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Recorded at the Ten86 Cigar Lounge in Hawthorne, New Jersey, the lizards smoke the Leaf by Oscar Maduro in Toro paired with Tapatio Excelencia Extra Añejo. The guys discuss this cigar’s very unique presentation, how the Wonder mobile restaurant has changed lounge life, TAA Release Disappointment, and the truth about Ticketmaster.
Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes range from 60 to 90 minutes and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features seven members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo, and tonight I'm joined by Rooster Senator Grindr, and bam bam.
And our plan is to spoke cigar, drink some tequila, talk about life, and of course have some labs. So take this as your 61st official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard Plan, meet us here once a week. We are gonna smoke a new world cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating.
We discussed this cigars very unique presentation, how the Wonder Mobile Restaurant has changed our lounge life t a a release disappointment and the truth about Ticketmaster, all among a variety of other things for the next hour. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair top oft ncia tequila Extra Aho with the leaf by Oscar Maduro in Toro.
A boutique [00:01:00] Toro tonight on the pod. Very interesting presentation. A cigar from Leaf by Oscar. It's called the Villa Doris Maduro, again in Toro six by 52. But you wouldn't know that boys by looking at the presentation here, because this is unlike anything I've ever held in my hand. No, it looks
**Senator:** like, uh, you personally rolled this case.
This thing looks
**Gizmo:** ridiculous. This is my new cigar company, .
**Grinder:** This is an grant. Grandpa Oscar rolled this in the, in the barn before he shipped it off in the boxes. Mm-hmm. , because this is a, uh, yeah,
**Senator:** after six glasses of tequila.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Mean Christ. Real interesting presentation. So it's a cigar wrapped, I guess, in a tobacco leaf.
A dried tobacco leaf with a, what kind of material would you say that is? It's like a burlap.
**Bam Bam:** Uh, like a burlap. It's burlap. Yeah. Yeah. It's a burlap.
**Gizmo:** Burlap band. Band. Yeah. Over that. Tobacco weave that's on the cigar that we're actually gonna smoke. Right. It's the only vegan [00:02:00] cigar out there. . . You know what I wonder is, I wonder how many guys have taken this just as it is.
Clip the top. Yeah, clip the top. Lit it , and then smoke through the Burrow App band. I mean, it's definitely hype. I, I've read that actually. People have done that. Wow. You should come with Instructions . I mean, all right, so let's unwrap this thing. Take the burla off. This is really, really exciting, guys.
**Bam Bam:** So you just pulled the band, right?
Starting the new year off right. And it'll come apart nicely. You should anyway. And it leave a ni it leaves a nice mess.
**Grinder:** Oh, that's a, that's a demerit.
**Gizmo:** So this is for the listener to give you the experience that's as SMR by lounge lizard's experience of unwrapping this thing.
**Bam Bam:** So I've, I've had
**Gizmo:** this cigar before.
We're trying to give 'em the ASMR experience. Bam, bam. Oh, I'm sorry. We need bigger ashray.
**Grinder:** Although I appreciate the concept, the. The delivery is lacking with this, with this fucking mess I'm making here.
**Senator:** I, for [00:03:00] the record,
**Gizmo:** do not appreciate the concept. I have tobacco leaf all over my shirt everywhere.
**Senator:** This stuff's going.
Every, this
**Gizmo:** is insane. Yeah. All right, so now what's
**Bam Bam:** interesting is the inner band is
**Grinder:** also burla. It's, well, it's all the inner band's burla, but the construction on this, this super rustic is very rugged, rustic. Yeah. They continue
**Gizmo:** with the theme, it seems. Yeah. So, yeah, so it's a, another burlap band on the actual cigar, which looks really nice.
**Bam Bam:** That's a nicely made cigar kind of rustic. Very toothy. It
**Gizmo:** feels packed. It's very dense. It feels very packed, very intense. Now when I look at this, this does not look like a Toro to me. No, no. It's listed as a Toro six by 52. It looks more like a, like a Corona Corona extra. , which
**Senator:** I like.
**Grinder:** I like, which I, this is, this feels really good in the hand.
This size. I love this size.
**Gizmo:** The um, yeah, I'm actually kind of relieved in a way. Mm-hmm. ? The smell. The smell. It's funny.
**Bam Bam:** Not much on the nose. It smells
**Gizmo:** like little earthy. [00:04:00] Yeah. It's like earthy tobacco.
**Grinder:** It's okay. It smell barn Yardi, but not in a hay way, but more of in a manure way. Mm.
**Senator:** Wind.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. There's a downwind, there's like
**Senator:** a mustiness to this.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yes, musty. . So are you guys gonna weave the burlap band on it or take it off?
**Grinder:** Yeah,
**Senator:** off till it heats up. I'll be honest, I hate how the burlap, I don't like how it feels,
**Gizmo:** feels in the hand. That's what I was going to
**Senator:** it.
**Grinder:** It makes, it gives me the heebie-jeebies one. I . It feels like someone like, you know how people when they, when they scratch their nails on a surface and it makes that creek, that's what it feels
**Bam Bam:** like.
When I don't catch that. It feels a little dirty. Kind of. That is unclean. It's unclean.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, let's cut this thing. So
**Senator:** you like that, babe?
**Grinder:** Well, you like it dirty
**Bam Bam:** occasionally.
**Grinder:** The
**Rooster:** band does come off pretty
**Gizmo:** easily though. All right. Shall we cut? Let's cut it. My draw is wide open though. Thank God. I was very nervous cuz that it took a lot to cut that same here.
**Senator:** Sorry. You could just unravel some more. More
**Grinder:** of, more of a mess being
**Bam Bam:** made. cold draw's kind of sweet. It's
**Gizmo:** nice. Oh, that is [00:05:00] wild. I have, by the way, I have tobacco weave from unwrapping it. I have it all over my shirt. Oh yeah. Like this is like You're a slob. Yeah. Welcome to the club.
**Grinder:** all over it. Mm-hmm. The cold jaw is pleasant.
It is, um,
**Bam Bam:** very pleasant. I'm getting dried raisin. A little dried fruit, maybe. Mm-hmm. .
**Gizmo:** Aren't the raisins always dry? Mm. Have you
**Grinder:** ever had a wet raisin? Touche. Touche.
**Bam Bam:** When I, yes. When they're in my cereal.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, let's light this thing. The Leaf by Oscar. Can you turn off Rooster's mic please? via Darris in Toro, which doesn't look like a Toro, but it is again, it's 52 ring gauge by six inches boutique little company.
They don't have a ton of cigars. They got a lot of reviews though. Got a lot of review. . Yeah, I'll tell you about that in a second. I was cracking up.
I am optimistic now after we've cut this and tried the cold draw.[00:06:00]
Hmm.
Wow. What are you guys getting on the, I
**Rooster:** got like a little
**Gizmo:** spice on the cold raw, right? A little bit. I, I just got like dried fruit here. Wasn't it like a cinnamon thing? No. Dried fruit for me. .
**Grinder:** I kind of like
**Senator:** it . It's pretty cool. I'm
**Gizmo:** surprised. It's pretty cool on the light. It's, it's definitely medium, medium full.
But the flavor is really interesting, really strong. I like the flavor. It is strong.
Hmm. I like that.
**Grinder:** Oh, it's good. The retro hale is, is
**Bam Bam:** it's sharp. It's powerful. Yeah. And I was gonna say, it's piercing, actually. Piercing is a good
**Grinder:** word. Yeah.
**Senator:** This is a great winter cigar. It is. It's, its perfect for the cold weather. It'll, it's really chewy. It'll
**Bam Bam:** hold up in a, in a cold weather outside. Whoa.
**Gizmo:** It's got like habanero spice . Oh god. Yeah. And for you to be saying,
**Grinder:** I feel like I just had some Porsche [00:07:00] radish on like a, on like a roast beef
**Gizmo:** sandwich. Yeah. It's definitely got some ooph to it.
**Bam Bam:** I'm getting a little canoeing going on here.
**Grinder:** No, mine's perfect. Look at
**Gizmo:** that.
Interesting flavors. So far, so far. Very good. For me,
**Grinder:** the aroma is, is oddly different. Very different from the, uh, it's peanuty.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's like a, I get a peanuty aroma off the smoke. That's
**Grinder:** a good one. You're on,
**Bam Bam:** you're on point tonight, Ben. I think, I think I didn't sleep, so I'm good. .
**Grinder:** Yeah. Roasted roasted nuts, pine nuts.
Well, this is, I'm, I'm, I'm very surprised.
**Senator:** Yeah, me
**Gizmo:** too. So the cigar is, Nicaraguan rapper, and it has Ecuadorian filler and binder, which is interesting.
**Senator:** Um, where's the leaf from that? It was wrapped in .
**Grinder:** It's from, uh, I'm curious. It's [00:08:00] Trenton, New Jersey, .
**Gizmo:** Um, but as Grinder was saying, great combustion. I mean, I think all of us have Oh yeah.
We're all kind of like chimneys right now. Yeah. Just when you light
it,
**Rooster:** you get, you get like a
**Gizmo:** blast of spice. Yeah. It's nice. Right?
**Senator:** Mm. , this has a richness that reminds me of like the League of Nine. We did very good
**Grinder:** comparison.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So by the way, so I was going on their website, I was trying to get some information on these cigars today.
This could be the worst website I've ever navigated. Like it's up there with promo cigar promos better now. Well, promo did a nice job revamping, I mean, it's that level quality. So I look at it and I'm like, oh, I wonder what people are saying about the cigar. Cuz Rooster went and picked up, you know, these cigars for us tonight.
And um, I see that they, it has 38,600 reviews, . And
**Bam Bam:** I'm like, that is, uh, sounds like a
**Grinder:** controversial ci. This is the most
**Gizmo:** popular cigar. I mean, that's the biggest cigar. Cigars the biggest cigar in history. And this is like a little boutique brand. So I'm like, what [00:09:00] in God's name caused 38,600 reviews to be put on Leaf by Oscar?
And then I click on it and I'm looking. And I don't know if their webmaster messed up, somebody messed up. But the entire list of reviews on this cigar is just a bunch of people arguing about pharmaceutical drugs. , like fighting, like internet, fighting about pharmaceutical drugs and pharmaceutical companies.
Not a single thing about a cigar. Are we sure we know what's in this . I mean, they are like yelling at each other. They're like tagging each other's names and stuff. I don't know. The webmaster must have messed up the code or something, but that's awful. You can't, they
**Grinder:** pulled the wrong one. You can't bang on for 38,000 reviews though, just on pharmaceutical drugs.
**Gizmo:** They, they did it. Oh, they're, oh, they were doing it . Yeah. Absolutely. So what do you guys think so far? I like it so far.
**Rooster:** Mm-hmm.
**Gizmo:** pretty good,
**Bam Bam:** you know? Yeah. And like, like, uh, Senator said it will. [00:10:00] Definitely
**Gizmo:** a full up to a winter smoke. Yeah,
**Rooster:** like a full flavored cigar right from the beginning. Yeah. We'll see how it goes.
But I mean, for right now it'd love a spice. How did
**Grinder:** you get inspired for this, this cigar? Like where did you even,
**Gizmo:** so
**Rooster:** I walked into the store and I was asking the guy like, what do you recommend? So he goes, you know, try the placencia. I said, no. Then he said, why don't you try the Rocky Patel? I said, no, no
And then he said, why don't you try the Padilla? I said, no, no, no, . And then he walked over to this cigar and he's like, lot of guys like
**Gizmo:** the cigar. I'm like,
**Rooster:** wow, this is, it's different. I've never seen a cigar like that. Like what is this thing? Like
**Gizmo:** why is it like this? Like, no, no, you peeled that off and.
**Rooster:** there's a nice cigar in there and it's full flavored. And if you like Padron's and Nicaragua and cigars, you would most likely like it. And there were a couple of guys who were sitting there and one guy was actually smoking the cigar, but in a different size. He was smoking a cigar that's called a Big [00:11:00] Johnson.
**Bam Bam:** Oh boy. ,
**Senator:** what's the ring gauge on that? 60 ring gauge? Yeah. 80. I
**Gizmo:** dunno if it was 60. Well,
**Rooster:** it might've been like a 54, but like, you know, long and uh, he was like, this is a great cigar. I said, well, if you guys recommend, maybe, maybe
**Gizmo:** we'll give it a shot. How much, um, yeah, how much was this? How much were these?
This was $84 per stick. No, 13. 13 bucks.
**Bam Bam:** 13 bucks a stick.
Okay.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I'm sure you can find it cheaper though though. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm. So it was,
**Rooster:** I mean it definitely looked unique. I mean it's, it's got a cigar leaf
**Gizmo:** tell you what, dried up leaf wrapped up around it. That's a great
**Grinder:** price for what I'm smoking
**Senator:** right now.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And this is a Maduro. Yeah. I'm glad you grabbed the Maduro cuz I think that this is probably gonna be the most interesting, you know, we always talk about previewing though, where it's at right now. I'm not quite sure if this is gonna sustain, sustain or improve throughout the entire cigar.
Like [00:12:00] I'm re I'm getting, I'm preparing myself to get disappointed real fast with this. An ammonia shock maybe later on. Do you look at a glass half full or half empty? ? I look at a cigar half empty as of right this moment.
**Senator:** I have no expectations just because I just, the presentation of this was so ridiculous.
I thought that the light was gonna be terrible and this is very full flavored. Yeah, this has a lot of notes that we like in New World sticks. So I, I'm optimistic because I'm already enjoying this more than I thought I ever could. I'm loving
**Grinder:** this cigar.
**Bam Bam:** It's good. I will say I don't think it's as refined or as smooth and it doesn't deliver like the Pedro, like a Pedro does like an exclusive, but it does not, but it has its merits Absolutely.
For 13
**Gizmo:** bucks. There's an odd, to me, coming off the, the head of the cigar where you're drawn it, the aroma is a little odd to me. Yeah. I don't wanna use the word chemical, but it, it, I don't love how it smells. I don't love the [00:13:00] aroma
**Grinder:** on it. I, I was saying that earlier. I think that the aroma is, is actually quite different from the flavor.
Yeah. Um, and I don't, I don't know what that is. I, I don't mind the difference though. You
**Gizmo:** mean like,
**Rooster:** don't think a men like a mineral? What do you mean by
**Senator:** chemical? He said chemical now. Now we have figured out he's getting the pharmaceutical product on.
**Gizmo:** That's it, right? That's it. I'm actually one of the guys in the pharmaceutical chat.
going to war with these people. P Pub is probably in there. Yeah. Oh, Puma's definitely in there. Do they
**Grinder:** have plasma on the docket for that
**Gizmo:** discussion? . That's an inside Puba joke, by the way, for the listener.
**Senator:** Yeah. I mean, BAAM, I agree with you. It, it's not as refined, but the thing that I'm still impressed by this cigar, especially at $13. Mm-hmm. , it's not harsh. No. Which is amazing because this is putting out so much flavor. Yeah. I would expect this to be pretty rough around the edges and I don't, I don't get that.
I don't think it is. [00:14:00] I think it's fairly smooth. Is there
**Gizmo:** any age to. . I didn't see any age statements on it. I mean, their webs, their website as of right now isn't even loading for me. New, new world sticks
**Rooster:** don't really put out age
**Gizmo:** statements. Right. The only one that really does, I think is Patron Drone.
Well,
**Rooster:** you don't, I mean, they don't write it on the box or anything. It's just a known
**Senator:** thing that they No, but they publish that much the age. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like they don't even publish their own reviews correctly. So I'm, I doubt we're gonna find the year of How's your,
**Grinder:** how's your burn, guys?
**Gizmo:** My burn's brilliant.
Very good. Mine's brilliant. Pretty good. I'm about a half inch in It's razor sharp. Yeah. Nice, nice. You know, they talk about smoking di uh, stacking dimes. I'm stacking dimes. I, I,
**Grinder:** I'm not stacking dimes. My, my level's a little oblanc, but it's still,
**Gizmo:** it's still
**Rooster:** sharp. You know, you mentioned earlier like, it's kind of like legal esque.
Yeah. So somebody handed me this cigar and it was a blind test. I would think It's in the League of Family almost. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** yeah, yeah. You know, Like something, they came out with [00:15:00] something new, similar d n a. Makes sense. Yeah. So, you know what's interesting? I, I finally got this to load some of the things that I was, I, I noticed earlier, number one, obviously this cigar is named after the, uh, the creator of Leaf by Oscar, which is a guy named Oscar, uh, via Doris, which is the name of the cigar, the viadoris.
And the reason why they put the leaf on the outside of the cigar is they say to ensure maximum freshness. So I guess they kind of view that as a barrier to humidity, f you know, serious humidity fluctuation. They're kind of viewing that outside leaf as a, as a humidity. That protect Yeah. Protector. Yeah.
As
**Grinder:** a, as a supply chain guy, I'm looking at this saying, yeah, genius. You don't have to pay for cell, you know, all your raw materials are right there already. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Rooster:** I mean, I kind of like that it's all, you know, they used all organic material. I mean That's true. The Burr lab. The Burr lab, yeah. The, uh, the leaf on it instead of using like a plastic, you know, like a [00:16:00] cellophane wrapper on it.
Yep.
**Gizmo:** So that's, that's pretty cool. They offer a lot of different varieties. So they offer a Connecticut, a Koho, a Sumatra, and a Maduro. So we're smoking the Maduro, but they have four different lines and there's a ton of sizes in each of these lines that they have. I mean, they have to torpedoes, they have Gordos, um, they have a Robusto five by 50.
They have a Lance Boys seven by 38. See, I'd like to try that. Um, the Godo I'm not interested in. I didn't have it.
**Rooster:** Didn't this company start out of Pittsburgh? They were based in Pittsburgh. I think I read that somewhere. It's
**Gizmo:** very possible. I'm not sure. Not sure. Yeah. I'm, uh, this is a very interesting cigars so far.
I don't even know kind of where to place it. As far as New world cigars go. I'm kind of, uh, I'm kind of at a little bit of a loss right now. I'm enjoying it, but I'm, I'm, I'm not able to point really where it kind of fits for me. I don't know. I mean, you know what it is [00:17:00] when you get a
**Rooster:** cigar that's like $13 and you get this much flavor out of it.
Yeah. You kind go, you're
**Gizmo:** kinda at a loss, loss for words or you just don't question
**Bam Bam:** it, you know? That's what it is. Yeah. Yeah.
**Rooster:** It's, I mean, let's, the first third is, is phenomenal. I think it's,
**Gizmo:** it's you, we all like, like a full flavored cigar.
**Rooster:** You get like the deep chocolate notes, little bit of, lot of spice in the beginning.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. . So I think I said before, did I say it was Ecuadorian or Honduran? Ecuadorian. Ecuadorian. It's, I was wrong. So the rapper is Nicaraguan on this Maduro and the binder and filler are from Honduras. Ah, it makes all the sense, which is pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely, it makes a lot of sense as far as the, the interesting flavor of this.
I, you know, I don't know a cigar that we've talked about, a blend like that. Mm, no, we haven't really smoked Hondu, Hondu and cigars. No, we haven't smoked a ton of hondu
**Grinder:** stuff. Whatever they did, they got the mix pretty well. Pat down. I mean, this is, uh, [00:18:00]
**Bam Bam:** it's
**Gizmo:** enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah.
**Rooster:** I'm surprised that grinded you like it because you don't like, like heavy flavor, you know, like full
**Gizmo:** bodied cigars that much.
Yeah. I like,
**Grinder:** I like big flavor, but not big punch, not strength. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Um, do you like the Lego? I love Lego. Yeah. I love So that's why you like
**Grinder:** this? Yeah. Yeah. And, and when you said it's league esque, I was, you know, that was, you know, I was singing, I've said this
**Bam Bam:** before, but that was a special night. That was a great night.
That League of Nine where they hit a home
**Gizmo:** run. Yeah, I've bought a couple of, I've purchased a couple boxes since then. Oh, yeah. So, bam,
**Rooster:** you said you have had this before? I have, yeah. And it wasn't that memorable, or? It was
**Bam Bam:** okay. I mean, it's kind of like what I'm remembering now. Yeah. I'm getting now it's flavorful and good
**Grinder:** combustion, you know, I, I'm getting more enjoyment, just not more, but just as much enjoyment from the aroma because there's, there's so much smoke coming out of it.
I'm just like enveloping myself in this.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's nice and cloudy
**Grinder:** here. And the God, that Ashe is wonderful. [00:19:00]
**Senator:** There's just, uh, I'm, I'm really trying to figure out where I stand on this
**Gizmo:** cigar. . I'm, I'm right there with you, man.
**Senator:** I, so I, and I, I think I'm figuring out why I'm slightly pulling back a bit how I feel about this dick.
The flavor is really prominent, really potent, but there's. Something missing to bring these flavors together, like a creaminess that would somehow just bring these all together. I, I just, for me, the finish is very abrupt.
**Bam Bam:** Hmm. You mean it stops then
**Senator:** for you? Yeah. It, it just like, I get this blast of flavor and then the finish just kind of stops.
It doesn't, I don't, there's not like this velvet doesn nature of it that like coats my mouth and I'm sitting there saying, oh wow. I'm still getting the, all the flavors. Like I just, you draw it, you take in a lot of flavor, and then at the snap of finger it's just
**Grinder:** gone. That's, there's a very short finish.
Yeah. Yeah. There's a bit of a [00:20:00] cliff and, and it, I mean, I, I don't mind that too much. The cliff, the, the after,
**Senator:** um,
**Grinder:** flavor. What's the, I mean the, the, the finish. It's abrupt, but it's not just abrupt. It's a little sharp and, uh,
**Gizmo:** it is bitter sharp. Yeah. I, I, I think what he, what what Senator said is interesting, like, like normally we'll say a cigar is earthy or it's creamy or it's sweet, or it's got, you know, baking some sort of component to baking flavors.
I can't really point to anything that, to your point, it's kind of wrapping this up in a nice present and putting, putting a bow on it, like it's missing that, that bow,
**Bam Bam:** well, it's missing a note, right. So you're not, you can't put your finger on
**Gizmo:** a note. Yeah. I don't know what it is.
**Grinder:** There's, there's kind of like a minerality in a way.
There's no doubt about that Metallic on the finish.
**Gizmo:** Metallic's a good word. Yeah. You know, like an [00:21:00] aluminum . Yeah.
**Rooster:** I'm getting more stainless steel
**Gizmo:** I'm kind of up in the air on this. You
**Bam Bam:** know the,
**Gizmo:** the tequila washes it that way. I was gonna say, you know what, I'm not up on the air . You know what I'm not up in the air on is our tequila? Absolutely not. So, Senator, you have the bottle there. I don't want to mess this up. Can you, could we say exactly what we're drinking?
Because this is a Chef Ricky Camacho special actually directly from Chef Ricky Camacho.
**Senator:** So it's the tap Excelencia Grand Reserva extra.
**Gizmo:** And it is? Oh yeah, it's definitely extra Anejo . Oh yeah. You can taste that age on it. I haven't
**Senator:** given it a, oh, I mean the spirit in the bottle. It's like almost as dark as the cigar.
It's crazy.
**Gizmo:** It looks like a bourbon. Yeah, it's a Maduro. The aroma .
**Grinder:** Oh my God. The nose on this is phenomenal.
**Gizmo:** It is. That's the one thing that Ricky is very adamant about when we've had this with him, which was then what [00:22:00] prompted us begging him to source some of this for, cuz it's very hard to find, is sticking your nose.
Fully in the glass. He's very adamant about that. I almost wish he was here tonight to talk to us about it. He'll be here soon. But, um, it's a very full experience.
**Bam Bam:** It's a, it's complex too, cuz there's a little bit of a fruit note in there.
**Gizmo:** It's really quite nice. I remember. Sip it with your, wow. You know, aerate it with your mouth open as you're taking it in.
Thanks. I guess
I'm trying to do what Ricky told me to do. So this is an expensive bottle. I think we paid 120 for each of these. Yeah, right, Senator? Yeah. Um, he was so kind to get us a case. This is definitely, I don't know what the, uh, proof on it is. I didn't look before. Um, it's only 40. I actually just looked at that. So it's a very intense flavor for only 40 proof.
Agree. Because if you told me what, if you told me to take a guess at what the proof was, I would say 55, 60. I wouldn't go that high. I
**Senator:** would've said like [00:23:00] 45, 48. Okay. But to your point there, there's so much flavor in this. You would expect this to be a higher spirit,
**Bam Bam:** a higher proof spirit. It packs a punch.
Yeah. It really does. But it's still in a delicious way. Agree. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** How does it pair with the cigar? I, I think, I think it's helping, it, it's helping the cigar for me, you know, it
**Bam Bam:** just, it does wash away that minerally finish, and I think it works well.
**Grinder:** It adds, it adds that smoothness that, you know, maybe is
**Senator:** lacking for, for me, the thing is, I mean, if we were to do almost any other tequila with this cigar, which is putting out a ton of flavor, I don't think most would hold up.
I mean, this is like a really full cigar, and this is as full and rich of a tequila as you can buy. Very well said. And extra. Yay. So I think the pairing is perfect, honestly.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. It goes great. Some, some of
**Rooster:** the reviews that I read, they paired it with a
**Gizmo:** bourbon. Mm-hmm. that would fit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think this flavor-wise is, you know, I'm glad we're doing the extra on, on AHO tonight because it's definitely, flavor-wise, it's, it [00:24:00] is a good.
uh, compliment to the cigar, vice versa. You know, it's definitely working for sure. I
**Grinder:** kind of like the burlap, uh, rapper. What'd you take? The burlap pan off. It's easy. It's easy. The band. Do you? Yeah. Sorry. It's okay. Uh, it's easy to take off, you know, it just kind of falls apart. ,
**Senator:** I don't like touching anything fuzzy on my the cigar.
Sorry. It just feels weird
**Grinder:** that, mom, I wanna keep my food
**Bam Bam:** apart. Mom.
**Gizmo:** little OCD from Senator tonight. I just
**Senator:** like a nice smooth band that's really well done. I mean, you look at the, the print work, the, like, the artwork on that band. I mean, it's like a joke. Like, I mean, yeah, my son could probably draw that and he's a few months old.
I mean, it's
**Bam Bam:** not, it's it's almost intentionally archaic
**Gizmo:** in the way It almost, yeah, it's kind of like, uh, what you would see like on an old, like Mark Twain or like, or almost like a hieroglyphic or something. Yeah, yeah. It's like Cage. Very, very basic. Yeah. Yeah. So a little bit on, uh, uh, tap Patillo, uh, NCIA just for a moment that, uh, Ricky sent me.
Um, comes from the Helico region [00:25:00] in Mexico. It's cooked in stone and brick ovens. It's extracted with a tahona as, as we discussed, um, with Ricky quite a bit. It's fermented in wood ferment, uh, fermentation tanks. They're absolutely zero additives, which is great. It's distilled twice in copper pot stills. Uh, and it is aged in ex bourbon barrels.
And, uh, again, no additives. So that's something that Ricky is very, very specific about with us. You know, really only drinking tequila that don't have, that doesn't have additives. That's the real deal stuff, and this is definitely
**Senator:** one of 'em. Yeah. Especially with this much flavor for there to be no additives.
I mean, one of the things that is really frustrating just as a consumer of spirits, And I'm gonna bring up rum for a second because this is where it's the most egregious. I mean, any of those heavily aged rums, like this is a heavily aged tequila, an extra anejo. Those rums the same color. They're really dark like this, but they're full of additives.
[00:26:00] Like they're a lot of stone sugar. Sugar, sugar, exactly. Yeah. To kind of mask any of the imperfections and to deliver this much flavor so smoothly with nothing added to mask any imperfections. A
**Gizmo:** world of credit. Yeah, absolutely. And I think as it's opening up, so none of us have ice in it. That's cl you know, let's be clear on that.
That's another Ricky thing. Especially with an extra on Yay. Like this, we have no ice in it. Um, I
**Bam Bam:** think, I think you get to appreciate
**Gizmo:** it without the ice. Yeah. And it's really, and it's a cigar and a spirit, excuse me, A spirit that is this well crafted and flavorful. And flavorful. You don't need it. No. You know, there's no rough edges.
It's not harsh little justice by putting a
**Bam Bam:** piece of ice
**Grinder:** in there. It's kind of thematic with the, with the cigar though. Yeah. You know, because, Here it is
**Bam Bam:** raw, right? I saw the finger shake. I saw
**Grinder:** the finger shake. .
**Senator:** Well, you know, there's a beautiful white ash building on this cigar, and here I was optimistic that it would hold and it went all over the place.
**Gizmo:** Oh, it's the cigars fault. . That's for sure. .
**Bam Bam:** That's poor cigar
**Grinder:** management.
**Gizmo:** Senator doesn't do that much, so I'm glad to [00:27:00] see him Ash all
**Senator:** over the place. You, that's how we know it's the cigar. You
**Grinder:** are fucking right. That never happens.
**Gizmo:** awesome because I do it about twice a sitting, so it's not, it's Oscar's fault.
It's uh, yeah. I can't believe, you know, bus and senator, but I can't believe that. What is this? An inch and a half in, I mean, better. You're better, you better ash that. Yeah, he trust me.
**Grinder:** Phenomenal. You can't see how easily
**Gizmo:** it came off. Yeah. You know, I, I wonder now there's two questions I have. Is it, you went to the b and m and picked these up?
Was it a product of their humidity situation that it is that excellent? Or is the outside leaf it's really doing justice? Some product. Product of me dry boxing it. Yeah. It's only for 24 hours though. I mean, it's, nobody knows that. Just you , just roll with it, give some credit. I, I'm wondering if the leaf actually did anything or if the b and m just kept them very well.
Because these are really, really well kept. They're not wet. Yeah. Yeah, they're not wet. So I asked the guy, I said, you know, where do you
**Rooster:** keep the RH and the temperature at? He had no clue. He's like, well, the owners come and they set it up. I'm like, don't you have a [00:28:00] haerter that I can just see what it's kept at?
**Gizmo:** Just fill the bucket. Okay. Yeah. So, well, whatever they're doing, it's working. Or Oscar has a brilliant idea with this outside leaf because for having purchased these at A B N M yesterday, They're really in tip top shape.
**Senator:** So I have a question. Do all of the cigars they make come wrapped in a leaf like this?
Oh, wow.
**Gizmo:** Everything. I believe so. Yeah. I at least this line does. Definitely. The Leaf by Oscar wine. They have a couple different cigars, but definitely this entire wine all come wrapped in a leaf.
**Rooster:** And it's not that new. I'm sorry, man. Um, I think it's been out for a, like, at least
**Gizmo:** like 10 years. Yeah. They, they've been around for quite some time.
Um, I'm not exactly sure the start date, but they've been around for quite some time. I've, I've seen them a lot and I always think that they're kind of like, you know, like we, uh, joked about the Collibra from Pargo when we, when we did the, that cigar so long ago. Like Right. It's kind of like, it seems gimmicky, but as of right this second, I gotta give them credit, whatever they're doing's working.
This is, yeah. So I can't [00:29:00] take any, I can't take anything away from it. Yeah. Yeah. I
**Grinder:** liked your. Your residual stay from Cuba with the pronunciation of Parus . Pargo .
**Bam Bam:** You gotta roll. I'm
**Gizmo:** working, I'm working on that. I'm working on that duo lingo, baby. It's
**Grinder:** called the hangover .
**Bam Bam:** You gotta roll that R baby part
**Gizmo:** Theas ssas.
That's how they pronounce it there at this on the islands.
**Grinder:** Can you, can you do it again? Oras
**Gizmo:** Patas The accent on this, the third A Yeah, it's unusual.
**Bam Bam:** I gotta back up What a few of you have. You said, I can't capture a note on this. I'm not sure if it's Cocoa coffee Earth,
**Senator:** but that's why I'm saying, I mean, it's not,
**Bam Bam:** we're all, it's not repulsive in any way.
**Gizmo:** Right? Yeah, no, it it's very smokable. It's, it's keeping my interest. Yes, for sure. But
**Bam Bam:** why we don't
**Grinder:** know? Because
**Senator:** it's different. Yeah. Yeah. But see, bam is, is saying the same thing. I was like, this is what. Odd about this cigar. The flavor notes they're not are all things that we like, [00:30:00] but none has a long enough finish to really say like, I'm getting a lot of cocoa.
Exactly. Exactly. A lot of earth. I'm getting just a little bit of a bunch of flavors that I generally like, but not, not one of them is pronounced enough or has a long enough finish. Like I would seek to really define the cigar. Yeah. Right. Like most sticks you would say like, like a patron, you would say, you know, it's got cocoa and earthy notes.
The finish though, is heavy on the cocoa side. Right. The earth is just there. , um, kind of adding complexity to that stick. I don't know what to say. The dominant note mm-hmm. in this cigar
**Bam Bam:** is totally agree. And, and the word muddled has been used before with other cigars that have performed kind of similarly to this.
But what's I think keeping my interest is the combustion. The draw is great. Yeah. And, and, and
**Gizmo:** the body of it, I don't wanna use the word muddled, because to me that has a negative connotation. True. That's true to me. This is more of a, you know, to kind of piggyback on everybody here, this is almost like a pop flavors.
[00:31:00] Like, like Senator said, you can't really pick one out. It's interesting. I don't know if I would say it's delicious. I would say it's satisfying me, but Yeah. You know, there's not one or two or three things that I'm. able to call out like we normally are. Yeah. I think the spiced
**Rooster:** note is consistent. This is true.
That's coming through from the beginning till
**Senator:** now. I'm getting a saltiness now at this point. Hmm. Oh,
**Gizmo:** the Cuban twang.
Go
**Bam Bam:** hunt door and twang.
**Gizmo:** No, we gotta print more shirts. We gotta print more shirts. Got hungry. Got door. Tw . Yeah. This is reminding me of some of the better tattoos I've I've had. Yeah. Oh, that's all.
It's great. Great comparison. It's got a little tattoo. Hey thing. Because I've always felt like that with Taua. I mean even the petite Koors, which we love, we did on the podcast. We need to do more tat, but.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, hold on. That had a
**Gizmo:** lot more flavor. No, no, no, but I'm d saying delicious. No, no, no. What I'm saying about the petite Coors, it is delicious.
But [00:32:00] to me, even with that cigar, it is similar in flavor profile in that there's not one dominant note that jumps at you that I can point at you and say, what does a petite Coors tastes like? Don't, Ruth, do you want to go? Yeah. Well, to me, I mean this is like a big brother of the Casados. I agree. I think it's right in line with that.
I like to tattoo
**Senator:** on the comparison a lot. Yeah,
**Grinder:** it, it's
**Bam Bam:** a great comparison. , but the petite, no, no, no.
**Senator:** What?
**Gizmo:** That's great. .
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** No, no, no. Hold on. It's like I say it. No, let me step. Backr says it. No, Senator Third. Okay, we got it. The petite
**Bam Bam:** casados. I had great Earth notes. A lot of chocolate and coffee, very distinct.
That's not distinct. It's not distinct
**Gizmo:** here. I think this is right in line with that cigar.
**Senator:** I'm sorry. That's, see, this is why I, I love this discussion. It could be because we're like really lasering in on the flavor.
**Grinder:** Because we can't
**Senator:** capture the flavor . But that's the point. So like I, I think what we're saying is in common with that taa, the petite casados, is that the flavor notes are similar in terms of what's present on each.
I think what [00:33:00] BAM is saying is on the petite casados, there's a longer finish with those. It's like a richer, more concentrated experience where again, I think the finish on these mm-hmm. , this cigar is just pretty short. It is where you just get these flavors mm-hmm. and then they're gone and you're trying to figure out in your head exactly what stood out most.
Right. And you're not left with anything long enough to figure that out. Right, right.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I think the other thing I would say is I feel like a part of my tongue has been like left out of the. Like, there's only certain aspects of my tongue. Like when, normally when I have a cigar, like the, you know, it's, it's a very full experience in, in my mouth.
Even a, even a very simple Cuban cigar or a very, uh, simple one-dimensional, uh, new world cigar, you know, it kind of gives you that full mouth experience. This is not doing that. But again, it's not bad. No,
**Grinder:** it's not bad. Lemme ask. It's different. Lemme, lemme say, so there's different taste receptacles on different parts of your, your tongue, right?
Absolutely. Yeah. So where is this hitting you? What part of your, your pal, because I know where [00:34:00] it's hitting me. I
**Gizmo:** would say it's, it's like up front and to the left. really what?
**Senator:** I'm also the front of my palette. I'm
**Gizmo:** with gi. Yeah, it's like front and to the left, front middle for me. I'm saying
**Grinder:** more like a metal.
Metal and back. Yeah. I don't get any, I get nothing front and back for me. Front
**Gizmo:** and back? No, no. Mine's like, mine's like front and to the left. Do we know that would be a linear cigar
**Rooster:** now when
**Gizmo:** it's front to back? We gotta get a tongue doctor in here. Do,
**Grinder:** do we, um, front and do we know who actually manufactured this cigar?
Because a lot of these boutique brands, they, they really, they're just a, there's a blender and there's a marketer, and oftentimes they have a, they, they take a portfolio of blends and say, here, I'll pay for this one. You know? Right. And, and sometimes I wouldn't be surprised if, if those blends are also shared amongst some, they
**Gizmo:** buy tobacco from somebody else.
So they, so this is manufactured in their own factory, uh, in, uh, Honduras. Okay. So, uh, just quickly, uh, rooster mentioned earlier that, uh, the brand originated in Pittsburgh. [00:35:00] This is actually pretty cool. It started as the house blend for a b and m shop in Pittsburgh, Robinson's Leaf and Bean. So I guess they sell cigars and coffee.
Uh, and it started as a, as a house cigar for them. And it's, I've heard of this place expanded from there.
**Bam Bam:** A big dude, surfer, dude, I don't know. Dick started it. Yeah. Right. ,
**Gizmo:** maybe I'm wrong. And now he has, I mean, there's thousands of stores that carry this now. He started in Pittsburgh, but you, you probably built it
**Bam Bam:** building maybe.
**Gizmo:** And this is a really interesting cigar. I, I think, you know, despite, despite everything we're saying, again, I, I don't think it's negative and a lot of cigars. I think a lot of the things we were saying, it would kind of be a negative thing. I, I, I'm still enjoying the cigar coming up maybe a little bit on halfway through here, but it is perfectly paired with this, with the tequila.
I'm really, I'm really happy with the pair tonight. Has, has it changed at all for you guys? Not really. I'm getting a
**Bam Bam:** little bit of a harshness, just a tiny bit starting to creep in for me. I think you're, you're further
**Senator:** [00:36:00] along
**Gizmo:** a bit. Yeah. You're smoking way too fast. Pretty fast. Yeah.
**Grinder:** Yeah. I need to slow down.
Yeah. So one of the things we talked a lot about on this podcast in general podcast is value for money. Yeah. Right. And I think this is good value for money. I had a, a listener, um, Make a comment to me like, Hey, I'm just surprised you guys use you, you index price and value so heavily in your reviews.
Because his, his comment was that, that should be divorced from the cigar. I
**Gizmo:** disagree. What,
**Grinder:** what's, what's the argument there?
**Gizmo:** To me, I, I, I don't think you can disconnect value because this, my perception of this cigar would change if it was a $30 cigar. The fact that it's a $13 cigar means I'm gonna be able to reach for this more than I wore a $30 cigar.
If this was $30, I wouldn't reach for it at all. Yeah.
**Grinder:** So our, our, our lens is very commercially oriented as a
**Gizmo:** consultant. [00:37:00] No, my, my lens is practically oriented.
**Senator:** Can I, can I just make a simple analogy? I mean, this is true in anything that's like saying that we could sit here and be honestly comparing a Ferrari at, you know, a hundred, $200,000 to a Hyundai at 30,000.
I mean, we would never be able to like, compare those, right. Like, our expectations because of Ferrari at that price point are way different than our expectations for a Hyundai and would
**Gizmo:** never have the, and the manufacturer setting that price tells me what I should expect from the cigar. Sure. You know, if, if you have a four or $5 factory smoke that knocks your socks off mm-hmm.
I mean that's a, that's a real value proposition there. Yeah. You know, and I encourage, uh, you know, I've had listeners email us saying, Hey, this $8 cigar that I love, you guys should try it. And it's like, okay, that's interesting because it's eight bucks. . Like the El Centor. Yeah. The, the EP chore. You're spectacular.
So fantastic. Yeah. I had
**Grinder:** an ep, Carillo TAA the other day. Yeah. How
**Gizmo:** was it? It was disgusting. .
**Grinder:** Really . [00:38:00] I some of these taas, like I was telling Senator earlier, it's a gimmick. I feel like they, I feel like the manufacturers are just like, shit, we gotta put something out for TAs. Yeah. Cause the retailers want it.
Yeah. How about, how about that blend that's sitting in the corner that we don't know what to do with, you know, and, and that's what you get. Uh, because it's, you know, it's not something that's part of the portfolio. It's not something that's masked, marketed to a specific consumer.
**Gizmo:** It's going to a limited amount of retailers.
**Senator:** Yeah. Yeah. And, and when you look up some of these cigars, I mean, I remember walking in and asking a retailer about a brand I really love. I saw they had a TA cigar from them. And I said, well, what's different about this from the others in that same line? Cause it was part of a line. Padron.
**Gizmo:** Padron. Yeah.
I've had that cigar. It's not one of my favorites. It's not. No. And
**Senator:** the retailer had no idea. and I smoked that cigar. I was not impressed. And I, I, I think Grindr's exactly right. Mm-hmm. , I mean, I think it's just like they have to put something out. So they do. And you know, we we're suckers to buy and try new things.
And so we've all tried a ton of TAA cigars. I can't remember a single TA [00:39:00] stick I had that I love so much that I stocked up on more
**Grinder:** of.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I never, I never pursued purchasing additional taas after trying that.
**Grinder:** Yeah. I, I had a, a really good box of TAA from uh, uh, uh, Dominica, what's it called? Uh, LA Gloria Dominica, uh, LA Lalo Lalo do, yeah.
L F D L F D. Yeah. And I've been trying to chase that ever since. And I've, and I've just always been disappointed. And I was really excited about this one because it was an EP career. But anyway, sorry. I dig.
**Gizmo:** The, you know, I, the other thing, uh, a couple of our friends, heto Nick and those guys, um, really like the taas from taa, but they've said pretty adamantly that as they age, that's really when they improve.
Like, they've had, they have Taa taas from like 2014 or something. Mm-hmm. , and now they really feel like those are, you know, really smoking, well, fresh, not so much I guess, but yeah.
**Grinder:** You know, the, the tequila is, is, again, it's [00:40:00] superb. It's oh, by itself delicious.
**Bam Bam:** Stand on. It's
**Gizmo:** just, it's delicious. I just love the nose on it.
It's so fragrant. It's so interesting. Yeah. There's,
**Grinder:** there's so many, there's so many senses. You get floral, you get minerality, you get
**Senator:** that tequila twang, ,
**Grinder:** you get that tequila twang, . Um, it's, it's very pleasant and it's smooth, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't knock your socks off, but you still get a punch of.
Some alcohol . Right? Like you, you can tell from on the nose that, that there's some good alcohol in there.
**Gizmo:** Absolutely.
**Rooster:** I mean, for $120 a bottle, it should
deliver.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. But I think on that, I think on the, if you're finding that, I mean, I would assume if you're, if I were to find that in a retailer store right now, I think it would be way more than 120.
Oh really?
**Senator:** Yeah. It's like 180, 200 some places. Wow.
**Gizmo:** Expensive. That's pretty, pretty pricey. A pricey bottle. Tequila. Tequila. Yeah. Yeah. We got a case. You got a case? Uh, no. I got four. How many senator, how many did you guys got? I got none. I got
**Bam Bam:** two . [00:41:00] I thought we all had two each. He's lying.
**Grinder:** He I'm lying. He's lying.
**Senator:** He got two. I got two. I have some. I just won't disclose that many.
**Gizmo:** Oh, okay. , Grindr brought up, uh, value for money and value and an experience. And I, I'm surprised we haven't talked about this yet because a lot of us have had really wonderful experiences with the Wonder Truck. And I'm gonna punt to Senator to kind of describe the Wonder truck, cuz I think you can do it more eloquently than, uh, eloquently than, I can't even say eloquently.
Yeah, don't say that word eloquently than I can . Um, he's got a primitive vocabulary, but it is, it is one of the most revolutionary experiences I've ever had. Tell the people what wonder is, because I wanna talk about this. So I
**Senator:** discovered wonder shortly after the birth of my son, when, I mean, normally my wife and I, we love to cook.
It's like impossible to find time to cook. and you know, all you have at that point is like Uber Eats DoorDash, and it's like the same old stuff. And I just was so tired of it. And, um, I had heard of it. It [00:42:00] wonder was started by this guy, uh, mark Lore, uh, this billionaire who owns the Minnesota Timberwolves, the NBA team.
And the whole premise of it basically was, and actually how I found out about the marketing is brilliant because what you'll see where wonder is present in these communities are these Mercedes Sprinter vans that are wrapped in all this signage that say wonder. And I'm always, I'm driving around, live out in the suburbs and I just keep seeing these wonder trucks and I'm like, what the hell is this?
So I, I Google it. Brilliant marketing. That's exactly what they want you to do. See it and go search what it is. And what you find out is basically each of these sprinter vans has a chef inside. They like have retrofitted these vans, the whole back to have a full kitchen for a chef to cook meals. And the idea is that you can on demand on an app, , they have countless different restaurants and cuisines and they actually partner with really well known chefs in a bunch of different cities around the country [00:43:00] to kind of bring a restaurant that maybe is in San Francisco or in Chicago to you in New Jersey or Florida, wherever you are.
And so you can pick these different cuisines. You hit order this, the truck pulls up parks right outside your house. The chef cooks the meal fresh right there and wonder all the ingredients are fresh and they hand deliver it to your door hot and ready to eat. Now, I was super skeptical at first. I'm
**Gizmo:** like, of course.
I mean, it sounds too
**Senator:** ridiculous. There's no way they're claiming it's, you know, restaurant quality meals made in a van. I'm like, there's no way this is possible. And I was so surprised. I mean, the first meal I. , everything was excellent. I, I almost thought it was a fluke. I was like, I have to order this again.
Surely this is not gonna happen twice. And every time I've ordered from there, I mean, pretty much everything has just been spot on. Um, and they're really the, the thing that impresses me most about them, they're a growing company [00:44:00] and they're doing this really well as it is, but they're trying to improve and optimize how they do this.
And like their commitment to like feedback is unparalleled. Every time you place a, an order from wonder if you give them feedback, they have like this whole survey. And it's not just like, how did you like your meal? They wanna know everything. How was the freshness of the meal? How was the temperature of the meal?
What could we have done differently with this ingredient? All these crazy questions, and every time you fill out one, they give you a $5 credit to add to your next order to take off. And, um, they genuinely really, really want to just get this right. So I, it's been a godsend. I started singing the praise of this.
I think some of the guys thought I was a little nuts, which I would too. I mean, I was skeptical as it is. It sounds so ridiculous. It does. I think Gizmo was next to try it. Yeah. And you've
**Gizmo:** loved it. Well, so to your point, so it's, it's only unlimited areas right now. So at my house, I live about 20 minutes from where we record here at the lounge.
Which is pretty [00:45:00] close to Senator and some of the other guys in the room. But they don't serve my house yet where I live, but they do serve this lounge . So my address in Wonder is the address of this lounge, not New Jersey. I just love coming into
**Grinder:** the lounge parking lot and seeing the Wonder Truck every other time I
**Bam Bam:** show up.
Gizmo must be here. . Oh, GIZ
**Gizmo:** is here. So I, I, you know, I, I had to come and I was, I was, I was here to set up for the pod tonight, put up the mics and everything, and, uh, I was running late today. I had a crazy day, um, ended up a little different than I thought it would prior to recording. And I, I was starving.
I hadn't eaten any, anything all day. And, you know, uh, Senator, I don't know if you know some of the restaurants, but the one that I order. So what they do is they license the menu from different popular restaurants around the country. So the one I'm always ordering from is the Bobby Flay Steakhouse, which I've actually been to the Bobby Flay Steakhouse in Atlantic City.
And I think the Wonder Truck does a better job, honestly. Wow. Um, because it's cooked perfectly every time, and it's so reasonable. It looks amazing. That's the thing that's incredible to me is how reasonable it's, yeah. Yeah. I got a 10 [00:46:00] ounce filet today and a side of asparagus and they throw these chips with a cool dip in there too.
That's cool. It cost me 65 bucks. That's awesome.
**Senator:** Total awesome. And I give you credit because I had tried a ton of the restaurants on Wonder. I had never tried the Bobby Flay Steakhouse, and that's the most expensive one on there. And they claim that they're gonna deliver a steakhouse quality steak. Again, the skeptic in me, I'm saying there's no way that in a van they're gonna be able to make a steakhouse quality steak.
So I was at the lounge the first time Gizmo ordered this and I was so glad he did, cuz I wasn't willing to take this leap. And I see they bring this in. They bring, when you order from that restaurant in particular, they actually bring real plates, silver. everything you need nothing.
**Gizmo:** And it's almost like, sorry to interrupt, but it's almost like you're in a hotel and you order room service at a high end hotel.
Yep. And they bring the thing, the little plastic lids, it's rubber banded down. Like it's totally ready Yeah. To be consumed and it's, it's perfectly cooked. What's cool? And the presentation's
**Bam Bam:** fantastic. What's [00:47:00] cool about that is if you, I have teenagers at home, so they're demanding. Right? They want specific foods.
They've got everything a kid would want to eat. Absolutely. And what mom and dad would want to eat. Yeah. So it makes it really easy. If you have nothing in the house, call them. They're there in 15 minutes. Yeah. Starting to
**Senator:** cook. But, sorry, last thing I just wanna say quickly on the steak. So Gizmo opens this up and I'm just watching like a hawk.
I'm like, there's no way they cooked it perfectly. I think you ordered
**Gizmo:** it. Medium rare. Medium rare. And I'm nuts about it too, right? Same. I want it medium rare.
**Senator:** Gotta be perfect . And I watch him cut into the steak, first of all, cuts into it like, Great cut of meat. Cuts it open. Perfect. Medium rare. I couldn't believe it.
And Gizz even says like, you wanna try a bite? I was blown away. It's literally as good as a steak you would get in a steakhouse. They're, they're doing something really amazing.
**Gizmo:** It's, it is amazing.
**Rooster:** So do they mimic the, the menu of Yes.
**Gizmo:** The, each restaurant that they represent? Yeah. So it's limited. So like Bobby Flay, I mean, there may be only 12 or 15 items.
It's not like when you [00:48:00] go to the Bobby Flay Steakhouse, there's a, a, a, a whole, uh, you know, list of items. It's very limited, but what they deliver is, is exactly what I guess Bobby Flay says that his menu should offer. So, so is the
**Rooster:** truck like specific to that restaurant? Like Bobby, they, like
**Gizmo:** each truck would do I,
**Senator:** from what I heard, each truck does a handful of restaurants.
So I think I, I, what I've heard, again, I, we'd have to ask Mark Lure or someone that wondered this to confirm for sure. . But what I've heard is that they, each truck does no more than three restaurants and they have like 15.
That
**Gizmo:** sounds accurate. Because bam. And I ordered with, uh, Phil, who I went, you know, we went to Cuba with Yep.
And two trucks showed up and one truck cooked. Bam. And Phil's meal, one truck cooked mine. And you had a special truck for you. I did. That's right. They have a special truck. So are they
**Rooster:** actually finishing the product on the
**Gizmo:** truck or is they, are they doing it from scratch? I think they're finishing it. I would think that the steaks and meat are, uh, what do [00:49:00] they call that?
Um, Veuve. Yeah, ve Um, and then I think they finish it on the truck. But I mean, they're cooked perfectly. So the restaurants have to physically, they have to share the recipes. With the, with the chefs. I think part of the license, I think they're training folks. I think they're bringing the, the restaurateurs in and they're making sure they deliver.
And there's a wide variety of food. I mean, there's Indian cuisine, there's sushi, there's great barb. Great barbecue. Barbecue. Mexican, Mexican. Mexican, Mexican, uh,
**Rooster:** Mediterranean. There
**Gizmo:** is, there's a lot of different things. And this sounds like a big ad for wonder, but I'll tell you this, for cigar smokers, if it's in your area, you're at your lounge on a Sunday afternoon watching football all day, and you want a good meal, must try.
I mean, it's, yeah. Unbelievable how good it is. Yeah.
**Rooster:** So have they, uh, I mean, I know this started in like northern New Jersey area,
**Gizmo:** right?
**Senator:** Actually, I heard, I found out they started somewhere much further from here. They did like a pilot program during the pandemic, and then I think once that was successful, they expanded here.
**Gizmo:** Okay. So where are they now? Like, uh, [00:50:00] they're in j they're in like four or five counties in New Jersey. And I think there's another area too, but really it's gonna start spreading out particularly. But just New Jersey, a lot of it's New Jersey, right? They're not even in New York City. No, they're not in New York City.
No. No. And I think the reason why on that, I mean, you know, just park the Wonder Truck outside. Every time they park, they're gonna get a ticket. Well, there's no parking. Yeah, there's no parking. Right. You know, the, the one thing I wanna say on value too is, you know, let's say Mrs. Gizmo and I are, you know, to your point, Senator or, or Grindr, you have a little one at home.
You're, you're looking for a meal with the bride, something quality on a Saturday night. You don't have a babysitter, you don't wanna go out, you don't wanna get dressed. All of a sudden they walk up to your door. I just had it. They walk up to your door with a fantastic steak and asparagus. You open a bottle of wine, you're not dealing with service.
You're not sitting there for two hours trying to eat. It's like, , it's perfect. Yeah. You're sitting in your pajamas eating a great, you know, a, a great pair of, uh, a great, great, great meal. So you'll be, you'll be
**Rooster:** excited about this kiss. What's that? Get ready. They just partnered up with, uh,
**Gizmo:** Belmont Tower . Oh God.
I will not be ordering from there . Um, [00:51:00] but we were, did they teach them how to overcook the chicken ? How dare you.
**Senator:** We were talking about value for money before, and I feel like every person I tell to try wonder, they say, well, it's, how much is this? This is probably very expensive. The price point is ridiculous.
Very reasonable. I mean, you would expect, like at a, just an average, decent restaurant to spend like 20 something bucks on an entree. That's what most entrees are on Wonder. They also have two family style restaurants. One that's like New American, the other that's like Mexican. It's outrageous. The value, it's like 50 to $60.
For, to
**Gizmo:** feed four Four people. Four people. Yeah. Yeah.
**Senator:** And I've tried that. Yeah. And it's like amazing. Like I've gotten like beautiful big pieces of like king salmon, um, like all these great sides. It comes with like the whole meal. Everything's perfect. Yep. And it's 50, 60 bucks to feed
**Gizmo:** four people. These are
**Rooster:** introduction prices.
**Gizmo:** Go. I'm sure. I'm sure [00:52:00] they're, I'm sure they're, but here's the thing though, I can't get over. Listen, we're sticklers, man. I mean, the listeners know that we're, you know, very particular. We like stuff to be right. We like our food to be right, just like our cigars and our spirits. It's amazing to me that in a Mercedes Sprinter van that they can deliver the kind of food that they are.
I mean, it's, it's excellent. What a great exceptional, what a great ad this is. Yeah. Right? . So if, uh, really the point to listeners too, if you're outside of where we are here in New Jersey, download the app and put in your address and tell 'em you want the food. Get on the list because, When it comes your way, I'm, I'm telling you're gonna be blown away.
So you, you should call 'em up and tell 'em Lizard a place of mask lizard. Code lizard approved. . So boys, we're about halfway through the cigar right now. What are you thinking?
**Grinder:** I don't think the flavor has
**Gizmo:** died down. Yeah, I think the me maybe the spice has come down a, a bit. It, to me, to me, mine, I'm getting a lot of [00:53:00] spice right now.
Um, honestly, that's at, at this point in the cigar about halfway. It's about all I'm getting. Um, yeah, I'm not getting, I'm getting a lot of smoke. Like my flavor profile right now is just like smokey smoke. I'm
**Bam Bam:** not getting a much of by way of flavor profile, but the performance is still pretty good.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Senator:** It's just very dry to me right now. Like you said, smoke, like I, I'm just getting. , burnt wood . I don't know, there's still a little bit of cocoa, but like those prominent notes that this started with have kind of fallen to the back burner. Um, I'm not hating this cigar, but I'm not enjoying it as much as I did on the light.
**Gizmo:** Uh, I don't, I don't know,
**Grinder:** guys. I, for me, it's not, uh, I haven't had that kind of change or transition. I'm getting a, a pretty consistent flavor
**Gizmo:** for me. I'll, I'll call back to a word that, that bam bam said. I think now to me, the flavor is muddled. I think it's changed to [00:54:00] muddled, like it's just a very flat, just very basic flavor coming out of it.
Draw is great, combustion is great, but it's not really given me too much at this point in the cigar.
**Grinder:** So what's the, um, that's a for, we're, we're, we're drinking the, the te tequila out of wine glasses tonight. Um, what's the, what's the story on that? Why, why wine glasses not a Tumblr? ,
**Gizmo:** that's a great question.
Hmm. Senator .
**Senator:** So this goes back to just certain spirits like cognac that we've reviewed, uh, several times, uh, where you have just like a really rich nose. And I think Gizmo said how Ricky says, you really gotta get your nose in this. And that rounded glass with the wine glass, uh, sort of like a, a brandy or cognac sniffer, um, just allows you to do that.
I mean, this lounge, we have every imaginable type of stemware from martini glasses,
**Gizmo:** which is phenomenal, by the way.
**Senator:** Yeah, it's incredible. Martini glasses, wine glass, everything. You could possibly want a beer glass, but you'll notice when Ricky [00:55:00] pours a tequila or a mezcal here that has complexity, he'll take wine glasses to do it always, to really make sure that you can fully
**Gizmo:** appreciate the news.
Right? Always. It's working. I mean, I just did it again. I just poured a little more. And you know, it's almost like the nose is as enjoyable or arguably maybe even more enjoyable than when you sip it. I mean, no question. There's so much complexity in the No question about it. Yeah, a hundred percent Amazing.
Yeah, I want a car freshener of this flavor. . Yes. . That'd probably be bad when the cop pulls your fire. . . Far pressure. I swear, I swear to God off about this. It's my, uh, top oft, uh, car. Fresher on the window. On the mirror. The Tesla's
**Grinder:** driving itself. Don't worry. . That's true. . So the, the, uh, just pivoting again, sorry.
This cigar for me. Um, it j we, I just mentioned how it hasn't changed and now I feel like it, it just, it just flipped. And what flipped was that, that [00:56:00] finish that I thought. Precipitous and stopped now is sustained, but not in a good way. . Now it's like that, that kind of really stringent aftertaste on my palate is, is kind of, it's, it's migrating all over it, not just in one space.
Yeah. I've had that for a bit and, uh, it's not, I don't, I don't like it that
**Gizmo:** much. Mm-hmm. , , I would say so far, I mean, you know, we're only what into the, coming into the end of the second third here. I mean, the first half of the cigar was definitely more enjoyable than it is right now. I'm hoping the last third picks up, but it, it's not looking that way and, and I'm not hopeful.
**Senator:** I mean this is what's tough and this is also why you always have to smoke the full cigar. I think there was some episode, I think maybe Gizmo mentioned this, how cigar fish anda reviews their cigars to determine the cigar of the year and apparently they only smoke like a few puffs of the first
**Gizmo:** wait 10, take 10 to 15 puffs.
**Senator:** 10 to 15 puffs. I mean, if we were to judge this just by the first 10 to 15 puffs, I think we all were very, were fairly
**Gizmo:** [00:57:00] satisfied. Yeah, I think we would've agreed that the pledge, pre pledge prequel was number one Cigar of the year. .
**Senator:** in that case. But the challenge is with any of these sticks, you really gotta smoke it all the way through to understand how, what it's gonna deliver.
Because halfway through, I think all of us noticed a shift with this cigar and it's not for the better. No.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Rooster:** We need to come out with Lizard of Fish and Adam as .
**Bam Bam:** I, um, I could see myself putting this down. Really? Wow. Yeah. I I could put it down and just walk away from it.
**Grinder:** I'm not there.
**Gizmo:** I'm bored. Yeah.
That, that, yeah. Yeah. That's where I'm at. I'm bored. I, I the muddled flavor. Great way of putting it. Yeah. It, it's, it's, it's not good now. No. Where it was good in the first half. Still
**Bam Bam:** smokeable, but, you know, I can easily let up another one.
**Grinder:** Right now, I'm still enjoying it. I'm just, the, the af like, I'm smo I'm finding myself smoke it more because the, the finish is so stringent now, you know, but I, I don't get that stringency when I, when I, [00:58:00]
**Gizmo:** when I actually puff and I think now the abruptness that I have, like when I push the draw out of my mouth, it's as if I'm not smoking a cigar.
There's nothing there. Yeah. It's like, it's completely mute. Like it's, there's, it's, it's like I hit the mute, mute button on the cigar. Spot on. Yeah. Like, it's like, I'm not even even smoking cigar. They blew out the smoke. Exactly what you said. Yeah. Like, it's like I'm not, it's, it's like they put the em, uh, the men in black.
Like, you know that that thing that they do to wipe your memory. Yeah. . Like, I have that like wiping the memory of that draw like it's gone. Yeah. What is that thing called? I don't know. I like it though. I want one of those.
**Grinder:** So I want one of those for a lot of things in Oh yeah. .
**Bam Bam:** We'll leave it at
**Gizmo:** there. . So did you guys see I, you know, I'm a music business guy.
Did you guys see that? Uh, the shit show, I guess it was right around Thanksgiving or so with Taylor Swift's fans. How could we not with Ticketmaster. I mean, it was everywhere. My, my New
**Grinder:** York Times Life is a T Swift fan. Yeah, she was in that. She was in that
**Gizmo:** queue. So [00:59:00] it's interesting. I have, I have a different perspective on it and I, I wanted to share it with you guys cuz I, I thought it was interesting how this has kind of played out.
You know, there's two aspects to the failure that Ticketmaster had with, with Swift fans and really any kind of high level concert that you try to get tickets for. I mean, Taylor Swift is on another level because the demand for her tickets is just off the charts. I mean, I don't know what other artist, maybe unless like Abba came back or like Led Zeppelin, that the demand is gonna be that high.
I mean, it's, it's obscene, it's, it is insane. It's obscene. But what's interesting is the failure of Ticketmaster that's valid is the inability for people to successfully get tickets, right? Like you said, your wife waited in a queue forever to try to get tickets. So that's an absolute failure on the, the tech part of what they're doing.
But the business side of what they're doing, where people are blaming Ticketmaster for the prices of tickets to go to these concerts, I see it with Metallica, with Billy Joel, with Elton John, with all these people that are selling tickets. , everybody screams and yells at Ticketmaster. But what [01:00:00] they don't realize is that the, the artists are 100% in on it because it's a basic, basic math equation, right?
Live Nation who owns Ticketmaster, they buy most of these kind of big concert tours, right? So they tell Taylor Swift venue by us, MetLife Stadium, we're the Giants and Jets play. They tell Taylor Swift, we're gonna give you x number of dollars for that show. Let's say it's 5 million bucks. Right? If you divide that out by the amount of tickets that are available for that show, based on the, the stage that she put together, how many people they could put on the field, the show, is it, is it backed up to a corner where they have to close off some of the seating?
Because the people would be effectively behind the the stage, right? So there's only so many tickets they could sell if you do the math on it for them to, let's say, profit 15% on the actual show part of it. It's a pretty basic equation of like what they need to charge for tickets. So then what they do is Taylor Swift though.
or these other artists, they don't want to put tickets on [01:01:00] sale for 225, 200 $50 for nosebleed seats. Right? So Ticketmaster says, we're gonna sell these tickets for quote unquote a hundred dollars or $75, but the math doesn't work and everybody's in on it. So what they do is they put the tickets as verified, resale, effectively scalping their own tickets to pay for the amount that the artist needs for that show or for the production cost.
Agreed to. Yeah. Has agreed to for that show, let's say it's 5 million bucks and Ticketmaster ends up being the face of this bad operation because the artist wants to have a perception with the fans. Mm. That they're able to sell these tickets for 75 or a hundred bucks, but the math just doesn't work. So it's like these artists will rail against Ticketmaster, everybody will rail against Ticketmaster.
But that's the value of Ticketmaster to these artists and to Live Nation is it's effectively the bad guy that gets all the bad rap. The artist says, it's not us. They wash their hands of it. , but they're totally in on the scalp.
**Grinder:** Wow. And, and then, and then her, her [01:02:00] Taylor Swift's, uh, somewhat muddled, let's use that word response, was also kind of like really T Swift, like, you're gonna play this card, like gonna talk to the people.
Like give me, you've been talking to these people for ages. And
**Gizmo:** that's the thing, man is like, she didn't mention anything about price and her apology. No. What she said is she apologized for her fans feeling like they got attacked by bears to get tickets. Which, that's the other side of it. That's what I started with.
Right. The, the, the queue and waiting in line in the process of actually buying the tickets is one thing. But the other side of it is the actual ticket price that they're selling this at. They're scalping their own tickets. Taylor Swift is scalping her own tickets. All these artists are scalping their own tickets because the economics don't work at the ticket price.
They want to have their fans perceive that they're putting them on sale for That's amazing. , which is, it's just the nature of the business. But these, these artists are too afraid to step up and say, you know what? I haven't torn in five [01:03:00] years. My tickets actually are gonna sell for $250 for nosebleed seats.
And if you wanna sit eighth row, yeah, guess what? They're gonna be two grand. Hmm, sorry.
**Bam Bam:** So do they end up selling
**Gizmo:** them for the lower number? No, very few tickets get sold at the loader, lower number. Ah. It's all a game of perception. I see. So all these people, like Reiner's wife who sit in line and think they're gonna be buying $125 ticket, cuz they showed up early and they got their verified pr uh, verified fan, you know, uh, access code and all that shit.
It's all fake. Wow. The whole thing is fake. It's all a game. But
**Rooster:** it's kind of more like area based, isn't it? Like you could get cheaper tickets after you go to Philly,
**Gizmo:** let's say. Yeah, but you have to figure some artists, yes, they're doing better in some markets than others. You know, maybe, maybe somebody who's not at her level.
is gonna be able to do that. But you look at a guy like Harry Styles, he sold out 15 nights at Madison Square Garden in like 10 minutes. No, I know. But you know, but,
**Rooster:** but it's also the demographics of this [01:04:00] area. I mean, if he's having a concert in like, you know, let's say Alabama or something, is he
**Gizmo:** getting the same price?
He's probably making less per show there, but the same economics were applying,
**Grinder:** they baked that into the overall price, though, the regional differences. And, and I'm, you know, to your point, I'm sure the price in Mobile Alabama is gonna be different from the price in, in, you know, giant stadium. Right. Um, but that's, that's, you know, that's, they baked that into the, I'm sure the net, you know, the average price of that is, is something that they're across all the tickets, sold across all the locations.
It's something that they're palp is palpable to them.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. And when Live Nation buys a tour from Taylor Swift, if it's a, if it's a show in Alabama, show in. New York, if it's a show in la, they're buying the whole tour from her. So before she even starts the tour, she knows exactly what she's making. Mm-hmm.
But the thing is, in all these deal memos that they're doing, she knows exactly how much Live Nation's making. Wow. Look, it's all a
**Senator:** big game. If only Heos SA ran this , we wouldn't have any of
**Gizmo:** these products. Oh, yeah. , there'd be no [01:05:00] tickets, and the prices would be ridiculous. , it'd be one show. So, yeah, that's my, uh, that's my rant on people saying that the artists are innocent and Ticketmaster is the enemy.
They're all in on it, boys. It's
**Senator:** all about the dollar ticket. That, that was, that was a
**Grinder:** great transaction for, for Live Nation when they bought Ticketmaster. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Huge. How is that not a, uh, a consumer protection antitrust monopoly. Monopoly?
**Gizmo:** You know, like it's actually them buying, it's not them buying Ticketmasters, not the antitrust.
It's Live Nation going and buying every single amphitheater, buying the rights to every single arena, buying the rights to every single theater. , that's what they did. Wow. That's the antitrust violation. Yeah. Is they've gone out and they've purchased the rights to all these venues. So if you're an artist who wants to play New York, you wanna play Madison Square Garden, guess what?
You wanna play Madison Square Garden? You also have to play the forum in la. You can't play the arena where, uh, the, uh, [01:06:00] Lakers and the Clippers play. Mm-hmm. What's that? crypto.com. I'm sure that's gonna change soon. Mm-hmm. . But they can't play there because they're boxed out. So Live Nation actually boxes them out of other venues.
There's Radius Clauses, et cetera. I mean, they're all in on it, man. It's all a big game, and I just love that people are suing Ticketmaster. God forbid that goes anywhere, because people are gonna realize when all the documents are unsealed that, oh shit, all these artists who say they're on our side are actually totally in bed.
Oh, boy. With, with, with Live Nation, Ticketmaster, Taylor Swift included. Wow.
**Grinder:** What, what's wrong with that? I mean, they're, they're, they're. They
**Gizmo:** are. What's wrong with it is the fact that the artists don't have balls to say, this is what our tickets are gonna cost. And to be upfront with their fans. They're too afraid to have the perception that their tickets are astronomically priced, when in reality they need to be, because they're demanding the guarantee to play that show.
**Bam Bam:** I think you're more of a consu, [01:07:00] uh, uh, informed consumer in this subject matter than most fans are. I don't think it'll upset the majority of them, my opinion.
**Gizmo:** I mean, they, they want to go see the show. Yeah. But if you've ever waited in line for tickets, I mean, it's painful. Yeah. That sucks. It's horrible.
You know? And that's, even, that's for any show, not even a, a show where they're playing a stadium. Hmm. It's for any show. You know, COVID put a real number on that. Yeah. So they bought
**Grinder:** their own tickets.
**Gizmo:** Bots. Yeah. They don't even buy their own. Yeah. What they do is they just put a very limited number on sale at the real price, and then they put everything up as verified.
So then everybody's going, oh, it's the bots, it's the scalpers. It's the bots, bots, bots. And it's not, it's like they're using their own platform to,
**Grinder:** so what, when you get a ticket from Ticketmaster though, doesn't it identify the name
**Gizmo:** of the seller? Yeah, but most of the time they're not gonna have, when it's like verified resell or something.
Most of the time they won't tell you the sale's name, seller's name. If they're doing it on their platform. If you buy them on StubHub, secondhand from someone who's actually purchased the ticket, you'll get a transfer with a name. But if you're buying 'em from Ticketmaster, you're getting it direct. [01:08:00] Okay.
So yeah. Little FYI boys. Good to know. Good luck buying tickets. No
**Bam Bam:** more Taylor Swift .
**Grinder:** I, I'm just, I'm just more candid to the amateur bullshit that I experienced at the pub down the.
**Bam Bam:** What,
**Senator:** uh, uh, you lost
**Grinder:** me. Say what? He's got an amateur bullshit joke. That is, you
**Gizmo:** know, people playing music in pubs and Yeah.
I just don't like when people play music when I'm not expecting it. Yeah. Oh, I don't want to go have a drink at a bar. There's like, in our North lounge, there's a guy behind me, like at volume 11. Mm-hmm. playing really bad covers of Tom Petty, like, I'm just not interested, but
**Senator:** he's trying to make it gizmo.
Yeah. Well, good luck. You should support him.
**Grinder:** You should. He's a fan. You're
**Gizmo:** a snob. Gizmo. So boys, we're coming in the last third here of the Leaf by Oscar Maduro, and, uh, this thing is flat as a pancake.
**Bam Bam:** Yes. For me, I put my cigar down and I'm about
**Grinder:** to light
**Senator:** something else. . I, I'm, I'm [01:09:00] sorry. No, I look, I, I really make a conscious effort to always stick it out.
I put mine down. It was tough. Oh, you're done too. I'm done. Yeah. Brilliant. This is like bored the hell out of me. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. One
**Rooster:** dimensional.
**Grinder:** It's the mystery cigar. It is a li um, I think I'm further along than you guys. It is, it is vacant. It's a bit vacant right now.
**Gizmo:** A little empty. I was talking a lot. I just kind of touched mine up.
I'm right there with you guys. I'm just getting like warm smoke . It's really not, it's really not one smoke. Warm
**Grinder:** smoke as opposed to cold smoke. Yeah, which is a thing. ,
**Gizmo:** well, some cigars. B burn a little cooler. I feel like this cigar actually kind of burns hot. Which I, and I'm not pulling like hard on it, but the cigar, the, the smoke is pretty hot.
I don't know. So, um, are you guys ready to do a formal liquor rating on the top? Patillo Excelia. Oh yeah. Extra on ya? Yep. All right. Bam. Bam, you're up.
**Bam Bam:** So [01:10:00] I, I, I love this tequila. It's, it's got such body and weight and very complex. I'm going with a nine. Nine,
**Gizmo:** okay. Grinder.
**Grinder:** Uh, I, I'll go with a nine as well.
Um. . It's not something that I would try to drink on a, on a regular rotation, not because of the price, but because there's just
**Gizmo:** so much there, you know? Yeah. It's definitely a special tequila. Yeah, I was about to say that
**Bam Bam:** for a good timing. It'd be a great, a great drink.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, I agree. Senator.
Uh,
**Senator:** this is tough.
**Gizmo:** Um, it's not tough for me. I know exactly what I. Hand
**Rooster:** 10 as he, as he, as he
guzzles
**Gizmo:** down some, some more from that full white glass .
**Senator:** This is hard because this is probably, this, this I think is the best tequila I've ever had. There's no question.
**Gizmo:** A hundred percent
**Senator:** no question. And so the temptation for me to give this a 10 is really, really high.
There's one thing that I'm just having a hard [01:11:00] time reconciling, and it's that this is a 40% spirit, but this drinks a little more aggressive than a 40% spirit. Yeah, yeah. There's a little burn. There's a little, yeah. Yeah. And I didn't remember it having that. Um, man, I mean, if I could split the difference, it'd be like a nine five, but I, I,
**Gizmo:** you know what, nine, five rounds up to, I just wanna say I
**Senator:** know.
I mean, it's tough. I mean, Ricky's gonna hear this. He's gonna be so angry when, here's my rating on this. But I, I have to, I, I have to be honest in that the only, the singular complaint. is, it just runs a little hot for a 40% spirit. I say that because we have drank with Ricky Mezcals that are 48% and smooth silk and that are as hot or less than this at that, that level of proof.
Um, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a nine, but that doesn't change that. This [01:12:00] is still my favorite tequila. It's
**Bam Bam:** a That's an
**Gizmo:** excellent rating. It is. I'm, I'm absolutely giving this a 10. It's the best tequila I've ever had. Um, I said that to Ricky when we did it at the lounge here. Yeah. When he kind of gave it to us.
I, I think this is a phenomenal spirit, the complexity, the best tequila I've ever had. Yeah. Warrants these, these ratings. A 10 all day. 9.25. Yeah. Very nice. We don't, we don't need to K for that. It's a 9.3 boys. Very good. I think Ricky will be happy with that. Yeah. You know, listeners who are into tequila, you can get your hands on a bottle of this.
Very, very strong recommend. I can't say it enough. Um, we love it. We love it. All right, boys. , , we've come to the end. A couple lizards, including me now, have put our cigar down the leaf by Oscar Maduro. Am I
**Grinder:** the only Jamoke still smoking the No, I'm, I'm still working. Yeah, he's gonna work on the rapper now.
The rapper
**Bam Bam:** going .
**Grinder:** What's, what's the aroma on that one? How's that hit your palate? Newspaper . Actually, it's actually not [01:13:00] bad. I'm curious. Actually, it's actually not bad.
**Gizmo:** Hang on. I mean, they should add that to the Blend . Wow. Just give that a little smile. Give it a whiff. Yeah. It's actually not
**Senator:** bad.
**Grinder:** It's tobacco
**Gizmo:** You guys ready to do the, uh, formal Liz rating on this thing? Mm-hmm. . All right, rooster, you're up. Um, so for me, I'm gonna give it a six. Okay. I'm gonna give it a seven. Senator. Wow.
**Senator:** Um, I'm at a six. Okay.
**Grinder:** I was between a six and a seven. I'm going seven.
**Gizmo:** Okay.
**Grinder:** And bam, bam.
**Bam Bam:** It started off for me as an eight right off the bat, but plummeted to a six.
Okay.
**Grinder:** Yeah. 6 25.
**Gizmo:** 6.4. 6.4. All right. So the formal Liz rating is a 6.4 boys. I think that's an appropriate score for the cigar. I think the first half was probably in the eight range. Mm-hmm. . Um, but definitely the second half came down quite a bit and the last third was really not great uns smokeable.
**Rooster:** So I, I wasn't [01:14:00] expecting a seven from you
**Gizmo:** guys.
Why? Yeah. I
**Senator:** mean, you, you sat there saying the whole second half that you were just getting hot smoke and, and Ash.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Well, the reason why I would say the first half was an eight, I think the second half was the sixth. That's what, you know, I think that's appropriate for me. I,
**Bam Bam:** I'd go the first third. You were kind, first, third was an eight, but then it plummeted very quickly.
I'm, I'm
**Senator:** with bam. Yeah. I would say just for me personally, first, third. The first third was an eight. Yeah. The second, third was a seven. Mm-hmm. . . Um, and then the last third was a six or even a five, and that's where I ended up at. Honestly, the last third for me was a five. I'm, I'm, I'm not, no doubt about it.
Six. And that's where you average out to about a six.
**Grinder:** I was eight. Eight, seven. Six . 8 76. Yeah. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I, I think a seven is very fair for the cigar. I think it was interesting. Yeah. Kept my interest for most of the cigar. First two thirds of the cigar was interested in the cigar, you know, and for 13 bucks, I mean, I think it's totally fine.
Yeah. I'm, I'm not bummed out. I put a third of it down. I mean, we've had $40 Cubans that we've put down. Oh, yeah. A third. That's a totally different, you know mm-hmm. , totally different conversation in my mind. Mm-hmm. agreed. All right, [01:15:00] boys. So a 9.3 for the top, oft Excelia extra on ye and a 6.4 for the Leaf by Oscar Maduro in Toro, which again, I, I don't, it didn't feel like a Toro in my hand.
They call it a Toro, so I guess it is,
**Bam Bam:** it'll make for good fertilizer in the garden. .
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. Great chatting with you. Happy new year, um, and, uh, excellent night. We'll see you guys next week.
Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You could find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, lounge lizards podd.com. That's lounge lizards, p o d.com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us hello@loungelizardspod.com.
You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. [01:16:00] We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.