It started as a Cinco de Mayo theme night and turned into something that felt more like a reunion than a recording. That’s the thing about fan appreciation episodes – you plan them one way and they go another, and usually the way they go is better.
Episode 046 of Smoke and Steel was our attempt to say thank you the only way we know how: pull up some chairs, light something good, and actually talk to the people who show up every week. We had Jason joining us from Connecticut, Joe Macko in from Louisiana, Sean from the Burnable down in New Orleans, and Brad calling in from Jackson, Tennessee through what turned out to be one of the worst storms of the season. Matt rounded things out later in the night. In the garage we had the usual crew: Mark, Eric, Eric the Elder, Rob, Jim the Godfather, and me.
Table of Contents
How Three Very Different Guys Found the Same Garage
One of the things we wanted to do with this episode was bring on fans from different points in the show’s timeline. Jason found us in February and watched from episode one straight through until he caught up. Joe has been day one. Sean came in somewhere in the middle through his connection to Kyle and Rob at the LA Cigar Collective. Brad found us the same way – through LACC, and has been a fixture in the comments ever since.
What struck me listening to all of them is that they came for different reasons but landed in the same place. Jason wanted the feeling of being in a cigar shop without having to drive 40 minutes. Brad is in Jackson, Tennessee, where the lounge situation is basically nonexistent, and he said it plainly: you guys are my lounge. Sean talked about moving to Louisiana, working remote, not meeting many people through normal means, and finding more genuine friendships in the past year through the cigar community than in the decade before it.
We don’t take that lightly. That’s what we set out to do when we started this thing, and hearing it said back to you by real people means something.
What PCA Put on Our Radar
Joe was at PCA for work – he just got promoted at Santa Clara, which is now the exclusive distributor for League of Trade, Marlon Wayans cigar. He also had a solid conversation with Warfighter Tobacco about potentially bringing them on as well. Veteran owned and operated, and a brand that’s been circulating in our Discord for a while. Big things in the works for Joe.
Sean was there in a different capacity, helping Kyle and Rob at LACC cover ground they couldn’t get to while filling their dance card with existing brand meetings. Crown Heads, Altidas, Warped – when you’re a lounge owner at PCA, your days disappear fast. Sean was out scouting boutiques, smoking samples, and filtering what was worth Kyle’s attention. That’s a smart way to work a show that size.
A couple things stood out. Halfwheel put together a list of notable moments from PCA and Charlie from Abbina Craft Sipping Soda made the cut – not for a cigar, for a non-alcoholic beverage designed specifically to pair with cigars. Mark flagged it and we all agreed: that’s cool to see. Charlie has been carving out a lane nobody else is in, and the booth traffic at PCA backed it up. If you haven’t tried Abbina yet, they ship. The Royale is the one to start with if you’re a coffee drinker.
The other thing that kept coming up was Definition Cigars. Sean went to their event at LACC and described something close to controlled chaos – standing room only inside, people double-parked out front, a crowd spilling into the parking lot next door with camping chairs and cigars. The brand is owned by Jamond, and one detail Sean shared that I hadn’t heard before: he built the whole thing without a mentor. No family connections, no prior factory relationships, no one showing him the map. He just figured it out. And the cigars back it up – the Big Iron, which is actually a Definition house blend made exclusively for LA Cigar Collective, made our top 25. We’re not a 6×60 Gordo crew by nature, but that cigar earned its spot. Jamond is someone we’re going to make a real push to get on the show.
Sean also flagged two new releases worth watching. The LFD Carbon Flower comes packaged in a five-finger carbon fiber travel case from Project Carbon. Big Rob tried it and loved it, and the case alone is something. It won’t be cheap, but Rob doesn’t usually miss on those calls. The other is Pariah Cigars, a new line coming out of the Domaine factory with blending from Kevin Baxter, who did the work at Asylum. Sean got to try the Connecticut and the Sumatra – both are a 7×60 box-pressed Super Toro, which is a commitment, but he said the layering technique they’re using produces real complexity. Something to watch.
The Padron Conversation Nobody Can Finish Without Agreeing
Rob had his first ever bad Ashton VSG that night. Tunneled, burned like concrete, the whole thing. For a cigar that almost never misses, it stopped the table. Eric the Elder said he’s had quality issues with Fuente at the higher end more than once – draw problems, burn problems – and wondered if that was bleeding into the brands they manufacture for. It’s a fair question.
It led somewhere more interesting though. The crew got into what it actually means to trust a brand over time. Tastes change. Blends change. Brands make decisions that don’t make sense from the outside. We talked about how the Bishop blend swapped to Pennsylvania Broadleaf, how that affected things, how they eventually walked it back. I mentioned my second batch of Thunderiss not being what the first was – still resting them, still waiting.
The one brand that never comes up in those conversations is Padron. Nobody at the table has had a bad one. When someone asked why, Sean broke it down: seed to cigar, complete control, soil testing every three months, shade cloth over entire harvests, seedlings being agitated with push mowers to strengthen them before field planting. That’s not cigars, that’s agriculture at a different level. It shows.
If We Ever Blended Our Own
This one came out of a conversation Brad and Eric have been having on Discord, and I’m glad he brought it on the show because the table had opinions.
The question was simple: if Smoke and Steel ever blended a cigar for the show, what would it be? Wrapper, vitola, flavor profile, and what would the band look like?
Jim said a Robusto. Sumatra or Habano, medium to full, something in the neighborhood of a VSG. Eric the Elder thought we needed to think bigger – a 6×60 in the Gordo direction, like the Big Iron territory. I said we weren’t thinking outside the box enough, and I meant it. My answer was a 6×60 culebra.
The table had a reaction.
Look, if we’re blending something for ourselves we’d build what we like. If we’re blending something to sell, we’d need mass appeal – and we’ve changed enough as smokers that we’d probably surprise ourselves with what we’d reach for now.
What the Fans Actually Said
Jason said the thing that stuck with me most. He watches because it feels like being in a cigar shop, and because he’s learned from guys who clearly know what they’re talking about. What he didn’t know – what Eric told him on the air, is that he learned 95 percent of what he know from the guys sitting in this garage. So the idea that someone out there is getting that same thing from watching us is something we genuinely don’t take for granted.
Joe said every episode hits different. Same format, different conversation – and that’s enough to keep him coming back every week. Sean talked about community being the real hook, not just the cigars. Brad, when his connection held, made the point that Jackson, Tennessee doesn’t have a lounge worth mentioning, and this is what he has instead.
That’s the whole thing, right there. We’re not trying to be something we’re not. We’re just a group of guys in a garage in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, smoking cigars and talking. The fact that it means something to people who are 400 miles away in the middle of a storm trying to stay on a call – I don’t know what else to say about that except thank you.
Stay in the Conversation
New episodes of Smoke and Steel drop on the Stogie Review YouTube channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss one: Subscribe on YouTube
If the culebra conversation got you going – or if you think Jim’s Robusto call was the right answer all along, this is the episode to send to your cigar guy.
Come find us on Discord. It’s where Brad was asking questions before the episode even recorded
