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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast, presented by Fabrica five. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo Tonight I'm joined by Rooster Pagoda, chef Ricky and bam bam.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some tequila, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 182nd official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard Plan, it is here once a week. We are gonna smoke a Cuban cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating.
We revisit a listener email on cigar lounge etiquette. We smoke a 10 years aged cigar, thanks to a lizard listener, and the guys discuss their love of scones 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 Cito private collection Tequila Blanco with the Hoya de Monterey Le Hoyo de San Juan. A Geniales from Cuba tonight [00:01:00] on the pod. It's the Hoyo de Monterey Le Hoyo de San Juan, and it's a 54 ring gauge cigar by five and seven eight inches long. And boys, we are in, I hope for a treat tonight because courtesy of a listener lizard, Greg, we have a cigar in our hands that is over 10 years old.
The operative
**Bam Bam:** operative words, I hope
**Rooster:** yes. We all hope. We all hope. But this is a beautiful cigar. The wrapper is so pretty. I mean, it's like a reddish brown. It's like a deep, dark brown
**Bam Bam:** color's. Nice. But it's, the texture's not the greatest use. Um, I think my seams are pretty visible. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** mine are too. But I do, but I love the color, the rosaro kind of.
**Rooster:** Yeah, I wrap. Yeah. Yeah. I like the little sheen on it.
**Chef Ricky:** Oh yeah. Just a touch. It's not super shiny, but Yeah, I do. It's kind of pinkish here. Rosa, is that what you guys are referring to? Rosato. Rosado, yeah. Like
**Gizmo:** a little bit of that reddish hue to the burnt Sienna type thing. Exactly. Yeah. It's really nice.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Feels good in the hand. You know what I liked about these? When I picked them [00:02:00] up when, uh, lizard Greg sent them to us. They didn't feel super dense. So I, I felt relieved in a way about the potential draw. And obviously we're gonna see in a second, but yeah. Um, they feel good in the hand. It's a nice, uh, it's a great vitola.
It's a nice cigar in the hand. Yeah. Although,
**Pagoda:** surprisingly to me, it feels really big now.
**Gizmo:** It does. Yeah. I'm just kidding.
**Pagoda:** I'm not sure if that's a surprise. Excuse me. What do you mean by
**Gizmo:** that? Oh, where are we headed? We'll go offline and have a conversation. Alright boys, let's cut this thing. See we're getting on the cold draw and the wrapper.
**Rooster:** Hmm.
**Gizmo:** Very cedar. Very mild. Very mild, but, uh, cedar forward for sure. I have a little bit more resistance than I was expecting actually on the draw.
**Bam Bam:** Actually. Mine is wide open. Yeah. And I'm surprised. So wide open. Wasn't expecting it.
**Pagoda:** Look at this. The whole cap just came off. It's beautiful. Yeah. Perfect.
Perfect. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** We're learning
**Gizmo:** our, uh,
**Pagoda:** I think I might have redeemed [00:03:00] myself.
**Gizmo:** It only took 181 episodes. That's correct. Oh, don't even gimme that. Please guess.
**Rooster:** It definitely smells Cuban, right? It does. It has that Cuban tobacco smell that you get when, just when you cut off a Cuban cigar, especially one that has age.
Mm-hmm.
**Bam Bam:** I'll been in the box for a while, honest. I I'm not getting much on the nose, on the wrapper, on the draw, on the cold wall. It's mild.
**Gizmo:** It's
**Bam Bam:** very, it's pleasant, but I can't discern it.
**Gizmo:** I'm getting a little like, uh, acidic saltiness on the front of my tongue. I get cedar. Some light spice, salt, maybe salty, a little
**Chef Ricky:** white pepper and a little salinity.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Salt.
**Gizmo:** It's nice. Yeah. We'll see what happens here, boys. All right. Alright, let's light this thing. The Hoyo de Monterey Le Hoyo de San Juan from Cuba. Again, it's a 54 ring gauge cigar by five and seven eights inches long.
I'm sorry.
**Bam Bam:** You guys need to up your lighter game. I just don't understand. I
**Pagoda:** don't [00:04:00] understand,
**Bam Bam:** but,
**Pagoda:** but I think the chef's lighter is acting up. What
**Bam Bam:** are we doing?
**Pagoda:** Do you remember how my lighter used to light up at? Like just like a welding torch? Yeah. Yeah. Spotters on its own.
**Gizmo:** So the factory name on this cigar, again boys, is the heni, and this shape is shared in two other regular production Cuban cigars, the Monte Cristo Eagle and the H up man.
Connoisseur B is identical in size to this factory name, henis. The box code on this we're very, very lucky. Again, it's a 10 years age cigar. The box code on this is TOS, August, 2015. TOS. Of course, when I referenced the. Factory code document is the La Corona factory.
**Rooster:** Oh, very nice. It's a great year. 2015.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, 2014 years. I 2014 with a great year for year 14 and 15. Are both very good. Yeah, they're both very good. How much is the cigar? So right now, today, the cigar can be found fresh for around [00:05:00] $29. Okay. Oh,
**Bam Bam:** just under 30. Come on, give it to me. This is delicious man, isn't it? That's an excellent cigar. Holy cow.
Off the light. It's outstanding. Wow. I am getting biscuit sweet
**Gizmo:** cream. Mm-hmm. I'm getting like a salty. It's almost like a salty breakfast pastry.
**Chef Ricky:** We're gonna end up right back at a, a little salted butter. Yeah, right?
**Gizmo:** Like we've done the last three Cuban episodes and
**Chef Ricky:** that's not a bad thing.
**Gizmo:** No, I'm
**Chef Ricky:** not. I'm not bad at that.
Not at all. No. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** this is really good. This is nice.
**Gizmo:** So I just wanna say for the listener out there, you know, we have done. Quite a few really young, fresh Cuban cigars and some have done very well. Two weeks ago we did the Bahi K 58 that did not perform very well fresh. Uh, so it was time to go back. And obviously because of lizard Greg, we had this opportunity to smoke this 10 years aged Hoya [00:06:00] tonight.
But, uh, we haven't done a very significantly aged cubit cigar in quite some time. So I felt it'd be a fun exercise to revisit. And age cubit cigar and see how it does. And especially in a global marker from Cuba that we don't celebrate very often. True in Hoya? Yes.
**Bam Bam:** Folks. We're smoking unattainable cigars tonight.
**Pagoda:** No, but you know, some of them we like, like I love the three that I'm afraid. Yeah, the new
**Gizmo:** three was very good. Really good. But we've seen, and we've discussed, we've had hit or miss experiences with the epicure number one. Mm-hmm. The epicure number two. Uh, we had the Rio Secco at one point. We discussed lighting that and then canceling the episode 'cause it looked so poorly.
Um, all of us were having a really bad time. And then one of the worst cigars we ever did on the podcast was the ante, uh, LCDH, uh, from quite some time ago. So we're going through all of those ratings, but, uh, it is nice to have an aged cigar back in our hands tonight. But
**Bam Bam:** yeah,
**Rooster:** this tastes like a savory scone me.
Yeah, it's savory.
**Bam Bam:** [00:07:00] Put me to there. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm, I am getting a little bit of a sweet cream type. There is, there's a, there a little
**Rooster:** sweetness happening. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's, uh, nicely balanced.
**Gizmo:** Hmm. This is a really delicious cigar. It's a treat right now.
**Rooster:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** How long did you have this? I've had this probably for about two months.
Okay. Six weeks, I'd say in the tower. I'm impressed with
**Bam Bam:** the combustion. Everyone's cigars are booming right now.
**Rooster:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. And the cold, the, the, um, sorry. The retro hale is outstanding
**Rooster:** and the smell on the burn line is Absolutely. It's ridiculous.
**Bam Bam:** You're getting it all. It's awesome. Yeah. From every perspective, this is hitting a, hitting a home run.
Bam.
**Gizmo:** To your point, the complexity in the retro hale
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's very
**Gizmo:** balanced, so unique. And so full that I think that is something that we can point out as being absent on fresh Cuban cigars. Mm-hmm. That even though we've had Cuban cigars that on the, the regular draw on the pallet tastes [00:08:00] brilliant, complex.
We've raved especially about that part. Togas, uh, Linea Mystro Rito, we did, uh, six weeks ago or whatever, eight weeks ago. This is. Something that we don't see on those fresh cigars. No, definitely not.
**Bam Bam:** And I'm getting that scone on the retro hale and it's balanced with, that's where I'm getting a little savory and sweet for me is on the retro, on the traditional draw cream and biscuit all day long.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Yeah. I I I could definitely, uh, jump on that sc scone train. Mm-hmm. With a little bit of a like red current there. I'm getting a little sweetness. Maybe some little dried blueberry or red
**Rooster:** cur scones are like kind of buttery. Yeah. Yeah. And a little salt, crumbly, buttery. But this is a savory scone like you get.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Can you go to Starbucks? Please get me one
**Chef Ricky:** scones currently.
**Bam Bam:** That's true.
**Chef Ricky:** So how do you guys prefer your SI know scones should always kind of lean dry, right? Very because of the whole, but I like, can we talk about this? '
**Bam Bam:** cause
**Chef Ricky:** I'm a big
**Bam Bam:** s scone guy. I [00:09:00] like my s scones a little bit. I a big s scone guy.
Every, I love sess, I love tea biscuits, I love scones. I grew up on all that crap,
**Chef Ricky:** but I don't want super dry scones either. I love it with butter.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. So I do love day old scones. I do, they've gotta be very dry. Sure. And I like them with butter. That's I put in the microwave just for a few seconds, let it go.
Soft salted butter. And I drizzle a very, very light honey on top of that.
**Chef Ricky:** Got it. Incredible. These are usually savory scones?
**Bam Bam:** No, uh, blueberry or raspberry blue. Okay. Or a
**Chef Ricky:** current s scone. Yeah. I like mine a little bit fresher. I, I like there to be a little more, you should, should
**Rooster:** try a s scone. With some bitter pagoda is gonna love this.
Some bitter English marmalade.
**Pagoda:** I've never had that. I could imagine that because it's a, it's a bread thing anyway. Yeah, that's true. So I remember having scones in England. You ha
**Bam Bam:** had it with butter. Listen, I stopped eating scones because I'm trying to drop some weight, but I lived for scones every weekend.
I don't think it's helping, but anyway, it's not, it's true because of all the other [00:10:00] shit I'm eating every weekend. Oh, there's the shank. Friday, Saturday, Sunday mornings right to the coffee shop, get my scone, get my coffee, my red eye with a shot of espresso in it. A little bit of cream.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Alone. No one around me enjoying that scone.
It was something, man.
**Chef Ricky:** Wow.
**Bam Bam:** Oh yeah.
**Gizmo:** I feel like this, this discussion is actually making me pick out a lot of these notes in this cigar. Mm-hmm. Like it's amazing how, and I'm being dead serious because we're discussing such specific things about things that you taste and it almost like pokes your brain.
Yeah. To qualify them alongside what you're experiencing on the pallet right now. Like, I'm being very serious.
**Bam Bam:** I, I understand that, but I think it's uncanny how very scone or biscuit like the cigar is. Exactly. It's, it's right there.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. But I, I think it's also important and, you know, whoever's listening, they may not, I.
You know, they may not understand the, the flavor profile of the scone until they hear us discussing it, and now they're like, huh, [00:11:00] okay. I, you know, and if they're fortunate enough to smoke it alongside the pod. Yeah. Uh, that could be a, a, you know, one of those pagoda like experiences. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** But is it, how would you, how would one describe it to, uh, an American, like a dryer version of a muffin?
**Bam Bam:** No,
**Pagoda:** I would
**Bam Bam:** go.
**Pagoda:** A little mo biscuity dryer version of a muffin.
**Chef Ricky:** It's, yeah, it's kind of, uh, um, a biscuit is a lot flakier, but yeah. And flat. I would, I guess if you had to compare it to an American counterpart, it would be a biscuit of sorts
**Bam Bam:** or, or a day old muffin
**Rooster:** maybe. Yeah, I think I would say it's more like Irish soda bread,
**Bam Bam:** which that's good.
Which is, that's a good pretty, I used to love that dude when I was a kid. Irish soda guy. Big oh my. I've only seen no but fan get this excited about one other topic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on. That's the thing that, that Irish, so it's not sweet though. It, there's just enough sweetness and I only almost get, like when I used to eat that, like a tapioca thing on the finish, I wasn't talking, [00:12:00] thinking about finish when I was eight years old.
But looking back, it was a very unique flavor. That I couldn't ever replicate in anything else that I had. Hmm. Those moments with food I'll never forget. Yeah. You know, it's amazing.
**Gizmo:** It's a big deal and it seems like we're having one of those moments with this 10 years aged cigar tonight post. Correct.
This is really, really special. Hmm. It's delicious. Um, you know, this is one of those cigars that I think for the listener out there, I think this is one of those very, me at least, at least at this point. Yeah. It's one of those kind of things that starts to imprint on your brain the. The experience in the room, what you're smoking, the unique flavor.
I don't think I've tasted a cigar that has had this kind of flavor profile. I agree. I agree. It's very unique and it, I think that age has matured the tobacco in such a, an, an awesome way. I agree. And the flavor
**Rooster:** is actually improving. Yeah, it's actually getting better.
**Bam Bam:** I agree.
**Rooster:** It's the, the notes are getting more enhanced right now.
I feel.
**Bam Bam:** Look, shout, shout out to Lizard Greg. This is a very, [00:13:00] very generous offering. Thank you so much. This is fantastic. Absolutely. Oh yeah. And we've definitely other
**Pagoda:** lizard, are you listening? Just I correct. That's also
**Chef Ricky:** correct. We've definitely smoked some other cigars in the previous weeks that have sort of previewed into these flavor profiles.
You know, with the salt, the salted butter nodes, the sweet cream and, but here it's delivered in a way where it's so unique. It's, it's unique and it's powerful, yet elegant. Have you
**Rooster:** noticed how the sweetness is getting more pronounced right now? Yeah. It's getting a little sweeter. Like there's a, it's getting richer, which I like.
Yeah, I do too. Of course. I that it's, I don't know, maybe a sweet, like a nut, like a, I don't know, maybe like a peanut,
**Bam Bam:** um, thing is coming through. Like a peanut brittle Yeah. Type thing. Cashew, brittle. I'm getting kind of that kind of a thing right now.
**Gizmo:** So boys, let's talk about the packaging of the La Jolla de San Juan.
This comes in a slide lid box of 25 cigars, a slide lid box of 10 cigars, and a display box of 15 aluminum [00:14:00] tube cigars and five cardboard packs of three that was released in 2015. This cigar was released in 2014, so this is the second year of production of the La Jolla de San Juan. Let's talk a little bit about the history of this release directly from Haos.
Actually, I went back to their site and found their release from February, 2014, and what they've said is that Hoya de Monterey is attempting to modernize with a new heavy ring gauge vitola for their historic line. Of course, Le Hoyo. Using the San Juan name. So this blend only uses leaves from San Juan E.
Martinez, the historic Cuban denomination of origin, where the brand was born in 1865. Hoda Monterey owns its or owes its origins to the plantation of the same name, located in San Juan E. Martinez. In the heart of the DOP Zone, which is the denomination of origin, the Hoyo de Monterey Plantation is one of the most famous [00:15:00] and what can be found there.
With the famous inscription on its entrance gate, Jose De Monterey. Jose Heera, 1860 Hoyo de Monterey is situated in some of the most fertile riverside land that traverses San Juan I. Martinez, and the Spaniard. Jose Hener from Tarragona first used the name of this farm for the brand in 1865. So, of course we've done other history of Hoyo de Monterey, but I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Hoyo de San Juan and uh, yeah, boys.
I think that this is a killer cigar right now. I'm loving the
**Bam Bam:** aroma. What an easy smoke. Yeah, look
**Pagoda:** at the smoke output.
**Bam Bam:** It's, it's a lot. It's actually starting to accumulate for such a elegant, you know, it's not a strong cigar. The body's, it's, I think it's a light bodied cigar, but the flavor is, it's flavorful, firmly, medium, maybe slightly on a lighter side, but it's very, very complex, nicely balanced.
Agreed. Yeah, it's, it's great.[00:16:00]
And I'm impressed with pagodas patients. He's only a quarter an inch in.
**Pagoda:** Well, it depends on what side you see. Look at that. You wanna balance it out. Yeah, I do.
**Gizmo:** All right boys, it's time to read a note from Lizard Greg who was so kind to send us these incredible cigars tonight, and he actually sent some other surprises.
So I wanted to read this to you guys into the listeners out there. He says, GIZ and Company, I'm sure you get this all the time, and I'm not a wordsmith to put it into better terms, but thank you for the hundreds of hours of entertainment laughs and unique information the pod has provided. I've included a handful of cigars the lizards might enjoy starting of course with this Hoya Le Hoyo de San Juan, and he put in parentheses, sorry, Senator Notice who's not here tonight.
Uh, correct. That's a coincidence by the way. Not on purpose, not correct. He also sent us, I think, to make up for. Senator not liking [00:17:00] Hoyo. He sent us, excuse me, part, the Goss Coronas from October, 2006. What? Wow. Wow. And he sent one for each of the lizards. No way. 2006. Pargo Coronas. Wow. Geez. And he says, will Senator, forgive me?
Oh my Lord. What's, I think he'll, what's,
**Pagoda:** what's Rooster thinking? He, he's,
**Gizmo:** he's having his mind blown. And finally, that's incredibly generous. He sent us Rafael Gonzalez Coronas Extra from April, 2001. A full box. Wow. A full box of cigars from 2001. I don't know what to say.
**Bam Bam:** I, yeah, I'm speechless. I don't know what to say.
I'm actually looking at you with my mouth hanging open.
**Gizmo:** So I'm gonna open this box. He wrote on the box here for the lizards, enjoy in good health, Greg. And if you open the box here, you see these beautiful cigars. The Corona Extra with tons of paper. That's how they packed them back then. Tons of paper opening four ways.
Actually, [00:18:00] the paper opens four ways with the original paper there and the old RG bands, of course, from 2001. Wow. Wow. How cool was that?
**Bam Bam:** That's incredible.
**Gizmo:** So. I mean, lizard, correct. Lizard of the Week is Lizard of the Year, and he's the one, this one this week. This is so generous and so kind. That's, it's the lizard of the month.
**Bam Bam:** I
**Gizmo:** don't know, maybe
**Bam Bam:** biannual lizard.
**Gizmo:** I mean, I, when I opened this package, my jaw dropped to the floor.
**Bam Bam:** That's crazy.
**Gizmo:** Not only because of the cigar we have in our hand tonight for review, this 10 years aged hoyle, which I was really excited to have, uh, and review because we don't visit Hoyle a lot compared to some of the other global brands.
**Rooster:** I mean, we don't, we don't do this to get this kind of gifts. No, we don't ask. But it is so appreciated. It's incredible. I mean, this is a incredible gesture. It's incredible. Thank you, Greg.
**Bam Bam:** Thank you. Thank you. It's so
**Gizmo:** kind. And like I said, my jaw just totally dropped. Unbelievable. I couldn't believe it. So [00:19:00] I was, uh, very, very grateful.
So, uh, lizard Greg continues in his note here. PS keep up the good fight for Seros and other thin ring gauge cigars. See, I'm telling you, I like lizard Greg. They are superior to the jawbreakers. It's not your fault that you've reached enlightenment and the rest are stuck in the stone ages. That's to me, by the way, with Mr.
Tomato. Bam, bam, perhaps being the exception tomato. However, does bam even know the cost of tomatoes these days? I do not. Not. Great question.
**Bam Bam:** Nope. I'm gonna guess they're a dollar 50 each. Each.
**Rooster:** They go by pound. By pound. How much? How much? A pound. How much? A pound. I dunno.
**Bam Bam:** A
**Rooster:** pound. Wild. Wild. Guess a pound of tomatoes.
Let's
**Bam Bam:** say four bucks.
**Rooster:** $4 a pound?
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Rooster:** Vine ripen or
**Bam Bam:** um, no. Standard production. Plum. Plumb, tomatoes? No. Just standard four bucks. Is that fairly accurate? That's a lot. Chef. You would know that's, that's a lot. It's about, that's a lot. [00:20:00] Dollar 29. A dollar 20 for a pound of tomatoes. That's a great deal.
**Chef Ricky:** Now we see why bams prices are so high.
Exactly. That's clearly, he's being told the groceries cost a lot more than Yeah, something's going on over there. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Mrs. Bam. Bams. Bamboozles. She's bamboozling me. Okay. Oh honey, we need a thousand dollars for sch food shopping this week. There you go, babe.
**Rooster:** Like $500 just spent on tomatoes. Correct.
**Gizmo:** So he finishes here saying, I told you I wasn't a wordsmith, but I think he very much is.
I think this is a wonderful note. He does continue and, uh, finishes off by saying the Corona Extra, the 2001 box are from a notoriously tight era of cubit cigars. We talk about the black period sometimes from 1999 to 2001, 2002. Those cigars are very hit or miss. So he's suggesting that they might not be, uh, pod worthy, but uh, they might be candidates for a side by side with rah knees rinsing method.
Either way, enjoy a good health. I was just gonna see lizard
**Chef Ricky:** Greg. That's amazing. So I was just gonna say, it may be something that water [00:21:00] could easily fix. Exactly. Maybe.
**Gizmo:** Exactly. So this, um, this is a, an incredibly kind gift. It's incredible. As Rooster said, we don't do this for gifts, we don't do this for money.
We don't, you know, we don't make a lot of money doing this. Believe me, this is a passion project of ours. And to receive this kind of gift in the mail, it's such a, a show of appreciation. And actually for us tonight, to be able to smoke these and share this experience with the listeners, um, for me just brings a lot of value and, and, and a lot of gra you know, a lot of gratitude and, um, it makes me feel very appreciated, uh, appreciated.
And, uh, what a, what an awesome gesture. So thank you so much to our lizard of the week lizard,
**Chef Ricky:** Greg. Fantastic. Thank you Lizard, Greg. Very nice. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
**Rooster:** And by the way, not every single box of cigar from the black period is, is that black? Yeah. I mean there, there, there's some gems out there from that period that you know, they've smoked like well, you would know.
You got like 30. They're awesome.
**Gizmo:** All right boys, so [00:22:00] I know it's a little early, however, I am totally fascinated by the bottle that is sitting in front of us, which looks like a Victorian era weapon or, or circa 1929
**Bam Bam:** fabricated glass.
**Gizmo:** It's very interesting. Yeah, we beautiful are returning to agave for the first time. I believe what we said, Ricky, was 12 weeks.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Uh, we decided to pause on agave. We had gone pretty heavy into it. We haven't done agave since January, and we are back tonight with the Cito Tequila Blanco. Yeah, correct. Chef Ricky procured this for us on his recommendation as coming back to a tequila. We're going back to Blanco. Try that out tonight with a Cuban cigar.
So tell us a little bit about the spirit before we try it. First of all, this
bottle
**Rooster:** cannot fit in anybody's locker. It's shop's only been some of the lizards. Yeah, right. It can't. You will need to keep, it's gotta be like two
**Bam Bam:** feet high. Yeah. You have to decant that if you wanna keep it here.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Or just put it in your kind of dag sideways corner maybe that may not work.
I know. Yeah. That's pretty
**Bam Bam:** big then. Yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** [00:23:00] Yeah. So, so when this tequila first showed up out on, on the dining room floor, uh, you know, a couple brand ambassadors came in with this new product and, you know, I get summoned up to the dining room, Hey chef, we have a new tequila that just came in. They really want you to taste it.
I go upstairs and just seeing the bottle, I almost just made a U-turn mm-hmm. And just went right back to the kitchen because it's, don't judge a book by cover how this Sure. Correct. Well, you know, when I, when I came in with the bottle ban thought, Hey, that looks kind of gimmicky. You know, I did I that the height of the bottle and, and it does.
Uh, but then I learned who makes it, and Hica was one of my favorite, uh, master distillers coming out of, uh, Nome 1146. He makes some amazing additive free just. True, true to true to tequila style distills. And that's what means, it means true, uh, in Spanish. So this is, uh, just additive free, delicious Blanco [00:24:00] that almost drinks.
Um. S so smooth and uh, uh, elegant that you would think it's aged. Right? Right. But it's not, it's not, uh, it's not super bright or acidic the way some other Blancos are. So I think it'll go really great with the cigar. But I do wanna go in a little bit on Enrique Fon cigar. 'cause he's one of my favorite, uh, distillers.
Hold up, BAMS losing it. It's what happened.
**Gizmo:** What did I do? I dunno.
Why is bam crying, laughing? I dunno.
**Pagoda:** Well, you, you gotta keep this at the recording.
**Bam Bam:** What? Doing just pagoda. Oh, I just glanced at pagoda. Oh, I love you. What did I do? Was he making faces? Yes, I could. Oh, so sorry. Hold on. Let me compose. [00:25:00] Holy moly. Oh. Oh, oh God. Fucking pagoda.
**Rooster:** I don't even know what I do. Pagoda your existence.
You're at distractions. Just cry. I like pagoda slippers. I do.
**Bam Bam:** Uh, forgive me. Alright, so before you go
**Gizmo:** into the history on this Chef Ricky, I would like to try this tequila 'cause I am dying to have a sip and try it with a cigar and see what we think. So we have Theto Tequila Blanco tonight. What was the price point on this chef?
**Chef Ricky:** $89.
**Gizmo:** Okay. 89 bucks. That's a little high on a wow. A blanco. Correct? For sure. But I think once you taste it, you'll understand why. Well, that's really good, man. And actually, I think is a wonderful compliment to the cigar we have in our hand tonight.
**Bam Bam:** So I snuck a few sips earlier. I saw you. You know, it compliments the buttery, salty nature of the cigar so fucking well.
It actually helps to enhance that little saltiness that you're getting in the smoke. It's an incredible pairing for what it is right now. It's outstanding. [00:26:00]
**Gizmo:** Wow. Right. It does taste, honestly, it tastes like a reposado. Yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Or it tastes like it has some sort of barrel sat aging. Like it, even, even a year, you know, six months, it tastes like there's
**Chef Ricky:** something almost like, it's like it's to the border of it almost being repo, but they pulled it just Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Very flavorful.
**Chef Ricky:** Mm-hmm.
**Gizmo:** It's so smooth. There's so little heat to it. And with this Cuban, I mean, this is
**Bam Bam:** brilliant. So there it kind of, it's, it drinks like something that's an acquired, that could be an acquired taste for many people because it's so unique. But I think for this cigar, this is some minerality.
I think it's a little briny, buttery and salty. It is really unique.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, there's some light citrus here. Not, uh, overly, uh, citrusy or acidic, but I, I do, so I gifted this to senator, uh, when he opened his patio the first time I was invited. Mm-hmm. I went with a bottle of this and, uh, I had been there maybe two or three times after, and I noticed the bottle didn't make an appearance.
Right. So, [00:27:00] in my head I'm like, he probably thinks this, I mean, I, of course he knows better. I'm not gonna give crappy to tequila. But again, I think the bottle just kind of makes you wonder like, what is this? It is a bit of a turnoff. Yeah. Is this stuff any good? Correct. I'm
**Gizmo:** sorry. I would not walk if, if I didn't know this, I would not walk into a store and take the presentation of this bottle.
Seriously. Mm-hmm.
**Bam Bam:** True. Even now that we know it's delicious, I still wouldn't bring that bottle into our club. I agree. Yeah. I would decant it or put it in something. It's, it's a little too much. Right. Just because it looks like a value problem. I mean, it's, it's a gimmick. It does. That's very gimmicky. But honestly, that product is delicious.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. So he, he opened it up on my last visit there, and it, it took him, it called him by surprise for sure. Awesome. And, uh, catch by surprised, kind, kind of sad. He is not here because he was like, we need to do this on the pod. He loved it. Didn't he Loved realize he wasnt gonna
**Gizmo:** be
**Chef Ricky:** here. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
I was
**Rooster:** there.
**Chef Ricky:** This is excellent.
**Gizmo:** It is so buttery and smooth. Correct. And easy drinking. Correct. It does make that $90 price point palatable [00:28:00] on a Blanco.
**Bam Bam:** I'm not sure if anyone would disagree, but a huge plate of oysters with a side of this, just as you sip and eat it would be a great experience. I agree.
**Chef Ricky:** And you know what, this is one of those few Blancos that you could pull out with a dessert. Because it's buttery because it delivers very smooth. Alright, now we're talking correct and balanced. This is, this is a great all around Blanco in my opinion. I agree. For any, I agree with you. So tell
**Gizmo:** us a little bit about the, uh, history of cto.
**Chef Ricky:** So, Enrique Fonseca started out as a agave, agave farmer. And then, uh, uh, he has over 40 years of experience. Um, he, uh, then purchased Eli, a Danielle Distillery, uh, 1146. And there some of our other, I don't know if you guys remember on the tequila, uh, first tequila episode we did in a, uh, garage. I brought that bottle in the wooden box.
Mm-hmm. That was a little bit higher proof. It was all singles. The agave grown at a specific altitude, fall [00:29:00] harvested from that same plot and then distilled. And he, every year he does it. Certain area of the, of the plantation. So I think at the time it was like super minerally. It was very high in alcohol, about 45, 40 8%.
'cause he really wanted to highlight the agave because it was just that one plot of, of, of the farm. And I think at the, it was our first tequila experience for you guys. So I think it was a little hot, but I think as time went on we all started appreciating bright agave and, and some of the higher proof stuff.
Um, so I was really excited to bring this on because now you get to experience what he's doing. But on a more sort of controlled level with, with the tequila he's doing, uh, obviously added free, um, it's screw mill, uh, autoclave. So there, it's not a brick oven, but it's right in between where he's using somewhat of a, a pressure cooker, if you will.
So it just slightly speeds up the process. Uh, but it allows him to control a little bit more. 'cause when you're going brick [00:30:00] oven or to hone hons, there's a lot of, uh. Factors that come in that you aren't in control of. Uh, and that's usually where you find a lot of minerality and a lot of, uh, sour notes that I tend to like.
Uh, this doesn't have it, but it delivers everything else so well that I fucking love this te kill. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so how
**Rooster:** does it compare to the G four?
**Chef Ricky:** Uh, a Puba, the G four drinks a lot, uh, hotter, I think, um, more mineral forward and a little bit citrusy. Mm-hmm. More citrusy. It's G four is Yeah, it's a little bit spicy.
Like this has no spice. No Right. This has no spice. It delivers everything. Very, very well balanced first two sips. There was just a very
**Bam Bam:** slight touch of heat, but it dissipates very quickly. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I, I feel like I'm getting more heat even still just in the nose and the glass, but when you actually ship it on your palate, there is no heat on the palate.
Yeah. It is actually an odd, I wanna know what you're
**Bam Bam:** getting on the aroma. 'cause I think the aroma, you keep your nose in there. It is incredible. The aroma iss incredible. Yeah, [00:31:00] it's crazy. It's,
**Gizmo:** it's flowery, it's sour. It's interesting. In a nice way. It's
**Chef Ricky:** very, very, yeah. Green agave, floral notes. Um.
**Pagoda:** Pagoda, what were you gonna say?
Yeah, no, my only thing is like, in terms of the viscosity, I wish it was a little more viscous. I think it feels very thin and light. It's a little thin because it's, it's a blanco, I think for a Blanco
**Chef Ricky:** it's actually quite viscous. Yeah. For a Blanco. Yeah. Blancos tend to be a lot like, I
**Gizmo:** think compared to the last two Blancos we did on the pod.
You remember the Mi Heta and the LANs.
**Bam Bam:** I like this better than both. Both of those
**Gizmo:** were definitely less viscous than this. I
**Bam Bam:** like this better than both Chef. It's interesting. I'm glad you guys are enjoying that. It's more interesting. It's a bit more sophisticated than those two,
**Gizmo:** although those two were great.
But we also have to say for the listener, this is in a totally different category at a $90 price point. Both of those are less than half of this in price. Is that true? So yeah. They're both in the forties, I believe.
**Chef Ricky:** Lonzo's in the fifties and what was the other one? The first Mi Mi, uh, no. Juntas is, is, yeah, they're all, they're [00:32:00] fifties.
Fifties, yeah.
**Bam Bam:** As men. Let me get into my philosophy now. Life. Life. No, but, but I thought I was buzzed when I walked in. I know. We don't do much for ourselves. We don't. We do for others.
**Rooster:** We live for others. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Correct. We buy cigars and we buy spirits and not much else. And a club membership, that's also true.
Yeah. At the lounge. But spending $90 on this bottle. It's, I think it's worth every dollar for what we're getting right now.
**Gizmo:** I agree. And I, it's a real treat.
**Bam Bam:** It's something unique. It's delicious that brineness and Butters great balance, great with the cigar. I think that'd be great with almost any Cuban cigar.
**Chef Ricky:** I agree with you on that. Right. So what I do admire about what Enrique FICA has done, he's self-taught, right? He's, he was an agave farmer. He was out there, uh, spending time with the agaves, not distilling anything. He went to Scotland. He learned some of the Scottish, uh, methods, uh, learned about Alan Beak, [00:33:00] stills and different stills, and implemented that at his distillery.
And I think because of that, he's able to really extract some unique flavor profiles and get some really cool things on his tequilas, um, that you don't get in others. Mm-hmm. So what I recommend for those 1146 is really a, uh, celebrated gnome. Anything that you see coming out of that distillery, you know, the Tequila Matchmaker app again, is a good resource where you could just type in a gnome and it'll give you all the tequilas coming out of there.
I recommend picking any of those thing, any of those, uh, dis distillates up and, you know, enjoying them. Where'd you get that? Uh, total wine. Ah, okay. Yeah. So you can get it almost anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I, I, I don't see it everywhere, but total wine surprises me every once in a while, especially with some of their higher end stuff of what they stock.
Um, but you know, for every good bottle of tequila, it seems like they have three bottles of their own private label stuff and mm-hmm. Yeah, I don't know anything about those, but, [00:34:00]
**Gizmo:** so boys, we're coming to the end of the first third here on the Hoya de Monterey Le Hoyo de San Juan. What's everybody thinking right now?
**Rooster:** It is so delicious. I mean, those flavor notes that we were getting in the beginning, they're, they have continued the, the, you know, the, the sweet note that we were getting that's also coming through. I think they've enhanced, enhanced exactly's, a little bit of a, even like a white pepper. And, um, I get get that once in a while, but it's very pleasant.
Yeah. Very faint and very pleasant.
**Pagoda:** I'm not getting a lot of the sweetness. I wish there was a little more in mine for yourself. Yeah. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I will say I'm the outlier right now. Mine has taken a turn for the absolute negative. What? Uh, I'm very disappointed where I'm at right now. It's a little bitter. Wait a minute.
Whatcha getting? It's totally taking a downturn. I think there's something that happened in, you're kidding. The middle of this cigar. Really? Dude, that's,
**Bam Bam:** I don't believe it.
**Gizmo:** I'm very disappointed right now. I'm serious. I can't tell you
**Bam Bam:** how much I'm loving this experience right
**Gizmo:** now. Yeah. I'm very envious because what I'm, I'm, what the hell?
I'm, I'm the outlier tonight, I guess I got the dud. [00:35:00]
**Bam Bam:** Hmm. Oh boy.
**Gizmo:** Hopefully it turns back around. Maybe there's something that happened in this, this kind of
**Bam Bam:** maybe ash and just let some air get in. I don't know. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** maybe
**Bam Bam:** purge. Oh yeah, I've purged a few times. Wow. Yeah, that's, that's crazy. So I'm
**Gizmo:** hoping that this is just a blip on the radar and that it turns back around here in the,
**Chef Ricky:** are you smoking Maybe a little too fast?
No, I'm right around where you guys are.
**Gizmo:** He's talking more than all of us. Yeah. Yeah. I'm right
**Chef Ricky:** where you are. Right where I am.
**Gizmo:** Same space, huh?
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Wow. No, this is still running Super delicious for me, man.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, it's uh, very
**Gizmo:** odd for me right now.
**Bam Bam:** I honestly, I think that, as we were saying earlier, I think all of the notes that we got earlier are now enhanced, maybe like a very faint white pepper, but it's very, very faint to the point where it's pleasant.
You can kind of get it in the background, but, um, I'm still getting a biscuity, almost sweet sour cream type thing happening. Uh, it is really something else.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. I'm getting a. Cold. Sweet butter. Yeah. A little salt. [00:36:00] Yeah. Salt's there. You, I'm not getting like baking spice, right? Like baking spice isn't here or anything like that.
No, I don't think I've ever had that. No. Yeah. But I, I am getting a little white pepper, I think on the cold drawer. I was getting a, a slight pleasant pepper or a slight pleasant, pleasant spice.
**Bam Bam:** You may need to change your, just cleans your cleanse your palate with, with a sip. Not possibly.
**Gizmo:** It's, I, I have, it is, there's something that happened in the cigar here that it just took him a real downturn for a minute.
That's crazy. I, I'm hoping it comes back. I'm gonna be patient. Yep, yep. Um, you know, maybe let rest of it.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Do you want to just get rid of your ash or No, I'm sorry. We're all just really concerned. We are
**Gizmo:** concerned. Yeah. I'm, I'm concerned. I'm concerned as well. We'll see what happens here, boys, but let's go to some listener email.
Now. First up is from Lizard Philip. You might remember, lizard Philip wrote us about cigar lounge etiquette, how to get conversation started in lounges.
**Bam Bam:** What not to do. What
**Gizmo:** not to do, what to do. Baba's
**Bam Bam:** list is a real thing. We
**Gizmo:** had a great discussion about it and I wanted to share his response [00:37:00] ah, to that with us.
Cool, and I was very happy to read this. He wrote, dear Lizards, I listened to the latest episode and was thrilled to hear you answer my questions live and to be selected at LI as Lizard of the week. I'm incredibly grateful. I just wanted to tell you, this past Saturday, I picked up my favorite bottle of wine, gave myself a little pep talk and headed to the lounge.
I ended up having an almost four hour conversation with a complete stranger, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. As you recommended, we talked about football or soccer, as you guys call it in the us Ah, cigars, wine, and also construction and house building. Bam, bam. Excuse me. Your advice truly helped me push past my hesitation and I'm already looking forward to going back next weekend.
**Bam Bam:** There you
**Gizmo:** go. Very nice. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. Thank you again for everything. Best wishes, lizard. Philip. What a, how awesome is that? That's such a great email. That is what we do it for, man. Correct. We, you know, listen, like I said earlier, lizard Greg, very generous. Sending us [00:38:00] some beautiful cigars.
Incredible cigars. We don't do it for that reason. No. We do it for this, this building of community that is what we're doing this for. And to read Lizard Phillips's email this week and he got out of his comfort zone, you know, crawled out of his shell, went to the lounge and spoke to a stranger for four hours.
Yeah, that is fantastic. Oh yeah. Because all of us in this room, we were those strangers at one point. Absolutely. And it turned into very much more than that, of course. But I'm hoping for Lizard Philip and any other lizard out there who has any hesitation to go meet some strangers at a lounge. Oh yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Don't be, I remember the first day I met all of you. The very first day, all of you, it was very memorable. Lemme just say it was great and look how you know how long we've been friends. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I remember the first day I met Rooster. Mm-hmm. I remember the first day that Pagoda walked in the old lounge.
Correct. I remember the first day I met you and of course Chef Ricky when we met him here at 10 86. Correct. You know, and it's like all of our lounge [00:39:00] friends. Of course. What we've built here on the podcast, you know, we're very lucky for this and all of us are in it for the same reason. To relax, to learn something, to grow, and of course, to smoke a great cigar.
**Rooster:** Yeah. And we share this common denominator that we have in our hand right now. The great equalizer. Yeah. The great equalizer.
**Gizmo:** Absolutely. Exactly right. So I, I, like I said, I'm very happy to hear that if there's any other lizards out there. Uhoh, bams falling apart again.
**Chef Ricky:** Hold on.
**Gizmo:** Did you look, did you look at pagoda again?
I did.
**Pagoda:** Well, lizard, Philip, I wish I could be talking about football, like in soccer with somebody over here in this lounge. This is true, but he keeps laughing. I've had to pick up American football. I've had to pick up basketball. You have, you know, I'd rather be talking about netball and football. Listen,
**Bam Bam:** I, I used to be a big NTUs fan until I got out of watching soccer.
I love my Byron Munich for a [00:40:00] long, long time. Just haven't watched.
**Gizmo:** So what did Pagoda do this time that got you going?
**Bam Bam:** He said, be a stop.
I was hoping he was gonna say something. I pointed to him like, oh
**Pagoda:** good. Nothing happened.
**Bam Bam:** No, I was about to, but
**Pagoda:** you know, he, he's in the middle of a conversation. I'm not gonna just butt in. It's true, it's true. But, you know, you were talking about meeting, I still remember the day I met all of you. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know. Leather Rooster really pulled me in, uh, to the, to join the lounge. I was, there's correct, I was sitting there. Yeah, that's correct.
**Rooster:** That first time that I met Pagoda, he was one on one. He was at, he was at the lounge, and I, he was sitting in the corner and I was just, I was leaving.
Yeah. And came back in. I was leaving and from the corner of my eye, I kind of like went out, who was this
**Pagoda:** sophisticated in, went out and
**Rooster:** came back in
Rooster Chuckles. I'm like, who's, who's this jolly old fella? [00:41:00] We had a great conversation and uh, you know, I mean, he lived right in town and he joined, uh, pretty much right away. Right away. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** I was ready, you know, even though I had, uh, had my experiences at that particular lounge, I did join us. You know,
**Rooster:** sometimes you meet people.
You either hate them or you love them. Mm-hmm. Immediately you just, immediately, you kind of click or you become a pariah.
**Pagoda:** But I know Rooster loves and hates because of the Zena.
**Rooster:** No, no, all love. All love. All love. So I, I mean, absolutely. We just, we just clicked and every single one of. Us in this room. Like every, every single one of you, like I clicked with you guys, like right away.
Of course, of course. Chef Ricky. I met him the first time we started talking about, uh, the kitchen. The, you know, about, uh, the cuisine. Yeah. I mean like talking about food and finally chopped the vegetables, chopped, you know, we talked about how to make the best guacamole we can bowl, and they just clicked right away.[00:42:00]
**Chef Ricky:** No, i i Learning about your, your history in, in the restaurant business was, was an incredible thing. So, you know, there
**Rooster:** were some common, by the way,
**Pagoda:** for, for most of you, uh, who don't know, uh, Liz Brewster wasn't the Mexican. Food business. That's correct.
**Gizmo:** And the quick serve. Right.
**Pagoda:** Koria. Koria. It was a Koria.
Koon, yeah.
**Rooster:** Ran, ran a restaurant for seven years. Wow.
**Pagoda:** Before, before, uh, before Chef Rickey was born.
**Rooster:** Before probably any of you. It's true. That's true. Wow.
**Gizmo:** 1927.
**Rooster:** Correct.
**Gizmo:** Well, like Lizard Philip, we are all lucky for these lounge experiences. Yeah. And like I said, any other listener out there who, uh, is having any hesitation, write us an email, man.
We will talk you through it because there is real opportunity for deep friendship and connection at lounges and with people who enjoy these. Yeah. Beautiful cigars.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Honestly, I, I can't live without. Coming to the club at least two or three times a week. It's impossible. Yeah, [00:43:00] it's a great, well, it depends on which club.
This is true. I do frequent many clubs. Um, I think that yeah, you do like variety. I do. And that, that enhances for me, the experience at this is my home base, 10 86 in Hawthorne, but I go to our North lounge. I go to the other lounge here in town when I'm visiting my sites throughout Brooklyn and you know, New Jersey and Manhattan.
I, I'm visiting many, many shops. Uh, it's an incredible opportunity to meet strangers and just sit down and chat, or not chat. Just listen. Yeah. You know, you get to learn about a lot how people think in different areas of wherever you are, and I find it fascinating. I can't live without the lounge experience.
It's impossible.
**Gizmo:** I'll tell you too, when we were, you know, we were away for PCA. Mm-hmm. Uh, we, we went to New Orleans and. I'll be honest, the week leading up to that, I was busy. We only recorded that week. I didn't come here at any other point during the week 'cause I was so busy. Mm-hmm. Going to PCA, like I pretty much wasn't here for two or three weeks.
Yep. Plus then we were in [00:44:00] Cuba for quite some, you know, that's right. Quite some time before that. Yep. So it's, it was like a long stretch that I really hadn't spent any non podcast time at the lounge. Sure. And I really missed it. And I was here the other day. It was great. And for no other reason than to be here and enjoy a cigar.
**Bam Bam:** And after New Orleans, I went to Pittsburgh to, for my son's college, and I had a chance to go to, uh, a club there. Um, and I love the destination. I sent you guys all photographs. That's a another.
**Gizmo:** What was the name of that? That lounge there? It's,
**Bam Bam:** it's blend by Doff. With doff. With doff. So it's the proprietor.
Apparently they have a partnership that they form with doff. It's a beautiful destination. Very quiet, very. Opulent. Very well done. Great humidor, um, and right downtown. Fantastic spot.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Did you meet any good people there?
**Bam Bam:** Um, or did you stay by yourself? So, honestly, the server there was fantastic. He and I just had a lot of conversations.
He remembered the day, the night of, after a conversation that I had with him. So I told him I'll be back every time I'm in town. Yeah. Which would be a lot now,
**Gizmo:** of [00:45:00] course. Yeah. You're gonna go out there and visit your son, so, correct, correct. That'll be a nice spot for
**Bam Bam:** you. Absolutely.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So it's, you know, as we're talking about here, like lizard, Philip said the lounge experience is, uh mm-hmm.
Very important to developing a great community around cigars, even if you're just passing through in town. You know, we, on our lounge chat here at 10 86, we have a, a lounge chat, and whenever the members travel, you know, to other areas, they're always visiting new lounges and taking photos and sharing it with us.
It's, it's like we're just spreading the. Correct. Love spreading the, the love and friendship, uh, around, around the world. Espionage, espionage.
**Bam Bam:** You're all guilty of it.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, let's go to another email. This one's from Lizard Oscar. He says, Hey, gizmo and the guys I recently had the chance to enjoy the Pirro Desto N One Land Sero 2019.
You sent in the Lizard of the Week Pack, and I have to say it completely exceeded my expectations. The richness and balance were remarkable, and it's safe to say I'm now a huge fan of Fabrica five, planning to place an order soon, and I just wanted to get [00:46:00] some advice before diving in. I noticed the variety of blends that Fabrica five offers, including the MOFO and the Piot Desto lines, and I'm curious about the differences between the two with so many options on their site.
I'd like to narrow it down to the top four to purchase as five packs initially before committing to a box of my favorite. Based on your experience, which four blends from Fabrica five, which you say are absolute must tries, or standouts that your group has universally loved. For context, I lean towards cigars with natural sweetness and a smooth, enjoyable texture, and I tend to favor the Cuban profile also.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the bond Roberts line D number six, the Petite 1 0 9, since it's blended by the same folks, and how does it compare to the fabric of five offerings? Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Lizard
**Bam Bam:** Oscar, this conversation cannot end without mentioning the Trinity Robusto.
Yep, that is by [00:47:00] far one of the best cigars I've ever had. Hands down. Just one of the best cigars I've ever had.
**Gizmo:** I agree with you. I, I think the Trinity re robusto, especially as it sat in my tower mm-hmm. It just gets better. It, it, there's something about its ability to develop even with time off the truck.
It's great and it continues to improve. That to me is the headline star of what, what is offered right now. No doubt on Fabrica five. No doubt. You know, and the bond Bond
**Rooster:** Roberts 1 0 9, the Bond Roberts 1 0 9 as well. That's, I mean, that's an exceptional cigar.
**Pagoda:** Exceptional didn't we rated at 10 like it with a very high score in cigar, I believe between nine and 10.
Yeah, it was
**Gizmo:** very well rated. We love that cigar. That one you can't get on Fabrica five just yet. You can only get that on CH cigars.com. Uh, so we'll talk about the difference in a second between Piot, Desto MOFO and also the Bon Roberts offering. But I wanted to ask you guys. He's asking for four of the Fabrica five cigars that tend to lean toward natural seat [00:48:00] sweetness and a smooth, enjoyable texture.
Kind of like a Cuban profile.
**Rooster:** I think that Trinity re robusto is number one. Number one, correct. Right. I agree. That's correct. I think that's number one.
**Chef Ricky:** And, and I think that's the goal for all their LLAs. Right? They're all, they're all modeled after a, a Cuban Yeah. Certain Cuban profile. That's right. So, exactly.
Um, I mean,
**Rooster:** it's the Honduran tobacco that's very similar to the Cuban tobacco. Mm-hmm.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm.
**Rooster:** So they all kind of, it just kind of, you have to kind of choose what size and shape that you prefer. Right. Exactly. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's gonna dictate like the blending. Um, I mean, I, I like the NFAs, the NFAs.
I was gonna say NFA to me would probably number two. I, I agree with that. Started with the
**Chef Ricky:** nfa. I started with the nfa, then I went to the Fat Fundee, and then the, the Trinity. Mm-hmm. Robusto Trinity, by far is number one. Yeah. And then NFA and the Fat Fundee all different, you know, form factors. But I, I do have to highlight what I do love about this, this email is his use of the word texture, where he's not referring to [00:49:00] texture as a smooth physical texture of something he's touching, but rather the smoke Yes.
That he's getting. Correct. I love the use of that word texture. There is
**Bam Bam:** a velvety characteristic to some cigars. Yeah. Right. And it's that smoke
**Rooster:** I would probably get. A five pack of each of the That's what I was gonna suggest. The entire line.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Don't make me laugh. Pagoda, please. Uhoh. I wanna remain in control.
**Gizmo:** We're off the rails tonight on this side of the room here, correct? With bam and pagoda? No, we did, we
**Pagoda:** did have a conversation and texture. I think when we were at the PCA, uh, I was trying a cigar and it was, you know, I was talking about the texture. I thought it was so, uh. It's so clear when the texture is slightly different.
Yeah. You can just make out like in terms of the smoke. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really interesting. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** And to Chef Ricky's point, that the fact that he's calling out a texture point here as, as far as requesting recommendations, I think is a, is is an awesome way to ask. I agree. You know, what are you guys recommending?
I think to Rooster's [00:50:00] point, if budget's not a concern, I would just try a five pack of everything. They're so reasonably priced. Sure. Of course. They're our sponsors, so I don't wanna feel like we're overstating the support here. But I'm telling you listeners, look, we would not have them as a sponsor. We would not be involved at all if we didn't really love their stuff.
**Bam Bam:** I think you said it perfectly. It's very affordable. Get a five pack of each and try them all. They're all gonna be great and they all get better over time. Can you pick the three or four that you like and stay in that lane? Exactly. You know,
**Gizmo:** so for me, if I were to pick four on Fabrica Five's website, I. I would go, like you guys said.
So we have the top three right now. We have the, uh, Trinity Robusto, we have the nfa, the Fat Fundee as, as Chef Ricky mentioned. And I think another one, Ricky, let's just go for a different kind of vitola, was the petite Corona that you've really enjoyed. I have that have that. That was Oh, that's a great cigar bar.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that those four give you quite a difference in, in smoke time. Mm-hmm. I obviously the fat Fundee being the biggest, I [00:51:00] think probably the nin for the pt, Corona being the shortest, so it kind of gives you four options as far as what kind of time you can set aside exactly point.
They're all very different. I think that's the way to go. That would be my opinion.
**Chef Ricky:** Correct. I think that's great advice. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So to answer, uh, lizard Oscar's question here on the differences between mofo Piot Desto and the Bon Roberts line. So, mofo number one is, was designed using the tasting panel. So I was involved in the tasting panel on all the cigars with the mofo.
Of course you were, I also tried the Piot, but Piot Dedo was more, uh, Rob and Hamlet's Global Insider. But we had a significant input on the mofos. So the Trinity re Robusto, as an example, is one of the mofos cigars. Mm-hmm. And some of those other we mentioned, um, I tried them all as they were, you know, uh, being created.
And we kept, they kept iterating and sending us new ones. We were on Zoom for like six months or a year. Working through these blends. So it was a really collaborative process. Uh, but most specifically to the [00:52:00] mofo piot Desto is really for Robin and Hamlet's palate. That's what they like to smoke and that's what they blended.
And then the Bon Roberts includes quite a bit more age tobacco, it's a little bit more refined, I would argue, a little bit smoother. Certainly a higher price point, a little bit more exclusive, uh, you know, catered to the Bond Roberts audience. Mm-hmm. Buying age cigars like we have in our hand tonight.
**Chef Ricky:** Sure. I feel like it's a little less rustic than pre in presentation as well. I agree. It's a little bit more finessed. Yes.
**Gizmo:** A little more finesse on those. That's a nice way to put it. Yeah. So that's how I would describe, uh, the bunch. And then of course, the upcoming Bond, Roberts 1 0 9, not the petite 1 0 9, but the big 1 0 9 is coming out, uh, very, very soon.
And that is a stunning cigar. So look out for that.
**Chef Ricky:** This tequila is so easy to drink, like it's dangerously easy to
**Bam Bam:** drink. It's so good, man. I just think the whole experience tonight between the cigar and the spirit, it's so balanced. It's an elegant experience. There's a dry, a slight dry finish on both.
Mm-hmm. But in an [00:53:00] elegant way, and there's a little sweetness in both. Mm-hmm. I don't think you can ask for anything better than that.
**Chef Ricky:** I, I wish Senator was here for this. Hmm. Because our comments aren't good enough for him. No, no, no. I just know how much he enjoys the tequila and you know, because of his Correct.
Uh, his love for Oyo. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's tremendous. Exactly. This may, uh, turn the table big time.
**Gizmo:** Alright boys, we have another one now from Lizard. Johnny wrote Good Morning Boys. I was doing some research and I saw that you guys have not reviewed this Sir Winston yet from H Up man out of Cuba. It's a glaring omission that I hope you remedy soon.
It's my personal favorite and one of the truly great cigars. All I will say to lizard John, of course it is, is that we do have some milestone episodes coming up. Yep. So stay tuned.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Do we have any, uh, 2014 Sir Winston? We might. We very
**Bam Bam:** [00:54:00] well might.
**Chef Ricky:** I know
**Bam Bam:** Rooster has a couple of boxes. Well,
**Rooster:** we are expecting a listener to generously,
that's 2014 server and that's $2,100 box. Sure.
**Gizmo:** It's more than that band. It's probably about three grand I'm sure for that bucks. All right, here's another one. This is a great YouTube comment. I really liked from user at, wanna play some gwt? I don't know what that means. Wanna play some gwt? But great comment.
He said, God, I love this podcast and I wish I found it earlier. And Cuban cigars for that matter when things were much cheaper. I got into this a little late. Good job guys. Keep up the good work. It is so fun to listen to. And he signed off as Eagle Bear 29. Here's one from Lizard Enrique with the subject line.
Oh boy. So as we know, lizard Enrique bought the same exact tower as Chef Ricky. Hmm. The Eeb 5 59 from our friends at your elegant bar.
**Chef Ricky:** Oh boy.
**Gizmo:** He wrote, [00:55:00] I added the boxes that I have to see what space I have left. But this is beautiful. Look at this photo of this beautiful tower. Oh, nicely stocked full of boxes.
**Chef Ricky:** Beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. Very nicely stocked. That's
**Gizmo:** gorgeous. Lizard. Enrique, I'll tell you, that is gorgeous. This tower that that Ricky got and Enrique got and some other lizards. It's awesome, man. So we saw that
**Bam Bam:** at the show. We did a PCA. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they were there. Yeah, they were nice. I would like another tower.
I think they, you should get one of these man. That's gonna be the one. Yeah. The problem is that now it'll outshine the one I have, so I have to get rid of that and get two of those. Or maybe get the double wide That GIZ has. You give it to Baby Ba, you could put it in his college door. Yeah, sure. I'll,
**Gizmo:** I'll take you and then you'll have cigars ready when you go to Pittsburgh.
Hey dad, I ran outta cigars. What do I do?
**Bam Bam:** Call gizmo.
**Pagoda:** I'll take you.
**Bam Bam:** Here's his phone number.
**Pagoda:** Hit up. Kiss. Correct. I'll definitely take yours. 200 bed. $200. You already have one. You and I have the same tower. Yeah, no. So that, that's what I'm saying. You can [00:56:00] get the newer mm-hmm. Version and I'll take your old one.
$1,100, that's yours
**Rooster:** with the, with the cigars. Yeah. Three, 300 bed.
**Pagoda:** All boys, by the way. I must say lizard Enrique is, uh, what does it do for a living is an organiz it or something, because that tower looks pretty, it is very well organized.
**Chef Ricky:** That tower's so gorgeous that it makes you want to keep it. Mm-hmm. Like well put together. Of course. Organized, correct. Yeah. 'cause
**Gizmo:** the entire door is really like a window into your collection, so, you know, it's, uh, it's very nice.
And lighting is
**Chef Ricky:** perfect and beautiful. My son saw me pull out the key the other day. He's like, dad, why do you lock it? I said, 'cause one day you'll get curious. Exactly right. That's correct. And he's gonna,
**Gizmo:** he's gonna choose the absolute wrong one. So crazy expensive. Age cigar or something. All right boys.
Another one now from Lizard Anthony. Subject line is Love from Belgium. I love hearing from international wizards. Says hello, lizards. I would like to inform you guys that I'm a longtime fan. I started to follow you [00:57:00] guys around a hundred episodes ago. Very cool. I had to drive yesterday 900 kilometers from Belgium to Munch in Germany, so it was the perfect time to also listen to your first ever podcast episode.
Ooh, I was positively shocked that the vibe was already there. As it is today. So I would say keep it up. The Maduro number one, the Maduro number one for part Togo. I was smoking some nice Cubans. I told myself I now have 900 kilometers to be able to retro hale. I can proudly say after smoking and collecting for 10 years, I finally managed to achieve the technique of retro hale there.
Oh right. What a totally different experience. Give him senator's phone number.
Maybe the Parus D five was a little too early in the evening. Oh yeah. So keep up the good podcast episodes and lots of love from Belgium and if I can ever help you, I have a humble 5,000 Cuban cigar collection. My collection is your collection. Bam. Maybe you [00:58:00] should have his phone number.
**Rooster:** Uh, correct.
**Gizmo:** Please send us a list. Doesn't have 2014, sir.
**Chef Ricky:** Correct.
**Bam Bam:** We can certainly ask. What are you guys getting right now? We need to talk about this. This is
**Gizmo:** great. So by the way, Mayan is back to normal. Fantastic. Back to good. It was a 10 minute odyssey into the depths of hell. Thank goodness. But I am back. Thank goodness.
What are you guys getting? I'm
**Chef Ricky:** blown away by this cigar. I'm getting more of the same, but I love it. I don't want it to change. It doesn't need to change for me. Are you getting any cocoa? Like a light? I was
**Rooster:** just gonna say that. A light cocoa. A light cocoa, huh? Yeah. Like you absolutely like, you know,
**Bam Bam:** like that cocoa that you make with like a cream at home and it's hot and it's frothy and it's very, very subtle.
With everything we were getting before the, yeah.
**Rooster:** All of those notes. Plus the cocoa dude, and it has picked up in strength a little bit.
**Bam Bam:** I think every, every lizard would love the cigar. I agree. This is an incredible experience,
**Gizmo:** man. It's, mine's really good right now. I'm also getting an element of like, I wanna say [00:59:00] espresso.
Maybe that's what I'm sens I think that's cocoa espresso. I think it's the same cocoa note they're finding,
**Bam Bam:** but I, I kind of agree with that. There's like a slight hint of coffee there. Yeah, no doubt. Wow.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah, I'm not, I'm not getting. It, you know, in, in a manner that it's making me call it out. I feel like it was there in the background one way or another, throughout which I think it's a bit more, a
**Rooster:** bit more enhanced right now.
Yeah.
**Chef Ricky:** Try
**Bam Bam:** a, a very, very slow retro hill. It just, and let it linger that smoke a little bit. It's on unbelievable.
**Rooster:** It's really good. Yeah. And you know, I must say like the price point, well, around $30 then for this
**Bam Bam:** it was 20.
**Rooster:** What's the, what's the current price right now? 29 bucks. It's 30 right now.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** For 10 years.
**Gizmo:** No each, no,
**Rooster:** no. The fresh. The fresh. Correct, correct. Right.
**Gizmo:** Start that over because I, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah.
It's okay. Go ahead.
**Rooster:** I mean, I wanna say like, you know, for the size of this cigar and for what this is going for [01:00:00] currently about $30, right down to $30. I mean, it's, it's pretty much a bargain for a Cuban cigar.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, it is. Especially for what I feel is a lot of value in
**Bam Bam:** this small and the vitola.
**Gizmo:** That's true.
The
**Bam Bam:** It's a large size. True. Yeah. But with this age on it, what do you think this actually costs Right now?
**Gizmo:** I would think with 10 years of age on this, this is probably approaching 50 to 60 a cigar at the high point. On Bon Roberts. You might be in that budget range of 40 to 45 if you get lucky, but you're probably closer to 50.
But
**Rooster:** I'm, I'm curious how good like a fresh box would smoke. Yeah, absolutely.
**Gizmo:** I was gonna ask you guys that here, as we get into the last third on the Hode Monterey Le Hoyo series, de San Juan, the Henis from Cuba. I was gonna ask that exact question, rooster, is, I'm curious what you guys think. This is obviously 10 years aged.
We know how things have improved in Cuba with fresh cigars versus I think when this was released, it didn't taste like this. No. Yeah. Okay. Probably not. I'm curious, like you're asking what [01:01:00] do you guys think of this blend in what we understand about the current production of Cuban cigars? Mm-hmm. I bet this might be one to get.
**Rooster:** Yeah,
**Gizmo:** I think it could be very good now. Yes. Back in 2014, probably not. I agree with you on that. You know, and certainly back then it was much cheaper. That's true. You were probably close, you know, close to, well then you 12 or 15 bucks for this cigar. You said
**Chef Ricky:** this was a 25 count box.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. 25 count box. But they also come in tens.
Yeah. They also come in tens. Mm-hmm.
**Bam Bam:** The way this is smoking, I probably would, I would get a 10. A 10 count box at this. At this age. Price right now for what I'm getting here, because this is, you know, because of the at this would be great celebratory cigar during the holidays. It would be great. On 4th of July.
**Rooster:** Anytime.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Well, because it's so expensive at the 10 year mark. I don't think you'd smoke it all the time, but
**Rooster:** Oh, no, no, no. I mean, like a fresh box. Oh, of course. Yeah. I'll try that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Bam Bam:** But if I could find a box of, uh, aged a cigar like this Sure. You're gonna smoke that [01:02:00] sparingly.
**Rooster:** Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Rooster:** Reach out to lizard Greg. Correct.
**Bam Bam:** He's overwhelmed us with generosity. I, I agree. I won't do that.
**Gizmo:** I agree. Pagoda, what do you think of the cigar right now?
**Pagoda:** Uh, for me, I wish I did get a little bit of the sweetness. You know, I've been You're still craving that? Yeah, I've been craving that. Um, you know, unfortunately my cigar has tunneled a few times and I've had to re retouch it a few times.
Uh, but the smoke up, it's been great. And I think the flavor's been on the savory end for me, so I'm really seeking that sweetness. So, uh, you know, I do have, uh, the last third left. Let's see how it works. Works out.
**Chef Ricky:** How's the tequila for you? Pagoda?
**Pagoda:** Um, the tequila I. Uh, feel that I've, I was, you know, like I've had what I call the buttery tequilas.
For me, it hasn't been as buttery as, you know. You guys have, uh, really explained it for me. It's slightly thin and, uh, less buttery. But I think the aroma has been fantastic. And overall the flavor profile's been very good. But in terms of the [01:03:00] viscosity, it's been a little thinner for me, uh, today. So Interesting.
**Rooster:** So an eight.
**Pagoda:** You're so
**Gizmo:** right. All right, boys, let's go to another listener email. This one's from Lizard Paul from Australia. He writes, hi wizards. I have a question for you. Do you cut your cigars with a straight cut or a V cut or some other method if you oscillate the methods? When and why do you choose one method over another?
I've been using a V cut lately with great results, mostly with smaller ring gauge cigars. Many thanks. Lizard Paul.
**Chef Ricky:** I wish I could say I was that put together. I, I, it just kind of whatever I happen to grab on my way out the door as farter, unfortunately. As far as my cutter and lighter. Um, uh, but I, I need to get better at that for sure.
Yeah, I, I, I'm aware of the 10 bam bam commandments and I'm pretty sure that's one of them. Well, having your shit together, one way of
**Bam Bam:** avoiding the guesswork is [01:04:00] to actually keep everything in your case. Mm-hmm. And just load up your cigars and you'll never forget
**Pagoda:** your
**Bam Bam:** lighter
**Pagoda:** or your cutter. But what if you have, uh, these, uh, plastic
**Bam Bam:** finger?
That's a problem. Alright. Except for giz. He gets a pass on po nights, on pod nights. You get a pass. I get
**Gizmo:** a pass on the Ziploc on pod nights.
**Bam Bam:** Well, I've seen it on non pod nights, that's why. But I
**Gizmo:** still get a pass, uh,
**Bam Bam:** not on those nights.
**Gizmo:** What do you use in Rooster as far as the cuts? Do you ever change it up?
**Rooster:** I, no. I have always used a straight cut. That's how I like it. I think, you know, most of the cigars that I smoke, I like. Complete, you know, the head of the cigar, uh, completely cut off. Like, I wanna expose the entire, entire surface. Yeah. Okay. So that's, that's the way I do it. I mean, I have never really tried a V cut, I just don't like the mouth feel of a V cut for some reason.
That's where I'm at. Me too. It's a mouthfeel issue, but, but I would, I would be curious about trying a punch cut on some cigars. Especially the [01:05:00] draw is like really wide open. Yes. And it's loosely packed. Oh, that's a great point. So you might wanna try a punch cut on that.
**Bam Bam:** That's a great point. It's good to know what cigars loosely packed.
**Rooster:** That's, well if you, if you pick it up like you'll feel it, for example, this cigar, like when you've kind of picked it up, you could feel it this size of, size of this cigar and it's kind of like, it's not that tightly packed. Maybe a punch cut would suffice.
**Chef Ricky:** I think punch cuts for me, in my experience, they've been more appropriate when it's a smaller ring gauge cigar.
I feel like if you were to use a punch cut on a thicker ring gauge, you're not exposing enough surface area to get the sufficient. If it's loosely packed
**Bam Bam:** point, if it's loosely packed, then the airflow goes through faster than you wish. Yeah. So the punch will slow it down and kind of create that buildup at the head.
Yeah, that is true. Yeah. It will help that. For me though, I'm very traditional. I do like a, just taking off that slight, that very top cap of every cigar. Straight cut. Yeah. Very traditional. Never deviated.
**Chef Ricky:** Ever since that DLO episode though, I did lean a little V [01:06:00] cut. Cut. Big time.
**Gizmo:** A big. That's all he uses, but yeah.
All of his cigars. Yeah. We're talking, by the way, DLO Rodriguez, the, uh, production manager of Cohiba in Cuba. Sure. Uh, we talked about him quite a bit two weeks ago on the Behi K 58 episode that, uh, we reviewed. We're a very good friend of ours. He exclusively uses a vcu
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Love it. DNI all cigars. Yep.
**Gizmo:** But I agree with what Rooster said.
For me, it's a mouthfeel issue. Mm-hmm. For some reason, I don't like the mouthfeel of a vcu. Sure. I've actually heard a lot of folks though, do like to take a torpedo or a beso Yeah. And use a V cut on those, I guess to increase the, it's true. The grab on, you know, how much, you know, airflow, you're able to get, you know, taking a little bit more tobacco out of it without cutting the whole head off.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm curious to know if anyone out there does the, uh, Cuban cut on torpedoes or besos where you cut out a slight, the ag the ankle. Yeah. So it gives you a little bit more surface area as well. Interesting. It's not something I've seen in the lounge [01:07:00] here, uh, but I'm wondering if anyone out there really does it.
**Gizmo:** For me. I I'm a straight cut guy. I go all straight. Cut. Uh oh. Sorry. We have another bam, bam. Pagoda.
**Chef Ricky:** I'm good. I I just, I just caught the face. I caught the faces. Pagodas making You gotta stop doing that.
**Gizmo:** Pagoda iss on one tonight. Uh, what do you do? Pagoda
**Pagoda:** Straight. Yeah. Except when I can't find my cut. That end of the v.
And there were a few episodes I in a v remember? Correct. Everybody was on me was like. I tried to justify it. It didn't work.
**Chef Ricky:** Well, the, uh, two nights ago I was, I had a stoic and uh, I sent you guys a picture on the lizard chat and of course Uba iss like, uh, that was me. That was Rooster. Oh, that was Rooster.
He is. What's going on there? Had Rooster got on you about that? I had no, I had no cutter or no punch. You know, usually I have a lighter that might have a punch snuck into it or something, but I think I had nothing. I had to use my fingernails to pull top [01:08:00] the cap off
**Bam Bam:** this, this particular question. It's like to each his own, you know, you gotta try every cut what you like.
Right on Different, it's a personal preference definitely.
**Rooster:** But anything is better than the old gizmo Cut. The new pagoda cut.
**Pagoda:** That
**Bam Bam:** was
**Pagoda:** a de a where you're trying to get, you're trying to drag me into this, bro. That was a decapitation. The
**Chef Ricky:** old gizmo cut. Remember those?
**Pagoda:** That
**Chef Ricky:** was a fatality. Holy smokes.
**Pagoda:** I think the
**Bam Bam:** last third was gone.
I mean.
**Chef Ricky:** You know what
**Bam Bam:** could have been a finishing move on Mortal Kombat? You know, when there's like a homicide and a and a murder scene? They, they got the tape, he's got the tape going on around, around his chair.
**Gizmo:** The do not cross your tape. Correct? Yeah.
**Rooster:** That was the old gizmo. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** That's many, many moons ago.
Correct. Let's just say for the listener, I think that was Prepo almost. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** It went out with the Bouchard.
**Gizmo:** It
**Bam Bam:** did. That was
**Gizmo:** was Freelance ero. Yes. No, it went, that
**Pagoda:** was Freelance Arrow Boys. When you got a straight cut with a back on that, that's when it went out. Yes.
**Gizmo:** That helped a lot. I do like the straight cut with the back, but I'm using the, uh, the scissors now.
Yeah. From [01:09:00] CSU
**Bam Bam:** Man, and I do love that, that product. It's fantastic. I,
**Gizmo:** I have to shout them out actually. Beautiful cutter, a beautiful scissor, and what I like about it is you can have a cigar with a massive ash on it. Okay. Let's say an inch, two, three inches of ash. If you take a normal straight cutter, a plastic metal, straight cutter, and you cut it.
That ash is falling off. My scissors from CSO on are so sharp that I can hold my cigar with all that ash on it, right over that ashtray. Cut it with the scissors, and it is so sharp the ash doesn't even fall off. Yeah, that's a, if I'm like doing a second cut or that's a merit. Honestly, that is huge. Now
**Chef Ricky:** you have me feeling like, bam, you can't show up with a fucking Ziploc bag and then pull out scissors.
I'm sorry that I do every time. It doesn't. So what's
**Bam Bam:** crazy, he, all of his tools are so elegant. But then he, then he pulls out a big ass plastic bag. What the heck is going on? You know what's steady hands? Correct. You could've been a surgeon. Yeah, man. I could have
**Rooster:** been. So there is something to consider as you use these tools, [01:10:00] cutters, they will get dull.
I. After a while, but I think these self sharpen, um, do they? Some do, yes. I think especially the guillotine ones, you know, do self sharpen. Do they? Yeah. Because they're kind of, you know, going back and forth and rubbing against each other. That's good to know. But I've, I've noticed, like I have some scissors that have gotten dull.
I've had these
**Gizmo:** for quite some time now, and they feel as sharp as ever. Well, they're fairly new. True. I mean, it's, we had '
**Rooster:** em for what, couple of months? Probably six months. Less than six months, yeah. Yeah. I think
**Chef Ricky:** it helps to, you know, do the cutting action without an actual cigar in place. I think if the only time you're using them is with a cigar, I don't think there's a whole lot of sharpening happening there.
Um, you need to kind of work the action a little bit without a cigar present so that the two blades do their thing and get a little sharp. That's just my, uh, chef input.
**Gizmo:** So boys, uh, I was asked a question at the PCA show as we were talking about cubit cigars with a friend of ours [01:11:00] there, uh, and, and blending and torso doors, et cetera. And I wanted to throw this question out to you guys, and it may not even be a specific person. It may be a specific person who rolls a specific type of cigar you love.
But the question was, if you could spend a day with any master blender or torso in the world, dead or alive, who would it be and what would you hope to learn?
**Bam Bam:** Oh, I've learned a lot. So look, honestly from the, at the PCA show, there's one guy I would love to spend a week with. Klaus Ner K. Yes. Well, I, I mean, I would
**Rooster:** spend time with his dad.
Hank. Hank, correct. He who hanky Keller
**Bam Bam:** who he learned everything from his dad. Yes. Those two gentlemen.
**Rooster:** Master blender for Davidoff X Yeah. For many years. Master Blender. But I was
**Bam Bam:** just so blown away and how intellectual they are and the, the intellectual approach to blending and making cigars, the diagram of the tongue, which is gonna come out soon, I hope.
Yeah. And he just sat [01:12:00] there and drew this and Pagoda was right there. I was blown away by. His how serious it was and how dedicated he was to what he was doing. It, it just, it floored me and I was shocked and surprised. Well,
**Rooster:** that's, that's how Davidov blends the cigars. And if you remember Yeah. You know, from our previous lounge, every single time we had the Davidoff events, they would talk about when a cigar is linear and like there's receptors on your tongues that, you know, uh, where you get the saltiness or the sweetness.
Sure. And it's different parts of your tongue. There's different receptors. But he
**Bam Bam:** was able to diagram the receptors of the tongue and then pull down a, um, a linear chart that he gra that he put in his graph and was able to draw his curve and how he translated the taste receptors on a tongue to his blending methods for that particular, for one line of cigars.
It's incredible. Klauss, if you can hear me, bam, this is bam. I am happy to come down [01:13:00] on my own expense. Would love to learn everything that you do for one week. By the way, he's not a retro hale guy. Just if,
**Pagoda:** uh, that's true. That's true.
**Bam Bam:** He does not. Retro hale. Yeah. We have a whole conversation about that. Not often.
He does occasionally, but it's not something that he does. Yeah. Very infrequent. That's correct. I mean, the father
**Rooster:** and son, just their knowledge about tobacco, it's farming of tobacco. It's incredible. You know, they have a ma they have a huge video on YouTube if anybody wants to watch, I think it's called Seed to Harvest or something like that.
I mean, it's incredible. It's, it's a great journey and it, you learn a lot, so he's my choice, no doubt.
**Gizmo:** Alright, rooster, who would be your choice? Yeah,
**Rooster:** I would say dead or alive. Say, I would say ELs. ATO was, is also a blender for Ato Diaz, YeahDo Diaz. I love some of his blended cigars. He came out with the master blend series.
They were from, uh, I think one through 15. Yep. And I was able to get a box of those, so it was like one of each cigar. And that was like a [01:14:00] complete journey of what he, what his work is. And I mean, his stuff is beyond, but in that
**Bam Bam:** box, didn't you also receive, uh, tasting notes? Yeah. It was a wheel every, exactly, yes.
Every single cigar was defined. Yes.
**Gizmo:** Absolutely. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Very cool.
**Gizmo:** Chef, who would you like to spend, even if you could just pick a cigar, even if you don't know the, the person or the name. Sure. Who is someone, who is someone that you would wanna spend a week with and what would you hope to learn?
**Chef Ricky:** I can't, I can't pick a, a specific person just yet in my journey.
But I will say I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the next, uh, davidoff chef sedition tasting panel. Oh yeah. Uh, you know, I'm definitely not one of the chefs on that panel, but I. Fucking die to be a freaking an in the room or something, you know, just, well, you are a chef. Just, I get it. But the chefs that are doing those things, you know, we're talking [01:15:00] Thomas Keller, you know, and we're talking and we're talking Chef Ricky and Chef Ricky.
Do not sell yourself short. I agree. I'm not telling myself short, but I'm not Thomas Keller. I beg to differ, but, uh, yeah, I'd love to be a part of a ta of a tasting panel in general, but just the, the, the dall chef ions, um, you know, and thanks to Rooster I incredible they are Oh, yeah, yeah. They're, they're special man.
I love how they go about it, and I'd love to be a part of that process. But for that, you know, for, for that exercise, any tasting panel and just kind of put my palate to the test and see how, uh, you know, what tobacco, how it differs from food to tobacco and what other parts of my palate I have to engage that I probably don't have polished as much for.
I. The, the reason of smoking.
**Gizmo:** We have another pagoda damn moment. What is, what the hell is going on here? I don't think
**Bam Bam:** he remembers that he has an ashtray.
**Gizmo:** Is it all over him?
**Rooster:** Pagoda, looks like he's operating a [01:16:00] table. Saw exactly the, maybe the cigar is a bit flaky.
**Chef Ricky:** Oh yeah, he's having some burn issues on this, on this
**Bam Bam:** Looks like a, uh, that's a, that's quite the rose you got going on.
It's kind of exploding on him.
**Gizmo:** So, pagoda, how about for you? What, uh, master blender, torso door, you know, who would you go to as the person you'd wanna spend a week with and what would you love to learn from that person?
**Pagoda:** See, see, this is really interesting because for me, I think some of my favorite cigars are either Davidov or Pa Jones.
But in terms of, uh, having met class. It is so interesting to see his passion. Yeah, and the way he described and explained things. He's not only. A really good blender, but he's also a really good educator. Mm-hmm. And to be with somebody who can educate well and who can just disseminate information and simplify things, I think I'd love to [01:17:00] just hang out.
I agree with class, so bam, when you decide to go, we'll go together, bro. I'll come with you. Yeah, a hundred percent. I'll definitely come with you
**Bam Bam:** 100%.
**Pagoda:** I really thought Bogota was gonna say Rocky Patel. Correct.
**Bam Bam:** Also true. Hey, Rocky, my boy, someday soon. You know what's unfortunate is we don't have access to the blenders in Cuba.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. They're hidden away.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. We don't know who they are. We don't know who's creating some of these. Like this cigar is an incredible blend. It's a shame. That they're just not known.
**Gizmo:** And honestly, the, the torso doors in Cuba as well, they're, those stories are not being told. Well,
**Bam Bam:** we only know Alexander Really.
And,
**Gizmo:** and Hamlet, uh, you know who next Cuba. Correct? That's correct. Just like Alexander or Alex Gonzalez or Y Randy or some of those custom rollers. Yeah. But the people who are rolling the cigars that the common Cuban cigar smoker is smoking, those rollers are kind of hidden away behind the curtain, dude.
Unless you have access to a factory and people, like, we've been so fortunate to get, you never meet. Yeah. You never come face to face with the people whose hands are making these [01:18:00] wonderful products.
**Bam Bam:** I know you have to give an answer, but what's interesting is how unique the D four to the E two is.
They're com they're different cigars. Similar. DNA, who came up with that? Who came up with the Schwa Supreme, who came up with the RAs. These are like Quin quintessential Cuban cigars that we all love. You know, we did have the, no, no. We'd love to know who they are. I
**Rooster:** mean, we did have the privilege to meet, uh, Laina at the Parus shop, correct?
A Yeah. Legendary Parus Roller. She's legend. Yeah. I mean, she's, she used to roll at the, at Lido? No, at the old Parus Factory. Mm-hmm. At the old Parus factory.
**Gizmo:** I
**Rooster:** mean, she's
**Gizmo:** fantastic. Of course.
**Rooster:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. And you can get some of her cigars now. She's the custom shop roller. Yeah. And they're good at the Parus factory.
And they're good. Excuse me, the Parus shop in Havana.
**Rooster:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** What about you, G? So my answer, I'm gonna give two answers, and it's focused specifically on one place, which is in Honduras. I would love to spend some time both with the, oh, I know
**Bam Bam:** who you're gonna say with,
**Gizmo:** with the a o Family. Yep. The Aldino of course.
And also with Hamlet, with some of these [01:19:00] cigars that I've been able to learn and, and actually taste on this tasting panel for Fabrica five. Those two guys have created cigars that. For me are so damn close to. That's a great, that's a great point, a great human experience that I'll be honest, and I'm seeing this in the room and this is really where my next question is going after this, is that I am.
Smoking less Cuban cigars because of it. Me too. Because of what's coming out of Honduras. I'm smoking less Cuban cigars because I'm getting what I want at a fraction of the price at a much higher quality experience. It's funny,
**Bam Bam:** man. We what we talked about with Soka at the last, with Steve, so at the last show Yeah.
2024. It's coming to fruition now. It is. It's unbelievable how the new world is starting to really make a, a, a, a stance, not against the Cuban, uh, catalog, but instead of almost, instead of, yeah, exactly.
**Rooster:** I think the New World cigars are changing. They are kind of [01:20:00] filling that void between a person who was looking for a Cuban experience at New World
**Bam Bam:** prices, but.
There's only one country that's actually filling that gap, that's bridging the gap between the new world. No, I I It's hondu, the Honduran tobacco.
**Rooster:** Well, well, for example, like the stoic cigars, right? Oh, that, that's true. The blend is not Honduran. No. You know, they, uh, that's correct. That's Klaus Kilner and V Taylor.
Yep. So Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** And they do have
**Rooster:** Dominican. Yeah. So, so that's a, that's a, that's a Dominican tobacco. Sure. So, you know, they're, they're trying to kind of mimic, maybe not mimic, but trying to kind of give the smoker who's looking for a Cuban cigar blend or experience, but doesn't want to pay the $40 or $50 for a Cuban cigar.
And even then taking a chance where some of them are not going to smoke well or perform well. Yep. And they're giving you that experience that like fraction of the price. Yeah. They're showing
**Chef Ricky:** that new world could do it too.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. But [01:21:00] what's interesting is I'm not sure if that's actually their intent. I don't know if that's their intent.
They're doing it. Just by way as a byproduct of what they're creating.
**Gizmo:** I think first and foremost, they're taking the product that they have and they're trying to appeal to their own palette first and foremost. Mm-hmm. They are trying to create a cigar that they wanna smoke every day. So if they're Cuban cigar smokers or Cuban cigar appreciators, that's what they're trying to do.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Right. So it, it comes down, I think, to the palette and also the raw product you have at your disposal.
**Bam Bam:** And that's the one thing we didn't get a chance to ask Vans.
**Pagoda:** No, but you know, the, the one thing I must say about at Stoic Vance Stoic, yeah. He, he, he wasn't, uh, inspired by Cuban cigars. Correct. He was inspired by producing really high quality.
That's true. Flavorful. Flavorful cigars. And the fact that he's ventured into six or seven tobacco leaves to try and come up with one new world product, you know, the Stoic Cigars, which we really loved. Oh, yeah. Um, it's, it's, it's [01:22:00] really amazing. Yeah. So I think. What we, I think what we are gonna see going forward is a lot more complexity in the cigars with a completely different flavor profile.
That's correct. 'cause you know, we've been so used to the regular Dominican or the Nicaragua in which we can kind of really easily tell where they're coming from. But the fact that this Dominican cigar now, you know, we were, when we were playing the guessing game on April Fool's Day, um, we thought it was, there was some Honduran to tobacco.
We did. Yeah. Yeah. But there wasn't any, yeah. And. So it's really interesting that the way the new blenders are thinking about what they wanna try and achieve is a lot more complex and a lot more flavorful cigars. So I think we, we are in for a good ride. I agreed.
**Gizmo:** I agree. And I think that what we're seeing, and you know, we're talking to Cuban cigar smokers on this episode, right?
This is a Cuban cigar episode, and I think that what I'm seeing in the feedback of not only in our lounge here where cubit cigar smokers in this lounge are embracing Honduran tobacco, embracing cigars like [01:23:00] stoic that have been amazing Fabric of five all Dino, some of this stuff that we've really been raving about.
And then seeing the feedback from listeners who say, I've only been smoking cubit cigars. I tried this stuff and now it's starting to enter my rotation. It's pushing other things out a, amongst all of those brands, I think. Exactly. To Pagodas point, I think what we're seeing is kind of like what AKA said, what we've talked about, where mm-hmm.
The common smoker goes all the way, you know, balls to the wall on strength. When they start comes back, now they come back.
**Rooster:** Correct.
**Gizmo:** I think as an industry that has happened, and I think that the industry is also coming back and trying to find innovative and interesting ways to blend tobacco. Mm-hmm. That speaks to all consumers, including the ones who have been, who've been pushed out by haos on Cuban cigars because of price and try to make something that is interesting to a smoker who likes something strong and full.
And also someone who likes a a, a complex, interesting Cuban cigar at a much better price point [01:24:00] with an exception.
**Bam Bam:** Like Padron. Sure. And they're doing something incredible. Their consistency and their, we love their cigars. Like Siva, we can't live without that cigar in the 80th. They're forging, he's, George is forging a path.
It's, it's unique to his cigars and he's remaining consistent. He's not gonna grow beyond where he is. That's a huge merit and you have to give him a ton of respect because he's not buying into, I wouldn't consider anything that we just discussed a fad because it's a true direction, a hundred percent and a very good direction for the new world category.
But Padron's saying, you know, I like what I do, people like what I do, I'm gonna keep doing it
**Rooster:** because I mean, they have a huge following. Oh, it's incredible. Even for us, like I, I go through, you know, couple of days of smoking just like just a Cuban cigar or a new world cigar, and then, but I still crave that padron experience rooster.
There's never
**Bam Bam:** a session, I think with any of us in this room, in the club, that we don't have a padron in our hand [01:25:00] at every cigar smoking session. Yeah. Every single session that we have. Yeah, it's a must. That's true. So it's a great way of balancing your, your, your night with your selections, but you know what they've achieved consistency.
Yeah, oh yeah, of course.
**Pagoda:** And, and you know, the thing with cigars is one of those things is like, Hey, this is a cigar I'm wanna reach for, this is a flavor profile I'm gonna reach for. I would rather go for a consistent, uh, you know, like you get what you're seeking for. Right. Like, and I, I find that very, very compelling as well, that they've been able to, you know, stick to their flavor profile and it's been fantastic and we all love it and, and they're consistent to been amazing.
I don't think I've met anyone who's had a bad paja. Mm-hmm. Just survive.
**Gizmo:** A hundred percent.
**Pagoda:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Never. And I think too, you know, you look at Padron and you look at what some other manufacturers are doing in that a lot of other manufacturers are going to other regions, trying other blends, trying to reach different segments of consumers.
Even Sacca has a very diverse [01:26:00] line of cigars for a very diverse kind of smoker. Padron stays in one lane. Correct. And just is focused on delivering consistent padron flavor. Right?
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. And it's fantastic. 'cause you know what you're gonna get and when you want it, you know exactly where to go. Right, exactly.
**Bam Bam:** And we want it almost every single sit that we have.
**Gizmo:** So I think my point here in saying what George Padron is doing versus what these other new world manufacturers are doing and trying to reach maybe a con, a Cuban consumer mm-hmm. Who's been put off by Haos, you know, who maybe can't afford or doesn't want to pay for an experience like we're having tonight.
Fresh cigar, aged cigar, whatever. Mm-hmm. I think it, there's such value in both of those lines of thinking in the staying consistent and every time you smoke it, it's exactly what you expect. And also in the side of trying new things, innovation, new flavor profiles, and trying to reach a different type of smoker.
I think we are in a very lucky position today in that the industry seems. [01:27:00] Specific to Cuban cigar smokers, the industry seems like now more than ever, it's wanting to reach every type of consumer. I agree. Including Cuban cigars. I think we're very lucky to be in this moment today and in this situation today, despite our frustration with Habanas, it does feel like a renaissance.
It does a let's take place. Yeah. Right.
**Pagoda:** And you know, to emphasize in the same thing with you saying, and to reiterate it, it's like, you know, there was this fear that, hey, where are we going with the cigar industry with so much of the regulations, you know, people being anti cigar, smoking within the United States, Cuban cigars being just so expensive and not accessible at all.
And now you have the new world coming in. And I can tell you that going to, uh, even the PCA, what we realized was there's a huge commitment from the industry, you know, to try and build and develop some new really good, you know. Outliers and, you know, different tasting cigars [01:28:00] and the, the commitment and the passion is yeah.
Fantastic. And you know, what we found this time around was there was so many new producers of cigars. Yes. Including stoic. Right? Yeah. Of course. Think about it, just out in November, I think this is very well said. What he's saying right now that there, the cigar industry is growing and you know, we are a afraid good way.
In a very, very good way. It's
**Bam Bam:** growing in a controlled, at a controlled pace with passion and control. Yeah. Right. And discipline like we haven't ever seen. Yeah. You know, remember like five years ago, four, five years ago, it seemed like the cigar industry was floundering. Cigar, Cuban cigar prices were going up.
We had of course, Padron and Davidoff that we loved, but we weren't really discovering until we sat here in this room, started recording that we discovered all of these incredible new world cigars. They're all doing something very special. And each and every Marco is unique and they're all incredible.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, it's, it is exciting time for us.
**Bam Bam:** Very
**Gizmo:** exciting. [01:29:00] What I, what, I guess I'm gonna sum up everything we're saying in this room tonight is I feel like we are in a cigar boom right now. It's a renaissance, I think. Not exactly, not a volume or amount of cigars being sold, quality or amount of consumers being reached.
It's quality innovation and really trying to reach every type of pallet available. Especially as we're seeing so many manufacturers jump into Honduras now. You know that to me, the secret is a tell
**Bam Bam:** the secret's out. That's
**Gizmo:** a tell.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** That there's something that's happening that the consumer is demanding.
Correct. That is we, the consumer wants change because. Cuban cigars have become less accessible. Mm-hmm. In every way, in price, in volume, in, you know, availability, quite literally shipping to the United States inventory, inventory, everything. Yeah. So I just feel, and this is a good discussion, like I said, to, to speak with the, you know, a Cuban cigar listener who's listening to us right now.
I mean, I just think we're in a really good place despite the position that Haos has put us in. Yeah. [01:30:00] You know, with pricing. That's right. So boys, we're coming to the end of our evening tonight with the Cito Tequila Blanco and the Hoyo de Monterey, Le Hoyo de San Juan. Any, uh, thoughts on the pairing here before we move into our ratings tonight?
**Chef Ricky:** I think the parent was fantastic. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I think we got lucky again.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Rich experience. Delicious. Actually, I can keep going. Yeah. I can do another one of these cigars and at least another glass of this. Absolutely. No doubt.
**Rooster:** Yeah. There's just something about the 2015 tobacco. It's 20 14, 20 15. I mean, it's just beyond words.
It's excellent.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, no, it's, it's been an excellent pairing, uh, although I've had some issues and I'll discuss that during the ratings. Mm-hmm.
**Gizmo:** Alright, boys, it's time now to move into the formal liquor rating tonight on the Cito tequila blanco. Bam. Bam, you're up.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Hands down. I'm at a 10. Regardless of the fact that this bottle was 90 bucks or whatever it cost, I don't have a [01:31:00] problem with the viscosity. I just, I, I'm more of a flavor guy. Re regardless of how viscous or how, um, lighter in body the, the, the spirit is.
This was botanical, this was buttery, it was salty. It complimented the cigar perfectly. Um, I can drink this all night long. I can drink it tomorrow morning. Yeah, it was just hands down an incredible experience and it, the way it paired with the cigar. It just lights out. I'm at 10.
**Chef Ricky:** All right, chef Ricky. Yeah, you know, I, I love the balance that was presented with this spirit.
You know, it wasn't overwhelmingly agave forward. It wasn't yelling, agave, it presented it in a way where it was delicate, delicately delivered, and it paired well with the cigar as a result. Um, I absolutely love the spirit. Um, I'm gonna give it a 10 as well, I think, you know Sure. For Blanco at $89 and the repo is over a hundred and [01:32:00] pushes that even further, I.
Uh, but I think this is well worth it. I think it delivers it well. I think this is something that you could pour for anyone and they could appreciate it and they could be, um, you know, it could serve as a gateway of sorts for some, um, you know, the price point could maybe make it unattainable for some, but I think this is something, you know, if you could figure out a way to fit it, fit it on your bar because of the height of the bottle, you may have to buy a new piece of millwork for that.
This thing's pushing 18 to 20 inches. You get the massage all out, correct? Yeah. For those familiar with like, uh, the Lio 1942 and the height of that bottle, this is even taller than that. What was,
**Bam Bam:** sorry, just one little thing. What's unusual about this is that it, like I said earlier, the first two or three sips, it felt like you needed to have an acquired taste.
'cause it was so different. But as your palate adjusted, it just became so buttery and salty. And I don't think I've ever experienced that in a, in a tequila like this.
**Chef Ricky:** I, I would say that for a blanco, I probably, you know, and for a blanco if, [01:33:00] if, if I didn't know the tequila, I would've expected something a little bit hotter, a little bit, just more, um.
Shocking, if you will. Uh, but yeah, it, it, it drinks super easy. Super, super easy. Very delicious tequila. Very well made, tons of respect for the master distiller.
**Gizmo:** So for me it's also a 10. I thought this was fantastic. I love that we have, you know, the last time, 12 weeks ago, the last time we did agave, we did Tequila Blanco.
We did a few of them in a row, and I love that we've found one that's in a higher price point, a little bit more of a premium type of price point, and it's still delivered. A, a little bit of an elevated experience, I would say, versus those, but at the price point, it's still, for me, just a perfect drinking tequila.
Yeah. It's so fucking memorable.
**Bam Bam:** It is like, I won't forget the experience and I wanna pursue that bottle.
**Gizmo:** It's excellent. And I, I think that, you know, for what we do here, we talk a lot about, you know, our ratings on, on our, our [01:34:00] spirit pairings. How does it pair with the cigar? We had a cigar tonight that was 10 years aged.
Very complex. Mm-hmm. You know, could have been very brittle in a way. It wasn't, yeah. But it very well could have been with that kind of age on it. Luckily, luckily it wasn't the case. But I think tonight what I've seen with this tequila is how well it compare with really almost any cigar alm, you know, anything in the Cuban profile.
I think clearly at any age, I think it would do very well. Something young, I think it would do well with, and of course in the new world space, probably up to, you know, a Honduran or Dominican, I think it'd be great. Maybe, maybe. Nicaraguan it would, it would be overpowered a little, little bit, but I,
**Chef Ricky:** I think so too.
Yeah. I,
**Gizmo:** I think this is a versatile spirit and I think if you're looking for a premium tequila blanco experience mm-hmm. This Cito tonight is a great entrant. It's a great display piece to put on the end of your bar. Mm-hmm. Because it stands out otherwise in that silly jar, um, that silly glass. But, uh, for me it's definitely a 10.
I'm very happy with this. I'm [01:35:00] very happy we paired this tonight with the cigar, and I'm very happy to be back to Agave tonight. Correct. Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** Oh my Lord. I think I'm gonna be crucified here. Not at all. And I'm glad Senator is not here. Not at all.
**Gizmo:** Not I can call him on the phone if please get him on the phone.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. But for, for, for me it's an eight and I think Ru had mentioned that I, you know, eight. Yeah, I am homeboy. I, I thought it was very. Very light and very thin. I felt like there was not enough viscosity. I didn't even find it very buttery. I've had tequila shaking his head very, very buttery. I've had tequila, which are very buttery, which I say right away.
And you know, I think, you know, for, for a guy who does not drink a lot of tequilas, and this summer is gonna be my tequila summer, so I'll have, uh, a better idea. But, you know, I've enjoyed other tequilas a lot more, uh, which where I found it to be very buttery. Where I found the viscosity be just right.
This was a little too [01:36:00] thin for me. It was not as buttery. I did really like, uh, the smell on the nose. Like you, you know, the aroma was fantastic. I wish it delivered, you know, accordingly, uh, for my palette. I th I thought it was a bit light for that. It's innate for me.
**Gizmo:** Alright, boys, that puts the formal liquor rating tonight on the Cito Tequila Blanco.
At a 9.5.
**Bam Bam:** Nice score.
**Gizmo:** So I think nice score, as we always say, the formal lizard rating, the formal liquor rating doesn't lie. Yeah. I actually think a 95 on this is really a perfect rating. Excellent, excellent. Yeah. Excellent for the experience we had tonight. Yeah. So I'm very, very happy with that. I took one
**Rooster:** whiff of Chef Ricky's glass, the floral nature of this tequila.
Yeah. On the nose. On the, on the nose. I think it was a tent. No, on the nose. It was fantastic. It was,
**Pagoda:** but you know, it didn't deliver the same way. Right. It just came very thin for me. It didn't gimme the buttery, it didn't gimme the, you know, the, the tequila, but you didn't
**Rooster:** like the flavor or you just basing it on the viscosity,
**Pagoda:** viscosity, you know, there's so, so for me, what, you're [01:37:00] taking
**Rooster:** off two points because of the viscosity and the
**Pagoda:** enjoyability, right?
Like, you know, you wanna be able to enjoy, uh, the, the, the spirit you drink. Right. Because at the end of the day, what are we rating? Right? Are we, I'm not that good. Uh, you know. A familiar or, you know, thing where I can really determine based on what the actual flavor, well, neither are we except
**Bam Bam:** for chef.
For me, honestly,
**Pagoda:** it is about how I enjoy, uh, spirit and what it feels and delivers to me. And in this particular case, I dent as much and, uh, I'm, I'm like, I wish I felt it to be as buttery because I've had the difference is that I've had tequilas where I've found them to be buttery and it just goes on your palate and you feel very good about it.
And it could be various reasons. It could be what I've eaten over the last few days. It could be multiple reasons. What, what deliver, what did you drink before you got here? Yeah, but it, but it didn't deliver fair enough. [01:38:00] It didn't deliver the way. It's a fair point, fair point. It didn't deliver the way, you know, I expected it to after the aroma.
Yeah. I got one word
**Chef Ricky:** guys. I. Life. Life. Life.
**Gizmo:** All right boys. It's time now to move into our formal lizard rating tonight on the Hoya de Monterey Le Hoyo de San Juan, 10 years aged rooster. You're up. Hoyos are usually
**Rooster:** a hit or miss for us.
**Gizmo:** That's true.
**Rooster:** Yes. I. But I've often said, and I think we all have agreed to this, that the hoyo with age does get better.
And this is, you know, not an anomaly. It's the truth. I mean, 20 14, 20 15 Cuban tobacco is really smoking at its peak. I mean, all through the different markers, you could take a Juan Lopez, you could do a punch, punch, all the 20 fourteens, fifteens I've had, I mean, they have smoked Delicious. So this cigar started off like a buttery, savory scone.
Yeah. And. Throughout the cigar. I [01:39:00] mean, it felt just good in your hand. I like the wrapper, I like the color of the wrapper. I mean the, the blend was absolutely phenomenal. Spot on, spot on. Uh, the flavors that I got from this cigar, I mean the, you know, with the, with the buttery nest through the, the cocoa at the end.
Yeah. The saltiness that we got. Even the faint white pepper at, at, you know, it was kind of faint in the middle, but it was there. Yeah. There was a sweetness that came through. So for all of those reasons, I'm at a 10. Wow. Correct. Very nice. Wow. And thank you lizard Greg for Absolutely sending us these cigars.
Absolutely. It was very generous of you. Absolutely. Thank you. Alright. Pagoda eight. Here we, here we go. Here we go. I'm,
**Pagoda:** I'm gonna be killed a guest. Drop the hammer. Drop the hammer. It, it is a date for me. Oh, and, and you know, the multiple reasons for it. I, you know, for me. I agree with the whole scone, the savory flavor.
It was very, [01:40:00] very, very nice in the beginning. The smoke output was fantastic. It is like a loosely pack cigar. It feels very light in your hands even though you know it's, uh, you know, 54 ring gauge. Um, it feels good. The smoke output was fantastic. I was looking forward to it. Couple of things that happened in my particular scar, it tunneled a few times.
Mm-hmm. Had to retouch it quite a few times, in fact, multiple times. Uh, that's number one, I think. So for the cigar I had, uh, you know, that kind of really, you know, it takes away from the experience. The other, the other thing is I was looking for the sweetness you guys were talking about. Mm-hmm. Because I think a little bit of sweetness, you know, the sweet cream kind of sweetness, which was I was expecting after listening to you guys.
I just couldn't get it. And overall, I tend to find that as a flavor profile, like in most mes, cigars. You know, it's like one of the things I really enjoy and I can pick it out very quickly. I just didn't get any of that either. And so for [01:41:00] me it was, you know, it was a ver very good experience in the sense that the first half was good in terms of this smoke output.
I. In terms of the feel of the cigar, in terms of the savoriness, but I kept seeking the sweetness and obviously in terms of the construction, um, I think it, it was just unfortunate that it tunneled me and I think it's innate for me. It's a really good cigar. But thank you lizard Greg. Uh, unfortunately I didn't get the right cigar, so.
**Gizmo:** So for me it's a nine. Uh, and I'm sure you guys know why it's a nine and not a 10. Yeah. You know, at the open, at the finish. Even the middle. You had a moment there. I had a moment. I had about 10 minutes of hell. Okay. But this was fantastic. Mature, delicious Cuban tobacco. And I think that when you, you talk about delicious, mature tobacco, I think Cuban tobacco does rise to the top of the pile as far as its ability to be complex.
Interesting. Keep your, you know, keep your palate engaged and curious. And [01:42:00] I think the cigar did that most of the way for me. I think the retro hail was one of the standout elements of this, that it delivered something that was so unique that we don't get a lot, especially as we've been smoking fresher Cuban tobacco even.
The ones we've enjoyed the complexity on the retro hail really, really benefited from Yeah, the time that this tobacco aged in the box after it was rolled. You know, I, like I said, it, it, it was 10 minutes of hell there in the middle, but it was a really, really wonderful cigar. You know, I, I have to knock it for that moment.
But a cigar like this, certainly at its best, you know, in those moments of excellence, it keeps you chasing. It keeps you wanting more, it keeps you, you know, wanting to have this experience again, to find cigars like this and really makes, you know, what we do here and the experience of smoking. Great cigars continue to be interesting because it had something of an X factor, of course, probably because of its age.
Correct. You know, so for me, for that reason, for [01:43:00] those 10 minutes of hell, I knocked at a point, but it's a nine for me. Mm-hmm. But it was a really, really excellent cigar most of the way through here.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah. Really well said G. Yeah. You know, agreed. I, I think, uh, I'll piggyback off on all of those things there.
Um, so I, I'll be, I'm, I'm at a nine and the reason I'm at nine, the first half of the cigar smoked. Perfectly. Uh, the flavor was amazing, uh, delivering the sweet butter, the, with, with some slight salt, uh, the, the faint, uh, white pepper notes. Uh, I never really got the cocoa as clear as everyone else did, but I, I did get some coffee there towards the end.
But I think where I'm knocking it back a point is that the second half of the cigar for me, the ash got really flaky. Hmm. Uh, and the burn line got a little inconsistent. Um, and that's where I, I guess, you know, how densely packed the cigar was or wasn't, was starting to show. But the first half of the cigar, the ash stacked beautifully.
Burn line was great, and then it just sort of, kind of, uh, went down from there. [01:44:00] But flavorwise, the cigar was everything. I wanted it delivered. Well, it was beautiful. Uh, and I think Senator would've enjoyed it. Time.
**Bam Bam:** I agree. And I agree. And poop and grinder, I think would've loved it.
**Chef Ricky:** Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Gizmo:** You know, before you, you get going.
Bam. I wanna make one point. Isn't it interesting that I had a cigar that had a bit of moment of hell? Mm-hmm. But I had perfect construction. Mm. There was no issue in flaking ash. But your rating
**Bam Bam:** was fair though. No. What I'm
**Gizmo:** saying is, is it completely the opposite? Chef had full, perfect flavor. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
And he had to knock it for construction. Yeah. Right. It's like. Both of our cigars together would've been a perfect time. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, it's, it's wild how he had great flavor, but you know, I had great construction and we both had to knock it for the opposite. Correct.
**Bam Bam:** And I'm, I'll, I'll start.
Look, this is Cuba being Cuba. Of course, all of our cigars were slightly different, but mine was perfect from beginning to end. I didn't have flaky ash. The burn line was perfect all the way through. Um, you know, that sweet cream continued right to the bloody end with cocoa at [01:45:00] the end and just the touch of that coffee that he mentioned earlier.
But what he said, he said two gizmo said two things that were very poignant regarding the pursuit of the cigar smoking habit that we have. You find something in a Cuban cigar and you're consistently pursuing it. I'm constantly pursuing that balance between savory and sweet. And I got it tonight. That X factor, I got it tonight.
And I don't get those two things, maybe in two or three new world cigars that we've had here. So. For all those reasons, I'm at an absolute 10 for my experience tonight. It was just off the charts and of course the way it paired with the tequila tonight was fantastic. Yeah, I could, like I said, with the tequila, I'll say it with the cigar.
I can smoke another one of these and another one after. Now will it be the same? We don't know because te Yeah, who knows? It's a Cuban cigar. No idea. We, we have no idea from 10 years ago, honestly. But you know, that's the whole mystery and mystique of the whole Cuban catalog. Yeah, it's part
**Gizmo:** of it. So I'm gonna 10.
Alright boys, that puts the [01:46:00] formal lizard rating tonight on the Jo de Monterey Le Hoyo de San Juan. At a 9.2. Wow. Good score. I think that's a great rating for score cigar tonight.
**Bam Bam:** A good score. Absolutely.
**Gizmo:** Even the issues that, uh, the three of us had in certain Perfect. Yeah. Certain areas. We all had different issues, of course.
But look, and you and Rooster had perfect cigars and
**Bam Bam:** eight's a nice score. Nine is an elite score for the cigar. Yeah. 9.2 cigars score and 10 CI score. It's
**Rooster:** the highest rated Hoya, I think on the po. I
**Pagoda:** agree. No, I think the Hoya three also did well. Yes. I'll tell you right now, boys. All right.
**Gizmo:** Let's go through the other Hoya de Monterey cigars from Cuba.
That was fantastic. It was. We've done on the podcast. It was, we'll start with the epicure number two on episode 18. Scored a 7.3. On episode 74, we took a while to come back to Hoyo. The Eges La Casa Delano release scored a really bad 4.8. That was a bad one. I think we all wanted to go home that night. On episode 103, we did the epicure number one, scored a 6.7 on one episode, 131.
We were disappointed with this one. The double Coronas.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Scored
**Gizmo:** a 7.7. [01:47:00] And finally on episode 147, the trio epicure number three, the final of the trio scored a 9.2 matching matching tonight.
**Pagoda:** Wow. Wow. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** An absolute match on this one. So it's actually a tie. Wow. For the lead in Hoyo between the epicure number three, the new release from Cuba and tonight's aged 10 years.
**Bam Bam:** Uh, Le Hoyo de San Juan
Rooster.
**Gizmo:** Do you remember that
**Bam Bam:** cigar? I, I, I do. I, how do you compare it to tonight's experience? I think that was a little bit more
**Rooster:** Cedar forward from what I remember, which
**Bam Bam:** I tend not to like, but also,
**Rooster:** you know, that was a fresh cigar. This is a 2015. It's true. This has got 10 years of age on it.
I almost
**Chef Ricky:** forgot it. A cedar note in the beginning of this cigar. But you know
**Gizmo:** what though? That one, you know, you talk about, uh, current runs of, of Cuban tobacco. I don't think we had a single Yeah. Construction or burn issue in the room. No, that was great. It was great. It performed very well. I think we were just, you know, at a 9.2, what I see in Epic Cure number three at this point is just the aging potential.
You know, that, that's just gonna Sure. Potentially get better. But it's an excellent young cigar. [01:48:00] But I, I
**Rooster:** also think this cigar, you know, coming out of a fresh box would, would also score probably high. I agree. Maybe not a 9.2. No high eights, but maybe high eights. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Could be.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, a great night Tonight we have to thank our lizard of the week and the man who made this all possible tonight with this beautiful cigar lizard.
Greg, extremely generous for his generosity. Oh yeah. We really appreciate. Again, we're not about gifts. We're not about lizard sending us stuff. It's not why we do this, but we, a package like this shows up with these amazing, you know, San Juan from Hoyo, the Parus, Corona's age, and a full box of Corona's Extra.
We have to shout that out because it is so beyond comprehension, the generosity. Correct. That these lizards, I, I've never met Lizard Greg, none of us have, and to be this generous because of the content we put out, it means so much to us and we are so very grateful for all of our listeners. It's really. A beautiful thing that we have.
It's
**Bam Bam:** also very cool to see that lizard nation out there is really working and trying new things, but [01:49:00] this particular cigar, it just shows how his palate, lizard, Greg's so developed, he knows what, what, what we'd like, um, and something we haven't had and we haven't had.
**Gizmo:** And to take a risk on Hoya, which clearly hasn't done well in this, this room, that's
**Bam Bam:** mm-hmm.
**Gizmo:** He knew that this a, would do well, that was a, a risk for
**Bam Bam:** him. A little bit of a risk. Sure. So that's very, very, you know, commended. Yeah. Look, we
**Rooster:** have some of the best listeners in the world. Oh, that's incredible. We have the best, we're
**Bam Bam:** so thankful there isn't a, they're award winning hands down. The best listeners in the world.
**Rooster:** And I think it's because we are honest with our reviews. If the cigar. Is shared no matter what it costs, we give it a rating based upon how it performs that particular day when we are smoking it. Yep,
**Gizmo:** exactly right. So we are grateful to Lizard. Greg, thank you again, lizard of the week. Of course, any lizard out there can win Lizard of the Week.
All you have to do is send us an email. You don't have to send us any stuff. Send us an email, tell us what you're smoking, write us a comment on YouTube or Instagram. Every week we give that away. And again, thanks [01:50:00] to Lizard Greg tonight for this great experience with the Hoya. Of course, we have to thank all of the lizards who wrote in with these great emails.
Greatest gave us a lot of great discussion. Tonight we have to thank Fabrica five, our fantastic sponsor. We talked a little bit about them tonight. Try some of their cigars, especially if you love Cuban cigars. Give them a shot. Give some Honduran tobacco a shot. I think you're really gonna love it. And boys, what a great night tonight.
It's so good to be back in the room after PCA a Oh yeah, I really missed, uh, me too, being in the room here. Me too, under the microscope. Pagodas taking a nap over there. No problem. And, uh, a great night boys 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 p 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 [01:51:00] 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.