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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!
Ep. #199: Liga Privada H99 Toro (w/ Heaven Hill 7 Year Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon, RIP Flory Padrón, Tell-Tale Signs of an Aged Cigar, Stalk Cut Tobacco, Bam Jr. Goes to College, Senator Jr. Turns 3 & Fuente/Meerapfell International Distro Ends)
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Gizmo: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast, presented by Fabric of five. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Center Chef Ricky and bam bam.
And our plan to smoke cigar, drink some bourbon, talk about life, and of course have some laughs. So take this as your 199th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Gonna be this here once a week. We are gonna smoke a new world cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard raining.
We share the telltale signs of an aged cigar. We learn about stock cut tobacco and bam bam takes his son to college, 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 Heaven Hill. Seven year bottled and bond Kentucky Strai bourbon whiskey with a Lika Bravada, H 99 in Toro.
A Toro on the pod from Nicaragua tonight. [00:01:00] It's the Liga Bravada H 99 in Toro from Drew Estate, and it's a 52 ring gauge cigar by six inches long. And boys, it's episode 199. So I was trying to get creative about brands we haven't done in a while. I was thinking about doing the Padron Black label 99, that new 60 ring gauge by seven inch or something.
Cigar.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: And instead we're going with the H 99 from Liga Bravada tonight.
Bam Bam: I'm glad you made this choice. I had that cigar the other night.
Gizmo: Oh, you did? I did not like it. Oh, we have to talk about that.
Bam Bam: Oh boy. This is twice now. No, that thing, he's the black label. He doesn't like the black label. Yes. You're definitely out.
Like I, I'll bet you won't like it. Hmm. There's just something about that vila, that dimension. It's, it's, yeah, it's a Gordo and it's, it's actually, it's like a Gordo extra. And the draw was so wide open. It was uncomfortable. Yeah. But this is a beautiful cigar.
Gizmo: I gotta say Mayan. The veins on these wrappers, it is so pronounced.
Not, it almost looks like a, like a, [00:02:00] like a, like a bodybuilder who went to the gym and you can see his veins popping out. Like he has a pump. I don't have that. Look at mine. You can literally see the vein running down mine. I
Senator: have some of that,
Gizmo: but
Senator: Oh, look at that. Look at it. Wow. Oh, that's, that's crazy. Oh Jesus.
It goes all the way up to the top. That thing's on steroids, man. Got
Chef: some serious vascularity. And that's the go. That's correct. It's pretty wild. That's like
Senator: rooster's cabs. No, he got those fixed. He ain't lying.
Alright boys, let's
Chef: cut this thing. Sorry. Not nice but accurate. Fucking guy can catch a break even when he's not here.
Oh boy. Mm.
Gizmo: Nice. Cold draw. Mm-hmm. That's fruity. Very nice. Mm-hmm. Little musty too.
Chef: Yep. Mm. Little barny. Getting some savory here. Oh, I'm getting
Bam Bam: very fruit forward here for me. A berry of some kind.
Chef: Yeah. I'm getting cherry. I [00:03:00] coming through now. Little cedar. Mm-hmm.
Senator: Wow. The whole experience without even lighting.
It is great. Smell the wrapper. The wrapper smells delicious. It's fragrant. The cold draws flavorful. I'm impressed. The foot is cocoa for me. Yeah.
Gizmo: And barnyard
Senator: for me. But a clean, a clean barn.
Gizmo: It's a clean barn and a clean foot. All right, boys, let's light this thing. The League of Bravada, H 99 in Toro tonight from the folks over at Drew State.
And again, it's a 52 ring gauge cigar by six inches long. This, I believe tonight is the fourth Liga bravada we've done on the podcast. Of course, we've done some other Drew Estate cigars. We're not gonna talk about those tonight, but we will be reviewing the ratings that we did on the other three later in the program.
So we'll see how this does.
Chef: You know, I've always been a fan of the thicker [00:04:00] wrapper on Liga Prova. Yeah. Far as I feel
Bam Bam: like they could stand up to anything. Yeah. And this one does not look like it has the, uh, donut glaze. Mm-hmm. Yeah. On it, like the,
Gizmo: the mortar oil, the T 52 did the League of Nine. Yeah. And the League of Nine. Yeah.
Correct. I was a little nervous speaking of the thick wrapper on these. I was a little nervous when I got them that I, I was like, I hope that this wrapper is not like a flame retardant. 'cause it seemed that thick. Correct. Like some of the Cuban cigars we've talked about having real issue burning. I think, what was it, the, uh, was it the Kanye that we had a problem with that box?
Yeah. We
Senator: both did.
Gizmo: Didn't we split a box? I don't know what happened, but there was a, or we each had a box that very similar. The rappers were so thick like this, and they, they're like flame retardant. You can't, you can't light them. I don't
Bam Bam: remember Kanye being like that.
Senator: That's the thing. It was abnormal. I mean, any Kanye had prior was like a thin wrapper.
Yeah. But this one box that we got, like almost every Cuban, the thickest wrapper I've ever seen on a Cuban cigar must have been made in Nicaragua. [00:05:00]
Gizmo: This is delicious on the light here.
Senator: It's very good. This is excellent.
Chef: Yeah. Yes.
Gizmo: So I went for Toro in this, and I'll go through the history. There's a long history of this cigar.
I found it really interesting putting it together. I went for the Toro in this because when the H 99 was originally launched, this was the first and only size for quite some time. So now they have other sizes. Line, classic, you know, drew estate just kind of continually introducing an additional vitola.
But this is the OG in the H 99.
Senator: What's the ring gauge? 'cause I feel like this is slightly smaller than a lot of toros and I really like it. This is a 52. Okay. That's why I, so it's not a 54. That's the thing I love. Uh, 52 ring gauge in the hand. 54. I don't mind, but it, it doesn't feel as elegant. This, this feels great in the hand.
Gizmo: Again, I, when, you know, thinking of the construction and, and kind of judging it before we even get here, when I was holding them, I was like, this is a dense cigar. Are we gonna have draw problems, thick wrapper? Are we gonna have burn problems? Is there gonna be [00:06:00] combustion issues? And all of those three right now are non excellent.
Yeah. Excellent.
Senator: On
Gizmo: all three.
Senator: Yeah. I took very little off when I cut it. Mm-hmm. And
Bam Bam: it's
Gizmo: wide open.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: Same. Yep.
Bam Bam: So did I, I will say I'm getting a ton of cocoa on the retro hill.
Gizmo: What are you guys getting on the, uh, the normal draw?
Bam Bam: I'm still getting, I'm getting a good amount of cocoa, a little banana.
Type
Senator: thing happening for me. I'm also getting like raspberry. It's like a tart berry with cocoa.
Gizmo: I was gonna say, there's something bitter or tart going on for me
Chef: there. I'm getting multiple flavors here. Like there's layers upon layers. Everything from cocoa to cherry to some citrus happening here. Little coffee.
It, it's really cherries odd. Cherry's there for me too, to get so much out of. I don't may maybe the fourth draw at this point, but there's like a lot of layers here. How much are these?
Gizmo: So these are 18 bucks. Retail. We got 'em a little cheaper than that, but for a Toro, it's still not this. [00:07:00] That's not bad.
Yeah, that's not bad today in today's market. Yeah. For a cigar of this size and
Bam Bam: for what we're getting right
Gizmo: now. Yeah. Flavor's. Excellent. Yes.
Senator: Is there anything with the naming conventions that Liga uses, like the H 99, the T 52, like what do these letters stand for mean?
Gizmo: Generally it's some strain of tobacco that they're using.
The League of series was like a real, it was a focus on the Connecticut tobacco culture, which obviously I'm sure Nick Maleo was driving when he was the blender over there. Now it's Willie Herrera. But um, the H 99 specific to this cigar is, it's a hybrid wrapper on the cigar. It's a Connecticut Carro Roho 99 and a T 52 Hano.
So that's the T 52 hano that they use on the T 52. It was put together married. With the Connecticut Roho from 1999. So that's where they get H 99. It's the hybrid 99. Yeah.
Senator: Gotcha.
Gizmo: [00:08:00] So while we're at it, boys, the binder is Mexican, San Andres o tapin and Negro Ultimo. Corte. And the filler comes from a bunch of different places.
Nicaragua, Honduras, and Pennsylvania. Green River, one sucker. I don't know what that means, but that is straight from their website. Oh man.
Bam Bam: So we'll go through the history in a little bit. I've always found the bands to be beautiful.
Chef: Mm-hmm.
Bam Bam: They're interesting. There's a little handwritten signature there. And I love the logo,
Chef: didn't it remind you slightly of, uh, like architect, an architect's handwriting or an engineer's handwriting? There's something, yeah.
Not mine, but Yes.
Bam Bam: But the color of the, of the logo is beautiful.
Gizmo: And they change it for each of the lines. That's correct. I think one's blue. Yeah.
Bam Bam: One deep, deep blue. Almost cracked.
Gizmo: It's very, yeah. Like a navy. Very dark navy. Yeah. Yeah. This one's more of a
Bam Bam: copper. Copper, yeah. Brown. It's beautiful. With, uh, gold emblem.
Gizmo: I've always liked the [00:09:00] lion emblem. They've, they have
Bam Bam: me too. Yeah. It's very handsome. Yeah. Wow. This is. Quite good for 18 bucks.
Senator: Yeah. It's like just the flavor is so satisfying. It's delicious. I don't need to draw this super frequently. Like No, I just took a draw. I actually put it down for a second. Like I'm still getting tons of flavor, like does have a, I could just settle in for like hours.
It feels like this. It's got a very long finish.
Chef: Yeah.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Chef: Forever finish Great value. It's still getting layers of flavor here.
Gizmo: Hmm. So as I said, the Leika bravado does have quite a few olas Now, as I said, this was the original, the Toro, these come in boxes of 24. They also have a Robusto 54 by five, not 50 by five box of 24.
They have a Corona Doble 54 by seven box of 24, and then they have two final, they have a Poppas Fritas pack of 25 and they have a Papas Frita in a box of [00:10:00] 25. Mm-hmm. That is 44 by four and a third inches long.
Bam Bam: That's an interesting thing where they're doing the Poppas Fritas in each line or several lines.
That's very cool.
Senator: I never realized that. Yeah, because we always just say the Papa Fritas and we're only thinking about like in the League of nine line. That's correct. That's amazing. You can get a little short smoke of this. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: And it's not terribly priced. 25 cigars, 170 bucks, 165 bucks. I can't.
It's great.
Bam Bam: It's not bad. That's a great end of evening smoke.
Gizmo: I'm digging the cigar right now, dude.
Bam Bam: Very satisfied.
Gizmo: Great opening. I haven't had a cigar, I don't know, in two days, and this is a great return. That's a problem. It is. That's the longest stretch I've had in quite some time. All right, boy. So let's talk about the development and blending of the League of Bravada H 99.
I really liked the story. So this was first unveiled in 2018. It was the first new core Liga Bravada blend in nine years. So Jonathan Drew went to Willie Herrera and said. Hey, the 10th [00:11:00] anniversary's coming up for League of Bravada. We need to do something special and do something cool. So he challenged him to create something that both lived up to what they viewed as the League of Legacy and push it forward for the brand's 10 year anniversary.
The result was the H 99 Connecticut Roho, which of course is we have in our hand, was launched in the Toro, featuring a special hybrid wrapper we just talked about, which this wrapper, by the way, this hybrid is grown in the Connecticut River Valley. So the wrapper is a unique seed bred to thrive in Connecticut's climate.
And as I said, it's a marriage of Roho 99 and drew a state stock cut Hano, which is used on the T 52. If you remember, we talked to Steve Saka about stock cut tobacco, which is instead of taking the leaves individually and letting the plant continue to produce, they cut it when the stock, the plant is fully grown.
And then that is what they take. So there's no continuing iterations of tobacco coming off of those plants. They stock cut them, [00:12:00] and that is the end of the plant. So that's, Steve was saying it's a much more expensive process because of the labor involved with that, and also the fact that they only get one yield out of those plants.
Chef: I wonder if there's something there to higher concentration of flavor.
Senator: Well, it's weird because it, it goes both ways because what a lot of them do is they remove the, the, the prims of leaves. Except for the top. Mm-hmm. And the nutrients all then shoot up to the top, and those leaves get super concentrated in flavor and they're also getting the most sunlight.
That's right. So it's like, there's kind of two ways you can go about it. I mean, I assume the first yield probably is the most flavorful, so that's what they're going for. But also, if you remove most of the lower prims and just keep the top, like those top leaves will get really flavorful, but just not in as, I guess, fast of a quantity as the whole plant.
Gizmo: So because Rojo tobacco traditionally grows best in warm climates like Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominican, Dominican Republic, Florida, or Honduras, it was quite an experiment to grow it in New England Herrera and the Drew Estate team spent [00:13:00] years working with one farmer, a single farmer in Connecticut, to develop and ferment this hybrid leaf making it disease resistant, yet retaining the roho spicy and robust flavor.
So what they say is it's yielded after a lot of time and ultra premium wrapper that's elegant, distinct, and truly exclusive to Dega H 99. So this can't be found anywhere else. And I do love that we're smoking a cigar that the wrapper was grown in Connecticut. That's true.
Senator: I mean, I hate to say it, but can you imagine how much cheaper this would be if it weren't grown in Connecticut and how much easier it would've been for them?
Mm-hmm. It's true. I mean, this is like totally a, was mallow there when this all happened? No, this was, they
Gizmo: were already gone. Really after. Wow. Yeah. So I think Maleo left in 2014. Okay. 2015. Same around the same time as Saka. So he has been out of there, I think, almost 10 years. And how we know that is. The foundation, I think was celebrating their 10 year anniversary this year at PCA, so he's been out of there at least that long.
Senator: I'm just amazed that anyone else was as passionate about Connecticut as [00:14:00] ow to actually labor to do this. There.
Gizmo: It's pretty crazy that they're able to accomplish that. It seems very challenging. So Jonathan Drew said that after Cube's revolution, ROHO seed was grown elsewhere and with only a little bit of success, it took hybridization to rebirth the leaf, and he always uses that word rebirth.
That's in Drew a state's motto, the rebirth of cigars, rebirth, the leaf with its spice and pot potency. Intact hybridization is a farm level process utilized for decades to create tobacco that is disease resistant, but is also to de display the qualities of an unmatched kappa. That's what Jonathan Drew said when he was talking about this.
Willie Herrera has described how they experimented at La Grand Fabrica Drew estate their factory by fermenting Connecticut grown Roho alongside Creo Craft, crafting numerous test blends. Ultimately, they chose the blend using a San Andres O Tappen Negro Ultima Corte binder, and like we said, the other filler from Honduras and Nicaragua [00:15:00] and Pennsylvania.
And that's that. Tobacco, as we know, is called the Green River one sucker.
Bam Bam: Nice.
Gizmo: Quite a name there,
Bam Bam: your linguistics are improving.
Gizmo: So the H 99 was in initially released in very limited quantities, only in the Toro 52 by six that we have in our hand due to the low yield of the hybrid wrapper in the early harvest.
So it was very, very hard to find. Kind of aligns with, as we've talked about before, with our memories of league years ago, how people were smoking them a lot chasing them, really trying to find them. I think that scarcity thing that was happening for them, which wasn't on purpose, was really benefiting the kind of lore around Drew estate.
And I think now, I don't know, my feeling is that it's fallen off a little bit.
Bam Bam: I agree. There was a moment though you couldn't find them anywhere.
Gizmo: So do you guys see people smoking drew a estate these days?
Bam Bam: All, all the shops and lounges I go to, it's, I don't ever see it.
Chef: They go through spurts where they're really hard to get online, you know, like they just seem like they're outta [00:16:00] stock, you know, unless you're looking for a Papa Fritos or something like that.
But there, there's, there's these, uh, ups and downs of when you can get 'em and what seems like all over the place. And then times where you can't get 'em anywhere. I feel earlier on in my journey I was smoking a little bit more liga, Bravada 'cause they were more readily available. Sure. But yeah, I haven't gotten heavy into them in a very long time.
But this is a really good cigar. I, I did a little research on stock cut tobacco versus primed tobacco. Okay. Really interesting stuff here. Uh, but in short. It looks like, uh, stalk cut's gonna give us a bolder, more concentrated, uh, often with deep earth espresso, dark chocolate, and rich peppery spice, which I'd say I'm finding I'm getting that here.
Yeah. This cigar all over the place. Correct. Heavier chewy smoke. Right. Smoke output is great in the room. Um, and on the
Gizmo: palette it is kind of chewy. Yeah.
Bam Bam: There's something nourishing about the cigar.
Chef: Mm-hmm. And satisfying. Yeah. Oily, lush. Leaving a lingering long, a long lingering finish. [00:17:00] I think we're experiencing that as well.
Um, says to think of stalk cut cigars that a slow cook, brisket dense, smoky, rich, and layered. And then, uh, prime cigars a cleaner. Uh, prime Tobacco is cleaner, lighter, more nuanced, sweetness than cedar, sometimes brighter spice medium to full, thinner smoke, more refined on the tongue. Um, more think of a grilled steak, but not as heavy or oily as a brisket, which I think are two good comparison.
This is how
Senator: Chad GBT knows they're talking to a chef. That's correct. That's a good point. Exactly right. Lemme put this's hilarious in terms you'll understand.
Chef: No, but I think it nailed it. I I'm getting a lot of that, uh, flavor and texture here. Oh yeah. Um,
Gizmo: do you like the comparison to like the brisket thing versus steak?
A hundred percent. A
Chef: hundred percent. Yeah. I've been, uh, over the summer I was able to smoke a few briskets, uh, not too [00:18:00] successfully. I'd say if I did four, one came out perfect. Another came out good and another one was serviceable. The other one was, shit.
Senator: I'll tell you, your guy talked to Grindr. Yeah. He can smoke meat.
It is crazy. Oh yeah. Our first episode we ever recorded, he brought a cooler That's right. Full of meat. That's correct. That he smoked Delicious to my house. When we were recording there, we had a feast after we recorded It was awesome and no joke. And I said this to him at the time, like, if I didn't think it was great, I would tell him.
Yeah. It was excellent. Yeah. Wow.
Gizmo: First episode, huh? Correct. Crazy coming up on 200 next week. Haven't had it since. Wow. That's a good point. What the hell? What happened? It's like marriage. Correct.
So as I mentioned, there's been constant releases of New Ola is the most recent, is the Phineas Gauge Landero 40 ring gauge [00:19:00] by seven. And the rib robusto 54 by five. The, uh, five and a half, excuse me, that was released in 2022. And they often release those on, they do these freestyle, live stream events, barn smoker events, et cetera.
So that is where most of these new releases are coming from. So the allotment is starting to increase or has been increasing across the, across the country and across the world. And I think you can pretty much find these anywhere now. Really? Yeah. Any little shop. I found these in a little shop down by my house.
No problem. I was looking for 'em. I called them up, they said, oh yeah, we have every Ola. Nice. So
Chef: do you think the League of Smoker is just a different smoker than the ones we surround ourselves with and that's why we don't see it often?
Gizmo: I don't know. I, I, I think it's a premium cigar. No, I agree. You know what I mean?
I agree. I think it's just a
Senator: different demo. I, I think it's a really good question. I'm not sure that it's a different demo. I think that the way they've branded themselves has kind of. Excluded people like us who don't, and and I say that because who don't go to
Chef: [00:20:00] barn, barn smokes and whatever.
Senator: Not necessarily that
Gizmo: you don't see Senator, a barn smoker.
Senator: I just mean like guys that don't pursue very, very full flavored cigars. And the thing that is, you know, funny is smoking this. This is not a strong cigar. This is a super flavorful cigar and very smooth, right? Smooth as can be. I mean, I'm not getting no any heavy nicotine. Mm-hmm. I don't feel in any way overwhelmed or overpowered by the cigar.
But I think that like the Liga brand is perceived as like a really full in your face smoke that like, is more aggressive. And I think that's why a lot of smokers like us don't necessarily gravitate toward it. I mean, I'm always interested in trying random things, but like I would never have picked up this cigar just because I think of Liga as being so full bodied that it's probably not gonna fit in a rotation of five [00:21:00] cigars in a night.
That's right. I'd pick that up if I was gonna have one cigar in the night. Sure. Yeah. But smoking this, I mean, I could have four other cigars, you know, before, after this and feel okay. Mm-hmm.
Bam Bam: I, I kind of think that Liga nine may have, um, affected our opinion of that overall Marco, possibly
Gizmo: you're saying from all those episodes ago when we were, when we reviewed it or you're saying?
Bam Bam: Yeah. And, and I've had it since then. And it, it, you know, that that cigar is quite the full flavored cigar. You kind of make an assumption that almost all of their other cigars are kind of kind of be like that, so you tend to stay away from it if that's not your thing. Yeah. You know,
Senator: I also don't think that that cigar has like any lighter, brighter notes, flavor notes in it.
No. Where like this is very balanced. Like I'm getting like fruit notes and the cocoa that you would expect in like a league of nine or something, and a little bit of spice
Gizmo: that you expect from Nicaragua. For sure.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Yeah. Honestly for me, this is very cocoa forward. Cocoa. Like a chocolate covered cherry.
Yeah. For me is very accurate. Chocolate covered cherry while sipping some espresso possibly. Yes. Yeah, [00:22:00] it's the, it's a, that's all there. Yeah.
Gizmo: I think too, going back to the League of Nine thing, I think the reason why it hasn't entered our conversation is I think number one, our experience with it as we reviewed it, you know, I, on episode 10 or 12 or something, it did well.
It did okay. It wasn't amazing. The experiences we've had since then with other cigars in the line. And also the fact that I think right now, at this point in this cigar, this is definitely the most flavorful and interesting to Senator's point that I've had. Mm-hmm. From Liga. So the other ones just can't compete.
I
Bam Bam: agree with
Gizmo: the cigars in that slot, in my rotation, be it the Padron stuff now the aging room stuff where, where I'm slotting in Nicaragua cigars mm-hmm. They don't even enter the conversation for me is they're not even competing for that slot. But this, this is pretty damn
Bam Bam: good. This takes you by surprise.
It's, it's a little surprising how well this is smoking. The smoothness, the creaminess and the flavor
Senator: and, and the complexity. Oh, yeah. [00:23:00] That, that's what I'm most impressed by. Right. Like the League of Nine, the, the flavor notes are pretty straightforward. They're notes that we like, but I, I don't know that I've ever heard anyone really describe A League of Nine is complex.
They just describe it as flavorful. The fact that this has, like, the range of like from fruit to, you know, chocolate, like, it, it kind of covers all bases that you'd want in a cigar. So. That's right. I think that's why this is a whole lot more interesting than stuff we've had before. Yep.
Chef: And I think the s blended beautifully.
'cause even with those stronger, you know, uh, chocolate espresso notes, I'm still getting some of that hondu and leaf coming through. Right. And that's where some of those brighter notes are coming. Mm. And I, I think they, they did a great job with this.
Gizmo: Mm-hmm. Yeah. As of right now, they did. I mean, I mean, I'm hoping that either there continues in, uh, where we're going now or improves because I, I'm just waiting for that nose dive to happen.
You know, a after we get out of the first third,
Bam Bam: are you retroing every draw?
Gizmo: Not every draw. Maybe every three to four. I'm retroing
Bam Bam: every single draw. Same. It's hard. [00:24:00] Yeah. It's so good. It's hard not to. How's your burn line guys?
Gizmo: I've had to touch it up twice.
Bam Bam: So there's one little drawback I think is that the ash is not as, um, intact.
It does flake off a little bit. That's not a demerit 'cause it's such a delicious cigar. But there is a little bit of that happening.
Gizmo: I'm not in that kind of, um, effortless place where I don't have to think about the burn and yeah, the combustion, some of the draws, I'm not getting a ton of smoke my mouth.
Well, you're not drawing a lot
Chef: either. So that's happening to me now. I'm finding, I'm purging a little bit, hoping to kind of relate the tobacco from within. And
Gizmo: I'm almost wondering, and I've done this before on League of Cigars, I'm almost wondering if I should take
Chef: more off, a
Gizmo: little bit more off to
Chef: create better flow because
Gizmo: I, I feel like what I'm gonna get pulling on it like this is gonna be a tar blast.
Chef: Hmm.
Senator: That's a good point. I mean, it, it hasn't been effortless for me. I haven't had to touch it up, but I have had to like consciously rotate the cigar and draw. [00:25:00] To heat up parts that are not burning evenly to try to correct it. So there is a little bit of a problem construction wise. Mm-hmm. I think
Gizmo: it might just
Senator: be the thickness of this wrapper could be.
And poor
Gizmo: chefs, uh, looks like pagoda right now.
Bam Bam: It's covered in ash. I'm trying not to be pagoda. Right. I'm constantly cleaning my t-shirt here.
Gizmo: Have you guys smelled the burn line? Yes. Oh, it smells great. Incredible. Yeah, it's like baking spice. It is.
Bam Bam: Wow. Yeah. A little nutmeg and maybe some cinnamon
Gizmo: and a little, yeah.
Like, isn't that there? There's a little bit of a flare to the nose, but not bad. Like, it's totally surprising.
Chef: Yeah, it, it's, it, there's baking spice, but a little spice too. I don't, you know, maybe cayenne or black pepper there, but that's quite spicy. You know what's funny
Gizmo: is honestly, uh, you know, inside baseball, as I always say when we talk about behind the scenes stuff, but when I saw this cigar, I didn't know the story of it.
Obviously I thought the H [00:26:00] 99, I thought it stood for Honduras because there is Honduran tobacco in this. So honestly, I went for this because I was like, oh, let's try liga. We've been on a run with Honduras cigars, loving Hondura cigars and finding out that it's not the case, but it's certainly delivering more than I expected, honestly, tonight.
Oh yeah. Alright boys. So. Before we get into some news stories, let's go to our pairing tonight.
Chef: Hmm.
Gizmo: I wanna try this. I'm very, very curious. So we have the Heaven and Hell, hill
Chef: Heaven.
Gizmo: The Heaven Hill, Kentucky, Rait, bourbon, whiskey, age seven years, bottled in bond, which as we know, we've talked about bottle and bond bourbons before.
It's a 50% alcohol by volume bourbon tonight.
Bam Bam: Before you take a drink though, put it, put your nose in there. It's like, um, icing. It's like a, a bakery type thing happening for that
Senator: is spot on. Right? Like a, like icing on a cake on. It's ridiculous. [00:27:00] I haven't smelled like, I remember as like a kid, you know, like cheap icing.
You'd get in, like, some kind of like container or something. That is fucking impressive. Yeah. No, really? No, no, no. I used to eat tubs of that shit when I was, I used to love it. I haven't smelled that. Yeah. Since I was a child. And he's spot on. It's exactly what it smells like. Are you saying
Gizmo: what's, what's the brand that are you talking about?
That brand that comes in? Oh, what's that called? That Peter Red Top? Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Betty Crocker. Betty Crocker. Yeah.
Chef: Yeah. See, I, I, I'm, I'm a New York boy, like, you know, urban New York City kid. So for me it's the honey bun glaze. Mm-hmm. Love that too. Used to love that too. But no, you, you nailed that, you said, and yeah.
I can't believe that.
Gizmo: Cheers. I haven't taken a sip yet. Cheers boys. Good to see you.
So we all, instead of putting any ice in this, I didn't, I did. We're we're becoming bourbon purists. Correct. And all of us, I think [00:28:00] put a splash of water. Yeah. Just this little sploosh. That's right. Sploosh would say, pagoda would say, except
Bam Bam: for chef.
Chef: I'm gonna do this next one with water, but I wanted to just get this Yeah.
Out the bottom and see what it was like first.
Bam Bam: Um, it's pretty tasty. It's, I'm liking it. Yeah. I think it's good.
Gizmo: I think letting it sit for the first, you know, 25 minutes we've been recording. I think it's definitely opened up and some that heat's gone off.
Bam Bam: How are you, how are you finding the sweetness on this?
Chef: I like it. Yeah. I'm going to guess you're getting more sweetness than I am. I'm getting sweetness, but I'm also getting a little pepperiness. Yeah. A little spice, you know, bake like heavier baking spice because I didn't have the water.
Gizmo: It's nice. It is sweet. I think I, I don't know if I would say that the sweetness is the problem.
I would say the way the sweetness lingers in the finish. Well, I have, that's what it keeps like hitting me. I
Bam Bam: love that. I'd rather have the sweetness on a finish than on the, on the sip and let it kind of develop. Um, I'm not saying it's a problem, but it's, it's definitely there. [00:29:00]
Senator: I just like how it pairs with the cigar.
Oh, I think it's great.
Bam Bam: Great. Because I think
Senator: with the cigar we've been talking about like the, the sweet notes, but also a little spice. Mm-hmm. A little pepper. Um, and the bourbon, it, it's kind of in that same
Bam Bam: family. Yeah. But with that touch of water, I'm not getting any burn. In this at all. Yeah.
Gizmo: I think it's really great.
Bam Bam: Yeah. I'll need a refill.
Gizmo: Well, there's only four of us tonight, so that's not gonna be a problem. Correct.
Chef: I tell you what gives, um, if you don't draw on this thing consistently, it's, it goes out on you rather quickly.
Gizmo: That's what I'm noticing. Yeah. When I'm, when I'm talking
Chef: Yeah.
Bam Bam: It's going out. I
Chef: think it has everything to do with the thickness of the wrapper
Bam Bam: Yeah.
And the burn line just to touch uneven.
Chef: Mm-hmm. And it's so satisfying and fulfilling that you don't wanna constantly draw on it.
Bam Bam: Well, honestly, I want to constantly draw on it because it's so damn good. It is good. No, I don't wanna stop.
Gizmo: I'm, and by the way, boys, I'm powering right through that vein burning right through it.
[00:30:00] Don't you worry Over here. I'm good.
Bam Bam: Little anabolic anabolics going on over there. He's, he's a phlebotomist. All of a sudden
Senator: you, you're literally powering through that cigar. Look at yours compared to chefs or bams. Yeah. My goodness. They've got like double the cigar. Oh, look at this guy. Look at this.
You're outta control this most, like more than halfway through.
Gizmo: So boys, we're at the end of the first third here on the league of Bravada, H 99 in Toro. I think everybody knows how we're feeling right now. I think I know what the room is feeling. I think this is a really good cigar,
Bam Bam: great pairing. Mm-hmm.
And the
Chef: pairings
Bam Bam: very good. It's delicious. Yeah.
Gizmo: I'm gonna slow down
Chef: smoking for a minute. You know something about this. It, it is very creamy actually. The cigar, the, the smoke being so chewy itself. Mm-hmm. But the cigar, the, it, the, the flavor on it is also quite creamy. I enjoy, I'm enjoying that. I thought it was gonna be a spice bomb, but I'm happy it's time.
I,
Bam Bam: I was too.
Chef: Yeah.
Bam Bam: I'd buy the cigar. Yep. $18. Especially with the cooler [00:31:00] months coming up.
Gizmo: I think you can get it cheaper than that band. I'm sure you
Bam Bam: can
Gizmo: online, you know, like holiday sales and stuff, you know.
Bam Bam: Yeah. You know, we do smoke a lot of different cigars. Where this slot's in right now, I kind of don't know, but as the fall comes in, I can see this making a, uh, an appearance maybe once every two weeks.
Gizmo: Alright boys, so let's talk about our bourbon a little bit. This is a pretty cool history here from Heaven Hill. So, heaven Hill Distillery launched its first namesake bottled in bond bourbon. Again, bottled in bond, meaning that its 50% alcohol by volume. That's a regulated. A BV and process that bourbons go through to be considered bottled and bond.
Just four years after the Distillery's founding, which was in 1935, the original release, the old Heaven Hill, 4-year-old bottled and bond was a hit and quickly became the number one selling bourbon in Kentucky in the late 1930s. It was a point of pride for the [00:32:00] Shapira family who were the founders, and they waited a full four years to release a bonded bourbon as opposed to releasing younger whiskey.
Max Shapira, the president of Heaven Hill, often notes that this patient paid off not only in 1939, but has continued to guide the company for decades. The bottled and bond line from Heaven Hill remained a constant through the years adapting with the times, and then in 2018 they launched the 27-year-old bottled and bond very limited ultra age release.
I can't imagine how much that bottle is. By the way, how much was this? So this was only 50 bucks. Alright. Pretty good. Very good. Yeah, that's a good price. Yeah. So this is interesting too. They had a very popular six year bottled in bond, which was famously known to bourbon enthusiasts simply as the white label due to its label.
The 6-year-old bonded bourbon was for many years a Kentucky only hidden gem sold for a shockingly, shockingly low price between 12 and 15 do dollars. [00:33:00] And it developed a cult following as perhaps the best value bourbon in America in 2018. Heaven Hill announced that the six year bottled in bond, this special one that you got really cheap would be discontinued.
Of course. I'm guessing they saw the, the tea leaves and, and saw the, you know, lost revenue potential there. Yep. In charging 40 or $50 for their bottles instead of 12 to 15. So they replaced the six year bottle in bond with the seven year bottle in bond and then released it for 50 bucks.
Bam Bam: Oh, that one year makes a difference.
Gizmo: So this was the successor to the sixth year and is the now the flagship for the Heaven Hill distiller and, uh, I think it's a pretty damn good bourbon. It's,
Bam Bam: it's tasty.
Gizmo: This you can drink anytime. What do you think of the 50%? I know that we talked sometimes about a BV, most of the single malt scotches that we drink and tequilas are in the low forties.
Mm-hmm. Obviously, most bourbons don't. Even [00:34:00] touched anywhere in the forties.
Bam Bam: Well, let's ask Chef 'cause he hasn't adulterated his drink.
Chef: Yeah, I think on the front of the palate it starts a little spicy, but then the finish, you know, just washes it away. It ends sweet. You get a lot of baking spice, almond.
I'm actually enjoying it. I'm afraid that if I add water it's gonna get super sweet on me. You know, I'm liking it more and more.
Bam Bam: Yeah, it's just, it's really good with each sip, it just gets better and better.
Gizmo: And is that sweetness kind of, is your palate adjusted that, is it still bothering you? It's
Bam Bam: kind of dissipating.
It's more balanced now, but there is that little touch of sweetness, which makes it really nice and easy to drink.
Senator: And I think the heat feels appropriate, which I like a touch of it, you know, it's like we've had plenty of bourbons that are 50% and like they drink hot. I don't, I think this drinks a little bit hot, but not in a way that is at all offensive or that feels aggressive.
So I, I like it. No motor roll tonight.
Gizmo: All right boys. So let's go to some news now. We have a bunch of stuff to talk about tonight. A lot of things going on. [00:35:00] We're gonna start with some sad news. Unfortunately, I saw this and I'd like to talk about it. George Padron of Padron Cigars announced that his mother passed away.
Chef: Oh,
Gizmo: Flory. Padron died on August 15th, 2025.
And George put out this statement. It is with profound sorrow that I announced the passing of, of our beloved matriarch, Flory Padron. My mother was both foundational and vital. To the development of Pedro Cigars while my father and family patriarch Jose Orlando Padron. Was focused on building the company.
Our mother was steadfastly and quietly working behind the scenes, creating a loving and nurturing home for our family. Her work was at the core of what has made our company successful, and she kept us humble, grateful, and united. My father was always at the forefront leading our company, but he always knew that he had something covering his back no matter what the circumstances.
Over the years, I began to realize just how important she was to Pedro cigars and to our family. I would think about how unselfish she was, always putting [00:36:00] the good of the family and business needs ahead of her own. She was a natural born leader in her own right, secure and confident, allowing my father the space and support to forge our company ahead.
She had her priorities straight and never wavered from what had to be done. She's always been an in inspiration to me. I hope that all future generation of Pedro Drones learn from the way she lived her life. Running any business takes tremendous sacrifice. Running a family business is sometimes even harder.
There can be no ego in a family business. There simply has to be the willingness to work and push forward together. This is the most important lesson I learned from her, for which I will always be thankful. I expect all future generations of patron drones to live by her family code. This is what will keep us united.
I wanna take this moment to share these personal thoughts about my mother. It's important for those who understand who we are as a company to understand the importance of her contributions. I do not want her legacy to go unnoticed. As, without her leadership, compassion, guidance, and commitment to the family, Padron cigars [00:37:00] would not be where it is today.
We cherish our loving memories of Flor. She's greatly missed and will forever be in our hearts. Hansa and poss Mommy, George Padron. Wow. Great statement. That's why I wanted to read it. I mean, we have always talked about every time we review a a, a Padron cigar, we talk about the family nature of the business, how that consistent thread translates in every cigar that you smoke from them.
There's, it's, it's always what you expect or, or better. Yeah. And if you're, and it's because of these kind of principles,
Bam Bam: if you're lucky enough to meet them in person, you get that family feeling immediately. Right. You're kind of, you're surrounded by all the kids. His wife's there, he's there, extended family's there.
It's, it's incredible.
Senator: I mean, as far as I'm concerned, she birthed the ex vo, I mean, she is a saint in my book. I mean, truly. Well, I thought Rooster did that, but that's what I heard.[00:38:00]
Uh, but no, seriously, I mean, uh, just, you know, the Apple doesn't usually fall far from the tree and you know, we've obviously been, you know, lucky to spend, um, a good amount of time with, uh, with George. And you just see how that whole family carries themselves. And, you know, he said humble. I mean, obviously they've set the gold standard as far as quality and consistency in the entire industry, and.
Um, you know, they still act like they're this scrappy, you know, business that is just trying to, you know, uh, persist and, and do what it's, uh, supposed to. And I think it's, it's rare that you see people achieve the level of success that they have in their space that are still so humble, so family oriented, um, and they still feel small despite how, you know, big their operation is now.
And you know, it, it's cool to, you know, hear the influence that his mother I, I've clearly had on, you know, the entire family and how they operate and carry themselves.
Chef: I
Senator: tell you what, the
Chef: [00:39:00] cigar that's coming, it's gonna be a banger.
Gizmo: It's gonna be good.
Chef: Yeah,
Gizmo: absolutely. So Flory Padron was 91 years old. Wow.
Great life.
Bam Bam: God bless.
Gizmo: So our deepest condolences to George Padron and the entire family on the loss of their matriarch, their mother flory, and, uh, all our thoughts go out to them. Oh yeah. Alright. All right boys, here's one that's related to the cigar that we're smoking tonight. Drew Estate is now shipping the Liga Bravada 10th Rosario St.
DuPont Collection. You know where this is going? Oh yeah. So now for $3,600 you get a St. DuPont line two LIGA Bravada 10th anniversary lighter, the Stan Cutter, which is Liga Bravada 10th anniversary branded, and a Liga Bravada 10th anniversary biometric humidor. Geez. And how much am I paying for this?
3,600 ba. [00:40:00] Lot of value there. Say it, Pam. That's not bad. That's not that bad.
Bam Bam: Oh, come on.
Gizmo: So that's pretty wild. 3,600 bucks for two accessories and a biometric ter. I guess the biometric means that there's a fingerprint scanner on it so that nobody else in your household or your wife can get into your desktop.
Bam Bam: Yeah, because my wife's dying to get into my fucking humidor, my 13. You don't have cigars going missing?
Chef: Nah, my, my 13 year old's dying to get into my humidor that I believe if the thing doesn't fit in my tower, it's pretty useless. Correct. Wow.
Gizmo: So apparently there's an option to increase the price on this thing and retailers can add 20 liga bravada, 10 year anniversary, a savage feast.
Oh, great. Let's just increase the price. And the Savage Feast uses the feral flying pig Vila. Mm. Which is a 60 ring gauge by five and three eighths inches perfecto in the League of Bravado 10. Ann Blend, which is a hybrid Connecticut grown [00:41:00] Creo wrapper. So this one, as we know, is Roho. Mm-hmm. So it's not the one that we're smoking tonight.
A Mexican San Andres OTA Negra Ultima Corte Binder, which is the same binder that we have here and fillers from Nicaragua and Pennsylvania as we know. The latter. The Pennsylvania is a Green River. One sucker Lee Herro. So a lot of the cigar is very similar to what we have. Obviously the VI is different and the wrapper's different.
Uh, these cigars were originally released in 2021 at select events. Of course, the special Drew Drew estate events and now can be put together with the $3,600 s St. DuPont collection. And you can get that humidor right there. Ba for your desktop. Thank you.
Bam Bam: Uh, the attempt on the gimmicks that some of these cigar makers are, are going through, it's staggering.
Chef: I missed how many cigars came in.
Gizmo: None. But if you want to pay more than 3,600, you can add 20.
Chef: Wow.
Gizmo: It's a steal.
Chef: Wow.
Gizmo: I,
Chef: I don't
Gizmo: know what to say. I'm just staring. What the fuck? [00:42:00] I thought we were into the smoke cigars. No, we're buying accessories now, man. All right, so here's another one and I'm, I'm gonna tell you why I'm talking about this story.
I saw this on Half Wheel Cigars International is adding two, two new locations, one in Orlando and one in Kentucky. And the reason why I'm talking about this is I think the Cigars International in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is one of the best brick and mortar locations on the planet. That's true. I have been there several times while traveling back home and in the area, 'cause I grew up in Pennsylvania, as you know.
I think it's brilliant and the fact that folks in Orlando and Kentucky are gonna be able to experience a location like that. Massive chairs, they have beer on tap, incredible. Every inventory, the inventory is unbelievable. Great sales. And you know what I'll say is the best part for me, I actually found that the folks out there in Bethlehem actually really knew what they were talking about.
Mm-hmm. You know, most of the time you go to a big box retailer, I'm not gonna name the ones around here, the big box you walk in, these folks don't [00:43:00] know their ass from their elbow, but. A lot of little retailers don't know either. Also true out there. Those guys really know. Yeah, I was pretty impressed. So good luck to, uh, cigars International and congrats to the folks in Orlando and Kentucky who are gonna be getting, uh, new locations.
The Orlando one is gonna be east of Orlando or east of Universal Studios, which is pretty cool. 9,000 square foot and the other one is going to be in Newport, Kentucky. So there's a bunch of locations, uh, that Cigars International has. So check that out. If you're in the area, I think the more cigar lounges that open, the better.
Senator: Agreed. I, I'm sorry. You know, I'll look at that burn line. The cigar chef has had to touch up and try to fix his cigar, what, 10 times? Probably.
Chef: Yeah. I, you, I just took a picture 'cause it had a pretty impressive tunnel. It looked like I was looking into the eye of a volcano.
Bam Bam: Are you serious?
Chef: Down below. Down within there [00:44:00] was really bright ember, but sur it's, it's a wrapper.
The wrapper's too thick. It's not burning at the same rate that the rest of the tobacco is. Yeah. I'm looking
Bam Bam: at s my burn's uneven and been frustrating. It looks like the Rocky Mountains. Yeah. Yeah. I, I had some issues early on. I've only touched it up once, but it's actually pretty consistent right now.
It's still flaky. I will say
Gizmo: mine's been tough, obviously I've been talking a lot, so I'm having issues and then of course I'm pulling too hard to keep it going and get draw.
Senator: I'm just frustrated because the flavor was so great and I'm getting just frustrated and it, it's agitating me having to constantly be staring at the burn line.
Yeah. And touching it up and, but the twirling it in my hand. I mean, Jesus flavors so good though. It's still good. Yeah.
Chef: But it tastes so good. You just wanna smoke it. You just wanna f you, you, you don't wanna focus on anything. You, you wanna sit there and smoke it and you're cons constantly looking at this thing, trying to keep it going.
I don't know. I haven't had that issue. You're
Senator: lucky once, once, yeah. For me it's [00:45:00] significantly impacting my experience.
Gizmo: That's how I'm feeling too. It it, as I said earlier, it's not effortless, you know, like when you light a great cigar, you don't have to think about it and then you just hit it and it's kind of takes you the, to that euphoric state.
That's correct. This, it's not happening here. Yeah. I've
Senator: got a, I've got a nice tunnel in mind. Look at the, look at the hole there. Oh my Lord. Mm-hmm. And it's crazy 'cause there's this huge hole down here. Yeah. And if you look at what's lit, the top part without the hole is lit. Mm-hmm. And this whole bottom part now is not as out.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Wow. A lot of course, corrections needed. I have to say though, the flavor for me is still quite good.
Gizmo: I'm enjoying the flavor.
Bam Bam: I think it's awesome. It's delicious. Now I will say I had to, I, I refreshed my, my glass. I, I might need to do that too, with a little bit of heaven. Hell, I mean, hell, I took a sip.
It was, I I will it, I'm not sure how you're doing this without water because it is got really, it's got some kick. I had to put a little bit water in. It's back to, its delicious [00:46:00] self, huh?
Chef: All right. I'm gonna try the water on this one. Just do a little splash. Mm-hmm. Little splosh. There's a cork on this bottle, but it's not very snug at all.
No. Yeah.
Senator: Watching chef attempt to pour water in a glass is is something else.
Chef: Yeah. These water bottles are so flimsy. They
Gizmo: keep getting thinner and thinner.
Chef: Correct.
Gizmo: All right, boys. So two festivals have been announced. Obviously we talked about the Habanas Festival being announced on our, our recent Cuban episode, but now we're gonna talk about Nicaragua and the Dominican Poro Sabor, which is the Nicaragua SA Cigar Festival, has been announced for January 18th to the 23rd.
2026. So I would love to go to that. Yeah. Remember George Poone said we have to come visit. Yeah. So the price on that though is $2,600 for a single ticket. [00:47:00]
Senator: I'll take the League of Human or said no one.
Bam Bam: Correct.
Gizmo: If it's, if you go on a shared double ticket, you get a little bit of a break. It's 5,000 bucks for two people in a single hotel room.
I guess it includes all accommodations, but 2,600 bucks for
Chef: the week. Yeah, you guys let me know how that, how that is.
Gizmo: Of course, this includes visits to the tobacco farms, cigar factories, box factories, and other facilities involved in the premium cigar industry during the day. And then of course, big festive gala dinners in the evenings, concluding on Friday, January 23rd with visits to the farm and factories, and then the gala, dinner and celebration that recognizes the country's cigar industry.
And then everybody goes home on Saturday? No, uh, January 24th. All right. So that's something to think about. And then the other one, this one's a big one as well for Dominican Cigar Lovers Pro Cigar 2026 has been announced for February 15th through 20th, 2026. I believe that's the [00:48:00] week before the Habanas Festival in Cuba, or two weeks before.
I think it's a week before. And very similar type of program. You get to go to a lot of factories. Uh, you get to visit, you know, some of the folks that make cigars there. The Santiago portion of that, I guess there's a couple different portions of the Pro Cigar Festival cost 2,500 bucks. So that includes events, meals, alcohol, cigars, and local transportation.
So registration is open. Um, if you register by August 31st, which obviously you won't because this episode will come out after that, uh, you will receive a 10% discount so you can register at any time. And important to say that both of these pure Seor and pro Cigar are open to anyone. You do not need to be a retailer affiliated with a distributor or something.
It's a lot easier to get into these two and a lot more secure than the Habanas Festival. So if you're gonna be an end cons, you know, an end user like we are, [00:49:00] uh, and, and folks out there listening to this are, you are able to go to either of these festivals, no problem. You just have to pay for your tickets.
So that's that. So I wonder, boys, are we gonna go to either of those?
Senator: I don't know. I mean, I think we'd like to go to both. I think we'll just have to work out scheduling. But, you know, we've all talked about Dominican. I mean, that's long overdue. Yeah.
Gizmo: I had a great time in the Dominican.
Senator: You did?
Gizmo: I really enjoyed going down there with Law Aurora, and I can't wait to go back.
I was totally blown away by the hospitality, the infrastructure. I mean, it was really beyond my, the
Bam Bam: factory
Gizmo: everything. Yeah. Yeah. How advanced everything was. Right. I guess being in Cuba and, and just having expectations of, you know, what the cigar culture is mm-hmm. In the Caribbean. I, I just, I was really surprised how advanced everything was.
It's pretty amazing. I would make the investment.
Senator: Yeah. Go. [00:50:00] Yeah. Yeah. And, and Nicaragua too. I mean, Nicaragua, you know, not as easy. I mean, obviously safety is, uh, does it include the machine? A little different there, but I mean, we, you know, Nicaragua tobacco was more prevalent than anything at this point.
Yeah. And we smoked so many cigars from there. I'd love to visit at some point.
Gizmo: Oh yeah. Quick note, the Pro Cigar Festival, the, I love the, uh, poster boys. It's called From Soil to Soul this year. Look at the event poster. Very nice. That's pretty cool. Oh,
Chef: that's very nice. That's nice.
Gizmo: Very nice. So check out the website for Pro Cigar or por seor if you are interested in going to either of those festivals.
Chef: So what I did notice about Bam cigar is the three of us are further along than he is, and I'm wondering if at some point soon he's gonna start experiencing the burn issues. Maybe the burnish has got intense for us. So I had to relight twice, so Okay.
Bam Bam: Course correct. One, a full relight. This was a full relight and I, I had to, I hadn't [00:51:00] taken the draw on him that's frustrated.
A fewing
Gizmo: for a near $20 cigar. Yeah.
Bam Bam: That I didn't like. I will have to say. So the, there's definitely performance problems here,
Gizmo: but the flavor's so good. That's what it's still, it's delicious. That's what's upsetting. It's every draw tastes great for me. It's still delicious.
Chef: Th That is interesting though.
I feel like in, in prior experiences, when you have to light a cigar as much as this, this one needed to be, you end up with a muddled flavor and then that's not happening here. So the flavor's still there and it's still clean and delicious. Uh, despite the constant relays.
Bam Bam: Yeah. I don't often get that if I relight right away.
If I put it down, I come back an hour later, it's almost un smokable. I
Gizmo: often have had that. I don't understand guys. And, and our buddy ov the other day was telling me, oh, he
Bam Bam: has quite the process. He has a whole
Gizmo: protocol. He told me the other day, he smoked three quarters of a cigar, three quarters of a cigar.
This guy put it on his window sill, went to bed the next day, came out, [00:52:00] came outside, took the cigar, lit it, smoked the rest of it. Like I can't do that. His windshield?
Bam Bam: Yes, he had his on his dashboard. I'm sorry, his dashboard.
Gizmo: No, it was outside. He said his windowsill. It was not inside the car. It was outside the car window sill
Bam Bam: on his, of his house.
Of the house.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Bam Bam: He put it like as he was walking in. You do know condensation forms overnight, right? Mm-hmm.
Chef: You can tell, you can tell EDF Okay. Oh my gosh. Fucking lantern fly secretions all over the place. Secretions.
Oh, EDF. We love you man.
Gizmo: So boys, we talked about this Marco, two weeks ago we did the ipi carillo, the Casa Carillo Encore Black and Ipi Carillo. The Casa Carillo family has launched the indoor Corona Gorda, and this is a 46 by six ring gauge. It's box pressed. And what's interesting about this is it's made with a Cameroon wrapper sourced from the MI fell family.
So the Mirab fell family is famous for [00:53:00] producing worldwide the most premier, most sought after. Cameroon tobacco in the world. They're very famous for it.
Bam Bam: They have that market corner that's, they own
Gizmo: that. They own that. It's incredible. So they're gonna be launching this cigar, it's gonna be 19 bucks. Uh, there are two other olas in the line, a 50 by five rib robusto, and a six by 52 Toro.
Those are regular production releases. This is a limited release that they're now shipping in the indoor line. So the reason why I bring this one up is because the next story, I think is the biggest news story that we've talked about in quite some time. Pretty wild, and we'll talk about why. But it has been announced that our Turo, Fuente, and Miro fell, fell, have ended their distribution agreement.
So apparently I did not know this. I've never really looked into Arto Fuentes distribution model. Their international distribution has been owned or run by the Mup [00:54:00] Fell family, the same family that gives them and many the Cameroon tobacco for their cigars. So apparently they, outside of some, a few countries outside the US and the Dominican Republic Fel, was the company that was required to be contacted to order your cigars if you were looking for a Touro Fuente cigars as a retailer.
Now. Fuente is moving that international distribute international distribution in-house, very similar to what we're seeing with the haos thing of the manufacturer marketer trying to get a bigger piece of the pie. Of the pie. Now the question here is, oh boy, how does this affect the Arturo Fuente relationship with MI up fell for the Cameroon wrappers, which is very important for this one cigar line that we really love there, the Don Carlos and the Shark.
Those are mi up fell Cameroon wrappers on those cigars. So people are flipping out [00:55:00] that this is a precursor to those cigars are now going to be changing potentially if there's been a fracture in that relationship. So my question is, if you're the FEL family and you are getting booted from Arturo Fuentes distribution, I mean it seems like something bad happened there that that seems like a pretty big relationship end.
I wonder if the Cameroon tobacco supply is gonna continue,
Bam Bam: but you'd have to think business is business. They're gonna want to continue to sell their wrappers to whomever.
Gizmo: The problem is though, bam, is I think a lot of folks would step in and take that allotment. No problem.
Chef: Yeah.
Gizmo: Maybe not to the scale of Arturo Fuente, but they've had a hold on that MI fell Cameroon tobacco for quite some time.
They've probably been the biggest buyer of it. Yeah. And we'll probably stop pursuing that shark. That's what folks are kind of panicking about online. As I saw reactions to this story is talking about the Don Carlo changing and there's other, you know, cigars in [00:56:00] the Fuente line of cigars that are made with the Cameroon, but I think that's the most prominent one, is the Don Carlos.
Pretty interesting that they're moving that in house. Jose Blanco, famous, uh, you know, legend in the cigar industry is now going to be in charge of Fuente Marketing Limited, which is going to be their international distribution house. So Puente's letter said that the distribution relationship, quote unquote, had ended, but made no mention of the other relationships that the two families have.
Most notably, as we know, Cameroon wrappers. So, MI Pell family is the dominant supplier of Cameroon Tobaccos and no company is known more than Arturo Fuente for using Cameroon wrappers. They use it in their Arturo Fuente, Don Carlos, and the Hemingway Lines, as well as other brands that produces for Ashton and JC Newman.
So they also note here that it has no bearing on the American market, of course, because that is distributed by JC Newman and has been for many, many years. So I'm really curious what's happening here and [00:57:00] if Arturo Fuentes cigars are gonna be changing because they've been pretty reliant. Oh yeah, pretty reliant on those Cameroon wrappers.
Mm-hmm.
Chef: Might be time to load up on, uh, some sharks. Good luck finding them Duty free coming out of Dr. Usually has a ton of them. Yeah. That's where I seen the most. In the meantime, a rose
Bam Bam: is starting to bloom here.
Literally blooming,
Senator: bam. You didn't have to get me flowers. There you go.
Gizmo: That's the first time that seal song makes sense. Kiss from a rose on the gray. I never understood what that means.
Bam Bam: Correct.
Gizmo: But you got some gray ash there and you're, uh,
Bam Bam: yeah, it's, it's actually spreading as it grows.
Chef: So I can't stop looking at the cigar.
And it's not for the right reasons. You're having real trouble with, with that one there
Senator: I am supremely frustrated with the construction of this cigar. Yeah. To the point that if we weren't doing this recording, I would put down [00:58:00] the cigar.
Gizmo: Despite the flavor.
Senator: Despite the flavor. Wow. I wouldn't do that,
Gizmo: but I don't think I would do that.
But I don't think I would be reaching through this it, I haven't tried. It's hard to
Senator: smoke a cigar in years.
Gizmo: Yeah. It's work. It's a little work. I
Senator: mean, I feel like I should be paid for this effort. Like this is insanity. Are you saying we
Gizmo: don't get paid?
Senator: Give 'em a $20 bill. Yeah. This is ridiculous. I mean, I feel no Liga should pay me just for the work I've had to put into smoke their cigar.
That's right. It shouldn't be this way. I'm sorry. Like mm-hmm. You can get a $10 cigar that is effortless all the way
Gizmo: through.
Chef: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: I'm, I'm really having to fight this and keep it lit, keep it watched. I'm have to touch it up every once in a while. Clean your shirt. Clean my shirt. Yep. Thankfully it's not fallen yet.
Senator: Yeah.
Gizmo: Between the dry cleaning
Senator: and the butane, I mean, we're already up to s experience.
Gizmo: We could be smoking a Cuban for this. Correct. I honestly though, guys, I, I'm, I'm loving the flavor right now. Mm-hmm. I'm really enjoying is great.
Chef: Mm-hmm. Flavor's great. The pairings great, [00:59:00] but the, uh, the experience is definitely being, uh, hindered a little bit by the burn line here.
Senator: Yeah.
Chef: It's hard to get into it.
It's hard to just let it be,
Senator: and the problem is, for me, the flavor's still good, but because I'm having to draw a lot to try to get it to burn evenly, and because this wrapper's so thick, it like needs heat to actually keep burning at the same rate it should. Yeah. Like the flavor is losing, like how clean the delivery of those notes was earlier.
The nuanced notes. Yeah.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Although your cigar looks very good right now.
Senator: Right now, but that's because I've drawn so many times to like heat this thing up. But I'd sacrificing now some flavor just to get it to perform, which sucks.
Bam Bam: So what I've done in, in chef's situation, I would do a hard ash and rotate it in the ashtray and try to
Chef: just, just flatten it a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah.
Bam Bam: And, and get uh, some of that off of there and try to flatten it and do a relight to [01:00:00] kind of help course correct.
Chef: I did that. Although you're long gone there. I did that at least once. Yeah. Um, wow. This might be a good car smoke, maybe the, the constant. Oh yeah. I want ash just a moment. I No, no, no.
I I've been some great car mats. Correct. No, no. I just mean like the constant rush of wind coming through your window may keep the cigar lit while it blows the ass. You're all over you. That's a new
Gizmo: theory. Correct. That's a novel theory there, chef. So before I get off this Miel story, Senator, I wanna specifically ask you the fact that Carlito Fuente Jr.
Sent this letter to his international retailers saying that the relationship with them had ended, but made absolutely no mention of the other relationships with the exact same business. Is that an indicator to you? To me, it's a negotiating tactic
Senator: that's saying we don't need it. And we're, I, I have no doubt he's gonna try and [01:01:00] renegotiate something there.
'cause obviously something pissed him off to end that first relationship and now I'm sure that he's reconsidering the other one. And I think that by leaving it completely ambiguous like that, that's to bring him to the negotiating table of I I can take it or leave it.
Bam Bam: That makes sense.
Gizmo: Which is smart.
You know what's interesting too, as Carlito said in the note that if anybody wants to buy some Arturo Tic cigars presently, they can go to the Mi Fells 'cause they have plenty of stock until they clear 'em out. Oh boy. So I, I, that's good. The way I read this whole thing, like that's, that's not good. It doesn't seem good.
And I'm, I mean for Carlito, if there is something changing with that tobacco, of course he's not gonna announce that because that's gonna change blends. I mean, you're gonna have to retool all those blends with new tobacco. That's gonna be tough for an
Bam Bam: ultra
Gizmo: premium
Bam Bam: cigar. That shark itself, that's a problem.
Gizmo: And that's a high volume line that Don Carlos line.
Bam Bam: Yeah. The whole thing. I
Gizmo: mean, I would argue just [01:02:00] maybe below the Hemingway series. Mm-hmm. As far as volume.
Chef: Yeah.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: I mean that is their, I would say that's like, if you could say good, better, best, that's kind of their better, like right in the middle of what folks are going for.
Yeah. Opus being the best. Hemingway being kind of the entry. Nothing wrong with Hemingway, it's, they're great cigars. Mm-hmm. But Don Carlos is a great line.
Bam Bam: Yeah. I love the Don Carlos number two. Very nice cigar. Is that
Gizmo: the, uh, Beso Yes. Pyramid. Yeah.
Bam Bam: Quite nice. Yeah. That's a good cigar.
Gizmo: So we'll see what happens with Art Toro Fuente and the Mirum Fells ending their distribution and see if that impacts their Cameroon relationship.
And like I said, it looks like I Carillo is taking some of that Cameroon wrapper and putting out that new indoor. So we'll have to try that, uh, sometime in the future. 'cause I think that's their first cigar with Cameroon tobacco. Obviously we have to mention all Dino has their Cameroon, they grow their own in Honduras.
Yeah. That is not coming from the Mirabal family. Very smart. [01:03:00] They're vertically integrated.
Senator: No, I wonder, is that just a product of Honduras and for some reason it's more con Well, I guess where is the Miel, uh,
Gizmo: Cameroon wrappers? Where are they actually grown? So, according to their website, it's deep within the heart of the Cameroon rainforest.
Wow. So I, I guess that, is that in Africa? Yes. Right. I mean, I don't wanna make assumptions. I'm not a geo, uh, you know, a geography guy, but I'm just surprised 'cause
Senator: I forget who, who we spoke to. Someone within the industry had said something like, you'll never have a true Cameroon wrapper anymore. In the sense that they're not really usually grown in Africa anymore.
The seed is from Africa, but that they're normally grown elsewhere. Can code in Newark.
Chef: What are those? Uh, I'm sorry. Getting back to my ash here. It looks better. You should, I would ask that. Well just 'cause I just burned it here, but it's still blooming. I, [01:04:00] it is
Bam Bam: blooming. I would, I would ash that and relight the whole surface. What
Chef: are those? Uh, psychiatric in block test ink plot test called?
Oh, uh, I know what you're talking about. Rosero rose. Rach Rach. Rach Rach. That's what my freaking ash looks like. I'm getting uh, and what
Gizmo: are you experiencing psychologically from that test?
Chef: Frustration.
Gizmo: There's medication for that, Jeff. Correct. So you Yes. Cameroon uh, borders Nigeria to the west and north.
Chad to the northeast and the Central African Republic to the east
Bam Bam: sounds very safe.
Gizmo: So yes, it does not, but that is where that wrapper has grown.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Interesting.
Gizmo: So I think that's why they have a, hold on. It is, I don't know a lot of companies that are gonna be setting up shop. No. You know that far away from home.
Yeah. It's amazing.
Senator: It's just really wild when you think about all the places that. Tobacco is grown that make its way into our cigars. Like it's very easy to simplify and it's like cigars primarily come from like, you know, Dominican Republic, [01:05:00] Nicaragua, Cuba, Honduras, places like that. But it's like, how many cigars have we had at this point?
We have like some of the binder of the filler from Indonesia and Brazil and rappers from Africa. I mean, it's crazy. The range now of countries that like, are so critical to the industry, to the point that we're talking about Arturo Fuente, this huge brand, having to potentially retool some of its cigars.
If it loses this, you know, partnership, it has to actually source these Cameroon wrappers. So, uh, it's just wild to me how many countries and hands play a role in this stuff at this
Chef: point. Yeah, it's amazing. There's never been a cigar recalled. So fire, fire cures everything. That's all I'm saying. Arson.
Hows that psychological test going? I was gonna say, how's the Rorschach test? Something's going on over there.
Gizmo: Boys, we had some more feedback on our Dunbarton Brule review.
Bam Bam: Great.
Gizmo: [01:06:00] And, uh, I got a lot of emails. I wasn't here for that. And it was kind of up and down on, uh, you know, appreciating the fact that we discounted our feeling about the cigar because of the ambiguous nature of the, what we called our artificial sweetness.
Mm-hmm. I think again, weeks later or a month later, however long it's been, I think we're all still on the same page about what's going on there. Right? Correct. So we did have some folks saying, thank you for judging the cigar as you tasted it, and also putting the asterisk on it with the question mark around the, the sweetness and then other folks saying, what the hell's going on?
Why are you just not taking the cigar for what it is? Don't judge it because you don't know where the sweetness comes from. Smoke it in the moment and judge it based on that. So what is your response to that? Because we have a lot of emails on both sides. So many that I'm not even gonna read them. I'm just gonna give you the general of both sides of it.
It's, it's been pretty polarizing. That cigar.
Senator: I'm [01:07:00] sorry. It's just for anyone who has smoked thousands of cigars in their lifetime for that to be the only cigar. About a million for rooster. Exactly. A million thousands. Mm-hmm. I mean, these are a lot of cigars. For that to be the only cigar ever that we've tasted that has such an outrageous level of sweetness.
I'm sorry. Like, you know, if, if, you know, if people listen to us and ascribe to anything that we share about a cigar that's worth their time, there's just no way that I can sit there and say that I feel it is remotely possible, that that's natural. It's just not. And that, that's where I, I
Gizmo: think we, we stand on that.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: So I'll share a back and forth just three comments that I saw on FOH, but hold on. Where Rob [01:08:00] chimed in,
Bam Bam: I, I think we rated it for what it was.
Gizmo: Yeah. But I think all of us discounted the rating. Oh, I took off a point for sure. I took off a point too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Senator: And I, and I don't regret it. I'm sorry.
You know, like if that cigar wa was absolutely natural, it would get a higher score. I mean, the, the other thing I, I guess here's the point I'll make for even the listener that is upset about us taking off a point, the point. For those of us that did that. It didn't just come off solely because it's artificial.
It came off because it was so sweet to the point of being too sweet. Yeah, yeah, of course. It's like, so we were questioning like it wasn't naturally sweet.
Gizmo: Are we smoking a premium cigar? It does this qualify right? As a premium cigar? That's,
Senator: but my point is, let's say Steve Saka could prove to us that it is natural, it's still too sweet.
Right? Right. If something is so sweet to the point that we think it's artificial, they've gone too far in that department. Even if it's natural, which I'm sorry, I'll never be convinced [01:09:00] otherwise, it's not possible to smoke thousands of cigars and that be the only one that has touched that level of sweetness naturally, allegedly.
So my point is, even if I'm to accept saka at his ambiguous word, that it's natural, it's too sweet.
Chef: Yeah. And why is no one else doing it? I mean, he's claiming that that's because of the Ecuadorian wrapper. I mean, we've had other cigars with Ecuadorian rappers. Countless, at
Gizmo: the end of the day, if, if he had figured out some magic sauce with that wrapper, and that's not artificial, I mean, he'd be, that, that would be what he would be focusing on.
Mm-hmm. Because he'd make a bajillion dollars. Correct. Creating something that sweet that then, you know, p you know, the Premium Cigar Association, CAA, could go out and say, we have a sweet wrap that, you know, i I is natural.
Chef: Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: That is not sweet and it's not designed to chase down children. Yeah. RFK would love this Acid could start making naturally sweet rappers
Chef: and it's so consistently sweet that he put the name Brule on it.
So [01:10:00] that tells you that that has to be something that he's controlling.
Gizmo: So I'll go to this exchange. I just wanna read these three comments from between El Nino and El Pante, Rob Ila and FOH. So El Nino said as y'all were reviewing the sober Mesa Brule, the consensus seems to be quote, if we could prove this isn't artificially sweetened, we'd really love it.
End quote. My question is, why. If you enjoy something, isn't it fine to simply enjoy it on its own? Merit perception is a funny aspect of experience. You can enjoy something because you think you like it and vice versa. To your credit lizards, I think you do a great job of being faithful to the experience when reviewing, but this one really through a wrench in the spokes.
I try to keep very open-minded towards liking and disliking things. I love Padron, but I don't like Padron Black. Did you write this comment? I did not. I don't like Pomo, but I love the 30th anniversary Connecticut series. I don't love di of [01:11:00] pop music, but Sabrina Carpenter's short and sweet album's fantastic.
Can't say the same for Taylor Swift, ignoring production methods was so Mesa Brule enjoyable. That's his question and I'll go to Rob's response in a minute. I, I, I think
Bam Bam: I regret giving it an eight. I I I You wanted to go lower? I did, yeah. I should have been at a seven, but I, I kind of succumbeded The room was in love.
It was fairly enjoyable, but just the overt sweetness for me, it just was a total turnoff. I should have given that cigar set. You know
Gizmo: what's funny is I think you're kind of known for being pretty optimistic or generous in your rage. It's true. I don't know if I've ever heard you say that before. It's true.
Senator: I'm gonna play cha GBT again,
Chef: and I'm gonna
Senator: use a food analogy, right? Right. If someone were to make a burger completely, naturally, right? A hundred percent real natural ground beef, actual tomatoes, all that stuff, everything natural, and you were to judge that for what it is. And some were to make a [01:12:00] burger that has artificial coloring, some sketchy meat that's not actually a hundred percent ground beef, some weird, you know, modified version of a tomato that's not really a tomato, but we've like injected all these things and put food coloring that makes it look like the brightest, perfect tomato ever.
And you were to try those that were ever in any universe gonna score those the same when one is completely artificially manufactured and the other is actually a natural product. And the whole premise here, we're talking about, we call premium cigars, the, the legal definition that PCA uses in every court case and the definition that we all subscribe to is that this is a natural, unadulterated, unadulterated, handmade product.
And that is the distinction between premium cigars and other types of cigars that PCA does not, you know, uh, stand to represent and fight for. And so, if that is the definition of the product that we're all out here saying that we embrace and love and [01:13:00] support when you have a product that you have reason to believe has violated that and is not a hundred percent natural and unadulterated, that's a problem.
That's my response. Like that that's, yeah, we can't, we can't sit here and say we're about premium cigars, then say, oh, but I really love all that sugar that they poured on top of that cigar. Yeah. So I'm just gonna overlook it. No, like that's just not what this product is. So call that a different, a non-premium cigar.
And if I was rating non-premium cigars, then I'd say among non-premium cigars, maybe that gets a higher score. But the brew rubric here is for premium cigars. Everything needs to be natural. And if we'd only smoked a hundred cigars in our lifetime, each of us, it'd be very different. But when you've smoked thousands or as bam said in rooster's case, millions, that's correct.
I mean, you just know when nothing else has remotely touched that level of sweetness that obviously there is some foul play. I completely agree. Well said.
Chef: Yeah. Yeah. And I gotta say, one of the selling points [01:14:00] for me when I'm describing cigars or, or why I smoke cigars to people that don't regularly smoke, or people that are, you know, on, on the opposite side, you know, where they think, well, tobacco's evil for me cigars, you know.
I'm always proud of the fact, you know, to Senator's point that it's a hundred percent tobacco, right? It's a natural product, you know, tobacco, vegetable, glycerin, whatever's used to glue it together. And that's pretty much it, right? And, uh, if you're not gonna put what else is in your cigar on top of that, but it's gonna be obvious that there's clearly something else here.
Uh, you know, if it's not such a big deal, then why not list it, you know? Um, and I, I just think that, yeah, I, I think, you know, if we're gonna be doing something like that, then why not do acids? Why not, you know, do hookah on this podcast, or, that's a good point. It's almost like we punish
Gizmo: acid and Yeah. Other flavored cigars because they're explicitly saying, these are flavored.
So on this podcast, we're not gonna be smoking. Right. Because it's not a premium cigar. That's the decision we [01:15:00] made. So that's, that might be the best argument so far Chef mm-hmm. Is like, we have, you know, told everyone what we're into and what we're about. We are not gonna smoke flavored cigars. Obviously, there's some of the, the highest selling by volume cigars in the world, especially in the United States here, no question.
But they're not gonna make an appearance on this podcast. But did we make an exception for Dun Barton? Because it is an explicitly set.
Senator: Yeah, I think we, I think we kind of did. No, I, I don't think we intentionally made any No, no. I'm
Gizmo: not saying intentional. Yeah. But at the end of the day, I think we did.
Yeah. Correct.
Chef: Yeah. Because if they weren't transparent about, if they were transparent about it, it wouldn't have been on the pot.
Gizmo: Yeah. Yeah. We wouldn't, if he had said, this is a flavored cigar, I would've gotten another dunbarton. Sure. So, ignoring production methods, going back to El Nino's comment, was the sober Mesa Brule enjoyable?
And I think across the board it was, I think it was well constructed. Yeah. I think at times the sweetness was a little overwhelming. It was, but [01:16:00] I think we all enjoyed the cigar. Yeah. I think the only question mark or asterisk on the whole damn thing was the presence of what we viewed as artificial sweetness.
So now I'm going to
Chef: read, and that's consistent across the board. When we have a spirit that's artificially sweetened or you know, that we, that we could trace it or track it or taste it, uh, you know, it, it gets punished for it as well. You know, it's, it's just something that we're not about on this pod
Gizmo: and honestly on, you talk about the spirits category we've pivoted away from.
Yeah. I really, thanks to you and your help. Yeah. Pivoted away from additive. You know, uh, inclusive spirits. So all those tequilas, even rums like we have now looked to rums to try to avoid it.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: That's not, we're never gonna be a hundred percent there, I think in the agave space, I think we can do that a little easier than we can with rum, but we're always trying to find rum that doesn't have added sugar.
Bam Bam: Yeah. But the rums we've found are so balanced, right. They're, they're not overtly sweet. [01:17:00] There's a great balance to them, which make them incredible to drink. Yeah. And I think we pursue that in everything we consume, regardless of cigars or spirits.
Chef: Yeah. And I gotta say, the palates on this powder are phenomenal.
You know, like we could taste bullshit pretty easily, whether it's in the spirit, whether it's in a cigar, you know, uh, even before that, I pulled out that Reddit article about, you know, artificially, uh, art, art added sugars and rum. Uh, I think it was pretty clear, you know, through our prior experiences, what rums we had that maybe were on that list already and we probably could have guessed it.
Um, so yeah, I mean, I, I think if, if collectively here on the pod, people are knocking our a cigar because they think it's artificially sweetened, I'm gonna, I'm gonna trust you guys, and I'm gonna say that that's probably the case. Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: So let's go to El President de Robis. Comment on that. He replied to the piece about the consensus being if we could prove it's artificially sweetened, we'd love it.[01:18:00]
He, he, that whole part of the comment, he said, delivering the right level of very bolded natural sweetness in a blend is an art that in my experience, few blenders can achieve. Mm-hmm. Within non Cuban tobacco, there are plenty that infuse Bethune to achieve a similar outcome. Some openly state that they do, and that is no problem.
To achieve. It naturally, however, requires a master's touch. Like great chefs, they deserve acknowledgement as they are artists. Great commentary. And he is, I think he's complimenting you in a way there, chef. That's correct.
Chef: We love you, Rob.
Gizmo: So then El Nino replied, he says his uh, dun Barton's portfolio speaks for itself.
In spite of that, he sure likes to speak up too. Uh, upon further contemplation, I think I understand the frustration better. I haven't thought about something so hard in a long time. Thanks, lizards. A flavored cigar is not a cigar, it's a flavored [01:19:00] cigar. If I asked my friend for a beer and he hands me a Bud Light lime, I would be upset because that isn't a beer, that's a flavored beer.
Correct? The experience is not what I was looking for. I can see how it'd be the same for this flavored cigar in parentheses. Let's be real. It's flavored. I have conflicting feelings on purism. On one hand, I see how using additives in cigars makes them a little less magical. There's something awesome about smoking a delicious cigar and knowing it's purely tobacco and talent that went into those marvelous flavors.
On the other hand, I don't believe production methods should affect your experience unless the ingredients are detrimental to your health. If you like it, then like it in short, I don't think being a purist should make you enjoy something less. I think that's a fair point. Yep. But at the end of the day, I don't think it's about being a purist.
I think it's about what we tasted and it tasting and feeling unnatural. It's
Chef: about what you like. And I don't think anyone here likes flavored cigars or you know, now [01:20:00] if you tell me that tobacco has an inherent citrus flavor or berry forward flavor because it's grown in parallel to some other crops that share those flavor cha characteristics, that would be a cool thing.
Mm-hmm. But I think for it to be on added after the fact or you know, it's just not, it's kind of lazy.
Gizmo: So boys, we are well into the last third here on the Liga Bravada, H 99 in Toro. What's everybody's experience at this point? I've heard Bams
Bam Bam: Bams got a bouquet
Chef: in
Bam Bam: his hand. Bams outta butane. It's a little better.
Yeah, I've been using a lot of butane. That's so, this is my fourth time correcting it. It's still a delicious cigar, but um. It's not performing very well.
Chef: I'm a little exhausted from how much I have to on this. It's a lot of thinking tonight. This you need to, you need to work out, dude. And think, and it's funny, I've been working out for the last four days.
There you go. Uh, but yeah, it's just, I mean, you're on your fourth look at his
Senator: forearms just from all the re lights. You're right. You're on your fourth
Chef: [01:21:00] relight. His stomach is
Gizmo: sweating.
Chef: I'm on re light 15 over here. One re light
Bam Bam: and
Chef: three
Bam Bam: corrections.
Chef: Okay.
Bam Bam: So to be clear,
Chef: three re lights and, and one
Bam Bam: re light.
And three corrections.
Gizmo: 12. 12 touchups, call it. So how's the pairing right now for you guys?
Bam Bam: That's okay. You don't like it? Sorry to cut you off there. Sh
Chef: No, no. I actually wanted to touch on your, uh, when you said you don't know how I was, uh, drinking this. Neat. So what I didn't take into account the first pour sat, you know, 'cause we, we do our first pour before we actually hit record.
So the first pour that I had here sat for maybe 20, 30 minutes. Mm, that's true. So it aired out. Right. And, and I opened up a little bit. Yeah. It opened up, it had it, it had flavor that maybe mimicked, uh, what would've been if I added water. Yeah. That second pour that I sipped immediately after pouring. It was much hotter.
Bam Bam: Yeah. And
Chef: I needed the water. Let me go [01:22:00] on the lizard ledger here saying I needed water for this one. Not ice, though. Not ice. Ice is water. But you know, I didn't change the temperature of my spirit, which is important to me. And I actually was able to control sort of mm-hmm. How much water went into my spirit.
It's true. So, you know, now I'm by adding that water, I'm where I was, uh, with the first pour after sitting for 30 minutes. Hmm. But yeah, I think if this was coming straight out the bottle and you were taking, you were sipping it immediately afterwards, it would be quite shocking. But how are you feeling about it, Gus?
Gizmo: I, I feel good about the bourbon. I, I feel great about how it tastes with the cigar. I enjoy the flavor of the cigar, but God is the cigar frustrating. Especially as I'm trying to go through the content and talk about what we have to talk about. It's like a great cigar. Even a good cigar is not gonna make me, it's not gonna distract me from the other things I want to be doing, including whether or not we're recording, sitting and having a conversation amongst friends.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to have to pull my [01:23:00] lighter out more than once. Yeah.
Senator: Every one of us here has smoked $2 cigars that are more effortless than this. Yeah, that's true. And the reason it's especially frustrating here is because the flavor is so great. Mm-hmm. Like, I'm rooting for this cigar. When I lit this cigar, I the feel in the hand, it felt great.
It felt like a cigar that after a long, stressful day and you wanna unwind and relax, I'm like, this is something I'd pick up. It feels like the perfect cigar. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then it's like you get in after an inch of the cigar and all of a sudden you're just constantly fighting the whole rest of the way through.
It's not like, no, it's true. This just happened for a 20 minute, 10 minute period. It's been almost the entirety of the cigar,
Chef: especially after
Senator: the halfway point. It's, yeah. Constantly. It's constant.
Gizmo: And then you guys had those tunnel issues.
Senator: Yeah. Not good
Gizmo: big holes in
Senator: the
Gizmo: middle of your
Senator: cigar. Luckily, my tunnel, they, uh, they repaired it and it closed up, but I'm still having other issues.
Chef: I, I took Bams suggestion and I sort of [01:24:00] smashed my cigar into the ashray there to kind of flatten it out. I didn't say do that, but Okay. Smashed it. Well, I don't, I don't, I I compacted the ash into the, I didn't say that either. That's what happens when you do what you suggest. It's a heavy rotation. Uhhuh, but it's, it's working a little bit.
I don't have to touch it up as much. Yeah. But yeah, I'm still kind of looking at it, waiting, you know, in anticipation of where I gotta light it next.
Gizmo: So I thought this was pretty wild. We had a, a pretty amazing weekend.
Chef: Mm.
Gizmo: And, and this really kind of goes to how awesome this hobby is that on, I'm looking at a couch right now, one with Senator on it and one with, you know, the other side with, with, with Bam.
And Senator's son had his third birthday this weekend. That's correct. And bam dropped his son off at college.
Bam Bam: He left the compound.
Gizmo: And I, I love, and we'll get into both of those stories, but I love the fact that here we are in the, our [01:25:00] lizard group and both of you are at totally different areas of your parenting journey.
Obviously. Correct. In the circle. The circle of life. In the circle of life. But I mean, isn't that pretty awesome that we all sit here and smoke cigars together? It is. And had it not been for cigars, none of us probably would have ever known each other. And I think that's pretty amazing. So, bam.
Bam Bam: Yes.
Gizmo: Tell us how the experience was dropping your firstborn off at college this weekend.
It was a trip. Yeah. I'll tell you
Bam Bam: that. Um, he, uh, first I will say he's going to a great school and, um, we had two car loads. So you took two cars out, two car loads of crap. For a dorm room. How
Senator: times have changed?
Bam Bam: Yeah. Yeah. It's an eight. By by. I didn't do that. It's an eight by 10 prison cell and somehow we, it, it, it was like Tetris.
We got everything organized. It was, it's perfectly done.
Chef: I saw pictures. I thought you guys did a phenomenal job. You did a nice job, dude. It was such an effort. Used
Bam Bam: space was good. We were on top of each other. Mm-hmm. Trying [01:26:00] not to embarrass ourselves because there's two other pods of two other, like four other kids.
It was a bit of a challenge, but we pulled up and, uh, the college had all the upperclassmen as volunteers. I, I was, I thought I'd be lugging everything upstairs we pull up, it's like a big party. They greet us like we're celebrities. They make,
Gizmo: well, you are. I mean, you're, bam,
Bam Bam: bam. Wow. That's correct. That's correct.
And Bam, junior is gonna college. So they know who he's That's right. But he felt it was incredible. He had a big smile across his face and they took. For every family. They took everything up. Three flights of stairs. You didn't have to carry anything. What? Not a single thing. Dude, my move
Senator: in was suffering.
No, this is everything that's wrong with society. You might be right. Everything that's kids don't even have to move themselves in. They have people that carry their shit up three flights of stairs. God forbid they, you lift a hand, they work. This is insanity. They carried everything with three
Chef: flights and gave them a trophy after.
Bam Bam: That's correct. I [01:27:00] also saw it in the photograph.
Senator: I also saw in pho it says World's best dad. All right. I also saw in the photograph he's got his own window. Ac. Yeah. I didn't have air conditioning when I was in college. This is insanity.
Gizmo: I remember, by the way, I don't know if this was your case, my ass off lugging all this stuff into a dorm. Do you remember there were these moments at the college when there was some sort of arbiter that would decide.
When it was time to turn the heat from air conditioning and the air conditioning to heat, what are you talking about? I didn't. And the transitions, they always waited too long and it was suffering. What are you talking about? I'm saying I didn't have air
Senator: conditioning at all, at all. You went to college after I did at all.
I promise you, these are historic buildings. They cannot put air. It's so fucking Did you guys go to college? Ster Hot. You hot? It
Chef: was,
Senator: I mean, clearly,
Bam Bam: clearly
Senator: they, the ice
Bam Bam: cube with the fan.
Senator: I mean, and a fucking Bucks fan on the floor when it's 95 degrees in August that I'm moving into a dorm.
Chef: Pagoda AC was always going.[01:28:00]
Gizmo: Oh my God. Oh, all right. So you, uh, but it was a pleasure. I say you didn't have to carry anything. That's crazy, dude. Yeah,
Bam Bam: it was great. Unreal. That's crazy. So we get 'em set up, you know, and you know, it's, they had a family weekend and they had, they do a week long orientation. So kids get immersed in the culture and they do a ton of icebreakers before classes start.
So that's, I think that's great. Um, but it was tough leaving. I, I have, it was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to go through in my life. Really. It was very, very hard.
Gizmo: And, and let's just say for listeners, we're not gonna be spec specific, but I mean, he's quite away from home. He's not an hour or two hours from home.
He's, no, he's
Bam Bam: hours.
Gizmo: Yeah. He's quite a hike.
Bam Bam: Yeah, it is. It is. It's like a
Gizmo: plane ride if you
Bam Bam: want. It just doesn't feel natural to drop off your child. Who's an adult now, but still he's a child to me. Um, and then leave. Yeah. Yeah. When you've never, ever done that before. You're his entire journey growing up.
Gizmo: Yeah. 18, 19 years.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Yeah. So it, it was, uh, a, a v very much a visceral experience emotionally for me. Has he done sleepaway [01:29:00] camps? Yeah, he did. Um, last summer he did four weeks at a college in Manhattan for at, at Columbia. So he was away for about a month, and he's done camps prior to that. So he's had, but even that, that's a, you know, hour away tops,
Chef: you know,
Bam Bam: so, yeah.
Yeah. But I do get the sense that he was dying to get out of the house and away from me and my lectures and all my advice and all of my, he's gonna miss, he's gonna miss that shit. Yes, he is. I don't know about that. No. He'll,
Gizmo: it'll take, it'll take a couple years, but he will, a couple years in, in
Bam Bam: two or three
Chef: years, he's gonna
Bam Bam: say, thanks, Ted.
Okay. I hope so. I promise you. Hopefully with a cigar. Oh, that's what I'm hoping for. So we're still working on that. Um, so, you know, he's in, we had to, we were dismissed from campus.
Gizmo: Yeah. They kick you out, right? They do. Yeah. Yeah. Bam. Did not wanna leave. They kicked him out.
Bam Bam: No. No. And Mrs. Bam bam had a really, really hard time.
Oh. So in the room. I was cool. He was cool. We hugged each other. We, we were laughing, joking, you know, father son moment was great. Moment. So then she looks at me, are we [01:30:00] leaving? I said, yeah. And she, it just exploded. The emotion just exploded. I stepped back, let them have their moment, give him a kiss on the forehead and we, we left and
Chef: Oh, the forehead kiss.
Yeah. So no
Gizmo: tears at this
Bam Bam: point? No. So we had dinner, an early dinner, the two of us, um, off campus somewhere. Great, great dinner. And then we went to, um, a great cigar shop right in town.
Chef: Yeah.
Bam Bam: And I lost it at the cigar shop. I was in the cigar shop, she was crying. I looked at her and I'm starting to think about my little boy holding him in my arms and I just completely lost it.
And all my fears about what's he gonna do? How's he gonna figure this out? Did I tell him to do this? How's he gonna do that? It just all hit me at once and I just, it just came out, man. And it was honestly, after, like now I feel great because I'm glad I got through that moment of emotion and actually let it out because I felt like I was holding it back.
And I even asked his mom, is it bad that I [01:31:00] didn't cry in front of him? And she said, no. And she You did what was, you know, she said what was right at the time you said, you know what made me cry? She said, he really looks up to you. He wants your approval. The, as she was talking, that's when I just lost it because you know, you hear that and then you're dropping him off and kind of abandoning him to, to a certain degree.
It, it really, it was tough
Gizmo: abandoning
Bam Bam: him. Yeah. And in a lap of luxury. Hardly. Yes. Hardly. It's true. There was a buffet
Gizmo: set up outside his room. He's like in a retirement home right now. Yeah. But listen to this being waited on
Bam Bam: hand foot massages, but put all that aside on campus. They had literally have 32 different places to eat.
Chef: Of course they do. It's insane. BA's like, shit, I didn't help carry one luggage up. Fuck.
Gizmo: 32 place seat. I had one fucking dining hall when I was a freshman and you know what the number one meal was at my dining hall
Chef: Nuggets. Grilled cheese. Yep. Chicken fingers grill and my
Bam Bam: dining hall. It was unreal. It's just incredible.
We had a few meals on campus. The food was fantastic. Um, so yeah. You know, you know,
Chef: I think BA's not being a hundred percent about why he was actually [01:32:00] crying, you know? Mm-hmm. After dropping his kid off at school and there being people there to take the luggage up and mm-hmm. Everything else up and all them had to do was plug in an air conditioner and some other stuff.
Then he has to actually work when he arrives at the lounge.
Bam Bam: This is work.
Chef: He goes to burn. Yep. Burned by Rocky. He goes to lay a cigar. And there isn't a fucking lighter or, or matches. He's got,
Bam Bam: he's gotta will it to light. That's correct. They actually had a torch there. Oh, they did? Yes.
Senator: Really? Oh, that's an improvement.
Yeah. And you were able to access was told with your own hands, just rub some twigs together and eventually you'll have a cigar that's like Yeah.
Bam Bam: I sat down in this server, actually brought me a, a torch. Wow. Cutter.
Chef: Oh, I know why. So, so the reason I bring this up is 'cause the, now the place was empty. Yeah.
So that's why, why, so the, that's the pop prior we were talking about how burn, there's only one person with a [01:33:00] lighter. Right. No one, there's no matches. Yeah. I hear for that. When I went to
Senator: burn in Atlanta. Mm-hmm. No joke. I've heard this story No matches. Yeah. Yeah. I know. And there was only one person in the entire place that had a lighter
Bam Bam: on staffer.
So I, so I've been to this burn location. Prior to when he was doing this? Yeah. You were talking
Gizmo: about it. Yeah, because he was, he went out there
Bam Bam: a few weeks ago. He was admitted. So they did an admitted student tour. Right. So then I, he was in the hotel room alone, having a great time. I went out for a cigar.
It was packed. It was like a club. Honestly, I couldn't enjoy myself. But I and
Senator: the DJ too. DJ singer, the whole nine yards. That's so annoying. Singer.
Bam Bam: Wow. I had amateur. Amateur bullshit. Now I had my case and all my tools with me, but otherwise people were lighting their cigars with bick lighters. Mm. Because they couldn't Grinder
Gizmo: does that.
He did that the other day.
Bam Bam: On a consistent basis. No. And on the podcast, I think he did two
Gizmo: weeks ago he had a Bic lighter. It's a little disgraceful,
Bam Bam: but Yes.
Gizmo: You weren't here. I was
Bam Bam: here
Gizmo: for that. Oh, you were?
Bam Bam: Yes. Oh, I don't remember.
Gizmo: It's all blurring 199 episodes. That's
Bam Bam: correct.
Gizmo: So I'm shocked you got a torch.
That's a good, that's, that's a [01:34:00] good progress. Well, I'm not BA's sitting here right now saying,
Senator: did I tell my son never to use a Bic lighter before I dropped him off?
Bam Bam: But all those thoughts do go through your mind. Like, did I, did I give him enough information? Did I tell him enough? Yeah,
Chef: yeah,
Bam Bam: yeah. And you're never really ready for that.
So he's gonna explore and figure his own way out. I gotta go over here to eat. I gotta go here if I'm sick. Or this is where I get my class materials and he is gonna, you know. No,
Senator: he's not gonna figure out, they're gonna do it all for him clearly. Probably. Who knows? And give him a trophy. That's right.
Bam Bam: Bam.
What's he studying? Um, he's gonna be a, he wants to double major. He is gonna do English and then there's a another degree in economics and statistic statistics like, yeah, likely. Very nice. Or maybe statistics and machine learning. Who knows?
Gizmo: So when you started crying, what cigar were you smoking?
Bam Bam: The Peja 80th.
Oh no. Yeah. And I followed it up with a number 35. Both were incredibly delicious. Mm-hmm. And I was pounding tequila, like there was no tomorrow.
Chef: Is this your first time at a lounge with Mrs. Bam? Bam? [01:35:00]
Bam Bam: Yes. Wow. Awesome. What was her experience like? She loved it. Well, it was empty, so there wasn't any smoke. Oh, that's a good time.
Oh, so
Gizmo: the, yeah. 'cause the ventilation there is very good, right? Yeah.
Bam Bam: Well, it, I'm not sure when it was crowded, it was awful, but when it was, it's, it was desolate. It was a very calm, tranquil experience.
Chef: Did she take a P of your cigar? No, I don't
Bam Bam: think she ever will. Hmm. But she had tequila with me.
Chef: Nice.
What'd you guys drink?
Bam Bam: Um, Ocho. Very nice. Yes. Which expression? Repa. Nice. Yeah, it was very good. She enjoyed it. She's a huge tequila fan now because of his pod. Huh? Yeah. Wait, she listens to this box? She doesn't, she does from time to time, but all of the tequila's there. I send her a cut version. Do you?
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. That's an edit. Correct, honey. Don't listen to that. But, uh, yeah, no, she's grown into loving tequila because, you know, there're a lot of botanical mm-hmm. Benefits and you're not dizzy the next day. And it's, you know, she loves it. I do too.
Senator: I'm just imagining her sitting across from bam and something [01:36:00] happens to her going, that's a bam, bam approved activity.
Well
Bam Bam: try to keep those conversations behind.
Chef: That's an
Gizmo: edit. Correct. Well, listen, man, congratulations. Thank you. I know that it was a rough weekend. Was a rough weekend. I was thinking I was, I was texting. I was thinking about you, man. 'cause it's, yeah. You know, I, I dropped off my stepdaughter two years ago at college.
Yeah. Hard. And it was brutal, man.
Bam Bam: Yeah. And regardless if it's a son or a daughter at, I don't think it matters. You're just leaving your kid there, you
Chef: know. Yeah.
Bam Bam: Um, but that emotional block, once I got over it, it kind of just, I feel fantastic now. Awesome. Yeah. Wades off my, so is
Gizmo: he, has he been FaceTiming with mom a lot?
Like, not at
Bam Bam: all.
Gizmo: That's good.
Bam Bam: Very good. That's very good. I told her don't you communicate with him. Leave, leave him alone. Unless, unless he communicates with us. Yes. Radio silence. I like it. Yes.
Chef: Very good, huh? Correct. You know, I, I just ev not every day, but almost every day. [01:37:00] I just sent my son, who's now 23 years old.
Hey, I'm thinking about you. I hope you have a great day.
Bam Bam: Yeah,
Chef: we'll do that. I love you. Yeah, yeah. Those are great. And that's it. Right? And if he wants to talk any more than that, he'll gimme a call. But usually he says, thanks that I love you too. Have a great day. Perfect. And that's usually how it goes. But I just want him to know that, Hey, I woke up today.
I'm thinking about you.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Chef: I don't see you every day. We don't speak every day. But that doesn't mean that you're not on my mind. Also
Senator: different
Chef: life stages though. Correct? Yes, that's true. Correct. Right.
Senator: Bams son is at the, for the first time. Mm-hmm. He not just has to but needs to find, learn to find his own way.
Correct. A hundred percent.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Correct. Yeah. But I did tell him family weekends early October, I am bringing a cigar for you and I. Two folding chairs. We're gonna sit right on the cut, which is a big lawn area. Right. The big quad there. And we're gonna sit down and have a cigar together. I don't care what the administrators say, it's [01:38:00] gonna happen.
It's
Gizmo: nice. You, you and your son are gonna go to jail. Yeah. He's gonna get his son kicked out. That perfect. Before he gets through his Tracy here, he'll get a warning.
Bam Bam: You won't get kicked out.
Gizmo: Just tell the warden your first call was a video called to the pod. No. At this school, they're gonna cut the cigars for them.
They're gonna light the cigars for them and then
Chef: call the police. They're gonna have cedar spills waiting. That's correct. They'll smoke the first third, tell them what they get and then they give them the cigar.
Bam Bam: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Gizmo: Well, congrats man. Thank
Bam Bam: you.
Gizmo: That's awesome.
Bam Bam: Thank Great. It was a great time.
Gizmo: Good for you. Yeah, thanks. And Senator, I mean, we have to mention too, again, in different life stages of parenting, I can't believe that your son, Senator Junior, turned three years old this year. Correct? Yeah. I mean, all of our listeners and we have been. Through you, you know, before he was born and now for the last three years.
I mean, it's all been recorded. It's pretty crazy to me that he's three years old this weekend
Bam Bam: and he had champagne.
Gizmo: And he had champagne
Bam Bam: and a cigar. Correct.
Gizmo: A little half Corona. That's right.
Senator: The best [01:39:00] part is that he can't drink champagne, but he knows that three years old, the difference between like red wine, white wine and champagne.
Wow. Which is pretty absurd. That's insane. Like, he'll see the bottle and be like, oh, dad is having champagne. Oh, dad is having wine. I'm like, you know the difference. I'm impressed now. The cake. We gotta
Bam Bam: talk about that cake. Dude,
Gizmo: that cake was ridiculous. Beautiful.
Bam Bam: Ridiculous. Cake was legit.
Gizmo: That must have cost you $200.
Bam Bam: Can I describe it? White icing and evergreen trees. Yeah. So the theme was,
Senator: um, mini little, little mini evergreens. Yeah. He amazing. Yeah. In the past year, um, like has gotten into like, I mean, skiing and kind of winter sports, you know, he's out to Whistler twice now. Um, we took him up to like camp Ga to just get him on skis.
He's too young to go to ski school yet. I think maybe next year he'll be able to do it. But just him getting on skis, he was so excited. So, um, he just loves kind of that whole theme. So, you know, my wife did a, a whole thing, uh, theme centered around that. She made that cake? [01:40:00] No, no, she did not. Okay. Um,
Bam Bam: I would've been extremely impressed, dude.
It was so professional. It was beautiful. It was like a wedding
Senator: cake. I did it last year. You know how women are like some, someone on Instagram? That's an edit.
Okay, I'll, I'll edit that. Oh man.
Gizmo: I'm
Senator: leaving it in. Do my eyebrows went right up. You, you know, uh, our wives are, are on very active on social media. Yeah.
Bam Bam: There a certain way.
Senator: Yeah. Very active on social media. You know, they see things like, oh, that's amazing.
Gizmo: Pinterest and TikTok.
Senator: Correct. Like two years ago, the bane of my existence, two years ago, some woman posted some cakes that she was very interested in.
So last year this person made a cake for his birthday. And then this year she wanted the same person to do it. And um, I will say the cake was actually very good. I'm not a big sweet guy. There was like a raspberry mousse inside. Oh, nice. Like, you know, multiple layers. Was it a white cake or, yeah, white.
Like white sponge. Did you save pagoda a piece? Uh, there is actually leftover in [01:41:00] my fridge. So Really if he was
Chef: here today, would've brought some from, I could tell you right off the bat that paired wonderfully What? Whatever champagne you were drinking. Sure.
Senator: It was a lot of champagne. Oh yeah. Flowing a lot of champagne.
Gizmo: Tap. How many bottles of PO rose did you tap that day? Seven bottles of champagne. What?
Senator: And three bottles of rose. Wow. Lord. And how much does Senator out junior drink? None yet. But he'll get there. He'll, he'll, he'll be ready to hit he'll, he'll know exactly what to reach for when he's of the age. Correct.
But, uh, it was a good time. He had a blast and it was just fun for me. 'cause this was the most aware he's ever been for a birthday. Like Yeah, he's at that point now. Yeah. Appreciate everything. That's great. Which was really, really cool. Um, we got him his first like real bike for his, uh, birthday gifts. He was super pumped about that.
Um, and it was so funny because they have, you know, like when we were kids and you got like a bike, you know, there were pedals and training wheels and all that. Now there's these guardian bikes and mm-hmm. Their whole philosophy is like, you don't put the pedals on and the kids supposed to [01:42:00] balance it, first balance bike, and then eventually put the pedals.
And it's so funny, like, we like go outside. I tell Will, here's the clicker, open the garage, like your gifts inside the garage, he sees the bike lights up like a Christmas tree, so pumped up. And he's like, I wanna get on the bike. So I was like, all right, put him on the bike. He's like, where's the pedals? Why can't I pedal?
He was like, immediately ready. So I'm like, oh, just try to balance. He's balancing just fine. He's like, I want the pedals. So here I am. It's like 90 degrees. I'm like, great. Now I gotta, I spent the morning building the bike. Yeah. And I like, you gotta push him around. I was told to leave off the pedals and now I have to put the pedals on and then I'm like, at this point I'm just gonna put the training wheels, because obviously he's not gonna be able to ride a bike immediately.
Uh, but he's loving the thing. He's super happy. That's awesome.
Gizmo: When I grew up, my dad, we had a big decline driveway. Grow in Pennsylvania, growing where I grew up. That's where you learned. Not much has changed. He took us to the top. Yeah. And he put me on the bike and he said, good luck. Good luck. Good luck.
Just go. [01:43:00] That was my
Senator: training. The thing he's most excited about, um, on the actual David birthday, we're flying to Dr. Uh, for vacation. Nice. So he's like so excited about this. Awesome. Cigars. Are you bringing Oh, everything. You know, everything
Bam Bam: now. How many, how many days will you be there?
Senator: Uh, eight days.
Seven nights. That's at least 40 cigars for sure. No doubt about it. Yeah.
Gizmo: I'm gonna say 50. Yeah, probably. Oh yeah. I'm just gonna load up. Nice. So congratulations to you both, man. Thank you. I, I just think it's awesome. Again, I can't get past the fact that here we are in this room and all of us are at different stages of, of parenting and life and Correct it all is it all comes together with the great equalizer.
Yes, sir. You know, the cigar in our hands. So I, that's, I think that's awesome. And it's awesome that we're able to share this with the lizards out there. And every, you know, all of our lizard listeners are at different stages in life. That's right. And we hear from them. So anybody out there who's having a similar experience dropping their kids off at college, or even young ones having their birthdays and finding your ways to have [01:44:00] cigars, please email us.
We'd love to hear about it. We'd love to share. Share it
Chef: on the pod. And listeners, let me tell you, these two papas here are glowing right now. Yeah. They're loving it. They're proud.
Senator: And you line up great cigars for occasions like that. That's true. Bam. Had an 80th on my morning cigar was, uh. Up bu on a hot house.
Bam Bam: Oh yeah.
Senator: 2011. Um, and then my night cigar was, uh, an nuttman number two. Nice. 22. Very nice.
Chef: I'm curious, well, uh, maybe at, at your son's age, the parents stick around, but do the parents stick around or do they just drop the kids off or 40 or how's that work? For what? For Will's birthday. Oh, did he have
Senator: other kids present?
Oh, I mean, we did a small thing. So like they were parents that we're super close with, so Oh yeah, they were there. Oh yeah.
Gizmo: Alright, boys, before we get to our ratings tonight, we gotta go to at least one email. We're gonna do this now. It's our lizard of the week. Of course, any lizard out there can win Lizard of the Week.
All you have to do is write us an email as Jules here did [01:45:00] send us a comment on Instagram, YouTube, or even Spotify or FOH. Of course, we love the folks on FOH, uh, but, uh, and you're gonna win something. We'll send you a little gift bag from the lizards. So this one is from our Wizard of the Week. His name is Jules.
He says, Bonjour lizards. After listening to episode 196, I noted that you guys enjoyed the minerality of the white domain, Segal Aerco Santorini Vintage 2020. I wanted to suggest that you guys try a white St. Joseph. It's mineral with light, floral, and nutty flavor. A brother to Hermitage, Kote Roti. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right.
Forgive me. There's a bunch of weird accents on letters and stuff. He says it's typically more affordable and is often overlooked or undervalued. Joel, Joel Yvette is an upcoming producer. Even with the US markup, you should be able to find a bottle for 35 to $50. [01:46:00] So there you go. Senator
Senator: Pascal, Joel Levette.
Saner is like one of my favorite Samaras period. Oh, nice, okay. Which is like 35 a bottle. So I'm, that's saying, I wonder if he's talking about the same thing.
Gizmo: I think he probably is. So he is saying, you know, uh, the St. Joseph and that it's a brother to Hermitage, Cote Roti again, I don't know. And then Joel Levette as well.
Senator: Okay.
Gizmo: So I, I, I guess the first two we need to, uh, to look out for it's probably Cote rot. Something like that. Correct. I guess. And then we have a cigar related question. He says plume and mold. Is it the same thing? Any practice, if any faint white specks are detected or separate and smoke before further degradation?
Lizard jewels. And we get this question a lot, boys. Yes, we do. Are plume and mold the same thing? Are they different? Can I answer? I, I think, uh, gizmo has the strongest feelings on this one. I do. Plume is mold. Mold is plume. [01:47:00] They might be different strains of bacteria and fungi or whatever it might be. But plume is mold.
If you have or Cote Roti or Cote Roti, if you have plume on your cigars, you're good. Unless it's on the foot of the cigar, right? Yes. And if your plume is on the foot of the cigar, which is mold, get
Bam Bam: rid of it.
Gizmo: You gotta throw it out. If it's only on the wrapper, doesn't come to the foot, just wipe it off.
Separate and dehydrate. Get that humidity outta there. Dehumidify.
Chef: Can I play devil's advocate here? Go ahead. What if you, you're gonna lose this battle. Go ahead. It's not a battle. I'm looking to win. I'm just, I'm sure somebody's out there is thinking the same shit. What if you cut off, say a quarter inch of the foot and the mold isn't present, or the plume isn't present?
Gizmo: Well, I think at that point you're changing the blend.
Chef: Hmm.
Gizmo: And I think, no, you're not, I think you're changing how the cigar is supposed to develop with combustion through the start. It, it's like if you take a [01:48:00] cigar, a double corona cut it in half. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And you smoke one half versus the other.
It's gonna be different. A hundred percent.
Chef: Yeah. I think that's entirely different. 'cause now you're not smoking from the head of the cigar and you know you're Yeah. That's whoever's smoking
Gizmo: meth. My point though, and I know senator's giving me a face. I mean, that, that, that just doesn't add up. I don't think you should be taking a cigar and cutting a bit off if there's mold there, you gotta throw it out.
Why do you wanna be smoking that? I mean, some
Senator: of the guys here, gizmo included, will take an inch off the head of their cigar just when they cut it. They're still smoking the same old days. Those, it's episode 199 days we're talking about three,
Gizmo: four years ago. Those correct,
Chef: I, I guess I say that to to say this right.
As a chef right. You encounter moldy cheeses and whatnot and you may cut off the mode and if you don't see it, you eat it. Whatever. It's disgusting. Listen, it's plume is mode, modus plume. Do what you will consume at your own
Gizmo: risk. Right?
Chef: Sure. That's probably the question. But
Gizmo: what I don't like is that the industry perpetuates the idea that yes, plume is [01:49:00] okay.
Yeah. 'cause it shows this idea of age when in fact it's just a lazy humidor. Nothing, it's a lazy humidor.
Chef: Correct. It it shows age in a lazy humidor. Exactly.
Gizmo: Yeah. Or it just shows, you know, humidity in a lazy humidor. Yeah. You know, so if, if you're seeing plume or mold, you gotta separate those cigars. Make them a little bit more dry.
Get them isolated. And if they have mold on the foot, you gotta get rid of them. Yeah. And even if you're cutting, sorry,
Senator: this there, there's a keep piece missing. Go ahead. So gives is a hundred percent right on the plumes mold. Mold is plume, all that. Um, but if you encounter it, if there is mold plume, whatever you want to call it on the outside of the wrapper.
On the wrapper, wipe it off a little bit. You just wipe it off. Yeah, you could. And if it comes right off and if it's white, you'll have no problem with the cigar. Correct. Like I said, if it's on the head, uh, sorry, on the foot of the cigar mm-hmm. You, you don't wanna be inhaling mold. No, that's, that would be a problem.
Bam Bam: And even if you're cutting it off, there are likely spores still [01:50:00] present that you can't see. So it's not worth, that's what I don't like as soon ast don't on the foot you gotta get rid of. Right. Totally correct. But
Senator: I just say that 'cause I don't want someone to be afraid of, I mean, we've been in, you know, different retailers, lc, dhs, where there's a little bit of plumer mold on the outside the wrapper, the cigar.
And if you can wipe that off with your finger, you, you don't need to be worried or mm-hmm. Panicked. Like it's fine. It's just, if it's pervasive and especially if it's on the foot, then you need to be concerned. But I just, I don't want any listener to hear that and think like, if they see some white, a little bit of white mold on a wrapper of their cigar, they should be like, the cigar is completely screwed.
Like it's not the case. No.
Gizmo: It's only if it's on the foot, you have to trash. Sure. Everything else wipe it off with some distilled water. You know, a little paper towel with Distilled and Isolate. I wouldn't even do that and dry it out. Just wipe it out with a dry paper towel.
Bam Bam: I, I've been in clubs where this topic has come up and, um, one guy was talking to another guy and I, and oh, I've got some white stuff on Plume.
Is that what it is? Another guy saying, oh, [01:51:00] that's a good thing. Yeah, that's good. There's a misconception out there. It has nothing to do with the, with good or bad, it's just something that's there to, like you said, wipe it off.
Senator: No, I mean, the funny thing about, you know, it gives his rightful frustration at retailers who try to pretend like this is how it's supposed to be.
Mm-hmm. I'll never forget, I had ordered years ago some boxes of cigars from JR Cigars Online, and when I got them covered in mold and I call them and the first thing the person tells me is like, oh, I, you know, I'm sorry to hear that, but you know, that's the sign of a really well aged cigar. Yeah. They're just totally
Gizmo: played it off.
Hilarious. They got it in the warehouse a month ago. Correct. Exactly. It's just The warehouse is an 85% humidity. Exactly.
Senator: And I'm like, it is not so either you're gonna refund me fucking people or you're gonna send me a new box without, uh, plume. And they're like, all right, we'll send you a new one and just keep the other one.
Gizmo: I think I told this story, I buy a lot of our alcohol at a local bottle King near to me. I love Bottle King. I think [01:52:00] we all do. We do great prices, great selection. They have great stuff there. They have a. Piece of tape over a writeup.
Chef: Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: On the cigar section of their store, there's like a door and they have this thing taped there, and it says, you know, plume is the, as you were saying, it's the sign of great age on a cigar.
And if you see plume, it means the cigars been here a while and the flavor's gonna be amazing. And it just frustrates me that there's a major retailer just absolutely lying to the consumers of these cigars that they're buying. Yeah. Which are highly overpriced. Unlike their alcohol. The cigars are way overpriced, but it, it's just amazing to me that you're able to lie.
They're able to literally put a eye on their door. It could be ignorance.
Chef: Yeah.
Gizmo: Well,
Chef: some cigar manufacturers lie.
Gizmo: Correct. Well said. Well said, chef. So, yes. Uh, if you have a plume or mold on your cigars, be cautious. Wipe it off. Unless it's on the foot, then be [01:53:00] extra cautious and probably trash them. Yeah. If it's a pervasive on the foot.
I mean, giz otherwise,
Chef: what's your oldest cigar in your tower? Oh boy.
Gizmo: I have probably some stuff from the late nineties maybe. Wow. Is
Chef: there any plume on it? Zero. Bam. What's the oldest cigar in your tower? Um, 2004 maybe. Any plume on it? No. Senator, what's the oldest cigar in your tower? I can't believe you guys
Senator: know this.
I, I mean, honestly, I don't even know. Yeah. Okay. Well,
Chef: 2000. I wish Rooster were here. He'd be like, oh, it's a cigar from 1902. Rooster would be like, uh, 1200 BC Correct. Rolled in the stone cage.
And there's
Gizmo: no plume on it. I mean, at the end of the day, age in a cigar and tobacco is not visible except in the packaging. The band. That's right. If it's a Cuban cigar, the, you know, the, the, the wax paper. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, you could see some coloring if [01:54:00] there's cellophane. Cellophane, yeah. I love seeing cellophane on a, on, on a non Cuban cigar.
You wrap it up and it's almost brown. Yeah. You can see how long it's been in there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That is the best indication of age. Correct. It's not mold or plume. That is a a, an improperly kept cigar. That unfortunately is too humid. Yeah. So if you light that thing up, it's gonna smoke like shit.
Chef: I agree.
Gizmo: All right, boys, it's time now for the ratings portion of our program tonight. What's everybody thinking about the pairing before we go to our formal liquor rating?
Bam Bam: Hmm.
Gizmo: Nice pairing. I'm happy with it. Yeah. Yeah.
Senator: Pretty nice. I enjoy the pairing. Why? The dipping enthusiasm on the pairing all of a sudden.
Bam Bam: Um, I, for me, I, I'll, I'll, this, I'm
Senator: frustrated with the cigar.
Same. Oh, sorry. I was thinking more of the liquor we were talking about. Well, it's a good, it's a good pairing. It's nice. I,
Gizmo: I've really enjoyed the bourbon. I think the cigar, and I know we've said this a thousand times, I thought the flavor was great and I think the bourbon flavor was great. It's the construction and performance issues with the cigar that [01:55:00] I think we're, are gonna come up quite a bit.
Yeah. In our ratings tonight.
Bam Bam: This cigar for me is still smoking beautifully. It's delicious. I'm loving the flavor. Yeah, it's, it does flake a lot and it's a problem. No doubt about it.
Gizmo: Alright boys, let's go to our formal liquoring tonight on the Heaven Hill. Seven years age Kentucky. Straight bourbon whiskey, bam, bam, you're up.
Bam Bam: So I, overall, I liked it. Um, it's not as balanced as I'd like it to be. It does lean sweet for me. I don't see myself drinking more than one glass at a sit. It's really, there's a very specific taste in palette for this particular expression. And it's not for me and for that reason, regardless of the price and how flavorful it was, I am gonna give it a seven.
It's for me, a little too sweet.
Gizmo: What I think that's, I think that's aggressive. Yeah.
Bam Bam: I won't ever drink this again. For me personally, I won't drink it again. And it's just really,
Chef: yeah. I think that's a tough rating because I know you added water. I did. And, and I told you by adding water, you're gonna take away the spice and the [01:56:00] heat.
And I added a little bit left.
Bam Bam: Yeah, I added a little bit more. And then I needed to add more water because I wasn't, it wasn't something I was enjoying. For me, it was just way too sweet for me. It was either or too spicy or too sweet for me. It was too sweet. Still enjoyable. Very, very drinkable. But if I'm served this, I'll have it, but I'll have something else right after this.
Chef: Is
Bam Bam: that all right,
Chef: chef? Yeah. I'm at a nine with this bourbon. A nine. Oh, there we
Senator: go. Wow. Nice.
Chef: Jesus. I I There's a rating.
Bam Bam: There's
Senator: a rating.
Bam Bam: Well, I gave you a rating
Gizmo: clearly. You did it. Oh, did you just burn your fingers?
Bam Bam: No, but I almost did.
Gizmo: I'm juggling a cigar. Even the cigars outrage. But he said,
Chef: I resent that.
No, I think this is a well-made bourbon. It's delicious. Giving it a seven is a, the service to the brand, the bourbon itself. Um, thanks Jeff. I'm sorry. I love you, Ben. Alright. A lot. But [01:57:00] yeah, I look the first pour I, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that maybe pouring this and, you know, decanting it or putting it in a really wide, you know, maybe even a sniffer or something like that, where you could aerate it properly, you're gonna get the best experience that way.
I think adding water, you know, unless you're being really precise about it and you understand what your ratio is, because just even the, the smallest amount of too much water is gonna really throw the balance of the spirit off. Um, and my first pour, so I'm on my third glass. The second glass, I added water to that ratio was great.
The next class I had a little more water to and. I'm not enjoying it. Uh, it, it is really sweet. It reminds me a lot of the Dunbarton Brule, and I wasn't here for that episode, but I've had that cigar. Uh, so I know what you guys are, are what you guys experienced with that one? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but I think on its own, when [01:58:00] I, when I drank this neat with a, with some sit time and just kind of letting it aerate, it was delicious.
It was well balanced. The pepper helped offset or the spice, not pepper, but the, the baking spice helped offset Without the water. Without the water. Yeah. Okay. The baking spice helped offset the sweetness and it was well balanced. And that was by far the best experience I was having in the pairing. You know, maybe the enjoyment of the spirit had a little to do with the cigar needing so much babysitting, um, especially around the third glass, but yeah.
You mean it gave you patience to nurse a cigar? No, no. It, it, it took away from the experience overall. This, but we're not on the cigar just yet. The bourbon was a nine. I enjoyed it the most. Neat with some rest and air. Okay. And I think that's the best way to go. Hmm.
Gizmo: For me, it's also a nine. I, I really enjoyed the bourbon.
I thought it was a great flavored bourbon. I thought the heat was perfect. I think, [01:59:00] again, talking about what we do here under the microscope of pairing with a cigar, I think this is an excellent bourbon to pair with a cigar. I feel great drinking it. I, I feel like tomorrow morning I'm gonna wake up not feeling punished by it.
It, it just tastes like a very good bourbon to me. And it paired great with the cigar. I love the price on it. I think at 50 bucks, I mean, we've talked so much about bourbon and this false scarcity thing that drives me insane where I'm trying to acquire a bottle for this podcast. And I'm paying a hundred and $120 for a bottle that should be 40.
Yep. Tonight I got a bottle that was easy to source. Tastes great. 50 bucks, 50 A BV. I'm very, very happy with it. So for me, it's a nine senator. All right.
Senator: So I'm thrilled with the last two ratings 'cause I thought I was gonna be the only nine. I'm also at a nine. Um, you know, bourbon is a sweeter spirit, so I'm not expecting a dry spirit when I drink any bourbon.
Um, I think at [02:00:00] 50%. It did not kick you around at all. I mean, there's countless 50% bourbons that we've done where all of us have either taken a quick sip before we hit record, or when we're recording, we take that first sip without any ice. Mm-hmm. Or water. And we are like mortar oil. I mean, cannot, that's every week.
That's fan bam. Every
Bam Bam: week. That's Valvoline the level of
Senator: heat. I mean, some of them are just so hot. That's true. I didn't have this when I first sipped this neat without anything in it. I'm like, okay, yeah, it's a little hot, but not aggressive to the point that I'm like super offput or anything like that.
I put a little bit of water for me. You know, I know Chef is a true purist when it comes to spirits. He does not like really anything, any water typically added for me with some water. I love the experience. Um, the, the sweetness. I mean, sure. It, it leans sweeter, but it, it, it complimented the [02:01:00] cigar. Like I would pair this with just about any Maduro or, you know, new world cigar that is super flavorful.
I think it complimented the sweetness in the cigar. It balanced out the spice in the cigar. I just think it, it has a lot of versatility in the number of cigars that I would pair this with. I like is said, you know, I feel good drinking it. There's a lot of bourbons where, you know, I'll have a few sips and I'm like, you can tell.
Yeah. You know what's coming. You're ready. Yeah. I'm just gonna pace myself like this is a lot. This like punishment's coming. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's more than I'm looking for. And that's not the case with this. I thought it was really well made. And again, you know why I am sure it's hard for some listeners that are B bourbon purists, like we rate this based on how it can pair and perform with a cigar.
And this is one of those bourbons that, and there's not that many, I think does really well with most new world cigars. So I'm at a strong nine. I would definitely drink this again. And the price 50 bucks is very fair for what it delivers. Yeah. [02:02:00] Especially
Chef: for high A BV bourbon. Yeah. I don't think
Bam Bam: there's many people that are gonna disagree with that.
I think all those elements are true. I just feel like, because for me was, it was so sweet. I almost feel like it's going to affect. Let's say if I have this with my Cuban cigar collection, I feel like it's gonna overpower a lot of my Cubans, possibly. But
Gizmo: how often are you pulling a bourbon out? Never to pair with a Cuban cigar.
I don't
Bam Bam: ever
Gizmo: take a bourbon ever. So that's why I think judging it based on how it would pair with a Cuban is unfair, because yeah, of course you're not reaching for bourbon with a Cuban,
Bam Bam: but even with the Nicaragua, if I have this with an vivo, I'm gonna, um, um, because it's so sweet for me, it's always, uh, it feel.
Mm-hmm. It'll feel like my palate's being affected. Interesting.
Senator: You know, I don't know. For me, like this would actually pair great with an exvivo. This would make, oh, I think it a sonata. I think it'll be good. Yeah. Yeah. This would make an vivo almost taste more like a diplomatico. Right. Like the diplomatico is the Churchill version of thei.
See, but that's, it's just sweeter.
Bam Bam: That's just it for me. I'd rather have the rums that we've all fallen in [02:03:00] love with because they're so perfectly balanced, and I can experience the cigar for what it really is. What's, but rums are sweet. I mean, well, the Florida con that we drink is not as sweet as this, that that's not, but like even the Havana seven
Senator: Santiago, uh, Cuban rum that we all have drank plenty of.
I mean, that's a sweet rum. Yeah.
Bam Bam: We haven't had that in a very long time, but that's true. Yeah, that's true.
Gizmo: All boys. The formal liquoring tonight on the seven years aged Heaven Hill, Kentucky Street, bourbon whiskey, bottled in bond. Is an 8.5.
Bam Bam: That's a good
Gizmo: score. I think that's a fair rating actually. I think that's fair.
It's a little light, but I, we saved
Bam Bam: Bam.
Gizmo: We did save. Bam.
Bam Bam: Well, your over enthusiastic ratings have been balanced by my rating.
Gizmo: Well, as we discussed today, he's a little sad, a little emotional. It's true. He's taking it out on the bourbon. He's still a said that he's taking it out on the bourbon tonight.
Chef: I was gonna say it.
I thought it would've been mean. Someone else. Also not. Nice.
Gizmo: All right boys, it's time now for the formal Lizer rating tonight on the League of Bravada, H 99. Here we go in Toro. Senator, you're up. [02:04:00]
Senator: Oh boy. Awesome. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not, I'm not certain on my score, so I'm gonna be thinking aloud a little bit here.
Mm-hmm. This is gonna be one of the most difficult cigars I've ever rated on this podcast. I am. I
Gizmo: wrote that down. I am so with you on
Senator: that. It's true. And I say that because on flavor alone, this could have been a nine easily. The flavor is delicious. I truly love the blend. It's easily the best liga I've ever had.
It is complex. You get everything from fruit that brings some like tartness and acidity to like the sweet notes from the cocoa cocoa's there and some of the other, you know, coffee and some of the C notes. CC cherry. Totally. Yeah. I mean there's so much there flavor wise, and to its credit. The flavor carries all the way through.
Bam Bam: Oh yeah.
Senator: Even at the very final inch, I still got tons of flavor and no harshness. It wasn't muted, it [02:05:00] wasn't super muddled. All of that was great. The problem is, this is one of the worst constructed cigars I have had in years legitimately when I said, we've all smoked $2 cigars that are more effortless and better constructed than this.
That is in no hyperbole I'm using there whatsoever ultra premium seconds.
Gizmo: I, Hey, they're, they perform better than this. Oh, absolutely. They don't. Taste is good. And that's three bucks. They perform better.
Senator: Yeah, they do. Agreed. And I mean, this got to the point. I, I just, for most of the cigar, I was frustrated.
I, I'm still agitated about this, like to have something so beautifully blended and the flavor be exactly what you want and are looking for, and it just be ruined by poor construction, like mm-hmm. It, it's a huge demerit and so I, I've been debating between a seven and an eight. Um.
[02:06:00] I'm, I'm gonna round up, I'm gonna give it to you. Wow, hon. Honestly, I didn't expect that. I, I didn't either, but this is, this is my thinking. I am hoping and praying that this vila, for whatever reason, the cigarette needs prayers. It does, it does. Because it's so promising. Tea's and Ps, thoughts and prayers.
It's so promising. I mean, I, I think, you know, for me, I have never rooted harder for a liga cigar than this one. Like this could be, I'll argue a cigar. Yeah. Yeah. We were rooting for the
Gizmo: cigar
Senator: time. So he
Bam Bam: said that earlier. That's a very true statement regarding the cigar. Yep. Very true.
Senator: I I, there's so much I wanna love about this cigar.
You
Chef: want it to be flawless because it tastes so good. Exactly.
Senator: The reason I'm rounding up to an eight, I, I am hoping that for whatever reason, maybe this Toro Vila has more construction. This is the OG vitola in this, don't. It is, but there's a reason they came out with others. I mean, if it was so perfect and could never be matched or touched, they [02:07:00] wouldn't have done anything other than that.
Quick question. How, when did you buy these?
Bam Bam: Three weeks ago. So you've had 'em in your tower for three weeks? Yeah. Okay. And I dry
Gizmo: boxed '
Bam Bam: em for a week. Okay. Just curious.
Senator: I'm just hoping that some of the other Olas may be construction-wise, perform a bit better. It is impossible for me to imagine. I, I would bet anything on this that there's, there worse.
The, the construction is worse on any of the other olas. I mean, you can't have a more frustrating experience. But the reason I'm holding out hope is just the flavor is so awesome in this cigar. I, I do think if anyone, number one is a league of fan and hasn't had this cigar, they absolutely have to try it.
The flavor alone, even how frustrating the construction is, it's worth trying and experiencing the complexity of full flavor that this delivers with no kick. I mean, you don't get knocked around. I feel I legitimately could smoke an entire another toro of this cigar and feel great.
Gizmo: Yeah,
Senator: I wouldn't say [02:08:00] that about a league of nine.
I'd have one league of nine. I'm good. Oh, you're done not having a second.
Gizmo: Yeah. Yeah.
Senator: This cigar is so well balanced. I could smoke a second one of it. So the flavor, I always over index on flavor. That's the most important thing. But it got two demerits, right? It precluded from the 10 and the nine because the construction is so problematic, I hope it's a bad box.
In an ideal world, other boxes smoke better than this one did, and at a minimum, I hope other vitola maybe perform a little bit better. So I'm at an eight. It's still, the flavor's so good. I, I honestly think anyone who loves a full-bodied cigar or full flavored cigar still ought to try it. That's how much I enjoyed the flavor.
It's delicious.
Gizmo: So I'm at a seven. I loved the flavor of this cigar, but this cigar tortured me tonight. Every time I opened my mouth and talked about the history of the cigar, the history of the spirit, reading a news article, I had to go back to the lighter, had to go back to [02:09:00] to it with the lighter. There wasn't a moment tonight in this entire episode where I wasn't thinking about my cigar going out, performance, combustion, whatever.
It took me out of my game. It took me out of the zone here and it frustrated me the entire way. And I, I just, I'm so disappointed for my expectation coming in, being low, tasting it on the light, how great it was, that first inch, inch and a half, and then the rest of the cigar just absolutely being punishing.
Bam Bam: But the flavor continued.
Gizmo: The flavor was there, but I had a fight for it. Okay. Yeah, I don't wanna fight for flavor. Now the thing I'm gonna pile on, what Senator said here is I'm gonna pile on the price. This was an $18 cigar. Yeah. And I know you said that we can get a two $3 cigar that performs better than this, but we purchased near $20 cigars tonight.
How many cigars have we smoked on this podcast under $20 that have performed a thousand times better than this many and also had the [02:10:00] flavor? Many, many, many.
Chef: Yeah.
Gizmo: So, uh, for all those reasons, I mean, I'm just really disappointed in this cigar tonight. And I, I would argue your point about changing the ola, I think the problem on this cigar, aside from construction, is I also think the wrapper, whatever they're doing with that hybrid wrapper in Connecticut, it's growing too thick.
It's too difficult to combust, it's not working with the rest of the blend. I think maybe they need to grow that somewhere else. Maybe a more traditional type of, of growing pattern or growing rah, or whatever you wanna call it that might perform better. But whatever's happening with this wrapper and the fact that it looks like a piece of construction paper on my cigar.
Chef: Yeah, it
Gizmo: could be. I think that was a, a real problem tonight. It could be the stalk cut, it could be, it could just be the Connecticut terroir. It could be too much water. It could be, I don't know what's going on. I just don't think that whatever's going on here flavor-wise is great. It's not the stalk cut though, because doesn't Socca do that with a lot of
Senator: [02:11:00] his cigars?
Some, but they're not growing in Connecticut.
Bam Bam: That's true.
Senator: But, but I'm just, just to the point of the stock cut. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He does that with a number of his cigars and one thing I will give him credit for, they're always well
Bam Bam: constructed. Yeah. You never suffer with those. No. Beautifully made cigars.
Does this come into Ribo?
Gizmo: It does, yeah. I would 54 by five and a half though, not 50. Oh man. Okay. So it's a thicker
Bam Bam: ribo that could be an even larger flower bloom. I just think
Gizmo: I, I guess my point is if the wrapper is consistent across all the ola, the construction is the same because the same people are making it.
I can't see mm-hmm. This, you know, performing differently in a different vitola. Yeah. Maybe it tastes different, but I don't see the performance being different because if the construction's the same, the rapper's the same, all of that, I, I don't see it doing better. Mm. And I can't sit here and tell a listener to run out and get this at $18 because for how great it tasted, it just really was punishing most of the way through.
Yeah.
Senator: Two things I just wanna say in [02:12:00] response. One, for me, the first inch of this cigar was not punishment. It burned. I completely
Gizmo: agree.
Senator: So, like, that's where I'm holding out some hope. I, I'm not sure that I'm a hundred percent sold that like the rapper can't. Combust the way it's supposed to. 'cause the first inch actually was good.
I, I was settled in, I, I, yeah. I'm sitting here just imagining the occasions I would smoke this exact cigar again and it was after the first inch that suddenly this tunnel, I start noticing. Yep. And I started having these issues. So that's part of why I'm holding out hope there. The only other thing I wanna say on the, the $18 price point, now we all agree so far that obviously for 18 bucks, the construction is abysmal.
Mm-hmm. But the flavor, I do wanna say if this cigar was $25, I think for the flavor, if this was well constructed, if it performed perfectly, it's deserving of even a higher price point than $10. I, I'm [02:13:00] with you on that. It sure. It's so damn satisfying flavor wise. Yeah. But I think
Gizmo: that suffering though, Senator discounts the flavor performance so much because if we were not sitting here under the microscope, if you're sitting in that lounge, you said this yourself, had we not been sitting here tonight, you would've put the cigar down.
You would've reached for something else. It's
Chef: true. Well, maybe if this wasn't two US tobaccos, it'd be a little bit cheaper. Yeah. But it would still be a frustrating smoke. It would still be a frustrating smoke in Connecticut. It's still us, right. Uh,
Gizmo: you know, right. Chef, you're
Chef: up. Yeah. So this cigar, you know.
I felt good about it. I was a little, uh, nervous coming into it, but once I felt it in my hand and I saw the, and I saw the wrapper and I saw the cigar as a whole, I thought this was gonna be a banger. And then we lit it up, you know, the smell on the cigar, the smell on the foot, it was all delicious, lit it up for me.
The first third was almost perfect. It was after the first [02:14:00] third where things just started getting unmanageable. And, you know, I, I was looking at my burn line. I was looking at my cigar constantly, just kind of trying to anticipate where I had to light it next, or where I had to set to touch up next. And, um, it wasn't a fun experience.
You know, I, I, I, you know, it was, there was great conversation happening here today. There was a great spirit that we were sipping on, and the cigar demanded so much of my attention, and not for any good reason after the first third, uh, that it just became sort of laborious to kind of keep it going. But the flavor was there.
Like I wanted it to be a perfect cigar. I wanted to light it and just smoke it and relax and settle in, as senator said. And the cigar did not allow me to do that. Uh, and for that, I'm giving it a seven. Um, wow. You know, I think that. I think if they fix the thickness of the wrapper, that might fix all of the issues with the [02:15:00] cigar.
And that's maybe all I want them to fix because the flavor was there. The blend is a great blend. Uh, but combustion was horrendous. Uh, and it just required a lot of butane, a lot of attention. And that goes against why we do this as a hobby and why we smoke cigars in general. So yeah, it's a seven for me and, you know, hopefully they could correct it.
Um, you know, the cigar felt great. I don't think it was a hu a humidification issue. There wasn't any s sponginess cigar felt perfect, and that's why I was excited coming into it. So, yeah. Um, I'm in lockstep with you giz and, and with you senator on some of the points you mentioned and even with some of the things Bam said.
But yeah, I think to give this more than a seven with everything, I don't know, 15 re you know, the five re 15 touchups. It was, it was a frustrating experience.
Senator: I think Chef just jinx us when he said earlier that no premium cigar has ever been recalled. This, this
Gizmo: needs to be recalled. [02:16:00] This might, the by construction might, they're gonna make a movie about this.
Chef: Well, I was thinking more along the lines of e coli or something like that. Not, not a rapper thickness. All right, Pam, as Ben's fingers
Bam Bam: are burning, I love the cigar. Um, I. I think priority number one is flavor, and it checks that box.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Bam Bam: You know, if the ash had a bit better of a structure and if the burn line was just a little bit better, these aren't significant demerits.
They are. And I agree with everything you're saying.
Chef: Not in your cigar
Senator: though. Yeah. You true. This is the best before.
Bam Bam: Yeah, it's, that's
Senator: true. Yeah. Which again, gives me hope that it is possible. The,
Bam Bam: the inconsist, there's more there. We may wanna smoke that later, but, um, correct. The inconsistent construction is a problem.
I didn't care because it was delicious from beginning to end. And there's zero, there's zero. [02:17:00] Ammonia is about a half inch left.
Chef: Yeah.
Bam Bam: I, I, I think a seven is a, is a, that's a, that's a punishing score.
Gizmo: You know why? Because it was a punishing cigar.
Bam Bam: Uh, well, I, I think an eight is a perfect score for how this performed and how this tasted.
So that's where, that's where I'm at. But the flavor, I think you've all said if it was a beautifully made cigar, this could be a perfect rating or close to it. A hundred percent agree. It could be. Right. So I think, I think because it checks the flavor box and I had to work just a little bit more, I don't mind that I'm giving it an eight.
Gizmo: All right, boys. The former lizard rating tonight on the League of Privada, H 99 and Toro from Drew Estate is a 7.5. Oh my
Senator: god. That's low. So I have a question for everybody. I think that's a perfect score for this. If this cigar was perfectly constructed, like a League of nine, I don't think we've ever had construction issues with a League of nine.
Never. So if this performed construction wise, like a League of nine, what would everyone have given it? Nine.
Chef: Perfectly
Senator: constructed at an $18
Chef: price
Senator: point.
Chef: Yeah. I
Senator: would've
Chef: edged a 10.
Bam Bam: I think I, I I would've been at a [02:18:00] nine. 10. Nine. Probably nine. Nine. Yeah. I think that's probably nine for me too. But
Senator: that, I asked that question because when I started by saying this is one of probably the most difficult ratings I've had to give.
Yeah. It's for exactly that reason. That's right. Like this cigar was so great that all of us are saying like, if it just burned properly, we'd give it nines and tens. Yes. Yeah. And the reason I round it up is because I, I actually want most listeners that like this flavor profile to just try it. Even if you have to fight it, it's just worth having it once.
And for me, the flavor profile of this is differentiated. Like at not one point while we smoked this, did anyone in this room say, you know, this is similar to X cigar. Yeah. And that counts a lot for me. That's true. But giving it two
Bam Bam: points of a deduction. Well, three for them. For them. Yeah. That's, that's, well, no, two
Gizmo: from the nine.
Yeah. Two from the nine. Here's from the nine, but here's the problem. Three. Three from his 10. Correct. That's
Bam Bam: egregious, I think. But it's not, it just needs a little bit of a tweak and it would've [02:19:00] been a nine, but it wasn't little of, it's
Gizmo: a little bit of a tweak. It was not a little bit of a construction.
As much as I had to relight. I was, we, we complained more about this construction and relight. Dude, there has not been a cigar that every single time I, I went to what we did. Seven news articles tonight. An email I know. And a topic I hear you. That you guys talked about. And I had to relight the cigar fully from every one of them.
That's a good point. I relight the cigar like eight times tonight.
Chef: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And there were times where it was lit, but I needed two draws to get the food love of smoke. Right. Like there wasn't, and that
Gizmo: started after the first third. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't
Chef: always going back to it and it picked up, you know, I mean, I noticed that you had to kind of get it going.
Gizmo: I'm, I'm, I'm punishing it extra on the rating tonight because of, I went through two hours tonight or an hour, 45 minutes of it being an absolutely consuming of my attention cigar.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: And for 18 bucks, what this is and how it tasted.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: That is unacceptable.
Bam Bam: And I did have a good version of it tonight.
You did. [02:20:00] You had the best one. Yeah, you did. You did for sure. Yeah.
Gizmo: Alright boys. So let's compare this to the other Liga bravado cigars we've done in the pod. Like I said, we've done some other Drew Estate cigars. We're not gonna compare 'em to those. Tonight. We got a 7.5 on the H 99 in Toro. The, on episode 10, we did the league at number nine in Toro 8.4.
Mm-hmm. On episode 102, we did the Unico. Papa Frita scored an 8.2 on an episode 136. The mezcal deep dive. We did three mezcals on that one. The T 52 in Corona. Viva scored a 6.5.
Chef: That was a ballsy episode.
Gizmo: It was, yeah.
Senator: Went four. This is two with three mezcals. Thank you. Hear those ratings. This is a better tasting cigar than 9% Sure.
And it's scored lower. Just 'cause they, they screwed up the construction on this.
Bam Bam: Yeah. But overall that Mark is a moving target.
Gizmo: It is. It seems. Yeah it is. All right boys. A great night tonight. A good pairing on the seven years aged Heaven Hill, Kentucky, [02:21:00] straight Bourbon whiskey. We had an 8.5 heaven heaven for us.
Hell for bail. That was, by the way, heaven on the pairing. Hell on the cigar. Yes. And the League of Bravada, H 99 and Toro scored a 7.5. So boys, we have to congratulate Lizard Jewels, our Lizard of the week. Like I said, anyone out there can win Lizard of the Week. All you have to do is send us an email, a comment, whatever you choose, a voice memo and uh, you can win Lizard of the Week.
And uh, we have to thank our sponsor, Fabrica five. Correct. They make great cigars. They're great partners to us. Use our code. Go try some of their cigars. You're not gonna have the issues you had tonight. No way. I promise you that.
Senator: Yeah. We've never appreciated their
Gizmo: construction more than
Senator: tonight.
Chef: Exactly.
And one last thing, good luck. Bam. Junior. Thank you. And congratulations. Senator Junior. Yes.
Bam Bam: Thank you so much. Thank you.
Chef: And
Gizmo: boys next week. Episode 200. That's a big one. I mean, come on, come on. It's a big one. I'm sharpening that Saber.
Bam Bam: I'm not gonna wear underwear that night, [02:22:00]
Chef: but do you ever Yes.
Occasionally. Bam. Bam. Don't forget Mrs. Bam. Bam. This is to this episode. That's correct.
Gizmo: All right, boys, a great night, a good conversation, a decent pairing, 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, lounge lizards pod.com.
That's lounge lizards, PO d.com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us hello@loungelizardspod.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod.
We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.