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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 seven members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast. 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 Pagoda grinder, and bam bam.
A full house of lizards and our plans to smoke a cigar, drink some scotch, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 79th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We are gonna smoke a new world cigar tonight.
Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating. We discussed the history of our PD scotch pairing. We reveal how we all met a listener. Email takes Brewster de task, and Senator gives me an all-time gift, all among a variety of other things for the next 90 minutes. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair 12 year age.
Cal Isla Scotch with the DaVita Millennium. Lance Cerro Limited edition 2023. Alan [00:01:00] from Davidoff tonight from the Millennium Series, favorite of ours, and actually a cigar that we talked about when we thought it existed and it didn't. And then all of a sudden, about six weeks ago, it popped up back into the fold.
The Davidoff was releasing the Millennium Land Serro as a limited addition for 2023. And now it's in your hand. Very excited. I guess. Dave Itoff listened several pod, I didn't wanna say it Rooster, but I'm glad you
**Senator:** did. They wanted to join our, uh,
**Gizmo:** land serro ratings. So, uh, the millennium, uh, pyramid amenities, which is.
Bam. BA's favorite. Oh yeah. Smokes a lot of it. We all do. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** That's a, that's a quintessential cigar for me. Um, comparing the, the wrapper to that though. And this guy, this is a bit toothy than the, the pyramid. The pyramid is exquisite and pristine. Hmm. This is beautiful. But it
**Grinder:** does have a little, it's got a rustic edge to it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bams,
**Gizmo:** right? Yeah. Which I like. Apparently it's the same Ecuadorian [00:02:00] 1 51, that famous rapper that they use on the millennium and a pigtail. Apparently it's the same thing. And there is a, there's a little pigtail there, there's a big pigtail on it. It's a big pigtail. The first, the
**Poobah:** fir. One of the things I noticed too, I could be wrong, but sometimes, you know, with the millennium, um, with the pyramid, the rapper's almost like black.
Yes. It is looking very dark sky. It's darker than this. Yeah. Yeah. That, yeah, that's, yeah, that's where I was going. It's true that it looks, this doesn't look quite as dark. Yeah, it doesn't, but that
**Bam Bam:** pyramid is sharp. It's sharp as a t at the tip. It's so beautifully made. Yeah, it's like a weapon. Oh yeah. Nice, nice aroma out of the, the lap.
Yeah. And the foot's nice. The foot's nice.
**Poobah:** Well, DDO is, is great, right? We, we, we like Ddo, don't we?
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, let's cut this thing. So what's interesting about this too, given all the way in Cero talk that we've had over the last few months on the pod in this landero block we've done is, this is not a 38 ring gauge cigar.
It's a 40 ring gauge cigar by seven inches. [00:03:00] So that's not the traditional Lito number one size that, um, I, that a lot of the cigars have been.
**Grinder:** I know our listeners have been very responsive to our Lance Serro series, by the way. Yes. Uh, getting a lot of co, getting a lot of feedback, very positive feedback.
They love the, you know, the flavor profiles of Lance Serro. So happy to see the trend, you know, pick up. So this is another one in the, in the repertoire. Exciting. Taste this, you know, on the cold draw. What are you guys getting? If the cold
**Bam Bam:** draws any indication on the smoke, this is gonna be quite, it's gonna be great.
Quite great. It's gonna be
**Grinder:** a good night. I have to
**Senator:** say that the cold draw alone is like a meal. Sure. It is. It is so much flavor without even lighting this. Right. I, I,
**Poobah:** I was moaning and groaning for this is absolutely exquisite. And the, and, you know, consist, you know, in line with Davidoff, the construction and the draw, the draw
**Gizmo:** straws just like,
**Grinder:** wow.
I'm so excited. Why don't, let's light this up.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, let's do it. Yep. Slide this thing. The Davidoff Millennium [00:04:00] Landero Limited edition 2023. Again, it's a 40 ring gauge cigar by seven inches closer to the Trinidad funded Doris outta Cuba than the Cohiba and cero, which is where this Beto originally came from.
A little bit bigger than that one, and priced pretty reasonably honestly, I think at 29 bucks. I'm very happy with a well constructed lens arrow for 29 bucks. Yeah. The millenniums,
**Bam Bam:** what? 27 A stick, 25 to 27.
**Gizmo:** The pyramid you mean? Yeah,
**Senator:** the pyramid. Yeah. Wow. No, it's way more than that. What are you talking about?
No. Yes, it is. It's 36 bucks a stick. The
**Grinder:** millennium Pyramid. Pyramid. Look it
**Bam Bam:** up. So I haven't bought them in a very long time. They must have
**Pagoda:** skyrocketed.
**Rooster:** Well, he, I think you're used to the, I have, uh,
**Gizmo:** bulk quarters. That's right. The bulk discount on I have not true.
**Bam Bam:** This, this is phenomenal.
**Grinder:** Off the light.
It's fantastic. Oh my God. It's, it's, it's got very traditional millennium flavor pro flavor notes, but it's [00:05:00] so much more concentrated. It's like a, it's like a, it's, it's like a, it's like a, a resin. It's almost like a very concentrated mix, you know, flavor, flavor bomb. But, but, but familiar,
familiar.
**Bam Bam:** Yeahium, same dna.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, no doubt. What kind of, uh, when you say familiar, what kind of flavors are you guys getting? Well, what are you tasting? On the
**Bam Bam:** pyramid. I've always gotten coffee and a bit of cocoa and maybe a very faint hint of some kind
**Grinder:** of a fruit. I, I, so, I, I agree. I think there's I on the, on the pyramid itself, on the funny, the funny end of this is that I actually get a little citrus, but not much.
It's just a slight citrus. I didn't say it, but you didn't say it. So that's why I think it's kind of odd. But I'm, I'm getting
**Bam Bam:** not so much coffee here, but I am getting some good amount of fruit, dried fruit.
**Gizmo:** I'm getting dark chocolate. Yeah. Uh, little bit of coffee maybe. Hmm. The citrus thing to me is kind of hitting my tongue, just like a little bit of, um, little bit of tingle on the [00:06:00] front of my tongue that I'm, I guess could be red as citrus, but I don't, for me it's not.
Mm-hmm. I think that's, I I get agree. Calling that. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Um, But it's really delicious and the smoke really fills your mouth nicely. And the retro now
**Pagoda:** elegant, the retro is delicious.
**Gizmo:** I,
**Poobah:** I'm gonna double down on this right now and say I haven't even got through this yet. I'm, I, I anticipate myself buying a box of these immediately.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I just know it's gonna be good, like very high price. You just tell, I don't know if you ha, if you guys have, I mean, but this is very, very good off to a, a great start. And if it's,
**Grinder:** The, the retro is, is, is really truly phenomenal. It's, it's exquisite actually, that itself, I would buy a box just for that.
And the size is
**Poobah:** little nice. Right. Do you, don't you guys, do you guys like the size Oh sure.
**Gizmo:** The left. Left.
**Poobah:** Just like the, the extra, just a little bit of extra hef at
**Gizmo:** 40, but it's not densely packed. So it's not a heavy cigar in your hand? No, it just feels like a, it, it feels like it has a better opportunity to not be plugged and have a better [00:07:00] draw more consistently.
Mm-hmm. I wanna pull this
**Poobah:** out of a, out of a suit jacket from the inner pocket. Go to the car and get the jacket, you know what I'm saying? And just pull it out and just, I'll tell you,
**Bam Bam:** we, uh, blue pin stripe. Yeah.
**Grinder:** Blue pin stripe. We were, we were discussing earlier how, um, these cigars were actually, maybe it was as, as an offset of the, the size or whatever.
Um, they were a little squishy, uh, but they weren't, they weren't, they weren't wet necessarily, but they were a little squishy. So maybe that is something to say, like, there's a little heft, but, but it's open, you know, it's not something that, Is tightly packed.
**Bam Bam:** I, I, I'll go out on a limb. This to me is a medium to absolutely a full cigar.
**Gizmo:** I think it's medium full at most right now. For me, I would say for me, the, the flavor's great, but I would say it's medium got quite a punch on the,
**Rooster:** on the body. You mean not the body? It not, not
**Pagoda:** like strength, flavor wise. Agreed.
**Grinder:** Yes. Yes, exactly right. Yeah. I
**Senator:** think the thing that stands out to me, I love the millennium pyramid, but this starts out actually much more complex than the [00:08:00] Millennium Pyramid does.
The millennium Pyramid is a lot of traditional notes that I like and I think a lot of others do, like coffee and cocoa. There's a little bit of a creaminess to it. Uh, but the dried fruit that you get and, and specifically it's like berry, like, it's like a prune, like not prune. For me, it's like a tart berry, like a, a raspberry almost.
Like for me, when Grindr said citrus like. I didn't get citrus per se, but there's this little tart tanginess that's the black blackberry, blackberry, blackberry, but, but more raspberries tartar than a blackberry. Blackberry sweeter than a raspberry. Um, so like those dried fruit notes, I don't get at all on the light with the millennium pyramid, but it's really cool to see present here.
So I just think like this has some of those traditional millennium notes, but much more complex and it's
**Rooster:** introducing new things. Yeah. I, I think a pyramid kind of builds on the flavor just because of the
**Gizmo:** shape of the cigar and the ring
**Rooster:** gauge. The wave, of course, the waves tape or down. Yeah. So it it, it builds, right?
**Gizmo:** Yeah,
**Poobah:** it does. And maybe I, just to build on what you were saying, [00:09:00] I feel like there's a little bit of dark chocolate happening. Absolutely. It's like a raspberry with a little bit of that dark chocolate, which is not, not quite bitter, but, but you know what? It re chocolatey
**Gizmo:** and dry, I guess. You know what it reminds me of, honestly?
Yeah. You just called it out. Gertrude Hawk at Easter, we had them in the house because my kid, one of my stepdaughters sold them at school and they have these little smidgens Yep. That are dark chocolate smidgens with raspberry in them. Mm. I was thinking I should bring same damn thing. I should bring those chocolate raspberries back boys.
So now we're on the,
**Senator:** everyone see what I'm, I'm telling you, it's raspberry. Like that's the very
**Grinder:** noted. I definitely get, I my citrus uh, equation. May, may have been more aligned to that tart berry. I wouldn't call, I don't get dried fruit. I get fresh fruit. Okay. You know, like that's, that's where the tartness usually, you know, I get at least that for me.
Um, but it's, it's a pleasant, you know, citrus tangy tartness.
So
**Gizmo:** let's talk about construction for a second. Um, and [00:10:00] then I wanna talk about the presentation and apparently it's limited, so we could talk about that. But first and foremost, like I mentioned, the rapper is the Ecuadorian 1 51, which is famous on this blend.
The binder is from Mexico, it's a Sumatran seko, and the filler is from the Dominican Republic and has four different, uh, types of tobacco in it. You can, uh, find that all, all that info on David's website. But you know, I think that what's interesting about this being a cigar that was a former regular production, now coming back as a limited edition, I've realized when I got my box in that they're only making 14,600 boxes of these cigars.
So I don't know if that's gonna change or they're gonna do a second run or a third run, but, It seems like they're gonna be limited. So this is not
**Rooster:** gonna be a regular production.
**Gizmo:** This is a limited edition cigar. If you open your box, you'll see it's a numbered box.
**Grinder:** Ddo. Davidoff has a lot of those, you know, limited runs, single run cigar.
That's true. Um, and I respect that. I
**Rooster:** like that. [00:11:00] Yeah. But I think this should be added to the millennium lineup. I
**Gizmo:** totally agree.
**Pagoda:** I agree. I don't have a, they don't have a Lance arrow. They don't,
**Rooster:** so they, why not have the,
**Gizmo:** uh, you know, it makes
**Rooster:** sense. It should, it
**Poobah:** should be added. The share. I w I wonder if commercially, um, if they're, if they're trying to, I'm just hypothesizing, I wonder if commercially the, the lance market, In their eyes is not as big of a market and they're kind of putting this out there as almost like a, a test of sorts to see what the uptake's gonna be and what the, what the appetite out there's gonna be for this.
Because the millennium line is, is arguably one of their more popular lines that sells the most. They put this out. I mean, there's nothing, there's no rule that they can't do exactly what we're talking about. Exactly. Maybe that's what they're doing. We hope so. Commercially just testament like, how fast are these gonna mo how fast is this
**Gizmo:** gonna move?
Yeah, yeah. Well, like I told you guys, when I sat down, uh, and kind of teeing up buying more of these if we so choose, but none of the big retailers that we go to have them. They're all sold out and they've been for quite a few weeks. So, you know why,
**Rooster:** [00:12:00] you know why they were taking pre-orders like a month before?
There you go. Yeah. There's a lot of go, a lot of people. So everybody knows what a millennium tastes like. Yeah. And they're like, oh, lenaro, I gotta go for
**Gizmo:** it. And I,
**Bam Bam:** I will say it is different orders men in a few ways than the pyramid. You mentioned complexity senator. I agree with that. But this is a concentrated millennium pyramid.
It really hones in on those, those notes, and it hits you really hard in a beautiful, smooth, elegant
**Grinder:** way. I think that's very nice that that resonates with what I said in the beginning. Yeah, that's true. You know, it's just, it, it gets all those classic Yeah. Flavor profiles, but just it's packs a little more punch, the more concentrated
**Bam Bam:** and delivered in this beautiful lenaro vehicle.
**Gizmo:** It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So this, uh, just adding on to the limited edition stuff, the Millennium Serro Limited edition is the second release out of a series of four. Exclusive limited editions of the Davidoff White Band collection. So there's gonna be two more of these, I'm sure, in varying sizes. Um, but [00:13:00] hopefully they see the demand and they see that these retailers are out of them and they reintroduce 'em even if, even in limited quantity.
Yeah. Just roll these cigars because I mean, we're what, quarter of an inch in and it's, dude, they, they smoking. Brilliant. They should
**Rooster:** make this thing in 50 cabs. Oh, that be, oh dude, that would be amazing. Yeah. Like a punch Matua.
**Gizmo:** That'd be great.
**Bam Bam:** I, I'm, I'm such a, I'm such a Imagine they did it in an 8 98 format.
That'd
**Gizmo:** be cool. Oh, that too.
**Rooster:** Imagine a 50 caliber. Oh yeah.
**Gizmo:** Better. Yeah. This is great. Yeah. Home run. Yeah. What were we saying?
**Grinder:** Granderson? No, I was saying I'm such a fan of Davidoff. I would buy so many of their different cigars in a, in this viola, um, like the whole line essentially. Cuz I, I'm a, you know, I'm a brand loyalist in that, in, in
**Gizmo:** that sense.
I'm with you on that. I mean, I, with the, the to uh, the pyramid that, that we smoke, I just don't reach for it that often. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I bought a ton of them. I bought that bulk thing. I think I, there was 40 cigars or something from I Havanas had a great deal on them.
**Grinder:** C Can you imagine a l a lance late [00:14:00] hour?
Oh, that would be
**Bam Bam:** cool. That'd
**Gizmo:** be amazing. Wow. That'd be amazing. How awesome would that be? Maybe a Dave It off black band limited edition. Very interesting. We will rush to review that one. Oh yeah. Uh, be, you know, I don't reach for the, the pyramid that much. It's just not a cigar I reach for like you guys did.
I don't ever see you smoking actually. Yeah. I have 40 of 'em. I think I joked when I bought them. This will probably be the last order of, I'll take them from your pyramids I ever buy, cuz I just go through 'em so little. But these, I'm gonna, I, I already ordered a box today before we smoked it tonight.
Nice. And I'll probably have another one.
It's
**Poobah:** funny how you go in stages with that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. Right. I I used to smoke a lot more of those, um, than I do now and I don't even know why. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
**Pagoda:** I wonder why the phase, uh, the initial Lance Arrow, you know?
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. That's a good question.
I mean, I think the size just kind of
**Rooster:** grew out of favor. American market just wanted a bigger
ring
**Gizmo:** gauge cigars. Yeah. They [00:15:00] want mid 50 ring gauge. Yeah. 55, 56, 57. It's like American Biggers
**Poobah:** better, you know, kind of thing. Well, I think there's truth to that. I mean, there's the American market, you know, they want a big cigar.
You wanna
**Senator:** feel better. Yeah. Now even Asia though, apparently wants the same thing. The whole thing's bizarre. But I just, I'm disappointed that Davidoff is making this as a limited edition cigar because I feel like now there's a bit of a resurgence of smaller ring gauge cigars. Like, look at how many Landeros regular production we've been able to find and review new world cigars.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. That we had no idea. Excellent.
**Pagoda:** I've been great. I,
**Grinder:** I, I harken back to, uh, The early days of Cigar Von and her affinity for, uh, Lance Sarah Cigars. Please don't say her name again. She's been, she's been espousing the merits of Lance Cero and these kind of Ring aid cigars for years. I'm just gonna lay that out there.
Maybe we, we could get her as a guest sometime. It's all in the wrapper
**Pagoda:** for
**Bam Bam:** the audience. Out the flavor for the audience. She's in addiction. Okay.
**Gizmo:** What [00:16:00] have you been changing your calendar every month? Yeah, ma'am. Your Cigar Vic calendar. It is a, I got, it's a poster that I got or It's a poster.
**Senator:** Yeah. Oh, changing.
Oh, I thought it was a flip. He gets to look at her all year round.
**Grinder:** It's, uh,
**Pagoda:** framed. It's, I'll be honest, I totally forgot about that when I brought this up. Oh,
**Bam Bam:** yeah. It's strategic. Strategically placed in a house where it's hidden, but Oh
**Gizmo:** God. So, um, I'm really, I'm really finding this to be delightful.
Absolutely delightful.
**Bam Bam:** I think we should try our pairing. Let's do it. Absolutely.
**Gizmo:** The cow Ila, if you dare, if you dare the cow Isla 12.
**Grinder:** I'm gonna watch your faces as you take. I love it. I really, Ben,
**Senator:** really love the nose of
**Gizmo:** this.
**Poobah:** So I, I, uh, I lo I really like the scotch. Um,
**Gizmo:** it's really
**Poobah:** nice actually. It's really nice.
The, the, I think with this cigar though, um, I like the scotch, but with this cigar, I, I think it compete. I do think it competes from a pairing perspective, like almost like a, a, a, [00:17:00] um, maybe a Nicaraguan cigar would hold up a little bit better with this. Yeah. Uh, such a, such a bold yeah. Flavor. That was my observation.
I, I
**Grinder:** think that's a fair observation. This is a great, this is, this is, uh, definitely a PD scotch, right? So it has some of that. Punch. Um, I would argue that it, it, it pairs fine, but it doesn't pair as well as it
**Gizmo:** could. So the reason why I just want to click, click just on pairing. I want to explain my, uh, reasoning quick before you jump back in.
The reason why I thought this might be a great fit is because in David's, uh, flavor profile of this specific cigar, they named Pete as one of the flavor profiles. They do cigar. Yeah. Interesting. So that's why I thought something that was Petey might be interesting as we come into the review. If Davidoff is wrong, we can make that claim.
But that's why, I'm sorry, Dave. That's where it,
**Senator:** that's where it started. Thousand percent wrong. I'm
**Grinder:** sorry. Well, let's just fast. We all have pretty, uh, sophisticated pallets at this point, but oddly enough there's a connection to what I'm referring to here. But I would say none
**Senator:** of us had any, it's so make [00:18:00] generalizations and say everybody, well, none
**Grinder:** of us, I, let me just say this.
No one mentioned it's a damn statement, Senator. No one mentioned Pete or Smokiness when they were tasting a cigar. No, no. And we are not rookies when it comes to tasting cigars. No, it's true.
**Poobah:** Yeah. If. If you, um, if you'd go on a limb with me and, and retro hell the cigar and then take a a, a sip. You will find that Pete note.
There you go.
**Grinder:** So
**Senator:** I've read, yeah, that's the fumes of alcohol coming through your nose. I mean, I'm sorry, I don't see the
**Poobah:** Did you retro Hell it and then take
**Grinder:** a sip. I agree.
**Poobah:** I have No, no, no. It's not. I'm, I'm not kidding. I'm trying to like, uh, link it up here. I think it works. It does. If if you were, if there was a Pete note, you're gonna get it through the retro hell the other, anywhere.
The other thing I wanna, this is what I'm saying.
**Gizmo:** The, the other thing I want us to resist doing is saying that it, with this far end of the cigar, we're barely into the first third here. I do not wanna say this is not a good, because who knows where this cigars gonna be. That's true. In the last third. Yeah.
It might very well pick up just like the pyramid does. That's true. Yeah, it's
**Bam Bam:** true. So the [00:19:00] 1 1, 1 thing I have against the spirit is the, I love the pettiness. It's actually, for me it's subtle. There is pettiness there, but I'm not overwhelmed by that. There is bite to this that you feel from the front of the tongue all the way down to the finish.
Yeah. Yeah. That I don't know. For me, it bothers me a bit. So I'm, I'm sure
**Grinder:** it's great with
**Senator:** ice. I'm curious, do all guys feel that this has, so we're all drinking this meat? I'm drinking meat. We're all drinking. I have ice. And do others, oh, okay. So then I'm gonna have to exclude grind just for this part, cuz I imagine the ice will smooth it out.
But you guys drinking this neat feel that this has an aggressive bite. I, no, but
**Pagoda:** I did, I did get it on the second. Really? So I got, so when I sel it, it smelled actually reasonably pleasant. And then I got a really. I dunno, I couldn't smell it a bit more, meaning I, I don't even know how to describe the flavor.
Mm-hmm. The smell. And then when it took the thing, it went down very easily. But then I did get a lot of the bite. Yeah. In fact, it was pretty pronounced all the way into it. Went into the back of my ear. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I'm finding it, you know, and the [00:20:00] tie-in that Grindr mentioned came from the last time that I had this when Grindr opened it up at the lounge.
And that's where the, uh, Amateur palette came from no primitive, primitive palette. Excuse me. That's where that, so the listener who's heard that for 80 something episodes, that's where it came from, was actually sipping this scotch. And as time has gone on, and I'm having this again for the second time, I actually am enjoying this more than the log one.
I,
**Grinder:** I, I mean, I, I love pea scotch. I love, I love this scotch because, uh, you know, we have some history with it. I also drink a lot of my scotch with ice so that, that, that changes the, the dynamic a little bit. Sure. It does. To, to senator's point. And I would, I would say, you know, give it, put some ice in it and, you know, it opens it up.
It, it smooths it out a little bit. It rounds it to a softer kind of creamier, uh, caramel, uh, flavor profile. Not like something like a Jameson or a fine rum, but, you know, it was, I think it's, you know, it's
**Pagoda:** got
**Gizmo:** that. Is it, is it kind of like Talisker, like, I remember Tallk, I say No, I think I
**Grinder:** [00:21:00] enjoyed the Tallk.
No, I would, I would remember, I would argue it's on the nose. It's like La Laro on the, on the pallet. It's like lagon and on the, uh, aftertaste and on the, uh, finish finish, like Gus, it's kind of like tallk because it's got that spiciness on your, on your, you all
**Senator:** in one. Wow. So I, I have to say, I, I'm now seeing exactly what band was saying.
I think for me it took the third sip and what Pagoda was saying. Yeah, you do get a bite mm-hmm. In the back of your throat when you have this. So I, this is where, this is in like stark contrast. And, and mind you what, this is 10 years, right? 12. 12. 12, yeah. Yeah. Uh, liable. And 16, 16 that we like has got obviously some more age on it, liable.
And 16. Neat. You can drink very easily. It, it's so smooth. Mm-hmm. This does have a little bit of a bite, so I'm gonna add some ice. I think it needs it, but I'm now getting what you guys were saying makes sense. I would,
**Grinder:** I would challenge the, the group to come back to that analogy of, of, uh, on the nose laro, on the palette lovon, and then on the finish, [00:22:00] You got like, I get that spice from Aker
**Senator:** that's on my tongue.
Yeah. Literally just read my mind. The spice on the finish is very tacr. That's true. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Remember winter spice, it's like winter spices, cinnamon, almost
**Bam Bam:** to a degree. If I may, if I would, I happen to love the smoky nature of the spirit itself. That's actually quite delicious and it's really interesting and it, I think it pairs that, that part of it pairs great with the cigar, but the experience as it goes down.
But if the absolute finish is where I get to actually experience the deliciousness of this thing, I I
**Grinder:** the absolute Finish one down. Let's pass around some icee, I think. Yeah. We may need that. I'll tell you what the, the, the thing that Puba said regarding the, the retro hale. Oh, he's, it really elevates the smokiness.
Oh sure. Give it a try. Like the, you, you really get like a, a, a, a face full of smoke.
**Senator:** So I've gotta say the ice, it makes a world of difference. Haven't tried it again. The ice is actually like, it's kind of brought it together. It's even got like a little creaminess to [00:23:00] me now on the finish, which now pairs well with the cigar.
Oh, it is really nice with ice. I'm, I'm very happy right now. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** You know, the bottle looks like Oleum. Yeah. Well it's a, it's a sister distillery to lag. Yeah. Yeah. And Grindr, I know you know a little bit more about this than most of us do, um, as you know, and to tee this up, Well, it's interest as you go into
**Grinder:** this.
It's, uh, this kind of scotch is near and dear to my heart. It's my favorite. You know, aside from the Sherry cask Macallan trope, if you wanna call it a trope, that when I first really started getting into to scotch whiskey, I got into Laville first. And that kind of set my palate because I was also smoking cigars.
I was like, oh, this is the smokey profile and it just fit for me. And I really loved it. And I was, it was, you know, um, when you start making money in the city and you can buy yourself a bottle of log of oil, it was like a big moment for me. The, um, this particular distillery is from Elay. Now Elay is, is famous for the peat [00:24:00] bogs where they have, you know, a tremendous amount of moss, peat bogs that they use to help with the fermentation and the, and generally applying some of that smokey pettiness to the, the process as they're, as they're charring and, and, you know, uh, toasting some of the, the hops and, and barley and stuff, right?
So that's where that comes from. Um, and a lot of the distilleries in this region have that element. So we we're talking about very traditional elay scotch. Uh, Lagon, Lare. Ker. Kala has been around just as long as all of them, but they've kind of transformed over the years and have adapted to the, to the, to the industry.
Right. So they had a very traditional, um, Elay scotch that had those elements of, of pettiness and smokiness, but then they were also doing a lot of, um, uh, blending and not the single malt scotch trend had never really caught on. So they did a lot of back work for Diageo, which then bought them. And, you [00:25:00] know, they were, as a distillery, Kail was also doing work with, uh, you know, blending Johnny Walker, frankly.
Uh, so they did, they've done a lot of different kind of machinations of the product. It wasn't always just Elay PD Scotch. They did a highland scotch at one point, which was very popular. And then, You know, they kind of, uh, you know, ascended into the elay, uh, moniker and developed a lot more of those PD SCOs.
And that's what we, that's what we're drinking today. Um, and, uh, I, I, I love that flavor profile of PD scotch. I, as, as senator mentioned, I, I actually never drink any of this scotch without ice. And maybe that's why, you know, I'm so apt to enjoy it because I'm quickly hitting those rounded out flavor profiles.
It's not as harsh. Um, and I always love the difference of the delta between the nose, which I love that nose, like the, the nose on a kailah, on a on, even on a La Freud, which is a little medicine-y That's why those bottles are green, is [00:26:00] because they used to fake them as medicine bottles during prohibition.
Um, but that's, you know, I like that thing on the nose. And then it goes down so much smooth. You're not expecting that. And that delta is, is quite an experience for
**Bam Bam:** me. What's interesting is once you put the ice in and it sits for a bit, it actually gets sweeter for me. There's a sweetness to this, which I didn't get prior to the ice.
It's amazing. It's really
**Pagoda:** working
**Gizmo:** for me with the ice. It's quite delicious. I
**Poobah:** would echo that sentiment. Oh, oh, dude. And I, I would echo that sentiment a hundred percent. I'd also echo, uh, Senator Sentient sentiment as well. W with the caramel notes that he's talking about. So I, I'm gonna, actually, I'm gonna walk back.
Yeah. Uh, I think we all, what I think what I, what I said initially is in terms of the pairing, because what's happening now, I'm noticing, I'm observing that the cigar is actually becoming, It's building in flavor and it's, and it's developing in a way that's actually, it's, it's pairing up quite nicely with the scotch opened up and [00:27:00] I guess the cigar warming up and toasting up that, uh, it's marrying up.
I, I'd say in my observation, significantly better. Mm-hmm.
**Gizmo:** As, as we're coming into the second third, I'm, I'm feeling the same way. And I, I feel like there's something that's really working with the scotch here on top of the ice. And then for me, there's a, I don't wanna use the word, uh, licorice. It's more like an anis, a slight anis is coming in neath.
I totally agree with you. Totally agree. It's just a little,
**Bam Bam:** little bit, which I
**Gizmo:** enjoy. I like that. See, normally don't, and I'm enjoying it. Yeah. With the cigar. With
**Poobah:** the cigar. Yeah. I think you're, I think that's a, a, that, that's a accurate observational. Uh, and I, I think I've noticed that actually in other millennium blends that there's a little bit, not quite as pronounced as it is here, but there is a little bit of that.
You can pick that up. Mm-hmm. That kind of black hanus?
**Grinder:** Yeah. Oh yeah. I will
**Senator:** say the only thing for me with the pairing, I don't think it was a bad pairing by any stretch, but the one complaint I have, the thing I'm having a little bit of a hard time with, with a more straightforward cigar, I like a scotch [00:28:00] or a spirit that is as flavorful as this is, but I'll be honest, like the amount of peat in this and some of the other flavors going on, like.
I'm really having to fight mentally. Mm-hmm. To pick out what I'm getting in the cigar because I mean, a lot of what's on my pallet is just dominated by the flavors of this. This is an expert test. Well, it is. Senator. I will just say like in some ways I do think there's a little bit of a clash because like I'm losing some of the fruit notes that I was getting in the cigar.
I'm like trying to pick them out because my palate is so heavily, the finish is long.
**Grinder:** One thing is it's a
**Poobah:** very long finish. It is a long finish and you're not wrong. It's kind of like I'm saying it's coming. I, I agree with you. It's coming together better, but is it like a perfect marriage? I would say, you know, probably
**Senator:** not.
Yeah, and the reason I say that, like the millennium pyramid, because I think that's a little more straightforward in terms of the flavor profile. Very straightforward. Yeah. It's easy to pick up what you're getting and so this wouldn't clash that much at all for me, it's just with this, there's this nice complexity and I want to be able to parse out every little note and then I have so much flavor from the scotch, so that's the only thing I [00:29:00] would say.
I do
**Grinder:** find if you,
**Bam Bam:** after you take your sip, you've gotta wait a little bit. For it to dissipate before you
**Gizmo:** draw your cigar. But that works for the lancer because you need the smoke this slow. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** it
**Grinder:** does. I'm having a wonderful time smoking. You've gotta wait with this garbage. And I don't, you know, I, I, I don't think the long finish is in, is inhibiting any of the flavor that I'm getting from the cigar.
It's still enveloping my mouth, it's still coating it with this delicious, concentrated flavor of a millennium. And, um, I think it, it, it ni it combats nicely, uh, with the flavor profile of the long finish. Um, but you have, you still have to find it, but it's, it's, yeah,
**Senator:** I just, I just want no combat. Yeah, there's,
**Grinder:** there's a little
**Pagoda:** bit of a wrestling match tonight.
**Gizmo:** This is the lizard sat the lizard SATs tonight.
**Poobah:** So that's, but see, but I think that's interesting. But that's what's makes Well everyone's SATs.
**Pagoda:** It's interesting. Lizard. WrestleMania.
**Senator:** WrestleMania. That's
**Grinder:** right. Every, every, everyone's different. Right? That's everyone's
**Poobah:** [00:30:00] different. Do,
**Gizmo:** do you think it would,
**Rooster:** it would go better with the late hour.
Because it's a much,
**Senator:** I personally think this would pair phenomenal. That
**Grinder:** that's a great call. Great idea. A great idea. I think a late ER and Sarah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Stab it off. We need a late hour land, we dunno what that is. Or a padrone 90th. No, that'd be good too. Oh, for
**Grinder:** B certainly. Maybe for
**Bam Bam:** breakfast. For you what?
**Grinder:** Some eggs on the roof. I, I, I, so I'm of the belief that this scotch would pair well with anything because I have a strong bias and so You do. Yes, you do.
**Gizmo:** The other thing I wanted to say, uh, that really just, it, it kind of hits me when Grindr's talking about the history of this thing and, uh, seeing that, you know, as we're, as we're looking at the, uh, at the scotch coming into the episode that they were founded in 1846, which is like so inconceivable that it's like pre-civil war here in the States.
Like it's so long ago. Like it's, it's, you know, In the early days of the United States, they started producing at this distillery. Like that's crazy to me. That's awesome.
**Grinder:** That's crazy. That's amazing. It's amazing, uh, that that that time period was [00:31:00] when a lot of these distilleries kind of, it's just
amazing.
**Gizmo:** Grew up though. Yeah. Just amazing how, I'm just saying how young the United States. Like, it just makes me think about Yeah. The fact that this is in 1846. Pretty cool.
**Grinder:** You're going through your
**Bam Bam:** Lance hero quick. Well, people have been drinking for a
**Pagoda:** long time. I think. I'm just happy about that.
**Gizmo:** So boys, this is a fantastic cigar.
You know,
**Rooster:** one thing about David Itdo, every time you pick up a ddo, no matter what Ddo it is, you know you're gonna get a quality product. Absolutely. You know it's gonna draw well that you, you're not gonna have any issues. Yep. If you go
**Gizmo:** back
**Senator:** to that, there's only, there's only exception and it's the anything in a Toro that they make, particularly the millennium, ironically responding
**Gizmo:** senators Absolutely correct.
Think
**Senator:** construction. So it burns horribly on that, on that topic.
**Grinder:** May I, they have a Nicaragua. Box press Toro, which is phenomenal. Hmm. I've, and it's not a very traditional size Toro. It's a little thinner and it's a little shorter and it is excellent cigar. And we should review that ci. I've, the reason that [00:32:00] works, I've had
**Gizmo:** that, but
**Poobah:** that's a different animal than what I think we're talking about.
Yeah. I, it's box press Nicaraguans. But I've had that And you're not wrong.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Still, you're
**Rooster:** totally right about talking about the
**Senator:** millennium. Yeah. Toros. I mean, I just say that, I mean, everyone in this room knows this, right? Like we were members of a, a lounge and every year the Christmas gift to the members was a five pack of Davidoff, millennium Toros.
Right. Not the pyramids we love, not theos. We'd be happy with not even the petite Coronas that are great. But the fucking Toro. Yeah. And every time they would burn horribly. Yeah. I'd sit there watching other guys smoking it, saying like, am I doing something wrong? And the thing is just so uneven. You're constantly touching it up.
For some reason, I just don't think that violas their thing. If it was Bush League with
**Pagoda:** him. It is. That's right. It
**Poobah:** was Bush League. It was Bush League. We'd get those gifts, remember we'd get 'em in our locker, we'd get the gift in
**Pagoda:** our locker and then smoke one
**Poobah:** and, and I'd look at center and he'd go, and he would just have that look in his face where he, he, he takes his lips and he puts 'em [00:33:00] together with like that, like frustrated purses, his lips like that.
And then he, then the head starts to shake back and forth. Yeah, that's right. There's not, there's, there's, there's no words. And he's just like, and, and, and, and the disdain would just, and disappointment would set in and, and, and, and it's, you know, we all agreed. It was like the, you know what? I, it would, I remember I was smoking one, um, by myself once, and I remember just ditching it.
Sure. And I, because I would ditch that cigar right in the lake. It went, went right in the lake. It's the only Davi off I'd ever ditched. And I remember him sitting there and it, and it heated. Like for what? Like you try and get combustion out of it in the, it would heat up so much. We'd get almost like, um, uh, a tunnel.
No, no, no, no, no. Not a tunnel. The opposite. It would just, uh, a cherry. Yeah, it would, it would get so hot and carbonized basically. It was like carbon. It was like, it's smoking carbon. That's right. Yep. And I was like, I'm like, this is sh this is s h i [00:34:00] t. This is no good. No, I'm putting this down. I can't believe I'm like putting a David off down due to performance.
It's like the only, it's like a 30 cigar. Yeah. It's embarrassing. Ever. It's the only one ever.
**Grinder:** It's, it's embarrassing.
**Bam Bam:** If you go back to that episode, we talked about how the notes in the, in the pyramid, you don't realize that in not Toro at all. It's a completely different cigar.
**Grinder:** I I this ci the same late hour, this cigar right now, by the way is Yeah.
Is so good. It's really, it's excellent. It's gotten better in my like Oh, way better.
**Pagoda:** Oh gosh. It's so not that it
**Poobah:** was bad ever. It's just even better than it was
**Senator:** before. I will say the only thing that is a little frustrating when you're smoking a landero, you, you usually can't hold the ash too long with a lance arrow and I'm never tempted to do that.
But the irony, like with this being a millennium, that millennium pyramid, it holds man, it will hold ash like you cannot imagine. Yeah, it is some of my favorite cigar photos. Yeah. Just to look at is just a millennium pyramid burning because half of it could be [00:35:00] just ash. Ash and it holds on perfectly and you're almost tempted to do this.
And I was laughing earlier cuz poor bam. I think
**Grinder:** you
**Pagoda:** have to bring that up. Was trying to
**Senator:** do that. It went all over his pants. I mean it just, that's, that's the one thing with Lance, Sarah, I wish the ash could just hold on. This is true.
**Grinder:** This is true.
**Gizmo:** Little bit of accountability
**Grinder:** there. Bam. Thanks guys.
**Bam Bam:** Again,
**Gizmo:** we gotta go through that.
No. So I do, uh, we have a couple things we wanna talk about tonight, but I do have something I need to share with the lizards. We might consider it urgent business as this listener. Did I wanna read an email? I thought you were pregnant.
**Pagoda:** Oh boy.
**Gizmo:** It's a boy. It was going that way. It's going that way for a second.
All right. So we got an email from a lizard. He says, A Bostonian lizard didn't even sign his name. Oh boy. And the subject was Accountability hour. Oh, fuck me. And it says lizards. It is with a heavy heart. I write this message. I feel as if an accountability ar accountability hour is in dire need. It's recently [00:36:00] come to my attention that a certain lizard is without a tower.
And that this condition was self-inflicted. Now, one would think that as a season Lier, such as Rooster would not so carelessly sell his tower without first procuring a replacement. Yeah. When I, yeah. I love, by the way, why I love this email so much is he touches on so many things we talk about. When I imagine a connoisseur corner in quotes, the aroma of mi rich mahogany and leather bound books comes to mind.
I can almost smell the cedar and tobacco. The last thing I would picture is the site of a three for one Costco Tupperware, stacked to the ceiling with the aroma of target kitchens goods permeating the air. Okay. I'm sorry
**Senator:** Gizmo wrote this. I swear
**Gizmo:** to God I did it. That's the best part. I swear to God I didn't.
I've been waiting. I been holding. Is this, is this the intern in Boston? No, I, no, I've been sitting on this email for two weeks. Uh, I would normally would give someone who has the ability of choking out of raccoon with his bare hands at wide birth. But imagine my dismay [00:37:00] upon learning about rooster's predicament.
For the amount of flack that BAM got for quote unquote seasoning his tower Yeah. For nine months, and then proceeding to fill it with the entire A Bonos essay
**Pagoda:** catalog. Yeah. Yeah. I would expect a similar level of
**Gizmo:** response to this issue. Yeah. So my proposal is this, A charity will be founded called Lizards Without Towers, where we'll provide towers,
**Pagoda:** where we'll provide towers on loan to storage.
List lizards around the world, storage
**Gizmo:** less lizards. The insidious nature of Tupperware addiction is something that afflicts thousands of lizards across the globe. Oh, and it needs to be addressed starting with Rooster. Okay. Does he need
**Poobah:** a copywriting job?
**Gizmo:** This is amazing cause I can get him more. I'm telling you I was, I've been sitting on this email for weeks.
I did not share it with you guys for this moment. I proposed that this charitable endeavor is funded in part by a limited edition sale of got storage question mark t-shirts that should temporarily, temporarily replace the got twang shirts currently available for purchasing the lounge [00:38:00] lizard store. In conclusion, I hope this matter can be addressed in a timely fashion.
And that the Connie Corner can come back. This guy
**Pagoda:** is to it, full Glory is already a legendary lizard
**Gizmo:** in the process. I mean, what's, I dunno what to say, is that not one of the best emails that we've ever gotten? I, I don't know what to say.
**Poobah:** I think that, I think that I, well, you, you have
**Rooster:** been giving him some information.
**Pagoda:** No, he hasn't. I have never talked about,
**Gizmo:** we have talked about on a podcast. All right. So June 30th, it gets delivered. It's hot. Get
**Pagoda:** accountable, get accountable, get account. You, I just
**Rooster:** did you, I just did. I sold the tower, but, but I was waiting for Giza Tower. I wanted to, I wanted to see it. But
**Gizmo:** why did
**Bam Bam:** you sell it?
You just sell it so quickly. The price was right. Price. So let me, let me understand something. So you have 20 year old cigars and plastic right
**Pagoda:** now, plastic containers.
**Poobah:** Yeah, I do. That's totally fine. That's a sin.
**Rooster:** Not really. Why is it to sin? You had it for 25
**Gizmo:** years
**Pagoda:** while you had the tower in the
**Gizmo:** [00:39:00] garage? No, it's perfectly fine. I just, I just love the amount of different, like little. Things over all these episodes that this lizard pulled together. Very well written by the way. He says ps, I love the show. The camaraderie and the friendships you guys have is truly remarkable.
You are doing the lizard's work. Also, rooster, you're one of my favorites, so please don't ring my neck. It's a great email. Send me your address.
**Grinder:** That's that's great. Gpd. So
**Bam Bam:** great. We
**Gizmo:** have the Brister have the best listeners,
**Senator:** man. Rooster has some dead raccoons. He needs to said
**Gizmo:** somewhere. Yeah, right. So, okay, so you have the new Vigilant Tower, the same one that I have.
So I
**Rooster:** ordered it actually after the day. You got it. Literally, I think a day or two after you set it up. I came to your place. I said I wanted to see it because I was in a dilemma whe whether to get the glass front or not. Yep. So I wanted to see the color, I wanted to see the hardware on it. I wanted to see the glass, the lighting, all of that stuff.
And after I saw that I placed the order. But Vigilant is a kind of a company. [00:40:00] Every single piece is custom made.
**Gizmo:** It's, yeah, they don't have stock. It's
**Rooster:** like, you know, they don't have stock and they're not really responsive with emails. It takes a while to get to, is
it
**Gizmo:** a two man company? It might be. It might be a one woman company.
It might be, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
**Rooster:** So it took a while, but finally, I, you know, the order was placed back in whatever, January, February, I guess whenever you got charged.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, I got mine in January. It's January. So we'll have,
**Bam Bam:** I'd love to come and help you. You're entitle. This is not an accountability hour.
**Gizmo:** This is bams out for blood.
This is nothing. So the other thing I wanna say too, uh, with amazing listeners is actually the Cal Iowa that we're drinking tonight was sent to us by Lizard. Matt, one of our listeners, sent this guy. Thank you, Matt. Matt, you're the man. Oh, very, very kind. So, you know, we love the listeners, man. We don't, it's amazing.
We don't take a, what was this listener's name? Uh, Bostonian Lizard. He did not want to, uh, reveal his name. Forgive of attribution, by the way,
**Poobah:** as a true, as a true lizard and an enemy. Anonymity is important. It's part of our dna. Oh, yeah. Yes. I, I would like
**Gizmo:** his, [00:41:00] I would like his address so I can
**Rooster:** send him my used Tupperware.
**Bam Bam:** I'm sure the aroma
**Pagoda:** would be great. The
**Rooster:** well seasoned
**Poobah:** Tupperware. He's just another reptilian
**Grinder:** in the wild. Doesn't that say something about like, what it means to have a cigar is that you're not there for a grandiose exposure. You're not there to be on a stage. You're there to settle in and be with other people and some, an anonym, you know, you, you want to be anonymous, but you, you're not, it's not about you.
It's not, it's just about enjoying the moment. Yeah. I think that's, that, that is a micro, that is like a, an analogy, you know, to, to how we view this whole ethos, this whole, well, you know, cigar lifestyle. Mm-hmm.
**Gizmo:** I mean, think about it like had it not been for the great equalizer as we've as senator and we've, uh, we've called it so many times in our hand.
Most of us probably wouldn't even have met. We would've never met had it not been for cigars, because we're, we're in such different corners of the world, professionally, family, where we live. This would've never come [00:42:00] together had it not been for this. Exactly. And what I find is, even on a zoom the other day, I'm meeting wonderful people from around the world that I would've never have connected with.
And I'm having great conversations. Yeah. It's a
**Rooster:** common denominator.
**Senator:** Sure. It, it's true. I mean, you're saying that we live in five different towns. Yeah. This group of seven. Yeah. Yeah. Five
**Gizmo:** different towns. Right. And they're not like neighboring towns, right? No. Some of them are. Some
**Pagoda:** are, but not all. Yeah,
**Senator:** not most.
**Gizmo:** You're right. Yeah. So boys, we're about halfway through here on the Davidoff millennium Landro. It's, it's, what do you think?
**Bam Bam:** It's quite delicious. I'm loving it. You know, one habit I picked up from you, GIZ is taking the aroma at the, at the burn line.
**Gizmo:** It's, I can't get enough of it. Actually. I find the aroma on this to be a little buttery band.
I
**Bam Bam:** agree. And a little, I hate to use the word sweet, but there's a sweetness in that smoke. Ru Rooster does that a lot. It's awesome.
**Pagoda:** Rooster's
**Gizmo:** been doing it. He's a wft forever. Rooster been
**Grinder:** smoking since 1910. I mean, that's true.
**Pagoda:** Abuelo. Abuelo
**Poobah:** is right. He had his, he had his first cigar with George Burns.[00:43:00]
**Bam Bam:** It's one way to, uh,
**Pagoda:** trim your nose hair. I'm
**Gizmo:** coming over to choke you right now. So, speaking of how we met, not that we need to do a big deep dive on it, but, um, we had a listener ask us, you know, how did the lizards meet? You know, we went on episode three, we went, Puba went through how we got the lizard names.
But I don't know if we've ever gone through how we all met. Yeah. Can I, we all met at one place. Yeah.
**Senator:** Yeah. One place, but it was all in stages. That's, it was in stages. True. That's kinda the coolest part of it. Yeah. Right. I mean, the guys here who knew each other first the longest
**Rooster:** would be, I was, I was there the longest.
I, I mean, I joined that place right when they opened up. Right. Maybe a month or two later, 1940s, bam was, ba was
**Gizmo:** next.
**Rooster:** Ba, when you got back
**Poobah:** from the war,
**Pagoda:** you needed a smoke dis
**Grinder:** tail.
**Pagoda:** It's
**Gizmo:** very rare. We go in on roosters, enjoy
**Senator:** readjusting to civilian life.
**Gizmo:** You rotated back to the world
**Senator:** you and Bam would've met first at
**Pagoda:** that
**Bam Bam:** lounge.
Right? I think we've known each other the
**Grinder:** [00:44:00] longest, I think. And
**Senator:** how did that happen? Actually, I'm not even sure I know the full story. How did you guys meet at the lounge? Well,
**Gizmo:** can you imagine
**Rooster:** Bam walking in and you don't like, you know, I mean
**Gizmo:** he's very so dapper. He's got a presence. Yeah,
**Rooster:** he's got a presence.
He says hello to everyone and me and him just cut it off. Oh,
**Pagoda:** you mean said magnetic.
**Gizmo:** We
**Rooster:** actually talked about recycling tires.
**Gizmo:** That was the first, that's true. That's true. We almost went into business together. Yeah, yeah. True. We were gonna do that.
**Grinder:** Ben was, Ben was very well a mobile, uh, what was
**Bam Bam:** that? Thank you.
**Gizmo:** We're gonna do something. Thank you. Thank
**Rooster:** some kind of a mobile, mobile
**Gizmo:** van to.
**Bam Bam:** To, yeah, I was gonna, Taylor's, we were gonna call out the mobile man. Mobile Man. You can have a cigar, get a haircut and have a shirt made for you. That's awesome. Ooh, I read it. Your, in your driveway. Wow. Untuck it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So these all great
**Rooster:** conversations that we had at that, at that lounge over cigars and nothing, nothing happened.
No. They
**Bam Bam:** didn't fall in love.
**Pagoda:** Nothing panned.
**Senator:** So after you guys met, then you would've met Grindr, right.
**Gizmo:** And then, uh, yeah. Grinder next.
**Rooster:** Then Grinder was there. Grinder. The biggest thing with Grinder was he was [00:45:00] like, who's sitting here? Yeah, he is. Got the
**Bam Bam:** laptop
grinder,
**Pagoda:** his equipment. Whose laptop is that?
**Rooster:** That's Grinder. So he would, he would work at the lounge, but he knew he
**Pagoda:** spent the whole day there. Yeah. But he knew how to spread out.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Real estate. But he, he was, he was working. He was on his call and he was Yes.
**Grinder:** You know, I was grinding. You were grinding. He was
**Gizmo:** grinding away.
**Rooster:** Yeah. That was awesome. And, uh, I guess the next person
**Pagoda:** had
**Grinder:** had a lot of, a lot of good conversations with Rooster.
Late night. Yeah. We did conversations with Rooster, which really for me, I'm a, you know, I, I don't, I don't open up as easy, but in those moments, we, I think that solidified my friendship with you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It, it
**Bam Bam:** takes alcohol night.
**Grinder:** I think I, I were some of those nights I forced my way into friendship
**Bam Bam:** with Grindr.
Yeah. Yeah. I just jumped
**Grinder:** right
**Pagoda:** into what you were doing. I have layers.
**Gizmo:** So then you were next,
**Senator:** right? Senator was next. Yeah. I met, uh, rooster and Bam first, ironically, because, uh, Grindr was traveling a [00:46:00] lot. As was I, but, uh, not as much as he was. And, uh, I met these two guys and I, I still remember it was one of the two of you who I'm like sitting there smoking a patron X placebo, my favorite stick.
And one of these guys just goes, do you only smoke patron drones? I asked you that. It was, it was
**Pagoda:** bam. I did
**Bam Bam:** literally, every time I walked in, all he had in his hand was an exclusive. Yeah. And honestly, if you have to start off, that's an excellent way to start off. That's a good
**Gizmo:** way to start. Good way to finish.
**Pagoda:** I mean, I mean, all these years later it's
**Senator:** still my f i I love that cigar. And then would be Puba Puba, who I first met at the lounge, I think before the full group. And, uh, I think similar, uh, career, uh, career experience, uh, talking a lot about, uh, marketing and advertising and cigars.
**Rooster:** Didn't, uh, pub, uh, well, yeah, hemo kind joined the lounge at the same time.
**Poobah:** I, I feel like it's possible, but I feel like I was about a month or, or two after. Yes, right. We started to make his way in after, um, I think you joined [00:47:00] after that. I was very con, I was very confused. Well, I, I connected with Senator immediately, uh, and I was like, this is an interesting guy, you know? Um, We had similar careers, uh, uh, you know, marketing, consulting, things like that.
And I'm like, this is a smart guy. You know, he's been around, he's interesting to talk to. He's a, but there was this, there, no
**Pagoda:** one's asking you, but
**Poobah:** there was, um, I'll turn off my mic. And then, and then, and then of course, of course, of course Rooster was around a lot. Um, Bam was, but not, not as much. Not as much.
In fact, at the time that I was, Puba was
**Bam Bam:** first, was a rumor for me for a little while.
**Gizmo:** You were a rumor for me for a long
**Pagoda:** time. And then I
**Bam Bam:** met you, and I met and I met, uh, Puba. Yeah.
**Poobah:** After a little bit. But there was an interesting, the point I was getting at was there was a very interest, so I'm feeling things out now.
You, you, you gotta, [00:48:00] you know, put yourself in the situation where it's like, you know, at this point we're just acquaintances. Yeah. You know, we're acquaintances. We're not, we're not texting. We're not even, we're not too close acquaintances yet. And we're not friends yet. We're just running into each other.
We're just doing a thing. Right. So like, There's this odd juxtaposition of Senator and this other member that that was so strange it, and it took me, I'd say a good, good four months to actually. Start to figure it out where I, I, I'd get centered alone and I, I, I, I'd say like, what, what is going on with guy?
It was this guy, this guy, guy. Look at this guy who was attached at his hip at all, at all times. Now, as an outsider looking in, I'm thinking, I'm thinking he's like best friends with this guy. At least that's outwardly from an outsider looking in and I'm saying, I don't see how this relationship is possible.
Feasible. No. My response was this sort of reality.
**Senator:** My, my response was basically, this is the tolerated idiot [00:49:00] at the lounge.
**Pagoda:** Right.
**Gizmo:** The village idiot. Right. And I think you were trying to save him in a
**Senator:** way. I wa I mean we all were, I mean, this is, this was the problem. So we had, you called me an idiot. We had,
**Pagoda:** it
**Poobah:** was very, but as an out, as somebody looking in as a, just an acquaintance, it was very strange.
**Senator:** So this, this was the challenge. We, we had, uh, A difficult member at the lounge that not a lot of folks really connected with or got along with. And he was there a lot. And all of us would sit there kind of in frustration. And I think we finally realized like, okay, if, if he's going to be here and is not gonna be kicked out of here, the only way to make this better is to try to change him to mm-hmm.
Just kind of bring him into the fold and maybe he'll become, mold him. Mold him. Exactly. I think we've obviously learned we failed at that, but that was that, that attempt started right when I met pba and Sooo was sitting there like
**Grinder:** he could've computed how does this, it wasn't, how does this work?
**Pagoda:** Right.
**Gizmo:** It was the same for me. Yeah. When I joined. That's right. Yeah. Same exact thing. I'm sitting there having an awkward [00:50:00] conversation with this guy and senator's also there, and I'm like, there's no way this guy is friends with. Senator, the other guy. There's no way that this is working. But
**Poobah:** Right. In your mind you're saying that, but like outwardly it's not what it it's not, it's accepted.
It's right. We're here now. It's not what it appears to be. So that was confusing, but that got sorted. Thank God. Yeah. Um, I don't remember when
**Gizmo:** Gizmo joined. I
**Pagoda:** was about to say something. I was the
**Bam Bam:** first to meet Gizmo. Uh, yeah. I didn't meet him for a while. But what I liked about your demeanor, you didn't try to take over a conversation.
You were very cool, casual,
**Grinder:** relaxed. You were a great foil to this. That other guy we were talking about a hundred percent. Yeah. You're the diametric
**Senator:** opposite of that. What I would say about Gizmo, so I was the first to meet Gizmo. I was there on an afternoon and I would work there, kind of like Grindr we were talking about would do the same.
And, uh, gizmo walks in and my immediate take on Gizmo, this is one of the most polite. Nicest people I've ever encountered. I like, was literally [00:51:00] stunned and like, no bullshit, no appearances, like very transparent. And Gizmo walks in, like he just joins and you have a a, a cigar credit you get at this place.
Like an allotment type thing. Exactly. And so Gizmo comes up with these cigars and I'm sitting there smoking a patron and um, I said to Gizmo like, you would you like
**Gizmo:** a chocolate, chocolate?
**Senator:** Thank God. At that time he didn't do that. Honestly, that would've
**Pagoda:** soured him for me a day. I missed, I missed those chocolates.
I missed
**Bam Bam:** the chocolate.
**Pagoda:** I'm you, thanks Pam. And so Gizmo
**Senator:** Gizmo sits down next to me and Ard era.
**Pagoda:** Bashard era.
**Senator:** It's awesome. And um, we start chatting a little bit and I said, oh, you know, what, what do you like? And what I really respected about him, like he didn't make any illusions to start. He wasn't like, oh, well I smoke a lot of cigars.
This is what I smoke. He's like, honestly, I probably consider myself a novice cigar smoker. Like, you know, here's what I, what I got downstairs, but I normally smoke. And I said, have you had a patron before? And he says, no. And I said, all right, just gimme a second. And. Anyone that knows me again, if I'm gonna share a cigar, I, I think it's a someone who's worth [00:52:00] sharing something with.
So I go to my locker, I bring him a exi and Gizmo takes a few pups of this cigar and the look on his face. I'll never forget, it was just like the whole world. It was open to him and he, it
**Grinder:** was, uh, it was Opie.
**Pagoda:** It was Opie. Did he not
**Rooster:** go downstairs and return with Guy? That's where I'm going. He bought all these That's,
**Gizmo:** I'm going, that's right.
I just looked at him. I said, I think I fucked up.
**Pagoda:** So literally that's what he says to me. He's like, I think I fucked up. He's like, I remember this after smoking this
**Senator:** Sari. He's like, I don't want any of the stuff I just bought. I said, don't worry about it. Go downstairs, they'll take it back. Say, Senator gave you a patron and now you're hooked on Patron and you want to
**Pagoda:** exchange everything you bought.
That's, I remember that. I feel like, like I was there for that. Might,
**Poobah:** might have. I was
**Pagoda:** there for that. I there that he
**Senator:** literally goes downstairs and this is how I knew he was a lizard. Exchanges everything. He just bought
**Pagoda:** and just buys patrons and we've been friends ever since. I remember
**Poobah:** this. He came up with like a, a, a, he came up with the package.
He came up with the, the little
**Gizmo:** bat, you know, that was a graduation
**Bam Bam:** for you at that moment. It's
**Gizmo:** true. Yeah. I
**Rooster:** remember when before Gizmo [00:53:00] joined, every time I would walk into the lounge, every single person would say, you have to meet this guy Gizmo. He is great. You're gonna love him. Every single person, every single member at that lounge said that
**Gizmo:** about you.
This the first time I'm hearing it. This is new information he paid, he paid them in
**Pagoda:** chocolate. I did
**Gizmo:** bouchard chocolates
**Pagoda:** with dividends for the, for the listener. I'm not sure exactly
**Senator:** when this started, but Gizmo would start coming into the lounge with this giant Costco bag of Bouchard chocolates that he liked to enjoy while he was smokey a cigar.
And I mean, he'd be sitting there just tossing chocolates around like Willie walk. It was, it was so funny to
**Pagoda:** everybody in the lounge. So he very quickly appreciated
**Poobah:** himself. So the very interest, the kind of interesting thing about this, this somewhat odd habit that he developed, um, was, was that in reality,
**Pagoda:** I, well you were,
**Poobah:** you were eating such copious amounts of chocolate while smoking [00:54:00] cigars, that it was part of your repertoire.
But you would give them out and you'd go, you know, sometimes you're like, Sure, like I'll have a chocolate cuz one, you don't want to be rootin. It's also chocolate. I mean it's, yeah. Doesn't taste bad. You know, it's good. So you taste the chocolate. And I go, remember a couple times going, you know what, that actually pairs pretty well with the cigars.
It does. It really does. It did. And we, it did. And so, uh, there, I guess there is some merit to chocolate in cigars. I think there's been some. Tastings and I've seen stuff in Rasberry Cigar fish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, but, uh, it, it wasn't bad. The funny thing is it wasn't bad having chocolate with cigars a lot.
It was the amount of, it was the, yeah, it was the copious
**Pagoda:** amounts of chocolate and the frequency. Oh yeah. And the frequency. I mean, he rolled it every day with this
**Senator:** bag of chocolate. It was unbelievable. Now, the funny thing is most of the members appreciated it, however, the proprietor of the lounge Oh no.
Did not appreciate at all. Not at all. And were very angry if they would see a bouchard chocolate wrapper in an astray [00:55:00] someday. That's right. That's right. So this became like a big rub.
**Poobah:** Oh yeah. They had a problem with everything. That, everything, it couldn't tells you a lot about that. There. Yeah, there was, there was problems with everything and it, and, and the, the preoccupation with the, the proprietor's behavior almost became, it, it became way like, like too dominant, like in our, our lives.
It was like, it was like controlling. Yeah. It was like, it was like controlling our lives. We were
**Bam Bam:** like, I'm out. It was like 1984, like the puppet master. Right. It's safe to say the element of hospitality evaporated there. Very completely
**Senator:** agree. Very evaporated. Especially which
**Bam Bam:** that brings us, especially as we all started collectively getting together.
Yeah. But go
**Senator:** ahead. And which then brings us to our last lizard that was brought into the fold, and I felt bad because this was right at the point at which, yeah, we started to have a very contentious relationship with management as PBA likes. Yeah, that's right.
**Bam Bam:** Contentious is very mild.
**Senator:** And so enter pagoda, who I think met Rooster first.
That's right. That's true.
**Bam Bam:** That's right.
**Rooster:** So I, I was at the lounge, I think it was an [00:56:00] afternoon, maybe a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon. And we used to sit by that fireplace, right? So that's where all the members used to sit and pagoda was sitting in the corner and. I smoked a cigar, and when I'm done, I'm walking out, out, out the door and I just look from, from the corner of my eye, I see this guy sitting there in the corner.
I'm like, he's, he looks Indian.
**Bam Bam:** Really? A good looking, a good looking Indian. Ah, yeah. Very attractive. Indian gen looking
**Rooster:** handsome Indian boy.
**Bam Bam:** Sitting and sitting alone. Dare I say, Bollywood material
**Poobah:** Indian boy.
**Rooster:** So I, you know, I introduced myself and, uh, we started chatting for a little bit. I said, you know, where do you live?
He goes, Richwood. I'm like, so how come you've never been here? It's like, I don't know. It just, you know, I came one day and I've been thinking about joining a lounge. I said, yeah, you should join this lounge. This is, I mean, it's right in town. It's a [00:57:00] beautiful spot, and I think he might have even joined like the very same day.
Yeah. And
**Poobah:** uh, he did. He did. Yeah. I, I had a similar experience. I walked up in a I, I, I, I saw Pagoda and I asked him if he was single.
**Bam Bam:** Kidding. Kidding. A joke.
**Poobah:** Uh, it's a joke. It's a joke. I'm kid. I kid.
**Rooster:** And that British accent, I was like, I was, I
**Bam Bam:** was in, it was love at first, the funny thing, very exotic. Oh, oh my lord,
**Poobah:** oh my God.
He looked at me and he goes, I said, are you single? He goes, as a matter of fact, I am.
**Rooster:** Do you want some fish and chips?
**Bam Bam:** The
**Senator:** funny thing with Pagodas, so I was there when Rooster first met him, and so after they chatted we started chatting a little bit and we found out that like both of us lived in DC for a period of time, so we were connecting on that. And when I really knew Pagoda was a lizard was, let's say a few days later, [00:58:00] pagoda joins the lounge.
He's at the lounge and he brings everything to make Manhattans. Oh, cool. I wasn't there for that and I was sitting there saying, that's a lizard move. Like this isn't some bullshit chicken. Yeah. He had the orange peel and everything, everything to make a perfect very detail. And he's basically bartending.
He's like, do you want a Manhattan? Do you want a drink? And I was like, this guy's gonna fit in perfectly here. Mm-hmm.
**Bam Bam:** So I was the last to meet Pagoda. Um, we met very nice. We were the north, your imprint on me was at the North Lounge. Yeah, the North Lounge. If you guys remember. I think you were all there.
Oh, I know. Oh dude. I was saw, you know, I'm exhausted. I think everyone was four or five cigars in. I just turn to him and say, are you done? And what does he say? I'm never done. I'm never done. I'm never done. I've never done that. That is the Quin quintessential lizard phrase right now. Yeah. Love
**Poobah:** it. And I found my, my conversations, uh, there were times [00:59:00] that we hung that, that, that we hung, we hung out.
Like, because you know, where I'd come to the lounge and, and pagoda would just be there. And sometimes you had a friend with you, one of your best friends, I forget his name. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** Um, Denny.
**Poobah:** Right. Cool guy. And, uh, I remember sitting with pagoda and just kind of like, and just talking to him and asking him questions about where he grew up.
Big Bitcoin. No, no, no, no, no. Like, I was very interested in like where he grew up, about, about his life and all this stuff. And I, I remember just walking away from these, we had great conversations. It was a great place to have a conversation
**Pagoda:** that last. It was, it was, I remember the one night, the, the three of us hung out and we drank so much.
Um, it was me, my buddy, and you. Yeah. And we, we talked about the city and every place it was like the conversation with senator's dad. Yeah. We had talked about every place and we had kind of been to the same places. That's cool. Albeit me years later. [01:00:00]
**Bam Bam:** Right. And then we're thinking about how old? I'm just kidding.
**Poobah:** Well, yeah, but it was also like, it's like we were like, oh my God, we're so old now. Yeah. Like we were talking about an like, you know, um, Like Angelo and Max's and Park Avalon and the Lemon mm. Park Avalon and, and all those places on Park Avenue South and, uh, you know, all those joints. All those joints, right.
Uh, the union bar and all that shit. And like, and talking about it. Oh yeah, because I, it was during, it was kind of like pre Covid during Covid. It was pre
**Pagoda:** Covid in the beginning of Covid. Yeah. Yeah. I think, um, yeah. And we
**Poobah:** were just like, kind of like lamenting the, the fact that, you know, everything was shut down.
But it was very interesting. I remember walking away from the conversation just saying, this is an interesting guy. Yeah.
**Senator:** This, this was back when we were smoking through our masks.
**Bam Bam:** Oh
**Poobah:** my goodness. Oh my goodness. Did you, did
**Rooster:** you join after Covid? No, after.
**Pagoda:** After I joined. Um, before, no, [01:01:00] I joined the late, um, after the summer of.
**Bam Bam:** 20. Yeah. Yeah. He was, so after, so I joined, so I think Puba joined in May or June of 20. Mm-hmm. I joined in August of 20, and I think joined after Pagoda, joined in October.
**Rooster:** I was wondering why, like during Covid, when everything was shut down, these guys would come over to my place and he wasn't there. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** So pagoda the same email.
**Poobah:** That's right. That's right. Because, that's right, because we went after because the, the, the, that's right. It's coming back to me. The the, I joined actually specifically because I was like, all the bars are shut down. Everything is done. Can't have a cigar anywhere. Uh, you know, and my only, I was only really looking for actually a place for, for me to go get outta the house to have a cigar and get out of the house and have a drink out of the house.
Same, like, that's how it, desperate times it was, but ended up falling into. Um, like this Wonderful, [01:02:00] yeah. This wonderful group of people. Yeah. And, and we were going there a lot because guess what? It was the only game in town.
**Bam Bam:** That's all we
**Senator:** did. Yeah, that's true. I mean, this is when like, literally like everything stopped the kind of world shut down and we're all sitting there like business owners, whatever we're doing, and like, we don't know what's next.
And so we had a lot of free time. I mean, honestly, like business grinded to a halt. Yeah. So we were at the lounge then when the lounge even closed for a bit, we were at Rooster's place, my place and mm-hmm. We'd smoke cigars and, and just kind of, you know, pass the time. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** And what's interesting about the dynamic, I mean, this group kind of glued together really fast Yep.
And almost unintentionally before there was a text chain for any of that. Certainly well before this podcast, but it, it, you know, what's interesting, uh, that I, I'd like to share with the listeners the fact that. The genesis for the podcast was the fact that we were having these conversations just without microphones and headphones.
Right? Like we would sit down, we'd all, we'd all probably smoke either the same cigar or [01:03:00] similar talk about it and then interject these other conversations. We were doing this three, four times a week. Yeah. And we would dissect the cigars as a group and that conversation was always enjoyable. Absolutely.
Always. Yeah. No matter is that where we were personally, I would learn a lot from the discussions and I think we all learned from each other a little bit. Of course. Yeah. That's great.
**Poobah:** Yeah. And at that time too, which was interesting, um, I think all of us as collectively were, were exploring cigars outside of our comfort zone, and we were kind of like bringing different.
Different things to the table. Um, you know, whether, and it was, there were, there was mostly D four s and Monty two s in terms of Cubans that were being smoked. But there would this, the group collectively as a group, we came together and it became this catalyst for, um, and we were talking about this [01:04:00] offline during the week, this catalyst for like, sharing new cigars.
Yeah. And it was a very quick acceleration of where it was like, I'm getting this box, I'm gonna share it. I got, I had this gar cigar, I'm gonna share it. I sourced this Cuban, I'm gonna share it. And we, and we, and we began, you know, sharing things back and forth. And I, I, I mean, I remember examples, oh, well maybe Boulevard isn't my favorite, or something like that.
And it's like, well, you know what? Try this. And it was like, oh, well, you know what? Maybe my mind has been changed and then going back and forth with these things and, and, and saying, and we were slowly gaining alignment around some of the things that we liked, particularly with, with, uh, with, within the Havanas catalog, there was a huge exploration, like, like an archeological fucking dig.
We
**Bam Bam:** all went back, you know what I mean? We all went down the rabbit hole together. Well, that
**Senator:** 2020, well, this is funny thing. Very deep down. This is the funny thing. It's true. So, Lizards learned very quickly [01:05:00] because, I mean, rooster, bam, grinder and I knew each other for at least a year before I had met, uh, the, the rest of you guys.
Mm-hmm. And we had started toward the tail end, like right when these guys joined, we started ordering Cubans together. It's so true. And the funny thing is, go ahead. I have something to say. I remember when I met, like, I mean, all these honestly, I mean obviously, you know, GIZ was not even smoking new worlds that I would normally smoke.
And so like, this was like a crazy acceleration with him. And I remember even with Puba, he's like, well, where do you get real Cubans? And so I was telling him some of the sites that we were using. The funny thing is the pandemic hits. And everybody's got a lot more time. And I would remember Puba would call me and he is down the YouTube vortex on Cubans.
Like you couldn't YouTube. Oh yeah, yeah. But what was unbelievable, like in such a short amount, a short amount of amount of time of time, it's so true. Like Puba is telling me about certain cigar. I'm like, I have, I don't, I even know that existed. And it was just like the, the, when I say lizards learned quickly.
[01:06:00] Yeah. It was unbelievable Gizmo who hadn't been on the PE drones yet at that point. Right. And then you fast forward, he's starting to try Cubans and now, I mean Gizmo arguably has the best collection here. You know, with Liz. He's one of the best's, unbelievable, has
**Bam Bam:** six cabs off loosies. It's insane. Insane.
8, 7, 8, 8,
**Senator:** 7 and a half. And then it was like, you know, pagoda who like was like, well, I don't really smoke Cubans. And then we get him down this cubic rabbit hole. Now he has a tower with Cuban's full like, so that was, it's
**Bam Bam:** unbelievable. That was a pinnacle moment for a lot of us. From me personally. I didn't even have an, that was the first time during that time period.
That I had Ani. Yeah. Prior to that I was a patron Family reserve guy, and then Senator Hammi thei. It took me maybe a month and I gravitated away from that ultra full flavor family reserve line to thei. And now that was for me a deep dive into Padron, but I refused at that time to smoke Cubans. And little by little you would hand me a P two Senator.
Another guy in the lounge would hand me and Monty [01:07:00] too. I think someone else I think said
**Senator:** Ro Rooster. I mean, when Rooster got that box. Yeah. Can we just talk about this for a quick second one? One
**Bam Bam:** quote, one little thing. That's when my world opened for regarding Cuban cigars. Dramatically. Yeah. And I really started to just listen to every word that all of you said, and that's
**Senator:** where I learned a lot.
Do you remember, this was before some of the guys had joined the lounge, but Rooster, when you got, and bam, you might have bought this too. This is like one of my biggest regrets of not buying a box of cigars. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Do you remember that? Monte Cristo 85th. Fifth anniversary cigar.
Yes. Oh, course it came in a black lacquer box
**Bam Bam:** and a velvet
**Grinder:** case. Yes. And a velvet
**Senator:** wrapping. And Rooster bought a box of these, and he comes in the lounge and he sits down next to me and he's like, Senator, you gotta try this cigar. It's really good. And I'm looking at, it has a very light wrapper. I'm like, oh, it's probably too mild for me.
I'm not gonna enjoy that. And I lit that up with him and oh my, Gosh, I, it just totally expanded my horizons. Right. And I was smoking Cubans. I mean, you know, my wedding cigar was a Parus D four, many years [01:08:00] before I met any of the guys here. I loved Cuban cigars, but I, my range in Cubans was not what it is now.
No. And, uh, for all of us, by the way, that was amazing. Yeah. I remember we all had a night, we went out to some restaurant and we were smoking that exact cigar. Yeah. That was there. It was
**Bam Bam:** incredible. Oh yeah. It was fantastic. Beirut. No, but
**Pagoda:** that's, yeah, but that's always been, that's always been the idea of even all of us getting together.
Right? Uh, I think you, uh, uh, got guests into, uh, the exclusive, our guests got me into the exclusive our, yeah. I, the issue
**Bam Bam:** of our train
**Pagoda:** continued and, and you know, over a period of time, obviously we graduated Cubans and I used to smoke Cubans in London years ago, and obviously sourcing with a problem here, so I'd never really even bothered with it.
So I got into New World and I started enjoying the stronger flavors. But I haven't said that the idea really is that we. Are trying to do the same thing, right? We educated each other, we got everyone into the community. We are a community. We shared cigars, we learned through it, and now we want to bring it to the world.
Yeah. Because this is the only way we [01:09:00] can try and impart, you know, our experiences, the education about cigars and the feeling and the enjoyment and the camaraderie that exists within this CIGA community. You can go anywhere, any lounge in the world, and you're gonna meet somebody and have a conversation.
**Bam Bam:** It's great. Very
**Poobah:** well said. Very well, very well said and agreed. I totally, and, and, and I think the, the cool part of that journey, um, Was that ex was the exploration. Look, there are only so many cigars in the Habana catalog. There's only so many. We've smoked a lot of cigar. We've smoked a lot of cigars, right?
And, and, and, but that, that like discovering, like there were certain discoveries that were made along the way that were, that were really awesome, revolutionary, like revolutionary to me, like the E two s part of this. Um, by the way, they're, they're coming up in few episodes. They're coming up in a few episodes.
But like, there's certain cigars that are real standouts and yeah, I don't want to kill the [01:10:00] E two episode, but I had those 20 fourteens we smoked to my deck. Was that the best fucking E two you've ever had in your life? Is it the best fucking E two ever? Like, right, like, you know, there's certain times where.
You know, things, everything kind kind of comes together. Or when we're La Gloria Cabanas, that, that, that, uh, don't forget Easter Source. Like there's certain cigars that like, they, they, they cut and you're like, or we're
**Senator:** like, I mean even, I mean the Vegas Rabbi Romana Classic is an obvious one, which like pub is sitting in my lounge, hands me one of these and I'm so skeptical and I'm like, this guy asked me.
A mere months ago where to get Cubans, and he's now handing me this cigar dude. And so I don't know what to expect. And it, it was life-changing like a catalyst actually for
**Bam Bam:** this whole group.
**Poobah:** Theos, yeah. The biggest rabbi, Romanian classicist was, I'm not even doing this because I happened to sort, I fell into it.
Okay. Yeah. Let's face it. I, I, I, I got it in a sampler, um, and said, this is, I had a five pack and I [01:11:00] go, this is unbelievable. So you fall into it. In other words, this archeological dig, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, oh my, oh my. Like tri tried this. You gotta try this. And, and, but there's, that was a big catalyst.
But there's been many others too. Yeah. And, and I think that I remember. That's cool. I remember one
**Bam Bam:** night That's cool. On pub's deck. It was myself. This was a very late night, I think Rooster and, oh, I remember this. Yeah.
**Grinder:** Rooster. And I remember, I remember hearing about this.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Rooster and pagoda. Gizz. You gotta leave the room.
Um, you guys left and there was the three of us, myself, Senator, and pba and Puba brings out the box of oil. Double Coronas. Coronas. Okay. Remember that night? No, no, no. I was Tell the real story. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's tell the real story. That is the real story. Was this,
**Pagoda:** this is after the Boca game actually.
**Bam Bam:** Yes. That night that we had a poker game. Oh yeah, you town. Yeah, too. So didn't I source that box? You did. And you smoked it without me. You probably did. Yes. So that's the story I want to tell. It's a crime, but we committed it. And what the
ho
**Poobah:** double
**Bam Bam:** Coronas. No, no. I got that box and then you guys smoked it without me.
He
**Senator:** got a 50 cab
**Bam Bam:** [01:12:00] and we split it. Yeah. And then you guys smoked it without me on his, on your deck. Yeah. So, so pva, PBA brings out the double ground. I was very angry, dude. That was so, that was a quintessential night for me as a lizard because I really got to experience that Cuban. I've never had that cigar before.
I
**Senator:** knew nothing about it. That was the same night that another cigar was smoked, that we is now a staple. Half Corona, the up and half Corona that I shared with Badda and Heed, he bought ball
**Bam Bam:** another fucking revelation. I'm telling you that. Can I, that was an incredible can night. Can I just say something that, you know, for the listener who's, who's, who's hearing this right now, I think the important takeaway, the most important thing about this is that a number one, clearly we don't pretend to be experts.
We're not experts. We're just a little further along the journey maybe than you are or maybe not. Maybe you're further along than us. But I think the most important thing here is that through this community, and I'm seeing this, we're seeing this with lizards on social, in the email, in our dms, on Instagram, people communicating with us, is just jumping into the rabbit hole with your group of friends if you, if you [01:13:00] have them or with us.
Just starting to do this discovery process is such an eye-opening thing and it changed everything about, well, what it does, heart experience. It leaves an imprint. Those experiences for me left an imprint that I'll never forget a hundred percent for the rest of my life.
**Senator:** Yes. And all it takes is one. Yeah.
That's the amazing part of it. Absolutely. All it takes is
**Bam Bam:** one, and think about this, he, so Puba found the Vegas Robia Classical gave it to you. Yeah. You guys turned Rooster onto it. I'm sitting at the lounge. I'll never forget the day we talked about it on the Vegas REI classical episode at the end of 22, rooster walks in and gives it to me.
That is the most monumental experience I've ever had with a cigar. And it's because of this latter experience through the lizards, right? That any group of lizards out there can experience the same thing with these amazing cigars. You find That's the whole point of all this. That's the whole point of all of this.
**Rooster:** You know what else happened when we had Rob on the pop? Oh yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. From friends of [01:14:00] f o h Friends of Havanas. Yep. So he talked about a cigar. It was the S SLR double Corona mm-hmm. Box date. A e P oh seven. And I forgot about it. I'm like, there's no, there's no way I'll ever find that box. Right.
**Bam Bam:** You probably had three boxes and you didn't know. No, no. I
**Rooster:** So, so check this out. I mean, randomly. Somebody on a, on a group, that pub actually introduced to us and, uh, we are all, we are all part of it. This guy reaches out to me, he goes, I listened to the pod and rob, I mentioned this cigar. I'm gonna send you five sticks on me.
Wow. Mm-hmm. And that cigar is probably around like 60, 70 incredible box a piece right now. Yeah. So he sent me those five cigars and I had one. So I'm like, you know what? There's seven of us on the pod. I need, I need two more. Can I buy them from you? So he reluctantly, I mean, he gave, and you go, you guys smoked, uh, smoked that one.
So I ended up buying all of them [01:15:00] from him eventually. Not right away. Yeah. He didn't wanna part with it. So that's the generosity of the listeners, that they listen to the pod and they actually find the cigars that somebody else talked about and they want us to try it. Yeah. Because it's all by sharing, right.
It's also, it's all by sharing that it's all about an experience that he had and he wanted to share with the lizards what that was
**Bam Bam:** like. And that's the genesis of this hobby at the end of the day. Yeah. Generosity,
**Poobah:** friendship.
**Bam Bam:** It can't be conversation alone
**Rooster:** and not be shared. Absolutely. It has to be
**Bam Bam:** shared.
Yes.
**Poobah:** Yeah. No, no, for sure. Paid forward. No, it has to be shared. No doubt about it. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** That's amazing. And here
**Senator:** we are with lizard names and, and
**Poobah:** everything. Yeah. And that's the, I think that's prison names, you know, that that's the beauty of it. And, and, and, and I think to build on what you were saying, Um, rooster is, you know, Rob, you, when, when Rob I was on, he, he said it's like a, sometimes with Cuban cigars, it's like golf.
It's like that golf shop. Yeah. You know, like when you really, you know what, chase it. Well, you're [01:16:00] chasing it because, um, and he, and he mentioned, and I'll be brief, you mentioned runs, there's certain runs of cigars That's right. At certain times. So, um, and you know, it's variable. There's lots of variability in this and there's certain cigars that just hit it out of the park in Cuba where you just, you it, there's nothing like it.
So that chases part of it. I, I think to echo what he said, um, and it is, it's part, it, it, it's part of it. And, and, and we're, we're continuing to do that with our. Everyone here is aging cigars, and we're gonna see how some of these cigars change over time. Uh, whether they've peaked or whether they, you know, they're ready to smoke now and we're gonna keep dipping into our humidors and just, and trying to provide from
**Bam Bam:** Rooster as the, the listener noted from Boston.
Mm-hmm. He has Tupperware. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So,
**Rooster:** so there's nothing, there's nothing wrong. Tupper. I'm kidding. I, I'm kidding. The only issue with
**Bam Bam:** Tupperware is like, you don't know where even see it. You can't, you don't, [01:17:00] you know, bam. Didn't notice it. Collection was, I had no idea.
**Senator:** Allegedly,
**Bam Bam:** don't Listen.
**Rooster:** You know what, one, one good thing about this Lenaro is that this is, This is what it is. I mean, you don't have to chase this flavor is always gonna be there.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I mean,
**Poobah:** you, and that isn't that great about the Ador. I mean, that's such a merit to the, to the brand. It's like consistent.
**Bam Bam:** Yep.
Yeah. Every time you pick up one of these cigars, you know, you know what're gonna it, it's going to deliver. That's right. Something special. What's interesting is if you only smoked pe, drones and DDoS, you'd be a very happy cigar smoker. Mm-hmm. Because your consistency and quality will always be world
**Pagoda:** class and you can acquire them at, at
**Poobah:** any time.
Yeah, that's right. Ex Exactly. You can acquire them at any time. And I think for the listener, if you're a casual cigar smoker, I would suggest smoking. If you're gonna sit and do it only once a month or something, or twice a month. Mm-hmm. There are a lot [01:18:00] of people out there like that. They may have two or three cigars a month.
I would highly recommend exploring Davidoff and Petro. Yeah. Because they're, they're, they're accessible. And if you're gonna just do it that. Infrequently invest in that invest time well spent. Oh, on
**Rooster:** level of satisfaction that you get outta those, that what
**Bam Bam:** Puba just said. I think I would echo this. I think we all do.
That's an excellent recommendation. You're leveling up your game right off the bat.
**Senator:** Yeah, yeah. Speaking of acquiring things, what the hell were you watching the other day that you wanted, uh, a gizmo. Chain
**Bam Bam:** What? Uncut gems.
**Poobah:** Fob. It's a fab. It's a fob. You heard this almost that would go to, like, that would attach to a stopwatch.
It's
**Bam Bam:** no, it's it was a full chain or no, in uncut gems that Adam Sandler pulled out. That's a great movie, by the way. Great movie. It's, it really is. Was Gizmo. It was a, it was a diamond en crusted Gizmo. Gizmo. It was a, and that's what I said to you guys. I was like, Hey, Christmas is coming. You [01:19:00] gotta get that.
This is
**Rooster:** amazing. I think it's Adam Sandler's
**Bam Bam:** best work. It's a must movie. Are you? It's a great movie. It's Senator. You would love it. Must see. It's a musty. You've seen this film, so
**Senator:** I have to watch it. I heard all this dude. He's after like, he should get an Oscar for this
**Bam Bam:** or something. He's a degenerate gambler.
Who owns a jewelry story? Don't tell him.
**Senator:** Don't tell him. No, no, no. But that's, what's that called? That's premise summary.
**Bam Bam:** That's not, that's not, doesn't change the, what's it called? It's not Long story short. Uncut gems. Uncut Gems, yeah. The thing that you need to know about it is it's revolved around, Basketball.
Yeah. Kevin Garnet. Oh, I'm
**Senator:** in. You're in. I'm in. You would love it. I'm done. Okay. So I have to watch this.
**Bam Bam:** Yes, you have
**Poobah:** to watch. Watch it. But don't watch it late at night cause it's very intense. It's friend Danny. Oh. I mean, guys,
**Bam Bam:** we're gonna make
**Senator:** no spoilers. Don't spoil. No spoilers. No, no. But it's good to know that.
So the funny thing is GIZ sends out this text. He's like, I just watched this great movie. I have to, I want this chain. So the funny thing is I'm a, I'm a watch guy. So like, I'm not a jewelry guy per se, but I'm a watch guy. So I'm looking all over the internet. I'm like, I gotta find this chain somewhere.
Crazy enough. This fucking thing is like literally [01:20:00] impossible to get. It is. It doesn't exist. So the funny thing is, some enterprising person after this movie made like 200 of these like gold chains with a fucking gizmo pendant on it that like at first started selling for like 250 a pop. I'm like, okay, that's reasonable.
And I guess he started selling a bunch of them and realized like, wow, people really want this. So they started going for thousands. The guy like jacked up the price and now I don't understand. I thought like in fucking China, you would be able to find like replicas of this. They don't exist. However, I want Gizmo to open something.
**Bam Bam:** Oh my God. Oh, get
**Poobah:** outta
**Bam Bam:** here. Get outta town. My God. Come on. Get outta
**Senator:** town.
**Bam Bam:** Whoa. I'm surprised. No way Mike GI open. I'm excited right now.
**Senator:** Something's gonna get more use of, than a gold chain. Well, I
**Bam Bam:** want to see him wear it. Oh my God. It's a t-shirt with the
**Senator:** chain on it.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, that's so adorable. Gizmo. Gizmo. Oh my God, [01:21:00] that is awesome.
You know, it kind of looks like you too. I kinda
**Poobah:** Right. Okay, so for the Listen for the listener, I'm gonna give a visual description real quick. Alright, so, so this is incredible. It is incredible. It's. That's incredible. This is remarkable when I need to just probe on how you even did this anyway. Cause the artwork's phenomenal.
This is unbelievable. So, so, so it's a black t-shirt. Okay.
**Senator:** Which is all I wear about, which is all gizmo
**Bam Bam:** wears as soon as I was able to do this. That's correct. GIZ
**Poobah:** wears it's gizmo style. So, so, so this shirt is, it's a black t-shirt and then picture like a really, an imprint of like a really thick rope chain that goes from like the a, like it's clavicles down.
Down over the nips over, over the nips, down the chest. Imprinted on the shirt with With a gremlin. Yeah. With a
**Bam Bam:** gizmo. With a bedazzled diamond.
**Poobah:** Diamond [01:22:00] gizmo in crusted gizmo. I, I, I think this is a remarkable job.
**Bam Bam:** I need seven of these so I can wear one every day. I mean, your
**Poobah:** procurement ability is, oh my look, what
**Bam Bam:** have you done?
What have you done? I think Senator was in his garage printing these. This could be the greatest gift I've ever gotten. Where'd you find it? So what the hell?
**Senator:** Explain this to me. There is one website. That is like the most amazing source of t-shirts, particularly with like pop culture or like movie references, all these crazy things.
Like the only slide I could find that would make my t-shirt is great. It was unbelievable. Like literal, I'm scouring the fucking inter, I'm like, I'm good at finding jewelry, like this shouldn't be that hard. And when I accepted the reality that, okay, getting the actual gizmo is not quite possible and it would take forever to try to have someone make one and I'd probably have to spend an absurd amount of money to do it.
And I said, what can I get now? And then the irony when I came, I'm like, what? You know Gizmo loves black T-shirts. Like if I could [01:23:00] have this on a shirt, he would, he's not gonna walk around with a real gold chain with a gizmo on it every day, but a shirt with that, he would wear it, oh, I'm gonna wear this, so I find this one site that does this, and they fucking ship it to me.
Everything is perfect. And I'm like, this is amazing.
**Bam Bam:** What is amazing? What is this
**Poobah:** goddamn website?
**Bam Bam:** Gotta look it up. I forget. To gizmos.com. Yeah. Alright. This is the greatest gift I've ever gotten. I am so excited. By the way,
**Poobah:** I was all, I was expecting the full chain. Yeah, me too.
**Bam Bam:** I'm actually kind of relieved cuz I'll actually, I can actually wear that.
That's
**Senator:** the thing. He could show up at the lounge wearing that. Oh, I can't wait
**Poobah:** for that. So when Gizmo goes on tilt, we can, we can just say instead of when he, he goes on tilt, you know, he goes, he goes on tilt sometimes. So, so, uh, we could say he's off the chain.
**Bam Bam:** He's off the say we can
**Poobah:** say gizmos
**Bam Bam:** off the chain.
Oh bad. That's Senator. Thank you. That is a phenomenal gift.
**Pagoda:** Oh my lord. I can see him in Cuba just wearing
**Bam Bam:** [01:24:00] this every, by the way, I'm gonna wear this till Ato the next time we go to Cuba. Don't do that, please. I can't wait. Bam. Doesn't like when I wear graphic tees. No, I,
**Pagoda:** you should have had fake
**Bam Bam:** collars on it, please.
Bacon collars.
**Poobah:** No, no, this, this is gonna become, I see this becoming a signature. You know, cuz, cuz, cuz uh, GIZ you know, when he, when he sinks his teeth into something, it's like, forget about it. Which is why, which is why this pop part, a huge reason why this podcast is, has been as successful as it as it's been.
Of course. But I could see that being like, if you go to like, trade shows, like, like, like, like you've gotta wear that. Oh yeah. Like everywhere.
**Bam Bam:** Like that's your whole signature. I'm gonna wear this to pba. Right,
**Poobah:** exactly. You need like five of those. So everyone's like, that's the gizmo. That's the gizmo. Look for the guy with the chain, with the gizmo, with the chain T-shirt.
Chain T-shirt with the gizmo idol on its him. That's, that's incredible. That's your signature for sure. Your new signature. All you need on the back is like a number, uh, that says like lub. Like l u B [01:25:00] number 14. 14 Gizmo.
**Bam Bam:** Senator.
**Pagoda:** Fantastic.
**Senator:** Well done. Thank you. Cheers. Well, good thing is there's more where that came from.
So if you need one for every day of the week, I can
**Bam Bam:** make it happen. I need the link. We need to water
**Pagoda:** can, can we get a pink one too? We're
**Poobah:** gonna get you one. Me. We're on. It's going
**Grinder:** on the On the On the On the Lounge. Liz
**Poobah:** Merch site. Absolutely. On the back. Under the convert. We're gonna get him printed. Love.
14. You gotta get him a hoodie. Just on the neck. On the neck
**Bam Bam:** of the neck. Yes. I need love. 14. We're on the sleeve. The hoodie. Yes.
**Senator:** They might be able to do that. That's
**Bam Bam:** a good idea. Yeah, you gotta do a hoodie. That is amazing. I'm very impressed because I did some Googling. I didn't find anything. I couldn't anywhere.
**Senator:** I'm impressed. But that was my next best bet and one place was able to do it. You
**Bam Bam:** nailed it, dude. Wow. Well thank you. I'm very excited. Awesome. I'm gonna wear it tomorrow. Awesome shirt. Awesome shirt. So boys, we're into the last third here of the. Millennium Landero, you're done with yours? I'm, I'm, yeah, I just wrapped up.
I'm about done. I've been [01:26:00] smoking. I I've loved every second of it. Me too. I really blew through it. Richard just got into the second half. I know, I know. It's my second one. What are you guys thinking? Uh, it's a stunning, it's a, it's a great cigar. Yeah. I, I, I really wish, you know, I don't know if this is different than the lancer that was regular production years ago, but whatever this is, it's really, really working.
Yeah. It's a home run. Yeah, it's a slam. So where
**Rooster:** would you rate this compared to all the entire millennium lineup? Well, I guess we're gonna find out. That would be like the
**Bam Bam:** number one, number two, number three. Yeah. Love station. For me personally, you know how much I love the pyramid, so for me that's always gonna be number one.
Yeah. Would this be number two? Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
**Pagoda:** I'm surprised it doesn't change your mind.
**Bam Bam:** But I will say I had the, this is, this is awesome. I, it's awesome that I had the petite millennium Corona. Yeah. I love Corona. For the first time two days ago, it was so flavorful. Here's delicious. It's my problem.
Here's our, you know, we talked about this. I think Puba, it's different. Here's the problem with the, it's different than that boutique. Corona [01:27:00] is the dollar for value. Yeah. It's expensive. It's too expensive for the size. True, true. What is it? 1920 bucks for that petite Corona. 20 bucks. Yeah. And we're an hour and a half in, yeah.
Used to be $11. Yeah. Well, we're an hour and a half in on this $29 cigar. Yeah. And look at the experience it's giving us. So there's definitely a value problem there in the petite Corona. Unless you can
**Rooster:** get it from like a third party, you know, like I have had a great deal on those maybe. And then it came down to like 12,
**Poobah:** $13.
Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** That is an, that's a great short smoke,
**Grinder:** great short smoke. I, I would still rate the, uh, rub robusto. I love the Rob Robusto rubo ahead of this one. Yeah. In, in my opinion. Oh, ahead of this? Yeah. Mm, wow. Of the three.
**Bam Bam:** Whoa, wow.
**Senator:** Wow. I, well this is gonna be interesting when we rate, cuz I, I think some of us are gonna definitely have a difference of opinion on it.
Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** absolutely. Oh, oh, I, I, I like,
**Grinder:** I like the very traditional davidov millennium taste and I get more of that
**Bam Bam:** so he's not wrong. So the pyramid, you do get that beautiful traditional [01:28:00] tobacco coffee, actually espresso, a little chocolate, no fruit notes. This, this is Senator said it earlier. It is more complex Yeah.
Than the pyramid for sure. Because you're getting those fruit nuts in it. Yeah. And the way it works, it's so velvety smooth. I just love the size. Yeah. It's just so elegant. That's where I was drawn. Very elegant. It's so elegant in
**Senator:** the hands, dude. It's a sexy cigar. Yes. I think the biggest thing for me is it, it's not, I mean, I love this shape.
Obviously the size is great, but the flavor. Has complexity. Yeah. And I do like that, you know, the millennium and I, I'm fine with one act plays. I mean, for me, some of the biggest, probably the biggest virtue for me in a cigar is consistency. It's like, I know what I'm gonna get every time and I'm happy with that flavor profile, but I will give this credit, like how this started, the second half, it like builds richness and strength.
That's right. I think it loses some of those dried fruit or wet fruit, whatever you wanna call it, notes. And it becomes more traditional [01:29:00] millennia, uh, uh, millennium. Mm-hmm. And to me, I, I actually like that there's like two distinct acts in this cigar. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** It does become more of a traditional millennium as you go through it.
That's
**Poobah:** true. It does. Yeah. That's, but that's a virtue. I think that's a major virtue. Oh dude. A hundred percent. Uh, in, in this, in this, in this cigar. And I would, uh, I would really, I, I think that's an acute observation. It's a definitely a two act play. And down the stretch here. Like, I'm smoking this down to the nub and it's, it's, it's satisfying.
That's rare
**Bam Bam:** for you. Shots fired? Not really. He just wanted to take the opportunity for me. Okay.
**Poobah:** I mean, I, I, I feel like I finished my cigars, but we can, we can, we can discuss that pod for, for another pod for another time. I mean, uh,
**Rooster:** I mean this cigar gets like extra points just for the pigtail for me. Oh
**Senator:** yeah.
Oh, we know that. Why, why
**Bam Bam:** do you cut it
**Pagoda:** off [01:30:00] then? Uh, why do you cut it
**Bam Bam:** off? Yeah, you should.
**Rooster:** You're supposed to just pinch it off. Would the draw this open? I think that would've
**Poobah:** worked. Yeah. That's super smoke, right? I mean, it was really unbelievable. It was really a super cigar. Unbelievable smoke. Super duper.
Um, What else can I say? I mean, I don't know. There's not much more to say. It, it, it has all those things that are familiar. It had some things that were surprising and different. I'm a little
**Rooster:** surprised at Grindr's comment, which, because Grinder, when he, when you first took like the first two puffs, you were like, I'm so blown away with, with the cigar, and did it not and fell.
**Pagoda:** And the cord, I
**Grinder:** mean, the question was, and the context of the question was how would you, how would you stack this in the millennium, you know, paradigm. And for me, I, like I said at the beginning, there's a concentration of those, of those flavors, which is great, but it's not, it's not what I like the [01:31:00] most.
And, uh, that's why I think that's fair. And, and, and I'm still gonna rate it a high score. Yeah,
**Senator:** sure. I'm gonna say something that may be a little controversial about the millennium line. I, I like full cigars. Everybody knows that the millennium re buso for me, sometimes it's almost too strong. Mm.
**Bam Bam:** Really?
That's why I
**Senator:** like it, honestly. Really? I mean, no exaggeration. So, uh, you like it. A, a friend, a friend of mine who's a member at our lounge, we were somewhere once and I had given him like a shark or something and he's like, I gotta give you something in return. Please take this. And it was the millennium or boosto and I, I don't have a box of those.
I don't smoke them very often. And I said, okay, this is perfect. Something I don't have or smoke a lot, so I'll, I'll have one. And I lit that millennium or boosto and I was, I was probably four cigars deep at that point. And I was like, wow, this is a strong, I mean, I don't consider the millennium pyramid strong.
I think it's medium full. Yeah. This cigar medium full, that millennium or boosto. It [01:32:00] is full, like firmly in that category. Was it? Was it in a tube?
**Rooster:** No, it wasn't. Okay.
**Senator:** Hmm. Or me, ah, now I'm forgetting. I don't know. This was at our, our place that is known for its pores. So actually, I, I won't, I'm not certain.
Ah. Mm-hmm. Um, you know where we were, right?
**Poobah:** We, but we've procured very few tubes, David, it offs because tube.
**Senator:** So I just say that like,
**Pagoda:** it's like being on a Gulf coast
**Senator:** of, so wind, the, the millennium line. Why I love it and it's utility is that I think it kind of slots almost anywhere. Like I can light a millennium pyramid in the afternoon.
Yeah. I can light one in the evening. Mm-hmm. I would light this in the afternoon, the evening there. There's no time that I would say like, oh, that's totally inappropriate to have millennium. Right. But that rubber buso, I. I'd only have that after a meal at and dinner like evening times. That's my only thing I would say about that.
What about, but
**Poobah:** what about, what, what's your take on the, on the late hour ru boosto? That that's, that's a great,
**Bam Bam:** that's fantastic.
**Senator:** That's good. And that's actually sweeter. Yeah. And not as aggress aggressive. I would say [01:33:00] that's medium as the
**Poobah:** Churchill. Yeah. That's what your take is on. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Interesting. I'd say the late hour buso is definitely medium.
Yeah. Interesting. Would it, would it be fair to
**Rooster:** say that all of us smoke a davidov at least once during the week?
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, probably everybody but me a hundred percent. I'm probably the only one that's not regularly smoking. That's
**Pagoda:** true. Us, us, us smoke a lot more because Dominicans. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** Dominicans and yeah,
**Senator:** IGOs, honestly, probably daily.
Oh, but that
**Bam Bam:** Dominican is incredible. Yeah. It's great value. Oh, absolutely. About 20 bucks. Cigarette pba. Do you smoke a David off every week?
**Poobah:** Not every week. Yeah. No, not every
**Bam Bam:** week. I feel like you and I are probably the ones that, excuse me, that don't smoke DDoS every week. I
**Poobah:** just tend to l I just tend to lean towards, we know, you, you guys know, I just tend to lean towards up men and RGUs.
Yeah. Just bec it's as just habit. But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't, you know what I mean? That's what I have in my humidor. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't, uh, but this is going to, this is a [01:34:00] catalyst now. Yeah. So now this is a good one. Yeah. So this, this cigar now is making me say, Ooh, I wanna smoke more millennium.
And, and
**Bam Bam:** again, to your point earlier, it's 29 bucks. And to get this kind of experience over 90 minutes, 90 plus minutes and complexity and complex. Yeah. Everything about it. Yeah. I mean, that's, to me, at 29 bucks, that's good value. And
**Rooster:** also the, it's really good presentation of this box.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. The 10 count box.
10 count box in a, it's really box slid
**Poobah:** wooden box with the sliding lid. I need, really need, I'm gonna, I need to get a couple boxes of these. I think that it was, I, I really en I really thoroughly enjoyed the cigar. Yeah. Very much. Very, very much.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I
**Pagoda:** know a guy who knows. A guy who knows a guy.
**Senator:** His name is Gizmo
**Bam Bam:** Hemo.
Hemo. All right boys, let's rate the Cal Island 12 year, single month scotch. Okay, great. For me, it was a great pairing tonight. I'm curious how this rating's gonna end up. We will see, but bam, bam. We're gonna start with you. So I, I love the [01:35:00] spirit. Uh, I thought it, it did overwhelm this cigar just a bit. Just a bit.
I would probably prefer to have this, uh, this spirit with a cigar, like an exi or an E two rather than this cigar. I'm not saying that it was a bad pair. E two is a surprising call out there. Yeah. Well, for me it's, for me, it's a richer cigar. I would probably give this spirit, I'm giving gonna give it an eight.
Eight, okay. Grinder. Grindr, I,
**Grinder:** I'm actually giving you an eight as well. Um, but I thought I liked it more than you.
**Bam Bam:** That's surprising. Yeah. What? Well,
**Grinder:** that is surprising. I'm a hard grader when it comes to whiskey. This
**Bam Bam:** is true. He is a hard
**Senator:** grader with whiskey. That's true. So you made it sound like this is one of your all time favorites.
**Grinder:** Well, I, I have sentimental value with the, with this, with this scotch because I was broadening my pallet when I first consumed it in, in Scotland. And, um, uh, you know, it was, that was a great experience for me. So I, I had a. It also, I have an affinity for Eli Scotch and the pettiness of which now [01:36:00] this is definitely something that I appreciated for a while and, and I know I tried to make hemo appreciate it as well.
Um, but when I think of Eli PD Scotch, I think of, you know, I think of lovable and 16 and, um, and then Kela, you know, Cal Islas below it. And I would say lovable. And 16 is a nine for me, and that's, I don't think I've ever given any scotch to 10 maybe except for Macallan out of sentiment. Um, so yeah, that's, that's my score.
Okay. Okay.
**Bam Bam:** Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** Well, this is an interesting one for me because, uh, When I smelted the first time, it started a very like sweet caramelly and then I really got a bad whiff. And then,
**Bam Bam:** sorry, a bad whiff. A bad whiff. Sorry. I dunno, I dunno, I dunno how to express it. English
**Pagoda:** is my second
**Bam Bam:** language guy. It's
**Poobah:** like, it's like he was going downtown for the devil's chocolate
**Bam Bam:** English is [01:37:00] my, we know what that means.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell the social media guy to pull a bad whiff. I
**Pagoda:** thought this was gonna be rate so low. But then after, uh, you know, having, putting to Mason and I'll tell you, this has been really good and I think, um, I'm, I'm gonna rate it in Nate, um, because I've soughted more of a poor with the yes and uh mm-hmm.
It's been, uh, uh, very pleasant. Uh, so I don't think it's as PD as a la Golin 16, but, um, I didn't find it as pd. I, I thought it was less pd. I was expecting it to be more PD for some reason. Uh, but having said that, it's an eight for me, Senator.
**Senator:** So this is interesting. I'm in lockstep with, with all of you guys.
Um, and I'm, I'm glad I was asking Grinder because I was worried when we started that. I think we both really liked liable and I was worried that you like this more than liable and, but that's not the case. So I'm in the same camp liable, and for me, 16 is a nine. I would give this an eight and [01:38:00] uh, I'm glad that we put some ice in here because when it started, I would've given it a seven.
Um, but most 12, I mean, honestly, I think every 12 year scotch that we regularly drink, we drink with some ice, it's not like we only sip that meat. Yep. And so, um, I think it was very fair to do that. And I think it really opens up and I think it brings the best out of this scotch when it has a little bit of ice or just a little bit of water, and it got creamier and smoother, sweeter.
And that's where it wasn't clashing as much with this cigar. Um, I do agree with bam though that I still think, even though this isn't as Pete as liable in 16, the, the, the amount of Pete mm-hmm. For how I still think, I'm sorry there's very little Pete in this cigar, if any. Um, and so I think it overpowers it just a bit.
Uh, but I would drink this happily, you know, many times, uh, beyond this, uh, pod we're recording. And so for me it's an eight.
**Bam Bam:** So, uh, this is interesting for me because from when we first [01:39:00] started to where we are now, even with the ice, where it paired with the cigar, I'm a nine. Ooh, wow. Wow. I really enjoyed this.
Interesting. Um, I think because I have Lagavulin at home, I've actually preferred this to Lagavulin tonight. So it, I, I happened to enjoy the spirit. It's just the, the pairing itself was maybe just a slight tinge off, but it's, it was delicious with the right cigar. So I'll, I'll correct myself. Not an E two, but a Maduro RGUs, manura one.
That's better. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. Yeah. And, and a RAs would be great with this guy, I think. So that for me, when I, when I'm thinking PD scotch now, yeah. I think instead of, of Tallk 10 or oen, which is kind of in the middle. Mm. Or, or LAVILLE in 16, uh, if, if any of those are my choices, and I have this as well.
I think I'm gonna reach for this, and that's why it's a nine.
**Senator:** Nice. Well, Grindr, uh, clearly more than more than mission accomplishment. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Refined palette. Oh, refined pal. Thank you. [01:40:00] Refined. Hey, let me get the t-shirt. You know, that doesn't look refined, right? I'm ignoring you, Ben. Uh, you
**Poobah:** look Cub, go ahead.
You look adorable. Yeah, I'm, I'm gonna be pretty brief. I mean, I, I'm, I agree with all the commentary here, um, from, you know, from everybody. I, so for me, I'm not going to, I agree with it. I, the commentary put forward is for me, uh, it's an eight for me. Um, very, very, very nice. And, and you know what, like I stated in the beginning is the, is the, was the pairing from, you know, perfect, uh, with this cigar and that scotch?
No, but who cares? We're, we're, we're this scotch for me, I, I would buy it. I think it's a strong recommend and it's an eight. All
**Bam Bam:** right, so the composite lizard score, On the formal liquor rating is an 8.2. Okay. On the Cal, Iowa 12 year. Wow. I think that's a great score.
**Poobah:** It's a really nice, I'm very comfortable with [01:41:00] spirit.
It's a really
**Bam Bam:** good score. I'm very comfortable with
**Senator:** that. Anything over eight is a definite recommended. It's an
**Bam Bam:** excellent score. Yeah. Very comfortable with that. All right, so the Davidoff Millennium Land 0 20 23 limited edition. It's time to do the formal lizard rating on this thing. Rooster, you're up.
**Rooster:** Yeah. Great cigar. I mean, very, uh, very satisfied with this. Definitely going to try to get some more boxes. Yeah. So for me it's a nine.
**Bam Bam:** Excellent
**Poobah:** Puba. Yeah. It's a, it, it, it's a nine for all the reasons that were stated during the podcast. It's a nine for me,
**Bam Bam:** so I gave the millennium pyramid a nine. Mm-hmm.
And this, I'm having difficulty right now. Yeah. I'm having difficulty because this is better than that cigar for me. I'm enjoying this more than I do the pyramid. Which I know bam is no, you know, no offense to each his own dude, but the size, the flavor, the delivery, the smoke [01:42:00] output, everything about it has been great.
But I don't think it's touching a 10. I, you know, I, I think it's kind of low nines. There you go. So I'm also at a nine Senator.
**Senator:** So what you're saying resonates with me in the sense that I'm, I'm sitting here kind of comparing in many ways, the landro and the pyramid. I think each of them has different strengths.
And so I land at a nine on this, which is probably what I also gave the pyramid.
**Bam Bam:** By the way. We all gave the pyramid
**Senator:** a nine. Okay. So perfect. And the reason I say that, and it's funny, they kind of just all end in the same place, but you're gonna have a different experience. I will say, and Bam started with this and I couldn't agree more.
The construction of the Millennium Pyramid, I personally think is one of the most beautifully constructed cigars I have ever seen. Mm-hmm. Period. Mm-hmm. I would not say that this is the most beautiful landero or cigar I've ever seen. I think we talked about how it's a little bit [01:43:00] rustic in the construction.
Like you look at a millennium pyramid, you're, it, it's perfect every time. It almost doesn't look real. You don't know how it could be made so perfectly. Um, and so this doesn't have that from a construction standpoint. I mentioned how the ash on a millennium pyramid, I mean, it feels like you can almost smoke all the way down without having to ash.
And this, you gotta keep ashing and that's just the virtue of the size that that's a function of the size. Right. The shape I get that the flavor in this is definitely more complex than the millennium pyramid, and that's where it starts to score higher. Mm-hmm. Um, I, you know, two act play, as I said before, I love this introduction of those fruit notes up front, which I don't get at all, um, from a millennium pyramid.
But what I will say, the final third of this, the millennium pyramid, I mean, I'll, I mean, bam will always smoke till his fingers are burning. And that's cigar on that cigar. Sure. And I find myself even doing that a lot of the time with it, and it's super satisfying. This in the final, final inch, half an inch, [01:44:00] um, is satisfying.
But I do feel the flavors get a little bit muddled when you get down to the very, very end of it. And so for all those things, like they both net out to a nine, but I think the experience is different. And so each has a time and a place.
**Bam Bam:** All right. What was your rating? Sorry. A nine. Okay. All right. Pagoda?
Uh, it's a 10 for me. Ooh, wow. Wow, wow. Yaa. I love it. Yaa. And, and I'm gonna,
**Pagoda:** I'm, I'm going to, uh, so I've been, I've been thinking about this because, um, I think, uh, if you go back to the initial podcast and you talk about a lot of the cigars, I think we were a lot more strict in terms of the way we were rating them.
I, that's what I feel I like at least. Uh, personally, I think now we've become a little more liberal. Uh, this is a cigar I've enjoyed from the beginning to the end. Um, an hour and a half has been fantastic. It's brought the joy in all of us. It's a 10 for me. Um, you know, uh, I couldn't figure out the flavor.
Uh, [01:45:00] when you pointed out it was raspberry and I don't know whether listeners you want to try this or not. I was touching my tongue to the top of my palate and you could just feel that concentrated, concentrated flavor of now what we, and maybe the raspberry flavor, I can't really pinpoint exactly what it is.
Hmm. It was so pleasant. Um, I really enjoyed it from the beginning to the end. It's a 10 for me.
**Bam Bam:** All right. Grindr eight.
**Grinder:** Um, I'm, I'm writing this. No preconceived ratings, please. I'm, I'm writing this, do not preempt the rating. I'm writing this the same, that I'd rate the, the pyramid and the rub robusto, which is a nine.
**Bam Bam:** All right. Oh, that's
**Grinder:** a great score. Um, be just because it, you know, I consider them in the same class, so in that little box, I, that's how I'd rank, rack and stack 'em. So this might be a nine two as opposed to a nine, four or five for the pyramid and a nine three for the Ram Buso. I don't know. Um, but [01:46:00] you know, it's got all those classic flavors.
It's definitely a little more concentrated. I'd really enjoyed the combination, you know, the pairing. Um, So that, I think, I think it helped the flavor, uh, enjoyment considerably. And, um, the finish was a little long on the, on the, uh, on that, on that whiskey. But having that cigar, I thought it was great. Um, you know, I thought it was, I thought it was very nice smokey flavor.
Um, I just loved it, you know, so this cigar was, I did get the two act play. Um, and I certainly agree. I, I think it got better with the second act. Uh, smooth. It smoothened
**Poobah:** out the middle. The middle was great, wasn't it? It was, yeah.
**Bam Bam:** The middle was great. The transition was nice. Yeah. Best part was the middle.
Yeah, the middle
**Poobah:** of the beginning. And the middle was really, the beginning was not that the end was bad. The cold draw
**Bam Bam:** was great. Boy,
**Poobah:** boy, it was that. Those are some pretty good. No, but,
**Bam Bam:** but
**Grinder:** seriously, it, it felt like it just, it, it got, it got better and, and, um, you know, the whole, the whole, all the [01:47:00] way down.
So, nine.
**Bam Bam:** All right. Nice. Bam, bam. So, you know, initially the first two thirds I was at a nine. And the final third, I'm piggybacking on what Senator said. There is a little bit of a, an pneumonia thing that you get when you get down to that final inch, and I took this down to a half inch. I love the cigar. So as I was getting closer and closer to the end, I was actually wake teetering between a eight and a nine.
But I have to give the cigar a nine for its complexity and for its combination of flavors that you're getting. I don't get that in a, in a Pyramid nine. Excellent. So the composite lizard score is a 9.1. Fantastic. Just on the edge. It's okay. Almost a 9.2. Yeah, but it's a 9.1 there. There you go. Now the shape has a lot to do with it because it's so elegant and beautiful, which is why it, for me, it edged out.
The pyramid. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it, you know, by one point our composite lizard score on the pyramid was a 9.0. Right. When, when we did that by 0.1, actually. Yeah. Yeah. [01:48:00] So it's just, it's just edging that a little bit.
**Senator:** Yeah. And I think it's flavor that did that. Absolutely. I don't think it's absolutely, it's just elegant.
I actually think the pyramid's more elegant. It is. But I, I think the flavors what did it Agreed. Yeah. Agreed.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. All right, boys. Great night tonight. So we had the Cal Isla, 12 year aged at an 8.2, and the Davidoff millennium Landro at a 9.1. An excellent pairing. Excellent night, excellent night. Great conversation.
Hold on, let me get my T-shirt.
**Poobah:** Yeah, put that up to your, your stay. Hold on, stay on, stay on the chain. Put it to your breast. Let's see. Stay
**Bam Bam:** on the chain for the close. Hey, by the way, Senator, that's a ten's a 10. The shirt's a 10. The shirt's a All right. Great night guys. Great, excellent night, and uh, we'll see you all next week.
You smoke. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You could find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website. Lounge Lizards podd.com. That's Lounge lizards, P [01:49:00] o d.com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us hello@loungelizardspod.com.
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