Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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 eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, 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!
Ep. #201: Interview w/ Klaas Kelner & Avowed New Dawn Toro (w/ Glenmorangie 10, Blending for Palate Coverage, Parallels Between Plating Food and Cigar Blending, The Story of Avowed, Norwegian Plain Packaging & Listener VoiceMemo on Cigar/Family Balance)
===
Gizmo: [00:00:00] ;*Welcome to the Lounge List podcast presented by Fabrica five. 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 Rooster, chef Ricky Grinder and bam ba and our plan to smoke a cigar, drink some scotch, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs.
So take this as your 201st official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge blizzard here once a week. We're gonna smoke a new world cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating. We share our interview with blender and manufacturer class counter recorded at PCA 2025, where we discuss how he blends cigars for clients like a vowed and stoic, his approach to complete palate coverage and his controversial feelings on the retro hale, 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 10 years age. Glen Moring, the original single malt Scotch Whiskey with the avowed [00:01:00] new dawn in Toro. A Toro from the Dominican Republic tonight on the pod Boys. It's called the Avowed New Dawn, and it's a 52 ring gauge cigar by six inches long.
And boys, there are no coincidences on this podcast. And tonight is episode 201. Correct. And we have set off into a new century of episodes. It's the New Dawn from Avow tonight. I'm getting some barnyard and, and there is some chocolate. And some chocolate.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: It smells really good, man. It's, it's the delicious.
As soon as I took it out of the elephant, I'm definitely
Bam Bam: getting the
Gizmo: barnyard. Are you getting
Rooster: barnyard too? Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful.
Gizmo: It's definitely Barnard. It's wonderful. Chocolatey.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: Little cedar.
Bam Bam: Those are the two primary notes I'm getting. Yeah. I nose
Gizmo: it looks like a very well constructed cigar. I wanna smoke.
It
Rooster: feels, feels good in your hand. I love the weight. I like the vans
Bam Bam: Good.
Gizmo: So
Bam Bam: I've had this cigar. Yeah. And I think you have giz. I have not. You have Not for this reason.
Gizmo: Has anyone else
Bam Bam: had
Gizmo: this? Senator has, but obviously he's had this, so he and I have had this. I have.
Bam Bam: You have? [00:02:00] Mm-hmm. Okay, good. So there's a lot to chat about here.
Yeah. Yeah. All right boys. It takes you on a journey.
Gizmo: Let's cut this thing. Mm. See what we're getting on the cold draw and the wrapper, which we've already put to our nose.
Bam Bam: Perfect. Draw. So there's a, for me, a ton of raspberry Chef.
Chef: Hmm.
Grinder: I'm getting a lot
Chef: of fig. Yeah. I, I see both of those gents. It's really very fruit forward.
Incredible. The draw is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. There's a slightly resistant mm-hmm. There's a brightness on the fig that bring that raspberry note forward.
Bam Bam: It almost, it's like it creates this tangy experience mm-hmm. In your, on your palette without even smoking it yet. It's almost a little acidic. Yeah. It's crazy.
Yeah.
Grinder: Awesome. I want to, I want to go.
Gizmo: All right, boys, let's like this thing, the avowed new dawn in Toro, again, it's 52 ring gauge cigar by six inches long. Comes out of the Dominican Republic, specifically calendar cigars, [00:03:00] which is also cool because tonight we are going to cut in our interview from PCA with Kloss Ner, our man, Kloss, the son of course, of the famous hanky Kelner from formerly of Doff and Kloss has his own operation now in the Dominican Republic.
We had a wonderful conversation with him at PCA. He actually kind of blew our minds a little bit. He does. We'll talk about that a little later. But, uh, yeah. So we're gonna put that in, uh, for the second third of this cigar tonight. And of course, we must also remember that cloth makes that stoic cigar that we absolutely loved on that blind episode.
So this cigar is the sister to the stoic line.
Bam Bam: I
Gizmo: love the sound of light.
Bam Bam: Mm
Gizmo: mm That's really good. Hm.
Bam Bam: Very unique. It's almost for me, like a cereal with some fruit. A fruity cereal, maybe like a little banana and a berry on a, [00:04:00] on a nice very basic cereal. And some almond.
Chef: Yeah. Yeah.
Bam Bam: Delicious. I'm getting like
Grinder: a biscuit.
Chef: Mm-hmm.
Grinder: Like a buttery biscuit. Toasted.
Gizmo: Fantastic.
This is really nice. On the light. What do you got? I mean, I'm getting a little saltiness. I'm definitely getting the fruity thing. A little almond. Mm-hmm. Little. Um, like you were saying, biscuit, like a carb type of thing. Yeah. Because Perfect. Like a carb of some sort. Correct. It's also creamy.
Bam Bam: Very. What?
There's a lot going
Gizmo: on
Bam Bam: here. There's so much going on
Gizmo: here. It seems like, and I know we just lit, but I'm getting this vibe right now from this cigar 'cause it's like relaxing me. Mm-hmm. As you guys know, I've been running around like a crazy person today. This feels effortless to me right now, so. Mm-hmm.
Bam Bam: You're bringing
Gizmo: up a
Bam Bam: very important topic. I feel a cigar. When a cigar hits you with any note that's pronounced, it immediately changes your train of [00:05:00] thinking and you just, I think, slide into relaxation mode. That is the beauty of smoking.
Gizmo: It is. I've had a hell of a day. Yeah. Running around. Yeah. Even getting here tonight, I, I was running a little late.
And I just, this, my heart rate is dropped. Correct and relaxed. I'm settled in. It's awesome. And it's because of the cigar. Do we know how much this is? I think they're somewhere between 16 and 17 bucks. Wow. Excellent.
Grinder: What a steal. I'm getting this wicked floral that just hit me like a little potpourri maybe.
Potpourri, yeah. That's a great
Bam Bam: word for it. That's what's happening. That's amazing. But, but the fruit is still there. That carbohydrate is still there. Little buttery, little salty.
Gizmo: You know what I like about this, obviously I think it's a mild to medium profile. Mm-hmm. But there's so much flavor captures your attention and there's so much great smoke coming out of it.
Mm-hmm. The combustion, I feel like you just have to kiss it. It's so easy. And you're getting great combustion.
Grinder: I love it. You said effortless seems to be a word
Bam Bam: [00:06:00] going around. Yeah. This is very effortless, but it looks fantastic in the hand, honestly. The, the color of the wrapper pretty nice. Burn line too.
Chef: Pen's elegant,
Bam Bam: right?
Chef: Yeah.
Bam Bam: I think is spot on with the, just the, just the touching of this cigar. You get a great combustion out of it.
Gizmo: So this cigar only comes in two olis right now, boys. The Toro that we're smoking tonight, 52 by six and the Robusto Grande 54 by five. So let's talk about the makeup of the cigar.
The wrapper is dark Ecuadorian, Connecticut. The binder is Ecuadorian habbo and the filler is Pito banano. Rio 98 and Sun Vicente.
Chef: Nice. I tell you that right now, this is coming across like a cultured cream. Hmm. Right. Just like a, like a, I don't do dairy, so I don't even know. Oh, that's right. Yeah. You don't, I don't know what that fruit kissed yogurt.
Oh, okay. I'm getting here. Just really nice, [00:07:00]
Bam Bam: very, very unique cigar. Mm-hmm.
Rooster: Yeah. For me, I mean, and it's
Chef: so early on. So early on,
Rooster: yeah. The creaminess is very prominent and also like a baking spice that comes through.
Bam Bam: Mm. Yeah. For, it's not cinnamon for me, if it's anything, it's like a nutmeg for me. And I, I say that a lot about a lot of spice or, you know, baking spices that I'm getting.
It's a
Chef: sweet, it's a sweet nut for me. Yeah. He, he, here's one mace. Hmm. I guess a mace here. Yeah. Could be Mac.
Gizmo: I don't know what Mace is not familiar. I only know the rapper from the nineties. So, and the, uh, the
Grinder: self-defense brand,
Chef: the weapon. That's the weapon.
Grinder: That's a ridiculous call out in, in the best way because I get it as well.
Yeah. So can you
Chef: guys describe what that is? If we don't matter, giz I know. No, it's, if you look at a nutmeg mace is actually the cage that forms around the actual spice. That is the nutmeg. But, but they're two different spices. Oh, wow. So the
Gizmo: mace tastes different than the nutmeg. The mace
Chef: tastes [00:08:00] different than the nutmeg.
It has nutmeg like qualities, but it's a little bit more, um, is it Earthier? Pun is definitely more punt. They use it in
Grinder: mulling. Mulling Spices too. Yeahinteresting. So like, um, we do it every Christmas. Yeah.
Chef: Yeah. Oh, wow. And it's part of like pumpkin spice and all that stuff too. Uh, so you'd be, you probably have never seen it and it's unp powdered form, but if you taste it, it'll hit a familiar note for you.
Learn something today. It's a beautiful spice actually. I love the way it forms around the nutmeg.
Bam Bam: Mm.
Gizmo: The retro hell's delicious. I'm really kind of blown away by this cigar right now.
Bam Bam: Yeah. And it's everything I remember and I've had it what maybe. Two or three weeks after PCA.
Gizmo: Yeah,
Bam Bam: I've
Gizmo: purposely held out. I wanted the cigars, you know, my cigars that I got at PCA to rest a little bit. Yeah. I know you guys had smoked them, but I wanted to have my first experience with them on the pod because everything I've heard from folks mm-hmm.
They've been [00:09:00] raving about a vout. It's off the
Rooster: charts. Did you say it reminds you of a doff?
Bam Bam: No,
Gizmo: I don't think so. No, actually I think this is more complex and interesting to me than most doff. It's much
Bam Bam: more interesting because of all the notes that we're getting. I don't think I've ever gotten this combination of notes in any doff I've ever had.
Um, same for Padron. It's just a different cigar I think.
Rooster: No, Padron is different. I mean, that's all Nicaragua. Yeah, right.
Bam Bam: Yeah. But honestly, some of Steve Sakas cigars I think kind of weave in and added this, not the Brule, but some of the like that even that Dunbarton that we had. Yeah, it's a different cigar.
It's a richer cigar. But I got a lot of fruit forward experience in that that I'm getting here.
Gizmo: So the wrap relief on this cigar is actually from 2016, so was 10 years old on that. And these cigars were rolled over a year ago. So we are not smoking a cigar that was rolled, you know, super recently. That's great.
So these are sat for a little while. [00:10:00] So the story of this Brand Boys, it was founded by Andrew and Dave. From small batch cigars, which is one of my favorite. Is that true retailers on the planet? Yes. This is owned and Wow. Blended and for them? Yeah, by them with Klaus Ner.
Bam Bam: Oh, wow. For
Gizmo: them by Klauss Ner. And uh, that's cool.
This is their first foray into their own cigars. They didn't wanna call it the small batch cigar. Mm-hmm. Decided to call it avowed and on their website. It's a great name for a cigar. I agree.
Bam Bam: Honestly, it is,
Gizmo: yeah. It's pretty cool. And I love the, like I said, I love the story of this thing. They say, new dawn outperforms all day with a balanced sweetness that embodies the spirit of sophisticated luxury.
Mm-hmm. I would agree with that. I agree. So they say here that during a trip to Kilner Cigars to check on production, everyone described their ideal all day cigar to cross kilner from an abundance of skill. Cla prepared one blend and one blend only. The team [00:11:00] quickly became enamored with this blend, calling it New Dawn internally, because in one moment the sun had set on an epoch and gave way to the a new dawn.
Each new dawn is wrapped with the highest grade of dark Ecuadorian Connecticut rapper, as we talked about, and his age, for twice the usual time to create a heightened experience for the discerning connoisseur. So I actually was emailing a little bit with Dave from Ava Cigars, so I purchased these for the podcast about.
Five, six weeks ago, and I had been emailing with Dave in anticipation of this. So we had met Dave and Andrew at PCA. Obviously we got introduced to Kloss and we interviewed Kloss as well. And I just kind of f you know, forwarded some questions to him to kind of color the, paint the picture for us a little bit on a Vout.
And he says, everything we make at Kelner Cigars is crafted by a single pair of rollers. This is really cool to not only do for our limited additions, but across the entire line. As you know, the bunch is made by hand, and so much of it is done by repetition and handfield. [00:12:00] Rather than have five pairs working on a project for faster completion, we stick to just one pair to ensure consistency as much as possible with a handmade product.
And this pair holds each other accountable since the buncher and wrapper depend on each other's work quality at the end of the week for payment. Hmm. That's pretty cool. Very cool. One pair of hands is making every one of these cigars. Wow. And I mean, look at the burn on this.
Chef: Yeah, the burn line's.
Fantastic. I'm sorry guys. I gotta call this out. But the retro slow retro hail just gives me the biggest burst of popcorn. Oh, yeah. And I don't know if it's because of where I just came from prior to the, you were at the movies, but I'm like, holy shit. It's so a bias
Bam Bam: palate. It is buttery. But I'm also noticing something.
Only chef has his rose blooming on a cigar every single time he smokes. Oh. What is going on over there?
Chef: No, th this is, uh, this was me switching up lighters. Oh, okay. My lighter ran, ran out of my torch, ran out of fuel, and then I had to switch over to grinders. And I think [00:13:00] there was a little disruption there, but, all right.
All right. It's not really a blooming rose. Mm. Uh, it's getting there actually. It's getting there. It's getting there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That happened to me, uh, yesterday. Oh, we know on the, uh, contr concerto.
Gizmo: So I want to continue here with what Dave shared 'cause this is cool as well. And Klaus talked about this in our interview with him that we're gonna share a little later.
It says, calendar cigars also exclusively uses the pedal method of finishing the cap instead of a triple cap, which involves cutting circles out of the leaf and then applying them to the head of the cigar. The pedal method uses the very same wrapper that adorns the bunch by continuously working and packing it in.
The result may not be as uniform as a triple cap, but it's undeniably more user-friendly since it's harder to cut too low and have the wrapper begin to unravel. Yep. And then he shared an Instagram reel that shows how cool it is, um, the process that they're using to do this. He says, since the beginning, partnering with the best of the best has been our model.
When you have exceptional tobaccos worked by expert hands. You have two of the three pillars [00:14:00] for a great cigar. The last pillar is time, of course. That's the one thing money can't buy, and we pride ourselves on saving every release until it's ready. Each of the vow expressions, for example, now have over two years of age on them, and they have over 18 months of post roll age when they were introduced in February of this year.
So these cigars were just introduced wow, couple months before. PCA. Every single OLA of the vow is a unique blend, so it's not a consistent blend across these olas. So there's a different blend for each individual. Uh, vitola. We plan on updating the packaging in the future to be able to tell that story more naturally with the eyes.
Bam Bam: Nice.
Gizmo: So he said, I'm excited for you guys to talk about the New Dawn because they were rolled over a year ago and have an exquisite wrapper leaf from 2016. These vintage bales impart mouth watering notes of buttercream floral sensations and baking spices. There you go, boys. Yeah, there you go. Nailed it.
It's almost like we're good at this. Yeah. Almost that we have yet to experience for more recent bales when sampling in the Dominican Republic, we [00:15:00] chose the highest grade wrap leaf from a SP, which is world now renowned supplier there, and then sorted out for the darkest we could find for that extra wow factor.
Many of the cigar enthusiasts I've visited this summer have been surprised to find out that it was Ecuadorian Connecticut, because the shade is not as blonde as everyone's used to in the cigar community. So that was from Dave and I. I asked some follow ups as well, um, which I'll share a little later, uh, that are a little bit more about the business and nature of, you know, launching a cigar company as a retailer.
I found that to be an interesting story, so certainly at, at some point, I think especially with how this is performing right now. Hopefully you have to have these guys on at some point. Yeah.
Bam Bam: In the future. It'd be awesome.
Rooster: I love the bands on these.
Bam Bam: Yeah. They're beautifully designed
Rooster: like the blue and gold, and that's a, looks really cool.
That's
Grinder: a deep, dark green on this one. And any significance behind the name of v.
Gizmo: So I, I didn't hear this from them. I found this on their website. Okay. So it says, avowed is equal parts mandate and declaration from its [00:16:00] inception, avowed prioritized, collaborating with the best in the industry. As I just said, recognizing the Kelner family's significant legacy and cultivating exceptional tobacco and crafting extraordinary cigars.
Every avowed cigar is a masterpiece of flavor and construction that ex echoes generations of expertise. So avowed, uh, the definition as it's stated here, that has been a, that has been asserted, admitted, or stated publicly. Mm-hmm. Starting to
Bam Bam: get rich for me. There's a richness that's
Gizmo: developing, but it still seems like a cigar.
You can have really any time of the
Bam Bam: day. This is a cigar. You can probably smoke once a day, every day
Gizmo: at any time. Yeah. You can have this for breakfast with a coffee. Oh, absolutely. You can have this after lunch. No, true.
Grinder: One of my favorite morning smokes is a Ecuadorian Churchill Ecuadorian, uh, Connecticut Churchill.
And it's, it smokes sweet, but it, and it kind of smokes fast. So it's a big cigar. But this [00:17:00] reminds me of that morning, morning ritual.
Bam Bam: You know what, it also reminds me of Don't laugh too hard. It kind of reminds me of the Don Carlos side of the shark. Just the touch.
Gizmo: I don't think that's crazy. Yeah, I think it's there.
Honestly, I don't think that's crazy.
Bam Bam: I, I agree.
Gizmo: I haven't had that cigar in quite some time. Neither have I, but. Just from, I don't think that That's wild. Yeah, it could. It
Bam Bam: could be. It's interesting.
Gizmo: I mean, I think that's probably the best Arturo Fuentes cigar that's made. That's right. I guess arguably in this room, but That's right.
It's so brilliant. But I
Grinder: mean, wow. Now that you say it, I'm like, I I, I get it. Yeah, it's there. I think it's the seed for sure.
Gizmo: And this is a cigar you can get right now at a reasonable price for 1617. Not the case with the shark.
Chef: Almost half the price.
Grinder: Yeah. This, this could easily be a daily smoke. 'cause they're a dis, a discount code for this one.
Rooster: Not yet. Not
Gizmo: yet.
Rooster: So goes
Gizmo: how many come in a box? I believe 15. Coming in a box. And I think it's a slide wood box. Pretty cool box actually. There you go. Oh, that's cool. Very [00:18:00] classy looking. That's a beautiful
Bam Bam: box. So it's unusual. It's brown. Yeah. And the, the logo, the identifier is a baby blue with gold trim in this cigar has got a green deep green band with gold trimming.
Gizmo: Is that deep green? I thought it was blue. I thought it was navy blue. It looks green to me. Maybe it's blue. I think it's a little dim in here. Yeah, it's true.
Chef: Are you color blown? I need my readers. It's definitely blue's. Is that blue? Your shirt's deep green. But the band is blue shirt's hollow. Oh my god.
Rooster: We can see you at a, at a light. Like is this green?
Bam Bam: The shirt is kind of like top ade.
Chef: Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, I can't get over how great the cigar is. That's fantastic. This is
Gizmo: awesome. I really needed this today, man.
Bam Bam: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's it's really right now. It's so impressive. I got this awesome burn line here. Yeah. You've got the best burn line in the room I think. I do no doubt about it. I just dashed
Chef: kids. I'm sorry I left you at the movie theater, but the cigar is delicious.
Yeah. Right? Correct.[00:19:00]
Bam Bam: And gizmo's attempting to reach over the table c Cirque dele over here like a gymnast.
Gizmo: Well, I didn't wanna rip my headphones out so I was trying to do it like, uh, '
Bam Bam: cause he has nowhere to ash
Gizmo: Simone Biles. I had to get an ashtray. I forgot to put it over here. Man, this is so great. It's awesome. I, I, I really hope this stays like this or improves or takes us on a journey through the rest of it, because if so, this is a, a home run of a cigar.
Absolutely. Nice home run.
Chef: Absolutely love that. Creamy, buttery. It's, it's like brown butter, like now. Mm. To your point where you said earlier it's a little rich, rich becoming richer, rich is developing. Yeah. Yeah. It's turning into this brown butter. It's, we're getting really, wow.
Grinder: If, if this persists, it's gonna be like a standout cigar.
No doubt about it. Yeah.
Bam Bam: You know, I'm getting a little peanut. Yeah. Just a touch of it. Now it's starting to come in. I, yeah. I'm kind of entering that second, third down. Mm-hmm. It's pretty earthy too, right? A little bit. [00:20:00] Some minerals there. Minerality.
Gizmo: Mm. All right, boys, let's talk about some news. This one was sent in by Lizard Anthony from Belgium, and he sent a note and said, hi guys.
Unfortunately I have to share this information with you. It's for the Netherlands and Belgium, and I guess. Belgium is tightening the packaging rules on cigars and cigarillos starting in 2026, which is unfortunate because once the dominoes start to fall in Europe,
Bam Bam: what does that mean? Now they're gonna turn into Canada can, so it's gonna be Canadian packaging pretty much.
So you can't see what's in the package. Yeah. So you're
Gizmo: not gonna be able to see, wow. The advertising, it's gonna be only be sold in neutral packets with a green brown color and a standard font. So they're gonna take a cigar like this and cover this band with that similar type of Canadian. Yeah. You know.
Nasty green, brown color. So
Bam Bam: here's a question. Terrible. So when you, when [00:21:00] you receive it and unpackage it, you can take that all off and expose your band. I would hope,
Gizmo: I guess, unless, I don't know if about the boxing, I don't know if the boxes are gonna be replaced. Like I think it's sometimes in Canada, the 10 counts are replaced by the cardboard.
Bam Bam: Geez.
Gizmo: Um, as opposed, because they're not sticking them on, I guess the bans are covered unless they're gonna mandate that the manufacturers put those bans on and nothing else. But I would think it's the distributors after the cigars hit the, the country that they put them on. Are we living in the post-war society?
Yeah. It's
Rooster: crazy. Really. I mean, right. Are there any like, studies being done? Yeah, if it's actually working, what are we doing? Like what, what's the, you know, what's the idea behind it? Well, I'll tell you right now. Another objective don't. Yeah.
Gizmo: Another objective of the measure, according to this article from the Brussels Times, is to make smoking less attractive to young people according to studies.
Standardizing packaging can discourage them from purchasing such products. So when was the last time that you saw a 14-year-old smoking a Toro from? For me, it'll probably be
Chef: next year. [00:22:00] That's when my 13-year-old turns 14. But never, you're not helping the argument. No worse. Never. You know what, it's not because of the packaging.
I'm kidding. I know. Not ever know. He's never said, wow, that that band is cool. I can, can I taste it? No. He is like, you know, if anything, he's intrigued by how relaxed I am and how, you know, he knows I bust my ass on a daily basis and that when I light a cigar I'm home. Yeah. And I'm chill and
Bam Bam: you know. But for all the other kids in the world,
Chef: yeah.
They like vapes and they like fruit. Yeah. Fruity pebble. They're not going for spars.
Gizmo: And so the Belgian Federal Health Minister, Frank Vanden Brook says he wants to counter the quote, marketing strategies of the tobacco industry, which are known to target teenagers and young adults. No, because attracting the next generations of smokers that's so wrong is essential for the industry survival that is so stupid.
Chef: Such a played out narrative when you play
Gizmo: this, you know, when you put this on. Handmade premium cigars. [00:23:00] I mean, it's so dumb. So this is going to take effect June 1st, 2026 for small retailers. And an exception applies until June 1st, 2027. Mean. Uh, in the meantime, the federal government is also working in a smoking ban on terraces, so they're gonna stop people from smoking on terraces.
And, uh, that would take effect on January 1st as well. Stop. Final decision has not
Chef: been made. Might as well stop building apartments with terraces. That's correct. There you go.
Gizmo: So, yeah, I just, again, you have another country here that, uh, wow has not found a way to discern the difference between a cigarette, a vape, chewing tobacco, you know, whatever you want to, you know, call those type of products.
You know, nicotine delivery devices, separating that from premium handmade cigars, which are, in my opinion, relaxation delivery devices.
Bam Bam: So I haven't ever been in an LCDH in Europe. Has anyone here [00:24:00]
Gizmo: in Amsterdam, I was in a shop, I don't know if it was lc dh.
Bam Bam: So in those establishments, do they sell other smoking products other than premium cigars?
No. That use, no, they don't. Not l just accesss. Correct. Just accessories. That's correct. Just accessories. Yeah. So I think it's absurd what they're doing here makes no sense. Now, if there are smoke shop owners that have, they probably have one case of awful cigars. Yeah. And the rest of their shops are full of vapes and all these other products that the teenagers go for, they're just lumping everything together.
Gizmo: Well, I think that what's happening is, I think this idiot federal health minister probably walks into a shop and sees the, you know, a rack of cigars and then sees those other things. Yeah. Like you're saying. That's what I'm saying. He's not walking into. A high quality humidor.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: You know, so he's judging it based effectively on gas stations and their, their version of seven 11.
That's correct.
Chef: And I guarantee you there isn't a teenager there looking at cigars. No. You know, last week I found myself [00:25:00] in a bind where I needed to go into a smoke shop in the city. 'cause I had no sticks on me. And I was gearing up for the drive back home late that night. Did you get a Philly blunt? No.
No. Blueberry, no. So there was a smoke shop in, in, in Tribeca that, you know, had all the hookahs and mm-hmm. Vapes, but a pretty substantial cigar selection. A few doffs, a few leaves. Really bravas. Yeah. Yeah. It's on ale's, you know, like That's awesome. The basic stuff. But I was shocked to see at, you know, the, the premium selection.
So of course there's six people walking in. I'm the only one going to the cigar cabinet. Everyone else is asking what flavor vapes the guy has. Of course. You know, and it's clear and 2D fruity and, you know, it's, it's bullshit. It's bullshit.
Bam Bam: The day that was invented was the demise of the smoking industry overall,
Chef: man.
Yeah.
Bam Bam: It's unbelievable.
Chef: Yeah, because you know what? Cigarettes never even went that far. You might have, you know, Nat Sherman did the whole chocolate and mint thing for a little bit, and that might have [00:26:00] been as far as it got, you know, clove of cigarettes. But there was never no fruit flavored or artificially weird childish flavored, uh, cigar, uh, cigarette.
You know, this all started with the hookah and the vape and. Acid. Yeah. But you know, I, you know, I don't, none of us smoke that stuff.
Gizmo: Yeah. Alright, boys, we're coming to the end of the first third here on the avowed New Dawn in Toro. What's everybody thinking? I, I know Bams, I know what BA's thinking.
Chef: I'm thinking it's time to taste the spirit.
That's correct.
Gizmo: Taste the pairing. I, uh, I'm excited to taste this, but I can't believe how good this cigar is,
Bam Bam: so I I'm having a hard time not taking a drop. Me too. You know? Me too. You have to kind of slow down, I think, on this guy like every other cigar, you know, but it's, it's so good.
Chef: Yeah. But this one just keeps calling you back from It does.
Yeah, it does.
Grinder: It's getting, it's not, it's not really getting [00:27:00] stronger. No. It's richer. It's getting a little more volume, but not much. Mm-hmm.
Rooster: It's still creamy. Yeah. Yeah. It's creamy. It's, it's even earthier to me, like right now. It is Right now. Yeah.
Chef: Yeah. Right now I'm getting a little salt and like a creaminess from a, like a sunflower seed.
Mm-hmm. Sunflower butter or something like that. Um, there
Bam Bam: is earthiness
Chef: though.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Yeah.
Gizmo: All right boys. I know what you want. Bam. Correct. Let's try our pairing tonight. We're going back to Glen Morey. We're doing the 10 years age Glen Morgie, the original single malt Scotch Whiskey. Cheers. Cheers. Good to see you boys.
Cheers. Solid to the next a hundred episodes. Correct. Mm. Oh yeah. I love it. That's excellent.
Grinder: It's the best. This is, wow. This is what I think, like this is what I think about when I think of
Gizmo: I, why I've, I don't understand why I've ignored this. I mean, some of the other expressions we've done, I, I, we haven't enjoyed
Grinder: one of the things this, [00:28:00] this drink with a Cuban is exceptional because there's so much citrus that counterbalances the Wow, that's good.
The Cuban esque flavors. I gotta, I gotta say
Bam Bam: that finish is very long on such a thin. Spirit like this and it, there is a little bit of strength there. I like to, I keep it in my mouth just a few seconds before taking it down. It kind of cuts that for me. But what if you do that? You get this beautiful like almost floral citrus finish at the end
Gizmo: and, and it, there's warmth but there's no burn.
No. As it goes down
Grinder: I get, I get citrus orange peel and pear orange peels there.
Chef: Pear and some pineapple. Yeah. And more specifically Asian pear. It's a very bright pear. And I think that's 'cause of your citrus find in there. I tell you what, this with the cooked fruit or the stewed fruit that I'm getting in this cigar, they're perfect.
Gizmo: So when I was thinking, I, I actually talked to Bam, we were talking about something else and I said, Hey, what do you think about pairing with the avowed new Dawn? 'cause you've had it. And I said, you know, [00:29:00] I'm kind of thinking about going to a single malt and thinking about doing the Glen Moring G 10 because it was a one we had.
You know, tried earlier on the podcast but did not rate it. Actually fun fact for keen listeners out there, this was the final pairing that we did not rate on episode 20. On episode 21. Ah, we started rating every single pairing. We started doing the formal liquor rating. Very uh, this is the
Chef: last
Gizmo: one.
Chef: I'm sorry, I'm laughing.
'cause you said teen listeners, right? Keen. Keen. Oh, I thought, thought, I thought you were calling back to the teen smokers. Yeah. We don't wanna get banned. I
Gizmo: thought that was
Chef: genius.
Gizmo: No, I hope no teenagers listen to this. We're not trying to perpetuate that, but that's funny.
Chef: Oh boy.
Gizmo: But I, yeah, so we were thinking like, let's try a light single malt.
Bam. Said that. I think that'd be a great pairing. She's delicious for the, the, the new dawn and here we are. And it's working great with this cigar.
Bam Bam: Honestly, I'm kicking myself for having ignored this for so long. Me too. I gotta get a bottle of this. It's so good. I've been talking about this guys for years.
You have No, you have. And I, I just, I haven't paid attention to it.
Gizmo: So guess what the [00:30:00] price is on this,
Bam Bam: uh, 58 bucks.
Grinder: Uh, it's cheap. It's cheaper than that. I think. I think it's like 45.
Gizmo: This was $41. Wow.
Grinder: Wow.
Gizmo: $41. And I wanted to show you guys. So I'm standing in the store. I go to the liquor store and I'm standing in front of all the Glen Morgen.
I'm like, okay, there's the 15, there's the 12, there's this, the 14, the reen, the, there's like seven. I'm like, where the hell is the 10? And then I see, oh, they have a, a 1.75, like a massive bottle of the 10. I'm like, what the hell? Where's, why don't they have the, like the normal standard 10? And then I realize that I'm standing right in front of it, staring at it.
It's because it was in this awesome box presentation. And it's a big box. I mean, pretty significant. Yeah. So they have the seven 50 milliliter bottle in there. You open it up, it has a magnet on it for $41 magnet. That's pretty cool. You open it up, there's a rocks glass in it. Nice. A Glen Morgie rocks glass.
Beautiful. And [00:31:00] also a sample, a little sampler of the 12 years age Sherry Cask finish Lata. Wow. Glen Moring. Nice. And it's all in a, like a really nice cloth. They've spent, they've spent some money on that for $41. That's, can you show me the bottle's crazy?
Grinder: Yes. Because, yeah, I think that's, so that's the, they just re did a re, I think they did a re a rebrand.
Gizmo: I think they did a rebrand on most, I don't know if they did it on this one. 'cause every picture I saw was
Bam Bam: marketing. Marketing.
Gizmo: Yeah. This is the, uh, original, they call it age. 10 years
Rooster: Great
Chef: price. You know, not to keep rehashing this whole attack on tobacco, but it really pisses me off because you go into a liquor store and you see so much shit spirit. Strawberry cherry, coconut mango, pineapple vodka, and crap tequila. And where's, where's all the governing there? Correct.
Gizmo: Well, the thing that bothers [00:32:00] me about that argument too is that a cigar is not mind altering.
It doesn't change your mind when you're driving that, you know, you don't get intoxicated. Mm-hmm. Arguably, it makes me a better driver. I don't think
Grinder: there's any wor there's, there's no worthy logic. Time logic. Yeah. There's no worthy time trying to, trying to solution it. Because the reality is when you have bloated government that don't know what to do, they always have to find, I mean, the reality is they don't have to do much, but they always have to find something to fight for or some kind of initiative.
And if you're uncreative, hey, tobacco's always a good target. That's correct. So you're just, yeah. What's the new machination of the attack on tobacco? On tobacco, that's all it is. And it's not even creative. It's not even like, there's no logic. They're just looking for stuff to do. It's, they have nothing to do.
They need to make a mark. And they also get God complex like, we're going to cure the evils of, of tobacco on our race. Yeah. But the,
Rooster: but the idea is. So that the teenagers or the younger [00:33:00] kids don't start smoking. Right. So why don't attack, or why not go after what they actually smoke? Why not go after the vapes?
Why not go after the even, you know?
Grinder: I mean, again, I don't think my thesis, so why not ban that if you're, if you're uncreative and you don't have anything better to do, it's just an easy target. Like you, and you go for en mass, you cast a wide net and you try to attack it. If, if you don't really have any logic to back it up, but, but you're going, because then if you do it all tobacco, then you could bring in all the other studies that said cig smoking cigarettes is bad.
Rooster: Yeah. But they're not going after the vapes. They're not really doing anything about the vape.
Grinder: Right. I dunno. I dunno. That's what
Rooster: the kids are. Well, that's predominantly smoking. I mean,
Grinder: that's where Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds are making their, their money these days. So there's, there's still some protection for them.
Chef: Mm-hmm.
Grinder: They're not making it on Siggi's.
Gizmo: Yeah, I mean it's just absurd. So boys, it's time now as we go into the second third to [00:34:00] cut in our interview from PCA with Ks Kilner of Kilner Cigars in the Dominican Republic. We had a great conversation with him. We talked about a lot of different stuff. I know I sent you guys a quick, unedited version of the episode for you guys to hear before we came.
I know BA and I are the only ones that were, uh, on the interview in the room here, so I wanted to give you guys a preview, but we really went through a ton of stuff in those 40 minutes. He's
Bam Bam: very knowledgeable. Oh, very technical. Yeah. Um,
Rooster: very impressive young. I saw his YouTube, uh, video about, I forget what it's called, seed to something very detailed.
Yeah.
Bam Bam: And don't forget his palate analysis and how he can translate that to the blend of the cigar that's off the charts conversation.
Gizmo: And also for, uh. For you folks out there who are listening right now, go to our Instagram and you'll see actually. So I gave Coss my iPad and he drew a tongue and drew it up and showed the different areas of the tongue.
And [00:35:00] he goes for full coverage. Is that posted? It's going to be when this is out. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, that's
Bam Bam: great.
Gizmo: So, you know, you can go there right now and see what cost drew on in my, on my iPad with the pencil. It was, it was fascinating. It was pretty amazing what he was able to do. He tries
Rooster: to hit every single
Bam Bam: area of your tongue with the cigar.
Well, it depends. It depends. If you're a guy going to him to have a cigar made, you'll hear the interview, but. He'll sit with you and discuss the notes and type of cigar that you want and gear the blend toward the palate that'll achieve that. And he, it's just, it's incredible. And
Gizmo: when he's smoking tobacco, he keeps an, a constant record of what he's getting.
Yeah. Where it's hitting the palate. What is it bitter? Is it acidic? Is it salty? Is it sweet? Whatever it is. So he drew this for me, and then he has, he kind of charts it when he does a blend that for every
Bam Bam: blend. So that, so that transition from the palette diagram to the actual graph. Yeah, it's cool. It's, it's just very, very cool.
Gizmo: So he, uh, he drew this, this on my iPad. I'm gonna screenshot this and it'll, [00:36:00] it'll be in the, on the Instagram and by the time you hear this recording, so you can go check out clause's drawing. But yeah, we talked about his, his, the legacy of his father. His, his, his love of his father. Yeah. And the, you know, the celebration of that long kelner history and the cigar business.
We talked about his new factory. We talked about stoic. We talked about a vowed. We went through it all. And, uh, this guy was really impressive.
Bam Bam: He brings into the industry. Intelligence and youth and energy that I think the cigar industry needs. And he does it in a really creative, intelligent way. And his conversation's just fantastic.
Gizmo: And for the listeners out there who are, you know, thinking, you know, who's this guy? Who are these guys talking about?
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: I would compare cloth to dlo in the way. Correct. He's able to communicate. I'm saying Danila Rodriguez, who is the production manager of Cohiba, great Parallel Havana. It's all about education.
It's all about sharing how the process is done, how it works. And I think the old model, not just in [00:37:00] Cuba but in also in non Cuban cigars worldwide, the old model is, it's a secret trade secret. I don't wanna tell you anything. The new model is sharing as much as you can informing the customer.
Bam Bam: It's like an open source approach like we're
Gizmo: trying to do.
So that's, I think that's why we hit it off right away. And you'll hear that in this interview. It was really great. So now we're gonna go to our interview with KS Kilner from PCA 2025 and we'll be back to you at the end of the second, third.
Alright, boys live from PCA 2025. We are here with a very special guest. Kloss. Kelner. Oh yeah, everybody knows that name. Of course. A legendary name in the cigar business. Lot of history there. You're now what? The third generation of Ners in the cigar industry. Correct. Thank
Klaas Kelner: you guys for having me. Third generation, my family.
That's all we do. We, my grandfather moved from Holland, that's why my name is class. I have my grandfather's name. And he moved from Holland to Dominican Republic in [00:38:00] 1933. And with his three brothers? Yeah, there were, yeah, there were, there were four of them. Four. Okay. So with him it's four. So his three brothers, two of them went to the Dominican Republic and two of them moved to Brazil.
Ah. And all of them to start new companies or work in existing companies that today, some of them still exist, operate, and they were all competitors against each other in the market. So you can imagine over the dinner table how it was, how that went. Yeah, yeah. How that went. It's so much so that my grandfather always advised my dad to not work in the cigar industry because it could cause family issues.
Oh yeah. It's like, thank God my dad, my dad didn't follow in that. Yes, absolutely.
Gizmo: That makes for
Pagoda: a wonderful Thanksgiving for sure. Correct.
Gizmo: So tell us about your start. I know your story's been told quite a bit, but run the listener through your beginnings in the cigar industry, uh, to where you are now, where you have your own factory now, going on a couple years in the Dominican,
Klaas Kelner: my father and my mother did a very good [00:39:00] job about keeping me involved with their day-to-day lives and.
Even when, as, as I was a little kid. So they would take me to the dinners with their clients. Every year we would go to the farms from my mother's side. We are, um, we work in the farmland, we are agriculture, um, people. We, we used to do rice, coffee, cattle, uh, from my dad's side was always tobacco. And then when the two families merged, um, my mother's lands became farms.
So I was very involved. I remember my dad would take me to the factory on Saturdays, sometimes take me outta school, and he would take me to the factory and he would send me down to the packaging department and then put sell out fame on cigars. And then he would pay me money for, for working. Mm-hmm. And then some years later I found out that he was just making me put rejected cigars into cellophane to keep me busy.
You gotta start somewhere. Yeah. You gotta start practicing. I thought I was doing real job. Yeah. [00:40:00] And I was just cellophane rejected cigars, but. Uh, I always knew I wanted to work in the industry and, uh, I did study abroad and then I came back from college and started working in the factory. And they put me to work in everything from farming, sea creation, fermentation, aging warehouses.
I mean, I was sweeping the floors. Even, even my lean body was picking up a hundred pound bales with help, uh, and organizing warehouses and just learning from the bottom up. And when my family departed, uh, from DAV a couple years ago, uh, I knew what the right move was. So with my father's blessing and my family's blessing, I asked if they thought I could start a factory.
And they said, you're crazy. Do you know how hard it's to start a factory from scratch, from nothing? And it's like, well, you did it, so why not [00:41:00] try to do it? This is what I wanna do. And now we have been open for two years when we Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Right around now, two years, and we started with nothing, four walls and a ceiling, one roller two years ago.
And now we, hopefully this year we're projected to make over 400,000 cigars. Wow. Maybe half a million cigars. Wow. Wow. That's
Gizmo: amazing.
Bam Bam: From scratch, I've read that you intentionally keep your volume at a controlled pace to mount it to quality. You don't want to go beyond a certain level.
Klaas Kelner: Yes. As far
Bam Bam: as production's concerned,
Klaas Kelner: there is, there is a, a key point here though.
And it, the fact is that because I expect a lot more from my cigar rollers, we have a particular way of making our cigars. If you look at the cap of a cigar, uh, the head of the, the cigar, every single cigar [00:42:00] that we make is made with the caico formation. Uh, some people call it flag formation. Some people put it all the way to the end.
We do not apply a second cap. So this is a much slower process, a much more delicate artistic way of finishing a cigar. When you apply the wrapper, there's something that my dad used to do in eighties. It's almost a signature for you. It's a signature of my family. Right. And it's a style of rolling. And different companies have different styles of rolling, but this is a much harder, slower way of making a cigar.
I consider it art. And because of this, my rollers also make less cigars a, a day. So we're normally the cheap, easy way to make cigars rollers that are skilled can make 600 plus cigars a day. Wow. Uh, my rollers are making 3 50, 400 a day, uh, in pears.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Klaas Kelner: So. It is not also much slower. I do give them incentives.
I, I tell my rollers, Hey, if you reach X quantity, depending on the shape of the cigar, I'll give you an incentive. But the most important [00:43:00] incentive is if you get less than 2% rejection rate on that day's production, I'll give you an even better incentive. Hmm. So I give them for incentives to, you know, keep them motivated and try to reach certain goals.
But the most important one is the quality control incentive. They cannot get rejections. So for every a hundred cigars that they make, their maximum allowed is two cigars rejected. That's incredible.
Pagoda: Wow. That's a commitment to quality for sure. Absolutely.
Klaas Kelner: And
Bam Bam: discipline.
Klaas Kelner: And it's not easy finding rollers that, that have that discipline.
Yeah. You know, you mentioned
Bam Bam: that in your presentation yesterday. They, how difficult it is. Yeah. Oh, you guys were there? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yes, we were.
Klaas Kelner: Listen to every word. It was, it was a fun presentation. Excellent. Yeah, it was great. You know, in that presentation around 15 to 20 years ago, as a kid, my dad would take me to RTDA, um, now P-I-P-C-P-R-P-C-A.
And my dad had a presentation in front of a hundred plus people, a seminar, and I was sitting in the crowd and my dad was up on stage yesterday. [00:44:00] My dad was in the crowd and I was on stage. It was a very emotional moment for that's, that's gotta feel good. I'm sure. That's cool. So I'm sure he is very proud.
He is? Uh, I think so, but yeah, I mentioned the presentation. It's very hard to find rollers that have that particular skillset and I am willing to train them, but it is a change for them. And a lot of rollers will come and it's like, why don't we do it this way? It's easier. It's like, well, this is the counter philosophy.
So you either adapt and learn, or there's many other factories that you can go and make a cigar an easier way. Hmm. I can find somebody else, you know, that's willing to believe in my philosophy and my commitment to quality.
Gizmo: So of course, you know, our listeners will remember that we smoked the stoic cigars, the, the Ribo, uh, a few weeks ago Blind for our April Fools episode, and we rated it a perfect 10.0 and that cigar [00:45:00] that we love so much and we've all been chasing boxes of now.
And I know our listeners have two came out of your cigar factory. That's
Bam Bam: correct.
Gizmo: So first thanks for that great cigar. 'cause it was
Bam Bam: amazing. It was, it was shocking. Personally, I, I didn't have much hope for the cigar because blind taste tests. Yeah. You don't know. Yeah. It could have been a gimmick. Someone could have been, you know, messing with us.
Yeah. You get, Rito could have been playing a joke on us. God knows. But it really was an incredible experience. Shockingly good
Klaas Kelner: guys. To be honest, that was the first time I heard of your lounge of your, of the lizards and um. I did not have a face to the names. I had all these nicknames that were being thrown around.
And for over an hour I was hearing seven guys rave about a cigar that I made. Yeah. And it felt, it felt weird. It felt interesting. It felt, uh, you know, moving, you know, each one of the cigars is [00:46:00] like a sun. It's a creation. And I was wowed at the fact of how well it's expected, the cigars supposed to perform, but I was wowed at the, how everybody was just enjoying it.
And it, that cigar has a particular flavor profile, has a specific tobacco that gives a specific flavor profile in there. And we do have a blending philosophy, and I expect my cigars to be liked, but flavorful outta 10 across the board, between se a large sample group. Yeah. You know, I know every cigar is not for everybody, you know, that's why we make different blends with different flavors.
Uh, it's very rewarding, you know, two years in to be noticed. Uh, so I really appreciate it. It, it was so cool to listen to you guys talk about it.
Bam Bam: What's interesting is he just said that this cigar isn't for everybody, but because it's light and body, but very flavorful. I think every cigar smoker would [00:47:00] enjoy the cigar.
It's, yeah, there's nothing, there's
Pagoda: nothing polarizing about it. It's not hard. Let's look at the table around you. We all different, it's outrageous backgrounds, honestly different, you know, cuisines. And yet our pallets is probably different, but yet similar. That's true. And for all of us who rated a 10, I think it's fantastic.
I think,
Senator: I think class was laughing, uh, our commentary that we thought it was Honduran tobacco at first. Yes, exactly.
Bam Bam: We fell in love with a bunch of Honduran cigars with another maker, and it's very reminiscent to that. But there is something, there's almost like a sweet cream that I'm getting from this with an undertone of like a very light coffee.
It's very, very good
Klaas Kelner: and unique when I'm creating blends with my clients. And we're talking here about vans, you know, and stoic cigars. Um, every client is different. Uh, vans in particular, uh, has a very, uh, unique palette. He is very picky about what tobaccos he likes, how he likes to merge 'em. [00:48:00] Uh, and working with him on new blends is, is a long process because he knows exactly what he's looking for.
Mm-hmm. And we, we'll, we will get there, but because of the minor tweaks that we have to do to these blends to get exactly where he wants it, it's a long process. And when, when you are doing a blind tasting, uh. I love that because you never know what people are going to try to pick out or try to imagine what's inside.
Try to guess. Um, you guys had so many wild guesses and then towards the end you started getting closer and closer. I was like, well, they'll, they'll never get it because it's a, a factory that they probably don't know about, you know. But to Vance himself, I do blind tastings to my clients. So Vance, he hates it when I do it to him because he wants to know what he's smoking so he can analyze it a particular way and try to see how he could use it for certain blends.
But I love giving my [00:49:00] clients raw, uh, rolls of tobacco, of different varieties so that they get to learn all the different ingredients that we'll be using in their cigars. And it's always blind, and I love seeing how they analyze it. If they get there, are they, are they understanding what this cigar or what this tobacco is doing to their palate?
And how can we in the future use it for a blend? The blending process at my factory is very cool and very, and very hands-on and very personalized.
Gizmo: Mm-hmm. We also met the gentleman from, uh, small batch cigars who have a great cigar company that just recently launched called Avowed Cigars. And they're also making their cigars at your factory, correct?
Klaas Kelner: Correct. Uh, the Avav Cigar, uh, company, um, led by Andrew and Dave. Uh, the guys from Small Batch Cigar. We've known each other for a while. We've also known, uh, I've also, my family has also worked with Amar, uh, from Maxar for many years. [00:50:00] And our relationship goes back a long time. I think they're doing great, um, with a great launch of three different, uh, lines to, to, to the, to begin with, you know, so wide portfolio already out in the market with three different profiles, complete different profiles and more coming.
Um, all my clients with more coming, but every client is different and every client has a different profile and also every client has a different target in mind for the market. So these are all conversations I have with each of them. And it's fun because I'm the blender, but I have to blend for them and I have to blend for the consumer.
I'm never blending for myself. And I can push and I can suggest in one way or another, tobaccos that I think would go well. And then it's my job to also differentiate each client. Because I can't make the same cigar for everybody. So [00:51:00] I need to be able to differentiate each one of the cigars that every one of my clients has and every single line that they have.
Gizmo: So can you walk us through the blending process? So are you creating a blend, trying it, and then saying, oh, this might be great for stoic, this might be great for a vow, this might be great for somebody else. Walk us through that process of, of blending for your clients.
Klaas Kelner: It depends on the client, but normally the client comes with an idea of what they want to do next, or they have maybe specific tobaccos in mind, or they have maybe specific flavor profiles in mind that they want to, uh, achieve.
Uh, for example, they might have a cigar that is very creamy and now their next line needs to be complete polar opposite, right? So maybe they don't know what tobacco will do that. So my job is to suggest in what direction to go, or sometimes they are in love with a particular tobacco and they [00:52:00] are dead set on using that tobacco.
And then I have to blend around it and integrate it into a blend. So every client is different, but I will probably do two or three different blends and present it to them. Once the idea has been established in what we wanna do, what are the shapes that we kind of wanna do? Uh, we'll probably do the test blends in one particular shape.
And then try all the other shapes from there on. But mm, from three initial blends, we'll know in what direction to go from there on and then we will start tweaking the preferred blends. And sometimes we've done up to 20 plus blends for just one project. Wow. Uh, another cases I've done one blend and you nailed it and nailed it.
Yeah. Uh, also trying to maintain the integrity of the brand that we're making. Like for example, I know that this brand rep is [00:53:00] represented by these key tobaccos, so if I'm gonna go and make another cigar, I can't make a cigar. That is so, so different and departed from that brand that you cannot recognize the brand.
'cause every brand, in my opinion, should have a signature style of flavors or compositions so that it's reminiscent, whether it's flipping a blend on its head and using similar tobaccos, but in different pers per percentages or in different folio levels or, or using the main components of the blend and just adding one or two more tobaccos that are unique and different enough to make it different, but keep the essence of the blend alive in the portfolio of the brand.
Senator: It's complex. So I'm curious, your panel yesterday was focused on the next generation. In the cigar industry. And you've talked a little bit here about how, you know, even in the production process and rolling, how rolling at your factory is, you know, maybe quite different from rolling at another factory and that commitment [00:54:00] to quality.
I'm curious when it comes to blending, you know, what are you, what are you doing differently? What are, what are folks not doing as much of or afraid to do that maybe you're not, that kind of represents your philosophy or that next generation of blending in the industry? I'm just really curious.
Klaas Kelner: Well, I'm, I'm a traditionalist.
Uh, I am, I keep my, my essence to the old school ways of making cigars. But at the end of the day, I come from the counter school of blending is, so there's three basic, uh, consistent things that we need to have in mind. Uh, one of them is, is the cigar pleasurable in your palate? Are there any negative connotations that we should be aware of that we need to remove?
Um, the other thing is, is the cigar balanced? Are all key areas of your palate being [00:55:00] stimulated one way or another? Uh, maybe one cigar is a little bit sweeter, you know, than the other cigars. Or one cigar is more bitter than other cigars, or one cigar is more spicy than the other cigars because you have to differentiate them.
But are the, all the other areas being stimulated enough so that. It is not so one sided or so, one dimensional that it creates an imbalance in the palate. And then the next thing, and probably the most important thing and the hardest thing is to try to keep that cigar consistent from production to production.
Because if you like this cigar to today, and you gave it a 10, outta 10, hopefully three, five years down the road, when you smoke it again in a blind panel, it gets another 10 outta 10 because it's supposed to be consistent. And that's the hardest part. Mm-hmm. From year to year as crops change, as the weather is different, as the suppliers might have slight differences in production.
Yeah. Trying to be able to keep that blend consistent. And as
Bam Bam: consumers, we fall in love with [00:56:00] certain runs, like this run of this stoic cigar that we're smoking. I'd hate to see a change.
Klaas Kelner: And
Bam Bam: that's, that's the challenge.
Klaas Kelner: That's, that's the challenge. That's the hardest part I
Bam Bam: read, I just read about, about your dad.
Um, one of his primary philosophies, I'm guessing there's many in making cigars, is that he, he took an approach to create complete pallet stimulation. How do you do that? What are your, what are you targeting as through your manufacturing process to complete that? To create that, that, uh, that feeling
Klaas Kelner: Once you try enough tobaccos in their pure form, in their varietal and regions.
Um, because Pito banano from region number seven is different than Pito Banano from Region 15 in Dominican Republic. Because of soil compositions, different rivers, different weather, uh, pockets in the valley. Um, once you try enough varieties and try enough regions and you [00:57:00] understand how each one of these varieties affect the palate or stimulate in the palate, then you will be able to basically draw a map of your tongue and say, okay, this variety is sweet, so it will hit the sweet area of your palette.
This variety is sweet, salty. So now I have another tobacco that is complimenting the sweetness, but it's also adding some saltiness to the, to the flavor. But wait, I don't wanna put too much salt in the blend because now my blend or my food is destroyed because I'm destroying it with too much salt. So it has to be just a dash of tobacco that is salty.
And then I have another tobacco that is acidic, but that acidity is also very close to the bitter. So I need to hit some tobacco in acidity, but then if I put too much acidity, then my mouth is gonna be flooding with saliva. So now I have to think of adding another tobacco that has bitter connotations or woody earthy leathery connotations to counter the acidity so that [00:58:00] your mouth is not too overpopulated with saliva or is not too dry.
And then that way my making a blend of 4, 5, 6, 7 tobaccos. You have each area of your palate being stimulated at a certain amount. Am I sitting in a biology class right now? This is incredible. Chef Caler kitchen. It's incredible. Chef Cal full pallet stimulation, and you have thousands of taste buds in your palate and they are geographically distributed.
And then you have millions of sensors in your nose, and that's more connected to your brain and your memory. Uh, this leads me to my next question. So between the palate and the nose, then you have to, you know, find that balance and create full pilot simulation. And hopefully it's not one sided and not one dimensional.
Are, are you retro hailing when you smoke? Rarely. Rare.
Chef: Mm-hmm.
Bam Bam: Ha ha. I asked that for a very specific reason. Someone's vindicated. [00:59:00] Really? Yep. Do you Occasionally retro? Hell, almost never. Really? Wow. There you go.
Senator: Wow. Class. We're gonna be great friends. I hope you're welcome, Senator. You're welcome. You teed that up perfectly.
Oh, correctly. I am curious though, uh, on when you're talking about blending and all these different varietals and, and how different, you know, each of these are. When you open your pantry, when a client comes to you, how many different varietals of tobacco have you you tried and do you kind of have at your disposal to construct a blend?
Klaas Kelner: Well, first, let me address the, the retro ha. Yes. Let's not leave, let's not over that. Let's not leave it there. Um, the way I've been trained is that when you are given a blind cigar and you don't know what it is, the easiest way to determine the zones and the varieties and the percentages inside a cigar is by using [01:00:00] your palate because the palate is geographically distributed and certain tobaccos are so defined that are just sweet and salty, so defined that it's just stinging the tip of the tongue and so defined in the way that they hit the acidity of your region, of, of, of the CIC glands in the side of your palate.
I focus so much on the palate because this, the palate is what helps me dissect and investigate what tobaccos are inside in your nose, you have so many receptors and it's being, uh, it's being overstimulated in so many ways where I prefer just to just glaze, uh, just hover my nose above the smoke that coming aroma the aromas.
Yeah. So that it's not inundating my my nose. Where, uh, it's kind of like, uh, when you have different glasses for different kinds of distills wine, champagne that in that way, I don't like overstimulating my [01:01:00] nose by retro hailing, where with retro hailing, what I will would do is kind of look for the intensity, how strong and how peppery the cigar is.
But I am not so much looking for specific flavors and specific tobaccos with my nose. That's interesting. Mm-hmm. Wow. No, it's very different way of looking at it. Yes. And some people say it's ludicrous, but my way, well, you no others don't.
Gizmo: You've hit retro Senator Canac from time and you've hit stemware, so you're really talking to, uh, Senator earlier.
No, but he brought up
Senator: wine. I mean, it, it's no different than that. That's true. It's like you get, you take in the nose of a wine and you're getting kind of a preview of what's to come, but the ultimate judgment is when it hits your palette. Yeah. And it needs to be flavorful enough to kind of hit all those different notes and receptors that you're able to pick those out.
Very true.
Pagoda: In, in fact, yesterday in the presentation you did go through it, right? The suite in the front and you know, uh, how it develops. There's certain areas for sure, the tasting receptors, but on the
Senator: varietals, I'm just very curious, uh, and I'm sure you've tried so much kind. [01:02:00] How much do you have in that pantry or in that bank that you can pull on to construct a blend?
And
Klaas Kelner: right now we are still a boutique size factory. We're not making millions of cigars. Uh, and. I wish that I had more space for more tobacco. 'cause I love having inventory and buying more tobacco. Yeah. You mentioned
Bam Bam: that in your presentation. Always buy more.
Klaas Kelner: It's very, it's very, very important. Always buy tobacco.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Klaas Kelner: Money and tobacco is better than money in the bank. And, uh, I probably, that I actively use on all my blends, I probably have about 15 different varietals. Uh, 50 15. 15. Okay. 15 different varietals. Um, from wrappers to binders and fillers. But I have used up to over 30 depending on the projects. Wow. But the key here is not so much because every project is different because there might be a project of only 10,000 cigars that [01:03:00] has a specific tobacco, and I only used it for that specific project.
So I actively use probably about 15 different varieties and blend with them. And then certain projects require very specific tobaccos that get added on. Um, but the key here is being able to have access to the suppliers. Very blessed that when I started my factory, I had the foot in the door. Yeah. And I was able to just outreach to everybody and everybody was willing to help me.
So I, I fully thank the suppliers and everybody that helped me start my factory because they let me go into their. Inventory and say we have all these varieties. I mean, I went to some suppliers where in one day I tasted over 20 different varieties that they had to offer. And then in some cases I would have to go back because like, oh, we forgot to taste this one.
You should try it. But then one supplier has Allo Dominicano, which is one of the most common varieties and [01:04:00] found in Dominican Republic, but every other supplier has Alo Dominicano. So I have to go and try every supplier's allo Dominicano and every supplier's pto, banano, and every supplier's rojo and every supplier's clear 98.
So, and then I have to recognize and memorize the differences of Creo 98 from supplier to supplier and pick which one I think is the best one for my factory or for my style of blending. Wow. Or which one will complement the other tobaccos that I'm buying so that I don't have just all the same tobacco stimulating in the same area of your palate.
How are you testing
Bam Bam: tobaccos? Are you rolling a complete cigar? Are you testing the tobaccos individually? And how do you do that?
Klaas Kelner: It's like you're making a mini putto. Uh, we call it a che. And uh, it's just a hundred percent, uh, one varietal filler binder. [01:05:00] You don't put a beautiful wrap around it. You just kind of wrap it into little.
Mini cigar. Mm-hmm. Very rough craft made. And you try that bale. Oh wow. So when I go and I buy tobacco, for example, just on on Tuesday, I was buying tobacco right before, uh, PCA and I bought 15 bales of the same variety. But that day I tasted over 25 bales of the same variety, and I rejected over 10. And it took me about three hours to go to each bale, open up each bale, inspect it, see it has the quality that I'm looking for, and then taste it and then see if every one of those 15 bales I buy taste exactly the same.
Pagoda: That's incredible. So this is complex a lot more go than the ciza you think? It does. Oh yeah. We take
Klaas Kelner: it for granted. We do. Oh yeah, we do. The sourcing of the tobacco is important. The inventory is important, and my suppliers joke and they say class one day when you grow and you have to buy a hundred bales, you can't taste all hundred bales.
It's like, [01:06:00] oh, somebody's gonna have to do it. That's correct. Yeah. I, I can't buy bales without buying. We're a quick flight to the Dominican. Don't worry. Yeah,
Senator: yeah.
Klaas Kelner: We'll be great assistance
Bam Bam: by the way.
Gizmo: So we were talking to the guys from Avow who were telling us that for one example, they, one of those cigars that you, uh, that you manufacture for them, has a tobacco in it that is extinct that 10 years ago was manufactured and bailed and put aside, and it'll never be made again.
So can you tell us a little bit about, uh.
Klaas Kelner: Stories like that. Yeah. We have that cigar in front of you. It's the Awakening, the one with the red band. Mm-hmm. It's their limited edition. We made, uh, 20,000 cigars in change. Um, and I can't recreate that cigar I've tried. Wow. So it's a limited production for sure.
It's a, a real limited edition. Can't be made. Again. We found four bales of a particular hybrid of a wrapper that was being grown in Ecuador. The [01:07:00] cigar, the, the hybrid doesn't exist anymore. It's not being grown anymore. And the, the tobacco was from 2014. So I, I told the guys That's a great idea. By the way.
I like 2014, I, I told the guys from about, he was like, I think we should buy all bales. And it's like, well, how many cigars are we gonna making? He is like, well, I can guarantee you 23, 20 4,000 cigars, um, after rejections, cigars that break in packaging and things. Um, so let's buy all of them and let's use up all the bales, because I can't do a production with half a bale, you know?
No. So we're gonna do cigars until the last leaf is used up. And, and that's the, that was the production. And it tastes a particular way. There are AOS varietals that taste similar, but not exactly the same. I can't recreate it. I've tried that wrap tastes a particular way.
Bam Bam: Wow.
Klaas Kelner: Can't wait to try it.
Senator: So right now you're blending for [01:08:00] clients, for their customers palettes.
Do you ever blend for yourself and your own palette and what you might want to smoke?
Klaas Kelner: That's a great question. Um, I, I even when I blend for myself, um, I've, I've, I've released a couple things here or there. I used to have some cigar stores like in Puerto Plata, um, where I had a private label for my cigar stores.
And I, even when I blended for myself, I was blending for my own cigar, but I was still thinking about the who was going to smoke it. Um, we don't make a cigar for my family, but every couple years we make a small batch of cigars for my family. Kind of just a tribute for ourselves, you know, and keep the trademark alive, protected.
And it's just for whoever is here with me that day gets to smoke it. And there's 400 cigars made. And can I
Pagoda: have one, [01:09:00] uh, you made, you made a special one for your daughter when she was born?
Klaas Kelner: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. So, so like, I made one for when my daughter was born, 500 cigars. I made one last year for my dad, 400 cigars.
Um, I was doing a video shoot with one of those cigars and that ash was spectacularly white and perfect and was. Burning perfectly. And I was asked in that interview, it was like, what's your favorite cigar? I was like, dude, if I could take the cigar to an island, a deserted island and just live off the cigar right now, like that's, that's all I need.
That cigar is perfect. And so it's very hard to blend for myself because I don't know exactly what I want at what moment of the day, because every day is different In the morning. I want something different at night, I want something different. And so I wanna make a cigar that I can smoke it any time of the [01:10:00] day and it can always go to, and it's always gonna be consistent.
So that normally means it has to be at least maximum medium bodied or to, to the bottom because I don't wanna start my day with a very, very strong cigar. So my blending style probably towards myself. It needs to be sweeter, slightly spiced, little bit acidic, not so much in the bitter when I blend to myself, that's kinda, i, I tend to lean in that direction.
Doesn't mean I can't blend for somebody else for bitterness and strength. Sure. But I have a
Gizmo: question for you. You just mentioned time of day. Uh, do you trust your palate when you're tasting just raw tobacco? Right? You're rolling those, uh, the, the, you know, the little piros right to taste the tobacco. Do you trust your palate all hours of the day or do you only trust your palate to do that in the morning?
In the afternoon, like when are you most trusting of your own palate to taste stuff? You're gonna be buying [01:11:00] 10:00 AM
Klaas Kelner: two 30. That's the window. No, 10:00 AM sounds like pagodas work day from like nine. That's correct. No, from like nine. From like nine 30 to like already 1130 and then from about two to about four.
Wow. That's oh's When I work on tasting and doing very specific, looking for very specific buying tobacco, looking for very specific profiles. The reason is because I need to have a full breakfast. My body needs to be in tip top shape. Um, once I gets, gets to noon, I'm starting to get hungry and my body's not in tip top shape.
Um, so I need to eat, I need to let that food digest. I need to have a clean palate. So no coffee, no, I, it must have been at least 30 minutes, one hour from last time I ate very clean palate and, and when I'm working, [01:12:00] that's really kind of when I, I have to focus on that stuff. I cannot let other outside influences, you know, skew my judgment.
But to be honest, I trust my pilot all day. Mm-hmm. Every day. But work is work. Yeah. You know, I, I can't not take it seriously. So if I'm having steak, dinner and wine, and I'm smoking a cigar, I trust my palate. I can dissect the cigar, I can analyze it, you know? No problem. But that's not work. My work is blending.
Yeah. And I cannot be relaxed about my work.
Gizmo: And plus, the, the blending decision you're making, you're purchasing a significant quantity of tobacco. You better be on. So yeah, you better be on your game. Oh
Klaas Kelner: yeah.
Gizmo: It's thousands of dollars.
Klaas Kelner: Yeah. Oh yeah. When you're, when you're buying wrap or over $50 a pound, oof.
You're buying [01:13:00] thousand pounds, you know, a rapper in one day. I mean, back when I was working for corporate, you know, global companies, we were buying millions dollars worth of tobacco in one day. You cannot relax during those two, three days of buying. You celebrate pressure, celebrate at the end. Yeah. You celebrate at the end.
You open up a nice bottle, you know, with your client, with your supplier. And, and we did a good purchase. We agreed upon it. We shook hands and we celebrate now. But during the purchasing moment, you don't mess with that.
Bam Bam: You mentioned yesterday in your presentation, your, one of your objectives in making a cigar is, is to have a cigar that you've made.
You don't have to have anything to drink, nothing with a cigar. Just enjoy the cigar from beginning to end. When you do sit down at home or in the evening and want a pair of cigar, what do you go for?
Klaas Kelner: Well, yesterday in the [01:14:00] presentation, there was not even water on my, and I'm like, I'm speaking a lot. I'm drying my palette.
I have a cigar lit. The cigar performed beautifully for the whole hour. It was a 64 by six, and the cigar wasn't too strong, so it, and it wasn't drying my palate so I could speak for an hour mm-hmm. And not need water. Yesterday, the cigar performed beautifully, my palate performed beautifully, and I was able to speak for an hour and not feel like I needed water.
That was a great moment. Yeah. Um, so yes, for me, still the perfect cigar is a cigar that I can enjoy for an hour and not need anything else. A cigar needs to be perfect on its own. It doesn't need outside influence to be better. It should be perfect on its own. But if I'm going to pair, if the cigar is more acidic on the lighter end Chardonnays [01:15:00] champagne, every brand is different and they have different portfolios, but, or a light beer goes very, very well.
And now, if I am going to be having a very rich cigar, uh, spicy peppery cigar, um. Uh, let's go into the bourbons and into the whiskeys. You know, if it's a very bitter cigar, maybe, you know, koala peedi. Yeah. Whiskeys, yeah. You know, but I try to pair the cigar to the drink, or if I get a drink without, and then I have a choice of cigars, then I drink the drink first, and then I look for the cigar.
Mm. If I only have one cigar, then I'll taste the cigar, and then I'll order the drink and pair it to the cigar. Makes sense? Um, you cannot, there's two types of pairings. There's, uh, a complimentary type of pairing and there is parallel over positioned [01:16:00] type of pairing. Meaning if I have a cigar that is very sweet, I wanna pair it to compliment it with something that is stronger, bitter, more spicy, more peppery, or, and that way I complete the palate stimulation in my palette or the peril type of pairing, which is my preferred type of pairing.
If I have a cigar that is from one to 10, four sweetness, let's get a drink that is foreign sweetness. Uh, if the cigar is spicy, I need to match the spiciness to the drink. I need to match the bitterness to, to the drink. And I try to match as perfectly as I can, the cigar to the drink or the food so that they don't fight each other.
And they are parallel in the type of stimulation. They just go along each other, just enhancing those specific areas of stimulation.
Bam Bam: Interesting.
Senator: So you mentioned that occasionally you'll blend something for yourself, your own palette, your father, family, uh, things like that. I'm looking at your polo, you're wearing Kelner cigars.
I see a, a beautiful logo on there. Is there someday you think, in your future, an aspiration that [01:17:00] you, you might, you know, want to pursue your own brand and, and blending for yourself and, and other customers like you? The million
Klaas Kelner: dollar question,
my focus right now is making the factory grow, making my clients grow, uh, making sure the factory is running as smoothly as possible. You need to build a team. We're two years in, you know, we're still in our baby steps. Um, and that's not outta the question. Obviously one day I want to do something to honor my family.
Mm-hmm. And it will come. It's not the time, but it's exciting though. Yeah. Every, everybody, everybody is waiting for the day that a counter cigar comes out and they'll have to wait. We look
Senator: forward to it. Alright.
Gizmo: Good answer.
Senator: Love it.
Gizmo: Well, congratulations on all your success already. Just two years in that, uh, 10 point cigar that we love from stoic.
I can't wait to try some of these avowed cigars. Oh yes. And of course, whatever [01:18:00] else comes. From the Kelner Cigars factory in the Dominican Republic, we, uh, we will be eagerly awaiting. Mm-hmm. Uh, 'cause we are big, big fans of what you're doing and we really appreciate you taking the time today to sit down with us.
Uh, we're very grateful.
Klaas Kelner: It's been a pleasure, guys. Thanks for having me over and thank you so much. Thank you for letting me put a face to the names. I thank you for vindicating me on the retro Hell,
Senator: I can't Thank you. Yeah. We're never gonna hear the end of this, by the way.
Pagoda: I'm closer. I'm closer on. Send it aside.
Anyways, that's also true. Deviated step to be this Devi. Correct.
Gizmo: Kloss. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
All right boys, we have to thank Kloss Kelner again for the interview from PCA. We learned a lot. We did. I know Our listeners will have loved that interview. They just heard.
Bam Bam: Honestly, that's an excellent recording to listen to over and over if you're really interested in how cigars are made.
Gizmo: And I think there's a lot in there that the first time when I, when obviously we were there in the moment, but when I listened to it again, preparing for this episode Oh yeah.
I didn't [01:19:00] remember some of the stuff we had talked about. True. Like, there's, there's so, there's so, it's so dense of Well, you were taking notes. Oh, of course I was. Of course. I'm very studious, very studious,
Bam Bam: fastidious that day. You were.
Chef: Yeah. And, and coming into this pot tonight, into this recording, I li I listened to that interview 'cause I wasn't there for it.
Just when he goes into the whole, uh, you know how he doesn't retro hale? I'm like, oh boy, here we go. And I knew band was teeing it up. I thought it was genius the way you did it. Um, I don't remember that. Yeah. Well, the way you heed it up was perfect. Uh, you just let him on. But then I know senator felt vindicated there, uh, you know, with his, you know, not really retro hailing.
Mm-hmm. But you know what? After smoking this cigar and the nuance and flavor I'm getting from Bright Fruit, and it's just, it really is hitting every portion of your palate in, in ways that not many cigars that we've done on this spot have done. But
Gizmo: I gotta say though, I, I feel bad for Senator and Cloths and all these other people who don't retro hale [01:20:00] because the retro hales un delicious.
Unbelievable. They're losing out. Yeah. They're losing out. They're losing out, they're missing out.
Bam Bam: Yeah. That's correct. Yeah.
Gizmo: On so much, you know, olfactory sensory there. I mean, it's, it's true. It's, it's incredible.
Bam Bam: You can kind of see why he doesn't retro hale. He wants to experience the cigar directly on his pallet.
Gizmo: And I think probably how most cigar smokers smoke, I, I would think most folks are not throwing it through their nose. Yeah. He's he's a big tongue guy. He drew a tongue.
Bam Bam: Yeah, that's correct.
Chef: You, you see, but there, there's one thing there that he said how he, he doesn't want to, you know, overwhelm the nasal passages or his palate through the retro hill.
So he relies a little bit on the, you know, on the, on the smell of the burn line. Yeah. But on this cigar, the burn line doesn't give off No. Anywhere near the amount of flavor, aroma that you get to a retro. So we were,
Bam Bam: we were chatting about that, right? Yeah. It, this, so this cigar experience I'm having with this, I had it months ago.
This is a much better experience. And it's because you probably had it in your tower for how long?
Gizmo: Uh, I probably ordered these [01:21:00]
Bam Bam: six weeks ago maybe. So what I'm getting tonight is that this cigar is coating my mouth with all of the nuances of flavors that we talked about tonight. Honestly, it's pairing perfectly with what we're drinking.
It's a perfect beer. Beautiful. I think there's, there's this like subtle oil, oil, oil, so that's the word.
Grinder: The glen. In the Glen Morgie.
Bam Bam: There's also subtlety in this cigar that's so elegant and creamy and smooth, and you get those, those, those notes. But there's this finger,
Grinder: there's this slight acidity in the scotch which cuts it.
Bam Bam: That's true.
Grinder: Which cuts it in a good way.
Bam Bam: Very good way. Yeah. Very good way. Incredible pairing tonight.
Gizmo: I gotta say, I, I think, you know, talking about the pairing, I think both of them kind of piggybacking on what you guys are saying, like both of them are, are so mild of a, you know, there's a little, there's not a lot of oomph in either of them, but they're so, both of them are so full flavored and so complex that I think [01:22:00] that both of these cater to cigar and scotch drinkers mm-hmm.
Who prefer something lighter. Mm-hmm. And I also think it very much caters to folks who prefer something a little bit more full or a little heavier, because I think the complexity there kind of works for everybody. Wow. Like, I think this is a cigar. We always talk about this. You can give this cigar to a newbie who just started smoking cigars last week, and you can give this as a cigar to try to impress someone who's been smoking cigars for many years.
That's like our friend Rooster has. That's correct. Like, look at him. He's loving this cigar rock, Gibraltar. It's excellent Wait cigar.
But I'm, I'm really happy with this pairing tonight and I, I was a little nervous, honestly, with the scotch coming in because I didn't remember loving the 10 when we did it. Uh, I don't know, 180 episodes ago. And obviously we haven't gone back and a bunch of the Glenn Morgie we've done, we're gonna go through the ratings later, has not performed well in this podcast.
No, you
Grinder: gotta give yourself [01:23:00] a break. You had a primitive
Bam Bam: palette at the time. That's also true. But this, I think Fair point, this, this compared, and that was
Gizmo: right after the Shiva episode. But to be
Bam Bam: fair though, this is, this experience, I think just out classes, every other Glen Merani product that we've had.
Gizmo: I agree. I think it's fantastic
Chef: out classes.
Bam Bam: Am I wrong? I
Grinder: I mean, it's, it's only a 10 year spirit, right? It's my favorite Glen Morange. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's unbelievable. Or Glen Morange. Glen Morgie. Mo Moji Moji. Um, and I, I don't drink any of the other stuff. This is all, uh, this is the only thing I really drink from theirs, even the age stuff.
Yeah.
Gizmo: So again, we have to thank Klauss Kelner Boys. Yeah, definitely. Great interview. And of course we have to thank Klauss and Andrew and Dave from over at Small Batch of Vowed for these incredible cigars. This is awesome.
Bam Bam: Beautifully
Gizmo: done. Well, this is really well done.
Rooster: Well, well constructed cigars. It's
Bam Bam: ridiculous.
You know, it's, it's, I think one of those cigars that becomes, it's gonna be a staple for me for sure. I think as we start handing it out in a [01:24:00] club, guys will start smoking this. Oh yeah. We're gonna, it's gonna become adopted. Like all the other cigars we love. This thing's gonna take over the group chat.
It'll, it'll become, I think, a. A mainstay. Yeah. It's
Rooster: gonna become the new aging room.
Gizmo: Yeah. It's like new reality. It's like everybody. Yeah. It's like everybody's adopted Fabrica five in the, in the, in the lounge.
Bam Bam: Correct.
Gizmo: They've adopted Aldino. Aino. They have adopted aging room. That's correct. The stoic of course.
Yep. The sister to this. Yeah. From cost. And I think this, like you guys are saying, this one's next,
Bam Bam: honestly, the lineup. That's a great lineup. Yeah. For an one, for an, for an evening, in an evening sit to have all of those cigars in your case, that is gonna, that'd be a spec, by the way. That's what I do now.
That's spectacular.
Gizmo: I smoke an allo, Dino. Yeah. I smoke an FOH uh, Fabrica five of some sort. You know, either a pure or a mofo. No, I, I, I do 'em all. Oh yeah. I mean, I did an info last night. I had a Queen Corona the other day. Wow. I had a spot of Gorda the day before that. Like, I, I'm through them and then I'll have the aging room, and then I'll finish with a padron.
Yeah. That's kind of my, that's, that's my [01:25:00] three hour sit on my deck when I'm stressed out. Delicious
Chef: evening. Does Rob ship all the boxes to your house? We don't love you anymore, Rob.
Gizmo: I use our code lizard pond. Okay. So boys, I got some more information from Dave I wanted to share over at, uh, a vowed cigar.
So I asked him as a follow-up. I found it fascinating. You know, I, I wanted to know why after, you know. Small batch is very successful. Right? Like why now? Why was now the time to start their own cigar line? Obviously small batch has been very successful for a long time. They have some of the best customer service, fast shipping, like everybody on the internet and in the cigar community here love small batch.
Yeah, I do too. I think good reviews, reviews and they have great, uh, they have a great rewards program. Like you accrue points, you can always save money on your orders. There's great sales all the time or on the big holidays, like it's a, it's a really great site. So I asked them, I said, why now? And how have retailers who you ultimately compete with in some ways, I [01:26:00] guess reacted to you guys having your own line.
So that's what I asked Dave. And here's was his, here was his response. Well, as you can imagine, it's something that has been in the back of our minds for quite some time. The question of quote, if we had our own brand, what would we do differently? And there's no shortage of factory partners that we could have called on.
So this is not meant to take anything away from them all. When Klaus told Andrew and Amar that he was going to open his own factory, it all came together. Kloss is a force multiplier. I love that. That's phrase That's true. Very true. With his connections to a SP, of course, great supplier in the Dominican Republic and his family, family legacy.
It was the right timing, the right factory partner, and it answered a lot of our questions as to how and what we would do in addition to class. Also having very high standards. He is also part of the next generation. And he says, A new dawn that honors the traditions that came before, while being free to innovate and create a new legacy, you'll find his insignia as a medallion in every one of our bands.
So if you look at his, at the bands here, one [01:27:00] of those medallions is the cost. Kilner Kilner, cigars Medallion. Pretty cool. So he says Legacy is also top of mind for us, especially since each of us are fathers. And that ties back to, we've been kind of on this theme around fatherhood here on the podcast the last few weeks.
That's, we've had a lot of great listener emails about it. Bam, bam. Talked about taking, dropping his son off his college. You talked about sharing a cigar with your son. Yeah. And of course Senator talking about his little guy turning three, like that's been a big theme here on the pod fatherhood. So I love hearing that from him.
He says, we launched Dev vowed cigars with every intention that this would be our defining legacy. And I think it shows, it's our resounding answer to what we would do differently. And he also continues ow, cigars as a wholly separate company from small batch. And our retail partners have been so welcoming, kind, excited, and generous with their time to take the time to learn our story and share it with their communities, which I love to hear that because, I mean, [01:28:00] the cigar world's not that big.
I mean, the universe is very small generally, but in the cigar community, everybody knows everybody. It's not a huge community. PCA kind of, that floor kind of covers the industry really. Um, all the retailers there, all the manufacturers. So it's a very, very small community. So to hear that the retail partners that they obviously compete with on the internet are warm and welcoming of these cigars, I think is, is really refreshing to hear.
So they say, um. They've been generous with their time to take the, take the time to learn our story and share it with their communities. We have a reputation of Exce exceptional customer service. That's very true, and I think that resonates with everyone that champions of a cigars at their lounge. We aren't known as being the big box blowout site, and we take our time to educate customers daily about cigars and help them find their next favorite experience.
The cigar industry is a relationship industry, and many of our retail partners have known us and watched us operate for a very long time. We're very proud to say we've always tried to put [01:29:00] people first, and that sentiment has come back to us in spades. A vowed cigars is a movement. It's not a house blend or a one-off limited edition run.
It's going to be. Serious for us. I've been all over the US this summer to support our retail partners and meet their communities with various events in the hospitality that we've been shown. Puts a gigantic smile on my face thinking about it right now as I email you. I love hearing this, guys. Yeah, it's great.
This is awesome. It's a great story. Instead of one team, one fight I've taken to saying one dream, one fight this year, because that's how it really feels. Everyone I've met from lounge owners to their tobacconists to to brand owners have been so welcoming and excited for what the future holds for us, and he's continues.
And speaking of the future, we have a lot more that's been aging since last year, so they have a lot of stuff coming and all new brand called Hallowed Hands, the vow, 11.25, the New Dawn and a different size, and he says, we're all in on avowed cigars. We'll continue to [01:30:00] build on this foundation with Kloss Kelmer.
Bam Bam: Cool.
Gizmo: So that is why I wanted to do this cigar for episode 2 0 1, a new dawn. Our new century of episodes. Klas Ner, obviously being the manufacturing partner of Avowed. I love Small Batch. They're a great retailer in the US here. So, um, I, I just think that all of this all in all is a home run and this cigar, it's a home run.
Is a home run. Yeah.
Rooster: Great story. Do you know what else does K class do other than stoic? And uh, I think
Gizmo: he told us that those were the only two that currently were publicly known right now. That's correct. And obviously I asked him on the interview about doing his own cigar, his own wine. And I think he's really focused on being, he's
Bam Bam: not ready for that.
A
Gizmo: manufacturer. Yeah. And a blender and a partner for these guys and any other small cigar brands that are gonna come to him. But I think that's his focus for now. He's,
Bam Bam: I think he's in a enviable position 'cause he gets to learn from all the companies that are coming to him. I'll make all of your cigars, I'll learn your process, how you run your business, and eventually he'll build [01:31:00] his own own.
So he must, must have
Rooster: a pretty much like a stockpile of different tobaccos.
Gizmo: No, he has access to, that's right. Some of the best tobacco because of his, obviously the Kilner name, his father. That whole story. He has access to some of the best tobacco, which as we talked about with the stoic, for example, there's that South American, you know, source that is unnamed.
Yep. That's secret. That's secret leaf. That secret leaf that Kloss was able to find at his, you know, his, his partner that provides him with tobacco. Nobody else has access to that. So I think it's the same with this, this unique wrapper, this dark Connecticut that's been super aged. Like he's able to get his hands on stuff that most folks aren't able to get their hands on mm-hmm.
According to them. So I think that's a defining factor in what makes this brand interesting. And also, of course, cross' palate.
Rooster: Yeah.
Gizmo: And how he thinks about that. I
Rooster: think we need a lounge lizard cigar,
Gizmo: maybe. Yeah. That sounds like a lot of work for me. Correct. [01:32:00]
Chef: Well, we'll, we'll all help with the tasting on that.
That's correct. And nothing else. Thanks Chef.
I gotta say this is the perfect flagship, flagship cigar for what I, for what I think small batch stands for. You know, I, I think the flavor profile you're getting in this cigar is not something you're gonna get in any mass produced, you know, cigar that's flooding the market. I mean, this thing has flavors and, and depth that is just, it's complex, not.
Found in a lot of cigars and it's, it's really amazing. It's a pleasurable smoke. Very, I mean, this is incredible.
Bam Bam: I'm a, I'm a little further ahead. I think Grindr, giz and myself are kind of a, I'm getting, well, like an inch and a quarter, inch and a half from the bottom, more or less. Yeah. It's picked up
Gizmo: in strength too.
Well, I'm getting a ton of dark chocolate now. I would agree with that. A little espresso almost.
Bam Bam: Yeah. And there's some earthiness that we had early on. It's kind of
Rooster: earthiness and [01:33:00] creaminess has continued throughout.
Bam Bam: Not for me though. It's come and gone. It's back now. But with that dark chocolate combination, I've never experienced that before.
Not ever.
Chef: I think it's genius. 'cause going into that, that interview where he taught, where he, he touches a little bit on acidity and bitterness and how he leans on those things to balance one another out. He does. And being in, in the restaurant, in the hospitality industry and understanding how bitter cocktails work like a Negroni, uh, you know, oftentimes those cocktails, they, they.
You keep going back to them because of that bitterness, you keep trying to quench that thirst that that bitterness is creating. Your, your mouth is salivating here. He's doing it in a genius way where it's now coming into the end of the cigar and bam, ever since you've gotten to this point, all you keep talking about is how you want light another, you want another one?
You, it keeps genius. It's you wanting more. Yeah. It's genius. It, I think, you know, you know, despite him not retro hailing, [01:34:00] uh, you know, the guy knows what he's doing. I, I love it. I love it. I love how he does it. I love what he's doing.
Gizmo: So I have a quick question for you on this. So, when you're planning a plate, when you're designing in your dish at one of the restaurants, are you thinking similarly to cloth in the way that you're trying to hit the pallet?
Like how does that process work with food for you? Can you give us an example of a dish, like paint that picture for us? I'm really curious. Sure.
Chef: Absolutely. So, you know, it starts with, you know, what's, what's the main focus of the plate usually may be a protein, right? And if that protein is something that's higher fat, you know, if I'm dealing with, uh, say a, a cut of pork that's fattier like pork butt or pork shoulder versus a pork tenderloin, that's super lean it.
If I'm using a fattier cut, I'm gonna want something. You know, I may stay away from purees or, or accessories to the plate that are, uh, rich, uh, because then the plate is a little overwhelming. Or if I'm gonna introduce another rich component, then I'll introduce pickles. And that's where [01:35:00] things like pickled radishes, pickled onions, uh, you know, pickled tomatoes, things like this make the plate, because then that offers some vibrance and acidity.
Mm-hmm. Um, it, it doesn't fatigue the palate, it cuts the fat. Yeah, that's true. So yeah, a hundred percent. You know, I do the same thing. You know, oftentimes, you know, one of my favorite garnishes as micro coriander or a micro cilantro, and that's because not only, you know, for some people it's soapy, but for those that enjoy cilantro, it's not so much soapy.
It's more citrusy, right? Mm-hmm. There's a citrus note, um, and a freshness and an graciousness that it introduces to a dish, um, that you could also get from chives or, you know, maybe some mint in a different way. So yeah, a thousand percent when you go and create a dish, or when I go and create a dish, there's, you know, all of those points are considered, uh, in the final composition.
Hmm.
Gizmo: By the way, speaking of pickled things, I have to share this with you. My buddy from where I grew up in [01:36:00] Northeast Pennsylvania goes to this place, I think it's called Shady Maple. Have you ever heard of that?
Chef: Yes. Never.
Gizmo: No, it's, it's a crazy, it's like this big like general store or something. Yeah. It sounds shady.
Brought, brought a jar to my house. He came up the other day, brought a jar to my house of pickled asparagus. What I've seen that is the best thing to snack on. I've never had that. I haven't either. I didn't know it existed. I didn't know you could pickle asparagus. Apparently could, you could pickle anything.
Have you had that chef? I've never had pickle asparagus, but Okay. It's mind blowingly good. Wow. Uh, you should put it on a plate. It is so freaking good, dude. Sounds awesome. I, we've gone through a three jar. I ordered it online. I've, we've gone through three jars in two weeks at my house. Wow. Everybody loves it.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: Really good.
Bam Bam: Yeah. You know, just getting back to the cigar, you don't wanna, you don't
Gizmo: wanna stay on pickle asparagus, man. No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go back there. Um,
Bam Bam: that earthy minerality that for me [01:37:00] came and went and came back again. That is kind of creating the experience that these two guys are talking about.
So when I'm home and if I'm making myself something to eat, I'll usually a protein and a little bit of rice and some greenery that I chop up and I kind of make this mash of a salad, but it's not interesting until I put in a pickle a component. So I'll dice up a pickle and I'll dice up olives because that adds a little acidity to it and groin and Yeah.
And it's, it's actually easier to eat because it keeps it interesting. Yep. And it kind of wakes up the, the palate, the mouth, right? Yep. Yep. I'm, I get that in cigars like this, that really pay attention to that approach. And I, and I know he pays attention to that.
Chef: Yeah, no, without a doubt. And I think that here, like there are some acidic notes to this cigar, and when I say acidic, I don't mean abrasive, right?
No, not at all. In the sense of like, we've called out raspberry, which is a fresh fruit. Mm-hmm. And bright and citrusy, um, in its own right. Um, I think that's, it's, it's important to have those elements and Yeah. Things that you're consuming and things that [01:38:00] are hitting your palate because it creates ultimate interest.
Bam Bam: And I'll keep going back to it. This cigar coats your mouth. There aren't many cigars that I've had that actually have that lingering long lingering finish. And that, that coating of your palette Yeah. That I'm getting in this cigar tonight. And
Chef: since we're on pickles, I'm gonna mention a pickle. Uh, some one of my favorite.
I thought we moved on. You said we were going back. All right. One of my favorite things to pickle are mushrooms. I love, I don't like mushrooms, man. I know you don't like mushrooms. I know this was gonna I like mushrooms. I do too as well. I love pickling mushrooms not raw. Mm-hmm. You know, saute them a little bit first.
'cause you gotta kind of bring out that umami. Mm. And then you get a cold pickle going with a little sugar, some vinegar. It doesn't have to be a white vinegar. Rice vinegar usually is my go-to vinegar for pickling. Mm-hmm. 'cause it's milder. Uh, but throw in a times, spray a couple, uh, slivers of garlic and some black peppercorns.
You [01:39:00] know? And you
Bam Bam: are in for a treat. I, I think this cigar is inspiring this conversation. Yeah. There's a lot of merit to this stick man. Yeah. Yeah. There's so much merit to this
Chef: cigar. I think it shows klaus's genius. It's insane in blending. Yeah. This is great.
Bam Bam: And yet, and yet that dark chocolate's still there for me right now.
Rooster: I'm getting a whole lot of chocolate. It's still, I mean, that earthy note still comes through. Yeah. That floral and that fruity note that kind of was dissipating here and there would come and go. That's true. But I'm kind of, I don't, I don't miss it though. No, I don't miss the floral No, I'm not saying I miss it, but it like came and went.
Yeah, sure. Right.
Gizmo: But I, I just like how this is developed now into the, the last third, like, totally. It's been a very complex journey, but it's been very interesting. Like obviously we stopped recording, you know, during the second third, and we were chatting amongst ourselves. Mm-hmm. But this cigar throughout has consistently been changing, but has been like on an upward tick look from the first
Bam Bam: light I'll go out on a limb and say, this rivals any of the higher, [01:40:00] highest rated new worlds that we've had recently.
Yeah. That we all love. Yeah. Honestly, that has,
Chef: and you know what I love about this too? I, I get some of that stoic DNA. Mm-hmm. Like I get some of that depth and, and some more unusual notes that we don't often get in. A lot of the cigars that we smoked at the Stoic was providing that made it so hard to like nail down what exactly, uh, what tobaccos were used.
Mm. Um, I get some of that DNA here, I get a little adeno here as well. You know that Yeah. That a little bit of concerto sav savory note. Yeah. There's like savory deep notes here that are just bouncing all over your palate. It's a wonderful cigar. So it's 10 11 for me. You can go back. So before
Gizmo: we get to the ratings boys, we have to do our Lizard of the week and I'm very excited to say that we have a voice memo tonight from Lizard John from Boise.
He says, uh, hi giz, my first voice memo. Hope I don't sound like a moron. I should mention that my wife is very supportive of my [01:41:00] cigar hobby. So the effort to successfully balance family time with cigar time is purely a task I've placed on myself. Cheers, lizard John from Boise. And here is Lizard John's voice memo.
And by the way, anybody out there can win Lizard of the Week. I've been saying for a long time, and I especially love voice memos and this is why. Yeah, correct.
Lizard John from Boise: Hello boys, it's Lizard John from Boise. First off, I just wanted to thank you all for taking the time every week to put together this amazing podcast.
Truly a highlight of my week. I had a question for the panel, was wondering how you balance smoking time with family time. Personally, I smoke about four times a week, um, but I'm often a little bit conflicted. About taking that time away from my wife. Um, she's not into cigar smoking is not into the smoke.
Um, so I often take that time alone and sometimes feel guilty about taking evening time away from [01:42:00] us. Um, and wondering how you guys do it, uh, whether that's smoking at work exclusively, or maybe after dinner time after the kids have gone to bed. Just wondered what your, uh, protocol is as far as smoking goes, um, and how your spouses have, have worked around that or not worked around that.
Um, in terms of kind of balancing your needs, uh, for some, some peaceful reflection with a cigar and, um, being together. Um, again, appreciate your thoughts on this. Uh, thanks again for a great podcast. Love it. Look forward to it every week. Keep it coming. Thanks so much.
Gizmo: That's a great, all right, we, we have to thank lizard John from Boise.
I love a voice memo. Boy, great memo. I miss voice memo. I love a voice memo. First one in a long. Yeah. So
Bam Bam: I have to say, Grindr, pagoda and senators still have little ones in the house. Yeah. You guys probably have the most talent, challenging time, finding [01:43:00] time for yourselves to have cigars. You know, the rest of us, we have pretty big kids actually.
Chef, your youngest? My youngest is nine, yeah. Okay. But still that's, you need the, the time with them. Yeah,
Chef: yeah. No, and, and I, look, I tell you what, for me, a lot of times I get home, they're in bed already just because of the nature of what I do for a living. But on days that I'm not at the restaurant or one of the restaurants, you know, a lot of my friends, in fact, all of my friends know I'm a cigar lover, a lover of cigars, a lover of the leaf.
Um, so oftentimes. You know, they're either okay with me smoking on their deck if we're outdoors. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, if there's little ones around like babies or you know, kind of just little ones that hover around the parents a lot. I don't light up of course, but you know, if it's an, if it's an occasion where the kids are off playing and the adults are at a table and you know, I always check with everyone and make sure they're okay with it.
And I never run into problems, but as for in my home as [01:44:00] far as, you know, in my home, my kids know I smoke and. Um, I look forward to doing it when everybody settles in, you know, maybe we've done what we're gonna do for the day. I sit out on the deck, everybody's kind of winding down, getting in their beds or whatnot, and I just light up and, you know, that's my, it's kind of
Rooster: important to have a balance, right?
Yeah. You want to have some family time. You wanna have time for yourself. So when I'm smoking, I usually smoke one cigar in a day. Yeah. And that's usually in the evening when I come home, have dinner. Go into my, you know, garage lounge area and have a smoke. It's been, the weather has been phenomenal. It has been.
The
Gizmo: weather, by the way, has been unbelievable. August does, it's been the best August I think I, I've ever had here. Very
Rooster: cigar friendly. So when I, when I light up, I'm also, if my wife says, you know, what are you doing? You're smoking cigars like all the time. I'm like, tell me one, this is research. It's just one.
It's work. It's work. This is work. It's hard work. I'm, I'm at work. I'm working in the daytime. Correct. I'm also working when [01:45:00] I'm smoking. That's correct. So it's research for the pod. Correct. So then she's like, okay, fine, go ahead. It's for the people, rooster for the people. That's, that's what you tell her.
We live for the listeners. Right.
Chef: It's hard work. Yeah. Working hard. Sometimes you're out there, the wife comes out, you know, occasionally if I'm out there for, you know, if the kids haven't retired for the night before, they go to bed, they come out, give me a kiss goodnight and hug and tell 'em I'll be right in.
Yeah. For us with big kids, it's easy. Yeah.
Grinder: Yeah.
Gizmo: I think there's another factor too, but I wanna hear from Grindr. I do too.
Grinder: Yeah. It's definitely a challenge. Um, because you have little, little ones. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have a six month old and a three and a half year old, so there you go. I don't smoke as many cigars as I did before kids for sure.
Fortunately, my wife. She, her father was, is a cigar smoker, and we share our cigars. Um, so there, there's not like a, you know, there's not a, uh, an aversion to the smoke. And usually when I'm out, like now [01:46:00] when I have a cigar, I'm literally, I'm out with my kids walking around in the garden and hanging out with them outside.
Um, I'm usually multitasking. I don't really have like that much solo time. Usually if I have solo time, of course I'm probably working out.
Bam Bam: Yeah. You know, so, um, so would you find, if you're having a ci you'll have your cigar late, late at night? I have it, uh, or very early in the morning.
Grinder: Typically, after I'm done, my workday around five, I'll come down and I'll take the kids and we'll go outside.
I'll put my son in a little chair outside. Oh yeah, we've seen that photo. Yeah.
Gizmo: I love that photo. That's
Grinder: awesome. And I'll put my, well, and my daughter will just, she'll just play in the yard. But, you know, grinder,
Bam Bam: Junior's watching, taking notes. Yeah.
Grinder: He's laughing as he should.
Bam Bam: That's correct.
Grinder: Yeah. And uh, so I just walk, I just putts around the yard with, with, with my daughter and I throw the ball for my dog.
So it's just me and the three of them and That's awesome. So I don't have any problem smoking in front of my, my kid, but I'm also outside. Uh, in the wintertime [01:47:00] it's. It's completely different scenario. I'm down to basically the time I spend at the lounge, which is day minimus.
Chef: Mm-hmm.
Grinder: Um, and the time I spend with you guys every week.
So it's just a sacrifice, you know, you have to take, thank God for
Gizmo: the pod in that regard, because it does put an appointment on the calendar. Yeah, yeah. Like even I've had a crazy few weeks. And the appointment that we put on this calendar mm-hmm. For the pod and the, the weight that I feel of it, positive weight.
But I feel the weight of getting this done every week. I'm so glad for it when we sit here, because of course, like a cigar, like this appearing like this tonight has just, yeah. Made my whole day like this has made my whole day tonight how this has gone. Yeah. So, um, that for me is, is I'm just so glad we had So
Bam Bam: you're bringing up a great point.
It's, it's, it is very important for us to have a cigar. It is in our lives because it, uh, offers us a chance to kind of forget about the day and to totally unplug. Um, and it also
Rooster: brings us together.
Bam Bam: Yeah, it does. Right. And of course, because the recording [01:48:00] is, but we have our club here too, so that's really helpful.
Gizmo: But I feel like, can I say something? Because I think of how crazy our lives are and how different we all are. If it wasn't for the appointment of us all sitting together and recording. It's true. I don't think we'd see each other very often. No, we wouldn't because of the, like we're a ships passing in the night a lot of the time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Think about the other six days a week we don't record. That's right. Like, we don't see each other that much, but we're communicating. But sometimes we do communic, but So communicate every day though. We do. We do. We do. And I think the pod is a, is a obviously un unifying factor. A unifying factor.
That's correct.
Grinder: I think, um, I think it kind stinks that, uh, lizard John's wife isn't into the smoke. I know. Um, because honestly, I, I do share when I'm smoking a cigar, my wife is typically there because we're like, you know, co-parenting. Mm-hmm. Um, and. I'm just fortunate she's not ever, like I said, had an aversion to the smoke.
Will she ever take a pull? No, absolutely not. Neither will mine. Yeah, me neither. But, but she's around it. I'll, you know, that's cool. So
Gizmo: I'm in the same boat as you Grinder. Yeah. I mean, my wife [01:49:00] grew up with her father smoking in the house and I credit him, I've said this a lot of times in the pod with getting me back in cigars about, you know, seven, eight years ago
Bam Bam: when we first met you and
Gizmo: Yeah.
And it's like, I'm thankful for that. And we smoke all the time and, and whenever I come home smelling like cigars or scotch or whatever, she says, oh, it smells like my childhood. There you go. You know, which is, that's a great thing for me. Yeah. It's, um, you know, I'm, I don't get
Bam Bam: that reaction.
Gizmo: I don't think senator does either.
No, I, uh, I, I'm very lucky though in my work, and I think this is a factor that none of you have touched on. My work is a little different than I think the rest of you maybe not chef. His is definitely a second, second shift type of work. But my work, what I do, I'm not required to be in the office at 6, 7, 8, 9:00 AM
Bam Bam: No.
Gizmo: So for me. When I get home, obviously, like you said, I have bigger kids that are kind of off doing their own thing. Yeah. The wife kind of also works similar hours to me. So when she gets home and I get home, she's looking to get away and have her decompression. I'm looking away and have my decompression [01:50:00] correct.
You know, I'm looking to get away and have my decompression. So what's good for me is those hours of the night don't conflict with my sleep because I don't need to get up at five or 6:00 AM mm-hmm. I can get up at seven or eight or whatever it may be, and still have a very successful and complete day.
But I can fill that, those couple hours that I need of respite at night for myself with cigars without feeling any guilt. So I know I'm a little bit of a unicorn there, um, in, in that regard with my work and my schedule and my family situation. Mm-hmm. I think if I had little kids, it'd be totally different.
Yeah. Because little kids, they demand you be on a different schedule because they wake up at a certain time, they go to bed at a certain time, you know, that's a requirement.
Bam Bam: Or if you're in the office nine to five.
Gizmo: Correct.
Bam Bam: That's tough.
Gizmo: And that's also for me too. I'm in my car a lot. Yeah. I know Chef Rickey is too.
Yep. I smoke in my car. I know, I know Rooster does as well. So I'm, I'm smoking most of the time. Yeah. These days running around like a crazy person. I'm smoking in my truck every day,
Bam Bam: so
Gizmo: we're all
Bam Bam: fortunate. Like I smoke between my job site visits. Yeah. From time to time. [01:51:00]
Gizmo: Yeah. Like you often send a picture at one or 2:00 PM having a cigar.
Yeah. And then you're back into your day and then at a random
Bam Bam: place. Yeah. 'cause I'm always out and about between burrows and so on. You know, that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. But you know, not everyone has that luxury. Yeah. So I, his, his memo's really on point. It's a good question
Gizmo: and I think, you know, for most listeners, I think the most important thing is communication with your significant other, number one.
Yep. I think number two, maybe this should be number one. I think the most important factor I think that we've all said is even if your significant other doesn't appreciate smoke, doesn't smoke, doesn't like anything about smoke, they understand what cigars do for you as a human being. Yeah. As a father, as a husband, as a partner, as a wife, whatever you're, whatever it is.
Bam Bam: But that has to be communicated. It has to be communicated. You've gotta tell your spouse that it's important to you to have a cigar. I want to go hang out with my friends for two hours, have one or two smokes and come home
Gizmo: [01:52:00] because I, because when you go to the lounge, or even when you smoke by yourself, I know Rooster loves to smoke by himself.
Yeah. When you do that, when I reenter family life, oh, or husband life or father life, you're decompressed. I'm better. I'm better Of course. Than if had I not had that feeling correct. I think it
Rooster: just comes down to balance. Yeah. Yeah. You said that. Yeah. You know, excess and communication excess of one or the other, it doesn't work.
Mm-hmm. So you gotta have that, have that fine balance in life and everything, not just smoking cigars in anything you do. You know? So That's true. That's it.
Gizmo: That's a great question from lizard John, from Boise. And I love a voice memo boys, so I'm so glad we started our next century. We're a voice memo tonight, and like I said, he's our lizard of the week.
Anyone out there listening right now can win Lizard of the Week. You'll win some stuff from us. All you have to do is send us an email, a comment on Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, or a voice memo like Lizard John from Boise did. And you can win Lizard. Yeah, we're going to only play voice memos from that from now on.
Correct. Or you know what? Anybody who sends a voice [01:53:00] memo and wins Lizard of the week is gonna get a better lizard of the week Package. A voice memo lizard of the Week package.
Bam Bam: Elevated
Gizmo: swag. Elevated swag for a new century of episodes. All right, so boys, we're coming to the end of our evening tonight with the Glen Morgie, 10 years age, single malt scotch whiskey and the avowed, the new dawn in Toro.
What do you guys think about the pairing? I think I know, but what do you guys think about the pairing before we get into the ratings? I think it's a home run. Yeah. Truly
Bam Bam: delicious pairing.
Gizmo: Yeah. I'm blown away.
Bam Bam: Yeah,
Grinder: both of them. The, the thing is both of these stand on their own. They do in, except they, yeah.
In, in an exceptional stature combined. They marry well. Well said. Full stop.
Gizmo: Alright boys, it's time now to do the formal liquor rating tonight on the Glenn Moring. 10 years aged single malt Scotch whiskey. Bam. Bam. You're up.
Bam Bam: Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready for this.
Gizmo: Let's go.
Bam Bam: I'm at a 10. I think the price is fantastic.
Um, 41 bucks, boys for a [01:54:00] very light. Light drinking scotch. The viscosity is very light. It pours light, it looks beautiful. It ha it packs a lot of flavor and it's really, really interesting and it holds your attention. I like to drink all of my spirits. I take it in, but I keep it in my mouth for just a few seconds and then take it down.
I don't gulp with down. I find doing that with this particular scotch because it's so light. You pull the delicious flavor out of it, let it sit in your palate and then take a draw of whatever cigar you're smoking. I think this would go great with almost any Cuban cigar and almost any new world. So I'm at a 10 very nice
Gizmo: grinder.
Grinder: I'm also at 10. You guys know I love the scotch. I've said it many times to you guys, and even on this pod, I believe, um, more than a few times. So it's the benchmark for scotch to me, for like, like a light scotch. It's got all the flavor profiles that remind me of Scotland. I, it's, it's, it's like there's Scotland in a, in a, in a bottle for [01:55:00] me and um, it's got this really light.
Character, but also just so much velocity, uh, in flavor. There's a lot of citrus, there's a lot of vanilla, there's some honey, all the sweet and, and the savory in the same. Uh, and don't forget about the pungent aroma and the aroma, it, the, the nose. It just, it really cools things down. Um, yeah, I mean, it's a delicious amber nectar.
Yeah, I love it. It's a 10.
Gizmo: Well said. I'm, I'm also at a 10 boys. I, I think this is an easy one for me tonight. First off, I'm blown away because I've not had a Glenn Morgie product that really rings my bell like this. I think the accessibility of the price, how easy it is to find this spirit everywhere and how it's drinking tonight.
I don't know if it's on a better run than when we did episode 20, or if, as Grindr said, I had a primitive palette. This I do not remember being, I know this
Chef: true [01:56:00] stunning,
Gizmo: this is a stunning scotch for me tonight. That's correct. And as someone else said, I don't remember who here on the panel, but. It would go so good with Cuban cigars too.
I said
Bam Bam: that a second ago. Now,
Gizmo: now, you know, obviously we talked last week on episode 200 about, you know, the challenges of getting Cuban cigars right now. So let's, let's put an asterisk on that. It's true, but I think this would pair very well with any cigar in your collection, probably up into the Nicaraguan kind of strength profile.
That's exactly right. Mm-hmm. I think right there it would start to hit a wall as far as pairing well, but, but the son, I think everything else I think would do well. The Sonata would the same, the Sonata would, the Sonata would do well, the Sonata would do well, come on. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And I think the concerto would too.
It
Bam Bam: would, that's exactly right.
Gizmo: So, uh, like I said, for me it's a 10. It was easy to drink. It was super flavorful. I can tell tomorrow, I can tell right now that tomorrow I'm not gonna feel this. So that's
Bam Bam: the other point. That's correct. Whiskey, you, I'm not
Gizmo: gonna feel it, but you, you, I can, I can taste it and I know that it's not hitting me so hard that I'm gonna, I'm gonna feel it tomorrow.
Bam Bam: But you can take half of this bottle down tonight, [01:57:00] a hundred percent tonight, and feel fantastic tomorrow.
Gizmo: I agree. I think it's hitting me like my favorite rums do almost like a tequila or like Florida Kano or Elta Soro, the Blanco that we did a couple weeks ago. It's hitting me like that in a very good way.
I, I'm, I'm very into
Bam Bam: it. There, there are some similar characteristics. Very slight, but it's there. Yeah.
Gizmo: I love the price. I love the full flavor. I love the lack of bite. It warms you up, but it not, it didn't punch you on the way down. I just think this is a home run scotch tonight. Every. Listener out there who loves scotch, who hasn't had Glen Moring 10 in a long time.
Go try it. Pick up your favorite light to medium cigar, and you are gonna love this pairing for sure. It's a 10 for me, chef.
Chef: Perfect night, man. I mean, what, what else can you ask for? You know, this, this scotch at $41 a bottle gave us a mouthful of flavor, tons of depth, beautiful aroma. Very
Bam Bam: long finish. Yes.
Yeah.
Chef: Great. Finish. Paired [01:58:00] beautifully with the cigar. I have no issues with this. I don't remember if I was on here. I think I was on here for another Gli Orie.
Gizmo: You were on for a couple
Chef: for sure. Uh, but this one stands out. This one I'll remember forever. This one I won again. You know, and it's the cheapest of them all
Gizmo: by far.
Yeah.
Chef: Yeah. Uh, you know, what else can you ask for? I mean, this is, this was a perfect pairing. It was a perfect spirit. Um, I, I want nothing more. It's a 10.
Gizmo: All right, boys. That's an easy one. The form of liquor rating tonight. Wow. On the Glen Morgie, the original, I'm shocked. 10 years age, single mold. Scotch whiskey is a perfect 10.0.
Bam Bam: So I wanna buy a bottle of this and bring it into the club and have our, uh, belvin buddies. Yeah. See what they
Gizmo: say about it. Uba.
Bam Bam: Pagoda in particular. I want them to try this and revisit it and see what they think. You know, I can kind of, the con I come already hearing in the comment it's a little thin.
Um,
Gizmo: yeah. It's not as, it's not viscous, but it's so full in flavor. Yeah. But I happen to
Bam Bam: love the viscosity of it [01:59:00] because it's so easy to drink. It makes it really enjoyable. And the
Gizmo: next day, yeah, it's not gonna mess up
Chef: feel great. It delivers flavor exactly the way this cigar does. Many could say this cigar lacks strength, but it's full of flavor.
Right. It's not a heavy cigar. It's not gonna hit you over the head. The drink, the very complimentary is the same way. Yeah, same way. Just, just beautifully done.
Gizmo: So boys, this was the fifth Glen Moring we've done on the podcast. Let's go through the other four. Like I said, we did do the Glen Morey 10 on episode 20.
We did not rate it then we skipped for quite some time. On episode 114, we did the 14 years age Quinta Rubin, which scored a 7.0 30 points less than this. On episode 149, we did the 15 years aged CAD ball estate scored well in 9.1 and on episode 195 the 12 years age, Glen Morgie scored an 8.6. So obviously at a 10.0 this is the one to get.[02:00:00]
No question about that. All right boys, it's time now to move into the formal lizard rating tonight on the avowed New Dawn and Toro Rooster. You're up. Great
Rooster: cigar. I think the small batch guys have really done a. Great job putting this out. Classic Ner, I mean, uh, shout out to him for blending the cigar.
It's a, it's a complex cigar, but yet it's a very balanced cigar. It's a very versatile cigar because you can have it anytime of the day. Very easy to pair with different pairings, I think. Yep. Um, I think it'd go
Gizmo: great with your coffee in the morning, Richard.
Rooster: Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think I've had it with coffee before.
Um, it's a fantastic cigar. I mean, the construction on the cigar is absolutely flawless. Perfect. Uh, I don't think any one of us really needed a, a touchup or a light. The ash really held on good structure, right.
Gizmo: The, the nobody ashed over themselves or on the floor. Yeah. I wouldn't say that the, the ash really held on.
We gotta [02:01:00] try that with pagoda. Dude, you and I were the same. I always said it. Pagoda is in here, so that's
Rooster: maybe not a fair comment. Yeah, it's a, it's a beautiful looking cigar. I love everything about the cigar. I love the blend. I love even the, the bands on the cigar are beautiful. Are beautiful. They're really a job Well done.
Bam Bam: The names are a great, great choice on the
Rooster: name. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, you know, as far as the flavor notes go, for me it was, it was creamy throughout, and there was this earthiness also that. For some of us, I think it came and went
Bam Bam: for me. Yeah. But for
Rooster: me, it kind of, it was, it was there like pretty much the whole time.
The, the fruit note did come and go. The floral note also kind of came and went, and it also picked up in strength after the, the first half, I think the earthiness got a little bit more prominent. So for all of those reasons, I think this is an absolutely a fantastic, a brilliant cigar, well constructed, well rolled.
Uh, the blend is [02:02:00] superb. Um, so I was thinking like how to take points off of the cigar and I really, really can't think of anything, uh, you know, to, to, to do that. So there's only
Bam Bam: one thing, and I'll talk about it, but I'm not gonna take a point off for it though.
Rooster: Yeah, I'm, I mean, I'm, I'm at a 10. All right.
Very nice. It's
Gizmo: a great cigar. Yeah. Very nice. Chef, you're up.
Chef: Wow. Uh, this cigar, the way it's delivered, what it's delivered today, uh, very full, very deep, very rich. Um, very round in mouth. Feel. I love that from a cigar. Uh, it delivers, it, it makes it easy to settle in, gets back to why we do what, why, why we do this in the first place, which is to settle ourselves, relax, you know, escape, and just kind of dial in on what we love about.
What we're doing at the moment, who we are, [02:03:00] you know, not to get too deep, but this cigar brings those emotions out, those feelings out, because it is that well done. Um, you know, you, you could get lost in it. Um, and, you know, it was, it was, it was a perfect experience. Um, you know, from the very beginning, lighting the cigar and, and the flavors we were getting out of here, the bright raspberry notes, that's always a positive to get wet fruit out of a cigar.
Uh, you know, especially within the first inch wet fruit
Gizmo: carries into the next century. It does.
Chef: Uh, you know, the, the cold draw on this cigar was amazing. You know, the aroma on the wrapper, on the foot, uh, you know, the dark, the, the, the intense chocolate, the barnyard and the way that just followed through and, and, and so many different lactic notes and buttered popcorn and creaminess and
Bam Bam: the, the carbohydrate, that bakery good type thing that was happening.
Chef: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was all there. [02:04:00] And it was all there at a very well, uh, in a very well, uh, packaged cigar at a great price point. I have no complaints about the cigar at, about this evening. It was a beautiful evening. Great way to, uh. To start the new century. It's a 10 for me.
Gizmo: Love it. So boys, it's also a 10 for me.
Uh, I, from the first light, even from the cold draw, I was blown away by the cigar from the first light till I put it down at, I think an, you know, hour, 55 minutes or something like that. It was a perfect, near two hours of excellent tobacco. I am completely blown away by the blend. The construction, the smoke output was brilliant.
The combustion, and I said this very early on, and I literally just highlighted it as I wrote my notes down on what I wanted to talk about here. It was so effortless. Yep. This is one of the most [02:05:00] e it's like the easiest to smoke cigars that we've had in a long time. I didn't have to think about it. I didn't have to touch it.
Like it, to me it's like the polar opposite of that league of that. We did the H 99, which we were dying. But what's interesting
Bam Bam: is that that line of commentary could be misleading to some where you, they would assume that it wasn't interesting enough. It was so easy to smoke. It didn't capture Oh, I'm getting there though.
I'm getting there. Oh, I know that. I know.
Gizmo: It's, the flavor was unbelievable. It was complex. One of the most so easy to of cigars. It was,
Bam Bam: it's incredible how it becomes, it's so
Gizmo: effortless and so full of flavor. And as I said earlier, I think any kind of cigar smoker, any level of experience, cigar smoker can enjoy this.
I think you can use this cigar to impress this. The, the friend of yours that has the collection, like it looks like he bought everything on Bon Roberts. And you can also impress someone who started smoking last week. I think this cigar [02:06:00] checks both of those boxes and even in the middle two. Mm-hmm. I think this is a, a, a home run of a cigar to introduce to your friends.
I think this is an any time of day cigar. I think this is easily gonna enter most of our, if, if not all of our rotations. I, I'm, I I'm certain of that it the consistent smoke output. By the way, since the first light, you know, the draw was perfect. You know, construction, combustion, it was all great. And one final note here from me.
Normally on a Toro, I think we might push back on a $17 price point.
Chef: Mm-hmm. '
Gizmo: cause we compare it to the cigars that are under 10 or the cevo, which might be a little cheaper than this. Obviously that's not a Toro, that's robusto. But my point is, normally I think we're gonna be pushing back on a $17 cigar at this normalize normally tonight.
I am so happy Yeah. To pay $17 for this experience. That's right.
Chef: Yeah.
Gizmo: Because it delivered. Two hours of brilliance, and I am [02:07:00] shocked
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: By how good the cigar was. Correct. You're also paying
Rooster: for, and you get that from that cigar, the tobaccos, they taste a aged tobacco. Correct. Right. It doesn't taste like a fresh No.
And they have cigar,
Bam Bam: they have a specific aging program as he's described earlier. So that's really impressive. He can taste that very impress and the
Gizmo: access to this unique tobacco comes through. Yeah. Yeah. I'm completely blown away. Yep. So, as in honor of pagoda, who's not here tonight, it's 10, 10 wins for me tonight.
Boys. Yeah. All right. It is a 10 on this cigar. I'm blown away. I can't wait to get more and, uh, dry box them a little bit and, uh, enjoy them.
Chef: And just to touch on the combustion a little bit more, you know, when we were in our little intermission while the class interview was playing, the room was full of smoke.
We had to exhaust the room because of the combustion. You know, it's, so, it's full of smoke in here, so it's, it's a good problem to have. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Gizmo: All right. Grinder.
Grinder: I'm also at 10. Wow. Um, this is awesome. I, I, the, that rapper is really, it's, I think it's as good. It's a really good rapper.
[02:08:00] Um, I love Ecuadorian Connecticut rapper. The shade on this, I do think it's, it's representative of some of the h on it. Um, there was, we talked about an earthiness. There wasn't just an earthiness. There was like a combination of like toasted cedar and earthiness, and then there was also the cream and. I mentioned a biscuit.
Um, there was a lot of really fun flavors in there, and there was also some sweet, some subtle sweetness. Uh, I think it was just a, just a knockout of a cigar. There's so many different flavors happening, you know, I don't, it looks like, uh, there's a lot of thought that went into that as well, based on the artwork, uh, exhibited.
So
Gizmo: the clause drawn. Yeah.
Grinder: Yeah. I mean, seriously. Yeah. Um, so, you know, I think that that supports some of the, some of the conclusions here. That's a 10 easy.
Gizmo: Awesome. All right, ba [02:09:00]
Bam Bam: so going last in this room, that's sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse. But tonight, I mean, I agree with everything you guys have said.
Um, when we smoke a cigar, and I don't agree with you, fellas, it's easy. Yeah, it's fun. I actually enjoy that. But, uh, tonight it's so hard not to give this a 10. I, I mentioned there was one thing, and the only thing is that it was so unusual how flavorful this light to medium body cigar was, but on the, the aroma of the cigar itself, on the nose from the foot of the, it was very bland and very mild.
I agree with you on that. Yeah. That's not a demerit because I was getting, because none of us talked about that. No, it's true. But. I got so much from the retro hale and the traditional draw. It was just incredible. As everyone has talked, talked about, um, I think as you hit it on the head, you know, when you come across a cigar that's, it's, that surprises you.
It really takes you by surprise. It kind of gets you off of your train of thought of what you were doing that day. And [02:10:00] chef you said it eloquently earlier, you begin to really, truly relax at that moment. And I still get that with the cigars that we take for granted. Like the
Chef: mm-hmm.
Bam Bam: Yeah. You have that cigar that is a chocolate leather coffee bomb.
And we can find that everywhere. I hope we can get this cigar anywhere soon. Um, but it's one of those experiences that you'll never forget. And honestly, this cigar, I think, rivals any highly rated new world that we've ever smoked in this recording. Absolutely. I a hundred percent agree with you.
Gizmo: So I,
Bam Bam: for all
Gizmo: those reasons, I'm an absolute 10.
Well said. All right, boys, this one's easy, too. Formal lizard rating tonight on the avowed New Dawn and Toro, A perfect 10.0. It's crazy. Obviously it's a debut tonight from Avowed. Obviously I talked a lot about their history and whatnot, but I can't wait to try more because this Yeah. Is a home run start.
And by the way, for Klaus K, our friend tonight, who was so gracious with his time at PCA, we, we interviewed him. This is his second out of two Perfect tent on this podcast. That's true.
Chef: [02:11:00] Wow. That's right. Yeah. He,
Gizmo: both of his cigars on this pod, the stoic. The avowed both scored a 10.0
Bam Bam: kloss. You know, you can get on a plane, come right over to 10 86 Lounge in Hawthorne, New Jersey.
That's it. We'll be waiting for you.
Gizmo: So boys, I'm blown away.
Bam Bam: Yeah,
Gizmo: I'm blown away. I, I can't believe how great the cigar performed tonight. I think we all said it in the flavor notes and the performance of the cigar. And most importantly, like you said, bam, how it hit us.
Bam Bam: Yeah. It was, it's just a shock.
Gizmo: It's shocking.
And I'm so relaxed now.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: After the crazy day I had, I, I just can't believe how I'm totally relaxed. It's like I, I was meditating for an hour. Yeah.
Chef: I can't wait to get a box of these. I'm still smoking mine. I know
Bam Bam: you are. You have your fingernails clipped on there. This is great. And I'll be, it would be easy to smoke another one right now.
Yep. For me.
Gizmo: What a way to start our next century here, boys on episode 2 0 1, correct. Two perfect tens. Tonight from the 10 years age, Glen Morgie, the original single malt Scotch Whiskey, and the avowed New dawn in Toro, both scoring [02:12:00] a perfect 10.0. An awesome night boys. Insane. We have to thank our sponsor.
Of course, Fabrica five, they make great cigars and as we talked about last week, they're one of the only people you can actually get cigars from that have some, uh, that's right. Cuban, Cuban influence here in the United States. That's correct. So use our code. Go check out their site, fabrica zero zero five.com.
We have to congratulate Lizard John from Boise or Lizard of the Week, sending in a voice memo. My favorite thing is playing a voice memo in this podcast we love not only hearing from our listeners, we love hearing our listeners, so please share your voice memos with us. It's really easy. You use your Voice, voice notes app on your phone and, uh, fire it over to us on email and I'll play it on the pod.
We love hearing from you and uh, boys again. What a great night tonight. A great way to start our next century 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, lounge lizards pod.com.
That's lounge [02:13:00] lizards PO d.com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us hello@loungelizardspod.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod.
We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.