Episode 37 | E.P. Carillo Inch Nicaragua | Book Recomendations

We are back with another episode of the Sticks and Stones podcast. Sticks and Stones is a podcast where we talk about life, we talk about love, and we talk about the Brotherhood of the Leaf. Premium tobacco products. Premium cigar products. Premium rolled tobacco products. How about that? That's a better one. So, today we've got a lot going on. Today we're going to be doing the well I'm smoking the inch Nicaragua by EP Curillo. Big fan of this cigar. I've smoked the Habano I believe or the Shade. Um I have not smoked the Nicaragua as far as I know. This is this is a new it's a new one that I've seen on the shelves by the way. I am enjoying a cappuccino. No sweetener. All right. So, Arnto Perez Curillo is largely credited as a major contributor to the modern large ring gauge cigar, which I love. Shout out to EP Carillo. And he introduced the famed inch line in 2012. The name cleverly referenced the fact that a 64 ring gauge measures exactly 1 in in diameter. For those of you who don't know, in in 2022, the 10th anniversary of the Inch line, PC debuted the first Inch cigar to be rolled outside of their own Dominican factory, the Inch Nicaragua. To showcase a Nicaraguan influence, enlisted the renowned Placencia family. Shout out to the Placencia family. Love those [ __ ] guys. uh using their prized Nicaraguan tobacos and rolling the cigar in the Placencia factory in Estali, Nicaragua. The announcement that this was being made at Placencia threw a lot of people for a loop. It was a big deal because Ernesto Perez Carillo was making a cigar outside of his own factory for the first time. I mean, I could see that being a big deal. You know, if you got your own [ __ ] why are you, you know, hiring other people to do [ __ ] for you? But we are talking about the Placencia family. So, so on the blend, this is a true Nicaraguan puro. Everything from the wrapper to filler comes from Nicaragua. The wrapper is a shade grown leaf from Nicaragua's Halapa region. Binder and filler, all Nicaraguan tobacco sourced from the Kandga and Estle regions. And the factory is the Placencia Cigars SA and Estle, also known as L Cathedral. This has a completely different flavor profile than the regular inch which uses Dominican tobacco. So on the flavor on the flavor profile lighting up with a medium full intensity, the inch Nicaraguan shows off flavor of earth, roasted nuts, toasted oak, black pepper, and an enjoyable creaminess through the finish. It has a strong peppery character with a nice caramel sweetness that balances the spice. The cigar co-op review noted that the cold draw delivers cedar earth and baker spice with the baker spice being a standout note early on. Through the smoke, natural tobacco, wood, and black pepper emerge with the pepper building as you move through the cigar. The result, smoke yet powerful with spicy sweetness, earthy undertones, and a floral finish. body and strength. The EP Carillo inch Nicaragua is considered the fullest body cigar currently produced by EP cigar EPC. So the Vitalas and the pricing guys, the line comes in four sizes, all big ring gauges. The number 60 is 5 and 78 by 60 and that's 10 to 11 bucks. The number 62 is 5x 62 and that's 9 to 10 bucks. Number 64 is 6 and 1 eigh by 64 ring 10 to 11 bucks and the 70 is 7 by 70 12 to 14 bucks. Each size is presented in a 24count box. The number 64 is a natural entry point since the inch concept was born from that ring gauge. Halfhe clock to smoke time to at 2 hours and 45 minutes on the 60 ring. So, budget your session accordingly. Construction was well done with little to complain about. Great draw, the ability to be smoked at a comfortable pace and a solid value given the sheer size of the cigar. Customer reviews back that up. Notes of leather, cedar, nuts, mushroom, and toasted and and toast appear frequently with the consensus being excellent construction and an even burn throughout. Good value, good cigar, basically is what I'm gathering from all of that. All right, time to give this a snippy snippy and let it dance around the flame. Snippy snippy. Let's give it a cold draw. We're definitely getting that Baker spice and caramel. Sweet. I like it. I didn't get anything on the cold draw, by the way, guys. So, I mentioned this. I mentioned this on a maybe it was on our Instagram or maybe it was a podcast episode. I'm not sure, but I mentioned personal mastery should be a goal for everyone. In my opinion, in my humble opinion, with respect, of course, I believe that everyone should strive for personal mastery. when you're dealing with something, when you're dealing with a loss or you're dealing with a setback or a hiccup or, you know, you hit a pot life, you hit a a pothole in life's journey, you know, what do you do? Do you retreat? Do you fade into obscurity? Or do you rise to the occasion and do you elevate your circumstances? I choose the latter. And how am I doing that? Like what is my path forward? I think personal mastery comes in a lot of different ways or it has a lot of different faces or masks, whatever you want to, however you want to coin that, but I think it's a conjunction of a few things. I think there's a mixture of stuff that you can do to achieve personal mastery. Getting out of your mindset, I think, is number one. If you surround yourself or cloud yourself with negativity and negative thoughts, negative people, negative content, meaning negative music, negative movies, TV, whatever you know you're doing, that's what your life's going to be. Your life's going to be negative. So, I believe it's it's a combination of positivity, not just thinking positive, but living positive. So, it's writing in a positive manner. It's thinking in a positive manner. It's consuming in a positive manner. This is going to be a tough one for a lot of people today in today's connected world of IoT, you know, internet of things. Limit your doom scrolling. Limit your socials. If you're going to do it, do it with purpose. Have a means to an end. Like if you're going to if you're going to go look for something on socials, look for that one thing and get off. You know, get in, get out. or if you're just doom scrolling, set an alarm. Give yourself 20 minutes. When that alarm goes off, dip, kill the app. So, it's that it's that it's that positivity. It's also body movement. Get out. And if you can't get to the gym and you can't kill it with a crazy lift or whatever, walk. Go on a walk. Go on a short walk. Go on a long walk. Do it on a treadmill. Go to a park. Walk down the street. Whatever it is, your body needs movement. Your body needs sunlight. Your body needs movement. Your body needs positive reinforcement. And your body, your brain needs good content. Constantly reading. Constantly doing something that sharpens your mind, not numbing it like social media, TV, movies. Which brings me to my next point, reading. So, I read very slow. I I read very similar. If anybody has ever watched the Adam Sandler movie Billy Madison, where he goes back to school from kindergarten to high school to prove to his dad that he can take over his hotel empire when he was in elementary school. Um he the teacher was reading or they they had to collectively read a book and there's like a little chubby kid and he's stuttering like the the the the like and Adam Sandler goes today, Junior. Like that that's how I read. I read very slow, but our our branches at Cwell Banker, I'm a commercial real estate broker, but I office out of a traditional Cwell Banker branch. Our uh branch manager initiated a book club, and this is what has started me on this path. So, the first book that we did is Ninja Selling by Larry Kendall. And ninja selling is all about uplifting yourself and making a positive change in the way you do things. And I've been I've been in sales my entire life. And the moment I've also said this before, the moment you think you know everything, the moment you think that you've conquered the sales world, pack it up. Go home. Give up. You can never learn everything. Your brain should be a sponge all of your life. By the way, on a cigar, the smoke output is great. I don't get the spice yet. I get a lot of the baker spice, some some bread or toast, a lot of sweetness, the definitely the caramel. No spice yet. So, I am I'm [ __ ] loving this thing. No one knows everything. There's always room to learn, grow, and expand. That's my take on it. And that's basically what this book is about. This book is about positivity, rising to the occasion, lifting yourself up, using positive influence. There's a lot of science science in this book. There's gives you a lot of scientific fact on how people think and how buyers think. And it's about creating and fostering long long-term relationships with your clients, your buyers, which hopefully in turn will become your friends. Great book. I am living it today and hopefully for a very long time. Then uh I got into your first year in real estate. So I've started reading the second edition and this is by Dirk Zeller. By the way, this is making the transition from total novice to successful professional. Uh like I said, I've been in real estate for quite some time now. It's not my first year in real estate, but maybe there's something you've missed in your journey. in your real estate journey. Maybe there's something you've missed in your sales journey. And it's always good to have a perspective of a rookie. It's always good to look at things as a greenhorn so you don't get jaded by your years of experience in whatever you're doing. Whether that be management or sales or marketing or analytical or crunching numbers, whatever you do, sometimes you just got to look at it as as a newbie. Sometimes you got to look at it as a rookie and go into the material that the rookies are absorbing and maybe you can pick something up out of that. And I have I've picked a few things up out of this book. So reading the the physical copy of the second edition and I listened to the audio book of the third edition which was great and the premise of this book his message is be a prospecting machine. Do not ever give up prospecting even when you are a multi-millionaire. Continue prospecting because as soon as prospecting dies in your field your sales are going to plummet. So that means the calls, the emails, the postcards, the handwritten notes, like all that, all of that has got to continue all of your life in sales. Then I just finished a book by Fred Reichold Reicheld called Winning on Purpose. And that book is about the net promoter system and the net promoter score, which is basically the premise of the book is love your customers, love your buyers. And I believe that we should love everyone. I think that you need to love everyone. It's it's a medical fact that's statistically proven. It is much easier on yourself, your soul, your body to be nice to people than it is to be a dick or a [ __ ] to people. It's it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile, you know? So that that's kind of like that'll give you the that should give you the heads up right there. But winning on purpose is about loving loving on your clients. And when you do that good of a job and provide that good of a service and you love on your clients and you give them opportunities to enrich their lives, they are going to promote you and your service or your product better than you ever could. So that is a great book. Just finish that. And now I have not finished this book, but so far I'm in love with it because it's very much what I have done in my entire professional career. And the name of the book is Blue Ocean Strategy. And the the book is written by two people. I believe this is uh W. Chan Kim and Renee Mabort. M A U B O R G N E. Yeah, that was a tongue twister. So, blue ocean strategy, how to create uncontested market space and market the competition irrelevant and make the competition irrelevant. So the book is basically learn your industry, strategize your industry, break it down and figure out what the industry is currently doing, figure out what the what the industry is currently not doing and then strip out the unnecessary processes, products, policies, strategies. Give the clients, give the buyers, give the industry, consumers something that isn't there currently and create your own market space where your competition is irrelevant. A lot of people are always competing with the nearest competitor or they they want to be in fierce competition with their peers, affiliates. If you create they have the concept of red ocean, blue ocean. Red Ocean obviously has got blood in the water. You know, that's the the sharks eating everybody up. So, there's that there's that dichotomy of, you know, the big dogs versus the little guy or the juggernaut in the industry versus everyone else. And it just goes over examples of how companies strategize and have come up with blue ocean strategies. I believe the author says they they interviewed or or broke down 108 startups and out of those startups I think only 12% had blue ocean strategies which are still going till today. Some of which are Southwest Airlines which Southwest Airlines was one of the case studies in winning on purpose. Yellowtale wine was another one. They disrupted the wine uh the wine industry. the wine, you know, the alcoholic beverage industry, specifically in the wine subcategory. Compact computer, which was bought by Hullet Packard, I believe, uh they did something very different at that time, uh that wasn't being done at at that time, and they created a blue ocean strategy. So it it it goes over a lot of companies that came up with ideas that changed the world basically. NetJets was another one and basically you know like Southwest is commercial air travel as everyone knows and they revolutionized the industry by creating flights or routes that you could drive. You know, you could you could easily drive 250 mi or 300 miles, 150 mi, but if an airline made it cheaper than driving to fly, why wouldn't you take a 25, 30 minute flight instead of a 3-hour drive? That's what revolutionized that was their blue ocean strategy. And then the economics came in and when they said, you know, no no checked bag fees, your your bags fly free, that just killed it for them. They blew up. Now Southwest does international flights and stuff. They went from short short trips to international routes. Now I'm going to take a Southwest flight soon and it's no [ __ ] I mean, I changed my flight uh literally a day after I made the arrangement. No change. No change fee. As a matter of fact, I got a credit of $100 because the the fair price was different. Create your blue ocean strategy. Create the market for yourself and you will have longevity. You have to you have to continue renewing, which is is a principle of the book, which I haven't gotten to yet. But you can't just create your blue ocean and think that you can swim in that blue ocean forever. You can't. You have to continually upgrade it, continually renew it, continually add things to keep people coming back. But those are the books that I can recommend on for personal mastery, books that are going to help you get better. I've limited my TV intake, movie intake. You know, I enjoy watching movies with my children. Whatever movies you can today, now with the world that it is anymore, you can't even watch [ __ ] cartoons with your kids. But whatever movies I can watch with my kids, I'll jump at that opportunity in a heartbeat. But for me to just veg out on the couch and watch movies anymore, I not interested. I'm only interested in activities or endeavors that are going to make me better. And that's reading, learning, taking a class, writing, putting the time into my business, creating blue ocean strategies, like this is everything that I'm into. Now, I will say that reading a non-fiction book or listening to a non-fiction book that that's a lot more enjoyable than watching a movie. First of all, it allows you to let your imagination paint the canvas. So, a movie is very finite. What's there is there. What you're seeing on the screen is what's been created. It's the content that was created for you to enjoy. But your imagination, I mean, there's really nothing for your imagination to do. You can't really wander anywhere because it's been done. But you're seeing the characters being played out on the screen and what's in the story is being played out the way the director and the actors wanted it to flesh out as. Whereas when you're reading something or listening to something, somebody basically is reading to you, your imagination could wander and you could paint that scene or you could paint that story with all the colors that you want. You know, your color palette, how you see it, you do that. That's all you. And I really love that premise. So, if I'm going to watch a movie, I'd rather just read a book. And one of the books that I recommended to my manager Charlotte was The Last Mrs. Parish by Liv Constantine. Great book, phenomenal book, lots of twists in it. And she read that and then she recommended to me. She was like, "Did you did you read the sequel?" And I was like, "Sequel? I didn't even know there was a sequel." And the book is called The Next Mrs. Parish by Liv Constantine. Really great book. Amazing. Lots of twists. And what's what's nice about the book, the way Liv Constantine writes is there's multiple people in the story that you may not think are interconnected or intertwined and then somehow she crafts the story that they do kind of all collide somehow. And there's so many twists and plot twists and reverse unos and [ __ ] in her stories. It's it's great. And one of the books that I I just saw on my Apple Books app is I think uh like a prequel, the the making of Jackson Parish, which Jackson Parish is one of the main characters of the book, real sociopath. Um and I'm assuming it's his it's his younger life and how he becomes that sociopath. So, I'm interested in um in reading that or or listening to that. I am going today to Barnes & Noble to purchase the hard copy of Blue Ocean Strategy cuz it's it's that good. Lots of stuff going on. Lots of stuff going on. We are dabbling in talking to a couple different manufacturers for merch for Sticks and Stones. We are going to the PCA, the the Premium Cigar Association show, which is the cigar show, the international show. really looking forward to meeting all the people that roll the wonderful products that we all enjoy. I will be going as media. So, we'll be interviewing a lot of the people there, retailers and manufacturers and accessory manufacturers and all that like whoever's whoever's there. We're going to be doing a lot of that. The show this year is in Nandins. Nola. So, that's going to be interesting because it's my first time in New Orleans. We are launching so many websites, it's difficult to break it all down. But if you go to angelomitlo.com, a nyl.com, that's kind of the the hub of everything we've got going on. So that's all of our businesses and business units and offshoots. It's a hub and spoke model. The Angelo Mitlo brand is the hub and all of the verticals spoke out from there. So if you go to angelomitlo.com and that's m likemike, you could see everything we've got going on in the verticals. Also the personal brand, so the broker with style pages where we're going to be working on a men's fashion line, a fashion line that is fashion forward for the professional. If you're a lawyer, a banker, uh real estate agent, a realtor, if fashion's your thing, like that's the one thing that we're going to be focusing on that. Obviously, Sticks and Stones is going to be about cigars and premium tobacco products and accessories and things like that. So, we're working on merch, we're working on websites, we're working on apps, designing, building, creating all of this stuff to make things easier for you guys. If we can make things easier or create a place where you guys can get content, learn things, buy things that you enjoy, you know, that's what we're all about. That's what we're trying to achieve here. A lot of stuff going on, a lot of neat stuff going on, a lot of hard work in the process. are um for my real estate brand. We are now working on a large scale video production which my team and I sat down yesterday and kind of storyboarded it. So that was that was an interesting experience and process that is going to be in the works after my New York trip. We're going to start shooting and there's a lot of moving pieces to that. So, there's a lot going on and that's the one thing that you guys need to know. There's always something going on here. And our goal is to keep you in touch with all of that. If you want to learn something, if you want to try something, if you want to, if you're curious about something, you're curious about smoking cigars, you're curious about how to light them and what to look for and how to start, just we're all about open, transparency, teaching, cultivating, inspiring. And if there's something that we can do for you, if there's somebody that we can put you in touch with, we'll connect you with people and companies. I've been a professional for 25 plus years and I've met a lot of people. I've done business with a lot of people in companies. If there's somebody that we can connect you with, me and my team, we'd love to do it. You know, we'd love to build new relationships for us, for you. And but that's just a beauty thing. It's the beauty part of being in your own blue ocean, creating your own strategy, creating your own markets, is you can do what you want and you can help who you want. and I want to help everybody that I possibly can. The balance sheet of your life will reflect that. It's not all about dollars and cents, guys. I mean, obviously, we are in a capitalist world and you've got bills and you've got obligations and things like that. You need to make money, but don't make money at other people's expenses. Like, don't make money by hurting people. If you can make money while making relationships, creating friendships, and providing a product or service that people need and want and come back for, that's what we're all about. And that's why we're being very selective on what we put out there, the merch we put out there. We want to make sure that we vet the manufacturers that it's a good product. I mean, the one thing, we may not mass-produce stuff because how many times have you gone to a cigar shop and bought a cutter because it was cheap and then used it twice and the [ __ ] thing broke apart? Bought a torch, you know, this this torch got at the Corona Cigar Company, which I love these guys. It's uh it's a I believe this is a Zikar, but it like it lights it lights when it wants, you know, and that kind of tells me why you're seeing less and less Zikar stuff out in the cigar stores. But I don't want to just slap our logo and our brand on every possible product and massroduce it in China or whatever because it's for the profit. I would rather put out a better product. I'd rather have a a better quality product and make less profit on that than and it lasts for a really long time and it's something that you're going to love and cherish versus making a lot of money on something, mass-producing it, sell a bunch of units, and then get stuck with a bunch of [ __ ] because nobody wants it because the shit's breaking. We no one needs that. I'd be doing a disservice to me, a disservice to this brand, and a disservice to you. Anyone who buys a product like that. So, anything that we do is going to have a lot of careful thought put into it. It's going to be vetted and it's going to be a good product that you're going to like. So, a lot going on, a lot of great, interesting, exciting things going on. Take a look out for the merch. We've got websites for that. We've got we got a whole bunch of stuff going on. We're we're trying to figure out blending our own line of cigars. And I don't mean going to a cigar shop and, you know, take their house cigar and slapping our band on it. I'm talking about doing the research, talking to the people. This is one of the the opportunities I'm going to take at the show and talk to, you know, the Placencas, talk to the My Father's Team, and see whoever else is out there and check out their tobacos and actually go to the farms and blend our own damn cigar. That is going to be one of my goals for the show and one of my goals for 2027. I would love to have our own cigar out by 2027. So, we are already in the second quarter of 2026. So, it's a pretty steep goal, but that's that's what drives us, right? That's that's what should drive us is goals and results and, you know, stuff like that. So, you know, that was a lot of information in a very short period of time. Back to the cigar. Great draw. I mean, that's what you get on these larger diameter, these larger rings. I have not had to relight it. I have not gotten any of the pepper. So, there's no punch to this cigar in my opinion. I could be very wrong. My tolerance for strong tobacos is very, very high. It's very seldom that I get a cigar that gives me a good punch because I just I have a very high tolerance because I smoke a lot a day. I smoke multiple cigars a day. I mean, EP Carillo is is a great is a great company. It's great brand. All their shit's fantastic. I do love the Dominican inch, but I mean, you could tell this is Placencia. This is This is quite lovely. Quite lovely. Governor, I don't see the almost 3 hours, 2 hours, 45 minutes. I don't see that because obviously I'm getting closer and closer to the band and we're less than an hour in. I could be wrong. I could also smoke like way too fast as well. But very, very interesting cigar. Love the flavors. Just the blend is phenomenal. The smoke output is great. I mean, you got billows of smoke coming out of this. The burn is even all the way around. The ash is beautiful. In my opinion, guys, this these are the ways that you tell a good cigar. The flavor, the taste, the smoke output, the draw, the ability to pull the smoke in and out, the burn. If it if it's burning really weird, like, you know, looks like an EKG when you when you've smoked it a little bit, that's got humidity problems. And the ash, the color of the ash tells you a lot. You know, if it's all kinds of multicolor or if it's really dark, you know, you want a good light gray ash. And that's that's all it's all here. So, I'm going to enjoy the rest of this bad boy cuz I don't think you guys want to want to watch or listen to the rest of me smoking this thing. But highly recommend the EP Curillo Inch Nicaragua that's got the EP Curillo brand on it, but it's Placencia. I would pair that. Like I I had a cappuccino great with that. I can see this being great with a a rum of sorts, you know, maybe a spice rum, maybe a coconut rum. I could see this with a sweeter bourbon. You definitely want to be on the sweeter side. I could even see that with a with a port wine. I think that would be great with a port wine as well if you're looking on the alcoholic beverage side of things. Great cigar. So with that, I would say that we are we are good to roll out here, Autobots. So enjoy the rest of your week. Stay blessed, guys. Above all else, give God the thanks. And most importantly and above all all all other things, keep it rolling, baby. Sticks and stones, we