A year ago, we turned a camera on in my garage in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania and figured we’d see what happened. We’d already been doing this. Same guys, same chairs, same cigars. We just weren’t recording any of it. This past week we sat back down for our one year anniversary show, and somewhere in the middle of it, Kyle told Eric about a cigar with a story two years in the making. That’s the one I want to tell you about.

A Year of Doing the Same Thing on Camera

Eric opened the show that night, and it set the tone. We had Mark, Eric, Eric the Elder, Rob, Jim, and myself in the garage. Kyle and Big Rob joined us remote from LACC down in Louisiana, the way they usually do.

We went around the table and talked about the year. Mark brought up the time he nearly knocked Eric out of his chair adjusting it for him on camera. Still one of our most replayed clips. Kyle brought up his own shirtless cameo in Jim’s birthday video, which nobody in this group is ever going to let him forget. Eric talked about the Christmas episode, sitting here in the garage with nowhere else he’d rather be. Rob talked about the friendships he’s built through Discord and how much it means to see the same names show up week after week. Jim talked about his birthday episode and the people who took the time to wish him well. I talked about the part nobody sees on camera, which is how supportive everyone’s wives have been about us doing this every week.

Kyle and Big Rob talked about the Louisiana side of things too. They’re finishing out a second humidor in the old shipping office, and they’re being patient about what goes in it. Kyle put it simply. They don’t want to fill it just to fill it. They want a reason behind every brand that lands on the shelf.

LACC Isn’t Slowing Down

Kyle and Big Rob came on with news, and they had a lot of it. They just became a Lampert Black Card retailer, which took some explaining. Black Card members order through Lampert’s site, LACC gets the fulfillment request, and they ship it out. Kyle admitted even he found the process confusing when he first got into it. He didn’t know the Continental cigar in one of their collective packs was actually a Black Card exclusive until after he’d already sold a few.

They also announced two new house blends. The first is Le Flambeaux No. 3, made with Klaas Kelner, the son of Henke Kelner, who’s considered one of the architects of Dominican tobacco. Kyle and Big Rob wanted something outside Klaas’s usual lane. He’s known for lighter, more complex cigars. They asked him to build something full bodied instead, and he took the challenge seriously. Ten trips and a Mexican San Andres wrapper later, Le Flambeaux No. 3 landed with an Ecuadorian Habano binder and four different Dominican filler tobaccos at sixty percent ligero. Big Rob described it as a salted caramel brownie. Kyle said the same thing a different way, landing on leather and pepper up front. Either way, they’re both proud of it, and it shows.

The name comes from New Orleans tradition. Flambeaux carriers used to walk Mardi Gras parades with torches before street lights existed. It’s a hometown nod, and it fits a cigar this personal.

An Inside Joke Two Years in the Making

Kyle opened it with a joke. “We made this for Eric,” he said over the call. It’s a new house blend for LA Cigar Collective, not a cigar made for one guy, but the joke landed because it’s modeled after a cigar Eric has been mourning for years.

That cigar was the Phantom Queen, a Stolen Throne release that came and went fast. The wrapper was fragile and the boxes had problems, so Lee Marsh, who runs Stolen Throne, pulled it and never brought it back. Eric talked about that cigar on Discord with Kyle long before Kyle owned a shop, and Kyle told him he’d try to make something happen someday, even if he didn’t sound convinced himself at the time.

Kyle had actually sent Eric a preview a while back, an unbanded cigar as part of a blind trade. Eric lit it and said it tasted familiar before he knew what it was. Now, on the call, Kyle finally told him what it had been all along. Lee Marsh built it by taking the Corona Call to Arms and the Phantom Queen and blending them into something new called the Voodoo Queen. Same fragile Ecuadorian Habano wrapper as the original Phantom Queen, but a beefed up binder this time so it can actually survive shipping. It’s coming in bundles instead of boxes, which should help. The band even nods to the Phantom Queen’s design, with Marie Laveau standing in the same pose, except she’s got a snake on her head because she’s the Voodoo Queen and she’s earned it.

A Few More Things Worth Mentioning

The Gris Gris Toro hiccup finally got sorted out. Turns out Hostos at Tabacalera La Isla had jotted Kyle’s new blend ideas into the wrong file, so the sample batch didn’t match. Once Kyle caught it on his last trip to DR, they traced it back to a simple filing mistake. Production on the Toro started back up this week, and the new samples are dead on.

HDA moved production over to the Rojas factory, run by Zach and Andre, guys LACC has a lot of respect for. Kyle said they waited for that transition to happen before bringing the line in, and it was worth the wait.

The Smoke and Steel Merch Store – You know, the one we keep saying is getting close to being ready… Well, it is finally done and ready to rock and roll. Take a look around and consider making a purchase to help support the show!

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Stay in the Conversation

If you want to see the whole anniversary show, including the Voodoo Queen reveal and everything else we got into that night, head over to the Stogie Review YouTube channel and subscribe. And if you want to talk cigars with us and the rest of the crew between episodes, come hang out in the Stogie Review Discord. We’d love to have you at the table.