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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.
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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.
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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!
Ep. #200: H. Upmann Sir Winston 2018 (w/ Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill 2015, Memories from 200 Episodes, Impact of Cigarmageddon 2025 from Tariffs, Seizures and Pauses, Cuban Cigar Rotation Update, Senator's Honey Deuce & Pagoda at the U.S. Open)
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Gizmo: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast presented by Fabrica five. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Rooster Senator Pagoda, chef Ricky Grindr, and bam bam, a full house of lizards.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some champagne, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 200 official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. We need cereal once a week. We're gonna smoke a cup cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal leisure rating.
We celebrate 200 episodes with a Winston Churchill pairing. We discuss the impacts of Cigar Maged in 2025, and we answer a listener email about our first 200, all among a variety of other things for the next two hours. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair Paul Rose.
Sir Winston Churchill Vintage 2015 [00:01:00] Champagne with the H Up man. Sir Winston, A very special episode on the pod tonight, boys. It's good to see you all. We have six and a half members in the room. Pupa, unfortunately was supposed to be here, unfortunately, had a family thing come up about an hour ago, hour and a half ago.
And the half is pagoda, who is about to fall asleep with his feet up on an ottoman tonight. That's correct. Sitting in a weather bound chair.
Rooster: He looks relaxed smoking
Gizmo: a cigar of some unknown origin. That's also correct. Hey, happy 200 Pagoda. Happy 200. I'm celebrating. We're ready. So it's good to be with you guys tonight.
We're gonna go out of order, of course. And we are celebrating tonight with our friend of ours, sir Winston Churchill, and we have brought him in on both sides of the pairing tonight. Ooh, very, very exciting. We have the Paul Roge, sir Winston [00:02:00] Churchill edition. Champagne. My Lord. Woo hoo. And Senator. Uh, left Garone at home, uh, for a very specific reason.
Senator, how much is this bottle? This is a $350
Senator: bottle of champagne. That's, we have, I think I need a glass. We need to, we're not
Gizmo: gonna
Senator: let a drop hit the floor.
Bam Bam: Correct. We have to preserve every drop.
Gizmo: So a listener out there who might be expecting a saber Tonight, we made an executive decision to not saber a $350 bottle of Paul Rose Champagne.
Senator: Very good. I was also worried with all the debate about, uh, what year or vintage cigar we were gonna smoke tonight between you and Rooster. That the saber might not be a good idea in this room.
Gizmo: Oh yeah. So boys, let's crack some champagne. Let's celebrate episode 200, and then we'll get into our cigar discussion.
Well, I have to first start by unbuckling the box. Beautiful presentation. Very elaborate presentation. Beautiful box. It's
Bam Bam: a beautiful book,
Gizmo: a leather button,
Bam Bam: and it comes with a passport. [00:03:00] Apparently
Gizmo: it's a little booklet inside. It has a cover of a passport, and then the bottle itself. Magnet on there. Yeah, on the box.
No magnet button. Okay. But I thought it closed with a magnet, didn't it? I think it did.
Bam Bam: I dunno. Gorgeous. Now how did you chill that in the box? You left it in the box, put it in the fridge. Took it outta the box. What'd you do? Giz. So I
Gizmo: uh, I put it in my fridge last night out of the box. Okay, good. Not his deep fridge.
The regular fridge? No, this is the regular temp fridge. Oh, got it. But it wasn't the one that the kids touch. This is a stable fridge that only I touch. Don't go there.
Rooster: I'm not saying anything I haven't swallowed yet. Just your
Chef Ricky: weight. Is it the fridge that has cat litter in it? Or there's
Gizmo: no kitty litter in the fridge?
That's actually a disgusting idea. You need some humidity for these quarks,
Pagoda: by the way. We are definitely gonna split by these and double charge rooster for not drinking.
Rooster: Oh, nevermind. Oh, I don't need a glass. I'm good. I, no, he said
Bam Bam: not drinking. You
Gizmo: weren't getting one anyway.
Rooster: Well, was the bottle laying [00:04:00] flat or was it vertical?
Gizmo: It's been flat until last night and then I, when I pulled it out of the fridge today, it was horizontal again. So it lays horizontal in the box, but I put it in the fridge. Vertical.
Senator: Thank goodness. Now Rooster knows how to store champagne that he doesn't drink.
Gizmo: Alright, boys, just wanted to make sure.
Episode 200.
Woo.
Gizmo: Congratulations and congratulations to our amazing listeners out there for coming along this ride with us as Garone starts to.
Bam Bam: All right. And con congrats to each and every one of
Gizmo: us. Yeah. Look at this. Who would've thought ba? Yeah. Here we are in 200 episodes. We've not missed a Tuesday in 200 weeks.
Wow. Wow. 200 weeks. We've not missed a Tuesday. That's correct. So I'm very proud of that fact. It
Bam Bam: does show commitment. It does. But a lot of editing and work on your part. Correct. That goes unseen. Correct. So kudos to you. Thank you, sir. Of course.
Chef Ricky: Yeah. Equipment set up. Oh yeah. [00:05:00] Equipment breakdown. Yeah, that's
Bam Bam: correct.
Gizmo: Thank you guys. New cables.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: Yeah. We got new headphone cables this week. Very exciting. Everything sounds crisp.
Bam Bam: As crisp as the champagne's gonna taste.
Gizmo: I can't wait to try this. So I got this bottle, Senator, I think for, it was on sale for $279. Normally it's retailing, I believe, as you said in the three hundreds.
So we actually kind of got this for a steal. It's crazy to say that about a $270 purchase, but now where's the backup bottle? Senator has plenty of backups. All
Bam Bam: right, good.
Pagoda: Because
Bam Bam: this ain't gonna last long.
Gizmo: No. So we have a couple bottles of backup.
Pagoda: So Senator, I just wanna make sure that, you know, our glasses are different.
It's called even distribution. Yes. Yours is already done. You can see. No, no, no. That's not gonna work.
Bam Bam: Oh, the anticipation. All the eyeballs are on [00:06:00] Senator right now.
Senator: I mean, this is not easy. There's three different size glasses
Bam Bam: here. I'm doing a lot of It's awful. Stem wear. Awful. Stemware. Awful. Ooh, I'm happy.
Chef Ricky: Got's glass full. I'm pretty impressed with what, how much you're getting outta that bottle. It's, it's,
Pagoda: it's
Bam Bam: very good.
Pagoda: Thank you Rooster for contributing your share. We appreciate it. That's correct. And Uba.
Bam Bam: And
Pagoda: Uba, of course.
Bam Bam: We're gonna miss UBA
Pagoda: tonight.
Bam Bam: We
Gizmo: are,
Bam Bam: yep.
Gizmo: God bless you. We couldn't be here. I thought it was gonna be an extra full house of lizards tonight, but it's all good.
We ended up with six and a half, not one drop on the floor. Well done. Very good. All right, let's pass these around. That's fantastic. The aroma.
Bam Bam: Yeah,
Gizmo: the aroma is correct. That great. All right. We all have a glass of Paul Rose. Sir Winston Churchill Vintage 2015. And Rooster's got his coffee mug. Rooster's got an Americano.
It'll hold the bottle. It'll hold the bottle. [00:07:00] So boys, congratulations, congrats episode 200. It's been a real ride. We're gonna talk about that tonight. It's
Bam Bam: been an emotional journey.
Gizmo: It has. Oh yeah. And it has, and I'm so glad that we are sitting here together. Good, bad, and ugly. I wish PBO was here with us, but he That's correct.
Is, uh, unfortunately not able to be, but cheers to him and of course, cheers. Cheers to our listeners out there. Cheers, boys. As,
Senator: as Mark Twain said, too much of anything is bad too. Man. Too much champagne is just right. Correct. Perfect. Cheers. Board did too much pain.
Chef Ricky: Cheers. Salute, salute.
Gizmo: Oh yeah. Wow. That's good.
Grinder: Delicious. This
Gizmo: is a treat. This is excellent. Wow. The finish is so long and buttery and like creamy. There's a,
Bam Bam: a slight sweetness to it. Yes. With a very long, I think I agree. Buttery creamy finish. And it's, it's very unusual. It's,
Gizmo: it's not [00:08:00] like too sweet. It's like the perfect amount of sweet.
Bam Bam: Yeah. And it's not that typical, well, typical that a lot of champagnes.
You're getting a briny salty, which I happen to love. You're not getting that here.
Chef Ricky: Absolutely correct. I'm not getting a ton of mine minerality. I'm actually getting some green apple here. Mm. Getting some brightness. It's really buttery, creamy. There's some green apple. I think that it's lovely. The aroma is intense.
Aroma's intense. I mean, from a distance.
Bam Bam: I can't wait to smoke my fucking cigar tonight with this. Okay,
Gizmo: so boys, tonight on the podcast, we have the H up Man, sir Winston. A Churchill in the pod tonight. 47 ring gauge cigar by seven inches long and I brought the entire box with me of the EOS October, 2018.
Bam Bam: Very pretty
Gizmo: seven years old. My Lord has not been cracked yet. So I'm gonna pass this to Rooster and we're going to select some cigars and we are gonna see how this does tonight with our,
Bam Bam: can I urge you animals to do [00:09:00] one thing for me? Don't touch the head of the cigar please. Rooster has a tendency to like massage the whole thing and then put it back in a box.
Gizmo: You don't
Senator: fucking get one
Gizmo: today. I think the feet look good on all these, honestly.
Senator: Can I also ask one thing? And this actually, this is a bam faux pa. What do I do? When you take the cigar, please do not put the foot into your nostril. Oh, I don't do that. Oh, you've done that Bams like these are great. As an itch of the cigars up his nose.
Bam Bam: I'm a connoisseur. Well, I'm a little nervous about these wrappers. I'm excited. I'm not nervous. A little wrinkled. You wrinkled abuelo.
Chef Ricky: I'm with Bam. I'm choosing to be excited about this evening. Let's see what happens. No, I'm
Senator: excited about the cigar, but I'm sorry. I mean the Sir Winston is obviously like a premier, flagship, flagship cigar.
That's correct. There is no reason. I mean, the wrappers should be beautiful. I mean, my wrapper is [00:10:00] actually super veiny. Mm-hmm. Toward the top, like you can feel Same here, the veins. And on some of them it's like the tobacco was like piercing through the wrapper. Yeah. I mean, I, you don't really see that that often.
I'm surprised on a cigar like this.
Bam Bam: But the aroma on the wrapper's exquisite. It does smell good. It's delicious. It does smell amazing.
Gizmo: Mm. And I love how it feels in the hand.
Bam Bam: Yeah. It's actually, it feels very light, not heavily packed. It's
Gizmo: a
Bam Bam: holta number two.
Gizmo: All right, boys, let's cut this thing. See what we're getting on the cold draw and the wrapper.
Our first, sir Winston on the podcast tonight, see how they do boy. Hmm? Mine's good. Mine's a little tight. Mine draw's good. Damn. I might have the perfect draw this thing.
Chef Ricky: Mine's good. A little bit of resistant, but nothing major. God, Jesus Christ. [00:11:00]
Bam Bam: What are we doing?
Chef Ricky: Caught
Bam Bam: it
Chef Ricky: in
Pagoda: time.
Bam Bam: Caught it in time. All right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be behind you, boys. I am having a problem.
Gizmo: My cold draw is actually sweet and buttery, and I haven't sipped that champagne in quite some time. Is it plugged ba or is it just, just a little tight?
It's,
Bam Bam: it's a little tight at the top. I think it's, we'll give it a try here.
Chef Ricky: I'm getting some of that, uh, savory. Pagoda. How's your cold draw
Bam Bam: dude? Whatcha doing man? Fucking cigar. Episode
Gizmo: 200. He's already lit the sir winds. So we've
Bam Bam: done this 200 times. Alright, alright. Alright. He's half a man. It's a
Gizmo: Monday.
It's a holiday. He is half a man today.
Bam Bam: Half a man.
Gizmo: I would be just fine if we didn't like them and we just had the cold draw. That's how good this cold draw is Really nice. Chef. Cold dry is delicious. I'm unplugged. I'm
Bam Bam: getting a little banana. Um, little graham cracker.
A
Chef Ricky: very faint touch of cedar for me, [00:12:00] so I, I get savory notes with the cedar. I'm getting a little tomato. Wow. Some cedar tomato. Not mine. Isn't leaning sweet at orange. Is that San Marzano or Jersey jersey's? Finest baby jersey's. Finest beef steak, tomato. Those Newark tomatoes. No, not getting tomato.
Gizmo: I'm relieved.
You know, we've talked about this before with Churchill's. A couple of us in the room are suffering right now and grinder's over there with a perfect drawer trying to open his up. Mine's better. That is the challenge with these Churchills coming outta Cuba
Bam Bam: grinder. I think it's that first inch and a half.
I think so just do it in three or four different locations and you'll be, I think, better mine's improved.
Rooster: Mm-hmm. Just be careful because the wrapper is really thin.
Bam Bam: Yeah. You want to angle in.
Rooster: No, you don't wanna angle it. Yeah, you don't want to angle it.
Bam Bam: Well, coming in this way, you want to kind of slightly angle toward the center of the cigar, not toward the wrap.
Why
Senator: don't you just go into the center and go straight?
Bam Bam: Well, yeah, that's my first, but I do a perimeter insertion along with the center. [00:13:00] So I, when I go on a perimeter, I go toward the, in inside of the center of the cigar. Not toward the, what are we talking about? It's about physics. It's uh, you know, telemetry.
Alright, grinder.
Gizmo: Are you ready?
Bam Bam: I'm ready guys.
Gizmo: Alright boys for the 200th time, let's light this thing. The H up man. Sir Winston from Cuba Pagoda. How's
Bam Bam: your cigar smoker? It's
Gizmo: before seven. I could have done Churchill by seven inches long. It's factory name as Rooster said is a Julietta number two and it is one of three currently in production in Cuba.
We've done the other two, the Cohiba NDI dose and the Romeo, Juliet, the Churchills.
Senator: Thank God. Thank God the champagne did not spill. It's exactly Holy
Bam Bam: shit. I was about to say that wasn't me. I thought there's a spirit in the room.[00:14:00]
Gizmo: Have to be very careful lighting this thing.
Bam Bam: This is fantastic. Off the line, I'm looking right at you giz.
Gizmo: Oh, it's excellent. Mm-hmm.
Bam Bam: Wow, Senator. Very good. It's excellent. Very
Gizmo: good. Salty, musty, salty.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Like barnyard a touch and I'm still getting that banana and graham cracker. Now I'm getting some of those sweeter notes coming through.
Gizmo: It's kind of bready bready for me.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Graham crackers type thing for me.
Gizmo: Hmm. My smoke output is fantastic. I got that draw got corrected.
Bam Bam: Grinder had your draw.
Grinder: It got better. It's nice not, it's not great, but it definitely helped a lot. Little improve. Yeah.
Gizmo: So this cigar was launched before the revolution and they've had a couple different bands on them. Of course they've had the old school h up in band at one point, which was kind of that more plain, brown and white.
So anything, I think before maybe [00:15:00] 2006, 2007, 2008, you're gonna see the older band on this. This of course, now has the band that you see on most of the other h Chapmans. They're not in the connoisseur series. Uh, namely this shares a band with the H Chapman Half Corona. Mm-hmm. These most diminutive cigar in that line.
Of course we love that cigar. Very rich in flavor. But, um, it's, it's very understated smell the burn line. Yeah.
Senator: It's intoxicating. Mm.
Gizmo: It's
Rooster: like floral.
Bam Bam: Yeah, it is. Oh yeah. Like a pot reef. I got a floral note. Me too. Wow. We're very lucky tonight guys.
Gizmo: So these come in a varnish box of 25 cigars. Of course we've seen them here, boys.
So they're beautiful. You wanna explain it bam, to folks who haven't seen it?
Bam Bam: Yeah, it's um, nicely cut wood box. It's sanded and varnished. It looks like they put a stain in it and it's uh, it's semi gloss finish. Beautiful.
Gizmo: And this logo is stamped. It's [00:16:00] actually indented here.
Bam Bam: It's probably burned in. So that's probably with a heat stamp that they do that.
Gizmo: And then inside, beautifully made inside, there's two rows, of course. One with 12 cigars and one with 13.
Bam Bam: Yep. Raw Spanish cedar inside,
Gizmo: two sheets of cedar. And unlike some other cigars that come in varnish boxes, like the part to Goss 8, 9, 8, mm-hmm. This box does have a date stamp on the bottom of it, right?
That then matches to the outer cardboard box, which is where you'll find the warranty seal, the transit sticker, all that stuff. The only sticker you're actually gonna see on the box is the haos white sticker on the corner. Everything else is reserved for the cardboard. Outer box,
Bam Bam: right where the 8, 9 8 doesn't have any of those.
Mark. Yeah, neither,
Rooster: neither do the LGC. Uh, that's also correct. The, the metal series. That's right. The, the box, the, the box code is only on the cardboard number four. Series number four. All number four, [00:17:00] number three, number two, number one.
Senator: Yep. Can I just say I hate the cardboard thing that they do? That's true.
Yeah. Well, I think the reason, I mean, it's
Gizmo: because it keeps, it keeps the stickers off the box. It keeps the stickers, like those health stickers off the varnish box. Imagine if they threw one of those health stickers that Mexico does on this. That's true. Varnish box. Good point. But
Senator: they've been doing this for way longer than those even existed.
Definitely. That's why,
Rooster: why not do the cardboard box but leave the, leave the, leave the varnish on the bottom. Like leave it flat and put the box code on the box
Bam Bam: or put
Rooster: it on both.
Bam Bam: They can send you a can of varnish. You can do it yourself.
Rooster: No, no. I mean it's, if you
Gizmo: lose, if you lose the cardboard box, you lose the box code.
Well, that's not on, not on this one, but on the other ones, yeah. The Parus 8, 9, 8 and some of those others.
Bam Bam: Do you have a foam brush at all?
Grinder: Uh, this is gonna be a long smoke, guys. It's a beautiful Churchill. Yeah. Oh dude, I love it. I'm gonna
Gizmo: take my first sip of the champagne and parrot [00:18:00] now that we're settling in.
Bam Bam: I'm gonna wait for you to do that. Go ahead.
Gizmo: That is awesome.
Bam Bam: You get a big smile on your face.
Gizmo: Yeah, I, I'm getting that, that banana ish thing you were talking about that like there's a sweetness that kicks up from Yeah. Both of the flavors marrying that. Yeah. Independently, neither has, for me, in, in some sort of rich way, it's
Chef Ricky: like putting a lightish me butter on a slice of toast of banana bread.
What's, that's what this feels like to me. What's
Bam Bam: cool is that this, because this champagne has such a long finish Yeah. When you take that drag, those notes inner marry in your mouth, it really creates special experience, which you don't get on most cigars or champagnes or whatever you're drinking.
Chef Ricky: The finish is so long on here, which I mean, I haven't taken a sip in, in three minutes.
You don't need to. And it's still, it's there. It's lingering. It's it's hovering, it's hanging around. Yeah.
Gizmo: So boys, this is probably one of the most requested cigars that we've not reviewed, to the point that some listeners think we had forgotten [00:19:00] about the cigar. Of course, we had earmarked this for episode 200 tonight with this champagne.
But folks love this cigar and unfortunately they don't come up very much. You don't see them very
Bam Bam: much. I thought you were gonna say it's one of the rarest cigars, which it is, but if someone walked into this room, they wouldn't believe you.
Rooster: I'm like, I'm speechless with a cigar. It is so good. Yeah, this is great. It's delicious. The combustion is, is amazing.
Gizmo: And again, for listeners out there, the box code on this is EOS October, 2018. What's interesting about these for being one of the flagship cigars
Bam Bam: is that I would
Gizmo: say for Cuba and for, that's not Aman.
Bam Bam: That's a provincial code, isn't it? Yeah.
Gizmo: I would say 99.9% of boxes coming out of Cuba, of the Sir Winston are made in a provincial factory. There's two or three factories that make them of, I don't think I've ever seen a box come out of strange the up man factory. Help me with the logic of that.
Rooster: Yeah. It should be rolled up Lito.[00:20:00]
Senator: Yeah,
Rooster: right.
Senator: If the mother factories, especially a factory like Lito is supposed to be where the best stuff. Is rolled right? They have all the infrastructure and resources that these smaller provincial ones don't. Why on earth would one of the highest end cigars that comes outta Cuba be exclusively rolled in provincial factories?
It doesn't make any sense to me. That's a great question.
Gizmo: I don't get it. I can't figure it out myself. The only thing I can think of is that at some point in along the journey of rolling these cigars, maybe someone moved from Havana out to some sort of province in Cuba, and that was the person that was really, you know, 'cause we know people that have been rolling cigars for 50 years.
Mm-hmm. In Cuba. We've met these people. So I, I can't come up with another story aside from there's some sort of specialist or two or three or five in one area of the country, and that is who makes the h Upminster Winston
Bam Bam: kind of makes sense. If that's the case
Gizmo: and they come out so infrequently, I mean, maybe they drop them once, [00:21:00] twice a year.
You're not seeing these come up very often. They're different provincial factories that make it right, not just
Senator: one. There's not just one. I think it's two or three. It's bizarre. It's very odd.
Bam Bam: It is very odd.
Senator: The only thing that would've made sense is if there was one provincial factory, and then to your point, like they've just trained up this small group of people to only roll these cigars that I would get.
Rooster: But yeah. Or why not roll them at the Upperman factory?
Senator: Well, that, that's what would make, that's what that makes sense. The sense, but that's why I don't get this whole process.
Gizmo: Yeah. And, and you wonder why you see Cohiba being rolled atman. You see Parus being rolled at up and mm-hmm. And you see Upton being rolled at Parus.
It, it is like, it it, the whole way they set this up. Cohiba being
Bam Bam: rolled at La Corona.
Gizmo: Yeah. And exactly. It, it makes no sense how they set it up, but thankfully tonight, these cigars are delicious and are performing well. Very delicious. Pagoda, what do you think of yours? I
Pagoda: really enjoying it. I thought, uh, in the beginning it was a lot more savory for me.
I just got the first hint of a bit of sweetness, you know, about half an inch in. Yeah. I really [00:22:00] enjoying it though. It's so good. I agree with you. And, and then when you have a little bit of the champagne and then kind of cleans your palette along with highlights of sweetness, I think it's, uh, working really well.
The,
Rooster: that graham cracker note does come through. It is there. Right. And I think it's floral and it's also a little bit of chocolate that I get maybe like a light hint of, uh, like a milk chocolate.
Chef Ricky: Yeah. I'm getting a little wet dough now. Not wet fruit. No wet dough. That's not even baked yet. You know, play the
Gizmo: hitch spam.
Chef Ricky: Correct. Hey, it's 200 episode.
Pagoda: Exactly. It's wet dough with, uh, tomatoes. I think. Uh, this is good. Great pizza. That's it. We're making
Bam Bam: focaccia. Yeah. Or pizza. Yeah. Get any mayo and rye bread over there.
Senator: The flavor notes are very subtle though. Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah. I, I think if I have one complaint and what I'm hoping for is that like. They'll pick up in concentration, like, what I really appreciate about the champagne, it's like all the notes are [00:23:00] typically subtle notes, but like it's delivered in a really rich, full way.
And this, the notes are subtle and I think it's delivered in a pretty mild way. And I'm hoping that that picks up a little bit. It picks up a bit for sure. Yeah.
Chef Ricky: Is do you think that has something to do with your combustion? 'cause I feel like I'm struggling a little bit with combustion and I'm watching Grindr.
It looks like we're having similar issues. I'm
Gizmo: having a lot
Grinder: of troubles here
Gizmo: guys. I would, um, my suggestion to both of you is right above the band. Do another cut. Just do some massaging. Yeah, I've been doing that. That's a great point. Do some massaging and open that up. It, it often helps me when in with Cupid cigars That's true.
Doing that. So just give it a little massage. 'cause I'm, I'm assuming that's where you're having the, the draw issue is up in that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's interesting kind of the last third of the cigar here, because
Chef Ricky: it's almost gotten worse after the light than it did on the cold draw. Wow. And um, you should leave Where's take my champagne with me?
Bam Bam: No, you gotta
Grinder: evenly distribute that. Where's the 20 ones? [00:24:00] Uh, yeah, it's, you know, I think, I think, um, definitely getting whispers of all the flavors you guys have. Um, but it's, you know, there's not much combustion. The draw is, is arduous. Would
Gizmo: you like another
Grinder: one? Uh, I can't, no, that's fine.
Gizmo: I don't want you to sit here for two hours while without the cigar.
No, I
Grinder: wanna wait. You know,
Gizmo: it's free.
Bam Bam: So there's nothing free in this room. He's
Gizmo: paying on Splitwise for it.
Bam Bam: So my draw isn't great. I didn't drink the champagne. My draw isn't great, but I kind of like that. I have to take my time with it. Otherwise I'd be blowing through this thing 'cause it's so good. Uh, I think
Rooster: the aroma, like out of the foot, like it's delicious.
Yeah. I like the, it's so good. Yeah. I, I want more of, yeah. It's more, I'm
Senator: getting on the foot of this cigar. Just the aroma. Yeah. I want more of that on my palate. Sure.
Bam Bam: Whatcha you getting on a retro gizz? There should be concentrations of everything we talked about.
Gizmo: There is, and it's, it's almost, um,
it's almost [00:25:00] enhancing the kind of sweet, fruity way. Maybe a little floral.
Bam Bam: Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: Very smooth.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: There's no bite to it. It's, you could, you could retro hale every single drawer. That's what I'm doing so far. Yeah. This is fantastic.
Grinder: Yeah. I, I can't do this guys. All right. So take another one. Sorry.
Bam Bam: I'll finish it.
Chef Ricky: So I'm joking. Rooster, you see the combustion of roosters over here? He is having a blast.
Gizmo: So unfortunately Grindr is, was getting tortured by his first cigar. So as is common with some of these smaller ring gauge, large format cigars, even double Coronas. Mm-hmm.
Bam Bam: Sometimes
Gizmo: you fight 'em.
Bam Bam: Correct.
Gizmo: You have to assume that in a box of 25 you're gonna have maybe 20% that are gonna push back a little bit.
Which is unfortunate when you consider how much these cigars go for. Not only directly from a retailer, but especially [00:26:00] on the secondary market.
Bam Bam: Yeah. We should chat about the price. Uh, I remember the last, I only have one box. I think I paid 14 or Oh, I'm sorry. I know only one 14 or 1500 bucks for that.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Bam Bam: At the time, this was a year ago. That's fair. So right now
Gizmo: I think they're ranging somewhere around 16 to 1800. Mm-hmm. On from a, directly from a retailer. Yeah. Unfortunately for us here in the United States, if we're gonna talk about this in a little bit, but forget it, uh, bond Roberts is where you're gonna find them and they could be upwards of a hundred dollars a stick if
Bam Bam: they'll ship it to you.
Gizmo: Well, if they're in the us certainly that's also true. Yeah.
Rooster: But I bet a fresh box, probably you would not get any draw issues. Mm-hmm. I would imagine.
Gizmo: I, I think the construction's definitely gotten better from our experience lately.
Rooster: Yeah. I think, you know,
Gizmo: I think it's gonna be better than an 18, but it's still something, I think grinder's got success
Grinder: difference, the difference in flavor, like.
I thought I was getting some good flavor, but clearly I wasn't just, I was just getting, not getting enough combustion and airflow. [00:27:00] It's so good. So it's night
Gizmo: and day versus and the first it night day. Yeah. Oh, fantastic dude. And what I, what's unfortunate is it had you picked that cigar up, add an LCDH and spent the money on it, or you got it from a friend, you know, you would've, you would've had to, you know, push through it.
Bam Bam: You'd be
Chef Ricky: stuck with it.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Chef Ricky: Yeah. I think my cigar got scared of getting thrown out and decided to cooperate here. There you go.
Gizmo: Excellent. So, Grindr, what are you getting now as you are, uh, settling into your second cigar? Definitely the,
Grinder: the bready. A lot of redness. Um, I got some, the sweetness is on, is on the finish though.
There's definitely a little sweetness on the finish. Um, some barnyard too. Oddly, not much spice at all. Any
Rooster: cedar chocolate or floral?
Grinder: Uh, the floral is there. Floral is on the foot. Um, in the aroma? Yeah, in the aroma.
Bam Bam: Any banana.
Grinder: I think the banana
Chef Ricky: comes through in a little bit. The
Grinder: dough [00:28:00] comment?
Chef Ricky: Yeah.
Grinder: Wet
Chef Ricky: dough.
Yeah.
Grinder: Yeah. I, I don't know what wet dough is, but what about tomato? Just
Rooster: the aroma.
Grinder: He, yes. So serious to that question. No, this is fantastic.
Rooster: I don't get any chocolate. Not yet. I'm just, you just let it Yeah, it's not, it's not a dark chocolate. It's like a milk chocolate. Like a hint. I'm not getting much chocolate.
Gizmo: So boys, these cigars have only really come in one format, one release, except for the Grand Reserve series that came out in 2011, the Grand Reserve of Cocha 2011, which was released in 2018. Of course, those cigars box of 15 probably are somewhere in the range of 5,000, 3000, 4,000, $5,000 for 15 cigars. How many of those do you have?
Guess? Unbelievable. I have zero. I've never had one of those. I thought you had one. [00:29:00] No Part of this. Wow.
Rooster: Outrageous. Just checking.
Senator: Unfair. I hate this. I'm gonna be the grumpy one tonight. What happened? My other issue is I really wish the smoke output were greater.
Bam Bam: It
Senator: is a low output. I think that's the case for me too.
This is a decent ring gauge. I mean there, there's many no roosters is, there's lonsdale that I get more combustion out of than this. I just don't understand. And the draw is actually great. I have no draw issues whatsoever. It just doesn't produce voluminous smoke like I'm hoping for.
Bam Bam: Mm-hmm.
Senator: Take a draw.
Oh yeah. Look at that. It's interesting. I mean it's a decent amount. It's not bad, but like I want like billowing smoke. Yeah.
Gizmo: I feel like I'm getting pretty good combustion outta
Bam Bam: mine. Yeah. I think you and Rooster have some pretty good smoke. He sounds Grinder grind and grinder grinders. Look at Grindr's.
Reup. Yeah. He's not even puffing in it. Smoking. Mm-hmm.
Chef Ricky: Yeah. You could see me. I'm just trying to create that smoke out smoke.
Senator: I'm not, that's not a lot. I'm not getting a lot of smoke. Yeah. There's not much smoke at all.
Bam Bam: It's [00:30:00] a whisper. Yeah. I think the flavor for me is so good. I could let that go. Just deal with it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Senator: No, I say it 'cause I'm loving the flavor notes in this. Yeah. So like I just want it to be delivered in a really concentrated way and it's like either the body of the cigar needs to pick up while it doesn't have the voluminous smoke output that I would hope for. Or I need like a lot of smoke to just like envelop myself in the cigar more.
Yeah. And I'm not getting either of those. So it's like those are just the only things that are hindering this from being like a perfect or close to perfect experience for me.
Bam Bam: That is definitely a byproduct of your draw. Uh, if it's tight in any way. Mine is, mine's open. Yours is open. Yeah. Yeah. I have some fight here, but I like it.
Grinder: The
Bam Bam: flavor though is fantastic. It's fantastic. Yeah. Rare, exquisite cigar, man. Absolutely.
Gizmo: So boys, let's talk about the champagne. This is the third champagne from Paul Roge we're doing on the podcast. Of course, [00:31:00] we did the standard issue brute reserve, which I think is, uh, what's the price right now, Senator?
On a normal bottle of Paul Roge standard 50 50 bucks. And then we did the Paul Roge Vintage 2013, which performed very well. That was excellent. And tonight we of course have the one we've been talking and thinking about for quite some time on our group chat and in, in the room as we've planned for this, the Sir Winston Churchill edition, which is drinking very well.
So Senator, you, you said you had some awesome facts on, on this champagne.
Senator: Yeah, so I'll, I'll give a little bit. Ironically, there's not a ton about this specific champagne. They are very guarded in what is in it. They do not disclose the percentages, the blends, anything like that. Um, but there was just, you know, all of this was done in homage to Winston Churchill.
The first vintage of this was released exactly 10 years after he died. So there's just a lot that even in this little booklet [00:32:00] that comes with the bottle, they kind of tell the story of how Winston Churchill became really friendly and close with the family. Um, and all that, but through some other reading, luckily I found a little bit extra than that book provides.
So, um, I mean, first, as I mentioned, obviously longstanding relationship, the Churchills and Paul Roge, and. Winston Churchill became really good friends with Odette, Paul Roge, who was I think one of the early, um, heads of, of the entire, uh, champagne house. And he would send Winston Churchill every year on his birthday, a case of vintage champagne that Winston Churchill loved.
I need friends like this. No, correct. I know. The crazy thing is like they did the math on, they actually, I don't know if it's in the museum at Roge or if it's in the UK where they have it, but like they have the original, uh, receipt of the first or case order that Winston Churchill placed, like direct through Roge.
Someone did some math on a reputable site of how many [00:33:00] bottles Winston Churchill consumed of Paul Roget in his lifetime. How about in a day, just doing the math on like the case, the year, every birthday, how much he was ordering within certain years that like the order history was basically public record.
They estimate that he consumed 42,000 bottles of Paul Roge over the course of his life. We gotta get our numbers up there that, that became, we gotta
Bam Bam: get our numbers up. That became his blood type after
Senator: a while. Pr, pr, PR positive. Correct. Another funny story that I found, um, during prohibition in the US when Churchill would visit, and obviously it'd be hard to consume alcohol, then.
He that takes pagoda.
Bam Bam: Well, he's laying down, I forgot he was here for crying out loud.
Senator: During prohibition, when Churchill would visit the US when obviously it was hard to, uh, consume alcohol, he famously secured a doctor's note [00:34:00] saying that it was medically necessary for him to consume alcohol so that during prohibition, any visit there was no controversy.
And he had acclaimed to still be able to drink when he was here, which was great. Wow. Um, so a little bit about the champagne. This was first released in 1975, exactly 10 years, as I mentioned from the date that, uh, Winston Churchill passed Churchill apparently really love like robust, mature, full bodied champagne.
So, um, obviously the non vintage is a much lighter expression, but when we did the first vintage bottle of Po Roche on the pod, and you see with this the finish is longer. It's a lot fuller of an experience apparently. That's what he really loved. The blend, as I said, they don't disclose anything about other than it is predominantly made from pinot noir, which is exactly what would produce a fuller bodied champagne.
Pinot Noir being a red grape, right? So like that has just more body than Chardonnay, which is heavily [00:35:00] also in champagne and no doubt is part of this as well. So we'll never know exactly what's in this, but. This drinks very differently than the nonvintage to the point that I don't think you'd in any way recognize the two as being from the same champagne house.
Obviously there's some of the DNA there, but, um, I've never had this bottle before. I, this to me is like the biggest departure from anything Paul Roche I've had.
Gizmo: Mm-hmm.
Senator: In a good way.
Gizmo: So it, it is a good way. Yeah. So you're not disappointed by that departure. You're enjoying it. No, I like
Senator: it. Um, it just, it took an adjustment at first because blind, when we did that other vintage bottle blind, I would've absolutely categorically guessed Paul Roge.
I don't know that blind. My first guess would be Paul Roge on this. That's what like, kind of surprised me. I'm curious, I mean, what did you, when you first sipped this did, did you immediately did scream Paul Roge or like, oh, this is different than what I've had from polar roge. So
Gizmo: I've not had a ton of other champagnes aside from what we've had on the podcast.
It's
Bam Bam: difficult [00:36:00] for most of us to answer that question.
Gizmo: But I will say that buttery like creamy thing mm-hmm. Was not what I was expecting. I was expecting something a little bit more crisp.
Bam Bam: Also, also that lack of minerality. Yes. Which I'm happen, I happen to love what we're going through here, but it, that's absent.
In a great way though.
Senator: The only thing I will say is this has come down in temperature. The finish is where you would know it's Paul Roche. Mm. So now I get it. When it was very cold, I, you, whatever notes I'm getting right now, I couldn't really pick out. I was getting the creamy, buttery finish. That is not part of really any of the other stuff they make.
So it depends on the temperature. So
Grinder: I, I, I can't help but like reflect on the, uh, the tongue diagram that we discussed on, on a, on another pod by Klaus Kelner. By Klaus Ner. Like, yeah, because there's, there's a definite difference in where this, where the finish is, is hitting my palate and it's on the, on the champagne.
Yeah. On the champagne. And it's so rich. It's like on the side of my tongue and the on the back [00:37:00] and it's like, it's like it's grabbing it and, and, and just enveloping that, the, that side part of the back of the tongue. I think it's delicious. Which I don't get on the, you know, non vintage p Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gizmo: Where did you get that? I got it at Bottle King. Oh
Bam Bam: yeah. So you can find that locally. Yeah,
Gizmo: we can find it locally. I, you know, again, that we got it at a pretty good price. You know what's insane? I was in Bottle
Senator: King just yesterday buying Sham board for, uh, US open drinks,
which, oh,
Senator: actually, sorry. As I say this, get this, I walk into Bottle King to pick up a bottle of Sham board to make Honey Deuces for the US Open bottle.
King is a huge store. They are completely sold outta Sham board. It was open in the northeast. Correct. Can you believe that? Everybody's in, I had to go to three different liquor stores to find it. Wow. I had to go to this place Liquorland in Waldwick that like no one knows about is beautiful inside. They just built this new place that used to be across the [00:38:00] street in this like little shitty spot.
A honestly like one of the nicest liquor stores I've ever seen. And he was fully stocked. But that's 'cause they don't get much, uh uh. Many customers that come in everywhere else, popular completely out. Wow. But I say that because when I walked in Bottle King in Glenrock, I saw this exact bottle in their case and it was three 30.
Wow. And
Senator: you bought it from another location and you got what, two 80? Uh, no, it was, yeah, 2 79. Are you serious?
Rooster: That's incredible. Wow. Yeah. Incredible. Well, what is in the Honey Deuce?
Senator: Oh, so the Honey Deuce, it's Grey Goose Vodka Sham board. Lemonade. And then they garnish it with, um, melon honey dew, uh, melon, that you just take a melon baller to have it shaped like tennis balls.
And you have like three of those. So it's gr, goose
Rooster: and shamor.
Senator: And lemonade. And lemonade.
Gizmo: So for the uninitiated senator, the HoneyD Deuce is what they serve at the US Open, which happens once a year, correct? In Queens. Queens, that's right. New York.
Bam Bam: I learned something. And
Gizmo: you've been there
Senator: [00:39:00] several times?
Mm. Uh, believe it or not, I've only been there once. Oh, okay. And I swore I'd go back every year and then a child happened, which is what makes that difficult to maintain Pato. Pato was just there, but Pagoda was back.
Gizmo: Yeah. Yeah. It was really good. What did I say? We remember He doesn't, he's got the feet up.
He's lounging Just
Grinder: life, life
Pagoda: life abundance. No, I, I was, I was back at the US Open and I, you know, it seems like it's getting busier and busier every year. Uh, it was so crowded and more expensive. Right. And very expensive. And, you know, the deuce was about 23 bucks, and I think they increase the prices. 24 now.
24. Was it? Yeah. They, they increased it a
Bam Bam: dollar from the last year. Oh, damn. I paid 24 for each. It's interesting, I heard that on Bloomberg today, they went up a dollar on a drink. Yeah. And they sold even more. Even more. Yeah. So on day one they grossed two and a half million dollars just on that drink.
Senator: Wow.
They sold last year. For the entire US Open Tournament. Justin HoneyD Deuce is $23 million. That's 20. [00:40:00] Unbelievable. That's crazy. It's the bestselling cocktail. How much do you charge at your house?
Grinder: They're doing what? 20,000? How did turn out 2020 seed Fair. How
Senator: did the turnout though? Oh, excellent. So I have have my own recipe.
I mean they're very good there, but there are a few things I have a hard time with. Number one 23
Gizmo: million. Not good enough. He's got a better recipe, correct? No,
Senator: because I mean, here's the thing. They put too much sham board. Sham board is very sweet. Very sweet. It's a blackberry laur. It's very sweet. They also use like minute made like full sugar lemonade.
So you can imagine how sweet that lemonade is plus Sham board and you're like, okay, I've had plenty. So the way I do it, I use a lot less sham board than they do. Um, I use like actually, uh, like a sugar-free lemonade. 'cause I like to pound these and I'm not gonna consume like a hundred grams of sugar in a sitting.
I mean it's just crazy. So Whole Foods actually has this like pretty solid sugar free champagne. Uh, sorry. Sugar free lemonade. And then, um, I actually even to cut it, 'cause still I [00:41:00] think it can be too sweet. I add like a shot of water as part of the recipe and it is perfect. Like everyone I have served it to, it's like it's not too sweet.
It's not too, like, it's exactly what you'd want it to be. So you'll drink the ones there. They're great, but they're just so sweet. Like you, you wanna keep drinking them, but. You kind of hit a wall of just like the sugar. I'm coming over to trying with
Rooster: the sparkling, uh, lemonade instead.
Senator: You can. So it's funny you just said that.
So Bottle King the other day, um, I feel like we're giving them so much, uh, like a promo at this point. By the way,
Gizmo: a couple weeks ago I was talking about how they have a thing about plume on their cigar case. Oh, that's fair. Mm-hmm. Okay. Where they're, you know, validating the idea that plume is a legitimate way to tell a cigars age.
Mm-hmm. Well, sorry,
Senator: go ahead. I mentioned Bottle King because they actually had, um, I missed it. This was when I was on vacation, but I got an email, uh, this like, um, honey Deuce making, uh, kind of a kit. No, like, um, what would you [00:42:00] call it? Like when they table and do this tutorial, uh,
Chef Ricky: demo,
Senator: I guess like a honey deuce making demo tasting at Bottle King, uh, and tasting.
And I'm looking at the recipe and it's like check, it's all the ingredients. But the difference was there was a sparkling lemonade, some brand that clearly paid to put this on, um, that was trying to do their twist on it. I didn't like that they called it a honey deuce. That's not a honey deuce. If it's sparkling, they should have came up with like a clever play on the name.
But, um, I would be interested to try it. It's a different take.
Pagoda: Senator. The U uh, I said the US open's not, uh, over yet, so, uh, I think we should come over to your place and have a honey juice. Oh, you guys
Senator: are welcome. Anytime. I got a ton of Grey Goose and Sham board anytime. There you go. You load
Bam Bam: it
Senator: up
Bam Bam: anytime.
One other cool detail. Those melon balls are scooped out, packaged and shipped from California. They're not made here.
Senator: No, no, no, no. That's not true.
Bam Bam: That's what, that's what they said on the radio show. No, no, no, no. Yeah, I know the
Senator: entire story behind this. It's all, it's all, so hold [00:43:00] on. So Senators disputing
Bam Bam: Bloomberg Radio
Senator: folks, no, I, I'm think you misheard it.
The, the scooping and all this stuff by hand that happens, uh, in New York.
Bam Bam: That's not what they said.
Senator: The melon is from California. Sure.
Bam Bam: But they say, they scoop it, package it, and send it right over from Cali.
Chef Ricky: I, I did see a video on this, on Facebook. I didn't see where it came from, but I saw the scooping and the packaging and the, the cryo not cry.
But then what do they do? They've got
Senator: a freeze it or something to keep that. I mean, the honey do not, yeah, they would have to freeze
Bam Bam: it. I found it to be very odd. Interesting. Yeah. The
Senator: only thing I do know that I'm sure you saw there, is the entire thing is done by hand.
Bam Bam: Yes.
Senator: Which is kind of crazy because if you think of how quickly a machine would be able to make just like a melon baller, to get that to have by hand people scooping out the seeds in the middle.
Yeah. And then doing that is just crazy to me.
Bam Bam: Do you think that's why the drinks are so expensive?
Senator: No, that's because that's just how much money they can make. I mean, I looked the other day to go to the US open the cheapest seat. This was actually yesterday. I was thinking about taking my son. The cheapest [00:44:00] seat was $650.
Wow. Oh
Gizmo: my God.
Senator: No, thank you. So anyone who's paying that can happily afford $24 honey deuces. And this year they actually came out with a new cocktail for the first time in a long time. Um, I forget what it's called, like a watermelon something. It's, this cocktail is $40. It's champagne, watermelon juice, St.
Germaine. So elder flour, laur lime juice, and has just a little like watermelon sliced garnish. $40 for that is, are they putting the Paul Roge, sir Winston Churchill? I certainly hope so. I mean, it's ridiculous,
Pagoda: but that's the only way you get a watermelon. Sugar. High watermelon. Sugar high singing Harry Styles on
Grinder: podcast.
Well done.
Is that, is that Harry Styles or Jonas's brother Watermelon Sugar. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.
Chef Ricky: I thought that was maroon five. Dude.
Rooster: No, no,
Chef Ricky: [00:45:00] idiot.
Gizmo: So boys we're coming to the end of the first third here on the Sir Winston from H Up, man, in Cuba. What's everybody thinking? It's wonderful.
Senator: Yeah. Uh, I love this. I am thrilled that finally, now the flavor is starting to get more concentrated. Mm-hmm. I was seriously worried if it had stayed the way it was, I would've given this a probably shocking rating because I love what I'm getting, but I just, we would've kicked your ass
Bam Bam: at the end of the night if you gave it a seven.
Senator: I'm telling you, if you had mine, I mean, I, I would've given it an eight. Like I just need more of that fla. Like the flavor notes are perfect in this, and now I'm finally starting to get it, and it's like actually holding up against the champagne, which is wild to think like that first inch for me, the champagne was fuller than the cigar, which is absurd.
I mean, I don't think I've ever found any cigar that would be fuller than a champagne, or, sorry, any champagne that would be fuller than a cigar. So now [00:46:00] I'm settling in. Yeah. Feel good.
Bam Bam: But as the temperatures come down on this champagne, it is a very rich drink.
Senator: Oh yeah.
Bam Bam: It's really special. Unlike any champagne I've had.
Gizmo: I feel like mine is just very slowly Yeah. Taking steps to become a little bit more full, a little bit more rich. I mean, my, my draw on combustion has been great the entire time. So I feel like, I feel like the cigar is taking me on a journey. Yeah. Which is certainly what, what you want with a cigar of this caliber and, uh, with seven years of age on it, you know what I mean?
Senator: And on the cigar, the one thing I'm getting now that I really like, I'm getting a saltiness on the finish. Correct. That I wasn't initially. And I really like what that's done with the flavor profile.
Pagoda: Yeah. It's, for me, it's very savory. Meaning it's not a sweet cigar at all. Meaning there's a slight sweet finish towards the end.
But overall very savory and, uh, I don't know. I think, uh, you know, I think in one of the episodes a long time back we had discussed like a salty scone kind of a feel. [00:47:00] Like that's the kind of, uh, flavor profile. I'm, uh, you know.
Chef Ricky: Yeah. I think it's a perfect call out with the butteries of the champagne. Yeah.
That butter is of the champagne with the salt found here. It's, yeah. It's very close salt with
Senator: scone. Yeah. That's a dessert, man. You're, you're spot on there. Yeah. With a touch of sweetness though. Yeah. Touch sweets. Sav there Sweet.
Rooster: At the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Mark
Bam Bam: of a excellent cigar.
Grinder: Yeah. I'm getting strong.
Like almond shortbread. Yeah.
Chef Ricky: Almost like marza pan almond shortbread. Yes. Mond almond paste. Almond marza pen. Definitely get some Almond
Grinder: Rooster. Yeah, Mar, there was a moment there maybe about 20 minutes ago
Chef Ricky: where I got really bright fruit for a couple draws, almost felt like a uh, strawberry jam or something.
Uh, and then I dissipated and it went back to the bready Breader notes. Are
Rooster: you sure it's not orange marmalade?
Chef Ricky: No, not yet. No citrus. No citrus just yet.
Pagoda: Yeah. Rooster. I get the hint.
Chef Ricky: Although I did smoke a sonata yesterday that was just overloaded with citrus. I [00:48:00] was shocked That arm a citrus I was getting out of that cigar never got into issues.
We began a lot of emails
Gizmo: about the aging room. Mm-hmm. Maestro Sonata.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Gizmo: Oh yeah. Good ones. Oh yeah. Very positive folks. Diving into that. The concerto, of course, the new one. Keith writing in
Pagoda: lizards and tell Gizmo how great the Sonata is. People have been loving it. Yeah, someday he'll get the note. What note?
No, I don't know. Sonata Concerto. It's all music. Ah, look at the go. Wake it up. He's awake.
Bam Bam: He's awake tonight. He's back. Kids in rare form today.
Gizmo: That's right, boys. So we're gonna go to our lizard of the week and this week it's one of our friends lizard and Enrique, who by the way, alongside this fantastic email, sent us a gift card from GoldBelly to get some really amazing barbecue for the pod.
So we're gonna have some barbecue in the coming weeks. We're gonna get together, [00:49:00] grinder your off, deliver
Grinder: that right to Grinder's house. Wait, we gotta do a uh, a honey deuces. Barbecue. Us open now we're cool. There we go. Now we, there we go.
Gizmo: So first we have to thank Lizard Enrique for sending us that amazing gift.
It was completely unexpected when it popped up in the email, and that's awesome. We are very, very grateful. But
Chef Ricky: say we won Lizard of the Week, correct.
Gizmo: But this email is why Lizard Enrique is Lizard of the Week. He always writes us a great email and he wrote this one. He says, happy 200th. Hey lizards, congrats on hitting 200 episodes to the most fun podcast out there.
I hope you can address a few questions for the listeners and me and best wishes for another 200 great episodes. So, number one, I'm gonna go in order. What is the one piece of advice or insight you'd share with your past self back on episode one about cigars, spirits broadcasting that you have learned [00:50:00] over the run of the show?
Bam Bam: I, that's an easy one to answer.
Gizmo: Go ahead, Ben
Bam Bam: Cuban Cigar procurement. I mean, if we knew what was going to happen to that market, I think we would've cornered the market and bought every Cuban cigar box that we can get our hands on.
Chef Ricky: It's funny too. 'cause for a minute it felt like that's all you guys, even before I got on here, it's like, that's all you guys are talking about, but it, it happened maybe a little bit quicker than anyone anticipate.
Who would've known?
Gizmo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We went, we went as a group. Like we went really hard into Cuban cigars. We did, but I would've purchased
Senator: more and more and more.
Chef Ricky: Yeah.
Senator: So my answer is very similar to that, but just broader in that, uh, my piece of advice is if you love something, stock up on it. It doesn't matter what it is.
Cigars, spirits, wine. I mean, think of everything. Even new world cigars, right? We tariffs now. I mean, prices of everything are going up. If you bought New World cigars you [00:51:00] loved five years ago and loaded up on those, you'd be paying so much less by percentage wise than you are now. Obviously Cuban cigars is dollar wise, it's so shocking.
Like how the increase has been. That's correct. But even by percentage, there's still been increases across the new World portfolios. Mm-hmm. You think of even in spirits, prices go up. I mean, PO Roge, when I started drinking Po Roge, I used to get it for 35 to 39.99. Now it's 50 bucks. It's gonna keep climbing.
Sure. I guarantee in another two years it'll be 55, $60 stock up on that, you know, tequila, you know, for Deez. Fortezza we did on the pod. Yeah. Used to be able, when we got turned onto that from Ricky, you know, I found a local liquor store in, in our town that I was able to pick it up from. Fast forward months later, you can't find that stuff anywhere.
Chef Ricky: I, I will say to the Fort Esa point, there's some relief coming. Uh, Guillermo Salza is building a larger distillery. He's literally broken ground on. So for
Bam Bam: your [00:52:00] former self, your advice would be to stock up on everything across the world. Just load up and like, people
Senator: laugh at me at the level I stock up on things, right?
Like I buy eight boxes of something. Everybody's making jokes like, but like there's a method to the madness and I'm the same way with everything my wife thinks. Sometimes I'm insane. Like, how many of these things do you need? It's because either the price is gonna go up that it is actually saving me money by doing it, or it will become scarce where the demand increase so much, it's hard to find.
And the last thing I want is to just not enjoy something. I really appreciate. So. I just think with everything you love load up on it. Correct. And even when you think you have enough, you probably don't and just buy more.
Chef Ricky: Doomsday preppers are buying buckets of dried food and not us Champagne cigars.
Pagoda: No, I agree with Senator.
Uh, just last week ended up getting half Coronas for $275. Now this is a box we used to buy for [00:53:00] $115. Senator had asked me to load up at $175 and I said, no, it's gonna come off. This is just happening too quick. I paid 2 75 for it.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Well you are a tough nut to crack. I think early on as a part of our group.
Pagoda: Listen, limited resources.
Bam Bam: My ass, I'll say it again. My ass limited resources.
Chef Ricky: I think for me, I wish I would've bought my tower much earlier in my journey. Uh, 'cause I think that would've allowed everything else to sort of align. Um, I had the, the feeling to buy this, buy a tower from the moment I'd heard of your guys' and seen pictures and it just didn't fit in my head.
Like, where would I put it? Where would it live? It being in like kind of gen pop in my living room was weird. Uh, and then when I purchased the house, I ended up with a space of my own where I could sort of keep these things out of sight. And, um, so yeah, I
Rooster: mean, that, that's in the [00:54:00] past, right? Yeah. Well that's what the question that's remember the question.
Remember the question? True, but what I, what I what I'm saying stay on point. What I'm saying is listen, listen to on point, there's nothing you can do about the past, but the same thing's gonna happen now, like three years down the road. That's true.
Bam Bam: Yeah.
Rooster: It's same thing's gonna be That's
Bam Bam: correct.
Rooster: Gonna hold true.
So if you love what you love
Bam Bam: load up now. Well, even a tower that some of us have, we share a few, the three of us have the same tower that was under a thousand dollars now I think it's over two grand.
Grinder: That's true. Yeah. It's more than double. Yeah. It's insane. Definitely appreciate the, the sentiment about loading up.
I don't think I've loaded up enough and I think I've, I've been hurt. I suffered a little bit because of that. Um, just even now, my cigar collection is not as robust as it, as it once was or it should be. Um, definitely, uh, there's a dearth of Cubans right now in my humidor and it's saddening. I, you know, I think, I think generally we've done.
A great job of having fun with this, and I [00:55:00] have no regrets of, of, of, of how we proceeded. I think overall, um, I think the great things that we did with introducing different spirits in, in different pairings was, was, and is still, you know, pretty, pretty enlightening. For me personally, I don't think I have any regrets or anything that I would've done done differently aside from the, the cigar stocking.
'cause I, I think I've, of all of us, I've bought the least and it's, it's definitely hindered my experience.
Rooster: But you know what, had it not been because of the podcast, we would not have found all these gems of new worlds. True. That's all that's true. Yeah. That are, that have been amazing. I mean, you know. Yeah.
They have, they have very lucky to, to have those. And they're still like fairly priced. Yeah.
Senator: Mm-hmm. I mean, what Rooster just said, that's a, an important piece of advice. Try a lot.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Senator: Right. Like I always said this in wine, people are like, oh, how did you discover all these wines? I tried a lot of shitty wine to find great wine.
Like you just, and it sucks in [00:56:00] the moment. You feel like you're wasting money, but it's the only way to navigate it. And once you find that stuff, like, then you're saving yourself money and you get clues. There's like context clues of like other types of wines you'll like cigars. It's no different. It's like we have found certain wrappers on new world cigars like seem to score high.
And so the odds are better. If you were to walk in a retailer and pick up a random cigar with a Mexican San Andreas wrapper or whatever the case may be, the same thing. Like, you've just gotta be curious and try a lot of stuff because Yeah, that's, we, we sucked at that early on. Honestly. We did. Oh yeah.
Bam Bam: So that's, that's huge advice right there.
Um, and you said it Well, you know, we weren't that great at it. We kind of got stuck in our lanes, but discovering the Cuban market together as a group that was. Revolutionary for us. And that kind of opened up so many different opportunities for smoking different cigars. But yeah, try, it's a, it's great advice, dude.
Try as much as you can, but also, I regret not having the rum and tequila that we have now back then. Yeah, I agree with that. [00:57:00] You know, I, I stayed away from cognac and tequila. I was afraid of tequila, actually. So that's another thing for me. I wish I visited and I, I wish I knew Chef Ricky back then. I wish I knew you too.
I didn't. Thank you, bro. I had no idea that clean to kill existed. But as
Rooster: a, as a listener, you really don't have to go out blindly. You can just go and look at our ratings. Correct. Look at the pairings. Look at every single cigar that rated and try higher than an eight, you know, a nine try that's affordable.
Try it. See if you like it. Yes. See if that works with your palette. We've weed. And then if you like it, stock up on it. Mm-hmm. Because the prices inevitably are going to go up.
Chef Ricky: We've done a lot of the hard work for you. We've weed out a lot of the crap. And, uh, so yeah, those ratings and, and that cheat on the website.
We are working hard. A great resource. Yeah.
Bam Bam: Because dude, if we, if I had this resource 10 years ago,
oh my lord.
Senator: Back to the advice. There's one other piece of advice I would give. Everybody seems to know Cuban cigars age. Well, you ought to put down certain [00:58:00] Cuban cigars. No one talks about aging new world cigars.
And I have discovered. I stand by this statement that new world cigars, the right ones age incredibly well and it's a worthwhile endeavor. Let's talk about this. I think, I think, I mean the patron, let's talk about this. The patron drone 80th, obviously I brought after my son was born. It was excellent.
Every one of us couldn't believe and we had smoked a zillion 80th before that. Mm-hmm. But that's sat for extra years in my, in my humidor and that's what produced this like magical experience with an already outstanding cigar. There have been even other new worlds that I've bought a box and not really liked that were, was different from when I had a single of it somewhere else.
Like, I'll give an example this, the EP Chorio Allegiance. We did that at PCA. We gave that a very good score. I think it was a nine
Gizmo: four or something. Nine two or something. Yeah. Could be something like that. It was in the
Senator: nine, I think.
Gizmo: Mm-hmm.
Senator: Really like that cigar. I bought a box, I lit one outta the box.
Totally different experience. I let it sit for another [00:59:00] few, you know, maybe a couple months. Still dramatically different from what I experienced at PCA. I'm sitting there like, do I just ditch this box? Give it away. I just said I'll just leave it for a long time. I let that sit in my humidor for probably two years.
'cause this was PCA two years ago, right? Yeah, yeah. We've been there twice. Exactly. So two years. That thing sat when I went back to that box. They are. Awesome.
Mm-hmm. Like
Senator: I gave one to someone one night on my patio and their mind was blown. And I said like, I can't give probably iaf.
Correct, correct.
Gizmo: I knew it.
Senator: I
Gizmo: lives there. He has a, he has a co Well he lives in the shed in the,
Senator: oh. But that cigar is a perfect example of like, not one I ever expected to have, like tremendous aging potential or anything like that, but just realize kind of accidentally how great age [01:00:00] was for that cigar. There are so many others. The Maestro de Tiempo warped. You put those down,
Bam Bam: so
Senator: they're so good. The Eros, right?
Don Pepper? No, no. Oh, the Don Pepper. My father and Dom Pep and Ero.
Bam Bam: The, the, my father number four. Yeah. And that Don Pep and Len just after holding them for a year, they're very, very Cuban like. They're subtle and exquisite.
Gizmo: And they were already good. Yeah. Yeah. They both rated very well to the point that he went out
Bam Bam: and
Gizmo: bought boxes.
Bam Bam: It was outrageous. Now I kind of, so one regret is not knowing how well New, new World cigars age is not stocking up way, way in advance. Which
Gizmo: goes back to your first point. That's correct.
Bam Bam: Um, the Hammer, I had the 50th by Padron. That was gonna be my example, dude. The, so I've had those for two years. And I know a lot of you guys have very old hammers in your, in your stock.
Try one. They are milk, milk, chocolate, a lot of raisin, some subtle plum. It was unlike any 50th [01:01:00] I've ever had, so I think it's great advice to buy as many new worlds now. Age them and you will not regret it.
Rooster: Yeah, I mean, especially because the way the Cuban prices are Yeah. You know, for a fraction of that you can go and get some of these new world boxes and let, let them, you know, age them.
Bam Bam: And some of them have that Cuban esque experience. And part of this conversation will help, I
Rooster: think the fabric of five ci uh, cigars. I mean, those are gonna age really well. Oh yeah, yeah. Tobacco will do well. Oh
Bam Bam: yeah. Yeah.
Gizmo: I would say that's one thing I wish I knew. I wish I knew that there was more out there on episode one than Cuban, Dominican and, you know, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua Tobacco.
That's right. I's didn't realize how close. Cuban's, you know, Cuban tobacco was to Honduran tobacco. We've really found gems in that Honduran space and I just had no idea. We had no idea. It's true. Yeah. I
Grinder: think that's a great call out. Yeah. 'cause it's opened up a lot of worlds for us. Of course. Yeah.
Bam Bam: I think newbies that are listening to the pod that can learn from [01:02:00] this will have a huge advantage three to five years from now if they take some advice.
Gizmo: And, you know, we're gonna talk about this a little later, about the accessibility issues for our US listeners and us for Cuban cigars. I think the thing that I want to share with our listeners now, I, you know, we're smoking a wonderful Cuban cigar tonight, but I think all of us are, are much more content with our collection, with what we have kind of replacing some of those, what we were chasing cubit cigars because we're getting what we want and need from a cigar.
We can just go on the internet and order and it's at our door in a day or two or three at a significantly lower price, at a significantly more consistent quality of construction. Quality of construction. I mean it's, it's, Honduran has Honduran tobacco has really been a home run for us. Yeah. So listen, Enrique said about cigar spirits or broadcasting.
I'm gonna go back to broadcasting. What if you were to tell yourself on episode one, recording this podcast, broadcasting, you know, putting the mic in front of your face every [01:03:00] week? Is there anything that you would've told yourself on episode one that you know now? Yeah, because you guys hit me over
Bam Bam: the head with it many, many times.
Let people talk. Dried fruit, dry. No. Fuck you
dried fruit.
Bam Bam: I'll never regret the dried. I still get dried fruit to this day, pagoda. Um, but the cadence of being in the room with a group of guys, I've learned to settle myself down a little bit and if I were able to go back and give myself advice or just take your time, everyone's gonna get a chance.
That's good advice. Yeah,
Senator: good point. Because
Bam Bam: it's like
Gizmo: what ing I'm just No, I'm just curious. I, I, you know, we don't talk about this stuff. No. Unless somebody else, I think
Rooster: this is something that you can answer for us. I mean, I, I think that 'cause you are the one who is editing the pods Yeah. Each week. So how has that changed?
Has it become easier over the years?
Gizmo: It's definitely become easier. Uh, I think that the other thing too though, is we're recording episodes now that are [01:04:00] often just touching two hours or are longer than two hours. If you look at the length of our first 50 episodes, most of them were averaging between probably an hour 15 and hour and a half.
The early ones were like 45 minutes. So we were kind of bum rushing through this to try to, you know, get what we wanted to say and get it done. But what I think we've realized is that I prefer the longer format because it's actually representative of our experience smoking the cigar and then as we do in the lounge, sitting together and talking about our experience.
So I think that that would be my thing is, you know, getting a little closer to mimicking or, or recreating what an actual lounge experience is earlier on than we did and kind of holding it more loosely. I think that I've learned that, that the, the more loosely I hold the podcast and what we do here and my expectations of myself and everyone else, obviously my expectations of myself are incredibly high, but.
Holding things more [01:05:00] loosely, I think has been a, a great, great benefit. And I think it's improved our relationships with each other. Yeah. You're not scolding us anymore.
Bam Bam: There was a time, uh, but I have to say though, episode one, I had a blast and I have the same amount of fun on episode 200. I love coming here. I do too. Great.
Rooster: We love having you ba
Bam Bam: Thank you Rooster. I, I think
Gizmo: the other thing too that I wanna say, piggybacking on what you said, I mean, I, I think all of us have gone through, you know, things in the last four years that are great and not so great and up and down in life.
And this has been for me, a constant. And it's like when you sit down and we always talk about under the microscope or putting the microphone in front of our face, it's like everything else that got went through our day today or has happened around it, it all goes away when we're sitting here recording.
Yeah. Even more so maybe than when in the, you're in the lounge because we're kind of [01:06:00] doing this all together in our little, like, bubble here, you know? And it, that, that has been a real revelation to me of how kind of therapeutic this thing that this thing that we do every week can be. I think that's a, a really nice positive here.
Chef Ricky: Well said.
Gizmo: How so? How long, how, how long has it been?
Grinder: Couple.
Gizmo: Yeah, we're coming up on four years. Really?
Grinder: So thinking back like I can, were you about to say a couple
Senator: years?
Grinder: No. No. Oh, I, I think, I think, I think thinking back the, I can track pretty big moments in my life, like from four years back, and the pod is a thread.
There, there's not been things that I've done consistently or, or can reflect or recall, recollect consistently, like family life, different things in my family, some, some things in work. But the pod, it's like, it happens so frequently. I haven't been as involved as I would've liked because of family stuff, but to always come back to this, to, to have that as like an anchor, uh, [01:07:00] you know, it timestamps different elements of of my life that, you know, is, and it, it's great to share it with, with you guys.
Yeah, same. Sorry that was a little deep. That's a, you know,
Bam Bam: one thing I do regret looking back, we don't get enough barbecue anymore. That's true. We been a disturbing lack of barbecue. How is going on? I think
Gizmo: it's almost been four years since we've had barbecue. Yeah. I think it, thanks. Thanks to Lizard Enrique.
We're have some soon. That's the US open. It was us four.
Bam Bam: That's also microfiche.
Gizmo: I think the other thing too, piggybacking on all this, is I think having that appointment on the calendar each week kind of, uh, makes a more serious commitment to actually sitting down and, and sitting with friends. You know, obviously we're doing it, you know, under this podcast umbrella, but I recommend this to anyone out there who has the opportunity to spend some time with their friends.
Take it very seriously. Put that appointment on the calendar. Because I would bet if we didn't do this mm-hmm. And we didn't have this appointment on the calendar, how often would [01:08:00] most of us see each other? Not
Pagoda: very
Gizmo: often. We'd be Pat, you know, ships passing in the night in the lounge. That's correct. Maybe we'd see each other once a month or once every two months.
Pagoda: No, some
Gizmo: of us
Pagoda: would see each other
Gizmo: consistently. Correct.
Bam Bam: But setting that appointment with your friends to meet at the club, I think is important. Agree. If you don't happen to have what? What we have. Yeah. Oh, champagne backup coming in hot. Yeah. Push past the 20 boxes of uh, sir Winston's. This is really fucking good right now.
Yeah, dude, this is exceptional. It's hard to stop smoking this right now.
Grinder: Ooh,
Bam Bam: where is that? Classic.
Gizmo: All right. So Garone just ran to the refrigerator to pull out our second bottle of champagne.
Bam Bam: Well, Garone drove from the Senator Estate to serve us
Gizmo: thanks to Eov. Who prepared the
Bam Bam: that vehicle? That's correct.
Because he's there.
Gizmo: [01:09:00] Exactly. He's the groundskeeper. That's correct.
Senator: He's my driver. That's also correct. He was one night, not by design. I actually designed it to take an Uber and he offered to drive. That was a trip. You're entering the Twilight Zone. So we're now into our
Gizmo: second bottle, the Paul Roge Brute Reserve.
The standard issue $50 bottle. Alright. Yes. It's always a good time when we hear that noise on the pod voice. Oh yeah. Let's go to another question from Lizard Enrique. He says, what was the first episode that you guys recorded? What was the first episode that you guys recorded? What was the first episode?
Oh wait.
Bam Bam: Holy shit. Wow. What are we doing? That's
Chef Ricky: what happens.
Bam Bam: Pagodas dying for a champagne.
Pagoda: We're allowed to get up.
Gizmo: Correct. [01:10:00] So what was the first episode you guys recorded when you thought that this could be something special? What was the first episode where you kind of, the light bulb went off and you thought this is something that could, as he says, be special?
Chef Ricky: I forget the exact number, but I think for me it was one 16 or one 18. That was my first episode on the pod. And uh, it was magical for me. I will never forget going home and just sharing everything and my family being super excited to listen to me on a cigar podcast with a bunch of other dudes, you know, and it was like, um.
It was great. I, I felt fucking amazing. Uh, I felt great spreading the tequila gospel, um, and just kind of getting you guys to switch from Don Julio to something else. Remember that? Thank you for that, by the way. Yeah. And ultimately speaking it into existence, you know, I mean, I, you know, I went, I remember hearing the episode, I think it [01:11:00] was episode four or something like that, in J'S Garage and that
Rooster: that was the day when you walked in with a blazer.
Chef Ricky: Yeah, that was my
Senator: first episode. Dressed to impress walks in my garage with a full blazer, like he's in a job interview. I was tight.
Gizmo: That was special for everybody. Oh yeah. We all dressed up tonight too, for the occasion. Yeah. Correct.
Grinder: I, I, I think the, um, I think the part of us Collibra was that episode and not, not, not so much for like, the externality of having listeners write in and start to get momentum of that.
'cause that's it, it did start to generate around that timeframe from what I recall. But that was a great episode where I left, I came, I, I left the, the, the episode or the, the recording thinking like, God, this is really. Awesome. Like what we're doing here. Um, the amount of fun we had it, I, I remember reflecting, thinking like, this is something I'll always, I'll always try to seek again.
Uh, [01:12:00] 'cause it was just a bunch of dudes having fun, you know, doing what we like and, uh, learning stuff new, learning new stuff as well. So I think that episode was, was pretty, a pretty significant milestone for me. No, I, I
Rooster: agree. It helps when the cigar is so, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Senator: yeah. But there was so much joy.
You know, I, that's the thing. I mean, I have two answers to this one, kind of in the vein that Grinder is taking This episodes were like, I knew this was something I enjoyed enough that I would wanna regularly continue to invest the time in. I mean, episode one actually in the sense that like, we're sitting there watching the US Open as Medvedev is like having a, a complete meltdown, which ironically, four years later, almost to the day mm-hmm.
Had an even bigger meltdown this year. That he got a huge fine for Puma's commentary on This is absolutely hysterical. We're eating this amazing barbecue that [01:13:00] Grindr brings over. I just, the whole experience, I'm like, this is so fun. And then I, it's exactly that Colus episode was like another time We are giddy like school kids over a cigar that we thought we weren't gonna enjoy.
I don't even think we meant to pair champagne with it. And someone's like, no, you ran out and got it. Yeah. And that was the beauty what we did at my place. It was just, okay, I just go in another room and grab a bottle of champagne and we're like, here we are. We're having a blast. Like that was so fun where I, I never questioned that I would always make the time to do this.
Um, but the moment for me when I kind of thought, okay, we're really onto something. And I'll never forget this. I don't know what episode this came at, but it will, and GIZ will probably know 'cause it'll correspond to when we started lengthening our episodes. I was shocked when we first started doing this.
We all talked and said, we're, we're gonna do no more than an hour. There's no way that people want to hear us talk for more than an hour. And we started getting listener emails at a point, begging, please make the [01:14:00] episodes longer. An hour is too short. My commute is 90 minutes. I want something that takes me the whole way through all this stuff.
And I just remember just saying to myself like, I can't believe this people would want to hear us talk about cigars for more than an hour at a time. Mm-hmm. And that's when I realized, okay, we're clearly onto something here. Yeah. If someone wants us to be. That big or meaningful a part of their day. And then some of the listener email going really deep on, I remember an older couple, I think like in their seventies, wrote us saying that like, the highlight of their week is when this woman and her husband sit down, they pour a bourbon and listen to our podcast on Tuesday nights.
And it's like, that's awesome. That's wild. We got email from someone in Ukraine Yeah. Fighting in a war. Mm-hmm. Talking about listening to this podcast. Yeah. And you're like, just the impact, you know, we, we expected this to be for people who love and appreciate cigars. I don't think any of us in our wildest dreams imagine this becoming part of like, critical life moments.
Mm-hmm. Like [01:15:00] spending time with your spouse, serving in the military overseas. I mean, just crazy things. So those are the things that stick in my mind where I was like, wow, there, this is really bigger than just, you know, having fun. Yeah. There's meaning behind this.
Bam Bam: So yeah, for me it's really when we first started getting listener email before that, like I, I would actually, I, I took this as seriously as I could until that moment.
And then for me it was like, wow, we have to continue to do this every single week because people are starting to count on the Tuesday morning issue. So that was huge. That's what that for me was the turning moment when we first started to read listener email.
Grinder: I, I also think, you know, PCA was a pretty, the first PCA was a pretty significant milestone.
Yeah, that's also true. That's true. Yeah. The, the, the, the way we were. I think for me it was a bit shocking to, to, to see how quickly we could have a presence on the floor. Oh dude. We were like Lizard Mafia walking around. Yeah. And we were getting eyeballs. [01:16:00] Yeah. And like, and it felt great. And then, you know, to hear, I, unfortunately, I didn't make this year's, but to hear the stories of like, we weren't seeking, we were being sought.
And to have that as like, damn, this is like the credibility is there people, it's not just listeners who appreciate what we're doing. The, the industry is starting to listen as well. And that's when it started to feel like real, like, wow, this is like a real thing. Like this is, this has got some speed. And, and I remember sitting, um.
We were sitting outside the patio of the Airbnb and we were talking about building this, and Gizmos said, you know, had a, had a monologue talking about building this brick by brick. And I remember thinking like, it's gonna take some time, but like, we can do this. We can, we can actually make this a pretty significant enterprise and, you know, it's gonna, it's still gonna take time, but like there's every, every few months there's like more momentum that, that, uh, is generated and it's, [01:17:00] it's, it's just awesome to watch and be a part of.
Rooster: For me, it's really cool when a listener sends us an email about what he's planning to smoke with us. Mm-hmm. Like when we announced like, what we're gonna be smoking in the next few weeks and he's actually wants to sit down, have the same pairing, have the same cigar. So it's kind of like he's in the room with us enjoying the same experience that we are all having, you know, together.
Senator: Yeah. I mean that was listener feedback why we started doing that. That's true. Someone said like, I want to know in advance so I can do exactly that. And then that's when, you know, gizmo records the, like coming up in the next, you know, however many weeks we're gonna smoke this and this and that. And it's, it's really wild to think that like someone wants to replicate the exact experience we're having.
Chef Ricky: Yeah.
Bam Bam: My brother-in-law once mentioned, um, how alone he felt smoking cigars. He wasn't a member of a club. He didn't have anyone to smoke with, but he felt a closeness to us that he didn't have.
Senator: He was waiting for an invite from his brother-in-law. Yes. Clearly that never happened.[01:18:00]
Gizmo: The separation of church state.
Pagoda: I like the separation of church day.
Bam Bam: Kind
Gizmo: of not nice, but true. I'm just putting two and two together here. That's all. And by the way, he's still waiting
Bam Bam: four years later. Well, thankfully he's part of a club now and he is, got good camaraderie happening. But that it really made me feel like we were doing something.
And that's part of my family saying that. Um, but when I go to random places because of my work, I'm all over and I sit down, oh yeah, I have a podcast. And then people, their eyes light up, they ask you questions, what do you smoke? When do you do this? So that, that's kind of cool. So there's a lot of interest in something like this.
That's pretty neat.
Gizmo: I think for me too, I, I, I agree with you. I think when we start first, you know, started getting listener feedback, when I started seeing people talking about us on Reddit and like talking about the things we were talking about and Oh, the [01:19:00] lounge Blizzards mentioned this or that. I thought, I, I always thought that was pretty amazing to kind of catch it when I wasn't looking for it.
You know what I mean? It just pops up on, on on Reddit. I really, I really love, uh, I love seeing that, you know? Yeah. 'cause it was like, wow, we're reaching people that we'll never meet,
Bam Bam: you know? Yeah.
Gizmo: But you,
Bam Bam: you and your position, you're, you're, you're communicating for us on our behalf, and you're out there and you're talking to a lot of people all over the world getting traction with cigar makers and people in the business.
That is intriguing for me not knowing any enough about that. So I, I know it feels special that you're able to do that on our behalf.
Gizmo: I, I think too, I mean, I, I think it goes even beyond the new world space. I mean, look at what we've been able to do in such a short period of time with our friends in Cuba who are now friends.
Like, that's correct. These people, we did not ask anything of them other than time and information, and we really have honored that. And I think that that is a differentiator in, in what we do. And I [01:20:00] think it's very, very helpful in having wonderful relationships with these people. Mm.
Senator: Yeah. You just jogged a thought.
That was another moment when we recorded in Havana, that interview with Danilo. I mean, that was special. I'm sitting there saying to myself like, no one has ever done this before. Like, you're not gonna see Marvin Shakin even sit in Havana and interview anyone like meaningful in the production of Cuban cigars At their home.
At their home. I mean, it's never gonna happen. It's that's, it's made it
Rooster: so personal doing it at his house for sure. It was
Senator: incredible. And that's when I was like, wow. Like we've really done something special here. Yeah. Broken the ground that this is even possible and that the information shared in that interview will live on forever.
I think you guys heard me say this once about the pod of all the things that we do and achieve in our lives [01:21:00] when we're gone, legacy, none of it will matter. We could build the most successful businesses in our own rights when we're dead. No one's gonna care. We can. There's a thousand things that we can, you know, do even, you know, the stuff we have with our family like that will, that will exist and live with us while we're here.
When we're gone. Like no one outside of our family will ever be able to appreciate those memories. This pod is the only thing that, like my kid, our kids, random people, decades, even after we're gone mm-hmm. Could find and, you know, hopefully learn a thing or two and find useful in some way. And whenever I had that kind of epiphany that that's when like I assigned a greater importance to what we're doing than just enjoying.
A great cigar once a week. Well said. I've got an, uh,
Bam Bam: AI chatbot I'm programming 50 years from now, he's gonna eliminate all those [01:22:00] atonement hours episodes. He's gonna do it. I'm working on it right now. So in 4,000 years from now, he's gonna eliminate
Grinder: those. I like, I like how you and his brother-in-law still be waiting hire.
I wanna hire grander. I like how you've rebranded as Atonement Hour. Correct. Atonement episodes.
Gizmo: So boys, we'll go back to Lizard Enrique's questions in a moment with some more of our thoughts on those things. But we are coming now into the last third, the H Hopman, sir Winston and the Paul Rose, sir Winston Churchill.
And now the Brute Reserve. How are, how are things pairing for you guys? And I haven't had a second pour of the, the, uh, the new champagne. How are things pairing for you guys with the cigars?
Bam Bam: Uh, it's changed slightly. So the first bottle that we had was richer. So it's a little different. This is a bit fruitier and lighter and there's more minerality here.
Yeah. Which actually is working beautifully at this stage of the cigar because I am getting a bit more minerality in the cigar. Absolutely. Right. Just the touch. So I
Grinder: think the transition is beautiful. I [01:23:00] think, I think they've, they've just kind of converged, right? Yeah. Like the, the one has gone up, the other one has gone down.
Correct. I think the, um, I'm getting more, I don't know if it's strength or just more. Acute flavor on the palate right now from the cigar.
Chef Ricky: Yeah.
Grinder: Yeah, yeah,
Chef Ricky: yeah. Same. I'd say for me it's picked up a little bit in strength and minerality on the champagne. I wanna say that actually the Sir Winston bottle was fruitier than this bottle.
That's correct. This bottles, what I meant saying has a lot more mineral forward. You're correct. Yep. And, uh, the color on here is much paler, whereas on the Sir Winston, it had more of an amber hue. Mm-hmm. Um, I think they both pair wonderfully with the cigar, especially for where the cigar is in the journey and how it matches up.
That's right. Um, so I I I think it's a perfect, uh, transition for sure. It's almost like you plant this cigars awesome right now. Yeah. It's
Gizmo: so pagoda. I want to hear from you on that question that lizard Enrique asked, when, uh, when did you think that this could be something special? What was that moment for you?[01:24:00]
Rooster: You're still finding out?
Gizmo: Yeah, no, I'm, I'm,
Pagoda: I'm, I'm trying to think. No, but, uh, you know, um, don't have much of a memory, but there've been so many milestones, you know, like there've been a lot of milestones along the way. You know, I think, uh, getting together in, um, the first Cuba trip that January, oh my lord, what an experience that was.
Right. You know, going to a lot of these factories and waking up early in the morning, uh, slightly hungover and, uh, just continuing, you know, that's when I think for me, I felt that, um, it was my first experience of bonding with everybody, even more so, even though they were very good friends. But, you know, when you go away on a trip and you just get along and have a wonderful time, I think that definitely, definitely was, uh, one of the real big milestones for me in terms of, you know, in this whole journey.
Uh, and there've been so many more milestones along the way from experiences, uh, where we have had [01:25:00] wonderful cigars and shared wonderful champagne together and drinks and, uh, you know, whether it's like, you know, 10, 10 wins where everybody's so giddy in terms of the cigar and the pairing. Um, there've been multiple, multiple, uh, experiences along the way.
But yeah, for me, I think if you were to really pin it down as the first real amazing experience, I think it was the first Cuba trip and, uh, I think it just took off to a different level for me.
Gizmo: Well said. Mm-hmm. I also think, uh, I think the first time that I laughed really hard when editing the podcast was the Bill O'Reilly thing.
Oh, yeah. Remember Pagodas headphones weren't working or something, and Uba said that I was acting like Bill O'Reilly. And that has lasted mm-hmm. For four years. It's still the, you know, that's still the quote. Senator throws it around a lot.
Grinder: Oh yeah. Yeah. We miss do it live Miss Uba tonight. We do. Oh yeah.
He's, he's had so many good, like, oh yeah. Good lines. Good lines. Oh yeah.
Gizmo: So [01:26:00] here's another one. I like this one. What's one off mic moment from the last 200 episodes or around that time that you wish you had recorded? Only if it won't break attorney-client privilege. Oh, that's
Bam Bam: this, just as the dark,
Grinder: right.
I would have to say a special package from a, a man and a, that's exactly where my head went in a tuxedo from Colorado.
I think that was,
Bam Bam: I don't think that thing made it into the dumpster. I think it's somewhere floating around. Oh, it made it to the dumpster. I don't know about that. Immediately. Look at your face. I'm looking right immediately. I'm looking right
Grinder: at you. Yeah. Yeah. Immediately to the dumpster. I think, I think there was a lot of, a lot of fun or, or hilarity in that, that was not captured.
Gizmo: I think the one thing for me that I, I wish we had recorded, 'cause I, I don't think I've laughed as hard [01:27:00] as I did, is when Rob Fox was here with Rob Isla and Hamlet, and unfortunately Rob Fox wasn't able to make the podcast, but he and Puah got into, he started like goading Uba into telling this story of his college days.
And I don't even know how to adequately explain it. Maybe you can. Senator, what about the bathtub scene together? Is that discussed?
Senator: This was easily one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. I, I was literally in tears. I mean, basically, you know, UBA had this really extravagant, vivid memory of this like bad encounter with some, you know, a guy, some friend from ages ago.
And you know, when sometimes you're like listening to someone tell an old story and like for them it's like, it happened yesterday and you're sitting there like, this happened 20 years ago. Like, you know, is it really a big deal anymore? So poop is telling it, like with vivid detail. I mean [01:28:00] the person's apartment number, what floor they live on, their dress like.
You know, how many people were out on the sidewalk at moment, what they were wearing, what they were wearing, like vivid detail and you know, that kind of stuff. Like, you know, for Rob Fox, who's just hearing who's first of all meeting him for the very first time, he, he met him that night. That night. It's, he didn't even know him.
And it's like that level of detail, you know, Rob Fox is just like, alright, like what is, what are the CliffNotes of what actually happened? Like, I don't need to know what the person was wearing, what floor they live on this stuff. But then in, in the Rob Fox way that now I understand like his humor, which is incredible.
He just kept asking a thousand questions in vivid detail about like, well, uh, was, was it the third floor or the fourth floor? And, uh, I mean, was, was Jane wearing like a, a, a blouse or a dress? A skirt? Like what I mean, vivid detail. These and p would like start the story over and then would just get wound up and he'd be, he was like.
You wouldn't believe he was on the fourth floor, but he used to live on the first floor and then his mother [01:29:00] moved to here like it wa and just when you thought like, okay, eventually this is gonna end, like the joke's up, like it's funny. We all laughed. I mean, he just kept stirring about, it was
Gizmo: incredible.
It was one of the most brilliant scenes of comedy I've ever seen in front of me. I mean, it was
Pagoda: brilliantly executed. It was like a mini groundhog day. Just keep repeating itself over
Gizmo: and over and over again. Any other memories that you wish we had recorded? Oh,
Chef Ricky: that is a lot.
Gizmo: There's so many.
Chef Ricky: Yeah, I'd say any of those all fair moments with UBA when he goes into those stories.
Grinder: Oh yeah. Those stories I think. I think the reality is every time we come here, there's. There's so much off mic that, that, that itself would, would bring us back, you know, a lot of raccoon episodes off mic. I think
Senator: pagoda, pagoda strolling into the lounge after sub nights in Carnegie. Those would be gold. Oh, hilarious.[01:30:00]
Gizmo: Yeah. Pagoda gets going. Should I call the
Grinder: police on myself?
This story, this story is about the, like the car getting a ride home from the by the cops. Think about
Gizmo: how many times he's coming to the lounge and so does anybody have a cigar? I lost my, left, my case on New Jersey Transit.
Chef Ricky: That's correct. I mean, or just the stories with pagoda and a car. Mm-hmm. You know, that's, oh, yeah.
All the stories hard about pagoda and a car. I need a driver.
Gizmo: EDF. That's right. Correct. All right. Here's a good one from Lizard Enrique. He says, what is the biggest cigar sin one lizard has committed against another? Oh
Chef Ricky: boy. Boy. That's an easy one. Here we go, rooster,
Rooster: you're, no, we're not gonna go there.
Gizmo: I'm still
Rooster: waiting to see the bring.
Gizmo: That has [01:31:00] to be it though. Which one? The, the blind. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The gift. Yeah. Yeah. The Zeno.
Chef Ricky: Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Senator: Oh yeah, that's what we were talking about. No, no. I thought Rooster was about to go at ba
Bam Bam: No, I thought about the fund door sales. The fundee, the funding box
Senator: for sale.
Rooster: That's
Bam Bam: correct.
Rooster: Has that been sold yet?
Bam Bam: No.
Rooster: Still send, ask your wonderful moderator where it's at. I think that's karma.
Chef Ricky: Anyone listening to the pod is afraid to buy that box. Correct. Full price.
Grinder: I think. I think all, all the grief we've given bam about the tower is unjustifiable.
Bam Bam: It was fun.
Grinder: Unjustifiable. Unjustifiable. You know what? That's funny. What are you talking? That's my, I, I remember you, I remember
Senator: you dumping him as a client in the middle of that because
Gizmo: he said you couldn't defend it.
He,
Bam Bam: he has been rere retained.
Gizmo: I think a lot of the, I think a lot of the quote unquote sins have actually been brought on air, you know, that [01:32:00] we've kind of gone at each other about, I mean, I, I don't think there's been much off air that, that we haven't brought in the room. 'cause you're all El Relenting. You're welcome. Alright. We're good
Rooster: friends and you have been a good sport.
Thank you.
Chef Ricky: Thank
Rooster: you.
Chef Ricky: Bam is like our Jesus Christ. Excuse me. How much did he pay you to say that?
Grinder: And what do you mean by that? Bam. Bam. Our whole team of attorneys here, bam. Bam is our Captain America. Look at the pecks on this guy. Well, apparently,
Bam Bam: according to my AI image, I look like a sumo wrestler
Grinder: and
Chef Ricky: number.
That was
Gizmo: intentional
Chef Ricky: with a really nice shirt. Yeah, that, that was a great episode too. That was the ai.
Gizmo: Alright, and here's the final question from Lizard Enrique tonight. If GIZ were hit by a bus, which lizard Yeah. Would take over as host? Oh, none. Oh,
Chef Ricky: Jesus.
Gizmo: It would, I don't
Pagoda: even want to think of that.
We're not gonna go there. Yeah, please. [01:33:00] Because delete this questions. Delete it. Yeah,
Chef Ricky: that's, that's a
Pagoda: tough
Bam Bam: one right there.
Chef Ricky: That's an edit.
Pagoda: Well get rid of that question.
Gizmo: I think it's a good question. I think
Grinder: GIZ put that in there himself. I did not. I did not. GIZ is looking to retire. Correct? No, it's, it's funny That was asked 'cause I was thinking about that the other day.
My demise. No.
Rooster: Oh man.
Grinder: No, but like
Rooster: what would, what would happen?
Grinder: Yeah. Nothing. Nothing. It would, it would be, it would, that would be the end of the pause, Iraqis. Yeah. Yeah. Just don't doubt
Senator: about it.
Gizmo: Well, hopefully that doesn't happen. Well,
Senator: well what are you talking about? We have AI these days. That's true. We could recreate a AI gizmo.
Ai giz. Yeah. I guess we, we
Grinder: were talking about making agents to do all the, uh, editing. All the editing. Editing.
Rooster: I've been feeding all the data. I'm just kidding. But just, just using all this equipment would be baffled. Yeah. We, we'd need an engineer. I could do it. You could.
Grinder: I I think you could, you could [01:34:00] set it up and knock it down, but I dunno, I almost, I almost just choked on my Paul Rose.
That's correct.
Pagoda: Yeah. And the, and the Indians out here don't know technology at all. Both of us.
Rooster: No, it.
Grinder: I think, I think I, I think about the naivete I had about saying, oh, let me try to like learn and figure out how to help you edit. I was just like, what a fucking idiot. Yeah. I
Senator: couldn't remember this. Like, Grindr was like, why don't we just divide it?
I could do some of the editing. Oh yeah. Like, no, no.
Gizmo: It's, yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's a lot. Yeah. And there, I, I think we were talking about it the other day where there, there's a lot of subtlety to the editing.
Bam Bam: Yeah. You know, like if, if someone using, using any PowerPoint on that.
Gizmo: No PowerPoint. There you go.
Grinder: Oh, that's, we've never done a PowerPoint episode.
Correct. We need that. When's that happening? Poop and grinder. We got, I gotta work. I gotta
Senator: PowerPoint bigger than Tyson Fury. You
Bam Bam: wanna talk about all air conversations between these two guys and the club? Oh, I [01:35:00] could do PowerPoint. I got this deck. I could do a pitch deck. I don't know. You could do, I could do a pitch deck too.
Yeah.
Senator: Do you listen to Coltrane when you make PowerPoints?
Bam Bam: No, I
don't.
Gizmo: I listen
Bam Bam: to
Gizmo: Green
Bam Bam: Day when I pick
Gizmo: a pitch point. Who much totally, definitely said that. Totally made this point that he's better at PowerPoint. 'cause he listens to Coltrane while he direct.
I wish you were here. Oh. And, uh, so Lizard Enrique finishes up. Thanks again for the two most entertaining hours of my week. Cheers Lizard Enrique. So thanks again to him. You know, I was thinking and putting together, how are we gonna celebrate episode 200 that's unique and fun and something we haven't done before.
And I think this was the perfect way to do it, to have, it's incredible to have an awesome listener, incredible email, present these great questions to us and prompt us on what, uh, you know, what he as a listener wants to hear. Um, so I really, really appreciate that. And that is why he is our lizard of the week for episode 200.
And of course, anybody out [01:36:00] there can win Lizard of the Week. All you have to do is send us a voice memo, Spotify comment, Instagram comment and email, YouTube, whatever you choose. Instagram dm. And you can win Lizard of the Week. Even comments on FOH are winning Lizard of the Week. Nice. So, uh, any sort of feedback for us, uh, you can win.
And the audio comments got
Chef Ricky: something special.
Gizmo: Yeah. When you comment on the positive audio, that that's definitely a, uh, it goes in your favor. Oh,
Chef Ricky: I thought you were saying when you send in voice memos, that that's what we're talking That's what I meant. That's what he Yeah. Fuck the audio kids. I dunno what the fuck kids is talking about.
The voice
Grinder: memos are great. I
Gizmo: love voice memos. Yeah. 'cause you don't have to read it, correct or pronounce it. Hey, I will say over the last 200 episodes, my pronunciation has improved.
Bam Bam: Yes.
Gizmo: Maybe five to 7% alongside your wardrobe, but it's improved.
Bam Bam: Thank you. Also improved. Thanks fam. Yeah, man. It's true. [01:37:00] It's, well now the winter months are coming.
We'll see.
Gizmo: I can't wait. The hoodie is back cold. I can't wait for he'll. Bell like Bill
Senator: Belichick get a hoodie every day. Put his, his arms cut off. I can't wait for that hoodie.
Gizmo: I can't wait. I can't wait. Alright boys. So unfortunately we have to go into this next topic, even though we're having a blast tonight smoking this wonderful cigar and drinking this wonderful champagne.
We have been thrust into Cigar Mageddon 2025, and we have gotten a lot of email, a lot of nervous and, uh, frightened listeners out there and pissed off listeners out there as the worst things that can happen. It's like the worst of the worst have all come to fruition at the same time. So we have a lot of customs and border patrol seizures and rejections sent back, mostly seizures.
Uh, we have seen because of those things, a lot of retailers starting to limit how much they were sending to the United States, areas of the United States they were sending to. And [01:38:00] it really, really dwindled down. Um, you know, even to FOH, they were only shipping to one coast, uh, at one point in the last few weeks.
And then with the tariffs coming into play, pretty much every single international retailer that ships to the United States has completely stopped. And not just for Cuban cigars. You can't order the bond Roberts. 1 0 9 on COH Right now, you can't order those bulk Davidoff deals that we talk about on I Havana.
That's right. It has completely dried up. So now our domestic United States listeners have found, you know, we found ourselves in, in very few options to acquire cigars, especially Cuban cigars, either on Bon Roberts from folks who are already in the United States. Mm-hmm. Or non Cuban cigars that are already here.
And of course, those prices are going up. So it's really kind of a, a, a, um, massive storm of the [01:39:00] worst things that can happen. And mm-hmm. You know, unfortunately it looks for us, like this big conversation we've been having about the cadence of Cuban cigars on this podcast. Our hand has been forced, even though I thought it wouldn't be a couple weeks ago, I found some solutions that went away.
Another solution came in that went away. So right now, I pretty much have two Cuban cigars in, in, in the stockpile for us to review, and that's it. And everything else is New World at this point. So it's, it's really an unfortunate thing that's going on here. Very unfortunate.
Chef Ricky: There aren't any words. I mean, it's, it's awful.
You know, you think politicians don't smoke cigars? They do. I just don't, I I don't understand it.
Grinder: They, they do, but they, they find ways to get around their own rules. No, no, no. In fairness, not enough do that is the problem.
Senator: No, no. Truly there's a cigar caucus, uh, in Congress. It's a small group. It's not a huge group.
Chef Ricky: I mean, we're in the middle of a cigar boom. And this is happening.
Gizmo: Well, I think it's gonna be a cigar shrinkage [01:40:00] coming up because even if some of this tariff stuff is figured out, I mean, prices are certainly up. I mean, people have less money to spend. I think it's gonna be a difficult time for the cigar industry.
Yeah. After such a, a long run. Especially since COVID of, of record, high imports, record high sales, you know, great new releases, high dollar stuff. Now with the United States outta the picture for the international market, specifically cubit cigars. I wonder how the dynamics are gonna change around the world with this stuff.
Bam Bam: Does anyone here think that this political environment, which then trickles down to law enforcement and border patrol or border control, is gonna change five, 10 years from now?
Senator: Who knows? Will it change? It depends who's in the White House. I mean, that's what's been the case.
Grinder: I think it's, it's, yeah, truth.
Gizmo: It seems like, you know, the, the real change with the tariffs thing is the elimination of the de minimus, which was,
Grinder: that was big.
Gizmo: Any package under $800 was not subject to [01:41:00] tariffs coming in into the United States. Now every single package is going to be subject to that. So I guess, you know, I was talking to our friend, big Guns, Mike in uh, LA and he was saying, you know, maybe they're gonna move this to private contractors who are only gonna be searching for tariff opportunities to increase revenue for the United States government.
Maybe they won't focus on, you know, what's illegal or not, or Cuban or not, or whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Hopefully they don't focus on that. But I mean, that's an optimistic point of view. I, I am, I lean a little more pessimistic o over the next few years of things, especially for retailers who have to take the risk of sending this stuff with guarantees or not.
That's a real risky business right now.
Grinder: Yeah. The other thing that like really is scary is that it just kind of piggybacking on a, a comment from Senator depends on who's, who's in the White House. Right? Totally true. But one of the things that I've observed and has been, it's also been documented. Laws kind of, [01:42:00] even if, even if administrations change laws are kind of sticky, and even if they have a different idea about how the laws should be administered, they still are kind of, they still stick around because it's kind of laborious to change laws and there's other things on the priority.
So that's the, that's the scary thing. Assuming that there's a, a turnover in three years, right. With a totally different prospect or outlook on, on, on everything. Uh, there's still things that might stick around and you think about like COVID things that stuck around for a while, that that's, you
Bam Bam: know, but I have to say, policy toward Cuba does shift pretty quickly.
Senator: No, no. I, I just wanna be very clear here, doesn't it? Sorry. As,
Bam Bam: as
Senator: the, like, policy political guy. Go ahead. This isn't about a change in policy. The policy that would in any way impact Cuban cigars coming into this country has not meaningfully changed at all. It's the enforcement of policy That's I'm saying enforcement.
Yes. So like, under the Biden administration, Obama, Trump doesn't matter. Mm-hmm. Like Cuban products were not allowed in this [01:43:00] country. That's always been the case. Previous administrations have just chosen, like, do we really care if a box of Cuban cigars comes in? Like, you know, the things usually customs is worried about is fentanyl shit that can like really harm people.
This administration has taken a very hard line stance of like, anything that is not legally allowed to be here, like we're gonna crack down on. And so Cuban cigars for whatever ridiculous reason have now actually they're enforcing it at an aggressive rate. So. I'm more optimistic only because it wouldn't take any policy change.
It would just take like less reverting back to like saying like, we're not gonna police cigars the same way we are. Other like drugs and products that Yeah. Like look,
Bam Bam: it's six years ago, even as recent as two years ago, we were able to bring cigars in, buy them from anywhere in the world, Cubans.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Right. And it's, it's crazy that in just at this time of this podcast, these 200 episodes, we've now kind of viewed two cigar mageddon. One was the crazy haos price increase two years ago that, you know, [01:44:00] took a a $205 box of cigars and that same box is now $750. Some even higher than that. And now we're in a position where we've literally been cut off in almost every meaningful way of acquiring these cigars as United States citizens.
I, I, I think it's, I think it's the,
Grinder: the industry seems to be pretty resilient. Um, and adapting to different changes. Like there was the cigar boom in the nineties and then a massive pre precipitous fall. Right. It's the, we still got cigars, we people were still smoking it. I think the difference now is that to what.
Senator was saying there's, there's just a different outlook on how that's, you know, the, the literal transportation of that, which is now, you know, we're levering levying additional costs to, so, I don't know. It's just, it's, it's very uncertain and it's not, it's not fun to think about our future of enjoying a, a wide array of, of different, of [01:45:00] different cigars and
Gizmo: also serving our international listeners, of course, who are not in the United States.
Mm-hmm. You know, we have a lot of international listeners who most of them are, are, are seeing primarily Cuban cigars at their retail oppor, you know, where they shop. Yeah.
Senator: Yeah. And Grinder's point about the the cost is, is important here in the sense that what really shut things down is like tariffs now impacting this product in a meaningful way.
You know? Sure. Enforcement obviously increased aggressively, so it became harder and harder and harder to actually get Cuban cigars into this country, but it was still happening just at a much slower pace than it had been historically. You know, to Grindr's point now about the industry being resilient.
Sure. I mean, these cigars things will open up again. The problem is just like the cost to get them in is gonna be very significant. Where like already, if you were trying to get a Cuban box of cigars in, we talked about the first cigar mageddon. [01:46:00] You're paying like three, four times what you were previously.
Now you add on top of that like an 80 to $200 tariff on top of that, I mean the number of people that are gonna be willing to pay, like what, what are we gonna pay for? A box of D fours? A thousand bucks, a thousand dollars. It's comical. It's comical. So like, you know, I think grinder's point is exactly right in that like, yeah, the industry will be able to respond.
Like there will still be ways to get it in, but the cost is just the problem that the consumer is gonna have to eat. And I, I think I can confidently say like that puts this at such an aggressive price point that there are not many people that are gonna be willing to pay that. Like it was already painful to think of $750 for a box of D fours.
A thousand bucks is just stupid. I love a D four as much as anybody. I'm not paying a thousand dollars for a box of D four. It's crazy. A 40 D
Gizmo: four,
Senator: that's pretty
Gizmo: expensive. That's crazy when we used to pay eight bucks for it, 10 bucks for it. It's insane. It's insane. The other thing that, that [01:47:00] bums me out too, and we, we've talked about this in with the price increase two years ago, cigar again in 2023.
Now in 2025, this is really putting new consumers of, of cigars out of ever maybe even trying authentic Cuban cigars because. It's gonna be impossible to get them. And they're gonna find themselves trying to find them. And what they're gonna find is the fake stuff. And you know, to any of our listeners out there, if you have a retailer who is able to get you cu Cubit cigars right now, I would kind of throw my hands up and say, is this a legitimate retailer?
Because there's no way that unless they have them in the states already, that they're gonna be able to bring them in en mass. So I would just be very, very cautious if you're finding people who say they can get you cubit cigars who are not in the United States already, or on Bond Roberts or, or through a trusted source.
Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: Be very cautious. Be very, very cautious. 'cause the
Bam Bam: wolves [01:48:00] will be out. Well, you start, you, you are starting to see that at a lot, at a lot of the places that I go to. Someone will pull out a box of Cuban cigars, immediately flip it over. The box codes are all unusual. Some of the Cuban cigars are in plastic.
You know, you don't wanna say anything, but it's, it's starting to, I think, increase in frequency.
Gizmo: And I think the bad actors in this game are gonna see this as a real opportunity. Mm-hmm. You know, to make a lot of money selling fake Cuban cigars. So for our listeners out there, just watch out for that and we'll keep you updated on this.
I mean, for now, the cadence of our cubit cigars appearing on this podcast is changing, and I hate that it's happening on episode 200. Our hand has absolutely been forced. Now I have two cubit cigars. The stockpile for us. So we have to space this out moving forward until things change. That's gonna be the case.
So we're gonna discuss internally what the situation's gonna be, and we will let you know on an upcoming episode, [01:49:00] uh, when you're gonna see some more, we'll, we'll circle
Grinder: back.
Gizmo: We will circle back. It's common phrase in the lounge, lizards, vernacular on the chat. So boys, I do want to talk about our episode from two weeks ago because people were raving about it.
Specifically one component, which was Grinder, drunk on tequila.
We
Gizmo: got several emails that Grinder, don't think Tequila. Accountability. Wonderful. It was wonderful. The Grinder accountability hour was huge. And his rating as well. Huge hit.
Pagoda: And his rating as well.
Gizmo: Which rating? The one he, yeah. Come on. Wasn't that those same one?
Yeah,
Pagoda: yeah, yeah. The one he tried
Gizmo: to change. Yeah, the one he tried to change.
Chef Ricky: You're welcome, Liz Anisha.
Gizmo: So on FOHI really love this thread on it. It was hilarious. A lot of email came in. Thanks for the grinder Accountability hour. You know, give Grinder more tequila when you give Grindr tequila. Double it.
You know, everybody loved Grinder loosening up and, uh, having a lot of tequila on that episode. And, uh, Barry, good vibes on FOH said [01:50:00] at Lizard Gizmo. This was my favorite episode, yet you guys are hitting your stride and I was laughing out loud throughout. Thank God Grindr is back. And thank you for being the comedy relief and punching bag today, lizard.
Greg said Great episode. Thank you. I'm grind. I'm glad Grindr this gracious about the laughs at his expense. You will be in for a treat with the upcoming Sir Winston Sir Winston experience that we're doing tonight. Congratulations on episode 200. It's well earned.
Grinder: Part of my retainer fee is to step in as the punching bag, correct.
Well done.
Gizmo: This one is from Gizzard John in Cleveland. We hear from him, a lotti says giz. I love it when you're a curmudgeon. You made me crack up when you said, do you have to enter through a washing machine about a speakeasy? Hysterical. This one's from Lizard El Nino. By the way, I hate speakeasy. I think they're so stupid.
Uh, this one's from Lizard El Nino. He says, all caps, come on, let him have the 10.
This one is from El [01:51:00] Lobo Loco. He says, great episode. It got me a little interested to try some Tequila Blanco. Sounds like a great companion to a medium bodied cigar.
Chef Ricky: Oh, it is.
Gizmo: So this one is from lizard.
Bam Bam: Why not? He
Gizmo: is babe, by the way, don't touch the head of the cigar. But he's smoking a cigar. I clipped it.
Dick Grinder had in his mouth for 20 minutes. But don't, don't even look at the head of a
Bam Bam: cigar. I clipped it. Lemme suck on it. I gave it a, an old school GIZ cut. Did it help with the draw? I had to put the perfect draw through again. Yeah, it's better.
Gizmo: This one's from senator, from Lizard Fireball. He says, what was the cigar place that Senator was talking about in Detroit?
Senator: So, great question because I didn't remember at the time, but, um, it's called La Casa Cigars and Lounge. It's in downtown Detroit. Uh, their hours are awesome. Monday through Wednesday, they're open on midnight Thursday, 1:00 AM Friday and Saturday, 2:00 AM Wow. Wow. Very nice. [01:52:00] Proper cigar place. Oh
Bam Bam: yeah.
Senator: But awesome selection.
Like they've got all the davi off stuff, padron everything you can want. They've got, do they have lighters and matches? They do. All right. That matters. Full
Gizmo: bar. It's perfect.
Bam Bam: Nice.
Gizmo: So, like I said, we got a ton of emails about that episode. Mainly just laughing at Grindr being drunk, wanting him to be drunk all the time.
So I'm not gonna go through all the emails we got, but I like some of those comments on FO so
Grinder: very,
Gizmo: so you need to get drunk more often. I know. Clearly
Grinder: I do.
Gizmo: I second that. So boys, we are coming to the end of our evening tonight with these Sir Winston from H Up man, and the Paul Je Sir Winston Churchill and the Paul Roge Brute Reserve.
We're obvi obviously only going to rate the Sir Winston Churchill, Paul Roge tonight. But any thoughts on the pairing before we move into our ratings? I started
Bam Bam: to get a little white pepper, which I really enjoyed at that final three quarters of an inch. Um, the sweetness dissipated, but it was still [01:53:00] very nicely smooth and creamy.
A little minerality, little white pepper, little manure and spice
Chef Ricky: for sure. At the tail end. Yeah. Yep.
Gizmo: How was the pairing for you guys as you came to the end of the cigar? Obviously we had the Sir Winston Churchill, Paul Je for most of the first half into the, the last third I would say, and then we moved to the brute reserve.
How was, how was that combination for you and what did you prefer with the cigar? What would you prefer with the cigar?
Senator: I mean, I'll, I'll just say I think champagne is the best pairing for this particular cigar. I agree. There's nothing else that I would put ahead of this that I would want to drink. While smoking this, sir Winston.
Yeah.
Bam Bam: You know, the, the, the Sir Winston bottle, like we said earlier, was a richer experience and it went, it was beautifully paired than the new bottle, as we said earlier, that that minerality came through in that bottle, which we didn't get in the original bottle. And that as the cigar came down, really worked beautifully with it.
Chef Ricky: Yeah. And it helped cleanse the palette as well from of those, uh, spicier white pepper notes [01:54:00] that you got at the tail end of the cigar. So,
Senator: and it's funny, worked really well. Funny because the pairing could go either way in, in the sense that the non vintage is a lighter champagne than of course this, uh, this vintage one is for me, the first, you know, inch if not two inches of the cigar was very mild.
And then it picked up so you could easily see having the non vintage champagne first with the minerality that was lacking in the cigar early on to actually add that. Correct. But be very lightened body to mirror the body of the cigar where, you know, I was saying at first, I actually felt like the champagne in some ways overpowered the cigar, which is a wild thing to happen.
And then later in the cigar, when it picked up the vintage champagne has the body to marry nicely with that. Yeah. And then has the sweetness that was lacking in this cigar. That's true. That could bounce out. That's also true. You could do it both ways. That's also, try to think of that.
Bam Bam: That's
Senator: true.
Grinder: Yeah.
That's a great [01:55:00] analysis. Yeah. Yeah.
Gizmo: Alright boys, it's time to move into the formal liquor rating tonight on the Paul Roge, sir Winston Churchill Champagne. Bam. Bam, you're up.
Bam Bam: So I'm at a 10. I haven't ever had a champagne like this. The rich, I love the amber color chef, you mentioned that. But how that, that sweetness there that was there and lack of minerality, which was a, a merit for this experience was fantastic.
Uh, I can't give it anything less than a 10.
Gizmo: Alright. Grindr, I'm
Grinder: also outta 10. I think the finish was what really just drew me in the long finish. The long finish was really, especially with the cigar. Um, and there was the butter, which was, I was kind of expecting. Right. But it was so intense. It's, it's so much, I wouldn't say it's intense, but it was, it was plus plus plus pronounced.
Yeah. Yeah. More pronounced. And, um, I dunno, it's just cool, you know, it's a cool box. It's a cool experience. Um, and it paired [01:56:00] wonderfully and it's very flexible with the cigar. Right. We were just talking about how you could, you could mix and match. Um, it's a, it's a total 10 Great experience.
Gizmo: All right. Chef Ricky.
Chef Ricky: Yeah. You know, right on the pore. Um, as the glasses were nowhere near me, you know, a good three feet away from me, at least the aroma that just kind of took the room, took over the room here
Grinder: that I, I said that to bam, as soon as
Chef Ricky: we mm-hmm. As soon as we got glasses,
Grinder: I
Chef Ricky: was like, it's like, it was beautiful.
Yeah. The nose was amazing. Yeah. It was so beautiful. And, and it really kind of, uh, started to, you know, just kind of make my palate salivate a little bit in anticipation of, of tasting the, the champagne I'm in lockstep with, uh, sir Winston Churchill here. Mm-hmm. Uh, I need 42,000 bottles of this in my lifetime.
Can you imagine? That's like, yeah, that's, this is a perfect tent for me. It was a beautiful experience, elegant champagne. Uh, it's so beautifully done, and, you know, yeah, it was, it was quite the [01:57:00] treat.
Pagoda: All right. Pagoda. Yeah. I'll keep it simple. We'll, we'll keep it a 10. It, it's a 200th episode. I love the experience and enjoy champagne.
And Paul Ro is a mark, like kind of a marker, which we really, really love. In any case, um, you know, obviously in terms of the price, three 50 can be a bit too steep. But in terms of really like, uh, uh, thinking about celebration, uh, what are the way to go, I, I think it was fantastic. It lived up to it, you know.
Um, I guess reputation and even the feeling we were getting, you know, the anticipation before we got into the glass of champagne. You know, I might've been a, a bit too rushed in that, but fantastic experience. It's 10 for me,
Gizmo: so it's also a 10 for me. I, I mean, it's just perfect champagne. I, I wish it was a lower price champagne.
I understand. It's a vintage, you know, 10 years. It's celebrating Sir Winston Churchill, obviously the, the [01:58:00] figurehead of smoking cigars and of course drinking champagne and libations. And I understand, I understand the price, but I wish it was a little lower, but it really is a perfect champagne. I love, as Senator said, it was a departure from Paul Roge and, and it was a little sweeter than we expected.
Mm-hmm. But the finish was just, it lasted for days and I'm, it, I'm almost still tasting it. It's outrageous. That's how great it was. So I'm really, really impressed with this. I wish I could have it again, but it'll probably be a while. But, uh, it's a 10 for me, Senator.
Senator: So I'm, I'm also at a 10. This bottle is in the class of like, it, it's competitive set is Dom Perignon, Krug Kristol.
That level of champagne, those are all like roughly $300 bottles of champagne. It definitely cements itself as one of the best of those. The, the long finish is what really stands out, and I say this because I've had a number of fuller [01:59:00] bodied champagnes. That are not approachable, like they are only for people who really, really love champagne and can appreciate what that is trying to do.
And what I like about this, you know, Paul Roge is so famously approachable. Like this is the gateway into great champagne. That's why like everyone here who initially said like, I'm not a champagne person. Once you tasted Paul Roge, like that's when the light bulb goes off. And the fact that for a vintage champagne with 10 years can still, despite having such a long finish and such a full body experience, it's still approachable.
Like, there's nothing about it where you're like, oh, this is too much, or it's too heavy, or it, it's overpowering in any way. Like it's delicious from start to finish. Um, the fun thing, and I, I actually am gonna just throw this out to lizards. If there are lizards that have had this bottle, [02:00:00] I'm very curious.
And if they've had this bottle, they've likely had at least some of the others, if not all the others I've mentioned, Dom Perignon, Craig mm-hmm. Uh, Christal, where they rank this. I'm struggling with that. I'm not. Sure that I would say it's necessarily number one of those that I named. So we need to know what your ranking
Bam Bam: is now,
Senator: now that you've opened the box.
So it is a 10. The challenge with these is, you know, the vintage matters. So, you know, I, I'd have to look up like, you know, I had an amazing bottle of kristol at the, um, uh, American has this, uh, Chelsea lounge in the JFK airport that is like easily one of the nicest lounges. I mean, they're pouring, I mean, the woman brought a, a fresh bottle of kristol, put it on my table and said like, sir, this is yours.
Like, have as much as you'd like. How, what are you paying for these seats? Well, you gotta have, you gotta mean status. Status. You gotta have really high status. [02:01:00] Status. You mean United doesn't lose this? Don't do it. Don't do it, chef. And it honestly blew my mind. Like that one bottle. I have a photo, I'd have to look at the exact year that one bottle did.
Edge this out. So like, it, it's challenging because the year, the vintage is gonna matter so much. Um, it's definitely top three. There's no question about that. But I would be really interested. I'm just curious what other people think. 'cause I'm having a hard time, like I don't have a definitive like 1, 2, 3 here.
Um, but the fact that it's in that conversation and delivering just as satisfying experience as a lot of those other ones that I named, I mean says everything about why it's deserving of a 10 and it's an outstanding celebratory bottle of champagne. Um, and I think as far as the body is concerned, like where this does differentiate from some of the others, certainly Christal and Dom Perignon, this is a [02:02:00] fuller expression made in the way that Churchill loved vintage champagne.
And so, you know, what you would pair this with versus what you would pair Dom Perignon or Kristal with are different. And so that's also gonna play a factor for people. So, you know, for all those reasons, they're not perfectly apples to apples 'cause they're not trying to do or be exactly the same things.
Um, but it's a fun challenge 'cause it's rare that I am not able to like definitively for my palate say this is how I would stack these up. Um, but it means I'm gonna have to drink more of all of 'em to decide.
Pagoda: I have a question for you Senator, and we want some too. Correct. So, so do you think there's a bit sweeter than the others?
The others may have been a bit drier?
Senator: Yes. Mm Uh, so I would say this, it's, it's definitely sweeter than the crystal that I recently had. Dom Perignon, the vintages can be wildly different. And I like, that's one thing that is a little bit frustrating for me. Like I've had some [02:03:00] dam dom Perignon that's like actually very sweet, if not sweeter than this and others that are really dry.
So it's tough. It's tough. It really depends.
Pagoda: Yeah. No, I just found it a bit sweeter than the typical champagne I would have. Right. Uh, at these. Yeah. But it was really, really, really good.
Grinder: It's not a sweet champagne. No, no. Sweet. For the listeners that's, it was
Senator: just sweeter than other Paul Roge that we Exactly.
That's correct. And it's because with Paul Roge, like we expect a drier experience. Paul Roge Nonvintage and Vouv kli co non vintage vu is definitely sweeter than Po Roge. So you're expecting like, uh, a primarily dry experience and this delivered more fruit. And that's that pinot noir that's heavy in here.
Mm-hmm. Which is why you're getting that. Yeah.
Bam Bam: Very nuanced though.
Senator: Oh, yeah.
Gizmo: Yeah. Alright boys. So the formal liquor rating tonight on the Paul Roge, sir Winston Churchill Vintage 2015 Champagne is a perfect 10.0, and we'll go through the other ratings, but they're not gonna surprise you. [02:04:00] Of course. On our Christmas 2021 episode, we did do Paul Roge brute reserve the $50 bottle for the first time.
We didn't rate it because it was right in between episodes eight and nine on episode 100, we did the vintage. 2013 scored a perfect 10. And then on episode 138, we actually realized we never rated the brute reserve, and we rated it with the Davidoff Maduro and it scored a perfect 10. Unbelievable. So this is the third product from the Paul Roge Champagne House that has scored a perfect 10 on the product.
Incredible, great choice for the, uh, episode tonight. What a revelation champagne
Grinder: has been in my, I've turned to so many people, so many of my fa, so much of my family on champagne because I've also adopted the, this champagne, um, caviar, uh, creme fresh potato chip tradition. And it's a hit every year. Like the, the, the folks that come to my house for Christmas Eve, that's what they talk about it all year long.
Like just how wonderful [02:05:00] it is. And it's, you know, the champagne, it seems to pair it with every single cigar. That's cool. Well,
Senator: I mean, Paul Roget's gotta be the only markup. Period that has scored a perfect score on everything we've done.
Gizmo: Yeah. I would say Kloss kelner with the stoic and the avowed. That's also true.
Um, I think that might be it though, as far as perfect. Tens crazy. I crazy. I I can't think of anything else. Yeah. That's scored perfect. Tens for us here. That's awesome. Pretty amazing. Yeah. All right, boy, it's time now to move into the formal lizard rating tonight on the H Up, man, sir Winston from Cuba, the 2018 Rooster Europe.
Rooster: So I mean this Sir Winston, uh, Churchill. I mean, it's a shame that Haos doesn't make many Churchills. There's only what three, correct. Right. And this is such an elegant cigar to hold in your hand. I mean, it's, it's too bad. I mean, they only make three Churchills and the price what it is. But this cigar tonight for the 200th episode, it's, I mean, it's a home run.
It's, it's a [02:06:00] beautiful cigar. It's a elegant cigar. Uh, the, the notes that I got out of this and I got a perfect. Cigar. I think the combustion and the draw, everything was like super. It was perfect. Uh, the notes, you know, it was started off a little bit of cedar graham cracker. I even got like a floral note, a little bit of milk chocolate.
Um, it was a beautiful cigar. Um, for me, it's a, it's a tent. Absolute
Gizmo: 10 Senator.
Pagoda: Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb dumb, dumb dumb. 200th episode.
Senator: So I'm at a nine. Woo. The flavor notes throughout this cigar were spectacular. Like all things that I chase and pursue in cigars. Uh, the blend was awesome. The only reason that I had to knock off the point for me, the first inch or two was just too subtle, too mild for what [02:07:00] I'm looking for.
And I don't wanna have to be chasing more of the notes that I'm getting in this cigar. I wanted to just deliver it in a complete way. I think with some additional age, I think maybe a few more years, that first inch or two, you know, may deliver more of what the rest of the cigar did. The rest of the cigar for me was a 10.
The flavor was concentrated. It hit my palate in every way. I wasn't seeking more. It gave me everything I wanted. Um, very complex cigar. A perfect balance between sweet and savory. And I kind of liked how it started sweeter than, uh, more sweet than it was savory. And it finished more savory than it was sweet.
So it definitely took you on a journey. Um, for me it was a two act play in that regard. Um, I, I mean, it's a strong recommend. I think if there's any listener that has, that loves Cuban cigars or, you know, a, a medium smoke, uh, and you can get your hands on one at some point, you'd have to [02:08:00] be blessed to find a box.
Yeah. Um, or you know, I, I think for what's real more realistic for most listeners in this environment is like, you know, finding a group of friends who wants to try this cigar and to split that up so that you're not shelling out an insane amount of money just for an entire box that now you're, you're responsible for.
Um, I think it's a no-brainer to, to try and smoke on a real special occasion. I mean, that's why we're doing this on our 200th episode. So an excellent, excellent cigar. Um, but like I said, I think just a little bit more age, you know, would hit that 10 for me.
Gizmo: Alright. So it is a 10 for me, I think just like Rooster, I think I got very lucky tonight with the cigar that I pulled out of the box, namely in one distinguishing factor that I think you and I were the ones that had, which was amazing.
Smoke output, combustion. Combustion. Yeah. So on top of everything Rooster said about flavor and performance on top of everything. Senator said about complexity and and, and how it tasted. I loved [02:09:00] how the smoke output married all that stuff. It was perfect for me the entire way through. It was a perfect cigar.
It was elegant, it was complex. It was effortless. I mean, it was just so easy to smoke this thing and it's sophisticated. I think that's the one thing, and we've talked about this, I think when we did the Splendid dose episode, even the Romeo, Juliet, the Churchill episode. Mm-hmm. The other two, we've said this, I think on all of these episodes, how great it feels in the hand.
We love this Fatah and like you said, rooster, I wish there was more, you know, I wish there were more of them. I think the biggest thing in this cigar for me, that I celebrate is subtlety. I love the subtle flavors. Nothing is punching you in the face. Nothing is trying too hard in the cigar. And for me it was a constant step up from that first light all the way till the end of the cigar in.
That's
Pagoda: a 10. [02:10:00]
Senator: Thanks Senator. It's a 10. Sorry. Just, just before Grindr rates, I wanna make sure I get some more in his glass.
Grinder: I, I immediately hopped over and like, yes, please.
Pagoda: All right. Pagoda, you're up. Uh, it's a 10 for me. Um, now the interesting thing is, you know, I was thinking about the way even Senator was thinking about it, but for me, my cigar was great.
The smoke output was great. It was fantastic. It was very easy smoking. I'm, look at this, it's right in, you know, right to the knob. I've smoked it. Um, I think, uh, the journey was fantastic, right? Uh, very savory for me in the beginning. Uh, the, I think for me it was reasonably a three act play. The middle third had become a little sweeter with the gram crack rush, like a little sweetness I found in the middle third just for a bit.
And then the final third is what I really enjoyed because I think it picked up in strength became a bit more savory with a little bit of sweetness in the air in the end. And [02:11:00] just overall, you know, where there with the salted s Scottish, um. A kind of feel and, uh, a little bit of the floral saltiness I got.
Um, and at one point I also got a little bit of the floral tea kind of a feeling. And maybe that's a psychological or because I drank a lot of tea, I, I have no idea. But I really enjoyed it. At the point being, I really enjoyed it from the beginning to the end. Although a little, you know, I typically prefer stronger cigars, but I really enjoyed the journey today.
The experience was great. I think the champagne was fantastic. And, you know, when you're pairing a really good, uh, you know, champagne with a fantastic cigar, I think the experience is just wonderful. So it's a 10 for me. All chef
Chef Ricky: pagoda. Do you really drink a lot of tea? A lot? Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
Pagoda: Why, why do you doubt that? But we Indian, we Indians drink a lot of tea spike spikes. I, [02:12:00] I knows in general do, oh gosh, by the way, I had tea with scotch in it. I had tea. I had tea today, so it could have added to
the thing.
Chef Ricky: I, I did have two cups of tea. I just, I've never seen an image of pagoda with tea on our, on our chest.
No, we grab with tea, man, we, oh no, no, I know. Hot toddies. So. So you guys have heard me gush a ton about my 2014 Sir Winston experience. This quit. This didn't quite reach that level for me. Um, and it was mostly because of the combustion, you know, sitting here next to Rooster whose cigar was just smoking itself.
Yeah, it was, you know, he, he was resting and the cigar was just there letting out billows of smoke. And I was struggling in the beginning. As I got to the halfway point, it seemed to opened up some. Um, but that aside, um, and you know, as a result of, you know, lackluster combustion, my ash didn't ever really quite develop the way I wanted it to.
And, [02:13:00] and when it did, it wasn't really beautiful, which is something I look forward to, especially with this form factor of a cigar. Um, but the flavor was amazing. Um, you know, the cold draw, getting sweet savory notes, which reminded me of tomato, um, and some of that cedar in there in the beginning. And then just, you know, once you light and it sort of transitions into some suite of bread notes and, and, and a little bit of baking spice and, and just.
Just really delicate flavors that, don't forget wet dough. Yeah, no, the wet dough was there for me, uh, for sure. Um, but yeah, I, you know, for me, with that being said, it's, it's a nine. Um, I think with perfect combustion, it would've absolutely been a 10, but the cigar left nothing to be desired when it came to flavor and how it delivered.
It, it was just, I, I wanted to be, you know, as Senator said earlier, in his experience, enveloped in smoke and, and, and especially seeing that some of you guys did have that experience in the room, I, I wanted [02:14:00] to have that same experience. But that aside, the cigar was absolutely beautiful.
Gizmo: All right. Grindr?
Grinder: Yeah, I'm at a nine. Um, the, the, the cigar, you know, echoing some of the, the other commentary from the, from the group here, flavors for me were in my power hourly, like everything about it, the new get, the almond that I got, I, I don't think the rest of you guys got. Um, but definitely the barnyard, the, the very traditional Cuban flavors, and it was, it was, um, you know, those, those, those flavor, that flavor profile resonates with me so, so well, um, it's.
Like we also mentioned it, it feels good in the hand, right? It's a beautiful, very elegant, very elegant. Yeah, that's a great word to describe it. The only thing I, not the only thing, but it, it was a little rug, ruddy, rugged for me. The, it, the construction seemed a little wonky and as we know, I, I had to throw one away.
Um, so that, which I'm smoking now, BA's about to rate that one. [02:15:00] Intercepted. It's been resurrected. Yeah.
Bam Bam: Jesus.
Gizmo: I gotta that that Good. You're out.
Grinder: You
Gizmo: are poison. This is how we know he paid Shep to say that it's been resurrected and why he changed the name to Atonement. Correct. That's right.
Grinder: Uh, but, um, I, I, I have to also echo the other, uh, comment. Even, even after I, um, I re-lit the second cigar, the, the smoke output was just, it, it, it kind of takes away some of the experience, you know, when you're smoking something that delicious, you want to feel it a little more.
And the, the combustion is something that helps elevate that experience and, and that was just missing. Um, uh, so great score nine. It's a wonderful, it's a wonderful cigar rooster. And, um, you know, I'm, uh, [02:16:00] very happy to have smoked it, so it's a nine for me. Solid.
Gizmo: What cigar are you rating? Are you rating the first grinders or are you rating yours?
Bam Bam: I'll rate the first one, but the second one's actually very nice. Really? Yeah.
Gizmo: Okay.
Rooster: Which one's better?
Bam Bam: The first one. So I've only had two, sir Winston's. Really? Yeah. I have a bunch at home. I took one out of the box and I smoked it. It was incredible. And the one tonight was, no, no, no. You had, you and I had one in
Gizmo: Havana.
You and I had one together. You paid like a dirt cheap price for, we paid like $25 for it.
Bam Bam: Okay. So this will be my third, sir Winston?
Chef Ricky: Yeah. Third and a half.
Bam Bam: Yeah. That one was, that one was good, but it was a little wet. Yeah. Um, but the one I had outta my box, the one tonight were both exquisite. They were incredible.
Um, you know, you don't often get banana and graham cracker all in one experience. And for me, the, the draw was a little snug, but I happened to like that. I got pretty good combustion airflow wasn't as voluminous as I would like it to be because the more airflow you get, the more flavor that you get.
Right. [02:17:00] And more combustion too. Um, but with all of that said that you, it's so unique, it's so elegant and creamy and all those things that you guys have discussed. But I, I, I'm at a strong 10. Um, I wish I had more of these to smoke, but because of how incredible it is, you have to kind of savor them, so, and save them.
So I'm at a strong 10.
Gizmo: All right, boys. The formal lizard rating tonight on the H Up. Man, sir Winston, from Cuba. Is a 9.6.
Bam Bam: Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: What do we think about that score?
Bam Bam: I'm not that happy about it. I think it's a perfect score. I think it's a perfect score
Gizmo: for this performance tonight.
Rooster: Yeah. Nine eight would be good.
Well, there were some issues. A couple of guys had issues with the cigar, so
Gizmo: Yeah. Yeah. But I would honestly say if I had to put a, a decimal in mine, I would say this was a 96 point score. Yeah. It wasnt a 99, it wasn't a 99 or a hundred. Okay. Like it was, it rounded. I rounded it was a 96. That's perfect for me.
I think
Grinder: even with like the second cigar, I'd still rate a nine. Like I'm rating that second cigar a nine because of the reasons I cited. Right. The, the smoke output was, was left, left wanting. Right. [02:18:00]
Gizmo: Hmm. Alright boys, let's compare that to the other H up and cigars we've done on the podcast. On episode six we did, the Magnum 46 scored an 8.1 on episode 40, the famous H up man.
Number two, the LU 14 scored a 9.8, so that got the 98 you were looking for bam. Correct. That was a great cigar. It was on episode 62, the bam bam accountability hour. H Up Magnum 50 scored a 7.6. Sorry ba I always remember that when we talk about H Up, man, I always remember that episode. Of course you do.
On episode 72, 10 weeks later, H Up man, Robusto Anado scored the same score as this 9.6.
Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: On episode 86, we started the connoisseur series, the connoisseur A scored a 9.2. Then a few weeks later on 96 we did the connoisseur. One scored an 8.6, then we did the connoisseur B on episode 111 scored a 7.2, not too great.
And then finally on episode [02:19:00] 125 for the connoisseur series, we did the connoisseur two scored a 9.0, then we did the half Corona, the little one on a short smoke special On episode 135 scored a 9.7. So that edged this one out. Didn't we do the probably in value?
Bam Bam: We did. We did do the Kanye you mentioned I missed.
He missed that. Yeah. Okay.
Gizmo: And on episode 153, we did the H Up Man, Royal Robusto, the LCDH, that scored a 9.2 and we did the H up and Magnum 54 on episode 170, scored a 7.9. And finally we revisited the H up number two on episode 192, which scored a 9.2. I think we need to revisit that. Mag 54. I haven't had one of those in a while.
Probably since that episode.
Bam Bam: Yeah. I have a bunch at home. I don't love
Gizmo: it, man. Yeah, I don't like
Bam Bam: that cigar that much. I, I, I think I'm gonna bring my bot. I think they're delicious. Uh, worth a revisit because it s scored so low.
Gizmo: Well, we need Cuban cigars, so that's a great [02:20:00] idea. Correct. And, and the last thing, the price point currently on this cigar, again, I would say you're gonna find it.
I, it's different everywhere. I would say you're gonna find it somewhere around 60 to 70 ish. So it's kind of right in between the Romeo and the Plei dose. This is kind of the middle ground I would say. Yeah, certainly there's much less of these coming out than the Romeo and splendid dose of course is a very, very expensive cigar.
Probably touching a hundred, 110 now.
Senator: No, I say that 'cause it's a steep price point, which is why you want it to be perfect. I mean it's, a lot of money's good enough. It's true.
Bam Bam: And I can see a smoker that hasn't been smoking a long time having this thinking, it's too light. They're not getting enough, they're not taking their time with it to capture the subtleties of it.
And probably not like it,
Rooster: but I almost guarantee the fresh box would smoke really well. Maybe you would not have any draw issues or we'll come over tomorrow, construction issues tomorrow.
Senator: And, and the construction very well could have been the issue with me having the challenge I did in the [02:21:00] first inch or two with flavor, because the second half of that cigar, the combustion was awesome.
And that's when I said I was getting all this concentrated flavor like I was looking for. I struggled with combustion early on, not because my draw was snug for some reason. I mean, you saw I took a, a draw and the smoke output, it was good. It was okay, but it wasn't voluminous like you would expect. And only in the second half did that happen, and that's when suddenly the flavor picked up.
So it could have been a construction thing, maybe not a factor of age, you know, who knows?
Hmm.
Gizmo: Alright boys, we're coming to the end of episode 200. We have to thank some people. First, I want to thank Lizard, Enrique, great listener, email from him. Nice gift, of course, the barbecue he sent us. We really appreciate it and those great questions.
And you know, extend that to all the listeners out there who send us great emails and questions and comments every week. We really, really appreciate it. You add so much to this [02:22:00] podcast. We're very, very grateful. We have to thank Lizard Max, who for many, many moons has been helping us on our social media, taking care of all that for us and putting all that up.
We have to thank him. And of course boys, we have to thank Fabrica five. They have been a great sponsor to us. They're one of the only places you can get a Cuban esque cigar right now in the United States. That's correct. Visit FABRICA 0 0 5 if you haven't, or if you have, and stock up because those cigars are fantastic.
And finally, boys, we have to thank Wizard Nation. Correct. Who have been amazing supporters of this podcast, who share it with their friends, who share it with their family, who sit around and listen to us each week and tell us what they love and what they don't love. And we love hearing from them. So. We have to shout out Lizard Nation Boys.
200 episodes. Pretty crazy. Alright, boys, a great night. Thanks again to our friend, sir Winston Churchill for this awesome pairing tonight. And, uh, we'll see everybody next week. Hope [02:23:00] 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 PO 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.