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The lizards pair the Fuente Fuente Opus X PerfecXion 8-8-8 with Green Spot Single Pot Still Whiskey. The lizards discuss their experience with the Opus X line, clean eating, and the final season of Ozark on Netflix.
Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge listeners 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 Puba. Senator Anne bam.
Bam. And our plan is to spoke of cigar, drink some Irish whiskey, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 31st official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge. Liz. Plan to meet us here once a week. We're gonna smoke a new world cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating.
We discuss our experience with the Opus X Line, clean eating and the final season of Ozark on Netflix, 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. Green spots, single pot still. Irish whiskey with Fuente Fuente, Opus X, perfection 8 88.
Our first Opus X [00:01:00] tonight from Arturo Fu Puente's. Fuente Fuente family line. The perfection. 8 88, I gotta say bam. I don't know how in the hell yeah. You found any sort of quantity of these. Yeah, because yeah, I can't find them anywhere.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. On the internet. Yeah. So I was on, on my way back from work and I needed a cigar and uh, he had a full box of these, had one, blew me away, immediately.
Purchased enough for the lizards to have a review. It's
**Gizmo:** very pod worthy. I am, uh, yeah, I've had a few opus before. We have a friend at the, uh, at the clubhouse who's, uh, big into Fuente. And, uh, I, I've never really loved Fuente to be honest, but this, when you showed me these, this size in, in, they call it Lonsdale 44 by little under seven inches.
Six and seven eights. Yeah. This is right in my, and I think our wheelhouse as far as aesthetically ola,
**Bam Bam:** it's beautiful. Yeah, I agree with that.
**Senator:** Yeah. And I, I say this as someone who's similar to Gizmo, I, I not only like, [00:02:00] have generally not been an Opus fan, but like I've actively, actively like hated
**Bam Bam:** opus. Me too.
Me too. Me too. I don't, I would not deny that.
**Senator:** Yeah. And I've had a torpedo opus that I had a very bad experience. . Uh, but this shape Yeah. Is beautiful. It's intriguing. The ring age is awesome. Yeah. I I'm actually very curious. It's got a dark wrapper. This should be different.
**Bam Bam:** I've only had different, this is my only, th only my only third, third opus that I've ever had.
Got it. And I honestly, I liked every one of them, but I don't pursue this cigar for many reasons, which we
**Gizmo:** could talk about. So it's interesting. They call this a lance arrow. You know, we, we have to cut it, but before we cut it, I mean, it comes to a really interesting point. Yeah. At the head of the cigar.
It's like a Coke bottle. Yeah. It it looks like a pencil almost. Yeah. You know, like a, like a thick pencil. It's very odd. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I've never seen a cigar like that, that comes to a point like that. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So, yep. All right, boys, let's cut this thing. See what we're getting on the cold draw.
Mine doesn't seem very densely packed. No, [00:03:00] it seems, and the draw
**Bam Bam:** is wide open. Kind of lightly
**Gizmo:** packed. You'll find that it's wide open. Oh, it is. I took a very little bit off. It's really nice.
**Bam Bam:** What do you guys think
**Gizmo:** of the cold draw? Kind of getting hay, much like a hay or something. Something. Mm-hmm. So the cold draw, I'm,
**Senator:** I'm also getting like hay, but I have to say, if you smell this wrapper, uh, I mean it smells like barnyard and, and honestly, even manure.
I can't say that I love the smell of the wrapper .
**Gizmo:** It's very earthy. I
**Senator:** don't know. I like it. It's, it's too much for me. This, this is, this goes back to an episode we were talking about. I think, like I said, like I can deal with the barnyard where it. A barn that has hay and a horse hasn't been there and God knows how long
But like a brand new barn. A brand new barn, but like the barn where like the horse just took a shit like 10 minutes ago. Like, that's,
**Bam Bam:** boy what I'm getting. Oh, this is gonna go bad on the, on the cold drug. I'll take them all back. No, no. Smell the wrappers back. Smell the wrapper Gizmo. Get him. I'm, I'll take them.
I'm taking 'em off. I'm getting that. Give them back.
**Poobah:** You're not kidding,
**Gizmo:** but you're not getting the horses just took a shit.
**Poobah:** Everyone smelled the rapper. No, I don't smell poopy . No. [00:04:00]
**Bam Bam:** Please smell the rapper on the, on the cold draw. For me, it's a bit, a tiny bit Sweet. And when you, I'm
**Gizmo:** not getting the manure thing.
**Poobah:** Yeah, I don't get that. No, I'm actually on the cold. On the cold draw.
**Senator:** Yeah. Not on the cold draw. I wanna make sure I'm clear
**Gizmo:** here. Yeah. On the, on the cold. Actually,
**Poobah:** I'm actually getting kind of that signature fuente flavor, like amped up semi shark, like maybe even like a little bit of shortbread.
**Gizmo:** It's a really, really beautiful
**Poobah:** cigar.
Yeah. Oh, the, but it's shortbread, but it's, it got a little bit of a pungent note to it. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Um. So I don't know.
**Gizmo:** All right, so I'm smelling Senator Cigar. He just handed it to me because he's not happy that we're disputing him. And his does smell a little bit more like a horse manure than mine does.
**Senator:** It does. I, I'm sorry, I'm not, it's nothing against his cigar.
**Gizmo:** I grew up with horses, so I'm very tuned into this. It smells Senator. That's a lot of horse shit. Pass this to PBA . It's a bunch of horse shit. It's a foot of horse. We're passing around. Senator Cigar. You have to smell this. He just, it's
**Poobah:** so great.
Gizmo. Just put the foot [00:05:00] up his nose to,
**Bam Bam:** to the lister. He's not gonna put his mouth on that
**Gizmo:** to the
**Senator:** lister. Am I crazy? No, you're, am I crazy? It smells like passing to Rooster, everyone. I'm not insane. Everyone has
**Gizmo:** to, you're
**Poobah:** there is some sort of an odd smell. I will not smell it.
**Gizmo:** We're doing the horses should analysis.
There is, there was a, actually it smells like horse
**Poobah:** manure. There's a, there is a ro rooster's comparing. There's a hope. There's somewhat, there's a. I hope
**Gizmo:** for the next. It's semi offensive, I hope for the next hour and a half. What? What? ?
**Senator:** Don't smell it. Bam. You have to smell it. I'm sorry. I'm not crazy. Take another one.
Two guys have validated it. Take
**Gizmo:** another one. I hope for the next hour and a half. Senator just gets horseshit for the
**Poobah:** entire, he, he, by the way, he's like me. He's, he's now biased like . It hasn't, has a different smell. It's mine
**Rooster:** doesn't smell like that. It does. Yeah. It smells a little
**Gizmo:** different. It smells a little different.
You can't tell me you don't smell horse manure. That's, that may be the one I dropped in the, in my, in the cat box before I came over here today.
**Senator:** Oh, so you admit that you use kitty litter now? . I, I'm glad you said that.
**Gizmo:** You don't smell
**Bam Bam:** it. No, I'm not getting it. I don't know. [00:06:00] Maybe
it's
**Poobah:** funny. It looks like you have a mustache.
If I spit my eyes, you looks like you have a huge Keith Hernandez.
**Bam Bam:** That's
right.
**Poobah:** Fuck Keith Hernandez. Keith Hernandez mustache. He looks like Hernandez.
**Bam Bam:** Dude. I'm Keith Hernandez . You want, do you want it down there one?
**Gizmo:** I don't know, but it, I don't know. It's smell. Slide it. Let's try it. There. Let's see what's going on.
Let's light this thing, boys. Oh, the Fuente Fuente Opus X profession in a bad
**Poobah:** way. I can't wait to see how this goes.
**Gizmo:** 8 88. Not off to a good start. again. It's Lonsdale 44 ring gauge by sixth and seven eighths inches. And, uh, bam. How much did you say you paid for these? 42
**Bam Bam:** 50? Way too much. So, yeah, they retail 42 50 plus tax.
Oh my gosh. Now, online I saw them for $25, which is never accurate. Yeah, but they're not in stock. No, that's right. And that's, that's why the prices are high.
**Gizmo:** Really nice on the light. Yeah. Really nice. Well,
**Bam Bam:** you know, [00:07:00] it's just that there's earthiness and sweetness there. A little, a little barnyard, which I, I kind of like a little bit.
Yeah. It's all wrapping together. No, it's really nice. Yeah. Unusual. Thank
**Senator:** God it tastes nothing like the rapper's smell. Thank God. Praise
**Bam Bam:** the Lord. Praise the cigar. Gods. Jesus .
**Poobah:** Yeah. I thought, I thought he was gonna be like I was hoping for. That's for today, .
**Gizmo:** I was
**Senator:** hoping we were gonna have That's tomorrow.
And that is it for us today. That's tomorrow, right? You'll see Senator in
**Gizmo:** two weeks, .
**Poobah:** That's right. That's
**Gizmo:** tomorrow. That's, so this is a, uh, Dominican piro. Obviously everything that, uh, is made in the opus line is made at, uh, Chateau de la Fuente in the Dominican. And these cigars were originally released in August of 2018.
Very hard to find again. So, uh, we're very happy to have them here on the pod tonight. Yeah.
**Senator:** Can we just note, I just saw the, the signature rooster eyebrow rays. Yeah. I saw that he looked over at Bam as he took a puff and the, the eyebrow
**Gizmo:** went up. Very good. That's a good [00:08:00] thing. It's very good. Yeah. Very good on the light.
**Rooster:** Yeah. I mean, typically when you smoke a young opus, it needs to sip, it needs to age for a while. So
**Gizmo:** you've
**Bam Bam:** probably smoked more opus, I'm guessing, than anyone in the room. Is that, is that fair to say? I'm
**Gizmo:** not sure. I think so. Yeah. . But typically
**Rooster:** if you have like a opus that's been sitting for like, at least like three to five
**Gizmo:** years right.
It becomes
**Rooster:** like a difference.
**Gizmo:** Like okay.
**Rooster:** Like remember the one we had, uh, somebody's house. It was like a double um, outside. But that guy got the whole
**Gizmo:** box. Yeah, we
**Senator:** had that at the lounge. No,
**Rooster:** we had it at,
**Senator:** oh no, we made him take the box's the locker. In the lounge. We smoked him in the lounge. Oh.
**Rooster:** But the original
**Gizmo:** seller,
**Senator:** we had it.
Oh, right, right, right, right, right. That's right. That's right. So that What size was that? Yeah. Which one? It was the Double Robusto. Double
**Gizmo:** Robusto. Which was out outstanding. It was
**Rooster:** good. That
**Gizmo:** sat for of very
**Senator:** time years. Yeah. That was, that had to have in total, at least
**Gizmo:** five years ago. I think that's a [00:09:00] pretty common thing.
Uh, if there's gonna be a complaint about Opus for the price and what it is, is the fact that. , they're not as aged as apparently they need to be. Right, right.
**Rooster:** Well, they, they used to be, when they first came out, they were phenomenal sticks. Yeah. Really sought after. And then I guess maybe they're rushing it, I don't know.
Maybe they're still very sought
**Gizmo:** after. Oh, they're, they're
**Rooster:** sought after. But the quality, you know, it's not quite like, diminished. What it was like Yeah. In the beginning, like, I used to love the petite Coronas of the opus land. Okay. Because the, the wrapper had so much flavor. Mm-hmm. And you got so much of that from that small size.
**Poobah:** So I
**Bam Bam:** will, my experience with this, I had it a couple of days ago, if you go through it quickly, it, it, it bites. There's a bite. You gotta take your time with this one. Yeah. It's a small, so I slowed down, I was like a half, halfway through the first third and it was really catching up to me. So I'd slow down and it became very enjoy.
**Senator:** Yeah. I have to say bam. So, uh, I, I apologize for the , the manure, the early, [00:10:00] uh, review, which I was worried was not gonna be very good on the light. This is actually really tasty. Yeah, it is. And what's interesting to me, the wrapper on this, this is one of the, this is probably the darkest wrapper I've ever seen on an opus.
**Gizmo:** It is dark
**Rooster:** opus is a pretty usually on the
**Gizmo:** darker side.
**Bam Bam:** But isn't it a
**Senator:** natural, my experience, that double rub robusto we smoked was definitely lighter than this. Yeah. And even the regular opus that I've bought, that I painted, cuz they're just way too young. They're all lighter. They're, they're not like this.
I mean, this looks like a millennium wrapper. It does.
**Gizmo:** I just, I really like the size and shape of the cigar. Yeah. It, it does make it, it more pleasurable for me than if it was a Toro or a double rib robusto. I just like that ring gauge. I mean, we talk about that a lot. That's That's right. Elegant. Elegant.
It's an elegant, it just feels good in the hand and very. . It's really, really good. You know, I, I, we were talking about it before we came on air. I find maybe almost more than any other new world [00:11:00] cigar or any cigar. I find the, the Fuente lines, it's specifically in Opus to be very, very confusing. Oh, yeah. Um, it, it's, you know, I'm not, there's so much, I'm not an expert in the line.
No. But there's so many different variations. Lost city and all angels share and forbidden. Forbidden. You know, there's a lot there. A lot. There's a lot of different, yeah. I don't know how to dis I don't know much about them, you know? Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Pogo disgruntled
**Gizmo:** p What happened? PBA had an ash, uh, trying
**Poobah:** for the audience.
I was just trying to get my water bottle out of this chair that I'm sitting in that as a cup holder. It was stuck in there. Then when I pulled it out, it hit. The, the boom mic and then that hit the cigar. And now I
**Gizmo:** have ash all over my lap. All right. So I was, I got
**Poobah:** a little discombobulated and, uh, call, uh, quite frankly, I don't know what to do with myself.
Call
**Bam Bam:** Garan Garan. [00:12:00] All right.
**Senator:** My suggestion, boom, would be grab your ashtray and just put it right at the edge of your leg and just brush it in there.
**Gizmo:** Okay.
**Poobah:** we're having technical difficulties. Standby. . You want
**Gizmo:** me to hold your cigar? Gimme
**Poobah:** your cigar. Hold. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's in the ash tray. Okay. What do you think? Uh, rooster. Just very
**Gizmo:** good. Yeah,
**Rooster:** I mean, like earthy and a little bit of sweetness. Sweetness coming through.
**Gizmo:** Isn't that unusual?
**Poobah:** Look at that worked perfectly.
There you go. You know, I, I have these car, these.
**Gizmo:** and
**Rooster:** you feel, you feel the spice on this hunk.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Right. Uh,
**Gizmo:** for me on the front, right, the front, I like that they're having a serious discussion. We are and he's smacking his lap.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I've got a wall up right now, .
**Poobah:** I mean, it was like boom, boom. And it's like an explosion of my scene.
**Gizmo:** God, take
**Bam Bam:** a drink.
**Gizmo:** This is a really elegant smoke. Yeah. But
**Rooster:** you taste that [00:13:00] pepper or that spice on your tongue. Yep. Right. Little bit on the front
**Gizmo:** edge bit. Mm-hmm.
**Poobah:** definitely I get on the front. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to get into it. Like I, I'm disconnected from this brand a little bit. Mm. So I'm trying to, and that plays into it for me sometimes.
Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** me too. It's, it's cost prohibitive, you know, it's expensive,
**Poobah:** you know, so, but it's good.
**Senator:** Yeah. Yeah. To, to its credit. I mean this is just the start, but this on the light so far is easily one of the best opes I've had. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually impressed.
**Gizmo:** Yep. Second best . That's fair. So, uh, you know, all of the Opus cigars come and really ornate, uh, cedar bo wood wooden boxes, um, really ornate.
And, uh, they come, this one is obviously called an 8 88, I think very similar to some of the eight 90 eights and other cigars that ha Bonos has made for many, many years. But it comes in a box of 24 and like you said, bam, I mean, a box of these is gonna at least run you probably somewhere around a thousand bucks.[00:14:00]
Oh, easy. Yeah. You know, for 24. Yeah. So you're talking about a really premium product, right? For 24 cigars. That's right. You know, so this is something, this is a really nice, uh, cigar to have in the pod tonight, but hard to find and, and I don't know if I would reach for it in, in, in moments unlike this, you know, so, so Opus thi this is really interesting, I learned, uh, today, uh, about this, is that when they've released special releases of opus like this, for a retailer to get it.
They have to sell, they have to move 25 boxes of regular production Fuentes cigars to have access to one allotment of these special edition opus. Just 25 boxes. Yeah. 25 boxes. That's not a lot. No. Doesn't seem like a lot.
**Bam Bam:** So where I purchased this from, you could consider it an Arturo Fuente destination.
Okay. They have a little ton of Arturo Fuente inventory. A ton.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Yeah. I can see this being a long smoke. Yeah. You know, you [00:15:00] gotta kind of, you take your time. You gotta take your time. Yeah. You know, you take your time with it, relax with it. I mean Yeah. It's not burning quick. No. It's not burning quick.
And if you, I think if you, to BA's point earlier, if you try and jump on this, it's not gonna, it'll catch up to you. It's not gonna be any good. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. What it's, what's intriguing is that that layer of sweetness that that comes in on every draw it, that's what keeps your
**Gizmo:** attention for me. Yeah. And I find it to be a very, uh, very nice, smooth smoke.
It's very, I would medium, I would say. Mm-hmm. , the delivery is really nice. Yeah.
**Senator:** Yeah. You can taste, there's some age on this. That's true. Which has always been my complaint with Opus. So I'm, I'm thrilled to finally have an opus that I can say. Sure. Definitely has some age on it. Like Gizmo was saying, is very smooth and has full flavor.
Where some of the younger ones, for me, there's not enough flavor to excite this. That
**Bam Bam:** That's right. That's right. It's great. And I, you know, I've only had three of these, right. So the two other opus I've had for me was a lot of cedar, great tobacco flavor, but not much [00:16:00] sweetness, which is okay. You know, I don't, not every cigar I have has that, but when I do get it, it's, it's, for me, it's a little special.
**Poobah:** Yeah. And maybe, maybe we we're getting more of the wrapper here than some of those larger ring gauges. It's just, yeah. You know, and that could goes
**Bam Bam:** back to our love for this gauge, right? Yeah. Yeah. .
**Gizmo:** I think that, I think that 44, this, I think a lawnsdale is for me, the perfect Vila. Mm-hmm. Perfect. I love Lonsdale.
I love Lonsdale Churchill and a, and a double Corona, obviously with our love for the Havanas, double Coronas. But this to me, you can't beat, it's beautiful. Excuse me, you can't beat this. It's beautiful.
**Poobah:** Yeah. You can't be, yeah, they're great. And it's interesting how the size is not, I guess, quote unquote Vogue or it's somewhat in terms of the mass market to a certain degree.
Like it's a little bit, would you say it's old fashioned? Well, maybe. Maybe. Maybe it's classic, you know? Yeah. So [00:17:00] those things, they think some of those just in general, generally speaking too, some like cognac, we were talking about cognac. You know, Nick, is it cool to order a cognac or is it cool to be like, I don't know, gimme a Belvedere martini or whatever people order or drink or, or accustomed to doing.
And I just think that this is worthy of. There's merit in, in this, in this format that I think sometimes gets overlooked by folks who, some folks the mass market and they go for these big huge ring, you know, the Robusto, which we love, we love Robusto, but they get into these big ring gauge cigars. Yeah.
Toros, Totos, Totos and Gordos. You know, like bigger is better American, bigger, better, bigger, better, you know, and it's sometimes that's not always the case. Um, there's a little bit of refinement. You don't have to stay on top of this thing, like a big huge ring gauge that gonna keep smoking it and puffing it and surrounding yourself in this huge cloud of smoke.
It just delivers a lot of flavor, which is [00:18:00] really a nice experience. I, in this format I'm talking, generally speaking. Absolutely.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I was telling, uh, I was telling the senator, I think I was talking to Rooster about it too. Um, I just got a box of, uh, my first box of Monte Cristo, number ones from Cuba and from Lonsdale perspective, which the cigar is from the Cuban Lonsdale.
I've really reached. mainly for the parkas 8 98, which is a hard cigar to find. And the mon one has kind of jumped in that slot of, when I'm looking for that specific viola, it's really doing a nice job for me and it's a great price and
**Bam Bam:** I've never seen it in person. You had it the other day. Yeah. It's really beautiful looking cigar.
**Gizmo:** It's, it's a really nice looking cigar. Yeah. It's smooth. And I just love that, that, that viola, it's great. Yeah. And they're
**Poobah:** overlooked somewhat. Yeah. You know, it's so, it's, it's a nice kind of go-to, especially, didn't, didn't you have one at my house? No,
**Bam Bam:** you gave me the three, I believe. Three. Yeah. Which I loved.
I really loved it, and I had a ton of age on it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah. You know what, to, to pub's point about this [00:19:00] viola being overlooked, you know, I, I just hope that the Lonsdale is not gonna go the way of the Churchill. Oh yeah. You know, and especially in, in with Havanas in the Cuban market, it, it's, there's not that many, there's
**Poobah:** not that many anymore.
So, you know, and in the, in the, in the US market, I mean, it's not like you, I mean, they're around. . Um, they are around, you know, but let's just say in lounges, how many people do you see? Exactly. How many people do you see smoking lawnsdale? Very, it's true. But
**Senator:** even let's, let's think about non Cuban cigars that we smoke.
Yeah. I, I don't know of a lonsdale in any non-urban that I smoke. I don't know of a Davidoff Millennium series or late hour that is Lonsdale. I don't know of a Padron. That's
**Gizmo:** a Lonsdale. I I think they have the, I think the, the Imperial, maybe the Dave
**Rooster:** Ador signature series. Like the 2,003,000. That's
**Gizmo:** Oh, yeah.
I
**Senator:** mean, I haven't smoked that. Yeah. [00:20:00] Isn't that
**Rooster:** mild? I was,
**Gizmo:** that's medium. I wouldn't say it mild, but
**Bam Bam:** call housekeeping.
**Gizmo:** Oh, Jesus. Who's got a round two, round two lap spill.
**Poobah:** Well, I just don't know what's happening, . I just, I'm not gonna lie. I mean, there was like barely any ash on this thing and it just fell on my lap.
You're
**Bam Bam:** discombobulated today, .
**Poobah:** I have no idea. Can you imagine this one? I need like
**Gizmo:** remedial training,
**Poobah:** something. I don't know what's going on, but you gotta go to finishing school. , some sort of remedial, uh, education or something. I don't know how this is keeps continuing to happen. There's like no ash on the scar was like falling off.
Yeah, be careful. You're gonna get bit too . I know. And I'm gonna yelled
**Gizmo:** at,
**Bam Bam:** I have to say something about our pairing tonight. Um, we've been very, very lucky that all of our spirits and alcohol in general have paired beautifully with the cigars that we've picked these past couple of weeks. Tonight. I happen to think this is [00:21:00] really a beautiful, beautiful pairing and I get a lot of honey in this, in this, in this liquor that we're drinking tonight.
That goes great with the cigars.
**Gizmo:** Senator, tell us what we're drinking. Cuz I know nothing about it. I, I, I
**Senator:** won't lie, I don't know a ton either, but it is, it is so delicious. It's green spot, single pot, still Irish whiskey, triple distilled. And, um, I had this recently, uh, a buddy of mine had a bottle of this and had poured me some and I, I wasn't at the time even really craving Irish whiskey of any sort.
Um, but I had never had it. So I said, okay, I'll give it a shot. And I was just, I like immediately perked up and I said, wow, this is really good. Because the only Irish whiskey outside of Jamison, obviously everybody knows that, but that I had would drink would be red breast. Red breast. And obviously I would drink with all you guys.
Yep. Yeah. And um, I was very impressed with this. Yeah. Cause that's why I
**Gizmo:** picked up bottle. It's, it really is.
**Poobah:** Yeah. It really is very, it's quite good. I, I, I, we did [00:22:00] have it. I wanna say that, um, . Our, uh, our good friend at our north lounge poured us some of this one night. Mm-hmm. Um, but the libations were flowing, I think, uh, in copious amounts.
as, uh, and uh, yes. And, uh, but it's balanced. It's kind of like, has a dry finish, but it's like sweet up front. Yeah. It's great. Yes. It's crazy. It's, it's, which is really nice. It's really unusual. Yeah. Yeah. It's, well, it creates balance, right? Awesome. So it's like this, like balanced delivery. And for me, I, I'm, I'm all over.
I mean, um, I'm all over this. I mean, uh, it's, it's so easy to drink. How, what's the price
**Gizmo:** point?
**Senator:** Uh, 60
**Poobah:** a bottle. Yeah. So it's up there. Yeah. It's a premium spirit. Is there a But it, but it tastes that way. Is there an
**Bam Bam:** age, age statement on that? No. Okay.
**Gizmo:** It's really, really nice. It is pairing well with the cigar.
Yeah. Yeah. There's something about it. I, I think Puba just mentioned it. It, it's, um, . It's less, it's it's hitting [00:23:00] my throat less than the front of my mouth. Yeah.
**Poobah:** What's dry? It like disappeared, like in the back of your palate. It just, it like, just, yeah. It's dry, but up front, like on the front of your swim.
It's super sweet. Yeah. And to me that's just this balance delivery. That's so good.
**Senator:** It's fantastic. Yeah. I'm reading the bottle that says that it's aged in American bourbon and sherry casts. Oh, that explains his sweetness. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I love the way you're describing a pah. I, I completely agree.
That's cool. And I think a lot of you guys have figured out, like my palate with any, anything I'm drinking with a cigar. I love something that's very balanced where there's a little sweetness but has a dry finish. I think Paul Roge is exactly that. Yeah. Starts a little bit sweet, but it finishes really dry.
I think like, um, you know, wines like the Robert Craig that we all had that red blend. It's a beautiful dry, little sweet, it finishes dry. Yeah. And I think this does exactly that. Like you described Puba.
**Poobah:** Yeah. It, it, it does. And, and that's nice with a cigar. because, uh, it's kind of giving you that [00:24:00] sweetness, but like, it's almost cleansing your palate, which you wouldn't think an average whiskey would do.
It's almost like cl it's cleansing it at in the, in the finish. And, um, it doesn't have a long finish. It's actually kind of like, it's not, it's short. It's short. Yeah. It's like abrupt.
**Bam Bam:** It's, that's what makes it so easy to drink.
**Poobah:** Yeah, that's, I think that's a, I think that's a, that's a virtue I agree in, in this.
So, um, it's designed this way clearly, and it's nice.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I would've overlooked that in my shopping. Me
**Senator:** too. Really? I was very, very pleasantly surprised. I mean, I, I don't often reach for Irish whiskeys and yeah, the fact that I tried this one night and bought a bottle and thought we had to review it, it, it really interested me.
Well,
**Poobah:** you know, at our North lounge there's a lot of additional Irish whiskeys, and by the way, this isn't probably, you know, it's not, that's an also an area that I ha I don't think any of us have. Dove deep into, you know, you get into your habits, you drink jam and you drink red breast, but they're more premium Irish spirits, Irish whiskey [00:25:00] like this that are out there that we should just look at.
Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** that's a great point actually. Great point. Puba, you
**Senator:** should not feel bad at all. Okay. Uhoh. I don't know what it is. The ash literally just like when it just falls off.
**Gizmo:** Wow. See, look at,
**Senator:** look at this. So right here, one fell off and then I, after that fell, I was just smoking again and another one just fell.
Wow.
**Gizmo:** Okay. So it's not me. It's not you. I don't know why that you're vindicated. I'm,
**Poobah:** uh, yes, you are vindicated.
**Bam Bam:** It's, you're both a little busy physically. You're, you're, you're moving around a lot. The three of us are sitting here. Nice and common. Very stoic. Yeah. Not losing an
**Gizmo:** ash here.
**Poobah:** Okay. So we, part of the review, it has a flaky ash.
Oh boy. Can I
**Gizmo:** say something about, uh, that I did? So I cut very little off the top. Not a typical, uh, So I, the opposite of a gizmo cut and I got a, I actually got a tar blast. Oh my god. Thank you. And I had to
**Senator:** recut it. Thank you. Really? Wow. I'm not kidding. We, this is not planned. So I thought you were gonna say that.
You should just take a little [00:26:00] off. I was about to vehemently disagree. No, I got a tar blast. Exactly what you described. So I just took a tiny bit off. Yeah. I got a tar blast. I dunno if anyone heard during the recording. I cutting. Wow. I didn't even notice to get rid of the tar. And now it's wide open and I'm not getting tard.
How interesting.
**Gizmo:** Same thing happened. Very interesting.
**Poobah:** And so you got, that's why I cut mine like that
**Gizmo:** to begin with. Yeah. I need to do that because I cut
**Rooster:** very little off . That's what you get at the beginning of your tongue. Like
**Gizmo:** right at the tip. Yeah. And it, it was, it was a, not a pleasurable tar blast.
Interesting. Interesting at all. That's, I didn't, I didn't realize that that happened because I just recut.
**Senator:** I'm stunned when you said that. Oh, that's great. Exact same thing happened.
**Gizmo:** Wow. This is, this is why we lizard.
**Poobah:** Yeah. . Yeah. You see there's, there's community
**Gizmo:** and ashes falling and tarball ass .
**Poobah:** Well, right.
I mean, so the same thing's happening. I'm not, not. We're all
**Gizmo:** not nuts. . So is this, uh, Irish whiskey, is this easy to find?
**Senator:** Um, I don't think it's the easiest.
**Gizmo:** Like red breast is a lot easier. You would
**Senator:** say? I think red breast is easier, but I also [00:27:00] wouldn't say red breast. Is that easy to find? I mean, I just think, you know, and, and, and it's kind of unfortunate for Irish whiskeys that it's not easy to find a lot of Irish whiskeys.
They have
**Bam Bam:** small shelf
**Senator:** space. Yeah. When you go into the average liquor store, the only Irish whiskey are guaranteed to find is Jameson. That's pretty much it. Yeah. To find other stuff. And there's tons out there, like Puba was saying, you, you really have to find a store that prioritizes sourcing that. So I think all of them
**Bam Bam:** are kind of stuff.
And I think Puba brings up a great point. There's, I think a really good, interesting world to explore here.
**Poobah:** Yeah. And Irish risks. Absolutely. And we're in the right geographical area. Oh. For it. I mean, the only place better, I mean, you have more Irish Americans Pro cap per capita, seven miles from here. Wow.
I didn't know that. Right. Up in, up in, uh, up in Rockland County. Okay. Or in Pearl River, New York. Mm-hmm. , let, let, let's call it what it is. It is, it is a, there there's more Irish Americans there per capita than like, literally anywhere. I didn't know that. So, um, because well, it's all firemen and cops. [00:28:00] Yeah.
So, uh, that all, I mean, it's just packed. Wow. And, um, so there's, there is, there's a mark What I'm saying, my point is there's a market in this, in the northeast in general. I, I I think if you went to, I don't know, the middle of Iowa or something like that, you know, you may not be able to find Right. Uh, this, but certainly in Boston and New York, in, in, in places where there's people of Irish American descent, you're gonna get, you're gonna get more options.
Certainly, I would believe.
**Gizmo:** And I'd like to call out to the listener. If you're a, uh, a savant of, uh, Irish whiskeys, please email us and tell us what you like and. Tell us what to reach for because we are searching for liquor pairings, so please let us know what you'd like. And
**Senator:** the only thing I'll, I'll say just for the listener who maybe wants to try to source, uh, green Spot, the good news is they do have this at Total Wine and more, which is all over the country.
So some of like the [00:29:00] large, you know, uh, retailers, they, they do have it, but when you go into smaller shops, it's harder to find Yeah. Premium Irish whiskeys.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, are you gonna find this in certain parts of South Florida at Total Wine? I don't know. Are you gonna find it in certain parts of the, you know, who knows The West?
I, you know, I'm not sure, but maybe
**Gizmo:** the one thing I will say about Total Wine though, is in specific to Florida, when we did the episode with the four Square. The, uh, what the high end rum that you brought? The only place I found it after looking everywhere was when I went to Florida with my family. Wow. I popped into total wine.
They had about 10 bottles of it. I mean,
**Senator:** that shouldn't be surprising though. I mean, Florida rum in
**Gizmo:** Florida is like water. Yeah. But that's true. But it's true. Especially South
**Poobah:** Florida. That's specific, but that's specific. But all but the fours square stuff is all small batch stuff. Those are all short runs Anyway.
Yeah. So it comes and
**Gizmo:** goes. Yeah. I was, I was, Florida was happy to find it closest to Barbados.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Yeah. And, and you're right. I mean, rum [00:30:00] in, in, in Florida. Um, and, and, and again, it comes down to like, you know, the ethnic breakup too. There's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of, uh, Hispanic population in Florida.
I mean, that's no secret. Sure. Uh, go to go to Miami and, uh, you know, English is a second language, both English. Second, uh, yeah, second, second language. And this is going back a long time. I mean, my, both my parents grew up in Miami and, uh, they both speak pretty good Spanish. And that's going back to, oh, wow.
I didn't, that goes back to the, the sixties. I didn't know that.
**Bam Bam:** That's, I didn't that's a cool detail.
**Poobah:** Yeah, yeah. You know, because you would, you know, love that you're, you're, you're talking, you're, you know, you're talking to people, you have friends, you're, you know, you spend time in South Florida, south South Florida, you know you're gonna love it.
Yeah. You know, use some
**Gizmo:** Spanish. So I gotta tell you guys, so when we did, um, when we did, I believe it was [00:31:00] the New Year's Eve episode, I was not here for that. You weren't here. We did, like we talked about New Year's resolutions and stuff. And I said that one of my resolutions this year is I wanted to drop 30.
Oh, and I've been, how you deal with that?
It's not going good. . Anyway, I kind of figured out what it was and it was, it was between work and, and, and life and laziness maybe that I, it was really that I was just not feeling like preparing my own food and dealing with it and sourcing it and everything. So I am totally locked in, just started this week on getting fresh prepared meals.
So they're not frozen. They're, they can be refrigerated. You order a couple times a week and they deliver it. I'm using, and I hate, I really don't like the name of the company. Do you have to give
**Bam Bam:** it marketing? I
**Gizmo:** would not give it. All right. I won't give it no free advertising, right. Anyway. Right. I found a really clean, um, I found a really clean, uh, awesome producer of fresh meals and I'm getting 'em [00:32:00] delivered to the house, dude.
They're like between 10 and 12 bucks a meal. Oh, that's pretty good. And I am so locked in. I'm gonna shred
**Poobah:** weight. Wow. But do you have to eat two meals to be full? Honestly, , do I have to eat two meals at a sitting at a sitting at the same time? . Right? That's what I mean. Like puba needs to two meals a day.
No, I know, but sometimes with these, I've done like some of that stuff where you, they, they send you the meal and then it's all the ingredients. My wife was doing this for a while. I forget what it was called, but it was like, we did it for like a year, but she would make it and I'd be like, well, that I can eat like two thirds of that.
No.
**Gizmo:** See what I'm, ma what I'm getting is already made. I microwaved for three minutes. No, I gotcha.
**Poobah:** I'm talking
**Gizmo:** portion wise. Yeah, the portions are very reasonable. Um, each meal is somewhere between 300 and 600 calories and they're, they're fantastic. Are they filling? I'm totally full and I'm good for two meals a day and I'm perfect.
Really? Yeah. I'm good. I'm really glad
**Rooster:** you're eating
**Gizmo:** clean.
**Poobah:** Yeah.[00:33:00]
**Bam Bam:** enough said. Yep. Yep.
**Gizmo:** Bro. . I don't love the advertising and the marketing, but they're, they're really, uh, it's really awesome. Yeah. So I, I recommend I, it's, it's an expense for sure, but here's a question to get on the horse again. I need to do it. Yeah. How much is it? Uh, it's about between 10 and 12 bucks a meal.
So I'm spending maybe 24 bucks a day on it. That's
**Bam Bam:** okay. Yeah. So you live in a house and you're not alone. Mm-hmm. , you've got, uh, Mrs. Gizmo. Yep. And Gizmo Junior and, uh, little Girl Gizmo. Yep. So they don't eat this food?
**Gizmo:** No. I actually get it shipped to my office and I keep it in my fridge at the office. So you don't eat at home?
I, it doesn't share, no, it's not even about sharing. It's just normally I'm eating my food at the office anyway. Yeah. Cause I'm always there, so
**Bam Bam:** I find when I'm dieting, I can't eat what my kids eat and my wife. Yeah. That's the problem because they're kind of, you know, in shape and I'm in 250 pound obese bastard.
And I need to lose 20 pounds. So when I'm, I [00:34:00] find when I'm dieting, I have to pull myself away from the dining table and I'd like to have dinner with them. Yeah. So how do you
navigate
**Gizmo:** that? Uh, to me, when I have a, a, like the way that my brain works, when I'm locked in on something, I can succeed. I can ignore the Doritos and the Fritos.
**Bam Bam:** No, that's not what I'm asking. The camaraderie of the family at the
**Gizmo:** table. Do you have that? Uh, yeah, we have that. We do it several times a week, but Okay. I'm not, I, I don't need to reach for what they have because the other thing that I do is I don't eat dairy, so, ah, that helps. A lot of the stuff that really helps we need is dairy, so that's an easy switch.
Yeah. You know, for me. Yeah. But I really recommend it. Cool. I really recommend you trying it. It's, it's very, very cool now for the whole family. It gets very expensive, but if, you know, if you're out there and you're trying to lose a few pounds, get some meals prepared for you, do nothing, and it kind of get, you know, for me it's getting in the habit of eating that stuff again and learning what I like again and.
getting to the point that I'm, I'm going out and sourcing it and buying it and prioritizing. Yeah. Eating well, you know, cuz I, I just haven't been mm-hmm. .
**Poobah:** Yeah. And, and [00:35:00] maintaining your, your, I, you know, I had never lost weight in my life until like two years ago and I've put it back on, but cuz I'm like, um, 63, 2 60, so, um, which I should really be two 40, do you know what I mean?
2 42. I got down to that weight just by, just by like really, really throttling back carbohydrates and managing your glycemic index. Like with no, with little to little exercise to no exercise. Just maybe walking, sometimes food is powerful there. Food is very powerful. It's powerful. Yeah. I mean, so like, if you, if you, if you eat, you know, like the way I'm eating now, which is like, I mean I literally just wake up in the morning and I have two eggs on rye toast.
with a slice of ham and a slice of cheese. And I go about my day, and then I come up and I'm like, what's going on? And then I just have a Turkey sandwich, onry bread, you know what I mean? And I'm just like, that's how I at like [00:36:00] two o'clock. And then like, I just, then dinner comes, everyone's like, what are we doing?
Like, what are we doing for dinner? What's for dinner? What are we having? What are we doing ? Should we, what are we interview gonna cook? What are you cooking? Like, what are you gonna do? And I'm like, it's a whole thing. It's a production every day. Yeah. It's a whole fucking production. Yeah. And like some, you know, you, you fall back on the laziness of like, oh well, like they all want this.
And then it's like, I'm gonna like, you know, and in the winter it gets tough because like, you can't just like throw a steak on it, be like, I'm just gonna eat a steak and like, eat low carb. Like, what are you gonna do? Like you gotta get, it just gets tough. Like I'll eat, I could eat if it was just me and my wife and the kids weren't around and I could, Julie and I could just eat like salmon one night with asparagus.
But like, we gotta make that. Then you gotta make something for the kids. Yeah. It's like a whole production. They want pasta with butter. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's a, it's,
**Gizmo:** it's like you're creating
**Poobah:** chicken. Like I just work pasta with a little butter, you know? Yeah. And Parmesan cheese, and you're like, okay.
**Gizmo:** Yep. You know, to me it's not dieting, it's habit change. Yeah. I, you know, I did this, I did this once. I got down to like one 70. Oh wow. I [00:37:00] was really thin. I mean, I was loose. A medium shirt was loose on me. Were you still squatting four 50? No. That's the, well, that's the other thing that happens with weight loss is I'm gonna, is I'm gonna lose my, my, your power.
My lift power. Uhhuh. . So I'm gonna find a happy medium. I don't wanna get down there. Again, I think it's unreasonable, but to me it's not dieting, it's habit change. Sure. This is readjusting my habits. Like I just need to change how I eat and what I look for, you know? Yeah. But anyway, you know, I think it's a, I think this has been a, a, a good exercise for me in getting back into it by kind of catering to my laziness and just eating well and eating food that's prepared and just doing it consistently.
So. Nice. Well, I'll check in with you guys in a few months. Nice. We'll see how I'm
**Rooster:** doing. Love it. You know, the problem is that the food that you want to eat, , it's not cheap. Yeah. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. , like anything that's healthy for you, it's not economical. It's more expensive. Right. Even like if you're like borderline vegan or vegetarian, you end up paying more for meals.
That's right.
**Gizmo:** That's [00:38:00] right.
**Rooster:** Absolutely. Maybe, maybe the demand is not quite there, so the supply is, doesn't quite meet the demand. Sure. So, but you know, the food is, you know, it's the root cause of a lot of diseases. Oh, absolutely. So you can cure a lot of stuff. Yeah. Just by eating the right, yep. Right.
**Gizmo:** Quantity
**Poobah:** and the right food. Yeah. There's no doubt about it. And eating healthy is time consuming. And, and it's, and it's actually expensive. It's like a societal problem. We don't have to unpack that All right. Here, but it really is. I mean, like, if you're like in a lower economic strata, let's say, I mean, and you can go to Wendy's, you can go over to Wendy's, you can get.
You can feed each kid no joke. For six, for five, six bucks, bucks, bucks now. Yeah. Even during inflation, and they get a hamburger, they get a small fry. You know what I mean? And like, you can like, so if you're a working family, yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, you can go to the supermarket and feed 'em like that.
Absolutely. So, um, [00:39:00] you know, it's, it's, it's not
**Bam Bam:** easy, you know, as opposed to the salads that we've got into Ala Senator, which I thank
**Poobah:** you for that. Yeah. They're so expensive. Those goddamn
**Bam Bam:** salads. Well, you know, I could live on them if I could. I could too. I could do two a day and I'll be, I will be satisfied.
But you're in
**Poobah:** 50 bucks a day. Well, to get it delivered
**Bam Bam:** 30, 32 to 38 bucks a day, right. For salad. No, that adds up. Yeah. Yeah. But they're spectacular. They
**Poobah:** are. Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt. There's no. . So food. What did that's, we covered, did we, we gotta cover travel now. .
**Gizmo:** Can we travel? We cover, did we cover leisure?
We did. We'll cover leisure in a second. I wanna get back to the cigar, but I do have something I wanna bring up about leisure that I'm very frustrated about. Uhhuh, . Um, so we're about halfway through. What is leisure? Leisure is everything else. Oh, okay. Well,
**Bam Bam:** it's what we're doing right now. Yeah. Leisure.
Okay. This is leisure
**Gizmo:** at its best. So we're, uh, about halfway through the Fuente Fuente, Opus X perfection. 8 88. Yep. What are you guys thinking?
**Bam Bam:** [00:40:00] Consistent.
**Poobah:** Not ramp, not
**Gizmo:** worth the price. It's not knocking my socks off. Oh, I
**Bam Bam:** don't think a 42 to $6 cigar is ever worth the price.
**Gizmo:** Yes, sir. Well, I, I mean,
**Rooster:** depends. I mean No
**Gizmo:** Chef's Edition.
David it off. No, it's
**Bam Bam:** $34. Right? 30, 40, 30. . Senator, you were saying
**Senator:** something. I'm just, I'm honestly, I'm, I'm frustrated with this cigar. Hmm. Um, I got a second tar blast. Oh. I didn't get that yet. While the diet conversation was happening, I had to cut this further to get rid of more tar. Oh, wow. Um, so I'm not happy about that.
Oh, I don't, I'm not getting that. The ash has been falling, just crumbling, like throughout the entire cigar. So I'm constantly having to ash that, which typically you have to do that with a short filler, dirt cheap cigar. Yeah. You don't expect that out of an opus. Great point. So I, I'm frustrated.
**Gizmo:** Great point.
Frustrated.
**Rooster:** I'm with you on that. I had to cut
**Gizmo:** the cigar like three times. Oh wow. Just
**Rooster:** to, just to cut that bite off. I mean, I cut very little. You getting Tar Rooster in the beginning? I don't know what it was. I [00:41:00] thought it was like pepper on your, you know, the, the front of the tongue. But it was actually, you're right.
**Gizmo:** Tar.
**Bam Bam:** It was tar. So on that, what can I call this a BU shape at the top? What are we calling that? Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. I tend to take a half inch off to avoid. That truncated aperture in your mouth where it really concentrates the smoke. I don't like that it's hot, so I take off a little more. I I go half inch minimum.
I haven't had that.
**Senator:** Yeah. I mean, to your point, bam, on, on this cigar, I, I, I almost, you need to do that, that this came with an instruction manual because , I, I would've started what, by cutting off a lot more than I did. I would to wear with other torpedoes. I don't have to take off as much.
**Bam Bam:** Right. That's a, that's my kind of like go-to process.
I take it off regardless. Yeah. The
**Gizmo:** normal wizard mantra is take off as little as you can. Not on that.
**Bam Bam:** Not for me on this. For me though, every, even, uh, bf uh, B f I do take off a little more than usual cuz I don't like the heat that I get. The smaller the aperture, the more concentrated the smoke. It gets
**Senator:** hotter.
But, but, so I, I, I guess there's [00:42:00] an important distinction here for a larger ring age cigar, like a true beso mm-hmm. or a true torpedo. For me, you don't have to worry about taking much off because it's a larger ring gauge. When you take a little bit off, you still, you got a, a, a good size hole at the top of the cigar, so you're, you're fine.
But on a smaller ring gauge cigar like this, like yeah. When you take off a little, I mean, to ban's point, it, it's very narrow. There's not much space for that smoke to move, move its way through. True. Um, but I, I still was just surprised that even I thought once I clipped it, the second time that there was, the draw was wide open.
Mm-hmm. . So I thought there was plenty of space and I That's true morar. Yeah. And now the third clip and so far is so good.
**Gizmo:** That's
**Poobah:** interesting. Yeah. I mean, with the, with like a bellaco Sophos, you're gonna have, uh, Since it is a larger ring gauge cigar, it gives you the mouth feel of a smaller ring gauge.
You're not ha but you're just, but you're getting the kind of that smoke output. So it creates like, a little bit, just a tiny bit of a funnel that the [00:43:00] mouth feels really good on it. Okay. Yeah. You know? Agreed. Agreed. You know, some people argue, well, uh, uh, a torpedo or, or a besos is gonna, you know, it delivers, it's like designed to the, to funnel the smoke onto your palate or whatever.
I mean, I guess you could argue that one way or the other, but for me it's the mouth feel like, yeah. It's like you're getting this larger ring gauge, but like, when you put it in your mouth, it's a little bit tapered. Yes, exactly. Which is more comfortable to smoke. Right.
**Bam Bam:** But even on my millenniums, I take off a half inch.
That's my, that's my procedure. Yeah. For
**Poobah:** me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I,
**Rooster:** I'm still getting a little bit of tar.
**Poobah:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** It's, did you, did you purge it? Did you push out?
**Rooster:** I didn't No,
**Poobah:** that's a good idea. View. Try that. It's not, this is not particularly enjoyable. I mean, I'm not
**Gizmo:** lo I honestly, I'm enjoying the whiskey more than I am the opus.
Yeah, same. It's
**Poobah:** not particularly enjoyable. I mean for 40 and, and for $42 on top of it. Yeah. It's crazy. This thing can, I'll throw this thing in the Lake
**Gizmo:** [00:44:00] with the tv.
**Senator:** I mean, the thing that's sad honestly where, where I have to give the cigar credit, like the, the flavor that I was getting out of this for a lot of it is good.
Yeah. It's delicious. I think it's, it's, it's a construction issue with the cigar, which is supremely disappointing from an opus and a Fuente.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. You expect the structure of it to keep that ash in place a little
**Senator:** longer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's certainly not to get blasted
**Gizmo:** with tar and I'm finding the flavor to be okay, but these other things are definitely taking away from it.
So, on t leisure, I have to ask you guys, cuz we, I know some of us have talked about it, and this is a spoiler alert, we're, listen, we're into June now. . So the, the, the Ozark season finale episodes came out at the end of April, and, uh, I think it's plenty of time now to talk about in detail what happened. So spoiler alert, if you're, if you haven't seen it, turn us off or fast forward, but what did you guys think about the ending of Ozark amateur [00:45:00] bullshit, amateur
**Senator:** bullshit?
So, I, I'll, I just, I have to start, cuz I was the first to finish the, the new, the, the last season. And I was so frustrated and disappointed with the ending and I thought maybe I'm the only one. So I, I was like, I, I genuinely, like, I didn't say too much. I said to Gizmo, when you finish, I need to know what you think.
I said to a few other guys, when you finish, I need to know what you think. Cause I wanted to know if I was out on an island or if other people felt the same way. Everyone I know that has finished that season said, what a disappointing way to end that show.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, yeah. So, so I think the way
**Rooster:** they ended it, they kind of left it open.
that maybe they can come out
**Gizmo:** with another season. That's, you know, that's the first time I've heard that rooster. That's not bad. That's not a bad, I promise that's not a bad take. Yeah, that's not a, like, if it could come back on another network or something.
**Rooster:** Just think about it. They're both alive. Yeah. The whole family's intact.
Yeah. They can take over the, uh, the
**Poobah:** Mexican cartel. Now it's all about the money. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No,
**Gizmo:** that's, see, that's the first time I heard that take. And it
**Senator:** makes a [00:46:00] lot of, so, yes. But I, I think even the way they ended it, like my issue is not that, like, I, I think the way they ended it can very easily be the end of the show forever.
Because the premise of the show, like Marty Bird has that quote like early on in the first season, which is something to the effect of, like, the meaning of it is like, you know, money like is unstoppable, right? Like Right. It solves everything. Right. And it proves in the very end, like that's exactly the case.
Right? Yeah. The two of them are scotch free, nothing, no issue. Obviously they amassed all this wealth through, you know, the, the cartel business that they were laundering money for. So I, I think like it works. I just think the execution of, if they were gonna kill Ruth, I mean Ruth is the, one of the biggest bad asses probably in the history of television.
Fantastic character. Yeah. Like I truly think that, yeah, like the way that they made that character and for her to go out the way she did unarmed, this woman just follows her home and just shoots her and that's it. It's over. Like, I wanted to [00:47:00] see a firefi, I wanna see some more spectacular way if you're gonna kill off Ruth for her
**Poobah:** to go.
Yeah. And I also had a problem with, um, some of the realistic aspects of what was going on down the stretch with the show, specifically as it related to Ruth. Anyway, Ru so Ruth, you know, is this character who's, who's smart. She's has she, she's got these great instincts and she's navigated through all this stuff.
but the whole, so the problem with the execution of it, like that made it, I'm like, this is not realistic because someone this smart would not be just consistently just driving around, going back to her trailer with like no security. She's got all this liquidity now. She has all this money and she can't hire tough guys.
And she just killed them. Like she can't, and she, and she killed all these people and she can't hire a couple of strong men of her own. Why? She owns a casino. Why is she, I'd be locked up in a suite in that [00:48:00] casino with strong men all around me being like, you can't touch me motherfucker. Like, but meanwhile she's driving back to her unsecured lake trailer every single night in the fucking rain and like being followed by herself with not, so I'm saying to myself, this is like, How could someone this smart, in real, in reality, would never be this stupid, right?
Yeah. She'd be locked up in the, in the hundred percent in the, in the goddamn Memphis Bell.
**Senator:** At a minimum she'd be armed. At a minimum. At
**Poobah:** a minimum she'd be packing heat. Yeah. And she's not even packing a pistol all the time. It's like, goodness gracious, you've just. You've killed drug awards like multiple, you're murdering people going around and, and you, and you've witnessed all this, this, but you, but you don't have any security and you're a got, you're a multi gazillionaire.
You have all their, I'd lock myself in the Memphis Bell, run the business i'd, I'd have people bringing me food up there and living in the goddamn business she owns. But meanwhile she's going back. So to [00:49:00] me, I found that to be like, like, what? You expect me to drink this Kool-Aid? And then at the end when she gets killed like that, it's like, well you're, you know, I'd rather see a spinoff of the show with Ruth running the Memphis Bell and doing other things and kill the
**Senator:** birds.
I agree. I totally, I agree. And to your point about it not being realistic the way that Ruth went out, it's also incredibly unrealistic that Jonah, the son who hates his mother so much. that he will not live in the same house as her anymore and is living in a hotel or motel all of a sudden. And the reason he hates his mother is because she murdered his uncle, her brother.
Right, right. Like a good reason to be upset. Right. And all of a sudden, we're just supposed to believe at the end that when this pi, this private investigator has evidence that Wendy killed her brother, all of a sudden Jonas shoots and kills that guy, and [00:50:00] now everything is good between him and his mom.
It's okay that she murdered his uncle. It's so implausible.
**Poobah:** It's ridiculous. It's sloppy. It was sloppy. I feel like it was sloppy. I
**Gizmo:** felt like the thing between Marty and Wendy all of a sudden. I love you. I love you too. After all of this, you're telling me that a car accident and being able to maybe get out of the cartel or getting rid of Omar Navarro all of a sudden, I love you.
I love you too. It's like, , I was expecting that they were gonna put a bullet in each other's heads or something. Right. Which would've been a great way to end it, you know, to to, to, it turned into this love, love fest between the family, which is so implausible, given what happened.
**Rooster:** Well, do you remember the beginning, like the very first episode she was cheating on him?
Yeah. Yeah. That's how it all started. Yep. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** That's how, you know, and, and
**Senator:** an episode before the final episode when they just, everything is wonderful and they just go off into utopia together. You have Marty so frustrated with his wife that he's [00:51:00] complaining to his children about the, about his wife. Yep.
And then the very next episode, everything is wonderful. I love you.
**Rooster:** Well, she changed because, you know, she was gonna lose her kids and all of a sudden the kids. back. Well, she didn't change. Well, she, I mean, like towards the manipulation,
**Gizmo:** well, towards
**Senator:** the end, she, she checked herself into a mental asylum.
Did basically, because she thought that that would get the children to be sympathetic to her. No, I mean, towards,
**Rooster:** towards, uh, her husband. She kind of, you know, came like, she got a little
**Gizmo:** lovey dovey and I,
**Rooster:** there could have been alternative endings, right? I mean, they could have all died in the crash.
**Senator:** When you think of the permutations of the ways that show could have ended, and I've thought extensively about this, every single one of them is better than the way they ended
**Gizmo:** that show.
Yeah. It was a horrible ending.
**Senator:** Marty kills Wendy. Wendy kills Marty. Ruth kills Wendy. Wendy kills Ruth. The, all of them die. Like every single way you cut it. It would've been better than the way they ended it.
**Poobah:** Yeah. It, it would've been better. [00:52:00] You know, I, I. . I think Rooster has a fair point. You know, I think Jason Bateman is probably an executive producer of the show.
He directed the last episode. Right. So, you know, let's face it, you know, you
**Senator:** never know. Stick to your day job. I'm sorry. Yeah. If he directed the last episode, that did not
**Poobah:** work. Well. What? I'm Right. But what I'm saying, but, but I think to his, to rooster's point is that, Hey, I'm not kill, what do you think?
I'm a lunatic. I'm not killing off my character. That was the
**Gizmo:** best, you know, you know, like, like Rooster. That's the best thing I've heard so far is that they're planning to continue this at some point down the road. Yeah. Makes total sense. Yeah. They open it up and he's in Mexico. Running the cartel with the sister makes total sense.
**Senator:** I mean, what's his shame? I've said this to Gizmo many times, and maybe we disagree about this. The single best character on that show for me from day one to the final episode has been Ruth. Absolutely. Period. No, no doubt. If Ruth is not part of any, if they were to continue that and rooster's right, I won't watch like I, I truly.
The actress, I'm forgetting her name. I feel like it's Julia, [00:53:00] something that plays Ruth is so phenomenal out in that series that made it for me without her. It's a good show, but it's not a great show. Wouldn't
**Rooster:** let me, let me ask you, are you a fan of Game of Thrones?
**Senator:** No, I wasn't until the last episode. Yeah.
**Rooster:** So did you, you remember how they were just killing people left and right from day one. Like the main characters were were, which made
**Gizmo:** it it great getting, Ruth is played by Jennifer, uh, Julia Garner, by the way. That's right. Julia Garner.
**Poobah:** Yeah. No, you're right. By the way, Google her. I googled her after the end.
I'm like, what does she look like in real life? Oh, the same dude, like Ruth. No, I know, but in real life when you like dress her up, she looks pretty. Yeah, she doesn't look, she doesn't look bad. Yeah, they definitely dressed her down. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. No, she's, you know, the, anyway, so
**Gizmo:** yeah, it was a, it was a really disappointing ending to me.
I mean, I wasn't agreement Game of Thrones guy. . I did watch it because it was on, but you know, the end of that, that last season is, I would say the worst of all time. The, the first season was the best season. Amazing.
**Senator:** [00:54:00] Yeah. And even if I'm willing to, like, if I'm being charitable, the last season could be fine.
It's just the last episode was the worst ending to a major show in the history of television. Yeah. Yeah. The
**Poobah:** worst. And, and you know what, you know what the problem is? Is that you, when you start to like, you know, Tony Soprano for example, you know, all the horrible things that he did, all the things that, that, that the killing people, killing Christopher.
All those things that Tony Soprano did at the end. You still loved him. He was lovable. You know, you still love them. So they created this character that, that was like this, I guess, an anti-hero, so to speak, that's this like, that you loved. And, and, and he's like, this paradox. There's nothing, there's like zero verti, you mean qualities about the birds?
You know, when you look at Ruth, and Ruth sits there and she's like, stands there and goes, are you gonna fucking shoot me? Or what? You know, are, are you, you gonna get this fucking done? And like, she's [00:55:00] brave. Like she has more bravery and more courage in like her fucking a cell on her pinky than, than, than then, then, then, then the birds do like, they're like scumbags.
They're like asshole scumbags who screw over their children and everybody that they run into where at least she, you know, she's, she's this courageous person and that, and then to just have her not win in the end. Against these because if you liked the birds, if there was something like, wow, there, you know, there's something actually likable about these people.
They became so reprehensible in every single way that they can't win
**Senator:** it. It's funny you say that because you know the redeeming quality for me with Marty to exactly the point you just described of like, Tony Soprano's done all these bad things
**Poobah:** and when he died, be Mor Tony, you were like, fuck. Right. But you're still rooting if he died, if he
**Senator:** really died.
Right? . But you're still rooting for the guy is when you think about Marty, you know the thing in the final season that you sit there and, and I'm rooting for Marty, is he does not want [00:56:00] to just give up Ruth and have her killed. Yeah. He's fighting for wife, that's saying, Marty, there's only one smart decision and that means Ruth's gonna die.
And he's saying, uh, no, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna do that. And then for him to just give into that, at the end you're like, okay, well there's zero redeeming quality about this guy, and it just like throws out everything. Like Marty was always like, you know, a, a scumbag and a shyster like you've described, but.
He, he never wanted to do wrong by Ruth because she never did wrong by him. And then at the very end, you're just sitting there saying, okay, well now there's no reason Ruth
**Gizmo:** for these people. Yeah. No reason to Ruth for these people. And they let the sister kill her. You know, they, they knew that she was going to, they let the c e o blow the whole thing open about her killing Javi, her son.
It, it, it was, I don't know. It was just sloppy the way they did. It was sloppy. It was
**Poobah:** sloppy. You know, loppy. I mean, I'm not saying I can write a great show or something, but like I know what tastes good and certainly this cigar doesn't . Yeah.[00:57:00]
**Gizmo:** One thing I will say about the lizards, we're good with Segways. .
**Bam Bam:** Uh,
**Gizmo:** yeah. . Yeah. We're coming in the last third here, boys. What do you think, man? I, I, I am, uh, if this was $12, I would say it's kind of in line with that, but yeah, it for 40 in my rotation. I will not be chasing this. I
**Poobah:** didn't, I will not be chasing this.
I didn't smoke mine. Yeah. It's not great.
**Gizmo:** Senator, what do you think about,
**Senator:** like I said, like I, I, I just want to clarify cuz I, now I guys are actually being harsher than I even am about this. Agreed. Agreed.
**Gizmo:** I don't think it's bad. Bad
**Senator:** don't, I don't think that that, like, there is nothing flavor-wise that's offensive to me in this cigar.
Um, and there are some elements of it flavor-wise that I like mm-hmm. . But the problems that I've consistently been having construction-wise are like just making it hard to enjoy the good parts that exist within this cigar. Um, but where I do agree with the guys that are being harsh about [00:58:00] this is like at its best.
There's nothing truly great to me about this cigar. And that's what's a shame at the price point
**Gizmo:** they're charging for this. But, you know, to the opposite, let's say, of the Collibra episode, right. Oh. Where you have an expectation and it blows. I came into this with really high expectations. Mm-hmm. from what Opus X is known to be.
Supposed to be. Yep. Priced to be. It's just not there. That's fair. It needs to sit for a while. That's
**Rooster:** fair. Yeah. So you, you, I mean, you smoked this stick in five years,
**Gizmo:** it's gonna be a different stick. I'm sure. I'm.
**Senator:** problem. But that's my problems. And I say that because I have the same problem with Cohiba.
If we were talking about Cubans, if I'm gonna pay a premium for a cigar, it should not need to sit in my human order for five years would be a great cigar. I can buy a patron tomorrow that's age, four years, that's gonna cost me 14 bucks a stick. That's gonna be great. And it's gonna deliver the same with Davidoff.
I can buy a [00:59:00] young parus that's gonna smoke great right off the bat with just a year or or so of age. So,
**Rooster:** yeah. Well that that's what I, that's what I mean when, when Opus first came out, they were using much more aged tobacco than they're using now. So they're rushing it and that's why it needs to
**Gizmo:** sit for a while and then makes
**Rooster:** sense then, you know, if you're gonna pay this much for a stick.
I mean, like senators said, I mean,
**Gizmo:** you shouldn't have to No. Sit like five years.
**Poobah:** I mean, come on.
**Bam Bam:** Outrageously expensive.
**Senator:** Yeah. And that's why I have to say like of the Fuente line, , I will always give the Don Carlos line the most credit. Sure. In the sense that the Don Carlos shark, we obviously love, that's one of the highest scores we've ever given a ci.
It may be the highest. Yeah. May be the highest. We love that cigar and it's well, well deserved. Yes. And that is clearly aged tobacco . It delivers a flavor unlike any cigar in the world. We, there's nothing we ever compared that cigar. It's so unique, like we've said about certain other sticks. And [01:00:00] even within their line, you know, the, the, the, the personal reserve, I think it's called, it comes in a black box.
That's a very good cigar Rooster gave me the first one I had of that. I had, uh, gotten some more myself after that and I enjoyed them. You know, the other day, uh, gizmo and I shared a Don
**Gizmo:** Carlos, the man, the man that was a great cigar Oh, wow.
**Senator:** Which was, it's a very limited release cigar, uh, with a friend and, and listener.
We really enjoyed it and you could see why it commanded a premium. But with Opus, there are just too many times that I light up one of their cigars and I say it just does not, is is entirely undeserving of the premium that they're charging for this. Do you
**Bam Bam:** remember the cost of the man's cigar?
**Senator:** I was
**Gizmo:** like 30 something.
I think it was 30 something, but he, he had it a while ago. Wow. It was really good. Oh wow. It was great if I would smoke that a lot, if I could get it.
**Senator:** So, so the box that we had that from the, the man from, from our, our friend, um, that wasn't aged very long. He had gotten that within the [01:01:00] last year or two. Hmm.
But it delivered
**Gizmo:** Wow. Flavor was great. Think it was, uh, uh, from a flavor standpoint way better than this opus that we're having right now. Interesting. So, all right boys, let's do the formal liquor rating on the Green Point and then we'll do the cigar. Gr Green Spot. Green Spot. Green Point.
**Bam Bam:** Green Point.
Brooklyn . . Um, I'm giving it an eight. I enjoyed it. It's very good. Delicious. Tasty.
**Senator:** I'm with bam. I'm gonna give it an eight. Yep.
**Gizmo:** I'm gonna give it a seven. Puba,
**Poobah:** I don't know. I I really, I I'm sorry. And I love, I love, you know how much I love you. Oh, I love you
**Bam Bam:** too. I, no, no. We're on the Irish, we're on whiskey.
Oh. And by the way, I, not the cigar. I would not have given the, and by the way, by the way, hold on, hold on. I didn't make the cigar, by the way, .
**Poobah:** Sorry. It's been a long day. I, uh, no, no, no. The Irish whiskey, the green spot. Oh, I would give it,[01:02:00]
I, I mean, I gotta give it an eight all day. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** it's very good. So the composite lizard score is a 7.8. Okay.
**Bam Bam:** On the green spot. I'm, I'm buying that bottle. I like it. It's good. Yeah. Yeah.
**Poobah:** I'm buying it. It's.
**Gizmo:** All right. Definitely. All right, boys, we're coming to the end here of the Opus X perfection 8 88. Any final thoughts before we score it?
Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** You know, I'm, I'm not getting any of the tar, I haven't gotten that at
**Gizmo:** all. Um, I only got it once when I cut it again. It was fine. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** And that sweetness continued for me. Now I'm in the, really, the final, final third of this, it ramps up in strength, so it's more of a full flavored cigar, still a little sweetness.
Um, I like it. I like it. Uh, but for the price, I will not be buying this again. And there, you know, there's something to be said
**Poobah:** about that.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. All right, rooster, let's do the, uh, formal G lizard rating on this thing. What do you give it? So,
**Rooster:** I'm gonna give it a. [01:03:00] Because, uh, I mean, I love the shape of the cigar.
I just thought I would get more out of it. The beginning of the cigar was pretty good, but I did get a lot of tar. I had to cut it like three times. So I think that that lingered on for me. You know, that, that taste was in my mouth. So giving it a
**Poobah:** seven. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm even smelling the, the room. I, I, I, I, I didn't finish mine.
Um, that's rare. It's not a good sign. Yeah. I mean it to me, you know, a six. Okay. It's, it's a six for me. I wouldn't, if you gave me one, I wouldn't smoke it. If you, if it was in my, I just wouldn't. You'd give it away. I just, yeah, I'd give it away. I wouldn't smoke it. I wouldn't, six is probably generous, not to be honest with you.
It's one of the least pleasurable cigars. I, it, to me it wasn't, it just, , it didn't do it for me. I'm sorry, but not that, not good for me. Six.
**Gizmo:** [01:04:00] I'm gonna give mine a seven.
**Senator:** I'm gonna give it a six. And the reason I say that is because on its best day, the flavor could be a seven. But when you factor in, even if I'm willing to overlook that, I had to cut it three times, twice, I got a tar blast that the ash has been crumbling all over the place, throughout the smoke.
Even if I overlooked all of that, the fact that this is priced what it is for this, it's not even worth half that. So I, it's a hard six for me.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. So if this were priced more reasonably, I'd give it an eight. But tonight I'll give it a seven and I'll give it a seven all day long because of the price.
But I, I do like the, that flavor profile of that sweetness. I do. I chase that.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So the composite list score is a 6.6 Oof. . Yeah. And a $42 and 50 cent,
**Bam Bam:** it's almost a $50 cigar like crazy. Yeah, it does not, it's crazy. Listen, [01:05:00] and this is the problem with Opus in general. Yep. Really it
**Poobah:** is. It doesn't Absolutely, it does.
You know, I want, it's, it's not like I didn't want, I have nothing against Opus X I have really no bias. Um, I,
**Bam Bam:** I kind of have a bias, like whenever, when I see guys pull out an opus and I know they spent a lot of money on it, I know that I'm not impressed by that cigar.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. And it's, it's disappointing that, that Yeah.
I mean, given this experience, given my previous experiences with Opus, it's just hasn't delivered. And it's like, you know, these folks go out and they spend this money on this cigar. They should get a, a, an experience that's equivalent to what they're spending on it. Right. Right. For, you know, if you call it an hour 15 or an hour 10 or whatever it is of a cigar, yeah.
You should, it should knock you
**Bam Bam:** out, knock you out for this, for this price point. An elite Cuban that's very, very hard to find is worth its money. Right. That's, that's excellent. Well rated. . Ah, this is just not in that league. Yeah.
**Poobah:** It's just not there. It's just, it's not particularly good. Yeah. Uh, I'm, [01:06:00] it's, I, I don't, unfortunate dunno what else to say.
I, I, I, I, you know, I, I, I don't think any, I'm not sure who would, I don't wanna sound too harsh, but I'm not sure who would smoke this and say it's, it's worth Yeah. A shit, you know, it's gonna
**Bam Bam:** be 40 bucks. It's gonna be in your local gas station in a couple of months. Now after this review, ,
**Poobah:** not good. Not good,
**Gizmo:** not good.
And a 6.6 is a, you know, I would say it's pretty low. That's low. It's pretty pass. It's a hard pass. It's completely accurate. Yeah. Absolutely. All right, boys. Fuente Fuente, Opus X, perfection. 8 88, 6 0.6 on the. Very unfortunate, but it is what it is. Right? It is what
**Poobah:** it is. You gotta be honest. You gotta tell the truth.
We,
**Gizmo:** we tell the truth here. It's a
**Bam Bam:** good exercise. Yeah. Yeah. That's
**Gizmo:** really what it is. Absolutely. Absolutely. Bam. Thanks for sourcing these cigars, .
**Poobah:** Yeah. Thanks
**Bam Bam:** for sourcing these. I'll send you all my, you're gonna get all invoices.
**Poobah:** I'm invoicing all
**Gizmo:** of you. I'm actually gonna Venmo actually. Well, yeah. I, we, we, we, I am gonna [01:07:00] ventilate for you because it's uh, it's unfortunate to cost that much, but thank you for getting them.
It was, uh, actually it's a hard find. I'm glad you got 'em. My pleasure. Surprise, my pleasure. Thank you for doing that. And, uh, thank you boys. We'll see you next week. Keep smoking. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. Hope you enjoyed it. 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 Lounge lizards pod. P o d. That's lounge lizards pod gmail.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.