Episode 17: Hard Work or Hand Made | AJ Fernandez New World Puro Especial

Yo yo yo yo, and welcome back to the Sticks and Stones podcast. Sticks and Stones is where we bring serious cigar smokers together with serious dealmakers. And we are on episode 17. And this episode is about hard work or things that are handmade. And it wouldn't be sticks and stones if we didn't light one up. and one of the hardest workers in the cigar world, Mr. AJ Fernandez. This is his new world, the Buro Espeial Premium Age cigar. So, we're going to give it a snippy snippy. Let's get this party started. And this is this is a a beast I haven't brought out in a while. The Isisle of Sky 12ear blended scotch. I have my chilled glass with my King Cube in there. the big rock. How you doing? Is this ch up? Let that marinate a little bit in the ice. This up. I hope you guys are enjoying your day, your your evening, your afternoon, whatever time you're you're listening in or watching in. That is a cool ass logo, man. The AJ Fernandez logo is pretty damn cool. It's a little I mean, I'm not mad at it. It's a little on the spicier side. got a little spice to it, but it's not the I mean, this is this is the thing about AJ Fernandez and like his his handmade high quality product. This is a lot of people don't like spicy. A lot of people won't like peppery cigars, but this is a spicy that doesn't kick you in the throat, you know? It doesn't sparta kick you right in the chest. Like, that's what you want. You want to light up a cigar and this is sparta right in the throat. No, this is I mean, it's smooth. It's got that little bit of spice. and everything nice, right guys? Cheers. [ __ ] man. So, handmade or hard work, you know, obviously, well, it may not be obviously may not be obvious to everyone, but most cigars, unless they're rolled in a factory, like, you know, factory smoke, the Drew Estates factory smoke, those are rolled by machine, unless they're rolled by machine, predominantly cigars are rolled by hand. They are handmade items. I think handmade is has been dying. Handmade products have been dying for a really long time. And I think it's very sad. It's very sad because everything is automated. Everything is machine-made which you know handmade yes can have imperfections. But I mean correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, and you can you can check me on this, but I believe that if something is handmade, and the person who made the item makes a mistake, nine times out of 10, they're going to catch the mistake. and they're going to because they're a human being and because they made it by hand, they're going to catch the mistake and and either remake the item or they're going to fix it in such a way that you can't even tell that there was a defect. Like you can't even tell that a mistake was made. Can you say that for a machine made? I don't think so. I think like you see it on on YouTube all the time, all these videos of these factories where people are making stuff, you know, like steel girders and whatever and you know the the the liquid hot magma, the molting hot steel girder coming out of the machine and something gets [ __ ] up and it's like it's going all over the place and it's shooting all over the factory. That's what happens with machine made. You can't control when it's going to make a defect and you can't control the defect that it makes and you really can't recover from it either. So, it's it's not like you can tell the machine, hey, when you're going to [ __ ] up, [ __ ] up like this. It's just going to happen and you can't control it. And you you can't control the damage that's made to that item. And I can't tell you how many times I've purchased something and it came in the mail from, you know, a factory, factory made, machine made, and it was just messed up. and I had to send it back. I actually one time I purchased when Apple computer came out with the new Mac Pro. Like they hadn't had Mac Pros in a really long time and then they came out with this like groundbreaking computer and it looked like a trash can. Like it it literally looked like a receptacle. I bought one of those for myself and it was really great. And I I I can't lie, for that time it had a lot of power and didn't output a lot of heat. I you know I don't know if that's just because I didn't put it through a ton of stress like you know we weren't recording you know recording artist level albums. We weren't doing you know we were doing business type stuff and web design stuff like that graphic a little bit of graphic design here and there. So it it wasn't like we weren't putting a killer amount of stress on on the machine. So it didn't generate a lot of heat. But I hired a graphic designer and she needed a computer. She didn't obviously she didn't come with a computer. So, I had to order her a computer. Order her a brand new computer from Apple. And let me tell you guys and gals, that computer was not cheap. It was not cheap. It was several thousands of dollars. And it comes in and we unbox it and we're very excited. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm I'm I'm a I'm a nerd. I'm a techie. I love nerdy [ __ ] and computers and anything gadget related. So, I'm super excited. It's not even my computer. I'm super excited. We unbox it and plug it in, fire it up, and it looks like [ __ ] Neo from from the Matrix is about to come through this [ __ ] It's just like ones and zeros and all kinds of [ __ ] floating up on the screen. And I'm like, I've been in the Apple stratosphere for many years now, and I've never seen this. And I called to Apple and got on tech support. You know, they asked me a few questions, and they were like, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. that is a remanufactured machine that was in the process of they were going through diagnostics or whatever. And so instead of putting my machine, a brand new machine in a brand new Apple box, they put a remanufactured machine that had not been fully remanufactured yet and sent it to me. at which point they had to send me a label so I can send the broken [ __ ] back and then wait another like 3 4 weeks for the actual brand new computer which like you know I questioned for a long time after that like are are we just getting remanufactured [ __ ] from Apple and we're paying for brand new [ __ ] I don't know I was very very skeptical from from that point on but it was m that was a an error done by a machine you you know, a a person. Apple is such a big company and and you know, they're shipping I think from China definitely at that time. You know, it's it's a gigantic factory that's probably the size of a city. Do they have people sitting there handpacking computers? Absolutely not. So, that was an error by a machine. And I think that if more human interaction happened in the in the whole supply chain of Apple, I I don't think that would have happened. Now, I'm not making a big deal about it. I'm just giving you an example. Everything was all was right. You know, the universe was made right. Got the computer. Everything was great after we got the the actual computer. Um a little trash can, but everything was cool after a while. I'm just saying that it was a machine error. machine error is going to happen. You know, there are there are tons there are tons of reasons of human error could be could go south really really bad. You know, a lot of plane wrecks that happen or you know, big transportation accidents, it's usually human error. It's usually driver error, pilot error, whatever. So, that that's an example of human things done by hand causing a huge problem. But I would say a huge part of the things that are still made by hand are not made in this country. So if you go to the goto marketplace for handmade things, i.e. Etsy, if you go to Etsy, there's a lot of good [ __ ] on Etsy. I'm not I'm not hating on Etsy. I love Etsy, but you don't get a lot of handmade stuff on Amazon. Go to walmart.com, Target, whatever. So, you go to Etsy and a lot of the stuff, a high percentage of the stuff on Etsy that is handmade cuz you can get some crazy you can get some crazy stuff. You can get like journals handmade with like anything you want burnished in the leather or you know just like the creativity on Etsy is nuts. The majority of that stuff is made like comes out of like Turkey, India, you know, all all kinds of foreign countries and very very small percentage comes out of the US. I mean that just tells me that people here in my country in the United States of America are not making things by hand very often anymore. You know, they don't they have no desire to, they don't want to. I, you know, I don't know. But, you know, thankfully 95% of the cigar industry is still all hand rolled. Thank God. And I'm going to venture to say I don't think that they will ever be a transition. Not even when like robotics comes into it. I don't think there there will be a transition to more machine-made cigars. It's just because the quality is so good when it's hand rolled. You know, it's it's having the human interaction. It's having the human element to the product that a human being can see the tobacco on the bone when it comes in. It's a whole stack of of uh tobacco. They they understand what they're what they're doing. They know what they're doing. They know what they're looking at. They know when they see good product, bad product, and they're not going to roll a shitty cigar. You know, the top tier guys, the top tier guys are not going to roll a shitty cigar. You know, I think when you're when you're a smaller company and you're starting out and you have like limited capital, I think, you know, if you get a couple of bad runs of tobacco, I mean, you got to do what you got to do. You can't, you know, you can't sacrifice the entire company because you got, you know, one pallet of, you know, subpar tobacco. And a lot of these a lot of these companies, startups and smaller companies, they don't have their own tobacco fields, right? So they're they're buying the tobacco wholesale from other people. So it's not like they can say, "Shit, we'll just go in the field and we'll just, you know, pick some more." They they can't. So, you know, what do you do in that respect? Let's just say if you bought 10 truckloads of tobacco and you've got four pallets that are bad, well then, you know, you can roll what you've got, continue rolling, call the manufacturer and say, "Hey, you give me, you know, four shitty pallets. Come on, man. Trade it out." That you can do. Do these companies do that? You know, one one of my one of my goals for 2026 is I definitely want to get out to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic and see some of these places and, you know, film some of it so you guys can actually see what happens at these places. You know, how big these places are, you know, what what type of work is being done, what the plants look like, you know, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I mean, does a small company have the leeway? Do they have the liberty? Do they have the the finances to scrap a whole batch of tobacco because it was bad? You know, the quality control didn't come back great. I I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, my gut instinct says no. Like, you know, what are the things that are still handmade? And what comes to mind are like all things made outside the country like coming just a thought automobiles, right? Ferrari. Ferrari is technically sort of sort of semi-achinemade because it's kind of it's kind of like an assembly line but still made by hand in Bolognia, Italy. And I'm sure they got multiple factories all around. I mean I I love the Ferrari line of vehicles. Lamborghini, anything Italianmade is great. Most of the German stuff is machine-made. However, in Munich, they do make a handmade car. So, they'll they'll get the shell from BMW and I think they do a couple of other manufacturers, too. I think they work with a couple of not just BMW, but they'll get the shell from the manufacturer and then they'll do everything by hand. So, the upholstery is done by hand. The stitching, like everything is done by hand. The motor works is done by hand. The superchargers, the turbochargers, or however they're powering the vehicle is all done by hand. I mean, it's it's a pretty I know firsthand it's a pretty phenomenal product that they put out. I bought my dad an Alpena B7 uh back in 2010, 2011, something like that. And that vehicle was just phenomenal. That was a balls to the wall, crazy ass car. But, you know, like there's not a lot of things that are made by hand. I mean, you get a couple of um a lot of the high-end like bespoke knives, you know, like the pocket there's a lot of pocket knife companies out there that are making these crazy these crazy ass knives with these crazy using crazy materials and handle materials and stuff like that. That's pretty cool. I mean, I I think that's awesome. But I think that there's not a lot out there today. People making things by hand. People taking the time. People using their brain to to come up with a new product to think of things and to plan it out and to, you know, sketch it out, make make the plans, you know, put put the effort forward, buy the materials, make the product, you know, do the actual work and make the product and then having to market it and sell it. And, you know, it is a lot. Don't get me wrong. It's a lot. There's a lot that goes into it. It's a lot of work, but I don't think that a lot of people are doing it today because people just want the easy way out, right? They want that they want to make money the easy way. They want to automate a lot of stuff. And don't get me wrong, I'm in real estate, so commercial real estate, I try to automate as much as I possibly can, but there's still a tremendous amount of personal touch and a lot of handmade or handhandled things in my business anyway. But I don't think a lot of people are there anymore. I think a lot of people just want to farm things out. I think they want to automate things. I think they want machines to do everything, which, you know, there's a time and a place for everything, but I I think that handmade, it keeps you sharp, you know, it keeps you sharp. My my grandpa, God rest his soul, my dad's dad, he was an artisan. He repaired commercial kitchen equipment, and I watched him do this, and he would take jacked up equipment. Let me tell you, your local restaurant, bakery, pizza parlor, they beat the [ __ ] out of their equipment. Like I've seen pots and pans I did I was a salesman for him when I was very very young. I got him service work and I would see pots and pans that were like [ __ ] [snorts] up like a like a fried pan that look like a U. What the hell are you doing with this? You beating people with this [ __ ] pan? Like what the hell's wrong with you? And he would turn all that equipment looking brand new. I mean it was just nuts. And he did everything by hand. My grandpa didn't do anything by machine other than like you know like a hand grinder, you know, stuff like that. But he like I mean he manhandled that [ __ ] like you know he heated it up and like he he you know like metal working you know like you see on Iron Man where he's like you know with the hammer and [ __ ] like that's what my grandpa did molded things out of metal and he reworked things and reshaped things. And then I remember one of the things that, you know, we used to do a lot is we used to go into uh bakeries and we would repair the wire whips, you know, because bakeries use these big mixing machines and they have whips that they put into the machine. It's an attachment. They put it in there and they make, you know, batters, cookie dough, whipped cream, like all kinds of stuff. And those wires would get all like mangled up. They all [ __ ] up. My grandpa would take those damn things apart and he would get brand new stainless steel wire. And this was not like thin wire. This was some thick ass [ __ ] You had to, you know, you had to go to a industrial supply to get this material. And he would get it in a roll and he would, you know, measure it out and he would uh cut it and he would bend and, you know, get this thing into this uh holder that eventually, you know what, like one wire you're looking at it, you're like, "Oh, what the hell is this?" And then in a certain pattern when he got them all in, it formed a whip. And I was like, "Holy [ __ ] that's crazy." But he would do it all by hand. And back in the day, a you know, a long time ago, a long long time ago, thank God, food equipment, like especially like mixing bowls, like big big mixing bowls that they would mix a lot of different products in. Um, they were steel. They were made of carbon steel. And how to make them food safe is tin lead. The manufacturer would coat the bowl with tin lead and that would be safe to eat. Because the problem in in the food industry is, you know, you have you have metal on metal because the whip is metal or a hook is metal. Anything that goes in that machine is metal and it's going to scrape the the surfaces of that bowl. You scrape off steel, people are going to have some problems. You know, bare minimum, you're going to have you're going to have a real bad case of diarrhea. You're going to have the shits. You're going to [ __ ] your pants. Worst case, like best best case scenario, you're [ __ ] your pants. You know, worst case scenario, it's like poison, you know, [ __ ] like that. So the FDA said that tin lead was a safe alternative. You can coat different surfaces that it came in contact with food and it would be food safe and you know human safe whatever. So my grandpa would like he would get these big bowls and it it just looked like a gigantic bowl that you know had big sides and would sit in a machine. It would fit in a machine and you know food food would be made in this in this thing, right? All kinds of different stuff. And he would like he would heat it cuz I I don't know how or why they were dented as [ __ ] And he would heat these things up and then he would bang out the dents and then he would like prepare the surface and do all and and he would like retin the bowl. And you know after a while tin FDA said, "Yeah, maybe that's not a great idea. Maybe just make all of the food services out of stainless steel and not have to coat anything." And then you know that was wasn't a thing anymore. But then he would just like bang out the dents cuz they would still dent stainless steel bowls. So all his work for like 50 60 years was all done by hand. There was no machines. There was nothing like that. And I think a lot of businesses, a lot of that was done back in the day by hand. Just like cigars are made by hand today. A lot of things were made by hand back in the day. And you know people were artisans. People had took pride in what they did and they made products because they loved making them. and you know, just [ __ ] like that. And I don't think that's done anymore. I think there are very seldom companies out there that are making handmade products and they take pride in what they do and they stand behind their product. I know like that back in the day and I'm not a very old guy, you know, I'm 43. I'm not super old, but I remember a day when people stood behind their products. people stood behind their company and if they if they shelled out a shitty product, they would make they would make good for it, you know, not just like we're sorry, you know, here's your the product that you actually bought. Here's that for you. Enjoy. You know, it wasn't like that back in the day. It was like, oh my god, I'm so sorry that we did this to you. You know, here's your whatever it was. Here's your uh here's your Thor's hammer uh Muolnir and here's a you know coupon for $15 off your next purchase or you know I I used to see this in restaurants all the time and now just because of inflation and because of everything else. I get I get why it's not done very often, but like if you went out to eat and the server or somebody messed up your food, a manager would come through and be like, "Oh, I'm so sorry. Here's the actual meal that you ordered. You know, your dinner's on me. Your lunch is on me. I'm so sorry. Please don't let this reflect on us as as a restaurant. You know, we're here to help you and we're we're a community restaurant. Whatever. Whatever." they would give you they would comp your meal or you know give you a comp for a a free meal on the next time you come back like whatever they don't do that today very very seldom they don't do that anymore you know they people are not making up for their mistakes you know so and I know that's that's kind of like going off on a tangent it's not really about handmade or hard work but you know it is got to cut it is hard work right because the service industry is very very tough to deal with clients all the time but you know when someone comes to your establishment and they order something and they get the wrong thing. You know, you should bare minimum be sorry about it, you know, be human about it. I've I've been to many restaurants where they were just like they look at you like, "Yeah, and what do you want me to do about it?" Like, "How about go get me the right thing? How about get me what I ordered? How about that?" It's just so weird of where we are as a society today. It's so It's just so strange. But I do remember a time when people took pride in what they did and and they took pride in the in the place that they worked at. Not just like, you know, screw the man. I'm just here to collect a paycheck. Like they actually cared about what they put out and if they made a mistake, they made up for it. Honestly, think that. And I applaud anybody who makes anything by hand. I applaud you guys. I mean, golf clap. Golf clap, [ __ ] Like this. For real. If you make something by hand and you put your heart into it, you know, I love you because there's a lot of people out there that don't do that anymore. There's a lot of people that don't care about a craft. They don't care about anything, you know, they want to be the next, you know, Tik Tok sensation, Instagram influencer, like whatever. But for young people out there today that are aspiring to make something, to do so, I applaud you. I mean, that that is just awesome. It's great. Please don't let that die out in you because that at the core, it's hard work, right? You're not doing that because you're out for the money, you know? The money helps. Don't don't get me wrong. I mean, everybody's got to survive. Everybody's got to pay their bills. Everybody has obligations, but you're doing it because you love it. And don't lose that love. Because when you lose that love and you sacrifice that for money, that's when the product goes to [ __ ] And then what happens when the product goes to [ __ ] Everything goes to [ __ ] And then you're looking for a job again. Because you took something from here and you got it to here because of hard work, you know, handmade quality, whatever it is. Even if it's machine made, you know, it's quality. you have people the quality assurance, the QA is overlooking everything. So, you got it up to here. But then as soon as profits and and money and and don't get me wrong, I'm not I'm not opposed to capitalism. I'm not opposed to people making money. But as soon as profits come before everything else, that's when everything goes here. That's when everything drops in the toilet. And when it drops in the toilet, you are going to lose customers. That's just what happens, you know? It's it's it's a fact of life. I mean, this thing is going strong, guys. This New World is going strong. The spice has dialed down a little bit, which is odd, but I mean, really, really good stuff. I mean, I'm not surprised. It's AJ Fernandez. Like, everything the guy does is great. And if anybody knows of a different vet of the El Poop, AJ Fernandez El Poopo, I'm trying to get something in a nonbox press [snorts] 60 somewhere around near 60 ring gauge. like if that exists, I would love I would love to know and I would love to know where I can get it. But I think hard work today has just taken a backseat to everything. Don't get me wrong, there there are still a lot of people that do work hard because even though I'm not knocking influencers or whatever because I do know a couple of them and it is hard work. Even doing this is hard work. It's not easy. There's like there's a lot of planning that goes involved and a lot of aspects to this business industry, whatever you want to call it, that takes a lot. And if if you are one of those people that do plan and and you know, you invest in your channel and whatever you do, it's a lot of work. And I and I applaud you guys. I I just think that hard work is what built America, right? I mean, hard work is what got us to where we are, to one of the greatest countries in the entire freaking planet. You know, people came here from from Ireland and people came here from Italy and people came here from all over and came here on a boat with an expectation of opportunity, but they worked their asses off, you know? They they poured concrete and they laid bricks and they did their artisan work and they made products and they worked with steel and they did stuff and they made beautiful things and it's what built this country. And I I just I don't know. Oh, I think that the the younger generations, I've seen multiple waves of younger generations come through the workplace and it's just it gets worse and worse, guys. Like, I don't have good news for you. It gets worse and worse. And being an employer, I have had to hire and fire a lot of people in my life. I've been hiring and firing people since I was 17 years old. And that is no joke. And I have heard like every excuse. I've had people whose family members have passed away multiple times a year. And it's like the ingenuity in that too, you know, it like it gets it's always a family member that's not directly related, not like in your house, but like you know, like a grandma or an an aunt or an uncle or whatever. But it was the excuse was used so often. I was like, you know, it's funny your grandma died three times this year. I don't understand. She get resurrected twice or what happened? It just it's like the work ethic the work the ethic has changed so drastically. And I get the mental health thing, like, you know, I'm I'm not here to sl be a slave for your company. I I get that, you know, because everybody deserves time off and everybody deserves time to relax and and recharge and be with your family, be with your friends and and do the things that you like to do on your off time. Totally get it. But I literally I literally had someone take a day off because she had her womanly monthly thing. Let's just say that. I mean, this was a young a very young person and just thought that she could take off for that and get paid for it. And I'm like, "Yeah, that doesn't work. That doesn't work in the workplace." Like, that's not hard work. You know what I mean? Uh wanted to took time off to go to the and literally told me this. This was someone out of a a very prestigious college. This person's friends called them for a beach day. So, they wanted to go to the beach with their friends and they did. And I'm like, "Wow, the fact that you would tell me that tells me that you don't realize that that's not right. Like, you just can't do that." I mean, shock the hell out of me. But that's like that's what we're looking at today. We're looking at I'm just saying hard work is a rarity anymore. Not saying there's there's not hard workers out there. There's a lot of hard workers, but it's just rare. It's rare that you would see somebody who wants to work hard. And I will say, a couple of friends of mine talk about this. We talk about this all the time. a lot of hard workers. A lot of the good like hardworking pool of talent out there are veterans. The veterans are just hard workers, man. If you've if you've been in any branch of the military, I always keep I always keep the bands. If you work in any branch of the military, you've worked hard your entire career. So, doing a civilian job is pretty easy. I mean, you know, when you're when you're used to working and and getting things done in a [ __ ] war zone, you know, if you can commute and go out and do missions in a war zone in a foreign country, you can absolutely do construction or be a manager at Home Depot or run a business or partner with somebody to help them run their business. I mean, this is it's cakewalk. It's easy. It's slim. I think a lot of people downplay the veterans. Veterans are just an awesome talent pool that a lot I think a lot of people need to dig into more. But like what's handmade anymore, right? I mean, like like I said, other than Etsy, what what is handmade? You know, like even even when it gets down to like culinary products, a lot of the restaurants you go in today, the food is like not even made from scratch. Like it's Restaurant Depot, you know what I mean? It's it's it's reheated burger patties from Restaurant Depot. You go into a restaurant and you're paying $17 for a slice of cheesecake that you know, you're you're you're passing by. You're well, you're not you're not driving a a shopping cart at Home Depot. You're you're you know, you're pushing the the big big thing at Restaurant Depot and you're like, "Wait a second. I just saw that cheesecake at the [ __ ] restaurant that I went to the other night and it's like $17 for the whole cheesecake, right? I'm like, "Oh, that's a ripoff." Even in the restaurant business, things are not made from scratch. And god forbid if you do go to a scratch restaurant, go forbid the bill you're going to get hit with. That's like a Sparta kick in the face because it is from scratch. It's like 10 times more than the cheesecake that got, you know, the guy got from from Restaurant Depot. I mean, is it worth it? It all depends on the occasion and whatever, but that that's not the point. The point is is that there's not a lot of things that are made by hand. I mean, me personally, I love to cook. So, I cook at home a lot and I do a lot of my dishes that I cook, I cook from scratch. One is because a, you know, one, I like doing it. Two, I know what I'm putting in that dish that I'm feeding my family, especially if I'm if I'm feeding my kids or whatever. Like, you know, for instance, I don't like to do the pre-made pancake mix. Even if it's like, you know, whatever, Bisquick, whatever, and add milk or water or whatever creates, you know, pancake batter, I'll make the batter from scratch. It's not that hard. you know, it takes about an additional 20 25 minutes, but I would rather do it knowing that I'm I'm using good product. I only use like organic flowers and the baking powders and the baking sodas and sugars and stuff like that. I know what I'm putting into it. And if I'm going to give that to my children, I would rather give them something that I know what went into it because I did it versus having something out of a box or a tub or or a tube or whatever. And it it just seems like that's not the normal today. I mean, food costs are rising. It's it's ridiculous. Not a lot of things are made by hand today, you know, like like scotches, you know. I'm I'm pretty sure a lot of that is automated and a lot of that is machine-made today, but it didn't used to be. I don't know if that's good or bad. You know, I'm not complaining right now, but then again, this is not a super expensive bottle of scotch. I just think that there needs to be a resurgence of handmade or a change in thought process about work ethic. I think people need to get serious about work again. You know, it's not saying that it really is true. If you love what you do, it's not work. I know it's corny and it sounds like a cliche, but if you love what you do, it's not work. And by doing what you're doing and working hard and what you're putting out a good product. I've read a book a couple of times now. It's called the 5 a.m. club and believe the author is Robin Sharma Chararma. And it's it's basically like if you love what you do, get down to things, break things down atomically. Like there's one part of the book that he says he goes to this one place. It's like in India or Russia or somewhere, I forget. But it's like he goes there for tea specifically because it's the white glove service. And when he orders a tea with lemon and honey, the lemon comes to him with the seeds removed. Like, it's that level of detail that it doesn't matter what it costs. I mean, in the book, this guy's like a multi-billionaire and he's got his own fleet of jets and Rolls-Royces and, you know, all kinds of stuff. So, to fly into this place to have this tea is no big deal for this guy. But the reason why he does it, he's got all the money in the world. He can go anywhere in the world and have this tea. He goes to this place because the people are white glove service and they remove the seeds from the lemon. It's that level of detail that makes him keep coming back. I think the level of detail has escaped people today and it's kind of like that. Oh, you know, there's so many people in the world that somebody will come and and and buy my product. And if yeah, so what? The seeds are in there. But to the person that that means a lot to, they're going to continue coming back and they're going to refer and they're going to buy a lot of the product or tip well or whatever it is just because show appreciation is what I'm saying. And I think that a lot of people they don't see the value in that or they forget the value of that. that people appreciate things when they see you've taken an atomic interest in what you're doing. But I think hard work is, you know, it keeps us in some ways it keeps us young, right? Because if you see a lot of retire, they die not long. I mean, I don't have the stat the statistic in front of me, but I could almost bet that most retirees die not long after they retire because they've been working for so long and the work keeps your mind sharp and when you have to use your brain like it keeps all your motor functions sharp and everything is sharp. And then when you go into retirement, don't get me wrong, I I look forward to retirement one day, but when you go into that retirement phase of life and it's just like, you know, golf all the time or you're not doing much or, you know, you're not using your brain or your motor functions like you used to, you know, everything goes, you know. So it's like if you're not working hard, what happens to you? You know what happens to the human body when you're not working hard? Again, there are some people that have never worked hard in their life and that there's something to say about that, too. like you know what happens to those people but you know there's there's something to say about handmade you know hard work a lot of these people that are on the world stage you know the AJ Fernandezes of the world in the in the cigar world and the the Arturo Fuente and the Drew Estates they're on the world stage in in in our world in the cigar world and they put out a great product you know they put out a great product there are some brands out there that you don't smoke because you know you can get one good one and four bad cigars in a box and you stay away from those those but cigars like this I mean anything that AJ Fernandez makes is like gold I guess you know I don't know if you guys reverberate with me about hard work or you know handmade don't get me wrong I mean there's a lot of great things that are factory made machine made the majority of the electrical you know tech products are machinemade and it's all great I just think there's a there's a sense of workmanship there's a sense of craftsmanship that you just can't get any other way than made by hand. And if you still do it, if you're out there making a handmade product, I would love to know about it. You know, I would love to see it cuz I'm a big proponent of it. I I like handmade things, you know. So, it's that's just my opinion. That's just my opinion, you know. I'm I'm just I'm enjoying my time with you guys having a nice cocktail, smoking a product that I absolutely love. I absolutely love cigars, guys. I don't know about you, but I have been smoking for 20 plus years. And why do we why do we do this? And I just had this conversation. The majority of the people that smoke cigars are not smoking cigars while they're working. They're not smoking cigars like in a field. They're not smoking I mean, I cut my grass while smoking a cigar, but I am smoking a factory smoke or I I'll smoke a CAO surplus. They're all machineade. You know, it's a cheap cigar. If that falls out of my mouth onto the floor, I'm not mad at it. It's a $2 cigar. It's a $3 cigar. But the majority of the time, you know, you're you're smoking a handmade product and you're enjoying it because of the time that it takes. You're talking with a friend, you're enjoying a cocktail or a beautiful coffee or something like that, and you're just enjoying your time. You're getting a little bit of a release, you know, you're blowing off steam. It's it's one it's the main reason why I smoke cigars because I enjoy it. It's my time for enjoyment. I do work a lot. I spend a lot of time working. I spend a lot of time in the creative field, thinking things up, strategizing, all this stuff. When I have a moment that is not dedicated to my family or to my work, I'm smoking a cigar, a handmade product. And I think that that's a beautiful thing. And I think that I would love to know more people that do appreciate it. That's what I got for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you keep listening to the podcast for what we're putting out. You know, we've got a lot of stuff coming up. 2026 is going to be a pretty interesting year. You know, that's that's all I have for today, guys. And I hope that you you stay blessed and of course keep it rolling,