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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**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, Puba, Senator, Chef Ricky, and Bam Bam, and our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some scotch, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs.
So take this as your 165th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying Lounge Lizard. Plenty of meters here once a week. We're going to smoke a new world cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating. We review cigar aficionados latest top 25 list. We debate how the late hour has changed over the years, and we discover how Davidoff is trying to redefine the cigars age, 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 18 year aged Aberwor single malt scotch whiskey with the Davidoff Winston Churchill, the late hour in Robusto. A Robusto from the [00:01:00] Dominican Republic tonight on the pod. And we are back to Davidoff with the Winston Churchill, the late hour in Robusto.
**Poobah:** It's a
**Gizmo:** 52 ring gauge cigar by five inches long, which is a little bigger than what we know of a normal Robusto 50 by five. This is 52 by five and boys first happy new year. This is our first episode of 2025.
**Bam Bam:** Happy
**Gizmo:** birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday,
**Bam Bam:** welcome to
**Senator:** 2025.
**Gizmo:** And even more importantly, uh, Puba has been away on business for quite some time and he is back in the room, I guess for the first time in probably what, two, two and a half months, very,
**Bam Bam:** very serious business.
So we
**Gizmo:** are happy that you are back in the room. He's been in deep shit.
**Bam Bam:** Oh yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Well, yes, I've, uh, I've managed to dig myself out and, um, you know, we're turning the corner and doing well.
**Rooster:** Welcome back.
**Gizmo:** Welcome back. Thank you. Nice way to start the year boys.
**Bam Bam:** Absolutely.
**Gizmo:** And we have a [00:02:00] late hour in our hands.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah,
**Gizmo:** which is a revisit to the line that we reviewed, you know, in the first half of the first year of the podcast I think on episode 25 or 27. We'll talk about it later with the sister Vitola the Churchill But this is the Robusto and boys. I think this is a great cold weather smoke and hope that delivers I was just gonna say tonight.
**Rooster:** It's
**Gizmo:** a perfect winter smoke. Exactly. Extremely toothy Yeah, it's definitely a dark, oily wrapper.
**Chef Ricky:** Some wrappers are darker than others. Senator just grabbed my, uh, stick here and put it next to his, and his is significantly darker. Way darker. Are these out of
**Gizmo:** the same box? Uh, no, I ordered, uh, just a 10 pack.
Okay, I see. I ordered the 10 pack from a
**Senator:** retailer. The color matching purses should be fired. These are nowhere in the same family.
**Gizmo:** There's definitely a wide variation of color on the late hour line. I've seen a wide variety. You know, it's almost like some Cuban cigars can really range like a Particus D4 can range and very, very light to very, very dark.
You know, so I guess they just don't, I know it.
**Rooster:** Yeah. I [00:03:00] have a very dark box of D4s. Yes. And I gave one to Senator. He's like, I don't want a fake one.
**Senator:** There's
**Rooster:** Dominican D4s,
**Gizmo:** man. All right, boys, let's cut this thing. We'll see. We're getting on the cold draw on the
**Poobah:** wrapper. I, I was a real big fan of these for a long time.
Well, not for a long time, for, but for a brief period. Um, Chef, it's been a couple of years.
**Bam Bam:** You've got to be getting deep raisin. I'm getting raisin. Raisin. It's raisin all day. Dates, date and raisin I'm getting here. A little prune. You mean dried fruit.
**Chef Ricky:** I'm very happy. Thank you. We're starting the year off right.
Hey, you know what?
**Gizmo:** Starting the year with dried fruit is back. I thought we left that in 2024. Oh no, it's back. Here we are. I'm
**Bam Bam:** taking advice from the group. I'm letting someone else say it. There you
**Gizmo:** go. Very nice. But man, this, this draw is fantastic.
**Rooster:** We haven't let you poop out.
**Gizmo:** Poop is out [00:04:00] of practice trying to light through it.
Just through his lighter.
**Bam Bam:** Correct. Furious. Delicious cold draw. Yeah, the cold draw is really
**Rooster:** nice. Puba needs some DuPont fluid there. I haven't had a cigar in like,
**Bam Bam:** six weeks. Aw, I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna hook you up. What's another week?
**Gizmo:** Alright boys, let's light this thing.
**Bam Bam:** Puba, I got you, as soon as I light mine.
**Gizmo:** The Davidoff Winston Churchill The Late Hour in Robusto. And again, it's a 52 ring gauge cigar by 5 inches long. Puba! Do you remember how much this was? I believe these were 22. Okay. If I remember correctly. You can see them for a variety of different prices. I mean, if you go to the Davidoff store in New York City.
Yeah, you'll get Taxes and everything else. This might be 30
**Bam Bam:** or 35. You'll get good deals online.
**Gizmo:** Online, you can find them. In the low to mid twenties, I would think I actually purchased these in early 2024 [00:05:00] really, and was planning to do them, but then they released the Maduro line and we did that Robusto.
So I wanted to wait until it got cold again to do these. So that's why we're doing it now. I
**Poobah:** mean, I've always been a fan of the blend. I just feel like we went crazy on it and then stop.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I would say when we first got together as a group and discovered these, especially in the Churchill.
**Bam Bam:** We spoke to a lot of them.
I fell in love with the Churchill, and still love that, Batola. But this is really very rich off the light, deep flavor, velvety smoke. That's
**Gizmo:** nice. Oh
**Poobah:** my God.
**Gizmo:** Welcome back Puba.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, correct.
**Poobah:** I will say, I feel, I feel like, like dopamine, like flowing through my body on the first puff. It's, it's a delicious little cigar.
**Rooster:** Yeah. How long has it been Puba? Oh,
**Poobah:** it's probably been about six weeks since I had it. Wow. At
**Rooster:** [00:06:00] all. This is the first cigar in six
**Gizmo:** weeks. That's quite a sabbatical. Senator hasn't had a cigar in six hours. That's true. That's exactly right. More like three hours. I was going to say,
**Poobah:** you may want to hedge that a little.
And I went for, and I went off a tear too. I was on a, I was on a
**Gizmo:** tear smoking. So this cigar has three sister Vitolas in the line launched originally the Robusto that we have in our hand, 52 by five, the Toro and the Churchill that we did earlier on the podcast. And there's also a new Petit Panatella, which comes in a tin, very similar to the Davidoff Winston Churchill.
The white label Bellicosas that we love comes in a very similar size tin, but they're a little bit smaller. The Bellicosas, more like a cigarillo. Yeah, and they're, I, I, I've not enjoyed them as much as I did that bellicose. So, and I agree, you know, they don't really align with what [00:07:00] I expect from, from the late hour.
Yeah. So very, very,
**Rooster:** very small ring gauge. Oh yeah.
**Gizmo:** What would you say? What is it? 32, 32, 34. Yeah. I think
**Chef Ricky:** that's generous. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Smoke output on that little guy is great though. Yes. Good for a car smoke, if you're into that.
**Poobah:** One of the things I always liked about this cigar was the, uh, the combustion right off the bat compared to, uh, the Churchill, which just takes longer to develop.
You kind of just get a, you get all that Davidoff DNA up front. It's a great point. It's always kind of nice. It's very accurate. Yeah.
**Rooster:** Like, real velvety smoke, you know?
**Chef Ricky:** It's one of the frustrating things for me with smoking a Churchill. I had one a few weeks ago and yeah, it takes a little bit to get going.
**Bam Bam:** I kind of like that build up though. Yeah. And that cigar. I don't mind it. But tonight's experience right now with the smoke billowing, kind of reminds me of the Liga 9. Session that we had a long, long time ago. [00:08:00]
**Gizmo:** It's interesting too, to have a cigar of this size in your hand and how weighty it is.
**Bam Bam:** Very heavy.
**Gizmo:** I mean, it's, it's pretty packed for being a little robusto. I mean, compared to some of the others we've smoked recently. I mean, this. The draw doesn't seem tight
**Poobah:** to me.
**Gizmo:** Not at all. It's very well
**Bam Bam:** rolled, very well rolled. Draw's perfect.
**Senator:** No, but to Gizmo's point, I mean, when I looked at the foot before lighting it, it looks really packed and I was worried about the draw.
Yeah. Yeah. But credit to the roller because the draw is wide open.
**Gizmo:** Exactly. I just think the blend demands, you know, a lot of tobacco. Absolutely.
**Bam Bam:** Honestly, it's a merit. There are many cigars that are very lightly rolled. Bit of a crime.
**Gizmo:** So to answer your question on what I'm getting, say it's a little leathery, a little woody. I don't know what kind of wood. It's not cedar. Um,
**Bam Bam:** if they, yeah,
**Senator:** what do you think, maybe? Oak, pine, what do you think?
**Bam Bam:** You're the wood
**Senator:** expert.
**Gizmo:** Um, oak, cherry. [00:09:00] Petrichor. Deep. I would say chocolate, there's like a chocolate or espresso thing going on for me.
Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** definitely. No dried, no dried fruit though. That kind of dissipated. Not right now, no. Not at the moment. That was
**Chef Ricky:** on the cold raw. Correct. There's a little pepper, just slight pepperiness there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, so I think all the above is there for sure.
**Bam Bam:** A little walnut for me. Yeah. I happen to love walnuts, so I kind of look for that.
Yeah. It's got that earthy, nutty thing going on. Yeah. Just a bit. Dries them off
**Chef Ricky:** just a little bit.
**Gizmo:** A little spice too. A little pepper. I don't know if it's pepper. Yeah, maybe it's like a White pepper. A white pepper.
**Bam Bam:** That's a great post dinner cigar. There's no doubt about that. I would not have this on an empty stomach.
I
**Chef Ricky:** agree. Nice steak dinner. Yeah. Yeah.
**Senator:** You know, it's like the biggest surprise with this. This is probably the only Davidoff that if you had never smoked this before, and you had it blind, You would probably not guess this is [00:10:00] Davidoff. It's way stronger than anything else that they put out.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, I would say it's closer to being a Nicaraguan flavor profile in Davidoff than a Dominican profile closer to like the Millennium or even the other Winston Churchill one.
And I think
**Bam Bam:** what Puba said earlier is spot on because you get that strength and a much quicker delivery than the Churchill. It's punching above its weight class. From the point of view of body and strength.
**Rooster:** I think, I think you mentioned earlier, it's kind of Liga esque. Yeah, a little bit. And I think I'm getting some similar flavor notes, you know, we got out of the Liga.
**Gizmo:** So I'm not talking, when I asked this question, I'm just setting it up. I'm not talking about the rating or how it ended up or how you think about it, et cetera, but on the white flavor profile wise, how do you compare this cigar to the new Davidoff Maduro? In Robusto. Flavor profile only.
**Senator:** Earthier. Earthier.
This is earthier. That is a much more, like, chocolate forward cigar. The Maduro, this is, leans [00:11:00] earthier. Less cocoa.
**Gizmo:** Less cocoa. Agreed. Agreed. Because I feel that that's a fair comparison point. A, because it's Davidoff, and also B, because it's Double the price of this if that's
**Senator:** true,
**Gizmo:** you know more than double.
Yeah, but I also
**Senator:** think that cigar is smoother in that like there's no pep I don't get any pepper Exactly.
**Bam Bam:** I don't I don't either but this is from the point of view of being satisfied at the end of a session if you're doing One both will be very satisfying
**Poobah:** Yeah, and I would argue the the Maduro which I have one with me tonight, which I plan on smoking is Is is a touch sweeter You Uh, a little bit less peppery than this, than this blend, but still delivers, uh, uh, I, I think a solid amount of strength in body and, and structure.
I don't know,
**Rooster:** you would have to, I don't know what you would smoke if you smoke this first. Like, what would you follow this up with? This would be one [00:12:00] of the, yeah, this would be
**Gizmo:** one of the, well, you'd have to go, you'd have to go Nicaragua or go home.
**Bam Bam:** I mean, honestly, this is one of the final cigars or go home.
**Chef Ricky:** I mean, I got to say guys sitting here, I need to give Senator a shout out. The cut on your cigar is. Fucking perfect, excuse me. It almost looks like he punched this thing. No, no, no. Look at, look at the top of his cigar. Show the head.
**Bam Bam:** Right. You mean, you mean, by the way, this is the last thing you mean, which is blowing up, which is, we don't need this to start the year,
**Poobah:** which is metaphorically blowing up as you continue your commentary on his perfect cut.
It's just the cap is just exploding,
**Chef Ricky:** but it's perfectly centered. It's not, you know, yes, it's just a cap as it should be. I did a V cut on mine, but his is perfectly centered. It looks like you use the level. I put a nice, it looks like I know what I'm doing.
**Poobah:** He's cut a couple,
**Gizmo:** uh, well done, Senator Gizmo.
How's the gizmo, uh, [00:13:00] kind of work it out. Very nice. My scissors are brilliant. That thing is super precise. I love my scissors. I do
**Bam Bam:** too, but it's a good point. You know, it's nice to see a level cut on a guy's cigar. Right
**Chef Ricky:** level centered. It's level cut.
**Bam Bam:** Don't bring a plastic bag in a fucking lounge. All these little details.
It all adds up
**Gizmo:** little things to get BAM
**Bam Bam:** going. It's a little of level cut. No plastic bags. Over the weekend, I was looking at these, uh,
**Chef Ricky:** modern carbon cases. I was like, I need to get one of these so Ben doesn't yell at me.
**Rooster:** I want to talk a little bit about the scissors. Yeah. So you've kind of come around to the scissors. Well, this
**Gizmo:** specific scissor, the Sisumon that I got, uh, paired with this, this, the Jet. I love The scissors, the cut is very precise. Um, I think Ricky pointed out when we were talking about this on a previous episode, as opposed to a normal cutter where you're not able [00:14:00] to see what you're doing.
You just kind of have to go for it. You know, your hand is obviously not over the cigar. And what I love is their self sharpening. Every time you cut, they sharpen themselves. So it's,
**Rooster:** it's kind of the same on most, uh,
**Gizmo:** 18
**Rooster:** blade cutters. You do have to be careful with the cut. You do have to be careful. So you don't kind of cut them.
Cut it at an angle. Yeah, it has to be a nice, nice straight cut.
**Senator:** Now question you hated rooster scissors. So I've just, I'm curious what the difference is. That's kind of where I was getting at in a better way. Do you have
**Bam Bam:** yours here?
**Gizmo:** Um, no, I don't have rooster scissors are some weird, like outer space.
They're
**Bam Bam:** like craftsman scissors.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I mean, it looks like he would take them into surgery, like, and like
**Bam Bam:** the kitchen scissors for poultry
**Poobah:** is weird. Do they look like something? A moil would bring potential exactly. Moil,
**Gizmo:** poultry. It all adds up. No, the mechanism on roosters [00:15:00] is odd to me where the ones I have is like a, just a more traditional scissor type mechanism.
**Bam Bam:** So I will admit I. I love that. I tried it. You can completely control the depth and where you want it to go and is very, it's a very nice cut. I suggest how
**Rooster:** all
**Senator:** scissors are. I haven't tried it. A big tool though. This just like fit in a case. It does have its own little, like, does that fit in the like five zip lock
**Gizmo:** bag?
It fits perfect.
**Senator:** But this is, he's got a zip lock bag up there.
**Bam Bam:** Look at
**Poobah:** Gizmo. He is a big tool. So it's fine.
**Bam Bam:** Folks, ladies and gentlemen. Our maestro carries in a plastic bag to the club. Could we
**Gizmo:** Actually, that's not true.
**Bam Bam:** You're starting a new year. Could we get rid of the plastic? There's no case
**Gizmo:** for the scissors?
There is, it comes with a leather pouch.
**Senator:** It's beautiful. But can it fit in a Sotelo like a fiber? It fits in my Sotelo perfectly, yeah. Not the big one, the fiber? I don't have the fiber,
**Gizmo:** I only have the big one. Oh, that's what I'm, yeah. I only have the big one. So, the Ziploc bag [00:16:00] thing, when we come to pot, I always have a Ziploc because I just bring all the cigars.
I know, you're supplying for us. But I did, you know, I have been rocking the Sotelo at the club. You have a pass. Yes. So, boys, what are you getting on the cigar? Senator's
**Bam Bam:** not happy about
**Rooster:** that. I mean, it's because it's
**Senator:** false. I mean, he rolls at the club sometimes by himself and he's still
**Bam Bam:** got a plastic bag.
You know what, you're not wrong, dude. I am gonna give you shit next time I see that, man. Alright. Why? I can't stand the plastic in the club. I just
**Senator:** can't. He's reverting back to old habits. Next, it's gonna be the Home Depot case. And then a Gizmo card. This is a very slippery slope here. We need Bam to write
**Chef Ricky:** the Ten Commandments for the club.
Well, then it would be back
**Poobah:** to the, it would be back to the Bouchard. Exactly.
**Chef Ricky:** I love the Bouchard. So, right now, on the cigar, I'm, I'm, I'm all in on chocolate. I'm getting some, uh, dried fruit again here, uh, the spice has dissipated, I'm not getting much on the pepper front, uh, but yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm liking where it is right now.
**Rooster:** It's gotten a little sweeter.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Right? The retro hell's delicious.
**Poobah:** Mm hmm.
**Senator:** I'm kind of surprised and confused [00:17:00] because I have, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 of these just lying around somewhere in my humidor and they don't smoke like that. Like this is a. Richer, sweeter profile than I'm used to when I've lit a late hour Robusto.
Now, my wrappers are also way lighter than this wrapper, like way lighter. I don't know if like, they changed the blend. I think so. Oh, this is nothing but humidity, Jesus
**Chef Ricky:** Christ. Maybe you should find those and give them to guests to store for you for a little bit. Yeah, so I can smoke some kitty litter with them.
This is the magic of the
**Rooster:** world. For Gizmo's tower, whenever
**Poobah:** something comes out of Gizmo's tower and it smokes well, and you think it doesn't, he reverts back to conditioning. I think everyone keeps their humidors at 62. So there's some without kitty litter and others with it. Ignore it.
**Gizmo:** It's a new year.
Just ignore it. I was thinking, you know, rise
**Chef Ricky:** above it. Rise above. You
**Gizmo:** brought up the
**Chef Ricky:** humidity. Take the high road. [00:18:00] Rise above it, dude. Is it a fresh start or a fresh start? Well
**Gizmo:** done. Alright boys, let's talk about the makeup of these cigars. Rapper. We'll start there as Ecuadorian Habano, Oscuro Marron. The binder is Mexican San Andres Negro.
And the filler has a couple of different kinds from the Dominican Republic. There's Olor, Piloto and San Vicente. And from Nicaragua, there's Esteli. And most importantly into the conversation tonight, there's Condega. And the Condega in the filler is what is aged in X scotch barrels. So let's talk about that process.
So Davidoff says the Condega. These two tobacco leaves are firmly pressed inside finest, inside the finest single malt scotch whiskey casks. As the temperature in the closed casks rises, the tobacco enters a fermentation process. The rise in temperature is checked regularly to prevent the tobacco from overheating.
The tobacco ages for a total of [00:19:00] six months in the cask, during which it gets flipped every two weeks, applying a labor intensive process. Meanwhile, the tobacco absorbs the whiskey aromas of the cask's wood. This is a natural process during which no whiskey is applied to, to the tobacco leaves directly.
The result, the cask aging leads to more sweetness and deeper flavors. After six months, the tobacco is ready to be integrated into the blend that makes up the Winston Churchill, the late hour. This is pretty cool. I mean, I know there were some other brands that did this before them, but this has been a very popular line for Davidoff.
And I would say it's probably the most popular that you see leaves actually being aged in X spirit barrels. When
**Senator:** did you buy these roughly?
**Gizmo:** I would say we're going on a year.
**Senator:** Okay. So I, I am firmly convinced that there has been significant variation in this blend over the last [00:20:00] five years. The reason I say that going back to the Churchill even, and the Churchill, I loved, used to smoke all the time.
Then it fell a little bit out of favor. It got harsh. Well, that's the thing. So like, you know, you're hearing that description. They're talking about how aging it in single malt barrels imparts some sweetness and I'm getting the sweetness in this cigar. Sure. That Churchill, when I first had it, bizarrely, at a cigar lounge in Detroit, I'll never forget.
So I had my first one, then started buying a bunch up here at our retailer at the time. That cigar, when I first smoked it, had, it was like the perfect balance of sweet and earth. Over time, It is super leathery, earthy, and peppery, and there's very faint sweetness in that cigar.
**Chef Ricky:** Very little
**Senator:** sweetness.
That's not how I remembered that blend originally smoking. This cigar, I have, the ones I have are from years ago, and I remember when I first bought them, well, I guess it's even harder, because when I first bought them, I didn't love them. I, I, I, there's something different that's happened over time. So how [00:21:00] do
**Bam Bam:** you compare the scars you have to what you're having tonight?
The
**Senator:** Robusto, this is way better. Now, the Churchill. The Churchill of recent years to me has been earthier than like five years ago when I first had it very mineral and I felt it was more balanced with sweetness. So I just, it's odd to me cause I think, you know, Davidoff's blends are very consistent. I don't think I've ever said this about a Davidoff cigar, but this cigar in particular, and I don't think it's a coincidence that we all love the late hour Churchill so much and all of a sudden stopped smoking it.
Our palates haven't changed that dramatically. It's not like we've stopped smoking Padron Exclusivos or Millennium Pyramids, but this particular blend, we all dramatically reduced our consumption. Something
**Gizmo:** had to change. And I want to say he's not here, but even Pagoda, who was smoking more of these than anyone.
I haven't seen him. He was smoking one of these every day. I haven't seen him touch a late hour. It's true. Probably a year.
**Senator:** And what Davidoffs did he replace it with? The Dominicana, [00:22:00] which is sweeter and the Maduro, which is sweeter. And that's why I know when this, when we first started smoking this cigar in Churchill, it had a good amount of sweetness balance with the earth.
Something definitely changed.
**Gizmo:** Let's not, let's not forget. And we've talked about this with runs of other cigars. We've talked about different spirits. When master blenders, you know, change at different times. Producers, the Kellner's left Davidoff, I think shortly after we met, they were exiting. So there's definitely a new set of pallets in there, blending these cigars, obviously trying to match them to what they were.
But of course, as a line goes on, we've talked about this with Liga, you know, Pagoda has mentioned this with Liga of the past versus the present as things change, as people leave as pallets. Yeah. You know, new pallets come in, new different types of tobacco. Things change. I mean, I'm assuming they're best.
**Poobah:** I also believe you're dealing with an organic product and I think weather plays into it.
I think soil plays into it. And I think execution, um, plays into [00:23:00] it in terms of just. You know, what goes on on the ground? I mean, you're only as good as the raw material that you're supplied with. And I think it's, it's not crazy to say that some of these crops are different than others, and they try and blend these things together as best that they can to keep, keep the consistency as well as they can, but maybe with this particular blend, it's a little bit more complex and they have trouble getting it.
That's consistent is right. I don't know, but it could be true, but I, cause I don't disagree with any of the commentary here. I mean, you know,
**Rooster:** yeah, I don't know if it's, I'm sure it's not common to tweak the blend, you know, when a cigar has been out for like 10 years, would they tweak the blend to make it a little bit, you know, yeah, I mean, once they're settled, but unless they get some feedback from the customers in a minute way, right.
Yeah, but listen, millennium pyramids, late
**Bam Bam:** hours have been out for many, many, many years. Why would [00:24:00] they mess with it? Unless they have to.
**Chef Ricky:** So I had a late hour in Churchill, maybe four weeks ago. And it was not this sweet. It was not this balanced. So I don't know if it's changing from Votolo to Votola. I think it is.
Go back
**Bam Bam:** to what Puba said. I think that longer Votola takes longer to develop. Yeah, but it's not just that because
**Senator:** that longer Votola, Votola Used to smoke like this. It has changed.
**Bam Bam:** The reason I'm finally
**Senator:** piecing this together, I for years have been trying to figure out why me and everyone in this room don't smoke as many of these cigars and I have not been able to figure it out.
And I've just assumed that my palate maybe our palate changed. The reason for me this is a big light bulb, smoking this, how this is performing, this is what I used to love in the Churchill. This is what the Churchill used to taste like. Something
**Poobah:** had to change. It's not the same. It became like, I felt like there was a period of time where we were still hanging on to, [00:25:00] to keeping that in our rotation.
And there was a universal consensus that the cigar just was a little too, maybe a little too spicy. Maybe a little, you get like, Like some tar blasts down the stretch once in a while. Yeah, it was heavy. And it was just a little bit heavy handed where it wasn't maybe in the beginning.
**Chef Ricky:** It felt clumsily blended.
It didn't seem like it was done in a way where, you know, it was even tasted or, I don't know. But everything about that Churchill experience was, yeah, super peppery, super heavy, clumsy. slow to develop, uh, there was no sweetness. And it's a shame because that's usually a cigar that, you know, you're going to kind of hunker down and you might be with a couple guys and you wanted to be a decent session.
And that was my case that time. And yeah, it just, it didn't perform the way I wanted.
**Gizmo:** Well, the thing I want to ask you this, because I think about the fact that these cigars have been out since 2017, right? So, [00:26:00] obviously, as a cigar goes through its kind of original run, they run out, new tobacco coming in, like Puba's talking about, like we're all talking about, they do have to tweak the recipe a little bit to try to maintain the blend.
Correct. And I'm sure it goes back to what Rooster said a moment ago. And I want to, I want to parallel this to someone that's in the room who does this on a daily basis. Like, Ricky, like when you have a dish at your restaurant that has been there since day one, as components of that dish change over the years, for one reason or another, things are discontinued.
You know, flavors of different components change, suppliers change. Aren't you doing this exact thing with food constantly?
**Chef Ricky:** 100%. Especially, uh, you know, there's some dishes that, however we try to stay seasonal, there's some dishes that don't come off the menu. Uh, you know, like, let's say, for instance, the street corn.
It's hard to take mosquitoes off the menu, even though, right, the, the, the, the peak season for it is summer. Um, so, you know, we have to do some things, you know, as we taste and maybe [00:27:00] we rebalance the flavors using a little bit more butter because the butter imparts some sweetness that is missing from the corn.
Uh, things like that, that would just, you know, we might need to change the cream because the acidity and the, and the cream we use in the summer is a little bit higher. Um, so yeah, you're a hundred percent correct. Those are things that we need to do. Um, and even just from chili to chili, right? Like sometimes jalapenos are really mild.
Sometimes they're spicy. Um, so yeah, we would just need to adjust certain things. But yeah, it's absolutely part of, you know, why we have to taste them. I hope the guy who's rolling this is smoking them. And he sees, uh, you know, he's noticing what we're, what we're noticing here. And hopefully they make the adjustment.
Cause this Robusto is night and day over the Churchill. This is delicious. And I'm
**Senator:** just so sad because. I love the shape of that Churchill, like the size we've all talked about so elegant. It's like a great cigar after a long day business meeting, you name it. And if it could [00:28:00] just perform like this, which is what I first remembered it performing, like I'd smoke it all the time.
I will say I was not looking forward to smoking this before.
**Bam Bam:** I don't think I was, I was,
**Poobah:** I was, I was always a big fan of this blend. And this photo, I was always kind of a little bit of an advocate for it back in the day. Um, Hey, try it. It's good. Like, just give it a shot. It's it back in our old retailer, you know, when you had your allocation, I wouldn't be like, all right, just give me a four pack of those.
Let me just give it a shot. And I did that a bunch of times and I, I always kind of enjoyed this. I'd never had a bad experience with one of these. Um, but I had more bad experiences with the Churchill, but I bought many, many, many, exponentially more.
**Chef Ricky:** Are you guys getting the burn, taking in the burn line on this?
Oh, it's great. I'm getting like coffee and panna chocolate. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** absolutely. Absolutely. So I will say, Very fragrant. Dollar for dollar for the experience we're getting right now. I think it's a [00:29:00] pretty big cigar. It's as good as the Davidoff Maduro right now for me because of how delicious it is. It's a little different, but It's so velvety and creamy.
You said the sweetness is coming in. Multiple guys said that, and it's pretty complex. It's right there for half the price. The thing
**Gizmo:** I'll say, if you
**Bam Bam:** can get them every time like this,
**Gizmo:** the thing I'll say, and I want to ask you a question. And as I say this, based on what Senator was just talking about of the late hour of the past that we used to smoke, it's gone through its ups and downs.
Luckily, we have six cigars in our hands tonight that is performing Like we remember. Yeah. Is there an element of nostalgia in your comment there?
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I think it goes back to what Senator said. We remember how delicious that Churchill was. If we can get this over and over and over,
**Gizmo:** but I, I do question with that in mind is if you had the Maduro Robusto in your other hand and you were smoking these next to each other,
**Bam Bam:** I'm going to borrow Puba's Maduro, try [00:30:00] that in about an hour,
**Gizmo:** but I'm just wondering if it would actually, in fact, stand up to how good that Maduro was,
**Bam Bam:** I think tonight it might.
Tonight for what this is doing. That's just my opinion.
**Rooster:** I think the Maduro is a bit smoother, a bit sweeter. Like we said earlier, sure,
**Bam Bam:** sure.
**Rooster:** And, uh, this is,
**Bam Bam:** this is holding up though.
**Poobah:** Yeah. This
**Bam Bam:** is holding up nicely.
**Poobah:** I agree. I, I, I believe I liked the Maduro better, but it's. Price to value. It's not exactly the same ratio, but the Maduro is damn good.
What's the Maduro? 60 bucks. Yeah. It's like 50.
**Chef Ricky:** Cause you think the age, the timing, your humidor had anything to do with what we're getting here?
**Gizmo:** I mean, it's certainly contributing maybe to it burning better than if you bought it in a brick and mortar yesterday, but I don't think it's making a deep impact on the restaurant
**Bam Bam:** buying it.
No, no, no. I'm
**Senator:** saying the same thing. I say no emphatically, not anything about his, uh, tower or humidor. I have kept. The late hour Churchill's in my tower for four years and they haven't [00:31:00] dramatically improved or changed. I'm still getting more pepper than I know the original blend had and not as much sweetness.
So it's not like time just magically fixes it. It's a blending problem.
**Poobah:** No, it is because I have an older box. I brought one tonight because on the text. You guys were saying we're smoking a late hour, so I just brought a Churchill. But that box has been half empty for years. Wow.
**Bam Bam:** Senator, when was the last time you had the Churchill?
Maybe three months ago. Out of your three months? Yeah. It's pretty recent, actually. I would say
**Gizmo:** he and I were doing a similar experiment around the same time, Senator and I. I had one about a month ago. Dipping back into the Churchills, and those Churchills I've had for a long time, they don't perform anything close to this.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I had one a month ago. It was okay. Okay.
**Senator:** I had one out of a box that was actually very good, but the other ones, not so much. And like Gizmo's saying, none of them, even the one that was [00:32:00] very good, is as balanced as this, which is how we used to know this cigar to be.
**Poobah:** You know what it may be, uh, Senator, is it could be I'm hypothesizing, it could be that, is it harder to find, is it harder to be more consistent with the blend with the, with the, the kind of the, the priming size of the long filler that's required to get
**Chef Ricky:** that size, that
**Poobah:** size of a toll, um, like consistent enough.
**Rooster:** Definitely possible.
**Poobah:** You know, sometimes like with, like, as you see with, with the Lusitanius, um, another. Um, longer format cigars, just the longer leaf is just harder to kind of, it's, it's scare. It's more scarce. So is the, does that play into it? I don't know, you know, into the consistency issue where you can get maybe a more consistent blend in [00:33:00] a, in a shorter of a Tola because the leaf is just more very positive, very legitimate.
It could
**Senator:** be. I mean, think of, we don't smoke many Churchills. No. Yeah. Or double crows or any like really longer format cigars. Not because we don't like the format. There just aren't that many of them.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. And I've had quite a few of the church shows that are often plugged. Like they need, they need a little work.
They need a little perfect draw love. That's right. I've never had
**Poobah:** that. Well, that's right. Because, because there's going to be, there's often going to be a vein in the leaf or something that gets by that role or, or, They're only dealing with the raw material that they have. Do you know what I'm saying?
That's going to create that in that longer, that long filler. You just need a longer filler. You need a longer binder. You need a longer wrapper leaf. Like, and it's all just, it's those, those larger sizes are just more rare. It may play into it. I don't know, but it may.
**Senator:** Yeah. I mean, there's no, we [00:34:00] talk about the millennium line.
There's no millennium Churchill. Nope. No, I wish there was. Oh, I don't. I think it would be a different cigar. Yeah. But to Puba's point, like it's a, you know, loved, uh, line of Davidoff. Yeah. If they could make a consistently great millennium Churchill, I'm sure they would.
**Bam Bam:** Well, what they can do is they can take the Toro.
In the millennium, take that entire inventory leaf and combine it and make a Churchill out of it and get rid of that whole Toro line. Get rid of
**Senator:** the Toro line. Sucks. Absolutely.
**Poobah:** The Toro line is just a beefed up, it's just a beefed up Robusto. They just beef it up. That's how they made the Lancera. But it barely smokes.
It's like an extra cheeseburger. It's the worst constructed thing of all time. That's exactly right. It's pretty, it's a double, it's a, we're on the same page, but we took a long road to get there, you know, it's like, it's like when too much is too much, you're kind of like, you're like, yeah, the, you know, the Dave's triple, like that's too, the Dave's, you know, Wendy's triple, that's too much.
We're going through the drive thru now. Not Wendy's. Oh, it is Wendy's. [00:35:00]
**Gizmo:** Let's get back to some class here, boys on the Davidoff Winston Churchill line. They originally partnered with the estate of Winston Churchill and the family. In 2007, they then relaunched that white label in 2014. And then they brought in the Scotch barrel aged filler into the line and created the late hour in 2017.
The VSU in the filler is aged in Speyside Scotch casks. And in fact, we have a single malt Scotch whiskey tonight from Speyside. In our hands, we have the Aberlour. 18 years aged that we're going to try, which is an expensive whiskey. We wanted to bring in something nice to end our holiday celebration this week.
So cheers, boys,
**Poobah:** cheers, cheers to 2025. I will say cheers to 2025. And I will say this would pair with the cinnamon notes in it with the D4. Fantastic. Cheers, boys. And cheers to our listeners. But what wouldn't tell me, tell me there's [00:36:00] not holiday notes in the Scotch. Very nice. It's delicious. Am
**Bam Bam:** I wrong? So is anyone getting a caramel finish at the very tail end?
Yep. Yeah, very good. It's got a long finish. It does. That lingers for a while.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, I get a little toasty orange, almost like, uh, you know, you get that old fashioned and they do that. The, uh, I
**Bam Bam:** kind of get that right at the front middle for me. Orange rind. And the
**Chef Ricky:** caramel at the end. Caramel, some
**Gizmo:** vanilla.
**Poobah:** It's excellent. I mentioned that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how much is
**Bam Bam:** this
**Poobah:** bottle?
**Gizmo:** So this bottle with tax was 175.
**Poobah:** That's a lot of money. That's a lot of monies
**Bam Bam:** for an
**Gizmo:** 18 year old. You should be able to get that for 160, 000. That's
**Senator:** gone up.
**Gizmo:** Well, it was 165, 000 before tax. Okay. With tax, 175, 000. How much is McAllen 18 right now?
**Senator:** Oh, God, like 300, 000? Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So, that's what I'm saying. Is that true? That's ludicrous. Oh, yeah. It's been for years. For an 18 year old. 18 year old single malt scotch, 170, 175, didn't seem that crazy. Not that desirable.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I ain't buying that. [00:37:00]
**Senator:** This or McAllen 18? McAllen 18. Yeah. I ain't buying that. That's why I've railed on McAllen 18 for years.
It's
**Bam Bam:** ridiculous.
**Senator:** I mean, you don't need to spend 300 something dollars to get a really high quality bottle of any spirit. That's just
**Rooster:** silly. Yeah, what's wrong with the Kirkland 18? Oh, boy.
**Senator:** Kirkland already made it in the first episode of 2025.
**Poobah:** The man loves Costco. Over the holidays, uh, over the holidays, uh, I walked up to the liquor cart.
Um, of course. In your house, the liquor cart? No, no, no, no, no. At my wife's family. Is there a liquor cart girl in your house? Like pushing the cart? No, at my wife's family's, uh, family. Party out in Long Island and, uh, there was Kirkland Vodka there and they were like, well, somebody said like, Oh, well, I think I brought a bottle of kettle or something like that.
And somebody said, Oh, well, we don't have the fancy stuff. I got, you can't get off. You can't tell the difference in a Bloody Mary with the show, [00:38:00]
**Gizmo:** you know, New York times rated Kirkland Vodka, the number one vodka really available. Yeah. This was planned. You and Rooster planned
**Poobah:** this whole segment. It's true.
**Gizmo:** I'm telling it's the truth. Do
**Poobah:** you think it's a conspiracy? God damn it. It's
**Bam Bam:** Rooster's PR firm.
**Gizmo:** It's New York Times. I mean, come on. So this is the second Abrogor we've done. We did the Abrogor 12. Funny story. We actually did, I discovered this when we were doing the ratings. This was a rare screw up on my part and our part.
But we've actually done, we actually did the Abrogor 12 three times. We did it once when we didn't rate it. And then we rated it twice. So we'll go through those ratings later. Clearly we like to drink the 12. We like the Abrogor 12.
**Poobah:** It's good. Very, very, uh, sherry forward .
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, .
**Chef Ricky:** That's
**Gizmo:** good stuff though.
**Chef Ricky:** Does this touch Sherry Cask?
'cause this is somewhat sherry forward. Oh, it's gotta,
**Gizmo:** yeah, so this is double cask matured. So it is first in American Oak casks and second in Sherry Oak cask. Okay.
**Senator:** I mean that's the signature of aor, [00:39:00] that's name. Yeah. Very sherry Forward all the years,
**Chef Ricky:** which I really, my first avalor expression. So yeah, it's, this is great.
**Poobah:** Which I really like. But I also like on the opposite end of the spectrum, like not recently, but, um, but Talisker, you know, the opposite end of the spectrum, a little more Petey. Oh yeah. You know, and this time it's seasonally, but this stuff, the, the, the, the 12 or the 18, you can kind of drink year round. I think it's very versatile.
**Senator:** Agreed.
**Poobah:** I
**Gizmo:** really like the scotch. And I guess my question to you guys is, knowing that, uh, some of the filler was aged in ex space sized barrels. I was just thinking about that. How are you feeling about the pairing of this 18 year age with this scotch? I think it's a delicious
**Bam Bam:** pairing, but I don't see very many parallels, because I'm not In the cigar, what I can taste in the glass, but they work together beautifully, you know, I agree.
I think I agree with that. Yeah, but they're both
**Senator:** complimentary in theory. It's a good pairing because the sweetness [00:40:00] of Abel or being more Sherry forward should help bring out more sweetness in the cigar, but it does point which it does. But where I agree with the other part of what you're saying is, I'm not sure that the amylor is like, it's
**Chef Ricky:** not enhancing.
Yes. Like
**Senator:** the notes aren't necessarily marrying up in the same way that it is enhancing certain notes in the tobacco.
**Poobah:** Yeah, I would, I would concur with that. I think that, I think a more Petey scotch would probably align with the scar, maybe a little bit more. I like not totally on the Pete side, but maybe an open.
Oh yeah, that's actually a great call out. Oh, absolutely. I
**Gizmo:** also wonder how well rum would do with this cigar. I think very well. I think it would do really well. It kind of goes well
**Poobah:** with everything,
**Senator:** but yeah. I
**Gizmo:** think an umph, I think a rum with a little bit of umph actually would pair very well with this cigar.
Yeah,
**Senator:** like not your run of the mill seven year, like a higher age, a 12, with some more umph.
**Bam Bam:** The cigar is kind of putting into question the, you know, the Churchill, uh, we've always talked about that during the holidays, [00:41:00] Puba with his blue pin, pinstripe suit smoking this, the, the Churchill. It's so nostalgic, but how well this is smoking tonight, I'd like to, I'm going to get a box of these and see how they perform.
And I may stay in this lane and not go to that for a long time. I think it's a
**Poobah:** low risk, totally low risk. It's staff it off. I mean, they're only so bad. Like even when they're not optimal, they're still, they're still pretty good. Pretty damn good.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. But for the price, they demand, they should be optimal more often than not.
Correct. Yeah. They
**Gizmo:** should be batting a thousand. I, there's no
**Poobah:** excuse. Well, they almost do, wouldn't you say? They almost do. I mean, they almost,
**Bam Bam:** no. What's a late hour cost? Like 28 bucks almost.
**Gizmo:** I mean, almost, yeah. The Churchill. Yeah. I would say the Churchill's inch and closer to 30, about 30 bucks. 32. Yeah.
That,
**Bam Bam:** that's a lot
**Gizmo:** of money. I mean, this right here is getting probably close to 25 online. You don't think from a
**Poobah:** New World
**Gizmo:** producer
**Poobah:** that Davidoff is one of the more consistent?
**Gizmo:** I think the cigars we've done on the Davidoff we've done. I think the [00:42:00] ones that we've chosen, we've been very selective about it, they've performed very well.
Arguably, Davidoff has probably performed better than anyone else that we've rated on this podcast.
**Bam Bam:** Except for Padron. from the point of view of consistency.
**Gizmo:** Sure. But I think there's a lot of cigars that Davidoff makes that if we did smoke them on this podcast, and we will, I don't think that they would perform to the level that we would expect.
And the problem with Davidoff, and we're going to talk about this in a little bit, is the price thing is they are certainly on the higher end of average price for a new world manufacturer, at least in a mass market sense. So we'll talk about that a little bit.
**Bam Bam:** Not just the higher. It's ridiculous. Sorry.
It's.
**Poobah:** In some ways, yes. And in some ways, no, I
**Bam Bam:** mean, the, the quality is fantastic. Overall, um, the millennium pyramid for me hasn't changed at all in years and I still go to that cigar.
**Senator:** I agree with that. But yeah, just, there are certain things that are egregious. Like we love the millennium line, but the millennium petite Corona, which it's a tiny petite Corona.
It's not like, uh, [00:43:00] you know, more, isn't it like a normal size? Yeah. It's like 18. I mean, that's more than that.
**Poobah:** More than that. That's a
**Senator:** lot of money. That's the kind of stuff that just gets, you know, it's too much. Yeah, agreed.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, it is time now to review our favorite publication, Cigar Aficionado.
We've had really wonderful things to say about them over the years. It's time to review their top 25 cigar list for 2024.
**Bam Bam:** All right.
**Gizmo:** Don't get too excited, Bam.
**Bam Bam:** I am very curious.
**Gizmo:** So we're going to start at the bottom. We'll start at number 25, and I have some real deep thoughts about this entire list, but we'll go through it first and then we'll comment.
Number 25 starts us off the Tatuaje Reserva A in Uno. By the way, that's a big cigar, right? That is a big cigar. What's the size on that? That is nine and a half inches long. I have a box
**Rooster:** box box. Oh my God. Really? Can I tell this story? Okay.
**Gizmo:** 47 ring [00:44:00] gauge by nine and a quarter inches. Can
**Rooster:** I tell this story?
He shoves
**Poobah:** it in his pants before he goes on stage.
**Bam Bam:** The magnum excels, please.
**Senator:** I had one at the lounge. So rooster walks in the lounge, which like, this was like kind of like late afternoon, it's not often you see rooster late afternoon at the lounge. So I was like surprised to see when he walked in. And he pulls out the cigar he's about to smoke. This has to be the longest cigar I've ever seen in my entire life.
And this is a guy who a Robusto takes Rooster two hours to smoke. I'm looking at the cigar. I'm like, this is going to take him two days to get
**Rooster:** through. I
**Senator:** couldn't believe
**Rooster:** it. Well, I'm on the review panel of CA.
**Bam Bam:** We did a great job. Did he finish a cigar?
**Rooster:** Of course,
**Gizmo:** not that I saw it. I mean, how long did I take?
He left before me. Oh,
**Bam Bam:** okay. Got it. Wow.
**Gizmo:** So yeah, that's 47 ring gauge by nine and a [00:45:00] quarter out of Nicaragua from Tatuaje. Let's go to number 24, Ferio Tego, Summa Corona Gorda, 46 ring gauge cigar by five and three quarters inches. Number 23, a marker that we've done a couple of times on the podcast. It's been up and down the warped Corto.
X52. It's a 52 ring gauge by four and three quarters inches long. Nicaraguan Puro from them. Number 22 cigar. I've not heard of. The market is one off. The cigar is the black and tan Robusto 52 by five. It's got a peace symbol, right? It does. The band. Exactly. Yeah. The black and
**Senator:** milds are great.
**Gizmo:** Identical cigar to this.
Number 21, Laflor Dominicana Double Ligero Chiselito.
**Bam Bam:** No, in
**Gizmo:** Maduro, 44 ring gauge by five inches. Chiselito for Miguelito.
**Poobah:** Chiselito for Miguelito. Correct. Light on the nicotine. [00:46:00] Yeah, yeah. So I
**Bam Bam:** used to love the chisel that they have, the double the hair. I actually loved that cigar when I first started smoking.
It was Great. Isn't
**Gizmo:** that the only cigar that's patented as the chisel? I think that's the only cigar shape that's ever been. That is quite the powerful cigar. It is. Oh, yeah. Number 20. The Cohiba Riviera Robusto from Nicaragua. Obviously not the Cuban Cohiba, 52 ring gauge by five inches long. Who the fuck would know?
**Bam Bam:** That's awful.
**Gizmo:** This one's an interesting one. Number 19. You're not wrong. The Herrera Esteli Norteño in Lonsdale, which is a cigar we reviewed. 44 ring gauge by six and a half inches. 7.
**Poobah:** 8.
**Gizmo:** They gave it a 92 and when we reviewed that cigar 7. 8, 7. 2, we gave it sevens. An 8. 9. What? On episode 77. The Lanceril did well.
He's not in the room, but I will shout that that's the grinder special. He loves that cigar. Now here's what's crazy. [00:47:00] We gave an 8. 9. We loved it. Holy cow. This is the only entry from Drew Estate in the entire Cigar aficionado top 25. They have a long history of hating each other. Apparently, I guess Steve Saka in his days there with Nick Malelo, I don't blame him.
They agreed to not have a more advertising relationship. I don't blame him to not be reviewed. What's wild is that drew a state. A couple of months prior to this release canceled the Herrera Esteli Norteno line, including the Lonsdale. So this is a canceled cigar discontinued no longer. Why? I don't know, but it's gone.
So if you know them and you love them and you find them, you pick them up because they have been discontinued. But Cigar Aficionado gave that cigar in 92. We gave it in 89.
**Poobah:** That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a supply chain issue. It has to be. Or it's just not selling. Probably
**Gizmo:** not selling. Or it's just not selling.
Wow. Wow. Number 18, the 601 La Bamba Warhead X, [00:48:00]
**Bam Bam:** 55 ring gauge by six inches long. That's by Ricky Ricardo.
**Poobah:** Nicaraguan
**Gizmo:** Puro. Number 17, the Plasencia Cosecha. 151 La Musica, it's a 50 ring gauge by five inch Robusto. This one was interesting to me, boys, because it's a Honduran Puro. So that might be one we should earmark.
Yeah. For review. The Licencia Cosecha 151. La Musica. Number 16, the Perdomo 30th Anniversary Sun Grown Epicure, a Nicaraguan Puro 54 ring gauge by 6 inch Toro. We have not done a Perdomo. We've not done a
**Poobah:** Perdomo. We should do
**Senator:** one.
**Poobah:** Rooster's dying to do one. I'm going to be, I'm going to, I'm going to be off that week.
**Gizmo:** We have another Zeno either. The first entry from Cuba on the list this year, number 15, [00:49:00] a cigar also that we rated the Romeo y Julieta Wide Churchill 55 ring gauge cigar by 5 1 8 inches long. They gave it a 93. No! 48 negative. We gave it, gave it a 6. 8 negative. So that's quite a bit. Negative that we do not love that.
They need a
**Rooster:** lot of age.
**Gizmo:** Number 14, the Casa Magna Colorado 15th anniversary, 54 ring gauge by six inches long made by Quesada. It's out of Dominican Republic, but primarily Nicaraguan tobacco in it, the Casa Magna, Colorado. Number 13. Another one I've not heard of, but I've actually seen someone smoking this.
The Viva La Vida. Jester, which has a really interesting band on it. Very colorful band, 56 ring gauge by five.
**Senator:** All right. So Gizmo's not going to let us smoke that.
**Gizmo:** You're welcome. It's a Nicaraguan Puro. Do they make a lawn stale? Do they make a land? [00:50:00] Another land, Sarah boys from Viva La Vida. Number 12, the Oxum Claro in Robusto 50 ring gauge by five made by AJ Fernandez.
That may be good. Yeah, it might be an interesting one. Cool band on it. Actually. Actually, it's very similar to,
**Poobah:** does
**Gizmo:** it have a, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the,
**Poobah:** uh, what's the blend on that? The rapper leaf. It's probably a rappers,
**Gizmo:** Ecuadorian binder, USA, Connecticut, broad leaf. And the filler is Nicaraguan.
I bet that's interesting. So very, uh, very much in line with foundation cigars. Number 11, La Aroma de Cuba Pasion, it's the box press torpedo, 54 ring gauge by six and an eighth inch long. Again, another Nicaraguan pyro. What's next? The Oliva
**Poobah:** V Milano at 97? What's next? That's coming. I haven't even read the fucking list.
And [00:51:00] that's coming. That's in the
**Bam Bam:** top five. Rocky Patel for sure. Rocky Patel.
**Poobah:** Okay boys. Am I nuts? Or am I, I haven't even read
**Gizmo:** it. We're getting into the top 10 now. This one surprised me, but I heard some positive things about the cigar. Number 10 in 2024 was the Brickhouse Churchill.
**Bam Bam:** What?
**Gizmo:** 50 ring gauge by seven and a quarter inches long out of Nicaragua, mainly Nicaraguan tobacco with an Ecuadorian wrapper.
**Bam Bam:** That is such a mild, uninteresting cigar. Is that from the restaurant in Wyckoff? Yeah. They gave it a 93 on that one.
**Gizmo:** That's shit. That's
**Bam Bam:** unbelievable.
**Gizmo:** This one is interesting too. The entry from Arturo Fuente in the top 10, the Don Carlos eye of the bull. The very, very small 55 ring gauge by three and a half inches long
**Bam Bam:** for 35 a stick.
Unbelievable.
**Senator:** I was
**Gizmo:** surprised to see that. I think it has flavored tip. It does. Yeah. That's the cigar.
**Senator:** The, the head of the cigar absolutely dipped in some lizard. Lizard
**Rooster:** fortune loves that cigar. Does he, does he [00:52:00] eye off the bull? It's a short, sorry. Yeah. It's a short, short, like, yeah. Stubby small. I
**Chef Ricky:** had one.
I enjoyed it, but I agree it. That tip is flavored.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. Number eight, the second entry from Cuba on this list. Again, another Cohiba. This is the second Cohiba on the list. One from Cuba. One not from Cuba. The Cohiba Maduro five, the magic coast from the Maduro line. 52 ring gauge cigar by four and a half inches long.
I was surprised to see that in the top 10 number seven, the entry this year from Rocky Patel, the conviction in Toro, 52 ring gauge by six and a half inches long out of Nicaragua with a Mexican rapper.
**Senator:** These sizes. Well, now I believe Rooster that he's on the tasting panel. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Number six, Puba called it.
You leave a V Siri V Melanio. Maduro in torpedo 52 ring gauge by six and a half inches long out of [00:53:00] Nicaragua with another, another cigar with a Mexican wrapper on it from Nicaragua rated 95,
**Poobah:** 95.
**Rooster:** I would like to know how many years in a row the Milano has made the top five. I bet you it's like for the last 10 years.
It's every single year.
**Poobah:** You mean this is as much as it aligns with their, with their media pie.
**Gizmo:** Number five, another entry from Cuba. Which we can talk about the part, the gas, linear, maestro, maestro, the new release from part of this 56 ring gauge cigar by five and a quarter inches long with a listed retail price of nearly 80.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. That's the blue label. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** That is the blue label. The new part, the gas released in March, 2023. So fucking commercial number four. The one and only entry from Padrone, the Padrone Siri 1926, number six, 50 ring gauge cigar [00:54:00] by four and three quarters inches long. Another Nicaraguan Puro, of course, with Padrone and that is Padrone's entry.
Now for Epi Carrillo's entry number three, the Encore in Celestial. It's a 50 ring gauge cigar by six and one eighths inches long. Again, another. Nicaraguan Puro. Wow. A lot of Nicaraguan representation in this list. Now for the runner up, the Monte Cristo 1935 anniversary Nicaragua in Esposo, a 60 ring gauge cigar by five and a half inches long.
This is
**Poobah:** fucking
**Gizmo:** lunacy. Again, a Nicaraguan Puro. I can't get over
**Bam Bam:** it. Is that, does that have the yellow band underneath?
**Gizmo:** It has a yellow, like a gold and black, and then
**Bam Bam:** the black
**Gizmo:** underneath. Yeah, yeah. We did that in another Vittola, right? We did. I think it was a different
**Senator:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I think, I thought we did, was it
**Senator:** the
**Gizmo:** Torpedo?
**Senator:** The
**Gizmo:** 52. Yeah, I think we did something from the 1935 anniversary, but this might be it. That was a
**Senator:** cigar that was dubbed the Padrone Killer, and we were [00:55:00] It
**Gizmo:** clearly does. It
**Senator:** was not. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** And boys, the number one cigar of the year from Cigar Aficionado. I ordered them so we can review them and we'll have some fun with that.
Oh boy. My father, the judge
**Poobah:** in
**Gizmo:** Grand Robusta, 60 ring gauge by five inches long.
**Poobah:** The worst of all time, I've thrown them out of my fucking truck. I've been gifted. They've been gifted to me multiple times and I light them up out of being polite. And then as soon as I can get rid of that thing, I get rid of it.
**Chef Ricky:** Didn't you review the judge on a prior? We did. We did another VTOL. It was a different VTOL. Do you remember what we rated that? It was low. I want to say it was low, but I did
**Senator:** say it was wet from a brick and mortar. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I think we did a Toro. I don't have the Vitola. We did that on episode 23. We rated it a 5.
6. The judge is not good. We had gotten it from a brick and mortar. This was in our [00:56:00] amateur early days. It was
**Bam Bam:** very soft. It
**Gizmo:** was very, very humid. No doubt about that. So, I don't know if we gave that a fair shot. So, I did order these for review. We will be doing these in the coming weeks. So, line that up, Puba.
Put that on your calendar. To
**Chef Ricky:** be out. I just had a random thought. I may
**Poobah:** be conspicuously absent.
**Chef Ricky:** Yes, I would buy it, Ricky. At Costco. Go ahead. So if Costco were to release a cigar, who do you think would be the manufacturer? Rocky Patel. 100%. Brewster. Yeah. Brewster.
**Poobah:** So I have a couple thoughts here. So what's up the judge?
I mean, the judge, the, the, the cigar has never been good. I I've been gifted. So how many guys in the room, can I take a poll? How many judges have you been gifted in your life? Six, zero, seven. I've been gifted too. I've
**Chef Ricky:** been gifted two or three of them. Yeah. Zero
**Poobah:** zero. I have good friends. [00:57:00] No enemies in the room.
Well, yes, clearly friends with better taste than I do. I'll take a judge over a
**Chef Ricky:** fake Cuban with my friends. It's one or the other. Yeah. Oh, is that right?
**Poobah:** I'm sorry about that. That's when you got to just take it on the chin and go, okay, this, um, this P2 is, is rolled and it looks like a torpedo off a submarine.
Yeah. Most of the time. I don't know
**Chef Ricky:** any better.
**Poobah:** Yeah. You know, you can just look at it and tell, but, but, but, but the judge has never, I've never had a good judge and I've had them in a bunch of different sizes in Robusto, in Robusto extra. I, I, I mean, I've had them in a lot of good sizes and let me tell you.
I don't like it. Have you had it in the Gran Robusto, the 60 ring gauge? Might surprise
**Rooster:** you. Might. I'm surprised that QD 52, the Bollywood gold medal, some of the Cuban choices, none of
**Poobah:** them made it. There's no commercial [00:58:00] value for them rating those. There's yet there are
**Rooster:** some Cuban, uh, cigars that are there's three entrances to the list,
**Gizmo:** three out of 25.
So here's, here's my commentary on this. Number one, as predicted, you can, like, once you see what the top, you know, the, you know, they do 10, nine, eight, seven, they count it down over a couple of days, what bothers me about this is it seems mathematically impossible to me that each of these manufacturers would only have one entrant.
In the top 25 when you're smoking them, like they're supposed to be doing right, like we do, like we had a couple Davidoffs that are in the top, you know, like we, we run through this gamut of reviews and based on how they score great, I don't understand how they come out with a list of 25 cigars and there are no repeats, there are no, there's never been a back to back number one or number one and two,
**Senator:** you know, what is a repeat?
I'm pretty sure the Padron 1926 number six. That was in [00:59:00] the last five years. The reason I know this, it was in the top 10. I'm pretty sure I bought a box of 10, didn't like them. I gave the rest to Rooster and the only reason I bought, no, because he dumped them on Rooster. No, no, I do. I like, he likes that cigar.
That's the reason I, I wasn't the very full body. And, uh, the only reason I bought it was it was on their list, so I'm, that's definitely a repeat. Now, you know what I don't understand? Oh, you mean when
**Poobah:** Padrone, Padrone and the sequentially you're saying? No, no, no. That exact
**Senator:** cigar that made
**Poobah:** the top 25 consecutive years, made the top 25 a few years ago.
Oh, I
**Rooster:** see. Exactly. Vitola, everything. I see. I mean, how does. How does the millennium make it in the top five and the exclusive or doesn't should be in the top five every year. Correct. A tremendous because,
**Poobah:** because you know, the answer,
**Rooster:** no, I know the answer, but it's, I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, it's almost like they load up,
**Gizmo:** they load up the, The advertisers in like, you know, like a shuffle shuffle board and they hit shuffle and they print the list.
And the next year they load up their [01:00:00] advertisers. They hit shuffle. I don't understand how there's not more than one entrant from a, from a market in the top 25. I'm saying it's just mathematically impossible for how they say they do this, for it to perfectly line up like this every year, it's just
**Poobah:** complete bullshit.
Objectively. It is, it is a questionable list at best. Object. It's just objectively not, isn't it? Always objective.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Poobah:** Like if that makes sense, it's just not.
**Chef Ricky:** And not one Davidoff made the list. No Davidoff.
**Poobah:** And how much Davidoff advertising is done in CA? I guess this year, zero.
**Rooster:** Not a lot. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's odd.
Very odd.
**Gizmo:** So what do you guys think as far as the diversity of the list here? There's three Cuban entrants. There's obviously a lot from Nicaragua. I was surprised that someone said the Davidoff didn't make the list here, especially the Maduro and Robusto or any in that, that line. I was shocked to see that.
And some of these others, like, it just doesn't, it [01:01:00] doesn't make sense to me how they, they construct, we
**Rooster:** should come out with a top 25 list every year. I agree with that.
**Senator:** You know what? Notably top 10, top 10. You know what? Notably I did not hear make the top 25. A Lancero. Oh yeah.
**Poobah:** I'm serious. Another Lancero, boys.
On the pod today.
**Senator:** This is how we know Gizmo's not on that TV show. I'm definitely not
**Poobah:** on the list.
**Senator:** Are you getting any Nuke it?
**Poobah:** Because it's all in the wrapper.
**Senator:** It's Nuke it. But I say that because we have found like so many good budget Lanceros. You'd think if they were smart, at least one of those, they would have thrown on that list.
**Gizmo:** Well, and they're trending in the direction that, that, that consumers are. They're, you know, a lot of those cigars were 55 and up that we mentioned tonight. Big cigars. Yeah. A lot. The number one cigar is 60 ring gauge. A lot were 50 plus.
**Poobah:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** The
**Poobah:** majority maybe were 50 plus.
**Gizmo:** So that's the top 25 from Cigar Aficionado from [01:02:00] 2024 boys.
Another exciting list from them. Always thankful to them, to the
**Bam Bam:** excellent content. That judge is just the colossal disappointment at number one. I mean, I don't know how they're what they're thinking.
**Gizmo:** So we're going to review that soon. I should have that, uh, those cigars in tomorrow, the day after. I'll let them sit for a little while.
Honestly, the Le Bijou
**Bam Bam:** is a better cigar. It's tolerable. It's an ass kicker of a cigar. It is strong, but, um, La
**Chef Ricky:** Flor de Las Antillas, also made by the, my father, uh, people is a, is a better cigar. Yeah. And the judge or the judge. Yeah. I think the Bijou is very peppery. Very heavy. I guess we got to do it for the listeners.
**Gizmo:** Yep.
**Chef Ricky:** Do it.
**Gizmo:** So boys, we're at the halfway point here on the Davidoff. Winston Churchill in the late hour. Speak for yourself, I'm almost done.
**Bam Bam:** We're going through this thing.
**Gizmo:** I'm just right around halfway. Well, what's everybody thinking? Wherever you're at.
**Senator:** It's great. I'm just, I wish I could get this experience every time.
This is what this blend should taste like.
**Bam Bam:** So you don't think you'll get this in a Robusto every time you [01:03:00] buy a box? I don't
**Senator:** just because I
**Bam Bam:** have. I haven't had enough of these.
**Gizmo:** I've had Robustos that do not taste like this. Really? Yeah. That's
**Bam Bam:** awful.
**Gizmo:** When I had a box of Robustos, and actually I finished that box and I did not purchase another one.
And I purchased singles specifically for this episode a long time ago. But, um, yeah, I did not run out and buy a box expecting to love it to then smoke the rest of them. Like, Do
**Bam Bam:** you have any Robustos at home?
**Gizmo:** No, this is it. I bought 10 for the video. You do, right?
**Bam Bam:** I
**Gizmo:** do.
**Bam Bam:** I'd like to hear what you think about if you have another one next week or the week after.
**Senator:** I'll try it. Yeah, I spoke to probably five, seven of them and none of them have been great. I'd like to get a box of this. I've
**Poobah:** had, I have a few randoms and they've been fine, but I haven't
**Gizmo:** reached. So boys, Like we said earlier in the episode, we are smoking a Davidoff. There's an interesting piece of news here that Senator shared about the new special reserve oral Blanco 111 years, which when we discussed it in October, we learned it's going to be 750 per cigar.
[01:04:00] And Senator came across an Instagram post that we're going to share. Now we're going to read from Davidoff from Davidoff discussing the construction and, and the Illustrious blend, the illustrious blend inside the Oro Blanco rare 111 years aged special reserve. So let's talk about this. So they say one rare blend, 111 years aged tobaccos for the Oro Blanco special reserve 111 years, Davidoff invested generously.
And regularly in its large tobacco inventory. When the time came to create the exclusive Toro, the master blender selected only the most exclusive tobaccos from their vaults. They chose the binder and filler tobaccos that had been patiently aging. For 17 to 20 years per variety with all the tobaccos in the blend, combining to an impressive total age of 111 years.
**Bam Bam:** I don't know what to say.
**Rooster:** What kind of math is that? [01:05:00] 111 years. I would think it's like pre embargo tobacco in there.
**Bam Bam:** I think not like
**Rooster:** a combination of that's a 17 year age. Tobacco must, we
**Bam Bam:** must boycott. Dab it off. No, don't say that. I wouldn't go that far. I mean, you said
**Gizmo:** you're buying a box of Robustos. I am.
**Bam Bam:** I'm out. You're the Millennium King. I am. Could you be out?
**Senator:** I mean, in all seriousness, they should be sued. Like to call the cigar the 111 year age. It's not aged for 111
**Rooster:** Can you imagine if every
**Senator:** cigar just totaled up the age of all the different, uh, filler that's in there? I mean, You'd have an acid. That's a 20 year age.
Unreal. You took 20 different varieties in there. I mean, there were aids for a year. It's insanity to call the FTC.
**Poobah:** God damn it. Call the federal trade commission,
**Senator:** consumer
**Bam Bam:** affairs, and
**Gizmo:** they finish here. And we'll continue our discussion, but they say the cigars are only released when the master blenders deem [01:06:00] them ready for enjoyment.
Excellence takes time. 111 years.
**Senator:** It took 17 years, not 111.
**Chef Ricky:** What's the, uh, do they say how many were produced or being produced?
**Gizmo:** 111. I do think it's limited, Ricky. We did talk about that on episode. I don't have the limited release amount, but I think it's a couple thousand. Boxes went 750 a cigar. I mean, it's just lunacy.
**Senator:** Like, however many of those they've produced. That is how many complete morons they think exist in this world that would spend 750 on a single cigar. It
**Poobah:** actually takes like a legitimate Like, that's for one cigar, 750 is just ludicrous. It can't be that good. When
**Bam Bam:** did these come out? They're coming out now.
I think they're starting to roll out now. It'd be great to track sales and where they're selling [01:07:00] and how many are sold.
**Rooster:** You're not going to buy a box. China. You know, it's not a bad price. It's not
**Bam Bam:** that bad. They're
**Poobah:** selling in Dubai. BAMF's going to be on a plane to Dubai. That's where they're all going to be sold.
All right, you guys. See, I see China, it's, it's China, China buying, they buy it all. They do. They buy it all. They buy it. They buy everything. He's got the
**Gizmo:** Trump heads up. They buy, they
**Poobah:** buy everything. They do it very, very well. They do it very well. They, they now that they're, they're saying better than anybody.
They're better than anybody. Davidoff is saying they do it well, but are they doing it well? As they should be doing? I don't know. If I was doing it, it would be, it would be done very, very well. It's China, but it's China.
**Gizmo:** Listen, I I, we, we've talked about this and, and I think it's a really bad trend, I think.
I think what we're seeing is a really bad trend in tobacco, and we've talked about the pricing [01:08:00] trend. The cigars that are pricing 50, 60, 70, the new releases that are hitting triple digits, forgetting Cuba, even forget Cuba, but outside of Cuba, these new world manufacturers taking this very similar tobacco, having an age statement on it and doing things like this.
But what, what the weird pivot is here from Davidoff is the marketing pivot and changing how cigars are, you know, have an age statement on yeah, how, how age is defined, how age is defined. Categorically
**Senator:** in the cigar industry. That's like saying I'm 111 years old. My foot is 30 years old. My arm is 40 years old.
I mean, like this is ridiculous. Like you can't add up the sum of the parts to determine someone's age.
**Bam Bam:** My shoes
**Senator:** are 22 years old. It's Chinese
**Poobah:** algebra.
**Gizmo:** It's an abacus. It's a mind of Singapore math.
**Poobah:** I
**Gizmo:** just, I just think that this is a really bad trend. It's like these. [01:09:00] These, these cigar manufacturers are bringing in these think tanks to come up with new bullshit ways to raise the price on.
Tobacco, which is a weed that grows in 60 days. They chop it up. They, they age it. And, and look at what's happening with this. Think tanks. What is Brookings getting
**Senator:** into
**Gizmo:** cigars? I don't know.
**Senator:** You guys are all playing. Davidoff brought to you by the Cato Institute. No, I just have to say for me, that was as low as it gets from any manufacturer and for it to be Davidoff, it is astounding that they would stoop to that level.
It's not
**Poobah:** totally astounding because the, the, the Chinese, um, um, annual new year shit, it's the biggest book is the biggest, is the biggest BS scam. Marketing scam. That's also the entire world,
**Senator:** 70 years age. How
**Gizmo:** much was the other Oro Blanco from Davidoff MSRP? Was that a 500 cigar? Okay. So now they've found a way [01:10:00] to move to seven 50 unreal.
So now what they're going to have to do next year or the year after that is sit down and figure out how they take sister tobacco to all of this and put it into the four digit thousand plus three. Dollar category
**Senator:** have
**Gizmo:** a 200 year age cigar.
**Poobah:** So what what are you gonna? You're gonna trump the royal You're just gonna say I think it's already been trumped.
Well, I mean look it's it's it's it's okay Is it 90 bucks? No, no, but is it a corporate cigar? Yes. Like, is that a cigar that like on a, on an occasion where you'd, you know, be somewhere and you had a big win or something and you're in a lounge and you have no cigars and you have a big win and you buy it.
Okay. That's what that cigar is for. It's fine. It's 89 bucks, but, but, but 750 and
**Gizmo:** a cigar better deliver.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah,
**Gizmo:** I mean, you're setting every cigar smoker who buys and smokes that cigar. No matter how much they're worth, you're setting them up at such an [01:11:00] unreasonable expectation that I feel like you're going to miss every time.
But who's buying that with their own money? Somebody is going to buy it. Not with their own money. Sure. But my point is that when they smoke that cigar, the expectation is so unreasonable that it could never be met by the performance of the cigar. They can buy
**Senator:** a Bahica. They can buy a Sir Winston. They can buy any cigar that is absolutely legendary and we know is fantastic and there's no chance that that's going to beat it.
No.
**Poobah:** And, and, and, and I, and I firmly believe this and I'll put a stake in the ground right now is that no one buying that cigar, very few, very few, very The minority are buying it with their own money.
**Gizmo:** I agree with you on that.
**Poobah:** Good for them. So they're tapping into that. They know the market's there. Maybe that's what the market addressable market is.
But, and
**Gizmo:** we talked
**Poobah:** about this in October. I don't,
**Gizmo:** I don't want to rehash this point of it because I brought this up in October, but to BAM's reaction to Senator's point to all of our points tonight, what it does, [01:12:00] For someone who has a $30 cigar from Davidov in my hand, it turns me off to the entire brand.
Correct? Yeah, totally. It, it turns me off totally to like everything that they're doing because it's just so disappointing. No, it put, it taints the entire line for me. When, when, when a manufacturer does this, I'm sorry.
**Poobah:** It doesn't do it. It doesn't do it for me. I still think that I still think the, the regular catalog stuff that we go to all the time is relatively reasonably priced.
The, the, the few, the tolls that we go through, the few blends that we go to, which is probably a handful, correct? Like what? Four, four. Or five or, or, or, or worth the money, you know, considering the whole portfolio, you know, they're probably overpriced. Oh, very, you know, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. But the ones that are really, really good and the ones we love and the ones that we love, I [01:13:00] think are worth the money.
**Senator:** Yeah. I just think what Davidoff is not understanding. There are principles that True cigar lovers, cigar aficionados, whatever you want to call them universally understand, appreciate, and live by right. Authenticity. We talk about cigars being an equalizer, like that violates all of them. That's a great point.
A hundred, 11 years of age. There's nothing else. So that's a good point. The name of the cigar is a lie. Right. Well,
**Poobah:** Senator, Senator, Senator, the point you're making is so cohesive because it clashes with What you want the brand ethos to be,
**Bam Bam:** but it clashes with the entire, am I right? The entire
**Senator:** lifestyle of smoking cigars.
Correct. It's like, you know, I always say, obviously I've never really think a cigar you should spend more than 40. Obviously I have violated that a few times, but the point is, you know, when you're being
**Gizmo:** generous to yourself, but go ahead. [01:14:00]
**Senator:** Accountability. I can count. I can count on my hands a number of times.
It's a contradiction to what the brand is. There is 99. 99 percent of people on this planet can spend 750 on a cigar comfortably. Even stretching, feel comfortable, feel willing enough to do that. I mean, we're all fortunate in this room. None of us are going to be spending 750 on a cigar, period. I don't care what kind of year anybody has.
That's exactly right. No one's doing it. No one's doing it. And that is fundamentally misunderstanding what cigars are all about. But it takes
**Bam Bam:** years of education and experimenting with cigars to realize that that cigar can never ever be worth 750.
**Rooster:** We know that. And are they going to sell singles? I think so.
Are you curious?
**Senator:** By the way, I think that Apparently the garbage business is going to be booming in 2025.
**Rooster:** I
**Poobah:** mean, I think I mean, what if
**Rooster:** they only sell by the box? No, [01:15:00] but I think they're going to have to. Yeah. I
**Poobah:** think they're going to have to, I think they're going to have to market it. I mean, no,
**Senator:** I think they'll sell singles.
**Poobah:** They do that with the Royal. They do it with really every singer they've ever made. As your, as your resident marketing person. I mean, you can't, you cannot, you cannot try and just depend on a end user pull through. Based on a a 10 count box of $750 cigars, you're just not gonna be able to do it. You're gonna have to sell singles because there's gonna be a group of four.
So you agree? Who made a deal? I'm agreeing. Agree. So there's two resident marketing guys in the room. . Okay, fine. I'm just saying they have to sell 'em as singles. 'cause if they don't. There's just, there's not an addressable enough market. I don't believe
**Chef Ricky:** you have an idea of what the packaging looks like.
No, I have not seen the packaging. This thing has to be impressive.
**Poobah:** I'm sure. Yeah. It better be made of gold. The entire box should be [01:16:00] in two bows. I mean, for Christ's sake, it's going to be in coffins or coffins, maybe.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, let's move on. Now we'll go to a listener email. This is from Blizzard Luigi, who sent you the fruit platter.
Oh, I love that fruit platter. I was thinking
**Bam Bam:** about that earlier today, by the way.
**Gizmo:** He says, Hi, guys, I'm listening to the short smoke episode, Quintero and Padrone, and I've heard you criticizing the new 300 Oliva. Very much in line with this conversation we're having now. And it has reminded me about a cigar you have to try, given how much you guys love the Oliva Siri V Lancero.
Which I will have something I want to talk about there. I think you guys would enjoy the Kane F Lancero by Oliva. Kane is a sub brand of Oliva known to deliver more of a punch than the regular Oliva line. Much more Leharo is used and it can be found for around five to six bucks a stick. Wow. Hope you guys enjoy.
So that's pretty cool.
**Bam Bam:** Never heard of it.
**Gizmo:** I never heard of that line either, but I guess it's a sub line that Oliva makes. Um, so he mentions the Oliva Siri View and Ciro and I wanted to bring this up [01:17:00] because we've been having some internal discussions about how that cigar has been performing and actually I was tagged in a Reddit thread, which I found very interesting where Uh, a listener, impossible role, 1767.
I actually mentioned him a few episodes ago with that lounge lizards thread. He put up a thread about the Oliva Siri V that had a gaping hole in it. And you can see in the role, there's literally a massive hole in the center of the cigar as it's burning. And I guess he was having serious flavor and burn and combustion issues.
And, uh, The thing that I think internally we've discovered with that cigar since we rated it so highly is for how delicious it is.
**Bam Bam:** Yes.
**Gizmo:** It is seriously underfilled and is wrought with construction issues. Wow. I find that when I smoke one of those cigars and I've actually not been reaching for them as much, you have to relight it five, six, seven, ten times as you're smoking it.
And Senator, I know you've [01:18:00] had a very similar experience with these.
**Senator:** Yeah, no, I've had the same experience. And the funny thing is, even if you get a. Great one by its standards. I mean, you'll smoke that land Sarah in like 25 minutes. It's so under packed. It's smoked so fast It's delicious cigar than when you get a good one when you
**Gizmo:** get a good one Yeah So I wonder if if they're just under filling those cigars to maintain that low price To try to keep them in that price range that we're purchasing them for you know, limiting how much You know, tobacco is in them, but they've got to be probably half or three quarter filled to what they actually should be.
There's like two leaves of it.
**Rooster:** How much are they going to underfill that?
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So I thought that was pretty wild, but yeah, thanks for the tag there. We love hearing from folks on Reddit and always a good discussion there about cigars. So boys, we are coming to the last third now on Davidoff. Winston Churchill, the late hour in Robusta.
What's everybody thinking? Completed. I can
**Bam Bam:** barely see you guys. Yeah, the combustion's incredible. I'm still enjoying this and I'm down [01:19:00] to a half inch. It's actually very good.
**Gizmo:** Mine is delicious.
**Bam Bam:** Mine too. It's heated
**Gizmo:** up a little bit. Me too. It's changed a little bit. I think it's intensified a little bit from what it was in the first third.
But still velvety. Still velvety. And I've actually feel like I've been smoking slow and I'm surprised at it. Actually how much it has been heating up. It's hot now in my hand. It is hot in my hand versus some other reboosters. So I was surprised about that. It got
**Poobah:** a little peppery down the stretch, but I was okay with that because it was just for a moment.
And, um, to finish it off, I thought that was, that was a nice note.
**Senator:** Yeah, I think it's one of, if not like, the fullest Davidoff blend. I mean, the last third definitely picks up and it ends firmly full.
**Gizmo:** Ricky, what do you think about the flavor in the last third here?
**Chef Ricky:** The flavor isn't as sweet as it was in the midpoint and in the beginning.
It's picked up a little bit in strength, for sure. Uh, but it's still really smooth. It's enjoyable to smoke. Uh, I'm liking it. Yeah. I'm like definitely getting
**Rooster:** more pepper towards the end.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Yeah. Lots of it. Yeah. More
**Senator:** pepper. And the one thing I'll say about the [01:20:00] late hour line as a whole, there's definitely more nicotine in the late hour line than anything Davidoff makes.
And I, even a lot of other manufacturers. Yeah, I don't
**Poobah:** know if there's more nicotine in this than there is in the Maduro in my view. I agree with that Puba. I could smoke two Maduros.
**Senator:** I would only smoke one of these.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, I don't know if it's the temperature in the room or the nicotine content, but I feel there's a little glisten on everyone's forehead tonight.
I'm feeling it. Correct. I'm just happy to see you guys. I enjoyed that. I
**Poobah:** really enjoyed it. This is the first cigar I had in a few weeks because I've been traveling, but um, I really enjoyed the experience with the cigar tonight. Um, it, it, it started off sweet. It's, you know, it was, it was very balanced and it progressed.
It was a little bit of a three act play for me. And, um, I enjoyed that very much where there was some fruit up front. There was, and then it transitioned, it just transitioned a few times for [01:21:00] me. And I liked it. I really, I bet I've always been a fan of this Fatola kind of behind the scenes, maybe not out that out front with it, but, um, I haven't had as many negative experiences with the Robusto late hour as you guys have.
Um, but then again, I maybe only bought. Two or three, four packs from our, you know, from our old lounge, you know, over the years, uh, it wasn't like I, I really dove deep into it, but I always had a good experience with the cigar and, and, and kind of put forward an argument that it, that it, uh, it rivals the Churchill in, in, in, in some ways.
**Gizmo:** So boys, I want to move to another listener email. This one is going to be our lizard of the week. This is a first time writer from Lizard Shannon, first time emailer. And the reason why I bring it up is another cigar we've been talking about a lot. He said, I listened to your latest episode on the Aladino classic elegante, and I love that you guys hadn't [01:22:00] heard much about the brand, but you really enjoyed, enjoyed the Honduran Puro.
Aladino is one of my favorites. It reminds me of farmer Puros from the Pinar del Rio region in Cuba. Wow. I was curious if you guys found parallels there with Cuban cigars. I know we've talked about how close Honduran is to Cuba, but I liked that comment that it reminded them of, uh, Cuban farmers out of, uh, Fuertebajo.
**Chef Ricky:** I think we highlighted that quite a bit too in the episode of how similar it was in some flavor notes to Cuban cigars.
**Poobah:** They have a, they have a minerality to them. I believe that the Honduran, some of the Honduran blends have been very, very pleasantly surprising.
**Gizmo:** So he continues, you mentioned that some people don't get the most out of their cigar because it's not stored properly and dry box before smoking.
What humidity level did you guys store it at? How long did you dry box it? And at what humidity? Thanks so much, Lizard Shannon. [01:23:00] So I think this is another one too. I don't know if we talked about this, but I know Senator mentioned that he had gotten a box of the Aladino's after we recorded the podcast.
**Bam Bam:** I think we all
**Gizmo:** did.
And smoked one off the truck. And what was your experience compared to what we smoked on the pod?
**Senator:** I mean, honestly, it sucked off the truck. That cigar, I think it's got a thin wrapper. It's Cuban esque in its construction and even its flavor profile. It needs to come down. You cannot smoke that. at a brick and mortar at 70 percent humidity and expect you're gonna get all the great flavor notes that we got.
It was super muddled. When I let that come down after like a week or two, dramatically different experience.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, agreed. How
**Senator:** long did
**Bam Bam:** you keep those in your tower
**Senator:** again?
**Gizmo:** So when A while. The ones that we smoked on the pod I had for a few months. Yeah. And they were probably sitting at 63 ish in my tower.
**Bam Bam:** Brilliant.
**Gizmo:** And I think, you know, I don't know what your dry boxing or just your tower, if you're just throwing them in the tower Senator for a week, but yours was less dramatic than mine and you definitely noticed the difference. So maybe yours is [01:24:00] the one to kind of refer to listeners on this.
**Senator:** I dry boxed the box for maybe three days and then put it in my tower at like 63, 64 for another week or two.
They were great. Yeah. And they've only gotten better just as the weeks go by.
**Gizmo:** And a lot of guys in the lounge have been doing the same thing. And as they smoke them away from receiving them and coming down, everyone they smoke is getting better. So that's definitely the recommendation here.
**Poobah:** Yeah. I mean, I really think it's, it's, it's a, it's a point that for anyone listening, um, conditioning has a, has a huge impact on cigar performance.
And, um, what we've learned. Is that generally speaking, lower humidity, you know, then how retailers retailers have to, there's people in and out of the humidor, like all the time. So they have to keep 70 and 70. Do you know what I mean? Like it's the only way for them to really manage it. Like a Jr cigar or whoever, like it's [01:25:00] hard to manage.
That lower humidity. So dry boxing or letting cigars rest before you dive right in. There's a merit to that. There's legitimacy in that. And you're going to find a difference in how your scars perform.
**Gizmo:** When I light the Aladino, I don't touch it up at all. Like I, it smokes right through, there's no touchups.
It performs brilliantly. So for, for the listener out there who maybe lives in a more humid client climate year round, my recommendation is to order a 58 percent Boveda pack and keep that in Ziploc or Tupper door as kind of your dry box situation and just start trying it, try it with a. Low risk cigar like this Aladino, we're talking about six, seven, eight, 10 bucks.
You really can't mess it up and just experiment. So get that 58, get some sort of airtight situation and dry box like that. For us in the Northeast United States here, obviously in the colder months, our homes are much more dry. You can throw it out on your desk and it's doing really the same thing.
That's
**Bam Bam:** [01:26:00] exactly what I do.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, that's what I do. In the summer, it doesn't work as well, of course, as it does in the winter. And the colder months, but that's definitely the way to do it.
**Senator:** And I would just say for the listener, it's a game of weeks, not days. Correct. Like there's no situation in which you just dry box it for a few days and it's just magically going to smoke great.
At least a week and just ideally even more than that. It's only going to get better. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So congratulations again to Lizard Shannon for winning Lizard of the Week. Anybody out there can win Lizard of the Week. All you have to do is send us something, an email, a voice memo, comment on Instagram, even Reddit now, YouTube, whatever you choose.
Dry fruit platter. Dry fruit platter. Bam will give you Lizard of the Week out of his own tower. Or,
**Poobah:** he'll send you an Opus Dubai. Let's not go there.
**Gizmo:** Or even a hello kitty backpack. Oh, yes. Yes, correct. Let's not rehash that
Yeah, I gave it to lizard Ricky over here to give to his daughter so boys before we move into the ratings I wanted to do a [01:27:00] segment We've been doing for a little while and I thought there was a pretty cool Entrant to this segment a day in lizard life. I thought you were gonna say prices, right? Prices.
Oh, we, we can do prices, right? We can pull up. Are we doing that again? No, that was a great segment. So I did want to talk about this. So we've been doing this every once in a while as a listener recommendation, just going through one night of one of our, a couple of our rotations of cigars. And I want to start with Bam because
**Poobah:** I
**Gizmo:** was at the lounge here the other night with Bam and he showed up with his cigar case full of only short smokes,
**Bam Bam:** all
**Gizmo:** Cubans, and only short smoke.
So run us through your lineup of cigars. So front to back. What did, uh, what did you do?
**Bam Bam:** I started with the poor Laranaga Petit Corona. Nice outstanding start. Um, then I went to the Bolivar Petit Corona, then the Ramon Alonez Club Corona. Then I went to the Oyo Epicure number three. [01:28:00] After that, then the QD50, and then the two really small formats, the Monte Cristo Media Corona.
Love that cigar. Great cigar. Yeah, and I finished up with the Up and Half Corona. Look at you. Yeah. What, seven cigar night, huh? Seven cigar night. And I texted this to you guys. Honestly, the variety of flavors from one after another, after another, and that was consistent. I lit right away. It was a flavor journey, dude, and it was outstanding.
Outstanding. A lot of fun. Delicious experience.
**Gizmo:** So I'll go through my Christmas smokes. Nice. I listed a few in, uh, on, on the previous episode where we're kind of previewing what our plan was, but I changed it up a little bit and I actually went a little more simple than some of the wild stuff I was talking about.
So I started with a Cohiba Ciglo 6, which was unbelievable. I was actually shocked out of that format, how much of a smoke I got out of it. It was almost two hours, which I was really happy with. I then went to the Fabrica 5 Trinity Robusto. [01:29:00] Then to the Aladino. The cigar we were just talking about, the classic elegante, and then I did a Padron 50 year,
**Rooster:** the hammer.
Wow. You know, I was looking at the empty boxes of, uh, Padron exclusivos and I'm, I'm like digging through the tower. Like I, I think I had another box somewhere. I've gone through like two boxes in like two months. Every other day I'm like reaching for it. It is so welcome to the club, dude. It's a great, it's back on the exclusive.
It took you long enough, but welcome to the club. It is, it is such a,
**Bam Bam:** he was been smoking
**Rooster:** them since 1942 for crying out loud. He's still smoking through that box. 111 years.
That cigar is so good. So good. I mean, I reach for that. I mean, that if I'm just going to have one cigar that just does it for me.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. There's something about mapping out your cigar sit for a night. If you do that, um, it's, it's a [01:30:00] pretty special experience.
**Rooster:** Yeah. The holiday time. I'm just so busy. Like, you know, I don't get home till like eight 39 o'clock and then I just have time for one and that cigar, it just does it.
Right. It's a home run. Yep. I highly recommend the short
**Bam Bam:** smoked sit if you can do it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I really liked seeing you come in with that. I thought that was very unique because I don't think I've ever seen any of us come in just with little like Robusto and under, really under Robusto.
**Bam Bam:** Under Robusto, yeah.
**Gizmo:** And doing seven of them like that, it must have been a flavor bomb.
**Bam Bam:** You can capture flavor immediately, right? On a, on a smaller ring gauge, smaller format. And um, it really, You're getting nuances right away from one back to back. What were you
**Rooster:** pairing? Different things
**Bam Bam:** or? Uh, from cigar to cigar or spirits?
No, I mean
**Senator:** pairing, spirits wise. Yeah, he had seven different spirits. That's what I want to
**Bam Bam:** know. I, um, I finished off the Brugal Maestro Special Edition. Rum from Dominican Republic.
**Gizmo:** Alright boys, we're coming to the end of our evening with the Aberlour 18 years age single malt scotch whiskey and the Davidoff Winston Churchill, the late hour Robusto.
Any [01:31:00] final thoughts before we move into our ratings on the pairing?
**Senator:** I'm sorry, my, my final thought, not even on the cigar, the fact that Bam has seven different flavors. Short Cuban cigars in his inventory. That's, that's a serious inventory. Oh, come
**Bam Bam:** on. You guys have the same cigars that I do now. You have more short smokes than I do.
No way. Cuban smokes? Yeah, yeah. You know one thing? I forgot one short, the part of a short.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, he was pissed when I was
**Bam Bam:** furious. Yeah. Knowing I forgot the crime
**Poobah:** and one you don't have, it's the, is the D six. I don't have that. Oh yeah. That's a great,
**Bam Bam:** that's an awesome cigar. I had that once.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I thought that was a creative, uh, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
It was pretty cool.
**Bam Bam:** It was great. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** All right. Any thoughts on the, uh, the pairing and the, uh, cigar before we move into the ratings?
**Bam Bam:** Delicious
**Gizmo:** night.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Great night. The pairing wasn't my favorite. I'm usually, uh, I really like hone in when the pairing enhances the cigar here. It didn't. It didn't clash with it.
But, you know, [01:32:00] uh, separately they were wonderful. Together, I don't think that they did anything for one another. Um. But it wasn't a bad, uh, bad experience or negative in any way. It just didn't enhance the cigar. And I've grown used to that being the.
**Senator:** Don't think I'll say the final third. I didn't love it.
It was very dry. Yeah. The finish. The stick. I agree. Very dry. I needed water dry. That's my only complaint. It was very smoky in here. Yeah. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** All right boys, let's move into our formal liquor rating now on the 18 years aged Aberlour Single Malt Scotch Whiskey. Bam Bam, you're up.
**Bam Bam:** I'm gonna give this a 10.
Wow. Whoa. For an 18 year old spirit at that price, it's not bad. I put just a single chip in this. I didn't overload it with ice. So I was able to experience a lot of the flavor down the stretch. It's reminiscent of a lot of really good rums. I, I enjoyed it. I mean, I can't say that I hated this and honestly, I'd probably get a bottle of this because it's so reminiscent to some [01:33:00] of the rums that we've had for me on my palate toward, uh, at the end of the stretch.
I gotta say it 10.
**Senator:** It needs to be said what BAM. Do you recall saying spirit over 100 a bottle? I do remember that never give it a 10 at that price point. No, I'm evolving
**Gizmo:** this gizmo. Well, new year, new BAM. I'm evolving. Look at that. It's an evolution. I think that was about three weeks ago, but yeah,
**Bam Bam:** three, three months ago.
**Gizmo:** All right, chef Ricky, you're up.
**Chef Ricky:** I'm at a nine. Um, I do really like the spirit. I love that, you know, although it's, it leans a little sweeter with the sherry. I'm, I'm not sure of the ABV here, but I'm going to guess it's, it's above 40. It's 43. 43. Okay. Yeah. So I think it, it punches a little, uh, punches a little high with flavor because of that slightly higher ABV there.
Um, but I'm really enjoying this. I, you know, I think the viscosity is great. The flavor is [01:34:00] great. The finish is wonderful. Starts off fruity, ends caramel y there towards the end. Little vanilla, some spiced apple there, some burnt orange. It's
**Bam Bam:** nice on the nose.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. There's a, there's a lot happening here and I, I really did enjoy the scotch.
I'm at a nine.
**Gizmo:** So I'm also at a nine for the same reasons. I thought it was really good. I thought the price for being an 18 year age, you know, single malt versus some of the others thought it was fair. Um, I don't think it's a 10. I don't think it's a perfect Scotch, but I think for what it is, I'm very happy with it.
I don't know if I'm going to run out and buy it, but, um, I'd be very happy to drink this again. There's no question about that. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** For me, honestly, it's probably, I'm not as, I'm, I've moved away from Scotch, but this is one that would probably buy and leave it in there. And if I need something just a little different, that's reminiscent of other things that I'm into now.
I'd have a glass of this.
**Gizmo:** All right, Senator.
**Senator:** I, I hate this because I'm actually going to be the harshest, even though it's still a good score. I'm going to give it an eight. Okay. It's still a good score. Um, I think the thing I'm having a hard time with [01:35:00] is, you know, the Ablor 12, I love, I've bought easily 10 or more bottles, um, over the last few years.
It's at a great price point. I mean, the 12 year you can get for like 50 bucks for a single malt, that's not easy to find anymore. And this is that on steroids, but not as much as I would have hoped. Like for an 18 year single malt, a lot of the traditional Ablor 12 flavor notes are there. There are some additions.
There's some citrus and some of the notes that we've been discussing that you don't get as much in the 12 year. I just wanted. In addition to that, something a little deeper and richer. It has the viscosity, but the flavor like, you know, even McAllen 12, there's like this faint cocoa and like just this richness that they impart.
Balvenie, there's a little more richness there at an 18 year spirit. I just needed a [01:36:00] little bit more, um, to like completely round out the experience I would have hoped for. Would I drink this again? For sure. I'd be happy to drink it if someone poured it for me, but is it something I'm going to go out and pursue at that price point?
It doesn't excite me enough to do that. So it's still a recommend, but just not a top preferred single malt for my palate. That's fair. That's very fair.
**Poobah:** All right. Puba. Yeah. I'm in lockstep with Senator. Um, it's, I don't, it didn't have like enough like backbone. It didn't have enough kind of like real, real structure for me to get excited about.
It was Apple or 12 on steroids. A little, a little bit hotter. A lot of those, a lot, all that DNA is there. I enjoyed it a lot, but like, I was just thinking, is it something on a, on a dinner menu on like a Scotch menu, like after meal that I'm going to skip that I'm going to go for, even [01:37:00] at the price point, which is attractive, like, am I really going for that?
Unfortunately, probably not. However, if I was at the liquor store and I was buying and entertaining and buying a Yeah, at the price point, I'd certainly buy it. Would I enjoy it? Absolutely. Is it enjoyable? Is it good? Totally. It just was, it was lacking a little bit of something like, I don't know if backbone's the right word or structure, but something there was for me was, was not, didn't bring it home.
So boys, that was a need for me.
**Gizmo:** That puts the formal liquor rating tonight on the 18 years aged Abelard single malt scotch. At an 8. 8.
**Bam Bam:** Okay.
**Gizmo:** I think that's a fair score
**Bam Bam:** score.
**Gizmo:** We'll compare that to the other ab or we've done And like I said, we reviewed the ab or 12 three times once we didn't give it a rating On episode 62 we rated it a 7.
8 and on episode 105. We gave it an 8. 8 [01:38:00] I
**Bam Bam:** guess we thought second
**Gizmo:** 40 episodes later, it tasted a little better, I guess. So an 8. 8 tonight, uh, edges that out just a little bit. And now it's time to move into the formal lizard rating on the Davidoff Winston Churchill, the late hour in Robusto. Rooster, you're up.
So this is the first
**Rooster:** late hour Robusto that I've had ever. Really? Yeah. I'm surprised to hear that. I've never had this. Yeah, I mean, I don't really reach for the late hour that much. I have a box of Churchill's, you know, it's probably, I've had it for a few years. I don't even reach for those that much.
**Bam Bam:** We've never seen anything
**Senator:** like that. Can I ask why? The only reason I ask that is You like a fuller bodied cigar more than, you know, most of us in this room. So like, if I were to pick a Davidoff that you probably would like, I would expect it to be a late hour. So I'm just curious.
**Rooster:** I think to me that the late hour Churchill is, is kind of one dimensional.
It kind of gets boring after a while for that large of a [01:39:00] cigar. So, but having said that I really enjoyed the Robusto more than the I think I had the Churchill at your house, Senator, not, you know, a few weeks back, and it was really good, but I don't reach for it, and it's only in the wintertime that I want to smoke that, right?
But this Robusto really, you know, was a home run. I think it, it really smoked well. Is it more versatile
**Bam Bam:** for you?
**Rooster:** I think it's, it's a little bit more. I like the sweetness in this that I don't get out of the church.
**Bam Bam:** So you'll have it across a year.
**Rooster:** Yeah, so it's a little bit more versatile, like you said, and I would probably reach for it more often if I had some.
Maybe I, you know, I might get like a four pack if it. Probably comes in that. Um, I mean, I like that. The cold draw was really delicious. There was dried fruit on it. It was really good. There was pepper in the beginning, but then in the middle, it got really sweeter. And I think the middle was the sweet spot for the cigar.
Towards the end, it did get a little hotter, a little more peppery. But [01:40:00] overall, it was, uh, Great experience. I mean, I really enjoyed the cigar. It was exceptional. Um, so for that reason, I'm at a nine
**Poobah:** puba. I'm at a nine for, for, for the same reasons that, um, that rooster pointed out. I think that, uh, I think that the, the middle of the cigar was fantastic.
I think the end, it got a little bit, I mean, it got a little bit peppery, but. Nothing you wouldn't expect, expect from this blend from whistle to whistle. I really enjoyed it. And, and I think moving forward, this is a four pack I'd buy. Like it's a four pack. Like if I was doing an online order, like I'd throw it, I'd throw the Robusto in there and I'd get the four pack.
Do I buy a whole box? Uh, maybe not, I'm not throwing it in the rotation that often, but I definitely would throw it in enough where it warrants that four pack by you mix it in with some, that some other Davidoffs you're, you're, you're [01:41:00] picking up online. And, um, and for that reason, it's an, it's, it's a nine for me.
I, I, I really enjoyed it. I think in this size, I've always kind of been in the background, a fan of the late hour Robusto. Um, I haven't had as many negative experiences with it. Yeah. As maybe some, some of the others in the room over the years, I've actually had more positive experiences than I have a negative ones.
So, uh, it's a nine for me. Okay.
**Senator:** Senator. So again, I'm on the lower end. I'm at an eight. It's definitely a recommend. I think there's a ton of merit in what they've done with this cigar. I mean, I think we somehow got a little bit lucky in that this is the best late hour Robusto I've had, um, to date. I think Rooster nailed it when you said the middle was the sweet spot.
If the entirety of this cigar We're like the middle. There's no question this would be a nine for me. Could arguably even maybe reach a ten. [01:42:00] The only problem I have is the last third was too much like My frustrations with the Churchill version of this, where it was super dry. It heated up, the flavor got a bit muddled.
And so I didn't really love the last third, the middle, the second third outstanding, and the first third was also very, very good. So I think that's where, for me on balance, I net out to an eight. I wouldn't buy a box. I'm not even sure that I pursue a four pack. I think for me, if I was in a retailer and I needed to buy cigars, And they had this as a single, no question.
I would pick it up, but, um, it just doesn't deliver a complete experience that I'm happy with at all points of the cigar in a way that, you know, an exclusive, oh, we always bring up for, you know, 14. End to end, I have not one complaint about that cigar, and so at twenty something bucks, the fact that there's an entire third of the cigar that I'm [01:43:00] really not in love with, that's where I needed to round down to an eight.
**Rooster:** Is your rating based upon just tonight, or are you factoring in, like, your past experiences with this? Just tonight, because my past
**Senator:** experiences would be a seven or even a six. Yeah. Oh, wow.
**Gizmo:** So I'm in lockstep with Senator. I thought I was going to be the only eight tonight. Uh, my last third, it heated up in a way that was kind of harsh.
Uh, it, it, the flavor changed dramatically. Harsh in your hand or
**Bam Bam:** on your palate?
**Gizmo:** Both. My, it was hot in my hand. I, I was the slowest smoker out of all of us because I was reading the cigar aficionado top 25. I'm surprised to hear that. So, for how great it was through the first two thirds, especially the middle as we talked about, The last third for me, I mean, I put it down with an inch and a half left, which was disappointing, especially for cigar, this price compared to some of the cigars we finished the year with last year, you know, for a quarter of this price or a fifth of this price delivered way more of an experience and flavor for me.
So I was a little disappointed with how it's finished. However, Like Senator said, [01:44:00] I had no idea what to expect coming in. I was totally ready to blast this cigar based on other experiences, especially with the Churchill turning it into a six or a seven with how they've been performing for me recently.
So at an eight, I'm actually happy, uh, but I wish it delivered a little more tonight and I wish it performed better, especially for how long we've had. Yeah, it's a nice score. So it's an eight for me. Chef Ricky.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. You know, every time I pick up a Churchill, I, I always think it's going, especially the, the Church of Atolla of this cigar, I always think it's going to do better than what it actually does.
And to Senator's point, if I were to rate those at max, I'd give those a seven. Um, tonight's cigar for me was an eight. The first two thirds were amazing. Started the cold draw, was sweet, fruity, little pepper. Once you lit, then you started getting the dried fruit again. The center was amazing. Mm. The final third for me got a little dry pepper, almost hay like even.
Uh, for me, there, there, I was getting some, [01:45:00] you know, those familiar with radish. Uh, I was getting like radish notes almost. There was somewhat of this off flavor. That's not
**Bam Bam:** a good note. Yeah. Well, you know, I do, but in my salad, you're too sensitive of the palate.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. You know, I mean, look, I don't necessarily think radish is a bad thing.
Uh, but yeah, I think in this case, the combination of, of, of, of those flavors and the final third just didn't do well for me. Uh, the burn line smelled incredible. Uh, it was a, you know, the combustion was incredible. The amount of smoke in this room between the. Six of Us was great. If every Churchill I've ever picked up tasted like tonight's, it'll be a win.
You know, uh, but, you know, I could, I could definitely say that if I ever pick this cigar up again, it'll be in this Votolo because it was that much more enjoyable. You know, with that said, I, I think it's, it's a great cigar. I definitely recommend. Great four [01:46:00] pack purchase. Something, uh, great to, you know, come into a winter night, warm yourself up.
You know, I don't know if I'd do this in the summertime or anything like that, but definitely cooler months. Uh, I think this is a banger of a cigar. So yeah, it's a
**Bam Bam:** neat for me. All right, Bam Bam. So I'm going to take it back up to a nine. And slight disagreement with the eights. I have, I love the first two thirds as everyone else did.
The first, the final third, it, it got a little warm, not very hot, but I didn't, I, my note was that was primarily a sourdough note toward the end, which I happen to love. I didn't get the radish. Um, I didn't get any of the hay that everyone, some of the other, other guys called out. But for me, the finish was actually quite enjoyable.
Um, it was still velvety, it was creamy. And. I haven't had enough to judge the entire Vitola, but I'll, like Puba said, I'll go after singles and try them more often to kind of get a sense as to what the cigar really is. But for tonight's experience, I'm at a nine. All [01:47:00] right, boys. What's the
**Poobah:** smaller one?
What's the smaller one that we in the tin?
**Gizmo:** The tin is called a petite panatella. Which is actually fairly priced compared to some of the other smaller format Davidoffs that are out there. And that's kind of in line with the Bella Cosa we love too. And that's a newer release as well. It's a tiny cigar.
Very, very small.
**Senator:** The ring gauge on that is literally like a cigarette.
**Chef Ricky:** A 12. And it's, it's, it's
**Poobah:** a 12 ring gauge cigar.
**Chef Ricky:** The flavor profile is nothing like what we just had. Because I actually had one of those on the way here. I just ordered a case of the 510s or whatever it is. Um, and. They happen to be in my car because I haven't emptied it out.
But, uh, yeah, the flavor profile is nothing like what we experienced with this one. Yeah. It's more, it's more in line with the Churchill at all.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. So that puts the formal lizard rating tonight on the Davidoff Winston Churchill, the late hour. In Robusto at an 8. 5.
**Bam Bam:** That's a nice score.
**Gizmo:** So let's compare that to the other Davidoffs we've done.
We'll go [01:48:00] through all of them. The chef's edition 2021 on episode two scored a 9. 2. The Dominicana in Robusto on episode eight also scored a 9. 2. The Millennium Pyramides on episode 33 scored a 9. 0. The Sister Vitola, the Robusto in the Millennium line on episode 45. Also scored a 9.0 and the Millennium Lanzaro, the limited edition on episode 79 scored a 9.1.
The Winston Churchill belly coso the white label on episode 132. Wow, that was a big one. Scored a 10.0. One of the best cigars we did all year. The Maduro in Reto on episode 138, scored a 9.9, and finally the sister cigar to this, the late hour in Churchill on episode 27, a long time ago, boys. Mm-hmm . Scored a 9.
2. Wow. Seven points better than this. So, I mean, that's going on. 9. 2,
**Bam Bam:** that's an excellent score.
**Gizmo:** That's over three years, probably, since we did that. So, going back to our earlier conversation about performance, [01:49:00] blend. Change in blend. Flavor changing over the years. I mean, that's a good example. So, we'll have to revisit those.
**Bam Bam:** One thing you guys have to try is the white label Churchill. That is A bigger brother to the bellicose. So I happen to love that cigar. I haven't had it very often, but when I do, it's like a biscuit bomb. It's I highly recommend it. I think we should give it a try. We should do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a must.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. So we have to congratulate again, lizard Shannon for winning lizard of the week this week. Everybody out there can win. Like we said, just send us something and you'll win a little gift pack from us. Let's go through our ratings. One more time. The 18 year aged Aberlour single malt scotch whiskey.
Scored an 8. 8 and the Davidoff Winston Churchill, the late hour in Robusto tonight scored an 8. 5 good start to the year boys overall, a very good night. Of course, we have to thank our sponsor fabric of five. Thanks to all the listeners out there for tuning in. We really appreciate it. And, uh, we'll see everybody next week.
Keep smoking. [01:50:00] Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You 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, email us, hello, at LoungeLizardsPod.
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