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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast presented by Fabrica five. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars as well as whiskey travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight, I'm joined by Rooster, Senator, chef Ricky, and Bam Bam.
Gizmo:And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some whiskey, talk about life, and, of course, have some laughs. So take this as your two hundred and twenty second official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard glad to meet us here once a week. We're gonna smoke a Honduran cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you a formal lizard rating. We discuss recommended celebratory cigars. We answer a listener email on the best credit cards for rewards, and we share a voice memo unlike any other we've heard before, all among a variety of other things for the next two hours.
Gizmo:So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, enjoy as we pair Joseph Magnus trade bourbon whiskey with the CAO Brasilia in box press. A Robusto extra on the pod tonight, boys, coming out of Honduras. It's the CAO Brasilia in box press, and it's a 54 ring gauge cigar by five and one quarter inches long. And, boys, there's no Honduran tobacco in this cigar, but it was made in Honduras.
Bam Bam:It was rolled there.
Gizmo:So I'm hoping for good things tonight. Nicaraguan? Mostly Nicaraguan Brazilian wrapper,
Bam Bam:of course.
Rooster:I would say it look it looks like a Nicaraguan cigar. It doesn't look like a Honduran cigar.
Bam Bam:You have a keen eye, old boy.
Gizmo:I have not smoked a CAO since we reviewed the b x three, I don't know, a hundred and some odd weeks ago, couple years.
Bam Bam:That was a very good cigar.
Gizmo:It was okay. We we rated it, I think it was in the eights. That's not that crazy,
Bam Bam:but It's nice score.
Senator:Yeah. It was more than okay. I remember you talking about buying a box.
Gizmo:Yeah. I didn't buy a box, actually.
Senator:You said you were going
Gizmo:to.
Bam Bam:I did not. I enjoyed that cigar.
Rooster:We say a lot of things.
Senator:That's true. Rooster, actually, I think was the other one that was gonna buy a box.
Bam Bam:Oh, it's
Gizmo:polar clips.
Rooster:I say a lot of things.
Gizmo:Correct.
Bam Bam:Yeah. You do blow a lot of smoke.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. Let's cut this thing.
Rooster:I have good smoke Put
Gizmo:see what we're getting on the cold draw and the wrapper.
Bam Bam:Very nice cold draw.
Gizmo:Mine is very earthy, the cold draw.
Bam Bam:Oh, I'm getting cocoa. Little grassy. None of that for me.
Chef Ricky:I've got some light barnyard on the nose, on the aroma here. No cold draw yet.
Bam Bam:I'm getting grass. I'm getting a little barnyard, which I like, and cocoa. Get
Senator:barnyard, there's an earthiness like Giz is describing, a little cocoa, and there's a little saltiness. It's like salted chocolate.
Bam Bam:Yeah. And dare I say berry again. That's of a theme for me.
Senator:Yeah, actually that's true.
Chef Ricky:Salted chocolate and berry are perfect, guys.
Rooster:And it's very open. Nice. It
Senator:The only thing I have to say, this is absurd. The fact that there is a secondary ban on this cigar
Bam Bam:Makes
Gizmo:no
Senator:literally says box press as if we all couldn't tell that the cigar is box press. Can you imagine every Padron having a secondary ban that said box press?
Gizmo:Here's the wild thing about this, senator. The vitola is box press. All of the others have different vitola names with different vitola bands. So technically, this is not referencing the shape. This is referencing the vitola in the line.
Gizmo:Is the box press.
Senator:None of the other Brasilias have a secondary band, I'm pretty sure. Right?
Bam Bam:It's a good thing I can't read that.
Gizmo:These do.
Senator:No. These. I'm saying none of the others.
Gizmo:Yeah. I don't I don't think the b x three does. I think it has a really flashy No.
Senator:I mean, the Brasilia line. I'm not sure. Because the other ones, they're all around. This is very odd. Most people I I've honestly I didn't even know they made this in a box press.
Bam Bam:Let's let's see.
Senator:If you've ever seen it in a shop, it's usually the rounded ones that they sell.
Chef Ricky:Dude, know ST DuPont's been getting a lot of shit lately. That cutter is amazing.
Bam Bam:Yeah. That's a great cutter. It's a great cutter.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. I know the lighters have been getting a lot of shit lately, but the cutter is fantastic.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. Let's light this thing. The CAO Brasilia in box press. Again, it's a 54 ring gauge cigar by five and one quarter inches long. Do we know how much the cigar is?
Gizmo:$9.
Bam Bam:Oh, that's a bargain.
Gizmo:I think around holiday time with coupon codes, etcetera, hint, hint.
Bam Bam:Okay.
Gizmo:You can find them
Bam Bam:$9.
Senator:Relatively reasonably. For BAM, it's $90.
Gizmo:Correct.
Senator:Okay. Well, that's what you're gonna resell them for.
Bam Bam:Oh, correct. It's called upcharge.
Gizmo:How much people forget about that?
Senator:He's like, okay.
Gizmo:This is taking a while for me to light. Let's see how we do here.
Chef Ricky:It's a rather wide box press. It's not as square as a Padron.
Bam Bam:This is pretty nice self delight.
Gizmo:Pretty good.
Bam Bam:Nice start. Very cocoa y for me.
Gizmo:To me, as Rooster was saying, from the look of it, from the flavor of it, it just tastes like very much Nicaraguan to me.
Bam Bam:It's very smooth and creamy right now. No rough edges at all. I haven't retro ed yet.
Chef Ricky:Retro is very light. Not much spice on here. I thought there was going to be some spice. I'm not getting any.
Rooster:Pretty smooth. Yeah, very pleasant. You want to rate it?
Chef Ricky:You
Bam Bam:in a hurry?
Chef Ricky:A lot of great dark cocoa here. It's great.
Rooster:I must say it creamy and cocoa. Those are the two notes that are coming through. And
Bam Bam:on a finish, earthy. A little minerality, just a touch, Which I kind of like because it's not overbearing.
Rooster:The smoke output is through the roof.
Bam Bam:Oh, Look at it.
Gizmo:I love that saltiness on the front of your tongue.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. I'm like that feels a little Cuban to me, right? It's a little salty. Well,
Gizmo:it's wangy to me. It's it's I don't I I almost wanna say it's it's more like salt on a it's like table salt to me more than anything. Morton's? Yeah. It's a little Morton's.
Gizmo:Alright.
Senator:I was getting sea salt.
Gizmo:But Sea salt. That's perfect. That's what I'm thinking.
Chef Ricky:Morton's isn't table salt, and it doesn't taste like fucking table salt. So I don't know what the hell you guys are talking about.
Bam Bam:It's funnier, though. K? It's called material.
Rooster:There's only one chef in the room.
Gizmo:Jeez. He makes bolognese.
Rooster:Oh, wow. Make make that two chefs.
Bam Bam:I've been I've been shamed out of making that dish
Chef Ricky:forever. That's unfortunate.
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Senator:Don't say that. They made an Apple commercial of
Bam Bam:you making that.
Chef Ricky:It's going to take on oxtails next.
Bam Bam:That's not happening.
Gizmo:I got to say, man, this is off to a great start.
Rooster:Delicious. You hold that cigar in your hand. There's like smoke coming out of the foot, out of the head. It's just
Bam Bam:I think it's coming
Gizmo:out of the band in
Rooster:the middle. It's like a freaking chimney.
Bam Bam:It's crazy. It's actually very unusual. They're all just burning.
Rooster:It's like an incense.
Senator:Yeah. I mean, I'm glad to see this just because this is a super popular cigar. It is. Yeah. Again, not necessarily in this box press.
Senator:I've never seen this. But if you go to any cigar shop, you always see a CAO Brasilia. You inevitably see someone smoking it. I mean, I remember here, lizard fortune would always smoke this cigar early on, and I didn't know what to make of it. I mean, I know it's a popular stick.
Senator:I had one very early in my smoking journey. I don't really remember it. But like you're saying, this is very good on the light.
Bam Bam:You know, the last CAO was the one we rated however long ago, and I haven't had one since. I think it's kind of a shame because this is actually pretty good.
Rooster:Weren't you going to buy a box?
Bam Bam:We all said that. I remember saying that. It just didn't happen.
Senator:The thing that's wild to me is clearly, the Brazilian wrappers that they use on their cigars work well. The fact that so far we're enjoying the flavor we're getting out of this, we like that BX3. I don't know of any other brand though that uses a Brazilian wrapper. I'm surprised given how
Bam Bam:good our
Gizmo:experience is. Pioneered it with this. Yeah. I mean, this was released originally. This line was originally released in 2001.
Bam Bam:Yeah. How's that?
Gizmo:Like, that's a long time ago. Yeah. I mean, effectively, it's the twenty fifth anniversary of this line this year. Unbelievable. And it took five years to find the Brazilian wrapper that ended up coming into this cigar.
Gizmo:So this cigar actually was started being developed thirty years ago.
Bam Bam:Yeah. You know? And because it's priced so well, these have to be flying off the shelves.
Gizmo:Yeah? And for a for a line to sustain for that long, think about how many times, even just in the few years we've been doing this podcast, stuff has been canceled. Like, you know, Warp just canceled the Maestro del Tiempo that we left. They just canceled that one. They're always canceling stuff, adding new stuff.
Gizmo:The fact that this has been a core line for CAO, even through the transaction with General, with STG, I mean, it's sustained for that long. That's pretty impressive, And they're still keeping it under $10. It's amazing.
Senator:This thing really is a the smoke. It's crazy. I'm watching it just like run up the cigar through my fingers. You
Bam Bam:don't even have to smoke it.
Gizmo:I mean, look at this thing. This is what they would use, like, in a in a commercial, like, to show off, like, what a cigar smoke is. Look at that.
Bam Bam:That's crazy.
Rooster:I gave it a 10 on smoke.
Gizmo:Smoke output is definitely a 10.
Bam Bam:The room's already full.
Rooster:Good thing because there's no heat in this room tonight.
Gizmo:Correct. Heat's broken. We're freezing in here, people. Thanks we do for the pod. So, boys, like I said, the binder and filler in Nicaraguan, the wrapper is Brazilian.
Gizmo:Let's go through some of the other Vitolas in the line. Most of them were released in 2001. There have been some additional ones since then. This was actually a secondary release. This was actually requested by Cigars International to make this specific Vitola, this box press, I guess, Robusto Extra.
Gizmo:They really like the size, they asked to have it added to the line. So let's go through them. The Samba 54 ring gauge cigar by six and a quarter. The Amazon is a Gordo, 60 by six. The Lambada is a 50 by six.
Gizmo:The box press we have in our hand, 54 by five and a quarter. The GOL, g o l, with an exclamation point, 56 ring gauge cigar by five. The Corcovado, 60 ring gauge by four and a quarter. And then they have the minis, which is a 20 ring gauge cigar by three and a half inches long. 20?
Gizmo:20 ring.
Rooster:It's a cigarillo.
Chef Ricky:It's a cigarillo. Pretty much.
Bam Bam:It's a good car smoke.
Gizmo:The brand was founded in 1968 by Kano Aret Now you might remember
Bam Bam:Yes.
Gizmo:The Osgener name because we just did the Caratoba Mhmm. A few weeks ago. So c a o stands for, of course, the initials of Kano Aret Osgener, and this is one of General Cigars, STG's premier selling lines, I'd imagine. I mean, it's gotta be of from a volume standpoint, I mean And from the price point? They've gotta be moving a lot of these cigars.
Bam Bam:Big time. This is excellent.
Chef Ricky:I feel like I need fog lights to see you guys. Mhmm.
Senator:I'm sorry. Like, it's gonna be really hard for me to pay attention tonight. I'm just mesmerized by the smoke that just billows out of this thing constantly.
Bam Bam:That's cool.
Senator:It's awesome.
Bam Bam:Has anyone retroed?
Chef Ricky:Mhmm.
Bam Bam:It is super, super creamy and with a very faint touch of white pepper at the end for me.
Chef Ricky:Mhmm.
Senator:I only retroed on the cold draw. You I
Bam Bam:don't understand the physics of that.
Gizmo:Honestly, I think the retro is even better than the the regular draw. Yeah. There's an additional layer of
Bam Bam:It's almost like a nutty
Chef Ricky:nuttiness. Nuttiness.
Gizmo:It's a nuttiness.
Bam Bam:Macadamia, dude.
Gizmo:Mhmm.
Bam Bam:That's what I'm getting on the retro.
Senator:I get that on the palate, honestly.
Bam Bam:On the finish of the palate,
Senator:it's Dude.
Gizmo:It's pretty impressive.
Bam Bam:Yeah, why don't we have this in our rotation? Like anything from CAO, like the Brazilian wine. This is strange.
Senator:I mean, before lighting this, if we gave you a CAO No. You'd throw it in the
Gizmo:trash.
Senator:I wouldn't smoke it. Exactly.
Gizmo:Dude, we pour $200 spirits in your glass, and you start that it's turpentine.
Bam Bam:Well, Robitussin, but you're not wrong, senator. I mean, it's a problem being a cigar snob because you feel you're above certain brands. It's not-
Rooster:Just you.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, right.
Senator:Just me? Mr. Opus Dubai.
Bam Bam:Uh-huh. I bought one box of those.
Senator:Just a box.
Bam Bam:No. But honestly, like, we become conditioned to stay away from certain markets. It's not right.
Gizmo:But I also think I mean, listen. Obviously, we're only smoking this because of the podcast tonight. Right? Mhmm. That's the only reason.
Gizmo:This came out of I think, senator, you said, hey. We gotta try this because I don't know if it was because of lizard fortune or just
Senator:It was that. It was
Gizmo:in a list or something.
Senator:This is one of the most famous cigars of all time. It's ubiquitous. It's ubiquitous. Everywhere. Correct.
Senator:Everywhere.
Bam Bam:It's
Gizmo:true. I think the other thing too, for me, is not so much the snobbery, because even since the BX3, I haven't reached again for a CIO. But for me, it's where does it sit in a rotation?
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:And we'll get to that as we get through this cigar.
Bam Bam:We'll see
Gizmo:how it performs and I where it would
Bam Bam:do too, and I don't do this. He does more often, Senator. This is a great afternoon cigar, morning cigar.
Rooster:Yeah. Pretty it's pretty mild so far.
Bam Bam:I I I don't it's so smooth. I could see a post breakfast or post lunch cigar with this thing.
Senator:I think it's versatile. I don't disagree with that. I think you could have this in the morning. You can definitely have this in the afternoon. But to me, even early in an evening, like before an exclusive or something that is fuller, I could definitely start here.
Bam Bam:That's true. Very true. You know, if you bring a box of these into the club and start handing them out, I think you're gonna get one guy after another after another fall in love with the cigar, and it's such a great price.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. This price point especially.
Bam Bam:Well, not just yeah. That, but I think the flavor is incredible.
Gizmo:If this persists as it's performing now, I'm absolutely first off, I'm gonna be absolutely blown away. That's number one. And and totally taken aback coming in here tonight.
Bam Bam:Shocked.
Gizmo:Shocked. Because, honestly, I was texting with senator earlier today about something else and I you know, we were talking about schedule. And I was, you know, thinking about how this might break the streak of, like, us having really good cigars in the room because we've started the year really well. And that's not the case tonight So far.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:I'm pretty impressed.
Bam Bam:Very.
Rooster:I do hope it picks up in strength just a tad.
Senator:Maybe. At this
Rooster:point, it's a little too mild for what I look for in this.
Bam Bam:You're a bold boy.
Gizmo:For me, I wish there was just a little bit more smoke output.
Rooster:Jesus.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. Let's get into some news. Let me get into our cigar tonight. We're gonna start again with Davidoff. We talk a lot about Davidoff on this podcast.
Gizmo:I was actually emailing with the folks at Davidoff today. Davidoff has said that their ownership has transferred to the next generation. Now I'll I'll tell you why I find this story interesting. So Edinger Davidoff AG, the Swiss company that owns the Davidoff, AVO, Camacho, and Xeno brands rooster, has announced that shares in the company have been passed down to the Schneider family's next generation. Schneider?
Gizmo:Schneider. The privately held company announced that Lillian Schaffner Schneider and Christine Reiner Schneider, daughters of doctor Ernst Schneider
Bam Bam:Ernst Schneider.
Gizmo:Have transferred, quote, the entire share capital of the company to their direct descendants.
Bam Bam:Oh, boy.
Chef Ricky:Are they in the Epstein files?
Bam Bam:Come on, dude.
Gizmo:So what I love about this, you know, when you talk about other things that have gone on in the industry, a lot of transacting. We're talking about CAO having transacted several times to Swisher and Scandinavian tobacco. A lot of folks have been bought up by Swisher and other conglomerates. Even, you know, Davodoff has purchased AVO and, you know, other brands, Camacho, etcetera. What I like about this is that they didn't put this up for sale at private equity or something.
Gizmo:I like that it's staying in the family. Now we've been very critical of Davodoff on this podcast, especially over the last few months with the marketing stuff and
Bam Bam:And the mystery of it all.
Gizmo:And the mystery of it all and the lack of focus on tobacco. But I hope that
Senator:It's the year of the horse. It's not a good year to transact this. It's
Bam Bam:true. Big horoscope guy.
Gizmo:There it is.
Bam Bam:Little late old boy.
Gizmo:I had to page through a couple times.
Senator:Alright.
Gizmo:But I'm happy to see that it's staying in the family and it gives me hope that, you know, Davidoff will return to the glory that it once was as a major premier brand in the industry. At least in the stories they tell, they always had the best, you know, website and the details and the flavor notes and the first, second, third, great graphics, and the cigars were awesome. They were. It just seems
Bam Bam:Polished over.
Gizmo:Lost a
Bam Bam:little bit.
Gizmo:You know? So let's go to another one, boys. I don't like this one. This one is a political one. A new Tennessee bill would outlaw Internet and mail order cigar sales.
Gizmo:So a senator, Shane Reeves, and four cosponsors put this bill up in the Tennessee legislature to ban effectively being able to order cigars online or to get cigars shipped to your house.
Bam Bam:Shame on you, Senator Reeves.
Rooster:There's nothing better to do.
Bam Bam:It's awful. I mean, why? What's the point?
Gizmo:So I went to his website because I was interested in, you know, the core tenets of what he ran on
Bam Bam:of like 12 year olds ordering cigars online?
Gizmo:So I don't know what the reason for this is. I do have an idea, but I wanna read something from his website. So one of the core tenets of his campaign and his successful campaign, it says excessive regulations and mandates. As a small business owner, senator Shane Reeves understands firsthand how excessive regulations and mandates can hinder the growth of business and jobs in our community. Senator Reeves is committed to cutting through the red tape that stifles the growth and the potential of our Tennessee small businesses.
Gizmo:So how does that work? Putting that on your website and that be a core tenant of what you're doing and not allowing businesses inside Tennessee you can't even order something at a shop in Tennessee and go pick it up or have them bring it to your house. Like, you have to go to the brick and mortar according to this bill if it passes, and you have to walk in that store and purchase it there.
Senator:You know, you gotta add more red tape before you can cut the red tape.
Bam Bam:There you go.
Gizmo:Makes perfect sense. See, that's why his name is senator.
Bam Bam:It's called self fulfilling prophecy. Knows your own complications.
Gizmo:I'm wondering if this is Tennessee brick and mortar coming together and lobbying him, getting in in his ear and these other guys saying, hey, let's get let's actually improve the Tennessee brick and mortar business. Let's prevent the ordering from small batch. Let's present prevent the ordering from Atlantic and Best Cigars, Cigars International. Let's, you know, not allow them to bring their product in. That would be the only angle that I could see
Bam Bam:Makes sense.
Senator:Yeah. But that's stupid. Then what are gonna do that with everything? So you can't order a television online? You can only go to a Best Buy?
Senator:I mean, how stupid is this? We're gonna ban all oh, Amazon now in Tennessee. Not allowed. You gotta go to a brick and mortar to buy every single item you could possibly need.
Bam Bam:Also true.
Senator:It's absurd. I mean, honestly, if you're gonna do it with cigars Why not do it
Bam Bam:with alcohol?
Senator:Apply it to everything.
Bam Bam:Milk. Yeah. $22 a gallon.
Senator:Bam is ordering mail order milk. Correct. Well,
Gizmo:seriously, I mean
Rooster:From Tennessee.
Gizmo:What it says here is that a tobacco product for personal consumption must be purchased in person over the counter. This includes the sale of a tobacco product when the sale is conducted by telephone, any voice transmission, mail, the Internet, or an app. Also includes delivery of tobacco product by third parties of any means or retailers. So like that, Tennessee retailer can't even have a courier bring it to you, check your ID like some do, and and and deliver the cigars to your house.
Senator:There's no way this passes.
Bam Bam:Yeah. How would they police that?
Senator:Because it's a slippery slope. Like, my argument is exactly why there's no way a critical mass of legislators will get behind that. Because if that is gonna be the posture of Tennessee against in in one industry, then you have to apply it to everything else.
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah. And, you know, what if your shop doesn't have the cigars that you want? Which is more often the case. Right.
Gizmo:Or what if you live in I mean, Tennessee's a big state.
Bam Bam:That is a lot.
Gizmo:It's not all Nashville and
Bam Bam:I know.
Gizmo:You know, it's it's not all big cities. Like, there's a lot of rural areas of Tennessee. Probably. Yeah. It's like you're you're talking some there's some sticks in Tennessee for sure.
Bam Bam:It's a big state.
Gizmo:It might be like you have to get in your car and drive a half hour to go get that gallon of milk. Right? So there might not even be the availability of brick and mortar within a reasonable distance. Obviously, we're lucky people in Nashville or Franklin, etcetera.
Bam Bam:You drive an hour to your brick and mortar, and they don't have the cigar that you like.
Gizmo:Exactly. So you
Bam Bam:can't order it.
Gizmo:And you can't have him order it and send it to your house.
Senator:Correct.
Gizmo:You gotta pick it up there.
Bam Bam:So you're stuck smoking the crappy cigars that you don't wanna smoke.
Gizmo:Brilliant. Yep. Alright. Here's another one and this will start a theme that you'll you'll start to pick up on here tonight, boys. So this one is from Half Wheel.
Gizmo:It says a pair of women with experience in cigars, wine, and bourbon have come together to launch a new cigar company that they are calling Pangea Cigars. Ibis Luis and Anna Iupova have launched their new brand. Luis is best known for her Instagram account. She's an influencer, I guess, at cigar lover twelve, where she has a ton of followers. She has spent six years with Placencia cigars as a US rep and brand developer and has served as a consultant to other cigar companies on brand positioning, sales strategy, and market development.
Gizmo:The other woman involved, Ayupova owned and operated a high end cigar and wine club in California according to a press release. Now they're making their own cigars, enlisting the help of Indiana Ortiz of Casa de Ortiz for the brand's inaugural lines, which the company said reflect a shared commitment to tobacco integrity, thoughtful blending, and modern craftsmanship rooted in tradition.
Bam Bam:Casa de Ortiz. Sounds vaguely familiar.
Gizmo:And this one I found interesting as well. Both Luis and Ayopova, both women, are certified cigar sommeliers via Tobacconist University. So we did talk to Lisette Perez Carrillo about women in the industry and whatnot. So it is good to see a women owned brand coming up. And like I said, that's gonna start a theme for us tonight here on the podcast.
Gizmo:But first, boys, we're gonna go to our pairing. We have a listener sent bourbon, and I wanna read the note here from Lizard Kyle who says and by the way, he's an OG listener. Great dude. Gentlemen, I have had some tasty pairings with this Joseph Magnus bourbon. Giz, please check out Nancy Fraley.
Gizmo:She is the master blender on this. Woman master blender on this bourbon tonight. She also enjoys cigars and I feel would be a great guest for the pod. Rooster, the coffee I've included is for you, and I hope you enjoy. So Quills.
Gizmo:You're getting Quills Coffee Nidal, which is a Colombian and Ethiopian origin. The flavor notes are chocolate cake, caramel, and tobacco finish. Wow.
Bam Bam:Amazing. Perfect.
Gizmo:Dark roast. That is for you from Lizard Kyle.
Rooster:Thank you, Lizard Kyle. Nice.
Gizmo:So thank you to Lizard Kyle. So let's try the Joseph Magnus bourbon here tonight, boys.
Senator:Did you vet that and open it before you
Gizmo:I did. Very much so. Very much so.
Bam Bam:Could be something in there. Cheers.
Gizmo:Cheers. Good to see you, boys. Cheers. Back to bourbon tonight on the pod.
Chef Ricky:You know, it's so cold outside. It's very appropriate.
Bam Bam:Very nice. I like the touch of heat. I do like the finish. It's very long, but it is very, very cherry forward for me. A little too much It doesn't for my say fruit forward.
Bam Bam:Well, cherry in particular.
Chef Ricky:I think that what's up with the aging here? There's definitely
Gizmo:So this it's it's around a triple cask finishing process.
Chef Ricky:Bet your sherry's in there.
Gizmo:Olarozo sherry, Pedro, Jimenez sherry, and cognac casks. So it actually hit sherry twice. Sherry casks twice.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Do they discuss the notes?
Gizmo:Sam, on flavor notes, the aroma, citrus peel, dark dried fruit, plums, raisins, honey, and roasted nuts on the palate, vanilla, caramel, dark chocolate, brown sugar, and stone fruits often with hints of orchard fruits and spice.
Chef Ricky:Cherries are stone fruit.
Gizmo:Correct. Relax.
Bam Bam:They have to say that.
Gizmo:On the finishing, have
Bam Bam:say cherry.
Gizmo:I don't know if this is them saying this. I think this might be a reviewer. A lingering warmth with dry oak, leather, tobacco leaf, and nuanced sweet notes depending on the palate. Many reviewers note that the cherry and cognac finishes give it very fruit forward and sometimes ransial like. I don't know what that word means, chef.
Gizmo:Complexity not typical in standard bourbon.
Bam Bam:Can you say that word again?
Chef Ricky:Ransial. Ransial. As in rancid. Just there's a
Gizmo:a sanic There's a funk
Rooster:to it?
Chef Ricky:Tannic bitterness at the tail end. I think that's what Bang keeps referring to as like Robitussen. I
Bam Bam:enjoy the finish, as I noted. I do like that long finish, but upfront for me, it's extraordinarily cherry forward, which I don't like.
Chef Ricky:Yeah, I wouldn't pinpoint cherry per se, but I'm definitely getting plums and some cherry in there. I think the stone fruit thing is spot on.
Rooster:Is it too hot?
Bam Bam:No. No. No. Actually a perfect pairing for the cigar. Regarding the heat, it's perfect.
Bam Bam:I enjoy that.
Senator:I just think with this, your palate has to adjust because for me, the first two sips, you got a bit of heat. There was a bit of a medicinal quality like Bam's talking about, but for me, like the third, fourth sip, it's not as medicinal. Like, the flavor profile is rich. There's a nice viscosity to it. Yeah, that's true.
Senator:It's an interesting bourbon. I don't know, I'm still figuring out how I feel about it, but I don't hate it or anything like that. There's I think a lot actually good qualities about it.
Gizmo:I really like it right now. It's working really well for my palate. I think it's a perfect winter drink, really nice to sip, and I think it's pairing very well with the cigar.
Bam Bam:I'm not really liking it, but I'll give it a chance.
Rooster:Is it is it too much for the cigar, though?
Bam Bam:Can a
Rooster:bourbon be overpowering? No?
Gizmo:A bourbon can, I don't think this one is?
Senator:Yeah. I mean, the fact that all of us are drinking this neat and, like, not getting kicked
Bam Bam:around. It's actually good with this cigar. It's fine. I gotta get used to the flavor profile. Do we have an age statement?
Bam Bam:I'm sorry
Gizmo:if you did mention that. I don't think there's an age statement. No.
Bam Bam:And how much is that?
Gizmo:So it ranges between 90 and a 100 and 10.
Bam Bam:Hello.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. How's it taste no better?
Bam Bam:Oh. I can think of a long list of bourbons I'd rather go to than that. Although, they're kind of all similarly priced. Yeah. You know what?
Bam Bam:Sorry.
Senator:You said this is a 100 proof?
Gizmo:No. Yeah. 50%.
Bam Bam:Oh. Wow. Is it? It is. You would not know it.
Bam Bam:No. Doesn't drink that way.
Senator:If you told me this was 40, I would have believed you. Yeah.
Gizmo:Agree. I was surprised when I tasted it that it did not kick you in the face with heat.
Bam Bam:That's actually a pretty big merit.
Gizmo:Plus, we're drinking it neat like you said, Senator. Nobody has any ice or water
Bam Bam:in it. Right. I don't know. I kind of prefer bourbons that are kind of in that honey vanilla, other deeper fruits, like a currant type thing, not this one I'm getting here.
Rooster:But you also don't drink a lot of bourbons.
Bam Bam:I don't.
Senator:I don't. Yeah, because I think there are definitely higher proof bourbons. Obviously, you know, Weller has done well on the pod, like
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah.
Senator:The antique one zero seven, like, that's not in that, like, honey No. Kinda lighter profile. That's, like, closer to this where, like, it's a richer
Bam Bam:It's richer, but not so fruit forward. This is there's a lot of fruit in this
Chef Ricky:that we
Bam Bam:don't get in that one zero seven.
Chef Ricky:To me with the weather, I think the difference the richness comes from the build. Right? It's weeded, there's a good a good amount of wheat there. Here, not getting I don't know what the build, the match build is here. It's definitely not weeded.
Chef Ricky:I feel like a lot of the richness is coming from the Sherry cask.
Bam Bam:Yeah, I think you're right.
Rooster:Yeah. Two
Chef Ricky:different Sherry
Gizmo:cask at that.
Bam Bam:Could be that cognac finish that I'm just not used to getting in a bourbon. I don't know.
Chef Ricky:The color on this bourbon is beautiful.
Senator:Yeah, it's gorgeous.
Chef Ricky:Viscosity is great It
Bam Bam:looks great.
Gizmo:I love the bottle. I think it's so cool. Actually, you feel it, the neck of the bottle actually is like It's ribbed. It's ribbed. I caught myself.
Gizmo:I see that. I ain't saying it. I'm not going there.
Bam Bam:I'm loving the cigar.
Gizmo:Cigar's really good.
Bam Bam:You know, I will say that a sip of this, it kind of, it does enhance the smoke. It enhances, kind of gives it, It does give it a bit of a sweeter finish on the draw, which I like a lot. It's pretty interesting.
Rooster:I'm looking for something more from the cigar.
Chef Ricky:You're looking for it to evolve a
Bam Bam:little bit. Need a sip of bourbon old boy.
Rooster:You do you think it's some
Gizmo:more Do you need oomph or do need flavor? Is complexity I think both.
Chef Ricky:Chew on a coffee bean. See what happens. A what? On a coffee bean.
Rooster:I can smell it, but I don't wanna open it right now. Mhmm.
Senator:I don't know. I I'm honestly very happy with kind of the strength of the cigar being on the milder side just because there's so many Nicaraguans that we have in our rotation that are full and have cocoa notes and all that. So the odds that this can replace an ex Luisivo, Trinidad Espiritu we recently did, like, there's so many an EP Carrillo El Senador, there's so many options
Bam Bam:Mhmm.
Senator:In that profile. I don't know of many Nicaraguans with this kind of cocoa forward flavor profile that are mild enough that I could have it almost any part of
Bam Bam:the day. And that's the versatility that was noted earlier.
Chef Ricky:Yeah, and it's mild, but loaded with flavor.
Senator:Tons of flavor. Lots of flavor. My palate, for as much as this lacks strength, the finish is long. You taste this cigar for several minutes after you draw it and blow out
Rooster:the smoke. You're only going to smoke one cigar, this won't cut
Bam Bam:it for me. No surprises.
Rooster:If you're gonna smoke a few cigars, this might be the starting point maybe in the afternoon, and then you do a
Bam Bam:couple. Are a big morning afternoon cigar smoker.
Senator:But you have The reason Rooster's saying that, Rooster's like a two stick a day kind of guy.
Gizmo:I understand. Facts.
Senator:Yeah. Many of us will do more than that in sitting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Senator:Know why, you know, for Rooster, why he loves a full cigar is because if he's only gonna have one or two, he wants it to really Yeah, deliver a ton in
Rooster:need more. Even out of this, I wish it had a little bit more I mean, it's very balanced, it's very creamy, there's cocoa, But it doesn't have that
Bam Bam:So the Cabo Iguan, that was, I think, lighter than this. Way lighter than this. And you enjoyed it.
Rooster:Yes, but it didn't really have it didn't have like a cocoa type. This automatically, when I look at the wrapper, it's dark. I'm already for it to be a fuller cigar, and it's not.
Bam Bam:Now, you're cow I got
Rooster:is a lighter cigar. It's like
Gizmo:So you're judging the book by its color.
Bam Bam:You're allowing your perception. Correct. Yeah. Bad ploy, old boy.
Gizmo:Jesus. He's a poet now. So I I here's my thing, though, because I'm really enjoying the cigar. I don't know if the bourbon is giving me something that you're not getting or if just overall you want a little more oomph than I do. But even before the bourbon came into the picture, I didn't really want more from the cigar.
Gizmo:I was getting the great smoke output we talked about, great flavor, very balanced. Totally I think the retrohale is lights out.
Bam Bam:Yeah, I agree.
Senator:I'm also gonna say, this is probably the creamiest Nicaraguan cigar I've ever had.
Gizmo:Even more than the Cabo Iguan.
Senator:That's I'm not comparing it to that, Sorry. I mean, that is Nicaraguan. I mean more comparing this to you know, a darker Maduro style wrapper Nicaraguan cigar. You know, as much as we love Padron, like, I would never describe an ex Louis Vivo as, like, particularly creamy. Like No.
Senator:I've never gotten this level of creaminess in this style of cigar, and that for me is a huge merit. Huge.
Bam Bam:You know, Exclusivo is smooth, but not creamy. That differs from creaminess.
Rooster:It's the level of satisfaction that you get out of an Exclusivo that it's hard to compare. And want I to compare
Bam Bam:the two cigars. They're different cigars.
Rooster:It's just different. Yeah. But looking at it, it almost looks like an Exclusivo.
Bam Bam:My wrapper's lifting just a bit.
Gizmo:So, boys, we have come to the end of the first third here on the CAO Brasilia in Box Press. Obviously, we just went through how we're feeling about the cigar. At this point, how is the pairing working for you guys? I know we know how Rooster's feeling, but how are you guys feeling with the pairing?
Bam Bam:It's better for me. I will say that without the cigar though, I may have a hard time with this bourbon, so that's not a huge merit for the spirit, but right now together, I am actually enjoying it.
Gizmo:I think for how smooth this is at 50%, 100 proofs, no ice, no water, I'm not feeling any significant heat that's unpleasant.
Bam Bam:How about the flavor?
Gizmo:That's really The flavor. Well, no, but I'm getting there. I mean, the nice thing about the lack of heat that I would normally expect here is that it's not overpowering the cigar, which is a great thing for what we do here. Now flavor wise, I think it's excellent. I didn't really have to adjust that much.
Gizmo:I am very sensitive to cherry. I know Senator is too. I'm not feeling that kind of cherry Robitussin thing here.
Bam Bam:It has dissipated for me. I will admit that.
Senator:I'm really enjoying it. I think the the cool part about this bourbon, this for me, it tastes like a hybrid between a bourbon and a cognac.
Bam Bam:Mhmm.
Senator:Like, and if I were to pinpoint a cognac, it would be Hein. Hein has those fruit notes that we're talking about totally agree with that. That are super prominent. So like, I have never had a bourbon that is anything like this.
Bam Bam:You know what would be interesting is to I think have that that's cool. Have that side by side. There there are a lot of that's a great call out. Very, very similar experience with the two.
Chef Ricky:Call out. Great memory.
Senator:Yeah, right?
Bam Bam:Know you did enjoy that, Konya.
Chef Ricky:Yeah, me too. I still have just a tad bit left. My favorite draw here is immediately after the bourbon because that's when the you really get like that Pedro Jimenez sherry that just pops that first draw. You get a big sherry pop and then it all kind of starts to blend in together and kind of marry one another. But that I love that first straw after the sip of the bourbon.
Rooster:I think your whole experience is being enhanced by the bourbon.
Bam Bam:Well, I'm gonna ask the
Gizmo:question here. But no, but my commentary on the cigar, I've not felt different about the cigar after taste tasting the bourbon. I feel really good about it before the bourbon. I feel really good about it after. There's no there's no change.
Senator:I feel the same because before we tried the bourbon, we were all kinda gushing about the cigar.
Gizmo:And I
Senator:remember at that point, Rooster said like, I hope it picks up. And I honestly my in my head, I was saying, I actually hope it doesn't. Because if this tries to get to, like, the strength of an exclusive or some of the other cigars I named, like, I'm not gonna pick it up over them. Love those cigars. So I was kinda hoping, like, this is gonna stay in this lane and carve out a slot for me Mhmm.
Senator:Before I have those cigars in my rotation.
Bam Bam:The beginning of an evening. Yep. Now here's a question. Would you have this spirit without a cigar? Do you find would you find yourself at Yeah.
Bam Bam:I would.
Chef Ricky:I could see myself pouring a little
Senator:something This is a rich, full bodied spirit. I'm sorry, if I were at someone's home
Bam Bam:I can't do that.
Senator:I'm not saying that it's no secret, and most of us are not really bourbon guys.
Gizmo:Don't think any of us are bourbon.
Senator:So it's not like we're pulling for bourbons when we're not having a cigar. But I will say, with this bourbon, if I was at someone's home after dinner, and this were one of the options, I would absolutely just ask for a pour of because it's full flavored, it's got nice viscosity, it's unique. For its proof, it's incredibly smooth. There's a lot of things that I would like about that after a meal.
Bam Bam:I think all those things are very accurate. It's just for me the particular flavor that that experience that I'm getting, it's just a touch off putting for me. I wouldn't drink this alone without a cigar. Now as I've gone through it, I think I'm in my seventh sip and halfway through the cigar. This spirit with a cigar, I think it's fantastic.
Bam Bam:But if I'm not smoking a cigar, don't know if I'll ever try it.
Chef Ricky:Me, this
Bam Bam:is Me personally. It's me.
Chef Ricky:The perfect bourbon to or or spirit to pour when you get home after a long night because you know you could have a nice neat pour and call it a night afterwards because it is that rich, it is that long of a finish, it is that satisfying. Know, maybe it's not something you're gonna be drinking all night long, like some of our Panamanian rum favorites, but I do like it for that reason, as sort of a one and done cap, you know, a nightcap.
Senator:Like, even think of after Thanksgiving, I would absolutely take a pour of this. Yeah. It'd be so satisfying. Like, that's when I look for, like, a richer spirit. So, like, not standard fare stuff.
Senator:Like, as much as we enjoyed, like, you know, Weller special selection, you know, the Green Label, like, that is like a lighter, like, everyday bourbon. This is so much richer after a really good meal. That's exactly the kind of thing I would wanna drink.
Gizmo:I like the way you put that because I was thinking about the daily bourbon if I'm reaching for something on a casual evening or whatever, thinking about the special occasion bourbon that I would reach for, and I think about that red label, the 107
Senator:Me from But
Gizmo:that to It's me often is too much for hot. It's too much.
Bam Bam:I know. With a chip or two and let it sit, it's fantastic.
Senator:Even with that, it's a lot. I really don't reach
Gizmo:for the red. I really don't reach
Senator:for We're like, this neat is perfect.
Gizmo:That's true. Know. Put that, that this does have a unique place in it's not super hot, but it is a little bit more special than a daily drink. Obviously, price is putting it there too.
Chef Ricky:Oh, and the one zero seven is slightly hotter because this is That's one one zero seven. But, yeah. I love making poor man's with that stuff.
Gizmo:Poor man's pappy is great.
Bam Bam:Yes, is.
Senator:Really
Gizmo:great. So for the listener out there, we're talking about using Weller twelve years age bourbon
Chef Ricky:Special.
Gizmo:And the one zero seven.
Bam Bam:And the one seven.
Gizmo:You mix them, there's a ratio. You can find it online.
Chef Ricky:Sixty forty. Correct.
Gizmo:They call it the poor man's Pappy Van Winkle. So check that out if if you can get your hands on Weller, you know, with the false scarcity we've we've railed on before. Correct. Alright, boys. Let's talk about the master blender, Nancy Fraley.
Gizmo:She is known industry wide as, quote, the nose, one of the most respected sensory and blending specialists in American whiskey. Of course, she's the master blender here for Joseph Magnus and Company. She was trained in European brandy traditions, especially cognac and armagnac. Is that that is what is directly informing her philosophy as it relates to bourbon. So she's not
Bam Bam:Love the
Gizmo:armagnac. Bourbon first person. Of course, now in her profession she is, but in her training, she's more in the European style of the cognac, the armagnac, and using those sherry casts as well.
Senator:I think it's brilliant. Honestly, like, I just there are a few bourbons that, like, challenge mine or our assumptions about bourbon. Like, this is such a interesting departure from a standard bourbon. Like, I I won't forget this bottle. There's no question about that.
Gizmo:So Nancy worked closely with legendary brandy producer Hubert Germaine Robyn. I don't know how to pronounce his name. Hubert Germaine Robyn, shaping her approach to maturation and barrel influence. She has a background including advanced academic training in law and comparative religion. So this is a bright woman, but she left that path to pursue spirits full time.
Gizmo:She's openly discussed designing spirits meant for contemplative drinking alongside tobacco. So we're gonna get to that in a second. Drawing from her personal enjoyment of pipe and cigar culture. Wow. So Nancy is right in line with the lizards.
Bam Bam:Pretty respectful there.
Gizmo:So I wanna talk about they also have a cigar bourbon, which is pricey. It's called the Joseph Magna cigar blend bourbon. It's a limited batch release bourbon explicitly designed to pair with cigars. It's built from a blend of well aged straight bourbons, including older stocks, often cited in the low teens to high teens range age wise, layered into the Joseph Magnum base, finished primarily in armaniac barrels. Interesting.
Gizmo:Armaniac is great. Oh, yeah. Not wine or standard cherry casks. Batch specific releases often have varying proofs, often north of a 100, and that makes each batch its own expression. So that is a bit of a pricier spirit.
Gizmo:So we have to talk about if we want to grab that. I think it's in the 180 range for that bottle. But the cigar bourbon, that's something we haven't done. We did the cigar cognac. We did the Dalmore cigar Cigar malt.
Gizmo:Cigar malt. Yeah. We've done a couple different cigar, you know, focused spirits, but we've never done a specific cigar bourbon.
Senator:I mean, I'll just say I'm for trying it because prior to us doing any of those spirits that were designed to have with a cigar, I thought always that was a marketing gimmick. I mean, even when we started with that the Dalmore cigar malt
Bam Bam:Yeah. It still sounds like a gimmick.
Senator:Yeah. It does. Like, I think all of us went in with a healthy level of skepticism, and we were blown away how Same good that thing with the Hein. I I bought like a case of that stuff after we had reviewed it. So I'm all for trying it.
Senator:Yeah. For an occasion, obviously, not in every episode, but
Gizmo:Alright, boys. Let's move on now. We're gonna go back to some news before we get into some listener email and some voice Before
Rooster:you do that, you mentioned she smokes pipes. Pipes and cigar culture. Have never in my life seen a woman smoke a pipe. You ever seen
Bam Bam:this actually say that she smoked?
Gizmo:Or she just appreciates pipe and cigar smokes, maybe. And Lizard Kyle said that she's a cigar smoker. He did not mention anything about pipes.
Bam Bam:Never assume, old boy.
Rooster:I mean, I've never seen
Senator:It's an interesting statement just even whether she does or she doesn't. I mean, I actually to Rooster's point, I also I've never seen a woman with a pipe.
Bam Bam:No. Same.
Rooster:I have never.
Senator:Plenty with a cigar. Same. Same. Same a
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:Hold that thought for voice memo coming up.
Chef Ricky:I'm holding it.
Gizmo:All right, boys. So let's do another news story. This one coming out of Cuba. Trinidad has announced a new cigar, which they haven't done in a while.
Rooster:You ready, Bam?
Gizmo:Bam, get your credit card out. Cigar.
Senator:New cigar
Gizmo:is called the Trinidad Corcelle. It's a 55 ring gauge cigar by five and three tenths inches long. Corcelle. And it has a pigtail. Must be
Bam Bam:pronouncing it incorrectly.
Gizmo:Of course, c o r c e l.
Bam Bam:C e l. Corcelle.
Rooster:Look at them.
Gizmo:The factory name is called the Patricios. You wanna try that
Bam Bam:one? Patricios.
Gizmo:Great. Thank you.
Senator:Mhmm.
Gizmo:And it's the same dimensions as the Kay Dorsey number 54, identical, but obviously adding the pigtail on it. Has a second band on it, of course, boys, for the year of the horse. Jesus. Trinidad year of the horse.
Bam Bam:What is that? About $200?
Gizmo:Bam Salin. So, actually, the MSRP on this is $85 a cigar. Wow. Fresh. The quantity is gonna be 18,888 boxes of these cigars.
Gizmo:Each box has 18 cigars in it. So they're playing with that Chinese love of the number eight.
Bam Bam:They're going to make 18,000 boxes of this cigar?
Gizmo:Yes. Yeah. They'll probably sell every single one
Bam Bam:of them.
Senator:Well, it's also comical to even announce that. Like, 18,000 is not a small number. Usually, when they announce that, it's like, there's 5,000. There's 2,000 boxes.
Rooster:They're horsing around.
Gizmo:So they just launched this with PCC over in Hong Kong and that cigar should be appearing, I would assume mostly in the Asian market.
Bam Bam:Well
Gizmo:I doubt we're gonna see it here. Alright, boys. Let's go to some listener email now and then we're going to get into a couple voice memos. We'll start here with our friend Lizard Enrique who writes us a lot, of course. He says, hello, lizards.
Gizmo:With recent annual fee hikes by reward heavy credit cards, What is the lizard's preference on the best credit cards for rewards, travel, and retail?
Bam Bam:Oh god.
Gizmo:I'm a Chase Sapphire reserve guy.
Bam Bam:You're entering you're entering senator in Gizmo Land here.
Gizmo:I'd love to see I'm turning my mic off. Better alternative with some social proofing. Cheers, lizard Enrique. Interesting. Senator, do you wanna start?
Gizmo:I mean, of course.
Senator:He's right. He's he's already on the straight and narrow. I mean, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, great card. That's obviously the analog, like, to the MX Platinum. I think the the standard benefits are very comparable.
Senator:You know, there's like a $300 travel credit, which already dramatically reduces the annual fee. You get five times points on, like, certain forms of travel. There's a bunch of different categories. They're very similar. The lounge access is a really nice perk, and I say that because, obviously, Amex has their Centurion lounges, which when they started coming out with those were definitely better than most other airport lounges that you could visit.
Senator:The Chase lounges are amazing. They're awesome. Like, I had told these guys about this. The one at LaGuardia is beautiful. Before we went to PCA in New Orleans, Bam came with me.
Senator:We had a great time. Yeah, did. Great cocktails.
Bam Bam:A lot of martinis. Yeah. Bam a lot of martinis.
Senator:Oh, that's right. Oh, yeah.
Bam Bam:So that was a Chase lounge.
Gizmo:Oh, yeah. How many martinis did you have before you got on the plane? Two.
Chef Ricky:Oh, yeah.
Gizmo:How many did you have on the plane?
Bam Bam:None. And how many
Gizmo:did you have after the plane?
Senator:Half a bottle of something we bought. Sure.
Gizmo:All the blue, the Martell. Martell.
Bam Bam:The Martell. The bottle of Martell, and then two martinis at dinner, and then it was all over at that point. I was a new man
Gizmo:after that.
Senator:Oh, man. But no, seriously, mean, those lounges, Chase was so confident when they came out with these lounges. They, in LaGuardia Airport, opened the Chase lounge literally right next door to the Centuria lounge that used to be the nicest lounge in LaGuardia, and it wipes the floor with it. I'm sorry. Like, you saw I mean, you're Bam's an architect.
Senator:Like, just the core of that place.
Bam Bam:I'm frustrated because I had the conversation with these two jokers about my American Express, and I needed to build up my point. I spent an enormous amount of money last year on my Amex. I now have access to two lounges in the airport. One is this Amex Lounge. What's it called?
Bam Bam:Centurion Lounge. I've got access to that and another lounge, and now I can't get into the Chase lounge. I've That's gotta why build up my get Chase that card.
Senator:Correct. You got to get that card.
Bam Bam:I guess so.
Gizmo:You don't have to buy anything with it. You just to pay the annual fee.
Bam Bam:That's it? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow.
Gizmo:There's no spend requirement. No.
Bam Bam:Oh, okay.
Rooster:It's the same thing with Amex too. There's no spend requirement.
Bam Bam:That's not true.
Rooster:Yeah. Well, there's no spend. To access the lounge, there is no spend requirement.
Gizmo:There's no spend requirement.
Chef Ricky:Card holder to access
Gizmo:the So why
Bam Bam:did I spend all that money on my Amex? Well, actually, I wanted to.
Gizmo:Well, I told you to spend the money on your Amex because you're traveling all over the place, and you're not getting rewarded
Bam Bam:for it. That's correct.
Senator:Now I'll just say on the
Gizmo:cards Pagoda with this, with the air tax.
Bam Bam:So I'm not really up to speed with any of this. Although, I did spend a fortune last year on my MXR.
Gizmo:So you should have a ton of points. Good for you.
Bam Bam:I do.
Gizmo:I do. They don't expire.
Bam Bam:Yeah. I I ran a lot of business things through it. Good. So it was easy to do.
Senator:Now to the listener's question, I'll just say with all these cards, like, a defining factor really ought to be what your primary airline is. Because, like, for the the Amex Platinum, if you're a Delta flyer, it's a no brainer to have that card because when you fly Delta, you get access to Delta lounges through that card. I don't fly Delta, which is why that card actually does not make a whole lot of sense for me. So for me, I'd rather have a Chase Reserve with Chase lounge access, and then I have an American Airlines executive card, which gets me American lounge access. And that's because I'm in DC a lot.
Senator:That's an American hub at at at Reagan Airport. So that's why that makes sense for me. That really ought to dictate a lot of this. You know, if you're a United flyer, like, you probably will wanna do something similar to me where, like, United, you would need to get their highest level card, which will give you United lounge access, and then you'd probably want, like, a Chase card to get into the Chase lounges. I I really only think, like, Amex, obviously, for business purposes, and I have a business Amex, like Mhmm.
Senator:Makes a lot of sense. But for personal use, if you're flying Delta, no brainer. If not, you probably need a different card to get access to the lounge that you're actually gonna be flying on their airline. So
Gizmo:I did get the Chase Chase Sapphire Reserve, and I think it was two years ago when we were talking about this. The card is fine for me, but I am such an Amex like, I really, really appreciate Amex because they as as Senator was saying, with my business, they are easily the best banking partner I've ever had for my business ever, including, like, the personal local banks, the banks I deposit, all of the business, you know, income in. I write everything out of there. We had the loans there. Like, never a problem.
Gizmo:And Amex still was more supportive of the business than any bank that I've ever been involved with. So I have a very soft spot in my heart for Amex and what they how they helped me
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Gizmo:When I had a young business. Yeah. And now, I still get a lot of great value out of the business gold. And I have business gold, business platinum. I have a personal platinum, and I have Chase Sapphire Reserve.
Gizmo:So I kind of play with where I benefit the most points wise and stuff. But for me, if if you were to put a gun to my head, I'd be Amex all day. You know, I understand that, you know, airline preferences, obviously, I don't fly like Senator does as much, I mean.
Bam Bam:Neither do I.
Gizmo:Like, in a volume basis, I just don't. So when I do fly, like I'm going to, you know, pro cigar in a week or two, you know, to the Dominican, like, I just use Amex points, you know? So I have plenty of them from the business spend. But I don't fly like he does.
Bam Bam:I will say Amex is great. Their customer service is off the charts. Agreed. Return policies, theft policies, I had one issue on one of our projects and they worked with me to get that partial money back and then actually purchase the correct product. They're fantastic.
Bam Bam:Yeah, the purchase protection plan is I also so like their travel
Gizmo:The concierge is very good.
Bam Bam:Yeah, I did that once. I kinda liked it. I have to go to Austin in a couple of weeks, and I called them and they helped me book my flight. It was fantastic. It was like I had personal travel.
Gizmo:The concierge is great. I'll give you another Senator's laughing at me. I know he is.
Senator:Well, the fact that you couldn't book a flight.
Gizmo:Yeah. He just likes his own service.
Bam Bam:I kinda like calling him. I
Rooster:don't know.
Gizmo:I'll I'll give you another example. I I had this issue. So, obviously, a couple weeks ago here in the Northeast, actually, most of the Eastern Part of The United States was pretty heavily impacted by a weather event. So my stepdaughter is studying abroad this semester and was flying out that Sunday that the storm had hit. So I saw this coming Tuesday or Wednesday prior.
Gizmo:I was like, you know what? I'm gonna get her an earlier flight or something because I don't wanna delay her getting to her semester abroad. I called Amex the airline. It was booked through Swissair because that was the best route, best fees, know, best timeline, etcetera. And there was a Swissair like change fee or some sort of component to it that they were not waiving the change.
Gizmo:It was like an additional fee. And Amex stepped in, called Swissair, and got all of that waived for me just because I asked Mhmm. And saved me like $600. And she got out like, you know, the night before the storm. No problem.
Gizmo:She was there. But I would never have been able to do that unless I paid the money had Amex done help me. So I I just I really love Amex. I've I've been with them for almost twenty years now.
Senator:Now the only other card I'll mention, this is a little secret card because they don't take applications anymore. I have this, but worth mentioning. No.
Gizmo:No. Big dove.
Senator:It's it's worth mentioning because if a listener happens to have one, they might not know the full benefits of it. So Citi, their competitor to the Amex Platinum and the Chase Sapphire Reserve, but this was before that card even existed, was called the Citi Prestige. And that card had what I would call, like, the greatest credit card benefit of all time. You used to. Now they limited it.
Senator:I am definitely to pay your bills.
Gizmo:Well, that's part of the Prestige.
Senator:No. No. This involves biggest advantage. This involves hotels when you're traveling, and I definitely abused it, which is probably why they've limited it now.
Bam Bam:They've limited it nationwide because of him.
Senator:Big dog. I'm telling you.
Gizmo:It's it's
Senator:me and and everyone else that was smart enough to take advantage this. Like, it was so crazy how open ended this benefit was. Anytime you're traveling and staying in a hotel and you book a stay, and you could book direct through the hotel, you did not have to do it through their portal. Oh, that's cool. Your and they changed that part too.
Senator:Your fourth night.
Bam Bam:Hold on. I got to catch up to him.
Gizmo:Every time.
Senator:Every week. Your fourth night staying at any hotel is free on Citi. Wow. Oh, yeah. You told me about this.
Senator:The crazy part of this, when you stay in a very expensive hotel like, I in my first year of having this card, this is I think when I went to The Maldives for the first time. The Maldives, you're talking like $23,000 a night.
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah.
Senator:I got a free night at like 2 or $3. That has now paid for four to six years of my card membership.
Bam Bam:That's
Senator:awesome. Just in one time, I'm using that benefit. Then I used that benefit there was no cap on it. So the whole year, every time, I would just stay anywhere for four
Gizmo:nights and get four.
Senator:And get a fourth night free. Mean, I got thousands of dollars in value out of this card in just one year. Obviously, that's why I'm saying, for sure, there are obviously plenty of people like me that did this. They realized they were hemorrhaging money on this card. So they do cap it now.
Senator:I think now maybe it's once a year or twice a year, which still, if you do it for the right trip, and even if you're gonna stay at a place for a thousand bucks a night, you've now paid for two years of card membership. It's like 5 something. So it's just a really cool benefit. Like, amazing they did it. Now you have to book it through their travel portal, all these things.
Senator:But before
Gizmo:So do you still use that benefit? Oh, yeah. I still have
Senator:the card, still use the benefit. Wow. That's awesome.
Gizmo:So I will say, and I'm curious if you agree with me on this. I don't know if you any of you guys. The one bank that I refuse to do business with, I just think it's the worst customer service. I think they're incredibly rigid. They're very Capital One.
Gizmo:I can't stand Capital One. They, you know, they have that venture card that they're constantly advertising as kind of a competitor to the cards we're talking about. I will never do business with Capital One. I just I have that I had really bad experience with them.
Rooster:I think they they didn't they buy Discover? They own Discover now.
Gizmo:Right? Yes. They own Discover. Yeah. Yeah.
Senator:Oh, and the other thing, just last thing on City Prestige, dining is five times points you get, which on Amex Platinum and on Chase Sapphire Reserve, it's three for So every dinner, every meal I pay for, I always use my City Prestige card.
Gizmo:So I use my Amex Gold personal for dining because I get four x.
Bam Bam:This is crazy.
Senator:Oh, and then I forgot to mention, this was when I first had this card. I used to get American lounge access through it. So, like, for 5 something a year, I was getting American lounge access, already is, like, $600, fourth night free at every hotel I ever stay at, five times dining. I mean, it was He
Gizmo:cost him about for free. Million million bucks he cost him.
Senator:It was insane.
Gizmo:$500 a year.
Bam Bam:I get five times points on Brizz's purchases through my Amex Platinum for business. To get it for a meal? That's to me unheard of.
Gizmo:So when you're doing that with the business and you're the proprietor of the business
Bam Bam:Yeah. Yeah.
Gizmo:The insane amount of points that you have access to, I mean, it literally puts you in a, you know, position where
Bam Bam:It does. Yeah.
Gizmo:You're probably able to fly business or first.
Bam Bam:Well, thanks to you guys.
Rooster:All the time.
Bam Bam:Like, didn't know to do this until For free. The year prior to. It pays
Rooster:for itself. Yeah. Yeah. Even the Uber Uber credits every month?
Gizmo:Uber credits. Yeah. The one thing I'll say too about Amex, and then we'll move on here, is some of the cards, and you have to be very specific about which one it is, they have a 35% airline bonus. You choose an airline in January of each year. And when you book through Amex travel, you and through using points, you get 35% of those points back if you book first or business.
Gizmo:So you get effectively a 35% discount using points. So they just credit those points back.
Bam Bam:So Cool.
Gizmo:It's like, for me, like, when I'm using points because I don't fly a ton, I'm able to fly for free pretty much business or first all the time. I don't know if you're able to on points because you fly so much. But You know what
Rooster:I miss with Amex Platinum? They used to used to get the departures magazine. They stopped.
Gizmo:He likes printed media.
Bam Bam:That was a
Gizmo:He likes printed media.
Senator:It's a
Bam Bam:few 100
Senator:Pooba Pooba really misses that magazine. Correct. That was the Stanley Tucci magazine.
Gizmo:That's true.
Bam Bam:Yeah. A few 100 years ago, old boy.
Rooster:Apparently, you can get the digital version. Oh, I didn't know that.
Gizmo:I didn't know they still made it.
Rooster:Yeah. So
Gizmo:thanks to Lizard Enrique for sharing that, for sending that email over, talking about credit cards and stuff. I guess that falls into the lifestyle category of our podcast. Just like watches everything else. It is a great question. I mean, we have a lot of listeners that, you know, are doing business traveling, etcetera.
Gizmo:It's it's good to use when I listen. When I hear someone using a debit card and not getting points, drives me insane. That
Bam Bam:is awful.
Gizmo:Drives me insane. Like, you're just if if you pay your bill every month, there's no interest, of course, and you're just it's like free money.
Bam Bam:Way up.
Senator:And you're building credit. And you're building credit. You are not putting things on a credit card, you have no credit.
Bam Bam:That's correct.
Gizmo:And you use a debit card, it comes right out of your checking account. So if you have a fraud issue or something on the Amex Yeah.
Bam Bam:It's awesome.
Gizmo:You know, you're you're protected. It's their money. It's not yours. You never have to worry. You just gotta pay it every month.
Gizmo:So alright, boys. We're coming to the end of the second third now on the CAO Brasilia in box press and the Joseph Magnus bourbon. What's everybody thinking?
Bam Bam:I wanna know what Rooster's thinking. Has it increased in body for you at all?
Rooster:Only thing that increases the smoke output.
Senator:Really? No flavor? Increase in body
Bam Bam:at all? Come on, dude.
Rooster:Not for me. Not in strength or
Gizmo:I'm definitely getting more body at this point. Really? Me too. Second half of the cigar has definitely picked up. The blend is still great.
Gizmo:Smoke output, creaminess, retrohale, everything's checked in
Bam Bam:the box. Every box checked. I think I'm getting a very faint hint of cedar, which I usually don't like, but because it's so creamy, it's actually very enjoyable.
Rooster:It is still creamy and cocoa.
Bam Bam:But it went from macadamia nut to kind of an almond thing for me.
Chef Ricky:I I don't mind cedar notes when it's blended with Well, yeah. Nut nutty nutty notes like It's
Bam Bam:still very creamy.
Chef Ricky:It's great. Great.
Bam Bam:The retro is still delicious.
Chef Ricky:It's it's picked up a little bit
Bam Bam:I agree.
Chef Ricky:For me. Just a bit.
Rooster:Are you sure it's not Honduran tobacco?
Gizmo:It's made in Honduras, so it's got the influences. The Honduran hands.
Bam Bam:Yeah. You need a nap.
Rooster:Honduran barn.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. Let's go to some listener email now. I wanted to start with this one because I thought this was very touching. And the listener asked me to keep his name anonymous, so I'm not gonna share that. He says, hey, lizards.
Gizmo:I just finished episode 219, and I felt really compelled to write in. The conversation with Klaus Kellner, the voice memo from John and Senator sharing stories about their fathers really hit in a meaningful way. It was one of those episodes that sneaks up on you and stays with you long after it ends. Over the last year, my dad has been navigating some serious health challenges, heart surgery last summer, followed by a stage four pancreatic cancer diagnosis earlier this year. Wow.
Gizmo:In the middle of all that, the podcast has become a constant in my routine. Whether I'm at work, in the car, or just trying to clear my head, it's been a reliable escape and honestly, something I look forward to each day. What I appreciate most is about how the show balances humor with real human moments. You managed to make people laugh while also creating space for reflection, and that combination has been incredibly grounding for me during a time when things can feel very uncertain. I'm doing my very best to stay present, embrace every moment, and keep hope front and center.
Gizmo:I just wanted to say thank you guys for the entertainment, the conversations, and the sense of connection you create. It truly makes a difference to me, and I'm grateful for the work you all put into the pot. So lizard anonymous asked me not to share his name. But, you know, when I saw that email, it it really you know, you think about, you know, all the folks out there in Lizard Nation who we hear from and a lot of folks that we don't, everybody is going through something. Obviously, anonymous lizard here is going through some pretty tough stuff with his father and I'm really sorry to hear about that stage four diagnosis with pancreatic cancer.
Rooster:Yeah, you really got to cherish every day. Absolutely. Every single moment that you have with your parents, especially as they get older, You just don't know. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
Bam Bam:I think that applies with friends and family. With everyone in your life. You have to just enjoy it.
Rooster:Enjoy each and every day. Be grateful and thankful for each and every moment and every cigar that you smoke. You know?
Bam Bam:And be good to people. Yeah. Yeah. Be kind. Yeah.
Bam Bam:Take Always take the high road.
Chef Ricky:Don't take anything for granted. Correct.
Gizmo:When we get emails and comments like that, it really hits me because, you know, when you're in the groove of what we do and the rhythm of it, you know, we're so focused on the cigar. Do we have a pairing? What time are we meeting? Do we have all the equipment? Is everything good?
Gizmo:But to hear that the product of what we do helps someone like this listener navigate through their week or their day or whatever is going on, and it's just really great to hear. So I'm very appreciative to this listener for sharing this with us, and that's why I wanted to share it all with you guys. Let's go to another one now. This one's from Lizard Andrew. He says, hey, Giz and the rest of the lizards.
Gizmo:First time writer here. I'm about two years into my cigar journey. I found your pod about eight months or so ago, and I probably have listened to a 100 of your episodes by this rate. The best episodes are either a good old BAM accountability hour or when Giz tries to pronounce names of wines and such.
Bam Bam:Incorrect.
Gizmo:With that being said, I need a celebratory cigar recommendation. Over Christmas, my wife and I found out that we are expecting our third child. I have some special occasion cigars in my humidor, but nothing that I feel would do justice as a celebratory cigar when our child is born. If I'm lucky enough to be featured on the pod, I love to have the lizards give some recommendations. Well, today's your lucky day, Lizard Andrew.
Gizmo:Looking forward to hearing back. Regards, Lizard Andrew. Great email. Congratulations to wizard Andrew and his wife on their third child
Rooster:coming.
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah.
Gizmo:It's amazing how in the room this podcast has been a thread through major life milestones, and then we get emails like like these that are just every single kind of life moment. We're hearing from our listeners in these emails. So it's it's really awesome and very grateful for you all sharing this and and hope we can help your with Lizard Andrew. So what do you guys think as far as celebratory cigars for Lizard Andrew here?
Rooster:I mean, it's hard to tell because he never told us his preference Cuban Yeah. New World. Does he like with some strength? What kind of body? Mild, medium, full?
Bam Bam:It's kind of easy to go to the high cost, tough to get cigars like Sir Winston or
Gizmo:Opus Dubai.
Bam Bam:Dusitania or Opus Dubai or Fundadores. Trinidad Fundadores. Correct. We got plenty of those, though. Oh, boy.
Rooster:Yeah. You
Gizmo:I mean, my gut here is to avoid the Cuban conversation unless you're going on Bon Roberts. Yeah. And they're already in The US.
Rooster:And right away, this one that comes to my mind, that's what I think of, you know, as a celebration. It's the Padron, the 50, the hammer. The hammer.
Gizmo:You know, that cigar, it I was thinking the sixtieth, personally. Sixtieth or
Chef Ricky:the eightieth? I'm right there.
Gizmo:You. The reason why I like the sixtieth is I think the presentation of that box Absolutely. Hard to get now, though. Well, they'll be back around. Yeah.
Gizmo:I think they're gonna be I don't wanna say seasonal, but I think, you know, George is releasing those in waves.
Bam Bam:Sure. Sure.
Gizmo:To me, the idea of of welcoming a new child into into your life and into your family, we've heard this a lot from listeners out there. We've seen this a lot in the cigar community is buying a box of cigars and then smoking one on each birthday of your child as they as they grow. So obviously, with a box of Padron sixtieth, you're only getting 10 out of that. Mhmm. But you could go for something that has 25 cigars if you have a 1926 you prefer or, you know, a 1964 you prefer.
Gizmo:Of course, the Padron eightieth has eight cigars in it. So I always think of those as kind of the celebratory cigars, you know, non Cuban that I
Rooster:would use. Planning on seven more kids so you can have one every, you know,
Gizmo:at every birth. That's not a bad idea.
Senator:Poor poor guy's gonna have no money left for cigars.
Gizmo:Yeah. Is it what do they say it costs now?
Rooster:Not to
Gizmo:bum him out, but what does it cost now to raise a child from, like
Bam Bam:birth
Gizmo:to graduation or high school? It's close to 1,000,000 I think it's a million dollars.
Rooster:I think I've spent 2 already. It feels like it.
Chef Ricky:You're gonna go from a sixtieth to a backwoods by the time you're done.
Gizmo:Exactly. So what do you
Senator:guys think on recommendations? So I mean, obviously agree with sixtieth, eightieth for a fuller body experience. I do think something we recently did, the Klaus Kellner, that
Gizmo:has Oh, yeah, the LE eighty eightieth anniversary
Senator:for his father's eightieth birthday.
Bam Bam:Like Yeah.
Senator:If you like a medium smoke, even something that leans milder, like Oh, cigar can appeal to pretty much anyone. Like, it's so complex. The presentation is obviously amazing. That box is crazy that it comes with. So that would be another one I would definitely throw in there.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Yeah. I would think that's what I was thinking as well.
Chef Ricky:I love that. I love that suggestion. I mean, I'm right there with you, Giz, on the sixtieth, but I love the suggestion of the Klasse Kelleiner eightieth. Think the presentation is great. Though I think the sixtieth presentation edges it out just a bit.
Chef Ricky:There's something about opening that coffin for each individual cigar, you know, that sort of unveiling. And if you do smoke one every year, you know, just to sort of honor the birth and the birthday, it'd be great. It'd be great. So yeah, I think either of those are great.
Bam Bam:Yeah, I'm coming up blank right now. Maybe the Davitov Maduro?
Chef Ricky:I'd say if by chance they turn out to be triplets, get yourself a culebra. There you go. I
Bam Bam:do love the Kellner call out. Think that's great. The eightieth is awesome as well. I mean, are, you can't you can't miss.
Gizmo:I think senator's point about where your flavor profile and and Rooster's point about where your flavor profile falls.
Bam Bam:That's a big deal.
Gizmo:If you're more of a Padron or Nicaraguan smoker, we just give you a bunch of options there. Obviously, something a little bit to you know, brought back just a little bit in strength Mhmm. In the Kellner, the Dominican cigar. Correct. I mean, that's a great cigar as well.
Gizmo:Absolutely. And the presentation. I mean, you're pulling out that drawer each year, you know, reaching for your cigar.
Bam Bam:What about you?
Gizmo:I I think I would go with the Padron sixtieth at this point.
Chef Ricky:Mhmm.
Gizmo:I mean, if you have the cash for it, you know, Rooster mentioned the Padron fiftieth, the hammer, you can get a ton of those. I mean, I think there's 50 of those in the box or something like that.
Bam Bam:They're at
Gizmo:Smoke them. You know, you can get those pretty easily. Correct. So that's an option too. But I think through everything, you know, I would stick with those.
Gizmo:If you're gonna go Cuban, I think, of course, you know, you can look at our ratings. The sir Winston, as you mentioned Mhmm. Something Cohiba. The problem is is, you know, on Accessibility. You know, on your child's eighth birthday, you pull one out and it's plugged.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Yeah.
Gizmo:Yeah. It it, you know, it doesn't really serve serve the occasion.
Bam Bam:That's correct.
Gizmo:Yeah. Especially when you spend a $100 on it seven years ago.
Bam Bam:Right.
Gizmo:You know? So that's always the risk there with the Cubans is the
Bam Bam:Earlier in our journey, we would've said the Davidoff late hour. We would've said that years ago.
Gizmo:I think so.
Bam Bam:Yeah, and that kind of has changed.
Gizmo:I'm surprised you're not saying the Davidoff Millennium Pyramidis.
Bam Bam:Honestly, I think it's a unique cigar because I don't think it's for everyone. I think it's acquired kind of a taste. And Senator Rooster, you mentioned it. We don't know his flavor profile. It's kind of a medium cigar.
Bam Bam:It's nutty. There's cedar there.
Rooster:I think it's a delicious smoke, but it's definitely worth a recommendation.
Bam Bam:For me, it's what I smoked when both of my kids were born.
Rooster:I love the Burma.
Bam Bam:And I continue to smoke that. Yeah. The Pyramid especially.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. Let's go to another one now. This one is from Lizard Blake who writes us a lot. He says, what up, fellas? I just wanted to pop in here now that the holidays are over.
Gizmo:I was lucky enough to get a box of Bon Roberts one zero nines and some Cubita espresso cups from the wife for Christmas. Hopefully, all of our lizard brethrens are getting support from their wives like this. And he put in quotes, missus Giz with the laughing face because as I've said before, missus Gizmo has never purchased anything from me cigar related in all the years we've been together. He says, also, I'm still on the hunt for the La Mer elita rum. I just tried the Bregal eighteen eighty eight, and I gotta say you guys were right.
Gizmo:It's great. I also got my hands on some Manny Sodolo cases I'm doing photos for. He says check out BG underscore cigars on Instagram. They're so nice, and he says, Pagoda, you gotta stop losing these. Anyways, hope all is well, fellas.
Gizmo:Until next time, lizard Blake.
Bam Bam:Yeah. I do like that $18.88. But just the other night, I bought a bottle of the Abuelo 12 year because I couldn't find the seven. It is a more refined version, the seven. It's much smoother.
Bam Bam:It's delicious.
Senator:I don't know how it can be smoother. I mean, that's
Gizmo:It is.
Senator:Smooth rum.
Bam Bam:What it's missing, why I love the seven, and I think, chef, you said this. After each sip, it gives you just enough heat where it kinda perks you up and snaps you to attention. It doesn't have that. It doesn't have that touch of heat that I love in the Abuela seven. Other than other than that, the flavor profiles are very similar.
Bam Bam:It's just the 12 is a is a bit smoother.
Gizmo:I wanna go back to Lizard Blake's point about getting gifts from the missus in our lives. I know chef because it always goes through me. Missus chef is always picking up stuff for him around the holidays, his birthday, Christmas, every year is looking for stuff to get chef cigar related.
Chef Ricky:I I gotta talk about how good this did this last one. You're a sneaky mofo. So this was the day I was also doing the the pie drop off. Right? All the all the pastries my wife sold here and Which by the way were incredible.
Gizmo:Of course.
Bam Bam:Thank you. Fantastic. And he I
Chef Ricky:I should have known something was up at the time because he got super excited about a particular item in my trunk. Right? And so I I have a Volkswagen and they have this like cargo thing.
Gizmo:That wasn't put on by the way. That was very genuine. I wasn't using that as a decoy. Okay. Because I used to have
Chef Ricky:a Volkswagen. So I No. I know. And that's that's all I chalked it up to. But then I realized that during that conversation, you somehow snuck a box of cigars in my trunk.
Bam Bam:Is that right?
Gizmo:No. I hid it under your passenger rear seat.
Chef Ricky:I hit box. Where the I still don't know where the
Senator:cigar qualifies as snuck a cigar a box
Chef Ricky:of cigars.
Senator:He's he's car.
Chef Ricky:He somehow snuck cigars into my car. Well, then when I got home, at some point, my wife got them out of my car.
Bam Bam:Well, I don't think
Gizmo:she had mentioned the most them.
Chef Ricky:And I wrapped them and gave it to me the next day. And I'm I'm like, how do you get these? And she's like, oh, they were in your car. And my and my my mind just just jogged back to, you know, guess I have this conversation with me about the the item in my trunk. And I'm like, that motherfucker.
Bam Bam:I think it's easy to pull the wool over your eyes.
Gizmo:Honestly, the decoy thing, that wasn't a decoy with the Volkswagen because I had a Volkswagen. I'd never seen those. They have, like, this cargo thing they call it in use. I've never used it when I had a Volkswagen. That wasn't a decoy.
Gizmo:I was just really like, wow. This is actually in use. And then I was gonna, you know, throw cigars in your car, and I'll you
Rooster:about that. The bigger question is, what what box was it? Correct.
Chef Ricky:It was a box of Aladino Elegante.
Gizmo:Elegante, Very nice. The red box.
Senator:The red
Chef Ricky:box, very delicious. I've only smoked one out of that box so far, but yeah, she always, I thank you because I don't have to worry about if I'm going to like the cigars I get because I know she's consulted with kids.
Rooster:So yours is the only wife that has bought cigars, I think in our group.
Gizmo:It's so
Rooster:My wife has never bought me any
Gizmo:cigars. I got a cast iron pan one year for my birthday.
Rooster:That's a hit you on the head.
Gizmo:Exactly. I'm dead serious. I can't believe missus Gizmo has never been like, hey. Can I get you something cigar related? Can I get you a spirit?
Gizmo:Can I get you a piece of merchandise? Like there's
Rooster:a disconnect. Know? They don't realize, like, we have a cigar podcast. We smoke cigars every day.
Chef Ricky:Hey, this is the difference. If you look in my tower, I have a few boxes. If you go to your house, there's like 14 Tupper doors, a double That wide tower that's
Gizmo:nothing to do with the intent.
Senator:We could all have zero cigars and it wouldn't Correct. Change
Chef Ricky:That's correct. Okay.
Bam Bam:I think the are jealous. Jealous? Yes. Because the cigar is our actual mistress. It's what we go to for a different type of relaxation that we don't get from the wife from time to time.
Bam Bam:So when things get hot in the house, Bye, honey. I'm gonna go have a cigar. They get a little resentful.
Gizmo:Maybe. Maybe. I think that Mrs. Gizmo looks at the cigar thing as my thing, and I think she's so uneducated in the space, even though we do a highly educational weekly podcast that she has access to on her phone for free at any time. Mhmm.
Gizmo:Yeah. But she's not interested in
Rooster:We make it pretty easy. I mean, if you go to our you know, the the website,
Senator:the Forget if you go to. If you would just ask a simple question. What's your favorite cigar? Done. How hard is that?
Senator:Correct.
Gizmo:Alright. So has anyone in the room other than chef ever gotten a gift related to cigars?
Rooster:Not from my wife.
Senator:Never.
Gizmo:From your wife.
Bam Bam:I'm talking about
Senator:I have been asked to procure my favorite cigar
Bam Bam:For yourself.
Senator:And then Venmoed the cost of that cigar, which was actually the Padron sixtieth. Think she got me, like, a few of those.
Bam Bam:Happy birthday, honey.
Rooster:Well, actually, no, I take it back. My wife did get me when the millennium first came out, she got me that. It was our anniversary
Bam Bam:of Was it Toro?
Rooster:We went to the Mohonk Mountain House. She got me a five pack.
Bam Bam:Okay.
Gizmo:I think it was like one
Rooster:of each size to try out. And She smoked four
Senator:of them and gave you one?
Rooster:That was yeah. Yeah. Actually, she did. Yeah. She did get me.
Rooster:That was the only time.
Chef Ricky:Lucky your wife's sweet.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Very lucky rooster. Lucky So
Chef Ricky:is yours because knows you like the reverse sear method. She got you a cast iron pan.
Rooster:She knows you like medium plus.
Gizmo:Rare plus.
Rooster:Rare plus.
Gizmo:Get it right, rooster.
Senator:She got him a cast iron pan so he can make his own steaks. She's not gonna leave any for him. Wake up, old boy.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. Let's get to another one now. This one is from lizard Carlos. He says, hope you lizards are doing well. After listening to a large part of the podcast, I feel that rum for Puerto Rico has been shortchanged by the lizards.
Gizmo:I've heard reviews and pairings with rums from all over the world with the exception of Puerto Rico. What is the process to send you our island's finest, and why have you guys been ignoring I don't know. Chef? Our island's rum. Chef.
Gizmo:Chef? Puerto That's the Rico.
Senator:Mean, we did a Puerto Rican rum. We did the Bacardi eight year.
Chef Ricky:That's true. So that that almost barely qualifies. I would say out of Puerto Rico, the best rum I've had, and I can say I've had many, obviously Doncu, which is sort of, I guess, entry level. But I think Romba Harilito is one of my favorite rums. But it doesn't drink like a Panamanian rum.
Chef Ricky:I'm not now I'm Puerto Rican. I'm not saying that, know, Puerto Rican rums aren't good, but they're just not I don't know. They're not really on the market like that. Right? Like outside of Bacardi, which is sort of a Cuban transplant and Doncu and I can't really don't
Rooster:many Does he other recommend anything?
Gizmo:Yeah. He wants to send us some stuff, so I'm gonna send him the address, and we'll see what
Chef Ricky:I was the really curious to see Yeah, what no, I'd comes love up to
Senator:try it. Look, I think the challenge is, you know, a brand like Bacardi is obviously you know, super mass produced, and if it were additive free, I think we would be much more open to it. Yep. You know, we did the Bacardi eight year, and it was after we had started drinking it or even after the episode that we realized that on that website that has figured out how much added sugar there is, that had a pretty hefty amount of added sugar.
Bam Bam:And that affected our rating.
Senator:It might not have, honestly. I think we found it out either late in the episode or after the fact. And so it's like when that kind of thing is at play, we're not necessarily reaching for rums from a brand that is doing that. And my experience I know I've been to Puerto Rico. I love the island, have had an amazing time there.
Senator:The rums I've had, they're They're okay. Yeah. They're just it's like a simpler, more straight forward style. I I wouldn't say I've ever really had, like, a particularly complex or Maybe they're more mixing rums.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. The the first rum that changed that for me was a barrulito rum. I don't one point it came up on this podcast, I remember, or I even thought we had it.
Rooster:Do they add sugar to it?
Chef Ricky:I don't no.
Bam Bam:I don't
Chef Ricky:think so. No. To me, that was actually a respectable rum. I grew up in a like my grandpa would every night finish his evening with like Palo Viejo, which was just like super affordable rum, but Puerto Rican. And that was, you know, that was like his retirement rum.
Chef Ricky:Prior to that, he would spend the money on Bacardi. Right. But Bacardi is a very commercialized rum. And then there was some Don Qu' thrown into the mix. Outside of those four rums, I don't know any others.
Chef Ricky:So yeah, I'm curious to know what he has to offer.
Rooster:We'll have to ask Bad Bunny.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. But the cigars have been miss, miss, miss, miss for me.
Gizmo:Puerto Rican cigars?
Chef Ricky:Yeah. I kind of went through a moment where I'm like, you know, we're not that far from Cuba.
Bam Bam:Is there such a thing? Sure.
Gizmo:Yeah. I had
Bam Bam:no idea.
Rooster:Puerto Rican cigars?
Chef Ricky:Yeah. What? I'm like, we're not that far from Cuba. At one point we were like a very prominent tobacco producer, but it hasn't really panned out. It hasn't happened.
Chef Ricky:And so I kind of went down this rabbit hole of like boutique cigar producers and I ordered from one. I can't remember the name of the company now, but they weren't good. They were expensive, but they weren't good. So I sort of gave up on that project. But yeah, I'd be curious to know what's coming out of there rum wise.
Chef Ricky:I'm sure there's some really small batch stuff that's coming out. Well, That's delicious that happened.
Gizmo:Mr. Carlos is on the hook for exactly what you're saying. Yeah. Let's do it. He's on the hook.
Gizmo:Send us some killer Puerto Rican rums. Give us some names. We'll try them.
Senator:Nothing super sweet.
Bam Bam:Yes.
Gizmo:Exactly. It needs to pair well with our cigars.
Chef Ricky:Well, like the Panamanian ones aren't not sweet, but they're Any
Senator:rums is sweet, but not super additive. I'm talking about like Ron Zacapa that is like Yeah. Well, I drinking sugar water like
Chef Ricky:That was that was like one of the rums that were above the at the the the the bricks levels of of Bacardi eight or know, that was that was high up there when
Senator:we were the Venezuelan crap. Diplomatico? Is that Venezuela? I
Gizmo:don't know.
Senator:Where's Diplomatico rum from? The green bottle.
Bam Bam:I'm not sure. Patterson, New Jersey. I don't know.
Senator:Sorry. That's like the sweetest rum you'll ever have. I'm not kidding. I would actually pay just to see, those of you who have never tried it, just to take that? Few Of course not.
Senator:We're never gonna review
Gizmo:it.
Chef Ricky:Just had some the other day, and it was sweet, but I still think the Bacardi a order ranza capa or the what's the other? Santa
Senator:De Vesma? Venezuela. I'm not kidding. I would pay just to see Gizmo's face taking one sip. That's it.
Senator:One sip of that rum. It it pour it it's like black, like when you pour it out. I'm not kidding. If you've It's like tomorrow. Am I wrong when you pour that Diplomatica rum?
Senator:Literally, it's in a green like glass like frosted green glass bottle, and you can what you can see through it looks like just a black spirit inside. And when you pour it in the glass, it'll be the darkest spirit you've ever poured in a glass. Really? And it's just sugar.
Chef Ricky:Had a different one. It was a it was a transparent bottle with a white label Diplomatico in black font. The color was similar to this bourbon. It was sweet, but it's not what you're describing. But there's a is it is it Santa Teresa rum?
Chef Ricky:Damn, I had that. There's one that's also super Yeah. But honestly, I've been so blown away by the Panamanian rums. I Yeah. I love nothing more than to get into some Puerto Rican stuff, but Riveting.
Gizmo:I knew it was coming. Boys, let's go now to our lizard of the week Yes. Presented by Bon Roberts. And our lizard of the week is going to win a 10 count box of cigars from our friends at Bon Roberts, and we appreciate those guys helping us out. And this listener heard the call, and I'm very excited to share this voice memo with you and our listeners and to talk about it.
Gizmo:We have our first lady lizard, woman lizard voice memo
Bam Bam:Wow.
Gizmo:From Lizard Tea tonight who's gonna be our lizard of the week, and let's listen to this now.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):Hi, lizards. Lizard Tea here. I love your show. It's my favorite thing to listen to while I'm driving. I can't smoke along in my car, so getting to share in your smoking sessions is the next best thing.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):So thank you for that and for all your good recommendations and ratings, and the bad ones too. I really appreciate you guys sometimes having a terrible smoke so that I don't have to. You mentioned on your New Year's episode that you had a 6% female audience. I'm not sure I believe that. And if you hear me out, you might not either.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):I'd like to challenge all of you, lizards and listeners, to do some thinking, preferably while smoking a cigar you love in good company because that's something that everyone deserves to enjoy. I was lucky enough to get into cigars in the nineteen eighties before Cuba went to hell and the big cigar boom of the 90s had everyone trying to cash in and making too many bad cigars. In the food and wine industry, we were into tasting exercises and palate training, so cigars were the next step. And what a step it was down a very deep rabbit hole. I hung out on alt smokers cigars, went to a lot of hearfs, spent way too much on rare and vintage boxes, and it's been a journey.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):I feel privileged to have had the chance to collect and smoke some truly great cigars. The one thing that was not always great was how I was treated in cigar spaces. I don't call myself an expert, but I do know which end of a cigar to smoke, and it's not much fun being treated like I don't or worse. I remember being catcalled in a cigar lounge by a gentleman, I use that term loosely, who kept making loud comments about what it looked like when a woman put a big long cigar in her mouth. I got pretty tired of it, so I said just as loudly, so you want me to treat your penis like a cigar?
Lizard T (Voice Memo):Wow. He agreed with great enthusiasm. By this time, the whole lounge was listening. I said, absolutely. I'll even let you pick which end I cut off and which end I set on fire.
Bam Bam:There you go.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):It wasn't that bad everywhere, even thirty years ago, and to some extent, it has gotten better. My favorite cigar lounge is run by a lady with a great depth of industry knowledge and a fantastic palette. I recently turned her on to Fabrica five. She loves them. The gender split most days ranges from 20 to 40% female, depending on time of day, going up to nearly 50% at their parties and events.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):Now, this lounge doesn't do ladies nights. They're not actively trying to get women in, but I see more women smoking here than at the other lounge in town or really most other lounges I go to. That's not a coincidence. People go where they feel welcome. A lot of cigar places are not welcoming, and they may not even know that they aren't.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):They don't see many women coming in, so they assume it's because women don't smoke cigars. They do. They're just not smoking them with you. The unwelcoming can be overt like actual harassment, but more often it's subtle. One shop made a social media post that suggested buying your dad cigars for Father's Day because if he didn't smoke cigars, it meant he was your mom.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):That's the punchline. Wow. Men smoke cigars, women don't. That's a message. It's also a self fulfilling prophecy.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):People don't go where they don't feel welcome. Cigar spaces online, really any spaces online, can be even worse than that. I don't disclose my gender anywhere on the Internet because it's
Gizmo:That's very sad to me.
Bam Bam:I agree.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):Hate like a normal person if I do. When I had a Facebook account, literally anything I posted in a gaming, hunting, bourbon, or cigar group was likely to be challenged and disparaged. Sometimes it was just annoying noise, and sometimes it got ugly. That's just life on the internet, right? But when I used my spouse's account to say the exact same things, since we were in the same groups, the worst of it disappeared.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):I didn't change what I was posting, just the name I was posting it under. The difference was huge. Not to say that people don't ever act like assholes when they talk to another guy in the hobby, but the quality of the assholing, if that's a word, was completely different. In most communities, there's a base level of respect for your fellow cigar smoker or hunter or gamer, even if you think they're wrong and you're calling them an idiot or worse. When I don't disclose my gender, the focus usually stays on topic.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):There's a lot less need to challenge everything I say or make me prove that I know what I'm talking about and have a right to be there. I get to be a normal person. I get to talk about my love of cigars or hunting or gaming without the extra baggage. And that means you're not going to see me in your 6%, even though I love your podcast and listen to it every week. I think online spaces that try to keep track of this sort of thing are seeing statistics that don't tell the whole story.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):Quite a few women very sensibly do not want to tell everyone on the internet who they are, where they live, and where they're going. I don't know what the actual numbers are for your female listeners, but I think it's actually likely to be at least a little bit higher than what you're seeing. Being a woman online can be a pretty awful experience. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. There's one particular cigar influencer who is a great example of why women who love cigars may not love being identified as a woman in online cigar spaces.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):This guy does cigar videos naked in a bathtub or wearing these
Gizmo:out It's not me.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):I can't tell if he's trying to cosplay an anime character or getting ready to bite the bell
Gizmo:I've seen that guy. Episode of Iron Chef. Not into it.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):This flamboyant fellow complains that entirely unlike himself, women smoke cigars for attention. They don't actually appreciate cigars and don't belong in cigar spaces. I have cigars on my humidor older than him, and he's the one people are listening to. It's kinda depressing. I wish I didn't have to hide behind my spouse's account to have normal conversations about cigars or avoid certain cigar stores and lounges.
Lizard T (Voice Memo):Cigars are for relaxing, and it's hard to relax when you're being told you don't belong in subtle or not so subtle ways. I appreciate every one of you who's made my cigar journey better because of what you share and how you welcome people. And if for some reason you think you might be one of those people who haven't always made everyone feel welcome, I hope your next cigar is so good it makes you want to share the love of the leaf with more people instead of less.
Rooster:Lizard T. Wow. Wow.
Gizmo:What a great voice memo.
Bam Bam:I think, honestly, it's despicable that a woman can't go to a cigar lounge and enjoy herself have a conversation with a guy about a cigar.
Gizmo:Or just on a Facebook forum. It's awful. Commenting on cigars or smokes or I mean, when I listened to that for the first time, obviously, I heard it before you guys. I was really bummed out that Lizard T has had Not that
Senator:cool. I really wish I knew where she lived.
Gizmo:Yeah. I think she said it was
Bam Bam:up north. Senator's gonna go get some fights in.
Senator:No. I just I I mean, it's sad because that is not what I've seen.
Bam Bam:Same.
Rooster:Like, I would have guessed like Midwest. Maybe Texas Maybe. Or
Senator:Texas is not the Midwest.
Chef Ricky:Well, I mean, no.
Senator:Same now, old boy.
Bam Bam:Well, he's a man of geography.
Chef Ricky:I mean,
Rooster:could be Texas, could be somewhere else, but I wouldn't think, if you're thinking up north, like Buffalo area,
Bam Bam:I don't know, it's just Down the street from where we are now, there's a Dominican owned cigar lounge. I play a lot of espionage there. They do have a lot of women that frequent that place. They sit down as a group, two or three ladies, they have a cigar, and they're commiserating among themselves. Are they Dominican?
Bam Bam:Likely, yeah. Yeah. They're Latino.
Chef Ricky:Was going to say there's a good chance. So is
Gizmo:that a cultural I'm sorry to interrupt. Is that a cultural thing that you think I
Chef Ricky:think when you're from the Dominican Republic, it's very much
Gizmo:Yeah. A
Bam Bam:not an issue there. Everyone's harmoniously smoking their own cigars and keeping to themselves.
Gizmo:There's no sexism?
Bam Bam:No. Now I've been to a bunch of, like just last week, I went to a meeting for a project, and I found a local cigar shop two hours south of here. There were two ladies in there smoking, and three or four other guys in that was smoking. You know, I didn't see any other guys making disparaging comments toward the ladies smoking. They were actually enjoying their cigars, talking about their cigars.
Bam Bam:I was eavesdropping a little bit. They kinda knew what they were talking about.
Rooster:Yeah, I think it's very cool to see a woman agree. Smoke a cigar. Alizar T is always welcome in this lounge. Come and smoke with us, you're more than welcome anytime to have a cigar. You will not be judged.
Bam Bam:What I don't like
Rooster:And you should not be.
Bam Bam:There is something that I don't like. A lot of ladies that do frequent some cigar lounges, they don't smoke cigars. They'll smoke a cigarette, and that's a big fucking problem for me. You're gonna come here and don't smoke a cigar, and if you're gonna meet your husband or your boyfriend, fine. Don't smoke.
Bam Bam:Just keep that cigar in your pouch or wherever you have it. That's a big, big issue for me.
Chef Ricky:I can't stand cigarettes
Bam Bam:on I cigar
Senator:agree with that. Yeah. I'm just surprised. I mean, I mentioned, obviously, I spent a ton of time in DC. I've seen more women cigar smokers in DC than probably anywhere in The US.
Senator:So Shelly's? Shelly's. There's tons. So mean, it's no different than a guy sitting there smoking a cigar. Like, I've never seen an awkward interaction with a woman We that they see at a cigar lounge at
Bam Bam:were doing college tours for my son. I sent you guys a photograph. So we went in there, and I that place. I had a great cheeseburger. My son had a great cheeseburger.
Bam Bam:He refused to have a cigar. I had a Padron Exclusivo, and there was one lady alone at a table having a meal and smoking a cigar while she was eating. Fucking baller. I respect that. I would love to see that more often.
Gizmo:Well, think what we're describing is probably I think we're probably seeing the smaller pockets of the good experience that women are having. I think if you think about a lot of areas of this country, you know, like where Lizard T is saying, one lounge in her town is woman owned, very accepting. Another one in that same, you know, location is not. I think it's about the culture that you set up.
Bam Bam:So look, the example of Shelly's, the woman, she was there, she was very well dressed, she was a professional.
Senator:The Shelly's experience is a product of DC.
Gizmo:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying.
Senator:Yeah, It's the culture of the geography.
Bam Bam:That's Like,
Senator:DC is an urban city
Bam Bam:Correct.
Senator:Where there are tons of working women in extremely powerful positions. It is not odd to see a woman smoking a cigar. True. And there are definitely other parts of this country that forget cigars, a woman working is a thing. You know?
Senator:Like, why would you be working? You have a husband. That's their job. That's not what it's like in a place like New York, in a city like DC, in Chicago.
Bam Bam:It's cosmopolitan, so there's a different mentality.
Senator:Totally. And so I think it's very much dependent on the geography. That's why I was so curious where she lives.
Bam Bam:That's a good question.
Senator:But it's sad that that's the case, you and you would hope that even in a place like that, like in a cigar lounge, clearly, it's not common for, I guess, these men to see a woman smoking a cigar. You'd think that they'd almost be in awe, like, this is a pretty cool thing. It's sad that that's not the case.
Bam Bam:Yeah. And in our club, I have yet to see a woman smoke a cigar. They're either coming with their friends or spouses, and they're sitting next to them.
Gizmo:There was a woman member
Rooster:for
Gizmo:I have two years sense. Or
Bam Bam:Oh, is that right?
Senator:Who would rent the place?
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Gizmo:No. No. No. I'm not talking about her.
Bam Bam:I haven't met her.
Gizmo:So there was a woman who was a member here
Senator:Oh, you're right. Who would sit
Gizmo:the bar. She would sit at the bar for about two years. I think she moved.
Bam Bam:With a cigar?
Gizmo:Yeah. She smoked cigars every time she was in.
Bam Bam:That's cool.
Gizmo:Super cool. That's crazy. Hung by herself. She came in, the afternoon, I guess after work or whatever.
Bam Bam:See, I'd love to have a group setting with a few ladies among us. We've yet to do that. That would be interesting. Now I know you're laughing. I would
Gizmo:Listen, let's not give off the wrong vibe.
Bam Bam:I'm trying not to.
Gizmo:No, but I'm not saying but at the end of
Bam Bam:the But I day would love to have conversations with the, you know, the the other gender and just have their take on what cigar smoking is like. What are they getting in the cigar? Are we smoking the same cigar? It'd be interesting.
Senator:To your point about that, you know, as much as I've said, I've seen plenty of women smoke cigars at different cigar lounges that I've been to just when I travel. I PCA, particularly the one in New Orleans Yep. Was really interesting in that I spoke to more women in the industry there than I have ever, and like women who have cigar podcasts and women who, you know, are cigar kind of influencers on social media.
Gizmo:About two who just started a brand that one was working for Placencia for a long time.
Bam Bam:Yep. And there was a woman that worked for La Aurora at PCA in New Orleans.
Rooster:Yep.
Bam Bam:I have respect for her because she knows what the hell she's talking about. And she was smoking decent cigars. I didn't have a chance to talk to her about what she was smoking, what her perception of the cigar was, but you can tell that she knew her way around a cigar shop and what to pick.
Gizmo:And LPC, Lisette was talking about getting more women involved. We were talking to her about that. I think it's a great thing.
Bam Bam:Yeah. I At
Senator:this past PCA in New Orleans, the person who won Cigar Lounge of the Year, the owner, was a woman.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Gizmo:Which is great to see.
Rooster:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Lizard T seems like she's been smoking cigars for quite some time, and she seems very
Gizmo:I think she said since the eighties, right?
Rooster:Yeah. Very knowledgeable about cigars.
Bam Bam:That's awesome.
Rooster:Yeah. I'm very curious. Like, what does she like? What does she, you know, what does she smoke
Gizmo:on a regular basis? That's what I wanted to definitely pinpoint here is I hope that lizard tea follows up here because I wanna know what is lizard tea smoking? What's the rotation like? What's the you know? What does she pair with a cigar?
Gizmo:The pairings. Yeah. The whole thing. Like, I wanna know the lizard experience for lizard tea. Like, I'm very curious because I think it's a perspective that we've not been able to share here, and I think it's there's a lot of value in sharing this perspective
Bam Bam:I agree.
Gizmo:And I will say, you know, not to pat ourselves on the back, but I am very glad that lizard tea not only feels welcome in lizard nation, which I think is a huge thing, but also feels great to send us a voice memo in in times where she said that on the Internet, she's not had a great experience. Yeah. Right? So I think that that's a wonderful thing. You know, obviously, we bust chops around here.
Gizmo:We, you know, we make a lot of jokes, but the fact that Lizard T feels welcome and the fact we don't have any women on this panel. No. Right? So the fact that Lizard T and other women around, you know, the world feel welcome in what we do here, I think that is a huge win for us. And I mean that for the fact that we want everybody to feel welcome here, you know?
Gizmo:And that's the point of cigar smoking, I think, is that wherever you go, whoever you're with, unless they're an absolute punisher, which obviously we have several of those, you know, in our Oh, yeah. Circles, you know, that you don't want to be around them because they're annoying. But, you know, we feel that everybody should be welcoming. Mhmm. So You it's nice to hear that.
Senator:Yeah. Yeah, and like we've been saying, it's especially cool when you see a woman cigar smoker.
Bam Bam:Who's serious
Senator:about no other reason that
Gizmo:you don't
Senator:see it as often, and you know, like we're wanting to know, what does she like to smoke? What does she pair with a cigar? Those are the questions that you have. You know, it's like a dime a dozen guys that you've met in a cigar lounge that you've had that conversation with. Mhmm.
Senator:It's very few women you've had that same conversation with, and so I would love to hear more from her and other women who are listeners about the experience.
Rooster:I was just going to say that if there's other women that are listening to our podcast, we would love to hear from you. You don't have to feel intimidated about sending a voicemail or sending us an email. We'd love to hear what you guys smoke. What do you like? I mean, what do you pair with?
Rooster:Yeah.
Gizmo:I hope Blizzard Tea has started a movement here that we hear now from another segment who hasn't been represented in our listener audience here in email and voice memo like you're saying. So hopefully the floodgates open because we'd love to involve more women here in in our podcast.
Rooster:So maybe that number is more than 6%.
Gizmo:Well, that's what, you know, what you're saying. But the problem is that I think Spotify generally knows the demo of the person who is subscribing because, you know, they're asking those questions at sign up when you're paying your bill, etcetera. So I don't know how skewed that is. I I don't disagree with Lizard T on that, but I I'm assuming that Spotify kinda knows who their customers are.
Chef Ricky:Mhmm. One of my favorite lounges when I'm in Brooklyn is in Crown Heights and it's called Blue Smoke, and that's a woman owned lounge.
Bam Bam:I know exactly where that is.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. So it's just it's easy to go into and BYOB and couple TVs there. And if I'm in Brooklyn
Bam Bam:Like Senator said, you will see more women in more central city locations than you will where we're in the suburbs. Yeah. It's rarer to see that now at the Dominican spot. It's more prolific there because of the culture. But I wouldn't mind seeing more of that here.
Bam Bam:Just serious female smokers that are into cigars.
Gizmo:Hopefully, more lady lizards out there write in. Send us send us some voice memos. We would love to hear what you're smoking, what you think of the podcast, everything that Lizard T was talking about. We'd love to hear more. So congratulations again to Lizard T for winning our lizard of the week presented by Bon Roberts.
Gizmo:And, boys, we're coming to the end of our evening now with the Joseph Magnus straight bourbon and the CAO Brasilia in box press. Any final thoughts before we move into the ratings?
Bam Bam:I will say that the bourbon grew on me tremendously. My glass is empty, and I'm going back
Chef Ricky:Are you to one another?
Bam Bam:Well, I am. So on my second pour, it was really starting to become more of a delicious experience.
Gizmo:And the aroma I'm surprised, honestly, how long it took your palate to open
Bam Bam:up tonight. I'm gonna talk about that in a rating, but it did it took a while for me to really like this.
Gizmo:So boys, let's not forget Lizard Tyler last week. We have a new protocol.
Bam Bam:Uh-huh.
Gizmo:Get your phone out
Chef Ricky:and send the send it.
Senator:Here we go. Alright. Both
Gizmo:ratings tonight on the pod. Don't forget, kids. You have to do the same. Alright, boys. It's time now to move into the formal liquor rating tonight on the Joseph Magnus bourbon.
Gizmo:Did you send yours? I did. I sent it to myself so I can show it to you guys.
Bam Bam:You're send
Gizmo:it to him. No. I won't.
Rooster:I sent mine to myself too.
Gizmo:No. But I didn't touch I'm not gonna touch my phone until As long as we see it after. Alright, boys. It's time now to move into the formal liquor rating tonight on the Joseph Magnus bourbon. Bam.
Gizmo:Bam. You're up.
Bam Bam:So I started off as a seven. I didn't enjoy this initially. It took me a sec it took a second glass, and I'm actually now wanting my third glass. It's really quite good. It became you know, the finish for me after I finished my second glass, I got a little cocoa.
Bam Bam:It's very smooth, very easy to drink, and it paired beautifully with this particular cigar and probably most other cigars. But again, because I'm not a bourbon guy and I don't see myself drinking this often, and like a few of the guys said in the room, if it's served to them, they're gonna drink it, yes. But I gravitated from that seven, and I'm at a pretty firm eight. I'm really happy with that score. I kind of like this.
Bam Bam:I don't know if I'll ever have it again. If it's in the lounge, I'll drink it, but I'm at an eight.
Gizmo:All right, chef.
Chef Ricky:I'm at a nine with this. I I thought it delivered everything really well. I love the dried the the sorry. The stone fruit aroma, the flavors that were coming through. I love the smooth heat that was being delivered consistently throughout.
Chef Ricky:Stone fruit.
Gizmo:No. I'm I'm laughing. I'm sorry, chef, to interrupt.
Chef Ricky:It's cold in here.
Gizmo:The heat's not working in here. Bam Bam is over there as if he's stuck in the in the polar vortex.
Bam Bam:My hands are ice cold right now.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. So
Gizmo:are Dude, it's like 62 in here. It's not that bad.
Bam Bam:Hands are ice cold.
Chef Ricky:My my hands are cold too. But yeah. No. For for me, this was a solid nine. You know, I I said that this could be a one and done, but I'm on my second pour.
Chef Ricky:I wouldn't mind a third. Yeah. Maybe it's because it's cold in here, but it's really Maybe in the summertime, this isn't quite that bourbon to be drinking, but bourbon in general for me is not something I seek out in the summer. But for a night like tonight, this bourbon's perfect for a cigar like this that, you know, it delivered a lot of flavor without a lot of strength. Wasn't competing with the bourbon.
Chef Ricky:They married really well. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the flavor. I enjoyed the smooth heat is what I'm going to call it because it's 50, a 100 proof 50%, but it didn't drink like that.
Chef Ricky:But there was just enough heat to keep you perked up and keep you going and keep you interested. I thought it was delicious.
Gizmo:So for me, it's also a nine. I thought this was an excellent bourbon tonight. It's it's not competing for me with like my favorite, I think, is the Weller special reserve, as we've talked about. If I have to reach for one bourbon, that's gonna be the one. That's a 10 for me all day.
Gizmo:But what I love about this, and I think senator pointed this out, not to hijack your your your commentary, senator, but I do think it sits at a different place in the rotation or where you're gonna reach for it. I think this is a special bourbon. I think it pairs very well with cigars. I love the flavor profile of this. And really for how smooth it was being 50%, a 100 proof, it's just an excellent bourbon.
Gizmo:I mean, kudos to to the blender. Paired great with cigars. Overall, a very, very good bourbon tonight. Thank you, Lizard Kyle. It's a nine
Bam Bam:for me.
Chef Ricky:Thank you, Lizard.
Bam Bam:Generous gift. Generous.
Senator:So, yeah, I'm also at a nine. I think Lizard Kyle definitely hit it out of the park with recommending this. I mean, for me, how distinct and memorable this bourbon is is a huge merit. Like, in any category of spirit, there are, you know, big titans and kinda mainstays that are like the benchmark for what you'd expect something to drink like. And for a bourbon to for me to describe it as like a hybrid between Heinz cognac Mhmm.
Senator:And a traditional bourbon.
Bam Bam:Well, that's what they tried to do when they did it.
Gizmo:That's huge compliments. Is. It
Senator:is huge.
Bam Bam:You're right.
Gizmo:That's huge.
Senator:Yep. I mean, it's just the cask. You know, it's not like there's actual cognac in here. I I mean Correct. Like what they were able to achieve is really something special.
Senator:The fact that this is a 100 proof and we all drank this neat, I can't think of a single other spirit in my life that's a 100 proof that I would sip neat the entire evening. I might try the first few sips neat, and then I'm gonna add ice after that or just a little bit of water. That's a merit. But I I don't want anything else with this. It drinks very smooth for a 100 proof.
Senator:It's rich. There's complexity. It's great for an occasion. Even by itself, we had kind of that discussion before.
Bam Bam:Mhmm.
Senator:After a nice meal, I would absolutely have a glass of this and have zero complaint. I think it's really great. I I think for anyone who enjoys bourbon, this is something that they could appreciate, and I think what's cool about it is for people who aren't lovers of bourbon, there's so much to appreciate here as well. So for all those reasons, I'm at a strong nine. What precludes me from the 10, the price point is steep.
Senator:I don't think any of us, for a daily drinker of any spirit, drop a $100,110 dollars. That's not common. But respecting that it's at that price point because it's done something unique for a special occasion, I think it's definitely worthy.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. The formal liquor rating tonight on the Joseph Magnus straight bourbon whiskey is an 8.8.
Bam Bam:K.
Gizmo:Great rating. Great score. Yeah. Great score. And now it's time to move into the former lizard rating tonight, boys, and the CAO Brasilia in box press.
Gizmo:Roost to Europe. Alright. I'll start with a couple of positives on this on the cigar. Oh, here we go.
Rooster:Oh, boy. A couple? There's there's there's a couple. Yeah.
Bam Bam:Roosted.
Rooster:Well, first of all, the price price point is, I think, very fair. It's it's a it's
Gizmo:a it's a good it's
Rooster:a good cigar for that price.
Gizmo:I need to take a sip.
Rooster:And, you know, I think the smoke output was unbelievable.
Gizmo:It's one of
Rooster:one of the top one of the best smoke outputs I've ever seen.
Bam Bam:Pagoda would have loved it.
Rooster:Yeah. Maybe out maybe the Liga Liga was kinda like this, but I think this kinda beats. Yeah. Even it's even
Gizmo:you know what the thing about and not to interrupt. The thing about the Liga is it doesn't feel authentic.
Bam Bam:I agree.
Gizmo:The the Liga feels Yeah. Like fake, somehow like augmented smoke.
Bam Bam:Like a spray?
Rooster:Like a spray.
Gizmo:This feels real.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Right. Nice, guys.
Rooster:You're welcome. So this is a cigar, at best for me, it's a morning smoke. I think it's a it's a very it's a it's a mild smoke.
Gizmo:The first at best.
Rooster:More to severe. No, I'd say it's Wow.
Gizmo:It's like a 4AM cigar.
Rooster:Smoke this in the morning. I usually smoke one or two cigars in a day. And for that reason, it doesn't cut it for me. Because if I'm only going to smoke one cigar, I want more out of a cigar.
Bam Bam:I want
Senator:to be satisfied with off Grand Cru.
Rooster:Yeah. I mean, I think because that wrapper,
Bam Bam:It's also fairly
Rooster:wrapper, but
Gizmo:that's mild.
Rooster:Yes. But it has more flavor.
Bam Bam:It is flavorful, but between
Senator:the two I think this has more flavor.
Bam Bam:I kind of
Rooster:agree Oh with my goodness. I I like you you like what you like. Right?
Gizmo:Yeah. Mean, I like
Rooster:I like the Grand Cru series. Don't I don't smoke them that often, but, yes, I do. I would probably prefer that over this. Yes. Wow.
Rooster:Yeah. The first third of this cigar was creamy and cocoa. But after about the halfway point, I was looking for something more out of the cigar, and I didn't get that. The construction was good. The smoke output was great.
Rooster:But that's about it. I mean, I was really hoping that it would build it was kind of one dimensional. And for that reason, I'm at a seven.
Chef Ricky:What? My Holy
Gizmo:God. I'm shocked at that.
Bam Bam:I am very surprised. Oh boy.
Rooster:They didn't cut it for me.
Gizmo:Wow. What? Senator.
Bam Bam:Beat beat that senator.
Chef Ricky:I'm at a
Gizmo:loss for words.
Chef Ricky:Senator's speechless.
Gizmo:That doesn't happen very often, does not.
Rooster:Not every cigar. It can be a 10. What do you what do you
Gizmo:We're not looking for tens, Rooster.
Senator:Not right.
Gizmo:It's not I
Senator:I just don't see how this cigar it doesn't matter what you smoke could ever earn less than an eight. I really don't. And I'm gonna go way higher than an eight. I gave it
Bam Bam:a 10. Wow. Very high praise. That's high praise. Wow.
Bam Bam:That's Perfect score. We're on opposite ends of the spectrum here, boys.
Senator:Perfect score. And here's why.
Bam Bam:You sure about that old boy?
Senator:Very sure.
Gizmo:Which old boy are you talking to?
Bam Bam:The younger old boy.
Senator:The combustion, obviously, as Rooster said, off the charts, just ridiculous. The construction was great really all the way through. The flavor is complex. Like, I am shocked to hear you say that you weren't getting complexity out of this cigar. Like, we were talking about fruit notes and cocoa and the creaminess.
Senator:I mentioned this before. I've never had a darker Maduro type Nicaraguan cigar with as creamy a flavor profile as this thing delivers.
Bam Bam:But don't forget
Senator:The saltiness that I was getting out of this cigar.
Bam Bam:The macadamia nut that we were getting.
Senator:The nuttiness. There were so many elements present throughout, and the best part was, and I was nervous about this, it persisted all the way through to the end. I mean, I smoked it to the nub, there was never harshness, never any sign of youth.
Bam Bam:Nice uptick in body, a little bit.
Gizmo:For
Senator:sure. I thought the second half definitely, and especially in the last half inch, it goes even a little bit further, which was great. Just really I'm so surprised by the seven. I thought the flavor profile was really excellent, and for me, I wasn't looking for more body because I'm not looking for another typical great full bodied Nicaraguan cigar. There's so many.
Senator:So many at this point. The fact that this has the versatility to be smoked as early as the morning for a mostly Nicaraguan cigar, definitely in the afternoon and even to start an evening, I mean, for me, it gives it a clear place, like, to put in my rotation and smoke this again. The box press, you know, credit to Cigar International who apparently asked them to make this, I don't know what the other Vitolas smoke like. It's kinda hard to be better than this one, I thought it was perfect all the way through. I can't complain, and then you factor in the price point, I mean, 9 for a cigar.
Senator:What more could I realistically want? Now, again, if you only like full bodied cigars, is this your cigar? No. But I think for most smokers, there's so much to love in this cigar.
Bam Bam:Mhmm.
Senator:So for all those reasons, I think the value for what you're getting is off the charts, and that's why I'm at a 10. If this were a $30 cigar, no, I wouldn't be at a 10. But I think what you get for what you pay is really freaking hard to beat, and it's so unique, kind of like the bourbon. I was my commentary earlier, that level of smoothness and creaminess for a mostly Nicaraguan cigar, there's not another smoke I would compare this to. Not even a Padron.
Senator:Don't know of any Padron this creamy, or that I would say, you know what? In the morning, I would really wanna have that cigar. I mostly smoke Padron in the afternoon and the evening. I don't have a Nicaraguan cigar that I wanna start my day with. For roughly half the price.
Senator:Totally. So for all those reasons, I've gotta give it a 10. I think they really have done an outstanding job producing something For
Gizmo:twenty five years, by the way.
Senator:Yeah. In twenty five years, that's really, really differentiated.
Bam Bam:Good commentary. Yeah, that's good commentary.
Gizmo:So for me, it's a nine. Mhmm. It's not a perfect 10 for me tonight. Let's go through the positives. I I think the combustion was impeccable.
Gizmo:Might have been the best combust best combustion we've ever had
Bam Bam:in the world. It smoked itself.
Gizmo:I mean, it was excellent. I mean, all of us had a great, you know, constructed cigar. Nobody was touching it up. There weren't a ton of lighters coming out. Nope.
Gizmo:So I gotta give them credit on this. You would think that, you know, a line that's been around as long as this has, you'd expect some imperfection. You'd expect some lapses in quality, but they've done a great job
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Gizmo:Delivering, for us in the room tonight, five great cigars. I mean, it it really was excellent. I love the creaminess, especially through the retrohale.
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Gizmo:The regular draw was excellent, but the retrohale was like next level for me. The value, of course. I mean, at $9, there's there's no question. The flavor was amazing. You know?
Gizmo:Where am I gonna put this? Now that's that's my problem here.
Bam Bam:Me too a little bit.
Gizmo:Where am I gonna put this?
Bam Bam:Just a little bit.
Gizmo:Now you said there's no Nicaraguan that would work for you earlier in the day. For me, I'm really having a problem putting this cigar anywhere in a regular rotation. In that, if I want something lighter Nicaraguan earlier in the day, I'm going Cabo Iguan. I'm going that Tatawahi that we did. I love that cigar, the Churchill.
Senator:Yeah.
Gizmo:I loved it. This cigar for me is a car smoke. This is a cigar that I'm going to buy a fiver of or a tenor, and I'm going to put it in my humidor. And when I'm driving, this is a car smoke. I want a lot of combustion in the car.
Gizmo:I want effortless. I want ease. I want smooth. I want simple not simple in flavor, but simple to deal with, I'm saying. This is a car smoke for me.
Gizmo:I think that's where this is gonna slot. I'm not gonna run out and buy a box of this for how good it performed tonight. I'm not gonna buy a box. This is not gonna enter my rotation, and I'd be shocked if it enters anyone's rotation in this room, given the cigars that are in our rotations. I look forward to seeing it.
Senator:Can I throw a cigar in that I want us to compare this to? So it's not Nicaraguan, but it smokes like a Nicaraguan, and it's the My Father Blue.
Bam Bam:Mhmm.
Senator:What I loved about that cigar prior to having this is that that was a milder Nicaraguan esque cigar. We all commented on that. Like, oh, wow. I would slot that before a Padron. Like, it it has a lot of flavor, but it's smooth, and there's some creaminess.
Senator:Honestly, this is a better expression of what I would hope for that cigar to be Wow. For me.
Gizmo:I think MF blue is better for me than this.
Bam Bam:A ton only be I I kind of agree with Giz.
Gizmo:I would pick it up over this.
Senator:That's trying to be closer to a Padron. This is closer to something that is so differentiated.
Gizmo:I don't agree with you on that. Yeah. So I'm I'm gonna
Bam Bam:go M Blue World. For me. The My Father there is a strain of sweetness that I get in that. I didn't get that.
Rooster:I think this was missing that.
Bam Bam:Didn't get I'm that always looking for that.
Rooster:No, know.
Bam Bam:I'm not. But when I get it, like in that My Father Blue, that's a very unique smoke. I don't think it's trying to be a Padron, and it's certainly not trying to be it's really very differentiated because of that strain of sweetness. I don't get that here. I Both great cigars are like
Senator:bought a box that my father blew, and I thought it would very clearly slot before an ex Luisivo, and I find myself debating I one over the don't do that. And that's a problem for me where it's not fully entered my rotation. Frankly, it hasn't any of ours because we all send photos when we're smoking.
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Senator:There's no one that is consistently every week Mhmm. Sending photos to you my body.
Gizmo:I don't send photos every time I've smoked. I smoked I smoked a cigar every day this week. I haven't
Rooster:seen it.
Senator:Are you gonna honestly tell me it's entered your full rotation?
Gizmo:I'm smoking one a week.
Senator:That's one a week? Yeah, I'm probably Your rotation is a cigar that you're smoking many times during the week.
Bam Bam:Right.
Gizmo:I'm smoking one a week.
Bam Bam:Yeah, roughly do two of those a week.
Gizmo:Do you smoke one ex Luseba a week? I smoke
Bam Bam:More than that.
Gizmo:Of that's not a fair comparison.
Senator:No, it's just your rotation. Do you smoke one C Glow five a week? No,
Gizmo:like No, actually, yeah, C Glow five, I'm probably smoking one every two weeks now.
Bam Bam:Inside global insider.
Gizmo:No. I'm not smoking that.
Rooster:How many exclusivos are you guys smoking a week? I'm just Probably five.
Senator:Three to But that's my point. That's the rotation. Three to four. You said for me the the the concerto you were smoking
Gizmo:a lot. Concerto is five to six times a week.
Senator:That's my point is your rotation are the cigars that almost every day Mhmm. Are part of what you're smoking. That's the definition of the rotation.
Bam Bam:That's true.
Senator:And so I'm just saying for me, I thought when we reviewed that my father blew that that was gonna be an everyday part of my rotation.
Bam Bam:That got a 10 across the board.
Senator:And I find myself choosing it between either that or like a padrone or something else, and so it veers too close to trying to be firmly medium and even sometimes medium full when you get down to the very end of that cigar that I'm picking one or the other. This is so firmly mild medium
Bam Bam:that Will this enter your daily rotation?
Senator:It very, very well could.
Bam Bam:So now, look, if he gave it a 10, I believe him.
Gizmo:I don't believe him. If it's gonna enter I look forward to seeing it.
Bam Bam:It's almost gonna enter his daily rotation, then that tends that there's merit.
Senator:Like, I thought that my father blew. We all said this when we reviewed it. Like, oh, maybe this could actually be a cigar that we could have earlier in the morning of the day. No one has sent a photo of my father blew in the morning. Sure.
Gizmo:That's That's true.
Senator:I'm averaging I actually like, the whole time I was sitting here, I'm like, this may be the first one. This could be my first one.
Gizmo:But what about the Cabo Iguan? That's puro.
Chef Ricky:That's a different that's a puro.
Bam Bam:It's very
Senator:different flavor profile. It's a different flavor profile. Is.
Gizmo:Very
Senator:true. What's interesting to me about this is, like, this has, like, like, traditional Nicaraguan esque notes. That Cabo Guan, none of us would have been in our wildest dreams guess that it was a Nicaraguan cigar.
Bam Bam:Correct.
Senator:This, when you taste it, you get some of those notes, the cocoa we were talking about. Yeah. So for me, the cabaguan is such a different animal. I can't they're not
Bam Bam:We're trying to do the same gonna have to watch what he smokes every night. Correct.
Gizmo:I look forward to it.
Senator:Me too. No. Please do. Look, I just after the My Father Blue, the reason I mentioned it
Bam Bam:Uh-huh.
Senator:It was like a light bulb went off of like, wow, there could be a Nicaraguan S cigar that I could smoke early in a day. None of us really regularly do that, maybe outside of Rooster. Rooster. None of us do that. This fits what I thought that could be.
Senator:That's what's so intriguing about Okay. This for
Bam Bam:Got it.
Gizmo:I love the cigar, but it was a nine for me. Chef. Chef.
Chef Ricky:Oh boy. Well, I'm happy to hear you say that you don't see how it could get anything less than an eight, because an eight is what I gave it. And I'm a say why. I did like the salt forward in the beginning, the dried fruit, the slight barnyard on the nose, the aroma of the wrapper, and the foot. I loved the smoke output.
Chef Ricky:I loved the way it felt in the hand. The wide box press was great in between the fingers. But what happened with me was that final third started to unravel on me like a cheap cigar.
Gizmo:I had a little bit of an unraveling, but it was very quick.
Chef Ricky:No. So I I it started to happen, and and I would say it was user error, but I had great tools today because I used Bam Bams. You know, the cut was precise. It was sharp.
Rooster:It could be the cutter.
Chef Ricky:No. The cutter was is super sharp.
Gizmo:Cutter
Chef Ricky:is super sharp. Didn't take a whole
Gizmo:lot off.
Senator:Could have had Bam Bam hold the cigar the whole time
Gizmo:for you.
Bam Bam:Can you let him talk?
Chef Ricky:I didn't take a whole lot off and I was smoking and as much as I was enjoying the flavor and everything was right, the balance was great. I'm sure. Did it feel mild to medium throughout? Yeah. And that didn't bother me because I could see, just echoing what you guys are saying, this early in the evening, later in the morning, that is all very possible.
Chef Ricky:And I will smoke this again because no one else here seems to have experienced what I did. But for me that final third, the last couple inches, it just started to unravel. It started to canoe and it was kind of getting frustrating to smoke.
Rooster:It sounds like a seven.
Chef Ricky:No, no, no, because most of the cigar was enjoyable, and even at that point, the flavor of the cigar was enjoyable.
Senator:Pipe down old boy.
Bam Bam:Owe me an invoice for that.
Chef Ricky:It just reminded me of some of my early days Camping? In the Yeah, camping. Don't maybe say it again, rooster. Or even after that, you know, and you kind of pick up, I don't know. Early on in my journey, was on Cigar Bid A Lot I thought- By
Gizmo:the way, these are on Cigar Bid a lot.
Chef Ricky:Yes. I would feel like this very thing would happen with a lot of those cigars that I have. So it just sort of took me back to that time of like, Oh yeah, we have smoked really value priced cigars that hasn't happened with. Yeah, was a little frustrating, but I will smoke it again. And we have had some really affordable price fix that that doesn't happen with.
Chef Ricky:So for that reason, I'm an eight.
Gizmo:All right, Bam. All
Bam Bam:All the positives that you've all talked about, I agree with. So I'm just gonna talk about
Rooster:Negatives?
Bam Bam:Yeah, but there really is no negative other than the fact that I don't see myself smoking this often, but I am buying a box because the performance, the flavor, the unique creaminess, and that macadamia nut, which for me then evolved to like an almond note.
Gizmo:Especially through the retro menu.
Bam Bam:Yeah, it was off the charts. The price is incredible. I'm at a nine, Only because I don't see my smell self this entering my daily rotation. But will I have this three times a week? Yeah.
Bam Bam:And I think that's deserving of a high score. But comparing it going back to the my father comparison, I do edge that cigar out above this just slightly because of that sweet strain that I get that I don't get here. But what I love about this is it it it lacks that sweetness, but that balance is there. It's very it smokes like a very sophisticated cigar for $9.
Chef Ricky:This cigar is great to share.
Senator:Yeah. To be clear, I don't disagree on the my father blue. If you can have just one cigar, yes, I'm taking the my father blue over this. Right. But for where I want it to slot in my rotation, the my father blue, it's not as mild as this.
Senator:No. Not as versatile as this, and it is trying to compete more for later in my evening that slot, which is so packed right now
Bam Bam:Yep.
Senator:Between aging rooms, sonatas Like all of us. And ex Lucido.
Bam Bam:And that's why I can't give it a 10, for me personally because it is so jam packed, the repertoire. Right?
Senator:But but that but my point is, like, this is so much milder than those that, like, it's very easy to put them That's also true. Early. This is also true. Where that other blue is so much closer to trying to be those other ones that, like, I have to, like, pick one or the other. I don't ever have to
Gizmo:do that. This is a Nicaraguan pregame for the other Nicaragans. Correct.
Bam Bam:It's a great argument because Senator's making a great point because you do have to kind of decide when cigars are so similar. This is a differentiator.
Rooster:Yeah, but you don't have to go Nicaraguan to another Nicaraguan.
Bam Bam:No. I mean,
Rooster:It does fit there, but you could always go to a Honduran and then a Nicaraguan. I
Senator:wish. That's my point. The My Father Blue is Honduran, and ironically, it actually smokes closer to most traditional Nicaraguans than I actually think this thing is.
Bam Bam:A touch more yes. I wish I had time or the initiative to do a morning or afternoon smoke because this, I would have this more often and my rating would be much higher, but I just there. That's not my thing. But if I were, this would be a 10 all day long.
Senator:Yeah. And that's well said. Again, for me, it was where it slots in my rotation. Correct. And I think your point is very well taken.
Senator:Yeah. Yours, that's also why your rating is
Bam Bam:That's exactly right.
Gizmo:I said the same thing as you, but I didn't get that comment.
Bam Bam:You're no good.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. The formal lizard egg tonight on the CAO Brazilian box press is an 8.6. Great score.
Bam Bam:What were
Gizmo:we gonna say, Senator? I'm sorry.
Senator:No. I was just saying, I mean, you do have he's saying he does not regularly at all have an afternoon cigar. No.
Rooster:Or a morning smoke. Or a
Bam Bam:morning smoke. No.
Gizmo:You in the car.
Senator:Regularly have an afternoon cigar in the car, so that's why I just I'm I'm holding it to different
Bam Bam:you know? Would be a great cigar for you in a car.
Gizmo:Now that's why I
Chef Ricky:said that.
Gizmo:This is a
Rooster:car cigar. Yeah, why can't you have this in the morning?
Gizmo:I don't really smoke that much in the
Bam Bam:I also have to say, I think, what did it get? An 8.6?
Rooster:Yeah.
Bam Bam:That's way too fucking low for cigar.
Senator:I agree. To me, it's a nine at minimum.
Gizmo:Well, who are gonna blame for that?
Bam Bam:It really Round
Gizmo:it up.
Bam Bam:It's a little bit of an injustice for what we experience tonight.
Gizmo:Fear of So boys it's a nine.
Senator:Compare that. Like Cher at the Grammys right now. Correct.
Gizmo:Let's compare that to the other CAO we've done on the pod on episode 93. We did the BX three, the big brother to this that has three types of Brazilian tobacco in it. And Robusto scored an 8.3, so this did better than that one. So I have a question for you guys before we wrap up. So we've been comparing this to the my father blue.
Gizmo:I actually wanna compare this cigar, not in strength, but in flavor profile slotting to the Les Bijou nineteen twenty two we did a couple weeks ago that performed very, very well. I actually think, for me, that's a more apropos comparison as far as Nicaraguan. Not in flavor In per
Bam Bam:what context, though?
Gizmo:In where it would slot. I would put this in a very similar place that I would the Les Bijou.
Bam Bam:Well, the problem with that cigar, it was great cigar, but it has more body than this
Gizmo:than Yeah. Has a little
Bam Bam:more oomph. To his point earlier, it competes with other cigars that are already in our Thank you.
Senator:Bam heard me. Thank you.
Bam Bam:Yeah, but that's an important I don't
Gizmo:listen to you, as you know.
Bam Bam:It is an important point. I mean, you have to kinda
Senator:It competes with that crowded slot we're talking about, This the les is so much milder. It does not compete with those.
Bam Bam:But the fun thing, the flip side of that whole argument, it is kinda fun to interchange if they're kind of similar, so you get to experiment. If you do it often enough, you know what you
Senator:really I know. The problem is we say that. And we at our habits.
Gizmo:It doesn't change. It doesn't. It's so true.
Senator:It's still an aging room. It's still an ex luciva. That's correct. No matter what we do, that that that's why I'm saying, like, I'm gonna rate a cigar a nine or a 10 that is gonna try to compete for that slot, I already know I have to call the bullshit. Like, there's no chance it dislodges those cigars.
Senator:So it needs to be something that
Bam Bam:is I'm calling bullshit on myself. As a penis.
Gizmo:So I wanna say something, by the way. So the Trinidad Espiritu series number three
Bam Bam:Uh-huh.
Gizmo:I've actually been slotting that in where I've had the aging room concerto. I've been slotting it in where I've had the Exclusivo when I won a little bit of a switch up. It's a killer cigar, man.
Senator:It is. Yeah. But is it better than either of those two?
Gizmo:It's not about better in that context. For me, and we're not talking about ratings, It's about change. It's about just a
Senator:little bit But there's a resilience of ours that slot
Bam Bam:in there. That's what I said earlier.
Senator:Yeah. That's not the point, though.
Gizmo:Yeah. Lei Bijou might be might fit there
Bam Bam:as Right. Of course.
Senator:But it doesn't it doesn't change that
Gizmo:you're not
Senator:gonna smoke five Lei Bijou
Gizmo:it a high rating. That's
Chef Ricky:true. Yeah.
Bam Bam:Absolutely. But we're not gonna hit that frequently, though.
Senator:That's the point. You're not gonna smoke five Le Bijouxs a week. You're not gonna five smoke five Espiritu's a week, but you are gonna smoke five Exclusivos a week.
Bam Bam:And Concerto's because
Gizmo:we're stuck in our pattern, I
Bam Bam:think. Yeah.
Senator:Is. It's not stuck. The Concerto's a recent discovery. It's like And it's delicious. That slot is about delivering the most flavor in the smoothest way.
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Senator:And the Le Bijou does not deliver as much flavor as an Exclusivo or Concerto. The Espiritu doesn't deliver as much flavor. This certainly doesn't. So, like, that's why those are always gonna win out for that slot. Right.
Rooster:That's the only slot I want.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. A great night tonight. Let's go through the ratings one more time. The Joseph Magna straight bourbon whiskey was an 8.8, and the CAO Brasilia in box press was an 8.6. Let's congratulate Lizard T again with the great voice memo, winning a 10 count box of cigars from our friends at Bon Roberts.
Gizmo:Thanks again to those guys for helping us out with the lizards of the week. That's a great box of cigars for Lizard Tea. Oh, yeah. She's gonna love it. For anybody.
Gizmo:Thanks again to Lizard Kyle for sending us this bourbon. That was awesome awesome recommendation.
Bam Bam:Very generous.
Gizmo:And I really wanna try the cigar bourbon from these folks. I think that was a a great recommendation. Of course, boys, we have to thank Fabrica five, our awesome presenting sponsor. Correct. Great Honduran cigars.
Gizmo:Use our code lizard pod for 10% off your entire order. And finally, small batch cigar, the preferred retail partner of the Lounge Lizards podcast. Use our code lizard 15% off your entire order. It's an amazing retail shop. Great customer service.
Gizmo:Fast shipping. You cannot beat smallbatchcigar.com. So check those guys out. Boys, a great night tonight.
Bam Bam:Very good night.
Gizmo:Good pairing. And Good combo. And we'll see everybody next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us.
Gizmo:You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, loungelizardspod.com. That's loungelizardspod.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 at Lounge Lizards Pod dot com.
Gizmo:You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. We really appreciate your time, and we'll, we'll see you next week.