Lounge Lizards - a Cigar and Lifestyle Podcast

Recorded at Ten86 Lounge in Hawthorne, New Jersey the lizards pair the La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor Robusto with Oban Distiller's Edition 2021 single malt scotch. Senator details his history with this cigar, the guys go even deeper on non-alcoholic beer pairings, and they talk about college and professional football.

Show Notes

Recorded at Ten86 Lounge in Hawthorne, New Jersey the lizards pair the La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor Robusto with Oban Distiller's Edition 2021 single malt scotch. Senator details his history with this cigar, the guys go even deeper on non-alcoholic beer pairings, and they talk about college and professional football.

Join the Lounge Lizards for a weekly discussion on all things cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban), whiskey, food, travel, life and work. This is your formal invitation to join us in a relaxing discussion amongst friends and become a card-carrying Lounge Lizard yourself. This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.

website/merch/rating archive: loungelizardspod.com
email: hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
instagram: @loungelizardspod

What is Lounge Lizards - a Cigar and Lifestyle Podcast?

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 range from 60 to 90 minutes and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.

The podcast features seven members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Grinder and Bam Bam.​

This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.

Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!

**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Liz's 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. Tonight I'm joined by Rooster Senator Pagoda and bam bam. And our plan is to focus cigar drink of scotch, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs.

So take this as your 65th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard planet. Meet us here once a week. We're gonna smoke a new world cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard Raining Senator details his history with the cigar. We go even deeper on non-alcoholic beer pairings, and we talk a little football 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 open Distillers edition 2021 with the La Aroma, Deba Mia Moore in Ribo. A new world Ra Robusto tonight from La [00:01:00] Aroma de Cuba, Mia Moore. It's a five by 50 semi box pressed, I guess. Nice looking cigar. Really nice looking cigar. Yeah.

Light rapper. Senator, you were saying that you've had these in the past than the rapper looked a lot different. The the band. Oh, the band. I thought you were saying that the rapper looked different.

**Senator:** No, no. They very recently, it seems, I think, uh, within the last several months, um, completely changed the bands to this light blue.

Yeah. With, uh, more kind of muted gold. I like the old bands much better. It just looked a lot more refined and bolder. Um,

**Gizmo:** it must be pretty recent because everywhere I see like retailers, even when I bought this from Atlantic, They, it's, they still had the old band on the photos. So like, the retailers haven't even updated them yet.

Mm. It had a lot more blue

**Rooster:** on it, yellow there. Lot of yellow, a lot more gap. Like, you know, there wasn't a lot of writing on

**Senator:** it. Yeah. It was like a, a like a [00:02:00] yellow and blue and then like a gold kind of bold gold. Not this like muted. The

**Rooster:** band is so big that you take four puffs and it's gonna like, touch the band

**Gizmo:** Right. It is big. It's like, that's ridiculous. It's almost half the cigar. Oh, the other

**Senator:** thing I'm noticing. So they made, uh, the, the Mia Moore, uh, writing on this, it's now all part of one band. There used to be a separate, smaller, thinner, second band that said Mia Moore. Mm. So there were two bands on the

**Gizmo:** old version actually.

Senator, it looks like there's two bands now. It's two bands. Oh, it is. They're just really tightly put together. They're so

**Senator:** icy. Okay. Tight. See? It

**Gizmo:** is, it is, uh, tightly put together. I'll tell you. It

**Bam Bam:** smells very nice on

**Gizmo:** the rapper. I'm interested. I've heard a lot about this. I've heard a lot about this brand.

I know. Senator, you have an interesting history we could talk about, but, um, first let's cut this thing boys. See we're getting on the cold. Draw the wrapper. So I got these like a few weeks ago. Like I told you, I had it in my tower and, uh, dry box them last night. Do you remember how much [00:03:00] they were? Um, that's a great question.

Bam. I actually have it open right here. I think they were very, very reasonably priced. I got a fiver for, I think it was 35 bucks. Really? 34 bucks. Okay. Atlantic v i p or Nicole,

**Bam Bam:** 33 95. Cold draw is nice too. Yeah, there's a sweetness on both the cold draw and the wrapper on a nose. Hmm.

**Gizmo:** There's like a weird,

**Bam Bam:** um, maybe pleasantly surprised with

**Gizmo:** this one.

It almost tastes like on the cold draw. It almost tastes like, like when you get like a fruity drink in the summer. There's like, there's like a weird, um,

**Bam Bam:** in the, in the, in the hazy plastic bottle. Yes, yes, yes. It's,

**Gizmo:** I know what you mean. It's a weird flavor, like summary drink on the cold draw. I don't know why.

Hmm. Maybe a little, almost like a coconut thing. The rappers immaculate. It's almost like, what? What's that al Not almond joy. What's the, uh, mounds? . [00:04:00] It's almost like a touch of mounds, like a little milk chocolate with a little coconut. Now you feel like a nut you. And chocolate. I am a nut. Hey, I love my chocolate.

**Senator:** Sometimes you don't. I mean, bam, bam. Commented on the wrapper. One thing that surprised me, so I used to smoke this back when I was in college. I mean, this was like your go-to under 10 bucks. Mm-hmm. very affordable. , um, a lot of flavor and, uh, at the time was, was smooth. I'm curious what these are like now, but I, I'm surprised even just looking at this and Ben was the first to comment on it.

I mean, the, the wrapper I invisible seam. I've got a, it's really nice wide open draw. I, I've never had construction issues with this

**Bam Bam:** cigar for that price. It's well made. Yeah. Looks like it's well made. I have a question. Yep. I never smoked a cigar in college other than senator. Has anyone here smoked a cigar in college?

I don't think so. No.

**Pagoda:** No. Did I? You're the only one. My first one I did have. Oh, did you?

**Gizmo:** University. Nice. All right, boys, let's like this, uh,

**Bam Bam:** long tenure boys ,

**Gizmo:** uh, [00:05:00] aroma Day, Cuba, MI Moore and Rob Buso had a few requests for this cigar that could have been a

**Pagoda:** punch from the gas station. So, ,

**Bam Bam:** I'm kidding.

**Gizmo:** Hey, again, it's, when you're young, you're broke.

50 ring gauge by five inch robo. See how much time we get out of this tonight? I'm guessing

**Bam Bam:** 45 minutes.

**Pagoda:** Fortunately, I'm a slow smoker, so I might just lost. You've changed,

**Bam Bam:** you've changed

**Gizmo:** Hmm. Interesting. On the

**Bam Bam:** light. Um, mild to medium initially. Mm-hmm. nice though.

**Gizmo:** There's a lot of flavor there. Mm-hmm. , can you hear the lighter? Yes. Because you're using like a creme le lighter. Yeah. Jesus Christ. I mean, what, what are you doing over there? I love it. toasting some brown sugar on a. I Nice dessert.

You should all,

**Pagoda:** all my lighters are breaking down. I think I have like [00:06:00] seven lying in. None of them are, I'll tell you

**Gizmo:** something, dude. I think that's a theme I wanna talk about my, that's funny you say that. I know you know that I'm upset, but they, uh, well, you guys have the wrong DuPonts, but DuPont is, we'll talk about that in a little while, but you should never light a

**Bam Bam:** Cuban with that torch, dude.

That's all I like. It'll, it'll inflame the whole fucking cigar .

**Pagoda:** I like it. Toasty .

**Gizmo:** So these come in boxes of 25. The rapper is Mexican son Andre's broadleaf. And the, uh, binder and filler are Nicaraguan made, uh, made by the Garcia family, blended by Don Pepin Garcia, uh, in Nicaragua. The, I guess the brand has an interesting story.

Long, long time ago in a Cuba far away. It was, uh, one of Winston Churchill's favorite brands. And then the Peppin family brought it back in the early two thousands, uh, outta Nicaragua. Yeah, I've been smoking this for a while. I, yeah, that's So you, so you were telling, telling us that [00:07:00] you've, you were, this is one of your kind of pre-pa drone go-tos.

This was

**Senator:** literally the first cigar that I smoked all the time, and that got me into cigars. He was

**Bam Bam:** five years old. , .

**Senator:** I can only wish that for my son, . There you go. Uh, but, uh, when I was in college, uh, there's, um, it was this great tobacco shop, um, not far from campus. And, uh, they, they had these in stock. Um, I was just really surprised.

I mean, it's, it's. I think this, this is a bit milder than I remember this cigar. I feel like years ago, this was on the light, fuller in flavor, but I just remember it being really flavorful, being earthy with a bit of cocoa, little bit of barnyard, um, but delivering it very smoothly. And I like this little soft box press that it has.

And I honestly, I think this cigar is, it was kind of the precursor for me to patron drone, where once I had a patron, I said, oh my gosh, look at this box, press same flavor, similar flavor notes, [00:08:00] but on steroids more. Um, so smooth. So, um, this cigar, I think really shaped kind of my new world palette, what I look for.

Um, and I'm, I'm interested, I mean, it's been a while since I've had one of these, what this is like now.

**Gizmo:** So when you first started telling us that story, to the end of you telling us that story, I probably drew on the cigar three times. And in those three draws mm-hmm. , it went from like, Little to medium to tip of your tongue tingly type of fool.

I'm expecting this. Yeah. It's to really pick up as we go through this journey.

**Bam Bam:** I'm also realizing this has to be smoked slowly because it'll hit you, I think. Absolutely.

**Senator:** Yeah. It'll, it'll hit you in flavor, but I, I promise you it's not gonna kick you round in strength. Okay. Um, I mean, I say that as in, you know, I, I was early in my smoking journey at that point, and I would have these every day.

Literally, I'd sit on the porch of my fraternity, um, my fraternity house and, and smoke these all the time and got a bunch of the guys into them. Um, , but, uh, it, it's, it's, it's patron drone, like in that full [00:09:00] flavor, but it's not gonna kick you around in any way. It is definitely full flavor and yeah, it's picking up, this is now what I remember of it.

And, uh, we're only in a quarter inch . Yeah. And I like the combustion on this. I mean, I, I feel like I can see in the room good smoke output. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and the construction

**Gizmo:** I, I think, speaks for itself. You know, the other thing I like about this story versus some of the other, uh, let's call 'em Cuban brands that have been poured to new world manufacturers, Cohiba, Portus, you know, Monte Cristo, of course, all the major Cuban brands now have a new world counterpart.

Maiden either d, Dominican or, or, uh, Nicaragua. What I like about what this family did, or I think it's owned by the Ashtons, actually, I think this is part of the Ashtons cigar family. Mm-hmm. Um, what I like is they chose a brand that. exist anymore in Cuba. This was canceled before the sixties, I think. Well before the revolution.

This brand was, so they revived a brand, but they don't create market confusion with the cigar because you can't get a Cuban version of this. Nope. And you're talking there are probably [00:10:00] hundreds of different, uh, markers that were canceled by Cuba. Hmm. But, you know, certainly General Cigar and some of those other folks try to take advantage of Yeah.

The brand names and create a little bit of confusion. But I like that this isn't, uh, isn't trying to do that. Yeah.

**Bam Bam:** So the notes you mentioned earlier are pretty accurate. Uh, probably a little less barnyard for me. Cocoa's accurate. But this, it's pretty sweet. Yeah. I'm getting that. Yeah. So a little bit of fruit, if that's accurate.

I got leather. Yeah. Yeah. There's a little leathery. Coffee, cocoa. All works. Leather. Yeah, definitely cocoa. Yep. All these things we actually say about Pedro Drones,

**Gizmo:** right? Yeah. This, this to me is, this to me is what, what I would call. as of right this moment. We're, uh, what, a quarter of an inch in where it, to me, this is stock Nicaraguan tobacco.

I think that's very accurate. It's stock, Nicaraguan tobacco. And you put, put good Nicaraguan. It's not bad. No. When I say stock, it's just, it's hitting all the flavor notes of what the flavor notes

**Senator:** expect. And the similarity to [00:11:00] Pedro. Yes. Like to me this is like the poor man's petron in that it's, it's like so affordable.

Mm-hmm. , but you get some of the similar flavor notes is just how smooth it delivers it. Yeah. Because at that point I started smoking this, that was so early in my cigar journey, you know, at that point I couldn't light up a petron 90th. I mean, I, I'd be on my ass at smoking a cigar like that. I still kind of am

Right, exactly. And so it's like the fact that I could smoke this every single day and feel good, I didn't even need to eat a lot, a big meal before having this. Um, that's where I, I give this a lot of credit for that amount of flavor and all these notes we're calling out for a cigar that's under $10.

It's smooth. It doesn't kick you around

**Bam Bam:** at all. Yeah. I am getting a minerally finished though, that I'm. I don't hate, but like front of your

**Gizmo:** tongue. Minerally. What? In the back?

**Senator:** Back. Okay. I am too, but I'm getting a saltiness.

**Bam Bam:** It's salt. Yes. Salty and a little minerally metal. Metallic a bit. Not loving

**Gizmo:** that.

Oh yeah. I'm feeling that it's not bad. Yeah.

**Rooster:** What's amazing to me is that this

**Gizmo:** is a like a seven bucks. $7 cigar. Yeah. No [00:12:00] draw issues. None. Perfect construction. Perfect construction.

**Rooster:** Well, if you're having a Cuban cigar, like maybe 2, 3, 4 times as much. Oh yeah. In the back of my mind I'm like, I hope this

**Gizmo:** cigar draws well, Yeah.

You're, you're almost doing it.

**Rooster:** And you almost never have to worry about with a new world stick that it's true. 99% it's gonna perform well, except for the, it's not gonna be an issue.

**Gizmo:** Millennium Toro, this, uh, that's a great point, rooster. I mean, you think about for $7, I mean, this is a real, real value stick.

Even if it performs, you know, if, if it ends up who knows what the rating's gonna end up. But even if it's not a great rating for $7, I mean, . I mean, this is a great value as of right now. Yeah. Velvet is question about

**Senator:** it. I'm just amazed all these years later. You know, it's so fun when you think of cigars you've had so long ago, back when you knew not a whole lot about cigars.

Um, I'm just amazed as I'm smoking this, I I have not, you know, I don't have any major complaints about this cigar. I'm not smoking this thing. It's too mild, it's [00:13:00] too hard. No, it's too this. There, there are things that even now as my pallet's gotten a lot more refined than it certainly was then there are still things I enjoy about this cigar.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah. And I will say, I'm not sure what the band looked like, but this is a beautifully designed band. I think it still

**Senator:** is pretty

**Gizmo:** cool. It's nice. It's definitely, it's ornate, it know it's unique. It's eye catching. It's classic. Yeah. Cle ornate, classic old Cuban type of band. Look at you with a

**Bam Bam:** design vocab.

**Gizmo:** My man. What, what did I say that was, uh, ornate. Oh, ornate . That's

**Bam Bam:** a fancy word for gizmo.

**Gizmo:** for giz.

I'm enjoying smoking this slowly. Which I'm surprised to say. Yeah.

**Senator:** Well, that's the thing. I heard you guys saying you think this is gonna go in 45 minutes? This cigar can easily last an

**Gizmo:** hour. Yeah, and I'm, I'm feeling like if when I take less straws, I feel like I'm enjoying it more. . [00:14:00] I'm enjoying it more.

Yeah. Yeah. The

**Pagoda:** San Andres rapper typically has US qualities. Right. It's like cocoa. A bit of earthiness and Yeah. You always

**Gizmo:** get sweet. What other cigars have we done that had the son Andres rapper? Some of the tattoo eyes have that True. Ava. Okay. Is that right? Does the, um, does the elsinor or is that, uh, Nicaraguan?

Pirro? That's a good question. From from EP Carillo, I, I have, for some reason, I'm feeling like that may have a Mexican bo uh, wrapper on it, but I gotta tell you, I revisited that last night. Yeah. I wanna ask, does, how does it compare to this?

**Bam Bam:** It's much better

**Gizmo:** than this. Okay. It's delicious. Yeah. Right off the bat.

It's funny, I have a box at home. I haven't opened it in a while. I should pull one out. Yeah.

**Senator:** Good memory. Gizz Mexican San Andreas rapper. Oh, look at that boys. Look at you. Come on. But it's good that you call this out. I mean, honestly, I didn't piece all this together. It's clear. We like a Mexican San Andreas rapper.

Yeah. With, with

**Gizmo:** Nicaraguan. Filler. Filler. Mm-hmm. . ,

**Pagoda:** all the flavors are somewhat similar to Patron too. They [00:15:00] are Patronas.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. To me, this is, this is definitely something if you're wanting to reach for a cigar, you a patron, you don't wanna spend 15 bucks. You don't know if you're gonna have the time for a patron.

I mean, this is perfect in that

**Rooster:** situation. Yeah. It, it's not quite as smooth and balanced like a Padron. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. But it has similar notes. Yes. Yeah. Um, I think in Padron you get a little bit more of a cocoa blast or,

**Gizmo:** you know, coffee that, that's more, I think a little more concentrated. Yeah. Yeah. I think Patron is just more refined than this is.

Yeah. This is a little hundred percent little, and of course, I mean, of course Padron, you're getting a, a, a four year age thick, right? Yeah. Out of the box. I don't know what the, they, they don't have an age statement on this, but you know, this. It's not performing like you, you're not getting that mustiness of, uh, of a bit of aged tobacco.

Yeah. You know, that you get out of a, an, an aged Nicaragua. The ash is beautiful. Yeah. Perfect.

**Bam Bam:** That's one thing. I know you hate this, but we're stacking dimes here.

**Gizmo:** [00:16:00] stacking dimes on our sticks. I would, I would

**Rooster:** be, I would be curious, like buying boxes of, you know, cigars like this and letting them sit for like five years, seven years. Wow. Like you do that with Cuban cigars, but this cigar. It's, it'll be a whole like totally

**Gizmo:** remember different cigar. Yes.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Don't forget what he did with the 80th

**Senator:** patrons.

Yeah. So I will say this. I did that, but that's already a

**Rooster:** great cigar. Oh sure. So this has

**Gizmo:** some enhance little bit of though. Yeah. Can it go from good to great is the

**Senator:** question. The answer is, I did. The answer is it does. So I did this inadvertently with this exact stick I found in my tower. I had a box that I had just random loose sticks from years ago that I just must have stuffed into a box that I don't, didn't smoke all that often anymore.

And I found two Aroma de Cuba, Mia Moores. This is like maybe two years ago. I had sent you guys a photo one of these nights, but this is going back a couple years. Um, and I smoked them, um, at my. and I was [00:17:00] very surprised the flavor was more concentrated. So I think we were talking about how this is not as concentrated as a petron, which has the, you know, four years at least of age.

Um, very smooth. I think any rough edges got smoothed out. So I think this does definitely benefit from age. Mm-hmm. . But I mean, the fact that GIZ just ordered these Yeah. I, you know, for seven bucks, I, I, I, I'm satisfied.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. And clearly this is new stock. This is not new old stock because just based on the change of the bands alone.

Yep. You know, that this is a newer production of, of these cigars. Can, can everyone just.

**Bam Bam:** Like the ar go like this Aroma. Yeah, the aroma.

**Gizmo:** It's awful. Are you saying the aroma? Uh, day aroma. La aroma. You're what? You're killing. You're

**Bam Bam:** Cuba.

**Gizmo:** my love. You're bamba. My wings . Bam bam.

**Pagoda:** Mia Moore. Did you say Cuba? Did you

**Bam Bam:** say Puba Pub's the now, isn't it?

Isn't it delicious? It's, it's

**Senator:** actually

**Gizmo:** really, it's really nice with the burn wine. Yeah, it's

**Bam Bam:** heavily really nice and you're gonna [00:18:00] laugh, but I am getting just a tiny bit of citrus there. It is a tiny bit. Hey,

**Gizmo:** given the people

**Bam Bam:** what they want, I'm not joking. This is really unique Smoke.

**Senator:** I'm gonna say now that he said that it at the burn line, I don't get it when you draw, but if you really just hold this and just smell at the burn line, just keep it there for you.

You actually get

**Gizmo:** a little citrus, you get like that acidic tickle in your nose, like when you're, there's not a single

**Rooster:** cigar Bam. Smokes that. It doesn't get citrus

**Senator:** smokes out of

**Bam Bam:** absolutely untrue

**Gizmo:** and funny notes and funny notes. , I, uh, I'm finding, you know, we talk about this, sometimes it happens with cigars.

It ha it doesn't, but sometimes it doesn't. But I'm finding that I'm kind of getting that relaxed, it's starting to check the boxes for me kind of thing. Yeah. It's like I'm feeling very, I'm sitting lower in my chair. I'm, it's settling in the

**Bam Bam:** cigar.

**Senator:** Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you said the relaxed piece because this also, not just as a daily driver, but [00:19:00] anytime in college there was a football game and we won.

This was like the victory smoke that I would light up with my friends and it just, it always, you never had to worry about the draw. The burn. I'm amazed all these years later. I mean, it's still, if you look at everyone's stick, it's razor sharp. Look at that dude. White ash. Yeah, it's perfect.

**Bam Bam:** It's perfect.

It is. Now, speaking of football and cigars, Joey b what did he

**Gizmo:** smoke? Do we know some kind of cohiba? I I mean, to me it's one of three options. It looked like it was a tallest tallman tallman. Is that right? I think the box gave it away and there were additional

**Rooster:** photos. There was another photo from a different angle, and it's a palace, but you see the little

**Bam Bam:** band underneath?

**Senator:** Is that an LCD H or No, that's what I thought.

**Gizmo:** It's

**Rooster:** not, so that's the secondary band is not an lcd H

**Gizmo:** it's in a el It's, it's an, I see. Oh, some folks were saying that it could have been the new released Nova Doso, but yeah, they haven't been released yet. So if you see a Nova Doso right now, so it's interesting, when he won

**Bam Bam:** that fake national college football championship, what did he smoke?

Like a $4 cigar, something really shitty. And now he's got like [00:20:00] $110 cigar in his mouth now, isn't it? At least e

**Senator:** Even last year when he won the AFC Championship, um, or sorry, the, uh, the division, uh, whatever he smoked was something awful. So he, he, he's kind of, he's been on the, the gizmo journey. Yeah. Maybe he,

**Gizmo:** he grew very quick

He, he listened to several

**Bam Bam:** pods. I was about to say, he must have heard a lizard.

**Gizmo:** Joey, like me is a cohiba slut. Now full on. But that's for a, uh, that's for a Cuban podcast down the road. Yeah. This is really delicious, man. Yep. For seven bucks. I mean, you have to, we argue about that sometimes. You gotta factor that, in my opinion.

It it, you have to, but for

**Bam Bam:** cigar that, that's cheap. That improves as you smoke it. That's unusual. Yeah. It's getting better. Are

**Rooster:** you getting the aroma of Cuba ?

**Gizmo:** In fact, I'm not. No. It's getting the

**Senator:** aroma of citrus .

**Gizmo:** No. Ar

**Pagoda:** My love

**Senator:** rooster's. Ready to go to Cuba. .

**Gizmo:** I'm ready. [00:21:00] Oh, boy. All right boys, let's talk about our pairing tonight. Yes. So this is a unique open. What is it? Distiller something? Distiller's. Distiller's edition. Distiller's Edition. It was bottled,

**Bam Bam:** it was distilled in oh seven Yep. 2007 and bottled in 2021.

**Gizmo:** So it's a 14 year aged single malt scotch.

Hmm. And, uh, I've never had this. No, I'm I, I'm gonna try it right now. Do we know anything about it? The,

**Senator:** the only thing I've, I've tried to figure out, I feel like every time I'm in an airport, um, at a duty free, especially in Europe, I'll see these distillers additions from a number of, like the big brands that we, we drink a lot of scotch from.

And I never know what that means. I assume it's some airport bullshit marketing gimmick, but apparently, at least what I've discovered, there are seven distilleries that participate every year in putting out a distiller's edition release. Um, and they're, they're big names stuff we drink. It's [00:22:00] Ker Oen Lagavulin, Glen Kinsey, which I've never had.

Um, Craigen Moore. Cow, ILA a Grindr favorite and uh, Craig and more. Hmm. So it, for me, it gives it some more legitimacy that it seems like this is something coordinated Sure. That seven of the distilleries do. It's not just like, yeah, here's our airport edition for you to buy. That's not gonna be that great

**Bam Bam:** Um, I would like to know how much this bottle was, cuz that's gonna have a skew for my reading. I don't know. I

**Pagoda:** thought I paid very little for this. Can we find out? online. I think the price is, uh, scary. How

**Gizmo:** much, let's say is scary? Let's hear it. How much? 180? No, no. Not

**Pagoda:** the please. Okay. . I, I, I honestly thought I paid like forties or fifties for it, that's all.

Yeah. And I, impossible. No way. But in my, yeah. For some reason it's like 120 bucks or something one time. No,

**Senator:** no. Keep in mind, uh, pagoda, you bought this years ago, right? About a year and a half ago. Okay. Let's think about how, or maybe a year ago [00:23:00] how scotch prices have all gone up. Um, so you probably got it maybe under a hundred.

Now it's over a hundred. Yeah. Possible. Okay. Just even their 14 year went up, right? You used to be able to get that for 70, 80 bucks. Now it's going for 90 bucks to bottle. Yeah. So to me it kind of makes sense that if that's 90 now a bottle, that this would be, you know, 1, 1 15, somewhere a little higher.

**Gizmo:** It's very delicious. Uh, I don't, I don't know if I'd say it's worth any, a penny more than normal OB 14. . It's very flavorful, but it's delicious. But it's, to me, it's the same. It doesn't

**Pagoda:** feel very, uh, it feels very light bodied.

**Senator:** Mm-hmm. . Well, that's the thing. I, I feel it's lighter than open 14, which is not what I was expecting for some reason.

Just this whole, you know, it was distilled in this year, a bottle in this year, and there's a significant time period seems from when it was distilled and we were looking at it even in the bottle, uh, before, before we hit record. And, uh, it just looked like it was gonna be a robust rich, yeah, rich, flavorful.

And I feel like this is definitely lighter than open 14. [00:24:00] No, it looked

**Pagoda:** beautiful because I, I think the color is a little darker and it's, I will, I like

**Bam Bam:** the bottle. The bottle's great. It's tasty, I will say, but it's nice. Every sip. Honestly, I do get a bit of a bite in the middle of the tongue. I'll

**Gizmo:** be honest though.

There's bite there. If I was sipping this at. . I think I'd like that. Maybe I'd want something smoother, but with the cigar, I always go for something. I like something that has a little bit more of a, an edge to it with a cigar. So for me, per, I've always trended that way. Yeah. Even on the podcast.

Understandable.

**Bam Bam:** But the bite, I mean, it's not a tremendous bite, but what that glass does have, I'd want a bit of a stronger cigar. Mm-hmm. Just a bit like a patron. EXI would be great with this guy. Yeah.

**Senator:** I mean, I, I think to, to BA's point open 14, which we like, we've reviewed. I don't think

**Gizmo:** we did review that, by the way.

Oh, really? What's funny, I'm, I'm sitting over here drinking. I'm losing my mind. I don't even think we drank it on the pod because Oh, we did, but we never rated it. We did. I'm looking at the list is early on we did, it must have been episode [00:25:00] one.

**Senator:** May have been, it's one of

**Gizmo:** the early ones. Very early. I don't know when we did it, but the only rating that I have is the open little.

**Senator:** We did because we told the story of Bam and I putting down an entire bottle between the two of us. , I remember at my lounge within 45 minutes. Yeah. I mean, but that's why I was gonna bring that up because that is so flavorful, but so smooth, smooth, smooth. That's how, I mean, we didn't even realize how much of that we were consuming cuz it was just going down so easy.

Easily can't, you can't do that with this. You can't. Yeah. Yeah.

**Pagoda:** But if you sip this a bit slow and just leave it in your, you know, in your mouth and let it, uh, it, it's pretty flavorful, I must

**Gizmo:** say. And I think it's dancing perfectly with the cigar. With the cigar. I'm enjoying

**Pagoda:** it with the

**Gizmo:** cigar. Yeah. I think it works.

It's a nice match. And again, for someone you know, you know, have a nice bottle of scotch at home, whatever it may be, you pull out a $7 cigar, you can have a phenomenal experience. You don't need to, you know, you don't need to buy a really expensive cigar or something Right. To pair with. You know, it, it doesn't need to be [00:26:00] crazy.

And you know, we had a listener. Somebody gave us a rating on iTunes that they love the podcast. It's a five, but we don't do enough What? Cheap yard cigars. So they gave us a three. Remember that. Oh, brother. Well this is just for them. Yeah. And, and this is something where it's like we're not even doing it intentionally.

We just have a list of stuff that's been recommended to us that we want to try. We're, we're on a strike streak of cheap cigars right now. Hundred percent. I

**Senator:** mean, we were just talking about the El Santa AOR we love so much. What about the Piron 2000? That's also a seven, $8

**Gizmo:** cigar. Yeah, dude. And how about the, my father Lance Sarah, we just did, right?

Yeah. And the Piron 2000. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've done a

**Rooster:** bunch. We did the tattoo

**Gizmo:** casados. That's right.

**Bam Bam:** Oh, that's a

**Gizmo:** awesome little guy. We did that. We did the short story. Yeah. Did a whole bunch. We've done a lot of 'em. But you know, this is perfectly in line with that. Like this, this really works for someone who wants a, a medium full to full experience for under 10 bucks.

Yeah.

**Senator:** And I've recommended this countless times to newer smokers who are. Looking for something [00:27:00] with flavor, but that's not gonna kick them around. And I've yet to have someone come to me and say, oh, you know, that that was just too aggressive for me. Most like it. And I, I mean, it was for me, and I think it is for others, it's like a gateway to, in some of the others, it's a great

**Bam Bam:** informal description of the cigar.

Yeah. Full flavored, but not gonna kick you around. It's perfect.

**Gizmo:** The other thing I wanna say too is, you know, we talk often, like if you're in another city, you're traveling or something, you go into a humid. , they may not have Petron or Davidov cuz their requirements to get those brands in a, b and m are through the roof.

This is a brand that I would expect to see in almost every b and m because it's, it's almost so accessible.

**Bam Bam:** It's good to have a plan B and C. Yeah. When you're looking for cigars. Especially when you travel. Yeah, it's

**Gizmo:** a good point. Yeah. Cuz even EP Carillo, that's kind of a boutique, your brand. I think maybe now after being Cigar of the Year, I think now they're getting all, they're all over the place.

Mainstream. You know, this is certainly something kind of like the, my father that, or the Ava V that we had success with. Mm-hmm. , you know, that's a cigar you're gonna see in 90% of humidor. Yeah. [00:28:00] That's everywhere. I mean, who's not gonna have that.

**Rooster:** Yeah. And this, this cigar was rated

**Gizmo:** pretty high by ca, is that right?

Number two, 2009.

**Rooster:** It was a number two this and then 2016. Wow. 2016 again they rated it, I think it was a number nine. That's amazing. So it's made it in the top 25 couple times

**Gizmo:** it's gotten in the top 25. It was in the top 25 and 1119 and 2016. . It got a 95 rating in January, 2012. And that same year, it was the number two cigar the year.

Wow. I thought it was 2009.

**Pagoda:** Mm-hmm. , I think it was, uh, manufactured in 2009. Not Manufac. .

**Gizmo:** What? Released. Released, yeah. Yeah. 2012. It was the number two cigar the year. Yeah.

**Senator:** I'll say, I mean, it, it, it may or may not sound crazy, but yeah, 20, um, having had this before that and during that time period, um, it was even better than, this is not taking anything away from this.

I'm [00:29:00] pleasantly surprised this is still a good smoke for the price point. Um, but I think the flavors then were a bit more concentrated, so, um, you'd be shocked. I, I think it, it was deserving of a 90 something. I'm not sure it needed a, how high did you say? 90? 95. I'm not sure. It's a 95 point cigar, but 90 then it was a 90 at most, 92, which is a, a great score.

Yeah. How much were you

**Pagoda:** paying then? Was

**Senator:** it seven? At a, at a b and m that was honestly overpriced outside of campus. When I was in college, I was paying nine, 10 bucks. But you could buy them when I would buy them elsewhere. I can get 'em for, I mean, amazingly what you're paying now, like really? Yeah. Like seven bucks.

That's crazy. I'm saying it's crazy all this time. It's still basically the

**Pagoda:** same. No increase. Talk about deflation.

Yeah. Considering all the prices of cigars are just shooting through the roof.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. To still be able to get a, a cigar that we have this experience right now for under 10 bucks. I mean, it's awesome. I mean, that's shocking to me. Yep. And we've, like I just said, we just did this. The, my [00:30:00] father was under 10 bucks.

That land, Sarah, we loved. That was stellar. I bought a box of that as soon as we walked out of the podcast. Uh, actually I think, actually wait, I bought

**Senator:** four. We all bought 'em. I think everyone's sitting here. Got a box. Yeah. Yep, that's right. Cause I got one. You got four I think for the rest of the guys.

Yep.

**Gizmo:** Yep, yep, yep. And, and Rooster already had one. Crazy. It is an easy

**Pagoda:** smoke. Very easy smoke.

**Gizmo:** It's a beautiful cigar. Yeah. Well rolled. Yeah. I love cigars with pigtails for some reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't

**Senator:** know what It's always comments on that . They're uh, be like, I tried this great cigar. It's, it's got a pigtail.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's

**Gizmo:** fancy. Little fancy. You know why?

**Rooster:** Because the pigtail, you don't need a cutter. You can just Enough pinch it. Twist, yeah. Pinch it off. And

**Gizmo:** you know which of the

**Pagoda:** cigar has a pigtail?

**Bam Bam:** No papa's frias. Yeah, it does. That's so good. That's another, I

**Gizmo:** thought he was gonna tell a dad joke.

**Bam Bam:** another great cheap backyard cigar, which is

**Gizmo:** Fri ci.

Oh yeah.

**Bam Bam:** That's got a lot of flavor. [00:31:00] Truly delicious. Bucks of fa. Truly delicious.

**Gizmo:** So we were talking about lighters before. I gotta vent some frustration here. Yeah. So we all have these really nice St. DuPont lighters. I don't know, what do they know? 215 bucks? Some have the

**Bam Bam:** smarter

**Gizmo:** ones, but. I, so I think Senator and I, uh, have the same exact lighter, what is it called?

The D Defy Extreme. Streety Extreme? Yeah. The Defy Extreme or something. My lighter outta nowhere. It sits in my solo. That's all it, it lives there. It doesn't come out except for when I'm smoking. Never. I don't drop it. I don't throw it. And all of a sudden it just stops lighting. Right. Fine. So it's broken.

I have emailed them twice. I have Facebook messaged them. No replies at all. Like the service is very disappointing. Yeah. And you bought it online? Yeah, I bought it from Atlantic. Ah, okay.

**Pagoda:** Even they're not expecting the lighter to break down. Come on, .

**Gizmo:** I mean, [00:32:00] it's over a year, so I can't really, I'm not gonna go to Atlantic.

you know, expect them to help me. But Est St. Dubon certainly should, even if I have to pay for it.

**Senator:** Just like, I mean, the bottom line company that sells lighters that start at like $200, this is like a luxury. It truly is. Cigar accessories company. There's no reason that you shouldn't get a response. Agreed.

**Rooster:** None. So I wonder if you call Atlantic and tell 'em, like, can you guys send us out for service?

**Gizmo:** Yeah, yeah. Maybe I will do that. Yeah.

**Senator:** Atlantic, I mean, their, their customer service is amazing. I'm sure they, they'd at least be able to point

**Gizmo:** you in the right direction. Yeah, maybe. I will try that. Very frustrated.

I, you know, I'm borrowing one of Rooster's lighters. I just am using my Amazon lighters, you know, what about the double flame? The, I have soft, I've been using it. Yeah. The only problem with that Amazon lighter is I, I'm with that. Amazon lidar, as I said, is, it just doesn't have a big tank. Ah. So you kind of, you know, if you're sitting in a lounge, you have a couple cigars, like you burn through the gas and that kind of kind one sitting, you know?

Yep. So,

**Pagoda:** and you can always borrow this

**Bam Bam:** one. Yeah. The fireplace. I'm gonna borrow that one. I'm making

**Gizmo:** dessert

**Bam Bam:** for [00:33:00] everyone. The blow torch.

**Pagoda:** You know, it's a Rocky Patel, just a five .

**Gizmo:** I'm surprised you brought that in this morning. Oh

**Senator:** my God. He, he's not joking. . He's not joking. It really says .

**Gizmo:** This is really good, guys.

**Bam Bam:** I'm beyond the halfway point and Yeah, you're blowing through it. Why? You're a really, you know why? It's just getting, it's getting really good and I'm liking it. It's, it's, it's ridiculous, but it's improving. It's just getting better and better. It's tasty for me. It's very smooth. Maybe in the first half inch I had a, a tad of, of a bite and then that minerally thing at the, but not anymore.

It's really, really good. That's a good smoke. I gotta

**Pagoda:** slow down. Yes. Patience, my boy. Yes, sir. Patience. Yes, sir.

**Rooster:** So I'm actually having enjoying this non-alcoholic stellar given to me by Senator, by the way, Senator, which I've never had before. I mean, this is

**Gizmo:** delicious. Can I ask a question? We're rocking the open and I see you have a side cart of.[00:34:00]

Esther non-alcoholic beer esia, which is fine. Which I got from Rooster. I think it's adorable that you guys did a little, uh, they're bonding. Yeah, we got a little thingo here.

**Senator:** Little, little little swap. It's in it's invite. Only little .

**Gizmo:** You got a little non-alcoholic beer swap swee going over. So what, what is going on here that we're so doing a little sidecar

**Senator:** with a, with a o'clock.

It's, it's a month of January. A lot of people do dry January. Normally I attempt to do this full scale like no alcohol in the month of January, which is how it is designed, and I fail every single time. Oh, we, I, we've even joked about this probably last January, uh, ear earlier, uh, last. where I'll last like maybe a week without drinking, and then next thing you know, it's the complete opposite.

So this time I've gotten more realistic and I've said I'm gonna need one, something to supplement when I actually want a beer or something to drink. So, you know, rooster and I, I feel [00:35:00] bad now because I've, I've tried these, these are actually, some of these are very good. I've kind of, you know, I've always been skeptical.

Rooster has these non-alcoholic beers. I'm like, how, how, how close to the real thing can they be now? To his credit, I remember when he had us try Guinness Zero. It's truly indistinguishable. Delicious. Like, if you blind put those next to us, Guinness with alcohol and Guinness, zero, I would bet anything that most of us can't pick out.

Mm-hmm. , which is which. Um, so I've just started experimenting. I went to a local liquor store, just bought a whole bunch of stuff. Uh, athletic brewing company has a whole bunch of different kinds, some IPAs that I honestly, I think some are really hard to figure out that they're non-alcoholic. Wow. Um, I found some non, uh, non-alcoholic Stella, like Stella.

Rooster just gave me this, um, uh, astria Galicia, which is actually very good. It's very creamy. Um, Becks, I think he had you guys review on the pod. Yeah, we did that on the pod when you were out, and I've tried that. That's great. So, um, there's a lot of merit, I think, to, uh, rooster's, uh, uh, uh, enjoyment of non-alcoholic [00:36:00] beer and, uh, it's helped me, um, not make January completely dry , but not make January as wet as it, as it usually is.

So it's, it's been

**Gizmo:** good. I mean, there's some companies

**Rooster:** that are only making non-alcoholic beers. Yeah, that's all

**Gizmo:** they do.

**Bam Bam:** I'd like to try it. I'm sitting at my desk working. I haven't done that yet cuz you know, I don't want to drink and work. Right. But this is a great

**Senator:** alternative. The other thing I just wanna say real quick, you know a lot of guys also when they're doing this whole dry January, I actually, this is perfect.

Cause I feel like last January we probably had this conversation with giz. I was gonna say a lot of guys try to also eat healthy after the new year. I think we had the whole eat clean bro conversation that started later. Okay. Later . But a lot of guys in January, cuz we even have someone at our, our, uh, clubhouse, uh, 10 86 where we record, who was just telling me, oh, in January I started eat clean bro.

And, and they're trying to, you know, cut calories, all that stuff. I couldn't believe some of these non-alcoholic beers. I picked up this athletic brewing company I p a without even knowing. I just happen to look on the can. Very low. There's 45 calories [00:37:00] in the whole

**Gizmo:** thing. That is awesome. That's pretty damn good.

Very good. It's like a light.

**Senator:** It's less than a, like less a light beer is usually just under a hundred hundred. It's an ipa.

**Bam Bam:** It's an ipa. I gotta try

**Senator:** that. It's unbelievable. That's my, it's my whole hold bunch. Hold bunch. Love Ipap. Any IPA is gonna range from bare minimum 160, I can't even say 150 to 250 calories.

Yep. Yep. 45 calories in a can't. I mean, it's crazy. So, wow. That's cool. Even for guys who are just trying to like cut calories, lose, drop a little weight after the new year. I think some of these non-alcoholic beers are great ways to be able to still enjoy some of the flavor that you like and, and that taste without all

the

**Gizmo:** calories.

And we, we had that discussion when we did the, when we did the non-alcoholic brew, like to me, like I ha I bought, uh, some of the Guinness non-alcoholic, I bought a four pack and I just have it in my fridge. So like, like bam said, when I'm having a lunch or so, and I just want to have a beer. If I have some grilled chicken or something and I just want to have a beer, but I don't want to have a beer.

Yeah. I grab one of those. Guinness, I, it's like, you don't even know the difference. It tastes exactly the same. [00:38:00] Honestly, if you're at the, it's crisp and refreshing, it's

**Bam Bam:** great. Awesome. If you're at the computer, I'm, I'm gonna do that tomorrow.

**Pagoda:** I'm, I'm sorry. Contribute to this conversation.

**Gizmo:** So here's my question for you.

Uh, Senator, are you gonna continue this

**Senator:** ongoing? Yeah. I'll be honest. I actually think I am because there are a lot of times where I'm craving a drink or even several drinks, and I, I've got an early morning or something and I, I just don't wanna wake up and feel shitty. Mm-hmm. , I, especially with the baby love, especially with the baby, the baby's getting up earlier now.

It's just so nice to be able to enjoy the same flavor. It kind of just cuz your, your, your mind is programmed as soon as you, you have that flavor. It's like puts me in relaxation mode and then I feel wonderful in the morning. So for me there's gonna be utility in this year round. Yeah. Hmm,

**Gizmo:** hmm.

**Rooster:** So what other months, like January Dry January, there's November, right?

**Gizmo:** What's that? What's November? Don't shave or something. Oh, the mustache. [00:39:00] No shave November. No shave. . .

**Rooster:** Is there any other months that people do stuff? That's

**Gizmo:** weird. Not that I know of. I feel like, to me, like what senator just said, I, I feel like the flavor and quality of the non-alcoholic brews that are coming out is kind of opening the floodgates a little bit where guys aren't feeling that there's sacrificing by going to an non-alcoholic beer, which I think in the past I certainly would've felt that that was the case.

Yeah. But given what we've tasted and even what I haven't you guys have had, it seems like flavor is. Kind of the, it's, there's parody there. Yeah. Not an issue. And, and you're not waking up groggy, you're not going through your day, you know, tuned up at going back to work after a, a work lunch or something.

Yeah. Like, that's great. And I think

**Senator:** we've had listeners write us asking about non-alcoholic pairings, and we've usually taken that in down the route of coffee and, you know, whatever else we'd like to, to pair, you know, Selzer obviously gizmo. Yeah. I drink a water. Um, but I, I think, you [00:40:00] know, there's non-alcoholic beer that's actually perfect for a lot of those listeners that, you know, either don't drink or mm-hmm.

are looking to cut down on drinking or whatever the case may be. That honestly are, are really, really satisfying. Yeah. Especially in the midday, I mean, I said to my wife when I started drinking some of this stuff, Prior without this, I, I, you know, I, I always joked if, if men had to get pregnant, like the, the no drinking for nine months, I would not survive it.

Just human race would've been eliminated. Eliminated. Just done. Um, but now with these non-alcoholic beers, I'm like, okay, yeah, I, I actually, I'd have a fighting chance of surviving now. Mm-hmm. , like the, the experience is so satisfying. You don't miss alcohol in the same way that you did when Odus was the only option you had.

**Rooster:** Exactly. I'm not gonna drink that. Exactly. That wasn't not too long ago.

**Bam Bam:** Right. Yeah. I think, um, our banker listeners may have tuned out . They're used to that liquid lunch.

**Gizmo:** Yes. . Well, you know, like I, I like a liquid lunch in that I like when I have a, uh, salad with some salmon or something. I like to have a beer because I just like the flavor of the bubbly, crisp, cold drink.

But, [00:41:00] Then I go back to my desk, you know, go back to the office, go back to my desk, and I'm like, you know, I probably shouldn't have had the beer not as sharp as I was. You know, you're a lightweight

but you know, it's like, it, it says the banker in the bank. I know, I know. But, you know, it like opens it up. I think that you, that you're not making any sacrifices, isn't it? I think it serves a lot more people than mm-hmm. , you know, even they originally intended. Absolutely.

**Senator:** I also like it, even when I am drinking, sometimes I've found when it's toward the end of the night, and for some reason I, like, I want another drink, but I know I shouldn't have another drink, and then I'm gonna regret it in the morning.

I'll just pull one of these out and it's like, I'm getting the same sensation, but I'm kind of hydrating and then I wake up in the morning. I feel great. It, it's even a good closer

**Bam Bam:** sometimes. Yeah. So often. Very often I have that last drink that I regret having. Yep. I. I do that way too often. So that's a great, great move.

**Rooster:** And it's also, you know, social, like a social event. Everybody's drinking something. Mm-hmm. . And [00:42:00] you're actually having a beer, right. That's not an alcoholic. It looks the same. You

**Gizmo:** don't feel left out. You don't feel left out. That's right. The same. Yeah.

**Rooster:** Cool. It's the same. Cool. It's also

**Gizmo:** priced the same .

**Senator:** Yeah.

I was surprised about that. I was

**Gizmo:** Senator came in, it's gotta be less expensive. .

**Senator:** I was like, this is crazy. I'm like, I buying a six pack of a non-alcoholic, uh, Stella, and I'm like 10 99. That's the same price. It's the fucking alcoholic version. Like there should be sub discount here. I'm not getting the

**Gizmo:** same bus.

I know you're paying for, uh, research and development. , R and d, R and d. It costs more

**Rooster:** to take the

**Gizmo:** alcohol out.

Is athletic the one that makes only non-alcoholic be? I believe so. I I think that's the

**Senator:** case, right? Yeah, they do a really nice, I mean, I'm telling you some of these ipa I was shocked. I I want

**Gizmo:** to try the IPAs. Me too. That's where I'm gonna go. Me too. We could do that on the next pod. Yeah. Yeah. We should have, let's do that some IPAs.

Yeah, let's do that. I don't, I don't know if I'd, maybe we saved that for, uh, a new world. I don't know if we'll do it with a new world, but I, I definitely want to do [00:43:00] that. Get some athletic ni uh, ipss. Very cool. All right, boys, we're about halfway through the cigar here. Bam. Bams a little further than us.

Just a little bit. I, I'm finding this to be improving as we go through this. Agreed. Which is, we've talked about a thousand times. That is not how most new worlds trend at this price. At this price, right? Yeah.

**Senator:** I mean, honestly at, at any price with New Orleans, we've had some pricier new world that have gotten worse as we, this is true.

Treat them, it, it really can happen anywhere.

**Bam Bam:** But the ones we love, uh, for me improve like the exclusive thes. Oh, totally. Yeah. The

**Gizmo:** pyramid millennium, of course. Yeah. But those are premium. Oh, that's true's

**Bam Bam:** even side for this price, like the L Centor. I mean, that one just got better and better as you smoked it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

**Rooster:** Yeah. Great smoke. Yeah. .

**Senator:** Well, this is good. This tells you that, uh, even, even at a young age, my palate wasn't, wasn't too Shay .

**Bam Bam:** Well wait for the rating. . ,

**Gizmo:** yeah. We'll see what happens in the, uh, second half. So

**Rooster:** how many cigars were you smoking [00:44:00] at

**Gizmo:** that

**Senator:** time? Just, uh, at least like, like one a day.

**Bam Bam:** Wow. Wow. Yeah. That's a lot for a cow. Impressive shit.

**Senator:** Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Very impressive. Yeah. And you were, well, you know him. He's sitting there in a smoke filled room. , you know, just barking orders at, at, at pledges,

**Bam Bam:** stacks of textbooks all

**Gizmo:** over the place. just telling the pledges what to do. Get my car clear. The

**Senator:** smoke.

I mean, I would say the first few years of college it was like, you know, A couple a week maybe. But my senior year of college, there was nothing better. I'd go to class and every day I was done with class, I'd get back to the fraternity house, sit on the porch with a cigar. And the funny thing is, none of the guys that lived in the house smoked cigars.

I was the only one at first. And all the guys went, what do you, what do you smoke? Why do you always come out here and have that ? And they were so curious. So I would hand one out and it was always the Roman to Cuban, Mia Moore. And so many of these guys tried it, loved it. And it just became like a ritual, like everyone just wanted to light one of these up and just kind of unwind at the end of the day.

That becomes the

**Bam Bam:** cool frat on campus. Oh yeah. .

**Rooster:** You bet. Believe. But what, what drew you [00:45:00]

**Gizmo:** to

**Senator:** cigars? Oh, my dad. First name. My dad definitely where it started. Awesome. My dad, uh, always smoked cigars. I, I certainly couldn't appreciate it when I was younger. I was kind of confused as to why this was so, you know, intriguing to him.

And then as I got older, and particularly in college, um, I started to try myself, started to appreciate some of the flavor notes that you get and just being able to really unwind, um, after a long day. And, um, Then it just accelerated when, um, uh, an early boss of mine who, uh, was born and raised in Cuba, fled as with his family as a child, um, has built an, you know, incredibly successful career for himself.

Um, in the States, uh, has. A vast collection. I mean, you know, he, he's a, he's a lizard. Nice. He's got the kind of stuff we do and uh, senior lizard problem. That just took my appreciation for cigars to a whole other level. That's where I

**Gizmo:** started smoking. And you said that was like Mad

**Senator:** Men days, right? That was, we would smoke in the office together.

**Gizmo:** That's my dream. I know. That's my dream. That's what I want. You mean when you go

**Bam Bam:** to your corporate office? . . [00:46:00]

**Gizmo:** I said it's a dream, Ben. Okay. For

**Rooster:** me it was, I had picked up a magazine, the Cigar, fish and Auto Magazine, just on a, you know, I saw it somewhere at a new stand, picked it up. Mm-hmm. started reading articles about it.

I'm like, this, I gotta

**Gizmo:** try a cigar.

Wow.

**Rooster:** Just went to a store and I remember my first cigar being the short story, the Arturo Fuente. Wow. Short story. And I was hooked. Nice. You know, that was it. Yeah. And that was 1995, I think. Yeah. Wow.

**Gizmo:** Yep. That's pretty wild because most of the time stories you hear of.

People's first cigar, it's, oh, I, this was given to me or from my dad, or from a friend or, yeah. My dad, rooster dad never saw, never smoked. Yeah. You know, rooster just saw it in a magazine. Yeah. And he said, you know, I wanna try this. That's pretty cool. That is cool.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah. You're a maverick. .

**Gizmo:** I dunno about that.

**Bam Bam:** my brother-in-law gave you my first cigar. I think we talked about that. Yeah, we did. Tell us about that experiences.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. But tell it again in case the listener hasn't heard it. So he

**Bam Bam:** handed me a, a millennium pyramid. [00:47:00] That was his

**Gizmo:** cigar. Dave Itoff. Yeah. Yeah.

**Bam Bam:** Um, 17, 16, almost 17 years ago.

And, you know, my son was coming, so I, I bought a box of those and handed them out and that was my cigar.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. So it was just right when your son was born, that was when you That's when I started smoking

**Bam Bam:** cigars. Awesome. Consistently. And I haven't stopped since.

**Gizmo:** So

**Rooster:** the millenniums, I think they came out, I wanna say maybe around, 98.

97. 98. He

**Gizmo:** was born in oh six. Something like that. Yeah. Oh six. Yeah.

**Rooster:** Now this, I mean, millenniums came out way before

**Bam Bam:** that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I didn't have one back then. .

**Rooster:** No, I mean, I'm, I'm just trying to think because Jill actually had gotten me, Mrs. Rooster, Mrs. Rooster. Uh, she got me a five pack of, I think it was like, I remember his story.

Yeah. So she brought, she got me the millennium. We were on our, uh, anniversary at the, uh, Mohawk Mountain House. Very cool. And she gave me those cigars and I was like, blown away. [00:48:00] I'm like, this is the most flavorful David Itdo that I've ever had. Like, like really full David off. Mm-hmm. , like I used to smoke a lot of grand cruises and they were great.

You know, it was a great cigar. I enjoyed them. But the millennium truly I think put for me like Davidoff on the map back in the day. Back in the day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, it, it's a full flavor Davidoff,

**Gizmo:** which was quite, and what's

**Bam Bam:** crazy, they were used to be, at that time, 16 years ago, they were $22 in Manhattan.

I had an office. They were never cheap, you know? No, they weren't ever cheap. Yeah. I had an office near, um, grand Central in the Lincoln building. There was the, an old Barclay Rex downstairs. No seats.

**Gizmo:** That's where Dr. That's where Dr. Joe was,

**Bam Bam:** right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Standing room only. And that's, I would go down, have my cigar after lunch, go back up.

Wow, that's awesome. And they've gone up like five bucks now a stick since they're 27 bucks. Right. Retail.

**Gizmo:** Retail now. 31.

**Senator:** It's 31 in

**Gizmo:** change. Yeah. Yeah. I would bet there're even more at most of the New York shops. New [00:49:00] Probably. Yeah. How much are they pagoda? I didn't know. I,

**Pagoda:** I haven't bought one.

**Gizmo:** Well, the taxes like

**Senator:** 90%.

The price I'm giving you is Davidoff suggested retail. Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Ah, okay. I would bet you're closer to 45 is a 40, 45. Oh my goodness. Yeah. In the city, I would

**Pagoda:** think. Yeah, because, uh, the late, uh, the late hours around 36 bucks, yeah.

**Gizmo:** Hmm hmm. Wow.

**Pagoda:** Which is around the 22 bucks a go. Yeah.

**Gizmo:** So football's wrapping up here, boys.

Yeah. It is. Super Bowl coming up. Mm-hmm. . Um, the national Championship was obviously a few weeks ago. We haven't talked about it yet, but that the blowout, the TCU experie. . I mean, they were outclassed. How does it get, how do they out get to that game and then not perform

**Senator:** like that? That was the worst college champ.

It was horrible championship game

**Bam Bam:** ever. It's just un it's mind boggling. Is it, is it that Georgia's so powerful and skilled? I

**Gizmo:** mean, they weren't that dominant with any other, were nervous teams. Were they uncomfortable?

**Rooster:** That's part of it. I think Georgia is a very good team. Yeah.

**Gizmo:** They're, they're a monster [00:50:00]

**Senator:** to me.

There's, there's a, a stark and, and kind of unfortunate reality in college football at this. The S e C is where it's at. I don't know what you're talking about. . You, you look at , , I mean says a Texan fan. you, you just look at, I mean what happens every year, you know, Bama just year after year after year and everyone said, okay, this is getting a little bit ridiculous.

You had LSU have their, their time to shine. Mm-hmm. , you had Auburn, now you've got Georgia. Yeah. I mean if you don't play in the s e c, your odds of being competitive at the end of a season are just not serious. Yeah. It's just not, you're not in a conference that plays defense. You're not able to go up against the same level of talent that you have to in the S e c and you know, it's fun to watch s e c football, but I get a little annoyed when it comes time for the national championship and it's not either two s e c teams finding themselves against each other, or like a Clemson that has shown it can actually compete against an s e C team.

Yeah. Outside of that, I mean, this was a joke. Yeah.

**Bam Bam:** You know, almost [00:51:00] every SCC team is a premier football program. Almost all of them. You don't get that in other programs. In other conferences. Almost

**Senator:** all. Sorry, pagoda.

**Pagoda:** Well, no, I, I, I think the problem was all these guys from TCU should have had non-alcoholic beer other night before

**Gizmo:** I agree with that. Wow. What a

**Bam Bam:** game. What was it? 65 to seven. 65 to seven. Oh, Jesus Unbeliev. You know, honestly, the way they played Michigan, they were dynamic. They played like an s e c

**Senator:** team plays. No, but see, this is the, this is the funny part. That's the, I, that's what the eye test told me. I would, I I, I thought at the time, maybe that was the case.

Yeah. But this is what this proves, right. Them being able to take it to Michigan. People are sitting there saying, well, Michigan's a very good team. Wow. Look at tcu. Guess what? Michigan's actually not that good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Michigan played, uh, Georgia. They'd get destroyed.

**Gizmo:** Absolutely. I can hear the Midwest turning their radios off.[00:52:00]

Fuck this podcast,

Truth hurts. .

**Bam Bam:** Well, I will tell you, Michigan has a great wrestling program that's Oh, good. A fact. Good for them. Yeah. They, they should stick to it. . Harbaugh may be going to the nfl. Yeah. Yeah.

**Senator:** Clearly, uh, college is not for him. Yeah, yeah,

**Gizmo:** yeah. Jets.

**Bam Bam:** I'm sorry. That funny. I dunno. I don't

**Gizmo:** know about that. The other thing that was wild, again, we haven't talked about it, I know it was a little while ago, but the DeMar Hamlin thing that happened on the field mm-hmm. And the miraculous recovery he had. Yeah. He's in Buffalo. Buffalo now. He walk the way he walked out of the hospital.

You know, I mean, that's crazy. It's unbelievable. I, I, for a moment, thought that I was watching like a Dale Earnhardt thing again. Yeah. And watched someone die. Yeah. On the field. Yeah. You know? But how, how long was he actually

**Rooster:** [00:53:00] without

**Gizmo:** oxygen? 10 minutes, I think. Nine or 10 minutes. They were giving him CPR before his heart restart.

That's a long time I thought it was.

**Rooster:** I mean, I was, I was afraid that it'll be like serious permanent brain damage. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I, I think they were too. Yeah. I think just being that he's so young and so athletic that his recovery, you know, was,

**Gizmo:** but I think the training staff, the, the, the, the immediacy Yeah.

That the CPR started was what was crucial for Well,

**Bam Bam:** they, they restart his heart. Yeah. They saved his life. They saved his life. Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's crazy. Amazing. I just love, of course, I love shooting on Roger Goodell, but don't we all, I love the whole thing that, you know, Joe Buck said that they had, each team had five minutes to warm up to restart the game.

The coaches obviously called that off, but then the, the NFL did this whole posturing thing. Yep. Press releases like 1245 the same night next morning, putting out press releases that the N NFL never said that and never would've, and Godell never issued that. It's like, it's like a mafia. [00:54:00] This is, I feel like it's like Tony Soprano.

Yeah. Is running a, yeah. Massive

**Senator:** Sports League. Exactly. I just love the whole thing. Like there's all this debate about what Goodell did or didn't say, or did, or didn't feel or want to do. The guy said absolutely nothing. Roger Goodell doesn't have a means to put out his own statement. He can't tweet something.

He can't say something. I mean, it's like so comical to me. He's like, well, the NFL's in crisis mode and they're trying to figure this out. And they put out obviously this silly little statement like Roger Goodell could fucking decree. Mm-hmm. himself. He doesn't need the league to do it. That's exactly right.

This game is over, will not be played tonight. It's done. We are only concerned about this man's health. That's all he had to say.

**Gizmo:** Exactly. He works for the owners. Yeah. Yeah. He's the bad cop.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's all about the cash. Goodell , okay. Yeah. All about the cash. You're right. Because his job is to make the owners as much money as possible.

Oh yeah. And they,

**Gizmo:** and he's done a very good

**Senator:** job. Yeah. And they pay him such a good job that he's negotiated arguably the greatest [00:55:00] contract in history. It's crazy. The man's gonna get lifetime healthcare, lifetime use of a private jet. This is all, even after he's done being commissioner of the league. I mean, some of the tur It's, it's absurd.

Wow.

**Gizmo:** Well, when you're making 40 or 50 million bucks a year, I don't think that that's, yeah. You know, he's, he's got the contract

**Rooster:** like Bobby Bonilla of the Mess,

**Bam Bam:** still, I know that he still gets paid million bucks a year. That is still payroll in 20 years. He still gets a paycheck. , I, what other team is doing that?

You Thank, you can thank Bernie

**Gizmo:** Madoff for

**Bam Bam:** that one. It's Unbeliev. Bernie. Oh man, I loved him. Yeah, but not this long. .

**Senator:** And then, I'm sorry. In the midst of that whole thing, look, this whole cancel culture thing, I, I just gotten a little outta hand Barry outta hand. But if there's a guy that deserves it, skip Bayless.

Oh. Oh. He's a piece of shit. This clown in the middle of this tweets, and I'm gonna pull this up. I mean, just astounding how [00:56:00] he's not even apologizing to this. . He has literally said, I do not apologize for what I said. Right. His tweet, no doubt the N F L is considering postponing the rest of this game.

Mm-hmm. . But how question mark this late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular season outcome, which suddenly seems so irrelevant. I mean, what a fucking moron. Yeah. I mean everyone at this point in the night is saying, there is no good reason to continue this game. All that should be be the focus is hoping that this man is gonna live through what just happened.

Right? And he goes and posts that. I love Michael Strahan. I mean, countless people have players. We're lighting him up. Right? What does Strahan say?

**Bam Bam:** Cuz I don't un unhear it.

**Senator:** Strahan who works for the same network as he does the Fox analysis with Terry Bradshaw and all those guys. On the Fox broadcast said one person from our network even said something so stupid and and just completely eviscerated him.

Wow. On a live broadcast. It was awesome. That's awesome, Shannon. But Guy should be fired.

**Gizmo:** Shannon. Shannon Sharp. [00:57:00] Shannon Sharpe skipped the broadcast the next morning, the day after. Went into a monologue about it, trying to just diffuse the situation. Skip interrupted him, . It was a total shit show.

**Bam Bam:** All hell Brokes.

Yeah. Yeah. That's Skip's job to create controversy.

**Gizmo:** I'll tell you though, espn, or excuse me, Fox Sports loves him because every the next morning everybody was tuned into that show. to see what was

**Senator:** gonna happen. It's just pathetic like that man's built a career trying to just say a bunch of inflammatory Sure.

Controversial things to essentially build his entire career off of a bunch of bullshit. It's not that this man provides any unique and compelling sports insight. Mm-hmm. , he just says inflammatory things. Yeah. But there's always a line that you don't cross. And this was very clearly that line. Absolutely.

And that's where any ounce of respect I could have had for him is just completely lost there.

**Bam Bam:** There are moments in sports where sports stops and that was one. And you're watching the game, it's still not canceled and it's infu. You get, it's infuriating as a fan, right. To look at that product. They're not canceling that game.

Players are crying. There's

**Gizmo:** an [00:58:00] ambulance on the field, on the field. There's an ambulance field. Never

**Rooster:** seen. Never seen. Yeah. Ambulance has never been on a, on the, but on a football field.

**Bam Bam:** I'm sorry. You've never seen, I'm sorry. You have never seen N F L football players cry openly on a field the way they did.

Yeah. How do you not cancel the fucking game on the spot? It's insane. Yeah, yeah.

**Rooster:** Well, what, what happens to his career? I mean, what's, you know, I heard

**Gizmo:** the bills, uh, have guaranteed his contract, uh, in full now it's great. So whether he plays or not, again, his full contract will be paid. I don't think it's that money.

It's not that much money. It's probably a couple million bucks, but they're not gonna, after the end of the season, just

**Senator:** punch. But good thing is like they've done what they can. Yeah. Right. That's true. As far as the bills are concerned, the only thing they can do, they have offered him a contract that's non guaranteed.

They can guarantee it. Where he really gets fucked is the N F L policy. Of course, with getting a pension, right. Only kicks in after it's either four or five years playing. Yeah, five years playing. So he's not eligible for that yet. Now, I think it's absolutely ridiculous that this is [00:59:00] one of the few sports where literally your life is on the line to play this sport every single time you take that field.

That's not the case in basketball. It's not the case in baseball. It's not the case in golf, tennis, almost any sport. Right. Just because of that. , these guys should be eligible for a pension the minute that they course.

**Bam Bam:** The moment that, yeah. And this goes back to the, all the conversations about non guaranteed contracts and baseball players and basketball players, they're all getting guaranteed contracts in the moment they sign their contract.

And N NFL happens to be, the football happens to be one of the richest sports in the, in the country. Why not guarantee these players

**Gizmo:** contracts? Well, I think, I think the high level players across all sports are getting guaranteed contracts only recently in, in football. Yeah. Only recently Sean Watson got a fully guaranteed

**Bam Bam:** contract.

Well, it started with Mahomes when he signed his contract. Yeah. And every other big name guy would get more of a guaranteed percentage of their contract. But the majority of the fucking NFL players, they're not, they're, they're not guaranteed. They get hurt. They're done. Yeah. Like this

**Senator:** poor kid. [01:00:00] And sadly, every I'm sorry, go ahead.

I was just gonna say, and sadly this starts in. Hmm. That's the worst part. I mean, you look at, they've done the whole ex expose and the ncaa, I mean it's, it's just insane. These kids get recruited to play for these schools. They make decisions, obviously solely in many cases based on just the athletic program.

You know, forget what kind of education they're gonna get. Cuz some of these schools could care less. Some of them actually are committed to making sure these kids get an education so they have a career after their sport. These scholarships that they get are not guaranteed. Yeah. You know how many college athletes have stories where they got recruited to go play somewhere?

They got hurt, they got cut from the team, lost their scholarship. They can't afford to pay for that school and they're fucked. That's it. I didn't know. I didn't know that. They go to community college, they've got nothing, nothing else to really fall back on. I had no idea. It's completely fucked up. So this starts so early, this like cycle of treating these kids, like they're absolute shit.

It, it's a crime. I

**Bam Bam:** [01:01:00] agree. It's a crime. It's a great way of putting it. And if the

**Senator:** schools weren't making any money about it, I wouldn't feel the same way. But it's like they recruit these kids, so they make a ton, millions and millions of dollars off their back. And the minute they get hurt, they say not okay.

You know, you're gonna keep your scholarship. You can at least continue to get your education here. They say, I'm sorry, you're no longer useful to us. You're off the team. You've lost your scholarship. Good luck.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah, it's awful. It's awful. It's horrible. And one of the most brutal sports you can play.

**Gizmo:** True.

Yep. Yeah.

**Rooster:** So like every player

**Gizmo:** goes through a physical,

**Rooster:** I assume, right before they get signed into the N nfl. Did uh, DeMar Hamlin also have a physical Of course.

**Gizmo:** Had

**Rooster:** you did? Yeah. So what he like, what he went through with

**Gizmo:** a cardiac arrest, I don't think he had a preexisting, he had no conditions.

**Rooster:** There's no condit, there was no preexisting condition.

I think

**Gizmo:** that was triggered by the timing. Yeah, it was a, it was a one in a million type of, The timing that that helmet hit his chest was at one, a millisecond, I forget what it's [01:02:00] called. There's a term for it, that threw the electrical rhythm of his heart off and unnecessarily threw him into cardiac arrest.

Mm-hmm. essentially, you know, as opposed to knocking the window down. What happened to anybody? Happen to anybody? It needs to hit at the perfect millisecond, certain angle or hasn't it in time? Hasn't it happened in baseball? I, I think soccer is when it last happened. Happened, but I, I'm not sure. Right. So is there a chance that he could play?

I very much think so, but we'll see. Well,

**Rooster:** we'll see. Because that would be amazing to see him back on the field.

**Gizmo:** I mean, he woke up and his first question was, who won the game? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's crazy. Yeah.

**Pagoda:** So, I don't know. I dunno whether he had an after to life experience something.

**Bam Bam:** Senator, you find out you have a son now I have a.

now you'll be much older. My daughter has too. Yeah. So when your son's in his twenties, and let's say he becomes a professional athlete and something like this happens, you're gonna have minimal influence cuz he's, he's an adult, but you're not gonna be happy about him getting back on a field, are you? No.

Neither am I. But your son plays golf.

**Rooster:** [01:03:00] Yeah, he does. But so it's just, which is a sport he can play. No, that's

**Bam Bam:** true. You know, he, the question time, but the question back to this young guy, Hamlin, will he play again? You gonna ask what, what's his mother want? Yeah. How's she gonna feel about it? It's terrifying.

I know as a parent's, terrifying. That's a big decision for him, you know,

**Pagoda:** family, the whole family. He, he may just be fine because he doesn't have any underlying condition. Number one, you know, Erickson, um,

**Gizmo:** the soccer

**Pagoda:** player, right? The soccer player who used to play for Den Hots, now he plays for Manchester United.

He, he had a cardiac arrest on the field. Mm. , um, when he was playing for his country and he was out of the game for about a year and now he's back on and lemme tell you, he's so skillful. He's doing really well. Wow.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. Pretty amazing man. Maybe he'll be back. Yeah. Yeah.

**Bam Bam:** Maybe. Who knows? I always go back to that video who sent that video?

I think it was you or you talking about Hamlin's contract and how meager it is and his very slight bonus and [01:04:00] what's his upside, what's the trajectory? Financially it doesn't look that good.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. I mean, it's a, he's a young guy. He really has been proving himself, I think this season or last. I mean, you know, I don't, I don't think there's, um, it's just awful.

I don't think there's much there. Hmm. You know, unfortunately. Yeah. So boys, we're coming to the end here of the La Aroma, Deba Mia Moore. I have really enjoyed the cigar.

**Bam Bam:** I'm, I got an inch left here and it's really good.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. I am, I'm, I'm again, Very pleasantly surprised by how a new world at this price point has performed.

You know? And I think we have a reputation. I think even sometimes I think that we have a bias to Cuban cigars. Certainly the data shows that that's not the case. But I mean, we are really, we have really been hitting a lot of home runs in the New World on, on New World cigars. Arguably more than some of the Cubans.

Yeah. You know, , I mean, we've had some real stinkers on Cubans. . [01:05:00]

**Bam Bam:** We have, we have, we have the La Punta .

**Gizmo:** Well, no, no. I mean, even more recently, the punch Duke, I think was in the sixes. I think that was crappy. You know, there's, you know, it's, it's, I don't know, man. I think Kaos is in trouble more than ever. I think they're in trouble, especially, you know, with these price increases.

No, they're pushing a lot of smokers out. Listen, rooster, brings in that my father, Lance Cero is telling us that smokes like a fundi. We think he's crazy and he's right. We all rated at nine, except Puba gave it a six. Grindr gave it a seven. Mm-hmm. it rated well amongst most of the group. I bought a box.

I've been love, I've been loving them. I'm not even thinking about fund AORs. Yeah, yeah. For seven, it's a seven or $8 stick for a fraction of the price. A fr truly

**Bam Bam:** a fraction. Quite literally a fraction. Because a box of those fund are over two grand, right?

**Gizmo:** Yeah. Mm-hmm. , they're, it's crazy. It's crazy. It's

**Rooster:** crazy.

I mean, a box of co colonial Alice, seven 50, we were looking at it today, it's like

**Gizmo:** seven [01:06:00] 50 or 800 bucks. Ridiculous.

**Bam Bam:** I happen 30 bucks, five bucks of happened to love that cigar, but I can't for $35. I can't stomach buying

**Gizmo:** it at that point. Not even cold. It's

**Rooster:** crazy. Do you have any ?

**Bam Bam:** I, yeah, . I do. I've got three quarters of a.

**Gizmo:** Hello, Jackpot.

**Bam Bam:** I will,

**Gizmo:** I will share

**Rooster:** it. Hello. We should do it on the pod

**Gizmo:** next time. .

**Bam Bam:** We did do it on a pod. We smoked that cigar. We, we did. I think we did it. Yeah. I tr I distinctly remember Puba liking it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I remember that, that was meaningful, you know?

**Gizmo:** Yeah. All right, boys, are you guys ready to, uh, do the formal liquor rating on the oven?

Distillers edition 2021? Mm-hmm. . All right. Bam. Bam. You're up. I'm giving it a seven. Seven, okay. Pagoda.

**Pagoda:** Yeah. This is interesting. I've been debating between a seven and eight. Um, I think I'll give it to Nate because I think, uh, after I put a chip ice and that it just kind of [01:07:00] grew and I really, you know, um, I've enjoyed it.

**Gizmo:** Okay. I'm also gonna give it an eight. Um, I think if this was, I, I think the open 14. I would give a nine. I think this is just right behind it at an eight, so I'm very

**Pagoda:** comfortable with that. It's very flavorful. Very

**Gizmo:** flavorful. Yeah. Senator?

**Senator:** I've been back and forth between a seven and an eight. Um, I kinda like when Bam started off with a seven because uh, he felt like he gave me a little bit of license to, uh, be critical here.

I think what I'm having a hard time with, why I, I'm struggling to, to find it in me, to give this in eight, particularly with rate spirits. Any spirit I've given in eight or higher, I, I would buy. Yeah. Like I, I wouldn't hesitate go out to the store. I mean, even abor something at like a $40 price point. It's so reasonable.

I have countless bottles of that at home. That stuff is delicious. And that to me, I probably gave like an eight. Yeah. I wouldn't buy this. [01:08:00] And, uh, that's where I'm

**Gizmo:** gonna round down. Is it because of the price or because of just the spirit? It's the

**Senator:** spirit. I see. It's not even the price. Hmm. Um, I, I don't like the finish very much on this.

Yeah. When bam talks about the bite, like I, I start on the front of my palate getting some, some good flavor that I like, but the finish for me, you know, when you have open 14 that finish, it's just like the, the lingering of all those like amazing flavor notes you get for me, this, the finish, it's just like a little rough.

I, I, I don't get much flavor. I just get alcohol. Mm-hmm. And, um, that's not something I would pursue, even if this were honestly half the price point. It's just not something that I would, I would probably pick up very much. Now is it so offensive that I wouldn't drink it again if someone poured it to me?

No, that's where I'm at, A seven. Um, there, there are things I do like about it, but I just wouldn't pursue it. So I'm at a seven.

**Gizmo:** Okay. Formal liquor rating on this boys is a 7.5 I think That's fair. That's very fair. Very fair. Yeah.

**Bam Bam:** That's a recommend, right? Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. That's a recommend. I mean, anything over seven is a recommend.

So for me, you know, [01:09:00] piggybacking on what Senator just said, at an eight, if the price was not where it's at. Right. I've really enjoyed this. I like the way it goes through my nose when it's sitting in my mouth. I like how that feels. Yeah. I like how it tastes. Mm-hmm. . I'm very, very happy with the spirit.

This is right, right. Kind of where I like a spirit. Just not at $180. Does have

**Bam Bam:** a higher

**Senator:** alcohol? No, no, it's not 180. It's a hundred.

**Gizmo:** 100. 100. 2,050. Whatever is 115. Bob? One 15. A one 15. So if it was 80, I probably would pick up a bottle.

**Bam Bam:** It feels to me like this has a bit of a higher alcohol content than the open 14.

Maybe I'm wrong.

**Senator:** It tastes like it. Can we see? That's what it taste. See what? What's the percentage here? I can't read this. I'm

**Bam Bam:** too old. .

**Pagoda:** Well, what I found was, um, The, the two things I do wanna say. When I drank very quickly and I, when, uh, the liquor went to the back of my mouth, it did feel pretty harsh. I think, yeah, once I got the ice and I was just letting it linger in my

**Gizmo:** mouth a little bit more.

Was it harsh or [01:10:00] hot? Like, it's hot to me. It's not harsh, it's just got that it, the, the bite, it's got like a little bit of a burn, but I'm enjoying it. But even

**Bam Bam:** with the ice, there was

**Gizmo:** bite. Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I'm sorry. Yeah, no,

**Pagoda:** for me, I was just, you know, when I let it linger in my mouth a little bit, the flavor profile was fantastic.

I, I think I really enjoyed the flavors and, you know, smoking the cigar, I think it just paired really well. Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. I think it paired perfectly with the cigar. I think the cigar actually helped the spirit tonight and, and vice versa. Hmm. Yeah, it was a really, really nice pairing for me. And I think too that, um, I drank it first with ice, and then I drank my second pour, which is a just a.

Uh, which was neat. I'm actually enjoying it. Neat. You know, right

**Pagoda:** now it is, it is lighted. I'm just enjoying it. I'm surpris. No, it's light bodied. Yeah. I'm

**Gizmo:** surprised actually. Yeah. I'm really, yeah. I'm odd. I'm really enjoying it. Yeah.

**Senator:** Great. Yeah. So, bam, your question about, uh, the alcohol content, uh, to my surprise, it's identical to open 14.

They're both 43%.

**Bam Bam:** Unbelievable. Wow.

**Gizmo:** Hmm. [01:11:00] All right. So I've put my cigar down. I'm done with it. Yeah. I'm about, um, I really enjoyed it front to back for seven bucks. I think this is a home run. Um, I, I'm really, really happy with it. What do you guys think before we rate it very

**Rooster:** happy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I really liked it.

Um, only thing I have to say is like the flavor notes that I was getting on the first third, Have, they're not quite there on the last, you know, maybe the third of the cigar. So I enjoy, I enjoyed the beginning much more than towards the end. That's a good point. But for the price point, the construction of the cigar, I mean, all

**Gizmo:** of that stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

**Rooster:** So I mean, it's, it's definitely, you know, worth trying the cigar. Definitely. You know? Yeah. For that price, you can't go wrong. Yeah. Um, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a seven.

**Gizmo:** Okay.

**Senator:** Senator? Um, for me, I'm definitely gonna give it an eight. Um, I [01:12:00] think the flavor profile is definitely in my wheelhouse.

I think for a lot of us in this room, since we, I think the flavor notes we've been picking out are flavors we traditionally, um, uh, seek. Um, I think the price point is tremendous slam dunk, , and, uh, the construction. I, you know, usually for me either, Cigar at this crazy of a price point. Either the flavor's really good and the construction may not be so great, but the flavor compensates for it, or the construction's beautiful and the flavor's not so great.

The fact that I'm satisfied on both fronts, that's where for me it's a very strong eight. Sure.

**Gizmo:** Awesome. I'm also in an eight. Really enjoyed the cigar, really enjoyed the experience tonight. Um, I'll definitely probably get another fiver just to have 'em. I think the one thing that, as far as picking up more of these that is, that I'm gonna hold back on is I just have a lot of cigars that slot in this exact.

Place in a potential rotation or a reach. I'm [01:13:00] not gonna stand at my humidor and choose this over Ani or over an El Centor. No, you won't. Or over an Ashton, V S G. Mm-hmm. . Um, or even though my father Lance, if I have the time to smoke that. So I just don't see this slotting a lot. But if I had five in my humid or I think, you know, that'll last me quite

**Rooster:** a lot.

Yeah. Like I, I wouldn't go and buy a whole box of these. Yeah. You know, I would get a get a five pack. Yeah, you're right. Get a five. Get a five pack. Yeah.

**Gizmo:** I'd be happy with that for 30 bucks. I mean, don't talk 35 bucks. There's a lot of

**Rooster:** other new world cigars that are in that same price range. Yeah. That I think satisfy me personally.

Me more, yeah. Than

**Gizmo:** this, this cigar. So I

**Bam Bam:** know I'm going last. But rating it for what it is tonight I think has merit and that's what I did. Yeah. I don't think slotting it, comparing to other cigars,

**Gizmo:** I don't know. I, let me just say that my eight was waiting it for what it is had nothing to do, is what really matters to now disregards my comment, the reason

**Rooster:** why, what I, what I meant to say was if [01:14:00] I give a cigar an eight, that would mean that I would buy a box of those.

Mm. It's like I wouldn't buy a box of these. I see.

**Gizmo:** Interesting. That's what I mean, pagoda. Yeah. You

**Pagoda:** know, like, just like, um, the drink, I, you know, it's, uh, I think I'm between a seven and an eight or somewhere around there, but, um, considering the experience I've had, I, I found it a bit muted towards the end.

I kind of agree with Drew to that. Um, but, um, I'll, I'll go ahead and give it an eight today. Okay.

**Bam Bam:** Bam. Bam. That's a name for me. And that doesn't mean I'll go buy a box, probably not. But for what? For tonight? It's a fabulous cigar.

**Gizmo:** Yeah,

**Senator:** yeah, yeah. And I think of like, you know, BAM has hosted, you know, a cigar charity event and stuff.

Oh, this is perfect. Oh, dude. Like that's, this is a great candidate for that. That's what I'm saying. Absolutely. It's like, I, I, obviously it's a great idea. I went to the last one you hosted. You know, if I, if you do this, uh, you know, again, and you had these there. I'm not gonna be upset to smoke one of these.

You're gonna walk and go

**Gizmo:** perfectly. I like the cigars. Yeah. I'm gonna be perfectly [01:15:00] satisfied. Exactly. Right. Yep. That's a great point too. You know, for the guest humidor, you have folks coming over, maybe folks that have a little bit of cigar experience. Yeah. Even a lot. It's one of those cigars that I think is gonna cover the bases.

Totally. And if someone puts it down halfway through, your head's not gonna explode because of the price, because it was seven bucks . Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was

**Bam Bam:** seven bucks. It's this respectable cigar.

**Pagoda:** Yeah, it is. But I, I think this is also good for golfing, you know, it's got a great point. It's a good point.

Great smoke output. Yeah, absolutely. Very easy smoke, you know, good construction. Yeah, I think overall it's a pretty good

**Rooster:** cigar. Yeah. Yeah. I mean we, you know, if you compare it like, let's say the, my father Lenaro number four, about the same

**Gizmo:** price. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think about that.

**Rooster:** They delivers a little bit more flavor

**Gizmo:** than, uh, it's also a different experience than it's just wanna

**Senator:** be more different cigar.

But I would not compare this to that cigar. That to me is like only price, pointwise.

**Rooster:** Just, just as price point. Right.

**Gizmo:** You know? Right, right. All right boys. The formal lizard rating on the LA Aroma, [01:16:00] Deba Mia Moore Rao is a 7.8, which I think is a perfect score Score. Fair score. Oh yeah. I would say that's a modest recommend.

Yeah. Pretty good. But like we said, I think you grab a fiver or a tenor if this kind of in your wheelhouse or your, or your really, your price range. If you're targeting price range for a robusto that has a little bit of medium full ooph to it, great flavor. I think this is a perfect choice. And we've listed a few different scenarios in which it would work, work really, really well.

But I think when I have five in my human or I think it's gonna, that's gonna be very satisfying

**Senator:** for me. And I'd also say, if you get a fiber of these, let a couple of them just sit. Mm-hmm. , tuck 'em back in the humidor. Cuz I'm telling you what these used to be. And certainly when I've inadvertently aged them, the flavor gets more concentrated.

kind of like we, we love and expect from a patron. Yeah. Not that it's the same . Yeah. But just that there's more intensity to that flavor.

**Rooster:** Yeah. There's definitely merit to a lot of these new world cigars. Oh yeah. That you can kind of taste a little bit [01:17:00] of like the edginess or you know, so you let them sit for a while.

Couple of years. And I think it's, it's gonna

**Gizmo:** be a great step. It's great advice. Great advice. And what's great too is there's not a lot of money sitting around in that hum door. Yeah. Yeah. You know, talking a few bucks very. It's great. All right boys. So a 7.5 for the Urban Distillers edition and a 7.8 for the LA Aroma, Deba Miam Moore.

What a fantastic night. Great night, excellent night. Great pairing, pagoda. Thank you for bringing the, uh, scotch. Thank you. And, uh, we'll see you guys next week. 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 Pod. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.[01:18:00]