Episode 050 felt like a milestone without making a big deal out of it. Light crew in the garage on a Tuesday night – me, Rob, Jim, and Eric – four guys with cigars and no shortage of things to talk about. That is kind of the whole idea. Smoke and Steel records every Tuesday in my garage in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania. The core crew has been sitting around like this for years. We just finally turned the cameras on.

What We Were Smoking

Rob came in with a La Aurora Cameroon out of a $39 sampler pack he picked up from Cigar Page. Twelve or thirteen cigars in the box, and he said it was leaving his mouth a little dry but he liked it. That tracks with Cameroons in general. Good flavor, but they will dehydrate you if you let them.

Jim was finishing up a Room 101 Johnny Tobacconaut Toro. One of our new favorites. Rob ordered a box of the Gordos recently because that was all that was left anywhere, and he was surprised to find he actually likes the 6×60 more than he expected. I’ve been buying the Gordos as of late myself. I am not usually a big ring gauge guy either, but sometimes a cigar just works at a size you would not have predicted.

I was on a PDR Cigars Small Batch Reserve Maduro. I bumped into Abe at Smoke-onos not long ago and he handed me a couple. He told me to bag them with a Boveda pack for about a week before I smoked them, let them come around a little. That is exactly what I did. This was the first one out of the bag. Abe was the first manufacturer I ever really connected with back in the Stogie Review early days, and it was genuinely good to see him. He looked great. Running into him reminded me how long we have been doing this.

One-Dimensional and Proud of It

Eric’s Lawless experience on his porch was the jumping-off point. The cigar tasted the same start to finish. Not bad. Just consistent all the way through without much evolution. He wanted to know what causes that versus a smoke that changes up through every third.

The short answer is filler. As a cigar burns down the leaf gets thicker, the concentration changes, and you start picking up different things. A cigar that is blended or aged in a way that mellows all of that out is going to taste like one long note. Some guys love that. You know what you are getting every single puff. The Mayflower cigars Bruce brought a week earlier were the same way. Good cigars. Solid burn. But they were what they were from the first draw to the nub.

For me, I want a cigar that takes me somewhere. I am not talking about wild or myterios tasting notes. I just want to feel a shift. When it changes, you notice. When it does not, you are just smoking.

What Would You Bring Back

I posted a question on social media asking people what discontinued cigars they would bring back if they could. Thirty-seven comments came in. Eric read through the list and the whole crew weighed in as we went.

Zack mentioned the original La Gloria Cubana. John brought up a Lancero he believes was called the Royal Vintage Number One. Jimmy called out the original Coffee Break by Nestor Miranda. Fred brought up La Regenta, a Canary Islands cigar none of us had heard of, which was a cool one to discover through a post like that. Jay mentioned the Patina Viso collab, the Verdigris. Sam put in the Room 101 13th Anniversary with the pink band. Tat Anarchy came up more than once. Old school Camacho Triple Maduros showed up all over the list, so I will mention it once and move on. La Aurora Para Japon, which I vaguely remember by name more than anything else. Jezbo said the Padilla Signature 1932, Pepin rolled, made in Miami. Rick went straight for Cuban Davidoffs, Eric I put in the Leaf by James, which got a lot of responses. One guy said he had talked to James directly and was told it was never coming back. We knew. It still stings a little.

Skip posted what might have been the best comment of the thread. He compared the whole thing to a pet cemetery question. You can bring the beloved family dog back, but it is not going to be like it was. Something just cannot be recreated.

He is right, and it got us talking about something more interesting than the list itself. Even if you could guarantee the same crop, the same run, the same roller – you have changed. Your palate is different. The cigars you were smoking when you fell in love with some of those sticks were the first ones that really grabbed you, and part of that was the moment, not the tobacco.

There are cigars I smoked boxes of ten years ago that I pick up now and put right back down. Not because they got worse. Because I moved on. The nostalgia is real. The cigar might not live up to it. Skip said it perfectly and I think everyone in the garage knew exactly what he meant.

The B&M Question

We spent a good stretch on something I posted the day before. The question was simple. Online discounters offer prices that local shops cannot match. What would a brick and mortar need to do to make you pay thirty percent more?

This one always generates real conversation because there is no clean answer. Rob put it plainly. He retired not long ago and the math changed. He used to walk into a lounge and buy fistfulls. Now he buys what he is smoking that night and orders the rest online. Not because the lounge did anything wrong. Because the budget is different now.

I get it. We are all smoking more at home than we ever have. If you can save twenty or thirty percent on a stick you are going to smoke on your porch on a Wednesday night, you do it. That is not a knock on local shops. That is just economics.

But here is where it gets more complicated. Jim made a point that stuck with me. When we were going to our old lounge at its best, nobody was doing the math on price. We were walking in on a Friday night because we did not want to miss anything. Fear of missing out. The owner had built something where fifty guys knew each other, knew each other’s wives and kids, and showed up because they wanted to be there. We even did events that did not directly benefit the shop. A cigar crawl where the owner came with us to other places. That is a different thing entirely.

When that feeling goes away, the price gap gets harder to ignore.

Rob made another point I thought was sharp. If a shop owner ever pulled him aside and said, look, I know what you are paying online, I cannot match it exactly but here is what I can do on a box – he would probably take that deal. The conversation never happens. And it might be margins. It might be that it is genuinely not possible. None of us have a price sheet in front of us. But the offer alone would mean something.

What it comes down to is this. A shop that makes you feel at home, keeps the place clean, runs events that feel personal instead of just manufacturer rep visits, and builds a community around the experience – that shop has something online will never have. The price gap becomes a lot more tolerable when you actually want to be there.

The ones that are just selling cigars are competing with everybody. The ones that are selling a room full of people you want to sit with – those are the ones that survive.

New Orleans Is Getting Closer

Me, Eddie, and Eric are heading down to the LA Cigar Collective in October. Thursday through Sunday. We are planning to film two episodes while we are there, but honestly if we end up just sitting around with Big Rob, Kyle, Sean, and the rest of the guys all weekend, that is fine too. The whole point is to finally get down there in person. We have been part of that community long enough that it feels strange we have not made the trip yet.

The other piece of good news is that Sean from The Burnable is going to be in the area on the 11th for work and is swinging by the garage. First time one of the Louisiana guys makes it up here in person. We are going to make a proper episode out of it.

Jason’s custom travel humidor is also on its way to us and we are looking forward to getting it on camera. From the pictures it looks incredible. Harbor Freight case with custom shelving inside. Smart build.

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