Episode 044 of Smoke and Steel gets into something a lot of cigar guys have opinions about - cigar subscription clubs. Which ones are actually worth your money, which ones are padding boxes with whatever they couldn't sell, and how do you tell the difference before you're three months in and canceling? We've been running the LA Cigar Collective and Small Batch packs for a while now, and we give you our honest take.

Beyond the club conversation, Eric just got back from the Dominican Republic with stories from the Don Lucas factory floor, a Cuban he handed his brother on the beach, and some thoughts on the guys trying to sell cellophane Cohibas for five bucks on the shoreline.

We also get into the Discord crackdown that wiped out some of the biggest cigar communities online. The box pass is almost home, the merch store is coming along, and the Smoke-onos Festival in the Poconos is three weeks out. Sticks around the garage include the LFD 30th Anniversary, Plasencia Alma Fuerte, H. Upmann Heritage by AJ Fernandez, Stolen Throne Yorktown Fleet, and a new upstart called El Mago that had some things to prove and didn't quite get there.

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CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro & What We're Smoking

1:25 El Mago First Impressions

3:32 LFD 30th and the Night's Lineup

4:08 H. Upmann Heritage by AJ Fernandez

4:40 Sean from The Burnable Returns

9:42 Merch Store Is Happening

15:09 Fans of the Week

17:54 Discord Box Pass Update

25:06 Eric Won an LACC Lotto

29:40 Discord Crackdown — What Happened

35:58 Eric's Dominican Republic Trip

39:04 Smoke-onos Festival Preview

41:24 PCA Recap and Definition Cigars

42:08 Charlie from Abbina at PCA

44:00 YouTube Shorts and Channel Updates

48:51 What Everyone's Been Buying

1:05:29 Cigar Subscription Clubs — Worth It?

1:13:21 Sports Corner

1:13:51 Gris Gris Lonsdale vs. Toro Debate

1:16:29 Rare Smokes — Do You Smoke Them or Save Them?

1:23:43 Second Cigars and Tatuaje Talk

1:24:29 West Tampa Devil Crab

1:28:07 Vitola Pricing — Do You Buy Up or Stay True?

1:36:06 Wrap-Up