Truth about cigar media Episode 41 | Barreda Cocktail

Yo yo yo yo yo. And we are back for another episode of Sticks and Stones podcast. Sticks and Stones podcast is the podcast where we talk about life. We talk about love. We talk about premium tobacco products and we talk about business too. So I want to just want to go on a rant here just briefly. [ __ ] sugar and [ __ ] whoever discovered it and figured out how to process it. I'm not a sweets guy. I would prefer savory to sweet. So, I don't I don't go rummaging through like the candy aisles and stuff like that and cakes and pies and sweets and stuff is it's not my thing. Not saying I don't enjoy something sweet every once in a great while. I just prefer salty, savory things, but I do love a sweet coffee and sweet drinks. And sugar is just a killer. I mean, forget diabetes. Put put that aside. It's a big problem. It's a huge problem in America. But just put that aside. It sugar puts so much weight and body fat on you so rapidly, so quickly. And why I say all that is between my New York trip and PCA 2026, I put on I don't even know how much weight, but from the last time that I weighed in until about a week week and a half ago, put on 20 lbs and I had been drinking a lot of sweet coffees. And then sugar is kind of like a gateway. It is like a gateway to other bad [ __ ] So you start consuming more sugar. Your body wants more carbs and not like good carbs, not bananas or vegetables. Your body is starting to crave Doritos, uh Cheetos, all the [ __ ] you should not be eating. So, I cut out sugar and I cut out carbs or or bad carbs anyway cuz I I am doing some vegetables here and there and some some low glycemic fruits like apples and I'll throw in a banana for the potassium every once in a while like in a week's time in one day I drop 4 lbs. Yeah. So, that's my rant. That's all I got to say about that. So I am enjoying this is my third cup of coffee and this is black coffee by the way. No sugar, no sweetener. I am enjoying a morning cup of Joe. And for this morning selection I will be smoking the Barida cigar. Barida cigars cocktail. This is their answer to or this is their version of the Cuban sandwich which is a combination of short filler cigars. Why do they do that? The price point. I think this thing is $5 or somewhere in that region somewhere in that area. Uh this is a Habano from Halapa. It is a five by 54. So let's give it a snippy snippy. And I'm doing a lot more V-cuts lately. I don't know why. I just I really am preferring it these days. Give it a tap tap tapy. It is a lot of short filler. This is basically a habano Cuban sandwich cigar. There's a lot of short fillers. There's a lot of stuff going on in this thing in order to give you a hand rolled cigar, but not at a $20 price point. Give you some good product. Give you give you a nice smoking experience without breaking the bank. And we're off. Ooh. That is very nice. And I got to say, I do enjoy all the big boxes, David Off, General Cigar, and and their army of brands. Uh Alec Bradley, Love AB, lots of stuff out there that's great, but there's just something about boutiques. And I don't know if it's because I'm an entrepreneur and I've, you know, run businesses, started businesses, sold businesses, folded businesses, and I know how hard it is to stand something up from the from scratch, from the ground up, and see it succeed or fail. I don't know if that's a big part of it, but I do love boutique brands and Barida is one of my rapidly favorite top tier like all-time favorite uh cigar companies. Rapidly racing up the list. You know that Crown Heads is the other hugely favorite in in my world. This is like This is creamy. It's smooth. Got a little bit of sweetness in there. This is great with coffee. Great with coffee. Cheers, guys. This is You need You need to grab one of these if you like smokes with your morning coffee. This is awesome. Anyhoozer, what I wanted to talk about today on this episode of the Sticks and Stones podcast is media. media in general, but we are in the cigar media space. Let's call it that. You want to vlog, podcast, become a cigar influencer or the and a an influencer in the cigar industry. Great. I thoroughly encourage you. I don't consider myself an influencer. I consider myself a cigar fanatic. I'm just I'm a fanboy that loves all things cigars, cigar accessories, cigars, tobacco in general, even pipe tobacco. I I'm a pipes. Pipe smoking gives me a I had the word on the tip of my tongue. Pipe smoking is nostalgic for me and that's why I love it. But I'm going to caution all of you out there, if you want to get into the media space, if you want to get into the influencing space, podcasting, vlogging, all that good stuff, all that happy horseshit. You should love what you're doing. If you don't love what you're doing, if you don't love the subject, the subject matter, don't do it. I'm telling you now, don't do it. I'm warning you now. cautionary. Do not do this. And here's why. I actually have a client, a past client who is a very notable, I would say, internet famous, if not real famous influencers, media space personalities, whatever you want to call him. And it didn't, his success didn't come overnight. His material and content is second to none, but he didn't get there overnight either. and this individual puts in a [ __ ] ton of work and resources and all that type stuff. So, first and foremost, what I'm saying is if you're doing this for any other main reason other than you love it, you love cigars, you love smoking pipes, you love fashion, you love shoes, you love technology, whatever it crocheting, I don't [ __ ] know what whatever you're doing, whatever your subject matter is, if you don't absolutely insanely love it, Do not do it. I'm telling you now. And why do I say that? Well, I'm glad you asked that question. I say that because you will have to put in so much time, effort, resources, including money to do this work to do to be in this space in this field. And my editing team doesn't get in yet. And this is early in the morning. So, I wanted to jump on the podcast and film an episode, record an episode, and then I figured, you know, let me shoot a video and put it on our Instagram as a real to tease this episode. I am by far not a video editor. Don't know very much about it. It took me almost two hours to edit a 93 second reel. That's real time, guys. That's some real time that you could be doing something else that you know could be arguably way more productive. You are going to put in a lot of time. You're going to put in a lot of money because equipment's not cheap. Studio time is not cheap. Nothing is cheap today, especially with inflation and costs of goods sold skyrocketing and everything is just bananas today financially. It's a lot of money. Getting out and going places for your channels is not free either. You know, we went to PCA 2026 in New Orleans, Louisiana. That is a short trip for us. it because we're based in Houston, Texas, and we have, you know, satellite in New Jersey because I'm I'm a Jersey boy. It's where I was born and raised and New Orleans is a short trip for us. It's 5 hour drive. 5 5 hour 15 minute, 5 hour 5 and 1 half hour drive. That still took the drive time, the fuel cost, the hotel stay. PCA is not free even though we were media and you know prices are reasonable. We had a crew of three people and the room in you know the hotel room food the entire stay which was about a week. We got there the day before PCA opened and we stayed until the last day April 20th. It it cost thousands of dollars. It's not cheap. Like I said, equipment is not cheap. But the most valuable resource we as humans have that cannot be replaced and it cannot be bought is time. Guys, almost 2 hours to edit a 93 second clip. You are going to spend hours and hours and hours doing this stuff. And it's it's not just one thing. So, we don't even have a TikTok yet. And that's that's one of the plans. We're going to we're going to be rolling out a Tik Tok channel. So, it's Tik Tok, it's Instagram, it's Facebook, it's YouTube, it's a podcast channel. Then, ancillary to that, maybe you want to start a website. Maybe you want to, you know, sell products or whatever. There's website design and development. And that's a cost if you don't do it yourself, but it's still a cost if you do it yourself. Even though because there's servers and services that you have to inevitably you're going to have to participate in some third party service in order to run your website efficiently. So there's a lot of moving parts to doing this. And here's the biggest reason. You ready? A lot of people doing this have 9 toive jobs. A lot of people. I'm not going to say the majority because I really don't know the statistic, but most people that I have met, most people that I know do this stuff, also have a 9-to-f5 primary job. So, imagine that you have a 9 to-ive job, which most people today, most people technically overworked and underpaid, but don't work 9 to5. You know, they work 7 to 5 or, you know, 7 to 3, maybe they work 9 to6. It's not a just a standard 9to-5 position. So you have a primary source of income. You have a primary obligation to that employer of yours or maybe it's yourself, but it it's still you'd have to consider yourself an an employee of yourself. If even if you're self-employed, yeah, you can set your own schedule. You can set your own work week and duties and responsibilities and all that sort of stuff and you get to delegate and whatever, but you still need to see yourself. You need to look at yourself in the in the eyes of the company. You are an employee and you do have an employer. Even though it's yourself, you have an employer and you have a duty to yourself and your employees. If you employ anyone, you have a duty to everyone to report to work. Duh. So, you have a primary gig that handles all of your obligations and and delegates to you your responsibilities. That takes up arguably to some people minimum of 8 hours a day. Some people or other people 4 hours a day. and a lot of people 10 or more hours a day. So you have a primary responsibility, a primary role, let's call it a main gig that is occupying, call it 8 to 12 hours of your day. Now while you bringing home the bacon, let's call it while you're working hard to earn your main revenue stream. Now you're in the back of your mind. You've got to plan out cuz let's be honest, there are no shortcuts. Like the Rocky For song, there's there's no easy way out. There's no easy way out. There's no there's no shortcuts. Any good channel, any good podcast, YouTube channel, vlog channel, whatever it may be, has planning involved. There's planning in the background. Whether that be a little bit of planning or a [ __ ] ton of planning, there is planning. So, while you're in your main gig, your your home plate, let's call it, you're planning your next podcast episode, your a vlog idea, photo opportunities. But yeah, you know, this is a this would be a great shot of this cigar or this watch or this shoe or whatever, this dress, this suit in this light at this location, you know, and it's a lot of planning goes into that. Yeah, there's, don't get me wrong, there are times when a lot of shit's done ad hoc or uh spontaneously, but if you want to maintain a steady increase in followers and subscribers and put out good content and reliable content, content that people go to as a resource, you want to be helpful, right? You want to you want to provide something that people find helpful, whether that be pure entertainment or educational. You want to provide something to people. So, if you're going to do that, you have to put a certain level of planning into what you're doing. So, you have a main gig and then you have one or multiple side gigs and this may be one of them. Media may be one of them. And you're now thinking about stuff that you need to do while you're in your main gig. And I'm just going to preface this. This is a disclaimer. I am self-employed. So, I do think of things while I'm working in my commercial real estate gig. And yeah, I do jot some stuff down and come up with ideas, but I definitely do not recommend if you are on the clock or you're a salaried employee for an employer who is paying your salary or paying your hourly wage and giving you a paycheck every week, bi-weekly, monthly, whatever the [ __ ] it is. I definitely don't recommend you putting time into your side hustles or your, you know, media stuff and your social media stuff while you're on the clock, while you're working for that employer. So, that's just my disclaimer. I said it. Now, having said that, when you're on break or when you have time or when it's convenient, you got to think of locations and and products. Oh, you know, I haven't tried this cigar. And you have to stay on top of things. So you have to be in the know, in the news, what is going on, what's new, what's trending. This all takes time, guys. You have to like So some of the stuff that I do is I stay on top of new brands, new cigars being released, new cigar shops opening, new lounges opening, and I plan on going and visiting time, money, resources, and I plan on shooting on site, purchasing some of those goods. You know, we try out torches and lighters and ashtrays. I've got ton of ashtrays around me at all times. About a million torches. And I try all sorts of cigars. I smoke multiple cigars a day. This is all real cash, guys. This is money coming out of our pockets. with the exception of the cigars that were passed out at PCA. All the cigars I smoke is money coming out of my pocket. But I love what I do. I love cigars. I love talking about cigars. I love meeting people that also share my love of cigars and premium tobacco products. I like visiting cigar shops and cigar lounges. I've smoked cigars all over the world in Italy, the UK, Switzerland, you name it. I've smoked at a lot of great places. And that was way before I was even in to podcasting or vlogging and stuff. I did it for my own personal uh pleasure. I really am a fan of cigars in general. I've been smoking for probably 25 plus years. This is something that I love doing and it's something that I knew was going to take a lot of time and resources and planning and everything else to to do this. And I moved ahead. I moved forward in doing this knowing some of the pitfalls. I didn't know all of because there are many there are many pitfalls of things that will come up that you're not expecting. equipment breaks. Sometimes, even if you plan ahead, sometimes things go wrong and that shop has to close for some reason and you drove out there to go to that shop. And thank God it hasn't been an issue where I flew out someplace to go visit a shop. Thank god this hasn't happened yet and I hope it never does. But you go someplace and you can't shoot the content that you wanted. I I something similar to that happened to me in a couple of different instances. One cigar shop that I walked into in New Orleans I thought was going to be very welcoming to media and people vlogging and podcasting and whatnot and almost immediately said no, no filming in here. So that kind of threw me off. And then eventually, you know, I talked to the guy and he let me film the cigar cases, but and I and I get a lot of shop owners don't want to be on camera. I get that being on camera is not something that everybody wants to do. God knows I hated doing it in the beginning and now it's not that I love it. It's just it's become normal. And that that'll happen to you. Most people anyway, most people don't like being in front of a camera, but eventually you do this long enough and you post enough, it just becomes like normal. It's like the the status quo. And it it's really weird in the beginning because you're you're literally [ __ ] talking to yourself. You're talking to yourself, hoping that someone on the other end is going to be listening to you or want to listen to you. And you're sitting there with a device, an electronic device pointed at your face and you are talking about god knows what. It's a little off-putting. It really is. I'm I'm not going to lie. But you do it enough and it becomes normal and then you get the you get the there's a a myriad of reactions that you get in public. You'll get people that look at you weird. You'll get people that wonder what you're shooting about. You get people that, you know, get pissed. You get people that want to jump in. Like there's a lot of different reactions you get from the public. But it's so cool when you meet people that do something similar that you do and you kind of have that camaraderie and you know share experiences and whatever. That's very cool. It's also very cool when you're out someplace and someone recognizes you from one of your channels, from some of the stuff that you're putting out there. It it just gives you a little um I don't I don't know what the word is. I'm not gonna say validation. It gives you a little bit of I don't want to say sense of accomplishment, but it's basically like just like a a you know a hat a hat tip that hey, what I'm doing is it's landing. It's it's working. It's useful. That kind of thing. So, and then there's a lot of times when you're doing this type work and you don't get the response that you expect. Expectation is something that is another disclaimer. Don't expect anything. Don't expect [ __ ] basically because what you expect you will undoubtedly probably not get. And that's good or bad. That could be good or bad. It's also true the the old adage don't meet your heroes or don't aspire to meet your heroes because once you see that person up close and personal, you can't unsee it. So someone that you admire and you know is a hero to you and you meet them, you may not like what you what you see, hear, feel, and then you you can't undo it. I mean it's it's something that you know is going to happen and it's something that don't stop don't aspire don't stop aspiring to meet those people or do the things I'm just saying don't have any expectations. People you think are going to be the coolest people in the world may be the biggest [ __ ] and people you think may be a miserable prick may be the coolest [ __ ] guy you've ever met in your life. So, don't have expectations or just have low expectations is all. So, basically what I'm saying is if you're going to get into influencing, vlogging, podcasting, social media [ __ ] whatever, if you don't love it, first of all, people are going to pick that out right away. If you don't love what you're doing, people are going to sit there, look at your content, and say, "This person doesn't give a [ __ ] about this. They're just trying to get as many followers as they can." so they can monetize whatever their channels and and do collaborations and endorsement deals and whatever. It's going to be pretty obvious. Love love the subject matter. Love what you do and all of the effort and resources and time that you're putting into it isn't even going to be a thing for you. Because if you don't love something, you're going to gripe and complain and [ __ ] and moan about it until kingdom come. You know, you you'll be driving to an event or flying to an event and say, "This [ __ ] thing I had to pay $900 in a in an airplane ticket and the room is costing me, you know, 1,200 bucks and then I got to rent a car, do all these Ubers, and then I got to pay for the event. Then I got to do this and I got to do that and this cost and that cost and you know when when is this [ __ ] going to stop?" And people are going to see that eventually. Maybe not in the beginning, but people, if you don't love what you're doing, and if you don't like the the subject, if you don't like the industry, if you don't like what you're talking about and videoing about and photographing, people are going to get it. People are not stupid out there. So, if you don't love it, don't do it. And for the most part, the people that I have seen be successful at at this thing all love what they do. And they're not all in the cigar business. Some people talk about technology. Some people talk about food. Some people talk about not just food, but like restaurants. They specialize in visiting restaurants. Some people, you know, it's fashion. Some people it's weird [ __ ] but they love what they do. So it and know it's corny. It's a corny adage. It's a corny line, cliche, whatever. But if you love what you do, it's not a job. I If you're able to if you're able to create money, if you're able to generate income from doing what you love, awesome. That's awesome. That that is the absolute dream. But if you don't, you don't. You still love what you're doing. You still love the subject matter. You still love the industry. you still love the product, you still love the people. It's it's a win-win. But if you're the if you're the just there for the money, eventually you're going to say, "You know what? The camera equipment, the computers, the staff, paying people's payroll, and the events and the travel cost and all, you know, I'm just tired of this [ __ ] I'm not doing it anymore. [ __ ] this." That's what eventually what you're going to say. I'm I'm just telling you right now, even if it gets to a point where you do start to monetize and you do start to generate income from media, if you don't absolutely love it and it's not something that you can create enough revenue, enough income to support your entire lifestyle, you know, your whatever your situation is, your significant other, your if that's your thing, uh to to tot all of the cost to, you know, provide for your significant other, family, children, employees, you know, locations, rent, mortgages on primary residences, studios, you know, stuff like that. If you're able to generate enough income to support all of that and it's something that you're not really insanely in love with, congratulations. You are like the 1%. But for the most part, even if you do start generating some sort of income from media, unless you really really love it and it's something that you do day in and day out, regardless if you were in front of a camera or not, you're going to burn out. You're going to burn out. I don't see myself ever burning out from this because I [ __ ] love it. I I smoke cigars and have smoked cigars for decades and I will continue to smoke cigars. I will continue to go to shops and events and lounges all over the world. Whether I'm in real estate, whether I'm in aircraft and aviation, no matter what industry my main job is, I am still going to be smoking cigars. God willing. Got to put God first in everything you do. So, God willing, I am going to be smoking cigars for decades to come. I think my personal opinion. Now, you got to remember podcasts are just nothing more than one knucklehead's personal opinion about [ __ ] sprinkled in with, you know, some entertainment and hopefully facts, real facts. But in my personal opinion, you're going to you're going to burn out if you don't absolutely love what you're doing, talking about, videoing, photographing, podcasting about. You will burn out. And burnout leads to a lot of disappointment. Sometimes depression, sometimes other [ __ ] And no, like no one wants that. I definitely don't want that for anyone. I think that find a subject that you do regardless. Whether you're making a trillion dollars on it or you're making zero, you're actually negative because it's costing you money to talk about it. Regardless of of either one of those situations, you got to love what you're doing. And if you don't love it, don't do it. That's what I said from the very beginning of this episode. And yes, some of the things that the perks at what you're doing could seem like perks to people who love what they're doing and it could be a pain in the ass to people who are just doing it to be doing it. So with I mean with all of that, I still encourage anybody to to get into media either social media, podcasting, whatever it may be, vlogging. Some people only do Tik Tok. That's all they do is Tik Tok and they've got millions of followers and they love doing what they're doing. Whatever you're you're hoping to do, whatever you're setting out to do, I just caution you to really love what it is. Whatever it is, really love it. If you don't really love it, I mean, you could do it. That's it's your prerogative. It's your it's your time, resources, money, and everything that you're going to be putting into it. But don't go ham, you know, treat it treat it as a hobby. And technically, cigars is a hobby that I do day in and day out, every single day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. So, it's kind of fitting, you know, this I generate no income from cigars right now. Full disclaimer, no income whatsoever. I don't know what could come of this industry, these channels. We do have plans on selling accessories, cigars one day hopefully, God willing, but right now zero negative. The balance sheet is negative in the cigar world for me. If you are okay with that and you're willing knowing knowing that willing to go forward doing it because you love what it is, sneakers like what the [ __ ] it's whatever your thing is. If you're willing to have a negative balance sheet, meaning it cost it cost you rather than you're making income from it, then go for it. Do it. I encourage you. I wish you all the best, all the blessings. But if you're doing it because you're like, "Oh, I want to be Instagram famous or I want to be social media famous. I want to be a big podcaster. I want to be a known vlogger. I want to walk around places and people are like, "Oh my god, look at that guy." Don't [ __ ] do it. You're doing it for the wrong reason. And I also, in my personal opinion, I think that the people that do things for that reason, I think they're found out pretty quickly or let's just say eventually eventually they will be found out. People, their followers, their subscribers will eventually pick up that, hey, this [ __ ] is just doing this for the money or or the notoriety or the fame. That's insane to even say that for the fame. People are YouTube famous. They're Instagram famous, Tik Tok famous today. It It's long past are the days that Hollywood was the center of fame. Now I would venture to say social media and all of these other media sources, mediums, platforms have become the normal. That's the normal center of fame. And Hollywood is just like off left field over here. You know, you've got you've got the recording industry, you know, music people, and you've got Hollywood and TV people. Like, that used to be the center of fame. Now, if you got a voice, if you have a musical talent, you just put that [ __ ] on Soundcloud or Spotify or whatever. And honestly, I'm I'm a huge Apple fan and I do a lot of the the iTunes and Apple Music. I think that's what it's called now. Apple Music. I'm just so [ __ ] old. You can find better music on Spotify or I don't even know if Pandora is a thing anymore, but you can find better music cuz it's like remixed. It's it's a different take on recorded, you know, notable recording artists songs. Like you could find remixes or covers on Spotify and other music outlets than you can on Apple Music where the original artist recorded it. You could find people are self-producing now. People are putting out their own short stories and movies and articles and TV and whatever. So, I would venture to say that social media and all of the creator space stuff has become the new normal famous and Hollywood and music city have become like the Don't get me wrong, the global population is still going to consume Hollywood movies, Hollywood TV shows, and big recording studio music. But somebody with a laptop and a microphone and a guitar or someone with a camera, even even a a [ __ ] iPhone today, an iPhone or a Galaxy or any of these new smartphones, any of these new mobile devices, you can create crazy content. I mean, I don't know how true it is, but there's a couple of movie studios that are saying that some some of these movies that are coming out, big box movies, have been shot on iPhones or or Samsung Galaxies or whatever the [ __ ] So, anybody with limited tools can create content that other people would enjoy consuming. And I think that's why that's become the normal. that's become the the main center of fame and notoriety and what have you. And I think it's also the attraction that hey, that's just an average Joe. That's just a normal guy or or gal and they became quote unquote famous. I mean, look at Teddy Swims. Love Teddy Swims. Love his voice. Great music. Uh would love to go to a Teddy Swims concert. He started on YouTube. I'm sure something some medium before YouTube, but that's where that's where I saw him first was on YouTube and then he had Soundcloud, I think. And now he's a huge star star. I mean, it's I don't know. It's crazy that people would associate a star with someone famous, but whatever. Yeah. So that's a there's a a lot to unpack in this subject, but it all boils down to if you look at anybody who has a relative amount, a relatively decent amount of traction, notoriety, fame, whatever you want to call it, they love what they do. I read a lot of interviews and see a lot of interviews on YouTube and other mediums of famous feature film actors that on their days off which when they're filming it's it's bananas. uh from from what I've you know heard and and seen behind the scenes footage and stuff on their days off when they're not filming movies or TV shows, they're watching TV shows or have a theater in their homes and they're watching movies regularly. Some actors like struggle with their lines remembering their lines after they've shot the movie. I watched a I can't remember what it was. It was some kind of thing on I think it was YouTube. Maybe maybe it was on Netflix. I I don't remember. But Gerard Butler was interviewed and it was kind of like the your most iconic lines. This guy remembers his lines from almost every damn movie he's filmed. That's a lot of dedication and love of your craft. when you can remember lines from a movie you filmed 10 years ago, 15 years ago, you you really got to love what you do. So that's what I mean. Like these people that do this at an elite level, at it, let's call it an Olympic level. They really love what they do. There are people in the cigar industry, Elizabeth Santos, the remarkable is, she's got a nineto-ive job. She's got a family. She has multiple children. I'm not going to get into details about the woman's life, but I consider her a friend. I interviewed her at PCA. We've stayed in contact over social media. And I think she is a one. She's the most wonderful person you want to meet. Knows her [ __ ] about cigars. Has her own brand. Has three cigars out. There's new stuff coming out. Just partnered up with Luchiano. This woman is in an airplane. She's traveling all the time, promoting her brand, promoting her three cigars. I'm sure promoting her new partnership with Luchiano and hopefully coming out with that soon. Can't wait because act two in her three cigars, she's got act one, intermission, and act two. Act two is phenomenal. I'm I'm more of a bold cigar smoker, and that's right up my alley. She is constantly on the move in different cities, different places, all over the world. She loves the cigar world. She loves cigars. She loves premium tobacco. Lover to death. Amazing person. Has obligations. Has a 9 to 5 job and juggles all of this just to pursue her passion. And there's so there's countless people out there in my world in the cigar world that I can say the same thing about. Has a nineto-ive job, multiple 9 toive jobs. does this because he or she absolutely loves it. Is what you're doing enough for you to sacrifice a lot your time because if you love what you're doing, you're not going to see it as a sacrifice. But if you could be doing something else, but you're doing this, you're you're blogging, you're vlogging, you're podcasting, you're shooting content for for socials, you are putting your valuable time into that versus doing something else. Just saying. And now a little word about this cigar, the cocktail by Barida Cigars out of Nicaragua. distribution center is here in Houston, Texas, by the way. Which makes me love this brand even more because one of the other brands that I love, Crowned Heads, is out of Nashville, Tennessee. I can't just go to Tennessee to hang out with those guys. Even though love those guys. I didn't get the the pleasure of meeting John or Tim, but I did meet Miguel. Phenomenal [ __ ] guy. would love if I lived in Tennessee because I could hang out with those guys regularly or more often uh more often than once a year. But Barida makes phenomenally great cigars, great priced, high quality, and they're such cool people. I mean, everybody everybody in the brand that I've met so far been super duper cool. This cigar, this cocktail is a affordable cigar that you're not losing anything. Yeah, it's short filler. Big [ __ ] deal. Still handmade. This is a habano. It's still handmade. Still comes out of Nicaragua, which is tobacco that I love. Still burns great. That draw is crazy. But that burn razor sharp. Razor sharp. Ash was good. Smoke output's good. And it didn't die. This entire episode, this thing did not die. I didn't have to light it, relight it once. Didn't have to touch it up. Nothing. It's a great cigar. So, lots of love to Barida. You guys should try them out. Highly recommend it. Great cigar company, great brand, great products, great cigars. Their 021, oh my god, the ash was bright white and stayed intact for almost the entire damn cigar. I can't speak more highly about Vida than I am right now. and hopefully even more as I get to sample and try and buy more of their cigars. They do have quite a selection. So far, I can't remember the name of their new one, but their newest one I smoked was great. The 021 blew my socks off. And now this cocktail is a daily driver. This is a daily driver. You can buy a bundle of these and smoke it. If it if it falls out of your mouth, you got a job going on and you got to put it down, you got to cut it and run, whatever, you're not going to cry about it. So, lots of love to those guys. Lots of love to you guys. Anybody who listens to this or watches it on YouTube. Love all of you. Love the feedback that I've been getting. Would love more. love to know what you would like to know about, learn about, discover, maybe we could do it together. Uh, collaborations, guests on this show, anything that you could think of, any any sort of feedback I can get from you guys, any, you know, feedback, like I said, feedback, input, more than welcome. And I myself, I personally answer all of your comments and everything that that you get from this channel comes from me. So yes, I do have a small team, but I feel that it's very important for me to answer all of your questions, feedback, comments, whatever. Uh, so just know that. And that's all I have for this episode. So, for this episode of Sticks and Stones, thank you all so much for watching and listening. I wish you all a blessed week and above all else, keep it rolling, baby. Sticks and stones, we