cause we know about Monty Futuna now, but we've started to collect [01:50:00] evidence on three other retailers. Okay, I'll say that. I won't say who just yet, cuz we're, we're just waiting to get as much evidence as possible. All right? But, uh, uh, three other retailers.
It's not good. What are we doing? This is not
**Gizmo:** good. Is is one of them outta Cypress? . Uhoh.
**Dan:** We know where you're going.
**Gizmo:** Don't say it.
**Dan:** baby. Oh
**Gizmo:** no. We'll, we'll table that for another day guys. We'll table that for another. All right, boys, let's get back to optimism for a second. , we had a great cigar tonight. A great conversation. Fantastic. An 8.8 for the St. Louis Ray REOs. Uh, Dan, what a pleasure having you on. Again, thank you so very much for coming on tonight.
We really appreciate it. Pleasure. It was all mine, gentlemen. And, uh, like I said, like we said, check out Dan at Cigar Salute and, um, awesome. Dan. We'll see you next time and, uh, we'll see everybody next week. Keep smoking. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. Hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on [01:51:00] 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 Lounge Lizards pod, p o d, that's lounge lizards pod gmail.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.