Lounge Lizards - a Cigar and Lifestyle Podcast

Recorded at Ten86 Lounge in Hawthorne, New Jersey the lizards pair the Trinidad Fundadores with Don Fulano Tequila Añejo. The guys discuss Castro’s diplomatic use of this cigar and its value versus its current price, they preview the upcoming trip to Cuba, and they debate Rooster’s breach of lizard protocol.

Join the Lounge Lizards for a weekly discussion on all things cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban), whiskey, food, travel, life and work. This is your formal invitation to join us in a relaxing discussion amongst friends and become a card-carrying Lounge Lizard yourself. This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.

website/merch/rating archive: loungelizardspod.com
email: hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
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What is Lounge Lizards - a Cigar and Lifestyle Podcast?

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 range from 60 to 90 minutes and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.

The podcast features seven members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Grinder and Bam Bam.​

This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.

Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!

**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Rooster Senator Pagoda, Grindr, and bam bam.

On our plans to smoker cigar drinks of tequila, talk about life, and of course, have some laugh. So take this as your 70th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We're gonna smoke at Cuban cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating.

We discuss Castro's diplomatic use of this cigar and its value versus current price. We preview our upcoming trip to Cuba and we debate rooster's, breach of lizard protocol, all among a variety of other things for the next 90 minutes. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar. Enjoy as we pair Don Fallo tequila Anjo with the Trinidad funded Doris, a classic Lonsdale from [00:01:00] Cuba tonight.

The Trinidad funded Doris. It's a 40 ring gauge by seven and a half inch. Very revered, very hard to find, despite being regular production. It kind of falls alongside Sir Winston's. Mm-hmm. , um, I would say RGUs, Lutan, Cohiba, everything. I think it's a flagship cigar. It's a flagship cigar for Cuba and, uh, has a lot of fans and a lot of folks who don't really get it.

So I'm curious how this room will, uh, uh, see you tonight. Yeah.

**Rooster:** Some people like this, some, some actually don't. Yeah, they're not huge fans so

**Gizmo:** far. Those that don't should be lashed off the fundi. I've heard, I've seen a lot of people say like, if it was a third of the price, and we'll get to that, that they wouldn't buy it even at 20 or 30 bucks.

Wow. Yeah. All right, boys, let's cut this thing. Should we're getting on the cold draw on the wrapper. The one thing I will say when I opened this box today, this is a box from 2018. Um, I find these wrappers to be kind of not as pretty as the younger ones that I've seen and smoked. [00:02:00] Yeah, it's a little toothy.

It's, and it's like, it's kind of got like a hazy thing to it, like, the nineteens and 20 ones that I have, like, I have a little bit more of like a, like a gloss to them or even like a risto type, like a reddish type of color. These, to me are just dull.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I'm such a giddy fan of these. That doesn't, none of that

**Senator:** bothers me.

No, I, I agree with that. I, I feel like the younger ones have a little bit of a sheen. You can kind of see a little bit of the oils and the older ones. Um, it's like a very matte finish. And even the, the, the leaf is kind of veiny. Veiny and a little toothy on the older ones. Yeah. It's

**Gizmo:** toothy and I just, I just think the quality of the leaf or whatever that leaf was at the time in 18 is just different.

Not saying better or worse, just different than butt. Certainly what they're putting out

**Senator:** now, but they even years before that, I think I have sixteens of these that look very similar to the eighteens.

**Gizmo:** I think 19 and, and beyond 19 and newer. . Um, they're more pristine. Yeah, they're more, they're

**Senator:** prettier for sure.

Well, with the prices now, I can only imagine [00:03:00] they wrappers. They

**Gizmo:** should have gold leaf in me . So what are you guys getting on the cold draw? Mine is delicious, dude. It's

**Bam Bam:** dried fruit all the way from me. It's fantastic.

**Gizmo:** I'm getting like, oh, Cuban coffee. Like a little desserty. I think

**Bam Bam:** it's a dessert for me on the cold draw all the way

**Gizmo:** Cuban coffee as opposed to new world coffee.

**Bam Bam:** Don't get ornery .

**Senator:** We are talking to

the

**Bam Bam:** coffee. Cuba. Cuba doesn't do coffee. This is true. The coffee snob. The fruit,

**Rooster:** the fruit is definitely guys have the same

**Gizmo:** machine now, so That's true. That's true. That's true. Yeah. I worship coffee. We use the same coffee bean we do. Leva super crema. Super crema baby is the best.

I will. I get that on, uh, I have that on Amazon. Auto deliver. Yeah. Love their stuff. Nice. All right boys, let's light this thing. The Cuban Trinidad funded Doris. Again, it's Lonsdale, which we could talk about. I certainly thought it was Alan Serro. Yep. Coming in tonight, as did we, 40 ring gauge by seven and a half inches long.

Classic Cuban pigtail on these things. Um, love [00:04:00] the big tail. Yeah, I know you do. Yeah. See how they

**Bam Bam:** do tonight. You know, prior to the price increase, I, I've always coveted this, this cigar and its little brother, the colonials. Those two cigars were just two big things that I had to have at all

**Gizmo:** times. My cigar is absolutely magnificent.

On the light

**Senator:** minus is two. And the funny thing is I've smoked a number of fundies, uh, the draws wide open on this. That's not always been my experience. Some are either a little tight, usually, but this is perfect

**Gizmo:** drawing perfectly. I have not smoked one of these in a while. This is excellent. I don't know what to

**Bam Bam:** say.

Wow. It's delicious, man. Come on, pagoda. Let me hear it. , right?

**Gizmo:** What do you say? Pagoda? Yeah. We'll, wait, I have nothing to

**Pagoda:** say. .

**Senator:** It's delicious. Pagoda. Don't draw this too fast.

**Pagoda:** No, no, no. I won't. I won't. You know, I've become one of the slowest smokers out here now. I dunno what's

**Gizmo:** going on. We um, we've talked about this a lot with cigars of this size and smaller even, uh, on the [00:05:00] pod.

And I think we're kind of, uh, right now in a zone on the podcast with Lance Arrows and Lonsdale, those small ring gauge a little bit longer. Um, this is no different. This is an elegant, elegant smoke that you need to smoke slowly. I'm very happy. Yeah, very happy. So what are you guys getting on the light flavor-wise?

**Bam Bam:** I think the amplified dried fruit and the coffee is more pronounced on the light for me. In addition to the fruit.

**Gizmo:** I'm getting some of that mustiness. Yep. Which I love, which is really nice. Which you don't get. I find the younger ones that have a little bit more oomph to 'em than, than. These, I mean, these are what, at five years now, coming up on five years old.

**Bam Bam:** It's a nice bunch of years on it. What are you thinking? Grindr?

**Gizmo:** Trying

**Grinder:** to get my head around it. Hmm.

**Gizmo:** It's,

**Grinder:** um, definitely got the mustiness, which I love, but there's so much more. Yeah. Um, nuance.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's got like a, a doughy thing about it. Mm-hmm. It's [00:06:00] got the dried fruit, the coffee. Yeah. A little chocolatey, maybe a little bit.

It's like a fruit

**Bam Bam:** cake. Yeah. It's ab there's some complexity here. Absolutely.

**Gizmo:** I'm not getting much of the twang that I get sometimes on the younger ones. Mm-hmm. Get a little bit more of a. . Like a honey saltiness. Get like a

**Rooster:** honey. Mm-hmm. Get a little, like a honey dried fruit. Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Right.

**Pagoda:** You, you know what's funny, I was, I was trying to smell the cigar right before we let up, and I thought I was smelling a bit of coco and I went through, but it might have been the 8 98 that said it was, we said it was smoking.

That's so aromatic. I'm like, I, I just like what? 8 98 .

**Bam Bam:** You know, one thing that Gizmo taught me indirectly is to put it vertically under your nose. Just right at that burn line, you really capture some delicious aroma. There

**Pagoda:** could be, you could have put it a bit higher, like burn and the nose line. No,

**Gizmo:** that's

**Rooster:** awesome.

It could be

**Gizmo:** horizontal horizontally also, it's a little different vertical. That's different. I like to get [00:07:00] it right up in there. I like it like this. Yeah. Stick it up your nose. Yes. . Just stick

**Senator:** your tongue out. Taste the ash. .

**Bam Bam:** Go ahead ro. Give it a lick. . It's so funny I said nothing .

**Grinder:** There's like a nice um, cinnamon on the retro hill.

Like on the retro

**Bam Bam:** hale finish I get baking spice. Yeah. On the retro. Sure.

**Gizmo:** I am relieved that the, as senator mentioned, the draw is app appropriate. It's perfect. Just a slight bit of resistance on this, you know, cuz as we've talked about so many times, you go and spend the money on a cigar like this and what, 20%, 30%.

You're gonna have draw problems. You're gonna have an overpacked cigar, you're gonna have an under pack cigar, which is crazy given. That these are what? 80, 85, $90. Now

I

**Bam Bam:** was gonna ask, I've seen 'em for 110. That's a little high. I've

**Gizmo:** seen 'em for 80. So a

**Rooster:** box just came up. It's a new box 2022 and it's going for about 15,

**Gizmo:** [00:08:00] $1,500.

So that's not box of 24. So their boxes are 24. Yeah. So that's 62 50 a stick. Which is still high.

**Bam Bam:** It's still high, but if you want a fundi, I mean for me it's, it's within the realm of possibility that, that doesn't sound nuts to me. It's cuz I love the

**Pagoda:** cigar. Yeah. Thank you for the cigars because I thought that was 15 a

**Bam Bam:** stick.

**Gizmo:** No, no, sorry. real stick. So, uh, these have a long history which I'll go into. Um, pretty interesting history. But first packaging-wise, they come only in a varnished semi boy nature box of 24 sticks, which is classic for trini. Most of the other Cuban lines come in 20 fives. Uh, Trinidad comes in 20 fours.

There was a, uh, 12 count semi boy nature box discontinued in 2012. They also, commonly you'll see like fivers in cardboard packs, which was discontinued in 2010. Uh, and they had a 50 cab of funded Doris that was discontinued in 2006. Wow. I would love to get my hands on, can you imagine [00:09:00] a 50 cab of these, how magnificent that

**Bam Bam:** would be.

What a celebratory evening that would

**Gizmo:** be to get that box just cracking that open. Amazing. Wow. So, um, yeah, these are, these are really, really special. These were originally put together as a diplomatic gift used by Castro, um, only only to give out to diplomats. And there's a common, uh, thought that this cigars been around a lot longer than it was.

There was a, uh, a diplomat. Diplomatic Trinidad that Castro used, you know, in the eighties and nineties, I guess. Uh, but it was a different dimension than this. This was actually, uh, originated in 1997. Hmm. Um, but you can find, like in some of the European auctions and stuff, you can actually find those diplomatic trinidads that were given out to really diplomats on auction.

I guess they're probably ridiculously priced, but, um, yeah, they have a, they have a pretty amazing history. So I, I

**Pagoda:** was reading about this [00:10:00] and uh, and one of the guy, one of the guys, whoever wrote that article, mentioned that it was actually started in 1969. And in 1997 it went public, meaning it was brought to the public, uh, to be pot.

**Rooster:** Wasn't this Castros? Uh, he only used to smoke, like it was just made for him.

**Gizmo:** Uh, it, it was made for him, his and his government friends, and for him to give out to diplomats, just like the Cohiba too, just like the Cohiba. That's how that started. And I think that he smoked a lot of Cohiba and a lot of Trinidad, um, were his brands.

Um, but you know, like I said, the version, it's commonly thought that this was the specific cigar since the seventies, eighties or sixties even, that he was using. But it was a different, different cigar. This was, uh, created in 1997 and I think it was put on, uh, put on sale for the first time in 98.

**Senator:** I mean, I won't lie, just the history with all of that in this cigar is what early on made this always really intriguing for me wanting to try.

It's [00:11:00] like you think about this, this awful dictator, but. Has the ability to just have any cigar he possibly wants, created and made with some of the best tobacco and rollers money can buy. And the fact that he chose this, some of those cohibas, I've always wanted to try this for that reason. I said, obviously this has gotta be a pretty, a pretty impressive smoke.

And I remember the first one of these I had, I mean, I, I was hooked ever since. These are just awesome. Absolutely.

**Grinder:** Do you know the difference between the 1996 version, this version we're smoking and the, the, you know, the 1969 diplomat

**Gizmo:** version? Yeah, so it's, it's, there's not much different, the original, we're not gonna call it a funded doors.

The original Trinidad diplomatic gift was a mimic of the cohiba and sero size. The lato number one, which is 38 by seven and a half, this is two millimeters larger and ring gauge by seven and a half. So it's not much different. So I, I do wonder what made them go. When [00:12:00] we're gonna release this to the public, let's add two millimeters to the ring gauge and make it a 40 in Lonsdale.

I don't, I I, I don't know what that would be. I don't

**Senator:** know what, but I'm glad they did. Mm-hmm. , I just like, you know, some smaller ring gauge cigars are not necessarily known for their smoke output. And I love what this cigar and other lonsdale that are just a little bit bigger than a traditional land arrow.

I feel like you get more smoke output and just, it increases how, like aromatic and kind of the experience when you're smoking the cigar. I, I love that.

**Bam Bam:** It's great for the room if a bunch of guys are smoking. It's like tonight, it's, it's a delicious aroma. Yeah. It smells amazing. It's amazing.

**Grinder:** This is like a meal.

Yeah. There's

**Gizmo:** so much flavor. Delicious. So, cuz I, I find this fascinating if you guys don't tell me to shut up. But, um, I think this is very .

**Bam Bam:** You set yourself

**Gizmo:** up. Well done. Uh, This is very cool that they only made, uh, in the, in the nineties, they made these only in plain [00:13:00] cedar boxes, each containing a hundred cigars.

And at Elto they only rolled 20 of those boxes a month, 2000 cigars a month for, for Castro, his cronies and gifts, I guess for diplomatic gifts. So that's, it's pretty amazing that that's a pretty low quantity. I'm assuming maybe one person Yeah. Was rolling those. You, you assume what we learned in Cuba.

Bam. Every cigar roller is rolling about a hundred

**Bam Bam:** cigars a day. This is true. But you know, it's like, it's like the theory less is more. When you roll so many, so few of an incredible cigar like this, it becomes a myth. Yeah, right. It's unattainable

**Gizmo:** to a degree. Yeah. So these have been sold as much as $700 per cigar.

The diplomatic holy cow versions of these scarcity

**Bam Bam:** definitely

creates

**Gizmo:** demand. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, uh, Trinidad has a bunch of other, um, Wonderful cigars that we are fans of. Uh, the Colonial is Bam Mentioned, which is their Corona a hundred percent. Love, love, love, love. The, and we did that [00:14:00] on the podcast, right?

We should look at berating. Yes, we, I will. Uh, the Petite Corona, uh, is called Reyes. There's a petite reo called the Vigia. There's a double re robusto, uh, Casa del exclusive called Lava. And, uh, rooster's favorite the Rub Robusto Extra is called an Esmeralda. Mm. You love that cigar? I

**Bam Bam:** do. It's a little short rub Robusto.

Right? What about the, uh, it's long. Is that right?

**Gizmo:** What about the me Luna Mena is another petite reo, which it's also a tope. And the tous is the last one, which is this. Their, their ru boosto. And there were a lot, you know, there's a lot of discontinuing cigars and special releases. They used this brand for fancy humidors, and you know, it's because, because of the story and the.

For, you know, since the sixties. Um,

**Rooster:** now when you guys were in Cuba, did you go to an area that's called Trinidad?

**Gizmo:** We did not. No. No. Okay. I'll take you there.

Thanks. Restrict.

**Bam Bam:** I need you. I'll take you there. Cut. Cut [00:15:00] the mic right now.

**Senator:** He's gonna take you to Joe Balter for the next trip. .

**Bam Bam:** I will say though, when we were there, just to little side note, the Parta shop had a huge stockpile of Trinidad's, various violas, not fund. No, but everything else you mentioned more or less. And that was like an aah of it. It was incredible to see. Well, I mean,

**Senator:** this is what's funny.

I feel like in some of our cigar. . Um, we've seen photos recently of guys posting from, uh, LA Casados in different countries. Mm-hmm. , I think one of them was in the Caribbean, in the islands. Yeah. And, um, it, there were just stacks and stacks of Trinidad boxes in that photo. Yeah. And it just signals, I mean, clearly not everywhere are people willing to pay these ridiculous prices that now Trinidad and Cohiba are going for.

**Gizmo:** Well, you know, and we've seen that too. We've talked about it. I think you mentioned, uh, I hav Anis. There were cohibas sitting on there Yeah. That normally would go up and down with Oh yeah. Any other cigar that, that is pretty popular. And they've just [00:16:00] been sitting there cuz they're just so exorbitantly priced.

**Bam Bam:** But you and I met someone who we hope is a future guest here. He owns a place on one of the islands. Yeah. Juan. Yeah. He told a mutual friend of ours of a massive stockpile of Cuba, of Cohibas that he went through in five days. And you're talking boxes that are over $2,800 per box. Yeah. And they're 10 counts in five days.

He went through his entire stock of cohiba. It was, it's incredible.

**Gizmo:** It's amazing. Yeah. But you know, you look at, you know, Trinidad, I think, and I, we've talked about this on the pod, I, I think Trinidad is gonna suffer a little bit differently than Cohiba because, you know, Cohiba is the flagship brand, uh, market of, uh, of, of Cuba.

Yeah. Trinidad is not that brand, and it's not as well known by people who are not deep into the hobby or efficient autos and know the story. It's just, it's different. So I wonder if the pricing's gonna be able to sustain For Trinidad, [00:17:00] they might just be

**Grinder:** trying to find equilibrium. Right? Like they, they could, they're just te they're probably testing out where they, where it fits on the supply and demand curve.

Like they might still be making money

**Bam Bam:** off of this. Right. Well, the one interesting fact is Iito is both, they're rolling both Cohibas and Trinidads. Yep. It's the only factory that's doing both those cigars. So I think that has a lot to do. I guess branding and pricing, the cigars, because they're made in a single point location.

I don't

**Gizmo:** know. And that's new, by the way. Yeah.

**Rooster:** According to the new price for colonials, 24 count box,

**Gizmo:** $1,100. Wow.

**Bam Bam:** For a Corona, I wanna punch the guy in a face that set that price. It's not insane. That's ridiculous. It's unfair.

**Gizmo:** That's.

**Bam Bam:** It's anger. It's just makes me angry.

**Gizmo:** So what are you guys thinking about the cigar right now?

**Pagoda:** I don't know. I've got a floral salty on the

**Bam Bam:** Yeah, big time. Back of the P. Yeah. Yeah. Very accurate man. I'm

**Grinder:** getting a lot more salt than, than you were

**Gizmo:** alluding to guys.

**Rooster:** This reminds me a little [00:18:00] bit, little bit of like an L G C M D O number two.

**Gizmo:** Oh yeah. . You bastard .

**Bam Bam:** Not the number from number two. We'll, we'll be sampling that

**Gizmo:** someday soon.

Yeah. We have a story to tell about that in a little bit. . No, you don't. Let's first talk about our, uh, pairing tonight. The Don Fuo Tequila Anejo. Uh, I haven't sipped this yet. I'm very excited about his Senator was fortunate to find a bottle of this. We've heard so much about it. How much is

**Bam Bam:** that bottle Senator?

**Senator:** I think I got it for 90

**Bam Bam:** Worth every penny. Oh yeah it is. Oh wow. That's amazing. Really, really freaking good. Wow. What's cool, rooster, before you sip it, put your nose, just keep it at the nose to get that, that, uh, floral aroma. It is amazing. It actually gets some caramel in your nose there. Yeah, right.

**Pagoda:** What are you talking about?

Rooster's having the known alcoholic version. Oh,

**Bam Bam:** is that right? Oh, okay. Fantastic. Fantastic. Don.

**Rooster:** Oh, zero . [00:19:00]

**Gizmo:** That's, uh, that's really delicious. It's,

**Senator:** I think it pairs perfectly. I mean, I, I've obviously, I've had plenty of fundies before. Um, and we, Ricky, who we've had on, introduced us to Don Fallo one night and, um, did we have ya

**Gizmo:** with him?

Oh yeah.

**Senator:** I don't remember. Oh, yeah, this was, you know, when we had this with him, uh, when we were here. Cinco de Mayo. Ah, do you remember that? Yeah. Um, but it's a, it's a great bottle on the bottle. I actually like they give you some information. I feel like most bottles you buy, it just says the name and how much alcohol.

That's about all you'll know about it. But it says, um, Uh, a estate grown family owned for five generations, naturally fermented, distilled in copper, selected Maura Agave, proprietary yeast, well water, a hundred percent natural aged and french oak casks. It's 80 proof and the bottle is beautiful. It's like one of the nicest looking bottles I've seen a while.

It's beautiful. Just a tall glass with this kind of nice rounded

**Gizmo:** top. [00:20:00] Is that a wide mouth cork?

**Bam Bam:** It's a with a glass top. Yeah, it is a cork. Yeah. With a glass top. It's cool. Get a

**Grinder:** hefty viscosity on the, it feels like a,

**Bam Bam:** it's, yeah. Molasses. , yeah. The tequila. Yeah. Yeah,

**Gizmo:** yeah. Doesn't it taste like a rum? A little bit.

It does have that sweet rum characteristic. Yeah.

**Bam Bam:** Uh, dare I say, it's, for me, it's probably one of the best tasting tequilas I've ever had. Wow. And this is the first class, first time I'm ever trying it.

**Gizmo:** So

**Rooster:** do they make this an extra anejo

**Gizmo:** as well?

**Senator:** It's a good question.

**Bam Bam:** I'm not sure. Let's see. So this is Anya Hill?

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

**Gizmo:** Truly delicious. I think this is actually, you know, we were going back and forth what to pair with this cigar tonight. Yeah. And bam, you had mentioned rum. and we came up with Don Philo and I think that this is actually the perfect recommendation cuz it big time. It's kind of the best of both worlds.

Big time, time. It has that tequila, smoothness, a little bit of bite. I think it pairs well with the cigar, but it has that rum, but it has dessert quality too. The quality, [00:21:00] the sweetness, the, the rum sweetness for there's a dessert quality.

**Senator:** Yeah, the flavor notes. If you really just sip, swirl it a little bit in your mouth, breathe and breathe and just really try to pick out what's in there.

It's a ton of dessert notes that I think are unbelievably similar to the fundi. This was very intentional. It's, it's insane. There's even a creaminess to this tequila. You get baking spice in it, you get a little honey caramel and caramel spot on. I mean, these are all notes that you get in a fundi. So for me, the pairing, um, I think they're very, very similar.

Rooster to your question. Uh, about an extra ajo, they do make one. Hmm. Um, it's this cool rectangular blue bottle. Uh, it looks like it goes for about 200 on most sites. Uh, we should try that at some point.

**Bam Bam:** mere bag of shells. for rooster. Not for me. .

**Pagoda:** I'm just smelling at it doesn't smell like tequila. Yeah.

Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Somebody, it smells like raw .

**Senator:** It's, it's awesome. Oh, you smell the agave.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah. You definitely smell the agave when you put your, you know, like Ricky when you put your entire nose in it. [00:22:00] Yeah. Yeah. But the caramel like

**Rooster:** taste hit you with that caramel right in the beginning, that big time. That's kind of reminiscent of,

**Gizmo:** uh, so

**Grinder:** Ru one of the things that Ricky said that has stuck with me is that sometimes it's best to drink it quickly because it takes off some of the bite and a lot more of that sweetness comes through and I.

It doesn't necessarily need, need to be drunk quickly because it's so smooth, but it definitely amplifies some of that sweetness if you just kind of don't gulp it. But, you know, you don't, you don't swirl it

**Bam Bam:** around a little bit. Yeah, it's, it's quite good. You know, I had the Elta Soro a few days ago in the club.

I'm not, you know, I haven't had that very often. I have to put that in this, like, one and two for me is from the best point of view of taste and flavor. Excellent. Really delicious. One Twoo

**Gizmo:** Punch. I agree with you. I, I really, Elta Soro Anejo is probably my favorite.

**Bam Bam:** I'm just starting to love it because I

**Gizmo:** haven't had it very often and this, I mean, obviously this is impossible to find, so I'm so glad we're having it tonight.

But this is right there [00:23:00] with it. And I don't remember this in May. All

**Bam Bam:** Points Bulletin. If you guys see this, just grab a whole bunch of it. We'll pay you .

**Rooster:** Okay. Same, same price point with the Trac

**Gizmo:** Alora. Probably Tassos pretty close. It may actually be a little more, I don't know, Alora, I don't, I don't remember.

So

**Senator:** I think they're around the same. So

**Grinder:** the Elta Soros, the one that has

the

**Gizmo:** lare cask. Right. That's, I think that's a special, that's one of their special ones. Yeah. That's a special one. That's not they had in Florida. Yeah. Hmm. How was that? I loved it, but I liked Pete. Um, so did you get a lot of Pete out of the Yeah,

**Senator:** absolutely.

I mean, anything coming out of a Lare Casky gonna get piece? Not a lot. Not a, I wouldn't say a lot,

**Grinder:** but I got, I

**Senator:** definitely got some

**Gizmo:** Pete

**Grinder:** and, uh, I thought it was nice. I thought it was well-balanced. It wasn't overwhelming. And if you like that subtle Pete, it was just paired

**Senator:** very nicely with the agave. I just like, for this Don Philo, I, I think it's one of the smoothest tequilas I've ever had, and I was pursuing a spirit, like, [00:24:00] I want full, it kind of like cigars.

I mean, I want full flavor, but delivered very smoothly. I don't love an aggressive bite. Um, and I think this is just like a, a truly refined spirit through and through.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. Hmm.

**Bam Bam:** Great. For the

**Gizmo:** holidays. Yeah, this would be year round. Yeah. I, I, mm-hmm. , but I think, I do think it would be like the, the ro I always like rum around the holidays.

Mm-hmm. around Christmas. This is slotted great. Especially since we've kind of gotten into it with the Appleton and the Foursquare. Yep. I, I kind of reach for that when I can't have a cigar around, you know, Christmas time. Mm-hmm. . Um, but yeah, I think this is, this is really working though. This is really working.

What are you guys thinking of the Fundi right now? So good. I hate it. Delicious. is this, uh, let me ask the room. What is this cigar worth to you with the best experience you've ever had with the funded Doris? What is the most you would pay? And don't be shy . What is the most you would pay to have the best fund doors experience you've ever had?

I'm getting [00:25:00] shy. , .

**Senator:** I mean, I'm happy to go first. Uh, for me, uh, $40 honestly is, is kind of my max. Wow. Um, I wouldn't pay perfect. I wouldn't pay 60 something dollars for this. I'm sorry. Um, I love the fundi, but. Here's the thing, I, I am, there is not a shortage for me of cigars that I can find and enjoy that are firmly, medium, almost all the way through.

I don't think this ever gets full, I think at best, medium full. And I think that the point of time at which it gets that is even a small portion of the cigar. So I usually light this as my first stick. A lot of the times it's in the afternoon, sometimes early evening. But this is not a stick that I traditionally reach for late into the evening.

So I don't, I wouldn't call it the most versatile when I do enlight this cigar. It's always a fantastic experience. But for me, for all those factors, I don't think there's a shortage of sticks that [00:26:00] deliver this amount of flavor or strength. Um, and how I'm able to slot this in my day, I, I couldn't see myself paint more than 40.

**Gizmo:** Hmm. Yeah,

**Rooster:** I would, I would go up to 50.

**Gizmo:** That's where I'm at, you know, I think 1200 a box. Yeah.

**Rooster:** Um, I mean, you know, we, we paid like six 50 for boxes of these. That's the thing. Not

**Gizmo:** too long ago I paid 5, 5 80, I think.

**Rooster:** And when you go above like 40, 50, and then you start comparing like, hey, you know, we have the, my father number four.

So we get like 70, 80% of the notes that we get out of this in that cigar for like under $10. Right. So, and then you start like kind of comparing. So this is, you know, at that, at this price point right now, are you gonna smoke this every week? No, I'm gonna smoke it maybe once a month, if that at most, you

**Gizmo:** know, at the most.

So I'm reaching for this maybe twice a year. Yeah. So for that

**Rooster:** it's a special cigar, special occasion. So you'd pay between 40 and 50 bucks. That's fair. Now, I don't know if you [00:27:00] can even get these at that price.

**Bam Bam:** Are you reaching for it twice a year because of its scarcity, it's price, or? It's not in your

**Gizmo:** wheelhouse.

No. I mean, listen, if I had unlimited resources, I'd probably smoke it a little more. Right, right, right, right. Um, you know, when I compare you would if you had unlimited resources. Yeah. But I compare it to other regular production cigars that are hard to find. Like the, the Sir Winston. Mm-hmm. Luan. I'm gonna reach for money aside.

I would reach for them probably more than I would this. Um, I really like this in special moments. This to me is a holiday cigar. A birthday cigar. It's a celebratory, it's a celebr. It's an elegant for a special moment. Yeah.

**Grinder:** This was one of your first like real love of Cuban cigars too, right?

**Gizmo:** Because Yeah.

And it was, it was, it was easier to get for me than Lucy's. Yeah. And Sir Winston's, and now it's the opposite.

**Bam Bam:** Now for everything that you just said, I'm willing to pay $60 mm-hmm. for that, for that experience. Yeah. Because I covet these, they're, for me, it's a special cigar. And if [00:28:00] I, again, if I hadn't unlimited resources and had this once a week, I would have it once a week.

It would be in my normal rotation.

**Pagoda:** So you, so grinder, where are you? Because it started at 40, you totally reached

**Bam Bam:** 60 . I, I'm, we're not bidding, but I like it. I'm gonna come back to the

**Grinder:** baseline. I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go above 40. And that's where, as soon as you ask the question, that's where my mind was at.

And um, part of it is I don't, I just don't it, you know, I don't like paying more than $40 for a really good cigar because the, the points being have, you know, haven't been made by senator. There's so many good cigars you can get. Um, and, uh, it's a wonderful cigar. But, you know, once you get above 40, you, are you really getting that much more value for each incremental dollar?

I don't know. Yeah. At least

**Bam Bam:** not for me. Yeah. I don't look

at

**Gizmo:** it that way. I don't look at, yeah, I mean, but I guess for me

it

**Rooster:** has to be, you know, it, it becomes like in that special category, like

**Gizmo:** you have a box and

**Bam Bam:** that specialness gives it, uh, [00:29:00] that a certain, you know, there's a certain. Panache that it has, right?

Yeah. Because it is special,

**Gizmo:** I think about this like I do the classico though, and it's, and it's pricing, it's scarcity. I mean, obviously it's not discontinued. Yeah, it's not. But I just, I don't, I look at them, I'm proud that I have them in my tower. Mm-hmm. me too. But I just don't reach for them. So I

**Senator:** guess here's another way, I'll, I'll try to articulate why I'm having a hard time, especially with the $60 price point for this.

Mm-hmm. cigars that I'm willing to spend a lot. Right. 50, 60 bucks a stick for. are typically cigars that I wouldn't compare anything else to it. It's like there's that and nothing else. There's no like poor man's that cigar and I think of like the Vegas Rabbi Classicos, I've never lit another cigar and sat there and said to myself, this is like a VR classicos.

Not once that's true. That's cigar is almost unlimited. What I'd be willing to pay because that's the only one that can deliver that experience in the new world side, like the patron 80th or the patron 50 years. I've [00:30:00] never lit another cigar New world and said, you know, this is very similar to a patron 80th

I've never had that happen, which is why I'd almost pay anything to recreate, continue and enjoy that experience. We have said with a number of sticks that there are fundy like notes and so kind of how Rooster started by saying like there are some budget sticks that even you can get some of the flavor notes that are here.

Yeah. For me it's why I can't put. a, a really aggressive premium on this cigar, not discounting the fact that, obviously I love this cigar. I think it delivers a fantastic experience. Mm-hmm. , but there is a, a lower limit to what I'm willing to pay, only because I feel I can get. Some of those notes in other, but

**Bam Bam:** just to retort really quickly, a cigar that is in incomparable to any other cigar is twice this, that Vegas Orban Classico is a hundred.

And what is it now? No it's not. No

**Gizmo:** it's not. It's 40 bucks. No, $40

**Bam Bam:** thick. $40

**Gizmo:** now box, open, 40 bucks a

**Senator:** stick. Is that right? And I would be willing to pay

**Gizmo:** more than that. The scarcity on those cigars though, that that [00:31:00] does not align with a dramatic increase in price.

**Bam Bam:** Oh, I a I It was physically not

**Gizmo:** available much more than that.

No, cuz they're not really, they're not so well known like this that they command on the, the resale market. I mean they just don't. Oh wow. Just

**Senator:** like I mentioned a patron 80th, obviously, you know, we lit an age one, I brought that we gave a 10. That's cigar retails for $36 a

**Gizmo:** stick. And the padron hammer is 50 and we get it at Atlantic v i p for 42.

That's right. Exactly. And that is an unbelievable experience. It's a

**Rooster:** great cigar. So I think we don't value the Padron 50th. In that like esteem level as this? No, because it's readily

**Gizmo:** available. Right? It's not scarce. It's not scarce. Yeah. So. .

**Rooster:** You know, if that cigar was scarce and you couldn't get it and the price point went up to like 80 bucks, you would actually think that that's a better value than a fundi is because of the size.

**Gizmo:** It's a bigger, it's a bigger cigar. It is, yeah. You know, and it's, it's a, it's a great smoke. It's a shorter, it's perfect every time too. Which I, you cannot say that about the fund of doors can't. Oh, [00:32:00] you get a box of 24, you know that there's gonna be probably four to six. I've never had a bad funding. I've had some tight, not ever tight, tight.

I've had tight. Yep. Same. So we didn't get, I just wanted to ask pagoda, pagoda as of right now, just to close out the, the value or top dollar on this experience. Where are you, where are you? Follow it. So, so

**Pagoda:** I'll tell you, I, I thought senators was gonna say 80 bucks or something. I was at 40. I said let me put 50%, but then even 40, I can't go 20.

So

**Bam Bam:** I'm like 20. So, so I'm like, can you leave please, .

**Pagoda:** But, but yeah, I think 40 is uh, a pretty fair price for this.

**Gizmo:** So, cuz you had a.

**Rooster:** Koji Landro. Yeah. Re recently. Yeah. How does this

**Gizmo:** compare to that? So I was gifted a 2008 Cohiba Landro. Ah, you can't compare it. I can't compare it to this. I would take that over this.

I would, now I have 21 Cohiba Landeros that, I think we'll probably do it on the pod at some point. Uh, in the near future. I'm hoping. Um, I, [00:33:00] I don't know. I think they're pretty neck and neck. We'll see how the experience goes. I don't

**Bam Bam:** Has, has anyone here had that cub? Uh, Cohiba and Sarah?

**Gizmo:** I haven't. I had one.

You've never had one? No. Oh, if I did, it was a long time. I don't know. I

**Bam Bam:** had one in Cuba. Mm-hmm. one. And I regret not buying the box. It was stellar. It was young, but it wasn't overly humidified. It was really, really

**Senator:** delicious. And what did you pay there?

**Gizmo:** I think it was 40.

**Bam Bam:** No, it was less. Really? I think it was like 32 bucks.

**Gizmo:** Wow. Well that okay, that's, yeah, it was cheap. I mean, it's for that cigar. That's that's not reality. It's not reality. You, you guys will see it when they hold on. No, it's

**Senator:** not reality. But I only asked it because Senator, hold, what do you think it's worth? And the fact that they there think it's worth under $40,

**Gizmo:** I think, is that No, but what you're experiencing, here's what you're experiencing.

This

**Bam Bam:** is what I wanted to say. I bought a Sir Winston there, not to interrupt you for $22. I know, but the reason why. It's skewed. You had to flat

**Gizmo:** cub. He doesn't. Another reason , the reason why is these shops have just recently kind of [00:34:00] reopened this stock has been sitting there. They don't update the pricing until the box disappears, until they replace it with a new box.

What is that box? Been there for 10 years. It's probably been there since before. I mean Sir Winston for 20 something bucks. Yeah. It's probably been there since before Covid at, uh, Havana.

**Bam Bam:** It was. And the Sir Winston I had there was really off the charts.

**Gizmo:** So,

**Rooster:** so why didn't you go back the very next day and grab every single cola

**Pagoda:** of smoking again?

**Bam Bam:** Because I was, you know, I was, I was, uh, we were a little apprehensive in bringing stockpile of Cigars home. You brought 38 sticks. Yeah. But they were free. Yeah. From the Parkass

**Gizmo:** Festival. Yeah. It was a question of risk. You know, do we wanna risk? They were. . Yeah. Yeah. So, um, as far as Cohiba landero, I mean obviously that's a crazy price stick.

Like this is maybe a little bit more available, but I'm curious what this group thinks of that. Um, the 20 ones, especially now, Cohibas kind of known to five plus years is really where they hit their sweet spot. Don't disagree, but the young ones are smoking really nicely as [00:35:00] you experienced, and I'm experienced that

**Bam Bam:** young Lance was

**Gizmo:** spectacular.

**Senator:** Can we talk about this for a second? So, I I was also under the wrong impression. Like you were gizz that this funded Doris is a lanzaro. Mm-hmm. , this was news to me tonight that it is not, it's a Lansdale Lonsdale Lonsdale. So there's the Cohiba Lanzaro. What, what does that compete with? What other Cuban land arrows is that competing against?

I

**Gizmo:** think that's the only

**Senator:** one. Wow. I mean that's, they're always thought these two were in competition. It's it

**Bam Bam:** insanity. It's insanity that there's only one land arrow.

**Gizmo:** They're so. . Um, that, I think that's the only one that's a 38 by seven and a half. Uh, but it's a famous, uh, the Lito number one that is the Cohiba Lan.

It was, that's, that's that cigar with the pigtail on it. It's a classic, um, of that size. Um, but you know, there were a lot of them similar, but I think cabanas discontinued them in the 2010. It's so bizarre. It is. Yeah. And I think that's just trending towards the, the people preferring larger ring engage.

You know, I

**Pagoda:** have a question [00:36:00] for you guys. Where would you slot this during the day?

**Gizmo:** I'm kind of with Senator either in a late afternoon or, you know, kind of first cigar of the night. I don't think I would, I don't think I would put this in a second, third, fourth position in a session. But don't

**Pagoda:** you think that also kind of, uh, um, like at least in my experience, what I find is that.

You know, where you slot them during the day kind of also affects the amount you are willing to pay for it. Right. That was

**Senator:** my point. Exactly. Mm-hmm. , it's not that, it's not nearly as versatile as a number of other sticks that I'd be willing to pay more

**Gizmo:** for, but I'll say this, if and, and going back to, and we're, we're all going to Cuba, right?

So if we were sitting in Cuba and we had a phenomenal, you know, seafood dinner with some great white wine, nice time little rum, and you let this, after that dinner, I guarantee that I know I'm speaking for myself, I'm speaking for the group. We will have a phenomenal experience with the cigar. So I don't think,

**Senator:** I'm sure seafood something lighter, but if we had steak [00:37:00] or a heavier meal, we're not gonna pull for this

**Gizmo:** at all.

Sure. We we're gonna go for something else. But I'm

**Pagoda:** assuming that's gonna be a 10th cigar of the day. . .

**Gizmo:** Very possibly. Very possibly. But everything changes when you, when you land in Havana, there's something in the air. Everything changes. Yeah. Your plans get skewed quickly. Yeah. Everything changes. ,

**Bam Bam:** I don't know, I, I think this is a great.

Evening kickoff cigar.

**Gizmo:** It's so elegant in the hand too. I, I mean, it's just, I I, you know, we've said it ev i i, we, it's ad nauseum at this point. It's just a sin to me as you just asked, and we answered, I think accurately that the fact that there are not more cigars like this, there's not more cigars in the size of the kohi len.

There's not more lawn tails on the line. There's probably four.

**Bam Bam:** You know what's interesting too, like we're pursuing all a, a bunch of new world lance arrows because we love that shape so much and they're so elegant and beautiful and they all are smoking so deliciously, there's, you know, there's a lot to be said about that, viola.

That's why I'm just so

**Senator:** surprised. I mean, it's crazy. It's crazy to me [00:38:00] that you have new world manufacturers that are coming out with more land arrows or even smaller ring gauge, like we were just talking about before we hit record. The new Davidoff, uh, 2023 limited edition. Mm-hmm. . That's a Panatella extra.

Yeah. Right. That's a new world stick. They're making intentionally smaller ring gauge cigars. I just don't know why Cuba's not producing some more variety in that

**Grinder:** space. It's not, they, they were late to the thicker ring gauge trend. Yes. Mm. So I'm not surprised they're late to this next wave, which is kind of a pendulum sw shifting back.

You know, maybe,

**Bam Bam:** maybe it has something to do with new havanas ownership. Yeah. I don't know. You know, and that's driven by Asia, right? So that the gentleman's Asian, so that Asian market may be going for that larger ring age. Yeah. And they're driving the market clearly. Yep.

**Gizmo:** Unfortunately. Yeah. I just, you know, and I'm glad that we're kind of in this phase right now.

Not even on purpose. It's not like we sat down and had a meeting and said, let's smoke lawnsdale and [00:39:00] lawn, uh, lances for the next six weeks or eight weeks on the podcast. We've just kind of done it and we've found a lot of great new world, you know, small ring gauge cigars Yeah. That have really, really performed well.

And we're gonna continue that over the next few weeks, hopefully. Yep. We've got a couple good ones coming up.

**Bam Bam:** You know, it's funny, I brought the, my father, Lance Arrow Senator handed me the Don Pep Lan Arrow. I'm wrapping up my entire night with those two lance arrows.

**Gizmo:** That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Senator walked in and tonight gave me the Don Peppin and the, uh, I can't wait to, and the Davi off.

I haven't had that either. And Oh

**Bam Bam:** God, that's, that's very good. Yeah. Lot to talk

**Gizmo:** about. He didn't give me one .

**Senator:** That's nonsense. I gave him a davit off right when I walked in. He in fact, got the first cigar when I walked in.

**Gizmo:** Oh, we're talking about the Don Pepin. You gave me my first one of those , you know, as Rooster calls out, Senator, I think it's time to, I wanna bring something to the, first of all, oh, no, no.

His go has the floor. I still have the floor. Mr. The Roo Tower.

**Bam Bam:** Someone tell Rooster

**Gizmo:** to pipe down. You will have, you will have your opportunity. So, uh, I wanted to bring [00:40:00] this to the Lizard Council, uh, because I was, I, I found this to be an absolute breach of lizard protocol. Um, I didn't know there was a fucking protocol

So our friend o. In California.

I love it. Somehow discovered on Bond Roberts. Keep that going. I like that. I do too. that, uh, our friend Rooster had posted a very, very hard to find box that we all love. It was scandalous. Scandalous. I was, when I tell you the air left my lungs so fast, when he sent this picture that Rooster had posted on Barn, Roberts didn't tell us he was doing it.

This guy, gentlemen posted a box of La Gloria Kuana, [00:41:00] M d o number two. Dude, I hope they a sale on Bond Roberts without notifying us, because you know that we would all probably say, Hey, we'll take that and I'll pay for our market for it. Of course we would. I didn't know that. No, dude.

**Senator:** Dad is joking. Time out.

time out.

**Gizmo:** You guys just said you would only pay 40 bucks for a stock. I didn't say that for.

**Bam Bam:** For this. For this.

**Senator:** I didn't say that. So hang on a second. The only reason I'm confused by this, I was probably the least upset when I heard about this. I, I didn't really care that much, but when I hear you say that, the only thing you have to understand, so you got the MDO number four first.

Mm-hmm. . And I wanted the number two because I really love Lonsdale. So I sourced a box of the number two, that box. I split up two boxes. Two boxes that I split up with you with Rooster, gizz, and Bam. I think if I bought two boxes and split 'em, you should know I obviously like

**Gizmo:** that cigar a hundred percent.

And it's impossible to find. It's as if not more impossible than the classic [00:42:00] ghost because it is really a revered impossible to

**Bam Bam:** find ci. We all have partial boxes of that and if we can add to that stock, I mean we would be lining

**Gizmo:** up at your door. So our friend O in California who's been so generous, he is really a wizard leave.

Leave a O out of this . He's just not part of the pod . So we'll just go back to you guys. He was, you guys all know Furious. Know that you guys all know

**Rooster:** that I have boxes of Lgc M D O number two. So the box that I put up is a 2013 box. Yeah. Plural

**Gizmo:** boxes. I do, I have three boxes, four boxes. Holy SMUGs. So

**Rooster:** I put up the 2013 box because I compared just the other day.

I had a 20 13 1, then I had a 2007. The 2007 box blows the 2013. Out of the water. Out of the water. So I said, let me just, let me just sell this box. And I mean, I brought it up, but you guys have never mentioned that, Hey, we want, we wanna smoke the

Lgc

**Gizmo:** M empty. I don't remember you any them. Huh?

**Senator:** We have them, but not that many.

**Gizmo:** We have, I have six. I haven't touched one in over a year and a half. Yeah, that's right.

**Rooster:** So if I [00:43:00] have three boxes, I'm willing to, you know, share those if you're willing to pay the price. ,

**Gizmo:** you've already broken our hearts though. Yes. I'm sorry. I mean, I didn't, it was a, it was a major breach of lizard protocol.

Absolutely. And I think the council needed to hear this brothers

**Bam Bam:** before the public, general public. All right.

**Gizmo:** and o, you know, so, so he was

**Rooster:** fired up, going, going back. I took that box off of.

**Gizmo:** It's not on under protest anymore. Under protest? Yes. I, I took it upon myself by horse. I took, I took, I took the box this before, after Gizmo

**Senator:** before, after Gizmo called you out on it.

Gizmo. Oh,

**Rooster:** doesn't, doesn't matter. The box is still there. I have four

**Gizmo:** boxes. ,

**Rooster:** gizmo doesn't matter. Doesn't, I mean, what, what's the, what's the difference? If I have a box that I don't want, I'm gonna sell it on vr. What's a big deal?

**Gizmo:** I just think if you

**Rooster:** guys have, you've sold a bunch of

**Gizmo:** stuff on, on, I haven't, I've sold one box ever on br I will, I'll show you my account.

I wanna, I mean, just, I'll show you my account. Just

**Rooster:** maybe not on br, but the other site.

**Gizmo:** Sure. But you guys all know what I'm [00:44:00] doing at any given time. Mm-hmm. , no, you don't post

**Rooster:** that. Say, Hey, this

**Gizmo:** is what I'm selling. You guys wanted first. You know, you haven't done that. I've never sold anything that this group would want.

No question. Oh, so that's exactly what I

**Rooster:** thought. Oh, lemme put it up on br

**Bam Bam:** mdo number twos. That's a different story. Well, I

**Rooster:** have, I have enough of those. I don't want the 2013 and the box is going for like $1,600. You guys wanna pay for that? Did you pay $1,600?

**Gizmo:** I want in on that box I'm in. Yeah, I want in.

We're doing it. Yeah. Okay. Senator, did you bring it tonight?

**Senator:** I wanted it before Rooster, before he crushed our

**Gizmo:** souls. This

**Rooster:** way? No, for Senator. I'm gonna give him the 2007. Oh,

**Gizmo:** what the heck? Yeah, guys, can you layoff, rooster, please. I mean, this group could be, so see how this works? Well played Rooster.

**Bam Bam:** I think you need to enlist li uh, our lizard listeners

**Gizmo:** get an opinion.

**Rooster:** Let me, let me be totally honest. I mean, whatever sticks that I have, I always share. Do I? Not Whenever you guys come to my house, of course, [00:45:00] always. I put the sticks out. I mean, I put my whole humidor out on the table. Extreme, whatever you want. Extreme generosity. So I'm telling you right now I have boxes of M, the m d O number two, 2007 so we can split.

I really didn't know that you guys would really want that and be willing to pay the price that I

**Gizmo:** paid. I wanna see a receipt. So they . That's a fair point, ma'am. This is, I mean, this, this is a gentleman who's learned .

**Bam Bam:** I got a point, I got a point .

**Gizmo:** So that's where I'm at. That's my, that's my cent, you know, as you know.

Oh, we have to, I know you wanna dismiss involving Oh, and he's a good friend of yours. No, no, that's fine. That's, he, he was accurate. I mean, it's not like Rooster's name on bond. Roberts is very secretive. I mean, it's as if that's, that's what

**Rooster:** it's as if it says Lizard Rooster. Biggest, biggest mistake I made.

I'm using Parker Hale from

**Gizmo:** now on. Parker . Parker

**Bam Bam:** Hale. Parker Hale. Where'd you get that one? That's, I like that. That's

**Gizmo:** my sniper rifle. Oh,

**Bam Bam:** cool. . That's my [00:46:00] sniper for, for the raccoons.

**Grinder:** I saw I had a, uh, there was a dead raccoon in front of my driveway yesterday. What's that gotta do with me? It was Ro rooster.

I I was

**Gizmo:** wondering where, where you were about He was sending a signal. Only one

**Senator:** man grabbed a raccoon with his bear heads and his

**Grinder:** name's Rooster. Is,

**Pagoda:** is that why you showed up today?

**Gizmo:** Rooster, the raccoon killer. It's like, I better show up. There was a dead raccoon in Maba . Oh, man. Well, rooster, I, um, I appreciate your quick correction.

I, I felt it was a correction. I appreciate the quick correction. I don't like this. You guys are being too light on. It

**Rooster:** was never a mistake to be. To begin with,

**Gizmo:** Baba, I still Okay. Senator took the box off. Oh boy. Senator. I still took the box off

**Senator:** and the accountability hour has not worked successfully.

**Bam Bam:** This no, it has not.

Not at all. You're not being, you're not accounting for your sins. I think. Let's go

**Pagoda:** back to Bam. Bam. I think it's easier. .

**Bam Bam:** Wow. It's much easier.

**Gizmo:** Rooster. This is Rooster. . . [00:47:00]

**Senator:** Repeat after me. .

**Gizmo:** All right. Well, I think that this is a, a lesson for all lizards out there. And by the way, I have to say, I feel like O is the honorary commander of the lizard army in finding this.

It's like the lizard. Cia. Let's, let's not, let's not go too far. We, the lizard Army is strong and, and we need to know when there. You know when a soldier has stepped outta line. Yeah. Breaches a protocol. That's right. We need to know about these things. So, uh, I encourage all the Westerners out there to keep your, uh, your fellow lizards accountable.

Mm-hmm. in your local groups.

**Grinder:** I think the court Marshall was a little unnecessary.

**Bam Bam:** I, but thanks. You have a new another lawyer

**Gizmo:** on your side. Go ahead.

**Senator:** I, I'd like to hear this. I, I agree. I can't wait for Grinder and I to enjoy these Oh seven .

**Gizmo:** Agreed.

**Bam Bam:** You know, in two days we'll see Senator with a oh seven in his hand.

Yeah. He's gonna have

**Gizmo:** three of them. . Oh, man. All right, boys, we're about halfway through the Trinidad funded. Doris an [00:48:00] excellent cigar so far. It's spectacular. I would say for me, this is not the best fund funded I've ever had, this 18. I've had some other ones that are performing better and taste a little better.

I'm curious. What are you guys experiencing right now? I think it's very good. It's excellent. It's excellent. This is

**Rooster:** all what I remember from Yeah. The ones I've had. I mean, this is

**Gizmo:** just like Me too, just like the ones in

**Grinder:** the past. Yeah. You gave me a, I think you gave me a, an oh seven once. Was it oh seven?

**Gizmo:** It's probably a 16 or a 17. Yeah. We've never had oh seven funded dos.

**Grinder:** That was phenomenal.

**Gizmo:** Yeah, that was really delicious. Maybe a, was it better than the one you're having now? I think this is on par.

**Rooster:** Mm. Wait a minute. You, you got 2017. You have

**Gizmo:** a shit on that 20. Well, remember, we, we all, we all got, we wanted every year.

We split every year between 16 and 19. That's right. We did. So we each got, uh, six, I think, of each year. Um, and I find that the nineteens 18 and 19 are performing the best out of the four. That seems like ages ago. Yeah, it does. Yeah. It's like two years almost. Yeah. That was

**Bam Bam:** a [00:49:00] fun night. What,

**Pagoda:** what was that at the steak?

Was that the night at the steakhouse? That was the night at the steakhouse. And,

**Gizmo:** uh, what steakhouse. Brick house. Oh yeah. Oh, right.

**Bam Bam:** I don't think it was that night.

**Senator:** No, no. It wasn't the, the funding night when we split them up was at my

**Gizmo:** lab. It was,

**Bam Bam:** it was a senator's lunch. At the Senator's lounge.

Yeah.

**Pagoda:** But I remember, I think the funding came out from somebody in Pennsylvania and you guys said, all right, we all on it.

And I think you ordered it right now. He was talking about when I

**Senator:** order it. Yeah. I found a guy in Penn, Pennsylvania that had the 16 and 17 at, worded them at That's exactly right. That's,

**Gizmo:** yeah. Good memory. And we did 16, 17, 18, 19. Yeah. So boys we're going to Cuba very soon. Excited. Very, very soon. Very excited about it.

Going for a week. Yep. I'm going for a little bit longer. Um, it's cuz you're an

**Bam Bam:** insider. .

**Senator:** Well, he's our advanced guy.

**Gizmo:** Yes, he is. I'm gonna go down there and make sure everything works. Everything's good. Advanced your scout. But, uh, very excited to have the lizards joined this time. Join. Bam. And I, yes, sir.

Can't wait. [00:50:00] Yeah. Yeah man. Tell you whatever expectations you have, it's gonna blow your expectations outta the water. Yeah.

**Pagoda:** Well I thought you were gonna say lower them, but

**Gizmo:** this is great. No, no. It's, it's really, it's really a magical place. Got some great dinner dinner reservations for us. Already got three dinner reservations.

Margarita Lagar, Rita. We're doing that. La ero. And also do that other one. Uh, we're gonna do Carone. Carone. Yep.

**Pagoda:** Just you're doing a lot of research rote. I'm impressed. That's all I do, dude.

**Bam Bam:** Just don't bring your dad jeans, guys, whatever you do. , don't bring the dad jeans.

**Gizmo:** Have you ever seen any of us wear dad jeans?

Dude. Oh,

**Grinder:** don't wear dad jeans right now. ?

**Bam Bam:** No.

**Pagoda:** Those on Dad Jeans.

**Senator:** Call. Call it out. Ba, I wanna hear this.

**Gizmo:** What is it? I'm saying the word. I'd like to hear this. Go ahead. Bam. Come on. You got blasted a couple, a couple weeks

**Bam Bam:** ago, sir. It's where the jeans sag in the ass. Like you took a dump and they bunch up at the bottom, uh, above your shoes, like a layer of pancakes,[00:51:00]

That is just, I hate that, you know, you

**Pagoda:** know that that's what in style in Cuba? I don't know what you're talking about. No, it's not. At least

**Bam Bam:** 30 years now. Banging around Jersey on the weekend. Okay. But when you're away, you gotta, you level up a bit, man. Are you wearing, are these dead jeans? They're kind of, are actually

So

**Pagoda:** I'm gonna be wearing hot pants. Hot pants.

**Rooster:** Sorry. Are you saying don't bring the Z cachi

**Gizmo:** and the Capezio shoes? Oh, the cachi,

**Bam Bam:** the cockroach killers. Leave your fargas at home.

**Pagoda:** I'll have my golden chain on for sure. Yeah, just

**Rooster:** squi bes and.

**Gizmo:** Uh, straw hat. Are

**Grinder:** you guys, you guys gonna have fedoras or anything like that?

Dude?

**Rooster:** Yeah. I, I'm gonna show Ben. I brought the, uh, gu

**Gizmo:** bear. You have it with you?

**Rooster:** What's I do?

**Gizmo:** It's in the car. Is that a special hat? I'm not a special shirt. No. It's a shirt with like four pockets.

**Rooster:** So you can put like, you know, cigars in each pocket. Is it linen? It's

**Gizmo:** linen.

**Pagoda:** Okay, great. Is is great when you don't wear anything below

**Gizmo:** Yeah, you know what? That's pagoda. [00:52:00] Why don't you stay home? ?

**Bam Bam:** Yeah, he's gonna get us in trouble. Bam. Kill his mic. I can't. You can .

**Gizmo:** Yeah. So, uh, I'm very, very excited about it. I hope I, you know, the one thing I, I, you know, I, I told you guys off, uh, Mike, the one thing that I'm gonna do that's different this time is I'm going to bring all of the cigars I plan to smoke with.

I am not gonna smoke any fresh or humid stuff when I am there. Are you gonna be taking some Cubans? Yeah, Uhhuh. . I'm gonna bring a full Tupper Tupper door full of Cubans and non Cubbins to smoke all week. And I'm not gonna smoke any fresh stuff when Love there. A Tupper door full. Well, you know, like my Home Depot case that you always curse.

Oh, we can't wait

**Senator:** to see that. Making it serious, so,

**Bam Bam:** oh yeah, I have something That's not enough to say about that. Not enough. So honestly, every cigar that I smoked out of a shop that I purchased was, I thought was very good. Even the Schwa Supreme at the Koba atmosphere. Schwa was

**Gizmo:** the best one I smoked already.

That was very good. You know, but every,

**Bam Bam:** and I had a lot of others that were not [00:53:00] Well you smoked, you and I smoked a lot of cigars that we were given at the Parkass Festival. Those were, they were very young

**Gizmo:** and potent. But those were customs, right? No, we got some, no, we got some sticks that were Judds

**Bam Bam:** Romeos, um, P two.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. A lot of Pars. Actually the only one that I smoked that we were handed at the. The finale dinner of the, uh, Amigos. Degos was, uh, the, uh, uh, C six. That was good. That was good. Yeah.

**Pagoda:** It, it sounds like you're gonna take a six pack to a brewery. This is

**Gizmo:** ridiculous. . Well, you gotta come correct. I, I want to have a better experience with cigars.

Yeah. I mean, as I've said on the GI Gizmo almost

**Senator:** died on this trip. Smoking some of these cigars. Some of it was rough. He was out for a whole day.

**Bam Bam:** I

**Pagoda:** know. He had only two a day. I mean,

**Gizmo:** I smoked less there than I do here. Yeah, because it

**Bam Bam:** hits it really hard. It does. Those cigars do. Now I'll bring Cubans as well, but I'm not sure how many of, are you sure it was

**Pagoda:** on the floor?

Many On the way back. I like, I'm a little confused. No. On the way there. Two Cuba.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Not a lot, but a few day four or five, I, I got pretty blasted [00:54:00] with, with nicotine off of some of the custom rolls and some of the fresh stuff we were smoking. They blow you outta the water. They put me out for the night.

It wasn't, it wasn't like I was throwing up or anything, but I, I just did not feel

**Pagoda:** good. Yeah. I think guys, you need to be in training. You need to be smoking cigarettes the week before you let them,

**Bam Bam:** you know what, let them experience it. Yeah. Let, let 'em, let 'em

**Gizmo:** lose. So

**Rooster:** can you not go to a, go to a

**Gizmo:** especially CDH and pick up like a D four?

You can. , right? Yep. But what you're gonna feel when you pick that D four up is you're gonna feel the humidity.

**Bam Bam:** Well, uh, I'll be honest, I had, I had Monte twos, I had the up in two at the Parta shop. They were

**Gizmo:** fantastic. So everybody take a kilo off every beads. Yeah. Bring some

**Senator:** kitty litter. Okay. I could see Gizmo now going to every L C D H there.

Hand out to you calibrator. So

**Gizmo:** you're going there three days early.

**Rooster:** Yeah. So your job number one is to get sim cards. . Make sure I get the bedroom with the balcony. Nope. And number four. Number three is to get some, uh, take, get some cigars and put 'em [00:55:00] in the Tupperware with some beads.

**Gizmo:** There you go. Dry box number.

**Pagoda:** And if you can, and if you can leave, I'm gonna send you an invoice, roa, and if you can leave a bottle of ru and a few cigars on the bed. Just

**Gizmo:** Yeah. And cookies. And a little, a little towel. I'm, I'm gonna make it like a lion or something. Swan. Swan. Oh, you want swans? Okay. And some mappers.

**Pagoda:** Swans are hard.

**Grinder:** Swans are

**Bam Bam:** hard. You know, what made it special? The, the quality of the food and how affordable it was. Where we stayed, it was okay, but where we're going to stay looks incredible for the price that we're paying. It just, it's, yeah, we're

**Gizmo:** staying right on the mala. Unparalleled. What's the, what's

**Grinder:** like, what are Cuban dishes?

**Gizmo:** Aropa? Yeah. Cuban a lot of pork. Um, we actually didn't see any Cuban

**Rooster:** sandwich. You know, that Cuban Cub Cuban sandwich is

**Gizmo:** an American sandwich. That's an American thing. It's not a Cuban. Yeah, no, it didn't say there is a lot of pork though. But we were fortunate. I mean, I, I felt like we were getting really high quality.

We had a lot of seafood meals, seafood, fresh seafood.

**Bam Bam:** That lobster meal with red snapper and [00:56:00] sushi and sashimi appetizer was off the charts. Yeah, it was awesome. I got a reservation. Where was that? And it's like in the, it's, it's actually a. . It's like a, it's, it's a house. It's a house. Scary. Well, it's a house, but it's kind of tucked away on the water and you gotta know how to get there.

Yeah. It's a weird spot. It's spot's a little, yeah, right. It's a weird spot, but it's, it's, it's really

**Gizmo:** cool. It's Apollo lore. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's, yeah, I mean, it's, it's really an amazing experience and we're gonna do it right and, uh, hope you guys are having a great time. We'll see. Do they have Paul Roge there?

**Bam Bam:** I think Senator's gonna take his own

**Pagoda:** special

**Bam Bam:** drinks. That's a big, that's a big negative. . He's coming with the case of Paul Roge to ship a case down before, you know, honestly, if we get for the Cuban people, hon. You know if we get into the Kaminski in some of the other hotels there, you may find it there.

Ah, that's right. I'd like to hear, honestly, some of the hotels may have it, but we didn't get into

**Gizmo:** any of those places and we, we didn't try terribly hard. I mean, we, we, most nights we were at the na, we

**Pagoda:** got turned away from the, but don't worry now. Now the two New Yorkers are gonna be there, so you're gonna get in.

Wait to fuck, you're

**Bam Bam:** gonna get in. [00:57:00] Oh, I am gonna just sit back. I'm taking three steps back. I wanna see you guys work. . Yeah. Monkey. Yeah.

**Pagoda:** Good luck. Listen, we are not used to waiting in lines for clubs in New York.

**Gizmo:** You know, we didn't wait in lines. We just paid the doorman off and

**Bam Bam:** that one nightclub that we went to.

Yeah, it's off the chain.

**Gizmo:** Amazing. Yeah, we're gonna have a good time boys, for many reasons. I'd love to see guest dance. You remember the name? I don't. Fabric Day Art? No. Oh, the other club? No, I don't remember the name of that. Yeah, I'll figure it out. We'll, we'll find it. Yeah, I'll

**Bam Bam:** figure it out before we go now.

Fabric Day art was awesome.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. So Fabric, Bri Day Art, did we talk about that on the pond? We never, no. Okay. So that's, it was an incredible, I think it's three or four story. Yeah. Uh, it's right next to the, looks like a museum, but it's also a club. It's, it's, it's like a, it's an art installation is what I would call it.

**Bam Bam:** So there are multiple levels that intersect. Um, there are bars, there's some areas where you can eat ton of artwork and different media and multiple medias. Everything from music to, you know, oil on [00:58:00] canvas to hand drawings, sculpture, you name it. It was really fascinating and it kind of me meander through the building really quite cool.

And you got pockets of people hanging out of all different ages, you know, it's really cool.

**Gizmo:** And the artists that they have in Fabric Day Art are all local artists. And you can actually buy the art almost off the wall if you so

**Bam Bam:** chose. I would've bought a few things if it wasn't, you know?

**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's difficult to get it out.

Tough to it back. Yeah. But you know, it's, um, it's, you come in, it's a, it's a dance club on the first floor, and then as you start to work your way upstairs mm-hmm. , um, it's just incredible art installations. Oh. Dynamic stuff. It's incredible. Yeah. Lot of fun. And that's right next to the restaurant that we're gonna go to.

Ero. I love that place. Yeah. It was amazing. All I want to do is smoke cigars, . Okay. You're okay. Chill. You got it. Relax.

**Rooster:** You got it. That's

**Gizmo:** it.

**Bam Bam:** Take. You're gonna take it easy. I'm in.

**Gizmo:** That's it. Yep. I don't need to see anything. What's the weather like at that time of the year? 82? It's perfect. Yeah. Every day.

Low eighties. It's humid though. At [00:59:00] night it'll be high seventies. It'll be like, be like Miami weather. Yeah. Yeah. I actually think it'll be a little bit better than Miami.

**Rooster:** November. November to April is like the best time to

**Gizmo:** go to Cuba because there's not a lot of rain. Like unlike Florida, there's a lot of rain pockets.

Um, there's not,

**Bam Bam:** I can't get enough of this tequila. I'm sorry. It's amazing. Yeah. It's just off the charts. Yeah. We see that. Just a drop. Senator , we see that I am taking it down like Gatorade.

**Pagoda:** How the beaches did you, uh, end up going to the beaches at all? Did, didn't go to a

**Gizmo:** beach? You to go? That's good.

Thank you so much. You have to travel a little bit. About two, two and a half hours to

**Bam Bam:** four hours. I told them I was gonna wear my speedo and they just said no beach today. Yeah, we canceled it.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. . Wear it over your dad jeans. . It's true. . Your dad

**Grinder:** banana hammock is a little

**Gizmo:** ruffles. Pi

**Bam Bam:** baggy on the ass. .

**Gizmo:** Oh boy.

Yeah. So it's gonna be fun boys. Really looking forward to doing that with you guys. You know, one

**Bam Bam:** thing we promised ourselves, we weren't going to go back to Cuba un unless we were able to at least competently speak. Yeah. And communicate. That's [01:00:00] not happening. No .

**Gizmo:** God bless. Google Translate. We dropped the ball.

Some babble classes. Yeah. . So, uh, I wanted to mention, we, uh, we talked. The RGUs ados on that episode we did recently. You remember that a few weeks ago? Uh, and, uh, we talked about how there's a trust issue with ha bonos, as we've talked about a thousand times, but specific to the ADOS line, uh, questioning whether when they roll those cigars, if they're actually intending to, uh, put them with RGUs Orman or whatever it may be, or they just kind of roll them, they let 'em sit and see where it goes.

And uh, we had a listener, uh, lizard Bobby emailed us and he said, um, you know, he said, we were talking about that I wanted to, uh, mention a couple things. He said, you know, um, Hao does stupid shit all the time. I totally believe they do something like what you guys were [01:01:00] talking. taking an unbranded aged cigar and deciding after effect to slap a parus band on it, which is kind of was my argument is a, is a real possibility.

Now, we had a great experience that with that cigar, but a lot of folks, yeah, can't stand the ana Hodo line. Um, what, what he sent me, which really, really interesting, and I don't know if you guys have seen this, so he said, here's an example I've ha I've attached. It's Aan Cristal, L C D H, which never existed in the punch 48, size accidentally b uh, boxed as such.

So the box is a punch 48 box, 10 count box, and the cigars showed up with son Cristobal. Bands on them with L C T H. Was

**Bam Bam:** that on one of our

**Gizmo:** feeds of our groups? Isn't that called a collab? ? Isn't

**Bam Bam:** that called collab A box of fakes?

**Gizmo:** That's what about No, he got it from a legitimate retailer. Wow. And you know there's a shortage of boxes in Cuba, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So [01:02:00] there just

**Bam Bam:** recycling it. If we get into, um, the La Corona factory, you'll see I sent you guys photographs. What do you mean if stacks, if, I don't know, stacks of boxes to the ceiling.

**Gizmo:** But you said there were no boxes. It was a shortage. No, there's a shortage of boxes now. I think this is in the past, but yeah.

You know, it's, it's really kind of shocking to see a punch 48 box. Yeah. Stuffed with sun Cristobal. How would you see, how would you feel if you received that? I'd be a little weirded out. Yeah. But I mean, it kind of, does it add validity or is it Cuba being Cuba? You know, I mean, I do all kinds of stupid

**Rooster:** shit.

They certainly do. I mean, it is a San crystal ball. Cigar in a punch box?

**Gizmo:** Or is it a punch cigar with a San Cristobal label on it? That label looks, that looks like a San Crisal. I don't

**Bam Bam:** think it does. Right? Yeah. I don't know. But I don't think anyone in this room in their right mind would buy that box. No.

No. And then, uh, because Cuba's Okay. Cuba's being Cuba, but I don't think they're gonna do that.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. I'm not a huge fan of San Crisal. [01:03:00] Yeah, of course. Yeah. I had a few of them. I don't love them. Yeah. The what, what was the one we did on the podcast? Don't mention it, please. Uh, the La Punta never again. Yeah, that was horrible.

Um, the pro, the proto is decent, but it's okay. Yeah. What is it? Is that a rebo though? The proto or pr petite Corona? I don't remember. Corona. The other thing that he mentioned too, that adds to the the questions is, uh, he says he remembers seeing, uh, posted a 10 count box. Uh, that was six cigars of Monte Cristo.

One stick banded asparagus, one banded his punch, and one was banded as oliar. Well, I've never seen that one. Unbranded. It was as if they ran outta Monty bands and slapped whatever they had laying around. That's called the Paxon es. Yeah.

**Pagoda:** Yeah. I think, I think you need to stop buying from the place he's

**Gizmo:** buying.

Where is he buying? No, he didn't buy these. So, yeah, you know his, he says point B I don't trust Cuba. I don't take them at their word. Who knows what those Partan Haas. You guys smoked tar. We will never know. The [01:04:00] other thing that he said, which is an argument that I kind of got into in Cuba with Couple Cigar was a cigar though.

That was a good cigar. It was. It was an amazing cigar. Yeah, we, I think we, what was it? It was highly high Nine. Uh, he said, the other thing he said, uh, which I like this argument too, to think that certain farms are dedicated to a certain marker. It's silly in his opinion. I think consistency with Marcus is shoddy at best.

So, I mean, a lot of questions with ho Bonos man and how they do. .

**Bam Bam:** Now it depends. Did he, where did he source them? Right.

**Gizmo:** But he didn't buy these. He was seeing these as folks. He just came across them. That, that folks had purchased, uh, legitimate boxes, you know, from reputable retailers. I don't, you know, he had done that due diligence enough to, I, I don't think Cuba would do that.

I've seen 'em. I mean, I've seen 'em on our groups, you know, so anyways. Thanks Bobby for, uh, writing us certainly is a question for the ages of what Hamana is doing down there. Mm-hmm. . Absolutely. All right, [01:05:00] boys, we're into the last third here of the Trinidad funded Doris. I'm in the last half. You are? Yeah.

You're smoking slow. Very slow. What are you guys thinking?

**Bam Bam:** It's still a stellar cigar.

**Gizmo:** Pagoda. Where does this fall for you? You know,

**Pagoda:** um, you remember we did the, my father number four. Um, I think it's really interesting. This is, um, I think. Please don't come back. Way better. Way better. Good. Yeah. More flavor Fall.

I got a lot of floral and salty. I've been seeking that honey sweetness. I got a little bit of the sweetness, but on occasion it didn't, it's not for me. It's not been flowing through the whole, you know,

**Bam Bam:** uh, stack pagoda. You were on a motorcycle heading toward the cliff. , and then you turned slightly very sharply.

You saved yourself . No. Listen,

**Pagoda:** that's where it roll. All right, man. Pagoda,

**Rooster:** pagoda went hunting and he saw a sign. Bear left.

**Gizmo:** Cliffhanger

**Pagoda:** came home and he just came

**Bam Bam:** back. He just beared left .

**Gizmo:** I will say the, the last third is, I'm coming into it [01:06:00] now is better than the, the, the second third. It's very tasty. The last third is definitely improved.

Yeah. This cigar definitely doesn't hold up to my experiences with funded this specific scar. I'm, I'm smoking tonight. I don't know. I think the whole cigar has been awesome for me. I I totally agree, rooster. Totally. I'm really surprised

**Senator:** to

**Gizmo:** hear you say that. Well, it could just be this cigar. I mean, who knows?

Could be. I mean, I've never had a, a funded doors that I've really complained about. You used to calibrate your tower. Dude. , . A couple other guys are spoken outta me. They, they have now. I love this Senator and pagoda. I love this. Senator and pagoda are both smoking outta the same box that I brought this year.

No,

**Pagoda:** I'm really enjoying it. And actually what I find is that it's leaving a very, um, reasonable. Like, you know how we say cigars can have a long finish. It's one of those where it's leaving a really good, pleasant flavor in my mouth and I love it. And that's what I, that's what I really seek in a CIGA anyway,

**Bam Bam:** so that's very accurate.

**Gizmo:** And I never

**Rooster:** thought pagoda was actually, he would ever occur those words, floral notes.

**Gizmo:** That is enjoying,

**Pagoda:** that's true. It is, it is. It is [01:07:00] floral, salty. It's definitely, he goes for those deep, but you know, I, I smoke the ra, uh, nearly every day to begin my whole evening. So I, I think I've got accustomed to certain notes.

I, it's awesome. That's awesome. And it's changing my flavor profile, but once again, I think this would be my first cigar of the evening, maybe in the afternoon. That's not something I'd be smoking.

**Bam Bam:** He brings up an interesting point. You know, we've talked about pre drones and. Some of us in this room, we'd love the full-flavored pro drones, the family reserve especially.

And I think Senator and I were talking about how, for me personally, I went from that really full-flavored family reserve perron to the, you know, 26 line, the eight, the 64 line. It it for me, I've never gone back. So, you know, I hope you're experiencing a similar journey.

**Pagoda:** So much so, I, I gotta tell you this, in the last couple of months, if you see like, I'll smoke a lot of the rat and the Dominican, the David of, uh, Dominican.

And I'm not really reaching out for the PE drones recently. [01:08:00] Like you, you probably have seen I used to smoke peons every night. Well, remember, I mean, thei is something that's, I dunno whether my palate's changing or what I'm really enjoying. It's changing. It's just been something different. I just

**Senator:** have to say, I'm really glad to hear this pagoda.

Um, I will happily take all your peons a hundred percent. No, no, no,

**Gizmo:** no.

**Bam Bam:** You don't like them anymore. How do I love

**Pagoda:** them? I love them. Hey, listen, I didn't

**Gizmo:** say I don't enjoy them. I'll tell you, this group is very quick to, uh, acquire boxes. I just haven reason for them. I don't, I don't want 'em to suffer through them.

That's a good point, Senator. But

**Pagoda:** you know, on the other hand, uh, you know, couple of PE Jones are Asian a lot more. So I'm, uh, hoping that. You know, the 80th like yours, uh, five years into it

**Gizmo:** would be great. As Puba said, you really, I had an 80th the other day. It, you really spoiled that cigar for us with those cigars time, big time.

That was a spoiled job. So, Grindr, what are you thinking about the fundo? I,

**Grinder:** I love the Fundo. Um, I'm getting a little more bite this sec. The second half. Good bite or bad bite? Not, not, it's not bad, but it's bite that's not as pleasurable as it was before.

**Gizmo:** [01:09:00] It's gotten fuller.

**Grinder:** Yeah. Maybe that's, maybe that's it.

What do you think,

**Senator:** Senator? So I, I I think the fundi always, the first two thirds are firmly, medium, very dessert. Like the last third always picks up. I think the last third gets medium full. Um, this 2018, I think in the last third, kind of what I think Grindr's getting at shows a little bit of youth, um, with some more age.

I don't think you get as much of the bite, but the challenge is, I, I, I almost like the. First two thirds of some of the fresher ones than I do the older ones. But the last third were the youth shows. I don't love as much as with some of the ones older ones parade. Mm-hmm. . So there's kind of, you know, pros and cons to each.

That's complicated.

**Bam Bam:** How are you feeling about this one, the last third that you're into? Um,

**Senator:** I'll be honest, I'm not loving the last third, uh, the first two thirds I was very, very happy with, very consistent with my experience with most Fundies. The last third, I'm [01:10:00] very ambivalent.

**Bam Bam:** I don't know, I'm, so, I'm still getting that a lot of that fruit and dessert like note, but it's being in it's infused with Earth notes and a deep coffee and there is a good bite for me.

I like that richer version of this

**Gizmo:** as you get to the end. You know, the thing I'm thinking about is I'm kind of like wavering on, on how I'm feeling about the cigar right now. And the second, third was, was okay. Um, what I'm wondering is, as I, I've smoked the, the nineteens and the 20 ones that I have.

Mm-hmm. , I feel, to use one of Cuba's words to, I feel like they preview really well and I'm wondering what those are gonna smoke, like with five plus years on them, I feel like they're gonna perform better than this is at five years. Like, I'm happy that I have the younger boxes because I feel like they're gonna age better than the one in my hand does.

Also, you're

**Rooster:** smoking it very

**Gizmo:** quick. Am I Oh yeah, you're, you're ahead.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I'm right [01:11:00] with senator and, uh, grinder. Yeah, I'm the slowest and, and pagoda. Yeah. I'm a little ahead. Let's see where you are. I can't see you. Oh, you are really way ahead. Yeah.

**Pagoda:** It's a great togar. You gotta smoke it quick.

**Grinder:** You're almost at the nub.

**Senator:** Gizmo's a nervous smoker. .

**Gizmo:** What am I nervous about? We're making it nervous.

**Pagoda:** but, but do you think that having the, the drink, the tequila. Kind of changes the way you perceive the cigar as well.

**Gizmo:** I think it's very complimentary of a cigar because uh, it should be complimentary. I don't think it ever takes away.

**Senator:** Yeah. I think they're dancing perfectly together. Yeah.

**Bam Bam:** It's when you have a spirit that overwhelms a cigar, it's not as enjoyable and you don't know what that is until you try it.

Or that's

**Senator:** why like if this going extra niho, I would never have picked an extra nevo for this cigar because that would have so much flavor. Like you think of that uh, you know, tap oft Valencia we did. That's a meal unto itself. But for this cigar, this anejo is just [01:12:00] perfectly balanced to not overpower in any

**Bam Bam:** way.

This smoke. Yeah. That tap oft, there aren't many Cubans that would smoke with that spirit. Really? That's a new world deep petron que type of experience. Agree. Which is also awesome. I can't wait to rate that tequila. Yeah. I really loved it.

**Gizmo:** What

**Senator:** do you think of the tequila? I'm curious. Um,

**Pagoda:** Pure. My honest opinion.

It's awesome. Yeah. Probably the best I killer I've had.

**Senator:** Okay. I thought that was the case because I saw in the corner of my eye earlier, and I was gonna mention this in it, that totally slipped my mind. I saw pagoda kind of wagging his, his glass, kind of like bam, bam, with the cigar wagon and I thought that was probably

**Pagoda:** a good sign.

It doesn't feel like tequila to me. I like, I'm just enjoying so much. It's like he's,

**Bam Bam:** it's very accurate. There it is. He doesn't drink like a typical tequila.

**Pagoda:** Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. And I'm not a big tequila

**Bam Bam:** guy. So Rooster, I'll finish your glass. Bring it over.[01:13:00]

**Senator:** I just are a few spirits that, you know, we say this, sometimes it drinks like such a refined spirit and I think a lot of the cognacs we've done firmly fall in that category. No ice drink, beautifully neat, flavorful, but smooth. And I think some tequilas. I mean, especially with age, can have a little, can be a little aggressive sometimes.

And I think this just is so well balanced. I love this tequila. I, I

**Grinder:** like the, you know, you can taste some of that oak. Yeah. Um, and that comes really, it just rounds it out nicely. And that with the sweetness, it just, it's just really palatable.

**Pagoda:** It is great because I'm getting the floral salty with this, with a little bit of that.

It, it does, I think probably one of the best pairings we've had.

**Bam Bam:** It's delicious. It's a delicious pairing. I think I'm like smiling.

**Pagoda:** I've like

**Gizmo:** Right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go against the grain a little bit. Oh boy. I feel like I'm an outlier tonight. I feel like El to Soro does e el [01:14:00] Tesoro Anjo does. This tequila for me a little bit.

We haven't done that on the podcast. At least we didn't rate it, I don't think. But I'd like to do that because I think it does edge this a little bit, especially as I've let it sit. I've had a second glass now. Neat. Um, the finish on the elta, so I prefer it's sweeter to the finish on this.

**Senator:** There is a sweet Are you always drinking the elta So, or Neat.

**Gizmo:** Or with ice? I, I've never put ice and Elta soro on your That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Now you know that that's Ricky prescribed no ice. Mm-hmm. , you know, on, on an artist. Te you don't follow that. That's

**Senator:** why I had to ask. I don't On

**Gizmo:** Don Julio. On Don Julio. I don't. But on these I do. Um, you know, I, I haven't put ice, I I really love my bottle of El Tesoro at

**Bam Bam:** home.

I, I think this and the Elta Soro both are gonna rank

**Gizmo:** very highly. Yeah. I think we need to do that. I think when we do the Cohiba and Soro, we should do El Elta soro on ye Oh, that's a good idea. And, uh, and, and see how it ranks. Because I feel like the El Tesoro edges this out for me.

**Pagoda:** We've never tried the Elto.

So because I, you know, typically I'm not trying [01:15:00] tequilas anyway,

**Gizmo:** it's very good. Good. Mean. I

**Senator:** remember trying Elto, so I don't remember the, the notes being similar, feel like the Elto. So drinks

**Gizmo:** very differently. It does drink very differently. I think the finish is better. It's not as sweet. It doesn't have that kind of rum thing that we're talking about with this tonight,

**Senator:** but that's where I don't think that would pair as well with this cigar.

Like I think that drinks less dessert like and more traditional tequila, like, which is why if I had both bottles at home, I would've still picked this up with this smoke we're having

**Bam Bam:** tonight. Yeah. Because the dessert note in the drink, compliments of the dessert note in the cigar. Thanks. It's

**Gizmo:** a no-brainer.

It's a . And Sarah also very floral. So well the, the Cohiba and Sarah Young, the ones that I have, the 20 ones are definitely gonna be more of an oomph experience that we're, we're having tonight. Hmm. Now it's, they're delicious, but. I think I, I, I'm curious what you guys think of that. I got more

**Bam Bam:** graham cracker and I did get a lot of baking spice in that.

[01:16:00] Yeah. With

**Gizmo:** coffee. But it also has that cohiba like earthy grass like hay thing. And that's

**Senator:** the eltoro would do better with that stick because I feel like there's some more traditional tequila notes that are in that kind of fresher, brighter category that would go with that stick in a way that I'm not sure as, as well as this with a, with a fundi.

**Bam Bam:** And look at the

**Gizmo:** combustion in the room. Yeah. A lot of smoke. And we, we didn't talk about that. I mean the combustion is excellent on this cigar and the fact that what six of us are here and we didn't have any draw issues or construction issues. Not one is

**Bam Bam:** a little surprising though. I didn't see a single relight or a touch

**Gizmo:** up.

No. I touched mine up a little. I touched mine. I touched mine. I did his watch.

**Bam Bam:** Shame on you. . .

**Gizmo:** You're just an expert smoker. Bam. No I'm not,

**Bam Bam:** but. The cigars don't,

**Grinder:** don't give back in that sandbagging bullshit.

**Bam Bam:** We're not gonna back. I dunno what that means. .

**Gizmo:** He's still

**Rooster:** on the retainer. . [01:17:00]

**Gizmo:** He definitely

**Bam Bam:** is. I do. He definitely is. Yeah. Yes he is.

**Pagoda:** I think, I think should. Attorney Grinder? I think we, yeah, I think we should have a new name for Grinder. It should be the Defender. ? No, we'll call him

**Bam Bam:** Esquire.

**Gizmo:** Esquire. When I, when

**Grinder:** I was, uh, my first job outta college was on a trading desk and they called my, they, they give everyone all the analysts, nicknames.

And my nickname was not Esquire. It was Squire. Squire. They always called

**Bam Bam:** Esquire. So good. That's so good.

**Pagoda:** That's very regular.

**Bam Bam:** It is .

**Pagoda:** I was a coffee boy for

**Gizmo:** years. Yeah. Just running to get. Oh man. For years, for

**Pagoda:** years I like, I knew every sandwich, every coffee, everything every trader on the desk

**Gizmo:** really wanted.

And how many people were we talking about? I'm talking

**Pagoda:** about like 10. Wow. That's cool. I would go there. Firstly, I had to be the first person in the office and the last person to leave. [01:18:00] And you know, you have to pay your, you have to pay your dues and trading. Sure. He, you know, there's no easy

**Gizmo:** way in, is this in the UK or?

**Pagoda:** It was in New York and then it carried on to the uk. And um, it's funny because there was one day I just fought back to some trader because they, in, in the olden days, I'm telling you I was get your own damn . No, they, they used to talk really rude and I just fought back once and they all got up and started clapping this and now you're ready to become a traitor.

**Bam Bam:** you know, you know what your nickname is now and I was promoting your nickname is Spider, , and Goodfellas Let you're Spider. Is that what I'm

**Senator:** sure? I'm sure he shanked them pretty hard. Oh yeah.

**Pagoda:** Yeah. So, and then, yeah, soon after I was promoted , I was like, I don't know, maybe they knew. I don't know what the story was.

**Senator:** Pagoda. That's called a successful pledge process. Is that what it

**Pagoda:** is? It was very easy. Senator knows that way. It was very difficult. Oh, he does. And then as soon as I got my desk, they said, all right, you're clocked up. Start sticking your [01:19:00] option's. Gonna expire by the end of the month. You better make . You better be able to pay for the seat

It was like, alright, you

**Gizmo:** gotta pay for

**Grinder:** that Bloomberg license. .

**Gizmo:** It is ridiculous. Why are you looking at me?

**Bam Bam:** I like you enjoying your drink. I love it. Yeah. . I

**Pagoda:** fully enjoyed the cigar that much. I did, I blew

**Gizmo:** through my cigar. Look at

**Bam Bam:** you. You

**Gizmo:** hated

**Senator:** it. I've just, I'm really enjoying it. I'm sorry, I, I'm back to this.

I'm having a real frustration with the final third of this cigar. Me too. Mine's biting extra heart now. It really is. If, if this cigar. Were exactly like it was for the first two thirds. This would be outstanding. But I am really having a hard time enjoying the final third of this. The flavor is muddled and it's got a bite.

Yep.

**Bam Bam:** Dunno what you're talking about, rooster. Do they

**Gizmo:** know what they're talking about, rooster? All in all, to me, this is, um,

**Senator:** they're behind Rooster's the most behind. He hasn't. He's smoking is slow. Okay.

**Gizmo:** Pagoda just behind in general, right? By you now close .

**Pagoda:** It's smoking. Well, for me, I like [01:20:00] Yeah. Saying

**Gizmo:** I'm

**Rooster:** not at that point yet.

Yeah. You know,

**Gizmo:** it's

**Bam Bam:** not harsh. It, it really does ramp up in strength, you know, and maybe that's what you're, you're you're speaking to

**Senator:** and, but with a bite,

**Gizmo:** that's the problem I have. You think it's like the buildup of nicotine maybe? Is that what you're getting at? I'm,

**Senator:** it's just a, you know, when you have a cigar, it just has like this kind of sharp.

Harshness that you kind of feel in the back of your throat as you're drawing on the cigar. It sounds like

**Gizmo:** nicotine.

**Bam Bam:** It is a small diameter. It's

**Grinder:** got, it's got a Nico, it's got a tar, like a, an ashy tarry bite, but I'm not getting any tar like

**Gizmo:** the last hip out of the bong .

**Bam Bam:** Okay. ,

**Gizmo:** poor Brewster said more tequila, ,

**Bam Bam:** like the tar hip is, did you get any of that in your final nub there?

**Gizmo:** I, I didn't get tar or ash. None, neither my, no, I didn't. I'm not, but, but I'm not complimenting what you're saying in that I didn't really enjoy it. The, the [01:21:00] last, I had a moment when I got to the last third, I was like, okay, here we are again. We're here. And then it just kind of faded again. It was certainly, it did not perform anywhere close to the best funded doors I've ever had.

I just, I don't know if I had a, a, a, you know, a cigar out of that box that wasn't great. I don't know if I had one. You know, this box that I have isn't great. I don't know. Um, but I think that the nineteens and 20 ones that I have are gonna perform better in time. So what do you think are the

**Rooster:** 20 sixteens and the seventeens that we had?

**Gizmo:** So, I,

**Senator:** I was saying before, I mean, my take on those, I think, um, I, they're smooth. Yeah, they're very smooth. That's the thing. So like for me, those, the final third is still smooth all the way through, which I really like, like I can enjoy those down to the nub, the final third on any of these younger ones. I start to have a little bit of a hard time with where there's youth that shows there's a little bit of a bite, and I think the flavors become more muddled.

I'm not really picking out as many of the distinct [01:22:00] notes that I was the first two thirds. So that's what I was saying. I think. There's kind of pros and cons to each. I, I like the flavor profile a little bit more of the younger ones in the first two thirds, but I like, I far prefer how the ones with a little more age finish

**Gizmo:** on the final.

I mean, that's, that's a little, uh, .

**Rooster:** We, we smoked the, the, my father number four all

**Gizmo:** the way down to the end. Yeah. Yeah. For a $10 stick.

**Senator:** Super smooth with less age than this probably even has on. Oh, of course.

**Gizmo:** Right? I mean, uh, that's crazy. I

**Senator:** mean, this goes back to why, I'm sorry. I wouldn't pay more than $40 for this

**Gizmo:** stick.

Yeah, I mean, when, when I purchased if that, if that, when I purchased D four

**Senator:** for a fraction of that, and I have never, ever once said that in the final third of a D four, I'm getting

**Bam Bam:** harshness or anything. Okay. I'm not getting any of

**Gizmo:** this. Bam. Are you on the Havanas

**Bam Bam:** payroll? I'll, I'll pay $25 for this. Okay.

No, no, I'm definitely not getting, you're getting, I'm getting unhappy right here. This is really on my all time cigar list. [01:23:00]

**Gizmo:** This guy there. You did pay $25. Yeah, so I did. By the way, the cigars that we're smoking tonight, I'm gonna, I'll sell

**Senator:** you one of these for 60 bucks. Do you want it? No.

**Gizmo:** the cigar we smoked tonight.

No, you I paid 30. We, I paid 30 bucks for. at the time. Now I know it's a $90 cigar or a hundred dollars cigar, but I paid at the time 30 bucks. Same. We

**Senator:** all did. I've never what we paid. Yeah. That's never spent more than 600, hundred

**Bam Bam:** 50 bucks on that. You know what's a shame? I know pricing does figure into our rating, which is coming up soon, and it's gonna affect the, the score on this guy.

I don't

**Gizmo:** think it is, it's not much. I don't think it is. Obviously not much. Yeah. Okay. I I,

**Pagoda:** yeah, but don't worry about it. It's got to do with the experience you're having. Like for me it's,

**Bam Bam:** yeah, agree. Agreed.

**Pagoda:** I agree. It's smoking really well even now. Yeah. Like, I'm not feeling anything and, but you but my palette's not as refined as

you

**Bam Bam:** guys.

No, it's not true. But you grasp I disagree. I, I totally disagree. I'm tired of hearing that you're got a great palette, but I think you like the, you do like the fuller flavor experience and you're getting that now I'm getting it.

**Pagoda:** Uh, I think I'm probably enjoying it.

**Gizmo:** You're, yeah. You got promoted. ? [01:24:00] No. Now go get me a coffee.

Get me a sandwich.

**Bam Bam:** I need a Capricia sandwich, please. .

**Pagoda:** Not like a chicken sandwich. Split butterfly split on a rye bread.

**Bam Bam:** Jesus. I'll be like, fuck you. Get your own lunch, motherfucker. I'll tell you.

**Gizmo:** Oh. Oh man. So, uh, are you guys ready to do the, uh, formal liquor rating on the Don Philo on Yahoo? Yeah. All right.

Bam. Bam. You're up. I,

**Bam Bam:** I don't be surprised. I'm giving it a 10. 10. I am, I, I'm blown away. It's, it doesn't drink like a tequila. It, there's rum qualities. There's a little, there's that okness that you get in a scotch. It's really a complex, complex spirit. Okay. Worth a 10. Grindr.

**Grinder:** I'm giving it a nine. It's one of the best I've ever had.

Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Okay. Senator.

**Senator:** I'm at a 10. Um, I would drink this. in, it would slot into so many places. For me, it's very [01:25:00] versatile. Like Bam said, it's very complex. Um, I, I can't think of a time I wouldn't enjoy this. It's a 10 for sure. 10?

**Bam Bam:** 10. 10.

**Pagoda:** It's a 10. Yeah, it's a 10. It's a 10. And I'll, I'll tell you, I've not enjoyed this.

What was the

**Bam Bam:** rating again? ? I haven't enjoyed, I forgot what it was. Could you say it again? I,

**Pagoda:** I, I think I'm gonna go and get a bottle tomorrow. Absolutely. I have to, I have, it's not a, if you could find it. Yeah. But this is great.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah. My rating is a nine. Okay. My rating is a nine Boo and the, uh, formal liquor rating boys is a 9.6.

Excellent. I think that's a perfect score for this. Excellent. 96 well deserved. Excellent. Is a perfect score for this. Yeah. Excellent. Beautiful, excellent tequila. It's gonna be highly

**Pagoda:** recommended to a lot of people. I think a lot of people are gonna be trying this in my house.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Senator, when you bought this, were there other bottles on the shelf or was it kind of low in stock?

There were other bottles of this.

**Senator:** Yeah. Yeah. Great. I had only tried it once. [01:26:00] I remember liking it, it was Cinco de Mayo, so we all enjoyed ourselves a little bit, so I got one. So we could do it for this pod. Uh, but I'm definitely gonna be back in getting more

**Gizmo:** big time. All right, boys, we're coming to the end of the Trinidad funded doors from Cuba.

Are you guys ready to do the, uh, formal lizard rating on this thing? Absolutely. All right. Rooster, you're up? Yeah. I'm gonna give

**Rooster:** it a nine. Okay. Cuz it's still very good and I'm not quite at the last third of the

**Gizmo:** cigar,

**Rooster:** so I'm, I'm

**Gizmo:** smoking it really slow. I envy your ability to smoke that

**Rooster:** slowly. I mean, it's, it's a small ring aid, so it has to be smoked slow and I usually do smoke, smoke them slow.

Yeah. So it's, it's, it's a nine for me.

**Bam Bam:** Maybe those that are experiencing tar have gone, went through it a little quickly. I don't know.

**Senator:** I'm, I'm either where you are or even slightly behind. I like tar ,

**Gizmo:** Jesus. Alright, BA's cut off. No more tequila for him. . Senator, what you're rating,

**Senator:** um, [01:27:00] this pains me because I, I kind of expected

**Gizmo:** going into this.

I know where you're going. I'm right with you. No. Okay. So, no, no.

**Senator:** I, I honestly, when, when, before we even hit record, I'm always gonna give the, the cigar in the moment is gonna define my rating totally. But when I've had a cigar before, I have some preconceived notions of, okay, I'm likely gonna give this x and I, I came in here thinking for sure I was gonna give this a nine.

I had zero doubt about that too. Ive had, me too had plenty of these cigars. But I have to say for this 2018 out of this box, out of gizmo's, humidor, .

**Gizmo:** I knew that would set him off. question, did you have humidity issues?

**Bam Bam:** Questionably,

**Gizmo:** calibrated ?

**Senator:** Uh, but for, for this smoke, what it is, I honestly, I, I actively did not enjoy the final third.

I'm not even sure that I wanna smoke this all the way down. Um, so I have to give it an eight because the first two thirds were outstanding. But the final third, I, I don't, I'm not

**Bam Bam:** enjoying this. Look, an eight is still an elite score. I'm,

**Gizmo:** it is. Yeah. So I'm gonna [01:28:00] piggyback on him. I'm also at an eight. I came in here expecting to do a nine or a 10 Tonight.

It's an eight for me for sure. With the cigar. Pagoda. It's

**Bam Bam:** a 10. It's a 10. It's

**Gizmo:** a 10. Wow. Wow. Wow, wow. I'm surprised to hear that outta you.

**Pagoda:** Listen, my father, I'm surprised number four was raid in nine by me. Meaning, um, . It's, it's one of those I love the RAs. Like, I don't know. I haven't experienced that harshness.

The only thing I was seeking was a bit more sweetness, but I couldn't, it did come on occasion, but overall, I loved the floral, salty, the coating of my mouth. Like it's just, I really enjoyed it.

**Gizmo:** Awesome. Grinder. I'm also an

**Grinder:** eight.

**Gizmo:** Okay.

**Bam Bam:** I'm at a nine. All right. I was tossing a nine or a 10, but I think Rooster, that's a very, very fair

**Rooster:** score.

I think it's fair. Yeah. I mean, how could you get this lower

**Gizmo:** than the number four? dude. . I

**Senator:** mean, rooster. I'm sorry, what is going on? I'm sorry. So Rooster, when you just said that you're the one who brought up [01:29:00] earlier, and it was a very valid point that we smoked that cigar all the way down to the end. We did.

I know. Yeah. I honestly, I don't, I'm not gonna smoke any more of this. And you're, you haven't gotten really into the final third, I think. I'm curious if it's gonna finish up, and I think when you do, you're gonna be unpleasantly surprised. Yeah.

**Gizmo:** All right, boys. The formal lizard rating on the Trinidad funded doors from 2018 is an 8.7.

So that's fair. I think that's a fair rating for what we experienced tonight.

**Bam Bam:** I was, look, I was expecting a 9 1 9 2, but fine.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. So the, uh, the other Trinidad we did on the podcast was the colonials. We did that on episode 26, and that edged this out. 8.8. See, that's insane. I think that experience might have been a little better than this.

Bam. Maybe it's a shorter stick. Yeah. Or I think that this 2018, uh, vintage from this, uh, from this viola is not the best one. Yeah.

**Senator:** Maybe that's the thing. Maybe it's this box. Because I, for me personally, any day of the [01:30:00] week, I'm, I would always pick up a fundi over a colonials. I really like the colonials, but I think this is a better cigar.

Yeah. But how this cigar performed tonight. Tonight, yeah. That colonials was wonderful all the way through. And I can't say the same for this. It was

**Gizmo:** delicious. I

**Rooster:** remember having the 2016 and, and from what I remember, I think that's a

**Gizmo:** 10.

**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It was sore. It's creamy. All right. Creamy.

**Gizmo:** I'm gonna have, I'm gonna have to have one of those in the next few weeks.

See how it is.

**Bam Bam:** I think for the listener, I think this is this, if you can find it, if you've got a special occasion, it's a great cigar to have.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. For something, for a special. And I think every listener needs to try this. Yeah, agreed. A passionate cigar smoker, big time needs to find a funded Doris and, and certainly try it big time because it's a special cigar.

I've had experiences that were tens and unfortunately tonight, you know, we ended up in an 8.7, but

**Rooster:** so the one we are smoking, is that out of the, uh, esteemed factory?

**Gizmo:** The Elita? No, it's not outta Elita. It's not, no. But the newer ones will be the newer ones. Apparently. Cohiba 100% will be out of Elto. A hundred percent.

[01:31:00] I don't know if Trinidad is exclusively gonna be there, or a few factories. I'm not sure. When we

**Bam Bam:** were there they said the Fundi and um, one other Viola is coming out of the El Gudo factory. The others are scattered. Yeah.

**Gizmo:** Yeah. All right boys. So a 9.6 for the Don Philo on ye tequila and an 8.7 for the Trinidad funded Doris.

An excellent night, boys. Long cigar. Bam. Sorry we didn't rate it higher. I know you were. Uh, I was expecting a hire expecting . You were. Don't be disappointed. I'm not. All right, boys. Great night. We'll see y'all next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, 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, [01:32:00] if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us hello@loungelizardspod.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod.

We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.