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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features seven members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast, presented by Fabrica5. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, and Bam Bam and our plan is to smoke a cigar Drink some tequila, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs.
So take this as your 155th official invitation to join us, and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We're going to smoke a Cuban cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our four mothers a grade. We discuss the current Cuban electricity crisis, Pagoda's experience navigating it firsthand on the ground, and what this all means for future travel to Cuba, and for the Cuban people.
All among a variety of other things for the next two hours. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair G4 Tequila Blanco Medada with the Por Larrañaga Fénix Edicion Regional Phoenicia. A 109 tonight on the pod from Cuba. [00:01:00] It's the Por Larrañaga Fénix Edicion Regional Phoenicia, and it's a 50 ring gauge cigar by seven and one quarter inches long.
And boys, we have a very interesting episode ahead of us tonight. Oh, yes, we do. We have a lot to discuss, and in our hand is a cigar that has the shape of one of our favorites, the 109. Correct. With the belicoso head on it. That's right,
**Bam Bam:** yeah.
**Gizmo:** Substantial cigar. Very substantial cigar, but it doesn't feel No, it's not dense.
It doesn't feel very dense in the hand.
**Bam Bam:** Toothy. Pretty ruggedly handsome rapper. Very rugged. I'm getting a
**Gizmo:** little barnyard on that. Yeah, for sure. That's probably all I'm getting. On the foot. A little cedar maybe.
**Senator:** I get a lot of sweet notes on the
**Chef Ricky:** rapper.
**Senator:** Yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** I don't know if that's me or the uh, the cigar or whatever the hell's in the room right now.
There is a potpourri of aroma going around here. There's an oil diffuser that's on right now that I don't get usually.
**Gizmo:** Alright boys, let's cut this thing. See what we're getting on the [00:02:00] cold draw. Rapper.
**Chef Ricky:** Now did you guys get this in Cuba?
**Bam Bam:** Mmm. The cold draw is delicious. It's surprising how Raisin forward it is for me.
**Gizmo:** Mine is very cedar and dry.
**Bam Bam:** Mm hmm
**Gizmo:** No
**Bam Bam:** fruit at all.
**Chef Ricky:** Very little right now. I'm there with gives a little bit I'm kind of getting cereal notes and some on the sweeter side. Yeah, I got a lot of nuttiness. I was gonna say almond Yeah, that's what I'm yeah,
**Bam Bam:** maybe almond almond. Yeah, but the draws wide open
**Chef Ricky:** Maybe I need a slightly deeper cut.
All right, boys. Nice cold draw.
**Gizmo:** Let's light this thing. The Por Larrańaga Fénix. The edition regionale for Phoenicia. Again, it's a 50 ring gauge 109 by seven and one quarters inches long. The box code on this is BRM, October 23. Came out of the La Corona factory. Which is appropriate for our discussion tonight.[00:03:00]
**Bam Bam:** Do we know what these are going for?
**Gizmo:** The original retail price on these cigars was 48. Yeah, how's that? On the secondary market now, or places like Bond Roberts, you're probably going to find them somewhere between 75 and 95 a stick. Wow. So they've pretty much doubled since
**Bam Bam:** their initial release. Safe to say it's a ultra premium product.
Delicious on the light. Yeah. Very pleasant. Um, it's great on the retro hell too.
**Senator:** Very woody though on the light, which is characteristic of Por Larrañaga. It's actually one of the things I don't really love about the Marca. But um, I was hoping it'd be sweeter just because I got a lot of nuttiness on the cold draw some of those dessert notes On the wrapper, but man, it's very woody.
**Chef Ricky:** It's funny now for me. I'm getting a lot ton of nuts Yeah, no dry fruit, but I'm getting definitely getting some almonds sweetness
**Bam Bam:** in the background that I'm getting. Yeah Touch of something. Could be honey, could be like a sweet cream, maybe. [00:04:00] Construction's great. I mean, effortless combustion.
**Chef Ricky:** Retro, it was delicious.
**Gizmo:** And I, you know, we've talked about this before with cigars of this size. I don't know if we've actually ever done a 109, a full format 109. We did the petite 109 from Bond Roberts. I think this is our actual first 109 on the pod. I just love how these feel in the hand.
**Bam Bam:** It's a great, great cigar. You know, it
**Gizmo:** feels elegant.
It feels sophisticated. It feels significant. And I like when you have a cigar of this size that it doesn't feel overpacked or dense. You know, it doesn't feel too
**Senator:** weighty. I agree with that, but I will say the, the size it, I mean, it's kind of imposing like a Churchill.
**Bam Bam:** Oh yeah. Oh, it definitely is.
**Senator:** Yeah. You see this and you're like, okay, I gotta have some serious time.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** It's developing nicely already. Just maybe after the fourth or fifth draw now. So boys, we have an interesting episode ahead of us tonight. This is the first time in [00:05:00] kind of crazy coming up on three years. In November here. This is the first time on the podcast tonight. We are recording an episode on Monday night.
So tonight is October 21st. We're recording this and it will be, this episode will come out tomorrow morning at 5am simply because we. Have had a wild experience, namely Pagoda, but the rest of us as well, with the chaos that has happened in Cuba.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** With the power outage, and it aligned, uh, it actually aligned well for us getting out of there, and for Pagoda it did not align well.
With him staying back with his friends for a few days so he could show them Havana. Uh, but it, it has turned into a real humanitarian crisis in Cuba. So we have a lot to discuss on that topic tonight. So this is the first time we're recording on a Monday night and this will be out in Eight hours or so
**Bam Bam:** pretty serious topic.
Yeah, very serious.
**Gizmo:** So our normal [00:06:00] lizards in Cuba recap episode that we would do when we come home from Cuba, we, we, you know, we, we haven't actually discussed it yet. We're probably going to push that off or forego it entirely, you know, due to the horrible situation going on in Cuba, if you're unaware, if you're uninitiated, what's going on, there's been a complete failure of the electrical grid.
In Cuba, it's been all over world news, uh, in some format or another, and it failed on Friday morning, I guess what Pagoda around 11 or 12, 11 a. m. Yeah. 12 PM.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. Around, uh, it was, it was in the morning sometime, man.
**Gizmo:** And it failed across the entire country, which is pretty significant. You know, if you think about Cuba, it's the biggest island in the Caribbean, 10 million people on the island.
And to think that every single person. Is without electricity and, and what happens because of that, uh, it's a real, real catastrophe and a real problem for people. So we, um, we're going to discuss that quite a bit tonight. We're going to talk about Pagoda's [00:07:00] experience being there without power and what that looked like.
But, you know, just a general kind of update as of this recording right now, which is around 8. 30. 8 20 p. m. on Monday night, the 21st. Apparently about 90 percent of Havana has some power at this time. Most of the rest of the island is still without power and probably will be for some time, which is terribly unfortunate.
And of course, as I mentioned, it's leading to a serious humanitarian crisis because not only Not having electricity in your home to power the things you need and keep your phone charged and keep, you know, your, your home moving, but it's, it's really the biggest problem is the spoiling of food. And fresh water.
And fresh water. Access to fresh water. And fresh water. The pumps that pump this water through the city are unable to run without electricity. So what it's done is taken a country and, Uh, society that's already so strapped and has added another level of [00:08:00] incomprehensible suffering on them. And we're talking about the people outside of Havana, the people in rural areas of Cuba who don't have very much, who don't know what they're going to eat every day.
And this is going to affect them for, I can't imagine how long, you know, so it's, uh, it's, it's very, very unfortunate, but, uh, so we're going to go in and out of the cigar with this discussion. We do have a tequila we're going to do tonight. So it's going to be a little bit different of an episode, uh, in light of what's going on, but, uh, we're going to do our very, very, very best.
So what do you guys think about the cigar right now?
**Bam Bam:** It's nice. I'm getting a lot of almond and Walnut. With, I'm not going to say cedar, but it's almost like an oaky type of, um, background. It's interesting. I haven't had a cigar like this ever before.
**Senator:** I agree with the walnut for me. It went from like almond and a somewhat sweeter nut to like a drier walnut, oaky flavor.
Um, again, this for me is very characteristic of this [00:09:00] markup, but it's, it's still not really my ideal, you know, mix of flavors.
**Bam Bam:** Well, the PLPC, That's a, yeah, Petit Corona, completely different profile. That I get a lot of, for me, it's the kind of like a quintessential Cuban. I do get graham cracker, a little honey.
I get cedar. It's sweet. It's a little savory and sweet. That, I love that. I
**Senator:** still get many of these notes in that exact cigar. In this cigar? In the PLPC in that particular one. Oh yeah, yeah. Not this one. I still get that woodiness. I still get the walnut. The
**Bam Bam:** sweetness here is completely evaporated. It's evaporated.
Yeah, in this for sure. But still kind of pleasant, I have to say. Not a bad cigar right now.
**Pagoda:** You know, it gives me like, it's really interesting. I don't know how to describe it, but I thought that when, you know, they put like almond extract in food, there sometimes can be that slight bitterness associated with it.
It's a pleasant bitterness, it's not. But it's got this flavor. I think [00:10:00] that flavor is just coming through for me.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. For me, it's, it's, it, it did go complete wood on me. Lots of, uh, like, I, I guess you guys are saying Walnut cause it feels kind of tannic for me. Um, but there is a savoriness that lingers on my lips, uh, from the cigar, but something, you know, maybe it's slightly salty.
Uh, but yeah, it is kind of dry. And, and walnut ish right now for me as well.
**Gizmo:** So just some quick backstory on the cigar. Uh, just briefly. So this is an edition region. Now, like I said, for Phoenicia, Phoenicia is the exclusive distributor of Habano cigars in Cyprus and in the middle East, and the cigar was announced in 2021 celebrating the 15th anniversary of the relationship between Habano SSA and Phoenicia.
the distributor. The cigars were finally released in December 23. Uh, it was a very [00:11:00] limited run. They come in numbered slide lid boxes of 15 cigars with 6, 666 produced only. So it's a limited release. And so this cigar came out in December 23 announced two years prior as we said, the original 15 count boxes were about 660 euros, which is somewhere around 48 a cigar.
So like I said, they've about doubled in price now on the secondary market. It is interesting. And why I pulled this tonight is a factor of three reasons. Number one, this episode came together very quickly with what's happened over the past weekend that we'll talk about. So I didn't have time to kind of plan it out.
We recorded an episode that was supposed to come out tomorrow. Weeks ago, two weeks ago, before, right before we went to Cuba, just to make sure we had something and it's edited, ready to go, but obviously the situation took a little precedence. So I grabbed these and then the other factor too, is, you know, this is the fifth PORRO ARAÑAGA we've done on the podcast tonight.
And if you guys remember, we did one, I don't know, about [00:12:00] 10 or 15 episodes ago, the Picadoras number one. Which did not perform well and honestly performed and that's going to be talked about on the end of the end of the year recap episode. So hopefully we're, we'll have a little bit of redemption tonight for uh, poor Larnyaga on the pod.
Let's hope
**Senator:** this is better meat in a can.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, I'm really hoping this takes a turn into. Something a little bit sweeter. I don't see it happening.
**Senator:** It's super dry.
**Chef Ricky:** If I had known this I probably would have picked a reposado or something.
**Bam Bam:** What I'd like is that it could pair with the right spirit. and work nicely to help quench that lack of moisture or sweetness and create some balance.
We'll see.
**Senator:** I agree. I mean, that's why to Ricky's point, I think like a darker spirit would really help a cigar like this.
**Gizmo:** You know, you, you look at Portlar and Yaga as a flavor profile, [00:13:00] right? You look at what you know about Cuban cigars and trying to pair that, you know, do you bring in, do you take the gamble in bringing scotch?
Yeah. Take the gamble and bring in a higher, you know, a bourbon that's going to be higher proof. So I'm, I'm hoping that, you know, the, uh, the pairing we have tonight is going to work
**Bam Bam:** out. It's interesting with PLPC, the, from Vitola to Vitola, there are differences. There isn't the consistency that you get in many other marcas.
**Senator:** I, I don't, I really feel differently. I don't like the marca very much. I know you don't. Because all of them in some way, shape, or form have this dry, woody, Earthiness. I need to get you a Petit Corona out of my box. All right. I mean, I'll see. I've roosters give me several of them and every time. Oh, he's going to love hearing this tomorrow.
He ain't here. So I'm talking about fighting words. But I just feel like even with those, it's not nearly as dry as this. I'm with you there. Yeah. But I just feel like in the [00:14:00] background, you still get these same notes. And to me, there's that consistent DNA through all of them. And it's just usually not my cup of tea.
So I don't pursue the mark as often. Right. Cup of chai would go. Sure. Rooster just perked up wherever he
**Chef Ricky:** is. His nipples itch.
**Gizmo:** You know, it's funny. Anytime I've heard someone say chai tea, since he talked about that, all I can think about is that they're saying TT. Yeah. Titty. Titty. Yeah. All right, boys. So back to our, uh, our topic on hand tonight. So as we mentioned, the entire island of Cuba has been dealing with a major power outage, I guess going on four days now, uh, since it all happened leading to probably what is the worst humanitarian situation on the island.
Since at least the special period in the early nineties, when the Soviet Union collapsed, likely is even worse than that. The real question that, that is up in [00:15:00] the air is the long term stability of the electrical system. And as we know, the problem is food. So let's go back and lay out our experience here from the beginning.
So our plan was to go for about a week, uh, Pagoda was going to come in a little bit later than us and stay a little bit later and kind of show his friends around Havana and kind of give them a little bit of the lizard experience there and meet some of our friends and give some stuff away, etc. So, Senator and Lizard Henry, a friend of ours, arrived on Friday, October 11th.
I came in from the Dominican Republic the next day on Saturday, the 12th. And then Bam arrived on Monday, the 14th. All of us leaving on when, uh, on Friday, excuse me. Pagoda arrived on Wednesday. The 16th with his plan to stay, and he was going to stay till what, uh, The following
**Pagoda:** Wednesday.
**Gizmo:** The 23rd. So two days from now.
**Pagoda:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So, the first, the first thing's first, I mean, uh, uh, uh, compared to our other times in Cuba, [00:16:00] when we had been there in the past, the rolling blackouts that were occurring throughout Havana were much more common, I feel, than any other time we had been there. Way more. Like, it was every day.
**Senator:** Yeah.
Every single day, maybe there was one day that was an exception. Yeah. If not every, almost every single day. We lost power from between an hour to four hours of the day. Yep. And the wild thing is, um, you know, Lizard Henry and I get there that Friday, then Gizmo shows up the next day. And we usually stay in this large, uh, house.
Um, like a walk up at three, four, yeah, seven beds, seven baths, a big place. And it wasn't available the entirety of the dates that we needed. So the first two nights we were in the penthouse of this apartment and then we were moving to the house. So Gizmo shows up Saturday
**Bam Bam:** at a great workout.
**Senator:** This apartment is on the 15th floor, the top floor of this building.
And Gizmo's texting, you know, Lizard Henry and I, that he's, You know, on his way, he'll be there soon. We're like, okay, great. The time he was [00:17:00] texting us, we did have power in this apartment. Now, Gizmo shows up and the fucking power goes out. He's got to walk up 15 flights of stairs.
**Bam Bam:** You on the 16th floor? I would love.
To have seen his face, the
**Chef Ricky:** funniest
**Senator:** part is that the day before when we, when lizard Henry and I got there and the staff at the, at the apartment was warning us about. These blackouts and how usually they schedule them and they're for a few hours during the day. And, uh, she said, she'll give us a heads up, you know, as much as she gets it.
And, uh, I think it was Elizabeth Henry. He's like, you know, just watch somehow, like when, when, uh, Gizmo arrives, like the fucking power goes out, he's going to have to climb up 15 flights of stairs. Fast forward the next day, the timing of it. I mean, as soon as Soon as he got to that place, and he gets up there dripping sweat, [00:18:00] he
**Gizmo:** was furious because they're sitting there puffing cigar.
They didn't even know the power went out. They didn't even know. Cause they're sitting in the living room in the dark smoking cigars. It was broad daylight. That's why we didn't
**Pagoda:** know. Wow. So how did you know? Because as soon as I
**Gizmo:** pulled up the elevator to work and all of a sudden the housekeeper shows up like you have two options.
You can go somewhere else or you can climb the stairs. Oh, really? Yeah. So I climbed the stairs. But you know, it was, it was a real Change in the fact that not that I have a problem with power outages or climbing stairs per se, but it it was unique to arrive in Havana Arrived to in you know, we stay in Vedado over by the US Embassy And it was the first time that we had experienced, you know, a power outage like that and then it continued every day every day in the afternoon It continued and it was like, okay, you know, there's definitely problems and they, they see problems [00:19:00] happening.
They don't have the capacity to serve the city of Havana. They certainly don't have the capacity to serve the country in it. It, you kind of sense something. It just felt a little different, you know, like the look in her eyes. This is the
**Pagoda:** first time, right? Because I think the last few experiences we've never.
Ever experienced a blackout or even a couple,
**Senator:** but just, they've been much shorter and less frequent. So like most trips that we were there, the power would go out while we were like upstairs on the roof, having breakfast, it'd go off for like a half hour, an hour, and then it'd come back and it wasn't every day.
It was maybe just a handful of days out of the trip, but this to be every day and for extended periods of time, I mean, it's just crazy. The fact that the housekeeper at the first place was telling us like, You know, when this happens, you guys are going to need to make the decision. Do you want to just stay in the apartment and wait it out?
Try to leave in advance of the blackout so you can use the elevator to get down. Or otherwise, your option is 15 flights of [00:20:00] stairs down. And if you come back, you don't want to take the chance and get stuck in the
**Pagoda:** elevator. Oh, that'd be great. Which is terrifying. That's terrifying. Oh, yeah.
**Gizmo:** You know, it's actually to the point where I probably will never.
Stay at that penthouse again. Not probably. I mean, we talked about this
**Senator:** every time we were in that elevator and Gizmo had to open his mouth each time and make sure we all knew, can you imagine if we got stuck in this elevator right now? Like why speak this into existence at this moment? But, uh, yeah, it was scary.
I mean, we just, you couldn't get it out of your head that, I mean, we're going to call the Cuban fire department and they're going to come and, Oh yeah. Two days? I mean, we're fucked.
**Gizmo:** We'd still be in the elevator. Yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** Wow. And then Lord knows you guys had a ton of sticks on you, so it's not like you could even light a cigar in there because it's so small and all of you are smoking right now.
Yeah, there's no airflow. It's
**Gizmo:** tiny. I mean, three of us fit in there tight. Fucking torture. Yeah, it would have been, it would have been really bad. I mean, I'm not claustrophobic,
**Senator:** but that there is like no air in that elevator.
**Chef Ricky:** It's brutal. And just the [00:21:00] thought of like, is somebody going to come anytime soon to save us?
Yeah. And if, even if they do, can they, you know, whereas They have the tools to do it.
**Pagoda:** Exactly. It's like if all three are standing, all the bellies were touching.
**Gizmo:** Pretty much. Pretty much. So the first real kind of high sign to me that there was a problem, Like a serious problem was on Thursday night, I got a message from a friend of ours who works at one of the factories and we haven't talked about this person before, it's not anybody we've mentioned, just someone that we know at one of the factories, sent us a link to a government issued statement in Cuba saying that effective Thursday night, October 17th, that all school school.
Activities, all non essential work, and all social activities were going to be cancelled effective immediately through the weekend. So Thursday night through Monday, there was to be no school, no non essential work, and all the clubs and anything [00:22:00] non tourist bars, anywhere where people congregate was to be closed to limit.
Electrical consumption. So that's a pretty big red flag. Like what? What is what's what's to be anticipated here? So we continued on with our with our day and we actually saw some folks at La Corona that day Which was really nice went over there had a nice time there and and we had a pretty fairly normal Thursday day and evening, you know, it was totally fine.
So Friday evening No, we did not have a normal
**Bam Bam:** day, day and afternoon,
**Senator:** the evening was a potential disaster, right? You know, with these blackouts, the one thing about them, they were always scheduled just during the day. They were never at night. That's correct. Never once at night. And on Thursday night. We go to dinner, we get back to our house, and someone, we were actually, um, was dropping off some cigars for us, and, you know, I'm looking at, like, the patio that's usually lit at this house, and it's dark, so I go to, like, flip the switches, and I go, holy shit, the power's out.[00:23:00]
This never happens at this hour. I mean, this must be, like, nine o'clock after we've eaten dinner. And for hours We were without power that night. No air conditioning. It's hot. It was storming. It was storming. It
**Gizmo:** almost felt like a, like a tropical storm type of
**Senator:** wind and rain. It felt like Armageddon
**Bam Bam:** for a moment.
Yeah. It was very odd.
**Senator:** And so that was also another odd sign of just like for the power to be out at night there. Like clearly this is not one of these scheduled things. And uh, the duration that it was out. Something was obviously off.
**Pagoda:** I remember when the lights came on, there was so much jubilation. We were so happy.
**Senator:** We
**Pagoda:** were born
**Senator:** again.
**Pagoda:** That was one of the happiest moments. That was great.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, it's crazy, like that Thursday night, you know, I remember when we came back to what you're saying and you walk in the house and it's like, it's dark and you know, you're thinking about all these people around Havana who might not have power like, how difficult that is that That must be to navigate, you know, if your [00:24:00] cell phone's dead and you don't have a lot of stuff in the house, you have little kids in the house, like, well, that's how challenging that must be.
For
**Bam Bam:** us. It was inconvenient. It was inconvenient. It was a walk in a park compared to what families are going through. Um, I can't imagine, you know, food spoiling, not having water. Kids are scared. Wind, rain, no security at all. Yeah. I just remember Gizmo, I'm going to have to pack in the dark. You
**Gizmo:** know why?
Cause my phone was dead. I'm usually pretty good about charging my phone. And for some reason on Thursday, I didn't, I came back from dinner. It was dead. Yeah, it was totally cooked.
**Chef Ricky:** Well, now you guys know it takes from a solar battery packs. Oh yeah. We have a whole new
**Gizmo:** set of, we have a whole new agenda.
We'll talk about that a little bit later. So on Friday morning, we woke up, there was power. We were totally good. We left, I guess we left the house about eight 30 for the airport. Uh, the three of us and Lizard Henry, we said goodbye to Pagoda, who was expecting his friends, went to the airport, everything was normal, went through the airport, got on the plane, and we were on the plane, [00:25:00] and then we're on the plane on the Wi Fi to Miami, and shit hit the fan.
The entire country went black. No, no power. Thank God that the Cuban government can't screw up the sunlight like they can the electricity, but.
**Senator:** I mean, the wild thing is it, it went, it went dark when we were. When we had boarded because we boarded at 11 a. m. The flight left 1145. It went dark at 11, but the airport, they had generators.
So we had no clue. There was still power where we were, but everyone else was starting to
**Gizmo:** realize, okay, here we go again. So we started panicking because we had left our boy Pagoda
**Senator:** behind. Our most capable lizard in Spanish
**Pagoda:** speaking country. Most technically adept. And by the way, I had no clue. I went and lit up a cigar upstairs.
You were on the roof. This is the
**Senator:** best part. He sent us a selfie from the rooftop. He did send us a cigar in his mouth, smiling. He's having a great time. Oh,
**Bam Bam:** and he had only 10 percent
**Pagoda:** left on his phone, by the way. At that
**Bam Bam:** moment.
**Gizmo:** Oh, Jesus. [00:26:00]
**Pagoda:** No worry in the world, life is great, you know.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, so we're on the plane flying back and then we landed in Miami.
It was a short flight, obviously, catching our connection to Newark. And we started reading about this and understanding what was going on. And I had talked about that Thursday statement I had seen. Clearly, the government knew this was coming. And it totally turned the entire island off. And it didn't really turn back on until, Today, Monday.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah,
**Gizmo:** you know, uh, which, which is crazy. And we'll go through all that, those details with Pagoda there, but it was out for three or four days from that time that we were on the plane that morning, which is just Absolute lunacy. Yeah. It's totally crazy.
**Senator:** I also think for context, I imagine that someone's got to hear this and say, well, like, you know, I've been without power for a week when there's a hurricane, things like that.
You know, it's one thing when it's weather related and they're actually having to like restore downed power lines and things like that, or a blown transformer. This is just, this country literally doesn't [00:27:00] have. The energy that it needs to produce enough electricity to
**Bam Bam:** produce the power. They don't have the
**Gizmo:** carbon to turn the turbines at the thermonuclear plants to provide enough power for thermoelectric.
It's crazy. Yeah. Did I say nuclear? Yes. I meant thermoelectric.
**Bam Bam:** Nuclear would be great. That would be great. Yeah. I don't think they'd be able to keep it stable on that island. Yeah. I
**Senator:** don't
**Gizmo:** think we're going to allow nuclear
**Senator:** there.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. The isotopes have to float in cold water. It's gotta be in cold water.
**Gizmo:** So We started trying to get in touch with Pagoda and we're on the plane trying to like conduct like a Navy SEAL operation to first get Pagoda to realize what's going on.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, yeah.
**Gizmo:** I mean,
**Bam Bam:** I'm enjoying myself. He's sending selfies.
**Gizmo:** Senator and I are like on the plane, rose apart, messaging like we got to get him out of there.
He's
**Chef Ricky:** there using the last of his ice in his cocktail. Oh, yeah. He's
**Bam Bam:** sipping Havana 7. We were all pretty terrified for him. But [00:28:00] we didn't get that reaction from him at all. It was really a bliss. Ignorance. Yeah, that's true. That's true. But as nighttime fell, we were scared for you. Yeah, no. We were really terrified.
Someone had to be because he wasn't. That's correct.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. So let's pause on that for a second. Let's talk about the we're coming to the end of the first third here on the polar and yoga. Eudiceon regionale for Phoenicia, the Fénix. What's everybody thinking?
**Chef Ricky:** I'm, I'm still pretty woody here, but I will say after I dropped my ash, um, I am starting to get the slightest hint of banana notes in here.
That's pretty fair. Which is giving me some hope that maybe it is going to take a little bit more of a turn, you know, lane shift into something a little bit sweeter.
**Bam Bam:** It's smoking better. It's a bit more enjoyable than it was. I'll say that.
**Gizmo:** I actually like how it's developing.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I like how it started.
It was a little too dry. There's no question about that, but I like how it's slowly building. It's, it's, it's [00:29:00] developing into something that's, I think, very pleasant. And for a cigar like this, I think it's taking us on a journey, which is, of course, what we want in a cigar like this. So hopefully it's a two or three act play at least.
**Chef Ricky:** Are you guys getting that? Sort of sensation in your mouth, like after consuming tomato juice or something like that. I'm getting that behind my lips. Yeah, it's like tannic, but I don't want to say Or a tannic wine. I don't want to say yeah, yeah. I don't want to say umami because it's not it's just, it's, it There's a certain feeling behind my lips when I run my tongue around.
**Bam Bam:** I get that on the finish. Yeah. Tannic feeling or flavor profile.
**Pagoda:** Dakota, what
**Senator:** do you
**Pagoda:** think? Like, for me it's getting, you know, uh, you know, earlier I mentioned I was getting a slight of, uh, the almond bitterness, uh, you know, of an extract. Now that's, uh, this bit has become a little sweeter for me, so, now it's becoming a lot more pleasant for me.
Um, I don't know about this banana, but there is a [00:30:00] hint of sweetness, you know, it's moving in that direction. So, um, just got to smoke a bit more too, but you know, it does, you're right, in the sense that it is. It doesn't have a long finish. It's, you know, a little drier. It, it, uh, a lot of it is present in the front towards the lips and, uh, the front part of the tongue, I think.
**Gizmo:** What do you guys think of the retro hill?
**Bam Bam:** I actually like the traditional draw better.
**Gizmo:** The retro just turned from, for me in a really pleasant way. That's why I brought it up.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, I didn't dislike it the first third. Now it's getting a little bit baking spicy.
**Gizmo:** That's exactly what it is. It's like a baking spice and there's a little sweetness there for me.
I can't
**Chef Ricky:** wait to get that.
**Gizmo:** Smoke a little faster. I will. No, it's uh, I'm finding it to be pretty pleasant.
**Chef Ricky:** Maybe drop your ash and see what happens. Should I? That's when, that's when my cigar shifted. It kind of looks like that. No, I had a pretty good size ash on mine too, but it was like. All right, let's see what happens.
**Gizmo:** So, boys, while we're paused here on the, uh, on the story, let's talk about our pairing tonight. [00:31:00] We have G4, Tequila Blanco, and this is Sorry, Puba.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, now Puba perked up. I didn't know you weren't gonna be here.
**Pagoda:** Hey, do we need ice before we start? Oh boy. Oh
**Chef Ricky:** boy. So it is slightly high proof. So all right. So, you know, we're all fans of G4 Blanco.
This is G4 Blanco Madera. This is a limited release that they started. G4 typically ferments their juice in stainless steel tanks without fiber, which is slightly more modern. And, you know, it's still, they're still producing great juice at the end of the day. But they decided to go a little bit further back in time and now they're using, uh, wooden fermentation vats for this batch of G4 Blanco.
So they have an entire line of Madeira, which is Spanish for wood, and they have a Blanco Repo and I believe an Añejo too. This is the Blanco, uh, and they purposefully release it at a slightly higher proof so that the [00:32:00] agave shines because they want people to taste the difference. Is it released that certain, during certain times of year?
Or is it? No, this is the first time. This is lot number one. I see. Um, so this is the first time. I don't know that they did it to, you know, to line up with anything throughout the year. I just think they wanted to kind of. The aroma on the nose is very strong. It's intense. It's
**Bam Bam:** very intense. Like it almost burns your nostrils.
That word is accurate. Almost literally burns your nostrils. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** especially if you take a really heavy inhale on it, it really burns your nose. And there is remember
**Chef Ricky:** guys to inhale with your mouth open. Sure.
**Gizmo:** Even when I do that,
**Bam Bam:** it's
**Gizmo:** good
**Bam Bam:** though. It's very good. I like the flavor. I like the heat on the, on the sip.
I'd probably steer more toward having this. I wouldn't have this in the summer. Probably have it in the fall for me. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. A hundred percent. Yeah. And that, that sensation when
**Chef Ricky:** I take that first sips kind of enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah, no, I love it. First sip. Um, you know, it's kind of viscous. It's a Blanco and it's still [00:33:00] pretty viscous.
Um, and on, I get a little, uh, minerality and almost like salted, like a faint salt caramel on the back sides of my tongue. See, I get the opposite.
**Bam Bam:** I get that sweet caramel thing on the front and on the backside is the minerality. The minerality lingers on the finish. Nice. I like that. It's very nice.
**Gizmo:** And how are you guys feeling with, uh, The cigar, how is the tequila pairing for you with the cigar we have tonight?
So,
**Senator:** I have to say, um, I think the tequila is helping the cigar tremendously. I agree. Totally agree. For me, the cigar is suddenly creamier and sweeter. And there's a little saltiness too. That's exactly the last thing I was gonna say. Sorry. Bingo. No, no, no, no, no. You're spot on. Spot on. It's honestly, without this tequila, I was not enjoying this cigar all that much, but with it, it's really, really helped.
Which points to
**Gizmo:** the merits, you know, the merit of a good pairing. Right? And, and, and finding these, you know, interesting things that normally you wouldn't put [00:34:00] together. Like, it's a, it's a, it's a really interesting play. What's going on in our mouths.
**Chef Ricky:** So, it's funny, because I was originally nervous because it's a Blanco, so it hasn't really touched any wood for aging.
So in my head, prior to tasting the pairing or the tequila with the cigar, I was thinking that perhaps a Reposado would go better, but the wooden fermentation vats here really help. You could really get, um, a lot of sweetness out of the agave, but not just like that bright citrus sweetness that a good Blanco typically brings.
So I think for me, some of that salted caramel and stuff that's coming from the, from the fermentation process and the wooden vats. I
**Bam Bam:** think the comment on the spirit. Senator made, it's actually pulling out notes that I wasn't getting prior to taking a sip. And that's unusual. I mean, I don't get that very often.
This is pretty interesting pairing. I think it works great.
**Senator:** Yeah. I think to
**Bam Bam:** Bam's
**Senator:** point, usually the pairing at best when it's helping, it will just Accentuate notes that you were [00:35:00] just getting faintly, but to your point In parallel. Right. Yeah. To your point now, it's just bringing out things I wasn't getting any of before.
I feel like
**Gizmo:** the simplest way that I'm kind of computing what you guys are saying is normally a pairing will push stuff up. I feel like this, to use the exact word you used, it's pulling it out. It's extracting It's extracting it from the cigar on your palate. Which is really
**Bam Bam:** a great, great experience.
**Gizmo:** That's pretty unique for Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** What
**Gizmo:** we do
**Bam Bam:** here.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, I think we're on to something here, boys.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, so this is a Great Spirit. Bottle retails for about 76. Nice. Um, and, you know, G4 in general, they're, you know, they're legit. Uh, tequila producer, that's uh, Don Felipe Camareña. So brother to Carlos Camareña. As I said before, anything these guys make, um, you know, they, they do it well.
Um, and they took a product that was already delicious and made it even more so by introducing a wooden fermentation process over to stainless steel. [00:36:00]
**Senator:** So this is different than the Blanco we had at your For the Love of Agave event? Mm
**Chef Ricky:** Mm hmm.
**Senator:** That's the standard production. That's the
**Chef Ricky:** standard production block
**Senator:** in stainless steel steel
**Chef Ricky:** and
**Senator:** stainless
**Chef Ricky:** steel.
Okay,
**Gizmo:** and what's the price delta on these two? Blanco's from g4, uh, 30 bucks 20 bucks.
**Chef Ricky:** No, no Yeah, 16 to 20 bucks. Not 30 bucks though. Okay. G4 Blanco is pretty, uh,
**Gizmo:** like a 55 bottle. This is 76. Okay. Well, this is a nice entry tonight from G4, our first on the pod. So, we'll see how, uh, see how it does as this cigar continues along.
**Senator:** I'm also just encouraged because we talked about the nose is very intimidating on this spirit, but the mouthfeel, it's, it doesn't sip aggressively hot. Oh. It's like, you know, It's strength. There's a, a bit of a warming quality when you swallow it. Like Bam was saying, he would have this more in the fall than the summer, but it's not like a harshness or anything that feels overpowering.
It's like just the right amount of [00:37:00] strength.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. I think, you know, as, as, as you get accustomed to drinking agave spirits, this is the next step, right? Like very rarely now, as you start to appreciate agave, do you seek like the 40, the 80 proof, you know, tequilas. Now you start kind of, uh, diving in a little bit higher, which is why now there's so many high proof releases or still strength because they realize now that people are really enjoying the actual flavor of the agave without adding water and whatnot.
So some other things they do for this tequila, they use a deeper, uh, well water source. So that adds to the minerality and some of the depth of flavor we're getting. But other than that, you know, they're using Tijonas. They're, you know, they're doing all the, all the awesome stuff.
**Gizmo:** I like the pairing boys. I do too.
And the cigar is really starting to pop for me. It is. Pagoda, no ice. How's it working? Well, he was in Havana with a power. So he's used to no ice now. He's been through hell and back,
**Bam Bam:** man. All right. [00:38:00]
**Pagoda:** This is our own personal MacGyver right here. He's been through hell. Listen, you don't need ice if you have a really good spirit in your hand.
There you go.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, all right. Pagoda has changed. This weekend has
**Pagoda:** changed him. This weekend really has. He doesn't need ice.
**Bam Bam:** He doesn't need
**Senator:** electricity, water. He's a simple man these days. His hair is
**Bam Bam:** a little curlier. His eyebrows are a little bit more furled. He's looking very relaxed. Almost sexy, I gotta say.
He's a different man right now. I like it. I'm still on vacation. There you go. That's right. Till Wednesday. 007
**Chef Ricky:** meets MacGyver meets Pagoda. I was going to say he's giving me the world's most interesting man vibes. Correct. He
**Gizmo:** gave us all that vibe for about two days. Oh, dude. So boys, let's go back. You know, we're obviously we're making light of all this and it's a tough situation there.
So let's go back to what you experienced. So Friday. We're on the plane to Newark. We took off from Miami around three o'clock, landing around seven, I guess, or something like that. We were a little delayed. And man, we were [00:39:00] all in a state of panic on the plane, not being able to get in touch with you, seeing the messages on WhatsApp not being delivered.
Not understanding what was going on, hearing from other friends in Havana, reading the news, seeing Twitter. It was really starting to boil very quickly. So I'm curious for you, how did, how did the experience start in the afternoon once you kind of started to realize what was going on?
**Pagoda:** So, um, let me, uh, begin with, Ignorance, right?
Ignorance. I'm over there hanging out, having a drink. Yvonne comes by, having a little chit chat with her. That's the Hefe
**Gizmo:** Avora Casa, correct.
**Pagoda:** Trying to pour a drink with him. You know, it's just very relaxed. Then he steps out. I'm hanging out alone or, you know, on the rooftop. It's slightly breezy. The weather wasn't, you know, bad because.
It's on Friday on Friday. Remember how it was really pouring, uh, that night, the last couple of nights and
**Gizmo:** even Thursday morning when we were leaving the house, the, it was there, the street was kind of the sidewalk [00:40:00] and street were a little flooded. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** So I'm hanging out, you know, I'm reaching out to my buddies trying to find out what's going on, what time are they arriving?
Uh, so one of the lizards who ended up in Miami, there were a couple of them who were coming from Miami. The flight got canceled. And it was postponed to around 7 p. m. at night. So, you know, it was kind of unfortunate, but, uh, one of them has a pad in Miami. So they ended up going over there. And, uh, so I was expecting them later, but the other lizard who was flying in from Houston, um, you know, I was expecting him, uh, sometime in the afternoon.
So, you know, things are going normal. And, uh, as, as, as we all know that when you fly into Havana, uh, you know, taking like a connecting flight, oftentimes your luggage doesn't show up. So for, for, uh, Lizard Danny, his luggage didn't show up. So obviously now he's at the airport. He has to, you know, ride the For the record, he flew United.
He did fly United. Correct. [00:41:00] Because
**Senator:** he's not the only lizard on this trip that United lost their luggage. Me, Gizmo, and Bam flew American. All of our luggage made it, no problem. That's true. It's only the United flights. Only the United guys.
**Pagoda:** So now his, you know, so you have to fill out a form and, uh, you know, they said they'll deliver it either by the next morning.
Because the next, uh, flight from Houston was the following morning. So it's all right. Anyway, so this lizard shows up. Now, the electricity hasn't come back yet. Now, this is kind of strange. It does go out for a couple of hours and then, you know, it's expected back. It's getting a little warm, you know, there's no water.
So, you know, I wanted to go shower and, you know, just be ready so that by the time Lizard Danny showed up, you know, we could hang out a bit and step out. And there's no water, so I said, alright. You know, the beer is getting warm. That's a big problem. And, uh, you know, it's like, all right, you know, we'll make do.
There's, there was a [00:42:00] Havana club. I'm chilling over there. Lizard Danny shows up. You know, we, we still grab another beer, warm beer. We go up on top, you know, after he sees the pad. And now your text messages start coming. And, you know, they're talking about, Oh, uh, you know, there may be a crisis because all of, uh, the electricity in all of Cuba is out.
So I said, Oh, all right. Um, you know, speaking to Ivan, he's like, Oh, the electricity will be back by around 4 p. m., 5 p. m. So we're like, all right, you know, we are optimists at the end of the day, you know, we're on vacation, relaxing. So, what we do is, now, I haven't eaten anything all day because I didn't eat breakfast that morning.
So, I'm really hungry. Obviously, I've had a few beers in and, uh, smoked a couple of cigars and, uh, as soon as the lizard dining comes, you know, we have a drink and we say, let's, listen, let's step out and let's grab something to eat. Now, we go to, uh, Parque Central. I said, let's go. That's the
**Gizmo:** hotel, Hotel Parque Central.
**Pagoda:** [00:43:00] I said, let's begin, let's smoke up there in the lounge and then, you know, if we have to, we can find something to eat at the hotel itself. And when we reach there, so this is the second period, the realization, where you're really coming to a realization, something's going on. So we walk in and they wouldn't let us into Parque Central.
And they said it's only for the guests of the hotel. So we're like, all right. So now, you know, this is. That's weird. It's the realization period. Like, all right, this is becoming a little more serious.
**Senator:** Because for the listener, this hotel is always open to the public. Oh yeah. Thank you. It's never an instance where you can't walk in that hotel.
That's our home
**Bam Bam:** base.
**Pagoda:** That's yeah, for
**Bam Bam:** cigar smoking. Oh, yeah. One
**Pagoda:** of anyway.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Pagoda:** And a beautiful cigar lounge. I thought that'd be a great way to start, you know, uh, Liz and Danny's trip in Havana. So now we get a bit worried. I'm hungry. I said, all right, if they're not letting us in, let's try and grab something to eat.
So we go to cha cha cha and George is out there. [00:44:00] And now, uh, So George, just so, just so you
**Gizmo:** know, for context, for the listener. So the restaurant cha cha cha is one of our favorites. I think the Senator, uh, Lizard Henry and I were there probably three times. Bam, I think you went twice. Uh, Pagoda had come once with us when he had gotten there.
It's one of the staples. It's right across from the museum of the revolution. It's quite literally across the street from the grandma boat. So conveniently
**Bam Bam:** located. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** it's very conveniently located. Central Havana. You can walk right there from Parkade. It's about two blocks away. So George, that you're mentioning, is the very eccentric, amazing host, maitre d whatever word you want to use, just a fantastic guy.
This guy is fit for Hollywood. Oh, he's very
**Pagoda:** friendly. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** very kind. He's the Cuban Elvis. He just takes care of everything. He's awesome. So he comes
**Pagoda:** out, you know, he shakes hands, you know, it's a lot, you know, how he is so warm and welcoming and hugging. And I said, you know, uh, he introduces himself to Liz Danni.
We said, all right, uh, you know, [00:45:00] we'd like a table for two. And, uh, George says, Oh, uh, really sort of say that we're not serving any food, you know, because electricity. You know, they, you know, anything that's frozen or anything, they weren't just, they weren't serving at all.
**Chef Ricky:** So at this point, does Lizard Danny start looking appetizing to you?
No, no, no.
**Pagoda:** I don't think he'd ever look appetizing.
Have you seen Lizard Danny? I'm kidding. He's a handsome boy. No, no, no. He is. But yes. Now, you know, there's a little bit of worry that steps in all right. So, so George is like, you know, it's, it may be tough to find food, but he suggests, I said, can you suggest a place around? He suggests a place a couple of blocks in.
So now we start walking in. Now, now you're going to realize, you know, our, Everything's becoming a little more heightened and, uh, you know, in a brain, like everything and the
**Gizmo:** text messages are coming in, the text
**Pagoda:** messages are coming in. Everything's coming together. So this is the period of realization. [00:46:00] And now you're going to be start walking.
And what, what we start noticing is a lot of people just hanging out on the streets because when there's no electricity, nobody's hanging out in their houses. So you see a lot of people, the local that just hanging out in the streets and groups of people, and they're just hanging out of them. Yeah. So now we walk in there and, you know, obviously there are people who are coming out, you know, asking for, uh, you know, some kind of assistance in whichever way, you know, we are walking by them and we try and look for this place three blocks away.
We can't find it. So now we're like, all right, now it's started to get a bit dark. We're like, damn, if we don't find a place to eat, I haven't eaten anything all day. And this is getting a little worrisome. So we start walking back. Uh, we said, let's take the route back towards Park Central and we'll take a cab and we'll go back home.
And then hopefully Yvonne will be able to set something. In the meantime, I reach out to Elizabeth Nino and, you know, reach out to him. He said, Oh, Cha Cha Cha should be open. I said, you know, we had just [00:47:00] been there. So he says, all right, give me a sec. Let me find out what may be open around here. So we're trying to find out what's open there.
This is a, this is a period of really trying. You know, to make sure that we have eaten something so that we can survive the night. So this is where we are.
**Gizmo:** So just for the listeners, the lizard Nino is important to the story. He's a friend of ours that lives in Havana. Very resourceful guy. Um, very successful kind of like, um, just can make anything happen.
Pretty well connected. Very well connected. You know, friend of ours. Great guy. We've known him. Great IT guy. Great IT guy. Rivals Gizmo sometimes. Gizmo doesn't like hurricanes. No, he doesn't mind it.
**Senator:** So
**Gizmo:** that's important because we'll talk about Nino in a little bit. So continue. I'm sorry
**Pagoda:** So now what we do is we start walking and now we're going back via Chachachad.
You know, I recognize Carbone, I thought oh, maybe Carbone was right by Chachachad. Another restaurant. And so And then lizard Danny goes and he says, no, no, this, it's a saloon. It's not a restaurant. You know, [00:48:00] there's a saloon on the corner. So I said, no, it seems familiar. I take a few steps back and you can see their outdoor, you know, they have the outdoor patio on top.
So I said, all right, let's, let's just walk there. We went there and all these, you know, all the servers, the waiters, everybody's just hanging out there outside. And so I said, um, are you serving food? And they said, yeah, come on in. We were so relieved. We were so happy. It was, you know, the sense of jubilation from the night before.
You get so excited. Yeah. So, you know, we sit down. What's great is as soon as we sit down, um, you know, we said, do you have any kind of a cold beverage, like a cerveza or something? They said, yeah. They'd kept the beer cold and nice. So they'd bring us cool Cristal. It was so great. That's a lifesaver. I'll tell you.
You talk about the relief and the excitement of the nectar. I'll tell you, it is, it was such a great moment. The beer was tasting so good. And you know, when you go through an experience like [00:49:00] that, you know, everything is enhanced. You're just enjoying the drink and
**Senator:** you were ready to stay another two nights.
**Pagoda:** At that point in time, you say, you know, you bought yourself more time. And yeah, we ordered food, you know? Uh, so these guys at Carbone, even they didn't have any electricity, but I think some kind of a manual generator or something. There were like a couple of guys in the back that were going, and then you would see the generator come on for like 10, 15 minutes.
I don't know what they were doing, but they did bring us some food, prepared food. So we thought, all right, let's just grab this, uh, to eat. So it was, uh, you know, it was, it was a really, really good moment. Um, um, yeah. And then after that, now we are getting a bit worried because we walk out and see what ends up happening.
Hold on.
**Senator:** Did I talk to you on the phone when you were. Eating at Carbone. Cause this was in your jubilation period where you seem to have no concern in the world. We're good, we're good, we're good. We're
**Gizmo:** panicking and you're at dinner having cold beer celebrating.
**Pagoda:** So [00:50:00] we spoke about half hour later because we, we got back to the house.
So what happened is that we step out and then It's gotta be, hold on, it's gotta be
**Bam Bam:** pitch black outside.
**Pagoda:** It is dark. Like there's no lights. There's no lights. Uh, but you know. How, how are you getting charged on your cell phone? Oh, so my phone is just about dead. It's got like 7 percent left, but Danny, uh, Danny, his phone was working.
So, you know, we're walking down the street because just down the street is Parker Central, and we walked there and we said, at least we'll get cabs from there. Now you've got to realize that it's getting dark, the people all over the streets, and there are not many cabs around, like you're like, all right, what's going on?
And so we go to pocket central. Fortunately, there were two cabs, you know, they have those fancy cabs sitting right out over there, but there was one regular cab out there. And we just, one of the guys comes, you want a cab ride? And we said, yeah. So anyway, we got home very fortunate. And so we ended up soon.
Now the thing to inform even the listeners is that, [00:51:00] Okay. even during these periods, the hotels, not, um, the local hotels, but all of the European hotels have generators. So there's electricity in those particular hotels. Now that's a different story. If you're not a resident or a guest, you're not getting it.
Um, um, you know, we, we go there and we say, all right, let's go back home. So now even, you know, when you're trying to get back in without In the dark. You're trying to put the keys in. It's an experience. Unbelievable. Because
**Gizmo:** over where we stay, without light over there. It's darkness. It's dark. We're right on the Malecon.
It's residential. It's dark, dark, dark.
**Bam Bam:** Chef, if you're downtown Havana and it's pitch black out, those roads are treacherous. And when you walk through that Neighborhood where all Carbona were located. It's like a maze. I can't imagine what it's like in there. It's gotta be very, very creepy. And Lord know.
**Chef Ricky:** Lord knows Pagoda have a ton of crystal. Oh [00:52:00] yeah. . Oh yeah. And Havana clothes. I'll take every cold beer you have here. He had that shit on IV dude. Exactly. So he's fucking blaming it on a lack of electricity. We all know what the real problem is.
**Pagoda:** But I'll tell you, we did have quite a few beers. It was great.
And it was so refreshing. It was, uh, Did
**Chef Ricky:** you, were you able to, is it a situation where you could buy beers to take with you as well? No, we had
**Pagoda:** beers back home. No, no, we are still imagining the electricity would come back. Hopefully at night, maximum the next morning. Now for little Danny, what an introduction to Havana.
By the way, I did use stuff. I did use, this is Havana, man. This is Havana. Hey, you and Havana, man. Cuba being Cuba. It's complicated.
**Gizmo:** So you're back at the house. Back at the
**Pagoda:** house. We make it, uh, all the way upstairs. You know, we said, let's, uh, uh, light up cigars and you know, we pull out a Havana seven and Uh, and, and that's, [00:53:00] you know, we're chilling, and that's when the phone calls start.
**Senator:** So the funny part, at this point, we're, me, Gizmo, Bam, and Lizard Henry are in a car leaving Newark airport trying to get home, and, uh, I look to see if there are flights operating the next day now online. It's showing they are, but you know, who knows what the reality is, if they can take off. So I call American airlines and I'm like, can you be certain that the flight schedule for tomorrow morning are actually able to take off?
Cause there's no power in the entire country.
**Gizmo:** And we don't know, we're talking about this in the car. I'm driving senators and shotgun. Other guys are in the back. We're talking like, you know, if the entire country is out, how much fuel do they have at the airport to keep the generators going? Is that going to Go out tonight, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, or can it last?
Like all these question marks are up in the air and we're literally thinking like, there's a possibility he's going to be stuck there in this situation. And we had no idea we're being jovial about it, but there was a general, like a serious sense in the car of like, we need to figure out [00:54:00] how to get Pagoda out of there.
So he calls American. Yeah. So the woman on the phone,
**Senator:** she's like everything I'm seeing. The, all the flights are leaving. They should get out tomorrow without a promise. It seems the airport has power. So at this point, I talked to Pagoda on the phone. and Pagoda is, you know, having his Savannah club chill it on the roof with the cigar
And he, he's like, uh, in the dark, in the dark, in the dark. And he's like, oh, you know, we're just gonna, you know, wait till the morning and if the power comes on, we'll be okay. And, and if not, we'll just go to the airport. I'm like, PA good. If you go to the airport tomorrow morning, there's gonna be no flight to get on.
Like, as people realize, this is not coming on. Every tourist is going to flee Havana. There are seats now on a 10 30 flight and an 11 45 AM flight. You need to change your flights and get on one of these two planes now to guarantee a seat. And it was just a piece of, Oh yeah, I guess we'll do it. Then I talked to him.
I get home like a few hours later and he's like, there's this change fee that they're charging.
**Pagoda:** [00:55:00] And
**Senator:** he's like, my credit card's not working. And I'm like, You got to figure this out now. I'm like, use a VPN has to be booked tonight. There's no chance and then Pagoda said apparently when he tried to book like a bunch of the seats had sold it in that time.
**Pagoda:** Oh, yeah. So now you could imagine guests is reaching out to me, you know, senators reaching out to me. I'm like, you were right. This is getting
**Chef Ricky:** having fun and they just
**Pagoda:** no, no, no.
**Chef Ricky:** Made you pay. There
**Pagoda:** was a bit of worry, you know, when the hotel didn't let us in there was a bit of worry when we realized that the Restaurants are running out of food.
So it's there in the back of your mind. So it's kind of frustrating now The one thing I forgot to mention and my phone is dead by the way So we get into the cab fortunately the cab driver had a charger and an iPhone So I was able to charge and You know, he had a fast charger in that ride back home. I was juiced up to around 10% again.
Mm. So I'm about 10%. I'm speaking to Senator on the phone. No problem. I 10 guys.
**Gizmo:** Fine. I'm good. So now [00:56:00] let's, let's catch up .
**Pagoda:** So I'm now, I go to now go to the app trying to change the flight. I said, all right, let's change it. So Lizard daddy changes his immediately. He phone's working. And there was no extra fee for him.
So he was able to change it. I'm out, I'm out, see you. So, and I'm over there now, like this is where the panic starts, right? A little bit. Well, then the fabric is, so for me to change a flight, there was a fee. Now for a fee, you have to pay by a card. And, as you know, in Cuba, there's no American cards being accepted, so I'm like, Senator, I don't even know what the hell to do, because I, it's not accepting my card.
And Lizard, I can't even use Lizard Danny's phone, because he doesn't have a VPN. So fortunately, you reminded me, listen, make sure you get on the VPN, but we had already, Switched it to, uh, you know, the U. S. of Miami, I think, uh, the night before for a different reason. So I said, all right. So now what happens is when you go to, uh, Cuba, what we typically do is we get a [00:57:00] SIM card which gives us a Cuban number.
Now when the phone is off and you re, you know, you put it on again, you have to put, uh, The pin number to get back into the phone.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So for the listener out there, all Cuban SIM cards have a lock on them. So when the phone restarts, you have to put in a unique identifier, four digit pin to reactivate the SIM.
If you don't do that, your phone does not connect. Even if you have the plan and data. will not connect to the cell phone network without that pin.
**Pagoda:** So this is where the panic is, you know, on, right? I'm like, all right, I've got like very little juice left. I've got to go. Firstly, it didn't even hit me. And I'm like, why isn't this working?
And then I see that, you know, the, uh, I wasn't getting any kind of cellular network. I said, Oh, damn, it's the SIM. I said, Oh, I need to find the pin. Now it's dark, mind you, we're on the rooftop. I have to go find my luggage. I don't know where it is a real MacGyver, 10 percent on a phone or less. Oh, so that was [00:58:00] like, I go down, uh, you know, I figure it out, get the pen, you know, let the daddy's using his phone, the light, no, just imagine being like buzzing, smoking, there's a little panic, a bottle of Havana club.
Um, so finally get the pin in and, uh, you know, I, I was, uh, eventually Um, you know, book a flight back. But it was, what, what was really interesting is at that time of thing, I had spoken to Senator and there were like five seats available in the earlier flight around, you know, half 10, and all those seats were booked immediately.
I said, oh my lord, now people are bloody exiting the country. Oh yeah. As we predicted. I said, oh, and then I have like very little juice left. I'm trying to book the thing . It was like, and then I book it. I don't think I'm done. And then, you know, how it goes silent. Like you have no idea till the indication comes on.
I'm like, damn, did I book it or did I not? It was, it was just crazy. But, you know, finally it did give me [00:59:00] the confirmation. I said, all right, now, you know, we can relax. Now we could
**Chef Ricky:** smoke and drinking.
**Pagoda:** Again, what was
**Gizmo:** the rest of the night? Like when, when it went another hour, another two hours, another four, six, you're getting the late in the night power's not on it's hot mosquitoes, etc.
We're like, what, what is that? Feeling like, what, like, what is that, what's happening then?
**Pagoda:** So, so what started to happen is, it's very breezy. You remember, like, it's getting to how it was the night before. It was slight drizzle, you know, we were under the shed, uh, you know, on the rooftop. We have a Havana, you know, club.
We, we smoked cigars. So we just catching up and hanging out and smoking cigars. Uh, actually, it got a bit breezy towards the, to us a bit later because I think we finished the cigar, but we were very relieved once we'd booked because now we know that we had to go out. Um, you know, Yvonne had come down, we had arranged to go back with him.
He was going to drive us back to the airport. So now we are set for tomorrow. Now it's just a matter of getting through the night. [01:00:00] And so, um, we, you know, we finished the bottle, you know, now, now we are like, we're
**Gizmo:** on bottle number two.
**Pagoda:** Now it's like,
**Gizmo:** he's going through two bottles of Havana seven and the rest of us are on this chat on WhatsApp, on pins and needles, full on panic.
Because we're seeing things that he's not seeing with a dead phone on the internet and we're talking to other people. News is talking. For context,
**Senator:** this like made such big international news. Um, some of my business partners who don't follow news in Cuba at all, like most people, of course, wouldn't. I'm, as I'm landing in Newark, getting emails, text messages.
Are you out of Cuba? Are you okay? And I'm like, why would these people who never pay any attention to Cuba, why are they asking me this? And so I'm like, holy shit, even here, it was all over the news. It
**Bam Bam:** was insane.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. And over there, like I'll tell you, ignorance is a bless. Um, so the next, so now we, it's, so it starts to rain a little bit and then it's very, very [01:01:00] breezy.
Now, If we were to shut the doors, we'd, you know, it'd be really, really hot. So we leave the doors open and now bit of the rain's coming in, you know, the doors all over the place that they're hitting each other. There's crackling noises. So you, we had the go to
**Bam Bam:** survivor now. Yes, exactly. So you left your bedroom door open.
Yeah. And did you
**Pagoda:** open the windows? Well, actually, uh, yeah, opened the window in the back as well. You did a little bit, right? They had, they have this, actually, I moved to your room and, uh, uh mm-Hmm. the kids' room upstairs and then. Uh, Danny was in, um, Lither Danny was in where Lither Henry was staying. Got it.
And so then we were right next to each other. So we, you know, we had that little terrace in between, but we're just hanging out for a bit. There's like a shared balcony. That's cool. And then, so now we're trying to sleep, but it's loud and it's crackling. And now you can imagine this is all dark. It's pitch dark.
It's pitch dark. Yeah. You know, there's some light coming from somewhere, you know, where there's some generator. Uh, but it's it's pretty dark [01:02:00] and it's like a windy night with a little bit of rain and uh, It was interesting. I didn't sleep very well, of course, but yeah,
**Gizmo:** neither did we no,
**Pagoda:** but thank you guys I'll tell you For your support and you know, even the advice and the conversations we had to try and get everything done and book the tickets No, thank you.
Senator. Thank you guys. Thank you all because You know you forget that Sometimes like it is a support of the community that helps you at least be aware of things if nothing else. And then for us, uh, you'll be a very grateful because you did get us out. We were able to inform the other two lizards not to come back in.
So it kind of really worked. And, uh, you know, I'll thank you.
**Gizmo:** That's important too, to notice even inside Cuba for, unfortunately for the Cuban citizens, if they don't have a working phone, they're not getting the text messages, the, you know, the, The, the national radio channel went down, obviously television's not working.
So the communication about what's happening, what to do, I mean, every single human being on that Island who's [01:03:00] not a tourist is on their own really.
**Bam Bam:** So a few friends that we met, a few of them messaged me and I'm asking them, are you okay? What's happening at your houses? One in particular said that all of their food was spoiling.
They didn't have the means to cook any of it because it was too dark. And They had no security, so they were all terrified. So they're huddling together in one room, not knowing what to do. They can't go anywhere. Their phones were on and off. I can't imagine what that was like, dude. Yeah, it's terrifying.
And it's, it's unbelievable. And
**Gizmo:** we have to add context to the listeners who haven't been to Cuba or are not familiar with Cuba with regards to the food, the food situation, which is really The electricity is one component of this, but the trickle down of that is the implication on the food supply, which already hold on what food supply that's exactly right.
Already in Cuba is fairly challenging at best. It's rationed and even the ration at times doesn't exist. So [01:04:00] if you're so fortunate to have a refrigerator that has some food in it, a freezer that has some food in it, you might have spent months, weeks, however long. Compiling that food for yourself and your family.
And now all of a sudden you're into the next day, you're, you're moving into 18, 24 hours. That food is going to start going bad, right? And the, you can't just go to the store and get more. There is no store. Even if you have money, there's no store. You know, it's really important to think about. For, you know, we're like I said, we're being jovial.
This is what we do here. We're trying to create an entertaining program for our listeners out there. But you have to think how dire this situation can become as quickly as it as it did and has become for folks. Like it is a real real crisis. Don't forget about the hospitals. Yeah, hospitals running out of power.
Not
**Bam Bam:** just in the city, but out in the provinces. I read articles where they left patients in the dark. They couldn't help them. Now if there's some patients that are in [01:05:00] severe conditions, God knows what happened to them. Yeah. It's really tragic. It
**Pagoda:** is. There are two things I do want to mention is that when the situation is happening, when it's occurring, you know, we're, we left Carbone and we're walking by, uh, back out towards Park Central.
You see people out there, they're all types of people. It's dark, you know, people are coming and asking you for, you know, some kind of assistance. And, you know, you just don't know what happens when in those moments. So there's a bit of, you know, we know that Cuba is a relatively one of the safer islands in the Caribbean.
So I, you know, I just kept thinking about that, but having said that, you know, there is something in the back of your head that, Hey, listen, you're going to watch, you know, you know, we've lived in New York and, uh, you know, we were in full alert zone. I'm not saying that we were, you know, You know, just chilling and hanging out.
We've been full alert zone. We knew exactly what we were going to do in terms of the next steps. We were looking for a cab. [01:06:00] We were willing to pay more if a cab would have come and we would have just gone. We just needed to get back to the casa so that we're in a safe, secure environment. However dark it was, that was probably our safest place.
Uh, after that we had taken care of at least a good meal at that point in time. So, uh, but the fear does start setting in. And then, you know, the conversations at night were very, very different. Uh, you know, when I was speaking to Liz and Danny, we were like, Uh, all right, do we stay another day? Or, you know, what are the consequences of that?
So, you know, you go through that, right? And it's interesting because these kind of situations in a place like Cuba could erupt, you know, very quickly, very quickly, because that
**Senator:** was our fear. That was our fear. That's right.
**Pagoda:** And because, you know, it is a revolutionary kind of people are very intelligent.
They're smart, you know, they, are, you know, you've got to also realize that the generation who's experienced the first revolution is still alive. Some of them as grandparents, as, you know, senior [01:07:00] citizens. So there is that sense where, you know, these people are not, you know, just, uh, laying back and, you know, if the minimum that what is being offered to them is being taken away.
Whether because of a natural disaster, it could lead to chaos, you know, that's when you really start thinking now you're thinking like the moment like Argo, you know, I need a better get out of this place and I'll take, yeah, whatever. And no, thank you once again for making us realize that that was also happening and, you know, putting everything in context together was very, very important at that point.
**Gizmo:** And your point is, is totally on the money as far as what our thinking was and what the reality is. It's like, When you think about someone who's generous and kind, all those things, and the Cuban people are this, you know, when you can't feed yourself
**Pagoda:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** You can't feed your family. And even more so when you can't feed your children.
All, every, all of that goes out the window. Yeah. All bets are off. All of that goes out the window. And that is the situation that the Cuban people have found [01:08:00] themselves in, which is really terrifying. Yeah, it is. And it, it's, I I, it's, it's so unbelievable to me that it's 20, you know, 2000, you know, 20, 24.
And, and that's a reality happening 90 miles from our coast.
**Bam Bam:** He summed it up perfectly. The minimal that they've been given has been taken away. Exactly. What do you have left?
**Chef Ricky:** And you know what? Even with that, he was able to experience some generous hospitality. That's true. At Carbone. Yeah. And he was able to have a meal.
And thank goodness. And be welcomed in. And get home. So, yeah. Shout out to the Cuban people for, you know, not Not, you know, for remaining hospitable and being great, you know, what was clearly a tough time for them as well.
**Gizmo:** So Saturday morning, you are able to get to the airport. Get
**Pagoda:** to the airport. What was that experience like?
Oh, hot and humid.
**Gizmo:** So they every, the essentials were running TSA computers, etc. But there was no air conditioning. No air conditioning.
**Pagoda:** There was, uh, and it was getting crowded. Cuban TSA
**Gizmo:** was
**Pagoda:** [01:09:00] operating.
And you know, you be, you know, you go through that airport, you're hanging out just to get through immigration for about an hour and you're standing in the lines with multiple people and you're your favorite
**Gizmo:** place to be.
**Pagoda:** You
**Gizmo:** love pressure.
**Pagoda:** It's hot, humid. What was
**Gizmo:** your read on the other people trying to get out of Havana?
What did you, what did you sense from them?
**Pagoda:** I think I think off the conversations I could hear with at least some of the tourists, uh, a lot of the people were, uh, you know, exiting the country, meaning people, what had happened to that, I think I'd heard, uh, somebody had driven all the way from the, from the beach towns because over there, you know, they were in the beach town and the electricity had gone out and all these guys decided to leave immediately.
And they had come all the way, uh, back to the airport as well. So you, you knew that at least there was a reasonable exodus taking place among the tourists for now. And, you know, fortunately for us, and thanks to you guys, [01:10:00] um, you know, we, we were informed early. I was just a bit worried because if the power in the airport went out, uh, you know, it could be a disaster, which it did, by the way.
Um, Uh, so fortunately I was able to get on the plane and I left earlier, but let the Danny's flight for the bit later. So he stayed on and the power went out. They were doing things manually. They were writing everyone's names down. And you could imagine that those airports are crowded and trying to do things manually to get them out.
**Gizmo:** They have a difficult time enough when everything's working perfectly. Nevertheless, when they're trying to find a pencil. You know, and a piece of paper would have been a great time to bring a lot of cigars back
**Pagoda:** Well time It would have been yeah, and you know, it's it's it's it's really interesting because when you're making the decision whether you Do you want to give it another day or no? You're saying, all right, but the rest of the place is going to be closed in any case. There's no food going to be available.
Now [01:11:00] I do have to tell you, we hadn't showered for, like, I hadn't showered for 24 hours at that point in time because there was no water.
**Senator:** BAM had taken six showers in that same time period.
**Pagoda:** That's exactly right. You were not exaggerating. And I clean my shoes.
Yeah. So, um, uh, unfortunately for Liz Danny, he missed his connecting flight by the time his flight took off. But at least he got out of Havana. He got out of Havana. Yeah. And I, I, the one thing I can tell you is when you go through a situation like that and you come back home, I, so I landed in Miami, you know, I ended up at my buddy's place, uh, over there for a couple of hours.
showered, relax. It felt so good. It's a new
**Gizmo:** sense of gratitude. And
**Pagoda:** you know, it's, you begin to appreciate, you know, this country so much. It is, you know, we take so many things for granted, so many things for granted. And I, I'll tell you, I, all I wanted to do was just come back home, sleep in my bed and just [01:12:00] relax.
And you know, that's what I did following that.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I mean, I, I know every time I've gone to my refrigerator since just thinking like what our friends in Havana and elsewhere in the country are going through. Even today, you know, Monday, uh, the power had been back on for most of Havana, not so much in the rest of the country, I think.
And I, I, you know, we'll talk about this, but I think the blackouts and I think all of that's going to continue. I don't think that this is a, a real long term solution they've found here, but you know, you do have that sense of like, I've just been texting all of my friends. You know, all of our friends there for the last three days, just every few hours, how's things going?
How are you doing? And, and to your point and what, what Ricky kind of pointed out, it's amazing to me that despite what they're going through, despite the spoiling of food, despite the uncertainty, you know, they're trying to find clean water. To, to drink for the next week just to be safe, even still, the messages we get back are so generous, they're not complaining, [01:13:00] they're asking how we are doing, how was your flight, how are things at home, how's your family, like, imagine if, like, we were going through that here, like, what the text messages would be like, it's a totally different mentality.
And, and I, I'm just amazed at how resilient the Cuban people are.
**Pagoda:** And I do want to give a shout out to all of us to, to, to us lizards, right? Thank you guys for as soon as I landed in Miami, you know, all the welcome messages. You do feel like you've arrived home and I thank you all for the support during the period because You know, it's, it's just a matter of like, if, if ignorance can be a blessing up to a certain point, right?
If for whatever reason, if I know one of the, two of the lizards weren't able to make it because their flight was canceled. If Lizard Danny wouldn't have come, then I might not have gone to downtown. I might not have been able to charge my phone. And I'd have been there, it was, it was, it was so close, it was so close, because without Liz or Danny's [01:14:00] phone, I don't think we would have been able to communicate, my phone was dead.
**Senator:** And the thing about communication, I mean, my fear with the whole airline situation, when you're in Cuba. You have WhatsApp to make calls, but you can't make a call to a landline in the United States. So like, if you're trying to call American airlines or some airline to help fix your flight situation, you can't make that outgoing call from Cuba.
And so I'm sitting there like he, if, if the app is going to be a problem, he's screwed. There's one. He can't call to actually verify that flights are going out the next day to, if he can't change that in the app quickly. And he needs some kind of more advanced support. I mean, I'm going to be begging an American agent to let me change his thing on his behalf because there's no way for him to call someone out to be able to do that.
I mean, it's just a different world when you're there. And I just think to Gizmo's point about the response of the people there, you realize this if you spend any significant time around. The Cuban people. Um, and in a [01:15:00] situation like this, the Cuban spirit is unbreakable. Like these, these people there go through some of the most difficult and frustrating and miserable circumstances yet somehow through all of it.
Maintain the same amazing values that we appreciate so much when we're there. And you know, the sad reality is the same could not be said in this country. We have some difficult situations and in many instances it brings out the worst in people. And the fact that that didn't happen there, that Pagoda didn't find himself in a situation where he was Really, really concerned for his safety or there wasn't vandalism and riots in the streets like you see happen in our country here when the power goes out for an extended period of time in certain areas is just remarkable.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, it's true. They've also been through this for how long now? 40 years?
**Gizmo:** Yeah, even longer than that, but this is certainly not like this. Not like this. This is an extenuating circumstance. That's
**Pagoda:** [01:16:00] absolutely true. And just one more thing to say, electricity is so important. Well, you know, that's akin to oxygen
**Chef Ricky:** oxidizers.
Electricity electrifies. Yeah, it does
**Pagoda:** electrify. Electricity electrifies. No, but you can't do anything without it. In today's day and world, you can't do anything without it. It's scary.
**Senator:** It's true. And I mean, we were talking about this in the car ride coming back when we landed home. I mean, as we think about any future trips there, the, the contingency planning, the, the things that now we will need to be prepared for.
In a way that we've had so many successful trips without this level of challenge or difficulty. It's like a whole new mentality going there.
**Pagoda:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. And also the thing I've been thinking about in tandem with what you just said is how this changes our future visits in what we bring, you know, cause we all show up with a suitcase full of [01:17:00] stuff to give away.
You know, the stuff we, we think we're bringing is, is makes a, a kid smile in toys or helps a school provide a better education with school supplies or, or medicines and all those things. Mm-Hmm. . Now I'm thinking like, I'm gonna load up a suitcase full of canned food. I'm gonna load up a suitcase full of food that can't go bad if it's not
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Refrigerated that can sit on a shelf for 20 years. Mm-Hmm. , that's like, uh, the change in my mentality and how we can, and listen. Contribution we can make is so minuscule, but we can only do so much. Right. But it's totally changed my mentality and thinking about what I want to bring to hand out. Like I want to bring like life straws, that filter we found on, on Amazon that you could put any kind of water in there and it filters it.
And you can drink it like those kinds of like rechargeable solar. Yeah, flashlights, even freeze
**Chef Ricky:** dried foods, you know, those, those, uh, space foods, you know, you see oftentimes in gift shops and, and like the planetarium or whatnot, but freeze [01:18:00] dried foods are perfect for that. They don't go bad. They could, you know, maybe be rehydrated.
If you have a life straw, which my wife gave me as a stocking stuff for a few years ago, they're great. Um, I'd never had to use it, but I did use it to see if it worked and it worked well.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. So we're at the end of the second third here, coming in the last third on the Purwarniaga Fénix, the regional edition for Phoenicia.
What's everybody thinking?
**Chef Ricky:** Well, after Pagoda story, I feel like I can't complain about anything. So far it's fucking fantastic. It's a 10.
**Gizmo:** I don't think it's, uh, amazing, but I'm enjoying the cigar. Yeah, it's not bad. It smokes
**Bam Bam:** great. Yeah, it's smoking really well. Performing very well.
**Gizmo:** Construction's good.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Senator:** Yeah, I think we were talking about the first third, end of the first third, going into the second, getting a little sweeter, and we were noticing some transitions. Um, I think as you mentioned, it's kind of taking us on a journey. I think once we hit the beginning of the second third to the [01:19:00] end, I've, nothing's changed.
Yeah. I agree. It's consistent. And I, I think the, the flavor profile is a little boring to me right now. I'm hoping the last third, something different happens. Um, but it's, it's the second third is just a lot of the same.
**Chef Ricky:** Because do me a favor, can you turn off the lights?
**Gizmo:** You want the pagoda experience? We don't have any Havana 7 here.
Let's see if it changes. Keep it jovial. If
**Chef Ricky:** it changes our perception. So
**Pagoda:** I do have to tell one more thing. So when I walked in to immigration, you know, they didn't ask me anything. The guy just looked at me and let me in. I'm sure they were, they knew what was going on. And maybe you just look
**Gizmo:** super disheveled.
They didn't want you there. That's also possible. Table anymore. Just keep moving. Or maybe,
**Chef Ricky:** maybe he was like, you stink. Just go.
**Gizmo:** That's your first positive experience through us customs in Miami. In Miami. Yeah, that's good. [01:20:00] So boys, some other things we should talk about. So we mentioned, you know, the resilience of the Cuban people. I just want to share some of the notes that we had gotten back as I, you know, I was following up with some of our friends there.
The one thing that really stuck with me, uh, from a friend of ours there, she replied when I asked how her and her family were doing and her children, she replied, quote, everything will be fine as long as we pray. And I'm like, in the face of all this, and she had told me that her entire refrigerator had gone bad.
She wasn't able to go to work. Didn't know when she was going to make any more money. Didn't know when she was going to get food again. Was trying to, I mentioned it quickly before, was trying to find water for a week's worth of drinking water. Was unsuccessful at this time. And still, everything will be fine as long as we pray.
And I'm like, I don't understand that kind of mentality.
**Bam Bam:** It's impossible to calculate that level of uncertainty because we've never gone through it. Yeah. And to
**Gizmo:** still have that positive,
**Bam Bam:** [01:21:00] that's staggering.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's incredible. And like I said, asking how we're doing, how our families are, how our flights were, how Pagoda did getting out.
It's just, it's incredible. So. Pagoda mentioned Lizardino, who's one of the most resourceful guys, I would say, as far as Cuban people we've met, he owns a few businesses, he definitely is, he has enough, he does very well for himself, and it really hit me when he said, uh, I guess he's probably around my age, like close to 40, maybe mid 30s, he said that it was the first time in his life that he had felt worried about food, His family in Holguin and the chaos that might arise from people not having food.
He said it's the first time in his life this weekend. That he was worried about any of that his entire food supply spoiled. He had to throw everything out He's in a neighborhood in Habana Vieja that people were starting to get a little crazy. Yeah, rightfully, you know panic That's very tight in there.
You know, there's [01:22:00] these people live on top of each other in apartments and Situations that are really really poor Conditions, even when the lights are on and there's a little bit of food around. So to hear him say that, that also hit me like here's someone that is doing well for himself and he's in the same position as everybody else.
Obviously, if it comes to money, he's able to help himself a little more than others, but it's still pretty shocking to hear that. So let's talk about the electrical system won't happen because I found this really fascinating. You know, there was a lot of question marks as to what was going on. Did the grid just fail?
And, and my feeling from, from seeing what came in on Thursday about the advanced shutdown of all this is the government knew this was coming and certainly seemed to me that it was a lack of fuel. They have old Russian, you know, uh, thermal, uh, Uh, thermoelectric power plants running on crude oil and coal.
There's no nuclear. There's no water turbines there. It's all powered by carbon, and they've just hit a [01:23:00] point now in that country where they don't have a partner. anywhere else in the world that is consistently able to supply them with fuel
**Bam Bam:** because they're trying to
**Gizmo:** cut them off. They can't pay their bills.
They can't pay their bills. China cut them off. They said, we will not be the sugar daddy for Cuba anymore. Russia is obviously distracted. Venezuela has got its own problems. Yeah. I mean, Venezuela has cut the supply of oil. They were running by half, right? How are you going to power the country? So Cuba does produce some crude oil, but I believe it's about 25 percent of what they actually consume on a daily basis.
So they're only able to provide one fourth. So my sense here is that this is going to be a very long term problem for Cubans. You know, what
**Bam Bam:** it shows is they don't have fossil fuels in reserve.
**Gizmo:** They don't. And they're burning through those reserves clearly at the airport and some of these
**Bam Bam:** hotels. That's clear that they don't have it.
Usually in systems like this, they have to have a reserve in place for an extended amount of time with the [01:24:00] calculus that, okay, then we'll replenish and have enough fuel to replenish our reserves and then give ourselves what we need for typical production. They don't have anything like that.
Irresponsible.
**Pagoda:** It is the uncertainty, right? The uncertainty as to when the power grid will be back up, which causes the fear. Right. It's when we started to feel uncertain, I think the fear started setting in us as well. Right. Hey, what are the repercussions of this? And, uh, it's really interesting. I was speaking to Yvonne about this and Yvonne himself said this is the first time in his lifetime that, you know, he's experienced such a situation.
So, um, You know, it's scary. There was a lot of uncertainty because this is for the first time they're experiencing power outage for so long, um, continuously.
**Gizmo:** So, like I said, there were a lot of rumors going around as to what was happening, and actually the Cuban government came out and admitted, [01:25:00] uh, this morning, this is, again, we're recording Monday night, this morning, very early, uh, on, on one of the official government, uh, Publications, they said that the lack of fuel is the main cause of the problem of the national electric system.
Of course, they then go into the political side where they blame it all on the U. S. blockade and the embargo and whatnot. But they're saying that about 900 megawatts cannot be produced by mobile and distributed generation due to the cause of lack of fuel. So there's just such a strain from demand on the electrical grid that I don't see, without some serious intervention from someone, I don't see a sustainable Plan here as far as the electrical grid being reliable.
Did you hear the Cuban government's grand
**Senator:** plan? They're like, oh, we're uh, We're building solar panels in cuba. They've lifted. They've lifted the tariffs the tariffs on that And they're like and they're like and they'll be built in 2026. So what the hell are you gonna do until I mean first of all And solar cannot singularly power or even provide [01:26:00] a majority of the power for the island of Cuba, let alone a bigger nation.
That's
**Bam Bam:** correct.
**Senator:** And they're talking about doing this in 2026. What the hell are they going to do
**Bam Bam:** now? You need a massive solar farm to power a small town. Right. A small town. Imagine Havana and the rest of the island. It's not possible. Right. I'm not a political scientist, but the only way this is going to change if they make political concessions and change their trajectory and how they think, that's the only way this is going to change.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So I do want to say there was a member on FOH who posted a comment on the thread there that I've been a little active on from, uh, One of the members there, T Y S. And he said, uh, that he's in the power generation business. And he says he can attest that a failing old system, which obviously the Cuban system is an old system, probably hasn't been updated at least since the 70s or 80s at, you know, at best, probably, probably older.
That, uh, the failing old system combined with a complete blackout can be extremely hard to [01:27:00] restore. Even when fuel is not an issue, the starting current to restore a large portion of the grid is very tricky. I assume their grid and load dispatching systems are archaic to say the least. So even if everything is in place from a fuel standpoint to get the.
You know, production up to match demand to get everything started again. It's just a, a colossal undertaking that, that these people face and they're just not ready to face it. No, the government's just not prepared to do it. And they've admitted it, you know, and that's why we're on day four now going into when this episode come out, comes out day five of people in Cuba being without electricity and food, which is in water.
You know, which I just, I can't even believe we're saying that in 2024, it's just absolutely crazy. So the other thing I wanted to talk about boys relevant obviously to what we do here is the cigar components of this, which I found interesting, uh, that we [01:28:00] were told from a close friend at the La Corona factory that there's no work or school schools open in Havana until at least Thursday of this week and likely longer.
So. You know, you think about the people work at those factories, not able to earn their money, like all of these places are without electricity to power the refrigerators and freezers that are storing these cigars, the humidors are not running at these factories. I mean, they're essentially going to be idle probably for about a week's time.
**Bam Bam:** Do you remember the cold room we walked into at Iliguido? Yes. That incredible stockpile worth how many hundreds of thousands of dollars? Oh, millions. Millions. What happens with that? What happens with this Cuban cigar industry? in totality right now. How's that going to change?
**Gizmo:** And the last thing they need, you know, you talk about supply.
Can you imagine you were talking about refilling the reserves of fuel?
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Talk about the Cuban cigar industry and how they've still not caught up to what happened during [01:29:00] COVID when they were down. There's still so many shelves around the world in Europe, et cetera, that don't have any cigars. This is only going to add to that.
How do you restart a factory when the people there don't have food to feed themselves or their children?
**Senator:** And we're not talking about this from the perspective of, you know, uh, us being able to get cigars. No, no, no, no, no. The economic impact that this is gonna have on that country and the people there Is very significant.
I mean, the government literally used the words that we have to paralyze the economy in order to try to reduce how much energy is being consumed to mitigate what's happening and deal with this, but that there's no sustainable solution. They're never going to get to a point under the current way.
They're doing things where Everything can be fully operational. I mean, even before this happened, every day we were there, they had to cut the power for hours at a time because they can't meet the demand. [01:30:00]
**Bam Bam:** To use one of Puba's terms, they're in a vortex and it's spiraling downward and I don't see a way out of it.
**Gizmo:** And from a civilization standpoint, from the societal standpoint, I don't understand how you get people back to work if they're unable to feed themselves and their kids.
**Bam Bam:** Let's say they had all the power they needed now. To get back into business.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Your workforce is starving. Yeah. They haven't had water,
**Pagoda:** they haven't bathed.
You know, but it is these situations that lead to, you know, some kind of dramatic, like, drastic change. Not dramatic, but drastic for sure. I mean, these could lead to revolutions, or hopefully, at least, this is the time the government should think about opening up and, you know, moving away from, you know, their, uh, ideologies.
Mm hmm. Into something a little more open and, you know, inviting a lot more capital in.
**Gizmo:** Because they have millions of people who are, who are hungry. The one thing I will say, I did learn today, right before we came on air, that El Liguito is [01:31:00] one of the factories that has been running. El Liguito does have generators and solar.
So I guess somehow they've prepared and Liguito actually has been producing, but all of the other mother factories in Havana, and I'm assuming all the provincials outside Havana, have not been operating since. And La Corona's closed. La Corona has been closed. The
**Bam Bam:** largest factory in town. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So the question I have for you guys, um, I'll start with this is as far as advice for our listeners who have been planning travel, who are thinking about traveling to Cuba, you know, to bring stuff to give away.
I mean, what, what would your advice be right now to folks, even if the electrical grid comes on a hundred percent tomorrow, what would your advice be? I
**Bam Bam:** don't learn swimming. I don't think I'd be going to Cuba for quite a while.
**Gizmo:** I agree. I think this is going to decimate the tourism of that country, which [01:32:00] is, we talked about this a few episodes ago when we talked about the sugar economy collapsing, the tobacco challenges with the lack of investment in in the tobacco industry.
The fields, the farmers, et cetera. They've been relying almost entirely on tourism.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. And let's say they do make an ideological change politically. That means they'll open their gates, right? What'll happen? There'll be a mass Exodus. country, everyone wants to leave. The government wants to avoid that. So they want to keep their people, but they can't take care of their people.
**Gizmo:** So my advice to anyone thinking about going to Cuba, anyone who has a trip booked at this time, I would certainly not be going to Cuba, especially if you have not been there before. If you've not been to Cuba, I would not advise going at least for the foreseeable future into the first quarter of next year, folks who are well seasoned travelers, who.
Who are, you know, Know what they're doing and and maybe have some experience with things like this elsewhere in the world [01:33:00] Potentially, but I would advise any of our listeners that Cuba is not the place to be going at this time Which I hate to say it.
**Senator:** Yeah, I mean this breaks my heart That's why you know, I've even been quiet for this part.
It's just I agree if you've never been there's Absolutely, it is a bad idea to visit Cuba for the first time right now, um, for the next several months until if there's any meaningful improvement that provides any ounce of hope that this would be navigable for someone who's never been. And I think even if you have been, um, you know, it's certainly any kind of extended stay or trip there is not advisable.
I think if you've been many times and you want to kind of bring some stuff to help some folks out there, you know, You would need to plan a short trip to be able to do that and get out.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I also would think for the listener, tune into the podcast. We've developed friends and associates that we'll stay in touch with.
So there'll be news over the next few weeks and months that will, I'm sure, disseminate, right? Yeah, we'll share [01:34:00] what we can. Yeah, we'll learn and we'll disseminate that as it comes in. So podcast.
**Chef Ricky:** And look, I haven't been and I wasn't there obviously, but I would say if you are a little bit hard headed and insist on going, plan on giving more than you take.
Always. Yeah. That's always our mentality. Now more than ever.
**Senator:** And go there with a survival mentality. I mean, you, you, again, this for us is like the first time we've had to accept the reality that Whenever it is that we feel safe to return, we're going to have to bring things and prepare for a worst case scenario where you don't have access to the basic necessities like electricity, water, and all these other things.
And so you've got to come extremely prepared if you're going to make.
**Gizmo:** So boys, before we came on air, right before we came on air, I saw an interesting news article that I don't know where this is going to go, but it's certainly worth mentioning that the White House has said that they are quote, closely monitoring the blackouts [01:35:00] in Cuba.
And while the Cuban government hasn't asked the United States for support, the press secretary said that the Biden administration did not rule out sending assistance if they did. If they requested it. So they have to request it, and I'm sure there'd be some concessions or something that would happen there.
But Biden is apparently willing to help support them. I'm assuming from a carbon standpoint, providing fuel or something.
**Senator:** Yeah, I mean, none of this is rocking science. I mean, for the last several decades, it's been the case that if the government In Cuba is willing to humble itself to ask the United States for help and make some concessions to allow some freedom for these people.
They're not the regime that they've had to live under for decades. In the way it operates where dissension is not allowed. There is no freedom of expression, all these things, all it would take is a phone call [01:36:00] and some concessions that benefit the people there. The United States has always been willing to help.
And the only reason that we've hit points where under the Obama administration, we finally changed our policy, even without as many concessions as we would have liked is because our isolationist policy toward Cuba hasn't changed anything meaningfully for the people there. And the political situation.
So, you know, if, if you're doing the same thing over and over again, it doesn't work. It's insanity. Just continue it. So the, the reverse of that was to try to actually allow more American travel there. The people there to really see and experience the freedoms that this country affords in hopes that they may someday be able to create their own destiny and meaningfully push back against the regime.
That's been oppressive for a very long time. So. The sad part of what's happening now is all it would take is the Cuban government to finally admit they can't provide for their people and they need help and that, guess what, Russia, who they allied themselves, uh, [01:37:00] themselves with, doesn't care and isn't helping them.
China is Is done helping them. Venezuela can't provide what they need. And the only countries that can actually meaningfully help them are the countries that they rail against and capitalism is evil and all of this nonsense. And that's exactly who could help fix this
**Bam Bam:** right? 90
**Senator:** miles offshore, right? And if you talk to.
Any Cuban national in that country, they love Americans and America. It is not the case. Like the propaganda, the government puts out like America's hate. That's it. Couldn't be further
**Gizmo:** from the truth. They blamed America for the electrical grid going
**Senator:** down. Let's
**Gizmo:** just put it that
**Senator:** way. It's ridiculous. And
**Gizmo:** you know,
**Senator:** Pagoda said earlier, the Cuban people are very intelligent.
No one there believes it.
**Bam Bam:** Correct.
**Senator:** Everyone there. Wants the freedoms that this country affords. Wants the opportunity, just the chance to chart their own course, not to be relegated to making 30 us dollars a month, having food rationed, being [01:38:00] told they can't have electricity for hours on end during certain days.
I mean, no one deserves to live that way. Their system does not work.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Well said it requires an ideological shift. And a mindset and to reach out and make a fucking phone call.
**Gizmo:** And you know, the other thing I was thinking about today, very much in line with what you're saying, I'm surprised and I hope it doesn't happen, but it's a very clear reality to me.
I hope that they don't decide to shut down the internet in Cuba because this in and out, outside of Cuba or internally in Cuba, they've done it in the past where they shut the internet down.
**Bam Bam:** Propaganda control.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I, that would be. A real issue and I can see that being a very real possibility if you know these long extended blackouts continue because people are going to lose their minds rightfully.
If they're not able to feed their kids.[01:39:00]
What an episode, boys. It's intense. It's terribly unfortunate. Because we love Cuba so much. We love the people there.
**Bam Bam:** I remember the second day I was there. I was just so happy. We were walking somewhere as a group. I felt, it was an incredible feeling. I've been, that was my fifth or sixth time there. I just felt at home.
I was so comfortable. And it was a euphoric feeling for me, honestly, to be in Cuba. Always has been. And I hope in the future it will be again.
**Chef Ricky:** It's unfortunate too because there's no, you know, it's like, well, how can you help? Like there's no amount of money you could send any one person that's going to make a difference.
**Senator:** They have nothing to buy.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Senator:** But there are ways you can help. That's the only thing that, you know, it's like even the trip we took, I mean, I have zero regrets that this, you know, unfortunately coincided with this disaster there in the sense that. The stuff that we did and the things we're able to bring [01:40:00] at this moment meant more now than it's ever meant any trip that we've taken.
That's also true. It's not even close.
**Gizmo:** You know, I didn't think about it like that. That's also true. That's pretty powerful. As soon
**Senator:** as I got home. I mean, the first, I could not have been more grateful that this trip was timed. As this happened, because these people now need every little thing we did or provided more than they've ever since we've been going.
**Chef Ricky:** Is there somewhere that you know of that we could maybe donate canned foods to or something? You can't ship anything there. The
**Gizmo:** problem, I think even DHL was one of the only providers shipping to Cuba. Obviously, you couldn't do it from the United States. That's not possible. I know that they were going from elsewhere.
I think they stopped doing that about two months ago. I got to imagine these airlines flying in there with the potential that the fuel pump isn't going to work to put fuel back in the plane to get them back out. I mean, I got to imagine these airlines are thinking about it. We've seen so many airlines already stop traveling there prior to this.
You know, Southwest JetBlue is out entirely. Southwest cut their routes down. [01:41:00] United cut their routes down. I imagine American is doing okay for Miami because they're the only game in town. But you know, I, I, I have to imagine the airlines are thinking about this going, we can't have planes and people and staff stuck in Havana.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, that's a great point.
**Gizmo:** And we're talking about Havana. We're not even talking about the rest of this massive island that is, I mean, Hurricane Oscar hit the very eastern part of the island. I think earlier today, thankfully, it didn't seem like it was as bad as it could have been. I think it went down from under a category one, but imagine these people out there with no communication, no power, no nothing.
And all of a sudden a hurricane hits. It's just, it's unthinkable what, what these folks are going through, you know, and, and I just wish we could do more to help. So I, I do know that there are some services in, in Havana that people use that on the island you can send groceries and stuff, but I got to imagine those are shut down [01:42:00] now because how have they been able to keep their, their, their food, their, their food?
You know, from going bad. So that's that boys. Any listeners out there who have any questions, uh, about this for us or advice, or if you're on the ground there in Havana or will be, or have been recently, and you want to add some context to the conversation, we will certainly be discussing this, uh, in future episodes.
Um, hopefully this will find a resolution soon. I don't see it happening. I don't know how it's going to happen, but you know, as, uh, as one of our friends said, everything will be fine as long as we pray. I mean, Maybe we need to adopt that mentality and just hope for the best here for these people because it doesn't seem like there's any real action All right, boys We're coming to the end of our evening tonight with the poor Warren Yaga Fénix the regional edition for Phoenicia and the g4 Blanco in Madeira, what's everybody thinking on the pairing
**Chef Ricky:** pairing is great Uh, I'm enjoying the pairing very much, but I tell you tonight's not [01:43:00] the latest shit on a Cuban cigar.
I'll do it. We're going to be honest. I
**Gizmo:** honestly, I, I, I did, I did enjoy the cigar despite, you know, obviously the conversation tonight doesn't lead to an elevated experience in, in our, in our pairing, but I thought the cigar was delicious and it wasn't the best cigar I've ever had, but I didn't hate it.
It's.
**Bam Bam:** Probably the driest Cuban cigar I've ever had. I've never had a Cuban cigar like this at all. It's very different. Um, but that said, it was pretty smokable. I'm taking it down. I've got about an inch left. I'd say the combustion is amazing. Yeah. It's so foggy and cloudy in this room right now. It's a well made cigar.
It was very smokable. The flavor profile, I really can't pinpoint at this point what I'm getting. Um, yeah, kind of is what it is.
**Pagoda:** Pretty much the same. I, I, I don't think it developed into anything more than what it was, I think, in the beginning of the second, [01:44:00] uh, you know, second, third, um, and, um, I was a bit distracted talking as well.
So, uh, having said that, yeah, nothing very special about the cigar for me.
**Senator:** I mean, I'll just say, um, had we not had. this robust conversation. I mean, I, I would have been extremely frustrated with this cigar. For me, the last third, it, it heated up a bit and I just, the flavor was muddled. Um, I didn't get a whole lot from it.
Um, yeah, I, I didn't enjoy the cigar. The pairing, however, was, I thought the tequila was excellent. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, the G4 is really good. Thankfully helped. It did. Yeah. The cigar, it wasn't as painful of an experience, um, with the tequila, but, um, yeah, I wouldn't pick this cigar up again.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, and the first and second third, it, it worked nicely, but the final third, without the spirit, it's fairly unsmokable.
Right. So you really need some [01:45:00] more. We need some more. I would like a drop. Yes.
**Chef Ricky:** All
**Gizmo:** right, boys, it's time to move into the ratings tonight. First up is the G4 Tequila Blanco Madeira. Am I pronouncing that correctly, by the way?
**Bam Bam:** Perfect.
**Gizmo:** Alright. That's a
**Bam Bam:** shocker.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, perfect. I
**Gizmo:** just came from Cuba. I was trying to speak a little Spanish.
**Chef Ricky:** What is this, trip number four to Cuba?
**Gizmo:** For me, it was probably eight. Nine?
**Chef Ricky:** Holy shit, where have I
**Gizmo:** been?
**Chef Ricky:** Alright, well, listen. Stick with those trips and drop the Duolingo. You're doing better.
**Bam Bam:** Alright, Bam Bam, you're up. Uh, I enjoyed this a lot. Um, I'm at a nine here. I think this is a unique Blanco. It's unlike, like, they like the cigar.
It's unlike a lot of the other Blancos that we've had. I'm looking forward to getting a bottle of this for the fall and winter. I think it's spot on for me from time to time. Nine. Delicious.
**Gizmo:** All right, Chef Ricky.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, for me it's a nine all day long. Um, viscous, complex. I love what they [01:46:00] did. I love that they highlighted the fact that they're using, right, because I think you guys have probably heard it from me in the past and hopefully some listeners remember.
I'm obviously a big fan of, uh, wood, you know, fermenting and wooden vats because wood's porous flavors carry over. The yeast get their, get to do their thing, uh, and it really adds to the complexity of the spirit as a whole. And I think they nailed it with this. It is a little bit hot. Uh, it's not the, you know, the, the smoothest thing to drink, if you will, uh, but with some air and a little bit of, uh, and the right moment.
Yeah. And the right moment. It's, it's delicious. And, uh, you know, I, I really encourage people to experience tequila this way and, and take note, you know, have to have an, have a regular G4, have this G4, have some other stainless steel fermented, um, uh, tequila. And, you know, you, you really start to pick up the differences and the [01:47:00] nuances, um, and appreciate them.
So yeah, for me, it's a nine.
**Pagoda:** All right, Pagoda. Uh, for me, it's an eight. Uh, the one thing I did like is that it was a little more viscous for a Blanco, um, but having said that, you know, um, I think I've mentioned it before, not heavy into tequila, but the certain Blancos, which really, which I really enjoy, they have something very, very specific.
I like a lot of the fruitiness and, you know, where the flavor profile just lingers on your tongue for a bit longer. Uh, you know, I would rate those higher. Uh, for me, it's an eight. Two. So hold on. So I think we're picking up on
**Chef Ricky:** the phone.
**Senator:** He's that he's
**Chef Ricky:** giving this an eight as there's three ounces in this fucking glass.
Is that your second floor?
**Gizmo:** Look at this guy's. Wow.
**Chef Ricky:** Well, I, you know, he's
**Gizmo:** been through some stress. That's a 10
**Bam Bam:** right there. That rain. He loves that. Long ago, for the
**Senator:** listener, Pagoda is, we all took a second [01:48:00] pour. Pagoda has by far the biggest second pour in the entire world. I
**Pagoda:** didn't even realize I'd poured this much.
I don't know what world I'm in. Ignorance.
**Chef Ricky:** Ignorance is a bliss. Hey,
**Pagoda:** listen, listen, you know, I'm an equal opportunity employer. I drink even shitty beer if it comes down to it. I've had just warm beer and gum, so everything's good. No, uh, but yeah, this was, wow. This is quite a bit. Anyone want some?
**Gizmo:** So for me, it's a nine. I thought this was a really interesting, unique, different Blanco. I think whatever they're doing here with the wooden fermentation vats, as opposed to the stainless steel has. Made what I think is probably the most unique and odd Blanco that we've had. But as I always think about it, a, I would definitely drink this again.
I think it paired very well with this Cuban cigar. I'm curious how it would do with other cigars. It kept my interest the entire night. I really like the spirit. I didn't drink a lot of it. Obviously, [01:49:00] we had a heavy discussion tonight, but I'm looking forward to having more and I definitely will go out and buy it.
I actually think at 76 for what this is and how different and unique it is. I think it's a very fair price for what we had tonight. I was very happy with it. So for me, it's a nine. Senator.
**Senator:** Sorry. I can barely see everybody in the room. My eyes are burning. It's true. It's insane. That's true. For all my frustration with the cigar, the combustion's an A plus.
Uh, the tequila, I'm in lockstep with most in the group. I think it's a nine. I think Bam's early call out of this being something to enjoy during the fall. I never associate a Blanco tequila with a fall or winter drink. It's always a summer drink to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is the first Blanco that I would at all put in that category.
And so I think they've done something really clever and interesting with that. I think, you know, having had the standard regular production G4 Blanco that I thought was [01:50:00] outstanding. I'm not usually a huge fan of like these special releases. Like I think if you make a great Blanco, like just stick with that.
You don't need all these different variations. And I feel like I'm sometimes disappointed. But this. really worked well. I mean, a plus to them. They clearly know what they're doing. I think the body and complexity that this has for Blanco is remarkable, yet it didn't overpower the cigar. So there's versatility in being able to pair this, I think, with a lot of different cigars.
I mean, This to me could hold up with, let's talk about
**Bam Bam:** that. Can we talk about that for a moment? Sure.
**Senator:** Yeah. I think this could hold up with many new world, but also not, you know, totally overpower, like a medium bodied Cuban, like we're smoking tonight. So. From a versatility standpoint, I think there's a lot there.
And I think everybody's just said how unique what this delivers is. And I think that's what I'll always remember this for. And so for me, very deserving of a nine.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, that puts the formal liquor rating tonight [01:51:00] on the G four tequila, Blanco Madeira. And an 8. 8, I think that's a perfect score for the 8 score.
Yeah, I think
**Chef Ricky:** on Tequila Matchmaker that's got some 90 across the board. So it actually, the, uh, panel, the panel and the user scores match. Uh, and it's rare to see that on the app. So, yeah. This may be the
**Senator:** first time that we're higher than them. Or sorry, that they're higher than us. Yeah. Yeah, we'll give something in 95
**Gizmo:** and they're like at an
**Pagoda:** 88.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. It's time now to move into the formal lizard rating tonight on the Portland Yaga Fénix, the Addison region now for Phoenicia. Senator, you're up.
**Senator:** So I'm, I'm sorry to start this off. Uh, cause I'm not going to be, uh, all that kind to the cigar for me. It's a six. Um, the price point is very high.
This is not your run of the mill Cuban cigar or any cigar. This is a premium price point. And for me, therefore needs to really deliver a premium experience. Um, there's nothing memorable [01:52:00] about this cigar, which at that price point, I'd only, what did you say? This is 40. It was
**Gizmo:** 48 when it came out on the secondary.
It's about double that. Jesus. My
**Chef Ricky:** Lord. So we're talking the price of the bottle. I mean, now I don't feel bad about my rating at all.
**Senator:** I mean, I'm sorry. I mean, a hundred dollars for this. Crazy. The only cigar I would ever even think of picking up at a 50 or a hundred dollar price point is something that.
Delivers a special experience for a special moment or occasion. And this just doesn't do that. I think that the flavor profile is very straightforward. I would not call this a complex cigar. I think there are 10 cigars that deliver more complexity than this does.
**Gizmo:** I agree.
**Senator:** Um, I think the one merit I'll definitely give it the combustion is outrageous.
I mean, smoke filled room, like few cigars are able to deliver. The construction was actually very good. I had no, there's
**Chef Ricky:** only four of us smoking.
**Senator:** That's right. Yeah. There's only five of us.
**Chef Ricky:** I'm sorry. Five of us tonight. And yeah, I mean,
**Senator:** imagine seven or eight. I mean, Jesus. [01:53:00] Um, so construction, a plus, um, combustion, a plus, but the flavor, which is obviously the, the biggest factor, uh, is just disappointing.
I would have liked to have seen at some point, the cigar gets sweeter. In a meaningful way, not just slightly and have that last. It's like, it got a little sweeter when we hit the second, third, and then it went right back to being super dry and, um, just not delivering a whole lot. So for those reasons, it's not something I would recommend.
I think maybe if you love this Marka and you love a Woody. Earthy cigar that's very dry, then this is certainly up your alley. And
**Bam Bam:** there are guys and gals that do like that. For sure.
**Senator:** And then even for them, you know, my question is, but are you willing to pay 50 or 100 for that experience? That's the issue.
And that's what I think that few people are or should ever have to. And so for those reasons, um, it's a six.
**Gizmo:** So I'm not going to be that harsh. I'm going to be at a seven. I think the cigar performed very well. I think the flavor it gave us [01:54:00] tonight, Was very good. I didn't think it was great. It's not something I'm going to run out and buy at that price point.
Certainly. I think alongside some of the other large format, uh, Cuban cigars that we've done, it's probably in the middle of the pack. You know, we've had hits and misses on the double Coronas and some other things. I enjoyed the cigar, especially in the second third. I know the tequila helped that a little bit.
It enhanced it. Uh, the second third, I thought was pretty good. The last third did get a little muddled, a little boring, but the cigar was still very smokable, enjoyable. I didn't want to put it down until I really finished it. I never even thought about putting it down, even as we were talking a lot. So, uh, so for me, it's a seven.
I think the value is, is definitely not there in the cigar. So that has to affect it. Um, if this was a 25 cigar, a 20 cigar, I might bump it up to an eight, but it's just not there. Uh, so for me, it's a seven Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, no, so I was, uh, at a seven in the beginning of, uh, you know, the cigar. It, it hasn't really developed into anything at [01:55:00] all.
Um, I was also a bit distracted, so I wasn't really focusing on it. But what I do like is, so my cigar is somewhat unraveling now. But what I did like about it, Was, uh, you know, the combustion, of course, somewhat looks
**Bam Bam:** like
**Pagoda:** a jackknife
**Bam Bam:** trailer
**Pagoda:** in the
**Bam Bam:** highway.
**Senator:** It's like talking to Pagoda during the fucking blackout.
He's just sitting there, just somewhat unraveling the country, somewhat in trouble. Everything's okay.
**Chef Ricky:** Everything's okay. It looks like a freaking Xenomorph. It looks like a, it looks like a bottom pin opener coming out.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, but, uh, yeah, like, I would not go and buy this at all, so, I think it's a six for me.
**Gizmo:** Okay, Chef Ricky.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, um, you know, the second third, I started to develop some hope, and thinking that, alright, maybe it would shift over, and the tequila did help. But it really just regressed back to what we were getting on the first third. And, uh, it got, it got very dry for me, a little [01:56:00] sawdusty. Um, and there, there wasn't a whole lot of change after.
Uh, so I was at a seven, but then Senator reminded me of the price point. So I got to drop it to a six. Yeah. The price point really killed me. Price point is insane. Yeah. For sure.
**Bam Bam:** All right, bam, bam. Yeah. I'm also at a six. Um, you know, the only thing memorable about this is that it's so unique, as I said earlier, to any other Cuban cigar that you'll have, the only merit is that there's an interesting saltiness to it that I kind of like, but.
It stops there. I, at this point, I'm not sure what I'm getting.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, even at the final third, that salt is just molded into whatever else is happening. Yeah, exactly.
**Bam Bam:** Um, the, the, really my favorite part was that second third, that middle portion. It was fairly enjoyable, but You couldn't really pick anything out.
Six.
**Gizmo:** Alright, boys, that puts the formal lizard rating tonight on the Port Warga Fénix ATIs region now for Esia at a 6.2. So we didn't have anything to compare the G four [01:57:00] Blanco. That was our first G four at an 8.8, but we do have four other Port Warga cigars to compare this. 6.22. The poor Warga Petit Corona on episode 34 scored an 8.4.
The Galanis. On episode 88 scored a 6. 0, the Monte Carlos on episode 123 scored a 7. 5. And finally, the Picadoras number one on episode 145 scored a 4. 9.
**Bam Bam:** Not a Stella Marca. I remember. No, it's not
**Gizmo:** doing well on the, on the pod here. No. It's kind of an Hoyo category.
**Pagoda:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** You know, aside from that petite Corona at any point for, you know, I do wonder, I have a quick question for you guys after we've gone through a ratings here.
Do you think that this cigar, do you see potential here or no? No, I sense that you don't. But do you see with time that it could improve at all or eliminate some of that modeling? I mean, it's really only a year old at this point. You know,
**Senator:** is Cuba's electricity crisis going to be solved in a year's time?
I mean, absolutely not. I [01:58:00] don't see any significant potential for this cigar. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's tough. You can be hopeful, but it's just not a great blend. I mean,
**Senator:** this also goes to, we've talked about this before, and I know I'm usually leading the crusade on this. I mean, it's a regional, these regional cigars, nine 10 are disappointments and they command a significant price point.
**Bam Bam:** It's like you said earlier, if you do your basic Run well, stick to that,
**Senator:** right, right. And if any of these regionals were really that great, they'd become part of the standard production. Sure. No doubt. Right. Yeah, they'd move them over quick. They want to make money.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. And, and, and, you know, to that point, so it's, it's funny cause this G4 is also sort of a limited release.
Um, But you know, they didn't go the, you know, it's a Blanco, but even the Añejos, they're not like gimmicky barrel releases where they took a barrel from a specific bourbon prior or whatnot and now they're labeling it that. Um, they just sort of went back to the old ways of doing [01:59:00] things with using the wooden fermentation vats versus stainless steel.
So they just heightened. You know, you know, slightly elevated the profile that you were already getting in a great spirit. Whereas here, I don't know what the hell happened.
**Gizmo:** An unfortunate night tonight, boys, for the cigar. The tequila did well. The G4 Blanco Madeira scored an 8. 8. And again, the Puerto Aranaga Fénix Edicion Regional Fenicia scored a 6.
2. Overall, a good night, boys. A, uh, difficult discussion, of course. But one
**Bam Bam:** that had to be had
**Gizmo:** had to be had and we will continue to have it. It obviously won't be as timely as this episode as we're, you know, we don't normally release an episode the day after we record it. Uh, but you know, we will try to do our best to keep the situation updated and get unique information.
As it comes out of Cuba to you, there obviously are some Cuban websites that you can find some new sources that are not government run that, uh, that provide a pretty decent analysis of what's happening on the ground there. The one thing I will say for listeners, obviously you will notice [02:00:00] we did not do a lizard at the week this week, given that.
We had a pretty heavy discussion and we didn't go through any listener emails. We'll save that for next week, but anybody out there who has any commentary on this, any thoughts, anything they want to share, any family, their friends, anything you want to talk about as it relates to this, we'd be happy to hear it and share it on a future episode.
And of course, Resuming again next week, someone is going to win listener of the week, lizard of the week. Uh, they're going to win some stuff from us. We'll be, uh, we're happy to hear from you. So please send us an email, a voice memo, comment on YouTube, Instagram, whatever it may be. We're happy to, uh, share that.
And, uh, of course, uh, Oh, sorry, Pagoda, go ahead.
**Pagoda:** No, no, uh, absolutely. I just wanted to pass one, uh, comment right before we, you know, uh, finish this episode. You know, life is really a sum of experiences and it's really interesting that I was able to experience this and it ended up being very positive, you know, from, going through the emotions, you know, whether it was, you know, you begin to, uh, you know, realize that, you know, there's something happening.
And then you go through, [02:01:00] um, you know, a little bit of, uh, the panic, you go through the happy meal moment where, you know, you've experienced it. And then when you come back home, there's a sense of relief. Uh, it has been a wild blend of emotions in the last couple of days for sure. Uh, but you know, To the listener, the Cuban people are very resilient and they're very happy and they're very supportive, you know, but they do need to lead a very comfortable life as well.
So do we all in today's day and age. And I think that, you know, it's a call out to everybody, whoever can support, uh, the people, right. You know, please do in whichever way you can, um, because After all, you know, this is, uh, for a positive human experience as well. And, you know, I wish them the best. And, um, um, I hope things improve there so that we all can visit Cuba in happier times.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Well said, Pagoda.
**Chef Ricky:** Yes. Very well said. God bless the people of Cuba.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. A great night tonight. Again, thanks, of course, to our listeners out there. Thanks to Our [02:02:00] sponsor Fabrica5, we really appreciate, uh, appreciate them. And, uh, we'll see everybody next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode.
Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, loungelizardspod. com that's lounge lizards, P O D dot com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions. If you want to reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us.
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