Warfighter Tobacco Podcast

Ep. 61 Making The Top 25!

Check out the #18 cigar of 2024 by @Halfwheel https://halfwheel.com/top25/18-warfighter-night-shift/

Read the full review of our Night Shift Cigar https://halfwheel.com/warfighter-night-shift/441076/

Watch a cop smoke a cigar during a high speed chase https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vYPmIrD9Rc&t=2s

Get your Warfighter Cigars here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.warfightertobacco.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/warfighter_scott/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/warfighter_jon/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/WarfighterTobaccoCo⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/WarfighterCo

Duration:: 46m
Broadcast on:: 24 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

It's another one and welcome back everybody to another episode of Warfighter tobacco podcast. You say it was 61 episode 61 today, boys, why? Cool. Yeah, I mean, there's not the special about it, but it wasn't really paying attention. So yeah, welcome to episode 61 of the Warfighter tobacco podcast. Our last episode, we had a great guest on Caleb. If you missed that one, you should go back and listen to it. It's got some pretty cool stories. We talked about some fun stuff. He's just a funny motherfucker too. He really is. He looks at the world a little bit different than everybody else. But this week, we got a lot of random stuff. There's just a lot of stuff going on in the industry, government wise, regulation wise. We got a phenomenal review by half wheel a little while ago, which in turn turned into us getting one of their spots in the top 25 of 2024, top 25 cigars that they've they rated. It means a lot to me to have half real weight rate it, because of the way they do it compared to other people. Yeah, yep. And then there's something else, regulations, half wheel. Yeah, we got a shot show. Yeah, we go back from shot show. And then we sent some cigars to a police officer. So those are going to be the brief categories that we are the the cliff notes, the categories we're going to talk about on this one. There you go. And this might be the first one. We actually have stuff to talk about coming into it. We're not just, you know, just going off of what we think or what the comments were. But so let's jump right into it. I want to jump into the half wheel part first. And then we can get into all the other stuff. Because that kind of we'll get into what we got rated in the top 25. Before we get into half, let's talk about how cigar ratings general, how they work, like, or how the industry does them. So in our past experience. Yeah, yeah. So let's go. Let's go over the the good ones first. Okay, right. So so there's a lot of companies out there like half wheel, for instance. And there's a bunch of other ones that that do honest rating, right? They legitimately, they are avid cigar smokers. They legitimately will smoke one or multiple cigars, right? And actually pay attention and give a no bullshit honest review on construction, flavor notes, strength, their experience, the packaging, the look, the feel, I mean, everything. Yeah. And then you have the other side of the industry that takes a format advertisement payment. They typically just go off of what the manufacturer says the cigar is supposed to taste like. Yeah. And then they apply a rating typically in the number between 90 and 94. Yeah. And the number corresponds usually with your annual spend. Well, no, your your end of year top 10 or top 25 is based on your annual advertisement dollar spend with that company. Yeah. The rating. Now they won't admit to this. Ever. Like, that's not they're going to claim that that is not true. But there's some that like when we first started, you know, we got a couple of cigars rated now, and they asked us for flavor notes and stuff like that. And they put it word for word, the flavor notes, we send them. But but here's where we almost almost to include spelling error. Here's when we found out what they were actually doing. They would put a review out with a description that we gave them a picture of the cigar we gave them. Yep. And the name of the cigar we gave them, except the rating wasn't for that. And the picture didn't line up with the name and the name and the description weren't the same as the picture. Yeah. They just butchered all of it. And the guys of, Oh, we're doing a review for you. No, we we advertised with you. Right. And then you butchered a review and asked us to be happy about it. And then never did a correction. And so what that tells me is you didn't actually smoke the cigar. You didn't actually fucking review it. And that's why we don't use any of those rate. Yeah. We never have and we never. Yeah, we've never published. Oh, we're not like proud of the rating we got now because we knew it was fucking bullshit. Yeah, it's all fucking bullshit. So when we've been, I mean, we've done some social media and we did email, you know, kick a blast when we got our rating from half wheel. Now half wheel, we've paid exactly $0. Not a penny. They just published cigar news and ratings. So new new stuff on the market. Like half wheels went awesome. I'll go over real quick. Some real quick some of their, they did an article. It's on their website. It's called 2024 reviews and review. And it does this article has no reviews. It goes over the data they collected on what they've done over the year. Half wheels all about data, right? They have built up spread sheets, they collect, they analyze, they put it all back together and new report for every single thing they do. It's not like they're like, Hey, boys, let's sit down and what's your opinion? You know, when they calculate their ratings, their system for doing it, the smoker doesn't even know the number when they're done. The numbers calculated at a later date. So they just fill out all the stuff to review it. And then somebody else puts data to that in off their rating systems. And then it's of even noble shit, like honest review. And it's based on the experience and the construction and all that fun stuff. And they've been doing it for a very long time. I think they set up their ratings in like 2015, 2014 is when they established their like, right, let you know, their rules for doing it. But some of their data, you know, for instance, they go over, they call it top line numbers and they average all their ratings for the whole year. And they do it year by year. And so like, and I'll just I'll give the past couple. So 2021, the average cigar rating for all the cigars they did was 86.27. Wow. 22 is 86.79. 23 was 87.36. And 24 was 87.16. So there isn't like, Oh, they're progressively getting up. They're just kind of doing this number, depending on what's being put out, which leads me into I like these a lot better. They're consistent because they're just reviewing that cigar the same way they review all the rest. There's no bias to it. They also have three different types of reviews that they do. They call it a regular review, which is as they put it Tuesday through Saturday, we review cigars in a consistent manner. So they it's like a legitimate leg is what we're doing, you know, and they just review cigars. Then they have what's called a redo reviews. And they publish something called a redo review in which are a single reviewer smokes one cigar, usually an age cigar for review review that they've previously published. Sometimes that ends up being a rerelease of a previous review. But again, it's just one cigar being smoked. Those don't count when it comes to top 25 of the year. Okay. And then they have what's called Holy Grail week, which is the first week in January. And they smoke one to three cigars. The Holy Grail cigars are oftentimes vintage cigars, which sometimes don't aren't entirely fair to include with the rest of the data. You know, you're looking at a Cuban from way back in the, you know, like something very, very rare. It's not like, for instance, the normal person can't go buy it cigar aficionado. If you look at their top 10 or top 25, whatever they do for the year, I guarantee you in those top three cigars is going to be a Cuban you can't get, right? You have a magazine that's published and focused on American American cigar industry, essentially, because that's where the money is. And your number one cigar the year or top three cigars or whatever it is, it's going to be a Cuban that isn't even available in that market. Why? Right. You know what I mean? Oh, it's got the ad spend. Like, I don't know any other reason why would your number one cigar the year be something that people can't fucking get. It doesn't make any sense. But yeah. So and then getting down into like the nitty greys in the details of them, you know, the averages, for instance, the regular reviews averaged 86.89. Their redo reviews average 88.77 and their Holy Grail's were 87.67. And out of 179 regular reviews, they were published in 2024. 38 of them scored a 90 year above. Out of 178 179. Yep. There were 12 90 ratings, 1891 ratings, 792 and 193. Wow. And our night shift got rated in 91. We're one of those 18. Then they go on to talk about the different cigars and some things like that. But and where they're from country of origin, by company, by factory. And then my one of my favorite parts is advertisers versus non advertisers. So they reviewed 76 cigars from advertisers. And they reviewed 122 cigars from non advertisers. No, the average between all the the paid reviews and the non paid. The paid ones, the average was 87.25, the non paid, which was 87.35. Now the reason why do you think the reason half wheel would put in an advertisers versus non advertisers section? Like, why would they even bring it up? Because they know what I just said is what happens in this fucking industry. And the like the shitty part is it's like this taboo. You're not supposed to talk about it. Yeah. But you got to think like, how the fuck did the Chevy Silverado 1500 is truck of the year. And the Ford F one 50 is also truck of the year. You know what I mean? I think that's based off of sales numbers. It knows fucking ad spend. Yeah. I mean, it's motor trend collecting money from Ford and Chevy and Dodge and everyone. And they say best truck of the year in class, right? They have all these little bullshit categories that don't mean anything but allows them to advertise saying motor trends says we're best truck of the year. It's the same shit in this industry. You know, it really is like, but but yeah. And then it goes as a list of advertising companies. And then, you know, they go over all kinds of stuff. And like I said, it's purely data. So if you're a data nerd, like I am, it's a really cool article because it gives you an insane breakout of how they came up with that list for the top 25 and how they do their ratings, which is very, very interesting to know. Yeah. And then they have a whole rating thing. I'm not going to go over that, but it goes into details on how they do all their ratings. I don't know if you've said it yet, but yeah, we got rated number 17, 18, 18. Yeah, we're number 18 cigar of the year and half on half wheel. More fighter night shift. And then they go over kind of a little bit about the company and their, you know, opinion about the position. And then if you go to the actual rating of it, because they rated us a 91 as well. It goes over the details of the rating and their experience while they were smoking it. Now, I think there was a chance we could have had a 92 if they get gotten a cigar with the band on straight. That was really funny. Because they pointed out that the picture that they have, the cigar they smoked, the band was a little crooked. And so the rifle wasn't perfectly in line. And I get it. I can see how much it was. But no, a 91 that's solid. That's a solid rating from half wheel. Well, it's a great article. And then we appreciate them for that. Yeah. Yeah. And as I said, in the top 25 article, if you click on our cigar, you know, one of the things they put in there. And I really appreciate how they worded it to. And it is, there's two things actually. Do, do, where's that? They're talking about, it might have been in the review. No. Yeah, essentially, they were like, it only took them nine years to make the list. But if you go back to the review, they said something else that was really cool on there. This is from Patrick with half wheel, he goes one of the things that impressed me with many cigars this year. And a number of cigars on this list is what I refer to as having a high floor. It's a term I picked up from baseball scouts referred to players who might not have an all star Hall of Fame level ceiling, but who have a really high floor that suggests they will deliver day in and day out. That's how I felt with this warfighter night shift. The cigar delivered consistently while showing that it can have some impressive moments that propelled out of the out of the range of just being a good cigar. How they word things is, yeah, I appreciate it. But yeah, and then they go over a little bit else about the rest of the cigar and retail and all the fun stuff. But yeah, he tried out to half wheel. Thank you. We really appreciate it. Yeah. And then other stuff that we'll put out in the past couple of days is all of the legislature. That's just magically disappearing. Yeah. All the FDA shit. They were trying to. I would say all of it. Well, what was the actual headline? Like the proposal to ban flavored cigars and menthol cigarettes. Cigarettes. So that's out the window. It's just being dropped. It's gone. No longer pursuing. And then the nicotine level restrictions. And and there's something else that came with that. I think it was best practices for factories or some shit, which is ultimately the US government trying to control factories and other countries. Yeah. That's not really how that works. Not very practical. So all that got dropped. What else? There was something else too. But yeah, that flavored cigar thing that's huge. Yeah. You know, they're essentially what happened is the the FDA and all those, you know, departments have to submit essentially what their rules are going to be for this year to go over it and make sure that that's what it is. And so a copy of that has been bounced around and it shows what they're doing this year. It's not like what they're thinking or whatever. Like this is what we're doing. So in the years prior, all the shit's been on it. This year, none of it's to be found. So it's not even on their radar. Things are looking at, let alone considering as of right now, that could all change next year and four years or whatever. It's the government. They kind of just do whatever they want to do. But as of right now, less regulations. Awesome. Yeah, less regulations equals more freedoms. That's what kind of what we're about. But I feel like less regulation transitions the population into advancing things. Yes. Right. So because now like when there's heavily, when they're heavily regulated, they don't want to get, they want to get creative to get around the regulations, but they don't want to get creative with new shit. Yeah. When there's no regulations, new shit explodes. I wouldn't say none, but when they're less regulated. Yeah, when they're not trying to impose new, they're more apt to explore new things because they can do it. Yeah. You know, when we don't have to worry about going out of business next year, if I establish this product or this thing or whatever it is. Because we spent, Warfighter spent three years just wondering if we were going to be able to continue doing business because of the government, because of the FDA. That's back in the day. Yeah. You know, now if that wasn't a worry of ours, like, you know, we would have made better decisions maybe or I know we would at least had different products back then, you know what I mean? Like there's there. I wouldn't say, I mean, I'm glad I'm happy looking back and seeing where we were when we started and the things that we've gone through and where we are today. And I wouldn't know what where we'd be if things were different because I feel like it pushed us. Yeah. More than normal. But then again, we could have different products. Maybe we didn't need to have a push. Sure. Like, so yeah. But no, it's really nice. Anytime there's more freedom in an industry, it grows. Yeah. So we'll open that industry as a whole. It's just going to get better and better. Well, I mean, yeah, I think it will. So we got the night shift we did. Regulations recovered a little bit of that. We had scars we sent to a police officer. Yeah. Let's go over that real quick. So it's creeping around social media caught on a couple weeks ago at this point, and they came across this is a 16 minute video that's on YouTube, but it came across like a 30 second clip of this video. And essentially, he shows this cop smoking a cigar. And he's attempting to pull somebody over and the guy decided, you know, I'm not stopping. I'm going to run. And so the dude took off and the cop actually had to put out a cigar. And it looks like he's only got maybe an inch smoked out of it. So it was probably a pretty new cigar he had to get rid of to get this guy and pull him over. And so at the end of the video, when he's actually arresting this dude, you know, they're talking and the guy's trying to explain like why he was doing what he was doing. And and the cops just like, you know, maybe you have to throw up my cigar. And the guy's like, I'm sorry, man. But so when we see videos like this, especially when the guy is smoking a scar and had to throw it out, like, I know how that sucks when you have to get rid of a scar, especially after you just let it. Yeah. You have to buy those and they're not cheap. You know what I mean? It's just like, you know what? Hey, because of you and the things you're doing right now, I'm going to take 10 or 15 bucks. I'm just going to toss it out the window. Yeah, let's go over why the cops shouldn't get in trouble for littering. So you threw it out the window. Yeah. But it didn't have a band on it. Right. And it's just leaves. That's right. Is it really littering? You just put leaves back in where the leaves go. Right. I don't think so. I understand if you throw a cigarette out and has a filter and paper and all that stuff, that's littering. Right. There isn't anything that's in the cigar that won't decompose in a matter of weeks or months. Right. You know what I mean? So yeah, he shouldn't get in trouble with that. All the people who use littering and it's like, Oh, you're dumb. But you know, we know a lot of people that are in law enforcement. A lot of guys in law enforcement or cigar smokers as well. Yeah. They also don't get paid the most. They, you know, they make it. It's kind of like just enough that you can live, but not enough where you can like actually live. You know, yeah. So when the guys has to get rid of a cigar, I feel that. So we share that video and we put it out for for all you listeners and our customer base. It wasn't on the podcast platform, social media platform. All I just all I asked was for a shipping address for this officer. So I hear a trooper. So I could get him replacement cigar for the one he got rid of. Right. And I think this incident, I think it's happened like the beginning of last year. So I'm late to the game. But within a matter of like two hours, we got an email into our warfighter email. And it was all it was was a guy and he was just like, I know who the trooper was in that video. I was like, I love this. So I emailed him back and I came and I really appreciate you reaching out. Oh, like, if you shoot me an address, like, I'd love to just get him some replacement cigars. And so we ended up getting some cigars out for the officer and then we got some for the finders for the guy who emailed in. I'm assuming he was also law enforcement some way shape or form. But I just want to give a huge shout out to everybody out there that's doing stuff like that. You're putting yourself out there. You're in a job that a lot of people refuse to do. Yeah. And you're dealing with people that are kind of assholes sometimes. And you do it and you have a smile on your face and you get it done. And I appreciate that. And I appreciate that you're a cigar smoker. So we some of some night shifts hoping that because they were working nights, hoping that they can appreciate a good night shift cigar while they're working the night shift. But but yeah, I think Justin might have the video linked or something. If you want to go watch it, it's kind of interesting. But like I said, they did take it down. Yeah, they pulled ours. When are we shared? They pulled that real quick. I was like four or five hours. It's not like he shoots the guy or anything. But I don't know what the problem was. Yeah, we were bad talking. We were like, Hey, this guy, everybody know how I can get this guy's cigars and he needs replacements. Yeah. Yep. And then Justin, we had one other thing. What was that or something else? We're gonna talk about shots. I was about to say you don't want to recap Chacho. So we went out there just for a quick two nights, did not go on to the show floor this year. We just went for a couple of after parties and do a little networking and stuff on people to talk to. Yeah, we went out to the Leatherneck Club, which is a really cool marine bar in Las Vegas, kind of in Chinatown. Sun's Liberty gun works was doing an event there benefiting this sock app. Right. Or soft seat. No, what the fuck? Some special operations charity down. And you know, we had a humid orange cigars that were up there and American snipers are or was there they had a table set up, you know, generate funds that help take care of all the, you know, sniper sections across all the branches. Another really good nonprofit if you guys are looking for one to help support. And then what do we do after that? Then we went to the Gundy's. Yeah, that's what it was. The Gundy's. I couldn't remember. We didn't actually stay for the Gundy's though. We went to the open bar. Actually, it wasn't even an open bar. I know. We went to the bar. We went to the bar at the Gundy's. Yeah. Talk to a couple of people there. That's an interesting, interesting, interesting people. Yeah. It's funny how everything shifts just in life in the world. You know, a couple of years ago, everybody that was nominated for a Gundy's either new or recognized. Half the people this year and I'm like, well, fuck, I guess I'm not on social media enough. I don't know any of these people. But we got to run into, you know, a lot of people we worked with them past, you know, friends, friends of friends, all kinds of stuff. That was really nice. Got to meet a bunch of new people. Yeah. And then after the Gundy's, that was the first night we were there. And then the next night we did Burbs, which is the veteran success group, another really good nonprofit, our boy Scott Davidson, running that over there. And they had a comedy night. And it was good. Yeah. We had Justin Garvinall. He was one of the comedians, Christina Mariani, headlined, and then everybody else's prior military as well. Yeah. There was even a couple of active duty or one active duty, like a chick who was there. Except she's not, she's about to not be on the media anymore. Because of one of her jokes. Yeah. Because it's true. Yeah. She's making some bipolar jokes. And they were really good. They're accurate and they were funny. And then she said she's getting kicked out of the military because of it. And everyone laughed. And then I talked to her after the show. And she's like, that's real. I was like, well, at least you're okay with it, I guess. Yeah. Well, it was, it was funny. And that Burbs, it's, it's becoming like a reunion. All their friends we work with there that you know, or work with or associate with, they all end up being there usually. So it's just a good networking. Yeah. I know they do them in DC as well. If you're ever in an area and you see, you know, one coming up, they did one in San Antonio one year. That was a good one too. Yeah. They did a couple in San Antonio. I think they have. Yeah. But yeah. That was about it. That's not all. Then there was a circle bar and yeah. Yeah. Didn't know anybody. But yeah, we had a lot of people like, Oh, what's new? What'd you guys see at Chacho? We're like, we're going the floor. We didn't see anything. We were just there networking business. Yeah. Some of the guys are Stogymag. Yeah. From the, it's nice running into people from the cigar industry at the gun show. It is. One year we were at a cigar trade show and we ran into Chris Barrett. Yeah, we ran into gun people. Yeah. That was interesting. I guess Chris Barrett, he owns a cigar shop somewhere. I can't remember. But the son of Ronnie Barrett that owns Barrett rifles. So, and I had known him. He almost hired me when we got out of the military. Yeah. And so it was kind of interesting running into him at the cigar show. Yep. Yeah. Then I turned around and go back to Vegas on Tuesday for I'm going to attend TPE this year. Yeah. And the other years we've set up there. But last year was kind of weird. We didn't do too good at TPE because PCA, our main trade show, was like a month afterwards. 53 days. Yeah. 53 days later. Yeah. At the same in Vegas as well. Yeah. And so the attendance to TPE was wasn't very good. And I think it's because nobody wants to, you know, it's a lot of expense to go attend the trade show. Especially two back to back. And then you do two back to back, you know, like previous to last year, one, the TPE was in January, PCA was in July. Yeah. So it was every six months. And that made a lot more sense. It made perfect sense. Yeah. And then, yeah. And now this year, PCA is in April in New Orleans. So I kind of wanted to go to TPE and see if attendance is a little bit better. Now TPE is not strictly a cigar show. No. The cigar part of it's very little. It's called Total Product Expo. Yeah. And they do like CBD, vape, vape, all that. All the head shop stuff. Yeah. And that's probably 70 to 80% of that show. Maybe even more. Maybe even more. Because they got like two floors and we have like a 10,000 square foot section of one. Yeah. Yeah. And that floors probably, you know, 400,000. And when John says we, he means the whole cigar industry. Yeah. Not us, we're fine. No, no, no, no. We do a 10 by 10. Yeah. A hundred square feet. Yeah. But yeah. And then like this year, looking at all the, because they released the the the show floor map and it shows you where all the booths are and what vendors at what booth and all that kind of stuff. And and all the cigar companies are, you know, grouped together in one area. And so I went through and I looked at everything and there wasn't that many people vendors wise, manufacturers that were there. I mean, there's some but not, not a lot. So if you listen to this and you attend TPE and you see me walking around, I'll have an order for them. Yeah. But we won't have a booth. No, sorry guys. But, but we will have a booth at PCA. That's an April. So if you're a shopper or lounge and you're heading that way or if you're a listener and your local shopper lounge is heading that way, let them know to come by and see us. I'll have a booth number as soon as they give me one. Yeah. But but that's going to be a really fun event, at least for us. We're excited for it because it's in New Orleans. It's new. Yeah. Yeah, it's exciting. It's more centralized. So I feel like they're it's easier for more people to get there. Yeah. The west coast people are are kind of complaining right now because now they actually have to travel instead of driving four hours. Right. Because like that's the cool thing of Vegas. Like all the Southwest like Arizona, Colorado, no, I don't so much Colorado, but Arizona, Utah, California, anywhere in Nevada, like you're four hours from Las Vegas. Yeah. You know, ish. Sometimes it's six, but it's not it's tribal. Yeah. You know, like now, New Orleans, it's just drivable for us. So we don't have to ship pallets and, you know, all this stuff and we get a million playing tickets. And but the downfall is the majority of the people are going to have to fly in now. Yeah. So we'll see how it plays out. But they're doing that there for the next couple of years. Yeah. And you know, I'm hopeful that we'll see new shops at PC this year, especially the people within a four hour radius that can drive that. And then I hope a lot more people from the East coast actually go. But yeah, well, I mean, we'll see. We're excited for it. It's going to be fun. Yeah. We had TPS next week. Yeah. What else is coming up? I got a veteran hump this weekend. I got a boy going to basic training next week. I'm so excited for that. Me too. I'm not the one that has to yell at him now. All right. It'll be great. Yep. Yeah. That's funny. When we were talking last week and we got some hard times and the day that he ships out at 3 30 p.m., he has to be back. And then now he's kind of possession of the US Coast Guard. Yeah. And so I looked over at Scott and I was just like at 3 30 p.m. On that day, he is no longer your responsibility. That's it. Graduated the school of Janssen parenting, which is not an easy school sometimes. Yeah. But we did get to meet. It was a one of your boys. When he went through basic, his drill instructor. They call him company company commander, excuse me. You met at graduation. I did not communicate. I met her through social media because she's a military influencer kind of. And does a lot of stuff on social media. And but I got to meet her in person for the first time in Chacho, which is cool. And she's also now she's in charge of this of the school that's going to teach my newest boy going into the Coast Guard, his his maritime enforcement training. So so that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So we definitely had a little sidebar was like, hey, yes, you know, you got to fuck with them, right? Yeah, if you need anything, just get a hold of me. And I'm like, I'm not going to need any favors. I'm my favors. You fuck him up. Yeah, I was really cool getting to meet her. And you know, that she had not really a crew, but a couple people that were with her that one dude is private military as well, or I think he's still active. And well, he's her husband. Yeah, but then there was somebody else like they had like a little group. But but yeah, so, you know, obviously we gave him a couple of scars. But it was nice getting to talk to them. Yeah. And it's funny because it was literally the only Air Force person in the entire or Coast Guard person, the entire room. Yeah. Yep. Justin, we got any comments or questions or anything that came through? We have not I actually have a question for you guys. Have you all noticed? Because you all have been going to both SHOT Show and TPE and all the all the trade shows for both the gun industry and the cigar industry. Have you all seen like a big merging of the two in the last 10 years? No, is it grown or is it maintained? What even like merging of the two industries? Like we're like the cigar industry trending the same. There's a couple newer than us cigar companies that are working with the gun industry a little bit now and that are veteran owned. But we've seen a couple come and go and we've seen a couple, you know, that are new and doing their thing. But yeah, I don't see any of the gun industry hardly ever in the cigar. Yeah. You see you see some well, some some gun stores carry cigars. Yeah, but it's not there's no real heavy crossover. Yeah. That's what I was there. There are some like correlations between the two. Yeah. Like there are some companies in the cigar industry that no longer exhibit at trade shows. And there are no longer there are some companies in the firearm industry that no longer exhibit at the trade shows. And they just came to the realization that the the cost of it versus what they actually sell and what they do, they could take that money and use it in a different fashion and do better. Yeah. I'm not saying that as an industry, as a whole, the cigar industry is doing that or the firearm industry is doing it because we can 98% of the companies, they rely on the show. We can talk on that a little bit. Like when we first started going to the big trade shows for the cigar industry, it was before COVID. And everybody would these big companies, not even big companies, everybody was complaining how expensive it was. But it's because they set up massive expensive booths. Yeah, they spent a million dollars on their booth, right? Like, and then fly everyone out and put them all up in hotels and food and expensive. So like to break even, you have to do two, three million dollars in sales, just to break even for the cost of the show. Like, of course, it's too much. And then so what we saw, is a couple companies just quit going all together for a couple of years. But most companies have scaled back on their booth size and made it a little bit more realistic as far as expense, expenses, right? Even we have, like, we used to spend way too much, but it was because we were young and dumb and didn't know any better. Yeah, we used to cost us like $50,000 to do one of these shows. Yeah. Now it costs us less than 10. Sometimes. Sometimes. But yeah, I mean, we just didn't know, we didn't know. We were trying to do what everybody else was doing. And then we realized that, fuck, that's not how we're going to make this work. We have to keep doing what we do, you know? And honestly, I think the first or the first year that we downscaled our booth, our sales were, they were better than ever. And it was, it was the first year that we didn't lose money going to an industry trade show, which that's not how it's supposed you know what I mean? Like, what incentivizes small companies to go there when they're not making money doing exposure, I guess, but why don't you make it affordable? Yeah, you know what I mean? Like if you're trying to help this industry and help grow it and help protect it, then fucking do that. But it's not the trade shows that are making it unaffordable. It's the, it's when you reach out to somebody that, hey, build me a booth and it costs. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah. But if you don't know any better, you don't know any better. Yeah. And you can buy it for what would, what you'd rent it for one year. Yeah. If you want to change it every year, rent it. If you're not going to change it every year, buy it. Yeah. And then look at easy ways to do it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I don't know. I feel like I do feel like it's a necessary evil, though. Yeah, trade shows are. And it's good. You get face time with your with your shop owners and you know, that's always good. So, yeah, it's very, it's good networking. Outside of that, there's no way you can sit down and engage with that many people in that short amount of time for that least amount of cost. Yeah. So, you can kind of justify it by the 10,000 foot view and be like, okay, well, you know, if I try to go talk to all these people in their place of business, it would cost me X. Yeah. You know, so it just depends how you look at it. But it's still fucking expensive. It is. And then nothing's getting any cheaper. Like, for instance, Shot Show leading up to Shot Show, like the Venetian Hotel. Yeah. There are rooms where anywhere between $800 to $1,200 a night for a room, a room. And then once the show started, their rooms were like $300 or $400 a night because they didn't sell them out. Yeah. So, they had available rooms during one of the busiest times of the year down there for them, because they were trying to price gouge. Like, fuck you. Well, Venetian, we stayed at Fremont Street because it was way cheaper. And we had a great time. Yeah. You know, I like Fremont Street better than the strip anyways. Yeah. Oh, I did too. You know, but you know, the Venetian, you know, like the drinks are fucking expensive, man. God, Lee was it 80 bucks a round for us to $80. Yeah. Two drinks. No, there were doubles. They weren't they were double doubles. Yeah. They weren't $80 worth. No. Yeah, that would have been issuing us a bottle of peace each time. It would have been just one each. That's it for the night. Yeah. So we drank our faces off the first night, the second night, we a little more concerned. I only had I think I only had three drinks a second night and I had like five waters. I drank more waters than I had drink. Oh, I didn't drink as much water, but yeah, I probably had three or four. But the first night me, I don't even know had all the booze a lot. It was fun. Yeah. It's always fun. Two nights. So I think that's that's my, that's my favorite for Vegas. Previous to this trip, I still think my favorite shot show trip was last year and we spent like an hour and 46 minutes on the show floor. Yeah, because it was, I still got this shot show experience. Yeah. But as soon as we got done, we looked around and we're like, food, done. Let's go. We left. But now it's fun. But yeah, I mean, have you seen anything cool that came out from shot? Oh, no, because I don't care anymore. I don't either. But normally I'll see like a couple cool items. Yeah, I haven't really seen anything. I don't know. Yeah. We'll see in the next couple weeks. And normally like it's right like day one, my social media feed is just crammed with all the new shit. Yeah. Not really. Yeah, but you know, firearms aren't on my algorithm nearly as much as they would used to be. Yeah. I have a lot more firearm influencers than manufacturers. And even from them, I haven't really seen much. Yeah. Yeah. So we got PCA coming up. But we also have a Nick Rockwood trip coming up. Yeah. Next, Bob. And then we got an underground NFG coming up. I think they sold out of tickets. Good. So sorry, we couldn't give you guys a heads up. And if they have any left, they might go to undergroundsagarshop.com. Look for the NFG 25 tab. And if they have a tendi or non-attendi, we will. I can confirm this now, I think both things are shipping like today. Yeah. So we will have a new cigar that we're releasing at NFG. So yeah, I would like to tell you about it, but it is redacted. So you'll have to wait and see. Yeah. And literally see because there's no information that's going to be anywhere about the cigar because it's redacted. Yeah. It's going to be a fun one. It's an absolutely delicious cigar. And that's about all I can say about. But yeah, we're releasing that at NFG. So if you're there or you have a non-attendi ticket, you have the ability to be the first to get the cigar. I'm going to say this too. Yeah. That will be your only chance ever to purchase this cigar. Ever. Ever. Ever. It'll never be for sale. It won't. We have some creative ways in order for smokers to get this cigar. And we'll put that out at a later date. But if you would ever like to purchase, the only time that it's available for purchase is going to be through Underground Scarshop. NFG 2025 event is happening in March. Go on their website and take a look around. In the past couple of years, we've sold out during the event. So there aren't any leftovers afterwards. It's true. And I feel like this year, this event, I think we're going to sell it pretty quick. I would think so. But now I think they might sell them a day or two before the event, no. Even online, everything goes live, noon on that Saturday. When the event starts, that's when it starts for everyone. Attendees and non-attendees. We'll put that out when it's time. But you have to have a ticket in order to buy it. If you don't have a ticket, you can't just go on their website and buy it. So that's why I said to go over there if they have tickets left. It's a capped event. They have 300 tickets. So yeah, I don't know if non-attendees are capped. I don't know either. I'm not sure. I'm not sure either. But yeah, just reach out to them or look on their website. I know they have all the information out there for it. I think that's all in the immediate future that we have in our agenda. A bunch of projects in the works. It looks like NFG. There are still tickets available. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Awesome. So you can head over to undergroundseagars.com and it's now getting some tickets. Yeah, and you can get tickets with or without grab bags. They have a thing called NFG bucks, and essentially you're just prepaying and getting a discount. And then they have all their shirts and swag and all that fun stuff. Oh, I want to teach you this year. Yeah. I haven't gotten one in the past couple of years. I mean, it's the 10th year, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you're underage, huh? Apparently. Fuck, I didn't read that right. You just got to check the box. He's going to reload it and won't let it do it. It's like a it's like a safety bottle on a child proof. Yeah, it's a child proof. I thought I unclicked it. Yeah. NFG is a fucking awesome time. It really is. But yeah, if you can't make it too, they can do the ship. Like I said, you have to get that ticket in order to buy anything else pressing. Nope. No, Justin, you got anything else? Nope. That's it for me, fellas. Cool. Well, in that case, jump on over to warfightertobacco.com for all your cigar needs. The night shift is there. It is in stock and available for you to order. If you haven't tried it yet, you're wrong. I don't know. Yeah. No, it's delicious. High ratings. Read the review. Smoke the cigar. See how well you compare to what? Yeah, Patrick. That's a good way to, yeah, educate yourself, like to know if you're tracking along with somebody who's been smoking cigars forever and does professional reviews. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Other than that, that's it. That's it. I'm going to go finish the cigar and then sleep, so I'm still tired from Vegas all day yesterday. I didn't, I wish I could, but I didn't, I had to get shit done. Some asshole books my schedule. That's me. And he doesn't understand that he needs time to chill in between doing fucking stupid. Someday, I'll slow down. I'll probably be one to die. Yep. All right. See you next week. Cheers. Cheers.