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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!
Ep. #194: Romeo y Julieta Churchills (w/ Billecart-Salmon Champagne Le Rosé, Garçon Joins for Bam's and Chef's Birthday, RyJ History, How Rosé Champagne Is Different & Are the Lizards Hypocrites on Cuba?)
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Gizmo: [00:00:00] 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 Pagoda, chef Ricky, and bam bam.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some champagne, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 194th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard plan. I made this here once a week. We're gonna smoke a Cupid cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and keep you our formal lizard rating.
We celebrate bams and Ricky's birthdays. We share a powerful email from an Australian lizard, and we hold ourselves accountable for ignoring tonight's markup, all among a variety of other things for the next two hours. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair. Billecart Salmon Champagne Le Rose with Romeo Julieta Churchill.
A Churchill tonight from [00:01:00] Cuba from one of our least favorites so far. Most beloved. Most beloved Mark is out of Cuba, the Romeo Julieta Churchills, and it's a 47 ring gauge cigar by seven inches long. And boys, I'm honestly shocked to see some of you here. Why I'm, I totally thought Senator was gonna call out.
I thought maybe Rooster would do the same. As soon as you pulled the box out. I started
Chef Ricky: to get PTSD. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he said he wasn't co coming to this, to this recording. Correct. I'm gonna, I'm gonna wait till the first third
Gizmo: to put
Senator: it
Gizmo: down.
Bam Bam: Yeah. To leave. Just look at this thing. It's pristine. It looks good.
So the box
Gizmo: that we got, I'm very, very happy with these cigars boys. They feel really good. The feet look good. They smell the construction looks great. Delicious. Exactly right. They're delicious.
Senator: The the biggest thing I'll say is the construction. Um, the feet all look great. They do my frustration with this cigar in the past, this is the only cigar I've ever been so frustrated with from a construction [00:02:00] standpoint.
I snapped the cigar in half and just threw it down. I couldn't get through it. I was
Bam Bam: there that night. Yeah, it was not pretty, but, um, these look beautiful. Yeah. This looks like a truly elegant cigar. I'm excited.
Gizmo: All right boys. So before we light the cigar tonight, we have a special occasion in the room.
And of course we picked our favorite cigar for these occasions. We have two. Bam. Bams birthday was last Friday, correct? Couple days ago. And Chef Ricky's birthday is tomorrow.
Bam Bam: Chef.
Gizmo: So we know what that means, boys. Champagne. Champagne. Champagne.
Bam Bam: Nice. Champagne tongue. I'm excited.
Gizmo: So we are doing well. Gar opens the champagne.
We are doing the Biant Sal Salmon. La Rose Champagne
Senator: please. It's Billecartr. So you don't pronounce the, let fix that. It's just like Billecartr. You don't pronounce the E or the T. Okay. Samon. Okay.
Gizmo: Billecartr. Samon.
Chef Ricky: I missed one on somehow. I feel like it was giz that there,
Gizmo: here we go. [00:03:00] Billecartr Samon. Okay, I'm writing that down.
Hey, happy birthday. Very nice. Very nice. So we are, we love celebrating birthdays around here. We did not Saber tonight very intentionally because we do have a big milestone episode coming up. So we're gonna be, uh, we're gonna be saving on the saber, the Sabering as Garone pours our champagne. The Billecartr Samon Rose.
Yeah, I was wondering.
Pagoda: I said, what's up with the color? It's a rose, right? Uh, it looks delicious. Very rich.
Gizmo: So we are changing up our order tonight. We'll talk about a little bit about the history of the Champagne House and a little bit about the, uh, the pairing in a little bit. But first we're gonna take a toast here with the champagne.
We're gonna light our cigar and get going into our evening tonight. I love right, right around
Chef Ricky: precision when he's doing this.
Gizmo: So, Garone is very, very meticulous as he pours the champagne. He is looking, his eyes are over his glasses there on the bridge of his nose. Well,
Pagoda: he does try to be fair, at least in the first pour.
That's on the first pour. The
Gizmo: second [00:04:00] pour he stops carrying. But the first one, the second pour, I take tips. There's bribery. Very meticulous.
Bam Bam: I can't wait to try that. I can't wait to smoke the cigar. It is Romeo and Juliet. It looks promising. It does. I, I'm hopeful. I'm gonna think positive here.
Pagoda: Well, the idea is very romantic.
Chef Ricky: Slight box press on it. We
Pagoda: just hope it doesn't turn into a tragedy. That's all correct?
Bam Bam: That's correct.
Gizmo: Alright, boys. Garone, thank you for pouring the champagne to Bam Bam, to Chef Ricky. Happy birthday gentlemen. Thank you, gentlemen. My appreciate yours. Cheers each of you.
Senator: Cheers boys. Salute.
Gizmo: Cheers. To our listeners out there who hopefully are raising a glass of whatever they have in their hand.
They're pairing with their cigar tonight as they listen to Bam. Bam. And Chef Ricky.
Pagoda: Oh, that's very nice. I think. I think Roos roosters having some herbal tea.
Gizmo: Wow, that's very good that we are starting with a hammer. That is excellent. That is an excellent [00:05:00] champagne. Wow. This is
Senator: easily one of the most famous rose champagnes.
Wow. That's great.
Bam Bam: This is an elevated rose experience. This is not your typical rose. It has a lot of body, the minerality that I never, ever get on any rose. Correct. And it's, um, working really hard not to be overtly sweet. Yes. And it's, it's working. Oh yeah.
Gizmo: It's really, really nice. Senator.
Bam Bam: Mm, beautiful.
Gizmo: So this is a hundred dollars bottle of champagne.
I was about to ask Billecartr. Uh, so Senator, knowing that we were doing the Romeo Julieta tonight, the Churchills paired, you know, we decided to pair this Mm uh, this little more expensive champagne, obviously celebrating some birthdays. So that was the, uh, the thinking behind that. Very nice. And also
Senator: the fruit note you traditionally get in the RJ Churchill, the idea of the rose bringing out more fruit.
Gizmo: Yep. All right, boys, let's go to our cigar now. Can we please cut it? It's time to cut this thing. The Rome Juliet, the Churchills again. How's your cold [00:06:00] draw, boys? How's your wrapper?
Chef Ricky: Draw's a little tight, so I'm gonna cut a little bit more off.
Gizmo: Mine's fairly
Senator: resistant. It's just unbelievable. Good. I'm sorry.
The foot on mine looks wide open and yet my draw is a little tight. Mine is too. How, this is exactly what I've always been through with the cigarette.
Bam Bam: Oh no, let's hope that the heat opens up as you go through it.
Rooster: Yeah, it's, it's a little resistant, but it's, it's not, it's not like, plus actually, Senator,
Gizmo: so here's what I'm doing right above the Rome Julietta band.
Bam Bam: It's very tight.
Gizmo: I'm, I'm pinching it. Squeeze on the box, press gently under the cap. And when I did that, it did open up the airflow for me like quite a bit.
Bam Bam: Yep, yep. Mine's actually quite nice. I think I got
Gizmo: 25% back. Mm-hmm. On the airflow, I would say it helped quite a, I got 22. It did help. So, whatcha guys getting on the cold draw?
Bam Bam: You know my cedar, quintessential dried fruit. I'm getting a lot of raisin and apricot. Yeah.
Chef Ricky: Wow. I'm not getting any dried fruit yet.
Gizmo: I'm getting a little saltiness in cedar. That's where I'm at. I think you've gotta go [00:07:00] pull it through. Yeah. You actually
Chef Ricky: have to deliberately pull the air through. You know what it is?
It's the draw is so resistant that mm-hmm. You have to work little area. If you fight that area a three, you'll get that. No. Yeah. Yeah. You get the
Bam Bam: apricot. Yeah, it's sweet. It's nice.
Gizmo: Alright boys, let's light this thing. The Romeo Julieta Churchills, again, it's a 47 ring gauge cigar by seven inches long.
It's one of three Churchill still in production in Cuba, alongside the H Up man, sir Winston and the Cohiba splendid dose, which we reviewed I believe late last year or beginning of this year, did very well. And the box code on this one tonight, boys is GER. April 24. So that is a provincial, pretty far down on my box code sheet, but very common for these cigars to come out of there.
It's delicious. Come on, bro. It's good. You can't complain about
Bam Bam: that star. [00:08:00] Pretty, pretty good. It's, it's great on the light. It's nice on the light.
Pagoda: Mm-hmm.
Bam Bam: Very pleasant. I don't think I've ever had one of these.
Gizmo: Really? I
Bam Bam: don't think so,
Gizmo: no. Oh, you're lucky. The ones that I've had did not taste like this on the light.
And, uh, certainly didn't, don't say that UBA loved them. That's true. Well, he used to get them at the golf club.
Senator: Yeah, no. I'll never forget, I, I had a box. These GIZ had a box. These. Giz got a very age box and you handed this out at our old lounge and UBA lit it. Took two puffs and threw it down to the Ashray.
It said he wouldn't smoke it again. You did that too once and in classic Gizmo fashion, he's just like, great, I guess I'll just go fuck myself.
Gizmo: That's exactly what I said. So sensitive. So at the time, this is five years ago. I know, I know. I mean, it was one of the. First boxes of Cuban cigars I ever purchased. Right. And it was an age box and I give it to Uba who was the one to tell me to buy the box and the place [00:09:00] to buy it at. I literally handed to him two puffs.
He pretty much snapped it and threw it in the industry. I would love to have seen that. Wait, how
Rooster: old was the box?
Gizmo: I think it was a 2013 box. Wow. Okay. So we were smoking it in 2020. They were not in
Rooster: the tubes. They were not in the, so no,
Senator: it was not bu. It was not bu the, the best part of this was this was the lounge that didn't like Cuban cigars being smoke in it.
And so like normally, you know, we would finish the cigar, take the bands off. He just throws the cigar with the bands in the thing, lets the guy collect it. And I'm just sitting there like, this is gonna be a disaster.
Rooster: That's why all it got fired from there.
Gizmo: So boys, what are you getting on the light here of the Churchills?
Bam Bam: I noted earlier right now some coffee and cedar. Yeah. No, I'm getting a little coffee raisin apricot biscuit type thing. Yeah, that's
Gizmo: where I was going. The biscuit is the, there's a creamy thing happening. Mm-hmm. On the pallet. The smoke is very viscous for me.
Chef Ricky: Yeah. I'm getting like fruity shortbread.
Gizmo: That's kind of where I'm going. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. I'm enjoying this.
Senator: Yeah. This is off to a great [00:10:00] start. The creaminess is surprising 'cause usually you get that on something with some more age. This is a young cigar. And I don't remember many r and j Churchills being this creamy to start, but I really like it
Bam Bam: now.
If this performs well and we rate it very highly, will you go out and pursue this stick? Depends I'm asking.
Rooster: Depends how much, depends how much it is. Yeah,
Senator: I've also gotta experience the whole thing. Like it would have to really grab me to get over all the misery and pain I've been through.
Rooster: So
Gizmo: how much is
Rooster: the box?
Gizmo: So these cigars, you can find somewhere between a thousand bucks and 1200 for the box. So you're somewhere in the 40
Pagoda: to
Gizmo: 45 ish range on these. It's a big cigar. It's a Churchill for $40.
Pagoda: Yeah.
Gizmo: Cuban versus Versus by the way, that's a good point. Rooster versus the Splendido, which is about a hundred. Yeah.
Same size. Mm-hmm. From Cohiba and the H Up, sir Winston, which is the, the third of three in production [00:11:00] that is not only a little bit pricier, but very, very hard to get. So, yeah, I mean if you want a Churchill, this is really the one you could find
Senator: True. You gotta love how this is being justified. That's like saying like, oh, the car's only a hundred thousand, but you know, the Ferrari's a quarter million.
Mm-hmm. So it's a steal. I mean, this is ridiculous. And New World Churchill is like, I mean, even a Doff Churchill, it's like $25. Yep. 27 bucks. Hold
Chef Ricky: on there. I just, before we hit record, I did say that I smoked a Chef's edition last night. That's correct. That's a $40 Churchill. That's also correct.
Senator: That's not standard production also.
No, it's not limited release. Very limited release.
Chef Ricky: True. Yeah.
Bam Bam: Snob.
Gizmo: So boys, we, we have to share with the listener that, you know, while we're being honest about previous experiences, we are also being a little facetious and we're being a little harsh on Rome Lee Julietta. And we are recording tonight, episode 194, and this is only the second.
It's unreal. Romeo ETA we've done on the pod, the other one being the Wide Churchill. And I think [00:12:00] that is a big miss on our part. I, I mean, hand up accountability. I think that is a big miss on our part. Yeah, that's true because Senator and I specifically had very bad experiences with this exact cigar and the Marco and it's kind of stained our thinking on it for quite a number of years.
It's
Bam Bam: honestly affected me and I don't pursue this Marco because of the two of you.
Pagoda: I just don't, but it's, you know, um, globally it's one of the most recognized, uh, brand videos. Oh, absolutely. About, uh, cigars New
Bam Bam: World and Cuban. Yeah.
Gizmo: So this cigar was released well before the revolution. It comes in a rooster.
Was there, what side did you fight on? That's a good question. The right side,
this comes in a couple different configurations. It comes in a dress box of 10 aluminum tubo, the display box of 15 aluminum tubo. So that's the five cardboard packs of three. The dress box of 25 cigars, and that's [00:13:00] what we're smoking out of tonight. And we noticed that it does have a slight box press on it.
It comes in a dress box of 25 cigars and aluminum tubo. Quite a few configurations. And if you think we were talking about the H Up number two, which is a very successful cigar, only comes in dress boxes at 25. So you can find this in quite a few configurations and a lot in turbos.
Bam Bam: I love the tubo presentation.
That's a very cool layout. They're pristine, they're perfect.
Rooster: I mean, this cigar is delicious right now. It's excellent.
Gizmo: This is excellent. It's creamier than I expected. It's less, it's got less of a cedar punch to it. No fruit for you. Little bit of fruit. Yeah, but I'm, I'm leaning more shortbread. Yeah, no, that's great.
Salty, salty bread. The
Bam Bam: fruit bread. Yeah.
Chef Ricky: Is anyone getting a little spice? Yes. I'm getting a little bit of, I'm getting on the nose at the burn line. Yeah. Yeah. Not,
Gizmo: there's a little spice
Chef Ricky: there
Gizmo: kinda of makes your nose jump out. Yeah, I'm not getting
Bam Bam: it. Retro hill's outstanding. Mm-hmm. I think the burn line's quite nice.
Retro hill's so creamy. It's supple the [00:14:00] aroma to me.
Senator: You know what I understand this cigar, they talk about like. A pronounced cherry note. It's kind of famous for. Yep. And the very first one of these I ever had, Grindr actually gave me one, and it was a cherry bomb, like to the point that it seemed artificial.
Pagoda: Mm-hmm.
Senator: But really enjoyable. Every one of these I've had since that cigar has not had that like pronounced cherry note. And I just don't understand, like if you look up this cigar, there's countless reviews that will tell you, like, that's typically part of the profile really. So I just don't really understand like, is it, or isn't it a huge part of the DNA of this cigar?
I don't think it's
Rooster: this cigar in particular. Maybe because, but the market maybe I know the white Churchill. I do get a cherry note, but there's another, uh, I think it's the ROS that I don't get a any, the ci No, no.
Senator: I don't mean the market. I mean, this cigar particularly, this cigar, this ci, this, this was for years the only r and j that I had [00:15:00] smoked.
Period.
Bam Bam: Not getting cherry tonight.
Senator: I know, which has been my experience with other ones I've had. But I'm telling you, if you look up, I mean even Cigar, Fido, others that have reviewed this cigar, they mentioned this cherry note and I remember when Grindr gave it to me, that was the first thing he said, and I was like, wow, it was super pronounced.
But yet I've been chasing that experience and I don't even like cherry, but it was done in such a great, it is just odd to me. Yeah, it's strange. I,
Chef Ricky: I, I could see some current here maybe, and I could see how that, of course could be somewhat parallel to a cherry depend on the, no,
Rooster: it's, it's a pronounced distinct cherry no flavors that it's super pronounced.
It's really the only, like artificial cherry. It's almost like the lutin,
Gizmo: the lutin, like, uh oh, so artificial. Wow. That's pronounced like, like Senator said, sometimes you'd have it and it'd be like, wow, this can't be real. They must have sprayed this tobacco. It, that's how much, how strong it was for me.
Interesting. But I, that's not even, it's not present at all here. It's like got [00:16:00] delivered by an
Chef Ricky: driver with cherry sented, uh, car freshener.
Bam Bam: You know, I'm looking at everyone's cigar. The ashes are perfect. Great Germline. This is quite an experience tonight. So far,
Gizmo: I gotta give it up for the recent Cuban cigars, man.
They are, they're changing our opinions about, you know, these preconceived notions that we come in here with and we laugh about it. We're trying to, you know, drum up some fun in the room. But you know, it, we have had real changes of heart when it comes to specific cigars as well as Marcus on this podcast, especially outta Cuba.
This is no different right now. No. This to me is
Bam Bam: like a very traditional Cuban experience tonight. Very traditional. I think that's actually a very good way to put it. I think so.
Gizmo: So boys, let's talk about the history of Rome Julietta. I did a little bit of history when we did the Wide Churchill on episode 48, but I, I dug a little deeper and I, I wanted to.
Reach into [00:17:00] some of the books that I had and I, I actually referenced the Great Hano factories by Adriana Martinez Ruiz, who was also the honorary consultant to Min Ronni on the Illustrated encyclopedia of Post-Revolution Havana Cigars. So I pulled some information for you guys that I thought was pretty cool.
So let's go through that real quick. So. Romeo Julieta, obviously is named after Shakespeare's tragic lovers. The brand was founded in the mid 19th century in Havana. It was officially registered in 1873, but really gained steam under two Spanish immigrants in Ocio Alvarez and Jose Manin Garcia. Their workshop was small, but the branding was bold.
They created elaborate boxes, ornate bands, and even spun off names like Monte Tescos, capos and Los Ames, Dave Verona. They weren't just cigar makers, they were actually storytellers as well, and that was the marketing genius that gave them early success, especially in Europe, even more specifically in Great Britain.
Where the [00:18:00] cigars developed a loyal following in 1903, Jose Don Papin Rodriguez Fernandez bought the brand. This guy was also a marketing powerhouse, known for his charm, his business sense, and his flamboyant style. He built a factory in Havana and employed over 1100 workers, including 750 cigar rollers. I thought that was really interesting because if you think about La Corona, we've talked about that's big being at La Corona.
Yeah. That's double the size of La Corona today. The number of rollers rolling there. Wow. So that's a huge production. They were putting out a ton of cigars,
Bam Bam: right, in this central business district. Exactly. Yeah.
Gizmo: Don Papin revolutionized cigar promotion. He created custom vilas for VIP clients, including of course.
Winston Churchill and he's small. And that's, and that's where this cigar came from. These cigars, this vitola was made for Winston Churchill in the, I guess, forties and fifties. He obviously became the brand's most iconic customer. In fact, the Romeo Juliet, [00:19:00] the Churchill we're holding was named in his honor.
And it has become one of Cuba's most recognizable cigar formats, which blows my mind. And we've talked about this before. 'cause there's only three Churchills in production. It's true. I don't understand how every single market, I'm shocked that Bargus doesn't have a Churchill. I'm shocked that Trinidad doesn't have a Churchill.
I'm shocked that K Dorsey doesn't have one. This is a vitola that it feels so good in your hand. It's very elegant. Like, how good does this feel in your hand? It's t. I just really despise the fact that there's only three in regular production right now. The factory also produced cigars personalized with bands featuring the name of wealthy customers, a kind of luxury customization service that was unheard of at the time.
So if you wanted your name on a cigar, Don Papin would make that happen for you. So he also owned a race horse named Julieta and had her name painted in the same, the same typeface as the cigar bands. In the 1910s, the brand was selling [00:20:00] 20 million cigars a year. Wow. 20 million cigars a year. Obviously, the US was one of its top markets, probably its top markets, but they had the, the trademark internationally, including in Switzerland and protected their global empire by doing so.
By the 1940s and fifties, r and j was famous for their Fidos complex shaped cigars. Of course, it's estimated that they made over a thousand different S before the Cuban Revolution, including many intricate shapes that are now. Forever lost after the Cuban Revolution. The factory was nationalized. Of course, production continued, but the focus shifted.
Many of the elaborate figueras were discontinued in the sixties and seventies, and the brand, of course, still continued to grow in popularity. And I think it's one of the most popular that we have ever seen in the world. I mean, maybe Cohiba, mm-hmm. Eclipses it now. But I think for the lay person, if you were to ask them a name of a cigar brand, they would probably say Romeo and Juliet, Monte Cristo, and Cohiba.
That's, I think those three would be [00:21:00] the ones they come up with. So in 2001, Hano celebrated the brands 125th anniversary, obviously making Crazy Humidors a limited edition. They had the Ion number two and the Addision Liata Rib Robusto, uh, which I guess was a very popular EL at the time. So the original factory is no longer in use.
Unfortunately, like the Parus factory, it's fallen into disrepair. So they. Are now rolled at the old, old El Ray Mundo factory building. And, uh, the brand of course remains a cornerstone of Cuban culture. So that's a little bit of history. Boys on Rome, Julieta out of Cuba. Well done. So shout out again. I, I kind of use some of the information from, uh, min Ranni and Adriano Martinez Ruiz.
They're two, uh, encyclopedias and uh, I, uh, have to shout them out because a lot of great information there. So that's the story. Boys
Pagoda: pagoda, what are you [00:22:00] thinking? It's excellent, man. Uh, right. You know, it's really interesting because I think you mentioned spice, like when I was smelling, I get the Red cain kind of a little thing.
I like, I don't know, slightly different in terms just of the aroma, right? By the, uh, but overall I'm getting that biscuit, you know, which I always call the parle biscuit, which is a little bit of sweet and a little bit of salty. So very, very, very enjoyable.
Senator: Pagoda, you're spot on. It's funny, I hadn't really smelled the burn line in a while, but you do get like cayenne pepper at the burn line.
It's spicy, but you don't get that at all on your palate. No,
Bam Bam: and not in a retro
Senator: hail at
Gizmo: all. I'm telling you, when I was sniffing the burn line before, I just did that history, it's almost like it was making the my nose flare a little bit. Yeah. In your eyes, water a bit. Yeah. Yeah. This is really a delicious cigar though, on the palette.
It's awesome.
Senator: This is great. I I really, I don't have a single complaint right now. I, I'm like shocked. How good and is burning well beautifully. You know, the construction's excellent.
Rooster: I think before we lit the cigar, we were all kind of [00:23:00] expecting some kind of an issue, whether it's gonna be a dry issue or the flavor's gonna be off, or a crack, you know,
Gizmo: I literally prepped so much material for this episode tonight thinking that it was gonna be very difficult to smoke the cigars and ple.
Rooster: Pleasantly surprised. Absolutely.
Gizmo: You know, I gotta say on the branding of Romeo Julietta, I kind of wish. They didn't go in this direction with the top band here, which they added I guess in 2008 or so. I really liked the classic mm-hmm. Gold band with the simple black text, which is what they had before.
And then of course Theos, which are now red and white, kind of normal looking, but the old turbos, those silver, silver with the gold band. Yeah, I think that's a very classic look. Those are cool. So boys, we're gonna do something a little different tonight. We're gonna do, and, and listeners have been asking for this, we're gonna do an email heavy episode tonight.
And because it's, bam. And Chef Ricky's birthday [00:24:00] that we're celebrating tonight, they are gonna pick the lizard of the week at the end of the episode. Oh, I like it. So unfortunately for both of you, you're gonna have to pay attention to the emails. 'cause you're gonna have to pick. We always do. So there's gonna be two, there's gonna be one.
They're gonna have to agree on it. We're gonna have to wrestle over it. That's the unfortunate part. Alright boys. So I wanna start with an email here because this is specific to what we're smoking tonight. Hi giz. Lizard shaky here. Writing in response to episode 188 and the call to action about the show.
He's obviously talking about the call to action about smoking less Cuban cigars. I think you should all consider keeping the weekly format and doing one Cuban a a month, or one Cuban every six weeks. There are a ton of great new world cigars that you can review the other weeks. While I'm writing this, I also want to address the blatant Romeo who, the slander that happens on the show.
I'll be honest, Romeo makes a lot of cigars that are not great, and even their good cigars have had big runs of terrible product. But the recent production, 20 23, 20 24 [00:25:00] Churchill. Especially the ones in Tubo have been very good and you should review them if you can get them Tubo specifically, not the dress box Churchills I'd share if I had more, but I'm down to my last box.
And by the way, that's an actual last box, not a bam bam quote unquote last box. The market certainly has its issues, but it's the only place to get that distinctive cherry note that some people love. Keep up the good work. Love the pod, not the weekly emailer.
Pagoda: He's out
Bam Bam: the weekly emailer.
That's an inventory issue, man. Okay.
Gizmo: Alright. Let's go to one from Lizard Peter. He's in Nottingham. If you remember, he's written us quite a few times. Dear Lizards, my perspective is from a UK listener point of view. Also, I've only started smoking some cigars some three years ago, and apart from some, from some fabric of five and the odd white [00:26:00] labeled Davidov, these have been exclusively Cuban.
I can understand why if Cubans are becoming very difficult for you to source and given their prices, you are considering varying the frequency with which you smoke these for the podcast. As with most things, it's a matter of balance. If you cut out Cubans altogether, I would still listen to the pod, but for me, it would lose some of the magic.
Your collective love of all things Cuba flowed from the cigars and my favorite episodes. Are those with your reports on your Cuban trips? Indeed, these inspired me to visit Havana twice in the last two years, and I stayed for a few days in Vinales with a trip to the Hector Luis Farm. I would suggest the following.
Cubit cigars every third or fourth week IE two or new, two or three new worlds to one Cuban when possible. Picking new worlds that are also available outside the states for us international listeners to buy. That's a good consideration given your undoubted impartiality, reviewing a variety of the individual Fabrica five offerings.[00:27:00]
It would be interesting to hear your flavor notes, et cetera on cigars that I'm sure many listeners of yours are now buying. I smoked the Desto and two pyramids yesterday afternoon after 10 months in my humidor. It was superb. Floral and milk chocolate on the cold. Draw the same on the light. Then ramping up a little to medium with coffee, dark chocolate walnut, and just a tiny bit of black pepper.
I gotta give Lizard Peters. That's a nice, that's a nice
Bam Bam: candidate
Gizmo: for lizard the week. That's a love. Last third, I actually got a bit milder and smoother with definite baking spice, not Maggie puts in parentheses and a really distinctive retro hale that I can only describe as like biting into a raw, sweet green bell pepper.
It lasted me a good two hours paired with the chef, right? This Havana seven Cota, all the very best wizard Peter. Yeah. From Nottingham
Chef Ricky: Mingle. That's a great email. Peter's my middle name. Pete Ted. That was a great email. Yeah.
Rooster: You know, it's funny how divided the listeners [00:28:00] are, whether they're in, you know, state side or they're in Europe.
Senator: All depends
Rooster: on access. Yeah.
Senator: Yeah. I mean, there is one thing though that that lizard mentioned that. It would be helpful to have other listeners write us about, and that is tell us what New World cigars are available in your market at retailers. Great idea.
Gizmo: And be specific because you know, I, if there's a padron somewhere, I'm assuming they're not gonna have 30 SKUs or 20 SKUs outside of the us.
They may have two or three or five. Yep. Be specific about what they have so we can find cigars that everyone in the world can find. Pretty re pretty reasonably. Yeah, it's a good idea.
Senator: So either write us them or just take photos in a retailer and send them, because we would love to, you know, try to curate new worlds that are accessible globally.
Rooster: Oh yeah. I'm sure a lot of the boutique brands don't even make it there. No. You know, so it's Rocky Patel, I think you're talking about Davidov, maybe? Padron. [00:29:00] Placencia. Placencia. Oh, for sure. Rocky Patel. Fuente Drew
Bam Bam: Estate. Fuente Drew Estate. Yeah. The big boys, the big ones. Correct.
Gizmo: It's unfortunate. So how's the pairing working for you guys?
Because I'm really loving the Billecartr Rose Champagne.
Chef Ricky: I find a, an apple note in the Rose and I think it goes really well with this cigar. Really enjoying it. I that
Bam Bam: I get that Apple note after I take a draw of the cigar and take a very slight sip. What a great, yeah. Great experience. There's really that apple comes right out.
Yep. Green apple. Uh, I think so. It's got a little tar tart. Yeah.
Senator: You get it on the nose. Especially if you That's also true. The, the champagne. It is like green apple on the nose.
Gizmo: So Senator, I know that you pulled some history. On Billecartr. I was, uh, I'm really intrigued by this because first off, I've never heard of it.
Second off, I was really surprised by the price for their standard issue. Mm-hmm. Champagne being almost a hundred [00:30:00] dollars. Well, their standard rose, their standard rose. All roses
Bam Bam: are more expensive. Rose
Gizmo: champagne. Correct. There you go. Is that due to
Bam Bam: the fact that they're in limited quantity?
Gizmo: Not necessarily.
Bam Bam: No. The process. The process. Okay. It's hard to get them pink rapes. Well, seriously though, this is a grown man's rose. This is not like mot which, you know, has its purpose. If it's just said right. Well said. This is an adult's rose that you can drink. You can have this with a great piece of fish. You can just have it as a drink alone, as a standalone with a cigar.
It's really, it holds up man. It's got body. Bam. Am I wrong?
Senator: Is nailing dude
Bam Bam: it to the teeth? This is a mature spot. It's a mature bottle, man. It's fantastic. It's like Mott. It's
Senator: overly sweet for sure. It's,
Bam Bam: you know, it's for kids. Sorry.
Senator: So I'll start with a little history, which is really fascinating, and then I'll talk a little more specifically about this bottle.
Um, so the wildest [00:31:00] part of their history, they've been around for over 200 years, and to this day, they are still family owned and operated. Never heard of them. Unbelievable. Never heard of them. The only other champagne houses we've done on this pod that we can say that about Paul Je Bollinger. Mm-hmm. Two favorites.
Billecarton. Wow. Same thing. Um, the name actually came from, in 1818, uh, Nicholas Francois, Billecartr and Elizabeth Samon got married then, and they decided to actually open their own champagne house, and so they named it Billecartr. SSON after the two last names. Um, Billecartr later teamed up with, uh, Louis Sson, who was Elizabeth's brother, who became the head winemaker there, and then Billecartr himself ran the business side of the, the whole operation.
Um, the crazy thing is, I mean, their. If you go to any big liquor store or a total wine, something like that, you'll always find their [00:32:00] champagne there. Um, and really any reputable, smaller shop that's like a good wine shop, they'll always carry this, but they're on the smaller side of production. They make 2 million bottles a year.
That's almost exactly the same as Roge and Bollinger. Uh, for comparison, like some of the big guys like Mot, Chandon, uh, they make 30 million bottles a year. Uh, VKO makes 19 million a year. So the thing that just amazes me is like, you can find this anywhere, but they're still on the small side and seven generations in it's maintained.
Uh, it's still within the family, which is really, really cool. Um, another fascinating thing. Uh, they were voted as having two of the top champagnes of the millennium. They entered a competition in France in 1999, uh, that was called Champagne of the Millennium. A committee did a blind tasting of 150 vintage champagnes.
Wow. That's a nice job to have. Oh, yeah. Oh, I would love that job. And [00:33:00] the top two, Billecarton 1959, Billecarton, 1961. What ranked number one and number two? That's insane. Wow. Out of 150
Bam Bam: champagnes,
Senator: and I'll just list some of the others that were in the top 10. So you see the caliber of champagne that they produce.
Number four was Dom Perignon, 1964. Number five was Dom Perignon, 1961. Number six was Paul JE 1959. Holy Mo, I'm so proud to hear. Um, and then Nar Krug, um, some others that we're familiar with. So like, they're very, very well established and legit in the champagne space. And then the rose piece is what's fascinating to me.
I mean, I, my kind of introduction to Rose Champagne was very much through this bottle. This is kind of held as like the gold standard of non vintage rose champagne of any producer. And the funny thing I found there was, uh, a quote from the guy who now, [00:34:00] um, runs the champagne house, uh, gene Roland, uh, Billecartb, and the way he describes it, I mean, number one, the composition of this most rosacea champagnes, which is why they're much redder or pinker than this is, it's usually majority pinot noir than the traditionally white grapes like Chardonnay or Pinot Monet or something like that.
This is actually. Almost half Chardonnay, which is very rare for a rose. And the smallest percentage in here is actually pinot noir. It's usually completely inverted, really rarer still that he likes that.
And there's a quote from, um, a Roland Be car who says, quote, we consider our rose to be a champagne rose, not a rose champagne. Because if you were blind tasting it, you wouldn't guess it's a rose. That's so true. Which goes to what BA was saying earlier. So just their style is really, really unique. And as someone who I prefer, you know, dryer wines, [00:35:00] um, balanced, yet dry.
I think this is a really nice way of like delivering some of the, you know, flavor traditional notes that you get in a rose, but without it being overly sweet or overpowering that you're still enjoying the traditional champagne style. The last thing I'll say, and I did not prepare this, I was shocked when I saw this bottle.
I don't think they did this years ago, 'cause I certainly never noticed this, but I looked on the back of this and at the very bottom on the. The rear label, it says, my origin, the Secrets of your Covet on my origin dot Billecart.com, and there's a printed number, a six digit number on here. So I go to the website just before we hit record, and I was blown away because we've seen countless brands in the alcohol space, but also the cigar space that have QR codes and all this stuff.
Stoic most. I mean, stoic at least has a good purpose. It's for feedback. Yes, correct. Most of these, you do a QR code and it just takes you to the home page of the website. It's just, there's nothing, you know, [00:36:00] interesting really to see there. This is really cool. So I took screenshots as I was going through the process here.
When you get there, it asks you to enter the six digit code that's on the back of your individual bottle. And when you do that. It tells you in that specific bottle the year that they produced it, what percentage it starts with first, the grape variety. So this is 45% Chardonnay, 31% Monet, 24% Pinot Noir.
Then it tells you. The most recent harvest that's in this bottle was from 2021. The oldest harvest here was from 2018. It tells you that 44% of the wine in here is from their base wines, which is their standard production. 56% of it is from their reserve. Wines that have a little more age, a little more character about them.
I like this. There's four total vintages in this bottle that we have here. I
Gizmo: like this, or different years. It's, it's amazing to me that you're talking about a company that's got 200 years of history and it [00:37:00] still seems like a passion project.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: The level of de they don't need to do that.
Bam Bam: Oh, it's also progressive in the way they, they're, no one does that.
No one does that. It's progressive in the way they're providing information to their, uh, customers. And it can't be cheap to
Gizmo: do that with the label. No. I mean, you can't ship that off to a company and mass produce it. Every
Senator: bottle's got a unique code. That's crazy. Then it goes on to vinification. This is 100%, uh, uh, fermented in steel, uh, steel tanks, 0% oak.
Some of their vintage stuff they do in oak, impart different flavor notes. Then it tells you the, uh, dosage. Uh, for disgorgement. It tells you the exact sugar content in that bottle. 5.5 grams per liter. The date of discouragement was the second quarter of 2024. I mean, the level of detail and transparency on here, I'm like so blown away.
There are huge brands that are able to market at scale and do something like this. For a family owned and operated seventh generation business, to be this transparent and make this much of an [00:38:00] effort to engage the consumer, it's impressive. Truly
Bam Bam: blew me away. That's impressive. I'm impressed. Yeah,
Senator: and I love the spirit tonight.
This is fantastic. It's excellent. Yeah, and I also think their bottles are actually very, they're they're very nice.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Can I get this packed champagne? Most restaurants.
Senator: Um, would this be difficult to find this, this rose champagne? Most restaurants will have this on their wine list, really, because it is the gold standard of non vintage rose.
The other thing I'll say about this brand that's pretty cool, you know, vintage champagne, which we've done a little bit of on the pod, the price point obviously creeps up there. You're talking like minimum one 30, typically, like minimum one 50 for a bottle. Their vintage stuff is some of the most excessively priced champagnes you'll find.
You can find a vintage bottle of what they make at like a hundred bucks, one 15. That's awesome. Which is really cool. So, I mean, based on our experience now, [00:39:00] I, as long as you know, folks like this and we want to continue to do it, I would love for us to also go into some of their vintage stuff because it's much more reasonable than what some of the other champagne charges, the
Bam Bam: string's.
Very, it's a very sophisticated experience, man. It's elevated for sure. It's pleasant. It is.
Gizmo: So boys, we are coming to the end of the first third here on the Romeo, Juliet, the Churchills. Some of us are coming to the end of the champagne as well. I agree. Correct. Very good. What are you guys thinking of, of the cigar right now, the pairing?
I'm, I'm really impressed.
Bam Bam: I think it's excellent. I think both are performing beautifully. Yeah. This is, this cigars delicious.
Chef Ricky: Can I buy a rest of the box?
Bam Bam: No, at a premium
Chef Ricky: I may be entering the cherry phase. It's gotten a lot sweeter here and less spice uh, it's coming through for me. I don't know if it's cherry sweet, but it's definitely more concentrated.
Gizmo: I will say right now the draw has opened up in such a great way. The combustion for me is through the roof. The airflow [00:40:00] is great. Like whatever it was, it kind of broke through that.
Bam Bam: Nice.
Gizmo: And it is just spectacular right now in a way that this is what I was expecting when I purchased that box five or six years ago.
Those eight. This is what I wanted. Well that's the wildest part. This is what I was looking for. Yeah.
Senator: This to me, tastes aged. It does. And it's a year old senator. It does. You gave this to us blind and said, guess what year? I would think this honestly has at least four years on it.
Chef Ricky: How much of this do you think the pairing has to do with it?
'cause I find a pairing is spot on. I think the pairing is helping it,
Gizmo: but I don't think the pairing is informing the fact that this cigar is smoking. Yeah, I agree with that. Like a cigar that that has more age. Rooster has no champagne's. I don't have the pairing, and he's asking to buy the box. Yeah,
Rooster: that's very true.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I meant the box of champagne,
Bam Bam: not getting the cherry, but I think the original notes that I had earlier continue through, but it's more robust now. [00:41:00] Overall, the cigar,
Senator: I really like how creamy this cigar is. Mm-hmm. I mean, there's, I can't believe how creamy
Gizmo: it is.
Senator: I can't think of any young Cuban young. That's as creamy as this velvety smoke.
Nothing like immediately comes to mind and it has gotten better. I agree.
Gizmo: Right. Yeah, I agree. As we're coming outta the first third, it definitely has. Yeah.
Rooster: Yeah. I'm impressed. It's amazing what they can do with fresh tobacco and while like we were smoking some that were, you know, five, six years age and they smoke nothing like this,
Bam Bam: they were being snapped in half.
Senator: Deservedly so. Correct.
Gizmo: So boys, we have to go out of turn here because we have more sparkling to drink tonight. I think we need to do, hold
Senator: on. We have more rosacea, champagne to do. Do we? Oh, there's more in there. This is why Garone manages the pores. Correct. I have a second pore for everybody of this. Yeah.
Oh well there four. I take that all back. Sorry about that.
Pagoda: Now we cooking. Are you sure? Impressive because I was trying to make [00:42:00] up with the lighting. It's a dark bottle.
Gizmo: Alright, let's do another pour of that.
Chef Ricky: That is impressive.
Gizmo: Rooster, can
Chef Ricky: you pass mine over there please? I thought the first pores were quite generous.
Gizmo: All right boys, let's continue on with some more email. This one is from Lizard Luigi, who writes this all the time. Always a nice email from him. I actually have two emails from him I wanna share. First up, Hey giz, just a suggestion on impossible monthly rotation. I really like this idea. One week is a sub $15 new world cigar.
The next week is a 15 to $30 new world cigar. One week is a 30 plus dollars new world cigar. One week is a Cuban. I kind of like that
Bam Bam: dollar based, uh, selections.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Bam Bam: Hmm.
Gizmo: Not to mention spacing out the Cuban issue. I think breaking the weeks up monetarily would be beneficial. It would also let you guys be able to more effectively compare price points and finding those quote unquote hidden gems that wouldn't break the bank contrarily.
[00:43:00] It would allow you guys to more efficiently dissect what the breaking point is between regular rotation cigars. And special occasion cigars. Special occasion doesn't always mean expensive in regular rotation doesn't always mean reasonably priced. Reviewing a $7 cigar immediately followed by a $35 cigar would cast a much needed light on those expensive cigars that may or may not be worth it, and those inexpensive ones that punch above their weight class.
It's just an idea. Keep up the good work.
Chef Ricky: I feel like you sort of, kind of do that already. We do. When you're, but I,
Gizmo: I'm not intentional, not on purpose. I'm not in, I'm not very, I guess maybe I'm unconsciously I'm, I'm, I'm aware of it. Yeah. But. Like when we're picking out cigars, I'm not really thinking of price point.
Don't
Pagoda: think of
Gizmo: it. I'm thinking of rotation. I'm thinking of rotation of like markers We haven't done. Markers we haven't done in a while. Yeah. The core stuff we need to do. I have like a, I think adding
Bam Bam: a, a layer of complexity [00:44:00] that may, may not be necessary. Yeah. It'll
Pagoda: add
Bam Bam: to the level of
Pagoda: stress
Bam Bam: for you, but it's a good idea.
Um, how much is it? The goat is a cardiologist, correct. Kilo. He's worried about my blood pressure. Here's, here's a question. How much is that concerto that we had? The aging room? 15 bucks. 15. 15 bucks. Yeah. I can smoke that New Year's Eve and be very happy. I can smoke at Christmas day. I can smoke it on my birthday.
That kind of cigar like transcends. The every day and sure. This special moment because it's so fucking delicious and 15 bucks
Chef Ricky: for some can be a special occasion. That's true. It's all relevant. That's also true.
Gizmo: Yeah. That's also true. I think for us though, we've discovered that price, price irrelevant. I think special cigars for us have moved from the price point thing into flavor territory.
Bam Bam: That's exactly right.
Gizmo: You know, like when I think about special occasion cigars, right now, I'm not necessarily thinking of high dollar cigars. No. Maybe out, you know, maybe with Cubans. Yes. Mm-hmm. [00:45:00] But inside the new world space, not really. It's the level of satisfaction
Rooster: that you get out of a cigar. That's exactly Whether it's a $10 cigar or a 15 or 20 or a $40 cigar.
Yeah. And some $40 Cuban cigars don't really satisfy you the way a $15 new world does. That's right.
Pagoda: Speaking of about this, what did you smoke? What was your line up? Hmm.
Bam Bam: I had a rough day that day. I had a project almost collapse while I'm sitting on my eye beam smoking my cigar. This is how, you know Bams
Senator: doing work in
Bam Bam: Cuba, correct?
Correct. Um, I don't remember. I did have a few smokes. That was a Friday night. It was, oh, we had our late evening that night. Um, what
Gizmo: did I have? You went to dinner. Very nice dinner and then you came here.
Bam Bam: Yes. Great dinner with, uh, Mrs. Bam. Bam. Um, went home, hung out there for a bit with her and they came out right over here.
Oh, I should remember what I stopped. You, you did have the concerto. I had a, actually a very good lineup. I had a concerto and I don't remember the other cigars. I remember, do you, you had the LA Gloria number [00:46:00] two, number four recently. That was four. That was yesterday. Do you remember? So Senator,
Gizmo: what did Bam smoke?
Senator: Actually, I don't remember. I can't believe this wasn't memorable enough. You had a coro that Gizmo gave you? Oh yes. 2013.
Bam Bam: 20, 20 14. 2014. Were alla were, I don't how you remember this detail. Alright, so I actually forgot you. I, I gave, I don't remember that night. It was, I mean, in his defense
Senator: it was
Gizmo: just
Senator: a coro.
It's not
Gizmo: like, yeah, I gave memorable stick. So bam, bam is always busting poop's balls about his love of the Love 14. Love 14. He often says that that's, that he introduces himself, introduces himself, says Hi, love 14. My name is Uba. So I gave bam two cigars that were labeled Love 14. I gave him, he only gave me 1 20 14 Busto and a 2014 H up man number, number two,
Bam Bam: which I still have.
Yes, thank you.
Gizmo: And tonight in line with all [00:47:00] this Come, come on. No, no, no, no. Not for you. I brought it for Chef Ricky. Good. You're out. I brought Chef Ricky, one of his favorites. That's not nice. I brought him a Sir Winston Ben was like, great. I won't remember this one either. I brought him an HA Sir Winston Sir Winston from 2014 giz.
I love you. Happy birthday my friends. Thank you so much. That's an incredible cigar. So these, these are, uh, 2014 birthday gifts. Thank you. From your friends. Very generous. Two up fourteens for, uh, ba and, and a uh, a RG. December 14 for, uh,
Bam Bam: Senator gave me one of the secret DT off cigars that no one's supposed to know about.
What are they called? The number Rooster knows the code. Uh, code number code. The code. Code 25. Code 25. And I happen to love that cigar.
Senator: It's a great steak. Yeah, it's
Bam Bam: a very good cigar.
Senator: And then the other one that you lit that night? Yes. What the hell was that? That was the one you said you remembered.
Bam Bam: Are my
Senator: memories.
Bam Bam: The concerto. The concerto. Yes. That's what you're talking about. Oh, that's right. Instead of the gave me the concerto actually, it's like you're asking
Gizmo: him about something he did eight months ago, two days ago.
Bam Bam: I had, I had that [00:48:00] immediately because I love happened to love that cigar so much. It was a great night back, although traumatizing day back friends.
Yeah. He said it was a trauma. I had had a very, very hard day with business and then I had a great dinner and it kind of every, the whole day recovered. But it was a tough start. I think kind of think the senior,
Rooster: senior moments are catching up. Whoa. Oh, very apropos by you.
Senator: Tra has been waiting for this moment.
Chef Ricky: Damn you Rooster's like welcome to the club. Yeah. I have a feeling my days are gonna be that way. It's gonna start very rough. Hopefully it doesn't end that way.
Gizmo: So boys, we have to go outta turn because we are coming to the end of our pairing and we are moving into our second bottle, which we're not gonna rate.
We're gonna rate this one, but it is time to do the Billecartr Samon Rose Champagne. Formal liquor rating.
Bam Bam: Is anyone getting cherry now? 'cause I'm starting to [00:49:00] get this. I, my cherry notes gone. I'm sorry, but yeah. On the
Gizmo: cigar.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: I'm throwing it to the formal liquor rating. I know. I'm sorry. Hold that thought.
Bam Bam: This is just unusual. Okay, go ahead.
Gizmo: So it is time to do the formal liquor rating on our pairing tonight. Bam. Bam. You're up.
Bam Bam: I, I love this. I love the champagne. I would spend a hundred dollars on this all day long. I've never had a rose that was so sophisticated, mature. Delicious on the drier side. Not too sweet.
I can have it with a meal. Can have it alone. I'm gonna give it a 10. Mm
Senator: That's
Bam Bam: a 10 for me.
Senator: Love it. I,
Bam Bam: I don't ever remember having a rose this good. Excellent. Chef Ricky. Yeah,
Chef Ricky: I'm right there with Ben. I'm outta 10. That last pour especially was very buttery and almost savory. The way it, uh, you know, I don't know what it was, was it came down in temperature.
That's the key. Yeah. Okay. That was it. It was there, there were like salty Oh yeah. Pockets of toffee or something happening there. It was like salty and sweet, and it wasn't a cigar. [00:50:00] Uh, so I, I really loved it. Like, so, you know, this is crazy because I, you know, obviously champagne is typically drunk, somewhat cooler, but I almost preferred this as it warmed up, you know?
I loved it on the cooler side of Chris. This is true of all champagne. Refreshing, by the way.
Senator: Huh? All champagne is served too cold. Mm-hmm.
Chef Ricky: Yeah. Yeah. So it was crisp and refreshing and beautiful and enjoyable on the first pour. The second pour, there was a complexity and the depth there that just wasn't present the first time around, and it was really enjoyable.
Bam Bam: I have a question. So if you're at a restaurant and you're ordering a bottle of champagne and they bring you a big ice bucket with the bottle right in it, would you take it out and put the bottle on your table to bring down the
Senator: temperature? You can, yeah. I think it depends on the champagne. So what I, my personal experience is that a fuller bodied champagne in the sense that, not that this is, you know, very full.
Mm-hmm. But this is full flavored. Sure. Yeah. So like I think of this, I think of [00:51:00] Bollinger, those especially are drank best, not super cold. Mm-hmm. They need to come down and that's where you get like all the flavors, like the fact that chef is pulling out more notes as it came down. That's exactly what should happen.
The same thing would happen with Bollinger. Would you categorize
Bam Bam: the Growy category that way as well? The what? Growy Champagne. Isn't that a category? Growy Grower. Cer Grower Champagne. It depends on the type. Edit that, uh, no,
Senator: let's start over. I'm gonna start over.
Chef Ricky: Gizmo gets shit all the time for it. Growy.
Pagoda: I love the grow champagne. That stage,
Senator: growy stage. No, it's not. That's what my son calls it. It's an edit. That's an edit. It's an edit. It's an
Bam Bam: edit. Would you put the grower category of champagne in that, in that class where you want it to come
Senator: down in temperature? It depends on the type, but I would say that a majority of grower champagnes are fuller bodied in their expressions.
So I, I would say generally yes, that would [00:52:00] be the case. It's better to let them come down a little bit so that they're just like lightly chilled, but not like super cold. Yeah, I think for lighter champagnes, like, uh, PO Roge non vintage for, uh, VCO Mott. Of like most of the lighter standard, non vintage from the big champagne houses.
I think those, because they're lighter, you're not, there's not that much more flavor to get out of them. You're missing out on anything. Exactly. So like you can have those ice cold and still have a really great experience and, um, I think it's just different when you have a fuller expression, like some of these good points.
Chef Ricky: Yeah.
Pagoda: Pagoda. Oh, it's a 10. It's a 10 for me as well. Um, you know, I think champagnes, I love champagne and I think Senator knows that too. And, but you know what's really interesting about this, uh, rose is typically when I think of roses or when I have roses, is in an outdoor setting on a nice warm day where the sun is shining and, you know, you're either having it with a meal or [00:53:00] just for us, we'll just have champagne with cigars either way.
But this is one I think, which you can easily pop open even in the evening, uh, because for whatever reason it's so true that in a blind tasting, you wouldn't be able to determine whether it's, uh. It's so well balanced, you know? Mm-hmm. Because it is, it is dry, but it's not very dry. And I do like a little dry champagne, but this is so well balanced that it doesn't really give the effect of what we typically think of a rose.
So I think for, for the ver versatility, I think it's just a huge merit. You know, the price is a bit too much, you know, because especially the ones we like, whether it's Paul Ro and all half the price, uh, but considering the versatility, I think, and it being a rose and it just hitting it on all it so differently.
Bam Bam: Yeah. It's,
Pagoda: it's, it's just being, I think it's worth every dollar. Absolutely. And you know, the pairing, the evening, the birthdays a celebration. I think for me it's an experience and it's a tent for me. [00:54:00]
Gizmo: So I'm also at a 10. I think I'm probably, you know, the least experienced in the room with Rose for sure.
Champagne. Maybe some of us are on the same page. But from the first sip, this tasted different, it tasted elegant and it really tasted almost like, uh, it wasn't trying too hard. Mm-hmm. And I mean that as a compliment. It was, everything was subtle, but it was, it was strong, but it was soft. But it was fruity, but it was chill.
Like it hit every note in such a great way. And I just feel like if it, it was almost like effortless. Like you could almost taste 200 years of experience as Senator Detail. You could taste it in what we had tonight. I think I hit that on the first sip. I think I just finished my second pour now. I think it was there.
I'm very, very happy with this. The price point's a little expensive, you know, to reference Lizard Luigi's email, this is a special occasion. Champagne for me, A special occasion. Rose, you've got one
Chef Ricky: of one labels on there. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I
Gizmo: love the [00:55:00] story. I love the uniqueness of, of, you know, them telling you where each bottle, the origin and the, the blends and everything.
I mean, it's, it's really brilliant. I'm really impressed. So for me it's a 10
Pagoda: Senator, just one more comment before Senator goes, and I didn't know, you know, like typically with a lot of these champagnes you can. The finish matters so much and some you'll have a really short finish and some you'll have a very long lingering finish.
This is so well balanced that it's not short, but it's not extremely long, but it just completes your palette and yeah, there's something, there's something really wonderful about it and uh, it's just something that I, you know, I've been really enjoying today. So I just wanted to mention it. I love Senator's face.
It's like we're talking about his child. Yeah. He's so proud.
Senator: I'm a proud parent. So proud. I'm a proud parent in every way. I mean, I'm sorry, like the commentary three years ago if we did this versus now that Oh yeah, we've done enough champagne that we're educated everybody to a degree understands what it should be like, that [00:56:00] experience.
I'm blown away by the commentary. I mean, I, I'll start with Pagodas 'cause it's very similar to, you know, my own feelings about this. Balanced is the perfect word to describe this. It is outrageous how. Someone who loves a rose champagne and someone who is just a traditional champagne drinker and doesn't ever really reach for rose.
Either of those type of people find something, would find something to love in this bottle. You've mentioned the finish. I think it has like a medium finish. Like it's not short, it's not too long. It doesn't like overwhelm your palate. It's like just where you want it to be. It's complex with all these different flavor notes.
It's incredibly versatile. I mean, you could drink this by itself with a cigar, with a meal. I think a great time to break out a bottle list is honestly Thanksgiving pairs. I was just gonna say, I could see this in the winter for sure. I think with Turkey cranberry sauce, all these things like this would pair amazingly with the traditional [00:57:00] Thanksgiving meal.
Um, ba mentioned fish, like yeah, salmon. Uh, they actually call, I saw salmon on it. It was definitely less fishy than I expected them. They even call out, I mean, would be an excellent pairing. And that's where like you want a rose, right? Sha uh, salmon is one of those, uh, a, a fish that's kind of in between with a white fish.
You'd always reach for a white wine. With salmon, like you can reach for a red and this is like perfectly right in the middle. That would be a, an excellent pairing. So there's so many good things to say about this and the history is actually what I was the least familiar with. I've had their stuff, I've had their standard non vintage, I've had their rose i's all I've gone through so far in their line.
But I never knew that they were still family owned and operated. I know they didn't used to have that on the bottle. It's really cool to see the level of transparency. I would love for other brands to start doing the exact same thing because I think it really adds to any consumer's ability to appreciate what they're actually drinking.
Um, so I'm also at a 10 [00:58:00] and you know, I think everybody has a different palette and this validates why. If you were to ask any champagne drinker what a great rose champagne is, this is always held as the gold standard. It's why this is
Gizmo: the it's the champagne in the millennium. That's right. How do you argue
Senator: with that?
It's incredible. I mean, not this bottle, but, well, but they have, uh, 60 years ago stick to face. Um, but no, it, it's really deserving and it's the reason that I pursued this a long time ago, uh, just because it's so highly regarded for Rose and for my palette. It, it checks all the boxes. I'm at a strong tent.
Gizmo: Oh yeah. Alright boys. The formal liquor rating tonight on the Billecart Samon La Rose Champagne is a perfect 10.0.
Bam Bam: Fantastic.
Gizmo: And I think that's the first time we've ever done a liquor rating before We've gotten to the end of the second, third. True. Which is pretty cool. Correct. So we've had, we have two birthdays in the room tonight, boys.
So we are now going to pop a sparkling that we did [00:59:00] eight weeks ago. The Kaler Remont.
Bam Bam: Didn't this also get a 10?
Gizmo: This scored a perfect 10. Yeah. On episode 180
Senator: 6. So, and this is where Remont is so amazing. We just had a hundred dollars bottle of champagne. We're not gonna pop open two more bottles of these and drink $300 worth of champagne right now.
The fact that you can get an affordable remont that is still gonna deliver so much satisfaction is the beauty of this stuff and the beauty of what France is able to do that we're only now in the US starting to get access to more of this. Remind us what the cost of this is. 15
Rooster: bucks. $15 for the bottle.
$15. Yeah. It's gonna help with the split wise.
Bam Bam: It'll balance it
Pagoda: out. Rooster's pick it up to 10. Yeah. This one's on Rooster. Uh, all Well, here we go. Yeah. This one we can't afford the rooster. Champagne is not considered alcohol. You know that.
Rooster: No, I know. Absolutely. You're correct. You're right on brother.
Gizmo: So boys, we are now sipping the Kas Remont from Burgundy that we [01:00:00] reviewed on episode 180 6 and bam, bam.
Bam Bam: Dude, put your nose in this glass and take a deep draw. Wow. It's, that's
Senator: what champagne smells like.
Bam Bam: It's
Senator: crazy how fruity that is.
Bam Bam: I can't
Gizmo: even,
Bam Bam: actually, I can't believe this
Gizmo: is a $15 bottle.
Bam Bam: It's so aromatic.
Pagoda: Yeah.
Bam Bam: Wow. Excellent.
Pagoda: Hmm. I'll tell you, champagnes are so good. Oh, I don't know. Like, it's really interesting because that is so good.
There's so many people. That's awesome too. There's so many people. I remember people. Oh,
Gizmo: but just don't drink it. It's ridiculous. It's delicious. My chicken, it has a little bit of a stigma to it. You know? I, like I said, I, I, I don't know what episode I said this on when we talked about champagne. I think, you know, I came in kind of like what we talked about with Ricky.
Like everybody has a bad college experience. I think with champagne. Everybody has a bad wedding experience of drinking really bad champagne. Yeah, well, it's not real champagne. I mean, if anybody's
Senator: ever been married, no wedding venue, uh, is including in like their standard package or even like the next [01:01:00] package.
Real champagne. Yeah. It's some form of sparkling wine that's usually pretty cheap and shitty. And when you actually take a deep dive into real champagne, there's a lot of incredible stuff to find.
Pagoda: I said the dick gets started wearing a collar shirt. I think he started loving champagne,
Bam Bam: getting a slight.
Change in experience with the cigar. I am with this sip,
Senator: so forget the sip. Before we even poured this, and I think Bam had called this out, I started to get the cherry
Bam Bam: note. It's faint for me, but I get it on the finish. So I, I got it early on too. And it came, and it went,
Chef Ricky: it didn't stay throughout. Like now I'm, I'm, I'm almost void of dried fruit cherry anything, and I'm sort of back in the cedar spice realm with very light baking spice.
The sweetness is. It gone away.
Gizmo: I haven't had cherry yet, so I'm hoping for it. It wasn't, it was,
Rooster: it wasn't
Gizmo: very distinct.
Chef Ricky: No, it was very faint. Very,
Rooster: very faint. Yeah.
Chef Ricky: But it just popped. But fun though.
Senator: Fun to get. That chef's [01:02:00] experience is identical to mine because I probably had two draws where it was super prominent.
Yep. And then it like, just totally dissipated. Exactly. Wow. That's exactly
Bam Bam: what I experienced. This is, this is outstanding right now.
Chef Ricky: I agree. I thought I was crazy until ba called it out. That's when he, when he experienced
Rooster: and, and it's, you know, the halfway point, the draw really opened up. Yeah. In the beginning the cigar was a little bit, you know, it was a, it, the draw was a bit tight, but it's completely open now.
The combustion is great. Yeah, mine too. I think
Bam Bam: everyone's having a similar experience, which we're all, I think very happy about.
Gizmo: I agree. Right. And it's out of the top row of the same box. You know, we got, uh, we got very lucky on this. All right, boys, let's go to another email. This one is also from Lizard Luigi.
As I said, he has two that I, I wanted to read tonight. This one's a little critical. Hmm. Says hello guys. I preface this email email by saying that I love what you guys do and we'll continue to tune in 5:00 AM every Tuesday morning. However, I cannot help but sense a little bit of hypocrisy from you [01:03:00] guys.
I'm listening to the Schwa Supreme episode, listening to you guys go on about how you guys have had enough of aos. Not caring about their consumers and feeling uninspired when looking in the Cuban section of your towers. I can't help but think back to an email I sent months ago regarding a very similar issue about consumers doing their part in standing up to the haos conglomerate, calling on buyers to stop supporting Haos because of the way they treat their people.
It was you guys who stated then, and I paraphrased quote, whether we buy cigars, whether we buy cigars or not, is a drop in the bucket of the grand scheme of things and quote. Now, while I completely agree with that statement, I find it a bit perplexing as to why now you finally had enough. Is it simply the astronomical pricing that has made you reach your limit?
A little food for thought, keep up the good work, guys? I find myself now actively talking about you guys with my cigar friends now, and isn't that what it's all about, lizard Luigi? Hmm, [01:04:00] I'll start with this. My frustration with the Cuban sourcing has been the retailers limiting our access to the cigars.
So that is separate from my feelings on, you know, how. You know, Cuban workers are treated and those other very serious issues that we discuss on this podcast. My frustration has simply been how difficult it is to get the cigars, and that's where my stress level came to a boiling point that I was really considering changing the cadence of things.
And if it still continues, like I think I just got a box pop by customs this week. Uh, I, I, it still continues to be a stress point. So that's where it started for me. For me, it's more.
Rooster: How many gems we have found in the new world cigars. And they have been fantastic. So if you can find aging like cigars, like the aging room concerto, the all Dino, Cameroon, rib robusto, the, uh, you know, I mean the, the fabric of five line, the fabric of five line, [01:05:00] you don't miss the Cuban line that much.
You don't miss the Cuban markers. And then, you know, if you go back, like there were some, so many issues with the Cuban cigars, if they were plugged or
Chef Ricky: inconsistencies Yeah,
Rooster: inconsistencies. So, you know, just, just for those reasons, I think, you know, I'm personally not smoking as many Cubans and that I used to, and the fact, the price,
Bam Bam: I don't remember a Cuban cigar in any of your photographs in recent memory.
And for quite a while.
Rooster: Yeah, maybe I didn't po I did have a punch. Uh, punch. Punch. Oh, okay. It's my favorite. You're keeping secrets and a short the punch. Okay.
Bam Bam: Thank
Rooster: you. And, uh, thanks for sharing, but you asked,
Senator: I mean, I'll just say I think similar to Rooster, I mean first, you know, I don't know if we've ever incorrectly implied, you know, we're never done in the sense that none of us have hit a point where we're saying we're never gonna buy Cuban cigars.
That's correct. That's not the case. That will never be the case. We'll always [01:06:00] be a consumer of cons, a Cuban cigars. I think the frustration has been when the price has gotten so outta control that you're sitting there looking at exactly like rooster's saying certain new world cigars that we found at a fraction of the price that are in line with what Cubans used to be.
And even more expensive than Cubans used to be. And you're saying to yourself that this provides. Almost as much, if not the same level of satisfaction as certain Cubans. Sometimes more correct. Sometimes more. That's right. Yeah. You sit there and say to yourself like, I'd have to be a moron to keep pursuing Cuban cigars at the rate that I was when I have found these other cigars that are a fraction of the price they're delivering just as much or more satisfaction.
So I think that that has very much been like the driver, if that if prices didn't increase so outrageously, we'd all be buying still tons of Cuban cigars. And kind of unfortunately for us, we probably wouldn't have discovered as many great new worlds as we have. That's
Pagoda: [01:07:00] right.
Senator: And then I think what compounds it to Gizmo's point is the access piece.
And it's not just access for us, it's access for everyone. Because you go into an LCDH in, uh, countless other countries and you're sitting there for a long, I'm talking years, you could not find what you would be looking for in those shops. Mm-hmm. And you'd talk to a retailer and they would be just as frustrated as the consumer saying, I'm not getting the allocation that I need.
I haven't seen
Gizmo: it in 18 months. Exactly.
Senator: Yeah. And that is even more frustrating when you're saying, okay, I'm willing to pay the silly price that you've now set. There's nowhere to buy it. What's the point? So for all of those reasons, I think like that's where our frustration, you know, has boiled over. But it's not to say we're never gonna buy or smoke Cuban cigars.
Of course we always will.
Rooster: Yeah.
Senator: But it has definitely changed our rate of consumption. Correct.
Rooster: And also, and also the fact that we have not changed our reviewing cadence. Right. I mean, every [01:08:00] other week we are still doing Cuban cigars for now. So we are starting to revisit some of the mar other markers that, uh, you know, and that's, that that's really working out well because all the fresh cigars out of, uh, Haos have been smoking Wonderful.
In the present, you know, example. That's true. And
Gizmo: there's a lot of listeners that are listening today that weren't listening three years ago, four years ago when we did the Monte two or the up man two. So, and
Bam Bam: they can't get them.
Gizmo: Yeah. Well
Senator: that's the Exactly that, that's the last piece that I'll just mention that.
I know I've said on prior episodes, but it's relevant here. A huge frustration for me is not even. Our experience. We've all been fortunate enough to buy Cuban cigars when they were eight bucks a stick. Younger people getting into cigars for the first time, they're not gonna try half of what we got to because how many people when there are 22, 25 years old are gonna sit and spend $40 to smoke a Cuban Churchill, you know, 30 [01:09:00] something dollars to smoke a reto.
I mean, that's just crazy. It's unheard of, honestly. And you've gotta buy a box of these things at a time if you're in the US to do it. So. That is also like my biggest, actually frustration is not, we've been privileged, we got to enjoy this when the getting was good. But for the future cigar smoker, they're screwed when it comes to the Cuban catalog.
Yeah. They're in, in no way, shape, or form gonna be able to try, enjoy, and experience probably even half of what we got to because Haos, SA has prioritized, you know, people that are willing to spend a hundred dollars a cohiba. Over there's far more cigar smokers that they could be marketing to at a reasonable price point.
If they could successfully ramp up production, treat their people. Well have enough rollers. I mean, if they actually put in the hard work, but they took the easy route out, which was to say, we're gonna actually scale back production and we're gonna just raise prices to a point that we're making more money than we ever [01:10:00] had, while saying, screw the future of, of ci uh, future generation of cigar smokers.
That for me is the biggest frustration.
Chef Ricky: It's true. It's a thousand percent. Case in Point Rooster, how much were Cuban cigars when you were started buying them? $2?
Bam Bam: My approach differs a little bit. Um, I'm still continuing to smoke Cuban cigars, but the pace has slowed down dramatically. I like to go back and forth between a new world and a Cuban and a sit. If I'm doing three cigars, maybe I'll do two new worlds in a Cuban. If I'm doing four cigars, it'll be two and two.
I like that dance between them. Um. That affords me two things, of course to continue to fall in love with the new world cigars that we found. But it allows me to control consumption of inventory, which is precious right now. And we're not buying Cuban cigars, you know, I'll continue to buy, I think everyone here will when we need a box, but that's not gonna happen for two years plus maybe.
'cause we have, you know, we're lucky, we're blessed, we [01:11:00] have a pretty good inventory. But I continue to go through them, but at a much slower rate integrating with the New World Cigar experience.
Gizmo: And also, I, I have to say from the program standpoint of what we do here, we are probably, we might be the only.
Long format, uh, audio driven podcast that exists that services the entire world, like a global audience where we are trying everything we can get in the US and we are also trying to do everything we can get from Cuba to, you know, within reason to cater to as many listeners around the world as we can.
So that's where this rub comes in of us not being able to access it is a disappointing. The listeners in the US who smoke Cuban cigars and then rest of world who can't get the other cigars we smoke every other week disappointing them. So that's where we're at of, of, not that we wanna make everybody happy for the sake of it, but if we can, that's what we wanna do.
Bam Bam: [01:12:00] Yeah, and I think from the point of view of our format, I think it's a good problem to have.
Gizmo: I agree. '
Bam Bam: cause we're very unique.
Gizmo: So boys, we are coming into the last third now in the Romeo Julieta Churchill, what's everybody thinking?
Pagoda: You know, it's, it's really interesting. I go,
Gizmo: Bamba gets such a kick outta you. I know,
Bam Bam: I know. I, I look at your face like deep, deep thought. I,
Pagoda: I, I was actually deep thought in terms love it, of accessibility and pride. When you would talk about Cubans, I said, oh, damn. Um, but yeah, no, I, I'm really enjoying the thing and for, uh, the last couple of puffs have been reasonably salty for me, and it's been really, really good.
You know, I know that we don't agree on this because I call the flavor, I get like a floral, salty. It's, uh, the Cuban is salty, you know, the earthiness, I don't know. It was really, really good. I, uh, really enjoyed the last few puffs. So yeah, [01:13:00] overall complex, you know, getting different, like, I guess different people are getting these different puffs of, uh, flavor at different times.
It's, it's been fantastic so far.
Rooster: And I would say it's a good medium cigar.
Pagoda: Yeah,
Bam Bam: I agree. Oh yeah, it's delicious. You know, it's, it's not wild. It's not you. You know, I kind of like what you said, pagoda, that Cuban esque salty thing. It goes back to what I said early on. This is still a quintessential Cuban experience tonight.
You're getting everything that a traditional Cuban cigar gives you. But now that for me, the sweetness is still there. There's still some fruit. It's a little funky in barnyard, which I love. And there's a little saltiness there. That is a, for me, a traditional Cuban cigar
Chef Ricky: to, for me, it's turned entirely to salted peanuts.
Yeah. That's
Bam Bam: awesome.
Chef Ricky: Glad you said nuts. That's awesome. That's what I'm getting in the last start. It's like green. It's, you know, not even fantastic. Not even roasted. It's just there's lightly roasted, like there's not an overly developed nuttiness, but there's like a, a, you [01:14:00] crack open, a freshly salted peanut and it's, it's
Gizmo: kind of what I remember when I was a kid, I used to go to this restaurant, it was a steakhouse.
Chef Ricky: Mm-hmm. Might
Gizmo: have been lone star. Mm-hmm. Where. They had you, you would, you would crack the pen, they'd give you a bucket of peanuts and you'd just throw 'em on the floor. Yeah. That was the entire place. Five guys? No, it was covered in peanut, so I guess five guys did five guys, you can't throw it on the floor.
Yeah, they can't throw it on the floor anymore, but I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. That I remember being a kid, but then somebody had a peanut allergy ensued for 200 million and that was the end of that.
Chef Ricky: I went to a steak house like that in the Texas, New Mexico area, and I can't remember the name of it, but Were they slinging horse manure around?
No, just peanut shells all over the floor. Oh God.
Gizmo: All right, boys, let's go into another email. This is from Lizard Enrique. He writes us a lot. Of course, he says, in a perfect world, you guys can continue to go 50 50 on the Cigars Cuban and New World, of course. But that looks increasingly untenable from the commentary on the podcast and my own experience in procurement.
[01:15:00] I read with interest the take you shared from FOH, but at the same time, the show is also a reflection of the times in the sense that you guys have covered or experienced all the major Cuban cigar stories in recent years, including the price hikes, counterfeits, Cuban travel, custom crackdowns, et cetera.
This potential change in the show is a natural outgrowth. Keeping Cuban cigars in the rotation is part of the success of the show, but I go back again to the comradery and the chemistry among the crew as the foundation of the show. I don't even drink, but I still listen to the alcohol pairing because of the comedy that may come with it.
Rather than trying to imagine eating the whole elephant, breaking the 52 weeks in the small bites may be constructive already. You have one best of one year end, two to three PCA shows two to four lizards in Cuba episodes. I have to preface any suggestion I make with it being free advice, which is worth exactly what you're paying for.
I love that line. Here are a few thoughts. If you move to doing one cubit cigar monthly, [01:16:00] you can alternate between a revisit and a new cigar, so the pressure becomes really procuring six new cigars a year. Each lizard introduces one of their favorite new worlds once a month, like you did for the first 20 shows.
Bi-Annual connoisseurs corner, where you bring in two powerhouse cigars that are dream cigars for the listener, separate from the New Year's Eve and the 50th hundred, a hundred 50th, 200 episode, et cetera. Once a quarter interview base shows with the heavyweights example, Steve Sacca, George Padrone, Raphael Nadal, Rob ala, Nick Mulo, et cetera.
Number five, select guest appearance by the Lizard Universe. This is dependent on chemistry and charisma, but someone like Lizard Henri Retail or tuxedo, Timmy, I or I. Number six, a few episodes reviewing the top one to three cigar, uh, cigar Fido Cigars of the year. The mf, the judge, and the EP Carillo Pledge prequel episodes were so good.
Because of how disappointed everybody was biannual a MA episodes, which is ask [01:17:00] me anything that's kinda like what we're doing tonight, actually, uh, to Enrique's point here, kind of tonight is filled with listener emails and commentary. Number eight clip commentary episodes where the lizards revisit some of their early shows and reminisce or rag on them.
And an evergreen suggestion moving forward of number nine, more pagoda and more Grindr. So much of the success is when the imp improv, improvisational things happen. Like the CBRA episode when Senator grabs the champagne on a whim, Dr. P, Dr. Pagoda making Manhattans or the bam, bam price is right. So if these ideas are too structured, I won't have my feelings hurt.
Let me know what you think. Lizard Enrique
Bam Bam: very in-depth email. Great email. I love it. Absolutely. He always
Gizmo: sends a great email.
Bam Bam: Unreal.
Gizmo: I
Bam Bam: love
Gizmo: that we have great listeners, man. We
Bam Bam: do.
Gizmo: Even when they're critical, we have great listeners. All right. That's the one up there for the, this listeners. Sounds like he's applying for a job to be on the contest, correct?
That's correct. To run the whole thing.
Chef Ricky: I kind of feel that was Gizmo that sent that email.
Gizmo: I, no, there was a word in there that I've never used in the [01:18:00] context before. Outgrowth. It was a natural outgrowth. I've never used that word. Yeah, I was very impressed. That's a $5 word right there. Correct. Toilet paper.
What do you guys, what do you guys think of some of their, uh, some of Enrique's suggestions?
Chef Ricky: I think a lot of it we do already. Um, I, I love the, you know, the detail behind it all. I don't disagree with any of it. Um, but I think. Yeah, I think a lot of it is done already, quite naturally. I mean, it's just this, you know, you do a great fucking job.
'cause
Pagoda: I like the number eight, but just take clips from the previous episodes and bring them on. That's scary. That's scary. Yeah. That's a little scary. We'd love that. Yeah. I don't like that.
Gizmo: I knew, I knew you were gonna say
Chef Ricky: that. I'm scared for bam on that
Bam Bam: one. I don't like, I do like the guest appearance thing possibly.
Yeah. That'll take a little work that I do like. Um, we
Chef Ricky: have some interesting personalities in
Bam Bam: the,
Gizmo: I loved, by the way, when Lizard Henri Retail came on when we did the, uh, stoic episode. Yeah, it's great. That was kind of fun. So I could set up a mic here and we could just, uh Oh, [01:19:00] yeah. Have random folks come in when, make sure necessary.
Sure.
Bam Bam: They're standing in a attention.
Chef Ricky: Oh, of course. Just little Johnny. We just have an episode where we walk over next door to the lounge and see who's there. And just grab the drunkest person, bring them over. Have an impromptu interview. And charge 'em. And charge 'em.
Gizmo: All right, boys. Let's go to another listener email.
Now, like I said, we have a bunch to get through. This one's from El Nino. He says, Hey lizards. In your latest episode, you asked for feedback on whether or not you should cut back on cubit cigars in the pod. As a fellow American, it's tough to listen to. You guys fall in love with these beautiful cigars like the Sancho Ponza Deso and the Schwa Supreme, and know that I'm not gonna be able to find them.
I'd love for you to smoke more New World cigars. But New World, quote unquote is vague and I think there's an opportunity to go down some specific avenues of the New world. Idea. One, maybe you could smoke a cigar from each of the major producing [01:20:00] countries week after week. Cuba, Honduras, Dominican, the Nicaragua, five weeks, months, you guys get a wild card like the Mexican pirro te ammo.
Although I hear it's not the greatest idea too, perhaps you could replace, can you say that again? GIZ TE Ammo. Te Temo. Sorry. There you go. Can gimme a break. Do you? Do you see how much text I have in front of me? That's a
Bam Bam: lot. That's impressive. I mean, come on. Psycho Microfish there, correct? Correct.
Gizmo: Idea two, perhaps you could replace one of the monthly Cuban specifically with a Cuban esque cigar, like the Aldino and the Fab Five.
I've bought multiple boxes of Aino because you guys and I, because of you guys, and I would love to find some more sticks that give me that fix idea. Three last and certainly not least, replace the second Cuban episode each month with the hookah. There's a whole untapped market of hookah lounge lizards to bring into the fold.
Oh boy. I think he's referencing you. Bam. Bam.
Bam Bam: Maybe, but
Gizmo: although maybe not, we don't want them taking any more of the [01:21:00] limited share of cubit cigars. This is an attack on you. I'm sorry.
Bam Bam: Well. I think that's not gonna happen. I think pipe tobacco before hoop. There you go. Yeah.
Gizmo: Whatever you do. I'm still listening.
You made me an avid fan of French Sparkling and Aino. Thanks for helping me on the Cuban cigar journey. Mm. El Nino.
Bam Bam: Good. Good email. Yeah.
Gizmo: So I wanna say one thing on idea two here. He says, perhaps you can replace one of the monthly Cubans with a Cuban esque, uh, cigar. I think the thing about that that's difficult is we often don't know it's a Cuban esque cigar until we sit in the room and smoke it together.
Yeah. Right. We would've never discovered some of these cigars had we, not by the nature of this podcast, tried a new cigar and said, oh my gosh, this is a great solution for that first cigar of the day that Cuban in your, your, your rotation.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: You know, that's where, that's how we discovered it. So to be able to pick that out without trying it.
It's gonna be difficult. Yeah.
Rooster: All the fabric of five cigars are Cuban esque. You know? That's true. The entire Honduran [01:22:00] line, I mean, Honduran tobacco is Cubans closest to Cuban, Cuban tobacco. The Arab Bay
Chef Ricky: Line, for example, they pride themselves on being Cuban esque, and we didn't find one would be out bullshit at all.
Yeah, I'm out. Total bullshit. Smoke hook. It's tough because for, sorry, chef. No, I, I agree with you guys. It, it didn't line up, but I think for a lot of these guys, it's a marketing pointy.
Gizmo: So thanks to El Nino for writing us. Of course. And I'm gonna put him in, uh. The pile for consideration for lizard of the Weak Boys, like all of these other emails, let's go to another one here.
This one is from Lizard Craig. He writes us, uh, from Ohio, I believe. He says, Hey, gizmo and my fellow lizards lizard. Craig here. For all the reasons discussed in this week's episode, I think one cubit cigar a month makes the most sense for the foreseeable future. 12 to 14 Cubans annually is probably doable by sourcing a few new offerings, redux reviews of cigars previously smoked, and by adding some age cigars, a connoisseur corner, for example, approach with the help of [01:23:00] Lizard Nation would be great.
While many lizards may not be able to smoke along, as in the past, the Cuban cigar content you provide is invaluable to us. Thank you for all the great new world cigar content due to the pod. In the last week alone, I have ordered boxes of all Dino and Stoic and Fabrica five.
Bam Bam: Very nice light. One up
Gizmo: boys.
Bam Bam: Very
Gizmo: nice lizard. Correct. Oh
Bam Bam: yeah, that's a great email.
Gizmo: Another great email. Yeah. I'm telling you man, we have, we have the easy, greatest
Bam Bam: listeners gonna, this is not gonna be easy. Easy.
Gizmo: Yeah. I'm so glad you guys have to pick today. Work out for this. You like how I put that on you guys today and not me? Of course.
Yeah.
Bam Bam: You don't
Gizmo: want
Bam Bam: the work, alright.
Gizmo: Correct. How many more of these do we have? This e the A, the whole episode is listen to emails. I, I mean, there's no way they're gonna remember them all. That's the only reason. No. I'll recap. I'm, I'm keeping notes them. I'm hoping for somewhere. Alright, boys, let's do another one.
Now. This is from Lizard Lee from Australia. If you remember, he wrote us a couple weeks ago. He said, I just wanted to shoot through a quick note to say thanks for the fantastic advice around pairings. In your response to my letter, chef Ricky [01:24:00] and Senator gave some incredibly helpful insights. I took a bunch of notes and going forward, I now know exactly where to turn if I ever need ice advice.
Pagodas got it covered. On a more personal note, I wanted to share something. You've, you've got quite a legacy P Oh yeah.
Pagoda: There's no ice in champagne, by the way. The night is still young, the night's young. On
Gizmo: a more personal note, I wanted to share something that really made the whole experience even more special for me.
After hearing your response, I played the podcast for my son, who has never shown any interest in cigars before. While he was listening, something clicked. He started asking all sorts of questions about cigars. What's a piro? What's the difference between filler binder and wrapper, and how are cubit cigars differ from new world cigars?
That one conversation opened the door to an entire evening of chatting, learning, and eventually his first cigar experience. What's his name? Lizard Lee. That is, that's a, that,
Bam Bam: that's [01:25:00] my lizard of the week. I am right there with you. Be, dude, I got goosebumps right now. I, dude,
Rooster: when I read this, this is when I read this for the first time, I was like, holy shit, that's incredible.
And his son is only five. Yeah.
Bam Bam: Older than you when you started.
Gizmo: So he says that one conversation opened the door to an entire evening of chatty learning and eventually his first cigar experience, he tried a cohiba wide short, followed by a Romeo Julietta number three. And I have to say, it turned into one of the most enjoyable nights I've ever had since getting into cigars.
Wow. That's incredible.
Chef Ricky: That's what it's about. As you
Gizmo: probably know, cigar culture in Australia is a bit different. There are no cigar lounges and you are not allowed to smoke anywhere. Food is served. So most of the time cigar smoking here happens either in social groups at home or solo.
Bam Bam: What a crime.
Gizmo: Sharing that moment with my son sitting together and di diving into the world of cigars was something I'll never forget. And honestly it probably would not have [01:26:00] happened without this podcast.
Rooster: Incredible. Send you your rabbi's address. You can hook up with him. He's got, he's got big deck. He can smoke at his
Gizmo: house, correct on his deck and your thoughtful response.
So from one lizard to another. Thank you. You've helped turn what started as a solo hobby into something that I am now able to share with my son, and that is pretty special. Cheers from Lizard Lee in Australia. I hope to chat again soon.
Bam Bam: Wow. All in, I mean, I'm all in on that email. Yeah. Excellent. I'm, I'm holding back tears right now.
Yeah. It's, it's incredible. It's pretty cool, man. That's, that's powerful. Fantastic.
Gizmo: Yeah. You know, and, and you know, we talk about Wizard of the Week and we talk about emails and we read them every week, but when you get an email like that and we've, we've read so many emails like that where there's touching stuff and really powerful moments, and to think that, you know, it's, it's partnered with our podcast in some way, or Yeah.
You know, provided by it, whatever word you want to use. It's pretty amazing that, yeah, incredible that, that our listeners out there are having these experiences.
Chef Ricky: These are the kinds of emails I want people that are [01:27:00] constantly, you know. Because this is a polarizer ho polarizing hobby. Right? And, and that is an example of a great example and a very big one of why we do what we do and why we enjoy, you know, why we enjoy smoking cigars.
Um, you know, we have, we, we have sons. We all have children here. Um, and I think that that's an amazing experience. I remember my first cigar with my oldest and it was incredible. Uh, I can't wait to have a cigar with Ethan. Yeah, that's great. Uh, he's 13. I might have to do it.
Senator: I can't either. My man, he, Adrian,
Chef Ricky: he is gonna shit his pants if he gets It's my cigar.
Senator: Oh, we're gonna have a D four, that's for sure. He loves lizard Senator, right?
Chef Ricky: Yes, he does. Yeah. Yeah, he sure does. So that's an amazing, and
Gizmo: we may pair it with this champagne. Yeah. All right, boys, one more email before we get into the lizard ratings tonight. Like I said, I have a ton, so I'll, I'll. Push some of these to a couple weeks out.
This [01:28:00] one is from Lizard Jarrett, lizard J. He writes, hello, lizards. Greetings from Virginia first. Thank you. I love the pod. I discovered you guys years ago, by chance, when Gizmo posted on the tequila subreddit about your first deep dive with Chef Ricky. I don't even remember doing that. I think Gizmo got some grief for calling Don Julio an artisanal tequila.
Pagoda: Did you? I Oh,
Gizmo: correct. Not nice. We've all come a long way since then, and I've enjoyed every step of the journey in a space where every podcast, magazine and reviewer has an agenda. And advertisers to appease. It's so refreshing to listen to you guys. I can't overstate the value of simply being able to trust your reviews.
It's always a great time too. As background, I smoked a handful of cigars with family and friends over the years, but like many, I recently dove into the hobby. During COVID, I split a few boxes of Cubans with friends, but seeking variety and singles led me to new world's. After some disappointing recommendations from Reddit, Oliva, drew State, [01:29:00] Alec Bradley, new World REJ.
The podcast came at the perfect time for me. It's crazy to look back and realize of how many of my favorite cigars and pairings came from you guys, including Warped Davidov, sober Mesa from Dunbarton, and of course Fabrica five. I've also. Have some adeno and stoic in the humidor that I have yet to try.
I'm mainly writing today on the question of whether to cut the number of Cuban episodes. I've enjoyed and learned a lot from the Cuban reviews and discussions, but with the current state of things in the US I'm down on my last few Cubans and I don't plan to order anymore. I look forward to New World episodes, far more than Cuban episodes, so I heartily endorse the idea of cutting back to one Cuban a month or even less often.
I also have a quick RUM recommendation. It's clear that y'all prefer low A BV. We kind of do. I think we like stuff in the forties or low fifties if we can get it.
Chef Ricky: You guys
Gizmo: do Spanish, Spanish heritage rums like Havana Club and Florida, Kanye. Of course. Another brand you should try is [01:30:00] Don Q. They have some cheap flavored stuff you'd wanna avoid, but their higher tier offerings like the Reserva seven year and the Grand Reserva XO are low A BV additive free.
Great values and are delicious. Shout out to Puerto Rico. Don Q. Yeah. Rums from Barbados also seem to be a hit with the lizards. I highly recommend the Doles line from Foursquare, which is available. Total wine. Dole's 12 is very good, low A BV and an outrageous value at under $30. That's the bottle I use to introduce whiskey drinkers to rum.
Cheers. Happy birthday
Pagoda: to you.
Bam Bam: Oh, that's great. Sorry guys. Just doing my job. Oh, good timing. Wow.
Gizmo: You know, 194 episodes in, we still have First Boys. Correct. Three Corks tonight popped on the pod. Love it. That's hilarious. [01:31:00] Uh, I don't even know where I was at in this email.
Oh my God. Hold on. There we go. All right. He says, uh, doles 12 is a very good low A BV and an outrageous value at under 30 bucks. That's the bottle I use to introduce whiskey drinkers to rum. Doles 14 is even better. Still a great value at around $50, but it's a little bit hotter at 48%. Okay. I will stop there.
Thank you again, lizard J. Another great email, boys. Yep. You guys have a hard, uh, decision tonight. I'll tell you.
Bam Bam: No, I think the decision is made. Yeah. All right. Let's see what
Senator: gets, let's rush, let's make the decision after we open the fourth bottle.
Gizmo: Mm-hmm.
Alright, boys, before we get into our lizard rating tonight on the cigar, we have to choose a lizard of the week, and before you guys do. Any listener out there can win Lizard of the Week. As you know, all you have to do is write us an [01:32:00] email, a comment on YouTube, Instagram, whatever you choose, a voice memo carrier pigeon.
Stop in at one of Chef Ricky's restaurants and tee off on him. Whatever you choose, you can win Lizard of the Week. So birthday boys. Bam, bam. Chef Ricky, who is our Lizard of the week, I can go through some of them unless you have a standout right now that you both agree on. I, I think we've made our decision.
Yeah, I
Bam Bam: think we agree. The father, son email Lizard Lee Lizard from Australia. Outstanding. All right. But notable mention lizard Peter from Nottingham. Yeah. It's as if he's sitting in the room raid with us. Um, very detailed. Yeah, nice,
Gizmo: nice tasting notes. Yeah,
Bam Bam: very articulate. Great email. I like that there's
Senator: an honorable mention for
Bam Bam: this.
Yes. That is one guy, bam. Bam is very sophisticated in his old age. Now I try to be That is one jasmine old age doubt. That's correct.
Rooster: Officially a senior.
Bam Bam: I am living my AI image. I have no choice.
Pagoda: Well, we know where the social security checks are gonna go. [01:33:00] A gizmo.
Gizmo: Correct. These
Senator: two guys in the room will be able to get social security.
The rest of us are fucked. You're all fucked.
Gizmo: We're never gonna get it. That's correct. Alright boys, it's time now to do the formal lizard rating tonight on the Romeo jut to Church Hills from Cuba. Bam. Bam. You're up. All
Bam Bam: right,
Rooster: rooster. In fact, you are up. Um, I, I, I mean, I absolutely love a good Churchill.
It's a great format. It feels awesome in your hand. We were all very skeptical about this cigar today, but shockingly good surprised all of us. I mean, all six of us smoking the cigar, and what a brilliant, you know, fresh, you know, RYJ Churchill out of this, out of a 20, 24 box. I mean, it's, it's, it's amazing the cigar, you know, [01:34:00] that, that, uh.
Cherry note that's really well sought after. I mean, it's, it's, that's what, you know, in the past, that's what it used to get. It wasn't really prominent. It had, there was a hint of it here and there. It came and went. It came and went. And for some of us, it really wasn't there. But the whole experience from the beginning till the end, it was a delicious cigar.
Um, you know, the, the saltiness was prominent. The, the Cedar note was there, it was a little, there was a bready note that that came through, and it was absolutely a delicious cigar. So, I mean. I, I cringed to say I'm gonna give an RIJA 10. But this wow, this signal tonight was exceptional. It was a really good, there's a senior moment, I mean, for, for the, for the, for the, it's terrible, you know, for the experience tonight.
Oh,
Bam Bam: no. I mean, it was really good. I'm not sure if I can disagree with it right now, but I'll wait for the [01:35:00] other ratings. Seniors. Yeah. After
Pagoda: 50, after 50 years of smoking. Finally. 50 50. A hundred. 5,050. Wait a minute. Didn't you just have your 50th? He has a, I said, but I didn't start smoking when I was zero.
Bam Bam: He has a, like, a vampire like collection of cigars or hundreds of years old
Pagoda: Senator. I'm at a 10. Alright. I'm still processing Rooster,
Senator: giving this a 10. I, I can't believe this.
Pagoda: See, that's the problem. Now you can't go below that.
Senator: Oh, that's not true. If anybody can, it's Senator. Uh, correct. I'm at a nine. I. By the way.
That's shocking. It is. I'm, come on. I'm totally surprised that's a 10 equivalent. Yeah. That I enjoyed my experience almost the entire way through. I think this was a two act play for me. I think the first half was mild, medium, and we got a lot of, I [01:36:00] think the, the super creamy delivery was that first half.
I think the second half. That cream dissipated a bit and got nuttier and a bit more saltier. Savory and saltier. Exactly. I think the first half was a lot sweeter. Um, which I really like the progression, I think almost the entire way through. I detected no youth, but when you get down to, you know, an inch or less Yep.
That's when I got a little bit of ammonia and I actually started to detect the youth of the cigar. Hmm. Um, so that was one of the factors that ruled out the 10 for me. But what's nice to see with that being the case, I mean, with age, could this be a 10? Yeah. It's entirely possible. And I'm shocked to be able to say that about in r and j Churchill.
Um, the, the cherry thing will just always confuse me, and I only say that because for the Marco to be known for this and this particular cigar to be known for it, [01:37:00] for my first one of these. To have had such a prominent cherry note that I thought it was artificial to then not really being able to ever replicate that experience.
I just, I, you know, we, we can't talk to the blender. I, I just wish I could understand like, what is the intent behind the blend? Is this, it is, it just inconsistently applied and so sometimes you get, you know, a cherry bomb and other times you don't. I wish I knew the answer to that.
Bam Bam: You had it a few times tonight.
Senator: Yeah, I've probably smoked, I mean, you know, 10 of these and one of the 10 was a cherry bomb and the rest, I got little bits and pieces of it, but not really throughout. It wasn't cohesive, but there's a ton to like in this cigar, you know, I think like everybody in this room, I love a Churchill if. If these all could smoke this way.
Sure. This is definitely a Churchill that I would pick up again and very happily smoke. So I'm encouraged. And I think I mentioned the first half was mild, medium, what I liked, the second [01:38:00] half was firmly medium. Mm-hmm. And so that fits my palate. I think if it stayed mild, medium, I wouldn't be as enthusiastic.
In fact, for me this might have gotten an eight. I would've been saying I want and need a lot more. So there's a ton of merit to this cigar and this young, you know, the young run of Cuban cigars. Yeah. This is continuing to hold true that there recent runs. There's something really special happening right now.
So a strong nine. I did not get that youth or the ammonia at the end. Um, did you smoke it all
Bam Bam: the way like this? No. Yeah, so I'm down to about a half inch. I haven't gotten that either. Really? No, I did intentionally slow down at this point. A lot I. Trying to avoid that experience that may have had something to do with that.
I'm not sure. No, I don't know. I'm definitely getting
Chef Ricky: it. Are you now? Yeah. It, it's almost ammonia like and minty in a Yeah, not in a pleasant way really. It's becoming a little muddled, but it's not my turn to review, so save it interest, right? Yeah.
Gizmo: So, so I'm [01:39:00] also at a nine. I, I wanna start by saying I love when we are proved wrong.
I love when I'm proved wrong. I mean, we have gone a 190 some odd weeks now, almost four years. Really not loving, celebrating, talking highly about Rome, julieta this cigar tonight. Performing at a nine for Rooster. A 10. Excellent. Really. And Senator Lighting.
Bam Bam: A snub. A nub right now?
Senator: Yeah. No, I'm just seeing if the ammonium was temporary or all the way through.
I'm just evaluating.
Gizmo: Listen, we take what we do here very seriously. Oh, correct.
Chef Ricky: You can't change the reading. Well, so
Gizmo: I really love the creamy, salty. We may allow it tonight. Little fruity. Uh, in the second half it moved, you know, creamy. A little bit more savory, nutty as we talked about. I really like that.
I never got the cherry thing. It didn't hit me at all. It was a pop. And you know what though is I'm very sensitive to cherry. 'cause I actually don't like the flavor of cherry. So when I taste it in things, it hits me hard.
Chef Ricky: You don't make the flavor of, of a, of real cherry Or [01:40:00] both? I don't like any of
Senator: it.
The fake stuff. The real stuff. I will say this. I, I, so I'll, I like. Real cherries. Yeah, but I hate the flavor of artificial cherries. Yeah, sure. Yes. I will give this cigar credit. I mean, the cherry bomb that I had when Grindr told me that that's what I would experience, I was immediately, this is in the other cigar?
Yes. Not tonight. I was immediately put off, like I'm probably gonna hate it. What I'll give it credit for when it does deliver that like cherry note all the way through. The balance of it with like all these other flavors and like the nuttiness, less pleasant and cedar. It was actually super enjoyable.
It's kind of like
Rooster: a dried cherry note. It's not a fresh cherry or a totally, you know, not wet.
Gizmo: So every version of cherry you've listed here, wet, dry, fake, kind of fake. I ain't get whatever it is. I don't like any of it. I don't eat cherries. I, and you were, I don't like flavored cherries. You didn't get it tonight?
I don't like cherry cough drops. I don't like anything cherry flavored. Not even while driving. No. I think you need more fresh cherries in your life. I don't, I, I don't like 'em. What about old fashioned? [01:41:00] I don't like those cherries. I don't marino cherries. I don't like any of it. I don't like cherry juice.
My dad loves Manhattan. No,
Senator: forget Marino cherries. Those are disgusting. Whatever. My dad, the fake ones. The fake ones, yeah. You don't like the ldo? No, the The little. None of them. Those, I don't like cherries. I love those.
Bam Bam: They're delicious. I love
Senator: as usual. Gizmos out.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: Hey, it's just another week on the pod.
He likes Crown Royal, but he
Chef Ricky: doesn't like church.
Gizmo: Shivas, not Crown Royal. Oh,
Chef Ricky: that's right. Shivas. Yes. Bouchard. So
Gizmo: on the price point at $40, I think it's okay at the price point, given the amount of time it gives us the experience that, that we all had tonight. I'd like to see it closer to 30. I think that's probably a more reasonable price for this.
One of the reasons I knocked it, construction was okay in the first half, almost between every draw. I was having to massage it at the head and through, you know, only, only in the beginning.
Chef Ricky: That's a banner activity.
Gizmo: No, it was really kind of into the first third. That's second, third into the end of the half.
I thought the construction was pretty flawless. Was kind, I was kind of [01:42:00] massaging mine and then remember when I said it opened up? Yeah. Didn't have to massage it anymore. Okay. So that was a good thing. Sounds like, sounds like scissor error, but you knowOr it might have been Overaged I think
Bam Bam: got a point, may have a point.
Gizmo: Uh, there was definitely a bit of youth at the end for me. It, it wasn't ammonia, it wasn't, um. Terribly off putting, but it, there was a bite there that that wasn't there through the cigar. And I think that's what leaves the potential with maybe a year or two that this could touch a 10, you know, with some time and the right conditioning.
I, I think the potential is there. You know, I apologize to the RYJ fans out there. We have, uh, done them a disservice. I have done them a disservice. By not bringing more of these cigars in tonight, proves that, especially in the last year or two, we need to try more young Romeo Julieta, because whatever was wrong in the past, it's been corrected either by better tobacco, better blending, better construction, whatever you wanna say.
Um, they're doing a [01:43:00] much better job today than they were doing five or 10 years ago. Well, I
Bam Bam: guess we'll see in the next r and j cigar that we smoke. Exactly
Gizmo: right. So for me boys, it's a nine pagoda.
Pagoda: It's, uh, 10. 10 wins. It's 10 for me. Um, really enjoyed the cigar. Really enjoyed the pairing. The cigar was fantastic, you know, for me, a longer cigar, you know, sitting down, enjoying in great company.
Obviously, it's already adding to the value, but more importantly, you know, from a cigar perspective, I think the aroma was very nice. I think for me it was. The aroma in the beginning, very distinctive. You know, I could get a little bit of the kind and pepper aroma. Uh, in terms of overall the cigar creamy, it was the shortbread sweetness in the beginning, and then, you know, to the second half, of course it did, did become medium bodied.
And, um, I experienced a lot of the, you know, what I call the floral saltiness, which I really, really enjoy. Uh, the top front of my palate was [01:44:00] very, very pleasant. Another. Really good merit for a really good cigar for me. Um, and, you know, it leaves a very pleasant, um, tasting profile within, you know, my palette.
So, and you know, the experience was fantastic. I think the pairing was fantastic. I think it, I think
Rooster: you are fantastic. I
Pagoda: admit. I just, I just loved it. And for me it's a 10. Where's Grindr? You're wonderful. It was wonderful. It's 10. That's a 10. Wow. All right, chef. No Mo by the way. No ammonia for me and did not experience Jerry at all.
Okay.
Chef Ricky: All right. Chef Ricky, first of all, guys, I wanna thank you for making this one of the most memorable pre birthdays ever, if not the most fantastic Champagne. Amazing company, great cigar, great gift. The cigar for me, as much as I want to give it a 10, it's a nine. And it's because of how it finished for me.
Construction was phenomenal. Burn line was great. Of course it started for me, uh, to be sort of short [01:45:00] ready with. Like red current, and then it got into some salty, uh, spice, but baking spice, and then it went into salted peanut, but the final inch became this sort of menthol, like it had this menthol like, quality.
So strange. Yeah. And, and it, it was a little muddled, but overall. For 40 bucks for a Churchill that gave us a two hour, a two plus hour experience, I'd do this all over again and allow it to age a little bit more to see if that final inch will get to where it needs to get to. Uh, but I really enjoyed this.
I thought the pairing I.
Pagoda: Oh,
Gizmo: dude. Why did your, your phone just start playing EDM. That's Yolanda's. Uh,
Bam Bam: Yolanda's calling.
Pagoda: I thought, I thought it was a wrap.[01:46:00]
Fucking pagoda. If it's not the
Chef Ricky: ice, it's EDM music. You don't know what's gonna happen.
Gizmo: You're one of one man for the listener. Pagoda iss looking at the walls. I was
Senator: animal inside the walls. It's his own phone. Pikes have got ED music.
Gizmo: Oh, it never fails around here. Oh my Lord. Oh, chef Ricky. Sorry to interrupt. It's all good, man. Sorry about that. It,
Chef Ricky: it's all good. I loved it. He's outta 10. The musical interlude. It was a nine for me. It was a delicious cigar. Great pairing the boar samon. Champagne Rose was phenomenal. Obviously the Remont is phenomenal, as noted in the past.
Uh, awesome, awesome night. Thank you boys.
Gizmo: All right. Bam. Bam. Hmm.
Bam Bam: I love this cigar from beginning to end. Honestly, I didn't have any ammonia at the end, and for me, that's always a, that's for all of us. That's a test of a, of a cigar. Does it back up on you? Does it get [01:47:00] hot? Does it get ammo? Do you get that ammonia that, that youth, it's a great way to put it.
Backing up on you. Yeah. Yeah. It, I didn't get that experience. Um, I'm at a 10. I love the cigar. For me, it began and ended like a traditional Cuban cigar, the way it should taste with the notes that we all expect, and I got everything that I was expecting. Fantastic experience. 10.
Gizmo: I can't believe I'm gonna say this, boys.
I
Bam Bam: know. Well, I'm most shocked by your rating and senator's rating at a nine. We'll talk
Gizmo: about that in a second. They're
Bam Bam: exquisite ratings. I'm most shocked
Gizmo: by rooster and
Senator: pagoda.
Gizmo: All right, let's talk about this in a second. But let me just say no, no, not that. The formal lizard rating tonight, boys on the Romeo, Juliet, the Churchills from Cuba is a 9.5.
Holy cow. I can't believe it. That's incredible. I lemme tell you something. When I stacked this episode with like 20 listener emails and like a, like my iPad's full of stuff, it was because I was terrified that this cigar wasn't gonna do that. Yeah. We, we were and
Bam Bam: expecting this and [01:48:00]
Gizmo: it has. Completely defied my expectations.
I think we were wrong. I was wrong. I mean, I'll stand by that. I think we, we, we believe in Rob. We do believe in Rob told us. Rob said he did, did Rob didn't say they were smoking. Well. Alright, so let's talk about rating, uh, you know, controversial ratings, rating, criticism, reasoning. You don't like the nines, did you say?
Or me and senator? No,
Bam Bam: no. I was impressed by your nines because of the mark itself and how disappointed you've been about it. Got it. Well, we're honest reviewers. Yeah. It's all very
Gizmo: serious. I also wanna say, I'm sorry. You know, I, I don't, we were not wrong in the past. This cigar No Yout in the past. No, but what I'm saying is the fact that we haven't done more than one on this podcast.
That's that's right. That's what I think we that's what I think we've done the disservice. That's fair. That's where I'm at. So you said the tens surprised you said it all these two? Yeah. Not all the tens,
Senator: honestly. Uh, I, I specifically say rooster and Pagoda just because these are both. Lizards that like a [01:49:00] fuller, that's true.
Cigar, fuller flavored cigar. True. So I was just shocked that like an orange a could satisfy their palate enough to achieve a 10, I would've expected a nine.
Rooster: Mm-hmm.
Senator: But I was genuinely shocked by the 10. And that was the only reason. It's, it's a very sophisticated palate and, uh, the
Rooster: fact that we didn't get that ammonia towards the end, sometimes it takes a hundred years, but eventually you get there, whatever it takes, that's as long as you get there.
It's the journey that counts. I
Bam Bam: think that it was so, such a flavorful experience. Very well. Also, I think,
Rooster: Senator, you took off a point just because you got ammonia and you No, no. Not
Senator: just because. Not just because what, what other reason? Because the whole way through, if it would've been medium for me to like fully satisfy my palate in the way that the second half really started to, that also would've been a 10 other.
And with age, that could very well be possible. True.
Rooster: But o other than a parus cigar, there's really no other Cuban that comes to mind that gives you that medium experience. Oh, there are a lot. Most is medium. Ramon Ionis is medium. This had [01:50:00] more oomph than, uh, lot of the other. The first half was mild, medium.
Senator: That's how I personally would describe
Pagoda: it, but it was very flavorful. It was, it was, you know, so what I, what I really enjoyed about it is just completely filled my Apollo with really pleasant, you know, it was a very pleasant flavor profile. Yeah. I have a And then I think, you know, the other thing is what's really interesting and the pairing might've also helped because, because I'm wondering whether if I would've had whiskey with it.
That's my point. So it been slightly different. That's, but with the champagne, it was, it just really worked really well together. And, uh, you know, uh, the flavor profile it more than overpowering, you know, so the, the cigar think was able to, I mean,
Rooster: nine is a very, that's a great score. Score. Good
Senator: score. No, it's a good score.
And just to pagodas parenting comment, it's spot on. Like the second half of the cigar would've held up well to any spirit that we would normally consume. Sure. The first half is where, like, I think we were fortunate that we were having c haven't champagne. No,
Pagoda: I totally agree. I
Senator: think that like most spirits we drink, it [01:51:00] would've.
It would've made more clear how mild that first half was. And that's why I'm just saying for my palate. Yeah. And maybe age will produce some more flavor in the first half. That's what could earn the 10. But also you got some ammonia towards the end.
Rooster: And we did not. No. Yeah. Yeah.
Senator: But
Pagoda: three other, two other guys did.
Three of us did. Yeah. By the way, my construction was flawless from the very beginning to the end. Same. Um, the, the other thing, what I really enjoyed about it was this overall, uh, you know, the, initially the creaminess and it kind of developed and it had these pockets of really different bursts of flavors which were coming through.
And, you know, for me, I always say that it's always about the experience about today with the pairing and how I'm enjoying it today with this particular cigar. So it's not like, Hey, listen, this cigar or this box for today, this was a, this was definitely a tent for me. Like I would go and buy it 40 bucks for a Cuban Churchill.
Mm-hmm. I. Is is amazing. It's a [01:52:00] steal. Especially last time we were discussing, you know, the Maduros, the Rubo for 50 bucks and you know, this is like 40 bucks and it's a really good, by the way, he is the
Senator: value man in the room. I, yeah, I
Bam Bam: wouldn't say it's a steal.
Senator: Pagoda. You could tell him the cigars $10. He is like, I'll take it for six.
Yeah, that's correct.
Gizmo: Eight bid. Yeah.
Pagoda: Yeah. But you know, listen, you know, they're about three. It's, it's fair. It's a fair price. Yeah, it's a fair price. Yeah.
Bam Bam: It's, it's a, it's an okay price. Yeah. Um, would I buy it? I would. Because of tonight's experience.
Rooster: I mean, for a
Pagoda: Churchill. Yeah.
Rooster: Cuban Churchill. Yeah.
Pagoda: It's rare, right?
If you came across it, I think we would pick it up. I buy a box. It's, by the way,
Gizmo: like I said early in the episode, it is out of the three cigars, the easiest to find by far. Yeah. And is the least expensive out of the three Churchills in the Hano port portfolio. For a listener out there who loves Cupid Cigars, wants to try the Churchill, this is the one you're gonna try.
If you want to get it, you know, under 50 bucks, the other two, you're [01:53:00] not gonna find
Pagoda: the, the other thing I do wanna mention, and a lot of Cubans, sometimes, like for me, I'm looking for a really good smoke output with a really comfortable feel, with a reasonable draw. Like, you know, I don't like cigar, which have a very light, thin kind of a smoke output.
Uh, this really delivered from. The construction, the smoke output. Yeah. The feeling of having a nice good Churchill in hand. The flavor profile was great. I think the champagne, of course, uh, you know, was definitely very positive for, definitely for the first half. I think overall, yeah, just the experience and the draw
Rooster: got better.
It, it opened up and, you know, after the half point it did, it really opened up. It did. Hey, listen,
Pagoda: we did open up three boulders of champagne. That might have contributed as well.
Bam Bam: We had the massage therapist over here.
Chef Ricky: No, and, and, and while the remont I'm getting my doctorate, I can see that while the Remont paired.
Well, I think the Billecarton paired exceptionally well with this. I agree with that. Yeah. For the first half, I think it really
Gizmo: worked really well for us. It
Chef Ricky: elevated the cigar. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think
Gizmo: senator was right to [01:54:00] do the, the, the Billecart before. Mm-hmm. The, uh oh, oh yeah. The. Absolutely 80
Chef Ricky: sense.
If there's any pallet I trust in this room, this guy nails it every, all right, don't say
Gizmo: that. Stop it already.
Chef Ricky: I'm sorry. Happy birthday chef. Let's compare the, I appreciate you. Perfect.
Gizmo: 10 on the Churchill tonight. What about me? I agree.
Senator: Happy birthday, Ben. All right. With the only other birthday, we don't need to celebrate Gizmos,
Gizmo: Romeo, Juliet to correct the Romeo Juliet to Wide Churchill that we did on episode 48.
The only other Romeo we've done on this pod scored a 6.8. Wow. Really? So that, yes, it did 6.8 on episode 48, so tonight's 95 for this cigar is quite an improvement and is really, again, showcasing not only the. Run the Cuban cigars are on right now, but also the consistency of younger Cuban cigars and how much better they're smoking young than even when we started this podcast, or even a year or two in those cigars, were smoking.
So I think that's really a, a testament to this. [01:55:00] You know, some guys in the room feel it's a good value at 40 bucks a cigar. I, I think, uh, I think any listener out there who loves the Churchill, loves Cuban cigars, should try to find a Romeo within this kind of timeframe, 23, 24. See what you think. And,
Senator: and I think it reinforces when we had Rob I on the podcast.
Mm-hmm. It's all about runs in Cuban cigars. Yeah. This is where like, you know, half the new world cigars that we review, we could revisit them 10 years from now. And they're gonna be, they're gonna be consistent in Cuban cigars every few years. We're going to need to revisit most of what we've done because they change and are different.
And thankfully in this case, they got a whole lot better. It's true. It's part of that journey though.
Bam Bam: That Cuban journey security, which I think makes it interesting.
Pagoda: It job security. Yeah. It gives the lucita what, what did that rate at eventually?
Gizmo: Lucita I think was high. Sevens low. Eights low. Not perform one.
Pagoda: I I think that should be a Reva. That as well. Yeah. I'd love to [01:56:00] do one of those too. Right. And the new runs. Yeah. A lot. Buy another cabs and let's see how those smoke.
Gizmo: Correct. We have a lot of cigars to, uh, revisit boys. Let's go through our ratings tonight before we wrap up again. The Billecartr Samon La Rose Champagne was a perfect 10.0 and the Rome Julietta Churchills.
Scored a 9.5. Very, very impressive from them. We have to congratulate Lizard Lee, our Lizard of the Week, chosen by our birthday boys here. Bam, bam. And Chef Ricky,
Chef Ricky: thank you Lizard Lee for making that Liz Lee from Australia Choice. Thank you so much. What a great
Gizmo: email. And thanks to all the listeners that we got to tonight.
We have a lot more that I didn't get to, unfortunately. I'll keep, uh, trying to get to them in the coming weeks, but we appreciate all of our listeners writing us. It really improves what we do here. It it really makes us understand how we're hitting in, in, in the community out there, what's working, what's not.
So please do keep in touch. Again, happy birthday boys.
Bam Bam: Thank you. Thank you.
Gizmo: What a great night.
Bam Bam: Thank you [01:57:00] for the wonderful champagne. Yes, of course.
Gizmo: And before we wrap up, we have to thank our sponsor, Fabrica five. They're the best. Love you Rob. Try some of their cigars. They're all back in stock. The Bond Roberts 1 0 9 is available now on COH FABRICA zero zero five.com.
Use our code of course to get your Fabrica five stuff and uh, boys, what a great night tonight. Come on.
Chef Ricky: Awesome. Yeah. Awesome night. Rob. Just a reminder, it's uh, mine and BA's birthday. Uh,
Gizmo: correct. Well said. Alright, boys, great night. We'll see everybody next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us.
You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, lounge lizards pod.com. That's lounge lizards PO d.com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us hello@loungelizardspod.com.
You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. We really [01:58:00] appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.