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The lizards pair the Partagás Serie P No. 2 with Nikka Coffey Grain Whisky. The guys discuss the patented distillation process of the whisky pairing, they read a critical listener email and Pagoda details his first fender bender.
Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo, and tonight I'm joined by Rooster Grindr, Senator Pagoda, and bam.
Bam. And our plan is to smoke cigar, drink some whiskey, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 36th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan a beat is here once a week. We're gonna smoke Cuban cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating.
We discuss the patented distillation process of our whiskey pairing. We read a critical listener email and pagoda details, his first fender bender, all among a variety of other things for the next. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair Nick, a coffee grain whiskey with the Parus series P.
Number two,
the Battle of the Pyramids [00:01:00] continues tonight on the pod with the Parus series P. Number two, a beautiful Cuban that we all love. So very, very much. I think we all have a bunch of these in our human are right boys. Oh yeah. Love this thing. Just a few, just . Yeah, just, just a few boxes. Just a few 25 counts.
It's a, uh, it's a beautiful 52 ring gauge by six and an eighth inch cigar. Like we mentioned, a pyramid, um, tapers at the top and it's just classic letters. Serious RGUs. Yep, for sure. Standard production. Yes, sir. So let's cut this thing. Boy. See what we're getting on the cold draw. It's interesting to, you know, I was thinking about this, uh, today.
I was, I was texting with Rooster earlier and I was telling him how. This is one of those cigars that like, knowing that we were gonna do this on the pod tonight. I've been thinking about it all day, all day long. I've been thinking about this cigar. I was
**Grinder:** texting and he is like, I can't wait to see you guys in three hours.
Yeah. I was like,
**Gizmo:** yes. Okay. I'm ready. I'm ready. All right, [00:02:00] boys, what are you getting on the cold? Draw this thing. Bit of cedar. It is definitely seay. Let be a little dried fruit. Yeah. Not much on the cold draw. My draw is is really nice though. It's not, oh, it's fabulous. Mine's wide open yet. It's it's perfect.
It's perfect. All right. Let's light this thing boys. The party get series P number two. Again, it's a 52 ring gauge by six and an eighth from Cuba. Uh, part of the letter series, this, I think in the D four, are kind of the headline acts of the RGUs letter series. There's plenty of others, but, um, I think these two kind.
Lead the charge a little bit and the E two I guess as well, which is a newer, newer, uh, member of the club.
**Bam Bam:** Did you mention the year this was
**Gizmo:** released? No, this was released originally in 2005.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, I read earlier it was 2000 on ca.
**Gizmo:** No, it's 2005. According to our friends, it's [00:03:00] to, uh, Cuban cigar website.
**Rooster:** So when it's a pyramid, how, how far do you guys cut Just the tape?
A little bit
**Bam Bam:** more. Quarter of an inch. About a quarter
**Rooster:** inch.
**Gizmo:** Exactly. One quarter of
**Rooster:** an inch. Because I see, I see around the room. I mean, you guys cut more than I did. I
**Gizmo:** think you and I are identical.
**Grinder:** Yeah. I try to look at where the band, uh, senators a touch more cap. I take a little bit
**Bam Bam:** more bit. That's
**Grinder:** fine.
I, I take, I look at where the cap, where the cap ends. Perfect. Perfect. And then I go just above where the cap ends.
**Senator:** I took a little more. I just take a little bit more on Cuban's Cuban pyramids and torpedoes than I do New World. Just because I, the number of plugged Cubans I've had, obviously a lot more than New World.
So just to make sure, I'm gonna get a nice draw on this. Yeah. I'm just
**Rooster:** afraid, like, sorry, it doesn't unravel.
**Senator:** No, no. This is, this is, I mean, mine certainly, I've never had an issue. I've
**Gizmo:** never had PTU unravel. Yeah. Even when I used to do gizmo cuts, I never , I never had one unravel. It's good you acknowledge this
**Grinder:** now.
Gizmo cuts. Yeah. Well that's [00:04:00] a, that's a great
**Gizmo:** name for when, when barbershop, when I have listeners emailing like, don't, don't do a gizmo cut. I'm gonna buy
**Bam Bam:** the URL for them. . It's a
**Gizmo:** fucking GI gizmo cut.com Gizmo cuts.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Little. I can see all the train of like five year
**Grinder:** olds going in .
**Senator:** Yeah. It sounds like super cuts for kids.
Yeah.
**Rooster:** Barbershop. Okay. Small
**Gizmo:** cuts. Mm-hmm. . Oh, what a delicious cigar in the white. Yeah. Wow. What are you guys getting on this thing? Mine
**Senator:** for me. Very nutty.
**Gizmo:** Little hay, nutty little weather. Cedar hay. Yeah. Leather coffee.
**Senator:** I'm getting a little coffee too. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** A little dried fruit. Like a raisin. Just a touch of that.
Mm-hmm. . I've seen people call out sourdough on these, uh, on these cigars. I, I've really never gotten that flavor note
**Bam Bam:** personally. I see. Honestly, I think the, the dryer, the cigar is, I, I get that. Yeah. Yeah. I
**Senator:** don't know. I think it's more of a brioche. . Just
**Gizmo:** kidding. Yeah. I don't like [00:05:00] dog.
**Rooster:** I don't like a doll when it gets sour.
No.
**Gizmo:** Foy gra no sour dog. It's you busting my balls again. Is that,
**Grinder:** that's the cu that's the cousin of Leroy gra, right? Fro
**Bam Bam:** gra. Right.
**Gizmo:** Leroy. Leroy, yeah. This is a delicious cigar. It's, it's awesome. I've been smoking a lot of these. I, you know, I think we talked about it when we did the Monte two. Um. It's usually one of the pyramids is, is pretty much in my daily rotation.
Mm-hmm. , it's, I'm either reaching for the Monte two, the this, the P two, the UPK two, or the uh, or the B B F, which is not a pyramid, but yeah. You know, the be coastus Pheno is is in that kind of slot in my, my daily rotation. Yep.
**Senator:** So I, I'll say I'm, I'm really glad, I don't know what the last couple years, the magic that's been produced in this cigar, because the P two was my favorite pyramid years ago, and obviously I'm a part of this guy just worked perfectly.
The D four, the P two, that was always part [00:06:00] of my rotation and I don't know, maybe I got unlucky, I had a few bad boxes, but I had P two s for a couple of years that were not bad, but just were not as spectacular as I remembered them and they sort of fell out of my rotation. I was like really shocked by this.
I would smoke through so many of these, and that's where the B B F became the headliner for me, where if I was picking up a pyramid, , that's the cigar I would get. And GIS has been raving about the, the younger P two s. And so I started buying some more of these and giving them another try and revisiting them.
And this is just like, I remember the cigar years ago, something in the last couple years. These are fantastic now.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So we're all smoking, I think 2020s or early 20 ones. Um, and I, you know, to your point, I've had, I had 20 fourteens that were very good and then I had 20 seventeens that were very, very lack less except for
**Bam Bam:** Rooster.
This is a 2009 .
**Gizmo:** Yeah, 2023 . Uh, [00:07:00] you know, I had a, the 20 seventeens I had were, were atrocious. And I say atrocious comparing to what I would expect out of a P two, you know, um, they just didn't deliver. So, yeah, I think this is, uh, this is really delicious. So what is the cigar stack? Um, you know, I don't want to compare to the D four, but I think it's a fair.
Thing to talk about flavor profile wise, because it is the letter series. It is classic part guess. Where does it compare for you versus cigars? Like the D four, just flavor-wise?
**Rooster:** Yeah. I'm not quite getting, like on the D four you get some cinnamon, you don't get, get that on the P two. Basically getting, uh, cedar and uh, some hay, like you said, some nuttiness.
Um, but not, not, uh, it's a totally different, not like baking
**Gizmo:** spices. Yeah. You know, I wouldn't say that it's
**Rooster:** a different cigar, no cinnamon or anything like that, but very smooth, very ba
**Gizmo:** balanced smoke. I find that there are a lot of folks who love the D four that don't love this and [00:08:00] vice versa. Oh, interesting.
Which is weird. I know it's a crazy thing to say in this group, but you know, on some of the forums, I. When they discuss specific cigars, that's crazy. They'll say like, A lot of folks don't love the D four, which is crazy to me. Wait, don't
**Senator:** love the D four saying, don't love the D four saying, all right, they're
**Bam Bam:** disqualified.
Yeah, they are. , I'm
**Gizmo:** sorry.
**Senator:** Like I've never, honestly, I, I'm actually curious. I have never met a person who has said they dislike a D four even. I can see it
**Rooster:** the other way around.
**Senator:** Me too, too. That's why I thought you would've said the P two, but
**Rooster:** not like somebody who loves a D four. Yeah. Might not love the P two.
Me too. Yeah. But not the other way around, because I think the P two has a little bit of pepper in it too. Yeah, right. It's, it's got a
**Gizmo:** little bit more ooph. Uh, that's true.
**Rooster:** D four is just smooth. It's cinnamon and it's very
**Bam Bam:** tasty. You know, I've given the D four to novice cigar guys, and they love it. They, I haven't had a
single
**Gizmo:** rejection, especially lately.
I mean, they've been spot on. Oh yeah. I mean, to me the, the D four is the gateway drug in the Cuban cigars. Yeah, we've said that. Yeah. You know, we've said that before. It's just the one for me. [00:09:00] If I'm gonna hand that to somebody who's never smoked to Cuban, that's the one you give them. Mm-hmm. ,
**Grinder:** you know, I don't, I don't smoke it enough to have a good comparison for me.
Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** You're disqualified. I think RAs, RAs
**Gizmo:** could also be a gateway. Definitely. For sure. Definitely. It's just not as ubiquitous as the
**Pagoda:** defer, you know? Sure. Because I've given it to a few of my friends and they have loved it. Yeah. And it's like, it's kind of really impressive because, you know, uh, typically we smoke a lot of the new worlds and then trying Cubans, you know, uh, RAs and Defor seem to be like on the medium bodied, uh, kind of, uh, flavor profile as well.
Uh, but people tend to like it.
**Rooster:** I love it. I mean, how many deforest do you guys smoke in a week? I mean, I smoke at least three or three to four. Probably at
**Gizmo:** least three to four, right? Yeah. Wow. Same. At least. Yeah, I would say at least three to four. But you know, if I'm smoking, here's what I'll say. If we're all kind of on the same page about that.
If I smoke a, if I'm planning to smoke a P two or another parus, I will not have a D four in my rotation that day. [00:10:00] I've been hesitant
**Senator:** different in that way. You'll have both. I think the flavor profile is different. Like I, I would easily, and I have many times before, especially before the bbf cracked my rotation, I'd start with the D four and then I'd go to this right after.
And I, I had no issue. I, I liked the progression cuz it went from like sweeter to like a little bit bolder of flavors in the P two. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** I've been hesitating, you know, going through my parus inventory because I'm afraid I can't get them. So I, I stay away from smoking these. I've got a lot of these, I've got a lot of D four.
I feel like I,
**Gizmo:** I'm trying to hoard them. I feel like I've been seeing these come up though. Yeah. Um, you know, like I, I'm fortunate I have three boxes of them that I've gotten in the last couple months that I just, yesterday. Yeah. I mean they just, they just have been continually popping up. So, you know, I think I, I, I don't think you're gonna.
I don't think these are gonna be in limited
**Senator:** supply. Yeah. If I also had to compare this just we we're obviously talking the battle of the pyramids and torpedoes and all that. This to me is [00:11:00] most similar to an up in two. I agree. Where like this is nothing like a BBB f I would never make the comparison, but I get a lot of, and I think the up and two interestingly, like doesn't have as aggressively dessert like flavors as some of the other monds and I think has a little.
You know, body and, and, and strength of flavor to it that I think this also does within the RGUs lines. Yeah. I view them as very similar sticks. I will
**Grinder:** say
**Bam Bam:** though, I've been, I've been the up intu order that we shared. Yeah. Those are so delicious. They're amazing. I am getting a, a fair amount of dessert notes in that particular cigar that I haven't ever gotten in previous
**Gizmo:** tu.
There is a sweetness about those strange twos that nothing else has. Yeah. It's just a touch of sweetness that kind of rounds it
**Bam Bam:** out. Yeah. I don't get that in this cigar. To me. No. This is more, a, more of a serious cigar is pepper, like we said, coffee leathery.
**Pagoda:** Actually, I did get a bit of sweetness in the back end, like very mild milk [00:12:00] chocolate.
**Senator:** I don't know. I got some, some of that with the coffee notes.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. , I agreed. There's a saltiness about this too that is, is very different than Amani two type of saltiness, where we call it twang. Yeah. You know, where it's a, it's a different type of, of salt. This to me is more like a, I hesitate to use the word almost like a table salt or something, but that kind of salt on my tongue very different than Amani
**Senator:** too.
I, I agree. But that, I mean, that's just like typical Parus flavor. Classic parus. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like you get that in the D four. You'll get that even in an E two. This
**Bam Bam:** is an awesome cigar.
**Gizmo:** It is hand, hands down and it's elegant in the hand. It's, it's a serious smoke. Yeah. You know? Um, yeah. You feel good smoking
**Senator:** it.
I'll go as far as to say some may disagree and I, I guarantee if people were here, he probably would disagree with this. Oh, I know where you're going. But I think of the pyramids, Uhhuh, , that the P two is the best constructed of them. As much as I love the bbf, bf the BBF is a more rustic construction. Yep.
And [00:13:00] even the up and twos, I'll be honest, I don't think they're beautiful looking cigars. I really don't. I think they smoke fantastically, but I'm never, I don't like hold an up and two and say, wow, look at the construction of that. Some P two s, you get a box. I mean, this in particular, the construction's
**Gizmo:** perfect.
Yeah. They're pristine. . Well, the bbf
**Rooster:** is a Bella Koosa, right? Yeah. It's not
**Senator:** a true period. Yeah. I don't mean it in a literal sense, but you're all roughly the same scene.
**Rooster:** Similar Dimens. Have you, have you had the Diplomatico number two?
**Gizmo:** I have. I didn't. You didn't it? I didn't love it. We have to do it on the pod.
Oh yeah. I just didn't love it. I didn't love it. I have another one that I just haven't touched fresh or No, it's, it's an older one. I think it's the same that, that we got, I don't know if it's 1514. It's pretty, I feel like it has some age on it, but I just didn't love that
**Bam Bam:** cigar. I'm intrigued by that line.
Haven't had enough of those.
**Gizmo:** Yeah,
**Rooster:** I haven't had too many of those. Yeah. Yeah. Need to explore
**Gizmo:** more. So we mentioned that, uh, these come, we, we mentioned that we have boxes of 25. They also come in, um, the display [00:14:00] cardboard boxes. Of 15, two bows in five cardboard packs. And they also come, which is why I wanted to mention this because I'm loving them.
They also come in a semi boy nature box of 10 cigars as opposed to the 25. And I have been, you know, loving 10 count boxes of parus loving them. But
**Bam Bam:** yeah, I cracked open my 25 count. The presentation when you open that lid, it is spectacular. It's amazing. Spectacular. Yeah. The insert, the name of the cigar, how beautifully organized it is.
It's really a beautiful experience. And
**Gizmo:** the smell that comes off them. Yeah. Ah. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. But again, you know, we mentioned this with the Monte two episode. For a listener out there, maybe who hasn't had this, wants to try it, the 10 count semi boy nature box is a great, you know, It's a great, great low risk jump into the Parus P two, so I, I, I highly recommend it.
**Bam Bam:** What are you, are you calling
**Grinder:** that
**Bam Bam:** the semi nature boy? . Semi
**Gizmo:** [00:15:00] Semi boy. Nature Semi boy.
**Bam Bam:** All I hear is Rick Flair, like ,
**Gizmo:** nature boy, nature
**Bam Bam:** Boy, ,
**Gizmo:** semi boy, semi boy, nature Box, SBN, I don't know. Gizmo
**Senator:** teaching Grindr something. I love this .
**Gizmo:** But here's the problem is he's gonna find out that I'm either pronouncing it wrong, saying it wrong,
There's some some sort of angle coming that I'm definitely gonna, well,
**Bam Bam:** boy and Foy are kind of, you know, kind of similar. It's a semi boy nature box semi.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Well, you know, I do love these two, just, you know, to, you know, go off of your thing about presentation. Bam. Mm-hmm. I love them in a tubo. I just think that that never had it, that pyramid Tubo two two in
a
**Senator:** tubo.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I've never even seen one. Now they're, oh yeah. I've had them, I ordered them from our old source. Interesting. The best part about it, of course, was the Tubo, because he ages them and. . God only knows what, but we're, we've moved on. We've moved on. Mm-hmm. , if you noticed
**Rooster:** the, uh, you know the band on this, there's a period at the [00:16:00] end of Number N Oh.
So at one point, the Parus, there were three dots. There was one dart after series, one after p and one after number. So when you, you know, smoke some old Porticus bands, they'll, they call 'em three dots. That's cool. Three dot three dot bands. I don't know what year they switched, but
**Gizmo:** uh,
**Bam Bam:** that's a cool
**Grinder:** fact.
That's some deep, that's some deep knowledge. Yeah, it is.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. That's, we're in the consumers corner right now. It's rooster's connoisseur corner, baby. You smoke one of the three dots?
**Senator:** I haven't, no.
**Gizmo:** Oh, man. You
**Bam Bam:** must have choked a raccoon earlier. You,
**Gizmo:** I think that was your brain cells expanding mid to late nineties, I think mid to late.
Yeah. I think they changed that that far back. I mean, that's not that far. 25 years. Yeah, something like that for Rooster. I mean, that's not that far. Grinder, , grinders my life. grinders over here raising his hand. when you're a rooster's connoisseur corner. He's smoking stuff from the sixties and seventies.
He's got quite a collection . So, [00:17:00] um, let's talk about our, our, our, our whiskey pairing tonight. Uh,
**Bam Bam:** quite unique. Perfect.
**Gizmo:** I am really interested
**Senator:** pair to hear about this. I'm sorry. Just take a sip of that and then puff this P two. It like accentuates the sweet notes that are very subtle within the P two.
**Gizmo:** Hmm.
First off on the, on the first sip cuz I didn't have a sip. That is brother. That is delicious. So awesome. That is delicious. I, what is that? What is this? While I take a draw of my cigar. What is this whiskey? Cuz I need to buy it. So
**Senator:** it's Nicka coffee grain whiskey. It's a Japanese whiskey. Wow. I've only seen a lot of hype around this for years, but I, I don't know, I've said this before, I don't know much about Japanese whiskey only through the pod with you guys.
As we're starting to try some of this stuff, I'm getting to learn a bit more and starting to really appreciate it. Um, so when we were looking for pairings, this was just always on my list of something I had hoped we would, uh, do, and, and Grindr was, was generous enough to pick this up. [00:18:00] Um, I'll read the description on the back because I think Grindr especially will love this, uh, cuz they've borrowed something from Scotland.
In making this, it says this grain whiskey is distilled in a coffee still, which is a very traditional and rare patent. Still Nika imported from Scotland in 1963. The coffee still produces a complex whiskey with a mellow and sweet taste originating from the grain. And the rest of this is useless as far as the description goes,
But I think the flavor that this puts out is actually really nice, and especially since Japanese whiskeys are lighter. But I think this has more body to it.
**Gizmo:** It does. This is very unique. It's so good. Do you taste coffee?
**Grinder:** No, no, no. I, when I first actually didn't know much about it, um, how much was that? I was just trying to think.
I think it was like, I have to, I think maybe like $67. Okay. Okay. Worth it. A fair price. Yeah. I'll, I'll price check it. Maybe, maybe it was, maybe it was the 87 1 and that one was the 60. I was looking at various [00:19:00] whiskeys today and I'm getting my prices conflated, so honestly worth
**Bam Bam:** it. I mean, I would put this in a category of having like a meal, an after a meal.
Someone needs to do a price
**Grinder:** check with a dessert. Do it aisle L five. Fantastic. No, I, so coffee, coffee steals are, um, when I taste this whiskey, I kind of, to me it tastes a little irony, frankly, cuz it's so smooth. , it's kind of pure. I don't get any of the distillates. Um, and, and, and learning more about it, that yeah, you'd expect that from a coffee still, which is like a series of vats.
And they kind of blew it. They blew it like a percolator and there's like different tiers in each vat and then they keep adding water to it and there's different levels of the tiers and it just keeps, depending on the tier, it gets hotter and hotter and hotter and they keep adding water to it. And what comes out is even a super concentrated, um, you know,
**Bam Bam:** we missed your technical commentary.
**Gizmo:** Absolutely. This is great. So [00:20:00] why do they call it a coffee still? Is it
**Grinder:** because it's, I don't think it has anything to do with coffee, but I think the, the still itself, it's kind of like a percolator. Okay. So it's just, you know what, like similar, your great, your Italian grandmother, they, she goes, my mom used
**Gizmo:** to do that.
Yeah. On the stove. Yeah. Yeah.
**Grinder:** So it bubbles, it brews and there's different tiers. And then each tier there's different compounds that it's extracting and then it's filtering at the bottom and they keep adding water to
**Senator:** it. A and for the listener, it's not spelled the same as coffee as we know. Coffee. It's c o f f e y.
Got
**Grinder:** it. Yeah. So probably has nothing to do with
**Gizmo:** coffee.
**Rooster:** Right. So are you're talking about the percolator like. You guys might have been to like Belmont Tavern once or twice. Oh boy. If you, if you order coffee at Belmont Tavern, oh boy. You get coffee in that percolator. Yeah. I
**Grinder:** don't think it has, I don't think I'm going back just for that.
I don't think it's necessarily related. Best food ever. Percolator. No doubt about it. I'll use that as an example. Maybe. I
**Bam Bam:** don't know. Because like I said,
**Gizmo:** can I ask a question? ? You may. Bonnie sucks. How do you parlay the Belmont [00:21:00] Tavern into a coffee? Wait, just a, just a
**Rooster:** percolator. Why do you like that place?
**Gizmo:** I like the percolator. . That's it. And the chickens. Savoy. I mean, used to be, used to be good. Something to it because wish guys were there. It was good when there were three dots on the pars bench. , how about that? Pretty close. Pretty close . Yeah. I, I gotta say though, seriously, this is, um, you know, I think we did, what did we do?
We did haki a few weeks back. We did sun. This is like night and day versus those other Japanese whiskeys. Well,
**Senator:** it's funny you say that. And the reason I've been wanting to try this for a while, I had always heard really good things about Hibiki, but there are people that like prefer this to Hibiki. Um, and it's actually a bit cheaper in terms of price point.
Thi this goes for, I'm looking on total wine. It's 72 bucks a bottle. Wow. Which I think is actually very fair for how this drinks hibigi. I mean, um, pagoda was talking about how like the prices like exploded on it. Like he used to be able to get it for more reasonable price. I don't know, maybe 70, 80 bucks.
[00:22:00] And now like someplace they're selling for like 150 or 120
**Pagoda:** bucks or so. Okay. But, uh, from our favorite liquor store, , it's uh, 89 bucks. I mean, what plus tax?
**Rooster:** That's like 90. So, so what does the coffee stills, what does it do to, uh,
**Gizmo:** to the whiskey? It
**Grinder:** concentrates the batch and that, and it, and it's a, it's a better distillation process.
It's extracting, um, more of the distillates and you're getting more of the flavors from the, um, from the vats. .
**Rooster:** So are those stills pronounced? Like, called, uh, or spelled
**Gizmo:** c o f f e y?
**Grinder:** So I, I don't know the spelling. I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with, uh, coffee. But traditionally whiskey is made in these pots and these, uh, cotton stills, and they're like big, they look like a big tear drop.
These things are cylindrical. Um, and there's multiple series of them. There's got, there's at least two. And as it goes down, the, the line of stills, the water comes [00:23:00] in, it's de distilled, it goes into a vat, the water comes into the next one. It goes, it's, and it just keeps getting more and more spikes distilled.
So as opposed to a, as opposed to a traditional steel where you distill it and then you take it out and you distill it again. In the same, in the same still this one has all of it in a line. It's like an assembly.
**Rooster:** But what does it do to the taste for you guys?
**Gizmo:** Like when you taste it compared to me? It's clean.
It's clean as sweet. Oh, it's very clean. It's clean.
**Senator:** And it's also, it has just a richer flavor about it. Like you were saying, like with the distillates, like some of the other Japanese whiskeys we've had, like, I mean, sunter very light. Even Hibiki I don't think is, has as much body as this. Like if you were to, if you just pour this neat, there's some viscosity to this, I think even more so than Hibiki really.
Um, so I really liked it. I mean, this is like a richer, um, like, you know, more reminiscent of like a Macallan in terms of like the body that that has, uh, which is very much my speed. I think a lot of the guys in
**Gizmo:** the room, that's where I was going. This reminds me of a Macallan in [00:24:00] it's, yeah, there's something about, I don't know if it's more robust or there's a sweetness to it as well.
It's almost, I don't know how to explain it. I'm getting.
**Grinder:** I, I don't, I don't, I don't get Macallan as a, as an analogy I get not, not in flavor, I just mean in in body. Yeah. Yeah. All right. In, for me, on the flavor side, I, it, I get sweet, I get sweetness, I get molasses, I get a clean molasses, um, on the finish.
It's kind of tangy to me though, like, I think because it's, it's hyper filtrated. You're, it's more of the kind of alcohol flavor. It's nice on the finish. Nice. It's like, it feels a little numb. Ah, um, kind of like iodine,
**Gizmo:** really. I'm
**Bam Bam:** not, I'd, no, I don't get any iodine,
**Grinder:** but, but I do, I do have a very, you know, it's pronounced sweetness and I taste, it's so smooth.
It
**Bam Bam:** is. I would put this right in between haki and sin, Tori, right in the middle. [00:25:00]
**Senator:** I'd put this right next to Hibiki personally.
**Gizmo:** I, I actually enjoy it more than both Hibiki and Sun from the point of
**Bam Bam:** view of body for me. Oh, you're saying body for me personally. Understood. Now I love the Hibiki. Okay. And remember we gave
**Grinder:** that a very,
**Senator:** very high score.
I think this has more body than Hibiki, but that's my opinion.
**Grinder:** I think this is a great pairing for this. I think it's worth a taste test. This is like a nice,
**Gizmo:** yeah. This is perfect for the cigar. No, it is. I mean, we, I saw coffee and I'm like, okay, this may be weird. Obviously it has nothing to do with the flavor, uh, per se.
You know, it doesn't taste like coffee. It doesn't, it's not infused or something. But I don't know
**Grinder:** how many people actually do that. Still, that's not like very common.
**Gizmo:** I mean, I've never seen it on a bottle like that. Yeah,
**Grinder:** it's true. I, I don't, I don't think that, cuz they're certainly not doing that in Scotland.
Yeah. Um, it's gotta be some kind of patented engineer engineering
**Senator:** thing. It is. I mean, it literally says patented. Is it? Yeah. Wow.
**Bam Bam:** This scotch
**Gizmo:** can easily drink all night long. Oh yeah. . [00:26:00] Yeah. This could be a problem very quickly. Yeah. I mean,
**Senator:** I, I would reach like for this exact whiskey with this cigar. Like the pairing is perfect.
Yep.
**Grinder:** Mine's gone. .
**Bam Bam:** Mine's almost gone. I
**Grinder:** need a refill Need. Yeah, we're gonna pass the
**Bam Bam:** bottle around Bar Keep
**Gizmo:** Garone Garone. So while, uh, Garona is pouring us some more, uh, whiskey
**Senator:** Garona is pouring himself more whiskey and we'll pass
**Grinder:** the bottle around to us.
**Gizmo:** Degenerates. My p2 we're about what? An inch and a half in I am.
I think we're all about the same. Yeah, it is. Um, it's burning perfectly. Yep. Razor sharp. The ash is robust. Holding on for dear wife. Yes, sir. Um, it is so good. Guys, I, I can't get enough of these 2020 cigars senator's telling me to Ash. Yeah, please ash
**Senator:** that before. That's all
**Gizmo:** over yourself. .
**Bam Bam:** I'll keep mine.
There you go. I'll keep mine for a moment longer. Okay.
**Grinder:** So look, they have a picture of the damn thing on the back. This is the coffee still. It's like a tower. . [00:27:00]
**Bam Bam:** Good.
**Pagoda:** About is one to grab the ash and hold us to ? Yeah.
**Senator:** Speaking of towers,
**Gizmo:** speaking . Oh yeah, yeah. Bam. Do we have a major lizard update? Ba do we have what's, give us a
**Bam Bam:** tower update.
Yes. Bam. Bam. Has finally received this
**Gizmo:** tower. Hey, who should we get the uh, should we get the Paul Rose out and celebrate?
**Pagoda:** Is it a mini tower or, because you said you could
**Bam Bam:** carry it. I could carry it. No, it's a tower of power.
**Gizmo:** So you finally got it. How long did it take? Eight months, seven months. Oh my gosh.
It's, that's ridiculous. So now you have the cigar oasis. You've had that since? I've had that for seven months. For seven months, yeah. So now you have the tower. What's the, what's the process now? You're gonna seal it up, throw the oasis in
**Bam Bam:** and, well, it's still in a box in the garage. Okay. I will uncrate it, carry it down to the, uh, lizard layer and season.
Awesome. Put the hydrometers in. Start to calibrate. Yep. Yep.
**Gizmo:** The dungeon. Yeah. That's great, man. Congrats on that. Yeah, thank you. That's gonna change your world. You're gonna be
**Bam Bam:** buying like Matt again. I [00:28:00] know it. Oh yeah. And I've been waiting and waiting for this to start buying. Yeah, that's great. Yeah.
That's awesome.
**Pagoda:** I, I'd really like to come and help you, uh, put it all together, but
**Bam Bam:** you know, well, there's a whole process. You gotta seal the door. Seal the outlet. L e d
**Grinder:** lighting
**Senator:** that takes an hour. Yeah. I'm sorry. Try this whiskey. Neat, neat.
**Gizmo:** I have to, I have to repo
**Senator:** when I said there's like body to this in viscosity, like, it, it, it drinks so well.
Neat.
**Bam Bam:** Mm. Yeah. Where do they age? Do you prefer me? Wow. It's called Nico.
**Grinder:** Does it tell, does it, uh, uh, pagoda? What is it? Where did it, does it tell you what? They aged it in on the back of the bottle. Oh, okay. Uhoh, man down.
**Bam Bam:** call the meds.
**Gizmo:** So Pagoda had a little accident. He wet himself, he wet
**Bam Bam:** himself,
**Grinder:** disinfected the floor.
**Senator:** Uh, this isn't Pagodas
**Gizmo:** only accident. Yeah. Twice in a week. You know, I gotta say I was in . What [00:29:00]
**Pagoda:** a segueway. What a segue.
**Gizmo:** So I was, uh, I gotta tell you. So I was in the, uh, I, I was in, I was in Montclair and I was watching a woman parallel park, and she took her hands off the wheel and the car parked itself.
Was it a Tesla? I don't know what it was. I wasn't paying attention. I was just admiring the fact that her hands were not on the wheel. And you know who I thought of when I saw this car? Senator? I thought of pagoda. Oh. Because Pagoda had a little, have you heard this yet? Little incident? This, oh, you haven't heard?
I haven't heard what happened. So, pagodas or, or actually Rooster, tell us what happened. You were there. Well, where do I begin? .
**Rooster:** So this was a night after, you know, after the lounge. You,
**Gizmo:** you were all there. So
**Rooster:** me, a couple
**Gizmo:** other guys, we went to our
**Rooster:** favorite Indian restaurant and uh, we got there before Pagoda and, uh,
**Gizmo:** one other guy.
**Rooster:** So we're sitting, we're sitting down at the table, you know, [00:30:00] the owner of the restaurant had a table set up for us outside. Really nice, laid out.
**Gizmo:** It was, it was, it was a little late.
**Rooster:** So we're sitting there and then we see pagoda pull up in his truck and then all of a sudden we hear a loud bang. No way , a loud bang, uhoh.
He. Backed up into the pole .
**Gizmo:** Ah, on the sidewalk. The pedal is
**Rooster:** the sidewalk on the sidewalk electric or maybe a phone pole. And I think he hit the wrong
**Gizmo:** pedal. Oh, he's
**Bam Bam:** excited. He was gonna see you guys. So he put
**Rooster:** it in reverse and
**Gizmo:** I think he hit the accelerator. Oh my gosh. So quite a bit of, uh, they are right.
Damage to each, to get to his fair. To be, let's be fair, the, the gas and the brake are very close to each other on the floor. . Yeah. But in
**Rooster:** pagodas defense, he grew up driving a clutch. A car cushion, like a, you know, like a three pedal. So you can just imagine like how much more confusing that would be. I mean, it's true.
So [00:31:00] when,
**Senator:** when its, it easier with only two pedals, it makes perfect sense. He
**Rooster:** needs a car with just no pedals. . .
**Bam Bam:** I think I
**Pagoda:** need a
**Rooster:** Tesla. He needs a driver.
**Gizmo:** He needs a driver. I told you I just love the, the visual of him sitting in his car after he did this and going, oh my lord. .
**Rooster:** But you know what I mean? Nobody, nobody got injured.
I want to hear little bit of damage. Little damage. Mrs. Pi, did she have anything to say? So he got home? Mm-hmm. . And in the morning he told his wife, he was like,
**Gizmo:** what did you do to my car? . So Pagoda talk to us about, give us the insight from inside the vehicle. I
**Pagoda:** don't know. It happened so, . I just saw a man in the turbine screaming at me outside the window and I couldn't hear him at all.
And I was like, what It was it it, you know, it was a bit startled. It was loud. It was my first accident.
**Grinder:** No way. Really? Ever. Yeah, ever. Wow. So he,
**Gizmo:** he a very good [00:32:00] driver. He just got his license last month. ,
**Bam Bam:** Hey, don't tell the truth. You don't need to
**Pagoda:** disclose that to
**Bam Bam:** everybody. But he's been driving for 25 years.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, just illegal. Look,
**Pagoda:** listen, I'm used to it. Uh, you know, drivers driving this around. This is, hello
**Bam Bam:** difficult. Oh, this is
**Pagoda:** difficult. I, I'm just not a DIY kind of guy.
**Gizmo:** You know, ,
**Rooster:** you're more a
**Gizmo:** DII kind of guy. Oh,
oh man. Oh, somebody's getting shanked. It's about time. It's
**Pagoda:** about time. I think the pagoda title has to be, just so you know, shifted. It's gotta be whoever Shanking goes to them. . Oh man. It's all, yeah, but it, it happened really quickly and I was kind of re it. I just didn't know what to do and the car just really stopped because all these new cars, apparently it rested for two minutes and I couldn't even move.
you know, uh, I guess, [00:33:00] yeah, , don't confuse me here again, , but, uh, yeah, but a stick. It was kind of really embarrassing, but, uh, it is what it is.
**Rooster:** The scotch pounding continued after that. Of
**Gizmo:** course it did. Absolutely.
**Pagoda:** We are just to calm my knobs down, please. ,
**Bam Bam:** please. .
**Gizmo:** Well, we're glad everybody's all right. You didn't kill Ricky.
I heard he was close to getting the, uh,
**Pagoda:** yeah, I didn't think he would've felt anything.
**Bam Bam:** was this right in front of your table? right in
**Gizmo:** front. God, they were sitting outside. It was, you know, I wish I was there on the
**Rooster:** sidewalk. I mean, how much room is there between the sidewalk and the
**Pagoda:** road? No, but ba ba That's why I didn't think, I don't think we texted you after that, because I think we all were just
**Bam Bam:** in shock.
Yeah. In.
**Gizmo:** So we're about halfway through the P two here boys. It's phenomenal. It is
**Bam Bam:** awesome. With this pairing, it's, it's, it's, it's perfect
**Gizmo:** with this whiskey. It's delicious. It's perfect. Wow. It's really good. Absolute home run. [00:34:00] So I have to sh to share an email that we got, which was a critical email from a guy named Nicholas.
**Senator:** Oh, I was worried he was the police department for Pagoda .
**Gizmo:** No, no, no. Please. They don't email. They, they, they show up. I'm
**Bam Bam:** a fugitive. is that on a lizard p and l statement. We gotta get that on the p and l .
**Gizmo:** So, uh, Nicholas, uh, wrote the subject was Scotch, in quotes, Syd. So I've been listening to you guys for a while.
Is I, I, I, for a while. I think you're doing a great job. Kudos to you. He said you even weave in some Spanish words like Viola and Marco in the conversation. Very nice. So why would you insult the Scottish people by calling whiskey Scotch? Isn't it time to call it by its proper name? Even in the usa I know the Scottish are strange and have the unicorn as their national animal, but I feel like it should be called it by its proper name.
If the whiskey's from Japan, it's a Japanese whiskey. If it's [00:35:00] from Ireland, it's an Irish whiskey. What do you think? I'm looking Redick right now. I'm looking at Grindr too. It's right, looking red, grind, grind.
**Grinder:** You're the this, the snark in that email is oozing out. . No, no.
**Senator:** I'm sorry. I love this email because in your absence, the number of times that it has upset me hearing this, I'm a major offender, not, we should not be calling like we're drinking a fucking suny.
Guys are like, this is a great scotch. It's not from Scotland.
**Grinder:** It's very simple. Well, that that is actually very senator's looking
**Bam Bam:** right at me about
**Grinder:** that. That's, I'm looking at them. It's been, that's very inaccurate. But I mean, yeah, he's right. You call it a scotch whiskey, a Japanese whiskey and Irish whiskey.
But over here, I mean, how many people. Just call this spirit bourbon all the time, or, and everything else is Scotch or Jack Daniels. You know, to his point,
**Senator:** we should get it right. It's not like we sit here and we smoke a patron or a davidov. We say, this is a great Cuban. It's not a Cuban. I know he's, he's not
**Grinder:** wrong.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. , he did to your credit, celebrate, uh, Laroy and said that we should sample [00:36:00] the 18 year laroy. Which sounds to me, uh, little bit scary. Yeah, I bet. Little scary, heavy duty. Yeah. That's like buying premium gasoline . That's a
**Grinder:** mistake. It's
**Gizmo:** always a mistake to me. To me, the laroy is like, what kind of level of gasoline are you tasting today?
Regular plus or premium. Why are you not pronouncing the G at the end of it? Yeah. Is it Laro? Yeah. There's a fucking G there. I thought it was a silent G. Why? In what leg? What language is it?
**Senator:** I thought he's still on fo gra. Yeah. .
**Pagoda:** Jesus are never
**Rooster:** silent. So maybe the laro is, is it might, might be good with a certain
**Gizmo:** stick.
You know? Yeah. I mean, I'm totally down to try it again. It's been a long time. Did did he write,
**Senator:** if we wanna smoke in Cuba's pickup, we could power it with Laroy. It'll be great. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. He said, uh, especially with the Mon one or Aus 8 98. Oh,
**Rooster:** okay.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. . I don't
**Grinder:** know about that.
**Senator:** Honestly, though. We should try it.
I just say that because I think we've talked about this before. That night we had [00:37:00] at, um, our, our, our friend who owns some restaurants in our area outside of his place, he gave us a bottle of Lare. Yes. I dunno. 10 12. Oh, that's right. And you know, it was way late in the night. We were just desperate for a drink to have with a cigars.
We were smoking out there at his restaurant. It, it honestly, we, we all drank it neat. We pounded it. It was not bad. No, it really wasn't. And I, I'm not at all like a advocate for Laro, cuz it doesn't fit my flavor, uh, flavor profile for scotch. But it was very drinkable. So I would imagine the 18 year smoother, smoother, bit more refined.
We should give
**Gizmo:** it a try. I I think we have to try some more Petey stuff for sure. Maybe, maybe it would do well
**Rooster:** with e Lucy. The Parus. Luciani might be a good match for that.
**Gizmo:** That's not a bad idea though. I find that cigar to be a little mild, but I think the flavors may line up a little bit.
**Grinder:** You don't like something that's gonna like a pe A pe
**Gizmo:** not mild.
Excuse me. I mean mediums. Sorry about that. AED Scotch
**Grinder:** is gonna overwhelm your palate. Yeah. You know, so you want something that has enough combative [00:38:00] juice to Well, maybe put
**Gizmo:** up
**Pagoda:** a fight, lick
**Gizmo:** an food. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe a new
**Bam Bam:** world. I have one in here for you.
**Grinder:** Oh yeah. That's excellent. Do you want it? Sure.
Yeah. The
**Senator:** alma fuerte ,
**Bam Bam:** it's coming up soon, but it could go well with it. Right. .
**Pagoda:** Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. .
**Gizmo:** That was my point. So we'll figure it out. But, uh, so Nicholas, thanks for emailing us and correcting Bam and I Yes.
**Bam Bam:** Point well taken on dropping scotch when it's not. Yeah. Yep.
**Grinder:** So the cigar is
**Gizmo:** really doing well. Yeah.
How's your, how's yours burning? It's doing well. I
**Grinder:** mean, it's a little touch up here and there.
**Gizmo:** It's, I can't believe the pairing. I, I really? Yeah. What, uh, I what an accidental maybe, or on purpose? Grindr. Mm-hmm. , I'm not sure. Absolute home run.
**Grinder:** Yeah, just a home run. Totally accidental. We had some suggestions from the readers, I believe, and then, um, Senator sent a text around and I just kind of, whatever I saw, I was like, oh, that's on the list, so I got it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. This is really, I will absolutely be going out and buying this Me too, this week. Me too,
**Bam Bam:** for sure. Who, who, who's,
**Grinder:** who was the reader that suggested it? [00:39:00] I don't remember. Not, not this, the whistle
**Gizmo:** pig. Oh, the Whistle Pig. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** The other one, which I've, I've had a lot of that. I like
**Grinder:** it a lot.
**Senator:** This was just a personal, I've been wanting to try this for a very long time, and it's lived up to everything I've read about it.
**Gizmo:** It's really, really good.
**Rooster:** So what made you not pick up that bottle in the past? I mean, you've tried so many different, uh, whiskeys because
**Senator:** the only stuff I don't pick up is Japanese whiskey, Japanese, cuz I really just have not, I I, I've tried some and it's been so light, I haven't enjoyed it. So I'm not gonna spend $8,000 on a bottle that I going in already think is gonna disappoint me.
So that's why I just haven't. But
**Rooster:** the, the hibiki got a pretty high
**Gizmo:** rate.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, fantastic. And honestly, I love it from this, this recording. I am a fan of Japanese spirits. It's fantastic. So the, the no doubt about it is anyone else
**Grinder:** getting more, uh, pronounced sweetness? Yes. With this cigar? Yes,
definitely.
**Bam Bam:** Yes.
Right. Senator mentioned that earlier.
**Senator:** I did, that's why I sweetheart, I'm sorry. Someone was, I think GI was saying, you don't get any dessert or sweet [00:40:00] milk. Think you
**Grinder:** doing this ci. It's getting more sweet as I. Maybe it's because it's not, there's no ice in it right now.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. But on, I mean, I, I really like senator's recommendation.
You take a swig and, and you, you take a droll of your cigar. If this, this matching, it just works so well.
**Gizmo:** So Well I think that they, they offer something a little different. Your, in your palate. Yeah. And I think they match perfectly. Mm-hmm. , you know, when I think about sweetness, I, and when I think about the P two, I don't think sweetness I, there, you know, there's a little bit there.
I don't think as much as the Oman two. Right. Um, as far as a pyramid goes. But you know, I think this either enhances it or just kind of dances alongside it. And I think it matches perfectly,
**Bam Bam:** you know, and getting, getting back to the cigar, we've said this before, and for certain cigars, this is a absolute must for the listener to try.
Absolutely. Yeah. Worth purchasing and keeping in your rotation is no doubt about it.
**Gizmo:** What do
**Rooster:** you guys think of pairing sake
**Gizmo:** with cigars? I've never done it. Is that something? Uh, I think we
**Grinder:** should try it. [00:41:00] Yeah. Love, I love sake. I
**Bam Bam:** love it. Do you? Oh yeah. With, well, if I'm having sushi, I do.
**Grinder:** It's, it's one of those things that I'm like, I really want to enjoy it.
Yeah. The
**Bam Bam:** Negri, the Milky.
**Grinder:** Yeah. I really delicious. I really wanna like it. And I just, every time I have it, I'm just like, it has to be
**Bam Bam:** ice cold. Ice cold. Yeah.
**Grinder:** And you have to shake
**Senator:** it. Of course we should do this. Cuz this is another thing where I think I had saki maybe once. It was okay. It wasn't bad, it just didn't excite me.
But people really love it. Mm-hmm. and appreciate it. And I would like to understand why. So I would be a hundred percent on board with us trying
to
**Bam Bam:** pair, not sure how it would go with a cigar. It's great. With a, with a Japanese meal. Sushi. Right? Yeah.
**Gizmo:** It's perfect. The only sake I've ever had is hot sake. I, I've never had, um, I've never had that.
I've never had the, the creamy one. You were mentioning that it was cold agar. Yeah. Yeah. And I honestly, I don't love it cuz I don't love a hot spirit. Like, it's weird to me that it me too. That it's warm. Yep. It's, I don't like it. I, I never heard of that. Yeah. . Yeah. I don't know why. Anytime I've ever had it.[00:42:00]
What's,
**Grinder:** what's the, um, like the Chinese and the Korean Rice? Rice, plum, plum wine. No.
**Senator:** Soju. Yep. Oh, soju. Oh yeah. It's Korean.
**Rooster:** Is that, that's a beer, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, no, that's ob ob ob
**Gizmo:** is the Korean beer. It's a kind of, is a, yeah,
**Senator:** I think it's similar in some ways to sake. Yeah. Probably served hot.
**Rooster:** No, isn't that hot?
Cold.
**Grinder:** Cold. And, and, and most, most often in shots at clubs,
**Senator:** please. So when, when I live in DC there was this great Korean restaurant nearby and, um, they had a ton of different types of soju, and that's like the only time I've ever tried it. They had like this great happy hour bartender was there, was great.
So it was always pouring stuff. It, it's actually pretty good. I don't know how it would pair with a cigar, but
**Grinder:** I don't, I don't know if it's, I guess it's something you can sip. You can sip anything.
**Gizmo:** So,
**Rooster:** so in the Hindi language, Sergio means go
**Gizmo:** to sleep. Really
**Senator:** soja. Oh yeah. You drink enough of that stuff, you will go,
**Gizmo:** you'll go to sleep.[00:43:00]
beta. Soja , beta Soja. Go, go to sleep, son. Does that
**Grinder:** mean a bit of
**Gizmo:** soja? No,
**Rooster:** beta means like, you know, a child, like your son or son,
**Gizmo:** son, daughter, whatever. Anyway, I love, by the way, I don't know if you guys have, have, have smelled it. The burn line on a P two is always very satisfying to me. You know, the smoke coming off of it.
I love when I'm sitting in the lounge and it's kind of okay. Yeah. The smoke is like in my face, you know? Um, I, I love it. Very nice combustion. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's great combustion. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I, I think it's very, very good. And I, like I said, we, we've talked about this before, the, the recent P two s have just every single one.
I haven't had a single plugged one, a single problem. Everything's been burning great, tasting great. It's, um, it's been really nice. So kudos to the Parus factory. I
**Rooster:** wonder why all the pyramids are called number two?
**Gizmo:** That's a good question. Good question. That's a great question. That's a really good question.[00:44:00]
**Rooster:** Like what does the two stand for? Right. You know, like the diplomatic or number two?
**Gizmo:** Monty. Number two, my assumption is it started with the Monte two up and two, you know, because the, my assumption, this is an assumption, this I'm not, this is not an educated opinion, but my assumption, because the Monte two's been around since, what did we say?
I think the thirties, forties, fifties. It's one of the earliest of this size. And I think it was just, you know, they had the 1, 2, 3, and they've just added on. And I think as the other, uh, Marcus have added this fat to their line, you know, they just followed it and called it the number two.
**Rooster:** Yeah. But like in mon, in the Monty line, you have the Monty one, Monty two, Monty three, Monty four, Monty five.
Yep. But when you go to the Portus series, it's not like that. You know, you have the. P two E
**Gizmo:** two D four. Yeah. Everything is labeled differently. It's a c3. Yep. Right. And there's a D five, a D six with different sizes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And that's funny you say that because the number four in the Monte Cristo is what a petite [00:45:00] Corona.
Right. And the number four in Parus is a rub robusto. Right. You know, so it, it is inconsistent, but the two is always consistent and that's the same, you know, like you said, I, I the Diplomatico number two you mentioned. Yeah. The old number to H. Except the Unico is the only one that doesn't have a number on it.
Right. You know, from Vegas, Romania, which is coming up. That's true. Which we're gonna be doing. So I would love to hear from the listener, by the way, as we go through the battle of the pyramids here, what is your favorite pyramid? Which one do you prefer to smoke? Which ones have you had? Haven't? I think we kind of listed them all in what we're gonna be doing, you know, upcoming.
Um, I hope we didn't miss one. The only one that we have to get is the diplomatic number two, but otherwise I think we have 'em all lined up, which should be good. So I can't, I can't get enough of this pairing voice. I know. I'm, I just, I can't get enough of it. It's a treat. Yeah.
**Senator:** I'm just glad I, I really thought the whole craze about Japanese whiskey was a lot of hype and it's not, there's some really, really, really good spirits.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's proven to be very valid. I'm glad we went down this [00:46:00] path on the pod because again, as another item on the list of something I would've never understood. Tried really,
**Bam Bam:** I would never have picked up a Japanese
**Gizmo:** fan Absolutely. Ever because I It's, it's just like tequila at one point or, yeah. Or, or champagne.
Um, or even some of the cigars we're smoking. That's right. It's just because of this pod is the only reason that I'm kind of going out and buying Japanese whiskey. Yeah. You know,
**Rooster:** uh, I think pagoda, you might have some experience with some Indian whiskeys that are really sought after, oh,
**Gizmo:** we need to try this.
Should look into that. I'd love to try that. Somebody
**Rooster:** was recommending some amru, I think. Is that Yeah,
**Pagoda:** AMRU and Romper. Romper. Yeah. I have both of them actually. Maybe I them.
**Rooster:** That's cool.
**Gizmo:** I'm So how are they? How's Amru? I've heard, I
**Pagoda:** really did not like it. Uh, I'm Ruth. Uh, I really like the Ramper, but it's got a very different flavor, you know.
Um, I'll definitely bring it over. It'll be interesting to see what everyone thinks about him. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** I need to decrease some, uh, mechanical [00:47:00] parts. Maybe I'll use it for that. , if you don't like it,
If you don't like it. How did, how
**Grinder:** did the Indians get into scotch? No, it's not scotch. It's a
**Gizmo:** whiskey. It's
**Rooster:** British, you know, having,
**Pagoda:** we, we drink more, we drink more whiskey than it's produced by Black label, by Johnny Walker. Of course, with. With, with
**Rooster:** soda. You know Johnny Walker? That Walker is his middle name.
His last name is
**Gizmo:** Patel.
That's Jwp . Do you ever see that? There's like,
**Grinder:** there's like a funny TikTok going around where somebody's at like a Rutgers University commencement and they're
**Gizmo:** like looking at all the people graduating
**Grinder:** and it, there's like some voice layover and it's going pato.
**Gizmo:** Do, do, do Dopa, dopa. Do do. Cause there's like 500 Patels.
It's like half the class
**Grinder:** at
**Bam Bam:** Rutgers. .
**Gizmo:** Thanks Greg
Both of
**Rooster:** my daughters are going to Rutgers . Are they?
It's
**Gizmo:** true. They're not named [00:48:00] Patel. No, but Oh,
**Bam Bam:** it's a big, it's a big Indian cu the young
**Gizmo:** one too. There's a lot of it. Yeah.
**Rooster:** Younger one too. She's, is that right?
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. That's a, that's big
**Grinder:** news. Where have you been? Bam. I didn't know that. Wow. Yeah. Kudos to you.
Yeah, thank you.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Right. That's why he's been smoking more new worlds. Yeah. Yeah. Got two tuitions. Now there'll be more and more of those.
**Grinder:** you gotta, you gotta unload some of that inventory. Yeah. You wanna buy some Yes. To pay for the tuition. Yes. Yeah. You can make a nice margin on some of these sticks right now. I know. I hear a yes. Somewhere
**Pagoda:** around. Yes.
**Rooster:** Somebody, somebody said to us the other day, it was me and uh, gizmo. Were on this chat, this guy who's a pretty big collector, he has a lot of sticks.
He goes, right now my inventory is like zero meaning like, you know, it's like, like what he paid or what it's worth right now. It's like he paid,
**Gizmo:** you know? Yeah. Just by buying and selling, he's paid for all this stuff. Paid for. Yeah.
**Rooster:** [00:49:00] His inventory is basically paid for. Yeah, that's
**Gizmo:** a price. Is price. So
**Grinder:** that means, by that, by definition, mathematically, that means the price of good investment.
His market price is double. What
**Gizmo:** the inventory costs. Right, right. Yeah. Or he was just buying and selling more than he doesn't
**Rooster:** two x he doesn't sell, I mean, hypothetically or on paper. Yeah. His inventory is, it's incredible. Yeah. I mean, especially if you, if you have a lot of Cobas and stuff Trinidads that you or Trinidads Yeah.
And you bought it like before this, you know, like years back. I mean, imagine how much, you know, what the prices have gone up to. I think I
**Gizmo:** told you guys, I bought, I bought a probably my one and only ever box of Cohiba robos about six weeks ago. Yeah. What'd you pay for that? I paid 6 99 for the box of robos, that same box right now, but at the same retailer is 1700.
Wow. It's 1700 right now. Wow. Wow. Yep. Same retailer. Oh shit. That's crazy.
**Grinder:** That's a, that's incredible. That's a nice flip. It's
**Gizmo:** [00:50:00] incredible. And I'm gonna keep. For a few years and age them and, and you know, hopefully enjoy them. Then flip it and then flip 'em if I don't enjoy them. But can we do a pod? Yeah. In about three, four years.
we'll do a robusto pod.
**Senator:** Don't only some of us will get to enjoy them.
**Gizmo:** I'm giving you, bam, I resent the implication. No, it's just bam, bam. Everybody else is in, except bam, they were just, bam. I'll come. Well, I'll come and watch. Wait, why not? Bam, he's disavowed on trying new stuff for me. Bam. Bams an easy target. It's gonna taste like Fundy .
**Bam Bam:** No, I'm glad Kohe are expensive. I never was a fan.
I'm fine with,
**Senator:** no, I'm the same way, honestly. I'm not afraid. But that subsidized the Cuban market.
**Bam Bam:** Absolutely agreed. Have at it a hundred percent. Now Trinidad's on the other hand, those,
**Grinder:** that's a, yeah, that's a disappointing.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. My belief is that Cohiba will be able to sustain and I think Trinidad's gonna have a challenge as, as time goes on.[00:51:00]
you know, keeping those prices up. Yeah. I look forward to the price drop. Cause they just, they just don't have the, the, the cash, the name brand and, and yeah, they really don't, the market awareness that a COPA does, I mean, I, to me it makes more sense to do that with Monte Cristo than it does with Trinidad.
But, you know, call me crazy. I don't know. Mm-hmm. , you're crazy. Yeah. just, hopefully they don't do it with RGUs. As we mentioned before, the Senate will be on the first plane now. Kick in the nuts. That would be, that would be so bad. Be so bad. So what do you think boys? Are you ready to do the formal liquor rating?
Oh yeah. Our Japanese whiskey here tonight. Mm-hmm. . This is unbelievable stuff. It is, it is. Unbelievable. I wanna keep rolling with this. Yep.
**Bam Bam:** So I'm giving this a nine.
**Gizmo:** Excellent. Yep. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** Solid nine for me too. Okay.
**Senator:** Send the exact same boat. A nine.
**Gizmo:** I'm gonna do something crazy. No, woohoo. No, I'm gonna do something crazy.
This is one of the best. [00:52:00] Whiskeys I've ever tasted better than
**Rooster:** Kirkland . Yes.
**Gizmo:** It's, how is that possible? No, it's, it's definitely better than Kirkland. And I love Kirkland. I actually haven't been drinking as much whiskey, um, as I, as I was Yeah. But you've been drinking Don Julio? Yeah. , Don Julio Nek and other, uh, other tequila.
But I'm gonna give this a 10. I, I think it's a, a plus. Well done slam dunk. Love that. Japanese whiskey nine for me. Okay. And the composite lizard score boys is a 9.2. Fantastic. It's awesome. Yeah. And I think that's a perfect score for, this is a 92 all day. Yeah. I think, I think
**Bam Bam:** that's
**Pagoda:** what Hibiki took got, right?
9.2,
**Bam Bam:** no. Higher. Higher, higher. Yeah. I gave Hibiki a 10. Yeah, I think I gave it a 10.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, I think it was higher. Maybe, maybe two lizards must have given 94 maybe is what a number. I remember 94 was the, uh, the cigar that day. The Corona's Claro. Ah, okay.
**Bam Bam:** Either way, they're in the same class at they this point.
And it's shocking because, you know, most of us in this room weren't fans of Japanese, uh, whiskey. Yeah. It's incredible. [00:53:00]
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah. So as we're coming to the end here, the Parus P two Boys, um, I am obsessed with the cigar and I can't believe for a cigar that only has been released in 2005, that it's as successful and well known and easily accessible as it's become,
**Bam Bam:** you know, and we take the cigar for granted because we have it, a lot of it, and we smoke it a lot.
It's just, it's such a high quality cigar. I can't say enough about it, you know?
**Gizmo:** And for the price point too, you know, somewhere hovering between now, I guess between 18 and 22 bucks or so, still a great, a great value, I think for the experience you get out of it. I, I do think it's a great value.
**Rooster:** Okay. Is it that much?
I thought it was a little less. No, no. I had the same reaction. 14,
**Gizmo:** 14, 15. I'm seeing 'em now. Maybe now. Maybe now. Yeah, they're coming up. They're, you know, they're pretty, pretty high. Now you're looking at. You're looking at about probably 4 75 a box. What isn't
**Bam Bam:** going up now?
**Gizmo:** Yeah,
**Senator:** I don't know. I, I just got a 10 count of these and I paid 16 a stick.
That's not [00:54:00] bad. Phenomen
**Gizmo:** from cigar terminal. No secret. Bad to go on there and look. That's awesome. That's good. I've seen them. I've seen them hovering between four 50 and 500 recently, so you know, they're creeping up. But if you could find 'em for less than that, like Senator did at 16, that's a great value.
Great
**Grinder:** price. Remember the bucks I got with you in maybe January, February
**Gizmo:** was like 300. Yeah. , stink. 25 count. I mean, I remember when D four s were 2 25, you know what, a year ago, year and a half
**Senator:** ago. My biggest regret is not getting a second tower and just stocking up. Even just a year or two ago. Prices were so great.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Who knew?
**Bam Bam:** Oh, it's crazy. It's crazy. It's so disappointing. And just as I'm getting my tower, The prices are going up.
**Senator:** Well, we only told you about it like three years ago. S I
**Grinder:** only ordered it immediately months ago. Yeah.
**Rooster:** Well I'm just glad we got what we got.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah,
**Gizmo:** yeah. You know,
**Bam Bam:** that's true. It's not gonna deter me from buying the price
**Gizmo:** increase.
It's just not true. You [00:55:00] love, I mean, you love these sticks. Yeah. You buy what you love. Yeah. You may just have to stay away from Trinidad, you know, if that's maybe, you know, if that's some, you know, that that's certainly becoming cost prohibitive. But yeah, the rest, you know, it's nominal increase.
**Bam Bam:** Mm-hmm.
year over year. So you know, the colonials now is gone for roughly 24 bucks a stick. I'll still pay that. Oh yeah.
**Gizmo:** I saw a box
**Rooster:** of 500 now the colonials, I couldn't believe
**Senator:** on Mon 500. I saw five 50. I think you five 50.
**Gizmo:** It's insane. Yeah. And how many sticks are in that? 24. Four. Wow. Yeah. Wow. It's not a big stick.
It's like, it's like a Corona. Yeah. Yeah. The I, the only, I, the last one I smoked, we did on the pod. I haven't, I haven't reached for one since Mm. Great. Cigar. I just don't
**Bam Bam:** have it enough. Well, I'm gonna, now we have to keep
**Gizmo:** them. Yeah. I have to hold them. Yeah. I only pull them out. Yeah. You know, everyone's Same with Fundies.
I haven't, I can't tell you the last time I had a fundi.
**Bam Bam:** I stare at the Fundies almost every morning.
**Senator:** Yet th this discussion is exactly why I think it's impossible to rate cigars without at all factoring in the price point. Yeah. You [00:56:00] just have to, because when you can get a cigar that's as satisfying as this from 16 to 22 on the high end, when you can get a D four for, you know, 14 bucks a stick, and you're comparing that to something that you're having to spend double or triple that, that's.
Maybe almost as satisfying or not even to me. You have to, that, that has to play into the equation. A
**Bam Bam:** Trinidad, uh, colonials for $24. Yeah, that's, that's ridiculous.
**Gizmo:** It's ridiculous.
**Rooster:** Ob absurd. Dude, the fundies are like 1700 a box. I sold them to you for 6 85. I
**Gizmo:** need it back. Thank you, .
**Rooster:** I don't know how you have more fundies than I do.
Give it .
**Bam Bam:** I'll give 1500 bucks. It's yours. Fuck you,
**Gizmo:** All right boys, we're coming to the end here of the Parus. Mm-hmm. series P number two. Any final thoughts on this
**Bam Bam:** stick? No. This is a ro it's a roach clip Cigar. A second Take all the way down. Yeah. Yep.
**Gizmo:** Absolutely. What are you guys thinking? Go ahead. [00:57:00] Grindr. . That's just funny. You use roach clip. I love it.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's a term roach clip cigar. You want to get it all the way down. I love it. So your it till your fingers are burning
**Grinder:** and then you drop it. All I'm thinking about is. I know alternative use is for ro ro clips.
**Bam Bam:** Of course.
**Gizmo:** Bam. Does need a roach clip. Yeah, we should get him one. We should be on one for his birthday.
**Grinder:** Oh
**Senator:** seriously? He smoked cigars down to the very, very next, more than anybody. No one I've
**Gizmo:** seeds.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It, I just love the cigars. If the, if it's the right one, the right night, yeah. It's tasting great. I just don't want to drop it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Rooster, what do you think of the P two? Very
**Rooster:** good. Good stick. But I mean, to me, I mean I would probably still pick up a D four over a P two, but I think the P two has a little bit more pepper and there's certain days you want that.
And certain days you might prefer the P two, I mean the D four over that. So want me to rate it? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. So I'm gonna give it a, give it an eight. All right.
**Gizmo:** Grinder.
**Grinder:** This is a high one for, this is I, I smoke [00:58:00] this in the money too daily now. Oh wow. Yeah. Um. Cuz they both are right in my sweet spot for flavor profile.
I was like struggling because I smoke it so much and I love it and it's like I look at my cabinet and I have like all these cigars and I only wanna smoke a P two or, or a Monte two. Yep. Um, D four s I don't smoke enough of to like really have that hankering that you guys are comparing it to. They're
**Senator:** bad.
Don't buy any .
**Grinder:** Um, I was like maybe a 10. Maybe a 10, but I don't, it's probably not. Cuz I know I've had so many better cigars. So I'll give it a nine.
**Gizmo:** Okay. I'm also gonna give it a nine.
**Senator:** I'm in lockstep with Rooster and eight.
**Bam Bam:** I'm at a nine. I'm gonna give this a nine. All right. Yeah, that's a nine for
**Gizmo:** me.
Yeah. The formal lizard rating on the series P number two from RGUs is an 8.7. Excellent. I think that's a fair score.
**Bam Bam:** That's an excellent score. That's an scores. Great. That's
**Gizmo:** an elite score. Yeah, I think that's a [00:59:00] very, very fair score. And like I said, you can get these, get a 10 count box of these probably for about 2 29 right now.
or so a little, maybe a little less if you find a deal. Yeah. I just wanna totally
**Senator:** worth grabbing. I just wanna quickly explain why I gave this an eight, not a nine. Obviously I love RGUs, uh, for my palate, I like some dessert like flavors in a cigar, and, uh, that's very minimal in this cigar. You just get a little bit at times, but it's not, certainly not dominant at all through the smoke.
The D four, the cinnamon we were talking about, like you get some of the baking spice notes throughout that cigar, which I really chase. So, you know, if this taste, if this were a D four in this format, I mean this would be a nine or a 10 for me any day of the week. Um, but when I'm looking for a change of pace or I'm looking for something with just a little more strength or, or body to it, um, I'll pick this.
but that's why for me it's an eight, not a
**Rooster:** nine or a routine. Yeah. I, I was kind of, you know, once in a while you get [01:00:00] these coffee or like chocolate notes from the cigar, but it was like, it was rare. Wish that was a little bit more green, more that if you got more of that, maybe for me it would've gotten like a higher score because I
**Gizmo:** liked that flavor.
Sure.
**Bam Bam:** For me, the nine comes through in the coffee and the very slight peppery note, which I love that combination. You don't get that in a lot of cigars. You just don't.
**Gizmo:** This was a nine for me all day. Yeah. You know, piggybacking everything that you guys have said so far is a hundred percent accurate. This is one of those cigars though, and I, I, you know, to Grindr's point, I would put it next to Amani too.
If I'm only able to have one cigar, I have an hour after a dinner. I had a great dinner with my parents. I think I told you guys, and, uh, I was sitting in a casino having a cigar. I brought a P two, I was able to have one cigar. I was so satisfied at the end of the night. , like it checked all the boxes for me and I wasn't craving something else.
It was perfect. So for me, it, it is that cigar where it just, it just works in that [01:01:00] after steak dinner kind of setting for me.
**Senator:** Absolutely. I, I'll also say, um, and I just, I feel like I have to say this because as much as I love Cardus for the Battle of the pyramids, torpedoes, whatever we want to call them, I would still take a bb f of Boulevard, beco Sophos over the P two.
There's no doubt about
**Bam Bam:** it personally. Yeah. I, and that's, that's a unique cigar and that has really for me, Graham cracker. Yep. There are dessert notes in there. Yep. But you do get a tiny, tiny bit of pepper, which Yep. Brings out the complexity in that,
**Gizmo:** in that stick. Yeah. And I think that, that, for me, it kind of like we, like we talked about, it's all, it's, it's one or the other on any given day.
Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** yeah. You know, you know, I'd give that a higher score than what I give this today, cuz I really, truly love that Bbf cigar. It's fantastic
**Gizmo:** for me. I'm curious. I don't remember what we rated that, what we rated, cuz
**Senator:** I, I think the source of it was not ah, not the bbs. I have, I wish that one of us, myself or someone was handing those out.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So we'll do, listen, we'll do them later in the [01:02:00] year, early next year or something like that. We'll do them again and, and see what we get. Cuz I know you and I got some killer boxes of those things, so, um, I'm sure, uh, rooster does as well. so awesome. And 8.7 for the Pargo series P. Number two, a fantastic Japanese whiskey.
Thank you Grinder. I think that was uh, a plus. Yeah, for me. Yeah, A plus whiskey. So excellent guys. Thanks very much. We'll see you next week. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. Hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us Lounge lizards pod, p o d, that's lounge lizards pod gmail.com.
You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next [01:03:00] week.