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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 seven members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Rooster Poobah, Senator Grinder, and bam bam.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some tequila, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 84th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We're gonna smoke a Cuban cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating.
We smoke a brand new Havanas regular production release. We talk Lgc and it's shared history with RGUs. And we do a deep dive on our tequila pairing, all among a variety of other things for the next hour. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair Tequila Ocho with the Legia Cubana Teos.
A robusto extra tonight. On the pod [00:01:00] from La Gloria Cubana. Factory name is a Gordito. It's called the Turo. It's a brand new release, the first lgc that we've done on the pod. Uh, and I think probably the youngest release that we've done so far in all these episodes. It's a beautiful cigar.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Honestly, the, the rappers pristine,
**Gizmo:** so normally I totally agree with you.
Yeah. You know, normally we wouldn't reach for something this young, but I've had a lot of folks have been talking about this cigar. What year is this? It's, uh, November, 2022. So it's very fresh. What's the factory cook? Parus factory. Parus factory. Nice. Here we go. Here we go. So we'll talk about that in a minute, but first let's cut this thing boys.
See we're getting on the cold draw, but, uh, yeah, this is, um, a really, a brand new release. But what I love about it is it's accessibility for, you know, us for the listener if we like it. This is a $20 cigar, which. In the Havana's catalog these days, you know, is very rare. The cold
**Bam Bam:** draw. It's, it's quite nice.
I'm [00:02:00] getting honey and a little cream. Hmm.
**Gizmo:** A little bit. Tastes like a, like a little bit like a D four type, type of cold draw for me. Not for me. Don't forget at all.
**Poobah:** No, I what exactly what, uh, bam. What Bam said. Yeah. Which is kind of honey.
**Senator:** Yeah. It's sweet.
**Bam Bam:** I hope it smokes
**Poobah:** like this. Or is Dan, what's Dan?
Dan, yeah. Dan. Dan would say Honeysuckle is this Dan, we love you. But a Honeysuckle note is, is a Dan note. I thought we did another
**Grinder:** lgc.
**Gizmo:** We did not. Okay. We've smoked it together. We've smoked the Lgc four together. Spectacular. And the twos, but we've never recorded it. Incredible. Both incredible cigars. Yeah.
They're so hard to get. All right, boys, let's, let's light this thing. All right. The la Gloria Cubana
**Poobah:** the, the cold dress. So sweet. It's awesome. Yes. Let's see what happens. Tario the exact opposite of what's going on. This is true.
**Gizmo:** Again, it's a gordito. 50 ring gauge by five and a half inches. And
**Bam Bam:** if I may ask,
**Gizmo:** what did you pay for these 20 bucks A
**Poobah:** stick.
Sorry, what? What is it?
**Gizmo:** 51 [00:03:00] 50 ring gauge. 50 by five and a half. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** at 20 bucks it's a bargain. Let's see.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, hopefully it smokes that way. So I've seen a lot of great things online about this.
**Bam Bam:** You know, one thing I'm noticing is I'm lighting this, the wrapper is delicate, so if your flame kind of goes off the side, you'll burn a good amount of it.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. You know, very nice. On the white. Yeah, very nice. The smoke smells delicious. Flavor bomb. Yeah.
This is more in line with what I'd expect from an lgc dude. Are you guys kidding me? Then? The cold. This is really good. This is very good. This is awesome. $20 cigar just released from Havanas. I'll celebrate that. We don't celebrate much haos on this. Oh wait,
**Bam Bam:** we're just, we're just starting out. 20 bucks. It continues, but this is beautiful.
**Poobah:** Let's, if it holds up in the last third time, I'll tell. Mm-hmm.
**Grinder:** The smoke output is
**Gizmo:** high. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of notes you guys get?
**Bam Bam:** [00:04:00] I'm getting amplified. Um, I'm getting some graham cracker and more cream and a little bit of honey just amplified for me. I'm, I'm
**Grinder:** getting like this, I'm actually kind of getting very traditional Cuban, you know, not necessarily the twang, but like very Cuban mainline production notes, um, which are, well, I get some cream.
Yeah. I definitely get. I think there's some spice, actually. Are you getting spice and the finish? I'm not getting spice on, on the,
**Senator:** on the retro distinct notes to start for me, cream that bam mentioned. Mm-hmm. Uh, nuts and a little cedar. That's what's jumping out at me to start.
**Gizmo:** I feel like I'm getting something that's a little doughy, maybe like a sour dough or something.
Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I, I, I like that, that, that makes sense
**Gizmo:** actually. And it's, I it does have a touch of floral. Mm-hmm. Especially through the retro hill.
**Rooster:** Yeah. That's an lgc. D n a, right? Yeah. Floral, fruity,
**Gizmo:** earthy. It kind
**Bam Bam:** of tastes like an aged cigar kind of. Right. Now.
**Poobah:** Let's [00:05:00] see what happens, guys. Let's knock it over our skis.
**Senator:** I mean, I will say though, what's encouraging, it's true. It doesn't, it doesn't smoke like you'd expect a really young cigar. No. In the first third. That's right. Yeah. It's got a refinement about it,
**Poobah:** which is nice. Big time. Totally. But like, you know, but let's see, because. There have been so many bigger ring gauge cigars that y y and I, I would call out the hoyo double Corona as one where it's, where we've smoked that cigar and it starts out like so amazing.
Yeah. But then, but a younger one, um, at the, you know, towards the last third just gets, it shows, its, its youth. So let's see if this thing is like, you know, acts like an adolescent. Mm-hmm. Um, Down the stretch. It's a good analogy. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
**Rooster:** I mean, so far so good. I love the aroma that's coming out of the cigar.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Oh, this absolutely at the line. It's previewing great. I mean, it's previewing great.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. [00:06:00] Yeah. The, the aroma at the line delicious.
**Gizmo:** So the construction on these things, when I was looking at them, I was like, man, this is a brand new cigar, only 20 bucks. I looked at all the feet of the cigars and none of them were overpacked.
The construction looked really, really good. They were open. I was very, very happy with it. Draw is
**Poobah:** fantastic. Yeah. Because when you feel like the, when you in your hand, it's like, it's like a medium. It's,
**Bam Bam:** he's right. Medium. Yeah.
**Poobah:** It's not, it's not like, it's not like, like a UND two is lightly packed. Yeah.
Which I like about it, which is a virtue in that cigar, but, or e too, it, but it's medium. So let's see. Our performs, I, I'm, I'm bullish
**Gizmo:** right now. Mm-hmm. Me too. So La Gloria Cubana, unfortunately, uh, despite its very, very long history, only has three regular production cigars right now. Unbelievable. Which is a tragedy given some of the brilliant cigars that, that have come out of this, uh, marker.
Yeah. Uh, first of course is the M d O, the, um, how do you pronounce that? Rooster [00:07:00] Meador. No idea. Oh my God. How do you pronounce that? Oh, I love it. Me,
I just say md. I'm sorry. I'm, I love this a metal Dior. It's not metal
**Rooster:** Dior
**Gizmo:** Number four.
**Senator:** It's not like you've been to Cuba twice
or
**Gizmo:** anything. I know, I know. I'm sorry. Which is a slim panatella, which is a legendary cigar. They still make those in very, very small quantities. Um, 32 ring age by six inches. The brand new, uh, glorious, which we've talked about, uh, we haven't smoked yet, which is a La Casa del Ho Bono release comes in one of those really ornate, um, boxes.
Uh, really, really nice box of 20 cigars. Very expensive. This is this, this, I, I just wanna, this is better than that cigar, by the way. Really? So far you've had that cigar? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And that's an LCD H release. It's like [00:08:00] $1,200 for a box. Yeah. Oh, forget it. It's like 60 bucks a stick.
**Poobah:** Yeah. And the, I mean, the retro hell on this thing, it's delicious.
**Gizmo:** Oh, damn. Yeah. Yeah. This is really good. They make,
**Grinder:** they make a lot of, uh, regionals too
**Gizmo:** as well, right? They do. Yeah. They use this, they use these brands, um, to put out a lot of regionals, um, you know, just for various, yeah. You know, um, Uh, distributors around the world. They, but the, the reason why two cigars have come out, uh, under La Gloria Kuana recently is, this is, I think we talked about it a few episodes ago, maybe 10 episodes ago.
Uh, but, you know, ha Bonos committed to revitalizing some of the brands that have been ignored or, you know, a lot of their stuff discontinued over the last 15 years. So, I mean, prior to these two cigars, LA Gloria Cubana was making one cigar That's crazy. In very, very low quantity. And then, like you're saying, only being used to put out regional editions,
**Grinder:** they, they had that Espania Regional like [00:09:00] a few years ago, and I remember I got two boxes of the, of the Spain, and then I got two boxes of another regional from Jo de Monterey.
Oh, wasn't it La Florida? You're right, right. It was La Florida. And they tasted exactly the same.
**Senator:** It was the same. We were talking about this. I remember that. Yeah. I, we got those from Monty.
**Gizmo:** Yeah,
**Grinder:** I think I did get him from Monty, actually, actually, Monty, for
**Senator:** two, maybe it was, yeah.
**Gizmo:** I'm praying
**Poobah:** that is special.
I'm praying that this doesn't come to a letdown because this is off to a very good start. Like if it turns into something strange. Yep. Because, because through the nose for me it tastes, it tastes, it tastes very Cuban. Yeah. It tastes, it's very flavorful. It's got that,
that kind of full, kind of really nice balanced flavor. And when you put it through your nose, it's so satisfying. [00:10:00] Like, and to me that's just fantastic. It is. I, so if it, if it, I hope it doesn't turn into some sort of, Weird shit. Sorry. Down the, down the stretch.
**Grinder:** You know what I mean? Yeah. How is, how easy is it to find these, because I'm
**Gizmo:** gonna, so that's, that's why I wanted to do them even though they're so young, is this is a cigar that any listener can go out right now and find on the internet for 200 bucks for a box of 10.
Dude.
**Grinder:** Shit, dude. They, they might not be able to after between podcast and release. Yeah. Don't, don't release this yet.
**Gizmo:** Give us some time to, so let's talk a little bit about, uh, LA Gloria Cabana's history despite, um, unfortunately only having three cigars in regular production. One that's been around since 1960.
The M D O number four, we just talked about. They've had some brilliant brilliance cigars that have gone the way of the dodo, um, in the mid 2000 tens, namely the m d o one through three. Of course, we love the m d o two. Sure. Which is a really, really special cigar. Yep. [00:11:00] Coveted among, you know, ha bono's lovers.
I, I would think that's up there with some of the greatest of all time. Extremely difficult to find and terribly unfortunate that they got canceled when they did. I think that was in 2014. Um, so La Gloria Cubana was established in 1885. So this is a brand that's had 150 years of history. I mean, pre pretty incredible.
What I found interesting, and not to go into it a ton about L G C, but the, the biggest thing that I found interesting about them is their ties to Parus. So, like I said, they were founded in 1885, uh, and in 1954, the brand was purchased alongside bva. Which is another brand that we love very much. Oh, yeah.
Uh, they were purchased together by the Suf, uh, Sifuentes family, which was, is the RGUs, uh, the, the heads of the, the RGUs brand. So if you think about Parus as a, you know, a mother factory, uh, uh, premier Global Brand Boulevard, being that secondary brand under Parus, this is [00:12:00] one of the tertiary brands, maybe alongside, uh, Ramon iis.
So what's interesting is we've talked about RGUs so many times. Uh, a lot of the Luces, a lot of the 8 98 s, a lot of the def force do not come out of the RGUs factory and we're smoking a brand new. $20 cigar out of the furniture from a tertiary, tertiary brand that has come exclusively outta the pars factory, which is very, very cool.
It's, it's also unusual. It is. Yeah. You know, um, but I, I just love the story alongside, uh, uh, Parus, namely for this reason. If you look at, and this is where Miran NE's book from 2003, uh, the Encyclopedia of Post-Revolution, Havana Cigars, um, comes in great, great, uh, use when looking at a brand that's this old, because I didn't realize how aligned those discontinued cigars that we love and are with parus in that their packaging is newly identical.
The varnish boxes of 8 98. So you think about [00:13:00] MD oh two, MD oh four MD oh one s all come in those same varnish boxes of 8 98, like RGUs 8 98. A lot of the brand. Is aligned mm-hmm. With that mother, with the mother brand of, with the sifuentes.
**Poobah:** Yeah. So it's pretty cool. It's back
**Gizmo:** far. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, you know, as of 2002 when this book was put out, I mean, this brand accounted for 0.2% of the export of Havana Sassay certainly I think now is even less than that.
So it's nice to see them coming back. Um, but, you know, classic floral, sweet, fruity, uh, fruity flavors is, is the hallmark of Lgc Laia Cubana, as we've experienced with M D O two and four. So as Poobah said, hopefully this cigar will live up to that, but it is nice to see a brand that we love coming back to life with America.
Yeah. And, and
**Poobah:** this is, maybe this is the modern take, you know, something that's, that has some mass market appeal. [00:14:00] And if you look at, uh, You cannot deny, and I'm looking at everybody's cigar right now. You cannot deny the construction, the combustion, and the burn on every, what, what's happening. I, at we, I'm looking at everybody.
I, I think everybody's cigars are performing really well. We're all with you.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Senator:** Yeah. I mean, for me not knowing any of that, obviously I love paros. It, it, it gives this, I am already viewing the brand in a different way in that, I've never had a bad l GC or a plugged l gc, but now it's kind of reinforcing why maybe the quality is what it is and the fact that this is young and something that they've just put out that's new and we're already having such a fantastic experience.
And it's, Kuba said the construction, I mean, honestly, the construction's flawless on this guard. Yeah. Yeah. It's really nice that, that, that really goes a long way. I mean, I'm not gonna forget that when I'm considering the brand or, or purchasing anything they make. Yeah. The other thing I will say though, that [00:15:00] I, I like, that's different.
So you mentioned the traditional flavor profile of lgc being very floral, very fruity, which is exactly what you get on like an MD O two or MD oh four that we've smoked. Um, a, a number of this to me is not that floral or fruity, and I like that because it's showing me that this brand maybe has some range.
Um, I don't love when a brand just has like a. Every stick smokes almost exactly the same. Like I love about RGUs that the way e Lucy smokes is dramatically different from the way a D four smokes or an 8 98 or some of the other sticks they make. We've talked about different monds, like the way the Kanye's gonna smoke is gonna be totally different than an UIN two or anything like.
Mm-hmm. I like there to be range in the line and variety. Exactly. Yeah. So this is really intriguing to me because it's not just what I know, the kind of MDO line to be. It's different and I, I like that
**Rooster:** only MDO number two and the MDO number four. Do vary a, a bit, a little bit, in my opinion. Yeah. I think MD number two is a little bit [00:16:00] more of a, a medium bodied smoked, less floral and fruity coffee Mio number four go in that way.
Little bit more floral and floral agreed loads on the mdo number four. Right. But the another, another point, like, you know, on this cigar being how fresh it is, and we have talked about this, you know, lately how the factories that are putting out new cigars, fresh cigars, and we're smoking at 2022. Yeah.
November
**Gizmo:** 22 and November 22. How, how? Well it's, it's smoking. I mean, uh, like I said earlier,
**Bam Bam:** to me on the front, it is, when I take that initial draw, it's smoking like an aged cigar. Yeah, I get that on the front. And on a finish I'm capturing a lot, some salty notes. But for me, this is the complexity of the cigar, savory and sweet.
All in the same delivery as, and as you're finishing a little bit of saltiness, it's a very complex cigar.
**Senator:** I completely agree with that. And to me, the signature thing about this, that kind of. Makes it smoke like an aged cigar is the creaminess that you get in this stick. Yeah. There is no young [00:17:00] cigar I've honestly ever smoked.
That is creamy. That builds up with time and age and the flavors kind of married together and you get that absolutely right. So for this to be this young, this is honestly the first young smoke I've ever had. I would describe as very creamy. Maybe. Maybe be a part of a seed too. That's true. That's true.
This is true. Is creamier than an
**Bam Bam:** need to. But Senator said one little thing. So what he said about the cream, you know, when you get like a, a, a dairy product that's just on the verge of spoiling a little bit and you got, I happen to like that little barnyard a little. It's, it's not exactly what it should be, but it's got that barnyard s type of a thing.
That's what I'm getting in the cigar. Sure. And that's what makes it, that, that gives me that aged quality. You like blue, you like
**Gizmo:** blue cheese? I love blue cheese. I, I think it has something like that. Theres something there kinda, it's hard to put. How do, how do you know when blue cheese goes bad? I don't know.
When it's
**Bam Bam:** really blue, you, you don't,
**Gizmo:** it just gets
**Poobah:** better. Poo I interrupted you. Go ahead. No, no, no. I just find one notable thing on just observing this. I [00:18:00] agree with all the commentary. I'm just Is, is. Which is somewhat unusual. Not totally unusual, but it's, I have like a bright white ash. Like it's a Dominican.
Yeah. Yeah. Am I wrong? I mean, look at my a, well, yours is yours. Mine. Mine is more tradit. Honestly, yours is more traditional, but mine is like a bright white ash. Ash. It is. Hmm. That's
**Senator:** not bright. That is, it looks like a ddo. That plant got a little extra calcium in its diet, you know? Am I wrong? No, I'm, but that, that's usually what, where it comes from calcium,
**Poobah:** you know, I'm looking at this thing and it looks like a Dominican cigar.
Yeah. With this bright white ash stacked up. I mean, I'm stacked up an inch and a half
**Gizmo:** here. You know, I, I wonder as we're talking about the age of these and how they're smoking young, right? We're talking, these are six months old. It's ridiculous. I've had them in my humidor for about three, four weeks. Hmm.
So they, it's not like they've had a ton of time to acclimate or, you know, um, soft, you know, even out. And I know that we're only in the first third, but I wonder if as Haos is designing, or excuse me, [00:19:00] Tabak. Hubba is designing a new blend for a cigar that's gonna come out and be a regular production smoke.
I wonder if they're just blending. Using, you know, parts of the, of the, the tobacco leaf that are just less sensitive to time. You know, is there Leslie Harrow in this? Is there, you know, oh, there's way less Lero. You know, this is not a laro. Have you seen, but I'm saying that, you know, compared to classic cigars that are requiring maybe some laro to give you that flavor or ooph in the blend that maybe push them into the zone that they need 18 months, two years to, to mature.
These don't need it because the blend is intentionally, it's, it's ready to smoke.
**Poobah:** It's absolutely, the trimmings in this interesting probably, you know, are not the same trimmings that, the similar trimmings off the, off the tobacco plant that are in a P two or in an 8 98 for that matter. Yeah. They're, they're just a little bit more of a harrow heavy in the blend and, and, but that's a merit here.
Yeah, it's a great, no, I'm very happy with this. I think that that's a merit in like, what's this, this is delivering at, its at this point in
**Gizmo:** time, and I think any, [00:20:00] any haos enthusiast who doesn't put this. You know, who doesn't like this and go, wow. You know, this is really a, a really great smoke, at least so far.
Yeah. They've got pots. I mean, I mean that's, you know, this is a real, this is a winner so far.
**Senator:** Yeah. I wanna make a, a definitive statement while we're still in the first third, the first third of this cigar is outstanding.
**Gizmo:** It's, it's outstanding. It really is. This is excellent. It's,
**Poobah:** it is. It's out. It's outstanding.
It's, and I think to to, to a point that Senator makes a lot, like, it's been straightforward and I'm actually okay with the straightforward kind of one act thing that's going on right now. Mm-hmm. And if it actually continues like this for me, uh, maybe with a little bit of a. A little bit of a ramp up and if that ramp at the, and, you know, towards the, the, the, the, the last half of it, if it doesn't ramp up in an aggressive, weird way and get, and get wonky.
Yeah. I hope we get that. I gotta tell you, this could be, this could be something [00:21:00] that's happy winner, that could be a real winner this young. Yeah.
**Rooster:** Is there anything about the name Torino's
**Gizmo:** or? Yes. So, uh, Pico Turino is the highest point in Cuba, elevation wise. It's named after the highest point in world
**Rooster:** ABA in that
**Gizmo:** region.
Or I just, I don't know where it is in Cuba, but it's, that's, it's the highest point in Cuba. I'll look right now.
**Bam Bam:** Awesome. As you're looking, so I've ash my cigar. You two guys have, you three guys have incredible ash on those sticks. The structure is holding beautifully.
**Gizmo:** Did the asphalt right out or no, no, I just, I just askeded it.
Sorry. It ash. Yeah, it's in the Sierra, uh, the Pico Torino is in the Sierra Matra mountain range in the municipality of Gua Santiago Deba province. Mm, so it's in the very Santiago is south, isn't it? Yeah. Southeast of Cuba. South. Yeah.
**Grinder:** I'm, uh, I'm just enjoying this [00:22:00] tremendously, but I'm like, I'm, I think I'm smoking a little faster than you guys.
You know. I am too. And I'm, and, but I'm, I quit the Retro Hale and I'm just trying to get as much smoke out of it as, as I can, because the billow of like aroma. Is so pleasant. It's awesome.
**Rooster:** Does this remind you a little bit about, from like the other, the ESP spania,
**Gizmo:** like the regional that
**Grinder:** we had, you know, I smoked it's how many years ago was that?
**Gizmo:** Three or four? Three, yeah. Maybe three, four years ago. I don't,
**Grinder:** I remember loving that sag. I don't any, any resemblance. I don't, I can't,
**Senator:** I can't recall. So I do remember that stick, both of them. The, the Florida Cano and the, the Lgc. It was very creamy. Yeah. So that is the one thing that it had in common with this stick.
Right. The flavor profile was a bit different. I don't think it was as sweet as this cigar, but it was creamy. Right.
**Poobah:** This cigar to me is so mild in such a good way. Yeah. Am
**Gizmo:** I wrong? No, you're not wrong. No, you're on. It's very pleasant.
**Poobah:** But is it so mild in a good way, dude, you're, [00:23:00] you're not, it's mild at all in like a really good way.
There's like a long finish on it. I mean, and, and I look at what's going on with the cigar.
**Gizmo:** I, Shaa Ash for the listeners is about an inch and a half of nearly pure white. Honestly,
**Bam Bam:** Senator and Rooster and Poobah have beautiful long ash on their sticks right now.
**Grinder:** It's fantastic.
**Senator:** I mean, but Poobah is like a work of art.
Yeah. It is like a professional photographer.
**Bam Bam:** I don't want him to
**Gizmo:** wear it on the shirt. It's gonna be Jackson Pollock all over his shirt in about a minute. I know.
**Grinder:** As, as I, I think, I think there's a lot of skillset in, in actually blending a, a mild cigar that still retains a lot of those great flavors.
Like when you have a mild cigar, like, and I, you guys know I like mild cigars, right? When you have a mild cigar and it just kind of tastes flat. You know, you know, you know, that's what gives that, that this kind of cigar a bad name. But this is so, like, there's so much nuance that I'm tr like I'm, I'm searching for flavors.
It's, it's kind of got this beautiful kind [00:24:00] of like cappuccino, you know, flavor profile. I don't get the, actually I don't get the coffee, but I, it there's that creaminess that, that is imbued throughout the, the entire stick so far. Yeah. I, I kind of get, sorry, go ahead. And, and I was just, you know, I, I, this is something I've, I just looked at the website that, that you procured these from.
They're already sold out. Um, oops.
**Poobah:** I, boy grinder. I think this is, I think this is, this is a grinder power out. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** This is, this is like, there's, there's really something important about what you're saying though, is that I think for how mild and, and easy to smoke the cigar is, I think someone who prefers a stronger cigar.
I, of course, I'm thinking about pagoda who's not here. Mm-hmm. I think he'd be sitting here going, you know what? I really enjoy this. Yeah. It's tough. Like, I think it serves everyone in a really, really nice way. It's done well.
**Poobah:** You can slot it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's a place
**Gizmo:** to slot it. I can definitely at $20 see this slotting if it, if it maintains or even dips a little as it keeps kidding.
Absolutely. I like the size of the cigars. Yeah. Yeah. 50 is [00:25:00] fine. Feels
**Rooster:** good in your hand.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Um, I'm gonna go back to the savory sweet thing because that's what I'm getting. I'm getting the best of both worlds in this, and that's for me, a complex cigar when it, anything that you eat or drink can have both of those things in one experience.
That's, that's, there's complexity there. And it takes, it takes skill and art to make something like that. And Grindr, what he said earlier, the milder, the cigar, you can't hide. So when you're blending this, you can't hide behind laro. You can't hide behind other. Blends. You've gotta really know what you're fucking doing with this thing.
It's very intentional. It's very intentional. I, and difficult to pull
**Grinder:** off. So I, at the beginning of the, of the cigar, I, I mentioned, I'm not getting any of the Cuban twang, but I'm getting, uh, some on, there's definitely, there's getting
**Gizmo:** some of it on the finish. Well, that's a classic, you know, e even Miron points that out in his is, uh, in the, the famous book, and I certainly experienced this with lg, uh, uh, the mdo number two is with age classic, um, flavor profile of Lgc is with a little age.
[00:26:00] They do develop a, like that twang we talk about, you know, um, that saltiness. Um, but I'm tasting it here young. It's not as forward as, let's say, Amani two is. Uh, but there's definitely a touch of that. Wait, front of your tongue. Front of your tongue. Are you also
**Senator:** getting the nuttiness now on? Absolutely.
Yeah. Oh yeah. So I really get almond
**Bam Bam:** Almond, yeah. Yeah. The
**Gizmo:** almond almond for sure. Yeah. And the, and the after the aftertaste in your mouth, the finish after you push the dry. Yeah. Even after, well, after it's all gone, it's a very. Pleasurable flavor in the mouth for a cigar that's only six months old. This is ridiculous for,
**Poobah:** for, for the age of the cigar, cuz you're not getting that.
What you're, you know, let's turn it a little bit. You're like, what you're not getting is. What you'd get out of an age smoke is like the deep earth. Like you're not kind of getting that deep kind of like there, there, there's like, it lacks like a little bit of
**Gizmo:** depth and there's a, there's a lack of mustiness that comes with a bit of an age.
Yeah, it's true. It's just
**Poobah:** lacking a little bit of depth. But I think the way this is [00:27:00] previewing though, I think it's got that in its dna n it just needs, maybe needs more time. Yeah. It, it just, but, but boy, I mean, as a preview dude.
**Senator:** Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm going to disagree sl forget a preview. I, I love how this is smoking right now.
**Gizmo:** No, no. I don't want it to change.
**Poobah:** No, no. I don't want it to end. No. So do I would No, no, no, no, no, no. I, I think we're not, we're saying the same thing. Yeah. I, I, I, I think that actually with a little bit of time it's gonna get even better to me. This one, this is a cigar price. This is previewing at, this is previewing so well that I think with time you're going to actually get.
A little bit more like a, that deep, big time, that extra deep, big time. There's, there's earthiness tobacco
**Rooster:** now in
**Poobah:** it. This place, a little bit of earth there is a little bit, but it's gonna get deeper over time. It's gonna develop over time, the way this is previewing for me mm-hmm. Compared to, let's say, some of the liata that we've had, that previewed great.
Like the Ramona, like the Ramon a's torpedo number two. Mm-hmm. Like the [00:28:00] Ramon a's number two in the green box where yeah, it previews great, but then like by, but you know, the last third suck. It wasn't cigar, it wasn't great. No, but, but like in time, maybe that'll get better. This, this, that cigar
**Gizmo:** we
**Senator:** gave it, I don't, I don't think bam remembers what we're talking to.
We just did that on the pod. Yeah. It got a 10. Got oh, did it? And green pots. So that, that box really developed. You smoked through your, I asked if you hadn't, you said you smoked through yours. I kept a bunch that I didn't touch and I brought them and we, we smoked them on the pod. Oh. And they came to life.
It got a perfect 10 from every lizard. I think that's true. It was one was sweat.
**Poobah:** Cause it wasn't quite a 10
**Senator:** when they first No, it wasn't. That's why. So like we talked in the episode, I gave Gizz one for maybe my points validated. Yes, yes. Then yes. But now it's tremendous. Right? So
**Poobah:** validating my point like, like yes.
So I smoke, kind of smoked through those in early, but that
**Senator:** sucked when it started it. Well
**Poobah:** yeah. This is amazing Miss. Yes. Yeah. Well no, it didn't totally suck when it started. It sucked up. [00:29:00] It was good up until about now and then like that last half wasn't that great. I still
**Senator:** didn't love the first third of that cigar.
Right. I really didn't.
**Gizmo:** I kind agree. So this cigar kinda agree with Senator on that. So this cigar to me at this price point is a cigar that to buy a box of 10, which is the only way they come, is, is this little dress box of 10 for 200 bucks you order two. You smoke through one and you throw one in the humidor and you see what happens in 18 months, two years.
Try one, do another six months. It's one of those that you, you set up, you know, as we call it, an aging program for a very little investment. I mean, look at what the cost is of even other ribos, other cigars this size. This is 50 by one 40,
**Poobah:** right? The, the, the, okay. Right. The Connie is, is is 52 by one 40. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So, all right boys, so let's talk about our pairing tonight. Yeah. I gotta
**Bam Bam:** say the, the, the pairing, the minerality of the spirit that we're drinking beautifully compliments a
**Senator:** cigar, I think. And one huge thing with this [00:30:00] tequila, it is very creamy, dude, for a tequila. Oh God, that's so good. Why? I love it with this cigar, with how much
**Gizmo:** cream you gave it.
That's the first sip. That's the first sip I took. It's awesome with the cigar. Phenomenal
**Grinder:** dude. It's awesome. Except the nose.
**Bam Bam:** Oh my God. And not a, not a single chip of ice. This
**Poobah:** beautifully neat. This tequila, this, this tequila ocho. I love this tequila. It's, it's a go-to tequila for me. Um, it's absolutely fantastic.
And, uh, it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's, there's no additives in this. This is not one of these, um, not one of these tequilas that are, that use a blast. Um mm-hmm. Uh, diffuser, the, you know, this is made in, in the traditional fashion in terms of, um, extracting the agave from rip agave, and. Uh, it makes a really big difference.
So, um, and at the price point, this is not a celebrity tequila. This is real [00:31:00] tequila and it, it's absolutely recommended to any of the listeners. To,
**Gizmo:** to, so this is, to look at this, this is a chef Ricky Camacho endorsed the tequila, which for us lizards Yes, sir. Is a very important fact because he is very discerning in, as Poobah just mentioned, additives process, uh, authenticity to natural, um, uh, fermentation and creation of tequilas.
Uh, and it's fantastic. So how
**Bam Bam:** much, how much was that bottle?
**Gizmo:** 65 bucks.
**Bam Bam:** Dude, that is a bargain.
**Senator:** It's outstanding. So it really is. So Ricky did a tequila tasting, uh, one night for, uh, a bunch of folks in, in, uh, in my town. And this was, he maybe had five or six different tequilas and this was one of 'em. This was by far my favorite that night.
And Ricky told this great story that the brand history actually of tequila, uh, Ocho is really cool in the sense that, um, I'll just talk very briefly about it. Ricky, if he were [00:32:00] here, could, you know, spend hours talking about this. But, um, the guy who's the co-founder of it and the master distiller is a guy named Carlos Kania, who Ricky described as if he's ever had a man crush on someone.
It's this guy. And I can kind of see, I mean, this is an amazing spirit so I can kind of get it, but it's so fascinating when you hear about his family. So his grandfather was credited with bringing the blue agave to the highlands of Helico, which is like, The foundation of every great tequila now made.
Mm-hmm. So his grandfather is like this absolute legend in the tequila world. His grandson then wanted to kind of take the mantle and the way Ricky described it, as he has, uh, a more innovative, modern approach to the, uh, to tequila making than his grandfather who's kind of more of the traditional. Um, you know, the way that, uh, Ricky's described with kind of the, the, the donkeys and the everything kind of by hand.
This is a little more modern. The operation. No. Hanging
**Grinder:** chickens in the bar.
**Bam Bam:** No. And [00:33:00] letting it ferment with the meat, because that happens. But the result
**Grinder:** of the product, it was a rabbit, actually. Rabbit, okay. That's right.
**Gizmo:** It's so good luck. But the
**Senator:** results of the product, I mean, man, this was such a memorable tequila for me that night.
I'm so glad we're doing this.
**Grinder:** What's close's exactly. It's exactly what I want in my tequila. Yeah. Is rabbit essence. Rabbit aroma.
**Gizmo:** Exactly. We were very lucky, uh, showed. Just to piggyback on that, I have to shout 'em out. Um, coincidental it wasn't on purpose that we, that we did this tonight, but, uh, last week, a few of us at the lounge here were very fortunate.
We went to Ricky's restaurant in New York City. Yep. Um, right before, uh, right around, uh, St. Mayo. And, uh, it was an Aho Tribeca, which was his restaurant. Mm-hmm. And Tequila Ocho, special pairing dinner. And actually, I think it was the son of one of the partners of Tequila Ocho, Jesse Estes, who's the global brand ambassador, came and we paired six or seven tequilas, uh, with various [00:34:00] foods that, that Ricky and his team prepared.
And it was a brilliant, nice story. That kid,
**Bam Bam:** that kid was a master. Yeah. Incredible. The way he presented
**Gizmo:** the tequila. Fantastic. Yeah, it was really informative. Oh yeah. We learned a lot. And the tequilas were excellent. And I, yep. Certainly this one was my favorite. Did you guys have the repo? Yes, we had everything.
It's really good. Yeah. The repo's great. The Blanco's great. And the
**Poobah:** Blancos is really good. Yeah. I think, you know, I love tequila and I think there's a really great, I think there's a really great spot for all of 'em. Um, uh, for Blancos, I mean, like for a brand like Tequila, Ocho, like the Blanco is not. A shit tequila.
You know when, when people think about Blanco or they think about repo and Anejo, they're like, well, only the AHO is is, you know, is what you should drink or whatever, whatever.
**Gizmo:** That's not true. Yeah. They were saying the opposite at the dinner. Yeah, they
**Poobah:** were. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they, they really have, they actually, all of them have merits when they're made.
Well, they're just different. [00:35:00] And, um, this particular brand, the Blanco, the repo, I would recommend them all try them. They're really, really good. Before dinner, try a Blanca, like you would, like, you'd have in a spot, like a martini on the rocks. Do you know what I mean? It's light. Yeah. It's a little bit, you know, fruitier
**Gizmo:** they make, and by the way, so they make some, they make some that are, uh, Blanco Plata.
That's right. Which is. Made from agave from one single field. So instead of bringing in various agave from the various fields they make the blanco. It's just one field of agave. And the flavor is so interesting compared to their other Blancos. I think we had two or three Blancos that did night. We did.
And I, and like you're saying, it's the perfect starter for an evening before a day. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Like Blancos have like a lot of merit if it's from a good distiller. Yeah. They really do. It's so, it's not just for a margarita.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. [00:36:00] And like he said too, Jesse, the global brand ambassador, uh, he said, you know, and, and Ricky has said this too, that the blanco of any good artisan tequila is really, it's, it's in its purest form.
The, you know, that shows you how well. Or how good that tequila is because anybody could put it in a barrel and age it for a few years. But the Blanco's really where you see, it's like what we were talking the job
**Bam Bam:** that they're doing. Just like what we were trying, talking about. Yeah. Like a moment ago. A lighter, complex element, whatever you're making, it's very hard to do that in a very good way without hiding behind something.
That's true. Yeah. It's so true.
**Grinder:** Yeah. Speaking of Chef Ricky, one of the things that he, um, uh, taught me, cuz when I first, when I first got this drink, I, I didn't put ice in it per, per the, per your guys' suggestion. And I took a big whiff in the, in the, of, you know, smell of the, of the glass and it was very overwhelming.
There's a lot of aroma in when you put your nose in there, which is great. It's a great sign. [00:37:00] Yeah. One of the things he taught us long ago on when the first time he came onto our pod was that some tequilas, to get the creamy smoothness, you have to kind of take a big, you can't just take a little nibble sip.
You have to actually kind of get a good swath of that, of that in your mouth and that. When I did that here, that's was, I had like a little sip and it was a little jarring, and then I, then I had a bigger gulp and it was so mellow and so smooth and sweet and creamy and I think it, it pairs very well. It pairs perfect.
Cigar with cigar and, um, yeah, I mean, just the pleasant experience. Right now I'm in this kind of like zone of trying to get as much of that smoke enveloping my, my general vicinity because I'm just, I'm just, I'm just taking it in
**Gizmo:** on the nose and I think that, I think that we're, what we're experiencing with this tequila for me, where versus some of the others is that creaminess, the way that the finish happens is very unique to this tequila.
Like, it's almost like there's a delay, a very pleasant delay for me when [00:38:00] I swallow the tequila, the way it hits my palate a half a second or a second later is really, really re rewarding. It's delicious. Fantastic to, but it takes a second. It does. It just, it takes a second.
**Senator:** Glad it, I mean, honestly for me, this of any tequila that we've had has one of the creamies smoothest finishes and as a result, I mean, you can drink a lot of this stuff.
Like, I'm not exact. I mean, when Ricky had that tasting in town, I mean the amount of this that I cons, it's just so drinkable and it's so enjoyable, brother and I felt wonderful the next morning
**Bam Bam:** brother. I could take this bo entire bottle with this particular cigar and sit in my backyard and just disappear from the world.
Oh, right. It's no, no. I mean, the pairing tonight is fucking spectacular. It's perfect.
**Gizmo:** It's spectacular.
**Poobah:** Oh, it's totally is. And that's the thing about tequila in general. Good tequila. It's a clean spirit. So I, if you don't wanna make you know [00:39:00] this, there's that, uh, uh, I, I, to build on what you're saying, Senator, and, and, and, and.
Bam. Like there's this stigma with tequila that like, it's gonna give you this bad hangover. It's a very clean spirit that actually is not gonna give you a hangover. It's actually one of the better spirits to consume if you're gonna consume in volume. Yeah. Consume a good tequila because, love it. You're gonna feel the hell of a lot better the next day.
Am
**Grinder:** I wrong? To that point, I think it's, I not at all to say it's a, a good tequila made the right way. Artists, because there's, there's a lot of trashy tequilas out there that will, that will give you that hangover after two glasses. Yep. Now, I mean this is the, I think escapism aside, you know, it, it is easy
**Poobah:** to escapism.
Is, is, is.
**Grinder:** Well that's what we're doing here. Well, I was gonna say, everything we do we're big fans of calibration, whether on the tequila or, you know, calibrating separately with a, with a, with a, a vessel outta soccer game. I think the, um, [00:40:00] No, I just, I, I get this impression of, of smoking the cigar. You know, in that kind of solitude that, that you were referring to.
Yeah. And cuz you, you can just kind of get lost in the aroma. Yeah. And then, you know, that, that nice, that nice ship, you know, cherry on top is that, is this tequila, you know, and it, and it really kind of blends everything together. Yeah. And I think
**Gizmo:** too, I, I think something that we need to point out as it relates to the cigar with the tequila is we're talking about a cigar that's mild, medium.
It's, it's not really pushing beyond that and to pair as well as it does within Aho Yeah. Is rare. Very, you know, I think there's a lot of cigars where you bring in an ONA tequila artisan or not. It may be talking a little bit more than the cigar is, especially a mild or medium cigar. This is really, really pairing nicely.
It's,
**Senator:** that's the thing. It's not all anejos are the same. Exactly. Right. So like the ones for this, that's why we talked about this before, like having had this, I knew regardless of. The exact flavor notes, the Lgc [00:41:00] profile is not like an overpowering one and is gonna need something that's gonna dance alongside, but not take center stage.
Another tequila that's very similar in Anejo is Elto Soro. Tero doesn't. Oh
**Gizmo:** yes,
**Bam Bam:** absolutely. You're both. You're both, absolutely right. Yeah, there's a hundred
**Poobah:** percent correct. Eltoro
**Bam Bam:** Eltoro tesoro. Hundred percent. A hundred percent. The best.
**Grinder:** El Centor with the El Tesoro.
**Poobah:** You're right, you're a hundred
**Senator:** percent right.
Yeah. Both would go great with the cigar. And that's the thing. Whereas some other, you know, like I, one of the pods we did, we had Don Fallo on Niho. Yeah, yeah. And that drinks more like a whiskey. That's a really rich, deep anejo. It's not this kind of light clean, agave
**Gizmo:** forward one. I would say the same too.
Uh, the top Patillo Excellency. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Neither, neither would pair well with the cigar. Yeah. Yeah.
**Poobah:** But the, the Elta, so Elta Soro though is in more like, you can't find that as easily. [00:42:00]
**Gizmo:** Actually I bought it today. I Around, yeah, around here you can actually right next
**Poobah:** door, it sells. It sells out. Like in Florida it sells out, um, quicker.
It sells out quicker than the ocean. It's D Delicious. It's delicious. It is. Well, well, you guys see the pictures I send of the El Soro? It's Elta, Soro and Ocho. You know I'm sending the pictures. True. That's true. But it is. I i, Senator, you're right. I mean, Elta Soro if you like Elta Soro or try both because they're both fan.
I, they're both
**Gizmo:** fantastic. I think Tesauro's a little pricier than this, right? It is about 20 bucks more.
**Senator:** Yeah, that's like 90 bottle,
**Gizmo:** roughly. Mm-hmm. This 65. That's right. All right, boys. So we're, uh, we're a little bit over halfway here on the La Gloria Cubana Tornos. Mm-hmm. What do you guys think?
**Bam Bam:** I'm having a hard time slowing down on this thing.
Yeah. You know what? I'm going through it. I am, because I love it. It's just delicious. It hasn't, hasn't changed. Yeah. What Poobah said earlier, it hasn't changed it, but it's really continuing to be complex and rich and delicious on a very [00:43:00] smooth Yeah. Delivery for
**Senator:** me. So the, the flavor profile hasn't changed for me.
I completely agree. But what I do like. The first third, I, I think many have said, and I would agree, was mild halfway through. I think it's now built to medium. It's building a bit,
**Poobah:** maybe. Yeah, it's building a bit,
**Gizmo:** um, in a very good way though. It's not, it's not like a, some of the young cigars, the way that they build in that second half, it's not doing that yet.
No,
**Poobah:** no, no. It's not like revealing something, something bad. It's been, um, for me, really, really good. It's been a totally one act play. Am I wrong?
**Grinder:** No, no. It's, I I, I'm, I'm getting, I don't, I might be a little further than you actually. Maybe not. No. Yeah, we're, the three of us
**Poobah:** are kind of at the same. Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of a one act play, but for I, I mean, I like it.
Yeah. Um, it's not, it's one dimensional. Um, I, I, A little bit more complexity, a little bit more different, little bit more d I'm not saying it's, I was hoping for a [00:44:00] little bit, maybe more down the stretch, but maybe that's too high of an expectation.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. For a six month old
**Poobah:** cigar. For a six month old cigar.
But, but, but, but conversely, you're not getting anything offensive down the stretch for young cigar, which is a, which is all
**Bam Bam:** at all, nothing at all. You know, it's a big virtue. But honestly, the richness for me is there was right there from the beginning. I'm still getting that savory sweet. And for me, that's complex.
That's for me.
**Grinder:** I, I think it's. Very subtly increased in flavor, very subtly. Uh, I don't think, I don't, I don't, I I wouldn't call it a, you might call it a, you know, a one act play in, in that, that regard. Because the change is this, the transition is so slight, but I am, I am sensing a little more punch. Mm-hmm.
But
**Gizmo:** it's built up
**Rooster:** in strength. But I don't think those notes are more, you haven't
**Gizmo:** lost Less, less prominent. Yeah. Mean they're there. Very accurate, but not,
**Grinder:** you know, I think that's a hundred percent
**Gizmo:** that's the Right.
**Senator:** So Rooster, cuz for the listener, when we're saying a one act play, we're talking [00:45:00] about. The flavor notes are consistent all the way through.
Yes. They don't change. We're like, early on you're getting floral and fruity and then all of a sudden in the last third Right, you're getting like coffee and coco and a totally different flavor profile. Correct. That would be a two act play. Correct. But what we, so we're saying this is one act and that the flavor notes are consistent all the way through.
Mm-hmm. But what a number of us are noting is that the strength of it has picked up a bit in the second half. Sure. Where I think starts firmly, uh, mild and now is like veering toward medium. Yeah. It, it's pleasant.
**Poobah:** It's pleasant. And I'm, I'm not, maybe you guys can help me with this. It's not at all muddled, it's defined.
Mm-hmm. But it's n But the complexity for me, Like it just isn't quite there. Hmm. Do you know what I'm saying? It's not totally muddled at, in any way, shape or form. Like there're definitely defined notes there, but it, it's n
**Gizmo:** are you, it's just
**Poobah:** I don't, [00:46:00] I don't disagrees. It's just a, it's lacking just a de like a few degrees of complexity that are Yeah.
I don't disagree. You know what I'm
**Gizmo:** saying?
**Senator:** It's, I I completely agree. I mean it is a relatively straightforward Yes. Flavor profile. Yes. It's not an overly complex one. Yes, yes. Like we've called out a few notes. Mm-hmm. Those are present all the way through. We like them. But I do agree. Is it tremendously complex?
Are there more than five notes? Are there even five? Oh no. Really? No. No. So I agree.
**Gizmo:** No. So here's my question, RO, they're so pleasant. Extremely. Yeah. So Rooster, you probably in the room have smoked more Lalo cabanas than anybody. Than us combined. All of us combined, and I'm not, and I'm not, this is not, I'm not going into like joke zone, but genuinely, Where does this kind of fit in, in the DNA n A of L G C as far as your pallet's knowledge of it?
Does it align with that? And, and how do you, you know, to use pub's, word previewing, do you see this kind of slotting alongside in the catalog, the M D O stuff and, and some of the others [00:47:00] you've smoked? Well,
**Rooster:** to me, the M D O typically are more floral. This doesn't have quite that much floral note in it. It has a little bit of fruit, a little bit of earthiness, but also the lgc that I have
**Gizmo:** smoked have like significant age heavily aged.
Yeah. So
**Rooster:** 2008, 2012. So it, I would be curious to see, I mean, how this develops with, you know, at least three years, four years, five years of age on it, it shows potential. You know, and, uh, having said that, I mean this is going to be a regular production lgc cigar, which is promising. I mean, this is a six month old cigar and, and we already, you know, are enjoying this.
We
**Gizmo:** are. So,
**Senator:** yeah, I just gotta say, I'm sorry. There should be more lgc cigars made. Of course, of course, of course. Like none of us have had a bad lgc. Never. Not ever. It's actually frustrating that,
**Gizmo:** that there's so few. That same with the same, same with Robia. Yeah, same with Robia.
**Grinder:** Yeah. So [00:48:00] I, I think that's a great segue cuz if they're gonna be expanding the, the mark and the, the different cigars in the markup, you know, I kind of, I'm kind of curious, this is from the Portus factory you said?
Yeah. Is the MD four also from the Pars
**Gizmo:** factory? I think a lot of those do come outta Parus. I think they do, but you know what the thing is, Grindr, they come out so infrequently they come out in such small batches. Well, that's
**Grinder:** what I'm saying. Yeah. They're not gonna, if they intend to expand the, the product or the, you know, the products in the, in the port that.
That Mark, you know, they're, you're gonna have more volume. Right. So then the question is, is there, and I just don't know the answer to this, is there a specific farm that they're, that RGUs is pulling from? Are they just
**Gizmo:** distributing? So the factory managers go to Pin Bernard Del Rio, and they shop just like we go to the store and shop.
They, they go to the, it all comes from the same place. It all comes from the same place. It's all the same. Remember, every
**Grinder:** factory
**Bam Bam:** buys from the
**Grinder:** same location, all the brands. No. So are, it's the blending that makes this a garden difference. That's right. So are the blenders aligned to specific
**Gizmo:** factories?
Yes. Okay. Actually, [00:49:00] blenders are aligned to specific Marcus brands. Yeah.
**Grinder:** Specific factor. That's how you But not, but not, but not, but not factories.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, exactly. You know, theories, just where
**Senator:** they're rolled,
**Gizmo:** that's all. That's right. And then, you know, the blender, the master blender, like the, uh, we met a guy at Lato who was brilliant and he blends all of Cohiba cigars.
So he's constantly, like anybody who does wine, Anybody who blends scotch, he's constantly tasting and adjusting the blends as the varietals of tobacco come in and is con, you know, is consistently making sure that those blends are distributed out to wherever they're being rolled. Let's say a lot of D four s, let's say Parus D four, that master blender is distributing that new blend.
If there's any change in the tobacco based on the crop or the, you know, the weather, whatever happened, distributing that out to the provincial factory so that all DEF four s are as close together
**Grinder:** as possible. So that, I mean, that, that's, that's fascinating. I think one of the things that I'd be keen to understand is, you know, just watch when, when they go to the farmer's market, you know, the farmer's market mm-hmm.
And, and, and do the farmer's market and, and, and do the shopping. You know, what [00:50:00] they're, what kind of conversations they're having, what the game plan is, and you know how they go about, because now whoever's blending these cigars has a, has a task of introducing potentially new flavor profiles, new, you know, that could potentially rewrite the flavor profile for Lgc.
Cuz there's, there are flavor, flavor profiles that we, that we, you know, link to specific cigars. Yep. So to, to, you know, it's exciting because, you know, it's a new, it's a new generation. And you know
**Gizmo:** what I like about this more than any of the regional stuff that we talked about. So the regional releases, let's just focus on La Gloria Cubana.
When they release, let's say the ESP Spania, whatever distributor or retailer is that's specific to, is involved in that blending process. So they're sent cigars, there's feedback, there's change, there's back and forth. This is holy only in Tabba, Cuba. So that blender made the cigar, it went through Tabba Cuba.
There was no feedback loop from retailers and distributors around the world. To make this cigar. So to see this [00:51:00] be a success, um, for a $20 re robusto is a huge win to me. It really, it really is. What's about to recode on this box? U B L, which isus as of March of last year,
**Poobah:** right? So the construction of the cigar, of the, at least the one that I smoked.
I think all of us is, all of us. David, the same is Davidoff quality construction. Totally agree. We are right
**Bam Bam:** there with you
**Poobah:** PBA, right there. It's Davidoff quality construction. Hundred percent. I'm, I, I'm looking at, at the burn. I haven't touched the cigar up one time. The combustion was outstanding. The smoke output is excellent.
Excellent. Every, the, the, the, all the construction, the build. Has been just absolutely flawless and for all of
**Senator:** us, dude. Yeah. To 0.1. This is one of the best constructed cigars I've ever had. Period.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah. One
**Poobah:** of the best constructive, because there's nothing wrong with this, there's nothing wrong with it.
Flawless construction, so, so whoever rolled this, you can talk about the [00:52:00] blend.
**Gizmo:** I think that this is, this was intentionally blended to go back to what we said earlier. Coming into the last third here. I think that this was very intentionally blended to be smoked. Smoked. Now the moment that you get that box, yeah, maybe, you know, I think it was designed that way.
Isn't it ready? It
**Bam Bam:** feels uhm tasting.
**Senator:** It does. It forms like it. It's hear you say that because like what would make sense? They kind of had to do that. They have to, if Lgc makes so little at any, at this point, they only have three violas for clean. That's clean out loud and, and the only one that is still standard production is what?
The MD oh four. M D four. So
**Gizmo:** what are they gonna
**Poobah:** put out something? There's one, yes.
**Senator:** One line in standard production, the MD oh four. That's crazy. If they're gonna come out with this, they have to hit a home run. It's crazy. This is many people's second m uh, lgc they'll have ever smoked in their life. I would argue
**Gizmo:** maybe
**Poobah:** that the tobacco was more aged than,
**Gizmo:** no, I don't, don't think so.
I, I think, I think that the MD O four is, is, is a tough one to look at as, as a headliner for any marker because they put it [00:53:00] out so infrequently. You know what they come out, you, you know, there's batches of those that come out in very low quantity every two years, maybe. I mean, they just don't come out a lot.
And it's a, it's a panatella.
**Rooster:** And look, mdo number two, mdo number three, mdo number four, mdo number one, do not have a lot of Le Herro in them. Mm-hmm. But yet they age beautifully.
**Gizmo:** They do. Yeah. So
**Rooster:** you don't need to have a lot of Le Herro in a cigar for it
**Gizmo:** to age. I think
**Senator:** I agree with that. It's just when there's a lot of la Herro, it requires a lot.
It's sensitive to where when there's less la Herro, it requires less age. That's right. And to your point, in either circumstance, they can age extremely well, right? Mm-hmm.
**Gizmo:** I just want to give the blender who blended this, a high five. Absolutely. This is a hundred percent. And the rollers. And the rollers, this is one of the best constructed Cubans we've
**Poobah:** ever had.
But one of the, it's really, it, the construction on it was great. Uh, the, the, the, the, it's it's straightforward. Um, in time, who knows what it'll taste like, but boy, [00:54:00]
**Senator:** There are cohibas that don't burn this perfectly. This is true. Yeah. I mean it is absurd. Yeah. At this price, what they were,
**Gizmo:** I was actually, it's funny you say that cuz I was actually on a Zoom call with uh, with Rob Ila, cuz we always mentioned Rob and some other guys from F O H and a couple of them had mentioned that they were smokings two s that came outta Lato and performance-wise, they couldn't get them to smoke.
Oh boy. They had to put them down and I think they were three, four years old, whatever. Yeah. But think about spending 60, $70 on a cigar and to have it perform so terribly and we're holding an lgc that's 20 bucks. That to me is standing up fresh to any rub robusto in the Havanas catalog radio. Yeah. Yeah.
Fresh. Yeah. It's standing up
**Poobah:** to any, and I bet, I bet in just even just a couple of short years that. It's even better. I don't think we should
**Rooster:** release this pod.
**Poobah:** It's true. I, I see it slotting in, I see it slotting in the same place that you would slot a qd. [00:55:00] Um, oh yeah, good point. Uh, uh, uh, you know, like that kind of, it, this is like a, for me, maybe a daytime, a nice daytime time cigar or a, or a pre-dinner cigar. I'm
**Gizmo:** gonna, you've got the time. I'm gonna make a definitive statement that everybody in this room's gonna be very upset with.
Oh. Oh, this cigar wipes the floor with the cutie 50. It wipes Well, the floor, it's not competing with it. No. Well, it is in a slot per, you know where I would slot? This is the same place I would put that, that corner that the Kronos
**Poobah:** CLA is better. Of course.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. But
**Rooster:** you could, you could have this cigar, let's say you're gonna have three sticks in one night.
**Gizmo:** You could have this as your first one
**Senator:** then, like the QD 50 for me, always slots in the morning. I'd start with that. Yeah. I'd have this in the afternoon and then like a parus in the evening. But I'll
**Bam Bam:** say something about this cigar. Neither of the any in the morning, none
**Poobah:** of those, any in the afternoon, hold on,
**Bam Bam:** hold on.
No, no, no. Hold on. For me, for me, for me personally, the Qds don't coat my mouth the way this cigar does. There's a coating of flavor that I just want [00:56:00] more and more of with the Qds. I love the QD 54. You know that in a, the Coronas Claro, but I don't get that lingering. I'm getting a lingering twang on this that I don't get on any of those
**Senator:** fucking squares.
I agree with that. The agree
**Gizmo:** finishes thinner on those. I agree. I thinks,
**Poobah:** yeah, but the Coronas Claro is a better cigar. Well, I'm not gonna say
**Gizmo:** that. I think my point in comparing to the 50 was just the size. You know, there's a 50 gardens. That's the only reason I, it's tiny. It's a tiny little, yeah, it's short little thing.
I would love to tour the Eses factory when we go back. Yeah, that's the, absolutely. This was a hell of, if there is such, if there is a
**Poobah:** way, absolutely. This thing was that really rolled well. Someone paid attention.
**Gizmo:** Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I gotta bring this up, boys, because we blasted them. I think it was in September or October with Dan from Cigar Salute.
Did you guys see that Monty Fortuna put out a video of how to spot fake Cuban cigars?
**Poobah:** Uhhuh Fake news. What do you mean?
**Senator:** All right, take it easy. Gizmo. They're, they're a client. Yeah. Hold on to
**Grinder:** your seat belts, everybody. I [00:57:00] worked
**Senator:** on that video now. I'm just kidding.
**Gizmo:** I just want, like, did they make the video for themselves?
**Senator:** Crisis comes after, uh, you guys really let 'em
**Gizmo:** have it? They, uh, so they put out this video on YouTube a few days ago. I was cracking up because a, it's like, Eight months after, you know, the whole fiasco last summer, it was a shit show, but they're putting out this video of how to spot fakes and all the stuff we talked about on the podcast at Dan.
It's like they listened and, and quoted like every point that Dan made about how to find fake Cubans and condensed it down into their own YouTube video. I just think they made it for themselves how to spot a fake Cuban. Yeah. It's in the employee manual. Yeah. Check it out.
**Poobah:** You know, it's, it's a whole rabbit hole,
**Gizmo:** right?
Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole rabbit hole. It's
**Poobah:** funny. It's all about learning really Well constructed smoke though, guys, huh? Yeah, and And
**Bam Bam:** Cuba. Cuba took it all the way down too. I see. Yeah. Pretty
**Poobah:** cool delivery. Yeah. Pua was the first to
finish,
**Gizmo:** dude. Yeah. Yeah. They blew [00:58:00] through it. Very rare to see. Do you think
**Rooster:** there's similarities between this and E two
**Senator:** Some?
A little bit. Not a
**Gizmo:** creaminess. The creaminess for sure. E is a big step up above, above
**Senator:** the E two s, got more ooph body and
**Poobah:** strength through it ooph to it more, way more complex mm-hmm. Than this way more.
**Gizmo:** It's a, it's a, it's a step up. So I gotta say for a Rob Robusto extra, a gordito, this smoked very fast tonight.
Maybe that's the youth, or we're just blew through it. But we blew through it. I mean, we're only an hour in there's It's a merit.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Yeah. It's a merit. It's, its like, it's like the nice kind of combustion you get out of a really good, uh, um, UND two that's not so tightly packed, but you're getting this good construction and it's smoked in, uh, reason we thought this was gonna be an hour 20 or you smoke.
It's not Yeah. You know, um, the combustion was so good.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. And no touchups, like you [00:59:00] said, nobody reached for their light
**Poobah:** or not. It's a merit in the cigar. I don't think a tightly packed big rings gauge cigar, like when it's so tightly packed is a good thing. No, it's not. Yeah, this was really great. Yeah, it smoked just perfect for me.
I
**Gizmo:** think that the, I'm so glad I have another box because I'm gonna definitely be reaching for these Do you at the start of the night For sure. I'd love to see it in two
**Poobah:** years. Yeah.
**Grinder:** I like to agree. Try it. I remember the two years. Don't forget the lizard
**Senator:** sharing protocol. That's exactly
**Gizmo:** right. You know where to find them.
Yeah.
**Poobah:** Great cigar. I mean this previewed as well as in a young cigar that I've smoked in
**Gizmo:** a long, and again, we have to say it again because we've, we've trashed tab bono so much for the pricing strategy, but to see a cigar come out, a new release on a, on a marker that we love in a viola that works for 20 bucks for an hour, hour 10, it's insane experience.
Yeah. That is value to me. Big time. This is where. I wish ha Bonos was moving their catalog. Big time is, is [01:00:00] bringing phenomenal value in, in viola and flavor that we love to great, great
**Senator:** brands. The, the other thing that's really nice about this cigar, we talk about this quite a bit. There is something to like in this cigar for every smoker, I a hundred percent totally approaches true.
There are few cigars we would say that about, right? There are certain cigars. We would say, if you're a novice smoker and, and you are used to smoking very mild cigars, this is probably a bit too much right for you at that point. To me, this cigar, if you've only had a few Cubans in your life and you're trying to get into more, I, there's not no point in here where this gets so strong or weird, weird or kicks you around that you would say, I'm not sure this is for me.
It works for that person. If you're a ex, you know, a Cuban afic idol that smokes Cubans all the time, I. The, the flavor, despite being mild, is so refined and concentrated that all of us are sitting here incredibly satisfied. So I do love also, this is a [01:01:00] cigar that is versatile and that I think it's really for everybody.
Yeah. And
**Bam Bam:** for $20, it's an
**Gizmo:** extraordinary value. And it's one of those, those boxes that to me, if I'm with a group of friends, let's say, who doesn't, you know, not, not the lizards that, that smoke all the time or are very experienced if I'm, I'm with a group of folks and say, Hey, you know, we know you love Cuban cigars.
I, I want to give them something that I know is gonna perform brilliantly and is not gonna offend a novice smoker and will satisfy someone who smokes a lot. This is very high on that list right now. Yeah. Yeah. I
**Poobah:** want, I wonder with a little bit of time if some of those upfront on the cold draw, like. Some of those dessert flavors that, that we got out of it that weren't so pronounced down the end like that honey, some that they'll start to appear that maybe they will, maybe with a little bit of a little bit of maturity, they'll start to present themselves and they can really make this thing a real knockout.
Yeah. Yeah. Um. But it previewed [01:02:00] really, really, really
**Bam Bam:** great. Yep. Agree. And with the tequila really great. What a, what an incredible te pairing.
**Gizmo:** What a grand pairing tonight. Yeah. The tequila was brilliant tonight. And again, for an aho to pair as well as it did with this, I'm so glad, um, that we did it. It was perfect.
Perfect.
**Poobah:** Because it has that salty paired up great. Because it has that, it has that minerality and that saltiness that kind of just, it matches up really nice, particularly with the cigar. That's this medium body. Yeah. Yep. Very well said.
**Gizmo:** Yep. You know, you guys, um, really good. You guys ready to do the formal liquor rating on the Yeah.
Tequila ocho on ya? Oh, yeah. All right. Bam. Bam. You're up. You know,
**Bam Bam:** I'm going between a nine and a 10 on this because it's, it's just so delicious. The minerality, the earth tones that it's just, I'm, I'm probably gonna go, I'm gonna go 10. All right.
**Grinder:** 10 on this tequila grinder. I'm trying, I'm trying to recollect what I've given.
You know, the Elta Soro and some of the better tequilas we've had. Um, better, best, well, I mean, parallel. Yeah. Better, [01:03:00] you know, better than the rest. Yeah. Um, I don't, I, I don't recall, but you know, I am also deciding between a nine and a 10. Mm-hmm. Um, this is definitely one the, you know, one of the best tequilas I've had and it's one that I'll be searching for again, I don't know if it's a 10, cuz my range is not as well refined as you guys on the tequila front.
On the tequila front. No, I don't drink, I don't, I only drink tequila with this pod. Um, really That's fine. But just for what it is for you for tonight. Yeah. I know. Experience tonight. The experience tonight was a nine. All right. Great.
**Gizmo:** Senator.
**Senator:** Uh, for me, this is easily a 10. And the reason I'm gonna say that, um, Uh, there's arguably no more drinkable tequila.
I mean, when bam said that he could just take down an entire bottle of this in a single, in the
**Grinder:** yard himself
**Bam Bam:** with the, with this cigar
**Grinder:** in the fucking
**Senator:** yard. I mean, I, I honestly, I feel the same way. And the other thing that has to factor in for me, I think $65 for this bottle value is an [01:04:00] outstanding, it's, it's outstanding.
I mean, honestly, a lot of the other anejos that, like I mentioned, Elta Soro because I think that they're very similar in that they, they're lighter, um, bodied on yehs in a very good way. Not this like barrel heavy whiskey like Anejo. And, uh, most of those are 90, a hundred dollars. I mean, Don Philo ELs, or all of those are in that price range.
The fact that this is $65, I think is tremendous. So for me, It's a 10
**Bam Bam:** and the creaminess, the creaminess that you're getting, that you mentioned early on, it is there
**Senator:** and, and creamier than any Anejo. Honestly, I've had like I love Elto Soro just as much for a different reason. Yeah. But for what this is, it's so unique and, and distinguishable.
It's perfect. Yeah. So
**Gizmo:** I left that dinner at Anejo with Chef Ricky with us. The, you know, the guys that went absolutely in love with Ya, Yaha. That was my first time having it. This is my second having it tonight. It absolutely is very parallel with Tesoro. And that's where I was going. You touched on it. I'm not gonna repeat it, but the value thing [01:05:00] cannot be ignored.
So Absolutely. This, this is right alongside the Tesoro for me. It's a 10 for sure. Now you're talking Poobah. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Um. I've had a lot of this tequila. I, I'm a big o you guys know I'm a big O tequila. O
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's running through your tap in the fri in a, in a bathroom. You just turn a pic and it comes out.
**Poobah:** And, and guys, guys, for the listener, um, try the entire line.
Yeah. But the entire line is terrific. Try it and see what you like. And I love El Soro too. I've give them both a 10. I think that they're both my favorite and it's my go-to. It's a 10 for me. Great. A as as our friend Pagoda would say. It's a 10. It's a 10. It's a 10.
**Gizmo:** So the formal liquor rating, The tequila Ocho Anjo is a 9.8.
Yeah. 98 boys in
**Grinder:** the
**Gizmo:** elite tequila ab,
**Poobah:** absolutely elite. Would you do all the calculus on it for the price for what it is, how it's made? Yeah. It's a perfect score. Yeah, it's a, it's, it's it, it's right there.
**Rooster:** And if you live in the new Yeah. [01:06:00] New York, New Jersey area. Go to Anejo. You could probably try
**Gizmo:** all of them.
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. You could do 'em all, you could do a flight. Yeah. Very good stuff. Good plug boys. Good plug. So it's time to do the formal lizard rating on the La Gloria Cubana Turo. Gordito Rooster. You're up. So I'm
**Rooster:** in between an eight and a nine on this, but the construction, the draw, I mean, everything was just perfect.
**Gizmo:** So I'm leaning
**Rooster:** towards a nine. Okay.
**Poobah:** Poobah. Yeah. I loved it. Um, I really loved the cigar. Uh, it's not a nine for me, it's an eight. Um, And it's an only an eight for me, just cuz it just lacks it. It just, there's a little bit of complexity that I'm looking for, a little bit there of an edge. I'd probably give it an 8.5 if I could, but I'm not, I'm gonna give it an eight.
It just, there's a little bit of complexity that I think it needs. Maybe that'll come with time, but a hell of a cigar [01:07:00] on all the things you know, on all the things that we mentioned. Yeah, really good. I, I enjoyed
**Gizmo:** it a lot. I'm right there with you. I am a nine though, uh, purely because of how I see it slotting in for me.
This is an early entrant and a quick entrant into my rotation. I'm gonna smoke a lot of these cigars and again, I can't ignore celebrating the value in a $20 rub. Robusto feels great in the hand, the construction is excellent. Um, I'm so excited that I have a another box of these sitting in my tower and I'm gonna order more.
All day. It's a nine, a $20 Ra, robusto, I can't believe it. Six months old from ha Bonos awesome. It's like it's a slam dunk. Awesome, Senator. So
**Senator:** I agree with all the previous commentary. Um, the pros are, are obvious, the construction's flawless. Um, it's refined smoke despite how young it is. I agree with Poobah that on the cons, it's not the most complex smoke.
It is pretty straightforward. Um, but all things considered, I've gotta [01:08:00] round up to a nine. Mm-hmm. And I think it has the potential with age to be a 10
**Gizmo:** someday, maybe. I agree. Grindr,
**Grinder:** it's a nine for me. Um, the flavor profile is, I think someone, I think it was Poobah who mentioned it's in my power alley. Um, I was considering it 10, but, um, I don't know the, the, the.
There is a little bit more that I'm still looking for. Um, and I would smoke it every day. Having said that, uh, the thing that would struck me about the cigar is that I often with the lighter, medium, you know, the lighter cigars, I do a lot of retro hail. Yeah. And I get so much of that that takes it over, that, that takes a mild cigar and really brings it to where I wanted to be.
Um, this one, I didn't do that at all. I didn't have to do that at all. Yeah. I was just kind of, I was, I was embracing the aroma. I was trying to get as much of it as I can. Um, so it's a nine for me. I think we can, you know, I think to, to poop his point to, to senator's Point just a little more time. [01:09:00] It's definitely has, has the potential to be a 10.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I think this is definitely one we revisit in a couple years. Agreed. Bam,
**Bam Bam:** bam. Yeah. I'm at a nine as well. You know, for me, when I have. The experience where I'm combining both savory and sweet. For me personally, that's, that's a complex experience. When you can achieve that in a cigar, there's, for me, there's complexity.
So I'm going with a 9, 9, 9, 9. All right. And for the price, it's incredible, the value.
**Gizmo:** So the formal lizard rating on the lgc Tor is an 8.8, which is an excellent score for his score. Six month old Havanas. Yeah. Yeah. I celebrate the cigar boys. I'm celebrating Who a strong recommends dude celebrating.
**Bam Bam:** And honestly, the conversation tonight was set such a high level when a cigar triggers that type of discussion.
Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a provocative cigar. There's a lot to it.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Can't wait to get more of these. And I like, like, you know, like we're talking about with aging them just a little bit. Yeah. You know, trying these again in two to three years, I can't [01:10:00] imagine where they're gonna be. So, absolutely. For the listener at an 8.8, you gotta go out and get a box of these.
Box of 10.
**Poobah:** Yeah, I think an eight. I
**Gizmo:** think 88. 88 is the number. Yeah. Perfect. This is a good, quick question.
**Senator:** Do these just come in a box of 10
**Gizmo:** so they only come in 10 counts? Yeah. Oh man. Yeah, it's interesting. What did you pay for this? 200 bucks for
**Grinder:** 10? You know what it believe? You know what the retail, what the price is on the same website when I just checked.
2 78. Wow. Wow. It's cuz of the
**Bam Bam:** pod.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I don't know if I got 'em on sale or something, but you can get 'em about 20 bucks a stick. All right boys. So a 9.8 for the Tequila OCHO on Ye and an 8.8 for the La Gloria Cubana Torino's brand new Gordito. What an excellent night and an excellent parent. I really enjoyed that and uh, awesome.
We'll see y'all next week. Keep smoking. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You could find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, lounge lizards pod.com. That's lounge lizards p o [01:11:00] d.com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
If you have any comments, questions. If you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us hello@loungelizardspod.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.