Before we get into anything else, I want to talk about Joe Macko.
Joe has been one of our most loyal listeners since the beginning. Eight-month streak as a top fan. Regular presence in the Discord. The kind of guy who shows up every week without being asked. A few days before we recorded Episode 045 of Smoke and Steel, a box arrived at the garage. Joe had put together a cigar pack for every single member of the show. No heads up. No ask for anything in return. Just a guy who wanted to say thank you.
We love you like a fat kid loves cake, Joe.
Table of Contents
What Was Burning in the Garage
It was a Definition Cigars night from start to finish. If you haven’t been paying attention to what Definition has been putting out, this is your sign. We had the Big Iron – the House Blend made for LA Cigar Collective out of Louisiana – the Kinsman, and the Prolific BP Maduro from the LACC Collective pack making the rounds. Rob went back to his roots with a CAO Extreme, which immediately brought out the story about a buddy who once asked if Rob had hit hard times because he kept posting CAOs on Instagram, instead of his usual Opus and Padron.
Also on the table: the My Father Blue, the EPC New Wave, and a Blood Medicine B Positive. Eric also picked up a new CAO flathead ashtray off eBay that fit right in. If that isn’t Smoke and Steel, I don’t know what is.
What PCA 2026 Actually Put on Our Radar
We spent a good chunk of the night going through the new releases out of PCA 2026 and sorting out what was worth paying attention to from what was easy to scroll past.
Crown Heads Moonflower
This was the one everyone kept coming back to. Sean from The Burnable got his hands on two of them at PCA and came back saying they were damn good. When Sean says that, you write it down. This one is going on the list.
Drew Estate Undercrown El Tigre Dominicano
Our buddy Matt smoked two of them at a brick and mortar and called it the best Undercrown there is. At thirteen bucks it’s not the Undercrown we used to grab because the price was right – this one apparently stepped the whole line up. Worth tracking down.
A Few Others Worth Noting
The HVC Hot Cake Fresh Out of the Oven with a broadleaf Sungrown wrapper caught our attention. The JFR Lunatic Maduro is the headliner out of that house. The CAO American 250th Anniversary and the Flathead Speed Shop came out as separate releases from Scandinavian Tobacco Group, which also owns CAO. And Opus is going with a Summer of Fun theme this year – Hawaiian, palm trees, the whole bit – instead of the Father and Son packs. Our local lounge already has an event planned around it.
Then there’s AKUT, a German cigar company that showed up at PCA with their cigars packaged in blister packs. Like pills. You pop them right out. Sean brought back pictures and it looks exactly as strange as it sounds. We have no idea how they smoke. We’re curious enough to find out.
The Box Pass Is Almost Home
The Smoke and Steel box pass has three stops left and it held up better than any of us expected. When we started it, our biggest fear was that by the time it reached the final guys it would be loaded with premium sticks nobody could match in value. It never happened. It stayed balanced the whole way through – low, mid, and high end from start to finish.
The most recent stop produced the highlight of the whole run. Eric was telling us about a first-timer in the pass who pulled a $20 cigar out and dropped in a Kelner 80th Anniversary, an $80 stick, without being asked. Eric’s exact reaction was “are you sure, buddy?” The guy said he was sure. Joe Macko is up next. I couldn’t think of a better guy to receive it.
When the pass wraps up we’re taking a break and resetting. The plan is twice a year, one summer run and one winter run. We watched an 18-month pass grind people down to the point where everyone was just done with it, and we’re not doing that. Five people are already waiting for the next one.
Johnny Tobacconaut Makes the Rotation List
The Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut officially earned a spot on the Smoke and Steel Top 25 Cigars of 2026 List. I’ve been smoking them in the morning with coffee pretty regularly and made the case. The original is a Connecticut – creamy, bold, lots of smoke, and there’s something about pairing it with coffee first thing that I can’t fully explain. It just works. The Maduro that came out of PCA is also on the radar.
The H. Upmann Heritage by AJ Fernandez also came up as a bundle worth knowing about. Twenty for $89, more consistent than the New Worlds, and quietly becoming a regular in the rotation.
What PCA Is Actually For
This came up organically and I think it’s worth talking about. We got into the new exhibitor row, the first-timers who show up at PCA and then aren’t there the following year. The math is brutal. You’re laying out cash for production a year before you can sell anything, renting booth space, providing signage, and giving away boxes of free product to anyone who walks up.
The brands that make it aren’t always the ones with the most impressive setup. When EP Carrillo made the leap and started doing his own line, his booth at IPCPR was a banner, a couch, and a table. That’s it. Skip from RoMA Craft was at a table with a couple of folding chairs and a sign. What keeps a brand alive after that first show is the cigar itself. The booth gets people to stop. The smoke is what makes them place an order.
I’ve been to a few of these shows and realize that that the relationships are what you actually remember. Ernesto Perez-Carrillo sending over a round of drinks to our table in New Orleans. Pete Johnson inviting us to lunch one afternoon. Skip calling you over whenever he had a free minute and telling us to come sit down, have a cigar, grab a beer. Those are the moments that make you want to go back.
Eric got a good taste of that energy secondhand through Big Rob. Rob told Eric that one night they were just sitting around and Stefan Lampert walked in out of nowhere. That’s the part that’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been. It’s the Super Bowl of cigars and all the big names are just out there, accessible, talking to people.
The Cinco de Mayo Episode Is Coming
Before we wrapped up, I want to make sure everyone knows what’s coming next week. We’ve got five or six listeners joining us on the Discord for our Cinco de Mayo episode. The whole night is about putting faces to usernames and saying thank you to the people who have been showing up for us from the beginning. No agenda. Just cigars and a chance to tell you we appreciate you.
Keep an eye on the socials for details.
Stay in the Conversation
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If you’ve got a guy in your circle who would drop a Kelner 80th into a box pass just because it felt right, send him this episode. He’ll know exactly what Joe Macko and that first-timer are all about.
Come find us in the Stogie Review Discord. The community is active, the recommendations are real, and the bar for generosity has been set pretty high this week.
