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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast presented by Fabrica 5. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Rooster, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder, and Bam Bam, a full house of lizards, and our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink champagne and cognac, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs.
So take this as your 164th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. We plan to meet us here once a week. We're going to smoke a Cupid cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating. We ring in the new year with Clicquot and we discuss their long history.
We review the best and worst cigars and pairings of 2024, and I face another accountability hour with a wild listener gift, all among a variety of other things for the next two hours. So sit back, Get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy, as we pair both Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame 2015 and Heinz Cigar Reserve XO [00:01:00] Cognac with the Cohiba Esplendidos.
A very special cigar tonight on the podcast for our New Year's Eve extravaganza, Bam. It's our fourth New Year's Eve together, if you believe it. Wow. And we have a hell of a lineup tonight between this amazing cigar, and this one. We have some champagne. We have a cognac. We are firing on all cylinders boys.
And I am very excited. The moment you pulled this out, I got excited. It looks amazing boys in our hands. We have the Cohiba Esplendidos. It's a Churchill. It's 47 ring age cigar by seven inches long. And I'll be very honest. I am going to be very nervous for the next about 90 seconds.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** As we cut into these because they are notorious for having draw problems.
Are these real? They, well, yours isn't, but everybody else's is.
**Chef Ricky:** It is absolutely beautiful. It's a beautiful cigar. Gorgeous cigar, isn't it? is gorgeous. Wow. Even, [00:02:00] it even glimmers differently than You know,
**Bam Bam:** it's a luxury
**Gizmo:** item. It has the perfect name too.
**Chef Ricky:** Good job. Good job. Splendidos.
**Gizmo:** Splendid. Splendido.
Splendid.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Alright boys, let's cut this thing. See what we're getting on the cold draw on the wrapper. I am very nervous about this.
**Bam Bam:** Incredible
**Gizmo:** dimple. Um, so hopeful.
**Bam Bam:** Wow, see that? That's ridiculous. Oh, I
**Gizmo:** got a dimple too, look at mine. Dude, it's crazy. Draws
**Pagoda:** a
**Gizmo:** little tight. Nice draw. As usual.
When these cigars are on, boys, they are on, and when they are not on, as I was telling Senator earlier today, they fight like Mike Tyson in his prime. Mine's
**Bam Bam:** fairly open with just a very tight, just a touch of tightness.
**Gizmo:** Mine has a bit more resistance than I would like, but it's manageable. What about everybody else?[00:03:00]
Perfect. Okay, good. Yeah, mine seems good.
**Chef Ricky:** I'm almost perfect. I'm debating if I should go with the perfect drawing here or not. I would lay it in for
**Rooster:** us.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Senator:** El Senador. I'm performing some surgery. Okay. And the operation is successful. Excellent. There was, there is a massive dimple. Yeah, mine too. It's, it's ridiculous.
Like, I started pulling this out and I was like, oh shit, all this tobacco is going to come out. But it was just a huge dimple. And that opened up the draw big time.
**Bam Bam:** So the dimple is the thing that I think most Cubans see
**Rooster:** rollers signature fingerprint,
**Bam Bam:** but I've noticed if you take a little too much off the top, you'll lose it.
So you just really take the skin off to see if you have it more often than not, you'll have a dimple. So what are you
**Gizmo:** guys getting on the cold draw?
**Bam Bam:** It's a little sweet cedar.
**Gizmo:** There's a creaminess on the coldron. Mm-hmm .
**Chef Ricky:** Little salty little cream. Yeah. Yeah. Little salt ality. Sweet little sweetness for me.
I'm
**Gizmo:** so [00:04:00] hopeful.
**Bam Bam:** I
**Chef Ricky:** can't wait to
**Bam Bam:** light this.
**Gizmo:** Alright, boys, let's do this for our New Year's Eve episode tonight. Let's light this thing. The Cohiba A splendido. Again, it's a Churchill out of Cuba. 47 ring gauge by seven inches long. It's factory name is the Julieta number two named of course, after the Romeo Julieta Churchill.
Which is one of the other three that remains in production, aside from this one. The final one is the H. Upman Sir Winston, and that is it. Only three Churchills in regular production in Cuba right now, which is a sin. But, given what we talked about with draw issues and whatnot, it's not surprising. The aroma
**Bam Bam:** as you toast the foot is heavenly.
Do we have a Age and box code on us?
**Gizmo:** We do. M A R, January 2020. Wow. So next month, these will be five years [00:05:00] old. So going in line with what our friend Danilo said, uh, in our conversation with him, coming up on that, uh, the high range, three to five years, but five years of age on these, uh, Esplendidos.
**Bam Bam:** This is so fucking good. I mean, it's outstanding. That's a good cigar.
**Chef Ricky:** Just immediately, I mean, there's no doubt about it, this is an amazing cigar. You
**Rooster:** can tell it's a great Hebrew. Right
**Chef Ricky:** off the bat.
**Pagoda:** For me, I could tell it's a Cuban. That's a good thing. No, absolutely. It's quintessential. It's really quite delicious.
**Senator:** I'll just say the jury's still out for me. Uh oh, you just lit it. I know. Well, I hear everybody gushing on the light. I'm not gushing on the light. Um, it's good, but I'm not getting it. I'm just saying
**Rooster:** it's, you can tell it's a Cohiba. Oh, I agree. Cohiba DNA, the Cohiba, you know, the Cohiba is beginning on the, on the light.
So you get it like a cedar [00:06:00] blast. It's creamy. And, uh, yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** I'm, I'm just surprised at how much flavor is delivering first two draws immediately. Immediately. And, and a few different flavors, not just one.
**Bam Bam:** I'm getting a creamy. Graham cracker thing happening with little honey on it.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. That's just it. I think the way it's delivering two flavors is dud.
It's delivering them in a developed manner. We just let, sometimes you get some of those more, uh, bitter tannic notes from the butane coming through. This was nice. I mean, just, just
**Rooster:** look around like seven or four setting and not a single Esplandido is plugged. That that in itself, let's just say this,
**Gizmo:** I did some serious work and.
Oh, can you please
**Bam Bam:** describe
**Gizmo:** what yeah. Yeah. That's these things were involved. All right. So. Knowing that we were doing x ray machines, we were, we were doing this for our new year's eve episode, which is one of my favorite episodes that we do each year. We do a deep dive on data and whatnot. So when I pulled the box of these, I went through and first looked at all of the feet of each [00:07:00] of the cigars to make sure that they weren't overpacked.
They're overfilled. I put all those aside. I grabbed. 12, I guess six and six. Yeah. So I grabbed 12 cigars that, that looked okay. And then I took them on a food scale and I started weighing them and I kind of saw where the average was sitting, which was right around 14 grams. So anything above 14 grams, I moved to the side.
So that
**Bam Bam:** puts a smile on my face.
**Gizmo:** Because you know, what would make me sad is us sitting here and having, you know, having three or four guys suffering through, you know, this Churchill tonight. So that's, um, That's why I did that. But that's the problem folks out there when you go out and buy a cigar like this, which this cigar now is probably about a hundred, hundred and ten bucks each retail, you're gonna get a box and, and at least 25 to 30 percent, you're gonna fight them.
I just got the dimple, it came in my mouth. Now, I have a dimple.
**Rooster:** Happy New Year's. You
**Pagoda:** suck the dimple out of the cigar. [00:08:00] It
**Senator:** came in your mouth.
**Rooster:** Good to know. How dare you?
I have a dimple too now.
**Grinder:** Grindr, what are you thinking? I think it's lovely. Definitely salty Cuban twang. Um, there's this sweetness in it that I've never encountered before. That's right. I'm just keep enveloping my mouth. Definitely got the cedar on the cold draw, but that went away. Um, this is really splendid.
Uh, you know, no pun intended. Yeah. That sweetness is, I'm still working on it. It's there for me. Still trying to understand what that is. It's not something that I've had before.
**Gizmo:** Senator, how is yours? Uh, As
**Senator:** it's starting to heat
**Gizmo:** up,
**Senator:** it's definitely improving. I think the big thing on the light, it was maybe a little hot and I think that might have impacted the flavor.
This cigar, oddly, once the dimple, uh, fell out, it's got a pretty loose draw. So I think, I'm [00:09:00] not sure if this is many of us that have a looser draw, but certainly with mine, I have to smoke it slower and let it burn cooler for the flavors to fully develop. And, um, that's definitely helped. So I like what I'm getting now.
And I actually think for a New Year's cigar, the flavor notes that this is delivering are absolutely perfect for champagne in New Year's, which I'm very excited about. Yep. Yep. Yep. Outstanding.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, it's a, it's a really interesting for me. It's already like, uh, It's got on the top part of my palate and it's like lingering.
So it's like, you know, like a longer finish where it's enveloping the coat of my palate. It's fantastic. And it's a very, very pleasant, uh, flavor profile. It's
**Rooster:** very elegant
**Bam Bam:** cigar. Yeah. You can hold it in your hand and it smokes that way. It does smoke that way as well. It's very velvety and creamy. It does have a fairly decent finish length from the point of view of length.
It does. Um, but it's very subtle. [00:10:00]
**Gizmo:** What kind of flavor notes are you getting? What are some things that you guys would call out now as the cigar is kind of on its way? I'm getting like toasted bread and almonds. Yeah, I was going
**Grinder:** to say brioche. No, no, he's right. I was going to say, I was actually going to say the sweetness.
Do you ever have the sweetness? Um, like a, a properly made chocolate chip cookie with like brown butter. Yeah, the butter brown. If you let it crisp up a little bit, it's kind of got that like crispy, toasted, like brown butter.
**Chef Ricky:** I have those pretty, I have those often. My wife's a pastry chef. I'm lucky. Yeah, you're right.
Yep.
**Gizmo:** The smell at the burn line too is very complex.
**Bam Bam:** It's intoxicating. It is.
**Gizmo:** What are you getting on that? On the burn line, it's, it's, it's very perfumey.
**Senator:** It's perfumey, but also like baked cookies. Yes. I was about to say that. Yeah, [00:11:00] there's a little baked good. Exactly.
**Gizmo:** I think that's the common thread, because I was just going to say about the retrohale.
I'm getting that too. Between the draw, the retrohale, and the burn line, I think the baked goods thing that we're kind of coming together on is the common thread in this cigar right now.
**Bam Bam:** I do get a cream on my retro, like at the end of my retro hell, nice, heavy cream. Yep.
**Senator:** So boys, I'm so tempted. Can we get into such time?
It's time.
**Gizmo:** It's time for some champagne. So let's talk about it. So we have a fantastic, very expensive bottle of VUV Clicquot, which is the debut for that, uh, maker tonight, the producer on the podcast. It's a 2015 vintage. Logger on Dom and Senator is going to, of course, because it's New Year's Eve, we're going to saber a bottle of one of our favorites, Bollinger, because Senator, why don't we saber a bottle of voodoo?
Click code. That's a 200 bottle because at [00:12:00] 200 a bottle, we're not going to let any of it touch the floor. Exactly. Right. No checks. Correct.
**Senator:** Taking no risks. So
**Gizmo:** Garcon hit us, hit us with the New Year's Eve saber. Do you remember there's a scene where there should have
**Pagoda:** been Cork and Dumb and Dumber?
**Grinder:** 30 years ago today, that movie came out.
There
**Gizmo:** we go. He's lining it up. Ready for a pop. Oh,
**Senator:** miscue.
**Gizmo:** Oh, that's a first.
**Senator:** So for the listener, Gizmo has made a big deal about not damaging his equipment. So I'm very nervous right now. It is because I'm not striking it hard. He's hunched over like it's, he's cradling the ball. Exactly. Like trying to aim at this specific wall that Gizmo wants me to hit the cork against, and it's probably going to go, but I'm going to have to let it rip now.
So I'm sorry, this is the only way this is going to work. Hit it. Just
**Gizmo:** hold it. There we go.
**Senator:** Whoa, that was the delay.
**Gizmo:** That was a nice though. Happy new year's boys. This is [00:13:00] exciting. Absolutely. All right. So we're going to save the Bolognese for after for after the VUV Clicquot Lagrandam 2015 and boys. Cheers.
Cheers. And a very, very Happy New Year to you all. Happy New Year to all. Happy New Year to our listeners tuning in with us right now.
**Bam Bam:** Cheers, boys.
**Gizmo:** Cheers. Cigars and spirits. Cheers, everybody.
**Bam Bam:** Cheers.
**Gizmo:** Our fourth New Year's Eve together, if you can believe it. Cheers. It's very exciting. And let's try it. The Veuve Clicquot Magrandam.
Jesus. 2015. Wow. Sweet. Wow.
**Grinder:** Very good.
**Gizmo:** Oh, wow.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. We are dialed in. Yeah. So this I can drink. This all night long. So good. Could drink it all day long. Oh my lord. So
**Senator:** I just have to say, you know, I, obviously I love the group's enthusiasm for Paul Roger. Nothing makes me happier than everybody's been a convert.
One of my [00:14:00] frustrations with the group has been because the love for Paul Roger has been Uh, it's been love at first sight. Everybody is so quick to shit on or dismiss Veuve Clicquot. And, you know, I'll take Paul Roger any day over the non vintage Veuve Clicquot, which is why I brought it to the group.
However, some of Veuve's higher end stuff like the Grand Dame, they make some excellent champagnes and their history is. So impressive. I mean, truly like pioneering in the industry in every way and this I've had before. I've had some crazy old bottles of this, like from the nineties that have just been awesome.
So I am thrilled. We're starting our VUV journey with something that's Um, a little higher level they make, because I think this is, you'll, you'll get to appreciate that. Like, they make some serious stuff, not just the yellow label that everybody's familiar with. You can get [00:15:00] anywhere.
**Gizmo:** So let me, let me say something.
And, and we'll get to that history you're talking about in a little bit. But as I sip this champagne, first off, it's so impressive on the first sip. Yeah. Very complex. It's light, but not There's a slight
**Bam Bam:** dryness to it. Slight dryness, but it's It's not overly dry. Yes. It's got a great
**Senator:** body to it. It's very quenching.
And there's a creaminess about it. And what
**Gizmo:** it does for this cigar, when you sip, when you, when you sip the champagne and take a draw of your cigar, it turns this into a stick of like salted butter and it is magical. Which was already incredible. Wow. I'm blown away.
**Bam Bam:** What was the exact price on that? 199. Okay.
**Gizmo:** And that's pretty much what you'll find it at anywhere. Where did you get it? I got it at Bottle King, which was surprising because Senator and I were running around via the, you know, playing phone tag. I was at Costco, which [00:16:00] was a nightmare. I went to Total Wine.
It was, it was great. Costco, for the
**Senator:** record, has the worst champagne selection. It was horrible.
**Gizmo:** I hate that place.
You don't go to Costco?
**Bam Bam:** I'm actually surprised you found this at Bottle King. Yeah, me too. You have a
**Senator:** great selection there. A plus selection. There's an awesome bottle that I told Giz we've got to get for another episode. We're going to do it next. Nice. I was shocked to see there. The color on this is beautiful.
It is.
**Gizmo:** So, Senator, for the wine connoisseurs out there, the champagne connoisseurs, how would you compare this to those standard champagnes that we love? The Paul Roger, the Bollinger, we're going to follow this up with some of the others, even the standard Vouv. Like, how would you kind of Where would you put this in the lineup?
**Senator:** Yeah, so this is just, these vintage champagnes are completely different in that there is a complexity and a sophistication about them that they're almost like a meal unto themselves. Like, I think Giz immediately said on like the first sip how [00:17:00] complex this is. You know, the non vintage champagnes, they're great before dinner.
They're a palate cleanser. They are perfect with something rich and buttery like caviar or foie gras. I mean, you name it, anything you just want to cut like a really rich experience. They're perfect for that. Are they, you know, amazing with a meal? Not necessarily. They just kind of. Hang out in the background, right?
They're not like, they don't make that kind of statement when you're having a meal. And when you're just having a really celebratory occasion, you want to dive in to a champagne in a way that sometimes we want to with the spirit, you know, we have our run in the mill, 12 year Scotch or, A seven year rum and on a special occasion or a VSO P cognac.
And on a special occasion, we want an XO. We want a 18 year Scotch and that's got so much more complexity about it. That's what all these vintage champagnes are. And I think, uh, for most of the years, [00:18:00] uh, of the, uh, VUV Grandam, they're, they're really special. The fun part about vintage champagne is each vintage is a little bit different than the last and so unlike non vintage where they're blending it to try to produce the exact same product every time, it's fun to try all these.
I mean, I have a Grandin bottle from 2012 that has my son's name engraved. It was gifted when he was born and like I've never had the 2012. I've had the 08. It was awesome. So it's so fun to like go through the journey of trying all these different vintages. You'll see online. People have strong preferences.
Same thing with Dom Pérignon, they only make vintage champagne. So every bottle is a certain vintage and people debate what are the better years, what are the not as great years, and um, that's where it comes back to being wine, which is what wine is about, you know, vintages.
**Gizmo:** You know what's interesting, I guess like wine as well, but looking at like Dom Pérignon for one example, even at the store today when I was picking this up, The variety in price, the difference in price in the, in the [00:19:00] vintages in just Dom is shocking.
Hundreds of dollars. It could be a swing of only a year or two. And, and, and the big, it's because of that demand and the ratings and what people are saying about it. It's incredible. Yeah.
**Senator:** And the same, even, you know, that Paul Roger, we did, I think a 2013 vintage. And I got a pretty good deal on that. And there's a, there's some divisive opinions on that year where I think most people really liked it, but some actually were not crazy about it.
We obviously loved it. And so you find moments like that where you say like, Oh, I can get a great deal on this and spend like 120, a bottle on a vintage champagne, instead of having to shell out 200, like we did tonight. And, um, it's all comes down to personal preference.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Well, this is a great start to our night here, boys.
**Senator:** Very luxurious. By the way, Giz, can you just show the box? Yes. The reason I say that, the boxes for the Grandin bottles are usually pretty ornate. Uh, the 2012 one I have is one of the coolest bottles, uh, [00:20:00] boxes I've ever seen. I'm not sure what the 2015 looks like. I think you're going to be disappointed. Oh, really?
Yeah. I'm going to show everybody that I videoed the 2012. It's a blue
**Gizmo:** box, and it opens with a door, and that's it. Oh, well that's a shitty presentation.
**Senator:** I'll show you guys a quick video of the, uh, And
**Gizmo:** actually the box does not close tight. It kind of closes like a shoe box.
**Senator:** Hmm.
**Gizmo:** Interesting. Like a pair of, uh, Nikes would come in this.
**Bam Bam:** Floor
**Gizmo:** chimes.
So what are you guys thinking of the cigar while Senator looks that up?
**Bam Bam:** I think it's just continuing to be very elegant and creamy. No change.
**Chef Ricky:** And a bit floral now. I got, after I took a sip of the champagne, I got a little bit of a, of a like, light red pepper note. And it could have been like the pear and briny notes coming off from the champagne combining with what's happening in the cigar.
Red pepper. But I'm, yeah, like, uh, like bell pepper. Not spicy. Oh, okay. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Um, and I'm, I'm, uh, [00:21:00] enjoying it. I do have a little bit of a wonky burn line here. That's okay. I guess that's what I get for being late. No,
**Pagoda:** no, that's skill.
**Bam Bam:** Everyone's burn line though looks pretty good. Yeah, no, everyone else's looks great.
You can adjust that.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, I'm just letting it do its thing for a little bit. It might self correct.
**Senator:** So I found the video. This is a 2012, uh, vintage. I'll show this half of the room and then these guys. Oh wow, look at that. Ornate. And just watch how it opens. It like rotates.
**Bam Bam:** It's got a center hinge and it rotates in a circular direction.
It's pretty cool. That's cool.
**Gizmo:** And we got a shoe box.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. We,
**Gizmo:** from floor shives. That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's beautiful. That's pretty amazing. Beautiful box. It is. So boys, let's talk a little bit about Cohiba history here, especially the Esplendidos. This cigar was launched in 1989 alongside two others, the Robustos and the Exquisitos, which is a [00:22:00] Panatella 33 by five.
This was the first new cigar alongside those two launched since 1967 for Cohiba. So it was 22 years between cigar releases. Of course, in the eighties, the whole idea was to bring the Cohiba to the mass market. Prior to that, it was really just a brand as we know for Fidel. To use for government gifts and for himself, just like the ethos.
Now, just like into the mass market, exactly 60 a stick at a time. Yes.
**Bam Bam:** Hundred and 10 a stick.
**Gizmo:** So of course the first cigar we did on the podcast, the Lancero came out in 1964, 1966, officially, but The two alongside that were the Coronas Especiali 1967 and the Panatella in 1967. Then the Sigal Wine came out in 94.
We did two of those, the SIG of two and the Sigal five. The Maduro wine came out in 2007 and the Bahi wine came out in 2010. This is the sixth Cohiba we're doing on the pod tonight. And, uh, the others that we've done, we'll go through the ratings later. We've done the [00:23:00] Lancero, the Pyramides Extra, the Bihicay 54, and the Siglo V.
So this is the sixth Cohiba we've done on the pod tonight. If you'd like a little bit more of a deeper dive on Cohiba history, you could certainly go back to those previous episodes. And of course, the Bihicay 54 episode with Danilo, uh, the production manager of Cohiba, episode 121 is a great resource. A nice interview with him live in Cuba, uh, to get a lot of insight, uh, out of, uh, what's So that's, uh, that's the story on this cigar boys.
It comes in varnish boxes of 25 cigars, which came out in 2003. Prior to that, it was a different type of varnish box and they also have the display box of 15 cigars and five cardboard packs of three. So that's a little bit more economical. If you're able to get a pack of three, as opposed to a box of 25, my advice would be, if you're able to open that pack of three, like Senator described a couple of episodes ago, doing a Cuba with those mag 46 tubos, open up the cigars and inspect them, inspect them if you can.
And, uh, yeah, that's the [00:24:00] story on the Esplendidos. It is a celebrated cigar out of Cuba. And like I said earlier, unfortunately, one of only three Churchill's that remains in regular production. So. Have you had a young,
**Bam Bam:** I
**Gizmo:** have, I'm glad you asked that question, bam. And how do you compare
**Bam Bam:** it to this? When I tell you,
**Gizmo:** when I tell you night and day,
**Bam Bam:** yeah,
**Gizmo:** you know, we did that.
Uh, we had that discussion on the Bolivar new gold metal episode two weeks ago. Uh, we talked about how my, and our perception potentially is that Cuba is using Leslie Harrow in their new blends to make them more ready. To be smoked sooner. I think this is a cigar that is the opposite of that. This was blended.
I believe with a lot of the Harrell. And if you smoke one of these cigars at six months, a year, even two years, it's a night and day experience versus this, that four or five year mark, they really start to level out and really start [00:25:00] to chill out and give you the. Exquisite experience you have tonight.
Prior to that, there's harshness. Yeah? Yeah, it's, it's Ammonia? A little bitter, sometimes ammonia. Really? Yeah, there's just a very, very different cigar until those I mean, that's just true with most Cohibas.
**Bam Bam:** I guess, I, you know, I don't have much experience with Cohibas, but it also, this is one of the reasons why it would preclude me from ever buying this at 110.
Unless I can get an aged cigar. Which would then what? Increase the price? 30%? Yeah. You're maybe more,
**Gizmo:** you're probably paying a significant premium for let's say a five to 10 year age box on Bon Roberts. I mean, I would assume this cigar is gonna go from a hundred, 110, probably to about 130 to 150.
**Rooster:** Yeah.
But most cohibas, you wanna smoke them at least with three to five years of age. Yeah. Yeah. We've
**Senator:** said that. Yeah. Yeah. I've got to say, this is the most buttery cigar I have ever had in my life. It's salted butter. If I knew it was like this, oh my goodness, with caviar, this would be ridiculous. It really would be.
I mean, ridiculous. [00:26:00] Where's the caviar, goddammit? You know, Bam, that's a great question. I'm hungry. Come on, Senator. I needed advanced tasting notes on this thing. I mean, I can't believe I've never, I can't think of another cigar that's this buttery. It's insane.
**Pagoda:** You know, it's good though. You know, the butter you put on the popcorn that Literally.
Like my mouth like feels like
**Senator:** I just finished eating like butter popcorn at a theater.
**Bam Bam:** So as much as we've found gems in the new world and how much we love those cigars, when you come across a Cuban cigar like this, there's Almost nothing like it, you know, even like, depending on how you're, if you're going to take a traditional draw, I I'll hold this in a little longer, a little curl in there and then blow it out slowly to capture those notes.
And the retrohale, I almost want to inhale this. It's so good.
**Gizmo:** Well, age Cuban tobacco, you know, being as mild to medium as it is, it allows that to happen, you know, versus, you know, stronger Nicaraguan, some Dominican [00:27:00] tobacco, like, um, You can't really do that. Take a very, very slow draw. Hold it in your mouth longer.
Push it through the retrohale longer. But we've done new worlds where
**Bam Bam:** you can do something like that. Sure. Especially the Hondurans. Correct. Exactly. Especially the Hondurans. Exactly. But this, this, I think trumps almost anything we've ever had.
**Senator:** Every time I take a sip of this champagne with it, I'm just shaking my head in disbelief.
Like, the pairing for me is absolutely perfect.
**Bam Bam:** Very nourishing.
**Gizmo:** So, Senator, can you tell us a little bit about, you said that Vouv Klikow has a wild history, obviously making their debut on the podcast tonight for a review. What, uh, what can you tell us about Vouv?
**Senator:** Yeah, honestly, I mean, again, my love for Paul Bourget will always be bar none, but Vouv has, or sorry, I should say Clico, um, has probably the most impressive history.
So they were founded over 200 years ago in [00:28:00] 1772. Um, at the time, so it was founded by a guy named Philippe Clico. It's older than the United States of America. It's crazy. He gave, uh, his son took over after him and his son unexpectedly died young. And his wife became, was a 27 year old widow who, uh, affectionately became known as madam Clicquot because she took over the Clicquot now empire.
Then it was tiny. She literally built. The brand that we know today, which is insane. So she is the first, um, woman to run a champagne house and arguably she's done it better than anyone ever has. Um, the name Vouv Clicquot, the brand actually translates to widow Clicquot. So it was named after her. She became a widow at 27 years old and literally built this entire empire.
Super impressive. Their history is one of like innovation at every major stage in champagne [00:29:00] history. So. They created the first ever vintage champagne in 1810, apparently before that, like the growing conditions, uh, there were obviously wars in Europe. There were so many reasons why, um, there, there were not great years to make champagne.
And so they were trying to blend grapes from different years and just see what they could do to make something that was worth drinking. But to have a single vintage from a particular year was really hard until 1810. They were the first to put something out. And, um, it did really well. And then they continued that after the fact, they also invented the riddling rack, which we've talked about on some prior episodes.
The first to come up with this, it is used to this day. Every single brand that makes champagne uses this, that this madam Clicquot and the, um, cellar master there came up with. And it's basically during fermentation, when there's yeast in the bottle, uh, for fermentation. They riddle the bottles, like rotate them [00:30:00] just a small amount at certain intervals of time, and it's to make sure that the sediment from the, what becomes dead yeast cells, go to the neck of the bottle.
And so then when they get to disgorgement after fermentation, They eject the dead yeast cells out and like quickly cork. So there's a second time they actually cork the bottle. The first time they'll use like a plastic cork. The second time is like the actual cork that we're accustomed to. And um, that's really what riddling just helps because you don't want that sediment to be at the bottom of the bottle where then they actually, you know, ship it to you.
And you have these weird, like dead yeast cells basically floating in your champagne. And so it's to make sure it stays at the, uh, uh, at the front of the bottle. So we can just come out when they're ready to disgorge it. Kind of sounds like a BAM approved activity. I think you need to be riddled. You want to meet madam click.
Oh, correct. Um, they also were one of the [00:31:00] first producers of Rose champagne. So ruin art, who we've reviewed, I think they're Blanc debunk. Uh, they were technically. The first credited with producing rose champagne, although I take issue with this because when you read what they were producing that they called rose champagne, they were tinting champagne with elderberry juice.
Wow. Which I think is ridiculous. So I don't consider that a real rose. Um, uh, Clicquot was the first to actually produce rosé champagne by adding still red wine in Pinot Noir, uh, to, uh, what they were making to actually produce that. And that's really just, you know, now what that means is keeping on some of the skin of the grapes where they would take that skin off and that's why the champagne is that, uh, light color and not red like a red wine.
So you leave some of that on and imparts that, and also some more flavor, that rose color that we all know. The last thing I'll say about what we're drinking in particular. So the Grand Dame, uh, series that was [00:32:00] introduced in 1972 to celebrate Clicquot's 200th anniversary. And, um, they produced this every, you know, few years when they want to, uh, come out with a vintage.
And what you'll notice, this is true of Clicquot's philosophy generally, but especially with this bottle. Is their champagnes are always Pinot Noir dominant. So I pulled the composition of a lot of the champagnes that we've drank and that we like, just so everybody gets a sense of maybe what your preferences are and your palate is as far as how much Pinot Noir versus Chardonnay versus other grapes that are in champagne.
You may want Prefer. So just to give some context here, Paul Roger that obviously we all love, they're non vintage, the regular white label that we consume a ton of. That composition is equal, so it's a third Pinot Noir, a third, um, Pinot Meunier, and a third Chardonnay. So it's the lowest on, uh, the concentration of Pinot [00:33:00] Noir, which is the fullest flavored of all those grapes we're talking about.
Kind of the next step up, uh, step up would be Clicquot. The non vintage bottle, the yellow label we've all seen, is 50 percent Pinot Noir, 20 percent Pinot Meunier, and 30 percent Chardonnay. Bollinger, which we obviously love. Is a step further on the Pino scale. It's 60 percent Pinot Noir, 25 percent Chardonnay, 15 percent Pinot Meunier.
Pinot Meunier also just for everybody is like a even lighter version of Pinot Noir. So I think all of us have described Bollinger as like a fuller body. Yes. Champagne. It's no coincidence. It's 60 percent Pinot Noir. Where Paul Roger is only 33 percent Pinot Noir. So it's a lot lighter in body than Bollinger would be.
This Grand Dame that we're drinking is 90 percent Pinot Noir. Wow. It's crazy. Only 10 percent Chardonnay. So they go like really aggressive on the Pinot Noir [00:34:00] scale. But what they give, I give them a lot of credit for. It's not like an overly bold champagne or a heavy champagne. It still feels like delicate, but it's a very flavorful subtlety to the, but it's flavorful though.
Very exactly. And that's what
**Bam Bam:** the peanut water, what's the remaining 10 percent percentages, uh, Chardonnay. That's it. Just two. That's right. Wow.
**Senator:** And so a lot of them, the vintage stuff is just Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. So like another example, we did that 2013 60 percent Pinot Noir, 40 percent Chardonnay.
So versus 90 And that's very true to the Paul Roger style. Like, they're a lighter champagne. That's why it's so cool. Easy to drink a ton of Paul Roche. Oh yeah. Like it's delicious. And also just so light and refreshing where this is got more body and even complexity to it. So hopefully that helped. Like, I think it helps explain like why certain champagnes.
Deliver a fuller experience versus a lighter. It's the grape [00:35:00] composition. It'll help with
**Bam Bam:** the selection process for a novice champagne drinker like myself. Definitely. To have access to something, to that information.
**Senator:** And I'll just tee up, you know, we're going to need a big occasion for this because it's like a 350 bottle of champagne.
But the Sir Winston Churchill. That's what we need Rege bottle. Yes. Oh Lord. That is like, That's a big deal. That's a, that's a serious bottle. That is episode 200. Maybe that'll be great. That bottle is 80 percent Pinot Noir, 20 percent Chardonnay. So that's going much more aggressive on the Pinot Noir scale to deliver a more complex, fuller bodied experience.
Like we're having.
**Bam Bam:** Wow. I learned something tonight. That's a heck of a story. So I didn't know they had the three different grapes and most champagnes and two and some. I had no
**Chef Ricky:** idea. Senator, can I ask where you find this information?
**Senator:** Uh, honestly, just a bunch of websites, uh, but you, you really need to look at several because do you
**Chef Ricky:** have a go [00:36:00] to?
Like I have tequila matchmaker, honestly, for, that's
**Bam Bam:** a great question. Where you read that information of the combination of grapes, I would love to have access to that. So
**Senator:** I'll just say this, this is not a great website for anything other than this, but vine pair, just for like fun facts about brand history, they've got like, they're very accurate because a lot of websites are not.
And, um, just like the cigar world. Yes. And, uh, they kind of cover all bases, like from the people to the grapes, to innovation, technology, everything. Um, which makes it, I think, just really easy to find what you're looking for.
**Bam Bam:** That's great. Very cool.
**Gizmo:** I can't get over how good this is right now. Yeah, no, I mean, it's unbelievable.
It requires,
**Bam Bam:** it requires a very slow smoke. It does. You have to really be, you know, careful. Very gentle with this thing.
**Chef Ricky:** I'm sitting here trying to figure out if when I kiss my wife on the way out tonight, if she had some flavored chapstick or something, because my [00:37:00] lips are so freaking buttery between the the champagne and the pairing with this girl.
It's like I'm having a croissant that's filled with some type of delicious pear, cherry thing happening here. It's, it's mind blowing to me. What's happening right now. Um, wow,
**Bam Bam:** wow, this is better than I expected. Honestly,
**Gizmo:** I, like I said, I, I was very, very, I was so nervous to the point. I pulled a full food scale out, like trying to pick the best cigars of the bunch, but when they're on, they're amazing.
And when they're not, they're torture, you know, they are absolute torture when they're not on. It's a fight. Like you're in a ring with a Sounds
**Bam Bam:** like you're speaking from experience. And you had a fight with this box?
**Gizmo:** I have never had a fight with this box. I've had fights with others.
**Pagoda:** I'm so glad you kept 12 when you gave us the first sex.
Ready for the for the follow on. Yeah, I agree.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I'll smoke the [00:38:00] junkie ones out of that box. OK, you got it. Yeah. 110. All right. Why do this count? Because they're junkies.
**Gizmo:** Every day is New Year's for Gizmo.
**Bam Bam:** Correct.
**Gizmo:** So boys, very appropriate that we're smoking a Cohiba cigar tonight because I saved a little news story and some information that we have about it.
Uh, for this cigar tonight, supposed to doing it a few weeks ago, they announced the festival del Habano 25 is happening February to March next year in Havana, Cuba, and it's going to be celebrating the 15th anniversary of Behike, like I said, Behike was the most recent line. Launched by Cohiba in 2010, 2025 is the 15th anniversary of that.
And there's been a lot of news about what's going to be happening at the festival this year. So on Monday, the opening gala is going to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Romeo and Julieta. Senator, I, I assume you're going to be going to that event, his favorite markup, [00:39:00]
**Senator:** I'd
**Gizmo:** rather not smoke cigars for a week, the midweek evening on Wednesday night, the gala, that's where the Bolivar new gold medal was launched in 2023, two years ago, this year, they're going to dedicate that evening to a new release from H upman.
And finally the gala dinner on the Friday evening, February 28th is going to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Cohiba's. And there's been a lot of news and a lot of rumor and a lot of stories and everything else going on about what's going to be coming. And we have some news tonight, boys, because what is been said is that there's going to be the release of the BK 58, the BK 59, and that they're both going to be released at this festival.
And in fact, what we've learned is that the Behicke 58 is going to be released, and it's going to be the biggest cigar in the Habano's catalog, 58 ring gauge by 7 inches long.
**Bam Bam:** Yowza.
**Gizmo:** So, [00:40:00] this cigar was rumored for quite some time in years past, and we know, uh, that it was cancelled because It was outside the profile of what Tabacuba and the cigar research folks in Cuba thought bejique should taste like.
It was too strong. So they've retooled that blend and they're going to be releasing the bejique 58 for the 15th anniversary in, uh, in, in February for Uh, Cohiba, what I find interesting about this, given what we know about the rapper shortage in Cuba, putting out the biggest cigar in the Habanos catalog, to me, sets up like a date with destiny.
Like, I don't understand how you're going to make massive cigars and put them in a position where consumers can actually find them with the rapper shortage that they've had. Cause we know from Don Danilo that. The wrapper is the biggest problem that they have. Yes. What's the length of that cigar? Seven [00:41:00] inches.
**Senator:** Oh, they're screwed.
**Gizmo:** Biggest cigar in the catalog. Setting themselves up for failure on this one, maybe. It's this length that we're smoking tonight at the Churchill, ten sizes bigger in the ring gauge.
**Senator:** Yeah, that's
**Gizmo:** Well, isn't medio tiempo also an issue? Yeah. Uh, not as much as, as rapper, Danilo specifically told us rapper was the problem.
**Senator:** It is, but Medio Tempo is going to be an issue at that length. That's the problem. That's also true. So like the Behicke 59, why the brilliance of that cigar is it's a shorter cigar. So there's tons of Medio Tempo that's short, but to find Medio Tempo that's grown to that length. It doesn't grow at that length.
To have a leaf at the full length of the cigar is going to be a
**Bam Bam:** real problem. It grows at the top of the, of the, of the, of the, Of the growth, right? So they're shorter. Yeah. And
**Gizmo:** they have to line them up, I guess. So anyways, BK 58 is coming out and that's not so big of a news story for us. But the other rumor is that the BK 59, which is a fat pyramid with a pigtail, of course, rooster
**Rooster:** 59
**Gizmo:** ring gauge by five and five eighths [00:42:00] inches long.
That cigar is not coming out in March. It's actually been punted to 2026 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Cohiba. So everybody's talking about both of these cigars coming out. Both of these cigars are not coming out. One of them is going to be punted another year. Wow. So, what's interesting about the Bihica 59 is that there's no Ligero in that cigar.
Which, given the conversation we talked about two weeks ago, kind of drums up this thinking again that the new blending decisions that are being made are pushing Ligero out of new markets. Cigars that are coming out of Cuban, new releases
**Bam Bam:** to make them
**Gizmo:** readily sooner after purchase.
**Bam Bam:** Makes sense.
**Gizmo:** So this cigar is the brainchild of Danilo, uh, who's been working on it for so long now.
And we were fortunate to actually, we were actually able to try them. Correct. When we saw him earlier this year, they were still in development. They weren't in production. [00:43:00] He just wanted to get some feedback from us on the tasting of the cigar. Obviously. In his confidence, we did not want to put this out there until it was out there in the ether elsewhere.
We didn't want to violate his confidence on that, but we can tell you that we tried them and they're awesome. They
**Bam Bam:** were very, very good. That was an incredible cigar. It was. Brilliant cigar. Very different to the It was. Vehicle. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** That we know. And I think it's a level up. Uh, in, in what my feeling has been on Behika in the past, it's the next level of that.
And I think the blend is, is really excellent. So let me ask
**Bam Bam:** you three, because you three had it along with myself. If it had the Ligero in it, would it have had to sit for a while for, to be enjoyable?
**Gizmo:** I think so.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I do. And I think the, I think it would've just been a, it would've been a totally different flavor profile.
Yeah. I mean, it was really unique. It had a tingle to it. It was a really, really delicious, unique cigar unlike anything I've ever
**Bam Bam:** had. It was delicious. And there was a lot of, a little bit of baking spice, if I remember, and kind of like a baked good thing, kind of like what we're getting here. A remnant, remnant of that.
I [00:44:00] mean, I,
**Rooster:** I have never seen a pigtail on a pyramid I know ever.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah,
**Rooster:** that's like one of the most unique things about you were in. I see you blushing.
**Bam Bam:** He is blushing.
**Pagoda:** There's a big tail and a dimple.
**Senator:** Yeah, it's a cool cigar because there's a lot of firsts, uh, for that cigar. And, um, and the size
**Rooster:** is really cool.
It's very cool. Sure.
**Senator:** For sure. I mean, when I heard 59 Ringgit, I'm like, this is ridiculous, but like, it was brilliant to make it, um, uh, that like pyramid shape and it's a short pyramid. It's not like a really long cigar. Under six inches. Five and five eighths. Exactly. And so, like, from a production standpoint, it made sense for them to be able to actually produce that at scale.
Um, but also as a consumer, like, for a 59 Ringgit cigar, I'm not looking at, you know, spend an hour and a half, two hours with that cigar. Like, you can probably smoke that in an hour flat. Um, What I will say about it, so I smoked that with Danilo at Liguito, uh, the intent is very much for the European market and [00:45:00] kind of as an entry point into the Behicke line.
And I was very nervous and he knows my palate, I'm a big Partagas guy and so I love Ligero in a cigar. I was worried that it wouldn't speak to a cigar smoker like me and what I couldn't believe trying the prototype that he gave us. And Um, you would never know smoking that unless someone told you that there is zeroly heroin.
That's true. Like it's still so flavorful, but delivered in such a smooth, easygoing way that for A European cigar smoker that leans toward like QD and, you know, likes a milder or mild medium experience. They're going to love this cigar. But even for someone like me who loves Partagas and like a fuller bodied expression of a Cuban cigar, there's still so much to love about that cigar.
I think what Danilo has done is absolutely brilliant. I can't wait for the world to be able to try it.
**Bam Bam:** I was very skeptical before I
**Senator:** sat down and had
**Bam Bam:** that thing. [00:46:00]
**Rooster:** Well, I think, I think the Medio Tiempo in that cigar, you know, in a way, kind of replaces the Ligero. Well, that's correct. That's exactly what Danilo
**Senator:** said.
There's actually more Medio Tiempo by percentage in that Behicke 59 than in any other Behicke cigar
**Rooster:** that's made. Makes sense. Yeah. That's what adds the extra flavor to that cigar. So hopefully it's also half the price of the 58. Oh, sure.
**Gizmo:** I'm sure that's exactly what Habanus is going to do. So again, you know, seeing all these new stories out there about these cigars coming out, seeing pictures of them, dimensions, everything else, we felt it was time to comment on our experience with it and the actual truth of what's happening.
Again, the 58 coming out next year and the 59 the year following. So we look forward to that. Now the question is boys. Seeing the prices that have happened with BK 52, 54, 56. Now the 58 coming, let's focus on that. 58 coming in March at the festival. Can you imagine how much those things are going to cost at that [00:47:00] size?
I mean, as it's going to be a box of 10, it's got to be five grand, right? Right. 500 bucks a cigar for 58. I was thinking about
**Senator:** 450, 480. Yeah. Not that far off. Yeah. It's gotta be four to 500 a stick. Yeah. It has to, it has to be,
**Rooster:** I don't think I can do more than two boxes.
**Bam Bam:** I'll take a box to do one of this and Splendido over that any day, from the point of view of price and experience with five years of age, five years.
Okay. I retract my statement.
**Gizmo:** So another cool story too, and this is out there as well, but we'll confirm it, that the BK 59 is actually called the Atta Bay. So the new world, uh, Marker that we reviewed once on this podcast that
**Bam Bam:** we can't stand. Wasn't great. They must
**Gizmo:** love it. There is a Cohiba Atabay coming, so I don't know if that's going to be the factory name or the actual name, but we will see in 2026.
We have that to look forward to boys. Wonder why they chose that. It's
**Chef Ricky:** so strange.
**Gizmo:** The Atabay has something to do with the Taino story. It's a
**Chef Ricky:** [00:48:00] Taino deity.
**Gizmo:** Taino deity. And that's it. It aligns with the just called it Ataboy.
**Senator:** I, I just hope it's the, the factory name and not like the, what they actually call it, because I, I don't know that in Cuba, they understand how much this Abe brand has literally tried to rip off.
Oh yeah. The Cohiba brand to the
**Gizmo:** point that they use the same guy for the packaging. Exactly.
**Senator:** So
**Gizmo:** the band would not help.
**Chef Ricky:** You name it. Lawsuit on the horizon In what court? . .
**Gizmo:** So boys, we're coming to the end of the first third here on the Cohiba. What's everybody thinking?
**Grinder:** It's getting better. It's getting, it's getting more rounded, more flavorful.
The sweetness has subsided for me and now it's just smooth cream.
**Senator:** Mm. I agree in that. I think it's, uh, it's gotten a little more savory as you get into the second third, which I like, and there's like a little bit more body to it, which I also like. So I've got no complaints. Has
**Bam Bam:** anyone
**Senator:** had anise
**Bam Bam:** ever?
**Senator:** [00:49:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Sambuca. So on the Ha! Rooster, call it out, Sambuca. Look at that.
**Bam Bam:** I get a bit of anise very slightly on the very tail end of my retrohale now.
**Chef Ricky:** Bam, that's a great call out, because I was going to call out fennel earlier. Oh, fennel. Actually, that would
**Bam Bam:** work too. It's really unusual. It's great. Look at you two.
I really think, you know, I was just going
**Gizmo:** to say it. I mean, I mean, two peas in a pod over here. I mean,
**Rooster:** have you
**Gizmo:** noticed
**Rooster:** like
**Bam Bam:** I'm chef's apprentice, right? Yes. That's one of the biggest compliments I've gotten. His flavor notes have gone through
**Rooster:** the roof. The last, maybe 50 episodes, his, his call out on flavor notes are like.
Do
**Bam Bam:** you remember I gave him this compliment? I know. Thank you. I appreciate that. I meant it when I said. I thought I've always had this talent, but you're just discovering it now. I think the accountability
**Gizmo:** on the dried fruit has pushed your palate into a new. To look for
**Bam Bam:** other. Yes. It's called evolution.
Exactly. When you struggle and fight to survive among a group of men, you have to evolve. [00:50:00] Amen, brother. Okay. Well, you've done a great job. You have forced me to evolve.
**Gizmo:** Kudos to you. And I'm not being facetious. I'm dead serious. It's very impressive. I've noticed that as well. I mean, we've enforced some Opus Dubis out of him.
**Grinder:** It's true. Holy shit. This is, this is. Uh, I'm out. Bam, just
**Gizmo:** take a sip of the champagne.
**Rooster:** I'm forced. I'm actually running out of this shit. I need more. I was kind of hoping not to see them on Splitwise.
**Bam Bam:** You know what though? I have to admit, I couldn't wait to get that on Split. You're a fucker.
**Grinder:** You even got a new Venmo account.
I did. Bam 2. 0. Oh yeah. You
**Bam Bam:** christened it with the Dubai split. I did. I love it. Not to divert from the conversation, but my accountant, um, came down hard on me because my Venmo was linked to my business. It's a huge no no. Because I couldn't account for purchases I made a year ago. I had no idea what they were.
So she said This is
**Senator:** great. You're admitting to the IRS that you had no
**Bam Bam:** idea. [00:51:00] We're
**Gizmo:** going to edit this whole section. I love your No we're not. I love your accountants coming in and going, why did you send money to lizard? Gizmo?
**Bam Bam:** Who's lizard? Gizmo? That's been termed. What's a behica and why is there a tool that we
**Grinder:** use?
We like concrete out of it. And why is there an emoji of a heart in a splash?
**Gizmo:** So, boys, it is time to do our annual deep dive on data. We do this every New Year's Eve. And we're going to talk about the best and the worst in cigars and pairings that we did in 2024. I've got some great data here and we'll split this up with the cognac in a little bit, but let's start first with our pairings.
So we had this year a five way tie for number one. Wow. We had five spirits this year that rated the best. A 10. 0. Actually, [00:52:00] when you look at the data, it's one of the strongest years that we've had on spirits. We did a really good job picking pairings this year. I think a lot of that is as our palates developed, getting into the, some of the great agave, some great recommendations from listeners out there.
Listeners have sent us, you know, spirits to, to sample on the pod. So I'm curious, can you guys remember thinking any of the five? Yeah. Top spirits that we did, the top pairings that we did in 2024. It has to be heavily indexed
**Grinder:** to cognac and tequila.
**Gizmo:** I don't know about that. And rum. And rum. It's, uh, it's, it's shocking, actually.
I was surprised when I saw this. I mean, if they were really that good, we shouldn't remember most of these. I'll give you, so I'll give you an example here. There's five different spirits that we rated a ten, and all of them are from a different category. Holy
**Bam Bam:** moly. There you go. Wow. That's crazy. A
**Gizmo:** rum, a bourbon, a [00:53:00] champagne, a wine, and a single malt scotch.
All right.
**Senator:** Champagne. Definitely. The vintage Paul Roger.
**Gizmo:** That was in 2023.
**Rooster:** Wow.
**Gizmo:** That's over a year ago, you know? So what is it? The Growy? The Growy Champagne. The Paul Roge Brute Reserve. We raided for the first time after drinking as many times. Oh, that's that 10. That was a 10 on episode 138. The wine also on episode 138.
Oh, Papillon or Swift? Papillon that 2019. Does anybody know the single malt scotch? Let's go to 10 this year. I'll give you a clue. It was a repeat though. No. Oban. Oban 14. Weller 12. 12 years aged Weller. Which one? Bourbon. The Weller. The one at seven or the reserve? The twelve. The twelve, yeah. Twelve years aged.
And finally the Brugal Extra Viejo Rum. Wow. Was the other ten. That was also very good. That we did. And then rounding out some of the other high scores here. A four way tie with a 9. 8. The Glenlivet [00:54:00] 14. Florida Kanye. Seven years aged rum. The Uno Dos y Tres Tequila Blanco. And the El Tecaleno. Platinum Blanco all scored a 9.
8 and then we had three 9. 7s in 2024, the Dom Perignon 2013, the Delord 25 years aged Armagnac, and the Fleur de Cagne 12 years aged. And those were, uh, that's like the top 13 spirits and we're still at a 9. 7. There's a lot of spirits there that rated well into the nines.
**Pagoda:** So that means 25 percent rated over a 9.
5.
**Gizmo:** Oh, wow.
**Pagoda:** I think we've become very liberal in us. I agree. I think we,
**Gizmo:** I was going to ask, I think we might've, uh, we've gotten too nice. I think BAM has affected your ratings,
**Senator:** gentlemen. I just want to say, I'm just really proud of and impressed with our range. Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, the five
**Gizmo:** tens are five totally different.
That's like, when you
**Senator:** hear that, those numbers, no one can possibly accuse us of being like slanted toward, you know, a particular spirit. I mean, yeah. Everything under the sun we're trying and is actually [00:55:00] rising. We're finding things that are rising up to the top. That's impressive.
**Grinder:** I, I, I don't think, I think there's a lot of discretion that goes into these pairings.
Like Senator and Gizmo do a lot of research. They take a lot of feedback. And kudos to you guys for having the pairings, right? Like you, you, you've kind of like, um, pioneered all the pairings for the, for the pod. But this year, I think you guys went a little extra. You're just a little more scrupulous in, in discerning what was.
Uh, pod appropriate. And we know our palates better now as well. Right. And also, you know, Ricky had a fresh breath of air into the, into the, into the mix with all the tequila. So, and the
**Senator:** Mezcal
**Grinder:** and the Mezcal.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So there, you know, you talk about just coming under the 9. 7s with 9. 6 is there were three, the Netta Mezcal.
I was waiting to hear that. Yeah. El Tesoro Tequila Reposado.
**Bam Bam:** There you go.
**Gizmo:** And the Ade Fusini. Cognac VSOP, all with a 9. 6. And there were a lot of nines there, boys. We had a lot, we had a lot. And like I said, we got very lucky this year with [00:56:00] pairings. Let's talk about our worst pairings. Only six pairings this year rated under an eight.
Only six out of 55 pairings. We did this year. I take it back. It's
**Bam Bam:** called unbridled
**Gizmo:** enthusiasm.
**Bam Bam:** So let's, let's talk
**Chef Ricky:** about the sourcing is getting better. It is a hundred percent. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, it can't be your enthusiasm.
**Senator:** No, I just say that because honestly, like some of the most frustrating episodes when I think back to prior years are where like, we just picked up and tried some random like bottle of something.
And I mean, I broke the plastic dragon on that like Japanese whiskey. I mean, we just picked that up next door, you know, like we were sometimes just picking up random things. This year between like our own, uh, you know, just, uh, work to try to find some good pairings and listeners recommending things that they're passionate about that we knew we knew likely would score decent to really well.
I think that's helped a lot. Yeah. Well
**Rooster:** said. Yeah. [00:57:00] Yeah. Same with cigars.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, true. So like I said, we only had six spirits this year out of 55 that we did that rated under an 8. 0. So we're we'll work our way backwards. A tie for the fifth worst spirit we did was the Dewars 18 and the Henry McKenna, 10 year Kentucky straight bourbon at a 7.
8, not a bad score. No respectable score. At a 7. 2. Fourth place runner up E. H. Taylor's small batch bourbon on episode 122 with a flat seven on episode 114. We had the Glenmore Angie, 14 year age, Kinta Ruban, single malt scotch. That was a weird one. 7. 0 on episode 125, the Tomatin 12. 6.8 and the leader by 20 points.
**Pagoda:** Ramper. .
**Gizmo:** We didn't do ramer. No, they're calling out the wrong. The Indri [00:58:00] Indian single malt whiskey. On episode 156 was the worst spirit of the year, bro. Biased. And 4.8 that was, that was to drink. Horrible. Hard to drink. Horrible.
**Senator:** It's tough to smell it, let alone drink. Oh yeah.
**Pagoda:** Singe my nose. Hairs, man. I think, I think that's the one we should have given to Rooster to just up the, up the rating.
I would have liked the whole bottle.
**Rooster:** I
**Chef Ricky:** would have downed it.
**Pagoda:** You can get that at Costco, man.
**Chef Ricky:** So you can. So are you surprised by any of those scores?
**Gizmo:** I was surprised when I was looking at the data. I think the biggest, the biggest thing about it was I was surprised how few spirits scored under an eight. Uh, you know, given how we, we normally rate, I think again, it goes to our, you know, curating the pairings, trying to do a little bit of better job, buy stuff in advance.
And I think the listener, you know, the listeners sending stuff in and making recommendations that have worked really well, you know, I mean, kudos to, kudos to the listeners, kudos to us. I mean, because I, listen, I [00:59:00] enjoy, and we'll talk about this with cigars. I enjoy. When we bring in a spirit and we rip it apart because I feel like we save people money.
I enjoy that
**Pagoda:** before the bubbles evaporate. I would just
**Gizmo:** have some Bollinger. So yeah, that would be my answer. None of this really surprised me other than the five tens at the top being five completely different categories. So before we pause here, boys to move into our next pairing, let's talk about a unique, uh, some unique data that I pulled on our spirit categories.
So. What I did was I, I looked at spirits that had over three ratings during the year, and I just did an average of how the category performed. So counting out the following, we're not talking about Armagnac, American whiskey, Indian whiskey, Irish whiskey, and Japanese whiskey. None of those categories had three or more.
These categories, uh, performed very, very well. The highest performing category In 2024 was rum, which scored an average of a 9. [01:00:00] 6. Well, following that was wine at a 9. 3. Wow. Cognac, nine to. Mezcal nine one alongside it's sister in agave tequila, a 9. 1 and then, uh, champagne of course had a 9. 3 and bourbon was kind of the loss leader as far as a category with an average of an 8.
7 across 2024. So I'm surprised it was over just
**Chef Ricky:** curious. How many wines was that for the year? About four, maybe,
**Gizmo:** uh, I think it was probably closer to six Ricky. I don't have that. number on me.
**Pagoda:** And I would have thought tequila would have rated high. Me too. 9.
**Gizmo:** 1, 9. 1. So boys, let's pause here on data and let's move into our second pairing tonight.
We have some cognac, an XO from Hein. This is called the Cigar Reserve XO Cognac, which is over 10 years [01:01:00] aged. And, uh, this was sent in very generously by a listener. Is that right? Lizard Kyle sent this to us. Very generous. We have to shout him out. He said, you boys are in for a treat, sent us this amazing bottle, and I've been holding it for about three months.
**Senator:** Giz, just go to the rating. It's 10. I'm not kidding. This is outrageous. I have to concur. Oh my god. This is outrageous. I have to concur.
**Bam Bam:** Wow. Wow. Are you getting this? Holy Christ. Putting the name of the spirit aside, are you getting a smoky finish? This I'm getting a slight smoky finish on my, um, on my taste.
**Chef Ricky:** A little, something peaty there at the end. Yeah, yeah. But I think right, right off the front here, you're just getting plum. Wow. Cherry, brandy nuts. There's a nuttiness even about this. Freaking, and the heat. Almond. The nose, yes, yes. Almond and cherry. Yes. The nose is so delicate. There's, you know, I mean, it's been sitting here for a bit, so maybe it's aired out beautifully, but [01:02:00] holy shit, is that ever so What a stunner.
**Senator:** This is one of the best spirits I have ever had in my life, hands down. Holy shit. What a statement. Ever. It's delicious. It's not even close. I almost feel like spirit. One of the best. I almost feel like Mr. Has to taste this. Like top three I've ever had in my life. That, I've taken two sips tonight. That's a definitive statement that I'll definitely stand by.
This
**Gizmo:** is unbelievable cognac. Yeah. What about rest of the room? I agree with a hundred percent.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I concur.
**Senator:** I think it's that good. It's, it's delicious. This is the best cognac I've ever had hands down. I agree. It's really good. I think the, um, I could drink this entire bottle by myself. Let's watch that tonight, guys.
**Grinder:** It's, it's, it's just so smooth and, uh, there's like not too much sweetness, you know, it's just very subtle. It's very balanced. It is very balanced. I, I, I, you guys are going to kill me. I ashed in my,
**Senator:** Oh, I'm sorry. That's for flavor. I could put the entire ashtray in this. I'd still drink it. I wouldn't [01:03:00] even think twice.
Dip your cigar in there. I mean, Jesus.
**Pagoda:** That's where the smokiness is coming from.
**Rooster:** It's real smoky. It's got a cigar in it. I'm curious, what does Pagoda think about it?
**Pagoda:** It's really good. It's really good. It's really good. Wow. But I don't think it's one of the best spirits I've had, but it's really good. All right.
Well, it's really good. Meaning I felt it was a 10 right away. At least we know he's out on refills.
**Bam Bam:** I've got some questions. Sure. So is this readily available or is this? Hard to find. It's not, no, it's
**Gizmo:** not easy to find it in the United States for sure. This is easier to find outside of the United States, and I'll tell a little bit story, a little bit of a story as to why mm-hmm
But this is not, you can't even find this on the Hyd website.
**Senator:** Well, you have to understand, obviously I, I've brought hind into this group. I've tried, wanted to try their whole catalog. I have never seen. Anywhere a bottle of this, like have been looking, if you even remember back to when we did the, uh, the high and rare VSOP we love so [01:04:00] much, I mentioned they have this cigar mall, yeah, but I just can't find it.
Correct. And this lizard that sent this to us, we owe a huge debt of gratitude because it's so hard to find this in, in the States. So do we know how much this is?
**Gizmo:** This range is shockingly between 130 and 30. And 160 a bottle. That's a steal. That's a
**Senator:** steal.
**Gizmo:** I'd pay 300 for
**Senator:** this. I
**Gizmo:** agree. Easy. By the way, I don't want to bring it up.
I don't want to bring it back up. I don't want to bring it back up. But that Don Filano we did two weeks ago for 250 a bottle. I knew you were going to. Just going to say it.
**Bam Bam:** I knew it. Just going to say it. I knew it. Just going to say
**Gizmo:** it.
**Bam Bam:** That was pretty good. It was horrible. All right. Anyway,
**Gizmo:** I'm kidding.
It wasn't horrible. I'm kidding. So I do want to tell a little bit of the story on this specific release because it's very, very interesting and, and was specifically paired with this cigar that we have tonight. So what it says here is that the Hein, [01:05:00] Cognac XO cigar reserve was a deep, rich, and spicy reserve cognac that was crafted by Bernard Heine in collaboration with Nicholas Freeman of the cigar purveyors, Hunter and Franco.
So the United Kingdom exclusive distributor for Habanos SA and Cuban cigars, there had a hand in crafting this specific spirit to be paired with. Alongside Cuban cigars. This cognac is strong like a Havana, yet incredibly balanced. It is a blend of more than 25 different O to V ranging from four of the premium growing areas, Grand Champagne, Petit Champagne, Borderee and Finbois.
I guess that's how you pronounce that. The spirits come together, produce aromas that are perfect for enjoying alongside a Cuban cigar as an X O standard cognac. It has been matured for at least 10 years in Oak barrels in the Yarnak cellar of Hein Konyak. And, uh, I mean, it, [01:06:00] they just keep going here. So I want to read a little bit more.
So, like I said, over 25 O2V produced using all those grapes that we talked about, some have been aged for more than 15 years, it's crafted in a bold style to stand up to the intensity of a strong and flavorful, flavorful Cuban cigar. It's the only expression in the hind portfolio blended with Finn's blog grapes, as I mentioned.
Resulting in the rich and opulent cognac that we're tasting tonight, filled with complex layers of spice, fresh pepper, and tobacco underscored by walnut, honey, and lightly toasted flavors spot on.
**Chef Ricky:** Yes. So I have to say, I think a lot of the spice. Spices. Well done Rooster. Thanks Rooster.
**Pagoda:** available in Costco.
**Gizmo:** by the way, it's not available in Costco. And to answer, uh, senator's, uh, issue with finding this, it was only available in 598, 6 bottle cases in the United States. Most of it was available elsewhere in Wow. You didn't, [01:07:00]
**Rooster:** you didn't go to Costco Reserve, did you? Reserve the Costco
**Gizmo:** Reserve Business Center.
Mm-hmm .
**Chef Ricky:** I did not. So I, I think for us, a lot of the spice has dissipated because of the fact that it was poured a while ago, a while ago, an hour ago. Yeah. So I think we really, we didn't get a whole lot of the spice, but what we're getting is everything else. We're getting the balance. We're getting that beautiful, you know, the, the, the, the almost retrohale equivalent when drinking a spirit where I just kick up what's the aroma in my mouth through my nose, You get a ton of cherry through there.
Um, what I'm getting, Signature high note. It is cherry
**Bam Bam:** is so my palate adjusted. Initially. I thought there was a Petey ness there, but I'm actually getting a lot of almond almond. Yes. Yes. That was the first sip I took. So it was like an explosion to be specific, not the almond itself, but the paste or a little bit of a, it's a stronger, more pungent dessert.
Paste, right? You know, [01:08:00] I agree. Yeah. That's there. Yep. No, just, uh,
**Grinder:** I'm just amazed like you're, you're
**Bam Bam:** I'm going to walk out. I'm going to walk it out.
**Grinder:** Is that a compliment? It's a legitimate compliment. I'm sorry. Thank you. I don't know where you pulled that from, but it was right out of my ass.
**Gizmo:** Happy New Year.
That's almond
**Chef Ricky:** paste. Yes. It's a little granular, but it works. Bam, you're right on the money with the marzipan though. It's marzipan. Yeah. Yeah, you're right on the money with it. There you go, chef. Thank you.
**Senator:** Just please, just take the glass and hold it to your nose. Not just like quickly, just like just keep it there and just inhale for like a good minute.
It is intoxicating.
**Chef Ricky:** The fact that you could do that.
**Senator:** Exactly. Like your nostrils don't burn, like it's just Oh my goodness. What's
**Gizmo:** the alcohol content of this? That's a great question. I'm curious. It's gotta be in the 40s, right? It's gotta be low. Low
**Grinder:** 40s. 40 even. Yeah, that would make [01:09:00] sense.
**Senator:** This is stunning.
Gentlemen, what
**Gizmo:** a night to make. Well, it's pairing beautifully with our cigar. It's
**Senator:** designed just for this. Yeah. If this is our last episode ever, I'm, I'm, I'm okay. Like, we've done our job. This is just spectacular. Well,
**Bam Bam:** let's talk about one thing. What other cigars would you smoke with this spirit?
**Gizmo:** I would love a Partagas D4 with this.
Yes. I'd love a Schwa Supreme. Schwa Supreme with this.
**Bam Bam:** 898. 898. Sir Winston. Sir Winston. Sir Winston would be good. Yeah. I think
**Gizmo:** with this Cognac, Sir Winston, absolutely. Oh yeah, Sir Winston would just be great. Every great cigar would pair perfectly. I was just gonna say. Is there really like a Cuban, a great Cuban that wouldn't pair with this?
I think Nicaraguan, Dominican, I think across the board. I think across the board though, I think everything would work. Fucking Parliament.
**Bam Bam:** I don't know if I'd have a rast with this though.
**Senator:** Oh, for sure. I wouldn't. You're not, that's okay. I'll drink it for you while you speak. And you [01:10:00] turned this away. No, no, I'm still getting rats.
I can't do it. Of course. If you have to force me.
**Gizmo:** No, I think, I think this cognac would work almost the entire range specific to Cuban cigars. I think it would do the lightest. If you want to call like an oil to Monterey epicure number one or two, all the way up to the most full, if it's a part of his P two, a Bolivar, Royal Corona, something like that.
I think it covers The entire catalog of strength and flavor. And I really kudos to hunters and Franco. I mean, that is, that is a brilliant, brilliant release. It's an achievement.
**Senator:** Yeah, no doubt. I just, you always see, you know, that that's why this cognac journey was so fun. You always see the image of some cigar smoker.
with a snifter glass of cognac. And it's always neat. There's never ice. And what cognac is and cognac is meant to be this, you know, smooth spirit. But what this embodied, like, could you imagine
**Chef Ricky:** [01:11:00] somebody putting ice in this fucking, uh, we'd punch him right in the face. No,
**Gizmo:** this
**Pagoda:** does not need any ice at all.
This is so smooth. It's so good. Although it's got my like, The lips tingling a bit. I don't know. This is great. Ooh,
**Gizmo:** I am blown away, blown away. All right, boys. It's time now to move into the data on our 2024 best and worst cigars of the year. Here
**Bam Bam:** we go.
**Gizmo:** And this year we have a three way tie for our number one cigar that we rated this year.
You're going to remember two of them because they were fairly recent. I'm curious if you remember the third. So I'll give you the first two, two weeks ago, we did the Bolivar new gold metal rated that a 10. A couple of weeks before that, the Aladino Classic and Elegante, a 10. Do you remember what the third one was?
Was it a Davidoff Maduro? Yeah. No. No. Davidoff Maduro is. It was a Davidoff. It was. It was the Davidoff Churchill. [01:12:00] Oh, it was the little Bellicoso. The Bellicoso. That's right. Which would also go amazingly well with the
**Grinder:** Scogna. Absolutely. It would. I think the Maduro would. Yeah, maybe.
**Bam Bam:** In addition to every other cigar.
Correct. But that Bella Cosa is so Cuban esque. That would be delicious. And the Aladino would be great with this spirit.
**Gizmo:** So Davidoff makes two appearances in our top five for the year. The Davidoff Maduro in Robusto was a 9. 9. Then into a Cuban, the Punch Double Corona. At a 9. 8, the H up in half Corona, another short smoke, special cigar 9.
7. And finally the K door say number 52 scored a 9. 6 just below that are two new worlds at 9. 5. The aging room, Quattro, Nicaragua, Sonata in Sonata in Maestro, a
**Bam Bam:** staple
**Gizmo:** and the Padron family reserve number 50 in natural, both 9. 5. And then another four way tie for 9. 4. Cohiba pyramides extra done Barton sin compromiso.
Selección number four. [01:13:00] What a winner. That's the part, the gas Maduro number three from Cuba and the San Cristobal edition regional Portugal. So Dottie scored a 9. 4. That was the only decision region. Now that I was ever made, that was delicious ever. Delicious
**Bam Bam:** cigar.
**Gizmo:** Let's go through some of the other nines here.
Well, uh, we had a six or seven 9. 2 as I'll read those off real quick. Cohiba, Sigel of five, San Cristobal El Principe, another short spoke special Byron 21st century, elegance, a bond, the bond Roberts, petite one on nine linear D number six was a 9. 2. The Hoya de Monterey Epicure number three. And finally the H Upman Royal Robusto La Casa Del Habano.
So what I, what I take from this is a nice, it's a nice variety of both Cuban cigars and new world cigars. It's nice to see that. What I found interesting with all those cigars I listed was how many of them were the short smoke special cigars. That's true. How many of those little cigars [01:14:00] performed very, very well.
So a very, very strong year. So let's go now, boys, to the worst cigars of the year. Do you guys remember what the worst cigar we rated, uh, was in 2024? Andalusian Bull. No, that was last year. Actually, that's two years ago. But we have to keep
**Pagoda:** repeating that.
**Chef Ricky:** For one of our listeners. Was the Andalusian Bull this year?
**Gizmo:** Nope. No. The worst cigar we did in 2024, Was only nine episodes ago. The warped El Oso 10th anniversary in Grand Papa was a 4. 3. The worst Cuban cigar we did all year was the poor Lauren Yaga, Picador is number one at a 4. 9 followed at a 5. 7 by the part of the gas Aliados, La Casa Del Habano. We really hated that cigar, that fancy packaging and high price.
And then in an edition regional from poor Warren Yaga, the Phoenix from Phoenicia [01:15:00] 2, finally tying at a 6. 4 for the fifth worst cigar we did all year was the Fonseca number one from Cuba and the Arturo Fuente rare pink in signature. So some of the other worst that we did drew a state league of Provada T 52 in Corona Viva.
From Cuba, the Vigueros Centrofinos at a 6. 6, the Quintero Favoritas 6. 8 tied with the Castagli Brothers of the Sabre in Brave at a 6. 8. And Ricky, I was wrong. The La Flor Dominicana Andalusian Bull scored a 6. 8 as well. And finally rounding out the top 10 of worst cigars all year was the Arturo Fuente, Sun Grown Magnum R Vitola 44 at a 6.
8. Nine.
So let's talk about our individual ratings, boys. So for all cigars during the year, the harshest graders [01:16:00] tied between Puba and Chef Ricky at a 7. 9, Rooster at an 8. 1, Senator at an 8. 2, Gizmo and Pagoda at an 8. 3. And of course, our friend here, Bam Bam, our
**Bam Bam:** friend and grinder
**Gizmo:** at an 8. 4, the most generous graders are here.
At an 8.
**Grinder:** 4 I find that kind of kind of intriguing because historically I've been a harsh. You have been I
**Rooster:** think you've only been on like 50 percent of the episode. But I think you also
**Gizmo:** got lucky with the cigars you were here for. This is true that That they were, they were better cigars. So you mean to say he wasn't
**Chef Ricky:** grinding this
**Gizmo:** year?
He was grinding, but elsewhere. He was grinding elsewhere, working. Oh yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** You call it luck, you grinder calls it calculating. Exactly. Exactly.
**Gizmo:** So boys, I pulled some cool, unique data points for the year that, uh, I thought were interesting. We did one cigar during the year and one pairing [01:17:00] during the year that we did not rate.
Do you remember what either of those were? We did one cigar. And one pairing we didn't rate for one reason or another. Oh, I remember this episode. Any remembrance of what those were? Rampour. No. You and Pagoda need to get off the Rampour. It's good stuff. I
**Pagoda:** remember one. I'll give you, I'll give you a clip. Both
**Gizmo:** of them we traveled for. What? We traveled, we were traveling on both of those episodes. Oh, was
**Chef Ricky:** it, uh, Flor de Caña at the, uh, PCA? Yeah, Flor de Caña,
**Gizmo:** 20 years aged at PCA is one. And the green label,
**Chef Ricky:** right?
**Gizmo:** And the other, the cigar, EP Carrillo? The Cohiba B.
E. K. 54 we did with Danilo. Oh, right. We did not rate. That's great. Which was, that was brilliant cigar. So those were the only two, uh, things that we tasted this year. We did not rate. I have another point as well. We welcomed our friend here. Chef Ricky is our eighth lizard in 2024. He joined us [01:18:00] on episode 141 officially.
He's now been on 25 episodes, including. The original tequila deep dives from a couple of years ago. So welcome in, man. You're here for almost six months already. If you can believe it,
**Chef Ricky:** I can't believe it. Uh, but it's, it's been an incredible journey. It's been an absolute pleasure doing this with you guys and, and even doing it with you guys before I've come on here.
Uh, to the panel, just listening in the club. Yeah. It's been an incredible
**Bam Bam:** and my, my apprenticeship has also been an incredible experience. I feel like you've
**Gizmo:** graduated to like, yeah, he might be like a sous chef now or something. I'm stirring the
**Bam Bam:** soup right now.
**Rooster:** You're making salads. Correct. He's gone from like dried fruit to like, uh, almond paste.
Correct. And he's citrus and dry fruit.
**Chef Ricky:** Bam is officially the guy. I want to taste something after I taste it. I'll give him to taste to confirm. You're the highest, highest
**Grinder:** scouted rookie. You came from the [01:19:00] development leagues in the lounge and here you are at prime time. That's true. I hope, uh, BAM doesn't
**Pagoda:** become as expensive as a business.
**Bam Bam:** Well, both are the same.
**Gizmo:** So I pulled one more unique piece of data I thought was pretty cool. And you know, it's always a rotating cast of lizards in the room. So I. Pulled the unique combinations of wizards that have been on an episode at any point during the year. And in 2024, we had 20 unique combinations
**Bam Bam:** of
**Gizmo:** wizards in the room on episodes during the year.
That's pretty cool. And all time, since we started, I did the data on that because it's the first time I did it. We've had 34 total unique combinations of lizards in the room on episodes. That's fascinating. Going back to the beginning, but I thought that was pretty wild. In 50 some odd episodes, we had 20 unique combinations of lizards
**Chef Ricky:** throughout the year.
Guess you really did your homework [01:20:00] coming into this one, huh?
**Gizmo:** I tried to, I tried to do it. So I think, I
**Grinder:** think that's, I think that we should like, you
**Bam Bam:** got to reflect on that. Reflect on that
**Grinder:** because like, these are, these podcasts are hard to maintain and it takes a lot of work. I know we all know Gizmo puts in a lot of hours for this.
Um, and you look at like the attrition rate of podcasts. We're well past the line at this point. Oh, yeah. No, we're not stopping anytime soon. We're going for the gusto. And I think that's, you know, New Year's episode. Knock on wood, let's have another one next year.
**Pagoda:** Correct. Absolutely. I'm just impressed Matz has been keeping Giz busy.
No wonder he wasn't around last weekend. I'm doing some data analysis. He's got algorithms floating around his head. I'm doing some
**Chef Ricky:** data analysis over here. I look forward to growing old with you guys and watching rooster not age.
**Gizmo:** Well, he doesn't drink, so he's doing pretty good at that.
**Chef Ricky:** Well, he preserved himself.
Pretty sure he's a Highlander.
**Gizmo:** So, boys, I want to ask another question here. So we [01:21:00] again, we talked about the three cigars. That rated a 10 during the year and a couple others that were close. So I'm going to give each of you five options here that you have to choose from as your favorite cigar of the year.
The Davidoff Winston Churchill in Bellicoso, the Aladino classic in Elegante, the Bolivar new gold metal, the Davidoff Maduro in Robusto and the punch. Double Corona. So out of those five cigars that we smoked in 2024, which was your favorite cigar that we did this year? So
**Chef Ricky:** that's hard for me because I wasn't here for two of them.
**Gizmo:** That's, that's tough.
**Chef Ricky:** What were the five again?
**Bam Bam:** The Punch Double Corona,
**Gizmo:** the
**Bam Bam:** Aladino,
**Gizmo:** The Davidoff Maduro Robusto, the Bolivar New Gold Medal, and the Davidoff Winston Churchill in Bellicoso. What was your favorite of the high level cigars we did this year? Punch Double Corona for me. Punch Double Corona for Rooster.
**Bam Bam:** For me, it's between the three. The Punch Double Corona, the Aladino, [01:22:00] and the Gold Medal Bolivar. You have to pick one. These are three unbelievable cigars. Very hard
**Chef Ricky:** to choose. So, because you said a high level. Yep. I'm gonna go with the gold medal because I, the, the price point on the Churchill is, is really, really approachable and they're, they're really easy to get
**Gizmo:** the, uh, are you, uh oh, the Churchill Belly coso.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah,
**Gizmo:** yeah,
**Chef Ricky:** yeah. Right. Which is what you said, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna go with the gold medal. Okay. That, that was, uh, that was one of my favorites this year for sure. We need to pick a high level cigar.
**Gizmo:** Well, one of the top five that we rated this year. It was at top three, right? So,
**Bam Bam:** look, honestly, how Just top one.
The availability and the price and the I had an Aladino the other night. I couldn't believe how good it was. I'm going with that cigar. That's the one I'm going with as well. Honestly, because I can get it anywhere and it's dirt cheap. It's six, seven bucks. And the experience, it's like smoking a very, very high level Cuban cigar.
So, you'll take that
**Chef Ricky:** over the, uh, Churchill. Over the Bellicoso.
**Bam Bam:** Uh, yeah. [01:23:00] Wow. Well, because I get a longer experience with it.
**Gizmo:** I agree. I, I think the Aladino classic, you know, Legante was probably the most surprising cigar of the year. Shocking, shocking how good
**Bam Bam:** that is.
**Gizmo:** Probably the most surprising. Pagoda, what was yours out of those five?
**Pagoda:** This is really tough because I really enjoyed the gold medal, uh, recently. And, uh, the Aladino was great. But, um, if I have to pick one, It'd be the David of Maduro because that's something that's in your house. Yeah. And I've got a couple of boxes. Uh, thanks to Senator. Um, it's been fantastic. Yeah. I've been spoken a lot of those.
**Senator:** They're great. Senator, what's yours for me? Yeah, definitely the Boulevard gold medal, um, for it to have an LCD H band on it and be not just good, but spectacular. I bought a box. It's in transit. Uh, at this moment, um, I never, my wildest dreams thought again, that broke my rule. I will not pay more than 40 for a cigar, [01:24:00] uh, that I'll consume outside of this pod and it's worth every dollar.
So that was my biggest surprise. And second would definitely be the Aladino. I mean, I had never even heard of that brand. I could not have come into that episode more skeptical and it was excellent. Oh yeah. Great cigar. What do we rate the gold medal again? Remind me. Ten. Ten. That was
**Bam Bam:** a ten. Yeah. These are all, these are all tens.
All tens, right. Correct. Correct.
**Gizmo:** No, two of them weren't. The Davidoff, Punch, Double Corona, 9 8. So close. I mean, so close. Davidoff, Maduro, who was the only 9? Let me just take a wild guess. Gizmo!
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, that was a delicious I'll be honest,
**Gizmo:** I haven't really smoked. I think I smoked one after that episode. It's just not a cigar.
I think about, I don't wake up thinking about it. And that Aladino, for example, I think I've gone through about five of those.
**Chef Ricky:** I'll take the box off your hand. So I just got a box of the Aladino. I haven't revisited since the pod. So this week will be my first time and I'll gladly purchase a Maduro from anyone who has one available.
**Gizmo:** [01:25:00] I will say that the, the humidity thing we talked about on that episode, for anybody listening to this, it's a real thing, maybe hearing again for the first time that we rated that cigar 10. The humidity on that cigar needs to come down significantly from where you would get it at retail. Correct. It needs to.
Senator smoked one. Oh, right off the truck. Right off the truck. It was not, it was
**Senator:** not great. It was not great, right? But once you let it come down, it's excellent.
**Grinder:** Yeah. We should add, uh, Giz talking about humidity to the, to the podcast bingo.
**Gizmo:** It's
**Senator:** true. I talk about it every episode. Speaking of humidity, I gotta say, these are, these are a little, uh, softer than I would have expected.
What's going on with the humidor there at Gizmo? How's the flavor, by the way? Delicious. It's still excellent. It could be better. It could be better.
**Bam Bam:** No, come on. Get out of here. This is good. Come on.
**Chef Ricky:** What, was that on purpose? Was
**Senator:** there, are you, have you run out of kitty litter? What's
**Bam Bam:** going on? You gotta go to the blue, dude.
**Senator:** I
**Gizmo:** don't rock, I don't rock, uh, kitty litter anymore. Amazon, subscribe and save.
**Rooster:** No more kitty litter. So this is a [01:26:00] gift from a listener.
**Gizmo:** You know, I thought it was a legit gift. It's a Hello Kitty backpack. What the fuck? Well, what's in it? Yeah, what's inside? Uh huh. Oh, wow. It's got sequins on it. Rainbow sequins, a Hello Kitty backpack.
**Bam Bam:** And your favorite
**Gizmo:** color, pink. It's a Hello Kitty full set. Kitty litter. Oh, you bastards. Oh my god. It's not blue though.
We got candy. We got, what is this?
**Rooster:** You gotta open it.
**Gizmo:** Oh, my gosh. Oh, that's Bouchard. We got the hella kit. There's kitty litter. There's literally kitty litter. Hold on, show the lunchbox. Look at the secrets on there. Hold up, hold up. Look at the secrets on the lunchbox. Listen, that's your new cigar case.
**Senator:** Your new cigar case.
That's it. Perfect. Who needs a Sotelo when you have that?
**Gizmo:** I gotta put an air tag in this. [01:27:00]
**Pagoda:** Absolutely. I want to explain. One for you,
**Gizmo:** but go to actually, you should get that. He'll never lose that one. Correct. Hello. Kitty flavored lip gloss set. Which listener sent this?
**Rooster:** Oh, you're going to
**Gizmo:** get a note.
**Rooster:** Finish it.
Open everything.
**Gizmo:** Okay. All right. And we got kitty litter here. Oh my God. Five pounds, five pounds of kitty litter. That'll last you like two days. Yeah. You think that's enough for Oh my God.
I can't believe it. My wife is going to think I'm crazy walking in the house tonight with this. Now you've got a Christmas gift for her.
**Rooster:** You might be able to share that.
**Gizmo:** Oh, what the hell is going on? Oh, my God.
**Pagoda:** Oh, my God. Those are the unmentionables.
**Rooster:** Uh, this is all from Tuxedo Timmy. I knew it. That motherfucker.
You bastard. And here's [01:28:00] a note written by Tuxedo Timmy to give to you to read on the pod.
**Gizmo:** To be read aloud by Gizmo. I better rent email of the week. Oh my god. You gotta read it. Dearest Lizard Gizmo, from What? This is massive. From all of lizard nation, please find in this package, a couple of gifts. We know you will love to the kitty litter calibrator, a nickname coined by Senator on a previous episode.
We thought it appropriate to give, to gift you a precious Hello Kitty backpack in a color that is quite fitting, given your love of Lanceros and Lawn Sticks.
Now you can
**Senator:** This
**Gizmo:** is unbelievable now You can carry your lanceros and lonsdales properly as the guy who picks which cigars will be smoked on the podcast It could not be more apparent that you are [01:29:00] clearly biased towards cigarette style cigars Did you smoke cigs in your college days? It's funny. I've never had a cigarette in my life I am not repeating that sentence says Cuban cigars.
Gizmo is scared to review due to the size of the ring gauge. And there's a full list here, including Cohiba, Sigla six, but he gave 54, which we did smoke BK 56, some Hoyos. So all these cigars are 54, 56, 58 ring gauge, plus a hundred regional additions from diplomatic Mundo Bolivar and a bunch of others.
You guys are really doing a disservice to the community by not Reviewing a line of cigars that a fuss aficionados chase and love. Not all of your listeners are looking for eight to 10 new world Lanceros sincerely end with love lizard nation.
**Bam Bam:** Wow. Wow. Wow. Talk about accountability. This is a real accountability hour.
I can't say that he's wrong.
**Gizmo:** Well, can I say, all right, all right. Hold on here.
**Senator:** The
**Gizmo:** [01:30:00] Lancero deep dive was in 2023. Yeah. That's over. It's
**Senator:** continued into 2024. We just talked about the number 10, the Aladino. And how did it do? It did well, but our listeners are saying that not everybody is only looking for a great budget Lancero.
**Gizmo:** Well, they're also looking
**Senator:** for a great budget, larger ring gauge cigar. Correct. That's true. That's true. I'm hearing our listeners. Are you hearing them?
**Gizmo:** I mean, how could I not with this amazing gift? bag that you guys have helped, uh, put together, including, I mean, that is offensive.
**Bam Bam:** Something for after dark.
That is offensive. Wow. That's for the after dark. That is offensive.
**Rooster:** That could be a great cigar rest. Maybe that's the rain gauge.
**Chef Ricky:** Well, you have some stock and stuffers for Christmas. I do for you guys.
**Gizmo:** Wow. Well, I, I don't know if I wanna say thank you to tuxedo Timmy as the I do . We all do.
**Pagoda:** Bam. Do you or [01:31:00]
**Rooster:** I mean, be this is like, I dunno, I got mixed feelings right now. , he's still waiting for the opus to buy, by the way. He has when he smoked it on a golf course.
Yeah, but he's still waiting to get the one from you. Not
**Gizmo:** from
**Rooster:** them!
**Gizmo:** That, can I just say, that was not what I expected. Holy moly.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, well, yeah. I
**Senator:** wouldn't think so. Look, the generosity of our listeners has no bounds, Gizmo.
**Rooster:** Clearly.
**Gizmo:** Clearly.
**Rooster:** From Hein Cigar Reserve
**Gizmo:** to Well, boys, I don't even know what to say.
The Hello Kitty gift card. Bag and the note about, uh, slip has got him
**Senator:** giddy. He's so giddy. Hello. Kitty has got
**Pagoda:** me. Giddy.
**Gizmo:** Wow. There you go, boys. We've turned the page on the podcast. Happy New Year, guys. I don't know if it's happy. It's a new year, but I don't know if it's happy.
**Grinder:** It's interesting. To starting new and better practices in the new year.
**Gizmo:** Yes, with [01:32:00] apparently some bigger ring gauge cigars and, uh, I don't know. I feel like we've been doing bigger ring gauge, but I will keep, uh, endeavoring to, uh, bring in some bigger ring gauge stuff.
**Pagoda:** No, but, uh, I think what he's suggesting is bigger ring gauge Cubans. Right? Otherwise, uh, you can send them back in Elysium.
**Gizmo:** So boys, we are into the last third here on the Cohiba Esplendidos. What's everybody thinking? I'm not ready for it
**Bam Bam:** to end. Yeah, no. Neither am I.
**Chef Ricky:** This is just an amazing night. Outstanding champagne, cognac. It's so good. Yeah. The cigar, it's, it's
**Bam Bam:** I think it's kicked up a bit. And in a beautiful, creamy, smooth way.
Has anyone
**Gizmo:** gotten any harshness? No. Not at all. No. It's
**Bam Bam:** maintained its sophisticated smoke. Zero.
**Pagoda:** I think they maintained the saltiness, the butter saltiness.
**Senator:** Yeah. That's still there. Yeah. I mean, even down toward the end, where Gizmo's run out of kitty litter and this is a little wet. It's not wet. There's still no harshness whatsoever.[01:33:00]
It's delicious.
**Rooster:** This is the best Esplendido that I've ever had. I mean, I've had maybe three or four at the most, and this is the
**Gizmo:** best. These are, uh, this is performing as I was hoping it would. Oh yeah. And I was nervous it wouldn't. You know, based on all the stuff we talked about. So, um, yeah, I'm, I'm very, very happy with the cigar.
So boys, let's do one last piece of data here before we move into some listener email. Uh, I just wanted to share some cool, uh, facts from Spotify that we got. We talked about this last year, over 65 percent of our new listeners found us in 2024. So that is a huge number. 65 percent of the people listening to us today.
Uh
**Senator:** huh.
**Gizmo:** Found us this year. Incredible. It's pretty amazing. Our biggest episode ever and of this year was our interview with Danilo, as we talked about earlier, the production manager from Cohiba, very appropriate with the cigar we're smoking episode 121. And then I loved this [01:34:00] fact about the demographics of our podcast and the age ranges of the people who are listening.
And, and the biggest segment is listeners between the ages of 35 by. Listeners between the ages of 45 and 54 and third between the ages of 30 and 34, that was 16%. The smallest contingency of our listenership is the ages 18 to 24 at 2%, which kind of says it all when we talk about cigar legislation and all these other things about trying to prevent young smokers from smoking cigars.
I mean, you would think about. Who would be looking for a podcast? It would be young folks. Right. And clearly our data skewing the opposite way. The biggest number here that I love is we had a 55 percent growth year over year in the 55 plus segment rooster segment of our audience, 55 percent year over year.
What are your thoughts on that rooster? I have nothing to [01:35:00] say.
That's what you get for presenting me a Hello Kitty bag. So thanks to, of course, all of our listeners out there. We only get data like that from Spotify. We don't get it from the other. I will say there's at least one
**Chef Ricky:** 12 year old who listens. Yeah, you're so true. My son, your son.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, let's move into some listener email.
Now, this one I really like. This is from Lizard Grizzly. He said, lizards, I wanted to say thank you for doing this podcast unknown to you. Bam Bam's voice, vernacular tone and mannerisms in his speech remind me of a great friend from college. He unfortunately passed away in our senior year of college. I'm so sorry.
And it's like I get to hear him speak again after all these years. Wow. So thank you when I listen and smoke a cigar with you. It's like we are back on the lawn together overindulging in libations. Yeah. Smoking and busting my
**Bam Bam:** Lord. I've got to up my game. Thanks,
**Gizmo:** Lizard
**Bam Bam:** Grizzly. Thank you,
**Gizmo:** Grizzly. Isn't that a nice?
That's [01:36:00] very nice. And another one from our friend Lizard Enrique writes, Guys, I'd love to hear in some more granular detail on the New Year's Eve show. About how the podcast came to be, how long from it being a what if to a brainstorm to a first show, how many test shows you did, was anyone on the fence about doing it, were sports or TV ever considered, and what are the names, if any, were considered for the name of the show before Lounge Lizards was selected.
I love that retrospective stuff like lizard name, origin, and how y'all met. This suggestion is free and worth exactly what you guys are paying for it. Thanks, Lizard Enrique.
**Bam Bam:** Alright, nice email.
**Gizmo:** So, boys, do you guys remember the, uh, genesis of the pod? I, you know, as far as brainstorming and whatnot, it went pretty quickly.
You know, we were sitting around, I remember when it happened. We were at, uh
**Bam Bam:** We were talking about it at the Senator's Garage Lounge.
**Gizmo:** We were, and then I think it really came to fruition at the brick house. [01:37:00] We were sitting downstairs in the smoky basement. We had two tables and I said, guys, what if you just trust me on this?
And we put up some mics and we just record these conversations. I think they're interesting. I have the stuff. Let's try it. And then we went over to Senator's garage and did that. Um, but it really, there wasn't a long kind of run up from Concept and conversation to actually doing it. I mean, it was pretty quick because we get together a lot that we were getting together.
It was quick. It
**Senator:** wasn't in the sense that the conversation was quick once we discussed it, but the run up to it, we were meeting every week for a while. We were getting together, smoking cigars, enjoying, you know, spirits, sharing what we love and enjoy. And we did that enough that it got to a point where, you know, Gizmo said, what if I just threw some microphones in front of us?
And
**Bam Bam:** also look, he having access to the equipment and how quickly that kind of materialized that helped a lot for sure. Early on. Yeah.
**Rooster:** And do you guys remember kind of being nervous on the [01:38:00] first, Ever recording of the episode, I was like, I don't know what to, you know, you get, you kind of get like microphone shy a little bit.
I don't
**Bam Bam:** know the Maduro one episode from, I remember
**Gizmo:** that. Bam. That was the sixth or seventh episode. Oh, that's true. We did five dry runs. We did the preseason as I call it, which you'll never see the light of day. Right. Right. Where, you know, remember the first time we sat down, we recorded, we didn't have headphones, so we didn't have kind of an understanding of the subtlety You know, of everybody talking into a mic.
And then we added headphones and then we started to develop what the show eventually became. And episode one was really probably the sixth or seventh episode
**Bam Bam:** we recorded. Forgot about that.
**Rooster:** But I remember you constantly warning us, please don't talk over each other. Yeah, right. Yeah, space. He still does.
**Senator:** It took me about two years to learn that. Still
**Gizmo:** learning. Correct. I mean, I, I mean the, the, the space in the room is, is, I think is, is good for broadcast and radio. So when [01:39:00] there's that space in there, when you can kind of feel it breathe in and out, you can kind of feel the rhythm of the room, the energy of the room.
I think that kind of adds to the quality of the broadcast. And for me, it was like the quality of the recording was always very important. And then it really improved about two years ago. I got some better equipment and dialed in some of the plugins I use. Cause where we record in the, you know, in Senator's lounge and effectively a, a, a semi finished garage here at this lounge, which is just some walls with, you know, air filtration and air conditioning and everything else.
It's, I run a lot of plugins on each channel here. I mean, you think about. There's four different pieces of software running on each of our microphones when we're recording. And then at the end, there's about eight more, you know, which take care of the noise and compression. Those are sound control,
**Bam Bam:** um, plugins.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So it's things that, you know, vocal rides. So it takes the ambient noise away when you're not speaking, there's other things. And then of course I edit it and stuff, but. Audio quality to me was always very important. So I've always been [01:40:00] very diligent in that. And I think the biggest thing for me is to answer his question here is, is the rhythm of us sitting down and kind of understanding what this felt like.
Once that started to feel natural and good on record, that's when. We said, you know what, let's put this first episode out, which was the part against Maduro won, and we've developed it every week ever since. And we
**Rooster:** were, we were not just seven random guys. No, we've known each other. No, we've known each other for a long time before we started recording.
So we already had that.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Rooster:** Kind of, you have to have the chemistry. That was key. Between us two. And I think that's what shows on the, on the pod.
**Bam Bam:** Also, your history from smoking cigars in 1926. That, that helps. That brings us a lot of, Ha! There's a lot of knowledge from that.
**Gizmo:** I love how you get away with that.
And I say, I say 55 plus grew and he gives me like this death stare. Bam
**Grinder:** isn't that far behind him. So I didn't want to say that. The other, the other thing don't, don't [01:41:00] forget we had. Um, we had ample time to kind of let this marinate during COVID. Yep. Right? So we were, we also had more, like, you know, I can speak personally, I was more disposed of.
I could, I could, uh, frequent more often. And there were others in the pod that had similar constraints. And, um, You know, we were smoking a lot. Like, like the rest of the world, we were smoking a lot of cigars. So we were together a lot. And I think because we had that like bootcamp of COVID where we were smoking with each other so often, uh, that helped develop the rhythm pretty quickly.
And, and it only took five episodes, right?
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Well, I think the thing that also helped in, in my view of, of what we developed here is that, you know, ball busting aside, we have, you know, seven, eight, when Puba's here, we have very different people in the room in every way, every demographic you can think of age, you know, background, you know, where you grew up, where you were [01:42:00] born, what you do professionally.
I mean, had it not been for cigars, I don't think most of us would have
**Senator:** ever
**Gizmo:** met based on what we do professionally or socially. So, Because of all this, this diverse group of humans met, it wasn't forced. It was just like, these are the people that we kind of decided to hang with throughout COVID. And it ended up being this thing that now, you know, for our fourth New Year's Eve, I mean,
**Chef Ricky:** That was a, that was a slightly different and that once I heard that Don Julio episode, I was like, I got to meet these guys.
**Bam Bam:** I got to help these guys out.
**Chef Ricky:** You know, once that Don Julio, once I heard that Don Julio episode in JP's garage and kudos to him for, from the very beginning, he was like, you know, my buddies put together this, you know, calling out Senator at that time saying that, you know, you guys put together this podcast and he's like, I think you'd be great on it.
**Senator:** I remember he was telling me, he's like, he's like, Ricky's been on TV. He does all this stuff for our businesses. He's like, I suck at this stuff. He's like, this is where he [01:43:00] shines. And yeah, he was exactly
**Chef Ricky:** right. He called it, you know? And, um, and I was like, really, man? Like, you know, I was listening to podcasts, but not so much yet.
And that, that night we were in his garage, smoking the chef's edition and listening to that pod and I was like, all right, and then he brought me here to the lounge and it just kind of, you know, no different from you guys. Right. It's like a few months. Um, we had some, you know, I'd bring a spirit. So Nagavi distilled the drink and introduced you guys to some tequilas in Moscow.
And it was very much the same in that it took some time. We drank together, brought me on for that, uh, deep dive in tequila. And then ever since you were, you were always like, we have to have you back. We have to have you back. And I'm like, is he just being nice or does he really mean that? Like what's going on?
So I remember
**Rooster:** when Ricky first came on the pod, Which was in Senator's garage. Oh, I was so nervous. Correct. And he had a blazer on. Like an interview. He was being [01:44:00] interviewed. He was very professional with the blazer. As soon as he walked in, he was like, this is an audio podcast. I don't need this fucking blazer.
**Chef Ricky:** Hello, my name is Chef. I guess I was wearing a hoodie. I got a blazer on, Puba's sitting in a corner with his stomach sticking out of
**Senator:** his shirt.
**Chef Ricky:** I'm definitely overdressed. His ass crack hanging out. Yeah, it was, uh, I remember that evening. That was such a fun night. And, uh, yeah, yeah. That night I, I had such a blast and I was like, man, I really hope I get to do that again.
And now here I am. And, uh, yeah. So I, I think it, I. You know, not being a part of the original journey with you guys, I could totally see how it's come to this. Cause I've had my own journey with you guys. So awesome. You guys, this pod has been amazing. Um, you know, I still listen to it even though I'm on it now, I still listen to it weekly and it's just as funny.
It hasn't, it hasn't, uh, wavered at all for me.
**Gizmo:** He also asks, was anyone on the fence about doing it? [01:45:00] So I don't think anybody in the room was, but there was another person who was involved for about a minute. Oh, if you remember, had a nickname and everything and never showed up for that first recording and that was it.
Yeah. So bringing in chef Ricky and kind of breaking our, uh, You know, our very tight knit group and inviting Ricky in, I think was a big move for us. And I'm certainly glad we did it. Thank you so much. But yeah, was anybody else in the room hesitant? We've never talked about that. So,
**Grinder:** I, I do believe, I mean, I do believe Puba was, was very concerned.
Yeah. Yeah. Which is, which is part of the genesis of the, of the stage names. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yes. And the anonymity. Which worked out to be very beneficial for us. Who came up with lounge lizards? He would walk in the old lounge before we ever had this concept. What's up lounge lizards? Yeah, that's where it came from.
So to answer his question, there was never another name for the show. It was always lounge lizards. We didn't float any other name for it. That was the name. Yeah, we had it day one.
**Grinder:** We, we, we already [01:46:00] coined the group name early, early before
**Gizmo:** the, and he gave us,
**Rooster:** he gave us our names,
**Gizmo:** gave us the nicknames too, which you can hear on episode three, by the way, can I make a suggestion?
60 Ricky, Ricky wants a name.
**Rooster:** I'm chef.
**Chef Ricky:** Um, chef, but for April fools, perhaps you could, uh, put out the original lounge lizard entrance on
**Gizmo:** there. Is an old lounge lizard entrance song. Yes, there is. Yes, there is. So another question was, uh, we're sports or TV ever considered. So we did, we've talked about sports or TV here or there, but I think for me, my feeling with sports specifically is, um.
Trying to avoid timestamping episodes. So when we do an episode and someone's listening to it, it's as if we recorded it yesterday, not timestamped to a Superbowl or a sporting event or something like that. So we've talked about it here and there, but I think having a sports heavy podcast puts a timestamp on it and then makes those episodes kind of [01:47:00] live in the past as opposed to live in the present.
So I think everything. Probably in the last two years lives in the present. So we have talked about microfiche though. We have talked about microfiche episode one, episode one.
**Chef Ricky:** In some of the earlier episodes, weren't you guys watching sporting events while recording? I mean, just one. The first episode,
**Senator:** we were watching the U.
S. Open
**Grinder:** final. Microfiche again. That's right. Medvedev. I remember plenty of times watching football in your, in your garage. Yeah. Gizmo didn't like that. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Cause it was distracting. And
**Senator:** luckily it was my garage that I could do whatever I wanted. So I had football out for you guys.
**Gizmo:** But thanks to Lizard Enrique.
He always writes us a great email and that's a fantastic email. I think we answered everything that, uh, that he asked here. I mean, um, here we are boys for New Year's Eve episodes in.
**Chef Ricky:** You know, I have one request request for 2025. I'd love to hear more or a voice memo. Yeah, I know. I know that's something you asked for [01:48:00] along with the email.
**Senator:** Tuxedo Timmy delivered on that. Yes, we need more listeners. I think Tuxedo Timmy is out. It was fantastic.
**Gizmo:** I think we need more Tuxedo Timmy. Yeah, it was great. Hey, I got one too on this topic, on this topic. But, uh, yeah, I mean, You know, I, I've talked to a few listeners who write a lot of emails and they just say, Hey, you know, I, I'm not really comfortable hearing my own voice and they'd rather just write in and use their own pseudonym.
So I, I think voice memos are great. I'd love to hear more voice memos to your point. And I
**Chef Ricky:** totally get that because that was one of my biggest things when I first got on, when I would re listen to the episodes was hearing my own voice and that takes some getting used to. I'm curious, do you guys re listen to episodes often?
Uh, yeah. All in on. Sure. Often. I do. I mean. In the car. Editing. You have no choice. I have no choice. I
**Grinder:** listen, every time Gizmo sends a, sends, sends it out, I'll take a listen. Now, I don't listen from end to end, but I'll like, I'll like scan it and go to different parts. And usually there's like, [01:49:00] He's the, the podcast is well structured.
There's actually beginning and ends and segments the way, the way it's published and printed. So it's easy to find certain things.
**Senator:** I did the first couple of years and now I have like the Dave Chappelle philosophy where it's like, every time we put one out, I know we're going to be great.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, we're coming to the end of our evening here with the, unfortunately with the VUV Clicquot. La Grande Dame, the Hein, Cigar Reserve, XO Cognac, and the Cohiba Esplendidos. I mean, I don't really know what to say other than this has been an unbelievable event here with this pairing.
**Bam Bam:** Incredibly delicious.
I mean, it's just It's incredible.
**Senator:** I'm just gonna say it, like, this feels like a deathbed moment, and I wish it didn't. Don't say it. Don't say that. No, I'm sorry, but like, everything is perfect. Yeah. The cigar is [01:50:00] perfect. The cognac. Perfect. Spectacular. The champagne Spectacular. I, I, I am gonna have nothing to complain about.
The, the gift, the listener gift. The gift was
**Gizmo:** not perfect. The,
**Senator:** the gift was, was beyond perfect. I mean, off the charts beyond perfect. Off the
**Gizmo:** chart, off the charts. I resent the implication from tuxedo, Timmy and you guys tonight. Alright boys, so let's move into our first rating here on the Vu cli Co la Grandam Champagne Vintage 2015.
**Bam Bam:** Mm-hmm . Bam Bam, you are up. So again, with my limited champagne experience, I have to say it was very buttery. Just the hint of dryness. I said I could take that bottle down alone and eat in the evening. How much is that bottle? 200. 199. Yowza. It's a vintage champagne. It is. New Year's Eve. It's a special night.
And was delicious. I'll give it a 10. Excellent. That, that, you'll buy that on a special occasion and really it's just an incredible [01:51:00] experience. 100%.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. All right, Grindr. It's a
**Grinder:** 10 for me. This was the best champagne I've ever had. Vouv also, or just Clicquot, has a special place in my heart. When I got engaged, right after our engagement, we celebrated with a bottle of Vouv.
In the hotel lobby together, and it was, I always loved the, that orange, yellow hue. Uh, but it was so smooth. It was kind of, it was a little sweet. Did you guys, it was a little sweeter. Um, I think that was just, you know, probably the age or, or
**Senator:** the No, no, that's VUV's style. I mean, VUV is, there, there are more fruit forward in the notes that you'll get in Clicquot generally.
That's kind of their style. So
**Grinder:** it's a, it was absolutely wonderful ten.
**Chef Ricky:** All right, Chef Ricky. Yeah, super limited champagne, uh, experience on this side as well. Uh, but I'll say that this Vouv here, it delivered a feminine flavor profile where everything just seems super balanced [01:52:00] from the sweetness to a little bit of dry.
Uh, dryness there. And then there was just the right amount of acidity that led to a beautiful palate cleansing, uh, for the cigar and just kind of set, set the stage for the cigar as a pairing, uh, for me, it's a 10, it's a wonderful, wonderful champagne and absolutely deserving of being, uh, drank during a special occasion.
**Pagoda:** All right, Pagoda, it's a 10 for me. I'm a champagne lover. Mr. Lover lover, but you know what it is. We have shaggy in the
**Gizmo:** house.
**Pagoda:** Remember it wasn't me. There was that
**Gizmo:** episode. It wasn't me.
**Pagoda:** You are shaggy. Oh, there you go. Yeah. No, it's fantastic. I love champagne. I love VUV and uh, you know, for me it's a 10.
**Gizmo:** All right.
So for me, it's also a 10. I mean this from the first sip, this was kind of, um, it was [01:53:00] explosive in the way my palate And my brain reacted to the complexity and the balance and, and how well it paired with a cigar. I just thought this was a phenomenal spirit. I'm honestly with how it drank tonight and, you know, Looking back at some of the other spirits we've done a couple of weeks ago, I, you know, was ranting and raving about a 250 tequila.
This to me at 200, I think it could even be priced higher for how it performed tonight. And, and I really say that delicately because I don't subscribe to paying, you know, that kind of price for spirits, but for what this delivered tonight, for what it delivered with the cigar. I mean it was brilliant and and the way that that first sip then you took that draw the cigar and how it enhanced everything That's true.
It was a brilliant brilliant. Well balanced Champagne tonight. I'm really impressed. I'm blown away. It's a 10 Senator. [01:54:00] Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Sorry.
**Pagoda:** Go ahead. No, I would just, you know, I totally agree with you. It's well balanced. There's a bit of sweetness, but it's not sweet, you know, like, there's some champagnes that can be sweeter.
Uh, this is not there. This is just so well balanced in terms of the dryness and the sweetness. And, uh, you delivered really well, fantastic, fantastic champagne. Uh, but I don't agree with you that it should be priced higher. Maybe a bit higher.
**Rooster:** That's called gisflation.
**Pagoda:** Oh yeah, gisflation or the has. So
**Bam Bam:** good as a value guy.
**Senator:** I am a value guy. I know that. All right,
**Gizmo:** Senator.
**Senator:** So I'm in lockstep with a group. It's a 10 and I'm just so thrilled, like why I wanted to do the grand Dom before the non vintage there's a stigma that I partially have created in my criticism of the standard VUV yellow or Clicquot yellow label. Their high end stuff is really spectacular.
[01:55:00] And they deserve a world of credit balance is the first word that comes to mind with the champagne. Um, the nose, you get a ton of minerality on your palate. You get some of the sweet notes that everyone's talked about. There's even a little floral, uh, a floral quality about it. Um, and, uh, yet still some dryness and that is where obviously as a peau roger lover where my palate normally gravitates, it's the perfect amount in every sense of the word.
So I, um, I think 200 is very fair for this. I say that because Some of the best vintages of Dom Perignon are better. There's no question, but some of the weaker vintages at they're at a 250 price point. I would drink this over that. And so that's where I think like gizmo is right. That like the price point is spot on and arguably could be higher.
This is a very, very good vintage. I would definitely buy this again. I'd even seek it [01:56:00] out. Um, so for all those reasons, uh, it's a knockout and, uh, for anyone just looking for Something a little more, something extra to celebrate an occasion, a holiday, whatever the case may be. There's always going to be a place for, you know, our standard non vintage champagnes that we love.
Vintage champagne is truly special, and for an occasion, this is definitely one of those that you should reach for. Yeah, completely agree.
**Gizmo:** Well said. So boys, that puts the formal liquor rating on the Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame Vintage 2015. At a flat 10. 0. What a stunning debut for Veuve Clicquot on the podcast.
And
**Senator:** what a way to finish the year. Oh yeah, I agree. And also for all the champagne drinkers out there, everyone, and I fall into this, this is why I've corrected myself even on this pod, everyone will, Take the first word and they'll call it VUV. VUV just means widow. It is meaningless to the brand. [01:57:00] Clicquot is the family.
That's the house. That's who created this. So when you abbreviate and you want to talk about VUV Clicquot, you really should call it Clicquot. That's the family that created this 200 years ago. Learned another thing tonight. Wow.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. Now it's time to move on to the formal liquor rating for our second pairing tonight.
The Heinz Cigar Reserve XO Cognac.
**Bam Bam:** Bam Bam, you're up again. This is also another easy one. This is an absolute 10. Um, I don't remember a cognac experience like this. The almond. Cherry forward, pairing with the cigar, I think was outstanding. Alright, Grindr.
**Grinder:** I'm also at a 10. This was the easiest drinking Cognac I've ever had.
And we've had some really good Cognacs, guys. So, you know, it's, it kind of, um, I wouldn't say it blows some of the others out of the water, but it's, it's definitely a premier, you know, it's, it's the top of the list. The cherry, uh, element that you noted was prominent for me, and, you know, absolutely delicious, and I felt like it, you know, [01:58:00] You know, it kind of rounded out the, it was like a wine cherry, it was like a cherry wine.
Yeah. Uh, like a port cherry.
**Bam Bam:** It was a great dance between almond
**Grinder:** and cherry.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, yeah. So, 10. Delicious.
**Bam Bam:** Alright,
**Gizmo:** Chef Ricky.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, you know, I know we're not on the cigar rating yet, but based on what the cigar tasted like, and then going into the champagne. I feel like I could have told you. what this cognac would have tasted like just because of the how the night was going and Yet the cognac exceeded my expectations You know, I'm on my second dram now and even straight out of the bottle.
There's still no heat on the nose There's still no heat on the palate. It's still super easygoing. It still goes down incredibly smooth You know and there is no Like when you talk about classic pairings, Cherry and Almond is one of the classic pairings and I mean, we nailed it [01:59:00] and, and, and it's great because this is a collaboration of, you know, Senators know how with the champagne and, and, and, and the listener sending in this cognac and this wonderful cigar, I mean, there just couldn't be a better way to end the year and this thing is an absolute 10 for me.
Super delicious. And I'm happy Senator found more bottles cause I can't wait to put one in my bar cabin.
**Gizmo:** All right, Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, that's easy. It's a 10. It's so easy. You know, we love the Heinz rare. I think, um, we tried the VS, which was just so bad, I think. Uh, and, uh, you know, uh, when we were going to be drinking the Heinz, I was like, all right, let's see how this goes.
But wow, it is just wow. From the very beginning, it's so easy to drink. I would say you. It just so smooth. It just goes down so easy. There's no harshness. There's no, you know, bite. It's just very, very easy. A drink to drink. And it's very, very [02:00:00] cherry forward. I think, I think as everybody has mentioned that it's a 10 for me.
**Gizmo:** So for me, it's. And the easiest 10, I think I've ever given as far as a pairing goes another one that it, it, it was such an enlightening moment when you take that first sip, it's like, wow, it's so smooth. There's no heat on it. It's so refined. And I think hunters and Franco and high nailed it designing this to be paired with cigars.
This is the perfect. Pairing with cigars. I think anyone out there at any experience level with Cognac, other spirits, Scotch lovers, bourbon, high proof lovers will love how this tastes with a cigar and especially a Cuban cigar. I thought it was brilliant. I don't want to repeat what everybody else said, but it was a 10 absolutely knockout home run pairing tonight for the cigar.
Um, I'm at a 20.
**Bam Bam:** I mean, I'll settle for a 10, but I'm at a 20 [02:01:00] unbridled enthusiasm. I mean,
**Senator:** there's never been a spirit that we've reviewed that I've immediately while we're recording, I ordered 10 bottles from two different places. I maxed out how much they had. It is spectacular. That's how we roll around here.
Correct. And the thing about it, no one's mentioned this, so I'll start here just to fill in additional commentary. I think the price point on this is outrageous. It is. This is an XO Cognac. Every XO Cognac from any Cognac house is 180 to 250. If you look back at any XO Cognac we've ever reviewed, they're all 200 something.
Every last one of them. I can't believe these go for you can buy this for 130. That is an ab salute steel. Yes, it is. I would put this up against eight countless 18 year single malts that go from [02:02:00] 250 to even 350. I mean, the price point is so low. The value for what you're getting is so amazing. Uh, the flavor, I mean, everyone's talking about how insanely smooth this is.
The striking thing to me is the amount of flavor that it delivers for how smooth it is. I mean, a lot of smoother spirits. It's easier to have a smoother spirit that's lighter in what it's trying to deliver. To deliver bold flavor, you normally need some real heat behind that. And this is matured in such a way that it doesn't need that heat to deliver that amount of flavor.
And that's a huge merit to this cognac. Um, this is as good as it gets.
**Bam Bam:** The combination of richness, that flavor in a smooth delivery, that's very unique.
**Senator:** As good as it gets. And I love the balance in the sense that like, you're getting the signature Hein cherry note. If you look back on our Hein episodes, there's cherry in every [02:03:00] single cognac that they make, but it's so amazingly balanced by like the nuttiness of that, that marzipan almond paste note we were talking about.
And so if I could have asked Hein to blend the perfect cognac. This would be it. I can't wait to drink this on every special occasion over the next, those bottles will probably last the next year and we'll buy more after that. Correct.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, that puts the formal liquor rating tonight on the Heinz Cigar Reserve XO Cognac.
at another 10. 0. Let's compare that. This is the third Hein, by the way we've done on the pod. Let's compare that to the other two. We did the Hein rare cognac VSOP on episode 67 scored a 9. 0 and a few episodes later on episode 71, we did the H by Hein VSOP cognac, which we did not love, scored a 6. 8. So this certainly takes the [02:04:00] cake.
And what I love about, you know, everything we talked about on the price here, Senator. It's how much more expensive than the VSOP three times. Is that a 50 bottle, 40 bottle? The rare 55, 55. So, I mean, thinking about what this brought us tonight in this 10, you know, flat 10 experience comparative price wise.
I mean, I do think there's value here as well, just like in the champagne. It's true. All right, boys, it's time now to do our formal lizard rating tonight on the Cohiba Esplendidos. Rooster, you are up. Here we
**Rooster:** go.
**Gizmo:** Wow. What a
**Rooster:** cigar. And I'm so glad we chose the Esplendido. I think we kind of debated over doing the Robusto.
Yes. I'm glad we did the Esplendido So the Esplendido, it can be a hit or miss. It was, I was a bit skeptical how it would perform, but this cigar was a home run. I mean, it was just flawless from beginning. To the end, the [02:05:00] notes of creaminess and salted butter. I mean, it was just a delicious, delicious smoke.
Uh, what a beautiful cigar. And, uh, I'm at a 10. All right.
**Senator:** Senator? Uh, I'm also at a 10. I, you know, a cigar like this is an occasion cigar. And the fact that we did this for a new year's episode, I think for any listener that's looking for a spectacular new year's cigar, this fits the bill perfectly, arguably better than any cigar would.
I mean, I cannot believe as soon as I, I just a few draws of this cigar, the, the butteriness that this delivers. All I could think about is caviar, champagne, all these new year's things that you seek out and enjoy. And, um, I'm just so impressed. I think the, the construction and burn throughout, at least for mine, I had no issues.
Um, [02:06:00] combustion was off the charts. Combustion was great. And just the flavor, it was balanced. It had just enough body. Um, I say that because going back to the boulevard gold medal episode, I remember saying, uh, for me, that was the best Cuban cigar I had all this year. And this would be the second best. And the only reason I say that, again, going back to my palate, I like a fuller bodied and flavored Cuban cigar.
I got a little more flavor out of that Boulevard Gold Medal, and that's why that still, for me, reigns as like number one. But this is definitely number two. I mean, I got notes in this cigar that I've never sure we've talked about a cigar being buttery, having minerality, having a lot of the notes that we got of this honey, some of the sweetness, the, uh, the burn line, uh, you know, cookies, I, um, not at this level.
[02:07:00] And that's, what's like so spectacular about this cigar. It was like notes I've gotten in other cigars, but amped up to such a level that I'll always remember this episode and that cigar that we smoked. So, uh, a definite 10, I, uh, I will give Cohiba credit. They've done well here. Um, I do wish, and this will always be my knock, is just the, you know, the price point, it, it's an aggressive price point.
And that's why, like, this is the kind of cigar that I would only reach for, for New Year's. Yeah. But to buy a banded, you know, Esplendido, I mean, I'm not gonna be smoking throughout the year a hundred and something dollar cigar. That's just not reasonable. But, um, for a big occasion. It, it, you know, I, I can't believe I'm saying this, like, it's worth the splurge, you know, maybe once a year.
It
**Bam Bam:** aligns with the cost of the champagne, you know, that's something you'll get for a celebratory moment, with the cigar as well. Yeah,
**Senator:** the difference for me is the champagne for 200 is able to satisfy six people in this room. This [02:08:00] is true. The cigar, for half that, you can satisfy one. So for the same price as champagne, two people are satisfied.
It's nice to spoil yourself from time to time. Agreed.
**Gizmo:** So for me, it's also a 10. I was, I came into this episode. You guys know this. I detailed some of the things I did to kind of hedge the experience tonight for everybody. I was a little anxious about how this would perform tonight, especially across seven guys in the room.
And that's a warning to all the listeners out there. I mean, not every one of these cigars is, is amazing. Some of them aren't even great because of construction. Because of how they're built and, and a lot of times are overfilled. So what we experienced in this room tonight was a very specific, there's a specific reason as to why, and it's because I took the time to go through a box and effectively discard some of them for this recording to try to put us in a position to have a great episode so that we have to note that running out and buying a box of 25, there might be seven to 10 to 15 in there that are great, but not all 25 are going to be great.
And [02:09:00] that's the unfortunate thing. However, given. The experience we had tonight with the cigar I had in my hand. It is one of the best Esplendidos I've ever had. I loved it. I thought the combination of classic Cohiba earthiness, grassy hay, honey thing, but that extra element of that salted butter, that's the note that sticks with me.
That was
**Bam Bam:** unique. That's key for all of us. That
**Gizmo:** was so unique, enhanced by both the champagne and the cognac we had. It was a brilliant, brilliant cigar tonight. I'm blown away. With how it performed. I'm so happy about it. It's a 10 all day and, uh, I'm looking forward to my next one. But like Senator said, because of the price, because of the challenges with it, it's gonna be a while.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** You know, this is not a cigar I'm gonna be reaching for next Friday. This is gonna be one that, uh, it's, it's definitely gonna take some time until I go back into that box and try again. But, uh, I'm just so happy, uh, we had this experience tonight.
**Senator:** So I have a quick question because this is for my benefit and I imagine many [02:10:00] listeners that are thinking the same thing I am right now.
You smoke more, way more of these than I have. For a listener who wants to have this for an occasion, so once a year maybe, am I correct in thinking that the best bet would be to go to an LCDH where you can look at each and pick out and just buy a few singles? As opposed to ordering a box and, you know, hoping for the best, where, you know, that many of them are going to be problematic and many will be good.
And you're not going to necessarily get a great value out of that. Is that the best option for someone who's going to pull for this like once a year and just wants to have a few in their humidor? That would, that would
**Gizmo:** be my recommendation or taking the risk, like a lesser risk on the three pack, you know, try to get a three pack, pull it out of the cardboard and put it in a cedar tray in your, your humidor.
That would be what I would do, unless you [02:11:00] have the budget and you're willing to And access to
**Bam Bam:** an LCDA store. Yeah, yeah. Unless you're to Cuba or somewhere around the world
**Gizmo:** where you can get them. You know, I, I, that would be my move. Now, a lot of folks out there, Bond Roberts is the option. You can always ask the seller to see pictures of the, the, the feet of the cigar, there might be a bit of a challenge.
There's a lot of demand for these cigars. They go fast. They go for a high price. You don't see them a lot. So, you know, again, this is just one of those that, uh, every time you reach for it, you're going to face a potential challenge, It's just the nature of it. But yeah, I, if, if you have access to go to an LCDH somewhere in the world, you're on vacation somewhere, you could pick up a couple of singles and evaluate them before you do hold them in your hand, compare one, two, three, four, see how they feel and, and do your best, you know, and, and make the best decision you can.
But, uh, it's never going to be a hundred percent. All right, Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** It's easy. It's a 10 right from the light. The [02:12:00] Cuban cigars we've been smoking recently have been doing so well. You get a burst of flavor in your mouth right away. You know, you get no spiciness or, you know, like if you've charred the front, you know, you don't get any of that.
It's been fantastic. The aroma was, you know, sweet and nice. And for me, um, it was sweeter on the front part of my lips. And then by the time it went in, it enveloped the rest of my mouth. My whole palette into this, you know, the popcorn butter, right? The buttery, salty, creamy, it was just fantastic. And it leaves a very pleasant, um, flavor profile in your, in your palate.
And then you just continue smoking it. And, you know, it does become a little, uh, stronger, which I really enjoyed the second half of it even more. And then with the kind of pairings we had, they were enhancing the flavors. It was just a beautiful experience. And, you know, I always talk about cigars, the experience, the evening, [02:13:00] you know, it's a 10 for me.
It's a very easy 10. Uh, fortunately for me, the cigar smoked really well. There were no draw issues and the smoke was velvety. And, you know, you could. You know, like if you want to envision yourself smoking a really nice cigar with a good velvety smoke and you're looking at the smoke when it leaves your mouth, it's like, it's just a fantastic experience.
It's a 10 for me. And while it's very, very expensive and of course, difficult to find, You get an opportunity to celebrate and if you get this cigar, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. So, uh, uh, definitely a 10.
**Gizmo:** All right, Chef Ricky.
**Chef Ricky:** This has been the most relaxing episode.
**Gizmo:** For who?
**Chef Ricky:** For me. I'm looking at the gift bag.
I don't know. If you could create the perfect fragrance. It would be the nose, uh, the aroma coming off of this cigar with the nose of the cognac and the nose of the [02:14:00] champagne. I would wear this. I would wear this. I would. Ode to Chef. I would. I'm right there with you, Ricky. It is just phenomenal. So my rating is, my score is a 10, obviously.
But, you know, and I had a little bit of a burn issue, but because I was the only one, I'll say that was your user error. Um, but with that aside, I mean, I have my perfect draw in what's the last, you know, half inch, quarter inch. Bam. What's the measurement here?
**Bam Bam:** Take it. Let me take a look at that. That's a half inch.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, that's a perfect draw here. And I'm just, I'm just trying to extract every little bit of whatever I can get out of here. Um, it's been an amazing cigar. It's been an amazing 90 minute plus experience. Uh, the pairing, the cigar, the lactic notes present in the cigar, the salted butter, the almond, the marzipan.
Um, you know, there was even a point where I first got into the Clicquot. And the combination of the [02:15:00] Clicquot with the cigar was giving me somewhat of a passion fruit essence. Uh, it was just an, uh, fucking amazing experience the entire time. And I think, you know, for a celebratory evening like tonight, this is the way to go.
And, uh, if you guys could somehow recreate this experience at home, this is the one, this is the one to do. Uh, this is the one to grab a few friends with, recreate this experience, grab these spirits, grab this cigar. And it's worth every penny, every moment you spend, every second you spend with the people you care about.
It's a 10. All
**Grinder:** right, Grindr. I'm glad Chef brought up the aroma. Cause I, you know, I think the, one of the marks of a good Cuban for me is that, that really good aroma from the foot. There's something warm about it. It just kind of brings you, you know, you get really stuck in it, you know. And, um, it was incredibly smooth.
I've never had this cigar. Grindr. I would say this is a 10 for me. This is one of the best [02:16:00] Cuban cigars I've ever had guys. So, um, you know, the, the points about price. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it's, it, at least it meets, it meets, you know, what the price point it, you know, it meets the mark. So, uh, we've had plenty of scenarios where we've had.
expensive Cubans and just not been pleased with it. This is really, this is, this is a premier Marka. Um, and this is one of their best in my opinion. Well, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, all is it straight 10s. It's a really tough
**Bam Bam:** night. It's another 10. All right, bam. Definitely at a 10. Um, chef, you mentioned lactic notes.
I had a lot of cream. In the beginning of the retrohale at the front of it. But toward the end, after I got through about an inch of it, I was getting that almond paste, and that was pervasive right to the very end. I don't think I've ever had a Cuban cigar like this ever. T Gear Brenden 2 you were also eating some yogurt before
**Rooster:** that.
**Bam Bam:** Ed Helzolick I [02:17:00] had a little yogurt. T Gear Brenden 2 is that wrong? Ed Helzolick That's true that there is creaminess there T Gear Brenden 2 Creamy
**Gizmo:** yogurt. But thankfully
**Bam Bam:** the champagne and the Cognac closed my palate. But we were in Icelandic yogurt. Skr. Correct. Um, um, yeah, I think I said this before.
This is the most unique Cuban experience that I've ever had, worthy of the rating. The price, the availability and hedging your bets and all of the things that you have to do to make sure you get that experience though. It's worth it. But for, It is not for a novice cigar smoker for once a year. It's worth it.
Yeah, but you've got to know what you're doing If you're going to spend 110 dollars a stick, how many
**Rooster:** boxes do you have
**Bam Bam:** zero? I'm positive tomorrow.
**Grinder:** He'll have four
**Bam Bam:** You can
**Grinder:** swap out that to buy
**Bam Bam:** Sure Happy to trade that but yeah, i'm at a firm 10
**Gizmo:** All right, boys that puts the formal lizard rating tonight on the cohiba esplendidos And a flat eight [02:18:00] 10.
0.
**Chef Ricky:** Incredible night. I prefer firm. 10.
**Grinder:** 0. There was nothing flat about this. Yeah, you said that before. It's a, it's a popping 10. 0.
**Gizmo:** So let's compare that to the other Cohiba we have done on the podcast on episode 24. We did the Siglo 2. It was scored an 8. 0 on episode 78. We took a break for a while. We did the Lanceros, which scored a 9.
6. That's the runner up to this one. On episode 115, we did the Pyramides Extra at a 9. 4. Like I said, we did the Behike 54 with Danilo when we did that episode with him, the interview on episode 121. We did not rate that. And finally, on episode 129, we did the Siglo 5. Which scored a 9. 2. So this one certainly takes the cake at a 10.
0.
**Bam Bam:** Cohiba's had a good run on this podcast. Very good. I mean, it's shocking. Honestly, we're shocked tonight on how good the cigar was.
**Grinder:** I might, I might venture to say we're Cohiba converts.
**Bam Bam:** Well, as [02:19:00] Gizmo likes to say, we're Cohiba
**Gizmo:** sluts.
**Grinder:** I'm a Cohiba slut.
**Gizmo:** You shouldn't be saying that with this gift bag I got.
All right. So. Let's wrap it up, boys. It's time to end our evening. We have to say some thanks. So we of course have to thank 10 86 cigars, our home and where we do this podcast every week. And we have to thank the proprietor, John Carlo for hosting us, allowing us to record here. It's a great place. And we're very, very lucky.
And we know we are to have a place like this because many of our lizard friends out there, it's a great place. In lizard nation, don't have a lounge like this. So we don't take it for granted and we're very grateful. And, uh, you out there, if you live in the New Jersey area, come see us at 10 86 cigars.
It's a great place. Of course, we have to thank our friend lizard max, who does all of our social media, does a great job with that. He did the BAM prices, right? Last week,
**Bam Bam:** which was an amazing thing is off. The chart,
**Gizmo:** look at our Instagram, the prices, right? Calling out the, uh, the, the price of a gallon of milk, just a fantastic picture with Bam Bam from the Flintstones.
I want to thank [02:20:00] Cuban cigar website. com and half wheel, which I think on every episode, almost, I go to both of those sites for information and resource. So we have to thank them. So of course we have to thank Rob Isla and the fabric of five team for being an incredible partner to us in 2024. We've really loved having them as our sponsor.
Honduran cigars have been a real revelation to us this year. And, uh, you know, I've, I've been lucky to have been on the tasting panel, try these cigars long ago. And now with some age, I mean, they're really turning into something amazing. So thanks to them. And we have to thank all of our lizards out there, all the amazing listeners who tune in each week, send us emails, lizard nation, as Rooster always says on our text chain.
Lizard nation is strong and we are very, very lucky. And of course we have to give out a lizard of the week boys. And we are going to give lizard of the week this week to lizard Kyle for sending us our highest rated spirit,
**Bam Bam:** extreme general that a
**Gizmo:** lizard has ever sent us. Very
**Bam Bam:** generous. Have to
**Gizmo:** have to say that credible,
**Bam Bam:** very generous.
So
**Gizmo:** we're going to send him a little gift [02:21:00] package. And of course any listener out there can win lizard of the week. Every week in a little gift package from us, send us an email, send us an amazing spirit like the Heinz cigar reserve XO. And, uh, we'll send you some stuff from one of our humidors. So keep writing and keep listening.
And of course, be sure to tell a friend. And let's not forget
**Rooster:** to thank Tuxedo Timmy. That's right. One of our best listeners.
**Gizmo:** I've never heard of him. Who writes us,
**Senator:** keeps us
**Gizmo:** accountable. And especially, I'm going to find his return address and send this all back with a, I'll drive you to the post office.
All right, boys, we are wrapping up again. Our fourth New Year's Eve. I can't believe I'm saying that this is our fourth New Year's Eve episode and what a great year it's been. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** And I will say the emails that we got tonight were very, very good. Yes. Excellent. Especially the note from Timmy. Yeah. And the other email was very heartfelt.
That was, that was a familiar friend. Yeah, he is. Thank you. That [02:22:00] was, that was great.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, a great night tonight. We had a great cigar and two great pairings with it. Let's go through it one more time. We had the VUV Clicquot, the La Grande Dame, vintage 2015 scored a 10. 0. The Heinz Cigar Reserve XO Cognac scored a 10.
0. And finally, our cigar. The Cohiba Esplendidos scored a 10. 0. First time we've ever had three 10s
**Bam Bam:** ever
**Gizmo:** on a podcast.
**Bam Bam:** Unreal.
**Gizmo:** Unbelievable. Happy New Year. Unbelievable. Happy
**Pagoda:** New Year.
**Gizmo:** Happy New Year to all you boys. Love you all. Happy New Year to, uh, Lizard Nation. And, uh, we'll see everybody next week.
Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website loungelizardspod. com. That's lounge lizards, P O D dot com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you want to reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking.
Email us. Hello at lounge lizards, pod. [02:23:00] 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.