Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features 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 Lizards podcast presented by Fabrica 5. 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, Grinder, and Bam Bam.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some cognac, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 137th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. We're going to smoke a Cuban cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating.
We answer listener emails on cigar toasting, New Zealand's tough tobacco laws, and how to profile each lizard's individual palate. Plus, we discuss Habano's SA's 2024 limited edition releases, all among a variety of other things for the next two hours. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy, as we pair Ade Fusini Cognac VSOP with the LaGoria Cubana Glorious LCDH.
A La Casa Del [00:01:00] Habano exclusive from Cuba tonight. It's the La Gloria Cubana Glorious. It's a 49 ring gauge cigar by 6 1 1 8 inches long. And boys, this has an LCDH band on it. And,
**Bam Bam:** uh oh, play the Halloween song.
**Gizmo:** And for that reason, I'm out. Michael Myers is going to step in in your stead tonight.
**Bam Bam:** Correct.
**Gizmo:** So yes, this is the second LaGloria Cubano from Cuban we've done on the podcast.
The first, of course, was the Turquino's delicious last year. I'm interested to see how this does tonight. You know, this is a newer release and people have been talking about it. I've heard highs and lows, so we'll see how it performs tonight. First boys, let's cut this thing. See we're getting on the cold draw on the wrapper.
Mmm,
that's wonderful. Nice cold draw. It's delicious.
**Bam Bam:** Mm hmm.
**Gizmo:** It's [00:02:00] got a barnyard thing. But typical LGC. Yeah, very barnyard y. Yeah, very barnyard. The aroma, too.
**Grinder:** Forget the draw. It's a little sweet for me.
**Bam Bam:** I don't Get that much barnyard.
**Rooster:** Yeah. I got a little sweet, sweet note,
**Pagoda:** especially on the foot. for smell the foot.
Are you taking the cold draw from the foot? I haven't had my bodent. I need four of those before I start doing that.
**Bam Bam:** This is, I think this is going to be a great cigar.
**Gizmo:** I hope so. Let's light this thing boys. The La Gloria Cubana. Glorious. It's a La Casa Del Habano exclusive release. It's a 49 ring gauge cigar by six and one eighths inches long.
Factory name is the Fletches, which is a new size for Cuba. The first time a cigar has ever been released in that size. And it's for this special LCDH release. Obviously, this follows the Partagas Aliados we did a few weeks ago, which had an [00:03:00] LCDH band on it. And did not perform well. So hopefully, hoping for a little bit of redemption tonight from the Partagus family.
Which, uh, this is part of the Partagus family. It's mother factory is Partagus. Is that right? These came out of the Partagus factory, uh, December 2022. This is
**Grinder:** very good. Absolutely delicious. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** That's really good on the light. How much are these? I got these from our listener friend, Pine Tree Land. On one of our groups for 42 bucks a piece. They come in a very, very ornate box. I think we've talked about this on the podcast before. That lacquer box. The
**Bam Bam:** price makes it officially a luxury good. Oh yes.
Those LCDH
**Senator:** bands are really expensive to print. I mean, I'm sorry. I
**Gizmo:** think it's made of 24 karat gold in the I would hope so. In the LCDH band. Yeah, don't throw it away.
**Grinder:** What is
**Gizmo:** interesting to note, last time when we did the Partagas Aliados LCDH, [00:04:00] Rooster noted that there were two leaves on the LCDH band.
He's right. Which represented the Wacasa del Habano as well as the Habano Specialist. This cigar is just In the La Casa Del Habano range with only one LCDH leaf on it.
**Senator:** Rizzo's feeling very vindicated.
**Pagoda:** Well, since you're the only sober one, I'm sure. It's early in the pod, man. Alright, I'm just kidding. So,
**Bam Bam:** this is good, but I get more flavor this early on the other three.
Lgc that I, I'm aware of.
**Gizmo:** So you're talking the eu, we did
**Bam Bam:** lgc number four and number two,
**Gizmo:** MDO number four, and the MD number, number two.
**Bam Bam:** For me, it's more flavorful at this stage of the game. Yeah, I agree. This is, this is great though. This is great, but it's a little, that's, that's a step down. I don't think
**Rooster:** you can compare this to the MDO series.
No, in my view, have it on the light.
**Senator:** Cause, to Rooster's point, I feel like the flavor profile is very different. Like, I'm not getting a ton of floral on [00:05:00] this like I would that LGC. I'm not even getting a ton of like, fruit notes. I'm getting more like, nutty. Yeah,
**Rooster:** it's got like a walnut maybe flavor. That's exactly it.
The walnut and cedar is the dominant note for me so far.
**Bam Bam:** I agree. I'm kind of perplexed about the cedar callout that's happened recently. Cedar? How do you know what cedar tastes like? I mean, have you ever
**Senator:** opened a tower humidor? Or just a desktop
**Bam Bam:** humidor? But that's an aroma I guess. Yeah. Not a, not a tasting note.
For me. I mean, I think it's a fair, I think
**Grinder:** it's a fair, I think it's a fair comment. Just a question. You
**Rooster:** know what? Because cedar is like in your humidor, like those planks, that cedar, So you smell that? The aroma.
**Grinder:** The aroma. The aroma.
**Rooster:** Yeah, you smell that. He's saying there's
**Grinder:** a difference between the aroma and the flavor of the cigar.
He says if it's, if there's an aroma of cedar, he's not getting the flavor and the smell. Yeah. I don't get cedar in the, in the, in the
**Bam Bam:** tasting note here.
**Senator:** Maybe my taste buds or nose don't work properly, but. Well we know that. We do know that. Well. Speak for yourself. [00:06:00] You got a retrohale, you know. Usually things smell similar to how they taste, so I'm not sure why that would be so.
So yeah, of course, not always. I say usually, of course. So it seems odd to me that if we know the smell of cedar, we wouldn't know what it likely tastes like.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. But I don't know. I wouldn't call it a wood or a cedar as a tasting note. That's just me.
**Senator:** I just think when you open a tower or a desktop, it's so distinct.
When you get
**Rooster:** a woody note, it doesn't mean that you've tasted wood. It's just a note. It's kind of like, it associates with smell and taste. Got it.
**Gizmo:** I've always viewed these things as reference points. Just a question. No, I know, but
**Senator:** I think Bam and Gizmo need to retrohale some cedar in order to be able to go home and light
**Bam Bam:** a block of cedar tonight.
**Gizmo:** You need to smoke some wood.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I don't think it's, it's very good at this point. You don't think it's good? No, I think it's okay. I think it's meek. I think [00:07:00] it's a little muddled. It's a little light,
**Bam Bam:** but, um,
**Senator:** I don't know. It's very smokable. I agree with what Giz is saying overall, but to me, I don't think it's light.
That's not what I'm getting from this. I think like, it's almost and maybe medium. For me, it's just that the flavor profile is not complex. It's just very straightforward. I mean, I'm just getting, like Rooster said, walnut and cedar, and that's it.
**Rooster:** Yeah.
**Senator:** That's accurate.
**Rooster:** Maybe a slight hint of pepper. Slight.
**Gizmo:** When I push this through the retro hell though, it is very nice.
**Bam Bam:** It's nice.
**Gizmo:** I think that's better than the actual regular draw.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I'm not getting much off this right now. It's not, it's, it's, it's enjoyable, I'm enjoying it. I can't say that it's a bad cigar, but.
**Rooster:** It's a nice straw, nice open.
**Senator:** Pagoda, what do you think on the
**Pagoda:** light?
I'm getting chocolate ice cream. I just ate some chocolate ice cream. Chocolate ice cream. I'm kidding. No, but you know, like for me, I, the note I would say is like, woody. You know, [00:08:00] it's like the woody, slightly creamish, but woody ish kind of a thing. And what I also noticed is that, uh, it does envelope, uh, My mouth.
So it's got a medium finish for sure for now.
**Gizmo:** I do think the smoke is
**Pagoda:** velvety.
**Gizmo:** You know, there is a creaminess to the smoke. It's just, you know, there's not a ton there. The aroma
**Bam Bam:** on our foot's very nice.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, the burn light does. That's really good. That has like a little bit of a burn. I actually get walnut
**Bam Bam:** in the, in the
**Grinder:** foot here.
Yeah. I'm getting campfire in the retro hell.
**Pagoda:** So we're all over. Petrichor, campfire, woodish, woodish, woodish, very woodish. Yeah.
**Grinder:** It's not wood, it's woodish. It's woodish. Woodish. But, but I'll say that, you know, I'm just getting a little,
**Senator:** see, I get a little baking spice on the aroma of the foot. And I wish I was getting that actually on the draw, the actual soap.
**Bam Bam:** I get Baking Spice, a touch of it on the retrohale, but on the foot, for me, it's nutty and walnut.
**Gizmo:** And I agree with him. [00:09:00] I do wish the, the smell at the burn line at the foot was coming through the draw more.
**Grinder:** The burn is, is really good. It's a nice burn.
**Gizmo:** So these cigars were announced in 2021. They were released in October, 2022.
So we have part of the first run of these out of the Particus factory. Like I said, the factory code is UBL December 22. So two months after they started being released. What's interesting, according to Cuban Cigar website, is there's a discontinued cigar with this name in a different size and there was also a regional edition cigar with this name in a different size and those were discontinued short releases and this now is a regular production La Casa Del Habano release from Cuba.
In a brand new Vitola that's never been used before. These come in those luxury boxes of 20 cigars. And boys, they are very, very expensive. They are. At 42
**Senator:** a stick. Yeah. The thing that's surprising to me is, [00:10:00] blind, I would never guess this is an LG. Yeah, as we're smoking it more
**Bam Bam:** and more, it's not, it's not showing itself to be.
No. Strange. Know
**Gizmo:** we keep talking about that with
**Rooster:** these Yeah. Like the alls we just smoked the alitos, which had no particles. DNA. mm-Hmm. . And now this is an L gc. Yeah. That does not taste like And yeah, the LG C that I pro Typical LGC. Yeah. That I know what an LGC Yeah.
**Senator:** Is
**Rooster:** like. Correct.
**Senator:** I feel like they just blend a cigar and pick a name out of a hat and they're like, we're gonna call this the party LCDH release, regardless of whether it's part of that flavor profile at all.
Cause this is same thing. This does not have LGC DNA in it whatsoever.
**Gizmo:** Let's not forget too, that, you know, this, this is a baby brand of the Partagus universe, right? This is one of alongside Bolivar alongside Ramon Iones. La Gloria Cubana is under the umbrella of Barticus, so what that would tell me is it could be the same person that blended the Aliados, blended this glorious that we have in our hand.
**Bam Bam:** Could this be a premium [00:11:00] second? It might be. It might
**Gizmo:** be with a premium second band on it.
**Senator:** That blender needs to be fired, I'm sorry. It's not a bad cigar. I'm hypothesizing, but it's not bad. It's just, this is not consistent in any way with the LGC DNA. No. And there is supposed to be some thread that ties really any cigar in a given market together.
The profile will vary, but you'll know. By that flavor that it's part of that brand. And it's only these LCDH releases that I feel like we experienced cigars where we can't recognize it as part of that brand.
**Rooster:** There should be a common note amongst the entire market, at least one, you know, like Upman has baking spice.
Correct. Which is kind of consistent with their entire market. Part of the LGC to me is maybe floral notes, uh, part of this, maybe cinnamon or baking spice or other, you know. [00:12:00] Um, so, you know, that's, that's a common, common note found all throughout the market. This is completely different. It's almost like they took an Aliados and put an LGC band on it.
You know, it's not that
**Gizmo:** bad yet. But it's not trending. It's not trending well, but it's not as bad as that part. You know,
**Rooster:** for the price that they that these go for, you want more out of these sticks.
**Bam Bam:** We may get more work about an inch in. So hopefully it develops.
**Rooster:** I mean, 42 is pretty that's reasonable for this.
Like these usually go for 50 and up. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Have you ever had this? I have not, but I had a box of this and then I read about it and I, oh boy. That's quite
**Gizmo:** some time ago, right? I feel like that was about a year ago. It had
**Rooster:** just come out. They came out with this and there was another, uh, Bolivar I think was it that came out about the same time.
I
**Grinder:** have to say, I do, I do like the smoke so far. Very pleasurable. Yeah. And you know, the burn is wonderful. I think, um, to your [00:13:00] point, it is slightly muddled. I think so. I think, I think, you know, there's, there's a smooth flavor. It's, it's got some nice nuttiness. Um, there's a little sweetness on the aroma as well that I'm catching.
It's hard to pinpoint what that is.
**Bam Bam:** It's hard to pinpoint. Maybe honey.
**Grinder:** Maybe. Maybe persimmon. Um. Persimmon. Persimmon. We are going deep tonight. What the hell is that? I've been eating a lot of persimmons. Um, but, but to your point, I, I think they could, I think, I think it would do well to, this cigar would do well to have a little more punch.
A little more. I think it more volume. Think
**Rooster:** it just needs more age. Yeah. I think I taste the fresh, you know, freshness, the fresh tobacco flavor. Hmm. I don't, I don't know as much juice. Dunno, this doesn't
**Bam Bam:** smoke young to me. I agree. You know, I'm not getting used. I think it's really quite velvety and smooth.
**Gizmo:** You know, sometimes, you know, when we're in Cuba and you cut a cigar that has recently been [00:14:00] rolled and you take that cold draw, you can really taste that fresh tobacco. I'm not getting that at all here. And I didn't on the cold draw. I'm not now. And I'm not getting any of that kind of youth driven ammonia thing that we talk about so much.
I'm not getting any of that. I would certainly expect that probably in the last quarter of the cigar we'll get that. I, I'm not getting that now, Rooster. I'm not getting a youth thing.
**Rooster:** So what I really mean is like, the muddled flavors might be more distinguishable if it aged more.
**Grinder:** Yeah, it's possible.
Maybe it just hasn't come into its own yet.
**Bam Bam:** Honestly, that's sweet note that we can't pinpoint helping this thing along.
**Gizmo:** It definitely is. And I think the velvety smoke is helping it. It is actually, it's a pleasure to smoke. It's a nice experience. I just wish that we were getting a little bit more out of the, uh, Out of the flavor.
I think the Turquino set like around half the price of this, especially in the first, you know, third here blew this thing away. That was a
**Bam Bam:** delicious cigar from beginning to end.
**Gizmo:** And, and we talk about this with [00:15:00] Partagus and some of the other new releases that have come out, the Ramon Iones number three, it's like, how are the new releases in regular production with no second band on them, outperforming cigars that are double the price with these LCDH bands.
You know, coming out in parallel. I
**Senator:** mean, this goes to, I've said this a thousand times and I think we agree on this. Standard production sticks are better than the special releases. Period. We've said that many times. It's across
**Bam Bam:** the board. You tell, we've told listeners I think more than five times. Pursue the standard production line.
Collect those. And then occasionally try these special early.
**Gizmo:** And you know what's terribly unfortunate about this line, is there are only three cigars in regular production for La Gloria Cubana. That's also a
**Bam Bam:** travesty.
**Gizmo:** The Glorious that we're smoking tonight. The Turquino's that we smoked a little around, you know, around a year ago and the MDO number four, which is a very, very hard cigar to find because they really don't roll that many of them.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, [00:16:00] easier now, but So in the last year
**Gizmo:** or two years, they've tripled the line. There was one cigar that was never, you know, that you couldn't find it anywhere. They've added the Glorious and the Turquinous now. But it's, it's really an underserved line for how much we love a lot of the cigars that have come out of it.
This
**Grinder:** seems like one of those brands that they definitely pocket for those special releases. Absolutely. And then just band it separately. Like, I remember years ago, um, do you remember we, uh, I'm talking to Rooster here. Remember the, the LGC, uh, The Spanish edition, that little Robusto, those were fantastic.
But they made another one with a different market. I forget what it was. It was Florida. Florida. Florida. Yeah. And it tasted the same. It was the same, the same cigar, like exact same cigar. They're both wonderful. But they definitely, you know, just said, here's the stick. We're going to market. We're going to put these bands on it and we're going to put these bands on it.
And a lot of that way.
**Gizmo:** To your point, by the way, grinder, I did a count while you were chatting about that cigar. [00:17:00] There have been 19 special releases since 2008 in the Gregorio Cubano line, all while they've canceled the MDO number two. Strictly limited the release of the MDO No. 4 into the market. There's not a lot of boxes of those.
And like I said in the last year or two, they've added two other cigars to the line. Only one is a regular production, standard issue, reasonably priced cigar in the Turquino's. This one being an LCDH. 40 to $50 a piece. I, I
**Grinder:** love the flavor I'm getting right now. It's like chest nutty. Yeah. It's, this is a nut forward for sure.
With that little sweet thread that's going through it, man. Yeah. Getting, like, getting like, like roasted
**Senator:** chestnut kind of Christmas time thing. I completely agree with Grindr. I think when this started out it was like walnut and it's like morphed into a sweeter nut like a chestnut. And I, I like the flavor actually that I'm getting right now.
The thing that just frustrates me is really the price point because the experience I'm having right now, if you told me that this was 15 or [00:18:00] 20, I would say this is not a complex cigar, but I'm enjoying the flavor I'm getting. And so it's probably worth 15, 20 bucks. The fact that this is a 40 something dollars cigar.
I mean, that's where you expect a complex premium experience. And I can't say I'm getting that. So that's really where there's a disconnect that I'm just having a hard time appreciating the cigar because of the price point that it's at. Well, it's
**Rooster:** a 400. Investment for stakes and 400 goes towards the box, you know, you know, the problem, get rid of the fricking box and just put it in a regular dress box or a slide led box.
What does the boxes look like?
**Gizmo:** They're they're very ornate, very similar to the white and blue lacquer. Oh, wow. Yeah, very nice, very nice presentation. Very similar, I think, to the Alveados in its intention of being a presentation box when you walk in the LCDH, it's in the glass case type of thing, you know?
**Grinder:** I think there's this, there's a portfolio of cigars in, in the Vanoss catalog that are just designed and [00:19:00] marketed for our nation, just for decor. You know, this is a gift, put it in a nice box. Some real cigar smokers probably never gonna, you know, You know, take it to the metal because, you know, it is a very beautiful, it's a beautiful presentation.
You should, you were showing pictures earlier. Yeah. It's got that lacquer.
**Gizmo:** It's beautifully presented. And, but you know, it's a Senator's point at 42. I don't see that or 50, whatever you find them for. I don't see this as a cigar that I'm saying, you know what I'm willing to invest. years, five years, eight years, 10 years to see how they develop.
Whereas if they were 15 or 20, like he's talking about, I might be willing to do that. You don't see where they go.
**Bam Bam:** And you won't do it with a cigar. And I
**Gizmo:** will
**Rooster:** not do it. Well, that's what the cigar is worth. It's worth 20. Correct. Not more than that. The construction
**Bam Bam:** is beautiful, though. I mean, I'm looking at everyone's cigar, great burn line, beautiful ash.
**Rooster:** Beautiful ash.
**Bam Bam:** And smoking very nicely. You can
**Rooster:** get that on a 10 cigar. It's true. Yeah, it's 42 [00:20:00] for construction.
**Gizmo:** So when we did the Turquino's episode on episode 84, quite some time ago, we did a full history of LaGoria Cubano. We're not going to repeat that. So if you're interested in how we rated that cigar.
And what we talked about, about Lori, uh, LaGloria Cubana, tune into that episode 84, go back and listen. I'll just do a couple of quick things. LaGloria Cubana was founded in 1885. So it has a very, very long history. It went away in 1959 and then came back in 1965. And it has been around ever since. It's a very, very slim portfolio.
As I talked about, there's only three cigars in regular production. There are a ton, unfortunately, of cigars in. that have been discontinued. And the highlight line of those cigars, which three of the four have been discontinued, are the Medaille d'Or, one, two, and three, and only the four remains. And I would say the MDO number two, the Lonsdale, the Dahlias, is one of the [00:21:00] most sought after cigars
**Bam Bam:** in
**Gizmo:** all of,
**Bam Bam:** in all of the smoking kingdom ever.
That's an incredible, incredible cigar.
**Gizmo:** And that cigar was discontinued in 2014, came in a varnished 898 layered box of 25 cigars. And, uh, that is one of my prize boxes in my humidor is my box of MDO2s.
**Bam Bam:** I S O M D O number
**Gizmo:** twos. Yeah, they're amazing. If you can get your hands on them, they're well worth the price.
There are a ton of others, unfortunately, that have been discontinued by Habanos over the years. And hopefully, We'll see more cigars like Turquino's come up as they relaunch LaGoria Cubana in the coming decade. So we'll see what happens. So boys, I agree with Senator about an inch in here that the flavor is definitely picking up a little bit.
It's becoming less mild. My
**Senator:** palate and my nose don't work is.
**Bam Bam:** Don't be defensive now.
**Gizmo:** No, I agree with that. No, I agree [00:22:00] with you. I, I do think it is picking up, I think the sweetness is helping. I am getting a little bit of that nuttiness. I don't know if I would say chestnut or walnut, but there is a little bit of a nuttiness there.
I wish there was more though. I wish there was something
**Bam Bam:** more. It does leave you wanting more. It does after each
**Senator:** straw. Yeah, like some baking spice. Just something to just tie this all together. I, I just, it needs. Another note,
**Gizmo:** so boys, we have an interesting listener email that I wanted to bring up now, uh, earlier in the program than we normally do came in from lizard.
Sean. He said, Hey, lizards. I love the pot. As you guys know, and I have a question for you. I noticed in your pre light and lighting ritual. I never hear of anyone toasting the foot. It seems like you go right from a cold draw to lighting it up and right into the flavor notes. Does anyone toast the foot, which is a common ritual or not?
And if not, why? We don't talk about it, but
**Bam Bam:** we, every single one. I can't smoke a cigar without toasting it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So to answer Lizard Sean's question, [00:23:00] when we light the cigars, generally I'm talking over the, everyone else toasting the cigar, then the other folks chime in, I toast mine just to keep continuity going, because I think it doesn't, it's not very interesting for us to sit here and have six or seven of us, Toasting a cigar for 30 seconds, lighting it, and then continuing the conversation.
So it's really just a production thing
**Senator:** that I do. Especially as Pagoda's trying to make it to Mars with his friggin torch.
**Bam Bam:** Well, he welds steel over here while he's lighting his cigar.
**Gizmo:** So the answer to, you know, to Lizard Sean is that in fact we are all toasting our cigars, trying to make the foot nice and toasty.
We purge it, and then we light them. I have
**Bam Bam:** a big pet peeve here. What's that? I don't like to see people put the cigar in their mouth. And then light the cigar while it's in their mouth. That happens a lot in a lot of languages. You're saying
**Gizmo:** before toasting.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, without toasting. They go right to the light.
And that is, for me, like, I'm looking at you like, What the hell are you doing? You're gonna ruin your wrapper. The whole foot'll turn black. You can't see it. [00:24:00] It's, it's Stop that practice, everybody. Toast your cigars. It's the only way to smoke a cigar. My opinion.
**Gizmo:** And if you have a butane lighter, there's a lot of heat coming off that thing.
You need to create some distance between the flame and the cigar. Be patient. You know, twist the cigar in your fingers. Get a nice, even, you know, char, you know, red char on the end of that without burning the edge of the wrapper. That's
**Grinder:** a pet peeve of mine. Just people who slam that. Cutane torch right into the foot.
You, to Well, they do it
**Bam Bam:** because they can't gauge distance when it's the flames in front of their face and the cigar's in their mouth. Yeah,
**Grinder:** but You have to toast it. There's no way around it. You're not lighting a cigarette. That's true. You, you, you have to take it out. You don't get, don't get, don't get If you get, you get that charry, charry taste in your mouth when you, when you, when I think it depends on the ring
**Rooster:** gauge, if it's a bigger ring gauge, you might toast it a little bit and it's not completely lit and then you put it in your mouth and then you kind of rotate the cigar as you light it.
**Grinder:** I don't do that. I just take the time. I [00:25:00] have done it. I, yeah, I just think it creates an uneven burn because that, that, That, you know, that stream of, of fire is going deeper than the actual foot. So I'll just say this.
**Senator:** I think I personally always toast the foot of a cigar before I'm lighting it. But I will say I have watched even some very prominent Executives in the cigar industry when we were at PCA.
Oh,
**Gizmo:** yeah.
**Senator:** Oh, I saw this. He's right. And I will not name names.
**Gizmo:** I know exactly who you're talking about. Who
**Senator:** do not toast. And I watched this individual or individuals light that cigar. And to their credit, without toasting it, it was perfectly evenly lit. So I won't go as far as Bam and saying that, like, every time, 100 percent of the time, you have to toast it.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Senator:** I agree with you in preference. That's how I would do it. But having seen others totally disregard that and still get a perfectly even light, [00:26:00] clearly there is an opportunity to do it a different way. Sometimes that does work, but my big pet peeve that categorically. 100 percent of the time, I think is a problem is people who are not actually lighting the, the tobacco, the filler that's inside.
And they're literally scalding the wrapper. I want to hit that guy with my shoe.
**Bam Bam:** I swear to God, like when you're lighting a cigar, I don't care if
**Senator:** you're lighting it in your mouth or if you're holding it to toast it. But if you're lighting it where the, the, the actual flame. It's literally hitting the wrapper first.
You don't, you're not lighting a cigar properly. Like it needs to be hitting the filler first and then working your way around to the wrapper. I, it is so infuriating when you just look at someone's cigar, they let, and there's about a half inch of just charred, like black wrapper. That's been just burnt and ruined.
Yeah. I get
**Bam Bam:** up and sit at another chair. If that guy's next to me.
**Gizmo:** Can I tell you, so there is someone at our lounge who recently joined and this person, I watched this person light a cigar [00:27:00] yesterday. Okay. Took the lighter.
**Senator:** Toasted the foot. I was there for this, so that's why I'm laughing because now I know.
**Gizmo:** Toasted the foot and then took the lighter and went up and down the entire length of the cigar. Are you serious? On the wrapper. No, that did not, no way. Swear, right hand to God, I swear. Can I ask you a question? Fortune, what are you doing? Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Don't do that to Fortune. Love you, Fortune.
**Bam Bam:** No, it was not Lizard Fortune. Did you take your shoe off and throw it at his head? I thought
**Gizmo:** about it. I thought about it, but. Ha Once we get acclimated, I will have a conversation with these guys. I am so
**Senator:** glad that I was sitting right there, but I completely missed this because had I seen this, I would have lost it.
This person was
**Gizmo:** not in your visibility, you know, in your visible direction. This was the person at the bar? The person at the bar. Oh my gosh.
**Senator:** Yes.
**Gizmo:** Wow. He was, he was eating up a Let's not
**Rooster:** assume he. He
**Gizmo:** was heating up the, oh yeah, he or she sure was heating up the wrapper. Yeah. What are we taking the lighter, the butane up and down the wrapper lighting?
One other thing
**Bam Bam:** about toasting the foot. You miss an opportunity [00:28:00] to catch an aroma as you're lighting it because it's coming right up under your nose. It's some, it's sometimes really delightful. It's an opportunity that you're missing if you don't toast. I
**Gizmo:** think it's part of the ritual. I think that properly toasting the foot.
And, you know, to answer Lizard Sean's question in a different way, if you go back to the JC Newman shark episode we did recently, Bam Bam, as we were lighting, was actually commenting on how long it was taking to light the amount of tobacco that was in the, The box press of that foot, but you put the time in patiently.
You were doing a patient, you know, patiently, you know, you were trying to, to light it properly. So to answer your question, Sean, yes, we're always toasting the foot. We are always doing that. I'm just trying not to torture you good listeners out there with 30 to 45 seconds or a minute of each of us just kind of silently toasting.
I'm trying to make it less of a punishing listening experience. So do something called editing. We do. I do, I do edit out the silence of lighting the cigar. So except for when Pagoda has his steel torch going, that's good [00:29:00] content. So we keep that going.
**Bam Bam:** I didn't get to hear that today.
**Pagoda:** Hey, listen, nothing bothers me.
Light the cigar the way you want to, smoke it the way you want to, and enjoy it. That's all. There he is. Alright, we're gonna dip your cigar in tequila tomorrow. I'd love that. I want to do the Arnold at least once.
**Grinder:** I'm gonna do it tonight. You dip your
**Bam Bam:** cigar into the tequila, and then you rub it like this, and rub it like this.
**Pagoda:** And that's how you You're stroking a cigar. This is where Poova would be great. What's wrong with my impression? Well.
**Gizmo:** So boys, we are coming to the end of the first third here. What are you thinking of the cigar at this point?
**Bam Bam:** I'm getting a little cocoa right now.
**Gizmo:** Mine's definitely improved. It's certainly, you know, my comparison point, of course, is that Partagas Aliados we did a few [00:30:00] episodes ago.
Uh, the second band coming out of Partagas. I am sad to say, sorry, I'm not
**Bam Bam:** getting any dry fruit though, I'm sad to say.
**Grinder:** Kidding.
**Bam Bam:** I'm not, but, um, So for us, honey, cocoa, can I just say
**Grinder:** also, no one introduced dried fruit into the conversation except you. You, you constantly shoot yourself in the foot. Should I
**Bam Bam:** run away from it?
**Grinder:** No, no, no,
**Pagoda:** no,
**Bam Bam:** no.
**Grinder:** But now it's on the table. Now you're no
**Bam Bam:** longer my hired counsel. So shut up.
**Grinder:** I, I, I looking for new counts. If you don't recall, I, I stepped down from that assignment. Correct. It's true.
**Bam Bam:** You left me, you left me. So
**Senator:** I have a question. At this point, based on the flavor notes you're getting, if you had to guess blind, I think we've all established we would never guess this is an LGC.
If you had to guess blind, what market would you say right now this is smoking closest to? Ramona Yonez. Good question.
**Gizmo:** I would say No, not for me. Are you serious? Not for me. I would say [00:31:00] that this is probably Oh, I know. On the better end. Poor Laranaga
**Bam Bam:** for me.
**Gizmo:** I would say this is for me on the better end of Oyo.
**Bam Bam:** Oyo de Monterrey. I would say this is Really? This is
**Gizmo:** closer to the better end. Hoyo de Monterey that I've had. I think it's light to medium. I think the flavor profile is kind of in that line. I do not think that this is anything having to do with the Partagas family of cigars. Partagas, Lodivar,
**Rooster:** Ramon, none of them.
I think you get a walnut. Note on a Ramon.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah,
**Rooster:** Ramon,
**Senator:** you just get a lot more flavor than you're getting outta it. Oh, absolutely. No,
**Rooster:** no. Of course you do. But that's the common note that I get in this, that I get out of a Ramon.
**Senator:** I'm curious the rest, so I, I mean, I, I tend to, if I had to pick between Ramon or Oil, I would say probably it's closer to oil, but I still had a different one.
I'm curious what you guys think about, so
**Pagoda:** you're talking about Cubans? Yeah, but I'll tell you, for me, it's really, I think the closest to EP career, Encore. Interesting. That's, that's not a bad [00:32:00] callout. Nutty.
**Bam Bam:** We haven't reviewed that on the pod. Much more robust cigar than this though. No, no, no.
**Senator:** We have not reviewed the Encore.
Wow. The Encore is a light cigar. Really? You ever had it? No. Oh yeah, no. Totally different than like the Pledge or any of the stuff we've done. That's a cool callout.
**Grinder:** I would say, kind of say a Monty. A little bit of Monty.
**Bam Bam:** I was going to go Monty 1. Yeah. Or that, I, I, maybe a little bit of Puerh Laranaca for me.
Okay. Between the two. I,
**Gizmo:** I, I definitely see the Puerto Aranaga. Of course, when I think Monty, I'm, I'm immediately going Monty II. Monty I. The Twang. But the Monty I is, that is a fair, fair call. And I think the Especiales No. 2 we did recently might be kind of in line with this flavor. That
**Bam Bam:** actually had more flavor than this, in my opinion.
I agree. Yeah. I agree. So what was the one? Yeah,
**Senator:** what's
**Bam Bam:** yours? What was the
**Senator:** one Yeah, no, it's funny because the more I smoke this, I'm not sold on what I was initially getting. The ones that resonate strongest that I've heard, Monty, I agree with. It doesn't have the twang, but the other notes are very Monty esque.
Um, I also think Poor Larnaga is a [00:33:00] good one. That's a good one. And I think oil would be third, but I think it's, to me, this has more flavor than most. I was saying. Or more body, I should say, than most oils. This would be on the better end of oil for me.
**Bam Bam:** Let me ask you a question. You're enjoying this more now, aren't you?
I am. Yeah. I am. It's getting better. It is.
**Senator:** I would say for me, just like the nuttiness I was getting, there are a number of Upman cigars that I get a lot of nutty notes in. So that's what like immediately clicked in my head. But then the lack of baking spice is what is where I can't really say it. And I
**Gizmo:** feel like with Upman though, there's, there is a, there is a really, really great character to most of the cigars that we've smoked from them.
Even in the Connie one, I think one of them didn't perform as well as the other three. I think the thing that keeps me away from comparing this to Upman is this is just not in the same class as most Upman. So this to me is just more [00:34:00] like the better end of like a, an oil for me. That's why I'm making that comparison as opposed to like an Upman.
But I do agree with what you're saying. This is,
**Grinder:** this is like an orphan child that they, you know, just try to find a home for. And I think it's indecipherable. But if I had to guess. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some monte lineage in here.
**Rooster:** I would say it is better than the Aliatos that we smoked.
**Senator:** There's definitely more flavor here. Yeah. And it's been pleasant
**Pagoda:** throughout.
**Gizmo:** So boys, let's talk about our pairing tonight. We have a Cognac. A V. S. O. P. What is it? The name has been kept from me. Pass this against. Konyak. Oh,
**Senator:** here we go.
**Gizmo:** What Konyak is this? Let's hear the enunciation here. You want me to pronounce it? Okay. Alright. I'm gonna give the people what they want. Bam. Correct.
Here we go. Get ready. Voice. . Is it the name up here? Engraved on the glass?
**Senator:** Uh, yes.
**Gizmo:** [00:35:00] Okay. I'm gonna say this is, uh, a de fini a mu bad, not bad. A well, no, it's French, so I'm, I'm changing it to, ah, that's a name. Uh, Dave Fusini. I'd say Fusini. Fusini. Hey, I'm not that far off.
**Pagoda:** Fusini. Fusini. Yeah. Yeah. Not that far.
The Spanish lessons are paying off. Well done.
**Bam Bam:** This
**Pagoda:** is French. The Romance Language is on there. Well, they're both Latin based.
**Bam Bam:** So you're close.
**Gizmo:** I'm doing better in French than I am in Spanish. Okay. So pronounce it correctly for me. I
**Senator:** mean, I think Ade Fusini.
**Gizmo:** Ade Fusini. Okay, good.
**Pagoda:** We, we, we, we told, we told somebody from France, I'm French.
Oh, some listeners
**Gizmo:** are going to skewer the both of us right now. I, I'm certain that it's not French. Our French listeners, just hit unsubscribe.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, Alain from, uh, ST Dupont's going to be calling you. What? I just, every time, I just see that for sure. Grinder, you made a big mistake.
**Gizmo:** So this is VSOP [00:36:00] Cognac from the Cognac region of France. That's right. I'm gonna take my first sip. Now. I'm drinking this Neat. I believe we all are.
**Senator:** We are. Yeah. We don't want more listener emails. We need to drink our spirits. Neat. Yeah. What VSOP stand
**Gizmo:** for? Very special. Very special. Old pale. Oh VSOP. Wow.
That is like candy syrup.
**Bam Bam:** It's got body for sure.
**Gizmo:** And it's very
**Bam Bam:** viscous. Yeah, it is. It's got legs. I will say the first two sips were pretty hot, but yeah, I love it now.
**Grinder:** It rounds out. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm, I'm drinking it like, like water right now. Me too. So I
**Gizmo:** poured this before we hit record, which is about 35 minutes ago.
I haven't taken a sip. Do you think that that time has helped it? Just sitting like opening up or no?
**Senator:** They're talking about and what needs to happen. Your palate will adjust. So like the first two sips, because it's a fuller bodied cognac, It's kind of like Ricky's talked about in prior episodes with like, uh, a hotter [00:37:00] mezcal or tequila, you know There's a little bit of shock factor for your taste buds So you think it's very hot but then once your taste buds acclimate it actually goes down really smooth Mm hmm.
**Bam Bam:** It's it's it's actually very very good. It's delicious.
**Grinder:** That's really good. It's rich. It is I mean, I I was I I was I liken it to A syrup you put on the top of ice cream, like a caramel syrup.
**Gizmo:** I completely agree.
**Grinder:** Caramel, vanilla. It does
**Bam Bam:** help alone the cigar as well.
**Senator:** Yeah, I think. I
**Grinder:** think it's a good pair.
**Senator:** The thing I was excited with this is number one I've seen if you look at really any list of like cognacs you must try This brand always comes up and this is a small cognac house This is not obviously one of the big like Remy, Martell, Hennessey, none of these They're not a tiny fraction of the size You And the interesting thing for me is we talk about how Cognac needs to come from the Cognac region, and there are different parts of the Cognac region, but we've never really talked about [00:38:00] what's different or distinct about, there are actually different crews they call them within the Cognac region.
And there are different flavor profiles that come out of each of those crews. So what we're drinking is the grant is from the grand champagne region within the Cognac region and the grand champagne crew produces among the fullest bodied, most flavorful Cognacs period. Like I didn't know this before, you know, it's like we try a Cognac and we're like, that's lighter, that's more floral, that's more rich, that's more flavorful.
It's really stemming from the region within Cognac that that is grown and cultivated in and they provide I have to give credit on the box. It was actually very educational. They provide some kind of defining characteristics of Cognacs from these different crews or regions within Cognac. So it says here in the Grand Champagne region where this is from, it's known for producing complex and full bodied spirits.
It [00:39:00] said character, full bodied, enriched, key flavor notes. Candied fruit, chocolate, and toffee. And I, I think you get that in this.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, I think that's accurate.
**Bam Bam:** Honestly, I get a bit of, like, a maple on the finish at the back end. I agree with you on that. Yeah, that's, that's very slight.
**Gizmo:** I will say, after having sipped this two or three times, taking a draw of the cigar, it's absolutely improved my experience with the cigar.
Yeah, it's a nice combination. Which goes to the benefit of a good pairing. You know, even when a cigar is kind of lacking as we're getting into the, up to the, you know, the end of the first third halfway point. It is getting better though. It definitely is, but I'm saying this is also helping it.
**Senator:** Yeah. And I'll also say, you know, very honestly, I had no knowledge of what flavor notes would be in this LGC that we're smoking.
And clearly I gave it no thought because typically you'd get more floral notes and, or actually, I guess I really didn't know what to expect out of this cognac. That it'd be this full body and [00:40:00] have these more like heavy dessert like flavor notes. The irony is, you know, if this smoked like a traditional LGC and this was very floral, this cognac really wouldn't pair that well
**Bam Bam:** with it.
I kind
**Senator:** of agree
**Bam Bam:** with that. You'd want a lighter cognac. And this cognac, as you go through, it gets much smoother and it's really smooth and elegant to drink.
**Senator:** But my point is, we've kind of fallen into luck in the sense that this doesn't smoke like a traditional LGC at all. It's got this nutty character about it that's very different.
By pure chance really pairs well with a fuller body cognac.
**Grinder:** And it doesn't compete. Let me ask a question to the group here. I think we can certainly agree that the spirit or whatever you're pairing can elevate the experience. If you have a, maybe a not so wonderful pairing, can it take away from the experience?
Can you let the experience stand by itself? You know, is it, you know, having a good cigar and then maybe not the optimal pairing, does it kind of diminish the experience in any way? [00:41:00]
**Pagoda:** Yeah, didn't we do an episode where one of the pairings did not, uh, many, yeah, we've done several
**Gizmo:** and, and we've also done pairings where the spirit was a good spirit, but it just did not align well with the flavor profile of the cigar and not just in body or kind of oomph because we've had that where The cigar is a little, has too much oomph compared to the spirit or vice versa, where obviously you want them to be complimentary and not competing.
But I think also in flavor, I, I certainly experienced it even at home where I've sipped something that took away from, from an experience as opposed to adding to it.
**Senator:** Yeah, I think, I think grinder's question is a good one in that there are plenty of mediocre spirits that have very simple traditional flavor notes and while they don't add to the cigar, I don't think that they really detract a whole lot from it, but I think it's the spirits that have like a really distinct flavor note that is completely The complete opposite of the flavor notes [00:42:00] you're getting in the cigar.
That's where that, that can really clash. I think like if you're having a really sweet dessert, like cigar, and you were to pair with that, like the PDS of scotches, that could potentially clash. Like that's where you'd want something that's not as aggressively peated, something that's got a little sweetness to compliment the dessert notes in the cigar.
So. I think that's the only time that I actively get frustrated where the spirit is taking away from the cigar when the notes are so diametrically opposed that there's really nothing they have in common. And then there
**Grinder:** are those spirits that go well with every cigar. Absolutely. Like, like Pargé.
**Gizmo:** Paul Rouget, Havana Club, Cuba, Remy 1738, Mac 12, McAllen 12.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah,
**Gizmo:** there's a lot.
**Bam Bam:** Colassier is great too.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. You know, the one thing I'm, I'm thinking about as you say this is just kind of a class or a classification of spirit that I think doesn't work with most cigars for me. And that's rye whiskey. Oh, [00:43:00] that's a good. I think rye whiskey for me is a clash. Driver for cigars.
I just don't think the flavor profile of rye works with good tobacco where I think when we've had wheat Driven bourbon and whiskey. I think most of the time even when we don't rate it Super well. I still think it, it, it, it can compliment much better than even some of the better rise.
**Senator:** I would also add to that, and I think probably similar to your comment around rye, that very high proof spirits do not tend to pair well with cigars.
And it's just because it dominates the flavor, dominates your palate in such an aggressive way. You lose the ability, really, to appreciate the different flavor notes that are much more subtle and nuanced coming out of the cigar.
**Bam Bam:** I can only think about that four square that we had. Oh, the rum. Oh, my lord.
That morning, after, that was rough. And I [00:44:00] actually lost, The experience of this cigar after like halfway through that drink, it was really powerful. You know,
**Rooster:** you, you had just mentioned a note from this Cognac and I think you mentioned toffee just when you said toffee. I don't know if it was psychological.
I was getting a toffee note out of the cigar. Like that sweetness. That's definitely there. You know, I think
**Senator:** so. Yeah. And it's good. You mentioned there, there's a few more notes that they talk about the other regions within Cognac. So What I mentioned before was Grand Champagne, which is the region that this is from, what we're drinking.
Um, this brand also makes a lot from the Petite Champagne region, some of which we've definitely done, uh, on the podcast from other, uh, champ, um, other cognac houses. It says, from the Petite Champagne region, chalky soil and clay create delicate and fruity cognacs, perfect for sipping. Character, fruity and refined, key flavors.
Candied pear, fig, and vanilla. And I think fig and vanilla are notes we've gotten in a number of cognacs. And then the [00:45:00] third one that they make that they talk about here, the Bordery region, which if anyone remembers, we've done one cognac from the Bordery region. Does anybody remember?
**Bam Bam:** Mm mm.
**Senator:** It's a special cognac.
Deep dark black
**Bam Bam:** bottle with gold.
**Senator:** No. It was like a frosted glass bottle. It's the Camu Exo. Ah, Camu. That was good. That's the Borea region. And it says it's the smallest and rarest crew producing the richest floral spirits. Character, refined and balanced, key flavors, violet, jasmine, and pepper. And I remember that cognac being more floral, the kind of notes we were getting.
So, but It was just interesting as we're going on this cognac journey, like now I think we can even start to appreciate and call out regions within the cognac regions that produce kind of defining flavor notes, you know, that we experienced when we're drinking this stuff. Very cool. How much was that? Uh, 70, 70 flat a bottle.
Not bad.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I think it's drinking very well for, for a [00:46:00] 70. Like, I, I, I think it's satisfied
**Bam Bam:** with one glass of that and be fine.
**Gizmo:** I agree. And I think if he said that that was a hundred or a hundred and ten,
**Bam Bam:** Mm.
**Gizmo:** I probably would feel the same about it as I do at 70. I think it's It's satisfying. Performing better than its price point.
I think it's a very rich spirit. I just
**Grinder:** always, I always feel like a robber baron every time I smoke a cigar with a cognac. Like, like I'm, like I just had my, like, very posh dinner, and I'm resigning on the Titanic to the smoking room with the men. Plotting your next move,
**Bam Bam:** you know, surveying your landscape.
**Gizmo:** You know, I think there's another point to be made here, too, about spirit pairing. Because we have taken some heat from listeners who haven't liked when we've complained that a spirit is over proofed or is too hot. Or we put ice in it to kind of cool it off a little bit, you know, to align with the palette, you know, with the cigar palette that we're trying to achieve, but I think the important thing to note here is that our first and primary thing that we do here is the cigar and complimenting that.[00:47:00]
Hopefully most of the time is the pairing is the spirit. So we're not a whiskey first or a cognac first or a wine first podcast. We are a cigar first podcast. So the spirit has to align with the cigar, not the other way around. So. Obviously, that is gonna change a little bit of our perception versus a lot our priority, sure.
Yeah, a lot of folks who just drink whiskey, of course they're gonna chase the hot stuff, and they're, they're running to that brick wall. We're not trying to do that here when we're smoking tobacco.
**Senator:** That's right, and just to build on that, I mean, when you think about, Cigars that are available out there. I mean, the percentage of cigars that are aggressively full bodied, that would pair well with like a high proof spirit.
That's a small percentage, right? It's very small. You know, Liga is like one brand that's known for producing really full bodied cigars. There's not many other brands like Liga out there. So it's like for a cigar, like a Liga nine or something that's super full and rich in flavor. Sure, that can hold up against a higher approved [00:48:00] spirit, but for the overwhelming majority of cigars, they're mostly medium, medium full, and that's where you can't have the spirit dominate the flavor profile where it starts to clash.
**Bam Bam:** But you know, the whole educational process here about learning everything that we're drinking, there's a huge upside for me personally. I think the value add to that, I think is tremendous.
**Gizmo:** I agree. And I think, you know, as you're talking about being able to kind of pinpoint various regions of even inside the Cognac region of France.
**Bam Bam:** Now we're digging in.
**Gizmo:** We're like, we're learning a lot. And I think that the listener, you know, when we started drinking Cognac, I think it was in the 30s or 40s. You know, that's a hundred episodes ago to our journey since that time, trying to learn about these spirits, take listener feedback, dive into stuff that's special.
Like you had a special order this, I think you said, right? This is funny because this brand
**Senator:** is not one of the huge Cognac houses where, you know, it's readily accessible everywhere. It's not the easiest to find this total wine had it. But outside of that, I mean, any local liquor store around here, [00:49:00] I have not been able, I've been wanting to try this for at least a year and it's just been inconvenient to go.
So luckily they delivered it. Um, so that helped, but there's only one store in this immediate area that carries this
**Gizmo:** and we're in, you know, we're right outside New York city. So for someone in, in the Midwest or something, it's might be a little bit of a challenge to find this, uh, spirit. So yeah, that, you know, it's a really good question grinder as far as Pairings and, and kind of our ethos in the podcast with our pairings is, you know, the cigar comes first for us and, and we try to find pairings that, that compliment that to the best of our ability and not overpower, you know, just don't, so long as it doesn't detract.
So boys were around the halfway point here of the La Gloria Cubana Glorious from Cuba. What's everybody thinking?
**Rooster:** I think it's smoking the best right now. I agree.
**Gizmo:** It's picked up. It's good. Can't complain. So far it's definitely turned into a two act play. I'm hoping for a third act. But I'm liking this beginning to the second half here much more [00:50:00] than I did at least the first third.
**Bam Bam:** It has the beginnings of a complex cigar. If it's going from one act to another, there's something there.
**Senator:** Yeah, I just think, you know, Gizmo called us out right when we lit the cigar. I think the first act was muddled. I just think, like, the notes we were getting were not really clear and defined and didn't really meld well together.
And I think in the second third of this cigar, that's where now the notes are very defined and working well together. And I'm enjoying the flavor profile right now. You guys getting any cocoa? A little bit. Yeah. Like some more like milk chocolate to me. Okay. Okay.
**Gizmo:** I'm not getting a distinct cocoa or chocolate note.
I think I'm kind of putting that into the creaminess of the cigar. Yeah. But I'm not, I haven't found a distinct, uh, chocolate driven note, you know, as of this point. Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** I'm not getting the milk chocolate note, although when I was smelling the foot of the cigar right in the beginning, I thought that that was a kind [00:51:00] of, uh, aroma I was getting.
Um, but, uh, yeah, I'm kind of seeking it out, but, you know, having the cognac, um, I also think like, I've not been able to distinct, like distinctly call out the flavors in the cigar anymore. I think the cognac has a longer finish for me. It's really enveloping my palate.
**Grinder:** I think, I think for me, there's definitely a sweetness that is, that is picked up here.
And, and it's, it's for sure positive. And, you know, I think when you combine like the nuttiness that we had with the sweetness that we're now kind of coming to the bear, um, that is coming to bear rather, it's, it's. It's enjoyable, it's, it's got that complexity we're looking for, and, uh, to, to Rooster's point, I think this is really shining right now, and I hope, I actually hope it stays a two act play with what I'm seeing right now, you know?
Do you
**Rooster:** get that toffee, caramel type note? I
**Grinder:** think that's part of what, That might be part of what I'm getting, you know, this in the cigar
**Rooster:** and the cigar.
**Senator:** I do get a little bit of toffee [00:52:00] and I do I really get milk chocolate at this stage. I'm with you on that. It's like a
**Grinder:** toffee that has nuts in it, you know, this right, you
**Bam Bam:** know, yeah.
Yeah, well for me, it's not forward right now. Well, that's
**Rooster:** that's that nutty and toffee note kind of reminiscent of the Monty one. You know, and the irony
**Senator:** of this gives you have the bottle of Cognac on the label, they call out specific flavor notes that you should get and just read them because you'll see the first note.
**Gizmo:** Okay. So on the, Oh, by the way, I looked up the actual pronunciation of this cause I wasn't allowed to read it. It's odd day Fusini. Ah. Ah. So, the notes that they're calling out here are vine shoot, candied prune, and raisin, chocolate, vanilla, coconut, and toffee.
**Senator:** Coconut? Toffee, chocolate, and raisin. That's all there.
You guys don't get the,
**Gizmo:** you guys don't get the vine shoot. This is a Malibu. [00:53:00] It's
**Senator:** just retro Haley. You'll get the bite shoot.
I will say the one, the one note on there, people may disagree or think I'm crazy on this, but the coconut to me, it's not like a regular coat. It's like toasted. Toasted coconut, I get.
**Gizmo:** I really like the flavor of this cognac. I think this is This is a very advanced spirit. I think compared certainly to some of the bigger houses.
It keeps you
**Bam Bam:** thinking. Exactly. At the It's a very long finish. And when you finish, you take a sip and you put your glass down? You're still thinking about that drink. That's something, man.
**Gizmo:** Yes. And I feel like every sip I'm, um, it's a rich, rich primary note. Rich experience. Yes. There's a
**Rooster:** different It does.
**Senator:** I, I, I truly think that for the VSOP category, which this is within, I think this is one of the most complex VSOPs that we've had. And I can see why there's a lot of hype around this brand [00:54:00] and they have, An XO that I was shocked seems reasonably priced in the sense that every XO we've done in the pot is about 200 a bottle.
These are not cheap. I think the XO I saw in total wine for this is maybe like 110 or 120, which for that category is a good price. I'd be very interested to try that at some point given the experience we're having with this. Let's do it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. This is a really good pairing right now. And the cigar has certainly improved, you know, independent of what we've talked about with the parent.
I don't want the listener to think that we're sipping this cognac, loving it. And all of a sudden we're loving the cigar. No, the cigar has taken a major turn for the better, which given a cigar that was released in 2022, this is about a year and a half old since it was boxed. For a Cuban cigar to have the second half of that be better at that age, given what we thought about the first third at least, I think that is a real merit to what's happening right here.
I
**Grinder:** think the only thing that makes me recoil a little bit [00:55:00] is just, is, is the flavor we're getting, is it aligned with the price? Right. And
**Bam Bam:** that's a great question. This is a question that continues to rattle around in my mind, how this is going to affect our rating. Yeah. It's a question for sure. Like
**Grinder:** I, I know, I know a score.
I have a score in mind and I know I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm, there's, there's a chance I'm going to, I'm going to index it down a little bit because of the price. Sure. Yeah.
**Senator:** But I'll say this. I mean, I was very critical in the first third about the cigar because of the price. I mean, to me, it's smoked like a very basic, simple.
Cigar without any complexity. And so at that premium price, to me, that's totally incompatible. I will say the second third. I think this is delivering a more complex experience. It's
**Bam Bam:** become complex
**Senator:** that now is commensurate with a higher price is 40 something dollars. The exact price point, probably not.
But you know, is it more now than a 20 cigar at how it's smoking at this moment? I do think it is. So like, [00:56:00] I actually am impressed that it's starting to perform at a higher level that's commensurate with a higher price point. I
**Rooster:** mean, just given, you know, where Habanos is right now, there's really hardly anything you can buy at a 20 price point for a steak.
You know, it's, I mean, in a d4, at least in a reasonable format, that's crazy. Yeah, that's hard. So these are special, special releases. That's an lcdh release comes in a beautiful box. So yeah, maybe it's not 42, but it's not 20 either. Right. Agree. So. Maybe somewhere in between.
**Gizmo:** So boys, let's go to another listener email.
I actually think this is kind of coincidentally goes very much along with what we just talked about. And before I get into it, I wanted to say, uh, cause this, this email starts with a kind message, uh, about the loss of my mom. Obviously we talked about that. Quite a few episodes ago. You guys very kindly brought in an amazing spirit, [00:57:00] which was fantastic.
And, and I got to tell you, I have gotten an immense amount of emails, notes, messages, uh, you know, from our listeners, our lizard family out there. So I'm very, very grateful for that. So thank you all. Uh, for thinking of me and, and sending your kind notes along. Um, it's very, very much appreciated. We got, I, I got emails with folks who donated in her name to various non profits, including the SPCA and some other things.
I got messages. We got gifts in the mail with nice notes. So I'm, I'm very, very grateful. We have an amazing community out there. So, so thank you all for, uh For, for the support is very kind. So lizard seagull, one of our, uh, he emails us a lot. He's a big listener. We really appreciate it. He says, give us first off condolences on losing mom hard times, but you have an amazing band of brothers to fall back on many blessings.
I'm listening to one of the most recent podcasts. I think you need to make a profile of each of you. Seven. I can't align with what you [00:58:00] guys like and dislike. I don't know what you typically enjoy in a cigar. I know some of you guys enjoy a red cigar. Robust cigar. Others enjoy a medium full with lots of notes, et cetera.
If there was a profile of each of you on what they tend to enjoy also going with alcohol, I could then see what my preferences align with. I hope that makes a lot of sense. I'm, I am really enjoying the tastings part, the pairings. He's saying that the spirits more than the actual cigar part, probably because as I've said before, you know, You guys smoke in a day what I smoke in two months now, whiskey.
I usually have a finger or two every night. Last night's choice was the Nick of coffee malt. It was so good. Good
**Pagoda:** choice.
**Gizmo:** Thanks for a great podcast. Enjoy the banter, especially the BAM accountability hours and raccoons. So thank you. Lizard seagull for writing us a kind of lizard seagull.
**Bam Bam:** Where do you live?
**Gizmo:** So, you know, it's an interesting question about, you know, how do we profile our pallets? You know, obviously [00:59:00] we have the ratings guys. I
**Senator:** mean, roosters is very easy. One word. Pigtail.
**Gizmo:** That's true. It has a pigtail. He's in, you know, so how do we do that? I think that's really tough. Is there a way to ride fruit on bam citrus citrus and dried fruits?
You know, I, I, I, of course point to the ratings guide on the website, and I think that might be the easiest way to kind of understand how we're rating individual cigars. But of course that doesn't point to flavor notes and those kinds of preferences. So I'm curious what you think about that. I
**Senator:** just, before we go around the room on kind of how we would describe this, I think this is really great listener feedback because to me, we need to add on our website, just like a short descriptor of each lizard's profile.
And I think if we just go around, like, one. Everybody should say the, the kind of body that they're looking for in a cigar. Your ideal go-to mild, medium, [01:00:00] full, mild, medium, medium full.
**Bam Bam:** That's a little challenging because you've got Cubans and New World cigars. Know some of us may pursue different,
**Senator:** most of the cigars that you pursue in smoke, like I have a very clear, like most of what I smoke, mm-Hmm.
I look for a certain type of body. I think like I could name probably for everybody around this room. So I'm curious, like for each of us to go around and say what kind of body we normally pursue. And then if you were to pick out one defining flavor note that you look for in a cigar, I'd be very curious what that is.
**Rooster:** It's easy for Bam Bam.
**Senator:** So why don't you start us off? All right. So I'll start for, for me in terms of body, I most aggressively pursue medium full. Like that's why I'm a big Partagas guy because on the Cuban kind of spectrum, I think Partagas is the closest thing to medium full that exists. And then I think in the new world space, like Padrone is the, the, the 64 line that I love so much.
And then the 80th that is different from, I think the regular 1926 [01:01:00] line are all medium full. So that's body that I normally pursue, even though I smoke outside of that, of course, in a range of different cigars. And in terms of a defining flavor note for me, it's baking spice. It's what I crave in a D for that cinnamon note that you get.
It's what I love in a lot of upmins. Um, it's definitely baking spice. So that would be my call out. I think now that
**Rooster:** you go around the room, it's good that you're. Not only are you mentioning the flavor profile, but also mentioned the cigar, like your top two or top three cigars, which we did a long ago.
That would give Marcus to make it right. Marcus. So that would give the listener an idea as to, you know, how he can relate to and whose flavor profile that he's and the thing, the thing about your
**Gizmo:** point though, quick though, bam. The thing I want to say is we did do this a long time ago. Yeah. But I think that, I certainly think about my palate, how often my preferences change.
This might be something that we need to regularly revisit, because as we discover new cigars, new [01:02:00] things changing in the rotation, you know. It is also
**Bam Bam:** shifting. It is. Maybe not frequently, but when you discover something new, that. just gets a check mark and it's added to your arsenal.
**Senator:** And I think we go around, let's do Mark is.
And the reason I say that is because if we do individual cigars, we're all going to say the Vegas remain a classic goes another marker. Yeah.
**Rooster:** MarketMakesSense.
**Grinder:** I think this is really hard for me because I. I have periods where I'm really into a certain flavor versus not.
**Rooster:** ALR, dude. ALR. I've never had an ALR.
**Bam Bam:** He's never had that. I've never had an ALR, so I don't know. That's this guy right here.
**Grinder:** I would say my flavor profile, I think I enjoy more mild cigars. Cutie. Than most of the, most of the other lizards in the room here. Having said that, I definitely, I, I, I'm definitely in the camp of baking spice medium to full.
I think full body, you know, once it gets in the really full cigars, I'm definitely, you know, going to put the hand up. But
**Senator:** [01:03:00] timeout, you're like go to ideal because we all smoke a range. Like, I mean, we all smoke mild, we smoke full, we smoke medium, but like you're a go to if you had to pick one strength level and one note.
I would say medium. Um,
**Grinder:** as, as one strength level, I would say, um, earthy, creamy, or very, I like the floral nature of the Cuban cigars that are, that are not too strong, but have a lot of nuance and a lot of flavor. I like that body on the medium to mild, but flavor very full. Um, and, and whenever I get cigars that have, you know, either a unique flavor or, or kind of fit that creamy, more mellow.
And, uh, floral note that I'm definitely going to hit it. I think, um, there's, Cigars in the Liga range that just really ring my bell. That's, uh, that are in like the Well, those are absolutely full. The, uh, Antonio. Oh, yeah, [01:04:00] yeah. You know, those are super spicy. So, like, that's what I'm saying. My spectrum is pretty wide.
Um, traditionally, definitely, you know, I, I, I had a Stronger profile. And then to, to Steve Saka's point, I hit that wall and then I dialed it back. And now I'm definitely in the medium, uh, mild to medium, you know, range. And, you know, I think, I think if I had to choose a Cuban brand, definitely QD, right. I door say, yeah.
Kedar say, um, and, uh, new world. You know, I've been smoking a lot of Padrones, but I think Davidoff always just rings my bell.
**Bam Bam:** Bam
**Gizmo:** Bam.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. So in the new world, I think I'm hovering between Padrone and Davidoff without a doubt. And I love the Millennium Pyramid. I'll always love that cigar. But I recently have been smoking the White Label Churchill series.
**Gizmo:** Davidoff. They're
**Bam Bam:** incredibly flavorful. Medium to full, [01:05:00] but not much oomph. But the flavor is so delicious. And there's a lot of And you know, that's that's one of the reasons I started, because sort of, by making the first picture and thinking about,
**Rooster:** yo, that's a good idea. Like that's the, what's the best way to
**Bam Bam:** do this?
I didn't have the, the tools that we need to do, like manufacturing, Uh, I, I don't have a, a, a specific on, on a piece of paper that, in my tower. They're really, really aging beautifully. Oh yeah. There's something to the aging aspect of new worlds that most people don't talk about, which I think, I think it deserves a deep dive.
So my Cuban choice for a long time was a Monty too, but I love the Schwa Supreme and I've talked about that. At Nauseum at this point. El Rey del Mundo, Schwa Supreme. That's really my go to Cuban. But I can't live without Upman. I can't live without Particus either because I do love that full flavored, full bodied cigar and a Cuban, and a Cuban stick.
Sure. What's
**Senator:** your ideal kind of strength profile? Like go to? Medium full. [01:06:00] No doubt about
**Bam Bam:** it. So early in my smoking time, I was a full flavored guy, full, full flavored, family reserve, Padrones, almost on a consistent basis. The kind of evolve out of that as you discover new cigars and I'm medium full now for sure.
**Pagoda:** I kind of totally agree with you because if I were to really describe it, I used to really like cigars more towards a full kind of end of the spectrum. But I think medium full is where I like to be. I had a Padrone last night. You know, it is a fantastic cigar. The chocolate, it just is reminiscent of firstly, a lot of the experiences and it becomes one of my favorite cigars.
Uh, so, so I do like Padron's and Davidoff's in the new world. Everybody knows I like the Dominicana, the late hour, another favorite of mine. And within the Cubans, um, you know, um, it's really interesting that, uh, I didn't realize that I would start enjoying Cubans as much, but, uh, you know, uh, fortunate enough to [01:07:00] have joined these guys and I've learned a lot and it's a journey and it's a journey which keeps evolving.
Um, love the D4s, E2s, H Upmin 2, which is what I've smoked quite a bit recently. So Partagas, Upmin. Yeah. And then, you know, 898, uh, you know, with Rooster provided me, I've already got two boxes now and I love those. Partagas as well. So it depends. Yeah. It's still the medium full kind of, uh, You
**Senator:** didn't name a cigar I was expecting on the Cubans.
side,
**Pagoda:** which, yeah, and RAS. That's
**Senator:** the one. Yeah. No,
**Pagoda:** and I was about to, uh, yeah. And with RAS because, um, it's this something I just really enjoy very, very, very flavorful. And so, uh, you know, it's, it's interesting. I think Steve Sarkar had mentioned, right. When you go all the way, uh, to the full range, you know, oftentimes there's, you can't go any further.
You start coming back in terms of your flavor profile. And I think I'd like to think. That, uh, my flavor profile has evolved and, and now I enjoy a wider range of cigars, like most of the guys [01:08:00] over here. Giz. Yeah, so
**Gizmo:** mine, I, certainly I'm in the medium range. I, I would say it's certainly as far as Cubans go.
I think most Cuban cigars are in that range. They are. But even, even with the New Worlds, I'm, I'm, I lean more medium. I mean, I even think about the Padron 80th. It, it's, I've smoked so many of them. I know it's medium full. It doesn't feel that full to me, uh, when I smoke it. I think the cigar that I would point to as far as my ideal, you know, ringing my bell every time I smoke it is the Cohiba Siglo 5, that honey grassy earth thing that happens.
That's so unique to Cohiba that, you know, it appears in a lot of the other cigars that we talk about, especially in the Cohiba line, but the Siglo 5 is, is probably the cigar that rings my bell the most and has for. Such a long period of time. It's certainly deviated from what it used to be. It's quite a
**Bam Bam:** deviation from the mag 46 as well.
It is true. It
**Gizmo:** is. Yeah. But I, I would say there's something very, [01:09:00] very special to me about the Cohiba Ciglo five and every time I smoke it, it's just, you know, my, the hair on the back of my neck, every single time, new world, you know, like I said, I think the Padron 80th, the Padron Exclusivo, that medium full type of range, that's, that's definitely where I'm still living and have been, you know, certainly since we started this podcast.
Rooster.
**Rooster:** Yeah. I mean, for me, it's, uh, I really have to split it between the daytime and a nighttime cigar. If it's a morning, you want a lighter smoke. And in the evening, you kind of want a more heavier, medium to full, fuller bodied smoke. But if you can only have one
**Senator:** in a day,
**Rooster:** right? If you could only have one, I
**Senator:** Your new world.
I
**Rooster:** mean, I, I, I love, I love the chocolate cocoa notes and also the floral notes. So yeah, on the Cuban side it would definitely be an LGC. And on the, uh, the glorious We're smoking tonight , not this one. The MDO series. Yeah. His nine boxes at MDO number two that he has. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, [01:10:00] and on the, on the new World side, I think it has to be the padron.
Or the doffs. I think either of them and lately have been smoking a lot of exclusives. I mean, they like absolutely deliver. What's
**Bam Bam:** crazy is, well, welcome back to the party. Welcome back. It's been a minute. Yeah. But if you have old, older boxes of these new world cigars, they're something special that's happening to them.
Yeah. They're aging. They really, really are. It's worth discussing. You know, you
**Rooster:** know what's really funny that you said that?
**Bam Bam:** But no one talks about this. I know Senator has a ton of Padron boxes that he's had for years. I've got four boxes of Exclusivos. I've had for four years. I've never even looked at them because I've been on this other journey.
Um, and a lot of Davidoffs that I haven't touched in at least two and a half years. You dip into those. Dude, I'm telling you, they're really special, they're unique, and they adapt.
**Senator:** Yeah, I mean, the revelation for me was, you know, the episode with the 80th we did after my son was born, like, I had just tucked away those boxes for [01:11:00] years, wanting to see if there would be any noticeable difference, and obviously, that was one of the best cigars I think we've all ever smoked.
I mean, it was unbelievable. And I've started to take that approach just with other new world cigars. And ironically enough, the other night I had cleaned out my tower, which everybody joked, I think the, the famous caviar night at my place, how organized my tower was. Oh,
**Bam Bam:** so you don't actually know everything you have.
Hmm.
**Senator:** Let's fuckin discuss that
**Bam Bam:** for a while, motherfuckers.
**Gizmo:** It's a real thing, it happens. I sense some aged resentment.
**Bam Bam:** Aged? Don't,
**Senator:** don't,
**Bam Bam:** don't. Deep rooted resentment.
**Senator:** Don't be defensive, baby. But, um, you know, I, I got a lot of jokes about how organized my tower was, and this was prior to having a child since having a child, my tower, all bets are off a disaster.
It's like, I just get some cigars. I just stuffed them in there. I had, [01:12:00] you know, five finger, like, Ziploc bags just tucked away places. It was a total disaster. I couldn't find half the stuff I was looking for. So I finally cleared stuff out, reorganized it, and I noticed in the back I had this box of the, uh, El Senador EP Carrillo cigar.
We did a year ago, at least. More than that, probably. Two years ago, I think it was
**Pagoda:** in the first 20 episodes. And I bought that
**Senator:** right after we did the episode. It scored well. I think got an 8. 8 or something close to that. And, um Just for novelty's sake, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to just pull one of these and smoke one.
I'm just curious after a year plus, uh, what this is going to smoke like. It was fantastic. Like I was blown away. I remembered it was a good cigar. But the first two thirds of that with that extra year, year and a half of age was easily a nine. I was blown away and that's like a sub 10. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Senator:** So, you know, we talk about aging with Cuban so much, but with New World cigars, it's a, it's a thing.
[01:13:00] It really improves a lot. No
**Bam Bam:** one, no
**Senator:** one
**Bam Bam:** discusses it. Yeah. The
**Rooster:** Cuban tobacco needs to age for at least maybe three to five years. New World, It's an unintended consequence
**Bam Bam:** for a lot of us because we just have so much at home and we don't get to everything, you know, so I had a conversation with Lizard Charlie, he's recommended some spirits for us to have here, he lives locally here, he's an avid New World cigar smoker, dabbles into the Cubans, but he has a ton of old Davidoffs, old Padrones, Uh, and I'm talking things that he's had for 10, 12 years.
I've, I've had a few of his cigars. They become, it's indescribable. They're almost Cuban like because they become so velvety smooth and creamy. It's ridiculous. Did you promise him an Opus Dubai? I did not.
**Grinder:** So going over, going over the, the tasting profiles, I wanted to hear, [01:14:00] you know, I think it's a nice, you know, a nice question to pose is having heard what we said, are there any.
Misalignments or, you know, from what we expected, having smoked with each other for years now, from what we said.
**Gizmo:** I don't know. I feel like we smoke together so much. And so often that I've kind of followed, like everything that we've said tonight tracks, like there are no surprises because we've kind of seen this journey happen live in front of our faces.
So it's not like we see each other. Infrequently, like we're all smoking together. We're all experiencing the same stuff on the podcast and off.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. On a weekly basis. We're together. We're together
**Gizmo:** a lot. So I feel like, I mean, the biggest surprise generally is the transformation of pagodas pallet from being someone who chases a full, full cigar to enjoying.
You know, mild, medium or medium Cuban cigars as much as he has and really starting to chase those. And I think that's now transcended [01:15:00] into his choices in Padrone, his choices in Davidoff and some of the other things he's choosing. So
**Rooster:** that's all of us in general, we have gone from like a much fuller profile and we've kind of toned it down.
And it's all after this Cuban, uh, you know, Cuban cigars that we have gone after that we have kind of gone into a more,
**Bam Bam:** we
**Rooster:** chase that medium bodied. Cigar,
**Bam Bam:** right.
**Rooster:** Whether it's new world or Cuban.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Rooster:** The
**Senator:** funny thing, I, I, it's almost like, I'm not sure if I'm just the outlier or if maybe me and BAM are in some ways the outlier.
Like I, I mean, the days I met you guys, my favorite Cuban was always Pardigus and my favorite new world was always Padron and years later, it's the exact same. And, um, I think for me, my range has dramatically increased in new worlds alone. I, I smoked Padron. Probably 80 percent of the time and then dab it off maybe 15 20 percent and like a few percent was anything else.
[01:16:00] And now the fact that like in my daily rotation, there's like an Aging Room Sonata, there's an Oliva V Lancero, there's uh, Epicoreal. Um, E. P. Carrillo. There's, um, a Dunbarton, um, Sobremesa. Um, these are cigars I never would have picked up years ago. So for me, my range has definitely increased. But my favorites, where my heart has always been, it's still in the same place.
That's the one thing. My heart has moved.
**Bam Bam:** My heart has. So I don't think I'll ever get off the Millennium Pyramid. But from the point of view of the Cuban catalog, it's, it has shifted. And going back to what Rooster said, we've been smoking Cuban cigars, what, for six years now, something like that. It's a long time to develop an idea as to what, to what you like.
You really get to pinpoint in the Cuban market.
**Gizmo:** Grinder, I'm, I'm curious. You're the one that posed this question as far as the, you know, the deviation being, are there, were there any surprises as we went out of the room for you? I don't think so. I think [01:17:00] that,
**Grinder:** I, I think there's, I think Rooster's, you know, I met you, You know, 2017 or so, so we've known, I've known you for seven years now and, um, you were smoking really, really rich, full bodied cigars all the time.
Night and day.
**Rooster:** Typically, typically Padron's Family Reserve or the nineties.
**Senator:** Or the Southern Draw. Did you ever see me smoke that? Yes! You had a whole box in your locker!
**Bam Bam:** I've actually planted We're gonna have a
**Senator:** rooster accountability hour at this point. So, I planted
**Bam Bam:** a box of Southern Draw in our club, and I saw someone take a few sticks.
Oh!
**Pagoda:** Not that there's anything wrong with that. Not me. You had
**Senator:** a blue box of some Southern Draw cigar. You were even telling me, you were like, these are good, you need to try them. And I'll be honest, I was very close minded about This is when I didn't have much range. And I was sitting here saying to myself, there's no way I'm going to smoke a Southern draw.
Now with the podcast, I would definitely try it. If you told me [01:18:00] that it was good. Yeah. But at the time I owe
**Rooster:** it a lot to the podcast because we have reviewed so many different cigars. Sure. And anything that reviews like over an eight, I mean, we go in and get those stakes and that's really the main reason why, you know, I personally smoke so many different cigars now.
I mean, it used to be just padrones or davidoffs. I mean, that was it. And once in a while, something else, but now it's kind of opened up. You know, it's a whole plethora of cigars.
**Gizmo:** You know, what's interesting, I guess, as, as what Rooster said, and what we've kind of been talking about here, as far as deviation or change, like it is interesting to think about how my perception of seeing a new cigar, or maybe a cigar where the box presentation isn't great, or the band is off, or it doesn't look amazing.
Like this podcast experience has totally changed my gut reaction to things where I'm just kind of open minded now, because we've been surprised at the So many times we have look at the Culebra, the Culebra, I mean, the part of that
**Senator:** first at
**Gizmo:** that [01:19:00] cigar. And then it was incredible. Yeah. I wanted
**Bam Bam:** to eat that cigar.
It was delicious, but it's like that,
**Gizmo:** that has been a real change for me. And in the way that I, maybe I was closed minded when we started the podcast or prior to that, I kind of had my thing. We all were. And now it's like,
**Bam Bam:** we all were,
**Gizmo:** I don't look at any cigar we bring in here now with, With any sort of shade, as I, as I did, you know, certainly in the past, or maybe even when we started.
By the way, I wanted to tell you, we did the EP Carrillo La Historia El Senador. On episode 19. Wow. And it did in fact score an 8. 8. So that is a great cigar. That was a long time ago. So
**Bam Bam:** that Marca and the Dunbarton Marca for me are two incredible revelations. Like I don't think I would have ever picked up either cigar.
The ornate nature of the EP Carrillo bands. For me, I don't like the design. I don't like that ornate band design. For me, it looks like a gimmick, but the cigar. is incredible. His products are fantastic.
**Gizmo:** And let's not forget [01:20:00] that first pledge prequel that we did, that one cigar of the year didn't perform well.
We did that very early on and that turned us off to it. And then obviously we had a bunch of great cigars now from him that have done amazingly. That was the revelation because
**Senator:** I think we started with a bad experience with E. B. Carrillo. And it was easy to think that that was representative of the, of the whole brand and every other EP Creo since has been a real pleasant surprise.
They've been great.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. And that's in company. So that is done by the dumb bar and by socket delicious, delicious cigar. Never. I'd never would have ever picked that up.
**Rooster:** Yeah. We should really do the Rocky Patel entire portfolio.
**Gizmo:** I agree. We'll start next week. All right. So boys, we're into the last third here of the Cuban LaGoria Cubana.
Glorious. What's everybody thinking?
**Bam Bam:** Well, I'm down to an inch. I, I, I found it hard not to smoke it because I'm really enjoying this second half of the cigar.
**Gizmo:** The second half has been a serious improvement over the first half. I [01:21:00] think the final third picks up a little bit of strength. I agree. I
**Grinder:** agree. Yeah.
It, it picks up in strength and, and I don't know if I, if I'm that big of a fan of it. It's, it's, cause I like that, I like that second, second half or the second third a lot.
**Bam Bam:** There is no doubt. Clear specificity on a note, though, at this point. From there towards the end, no.
**Senator:** I'll say, for me, I'm now back to getting walnuts.
So like, the first third was walnut, the second third, I agree with Grinder, was chestnut, and now I'm back to walnut. That's fair. I will say that
**Gizmo:** the smell, the aroma at the burn line is And the retrohale, dude, the retrohale. Incredible. The retro is great too.
**Bam Bam:** It's, it's creamy and sweet, the retrohale on this.
It's actually been from the beginning for me.
**Gizmo:** So we have to say thank you, Lizard Seagull, for that question. I think that that's something we're going to pursue. We'll figure out how to lay that out on the website to give the, you know, listeners a clear indication of where we're at in a moment in time, uh, as far as our preferences and our, and, and our, and what we're leaning toward.
And then we'll update it as we go. And [01:22:00] we can review it at year's end when we do the, uh, Our end of year episode. So we have another listener email. This is out of New Zealand from Lizard Jamie. Hey guys, I love the pod and have been listening since around episode 50 or 60. I've only been smoking around three years.
Unfortunately, lounges or any indoor smoking on commercial property is totally illegal here. So I can't get the same experience of sitting down with a bunch of friends and enjoying a fine cigar like you guys recreate every week. For that reason, I really love listening to you guys and I look forward to the weekly drop.
I don't have a question, but I thought you and the guys would get a kick out of this on the pod, New Zealand, cigar prices and laws. Naturally. Americans turn their gaze to Canada. Obviously we talk about Canada a lot, but we are even worse. Cigars have not been excluded from our anti tobacco laws like they are in the UK.
So what we have is massive taxes consisting mostly of excise, which is taxed by [01:23:00] weight of close to 1, 000 us per kilogram plus hefty other fees. If I was to import a kilogram of cigars, which is around 50, Cigars. Let's say he's a wizard. Jamie's saying here. It would cost me around 1, 200 us at the border.
Just in tax
**Bam Bam:** You need to leave the ceilings right now. Yeah, get out
**Gizmo:** and this is crazy, too It's mostly unchanged unchanged whether it's factory smokes or an opus X or a Cuban cigar of any kind So no matter what the cigar is, it's just by weight Think about how much that's adding 20 to 30 dollars per cigar just in tax You
**Bam Bam:** And not having a lounge to go to, I think that's very sad.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, it's
**Bam Bam:** terribly sad. But, um, why not have a garage set up and have your friends over?
**Rooster:** I think he's concerned more about the price. Yeah, that's, that's true. Yeah, I mean,
**Gizmo:** how many friends are you going to find when you're paying? Not many. He says here, the average price of a New World Robusto, New World Robusto, locally, [01:24:00] is around 35 to 40 US.
And Cuban Robustos are more like 50 to 60 U. S. So that's a 50 to 60 D4.
**Bam Bam:** Correct.
**Gizmo:** And we're talking, let's say, a Padrona Exclusivo somewhere around 40 U. S. That's insane. We're paying, what, 13, 14 for a Padrona Exclusivo U. S.? Yeah. Yeah. We are very fortunate to have an official LCDH score. Lcdh store called Havana house and our little corner of the world.
But I think the prices will shock and amuse. He sent me a link and the prices are just astronomical. It's absolutely terrible. Anyway, I just wanted to chime in and give you guys a view into how other parts of the world's have it cheers and long live the lizards. Lizard Jamie from New
**Bam Bam:** Zealand. That's debilitating from the point of view of price.
And if you have a family, if you have 4 or 5 kids, and you've got a lot of expenses, you're not going to spend 40 on a cigar. It's not happening. Forget if
**Senator:** you have a family, if you have no kids, who wants to spend 50, 60 for every cigar? I mean, that's outrageous. It's outrageous.
**Pagoda:** Although having kids [01:25:00] really does drive you to cigars, but hey, you know what?
You're right.
**Gizmo:** Well, we appreciate the emails from all around the world here in the US. Of course, we get a lot from around the world as well, like Lizard Jamie here in New Zealand. And we really appreciate it. That's awesome to hear from a listener. And I wish we could, uh, wish we could help them change that. I have to
**Grinder:** say that the news and the continued persistent news of overzealous bureaucrats, ruining the enjoyment of life is really disheartening.
We have it here in certain municipalities in certain locations, cities, blah, blah, blah, to hear that this war against something that brings people together and, and add so much satisfaction. It's like a
**Rooster:** small governing body makes decision for the masses and ill informed. Yeah,
**Senator:** it's an adult product. I mean, I just have challenged anyone to show me people that are [01:26:00] dying in hospitals every single day because they smoke cigar.
This is
**Bam Bam:** not a thing. Or teenagers spending 25 on a cigar. Or in New Zealand, 60.
**Gizmo:** I mean, it's not going to happen. You know. I mean, I'm
**Rooster:** sure Australia is just like that too. Their taxes are very high.
**Gizmo:** Rob Ila, F. O. H., you know, Fabric of Fire, Bon Roberts, right? F. O. H. cannot be accessed by people in Australia.
That's,
**Bam Bam:** that's a shame.
**Gizmo:** The website is blocked because of the Australian government and their loss. You know, it's, it's, you know, I don't know if it's as bad as New Zealand. It certainly sounds like it is, but It's, it's just so terrible that for how much we relax with this, enjoy this, create community with this.
I mean, think about we have a worldwide group of listeners. This is an essential,
**Bam Bam:** it's essential part of our life. It is. This is
**Senator:** essential
**Bam Bam:** for us.
**Gizmo:** It's crucial.
**Senator:** I mean, the funny thing, just hearing this is, you know, as, as frustrating as it can be the regulatory [01:27:00] climate in our country, I mean, clearly we ought to be a little bit grateful because it could be so much worse.
**Bam Bam:** Clearly. Yeah. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** But, you know, with that, I, I, I put an asterisk on that because we've seen that there are a lot of municipalities, like Ryan just said, and states out there that are trying to move into these complete and total anti tobacco, generational tobacco bans.
**Senator:** Anti lounges.
**Gizmo:** Anti lounges, you know, creating, you know, And this is how
**Senator:** regulation always works.
I mean, Europe especially is always light years ahead in like over regulating and then like the U. S. follows suit like 10 years later, so it's like exactly this kind of stuff that's happening in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and then you have idiots in municipalities that all of a sudden are trying to follow suit.
**Pagoda:** We'll all have to move to China.
**Senator:** I'm just kidding. We're not going to be able to access any internet
**Gizmo:** there. So boys, before we move into the ratings, I wanted to talk about, uh, the announcement of the Odysseon Limitatus for 2024 out of [01:28:00] Cuba. There were three new announcements, uh, that came out earlier this year.
We didn't talk about these yet. I just wanted to walk through them. This is our value segment. This is the value segment. Yeah. This is where you're going to save a lot of money on a edition limitatis out of Cuba. So there are three new cigars, one from Trinidad, one from Ramon and one from H upman. So let's go into them.
First up is the Trinidad cabitals. The Trinidad Kabi. Are you proud? , the Trinidad Kabi, the Trinidad Kaboose Caterpillar dose EL 2024. It's a 46 ring ring gauge cigar, which I like. Mm-Hmm. by six and an eighth. So it's the same. It's nice length as the one we have. Uh, the Spanish translation of that name is town Councils.
Referring to the social associations during Cuba's colonial times, according to Habanos comes in a very nice adorned Brown 12 count box with gold accents, very much celebrating the anniversary of Trinidad coming up in June. A [01:29:00] few days after this podcast comes out is Habanos world days, celebrating Trinidad.
Uh, in London. So that is going to be where that cigar is going to make its debut. This one I think is pretty cool. Is it 80? Uh, I don't see a price yet. I don't think there's been a price announced on any of the three of these. This one's pretty cool because it, it looks back at one of the cigars we love and And you'll see in a second when I show you the box, but the Ramon Ionis absolutos EL 2024 measures 49 ring gauge by six and three eighths inches long comes in a box of 20 cigars.
And this is the fourth edition limitada. Look at the color. That's cool and design of that cool box.
**Bam Bam:** That's cool. Beautiful.
**Gizmo:** Isn't that cool? Yeah. It kind of comes
**Senator:** in a Ramone with the green again. That's like the Ramon with the green 2020, um, the 20
**Bam Bam:** 19 19 and some marbled green with a little cream color mixed in there.
Yeah, it's a good looking color.
**Gizmo:** The old Ramone, uh, logo, which I love, so I'm interested to try that one. Of course, uh, the [01:30:00] H up magnum phite EL 2024, A 53 ring gauge cigar by five and one eighths inches long. The boxes are made of natural wood on top red trim in the middle and gray on the bottom each box containing 25 cigars So those are the three limited edition cigars out of Cuba for 2024 I think the only one we're gonna see in the near term is probably that Trinidad coming out in the Habanos world days in a few days from now.
What was the Trinidad called?
**Bam Bam:** Caterpillar.
**Gizmo:** The Trinidad Caterpillar. Caboodles. Caboodles. Caboodles. Cabildos. Cockapoo. Cabildos. Cabildos. That's a very tough name. Can you spell it? C A B I L D O S. Yeah,
**Senator:** that's the L. There you go. All right. You're, you're Spanish. Cheers. My French
**Gizmo:** is way better. My French is way better.
So that's that boys. So we'll see, uh, see when those come out and, uh, see if we're going to get any of those. That's [01:31:00] so hard to believe. Cool. Your French is better. I believe it.
**Pagoda:** It'd be interesting to see Giz speak for himself. fluently in Spanish, but nobody can understand him.
**Grinder:** Although spoken French is more or less a bunch of mumbling.
So it does. That's true. That's true. Oh, we're definitely going to get listener email. All
**Gizmo:** right, boys. It's time to move into the formal liquor rating tonight of the odd day. Fusini VSOP. Cognac Bam Bam. You're up.
**Bam Bam:** Remind me how much this was? Uh, 70. I'm giving this a 10. Wow. Honestly, this, this, like, as I said earlier, you can have a glass of this after dinner and be completely satisfied and done for the night.
It is a rich, rich experience. 10.
**Gizmo:** All right, Grindr.
**Grinder:** I'm going to give this a nine. I think it's, um, you know, the, the sweetness was very well balanced. I think there's, there, there's, [01:32:00] uh, kind of changes. With, with, with some time as you consume it, um, and for the better, frankly, uh, I gave the analogy of like a syrupy kind of sweet, you know, uh, uh, caramel syrup that you put on ice cream.
I think that for me, that's a, that's a good analogy and I, and I love the, uh, you know, I love the way it pairs with the cigar. I don't think this is something I would drink every day. I do think I would bring this out on a very special occasion and, uh, I think the price point is solid for what we're getting with this.
I think it could be priced more and I'd still buy it. Um, yeah, for me, it's definitely a nine. This is, this could be a weekly drink for me easily.
**Pagoda:** I agree. Pagoda. Uh, it's a nine for me. Um, I really enjoyed the long finish. You know, it was somewhat, it just so satisfying, very satisfying. Um, but I didn't know whether I could do this every day.
I do like the price point. Um, really enjoyed it. I, I do think at some [01:33:00] point I felt that it was enhancing the cigar. Then there was something very, you know, very positive about, uh, having the liquor, um, along with the cigar. So it's a nine for me.
**Gizmo:** So for me, this is a 10. I think this VSOP is some of the best VSOP we've done on the podcast.
I think the reason why I bumped from a nine to a 10, I think it's a standard nine. I think anybody under nine, I think is crazy in this room. We'll see if Senator agrees with me on that. Nine
**Bam Bam:** is an elite
**Gizmo:** score. Nine's an elite score. I think nine or ten is appropriate for this. The reason why I went to ten is for the complexity and the flavor profile.
Every sip getting a new note kind of punching through. And as Grindr
**Bam Bam:** said, it gets better and better.
**Gizmo:** And it kept getting better as we, as we sipped it, as the palate adjusted to it. Um, I love how it, I love the viscosity of it. I love the question marks that kind of went through my brain when I took that first sip.
I, it was a very intriguing spirit to me and it [01:34:00] really, really held up through the entire cigar and the rest of the, uh, rest of the night tonight. So I'm very, very happy at a 10.
**Senator:** Senator. I, I love this. I, the whole time I've been debating between a 9 or a 10 and I have ended firmly at a 10. For me, this is the most complex VSOP that we have reviewed on the pod.
I think the flavor notes are all notes that I pursue in a spirit. I think we've talked about how, you know, cognac is on the sweeter end of the spectrum of VSOPs. Kind of brown spirits. And I think what I like about the sweetness in this is that it's a very natural tasting sweetness. I don't think that there's a bunch of residual sugar that's added.
Like for me, the sweetness is more like Uh, honey or a syrup, like, which is a very natural sweetness as opposed to like granulated sugar that's added that you do get in some cognacs that they use to, you know, mask a little bit of the bite or the [01:35:00] impurities that are there. So I thought it was the right amount.
I thought when Bam mentioned that, you know, this is the kind of cognac that you could have after a meal that would just be so satisfying as an after dinner drink, in addition to a pairing. with a cigar. There's a lot of versatility in that. And I think for as complex and full bodied and flavored as this is, it never felt overpowering to me.
And there are a number of spirits that we talk about that are really full bodied that we say, one glass, I'm good. And, you know, bam, asked for the bottle to have another pour. I took another pour. I want a third pour and I could, I want a second pour before he gets his third pour. There's a lot left. And I just want to put that on the table.
And so I just think the fact that It isn't overpowering where you still are able to drink, um, a few or even several glasses with multiple [01:36:00] cigars in a sitting. Um, it is a, is a huge merit at, at how full body this is. And, um, I think the brand. Clearly has a serious commitment to quality that I'm so excited to explore more of what they do So I I think and lastly the price point I think 70 is more than fair for this So i'm at a 10.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys that puts the formal liquor rating on the odd day fusini VSOP at a 9. 6. Wow.
**Bam Bam:** Great rating. That's a great, great rating. The long finish on this is extraordinary. You can, you'll take a drink and you could literally sit for minutes smoking your cigar and it lingers. It makes you continue to think about the drink and that's something special.
**Senator:** And I'll also add, The only VSOP cognacs that I exclusively drink neat and never put ice in, it's really the Martell Blue Swift that we did that someone very [01:37:00] nicely, uh, got me a bottle of, that I would never put even a chip of ice. It's such a beautiful spirit neat. This is another one. I would never put ice in this.
I think it drinks perfectly neat, but I think a lot of the other BSOP Cognacs, it's not a knock on them. I mean, they're, they're meant to be kind of that middle tier, even a Remy 1738. I usually put at least a chip of ice in that. Same here. Yeah. Even in the
**Pagoda:** Hyndra we do. Same, same,
**Senator:** same. So I think like, you know, this drinks closer to an XO where you
**Pagoda:** don't eat ice in a way.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So I did pull all of the VSOP ratings knowing that we were going to do a cognac tonight. We're not going to go through all of them. I think this is probably the 11th or 12th VSOP we've done since the beginning of the podcast. I'll do the top five outside of this one because it rated so well,
**Bam Bam:** 11 So talk about a deep dive, man.
Deep dive. Yeah, we've done a lot. So
**Gizmo:** let's go through some of the others. So like I said, this scored a 9. 6 so it's close to the top. Uh, let's go through some of the others. The [01:38:00] Hennessy VSOP on episode 99 scored an 8. 8. The Heinrare VSOP on episode 67 scored a 9. 0. The Martel Blue Swift you just referenced the VSOP on episode 131 scored a 9.
2. The Remy 1738 that we love so much. On episode 53 scored a 9. 3. And finally edging this one out. This is now the second seated, uh, VSOP we've done on the pot at a 9. 6. The Carvassia VSOP on episode 94 scored a 10. point
**Senator:** zero. And that's because the price point, the price, that is a 40 bottle. I mean, that's insanity.
I like
**Bam Bam:** this a lot better than that. I agree. This is way more complex. If we can change our rating, I would on that now because this is, this is
**Senator:** sure. Look at that. Not me changing the rating.
**Pagoda:** How things change. I said, if we could. [01:39:00] But then if you really think about it, it's pretty fair, except for the, you know, the top two, if one could debate, but that also had an advantage because of the price.
Yeah. Having said that. And that deserves credit, right?
**Senator:** Like for, for the price, exactly. For anyone to be able to produce a spirit that enjoyable at only 40, I mean, deserves a world of credit. Sure.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So here's my question for you guys before we move into the, the other rating here is how do you think this spirit would hold up?
Obviously we smoked, we drank it tonight with a Cuban cigar and I would say a Cuban cigar that wasn't really kind of hitting medium, medium full. It's kind of in that, Mild to medium. Most of it may be medium as we got to the end. I think medium. I know where you're
**Bam Bam:** going. I think the answer is a no brainer.
So
**Gizmo:** I, I think it is too, but I, how do you think this would pair with a, a stronger cigar from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, or even something very strong out of Nicaragua? It's an obvious answer. Amazingly.
**Senator:** I mean, truly amazingly. [01:40:00] A full body. I can't wait to have an exclusive with this thing. Same honestly.
I'm gonna light one after this and just drink this. I don't have one. I have one. I have one right here. .
**Grinder:** I, I, I think this, um, I think this, uh, cognac kind of. Provides a little extra oomph and enhances it. It pluses it to use that, that parlance again. Um, I think for the, for a well matched, you know, fuller bodied cigar, I think it would just kind of, I think it would zipper better, you know, I think it would, everything would kind of meld a lot, a lot better for sure.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, I agree. I, I mean, I posed that question with an answer already in mind, but I think this would do very, very well with almost all of the cigars we smoke on this podcast. There's no doubt. I think this is a really, really good pairing for any fine tobacco. I, I think, I think if you look
**Grinder:** at like what we've done, Champagne, Cognac, And rum, you know, and yeah.
Rum, armac. Is there anything we d that doesn't pair well with the car? , ARMAC, rye [01:41:00] whiskey, man.
**Bam Bam:** We've done the arm mancs, which is a really special strain that I'm, I'm really loving these days.
**Rooster:** Yeah, I mean, you guys have not done a port, so maybe that's next. We gotta do, we will do that.
**Grinder:** That would be fun.
**Gizmo:** We'll get there. Alright boys, it's time to move into the formal lizza rating now on the La Gloria Kuban. Glorious out of Cuba. Rooster, you're up.
**Rooster:** So, I mean, I, I really enjoyed the, the last third, actually, I should say the second half, the first half was kind of muted. It was hard to distinguish notes, but I, on the second half, I mean, the notes were really easy to, uh, to get and distinguish, um, the walnut note that, you know, we all got the toffee, the sweetness of the toffee, the woodiness.
Um, it was a very pleasant smoke. Would I go out and buy a box? Maybe not, you know, I mean, not at that price point. It's like 42 to 50 a cigar. I mean, that's, that's a lot of money for a smoke. [01:42:00] Um, but having said that, it's, it's, it's a good smoke. Um, I think it would only enhance in flavor as it sits. So I'm at an eight.
Wow. Okay. Senator.
**Senator:** This is a little difficult for me because when I started this, for me, the absolute ceiling was an eight and I was more likely going to be a seven, but I really, really enjoyed the second half of this cigar and I'm smoking this down to the end and I'm not getting rough edges. I'm not getting youth. If this could have been the second half all the way through, it's a definite nine for me.
I would absolutely smoke this again, because of the first half, particularly really the first third, I'm going to have to round down to an eight, and the price point is also the reason for that, I mean, as much as I'm enjoying this, would I ever pay Damn, I'm surprised. Yeah, it's developed into a good [01:43:00] cigar, a really good cigar.
It's just a question of would I ever pay 40 plus dollars for this? I wouldn't, but I would like to smoke it again just for the second, really the last two thirds I thought were really well done. It was just the first third. So it's just a shame because I think it's mispriced, and I think the first third is not really reflective of what the majority of this cigar delivers.
Having said that, there's a lot to enjoy in this cigar. I mean, I do think it's worth trying. I think for anyone who enjoys, um, a, a medium Cuban experience, I think most of this is medium. And I think the flavor notes definitely come together in that second third in a way that anyone who looks for a nutty flavor profile, a little cedar, a little bit of, uh, of cocoa and some baking spice, even slightly come in there.
It, uh, it has a, a lot to it. So I I'm just [01:44:00] so sad that I couldn't give this night. Like, as I'm saying this, I really wish I could have given this a higher score, but it's definitely worth trying.
**Rooster:** I mean, I must say it's a, it's one of the better LCDH releases. This is true. You know, for me, the
**Senator:** only. Enjoyable LCDH release.
**Gizmo:** Well, we've had some good LCDH releases with the band on it. It's one of the better ones. Correct. Can't compare it to the Kanye from H. E. U. P. M. I. N. No way. And the Particus Culebris.
**Bam Bam:** Correct.
**Gizmo:** So, for me, it's an 8. Uh, I started with this cigar at a 6 or a 7. I thought around this, the beginning of the second, third into the halfway point, it moved into a nine.
I think with the price, you have to factor that in here. I will not be going after this cigar again. If someone handed it to me, I'd be very happy with it. I might cut the first inch and a half or two inches off and turn it into a Corona. As opposed to a Grand Corona. do that anyway. I might just do that anyway.
Are you using
**Bam Bam:** a steak knife for that? I
**Gizmo:** might. Well, you do it from the bottom.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** But yeah, I just, I felt that this cigar. Has no business being called [01:45:00] a LaGoria Cubana compared to some of the other cigars that I've had from that, that Marca out of Cuba. I just don't think it's deserving of that. Name, uh, I think the Turquino swiped the floor with this cigar top to bottom at half the price.
So I can't go above an eight. I thought the last half was very, very good as we discussed, but, uh, yeah, it averages out at an eight for me. Performance was really good. Combustion was really good. It burned really well. I just wish the flavor was better and I wish it was in line with, uh, what I think the DNA and quality of Liguria Cubana should be.
Out of Cuba.
**Pagoda:** Pagoda. Uh, for me it's a 7. I, you know, I've been debating between a 8. Um, I think the first, you know, half an inch was kind of rough for me, but after that I really enjoyed the, like, the woody, nutty note. And I, like, that kind of a profile is something I'm very comfortable with. And I did think it was very pleasant going all the way through.
I do think that [01:46:00] once I had got, The cognac, I felt that, I don't know whether the cognac enhance the flavor, so I really continued to enjoy it. But the last third of it, it did pick up in strength, but I lost a lot of it. It, it just felt like it's really picked up in strength for me with nothing really very specific or something I was enjoying, um, considering the price point, you know, uh, um, it would've been an eight except for, you know, I think the last third and the price point, uh, making me.
Make me lean more towards a seven just to be pretty fair with what my thought process was. It's a seven for me. Grinder.
**Grinder:** Uh, I, my the score I had in mind was, uh, was definitely an eight from the beginning. I think it definitely picked up in flavor in the middle. To reminiscent to what everyone has said.
You know, when I The odd thing for me is that it didn't, it didn't really have a home because I'm thinking about what this can relate to, right? It didn't, I use the, I use the expression, it's, it feels like an orphan. Like it's like, it didn't, it didn't really, you know, [01:47:00] it didn't really have, uh, not to not to denigrate orphans out there, but like, it didn't really have like a place within, within the lineup.
But having said that, it smoked great. The ash was phenomenal. The burn was really great. Um, if I, if, if there's anything. That I would kind of, you know, you know, put to the side, I felt like there was some more, I wanted, I wanted the same flavors, but just up a few levels. You know, I think there was, there was, it was a little muted, uh, even, even towards the end there.
Um, I got a really good, uh, in the, in the final third, there was this unique kind of flavor on my palate that was a little tingly, a little spicy, uh, and I wouldn't describe it as pepper or, or that kind of charry, uh, you know, burnt tobacco flavor you sometimes get at the, at the end of a cigar. And I think, I think that's a merit to the, to, to the construction and obviously the blending.
So, um, in sum, it's a very good cigar, [01:48:00] uh, I would, you know, I think an 8 is a great score for this.
**Bam Bam:** Alright, Bam Bam. So, you know, I didn't get any rough edges at all that Pagoda mentioned. I thought it was, the entire cigar was creamy, it was velvety, it was pretty elegant. But the first half was for me completely unmemorable.
It just didn't have, uh, it didn't take a position, right? So I didn't know what it was. It was very good. I didn't mind it. The retrohale was great. The second half was delicious. It really became a different, it turned into something different. It was more interesting, great flavors. But I'm at a seven because of the price point.
I can get right now. A Turquino's for 35 bucks, and I'd love that cigar. We all do. You mentioned it earlier, wipe the floor with the, with the cigar. I agree. I'm at a seven.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, that puts the formal lizard rating on the La Gloria Cubana Glorious at a 7. 7. Which I think is an appropriate score for the cigar.
Bro, 42 for this? [01:49:00] Yeah. You
**Rooster:** add a dried fruit note, it's a 10.
**Bam Bam:** You know what? If I caught a dried fruit in this thing, it'd be an 8.
**Gizmo:** So let's compare that to really the only other two cigars that I think are worthy of comparing this to. On the podcast here, obviously the other Liguria Cubana. The Turquino's we did on episode 84 was an 8.
8 that performed very, very well. I think it would have been higher, you know, but it's youth played, you know, came into play there. And then the other cigar I think is, is worthy comparing this to is the parallel near parallel release of the Partagus Aliados LCDH that we did four episodes ago on episode 133.
That scored a 5. 7, so this scored quite a bit higher than that. Different experience.
**Senator:** So of the cigars that we've reviewed with the LCDH band,
**Gizmo:** is this the highest? I certainly think so. Obviously, the Aliados we just talked about was a 5. 7. [01:50:00] We did the Ramon Iones Superioris LCDH, which did not perform well at all.
That was on episode 54. Also scored a 5. 7. Yeah. Alongside the Partagus. Yeah, we have not had great experience with double banded LCDH releases. Do you remember the
**Bam Bam:** year of that, Ramon? I don't. It was younger, yeah?
**Gizmo:** Yeah, I think it was like a 2016, I feel?
**Bam Bam:** I recently got a 2012 box, and I tried one. They age beautifully, because they're really, really good.
Old,
**Gizmo:** the other one that we did, it's not even worth mentioning the Hoya de Monterey El. You know about that? I told you. But don't, don't raise your eyebrows.
**Bam Bam:** I, Mrs. Eyebrows, this is the first time I'm hearing about this. That's incorrect. I sent you pictures. I sent you everything. . I, I don't remember exactly right.
Pictures. 2012. Abuela doesn't remember much. . 2012
**Rooster:** bucks. Bam. Scott, good for you.
**Bam Bam:** Proud of you. Oh, look at this guy.
**Gizmo:** Who
**Rooster:** got you
**Gizmo:** that
**Rooster:** box?
**Gizmo:** [01:51:00] So the other one, you won't believe where
**Bam Bam:** I got it.
**Gizmo:** Probably not worth mentioning. No, we did the Hoya de Monterey, Ella Hantas, LCD H on episode 74, got a 4. 8. And then of course the double banded connoisseur B from H upman scored pretty well on the podcast on episode 111, got a 7.
2. So that did pretty well. But this is a, this is among the best. The better, uh, LCDH releases we've done on the pod. So that's that boys. So great night tonight on the Ade Fusini VSOP Cognac. We had a 9. 6 and on the La Gloria Cubana Glorious LCDH from Cuba, we had a 7. 7. A great night tonight, boys. I want to shout out the listeners.
Lizard Seagull, Lizard Jamie and Lizard Sean for the great emails. I mean, we, we really had some great questions tonight on the pod. So we love hearing from listeners. So keep that up. Of course, thanks to Fabrica5 for [01:52:00] supporting the pod. Go buy a bunch of stuff from their store. You're not going to regret it.
We have some reviews coming up, but their stuff. It's all great Honduran tobacco. You're going to love it. And, uh, we'll see everybody next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website. LoungeLizardsPod. com. That's LoungeLizards P O D dot com.
Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you want to reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking. We'll Email us hello at loungelizardspod. com. You can also find us on Instagram at lounge lizards pod. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.