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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features 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!
Welcome to the Lounge Lizards 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, senator, chef Ricky, and Bam Bam.
Gizmo:And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some rum, talk about life, and, of course, have some laughs. So take this as your one hundred and seventy sixth official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. We plan to meet this here once a week. We're gonna smoke a Cuban cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating. We discuss 11 new Cuban cigar releases.
Gizmo:We share the amazing history of Bacardi in Cuba, and a lizard debate begins on how to price selling cigars to friends, all among a variety of other things for the next two and a half hours. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, enjoy as we pair Bacardi Reserva Ocho with Partagas Linea Maestra in Rito. A double Robusto on the pod tonight from Cuba. It's the newest line from Paragas. It's the Linea Maestra in Rideau, and it's a 52 ring gauge cigar by a little under seven inches, six and five eighths inches long.
Gizmo:And, boys, very exciting to see a new production regular release out of Cuba with a one zero nine head on it. Correct. So the one zero nine head, obviously, is sought after because it's been used on some great releases in the past. And it has a very specific and important relationship with Partagas in that the Lusitanias, which is one of the most celebrated Partagas cigars ever out of Cuba, originally came with the one zero nine heads.
Bam Bam:There we go.
Gizmo:It's nice to see Partagas going back to this on the new Linea Maestra.
Bam Bam:It's a good looking cigar. Little toothy. Yeah. Not the most pristine wrapper, but nice. You know, the only one zero nine I've ever smoked was the Ramone one zero nine Head.
Bam Bam:Ah. Yes. We've had that long
Gizmo:long ago. Long time ago. That's good. Alright, boys. Let's cut this thing.
Gizmo:See if we're getting on the cold draw and the wrapper. So this is a new looking release for Partigus, and we'll talk about that. Totally unique.
Chef:Sunflower seeds.
Senator:Chef nailed it. It's exactly the first note I got.
Bam Bam:Yeah. There is a touch of sweetness there, a kind of like a sweet cream type thing maybe. The background.
Gizmo:It's a salty grass. Yeah? No grass. And the sunflower seed thing is very accurate.
Senator:It's so prominent.
Bam Bam:Yeah, it's nutty and a bit Even
Chef:almost sunchokey, if you're familiar with sunchokes or Jerusalem artichokes, there's a there's a nutty inherent We are getting into
Gizmo:the weeds.
Senator:Was I was with you, chef. I'll see myself out. Sunchoke.
Gizmo:Senator just muted himself.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Chef:That's really good.
Gizmo:How's everyone's draw? Mine's great.
Senator:Mine's good.
Rooster:Nice to cut
Chef:it a
Gizmo:little bit more.
Senator:Yeah. Yeah. Takes yeah. Actually, you got way too little.
Bam Bam:So I I made a very shallow cut, and the secondary cut helped a lot.
Gizmo:The cold draw is fantastic right now. It's nice. I'm almost like not wanting to light it because I'm enjoying the cold draw so much. Dead serious.
Chef:Same. Same. I'm right there with you.
Gizmo:I hope the cigar itself can deliver like the cold draw does. Alright, boys. Let's light this thing. The Partagas Linea Maestra from Cuba. This is the Rito.
Gizmo:Again, it's a 52 ring gauge cigar by six and five eights inches long. It was announced at the twenty twenty three Habanos Festival that I was at actually and was released in early twenty twenty four, almost a year later. And it comes in three sizes, which we'll go through.
Bam Bam:And this is a La Corona product. Yeah?
Gizmo:Yeah. This came out of La Corona BRM September 24. Nice. And unfortunately, boys, even before we taste it, we'll start with this. The cost on this specific cigar right now
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah.
Gizmo:Is north of a hundred dollars per
Bam Bam:cigar Yowza.
Gizmo:Which is obscene.
Senator:It's a budget cigar these days, Giz.
Gizmo:I must say it does feel good in the hand.
Senator:Feels great in the hand, and it's actually very pleasant on the light.
Bam Bam:Wow. Right on the light. It's actually quite delicious.
Senator:And I'm still getting the sunflower seed notes on the light. That's exciting.
Gizmo:I'm now getting a creaminess that you guys were talking about.
Bam Bam:I mentioned that earlier.
Gizmo:I wasn't getting that on the cold drop, but I am getting it here.
Bam Bam:Am I wrong? There's a little bit of sweet cream there.
Chef:I agree.
Senator:Yeah. That's definitely there too. This is very good.
Rooster:Is this a part of this or a Cohiba?
Gizmo:That's gonna be the question of the night, I think, is whether the cigar performs well or not. The overwhelming commentary of folks who enjoy it on the you know, as far as reviewing it and folks who don't, the common theme is questioning whether this is in line with what we know Partagas to be.
Bam Bam:Oh, I would say that it's not.
Rooster:Yeah. I mean, so far it's unlike a Partagas. Yeah. Partagas never lights like this. No, there's not.
Rooster:You don't get these notes on a Partagas typically. You don't get the you don't get the creamy note.
Senator:No. Right? I'll just say this. It's not. I'm with you.
Senator:But I think the only exception is, like, the Lucy is very different in flavor profile from a lot of other Partagas cigars. And there's some Partagas short as well as deviates
Bam Bam:a little bit for me.
Senator:That too. A touch. But to me, if I immediately tried to compare this to something in the Partagas line, it would be like a Lucy on the light. On the light, it's milder than what you get in most Partagas cigars. It's a good point.
Senator:So I think there's a lot of range in the Partagas line.
Gizmo:Yeah.
Bam Bam:Yeah. It does seem unlike a Partagas, though. Right?
Rooster:Yeah. But it's very tasty.
Bam Bam:Yeah. This is really good. It's good.
Gizmo:I'm very pleasantly surprised on the light here.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Now has anyone had this in the room?
Gizmo:I had one at the festival so long ago, and it was obviously rolled probably twenty minutes before the festival doors opened. Okay. And it was super humid and smoked honestly pretty terribly.
Bam Bam:I had one after a Cuban trip. I liked it. The first two thirds were delicious.
Gizmo:Last third got a little rough?
Bam Bam:Very hard to smoke the last third. Well, hopefully I'm hoping for a different experience here.
Gizmo:I am too. So these have been in my tower since we got them. So hopefully the last third will perform as
Bam Bam:Senator has these too.
Senator:Yeah. Yeah.
Rooster:It's all woody also. You get that earthiness and all woody note.
Gizmo:Smoke output is actually nice too.
Bam Bam:I'm not getting any earthy or minerality at all. Really? It's very pleasant for me on the other side of the spectrum.
Chef:I get residual salt on the lips here. I do get some minerality, a little earth. I'm getting wood. It's all still kind of in line or in the same spectrum as the sunflower seed I was originally getting. I'm still not getting the creamy sweetness that everyone else was finding.
Gizmo:Wow.
Chef:But I don't dislike it at all.
Gizmo:I'm finding this smoke to be very creamy for me.
Rooster:It's like
Gizmo:creamy, salty, little earthy, and a little nutty. I think those would be kind of my one, two, three, four in a
Chef:I might be coming onto the cream soon. I'm probably just not there yet. So but I'm getting everything else.
Bam Bam:The retrohale is pretty glorious.
Gizmo:The retro is great. Yeah. So, boys, this is the twelfth Partagas cigar that we've done on the podcast tonight. The most recent I was actually surprised by this. Time just flies, and I'm pretty amazed.
Gizmo:The last one we did was the Maduro number three. We did that on episode a 49 almost thirty weeks ago. I can't believe how long ago. If you told me that was last month That was would have believed
Bam Bam:you. Great cigar.
Gizmo:Great cigar.
Senator:I was about to boycott the podcast if we didn't do this today. This is ridiculous.
Bam Bam:Well, he is mister Partagas.
Gizmo:Mister Partagas. That's correct.
Senator:Partagas. Partagas.
Gizmo:So, obviously, folks out there looking for Partagas history, you can go back to those earlier episodes and tune in to those. We're not gonna do any Partagas history tonight. We will talk about the line here a little bit. The Linea Maestra line, like I said, announced at the twenty twenty three Habanos Festival just over two years ago and started being, released into the retail chain early twenty twenty four, just about a year ago. Each of the cigars comes in a luxury box of 20, and the three cigars in the line are as follows.
Gizmo:The Maestro, which is a Robusto, 56 by five and a quarter. All three of these, let me make clear, do have one zero nine heads on them, the rounded tip. The second cigar on the line is the Orihen, which is a Gran Corona, which is a 46 by six and an eighth. And finally, the cigar we're having tonight is the largest of the three, the Rito. Its factory name is the Gustosos, 52 by six and five eights inches long.
Gizmo:The smallest cigar in the line, the Maestro, retails for about $55. The Orihen retails for about 80 to $85, and the cigar we have in our hand is somewhere between a hundred and 5 to a hundred and $15. Is that MSRP? That's what I'm not sure that that's MSRP, but that's what you're seeing them for currently online.
Bam Bam:So is there anything unique on the blending and the leaf that commands that price other than the packaging?
Gizmo:No. It's the same thing as all the other cigars we've talked about that that, you know, Habanos is putting out. I mean, it's the same stuff, just a different blend. Nothing terribly special about it. Mhmm.
Gizmo:Obviously, they're selling the story. They're selling the one zero nine head. They're selling the history. And they've created this line like they've done for Monte Cristo, the 1935. They've done for the Romeo y Julieta.
Gizmo:Those red boxes that aren't selling very well. And there's going to be more. I'm sure. I'm sure those
Rooster:are the only three markers they've done the linear. Exactly.
Gizmo:Yeah. Exactly. And there's going to be more, I'm
Bam Bam:sure.
Gizmo:So what's interesting about this release, boys, is that what we know of partagus when you think of the word partagus, you think of a certain color, and that color is always blue. That color is definitively always red. When you think partagus, you think red because you think of that that d four band that is so classic, the red band with the gold writing on it that everybody knows from the Letter series and even other Partagas, the eight nine eight, the Lusitania, any of those others always have predominantly red colors. And then for this release, Habanos decided to go in the completely opposite direction and everything about these cigars is blue.
Bam Bam:Yeah. There's something unnatural about that color. And because of the price, it's almost like they intentionally changed the color scheme to command a number that's so unique. That's a good point. I don't know.
Gizmo:Like, you think about the Monte Cristo 1935 we did. Stayed in that kind of brown, you know, the the kind of core color for the line. Romeo y Julieta stayed with red because Romeo is known with for red and gold. It's interesting that Partagas went completely in the opposite direction and went all blue to the point that on these cigars, there's a normal band which has a partagas Habana Cuba, which is very much in line with the old label, and it's a large band on all three of these. And then each of them has their own band with the name of the actual release on it.
Gizmo:So this one has a band that says Rito on it, then there's Orihen and Maestro, and then at the bottom, there's a foot band that says Partagas Linea Maestro on the foot, all blue and gold. And then the boxes are also very ornate, of course.
Senator:Mhmm.
Gizmo:Trying to align with the price on this. They come in a a really nice box inside a a suede kind of covering and then inside the cardboard box.
Senator:I'll say this. I mean, I'm just as confused why they deviated from the actual brand colors, but I do think the band and even the footband, as much as I always criticize them, I I think the design is Yeah. Well done.
Bam Bam:Agreed. Agreed.
Gizmo:Yeah. It is classy, and
Chef:it looks nice. Still elegant.
Gizmo:Yeah. It's elegant. It's just I don't understand why not stick with the core of what everybody your entire customer base knows of Bartagos.
Bam Bam:It better be elegant for that price.
Gizmo:Yeah. No kidding. So inside the box, of course, there's always a piece of paper that kind of, know, lays out Habanos' intention and story. So I'm gonna read the piece of this that's that I think is interesting. It says, Rito is one of the three sizes selected by Habanos SA to take part in Linea Maestra, the most exclusive and elegant lineage of the Partagas brand.
Gizmo:La Linea Maestra pays tribute to the unique origin or origin, the learning and tradition that turn enjoying a Habano into a Rito, and the Maestro who makes it possible to create a quote unquote masterpiece for the Habanos enthusiasts. These 20 Habanos of unique dimensions incorporate for the first time in the brand's portfolio, the tapered head, which is actually not true because as we know, the Lusitanias did have that on there, but in current production
Rooster:Mhmm.
Gizmo:That's certainly the case and have been made, quote unquote, totomente a mano, which means totally by hand with long filler, totally handmade by expert Cuban cigar rollers with 100% of the tobacco coming from San Luis in Vuelta A Bajo. So that's the story on Linea Maestra as they're selling it, and, you know, cigar's good so far.
Bam Bam:Yeah. The one zero nine shape is actually very cool.
Gizmo:I agree.
Bam Bam:I I like it a lot. Chef, you were capturing the aroma on the foot. What are you getting?
Chef:Yeah. So I'm I'm starting to hit on the creaminess a little bit on
Gizmo:the palate.
Bam Bam:It's very mild, isn't it? Yeah. The aroma is very mild, but pretty pleasant.
Chef:And then as I was hitting the creaminess, I started getting this salty nuttiness that was coming from the burn line, so that's what I was trying to capture more of.
Senator:I actually really love the burn line smells amazing.
Bam Bam:It's like biscuit. It's kind of biscuity. Oh my bakery type.
Senator:It's like
Bam Bam:a bakery.
Gizmo:It's amazing. Now this cigar right now is reminding me of Upman.
Senator:Okay. I completely agree with that.
Gizmo:That's where I'm at. This is an Upman
Bam Bam:cigar. Which Upman? I mean Let's get granular, Giz.
Gizmo:I would say there's a combination
Senator:here
Gizmo:between the up and number two and maybe the half corona in flavor. I don't disagree. I wouldn't say the Sir Winston, that Tamora is like a leather kind of component to that.
Bam Bam:That's a different,
Gizmo:yeah. Maybe even the royal robusta one.
Bam Bam:I think that up in two and a half corona are pretty good call outs here.
Gizmo:But this is very much smoking like what I would expect from an HOP.
Bam Bam:It's pretty delicious.
Gizmo:But I am missing that cinnamon thing. I'm missing that kind of you know, what I expect from Partagas.
Bam Bam:Partagas DNA.
Gizmo:That DNA. I'm I'm it's it's not here for me right now.
Chef:Well, there's plenty of cigar left, so I'm hoping it it comes in. It's a point. There's a lot of
Gizmo:cigars here. Yeah.
Senator:I'm just gonna say even if it doesn't, I'll I'll be very satisfied with that. I really like the blend so far.
Bam Bam:It's good. Yeah. It's good. Let's see what the final third says.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. It's time to talk about the Habanos Festival, which just wrapped up. You know, we did speak about some of the new releases, namely the highlight release that came out, the Cohiba Bihike 58. So we won't repeat ourselves there. But I gotta tell you, Habanos released 11 new cigars at the festival earlier this month, and I wanted to go through some of those and see what you guys think because I think some of them are actually pretty cool.
Gizmo:Number one, this was surprising. The Diplomaticos Concieres, which is a five by 52 cigar coming in boxes of 25 is a new regular production release for Diplomaticus. So they're coming out with effectively a robusto in Diplomaticus, which should be interesting.
Bam Bam:They have a short catalog.
Gizmo:Right? They do, very small catalogs. So this is a It's a good thing.
Bam Bam:It's a compliment for them.
Gizmo:I like seeing some of the smaller brands in the portfolio get attention like Expanding their regular production. Yeah, and I'd love to see it in Vegas, Romania. I'd love to see it in El Rey Del Mundo. I'd love to see it in Saint Louis Ray. So we'll see if that happens.
Senator:Yeah. I'd love to see in anyone but Diplomatico. Sorry. We're
Bam Bam:a fan of that We don't
Senator:smoke the What do they have besides that, like, bellicose?
Gizmo:Well, have the number two.
Rooster:The pyramid.
Gizmo:They have the pyramid that we did in the the battle of the Pyramidies. Mhmm.
Senator:What do they have besides that?
Gizmo:All those moons ago.
Rooster:Bunch of regionals.
Gizmo:And in regular production, they that's all they have in That's it.
Senator:That's it. They've got one cigar.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Yeah.
Gizmo:And they have a ton of discontinued stuff.
Bam Bam:That's
Gizmo:true. It is nice to see though that Robusto's coming out there. Maybe it'll be great. We'll try it. They do, of course, have a ton of regional releases that have been very successful over the years.
Gizmo:Diplomatico's used a lot for regional additions for Habanos. So another one is the Trinidad Via, which is a 47 ring gauge cigar by six and three quarters inches long. This is gonna be a Casa del Habano and Habano Specialist release in boxes of 12. The factory name on that cigar is the Juliet, the number three. So, obviously, that's gonna command a big dollar from Trinidad and especially at that size, 47 by six and three quarters.
Gizmo:That's a pretty big cigar. I don't see the point. Another one is the La Gloria Cubana thirty fifth anniversary. So, obviously, that's not a thirty fifth anniversary of La Gloria Cubana, has been around for over a hundred years. This cigar is celebrating thirty five years of Cuba's Casa Del Habano retail franchise, which, of course, is now a global phenomenon.
Gizmo:The and I'm quoting Cigar Aficionado there. So these are gonna be torpedoes, 54 ring gauge by seven and an eighth, and the humidors commemorating the thirty fifth anniversary of Casa del Habano. Each are gonna have 35 cigars in the humidor. So, of course, that is also going to be very expensive. The re release is going to be limited to only 750 humidors worldwide.
Bam Bam:Oh, let's take a guess
Gizmo:at how much that 2,500 cigars, I think, total. Alright. Let's do another one. The Hollo De Monterrey La Jolla series, Del San Luis. So in 2014, a little over ten years ago, Hollo obviously launched the that new line from them, La Jolla.
Gizmo:So we've, you know, we've seen some of those cigars out there. We actually have to do one of them for review at least, but this is a new addition to that. It's going to be a 52 ring gauge cigar by six and three eighths inches long. So this is alongside the Hoyo De San Juan and the Rio Seco. Didn't we do one of those?
Gizmo:No. We started that episode, and then we aborted it.
Senator:Oh, boy. I can't wait to dive into the next one.
Gizmo:Correct. No. Was not very Wasn't
Bam Bam:that a personnel issue that day?
Gizmo:Could have been.
Bam Bam:It could have been. This is burning really exquisitely, right? The destruction's great. Yeah, the burn line is really perfectly horizontal all the way around the cigar. Nice bright white ash.
Gizmo:I like that none of the five of us have picked up a lighter to touch it.
Bam Bam:Yeah, it's performing nicely.
Rooster:Yeah. We can't say stacking dimes anymore. Right?
Bam Bam:No. I didn't say that, did
Senator:I? No.
Chef:You didn't.
Gizmo:Alright. So let's do another one. I think I mentioned this one before, but the Kalexion Habanos, which I guess is the twentieth edition of that, is going to be the Bolivar Royal Gigantes 53 ring gauge cigar by six and seven eighths inches long. A Vitola called the Mitos, which is the first ever for Bolivar. It's going to be a big one.
Gizmo:If you remember, we did love the Gigantes
Bam Bam:It was good. That we did,
Gizmo:which is a double corona.
Bam Bam:This new one is a standard production?
Gizmo:This is no. It's it's a special It's gonna come in one of those fancy books, like the book shaped boxes of 20.
Bam Bam:At $80 a stick.
Gizmo:It's gonna be than that.
Rooster:More than that.
Gizmo:More than that. If this one's a 11 regular production, that's gonna be more than that.
Rooster:Those books are expensive. They're
Gizmo:very expensive.
Rooster:Ridiculous. Seems like everything Habanos is coming out with is just all special releases, ornate boxes, like 100 plus
Bam Bam:They have a P and L to report to.
Senator:Say it, Pam. Marketing.
Bam Bam:Oh, it's marketing. If Poohba were here, he would say that.
Gizmo:Alright. Another one. Let's go to Partagas, the cigar we have in our hand. They're celebrating the year of the snake with the Portagas Cedros, which is going to be a 50 ring gauge cigar by five and three eighths inches long. Of course, they come with a bunch of bands on them, and, of course, it's targeted for the Asian market for the year of the snake.
Gizmo:And the boxes are gonna have 18 of these cigars in them with all the styling of the snake and the red and the gold and all that stuff.
Rooster:But Sounds like Davidoff.
Gizmo:Another yeah. Another part is coming out specifically targeting Asia.
Chef:I feel like if you have a year of the snake, this is when you release a culebra. Yeah. Right? Like, that's such a missed opportunity. What's going on?
Bam Bam:Chef, you're turning into quite the marketer.
Chef:It's been a big focus.
Senator:You're being hated among this group. Even Davidoff did Lancero for their year with a snake.
Bam Bam:That's true.
Chef:Yeah. Why not do a Culebra? And you're charging a boatload of money anyway for cigars. Like, what's the
Gizmo:I just wonder if people look at the Culebra and are just like, I don't want to deal with this. I mean, you take it apart, it's like a curved know? It's like it's like a crazy pretzel, You know?
Senator:Yeah. It's like, now I've gotta share two of these.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Correct.
Senator:Forget that. Correct.
Rooster:Or smoke them altogether. That's right.
Gizmo:Alright. So two Addision Limitatas for 2025 have been announced. Curious about this one. The punch Princessas Edision Limitata 2025, '50 '2 ring gauge by five and three eights inches long, identical size to the Edmundo. That's the Votoda.
Gizmo:It's identical to the Edmundo, so very close to a Robusto coming in boxes of 20. And then there will be another one, which is the Monte Cristo Elba, Addision Limitada 2025, which is a 54 ring gauge cigar by five and three quarters inches long like a Robusto Extra. Wow. Encantos is the factory name on that.
Bam Bam:Seeing a punch with that ring gauge would be very weird. I'm not accustomed to seeing that.
Gizmo:It's gonna be like a punch, like, almost like almost like a QD 52 kind of
Bam Bam:That's really unusual.
Rooster:I mean, else does punch make? Right? I mean, punch regular production is what? Just punch punch?
Bam Bam:Yeah. Short
Senator:short to
Bam Bam:punch. To punch. Punch double corona.
Rooster:Love punch double corona.
Bam Bam:That's right. And we love that too.
Gizmo:Yeah. So I'm interested in trying these. Again, seeing that Odysseo Limitada band coming out on these, they're just going to be priced. So, you know, everything is coming
Rooster:out with these larger ring gauge. Yeah. Right? And nothing under 50. Nope.
Rooster:They're all like 50 plus. Exactly right. So there's gonna
Gizmo:be a third Adizio Limitada, which has not yet been released. And finally, boys, not gonna go through these again in severe detail, but the Monday, Wednesday, Friday, respectively, highlight releases of the Habanos Festival this year. First was the Romeo y Julieta Amantes as we talked about, 53 ring gauge by six inches long, celebrating a hundred and fifty years of Romeo y Julieta. Wednesday night, they announced the Gran Reserva for this year, the Gran Reserva Cossetia 2019, which is the h Upman Magnum 50. Standard production cigar with just some age on it, 50 by six and three h three eighths inches long.
Gizmo:Gonna be a very expensive box of 15 as it usually is. And finally, of course, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, the Cohiba Behike 58 was launched at the gala dinner on Friday night at the festival. So that's probably gonna be a 5 or 6 or $700 cigar.
Bam Bam:I'm sorry, but the an aged Magnum 50? That's hilarious to me.
Gizmo:I agree. I don't know why they chose that one.
Bam Bam:I don't see how any age is gonna add flavor to that cigar. It's not a bad cigar, but it's not gonna get improved with age.
Gizmo:I was very confused by it, to say
Bam Bam:the least bit. Correct.
Gizmo:What's everybody thinking about this cigar right now? Because I am just,
Senator:I'm loving I'm getting salted butter right now.
Bam Bam:Yes. Oh, that's very accurate.
Chef:Awesome. You nailed it. That's it. Yeah.
Bam Bam:Very accurate. I like it. I think it's excellent right now. Combustion's phenomenal.
Gizmo:Yeah, and it's burning great.
Rooster:Construction.
Bam Bam:The smoke output is a little thin, think. The room isn't full of smoke yet, but the moment you puff it kind of evaporates.
Gizmo:Otherwise I feel like I'm getting enough volume of smoke.
Bam Bam:It's delicious though, so it's very satisfying.
Gizmo:I'm not feeling like a chimney per se is center of
Bam Bam:You're not getting chimney effect here.
Gizmo:But I'm not feeling a lack of smoke.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Senator:Yeah, I agree with what both of you are saying. There's not a lot of smoke output, but the smoke itself is viscous and coats your mouth that the bit that you're getting is satisfying. But I do wish at this ring gauge that this had a little more of a chimney quality to I'd like a little more smoke.
Rooster:Not getting a lot of volume. No. But it's velvety.
Bam Bam:It is velvety, but it dissipates pretty quickly.
Rooster:It does. Yeah. The construction on the cigar is flawless.
Senator:Right
Bam Bam:now, it's impeccable. I agree.
Gizmo:Right? Yeah, it's very good right now.
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Chef:I'm cracking just a little bit as we say that.
Bam Bam:That's okay. That'll go away, but no one's ashed yet, and everything is looking pretty good.
Gizmo:I can't believe the burn line on all five of these cigars right now. It's obscene.
Bam Bam:It's crazy. That's what
Senator:a hundred dollars gets you.
Bam Bam:Hundred and 10. Oh, wait. A hundred and 15.
Rooster:Sometimes. Not always.
Senator:Yeah.
Gizmo:Right?
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. It's time to talk about our pairing tonight. We have an interesting one, a debut actually, a rum that everybody's heard of out there. Whether you drink or not, whether you are of even legal age or not, everybody has heard of Bacardi. And tonight, we are bringing Bacardi on for the first time with the Reserva Ocho, eight years aged rum from Bacardi.
Bam Bam:So the nose, I'm getting cherry.
Gizmo:It's very nice, the nose. Yeah. Actually, it does kind of remind me of a lot of the great rum that we like.
Bam Bam:Am I wrong, Chef? Nose. Getting a little bit of cherry on the nose.
Chef:Get some cherry.
Gizmo:He's in the he's the
Bam Bam:he's talking into the glass.
Senator:Just like
Chef:pagoda. I'm getting some cherry, a little almond here too. Yeah. Yeah. Just.
Gizmo:Oh, that's nice. It's a little it's a little cherry cough drop on the finish for me that I don't like. It's a little it has, like, almost like a chemically Yeah. Kind of sugary flavor that I don't love
Bam Bam:on the It's sweet.
Chef:Yeah. Very, very sweet.
Gizmo:I'm glad it's not terribly viscous with the Cuban cigar we have, but I'm not loving the finish on it.
Bam Bam:A cube or two, I think, may make this a bit more pleasant. It may dissipate that sweetness a little bit.
Senator:We can try it. I'll say this, I don't think there's anything overly offensive about it. I agree, the cherry note is pronounced and that's not typically a note I would go for in rum. It's very easy drinking. It's not hot.
Senator:Not at all. It's sweet, but not aggressively sweet. And I say that because, again, I feel like I've tried a lot of different rums. Some Dominican rums in particular can be so sweet, like, it's mind blowing. This is not in that camp where it's like straight molasses, but it's definitely on the a bit of the sweeter side.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Chef:It's not a thick sweet. Yeah, it's not a rich sweetness.
Senator:Not like a molasses sweet. No.
Gizmo:No. It just seems like an artificial type of sweetness on the finish that is turning me off.
Bam Bam:He's also not wrong.
Gizmo:Yeah. You know, it just tastes like a Luden's cough drop almost. Like a Luden's, you know what I mean? Those red You're right on that. That's the finish to me.
Gizmo:It's almost medicinal in a way.
Bam Bam:I hate cough medicine.
Gizmo:Yeah. It's almost like that for me.
Bam Bam:Is there an age statement on this?
Chef:Eight years. Years. So,
Bam Bam:you know, walking down that street in Cuba.
Rooster:Which street?
Bam Bam:I don't know. On our way to the Partagas shop. Obispo. Is that what it is? Okay.
Bam Bam:I'll take your word for it. The old Bacardi factory there.
Gizmo:Yeah. Actually, that's their old office.
Bam Bam:They're not their Not their factory, sir. That was their HQ. Still a very cool building though.
Senator:Yeah, it's an Art Deco building.
Bam Bam:It is. Very well done, Senator. That logo is there. The building is still very nicely intact. Yeah.
Bam Bam:Pretty historic structure, think.
Gizmo:It was actually restored recently. I know senator's gonna go through some of the history on Bacardi here in a minute. Oh, yeah? I have a couple tidbits because I've always been fascinated by two buildings specifically
Bam Bam:That one.
Gizmo:In Havana. That one, the Bacardi HQ is one, and of course, the old Partagas factory.
Bam Bam:So that was their headquarters? Bacardi That was their HQ. Administrative offices.
Gizmo:Prior to the revolution, that's where Bacardi ran Oh, very the rum business out of that specific building. I think they made the rum in Santiago De Cuba in a factory out
Bam Bam:there. It was cool to see that on our very, very first trip to Cuba. That was really cool to see.
Senator:A little on Bacardi's history. Us visiting Cuba, I've been to their factory in in Puerto Rico near San Juan. Really? And usually, like, you know, these factory tours, they're, like, normally pretty cheesy. You don't feel like you get a whole lot.
Senator:I actually think they do a really nice job there. I had a great time. So for me, was just fun to dive into. There you get more of kind of their new world history and to just get a little more context around, like, how things were when they were in Cuba, I just found fascinating. So they were founded in 1862 in Cuba by Spanish born Don Facundo Bacardi.
Senator:His family immigrated to Cuba in 1830 when he was 16 years old from Spain. He eventually opened a small distillery with his brother-in-law in Santiago, like his was talking about. That's where they were actually producing the rum. You've probably seen on every single Bacardi bottle that bat logo they Yep. So Facundo's wife suggested the bat as the company's logo when she noticed a colony of fruit bats in the distillery rafters.
Senator:And apparently, that's like a sign of good fortune in Latin America, so the the bat became a big thing. It's on every bottle. During the Cuban war for independence, I found this fascinating. Facundo's son Emilio fought for, on the Cuban side, for independence from Spain. He was captured, exiled, and jailed for four years.
Senator:Wow. But wildly, he eventually, when he returned, was the first freely elected mayor of Santiago, Cuba. Wow.
Bam Bam:Oh, that's pretty cool. Pretty cool. That's cool.
Senator:McCarty passed down the family business three generations and eventually moved its headquarters to Havana in 1930 When the Cuban revolution happened, obviously, Castro took over in '59, his regime seized all of the Bacardi family's assets and estate and forced them out of the country.
Bam Bam:Unbelievable.
Senator:Now, Bacardi luckily managed to hide its proprietary formula, trademark, and all of its assets in The Bahamas. Smart. And eventually, they moved their operation to Puerto Rico, Mexico, and even The United States. And Puerto Rico is where their largest factory is to this day. Again, cannot recommend enough.
Senator:If you visit San Juan, Puerto Rico, go visit the factory. They are very generous with the drinks there. I mean, I vividly remember when you get there and pay for How
Gizmo:vivid do you actually remember?
Senator:Oh, no.
Gizmo:Is it a cloudy vivid?
Senator:This is the this is this is the early part, I remember. Oh, okay. I'm not gonna speak for the later part, but they give you you know, like, raffle tickets at, you know, fair or something like that? They give you a bunch of these raffle tickets, and they're drink tickets, and it's just all included with what you pay, and they're full size drinks. I remember Double pours.
Rooster:Oh my
Senator:god. It was crazy. You really can try everything, and it's full cocktails and glasses. Wow. So very fun experience there.
Senator:And the last thing I'll say that I definitely didn't know about Bacardi, they're credited with a lot of firsts. So they discovered a proprietary strain of yeast that is even named after Bacardi, and they still use to this day that gives it, like, their distinct flavor profile, filter it through charcoal, and then age the rum in white oak barrels to mellow it out. And so they actually, using this method, were the first in the world to produce a white or clear rum
Bam Bam:Wow.
Senator:That had never been done up until that point. They're also credited with creating the first Cuba Libre. That was Bacardi and Coke. And Ernest Hemingway's favorite drink, the daiquiri. And we, when we were in Havana, visited the Florida where Hemingway used to hang out.
Bam Bam:Oh,
Senator:yeah. I hadn't really pieced together or realized that when Hemingway lived in Cuba in the late thirties and would go there, that's the rum that everyone in Cuba was drinking was Bacardi.
Bam Bam:Oh, shit.
Senator:So the daiquiri really was born with that, and in Hemingway's books, like, he writes about Bacardi, and when he won like a Nobel Prize, Bacardi threw like a massive party for him, so he like unintentionally became a huge brand ambassador. And then as we know, obviously, when Bacardi was forced out, and even to this day, you will never find a single Bacardi product in Cuba.
Gizmo:No way.
Senator:Havana Club became, you know, really like the the national rum. So just a fascinating history of kinda what they've been through.
Bam Bam:Very cool.
Gizmo:I what I find interesting is this you know, you don't even connect the dots when you walk into a liquor store and you see Havana Club on the shelves here in The United States. That's a Puerto Rican version of Havana Club, and guess who produces it? Locardia. Locardia. Locardia.
Gizmo:And there's a lawsuit on this. Yeah. They are suing each other.
Bam Bam:How ironic.
Gizmo:Isn't that I love the irony. That's crazy. That during the revolution, they were forced out, and then now they make their own quote unquote, not counterfeit, but parallel version
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Chef:New world.
Gizmo:Yeah. New world version of Havana Club Run. The other thing too, Senator, I wanted to ask you about this because I saw you were talking about the firsts that the Bacardi family introduced charcoal filtration to rum. Like, what does charcoal do to the process, or why would they have done that?
Senator:I'll give like the simple layman's answer, and then chef could probably go into more detail. It's to remove the impurities.
Bam Bam:That's exactly right.
Senator:The primary purpose. And the thing I hadn't realized about rum, like, you know, we've done some really old distilleries like Mount Gay, I think, is the world's oldest rum. They were back in the early seventeen hundreds.
Bam Bam:We did that.
Gizmo:Yeah. We did that.
Senator:Yeah. The funny thing is, like, you you hear that and you're like, oh, wow. So they were producing great rum for a while. What I hadn't realized is until Bacardi in the eighteen hundreds, rum was a rough, rough drink. Like, there weren't high standards for alcohol at that time period, but like, rum was the bottom of the barrel in terms of it being like really harsh, really aggressive High proof.
Senator:And high proof, and there just wasn't Think Clarin. Right.
Chef:Right? Rum agrovol, Clarin. Like, that's old world rum.
Gizmo:That's what So that's what this used to taste like is what you're saying in Cuba because it's the early days. Before they refined these products.
Senator:Everywhere in
Gizmo:The Caribbean.
Bam Bam:That's what you drink to go to bed.
Senator:Right to bed.
Bam Bam:That will put you right to bed.
Senator:Lights up. And so the wild thing is like Bacardi really was the pioneer in like refining that spirit and creating like a category for it as like a premium spirit that doesn't have to punch you in the face every time you drink it, and I had never known any of that. And so that whole process is is really credited with Bacardi.
Gizmo:And they also were the first rum manufacturers, from what I've read, that introduced oak barrel aging to rum
Senator:That's right.
Gizmo:In Cuba. Like, that's crazy.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Also, I haven't heard of any manufacturer introducing charcoal filtration. I haven't heard that. Well, must be part
Gizmo:of a standard process now, right?
Chef:I don't You see it a lot in the agave world with crystallinos.
Bam Bam:Really?
Chef:Yeah, so crystallino is essentially an anejo or a blended anejo, so it'll have multiple age expressions in it. But then they charcoal filter it, so that way it is then crystal clear.
Bam Bam:Hence
Chef:the name Cristalino. I think that explains the short finish on this. This may be charcoal filtered before it hits the aging
Bam Bam:This does have a bit of a short finish. Very short finish.
Chef:And then when Senator was mentioning the raffle tickets at the fair, it's funny because as I'm drinking, I'm like, this tastes like cotton candy to me. It does. There's a very, like at the tail end, just before it becomes the cough syrup.
Bam Bam:I'm actually getting that in the front.
Chef:Yeah, exactly. Before the finish, before it becomes cough syrupy, I get like cotton candy notes on it. So yeah, I think it's thin finish and maybe it's not super complex, right? There's there's a little something there, but I think it's lack of soul is coming from the fact that it's being charcoal filter prior to aging. Yeah.
Chef:True.
Senator:Yeah. Bacardi, they I mean, we were talking about the the barrels you mentioned, Giz. They have the most rum aging in barrels of any rum distiller or producer in the world. They've got half a million barrels right now just aging rum waiting to be Sold. Yeah.
Senator:It's crazy. Guess I
Rooster:was I was just gonna your your ash was making me
Gizmo:so nervous. I know, dude. And I just took an ash bath. Yeah.
Bam Bam:I I think we all
Gizmo:all over me.
Bam Bam:Yeah. I just stashed in the ashtray.
Gizmo:I was way I was trying to hold on until we finished the Bacardi conversation to say, look at my ash.
Rooster:Mhmm. Were busy talking, and I
Gizmo:was like, please ash.
Chef:I think we ashed or dropped our ash almost at the same time.
Gizmo:That's correct.
Rooster:That did held on for quite some time.
Gizmo:Yeah. I have to say one more thing about this because I'm obsessed with the Picardy Building. I've always found it interesting walking through Havana and whatnot. And as senator noted, it was opened in 1930, but I was doing a little more reading on it and I found on Wikipedia that the building was an outcome of an architectural design competition. So they invited a number of architects in Cuba to present design proposals, and the new headquarters building winner won 1,000 pesos.
Gizmo:Great. Which today, I believe, is about $3.
Senator:Wow. Bam came in with the highest bid. Correct. No way.
Gizmo:So I encourage any listener out there to do some googling on this. I mean, just looking at even look at the the entrance way.
Bam Bam:Mhmm.
Gizmo:I mean, it's just a beautiful
Bam Bam:The facade of the building is very cool.
Senator:I'd love to see the inside in person. Me Apparently, there's like tons of marble and granite.
Bam Bam:It'd be great.
Rooster:Is it open to the public?
Gizmo:I don't know if it is, but it was renovated, I believe, just a few years ago.
Bam Bam:Really?
Gizmo:Yeah. It was completely renovated from what I was reading, but
Bam Bam:We may have some lounge
Gizmo:chairs It was restored by an Italian construction firm. The interior retains the original decorations in marble and granite. It's regarded as one of the finest art deco buildings in all of Latin America.
Bam Bam:So hold on. Is it accessible?
Gizmo:I don't know. I think we should try it next time we go. Yeah.
Bam Bam:It'd be great to see.
Gizmo:Yeah. It's pretty cool. So it's in Habana Vieja for anybody who's looking. Like I said, those two buildings obviously, the Capitol Building is one thing. Right?
Gizmo:That's a beautiful building in Havana. But the old Partagas shop is just the picture of Cuban industry and factory and cigars. You think of the old Partagas factory, which, of course, now has been shut for a few years because it was deemed unsafe. And this Bacardi HQ, those are really the two buildings outside of the the capital in Havana that I think stand out Yeah. You know, in their design and their I mean, even and we're gonna talk about this in a little bit.
Gizmo:Even one of the humidors sold at the festival auction this year at the Habanos Festival was modeled after the look of the Partigas show.
Bam Bam:How many millions did that go for?
Gizmo:We'll talk about that in a little bit. We'll talk about that in
Chef:a little bit.
Gizmo:So boys, we're coming to the end of the first third here on the Partigas, Linea Maestra in Rito. What's everybody thinking?
Senator:I have never gotten more salt or butter in any cigar I have ever smoked. This is outrageous. It's like someone literally took a piece of salted butter Can't disagree. Added more sea salt on top of it, and I had to eat it. That's literally what I'm getting right now.
Bam Bam:Are you getting any of that brown butter, brown sugar type thing? For me, salty, buttery, and a little brown sugar is what I'm getting.
Chef:That might be the introduction of the rum too.
Bam Bam:It could be.
Chef:I don't remember what stick it was that we were smoking where we were all getting salted butter notes. It was very lactic.
Bam Bam:Think the salted butter is accurate.
Rooster:Think it was the Monte Cristo White White Edmundo?
Bam Bam:I don't remember. There's a subtle sophistication to this cigar. I think Puba and Grindr would love this thing.
Senator:I agree.
Gizmo:And I think Pagoda would too.
Bam Bam:I think so too. It does take a little patience to kind of sit with this and kind of understand what you're getting, and you gotta definitely take your time with it like most Cuban cigars, but there's a lot going on here. It's very subtle, though.
Gizmo:On the burn line, I'm getting, like, burnt brown sugar.
Bam Bam:I said that earlier.
Senator:I agree on the burn Yeah.
Gizmo:Yeah. And it's so different than the actual draw. It's one of these cigars that we talk about between the retrohale, the draw, the smell at the burn line, where you're getting three experiences that kinda, when they merge together, kinda really The retro for me
Bam Bam:is where I'm getting the most sweetness for me. The aroma of the foot, a little bit of brown sugar, salted caramel, but on the traditional draw, salted butter, 100%.
Rooster:Yeah. I mean, on the burn line, it you do get that sweet note.
Senator:Yeah.
Rooster:Delicious cigar.
Bam Bam:Very good.
Gizmo:In in my retrohale, you guys are gonna think this is crazy. I just got, like, a hit of, like, key lime pie. Like
Bam Bam:Yeah. I'm not getting that, but I'm looking for it.
Gizmo:Citrus a little.
Chef:Did you eat dinner tonight?
Gizmo:I did.
Senator:Hours ago. What'd have for dessert, Kiss?
Gizmo:Yeah. Nothing. Nothing. This is my dessert right now. I'm really loving this.
Gizmo:Mhmm. This is pretty impressive.
Chef:I think what you're pulling on that from the key lime from the key lime pie is like graham cracker
Gizmo:crust.
Bam Bam:So I have a question for you, Giz. You've had these in your tower for how long?
Gizmo:That's a great question, Bam.
Bam Bam:Six weeks?
Gizmo:Four four no. Probably two months. Probably two months. Eight Something like that.
Bam Bam:It feels good to me. I mean, I think this has been kept perfectly.
Gizmo:Well, what else do you expect? Well, I mean,
Senator:it's always been there.
Bam Bam:I I mean, do you
Gizmo:expect here?
Bam Bam:Go ahead, senator.
Senator:It's a lot of kitty litter.
Gizmo:There is no kitty litter impacting the flavor of the cigar boys.
Chef:Zero. Could be why it's so salty.
Senator:Yeah. Gizmo picked up salted kitty litter.
Bam Bam:It the blue or the pale white?
Rooster:The creamy
Gizmo:butter. Buttered popcorn kitty litter. You know, that's not a
Chef:bad point. I mean, salt could be used to remove humidity from the air just like the the silica beads. Right?
Rooster:That's good
Gizmo:point, chef Ricky, but, no, I didn't I did not use any any kitty litter to acclimate these cigars to the proper humidity. I will say, you know, I've seen other reviews online and whatnot where people were teeing off on the flavor, construction, burn, etcetera
Bam Bam:It's a polarizing cigar.
Gizmo:On these cigars, but I just wonder It's nuts. If they're smoking them too humid.
Senator:It has to be. I'm sorry. I think this blend is excellent. I don't care at all whether it's traditional partagus. It's so unique in what it's delivering, and the flavor profile is much milder than I feel like what any of us would normally go for.
Senator:Mhmm. Yet, it's still so satisfying.
Gizmo:It is.
Senator:It's like they've done something really well.
Bam Bam:Definitely captures your attention.
Gizmo:I gotta ask you guys a question. I know a couple of you guys had cigars at different points during the day today. Where would you slot as of this point, I know we're we're in the second, third now. Right? Coming up on the halfway point.
Gizmo:Where where would you slot this cigar in your day as it stands right now at this At this price? It's really Well, now forget the price.
Bam Bam:I'm gonna
Rooster:put prices. Yeah. Forget the price. So anywhere in the day, I think.
Chef:I think it's versatile. Yeah. It's mild enough. Smoke it in the morning
Bam Bam:if you
Chef:but yet fulfilling enough to be Yeah.
Bam Bam:If I'm doing a sit with the guys, this would probably be the first cigar I smoke, and then lead into some other fuller bodied cigars.
Rooster:This would go really well with a cup of coffee in the morning.
Senator:For sure.
Bam Bam:Sure. You know? I mean,
Senator:I agree with all the above.
Chef:Coffee and cream.
Senator:Yeah. I think I agree with Rooster in that I could smoke this in the morning or the afternoon,
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah.
Senator:But I'm also with BAM, I think, like, as a first stick to start an evening. I mean, full disclosure, this is my fourth cigar today. Look at No. But seriously, and I'm enjoying it. You know?
Senator:It's not like because I've had a bunch of other cigars before it, most of which have been stronger in flavor profile than this, I'm still getting so much out of this.
Bam Bam:I have to admit, like, I broke my own rule before the recording I had.
Chef:Shocking.
Bam Bam:I had a cigar.
Chef:It's not your fault.
Bam Bam:Honestly It's
Rooster:my fault.
Bam Bam:I was a little worried coming in.
Senator:Bam not accountable to himself.
Bam Bam:Not accountable to my that's rule number four, I think.
Gizmo:No. Rule number four is no plastic bag. Correct. Gotta
Bam Bam:get the numbers for
Rooster:the plastic It's number seven.
Chef:We really need to put this in stone. Yeah,
Bam Bam:I don't I don't try to have that cigar before the podcast, but Senator, I think you're correct. This is so unique, and it's a great experience. It stands on its own.
Senator:I just wanna see BAM carve into stone like a Flintstone all these rules.
Bam Bam:I am.
Senator:I will. Just walk around. Like
Gizmo:the 10 commandments.
Senator:Commandments, that's right.
Bam Bam:10 banments.
Gizmo:With the chisels. 10 banmammas. Correct.
Chef:Bam, bam, bam.
Rooster:So does it affect your palate if you had a cigar earlier?
Bam Bam:No. I'm surprised how
Rooster:this That's a flawed rule.
Bam Bam:Well, maybe.
Rooster:We need to rewrite them.
Bam Bam:Yeah. I like the purity of not having a cigar walking in here.
Gizmo:So I I will say this is my first cigar of the
Chef:day. It's my first two, but we're we're finding very similar notes on on the palate.
Gizmo:Oh, no. Don't really buy into Pam's theory on on whether you have Don't
Senator:worry. Don't worry. Elon's gonna take care of this. Thank you. Way too many regulations from Pam.
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah. I'm gonna get canceled.
Gizmo:I'm finding this to be very unique. It's for me standing, obviously I had dinner, so I'm not speaking from a point of not having a good meal before we sat down. It's a few hours ago I had dinner, but I think, for my first cigar of the day, where it's sitting right now, it's like a great starter, but I also feel like if this continues or even improves from where it's at, like, this could be totally a one and done for me, and I'd be very satisfied as far as the experience it gave me.
Bam Bam:Yeah. It's a very, very good
Gizmo:Like, I'm not you know, sometimes when we're smoking a cigar, you know, full disclosure to the listener, all of us are kind of thinking about when we put the mics down and pack everything up and get out of here, what's the next cigar when we go over the lounge that we're gonna smoke after we record? I'm not even thinking about that right
Chef:No.
Bam Bam:It's pretty
Gizmo:It's very satisfying.
Bam Bam:Yeah. It's capturing your attention for sure.
Rooster:This would be a very expensive breakfast cigar.
Senator:It looks like
Bam Bam:Not for
Rooster:you. Hundred and $10.
Bam Bam:Not for you, Rooster.
Gizmo:Now let me ask you guys a question on price because we talk a lot about price. We did that Padron sixtieth anniversary last week.
Bam Bam:$75.
Gizmo:70 5 bucks. This eclipses that by $35 effectively. You know Two very different experiences. But that's again, hitting triple digits on this. Yeah.
Gizmo:It's really challenging for me to get excited about this cigar because I don't know when I'm gonna have this again.
Bam Bam:Yeah. And
Gizmo:Is is anyone in this room as we're standing right now gonna run out and buy a box of these
Bam Bam:If you can find It's not readily available.
Gizmo:You can get these right now from several retailers.
Bam Bam:Really?
Gizmo:But you're gonna pay 22 to $2,300 a box of 20. Are you gonna go
Rooster:out and do that? Maybe maybe the Robusto.
Gizmo:Yeah. It's $55.
Rooster:That's $55 for Robusto, which is you know, I mean, these days, if you go get a d four, that's gonna cost you, what, 30 plus?
Bam Bam:28 to $32.
Gizmo:Right? But I would assume that the d four is gonna knock the Robusto version of this out of the park Correct. Most times out of 10?
Bam Bam:A % correct.
Gizmo:You know, I know it's a different experience probably.
Senator:They're trying to do very different things.
Gizmo:True. There's no question about that.
Senator:I I can't I wouldn't even compare them. But before anything, because you're making me very nervous.
Gizmo:Why?
Senator:You gotta slow down. I am? You're smoking way fast.
Gizmo:Oh, I'm loving this thing right now.
Bam Bam:It's it's
Gizmo:hard Honestly, I'm worried
Bam Bam:it's hard not to draw on
Senator:it. I know, but I'm worried that in the final third, you're gonna lose some of the flavor. I would just advise you to take
Bam Bam:it easy. I may be that's probably what I was guilty of the first time I had this. I may have gone through it way too quickly, and that that final third just backed
Gizmo:up on I'm honest. I can't get enough of this right now.
Bam Bam:It's good.
Gizmo:I can't get enough and it's it's hard to slow down because it's tasting so good.
Chef:It's good. I'm that. You know what's going to help? Drink less rum. That's probably true too.
Gizmo:Found
Chef:myself, like, I would drink rum and then I'd lose the cigar, and I really wanted to get the cigar back, so I started drawing a little quickly on the cigar.
Gizmo:And this thing we do here is so challenging, isn't it?
Senator:Yeah. Correct. I'd like to take the opposite approach. I mean, want something satisfying. So if I can't draw the cigar too often, I'm going to the rub.
Bam Bam:Correct. Whatever I'm drinking kinda delays my desire for a draw, and it helps to slow me down.
Gizmo:I just think the finish on this is so short to Ricky's point. I'm going after cigar because I want to get something back on my palate that is salt. And I think the salty thing, it's almost
Chef:It's addicting.
Gizmo:It's little addictive, right? Salt is notoriously addictive, right?
Bam Bam:Salt and butter.
Gizmo:Salt and butter? I mean, it's like we're at the movies right now.
Bam Bam:It's like bacon.
Chef:Dude, I literally just left the restaurant, and it's just like
Gizmo:yes. It's like I'm still there. You're back you're back
Senator:in there.
Gizmo:Salt and butter. A lot less stressful, though.
Chef:Yes. Yes.
Gizmo:So the funny
Senator:thing with this rum Pretty good. I've never had this, like, standard eight year that they make, or I shouldn't say that. I'm sure I had at the factory. I obviously don't remember. But there's a few variations of this, like these limited release that they come out with.
Senator:And the first time I tried this, there's lizard AC at our lounge. He drinks this. I mean, he's Puerto Rican, so, you know, he loves to support a a Puerto Rican product. And the first time I tried it with him, he had a it's the same bottle, but with a green label, and it's finished in a rye cask. And they also have one because when Giz was picking this up with
Gizmo:a sherry cask Yeah. I called senator. I'm like, which one are we getting?
Senator:Now we we did this because this, you'll be able to get those limited releases. It's just a limited run, and that's it. So if we liked one of them, the odds of listeners gonna be able to find it very slim.
Bam Bam:Oh, wow.
Senator:But the Rycask that I tried had a much longer finish than this does.
Bam Bam:I'm sure.
Senator:So I'm a little surprised, like, how dramatic the step down is from this when they're both eight year, and the only difference is just finishing in that rye cask.
Gizmo:Yeah. I wonder if the sherry cask version of this too would also have a longer finish. You It
Bam Bam:It should maybe. And you'd have to wonder if it was sweeter than what we're experiencing.
Gizmo:Well, that's also my Yeah.
Bam Bam:Sherry cask, yeah.
Gizmo:It was only $3 more. I mean, just for the listener out there, this bottle that we have tonight was 32.99.
Bam Bam:Yeah. And I will say the sweetness that I that for me personally, that I experienced on the first two or three sips has dissipated. It's kind of mellowed out a little bit. My palates adjusted to it. I'm kinda like it.
Senator:I agree with that.
Bam Bam:Yeah. It's very easy to drink. Sweetness kind of dissipated for me.
Chef:Cigars like a salted biscuit or whatever. No,
Gizmo:no, biscuit. Biscuit. We're not
Chef:at butter. Now we're at biscuits. Butters on
Bam Bam:a biscuit.
Chef:We're browning. Correct. Now we're browning.
Gizmo:Yeah. This is pretty awesome right now. Partagus, baby. Yeah, man. Alright, boys.
Gizmo:So let's talk a little bit more about the Hibana's festival that just wrapped up earlier this month. And we every year, we talk about the auction that happens at the end of the gala dinner on Friday night, and it's always lunacy. And this year was no different. Six of the lots sold for 1,000,000 or more, and one set a new record selling for just under $5,000,000.
Rooster:Wow. Wow.
Chef:Obscene. Think any of those people listen to the pod.
Senator:Oh, no.
Gizmo:So let's talk about some of the lots that they sold. One was a Flor de Juan Lopez humidor, which started the auction, sold for $228,000. That's what Cesar Rooster picked that up.
Rooster:Florida Juan Lopez. Yes.
Gizmo:As did a La Gloria Cubana humidor.
Senator:That's the second one Rooster bought.
Bam Bam:Correct. That's his favorite markup.
Gizmo:Then getting into kinda closer prices to what I was expecting, the h Upman humidor, which had two doors which opened via like a push action button decorated with golden leaves all over. It came with 375 Upman cigars including 25 H Upman number twos and a bunch of others, Sir Winston's, etcetera, sold for $938,000 for 375 cigars.
Rooster:Hope that was a
Chef:soft open
Bam Bam:Yeah. That's a Puba investment all over.
Gizmo:Yeah. He would he would love that.
Senator:No. Puba put his paddle down as soon as they said there's no love 14 in there. He was out.
Bam Bam:Well, know, he walks into every room. The first thing he says, love 14? How you doing, guys? Lab 14.
Gizmo:So then there was an Oyo de Monterrey Humidor, which reached $1,770,000 designed to resemble the gate of the famed plantation in Vuelta A Bajo when Jose Guinier created the brand in 1865, had 400 Hoyo cigars in it, of course. Churchill's, double Coronas, Odysseo Limitatas, etcetera. But 400 cigars for $1,770,000. That's not bad.
Senator:That's yeah. 400 cigars. That's a great deal.
Bam Bam:Oh, you get a box at the end of the day.
Gizmo:So this one might be my favorite looking, boys, of the entire thing, going back to the conversation we had earlier about the buildings in Habana, but the Partagas That's like
Bam Bam:a scale architectural model.
Gizmo:It's pretty incredible. Right? Yeah. It looks just like the facade of the old Partagas factory in Havana.
Bam Bam:I can make that for a hundred grand.
Senator:I was just gonna say, let's just have Ben make that. Yeah. But not for a hundred grand, more like a hundred bucks.
Bam Bam:Yeah. I could make my cost would probably be about a thousand dollars.
Gizmo:And you'd sell it for a hundred grand? Yes. To your friends? To the to
Bam Bam:the to Habano SSA because apparently, they're buying anything and then selling it.
Rooster:And what is it made out of?
Gizmo:Wood or metal? So it incorporates bronze and three kinds of wood. Bronze. That's what they say.
Senator:And they're selling it at that
Gizmo:price too. Guess how guess how much this went for at auction?
Bam Bam:I'm gonna say 3,700,000.0.
Gizmo:No. 1,700,000.0.
Bam Bam:1 point 7.
Gizmo:4 hundred and 50 5 Parthagas 455 Parthagas cigars were included. Of course, the Legatos, the Odysseo Limitanas, all the classic Partagas cigars were in this, but that was that was a beautiful, beautiful humidor. Next up was the Romeo y Julieta humidor coming with 425 cigars, including a bunch of the regular Vitolas and some special stuff sold for 1,800,000.0. This one's pretty cool. The design on it, there's like this wood inlay that has two kind of kissing faces
Bam Bam:That's cool.
Gizmo:Designed in it, you know, pretty wild.
Bam Bam:What's the marker? Who who?
Gizmo:This is Romeo.
Bam Bam:Romeo. Got it. Yep.
Gizmo:And then up next was the Monte Cristo humidor, which people love, of course, celebrated by a big
Bam Bam:yellow tower. That's a humidor?
Gizmo:That's a humidor. Yeah. Wow. And it had Interesting.
Bam Bam:Looks like a vase.
Gizmo:470 Montecristos in it, including the a, which I mentioned on the Wide Ed Lindo episode that I smoked during the Super Bowl, all the special editions, etcetera, went for 1.8 million Wow. Again, you know, you think about Monte Cristo, we talked about the white Edmundo. Look at that. This introduction of the yellow, the heavy yellow, like the white Edmundo's
Bam Bam:really second yellow band.
Senator:Why is there a Fleur de Lee at the top?
Gizmo:I don't know. Interesting. I'm not sure about that.
Bam Bam:That's a good question.
Senator:It's like a
Gizmo:I'll email Habanos. I'll get back
Bam Bam:to you It's
Senator:like a Mardi Gras edition. I just don't get So
Gizmo:there were two Cohiba humidors offered this year. One was a regular kind of Cohiba humidor, which had the Taino head on the top of it. Wow. It was pretty beautiful.
Bam Bam:That's cool.
Gizmo:Actually Gorgeous. Had the boxes that you would see on the Cohiba band, the Bahike band, etcetera. This humidor was filled with 520 cigars, including a bunch of the bijiques, no bijique 58, just the regular sizes. They had the Ambar, the Magistuosos, Novodosos, Talismans sold for $3,300,000. Unbelievable.
Gizmo:I don't know what to say. It's crazy. I mean, money it's like money. It's like monopoly money at
Bam Bam:this Well, we had the pleasure of sitting in our very first trip during one of these auctions. One sold for over $4,000,000.
Gizmo:It's crazy.
Bam Bam:I'm sitting there. This man from China bids 4 and a half million dollars on a box. Like it's nothing.
Chef:Right? A
Bam Bam:mere bag of shells.
Gizmo:Exactly. And
Senator:Bam handed him a business
Bam Bam:card. You better believe it.
Gizmo:Alright. And, of course, that night, that Friday night at the festival, they were celebrating Behike. And the final humidor was, for the first time, offered as just a Behike humidor with the fifteen year anniversary the fifteen year anniversary
Senator:of the Bahique
Gizmo:logo all over it, and this featured 100 of each of the Bahique sizes, including the new 58, the 52, 50 four, 50 six, 50 eight. This cigar humidor
Chef:5,000,000.
Gizmo:With 400 cigars in it sold for $4,800,000.
Senator:Bargain.
Gizmo:Unbelievable. So I did the math on that. That averages out to $12,000 per cigar. Wow. In the humidor.
Bam Bam:I'd love to know who bought that.
Gizmo:So the total proceeds were $17,000,000.
Chef:And they all need a perfect drawer. Yeah.
Bam Bam:You know, they could put that money to the power grid.
Gizmo:Thankfully, this argument No, all
Senator:the money's going to the Cuban people.
Bam Bam:Oh, sure.
Senator:The healthcare system. Oh, yeah. All the bullshit they say every
Gizmo:Clean water. And I have to note this because I found it interesting, but after the auction was done, Earth, Wind, and Fire took the stage and played a set
Bam Bam:Are you serious?
Gizmo:At the gala dinner that day.
Bam Bam:In Havana.
Gizmo:In Havana. That's pretty cool. What? Pretty wild. Earth, Wind, and Fire came out and played a little rock.
Senator:Did they have, like, a musical act every year? Or
Gizmo:It's never like a headliner like that where you'd know the name. Normally, it's Cuban I'm actually very shocked. I am too. I was surprised to hear that. I was surprised to hear that.
Bam Bam:Wow. Yeah. What I wonder what they got paid. Oh, yeah.
Rooster:Is this where they introduced the no. Introduced the award for the Habanos Man of the Year?
Gizmo:Yeah. It's called Habanos Hombre. Yes. Habanos Man. Yes.
Gizmo:Was Rooster nominated? There's a couple different categories.
Senator:He won in the forties.
Bam Bam:Well, he wants to know where he stands.
Gizmo:Only I already won in the forties. The only one I know of, the winner was in the communications category. Alex Groom, of course, a friend of mine and ours who runs Cupid cigar website.
Senator:Just please tell me that Kirby Allison lost again.
Gizmo:He did not get nominated. Good. He'll get it next year.
Bam Bam:I'm happy for Alex.
Gizmo:Alex will probably get it in two years according to what Alex was saying. But Cigar Dandy, who's an influencer online on Instagram and whatnot, he's been nominated a few times. He won this year, so congratulations to him.
Senator:Alright. We we got a few years. We'll get ours.
Gizmo:I wanted to may note a quick thing. So Alex Groom was talking on FOH about being nominated and not winning this year and what not. And he was saying that apparently when they closed the old Partagas factory, which we've talked about several times tonight, apparently they got rid of all the old archives. So when the people were you know, the folks in in Tabakuba or whoever is blending and making new cigars or reissues of old cigars, they go back to Cupid cigar website to find the dimensions and whatnot of the old Nikola because they threw away the old archives. That's what he learned.
Bam Bam:Yeah. That's a bit of a disgrace.
Gizmo:Yeah. And and for me, I question, like, the blending information. The rest of for chef, the recipes of these old cigars are clearly gone. Wow.
Bam Bam:So my next d four suspect.
Gizmo:Well, I would think would think it'd be the cigars that were discontinued, not the cigars that are still available. But still, it's pretty wild that instead of having their own archives, they're going to Cubancigarwebsite.com just like we do every week here on the on the podcast.
Chef:It could be why all the new Cubans are smoking better as of
Senator:right now.
Gizmo:They are smoking pretty good. All right, boys. Let's go to some listener comments and emails. So Lizard Enrique always writes us. He's a great listener.
Gizmo:He writes us all the time. And he he wrote it that the episode where we talked about the SNL 50 and my enjoyment of Cher on the program. He said that the back half of this episode is the back the backbone of the 2025 best of episode coming at the end of the year.
Senator:Thank you.
Gizmo:Great stuff.
Rooster:I don't
Gizmo:know if any of that is gonna make the best of. We'll see.
Senator:I'm gonna learn how to edit. Correct. Just for that. We might need a new editor.
Gizmo:And he also said that a rooster comparing Grindr's retainer to Bobby Bonilla's contract had me howling. It was a chef's kiss. A great episode. And finally, he shared a screenshot of his order from yourelegantbar.com, thanking chef Ricky. He bought his tower?
Gizmo:He bought his exact tower,
Bam Bam:the EB
Gizmo:559 single door. And I've had a lot of listeners emailing, asking for the link and the information about chef Ricky's tower. So, of course, it's been a couple weeks now. I think we need a tower update.
Chef:Correct. It's going phenomenally well. I I I I've I'm even filling the cigar oasis less now. I haven't added much to the tower yet just because, you know, I've been pretty busy lately.
Senator:I do have We've heard that from Ben before.
Bam Bam:Correct. I do have some tuning That's not a plausible excuse any longer.
Senator:Fool me once. You can't be fooled
Rooster:again.
Gizmo:I do have some fabric of fives coming. I'm just a great representative. That's George W. Bush. Fool me once you can't get fooled again.
Gizmo:Sorry. Go ahead.
Chef:All good. All good. And I'm happy to report, I think Lizard JP might be jumping on the LL. No kidding. There we go.
Gizmo:I gotta say, I remain really impressed with that tower you bought. Just the design of it. The product is The fan system, the lights are just like mine. It's awesome. They're vigilant.
Chef:And the sale is still going.
Gizmo:It's still $14.90 Yeah. $400 off. So I did get some listener emails asking because, know, when you purchase it on Your Elegant Bar, they're recommending their own. They have like an auto checkbox in your cart. When you add it to the cart, it automatically adds a few other products.
Gizmo:They add one of their own humidification units. You want to make sure you uncheck that and you get a cigar oasis
Bam Bam:Yeah, three point o.
Gizmo:Magma three point o.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Chef:Very I told Lizard Enrique exactly what it was that I had. I remember him asking me about the Cigar Oasis as well. So hopefully he took the advice and.
Gizmo:I'm sure he did. He sent me a screenshot, so I'm sure he's going to have it- Awesome.
Chef:Awesome.
Gizmo:Very, very soon.
Rooster:So that's pretty cool. When do we get the commission check?
Senator:Forget the commission check. We should just quit our day jobs and start selling humidors.
Gizmo:That's true.
Chef:I might've told them, hey, if if you find a way to just make sure you you try to mention the pod just in case, you know?
Gizmo:Yeah. Let them know where you're coming from.
Chef:Yeah. They they
Gizmo:see a
Chef:bunch of orders all of a sudden.
Rooster:Know? I mean, we have somebody who could actually build it.
Senator:Yeah. That's right.
Gizmo:Yeah. Only a hundred thousand bucks.
Senator:Yeah. We'll be out of business in two days.
Bam Bam:Four times the price.
Gizmo:All right. And two nice comments on YouTube I really liked that I wanted to share. First was from Lizard Arslan. He said, hey, guys. I really appreciate you.
Gizmo:Thank you for your efforts. And another one from Lizard Steve Cook said, hands down, one of the best cigars and spirits podcasts out
Bam Bam:there. Awesome.
Gizmo:Thank you. Love seeing stuff like that. I agree.
Bam Bam:Thanks, chef.
Chef:Cigar spirits and food. Correct. This cigar is amazing.
Gizmo:Yeah? I'm actually so pleasantly surprised right now. I'll be honest with you guys. My expectation coming in after having the Partagas Aliatos LCDH on the pod, a newer release, hearing so many horror stories about this line and this cigar on the Internet, I was very, very hesitant to come in here with a new Partagas, and I mean, it's just unbelievable
Chef:right I'm actually starting to come into a little baking spice. I don't know if anyone else is experiencing that yet, but look out for it. Although it gives you further along than I think any of us are.
Bam Bam:Yeah. I'm actually pretty far along, but the aroma on the foot of this cigar is really still exquisite. Yeah. It's fantastic.
Senator:In the second third, it even picks up a little bit in strength and in a really nice way.
Gizmo:A touch.
Chef:Yeah. And I don't think anyone's touched their cigar.
Gizmo:There's not been a single lighter among the five of
Senator:I have had to.
Gizmo:Oh, you did? I
Bam Bam:didn't see that.
Senator:I had a weird thing, Giz is gonna hate when I say this, but I'm just gonna say it. I had a weird thing about midway through where
Rooster:it could
Senator:be the rapper or it it felt like the humidity was just oddly different at a point that it I had
Bam Bam:control that, Giz.
Senator:I'm not I'm not saying it. I just I knew he would take it personally. That's why I was worried to
Gizmo:say Listen. I take this job very seriously.
Bam Bam:I know you do.
Rooster:Was there a little crack?
Senator:No. No. No crack. It just for some reason, like, the rapper felt wetter in the middle, and I had to torch it to kinda Mhmm. Burn through that, and now it's gone back to normal.
Senator:Yeah. I'm perfect right
Bam Bam:now. I had two very slight touch ups, but it's because I probably hit a vein, and there was a high point. I kinda like to keep it horizontal.
Gizmo:Too touchy.
Bam Bam:No No. No vertical peaks in my cigar.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. Time to go to another email. This one's from Lizard Whelan. If you remember Lizard Whelan, he lives in LA, had some issues with the fire, his collection, etcetera. I think all worked out okay, but he sent us another follow-up.
Gizmo:He says, Lizards, two quick items today. First of all, thank you for suggesting champagne as a pairing for cigars. I think he's talking to us, Bam, you and I Correct. As far as introducing champagne on the podcast. Now senator, take your flowers.
Gizmo:Congratulations.
Bam Bam:Turn off his mic, will
Chef:you? Just
Bam Bam:for ten minutes.
Senator:No. No. No. Congratulations, Gizen. Let
Bam Bam:us have our glory.
Senator:I love that Paul Roger you guys have.
Bam Bam:Paul Roger, baby.
Gizmo:Paul Roger, man. He says it's really quite fantastic. I would like to hear some more budget recommendations, however. Hundred dollars for a bottle is not realistic for many folks, at least as a regular thing. Of course, the Paul Roger is pretty reasonably priced at around what?
Gizmo:50? 40 5 to 50. Yeah.
Chef:Don't think senator does I don't think senator
Senator:does fairness, most champagnes we've done have been right around the $50 mark.
Bam Bam:And they've all been delicious.
Gizmo:And some of the ones that Lizard Whalen is referring to are the vintage ones we've done, special releases, etcetera, which we only will do on a special episode New Year's Eve, some milestone number of episodes like episode 200 coming up. We have a great champagne we're going to do, you know, at that point. But generally, if we're doing a champagne on the pod, it's going to be a budget. Yeah. You know, kind of reasonable champagne.
Gizmo:Now my question It's be accessible. Yeah. It will be easy to find, etcetera. My question for you, senator, are there $20 or $30 bottles of Bubblies?
Senator:So I'll be very honest. There's there's not. I have searched far and wide to try to find, like, a sub $40 champagne or sparkling of some kind that, like, really drinks above its weight class. I haven't found it. The thing I'll forever regret, I found one bottle that fits this bill perfectly.
Senator:Hasta Spomonti. Nailed it.
Bam Bam:With a sugar cube.
Senator:I was in I was in Paris on business. This was years ago. And there's this really cool place where I mean, you imagine, you know, a place like Paris, there's so much fine dining, so many nice restaurants, crazy tasting menus,
Chef:all that.
Senator:But when I was in Paris, there was this place that does this tasting menu, and it's like a a training ground for chefs. And instead of paying, like, $500 a person at some, like, really crazy fancy, you know, French restaurant with an amazing tasting menu, this place got, like, written up as, like, amazing food in Paris.
Chef:Wow.
Senator:And they're all, like, very promising chefs in training. So you're doing, like, a crazy tasting menu at, like, half the cost. And I remember going, the meal was actually really, really good. And we got a champagne that is not like from any of the big champagne houses. And I remember looking this up that night because it was so good, and I saw it was like 30 something dollars.
Senator:And I had never come across any sparkling at that price point that it drank like a $60 bottle of champagne, and I lost whatever record I thought I was keeping of what it was called.
Bam Bam:Very unusual for him.
Gizmo:Yeah. Not fastidious. No. No. Not fastidious.
Gizmo:No.
Rooster:You remember the was it a restaurant?
Senator:Yeah. Yeah. But the problem is, so like, it's because it has these rotating chefs that come through, the menu changes. There's no idea where it menus change, like Wow. Everything so quickly.
Senator:And it's like my biggest regret because if I could find that, I would buy cases of it because the price point was so spectacular. So I'll just throw out a challenge to listeners. There are any listeners that, you know, really love champagne, especially any listeners in Europe that have easier access to like, you know, non mass marketed, you know, champagne house type champagne that we get here. I'd love for anyone to write in with some, like, sub $45 recommendations. It's really Wow.
Senator:Really hard.
Bam Bam:Are there boutique champagne houses that produce at a small batch at a lower
Senator:price? That's the thing. Yeah.
Gizmo:Yeah. But you can't get them here is what I'm saying, It
Senator:would be hard, but I think there will be ways. Like some of them I mean, with wine, it's so much easier. Right? Wine, when you're anywhere, Europe, South America, you can ship direct from whatever vineyard you're visiting. So, like, if we could find a great champagne house, I have no doubt.
Senator:If they'd already do it, we can have it shipped, and even honestly, a lot of these small operations, if I called, I'm sure they would do it. You have to pay a hefty price in the shipping, but if you buy in bulk, it's worth it. It'd be like, you know, it's so incremental once you hit a certain point, but it's the hardest thing to find. I say that because, you know, we have found $20 bottles of red wine that are satisfying white wine. Champagne is just like that one outlier.
Senator:It's really, really difficult.
Bam Bam:Yeah. And even if we were able to find something, the accessibility of it would be impossible.
Gizmo:Yeah. For other listeners to Correct. Yeah. That's the challenge. Yeah.
Gizmo:I mean,
Senator:what what we will do eventually, and even this is frustrating because there are a lot of cavas that are from Spain, sparkling wine, that are really excessively priced, some of which are very satisfying. There was a one of them years ago. Now this is so mass marketed. They have totally skimped on quality. But Segura Vitis, if you've ever had it, it sounded like a zillion menus.
Senator:It's like a $10.12 dollar bottle of sparkling. Years ago when someone first clued me into this, it drank way above its price point. It got so popular so fast, and there's no question they've skimped on quality now. It's not the same experience, but the point is every now and then you can find some values. It's just really hard to find.
Bam Bam:You know, we haven't done a Prosecco.
Gizmo:Actually, it's funny you just said that, Bam. Hold that thought for a second because Lizard Whalen continues. He says, maybe you could also expand to other bubbly options, Prosecco, sparkling wine, which Senator just mentioned. You mentioned Prosecco, etcetera. He says, I hope you will consider it.
Bam Bam:The only problem that I have with Prosecco is Too sweet. But it's also a little too effervescent. Sometimes I don't enjoy Prosecco because it's just too bubbly. I don't know.
Senator:Not all of them.
Bam Bam:No. I would say this.
Senator:I think we're more likely to find a sparkling that drinks above its weight class in Cava Mhmm. A Spanish sparkling than we are in Prosecco. I was in Italy last year, I mean, drank plenty of Prosecco. I didn't find anything that was really that impressive, but it's a good challenge. I'm gonna make it my mission this year to dive more into Cabba and see if we can find something.
Senator:Nice.
Gizmo:And listen, we've found so many different types of spirits, right, from listener recommendations in our own discovery
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:That has totally changed, almost repivoted us in what we're pairing with our cigars. You know, like, actually, we've kind of come around now, I think, to single malts again after we found the Glenfiddich 12. I know Senator and I have been drinking a lot of that.
Bam Bam:That is incredible stuff.
Gizmo:But that's the first time that we've kind of revisited even single malts in a serious way outside of the podcast. So the other stuff has been filling it up, the cognacs, the armaignaks, the rums, etcetera. So I would love to find some more bubbly options that are more reasonably priced, as Lizard Whalen's saying here.
Senator:Okay. Sorry. Big moment on the cigar. I'm getting some baking spice
Bam Bam:Me too.
Senator:And some cinnamon esque notes in the final third.
Gizmo:Yep. Took them long enough.
Senator:So there is some Partagas DNA here.
Gizmo:I have not gotten cinnamon yet. And for the listeners, we are in the final third here on the part against Linea Maiestra
Bam Bam:Hold up your cigar, Gus.
Gizmo:In Rito.
Bam Bam:Oh, you are way ahead of all of Yeah.
Senator:Giz is out of control.
Gizmo:Yep. I've slowed down, actually.
Chef:I I I called that ten minutes ago.
Senator:Like when he's like, I don't drive fast, and he's going 100 miles an hour down the highway.
Bam Bam:Caesar salad.
Gizmo:This cigar is delicious, boys. The bacon spices coming through now.
Bam Bam:I am shocked at how well this is performing. Shocked.
Senator:It's a damn good cigar.
Bam Bam:Yeah. And you know
Chef:what? The the rum's even growing on me a little bit now.
Senator:Me too. I agree. Yeah. I want another pour actually.
Gizmo:Yeah. I'm enjoying it.
Chef:Bam was right. It it kinda settled in a little So
Bam Bam:sweetness dissipated. Right?
Gizmo:Yeah. And I think as your palate adjusted Correct. It it became more drinkable. It's just
Chef:more balanced. Yeah, I'm getting less of the of cough syrup astringency at the end there, and it's
Bam Bam:just Definitely take a refill.
Senator:I also on the rum, has anyone else noticed, so when you take a swig of the rum and it's just kinda sitting on your palate, like you haven't swallowed it yet, there's a buttery, like a a velvety smoothness. It's really Caramel vanilla. But I don't mean flavor. It's like the texture It's very buttery quality about it. You know, some
Bam Bam:spirits, they're So what he's saying right now, that experience pairs beautifully with what the cigar is giving us.
Chef:I think the cigar has made its impact on the spirit now, because that butteriness wasn't there
Rooster:at all.
Senator:No, no, I'll say this.
Bam Bam:I think the spirit's standing on its own.
Senator:No, I'll say this. I cheat almost every episode. I take a little sip before we are
Gizmo:supposed You know, I like the self accountability.
Senator:I I hold myself accountable. There's nothing wrong with it. Oh, yeah? I am. I'm fully admitting it.
Senator:I mean, had I not said it, no one would even know.
Gizmo:But I see him do it every week, but he's counting.
Senator:But I say that when I took a sip of this before having even this cigar, that same it it like it sits in this oddly elegant way on your tongue. I know this sounds strange. There are some spirits, like, you have them, and if they're, like, hot or they're really thin and there's nothing to round out the alcohol, it just it it's sharp in in kinda how it feels on your palate. There's some spirits that, like, have this velvety quality that the way they sit on your palate, it's like it's like floating there. I know this sounds so odd.
Senator:Think you makes sense.
Bam Bam:I'm in lockstep with you. When it's on your tongue before you swallow it it there's like there's this there is a buttery Buttery. Salty quality to it, but it does kind of linger there after you swallow. So the finish, we said earlier, was very short. That experience actually extends it.
Bam Bam:I agree. Yeah. And you can get fucked up on this stuff.
Gizmo:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This could be a problem. Especially at $32 a bottle.
Gizmo:Oh, oh, we're at the Bacardi factory. Correct. Where's our drink ticket, senator? Correct. Alright, boys.
Gizmo:So Lizard Wayland continues here with his second question. He says, next, what is in your opinion the shortest amount of time that you can smoke a cigar that you have received via post? So the cigar shows up, you know, at your door. What is the shortest length of time that you smoke? It's rooster actually walks out to the UPS truck and takes the box and opens it
Bam Bam:Lice it right away.
Gizmo:Yeah. Exactly.
Rooster:Well, I have the UPS guy actually open the box for me, and then we light it together.
Bam Bam:Oh, nice. Very generous.
Gizmo:Yeah. Very generous.
Rooster:So I think on a new world cigar, you can pretty much sometimes I mean, if you feel the cigar, it's not spongy, you can go for it.
Chef:Yeah. I'd like to wait a couple weeks.
Senator:No. Go ahead, senator. I mean, I'll say this. I think some new world cigars, you can do what Rooster's describing. Especially Padrons.
Senator:I think particular well, that's where I'm going. So I think new world cigars with a thick wrapper, you can do that with.
Bam Bam:Mhmm.
Senator:Like Padron, those are thick wrappers. You drop a Padron on the floor, it's not gonna crack. You can smoke one right out of the box. Totally. Yeah.
Senator:I think a New World cigar with a thinner wrapper, it just absorbs that moisture so much more. It's really hard to smoke that. I say this like a great example. Some Dunbarton cigars, like Saka stuff that I've bought, the wrappers are definitely not Padron level thick. And I have found with those cigars, I have to rest them and bring them down to the right humidity to smoke.
Bam Bam:Even the Cincon Promise, you think, is a little thinner?
Senator:I haven't bought that myself, so I'm not sure with that cigar.
Rooster:Yeah. Been talking about the creme brulee.
Senator:Absolutely. The creme brulee and even the regular Sobremesa, both of those need time.
Gizmo:Yeah.
Senator:So for me, it's the thickness of the wrapper that really determines it, and any Cuban cigar, you cannot I
Gizmo:would argue Honduran as well, including the Aladino we love and of course Fabrica five. When I get those in, I do let them rest a little while and come down in humidity because for me, it's not just a performance thing, it's a flavor thing.
Bam Bam:Got a question for senator. Go ahead. I got my first Trinity Robusto from him. So that one I smoked. How long did you keep that
Senator:before that a while. Months? That was probably two months. Yeah. But I'll say this.
Senator:No. Hang on. Hang on.
Gizmo:But he's been smoking them for a while.
Senator:Yeah. You don't have to you don't have to keep them two months in order to start smoking them.
Chef:Mhmm.
Senator:My experience with really anything fabric of five I've bought has been two weeks. It needs to be like Acclimated. Acclimated and ready to smoke, and it just gets better and better as it sits.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Okay.
Rooster:I mean, does it matter if it's if you're getting it during the summer months as opposed to winter months?
Senator:Well, that for sure definitely impacts it.
Gizmo:Yeah. Mean, especially if you order later in the week and it's sitting at a UPS facility outside in the back of a truck Yeah. Over the weekend in the heat, etcetera, I mean, that stuff is going to affect it. So acclimation is really important when
Bam Bam:you get your I will early on in our collection activities years ago, whenever I would get a box, I would pull a rooster, and I would take one right out and try it and see what it's like. But these days, because we have so much to choose from now, I'll just get the box and put it right in the tower and just leave it there.
Rooster:I take offense to
Chef:that. I think it depends on the online vendor too, because some vendors, it seems like it takes a lot longer to get your cigars after an order than some Yeah. Know, Highline cigars always takes, you know, a week or two, maybe sometimes a little bit longer.
Gizmo:And Atlantic is like the next day.
Chef:Atlantic is, yeah, two days you have your sticks.
Gizmo:I placed an order on Fabrica five today. I got a shipping notification with the tracking number within like two hours, just like Atlantic.
Bam Bam:Yeah. I think we're saying the same thing. Overall, when you buy a new box of cigars, you let it acclimate like Senator said. Keep it in your tower for two weeks, maybe try one. Then
Gizmo:Yeah. And he's gonna ask something that's gonna sound redundant, but for me, the answer is actually really important here. So he says, does this time frame differ between Cubans and non Cubans? Any suggestions for getting a cigar to the ideal smokeable state in the shortest amount of time? So for me, as far as Cubans versus New Worlds, Cubans, I think the acclamation is absolutely required.
Gizmo:I would probably put Honduran cigars right next to that. Mhmm. Just in their makeup and and in their DNA, I think coming down in humidity from wherever they're at when you get them is really important.
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Gizmo:Non Cubans or Padrons, Davidoffs, etcetera, the Dunbartons, to me, it's about flavor.
Bam Bam:Mhmm.
Gizmo:So if you're a smoker who, you know, appreciates your Padrons, your Dominicans, your Nicaraguans at a higher humidity, 65 to 67, even to 70, then it's not going to matter to you. Me, I prefer my stuff to be kind of low to mid sixties generally, including my padrons, my Dominicans, Nicaraguans. So I'm going to wait a little longer before I You'll keep them in your personal Exactly. But I think Cubans, I think, is universal for everyone. They need as much rest as you can give them.
Senator:Mhmm.
Chef:Now, Giz, when do you how do you determine when to do the freezer protocol versus not?
Gizmo:The freezer protocol, I only do when I get a box of Cuban cigars or if I'm if I come back from Cuba with cigars that I've been gifted. Anytime that a cigar has not gone through the Habanos distribution network and you purchase it from a retailer, you have to freeze them. So the number one tell for Cuban cigar boxes is if they have a MINSAP health label, which is the Cuban health label. That's the biggest indicator on an authentic box of Cuban cigars that they've not been frozen. And then anything that's coming off the island, not having a band on it, you're bringing home yourself, needs to be frozen.
Gizmo:They've not gone through a Habanos protocol. Like anything you're buying from FOH, from Rob
Bam Bam:I just learned something.
Gizmo:IHavannas, etcetera, don't need to be frozen, but anything coming directly from the island, including anything you buy in Cuban shops that has a MINSAP label on it, does need to be frozen.
Bam Bam:Really?
Senator:And for the listener, that's to kill beetles.
Gizmo:That's to
Bam Bam:kill beetles. MINSAP label.
Gizmo:Can you kick an eye? MINSAP, m I n s a p, is the Cuban health warning sticker. That's the tell on a Cuban box of cigars.
Bam Bam:You've gotta put
Gizmo:in through the protocol. You gotta freeze it.
Bam Bam:I had that's news to me. I just learned something tonight.
Chef:Can I get loser to the week for that?
Bam Bam:I didn't know that. Yeah. I would like a
Senator:hoodie. Yeah. I need a new one.
Gizmo:So his question about any suggestions for getting a cigar to the ideal smokable state in the shortest amount of time? I have one answer to this, which may be controversial in the room.
Bam Bam:Oh boy.
Senator:I Don't break out
Gizmo:of No, it's not catty litter. It's not kitty litter, stop. Anytime I have a cigar that I want to acclimate faster, I will cut the head of the cigar, and I will put it back in my tower. And I'm thinking, this is not scientific, this is Gizmo logic. I'm thinking that as opposed to the error only being able to enter from one end, enters from both ends, I have found that it actually works quite a bit just slicing the head of the cigar as opposed to doing it here.
Bam Bam:Probably wouldn't do that, but Why? I don't know.
Rooster:Cut the head off the cigar?
Senator:You've completely destroyed
Chef:I mean That cigar is not pod worthy.
Senator:Sit down.
Chef:So you can't do the cut of
Senator:the cigar. The cut light. Light the cigar. Correct.
Gizmo:Actually, I'll argue. Sometimes when I have a Cupid cigar that I know I wanna smoke that night, I'll cut it before I leave because I wanna check the draw because I'm not gonna sit in this lounge and be throwing a perfect draw into it. Okay? I need When I come here to smoke, podcast aside, obviously we cut together on the We all have the authentic experience. But when I sit down in there, if I pull a cigar out, I cut that head and it doesn't draw well, it goes back in the tower and I grab a different one.
Bam Bam:Oh, wow.
Gizmo:I do not mess around with cigars that don't draw when I come here to relax. I just don't do it.
Rooster:I have never done that. No. And nor will I ever.
Senator:I I'm serious about the ritual piece. You want to sit down and
Bam Bam:cut
Gizmo:the Yeah. It's
Rooster:an experience. I mean, want to sit down, you to cut the head off. And how many times, I mean, do you really get that many plugged cigars these days?
Gizmo:Sometimes you get a draw that has that's a little tighter than you want it to be.
Bam Bam:For me, it's been pretty it's pretty rare to get a really plugged even a Cuban cigar these days
Senator:with these.
Rooster:No. Yeah.
Gizmo:I'm not saying plugged. I'm saying a little tighter than I like. And what's funny about my experiment here, boys, is when I've done that and I put that cigar back in, I go back to that cigar a month or two later, the draw's perfect. Yeah. I'm sure.
Gizmo:Because it's acclimated
Bam Bam:a Oh, it's because you've opened both ends.
Gizmo:Exactly. I understand. I'll
Senator:also say this though. I have never encountered a time where looking at the foot of the cigar, I couldn't accurately tell whether it was gonna draw great or not.
Bam Bam:Every time. That's a telltale sign.
Senator:Any Cuban cigar, when I pick it up in my tower, I look at the foot, and I know either from the foot, there's so many air pockets that it's gonna draw beautifully every time that ends up being the case. And the ones that are not, you know it when you see
Bam Bam:it. Yeah. So for the listener, that's a good point. Look at the foot of the cigar and see how densely packed it is. Right?
Bam Bam:It's one sign.
Gizmo:Like here's an example. Tonight, I brought 10 Linea Maestro Ritos for the five of us.
Bam Bam:We got lucky because they're all beautifully But
Gizmo:it also, it isn't luck is that every person in room inspected the 10 cigars and chose the one they wanted with that assumption that Senator just made in That's true. Obviously, I didn't cut any of the heads of these like, yeah,
Rooster:good thing you didn't.
Gizmo:I actually tested all the draws too. Right, Rooster.
Rooster:We learn something new every day.
Bam Bam:So one thing I will say, Lizard Henry handed me Sig five. He had a fresh one, and I had one that I've had for, like, one of the early original orders that we placed. So he look. He said, Bam, do you have an a a cig that you can trade me? I wanna smoke one, but the one I have is a little too moist.
Bam Bam:There's too much humidity. Sure. Here. We just traded. I took that cigar, and I put it on my desk for two weeks.
Bam Bam:After two weeks, honestly, it felt acclimated. It felt like it was a lower humidity range. I didn't do anything with that. Just left it on my desk. Yep.
Bam Bam:I haven't smoked it yet, but I will probably smoke it next week.
Senator:That's a long time to dry box.
Bam Bam:Yeah. It just it just it was really, really soft.
Rooster:It's very dry these
Bam Bam:days. Was it was very soft. Two weeks. Yeah. It was there for two weeks.
Bam Bam:Honestly, it's still intact. The wrappers, there's no seam separation.
Senator:Oh, know. Once
Gizmo:you that I'm curious what your experience is, no,
Senator:no. It's gonna blow
Bam Bam:I don't think so. Feel, because it was so overly moist, I think you have to do that from time to time. That's one way
Gizmo:of I would say a couple
Rooster:of days.
Bam Bam:Yeah, no. Just left, you know, did forget about it, but I left it there.
Gizmo:Self accountability.
Bam Bam:No. No. I saw I I took it and I put it back in my tower after the two weeks sitting on my desk.
Senator:Keep it in the tower for another two weeks.
Bam Bam:Yeah. I don't know. I'm I'm gonna try it next week. We'll see what it's like. But the whole dry boxing thing, there's a lot of merit to that.
Bam Bam:Absolutely there is.
Gizmo:Yes. It's very And that was gonna be my final comment as far as accelerating or moving the cigar from a humid situation to acclimated, ready to smoke, whatever you call it. Dry boxing is really important. Absolutely. And it's important to note for folks out there, depending on the humidity inside your home or your office, wherever you're doing this, it's important to understand that if you have high humidity ambient in the summertime when it's warm, dry boxing is not effective.
Gizmo:You need to use a ziplock with a lower RH bovada.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:Now for us To
Bam Bam:bring it down.
Gizmo:We're in the winter coming into spring now in The US here, so our humidity is still pretty low. But to do that, what Bam is talking about, for him to do that in the July here in The US, it'd be it'd have the opposite.
Bam Bam:It wouldn't be possible.
Gizmo:It'd have the opposite.
Bam Bam:Correct. Correct. Exactly.
Rooster:And please don't cut your heads off.
Gizmo:I'm telling you, any listener should try that and tell him what he's you, man. That's absurd. I would love
Senator:to hear this.
Rooster:That's crazy.
Chef:Done it we've done it all in this pub.
Gizmo:We've done
Chef:it all. Heads, water. Water. Yeah. Yeah.
Gizmo:Water boarded. Keep going.
Bam Bam:Yeah. You know, we haven't done the pour in the water over the cigar thing in a while. That hasn't happened in a while.
Rooster:Yeah. I guess we've tried that.
Bam Bam:We all with the head on No. We've done it, and
Senator:we liked it. Who has anyone still not tried it?
Bam Bam:I've tried it.
Gizmo:I've it once. I've tried it.
Bam Bam:Okay. Think it was great.
Senator:We've all tried it.
Bam Bam:It was great.
Gizmo:It didn't change my life, but it was okay.
Bam Bam:It was it was interesting.
Gizmo:Alright. So one more question from Lizard Whelan here. Do you guys use RH probes for cigars? He's only allowed two questions. Like the CigarMedix like the CigarMedix Humidimeter Pro, which is a digital probe.
Gizmo:Mhmm. It has two probes on it. You put it in the foot of the cigar or in the head of the cigar, whichever you choose or both, and read the humidity. I have one. It was gifted to me, actually by chef Ricky, I believe, gifted that to me quite some time ago.
Gizmo:So I use it as a light reference tool. It's not scientific. It's not a Sir, rooster's eyebrow. Accurate at all. Just
Senator:went off his I missed that.
Gizmo:Are you being negative?
Bam Bam:Carry on. Negative.
Rooster:Carry on, your head cutter.
Gizmo:So I use it as maybe a reference point to kinda get a read on it, but I don't use it religiously. Does it does anybody else have any of those?
Rooster:No. No. They're
Chef:ridiculous. I I have one. I don't use it often.
Bam Bam:You know, the feel in your hand as you roll it
Gizmo:in That's what it's
Bam Bam:all about. Yeah. That's that's really what matters.
Gizmo:Exactly right. Alright, boys. One more listener email. And, this is a comment on FOH I really liked. And Greg here, GP012 is gonna be our lizard of the week.
Gizmo:And he asks a great question tonight and sets it up like this. It sounds like chef Ricky needs some assistance in filling his new tower. In the spirit of all the generous content he's added to the podcast
Bam Bam:I'm not giving you any boxes.
Gizmo:Tequila and mezcal deep dives, tower status updates, etcetera. Why don't the other lizards help him?
Senator:Like, each
Gizmo:selling him a box of regular production.
Senator:Oh, of course.
Bam Bam:Today's rates is no problem.
Gizmo:Done. Regular production Cupid staples at their pre price hike cost. What better way
Rooster:to help sorry. He's not the lizard of the
Bam Bam:week. No.
Gizmo:What better way to help his Cupid cigar journey just like he did with tequila for the lizards?
Senator:Okay. Notice how earlier, For the for the record Can I be lizard of the week? This sounds like he wrote this email.
Bam Bam:Oh, I think he did.
Gizmo:He might be lizard Greg.
Bam Bam:Senator's got a point. He's got a point.
Gizmo:That's true. That's true. And more seriously, and this is really what I I liked about Greg's question here because this is this is a great question and I think will be a very helpful commentary for our listeners. I'm very interested to hear the lizard's take on selling cigars amongst friends. Obviously, are different situations.
Gizmo:A box of recently boxed Partagas d fours versus the unobtainium Vegas Romania classicos would be treated differently. But what is your rule of thumb? Cost? Cost plus plus or current market rate with a small friends and family discount? How does the increase in pricing from Habanos along with the rise of Bond Roberts and other online venues and the resulting exponential increases in value affect your thinking on transacting with friends?
Bam Bam:So I've bought cigars from you. Yes. Yep. I don't know what I paid, but I'm assuming they're current market rate.
Gizmo:No. Anything that I generally transact with any of you guys or my friends, I'm transacting at what I
Bam Bam:paid. Okay.
Gizmo:Or at a replacement value. So as an example, I've done a few transactions inside this inside our crew here where somebody needed a box of cigars and then I looked at the replacement cost because I was gonna buy them and we talked about that and that's how we did it.
Bam Bam:Right.
Gizmo:But anytime, as an example, we did this Cohiba cigu six here on the pod a couple weeks ago. I got those cigars for 50 or $60. They're currently selling for a hundred and 10. I'm not going to mark those up
Bam Bam:nearly double to my No, they sell us one or two. I bought one from you at what you paid.
Gizmo:And I'm gonna sell that to my You're very
Bam Bam:generous, by way.
Gizmo:I don't consider it that. Like there's no reason for me to profit on that with my friends. That's true. That's Now, if I'm going to Bond Roberts, I'm going to charge market value. If I'm on a group or something where I'm transacting to non friends, it's gonna be market value.
Gizmo:So that's my position. Where are you guys at on this?
Rooster:Depends on
Gizmo:the friend. Yeah. Alright. So let's say it's Bam Bam. What would you do?
Gizmo:And then me Double.
Rooster:Double. Triple.
Chef:I'm all for reciprocating tariffs.
Bam Bam:Don't mention tariffs. Don't mention tariffs.
Chef:It it all depends on how I've been treated by that friend. But no, I'd say amongst this group, everyone has been beyond generous with me. You know, every every amazing Cuban I've had was gifted to me before I've ever bought any. And yeah, Gaz is always extremely forthcoming with what he has and encouraging me to purchase others and, you know, even even use his stash to buy from and whatnot. So yeah, I think replacement value is important and who you're selling to.
Chef:And obviously if you're going to a marketing site, a market site like Bon Roberts or whatever is out there, then yeah, I mean, that's different.
Bam Bam:My only experience in buying Among Us was honestly from you, Giz. I've bought a couple boxes from you. Hello? Did I
Senator:ever I
Bam Bam:bought a box from you?
Rooster:I sold you a box of the Oh, you sure did.
Senator:That then he resold at a profit. Yes. Mean Why do I dump his side?
Bam Bam:Through Giz. Jesus Christ.
Senator:Can we just set this up for the listener?
Gizmo:Yes. Can I can
Senator:Can I set
Gizmo:this up? Can I can I beg your I don't know why you did my start?
Senator:Please tell the story, mister.
Bam Bam:No. That has I
Rooster:sold you box.
Bam Bam:Transacted yet, by way.
Rooster:Be quiet for a second. Yes. I sold you a box of the Fundies for The Trinidad Fundadores. Six hundred and eighty five dollars. Wow.
Bam Bam:I don't even remember that, but they're
Rooster:I remember. They're double now. Receipts.
Gizmo:Triple buzz. I remember. And then
Rooster:and then I don't know what happened. You sold them to Giz?
Bam Bam:No. I did not sell them to Giz. Giz is my agent.
Rooster:Giz is you sold that box?
Bam Bam:We will be selling.
Rooster:I'm gonna buy that.
Gizmo:He's asked me to place it on Bond Roberts, and I'm targeting a 2,000 ish dollar Oh my
Rooster:god. Market price
Bam Bam:on As a start.
Gizmo:As a start.
Bam Bam:Whatever whatever the market commands.
Senator:Lizard nation has to chime in on this because I'm sorry.
Bam Bam:I don't know.
Senator:To buy a box from one of your own lizards.
Bam Bam:If you want the fundies back, I'll give it to you for what you sold it to me for.
Gizmo:Okay. Alright.
Senator:Should be the case. Now what if
Bam Bam:you go No problem.
Senator:No problem. He sourced them.
Bam Bam:No problem. Going to open market. That's the And
Gizmo:I would argue there is a statute of limitations here. Yeah. I'm I'm defending Yes. Seven years. It's like seven in, like, three years since he bought that box from Rooster.
Bam Bam:Three and a half.
Gizmo:Three and a half.
Chef:So it's aged.
Gizmo:So it it has a little more rest on it. So the market value has gone up. It's true. And, also, he's not gonna smoke those cigars if he buys them from you. He's probably gonna transact.
Gizmo:No. I don't I don't have any fundings.
Bam Bam:A known transactor.
Rooster:I don't have any fundings.
Bam Bam:You're a known seller. What? You're a fucking retailer at this point with what you have in your collection.
Chef:Rooster's pissed. Yeah. I mean, guess.
Senator:I mean,
Gizmo:who side are you on? I am. I guess you're I'm taking this
Senator:is a breach of protocol. You got to speak out of Stop it.
Gizmo:By the way,
Senator:hold on. Hold on.
Bam Bam:When you guys were all selling the What? The oil double coronas.
Senator:Not to each other.
Bam Bam:Why? But you're selling market. That's what I'm doing. I'm selling
Senator:to No. Because we didn't buy those from each other.
Rooster:I sold you that box.
Bam Bam:I'm not. Oh, so I'm not. Okay. I'm not allowed to sell that box to the open market. Can I put my hand up here?
Senator:You're not. You're not. You're categorically not.
Bam Bam:What is going on in this room?
Gizmo:Can I put my hand up here?
Bam Bam:Are we in a democracy?
Senator:All right. Please make
Bam Bam:this good
Senator:because I'm worried this
Gizmo:not gonna help this Dead serious for how hilarious this conversation is. The box that you're selling Yeah. Is not a box you bought from Rooster. It's actually a box you bought from Correct. And I didn't sell it
Bam Bam:to I'm smoking through your box still.
Gizmo:This is true. The box you're actually selling is a box that I procured on a retail site at cost for you when I purchased my own.
Bam Bam:Yes.
Gizmo:And you paid me for them at that point.
Bam Bam:And I bought your box.
Senator:But it doesn't change
Bam Bam:the I bought was in the Senator's Lounge Years and years ago. Yeah. I still have that.
Gizmo:He's actually not selling your box.
Bam Bam:I'm halfway through that box.
Senator:That's good, but it doesn't change the point. Look. I'm sorry. My philosophy is very simple on this. I agree when we started this conversation with what Gizmo said.
Senator:Generally speaking, if I was selling to a friend, especially a lizard, it would be at what I pay
Gizmo:for, not at Yes.
Senator:So I agree with that. The only exception to that rule is
Rooster:I should have a right of first Well,
Senator:hang on. I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna get there. First, I'm gonna start general, and then believe me, I'm I'm siding with you a % on this.
Gizmo:Thank you.
Bam Bam:So He's just gonna sell them on the open market. No. No. No.
Senator:He has the right to. He fucking sourced it if it's his box.
Bam Bam:I don't
Senator:buy it. Hang on. Hang on. And and the only instances that I end up selling stuff to, like, fellow lizards, it's like a cigar that they love Yes. And have to have and they're out of.
Gizmo:It's desperation.
Senator:So, like, Pagoda is a great example. The Davinoff what's it called he loves? The Davinoff.
Bam Bam:Dominikana. Dominikana.
Senator:So the Davinoff Dominikana. That is one of Pagoda's all time favorite cigars.
Bam Bam:The Robusto. Correct.
Senator:I really like that cigar, but am I in love with it the way he is known? No one loves that cigar more than Pagoda. That's true. And so the cigar was discontinued. There is no more in production.
Senator:You can't find them anywhere, and he was so sad about it. Well, Rooster knows about that. Tower. Well, he eventually was able to source more, and he helped him out. And Pagoda would never dare
Gizmo:buy them from Rooster
Senator:at what he paid and then resell them for a profit. He would never do that. And so I went in my tower. I looked. I had maybe twenty, twenty five of them left, and I sold them all to Pagoda at what I paid, which was actually a good deal.
Senator:It's definitely more right now. That's fine. Because I know he loves that cigar. Now the only exception to the rule is, like, if it's a cigar that I'm obsessed with, and someone's asking me, they desperately need some, but, like, I'm gonna need to immediately replace it because I it's like a d four. If I paid $12 for a d four and someone is begging me for them and I'm willing to sell it, it's gotta be at market value because I need to immediately replace it.
Senator:Exactly. Correct. Live without the cigar. Correct?
Bam Bam:I agree
Gizmo:with that.
Senator:So that's the exception to the rule. Fine.
Bam Bam:So far, I'm in agreement.
Senator:Yes. Now on the boxing, I'm sorry. All of this is predicated on this. These are cigars that the individual that you're selling it to, your friend, loves and wants to consume. If they don't wanna smoke the cigar, they shouldn't buy it.
Senator:And if you don't wanna smoke the cigar, you bought it. You have the right to resell it at a profit.
Bam Bam:And that's what we're doing.
Gizmo:And that's what we're doing.
Senator:No. Yes. That's what he's
Rooster:No. That's not what
Gizmo:he's No.
Senator:No. No. No. Let me be clear, and then please respond.
Bam Bam:Are you truly obsessed with that cigar rooster?
Senator:Gizmo set it's no. It's not a Balfeish. He doesn't have to be obsessed with it. He bought it.
Gizmo:Alright. Go ahead.
Senator:I've bought cigars. Like, some of them I couldn't care less about, and Gizmo graciously has sold them for me. Like, I'm the purchaser.
Bam Bam:I can do it if want with it. I don't like the direction. Hold on. Alright.
Rooster:Go ahead.
Gizmo:I'll respond for you.
Senator:If this is Gizmo's box that he bought at 600 and something dollars
Gizmo:It wasn't that cheap, but go ahead.
Senator:Even if it's significantly cheaper than market value. And if Bam is asking for you you for it, presumably, he really wants to smoke that cigar. He's gotta have that cigar. Otherwise, just buy it on the open market. And you sell it to him at what you paid, and if he's gonna resell that himself and take the profit, you should take the profit
Chef:on it.
Gizmo:So Really? Exactly what happened.
Senator:Real that's to you?
Gizmo:I don't I don't hold on. I don't disagree with what you're saying, but that's not
Senator:what happened. Me right now saying to Gizmo, hey, Giz. Can I have a box of Cohibas you bought four years ago at half the price it is now? And he says yes, And then I myself
Bam Bam:Turn around.
Senator:Someone sell it at a profit, I keep that money. That's outrageous.
Gizmo:Let me lay out how the box
Senator:I wouldn't speak to someone again if they did that.
Rooster:Yeah. I'm not
Bam Bam:I'm no longer
Gizmo:Bam, hold on. Go ahead. The the the box that we are transacting, here's how it went. I was purchasing a box of Trinidad Fundadores at a retailer.
Senator:Can we just use my example? I'm just curious. So do you think my example would be okay to sell that at a profit?
Gizmo:No. I no. So you don't, but does Bam? Bam?
Bam Bam:I'm I'm thinking about this. I'm trying to make sense What's
Gizmo:there to think about?
Bam Bam:Really? I'm trying to make sense of it.
Gizmo:So I'll just set
Senator:up the example one more time.
Bam Bam:No. No. Hang on. I'm looking at it from the point of view of Rooster. You're not obsessed with the funding.
Bam Bam:It's not something that you're dying
Rooster:to have.
Gizmo:I don't have any.
Senator:Even if you did, he procured it at that price. If anyone should profit, it's him. So I'm
Rooster:saying like before you before you decided to sell it, it would have been nice if you offer it to me. Like, hey. It's I don't I don't really want
Gizmo:the say again though, it we are not selling the boxes
Senator:we got here. So I'm using a hypothetical.
Bam Bam:If
Senator:I go to Giz and ask him for a box of Cohibas that he bought four years ago at half of what it goes for now, And he says, okay. I'll sell it to you if you really want them. And I pay what he paid. Mhmm. And then I just turn around and have someone sell them for me And make a profit
Gizmo:on it.
Senator:Double the money on it. That should be his profit. He sourced the box. I shouldn't be profiting off that.
Bam Bam:Alright.
Gizmo:I I don't disagree with your commentary
Senator:on doesn't sound sold. That's what I'm
Bam Bam:concerned about. I understand what you
Senator:I mean, I'm I'm genuinely worried about this.
Gizmo:But there's a
Senator:reason I don't wanna hear anything from here. I'm worried about Bamba.
Gizmo:There's an element of time, though, that needs to be factored in. We're talking three, three and a half years if we're talking about that box. That's a long period
Bam Bam:of I don't ever sell cigars. So I don't ever look at when I buy a box of cigars, even if I don't want I don't ever look at profiting on a cigar. So for me, it's
Rooster:not that.
Bam Bam:I just wanna get rid of the box.
Rooster:That's the only reason you're selling the funders because they're
Gizmo:at $2,000. That's not true. It's because I think the room has collectively fallen out of well with the funders.
Bam Bam:I have almost two boxes of those.
Senator:But it doesn't matter whether someone loves them or not. It's The point is that now there is a profit to be made, and so who should get that profit?
Gizmo:I don't
Senator:know. Me. That's the problem.
Gizmo:So alright. So let me lay out what's actually happening here.
Senator:I mean, this is outrageous.
Bam Bam:I don't think I bought a box from him.
Senator:You did.
Gizmo:You gave me one. Stop. You bought a box
Rooster:for a second.
Gizmo:Let me lay out what's actually happening.
Bam Bam:And I bought one from him. Miss.
Senator:I'm disappointed. You're you're not setting this up at all.
Gizmo:I am. I'm telling you.
Senator:I'm gonna tell There's a hypothetical I gave. You should run with it.
Gizmo:The hypothetical I'm with you. Bam clearly hasn't
Bam Bam:got that.
Senator:And that's fucking concerning.
Bam Bam:I don't know if it's it's I don't ever think about selling boxes to make money. I don't I just gave you
Senator:a hypothetical.
Bam Bam:I don't think about profiting.
Senator:Think about the hypothetical. You're selling a box right now.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Alright. I That kind of makes sense what he's saying.
Gizmo:I agree.
Bam Bam:It makes sense.
Senator:Kind
Gizmo:of. Now let me lay out exactly what's happening here and we can discuss this.
Senator:Jesus Christ.
Gizmo:I was purchasing a box of Trinidad Fundadores on a retailer. I put it on the lizard chat. Hey, guys. This is available. It's a fair price.
Gizmo:This is 2 or 3 years
Bam Bam:I wrote that right away.
Gizmo:And Bam texted me and said, Can you get me one and I'll pay you right now? He Venmoed me immediately. I added a second box to my order.
Rooster:But he already had a box of Fundies
Senator:from I did.
Bam Bam:Yeah. And I'm halfway through that box.
Gizmo:Why you selling it
Rooster:if you if you like the box?
Bam Bam:But technically, wasn't your box that that we're selling. That's true. It is a
Rooster:box, Why would you buy another box if you're gonna
Senator:I love I I love at the time.
Bam Bam:At the time, I did love that cigar.
Gizmo:I did not sell it to BAM. BAM paid me at the moment I transacted.
Bam Bam:I don't remember what the number was.
Senator:Oh, it wasn't like a box that you had in stock. Okay.
Gizmo:Again, I put it in my cart.
Senator:So hypothetically then that's why this example is irrelevant
Gizmo:because it's not about what we're talking about.
Senator:Exactly. The hypothetical is what is important here.
Gizmo:Yes. Exactly.
Rooster:So I
Bam Bam:agree with the I agree with the hypothetical, but Okay. I don't remember what I paid either of you for your boxes.
Rooster:$6.85.
Gizmo:You paid him $6.85. I think the box 800 something. No. It was more than that. It was like 1,100 or 1,200.
Bam Bam:Okay.
Gizmo:It was as the prices But
Senator:it sounds like he just placed an order for you. That's It wasn't a box he bought for himself that then he used.
Bam Bam:Is that what it
Gizmo:was? That's exactly what
Bam Bam:I That's what it
Senator:was?
Gizmo:Yes. And I could show you the receipt.
Bam Bam:Okay.
Senator:And again, so like, you know, hypothetically, this is where I would hope you'd appreciate this. I'm gonna put it in your shoes now.
Chef:Damn, it's like the price on that box needs to go up.
Senator:Yeah, no. No, but like where you'd appreciate it. Because
Bam Bam:that
Senator:Honestly
Bam Bam:shut I don't look at profiting on cigars.
Senator:I never really do. And, the the Don Carlos shark. Like, you found a crazy deal at some retailer in Brooklyn.
Bam Bam:I'm dying to bring that box in.
Senator:I keep fucking forgetting to bring it in. Just imagine this, ma'am. So, right, you put in the time to go find this guy in Brooklyn. Mhmm. Let's say you get the box at 400.
Senator:I come to you, and I'm like, bam, I'm dying for more sharks. Can I buy a box of sharks off you? You said, you know what, senator? I'll give them to you for exactly what I paid.
Bam Bam:And that's what I'm gonna do. 400.
Senator:Of course. Now imagine that I then turn around two days later, and I go and resell those for $800, and I keep the 400
Bam Bam:off. Care. I really wouldn't
Senator:care. I can't believe that.
Bam Bam:I don't care. Because once it's yours, it's yours. You do whatever the hell you want with them.
Rooster:We wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that.
Bam Bam:I wouldn't it wouldn't efface me
Senator:at all. You you would think that you would think that that's a decent person that would ask you for something and what you paid and then immediately turn around and and sell it for a profit.
Bam Bam:I don't you know, honestly, I don't think in those terms. I don't really if it's yours-
Senator:But if you knew that that's the case.
Gizmo:Can I add one
Bam Bam:qualifying It wouldn't faze me, honestly?
Gizmo:Let me add a qualifying comment. When Bam said to me, Hey man, I'm not really into these fundies. I'd like to get rid of them. Yeah. He actually had no idea the concept of what the price on the box was.
Gizmo:He was shocked when I told him what I think they'll transact for on Bond Roberts. So he didn't actually come in saying, I think this is what they're worth.
Senator:No. Can you sell them? No. I'm not saying intent was to profit there. Just saying imagine that someone did.
Senator:Correct. I think anyone would be uncomfortable with the idea of like
Gizmo:I agree with you.
Senator:Thought your friend loved and needed it, you gave it to them, and then they just flipped it.
Bam Bam:I I it wouldn't for me personally, when it once they're yours, I don't think about them.
Senator:Like, real example of this, like, there's a member in our lounge who really wanted a particular watch, a Rolex, and like, the resell I mean, you you can get a Rolex at MSRP. You try to resell that. You'd make a hefty profit. Yeah. And so I put my name down, an authorized dealer to try to get this person a watch.
Senator:If it ever happens, who knows? But there's a huge amount of trust in the sense that if I give that person that watch for what I paid at cost, which is really difficult to come by, If they were to go then turn around and flip that watch a week later, I'd never speak the person. Yeah. I'd never speak to the person.
Bam Bam:But it's theirs that they can do whatever they want.
Gizmo:Can I ask you
Senator:a question? It's a trust thing. I wouldn't sell it to someone whose intent is to flip it. Let me ask you question. They ought tell me at the time I'm selling it.
Senator:I'm actually gonna give you Oh,
Bam Bam:that's a great point. My intent was never to flip those fundies.
Gizmo:Can I ask you a question though? Let's say that I was the person purchasing that Rolex that you put on your name down on the list. You get it at MSRP. You sell it to me at MSRP. I wear the watch for two years, and I go, you know what?
Gizmo:This watch isn't for me. I'm gonna get something else. And then I'm like, you know what? I I'm gonna get rid of this watch. I'm gonna sell it at fair market value.
Bam Bam:Mhmm.
Gizmo:Would that piss you off? A little. Yeah. Okay. It would.
Gizmo:Interesting.
Senator:Yeah. Because that market is so hard to come by. I mean, people
Gizmo:wait years See, I'm also not a watcher.
Senator:To get a watch like that. Like, I mean, so much so that honestly, if like a buddy of mine did something like that for me, I wouldn't pay him or her retail. I'd add something on top of that. Like, it is absurd to get a watch like that at retail. Like, it's so difficult.
Gizmo:So if you sell if you purchase it at cost plus as a good friend, does that then buy you any
Senator:Then, yes. Do whatever you
Gizmo:want. Transact.
Bam Bam:For
Gizmo:sure. Because you've there's a
Senator:good faith Just recognizing the like good faith component of How crazy a deal you got and, like, that the effort that that friend put in.
Bam Bam:You see where you started, rooster? I started.
Senator:He didn't sell anything.
Chef:I've learned two things in this conversation.
Bam Bam:Go ahead, Richev.
Gizmo:I'm I'm excited.
Chef:I will absolutely hire a senator to argue any point from you. And I will also keep my mouth shut.
Gizmo:So, boys, you can see why g p zero one two lizard Greg on FOH is our lizard of the week as I knew it would prompt a great conversation like we just had.
Bam Bam:That likely won't end anytime soon.
Gizmo:We'll see what happens here.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:But congratulations to him.
Senator:It will result in no one selling Bebs.
Bam Bam:That's true. Poor Ben
Chef:just takes all the bebs. Mhmm. I tell you, man.
Bam Bam:Correct. Again.
Gizmo:Any listener out there, of course, as we know, boys can win lizard of the week. They're gonna win something from us. I'm gonna send lizard Greg something like this for a great question. It is really a thought provoking question, which is why I brought it in tonight, and I would really love to hear from listeners on this specific topic, this specific question. Chime in, send us an email, or give us a comment on what you think, not only about the conversation we had internally, how you handle box transactions inside your friend group, be it close friends, extended, you know, acquaintances, etcetera, people at a lounge you're at.
Gizmo:Like, I really wanna kinda color this conversation a little bit with listener feedback and see what everybody says. But so we've gotten quite a few opinions tonight inside the five of us in this room on
Gizmo:transacting with
Bam Bam:Well, chef's position is to stay quiet.
Chef:Yeah. I mean, I feel bad for Lizard Wayland because he he's he threw out an email out there with three different questions. He couldn't get Lizard of the week.
Rooster:I think four questions.
Chef:Yes. Four. Yeah. It's like four b.
Rooster:It was a four act play.
Chef:So Wow. That was a freaking whirlwind.
Gizmo:I would like to
Rooster:know the box code of the Fundies that you're selling.
Gizmo:I'll tell it to you.
Bam Bam:He's got them.
Gizmo:I'll send it to you when I get home.
Chef:Alright. Because Rooster keeps receipts.
Bam Bam:Alright, boys. Even though they weren't bought from him. That's okay.
Chef:That that's what he's trying to go first.
Senator:He hasn't verified it. That's what he's trying
Chef:to verify.
Rooster:Wanna determine.
Gizmo:Alright. Alright, boys. We're coming to the end of our evening tonight with our pairing, the Bacardi Reserva Ocho and the Partagas, Linea Maestra in Rito. What are you guys thinking on the finish here as we get to our race?
Bam Bam:I wanna hear their opinions because this is I'm not gonna say anything. No. No. Please do. No.
Bam Bam:I wanna hear what you guys are thinking.
Chef:I'm I'm loving this cigar. It's picked up a little bit in strength here towards the last third. Still getting some salt. Baking spice has dissipated fully for
Bam Bam:me. Completely.
Chef:Strength's picked up a bit, but I'm still enjoying it.
Rooster:I'm getting some leather.
Bam Bam:It's leathery, it's earthy, there's some minerality for me. It's not as smooth as it was in the first two thirds.
Rooster:Well, woody the the the wood note and the earthy note, that has picked up in the last third.
Chef:Yep. And and the leather.
Bam Bam:Giz, have you retro ed this in the final third?
Gizmo:I retro ed it every third or fourth draw.
Bam Bam:Yeah. All the way down?
Gizmo:Oh, yeah. Yeah. All the way down.
Bam Bam:Excellent. Senator.
Senator:Yeah. For me, the final third is where you would know this is a partagus. I mean, for
Gizmo:most It took long enough, but it got there.
Senator:It's true. And I'm fine it did because the first two thirds were awesome in their own way. Right? It didn't need to deliver a traditional particus experience to be amazing. Mhmm.
Senator:Those notes, I will never I have never ever had as buttery, salty a cigar, then biscuity.
Bam Bam:The second note was the biscuity.
Senator:Whole journey was just spectacular.
Bam Bam:Definitely a three act play.
Rooster:It's almost like a marriage of an Upman number two and a Monty number two. Like those notes, you get the baking spice notes that you get out of the Upman two and you get the salty twang out of the Monty.
Bam Bam:What are you thinking of that final inch and a half that you have there?
Rooster:It's delicious. It's really good. I just wish the price point is so I
Bam Bam:have to say I like the first two thirds better than the final third. Not that this is bad, but I
Rooster:Well the creaminess and the butteriness, that's dissipated in the
Bam Bam:last No, I still get buttery saltiness, but it's kind of like mingling now with earth tones and some minerality. Some minerality, yeah. Which, you know, a little bit of an edge, just a touch.
Chef:I don't mind it though. For me, it's a solid four act play. I mean, started with sunflower seeds, sunchoke, Jerusalem artichoke.
Gizmo:You still don't know what that is two hours later.
Senator:Clue. Permanently three acts for me.
Rooster:Is an Israeli artichoke called a sunchoke?
Chef:Yeah. Yeah. Jerusalem artichoke.
Bam Bam:Sounds like a bam approved activity.
Senator:I was getting a Palestinian artichoke, but that was just me.
Bam Bam:Just saying.
Chef:Yeah. So we started with that. Then we got into the salted butter, very, very heavy salted butter. And then we got into some baking spice and now we're hitting some leather and mineral. So for me, that
Rooster:was four. It's kind of an Irish butter.
Chef:From Costco, right?
Senator:That creaminess, was getting a little skur. Some Icelandic yogurt.
Bam Bam:Is that what that is?
Gizmo:That's what Grindr taught us on whatever. Grindr was talking about skur.
Bam Bam:Skur? Okay. That's a new term for me.
Gizmo:All right, boys. It's time now to move into the formal liquorating time on the Bacardi Reserva Ocho Rum. Bam, bam, you're up.
Bam Bam:So, you know, the first two or three sips were just overtly sweet. I was at a seven initially, but I think this has really grown on me. It's actually become a very drinkable, the sweetness experience, and the sweetness has dissipated. I'm I think I'm at a eight here. Firmly at eight.
Bam Bam:Enjoyable. I'm on my second glass. It's very good.
Gizmo:Alright. Chef Ricky.
Chef:I started at a six. I was really not a fan in the beginning. I don't know if anybody could tell.
Bam Bam:Oh, same.
Chef:It's too sweet. But now I'm on a firm seven with it. I'm happy with that score for this product. You know, even with the price point, maybe it could push an eight just because it's very accessible.
Bam Bam:Even on your second glass, you're having a challenge with it,
Chef:No, no, no. I'm not having a challenge with it, but I gotta knock it for that first glass, because I almost didn't want to drink it anymore.
Bam Bam:You know, most spirits you have to, like you've said many many times, your palate has to adjust.
Senator:A few sips,
Chef:a few sips.
Bam Bam:You're into it.
Senator:Yeah. I like this. Spam holding chef accountable.
Chef:A little bit of few sips.
Gizmo:Tonight's been a good night for accountability.
Bam Bam:Oh, I agree. Thank God it's not aiming.
Chef:She's gonna
Senator:keep my mouth shut.
Chef:It's a seven. Oh, it
Rooster:kinda was.
Bam Bam:It was.
Gizmo:I mean, I love how he sits through that half hour of what we just did and goes, It wasn't aimed at me.
Bam Bam:No profiting on friends. Correct. I agree with that.
Rooster:Just so you wait.
Bam Bam:I still have your box I'm smoking through, you mother.
Chef:Yeah. I'm a keep my mouth shut. I'm I'm at a seven.
Gizmo:Alright. So I'm I've really struggled actually as we've come to the ratings tonight because the way it started for me is similar to chef Ricky. That artificial cherry finish, that kind of cough drop medicinal ludens as I call that. I think that's probably the closest in flavor for me is how it was finishing was really a turnoff. It probably took, I don't know, eight to 10 sips as I finally my palate adjusted, etcetera.
Gizmo:So that was definitely, you know, I was not into that. However, as I drank more, I did pour a little more as you guys did. I definitely adjusted to it. I definitely started at a five or a six. However, given the price, given where I ended up with this, given how it paired with this cigar, I'm at an eight.
Gizmo:I I think the rum is actually surprising to me. I don't drink Bacardi products ever. When I think Bacardi, I think really difficult college experiences. I'm sure most of our listeners, when they see Bacardi
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:On this title card on this episode They
Bam Bam:run-in the opposite
Senator:in
Gizmo:the hell have has happened to the lizards that they're drinking Bacardi? Have they run out of options? But this is something you could find anywhere. We joke about seven Eleven. If your seven Eleven sells alcohol, you could probably find this there.
Gizmo:Not this.
Chef:You know?
Gizmo:And for $32, not this bottle. I'm being facetious. But it's accessible everywhere. You know, you're not gonna have difficulty finding this like a lot of the other great rum products we drink. And again, at $32.99 I think it's a pretty damn good rum, and I like how this drank with a Cuban cigar time.
Bam Bam:I love the adjustment of the palate. That's just a great experience to go through that.
Gizmo:Absolutely. So for me, it's an eight. I was like I said, I started at a five or a six, but really, through the two hours of this experience tonight, I'm at an eight. Senator.
Senator:So I've I've had the similar struggle of everybody deciding kinda between two ratings, because initially, I was at a seven, but it's not how you start, it's how you finish. And I'm gonna round up to an eight. I mean
Gizmo:Was that a Ricky Bobby?
Bam Bam:No. That's a Bam Bam.
Senator:But with this rum, I think a few things come to mind. One, as a pairing, which I I that's the purpose of this. Right? There are I I can't think of a Cuban cigar that this wouldn't pair with. I like, the versatility is there, and I think there are even New World cigars that this would pair well with.
Senator:So versatility is definitely a merit. I think with this particular cigar, just the way this sits on your palate with the buttery nature of this cigar worked really, really well. And there's so many rums. I mean, there's excellent rums, like four square that that's not how it's designed. It doesn't sit on your palate like this buttery smooth way.
Senator:Like, it sits on your palate. It's like, I'm gonna let you know I'm here. There's a ton of flavor in this and some heat, and that would have clashed with a cigar like this. So I thought, like, from a pairing perspective, it did really well. The price point's obviously very good.
Senator:You know, there's there's something about the brand history with Bacardi that I I won't lie, like, I really love. It's it's a cool and amazing story, and they've been a pioneer in many ways. And I'm glad to have a Bacardi product that makes me think of the brand in a different way, which is typically a mixed a spirit for mixing. Mhmm. Right?
Senator:You think of Bacardi in pina coladas and all these different rum based drinks.
Bam Bam:You've gotta mask it with other ingredients. Exactly.
Chef:I think this would go great in a pina colada, by the way.
Bam Bam:Okay, chef.
Senator:And so to have a Bacardi product that we can sip neatly None of us used ice. You know, it is a merit, and I think my final verdict will be in the morning Oh, yeah. To know if there are additives that are not gonna sit well, but for right now, I feel great.
Bam Bam:Think that
Gizmo:%.
Senator:It's a solid enough product, and so I'm gonna round up to an eight. Nice.
Gizmo:Alright. So the formal liquor rating tonight, boys, on the Bacardi Reserva Ocho rum from Puerto Rico is a 7.8. Okay. I gotta tell you, we didn't note one thing that I think is very cool. Bacardi is the largest privately held spirits company in the world.
Gizmo:Wow. Obviously, they're selling a ton of stuff. Yeah. And tonight at a $33 price point, this first entrant in our ratings guide at a 7.8 is I think a very fair score
Bam Bam:for the housing strength There's that hovering quality that Senator mentioned when it's on your palate before you swallow it. That's very unique. I agree. You don't get that in many rums. But I
Chef:think we're asking everyone who's drinking this to last, to wait until their second glass.
Bam Bam:Oh yeah. At
Gizmo:least get ten, fifteen minutes in.
Bam Bam:Couple of sips for sure. So
Senator:just a random thing because Rooster I think hopefully will know
Bam Bam:this
Senator:brand,
Bam Bam:but I just want this Right? We're not talking about the Funky. No. No.
Senator:This is about the rum. This is still about
Rooster:the We'll talk about that tomorrow.
Bam Bam:Or you mean in an hour after we stop recording?
Senator:I just assume that Bacardi was probably the best selling rum in the world because you just find it everywhere. It's old monk. It used to be. It used to be, but it was overtaken by, I can't even believe this, an Indian rum.
Bam Bam:Oh, brother. I've
Gizmo:moved one. Here we go.
Senator:No. It's called McDowell's. McDowell's is a whiskey.
Bam Bam:Wait a minute. It's an Irish name out of India?
Senator:This is. And Vine Pear, a very reputable source. Bacardi was once the world's best selling rum, but it was overtaken by McDowell's. McDowell's is an Indian rum. Really?
Senator:It says. Yeah. What?
Rooster:I know they do make a whiskey. Maybe they make a rum
Gizmo:as well. I don't know.
Senator:I was shocked.
Bam Bam:With a name like McDowell's?
Gizmo:It's very Indian. No?
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah.
Rooster:Totally. McDowell Patel.
Gizmo:I can Patel Patel.
Bam Bam:I just I'm in I'm envisioning shamrocks and four leaf clovers.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. It's time now to move into the formal lizard reading tonight on the partagus Linea Maestra in Rito from Cuba, Rooster Europe.
Rooster:I almost forgot this was a partagus. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the partagus is one of our most favorite markers in this room, right?
Bam Bam:100%.
Rooster:But when you light the cigar and looking at the bands, you can't even tell it's a portuguese. When you light it, it doesn't smoke like a portuguese. I mean, you get the notes that you don't usually get in a portuguese until you get to the last third of the cigar. This cigar started out absolutely delicious and almost to the end. I mean, creamy notes, I got a
Chef:little leather, a little wood, a
Rooster:little earthiness. Absolutely a delicious cigar. The only negative in this cigar is the price point. I mean, at $100 plus that it's going for right now, I don't know how many of us would actually source the cigar, maybe BAM.
Bam Bam:Through you.
Gizmo:At a discounted price
Bam Bam:and then resell Which never happened,
Senator:by the way.
Rooster:But this cigar is absolutely delicious. I mean, it's it's a great cigar. So I'm at a nine.
Gizmo:Okay. Wow. Mister Partigus, senator.
Senator:I'm in lops lockstep with Rooster. It's definitely a nine. I I similarly, like Gizmo, came into this not expecting this level of experience. I've heard it's polarizing. I've heard it doesn't smoke like a partigus.
Senator:And, you know, I'm shocked to say, like, I'm glad it doesn't smoke like a partigus.
Rooster:Is so is a flawless construction of this.
Senator:Of course. Oh, the construction was great, and it's just the blend is so unique. I mean, it's not often that we say with a Cuban or a New World cigar that this is unlike anything in its category that we've had. I wouldn't compare this to a single other Cuban cigar in, like, a true sense. Not like there's a little element of this, little element of that.
Bam Bam:I couldn't agree more about
Senator:There's not one cigar I would say, this smokes very similar to X. Doesn't exist. I've never gotten this level of butteriness in a Cuban cigar like we did in this one. So the complexity from the light, I mean, we were talking about at least four, if not five flavor notes when we lit the cigar.
Bam Bam:Sweet cream, we talked about.
Senator:Cream, salted butter, the nuttiness.
Bam Bam:Sunflowers, yeah, that nuttiness. Butter.
Rooster:Baking spice.
Senator:Baking spice, mean, were so many things present.
Bam Bam:Biscuit,
Senator:that was And as you went, it just continued to evolve, and I really did like that as mild as it started, yet still satisfying and flavorful, it built as you smoked it, and I thought the final third is where it ended medium. I think it started mild, and I like that progression, and the flavor notes I think just perfectly built along the way. I would definitely smoke this again. You know, the only problem,
Bam Bam:like I is the price point.
Gizmo:Yeah.
Senator:And that's really the sad thing. And so for me, this is like a special occasion stick, something that I'd purchase and smoke in very limited circumstances.
Gizmo:We're talking once a year, twice a year?
Senator:At most? Probably once a year. You know, it's sad. I just wish if this I mean, honestly, this blend is so interesting and unique. If they made this cigar half the size and sold it at 30 or $40, I'd buy it.
Senator:Yeah. And like more regularly smoke it. It's that good, but at that price point, I I can't say this is something I'd pull for probably more than once a year. So the adage holds, Partagas can do no wrong. It's a spectacular blend, and honestly, it's courageous on their part to what
Bam Bam:I was about to say that there's a bit of a risk Huge. In this blend. Huge. Such a departure.
Senator:When you see commentary out there that this is such a departure from Partagas, it's nothing like a Partagas, the immediate assumption is, well, then it's not gonna be a great cigar. And the fact that they did that, but did it in a spectacular way, unlike that Aliatos.
Gizmo:Aliatos, yeah. Mean, that's complete opposite. Right?
Senator:They departed, and they failed. This is a wild success as far as I'm concerned, so I think they deserve a lot of credit. It's a solid nine, and I think any lizard who talk about versatility. Any cigar smoker who likes a mild cigar, a medium cigar, or even a medium full cigar, I think would enjoy this, and that says it all. Yeah.
Senator:There's something for everybody in
Rooster:this cigar.
Senator:A lot
Gizmo:of merit in the blend. Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm also at a nine. Again, I came in very pessimistic tonight.
Gizmo:I had seen a lot of reviews online, I had seen a lot of negativity online, I was thrown off by the blue bands, I was at the release event, I was confused by it. I smoked one there, and it was borderline terrible, probably because it was too humid and too fresh. Obviously, you know, these came down in humidity. We had a great burning experience tonight amongst the five of us. The smoke output was great.
Gizmo:The combustion was great. The burn line, the construction really worked out really well for everybody. It was delicious through and through. It was a great evolution to the point where I was smoking faster than everybody in the room and I was probably speaking the most, that's how much I was enjoying it. You know, I was really, really chasing that addictive, as we called it, that saltiness that I don't know if I found that saltiness in any other Cuban cigar.
Bam Bam:Or in any other partagus.
Gizmo:Or any other partagus for sure. But as Rooster mentioned earlier, Monte Cristo is where I think salt. I think Monte Cristo, especially the number two. But this trumped that a little bit for me tonight. There's no question about it.
Gizmo:It was like creamy buttered popcorn. Mhmm. You know? It was like we went to the movies, and you had a big bucket of gross buttered popcorn with tons of salt
Bam Bam:on Yeah. But that captures a
Chef:lot of the nuts that
Bam Bam:we had here.
Gizmo:Yeah. It does.
Bam Bam:Yeah. The nuttiness is there too.
Gizmo:Then it moved to this baking spice. There was a little sweetness, especially on the burn line throughout, but then the sweetness entered the regular draw as we got into the last third, which was really great. Of course, like Senator and Rooster both said, it's like, the price point is obscene. At a hundred and $11, I don't know if or when I'm gonna have this cigar again. Flat out.
Gizmo:Like, there is no point at which, outside of this podcast, I will be transacting on any quantity of this cigar at any point to, like, senator said, smoke it once a year. I mean, a hundred $11. I have so many cigars in my in my collection that are At that price. Of that price or not nice, rooster. But, you know, that that's that's really that's really a challenge for me.
Gizmo:And finally and and maybe I'll toss this out. We could talk about this after the rating, but I'm curious about its legs. I'm curious about how this cigar, after a year, three years, five years, even ten years
Bam Bam:Who knows?
Gizmo:Will mature or change. I'm not sure if, outside of what we experience tonight, if I even want more. You know, I thought it was a really, really excellent cigar. Which is a merit. That's a huge merit.
Bam Bam:Yes.
Gizmo:And that's my point here.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:Again, going back to current regular production, new releases from Cuba, this cigar performed brilliantly as so many of the others have, and I feel very lucky that we had this experience tonight. So with all that being said, discounting the score a little bit for the value compared to the price,
Senator:it's a nine for me. Quick note before chef gives his rating. A number mentioned that at the very end in the final third, it got really woody and earthy. Yes. And I started to have that experience.
Senator:I put down the cigar. We were having a conversation. I picked it back up, and I relit it. The experience is dramatically different. So this cigar in the last third when it heats up, that's where you get that.
Senator:Yeah. I now, since it completely cooled down and I relit it, I'm getting the butter popcorn that I got early on in the So
Bam Bam:there's there is merit to slowing down in that final third.
Rooster:Did you wanna change your rating? Or
Senator:even I thought about it.
Bam Bam:I don't know.
Gizmo:Hey, Pagoda's not here, but I'm gonna stand in Pagoda's spot and say no change in the ratings.
Chef:Yeah. It may be great practice that when we get this close to the to the end of the cigar, just to give a couple purges, you know, and kind of reset Or
Bam Bam:just let it sit for a bit.
Chef:You know, going into my rating, everything you guys are saying to me makes this a 10 cigar.
Senator:I love it. Wow. I
Gizmo:love it. I'm impressed.
Chef:Wow. You know, yeah, it's $111 It's a special occasion stick, and I tell you what, I'm happy I have three kids cause I'll smoke one on each of their birthdays and my So I'll smoke four a year. And I think at 110 it's a firm two, two plus hour smoke.
Bam Bam:Yep. Four
Rooster:or Why would you smoke four? You only have three kids.
Chef:Well, my own birthday.
Rooster:Oh. There you go.
Gizmo:What about my birthday?
Chef:That's five. Smoked one on your birthday, my wife's birthday.
Gizmo:Know? He's smoking a box of you. You better get two boxes.
Bam Bam:Luck on that procurement on that. I just I just won't buy them from BAM
Chef:because they're pay more.
Bam Bam:They Full price. Yeah. Current price.
Chef:But I know this cigar was fantastic. You know, I don't I don't know that you want anything more from a hundred and $10 cigar and that it's gonna give you two plus hours of relaxing smoke time, fulfilling smoke time, acts, four to five acts solidly. And it's going to fulfill every craving you have from an earthy, sweet, salty, buttery baking spice, you know, even some leather there towards the end. Like it delivered everything. Sure, the Partagas DNA, you know, it showed itself a little towards the end.
Chef:But I wasn't mad at that because everything else about it was fantastic. And we, you know, we we called out maybe three or four different markers within this one cigar. I mean, that's that's amazing. To me, that's a huge merit. Great blending, great burn, great combustion, great construction.
Chef:It's a 10 for me.
Gizmo:Wow. Awesome. Alright, Bam.
Bam Bam:Yeah. So I'm at a nine, firmly at a nine. And I think that rating and a 10, of course, you'd have to put price aside for what we got out of the cigar. My first experience with the cigar pales in comparison to what I experienced tonight. Honestly, I'm down to about a half inch.
Bam Bam:It's very savory. That buttery saltiness does continue through, but it's very nourishing right now. There's a savoriness to it. It's unlike the first two thirds, which for me, it's a solid three act play. I didn't get the four act experience.
Chef:You know what's interesting to me is I'm the only one in the room that hasn't smoked this before. And I'm wondering if you're
Senator:prior to Oh, you hadn't? I haven't either.
Rooster:This is my first.
Gizmo:Yeah, just spamming me.
Rooster:Yeah. Okay. I'll
Bam Bam:take that I had it for a while. I didn't let it sit long enough because I was very curious about it. The first two thirds were identical to this experience. It was buttery, but it was a lot of baking spice, which I got in a second third. For me, the second third was very biscuity and a lot of baking spice.
Bam Bam:I did as I entered that final third, it got a little bit harsh, and then it kinda passed that for just maybe five draws, and it just it got very savory, and it's it's a pretty special cigar. Putting price aside, I'm at a nine.
Gizmo:Alright. So that puts the formal lizard rating tonight on the Partagas Linea Maestra in Rito at a 9.2. Wow. Great score. I wanted to say something that I noted as we've smoked it obviously, but as we've gone through our ratings, is this might be very unique, in that the five of us had nearly identical experiences on a cigar tonight.
Gizmo:Often, there's some sort of divergent, somebody has a combustion issue, somebody has a draw issue, somebody has a flavor difference. Consistently, as we went through the cigar On a Cuban cigar. On a Cuban cigar. I feel like this might be a standout as far as everybody in the room kind of moving at the same pace experiencing the same things But haven't we feels kind of rare
Bam Bam:in a way. I have a question. Haven't we experienced similar experiences on most Partagas that we've smoked? I think it has a lot to do with the marca and their ability to be consistent in what they want to do for the particular cigar.
Senator:I agree. I also have to say, Chef is my hero tonight. I I really It's not Bam? I really
Bam Bam:Why is he your
Senator:hero tonight? No. He's he's senators
Bam Bam:this week. I wanna Spencer. Wanna know. I wanna know. Does he get a hoodie?
Gizmo:I'll take
Chef:a summary then. Alright.
Senator:But I I say that, you know, Bam was saying price aside, and and Chef's rating is not price aside. Chef is saying, what's the price? I know. And I really respect it because, again, you know, I I relit that last half inch after I rated, and the thing that just stands out is the fact that there's nothing like it. That's the premium.
Rooster:Mhmm.
Senator:Right? We've always said, you know, a $500 cigar is absolutely ridiculous because there's no way that a $500 cigar can deliver anything that we haven't experienced before. Mhmm. But at a hundred and something bucks, this delivered something we haven't experienced before. That is a humongous merit.
Senator:Mean,
Gizmo:it's not often to
Senator:say that.
Bam Bam:I can't agree more at how unique the cigar was. Yeah. There's no doubt about it.
Gizmo:And the other thing I'm gonna say to listeners out there, if if you are interested in purchasing some of these cigars and what we discussed with other ratings out there, I think it is so crucial, as we've talked about so many times, that you need to be smoking this cigar at a low humidity. 62% RH, 70 degrees Fahrenheit. That is where the cigar needs to be to perform at time. For quite some time, as we experienced tonight, we all had a great, consistent, well burning cigar that tasted amazing. I think that is the difference between what we had tonight It's crucial.
Bam Bam:And what
Gizmo:other folks have reviewed online who hated the cigar, it burned like shit, etcetera. It's a humidity problem.
Bam Bam:Absolutely. Hard stop. There's no doubt about that. Yeah.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. Let's compare this to the 11 other Partagas cigars we've done on the podcast.
Bam Bam:Let me take a nap. Go ahead.
Gizmo:I'm gonna I'm gonna run through them very quickly. I'm wide awake. On episode yeah. Mister Partagas is here.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:Episode one, we did the Maduro one in 8.7. Our New Year's Eve episode from 2021. One is not a we're saying that. Series d number four, the Partigus d four scored a 9.2. On episode 14, we did the famous Calabrese episode.
Gizmo:If you haven't heard that episode, it's a lot of fun. We were like giddy skill schoolchildren on that episode, scored a 9.3. On episode 16, we did the Partigus short, an eight point zero. On episode 36, The series p number two, commonly called the p two, scored an 8.7. On episode 56, we had our friend Rob Isla from FOH and Fabrica five on the podcast live from Australia.
Gizmo:We did the Lusitanius, did not perform well, scored an eight point zero. On episode 64, we did the Coronas Gordis. Anajados scored a 9.7. On episode 82, we did the series e number two, commonly called the e two, scoring 9.3. On episode 113, we did the eight nine eight, scoring nine point zero.
Gizmo:On episode 133, we did the famous Partagas Aliatos LCDH, arguably one of the worst cigars we've done in quite some time, scored a 5.7. Terrible cigar. And finally, episode 149, we did the Maduro number three, the sister cigar to episode one's Maduro number one, scored a 9.4. So this one tonight at a 9.2 is up there with the best of the best of Partigas that we have done on this podcast.
Rooster:You know, that that Colabra was an awesome cigar. Dude. It was, man. And you know what? That that reminds me.
Rooster:I I never put that on split wise.
Bam Bam:There's a limit statute of limitations on that.
Gizmo:Statute of limitations.
Bam Bam:You're out. Are you gonna You're out.
Chef:Are you gonna put that at the price you paid or current?
Rooster:Current plus.
Gizmo:Hey, don't forget that we're friends.
Senator:Correct. Roosters charging interest
Bam Bam:only to me.
Gizmo:That was an aged box.
Rooster:That was a 2013. I think it was older than that. Maybe 02/2008.
Gizmo:I thought it was 02/2008.
Rooster:Very special. Much it's gonna be on split points.
Gizmo:Boys. A great night tonight. Let's review one more time. On the Bacardi Reserva Ocho Rum, we had a 7.8. And on the Partagas Linea Maestro from Cuba, the Rito, we had a 9.2.
Chef:Wow. I think those scores are perfect.
Gizmo:Yeah. Perfect scores.
Senator:Yeah.
Gizmo:Yeah. And what a great night tonight, boys.
Bam Bam:Great
Gizmo:night. Great cigar, very complimentary, reasonably priced pairing in the rum. Awesome. Awesome. We have to shout out lizard Greg, our lizard of the week, GP012.
Gizmo:Thanks so much for that great question tonight. And, again, prompting listeners here, please let us know what you think about selling boxes to friends at cost, cost plus, etcetera. Let us know what you think. Thanks, of course, to our sponsor, Fabrica Five. We really appreciate them.
Gizmo:They have great cigars. And bam, you discovered today that the cigars are back in stock. Oh. And you prompted all of us
Bam Bam:Trinity Robusto, baby.
Gizmo:Went out and placed some orders for
Rooster:I had bought all of them.
Bam Bam:Three bundles today.
Rooster:Three bundles. Three bundles.
Senator:Can't wait
Bam Bam:to get them.
Rooster:Can I buy one
Bam Bam:from Yes? Full price. Plus.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. A great night tonight, and we'll see everybody next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You could find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, loungelizardspod.com.
Gizmo:That's loungelizardsp0d.com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, do you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us. Hello at loungelizardspod.com. You can also find us on Instagram at lounge lizards pod.
Gizmo:We really appreciate your time, and we'll, we'll see you next week.