Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast. 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 and BamBam, and our plan to smoke a cigar and some wine, talk about life, and of course have some laughs.
So take this as your 119th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying Lounge Lizard. And meet us here once a week. We are gonna smoke a Cupid cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating. We continue with part two of our Cuba trip recap this week, including our first ever visit to Vinales in the province of Pinar del Rio Cuba's home for premium tobacco farms.
We discussed the tobacco growing process. Our impressions of Cuba's Countryside and we preview the upcoming Habanos Festival all among a variety of other things for the next 90 minutes. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair Campo Viejo Tempranillo with the Vegas Robeña Famosos.[00:01:00]
A Corona extra tonight on the pod from Cuba. It's called the Vegas Robeña Famosos. It's a forty-eight ring gauge cigar by five inches long. And boys, as everybody knows who listens to this podcast regularly, Vegas Robeña is very much one of our favorites. That's a coveted marker. And this is only the third that we've done on the podcast.
True, actually. Uh, certainly number one, because they don't have many in regular production anymore. Yeah. And two, uh, the ones that aren't in production like our love, beloved. It's very, very hard to find.
**Bam Bam:** You know, honestly, this marker doesn't come to mind for me very often. It just doesn't.
**Gizmo:** There's only two vitals.
Yeah. There's only two in regular production. Unicos. And the, uh, and this Famosa, this is a beautiful cigar. I love the construction just on the, on the, the look of it with the same band they've been using forever. The Golden Brown with the Big R in the middle. The wrapper is a
**Bam Bam:** beautiful, mild brown. It's [00:02:00] exquisite.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, it's, it's the invisible seams. Really, really nice. A bit toothy,
**Bam Bam:** but still nice.
**Gizmo:** I'm excited to try this tonight. I think the wrapper is
**Senator:** beautiful. Yeah, it is. It's not toothy to me. This looks like a bar of milk chocolate.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Got some veins here.
**Gizmo:** Little Hershey bar a little bit. Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful cigar.
All right, boys, let's cut this thing. See, we're getting on the cold draw and the wrapper.
We've done a few other Hermoso's number fours on the podcast. It's a popular Vitola for Habanos. I think that this, this kind of size of cigar is very much in favor right now worldwide. Lot of value for it and, and certainly as people are looking to spend, trying to get bang for the buck. You know, as far as the time spent smoking, this should be about an hour-ish.
Little tight.
**Bam Bam:** Little tight on the draw for, for me. Yeah. Really just a bit.
**Senator:** Dr.
**Gizmo:** Bam. Performing a little surgery. Little surgery over there. I have another one. Bam. If you need it. No,
**Bam Bam:** no. I'm gonna stick to this. It's
**Gizmo:** okay. Did you, did you do a V-cut?
**Bam Bam:** No, I [00:03:00] should have
**Gizmo:** Well, you're, you're the only, only one with the V-cut.
**Bam Bam:** Well, v-cutter. I'm taking my lead from Danilo. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I like his advice. Yeah. So boys, what are you getting on the cold? Dry. Oh wow. I'm getting some cedar, little cocoa, little cacao.
**Bam Bam:** I'm getting light cacao and fruit. Mm-Hmm.
**Senator:** I get all of that and, and this is gonna sound weird, but cream. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah.
I don't think I've ever on a cigar on the cold draw got cream. This is, it's a really soft,
**Bam Bam:** creamy kind of, it's like a milky dairy type of thing. Yeah. But very smooth. It's nice.
**Gizmo:** Even a little floral It's like,
**Senator:** I don't need to light this. This is great. Just on the cold
**Gizmo:** draw. Senators gonna spoke that for eight hours.
That's right. Alright, before, let's light this thing. The Vegas Robinia Formosos, again, it's a Corona Extra. The factory name is a Hermosos number four. It's a forty-eight ring gauge cigar by five [00:04:00] inches long. And it's one of two in current production for Vegas Robinia. And as we said, we're hoping. They start bringing back Vegas Rubenia as a marker.
Like they have some of the others like Rafael. Gonzalez. Yeah. They've resurrected a few markers. Right. There's been a lot of resurrection and I I I'm hoping that this one's next. We shall see.
**Rooster:** I wonder if Rubenia is the only farm that produces tobacco and also is a brand.
**Gizmo:** I think it is As far as Habanos goes.
Yeah. Yeah. Well he was notorious for, not notorious, he was celebrated as one of the greatest farmers in Cuban tobacco history. It was Don Don Alejandro. Don Alejandro, Rubenia. This is delicious of light. The
**Bam Bam:** light is amazing. I mean,
**Gizmo:** wow. And mine has a slight bit of resistance, so I'm actually hoping that I'm able to smoke this a little slower.
Mine does too. And get like a longer experience Out of what, what is only a five-inch cigar. It's really good on
**Bam Bam:** the lake. [00:05:00] Great preview right now.
**Gizmo:** Really good. Okay. What year is this? So this is A, The boxcode on this is ESM. July twenty-two. Okay. So coming up on two years. All right. So it's about a year.
Year. A little over a year and a half right now. And,
**Bam Bam:** um, what
**Gizmo:** did this cost? So these cigars were about 18 bucks, 20 bucks I believe. Okay. At the time. I think now they might be a little more, I'm sure, but at the time that I purchased 'em, I think they were 18 or 18 or 20 smoking. Great.
What kind of notes are you guys getting on the light? For me, it's
**Senator:** very dessert. Like I get like cocoa and like some kind of shortbread or like a biscuity note. I feel like it's graham cracker for me. Could be.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. I thought in the first light I got like a very milky chocolatey Mm-Hmm. Got creamy.
**Bam Bam:** All excellent notes, by the way.
Yeah, I mean this
**Gizmo:** is, I feel like on the retro hill off to a great, I'm getting a little bit of a mint. [00:06:00] Type of finish through the nose, just a little bit of a mint, which is mint chocolate chip. Mint chocolate chip. So these cigars come in dress boxes of twenty-five cigars. They were originally released in 19 ninety-seven.
They used to come in cardboard packs of five and cardboard packs of three, discontinued in 2009 and around 2006 respectively. And like I said, it shares size with a lot of other number fours in the Habano's catalog. We've done a bunch of them. I'll go through some of them. We'll talk about the ratings later.
The El Rey Del Mundo Schwa Supreme, of course, the H. Upman Connoisseur I, the Romeo I Julieta Exhibition number four, we have not done that one. The St. Louis Rey Reggios. We did the Poor Laranjaga Picadoris, which I believe is a Habano specialist release. And then finally the new one, the newest Hermosus No IV in regular production we did recently was the Rafael González.
Coronas de [00:07:00] Lonsdale is the same exact size as this, so it's almost aside maybe from Partagas, I think, and Cohiba potentially. This is almost every brand has a Hermosus No IV in the Habano's catalog. That's cool. It's a very, very popular size. Yeah. The ring
**Rooster:** gauge is a little smaller than a Robusto. It is, but slightly longer, right?
Am
**Gizmo:** I right? Great. The total, I think the Robusto is five by 50. So this is about the same length as this is forty-eight forty-eight by five, so it's a little bit smaller, but about the same length than a classic Habano's Robusto.
**Bam Bam:** It's velvety smooth on the retrohale, I have to say. Mm, really Quite nice.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. This is a really elegant cigar for its size. Like normally, I don't know if I would use the word elegant for a, a, a cigar, a Hermosis, No iv. Really? Mm-Hmm. But this feels really nice in the hand. It looks great. The smoke is just Yeah. Very complex. And I like
**Senator:** it. I think, I think it's also just really elegant flavor.
I mean, if you would've told me this had four or five [00:08:00] years of age, I would've believed it just because of how creamy the delivery of the flavor is. Mm-Hmm. Which I feel like only typically comes with a decent amount of age. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
**Gizmo:** you know,
**Rooster:** sometimes you would take
**Gizmo:** a, take a cold draw.
**Rooster:** The flavor that you get outta the cold draw is totally different when you light it.
And this kind of has very similar to the cold draw. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Like,
**Rooster:** you get, this is true. You get cream and you get milk chocolate, and that's kind of coming through right now. That's
**Gizmo:** very true.
**Bam Bam:** I. You mentioned the Schwa Supreme. For me, that's a got a, a bigger kick as far as the, the notes are concerned and it's right there and it stays with you consistently.
This one is more subtle. There's subtlety to this and I think there's elegance in that.
**Gizmo:** I agree. I, I think this is what, what would you guys say the flavor profile is? Would you say Mild, mild, medium. I don't think this is really getting into medium territory for me, but not in a bad way. I think it's
**Bam Bam:** mild touching medium.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's
**Rooster:** not mild. It's not mild-mild, but [00:09:00] it's more more
**Gizmo:** towards medium. Yeah, I agree
**Bam Bam:** with that. And on the finish that Graham cracker for me is really strong.
**Gizmo:** It's quite beautiful. So like I said, this is the third Vegas Robinia cigar we've done on the pod. We did the Unicos, which is the classic Pyramidi.
We did that in the Battle of the Pyramids quite some time ago. And the famous, as far as our broadcast goes, the Classico, which was discontinued in 20. Uh, we did about a year and a half, uh, ago on a Christmas episode or a New Year's Eve episode. So Vegas Robeña's story is not very long. Don Alejandro Robeña was a very famous Cuban tobacco farmer, had a long, had a long-running family farm that's still there in Pinar del Rio in the Vuelta, a Bajo region of Cuba.
And he gained fame, like I said, as the best tobacco farmer in Cuba, thanks to his high yield of, as they call it, export-grade wrapper leaves. Um, in most years, he was able to accomplish two to three times that of his nearest competitor, which was [00:10:00] huge. And I think he was very, uh, he had a lot of ingenuity as far as eliminating bugs.
Mm-hmm. And getting, making sure the crop was protected from, uh, you know, outside, you know, uh, forces that other, his competitors were unable to protect from. So that's how he was able to, uh. To be so, uh, successful with his yield In the 1990s, he became an ambassador for the Cuban cigar industry, traveled the world, and this brand named for his farm and him was launched in 1997.
It's classified in Habano's other category of portfolio brands and of course gets a lot of regional releases, um, which I, I, I've actually never had a Robeña regional, but I know some folks who have and always say that they're pretty good.
**Bam Bam:** That's good to hear because there aren't many
**Gizmo:** good regionals.
Yeah, we, that's something that we haven't celebrated on this podcast for sure. This is interesting. The mother factory of the brand is actually [00:11:00] based in Pinar del Rio. It's not one of the mother factories in Havana. It's the Francisco Donatian factory, uh, out west. So that's pretty cool. That's the first time that I've ever seen a mother factory listed as, uh, so far outside of Havana.
Outside, yeah, outside of Havana. Yeah. So very appropriate tonight, boys, that not only are we talking about a cigar that uh, its Mother Factory is located in Pinar del Rio, and also that we're talking about one of the most famous farmers of all time in Cuban tobacco. Very, very appropriate that tonight we are recapping our trip to Pinar Del Rio and Vinales, uh, when we were in Havana a few weeks ago.
Very, very exciting. So where do you wanna start, boys? Do you wanna start with the, uh, the roads? Yeah.
**Senator:** Let's recount our luxurious ride over to Pinar del
**Gizmo:** Rio. Well,
**Rooster:** I mean, I wish we had
**Gizmo:** gone to this farm. Yeah. I wish we could have. Yeah. If we would've found it. Yeah. Next time. Always Next time. Always something to do next time.[00:12:00]
Well, we were very fortunate. We rented a, uh, a 15 passenger van, which ended up being. A blessing because that was kind of small. We really want
**Rooster:** really,
**Gizmo:** gizmo really wanted the big bus. I did want the big bus. Yeah. You let us down a little bit on that one, but I'm, I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry about that.
But thank God that we had the bus because I know some folks who've gone out there in the 52 Chevy's and did the two and a half ride out there, and I don't know how they survived because how did the, how would the car survive the roads in Havana, excuse me. The roads leading out of Havana to Pinar del Rio for two and a half, three hours are with no, with no suspension.
With no suspension. Mm-Hmm. Are, they are just absolutely atrocious. And it's almost like they paved it once in the fifties and have not paved it or updated it since it's, it's crazy. What was your experience in the, uh, in the Van Senator? I mean, it
**Senator:** feels like you're at an amusement park on a rollercoaster.
I mean, the entire way. You're literally just like flying up [00:13:00] off the seat every two minutes. I, I was trying to sleep when we were going out there. It was like impossible.
**Pagoda:** I'm glad I was sober because, uh, it was a easy trip for
me.
**Gizmo:** It would've been bad if, if, if you had some drinks and you weren't feeling great, it would've been a rough trip.
Yeah.
**Senator:** And if you're someone who gets car sick, good luck making it out there.
**Gizmo:** So on the way out we hit a tourist rest stop, which I guess every vehicle or bus with the tourists pulls into, uh, I guess it was about an hour, hour and a half outside Havana probably or so. Probably. And we
**Senator:** got off there. I just found it funny 'cause you just think of, like, I know in the states when you're going driving to random far distances, there's like a welcome or a visitor's center or something like that.
I just found it amusing that like, you're on this. Road that's in total disrepair and then you pull up and there's like, actually this pretty nicely done like visitor center. There was a gift shop that had things you don't even find in Havana, like hand soap and lotion and all this crap for sale. I was shocked.
They had a bar. There was food. It was a [00:14:00] pretty nice
**Gizmo:** setup. Nice. Yeah, it was definitely the nicest kind of quick stop that we had seen anywhere in Cuba. Even like even in Havana. Was
**Bam Bam:** it crowded at that stop?
**Senator:** Not too crowded, but no, not dead.
**Gizmo:** There were definitely people, I mean when we pulled in there were probably five or 10 Buses and, and as well that lot other taxis and stuff.
That's a lot. Yeah. Okay. It's definitely, that's like the tourist trap. It's a well-traveled area
**Senator:** let's say. Yeah, I mean that, that honestly was nicer than anything on the New Jersey turnpike. If you were rest stop. Truly.
**Gizmo:** What about the John Bon Jovi
**Senator:** rest station? Correct. What's in there? A Cinnabon, I mean, come
**Gizmo:** on.
And a Burger King. I was a bit disappointed with the coffee there though. Oh no, really? It wasn't good.
**Pagoda:** They did have a cappuccino
**Bam Bam:** machine though. Yeah. Did they have Ropa Vieja at the restaurant? No, we didn't eat.
**Pagoda:** I, I think they made the coffee outta powdered milk.
**Senator:** I got a fresh coconut there. It was
**Gizmo:** good.
Did you, did you really? Yeah. I don't remember that. Look at you. Wow. Some coconut water. He did not share, by the way. I'm sure he didn't.
**Pagoda:** I think senator [00:15:00] was the only one who was rehydrating that day.
**Bam Bam:** Smart,
**Gizmo:** smart. Very smart. So we continued on our journey about another hour and a half, I would say. 'cause we headed first to Hector Luis Prieto's Farm, which is about 40 minutes further than downtown Vinalis and where a lot of the farms are to his farm, which is called Quemado de Ruby.
And. I would say is the premier destination for tourists coming in who want to have a really nice experience at a farm, really get a great tour, see everything, and of course have some drinks and some food. So that was where we went first. And I think that our impression, certainly, I was surprised how well set up that farm was for visitors.
Yeah. They have done it
**Rooster:** a
**Gizmo:** few times, definitely. Mm-Hmm.
**Rooster:** Yeah. It seems like every single tourist, you know, if you're on a tour, they take you there. Right. It's, it's well set up to accommodate a bunch of tours at the same time. Nice. [00:16:00] It's a nice well down. I mean, it was a nice spot. It
**Pagoda:** felt very welcoming.
There was like music going on. It was breezy. You could see the tobacco farms. It was a nice little, uh, yeah,
**Gizmo:** setup. So we drove down a long dirt road and I certainly wasn't. I had no expectations of, of what, what was coming. But as soon as you park immediately, there's almost like a visitor center. There's a open air, like, like Pagoda is saying, a covered open air bar, restaurant-type setup right off of their humidor.
And you get to come in and, and say hello to everybody and meet everybody. And then we were able to take a tour and, and that's where it started. Uh, take a tour of the process at, at his farm. Understand why he now, I would argue is probably the successor to Don Alejandro Urbana, whose cigar we're smoking tonight, and his name, uh, as as the premier tobacco farmer.
In Pinar Del Rio, certainly famous apparently, for the quality of the leaf that comes from his farm. He has found ways [00:17:00] very similar to, to Robinia, to grow really, really excellent tobacco that is celebrated not only by the industry, but by Habanos itself. You know, he is very much, um, I would say one of their favorites.
Yeah. He's the fourth generation
**Rooster:** farmer. Hmm. So the farm has been there for quite some time.
**Gizmo:** Not
**Bam Bam:** to go off topic. When was the last storm that went through that area? How long ago
**Gizmo:** was that? Two years ago. It was about a year and a half. Year and a half I think. Or last year. Yeah. And, and he, any remnants of that that you saw?
We didn't see it at his farm. We certainly saw it as we were driving out there. Okay. There was quite a bit of damage as we were driving from Vinales, kind of the downtown touristy area out to his farm, another 40 minutes. I mean, we were driving, we saw structures that were just walls, standing roofs completely gone.
Some of these homes that people live in, I, it's incredible that they're able to sustain. A family life in some of these homes, like they definitely were hit very, very hard. But it seems like Hector Luis that had come out of De Ruby has been [00:18:00] able to recover quite well, I would say. I think the Robena
**Rooster:** farm was pretty badly
**Gizmo:** hit.
We heard that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So Hector Luis, the one thing that, you know, before we even start talking about the tour we went on, he told us that he started farming when he was thirty-seven years old. It wasn't when he was 18 or 16 or 12. He was. He came into this business at 37 years old. And how, how old do you think he's found?
Fascinating. I think he's in his late fifties. That's not a long
**Bam Bam:** time No. To do that rooster. You could
**Senator:** still be a tobacco farmer, correct? It's not too late. There's still hope
**Gizmo:** for me.
**Rooster:** I would like, I would like that. I could
**Bam Bam:** see it. I would like that. Oh, I could see it. I could live there. With your shorts on your hat.
**Senator:** Yeah. Who needs Goshen? When you have Pinar
**Bam Bam:** cigars in your lapel? It is Gura. Gura, correct. And
**Pagoda:** those cowboy boots,
**Gizmo:** please. Oh yeah. It is funny you, so the, you know, there's an illustration of Hector Luis that's kind of famous. It's on the [00:19:00] sign as you're pulling into the property. It's on all over the internet, you know, is this picture of this guy with this specific hat on and the way he dresses and always has a big fat cigar in his mouth.
And I'll tell you, he was exactly as I expected. Like when you saw him, it's like, that's Hector Luis. Because as he came up on us, it's, he looked identical to every picture I've ever seen of the guy. Wow. Identical. Wow. So then we met our tour guide who actually is a roller at his farm and started the process of the tour.
Even, you know, beginning with the seedlings there.
**Pagoda:** Just one more comment. The cigar he was smoking was probably a double Gordo or something. It was like huge.
**Bam Bam:** It was
**Gizmo:** like an 80 ringgit
**Senator:** and he, he mangled that thing. I mean, he was chewing all over it. I couldn't believe just
**Bam Bam:** watching that was probably his lunch.
**Gizmo:** So we started the tour right off of the visitor area, the place where you sit and have drinks and whatnot with like a little pod, I guess you would say. It was kind of a pod set up with seedlings in it and they started the process there. [00:20:00] Um. Any takeaways from, you know, from the beginning of the tour there and what we learned about the seedlings?
I mean, I just thought
**Senator:** it was cool. They showed the, the plant that has these little, the balls that, uh, have the seeds inside. And I remember he was, um, I guess maybe passing some of the seeds to other people. I mean, it's as fine as sand the seeds. I would've expected the seeds to be like, yeah, sesame seeds or just something more sizable.
I mean, literally it was just like sand in someone's hand. They were watching and then they put that into that little pot that you were talking about to start to sprout the
**Gizmo:** plant. Hmm. So they put it in these little pods for 45 days, and that's where they start, that's where they germinate and that's where they germinate and that's where they start to grow.
And after 45 days, they're ready to be planted in the, in the tobacco fields. But I like, like Senator, I was very surprised. I think sand is a perfect example, how fine the seeds are. I would've expected that they were, like you said, even I was expecting maybe closer to like sesame seeds. Mm-Hmm. Like a [00:21:00] little bit bigger.
But like you said, they were very, very tiny, like the point of a point of a needle. Really, very, very small. Wow. Then we went on, we continued on the tour and we went into the actual growing area where the plants were growing, and we were able to see a lot of stuff there. So the
**Rooster:** first, so first farm that we went to was where they were growing the shade, uh, shade-grown wrapper.
All the wrapper is grown under shade. Mm-Hmm. It, it was, I don't know how, how big of an area would you say? Maybe quarter of an acre.
**Gizmo:** Like that particular area? Yeah, that specific area. That specific area. Area. Area that was there.
**Bam Bam:** And that entire area was covered with linen.
It
**Rooster:** was all covered really, not only the top, even the sides were covered.
Oh wow. Yeah. And I would say the tobacco plant was roughly about six feet. Yeah. Six feet. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** Feet bit taller than us feet. Yeah.
**Rooster:** Beautiful, beautiful-looking plant. Oh, I bet. I mean, massive leaves. And when they start picking the leaves, it's from the bottom up. Interesting. And on the lower part of the plant, I think those are the leaves that are [00:22:00] lighter in color.
And as you go higher up, they get
**Gizmo:** a little bit darker in color and
**Senator:** also just smaller. They were saying that like the leaves at the bottom, they start picking to actually roll cigarettes. And the larger leaves, they let obviously keep growing that they're gonna use for cigars.
**Gizmo:** It's amazing how fast the plant grows from that little seedling we were talking about.
Mm-Hmm. In 90 days it almost grows like a weed. Like in 90 days it went from that seedling, you know, where they took it out of that pot after forty-five days, put it in the ground. After 90 days it was almost six feet tall. It was pretty amazing how fast it grows. And it was
**Pagoda:** beautiful. I, I think I was really impressed by looking at the tobacco plants.
They were green and it was just beautiful the way it was set up. Uh, you know, I was expecting it to be, uh, like I've been to certain farms where everything's just so, feels very crowded and, uh, somewhat
**Rooster:** hazardous. I was, I was surprised
**Gizmo:** by the size of the leaf.
**Rooster:** Yeah. Mm. I mean, it must be at least like, maybe four times the size of my hand.
Yeah. You know, big, big leaf. Yeah. You have
**Bam Bam:** small hands.[00:23:00]
**Gizmo:** The other thing I thought was amazing too was we learned that the protection from the sun is not only for protecting from the sun, it's also for protecting from heavy rain. Because too much water or too little water can very adversely affect the growing of the plant. So that also protects too much water from coming in.
'cause they want to be very, very specific about how much water the plant gets. Also wind, I guess. I mean
**Rooster:** it protects from all the elements. It was, and it traps
**Pagoda:** the heat. Right? I think it's
**Rooster:** It does, yeah. It does
**Gizmo:** trap the heat. Yeah. A question about
**Bam Bam:** the soil, what color was, was it dark, lighter? It was dark,
**Rooster:** yeah.
**Gizmo:** Dark brown. Okay. Yeah, I feel like it was very much what, like you'd see in any sort of garden. Mm-Hmm. It was that kind of color, you know, it was a darker brown
**Senator:** agree. Nothing distinct.
**Pagoda:** Okay. Very well organized though. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I think we did
**Rooster:** ask him like how much. How big of an [00:24:00] area it is. And I forget, forget what he said, how many
**Gizmo:** hectares they have a lot. They have, I think it's like third. I think they have like a lot of, lot of land there, right? Hector? Lewis has quite a bit, yeah. They grow a lot of tobacco there. So as they start picking the plant starting at 90 days, they move those into the Barn, the barn, the Casa Delta tobacco.
**Rooster:** Well, they bunch the leaves, they take I think five or six leaves and they bunch them and then they hang them upside down on like a long stick. And I mean obviously there wasn't much there because it, it's not harvest season yet. And I assume when the harvest begins, I mean that whole room is just full.
Can you imagine that smell?
**Gizmo:** Oh, it must be amazing. Oh yeah. It must be incredible intoxicating. I
**Senator:** mean, he, he was saying that stick that they hang them on, that they dry the wrappers for 50 days typically on that stick before they bunch and then, you know, ship
**Gizmo:** it out. The other thing was interesting too, is he said that only women are chosen to [00:25:00] bunch the leaves onto the, onto the needle.
I guess the rope that holds it onto that, that stick. No men do that. It's only women. So here's
**Bam Bam:** a question. So once they, they thread the needle with the leaves, does this stay on there for a certain amount of time? And they do, they transfer it to another ve to a vessel of some kind After I think about 50 days.
Days 50. You said that? 50
**Gizmo:** days. Okay. And then, and then they keep turning it over as they're picking more off the plant. Ah, I see. After, you know, a certain amount of time. Right. You know, they're feeling good about what's coming up on the bottom of the plant. They keep picking that process keeps continuing.
Mm-Hmm. And then they move the stuff that's, you know, ready to go after 50 days into the, you know, fermentation area. I think
**Rooster:** they, they move them into bigger bundles. Okay. Together like Yeah, they do. Versus five leaves and then it goes into a bigger bundle than even a bigger bundle.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Senator:** So he, he was saying that they, the bundles are typically, it's 50 leaves, which is, he said about the equivalent of two plants.
And that bundle, they called a Gaviyah. Then he said they'll take four Gaviyahs and that's called a [00:26:00] manojos. And that's, they'll bundle those manojos into 40 manojos. And that's like, do you remember there was like those like big crate looking things? Yeah. Right. That was, I think the like 40 manojos all bundled into one of those crates.
Right. Wow. And I
**Rooster:** think the spray water on them to keep them moist and to cover them up at some kind of a
jute.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** And you'd have to think with all that mass, there's weight. There's heat that develops in there and they
**Gizmo:** ferment. Well, that's ferment. That's whole fermentation process. Yep. Right.
**Pagoda:** The one thing I wasn't clear about is do they take the leaves and they put them all the way on top?
Because I remember there were some towards the ceiling of the barn.
**Gizmo:** I think that's just a sa, a space-saving measure. They're, oh, they're just alright. They're constantly leveling them up just to keep making space. Space for more leaves coming in and try to. You know, start to cure as much tobacco at the same time as as possible.
And I'm sure, I mean, we
**Rooster:** just saw one barn, they have multiple bar drying barns, maybe you know, a couple of barns for wrapper leaves and bunch of other barns for
**Gizmo:** regular tobacco.
**Senator:** And in that barn, you know, who was watching the whole [00:27:00] process? That Castro painting they had in there. Do you remember that? Oh, oh yeah.
It was actually a pretty cool photo. It was, I have have to say, it was like this painting of Castro with like clouds of smoke billowing out of his mouth and he's just sitting there like kind of like a little smirk and he's just right in the center of the room as these women are all doing their work, probably smoking a fundidorus.
**Gizmo:** The one thing I read too is that the barns were historically constructed from Palm wood. Which I guess is readily available in Cuba with roofs of thatched, palm fronds, and now they're made of corrugated iron sheets and sawn lumber. I don't know what sawn lumber means. It's just dimensional
**Bam Bam:** lumber. Got it.
Yeah. Two
**Gizmo:** by four. This is why, you know, bam. This is why we have you here. Correct.
**Senator:** The only reason.
**Bam Bam:** Okay guys,
**Gizmo:** good night. Bam. We'll text you. Gotcha. The other cool thing, uh, is that I, you know, we saw this when we were walking in is they have massive doors and massive windows, which obviously they [00:28:00] use to regulate temperature in those barns.
So throughout the day, obviously as it gets hotter during the day, I'm sure they're opening that to keep it cooler and then at night they're closing it to keep it a little bit more regulated so that the tobacco can cure evenly. You want that air movement throughout the process. Yeah, yeah. Throughout the process it's also kept, kept very dark.
Do they
**Bam Bam:** have fans
**Rooster:** blowing? We didn't see any fans, and I think it's just air movement through massive doors and windows. I mean, I must say the temperature was a little bit cooler in that area compared to Havana.
**Gizmo:** It definitely was. Agree. It's also the time of year due to the altitude or Yeah. All that too.
Yeah. And you're not on the water. Right. I mean, I have to imagine the, the humidity with the water there is affecting our perception of, of temperature versus being out in, uh, Pinot. I don't know if you guys notice,
**Rooster:** like when we were sitting down to eat right behind, there was like a river. Mm-Hmm. And there were a bunch of hoses in it.
I guess they used that for irrigation. Hmm.
**Gizmo:** Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. They don't waste anything. No. Use all the natural resources.
**Senator:** Well, I did think it was [00:29:00] funny, the one thing that they clearly did not know at that farm when we were under, uh, like the cheese cloth where they were, they were growing all the wrapper, uh, leaves the, someone had asked what happens as far as like fertilizing the, the, the tobacco plant.
And, um, if they, the veins, when they strip the vein, um, from the leaf, if they, you know, use that as fertilizer and the guy's like, oh no, no, we just throw all of that out. We know that's not the case. That is not true. We've been on any factory tour. Those veins that they strip out of those leaves, they send back out to the farms Yeah.
That are used for fertilizer, which makes
**Gizmo:** perfect sense. Mm-hmm. Right.
**Rooster:** They also use compost in the, uh, in the soil. Yeah. When the plant, the
**Bam Bam:** seed, if I remember correctly, they'll take the stems and they'll soak them in water, soak them in water and use water. So they use that as a, um, to keep
**Gizmo:** insects away.
Yeah, yeah. Because there's a high concentration of ammonia. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So then after the process, like we just talked about in the barns, some of the wrapper [00:30:00] is moved to climate-controlled drying chambers known as calphresis after the 50 days that they're in the barns. And this is not everything.
Some are moved for twenty-five days for an additional curing process in Calphresis, which is a more precisely controlled process and results in higher percentage of top quality wrappers compared to the traditional air curing that we were able to see in the barns. What I was amazed by, um, and, and I guess it was a contrary to the perception I've, I've seen on the internet or heard from other folks who visited, uh, these tobacco farms, is quite honestly how simple the process seems as a lay person.
Hmm. I know it's very labor-intensive. I know there's a lot of, you know, diligent science and effort and experience involved. But from seedling to what we learned about the curing process in the barns, it wasn't very. Complicated. [00:31:00] I was surprised that I was able to kind of understand it very quickly and kind of got a grasp for it.
Yeah. It, it just seems that throughout the many generations, many hundreds of years they've been doing this, they've been able to really simplify it Yeah. And systematize for themselves and just do it. Well, I, I
**Senator:** agree that that was my takeaway and just how fast the process is. Yeah. I mean, the fact that like the plant grows to, I mean, a six foot tall, you know, mature plant in, in 90 days, I, I would not have expected, and I was also surprised to learn that after that initial yield.
It. It's not the case that like, you know, they're picking the leaves and then letting new ones form. They just remove the plant and they start the whole process all over again. Yeah, I mean they said that they can obviously wait for an additional yield, but their experience is that that first yield is the best one and the ones after it don't really compare.
So I was just shocked how like rinse and repeat and how quickly an automated this process almost becomes.
**Rooster:** Yeah, I mean I'm sure like different farms are doing little different things. Maybe at this particular farm they were doing this. [00:32:00] I mean, some farms do grow, some cigarette tobacco, they might be growing some other vegetables, maybe interest,
**Gizmo:** which is supposed to be very good for the soil it goes to.
**Bam Bam:** I guess that goes to show the mo For me, the most complicated part of what we're smoking tonight is in the blend. So if it's fairly straightforward in growing the tobacco and fermenting the tobacco, but it's the art is in the blend that creates something exquisite.
**Gizmo:** And I think, you know, and, and. We discussed this with Danilo and, you know, two weeks from now for the listener, we're gonna have our interview with Danilo Rodriguez, the production manager of Cohiba and El Noguito.
And we talked extensively about the choosing of tobacco, you know, when they go to these storage facilities. So the tobacco leaves a farm like Hector, Ruiz, it's, you know, packed up in Tercias it's called, which are square packages wrapped in Yaguas, which is I guess like a bark, uh, again, coming from the p uh, the royal Palm, uh, plant.
And then it's moved to Tabacuba storage facilities for additional fermentation and sorting. And that's [00:33:00] where we talked to Danilo on that interview. We have coming out in two weeks about his process of selecting that tobacco and going there and choosing what they want to use for wrapper, a filler binder for the various cigars they're manufacturing at any given time that, like you said, Bam.
mm-Hmm. That seems to me obviously. The execution on Hector Luis's part at, at a farm like that is top-notch and very important and critical. Still. Sure, critical, but for making a great cigar, that's the art. It comes down to the choice of tobacco. Sure. And then, like you said, the blend, one of Tabacuba keeps
**Rooster:** the farms separated.
Or does it all just go into one massive or multiple barns? Well, or can you go in like, can Danilo like go in and say, well, is this is from Alejandro's Farm or this is, I, I
**Bam Bam:** may have heard ABC Farm, I incorrectly, but when we were interviewing Danilo, aren't there two large fermenting entities in Cuba that they all get sent to and they stay there?
**Gizmo:** Yeah, the storage facilities, I think just have [00:34:00] everything there. Yeah. I think it's sorted by type of wrap, you know, type of size of wrap or color, et cetera. And I think, like you said, I don't think that they're, they're discerning as far as which farm it comes from. They're just trying to choose the best tobacco that's in front of their face.
I don't think that he's able to, to say, I want X, Y, or Z. I think it's just he chooses what's available to 'em.
**Rooster:** So Robayna can't say that I wanna use my own tobacco
**Gizmo:** for my cigars. Well, he can. And we saw that with Hector. Ruiz, Hector Ruiz is able to, well that's
**Rooster:** only within the farm, but I'm saying when they're actually getting rolled in the factories.
Oh no. They can't say that I want to use my own
**Senator:** tobacco. Yeah, I mean, the strange thing though is, I mean then, then how, how is, how do we know Hector, Luis's tobacco is better than the next person's? You don't, if it's all just in one. Yeah. You don't Facility, I think, I think it
**Rooster:** just comes down to more to the blending decision.
Not so much as the tobacco. I mean tobacco, but that
**Senator:** has nothing to do with Hector. Luis has, this guy has this reputation. How do he get the reputation, is my correct
**Gizmo:** point. Correct. I think for Hector Luis, I think it's the yield coming off that farm. [00:35:00] Tabacuba is there every day, monitoring the process, monitoring what's coming outta there, and I'm sure that he's just figured out a process that works for his farm that yields the, what Tabacuba and Habano's view is some of the best tobacco coming outta there.
And maybe he just gives them more product.
**Bam Bam:** But at the end of the day, they all go to a central fermenting location. Yeah. And you can't discern product from one farm to another. Exactly right that we know of.
**Gizmo:** Anyway. That's, that's my understanding.
**Bam Bam:** We don't, yeah, there's maybe something we don't know. I don't know.
**Pagoda:** What I really, uh, liked was, uh, after the tour where he picked up a dry leaf, the wrapper leaf, and he ran his finger through it and it was so leathery and, uh, pliable. Yeah, it was, yeah. Very stretchy, leathery. And it was, you, you got a good feel for the wrapper. Yeah.
**Senator:** That's cool. When we were talking to him about, you know, where all this tobacco goes and how much of it they send to Tabakuba versus actually keep on the farm, I think he had [00:36:00] said 90% of it.
Gets shipped out and 10% of it they actually keep and then roll their own cigars with their, for themselves. Yeah. Yeah. That then they can sell. Really?
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So that, oh, that's cool. That was a covid measure that Tabakuba introduced to help these farmers during covid and, you know, with financial struggles is they started to allow the farms to roll their own cigars and sell them to tourists so that they could, you know, make some, make some extra money.
It makes sense, I guess, for the farms. So that's, you know, as soon as we were done with the tour, immediately we were kind of shuttled over to the area where they rolled. Our tour guide rolled a cigar for us. I think he gave it to Pagoda or, or Senator and then, uh, we were able to go in the human order that they have and really purchase some cigars.
Yeah. Cool.
**Senator:** It was funny. It was like this little shed with like a portable air conditioning unit, basically like pumping AC in. Like as soon as you come in they're like, close the door, close the door. It's like keep the air conditioning in. And it was, there were all, all these little, uh, drawers that had different cigars in them.
It was, it was pretty cool. They actually also, [00:37:00] uh, one of the walls was just covered with photos of celebrities that had actually been there. Really? Anyone notable? Yeah. There was
**Gizmo:** like Sylvester Stallone, Sylvester Stallone Get Outta Town. The president of Cuba was there. I would hope so, of course. And they
**Rooster:** had three sizes of cigars.
They had a kind of like, just like the Bajiques, like fifty-two a fifty-four and a fifty-six and that's it. Those three
**Gizmo:** sizes.
**Senator:** Okay. Oh, here's another one. Steven Seagal.
**Gizmo:** Oh, Steven Seagal. Damn. Action Star. Correct.
**Senator:** Oh, 50 cent. I'm staring at a photo of him and Hector Luis.
**Gizmo:** Oh boy. He's worth love. It's worth a quarter now.
Yeah.
**Senator:** Oh wow. Do you know who I think this is? No, no, never mind. There's a guy who looks just like Samuel Jackson, but it's not him. That would've been
**Bam Bam:** very cool. Barack Obama.
**Gizmo:** So the other thing in the humidor that was cool that is worth mentioning is that Hector Luis was actually named Habanos Man of the Year a few years ago, [00:38:00] I guess, because, you know, he produces such great tobacco and, you know, provides a lot of, uh, product for Tabacuba and Habanos at the Habanos Gallup dinner.
They honored Hector Luis Prieta with the Habanos Man of the Year, which is only given to one person a year. So, wow. That was, that's deal, that was pretty cool. So the actual trophy was in the humidor on display for us. So, fantastic. There is an,
**Rooster:** there is an agency that kind of. Monitors production of seed and quality of seed and seed control.
**Gizmo:** The Tobacco Research, tobacco Research Institute. Yep. So they're heavily involved in the whole farming, you know, and I think they're also kind of like Coca-Cola with the secret recipe. Yeah. The Tobacco Research Institute are the keepers of the blends and the, the markers. And is that right? Yeah. So when it comes to blending, it actually is, is processed through the Tobacco Research I Institute.
Wow. Which I think is probably why in previous episodes when we've talked about, you know, and I think we talked about this with [00:39:00] Danilo in the upcoming interview, is that inside Cuba, we know who rollers are. We don't know who blenders are outside of Cuba, right? We know who blenders are and the people who are making the blending decisions.
And there's no celebration of the people actually rolling the cigars. And I think that inside Cuba, this is a big reason why is I think this is kind of a closely held group of people at the Tobacco Research Institute who are making blending decisions and monitoring blends and making sure things are consistent to keep things in line for Tabacuba and for
**Bam Bam:** Habanos.
All the marcas. Exactly. So you think they keep track of the, of the recipes essentially?
**Gizmo:** I think they have the secret sauce. Ah, it's a good theory. And they
**Senator:** want to keep them secret. Of course. I mean that's the, yeah, I mean, we'll talk about this in the Danilo interview. Makes sense. You know, these are the people that wield the most power, really.
Like if we knew who they were. We'd all try to get them outta Cuba and they'd be, you know, blending for, you know, new world brands, right? Like, that's why they keep them quiet. I'd buy them a house here. But, but truly think about it. I mean, it's true. I mean, every big cigar company would try to pursue some of these [00:40:00] people.
That's why they keep their amazing, it's amazing identity.
**Gizmo:** Quiet. So boys, we're about halfway through here on the Vegas Robeña Famosos. This is a really, really nice experience.
**Bam Bam:** Tonight, I'm gushing inside about the cigar. I think for me it's getting better and better. It's firmly mild touching, maybe slight medium, but it's so creamy and velvety.
And on the retro I get very faint fruit, but it's so creamy for me. It's, it's outstanding.
**Rooster:** Cigar. Anybody get any pepper? Like a slight bit
of
**Gizmo:** pepper? A towards the back? No, not a drop. I think the spice I'm getting is more like a nutty
**Rooster:** spice or,
**Gizmo:** yeah. Yeah. These guys are sensitive. It's very, very subtle though.
Very subtle. What are you guys getting? I'm
**Pagoda:** getting a bit of, uh, actually I hesitate to say, but coffee, I don't know. It's slightly bitterish with the chocolate flavor. Not very mochaish, but maybe
**Rooster:** that's slightly different. Maybe that's the spice that I'm thinking about. Like a nutty spice, like, you know, it's like a, maybe not a [00:41:00] black pepper spice, but
**Gizmo:** more like a coffee spice.
Like a bitter, like, like a bitter coffee.
**Rooster:** I don't know. And also you do get that salty, salty
**Gizmo:** tank. Oh, that twang is there. Yeah.
**Senator:** I just like the creaminess in this cigar. Sure. This is the one component of it that honestly does remind me a bit of the Classicos. The Classicos is a very creamy, velvety cigar and that the ones we've smoked obviously have a lot of age on them.
I'm amazed with just two years that same creamy. Profile that kind of brings this all together is very present here, which
**Gizmo:** is good. It's got a, got a long finish too. Yeah. Yeah. And that it
**Rooster:** just kind of lingers
**Bam Bam:** in your mouth. That's the mark of a very elegant, complex
**Gizmo:** cigar for me. Especially for something that's mild.
Yeah. Like it's surprising that the finish is so, uh, so long. Sure. For a mild cigar. 'cause it's, it's really not punching you in the face. No. It's a pleasure to smoke, honestly. And, and to Pagoda's point, I think that the placement for this and a rotation for me would be earlier in the day with a cup of coffee.
I don't think that [00:42:00] having this after dinner would serve the cigar. I think this is, you know, this is an early in the rotation cigar. If I'm
**Bam Bam:** doing a sit for three or four or five cigars, I would start with this. Yeah. This is the one
**Gizmo:** to start with. No doubt about it.
**Senator:** I will say though, I, I agree with GIZ and, and pagoda's.
Call out of the coffee. Note this to me. This is the perfect cigar with a cup of coffee. Oh sure. Like, arguably the best pairing of any Cuban cigar with a cup of coffee might be the cigar, but.
**Bam Bam:** What you've picked for us to drink tonight is really going beautifully with this thing. Yeah, let's talk about it.
**Gizmo:** Boy, it's, it's really awesome. The Campo Viejo wine that we discovered at was a cha-cha-cha or Cinco? Sentidos cha-cha-cha. So on the Senator's giving me hand signals, by the way, he's giving me back and forth here. No, no, not that one. The other one he knows.
**Bam Bam:** Sign language too. You know, we learned that from idiot in the club.
**Gizmo:** So this wine is a temper neo, which we discovered at cha-Cha-Cha. And we drank quite a bit of this in Havana [00:43:00] because it was a really good value, you know, wine, that we were able to pick off a list at multiple places, but it just drinks so well. Mm-Hmm. And I think it's actually pairing very nicely with the cigar.
Agreed. Yeah. I, I
**Senator:** think there's a general rule of thumb when you're traveling somewhere where the wine selection is very limited, which Cuba definitely qualifies as being the case. Um, what you're typically gonna find for like a drinkable, um. You know, a good to decent bottle of wine with dinner that's also gonna be very affordable is like Spanish wine, right?
Like, that's the one thing reliably. They have wine from Spain, Argentina, very few places have any American wine there. Um, and, and the ones that do have like literally two bottles of something from California, um, you'll find some from France, but those are gonna be a bit higher price. So just like I said, the value is really, really strong.
And then what we're drinking, I mean, this is Campo Viejo, this is ubiquitous. You find this literally everywhere across the US clearly in [00:44:00] Cuba, tons of other countries. Um, it's just kind of a, an easy drinking. Um. You know, red that will pair well with, you know, pretty much anything for a decent meal. And it's not a Cabernet What's the grape?
No, so the, the grape is a Tempranillo. Tempranillo. Okay. And so how Spanish wine works? Uh, really all of, um, the old world, um, like any French wine we've ever done. So in France, you know, the, the wine is kind of, uh, called by the region, whether it's from, um, the champagne region, we're talking about a champagne or obviously some of the red wines from different, um, uh, Regions there.
The region of this is Rioja where it's actually grown. Uh, so you, you hear of Rioja all the time. It's not a grape, it's just a huge growing region in Spain. And then the actual grape that makes this is the temper neogrape. Interesting.
**Bam Bam:** It's delicious. It's really, really easy Drinking. It is super easy
**Gizmo:** drinking.
Right. But it very much like the cigar, I feel like. But it's so satisfying. It's very satisfying. But it's not super rich. [00:45:00] No. Um, it's, it's a light red wine. We're gonna need another bottle tonight. We will, we're gonna have to send Senator out to get another one. Uh, but Senator doesn't
**Senator:** do
**Gizmo:** delivery.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, Garcon.
**Gizmo:** But I think actually for the cigar, it's actually a perfect pairing given that we're drinking a mild cigar. I think having a Merlot or a Cabernet or something, a little bit more rich. Would very much overpower the cigar. And it's not happening tonight
**Senator:** with this a cabernet. Yes, but a Merlot would work. So I actually would compare this temper neo in some ways to a Merlot.
It's like a very soft, supple red wine. Interesting. That like isn't as light as a pinot noir is nowhere near as full as a cab and it just kind of sits right in the middle where like the body is just satisfying enough to hold up with most entrees that you might order for a dinner. Also is a Sera would be similar, I think, or a Zim.
Oh no, those are much heavier. Heavier than, are heavier. Yeah. Yeah. Both are heavier than this. I see. Mm-Hmm. Um, but, uh, it's extremely versatile. I think that's a nice thing. Like I said, this is a, you know, [00:46:00] mild, medium cigar and this holds up really well with this. We've had this with plenty of meals there, and it can hold up with, you know, a piece of chicken, you know, fish a really, um, rope Viejo, rope vieja,
**Gizmo:** which if a listener listened to the last episode, we became obsessed with the Ropa Vieja at Cinco Centitos five Centitos in Havana.
And we drank this wine every single time we were there eating Ropa vieja had paired perfectly. It also paired really well with the, the fillet tips that we love at Cha cha cha, you know, like, and, and then it paired very well with fish. Correct. You know, which damn, also had a few times. It was excellent. So it, um, it's a really, really versatile wine, and especially like you said in Havana, where the wine selection isn't incredible.
Obviously, but you're able to find something like this. That's a good value. And how much was the bottle?
**Senator:** Well, that's the best part. It's dirt cheap. I mean, a bottle of this, a total wine is $10 and change. Wow. Bro. I had to buy this locally at one of our places they charge 15, which is a rip-off for what this normally I have to run [00:47:00] and
**Bam Bam:** get a case of this.
This is outstanding for that
**Gizmo:** price. Yeah, it's, it's outrageous. Great wine. So boys, back to our trip to Pinar Del Rio and Vinales. We finished our tour, like we said at Hector Luis's Farm, Quemarote Ruby. Then we went and had a nice meal. We sat down, had some drinks, uh, had a traditional Cuban meal there, which was I guess pork with veggies and rice and, and beans and whatnot.
Sat down, had a cigar. And then, uh, did they serve Paul Roger? They did not serve Paul Roger. Cristal Senator was
**Senator:** furious. We were in Cuba, my goodness, Paul
**Gizmo:** Roger. I must say that it was a bit overpriced. It was. It was one of the more expensive meals actually. They need to make a living out there.
**Senator:** It was
**Bam Bam:** a little egregious.
It's a tourist trap too, I guess. It is.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Rooster:** But overall, it was a great experience and I think any listener who's going to go to that part of the area and learn about tobacco farming, [00:48:00] it's a must to go to that farm and, uh, and just visit and, uh, you'll have a great experience.
**Bam Bam:** How far is the farm from
**Gizmo:** there, do you know?
I don't. Okay.
**Rooster:** It's tough to find these farms. Yeah. You know, even on a map, I don't think it shows probably not accurate. And sometimes they're called, they're go by different
**Gizmo:** names. Yeah.
**Senator:** There's not even, there's like no street signs out there. I mean, the poor driver just to get us where we were trying to go.
It's really not easy to navigate.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, you
**Rooster:** really need a driver who's actually been to these farms and who knows where he is going and where to go. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. That's the only way, because we were looking for another farm after, after Jose Luis, I think. What was the Hoyo? Hoyo
**Gizmo:** De Mena. Yeah. Hoyo de Mena.
But it was closed. We found it, but it was closed. Right.
**Rooster:** We found it. We couldn't find, well first we couldn't find the entrance then. Then it was blocked off. We tried to go around the side. The driver stopped multiple times. We really tried to find it and we did find it. But I guess it,
**Gizmo:** it was closed. Yeah.
Wow. Wasn't open for business that night. I think it was also, 'cause we were there later in the [00:49:00] day. 'cause we spent quite a bit of time in Hector Luis's place. So, um, you know, the other thing I'll say too, it was unfortunate we didn't get to have a conversation with Hector Luis because he was, uh, doing some business with another table and really was consumed for the entire time we were there with them.
So we weren't able to have a full conversation with em. But hopefully the next time we go, we'll be able to do that. So we headed out from Hector, Luis's Place. We headed back toward Vinales. Like I said, Hector. Luis was about 40 minutes outside of the town of Vinales. And on our way back, we wanted to stop at another farm called Juan.
Luis, which I would say is kind of on the polar opposite as far as preparedness for tourists. And, uh, it wasn't quite ready for a busload of people to show up. They had a nice little setup, but
**Senator:** I mean, you're being generous. I'm sorry. It's not a nice setup. That place was a dump. I'm, I'm just gonna say it.
No, I do. Look, I, I, I just want to paint the picture for you are in Cuba especially. No, but you have to appreciate the contrast of these two places. What shocked me. You go to Hector Luis. [00:50:00] It's little things, right? Your expectations are very low in Cuba because resources are obviously so constrained. I'll never forget just using the bathroom at that Hector Luis farm.
The bathroom is beautiful. Honestly, it was nicer than most restrooms in restaurants in Havana. Really? There was soap and like good hand soap, um, Toilet paper. Wow. I mean, I know these are things in the states that we take for granted, but when you're in Cuba, it's a big deal. That's true. When you walk in a public restroom, even at a restaurant that has soap and toilet paper in it, and everything was pristine in Hector Luis, you go to that other place.
I mean, I, I was the first to use that restroom. I mean, it was like an outhouse. It was a totally different
**Gizmo:** setup. It was definitely in contrast to what the experience there. Wow. I must
**Pagoda:** say one thing about the bathroom at Hector Luis, it was only one way in. You couldn't get out. There was no handle
**Bam Bam:** in
**Gizmo:** time.
It's true. Yeah. Pagoda got stuck in there for about 10 minutes. Oh boy. The one thing that was cool at Juan Luis's Farm that Rooster was happy about is they were showing off their honey production. So not only do they grow tobacco there, [00:51:00] they also have coffee, I believe as well. But primarily
**Rooster:** they have coffee.
They have, they also make their own rum. Ah, there were sampling some rum. There was, when we got there, there was a bunch of European, uh, there was like a European tour. I'm not, I forget where they were from. So they were tasting some rum. Wow. And we just wanted, I wanted to get a bottle of, uh, honey for the host that we were staying at the Airbnb.
And so he had asked me to get this, uh, the honey's apparently like very good there. Nice. And it was really super dark
**Gizmo:** and uh, it was in a plastic Coke bottle.
**Senator:** I was saying to Rooster, I had read, um, right before or during our trip, the honey in Cuba is some of the most coveted honey in the world. Wow. It's because there's like no pesticides used there.
It's like the most organic of types of honey that you can get. Like people legitimately pursue honey from there. And we had it when we were back at the house. It's very good. We very,
**Gizmo:** yes, it is good. Yeah. So yeah, it's the only, it's the only place in the world that Monsanto hasn't gotten their hands on yet to, uh, deliver [00:52:00] truckloads of Roundup so the bees are able to thrive there.
And, and like I think what you were saying that you've heard from other people around the world that, that it's very well covered it, right? Oh yeah. Cuban honey. I had no idea that that was something that people were chasing. Yeah. But apparently it's uh, it's sought after. So. Well, the
**Senator:** funny thing too, it's like all these other products that they're growing and selling at these farms, the reason behind a lot of that was when the Cuban government was screwing these farmers on what they were paying them for the tobacco.
The farmers kind of revolted and said like, we have no way to make money. So they started growing these other crops that were actually paying them more than tobacco was, and then they started getting paid more on the Tobacco to kind of, you know, create a stronger incentive to produce more. Yeah. You know what would
**Rooster:** be nice?
Like these farmers should get together. When you stop at the rest stop, each person is given a map. So you can get to these farms and they're nicely labeled and you can actually visit these farms and you can buy product from there. I mean, how nice would that be? And when
**Bam Bam:** Rooster starts his farm out [00:53:00] there, he'll do that.
**Gizmo:** Think a rooster. Correct. Done. So we left, uh, Juan, Luis and then we were a little hungry and we somehow ended up at this restaurant on a hilltop, which provided us with some of the most amazing views. Oh, what a view of Cuba that we've ever seen. Sounds incredible. So if you think of Havana as kind of a flat city, when you get out to Vinales, Pinar del Rio, that whole area, it's there, there's mountains, it's hilly, it's up and down.
It's the terrain is incredible. And to be on a a, a a mountaintop staring down into, it's amazing this valley, it's amazing. The views were incredible. I just
**Senator:** have to show BAM this photo. I, I mean, we are all taking a bunch of photos. There was one photo that somehow, literally it looks like a painting. It doesn't even look real.
And this was
**Bam Bam:** on an iPhone. And for the listener, I, I cut my trip to Cuba short. I had to get back home, so I didn't get to go out here. This looks like a painting. It doesn't look real. It's, it's, it's [00:54:00] ridiculous how gorgeous this is. My God. You have to send me that photograph. I know. Fantastic.
**Gizmo:** There were some, there were some points when we were traveling that it almost looked like, you know, the way the Jurassic Park opens, like those Yeah.
Those scenic views. Yeah. It's like I was waiting for like a T-Rex to like roar up, you know, or like another dinosaur or something. It kind of had that kind of look to it. Mm mm Uh, but it was, it was pretty incredible out there. So I have to say the cigar is a fake one. That is what the band came off too easily.
The band came off way too easily
**Bam Bam:** cut as Mike will you,
**Gizmo:** I love the cigar. So we had a couple beers and a nice little snack at that restaurant and then we headed home and for two and a half hours back on those bumpy roads, I was, I don't know if I was ever happier in, in, in Cuba than when we finally got back to the highway type setup that they have closer to Havana where we weren't bouncing around in the vehicle.
It was, it was pretty drastic going out there. So anybody, any listener who does [00:55:00] decide to go to Pernod del Rio Vinales, make sure you get a vehicle that has, you may need Dramamine a tram of me to Chevy convertible.
**Rooster:** No, the only way.
**Gizmo:** The only way to go. No way. No way. So boys, we're into the last third here, I would say, on our Vegas Robina Famosas.
What's everybody thinking? It's fantastic smoke.
**Senator:** It's delicious. I mean, honestly, I, I'm pretty far into the last third and it's just as smooth, no rough edges down the stretch. Yeah. The flavor's been consistent all the way through, which I'm happy about because I, I love the flavor notes that it's delivering still
**Bam Bam:** very creamy.
Very creamy. Yeah. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Creamy cedar-y cocoa milk,
**Bam Bam:** chocolate type. And if, if you can retrohale really on the end tail at the end of that retrohale, very faint fruit you got. That's quite nice.
**Senator:** And I think when you get very, very far, when you're well into the final third, like how deep are you?
**Bam Bam:** Hold your cigar up.
Oh, look at this guy. [00:56:00] Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty far along. You are
**Senator:** in there and I, I think at that point it just hits medium. Mm. Which is a good thing. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I must say I, yeah, I, I think it's picked up a little bit and I think the, uh, the prominent note for me right now is Cedar. I'm definitely getting a lot more cedar, but it's, it's still very pleasurable.
Mm-Hmm. Just touching medium. It's picked up a little, little bit, but still, you know, very creamy and it's delivery very smooth. I'm very happy with the cigar
**Senator:** tonight, and the construction's been great. I mean, I haven't really had to touch this up much at all. Think the, our line's been consistent. No one's touched it up.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So, boys, as we wrap up our, our conversation on Vinalis, I think the, the overall thing that I would say to a listener is definitely go to Vinalis in Pinar del Rio and see. Source of this incredible thing that we love and, and learn about the process as we try to do. And certainly as we go back more and more, we'll become more educated on it and be able to dive a little deeper, um, as we continue [00:57:00] to go.
But it, it's really a strong recommend for me to go out there and, and visit these folks. And we,
**Rooster:** we also did it in one day. Yes. A lot of people who go there, they spend, they spend overnight. Mm. So maybe that's a way to like explore some more forms because you're gonna spend a couple of hours at this one farm that we went to.
Yeah. You
**Gizmo:** And a couple hours to get there and go back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you have Anna.
**Senator:** Yeah. And I think for anybody who does make the trip, the the one must visit is the Hector Luis farm. You have to go there. Absolutely. It's perfectly built for this. I thought the tour was informative. I mean, we had questions.
I, I don't think there was anything that they didn't want to answer or couldn't. Um, and even though the food is a little bit overpriced, I mean, just when you're in Cuba, you don't expect anything to move particularly quickly. And I thought like from the time we got there to the time we got a tour to how long it took to get a drink or food, everything was fast.
It was, it was just like a well-oiled machine there. I I couldn't recommend it enough. Yeah. I would
**Rooster:** probably not eat at Hector [00:58:00] Luis's Farm. I would eat at
**Gizmo:** Helltop. Yeah, go to the place we went after. Yeah. Agree. We
**Rooster:** didn't really eat, we just got a, got a smack. But
**Gizmo:** that's a, that's a legit spot to visit. Yeah.
And there's clearly, because Vinyards is set up as a tourist destination out there, there, I mean, even Senator was commenting as we were driving through, as to even there were street, you know, on the side of the street you could buy Doritos or a can of Coca-Cola, which in Havana is very, very hard to come by.
So it's almost like, as we got further away, two and a half hours from Havana, it's almost like there were more of those kind of American snacks and kind of grabby food. Yeah. This is just for Puba. I mean, did they have
**Bam Bam:** Doritos?
**Gizmo:** We actually, we
**Rooster:** actually ate Pringles. We had Pringles.
**Gizmo:** We had Pringles.
**Senator:** He's all set.
And we were walking down some street in Havana one night. Oh, bipo. Obispo and I have a photo of it. We spot, I think Giz spotted it first, this little bodega that literally had bags of Doritos for sale. Wow. I took it just to show [00:59:00] Puba. He's
**Gizmo:** all set. No more excuses. No more. So boys, I gotta say, we just talked about the cigar a little bit, but the wine has really been a, a really smooth drinking experience with a cigar.
Yeah. And the reason why I say that, and I'm kind of, it's, it's imprinting on my brain, is we didn't have many experiences where we were drinking wine with cigars in Havana. True. That's exactly right. Because every ti at most of these restaurants we ate at, we weren't smoking cigars while we were eating.
Right. So when we left the restaurant and we went to a lounge, or we went back to our house or whatever it was, we were drinking and we had rum. Yeah. We were drinking rum.
**Bam Bam:** This is a wonderful combination tonight.
**Gizmo:** So this is a, a nice revelation, despite how much we've had it, is that it is pairing really well with the cigar.
Sure. So boys. Yeah. Vinalis was great, man. That's awesome. We gotta go back out there sometime. And like I said for the listeners, you definitely have to go view, go visit, you know where this thing comes from. I can't wait to see it firsthand. Yeah, yeah. It
**Rooster:** was a bit cloudy that day. Mm-Hmm. It was nice to see if it was sunny, like, but the photographs was still [01:00:00] stunning.
Oh yeah. Stunning. Yeah. Great view.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So boys, we have to talk about it 'cause it's coming up. Uh, pretty much about a week, A week from now, a week and a half. The Habanos Festival 20 twenty-four starts on the twenty-sixth of February. All right. All right. All right. So let's talk about, uh, some of the things they're highlighting this year.
'cause we haven't discussed this. So it's a week-long program. I went to it last year. I went to the, the, the Wednesday event and the Friday gala dinner where they debuted the Parthigus Linea Maestra, which hopefully is gonna be coming out this year around, uh, festival time. We'll see. Is it earlier this year?
No, it's about the same week. It's the same week last week of February into March. So it starts on the Twenty-sixth of February and opens with the Welcome event, which is celebrating this year, the 30th anniversary of Habano's. So that's really exciting. Oh,
**Senator:** more price increases. Yeah. I mean, what's there to [01:01:00] celebrate?
I'm sorry. Mm-Hmm?
**Gizmo:** Gimme a break. So Wednesday night this, he's not wrong. And he's a hundred percent right and he's a hundred percent right. And I believe there's some more price increases coming. We'll talk about that on a future episode. I'm gonna get some info on that. Uh, Wednesday the 28th. This one's cool.
There's celebrating the 50th anniversary of Kaido, or say. Oh wow, that's cool. So that'll be nice. Get some good cigars there. I don't think they're announcing anything, but we'll see. And then the Friday gala dinner is celebrating the fifty-fifth anniversary of Trinidad. Wow. So that's gonna be something special.
I'm sure they're Sure they're gonna release a fifty-fifth anniversary cigar from Trinidad this year for $300. For $300, I'm sure. But that is the, uh, that's kind of the lineup this year of what they're celebrating at the Bonos Festival. So we won't be there, but some of our friends will. So we'll get a report and, and we'll kind of report back on what's announced and what's released, and we'll see if there's any surprises in store.
Boys, we're coming to the end of our evening here with [01:02:00] the Vegas Robeña Famosas and the Campo Viejo wine. Any final thoughts before we move into our ratings tonight? Nope.
**Rooster:** I'm actually pleasantly surprised by how good this
**Gizmo:** is. The cigar.
**Senator:** Yeah. Who's had this cigar before tonight?
**Gizmo:** I have not, never, ever had this before me.
I have not had this. I've had
**Senator:** one. And what's funny is the one I had was actually, uh, much fuller in flavor than this cigar is. It was, I would say, firmly, medium. Um, it was just very different and maybe it was younger and with more youth, it has, you know, a little more oomph to it, uh, for the cigar. I don't remember it being as creamy as this.
I didn't love it. I, it was kind of like, honestly, what it reminded me of, if, if you've had a young unicos, I don't think young, that cigar smokes that. Great. I agree. And that's kind of my experience with the famosa when it was young, but just two years. I, this is, I would definitely smoke this again, this is
**Gizmo:** a Mid-twenty-two.
[01:03:00] Mid-twenty-two. Yeah. Mid-twenty-two. It's
**Bam Bam:** incredible. You know, I'm, I'm comfortable in saying that this is probably the very best mild cigar that I've ever had. I haven't had many that are memorable. I don't ever remember a mild cigar that I liked this. This is gonna leave a mark and I would like to get more, the best, mild
**Gizmo:** cigar I've ever had.
I think that's an interesting point, Ben, because anytime I, I think about a mild cigar I've had, it's, it's never really been memorable. No. Maybe aside from the Padrone De Masso series, which is kind of their mild line maybe with the Connecticut wrapper on it, that's a great cigar. I, I've not reached for it again, just 'cause it's not in my, my, my wheelhouse.
Yeah. But this is a cigar. Like I said, I, I could very well see this being a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee type of cigar for me. But, you know, as far as where it's gonna land in the rest of my rotation, it's only gonna be at the beginning because Sure. Pretty much everything else we smoke from the Urbanos catalog or outside of Cuba, uh, is gonna be a lot more full
**Bam Bam:** than this.
But what a great start to a sit if you're gonna spend time at the club. [01:04:00] Absolutely. It's a fantastic start.
**Senator:** What did you say the
**Gizmo:** price point is on this? It's about 18 or 20 bucks when I bought it. So it's probably about twenty-two now.
**Bam Bam:** twenty-Twenty-two. Yeah. It's expensive at twenty-two at 18 to 20. It's, it's amazing.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's nothing
**Rooster:** cheaper. I know, I know. Yeah. My, even when we were there at D-Four. Cuba is about 16. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So here it 20. So here it's, yeah, exactly. 20 twenty-two.
**Senator:** I know. That's the only thing that's hard for me is just like, compare it when Yeah. This size, this is true, which is larger, right? Same length, but bigger ring age and it delivers a lot more flavor.
And to me, more versatility. I mean, you know, I have a D-four in the morning as often as I would in the evening. Good evening. And so that, that's gonna factor in a little bit for me here. Mm-Hmm.
**Gizmo:** Alright boys, let's move into the formal liquor rating of the Campo Viejo wine we had. Bam. Bam, you're up
**Bam Bam:** for under $11 the way it's drinking.
How can I not give this a 10? Ooh, wow. Bam. It's a 10 for me because I can go through an entire bottle, open a second, [01:05:00] and continue to enjoy it. It's just, it's delicious. It drinks so easy. And the versatility with food is amazing. 10.
**Gizmo:** Okay. Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** I'll give it a nine. I, I think it's, uh. I'm not really into wine.
So I've had few wines which I've really, really enjoyed, and those wines I never attend. For me inside, like in my head, uh, this does not measure up to that I think, but I'm really enjoying. It's very light-bodied. It feels very easy to drink. Um, and the price point is fantastic. It's a nine.
**Gizmo:** Senator,
**Senator:** this is tough 'cause I'm, I'm between an eight and a nine.
Um, for what it is, it's an eight. But for. What it is at it's price point, I'm gonna round up to a nine. I mean, it's extraordinarily difficult to find a $10 bottle of wine that is even drinkable. Exactly. Right. And the fact that, you know, you can drink this on its own, you can have this with a meal and you're gonna be satisfied enough every time.[01:06:00]
I, that's a huge merit. So I, I'm gonna round up to a nine. And I think for anyone who's in a bind as far as wine selection goes, mm-hmm. You'll be satisfied getting this. And for anybody else who is just looking for like a really budget accessible wine, yeah. That's gonna deliver enough. I mean, this, this
**Bam Bam:** would be it.
Most people pursue blends at this price point because they don't have other options. This is a pure grape, it's really something.
**Gizmo:** So I was coming into this episode almost anticipating that I was gonna give this wine an eight simply because. I hadn't had it with a cigar, as I noted. And also it, it, it's very good.
Obviously it's the selection we make in Cuba. The, the wine list is limited versus other wines that I, I reach for that I would consider a nine or a 10, or we've rated nines or tens. It's one step below that. But given how it performed for being a $10 bottle of wine with the cigar tonight, which was a bit of a surprise to me, it's a nine for me, for sure.
Great rating. So it's a little bit more [01:07:00] than I expected with the cigar tonight. So I'm happy about that. So boys, that puts the form of liquor rating at a 9.3. Wow. Which is a very good rating for a $10 bottle of wine. Now let me ask you a question. If this bottle was $30, would you guys feel the same way about it?
My rating
**Bam Bam:** would probably drop very slightly to a
**Gizmo:** nine mm-Hmm. I think value is playing into that. I agree. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** It is, it's compelling
**Senator:** for, for me. It definitely is. I mean, I'd give this a seven if this were $30 I, maybe even a six. I look the thing is
**Bam Bam:** the discerning silver tongue. I, I
**Senator:** mean, look, the, the thing with this wine, it's a very simple, straightforward wine.
You have not, not one of us used the word complex to describe it. No. Yeah. And it's not by design. It's meant to just hit the, the right notes that most people like, which are like dark berries, not overly sweet. A little bit of vanilla. And it works really well for most occasions. But at a $30 price point, I mean, there's no way I'm gonna give this a nine.
Yeah. But, [01:08:00] um, you know, I think, like we're all saying, the, the value is so tremendous on this bottle. That, and the versatility, it, it's deserving of anyone who's looking for a budget wine, pick it up and try it. And if you're, you know, with a limited selection, you, you're gonna be satisfied enough
with
**Gizmo:** this.
All right, boys, it's time to move into the formal lizard rating on the Vegas Robania Famosas tonight. Rooster, you're up. Yeah. So, um,
**Rooster:** I would love a box of these. Yeah, same. I think I can smoke this in the morning, in the afternoon, early evening as a first cigar in the evening, and then move on to something a little bit bolder.
So, I mean, I know you said then it's medium, I mean, it's mild. Yeah, mild. Mm-Hmm. To me it's a little bit, a little bit more than mild. It's a little bit more touches medium in between a mild and a medium. Mm-Hmm. And towards the end, it, it did pick up, it, it did become a medium in a nicely, in a nice way.
Smooth way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the notes that I'm, that I threw out, I got out of this was a lot of cedar and, uh, coffee and, um, I mean, I, I love those notes. [01:09:00] So for me, this is a nine
**Gizmo:** senator.
**Senator:** I'm in the exact same camp. I, I came in with little to low expectations. I mean, like I said, I had one before. It wasn't anything special to me.
The, the flavor notes were like Rooster said, I think notes that I, and many of us, if not all of us, really pursuing a cigar. And it was consistent all the way through. I never lost flavor at any point, which we know happens all too often with a lot of sticks. The construction was perfect on mine from the draw to the burn.
Um, yeah, it's really hard to find a complaint. I mean, the reason for me it's not a 10 is it doesn't deliver as much flavor as I would like. I mean, with this profile, if this had a more robust flavor profile, I mean, it would be a 10 Yeah. Easily for me. But for what
**Bam Bam:** it is, if it, if it maintained its smoothness and creaminess
**Senator:** Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. But for what it is, and, and I'm glad you reminded me. I mean, the creaminess of this cigar with just. [01:10:00] Under two years of age really is, uh, it's pretty impressive. So I, I'm at a firm nine,
**Gizmo:** so for me it's an eight. And I'll tell you two reasons why. Number one. The, the last quarter, I would say, where it went full cedar, I did not really enjoy it.
It got a little bitter for me in a way that I didn't love it. Mm-Hmm. And I think also the value at 18 or 20 or $22, whatever this might end up being, when you can get it in the United States, it doesn't line up for me. At that price point. So I don't see myself reaching for it like I want to, um, even in the morning with a cup of coffee.
I also, I I, I have so many other cigars in my humidor, a few other hermosas number fours in my humidor, same exact size that I might reach for over this with Connie ones. I'm just curious, the connoisseur one and the El Rey del Mundo Suprime, I would reach for both of those over this, their different
**Bam Bam:** cigars.
We mentioned that earlier. Correct. You're right. Sure you're
**Gizmo:** right. But, but both of those cigars I would reach for over this. Um, so I just don't know if it's gonna break into my rotation. Mm. [01:11:00] I appreciated the creaminess. I appreciated the mild flavor profile. I think if it had a little bit more for me and that last quarter was a little bit more solid in line with the first half of the cigar, it would've been a nine.
So it's an eight for me all day. I have to say, I'm
**Senator:** shocked. Me too. I. For Rooster who loves a very full cigar to give that a nine and you give it a, I would've never guessed that the guy has a, a 90th
**Bam Bam:** for breakfast
**Senator:** crying out loud, and
**Gizmo:** he says, smoke this anytime. It's not
**Rooster:** nice G
**Gizmo:** Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** It's, it is a nine for me.
Uh, I really liked, uh, you know, the cocoa milk chocolate flavor in the beginning. I felt a little bit of the coffees taste right after that. It's been, uh, very consistent. Uh, the draw has been a bit tight, uh, to be fair. And maybe that's why the score is a bit lower. Uh, but overall, a very, very pleasant experience for me.
And I didn't think this was mild to any, any effect. I thought it was closer to a medium-bodied cigar, which [01:12:00] kind of picked up a little strength towards the back. And an excellent experience tonight. Yeah, it's a nine for me. Bam. Bam.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I'm also at a nine. I, I can't see giving this an eight because it's so memorable for me.
I'll remember the cigar. I would like a box of it, you know, like I said earlier, for me it's really the best mild cigar I've ever had. It did pick up. Senator, as you noted toward the tail end of it for, but for me, I like that cedar note, no pepper at all. Very smooth.
**Gizmo:** I would pick this over a Connie one. Me
**Bam Bam:** too.
Yeah, dude. Yeah. Sorry.
**Senator:** You're right. I would, we're gonna have to have Danilo, but gives through the tasting. Uh, yeah. Practice. Uh,
**Bam Bam:** no, not, he's gotta go through the gauntlet. Okay.
**Gizmo:** So boys, the formal lizard rating on the Vegas Romania Famoso's is an 8.8, which I think is a fair score. That's a, that's nice score.
A classic Good. Think it's score, fair score. For this,
**Rooster:** it could have
**Bam Bam:** been a nine. It's a nice score. But what's interesting, if there are guys and gals out there that love a mild cigar, this is, this is a little home-run cigar here at that, at that flavor
**Gizmo:** profile. I agree.
**Senator:** And again, the fact [01:13:00] that this cigar satisfied Rooster and Pagoda who loves the full-flavored cigar Oh yeah.
I think speaks to the versatility or range that this has to really satisfy anybody. Correct. I mean,
**Gizmo:** you follow this
**Rooster:** cigar with a new world like an Exclusivo or any other paone, I mean, it's a great night. It'll
**Bam Bam:** enhance your experience on that second cigar. Absolutely. Absolutely.
**Pagoda:** I also think the finish was reasonably long and you know, my mouth is very pleasantly.
Yeah. Filled with really good, you know, it's a, there's a nice coating there. There's a nice coating. Yeah. And so, uh, you know, for me that's why definitely a nine.
**Gizmo:** Alright, boys, so let's compare this to other Vegas Robinia we've done on the pod. Like I said, this is the third one we've done. We did the, of course classic Twenty-Eleven Classico on New Year's.
Eve Twenty-Twenty-Two, the Holy Grail, which got a 9.9. I think Pagoda gave that a nine that night. That was a Pagoda.
**Bam Bam:** Oh, you gotta, goodness, you gotta take him
**Pagoda:** out back. Well, you see how my Flavor Pro profile is developed over the years.
**Bam Bam:** I think he needs another one to try. [01:14:00]
**Gizmo:** And on episode thirty-eight, we did the Unicost, the Pyramid, which got an 8.2.
So this scored six points better than that. And let's also compare to the other Hormozos number fours that we've done. We did the El Rey del Mundo, Schwa Supreme on episode twenty-two scored a 7.8, which is quite low. That's
**Bam Bam:** quite disappointing. That's quite low. I think we need to do that
**Gizmo:** again. The H.
Upman Connoisseur number one on episode ninety-six got an 8.6. Just to touch, uh, below this on episode fifty-two with Dan Staschini on the big counterfeit episode with those Cohibas I got, we did the St. Louis Rey Reggios that got an 8.8, which is in line with this. That was a good cigar. And finally, the Rafael Gonzalez Corona Stalansdale, as we did on episode 105, got a flat 8.0.
**Senator:** So the ratings say this is
**Gizmo:** better, the best better ones format, it's in line format with the St. Louis Ray Regios 8.8,
**Bam Bam:** but the Schwa score, that's a disappointment.
**Rooster:** I think the Regios was a little bit [01:15:00] older.
**Gizmo:** I think there was age on that. Age on that. It was a 2016.
**Rooster:** So having said that, I mean this is a 22.
Yeah, and if you compare the box, I mean if you have it about the same age, this could be a 10. Yeah. Yeah.
**Senator:** This has, I was gonna say, I'm not as surprised on the Schwa rating. The reason I say that I've had some amazing Schwa Supreme and I've had some that are just okay. I don't know. For me, they're not all that consistent.
I haven't had that
**Bam Bam:** experience. For me, the consistency has been there with every Schwa I've had. You, you love the sch and I do love that cigar. Yeah. I'm biased.
**Senator:** Well, remember he, he didn't have the Schwa. That was the. No. One box he didn't have before now. No. Now
**Bam Bam:** his powers completely now busted Sea Street.
**Senator:** Now he has the Opus. Dubai.
**Gizmo:** Are we really gonna go there? The Opus Dubai?
**Bam Bam:** We have to say it twice. It it again. Will you?
**Gizmo:** The Opus Dubai dad has a whole box of those.
**Rooster:** We'll be doing it on the pod
**Gizmo:** very soon. Yes.
**Bam Bam:** Well, what choice do I have now? It's, it's being imprinted in a [01:16:00] recording. I gotta do it now. Wait, rooster,
**Gizmo:** what's the.
The Opus Divi. He's the brand. BA's got a whole box of those. You motherfucker.
**Bam Bam:** How much are they, by the way? A lot. How much is a lot, babe? I, I'm embarrassed to see how much I paid. This is great. I can't, I can't. It's too much. No, it please tell us. Say it, that box cost me $1,900. Hello? Yeah. It's a lot of money.
It's a lot
**Gizmo:** of money. Rooster's been waiting all week for this 1900 bucks. I know.
**Pagoda:** We could have smoked five these each. He never, you never
**Rooster:** told us he had them. You never told us where he got 'em from. I showed you. I wanna, you showed me. No, you showed, you didn't show me. You smoking it. I lit it in front of you.
You were
**Gizmo:** okay. I
**Rooster:** front of you. You were smoking it. And I'm like, what are you smoking with like 50 bands on. He goes. This is a, oh, it's an opus. I'm like, Opus, I've never seen this Opus.
**Gizmo:** Oh, it's an Opus Dubai. Like Opus Dubai. I, uh, you know,
**Bam Bam:** when did you get this? I like to drop an occasional bomb in a club.
That's what
**Gizmo:** can I say? That was more of a, more like a [01:17:00] nitrogen bomb. Bam. It sounds like you're like the brand ambassador now for Opus Dubai with how much that was said on the podcast tonight. Okay. Oh man. And
**Rooster:** and by the way, no split wise on that.
**Bam Bam:** I like that app. Oh yeah.
**Gizmo:** Alright boys. A great night on the Campo Viejo Tempranillo Wine had a formal liquor rating of a nine-point-three.
And on the Vegas Robbeña Famosos we ended up at an 8.8. That's a good night. Two very respectable scores. Strong recommends on both. And, uh, guys, it was a wonderful trip to Vinales, Pinyar del Rio. I can't wait to go back and, uh, for any listener who didn't tune in two weeks ago, we did our Havana recap. Uh, first time back in a little under a year to Havana.
We talked about our restaurant lounge recommendations. We talked about the impacts of inflation. We talked about Rooster celebrating his birthday at Tropicana among a bunch of other stuff. So check that out. And in two weeks we're gonna [01:18:00] conclude our wrap-up. Of our Havana trip, uh, for the early part of 2024 with our interview with Danilo Rodriguez, the production manager of Cohiba and El Liguito, where we smoked the Hique 50 fours out of his humidor, which was a wonderful conversation, a wonderful night.
So in two weeks from today, tune into that and uh, check it out. All right, boys. A great night. Great pairing tonight. Awesome, and we'll see everybody next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, LoungeLizardsPod.com.
That's LoungeLizards P-O-D dot com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you 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 LoungeLizardsPod.
We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.[01:19:00]