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The lizards pair a fifty year old Los Statos de Luxe Delirios with Remy Martin XO Cognac. The guys enter Rooster's Connoisseur Corner for the first time with this 1970s cigar, Poobah's shares his cognac burger recipe and Rooster questions giving out nice cigars at parties.
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!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Wizards podcast. 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, and tonight I'm joined by Rooster Puba, Senator Pagoda, and bam.
Bam. And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some cognac, talk about life, and of course, Have some laughs. So take this as your 42nd official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We're gonna smoke a Cupid cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating.
We enter Rooster's connoisseur corner to review a 50 year old stick. Cuba shares his cognac, burger recipe and rooster questions, giving out nice cigars at parties, all among a variety of other things for the next hour. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair Remy Martin XO Cognac with the Los Stato deluxe Delirious, a very aged parejo.
[00:01:00] Tonight on the pod, the Los Stato Deluxe Delirious, we boys have entered Rooster. Connoisseur corner. That's right.
**Poobah:** This is where the havoc gets dangerous. Mm-hmm.
going right to the danger zone. Right now we're in the danger
**Gizmo:** zone, baby. We're doing cognac xo,
**Poobah:** we're doing cognac xo, we're doing pre embargo shit.
**Gizmo:** into house.
**Poobah:** Let's go. Mav, you whip
**Bam Bam:** your head back like you're in a, uh, convertible.
**Gizmo:** I love it. Oh, we are in the danger zone with this beautiful 40 reengage by four and seven, eight inches. Again, 50 year old cigars. So the very special night tonight on the pod rooster. [00:02:00] Thanks for, uh, bringing these in. Yeah, my pleasure. Let's cut this thing. See, we're getting on the cold draw. This, this beautiful little cigar.
Oh, wow.
**Bam Bam:** Draw is wide open.
**Gizmo:** I can't wait. I've never had a cigar that was earlier than like nine. I think the, the oldest cigar I've had is from like 1998. Me too. I've never had anything. I think that
**Bam Bam:** earlier than that there's a diplomat and Sarah Yes. That I had 98. Fantastic. Very sweet. It is sweet. Dare I ask how much these are?
I'll
**Poobah:** tell you when you Venmo me .
**Bam Bam:** Oh
**Gizmo:** shit. Are we doing that? We're definitely gonna Venmo em. Absolutely. I'm just, I'm just kidding. gonna write a check. You can really taste the age on the cold draw. I mean, oh, it's, it's musty. It's,
there's an odd sweetness there that I can't. Quite call out. Not much else though.
**Rooster:** No. You know, I was, I was wondering if this is gonna taste like the, uh, Parus Collibra that we had that [00:03:00] had a lot of fage on it. That's, that is really smooth.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. And delicious.
**Poobah:** It doesn't taste like that on the cold draw. It tastes like some sort of old fig Newton or something.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, let's like this thing, the Los Stato, deluxe delirious, again, it's a 40 ring gauge by four.
**Bam Bam:** This is where a seven, eight inches. Sorry. This is where a single flame lighter Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Is ideal. These St DuPonts are perfect for this little thing for such
**Bam Bam:** a delicate Cuban of this age.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. You don't want to, you don't wanna burn the, the wrapper.
No. Just want to toast the end. Smoke. Smoke Slow boys Rooster, where did you, uh, how did you decide to, I know you've kind of had your eye and you've been kind of accumulating some pre embargo stuff, but how did, how did this one become of interest to you?
**Rooster:** I don't know. It came up and, uh, I was curious. I, I, you know, messaged the seller, if you could [00:04:00] tell me a little bit about it.
And this guy really does collect a lot of pre embargo stuff. I mean, that's predominantly what he smokes on. Yes.
**Gizmo:** On a, on a daily
**Rooster:** basis. Yeah. So, you know, he said, listen, you gotta, you gotta try it. Um, it's a great morning. Smoke medium, not heavy, not really an after dinner smoke. But, uh, but try it. So, you know, it's, I give, I'll give it a shot.
It came in a 10 pack. Awesome. In a button in a box. And he said, sorry. Oh, go ahead.
**Gizmo:** What's everybody getting here on the light? I've, it's, it's very, very cool. Very different. There's a, like
**Bam Bam:** a menthol grassy type thing. I don't
**Gizmo:** know. There's a, there's a, a, an odd sweetness that's covering the coat of my mouth, like the roof of my mouth.
Mm. Um,
**Bam Bam:** I don't know. I get spearmen. Is that weird? It's very cool. My taste buds
**Gizmo:** must be off. I'm not getting experimented. You brush? No, I'm not getting any mint, but , [00:05:00]
**Senator:** I get a little bit
**Gizmo:** of what BA's describing. Oh, you're getting it too. I do. I'm not getting that. Maybe like little grassy note. I bit,
**Bam Bam:** yes. I, I get the grassy and the, it's a little minty, faint spearin type thing.
Very faint,
**Gizmo:** menthol. It is very unique, unlike anything I've ever smoked. I will say the smoke is creamy. Yes, it is. Yeah. It's, it is very creamy. Yeah. Uhhuh . Yeah.
**Poobah:** It's like, it's like nothing I've ever had before. Really? I'm trying to even draw like
**Rooster:** the aroma out of the, uh, out of the smoke. Yeah. It's,
**Gizmo:** it's, it's, I keep saying the word sweet, but it kind of smells sugary.
**Bam Bam:** So that's the funny thing. The smoke smells sugary and sweet, but the draw. A little grass and a little spearin, maybe a bit of, uh, I dunno, slight tobacco.
**Rooster:** I mean, it definitely tastes like vintage old
**Gizmo:** tobacco. Oh,
**Poobah:** right.
**Senator:** No doubt about it. It does. But the sweet flavors you're talking about it, it's almost like [00:06:00] some sort of baked good Yes.
On the finish. Like I I When you just Yeah. The flavor you get on the finish. I feel like I'm sitting in a bakery and I just took a bite of some sort of pastry. You
**Bam Bam:** know what's funky is I get like a pecan mapley thing on the back, back end
**Gizmo:** of this thing. Yeah. It that, that's an interesting call out way back in the, I feel like I don't get that kind of sugary thing in the back of my mouth and I'm getting it here.
Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** I wouldn't call that mapley thing sugary or sweet. It's just a, a note, like a mapley type of pecan thing. I'm kidding. I, I think pecan
**Senator:** is a very good note. Yeah, I would agree
with
**Gizmo:** that. Yeah. Complex. All very complex. Yeah. It is amazing to me that a cigar that sat for 50 years, And, and obviously it needs to be kept well, so let's, right.
Let's say that it has to be kept well, but, you know, I, I can't, I can't believe that a cigar can sit for 50 years and still increase in flavor like this. I mean, as opposed to, you know, have a peak and fall off. I mean, we don't know how well it was, how good [00:07:00] it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but, um, if this is pretty incredible to me that this is not smoking dead or the condition is, the oils gone fantastic.
Yeah. I mean, it's,
**Senator:** it's, yeah. You, you would never know by looking at this cigar that this has been, you know, aging for 50. It looks pristine. I think
**Gizmo:** the only thing that gives it away is the, the band. Yeah.
**Rooster:** That's it. Yeah. I mean, the rapper is kind of, it's a little toothy. It's not, it's not the best looking rappers.
It's not really that smooth. Mm. But the flavor out of this is, and the burn is, is so far. I mean, it's, it's, the
**Gizmo:** burn is excellent. To your point about smoking slowly, I think if you blow through this, I think it's really gonna do this cigar disservice. I'm looking
**Senator:** at ashes. E everyone looked at Bam and pagoda.
No, I'm, yeah. Smoke. I'm right with you. I
**Rooster:** think. Yeah. Gotta smoke, smoke, smoke slow. Yeah,
**Pagoda:** because I'm counting from hundred
**Bam Bam:** backwards. , .
**Rooster:** So these, these were discontinued in 2005, this entire line. Wow. And, [00:08:00] uh, I think it's, it was introduced in the 1940s and after 1980, these became machine made, and I think they made about four or five different, uh,
**Gizmo:** Olas.
So we're, we're going off of the same information, which there's not much. That's not a lot. Yeah. But, uh, you know, pulled this from, uh, Miron knees, uh, encyclopedia of post-revolution, Havana Cuban cigars. And, uh, There's only one page on it where, uh, and Ahman in the book or RGUs, there's pages and pages and pages.
There's quite literally half a page on the history of Los Deluxe. Um, but yeah, there were, there were a total of seven, seven, uh, fats in this line. And like you said, it was discontinued, um, what
**Rooster:** was it, 2005? 2005? Right. Introduced in 1940 and then, uh, till about 1980, they were, uh, hand rolled. And then after 1980s, they were machine made.
Yep. Um, and [00:09:00] uh, I mean, you obviously want to try the handmade ones as opposed to the machine made once, but, uh,
**Pagoda:** is there a
**Rooster:** real difference There is because the machine made ones are short filler tobacco. I mean, these are actual leaves that are rolled.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Poobah:** That, that, whatever that minty hint has gone away from me.
**Gizmo:** Now it's
**Senator:** gone Same. Now I'm actually getting baking space. Yeah. Yeah. like cinnamon or nutmeg.
**Gizmo:** Yep.
**Rooster:** Yeah, it's good. Yeah, that's what the guy mentioned there. He said that, you know, it's, you'll get nutmeg and very creamy notes. Leather. I'm still on
**Bam Bam:** vintage pe. I got pecan all the way from me. Yeah. Which I like.
I do
**Poobah:** like that.
**Rooster:** What do you, do you get any notes in this? Well notes, not the notes, but could you compare this to anything else we've had before?
**Gizmo:** No, I would say no. I mean if I was forced to, I would probably say[00:10:00]
it's got a touch of mond just cuz of the baking spice
**Rooster:** thing's kinda like an mond sweetness to this. That's
**Gizmo:** where I would go. That's the only thing I would call out. Yeah, maybe it does kind of ring. Um, it does kind of ring, uh, like the, a little bit of the RGUs thing in the, the, the Collibra that we had the age col collabora.
There's a touch of that. There's something there that's similar to me. But I wouldn't call this RGUs like Mm. You know, I don't get that. Yeah.
**Senator:** I wouldn't say RGUs. Like, I mean, I think maybe the thing you're thinking of that I, I could see in common is that was a very creamy cigar. And this is definitely creamy as well with all that age.
But the flavor profile I definitely think leans up men. Um, and even, uh, it, it, it's, it's different. But the mond on Hato I think of because there's that nuttiness to the cigar. It's a different nuttiness than this has that, you know, peak end flavor that we're talking about. But, um,
**Poobah:** cream, this is good. Yeah.
And the has a creamy, velvety smoke, [00:11:00] which also a really good mond tends to have sometimes. So the
**Rooster:** construction is impeccable. It's,
**Gizmo:** this is incredible. Yeah. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** It is smoking very light for me. Very mild. Maybe a bit toward the medium Yeah. Body. But
**Gizmo:** it's mild.
**Rooster:** Yeah. Yeah. I think it would, it would definitely be a good morning,
**Poobah:** afternoon
**Bam Bam:** smoke.
Right. And I will say, The, this amazing liquor that we're drinking tonight? I think it overpowers it just a bit. Yeah, just
**Gizmo:** a little.
**Poobah:** Yeah, I don't think so. No, I think the delivery of this cognac is actually quite, uh,
**Gizmo:** well, the cognac's so delicious. So we're having the, uh, the Remy XO cognac tonight. It's, uh, it's
**Poobah:** so smooth and there's literally no heat to it.
To me. I actually think it sets up pretty nice with the cigar. I
**Senator:** agree. And I think the flavor notes in this cognac in particular, compliment this stick really well. It was funny when we lit the cigar puba, maybe it was a cold draw, said [00:12:00] you got old fig Newton. And in the, the, the, the, the cognac, I get a little bit of fig, um, some nuttiness that I also think pairs well with this.
So I think flavor profile wise, profile wise, okay. They work really
**Gizmo:** well. Okay. Yeah, I would
**Poobah:** agree with you. It's because the delivery of the cognac, there's like a viscosity to it. that kind of coat your mouth and the delivery is just so smooth and, and easy going. Like, so kind of relaxing that it compliments how the kind of, the smooth and easy going.
Yeah. Um, smoke, I mean, and the cigar
**Senator:** is, if this were a younger spirit, it would, I think then completely overpowered if it was something with a bite. But I think a cigar this special deserves a really refined pairing. And, um, I think this was an, an excellent choice.
**Gizmo:** Pba, yeah, great choice. PBA and the, I gotta say, I've never had this, we, you know, obviously we, we had [00:13:00] cognac a few weeks ago on the pod for the first time.
That was really my first foray into it. So I've had no experience, but I didn't realize the bottle was as ornate as it is. I mean, it's got these really, really crazy ridges around it. It's almost like a jug, like Puba said when we were passing around, it's like a jug of. Really fine cognac. That's a jug of cognac.
Mm-hmm. . Fantastic. Really good. What's so what's the price on that one
**Poobah:** here in with tax In New Jersey? It was like 180 7. Okay. Something like that. So anywhere else that would be 200 all day. Yeah. Because the taxes in some of the states that have higher income tax and or lower income tax, but higher sales tax, they're gonna nail you on the syntax.
Yeah. Like in Florida it would be like $220 or something like that, probably. Wow. You know what I mean? That is
**Gizmo:** a big swing. Is there a age
**Bam Bam:** statement on us?
**Senator:** So all, uh, XO cognacs are, uh, minimum six years aged. Okay. Um, and we've talked [00:14:00] about this, but sort of like, you know, tequila are other things that we've done in the pod.
They're each, each, each acronym has a age statement that, uh, sort of corresponds to it. Mm-hmm. , so vs being two years vs. O p being four years, XO being six years. And that's kind of the top of the line. and I think for a single malt scotch, you know, I would compare this in the category of like 18 years, single malts.
Those are usually around the same price point, around 180 a bottle for most of 'em. So, um, I think it's in that class.
**Bam Bam:** What I find interesting. Have you retro head the, uh, the cigar? I have, and I'll do it right now. It is incredible. I mean, it really enhances the baking spice and the things we were talking about.
Really fantastic.
**Gizmo:** Oh, it's really nice to the nose. Oh, it's awesome. I did actually, when I push, push it through the nose, I'm getting more of the minty thing.
**Bam Bam:** I don't get that. I get the le less of the mint's gone for me, but I get more of the baking spice when I do the retro hill. Fantastic. It's delicious.
**Poobah:** Pagoda, [00:15:00] what do you It's super good.
Yeah, because you, you,
**Rooster:** you normally like, like, you know, full flavored cigars. I mean this is,
**Pagoda:** I'm I'm really enjoying this. Yeah. Uh, I'm trying to figure out, I've felt that I've had something very similar before. I can't pinpoint it. , but it does leave a very, uh, pleasant taste in the mouth. I feel that there's some kind of a really good flavoring, which is left, which is like the bacon, spices a little bit.
I get a little bit of saltiness and, um, I eat, meaning I'm really enjoying it. By the way. It's, it feels like a celebration, right? You're having Yeah. Your cognac and, uh, such a wonderful cigar. Thank you. Thank you, rooster.
**Poobah:** Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, rooster. It does have a, it tastes Cuban. I mean, it has that salty like minerally thing going on kind of in the background on top.
You've got these dessert flavors. I mean, it does, if you smack your lips, it's not like a salty, as a, as a parus or something like that, but yeah, it's there. It's there, but [00:16:00] everything's kind of, everything has kind of like come together into one. So it makes for this like very complex, um, affair and. . It's really better's pretty, it's enjoyable
**Pagoda:** and I don't find it too light.
You know, like, yeah. It's maybe I wouldn't necessarily have it at min. I would have it in the afternoon and
**Rooster:** Right. But I mean, definitely not a postin smoke, you know?
**Senator:** No, no. Yeah. But I think what I'm, what I'm liking is that when this started, I would say it was mild, and now I think it's settling into medium.
Yeah. Which is a great place that has a lot of utility. Um, so I, I really like that. The other thing I'm noticing about this cigar, I mean, for. small. The, the size and ring gauge of this is, the combustion is really great. Yeah. As I'm forcing myself to smoke this slower, I'm right there. I take a puff, just clouds of smoke.
Mm-hmm. or just billowing
**Gizmo:** out. It's awesome. It's
**Poobah:** creamy. There's a viscosity to the smoke, there's a creaminess to the smoke, there's a viscosity to this, to this cognac, [00:17:00] and they're both very smooth. So for me, um, yeah, we're in the danger zone. This is like, you know, , this could, this could, this could cost you a lot of money.
Get your checkbook ready. Get your checkbook ready. Cuz this is, uh, some high end shit. I, I'm not gonna lie. Um, it's good. I mean, it's certainly really relaxing like to me.
this is like relaxation at its back. I mean, this is like very relaxing thing to, to go through with the cognac and this, this pre embargo cigar. I mean, wow. I was gonna say
**Gizmo:** that the same thing. I just to put my head back in. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like my vibe is totally chilled out since we let the cigar.
It's, it's very elegant and relaxing and with the cognac, it's just like, my heart rate is probably at about 60 right now. Yeah. We're very happy to hear that.
**Poobah:** Yeah. . Yeah. Good. Good for you. Mine hasn't been, my resting heart rate hasn't been 60 since I was probably 12 . Um, no, but it is, and I think [00:18:00] like, I, you know, I had a long day today.
I, I did a lot of stuff. At work. I, it was long, you know, like I, and, and this whole experience is like, it really is very relaxing because I've kind of pivoting outta my day into this. I'm like, okay, you know, this is pretty therapeutic. Yeah. This is pretty therapeutic. That's a word. This is pretty good. Like, this is like a massage of
**Rooster:** sorts.
So I think this cigar must be smoked indoors.
**Gizmo:** Oh yeah. I agree. That's a great point, Lucy. That's a great point. Yeah, great
**Senator:** point. Because to what I was saying before about the combustion, like you get so much of that smoke and just the aroma that you get is incredible. You want to capture
**Gizmo:** that. I wish, I wish I could take a bath in this smoke.
Yep. Like just wallow in it for an hour. A shower. Nothing. Think shower. A shower.
**Poobah:** You should just lock yourself in the closet. . You
**Gizmo:** should. I should. Or smoke. Smoke in your car with the windows closed. There you [00:19:00] go.
**Poobah:** Hot box
**Gizmo:** yourself. . But it is a good point because even last night, uh, it was a really calm summer night.
Very calm, like no wind. Uh, and, and I had a few Cubans and it was very relaxing. You know, the smoke was kind of sticking right with me as it would in a lounge or even in here. Uh, but I still don't think I would smoke this outside. No. Yeah, it's an indoor
**Poobah:** smoke. Agreed. Nah, you don't take a cigar from 1970.
You
**Gizmo:** smoking, you know, some of these guys on the, on the forum smoke out. They're take it on the golf course. On the golf course. They're smoking some of these grand reservers on
**Bam Bam:** the golf course. What a what a mistake. What a mistake.
**Poobah:** I think a lot of that's posturing. I agree with for the camera. Yeah. It's a lot of, lot of, uh, I
**Rooster:** think those are just like, uh, photo ops.
Yeah. Some of them are not cut, not lit. But anyway. Hey, by the way, my brother-in-law, who's not a cigar smoker, has been listening to our pod. Nice. He's listened. Every single one. Really? He goes up to me, [00:20:00] he goes, rooster, I really like the pod. I'm like, just came out of the blue, you know? And he's awesome.
Listened to every single
**Gizmo:** one. I need a refill. So is he gonna, is he gonna start smoking cigar suit or what? I don't know.
**Rooster:** I don't know. He is got a, he's got a little bit of a health issue, so I'm not sure.
**Gizmo:** Still understood.
**Poobah:** This is good. I mean, this is good. It's
**Gizmo:** really good. It's super
**Senator:** duper. Can, can I just say, is cognac
**Bam Bam:** not awesome?
I mean, it's fantastic.
**Gizmo:** It's awesome. It's a world I knew nothing about. It gets
**Poobah:** such a bad rap these days. Look at this does, I mean, I guess it does. It's just not like people don't order it. Yeah. I'm,
**Bam Bam:** I'm going on my second glass. That's unusual for me. This is, this is amazing. Pa
**Gizmo:** past
**Poobah:** that, that piece. Pipe around.
Yeah. Baby .
**Rooster:** I mean, this is not Hennessy. Puff, puff, puff, puff pass. It's not Hennessy. This is, this is high-end, uh, cog act.
**Senator:** It's true. But the funny thing is, you say that about Hennessy and I, I think I mentioned this on another pod, how I just have a really negative perception of Hennessy because you see this stuff in nightclubs, but [00:21:00] I mean, they're the oldest, like cognac house right in, in France.
I mean, their history's actually really, really decorated. Um, so I think at some point we should try some of the higher end Hennessy stuff that they make, cuz I'm sure it's actually very
**Bam Bam:** good. But I gotta give props to pagoda. Look at his cigar. Well done. Pagoda. Look at that. Taking his time. Long ash.
Fantastic. Impressive. Absolutely impressive. I'm really enjoying this. Yeah, it is. It's really, it's, it's really nice. I'm going a little fast. You always do. I admit that. But you know, I find when I have to take my time with a cigar, like Puba said, it's, it just, it decompresses you, it drops your heart rate.
It's, it's
**Gizmo:** amazing. But what's in, you know what's interesting about this though? Sorry to interrupt you there, Puba, but we didn't have a pre-pro discussion. just for the listener. We didn't have a discussion like, Hey, we gotta smoke this slow or take this easier. You know, it, it it, this cigar has set the tone tonight.
Yeah. For us. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's really interesting. It is interesting.
**Rooster:** You know, I would, I would say [00:22:00] generally when it's a, uh, smaller ring gate cigars, you, you kind of wanna smoke them slow cuz they'll get
**Gizmo:** hot. Sure. But listen, we did that. Um, we did the poor guga, uh, petite Corona. We, we didn't, none of us were intentionally smoking that slowly and that thing lasted in an hour, 15 minutes for us.
Yes. Yes it did
**Bam Bam:** for us. I find that to be a bit denser than this. The pack is denser. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah. So if you have cognac sitting around the house, um, I used to make this all the time and I forget where I got the recipe. It was on a cooking show or something. Um, you know what, it goes really, really well in a burger.
The cognac burger. And let me, let me explain. So what you do is you take like, A tablespoon and a half or so of cognac and you mix it into a pound of ground beef. So it's two tablespoons or whatever. If you do two pounds and then you take a couple teaspoons or so the taste of Dejan mustard [00:23:00] and you chop up, uh, some chives and you throw that in and you make this cognac burger nice.
And I got a salt pepper. Wow. I gotta tell you something, man. Really, really, really good. And the actually the way I make 'em, why don't we coming over, uh, what you do with this particular burger, and I'm not a well done burger guy, but what I do with this particular burger is, is I make 'em a little on like the fatter side and you use 80 20, but take just a little bit of butter and you put it in the middle and just cook it slowly, like all the way through.
So it, it, it, it's, so, it's well done. It can be medium well, whatever, but the butter through it and you, with the cognac, I'm telling you, it comes out so good. I used to make these all the time. It's called the cognac burger. Sounds amazing. I gotta look the recipe up where I got it, it was from the food Network or something.
And I used to make it all the time and I would just get [00:24:00] cheap cognac at the store. To, to, to, to, you know, to throw in there. But it worked out really well.
**Senator:** Even see for desserts, they'll flambe or a table side, like to make a bananas foster or something. I cognac's very useful
**Gizmo:** cooking wise. Wait, yeah, cognac is in bananas.
Foster? I don't think so. So it's, so usually
rum
**Senator:** you could use rum, coac. I mean, I
**Gizmo:** did not know that. I really like Bananas. Foster, I love That's a great dessert. Love. It's an old school, uh,
**Rooster:** you know, at a restaurant like one day. Yes. Bananas Foster. Like a restaurant that does like Caesar salad,
**Gizmo:** like tableside.
I like that. Like bananas. Foster. Oh, you could choose how much anchovy you want in it. Oh,
**Poobah:** like that man. I love Bananas Foster. And I'd love Tableside Caesar salad. It should all come back along with cognac, . Um, I mean, honestly I love that. So there's a place in Boca called Arturos. Not Arturos up here, but down there they make bananas, fosters tableside.
They also do a tableside Caesar and they are fantastic. And [00:25:00] the mo, this place is not there anymore. But also the colony, uh, tennis club, which is of course gone where Nick Boari ran his tennis. It's now been torn down and they're building something, I believe it's like a huge Four Seasons or something on the Long Bo Key down where my dad lives.
And, uh, but the colony had did a tableside. Caesar said we'd always split it. We'd go in. Okay. Me and you, me and you, me and nobody else. We're getting, we're splitting the, we're splitting this taste Caesar salad. Yes. Got it. Okay. And then you'd go, all right, for, for dinner they did a, a double lobster tail.
Deep fried in tempura batter. It was absolutely outstanding. Wow. Yeah. With like an Israeli COOs COOs or something on the side. It was fucking great. And we'd, so we'd have the Caesar salad, the Twin Fried Lobster tales, and then Bananas Foster for dessert. Wow. I mean, it was like my favorite meal of all time.
Wow. Because of the [00:26:00] nostalgia
**Gizmo:** of it. We gotta do a food podcast. Boy, that was a
**Poobah:** great, great meal. But you know, the place is, I'm hungry now. what a, what A meal. What a meal. You can't get that
**Gizmo:** anywhere. No, I haven't seen Tableside Caesar salad. I can't tell you how long, even forget Covid, I'm years before Covid.
I haven't seen it. You, you know, it's,
**Poobah:** it's, it's under, you gotta take a little bit of the anchovy and the garlic and the salt and you do it, and then they take an egg, a little hot sauce, a little wor
**Gizmo:** shear. Pick the oil. Yep. Whis it up a little lemon juice,
**Poobah:** black. Lots of black pepper. Lemon juice. You got a Caesar man, like fresh.
Yeah,
**Gizmo:** dude, there's nothing worse. All right, let me, let me, let me put up an argument for you. There's nothing worse to me than getting a Caesar salad with creamy dressing. I think a creamy dressing like that's cream-based as opposed to oil. That's a kid that. . [00:27:00] That's a killer for me. Hmm. Well, yeah, but you also have, I want a
**Poobah:** purist, I a purist.
I know, but you also have a food vendetta against things that have like dairy,
**Gizmo:** like ranch vendetta, whatever
**Poobah:** the fuck it is. You, you're against cheese and shit. I
**Gizmo:** don't need any dairy. But that's beside the point. I Well, it
**Poobah:** has no it's not because the ranch
**Gizmo:** is like, I don't eat ranch is, that's a no one factor here.
Oh, I like ranch. No, that's not, I thought there was like buttermilk
**Senator:** or something. I'm out on ranch but I don't ginger. I don't mind the creamy Caesar from
**Bam Bam:** time to time. I like a creamy Caesar as well.
**Poobah:** I love Caesar. And, and, and Grinder loves Caesar. We just text each other about Caesar salads all the time.
**Gizmo:** They have a Caesar side chat. That's right. We do have a
**Poobah:** Caesar side check. Pale Caesar. Goddamn
**Gizmo:** well boys. We're about halfway through this amazing cigar. It's just getting better and better. Los Stato Deluxe from Havana, Cuba. And uh, I'm, I It's, it's what a journey this is. Yeah. Taking [00:28:00] us on today. It's wonderful.
It's amazing. It's,
**Rooster:** it's different than when we first lit the cigar. It is.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Honestly, I wasn't happy at all on the, on the first light. Really? Yeah. I had a lot of grass. It was very grassy for me, but it is incredible Now I didn't get that.
**Poobah:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I just
**Bam Bam:** think grassy and Spearman a bit. Like I said,
**Senator:** I just think as you smoke this, the flavors get richer and deeper.
Yeah. And it's got more body to it than when we started. Oh yeah. And this is right where this is, is mine. And I think most, if not all of our wheelhouse, absolutely. Very happy with this. This
**Gizmo:** is awesome. A hundred percent.
**Poobah:** It is.
**Gizmo:** Awesome. Special. So Rooster, what, what are the chances that we can get more of these
I mean, serious. I'm seriously asking. Like, does this guy, well, there's a lot of boxes
**Poobah:** out there. .
**Bam Bam:** Well look at Rooster's face. I
**Poobah:** think that says it all. I don't think so. ,
**Gizmo:** I mean, does he have more the 10 packs? , how many would you like?
**Rooster:** No, I
**Gizmo:** don't, I'm not being
**Rooster:** unreasonable. Maybe, I don't know. I can, I can send him a message.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** [00:29:00] This is really cool. So do you wanna know what I paid for these? I do. Yes, please. Uh, 45 A stick that is less than I Wow. I expected. Wow. I think that's a fair price. You think that's a fair price?
**Rooster:** Very reasonable for this. I mean, not knowing, I mean, I had no expectations. I'm like, all right. You know, it's 1970 cigar, $45.
We pay for, you know, a lot of other sticks. We have paid, like, you know, up there
**Gizmo:** or more, more. And well, given that a brand two, which is about the same size of this is now $52, um, I'll
**Rooster:** smoke this over a Siglo two
**Gizmo:** any day here day.
**Poobah:** 52 bucks any day and weren't, didn't CIG a six s I saw, or two grand a box.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** CIG six is uh, come on. 1900 divided by 25. It's absurd. They're 76 at minimum. 76 new. I mean,
**Rooster:** the Trinidad funded dos with some age on it. They're going for about $2,200 a
**Gizmo:** box 16. It's crazy. We bought those boxes for under ugh, 500, [00:30:00] 600. Yeah. The last unbelievable. The last box I bought was 5 89. Yep. Who would've known?
It's crazy.
**Poobah:** Yeah. I should have wired all my money to someone and got alt boxes of trinidads instead of to fucking my financial advisor.
I mean, no joke. It's a better investment. Way better investment. Yep. at the time.
**Gizmo:** I'm happy. I, I, I think I told you guys, I bought that box of Cohiba Robusto right before all the price stuff went crazy. Yes. I think I got it for like 700 bucks or something. Mm-hmm. . It's like double that now. Yeah. Wow. It's crazy.
So I'm just gonna sit on it.
**Poobah:** I think even got some of the guys who love Cohibas are like, no Moss. Yeah. You know, with it. And they've, they have what they have, they're gonna sit on it and they do well with age [00:31:00] anyway, so, but yeah, the prices are, let's not talk about prices. It's depressing.
**Gizmo:** It really is.
**Rooster:** I think we definitely need to explore more of these, uh,
**Gizmo:** aged, aged pre embargo, super, super aged pre embargo sticks.
I do like the roosters connoisseur corner a couple times a. I think we should definitely do that because this is, this is specialness.
**Senator:** Absolutely. Speak for yourself. I'm ready to live in
**Gizmo:** Rooster's Conno series Corner . The rent is unaffordable. It's
**Poobah:** unaffordable, ,
**Rooster:** I mean, for a special occasion. I mean, this is, this is great.
It's phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah. I
**Senator:** mean, come on. It's Monday
**Poobah:** Yeah, it's a Monday night. Well, you know, that's, well, it is. I mean, look, the, when you, when you, when you share a cigar among friends, it's, it's, uh, well, what's really more special than that? I mean, as you go through your life, they're special [00:32:00] moments. You get married, you have children, you do these things. Um, you win scratch offs, whatever.
**Gizmo:** Um, ,
**Rooster:** I've never won a
**Gizmo:** scratch off . I think I won like 15 bucks once ,
**Poobah:** that was, I got a friend, Oli. He wins so many scratch offs. It's unbelievable. I got another buddy. He wins the, They do a daily lotto, like a three number lotto. He wins that thing all the time. . Really? Yeah. I got guys who wins who are so good with scratch offs, I can't even believe
But anyway, um, it's pure luck. It's pure luck, but some people are just lucky. I can't
**Gizmo:** believe how relaxed I am right now. Yeah, man. Yeah. I mean, this is
**Poobah:** shocking. This the spirit is like we're all just sitting here
**Bam Bam:** subdued. I know. Yeah, I know. It's wonderful. I know.
**Poobah:** Wonderful. That's because it's very relaxing.
Yeah. The whole entire combo. This this number, this number one meal combo. Yeah. Yeah. This is special. Yeah. Getting the [00:33:00] band off is gonna be a, could be tricky. Yep. It's been on a long time.
No, it's not.
**Senator:** You'd hope the glue would not be as effective after 50 years. Ah,
**Poobah:** well it fus into the tobacco. It, the, the band is, look, it's typical, like it's coming off and like shit. Dude strips two layers. It's
**Rooster:** coming off in layers. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Cute. Oh. Oh,
**Gizmo:** brothers careful. Mine's coming off real nice. Careful.
She's not
**Poobah:** good. Careful. Gotta be real, real, real careful. I'm
**Gizmo:** gonna smoke through the band. Oh yeah. It did not come off. Nah, I lied. Mine will not smoke
**Bam Bam:** too soon. Mine
**Gizmo:** will not come off. It's loose, but it's a problem.
**Poobah:** Hey, you gotta be real careful. Here we go.
**Gizmo:** Oh, it's taking a little wrapper.
**Poobah:** Yeah, mine took a little.
**Gizmo:** Okay. I'm good. I'm
**Poobah:** out. I'm good. I'm off.
**Bam Bam:** It's crazy. You're just taking a bit of a, a tiny draw. Produces [00:34:00] so much smoke. It's so flavorful. It's
**Poobah:** insane. Yes. And now mine for a little guy like this, huh? Mine's presenting a problem, rooster. I have some
**Gizmo:** collateral damage. What are you doing? ?
**Bam Bam:** Your procurement skills are off the charts.
**Rooster:** Look, I mean, I had no expectations. I had no idea what this would taste like or smoke like, so I was just going off of somebody else's words and
**Gizmo:** you know, I mean, I trust him. It is just getting better and better and better. You know, the one thing I will say that I disagree with, the, the, the note that we got from the guy, you got these from.
I don't know if I would like this in the morning with a coffee. I think that, I think that the kind of coffee I drink, black coffee, the really strong stuff that I drink mm-hmm. I think it would way overpower this cigar. And I think the cognac's doing it a service. I think the, the, the kind of coffee I drink would, would kind of like be doing too much.
Well, maybe,
**Rooster:** maybe it with a little cream in the coffee. So
**Gizmo:** where would you, the cap, I don't do that. Where would you slot this in? Right. Where we're at right now is a special [00:35:00] event. I'm not having a big steak dinner or anything. Yeah. But an evening with some cognac amongst, to me, to me, the biggest requirement for this cigar.
as we've kind of detailed, is a situation like this where it's time, it's time, it's time. But it's also, you're with a bunch of folks smoking the same thing, celebrating this 50 year old cigar. I mean, it is. It's just, you know, the way my mind works is just like, you know, think about it, like 50 years ago, some human being was in Havana, Cuba, and rolled these cigars that were, that were, we're smoking, put 'em in a box, they boxed them, they shipped them out.
God only knows where, where they went around the world who had them for 10, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years at a time. I'm sure there's a huge back backstory. This what is the what? Like it's just amazing to think about the journey that these cigars have been on to now be where we are smoking them together.
Like this. Who, how many? It's
**Poobah:** crazy. Who knows how many hands they've been in. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's incredible. Or how far, how many times around the world maybe they've been
**Gizmo:** and how lucky we are that they were kept as well as they were and that they've [00:36:00] remained in this condition. That's right. Well, a good thing they had
**Rooster:** cellophane on them.
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Kinda protects the are.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Hell of a smoke.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. This is special.
**Senator:** I'm just shocked. I, I would truly smoke this any time of day. Yeah. And I never imagined I would say this, especially with the note around having this in the morning with coffee. This would be very satisfying in the afternoon. And even an evening like this, this builds enough flavor the whole second way through.
That's awesome. I'm very satisfied right now. That's awesome.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Rooster:** Have you noticed this? Absolutely. No. Like coffee or cocoa notes?
**Gizmo:** No. Right. It's all gone. It's
**Bam Bam:** pretty strong baking
**Poobah:** spice then. I'm getting, yeah. And the, the tobacco taste builds too. It does. It does really start to taste like almost, which I love to that just for this
**Bam Bam:** guy.
It's great, man. Yeah. Tobacco flavor and actually salty, I think you mentioned that pago, I'm getting a little bit of that,
**Poobah:** some salt, but some,
**Gizmo:** the cogn, the cognac guys, it sat, you [00:37:00] know, now going, what, 35 minutes or whatever. It's opened up in a really interesting way. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** You know, my earlier comment about it overpowering the cigar.
I think the cigar, like you said senator, it has caught up in body and you know, in flavor. I think the balance now between the two. Pretty spectacular.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah. It's good man. It's very good. How many of
**Bam Bam:** these do you
**Gizmo:** have? Roton? It was a 10 pack, so he is got got three left. Unless you smoked one. Yeah. Did you have one before the, we've got four left. Was this your first one tonight? Yeah. Oh, awesome. Okay. Bams keeping count. There's four
Too bad. The six of us. .
**Rooster:** We'll get more, we'll get.
**Poobah:** Yeah, you gotta be careful with the band I did. There's, I suffered some collateral damage, but what you can't fault the cigar for like, no,
**Gizmo:** [00:38:00] you can't. The
**Bam Bam:** glue, the glue is tough. I actually slid it down all the way to the end to preserve the wrapper. So I'm just gonna smoke it all the
**Senator:** way down.
So I, I'll say this, when I have that problem and I was able to get this off without any damage to the wrapper, instead of trying to remove it from the back where the glue is, when it's clear that it's just not gonna give i'll, the easiest place to really peel off is the front of it, like the bigger part of the wrapper of the band.
Right. Catch and catch the edge and just start tearing. And then the rest will just slide off that back.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Instead of trying to undo the glue. Yeah. But it's still, it's not really affecting anything. It's just cosmetic.
**Rooster:** I mean, it's pretty amazing for a cigar to be like 50 years old and to still have this much flavor.
**Gizmo:** It's, it's
**Rooster:** incredible. In the last look, what, what point. , do they start losing flavor? That's a great question. Is, is do they do cigars? Like how long can
**Senator:** they last now? Yeah. I, I think the thing that amazes me most about that, I mean this is by far the oldest cigar I've ever had, but I'm just amazed that the [00:39:00] flavor of this, it doesn't taste stale or old.
No. It tastes refined, creamy, everything you want a cigar to be, and why I say I'm surprised by that is because if you have a really old bottle of wine, you will ime. If you had a 50 year old bottle of wine that was built to age that long, , you'll immediately know Yeah. That it's a heavily aged bottle of wine.
It doesn't taste anything like a younger bottle of
**Bam Bam:** wine. I, I'm guessing ton of earth notes in a, in a wine that old, it's not even
**Senator:** the earth notes, the, the wine just starts to change a little bit where you get this mustiness, mustiness and, and acidity that you'll know it's an old bottle. You'll get some great flavor notes out of it, but it's, it's just instant.
It'd be almost impossible for you not to tell, right. That that wine has sat for 50 years. Where with this cigar, honestly, if I did this blinded , I would know that this has age on it. Yeah. But I would never, not 50 years, because I would just assume 50 years that it, you would just, it would almost taste stale [00:40:00] or old, and it just doesn't, which is very remarkable to me about cigars.
**Rooster:** Yeah. I mean, I, I would think after 50 years they would start losing some of the flavor. You know? I
**Poobah:** mean, I think that can happen. I mean, I'm not an expert on the maturations, like the decline. I think there's, uh, from what I've read, you know, the, they, you, they can peak. I think they, like a cigar can peak at a certain point and then, you know, um, kind of decline, uh, over time.
Um, but you know, I'm not an expert on, on pre embargo cigars, uh, by any means. So
**Senator:** no, it it, it's all true. It can, you know, but what's amazing about this is, you know, who knows when its peak was, who knows if it was Now, who knows if it was 10 years ago? But I'm just impressed that there is no way that it, it hasn't hit its peak in 50 years.
And so even if this is not its peak, it's still, it's still damn
**Poobah:** incredible. [00:41:00] It's such a good cigar. Yeah. It's really, really a hell of a smoke.
**Rooster:** You know, we need to source some like
**Gizmo:** DDoS that are Yes, 1980. Absolutely. Yeah. Pre embargo. Davad Dosh. Yeah. I see them sometimes. Cuban DDoS. Those would be
**Poobah:** absolutely phenomenal.
I mean, you taste the age on it. I'm just trying to parse it out, like, is it, yeah, I mean, it's. It was really, really good for me. I'm at the end now.
**Bam Bam:** What's the oldest cigar you've had? Rooster? This is it, man. This is it. PBA YouTube.
**Poobah:** Yeah. This is the oldest cigar I've ever had in my life. Okay. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I'm,
**Pagoda:** I'm surprised you didn't have this in 1978.
**Rooster:** This is pretty close to what The year I was born ,
**Poobah:** after helping my dad mow the lawn
I be, he, he'd drink, he'd drink rolling rocks with no shirt on. Like the little, the little, the, the one of the little kids. Did you call them the nips? The nips, yeah. Nips. Yeah. I like that [00:42:00] word. Yeah. Dude. Lawnmower broke. You remember those images of your parents when they would, when they would. Get angry and you think they're gonna have a heart attack.
Do you ever, you're scared as like a child.
**Gizmo:** Do you ever Oh yeah. My dad's shirtless with his short jean shorts on. Right, right.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Just furious and furious. It's about something that, there's
**Gizmo:** a belt fixing, there's a belt on the lawnmower that went right. And
**Poobah:** like, there's fear, you know, like you're like, is he gonna die right now?
Cuz he's so mad. And you think he's so old. But meanwhile he's like 44, you know what I mean? . But you just think he's like, he's like 38 and you're like, isn't he gonna die right now? You know, he took a Briggs and Stratton lawnmower and he threw it in a tree. Well, and I just remember he like picked it up like the Hulk and just threw it in there.
And he was so angry and he went into the refrigerator in the garage and he just like pounded a rowing rock nip . And I was like, oh my God. He was all covered in sweat shirtless. I was like, oh, oh Don, please [00:43:00] don't die, dad.
**Gizmo:** And then the transfer of power happened. What do you mean? Well, then you came in and you became the, the man of the house.
**Poobah:** Oh yeah. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Don't be so humble.
**Gizmo:** Look at 'em. These things happen. Oh yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah. These things happen. Well, it's true. I mean, uh, you know, my brother, his, my nephew, my brother's son is, is playing pretty good golf right now.
I think he's going into his junior year and, uh, he's starting to beat my brother from time to time in the golf course and it pisses him off. So that's the transfer of Power . That's right. Right. There you go. Uh, what the actual fuck is
**Gizmo:** going on here? ?
**Poobah:** It's called Getting Old. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Absolut.
**Senator:** Yeah. I mean, it's, even you think about what we en, you know, what this podcast is about and what we enjoy cigars and, [00:44:00] you know, nice spirits.
I mean, it's so funny, I remember the first time my, my dad who got me into cigars once I had started to really take a deep dive into this, and he's just sitting there, he's like, I never imagined I'd be learning, you know, about this more from you. You know, it's like, it just, the roles kind of transfer power.
The transfer of power, transfer power so deep that That's
**Bam Bam:** awesome.
**Poobah:** That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true. It's getting old. Sucks.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I wonder if I'll have a cigar with bam. Bam, JR. I think, I think it's
**Gizmo:** gonna help. Sure. I think about that someday. It will. He'll be
**Senator:** corrupted at the right time. I hope
**Gizmo:** so. I
**Rooster:** hope so.
Sure you will. So this is, so let me, let me ask you guys a question. So we had a little graduation party for my, for my daughter just over the weekend. And he had a few friends over who are ro, you know, they don't really smoke cigars, they're not really avid cigar smokers. So I brought a box up, but I wanted to have a different cigar and give them something
**Gizmo:** else.
Of course, . And they noticed [00:45:00] immediately they noticed it right away. Oh yeah. And you know, So I ended up smoking the same cigar that everybody else was having. Avo No, it was, it
**Rooster:** was actually the poor Laga p you know,
**Poobah:** the, uh, petite Corona. That's a great cigar.
**Gizmo:** And they're looking
**Rooster:** at me like, why are you smoking something different?
**Gizmo:** what did you give them? So I kind of
**Rooster:** like put it down. I say, you know what? The one you guys are smoking is one of my favorite smokes. And that's what I gave you guys. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna light this. How do you feel like when that happens on, hang on, what did you give them? The plpc, the poor smoking.
Then I had the hot 80th .
**Gizmo:** Well, that's, I mean, that's a big, that's a big balls, quite, quite the jump. I mean, doesn't it look similar? You can't get away with that. I can't. You could've gotten away with a D four or RA or something. I don't think I would've because,
**Rooster:** because anything that's different, like they don't know what it is.
Right. Even if it was a D four, they're like, you're smoking a different cigar than you gave us. Can I have one of those? . So I'm like, well, you gotta kind of [00:46:00] graduate to that.
**Gizmo:** Well, I, I personally believe I would've just been like, no,
**Poobah:** you can't enjoy the
**Gizmo:** gift I gave you. , I believe in the guest humidor. I, I I, I have given away cigars that I've regretted mm-hmm.
because the person that I gave 'em to didn't get it, and they kind of wasted it. Yep. So I, I am
**Rooster:** totally, yeah. But this, this was a special occasion and I wanted to smoke a good, you know, like a awesome cigar. Sure. And to me, the padron 80th is like the
**Gizmo:** epitome of, uh, no, that's the, you know, of cigars to the point.
The point I'm making though is that I don't think that you should have wavered from it. You should. You say, I, I can't give you this because you guys don't smoke cigars all the time. This will knock you around. Yeah. It's
**Bam Bam:** hard. That would've been my excuse. So it's tough to say that to a guest. I've
**Gizmo:** been, it's a, was it kids?
No, these are, no, these are my Oh, these are adults. Adults, oh, friends.
**Rooster:** Honestly,
**Senator:** I think it's hard. Close, close friends.
**Gizmo:** I think it's hard.
**Bam Bam:** I've been through this and it's not
**Senator:** easy, which is why I think you just have to find like a balance of a cigar that. Do you love? You're not thrilled to give out because you know, [00:47:00] someone won't appreciate it the same way that you will, but it's also not a patron ath or a cigar that you're spending, you know?
Right. $30 plus a
**Rooster:** stick on, because I know, like, they wouldn't appreciate that cigar. Right. And most of the guys, you know, they'll smoke it halfway and put it down or, you know, like light it like 5 million times in between, walk away and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I'm like, you know, I, I mean, the, the cigar I gave them is a, is a great cigar.
I mean, I love that smoke. Oh, that's awesome. So, but
**Senator:** it's fairness. I'm sorry, you're kind of a shitty guest. If you're actually complaining about that. I agree. Let's be real.
**Rooster:** This is true. No, they weren't complaining. They were just kind of looking at me like, you know, it happens, you know, what are you, like, what are you smoking?
What is that cigar? I'm like, well, this is a padro idiot. So, yeah, I,
**Senator:** I like Gizmo's point. You just say, you know, it's, it's a powerful cigar. It's not for someone who doesn't smoke cigars
**Gizmo:** very often, right. You just, you say, oh, I, I really love the one you're smoking. It's not like it's bad. I smoke it all the time.
I love it. But this, this one's too strong for you. But when I, but my
**Senator:** strategy, when, when that, that's my move situation [00:48:00] arises is to smoke my first cigar, the exact same thing with them, and I will finish that whole cigar light yours faster than anyone else will. Sure. You know that cuz they don't smoke cigars very often.
And then my next one, I'll light up something that is special that they're just not gonna be able to appreciate. And there's no question because Right, they're still on their first cigar. I'm on my next one. Yeah. Yeah. That's a
**Rooster:** good idea.
**Pagoda:** That's right. I'm surprised you didn't get.
**Gizmo:** Java.
**Poobah:** There was some flavors while you watch like half the CI while it boats and half the cigars smoking in one direction and the other half cuz they never lit it properly.
Yep. And the whole thing, that's the worst. I see that sometimes. I'm just like,
**Gizmo:** wow.
**Senator:** Hopefully the FDA bans those next, they already banned Juul. That's gotta be next on their list. Yep.
I
**Gizmo:** hope so. Let's hope they
**Poobah:** come nowhere near cigars. They're
**Pagoda:** about Juul. I see. Everyone's smoking it even now.
**Senator:** Yeah, they're, they're, oh yeah.
They're not going around collecting it's eptember. They're done if you already bought 'em. But they can't sell going forward. Good. They're gonna challenge it in court and I would have to assume they're gonna win because two [00:49:00] other companies that make the same product, they do, they actually allow it to sell.
So they have to win that in court, I
**Gizmo:** would hope. But you
**Poobah:** would think, I mean, uh, you know how much more stuff is gonna get banned. It's just so odd that there's like needle ex, not to get political, but we got needle exchange. You can go, you can go buy a crock pipe. Dude and, and, and, and, and a syringe. Not even buy it.
Like, just walk in in New York City and like, get that. I'm not even kidding. Like there's no exaggeration. You can in in la you major cities. You can just be like, yeah, I'd like some, I'd like some hypodermic needles and, and a couple of crack pipes. And they're like, yeah, this is free. You know, rather have you do it safely.
And meanwhile you got people, they're banning jewel, like they're banning a, so what are these people gonna,
**Gizmo:** are they gonna go back to cigarettes?
**Poobah:** No, they'll do a no, they'll do a special allocation. They're gonna take nicotine outta cigarettes. But like the drug addicts will be able to get [00:50:00] cigarettes,
They'll be like, no, you can, you can, we got special. We don't. Gossip we want for them is for them to go into withdrawal or do something dangerous. just, and they'll do a whole PSA about it too, and spend, there's whole PSAs saying, you know, if you're, if, if you love, you know, we know that, you know, substance abuse is a problem and you're not alone.
And I'm like, they're like the New York City Department of Health. I'm like,
**Gizmo:** what the fuck is going on? But you can't have a cigar that you want, or a, a jewel. You can't, a ju you shouldn't have a Juul, you
**Poobah:** know, you can't have a juul. Some things in this world are just backwards, so, you
**Gizmo:** know, we're doomed boys.
Something's weird. It's, it's worse than the West coast.
**Rooster:** Yeah. Oh, California. Like you, you walk into like a, you know, let's say a target. You wanna use a, use the restroom. They're closed, they're locked. because they're doing needles in there. So they're like, no, I'm sorry. You can't use the
**Poobah:** bathrooms. Well, no, they just dump on the street.
In San Francisco
**Gizmo:** people just dropped. [00:51:00] Tr Yeah, . I mean, it's really true. It's horrible. I have a friend who owns a business or owned, he closed up shop during Covid owned a business in, in, that was the first thing he had to do every morning, was clean up the front steps of his business.
**Poobah:** So, I mean, I think more, I, I think I read Morgan Stanley move the healthcare conference outta San Fran.
They were having it out there. People are moving conferences outta San Francisco cuz people are just like, I really, I'd really would rather not go like, I like, you know, hard pass on that because you know, who wants to see this type of activity? I, you know, not me. You know hatchets people with
**Bam Bam:** hatchets.
what? On the street?
**Poobah:** New York City. You got people with Hatchets? No. .
**Bam Bam:** What do you mean? No hatchets
**Gizmo:** axes. Walking around Axes, dude.
**Poobah:** People ax throwing. People just get like hit with axes, pushed on the subway. What do you mean? What It's, [00:52:00] every day people get hit with a hatchet that someone, and so you read the pick up the newspaper.
Ha Hit with hatchet thrown on subway tracks. Michelle Go, God rest her Soul Deloitte. Oh yeah. Just tossed on, on the tracks. Yeah. Yeah. Facts. I've
**Senator:** heard the hatchet thing is
**Poobah:** Hatchet. Oh, the hatchets. There's been a couple hatchet attacks. Just Google NYC Hatchet. You'll get like, you'll get like eight hits.
That's crazy. There's hatchet attacks. Somebody got hacked a couple weeks ago. He. Walking along and just, somebody came up and started hatchet his arm and legs and stuff and really entered the guy. I mean, I'm, I'm telling you, man. Wow. I'm not lying. Wow.
**Rooster:** That's it. Stay, endorse and smoke some embargo
**Poobah:** stuff.
**Gizmo:** Pre embargo stuff. and hoard. Jewel.
**Poobah:** Don't leave your apartment or, or home.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. You ready to do the, uh, formal liquor rating on the cognac? Yep. Remy xo.
**Bam Bam:** I polished off two glasses of these. Neat. It's delicious. Smooth. I'm giving it a 10. All right. Flat 10.
**Gizmo:** [00:53:00] Pagoda. Fantastic. A 10. Excellent.
**Poobah:** You're supposed to say a 10. A 10.
**Gizmo:** A 10. He's too relaxed
**Poobah:** for me.
**Gizmo:** It's a 10.
**Pagoda:** I'm, I'm so relaxed, by the way, .
**Senator:** Senator, this is
**Gizmo:** easy. A 10. . I'm the same. I think it's fantastic. I'm at a 10 all day. It's ridiculous. Amazing spirit.
**Poobah:** Amazing spirit. Yeah. I'm at a 10 too. 10? 10 for me.
**Gizmo:** 10. Oh, I don't need to do the math on that, boys. Wow. But 10.0 that's crazy on the Remy xl. Wow.
Fantastic. That's the highest liquor rating we've ever given, ever. Absolutely. Wow. That's fantastic. That's some of the best spirit
**Bam Bam:** I've ever had. I think the Hibiki is right underneath, I think, if I remember correctly. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** It's different. Well, this is, this is totally different. Yeah. So we're coming to the en boys of the, uh, of our cigar tonight.
Well, it, it's gone. The luxe . What are your, uh, final thoughts before we rate it? I mean,
**Bam Bam:** it went right down to the fingers. It's right to the end.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I, I, I found it to be a [00:54:00] spectacular sakari. Yeah. Special. Special. Yeah. I, I hope we can, I hope we're able to at least get one more each. Oh, that would be nice.
Yeah. I guess we'll see you guys ready to do the, uh, formal lizard rating on this thing. Yeah. We'll try to source some other
**Rooster:** sticks, please. Excellent.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Fantastic. All right, rooster, you're up.
**Rooster:** Um, I mean, this was a great smoke with so much age on it with, with, you know, still such complexity and balance and smooth, smooth, smooth smoke.
So I'm gonna give it a
**Poobah:** 10. Excellent Puba. It was really good. . I'm wavering . I can see that. I'll give it a 10.
**Gizmo:** All right. I'm gonna give it a nine and I'll tell you why in a second. Senator,
**Senator:** this is, this is tough. It was very difficult. I'm, I'm, I'm wavering like Puba was and obviously between a nine and a 10.[00:55:00]
I'm gonna go with a nine
**Gizmo:** mm Peona.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah,
**Pagoda:** this, uh, this is tough. Uh, I'll go with a 10 because I really enjoyed it, um, more than I thought I would. Um, and the, you know, the history behind it and, um, the environment and, and even today, like it was so relaxing when we came, we felt that it was just a special evening with a cognac and the cigar and um, it's just a 10, it's a night of the 10.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I'm giving it a 10. I have never had a cigar that started the way this did and ended so incredibly. I mean, that journey was fantastic. Never, I've never experienced that 10 for me. It's gotta be the highest rated of cigar.
**Gizmo:** One of it, I mean, one
**Rooster:** of, one of, yeah.
**Gizmo:** Conference at Lizard Score Boys is a 9.7 mm.
It's right there with the shark, I believe. Yeah. Incredible. Um, incredible. Yeah, I mean, that's a perfect rating for it. Now here's the reason why I didn't give it a 10 is because I'm thinking about the other stuff that [00:56:00] we're probably gonna start diving into here as we got, we got into the danger zone.
Yeah. And I can't imagine that a davidoff from the eighties or. An old up or an old RGUs Lucy, you know, I kind of have to ha, I kind of have to think like, this is the first cigar I've had kind of in this, in this way, in in, excuse me, of this age, you know? So that's, that's kind where I'm at. That's, I gotta take issue.
I'm a little, I do take issue.
**Senator:** Go ahead. I'm gonna start and I actually gave it a nine and I I really don't Go ahead. Like the reason that you gave it nine.
**Bam Bam:** Go ahead. I agree with Senator and
**Senator:** I have my own reasons. Look, I, I think it, we, we cannot review a cigar saying that we think something that we've never had before and we have no idea what it will be like.
We just assume maybe better. So we're gonna rate it lower cuz that. I don't think we should be in the business of that at all. I've had,
**Gizmo:** well, I've had better cigars than
**Senator:** this. Well, that, that's a legitimate read. That's Edward's. I've had better
**Gizmo:** cigars than this. That's right. But I'm, I'm looking at it from the age [00:57:00] standpoint being a really, really special factor in this.
Mm-hmm. And I'm saying that, okay, this is the first one I've had here. I just need to, I kept that in mind, but I've had better cigars
**Bam Bam:** in this. So early on in our podcast, uh, careers here, I, I started when I was ranking my cigars internally, I was comparatively looking at other cigars and how they ranked with the cigar that I was smoking, maybe four podcasts, four recording cigars.
I stopped doing that. I want to, I'm ranking cigars based on my experience right now in this chair, in this room right here. And I, and I'm, and I'm eliminating all of the other cigars for me. That's me.
**Poobah:** Which is fine. I'm so, okay. The cigar, I was teetering between a nine and a 10. And the reason being is the size.
So, the size of the smoke for me, I just need a little more. So for example, we, we reviewed an up in 14 recently. The or? Yeah. [00:58:00] From 2014. Uh, for me personally, like even though I gave that a 10 and I gave this a 10, I like that cigar better, but I'm not benchmarking the two cuz it's like you can't really compare them.
I think for the size of the cigar and for like what it was, it really delivered a lot. Do I like, it's like, does that deliver a better experience for me because it's just, that's what I like. Like I, the size of the cigar was small. I don't know what it was. If it was a petite Corona or even smaller, a Parejo a 40 by Parejo 40 40 by four and seven eights for me, the only reason why I was maybe teetering on a nine.
It wasn't because of the delivery was, wasn't because of the taste, wasn't cause it is just really more of the size of it. Like it just, I needed a little bit more. It's not as big of a, you know what I mean? It's just totally, it's hard to compete. So I'm not, I'm not as Grinder would say racking and stacking like this.
But I think for what it represented to me, I [00:59:00] gave it a 10 for what it was. Um, and that was it. So it was a hard, if I was to splits hairs and do decimal points, it'd be a different thing. So I, I
**Senator:** would just say this. I, I think for, for me, when I'm rating any cigar, I'm not literally ranking every single stick.
I think that's a useless exercise. But there, there you, you have to compare to something. And, and the comparison that I always make is if I give something a 10, it's something that if I could only have a few cigars, like that's, I, I crave that cigar and I loved so much about this stick, but does this deliver the amount of flavor that if I could craft this cigar myself and have someone age it for me for 50 years, does it deliver the amount of flavor that I would typically crave and be looking for?
No. Does it deliver just enough that it's unbelievably satisfying, which is why I still gave it a nine. Yes. And so, you know, cigars, I'm gonna give a 10, like a shark, like a petron 80th. Mm-hmm. like that up in [01:00:00] two, uh, 2014. Yeah, I did give that a 10. I would reach for those if, if those three were there and this.
That's just more the flavor profile that I'm craving and looking for. So that's the reason that those get a 10 and that this got a nine. It's just a flavor issue for me. Yeah. It's not that there was anything wrong with this cigar. That's how it was designed to be delivered. Right, right. But just for my palette personally, a cigar that's a 10 has gotta have a little bit more, you know, a little more power to it for me to really get it that excited.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. We're, we're also splitting hair as a nine as
**Gizmo:** an elite score. I'm glad you said that because I feel like that it's an elite score. Nine or 10. I, they're both like, yeah,
**Bam Bam:** they're right there. You'd love them. Yeah. And this, this is a surprising cigar, which is
**Gizmo:** why I gave it, it was an ab took me by surprise.
**Rooster:** Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I, I just, I just feel like each and every cigar that we smoke should be rated on that particular stick
**Gizmo:** that you are smoking. I'm heading
**Rooster:** more toward that, not comparing it to the other sticks. Because you could have, like, we had the up button number 2 20 14 lub. You could have another up one too that's not gonna [01:01:00] smoke the same.
So it's gotta be rated for what it is. On that day. Agree on that particular
**Gizmo:** time. I agree with
**Senator:** that. I agree. Which is exactly why we did that Lu 14 up and two on another pod. We should certainly do a younger up two at some point. Right. Our rating may be different, and I think that's what's fun. You know, I think we've talked about are we gonna run outta cigars to review at some point?
No, that's impossible. Yeah, because the years make such a difference and the experience is different, and I think that's what's
**Bam Bam:** gonna be fun. But honestly, a Youngman too, the ones that we shared giz, they're, they're so good,
**Gizmo:** they're delicious. What do we have eighteens or nineteens? They're awesome.
**Rooster:** You know, every single one of us in this room kind of has their own favorite.
Profile, like flavor profile that we look for in a cigar. So this might hit every single check, every single box for someone, but not for somebody else. Mm-hmm. , right? Yep. It could be the size. It could be. That's right. You
**Poobah:** know, it could be the, it could be the size is a diff makes a difference. I mean, it just like, [01:02:00] it was just a little diminutive in stature for like, it was small.
I mean, it was a smaller smoke. I wish it was a promot with this. That's why I was like, teetering, you know, it was a little bit like, ah, yeah, should I give another 10? And then when I thought about the context of it, I was like, you know, I did smoke it down all the way. It was very unique. It was very good.
So, well, that's why,
**Rooster:** that's why the, the, the score that it got, the average score is 9.7, which is I think perfect for that. Yeah. It's a, but having said that, you know, there. La Gloria Cubana that we have had like number twos or number fours, or number threes with a lot of age on them. Incredible. Yeah, they're small Ring aid cigars, but they have so much flavor.
Incredible cigars. So much. I mean, I was blown away the first time I had the Lgc number four. And that's a, that's a smoke. That's a little smoke.
**Gizmo:** That's a 38, I think. 38 rain feels like a cigarette in your hand. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it feels like
**Rooster:** that. But the, but the flavor that you get out of that is, you know, I was, I was absolutely blown
**Gizmo:** away by that.
Well, listen, I think a 9.7 [01:03:00] on this cigar tonight boys is perfect. I think it's an absolute strong, strong recommend. Obviously, it's gonna be very hard to source. If anybody out there can find it, please do and send them to us . But, uh, you know, I think, uh, uh, I what a special night. What a special cigar. And the cognac was fantastic too.
Puba perfect. I mean, what, what a revolution, what a, what a revelation, cognac has been for me. And for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, just amazing. It's awesome. All right, boys, A 9.7 for the Los Stato Deluxe Delirious from Rooster's Connoisseur Corner. And uh, we'll see you guys next week. Keep smoking. Thanks so much for joining us tonight.
Hope you enjoyed it. 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 Lounge lizards pod, p o d, that's lounge lizards pod gmail.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards [01:04:00] Pod.
We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.