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May 25, 2023

Cohiba Blue Cigar Cuba and General Trademark Fight 106

Cohiba Blue Cigar Cuba and General Trademark Fight 106

For many years, General Cigar has been producing cigars under the name “Cohiba”. However, in 1997, the Cuban cigar conglomerate filed a lawsuit against General Cigar, claiming that they had a history of the Cohiba name and its trademark dating back to 1929. Since then, the case has been bouncing back and forth between the courts, and finally, in December of 2020, the Trademark Commission found in favor of the Cuban cigar conglomerate. This ruling meant that General Cigar no longer had a trademark on the name “Cohiba."

Transcript

Swell AI Transcript: Cohiba Blue and Cuba Final.mp3

00:00 John Time for another episode of Smoking Underground. We smoked the Cohiba Blue.

00:05 Devin We talked Cohiba. Go ahead, take it, Gary. What's better than having your girlfriend change your flat tire in the middle of the city hood? Smoking Underground. Episode, Ruby Night. Gotta light. Hello and welcome to Smoking Underground. Thank you for joining us today here in the worldwide web of podcasts. My name is Devin. I'm joined by Mr. Gary and Mr. John here in the Smoking Underground studios that you can hear so lovely. Our separate three audios.

00:58 Gary How are you guys doing today? I'm sorry, am I spoiling everything right now? Well, it's an audio podcast, not a video. So that's right. It is just those who are watching live. That's all. Sorry. Yes. I was actually putting the Cohiba Blue tag in front of the camera up here thinking everyone would see it on the replay. And well, you can forget that. So I saw it so sarcastically. I said, well, shove that area.

01:26 John I found a nice article on Cohiba and I have all of these bands they've had over the years. So great discussion for video. So maybe when we do a video, we'll cover that. We've got to hit some live streams every now and then.

01:42 Devin Yeah. Well, so today we are going to be smoking the Cohiba Blue. It's a medium bodied cigar. And I love the way they described it. I'm just going to use their language. It's draped in stunning Olancero St. Augustine wrapper, overtopped, aged long leaf from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Honduras. Yes, sir. I like that. I like the phrase they used. It's, you know, draped in. I thought that was pretty good. Yeah, right. So, Gary, I've never actually had this cigar. So what am I going to be expecting here? You will be enjoying it immensely, sir. I will let you know that I think that you'll have a very pleasant experience off of this with hints of sweet leather, earth, cream and cinnamon. Is it going to be consistently smooth or is there going to be some changes?

02:39 Gary No, I think it's going to be subtle changes. But it's all it's all of the to me, it's going to be all of the consolidated changes within the cigar as as always. I think it's going to change flavors about maybe a third or maybe a quarter of the way down. Possibly you'll get a little bit of here and there.

03:03 Devin You'll enjoy it. John, would you put this in your top 10 in any capacity whatsoever or at least top 20? Top 10 most surprising. Most OK. Oh, well, that's a good descriptor.

03:20 Gary I like that. Yeah, because, of course, I smoked mine a day or two ago because being in the control room here, I can't partake with everybody. Ain't nothing wrong with that. Well, tell us what you thought about it while we light up ours, if you don't mind. Yeah, please do, John. But then I'm going to buy us what you guys think about it. That's a good point. Well, I've had one. All I can remember is it was good. I remember that and I wouldn't mind smoking one again.

03:48 Devin So I'm very, very curious to hear Devon's place in this. While I'm taking it in for the first time, it did lead me to think of an interesting topic of compartmentalization of not branding cigars, but like just classifying them in your head. Because for me, it's a matter of good or meh. Good, not necessarily bad. It's like good. I would smoke it again. Bad. I wouldn't smoke it again. Generally speaking, putting cigars into basically those three categories.

04:24 John I mean, do you ever find yourself doing anything like that? Put it in. Would I smoke again?

04:29 Devin Would I? So you got a good, very broad strokes. Good. I'd smoke this again. Meh. If there's nothing else, I'd probably smoke it.

04:39 John And no, I will not smoke that again. I would probably have two buckets. Well, I'd have three. They're slightly different. Okay. Cigars that I really like, but will only smoke on occasion. Right.

04:56 Devin Cigars that I smoke. And then cigars that I'll smoke if there's absolutely nothing available. Interesting.

05:08 John Where do you think you're going to put this Cohiba? It's going to be… It's a tough one to say, and that really gets into talking about the cigar.

05:22 Devin Gotcha. Okay. It's completely understandable. I mean, everybody groups things the way they do. I've got some, obviously. Everybody's got their own standards of what they put in, what they put in, and where they put them. We tend to smoke a pretty middle to high end here on the show. I can't recall any super, super cheap cigars we've ever smoked. It's usually $10 and up. And there's only been a select few that have been in the meh kind of category. The rest of them, it's like, yeah, I'd smoke that again.

05:55 John I don't remember what it tastes like, but I know it was good. Actually, we're beginning to adjust a little bit and get a little bit more in the $6 to $8, $9 range for cigars. I think there's a few in the selections we've chosen for upcoming episodes. Yeah. And especially going forward, because we've got to hit those a little bit harder because of the way price increases have been. We've got to… Certainly.

06:27 Devin We've got to figure out what the working man can afford. You know what? The great thing about doing cigars like that is you can go to birminghamcigars.com to find the full online inventory. They have very quick shipping and I believe it's over 50 bucks. You get free shipping on that order. At least as of the day we're recording this podcast, everything's subject to change because I believe the post office is just changing prices in the near future. Really? Again. Wait, the government's going to change something for their benefit? What? I'm sorry.

07:04 John The government has nothing to do with the post office. It's an independent company. Okay. Sure it is. You keep telling yourself that. So, Cohiba Blue. Now, I heard vaguely on something I was listening to that the red dot on it is an allusion to something else, but I didn't catch it. Do you remember what that was, John? Go ahead, John. The red dot in Cohiba that we buy, and we say you can buy it cigars and more, basically any retailer in the United States. The red dot is in the O in the word Cohiba, and that's indicating it is not a Cohiba product. It is a Scandinavian tobacco slash General Cigars Cohiba product.

08:04 Gary Interesting. That's kind of what the topic will focus on a little bit more today. Gotcha. Because I remember I was reading up and listening up on stuff for the show. They're talking about it's Cuban this and Cuban that, Cuban this. And everybody just assumes it's all Cuban made and Cuban cigars. But I hear there's some doubt about that. Okay, here's the deal. Basically, and this is all in a nutshell. Here's the situation. His parents went away. It was a dark and stormy night. So freaking Cuba, Cuba Cohiba was made pretty big. Let's just lay it on the table. Cuban Cohiba was made very large in tandem with Fidel Castro's takeover. That was his cigar. That's what he smoked. Every time that you took a picture of Fidel Castro, he was with a Cohiba in his mouth. That was his baby. Okay. So all of that right there was the big hype with the Cohiba. Okay. So you had that nice yellow and white black band that man just stood out, whatever else. In this particular case, it wasn't that band at that time. It was a little bit smaller. But nevertheless, anyway, that's what that was his cigar. That's what made it so boastful because the king of the world at that time in his mind smoked Cohiba. And so when that happened, of course, somewhere along the line, about somewhere in the mid 90s, if you will, general said, Hey, listen, what we're going to do? We're going to we're going to actually earlier than that. The general basically just said, which is Scandinavian now, basically said, Hey, we're going to since you're a communist country, since you have no, you know, you're you're your own thing. We're going to take Cohiba and we're going to make our own Cohiba over here. And I think the thing you can do about it. Well, lo and behold, the Cuban government basically just said, Hey, we're going to carry you to court, Supreme Court. We're going to carry you to the world court and we're going to get that back. And anyway, back in the early 1990s, all the way up to 2006, they basically just said, sit down, shut up. You can't do anything about it. And general or just in this particular case, Scandinavia said, you know, you've got it. You can have that particular name, leave it like it is. Your trademark is good to go. So now Cuba says, no, it's not. No, because you're infringing on our name. And that's basically where it stands is up today. And now they've got another batch is going to be coming out. I think it's to that. I think it's this year, isn't it, John? Something like that.

11:01 John Well, it's it is a very interesting story. And then very much so. Coheba, the first Coheba cigar was rolled in 1963 and it was unnamed and unbanded. And it quickly became Castro's favorite cigar. Now he had his own cigar roller that would roll his cigars and probably a security thing. So all his cigars were rolled exclusively for him by one individual. And about 1967, 66, well, 66, he came up with the name Coheba and the cigar started to be banded. And about 67, they started to be marketed in Cuba. And 69, they've kind of standardized to three sizes. So that gets the exact timeline. And in 1978 is when General decided, hey, we could go ahead and use the Cuban name kind of. Monopolizing on Cuban cigars. And people, oh, you know, this is a Cuban, you know, it's a Coheba, it's a Cuban cigar and all that. All that. All of that. Yeah. So they just created this name out of nowhere to differentiate it a little bit. They use that red dot in the O in the word. And they went ahead and trademarked the name thinking Cuba being a communist country and not only being a communist country, because actually trademarks that China uses are the U.S. government recognizes and kind of sort of maybe vice versa. But because we have this embargo against Cuba and no trade dealings, General Cigar felt that that was an available trademark. And so did the Federal Trade Commission. And they issued the trademark. About 90 mid 90s, about 96, I think it's not 96, 97. They Cuba, Cuba, Laro. What's the name of it? God, it should be Cuba, Cuba, tobacco. I think it is. And prezia Cuba, Cuba, Nadel, tobacco, tobacco. Yeah, that's it. In 97, filed the first lawsuit and it's bounced back and forth in court, back and forth in court. And nobody's wanted to make a decision. And finally, it went to the Cahiba trademark does. How do I want to go there? In 97, they filed a lawsuit that General Cigar cannot hold this trademark. And it's went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And finally, in December of twenty, December of twenty, twenty two. So as recently as less than six months ago, as of the date of recording. The Trademark Commission, the TTAB and I can't remember, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, which is where you go if you are contesting a trademark. They cited in favor of the Cuban cigar conglomerate that they found history of the Cahiba name and its trademark dating back to 1929. So General Cigar can't use it.

14:58 Gary And that's where we sit right now. Except and I mean, I can get really deep into this. Oh, yeah, it goes deep. Yeah. Give us the cliff.

15:11 John We're just doing what we're just trying to do. The brief. Well, I've already given you a cliff notes. John's diving into it in February of this year. Twenty twenty three. General has filed another lawsuit against Cuba in this dispute,

15:27 Gary basically saying that the Trademark Commission had no right to make a judgment and that they should still control the trademark. Interesting. So what's going to happen is that all of this crap is going to continue to overturn and roll because it's going to continue to be appealed until the final judgment is made, which God only knows when. So the name is going to stay out there until one of the courts is going to say, stop it and no more peeling. You're done. It's gone. Or you can use it. Stop trying to sue them. Everything's dropped. Now they can they can use the name from now on. It's done. So and that's the reason why Cuba has done what they've done, because it's all been appealed. So he was name has been out there since 1996 and it will continue to be out there until a final ruling has been done.

16:28 Devin You'll not. Yeah, it seems odd to me because Cuba doesn't seem like they want to be a part of the world. So that's the right point. Good God. Right. Like it makes me think like if North Korea wants to file for something, you're not a part of the world. You're not acting on the world and an antithetical to anything that is happening in the world. You don't come to our systems and try to do stuff.

16:53 Gary Go ahead. No, no, no, no. That's no. Yeah, I was just going to I was going to crown your point there. And that's that's exactly what General Sagars did.

17:01 John They said, hey, you're a communist country. You're nobody. You can't do that. What's the problem for Cuba is or what do we want to call it? Cuba tobacco. Yeah, it is. There's not an embargo anywhere else in the world. So their products are sold elsewhere in the world. And now you have General Sagars selling a coheba side by side with them in Canadian cigar shops, Mexican cigar shops in Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican cigar shops. So now you have this conflicting and people go. What's real? What's fake? And that's where you know, that's where we get into a lot of these fake Cubans and stuff. And then it actually harms Cuba tobacco in that. There's confusion or an inferior products being marketed as theirs, even even if General's not making it. If it's just a counterfeit Cuban cigar, there's so there's so much confusion there. They want to get control there. What the Trademark Commission, the Trademark and Trial and Appeal Board decided is, yes, there is an embargo against Cuba. And they do see General's point that generals should be able to have the trademark in the United States. However, they're looking at it from a world point of view. And if we all decided to lift the embargo with Cuba, which during the previous presidency was kind of hinted could happen. What happens then to the trademark? Who controls it? Scandinavian Tobacco General or Cuba, Cuba tobacco?

18:44 Gary Cuba tobacco has nothing to do with the red dot. That's general. Now, the name itself is a different story. And that's what it was all about. They take that.

18:56 John Well, it's a trademark on the name, not necessarily a trademark on the logo or whatever we're talking. It is.

19:05 Gary It's a red dot. Yeah, it's the red dot. And that's the trademark.

19:09 Devin I mean, it makes me think about China because they do knock off stuff all the time and get away. Yeah, right. You know, like. And nobody takes them to court over style. I mean, they probably do. But there's it's pointless for a country that big to try to an American company and then they copy them doing the same damn thing. Yeah. And it's just it's pointless at this point. It goes down.

19:31 John It goes back to money because everything in communist China is communist government. And what company in the United States has the money to go up against the Chinese government?

19:44 Gary Well, if they don't. Well, here's the here's the here's the Trump that though. And that is that if China was to start making Chevrolet over in China right there, I guarantee you we dragged their fanny into court and say, stop that crap. You don't make Chevrolet. I don't care if you put a purple dot in the middle of the sea. You're not going to have it.

20:06 Devin How is it enforceable? It's not for a country that big.

20:09 John It's not enforceable because you've got a brand name that's being sold all over the world, primarily trademarked in Michigan of the United States. It's actually ends up being a world trademark because you trademark this stuff. Chevrolet is trademarked in every free country in the world. It's up to the communist countries whether or not they want to really recognize it. They want to be part of that world. Yeah, but China commonly in the automotive industry will build the exact same car as a they build a Range Rover and it looks like a Range Rover, but they put a different name on it. Different name. And there's just a slight difference in the design.

20:52 Gary Just enough that if you took it to court, there you go. Now we're talking.

20:57 John They probably wouldn't be accused of completely counterfeiting it. It's hard to explain on the radio here, but the Lotus logo is comprised of four initials. ACBC, Anthony Collins-Bain's Chapman. And what they do for the counterfeit logos, the C actually extends through one of the letters and in the counterfeit logos, they delete that little extension of it and then it's no longer a counterfeit logo. It's a different logo. Wow. Lotus people are very keen on this and are very aware where Gary could go buy a Lotus t-shirt. No offense, Gary. And you would be like, oh, I'm going to buy a Lotus t-shirt. No offense, Gary. And you wouldn't know the difference.

21:50 Devin I got another point. Joining the world stage, right? So like time frame matter, you say you recognize something being used back in 1920, 1929, whatever. But you didn't join the first world nations in the trademark thing. So Cohiba, the one we're smoking, claim the logo, claim the name before you decided to get off your ass and stop being communist and join the world market. So you don't get to claim it because you aren't there first to claim it in the world trademark system. You didn't join the world trademark system until, you know, X year. So that would be my point for the General Cigar Company. I like that.

22:50 John I like that. You're looking at it a little bit wrong because you keep saying because Cuba's communist, because Cuba's communist.

22:56 Gary Communism has nothing to do with it. Okay. General thought they could get away with it because of the embargo, that Cuban products cannot be sold or traded in this country. Right. Yeah. And yeah, I see your point, John. I see that. Yeah, I see that.

23:14 John Yeah, because we block them from our market, not necessarily the world market, but our market. Because Cuba participates in the world.

23:23 Gary They just don't participate in the United States. Yeah, but they also did. They also, they weren't, they weren't a total participation until later on in the century. So they never did ship all over the world until later on in the first, in the 20th century. So when they started doing that, that's when things started bubbling right there.

23:47 Devin And if they're canceling out distributing with America because of the embargo with these other countries, did they put in the trademark claim before the Cojiba blue like we're smoking now? Because if they did, then yes, that's a precedent you set, you set in this market. Oh, yeah. Whereas if you didn't do that, you just assume that's your name and you're good. But you knew there was a trademark of like, well, somebody might come and take it. But I would, I would be much more keen for the, the, the, the Cubano from Cuba. If they have the registered trademark in the trademark system all over the world, except the U.S. Because of the embargo, then I'd be like, well, Cojiba, I guess you're when they open up, I guess you're going to have to, you're going to be shit out of luck because they've got a precedence. Already established all over the world and you try to take advantage of it. But if they didn't establish any of that stuff, I mean, maybe, maybe that's the thought process. But I don't know if they've established all over the world.

24:48 John Detail reading on this is the TTAB cited in favor of the Cuban cigar conglomerate in its claimed on the name, saying the general cigar company's registrations on the Cojiba trademark are to be canceled due to a violation of an international agreement that dates back to 1929. So they are looking at an international law and saying that they cannot hold the United States trademark. And I would assume the United States trademark and trial appeal board will not re-grant this trademark to Cojiba unless a court absolutely requires them to do. And I can't see a court directing the government to do that.

25:37 Gary Right. No, I see. And now I'm prone to agree with you. I'm like, if they open up and I mean, you're shit out of luck, man, it's, it's who gets there first. And it sounds like the one from Cuba got there first a long time ago. Well, now that now that well, what they've done is they have they have retroacted that in a broad aspect of the marketing now in today's marketing. So what's so even though I agree with the decision, I totally do. I think the U.S. in general, Scandinavia needs to keep her nose out of it. Rename it if they have to and freaking reband it and do everything else they want to with it and tell them they could keep it because their marketing is out there now. So, I mean, you can keep Cojiba same blend, different cigar. Here it is.

26:22 Devin Cojiba or something, you know, make your own. Like, you know, I've never had a I don't think I've ever had a real Cuban cigar from Cuba. But, yeah, I mean, just like your point you've made in the past, Gary, about you don't want the embargo to end because you like the rarity of it. Yeah, eventually it's gonna it'll get out. Let's say that happens. It's gonna be everywhere, which means the Cuban cigars from Cuba, their rarity is going to be less. People are gonna be like, yeah, OK, I can see they'll be able to literally buy it in the shop at Trustville and go, here's this and here's this. Man, I actually don't like the Cuban as much as I like this one. It's good, but it's not as good as this because their expectation from the rarity skyrocketed. We've seen that with the in my personal opinion, the horrible feral flying pig. You know, people like it because it's rare. But like, if you really get down to the taste of it, it's not that good.

27:20 John Yeah, actually, actually, Devon, I had my first flying feral pig this week and I really enjoyed it. And it had nothing to do with the rarity. I just was going through my box and go, well, geez, I got two of these things. I ought to smoke one of them and try this damn thing. Well, what you're looking at, you know, yeah, sorry to interrupt you, Gary.

27:39 Devin The secondary note to that feral flying pig is I tried it right out of the box and my buddy Josh has one. He has two of them sitting in his humidor that have been there for a year. So I'm going to I'm going to probably buy it off of him and try it to see if there is a difference because right out of the humidor, it was horrible. Mine had one year of age on it, too. So, right. So I think there may be a which is fine for cigars, the PSA. Some cigars need to sit for a while. And in my opinion, the more stuff they do to them, the more conditioning of the outer wrapper and all that kind of stuff, the more they need to sit and kind of plume.

28:22 Gary Anyway, what you were saying, continue your point, Gary. The thing I was going to mention, though, is that now if something were to happen, that if the if the if the doors were to drop on the only on Cuba, you know, which is OK, whatever. Now you open yourself up not only to you're looking at a small country, small, with very limited supply of cigars. And even as of now, I say now I've got to reevaluate the numbers because this was as of 10 years ago. I collected the data off of this. The U.S. being illegally representing or actually purchasing the Cuban tobacco or the Cuban cigars were number three in the world, number three in the world as of the purchasing of Cuban cigars. And that's being illegal. So now if you jack that up to number one, which is which would happen, that would be there would be no problem at all. Now you're looking at a small country with small output trying to match the market and trying to go. So what does that do in my opinion? Or that that opens up, I think, a little little bit of a door for counterfeiting, you know, which already exists. Rushing the production. Oh, by all means, rushing that with the right.

29:55 Devin We've seen that in my opinion. We've seen that in the brand that shall not be named. There you go. There you go. Yeah, I think you're I think you're on to something. I just I think it's inevitable. I think Cuba becoming open to the world is inevitable.

30:10 Gary It will eventually happen. I think it will. But I think it's I think this is going to have to be right now with Russia the way they are right now. You know, you never know what the freaks going to go on politically with anything. But nevertheless, I think on down the line, very well could happen. That's going to be our next cigar boom. If that happens, they're going to be it's going to be nuts. There will be people rushing to the cigar store, wondering what it is about a Cuban cigar.

30:40 Devin I'd like to do an episode one day if ever happens while we're doing this podcast or something like let's say it happens in the next 10 years and we're still doing. I'd love to do the future of cigars at that point, like a re a redoing of an episode of the future of cigars. Twenty years, 50 years, 100 years, a thousand years, you know, like where cigars going? What's what's the predictions we can make for the future? And the way I'm trying to think legacy, that's why I'm referring back to Cuba again. Yeah. And the Coheba cigars and the branding and stuff like that. Because I think the longer they be, they stay this rarity, the longer their life potentially will become in the future. You know what I mean? Sure. If they open up tomorrow, there's going to be this massive boom. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And it's going to hit pretty hard for like, I would say, 10 years, maybe 20. And then it'll start dipping. And then, you know, who knows what will happen in the world? And it may start rising up, but the longer they, they wait, the more, what is that potential energy they build up?

31:50 Gary Yeah. I mean, well, as of cigars right now, cigars have come a long way as of right now, you know, multiple blends. Now, of course, they're they're they're strolling across countries. Now tobacco is in this being grown all over the place. And I would have probably hesitate. There's not too much stuff done in Alaska, but nevertheless, it's gone all over the place, you know, and and it's they have just changed dynamically size, quality, everything else, you know, as well as price. So I just wish the government will leave it alone and let us do our thing. Gary, John, you imagine if one day in our lifetime, they take a Cuban seed and they grow it on Mars. Oh, wow. You imagine what Martian tobacco would taste like? Probably pretty good.

32:51 John Unfortunately, our soon to be resident Martian, he seems to be more into the wacky weed as opposed to cigars. Based on his Joe Rogan appearance. That's true. That's true. I love it. Can you imagine taking your marijuana seed and growing it on Mars? It would be just like growing it down here in a hydroponically controlled environment. Yeah, right. I'm going to throw out kind of a string a little bit away from the the Coheba thing. If you listeners, if you really want to jump in, this gets to be a really interesting story because all of a sudden, all to this gets involved, which at the time was owned by errors also was is I think I think all to this USA is actually for sale because they were owned by all to this. Worldwide is owned by Imperial Tobacco's, which guess what owns 50 percent of Cubana Tobacco, Tobacco era. And they're ones that they were the one one of the companies pushing this lawsuit because guess what? They've got a 50 percent interest. And of course, they control pre revolution cigar or cigar names. Monte Cristo, Romeo, Julieta and H. So there's a little that comes into play. So all to this gets gets thrown into this mix. And then there's actually a point in time where the Supreme Court declined to hear or make a decision on this ruling. There's a time that Cuba won this lawsuit because it was cited. And I can't remember what court overturned it because they actually overturned the TTA TTAB who had found in favor of a general at the time. But that decision got overturned because general had let their trademark lapse. And now we're actually getting into some of the lawsuits over type fonts and type setting. And that was a big deal. I do the little legal thing on this show because I enjoy diving into this and reading through. And this is it.

35:12 Gary This is just a cool side drama to the Cuban cigar discussion. You think they're they're continuing it just just because it makes money. They don't want to make a decision because everybody's making money. Sure. It's a marketing. It's a marketing ploy. That's what I was trying. That's why I wanted to try to get over to you guys. Is all of this is a marketing ploy. And again, general or Scandinavian now could take their name and they could change it. They could and they can market it out. Hey, this was the former former Coheba name. We're having to change now. But the blend hasn't changed. Blah, blah, blah. It's now the ST blend. You know, Scandinavian tobacco. OK, so something to that effect. But now the marketing's out there. It's out there. They've they put it all over the news. They put it all over the Web and all of that. And now Coheba now has their freaking name back and they can be happy about it. But they're not going to change because Coheba tobacco, Coheba cigars have always been rolled the same way there in Cuba. It's a Cuban puro. There's nothing going to change about it. They're going to change it. They're going to change it. There's nothing going to change about it. They're going to continue cultivating the exact same way where Scandinavian tobacco can take it and they can blend it and they can mix it, which they have and continue blending it and doing playing with it and grow it and do whatever they want to with it. And so they literally, in my opinion, they have the leverage on this whole marketing deal to say, hey, listen, we're going to change everything on it and see what happens where Cuba is just going to have to suck wind, do with what they got and just keep on clicking. And guess what? After that, you will not hear the Coheba name again until you buy a Cuban Coheba. It's not going to be floated anymore. So guess what? Their sales are going to go down. Their sales are going to suffer because now it's no more marketing. It's done. So Cubano tobacco or Cuba tobacco needs to leave this crap alone, continue appealing and let this thing roll, spend money, throw it in the courts, keep going, let marketing blow up and have both companies do real well. You know, you'll find out later. They'll join together. I wouldn't doubt it in the future. I wouldn't doubt it at all. I wouldn't doubt it out because because Altidus of Altidus of US is not Altidus of Spain. Altidus of Spain is a totally different company and Altidus did the exact same thing. They did the exact same thing. You know, how about those essay? Same thing. It's a it's a that is a a sort of almost like a certification, if you will, of Cuban tobacco. We we let you know that this is the real McCoy. If you ever go into a a wherever it may be, either Canada or wherever Nicaragua or Mexico or whatever else, and you go into a cigar lounge, it's going to have the Abado S.A. tag on the window, letting you know that all of this craft certified it is from there. Nothing's fake. That's it. You know, so I mean, it's very, very well could join forces after everything opens up. But that's that's going to have to happen. You know, like you say, the border drops, I can see something like that happening. I really can. That would be exciting. Really would on both the halves. John, really would.

38:52 John Do you see this this debate of those two things going? How long do you see it going on? It's hard to say. I think Cuba is going to stand their ground and they'll keep fighting it because what do they care? It's the people's money. Right. Scandinavian tobacco will argue it and fight it because what do they care? They get a right to write the lawsuit money off. There's advanced, you know, they don't care that they're spending the money or doing the fighting. Gary's right. They do get a little publicity, but it's you've got to be a real big cigar geek to pay attention to it. And then if you're that big of a cigar geek, do you really care?

39:34 Gary Well, the cohebun name is out there for a reason. And that's because it was it was the biggest name and Fidel Castro made that big in that particular area right there. You know, yeah, because it was a bodyguard of Fidel Castro that shared some private supplies of cigar and local artisan named Eduardo Rivera. And to let him know that, hey, these are Castro's production, these are Castro's blend in the in the coheba. And they said, oh, really? Oh, wow. And then, of course, now it got out when that got out. Then here we go. And so it's it's going to be significant because it's a coheba name.

40:19 John Otherwise, it wouldn't be in court. It's just going to banter back and forth and they're going to find different angles and different aspects. And until the Supreme Court would actually make a decision or trade with Cuba opens back up, there's not going to be a decision. I agree. Technically, the way things stand right now, if you wanted to, Devin, you could have cigars manufactured and sell them under the coheba name.

40:47 Devin Now, you're going to get sued by two entities who have a lot more money than you. But it is not a trademark name in the United States. You know, General really has nothing to sue you over until they actually get control of the trademark back. But, you know, Cuba might sue you. I know what I can do. I know what I can do.

41:06 John I can do the the the feminine version, Koshiba. See, that's what I was thinking of. Koshiba, the the gender neutral version. That's right. They should know they go. Go does on the band. It goes, it goes, huh, hyphen, but Cuba Cuba Cuba Cuba Cuba. I'm not going to get into any further. I don't go any further. So what are you guys thinking of the cigar?

41:41 Gary I'm loving it. I'm loving mine. I am really enjoying it.

41:45 John You as a Coheba Blue Virgin, Devin, what do you think of it?

41:48 Devin I smoke the first half of it with a cigar tip. And then I found myself like enjoying the flavor because it isolates it. When I took it off, which will go into cigar tips in another episode, when I took it off, I found I was enjoying the cigar a little bit more because I get the taste and everything on it. And it does like they're they're they're flavor notes of the sweetness accompanied with a creamy hints of leather and earth and bread and cinnamon. And they you get all that almost consistently all the way through the moment. I think the smoke is going to be too hot. It's really just flavor. It's not hot and it's wonderful. And I'm trying to tell myself to smoke slower so that I can enjoy it better. But that's not happening. I'm liking everything about it so far. It's definitely if I were to put it in the category, it's good. It would be something like I saw it on the shelf and I can't decide what cigar I want to get for like a golf outing. I'd add that to my to my purchase list. It would be on the list. It'd be one I just look over and go, I know I'm going to enjoy that.

42:57 Gary Yes, sir. Sure would. Not because it's like some like, you know, forty five dollars cigar or something that I know is like absolutely stunning. Or my personal favorite, but I know it's good and it's not going to leave me wanting. And I'd give me a box of these in a second, buddy. I probably would, too, to be honest with you. I'm trying to figure out I can't I lost my receipt and trying to figure out what those actually cost. They go. I think they're running close to 15 plus. I think, John, but I'm not sure. Oh, I think I got the receipt in the bag over here. Hold on a second. Hold on, y'all. Let me get the receipt. I think, John, you put it in the bag. You did, didn't you?

43:41 Devin OK, so I can tell you from my standpoint of being a Padrone fan and then becoming an even more lately as an Aroha fan. Aroha has become my cigar of choice. Like, I can't decide. I know I'm going to enjoy that. This, in my limited mind, is the flavor is like a flavored version of that level of enjoyment. It does.

44:07 John It's got a little bit more complex flavors to it. Yeah, it looks like. Actually, don't give it, Gary. Let me let me find it. There's a reason behind that.

44:21 Gary But give me a minute. This is the six by fifty four we're smoking here. OK, fifty four on audio crap, man. It's all right. Sorry, guys. I do. Man, we've done this show so long in video and I'm doing all kinds of crap on camera over here. And Devin's like, hey, look at this. Stop. You know, and I'm like, dang it. I keep forgetting.

44:48 Devin He was holding up the receipt to the camera because we're all looking at each other. Yeah. So like, I'm sure the audio listener loves the ASMR. I'm sorry about that.

44:57 Gary Crumbling. And I'm one of those kind of guys, too, that I also listen to an audio podcast and I go, why are you? Why are you? OK, it's in the camera. Well, I can't see it. You know, and I'm one of those guys to drive about it, you know.

45:09 Devin So and here I am doing it. We're smoking the six by fifty four. And that retails for. Let me make sure I got that. Thirteen seventy nine a stick. Yes, sir. This this this is about that range. I'll be honest with you. Like in my head, I'm doing a comparison to the Aro box press 20th. That's about 15.

45:31 Gary And this labor profile fits in there. You guys asked me what I thought about this cigar. Yeah. What about it? What do you think?

45:40 John I'll be honest. I've always avoided Cohibis. I want to say especially the Cohiba, Connecticut, because they do have a little bit of a premium to them. Where did I just set down the price of that one? Yeah, Cohiba, Connecticut, in the same size as twenty six thirty nine. I bet it's worth these. I bet it's worth it. For for thirteen seventy nine, this could easily fall into my rotation. Right. For thirteen seventy nine, it's a very good stick for the price. You know, that it recently has went up a couple of dollars. I would have bet I would bet that a six, eight months ago, you could have bought this for some thirteen dollars. So I do. I think the value is there. And if it was twenty, probably not. I have my feelings about a twenty seven dollar Cohiba, Connecticut. But and part of it is it's a little bit expensive, but at thirteen, fourteen bucks for not a bad price at any size in the blue. Give this it's it's really, really worth a try.

46:59 Devin Yeah, I'd agree. I'd agree that somebody knew to it. I would agree that would I've got to go back to the store and get some cigars and I'll probably pick up one while I'm there because I want to try it again. Tonight, I'm drinking Heaven's Hill, Kentucky bourbon with it. And it's really it's a nice bourbon. But it goes really well with this Cohiba blue. And I'd like to try it with a scotch. You know, I want to try it with different libations just to see which one pairs with it really well. And yeah, I agree with you, John. This is definitely a add to the repertoire of that quote unquote fifteen dollars stick. Just generally speaking, I know it's under fifteen, but in my head, it's classified as a fifteen dollars stick.

47:47 Gary That's correct. And that's why I thought it was. I thought it was going to be over fifteen bucks. As a matter of fact, I thought it was going to be closer to seventeen.

47:55 Devin But I did too. I did too. Yeah, it definitely has the flavor hits that I wasn't expecting. And like I said, our Aroha has become my go to. I know I'm going to enjoy it. I love the taste of the spice of it, even though it's not spicy. It just tastes natural. And it's kind of a Cuban cigar, too, in my opinion. And this fits right in, like right next to it in that you have the Aroha that's got kind of like the natural Cuban tobacco flavor. And then you've got this Cahiba Blue, which has kind of almost, it's not flavored. Let me preface it. It's not flavored, but it's got so many flavor notes in it

48:38 Gary that they're like brothers or they're like cousins or something to one another. I will let you know this. And that is that this, of course, I've had many Cuban cigars. I've had a lot. I've had my fair share. And this right here and I may get beat up for it, but I'm going to go ahead and I'll go ahead and say it. I will. This right here. And as it gets about a third of the way down. Starts tasting like a Cuban Cahiba. OK, that's good to know, because I've never had a Cuban cigar. Yeah. Yeah. So that right there literally tastes like a Cuban Cahiba does. Yeah. About a third of the way down. It starts off real smooth. Where a lot of your part of this and Cahiba and Trinidad, all of those, they start off with a bang, bang. And they got flavor all the way down. Right. This right here starts off smooth and of course works its way up as it goes down. Yeah, it sure does. It's this dang skippy good. It really is. Gotcha.

49:43 Devin And I'm loving it. Yes. Yes. And remember, everybody, head over to we have that Cahiba cigar listed on our website. Feel free to go over there. You can make purchases and follow and subscribe to Smoking Underground. You can find us at smokingunderground.com. And the best thing you can do for us is just tell a friend. Just let somebody know you got a buddy of yours who he's smoking or he's just getting into it. I'm telling you, we do a shorter form than some of the larger podcasts. And I think that's our strong point. Thank you, John, for the editing to make it a shorter form. And you share it with somebody. Somebody new specifically, they're going to find some of this information interesting. It's going to be wet in the palate. You know, it's cigars and more and Vitola to find cigars.

50:32 John I mean, if you're seeing them in our shops and you listen to the show, just say, hey, man, I really think you should check this out. You might like it. And Devin did mean the Cahiba Blue is available on Birminghamcigars.com. It is not available on Smoking. You said our website. Oh, so I'm specifying Birminghamcigars.com has a Cahiba Blue or actually just about any of the Cahibas. The new special edition Royale just came out. I have no idea what the pricing is, but I guarantee you by one of those,

51:05 Devin you get free shipping on everything else in your order. Heard that. But the great thing about to stop by one of the brick and mortars and grab one. The great thing you can find on Smoking Underground is links to some of our paraphernalia is not the right word, but some of the equipment we use peripherals for like smoking. Recommended cigar accessories. Yeah, cigar accessories. That's a good way to say it. That's a better way to say it. We highly recommend you check that out because we're all three avid cigar smokers. I'm the youngest one in the group for cigar smoking. So we know our tools. We know it works when it doesn't work, you know, and we put on there what we use and what we like to use. So check it out. You may find it very intriguing. Specifically, I want to point out a cigar accessory that has become a regular in my pocket besides my lighter. And that's it's a cigar spear, but it's a combination. It's got a punches on it and it's got a fork on it and a spear on it all in one. You'll find that on smoking underground dot com as well as a link to the monogram number nine, which is a cigar health thing, which I got a chance, by the way, to give out to somebody recently. Why second copy? But that's I think that's about it for the cigar show. Unless John's got any more to add, I think we've gone through a lot of the legal stuff as far as you know, the cohabit listen to me, the Coheba is concerned.

52:35 Gary Just remember to like, share, subscribe. Thank you, John. Thank you, Gary. Thank you all very much. Appreciate everything. What you all done. And thank you all for watching. I'm sorry. Thank you all for listening. And hopefully, hopefully you'll stay tuned on further podcasts too, because we enjoy doing this. Appreciate you all wasting your time with us. Just a couple of cigar geeks here. That's about all love sharing the news. Tell a friend about us. We appreciate you listening. And if you really enjoy finding any value in what Devon, Gary and I babble about, jump over to smoking underground dot com and just buy us a cup of coffee. There you go. Right.