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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes 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. It's well ass whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Rooster Poobah, Senator Pagoda, Grinder, and Bam Bam, a full house of lizards.
And our plan is to a cigar, drink some scotch, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 81st official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We are gonna smoke a new world cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating.
We do a deep dive on Aucion. We discuss the merits of a vcu and a few of the lizards share their battles with the neighborhood raccoons, all among a variety of other things for the next 90 minutes. So sit back, it's your favorite drink, light up a cigar and enjoy as we pair 16 year age lable and scotch with the Ellucian Holy Lance in Maduro.
A new world Lancer [00:01:00] tonight from Aucion. It's called the Holy Lance. It's a Maduro. It's I think our first Maduro lancer on the pod. It's uh, seven and a half inches by 40 ring gauge. And uh, this wrapper is dark and thick and toothy. Dude,
**Bam Bam:** it looks very chocolatey. It does, yeah. It's a bit intimidating, actually.
**Gizmo:** Very simple, thin band on it. Mm-hmm. Just has Ellucian hhl. Very toothy.
**Grinder:** Yeah. It's not, it's not very attractive. It is not. It's not. It's got some bumps. A lot of bumps. Very corny. There's, there's like a very significant hole in my wrapper. Yeah. There's a pothole
**Senator:** in mine.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. You guys got potholes? Yeah.
Potholes.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Dude, this is plenty, but,
**Bam Bam:** and hang 'em high. No, the good, the bad and the ugly. You make one more move?
**Poobah:** No, he says, I'm gonna fill you
**Bam Bam:** full of bullets. He says to Paco, nothing like a good cigar after a meal.
**Poobah:** Look [00:02:00] at the cap. Look at the
**Gizmo:** cap. All right, let's cut this thing. It's fucking, it's
**Poobah:** the, this looks fucking jack up.
The cap is falling off.
**Grinder:** You guys are gonna love the cigar, I'm sure. Uh, let's see what the cold draw has.
**Bam Bam:** Hmm.
**Gizmo:** Wide open mine's Nice. Look at the wrapper. Very fruity. Wow.
**Bam Bam:** It's dried fruit. I'm getting more floral
**Grinder:** than fruit, but it's, it's nice. No,
**Gizmo:** not the wrapper. The uh, band, the cold draws is very nice. Yeah.
Surprising. Yeah. Nice.
Anybody else? Very good. Seven voices here. So press so good. I don't get a ton on the cold draw. No. Wow.
**Grinder:** I get a rich flavor. Yeah. Very, very intense. Fruity,
**Bam Bam:** floral. It's a little figgy.
**Grinder:** Oh, I'm getting more now. Yeah. Yeah. Lot the yes. Yes to the
**Gizmo:** fig. All right boys, let's light this thing. The euc, holy lanson Maduro again.
It's 40 ring gauge by seven and a half inches [00:03:00] long cigar. See how it burns.
**Bam Bam:** It is a very Clint Eastwood like puba.
**Gizmo:** It's really like Tony's soprano would smoke this. Hmm. Way too small. Way too small of a ring. That's right. Yeah. He smoked Churchills. I like the Churchill. So the, uh, rapper on this cigar is a San Andres, uh, from Mexico.
And the binder and filler are
**Grinder:** Nicaragua? Yeah. Crea and Crayola, uh, 99, uh, N 98. So San Andreas ob obscure, or San Andreas Negro, is it called? That's the Maduro wrapper. Seven and a half by 40. It's definitely the very traditional aunt hero. Um, these
**Gizmo:** a little longer actually. Is it a little longer? Yeah, it's a half inch longer.
When I, like when these sat next to the other land Zeros in my tower, it had another half inch. I
**Poobah:** wish I brought my V cup. I wish I brought it because there's too [00:04:00] much volume in the cap and it's too tight and, uh, can't you take another eighth of an inch off? No, but if you, if you take a V cut to this and you just take, like, even if you don't jam it all the way in mm-hmm.
And you put it halfway in and you just take some of the, just the tip. You just put the tip in and you just take a little volume out. It would help. If I had a perfect draw, I would just try and
**Bam Bam:** I can pass one down.
**Senator:** Do we have any surgeons in the room?
**Poobah:** It's just a little tight for me.
**Grinder:** It is a little tight.
I, I, this cigar is made in the, um, So, so the guy who, the, the, the, the founder of the company, um, Dion, uh, Gela. He's, you know, just a little brand history. He, he started this, this cigar like a lot of kind of modern cigar, uh, brands, is that he contracts out a lot of the manufacturing, right? So he, he wor, he [00:05:00] has a factory in, in, uh, Nicaragua that he works with, uh, a lot.
And he has a factory in Honduras that he works with a lot. Um, the, the, the whole premise of his brand history is that he, you know, was he, he grew up, uh, he got into cigars in the, kind of the late eighties and he worked at a cigar store, and then he started his own cigar store. And then he became an exclusive seller for Davidoff in Reno, Nevada.
Uh, and then he said, Hey, I can make cigars. I can brand the, I, you know, I can sell cigars, I can get, you know, I'm, I'm in, have the right connections. So he, um, basically started his own, his own company. He called it because of his, he's kind of an interesting guy. He's from the Nevada area. He's, he's got like the Elvis chops and apparently we're talking a little area 51 going on here.
Yeah. He's like really into that. He's into conspiracy theories and he wanted to exemplify the illusion of like the cabal [00:06:00] that's controlling most of the world that is probably fictitious. Right. Uh, and that's what he kind of, you know, he wanted that kind of emblematic representation in, in the cigar brand.
He, you know, he developed a cigar brand. He, he originally started a company called Pari. And then over time, if he rebranded it as doing business as a luon. And he, the guy has been turning out a lot of great cigars, if you look good, cigar aficionado, basically all, everything in his markup has in his, in his lineup, has tremendous ratings from, from ca Well, it must be a
**Senator:** great cigar then.
Oh, it
**Grinder:** must be a great cigar. But he's, he's got, he's got a a, a whole host of different, different, well,
**Gizmo:** don't forget, we did the Ellucian, uh, Crito. Rubo on the pond. Crozat. We did the grazado and, and that's good. That rated high eights. It did.
**Bam Bam:** It did. It's a different cigar than this
**Grinder:** though. Totally. Yeah. One, one of the interesting things is that he, he was kind of trying to find.
This sweet spot, and he really did a lot like with this kind of model, this, this marketing and and distribution model, [00:07:00] you have to, a lot of people will come like Al Bradley, he'll, he'll just go to a, a contract manufacturer and say, gimme your portfolio, gimme five cigars. I'll, I'll help you select it. And then that, that's what he brands and markets.
Right? Th this guy got really deep into one of the factory, his, his primary factory that his contract manufacturer and he would literally taste all the tobacco and all the different composites of, of, of blends and got really deep and they basically, they bought a pre-end Anisa farm in Nicaragua that had been used before the San Anisa, you know, acquired all the land.
And refurbed it. And it took a few years, but they were growing pre anda Nicaraguan tobacco, which is very unique and it's emblematic of some of the brands that he fell in love with. Most notably, tropical Tropical Cigars, tropical Tobacco. They made some brands that he was fascinated with and there, therefore, he kind of tried to [00:08:00] get that pre-and the flavor and um, I think that's what came through in the, the original EPINet, which was like his eus enet that was, came out in like 2006.
So he's been around for a while, almost 20 years, coming up on 20 years. And he's always kind of had, he's got this bent boutique kind of brand. Um, and uh, he makes great cigars. Mm-hmm. And the, this fascinating thing about this cigar is Hhl the holy Lance, he's got this in three different. Kind of cigars. Uh, one is the Maduro one, which we're smoking tonight, which is what we're smoking tonight.
One is the, um, the original, I think it was a ho Bonos wrapper or a natural, it was a natural wrapper. And then he, um, he was working with this contract manufacturer outta Honduras. And he said he had all these extra boxes for Lance Arrows and he didn't wanna waste the tip, the, the boxes cuz he had a front, the, the, the cost for the, for the boxes.
And essentially, uh, said, [00:09:00] well, I'll just put some Maduros and Candela. So the sister of this cigar came after the natural, uh, um, is is the Candela, which is, you know, we're, we're probably on the tail end of our landro kick here. Yeah. But it might, it might be good to, you know, kind of compare that to its sister cigar at some point.
But, uh,
**Bam Bam:** um, is anyone finding this to be an Absolutely. A full
**Gizmo:** cigar? It's definitely, I was gonna say medium, full. Full. I think it's full, full, full. But it's, it's definitely that, you know, you're definitely tasting that Maduro wrapper. Yeah. A thick Maduro. It's, oh yeah. It's definitely, um, this
**Bam Bam:** is a durable cigar.
Yeah. Great. For the wintertime
**Gizmo:** fall. I think it's a medium full. Not really. Not full.
Full.
**Senator:** It's at least medium fold. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be, I'm in a full thick, in flavor, not strength. Right. Yeah. I mean, I also, I take back the touch wahe reference early. Mm-hmm. To me, this is more Liga esque. Absolutely. Liga.
Bravada. Yeah. Yeah, G agreed. But very good. I'm actually enjoying it, I have to
**Gizmo:** say. Yeah. I think it's really delicious. I like the size. It feels good in the hand. I know we talked about that ad nauseum, but it it's a rich,
**Bam Bam:** it's a rich [00:10:00] cigar. Yeah. Yeah.
**Grinder:** It's kind of fruity. There's like some fruity elements.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. There is some fruit. Yeah. Pago, what do you think of it so far? I know you've, this is your right up your, you like the, uh, a pernet, right?
**Pagoda:** Yeah. I like the appnet. I, it's been a while since I've smoked that. Uh, and it's funny because with the enet, uh, the rapper seems to be a bit lighter, but, uh, a reasonably strong cigar.
Mm. Um, yeah. No, I'm really enjoying this. Uh, on the light
**Gizmo:** pu, what do
**Poobah:** you think happened here? Yeah, it reminds me of, um, You know, my d back in the days when I was with the dea, um, gone. What? Well, yeah. Like, you know, doing ops against the Sandinistas. They were, they were kind of a, they were, well they were a semi Marxist group and we, we had to
**Gizmo:** Semi Marxist.
Well, they were not fully, they weren't fully Marxist, they weren't, well,
**Poobah:** they were Marxist, but, uh, some of the cigars I smoked back then when I was, you [00:11:00] know, in, in the, in forest, well, in theater, uh, reminds me of that. Ah, yeah.
**Gizmo:** Theater. Yeah. Pba,
**Senator:** you've had a double life.
**Poobah:** Well, lot of, of, lot of listen, lot of fast roping.
A lot of uh, a lot of uh, yeah, a lot. You know, operating undercover with money belt. Yeah. Seizing gold. You money belt,
**Bam Bam:** you're seizing gold.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Yeah. Different identity. Yep. Yeah. But yes, it's a good No, it's a good, it's good. A lot of nunchucks. Nunchucks.
**Gizmo:** So you were mentioning about the vcu? Yeah. Um, I haven't, I'll tell you, I haven't reached for a VCU in quite some time.
Same here. And I'm curious, you know, uh, for the room here, does anyone, what, what's the merit of the V cut
**Poobah:** for you guys? Look, I don't use it often, but there's, sometimes I do use it. I'll tell you when I use it, so I'll use it. Um, if you've got like, um, like a Monte Christo, [00:12:00] petite Corona, and the cap is just packed.
Hmm. Or like on some of these small, some of these like smaller ring gauge cigars, actually, I find that it a, it comes in handy. Where, where you're just like, you could run, like I ran, I had to run a perfect draw through this. You passed me one. Thank you. Um, we were under
**Gizmo:** the screen, we were undercover.
**Poobah:** Like your old days.
Yeah. And it, it made a huge, it made a huge difference. Yeah. So if you don't have a perfect draw on you, you gotta get one. Sometimes just taking a little bit of volume out of the cap and a smaller ring, like the notion of using a vcu, I, I, I think some of the prevailing wisdom is like, oh, will you use a VCU in like a large ring gauge cigar?
No need generally, but sometimes on a smaller ring gauge cigar, there's this, the cap can get packed. Some, especially with sometimes with some of these Cubans. Yep. Um, or even with this cigar, I, I wouldn't have put it all the way in. I would've [00:13:00] just clipped it like halfway in and taken a little bit of volume out of the cap if I had it on me.
And so sometimes it's just, I'm not saying it's for all the time. But if there's, if the cap is packed, it's kind of a nice
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Workaround. Yeah, workaround. If it, if it's a
**Grinder:** little suspect. I think that's, yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Mm-hmm. I used to carry a vcu, I, I had one of those, uh, Colibri. They're really well manufactured and pretty cheap.
That's, that is the best. V cut. Great. That's the one I have. The Collibra is Collibra. Collibra, excuse me. Yeah. They make a great product. And that's the one I have. I haven't, I, I don't even know where it is. It's been so long, but, um, I mean, it, it has a great cut
**Senator:** on it, you know, so I, I have the exact same one.
I feel like I was just so many random guys. I was meeting in cigar lounges. I noticed were smoking with a V cut and really singing the praises of how great a VCU is. So trying to be open-minded. I bought the same Collibra vcu excellent cutter. Um, and I was dabbling with just trying the [00:14:00] same, you know, like a robusto, just using a VCU and seeing if I enjoyed the experience anymore.
Um, and I found it really didn't do anything positive for me. Um, and even then I tried using it. In the instances Puba is describing where you're having some draw issues, maybe the cap is a little bit plugged and trying it there. And I found myself like cutting several times with it and still not getting the desired draw.
Um, and what I have found is that the perfect draw for me is just does a better job of dealing with those issues. So, I used to carry in my cigar case, a VCU and a straight cut, and now I just carry a straight cut. Um, I'm very traditional. I don't, I don't like taking a chunk outta the cigar. Mm-hmm. Um, if I don't have to.
And then even when I feel I have to, to me, the perfect draw just works better. So that's really what I carry around it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I don't, I don't like the way it feels in your mouth. The V cut, the V cut.
**Rooster:** Yeah. It, it's a little odd. Maybe I'm not
**Gizmo:** used to it, but No, I agree. Feels,
**Poobah:** feels the same way. Yeah. I, I agree [00:15:00] too.
I, I, I'm just saying there's merits to it, like in a spot. Mm-hmm. You know?
**Gizmo:** Um, and there's a lot of listeners out there who love a v. That's true. And I know a lot of guys who do it double V, they'll do it like, like across opposite direction.
**Poobah:** Sure. Across, I've done that before. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. To each his own, right?
Sure. I
**Pagoda:** used to, I, I remember I used to use, uh, the B cut. Very specifically for any kind of a torpedo, kind of a cigar. And I think somebody had mentioned it to me and I just started doing that for quite some time. I don't think it makes that much of a difference. Uh, but no, but uh, you know, it's not that, it's not something I mine, like if that's the only cut around and I can't find mine for whatever reason,
**Poobah:** I, it's not a big deal.
You know, it's funny, you right, cuz you read like, oh well you should use a VCU with the torpedo. Every time I tried to do that, it was a disaster. Yeah. It mu it blow up. Blow it up. It it, it never worked out Well. It would unravel. Exactly. Or it would, it would, I'm like, this doesn't make any [00:16:00] sense. No. So, um, but I found it good, I found it useful where, um, cuz sometimes you gotta be a little bit careful with small ring gauge cigars with the perfect draw.
Uh, it, it's, it's okay to have, I mean, I'm not bullish on it. I'm not super bullish on it, but on the V cut, on the vcu. But I will use it. I've had ha I have had success with it, um, with some smaller ring gauge Cubans that have given me problems and I'm just, and I've, it's a quick fix, like, I'm just gonna grab that V cut and I'm gonna cut it and just see, and I've done that crown cut thing before too on small ring age cigars and the lake worked out and I'm like, okay.
But again, it, I'm not a big fan, but I found mine the other day and I used it and I was like, oh, I'll. I'll tee it up for discussion.
**Senator:** Bringing it back. Yeah. I mean, I just don't love looking at the end of the cigar and it looks like a Pacman is like [00:17:00] staring at you. That's literally every time I've used a v cut.
You're, that's all I'm thinking of.
**Poobah:** You're not, boom.
**Gizmo:** There's a,
**Grinder:** there's a lot of flavor coming out
**Gizmo:** this I'm doing. I'm
**Bam Bam:** enjoying it. Yeah. Honestly, this is, uh, truly a rich cigar. You know? I know. We'll, we'll talk about the pairing in a minute, but it's working great with what we're drinking. Both. It's a rich experience
**Gizmo:** so far.
I think, I think this is a cigar that we always talk about time of day or where you're slotting this. Yeah. This is, this is not a breakfast cigar except for maybe, except for Rooster.
**Bam Bam:** Um, this is a post thinner.
**Senator:** I think even he's having second thoughts about this in the morning.
**Poobah:** I don't think, I don't think you're having this in.
**Grinder:** No, I, I, I think some of that strength comes from a combination of, you know, we had on a recent episode we talked about. I think the combin, I think the combination of, um, you know, the size of the cigar and obviously the origin of, of the wrapper has, has a strong influence on it. Um, is also, this is tobacco.
This is [00:18:00] Nicaragua, right? This is, that's what I mean, the origin that
**Senator:** tobacco's. Nicaraguan, right. That packs, well,
**Grinder:** there's the tobacco and the binder and the filler is Nicaraguan, the rapper is Mexican. Mm-hmm. And the, the rapper is stuck. Cut. So it's, it's higher. PBO always talks about priming. Mm-hmm. It's higher, it's a higher priming.
So it gets a lot more attention from the sun. That's right. So it gets, it, it, it, it's needs to be a durable leaf. Mm-hmm. And I think you, you see it in the rustic nature of the cigar. It's very weathery. Yeah. It's just, it's thick Question. How
**Bam Bam:** much
**Gizmo:** is this cigar? This cigar was 15 bucks. Okay. Hmm.
**Bam Bam:** It packs a lot of flavor.
Yeah. For that price. And the, and the ash is bright white.
**Grinder:** I would, I would still, I would still say it's medium to full. Not full. Full. You know.
**Rooster:** How do you compare in strength with the EPINet?
**Grinder:** So, I haven't had the EPINet in a long time, but I recall it being a little smooth, smoother. Pagoda would know,
**Gizmo:** pagoda, pagoda
**Pagoda:** would know.
Yeah. It's, it's been a while. Um, [00:19:00] I, I remember, um, the felt stronger.
**Gizmo:** Oh, really? Stronger. Stronger
**Pagoda:** than this. Fuller. Even though you're a little bit fuller. There's, while it's been a while, but you know, it's been a while since I've smoked that. Um,
**Gizmo:** I'm not getting like a nicotine thing. No, I just think the flavors very intense.
**Senator:** It's really intense flavor, but it's actually full
**Grinder:** meal. It's kind of smooth.
**Bam Bam:** It's, it's not a, it's
**Grinder:** not abrupt in any way. No. He's, he, he's got in this Maduro line, he's got like six or seven different violas. Wow. So, I'd be curious to see how this would stack up against some of the other different, like ring gauge cigars and violas, because the, that flavor, I think the flavor is really imparted
**Gizmo:** by the wrapper.
It's, it is
**Rooster:** definitely closer to Liga. That's
**Gizmo:** the thing.
**Senator:** It's Liga esque. And honestly, for me at this point, this to me is a full cigar in flavor. Not nicotine senator. A hundred percent. But in flavor. This is full
**Gizmo:** flavor. Yeah. In flavor. Yet it doesn't have that like sweet thing that, like that little, that traditional li of flavor.
[00:20:00] Yeah. But there's a little bit of sweetness. There's, I get a little sweet just a
**Bam Bam:** little bit, but I do put the lega above this though. My, for me, Oh,
**Gizmo:** we got smoke flavor, flavor
**Bam Bam:** wise. Yeah. So far. Yeah. So far. One
**Poobah:** inch in. Yeah. I feel like this would slot in for me in a very, very specific spot.
**Gizmo:** Recording a podcast with six of your friends.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, that's about,
**Gizmo:** it's the only spot. No, no, no, no, no. I know, I know. This is, this is a good cigar. I'm No, no, no. I'm being facetious.
**Poobah:** No, it's a good cigar. I, I, I, but like, it's definitely an after a meal cigar. Yeah. For me. Um, fall, winter, uh, sure. Yeah. Um, but like I need to be in a head space where I've like got a lot of time.
Um, cuz you gotta smoke it slow. Um, you know what I mean? It, it, it, it's, it's, it's one of those things where I. I [00:21:00] could almost see myself smoking this by myself in, in like reading a book. Yeah. It, it's, it's, it's that slow, it's that slow going. The, the finish is so long. It is on it. Um,
it's, it's got a, I think it's got a time and place. Yeah. It's
**Bam Bam:** a pretty nourishing cigar because
**Grinder:** of the
**Senator:** body. Yeah. I mean, to what poop is saying to me, this is very much an after dinner cigar. And, and I say that in a very good way. Like when you've had a full meal, you a lot of times want a full cigar that's gonna be able to hold up to, you know, your pallet's kind of shot from like all the flavor of a full meal.
Mm-hmm. This stands up to it. And, um, I, I,
**Bam Bam:** I like it. Yeah. And, you know, we'll see as we get through it, but there aren't any rough edges yet. No.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So far no, we, we, yeah, we
**Grinder:** were com we were talking about, um, before the podcast, you know, com, you know, pairing red wine with certain meals. I feel like this would be pair very well with the steak.
**Bam Bam:** I think you gotta talk about the [00:22:00] parent tonight with this guy. Yeah. This, it's working pretty good, honestly. And I'm having this without ice, you know, my first sip of the Liga 16. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Ligal is 16. The first sip puba, I felt like I was gonna have a heart attack. So the last time, no ice, it wasn't smooth at all.
But as I drink it with the cigar, it's actually working very
**Gizmo:** nicely together. The last time all seven of us were in the same room drinking lovable. And 16 was 72 episodes ago on episode nine when we did the Ramona Onus, especially selected. Yep. And we hadn't rated it, so that's why we did it again, to give it a good rating tonight.
Mm-hmm. But, um, what a delicious scotch for this cigar tonight. I agreed. I agreed. Yeah. It's really, really,
**Grinder:** Performing beautifully. We, we, we talk about pairings and the differences in pairings and what would work. You know, sometimes it's, it's the antecedent, sometimes it's the, the ying and the yang.
Sometimes you want a, a strong cigar and a, and a and a well-balanced, you know, spirit. Or you want a strong spirit, but a, but a [00:23:00] smoother, you know, kind of softer cigar. I think this pairs with this, with this scotch, which is heavy peat, but has nice, smooth finish. It pairs very nicely and holds its own against this strong Madeira
**Poobah:** rapper.
It's true. It's a, it's a
**Bam Bam:** meal. Yeah, it is. It's nourishing. Like I said, I think they work great together.
**Gizmo:** I think they do. Yeah. I
**Poobah:** think if I was starving, um, in like, like, like camping in the forest, have you ever watched those YouTube videos? Where, where people, you and you and
**Gizmo:** Rooster with the YouTube? I didn't say
**Poobah:** anything brought.
Well, what do you, what do you I'm just, they make fun of, if we're
**Senator:** watching in Cuba, so when we were going to Cuba, rooster was all over YouTube. I saw this YouTube video. I saw this YouTube video. You guys are in lockstep. Oh
**Poobah:** yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm, by the way, I'm, I'm moving away from the whole, well, okay, let's go, let's go here.
So, I'm moving a, I'm moving away from YouTube and you getting divorced? No. [00:24:00] No. You think I paid for the premium on YouTube? No, I, of course I do. Um, of course I do. Well because I'm watching videos about all kinds of things that are, that are, that are crazy. Um, uh, but it's not. Anyway, but reading at night for me is much, the last few weeks have been, has been fantastic.
Read at night. I. As opposed to watching these stupid, because, you know, you go on YouTube and you, it's like you go down a rabbit hole. It's a vortex. Whether it's about cigars, it's design, it's designed that way. It's designed that way. Mm-hmm. Whether it's about cigars, you know, I do love, I'm a, I'm a firearms enthusiast.
I've love firearms. So I'm, I'm, I'm watching stuff about shotguns, about pistols, about rifles. I'm watching stuff about, uh, uh, uh, food and cooking and cigars. Yeah. And what, you know, all the things that I love. Right. And like, it just throws you down this like rabbit hole and it's like, not that [00:25:00] great. I mean, it's like, okay, it's informative, but it, you run into this love of diminishing returns we're reading at night, um, is kind of better for me lately.
**Grinder:** I think. I think, I think it, I think it, I think it's a mix. You need to have a nice mix because there are times where I, I learn a lot from going down in the vortex, but if you, if you pursue it, In, in, in consistent fashion, you will die. You need to, you need a balance of the reading and the, and the different modes or mediums of, of, of consumption.
I think I
**Poobah:** would highly recommend reading a book before bed. Um, sure. If you can clear your mind enough mm-hmm. Where you can focus on just reading, I, I, the last four weeks or so where I'm reading again, it's been fantastic. I
**Gizmo:** just, it's funny you're saying that it's fantastic because we didn't talk about this prior to coming on the episode.
No. But I've also been reading, especially at home when I'm smoking by myself and my garage, I've been reading just off the [00:26:00] Cuba trip, I've just been reading a lot of Hemingway and I'm finding it to be so much more relaxing, like, wow. Slows my mind down, gets me closer, like ready for sleep. We have a
**Bam Bam:** sophisticated gizmo now in our hands.
**Gizmo:** Oh. You know, listen, I'm not a speed reader, but I, I'm, I'm moving. I like that. But yeah, I totally agree with you. I think that I'm finding that it's, uh, uh, um, My mind is not as racing, you know, getting ready for getting ready
**Poobah:** for bed. Yeah. And, and, and this, this is, this cigar for me it's like slow smoking.
Yep. I could see myself like reading a book and kind of just taking my time with the cigar like this. Um, that's cool. I like that. Which is cool. I, I, I, I'd recommend the change of pace for anybody. I, I did it because, um, It's very easy to get just sucked into the, the internet, the internet, the vortex. It's just not cool, you know what I mean?
After a while, the news sucks, you know, both sides of it. It's, it's all terrible [00:27:00] and, and, and so you get, whether it's just like light fiction or whether you're reading a or whether you're reading a biography of, of a historical figure or something, it's much better, I think, a much better pursuit. I heard
**Bam Bam:** you were hunting, hunting raccoons in your yard though.
How do you fig fit that all in? How does that work? How do you read and hunt raccoons? What, what,
**Grinder:** what is the raccoon
**Poobah:** story? What's going on? Yeah. We, no, I mean, I don't know. We, I had these raccoons, so I've got, I've got a, I have a three car garage behind my house. I, it's another house. Well, yeah, it's pretty much another, yeah.
So I live on a two acre piece of property and, and, uh, this, this property is a nightmare. It's a fucking nightmare. No one wants this much property. I mean, if you do great, good for you, but there's too many trees. You need a condo, I think. Yeah, love would love it. But anyway, it's, it's, it's, it's, there are too many trees.
There are too many things. So there's a whole ecosystem [00:28:00] of, um, Of wildlife. And here in northern New Jersey, there's a lot of animals, uh, lot of wildlife. I mean, you've got groundhogs, right? Yep. You've got chipmunks, you've got, you've got deer. We know how Senator hates deer. He wants to chop their heads off.
Don't get me
**Senator:** started. I mean, if I could shoot them, I'd be a firearms enthusiast right there with you, Puma.
**Poobah:** Mm-hmm. Right. So the, the, the deer or a whole nother, I mean, there's so many deer. I mean, there's a whole deer herd that lives on my property. I mean, when I say a whole deer herd, I mean, you walk up five feet.
I mean, there's so many. It's on my property. It's unbelievable. Lot of deer shit. It's
**Senator:** crazy. And they ruin property. That's the problem.
**Gizmo:** And they ruin. It wasn't like
**Rooster:** that. It wasn't like that. Like you've been going back like maybe 10, 15 years ago. True. That's true. You didn't see that many deer.
**Poobah:** That's, you're correct.
You're correct rooster. And so there's these deer. Anyway, um, so what ended up happening [00:29:00] in with the raccoons was I have this three car exterior garage that's in the back of my property and, uh, uh, a raccoon, uh, Couple, husband, wife, husband and wife. They, they ended up, did
**Senator:** you get their marriage certificate to verify this?
Well,
**Gizmo:** he married them.
**Poobah:** This is, this is years of observation. So, so, uh, they ended up, um, uh, fornicating having children, you know, whole thing. Right? And like, you know, my wife, my wife and my 13 year old daughter think the, you know, it's adorable. Yeah. They think it's great. But meanwhile, they're in the soffit of this, of this, uh, of this, your garage, uh, this garage.
And, uh, the, they've made a home there. And that's a problem because for all the obvious reasons. So, um, [00:30:00] I, I decided I, well, first I consulted with Senator who's a, who's a raccoon killer. He has a history. So does, so does Rooster. He's also a raccoon killer. He r he strangled him with his own bare hand. He's a raccoon choker.
Which, which we can, which, which we can talk about too. So both these, you know, no one likes these pests.
**Senator:** Rooster is basically pest control for Northern New Jersey.
**Bam Bam:** Mm-hmm.
**Poobah:** With his bare hands. Mm-hmm. He certainly is bear vicious animals. So there's been, there's been multiple tactics that were discussed to dispose of these, these, these destructive creatures cuz they're destructive.
So, There's a window, so there's a, there's the, there's picture a three car garage, and then on the side there's a door that goes in, and then there's also a window. So I had, I had left this window unlocked. Well, well, what ended up happening was that was an invitation that Right, so
**Senator:** they have squatter's rights now.
Pba. Right,
**Poobah:** exactly. So what
**Senator:** ended up California? California was near, you'd be
**Poobah:** outta the house, correct? [00:31:00] Absolutely. They had squatter rights beyond squadron rights. They, they, they ended up put, so the, the, the, the couple, this, this, this terror, these terrorists ended up pushing, they pushed the window open cuz they can jump up and, and claw on the windowsill and they push the window open.
They go into the garage and then they go into the corner of the soffit. Now when they first, they found out they were in there. I'm like, screw 'em, I'll lock 'em in. Bad mistake. Real bad mistake. Cuz what they do is they go in the soffit and then when they can't get out, they chew their way out. They, they claw chew their way out through the shingles in the top of the roof.
They go through the plywood and they pop a couple shingles off and they make an entry and exit outta that way. So anyway, this is a problem. So, um,
**Gizmo:** so I, by the way, I'm sorry to the listeners that we don't have a camera crew that recorded this happening. Yes. Your discovery of this [00:32:00] would've been phenomenal content.
Well,
**Poobah:** I, I, so, so what ended up happening was I, I, I left them, I, I left them alone for a while, so I had to leave the window open to let 'em get in and out. Because if I locked them in, they would just continue to destroy stuff. So I let 'em gain entry because it was like, it was like tsa, like, like you have, you're pre-cleared clear.
Because if I, if I lock in, you're just gonna continue to destroy stuff. You know what I mean? So I called, of course, I, I'm, so, I called, I called professionals, thank God, and they set up some traps. And let me tell you something, this was outstanding. They set up traps. I had to call the professionals. They set up traps with like the right bait and everything.
I got both the mother. I got the father. That's it. They went right to the gas chamber. Oh, you think right in. So I said, so when they, so when they picked up the, they picked up. Yeah. Well this is all, this is all by [00:33:00] state law. I, i,
**Senator:** if only we could capture for the listener this smile on rooster's face. This, he said the gas chamber
**Poobah:** amazing.
I mean, it's unbelievable.
**Rooster:** Is that
**Gizmo:** an in-house gas chamber?
**Poobah:** Yes, it's actually, so I call Horizon pest control and uh, they're great. They are great. I use them as well. Yeah. I got, I got a contract with them. They keep spiders and centipedes and, and all that shit. They're the best. All that crap outta my house, man.
They, they set up traps. Well, well there you go. All it takes is one mouse to run across your house. The women are up chaos on top of the, at the countertops. Right. I got my, that's, I got, got my daughter and my wife. They're, they're, they're up. We're not operating in this home for another minute, you know? So, They, they set up these traps.
They do the stuff and they seal the outside and they do all, you know, they, they find out what the entry points are for these. They, because a little field, it must not have been hard. You told '
**Gizmo:** em that you opened the window.
**Poobah:** Right. I understand, but I'm talking about the other contract. It wasn't much general pe
**Gizmo:** it wasn't must much [00:34:00] of an investigation.
**Poobah:** Shingles. No, no. Anyway, I mean, long story short, long story short. They set up these traps within a week. I got not one, I got two, I got the mother, I got the father. And I call up, I, I, I, I call up, I go, I got, you know, they go, cuz they say, you gotta check, you gotta check the traps every day because, you know, it's a, you can't leave them in there.
It's inhumane. Yeah. So I'm checking the traps every day. Is it, is it really? Hey, that's up for debate. I'm just going by the law. They, they, they, so I, well doing what they told me, but yes, you're, you're not wrong. They've been terrorizing me for years. So I, I, I, I said, I got, I got one. They go look at the other one and I got, there's nothing in the other one.
So they come and get the one. Then next day the other one gets, they get another raccoon, the, the female and the male. And I go, I go, we got it. We got another one. We got another one. I go, this is the greatest day of my life. I go, by the way, What I go, I go, what do you do? Like, do you [00:35:00] set 'em off in the wild?
They're like, do you take 'em somewhere? They go, nah, no,
**Senator:** we bring 'em to Rooster's house. They go,
**Poobah:** no, we don't do that. I go, what do you do? They go, well, we've got a CO2 chamber, chamber, co2, they're out in about 30 seconds. And that's a bad thing. A carbon dioxide chamber. Right, right. We gas 'em and they, we, we wrap it up.
I go, okay. Alright. Wrap it up. That's it. Wow. I said, okay. And that was, that was it. So like, you know, it was like 375 bucks and you with it. What about the babies? Uh, I don't know about the babies.
**Bam Bam:** They're withering. Are they gone? They're
**Grinder:** withering somewhere. Yeah.
**Senator:** In a couple years they're gonna be living in the Suffolk.
Yeah. They're gonna come
**Bam Bam:** back for revenge. You know
**Gizmo:** what if, if there's, if you have two, there's gotta be more. I would think. Hey, bro.
**Poobah:** Uhoh. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Listen me have some, there's a
**Bam Bam:** vendetta. There's a vendetta brewing.
**Poobah:** Um, I, I have ServPro coming cuz they were up in that soffit. So I called ServPro and I said, Yeah.
You know, [00:36:00] they're gonna come over, they're gonna look in this up if there's any, any, any weird stuff up there. Excrement, serv Pro will de excrement or whatever these scumbag do to your property, these terrorists, they're just living, they're fucking the, they're man, they're, they're Isis of Animal King.
They're trying to live fucking assholes. And so, so, uh, anyway, I
**Gizmo:** just, I'm, I'm just happy that you found a problem and solved it. I found the problem and I solved it. You got great
**Poobah:** joy outta it. Yeah. Yeah. Well mean, I got a question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Were you, were
**Rooster:** you tempted to take your shotgun into the garage?
No,
**Poobah:** I would never describe, you can't do that with a firearm with
**Gizmo:** the within. You can't do that with the wife
**Poobah:** and the kids. Well, I would never do it in, no. I mean, if I was in the country, if I lived in, well, look, hey, I'll be honest. If I lived well, no. If I had a 20 acres of property or something like that, I would've just.
Hell yeah. If I saw one, I would just, I would take that, just clip it off out in three seconds. [00:37:00] Put on a pair of work gloves, throw it in a plastic bag and get rid of it. Pull
**Pagoda:** the X, just call rooster.
**Poobah:** Just, but I mean, you can do that if you're living on, on, of course, 20, 30 acres of property. That's no problem.
Uh, but no, I You can't do that. You can, you'll, you'll wind up in the fucking newspaper for Christ's sake. You can shoot, you can edit, discharge a firearm in you in New Jersey. You, you could, it's against the law.
**Senator:** I'll just say, this is music to my ears. Mm-hmm.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I'm, I'm thrilled for Aruba.
**Poobah:** Well, well, I'd like, I'd, I'd actually like to hear Senator story when he was up
**Bam Bam:** in Boston.
Oh, yeah. School.
**Grinder:** We know
**Senator:** this story there. Um, he's, when he says they're terrorists, this is a hundred percent accurate. I hate raccoons. If they could peacefully coexist without destroying stuff, I'd have no problem with them when I was in college. I lived in a fraternity house and as you'd imagine a fraternity, it masses a lot of garbage every week and we A lot of aluminum garbage.
Yeah, that's correct. [00:38:00] That's correct. That's exactly. And glass. Mm-hmm. But a lot of ac, you know, pizza, all this shit. Yeah. There's so much food. Random stuff in the trash. And this family of raccoons decided that they would just tear apart all the trash. We had spill it all over the street. And I wouldn't have a problem with that.
Un for the simple fact that in Boston, if you an animal pushes your trash all over the street, you get a fine. We amassed thousands of dollars in fines, basically. And we said, okay, we have a problem. We have to do something about this. Now. One of the guys leaving my house, guy from Indiana, Very proud gun owner.
He's like, I have a solution to this problem. I'm like, you cannot discharge a fire, Robert Boston. You'll be jail. Talk about some fines. Yeah, you'll be in jail. So that was ruled out. So we're thinking, what can we possibly do to deter these raccoons? So he says, all right, the next best option we have, we gotta get some BB guns.
We can legally discharge a BB gun. [00:39:00] So we get BB guns. And I kid you not, I'm staring the light. You can't
**Poobah:** kill a raccoon with a BB gun.
**Senator:** Not, not kill, but deterrent enough Mame. We would hope that it would mame them or cause some pain that they would not, it wouldn't be worth their trouble. Mm-hmm. They'd go to the old lady next door if she's not gonna shoot 'em and they could eat her.
It's
**Poobah:** very hypothetical. They're they're
**Senator:** stubborn beast. They are. So I'll never forget, we go outside. I'm like, all right, this better work. I'm staring the big giant like papa raccoon square in the face and I'm shooting this thing right in his face and he is just, Eating these fucking BB bullets, like nothing like cereal for breakfast could care less.
Just staring right back at me each time kind of shaking his head and just those BD eyes. That's right. I'm like, we're fucked there. There's no way to get rid of these things.
**Poobah:** That's right. It's like what was the professional's wrestler's name who used to eat the term buckle? What was his name? Remember that guy?
Oh, um,
**Bam Bam:** yeah. Uh, what the hell
**Poobah:** was his name? Yeah, [00:40:00] that's like that He would just shake it off mankind.
**Bam Bam:** No, he was, he was bald. He was like, is hairy back. Yeah, Harry back. I love that
**Poobah:** guy. That guy. That's it. He would just shake it off. Eat George. The animal steel George. The animal steel. That's George, the animal steel, that's what these raccoons are like.
They, they are, they see the turnbuckle, they don't care. So
**Senator:** the, the best thing ends up happening. We get a ton of rain, and rain starts to fill up these trash cans and we're like, oh, we should dump out the rain. We gotta fill up it. No, no, no. Let put the raccoon in the trash can. Let's, let's just leave that there and see what happens.
Cuz they're just terrorizing these trash bins. So these, these animals, they think they're smart, but they're not, they. Try to go in the trash with all this rainwater. They cannot swim. And so we come out one morning and they've all drowned in the trash cans in the trash. We're like, this is amazing. We have to do No.
Everything we tried to do to get rid of them, failed Mother Nature took its course. Rain Fills that they're all dead. Yes. I have,
**Grinder:** I have a similar story, but with Brilliant my, with New York [00:41:00] City mice. When I lived in New York City, my first apartment living in New York City. Ooh. I had an excessive amount of mice and we had them fall into cups in the sink and they fucking drowned.
That's perfect. Consecutive nights.
**Poobah:** That's perfect. It's, that's perfect. So this, this, this, so I ran, I, I ran this, this, this concept, this tactic by, by Julia. I said, well, Senator had this experience with this garbage cans up in Boston. Why don't we just fill one of the garbage cans up by the windowsill, put a can of tuna in there.
You know, open it up, throw it in, I'll fill it up halfway with water, and then the raccoon will just come out of the windowsill and, and fall into the fall into the garbage cage goes, you can't do that. What are you wanna take? What are you gonna do? I said, desperate times.
**Gizmo:** I
**Poobah:** desperate measures [00:42:00] China. I'll do it.
I'll do it this way, this other way. I don't see the difference, but. This clearly worked, the professional trapping. So I would recommend the horizon pest
**Senator:** control. I'll also say raccoons can also be useful for other purposes. So the way my story concludes, yo, we have these dead raccoons in these trash bins.
Oh, that's this.
**Poobah:** This is, this gets better. This
**Grinder:** is traumatic. This is a little traumatic. No, no,
**Senator:** I, I think there are listeners that will appreciate this. Okay. And so we needed to dispose of them. And so when you're in a fraternity, as anybody knows, There are people that are meant for this job. They're called pledges.
Mm-hmm. And so we told them, you have to dispose of these dead raccoons and we need, well, they're like, where do we put them? Where, where do you, where do you put dead raccoons? And we said, that's for you to figure out. And so at the time I was in college, there happened to be these protests in the yard that most of us had to go to class in.
And it was so bad they locked [00:43:00] down the yard. You had to show an ID every time to come in. And it was a massive, you'd, you'd be in a line basically just to walk into the yard. Is this like the university, is this street? Or what is this stupid? It was all kinds of stuff, but these are crazy people that are protesting stupid shit.
Okay. And of course, the university being so soft, they're like, well, we don't know how to get these people out of here. You know, they just won't leave. We're telling them to leave. So we had an idea. They've set up tents, like encampments, basically in the yard. Hold on. Were
**Bam Bam:** you a pledge at the time? No. Okay.
Are you kidding me? He's a brother. So you did, you instruct the pledges
**Senator:** was the president. I would never instruct the pledges do anything. They don't want to do
**Grinder:** bad. So
**Bam Bam:** this is, I mean, those are, you had some brilliant pledges there. These were these, these were,
**Poobah:** these were other brethren there you just heard
**Gizmo:** about.
That's like it. I like it. These were
**Senator:** very smart, enterprising individuals who figured out that this can be a solution to another problem. And so they collected the. Raccoon carcasses. They brought them into the yard very discreetly, [00:44:00] and they just happened to dispose of them in some of the tents that had been occupying the yard for months that the university couldn't figure out how to remove.
And I kid you not. Fast forward a week later, all the tents were gone. So it was
**Poobah:** unbelievable. Come. It was unbelievable.
**Gizmo:** Come raccoon server purpose,
**Bam Bam:** they too dead carcasses work.
**Poobah:** Yes. Yes.
**Gizmo:** Jesus. Well, the lizards don't play, so any raccoons out there listening? Yeah, stay away from the lizards. You
**Senator:** don't want a date with Rooster, that's for sure.
Don't mess
**Gizmo:** with us. There we go. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Well, rooster, you had a, you had raccoon, you strangled one with your bare hands.
**Gizmo:** They were eating his Costco furniture. They
**Rooster:** did. They, they chewed up my brand new Costco Wicker Furniture. I mean, they, they, I had a cover on it and they would like, you know, sleep there underneath, underneath or on the cushions, and they chewed up the, the backside of that.
And I, you know, I came home one day and I was like, Jill was like, I think I hear something on the deck and
**Gizmo:** I walk [00:45:00] out there, I'm like, what should
**Rooster:** I do? Gonna, I know there's a raccoon in there,
**Gizmo:** so I'm like, maybe I should take a shovel or something. Mm-hmm. And I
**Rooster:** lifted up the cover and sure enough, the raccoon was right there.
And I, he was like pro, probably half asleep. And I went up there and I. I just grabbed. I didn't ch Well,
**Gizmo:** I dunno if I choke it. You choked it. How he soften.
**Rooster:** I grabbed it and I kind of flung it like, you know, the backyard into a, into a lake,
**Poobah:** into the lake. I dunno if they made it. Can I just say something for the record?
Yeah. It was stupid. This
**Rooster:** the Claus are, are sharp, this sharp as
**Poobah:** hell. Deadly. This is the, the fact that you had the, the, the guts to the courage to grab a raccoon with your bare hands to me is intriguing. I, I, I, I don't, I don't know anyone. It's more than intriguing. [00:46:00] I don't know a professional raccoon handler who would go bare handed.
It
**Rooster:** was probably very stupid to do that. Blind range. I would never
**Gizmo:** do that again. Mm-hmm. But,
**Rooster:** If an animal is gonna destroy anything of mine, it's like I just, I just lose it.
**Gizmo:** You, you black out.
**Senator:** Lose it black. Clearly. Imagine what he would've done if they got in this tower. Oh. Oh.
**Gizmo:** Can
**Rooster:** you imagine? Actually, a raccoon came into our
**Gizmo:** house.
I heard it
ended
**Poobah:** up
**Bam Bam:** on the bed. Dropped through the ceiling.
**Poobah:** Yes, I heard about that. My, my
**Rooster:** mother-in-law. What? Yes. And her husband was sleeping downstairs. And this is like five 30 in the morning, and my mother-in-law is very sweet. She comes up, she's like, and she doesn't come by me. She goes by, goes by by my wife, Jill, and she goes, Jill, wake up, wake up.
And she's like, what? What's the matter mom? She goes, there's a
**Gizmo:** raccoon in our bedroom. What? I'm like, oh my God.
**Rooster:** So we had this deck built, and I guess, you know where the deck attaches to the house, there was some kind of a [00:47:00] small gap. Mm-hmm. So the raccoon got in there and we have dropped ceiling in the basement and it went in the drop ceiling and that's really light.
And it fell right next to their bed. Oh, this is not my God. Now the raccoon is in the lower level of the house. So I get up with her in-laws, gets up, and the in-laws and Jill's like, we gotta call the A S P C A, we gotta call the cops. I'm like, honey, they're not gonna do anything. So we tried. She, she did, she made, she made the calls and they're like, cops are like, you know, call somebody else.
We don't, we don't do this stuff. So, you know what I did? The cops, the,
**Poobah:** the cops aren't coming to take a raccoon out.
**Rooster:** We were panicking. There's a raccoon in the house. He's just calling any anybody. And you know, so I took a can of tuna. Made a hole in it, put a, put a string to it, and that's how I
**Gizmo:** got it out.
Nice. That's very smart. Just dragged it out.
**Rooster:** Dragged, dragged the can of tuna because the smell of tuna is pretty intense. And they love tuna. Yeah. And I dragged it out and we have [00:48:00] like a sliding glass door that goes out on the deck. Smart.
**Poobah:** And got it out. They just want to, we have You didn't strangle it.
Yeah. Not that
**Grinder:** time. That, that was an, that was an advanced skill that was in the house. He had, he had to acquire that skin.
**Gizmo:** Oh yeah.
**Rooster:** Yeah. Wow. But they didn't destroy anything at that time. I mean, this was later on Monday. Chewed up my
**Gizmo:** furniture. Costco furniture. Costco furniture. Oh, so you can
**Pagoda:** take my in-law, but not the furniture.
**Rooster:** No, I mean, I
**Poobah:** mean, think
**Gizmo:** about it. You, you're sleeping, pagoda. You're
**Rooster:** sleeping, and a raccoon drops. Oh my god.
**Poobah:** Scary. That's, that's terrifying. That's so when you grabbed, when you grabbed the rec, did it react or did it, did it, was it, was it make a squeal? This was wrong? Well, did it, did it, did it like, did it, I had just hung hype up on you and like try and bite him.
I think it
**Rooster:** didn't know it was it. I think he was shocked and I was shocked. I just, it was so quick. I just
**Senator:** grabbed it and flung it because they're so vicious. It's crazy. I remember the, the story I [00:49:00] was telling. We could see from the window. That's wild. This family of raccoons fighting each other for the trash, and I guess their claws are so sharp, you'd see them bleeding.
Like they're scratching each other and bleeding out while they're fighting for the, they're vicious animals. They're crazy. They are. They
**Gizmo:** go
**Rooster:** into your trash can and they destroy it. I mean, they go everything in it. They're like, they close the lead. So we keep our trash cans like in the garage just so that they won't get in.
Oh, I
**Senator:** got these like. Bear proof things on my trashcans now and on my, like, cameras in the back of the house I can watch. Now, the raccoon, they're actually not that dumb. They're somewhat smart because the first time I put 'em up, I'd watch the raccoon get up, take its little claws and hands and try to get in there and realize shit, I can't do it.
And so after a few days of this, they just don't come back anymore. Yeah. We
**Gizmo:** were,
**Rooster:** we were on our, you remember that time you guys were over? We were sitting on the deck. Bam was there. You
**Gizmo:** were there. Oh, rac
**Bam Bam:** up the stairs. That was one of my most terrifying
**Senator:** evenings. [00:50:00] Bam. Jumped like, I have never ever seen him before.
**Bam Bam:** He was sneaking up on me behind my fucking chair. They're, they're fearless. Fearless. I jumped three feet in the air. It was horrifying. Oh. And he kept coming back. He loved guys. He would leave and come back and leave
**Gizmo:** and come back. We were smoking
**Rooster:** the placencia. I think that the a l r the
**Bam Bam:** octagon. Yeah, that's right.
**Gizmo:** That's, you guys have painted so many pictures tonight about this, these raccoon nightmares. I'm gonna have, I'm gonna like, I'm, I'm terrified of raccoons now. Yeah, they're resilient. Yeah. You should be. Yeah. Yeah. Unbelievable. Barehanded. Check, check all your drop ceilings. I'm going to, I have to. All right, boys.
We're about halfway through here on the Ellucian. Holy Lance and Maduro. Yep. I'm really enjoying it.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. You know, for the listener, if you're out pursuing a rich experience, this pairing is really quite rich, that Holy Lance Maduro Laville, and 16, it's really [00:51:00] a full experience. Very full flavored
**Senator:** all around.
I think the thing I'm most impressed with is just how much flavor this is putting out. It's very smooth, the delivery. It is, yeah. I haven't gotten any harshness or Right. Any kind of nicotine aggression. It, it's, it's balanced for how full flavor this is. Right. And what's
**Gizmo:** surprising me is after you push the draw outta your mouth, the, the, the, it lingers.
It lingers, but not in an unpleasant way. Where, where you have some strong Maduro Nicaraguan cigars, sometimes it lingers in a bad way. Yeah. But it's, it's really, really nice and smooth and the mouth feels
**Bam Bam:** really good. It's strange because the finish for me is dessert. Like, yeah. It's unusual,
**Pagoda:** you know, I was wondering what, what, what did the cigar remind me of?
And I was trying to figure out, uh, which of the other cigars we smoke smoking with, uh, the San Andreas rapper and it's El Sanor. Oh, by
**Gizmo:** EP
**Bam Bam:** Carillo. Yeah. Maybe it's, yeah, this finish on this I like better. Last story. I like the finish on this. Better on that, really honestly.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. [00:52:00] Yeah. So we recently did the Cal Isla, uh, scotch, which was Petey, and as a sister, uh, distiller to the Laville in 16.
How would you guys compare the experience tonight of the Loval and with the Cal? We did a couple weeks ago?
**Grinder:** I, I, I think everything about Laville and relative to Cal Iowa is just richer. So the pettiness is stronger, but the smoothness is stronger as well. So there's everything is, plus again, you know, there's, there's, there's a little more amplification.
And, um, it's. When I think, um, PD ile Scotch, this is, this is the one. Yeah. Um, it's got a lot of flavor that has, that packs a punch. Yeah. But that smoothness rounds it out and it, it again, it coach your, your, your palate. Absolutely. And, um, that smoothness that comes from that. Kind of viscosity it really, cuz there's a lot of [00:53:00] particulates in this, this scotch, it's, it's got a, it's got a shorter, um, distill distillation process.
The the pots are, are, are shorter. So you get a lot more of that, of that flavor profile from the casks. And it just, the strength of the cigar paired with this is, uh, to, to echo ban's point. It really, it really holds up. It, it works together nicely
**Senator:** also. Bam, you've gotta try the scotch with some
**Bam Bam:** ice. Yeah.
So I'm having it neat. I, this is the first time I'm having it. Honestly. I'm gonna stay with, uh, normally I would take the ice, but I'm, you have to try it.
**Senator:** It is so much better. Um, no, no, I just think I'm sure. I, I think this is an important point. I wanna say this because for whatever reason I'm really, really hesitant with any scotch or spirit that's just been aged for a lengthy period of time.
Like this is 16 years scotch. I usually don't like to put ice. I feel like at that point, it, it, it should be smooth enough that it's probably best enjoyed meat. So honestly, I've consumed a lot of liable in over the years. This is the first time I've put ice in [00:54:00] it. And really the only reason I did that, I think when we did the cow Isla episode, Grindr was talking about how he normally drinks this with ice.
Um, and I was surprised to hear that. And so I wanted to give it a try. It really opens up. It opens
**Bam Bam:** it up. Yeah. And it probably gets creamier, right? It does, yeah. Makes sense. And sweeter. Yeah, of course. Smoother, of course.
**Grinder:** Yeah. One of the things I love about the scotch though, is that the finish is so darn long.
Yeah. And it's spicy. It's got that spicy tingle. And with this, with this wrapper mm-hmm. And this cigar. Mm-hmm. It just, it kind of like, It, it, it, it, it retains the flavor of the, of the, of the cigar with that pettiness, and it just, it, it's so leveled out. They, they go together. Great.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So what's interesting is that when we did Lovable in 16, the first time on the pod, we didn't rate it, like I said, with the Ramone, especially selected outta Cuba, it also paired very, very well with that cigar.
**Bam Bam:** If you, if you go back to that recording, I raved about that pairing. Yeah. [00:55:00] You still do. I do. Yeah. That was one of my favorite, favorite pairings. It's so amazing to me
**Grinder:** because it just worked so great. That cigar is so, it's so different. It's like the opposite of this. Yes. I
**Bam Bam:** don't know. It, it, you know that, that's cigars interesting because there's savory and a little bit of sweet notes in it, and it just worked great with this
**Gizmo:** particular spirit.
Clearly the scotch is versatile. Oh yeah. You know, despite its pettiness, despite its strength, you know, I, I, it's
**Grinder:** working really, really well. I mean, I, I've been drinking this since I started drinking scotch, and it's always, it's always, always has a place in any rotation for me.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It is specific to a taste though.
If you ha it's an, I'm not gonna say it's an acquired taste, but I'm gonna guess a lot of people won't go to this because of the strength and of that, of that note that it has, that, that speediness.
**Grinder:** I, I think you're right. I think it is an acquired taste a little bit because, because when I first started drinking it, it was not something that I was attuned to.
But when you, when you do, when you do etso ice to it, dude it with the ice. Oh yeah. When you, it's a different experience. It is. When you [00:56:00] round it out, it, it, you can, you can, it's more acquirable. Yeah. No, no,
**Pagoda:** definitely. Yeah. Like I think with a chip or two of ice, it just changes a
**Bam Bam:** whole. How much is that
**Grinder:** bottle?
Do we know? Oh, run 90 bucks. Well, $90, yeah. Really mean. What? So what, back in the day when I first started drinking this, it was like 75 in midtown, even,
**Senator:** uh, when I was in DC and started drinking. You can get it for six low sixties. That's a great deal. Recently,
**Grinder:** no, no. Years ago. Years ago. I agree. Years ago.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That sounds about right. Um, I got this bottle for a hundred something. My goodness. Wow. Just a hundred change off age
**Bam Bam:** 16 years.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Senator:** I mean, which actually, when you think about it, That obviously sounds high, but you look at Macallan 15. Yeah, that's $150. Yeah, we, we
**Bam Bam:** don't like that though. Not like the 1212.
No, neither do I.
**Gizmo:** And the price Delta doesn't align with the improvement of taste between the Macallan 12 and
**Senator:** 15. The other thing, I've said this before, what I really love about Likable and 16, and this is always [00:57:00] in my bar. Is those moments where you want a cigar. Yes. You're having dinner with the family and there is no window for you to escape to have a cigar and you just want that smokey flavor and you can't make a pepper plain.
Exactly. I just, you, you just pull liable in 16 and I feel like you're getting the best of both worlds. Like you're getting the scotch that you want, but you're also getting that smoke and peat. Yeah. That is just a little reminiscent of smoking a cigar. So those are the moments I really reach for,
**Bam Bam:** especially what's, what's interesting about this, you can't gulp it down.
You have to really take it in moderation, very small sips and really
**Grinder:** enjoy it. I don't, I don't think I've ever gulped a agul.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, I have.
**Grinder:** Well, clearly you haven't had a shower scotch then. No.
**Gizmo:** So we talked about Drew estate a few times tonight. We kind of mentioned, uh, the League of Bravado, wine accord, you know, in alliance or similar flavor to this kind of reminding us of that.
Did you guys see that Drew Estate announced, uh, a [00:58:00] cigar with, uh, James Hetfield from Metallica? Yes. The Blackened series? Yeah. Yeah. You know, uh, during the cigar boom, there were a lot of celebrity cigars that came out that was, you know, there were a lot, a lot of celebrities releasing cigars, and most of them failed.
They were awful. Right. I, I don't know if there's really any lingering, uh, successful celebrity cigar, uh, that's come out. I think Ed Reed, uh, the football player mm-hmm. Hall of Fame Safety is doing a cigar with Placencia. But, um, it, it was interesting. First off, I didn't know that James Hetfield for Metallica was a, was a cigar guy.
Neither did I until
**Bam Bam:** I saw the marketing. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah. He's, um, well he's, he's, he's such a legend. Um, he's totally sober. Yep. Um, he doesn't drink. Um, I think his story is how he came out of that. And he, he's been sober for like
**Gizmo:** 20 years, so he had, yeah, so he, he sobered [00:59:00] up around, uh, some kind of monster, I think it was in oh four.
And then he had a bit of an issue a couple years ago during Covid, uh, that he went back and, and kind of rediscovered sobriety. And now he, you know, now he's fully back on the wagon. But, um, you know, to your point, I mean, Metallica, they're, they're just killing it right now. Yeah, of course. I mean, these guys are, I think in their early sixties.
Yeah, they just scheduled a two year world tour. They just put out a record. I don't know if you guys like Metallica. I love Met Metallica. I like their older record, but their new record is very good.
**Bam Bam:** I'm into their, all their older albums, all of them, the recent stuff, not so
**Poobah:** much Le Legend, legendary group.
Um, absolutely love them. Speaking of music too, and, and just, uh, I'd also recommend, I'd highly recommend if you're into. Culture, um, just music. There's a documentary on, on Showtime, on, on Cypress Hill. Mm-hmm. Which I, which is absolutely fascinating. Mm. Um, [01:00:00] uh, so check that out. I, I, for the listener, I, I, I watched it just the other day.
It's a relatively, I, I think it's relatively new. Um, Very, very, very fascinating. That's cool. How long, I mean, yeah, they've been around forever. Well, they've been around forever. And also they're like a group like Metall. They, they broke boundaries. Very good. And, and, and the, the article in ca on with James Hetfield is,
**Gizmo:** is a great, yeah.
So he was the cover story, I think, uh, most recent story, recent, most recent, uh, issue or prior, but it was a great. Great conversation with him. Like I said, I didn't know he was a cigar guy and Drew Day put out this line of black and cigars. Yeah. Um, I haven't tried one, but I know some listeners that have that, uh, that have asked us to review it.
So maybe we'll do that at some point in the
**Senator:** future. Yeah. Look at this point, Bravada is trying everything. Yeah. Did you see they just put out the other day, I think one of the guys at our cigar lounge sent us around cigar called Bucket of Chicken. [01:01:00] No, that's
**Gizmo:** Bravada. Oh, I, okay. Let's get it. Okay. I was getting there too.
Oh, bucket of chicken. So Bravada Cigar Club. Oh God. Which, what is,
**Poobah:** we've a chicken. What are you talking? Yeah, I don't, we've discussed of Cigar.
**Gizmo:** It's Avada Cigar Club. That's the thing. Bravada Cigar Club is a, is a club that is, it's, it's interesting because it's direct to consumer, but they also bring retailers into this club.
So it's kind of twofold. It's not just direct, it's also b2b. Um, But they're the ones we've talked about when we were talking about legislation with kids and everything. They're the ones that did the Cookie Monster Cigar and their most recent one are cigars that come in a bucket that looks like a bucket of chicken from Popeye's.
So you get a, you get these cigars in a, in a, in a bucket. A bucket of chicken. Yeah.
**Senator:** It literally looks like a Popeye's bucket of
**Gizmo:** chicken. Yeah. Great. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's, it's
**Poobah:** great. I [01:02:00] mean, great
**Gizmo:** To me it's, it's frustrating to me because I think it, uh, to me, I, I don't know. I don't like it because I think it undo it, it it, it's an undoing of the story that this is not marketed towards.
Yeah. It completely undermines that. Yeah. Is it a bucket? It's the hole. No, it's a paper. Like a cardboard bucket. No, it's,
**Senator:** it's like if the whole thing, like, you know, where, where the cigar industry is Correct. When it's fighting ridiculous legislation is in saying like, no kid. Is pursuing a padron, any, any legitimate cigar?
No. No kid is gonna enjoy the taste. There's nothing that's appealing about it. But when you start marketing a cigar as a cookie, yeah, there it is. It's literally a Popeye's bucket of chicken, like a paper bucket. This is, but when you start marketing cigars, it's like, it's like a bucket of chicken triad when you have some chicken or it's a cookie monster cigar, and it's gonna taste like Oreo like.
This completely undermines what this is about. Mm. And the cigar industry's ability to effectively advocate for itself when it is saying [01:03:00] legitimately, this is not a product in any way, shape, or form designed to appeal to anyone, but a grown adult who likes the complex flavors of these cigars, that's not appealing to a kid.
So I hate when I see stuff like this and,
**Gizmo:** and for me, it's like this lifestyle, this hobby, what we do is about the time spent by yourself or with others. As we talked about a thousand times, you know, we've joked about cigars that they're covered. The rapper is completely covered in bands and labeling and marketing.
And to put a cigar line out in a bucket of chicken, To me diminishes not just the cigar that you're putting in that bucket of chicken, but the entire in like, this is not why we do this. You're right. It's not a marketing exercise. It's
**Poobah:** true, but it's also a look. Yes. Um, I guess the Play Devil's advocate, it's a commercial, um, industry.
The, the, uh, who put this out? Was it Bravada? Bravada? So, so [01:04:00] they obviously have some data or something that this appeals to a certain group of people. It's a, they're a commercial operation and if they can make money doing it, I'm not saying it's right, I'm just, or you know, arguing what senator's saying or what you're saying.
But it's like anything else, man. Like if there's a market to be actualized,
**Gizmo:** I just think that it, people are going to, people are gonna say, I think it's destructive, is my point. Mm-hmm. I think it undermines, yeah, it undermines,
**Poobah:** I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying like,
**Gizmo:** it undermines the hobby, it undermines the lifestyle and it undermines the effort at legislative level levels.
Mm-hmm. Where true, we are trying to show that this is not like flavored tobacco in a, in a, in a grocery store. This is not like vape. This is not, but it's like
**Poobah:** America. This is America. Yeah. There's like all different
**Bam Bam:** people when there's a market, market, everything, the market for everything. But
**Grinder:** this is, this is an opportu.
You look at different [01:05:00] industries, you look at the industries that are most successful in the consumer space, or even any space you look at, like financial services. You look at food, they have institutionalized standards and institutionalized the control of the narrative. And they say, okay, we're a. We're a caucus within this industry, and we're going to fund the F D A.
We're the meat industry. For example, we're gonna fund the F FDA and we're gonna support legislation and have a strong lobby for this particular, this particular
**Senator:** agenda. But in the cigar industry, which is more broadly the tobacco industry, like where they have been clever, um, is they have said like, we are willing to actually increase the smoking age from 18 to 21 voluntarily to really demonstrate like when we say this is not meant for kids, even though an 18 year old is an adult.
We're fine saying 21, like whatever it takes to make clear [01:06:00] that this is not at all designed for anyone but grown adults they're willing to do. And like those are efforts that have been met in good faith by legislators and seeing like, okay, they're really serious when they say this. Like they don't even wanna market to an 18 year old, let alone a 14 year old.
But
**Grinder:** how does a popcorn chicken, the chicken bucket get by? Get through the seams.
**Gizmo:** But there is, there is because, because Bravada Cigar Club is outside of that, that group, which you know, is including Rocky Patel, Padron Davidoff, uh, Fuente, because it's a club, it's a, it's, it's a, it's a club of these, these high level premium hand rolled cigar manufacturers that are lobbying or working to defeat these legislative efforts alongside P C A and some of these other things.
And then you have an outlier releasing Cookie Monster Cigars and Elmo Cigars and cigars coming in chicken buckets. And to me it's. It's destructive. Oh, absolutely. That's the point. Absolutely. You know, I, I understand the marketing argument, but ultimately, [01:07:00] you know, the short-term gain of, of, of selling some more cigars than a chicken bucket bucket is, is, is outweighed by the long-term threat.
The long-term threat of someone walking into Congress during a hearing and putting a chicken bucket down and saying, cigars were sold in this. Right. That's a problem too, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And I don't subscribe to that and, and it, it frustrates me when I see it online, people celebrating this and putting the hashtags up.
It, it really frustrates me the way that this club focuses itself on packaging and trying to be, um, left of center. As opposed to celebrating what this hobby's really about, which is exactly what we're doing now.
**Poobah:** Hmm. Yeah. I mean,
**Senator:** um, and, and the Fuente, the Carlito Fuentes of the world and others like vehemently oppose stuff like this of, of course they do post stuff on social media saying this is the antithesis of what this industry is about and what we should be doing.
Mm-hmm. And, um, I mean, to grinder's point, it's [01:08:00] like, you know, if the industry doesn't collectively self-regulate, self-regulate, like that's when they're gonna have real problems.
**Gizmo:** This outlier is doing things outside the guidelines. The, I mean, listen, the Fuentes, the Patron drones, the Rocky Patels, the DAOs, they are trying to align themselves together.
They meet all the time, right? To set up packaging standards, manufacturing standards, quality of life for the people who are actually making the cigars. Uh, econ, you know, economic, uh, um, uh, environmental. They're, they're really trying to set standards and then you have people putting cigars out in chicken buckets.
Chicken buckets, yeah. And that's where it's like, that's a problem because I guess they can get away with it. That's the point. Cause it's a club. Yeah, exactly. But I think that, and then get away
**Senator:** with it in the short term. But the problem becomes, like all it would take is some member of Congress' who wants to regulate the hell out of this industry and literally wipe it out, is to hold up a nice little poster board of el scars and chicken buckets, Elmo and all other chicken.
Some kinda hearing or some, yeah. If you're sitting here testifying saying that they don't, you don't [01:09:00] market to children. Do you think that children are interested in fried chicken and Oreos and Cookie? Like Of course they are. Of course they are. Why would you mark it this way? That's a problem,
**Gizmo:** right? It's ridiculous.
Yeah, yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. Not great. So don't
**Gizmo:** buy a cigars in a chicken bucket. Please don't. No, no, no. Please don't. We are ly against that. Yeah. It, I mean
**Grinder:** it's How good are those cigars?
**Gizmo:** But that's the point. They're factory seconds. That's the point. It's focus on, you know, machine made focus on the quality Beka rappers.
No,
**Bam Bam:** I doubt it. Unused food. Oh no. They're made in Patterson, New Jersey.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. So we're coming into the last third here of the Ellucian. Holy lance. Mm-hmm. I've really enjoyed this cigar so far. Yeah. I,
**Grinder:** I, uh,
**Bam Bam:** it's surpri I'm surprised actually how good it
**Grinder:** is. I, I think, uh, for me, I. It came off as a little strong and I kind of lost a little bit of interest in it.
Hmm. Um, and the flavors were great, but it just, it's a little [01:10:00] too much for me right now. Yeah. It's,
**Gizmo:** it's a bit,
**Rooster:** it's a bit one-dimensional too.
**Gizmo:** That's, it hasn't evolved. Hasnt definitely, hasn't changed much.
**Bam Bam:** It's consistent
**Grinder:** and there's a merit to that.
**Senator:** Yeah. There's always Amer to con for me, sorry. I shouldn't say For me, I love a cigar that's consistent.
Of course. Even if all the way through I'm, and if I like the flavor notes, I'm all in. Yeah. But the problem for me is like, it, it's not complex at all. And so this like very. Monotone kind of OneNote flavor is all I'm getting all the way through. Um, and I've actually started to get some tars I've gotten down to this.
That's why I've put this down for a bit. Are you serious? Really? Yeah. Yeah.
**Grinder:** I'm
**Bam Bam:** serious. Honestly, I haven't had any of that. You know, I get dessert on the finish and I, I'm retro hailing this at every draw.
**Grinder:** Really? Yeah. I retro hale and I got crushed. No, every
**Bam Bam:** draw for me, it's fine. Um, I'm surprised actually how smooth it's performing for a full flavored cigar with a dessert note on a finish.
That's unusual.
**Senator:** And even what I'm saying, I want to be clear, I actually enjoyed a [01:11:00] good portion of this cigar. Sure. And I will probably still give this a, a good rating. Yeah. It's just the things that will knock some points off for me are what
**Bam Bam:** I'm describing. There are guys and gals that would go for something like this out there.
Yeah, yeah,
**Gizmo:** yeah. I was gonna, there's the target customer. Absolutely. Pagoda. What are you thinking of it?
**Pagoda:** I've been enjoying it, but you know, it's, uh, I don't know whether this is a cigar. I'll go and purchase, uh, I'd rather just have a legal nine. Mm-hmm. Uh, but yeah, I meaning overall, no real complaints. Yeah.
It's like an easy smoke. Um, and I leave it at
**Gizmo:** that. To me, where this would slot in is where I would put Ani or if I had a little more time a Diplomatico or a Padron 90th, or even the Davidoff Millennium Land Zero. We did, you know, this is slotting in at places where it's not gonna, it's not gonna work its way in No.
Anywhere. It's true. But
**Bam Bam:** it's not offensive. It's not offensive. I can't
**Grinder:** say it's offensive. I can't say I'd ever get the cigar again. Yeah. I'll be honest. [01:12:00] Just because of my, the, the way I smoke my cigars and the, the flavor profiles, it started off with a lot of good, you know, nose Well, you're, you're a light bodied guy.
Yeah. So it just, it just wasn't, it just wasn't fitting it, it is not fitting my, my preference Rooster, what do you think?
**Rooster:** Yeah, I mean, it's, it, it did start off pretty good. Mm-hmm. I'm not enjoying the last, uh,
**Gizmo:** the second half of the cigar. What about it? I'm not bothering either.
**Poobah:** I think it's,
**Rooster:** it has kind of built up on strength and like Senator said
**Gizmo:** about the, about the tar.
I mean, I'm
**Rooster:** getting, I'm getting more of that nicotine like right now that I wasn't
**Gizmo:** quite getting before. Do you think that's a construction issue? I
**Senator:** don't, I don't, I mean, for me, I do like when I get tar, like when I say tart, literally if I were to touch my finger as I did and I had to wipe it, like literally there's tar on the end of the cigar.
Yeah. That obviously means like the construction. Was too tight somewhere along the way. And, and that's what's causing, were pulling that. Yeah. Well what about the ni
**Grinder:** I don't think the [01:13:00] nicotine is of
**Senator:** is didn't get correlated. Didn't I Getting any aggressive
**Grinder:** nicotine? I got it. I got a, I got ni I'll be honest, I got nicotine in the beginning.
Did you? Wow. Yeah. I got, I felt a little lightheaded for sensitive. Sensitive
**Bam Bam:** p
**Grinder:** maybe,
**Senator:** well, maybe, I don't know that,
**Grinder:** uh, or refined. I don't know. Ooh, no. Ooh, okay. But, but for, I, I, I think I was turned off a little bit by that and then the monolithic nature of it. Cuz, cuz I didn't, I didn't, it didn't, didn't change.
Uh, and then by the time you guys are probably experienced, the second half that is less desirous. I was probably kind of puckering out.
**Gizmo:** So I wanted to share one more thing before we do the ratings. Another revelation for me, when I smoked cigars, I think I texted you guys about this for some reason in the last two weeks, I have discovered the John Wick movies.
Oh yes you have. With Keanu Re Reeves. Sure. I have yet to see them. Lemme tell you something. I'm on, I'm on the third now. I've seen one in [01:14:00] two and I'm in the third. These movies are so good. Like, are they so
**Bam Bam:** bad that they're good?
**Gizmo:** No, no, no. They are. It's, it's just, it's, it's, it's mindless entertainment, but it's not like bad mindless, it's almost like the Jason Bourne movies or something where I, I have really been enjoying these
**Poobah:** films.
The goat is
**Bam Bam:** teeing up. Go ahead, hold off action. No pub is
**Poobah:** teeing up. Go ahead. I mean, I love the John Wick.
**Gizmo:** They're so good. They're so well done. I, I watched Kean Reeves. Yeah.
**Poobah:** I, they're, they're super entertaining. If, if you, if you like action movies, um, it's full of action. If you like action movies, they're great.
Um, and there's a great, um, kind of like through line to, um, You know, to the series. Um, there's not a ton of dialogue, but they have a, but the story, um, they somehow are able to pull off, [01:15:00] um, a narrative, like a through line Yes. That, that, that, that, that keeps, that keeps the audience engaged. Um, like there's a plot, you know, that that's, that's pretty cool.
And
**Gizmo:** I like the mysterious underworld thing, kind of like this cigar. Yeah. Like, it's all about the secrets and, uh, these, these, I like it codes and all these things. It's like, it's really, it very much aligns with this Ellucian brand, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I'm gonna tie it in
**Poobah:** baby. Yeah. It's very, very, it's, it's super cool.
And, and, and, and it's, that's why it's so successful. Um, I, I, I, I think I mentioned this in the text, like Kiana Reeves, I mean, what he does in these movies physically is pretty amazing. Does he do an
**Bam Bam:** o his own
**Poobah:** stunts? Yeah, he does. He does. Oh, wow. Yeah, he does all his own stunts and he, um, whether it's your bag or not, or whether it's your thing or not, he also does, I mean the, the marksmanship, how he handles firearms, the martial arts, it's, [01:16:00] he does it all.
It's really good. It's pretty, it's pretty impressive. I mean, I think I sent in the group. Chat. I didn't get very many likes, but whatever. Uh, I think I sent in the group checks him and who's, who's
**Gizmo:** counting him? Memo. I dunno.
**Poobah:** That's a memo by the way. Him, him and him and Halle Barry going through, oh boy.
Going through, well, going through like a clo a, a QC B uh, course, a closed quarter combat course with shooting steel with like nine millimeter and, and shooting like 2 26 and, and or 2 23 and 5 56, like shooting and shooting shotgun slugs. I don't know what language you're, I dunno, dunno what you're talking about.
They're shooting. All I heard was Hall
**Bam Bam:** Berry.
**Poobah:** Well, yeah, they're, shoot, they're, both of them are, that's all I heard threw on a timer. Basically. She like going through in, in, in and, and, and running through these tactical drills and you can see how, you know, how skillful they are with, you know, Reloading sh [01:17:00] getting, getting shots on target.
Like it's a lot of work. Like, they're like, yeah, it's a lot of work to do what they're doing. And it's kind of interesting. I mean, if that's your thing, they're, they're paid
**Senator:** well for it, I
**Gizmo:** would hope. It's a lot of work. The films are really, really good. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And they're really well done. And when I'm sitting there with a cigar and a scotch and I just want something mindless on the TV that's entertaining, I don't have to sit there and think about it and analyze.
He made
**Bam Bam:** a movie called Constantine that I kind of like. Yes. That's a good movie. I, I kind of like that movie. I
**Grinder:** love that movie. Yeah. I have like, it, it's, it's, it's really Rachel Weiss
**Bam Bam:** is in it so that that matters.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Wait, there's
**Rooster:** a new John Wick in
**Gizmo:** the movie theater. Yeah. John Wick four in the movie theater.
And another good movie that's in theater famous right now, it's called A Covenant. Very good. Okay. I, I
**Grinder:** have great movie, an Odd Crush on
**Bam Bam:** Rachel w Oh, so the dude, I'm right there with you who, I don't know. Rachel
**Poobah:** Weis is better. I don't know who she is. You don't know who she's
**Gizmo:** she's, you would
**Grinder:** know who she is.
She's not like hot, hot. [01:18:00]
**Bam Bam:** She's my, she's my cup of tea. Senator
**Gizmo:** Rosa on it. Senator's Googling furiously. I don't know. His fingers are going. I think he's on YouTube. You know who Rachel Weiss is married to, by the way? Yeah. James. James Bond. James Bond. Daniel Craig Jam Bond. Oh yeah. Who's a Tweeted, in my opinion, he's collop,
**Grinder:** but that's okay.
He's a tweed. He's a fucking stud. Yeah. Alright, Senator. You know that's an awful photograph. That's a terrible photo. Come on. This is the first one that came out. It's a Wikipedia. No Good. No good. Well, you know what?
**Gizmo:** She's great. Uh, and the movies, listen, the movies are great. Can we go back
**Grinder:** to Hell? I love, I love, I love all the, everything about like the bi, the biblical allegories and everything about it.
Mm-hmm. So it's
**Poobah:** so awesome. The dogs in the movie.
**Gizmo:** I know the dogs, the dogs. Dogs are, I have a soft spot in my heart for dogs, as you know, and a lot of the, uh, a lot of the pot is, is based around his, his dogs. And I have a soft spot in my heart for that. I could, I could see you do the same. Yeah, absolutely.
All right, boys. Um, we've had a great pairing tonight, I think. Yes. Are you guys ready to do the [01:19:00] formal liquor rating on the lable in 16? Sure. Mm-hmm. All right. Bam.
**Bam Bam:** Bam, you're up. I'm gonna go with an eight on this rich, full-bodied spirit. Delicious. Now I had it neat. Again, the first sip was brutal. Four. It was, I admit that, but four or five, six sips in and it grew on me.
Then I put the ice in and it became creamy and sweet. Very nice. Eight.
**Gizmo:** Okay. Grindr?
**Grinder:** Uh, this is a scotch that is near and dear to my heart. It's my favorite scotch with Macallan. Um, I have a long history of drinking Laga Olin. It's the scotch next to Mac 12, um, maybe next to Mac 18. Uh, cuz I love Mac 18 a lot too.
Mm-hmm. Um, and everything about this scotch profile is what? Made me love this spirit and learning about it, enjoying it, how I got into it. This is a 10 for me guys. Wow.
**Gizmo:** Right. Wow. Wow. [01:20:00] Is this more of a winter scotch for you? I would say for me, I
**Bam Bam:** would say so
**Grinder:** these days, yeah. It's also as special occasion scotch.
I don't drink as much scotch as I used to, so, um, when I do, I'm very particular and selective of it, and I invariably fall to what I know and what I, what's tried and true. So it, it's becoming more traditional and less experimental. So for me it's in any time, but it primarily now for my what I'm just, what I'm drinking.
I'm drinking Miller Light right now. Uh, so, uh, it's, it's, it's an, it's a special occasion. Scotch.
**Gizmo:** Okay. Pagoda. It's
**Pagoda:** an eight for me. Um, I like it. Um, really enjoyed with the chip. I used to be very honest. Um, when I have a need, I think, uh, the initial flavoring, you know, it, it, it's, it's an experience If, uh, yeah.
It's acquired, say
**Bam Bam:** the least, it's an acquired taste.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. Um, but, um, you know, I do enjoy it. If it's available, I'll have it. It's not something that I'll go and, [01:21:00] um, purchase, but I always have one or two. Uh, in my liquor cabinet. It's an eight for me. Okay.
**Gizmo:** Senator.
**Senator:** It's a nine for me. Ooh. Um. Look at you. I can't, since I've been drinking scotch, there's not been a day that it hasn't been part of my bar.
Wow. Um, I think libel in 16 for a pd scotch is as good as it gets. It's the best. It's the best. When I pursue that flavor profile, that's what I always reach for and I probably always will. So for me, it's an easy
**Gizmo:** nine. Hmm. I'm right there with you, Senator. It's a nine for me. And the reason why is not only for the experience tonight and the experience I've had over the last two years, drinking more PD scotches if it's Taki, you know, whatever it might be.
Uh, but the thing that Senator said tonight is the key thing for me is when I can't have a cigar and I want something a little smoky, I'm always reaching in my cabinet for laville and 16. Always. Well, this'll do it. Yeah. It's [01:22:00] fantastic. When you can't have a cigar, it gives you exactly what you want. So for me, it's a nine.
Interesting Puba.
**Poobah:** Yeah, I agree with all that commentary. It's a nine for me. Hmm. Okay.
**Gizmo:** So the formal Liquor rating boys is an 8.8. Okay. I nailed it. Yeah, I think that's a perfect score.
**Bam Bam:** That's a
**Gizmo:** very nice score. Perfect score for this. Oh yeah. I think it should be in, in the nines. But who am I to say? Hmm.
**Senator:** I mean, I guess where that does, I, I question the
**Grinder:** aids in the, in the room, but, you know,
**Senator:** well, no, I think, I think in fairness, like that rating makes a lot of sense to me because this is a somewhat polarizing
**Grinder:** It is, guy.
You're right, you're
**Senator:** right. Like I said, it's, it is not for everyone if we're being honest. Like you have to enjoy some Pete. It's an acquired taste. It's acquired.
**Grinder:** Sure. And, and I think it's important to note what all of us have probably addressed in this conversation. When I drink this scotch, I, I always have ice.
When I drink most scotch, I always have ice. And it really changes. Like this is one of those quintessentials, it really changes the [01:23:00] character, the flavor, the, the entire experience of the scotch when you add a little ice to it. Um, or just a little, it doesn't need to be ice water. Like it just opens it up, releases a dragon, you know, the whole, the traditional know allegories for that.
Hmm. But I, I think with the amount of peat in this scotch, you gotta, you gotta kind of level it out and that it just opens up the caramel, it opens up the vanilla. Yeah, it gets sweeter. Yeah. Yeah. And cream and then, and then, and it helps balance out the finish, which can be a little strong. I, you know, I think it's, that's the way to drink it.
**Gizmo:** Awesome. All right. So it's time to rate the Ellucian. Holy lance in Maduro Rooster. You're up. Yeah. I'll keep it simple. Seven. Okay.
**Poobah:** Puba. It was a five for me. Oh five.
**Gizmo:** It was a seven for me for sure. Senator? Same
**Senator:** exact camp. A seven. Um, [01:24:00] there are elements of this cigar and its flavor profile that I like. The first half was actually very good.
Um, the second half was mediocre. This is the perfect example of a cigar that I guess I'm somewhat glad I've tried in that if I was in a cigar shop and I had to buy a cigar and there wasn't much that I enjoyed, that I would traditionally pick up, sure I could, you know, smoke most of this and, and have a fine experience.
Uh, but would I pursue a box of this or would this ever crack my rotation? It would not
**Gizmo:** pagoda. Uh,
**Pagoda:** you know, I've been debating between a seven or an eight. Uh, yeah, you're smoking it down too. I am smoking it down. Um, as am I, the times I feel like it's an eight, the times I felt it's like a seven. But, um, you know, ill rate it as Nate, um, because I could have it.
I enjoyed it. Um, yeah, it's an Nate
**Gizmo:** for me. Okay.
**Grinder:** Grinder. I don't [01:25:00] think there's any qualities of the cigar that make me, would ever come back to it. Um, the first inch was, was nice. And then I just, I just, it just felt flat for me. It's a six.
**Gizmo:** Okay. Bam. Bam.
**Bam Bam:** I'm gonna give it an eight. Um, you know, I, I can't go as low as a five or a six.
I think there are some merits to this cigar. I think there are a lot of people that pursue a full bodied cigar and I think the SL wood slot in great for them and just with perfect honesty, it's a pretty well made cigar. I haven't had any problems with it. No tar. I'm taking it down to a half inch. It's an name for me.
Okay. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** so the former lizard rating boys on the Ellucian Holy Lan, and Maduro is a 6.9. So, you know, I think given our experience, given the fact that I don't think any of us are gonna go and search this out. No. Having said that is not a bad cigar. That's true. I think the 6.9 is, is actually [01:26:00] kind of right.
It's important
**Bam Bam:** to say that because there are people that want this type of
**Gizmo:** profile. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a
**Grinder:** bad, but you can get this profile in a lot better flavor. Yeah. So many, yeah, true cigars. I'll be honest, dude, it's, it's really interesting
**Pagoda:** because
**Gizmo:** I was
**Poobah:** thinking about, especially at the price point, I mean, I, 15 bucks.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, $15, I mean,
**Grinder:** and they make so many, much better cigars. I don't know.
**Gizmo:** And we
**Rooster:** have also had
**Pagoda:** some better lands. Oh yeah, absolutely. But I do think that, uh, you know, the SCO actually enhanced the flavor of the cigar. Probably. Did. You know,
**Grinder:** the pairing was, that's why the seven
**Pagoda:** and eight for me, and I agree with you, pa,
**Bam Bam:** debating the
**Grinder:** pagoda.
I'm right. I'm right there with you. The fact that it was a between a seven and an eight for pagoda and not an eight or a nine. Yeah. I think, I think says
**Gizmo:** a lot. Yeah, it says a lot. Yeah. All right, boys. A great night tonight. An 8.8 for the Laville in 16 year and a 6.9 for the Ellucian. Holy Lance. Ur. And we solved our raccoon problems.
We did. Now lemme ask you this before we [01:27:00] clo for now, before we close this out. If this cigar came in a fried chicken bucket, oh fuck that. Would you have given it a better rating? No.
**Bam Bam:** Oh boy.
**Poobah:** It would've been in a, a trash, I think. I think that it, well, based on my rating, it probably deserves a place in a fried chicken.
**Gizmo:** Uh, that's
**Grinder:** true.
**Poobah:** That's true. I wasn't far behind. Alright, wait, listen. You know, look, I didn't, I, I didn't hate it. It just, it doesn't, it doesn't deserve anything more than the
**Grinder:** 50, I think. I think one of the things that was telling to me was the fact that it was just another. Unthoughtful, like, Hey, I have these boxes that I need to fill with, you know, some landeros.
Let me just make this Maduro in, in a candela to round out the portfolio. It, it was an afterthought, you know, it was just kind of mocked up together. Like, Hey, I gotta put this together for some production so I don't lose some, some revenue, and I could, I don't lose the, the sun cost, you know? Okay. Maybe sometimes you cur create magic outta [01:28:00] that, and a lot of times you create shit.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** And a 6.9 is kind of right in the middle of that, boys. All right, we'll see you 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, 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.