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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
Welcome to the Lounge Lizards Podcast presented by Fabrica Five. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars as well as whiskey travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight, I'm joined by Rooster, Senator, Pagoda, chef Ricky, and Bam Bam.
Gizmo:And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some wine, talk about life, and, of course, have some laughs. So take this as your two hundred and forty fourth official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. We plan to meet us here once a week. We're gonna smoke a Nicaraguan cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you a formal lizard rating. We do a
Gizmo:deep dive into Gurkha's fascinating history. We discuss how they pioneered the now common focus on cigar packaging and marketing, and we catch up on listener emails
Gizmo:all among a variety of other things for the next two hours. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, enjoy as we pair Paraduxx Proprietary Blend 2022 with the Gurkha Nicaragua Series in Toro. A Nicaraguan Toro tonight on the pod boys, and it's a debut.
Chef Ricky:Correct.
Bam Bam:It's a debut, for sure.
Gizmo:And we are celebrating Pagoda's return, of course, with
Bam Bam:With his favorite cigar.
Gizmo:His favorite cigar. We have a Gurkha in our hands tonight, boys.
Bam Bam:Oh, boy.
Chef Ricky:Oh, shit. Where's the Twilight?
Gizmo:The Nicaragua Series.
Chef Ricky:Twilight Zone music.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Right.
Gizmo:In Toro. And it's a 54 ring gauge cigar by six inches long. And boys, I'm sweating a little bit coming into this episode tonight. I'm a little nervous. Why?
Pagoda:Why would you?
Gizmo:This is a big boy, and it says Gurkha on it. So I have a lot to say about Gurkha tonight. I learned a lot about them. I'm curious what you guys think about it.
Senator:I don't understand all the negativity. Think this is gonna be great. I'm fired up. I'm ready to go. Don't believe a
Bam Bam:word He he says great cigar.
Gizmo:Neither. The great bore is.
Bam Bam:But I have to admit, it's a beautiful cigar.
Gizmo:It looks good in the hand, man.
Rooster:I already sent you the rating, by
Gizmo:the way. Okay, perfect.
Pagoda:It's not what you think it is, even though it might have an Indian name.
Chef Ricky:You know, and it smells great.
Senator:Yeah. It really does smell good. I'm I'm actually being Delicious.
Bam Bam:The aroma's great.
Gizmo:So I must say, I wanna shout out our friend Lizard Luigi, who sent us this box of cigars. He is the one who told us that Gurkha doesn't deserve the hate it gets. You should try the Nicaragua Series, and he sent us the box. So that's why we're doing it tonight. So shout out to Lizard Luigi.
Gizmo:We appreciate him. What are you guys getting?
Bam Bam:I think the cold draw is delicious. I'm getting berry. Wow. I'm getting a berry. I'm getting a hint of coffee.
Bam Bam:Fig. Yeah. Chocolate cereal. Take a deep draw. You'll get some sort of a berry, raspberry, blueberry.
Gizmo:I'm getting like kind of in between milk and dark chocolate, little bready thing,
Senator:Like 62% cacao?
Bam Bam:A 100% of the time.
Gizmo:As you know, I'm a dark chocolate expert, And
Bam Bam:raisin and a fig, I think are pretty accurate. This is great.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. Little Fig Newton action here, actually. The carbohydrate note with the fig working out here.
Bam Bam:I think the proportions are great, the colors are beautiful, very handsome.
Chef Ricky:It's elegant and handsome. Have that navy and gold.
Senator:This is easily one of the tamest Gurkha bands I feel like I've seen. They usually have these big, gaudy, oversized ridiculous bands, but this is totally respectable.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Great looking cigar.
Chef Ricky:Oh, man. I'm so nervous of seeing these things pop up all over the lounge, though.
Gizmo:Alright, boys.
Chef Ricky:Good night.
Gizmo:Let's like this thing. The Gurkha Nicaragua Series in Toro. And again, it's a 54 ring gauge cigar by six inches long.
Bam Bam:Someone's welding steel.
Gizmo:Done. It's a big cigar. A little bigger than what we're expecting on the Toro. Usually, we're like, I think, 52 by six. So this 54 by six is a little bit bigger than that.
Bam Bam:Is it a double Toro?
Gizmo:It is not. Maybe a Toro Extra.
Bam Bam:What's the cost of this thing?
Gizmo:$9.70
Bam Bam:Get it. Wow. That's very reasonable.
Gizmo:I agree, especially for the amount of tobacco you're getting here.
Bam Bam:This is taking a hike delight. Delicious self delight. It's shockingly good right now.
Gizmo:Come on. That's pretty good.
Bam Bam:I'm getting that berry that I got in a cold draw and I'm getting a little coffee and maybe a touch of cedar.
Chef Ricky:That's spot on. I think you nailed it.
Bam Bam:Pretty delicious.
Gizmo:I'm not getting a lot of the chocolate thing that we were talking about on the It's cold not here on the light. Senator, what do you think?
Senator:It's good. I'm cautiously optimistic. I get all the notes that you're saying the berry's still there, but I still do get a little bit of the cocoa, it's just not as sweet as it was on the cold draw. I feel like it's like a dark chocolate in the background.
Bam Bam:What's unusual is on the finish, I'm not getting anything sweet. It's actually savory for me at the very back end of the draw, almost like a salted bagel type thing happening. Salted carbohydrate.
Gizmo:It is funny you say that because it is hitting the back of your throat a little bit more than I would expect, but not in a bad way. Like we've talked about kind of those harsh cigars that do that. Obviously, for newbie cigar smokers who were smoking bad cigars, that's often the big complaint is the throat burn, you know? But this is nice, man. It's unlike.
Rooster:Yes. Like, I'm trying to think of what does the cigar remind you of. Can't think of anything.
Gizmo:Same. Well, let's talk about the Blend Boys. The rapper is Corojo. Pagoda's taking a nap. The binder is Cameroon filler, Criollo 98, Nicaragua, and there's some USA tobacco in here.
Gizmo:Newark? Could be. Made, of course, in Nicaragua.
Rooster:Do you see these at retail? If I
Gizmo:do, it's almost like I'm like a horse with blinders on. I just I think we're
Rooster:going to
Gizmo:talk about this tonight. I kind of don't even see it. If I walk past it, I don't even see Gurkha. We
Bam Bam:talked about this when we mentioned the possibility of doing this. I don't ever see these anywhere. I am all over. Central Jersey, North Jersey, New York, Brooklyn, Upstate, Downstate, and I'm stopping at cigar spots. These are rarely ever in a store.
Senator:Pam's a domestic insider. He's everywhere.
Bam Bam:And I'm nowhere.
Rooster:I mean, it's a decent cigar. It's well priced. It should be more available. I think people would is it something like a stigma about the name?
Gizmo:I think my feeling is this, and I wanna go through this with you guys because I think it's really interesting. I think that there's a stigma around the name that it doesn't end up in brick and mortar retailers, but it is really heavily favored at the big boys online. Because if you get a catalog in the mail, I got two today, almost this identical catalog from Thompson and Cigars International, and Gurkha had a real big spread in it. So I feel like the big box online folks are selling a lot of these to people who were reaching for Gurkha. I don't think the brick and mortar folks are giving faces to Gurkha in the stores.
Gizmo:I agree. At least around here, unless they're huge. Yeah. Do you guys feel the same on that?
Bam Bam:I totally agree.
Senator:Do we know when this cigar was first released? Is this a recent release, or?
Gizmo:So this came out at PCA twenty nineteen. At that time, was IPCPR. They changed it, I think, or after COVID to PCA, and began shipping in the fall of that year. So this has only been in production, what now, going on seven years. So So it is
Senator:is early in when I think a lot of these brands started introducing American tobacco into some blends.
Pagoda:What do you think Pagoda? A couple of things, on the positive end, yeah, I feel I'm getting a lot of berry, but I'm also getting, we used to call it khutmah, which is like sour and sweet together. So there's a little bit of sweetness coming along with the berry. And then you're right, I get the savory towards the end. But I'm finding the smoke a bit too dry, and I don't know whether it's because I've had a few drinks before.
Gizmo:No, I'm agreeing with you, mean I was wondering if I was dehydrated or hadn't been drinking enough water prior to recording, but I do think that's a great call out, because I am feeling like a little bit of a dry
Senator:situation. I completely agree.
Gizmo:And maybe that's what's doing the throat thing.
Bam Bam:Could be.
Gizmo:You know, is is that dry smoke drying out the back of your throat.
Senator:That's the only part of this that's boring me and kind of frustrating me is it's so dry, like it doesn't make you salivate like a cigar that like the flavor hits your palate in all the right ways you're looking for. So I'm hoping that maybe some sweetness picks up or something that stimulates your palate more because if it stays like this, that's going to frustrate me.
Pagoda:I think that's what I think Klaus was talking about is when they add a little bit of acid, like some acidity into, like they have these leaves, which kind of contribute.
Gizmo:You know what's funny, I was thinking about that before, I just don't remember the name of it. But you're 100% right. Klaus, when we were with him in the Doctor, was talking about, because we had a cigar that was really, really drawing saliva.
Bam Bam:Nice.
Gizmo:And he was explaining how that burrito, just we were smoking that leaf, how that is really helpful in a blend to counter dryness. Interesting. So certainly that would have been helpful here.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Anybody getting any white pepper? Just a touch right now?
Rooster:Yeah. Touch.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Faint.
Gizmo:I'm getting it on the burn line too.
Bam Bam:Me too.
Gizmo:There's a little bit of
Bam Bam:And on the retro.
Gizmo:On the aroma. Yeah, haven't been loving the retro.
Bam Bam:So the pepper's making an appearance slightly.
Senator:Slightly on the palate, but on the burn line, you smell it a lot. It's all around the burn line. You put it right near your nose?
Bam Bam:You're singeing your nose hairs.
Chef Ricky:You know what the cigar is reminding me of right now? So it started very pleasant, and I was pleasantly surprised with this sort of
Gizmo:sort of For
Chef Ricky:about three draws? For the salt with the salty nuttiness. But right now with the dryness that's happening, the faint pepper notes, and then there's a the finish is short. It just drops off. Know, the front of your palate gets all that sort of salt, cedar.
Chef Ricky:Now, not some berry, but the berry is quickly disappearing. And now it's sort of reminded me of a lot of cigars smoked early on in my journey without really knowing what I was smoking. Some things that I would get off cigar bid, like maybe an A. J. Fernandez, New New World or a diesel or like caliber.
Chef Ricky:I never bought those just because I always thought that name was cheesy.
Senator:I've had them.
Gizmo:Are you serious?
Senator:Yeah, the Oyo Excalibur.
Gizmo:Oh, that's an Oyo, okay. I had never heard
Bam Bam:of it. Isn't that a medieval time? Sword?
Chef Ricky:Yeah, like a myth.
Bam Bam:Well I heard rooster pull that out of
Chef Ricky:a
Gizmo:rock. I knew it was coming.
Bam Bam:He's still aging them.
Chef Ricky:Do you guys ever have the My Father Flor de la Santillas? Yeah. I have. That cigar. This reminds me of that cigar a little
Bam Bam:You know what? I think this is very My Father esque, not in a good way.
Chef Ricky:Yes.
Bam Bam:To me, it's starting to project negatively right now.
Chef Ricky:I agree.
Bam Bam:That's how I'm starting to feel about it. Just starting, possibly.
Senator:Do think that that cigar is better than this so far.
Bam Bam:Yes. I
Gizmo:don't find this to be unpleasant right now. I think that the dryness of the mouth is really my one complaint, but overall, I think for $10,
Chef Ricky:I I feel it's gonna get really boring.
Gizmo:Okay.
Chef Ricky:Really fast.
Bam Bam:We hope not.
Gizmo:Think this is gonna happen.
Senator:I mean to Gizz's point, I don't find it like
Gizmo:Not offensive.
Senator:It's just It's
Bam Bam:starting
Senator:It's boring and the fear is that if it stays this way, it's really gonna lose me. Yeah.
Pagoda:I'm glad you got two bottles of wine.
Chef Ricky:I was gonna say it's saving grace, maybe the pairing.
Bam Bam:Just
Chef Ricky:some hydration that might help.
Gizmo:I hope so. We'll get there in a little bit, boys. First, let's talk about Gurkha. Okay, I think it's a pretty interesting story. The entrepreneurial journey that the founder has gone on here since like 1989, which is pretty crazy.
Gizmo:So his name is Kaysaad Hansotya, and he entered into the cigar market while vacationing in 1989, walking on the beach, stumbled upon a man hand rolling cigars out of a little hut. He says the level of craftsmanship was extraordinary and his interest had peaked and he tried one. He then thought the cigars would make unique gifts for customers of the family business, and he learned that these so called Gurkha cigars had been around for more than a century and were named after Nepalese warriors whose bravery had inspired the British troops, and the intrigue surrounding the cigars proved to be a selling point for him. He was so impressed that he bought everything on the spot from this guy and acquired Gurkha for a total of $149.
Pagoda:What? What beach was this?
Gizmo:I don't know.
Pagoda:Because by Nepal, there's no beach.
Bam Bam:Sounds like a big value guy.
Gizmo:Pretty amazing to think of what he's taken from $149 and turned into as a massive ball.
Rooster:The guy who was rolling
Gizmo:the cigars on the beach actually had was the only was the only remaining existence of Gurkha was this guy in his little hut. And then this guy in 1989 turned it into the Gurkha that we know now. When Gurkha cigars debuted in duty free markets in 1990, which is pretty cool, they came in three sizes, Churchill, Toro, and Torpedo, and retailed for a then unheard of $14 to $17 per cigar. So think about what that would be in today's money from 1990. Those were really expensive cigars.
Gizmo:So they were only available by the stick at that time, and they were encased in individual glass tubes. Of course, most other cigars, especially Cuban cigars like the Mani two, you know, was really popular in the early nineties, only came in 25 count boxes. So the first run apparently quickly sold out, and the company was just two employees, him and his wife, Katya. Both were hunkered down, he says, in a small office, lent to them by his father's business. He single handedly produced, packaged, sold, and marketed the entire company.
Gizmo:And his wife focused on, like, admin in the back office or whatever. They worked seven days a week and built the company to what it is now from a $149 in 1989 to really, I think and this is what I wanted to discuss with you guys a little bit later, kind of invented the crazy marketing packaging, ridiculous bands. They were kind of at the forefront of this.
Bam Bam:Interesting.
Gizmo:So I want to get to that a little later. We'll do that after the first third, but I think they have a really pretty wild story. Another thing I wanted to tell you, too, Senator specifically, and a couple of the guys in here watch guys. His family was immensely successful in the luxury watch industry. And that's what prompted him to try to find something of his own to not continue just in his family's footsteps.
Gizmo:And that's he fell in love with cigars. Said, I'm going to turn this into And my certainly he's done that.
Bam Bam:So were they successful in a gray market watch category?
Gizmo:I'm not sure specifics on that. I don't know. I don't think they were manufacturing. Think it was probably a retail operation of some kind. But They make a lot of stuff.
Gizmo:They have over 100 lines, hundreds of SKUs, blends spanning every strength and price point. And what I find interesting is given all that, they don't have their own factory. They hire out in The Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras to make their cigars. Wow. So that's pretty cool.
Gizmo:They kind of try to act like a bunch of boutique brands, quote unquote, under the big line, but I guess we can debate that a little later. So I am I find this interesting. So I'm gonna pause on that. I do wanna discuss the marketing piece of this, which, like I said, I find really, really fascinating. And then we'll talk, of course, about those crazy price cigars that they have.
Gizmo:How's the cigar for you guys right now?
Bam Bam:I've slowed down my smoke dramatically, and it's gotten a little bit better. It's gotten tamer from the point of view of the pepper.
Senator:I agree with that. Even on the bird line, it's not as aggressive now, the pepper. It's more subtle, which is
Bam Bam:much better. You need to take your time.
Chef Ricky:I'm on that same exact bus because of the ring gauge on this. It generates a lot of smoke and just slowing down and taking shorter puffs even allows you to shorter draws, allows you to get more of the nuanced flavor and leave some of that pretty stuff going.
Bam Bam:Pretty well made cigar though.
Senator:Yeah, the construction is great. I mean, all of our, well.
Gizmo:Wow, the timing on that, Senator. Unbelievable. In two forty some odd episodes, I've never seen better timing than that. As you were commenting,
Senator:my ash just
Gizmo:fell off as you were saying it.
Bam Bam:Well, it's on the floor.
Gizmo:Well, I hit my jeans first.
Bam Bam:All right.
Gizmo:Wow. Incredible timing.
Senator:That aside, all of them are burning evenly. The draw on mine has just a little resistance, like the perfect amount. The smoke output is good. Construction wise, I think it's really sharp.
Rooster:For me, I don't know if the tobaccos need a little more age. I feel like the cigar is a bit not only dry, it's also rough. It's a
Bam Bam:little harsh. Well, that's where the pepper comes in. It came in for me earlier, but I think slowing down the pace helps a lot.
Senator:Yeah, I would slow down because I'm not getting much harshness right
Gizmo:now. I'm not either. I find it actually to be the pretty smooth affair right now. I will say again, I'm impressed for $10 how much tobacco is in this and how much smoke it's putting off. I feel like it's going to get real smoky in here tonight.
Gizmo:That's true. All right, boys, let's talk about some news now. This is going to be an interesting story, not just in cigars, but just here in The United States, period. Nine cigar manufacturers have sued The United States for more than $10,000,000 in FDA user fee refunds. So some of the most popular cigar companies in The US have filed a lawsuit seeking refunds from the user fees the company has paid to the FDA for seven years between 2016 and 2023.
Gizmo:Of course, then Judge Mehta came in, of course, and wiped out the FDA's oversight of premium cigars, and now they're looking to get their money back. So nine companies suing for $10,000,000 in user fees and interest. The companies are Arturo Fuente, Ashton, CLE, JC Newman, Aleva, Lafor Dominicano, my father, Padron, and Rocky Patel. Eight of the nine, all but Christian Eroz company, are members of the Cigar Rights of America Board, the trade organization that helped pay for a previous lawsuit that made this new lawsuit possible. So it was a decade long battle, of course, wrapping up with Judge Mehta's ruling.
Gizmo:Three cigar trade organizations sued the FDA over its 2016 era, deeming regulations, arguing, amongst other things, that the agency failed to follow legally required procedures regarding evaluating whether certain handmade cigars later defined as, quote, premium cigars. As we know, there's specific definitions to that laid out and Judge Mehta approved, whereas harmful and of interest to underage users as cigars more broadly. So I think it's interesting that that's a pretty big number given that the cigar companies were charged only 5 to 10¢ per cigar.
Bam Bam:That's massive.
Gizmo:So you think about
Bam Bam:The volume.
Gizmo:The volume of cigars resulting in $10,000,000 in fees and interest I hope going they back win. Seven
Bam Bam:And I hope they get their money back.
Gizmo:I mean, think they're gonna have to win, right? Senator, am I crazy in thinking that?
Pagoda:I hope I get my money back. I've been paying Correct.
Gizmo:I don't think you're gonna get your money back.
Senator:That they should win?
Gizmo:I think they're gonna win. Would think How would they not? But I think it's gonna be a long battle, right? Probably. I mean, they'll probably cost them a million or 2 to get to 10.
Bam Bam:Well, if Pagoda joins in, they're definitely gonna win.
Gizmo:So we'll keep our eye on that. I find that to be interesting. I'm sure the prices of cigars are gonna go down if they all win by about 5 to 10¢, BAM. Let's go on to another one now. New release here, and this is actually going to tie into something that we're going to talk about later.
Gizmo:Senator mentioned it very briefly at the end of an episode a couple weeks ago. JJ Fox has announced the James J Fox Seleccion coming to The United Kingdom and Ireland. Of course, our friend Rob Fox there. James J Fox is pleased to introduce the new James J Fox Seleccion exclusive to The UK and Ireland according to Cigar Journal. The cigar will be launched at their 19 Saint James Street store, and it was at the end of June.
Gizmo:It will be available to purchase thereafter from Saint James or Selfridges stores. They will then be introduced to Ireland early July and an event in Dublin. So these cigars are available in three sizes. The Seleccion number seven is a Duke 54 by five and a half. The Seleccion number four is a Corona Gorda like the mag forty six forty six by five and five eights.
Gizmo:And the Seleccion number one is a Petite Robusto 50 by four inches. And the prices on those are £35, £29, £25 respectively. Of course, prices over there are pretty crazy. So this is a continuation of the Fox House Blend aiming aiming to create a cigar with a new blend and presentation while keeping the philosophy of flavor and commitment to quality. Now why is this interesting, boys?
Gizmo:Not just because of Rob Fox. Of course, this is only exclusive to folks over in The UK and Ireland. But these cigars, of course, are being made at the Fabrica Five factory in Donnelly, Honduras. Of course. Wow.
Gizmo:Overseen by master blender Hamlet Paredes. So if you love Fabrica five, if you love Bon Roberts like we all do here, here's three new sizes that are not available currently except for the Petite Robusto. Not available currently in those other two lines. Three new sizes available coming out of that fabric of five factory to the JJ Fox specification available over there. So if you get over to The UK or Ireland, there's some cigars to look for now that don't have a Cuban band on them.
Bam Bam:That is very, very cool.
Gizmo:Isn't that cool?
Bam Bam:Quite the arrangement. I'm proud of them.
Gizmo:It's Pretty awesome. That's awesome. So apparently, these are inspired by the original presentation of the Cuban boxes. The Seleccion series are housed in slide lid boxes, finished with a yellow ribbon drawn across the top row of cigars and fixed onto the short side of the box with a dress stud. Each box is stamped specially selected by James J.
Gizmo:Fox London and Dublin. The boxes also have a seal reminiscent of the Cuban warranty seals first seen on Havana cigars in 1889, a hundred years before our friend bought Gurkha, actually. However, the Fox Alexion seal is decorated with the facades of their two flagship stores, 19 Saint James Street and 119 Grafton Street. So pretty cool. They also come with a flyer inside explaining the story of JJ Fox printed in a couple different languages.
Gizmo:So congratulations to our friend Rob Fox. We really enjoyed spending time with him when he was here with us and his team over at JJ Fox. Are we gonna be able to buy them
Rooster:on fabrica I don't think
Gizmo:they're gonna be on fabrica005.com, but if you get over there, you can certainly find them.
Bam Bam:Very cool.
Gizmo:So congrats to those guys. And like I said, that's going to tease up something else I want to talk about. The senator mentioned a couple weeks ago, the new private label being offered by fabric of five that he talked about. So I want to get to that a little bit later. Let's go to another news story now, boys.
Gizmo:I found this one very interesting. And I think you guys are going to, too. Apparently, Cuba's farmers are rushing to sell their land due to the deepening crisis. To whom? So the fuel ban has hampered food production with some produce being left to rot in the fields.
Gizmo:So this is coming from Financial Times, Feet. Desperate Cuban farmers are trying to sell land at knockdown prices as the fuel blockade hampers harvest and has left some produce rotting in the fields on the island. It's been suffering blackouts, of course, as we know. We've talked many times about it lasting up to twenty two hours a day since the government ran out of oil and diesel. And then, of course, without fuel for irrigation, tractors, or deliveries, dozens of people are now advertising their farms for sale on social media.
Gizmo:So Juan, one of the farmers, and I guess that's not his real name, has a tractor, a yoke of oxen, and seven and a half hectares in one of Central Cuba's most prominent agricultural regions, some of which is planted with cassava. I don't know what that is.
Rooster:It's yucca. Yucca.
Gizmo:Yucca, okay.
Chef Ricky:Yeah, cassava.
Bam Bam:Cassava, correct.
Gizmo:It's all for sale, guess how much? Seven and a half hectares. Guess how much it's selling for?
Bam Bam:$10.
Rooster:$149? $8,000
Gizmo:Agoda, let's go.
Rooster:Let's buy
Gizmo:something like Seven and a half hectares?
Bam Bam:Sounds good. Crazy. You know, it just continues to get worse and worse there. I don't know how this country can survive with this.
Pagoda:How? You know, we can go there and change our last name. You know what it is.
Bam Bam:Seriously, though, how is Cuba going to get over this crisis? It just continues to get deeper and deeper.
Gizmo:So, the median monthly income right now with inflation factored in is below $10.
Bam Bam:And there's a food scarcity and produce is rotting on the vine as we speak.
Gizmo:On state owned mango farms, the fruit is rotting because there is no reasonable means of transport to get the mangoes off of the trees No and to the
Bam Bam:fuel.
Gizmo:So it's a real terrible thing. I thought that was pretty crazy that you can buy seven and a half hectares of Cuban land for $8,000 Unbelievable. So we'll talk a little bit more about Cuba next week. We're gonna do a Cuban episode next week. So we'll talk more about what's going on in Cuba, some new releases and whatnot.
Gizmo:But I wanted to share that one. I just thought that was pretty crazy.
Bam Bam:That's
Gizmo:sad. Economically, and it's just I just can't believe that that's able to happen. You know? Unbelievable. Yeah.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. It's time now to go to our pairing. We have a wine tonight from the makers at Duckhorn. This is called the Paraduxx, and it's a proprietary red blend from 2022. Cheers, boys.
Gizmo:Cheers. Good to see you. Pagoda, welcome back.
Pagoda:Cheers. Thank you.
Gizmo:So I picked this bottle up. I actually called Senator because I saw it at Bottle King for $20 marked down from nearly $50 Couldn't believe it.
Rooster:I looked It's online
Senator:not the real price. It's usually $40
Gizmo:But still, seeing it at $20 was pretty crazy. And I looked online and other places were selling it between $40 and $50 So here we are tonight.
Bam Bam:Yeah, it's nice. There's a touch of tartness there.
Gizmo:Yeah, just the French.
Bam Bam:Unusual. That's not always enjoyable for me.
Gizmo:I don't love it. I certainly don't think it tastes like a $40, $50 bottle of wine at all. Right? I think it tastes closer to a
Bam Bam:Oh, I can see it growing on me, though.
Gizmo:Yeah. I'm not loving it right now. We're just starting I'll reserve judgment. Yeah. Exactly.
Bam Bam:I think it'll get better.
Gizmo:Senator, what do you think?
Senator:I would say give it time. I mean, I've had this before. I've never been a big fan of it. I think it's a perfectly fine bottle, but you need to drink it a bit to start to appreciate it more. I'm not going to I don't want to spoil anyone's opinion by giving my own yet.
Senator:Mhmm.
Gizmo:So Paraduxx is an offshoot, of course, of Duckhorn, which is a very famous I'd say one of the most famous here in The United States brands of red wine. Yeah. Would you agree
Bam Bam:with that?
Senator:I've been to their vineyard. It's beautiful. I mean, Duckhorn has historically made amazing wine. They wisely over a year's time branched out and tried to have some like more accessibly priced labels because Duckhorn like their stuff starts at 50 and goes up from there. And you know, the first like big budget line they had put out was Decoy.
Senator:You'd find that in almost any wine shop or liquor store. When it first came out, it was good for like a $20 bottle of wine. Think now I don't really enjoy it. This was meant to be since it's a blend, it's not, you know, 100% cab, meant to be a bit more affordable, like fuller, richer expression that you might pair with like a more substantial meal or just casual drinking like we're doing right now with a cigar, but just with some more complexity than like a decoy for sure. Another one they have like green wing.
Senator:You may see that on like a lot of restaurant menus now, kind of in this family. So they've done a really nice job of just making wine at a variety of price points where years ago it was just duck corn and you needed to pay a premium for it.
Bam Bam:I got to say, the wine and the cigar on their own are fine. But they pair beautifully.
Gizmo:They really do. I think the wine is actually making the cigar pop a little bit.
Bam Bam:Oh yeah.
Chef Ricky:And I think the cigar is complimenting the
Gizmo:I wine as agree.
Chef Ricky:Yeah, the wine is what I love about this wine right now is its richness. It's very full bodied, way it coats the palate. It's needed with the cigar because it almost protects you from the those peppery and the harshness that we're getting.
Bam Bam:And the slight dryness you're getting from the cigar.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. So and then I'm just getting like there's even some like dark chocolate here on the finish of the wine.
Bam Bam:After you take a draw.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. No, even before, but when you take a draw, it's a beautiful.
Bam Bam:I think the cigar blossoms with this particular wine. Very nice. Think a lot
Chef Ricky:of the tartness is coming from like currants or blackberry notes I or something like
Bam Bam:think they're pairing nicely together, very nicely. Surprising actually.
Chef Ricky:It's almost like you planned this, guys.
Senator:I did. The only other things I'll just add on Paraduxx that I think is worth mentioning, the name Paradux meant to be Paradoxx in that a lot of their blends, it's about delivering unexpected flavors. They are the only Napa winery that exclusively produces blends. They don't have a single grape varietal of any bottle, and their blends can be crazy. I mean, they say that they'll put up to 13 different red grapes in a blend.
Senator:So they love experimenting. It's something different. I've heard they actually play around with a lot of Syrah, which is a grape I don't particularly like. But if there is Syrah in this, which I wouldn't be surprised, I think they've actually done a very good job of taming it. It's not overly sweet.
Senator:It's not too jammy. So they know what they're doing. The flavor profile to me is pretty straightforward at a $40 price point. That would be my one complaint.
Bam Bam:I think the key, the last two words, it's not jammy and it's not overly sweet. Most blends that I've had seem gimmicky, and they're just overly sweet to kind of mimic what they've had to do to make it drinkable.
Chef Ricky:But this definitely has Cab grapes in it.
Senator:It's got a yeah.
Gizmo:Is I do have the blend
Chef Ricky:for it. Feel like that's where that richness is coming from.
Senator:Yeah. I mean, I'd have to imagine Cab and Syrah are probably the two biggest, is it?
Gizmo:Cab is, Syrah is not. Okay. So I'll give you the the whole thing, and this is specific to the 2022 vintage.
Senator:Oh, that's true because every year they
Gizmo:change Every year they change it. So they change it every year to try to create an excellent profile. Guess it's almost like we've talked about in the past. There's a lot of parallels to cigars here, especially in what these folks are doing and other folks making these crazy blends out in California. They're kind of taking different strains of tobacco like these manufacturers do and turning into something interesting.
Gizmo:So the blend on this 2022 vintage of Paraduxx is 49% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 10% Zinfandel, 8% Petite Syrah, 8% Petite Verdot, 5% Syrah, 5%.
Senator:Grape I was talking about was Zinfandel, not Syrah. So that's 10%. Zinfandel is what I usually hate. I'm not surprised that 15% of this is that, but they've tamed it. Zinfandel is the one I was describing as like super sweet, super jammy.
Senator:I do I have never had a 100% Zinfandel that I've enjoyed. Actually, maybe there's one exception to that. Frog's Leap actually has an interesting Zinfandel, but they've done a they've done a pretty good job. The other thing I'll just say on this vintage, when I've obviously had other vintages, not this one, this is definitely better than other ones I've had in the past. So I'm at least glad that that's the case.
Bam Bam:The tartness has completely vanished for me. I think it's drinking quite nice.
Gizmo:And I think it's pairing great with the cigar. Agree. So this wine spends typically about eighteen months in oak, French oak, and around 40% of those barrels are new, depending on the vintage. The aromas we should be expecting, I'm going to run through them. Black cherry, blackberry, currant, blueberry, baking spices, vanilla, cocoa, cedar and sweet oak.
Gizmo:On the palate, ripe, dark fruit, medium plus to full body, velvety tannins, lively acidity, and spice on the finish.
Senator:Spice. I think the notes on the nose, if you smell this, are spot on.
Pagoda:Yeah. The way
Gizmo:Do you think the notes on the palate are
Senator:Yeah, think they're accurate, but I think even if you look at how many descriptors there were for the nose versus what you actually get on your palate, it goes to how straightforward I think the wine actually drinks.
Bam Bam:I like the blackberry and current descriptions. It's pretty accurate.
Chef Ricky:I like the chocolate in here.
Bam Bam:And the cocoa in the finish. Yeah.
Gizmo:So what's interesting about this is that in 2025, this is going to answer the question as to why it was so cheap, Senator, The company announced that it was being sold to private equity firm Butterfly Equity in an all cash deal that values the business at $1,950,000,000.
Chef Ricky:What?
Gizmo:And with that, the company announced that it will concentrate investments on Duckhorn, Costa Brown, Decoy, Sonoma Cutrer. Sonoma Cutrer. Cutrer. I'm trying. I'm really trying.
Senator:They make good stuff. I like their Pinot.
Gizmo:Along with Golden Eye, Calera, and the one the other one you mentioned, Greenwing.
Senator:Golden Eye, we've also done on the pod. Really? Yeah. I don't remember that. It was the Golden Eye Pinot because I had that on my Thanksgiving menu one year.
Senator:So I brought it for the pod for us to try.
Gizmo:I'll pull the rating on that before we get to our ratings. The brands that I just listed are 96% of Duckhorn's total sales.
Bam Bam:Wow.
Gizmo:So with that, Duckhorn is discontinuing underperforming brands like Canvasback, Migration, Postmark, and the one we're drinking tonight, Paraduxx. So this has been discontinued as of 2025.
Senator:Amazing. Because Canvasback, I've also had, which I forgot, is another more accessible bottle that they came out with. I've never enjoyed it, and this I've never been crazy about. So I whoever's making these decisions, think is at least doing the right things. This though, this particular vintage, no joke, is much, much better than other ones I've had.
Senator:So it's kind of a shame that they didn't figure out this blend earlier because I actually think this would have sold a lot better if this was one of their earliest vintages. But I think the earlier stuff was really not great, and that's what's put them in that spot.
Bam Bam:Can you remind me how much that bottle is?
Gizmo:MSRP is 56. Normally, it's being sold for 40. We got it for $20 a bottle tonight on sale. And I think that's because Bottle King probably bought pallets of it and is trying to blow it out.
Bam Bam:Great price.
Gizmo:And I'm sure it's close to what If they paid for
Senator:this were always $20, for $20 this is very good. But for $40 this is way too straightforward an affair.
Bam Bam:Correct. For $20 though.
Senator:And for 56, that's like criminal. Sorry. There's a zillion bottles at 50 plus that are way better than this.
Gizmo:So apparently the brands that I mentioned being discontinued, including this one, are only 3.9% of Duckhorn's gross profit. So that's pretty wild. So this is also an interesting thing that I want to parallel to the cigar that we're smoking tonight in that the MSRP is, like Senator said, number one, not accurate to the value you're getting out of the bottle. But Gurkha also does that same kind of thing where the MSRP on a cigar is $40 and all of a sudden you're seeing it on Cigar Page or Cigars International for $7 Like Gurkha's always on sale. And I think that hurts brands when they do that.
Gizmo:They mark up the MSRP so much to then discount it. And I think that's why Apothic and The Prisoner and some of these other blends have kicked this thing's ass.
Chef Ricky:Yeah,
Gizmo:because, know, it's
Bam Bam:just so sweet and hard to drink.
Gizmo:But I think for the folks that are reaching for those kind of wines at that price, I mean, they're going to win on this and plus the marketing too, especially on the person
Rooster:going to discontinue the cigar.
Gizmo:I don't think they're gonna discontinue this one, it's one of their core lines, but they certainly have discontinued many others.
Bam Bam:Now is that $10,000 cigar on sale that they have?
Gizmo:We're gonna talk about that in a little bit, because they have a lot
Chef Ricky:of them. I'm really interested in understanding how much revenue this company brings in now considering the guy who bought it for $149 Yeah. Sounds like a George Steinbrenner New York Yankee thing to me.
Gizmo:I think it is. Obviously it's not public knowledge.
Chef Ricky:Oh, not.
Gizmo:No, how many cigars they're making or selling.
Bam Bam:Really?
Gizmo:But they're they've gotta be selling a lot. Look at their booth at PCA.
Chef Ricky:It's massive.
Gizmo:I don't know who's buying it, but look at the booth.
Bam Bam:It's massive. Massive.
Gizmo:It's crazy.
Bam Bam:And a bit desolate.
Gizmo:We're coming to the end of the first third here, boys, on the Gurkha Nicaragua Series in Toro and the Paraduxx Proprietary Blend from 2022. What's everybody thinking right now?
Rooster:I don't know. I'm not sold on the cigar. I'm not feeling it. It's not great. It's just kind of blah for me.
Rooster:I'm not picking very distinct notes. I'm not getting that berry. I'm not getting a whole lot of cocoa. It's a bit boring right now.
Chef Ricky:I could only imagine. I think without the wine, this is a very
Gizmo:Yeah, I should
Rooster:start drinking
Bam Bam:That's honestly the problem That is a challenge tonight.
Senator:I'll just say one thing. I am in the cigar, I'm now getting more milk chocolate, which I think we got on the cold draw, like a semi sweet chocolate, and then it went like super dark and there was no sweetness. It's picking up some sweetness, which is making this a little bit more interesting, but I'm not getting a bunch of notes. I'm not getting much.
Gizmo:I agree, it's pleasant, but it's not definite. It's not defined.
Bam Bam:That's exactly what I was gonna say. It's nice to smoke, it's easy to smoke.
Chef Ricky:It's safe.
Bam Bam:It's safe, great word. Not a toilet paper word, but good. And the pairing is really quite good.
Chef Ricky:I wish it were a little cheaper, because this would be a perfect cigar to give to someone that may be around you when you're smoking and wants to give something a shot, you may not want to give them a $15 stick or something along those lines.
Gizmo:It's $9.70
Chef Ricky:to Yeah, some some people.
Gizmo:It's a single digit cigar.
Bam Bam:This is
Rooster:don't think it's the price
Senator:Jeff has some friends that aren't worth the $9 Clearly.
Chef Ricky:Well, I mean, yes, But also we've had cigars that are much better in this for less. Right?
Gizmo:I don't
Rooster:think you want to give a newbie a cigar of this size. 54 range Toro. I mean, you don't.
Senator:Yeah, this is too big for a novice. What other sizes does this come in?
Gizmo:So like the Robusto? Also comes in a Robusto 52 by five, not 50 by five. The Magnum, which is a Gordo 60 by six, and a Bellicoso 52 by six and an eighth. This Toro rounds it out 54
Senator:by six. I mean, if the Robusto smokes like this for a novice smoker, I feel like this would be a very accessible, easygoing cigar for them to start with.
Bam Bam:Yeah. You know, I was expecting a punch in the face and it's pretty nice to smoke.
Gizmo:Gurkha says this is one of the strongest cigars they make.
Bam Bam:Get the heck out of town. What? Really? What are we doing?
Gizmo:So with that being said, where would you guys put the
Bam Bam:They need a new marketing department.
Gizmo:Strength and body on this thing.
Senator:Well, I'm gonna speak for Rooster, and for that reason, he's out. I mean, jeez.
Bam Bam:I think it's fairly medium. Yeah.
Senator:I think it's super medium. I mean, Nothing even approaching medium full whatsoever is at most medium.
Gizmo:I agree, at most. I even think on the light it might have been lighter than medium.
Bam Bam:But I also kind of get Rooster's comments, It's kind of hard to put your thumb on what this cigar wants to be, as easy as it is to smoke. And that'll kind of play itself out toward the end of the night, I think.
Rooster:Yeah, mean, try to picture this with I'm not drinking the wine that you guys are having, which is obviously helping the whole experience. If you're just smoking this cigar with a glass of water.
Bam Bam:Yeah, correct.
Chef Ricky:Yeah, this isn't a cigar that makes you think.
Bam Bam:It'd be a good golf course cigar. Exactly.
Rooster:Yeah, I'm not getting distinct notes where
Bam Bam:you see
Rooster:this brand. Hard to pick.
Bam Bam:For their strongest cigar that they make and there's
Rooster:nothing dominating.
Bam Bam:It's quite easy.
Gizmo:All right, boys, let's go back to the Gurkha story. I want to talk about a couple more things here, including this marketing thing I think is fascinating. So apparently, Kaysad, when he came into this, obviously had no idea about cigars or the cigar industry, began studying the market, trying to figure out a way to break through with Gurkha. This is, of course, in the nineties. Wasn't long before he realized that there wasn't a market yet for a really upscale cigar.
Gizmo:So that's what he went for. Cutting to the core of his philosophy of collecting unique swords, firearms and luxury watches. He came into this in the nineties and I think invented the packaging and the story of cigars being primary for the marketing efforts. And I think that's really what kind of hurt Gurkha in the long run. I mean, think about the stigma surrounding them, the marketing thing.
Gizmo:You always joke about marketing. We've talked about this ad nauseam with Davidoff and the pivot they've made into this kind of model that the packaging and the promotion around it is paramount to the actual blends.
Bam Bam:It's over the top, and Gurkha always has come off as a bit of a gimmicky line of cigars from the point of view of how they present them. Now, I will say this box of cigars, the box itself is really quite handsome. It's understated, black, very faint gold or yellow. It's really beautifully designed and the cigars look great. They hit the mark on this box, I think, but all their other stuff, if you look at it, it's outrageous.
Bam Bam:Crazy.
Pagoda:Yeah. Why do you keep saying it's hurt them? We have no idea, really.
Gizmo:But it's hurt them as far as the stigma around their brand. Like have you ever heard anyone say anything positive about Gurkha anywhere that you've been sitting?
Pagoda:Not in our circles, but what's really interesting is for a cigar brand to survive, what, thirty years, and have one of the larger booths in PCA for the last few years. We know that they're doing something.
Senator:None of us have seen in any cigar lounge in the last five years a single person sitting there smoking a Gurkha cigar. And so there's plenty of brands that have boosted PCA that we're often confused by and, you know, people that will pour money in even when business is not doing so well. There's no way that this brand is performing well. It's just not Like any brand that's performing, you have to see the product actually being consumed out in the marketplace, and this is not a brand that you see anybody smoke, talk about, regularly purchase, any of the above, and I think that's a big problem
Gizmo:for I think as we've separated in the past cigar smokers and people who smoke cigars, I think this is a primary brand for people who smoke cigars. I think this is a big first box purchase for that newbie cigar smoker, knows the name Gurkha, probably buys Cohiba as well.
Senator:Or comes in
Gizmo:sampler packs, stuff Sampler like packs, etcetera, etcetera, from the big online retailers.
Senator:But none of the volume consumers that actually drive this industry
Gizmo:purchase Gurkha. It's a constant search for new customers, because I can't imagine there's a lot of repeat business once folks actually get into
Bam Bam:You're the making an interesting point, which we talked about earlier. In smoking cigars for just under twenty years, I know that's just a drop in a bucket, Rooster. I don't ever remember seeing a Gurkha smoked anywhere. I haven't ever seen a Gurkha smoked in any establishment. From here to California and overseas.
Rooster:When somebody mentions the word Gurkha, what image what do you think of that brand?
Gizmo:Gaudy. Trash. Trash. Like yeah. There's a there's an absolute stigma on it.
Bam Bam:Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
Senator:I'm sorry. Like, you know, we talked to plenty of the owners of these different brands. I mean, they talk about other competitors. They have a lot of respect even for a lot of their competitors. There's not a single person that we've spoken with that has even mentioned or remotely cares about Gurkha.
Senator:They're irrelevant to them.
Rooster:Yeah. So at this point, why not rename that brand?
Bam Bam:Let's just drop the cigar and leave.
Gizmo:So I was doing some searching online because I wanted to see what this conversation was about their marketing. I found two comments that I thought were really interesting. Number one, the cigars of $400 value, now only $69. And another one that was Gurkha is permanently on sale.
Bam Bam:Yeah.
Gizmo:You know, so it's almost like, you know, my wife thinks about, like, Kohl's or TJ Maxx. She likes to go in and see the tag with one number, and then it's crossed out and there's a cheaper number.
Bam Bam:That's a great analogy.
Gizmo:I feel like this is the TJ Maxx or Kohl's of the cigar world. Mhmm. Like, the way that my wife thinks about that, the cigar folks that are buying this see that as, I guess, a good thing. But for cigar smokers, guys like us, community in the communities that we're in, I don't think that
Chef Ricky:Cigar professionals. Don't know.
Senator:I I also just think, like, the the brand has is intention with itself in the fact that Gurkha's claim to fame for decades was we have the most expensive cigar in the world. I mean they've claimed to have some cigar that was literally a million dollars plus
Gizmo:I have the details on it, we're gonna get into it.
Senator:So like you have hear that as a consumer, and so cigar people like us hear that and say like, okay, that's a brand trying to be an ultra premium brand. So we all have a standard for an ultra premium brand. And then in the same breath, they're like, and buy our cigars for on sale for $8.99 a stick. Those are wildly different things all coming from the same brand. That would be like Davidoff under its Davidoff label selling like a $6 cigar.
Senator:They're never going to do that. That's correct. Davidoff has Camacho and other lines
Gizmo:They've separated.
Senator:That are more budget friendly. And if Gurkha were smarter, I think like that is the only way you can do that. You know, Mercedes Benz is never gonna come out with a $20,000 car with a Mercedes logo on it. That's just silly. It hurts the brand.
Senator:So I just think that Gurkha has, since its inception it sounds like almost, been in tension with itself, and at some point you have to recognize you're clearly not capturing the ultra premium cigar smoker, because we can't think of a single person in years that we've even seen in a cigar
Gizmo:launch I've never so seen one like you said, Bill. Mhmm.
Senator:So if you're gonna try and capture that market, you need a new brand that is not named Gurkha, and what most of the brand is, are these cigars that are on sale for $10 or less in a catalog from a giant online retailer. That's about it.
Gizmo:Yeah. I don't think there's anyone who's paid full retail for Gurkha in twenty five years.
Bam Bam:Can't comment on that, but I don't like the fact that they're not disclosing their sales volume. So they're very mysterious.
Chef Ricky:I found a number on Google AI. Did you?
Gizmo:But I don't think those things are accurate.
Senator:Yeah, and in fairness,
Gizmo:Because all even like of Padron, we're guessing about what Padron's numbers are a guess, and Fuente's numbers are a They're
Senator:private businesses, they have no reason to disclose That's true.
Chef Ricky:It's still estimating about $6,500,000 based off of eight to 12,000,000 cigars sold annually.
Bam Bam:And then how many million dollar cigars are they selling in
Gizmo:Six. Six.
Bam Bam:That's their total annual income.
Gizmo:So, you know, like we're saying, to be set up as a luxury brand and then to constantly be on sale
Bam Bam:You have to admit though, it's smoking fairly well. I have no It's Yeah, there's no general complaints. I can't say that it's an awful cigar, but because you can't pee, you just don't know what it is.
Chef Ricky:You know what my complaint is? We're almost an hour into this, and I'm not halfway through this cigar, and I'm nervous about that. I'm nervous that I have to sit for another hour and a half with this cigar.
Gizmo:Is this so terrible?
Chef Ricky:Not this. Not us. Not what happens in this room. Mhmm. But what's happening in my hand.
Gizmo:Thanks. Listen, if you have to put it down, do a pooba and light something else.
Chef Ricky:I can't do that.
Gizmo:Good man. So let's talk about some of their lines, boys. Some of the ones that folks, I guess, mentioned more than others on the Internet based on my research. The seller reserve, the ghost, the heritage, The Year of the series, of course, The Revenant, The Treinta, and The Marquesa. And then, of course, the Nicaragua Series that we have in our hand, thanks to Lizard Luigi.
Gizmo:And then, of course, The World's Most Expensive Cigars. So for a couple $100, you can get His Majesty's Reserve, which apparently might be their most famous, reportedly incorporates Louis the thirteenth cognac into into the tobacco.
Bam Bam:Well, there you go.
Rooster:That explains it.
Senator:Arnold Schwarzenegger would love that.
Chef Ricky:Oh,
Gizmo:yeah. Hundreds of dollars there. The Black Dragon, boxes selling for tens of thousands. Presentation includes handcrafted chests and extremely limited production. And finally, the Gurkha Royal Courtesan costing $1,360,000 a cigar.
Chef Ricky:Get the
Rooster:fuck out of cigar. Correct.
Pagoda:How many of sold?
Chef Ricky:It's ridiculous.
Gizmo:Why didn't we do that on Handmade the in the you're gonna love this. Handmade in The Dominican Republic and Honduras. By naked women? Each cigar is filled with a rare Himalayan tobacco that's been watered with Fiji water.
Bam Bam:Are they rolling it on their hands? Oh, okay.
Senator:That Fiji water, that it's a $100 sorry, a million dollars a bottle. Mean Of course.
Gizmo:It is then wrapped with a gold leaf held by a diamond studded band worth five carats before it's infused with Remy Martin's Black Pearl, Louie the thirteenth, going for $224,000 a bottle. This is the best part. All of the cigars' artisans are made to work blindfolded. As to avoid distractions.
Bam Bam:We need to end this session.
Chef Ricky:I love it.
Gizmo:And only a select few hand rollers are permitted to roll the cigars. 1,360,000. Who's bought it? I have no idea.
Bam Bam:Have they sold anything?
Senator:Probably not. I mean, if they were, I'm sure they'd be touting it.
Bam Bam:I think someone in Dubai may have bought that.
Chef Ricky:I'd say we could have bought a bulk episode out.
Senator:Bam probably has one in his tower.
Gizmo:They also correct. Right after we get the episode inventory by sheet?
Bam Bam:I cut it in seven sections. I smoke one a month.
Gizmo:200,000 a section? Correct. They also have the HRH. I guess that's the His Royal Highness MSRP on that. It's $350,000.
Gizmo:Now we're talking. That's Crafted crafted well, you know, never pay full retail for Gurkha. This one's down.
Rooster:That's not bad.
Gizmo:Quite a discount. Crafted for the true cigar connoisseur. This exceptional private blend embodies luxury, rarity, and uncompromising craftsmanship. You have to contact them directly if you'd like to purchase any of these cigars. So anyone out there in Lizard Nation who's looking for any of these cigars, just go to their website, you could fill out the form, and get your really expensive Gurkha's.
Pagoda:They're just looking for the grade of four. They said, why don't you contact us and we'll make one for you? I like that
Chef Ricky:Exactly. Music Correct. Can't wait for that one listener to write in saying we're being too harsh. They actually had that cigar and it was phenomenal. So
Gizmo:I do wanna say a couple positive things here coming off this marketing discussion with them because like I said, I think it's a really interesting thing that they've done here. I think it probably prompted what happened with Opus X, you know, from a marketing and branding standpoint in the 90s, of course during the cigar boom. I'm sure a lot of those brands that are no longer around were trying to reach for what Gurkha was doing at that high price point cigar. And then, of course, I think the story fell apart after the cigar boom and then the stigma around it. And again, I think, you know, I don't think there's a lot of repeat buyers on these cigars once they get into them.
Gizmo:I mean, I can understand someone liking this one, but for $14.17, $20, no. And certainly for more than that, no way.
Bam Bam:Do we have listeners that smoke these?
Gizmo:Lizard Luigi sent us this box, and we have at least one. But I would love to hear if there's more out there who like other Gurkha's.
Bam Bam:Yeah, or if they've seen Gurkha's smoked at their cigar shops. I'd like to hear from them.
Gizmo:So I want to say a couple cool things about Gurkha here that I like. So the story of the name Gurkha. So apparently, Gurkha soldiers, as I said, who inspired the British troops, they carry forward a legacy shaped by generations of valor and service. Revered around the world for their discipline, resilience, and steadfast devotion to duty, they represent one of the most distinguished traditions in military history. From historic battlefields to modern operations, their decorated record reflects a level of excellence few forces have achieved.
Gizmo:With the legendary I don't know how to pronounce this guy's Kukri?
Pagoda:Kukri.
Gizmo:At their side, Gurkhas continue to embody the strength, honor, and loyalty that define their enduring reputation. So apparently in 1816, Great Britain formally began recruiting Gurkha soldiers, establishing Nepal as its oldest ally in Asia. By the mid twentieth century, Gurkha regiments had earned more than 2,500 awards around the world for their extraordinary bravery during World War II. Renowned for unmatched skill in close combat, Gurkha soldiers are rarely seen without their iconic weapon, the Kukri. The national blade of Nepal.
Gizmo:This distinctive recurve knife developed in South Asia centuries ago combines the versatility of a machete and the power of an axe. Typically measuring 10 to 15 inches long. Its uniquely shaped blade allows it to serve both as a practical tool and a formidable weapon, reflecting the strength and reputation of the warriors who carry it. And with that being said, I love this, and I really want to shout this out. They have what they call a veteran membership, which I guess veterans around the world, anybody who served in armed forces can go to Gurkha, fill out their membership application, and I guess you get swag, deals, whatever it may be.
Gizmo:But I do like seeing that. Yeah. It's highlighted on their site.
Bam Bam:That's
Gizmo:nice. You know, veterans have access to different cooler stuff, I guess, from Gurkha, and less expensive. So kudos to those. Goose, are
Senator:you shopping for some Gurkha? He's gonna have one of swords or
Chef Ricky:It's funny. I am actually looking at what a Kukri looks like, and it's a pretty cool looking blade.
Pagoda:It is.
Gizmo:So you guys have heard of this before? You've heard of Gurkha's before? Mhmm. Yeah. What have you heard about them?
Gizmo:Are they kind of like Seal Team six from the eighteen hundreds?
Senator:What I have Tell us, mister.
Rooster:What I have known about the Gurkha's.
Gizmo:I didn't mean the eighteen hundreds thing. I just meant the history.
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah.
Rooster:They're the warrior class. They're super disciplined.
Bam Bam:Are they Sikhs?
Pagoda:They're not Sikhs. Nepali.
Rooster:They're from the Himalayan region, so they're super fit because they live up in the mountains. They have incredible lung capacity. They can walk for days on end. So that's why they were great warriors. So this dagger thing, the quirky thing, that's why the British employed them.
Rooster:It's a
Bam Bam:real thing, yeah.
Pagoda:Interesting. I'm an army brat, meaning we have a lot of Gurkha rifles. Really? Yeah, all over the army.
Gizmo:No kidding.
Pagoda:So they're huge regiments.
Rooster:Special branch of the
Bam Bam:Don't break into Pagoda's house.
Pagoda:Please don't, I'll take a cookery and just chop off.
Senator:Don't worry, he doesn't know how to use them.
Bam Bam:Also, He'll call one of us. Hey guys, how do you load a bullet here?
Chef Ricky:He won't be able to find them.
Gizmo:So pretty cool on the story of Gurkha there. The marketing exercise is fascinating. I really think that they normalized like crazy cigar packaging, like ultra crazy pricing, the luxury boxes and presentation, limited editions, you know, calling themselves a lifestyle brand well before anybody else. So I think they're responsible for some of the stuff that we kind of despise around the industry.
Rooster:I don't know. I think there's a bit of a disconnect with the name. Interesting. Gurkha is supposed to be something of an elite class, elite men of men. In the regimen, they are like the elite warriors.
Rooster:And if you're using that name for this cigar, it's a bit of a disconnect, I think. You're doing a disservice to the brand by calling it a Gurkha.
Bam Bam:You should call it the Bam Bam regimen.
Gizmo:Do you think if they I think you mentioned this, Senator, like Davidoff has Xeno.
Pagoda:No one wants to see a blade.
Chef Ricky:Trust me.
Gizmo:Zeno, Avo. There's, you know, Kamchatka. We have a bunch of different lines. Right? Do you think that Gurkha could somehow resurrect, in the eyes of guys like us, the name Gurkha, or kind of reset it?
Gizmo:Or do you think that they need to lower that to a lower standard and come out with something else? Like, how can they fix this?
Senator:I don't think there's any way to resurrect Gurkha in terms of like elevate the brand. I think they need to accept that they have made this a budget brand. Right? All these MSRPs are fake numbers. They sell all their cigars only to online retailers at very cheap prices.
Senator:There's no way to suddenly take that and make this this elite brand that is in line with Davidoff, Padron, you know, markets like that. So I think they need to accept Gurkha for what it is. You know, it's the warrior, it's the everyday fighting cigar, and I think that if they actually wanted to try to sell some premium cigars, they need to create a new brand for that. There's no way that this can ever be that.
Rooster:And it's a, you know, it's a pretty big lineup that they have.
Gizmo:A 100 lines and all of those have multiple SKUs. You're talking maybe four or 500 SKUs, if not more.
Senator:It's just stupid, like that's bad business. Like, just even take whether the cigars are good or bad out of it. I mean, you know, Pagoda would, I'm sure, agree with this. Like, it'd be much smarter if private equity bought them. Like, they would slash, like, most of those lines
Gizmo:90 Look what they did with the wine we're drinking tonight, the Paraduxx. Private equity came in and they killed all the stuff that was underperforming.
Rooster:I don't know why more cigar manufacturers don't follow Padron. Stick to your core. Stick to what you do best and promote that line. Just stick to it because you can perfect
Gizmo:those But I think the thing about Padron that Dave nailed, and we've admired this in the past, I think is why we continue to, is the vertical integration. They own every single aspect, top to bottom, of their process.
Senator:Yeah, even if they didn't, his point still stands that
Gizmo:But even if you didn't, when you take the control of, you know, the quality control factor out of your hands in any way, you're going to have inconsistency somewhere. I think the reason why Padron has been able to nail it is that they have their finger on everything, full stop.
Senator:I'm just saying what what Brewster's saying has nothing to do with the consistency of the cigar, like the blends, the flavor, like what it actually delivers for you. The fact that Padron has few lines and each of them have like their distinct signature flavor profile that the overwhelming majority of cigar smokers love, as opposed to twenty, thirty different lines where most of them don't speak to most cigar smokers' palates. It's just silly to spread yourself that thin. So I'm saying, like, take the manufacturing process out of it completely.
Gizmo:That's fair.
Senator:Just the from a blend standpoint.
Gizmo:I I think establishing your brand as a brand of quality, not one of marketing and logos and all that other fancy stuff, that is the way you have to establish a brand. But I guess
Rooster:It's too late for that because you've already kind of made that, you know, that's kind of established that Gurkha is a budget line.
Gizmo:And he's forty years into that process.
Rooster:At this point, it's very difficult to change that mindset. So when I'm looking at a Gurkha, I'm like, okay, this is a budget brand. This is something I can pick it up very cheap. So to change that, it's almost impossible. It has to be a new name.
Rooster:Start with the core line, your best products.
Gizmo:Let's talk
Bam Bam:about other marcus that have hundreds and hundreds of SKUs.
Gizmo:Rocky?
Bam Bam:Arturo Fuente.
Gizmo:I don't know if they have hundreds of guess maybe they do. Massive. That's true because they
Rooster:have a
Gizmo:lot of different lines though.
Bam Bam:Yeah, they do. And Rocky Patel.
Rooster:But look, the Fuente
Senator:There's family affinity for that brand.
Bam Bam:That's
Senator:true. Can do that because Fuente can put anything out, and Fuente fans will buy and try just about anything.
Bam Bam:That's right.
Senator:In the same way that Davidoff puts out all these special releases and silly cigars, and like, if you're a Davidoff fan, you're gonna buy it.
Rooster:So Plus they have they're kinda in Doctor, in Dominican Republic. They have their own fields. They have their own factories. Gurkha is using Nicaraguan tobacco, Dominican tobacco, USA tobacco. They're really just spread out.
Rooster:Well, diversifying the blend, I don't
Bam Bam:think is as much of a problem
Gizmo:as But they also make it in different factories in all of those countries Yeah. You just
Chef Ricky:You know what the issue is that I see here with Gurkha is that it's positioning itself as the premium sort of luxury cigar. But it's not. It is, but not for the cigar smoker, for the person that smokes cigars. In that description that you mentioned, there was no mention of the tobacco being used. None.
Chef Ricky:Everything was a gimmick. There's this five carat diamond band on it, this gold leaf, the blindfolded roller, nothing about tobacco, nothing that's going to interest a cigar smoker, but maybe everything that makes somebody who smokes cigars feel special that they're smoking a brand that's associated with something that expensive.
Pagoda:They didn't have the Himalayan tobacco, though.
Gizmo:And well, it was doused in Fiji water. Don't forget.
Bam Bam:Rubbed. Rubbed. Hand rubbed. Massaged. Every leaf.
Gizmo:So when you go to their website, the first thing you see is a massive quote. It says, a legacy reserved for the few, steeped in legend, reborn in excellence. Welcome to Gurkha, where the world's finest tobaccos meet the art of the extraordinary. Make it unforgettable. Think the most of our standards is
Bam Bam:steeped for the few.
Rooster:It's definitely for
Gizmo:the Steeped in legend. Yeah. Reborn in excellence. Reserved for the few.
Bam Bam:But available to every human being on earth.
Gizmo:At a significant I'm
Chef Ricky:sure on discount. Interesting
Gizmo:stuff here. And I think, you know, again, I'm not gonna hammer on Davidoff, but I know we've been talking a lot about this kind of pivot that they've They
Chef Ricky:need to be careful
Gizmo:because they've made it down
Senator:this role.
Chef Ricky:They need to be very careful.
Gizmo:Agree with you, Chef.
Pagoda:You know what it is, like when you think about Davidoff or Padron, they have an established identity. I think with Gurkha, you know, I think we all have kind of now discussed it, meaning the range is so wide, they're trying to present themselves as an elite brand, yet with a number of SKUs, I don't think you're able to do that.
Gizmo:All right, boys. It's time now to go to some listener email and some feedback. First, I wanna start and thank I'll mention Lizard Markets because he was the first one. He emailed me at like 06:00 in the morning. There was a and I got some other emails as well.
Gizmo:So I want to clear this up. So on episode 242, which was the Aladino two hundred and fiftieth episode, I accidentally muted chef's mic for like five minutes in the middle of the episode and it got really weird. So I had to actually delete the episode, reupload. It was a whole thing. So I got some emails from folks like, what the hell is going on?
Gizmo:I was listening. It stopped. Anyway, I'd like to thank Lizard Marcus and all the other lizards who listened so intently, found that within, like, forty five minutes or an hour of it actually being out, keying me into it and and allowing me to fix it. But we got a ton of email and messages about it. So I just wanted to Wasn't that intentional?
Gizmo:It was not. I was going
Chef Ricky:to say, don't I don't speak very much. Yeah. It's it
Gizmo:was an accidental
Senator:user error.
Gizmo:Push of the mute button.
Senator:It's well timed. We do have our six month performance reviews.
Rooster:We're a
Senator:little late on, so we're definitely going to factor this into gizmos.
Bam Bam:Somebody's going to get a pip.
Gizmo:Probably me.
Rooster:250 episodes coming up on it. All right, boys, let's
Gizmo:go to another one now. This one's from our friend Lizard Blake. He says, hey, you crazy reptiles. Long time no talk. Hope all is well and there isn't any more espionage going on.
Bam Bam:Always espionage.
Gizmo:Anyways, I had a question regarding the current state of affairs with bringing Cubans back to The US from international travel. The wife and I are going on our honeymoon a year late this year, and we'll be in Europe. I'm sure pricing will be wild, but I'd like to pick something up as a memory of the trip. Any specific stipulations with quantity, banded versus unbanded, boxes or no boxes, etcetera. Any info would really help.
Gizmo:Thanks, fellas, and keep up the good work. Lizard Blake.
Rooster:Get boxes of Gurkha's. Yeah. I'm not
Bam Bam:sure if you're gonna bring boxes of cigars, Cuban cigars back. I wouldn't. Yeah. Pick up a few singles. Smoke them.
Gizmo:Honestly, what I would do, I would take the bands off, and I would separate the bands from the cigars because I just don't think you wanna have that discussion with anybody at customs. I just don't think it's even worth it. If you don't have the bands on, you put them in an envelope in another bag. There's really no
Bam Bam:Yeah, fold them and put them in your pocket.
Gizmo:Yeah, there's really no discussion about it. You can put the back on when you get home.
Senator:Yeah, I don't know. I take a different approach. I think I definitely would not try to bring boxes in. I would bring no more than 50 loose Cuban sticks. And I mean, you can have them in a Ziploc bag with a Boveda.
Senator:And I'm sorry, like even if number one, if they're in your carry on and there's no more than 50 in there, odds are you're gonna be just fine. I've traveled with them plenty of times. It's not an issue.
Gizmo:But how recently have you done that internationally? Because I think that's changed. Think the intensity has increased in the last
Senator:Late last year.
Gizmo:Six to eight months with everything going on in Cuba.
Bam Bam:It's last
Gizmo:seven months.
Senator:So I would do that, and even if you are questioned, you can say that they were purchased years ago legally, and that you were just bringing them with you on vacation to smoke, this is what you have left you're bringing back.
Gizmo:I think that's a really good argument.
Senator:Yeah, I'm never worried about it. It's if you're bringing crazy volume and quantity, that's where your argument kind of falls apart. I mean, it's not probable that you brought 200 cigars if your itineraries, you were somewhere for three days. I mean, that just doesn't make any sense or even a week, it doesn't make sense. So I think as long as they're not in boxes and they're just, you know, I would keep bands on and you could just say that you bought them years ago.
Senator:There was a time you could legally bring in cigars to The U. S. That were purchased in another market that were Cuban legally. You previously purchased them years ago, brought them, you know, to enjoy on vacation, and you're just bringing back what you have. I
Gizmo:think that's a great way to do it.
Pagoda:Sounds very confident, I must say.
Gizmo:If you wanna have zero risk like Pagoda, take the bands off.
Bam Bam:Don't travel with Pagoda.
Gizmo:Minimal risk. Yeah. Don't travel with Pagoda.
Pagoda:I'll tell you, I lost unbanded to girls.
Bam Bam:Yes, you did.
Gizmo:You did. That's correct. Oh my gosh.
Bam Bam:That's true. In a Ziploc bag. A really big one.
Gizmo:Yeah. There's some customs agent in Miami In
Senator:a vacuum sealed bag.
Bam Bam:Enjoying a less.
Pagoda:And I was in Toronto,
Gizmo:and by the way, you took them from The United States to Havana and brought them back, and they took them from you, because you didn't argue properly.
Pagoda:And I was in Toronto, and the customs officer asked me the same thing. Are you carrying any tobacco? Mean, what the hell?
Bam Bam:Was he smelling it on me? I have no idea. I said,
Senator:oh, it's on your record from that time.
Gizmo:I
Bam Bam:said yes. I said yes. He doesn't have any sticks.
Pagoda:I said about 25, 30. And he said, all right. Have a fun time. Let me go in.
Gizmo:By the way, I wanted to thank you briefly for all the updates and photos from your recent
Bam Bam:trip to
Rooster:was Toronto.
Pagoda:Awesome. Oh, you're very welcome.
Gizmo:Awesome. Awesome.
Bam Bam:Well done. Got a
Senator:full Great trip.
Gizmo:Play by play.
Chef Ricky:Very detailed photos,
Pagoda:by the way. I I got a huge help.
Gizmo:So for the listener, he sent not a single photo and not a single update of his time in Toronto. Did you find any place to smoke?
Pagoda:Yeah. We were smoking all day at night.
Gizmo:Just at your place No.
Bam Bam:By the lake.
Gizmo:Yeah. Oh, by the lake. Nice. Like last time.
Bam Bam:Very nice.
Rooster:He's a Gurkha.
Bam Bam:Maybe that's why there was no photo.
Rooster:Elite class. Correct.
Chef Ricky:He was out there with his cook cookery. Cook
Bam Bam:He was using the cookery to cut his
Chef Ricky:head on the cigar.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. We've come to the end of the second third now on the Gurkha, the Nicaragua Series in Toro, and the Paraduxx Proprietary Blend from 2022. What's everybody thinking right now on the
Chef Ricky:pairing? Pairing's amazing.
Bam Bam:Yeah. It's good. Still good.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. Pairing's great. The pairing every time I draw on the cigar after an immediate slip, it's my favorite moment of
Senator:what we're doing.
Pagoda:Might as well infuse it.
Senator:Yeah, why not?
Bam Bam:Does anyone have any complaints about the cigar as far
Gizmo:as My how complaint is that it's kind of boring. It's boring. It's not bad.
Pagoda:Boring is the right word.
Bam Bam:I mean, sure.
Gizmo:It's I'll give it very smokable. It's pleasant. I think for $10 I can't really knock it too
Chef Ricky:It's much for serviceable. Exactly.
Bam Bam:That's right. Not a thing has changed for me. Everything you've
Senator:said is fine. It's just uninspiring. There's nothing offensive about it. I'm not outwardly upset. I'm just bored and uninspired and have been waiting and waiting for something interesting to happen.
Rooster:It's a rather large format for a cigar that doesn't change.
Senator:Yeah, that's one dimensional.
Bam Bam:It's unusual.
Rooster:So maybe in a smaller size and the smaller size they make is a Robusto, right?
Gizmo:Yeah, 52 by five.
Pagoda:You know, that's why I think the pairing is helping because I've tried to take a few puffs of the cigar. It's still a bit dry for me. Although it's leaving a reasonably pleasant profile on the top of my palate, like on the upper palate, it's leaving something very pleasant.
Bam Bam:I agree.
Pagoda:And not like, you know how sometimes the cigars will, you get the flavor profile in your tongue and different parts of your tongue. It's lesser so, like I can't make out, but yeah, overall,
Bam Bam:retrohale's it's okay.
Chef Ricky:The flavors on the cigar for me are okay as long as the draws aren't long or too deep. If they are long or too deep, or I'm smoking too much or it gets too hot, it gets a little harsh. I see.
Senator:I actually agree with that.
Gizmo:You were being more positive about it, Bam. What's your take
Bam Bam:right I'm positive just from the point of view of it being, I like chef's word, serviceable. It's smokable. It's pretty smooth. A touch velvety. Like, I don't have any real complaints about it other than the fact that I agree with you all.
Bam Bam:It's boring and I'm not getting a discerning note.
Gizmo:I will say there's not been a lot of touch ups. So from a construction standpoint, for a $10 cigar, I gotta give it that credit. And the combustion's outrageous. Yes, kinda too outrageous, honestly.
Pagoda:Yeah, the burn line's good.
Gizmo:Yeah. Alright, boys. Let's go back to emails now. Let's go to this one. This one's from a new friend, Lizard Bunners.
Gizmo:Says, good day, gents. Thanks for the great conversation. I've recently discovered it, and I've been working through the backlog as I train for an upcoming 124 kilometer endurance kayak event called the Avon Descent. Pago, is
Senator:that the same one you're doing?
Bam Bam:Well, he flies through the air.
Gizmo:He says, if I survive it, I'd be interested in a recommendation for the end of a two day race. I typically like the Padron nineteen sixty four, the Foundation Almec, and the Partagas d four, but think this might be a little heavy after a big paddle.
Pagoda:No. It won't.
Gizmo:I think any of those would be good, but we'll we'll go through some recommendations in a second. I wanna do this one first. Also, I have to share the following scene from a TV show I'm sure you guys have never heard of. Every time I hear the word correct on the pod, it makes me think of it, and I have a little chuckle to myself. So he sent me the YouTube link of this show called The Rake, which was on in Australia from, like, 2010 to 2018.
Gizmo:So I pulled the clip I wanna
Gizmo:play for you.
TV SHOW:Wretched politics that drive me nuts. It's supposed to be a happy event. Correct. That is absolutely correct.
TV SHOW:Excuse me. I'm sorry. L Linda, isn't it? Leanne. Leanne.
TV SHOW:Yeah. Sorry to interrupt, Leanne, but I'm curious about something. Oh, yes? Yeah. I've noticed you say the word
Bam Bam:Glam
Chef Ricky:bam. A lot. Correct. Really?
TV SHOW:Yeah. I hadn't noticed. Yes. When somebody says something that you agree with, you don't say yes or uh-huh or even you go girl. You say correct.
TV SHOW:I'm sorry. You've lost me, Cleaver. Well, it's it's sort of like a school teacher talking
Pagoda:You to a
TV SHOW:ten year know? It's it's it's you're not actually agreeing. You're approving. It's as if the statement isn't valid.
Gizmo:That is the Bam Bam way.
Bam Bam:That is correct.
Pagoda:Narcissistic, of course.
Senator:Correct. You're
TV SHOW:being smug and superior to them,
Gizmo:which is
TV SHOW:why so many fuckwits in the city use it. And now it's spread into the mouths of the spouses like some sort of contagion. He gets
Gizmo:It is a contagion.
Bam Bam:The entire club's saying.
TV SHOW:Four wheel drive
Gizmo:And I think all of Lizard Nation, honestly.
TV SHOW:And smug and superior. Buying a Porsche SUV for the sake of the kid's safety. I don't think I've heard such transparently banal bullshit in my entire life.
Gizmo:So there's the Rakes take on Correct. You go, girl. You go, girl. So I thought that was hilarious. And let me tell you, so many listeners say that.
Gizmo:I know I'm saying it in my house. I say it here. I use it all the time. And it's all because we've started saying it in here. Correct.
Gizmo:It's crazy. So shout out to Lizard Bunners for that. So what do you think is a good after a big paddle, what's a good celebratory cigar that he should pick up? Remember, he's in Australia, so prices and availability there are pretty crazy. I think if you like Padron '19 64, I think the Padron eightieth is a
Bam Bam:good one. Definitely.
Gizmo:You know, eighty years of Maduro, Padron 50.
Senator:I don't know. Those are those are full cigars after something like that. I think a D4 is much more the speed that someone might want after that grueling.
Pagoda:You should have a Trinity Robusto
Bam Bam:Fabrica five.
Senator:Yeah, honestly, a good one.
Gizmo:That's actually a really good one.
Chef Ricky:I feel like after a long paddle like that or something, I want something that's kind of going to dance on my palate and provide some kind of bright notes and peaks here and there. So I'm going to say Sonata. A stoic.
Gizmo:Stoic's a
Bam Bam:good one.
Gizmo:You go.
Bam Bam:Spoken like a true endurance athlete. Love it.
Chef Ricky:Correct. Correct.
Gizmo:So thanks again to Lizard Bonners for that email. Please keep sending. We're glad you found us. And good luck on your 124 kilometer endurance kayak event. Sounds like a lot of work, so good luck training for that.
Gizmo:And I hope you enjoy the back catalog. Let's go now to an email from our friend Lizard Christophe. He says, hi, Giz. I realized the focus of the pod is the cigars, but since you asked if there was anything that could be improved to the current ratings guide, a selector for the pairing would be nice. I've been sampling a lot of rums and other spirits based on your ratings recently.
Gizmo:While the search bar works for some, not every rum has rum in its name, for example. On that subject, mentioned in a previous email, I was going to get back to rum. In addition to my cigar smoking, your pod has really changed my rum drinking. I was into rum before being into cigars, and I would chase limited editions or single cask bottles on a regular basis, dismissing the 20 to €30 bottles out of hand. However, due to the pod, I've started drinking rums like Santiago De Cuba 11, Florida Cana seven, Havana Club seven, and realized they are actually good and a much better value proposition.
Gizmo:It's also freeing up the budget for cigars. These rums are now my go tos. Your pod and chef Ricky in particular have awakened my palate to tequila. Tequila Ocho has become not just one of my favorite tequilas, but favorite spirits, period. Unfortunately, tequila is a bit harder to find than rum or whiskey in Belgium, and it seems like the entry price for a decent tequila is quite a bit higher than a decent rum.
Gizmo:It's giving me flashbacks to getting into cognac. I'd be interested if chef Ricky can explain the higher entry prices for decent tequila compared to, for example, rum or bourbon. Is it just scale or something else? Best Lizard Christophe.
Chef Ricky:Yeah, it's it strictly comes down to harvest and production. It's extremely expensive. Your average tequila, especially great tequila is like Ocho or Fortaleza or G Force or anything that we have on this pod. The average age of of agave before it's harvested, it's about five, you know, five to seven years. So, you know, you're talking about eight years just to get into a Blanco, you know, eight and a half years to get into a Blanco and then to get to market.
Chef Ricky:You know, whereas a rum, you could pump those out annually. You know, so it's that alone makes it much more expensive. Then same thing for mezcal. I mean, some of those agaves are twenty years, twenty two years before harvest. And that's why some of those mezcal bottles of mezcal get extremely expensive.
Chef Ricky:And I think people generally are used to paying those higher prices for eight spirits or darker spirits. And then when you're asked to put that money out for a blanco or a repo that's maybe a little on the lighter side, it gets a little shocking. A touch unreasonable.
Gizmo:Yeah. So of course there's also a marketing play in tequila that also drives those prices, right?
Chef Ricky:Not so much. I think a lot of the brands that we drink here on the pod aren't heavily marketed.
Gizmo:I'm saying not the ones on the pod, but some of the ones out there. Mean sure.
Chef Ricky:But I don't think this person is into those, right? The Sure, Cosamigos, the Patrons, the Clasazoles, the you know, these bottles could get especially class Alzul could get super expensive and the juices in particular, it's not good at all actually. It's loaded with additives. It tastes like watered down soda, almost like soda syrup. So yeah, you're on the right track with Ocho.
Chef Ricky:Look look around for some G4, maybe some Mijinta, some Fortaleza. You know what I had the other day that was great? The Volons. Volons is amazing.
Gizmo:I love that.
Chef Ricky:Volcan de Mithiera, Volons. Yeah, there's so many that you could get out there. But sure, imagine Blanco's probably going to run you $60, you know, for a
Gizmo:good one. Yeah. So I will try to add a selector for the spirit on the ratings guide. I've got a lot of good feedback. I'm going to try to tweak it.
Gizmo:I know there's some things on the phone and the iPad that differ a little bit in how it scrolls versus the computer. So I'm going to work on fixing that for everybody so we have a better viewing experience on the brand new ratings guide. So look out for that. Lizard Kristoff says, PS, I broke open a box of petite 109 for my birthday a few weeks ago, and it was every bit as amazing as expected. So congrats to him.
Gizmo:Happy birthday. And he has one more question for us. Sent for the lizards that are avid readers or just like looking at the pictures. What's your favorite book on tobacco or cigars? I love books on cigars, and I'm always looking for new reads.
Gizmo:Thanks a lot. Best Lizard Christophe. So we sent those in succession, so I figured we'd do them together.
Bam Bam:Well, the books you got for us are incredible.
Gizmo:Yeah. El Habano Moderna is the one from Alex Gurkha, the curator of cubitscigarwebsite.
Bam Bam:Beautifully made.
Gizmo:And by the way, want to shout him out. Twenty years now of cubits cigar website just happened. So if you go there now, there's actually twenty years kind of written on the banner of cubits cigar website. So congrats to him for doing such a great job. And El Habano Moderna, there's a follow-up piece coming out, like a supplement is going to be coming out.
Gizmo:So look out for that if you're a purchaser of the original book. And if you don't have it, of course, grab it and then get the supplement. But are there any other books on tobacco that you guys have read? I mean, Nick Hammond's I really like, Around the World and 80 Cigars, there's two of those, a third one coming, he's doing a partnership with PCA. A third book, which is pretty cool, he's going around the America now.
Chef Ricky:I think buy that book, but I haven't even opened it.
Pagoda:Yeah, this feels like a classroom where the teacher's asking,
Bam Bam:have you read anything today? We all are, like, looking at each other. Who the fuck? Excuse me. Reads him.
Gizmo:The other one, if you can get your hands on it, it's expensive, is the Min Rod Nie illustrated encyclopedia of Cuban cigars, which I think came out in 2003. It's very limited, very expensive, close to $1,000 for a copy of that.
Chef Ricky:Do we have anything like this for New Worlds in this space?
Gizmo:There's the one. Oh, you know what? I want to shout out another one. Yes. There's one by a guy named Aaron Sigman called Cigars, and it's incredible photos, incredible stories about how cigars are made really great.
Gizmo:And then he also did one which was a we talked about on the pod a really expensive Arturo Fuente book. Think it was like 3 or $400. He did that. But that one is on American tobacco and Arturo Fuente that story. I think there's also one on JC Newman as well.
Gizmo:So I think any of those, if there's any listeners out there who have read Great Cigar Books, share them with us because those are the ones that are really coming to mind right now.
Rooster:There's a lot of good video content on YouTube. You know, if you want to look at some videos of like the Davidoff Seed
Chef Ricky:to Harvest.
Gizmo:Yeah, something like that.
Chef Ricky:We should release a book with a sampler pack.
Gizmo:There you go. The Lizard Book. Sounds like a lot of work for me.
Pagoda:No, we'll just ask Claude
Bam Bam:to write it.
Chef Ricky:Correct. No, just ask Mike.
Gizmo:All right, so I wanted to mention, we talked about this a couple weeks ago. Senator brought it up. And Senator, you saw this on Instagram, I think before the rest of us. Fabrica Five has announced the Private Blend program that you can reach out to Fabrica Five and get your own cigars, your own blends. Just as we've talked about with any of the cigars that you hear on the front of this episode, we talk about.
Gizmo:We always mention the Robusto Trinity, the Bon Robert stuff. There's so many great cigars coming out of there, but you can have your own Vitola, your own blend. You can work with Hamlet directly. You can get your own bands. Think like It's pretty amazing, the creativity you can go through with a master like Hamlet.
Gizmo:Some cigars companies do this, but to get it directly from Hamlet and coming out of the Fabric of Five factory, I think it's pretty cool to have
Bam Bam:that So
Gizmo:I think what happens is he blends based on what you like and what your preferences are, send you a couple options, choose what you like or iterate or whatever it may be, work through the blending process, choose what you want, and then they make them for you and send them. They rest them and send them when they're ready. Check out FabricA5, their Instagram, the Fabrica five site. You know, fill out the contact and get some private label cigars for yourself. Yeah.
Gizmo:From our friends over at Fabrica five. All right, boys, let's continue on now. Let's go to a voice memo from our friend Lizard Wayland.
Bam Bam:Hello there.
Lizard Waylon:Hey, Lizards. Lizard Whelan from, Los Angeles checking in. My question today is about the Fabrica Five cigars. It seems they have two main lines, the Piero Desnuto and the Mofo. Everything I've tried from both lines has been outstanding, but I'm a little bit confused about the differences between the two lines.
Lizard Waylon:Is there a difference? What is the difference if there is a difference? I'm sure I'm not the only one that's a little bit confused about the two lines over there. Thanks, guys. Really big fan.
Lizard Waylon:Keep up the great work.
Gizmo:So thanks to Lizard Whalen. Of course, he's a fan of the I forget what whiskey manufacturer he works for that does the So he included that on the front of his voice memo. It's very nice. So to answer his question, there's two lines of Fabrica five stuff. Okay, so we're separating out Bon Roberts.
Gizmo:You have the mofo and you have the poro desnuto. Okay, poro desnuto started as Rob's kind of pet project to blend cigars for himself that he liked. Started with some Lanceros a few years ago. I think even cigars before that, then turned into Fabrica five with Hamlet and all the poro desnuto stuff is just blends that Hamlet and Rob really love. The MoFO stuff is stuff that has gone through a tasting panel.
Gizmo:So he selected, you know, a bunch of folks from the FOH Forum to come on a tasty panel. We all got the cigars. Some iterations took three, four, five, six times. Actually, I was looking at a picture from three years ago when I first had the Bonn Roberts 109. And at that point, we were still figuring out the blend on the Trinity Robusto, for example.
Gizmo:So the mofo line has all been worked through with the tasting panel. So it's kind of separated that way as far as the quality of the tobacco identical as far as the process identical as far as the aging or resting identical until they feel they're ready. They don't get shipped. They don't get even announced until they're ready to ship. So that's generally how they're working over there with fabric of five Bon Roberts.
Gizmo:I think it's just a step above that in tobacco and blending and presentation. Of course, you know, the fiber Kafai stuff, no boxes, no bands. The the Bon Robert stuff banded, boxed really nice, kind of has that Cuban look to them.
Senator:Know, more age in the tobacco and
Gizmo:more age on the tobacco. And I think there's a little bit more of a premium there as
Bam Bam:well. Gorgeous presentation.
Gizmo:But it's made by the same pairs of hands that make the other stuff. So from a construction quality standpoint, it's not like there's one team working on one thing and one on the other. Like, they're all doing the same thing. And it would be the same people working on your private blend if you wanted to order something like that.
Rooster:And they come in
Gizmo:50 cabs. And they come in 50 cabs. Yeah. By the way, wanted to say there's a new double corona called the Indulgencia. It's the N10, the Peru des Noodle line.
Gizmo:It's amazing. And it's the size of Cuban double coronas, like the part of Lusitania. Very nice. You know, the Hollo, the Punch. So if you're into that Cuban profile, I'm telling you, you're going to love it.
Gizmo:And what's great is they come in 10 packs. So for $150, you get 10 cigars or 15 apiece.
Senator:Can't be done.
Gizmo:Of use our code. They even come down off of that 15 with our code, Lizard Pod. But they're making some great stuff over there. So thanks to Lizard Whelan for that great question. We appreciate it.
Gizmo:And let's go now to another one. This one is in line with what we just heard from Lizard Whalen. This one's from Lizard Phillip from Germany. It says, dear Gizmo, I hope you're well. I don't have a podcast question this time, but this one is for you and maybe for the Fabrica five team.
Gizmo:After hearing your fantastic reviews of the Dahlias and all those mouthwatering Trinity Robusto teasers over the years, I'd absolutely love to get my hands on and order some Fabrica five and Bon Robert cigars. The challenge is that I'm based in Germany. Importing cigars as a private person can be quite complicated due to tobacco tax regulations, customs procedures, and import requirements. In my experience, international cigar shipments can be somewhat unpredictable with additional taxes, customs delays, and long transit times all adding a fair amount of uncertainty. That got me wondering, are there any plans to make Fabrica five available through a retailer or a distributor in Germany in the near future?
Gizmo:And if not, is there anything I could do to help? I'm certainly not an expert in the cigar business. I'd be more than happy to support Faber Kefive and Bon Roberts in any way I can. Whether it's language support, local networking, helping to understand the German market, import requirements or simply being a point of contact on this side of the Atlantic. I'd gladly volunteer my time if it could be useful.
Gizmo:I love that.
Bam Bam:That's cool.
Gizmo:I'd really appreciate any insight you could provide. And, of course, thank you for all the great content over the years. The podcast continues to be one of the highlights of my week. Best regards from Germany, Lizard Phillip. Awesome.
Gizmo:Great to hear from him. So I think, you know, the thing I would say on this is I already forwarded this to Rob. I haven't gotten an answer yet, but I think, you know, if you go to c c o h Cigars of Habanos Cigars, would reach out to Ravi over there at Cigars and see what he says, because I know he ships from different places in Europe. Very well could be someplace in Germany that he has cigars. He is the exclusive international distributor online of Fabrica V and Bon Roberts.
Rooster:What about JJ Fox? Do they carry any of the They do. The Bon Robert line?
Gizmo:Yeah, they have Bon Roberts. I think they might have Fabrica V. I'm not certain, but you can also get them there. But I think for him, even coming in from UK or Ireland, I think it's like coming from The US or even Australia. I mean, I think that you're gonna get hit with those crazy awful.
Gizmo:Taxes and all that stuff, which, you know, really, really stinks if you're trying
Bam Bam:to get cigars. I can't imagine not being able to order a box of cigars. We're blessed here.
Gizmo:We are. You know? Especially, like, without all these crazy taxes that these people pay. It's insane. Alright, boys.
Gizmo:One more now. This one is from our friend Lizard Luigi. It says, dear Giz, as I sit here smoking and up in Magnum 46 on the eve of America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday, it occurs to me that there's another semi quintessential looming on the horizon. The Lizard Nation episode February.
Bam Bam:Rooster's birthday.
Gizmo:Well, I know you all prize your anonymity, and that Lizard Nation is global in scale. I'm left wondering whether there are any plans for a two hundred and fiftieth episode celebration that loyal listeners can attend. Perhaps we could pass the collection plate to rent out Carnegie Club or all crowd in at ten eighty six, or even even meet at a random rest stop off the Jersey Turnpike. I find the Molly pitcher stop to be less wretched than the others. I try not to stop in any of them.
Pagoda:Oh, yeah. Let me
Bam Bam:go down to Turnpike and smoke my cigar to rest up.
Pagoda:That's what
Bam Bam:I With
Gizmo:Jon Bon Jovi. Correct. Whatever the plans, I do hope that something's in the works and that I'll be able to battle the inevitable queue to score a ticket or invitation so that we can celebrate you guys, each other, and the contributions made by your wonderful podcast to so many of our smoking lives. If that's not in the cards, I'd like to offer to buy you all around and pass out some cigars myself as a token of gratitude, appreciation, and friendship on behalf of myself and all the other Lizards who, like me, treat Tuesday mornings as can't miss listening. Happy fourth.
Gizmo:And as always, long live lizard nation,
Rooster:Lizard Chris. Nice email.
Senator:Hey, great email.
Gizmo:Great email.
Chef Ricky:I agree. I love it. But I'm curious, ma'am, is every cigar for you a cosmopolitan experience?
Bam Bam:Yes.
Chef Ricky:You've never had like one of those pop up chairs and plop them somewhere in a
Bam Bam:Oh, of course.
Gizmo:Well, you've heard the etiquette
Rooster:rules.
Senator:Have you ever smoked in flip flops now?
Bam Bam:No. So, you know, I've had the director's chair in the evening on my son's Director's chair?
Gizmo:Don't be a talk.
Chef Ricky:I got a pop up Yankee camping chair.
Bam Bam:They look like director's chairs. Ones that fold open, they do. So I you travel around with those, and I pop that up on my on his campers.
Gizmo:They're elevated. The director chairs
TV SHOW:are elevated. They're wood. These are, like, clothes, like, black, like, cheap metal, you know, like, whatever.
Bam Bam:Get them for free on Uline if you order, you know Splitting hairs.
Senator:He wears his loafers while he
TV SHOW:sits in his director's chair.
Gizmo:Somebody feeds him grapes.
Bam Bam:My shiny white sneakers.
Chef Ricky:I say that because that would be an awesome experience in my in my book.
Bam Bam:Turnpike rest stop.
Chef Ricky:Just go on the truck section and you pop open a bunch of the right.
Gizmo:Everybody's chef Ricky will see you there in flip flops. Yeah. At the Molly Pritcher.
Senator:It's going be a party
Bam Bam:with a graphic tee on.
Chef Ricky:A little bit a graphic
Pagoda:tee, but
Gizmo:So to answer Lizard Chris's question here, we probably won't be doing too much for two fifty episodes because we've kinda made the decision that we have the five year celebration coming up in just a few short months. That'll be a bigger celebration for us as we're coming up on five years since the beginning of the podcast. As far as getting together, we've talked about that. We haven't put anything in motion yet as far as in the city or here at ten eighty six or whatever it might be. But at some point, we're gonna put it together and we will let you know.
Gizmo:But it certainly won't be in five or six weeks when episode 250 comes out. It definitely won't be that one. But we'll let you know what's happening. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for some information on that. But I would think it's either gonna be later this year or sometime next year that we're gonna try to get an event together because we've been talking about it and talking about it.
Gizmo:We just haven't put it together yet. And now, boys, it's time to go to our wizard of the week presented by our friends at Bon Roberts. And our wizard of the week this week is a very simple one. Our wizard of the week is Lizard Luigi, who has been so generous to us in sending cigars and spirits and all these other things. Sent us this entire box of cigars tonight for us to review on the podcast, which I'm very appreciative of.
Gizmo:He actually added on to the conversation about episode 250. He says, I have found your two hundred and fiftieth episode spirit. It's twenty five years old, which is the best part, and it can be had between 200 and $250. It's the most affordable 25 year old scotch on the planet, Glenn Farkas 25. So our friend Lizard Luigi is gonna win a 10 count box of cigars.
Gizmo:We really appreciate all the support he's given us over the years.
Bam Bam:That's correct.
Gizmo:Constantly sending us stuff. He also sent the
Bam Bam:Oh.
Gizmo:The fruit and nut tray, BAM.
Bam Bam:Dream about that platter.
Chef Ricky:Don't think any of us will forget
Bam Bam:I love that platter.
Gizmo:That was so good. That was a good day.
Bam Bam:Very good day.
Gizmo:So we're very grateful to Lizard Luigi for his support, and of course, like I said, sending us boxes of cigars. We really appreciate Lizard Nation for doing that. And thanks to him. He's gonna win a 10 count box of cigars, and thanks to everybody else who contributes to our show each week. We really, really appreciate it.
Gizmo:Boys, we are coming to the end of our evening with the Gurkha Nicaragua Series in Toro and the Paradux Proprietary Blend from 2022. Don't forget to send me your ratings. Any final thoughts on the pairing before we go into the ratings tonight? I will say, as a general thought and comment, the mood in the room dipped.
Bam Bam:Oh, yeah.
Gizmo:About a half hour ago, and I know exactly why, and I think it's related to the cigar. Does anybody care to comment on the accuracy of that comment? Senator, perhaps?
Senator:I put the cigar down, and I You never do that. Have rarely, if ever, I think probably one other time I had to do that, and it was a construction problem. I couldn't smoke this cigar. This has bored the hell out of me. The final third took a turn for the worst.
Senator:It's just been a waiting game with this cigar, and at no point did it get interesting. I can't understand why even make these in larger formats like this if these are gonna be so one dimensional and boring. I mean, this could have been a tiny little short smoke and I would have tolerated it. Like a petite corona. Yeah.
Senator:But at this size, I mean, my goodness.
Chef Ricky:Or the petite cusadors.
Rooster:I mean, the cigar is not offensive. It's smokable. It's just okay, but it just keeps you wanting more. Mean, if there was even like a couple of distinct flavor notes that kind of lingered on, it would be okay. But at the halfway point, I mean, there was like nothing left.
Rooster:It was almost like you're smoking tobacco.
Bam Bam:Just okay is a great way to describe the cigar. It's just okay.
Rooster:Yeah. Just mediocre.
Gizmo:Yeah. Alright, boys. We'll get back to the cigar in a second, but it's time now to go into the formal liquorating tonight on the Paraduxx Proprietary Blend from 2022. Bam Bam, you're up.
Bam Bam:I think this wine was also just okay. I it you know, that tartness, that did bother me early on. And I as I continued to sip, it it it evaporated completely. But for some reason, it came back for me, in an unusual way. So that lingered on and that bothered me a bit.
Bam Bam:Otherwise, the flavor overall was pretty good. I'm not sure if I'll have this again. So I'm at a pretty firm seven with this guy.
Gizmo:Alright, chef.
Chef Ricky:Yeah, I actually enjoyed this wine. One thing I did forget about in my rating though was I kept thinking of the $20 price tag, which is what we paid, But you said it retails for 40 or 40
Senator:is the price. Ignore them. Everyone sells it for.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. So my my rating took the $20 price into account. I gave it an eight. I actually enjoyed it. I like the fullness.
Chef Ricky:I like the body of the wine. I like the tannins that it delivered. It was a great distraction from the cigar, still somehow complemented it really well because it brought some interest to the palate on what would have otherwise been a
Bam Bam:Did that continue for you to the end of your smoke?
Chef Ricky:No. Yes. It changed for me. At this last I guess
Bam Bam:I'm not talking about the smoke, the way it paired with the wine.
Chef Ricky:But it's because the cigar really dipped even more than where it was. This final third of the cigar, not that we're on the cigar yet, but it just it it's really like brown paper bag like smoking just. Yeah. But but the wine the wine held up. I enjoyed it.
Chef Ricky:I think it's a great entry level wine, not at the $40 price, but at the $20 price.
Gizmo:So for me, it's a 7. I thought the wine was good. I thought it was okay. I think the price was excellent at $20 But I think at what most people are going to find it for in that 40 range, probably, I think it's crazy. I don't blame them for discontinuing this wine.
Gizmo:I just don't think it's like we've said about the cigar, I don't think it's really that interesting. I don't think there's a story there. I don't think the brand is cool. I don't think it's telling any sort of an interesting story, both with its marketing and its branding and on the palate. So for me, I don't really have much more to say about it.
Gizmo:I thought it was okay. It's a seven for me. Senator?
Senator:So I'm also at a seven. I think when Giz had first asked me about this wine, my response was, It's fine. We should do it. It's not bad. The merits, I think, you know, it has nice body to it.
Senator:I think it has a smooth, supple finish. There's not aggressive tannins in here at all, so you could pair this with a lot of different things. I just think the only thing it has in common with the cigar is it's a bit one dimensional in flavor profile. I don't think that it's complex in any way. So at a $40 price point, which is what you would find it for, I just think that that's a disappointment.
Senator:At $40, you should get some complexity in a wine. And I think that this drinks at a $20 price point, which is why they've heavily discounted it to try to move it off the shelf. So it's fine. It's not bad. If you saw it discounted at $20, it's definitely, you know, a worthwhile table wine.
Senator:But would I get this as to pair with a nice meal or to bring to a nicer dinner? Definitely not.
Gizmo:So the formal liquorating tonight on the Paraduxx Proprietary Blend for
Bam Bam:Chef twenty twenty and Pagoda haven't rated it.
Chef Ricky:I did.
Pagoda:I haven't rated it.
Chef Ricky:Pagoda. Oh, you haven't rated
Gizmo:I skipped you.
Pagoda:That's fine. Sorry. Skip me.
Gizmo:We are. You know what?
Bam Bam:We can point the line as
Pagoda:well. Sorry,
Senator:Mike. Cut that, Mike.
Gizmo:Oh, man. I and I try so hard with Alright. A Pagoda.
Bam Bam:I rate it as seven as well. All right, he's done.
Pagoda:Yeah, but it's, yeah. You know,
Bam Bam:it's one of those days with one of those vines.
Gizmo:Rooster's dying.
Pagoda:No, you know, I think I enjoyed it in the nose when I just smelled it. It was very, very forward I thought. But when I had it, I felt, he called it turd, I called it a bit chalky in the beginning. Or maybe it was because of the cigar, which was extremely dry on the top of my palate. Either way, it did really help the cigar quite a bit.
Pagoda:But having said that, you know, even, know, other continue to have wine just on its own, it wasn't very exciting. It didn't do much for me. It's a seven.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. The former liquor rating tonight on the Paraduxx Proprietary Blend from 2022 is a 7.2. And, senator, I looked. We did not review the Golden Eye that you mentioned that
Senator:we It's crazy.
Gizmo:It must be brought it in, we tried it.
Senator:Random night that we got to try it, then that wasn't
Gizmo:a recording. Do you think it's better than 72? Way better. Alright, boys. It's time now to go to the formal lizard rating on the Gurkha, the Nicaragua Series in Toro.
Gizmo:Rooster, you're up.
Rooster:So first of all, thank you to Lizard Luigi for sending us the box. That was very nice of him. I'm sorry I did not love that cigar. The cigar was the least bit engaging for me. It was a bit boring.
Rooster:It was a bit one dimensional. It looked promising. I mean, the cigar, the wrapper, the nose on that cigar, you know, I thought it would be better than what the whole experience was. The whole cigar, I mean, I smoked it a little more than about halfway down. It became almost I I have smoked more, but there was no change.
Rooster:There was no flavor note that lingered on. There was really nothing. It kind of was muddled. It was almost like just smoking tobacco at a certain point. I kept waiting and hoping that the cigar would improve and certain notes would come through.
Rooster:They just didn't and it was quite a bit disappointing. But having said that, maybe somebody on a golf course that you don't have to pay too much attention to a cigar, It kind of smokes out on its own. It is a well constructed cigar. It has good smoke output, but I didn't love it. So I'm at a six.
Rooster:All right, Senator.
Senator:So for Lizards who are American football fans, my commentary is best summed up by former Arizona Cardinals head coach Dennis Green, and he said
Bam Bam:I remember this.
Gizmo:I was wondering what you were pulling. But
TV SHOW:they are who we thought they were. We
Gizmo:gotta crown their ass, crown them.
Senator:I mean, I'm sorry. Gurkha is exactly who we thought they were. This is a brand that tries to promote itself as this premium elite brand that delivers this amazing experience. This was as boring as cigar as I have smoked on this podcast in a very long time. I came in in a great mood.
Senator:This has completely sapped the energy for me entirely. I put the cigar down in the final third. The merits of the cigar, it's well constructed. Guess who didn't actually construct it? Gurkha.
Senator:Right? They don't manufacture any of
Gizmo:That's these a very good point. I didn't think about that.
Senator:Whoever did, did a nice job And as far as that's the cigar itself, sure for a novice cigar smoker, there's there's nothing overly offensive in the first two thirds at all. The final third is actually, I think, a bit offensive. But the the problem is even for a novice cigar smoker, I would never if I had a box of these laying around, I think there are far more interesting cigars that are also smooth, easygoing, not confusing for a novice, that are at the same price point
Rooster:or less.
Senator:Yeah. At the same price point. And so I just can't really see someone who's never had a cigar before being in any way grabbed or inspired by this cigar. That's my problem with it. My rating is a six.
Senator:That's because it's very reasonably priced, the construction was good, and most of it is smokable, and it's not offensive. But there is nothing in it that would suggest to me I would recommend a novice, let alone an experienced cigar smoker, actually go out and purchase a single of this, let alone a box. So for those reasons, I'm I'm at a six, and I'm bummed out because we've had strong feelings about some brands, and we've been very pleasantly surprised in the past. And I was hoping that that streak would kinda continue, and this just didn't do it for me.
Chef Ricky:Leave it to Gurkha.
Bam Bam:Yeah. You wanna be proud of what you're handing out.
Gizmo:So boys, this one for me was a seven. I didn't go as low as as Senator and Rooster did here to the six. I thought, as we've said throughout this episode tonight, I thought it was smokable, passable, okay, fair. I think a seven represents that. The reason why I kept it at the seven and didn't knock it is the price point, I think, is very good at a little under $10 for the cigar you're getting.
Gizmo:And I thought the construction was great. You made a great point there, Senator. I didn't even think about that, that that's the only component of this that they're not responsible for, is the construction, and that's what we loved. But that was excellent. Great smoke output.
Gizmo:It was a very, very pleasant smoke all the way down. So for me, and all those reasons, it's a very average seven on this podcast for me. Pagoda?
Pagoda:It's a seven for me. You know, I was debating between a six and a seven, but the reason I gave it a seven was overall, you know, it left a very pleasant profile on the top of my palate. It was a very well constructed cigar. The smoke output was good, the burn line was great. It wasn't offensive at all.
Pagoda:I could, the two thirds of the cigar was pretty good. The last third, I think it died. I had to touch it up again and then relight it and it just became difficult to draw on as well and then even I put it down after that. And I was debating whether I should rate it a six or a seven, but I could see that if people want to try a cigar, you know, in the outdoors particularly, like this wouldn't be a bad cigar to have because it does not have anything offensive about it. In fact, in the beginning, they were, you know, it leaves a really good flavor profile for me, like I really enjoyed it a bit in the beginning and so yeah, a seven for me, but yeah, nothing very exciting, let's put it this way.
Pagoda:I think I used the word boring at some point for this.
Gizmo:I think
Rooster:the pairing really kind of helped.
Pagoda:It helped to the bed, yeah.
Bam Bam:Sure.
TV SHOW:I mean, I drank the same pairing and I gave it the same rating you did.
Gizmo:Yeah. I the pairing fell off when the cigar fell off. When one half of the pairing fell, the whole house of cards fell. So to me, that's where throughout the episode we were all loving the pairing. Yeah.
Gizmo:And then all of a sudden
Bam Bam:It dropped.
Gizmo:All right, chef.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. Look, a seasoned cigar smoker appreciates nuance, flavor, craftsmanship, the whole the entire ritual of smoking a cigar. And outside of craftsmanship, this cigar doesn't deliver on either of those or disrupts it. It just doesn't do what you need a cigar or want a cigar to do, regardless of price, whether, you know, dollars 9, dollars $6.14, whatever it is. This cigar just didn't do it for me.
Chef Ricky:Know, the final third and I'm still smoking because like Bam said earlier, I want to smoke. I'm not smoking it because it's great. It's memorable or anything like that. This is just the cigar that it's for the novice smoker that heard about the marketing hype that's newly getting into cigars, that's maybe diving into cigar bid head first because of, you know, just being able to source cigars at a decent price regardless, you're not taking into account what the flavor is like, what the experience is like. That's what the cigar just it reminds me of wholeheartedly.
Chef Ricky:It just it wasn't good. You know, it did well for the first two thirds, but that final third has really, really dipped. I can't get any flavor out of this other than burning tobacco, you know, and it's unfortunate because the aroma was great. The color on the on the cellar on the cellar was promising. You'd think that it was aged for a good amount
Gizmo:of smoking time. This without the yellow cellar.
Chef Ricky:Yeah. So, you know, it just none of it was connected. None of it was connected. And for me, I gave it a six. I probably would have been a five if it wasn't for the pair.
Chef Ricky:You know, how the wine paired with the first two thirds.
Senator:Just one thing I'll add. The biggest disappointment for me actually is the fact that the cold draw
Gizmo:was great. The cold draw was amazing, of course.
Senator:Imagine if it's Exactly. If that was the flavor profile that we got throughout the actual smoke, this would have gotten a much higher score.
Gizmo:And the
Bam Bam:first five draws were actually quite good.
Gizmo:Yeah, they were good. The light was good.
Rooster:I think the certain cigars should just be left at cold raw, not smoked.
Gizmo:Alright Bam, you're up.
Bam Bam:So I'm at a 10.
Gizmo:We knew it! Alright,
Pagoda:It's in the record, you can't change it now.
Gizmo:I gotta recalculate.
Bam Bam:You know, the only thing I can comment on is what I commented on earlier. It's generally a decent cigar to smoke, and there's nothing interesting about it. You know, the beginning of that final third was really, really hard to get through. About an inch that first, I guess, three quarters of an inch, but I'm down to a half inch. It kinda got back to being smokable.
Bam Bam:You know, you get a I can't put my thumb on what flavor notes I was getting out of the cigar at all, and I'm still not getting a discernible note, but it's fairly smokable at the end. But with all of that said, it overall was a fairly disappointing cigar, so I'm at a firm seven.
Gizmo:So, boys, that puts the formal lizard rating tonight on the Gurkha, the Nicaragua Series, and Toro at a 6.5. Which
Pagoda:is fair.
Gizmo:I think that's a fair representation of what we experienced tonight. Yeah. Of course, that was a debut tonight, so we don't have anything to compare it to. The Paraduxx as well. So, boys, a good evening.
Bam Bam:Yes. A nice little evening. Tumultuous.
Gizmo:It was generous
Bam Bam:term. A paper that's a toilet paper word.
Gizmo:Well, tumultuous. Alright. It was good seeing you.
Rooster:It's fair to say it's gonna be another 250 episodes before we do another Gurkha.
Gizmo:I think so,
Rooster:at least.
Gizmo:So we have to congratulate again and thank despite the rating, we have to thank Lizard Luigi for sending us this box of cigars. He sent us others as well. We really, really appreciate the support from Lizards out there. Even if it doesn't get a great rating, we'd really appreciate the Lizards going out of their way to send us cigars. I think that's really incredible.
Gizmo:And, of course, we have to thank all the other Lizards tonight who contribute to our show and contribute every week. There's plenty of emails I didn't get to. Please keep those voice memos, those emails, those comments coming. It is really a strong lifeblood of the show, so we're very appreciative. We have to thank Bon Roberts boys who support us and our Lizards of the Week each week by sending out a 10 count box of cigars.
Gizmo:Check them out at bondroberts.com and at fabrica005.com. Small Batch Cigar Boys, the official retail partner of the Lounge Lizards podcast. They sell great cigars. They have great service, fast shipping, and, of course, using our code lizard 15 for 15% off your entire order. 5% back in rewards and always free shipping.
Gizmo:You can't beat it, man. It's effectively 20% off and free shipping on everything they sell there. So check out those guys, smallbatchcigar.com. And finally, boys are presenting sponsor, Fabrica five. We love Fabrica five.
Gizmo:You heard it on the intro. They have a new in Dolhensia. We talked a little bit about that tonight. The double corona. Check that out.
Gizmo:And three new sampler packs, which are pretty amazing of different variety in each of those. So check those out. They just launched at fabrica005.com. Use our code Lizard Pod for 10% off your entire order.
Chef Ricky:A few bucks more. You got a cigar that blows this one out of the water.
Gizmo:Well said. One more time tonight, boys. The Paradox Proprietary Blend from 2022 scored a 7.2, and the Gurkha, the Nicaragua Series in Toro scored a 6.5.
Pagoda:What a night.
Gizmo:Your 10 would have helped it, Ben.
Pagoda:Oh, yeah.
Gizmo:Alright, boys. A great night, 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.
Gizmo:That's loungelizardspod.com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us, Hello at loungelizardspod.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. We really appreciate your time, and we'll, we'll see you next week.