I get a little jealous some Tuesday nights.

The guys are at the table having great conversations with the Discord Community. I’m shoveling coal into the steam engine. I don’t always get to go up front and see where the train is headed.

Smoke and Steel Episode 068 is where I told the crew about Heath Snow’s article. It started with a message I misread. It ended up being the part of the night I’m still thinking about.

We record every Tuesday night in my garage in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania. The core crew has been smoking together for years. We just weren’t recording it.

Before We Lit Anything, We Thought About Scott

Eric started with something serious.

A friend of ours, Scott Thomas, passed away that Sunday. He had been fighting cancer. Scott worked at the lounge where we all met. We had smoked with him for a long time.

Eric said it plainly. We aren’t a serious group. But the cigars that night were for Scott, and for everyone in the cigar community he touched. “This one’s for you, Scotty.”

What Was in Our Hands That Night

Sgt Major Mike was back as our guest. He has been on a few times. Eric closed the night by saying Mike is more than a guest. He’s family. Admittedly, this reminded me of a Chunky Soup commercial for some reason.

Eric lit The Mage from El Mago. It’s an exclusive from Oak Glen Tobacconist. Mike had a Penn Standard Maduro. Rob had an H. Upmann Anejo. Jim lit the Martinique from Principle Cigars. Jesse sent us a bunch of those because he knew we’d been enjoying Connecticut cigars. I smoked a Veiled Mutiny from HDA. It was my last one from the original Black Label batch.

Earlier that week, Eric had a Warfighter 5.56 Field Connecticut. Bill from Discord sent it to him. Warfighter is veteran-owned, so we got talking about other veteran-owned brands. HDA came up. It stands for Hermanos de Armas.

Why We Walk Past the Big Brands

Earlier that day, we asked Facebook a question. When you walk into a cigar shop, why do so many of us walk right past the national brands and head for the boutique shelf?

We figured it was a throwaway question. The answers kept coming.

I told the guys what landed for me. A lot of us see the national brands the way we see Budweiser. They make a good product for a lot of people. They live on volume. They aren’t built to sell a couple thousand units per year.

Then there’s price. Online cigar prices have watered down the big names. A Montecristo can run fourteen dollars in a lounge and seven or eight online. That’s a hard sell.

Eric Talked to the Guy Who Pays the Rent

Eric brought up a conversation with Will, the owner at Chartwell. Will told us he’d love to carry some of the cigars we love. At the price we’d pay, he’d lose money.

Here’s where I’ll admit something. I buy one Johnny Tobacconaut at Chartwell. I buy ten from Cigar Page because they run three or four dollars a stick cheaper. I’m not proud of it. I also couldn’t smoke what I smoke if I paid full price for all of it.

The Shelf Only a Shop Can Stock

Eric pointed out the other side. If you want limited edition cigars, you have to walk into a brick and mortar. He was smoking one right then. The Mage only comes from Oak Glen Tobacconist.

We’ve all got a hole in the wall story. Vape shops with a cigar vault sign out front. Back rooms full of cigars nobody has made in ten years. Shop exclusives are how the lounge keeps you walking through the door.

Heath jumped into the thread, too. He said most people want to try something new that they’ve never tasted before. That’s hard to argue with.

Not everyone agreed. One commenter said the real legacy brands are a short list. He said the rest are average sticks with a famous name on them.

The big brands sell in numbers our favorite boutiques can’t touch. They don’t lose sleep over what we say. They point at the scoreboard.

We said what we always say about boutique brands. If you find one you like, buy as many as you can. It might be gone in six months.

The Cigar That Did Nothing for Jim

Jim lit a Blue Bonnet from Rojas and never got into it. About three quarters of the way down, he pitched it. He said it had zero anything. He kept waiting for it to change. It never did.

He said he never got into the Street Tacos from the same company either.

That’s a strange split. Rojas makes Stolen Throne, and we love those. The cigars that Rojas makes for themselves (Blue Bonnet, Havana Nights) don’t seem to taste nearly as good as what they make for others.

Eric Is Excited About the Amazon Basin. I’m Not.

CAO is bringing back the Amazon Basin in 2027. Eric is excited about it.

I like them. I just don’t think they’re worth $19 a stick. The last one I smoked burned rough. We’ll smoke it anyway and tell you what we think.

Holy Cow, Did We Suck Back Then

Eric spent the weekend helping Eddie move his girlfriend in. When the work was done, they sat in Eddie’s garage with cigars and put our early episodes on his big TV.

Eric told us it was painful. They watched in short clips. At one point he told Eddie to turn it off. Eddie said no. Then Eric played Eddie’s first episode. Eddie wanted that one off, too.

As the episodes go on, you can watch everyone relax. Eddie said it finally sounds like a conversation. The only thing left from episode one is the question we still open with. What’s everybody smoking tonight?

Heath was watching during those early days. More on that in a minute.

The Box Pass Gets Foam and Rules

The box pass is back, and it’s bigger. We start with twenty-four cigars. Twenty-one people are in this round.

Last year, guys swapped one expensive cigar for two cheaper ones to be nice. The box came back overstuffed. This year it’s one for one. Two for two. We appreciate the thought, but take what you get and give what you get.

The farthest stop is Washington State, and JJCreed gets it there. We ordered the stops like a train so the box isn’t bouncing across the country. After the show, we had foam to cut.

Smoke and Steel Episode 68 and the Article I Didn’t See Coming

The Message I Got Wrong

Heath writes essays on Substack. A few days before this episode, he sent me a message out of the blue. He said he wanted to float an idea past me.

My Apple Watch summarized it. I read the summary and decided I knew exactly what he wanted. I figured he was going to ask me to write a guest post.

Guest posts were a big thing in the early Stogie Review days. They were a great way to cross promote websites. They were also a lot of work. So I avoided the message for a couple of hours.

Then I opened it. I had it wrong. I had fooled myself. I’ll admit I was relieved.

Nine Pages From a Guy Who Pulled Up a Chair

Heath wanted to write about us. Not an advertisement, he said. He wanted to talk about the community. I told him I’d be honored.

I expected about 600 words. Maybe a page. The first draft he sent me ran nine pages.

It was heartwarming. He wrote about finding us on YouTube by accident, watching regularly, and feeling like he got to know us. Then he joined the Discord. He said we made room for his seat and told him to sit down. He wrote about how we give people who don’t have a lounge a place that feels like one.

He’s revised it since, and the finished version is live. You can read Smoke & Steel: Sometimes You Just Have to Pull Up a Chair on his Substack.

What Heath Saw From the Outside

Heath started watching when we were still finding our footing. Long tables. Cameras cutting back and forth. He wrote that you could see a show working out what it wanted to be.

Then we became company during his workday. He sat in our virtual lounge with a cigar and talked with Mark and a few others from the crew. There was no entrance exam. Nobody asked for a picture of his humidor.

He also wrote about the first essay he shared with us. It came from a hard chapter of his life. He wasn’t sure he was a writer. We talked about it for the last ten or fifteen minutes of Episode 060. He expected thirty seconds.

That’s why he wanted to write about us.

He ends the piece with a line I’ll steal. “The cigar gets us to the table. The people are why we stay.”

Going Up Front

Reading it, I finally got to go up front and take in the sights. I got to see where we’re headed.

We get comments that make our day. When we only had one, we’d stare at it. Now there are countless. But it’s one thing to hear “great job” in passing. It’s another thing to read someone who sat down and wrote it out.

We say the same thing every time someone sends us something. You don’t have to. We notice every bit of it.

Eric thanked Heath at the end of the night for his paper. He hadn’t even read it yet. He was already excited.

Thanks, Heath. Your chair is still there.

---

Stay in the Conversation

If Heath’s article made you want a seat at the table, here’s how to grab one. Subscribe to the Stogie Review YouTube channel, where Smoke and Steel lives every week. Join the Stogie Review Discord and pull up a chair. There’s always room for one more. And if you want to support the show, check out the Smoke and Steel Merch Store.