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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 range from 60 to 90 minutes and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features seven members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight, I'm joined by Roosters, Senator Pagoda and Bam Bam.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some whiskey, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 108th official invitation to join us. and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We're going to smoke a New World cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating.
We smoke a cigar from a Miami based boutique brand, we discuss a pricey new release from Davidoff, plus an upcoming customer blended cigar from E. P. Carrillo, and we debate our favorite desert island cigars, all among a variety of other things for the next 90 minutes. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar and enjoy, as we pair 10 year aged Whistlepig Small batch rye whiskey with the HVC hotcake in Corona Gorda.
A Corona Gorda from Nicaragua [00:01:00] tonight. It's called the HVC hotcake. It's a 46 ring gauge cigar by five and five eighths inches long. And boys, this is not pretty. No. It is not a pretty cigar. Smells good though. It does. It's got a lot of aroma. Yeah. Yeah. It actually kind of reminds me of how like a Cuban smells fresh.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. You sure? It's not the HVAC , the heating and ventilation .
**Gizmo:** It's a hot cake. It's a hot cake. You know, we haven't done actually many Corona orders on the pod. So when this came up, uh, on, we've had a few listeners request this and there was an option to get the Corona go. I was like, this is, we like this shit right in our wheelhouse.
Yeah. You know, so hopefully it'll smoke. Well, size is good. The wrapper looks.
**Rooster:** Looks decent. Nice. Okay. You know.
**Gizmo:** I mean, it's a little rustic.
**Senator:** I mean, I think the rapper's very rustic.
**Gizmo:** You know how we normally say invisible seams? These are visible seams. Very
**Senator:** visible. That's for sure. There
**Bam Bam:** is a slight sheen to it though.
Yeah. Which I
**Senator:** like. And I just [00:02:00] really, the band, this looks like, uh, like one of those premium seconds, like a J. R. Cigar. Like, this This looks like something I
**Bam Bam:** get at 7 Eleven. Yeah,
**Senator:** this is not, uh, not the nicest presentation.
**Pagoda:** Well, this is going to be an exciting hour ahead.
**Gizmo:** Let's cut this thing, boys. Yeah, we did a Boulevard Corona Chagantes last week.
Yeah. 2016 or something that's discontinued. Ultra rare. Hey, listen, people are giving us shit that we don't do enough budget smokes in the pod. We have done a lot. We did
**Rooster:** the, we did the Lever V Lancero. We did the Warp. We did so many. This
**Gizmo:** cold draw
**Bam Bam:** is delicious, honestly. Very fruity.
**Gizmo:** Wait, did... That is really good.
Did GISS tell you to cut it already?
**Rooster:** I
**Bam Bam:** did. He did. Ok. Who, who was that? GISS? GISS. Bastards. Nice cold raw.
**Gizmo:** Mmm. Very nice. Very aromatic cold raw. Oh yeah. Like very flavorful. Fruity and floral. I'm surprised. Yeah, it's actually very nice. Hmm. I'm getting like a, a touch of like coffee, [00:03:00] uh, maybe in the background, you know, a little, a little cocoa of some sort, definitely the dried fruit.
Oh, this
**Senator:** is promising. Yeah. This is as flavorful a cold draws you
**Gizmo:** would get on a cigar. Yep. I, uh, I am now very optimistic. All right, boys, let's light this thing. The HVC hotcake in Corona Gorda. Again, it's a 46 ring gauge cigar by five and five eighths inches long. Out of Nicaragua. This light is making
**Pagoda:** some strange noises.
**Gizmo:** You're welding steel. You are on a, you are on a terror on the pod with your lighters, man. Last two months
**Pagoda:** or so? Yeah, it's been really bad. I think I've gone through ten lighters.
**Gizmo:** You lost your case, too. Yeah. While traveling.
**Bam Bam:** It's unusual, unusually full flavored and...
**Senator:** Yeah, my taste buds are dancing right now.
It has like a blast of flavor on the first draw.
**Gizmo:** But thankfully it's not the pepper bomb thing that you so [00:04:00] often get on these, on these Nicaraguans.
**Bam Bam:** Dare I say, garlic and onion, honestly, it could be dinner that I had, but wow, that's really
**Gizmo:** interesting.
**Bam Bam:** I don't know. I'm just kind of what I'm getting.
**Rooster:** I'm getting some baba ganoush,
**Senator:** you know, I'm, I'm getting pepper giz.
I'm getting pepper too. This is a
**Gizmo:** spicy start. Not for me at all for me. I'm not getting spice right now. Not at all. Oh, I'm getting black pepper.
**Bam Bam:** It is. I will say it's pretty smooth. It's not, um, harsh in any way. But, um, full flavored, medium to full.
**Rooster:** The aroma from the cigar is very
**Gizmo:** robust. Oh, yeah. It hits your nose.
It's kind of
**Bam Bam:** nice, I don't mind it. It hits your
**Gizmo:** nose? Yeah, that's coming in hot. It is. Yeah, it's like black pepper in my nose. The nose, definitely. And I'm starting to get it now in the draw. I'm definitely getting more of a pepper thing. I'm just getting a lot of pepper. Uh oh. It's like
**Rooster:** you take [00:05:00] wasabi when you're eating
**Gizmo:** sushi or something.
You get that.
**Bam Bam:** On that smoke? That was like a mustard. Yes, absolutely. On the nose. Yeah,
**Senator:** that's a note I always chase in cigars. wasabi,
**Gizmo:** isn't there? Didn't we talk about, isn't there a wasabi cigar? Didn't we? We talked about that. There is, there's a, a, a, yeah. Probably a manufacturer that's making like a That's right.
Wasabi, goca, cigar goca.
**Senator:** With those like green wrappers they have on some of
**Gizmo:** those cigars. Exactly. So the, uh. The tobacco in these boys are is, uh, Nicaragua and Roho 99 from Halah and ES as the binder. The filler is Viso leaves of Roho, 2006 Maduro, and the wrapper is Mexican San Andress. And these cigars are made by AZA in Nicaragua under the blending guidance of.
HVC, namely their founder and owner Rainier Lorenzo, who is a [00:06:00] Cuban national. I'm going to get into his story a little bit, but, um, they offer this cigar in three sizes. Uh, so this again is the Corona Gorda, 46 by five and five eighths inches. They offer what they call a Leguito number four, petite Corona.
52 by four and a half and a Laguito number five, a Toro, 54 ring gauge by six inches. So this is offered in three sizes. Now officially getting pepper. Oh, it's,
**Pagoda:** it's pretty strong. I'm getting it all the way to the back of my throat.
**Bam Bam:** A ton. Now that says a lot about Pagoda and his power alley.
**Senator:** Yeah. Now
**Gizmo:** this is not like a Cuban cigar.
This is not like a Cuban cigar at all, which is, you know, HVC actually stands for Havana City, which is where he's from. That's what he named it after. HVAC. It smells a
**Rooster:** little like Havana City.
**Gizmo:** It's, uh, it's named after Havana City where, uh, Rainer Lorenzo is from and, uh, everything that he, all his cigars, all the names of his cigars, everything [00:07:00] that he, he makes, he names after.
People are places in in Havana. I don't like the band. I don't like the band either. Yeah, it's very cheap It is it's awful. It looks like I
**Senator:** said like it's all premium second imitation cigar Like this doesn't does not look like
**Gizmo:** a serious brand and for an 8 cigar you would expect it You know that the band would be okay of a better presentation, right?
I mean, yeah I mean this this like you said it looks like a cigar to be 50 cents for a dollar,
**Pagoda:** right? You know I wonder what goes into the naming you have foundation cigars who goes all the way into history to pick a name and then you Have this which is
**Bam Bam:** this hot cake I do like his concept of naming cigars after cities that he either loves or has been and that's a great idea Yeah, it's all like that.
**Gizmo:** It's all about it's all about Cuba. He's very passionate about it You know, he came to the United States in 2008, came to Miami, then relocated to Wisconsin for work. He was not in the cigar business, and his sister was working for Aganorsa Leaf, uh, in Nicaragua. [00:08:00] And after a tour of the factory and the farm and the operations...
Uh, he fell in love with it and he felt that he owed it to the American market to bring the flavor of his city to the United States of America. So his intention is to bring the flavor of Cuban cigars to the United States with these, but I'm not getting that so far. No.
**Bam Bam:** Very strong in your face cigar.
**Rooster:** What's the filler again? Filler and binder.
**Gizmo:** So the binder is Corojo 98 and Corojo 99 from Jalapa and Esteli. Respectively, and the filler, uh, are Viso leaves of Corojo 2006 Maduro.
**Bam Bam:** I'm guessing there's no age on any of this
**Gizmo:** tobacco, right? There's no age statement on it. Okay. You know, honestly, for how much pepper we're getting, I'm finding this to be a much more smokable cigar.
Uh, then, remember that cigar that we tried? Uh, what was that one that we, that you brought in? Pork loin? No, no, no, no, no. The one we [00:09:00] ditched the episode. Oh, uh. Oh.
**Bam Bam:** Um. I don't,
**Gizmo:** that was unsmokable. That was unsmokable. You know, this does have some smoothness to it. No, this is smokable. It is smooth. So like I said, his sister worked for Aganorsa Leaf.
Uh, he went and visited the factory. Met Eduardo Fernandez and the team at Aganorsa. Uh, and decided to start his own cigar brand based out of Miami manufacturing in, in Nicaragua in that factory. And that's how it started established in 2011. He worked two full time jobs until 2015, and then was able to make cigars, his focus, uh, and move back to Miami.
Like I said, from Wisconsin and, uh, yeah, that's the origin story of HVC.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I will say that it's got a nice bright white ash and everyone's about a quarter inch in, nice
**Gizmo:** razor sharp burn for the most part. Yeah, so these, these have been in my tower for, I'd say, eight weeks. Okay. Six to eight [00:10:00] weeks. That's a good, that's a good answer.
So they've had some opportunity to... To rest. To mellow out a little bit. Bring the humidity down. Mm
**Bam Bam:** hmm. It's burning nicely.
**Pagoda:** You know, I've
**Gizmo:** never heard of these. Neither have I. I didn't either until the, you know, I had a couple listeners recommend it and... You know. Cool. I went out and grabbed them. Because we needed some new worlds.
Yes,
**Bam Bam:** we do. That's always the most important thing. Getting listening recommendations.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, and we need more. There's no doubt. We need more. Please. You know, we put out 50 something episodes a year. So, please, um, please send us cigars you want to smoke.
**Bam Bam:** So they have only three Vitolas
**Gizmo:** in this line? They have only three Vitolas in this line.
They do have some other lines, uh, but this was the one that everybody specifically said try the hot cake out of, out of the brand. So. Certainly for someone who's looking for a spicier experience, Nicaraguan experience, this is right up their alley, yep. It
**Pagoda:** subsided a bit though. I think in the beginning I got a huge influx of, I don't know what the right wording is.
English is my second language.
**Senator:** Yeah, I mean I have to say, [00:11:00] there are flavor notes in this that I actually enjoy. I just wish they were delivered in a smoother way. I feel like I would enjoy this that much more. True. So I think that's my only frustration with the cigar. I like some of the notes. I just think they need to dial back kind of the strength of the delivery.
Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** It could be polarizing among a larger group because it is smooth. So guys would gravitate to that. And guys that don't like the pepper or some of the more bolder notes, you know,
**Gizmo:** probably won't like that. So
**Rooster:** the cigar you were asking me, it's called the
**Gizmo:** Stolen Throne. The Stolen Throne. That was wrong.
Crook of the Crown. Yep. It stole
**Bam Bam:** our hearts that night. Yeah, we didn't get very far.
**Gizmo:** We ditched it. Remember we, remember we started that cigar and ditched it? Oh
**Senator:** yeah, I was going to die if I smoked that. I've completely forgot about that. I took two puffs. I'm like, there's no way. Rooster looks so upset.
**Gizmo:** Weak, weak asses.
**Senator:** All right, mister one to two a day. One to two a day.
**Bam Bam:** That takes him four hours to smoke one stick.
**Gizmo:** The flavors, you know, [00:12:00] I want to use the word complex. I don't know if that's the right way to put it, but I'm getting a lot of different things. I'm getting a little salt, getting the pepper we're talking about.
**Bam Bam:** There is a backdrop of fruit that's still there. I'm
**Gizmo:** getting the dried fruit. It's, it's, I'm getting a little. Leather, leather. Little, little earthy, earth and leather. Right. I'm getting a lot of different flavors. I just don't like the delivery vehicle is like Yeah. It's
**Bam Bam:** not assembled. It feels like it's not
**Gizmo:** assembled properly.
Yeah. It's just like, it's, it's being thrown against the wall. Yeah. You
**Senator:** know, it needs finesse. Yeah. It just, it, it's just, it's rough. Too
**Gizmo:** aggressive. I think it needs some age, needs, needs to sit for a while.
**Senator:** By the way, there is nothing about this that is supposed to be Cubans, correct?
**Gizmo:** No. No. Hope not. Well. He said that he'd like to bring, uh, his heritage and Cuban, you know, that Cuban flavor profile to the United States.
certainly. This is not the saying it. Yeah. This is not it. Like not coming through
**Senator:** has traditional and Nicaraguan cigar as you could imagine. A hundred percent strength. Yeah. Ton of flavor. There's nothing Cuban or even Dominican about this. To
**Gizmo:** me, that's, I mean,
**Rooster:** it's hard to get [00:13:00] Cuban flavors out of Nicaragua and tobacco.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, it's, it's not gonna happen. I don't think so. And I don't think that we've ever had a cigar with, uh, Corojo, you know, heavily Nicaraguan Corojo, uh, binder and filler where we've said this tastes Cuban. I think the closest thing that I've gotten to Cuban tobacco is really, really well aged Honduran tobacco, you know, which I've gotten in some of the FOH cigars.
that they've been releasing, and one of the ones that's coming out next year, the Bond Roberts 109 that they're making through the same factory and operation is the closest thing to Cuban tobacco I've had. You've tried it. Yeah, it's incredible. We're gonna do that cigar in the pot for sure. When's it coming out?
I'm looking forward to that. I think it's coming out in April or May. Okay, but it's really a brilliant cigar and it's a beautiful 109 format Almost like a double Corona with the 109 head and that little round the top But I you know, I think I think Honduran [00:14:00] tobacco is the closest thing I've had to Cuban tobacco and certainly I've never said that about Nicaragua.
That's quite a statement.
**Senator:** I hope this I hope this smooths out as we go and, and I have some hope now that it will. I mean, the last two draws I just took, it was just like straight sweet milk chocolate with no bite, no pepper. And I'm like, if they could just subtract the peppery, you know, the, the pepper notes out of this, I, I've enjoyed the last two draws.
I just don't know if this is going to stay or it's going to build in strength, which it certainly doesn't need to.
**Bam Bam:** Uh, yeah, it's very smokable.
**Gizmo:** The finish is a little dry. The finish is very dry. The back of my throat. It's a short, short finish,
which
**Bam Bam:** I don't mind.
**Gizmo:** The back of my throat
**Bam Bam:** is very dry. Yeah.
Well, that's what your, uh, spirit's
**Gizmo:** for. Exactly. Let's talk about that. All right. It's a little early in the episode, but, uh, let's talk about it tonight. We are back to the whistle pig. This time, the 10 year, this is small batch rye, correct? Correct. Overproof at 50%. Correct. And, uh, [00:15:00] we tried it, we tried it neat before we came on air.
Impossible. And that was not the move, but now let's try it with a little ice.
**Bam Bam:** Okay.
Are your eyes tearing up?
**Gizmo:** I don't know what's tearing it more. The pepper through the nose of the cigar or the, uh, or the rye. But that is a. Hot rye. It's a hot cake. Funny enough, very appropriate for the cigar tonight. I agree. What do you guys think of the whistle pick?
**Senator:** I'll say this, the nose is actually incredible.
That was the first thing, I mean, I think it was, um, Gizmo and Bam who tried it neat. And, uh, obviously realize that not to be consumed that way. And all I was doing was just smelling those. And it's just like very aromatic, like great around the holidays. Like I immediately thought of Like a caramel.
Totally. Lots of just dessert notes. You think like a Thanksgiving meal or a Christmas dinner or something you wouldn't have a pour [00:16:00] right after. I put a lot of ice.
**Gizmo:** Much more than I ever You put some and then asked me for more.
**Senator:** Yeah. That's right. And so I think that's helped a lot. Water down a bit. It's, it's very pleasant to drink, but, um, I mean, this is not something that I could drink neat or even with a big cube that's going to melt very slowly.
Like, it needs a good amount of water to just cut the strength. I mean, it's a hundred proof. It's a 50 percent spirit. So it's insane. It's, uh, it's really robust like this cigar is. I mean, honestly, it's ironically clean. Perfectly paired
**Bam Bam:** when I started smoking cigars. I used to drink this fairly frequently.
It's different from what I remember it to be in 1910. Yeah. No, that's you. It was tastier. It seems smoother. Uh, so they may have messed with it. I don't know, but it's a little different.
**Senator:** I actually have a wild history that I didn't know until we picked up this bottle. We're going to do this. Whistlepig was founded by this [00:17:00] entrepreneur named Raj Bhakta, an Indian guy.
Ooh, very cool. The name allegedly stems from him passing a hiker in Colorado in 2003, who told him to watch out for a whistlepig, which apparently is a groundhog. Uh, the guy Bakta never spotted the, the, the groundhog or the whistle pig, but he liked the name the guy used. So years later, he just decided to use it to name the brand.
Uh, but it's really odd how this started. So it launched first as, uh, basically a 10 year old bottle of Canadian whiskey that they bottled from an Alberta distillery owned by fortune brands. So there's not really like an American, you know, heritage whiskey story there. It actually started using Canadian spirit in a Canadian distillery.
Does it say how long ago that was? Uh, that was in. I think 2003. Okay. And then in 2007, Bakta bought land in Shoreham, Vermont, where he built a new distillery and aging [00:18:00] facility for the brand and officially launched Whistlepig in 2010. Interesting. So it's a very new brand. I did not realize they've
**Bam Bam:** only been around since 2010.
That could explain the change that I'm experiencing a little bit.
**Gizmo:** It's
**Senator:** different, but that's, Whistlepig didn't exist before 2010. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Okay. First 20 times the first time the brand even
**Gizmo:** existed. So what's his last name again? Uh, Bhakta,
**Senator:** B H A K T A.
**Pagoda:** Bhakta.
**Gizmo:** Never heard of that. Pagoda's
**Bam Bam:** getting angry at you.
You should know that. No, you
**Gizmo:** should have, Bhakta. Yeah, but it's Bhakta.
**Pagoda:** No, but Bhakta, you know, they always put an A, like a lot of them with a mantra. So Bhakta is like a disciple. No, it means a disciple. Very cool. Right. Bhakta is, what's
**Rooster:** Bhakta? Bhakta, yeah.
**Gizmo:** Disciple. Nice. So, here's my question for you. You're saying he was buying Canadian whiskey, aged Canadian whiskey, or buying it and aging it himself prior to the actual
**Senator:** launch of Whistlekick?
Yeah, so he was a non distiller producer. [00:19:00] So he was not distilling the product. He was buying some sort of 10 year old Canadian whiskey, uh, from this distillery owned by Fortune Brands in Alberta. And then bottling it under, I'm not even sure what the brand
**Gizmo:** wasn't the Whistlepig brand, it was something else.
Something else. So he just got his feet wet in the industry, learned what he liked and didn't like, and then built his own thing and launched this. Exactly. That's a cool way to do it. We could do that. Yeah. We could, clearly. News private label.
**Bam Bam:** Lizard brand spirits.
**Senator:** And then basically he hired a master distiller, Dave Pickerell, which I don't know a ton about bourbon and rye, but, um, this name is very familiar.
I think this guy's like very respected in the industry. Um, and then they began bottling in Shoreham, Vermont in 2009 with production beginning in 2015. Um, and then the company built a second still to distill their spirits in 2019. So the first release to the public was actually not till 2015. So this is super yeah, [00:20:00] recent.
**Gizmo:** I know who Dave Pickerel is. He's the guy who worked with Metallica to release their blackened American whiskey in 2018, and he died right after. Wow. Like, they launched this whiskey and then he passed away in 2018.
**Bam Bam:** That's awful. That's one we
**Gizmo:** should try. He was only 62, Bam. That's awful. So he joined Makers Mark in 1994 as the master distiller and was with them for 14 years.
That's why I know his name. Over his 14 years at Makers Mark, annual sales increased from 175, 000 cases to nearly 1 million. Wow. He almost 10x'd Wow. Maker's mark in his 14 years there. He knows what he's doing. This guy's a legend. Legend. Like you said, he worked with Whistlepig that we're drinking tonight.
Was part of a group that restored George Washington's distillery in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Damn. Also worked with Watershed Distillery, Copper Fox, J. Rieger Co., and Garrison Brothers. And this is the craziest thing. Remember that? Uh, the rye we did a couple weeks ago from Hill [00:21:00] Rock, the distillery in upstate New York from about 25 miles here that Lizard Elias sent us.
Did he touch that distillery? He became involved with them, uh, as the master distiller until his death in 2018. Wow. He was the master distiller. Wow. At Hill Rock. I can't believe how all these dots are connecting. It's amazing. Totally coincidentally, I had no idea. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** So how long did he work for Whistlepig?
It seems like he was a consultant there then.
**Senator:** Not at first, no, no. He was the master distiller when Whistlepig launched. And then over time, he left at some point. And the crazy thing actually about Whistlepig that I was very shocked about because the whiskey industry generally is a very male dominated industry.
But apparently... Whistlepig today, their lead distiller is a woman named Emily Harrison and their chief blender is another woman named Megan Ireland. That's very unusual. Two of the most important jobs they have, uh, they're two women that hold them. That's great. That's really amazing. Yeah, awesome. [00:22:00] Oh wow, you know it's crazy, so Dave Pickerel, he actually was involved in Whistlepig in the early days when they were bottling in Canada.
Wow. It says that he was the master distiller who introduced the company to its initial stock of Canadian whiskey, and then helped design the company's first blend once they moved to Vermont.
**Gizmo:** So it seems like his career trajectory went from working at Makers Mark and being super successful, and then kind of moving into a, a pseudo like master distiller consulting role, small batch, small batch, I'll work with you for two, three years, get you going.
I'm going to move on to the next thing. Nice. Right. I mean, that's what it seems like he was a
**Bam Bam:** mercenary
**Gizmo:** to a degree, but that's pretty cool. I do pickerel like. Touched a lot of the spirits that we've tried and, um, I actually have a bottle of the Metallica whiskey for us to try as well. There you go.
Blackened whiskey. Nice.
**Pagoda:** The question is, do we like his product?
**Bam Bam:** I'm just kidding. I'm gonna sing every Metallica song during that episode.
**Senator:** Can we play Andrew Sandman to like... Start drinking it. And to life. [00:23:00]
**Rooster:** What about the cigar that Metallica guy,
**Gizmo:** uh, Yeah. Yeah, the Drew Estate. James Hetfield. I haven't had it.
I haven't heard much about it since they did the launch. It's got like a black, really dark wrapper. I think it's also called blackened. I'm not sure. But we could try that at some point down the road.
**Senator:** So a few other just fun facts about the company. So Bokta, who I was talking about, founded it. Apparently the Whistlepig board members attempted to remove him from the company in 2016, accusing him of fraud and mismanagement.
Uh, they changed the leadership structure, but he, Bokta stayed on as founder and chief steward. He sold his shares though, and fully exited the company in 2019. So he no longer owns it. Wow. Um. Another interesting thing. Rooster will appreciate this. Um, in 2022, the company released a non alcoholic whiskey, which uses its six year age piggyback rye.
We need to try that. We have to try that. I never heard
**Gizmo:** of that. It's crazy. I wish McCowan would do
**Senator:** that. Oh, that'd be amazing. It probably tastes like shit, but it would [00:24:00] be
**Gizmo:** nice in theory. Yeah. I don't know how good.
**Rooster:** Some of the liquors are because they have a lot of, they
**Gizmo:** have tequilas. Have you ever
**Bam Bam:** had any non alcoholic spirits?
**Gizmo:** I have. I mean, they use them in
**Senator:** mocktails. The only one I've tried is a non alcoholic tequila called Ritual. Mrs. Senator, uh, was doing like a dry January and so had gotten that. It's not bad. You know immediately that it's not real tequila. It doesn't even pretend to be, but it just has like, A slight agave ish note to it and like a little bit of like a spiciness to it.
Um, it's okay, but it's not great. You could not drink it neat. It has to be nice and simple. It's kind of
**Gizmo:** made
**Rooster:** for mixed drinks. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** That's cool. That's cool. Yeah, I'm, I'm shocked that, you know, this is making me really want to do deep dive on Dave Pickerel. Like this story is really, really intriguing. Uh, by the way, it says that he died on November 1st, 2018 of hypertensive heart failure.
Guy was married with four kids. That's awful. It's terrible. Sounds like a great [00:25:00] guy, though. Also says he advised over a hundred distilleries after he left Maker's Mark. What kind of life that was, huh? Can you imagine?
**Senator:** I mean, the guy's brilliant. I mean, honestly, he must have made a lot of money. That's how you get paid, right?
I mean, you just keep building these companies. You don't stick around for the whole thing. And you just, I mean, he must have been racking up well.
**Rooster:** He must have an amazing palate. I would think
**Gizmo:** so. Incredible. So what do you guys think of the Whistlepig as it sat here a little bit? I'm finding this to be. An appropriate pairing tonight for the cigar.
**Bam Bam:** I still find, there's a little bit of a strange bite that I get from it. It's not super smooth, but it does taste pretty
**Senator:** good. So I'll just say this, just load it up with ice like I did. I'm serious. Once there's a lot of ice in it, it's actually very enjoyable.
**Gizmo:** I have a lot of ice in mine. It's very, very good.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, maybe I need some more ice. Yeah, same here. It's good though. The flavor's great. I'm still, I'll get caramel and a slight vanilla note on it. Yeah. Honestly, in
**Senator:** the front. I just like that for a rye, there's no spiciness to it, which [00:26:00] really helps with this cigar. It does. And, um, yeah, the flavor notes, I mean, even watered down, it's still robust in flavor.
It's just the delivery is the problem, but ice has at least helped solve for it. It does
**Bam Bam:** pair almost perfectly with this cigar. Almost perfectly. How
**Pagoda:** many of you really have rye neat or with ice? You know, I like, I like typically I'll have rye like in a cocktail or something, but except for Angels Envy Rye, I find it very difficult to...
**Bam Bam:** I personally rarely drink rye. Same
**Gizmo:** here. Yeah. I don't drink it neat, ever. If it's in a mixed drink, which I rarely order, uh, you know, I'm, I'm very rarely drinking rye. It's really when we're having the podcast and pairing it with a cigar specifically, but I don't have anything at the house, you know, any rye at the house.
**Pagoda:** But I'm sure, like, there's a community who likes to drink it with a cube of
**Senator:** rice or something. There is. I mean, there are, there are whiskey drinkers I've met who prefer drinking rye neat or with a [00:27:00] cube than they do bourbon. They say that it's so much more robust in flavor, that the bourbons are too thin, too light for them.
Too sweet, maybe. Yeah, too sweet. That's exactly right. This is drier. Um, so I get from a flavor profile standpoint, the appeal here. It's just that these rye's seem to be for the most part, like much higher in proof. That just makes it hard for me to enjoy neat or even just with a little bit of ice. I can put hair on your palm.
Yeah.
**Rooster:** So typically bourbons are distilled in Kentucky, you hear a lot, right? Is there a certain area that rye's are, I don't like, I mean, I know New York
**Gizmo:** has some, uh, Yeah, that's true.
**Senator:** I mean, it is weird. It's interesting that you say that because, I mean, there's still tons of rye's that are made in Kentucky, but For some reason, it seems that like, Vermont's prominent rye distillers are more in like the northeast, [00:28:00] um, and I don't know what it is about
**Gizmo:** the don't forget when we talked about the, don't forget when we talked about the Hill Rock, they were saying that, you were saying when you were talking about the history of New York, this, you know, distilling that it was, I think they were producing, New York State was producing at one time over 50 percent of the whisky in this country.
It must just be a heritage thing that it was just happening. Obviously, the, the core of the United States when it was first founded was the Northeast. So, it makes a lot of sense that, you know, that's kind of, it's rooted there. Yeah. And this came out of Vermont, was it? Yeah, Vermont. Yeah, so that, that makes a lot of sense.
Ben
**Senator:** and Jerry's and Whistle Pig .
**Pagoda:** Great combo. So, you know what I, I was just, uh, looking at the difference between a bourbon and a rye, and it says, bourbon must be made from a mash that contains at least 51% corn. Yep. And that would, you know, it's sweetness. Plain. The sweetness. Yeah. Yep. And, uh, whereas rye meaning and rye need at least 51% rye, [00:29:00]
**Bam Bam:** hence the dryness.
**Pagoda:** And, uh, the rest of it can be composed of other grains like barley wheat or malted barley. Yeah,
**Senator:** I'm also glad we're trying this because I know we did the whistle pig, the, the six year piggyback, they call it. That was awesome. That was undrinkable as far as I was concerned. This, I actually, like, if someone poured me this and hopefully had, you know, a lot of ice around.
A bucket of ice next to you. I mean, I, I could drink it, you know, very easily. It's, it's really, it's, uh, there are, there's a lot to enjoy about it.
**Gizmo:** How much is the bottle? It's about 60 bucks. Yeah, that's what I
**Bam Bam:** paid. 63 bucks
**Gizmo:** maybe. Oh wow. Yeah. I think Total Wine has it for, uh, for 60. Yeah. Something like that.
**Pagoda:** No
**Gizmo:** second or third drink. Excuse me. 69. 99 at Total Wine. Oh wow. That's expensive. 70 bucks.
**Senator:** It's very sought after. It always has been. It is. And this was the first product that they ever made and released. It was the, the 10 year
**Gizmo:** rye. They also have a 10 year private rye barrel select, which is 110. Jesus Christ.
So it's another 40 [00:30:00] bucks. I guess it just comes out of one barrel as opposed to... Who drank
**Senator:** this and said, you know what? This needs more strength. I mean, come on. How could you possibly think this needs any more... Alcohol. Jesus.
**Gizmo:** There's probably a, uh, whiskey podcast out there drinking this going, you know what, it's a little weak. Yeah. Oh yeah. A little weak. You could use a little more.
**Senator:** I will say also, I'm kind of surprised they really, they have a lot of products, Whistlepig, which I didn't know because I feel like the only thing you see on the shelf is like Whistlepig 10 year rye, and then now I think that Piggyback 6 year is a more recent product of theirs.
They make, um, going now above the tenure, they have a 12 year old world cask finish that's finished in, uh, port and Madera barrels. They have a 15 year, uh, estate, oak rye, an 18 year double malt rye. Wow. The Boss Hog, which is a single barrel barrel strength rye that they released every year in a [00:31:00] new numerical edition.
So it's like a limited, interesting, uh, edition. And then the oldest one that they've. Ever put out, which was released this year in 2023 is the 21 year beholden single malt whiskey.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, my goodness. I wonder how much that
**Senator:** is. Only 18 barrels were made. Apparently it has a lot of floral and fruity
**Gizmo:** notes. Very cool.
Wow. Sure. That's like 400 bucks. Yep. Yeah. So boys back to the cigar for a second. I'm actually finding is we're getting, you know, we're into the second third here. I'm actually finding it to smooth out. I'm getting a lot more sweetness. Um, The pepper's kind of taking a back seat now, uh, and I'm, I'm enjoying it a lot more.
Pepper's gone for me. Gone.
**Bam Bam:** Gone. Completely disappeared and... I agree with everything
**Gizmo:** you've said. The only thing I don't love about it is, I think Rooster was saying earlier, I don't love the smell at the burn line. Which is, for me as a cigar smoker, is very important in my smoking experience. I'm constantly smelling the foot of the cigar.
**Bam Bam:** Not getting the wasabi effect at this point though. But
**Gizmo:** it's just, it's not [00:32:00] pleasant. It doesn't align with the actual draw of the cigar for me. We've experienced that on other cigars. The
**Rooster:** aroma is still kind of strong, though, on the foot a bit. Yeah, it hits your nose. I was just going to say, if the finish wasn't this dry, that would really
**Gizmo:** help the cigar.
I think you're right. HVC has a few other lines. Their website by no means, it's, it's by no means robust. Uh, but they do have some other lines. They have the pan Caliente. They have the HVC Seleccio number one, which is a callback. I'm sure to the Juan Lopez famous, uh, Havana brand they have that in a natural in a Maduro and they have the hot cake golden line The sister cigar to this with a Connecticut rapper.
So I'm assuming that's a little bit more It's
**Senator:** wrapped in gold foil, like some Cubans, I mean, this
**Gizmo:** is just unbelievable. Four bands on
**Rooster:** it. So pan caliente is, means hot
**Bam Bam:** bread. I thought you were gonna, when you were beginning with that path, I was gonna say, you were gonna say pancakes. [00:33:00] Pancakes and
**Gizmo:** hot cakes.
That's coming up.
**Rooster:** With maple syrup
**Gizmo:** sweetness. HVC, Ranier Lorenzo, as I said earlier, I just want to read a quote. He was talking about HVC's mission. Uh, being to preserve old Cuban tradition, which he says is no easy feat. And he says, quote, whenever I create a blend, I want to evoke a conversation piece where each brand takes you into a different story.
And he says that every cigar he makes must pass his number one test, which is that he would smoke it every single day.
**Bam Bam:** For how long? I wonder.
**Gizmo:** That's a good question. And this, I like that we're all going to love this. Uh, he says, with a wink and a nod, he adds, I don't like big cigars, which obviously, you know, lines up with his offering and our preferences in general.
Yeah. I mean, how many new world manufacturers are releasing in their, you know, a Corona Gorda as the primary. Vitola in a line. It's not happening, you [00:34:00] know? I'm just
**Senator:** gonna say, this guy's heart is in the right place. But the execution is just not there, I'm sorry. Very true. Like, to sit there and in any way suggest that there is anything Cuban esque about this is just ridiculous.
Yeah, agreed. I mean, there's just not, honestly, there's not one aspect of this that reminds me of any Cuban cigar period.
**Rooster:** Does he only use Nicaraguan tobacco in all the
**Gizmo:** cigars? At this time, aside from the Mexican San Andres wrapper, you know, the, yeah, the blend, the blend, the manufacturer is all done in Aganorsa.
In Esteli that he's, you know, everything's out of Nicaragua. So, you know, I, like you said, I admire his wanting to deliver that, but, um, unfortunately the source material and the aging is certainly lacking trying to line up anything that comes, you know, close to a Cuban cigar profile. Yeah.
**Rooster:** I think using some Honduran, uh, tobacco
**Gizmo:** would help or primarily
**Rooster:** closer to the Cuban flavors that he's kind of [00:35:00] trying to achieve.
**Gizmo:** But even with Honduran, you still need to age it, you know, like, you know, the, the guys who are doing the FOH cigars and the MoFo and, uh, and the, the Bond Roberts, I think that Honduran tobacco is four or five years aged. Really? Are they using only Honduran or Dominican? There's, there's a blend of some other things in there, but it's.
I think primarily Honduran.
**Senator:** Also to smoke this every day, I'm sorry. Who's smoking this every day except maybe Rooster? I mean, this is so full, you can't possibly want this every day.
**Bam Bam:** It is a tough one to take down each day. No doubt.
Along with the Whistlepig.
**Pagoda:** I didn't mind smoking full
**Rooster:** cigars. Yeah, I don't mind the strength. It's just, I don't like the dryness of the cigar. It could, it could be full. It could be like a, like a Padrón 98 is a very full cigar, but it's, You know, it's not edgy. It's not, it doesn't have a dry finish. It's a much more
**Gizmo:** refined cigar.
It's [00:36:00] refined. You
**Rooster:** get that, you get that cocoa sweetness also with the, with the strength. It's a
**Gizmo:** Padron. It's a Padron, yeah. But I think, you know, aside from it being Padron, it's also just aged, you know, significantly. You know, four, five and ten years in their lines respectively. I mean, that's a lot of time on tobacco to rest before it's even rolled.
So, uh, Senator was mentioning when he was talking about, uh, special releases from Whistlepig. We have to talk about, cause this is a pretty popular line, the new, uh, Davidoff Year of the, which they release every year. Our favorite. The Chinese New Year. This year is the Year of the Dragon. It's the 12th edition, which comes with a really wild box and, and there's also accessories available that you can purchase separately.
It's beautiful. At the... Presentations. They always look nice. They do always look nice. I know we've, I, I wanna talk about some of your experiences with them in the past, but the reason why I bring it up tonight is because they've [00:37:00] also decided to, with the Year of the Dragon, which is the limited edition, 2024 new blends and attractive accessories to celebrate the Chinese New Year, uh, they have gone.
Crazy with the prices. The cheapest cigar in the, in the new wine is going to be somewhere around 70 bucks, it looks like. Oh, gosh. And, you know, they're offering limited availability of it. It came out about two weeks ago. I haven't seen them yet or I haven't seen anybody tasting them yet. But, you know, for the cutter, by the way, the cutter that you can buy with the Year of the Dragon, 530 euros.
No, thank you. So 600 bucks. I'd rather get a DuPont. I mean, it's just like, I don't understand why we're, we're rolling leaves of tobacco. You know, and the same thing goes with Habanos, with Cohiba and Trinidad, but you're charging 90 bucks. I mean, this is crazy. It's a gimmick. What size is the cigar? They, [00:38:00] I have, I don't see the sizes here.
Petit Corona. Does it look like? I
**Senator:** could have sworn I read it was a Churchill. It looks pretty big.
**Gizmo:** It looks like a Churchill. I could have sworn I
**Senator:** read It looks like a Churchill. Well, it
**Bam Bam:** would have to be for that price, right?
**Gizmo:** But still for that price,
**Senator:** it's crazy. Which I was intrigued when I read because we love the late hour Churchill.
So I'm like, I know Davidoff knows how to make a Churchill well, but 70 is just ridiculous. You know, it just kills me. It's stuff like this. I've obviously shit on the Davidoff brand plenty before. But we've had so many surprisingly good limited releases from them over the past year. I mean, you think of like the Millennium, uh, Dominicana, the, the Millennium, the Lansero, the Dominicana, the, um, the signature or the number two, the number one, uh, number one, uh, limited edition.
I love that cigar. They've, they've done actually a pretty nice job. And so I've kind of backed off and said, all right, you know what? Davidoff's putting out some good stuff and the price point on those has all been around like three 30 bucks, which feels reasonable for how [00:39:00] great the experience is. But then when you just put stuff out like that, like this brings me right back to feeling like I hate this brand.
There's no reason that that cigar should cost 70.
**Gizmo:** It
**Rooster:** just came out with the anniversary cigar.
**Gizmo:** That's like 64 a stick. It's insane. It's stupid. So I did get some more information as you guys were talking. The format is a double Corona. It's a 50 ring gauge by seven and a half.
**Bam Bam:** It is intriguing though. to want to try that.
**Gizmo:** So the MSRP, it looks like it's, it's like I said, it's coming out. It looks like it's about 600 bucks for a box of 10 pre tax. Okay. So you're paying 60 pre tax on that cigar. Now this is the wild one. There's various formats of it. Can I interrupt you?
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. So the Year of the Rabbit last year, how much was that cigar?
I think it was like 60, it was also a 60, 65 if I'm not mistaken. They used
**Senator:** to be all like 50.
**Gizmo:** Let's not say that price does not include tax. Bro, that
**Bam Bam:** was a much smaller cigar. This, I'm not going to say it sounds like a deal, but wow, the pricing is just [00:40:00] outrageous. It's crazy. And I want to talk about a few of these
**Gizmo:** by the way.
I have to share this. The Davidoff year of the dragon masterpiece humidor limited edition 2024 comes with a custom humidor. Wow. And 88 cigars. You want to know how much that is? 88 God knows 49, 000 bucks. Yikes.
**Rooster:** 49,
**Gizmo:** 000? 49, 000. That's all for today, and I'll see you tomorrow. Who needs
**Senator:** humidor? That sounds like a great use of money.
I mean, this is just so silly.
**Bam Bam:** I bought my son's truck for less than that. Right. Okay.
**Gizmo:** It's just absurd. 88 cigars, which prices the humidor, obviously the humidor has some value, but prices around 500 bucks a cigar. 25 pieces worldwide. Limited to 25 pieces for 49, 000. Somebody will buy them. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** Asian market
**Gizmo:** will go crazy for those.
Like I said, the cutter is 530 bucks. I don't even
**Senator:** want to smoke a Davidoff after hearing this. Yeah, it's awful.
**Gizmo:** Guess [00:41:00] the ashtray is 490. This ashtray. This is, this is, I mean, it's just, it's obscene, it looks just like the uh, Obscene
**Bam Bam:** is a very good way of
**Gizmo:** putting it. Obscene. Obscene. That's obscene. 500 for an ashtray?
It's ceramic.
**Senator:** It is a clean one. My ash every time the ashtray's full? I mean, this is absurd.
**Bam Bam:** Horrendous. I had, so let's just go back into this,
**Gizmo:** this line of cigars. So this is the 12th year of it. So I know you guys have, I've actually never had a Davidoff year of them. I've only had
**Bam Bam:** two. The year of the snake, which was way, way back, which I happen to like a lot.
And last year's year of the rabbit, I had two. Zero
**Gizmo:** flavor. It was Year of the Tiger, Year of the Dog. Yeah, there's many more. You had the Year of the Tiger. So, I
**Senator:** had the Tiger, um, I got actually at, uh, the Blend by Davidoff Lounge in Houston. That's right. You talked about that. And I paid 50. Four fifty six bucks for it and it was a complete waste of [00:42:00] money.
That's right. It I mean the irony that cigar So literally the wrapper is striped like a tiger, right? So they thought this was like so clever We're gonna charge 50 something bucks because we could stripe the
**Gizmo:** wrapper like a tiger by the way I can buy a barber pole cigar for like four right?
**Senator:** Handmade and so I just remember it was not really robust in flavor It was very just disappointing and unsatisfying, so I didn't enjoy that at all.
Um, I've had the Year of the Ox, which was a large ring gauge cigar. Yeah, had that too. The only thing that was nice about it, I mean, it's a large ring gauge cigar, so yeah, it put out, it was a chimney. I mean, tons of smoke, and there was a bit of a creaminess to that cigar, which I liked. But was it worth 40 something dollars at the time?
No. Is it something that I wanted to pursue more of? No. So I just have always left disappointed with these year of
**Bam Bam:** cigars. I will say though, those rat, the year of the rabbit, I let, I bought three, I smoked two right away and I didn't like it. But the third one I did, I left it in my tower for. A year. Well, less.[00:43:00]
I had it and I sent you guys photographs that my in laws barbecued. It was actually pretty good. So I think if you let them sit for a while, they acclimate. I think they get better. But I think that's a 60 cigar if I'm not mistaken. And no
**Gizmo:** value. Davidoff should be putting out cigars that are 100 percent ready to smoke.
They've been around so long. Well, which they
**Bam Bam:** do on their, on their standard production cigars.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So why
**Senator:** would you have to a third of the price? Right,
**Gizmo:** right. Did you mention
**Rooster:** the other night, uh, that you have some of the Oro's?
**Bam Bam:** Uh, Opus X. Yeah, no way.
**Gizmo:** Oro, Opus X. The Oro Blanco
**Senator:** is like a 500 per stick cigar.
Yeah, I've got like eight
**Bam Bam:** of those, by the way. Ha, ha, ha,
**Rooster:** ha. I mentioned the Oro, I didn't realize it
**Gizmo:** was
**Bam Bam:** the Opus. Yeah. One of our lizard friends here, you know, he was an Opus guy, so I told him I've got a tin of three. He said it was okay. We'll
**Gizmo:** try it. So overall, have you guys had any wonderful experiences with these specialized Davidoff releases?
Pretty average. [00:44:00] Did
**Pagoda:** you try the Oscuro? I really enjoyed that one. That one's a good.
**Senator:** That's not a Euro. No, it's
**Pagoda:** not. It wasn't a Euro, but it was very limited edition.
**Senator:** It is. I've had it. That's a super full
**Bam Bam:** cigar. It's a delicious cigar. A buddy of mine went to Geneva to get a couple of those boxes. He had business to do.
He brought back four or five boxes. I had one a month ago. Excellent cigar. Excellent.
**Pagoda:** I remember that. Can't even get them though. You can't get
**Senator:** them. No, I don't know. I had a different experience. Is that right? I also had that cigar in Houston at that Davidoff Lounge. Um. Maybe I just wasn't looking for that experience at that time.
I mean, I don't know of a single Davidoff that's super, super full. I don't ever worry when I'm picking up a Davidoff of any kind. That's going to bite your head off. Exactly. It's not even a thought in my mind. That's the one cigar that I vividly remember lighting up. And I was sitting there like, whoa, this is putting out like Padron 90th level, like intense flavor.
Um. Which, I don't know, I just didn't love coming from Davidoff because that's just not what I look [00:45:00] for in their brand, so it just, it was odd
**Bam Bam:** to me. It's true. The Dominican is probably one of the more fuller flavored Davidoffs
**Gizmo:** that we've had. But that delivery is so smooth. It's excellent, dude. The tobacco is what, 10 years aged almost at this point?
Delicious cigar. I mean, I know they're starting to get They're starting to get harder to find, and that, you know, that's probably, as far as Davidoff special releases, I mean That, that's, that's a phenomenal cigar. It's also 20. Yeah. It's a reasonable price. The
**Bam Bam:** value, the value is insane. It's
**Gizmo:** insane.
**Rooster:** And then one of the better limited editions that they have come out with is the
**Gizmo:** Chef's Edition.
Oh, yeah. We love the Chef's.
**Senator:** Can't get those. And even that is like 39. 40. Right.
**Gizmo:** For a Churchill. For a Churchill. And that was a Churchill. Which is a good value. Yeah, that was a Churchill, yeah. Great cigar. That we did that very, very early on in the podcast. I mean, probably episode four, very high rating, high rating.
And I still, I still have those and I don't really pull them that much. Cause they're gone. That nines. High nines. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was an excellent cigar. That was a great night. I don't see anybody, [00:46:00] even people that I know that smoke a lot of Davidoff. I don't ever see people celebrating, aside from when it's a new release and there's that buzz around it, which I'm sure there will be with this in the coming weeks as we get into the holidays, but you know.
I don't see people going, wow, I've had the, this, this Davidoff. I need to get more. I need to get more. It's always boiling down to the more reasonably priced, arguably a little bit more available limited editions that they're putting out. And their standard production. And the standard production, of course.
I mean, the Millennium Lancero is a great cigar. Which, we did that on the podcast, right? We did. Yeah, we did. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, the Pyramid as well. The Pyramid, of course, standard production. That's probably the number one cigar they have. The late hours, of course, we love. But, you know, to see them putting out cigars, you know, very aligned with the Habanos pricing model is very disappointing.
You know, very, very disappointing because, you know, when I looked at that, when I look at Davidoff prices, what I'm seeing is there's a price related to quality and consistency and, and a smooth [00:47:00] delivery of aged tobacco. When you're seeing that price triple and quadruple, it starts to get into the gimmicky and it starts to affect my judgment of the entire brand.
Yeah. But look, if you're going to, if you're going to
**Rooster:** pay a hundred dollars for a Cohiba Lancero, you're going to pay 80 for a Cohiba Robusto. Why can't Davidoff charge 70 for a
**Gizmo:** very limited release?
**Bam Bam:** Because it's not as good as either of those two cigars. It's just not that good.
**Senator:** I would argue here's why not.
Most of Davidoff's sales have got to be the U. S. I mean, would this not be probably their biggest market? I don't see as much Davidoff in Europe, certainly not in Asia. It's all Cuban dominated. So if you're trying to compete in this market, and this is a market where you can't buy Cohiba Lanceros, you can't buy any of these silly price, you know, Cohiba or Trinidad cigars.
The market you're competing within, there are not cigars priced at that price
**Gizmo:** point. Aside from [00:48:00] Opus. There's not
**Senator:** one Padron that sells at 70 a stick. Not one. Right. So I just think like it's completely mismatched with like understanding like. The new world market here that they're trying to compete in. I don't think for anybody they're sitting there saying like, well, I pay this, uh, for some other cigars, so why not that?
And, and the problem is the people who are doing that, they're not buying Davidoff. Like people in, in Asia are not walking around with a bunch of Davidoffs. Like sure, they might buy the Cohiba Robusto or the Cohiba Lancero, but they're not going to, they're not going to pursue a cigar like that. No, absolutely not.
So I just don't get the marketing strategy. Like it just doesn't make sense.
**Gizmo:** And I just think, like I said, I think it throws the rest of the brand out of whack, you know? And it's like, you know, the other thing with Cuban cigars too, is aside from the legality of acquiring them in the United States, there is also a severe scarcity worldwide for those cigars.
And we know that the Asian market and the entire world, not just the Asians, the United States too, all of us are, you know, people are vacuuming up Cuban cigars because they're just not as available as [00:49:00] they probably should be or could be. Davidoff doesn't have that problem. I mean, Pagoda has been buying limited.
Addition, uh, DOS for years, 18 months, . I love those. Yeah. . I know you do. You know, so it just, to me it doesn't validate that pricing structure. I'm kind of curious with the,
**Rooster:** with the haos, with all the Cuban cigars, what percentage of Cuban cigars actually end up
**Gizmo:** in the us? I think you'd be surprised. I think it's a pretty high number.
I think it's a very high number. I agree. Yeah. We, we give the Asians a lot of shit, but we're to blame as well. Yeah. Oh yeah. You know. Here in the country, in the states. And we're paying a premium for them too, especially the ones that are already here. Do you think it's 40%?
**Rooster:** 30%?
**Gizmo:** I don't know. I, you know, I can ask Rob.
I'll see what he says, if he has an idea. But I don't know what those numbers would be. What's your guess? I have
**Senator:** a
**Gizmo:** guess. I'm curious what you guys think. My guess would be 25%. I would say, I would say a little higher. I'm at 40. I guess it's 30. Yeah. What's your guess? Pagoda? [00:50:00] Yeah.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. Around 20 to 30%. It's, it couldn't be
**Gizmo:** more.
Well, just the reason why I'm coming at 25%, I think that's the safe number because you just don't see a lot of people. You know, when you walk into a lounge, you walk, you're talking to people, even for us a few years ago, it was foreign, you know, we're, we're, we're relatively new to this. That's true. You know, a few years before the podcast, I know some of you guys have been smoking a lot longer than that, but collecting at the volume we have and diving as deep as we have, certainly with the podcast, you know, is, is a relatively recent thing, last few years.
I'm
**Pagoda:** sorry, go ahead. No, I think the only reason I say it's probably 20 to 30 percent is because when you're buying Cubans, you're typically buying boxes. Yeah. Right. You're buying, buying a couple of boxes. And I think of here in, in the U S market, when you're, when the average person's buying cigars, they typically buy singles or five or five packs of
**Bam Bam:** tennis.
Yeah. I was going to say, you know, I like to frequent as [00:51:00] many cigar shops on my travels as possible. I don't. Ever remember anyone smoking a Cuban cigar in any of those shops. Any of them. You know, you just don't see it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, it's definitely an underground community. It is. That we're bringing to the surface, hopefully.
**Bam Bam:** We collect and we hoard privately. This is actually getting better and better. Yeah. I'm, I'm liking it. It's improving as you go through it.
**Gizmo:** Coming to the end of the second third, I guess. Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm very satisfied with the cigar right now. It's not blowing my socks off, but I'm, I'm not wanting to put it down.
No.
**Bam Bam:** It's not harsh in any way. It's totally fine. Like it was early
**Gizmo:** on. What do you guys think?
**Senator:** It's definitely gotten better. But it's still just too much for what I would ideally want out of this cigar.
**Pagoda:** And I kind of agree with you, uh, that the smell of the smoke is just, the aroma, it's It's not pleasant.
It's not pleasant. It's pungent.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. [00:52:00]
**Bam Bam:** But clearly it's a, it's a well made cigar. Great combustion. The room is full of smoke. And I don't think any of us complain about a
**Gizmo:** plug cigar here. No, I actually like, It's like a good Corona Gordon, it has a slight bit of resistance for me, and I like that. No, but it's a new world,
**Pagoda:** you know, new world we typically don't.
Yeah, that's true. The plug cigars anyway, um. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** it's very rare. How, how much is this? Eight bucks.
**Bam Bam:** That's a value. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, but still, there's so many other alternatives. Uh, well, um, you know, we can discuss that, I think, when we're ready. If I'm stuck
**Bam Bam:** on an island and someone hands this to me. You're still not going to be smoking this.
I will
**Gizmo:** smoke this. So I want to talk about another new release, which is kind of, uh, the opposite of what we just talked about with Davidoff. I really like this idea. I'm curious what you guys think of it. E. P. Carrillo, we've done a lot of their cigars on the podcast. They've created a new cigar, uh, that they're...
releasing three blends of to then be boiled down by the smokers of those three blends to choose a consumer [00:53:00] approved Release of a cigar. So what they're doing, they're calling it escapade and you're getting a pack of three cigars, each with a completely different blend, all in the same size, a 52 ring gauge by six inch Toro.
And then what you do is you smoke all three and then you go online and you vote on it, you give the comments. And then in 2024, they're going to release a limited edition. EP could be based on those, you know, customer feedback, which I don't think I've ever seen that before. Like in a wide, you know, a wide, uh, very interactive, wide
**Bam Bam:** net pulling your
**Gizmo:** customer base in.
It's pretty cool to give the customers that choice, right?
**Bam Bam:** I don't know. That can go both ways. I think it sounds gimmicky.
**Pagoda:** No, but I'd still recommend the pledge of allegiance if they really need to do something. Yeah. Just do that.
**Gizmo:** Yeah,
**Pagoda:** please. I will
**Senator:** say, I think it's brilliant marketing. I mean, you're telling the consumer that they're going to get to choose and decide.
And so all these people that are fans of EP Carrillo are going to go out, they're going to buy all of them and try them and [00:54:00] submit feedback. So like, it's a great way to move product off the shelves. I have to give him credit. That's
**Gizmo:** very smart. That's true. So Ernesto Perez Carrillo says he's excited to work on these blends because he felt challenged to create a mild cigar that perhaps he's not known for.
Kept in mind what beginning smokers are looking for in a cigar. Well, at the same time, staying true to the complexity, our current smokers enjoy, you know, current E. P. Carillo smokers, uh, wanting to offer them an alternative to their regular lines. So, uh, the blend details that are being disclosed, uh, are the wrappers.
One is rolled with Nicaraguan Corojo 99. Uh, the second is... Ecuadorian, Connecticut, and the third has Ecuadorian Habano. And then each cigar comes with a different colored band to distinguish the three that you can then vote on. But I, I don't know. I, I like the idea of a manufacturer saying, you know what, we trust our consumers, we appreciate this relationship and the trust you've put in us all these years, you know, obviously consumers have.
They've [00:55:00] really celebrated them. They've won how many awards with Cigar Aficionado? Yeah. You know, say what you want about that, but I just, I think it's a very, very cool thing. They're now, they're allowing a thousand consumers to, uh, to vote on this and then that cigar will come out next year. Wow. Pretty cool.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. So they're capping it. So the race is on.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah. If you want in, you got to get in. Yeah. Got to go buy them. So BAMF said something I want to talk about, cause that actually ties into a conversation that Senator and I were having with one of the guys at the lounge the other day. You mentioned Desert Island.
And I'm curious, and we can play with this a little bit, I'm curious what everyone's Desert Island, you're stuck on an island, it's the only cigar You can have one Cuban and one New World. All right. Oh,
**Senator:** that's different. One Cuban. We had a debate because I wasn't given that choice.
**Gizmo:** We're going to do one Cuban and one New World.
That's the only You're getting a break tonight. Oh, this is much easier now. One Cuban, one New World. And you can only smoke each of those for the rest of your life. You're stuck on an island. That's a cool [00:56:00] question. So I'm curious what they are. And I'm, I, I would challenge, I, you know, D four exclusive.
Those are, those are pretty obvious. We'll see if those end up being the, uh, the two choices for most of the guys here. But, um, I'm curious, let's, let's start with the Cubans. Let's go around the room. I want to know, uh, what is your desert island? You can never have another Cuban cigar. This is the last one you'll ever smoke every day.
L gc,
**Rooster:** MDO
**Gizmo:** number two. La Gloria Kuban discontinued about 10 years ago. What a great choice. Great choice and, uh, for a new
**Rooster:** world, it'll
**Gizmo:** be the Dard Off Chefs Edition. Wow. The 2021, the first edition. The first 1, 20 20. That was, that was the best one. Wow. The Best Chefs Edition was before there been three now, right?
1910 editions, .
**Rooster:** Second, second, second one was horrible. So that was like in the 1240s. No, no,
**Bam Bam:** no. Forties
**Gizmo:** Well, I wanna say maybe
**Rooster:** like 2012,
**Gizmo:** 2013. So why, uh, why each of those. Why are they the two? [00:57:00] Well, the LGC
**Rooster:** MDO number two is like, it's just what my flavor profile, what I look for in a cigar. It's, it's, it's got so much flavor. It's got, it's got floral notes. It's, you know, it's just an awesome
**Gizmo:** cigar. You guys have all had it.
Of course. We love that cigar. It's a great cigar. Very unique. Yeah, and the
**Rooster:** chef's edition. I mean, the first and the third edition of the chefs were fantastic, and it was, it was such complex and, uh, an amazing cigar. I wish they would make that into like a regular release. That kind of, that
**Gizmo:** blend.
**Bam Bam:** Impressive
**Senator:** choices, I must say. I was honestly surprised you said the number two. Cause I thought you liked the four better than the two. I, I liked the two better. I do.
**Gizmo:** The four
**Rooster:** is actually a little bit more floral, but the number two gives you the floral with the little bit of strength and oomph to it.
**Gizmo:** So it's like the best of both worlds. I agree. I love the two. Yeah. Great choices. Senator, what are your two?
**Senator:** So mine are very easy. I mean, the, the D four was my wedding cigar. It's always been my [00:58:00] favorite Cuban cigar. It always will be the 80th. Well, no, no. Oh
**Bam Bam:** my
**Senator:** gosh. This is what's shocking. This is what's tough.
So
**Gizmo:** a little V
**Senator:** Lancer, I smoked them daily. Now I won't lie there. That's an excellent cigar and insane value, but he wants to change his
**Gizmo:** rating by the way. We'll do that
**Senator:** later. Should in fact, but, um, On Padron, I mean, the 80th for me is the best cigar they make. I even put that ahead of the 50th. We obviously talked about that on our 100th episode.
Um, I have an emotional attachment to the Exclusivo. That's what like drew me into Padron. I give that cigar so much credit because all these years later. As much as I enjoy an 80th and a 50 year and all these other cigars they put out like that exclusivo still puts a smile on my face every single time.
So the memories I've had with that cigar, how it just really brought me, uh, that much closer to the cigar world. Uh, it's definitely an exclusivo for [00:59:00] me. Now, why this question was harder for me to answer when we were talking about at the lounge was, uh, the person who asked it said, you can only pick one.
So. I had this kind of very perplexed look on my face because choosing between those two cigars, he was in pain
**Gizmo:** when I tell you, I mean, it's like choosing, you know, one of
**Senator:** your Children, like, that's like a very hard, you know, question to answer. So My for, I said, well, can I ask a question? And he's like, oh boy, here we go.
And I said, my only question is, can I, I said, uh, can I control for wind? And I asked that because if it's windy on this island, a D4 is never going to smoke as good as an, as a Padron is. I mean, we always joke a Padron, you can smoke in a hurricane. Like that's the one cigar. It doesn't matter how windy it is.
Doesn't matter what the weather's like. You're always going to still get an enjoyable experience. You smoke a D4 in heavy winds. I mean, you're just not going to get the flavor the same way. It's not going to be as enjoyable.
**Gizmo:** It's a
**Bam Bam:** hypothetical situation. It is, but hopefully you build yourself a hut.
**Gizmo:** That's what I'm saying.
**Rooster:** You control the environment. You gotta build a hut.
**Gizmo:** My hut
**Senator:** [01:00:00] building skills are, let's just say, not all that sophisticated. You'll have to learn. Now, if I have some cash on me there and I can hire someone to build a hut, he'll be there with us. Bam will be there. I'm going to need a hundred grand to be able to do that with, uh, for a hut.
With, uh, our resident lizard architect here. A she shed. Yeah. Is there
**Bam Bam:** bamboo on the island? I can string that up pretty good.
**Senator:** But those are definitely my two.
**Gizmo:** All right. Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** Wow. You know, those are really, really good choices. Yeah. And as you know, I've really loved the exclusive and the default. I love it.
But. My two are simpler now. Um, I would do the 8, 9 8 and, uh, Parus. Eight, nine. Eight. Okay. And, and the doa. Ah, yeah. Love. So going back to tab, you love that, you love that cigar. I just have really been enjoying them. And the 8, 9, 8 with the experience on Ru's deck when he handed me the first 8, 9, 8.
**Senator:** Well, we, we remember that night, that's when bam didn't like the 8, 9, 8.
That's true.
**Gizmo:** Fantastic. That wasn't the only time by way my
**Pagoda:** stomach is now turning. And [01:01:00] then we had it, the lounge. Uh, you know, uh, when we were hanging out, uh, uh, with, uh, another buddy of ours and, uh, it's, uh, it's just always been an experience, which I've really, really enjoyed. And Dominicanas have become my staple day to day.
**Gizmo:** Um, and you smoked out in the Rojo's
**Pagoda:** though, right? That's kind of weird because I think we might've had this conversation a long time back. I think so. I think we did
**Gizmo:** about a year and a
**Pagoda:** half ago. And I think it was D4 and Exclusivo at that point. Things change, man. But it tells you, yeah. But those are right up there, you know.
**Gizmo:** More for me. All right, bam. Desert Island. What are your choices? So
**Bam Bam:** you're going to be surprised in my Cuban selection because I've fallen in love with this cigar.
**Gizmo:** Schwa Supreme. Yes. Wow.
**Senator:** Wow.
**Gizmo:** Absolutely correct. El Rey Del Mundo. Schwa Supreme. How did you know that? I know you, bam. You know
**Bam Bam:** things. I know, bam.
And for my new world, it's the Davidoff Pyramid Millennium. [01:02:00] For me, I get the best of both worlds with that combination. I get the woody, coffee, slight leather with the Millennium. And all day, fruit notes and floral on that schwa. I get the best of both worlds.
**Senator:** That's awesome. I love that we've all had different ones.
I'm surprised.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, and I've been ch I've actually been kind of challenging myself. I don't want to do a repeat. Yeah. So, that's why I kind of threw out D4
**Bam Bam:** Exclusivo. Let's kind of Right. Dude, that schwa for me has just evolved.
**Gizmo:** We You, Hen Uh, Lizard Henry and I, All three of us had one of those to start our day on.
Yeah, the other day. Uh, on, on, when we were here for football on Sunday, and man, it, it was so good. Bro. It's the best starter cigar I think in my human life. It's so
**Bam Bam:** flavorful and satisfying. You can, I could really just have that and another and I'll be done for the night. Yeah. I could do two back to back.
Great
**Gizmo:** cigar. They're just delicious. Okay, so I think mine are gonna surprise you guys, maybe. Can I guess? Alright, you can guess. What do you think the, uh, what do you think the Cuban is? [01:03:00] Mac 46. Cohiba Lancer. Very close, but no. The. Cohiba Robusta. Nope. The, um. Oh, Esplendido.
**Rooster:** What?
**Gizmo:** Geez. Nope. The Cohiba Siglo 5.
I've been smoking more of those over the last. 90 days. 120 days than any other cigar I have. You're, that means you're a baller. Well, I have some that when we were in Cuba, you know, you're, you're still a baller. But yeah, Cohibas five would absolutely be my Wow. I love a, you know, I love a Dalia Alan, uh, uh, a Lonsdale.
Yep. Um, I think that that cigar is really perfect for my palate. And, and certainly like pagoda said, thinking about where our pallets were two years ago, where my pallet was two years ago. Mm-Hmm. even a year ago. And how I've fallen in love with. The flavor profile of Cohiba. Um, it's, it's, that's such a brilliant cigar.
When you get a great Sigla V, I don't think it can be beat.
**Bam Bam:** I haven't had many of those, honestly. The price point's prohibitive and.
**Gizmo:** Well, we're on a desert island, Ben. Give me a break. Oh, that's
**Bam Bam:** true. Dollars don't equate [01:04:00] here. Exactly.
**Gizmo:** Love it. And then, um, I think this is hard because I do waver between the Exclusivo, the, uh, the.
Padrone 80th, the warped, the Padrone 50th. Uh, but I think I'm going to go with the Padrone 80th and, you know, the 80th from the 1926 line of Maduro, incredible choice. You know, we had this debate as Senator mentioned on the 100th episode about like our favorite Padrones and. Where the 50th anniversary Rack and Stacked against the 80th.
Sounds like someone agrees with me. The same thing I said on that episode for special occasions, I don't think the 50th can be beat, but I think if I were able to smoke that the, the 80th cigar every day, that would be my cigar. Every time I smoked that, I get an incredible amount of satisfaction. The Exclusivo, no question, phenomenal cigar, but I think I'd go with the 80th.
Yeah. Incredible. So then I guess. The only other question I have, as far as Desert Island goes is... Well, next is [01:05:00] Death
**Senator:** Row.
**Bam Bam:** We're going the Because
**Gizmo:** I have a different choice
**Senator:** there. That's where I would take the 80th, because you only get to smoke that one cigar one last time. Ah, very smart. Where on the Desert Island, I can keep smoking these cigars.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, he did say on his deathbed he wants that 80th. Yeah. That's true.
**Gizmo:** So the other question I have for you guys, as far as one spirit to have on your Desert Island to pair with your cigars that you just chose... I think for a rooster it's probably going to be a, a Jura. Michelob Ultra. A flat white. A flat white?
A double espresso maybe? You would choose coffee, right? A non alcoholic whistle pig. There you go. There you go. Senator, what would your spirit be? To go with your D4 and your Exclusivo. I mean, it's probably
**Senator:** a Macallan 12 Sherry cask. Not a champagne? That's the easy one. No, because... Only pick one. Exactly. The thing, the champagne for me, it's um, it's like a great start to the night.
Yeah, but think of
**Gizmo:** the desert. It's
**Senator:** hot. [01:06:00] Yeah. Chilled bottle of champagne. I just need something more robust. Especially I'm on an island stranded. I need something that packs more of a punch than champagne does. Yeah, you
**Bam Bam:** need to inebriate yourself when you're alone.
**Senator:** Exactly. So I think it's the Macallan 12, uh, sherry cast.
But the only reason I just... Sat there and thought for a moment is like the other thing that I would crave that was at the back of my mind is like, I'm enjoying so much cognac now. Like the Remy 1738. I mean, I reach for that now honestly more than I do McAllen 12, but there's the, it kind of goes back to why I picked the Exclusivo.
There's like that nostalgia and that attachment I have to McAllen 12 sherry cask. That's usually what I would pick up with a cigar after like a, um, a good day. I have so many good memories. Drinking that spirit. So it would be McAllen 12 Sherry, but in the back of my mind, I'd be thinking about that. What if it was
**Gizmo:** a cocktail?
Oh, that's easy.
**Senator:** Oh yeah. As long as he's making
**Bam Bam:** it [01:07:00] all day, every day.
**Gizmo:** Pagoda. What's your pairing? We
**Bam Bam:** know what he's going
**Pagoda:** to pick. Of course. It's Balvenie 12. Balvenie 12. That's it. All
**Bam Bam:** right. That's a, that's a standard.
**Gizmo:** Love
**Bam Bam:** that.
**Pagoda:** Keep it simple.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, man. Bam, bam. So I am between a Remy 1738 and a Covasier XO.
I would probably lean toward the Remy for me. Very tasty, sweet, goes great with the schwa.
**Gizmo:** I'm surprised that none of you went the direction I'm going with my... Permanent spirit. What Kirkland? Nope.
**Bam Bam:** Nope. Don Julio. Tequila. Don Julio. Oh no. It's Chivas. It's Chivas.
**Gizmo:** Chivas. That's not an ice spam. Alright.
**Senator:** The ocean is your sink.
**Bam Bam:** It is. No plumbing.
**Pagoda:** Chivas pulled
**Gizmo:** through the fingers. And you'll be there to help me. So I'm going with a Cuban rum. Oh, forgot about that. I'm going with a Cuban rum. Santiago. Santiago de Cuba. Cuba. 20 years. [01:08:00] Yeah, great choice. Santiago 20. Very good choice. And I think, you know what I love about that? Because I was thinking about the cognac.
I was thinking about Mac 12. I was thinking about Balvenie. I actually even wrote down originally the Balvenie 21 Portwood that we did on the episode 100, which I thought was a brilliant spirit. It's just so damn expensive. As I was thinking about pairing with that Cohiba Sigla 5, something to drink every day.
The Padron 80th, the Santiago de Cuba 20. It's an incredible spirit. It is. It's such a brilliant rum. It really
**Bam Bam:** is. No ice. And you're on an island. You don't need ice. You don't need ice. Right. Or a desert.
**Senator:** Whatever. Bruce even likes the non alcoholic
**Bam Bam:** version of it. Yeah. Non alcoholic Santiago 20. So good.
**Gizmo:** So boys, we're in the last third here of the HVC hot cake.
What are you guys thinking? Well, it's a hot cake. It's hot.
**Senator:** I mean, it's pretty damn good. I will just say to validate what a number of you have said, it's much better in the second half than it was the first. It does
**Gizmo:** improve. Which is surprising for Nicaraguans. Like, I'm, I'm
**Senator:** smoking [01:09:00] this down right at the band now.
Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** It's actually flavorful and smooth. The last inch, it's easy to smoke and it's gotten better. For 8, that's unusual.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I think it's a pretty, pretty good cigar for eight bucks. I don't think I'm going to. Reach for this again, which I think all of our ratings will reflect not even for the morning.
Not even for the morning rooster can have mine. Uh, you know, but I think for listeners out there who, you know, like a more full cigar, certainly a more full Nicaraguan. A lot of smokers love that Nicaraguan spice. And I think for eight bucks, I think this might be a cigar in their wheelhouse. It's just Not really in mind.
Yeah, and this
**Bam Bam:** would be tough for a beginner smoker.
**Gizmo:** I would go for the
**Rooster:** Padron, like, like a 2000
**Gizmo:** series. Over
**Bam Bam:** this? Sure. Over this. Yeah, agreed. We'd love
**Gizmo:** that cigar. It's probably in the same price range. It is. Yeah, I would think so. And
**Bam Bam:** that rated well with us. Eights, I believe. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** it did well. Yeah. Padron makes a great cigar, man.
And I think, you know, you know, [01:10:00] this guy is not... He's making his own cigars. He's blending them. So you're at the beck and, you know, you're at the, the will of the manufacturer. You're kind of at the, you know, yeah, I mean, his,
**Rooster:** his story is really cool. Like what he's trying to achieve with Havana and stuff and Cuba in general, like trying to come up with cigars to kind of base it upon that.
But the flavor is not there. It's not Cuban esque. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** I wonder whether he smoked Cuban cigars in Cuba.
**Senator:** I agree. I mean, there's nothing Cuban about this at
**Gizmo:** all. True. Yeah. I don't even know if he was in the cigar industry in Cuba or was like you said, like a smoker. I don't know if he just fell in love with it when he, you know, was in the U S and he went to see his sister in Nicaragua.
I I'm not sure, but I think
**Senator:** someone pulled a rooster prank and put a Cuban band on a Nicaraguan cigar. And he's like, this is what I can do it. I need to
**Gizmo:** emulate this. All right, boys, you guys ready to do the, uh, the ratings on our pairing tonight? All right, let's do the, uh, Formal liquor rating on the Whistlepig [01:11:00] 10 year small batch rye whiskey.
Bam, you're up. I'll
**Bam Bam:** probably give this a seven mild recommend. Drinkable, tough at the start without ice, but
**Gizmo:** bearable. Okay. Yeah. Pagoda. You know, I'll
**Pagoda:** go with a seven as well. The thing with ice, it was definitely drinkable. But I, you know, I keep asking myself if I were to have a bottle of this, I would still use it.
To mix a cocktail, having said that, I don't want to pay 70 bucks for a bottle of rye, when you can get bullet rye for 35 or 40 bucks. It's uh, yeah, I think a 7 is a reasonably generous rating. Senator.
**Senator:** I'm also at a 7. Um, I mean, I'm honestly surprised you guys are at a seven because hearing words like bearable, I mean, it does not really,
**Bam Bam:** it's not a ringing endorsement.
Now I can take words back. I can't take ratings back. Well, bearable is a little harsh. It is harsh for this because I did kind of like [01:12:00] it.
**Senator:** Would you look at that? Bam is making a retraction. This is the second time this week. Is this where we're going to go?
**Bam Bam:** Oh, well you
**Senator:** just teed it up way before I planned it.
What the hell? You dove headfirst right into
**Bam Bam:** that one. Yes, it's, it is, I take that word back, but I, I liked it. It's good spirit. Seven's a good
**Senator:** rating for this. For the listeners, so I can somewhat exonerate myself as I attempted to change a rating, and in fairness, did not ultimately change it. I did, stuck with the group, kept my rating.
I didn't change a rating. Bam on the other hand, bam on the other hand. Who is a proud, proud Jets fan said when the, uh, the Jets a few weeks ago played the Giants, which happens once every few years, every four, four years, correct? And we're three, you know, said that he was going to cater. Lunch at our lounge for that game.
That was said,
**Bam Bam:** hold on, hold on, hold on, let me finish. I am not going to let
**Senator:** him finish. Let me finish. And [01:13:00] so immediately when he said this, Gizmo and I called bullshit. We're like, there's no way that BAM is going to do it. Dude,
**Gizmo:** I skipped breakfast that day. Yeah, right. As did
**Senator:** most of the members at our lounge.
I was hoping for like a nice lunch. There was almost a mutiny
**Bam Bam:** that day. I looked right at you and I asked you if you had
**Senator:** lunch. You said yes. I did because I knew you weren't going to bring anything, but the rest of them didn't know you as well as we do. I wish you
**Gizmo:** sent
**Rooster:** me an email or texted me like, well, Bam's not going to come through, so I
**Gizmo:** would have eaten something.
**Bam Bam:** Correct. I'm very accountable,
**Pagoda:** I apologize. I would have made an appearance. So,
**Senator:** Giz and I immediately call bullshit, and then Bam doubles down and he says, no, I'm dead serious. I'm bringing lunch. I'm going to have it catered. I did not double down doing it. You absolutely did. You
**Gizmo:** said it twice. You said it twice.
We
**Senator:** told you, you were full of it. And then you're like, no, I'm not. I'm seriously going to bring this. Your
**Bam Bam:** corroborator has no credit. I did not double
**Senator:** down. And I'm sorry, but you admitted this in text. We had this same conversation and then you were like, okay, I did, but I retracted. That's exactly what you said.
Yes, I did retract. I said, thank you. Case closed. I
**Bam Bam:** retracted [01:14:00] my casual
**Senator:** comment. Casual comment. Us saying, no, you're not going to bring it. You saying, I'm serious. I am going to bring it. Hold on. Let me,
**Bam Bam:** my old friend. Was it based? Hold on. I have a question from my very old, dear 1910
**Senator:** friend. Very old, really emphasis there.
**Bam Bam:** Did I double down?
**Gizmo:** Were you there? Was it there? I was there
**Rooster:** the first time when he mentioned that he's going to cater lunch. Oh, well, there you go.
**Gizmo:** He heard it too. He said, well, yeah, I didn't eat breakfast. I said that. Yeah, in
**Bam Bam:** passing because I was excited with the jets playing the
**Pagoda:** Giants. No, that was last Monday.
I
**Gizmo:** was excited. None of us
**Senator:** asked you for it. None of us brought it up first. My emotions were high. You on your own
**Rooster:** decided this. The only thing I don't remember is, did you, did you say, if the jets
**Gizmo:** win? No, that's what we
**Senator:** were clarifying. That's exactly what I said. I don't think you know. That's what I said.
**Bam Bam:** We clarified all of this. It sounds good. You're so full
**Pagoda:** of it. But now that Jets did win.
**Gizmo:** No accountability here.
**Senator:** No accountability. You know what? You
**Rooster:** can make it up. I did. And we can do Jamie's dinner.
**Senator:** Correct. I really. There we go. Yeah. There we go. Now we're [01:15:00] talking Rooster.
**Gizmo:** You're buying Jamie. Now we're talking Rooster.
Excuse
**Bam Bam:** me. So I made another promise. This one I'll follow up. See how much
**Senator:** money you would have saved if you kept your word, man. This is what accountability teaches. You're right. Let's just
**Gizmo:** go.
**Rooster:** Let's keep the first promise. Hold on. We'll work on the second one.
**Bam Bam:** The jets make the playoffs. I said,
**Gizmo:** after we play offs, come on, stop it.
We're going to be on a desert Island. Very soon. No, the desert. I just say, you know, we, we talk in this room. We talk with our listeners. I'm being
**Bam Bam:** sandbagged here. This is,
**Senator:** this is very unexpected
**Gizmo:** about Doug. This great. You said that how the lounge experience is a, is it really a family? It is built on trust, built on trust.
Yes. And you left a lot of your family members without the meal you promised.
**Bam Bam:** This is, I'm starting to sweat. I don't like this.
**Senator:** We don't either. I was starving. Think of how hungry everybody
**Bam Bam:** was. All right. I will. All
**Pagoda:** right. Tragic. But I do think Jamie's is a great solution. I
**Gizmo:** agree. Yeah, we're, we're doing Jamie's you're buying.
Okay.
**Bam Bam:** One other guy can go with[01:16:00]
who's it gonna be? We'll wrap it off. .
**Gizmo:** Alright, so everybody on the formal liquor rating boys so far has rated it a 7 on the Whistlepig 10. I'm also gonna rate it a 7. I think that's a perfect score. I'm actually surprised a couple of you guys didn't go 8 based on the conversation, but I think 7 is a great score for it.
That makes the formal liquor rating on the Whistlepig 10 small batch rye whiskey a flat 7. 0. It's a mild recommend. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty good, I think for 70 bucks, I think. Worth trying. I think the price is factoring in there. You know, I don't think it's [01:17:00] great. And I think with, honestly, I think it was actually the perfect pairing tonight for this cigar, because with a Cuban, with some of the other more smooth, I guess, uh, Nicaraguan or Dominican cigars that we smoke here.
I don't think that this is a proper pairing for a cigar.
**Senator:** I agree. It would have seared your taste buds. I mean, you would not be able to get any of the flavor out of a Cuban cigar drinking that. But for this, it worked
**Bam Bam:** well. For this cigar, it did work
**Gizmo:** well. All right, boys. Are we ready to do the formal lizard rating on the HVC hot cake in Corona Gorda?
Hot pancake. Rooster, you're up.
**Rooster:** Yeah, so I'm going to give it a generous 7. I mean, it's not something that I'm going to pursue. Yeah, but it's not bad. Maybe it's in somebody's wheelhouse. It's not in my wheelhouse. I mean, I need a little bit more and there's a lot of other cigars that are in the same price range or even lower, satisfy me much more.
So I'm at a
**Gizmo:** seven. Senator,
**Senator:** so I'm also at a seven, [01:18:00] which reinforces perfect pairing. Both of these, at least I've given a seven. The thing I'll say with this cigar, Similar to what Rooster said, it's, it's not for me. It's not something I would pursue. It's not even something that someone gave me another one that I would want to smoke, but for someone who pursues a very, very full, bold, robust cigar, I can understand why this might appeal to them.
I would almost call this like. A poor man's 90th in that, like a 90th, which is obviously a lot more expensive than this. What's that like 25?
**Gizmo:** Yeah. 25, 30 bucks. Yeah. So you're talking the Padron 90th in Maduro. That's right. Which comes in the red tubo. Right.
**Senator:** That's right. Yeah. And so, you know, for someone who wants.
A ton of flavor like that cigar delivers, but at a budget price point under 10 bucks at 8, this is not going to be as nearly as smooth as that cigar. But if that's what you're chasing a ton of flavor, I mean, I guess I can see why someone would pursue it. But again, for me, um, it just doesn't. It [01:19:00] doesn't check enough of the boxes.
And I think the biggest disappointment for me, honestly, is just hearing the description of what the intent is behind this brand that is just so divorced from what this cigar actually delivers. Way off the mark. I, that, that's, it's frustrating for me. It doesn't make me want to try more of the brand because I don't think they understand the product that they're putting out.
This is nothing like a Cuban cigar. Like I would buy into this brand story if it were more about like bringing bold Nicaraguan flavors to the consumer. That's what this suggests to me that this brand's about. I mean, we
**Gizmo:** have had
**Rooster:** cigars that, where the manufacturer has not really gone after the Cuban esque flavor, but it has kind of delivered a Cuban esque flavor.
Yeah. You know,
**Gizmo:** so, and this hasn't. So for me, it's a six. And I'll tell you why. It started at a five for me, as we've talked about. I, you know, the first half. Damn, homeboy. Kind of was up and down. And I think, Honestly, if it, if it finished the way that it started, if the [01:20:00] first half was as good as I thought the second half was, which I think was about a seven, the second half, um, I think that's a fair score.
I, so I'm averaging out there at a six, I think six is the right number. Um, the price is good. I think any more than that, I would be beating that rating, you know, even lower six all day for me. I'm,
**Pagoda:** uh, in your camp totally because, uh, it's a six for me. Um, what I found was, uh, that, uh, the aroma was very unpleasant for me.
For a lot of it, I think I got a huge, whatever, like a pepper kind of flavor, like a very spicy pepper flavor in the beginning of the cigar, which. Kind of really got my throat. Did not enjoy that experience. It did develop into something which was very smokeable towards the second half. Um, it still didn't do enough for me to go and say, hey listen, I'm gonna go and buy this, keep it in my humidor, or even smoke it really.
Um, so it's difficult for me to [01:21:00] uh, give a seven which we consider a recommend. So I would rate it as a six.
**Bam Bam:** Bam. Um, I, I think a seven is a fair score for the cigar in a positive way because the second half Actually, the, the, the final two thirds were creamy and smooth and really rich and robust. It's a mild recommend.
I think a seven is very
**Gizmo:** fair score for this guy. So the formal lizard rating boys is a 6. 6 on the HVC hotcake. Yeah, I think that's the right score. And I think, I think that points to Pagoda saying, would any of us really recommend this cigar? No. Soft recommend it? I don't know. But
**Bam Bam:** Senator made some good points.
There are people out there that really like this type of a cigar, this flavor profile, and honestly, it ended really strong. So the parting experience for me was very positive. For me a 6 is too low, because
**Gizmo:** of that final experience. The thing I'll say at this point now, having put it down a few minutes ago, finishing it as we were getting into the ratings, [01:22:00] I don't like how my mouth feels right now.
Okay, I was
**Senator:** just going to make a comment about this,
**Gizmo:** I agree. It's funny. I wasn't consciously thinking of that until we kind of went through the room here. But like, as my mouth is sitting here right now, like, it, it's leaving that kind of taste in my mouth that I can't remember the last time I had that.
It's just kind of... It's dry. Is it dry? Is it lingering in a poor way? I don't know what it is, but it reinforces my six. And it reinforces a former lizard rating of 6. 6. It's just... I just don't feel great right now in my mouth. I
**Senator:** mean, I, I know what I'm experiencing right now. For me, it's not that it's left like a bad aftertaste as much as Rooster was saying this a lot as we were smoking and it's like really rang true for me as I've now finished the cigar.
You kept saying how dry this cigar finishes and it's like so dry that the back of my throat feels like I haven't drank water in like 10 hours. And as soon as we stop recording, I want to like guzzle a bottle of water.
**Gizmo:** I mean, this brings you to the desert. It does, [01:23:00] yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Very appropriate.
Well
**Gizmo:** done. It's that dry desert air. The dry desert
**Pagoda:** air. You didn't have to be there.
**Gizmo:** Just smoke the cigar and you're there. Well, what's good about deciding what cigars we're going to have in our desert island is that before we get to the desert, Bam is going to take us to Jamie's for a final hurrah.
**Bam Bam:** And I will give you these cigars as your parting gift.
We
**Gizmo:** will smoke it. Don't worry. Just get us there. All right, boys. I thought the pairing was very appropriate tonight. I think the ratings reflect that. I think the whistle pig 10 at a 7. 0. Lines up, you know, right, you know, flavor wise it went right next to the HVC hot cake cigar tonight. It's a 6. 6 I think that actually worked out pretty well.
Yeah. So how does this Thursday work for you, man? Not good
**Bam Bam:** Friday [01:24:00] I'll see you in the new year
**Gizmo:** So the other thing I want to say too before we close out is we did do the whistle pig Six year on episode 35, which is quite some time ago. It got a 6. 8. So just a little bit below this 6.
**Senator:** 8. That was a very generous score for that.
Oh,
**Bam Bam:** sorry. This is better than that spirit. Way
**Gizmo:** better. Yeah, so this is a flat 7. That was a 6. 8. Your 6 has ruined it. Certainly, you know, prices, prices, you know. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** how much was that bottle? Do you remember?
**Gizmo:** I think it was in the 30s. Yeah, okay. You know, yeah, 40s maybe. It reflected the quality. All right, boys, so that's it for tonight.
Great conversation, and we'll see everybody next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive At our brand new website, LoungeLizardsPod. com, that's LoungeLizards, P O D, dot com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
If you have any comments, questions, if you want to reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email [01:25:00] us, hello, at LoungeLizardsPod. com. You can also find us on Instagram, at LoungeLizardsPod. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.