Cigars Daily

Alright, so there’s a cigar out there that has the initials of four dead guys on the band. Every single year, four new sets of initials. And I’ll tell you, I’ve been in this business ten years and I did not know that until this week. So we’re going to talk about it.

The cigar is Las Calaveras from Crowned Heads, and the one on the table tonight is the Décimo, which is them bringing back a blend from the very first Las Calaveras in 2014. Here’s the thing about that first one. It came out right around the time I was walking into my first cigar shop job, and the whole cigar world was kind of a different place back then. Everybody was talking about this skull cigar from a little company in Nashville that nobody had heard of, made by a Cuban family in Nicaragua for a Mexican holiday. I don’t know, that’s just a hell of a sentence. So tonight I’m going to tell you the story of why this thing exists, what the skulls and the coins are actually about, and I’ve got a couple of experiences with this cigar over the years that, by God, I’m going to share whether you want me to or not.

Then we open it up. Because the truth is we’re in the final days before Cigartopia and there is a lot going on around here. I’ve been working on a project with Steve Saka and the guys at Cigar Dojo called Shokai Bushido Batch, and I’m going to tell you how that came together. We also went back to Aganorsa and finished what we started on the Daily Edition Validación. We did the Connecticut and the Corojo first, and now all four wrappers are done, and we flipped every one of them. If the original was round, we box pressed it. If it was box pressed, we made it round. Dear God. And on top of all that, we had to replan the whole event around construction, which has been about as fun as it sounds. Good stuff in there, I promise.

Every family has one. The guy who sits down at Thanksgiving and ruins it before the rolls hit the table. And if your family smokes cigars, you know exactly which cigar snob I’m talking about, because he’s at your table too.

Tonight on Cigars Daily LIVE, four brand new cigars are coming to Thanksgiving dinner. But they’re not showing up as cigars. They’re showing up as the four cigar snobs every one of us has met and none of us can stand. The rich uncle in the gold suit who turns a cigar into a philosophy lecture. The cousin who’s spent ten years telling everybody he’s not like other smokers. The uncle who went to the jungle one time and has been resting on that story ever since. And the hype guy, who doesn’t have a name, just a following.

Here’s the thing. Mom only set four chairs, and there’s five of us. So one of these snobs is getting kicked out of Thanksgiving tonight, live, and the Cigars Daily Cast and Crew is going to fight about who it is. One of us defends each guy. Somebody prosecutes. And then the Nation decides. By God, I already know who’s going, and I’ll tell you, I don’t think you’re going to agree with me.

My name is Tim and I’m the host of this show, but YOU are the co-host. Your comments and questions drive the episode. Settle in, grab a drink, and let’s get into it.

So which one of these snobs is sitting at YOUR Thanksgiving table this year, and which one are you kicking out? Put it in the chat and we’ll read the best ones on air. This show doesn’t work without you.

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Rare used to mean something. You heard a cigar name whispered at the lounge, you spent a year chasing it, and when you finally got one you saved it for a wedding, a baby, or the wedding you had because of the baby. Hell, half the fun was the chase. So here’s the thing. In the span of about two weeks, a Cuban limited edition that aficionados hunted for years just got moved into regular production, and one of the most talked about Fuente grails in the hobby went wide. The cigars you couldn’t get are suddenly cigars you can. And the Cigars Daily Nation is wicked smart, so I know you’ve already noticed.

Tonight on Cigars Daily LIVE 452 we’re calling it. Rare is dead. The truth is, it might have been on life support for a while. The crew and I are breaking down how we got here, from the days when supply and demand made certain Nicaraguan blends the new Cubans, to the annual limited release machine, to the moment the hype got so loud that rare stopped meaning hard to find and started meaning well marketed. Then we line up the suspects. Was it the Cuban industry? The big manufacturers? The flippers and the collectors? The content creators? Or did we, the smokers, kill it ourselves by chasing bands instead of blends?

I’ll also spend a few minutes on a cigar that never played the rare game at all. The My Father Garcia & Garcia was built by a father and son to show the absolute best of what the Garcia family can do. It was never a limited edition. It was never a drop. It was simply made with intention, in tightly controlled numbers, as a cigar for the occasions that actually matter. And by God, that might be the model for whatever comes after rare.

Hey everybody, I’m Tim. Somebody just put a number on your humidor. Not me, I’d never do that to you. But this week the cigar world got its very first valuation platform, a guide built for premium cigars the same way classic cars and old baseball cards have had for decades. Which means the dusty box of sticks your grandfather left you, the one you were too scared to smoke, might finally have a number next to it. Dear God. What have we done.

Here’s the thing. For as long as I’ve been in this industry, the value of a cigar was whatever you and your buddy agreed it was at the lounge. Now there’s a system that wants to catalog rarity, history and what a cigar is actually worth, with plans down the road to authenticate individual sticks. The guys and gals in the Cigars Daily Nation are wicked smart, and I want to know what you think. Is this the moment cigars finally get the respect that wine and watches get, or is this the moment somebody turns your humidor into a stock portfolio and sucks all the fun out of it?

Tonight the Cigars Daily Cast and Crew is on the case. Tim The Filthy Viking, El Rey Del Terrence, and Billy The Cock of the Walk are taking inventory. We’re talking about the sticks you’re saving for a day that never comes, the ones you’d never give up for anything, and whether aging a cigar for 15 years makes it a treasure or a very expensive mistake. If you’ve ever wondered whether expensive cigars actually taste better, you already know where I land on that, and the crew is going to make me defend it.

Are women ruining cigars? I’ll tell you right now, I already know the answer. But by God, we’re going to talk about it anyway, and I brought the two people most qualified to settle it.

Terrence is off on vacation, so for episode 450 I’m handing the mic to the wives. My wife Allison, better known around here as The Wrench, and Michelle, AKA Spicy Wifey, the woman who somehow puts up with Billy every single day. These two have watched this hobby take over their houses, their closets, and their weekends for years. Tonight they get to say whatever they want about it, and hell, I’m a little nervous.

Here’s the thing. After 10 years in the cigar world, the number of women who love cigars still surprises me. It’s a huge and growing part of this community. But when women walk into the lounge, things change. Guys act different. Some of it is great and some of it is pretty damn funny. So tonight we’re building the official list of pros and cons of women in cigars, and the Nation votes on every single one. Fair warning, the cons column might surprise you. Guys, get your defense ready.

Hey everybody, I'm Tim. They say there's no such thing as a dumb question. But is that really true? Tonight we're putting it to the test, and I think I know just who can help me with that. Everyone at home. That's right, the Cigars Daily Nation is on the hook tonight. Drop ALL your cigar comments and questions, and we'll see if we can find a dumb one.

And I'm not doing this alone. Eric from Cigar Dojo is joining me, and he's spent years building one of the most passionate, welcoming communities in the cigar world. Between the two of us, we've heard just about everything. So whether you're cigar curious and have never had one, you're a few months in and still figuring out what you like, or you've been at this for twenty years and want to settle a debate once and for all, bring it. Big questions, small questions, weird questions. Hell, especially the weird ones. Here's the thing though. I've got a sneaking suspicion the Nation is too smart to give us a dumb one. Prove me wrong.

And then there's the secret. Cigar Dojo is coming to Cigartopia this November, and they're not just showing up. They're coming in on something big, and we're revealing the surprise live, right here on the show. I'll tell you, keeping my mouth shut about this one has been damn near impossible. Stick around, because you're going to want to be in the chat when it drops.

For about 60 years, Cuba has been the undisputed king of the cigar world. And right now, the king is in a really weird spot. Habanos is pulling in record money while the actual cigars keep getting harder to find. China keeps getting more involved every year. And here’s the part that blows my mind: half of the most famous cigar company on the planet belongs to somebody nobody can publicly name. By God, you can’t make this stuff up.

So tonight, we’re turning the whole cigar world into a board game night. Cuba, China, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and the good old US of A each get a spot on the map, a strength rating, and a real storyline pulled straight out of this year’s news. We’ll flip event cards, shift the board, argue about who’s teaming up with who, and yes, we’re rolling the El Niño chaos die. Because the truth is, nobody controls the weather. Not even Cuba.

Here’s the thing that makes this so good. So many of the families who built the cigars we love today started in Cuba and had to rebuild somewhere else. So this isn’t just a game about who’s winning. It’s the story of Cuba’s heirs, rivals, and challengers all circling the same throne.

A few weeks back on this show, I went on the record. I said the Knuckle Sandwich Saguaro is easily the best one of the bunch. Not "one of the best." Not "up there." The best. And the Nation does not forget when I say things like that. So tonight, the Saguaro is here, I'm lighting it live, and you're holding me to every word.

Here's what we're working with. The Saguaro is a 6x54 box-pressed Toro out of AJ Fernandez in Esteli, same house that builds every Knuckle Sandwich. Broadleaf wrapper, full strength, pepper and spice up front. But the story of this blend is the binder: a Nicaraguan Seco Corojo leaf from Jalapa that keeps the whole thing bright and balanced when by all rights it should be a freight train. Erik Espinosa called it another fresh perspective on the Knuckle Sandwich and said it was strong enough to have been a core line cigar. And the name? That one's personal. The saguaro is the icon of the Sonoran Desert, the symbol of our hometown, and seeing it on a Knuckle Sandwich band means more to me than I can probably say on camera without getting made fun of by my own chat.

Some families run restaurants. Some families run farms. The Gomez family runs one of the most respected cigar operations on the planet, and tonight the youngest member of the house joins us LIVE. Litto Gomez Jr. of La Flor Dominicana is in the building, and the Nation gets to ask him anything.

If you don't know the House of Gomez, here's the short version. Litto Sr. was a jeweler who reinvented himself as a cigar maker in 1994, an outsider who taught himself the craft and built La Flor Dominicana into a powerhouse, growing his own tobacco on the La Canela farm and eventually becoming president of ProCigar. Ines Lorenzo-Gomez co-founded the company and runs the business side. Tony Gomez became the second-generation blender behind some of the most talked about cigars in the LFD portfolio. And Litto Jr. grew up inside all of it, blended his first cigar during college breaks at the family factory in Tamboril, and now serves as Vice President of Sales, carrying the family name into its next 30 years. Tonight we get his side of the story. What it's like growing up in a cigar dynasty, how a 22-year-old convinces his legendary father to put his blend into production, how two brothers divide an empire, and where LFD goes from here.

Tonight the Wrench takes the stage. My wife Allison joins me live, and we’re doing something we’ve probably needed for a while: cigar marriage counseling. And YOU are the counselor. Cigars are the glue of this marriage. We smoke them on dates, we’ve built a life around this hobby, and this whole thing runs on the leaf. But living with the cigar guy comes with grievances, and tonight they’re all coming out. The chat hears both sides, the chat rules on every dispute, and we’ve agreed to accept the Nation’s verdicts. This was possibly a mistake. We’re doing it anyway.

The docket is loaded. There’s the great bed cigar debate, where Allison maintains that smoking a cigar in bed sounds like a perfect evening and I maintain that it sounds disgusting, and roughly ninety percent of you have already told me I’m insane. There’s the matter of the humidor, where out of two thousand cigars’ worth of space, my wife has been allocated one small section of one shelf, a fact she would like entered into evidence. And then there’s the big one. I made a cigar for Billy. I made a cigar for Terrence. The Nation has noticed who I have NOT made a cigar for, and so has she. That conversation is happening tonight, live, with nowhere for me to hide.