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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast presented by Fabrica 5. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight, I'm joined by Rooster, Poobah, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, and Bam Bam, a full house of lizards.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some whiskey, Talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 156th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan a meeting this year once a week. We're going to smoke a New World cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating.
We discuss Davidoff's latest high dollar cigar, we answer a listener email on golf cigars, and Senator details his recent trip to Toronto, Canada, all 90 minutes. So sit back, get your favourite drink, Light up a cigar and enjoy, as we pair Indri single malt Indian whiskey with the Warped El Oso 10th Anniversary Grand Papa.
A Toro tonight on the pod, [00:01:00] actually manufactured in Miami. It's from Warped, it's called the El Oso 10th Anniversary. In grand papa. And it's a 50 ring gauge cigar by six inches long. And boys, we had so much success with the Medio Maestro Del Tiempo 5205. Many moons ago on the pod, we were talking about doing another warped and I got a couple of listener emails about the El Oso 10th anniversary cigar.
So that's what we have in our hands tonight.
**Bam Bam:** Well, I hope Maestro Del Tiempo. That was an incredible cigar.
**Gizmo:** That was a good cigar. And I think all of us pretty much ran out and. Oh, part of my
**Bam Bam:** regular rotation, for sure.
**Rooster:** The wrapper on this smells really funky.
**Bam Bam:** It's very pungent and potent on the nose. I'm afraid to smoke the cigar.
No, you
**Poobah:** shouldn't, you shouldn't be. I think it's actually going to be sweeter than you think. It does, it does smell like, um Smells powerful. The paddock at, uh, at Belmont, but Horsefoot? Yeah. Uh, on the outside, but I don't think it's going to smoke like that. [00:02:00] It is beautifully made, though.
**Gizmo:** It is. The wrapper's very dark.
**Chef Ricky:** I got a lot of shit a couple pods ago because I cut early. Who cut early?
**Bam Bam:** Rooster, Pooba. You literally. The chef, chef cut early.
**Chef Ricky:** Oh boy.
**Gizmo:** Alright boys, let's cut this thing. See we're getting on the cold draw on the wrapper.
**Pagoda:** But Gizem, I'm impressed we're doing a Toro.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, well, I think it's been quite some time, boys, since we've done any cigar really under 50 ring gauge. We've been creeping up. We have a Rocky Patel coming up in a few weeks. That's a 60 ring gauge cigar. Woohoo! And, uh, you know, I will say we've had success with the bigger ring gauge stuff.
So, this isn't huge. It's only 50, but, uh, it does feel significant in the hand.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, it feels good in the hand.
**Gizmo:** The
**Bam Bam:** cold draw is delicious.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Well, I like
**Gizmo:** the cold draw a lot. It's
**Chef Ricky:** interesting. On, on the aroma, I was getting some iodine. And some barnyard [00:03:00] and the cold draw is entirely sweet. What did you just
**Rooster:** say?
Iodine? Iodine. Iodine. What does
**Chef Ricky:** iodine smell like or taste like? To me, it's a very vintage, I just remember it from being, I don't know, from hospitals in the eighties. I feel like it was all over the place. That's not a good note. Well, no, no. Also from camping trips as a kid for purifying water, we would have iodine tablets and put them into our, our water bags.
Right. So the, the smell for me is, it's. Reminiscent. It's pretty.
**Rooster:** It's a big camping guy. I know
**Bam Bam:** you used to be. I hope you enjoyed this camp. I think we're going to have to, we're going to have to cut chefs, uh, Mike early tonight. I got, I got
**Poobah:** hints of a Lasix. And, uh, uh, if you, if you, if you, if you're not into thoroughbred racing, you may not know what Lasix is, but you know, when you look in the racing form, uh, you get, you know, a little bit of barnyard, I'm kind of kidding around, but Lasix is that the [00:04:00] horse is on Lasix.
It's got Lasix. Or it doesn't have Lasix. I still don't know what Lasix are. Neither do I. Based on has them or it doesn't have them. Yeah. Perfect. They're either on, the horse is either on Lasix or not on Lasix. Like they got their eye surgery? Well, no. Like, what is Lasix? Well, it's, it's, it's a drug that they give the horse.
Oh. That they reveal in the racing form. I
**Gizmo:** see. What is it, like a blood thinner or something? Yeah, like, it's like an anti inflammatory.
**Bam Bam:** Got it. Uh huh. Yeah. All right, guys, what are you getting on a cold draw for? I love it, God. God.
**Rooster:** I said iodine. I, I, for me, it's like, yeah, that's summed it up
**Senator:** for me. Iodine, a little
**Gizmo:** arsenic.
That's about all I would get.
**Rooster:** Iodine and Lasix.
**Gizmo:** I would say it has that figgy thing we often call out. A lot of fig, raisin. You know, little, little bready, bready fig.
**Bam Bam:** It's very nice. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** And Lasix, as you know, it's on the form, in the
**Poobah:** racing
**Gizmo:** form. All right, boys, let's light this thing. The warped El Oso 10th anniversary.
The Vitola is [00:05:00] the grandpapa. It's a 50 ring gauge Toro by six inches long, comes in a nice presentation, a box of 10. I'm warming by a fire
**Senator:** pit, but go does lighter. I can literally feel the heat next to me. Well, he does weld steel on this side. This
**Pagoda:** is the nicer one, by the way.
**Rooster:** It's made by Ohio flame.
**Pagoda:** It's my national steel.
Bethlehem. Look at this, it's a
**Bam Bam:** flat flame.
**Pagoda:** I don't know what you're on about.
**Gizmo:** This is nice on the light.
**Bam Bam:** I can't wait to try it. My, uh, single flame's not doing well here.
**Poobah:** So I will say, while we're lighting this, because since we're lighting things, I did get this lighter from, um, Tom James, what is it, Tom James?
Peter, Peter, Peter James.
**Senator:** Tom James.
**Poobah:** Tom Ford, his
**Senator:** brother,
**Poobah:** his brother, it's his distant distant cousin in Patterson, New Jersey. And I got to tell you, like see how thin it is. It's beautiful with the lacquer [00:06:00] finish. Yeah. The, the, the man, how long this thing lasts is remarkable. It must hold more fuel than I ever imagined, but it's a nice lighter.
**Gizmo:** Usually those thin lighters are notorious for only holding. A little bit of fuel that you're constantly having to relight them. So
**Poobah:** no, it's, it's actually really become something that I enjoy. So we'll prove it. We got to see the flame.
**Gizmo:** Oh, very nice. Nice. Nice single flame. Super nice. Single flame jet.
**Pagoda:** Well, that's the one that came with the case, right?
**Poobah:** Yeah. You could order it with the case. What are you guys getting on the light here?
**Bam Bam:** I am getting raisin and fig, a touch of cedar, maybe a bit of coffee. Very nice.
**Senator:** Yeah. I get a little cocoa too. Yeah. I mean, to me, this is like a very traditional Nicaraguan flavor profile.
**Bam Bam:** Medium to
**Senator:** touching full, I think.
**Bam Bam:** Maybe
**Rooster:** a little pepper. Just
**Bam Bam:** a bit. Yeah. White pepper,
**Rooster:** maybe. It hits your nose. The [00:07:00] smoke has like, you get the pepper right up your nose. I
**Bam Bam:** haven't
**Gizmo:** retro'd yet. Here's you. A little spicy through the nose, but there is a sweetness there. Yeah, there's a sweetness, yeah. That's also present on the draw that I think is very nice.
**Bam Bam:** It's very nice. I was just,
**Gizmo:** uh.
**Bam Bam:** You know what it is? It's almost for me like a very like light molasses or prune type thing. That's what I'm getting. For my sweetness.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, I was trying to. Prune,
**Bam Bam:** molasses.
**Pagoda:** It's really good. I'm really enjoying it at the light.
**Rooster:** Very different from the warped line. Yeah. The Maes Mara is very different
**Pagoda:** and it's smoking like a chimney
It's kind of reminds me of like the, there's a lot of smoke output here. Yeah. The pro Prova nine, no doubt. Yeah, this,
**Gizmo:** this desolate definitely has a league of vibe to it. Yeah. But I don't think this is as full as the league.
**Bam Bam:** No, there's also more, you know, to me, there's like a jammy type thing with this and on the tail end of the finish for me.
You don't get anything like that on a Ligo.[00:08:00]
**Gizmo:** See how it develops here. So this cigar features two bands on it. One is a warped band with the bear, obviously El Oso in Spanish means the bear, and there's a second band celebrating the 10th anniversary of this line. Which is black and gold. And like I said, these come in boxes of 10. Retailing for 250 bucks.
So these cigars are right around 25 each. I think we got them, I think I got them for 22 each. Oh
**Pagoda:** really?
**Gizmo:** This is like a premium line? This is 22. Wow. That's expensive.
**Pagoda:** Yep. Well the box is very nice, right? It has like the velvet thing. It has like a little
**Gizmo:** plastic suede type of thing in there.
**Senator:** It's very odd to me that the like primary band on this is completely different than the maestro del tiempo.
It's like they don't have a standard warped band.
**Rooster:** Yeah, like even the colors are like mix and match completely. You know, it's like the first band on the top is silver. And the other one is [00:09:00] black and gold.
**Bam Bam:** Also the It's very odd. That, uh, the top of the band is the lower band. The top of it's flat and the bottom has this concave shape.
It's almost as if the top of the lower band was cut off and they just used it because they didn't want to reprint them.
**Pagoda:** Well, it's a budget line for 25 bucks. 20, uh,
**Chef Ricky:** 22.
**Senator:** And I've only had the Maestro Del Tiempo and actually, Another version of that. That one, the more one Tiempo in it. Yes. Yes. Um, but I have no other experience with the warp line.
Is the warped profile closer to that Maestro del Tiempo, which is like lighter floral, more Cuban esque or closer to this like n traditional Nicaraguan flavor profile? Good question. No idea. Does anybody
**Rooster:** know I haven't smoked many Warped. Other than the two that you mentioned? Same. So same.
**Senator:** I'm curious, because this, this is such a departure, I just wonder like, is this their sweet spot or is that.
**Poobah:** Is this a Nicaraguan Puro?
**Gizmo:** It is not. So the wrapper is Ecuadorian [00:10:00] Habano. The binder is Nicaraguan, which is special for this 10th anniversary. The regular El Oso's have an Ecuadorian binder. So that's the switch here in the bigger format in this cigar for the El Oso. And the filler is a mix of Dominican and Nicaraguan.
See, that's cool. And these cigars I love are manufactured in a small factory. In the heart of little Havana in Miami. So these cigars were made in the United States.
**Poobah:** It's
**Gizmo:** not all
**Poobah:** Nicaraguan. So that's interesting.
**Gizmo:** I saw, also saw another cool note about this cigar is that there is a single roller at the factory in Miami dedicated to producing the grand pop of Vitola.
The cigar we have in our hand and this person makes somewhere around a hundred cigars a day. makes a hundred of these a day. These, this release is limited to just 1500 boxes. Like we said, each containing 10, [00:11:00] uh, 10 cigars and you can find them around the internet, uh, somewhere around 250 bucks for the box of 10.
So El Oso was launched obviously in 2014. This cigar came out earlier this year, right around the same time. PCA a little bit before PCA. El Oso is Spanish for quote unquote the bear as we know and the cigar has a playful Goldilocks in the three bears spirit. Its cigar bands not only feature the image of the bear which we talked about, the sizes in the regular lined are dubbed dubbed cub, mama, and papa.
As the increase in size, the 10th anniversary cigar, the one we're holding in our line is the Toro, uh, which as we know, which is called the grand Papa. So the Papa in the regular El Oso line is a bellicose. So 48 ring gauge by six, this Toro is 50 by six. So just a little bit bigger. This cigar apparently has a slightly different blend than the original El Oso, but I don't think any of us in the room here have had any of those.
So. We'll see how it does tonight. This is right up
**Bam Bam:** [00:12:00] Pagoda and Rooster's Power Alley. Yeah, I'm loving it. Yeah, this is, it's good. For me, it's a full bodied cigar. There's no doubt about it. Very smooth. It's very, very
**Rooster:** earthy too.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, a little bit. A little bit.
**Chef Ricky:** Earthy, a little spiced. For me, the, the, the sweeter prune and dried fruit notes have kind of dissipated a little bit.
**Bam Bam:** If it were just a touch smoother,
**Rooster:** Well, we also, we also just started. That's true. Yeah. You know, hopefully it changes. We'll There's so many times you light a cigar and that's like, it gives you like a, like a blast of pepper and it's a powerful smoke and then it kind of mellows off a little bit. So we'll see how it does.
**Gizmo:** I'm wishing that the finish was a little bit longer. I'm, I'm finding the finish to be pretty abrupt, a little too short for my liking. Hopefully that changes. But so far, so
**Rooster:** this was recommended by a listener? Yes, actually two listeners.[00:13:00]
**Chef Ricky:** I love the flavor of the initial draw. Like what come, what I get right off the first puff. And then, you know, I return back for that second. And it's not quite the same, but that initial draw I get out of the cigar. I really love that flavor. But then you try to go back for it because the finish is so short.
And it's not, it's, you're not getting that same flavor. So hopefully that develops a little bit more as we get into this.
**Senator:** I'm just hoping with this cigar that there's some more unique flavor note that kind of appears at some point. And I say that because this is so close to what so many Nicaraguan cigars try to be that we enjoy.
And I mean, Bam was talking about the smoothness and I get Rooster's point. It's still early, but you know, this doesn't start with the same level of refinement or smoothness as like a Padron does. So this is going to need something interesting to really keep me. [00:14:00]
**Bam Bam:** There's some fucking power in this cigar.
There's, there's a little bit of power. You called it, Ben. You called it. It's powerful. I mean, it's just
**Gizmo:** How much was that, the Maestro Del Tiempo, when we were, when we purchased those boxes? I mean, was that six bucks? Six to eight
**Senator:** bucks. Probably eight. Yeah.
**Rooster:** That was a lawn stale, right?
**Senator:** Yeah. Yeah. Incredible deal.
Under 10 bucks. Incredible deal. And also, I mean, as great as that cigar was, I love that little thin band that it has on it. Oh, it's
**Bam Bam:** very elegant. Simple.
**Senator:** It was simple and elegant. It was like this nice gold band, and I, I can't help but say, like, I really hate the bands on this cigar. And for 22, like, I keep looking at it.
And I'm just like, this doesn't look like a particularly attractive cigar. I'm gonna,
**Rooster:** I'm gonna take the second band off. It's bothering me.
**Bam Bam:** Senator called it earlier, that Maestra del Tiempo is very, very Cuban esque. And we're not experiencing anything like that tonight. Uh, this is quite the departure, man.
**Poobah:** It is. I [00:15:00] thought whoever called that the short finish, I think it was a couple of folks. It's a very short finish. And dry. Very. And. Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't have that lingering flavor in your palate that you're kind of in between draws. You're just, uh, you can take your time with it's
**Senator:** there's something abrupt about it.
I think with a short finish and kind of a drier finish like Pagoda was saying, the first thing that just pops into my mind is, I really think we just need an Indian whiskey to pair with this. Well, you're in
**Bam Bam:** luck, dude. Well,
**Poobah:** um. What a segue.
**Bam Bam:** Oh my lord.
**Poobah:** Apparently that's available tonight.
**Bam Bam:** I'm attempting to aerate
**Pagoda:** my drink.
**Gizmo:** Let's continue the punishment. And by the
**Pagoda:** way, we all are going to, uh, Have a swig of head without eyes. Correct. So tonight
**Gizmo:** we have the Indri.
**Pagoda:** Indri,
**Bam Bam:** yes.
**Gizmo:** Indri. Indri.
**Bam Bam:** We'll all be injured.
**Gizmo:** Single [00:16:00] malt Indian whiskey.
**Bam Bam:** How do you pronounce it? Indri.
**Gizmo:** Indri.
**Bam Bam:** Indri. Wow, very elegant and almost romantic. It's a Sanskrit word.
I think it, keep your heads to yourself.
**Rooster:** What injury means is the senses, the five senses, five senses. You
**Gizmo:** woke up them senses. Oh yeah. All right. Let's take a sip boys. If the cigar didn't, the whiskey.
**Poobah:** Someone passed me some ice because this is going to pass muster with me.
**Pagoda:** I'll tell you this could be one of the shortest episodes of a year.
Yeah. That's um,
**Senator:** this is not good. I can't do this without ice.
**Gizmo:** Alright, we're gonna have some ice. Let's pass it around. Chef Ricky, what do you think?
**Pagoda:** I'll tell you, it's great, uh, as a second drink.
**Rooster:** Holy shit.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, pass the, uh, bucket when you guys are done. I'm sure it'll be good with ice.
**Pagoda:** I'll tell you, India should just stick to beers.
They [00:17:00] do good beers over there. They've started doing wines now. Do they really? There has to be some good beers. They should
**Rooster:** stick
**Pagoda:** to tea. Even the ones in India are really good. Some really good beers over there. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** All right. So we all just put ice in our drinks. What's everybody thinking with ice? I
**Chef Ricky:** didn't put ice.
Oh, that's right. I'm sticking with the ice and I might regret it. I tell you, take some ice. Um, it's all right.
**Senator:** It's on Pagoda. Don't
**Chef Ricky:** worry. It's funny. A lot like the cigar, the initial sip. It's like, okay, there's, there's like some sweetness there and some Oakland and maybe some vanilla. And, and then that all disappears into the super bitter.
Pith, like, like citrus rind. You know what it is? The white pith
**Bam Bam:** part. I feel like, initially that, in the front of the mouth, I get no flavor that I can, I can note. But on the finish, it's extremely mineral. There's a lot of minerality there, more than I'd like. It's really, really, um, it's [00:18:00] almost like a metallic finish.
Yeah, I
**Chef Ricky:** get like grapefruit pith, is what I'm getting on the finish for me. That's generous, I don't know.
**Senator:** No, it's not a good flavor for me. On the whiskey? Yeah. I actually get grapefruit.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Yeah,
**Senator:** I'm getting with ice. The kind of citrus opens that you get more of it on the nose a little bit. It's a little
**Pagoda:** more fruitier and bam, bam
**Senator:** just
**Gizmo:** went to a nine on this.
Yeah, I know. I'm getting stuff. So I'm
**Poobah:** going to let it sit and see what happens. I mean, If I'm like stranded in some, somewhere, somewhere in India, like I could drink this,
**Pagoda:** but my God, this is one, many, many, many awards, but a lot of different, uh, I don't know what category they're in. Probably the best Indian whiskey, maybe the competing alone.
I'm not sure, but they have won a lot of awards.
**Gizmo:** So let's talk about our spirit here that we have. It's called the Indri. Trinny, single malt Indian whiskey. It's produced by the Piccadilly Distilleries [00:19:00] in the village of Indri. Harana. Is that how, is that how you pronounce it? Yeah. Harana, yeah. Harana India,
**Chef Ricky:** Northern India,
**Gizmo:** the Highlands of India.
It is named after its location, indri, and the term trinny refers to the Triple Cask maturation project, uh, process. It undergoes, it's aged in three types of casks, ex ex bourbon. X wine and PX sherry cast. We'll talk about that in a second. This maturation method imparts a variety of flavors. The whiskey is non chilled filtered and bottled at 46 percent ABV 92 proof.
And it features flavors they say, such as tropical fruits, as Senator just mentioned spices and a hint of Oak. What I found interesting was the PX Sherry cast, which I wasn't familiar with. I don't think we've ever talked about no P X Sherry. So I looked up what that is. A P X or a Pedro Jimenez with an X Sherry cask is a type of oak barrel that previously held Pedro Jimenez Sherry, a rich and sweet fortified wine from [00:20:00] Spain.
As we know, Pedro Jimenez is made from sun dried grapes resulting in a thick syrupy wine with strong notes of raisins, figs, and caramel when used for whiskey PX Sherry casks in part impart these sweet, fruity and rich flavors, adding complexity to the whiskey such as dried fruit, bam, molasses and desert like sweetness, dessert like sweetness.
These casks are popular in the whiskey industry for finishing or maturing whiskey to give it a unique flavor profile. What's interesting is when I saw PX, When I was researching this, I had never heard of that before. Have you guys ever heard of this? Have you ever heard of Pedro Jimenez? No, not at all.
**Chef Ricky:** I've heard of it. You've heard of it? Yeah.
**Senator:** At least it explains the desert notes I was getting in this.
**Chef Ricky:** You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I
**Senator:** misread
**Bam Bam:** the word. I'm trying. We're in a desert right now.
All
**Chef Ricky:** alone, drink up and be merry. [00:21:00] On this Indian whiskey, the nose is quite delicious once you get past the heat. Uh, I feel like you get a lot of those sherry notes and those tropical fruit notes. Uh, but I'm wondering if what I'm picking up on the end that I'm seeing is, uh, reminiscent of grapefruit pith.
You know, they said there's wine barrels here. I wonder if that has anything to do with the skins of the grapes or grape must or maybe those things kind of getting tannic. And that's maybe what's, uh, what Bam's referring to as mineral there. I'm not sure. There's, there's something happening here at the tail end of the, of the SIP that is unique and something I've never experienced before in the spirit.
**Poobah:** Yeah. I think if you, if you took one chip of ice and put it in or, or in, in, in, or a drop of water to open it up. It may, you may get some more flavor. Um, for me, it's, it's, it's much more approachable with a little bit of [00:22:00] water in there.
**Chef Ricky:** Kiss Bo's face.
**Poobah:** It's,
**Gizmo:** there's a disaster about to happen in the room here.
Why? Chef Ricky took your advice and he picked up his water bottle and he stopped it with his thumb and completely turned it upside down. He inserted his thumb into the bottle.
**Poobah:** just to get a drop. I mean, it just opens up just a little bit and like,
**Chef Ricky:** yeah, no, no, you're not wrong. I'm definitely getting that.
You need half a bottle for this whiskey to
**Bam Bam:** open up.
**Chef Ricky:** There's also like a young wood, like a flavor to it. I'm getting cardboard. It's oak, right? That's oak. I think. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** It feels very young though. The spirit to me is not very Refined.
**Senator:** No, to me the flavors are very muddled. Yeah, agreed. It's like, all I'm getting, the citrus note is way too dominant, like, I was intrigued by that, like, that's a unique note to get in a whiskey, but that's really all I get on the finish.
**Bam Bam:** I'm having a hard time picking that up. Any type of citrus here.
**Poobah:** Yeah, I mean it's it's that's that's shocking
**Bam Bam:** in [00:23:00] the meantime listeners Senator and giz are intrigued by chef's pouring technique out of his water bottle. I didn't
**Poobah:** see that I didn't
**Senator:** it was the it was the turmeric night through the fingers method on this one Yeah But that was with chivas not
**Gizmo:** spring water
**Chef Ricky:** Wow.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, we'll give this a few minutes here and we'll go to a listener email.
**Pagoda:** I think Ricky just raided the whiskey.
**Chef Ricky:** This feels like an April Fool's episode.
**Gizmo:** So this one is from Lizard Whalen. He writes, Lizards, hello from Los Angeles. I'm a big fan of the pod. It's easily the best cigar podcast out there. In my opinion. I wonder after this episode, if he'll feel the same, my question to you revolves around golf and we do have a few golfers in the room.
I am not one of them, but we'll see how this goes. I've been smoking Cubans consistently for the [00:24:00] last several years. But due to the ridiculous price inflation, I'm leaning more into new worlds these days. I know you all can relate. Given your extensive knowledge and refined taste, I was hoping you could recommend a few cigars that would be perfect for enjoying on the golf course.
I'm not looking for anything too complex. I think the most important attribute would be that something that stays lit with fantastic construction, something that you could smoke in a hurricane. If you will, as Poobah says, medium to full flavor without being too strong would be ideal. I'm also going on a trip in November to the Bay area with a big group of guys who are mostly novice smokers.
So something suitable for them would be a. Would be great to hear as well. Budget would be somewhere around 12 a stick. Give or take a few bucks. Finally, any suggestions for a nice cigar case that fits in a golf bag? Thank you in advance for your time and recommendations. Lizards best lizard Waylon. Nice email.
Nice email. So I'm not a golf [00:25:00] guy. I certainly have some thoughts, but I'm curious. Yeah. What if I may, I would
**Bam Bam:** go with the Padron 2000. That's six bucks. It's durable. It's rugged. It's got great flavor. Nice, nice profile. Very affordable, especially for newbies.
**Senator:** I agree with that. I mean, for, for a novice smoker, for sure.
And, and for Lizard Whalen or a more experienced smoker, you know, uh, to get the drone exclusivo. We like that cigar. 64 line. Oh, that
**Pagoda:** too. Yeah. And, and the aging rooms.
**Senator:** Yeah, the Sonata. That's a good idea. Oh yeah. The Sonata.
**Pagoda:** Even the other aging room. Like, you know, if, uh, if he's, I don't want interested in, you know, it lights up.
It's under 10 bucks. Yeah. What
**Chef Ricky:** about, uh, uh, it has to be under 10 bucks, or was it 12? No, he said the
**Gizmo:** budget was 12. Give or take a few bucks. So I would think that, I think the Senator,
**Chef Ricky:** the senator is a good one too. Sonata? Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah, I Carillo I was
**Gizmo:** gonna say, I carillo, I, I think the encore or the.
The green one, I'm talking about. Oh,
**Senator:** oh.
**Gizmo:** Um, was that, that's the Encore, correct?
**Senator:** No, that's the Allegiance.
**Gizmo:** Allegiance, I'm sorry. The Allegiance from E. P. Carrillo. [00:26:00] The green band.
**Rooster:** I think a novice smoker would also like some of the Dunn Barton cigars. Dunn Barton's a great call out. Like he, uh, the Brulee to start out.
You know, that's a Yeah. It's a nice introduction. It's got a nice thick wrapper. Yeah. Yeah.
**Poobah:** But the thousand series from Padron, I, I I, I would back that up a hundred percent in that price point. And then, um, you're the only
**Bam Bam:** serious golfer in the room. Yeah. Pagoda you and pagoda pagoda iss a Yeah, pagoda.
Pagoda is a pretty good, uh, fucking badass golfer.
**Poobah:** Yeah. And then, uh, and then I would say a Z car, just one of the, like one of the. There's the hard cases, the Z car, hard cases. Um, you throw that in the, in the basket of the golf cart and you can fit plenty of cigars in, in the medium kind of box. Um, and you're good to go.
I mean, the thousand series doesn't get a lot of credit. As much credit as it deserves, um, I used to smoke those, [00:27:00] you know, more often, um, they're, they're, they're affordable, approachable, they taste good. I think for the novice smoker, the price point's great and they're going to hold up. Like, the rapper's gonna hold up.
**Senator:** Specifically in the Thousand Series, the 2000 in Maduro. Yes. I feel like if you like the Exclusivo line, that's the closest. It's a Rabusso in size. And the Maduro rapper, we love the Exclusivo in Maduro, so. I would try that. One hundred percent. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** I like the 2000 because of the length. It's a robust though, right?
Just maybe a bit. A touch bigger. It's very similar in size to the Expo Cigar. It's great for the course. You know, if you're gonna, you relight it, it'll stay, it'll keep its flavor. It's pretty rugged and durable.
**Gizmo:** And I think for smokers that like a bigger ring gauge cigar, you know, some of the more novice smokers want a bigger ring gauge cigar.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** The, the larger sizes in the Padron 1000 series perform very well. People love those. That's true. You know, you can get a, you can get a Toro or even bigger. In the thousand series and [00:28:00] it's going to perform great. And that was the original smoking in a hurricane was the ex placebo. All those episodes ago.
That was, that was, that's where that
**Poobah:** term
**Gizmo:** came from.
**Poobah:** Yeah. And you get it in the Maduro rapper. It brings that sweetness. It's really nice. And you can drop it in the, you can drop it in the grass. You can, you know, put it down. I mean, You know, that's what you do though. But I mean, you can, you can take it and just like place it in the rough and like, you know, your, or you can, you know, bring it around and put it down for a second.
Um, I wouldn't put down the fairway, but you, you, you, you know, in, or leave it in the cart. You know what I mean? And it's, it's easy to handle it. You can relight it. It'll relight nice. I think that's a perfect recommendation.
**Senator:** Another cigar since we're reviewing, uh, um, a warped. I think the Maestro Del Tiempo would be good for a novice or even an experienced smoker.
The wrapper is not as thin as a Cuban cigar. The flavor [00:29:00] profile is medium. It's never full and very
**Bam Bam:** affordable.
**Senator:** Yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Yeah. And the other one too is the Papas Fritas on a cigar. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. On a, on a golf course. Like, because sometimes like I don't. I don't generally smoke, I don't smoke a lot of cigars on the golf course because it's, it's another thing for me to handle.
It's just me. Like I'm handling, I'm focused on other things,
**Gizmo:** golfing, like drinking,
**Poobah:** golfing, um, you play to win the game, right? But a Papas Fritas is a affordable. Cigar. Um, I think
**Pagoda:** a Papa's Frida's
**Poobah:** is
**Pagoda:** great. It's a nice, would you say
**Gizmo:** the other Ligas are appropriate for? Novice smokers or the Papas Fritas stands alone in that category from Liga.
So
**Pagoda:** it depends on the size, right? Like for me, I think, uh, That's what I think. I agree with it.
**Poobah:** Yeah. The Vitola matters. For the petite Corona, you know, for a novice guy, they're going to want to take a couple [00:30:00] puffs, you know, relight it, the wrapper on that cigar. It's got a little pigtail on it, which is, which is cool.
The wrapper on that cigar is pretty tough. So, you know, they can bet you can bounce around with it. So if you're, if it's in your mouth and you need to throw it down, you can kind of throw it down into the, into the longer grass. You for a second, hit your shot. Pick it up. Yeah. You know what I mean? If, if the cart's away from you, you can, you can do that and, and, and then move on with your life.
Um, to me, smoking a premium cigar on the golf course is too much work. I want something short. If I want to toss it, because I gotta focus on something else, I can toss it. You know, same with the thousand series. Like I'm not going to feel bad. Like if I just, if I smoke half of it and then you toss it because I got to focus on shit, like I can toss it or leave it or put it in the cup holder or whatever.
Revisit it. They light [00:31:00] up good. I mean, they're, they're really, you know, cigars like that. Budget cigar, more budget cigars that are dependable to me are good because if you're on this, you know, there's, there's only so much you can focus on. I mean, like, like, especially if you're trying to play serious, you're trying to play golf, right?
You're trying to like, you're trying to do stuff. The last thing I want to focus on is. Something complex or something that I care about. I could give a shit. If I need to toss it, like, I'm just gonna toss it. Yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** And to your point, I, I mean, I've only been golfing once and I lit three cigars on the course.
One I forgot at one of the tees, uh, cause I put it down somewhere. You're an amateur, buddy. And, but, but I will say that my, my partner had this awesome, Uh, device. It, it looked like a a, a clip? Yeah, a clip clip with the magnet, you clip it onto the side of the golf cart. Correct. And then just as you step off, you put your cigar on there and it holds well until you come back to your [00:32:00] car.
You can get that on
**Gizmo:** Amazon, I think for like three bucks. Yeah. Or five bucks. That's pretty cheap.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Correct. And they also have a great thing called the, it's like a cup holder. You can get 'em for your car and it works, but it also, but it's like a shelf and you can put it there in. You can do that, but I mean, again, but that's taking up a cup holder place for your drink, your Gatorade water.
That's
**Chef Ricky:** why I like my idea better, your cocktail,
**Poobah:** but again, like you're dealing with like a clip. Now you're dealing with your, your, your range finder, which is, which is magnetically connected to the cart. It's like. There's so much shit you're dealing with. This is why I don't golf, by the way.
**Pagoda:** No, no, but it depends what kind of a golfer you are.
Like an experience with him would be completely different than an experience with me who goes to have a good time. Ah. Two in the front, two in the back, along with drinks, and that's not Gatorade. No, no, no.
**Poobah:** I'm with, no, no, no.
**Pagoda:** You see, it depends on what kind of a golfer you are and what are you going for.
Yeah, [00:33:00]
**Poobah:** but I'm calling in, I'm calling in airstrikes to have this thing in my club called airstrikes. Right. So I'm calling. We're calling in airstrikes all day, where, where, where kids from the, the, the, the, the caddyshack are coming out, you, you call it in boom, boom, boom, we want, you know, so you're gonna force them, we want eight transfusions, like two each.
Like, and then the guy comes out, you know what I mean? You're calling it in on the app, they come out, but
**Senator:** you're playing to win when pagoda plays that order. There's 16 that come , you know, drinking.
**Poobah:** So, so, so you're, you, you're, you're, you're, you're trying to, you know, I
**Gizmo:** love by the way that the clip is too much, but to call in an airstrike airstrike , that's, that's totally appropriate.
Well, but by the way, for the amount of
**Poobah:** tension you have for No, but no, but, but it's a, it's a thing on the app airstrike. So you, you go on your app. And you say, airstrike, we need eight transfusions now. And you know, and it's boom, they bring them out and they'll drive, drive the drinks out to you if you're in the middle of the course, it's no problem.
But [00:34:00] what I'm saying is, is though, it's, it's like handling a cigar and playing golf sometimes for me. Is just, it's one more thing for me to be worried about. So I think that that to that, you know, the thousand series stuff is great. Papa's Frieda's is great or a budget cigar. That's approachable. You know, there
**Rooster:** is another one.
The Oliva V Lancera would be the problem. See, here's the problem I
**Gizmo:** have with deal. I was actually going to bring that up as one I wouldn't recommend, and I'm going to disagree with you here because when I'm, when I'm sitting in the With no wind conditions, I have to light that cigar about 15 times and touching
**Senator:** it up and fighting it.
The funny thing is, what really validated that, do you remember when we were at PCA, we met one of the reps from Oliva, and he was asking what Olivas we smoked, we mentioned Lancera, and I couldn't believe that he said, He goes, it's such a great cigar. He's like, even if you have to keep relighting it so many times, it's such a great cigar.
And he admitted that that's an issue with that cigar. So it very much validated our experience. You know,
**Gizmo:** what's [00:35:00] funny about that too, not to get on a tangent, by the way, on the warped here, I'm having a problem with my burn. My construction and my ash will not come off so I can relight it. Are you noticing
**Bam Bam:** the humidity right now?
It's kind of, it's very soft. And
**Gizmo:** these have been in my tower for six weeks. So, you know, it's just, it's not holding,
**Bam Bam:** it's not holding the heat.
**Gizmo:** It doesn't feel, and it feels very soft here. Yeah. Around the bands. Yeah. The pack feels very light. Sure. Wow. The pack feels very light. It's like in a cave in. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. And the problem is the, the heat doesn't stay consistent. So you're now having to relight.
**Poobah:** At this point in the cigar, it's not delivering much in terms of the finish, the complexity. It's, it feels dry. The finish feels dry to me. It doesn't feel rich. There's certain components of it that I'm liking, but it's at 25 a smoke for me.
There's no, there's no way on God's green earth. Listen,
**Gizmo:** I'm at the end of the, we're at the end of the first third here. I [00:36:00] am at least. And this is, I'm fighting this cigar more than I need to be fighting this cigar. And we're talking about cigars as we kind of, you know, kind of merge these conversations with the golf conversation.
We're talking about cigars that are 6 you can smoke in a hurricane. And this is a 25 cigar that I'm sitting in a perfect condition made for cigar smoking and this lounge
**Bam Bam:** is a challenge there.
**Gizmo:** And I'm fighting it. Right. Like a Padron 2000 blows us away. Of course it does. It's The cigar
**Rooster:** actually feels hollow.
It
**Senator:** literally, I had Pagoda feel my cigar. I have never touched a cigar. Like you can see the wrapper, like the walls, the cigar just completely collapsed. I don't know what is going on with this.
**Gizmo:** So, you know, what's interesting about the Oliva V Lancero that we're talking about and the construction issues I've had paralleling this with the, you know, merging this with the golf conversation.
I find that those cigars, if you put those on a scale, They are less than half the weight of what a normal [00:37:00] Lancero should be. Which is why I think they're so budget. You've weighed them? I weighed them because I was having a discussion with a group of guys. A lot of
**Bam Bam:** time on his hands.
**Gizmo:** I was having a discussion with a group of journalists in the cigar industry.
Oh!
**Bam Bam:** Journalists. Global Insider. So we were, is this
**Senator:** the Wall Street Journal or the New Testament? Yes, yes, yes. The
**Bam Bam:** Wall Street Journal. This is the, this is the Bayonne Journal.
**Gizmo:** So we were, we were discussing the disappointment with the performance of the Oliva V. Lancero compared to how well it performed.
Tastes, right? And somebody said, Oh, you know, let's look up what the weight should be and then weigh it. It was less than half of what the stated weight should be. And what I'm finding is that this seems like a similar situation right now where my cigar is like, I can feel pockets of emptiness throughout the cigar, which I feel like I'm going to have to fight this the rest of the way here.
Yeah,
**Pagoda:** it's like very soft and limpy.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Yeah, there's, there's that. And [00:38:00] I could deal with that. What I can't deal with is, um, is the overall taste of this thing is not offensive, but it's also just not good. Yeah. It's just, it's not, it's, it's like a snooze fest. It's not a Kanye. Well, it's not Connie. Hey, I mean, you're bringing, you're bringing, uh, uh, I mean, it's not an LCDH released as legendary from a legendary market into the conversation with this, with the
**Gizmo:** cigar, he put the bait out and you took that like a, like a
**Poobah:** salmon.
Who has, you're talking about Cuban age up.
**Gizmo:** I mean, please. So I wanted to get back to the golf thing while we all fight our cigars here. This is very disappointing. Are there any other cigars that you guys feel would not perform well on the golf course? [00:39:00] Particus D4. Any Cuban. I would say any Cuban, any time I see a guy with a Cuban cigar on the golf course.
That's a problem. On one of our Facebook groups or something. I just don't understand the point here. The rapper's too delicate on them. I
**Rooster:** don't know, I think a Ras would be okay.
**Senator:** I actually feel like the RAS wrapper is thinner than a D4. I would light a D4 on the golf course before I would a RAS, personally.
**Gizmo:** And, you know, you talked about price point stuff. I mean, you know, to what Lizard Whalen asked here. I mean, it's like, certainly all Cubans are kind of out of the picture. You know, when, again, you can reach for the Padron 2000. You can reach for the aging room at 6. Even the La Aurora 120 that we just did a few weeks ago.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** The 120 Robusto at 6. Between six and 12, that's a great cigar on the golf course. And, and more mild, I would say mild medium than the other ones we've been talking about.
**Senator:** There's one obvious one. We've missed the Davidoff Bellicoso. Oh, yeah. We have a lot of guys, great golf course here. We had a good beginner cigar.
We have a, [00:40:00] we have a lot of guys at this lounge who golf more than any of us really in this room, hundreds of rounds a year, exactly. And. All the time they talk about how many of those little Davidoff bellicose as they light up on the course. That's a good one. Beginners are really good experience. Smoker wind doesn't matter.
Great cigar.
**Poobah:** No, it's a great cigar. Uh, on the golf course, because then it, it's a short smoke. It holds up. It performs in the way of Davidoff should perform. And, and often you're teeing off in the morning. So, or mid morning. Yeah. And that can go perfect with whatever your choices. I mean, whether you have a Bloody Mary in the cart or whether you have whatever your cocktail of choices or just a Gatorade, it's, it's, um, that's a great cigar for the, for the golf course.
Cause the wrapper and the construction of that is good. And it's short enough [00:41:00] where you're not making such, you don't have to manage it that long. Do you know what I mean? And it
**Gizmo:** manages itself. I mean, that's a cigar that, has anyone in this room ever fought a Davidoff Churchill Bellicoso? Never. I know I haven't.
No. I mean, the only time I've screwed it up is when I took a little bit too much off the clip on the first one I ever had. I just took a little bit more. Than I should have and it just turned into a TA wind tunnel.
**Pagoda:** Mm-Hmm. . Oh, you, me, to say you did the G cut. Alright. Yeah.
**Senator:** It's not just that cigar .
**Pagoda:** Hey, I did
**Senator:** set that, I set myself up for that.
You did. You did, did I held my tongue on that one. You did. Thank you, Ben. Thank you Ben. I'll remember that. Thank you. I, I, since we're on golf, I have a quick question. Transfusions. Obviously like standard drink on every golf course, I'm the authority. So I want to hear what is the like history, but like, why did that become like the drink of choice on, on so many golf courses?
What's the story behind it?
**Poobah:** I don't know the story behind it. I do know that not the transfusion guy. Well, no, I don't know the story. I [00:42:00] don't know the history. We'd have to Google it, but it's always been a country club golf course cocktail. And what you want basically is. Mostly vodka. You want, it's like Sprite or like 7up.
You want a splash of that in there. And then you want to just a splash of grape juice with a line. And for whatever reason, it just works. It just works when you, you know, when you're, when you, when you're out there. So, uh, they know how to make these at these country clubs. They know how to make them where it's, it's, it's a splash of grape juice.
It's not a lot. It's a splash of, of seven up and, and it just with, with a lime in there, for whatever reason, it's just, it works. It's familiar. And, uh, it, it works now [00:43:00] where it came
**Chef Ricky:** from. Can I offer some history on that? Yes.
**Poobah:** Yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** So the transfusion guy, the exact origins of the transfusion are unknown, but some say it was invented by retired us president and president.
Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower was said to enjoy the drink after his daily rounds at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia and the El Dorado Country Club in California. Ingredients, vodka, grape juice, ginger ale, and lime juice. So yeah, from, uh, originated back in the 1950s. That's pretty cool.
**Senator:** Yeah.
Apparently there are variations too because one of the guys, uh, who's a member at a different club around here said that his club actually makes them with whiskey. And he had never had it until he joined there. He said, they're actually delicious. Really?
**Gizmo:** I've heard another replacement for the ginger ale is ginger beer.
Yep. And the transfusion starts
**Chef Ricky:** getting a little Moscow mule ish there. Grape juice, vodka, ginger beer. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's there's, they, they use Sprite, they use ginger ale. It just, but. Whatever it is. It's great. I [00:44:00] mean,
**Gizmo:** now here's a question for you. I've never had a transfusion. I've never golfed.
How does it pair with a cigar? I know we're talking that you don't smoke a lot of cigars, but how does that drink pair with a cigar? Because to me it sounds like it's kind of left field as far
**Poobah:** as pairing. Not the best. I mean, you know, no, it's, it's, it's more for like, Refreshing, and you're just out there pounding, you know, or, or after the round you want, you want that kind of refreshing thing.
**Bam Bam:** Does uh, UBA bring the thermos, uh, scotch as a backup? Does that happen?
**Poobah:** No. No. Just call no thermos, no, no, no, no. You just call in airstrikes, people bring the drinks to you. I'm ready to call in an
**Gizmo:** airstrike right now on the cigar, like small nuclear device. Not to mention the fact that just get this cigar outta my hands.
I need
**Bam Bam:** two things right now. A bottle of ine and a fucking fog light. I will give the combustion on a cigar a nine or a ten.
**Pagoda:** I can't see you, Ricky. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** I can't see the chef. It's a haze right now. And
**Poobah:** you know what else is great? I mean, [00:45:00] what I love is, is a, uh, is a screwdriver. And, and, and like, I don't think the screwdriver with fresh.
Orange juice gets as much credit as it should be fresh when it's fresh, fresh, squeezed orange juice. Okay.
**Pagoda:** Do they still drink it? I mean, I haven't not seen anyone drink it at all.
**Poobah:** Well, yeah. When you go to the, like locally, the market basket around here, they're, they're, they're, they're pumping out fresh OJ on the weekend.
Like you, like, like, like they're milking cows. That's the emotion you're making. That's
**Gizmo:** you're making a cow milk. No, like,
**Poobah:** like, like, like, like they're, yeah. It looks like a very familiar motion. Yes. And it's not, it could be a band approved activity. It could be. You're a big OJ guy. Correct. And it's not cheap.
And I remember, um, I remember being down the shore a couple of years ago and, and, and, and a friend of mine came down and, um, [00:46:00] I had some of this fresh orange juice. And, uh, I bought a decent amount of it because it's good. Uh, cause you can drink it all day. And, uh, I remember he just woke up at like 10 in the morning and he's making himself the screwdriver.
He goes, yo, it's national screwdriver day, you know? And I looked at him and I just start laughing and I made myself one too. And, uh, they're great. A screwdriver with fresh squeezed orange juice is a great drink, a great drink. I mean, with Tropicana, not so great, but with fresh squeezed orange juice, it is good.
Uh, I haven't had one in a long time. But you gotta get the fresh squeezed OJ. You gotta get the good stuff. You gotta get the good stuff.
**Bam Bam:** Getting back to the question though, I will say the Xikar callout, that's a pretty good callout. For storage for cases. What I like
**Gizmo:** about those chars, bam, is they outside
**Bam Bam:** on a course though, it's key.
**Gizmo:** They make several sizes of them. Yeah. So you can get like a five count a tenor and then you can get the, the one that's a little thicker. Mm-Hmm. [00:47:00] probably stores 20 cigars in it. Yeah. And they're airtight. So you could throw up boda in there or, and kind of forget about the cigars. And if you
**Bam Bam:** drop it, it protects the cigars.
Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah.
**Poobah:** If you gotta put an odd mountain. Like I take like paper towels or something to just like a piece to just secure them. So they don't bounce around and get damaged. But that's the best and it comes in all
**Pagoda:** different
**Poobah:** colors. It does.
**Pagoda:** It
**Poobah:** does. It does. Home Depot orange. Yes. Home Depot orange for sure.
And all the train conductors on New Jersey Transit have all all have a case because of Pagoda. Because Pagoda leaves them behind. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, let's move on now. We are done. Just talked about Davidoff and the Bella Cosa that we love so very much. And there's been a trend over the last few episodes, as you know, where we've talked about crazy cigar prices.
And Davidoff has announced the Oro Blanco [00:48:00] Special Reserve 111 years, which is shipping this month. And the price on this cigar is seven hundred and fifty dollars each. Yikes. A box of ten is seventy five hundred dollars. So, if you remember, before I even read what Half, Half Wheel put together, you know, based on the press release.
Please don't read it. If you remember what we talked about with Padrone. With the 60th anniversary cigar, which was 75 for one of these cigars. You can buy an entire box of 10 of those padrones. And we were upset with the price on that padrone at 75, correct? One of these cigars. $750. So let me read this before we get into the comments.
In 2014, Davidov introduced a true halo cigar, as they called it for its portfolio. The Davidov Oral Blanco, A 54 ring gauge by six Toro [00:49:00] Extra made entirely of Dominican tobacco from the 2000 and 2001 harvest. Those cigars had an MSRP of $500 a piece. Now they are releasing the special reserve, 111 years, a 54 by six Toro extra that is made entirely of Dominican tobacco.
The company says the 111 refers to 111 years, the combined age of the tobaccos used for the cigar. All of the fillers and the binder are aged for at least 17 years. And at least one of the tobaccos used has never been used in a Davidoff cigar before the new Oroblanco special reserve, 111 years will go on sale soon.
But Davidoff did not explicitly talk about the price. However, some of the retailers figured out that it's going to be 750 per cigar or 7, 500 per box and 10.
**Poobah:** And here's the news. [00:50:00] Nobody is paying for that with their own money. That, that, that, that, that's a, that's a corporate cigar. That's a, that's a, that's a deal cigar.
That's something that, that, that somebody is buying. Okay. On their corporate credit card. And it's as a result of a deal, there's no fucking way on God's green earth that people are, well, no, there is. I mean, you could have people who just give zero Fs about whatever and just want to have that. Yeah. Most are going to be buying that cigar, not in their own dime.
And, uh, there's, they've clearly identified that there's probably an addressable market, uh, where there's enough corporate clients that are going to just do that. But that's, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money, [00:51:00] which means, which means that's, that's a, that there was a deal that happened or something that, you know, that, that, that you're going to, you're going to, you're going to put out that kind of cash.
Didn't
**Rooster:** the original release have gold flakes in it? The Oro Blanco because the Oro is gold. It might have it on the
**Gizmo:** band. I don't know if it has it in the actual cigar. I mean, how do you burn gold leaf
**Bam Bam:** inside the tobacco?
**Gizmo:** Who
**Rooster:** knows? I mean, why is it called the Oro?
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, that's true.
**Rooster:** It's
**Bam Bam:** just, it's insulting is what it is.
Well, it's just
**Poobah:** anybody that's buying it is not paying for it
**Gizmo:** with their own money, but we're talking about, we're talking about, I don't care how special the tobacco is. I don't care how aged it is. I mean, tobacco is. You know, I mean Davidoff has been making cigars for how long
**Bam Bam:** a very
**Gizmo:** long time in Cuba and elsewhere for 50 60 70 80 years.
I don't even know I mean To put out a cigar. I don't care [00:52:00] how much age you say is in it at least 17 years old 750 it's insulting.
**Senator:** Yeah, I'm just gonna say I mean even beyond insulting. I'm sorry Like this is what I hate about Davidoff It's releases like this that make me feel worse about purchasing Davidoff.
Exactly. Make me feel worse about the brand. If my experience or our experience with cigars was that you needed to spend more and more and more money to have a better experience every time, that would be one thing. We have done, we've reviewed 150, 160 cigars in this podcast. And Lord knows we've tried even much more than that.
It has never been our experience that the most expensive cigars are the best cigars. Some of the highest rated stuff doesn't exceed a 30 something dollar price point per stick. I think it is. Outrageous for Davidoff to put this out. You know, I've talked about before the cigar being the great equalizer, all that stuff.
Like to me, it completely goes against what [00:53:00] this hobby is all about. That is something that less than a percent of the world would even think twice, would even consider purchasing. There's no purpose for me as far as I'm concerned. I hate that they've done it. And it makes me feel the way I used to about Davidoff, which is, this is a company that's all about marketing and wants to just put out these ridiculous releases and make as much money and really don't care what the consumer wants, needs, or can afford.
And to
**Gizmo:** piggyback on that, it does make me. Think about when I pick up that Davidoff Bellicoso or that Millennium Pyramid. It really kind of puts a sour taste in my mouth when I reach for Davidoff cigars. I'll take both
**Poobah:** of your Millennium Pyramids right now. But it doesn't, it doesn't for me because, because Well they serve them on the corporate jet.
**Pagoda:** It doesn't for me either.
**Poobah:** Take it easy. Take it easy. Let's keep [00:54:00] perpetuating this myth. Take it easy. The um But, but, but what, what I mean is though, is that the, like that type of a cigar is, I, I would bet six ways to Sunday that that's a cigar, that when companies merge comp, there's a deal done. There's a, this is a, this is about, uh, this is about, it's
**Rooster:** like a huge celebration of something.
A
**Poobah:** celebration of something huge. And they've said, okay, we're gonna make X amount of boxes for people who. Aren't paying for this really with their own money. They're going to, they're going to go in, they're going to have this thing and they're going to, they're going to be decadent just like you would with some kind of crazy, stupid meal that's way overpriced and it's about that.
I'm
**Gizmo:** fine [00:55:00] with all that. My problem is this don't press release it to the world. Alongside your other cigars you're putting out. That's correct. The Year of the Releases, the Year of the Dragon, the Scorpion, whatever the hell, the Rabbit, whatever they're doing. You put it alongside that. The regular production stuff, the Millennium series, like, all of the stuff that we love.
Despite the stuff that we don't, don't put it out as a press release. Just make it a limited behind the scenes thing that you sell to, if you call it corporate clients or big rich honchos. To, to send this out to the greater cigar community is a slap in the face of every person who enjoys cigars on a regular basis.
It's not a great communication
**Pagoda:** strategy. Yeah, but there could be a demand for it, right? Those guys must be tired of smoking the gurkhas for a thousand bucks. But I mean, think about it, this is a discount
**Poobah:** versus that, but like the Chinese, but like the Chinese, the, but the Chinese market alone could, could swoop all that up and not care the Middle East.
There's the, you [00:56:00] know, you've got, you've got Middle Eastern, um, uh, princes and things like that. If they're only making a thousand boxes. Or 1, 500 boxes, they'll be swooped up. Does anyone see, you know what I'm saying? No, no. I
**Senator:** don't disagree with Poobah in that. Like, yeah, there are some idiot that will buy these like every other ridiculously price, you know, thing that exists, right?
Everybody just, there's no doubt about that. I just think that it goes against what this hobby should be about. And I would respect to have it off as a brand more for coming out with some stuff that they can make plenty of money on. that most of their target consumer, which skews certainly more affluent because their, their cigars are among some of the most expensive.
That, that more people can enjoy
**Rooster:** like the Dominicana. Yeah. Fairly priced. Yeah. Deliver us a great flavor. I mean,
**Gizmo:** we thought the Maduro, we thought the Maduro Robusto, by the way, it was overpriced
**Senator:** at 50. And I guarantee that if we bought that cigar, that that would be an [00:57:00] unbelievable letdown. I say that, I mean, the most second, most expensive to that was probably the Royal when that first came out.
And that's what a hundred and something a stick. Correct. Right. And we've, most of us have tried that. And Rooster got a very good deal on them. And I think we all concluded like at the price that Rooster got them for sure. It's a very good cigar. It's deserving of that price at the price that they were retailing it for.
It's not worth even half of that. No,
**Rooster:** I mean, I paid about half of what the retail is at that price. It's it's it's 50 bucks.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Yeah. At 50 bucks. It's a 50. It's definitely, even that I think is true.
**Senator:** I thought you got it for less than that. I, to me, I wouldn't pay more than 30 something, most 40 for that.
**Poobah:** Yeah,
**Gizmo:** I agree. So do you think that the Doff Maduro in Rib Robusta, which has an MSRP of 50, I think we're getting 'em around 35 to 40 to me. Does it wipe forward? It definitely better
**Senator:** than the um Yeah. Oh
**Poobah:** yeah. Than the Royal, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It delivers a lot more. It delivers a lot more complexity. It delivers.
It's a delicious, it's
**Bam Bam:** just [00:58:00] a delicious experience at Maduro.
**Senator:** But that's my point. Like these crazy price releases, they feel like a fraud. Like, yeah, if I actually bought one of these, like the Royal and said, wow. This is what a hundred dollars a stick gets you. I'd understand it. It's not something I'm certainly going to buy every day, but I can respect that.
Wow. If I was willing to pay a silly amount, I'm going to get an absolutely mind blowing experience. I won't ever forget, but that's not the case. That's what kills me. So at 750, I mean, talk about the disappointment you're going to experience. It's a joke. I mean, what is the most expensive
**Rooster:** Cohiba cigar?
It's not seven 50. No,
**Gizmo:** I mean, I, I would think that it's either, I would think it's either the be he gave 56 or the 55th anniversary, the Victoria. And I would think there's somewhere they're touching probably somewhere around 500 a cigar. Yeah. I mean, I would think,
**Poobah:** I mean, the be he keys that we just bought, how much were
**Gizmo:** those?
We bought aged, I, I, I got you a box of aged 2013 [00:59:00] Behike 52. They were 288 a cigar. Yeah. And Poobah got those for a special occasion, so. Right. So. So this is three times that? Nearly three times that. That's 3x that. That's 3x the Behike. For a
**Senator:** what? 12 years aged? 12 years aged. I don't care if I was a billionaire, I wouldn't buy this.
No, it's just ridiculous. There's no way it's going to deliver.
**Poobah:** There's that, that, that's, but, but, but it's, but it's a thing like. It's a, it's, it's, it's, it's a thing that it's, it's gonna buy it, they're going to buy it. There's somebody out there that's going to, you know, that what's just wants to do it. So they could say that they've done it and smoked it.
And I know
**Senator:** there are brands though, that have restraint. Padron could put out a thousand dollars cigar tomorrow. And just like with Davidoff. They're idiots that would buy it. They don't do stuff like that because they don't believe that this is what, that's what this whole [01:00:00] thing is. And Fuente by the way,
**Gizmo:** that Legends collaboration which came out, I forget how much the pair of those cigars was.
I think it was almost 400 for two cigars. When you were buying them as singles from retailers, like none of us went out and tried that cigar. And I don't know if there's a room full of people who loves Padron more than we do. And we still didn't go get those cigars. You know, uh, this, the 75 60th anniversary, hopefully at that MSRP, we'll see them coming out a little bit cheaper than that, but that cigar, I don't know how many guys in this room are going to be running out to buy that cigar, you know, and, and to 10 X that here is just.
It's just lunacy and, and it's, uh, Davidoff is, it's very disappointing to see them doing this because they're just creeping up to that four digit price point of a thousand bucks. That's, that's where they're going. You know, that's where they're
**Chef Ricky:** going. The insane, the insane thing about that is the article you sent us on that group chat, um, It was half wheel, right?
They were smoking, or they had pictures of the Oro Blanco that retailed for 500, which [01:01:00] was a release prior to this one. And the burn line on the guy's cigar that they were reviewing was horrible. It was all over the place. Yeah, you'd think for that price point. That's why they need to make
**Senator:** it 750 to correct.
Yeah, exactly. The only 500 burn line. A little more quality control. Yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** It's just crazy. Alright boys, we're coming into the last third now on the Warped El Oso 10th Anniversary at Grand Papa. What's everybody thinking? What do you think? I have to ask the question. Did you
**Chef Ricky:** look at the ashtray?
Senators put his down.
**Rooster:** It's a lot of pepper and the finish is really dry. I'm so bored. It feels your like makes your mouth like really dry. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I'm very bored with the cigar. I'm still smoking it. Um, there's nothing exciting about this to me. This is Exactly the opposite of what Pooh was talking about on the golf course.
This is a cigar that you have to, it's like you're working to smoke this ultra mediocre cigar. Like this is so mediocre to me. Um, I [01:02:00] mean, you want to put it down, but
**Rooster:** it's like, it's a 25 cigar. So you're trying to kind of smoke through it.
**Bam Bam:** Three out of the seven of us or six of us that are here. We've put the cigar down.
It's just tough to smoke. And I've gotten some
**Chef Ricky:** real, some real off putting flavors. Um, there, there I say, at the start of the second, third day, I was getting something that was like smoked fish. It was weird. Um, no. Now I'm getting into the final third, uh, and it's, it's smelled out. Yeah. It's fucking weird.
Um, I may, I mean, I blame it on the whiskey. I don't know who the fuck knows. Uh, but it was odd.
**Poobah:** That's one of the greatest notes I've ever heard. I was getting smoked.
**Chef Ricky:** No, I was getting smoked herring to be more specific. Like
**Poobah:** I'm getting like, like, like as if you're down at the Fulton fish market
**Chef Ricky:** inhaling, but I will say that I, I have touched it up a little bit, [01:03:00] but I've been getting some good ash on there. Uh, Mine's held up pretty well without the need for a, a ton of correction.
**Gizmo:** I, I feel like I'm smoking a cigar that I put the perfect draw in. Mm-Hmm. and pulled half of the filler out. Yeah. Right.
That's how it feels to me. Like that's like between my two fingers. Like I feel like I could completely collapse the cigar if I don't pay attention to it. Just by squeezing the cigar too hard.
**Senator:** Yeah. I mean, I put it down because. It got to a point where I felt like I was smoking a sponge with, like, crushed black pepper on it.
I mean, it just, like, all the flavor notes I got early on, the dried fruit, cocoa, any of that, gone. It's all gone. And it was just pepper. It was harsh in the back of your throat. And it was just spongy to the point that you felt like you were going to crush it while you were holding it in your hand. I mean, there was nothing enjoyable.
There's
**Rooster:** like a charred tobacco taste, you know, like weird. Yeah. Yeah.
**Poobah:** It's bad meat in the can. What can you say?
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. Let's go to another email now. Our lizard of the [01:04:00] week. This is from lizard albert. He writes. Hello lounge lizards. I just discovered your podcast recently. I'm retired in my late sixties, and I find your approach refreshing.
Thank you for the early morning release schedule. I often have my first cigar of the day before the sun even comes up. I've noticed that your ratings are quite a bit different than Cigar Aficionado. Why do you think this is? I wonder why?
**Chef Ricky:** Because we smoke the entire cigar.
**Gizmo:** Second, do you guys ever make it to their big smoke event?
I've always thought about going. Finally, He writes, also, will you ever share your real names with us? That's all for now. Take care. Lizard Albert. The
**Poobah:** answer is no. We'll never share our real names. Except for me.
**Gizmo:** Or me. You can find my real name on that FOH thing.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, also not go into Big Smoke. That's, that's not gonna happen.
Yeah, we
**Gizmo:** haven't done that
**Bam Bam:** event.
**Gizmo:** So, let me ask you this. He asks about why our ratings are Quite a [01:05:00] bit different, as he says, than cigar aficionado. What, uh, what would your explanation for the buckle up? Where do we start? Their ratings are
**Rooster:** biased.
**Senator:** I mean, I'll start with, we're not paid by the, you know, manufacturers that we're rating like that, like for the most part.
I mean, every year, if you look at almost every year, if you look at who wins cigar of the year, and you've been reading CA throughout the entirety of that year, it's the largest advertiser in that magazine. So it's never a surprise. When that happens. And that's where, you know, I think a huge part of the reason we started this podcast was we recognize that.
And even in listening to other content that's out there around cigars, um, you know, when you are a retailer or, um, a publisher who generates advertising revenue from all of these different, you know, brands, there's a pressure to say things are what they're not. And that's unfortunate, and that's why we do what we do.
That's why we've turned down God knows [01:06:00] how many sponsorship opportunities that we don't actually believe in, because we don't want to be sitting here telling people that something we think sucks is a good product when it's not. That's right. Well said. Enough said. Yeah. Also, Ricky had a great point. You should talk about the, uh, how they review them.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. You know, I'm, obviously they're going into their review, into their reviews, and uh, with a very biased approach, and that they're, they're, uh, They're going in there with an agenda of obviously promoting what they're, what's paying, what's paying to keep the lights on. Um, so they don't feel the need to necessarily smoke through an entire cigar.
And they're reviewing, uh, quite a few cigars, uh, at the same time. So I think it's, it's pretty common knowledge at this point that, you know, they're probably going through the first third and that's about it. They're not really experiencing the cigar in all its phases and what it has to offer. So that's also true.
Because
**Senator:** to, to Ricky's point, if you look at any CA cigar review, You will never see them say in the first third, you get these notes in the second third. You get, I mean, I'll at least give half wheel credit. They'll give you notes by thirds. I don't always agree with, you know, [01:07:00] what they're getting, but they do make that effort.
And with CA, I've yet to see a single review that actually breaks down a cigar. But besides on this cigar, you get these three notes.
**Bam Bam:** Great. You smoked a portion of the cigar, usually the best portion on most cigars. It's crucial to finish a cigar. Right. Crucial,
**Gizmo:** especially when you're telling your readers or in our case, your listeners to go out and either buy or don't buy these cigars.
I mean, how many cigars have we started that in the first third have been great and finish like trash and how many cigars have started weak on the light into the first third. And by the end, we're raving about it and we're shocked.
It's like, you can't make those decisions on, on, on just a piece of the cigar and
**Poobah:** it takes time and they have to review so many cigars, they're putting on a monthly publication with reviews. I mean, And it's a commercial operation. Yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** They're [01:08:00] not spending two hours on a cigar like we do. So with that
**Gizmo:** point said, I went back after Lizard Albert, uh, I saw this email and I went back to a post earlier in the month and I actually sent it to you guys.
And it was a post of theirs on Instagram, Cigar Aficionado. And it says the July, August, and June. Issue of Cigar Aficionado delivered a tasting section that proved quite formidable with 38 of the 72 cigars scoring 90 points or higher. A dozen in particularly, truly in particulars, truly stood out scoring as high as 95 points.
On seven of them were Rocky Pateau. How, how does, how do 38 out of 72 cigars score 90 plus? Yeah. Yeah. With 12 of those being 95
**Poobah:** plus book because it's commercial, it's commercially driven. I mean, you can't, there's just, there's no denying the [01:09:00] facts are, I mean, the fact of the matter is you got to, you know, you got a multimillion dollar company.
They're a publisher. They can't trash. You know, release certain releases or certain cigars or rate them completely and totally honestly and transparently that's, this is not going to happen when, you know, you're charging, I don't know what they charge. I haven't called them for a media kit, but I guarantee a spread ad in cigar aficionado per month.
Is probably upwards of one ad unit is probably 40, 000. My understanding, 37, 000. My
**Gizmo:** understanding on a spread if you buy the year is it's between 20, for like a two page spread every issue.
**Poobah:** Every issue, exactly. So, that's a lot [01:10:00] of money. You know what I mean? Not to mention the cost of keeping the ads fresh, you know what I mean?
And, and the, and the fees associated with the creative development and making sure that you're not running the same spot over and over and over and over, you know what I mean? It's a lot. It's, it's, it's, it's a lot of money. Can
**Rooster:** you, can you talk about the, the 12 cigars that got 95 points to the, they didn't list them out.
They didn't list it? I have
**Gizmo:** to go through all 72 and pull them, yeah. I
**Bam Bam:** think we have to commend Lizard Albert for his pre sunrise cigar sit. Agreed. That is the mark of a true lizard.
**Gizmo:** I like that.
**Bam Bam:** I do too. I would love to know Albert what you're letting up that early in the day. That's a great question.
I'd love to know.
**Gizmo:** Because you know, like think about before the sun comes up, we're talking probably what he's lighting a cigar at 4 30, five o'clock in the morning. Probably. I mean, don't
**Senator:** judge us when I'm on vacation somewhere with like a stunning view. I get up that [01:11:00] early to watch the sunrise and have cigars.
It's amazing. And what
**Gizmo:** do you go for when you do that? What do you reach for?
**Senator:** I mean, uh, most, usually Cuban. Um, now that we have found some good, you know, new world substitutes for Cuban, I mean, there are definitely Fabrica 5 cigars that I would light that early in the morning. The Robusto Trinity, the 109.
Um, a Davidoff Bellicoso is great at that hour in the morning. Um, that's kind of the usual. A QD? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Lots of Cubans that fit
**Bam Bam:** that. So Albert, get us in that information. We're curious.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Please send it. Yeah. I'll, I'll reply to him and ask him to tell us what he smokes that early in the morning.
That's pretty cool. But thanks to a lizard Albert for writing us of course, winning lizard of the week. Anybody out there can win lizard of the week. You get some stuff from us. Just send us an email, a voice memo, a comment on Instagram or YouTube, whatever you choose. And every week somebody is going to win the lizard of the week.
So [01:12:00] Senator. You ventured up to Canada recently you went to Toronto. I did and you had a great time
**Senator:** I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, this is the you know, land of cigars being Persona non grata, but I brought a bunch of cigars We flew into went with my family We flew into Toronto drove two hours north to this area called Lake Muskoka that ironically a pagoda visited And he gave us a great
**Gizmo:** review on it as well
**Senator:** He gave us a good review, but it wasn't good enough, like, like usual, typical pagoda.
He was so low key about it. It sounded like, oh, it's nice. It's not like a must visit. It's nothing to get too excited. But it was like the first time he went to Panama. He was just like, oh, it was a great time. And then his friend started telling me how great it was. And I was like, okay, I need to visit Panama.
So, um, uh, Lake Muskoka, that whole area, it's so beautiful. Um, it's kind of just this like collection of lakes and all these lakefront [01:13:00] properties and just the lifestyle there is awesome. I mean, because the land is so spread out, you can very comfortably smoke cigars without worrying and candid about people complaining or reporting you or any of the crap that.
People deal with in Toronto or the major cities, um, where it's a lot more densely populated. Uh, and there seemingly, it's just less of a cigar culture. I say that because no one seemed to have a problem seeing a cigar. I mean, when you're there, uh, you know, where we stayed, we stayed with family, friends, um, you know, they have a couple boats and a boathouse and, you know, it's, it's, it's We took the boat across the lake to their country club, smoking cigars the whole way on the boat.
When we got to the country club, no problem. They have ashtrays at the club. Like everything I know Canada to be, it's like the opposite there. This place appreciates freedom a bit more. Um, which is very much my speed, but, um, yeah, just, I mean, when the weather is nice up there, it's just, you know, I'm not, I appreciate lakefront [01:14:00] property, but it's not something I'm passionate about.
Like Rooster loves, Rooster lives on a lake, loves nature. I know that's his jam. I know he would be obsessed with Lake Muskoka if he went up there. Raccoons on a deck. Bears coming out in the middle of the night, pursuing
**Chef Ricky:** them.
**Bam Bam:** What are we doing?
**Gizmo:** Everything you're saying, bam, is just never going to Lake Muskogee.
Oh,
**Bam Bam:** no, that's not true. That sounds awesome.
**Gizmo:** No,
**Senator:** it's just really, really nice. I mean, they've got a hot tub and
**Bam Bam:** I want to be on that boat with a cigar in my hand, pulling up to the country club as he did. Nice, slow,
**Gizmo:** nice, slow approach. I was surprised when we
**Senator:** saw you on a boat,
**Gizmo:** I don't
**Senator:** take you for a boat guy.
No, I've always liked boats. It's nothing. It's never something I would own, but, um, no, I've always liked boats. I've, uh, I've been on some, some pretty cool boats. Uh, In my life, but, um, yeah, I mean, just fire pit nights, having cigars, uh, Canadians are big rovers. I thought it was [01:15:00] very cool. This family friend we were with, basically they've got this big fire pit and obviously tons of trees back there.
And what he did is mount, uh, a TV mount to the tree. And so he could just take the TV on and off the tree. So it's like roving without wheels, but you just place it on the tree. Um, so it was actually great. We were, um, sitting out there by the fireplace, uh, by the fire pit, watching the giants, uh, Thursday night football game.
That was giants Cowboys that week. Um, it was awesome. We had a great time. My son had such a blast. Um, yeah, it's just beautiful. I can't recommend it enough. smoke. Uh, so I, I provided the cigar since we were, uh, we were guests. We're talking about
**Bam Bam:** lizard will. What did he smoke?
**Poobah:** He smoked a small panatella.
**Senator:** He seems to be a Padron guy.
Every time he sees a Padron box, he gets excited, but it's in the blood. Um, I was providing [01:16:00] cigars. I mean, since we're outside, especially at night, you can get a little windy. So I mostly stuck to new world, but Um, Padronex Lucivo, Aging Room Sonata, um, the Davidoff Bellicoso, uh, the Fabrica 5 Robusto Trinity which actually held up well outdoors, um, had a D4, so uh, it was good.
Uh, the, the funny thing when I was there, so we stopped at the liquor store on the way up to the house and I spotted Havana Club, I'm like, oh my god, this is perfect, price very reasonable. It was like U. S. 26, 28 bucks.
**Gizmo:** That's a good price. Wow. That's cheaper, by the way, than duty free in Havana. And, uh, for a 7.
50.
**Bam Bam:** How many bottles did you bring back for us?
**Senator:** So, I screwed up because
**Bam Bam:** Good
**Gizmo:** question,
**Bam Bam:** Ben.
**Senator:** Correct. My strategy at first was like, Oh, I'm just going to clear out the shelf, and I'll bring a bunch of these home. And then I'm like, What's the point of that? I can just stop at the duty free. I don't need to lug all this, [01:17:00] um, initially.
So By the time we were done imbibing over the long weekend we were there, there was one bottle left, so I packed that to bring home, and I said, okay, I'll hit duty free, I'll get two more bottles. In true Canada fashion, Terminal A at Toronto Airport is for all the flights that are going to the U. S. The duty free there, they have Every rum imaginable, the one thing that they don't stock in that part of the airport is Havana Club.
Now, the irony of this, I see a little cigar case there. I'm like, hmm, interesting, they sell cigars. I look in there, I see a, a Super Partagus box with like, completely covered in health warnings. So I can buy Cuban cigars. Wow. And bring them home, but I'm not allowed to buy Havana club rum. I mean, it's the dumbest thing I've seen, but I, I got the short end of the stick because I couldn't bring any extra rum home.
Were the
**Gizmo:** cigars, did they have those bands on them? That were the, [01:18:00] the Canadian bands, which cover it's like a, they have like a standard on all the bands. They cover all the ornate stuff that,
**Senator:** uh, I couldn't tell because in this humidor, it's like a big glass humidor. Uh, it was just boxes and they were completely covered in like this brown paper with literally every inch of the box was just covered in health warning.
So I couldn't even see what was inside of it. Besides, like I saw a little strip that said super Partagus, but that was about it.
**Chef Ricky:** Well, that's cool. You don't have to peel the health warning stickers off of the box themselves. You never know what's underneath.
**Gizmo:** You don't even know what you're buying.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So let me ask you this.
What was the food like
**Senator:** up there? The food was shockingly good, like bizarre things. I remember this one afternoon, um, the family we were staying with, they're like, Oh, we're going to go grab some pizza at this place. And I'm looking at my wife, like pizza in Canada. I mean, we live in the New York area. We obviously have a lot of good pizza options [01:19:00] here.
So I was expecting this to be inedible and I had just prepared myself for that. And I have to say, we, um. We went, uh, up to like this, I don't know if it's like a county parks or, you know, they have regions, provinces, obviously different system than we have, but this really nice park with this huge, um, like fire tower that you can climb up to the top and you just have this insane view of like all the lakes and mountains.
And on our drive home, we stopped at this pizza place and it's like this little shack with this giant wood fired, uh, oven. And, uh, Oh, I bet it was good. It was excellent. Like I could not, if, if I had this pizza here, you'd think I, I got this locally. I was shocked. So even things you wouldn't expect in Canada, like pizza to be a strong suit.
Very, very good. Um, we had dinner at their country club there, had a great meal. Um, Everything was good. I had not one complaint food wise. [01:20:00] Um, I mean, it's funny, just like the, the town there. And I think it's called lake of bays and it's such a small town feel. So it's like, you know, we go grocery shopping. I mean, their grocery store, it looks like a bodega in Manhattan.
I mean, it's tiny, but they have somehow in this little tiny thing, everything you pretty much need. Um, and obviously a lot of fresh stuff that they grow locally there. So. The food was great. I, I, all around, I don't think I had a single
**Bam Bam:** complaint. At the country club, did you notice anyone outside smoking a cigar?
Anywhere on premises?
**Senator:** Not at the time we went. So, uh, we had wanted to go earlier. The hard part was, uh, we each have kids, uh, kids. Uh, me and the family were staying with, and so by the time we got our kids down to bed, apparently, and I, you know, hopefully we'll go back, on the sixth hole, um, or the sixth tee at this club, apparently the view is like insane, and a lot of people like love to sit there and like smoke cigars in that area, so, um, It's like the signature hole.
Yeah. So if we got there early [01:21:00] enough, I'm sure we would have seen people smoking cigars. They're calling an airstrike with some
**Gizmo:** Balvenie
**Senator:** or McAllen. Yes. What's Elton.
But, uh, yeah, I was just surprised. I mean, there, there seems to be in that part of Canada, uh, a bit of a cigar culture, which was very, very refreshing. It's cool. I
**Gizmo:** mean, to hear some positive commentary about anything about Canada, Canada, you know, smoking cigars, obviously it's beautiful up there. The people are great.
The food is, you know, I've heard the food is great, but to hear a positive review, I mean, Senator does have a, you know, he's a little, he's a tough crowd. Just a touch, just a touch. Some of us have standards. That's all it comes down
**Poobah:** to. So to hear that, that's a, he's fastidious. That's right. Exactly. Uh, but that's good to hear.
The food, the food, food in Canada, food in Canada is, is my experience has been, has been pretty good. I mean, um, Toronto, [01:22:00] Montreal, you know, I've had, you know, there's good food there. Um, the rest of the regulations in terms of cigar smoking and all that is, especially in the big cities is tough.
**Rooster:** Right. I think, I think if you move outside of the cities, get into the countryside, it's a little bit more relaxed so you can, they allow you to smoke.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. But I also think it's like, uh, well, I, like, I don't know what the appropriate word is, but The native American country. So they're very, uh, open to smoking in any case around there. I like, I think there was a cigar store that we saw. We passed by it. We said, we'll, we'll, we'll stop by on the way back, but we never did.
Uh, but yeah, meaning I think, uh, the next step to Muskoka would, uh, At least, uh, you know, would consider a stop at the cigar store as well. I mean,
**Senator:** I enjoy it so much. When I got back, I said, we really ought to consider doing a lizard trip up there. I mean, there's tons of Airbnbs. There are these beautiful, massive, like lakefront properties, [01:23:00] you know, go out on a boat in the afternoon.
Go for a little hike, smoke cigars, bikinis running around, have a great dinner, hit the hot tub, bikinis running around.
**Poobah:** Well, and the seafood up there, the seafood up there is great. You know, there's, there's, there's, there's fishermen all up and down. Like if you, if you're into lobster, shrimp, of course, oysters, you know, so it's, it's, it's.
You know, you've got a lot of, um, the food culture there is, is, uh, is super. Um, and the people are also, the people in Canada are really super. I mean, I've worked with a lot of Canadians, been in a lot of business trips to Canada. It's Canadians are, are, you know, they're really nice people. Yeah. Like, like.
Super nice and friendly and hospitable, even in the big cities. Uh, it's, uh, despite the French influence, which, you know, you go to, well, well, when you go to Paris, I mean, you talk about rude. It's like, ah, [01:24:00] fuck off, you know what I mean? You know, it's, it's, it's Paris is a tough city. You know, you, you go there and you try and order some food in a restaurant.
It's not the same experience. That you're having a Montreal, do you know what I mean? It's a, it's a nice culture and a nice, they're nice people. They really are. Not that I'm saying French people are all mean, but they can be some,
**Senator:** he assumes are good people.
**Poobah:** Has anyone here been to Paris? And he wouldn't have been to France.
Okay. It's, you know, there's a little bit of toad.
**Gizmo:** Well, I'm glad you had a great time in Toronto. And of course that makes me want to go. Me too. You know, obviously the reviews from, from Rooster, Pagoda and Senator. Now we got to go.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, it's time now to move into the ratings portion of our program.
We're going to start with the injury single malt, Indian whiskey. Bam. Bam, you're up. [01:25:00]
**Pagoda:** I see the bottles finished. Oh yeah. ,
**Chef Ricky:** because it broke. This was .
**Bam Bam:** Somebody just took it in me. I may have gotten injured from this. Uh, so look, this is a tough one. Um, there is some uniqueness to this. I've never had a whiskey that had that, um, grapefruit.
Rhine finish that was really really unique. I mean, it's just but very difficult to drink I've been between a five and a six on this and I'll be you know, I'll be generous and I'll give it a six But I don't think I'll ever pursue this again. All right chef Ricky.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah looking around Aside from all the half smoked cigars and the asterisks.
It doesn't appear Looks like no one's finished their whiskey including pagoda gizmo Um. He's small. There's one. Yeah. He
**Senator:** finished it off. And then there was one.
**Chef Ricky:** [01:26:00] Yeah. It was, uh, you know, like Bam said it, there was some unique qualities there, but I could have done without them. Um. So, uh, yeah, I'm just going to give this a five.
Uh, for me, it, it just wasn't, you know, I, I didn't do the ice. I added some water. It didn't make it better. Uh, it actually took away from the nose for me and the noses, uh, the best thing I was enjoying on it. Yeah. So that's a five.
**Gizmo:** All right. Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** Um, you know, being that it's an Indian whiskey, I'll give it a six, please.
Don't ask me anymore.
**Senator:** Senator. Yeah. All right. Uh, there needs to be some candor to this conversation. I'm giving it a four. Oh yeah. I would not recommend this to anyone. Um, I mean, I agree the grapefruit note was unique and had it been done well, it could have been actually very interesting if this were a smoother spirit. This were a more [01:27:00] refined spirit with some of those citrus notes.
I would have enjoyed it. It would have been a nice, like kind of summer whiskey. And when I first tried the grapefruit, I thought of like, oh wow, with a Corona's Claro, this could pair nicely. But it's just got a really harsh acidic kind of aftertaste and just doesn't deliver it in a way that I think anybody would enjoy.
So, um, I hope this is not indicative of, uh, most Indian whiskies. Um, or we're going to be going through a lot of pain as we make our way through these, but for this one, I think they completely missed the mark.
**Chef Ricky:** Anyone here grow up drinking Hawaiian punch? Yes. Yeah. Right. What was I the only one that felt like I was drinking sawdust?
Sawdust? Cause Hawaiian punch was notorious for having that super rough, like finish. Like it left your throat feeling a little. It was acidic, but not,
**Bam Bam:** I think I've never, ever had sawdust in my Hawaiian punch. Well, I'm just, I'm just saying. But it was very acidic. It's a garnish the way it's
**Chef Ricky:** the way it left my [01:28:00] throat feeling this whiskey that, that, that it had that same effect on my throat where it was just like, well, I think sawdust may
**Senator:** be more enjoyable.
**Rooster:** I think the cigar had more of a sawdust. Yeah, I
**Poobah:** I'd read the Hawaiian punch way higher. Yeah. I
**Gizmo:** thought I was going to be the only in first four, but I'm lockstep with Senator on this. It is a four. Now you noted that I did finish my whiskey and it's because compared to the cigar here, I was just looking for some semblance of excitement from either the whiskey or the cigar and it just did not deliver.
This is a whiskey I will never have again. I think everything it set out to be, it failed. I think as a pairing to cigars, which obviously is what we do here, I think it is weak at best. Um, it's drinkable. Certainly it's drinkable, but, uh, it is a really, really not great spirit. That might've sorted a
**Poobah:** case.
**Chef Ricky:** Ooh,
**Poobah:** Poobah, [01:29:00] you're up. Um, if you gave me a choice between this and Cuddy, um, or, or, or J and B, I'm drinking that all day, every day, J and B or Cuddy Sark every single day. Cuddy. Seven days a week, twice on Sunday and twice on Sunday. Thank you. Uh, over this, this is not a good spirit. I'm giving it a four it's it's, it's bad meat in a can.
And I don't know who the hell is drinking this because, uh, by the way, JMP. A bottle of J& B or a bottle of Cuddy, uh, Dewars is a 10 compared to this. Um, and I'm not exaggerating. This is not good. It's not a good whiskey. How, how did it win
**Bam Bam:** all of the awards that it's won?
**Gizmo:** That's a great question. Pagoda, Pagoda,
**Bam Bam:** what
**Pagoda:** awards did this [01:30:00] win?
Let me, let me, let me read a few. But you know what it is, they're probably, they're probably, uh, Were you financially funding
**Bam Bam:** those panels somehow?
**Pagoda:** No, but somebody was. Oh yeah.
**Gizmo:** So boys, the formal liquor rating tonight on the Indri, I can't pronounce it, but I'm going to try. Single malt Indian whiskey is a 4.
8. Yeah, it was a Very, very weak. It's a good carburetor. Two for two. Yo Spider, get, yo Spider, get me a curry and water. All right, boys, it's time now to move into the formal lizard rating tonight on the warped El Oso, 10th anniversary in Grand Papa, Rooster, you're up.
**Rooster:** It is a Grand Papa. This cigar is so, has such a dry finish that it doesn't even pair well with water.
I mean, it's, it's, it's crazy, uh, overloaded with spice. Uh, I don't know if it's white pepper or some kind of pepper, but it's like too much and it just hits the back of your throat and leaves it [01:31:00] very dry. The finish is very short. There was a little bit of, there were some decent notes in the beginning, maybe the first third, and then at the halfway point, the cigar was just spongy.
It was so loosely packed in the middle. Uh, it wasn't enjoyable at all. And for 25 a stick, is that, yeah, that's the price. I mean, you gotta get more out of a stick. That's going to be 25 for a new world cigar. The box is nice. The presentation is nice, but the cigar is unfortunately it did not deliver. So I'm at a five.
**Poobah:** Okay, Poobah. Yeah, I'm at a four. I mean, the cigar is, I wouldn't smoke it again. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. Um, smoked it. I smoked most of it. Um, 75 percent of it. Um, and it wasn't good. Uh, [01:32:00] you know, for all the reasons that, uh, that Rooster said, it's just, and what we've talked about throughout the whole, the whole podcast, it's a, it's a, maybe it's for somebody else, but it isn't for me.
So it's a four for me. It's not, not, not good on any level. Not good.
**Gizmo:** I'm at lockstep with Poobah here. It's a four. I think if construction and performance wise, it did what it was supposed to do for 25, I probably would have leaned to a six, maybe, maybe. But given the fact that I had to fight it as hard as I did, It was collapsing in my hand past the halfway point into the last third, like quite literally a sponge.
I must've relit it 12 times. I apologize to the listener out there listening to us continually relighting the cigar. It performed very poorly. Uh, it has no business being a 25 cigar and unfortunately [01:33:00] past the first third, The flavor really, really took a nosedive. The last third was really, really tough to get through.
I probably left about an inch and a half on it. Um, I had to put it down. I really, really tried here, but, uh, it was a really weak performer tonight, and I'm disappointed given the other cigars that I've smoked from Warp. Not many, but I've really enjoyed the cigars I've had from them, and you know, this is, uh, this is really disappointing.
It's a car crash. It's a car crash. Exactly right. So it's a
**Senator:** four for
**Gizmo:** me.
**Senator:** Senator. So, uh, I'm in lockstep with the prior two, uh, it's a four, I think it's a huge disappointment like Ismo said in that we have been impressed with Warped as a brand from the Maestro Del Tiempo to the one I mentioned, the special edition they have with Medio Tiempo, that was excellent, I hope we can source that eventually to do that on the pod, um, the flavor profile, Ciao!
At its best, it's a very basic, straightforward kind of [01:34:00] Nicaraguan tasting blend, even though I know there's Dominican tobacco. I don't think that comes through nearly as much. Um, but at its worst, it's just a pepper bomb. Like Rooster was saying, for me, it was just black pepper and the nail in the coffin was the construction.
I mean, I think you mentioned this is made in Miami, uh, advice to Warped, move that operation to Nicaragua or the Dominican because this is one of the most poorly constructed cigars. I think we've ever seen Cuban cigars included and we've had some ridiculous ones and
**Gizmo:** they have one guy rolling.
**Senator:** That's right.
And by the way, by the way, we're tired.
**Poobah:** Sorry to interrupt, but we just to build on what you're saying. When I took one, there were two bands on there. That first band I took off, which I, we've all done very carefully. Rip the whole seam, the glue ripped the whole seam off. You know what I'm saying? Where I was just like, this thing is shit, you know, um, not good, bad construction.
So sorry, sorry to interrupt. No, no, [01:35:00] that's
**Senator:** right. And on the construction, I had to touch it up countless times. Um, the ash was flaky at many points. Um, there just wasn't a redeeming quality about this cigar. So I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. And, um, I hope there's better from warp than this.
**Gizmo:** Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, I don't know. No, like it's a four. And, uh, you know, I was actually pretty happy about the way it started. I think the first inch, inch and a half. And, uh, you know, I was getting a little bit of the sweetness and I liked the smoke output and felt strong. I said, Oh, this is going to be a great cigar. But then it was like the October crash of 1987.
There was no forgiving. It just went straight down. I think I probably had to light it up like at least 10 times. And then, uh, I think that made it bitter, so it was just not happening, and it's very rare that I drop a cigar, and then, I was feeling uncomfortable towards the end, I think, there was a lot of smoke around [01:36:00] in the room, and, you know, I was getting a little bit of the bitterness taste, and that's probably because of the touch ups, and, um, it just didn't do it, it's, it's a four.
**Chef Ricky:** Alright, Chef Ricky. Yeah, Ben, first, how's that Davidoff 702 doing? Oh, delicious. So much stuff. Yeah. You smoking that now? Scumbag.
**Bam Bam:** Desperate for another cigar. I'm telling you. For the listener out there,
**Gizmo:** this is what happens when we have a pairing that is horrible. Is we all start looking for other stuff to we go to plan B to keep the lights on I should You talk about keeping the lights on cigar fishing out of this is how we keep the lights on just try to find some cigar That's gonna bring us.
Oh, yeah some semblance of oxygen and flavor so I
**Chef Ricky:** don't know why but I made the mistake of putting mine in the car and I can't wait to get to it because You know, you know The box presentation of the cigar was beautiful. The cigar was actually quite handsome. One of the bands aside, you know, you could definitely do without either one of those bands on there.
Um, [01:37:00] and then the initial flavor was good. You know, you got some dried fruit notes. Uh, and then it just all disappeared. Everything started getting super short, tasting weird. Like I said, the My second third, I got some kind of smoked fish note that was fucking weird. Smoked herring to be specific. Um, and it just, you know, and, and I smoked it all the way down again.
It's a 25 cigar. So you kind of want to see if it develops into something more. And the final third smoothed out a little bit and you started to get some dried fruit back, but. Just nothing pleasant. Um, you know, I wasn't having the construction issues that everyone else seemed to have. My ashes held up nicely.
My burn line was good. There was nothing memorable about the cigar. Nothing positively memorable. So with that, I'll give it a five. You know, I can't recommend it. Um, I won't smoke it again. And I think at 25 bucks, it's a complete ripoff. Absolutely.
**Bam Bam:** All right, bam, bam. Yeah, so I'm at a four. [01:38:00] I did like early on, as a few of you guys mentioned, that I had some molasses, some prune early on.
I kind of liked that. But it, as Pagoda said, it took a nosedive halfway through in the construction. I don't ever put a cigar down. I never do that. I could easily give the cigar a three just because From that point of view, honestly. Um, but you know, I don't want to be the dickhead in the room. Um, that's somebody else's job.
I am pointing fingers. Is it? Hey, I'm very enthusiastic with my ratings. Um, yeah, it's, it's a four. It's just, it's a colossal disappointment.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. That puts the formal lizard rating tonight. Very disappointing on the warped El Oso 10th anniversary and grand Papa at a four. Point three could be the lowest rating in pod history.
It's pretty close. I would, I would say it rivals the nightmare before Christmas. The Las Calaveras we did coming up on two years ago. This is like the nightmare before [01:39:00] Halloween. Maybe I'll put some, who makes that fun music on the front of it. Crowned heads.
**Senator:** Okay. Not
**Gizmo:** crowned heads. Last calaveras 2022 or 2023.
It's, I think it's right in line with that. Just an absolute poor performer. This was a really, really bad.
**Chef Ricky:** It's on sale right now because we're in day of the dead.
**Bam Bam:** Courses for sale. What a departure from the Other warped cigar that we love. Yeah, so let's talk about that. Maestro Del Tiempo, incredible. Yeah, on
**Gizmo:** episode 69, we did the Maestro Del Tiempo.
5205 scored a 9. 0. Delicious cigar. Double, more than double. Delicious cigar. More than double the rating of this. What a disappointment. So this, this is one of the lowest rating. New world or Cuban, but new world cigars, we've done on this podcast and absolute disappointment. And when I got these cigars in guys, I'll be honest.
I was like amped up. We were hopeful to find another great warped, another special cigar at that 25 price point to, you know, throw in a special rotation and. [01:40:00] This is just one of the worst cigars we've done on the pod in 150 some odd episodes now. Can I
**Rooster:** get a refund?
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. So again, on the injuries, single malt, Indian whiskey.
We had a 4. 8. I'm sorry, Rooster. Every time I say that, he winces his eyes. And on the warped El Oso, 10th anniversary and Grand Papa. We had a 4. 3 and despite both of those ratings boys and our pairing tonight, great conversation. Good night. Good spending the time with you all and uh, we'll see everybody next week.
Keep smoking. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, lounge lizards pod. com. That's lounge lizards p 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 want to reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking.
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