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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes range from 60 to 90 minutes and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features seven members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
[00:00:00]
**Gizmo:** Welcome to the Lounge Lizards Podcast. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Roosters, Senator, Pagoda, and Bam Bam.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some whiskey, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 112th official invitation to join us, and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We're going to smoke a New World cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our former lizard rating.
We share the ADV origin story, we discuss yet another Fuente Padron legends delay, and we discover a mobile cigar lounge business, all among a variety of other things for the next 90 minutes. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar and enjoy, as we pair old Forrester 1910 Old Fine Whiskey with the Adventura The Navigator in Pinzone.
A Dominican Robusto tonight on the [00:01:00] pod. From a brand called Aventura, it's the Navigator, the Vitola is called the Pinzone, and it's a 50 ring gauge cigar, of course, by five and a half inches long. It's our first Aventura on the pod tonight, boys. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** it's a rather, it's a pretty toothy looking cigar. Yeah, rustic.
Yeah, very
**Pagoda:** toothy.
**Gizmo:** It is. We have a lot of listeners, and actually a lot of guys at our club too, that really, really like Aventura cigars. Yeah. And it's all different kind of varieties. They have a bunch of different lines we can go through, but The coloring of the band, I guess, is a determining factor on the different blends and different things that they have.
And this one's the white band with the blue accents. And then there's the other one that's kind of like a It's black and gold. Black and gold. Yeah. Copper. Copper. Copper.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's a catchy logo.
**Gizmo:** It's an eye catcher. It is. It's really cool. Excited to smoke this tonight, boys. Let's cut this thing. See what we're getting on the cold draw on the wrapper.
**Senator:** Just before you get the cold draw, please smell the wrapper. And [00:02:00] tell me it does not smell like a horse.
**Gizmo:** It smells exactly like a barn. You know, I
**Senator:** Not a clean barn, by the way. This is veering on the dirty barn. I disagree
**Bam Bam:** a bit. I kinda like it. It's a no, you
**Pagoda:** may like it, but it's a bit like a bug.
**Gizmo:** Thank you.
All right. No, it definitely has that musty. It's it's definitely must now.
**Bam Bam:** It's unusual. The
cold
**Gizmo:** draw. I'm not getting much. I'm not either. And mine's a little tight. Mine's wide
**Bam Bam:** open. Really? So there'll be some inconsistent experiences tonight here.
**Gizmo:** Anybody else having a tight one? Mine's open. I'm wondering if I should cut another one because I have one right there.
There you go. Maybe I'll do that, guys. Or just do a guest
**Pagoda:** card. And I think it'll sound
**Gizmo:** nice.
**Senator:** You don't want to try to take
**Gizmo:** more off first? I took a decent amount off, um, but it's like really tight, and I, I have a bunch of them, so I'll just put this aside. I'll perfect draw it later. I won't make the listener suffer through that.
**Senator:** Just leave that for Rooster's cat. [00:03:00]
**Gizmo:** He prefers Stavanov's.
**Bam Bam:** He's a cigar rest. Millennium.
**Senator:** Cigar rest. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** cold draw is pretty nice, guys. Mm-Hmm. So I just cut a second one. Yeah, it's nice. First one was a little tight. I just don't feel like fighting it right now. This is, um, it's interesting. Some dried fruit to touch of it.
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah.
**Senator:** I get a little vanilla on the cold draw. Yeah.
**Rooster:** Like a fig, fig thing.
**Gizmo:** Mm-Hmm, . Alright boys, let's like this thing, the Odd Ventura, the navigator in Penzone. Again, it's a re robusto. 50 ring gauge cigar by five and a half inches long. What's a pin zone. That's the name of the Vitola. I'll have to Google it.
**Bam Bam:** What do we know about the Markham?
**Gizmo:** You know, a little bit, I'll go into a bit of a history in a bit. Uh, the cool thing about it is it's a kind of a blend of. As they say, Swiss and [00:04:00] Dominican traditions, um, the, the one founder, you know, the blender, I guess, is Dominican and the founder is from Switzerland and that's the kind of culture makeup that they're going for in the company.
As they say, Dominican passion with Swiss precision. That's their, their line. Pretty
**Bam Bam:** bold right off the light. Distinct.
**Gizmo:** Very interesting on the light. It's different, right? Yeah. To me, it's not that bold. I don't think it's bold. I just think it's different. I think it's got a unique, a lot of
**Bam Bam:** unusual flavor.
I can't put my finger on it. You getting
**Gizmo:** like spice?
**Bam Bam:** No. Full flavor, like flavor, not
**Gizmo:** body, but flavor. Very interesting cigar on the light. So let's talk about the makeup of this cigar. The wrapper is San Andres Maduro from Mexico. The binder is Sumatra from Indonesia. The filler is a combination of tobacco from Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Ecuador.
The aging on [00:05:00] this, which is why I wanted to grab this one specifically, the raw tobacco is aged around five years, and the cigars are rested five to six months after rolling before they ship. They say it's a medium strength cigar, which I think so far is, on the light anyway, is pretty in line with, uh, with what I'm getting.
Any
**Bam Bam:** flavor notes, Nikola? Not really.
**Senator:** I don't know. I'm just honestly confused by the cigar to start. I'm not getting any distinct flavor
**Bam Bam:** notes. Yeah, like I said, I couldn't put my finger on what it is. It's
**Gizmo:** not bad, though. So their, their notes on this cigar are, they say it offers a bouquet of mocha and roasted nut, and has all of the elements combined, leathery spice, hints of toffee and caramel.
Combined to linger and delight the pallet
**Bam Bam:** could be a potpourri of all those things hitting him at once
**Rooster:** It sounds like you're not getting like a distinct flavor. No, you know, it's hard to pick out.
**Gizmo:** I agree. It's not bad I don't want the listener to think that we're [00:06:00] feeling like this is a bad cigar. I mean, this is a very very approachable cigar and I think the flavor is Robust, but I don't think that there's something specific.
Yeah, as you're saying, I don't think that you can point to one flavor note That's kind of raising its hand right
**Senator:** now. I would just modify that. I don't think you can pick out any flavor note, right? So like sometimes I'm getting a number of flavor notes and none of them is particularly dominant, but they're all kind of there and I can actually name them.
I can't name any of them here. So like, it's just a little odd. I'm, I guess what I'm wondering at this point is either sometimes when you have a cigar like this, You don't get much to start. Nothing's offensive but nothing is really drawing me into the cigar and then all of a sudden it just hits its stride and opens up and you start to really be able to pick out the notes or this could just be muddled and maybe we're not going to get really pronounced notes and obviously that'll be disappointing but the jury's still out.
**Gizmo:** But
**Rooster:** then again, we're naive school boys.[00:07:00]
**Gizmo:** Yeah,
**Senator:** Rooster
**Gizmo:** is on a roll. So Rooster's hot because actually it's gone now. So our friend, uh, he took it down. Well, no, no, no. I'll explain. So, uh, our friend at El Habano, Rob Isla, a good friend of the podcast. Good friend of the program. Um, really nice guy and supporter and, uh, obviously one of the premier tobacconists in the world.
We love Rob. We love Rob. So he puts up each week, uh, a weekly, like a weekend listening playlist. And it's, you know, sometimes it's Cuban music. Sometimes it's music from something else. It's a, sometimes it's a YouTube video he's seen or enjoyed or a documentary. Just kind of weekend. Hey, you know, pair this with your cigar this weekend.
Check it out. Uh, it happened that this past weekend was the Lounge Lizards podcast, and he put it up and said, Hey, you know, check it out. This is what the guys are doing. He put up the episode. I believe it was from two weeks ago, the one with the Buna Havane and I think it was the Ramon Iones. That's right.
Number three was the [00:08:00] one that he shared and we got some great comments on it. And unfortunately you can't see it now, but, but, uh, one of them made Rooster very hot. And he said, The, uh, the gentleman on the, on the forum said I generally, I generally liked their podcast, but sometimes they lack knowledge and seem like excited, naive school boys.
Yowza.
**Senator:** He's out.
**Bam Bam:** I don't think he wants it.
**Gizmo:** Rooster, what are your thoughts on that comment? I just think, uh, I don't know. I want to meet him in person.
**Pagoda:** It's like, uh, I. I believe he probably is an abuelo, you know, he's a geriatric. Could be with
**Bam Bam:** a vast store of knowledge.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, so we, uh, seriously though, we do appreciate the support from Rob and all of our friends over at FOH. Such a great cigar community, you know, it's just the best of the best over there, I think.
Agreed. So are you guys getting [00:09:00] anything from this cigar? So I have to
**Senator:** say, I'm starting to. Yeah, I am
**Gizmo:** too. I'm starting to get mocha. I am too! I was just gonna say, I'm getting a little coffee thing. Yep. Like a little sweet coffee thing. Especially on the nose. I'm actually, I feel like I'm getting that caramel thing, that sweetness that they talked about on
**Bam Bam:** the on the nose, on the burn line, caramel and mocha.
Yep. But on the draw, on the finish, I'm getting almond and nutty for me, not mocha yet. But up front, it's still a little confused.
**Senator:** I get nuts on the finish too, though. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I see that. This could be the most accurate vendor provider, manufacturer provided tasting notes that we've ever had on this podcast.
You know what's funny?
**Senator:** I just, I feel like I've noticed with this cigar, I felt like I had to really light this a lot, like for a while. Yeah. And I think when I lit it, it was very hot. And it just struggled to deliver any flavor at the, I guess, maybe that amount of heat may need to rest. And I just kind of let it hang out, didn't draw it for a while.
And I'm, [00:10:00] I'm, I'm enjoying this in a much slower pace now. And I feel like the flavor is coming out much easier that way.
**Gizmo:** Accurate. Well, I think the cigar, it feels significant in your hand. You think about compared to other Robustos that we've held in our hand, at least the two that I've had, the first one I cut, that's a little tight in this one, it's heavy.
Yeah. Like it's a dense. It's a densely packed Robusto, you know, versus some of the others that we have. Think about this compared to an Exclusivo. This weighs probably 25 to 30 percent more than an Exclusivo does. Have you retro hailed yet? I have, and it's pretty good. It's like good age Dominican tobacco, you know, I know it's a combo of a bunch of things, but it's a bit
**Bam Bam:** sharp for me, which is unusual because I retro every draw of every cigar that I have.
It's a bit
**Gizmo:** sharp. I don't disagree that it's sharp, but I don't dislike it. No,
**Bam Bam:** I can't. I can't say I hate it. How much is a cigar?
**Gizmo:** So this is 10 bucks. Oh, wow. Yeah. 10 pretty moderately. Yeah. And that's actually, I'm not counting Atlantic VIP, I think, which I got it even [00:11:00] less. You know, Atlantic is such a great retailer, but, um, the normal price that you could find these anywhere is somewhere around 10, you're probably going to maybe, maybe in the city, they'd probably be 13 or 14 with all the tax, but these are generally around 10 bucks pretty well priced.
Yeah. I think it's a fair price for this. So the navigator line from Aventura is the second line, uh, from ADV, which is as they show on the band here is kind of their, their nickname for their company. ADV it, they say it's the most complex of all the blends, which is, I'm assuming why we've had so many.
Listeners recommend this specific line, the Navigator. Again, we read the tasting notes. There's four different Vitolas in this line. There's the Ponce de Leon, 6x60. That's a big cigar. The Francis D, 44 ring gauge by 6 inches. The Cabral, which is a 54 ring gauge cigar by 6. And the Pinzone, which is a 50 ring gauge.
By five and a half, which is what we're smoking tonight. They have quite a bit of [00:12:00] lines over there at ADV Ventura. They have seven. They have the Explorer, the Conqueror, the royal return, the Barbara Roja invasion, the La Laona . I can't, I knew it was gonna get me. I knew Schoolboy . I knew why. I'm excited though.
I've been
**Bam Bam:** waiting for this, by the way, all
**Gizmo:** day. I know you have the peace of heart and of course, the navigator that we're smoking now, so. We'll see how this does tonight. But like I said, we've gotten a lot of listener requests for adventure. So I'm glad that we are, uh, we're doing it tonight. So the company was founded in 2016.
Uh, like I said, it was founded by a Swiss. National Swiss cigar retailer named Marcel Noble and Henderson Ventura from the Dominican Republic, which is pretty cool that the founder is from, you know, is from Europe and master blender that he founded the company with is out of a Dominican, which is. That's a pretty unique thing.
I don't think we've ever heard of anything like that. I don't [00:13:00] think we have. It's like,
**Senator:** uh, it's like H. Utman. Like Dabadov.
**Gizmo:** He was a German banker, right? You know what it is. Dabadov has the same thing, you know. Switzerland, yeah, yeah, that's
**Rooster:** true. Henrik Kellner and then Eliados. Mm hmm. So they're, they're all,
**Gizmo:** they're both Dominicans.
So their branding, like I, you know, as you kind of got from the, uh, different lines, the different markers that I listed under their brand, it's often Has themes of like exploration of adventure when you go on their website, there's like a pirate So that's kind of their thing is like exploring and adventuring through different tobacco and blending and you know Providing the smoker with a bunch of different experiences and they're always using tobacco from different countries Like we said Dominican Republic Ecuador Nicaragua Mexican rapper on this one Indonesia, which is in this one.
So they're sourcing tobacco from all over the world And just trying all different kinds of blends to kind of come up with what they're hoping is a, uh, a dynamic flavor profile. You said
**Senator:** for this cigar, Mexican wrapper. [00:14:00] What about the binder and filler?
**Gizmo:** Mexican wrapper's from San Andres. It's Maduro. The binder is Sumatra from Indonesia, and the filler is a combo of Dominican Republic.
Nicaragua and Ecuador. So there's five different sources of tobacco in this cigar we're holding right now. They've traversed the earth for their product. And that's what I was thinking about. Think about how many miles that tobacco, those, those bales of tobacco have been. But you'd
**Bam Bam:** have to know what you're going to get from that product that you're sourcing from all over the world.
How do you know that? Mm. How long? 2016? This
**Gizmo:** has been out? Not very The company was founded in 2016. So, they haven't
**Bam Bam:** been out very long. They
**Gizmo:** haven't. This cigar is, this line I'm thinking is 5 years old or something. Yeah, they're
**Bam Bam:** buying product from all over the world. How do they know what They're going to produce, right?
Yeah, it's an experiment. It is,
**Senator:** but at the same time, you know, how young this company is, they're benefiting from all the people who have done this before. So like, we've had cigars that have, you [00:15:00] know, tobacco from Indonesia and all these different places that Are certainly not as prominent as like Dominican or Nicaraguan tobacco, but I'm sure.
Oh well that makes sense. They're trying others.
**Bam Bam:** They're sourcing product where others have sourced in the past. For sure. So that makes sense. I
**Rooster:** mean, I guess the founder just says, listen, I'm looking for this kind of a cigar with this, these kind of flavor notes and the blender tries to blend it, put it together and you know.
without a prototype. You go
**Gizmo:** from there. Yeah. And I mean, you know, from my own experience, just experiencing the tasting panel with the guys on F. O. H. As they develop the various cigars for bon roberts, friends of El Habano, the mofo lines, you know, just seeing their process through the last year of how much iteration they do.
You know, they send us one of the cigars and it's like, this is blend 47. This one's blend 98. This one's blend number three. It's just a constant, you know, roll it, smoke it, does this work or not? And then you're hoping that it's going to age and change and become even greater. You know, do [00:16:00] they tweak it
**Rooster:** like after, after your inputs?
**Gizmo:** They did. Yeah. So there were actually a few of the cigars. I think we got eight or 10 originally, and then they constantly, it was a constant flow for about eight months of the year. And then we'd get on zoom every Sunday night, the tasting panel. I think it was eight or 10 of us and we'd get on and discuss everything.
And there were a few cigars that it just didn't resonate with us. And then we would, you know, they would go and make adjustments and send us new versions of breaking news. I got
**Senator:** to tell you, we have, we have a wag.
**Bam Bam:** So from bam, the Mocha just hit me, I haven't liked the cigar the moment I lit it, but now it is getting better and better.
And that Mocha literally the last two draws delicious. And it's a, it's very surprising.
**Senator:** I, I agree with Bam, so I, I had the same reaction. I mean, first smelling the wrapper, smelled like a, a heavily used barn, not my, my speed. On the light, I wasn't getting any flavor, just tobacco, essentially. But as I'm smoking this now, well into the first quarter, approaching the first third, the [00:17:00] notes are becoming much more defined.
It's smooth, it's enjoyable, and I think the thing I appreciate the most, it's unique. Yeah. Like, I would not compare what I'm experiencing right now to any other cigar I've had. I
**Bam Bam:** totally agree. The mocha I'm getting here, I haven't ever had in another cigar. I just haven't. Yeah. It's a little unusual and I, for me, I have to smoke the cigar very slowly to capture that.
Very
**Gizmo:** slowly. So what is happening when you speed up? When you're going too fast, what are you experiencing that's different? So when I'm
**Bam Bam:** going very slow and I retrohale, it's smooth and it's delicious. But as I go quickly, I get that burn, right? The bitter taste. It's bitter. It's bitter through the retrohale and it's actually bitter on the draw.
So this guy needs time. You've got to take your time with the cigar. Yeah, I think
**Pagoda:** the same here. I think for me, the aroma is so much more distinct as opposed to the taste. And I'm getting there. And, uh, yeah, so I've just been waiting for that mocha blast too. But, but I can see, I [00:18:00] can see, um, you know, it's becoming a little sweeter.
Uh, and, uh, but I haven't been able to really define what the flavor
**Gizmo:** is. Yeah,
**Rooster:** it's just, it's just changed a little bit. It just became a little sweeter, like you said. I don't
**Gizmo:** remember, like,
**Bam Bam:** it's almost like a threshold that you pass. I don't remember many cigars where you're, you hit a wall and it improves.
I haven't had that experience so dramatically like this.
**Senator:** I just give them credit because I know we've smoked other cigars on the pod where there's tobacco from Indonesia, which I like single out as something pretty exotic. That's got to be in 10 percent of cigars, probably, just guessing. And I don't recall us ever loving a cigar that had, like, such a crazy mix of different tobaccos.
The one exception being the Pledge of Allegiance, that EP Creo cigar. But this is just really well done. I'm, I'm genuinely surprised and I am
**Gizmo:** enjoying it.
**Rooster:** You know, it's also, a lot of the coffee growing regions are also, like, really good tobacco growing regions. Nicaragua, Dominican [00:19:00] Republic, Cuba. Sure.
**Gizmo:** You know, Indonesia.
Sure. Yeah, it's interesting.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, they have the weather right for
**Gizmo:** that. Yeah. Yeah. And the soil. So, you know, what else is cool, too? I want to mention this about the blender Henderson Ventura from the Dominican. He's actually one of the youngest Master blenders in the entire tobacco industry. I think he's in his twenties, which is pretty cool.
Yeah, that's impressive. So the other thing too, I wanted to note is that, uh, the cigars from Adventura are rolled at Tabaclara William Ventura factory in the Dominican Republic, which is where cigars from brands like room 101 and Caldwell cigar come from. So they don't have their own facility. They, you know, they are outsourcing there like many other manufacturers are.
Yeah. Yeah. I think this is really interesting. I, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's not often that we're stumped on flavor profile and experience, but I think that it's, it's getting better. It's getting [00:20:00] better. It's, it's piqued my interest
**Bam Bam:** so far. I'm also surprised at how bright white the ashes and the burn
**Gizmo:** line is.
Yeah. Test
**Bam Bam:** structurally sound. It's very well made.
**Senator:** Yeah. I mean, everybody just like razor sharp burn. That's awesome. I'm impressed with the construction.
**Gizmo:** So I've had these probably for about two months now in the tower. So they've probably been sitting at about 65. But, you know, I think, I think the construction on this cigar is excellent.
I mean, and that ash isn't going anywhere. Like, I'm very confident that it's not going to be all over me, you know?
**Bam Bam:** Well, you look very confident.
**Gizmo:** You're always very confident. That's true. That's true. Stupidly. Stupidly. Never stupid. So, boys, I think we have to tell the listeners, and just in case it sounds a little different for any reason, this is our first podcast, and this is episode 112.
Yeah, man. The Gizmo Lounge. We are in the Gizmo Lounge. The Hismo lounge. Hismo. This is the first time, uh, we've recorded here, 1086 had some stuff going on tonight for the holidays. And, uh. I love it [00:21:00] here. You like it? I love it here. What's the, what's the, what are the pros and cons, boys? Hit me. I mean, it's,
**Senator:** it's sponsored by Kirkland, by Costco.
We've got Kirkland water. He offered
**Bam Bam:** us Kirkland coffee. We have a part owner right here.
**Gizmo:** Roosters, uh,
**Rooster:** and the biggest thing is you don't have to pack any equipment and
**Gizmo:** put it away unless. That's true. That's true. No loading, unloading. That's nice.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It is a longer drive for us,
**Gizmo:** but that's okay. I've
**Bam Bam:** been doing it for a long time.
You have. You know, you deserve a break. You do. Honestly, it's very peaceful. It's a good option. Yeah, a very good option. I'm finally sitting
**Pagoda:** in a comfortable chair.
**Bam Bam:** That feels good. Well, you two guys have the leather chairs, I see.
**Gizmo:** Not strategically planned. Yeah, so I have two Adirondack outdoor chairs. Um, I don't know what you would call that, like a composite wicker, composite wicker or something.
And then my two, I have two matching recliners that are always in the Gizmo Lounge here that I use and I, if a guest comes or whatever, uh, you know, Mrs. Gizmo's dad often is here. Um, so I have the, uh, the matching recliners for [00:22:00] the This is very comfortable. Those are good chairs, actually. Absolutely. Yeah.
And it's heated. I just feel like the, the garage setup when
**Senator:** we're recording anywhere, I mean, even when we're recording at our clubhouse, you know, there's other people around, it's easier to get distracted. I feel like when you're, Gizmo's, my place before it, like, it's just, you're so focused on the cigar, what we're
**Bam Bam:** doing.
The Senator lounge, that was. Fantastic. And I'm feeling that Sam reminiscing today. Oh, that's good. Like you said, we can focus on ourselves and just us. Yeah. No interruptions. Yeah. That's
**Gizmo:** a nice change. It is. It is. That's good. Well, it's a good option to have here, you know? Oh yeah. We'll be back tomorrow, Giz.
Hey, listen, you know, I'm going to be here. So boys, let's talk about our pairing tonight. I'm a little nervous about this because like the cigar. Must we talk about it? Yeah, we must, Bam. Alright. It had a little bit of a funky nose on it. Kinda like the barnyard in the cigar when I took a whiff [00:23:00] when I was pouring it out of the bottle, I was a little nervous.
**Senator:** So, I had the same reaction from the bottle, but when you put it in the glass and you put some ice in there, then smell the nose. I mean, it's very traditional bourbon. Yeah, it
**Gizmo:** is. So what are we drinking? We're drinking the Old Forrester 1910. Right.
**Bam Bam:** Straight bourbon whiskey. Straight bourbon whiskey. 93 proof.
**Gizmo:** Mm. Mm hmm. Let's try it. It's kind of boring. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** it's, I don't know, it's a little medicinal to me. It's a little boring
**Gizmo:** to me. Like, I'm not getting a lot of, it's not rich,
**Senator:** you know? I, I don't know. I have a slightly different take. I mean, I'm not loving it, but I don't get medicinal. I can see why you said it's boring.
I mean, it's very, to me, it's just very traditional bourbon, but it leans on like the earthier, woodier side of bourbon, not the like aggressively, like. sweet, heavy corn based bourbon, so [00:24:00] I like that it's more balanced and not super sweet and a little bit dry. It's not that
**Bam Bam:** exciting. I would not drink this in a winter.
For me, this would be a spring, maybe even summer drink with ice. Because there is some refreshing elements to it that could work during that time of year.
**Senator:** Interesting. I kind of
**Gizmo:** feel the opposite. Not me. Well, I've, I'm agreeing with Bam. I, I just, I don't think it's very viscous. It doesn't really coat my mouth in the way I'd want it to, especially like you're saying when it's cold out like it is now.
**Bam Bam:** It to a, you know, a warmer time
**Senator:** frame. Okay. That makes sense. So then we're, we're thinking of it differently. So agree that the, there's not enough body. To make this that attractive for the fall or winter for me, just the flavor profile, the like earthy woodiness of it. I get that. I like that. Yeah. And I get that on the finish.
That's for me, like a very fall. Like I think of like, you know, the leaves and the trees and I like, like a woody spirit where in the summer, like I want something that's more like floral [00:25:00] fruity. But on
**Bam Bam:** the front, on the front, I get a lot of floral and fruit on the front. On the finish, it gets smoky and woody for
**Gizmo:** me.
You know, I, again, I don't think I put a lot of ice in it. Maybe four or five chips. I really didn't put that much. It just isn't, it isn't delivering much for me. How much was this bottle? Try, try it neat
**Bam Bam:** also. This I believe, if I remember correctly, 46.
**Gizmo:** Okay. Not expensive. And you said it's 43 proof? Or excuse me, 93 proof?
Okay, but do you get
**Pagoda:** the coffee now? I, it's become coffee and I think the sweetness is subsided. It's good. Um, Earthy, more earthy for you. Yeah, more earthy coffee, kind
**Gizmo:** of a,
**Rooster:** I mean, for me, it's hard to distinguish what's mocha, what's coffee, what's
**Pagoda:** cocoa. Yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't know. It's coffee for me.
**Rooster:** You know, like, how do you, I mean, how do you, what's, what is mocha?
**Gizmo:** Mocha
**Senator:** to you is what? To me, to me, it's when it's like coffee meets chocolate. Yeah, that's exactly what it is for me. So
**Gizmo:** you mean like a sweeter? Yes. Sweeter,
**Senator:** a sweeter coffee, not a bitter coffee. Yeah. And yeah, no,
**Bam Bam:** that [00:26:00] makes sense. And you're
**Gizmo:** capturing
**Senator:** like milk chocolate, right?
Yeah. But with some coffee notes that like makes it
**Pagoda:** make sense. And by the way, I just had a mocha.
**Bam Bam:** Okay.
**Gizmo:** He's got a Starbucks cup. I didn't even see that. All right, boys. Let's talk about a little history here of old Forrester. Found some cool stuff about it. They have an interesting history. I mean, number one, it was first introduced by a guy named George Garvin Brown in 1870, which is pretty incredible.
They claimed to be the first bourbon sold exclusively in sealed bottles. Which they say is an innovation that signals its authenticity and quality at a time when whiskey was commonly sold in barrels or jugs and buckets and buckets. It's produced by the Brown Foreman Corporation, which makes a bunch of other spirits.
Pretty incredible. Actually, Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve, Finlandia Vodka. And here come the pronunciations. Cham board. [00:27:00] Sham, sham, sham Board. Oh Lord.
**Senator:** What is, oh my gosh. Board. Every tennis fan is just so upset hearing this. It's a round bottle.
**Gizmo:** There's more to come here. That's what's in the HoneyD Deuce at the US Open.
Oh, okay. Come on. Geese. Ben Riak, Glen Ock and Glen Glass Auw Scotch Whiskeys. Will Will the will the El El Heor and Herradura. That's That's one I know. Yeah. Corbel Champagne. They distribute that a sparkling wine, Canadian mist, which is a Canadian whiskey, Slon, Slon, a or a slain Irish whiskey and Ford's gin.
Obviously the big ones out of that Jack Daniels and Woodford Reserve. And it's funny. We were actually talking about Woodford Reserve the other night because our friend at the lounge, Lizard Henry. Was making us old fashions with Woodford. We haven't reviewed that. It was, we, I think we, no, we've done Wood.
Woodford. Have we? Woodford, yeah. A while back. A while back. It is such an excellent bourbon When, when [00:28:00] mixed to the spirit. Mixed. Yeah.
**Senator:** Woodford is gotta be the best mixing bourbon period. I like the bullet bullet, but I was gonna say bullet is like the only other one that would compete with it. Like those two.
It's in every cocktail and they're just delicious. And Woodford to its credit, I mean. You know, you've heard me bitch and complain about the like drink options on flights and as they've become lower quality and more limited. UC Woodford Reserve, as opposed to like Dewar's White Label, I'll drink Woodford over ice any day over like a scotch that claims to be, you know, legitimate that like Dewar's White Label is not.
So, um, yeah, I give a lot of credit. Those are just really accessible bourbons. And the funny thing is, There was something is when you were sending around some of the history on this, I know this can't still be the case because I'm pretty sure that it's Woodford or bullet. Now that's like the official of Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Derby.
But apparently this used to be which that's pretty high praise. I mean, you know, [00:29:00] like these are you're at the Kentucky Derby like a mint julep. You're not going to put a bad bourbon in there. So That's a real endorsement of the brand.
**Gizmo:** Sure. But I think that this would mix very well. I just think with a little ice pairing it with, you know, a medium cigar like we're having tonight, it's just not no standing up like it should be.
I think I, I totally agree with you. And the other problem too, and I think we're spoiled a little bit, well, last week or the week before we did Weller True, which ended up as one of the best drinks we've ever done in the podcast. That was fabulous. It was incredible. And I've actually been thinking about that a lot.
So in my brain, of course, I'm now comparing. The Weller that we had the special reserve to this 1910 from Forrester's, it's just not, they're not in the same league.
**Senator:** That Weller was the first bourbon that I purchased after we reviewed it for sipping consumption. Yep. In I don't even know how many years, I mean probably 10 years.
Since I would have like bought a bourbon to sip, [00:30:00]
**Gizmo:** it's also twice the price, right? It is well on the primary market. So if you're fortunate enough to get Weller. you know, from an, from an actual retailer that you're getting a direct, I think it's 20 or 30. You can't find it. You can't find it. Now, if you're in Kentucky or Texas, I think you might be able to get a little easier than we can.
It's like a Rolex. Exactly. It's true. It's actually true. The secondary market is, is crazy. And it's funny, you know, we, we talk about this kind of false scarcity. I think we talked about that a little bit with the Weller and we've talked about that with Eagle rare. And we've talked about. Blanton's and some of the other stuff.
It's this false scarcity that these manufacturers create. Just charge the price. It needs to be, you know, eliminate the secondary market and just make more of it. It's
**Senator:** really a crime because. Look, if scotch started doing that, I would be so disappointed. I mean, it would legitimately impact my purchasing habits.
Agreed. Because I would just be pissed off. There's no reason for that. And for scotches that need to be aged 12 year, 10 years, I should say [00:31:00] minimum, right? The overwhelming majority are 10 plus. Mm hmm. These bourbons are only aged for a few years. Yeah. There's no reason that they can't be producing in that volume.
A hundred percent agree. I mean, it's
**Gizmo:** just silly. But do you think
**Pagoda:** that's why, like, at least in the Northeast, at least, uh, I find a lot of the guys to be drinking a lot more scotch because the availability is still greater than really good bourbons. And, uh, you know, It's a good point. It's, uh, it's just interesting because if you were to speak to a lot of the guys, they don't mind trying bourbons.
Uh, and especially with cigars because they tend to be slightly sweeter. There aren't many good ones.
**Senator:** No. No, it's so true. I mean, guys I've met that are like really, really serious about bourbon, deep down the rabbit hole. These guys all, the way that we have like online groups that we, uh, buy and sell cigars on that are a very smaller, you know, limited group, they have that for bourbon.
Yeah, they trade. They [00:32:00] do. Yeah. It's, it's crazy. Yeah. Crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. And I, and I say that because. It shouldn't sound crazy because we do that with cigars, but there's no other spirit that I'm aware of that does that.
**Bam Bam:** There is a Scotch, a lot of Scotch clubs that do that as
**Senator:** well. A lot. You can get every, I have never encountered a scotch that I can't find.
Apparently
**Bam Bam:** there are some extraordinarily rare old scotches in the world
**Gizmo:** that people pursue. Oh, yeah. I
**Senator:** mean, if we're going to spend 10, 000, 20, 000 on a bottle, sure, there's that kind of craziness. But I mean, for stuff that like most people, you know, wouldn't pursue and spend, there's none of that with scotch.
I mean, you can buy it all on a shelf somewhere at a liquor store, you know, near you where The fact that you can't pick up so many of these bourbons that people are literally having to trade and ship this stuff all around the country and even the world. I mean, I, I have a friend who literally has someone he knows in Italy that is, and it's crazy to think he, this story was so wild.
Someone in Italy who has an easier time getting their hand on some like, Ultra, ultra rare, [00:33:00] expensive bourbon than he does here on the East coast of the United States of America and has to pay to go get it there and ship it all the way over here to him. I mean, that's wild. So
**Gizmo:** what, what, what is the mechanism that's doing that?
Is it the manufacturer trying to inflate the market here in the States? Do they have some sort of, it could be licensing agreements, distribution. I don't know. I mean, I don't get it. The thing that's
**Senator:** strange to me about the whole thing is just. You know, the manufacturer is just charging a fixed reasonable price essentially to everyone who's eventually going to, you know, sell it right and distribute it.
They're not getting a cut of that outrageous, you know, markup that's being put on these bottles because they're limited and there's such high demand. So I, I just don't know like why the manufacturer, why the distiller wouldn't just try to aggressively increase production and just grow their overall pie.
Like they're not getting that extra markup. Yeah, that's only benefiting, you know, the local liquor store or the
**Gizmo:** distributor. [00:34:00] It makes no sense.
**Pagoda:** Unless it's regulated or something,
**Gizmo:** or they have some kind of specifications. The bourbon thing in Kentucky is weird. I mean, The one part
**Senator:** of it that's problematic for me, these people, retailers should not be able to price gouge.
I mean, the fact that like, I can't believe hearing that some of these bourbon bottles are only 30, 40. That's the MSRP. Most scotches we drink aren't anywhere near that cheap. Yet, they'll resell these. For like 90 a box. I mean, that's just that's crap. They shouldn't be able to do that. You don't see that with scotch, right?
Like a McAllen 12 now retails for what like 80 75 bucks. The most even if you're in New York City or somewhere expensive, you'll see it for 90. You're not going to see a McAllen 12 for double the price. No, anywhere in the United States, at least certainly internationally,
**Gizmo:** you will. I have an interesting anecdote that ties to this, that just happened to me this past week.
So I was transacting some cigars with a guy on one of our groups, and I was just moving some stuff that, that I just [00:35:00] needed to make space, space in my humidor for some of the, um, the Cuban customs that we brought back with us that have been in Tupperware. I want to move in my humidor. So I'm making some room.
So I'm, I did the transaction. I moved some stuff and he goes, you know, are you a flipper of cigars? I said, honestly, no, like this is probably the second or third box I've transacted all year. I just don't do that when I, you know, I think that speak for all of us. Like when we get something in our human or the intention is to smoke it, we keep it.
Yeah. Yeah. We keep it. And he goes, you know, well, I'll be honest with you. He said, I flip bourbon on the secondary market. He said, I buy it real cheap. I sell it for three or four times this. And he said he finances a trip to Aruba every year. Three or four times the price? For his entire family. He finances an entire trip to Aruba for his entire family just by transacting bourbon, you know, in his spare time on the weekends.
Wow. On, on, on some of the groups that he's in. Wow. And it's just like, it's crazy to me that, like you're saying, Forget the ethics of that. We don't need to [00:36:00] distill that down. But it's crazy to me that the manufacturers leave that money on the
**Senator:** table. That's the thing. And again, I actually don't have a problem with individuals doing that.
Like you can't ever prevent that. That's impossible. That's going to happen in every consumable good in history. If there's
**Gizmo:** demand for it, good for them. Right.
**Senator:** The fact that it happens from actual retailers who are authorized to sell this product. I mean, there should be some clause that you just get. It reflects poorly on the brand.
If they're setting the price at 30 or 40 a bottle, it's for a reason. That's what they think it should be worth. And that's what they want it to be at. So it's accessible for people. And if you're a retailer, it's going to double or triple the price. There should just be a strict clause. You cannot exceed 30 percent of the MSRP essentially that we set.
And I think that would keep it a lot more accessible to more people and just the whole process fair now on the gray market. Sure, there'll be individuals who, you know, if you want it now, you'll pay two, three times. But I mean, for an actual retailer, that's
**Bam Bam:** crazy. You stopped yourself from saying it, but it should be regulated.
Yeah, it really should be.
**Gizmo:** So
**Rooster:** [00:37:00] why, I mean, what's the reason? I mean, why can't they produce more? Is it shortage of raw
**Gizmo:** material? I mean, there's not enough rye. I can't imagine. There's wheat, rye, corn. I can't imagine that anybody's having difficulty getting that. Even if they're paying a little bit of a premium, clearly the market is willing to bear that extra cost.
If it's 10, 20%, like we're talking about a three or four X markup on what the MSRP of these, these spirits are. Could
**Bam Bam:** it be a shortage on the bourbon
**Gizmo:** barrels? That's a great question. I don't know what the mech, I don't know what's causing it, but it makes no sense to me. And then you look at the, the real extreme end, like a Pappy Van Winkle, which they re, they release so little of it, and the, the, the secondary market is like 10x, I think, probably, what the MSRP is.
It's crazy. It's crazy. It's like a thousand dollars. I mean,
**Senator:** the only reason that this doesn't change is because the overwhelming majority of these bourbon brands, they're owned by Right. Large companies that have a whole portfolio of bourbon brands. And so for them, it's like, [00:38:00] okay, if I'm moving, you know, bullet and Woodford at an insane rate, I mean, I can't imagine how much in a year gets consumed.
And so they're like, for these other portfolio brands, like, yeah, we want to move them, but Like we have our cash cow, so there's just not the same incentive for them as a manufacturer to like really aggressively ramp up production of that when they're roughly going to be priced, ironically, similarly, even though I think the quality is much higher on like Weller and some of these other brands.
So I think for them, it's like, why bother?
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Yeah. So cool story about the actual, uh, bourbon that we're drinking tonight, the 1910 old fine whiskey, as they call it from old Forrester. So the name 1910 originates that there was a fire on the bottling line, which halted production of old Forrester on October 22nd, 1910 mature whiskey ready to be bottled instead was stored in a secondary barrel.
What came from that. Was a [00:39:00] delightful whiskey, I guess, just from putting it in the second barrel, changed the flavor a little bit. They realized this after the fire and that was the origination of 1910. So now to mimic this, what they call historic bottling, um, they. This expression undergoes a second barrel experience before it's before it's bottled.
So that's difference. Double balance. It's a double barrel bourbon. Now what's funny is I'm not really tasting anything complex or special about this bourbon. Yeah. Like, yeah. You know, you think about some of the scotches that we drink, you can really, you can taste that sherry cask. You can taste that secondary experience, you know?
Oh yeah. The barrel experience. Oh yeah. I'm not getting that out of this. Are you guys? They're very drinkable.
**Bam Bam:** It's good, it's good. It's easy to drink and like I said, for me, I would slot this in if I was given it at a party in the spring and summer. No problem.
**Gizmo:** I agree. To be
**Senator:** clear, I don't think it's bad.
I'm not, I'm not hating [00:40:00] this. But to Gizmo's point, it's not overly complex and it's not
**Gizmo:** all that. It's reasonably priced. It's
**Senator:** true. Like I guess the best way I can say this, if I were given this blind, After even having it now, right? Knowing what this tastes like, I still wouldn't be able to pick it out because it's not distinct enough from other bourbons.
**Pagoda:** I think this would be another really good mixing
**Gizmo:** bourbon as well. Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. Now the price though, how much is Woodford like 30, 30, 36, maybe less expensive than this. Yeah. It's quite a bit less expensive. Yes. And bullets even less than that. And honestly, Woodford on a rocks. I like Woodford.
It's pretty enjoyable. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. But again, for me, I've really been obsessively thinking about that Weller we had. Oh yeah. And I actually got a bottle of the more special one coming, right. The one Oh seven for the podcast. We're going to do that probably in the first quarter of the year. So that'd be awesome.
So boys, we're about halfway through here on the Adventura, the navigator in PINZONE. What do you think? [00:41:00] I like it. I'm enjoying it. It's
**Bam Bam:** just
**Gizmo:** getting better and better. I'm enjoying it. You know, and I'm thinking about where I would slot this in or would I slot this in? And I don't know if I have an answer for that yet at the halfway point.
Like it's not, it's, it's not exciting me enough
**Bam Bam:** yet. Slotting it in at a sit down where you're going to have three or four cigars in the evening? Or just in your rotation? Okay.
**Gizmo:** Am I going to go and buy more of these? Right. At the halfway point, I don't know if I would. Yeah. You know, this, this to me is kind of, you know, where I would put like that, a leave of V that we had, like, that's where it kind of would slot is like a pre Padron, like slotting right before, right before a Padron, probably after a Davidoff of some kind, maybe.
I just don't know if I'm going to get more of these. I don't know. We'll see as it, uh, progresses past the halfway point. Yeah, I didn't love the first,
**Rooster:** like, the initial Neither did I. You know, the first third of the cigar. Then it got better. Yeah. And now it's, like, kind of, I don't know, it's [00:42:00] not, it's not great, but it's not bad.
So would I buy more?
**Gizmo:** I don't know, I doubt
**Bam Bam:** it. I kind of like it now,
**Gizmo:** I have to say. Yeah, it's a good cigar. I think it's very serviceable. And, and here's, I think, the point that needs to be made. I understand Why we've gotten so many emails about the cigar and why people like it is it's really unique. I think in its flavor profile, clearly that blend of five different tobaccos that are in this, it's very, very, it stands on its own.
I just don't know if it's for my palate, you
**Senator:** know? Yeah, I mean, the occasion I'm thinking of, I'm, I'm not at all convinced that I'll, I'll buy this, but you've heard me say this before. You know, sometimes utility of when we do these cigars that especially I've never tried and many of us haven't. It's when I'm traveling and I go into a cigar shop and I have to buy there and they don't allow you to bring in your own stuff.
If I saw this from the first half of this, would I pick this up and smoke it and not be dissatisfied? Be relatively satisfied? [00:43:00] Sure. Would it slide in my daily rotation yet? No.
**Bam Bam:** Well, that's the beauty of what we're doing. We're learning a lot about cigars that we probably never would have tried. So when you're out and about, you find something that you know.
It works if you're stuck without a stick.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, I think, uh, this would be good for like an outdoor event and you have a lot of guys coming out, uh, who want to, you know, just engage in cigars. For ten bucks, not bad.
**Gizmo:** I do think there is value here at ten dollars. I think that's a good event. Like, if you're doing one of your, uh, your events, Bam.
**Bam Bam:** Most of those guys are beginner smokers. They would like this. And I would smoke
**Gizmo:** it with them. And it's very unique. Yeah.
**Pagoda:** I just think the wrapper is so like, it's, it feels corrosive, really, I don't know.
**Gizmo:** When you say corrosive, what
**Pagoda:** do you mean? It's like my fingers are feeling like, you know, the veins, and Oh, it gets rough?
Yeah, it's a bit rough. Yeah, toothy. Very sensitive tonight. Today
**Bam Bam:** I am.
**Senator:** His beautiful skin is being corroded.
**Bam Bam:** It's being punctured by the The [00:44:00] rapper
**Gizmo:** of the cigar. Do we have insurance? Workman's comp, please.
**Bam Bam:** Well, I do have
**Pagoda:** very soft hands. Yes, you do.
**Gizmo:** Very delicate. You use a lot of lotion.
**Bam Bam:** No. Do you wear a glove after you lotion up?
I just,
**Pagoda:** I just grew up in India where somebody else did the work. All right.
**Gizmo:** So boys, we have an update. On the Fuente Padron legends humidor that we talked about. I think it was two weeks ago or a week ago. I don't remember, but, uh, you know, probably the most anticipated release in 2023, for sure. Yeah, definitely the most anticipated I would say of the last few years.
And many years, that's my opinion. There's, you know, this collaboration, we talked about it. Uh, I think it was last week of the week before for the listener out there, long story short, it's a celebration of, uh, of both patriarchs of the, uh, Fuente and Padron families who died, uh, respectively in 2016, 2017.
And each manufacturer is putting together [00:45:00] a Churchill that they're going to release in a combined humidor, 20 of the Fuente cigars, 20 of the Padron cigars, each which honor the other's father. So the Fuente cigars honor the, you know, Jose Padron and the Padron cigars honor Carlitos father, uh, you know, who was a major part of the Fuente brand.
We've been doing this with Carlito for many, many years and, you know, so each crazy humidor, as we talked about, it's going to have 20 Churchill's, uh, of, of each brand and the retail, as we've heard, bam, is going to be about 10, 000 bucks for those 40 cigars. That's what we've heard. So we, that hasn't changed.
However, it came out this past week that unfortunately one of the shipping containers holding these special humidors was extensively damaged on its way. From the Dominican Republic to Fuente headquarters in Tampa, Florida. So what that tells me too, is that Fuente is handling most of the distribution, boxing distribution [00:46:00] movement, the logistics of these cigars.
I'm sure I'm assuming Padron is rolling their cigars and, and freighting them to, uh, Fuente's factory in Dominican. And then they're putting it all together and shipping it here. So one of the shipping containers was extensively damaged and apparently now. The entire release is delayed until sometime in 2024.
So, you know, it's a major blow to the folks like us who are, you know, really curious and interested in this release. But what confuses me is that Carlito put out that on Thanksgiving of this year, a couple weeks ago, they were shipping to manufacturers. So I'm assuming that there's a, excuse me, that they're shipping to retailers.
So I'm assuming that. There's a bunch of retailers out there now who have these humidors stuffed in a storage bin somewhere in the back that they can't do anything with for now, probably three, six, nine months. I mean, who knows how long it's going to take for them to [00:47:00] inspect everything that's potentially damaged and if there is anything damaged to be.
You know, release. So it's, it's, it's, it's a real
**Bam Bam:** bummer. Yeah. It's really bad luck for something that's so anticipated.
**Senator:** Really. I'm disappointed because this could have been great luck for consumers. As soon as I heard this, I'm like 50 percent off. Yeah. Scratch and den boxes.
**Bam Bam:** This would be amazing. I'll get on a plane and go to that damaged
**Gizmo:** container now.
Yeah. See, here's the problem with 50 percent off Senator is you on that episode said your cutoff was a hundred bucks a cigar. 50 percent puts those cigar at 125. That's over your budget. That's over your budget. We're going to need more for us. We're going to need 60 or 70. So I guess what they're going to, you know, what they're saying here, Fuente is saying that each chest, each individual cigar, each portfolio, as they're calling it simply has to be perfect in my entire life.
I've never encountered a shipping catastrophe, the likes of this. This project is about three things passion for a [00:48:00] shared time honored craft, family, two families, and integrity honoring two great men. This project is so much bigger than simply one thing, which is why again, each element has to be flawless.
Also, I guess it has to be flawless if you're charging 250 a cigar. So we'll see what happens, but that's a big blow. I mean, you know, when we go to PCA in March, Um, I guess we'll see if the, uh, the CIGAR is ready for release at that time. You know, timing
**Rooster:** wise, this was ideal. Like right around the holidays, release that.
And now that they're gonna push it, push it again, it might, it might be like till the end of next
**Gizmo:** year. It
**Bam Bam:** could be. We may be lucky and they may release it at PCA.
**Gizmo:** Very well could be. Possibly. We'll see how it goes. I mean, you know, this is gonna put it, now, it's about a year delayed, so it'll probably move to close to a year and a half delayed at this point, which is unfortunate.
So, boys, whatcha getting on the cigar? I've been talking, I'm smoking a lot slower, and like you said, bam, when I smoke this slower, it's definitely [00:49:00] better. It's,
**Bam Bam:** it's much better. You know, I've been going a little quick here and I haven't liked it the past half inch, let's say. So I'll, I'll slow down.
**Senator:** Yeah, it's extremely sensitive to that because I'm in the same camp like I started by saying like I realized I need to slow down and then I was and it was great and then as I've been enjoying it more because I was, I'm starting to draw more frequently and now I'm back to, okay, it's getting the flavors muddled.
I need to slow down. So
**Bam Bam:** here's a question. Isn't, isn't, couldn't that be a mark of a fairly complex cigar that it requires time?
**Gizmo:** I think what my gut, Fairly complex. My gut honestly is the reason why. It's reacting negatively when we draw too quickly or, you know, too frequently is I just think there's a lot of tobacco in it and I think it's really densely packed and I think that when you pull too much, you know, too quickly, you're going to start to get that tar buildup, especially at the head of the cigar here at the cut.
You know, which this might be like some of those lanceros [00:50:00] we've talked about where it needs a second cut. I don't know yet, but I think that might be some of the bitterness that you're experiencing is there's not a lot of airflow despite the combustion being good. There, I don't think there's a lot of air flow going on here, at least in mine.
It's hard
**Rooster:** to believe that the tobacco is aged five years. You know, five years aged tobacco should have, I think it should be smoother. It should be. He's
**Bam Bam:** right. It does not smoke like an aged cigar. I agree.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I just wonder if, is there a lot of Nicaraguan tobacco or what they have in here just needs a lot more time.
But five to six years age, that's what Padron is putting out in the 1926 line, right? You know, as a five year age cigar and that's all Nicaraguan. So it's interesting to blend decisions here with that amount of time, you know, creating something that's a little sharp to use Bam's word.
**Senator:** My guess is that this being a blend of like five different tobaccos.
Yeah. Makes it harder for it to fully benefit from the aging process, where if this was like a [00:51:00] Dominican or a Nicaraguan pyro with five years of age, there's no question it would be smooth. I mean, Davidoff, most of them are Dominican pyros. Pedro, Nicaraguan, Piros, and anything aged four or five years, we would say is wildly smooth that they make.
So I just think like when you introduce like Indonesian tobacco and Honduran and whatever else is in here, maybe it's just that tobacco is a lot sharper and just doesn't benefit as quickly from aging as, you know, maybe that Nicaraguan and, and Dominican tobacco from that soil and just how that whole process works.
**Pagoda:** Isn't, isn't the f Uh, the filler, which kind of drives combustion.
**Gizmo:** Well, it depends. It's, you know, it's certainly the binder and the filler. It's a combo of everything. It's, you know, when, when they're blending this, they're choosing different varietals of the tobacco that have different speeds of, of, of combustion.
Like we learned from Danilo. That's right. At El Laguito is, you know, each different part of the tobacco plant and, you know, various components of it just burn. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** they have a very different rate of [00:52:00] combustion. So exactly some feel part of the cigar burns faster than the other. So the way they wrap it, they hope to gain balance in the burn.
Exactly. Yeah.
**Senator:** Yeah. But, but, but not perfect balance in the sense that it's true. The tobacco that's in the middle of the cigar is intentionally supposed to burn slow. Absolutely. Which is why you have that ash. Exactly. You have the cone from that. So the outermost part of the cigar needs to burn the fastest and they've.
Further, you get to the middle, it's supposed to burn
**Bam Bam:** slower. You know, I don't think we sound like adolescent school boys.
**Gizmo:** We sound excited though.
**Bam Bam:** This is quite sophisticated conversation for that one listener. That's why I took offense
**Gizmo:** to it. Rooster in the connoisseur corner doesn't like to hear that.
How many times
**Senator:** has that listener been to Cuba? That's what I'd like to know. Great
**Bam Bam:** question. Great
**Gizmo:** question. So boys, another piece of news, which is a good thing. And we've talked about this, and I, I think, you know, I speak for all of us, this stuff's really important, uh, the, the, as far as regulation and legislation around this thing of ours, this thing that we [00:53:00] love.
And there's a recent story that there's a new house proposal. Aiming to exempt premium cigars from FDA regulations. So now this is a follow up, of course, to Judge Mehta who ruled that the FDA was overstepping its bounds in trying to regulate premium hand rolled cigars. So now, you know, there's a legislative effort now to exempt completely from FDA's rule, which obviously if this gets through, that would be fantastic.
I'm sure it's an uphill battle. You know, it's a really good thing. So, uh, in the House of Representatives last month, Byron Donald's of South Florida introduced a new bill to exempt premium hand rolled tobacco from FDA's control, which is very much in line with Judge Mata. And of course, the FDA is going to, you know, take this to the grave.
Sure. They're going to run this for the next. 25 years if they have to. And I know Senator could probably speak on this a little more, but you know, it's, um, [00:54:00] it's a good thing to see some of the representatives, you know, presenting legislation to protect this, you know, this thing
**Bam Bam:** of ours. It makes absolute sense, and this is something we've discussed for years when we first heard about this step of legislation.
It makes no sense to lump this product with the flavored cigars and all of the other cigars that you can get your hands on. Makes no
**Gizmo:** sense.
**Senator:** Definitely. The sad thing, the sad reality is that that bill is never going to pass. Sure way. It's, you know, it, and I give them credit for introducing it. It's a great messaging bill.
It's just making a stand like this is important and this is why it should not be treated the same. But is that ever going to get enough votes to not only pass the house, but also pass the Senate? Not a chance in hell. I agree with you. I mean, the percentage of people who care as much as we do about this, I mean, that's tiny.
We
**Bam Bam:** need to re elect Arnold. Here we go. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Unfortunately, he can't be president because, uh, he wasn't born in the U. S. That's true. So, the FDA, as we know, was granted authority to regulate premium cigar business in 2016. In response, of course, the entire industry, [00:55:00] uh, namely the, uh, Trade Association, the Cigar Association of America, sued.
Uh, the USD, uh, FDA significantly. And now it's under appeal after the, uh, as I said, judge made to ruled in favor of the cigar industry. And what I love is that the proposal for exemption cited the findings of a 2022 study by the national Academy of sciences, engineering, and medicine. Uh, the acronym is NASEM pointing out that quote, premium cigars are used virtually exclusively by adults.
Premium cigar use is extremely limited and premium cigar use poses less physical risk than the use of other tobacco products. So of course the FDA is angling that children have access to this, that it has the same effects of tobacco that you inhale or that you put in your lip, you know, that are, that are quite for the entire experience, sitting inside your body in some way.
Obviously with what we do, that's not the [00:56:00] case. What I love is that. Uh, I want to, I want to list this out cause I have, I don't think we've done it. So to be classified as premium in order to qualify for exemption, it has to be wrapped in whole tobacco leaf, contain 100 percent leaf tobacco binder, contain at least 50 percent long filler tobacco, which obviously everything that we smoke on this podcast, we smoke, uh, you know, in this lifestyle of ours is all long filler, premium hand rolled stuff.
Is handmade or hand rolled, meaning that absolutely no machinery was used, apart from very simple tools such as scissors or something, has no filter, non tobacco tip or non tobacco mouthpiece, so the uh, The Philly Blunts that you love, Bam. Those are, uh, unfortunately
**Bam Bam:** not included here. Can you make sure they're blueberry, please?
**Gizmo:** They do not have Oh, wait.
**Bam Bam:** The plastic tip has to be white.
**Gizmo:** It does not have a [00:57:00] characterizing flavor other than tobacco. So I want to hold that one for a second. Contains only tobacco water and vegetable gum. Obviously vegetable gum used to seal the wrapper and the cap and whatnot. And weighing no more, excuse me, weighing more than six pounds per 1000 units. So let's go back to one of these, which I think we've discussed on the podcast before Senator, um, kind of detailed some of the stuff that the cigar association of America was talking about with flavored cigars.
So one of the characteristics here is it does not have a flavor other than tobacco. So that is where the flavored cigars from acid. You know, some of the other cigars out there that are very popular, you, you joked about Blueberry.
**Bam Bam:** But those are all, those are all, they're all machine made cigars. All of those flavored cigars are machine made, the majority of them, especially the
**Gizmo:** lower level sticks.
Is Acid a premium hand rolled product? I believe it
**Bam Bam:** is. It is hand rolled, but the other cigars, like the Philly Blunt and all that, those are
**Gizmo:** machine, yeah. So let's exclude the gas station stuff, but there are some cigars. Yeah, you're right. Like the Acid. You're right. [00:58:00] That are, you know, long filler, every other characterization that we just listed here, you know, is the case, but there is added flavor into it to, to give that smoker what they want.
So that is still a target, but that's not outside
**Rooster:** of this, but that's not done so that the kids, they're not really going after the kids, right? I mean, that's still for adults who like
**Gizmo:** a flavored cigar. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Now, I will say that I think, doesn't the manufacturer, don't they all have to start towing the line and create a distinction in their product?
If they're going to make a flavored cigar, they can't call it a premium cigar. They just can't. And they shouldn't. I
**Gizmo:** think the way that Drew Estate and Senator can talk about this. Let's just focus on Drew Estate with the acid cigars. I think the way that they view that, because I've experienced this with friends of mine, Is it's a good entry product into what we do.
Yeah, that's true. So I have a friend, a very specific friend I'm thinking of who now listens to the podcast, purchases cigars that we smoke, enjoy it. He started with acid. It was kind of like his journeying into understanding what [00:59:00] premium tobacco tasted like. With a little added flavor and then kind of like, you know, a lot of coffee drinkers start with cream and sugar and they start to they graduate way down to just drinking coffee black.
So I think that's the way Drew Estate has approached it. But unfortunately, the FDA looks at that as a big red mark. Yeah, I,
**Senator:** I agree. I think everything Gizmo said is 100 percent accurate and, and the reality is, you know, at the end of the day, if the product is designed only for adult consumption, which as much as I don't personally like acid cigars, they are designed for adult consumption.
They're not marketing them to children and I actually really like the coffee analogy in the sense that like, it's an entry point. I mean, I've met countless people whose first cigar was an acid cigar. And you know, I look sometimes when I'm in a cigar lounge, I see women smoking a cigar. And half of them sometimes I see with like an acid Blondie or something that's going to be like light and sweet and just [01:00:00] like they want the same enjoyment they they want to sit there and have conversation and enjoy a smoke and relax, but they're not used to you know the strength of flavor that we enjoy at this point in our journey and so as much as I don't want I don't particularly care about or care for the product itself, you know, who's the government to say that an adult can't make that decision and, and have that product.
And that's, I think what it comes down to in my conversation with David Osgob, who's the CEO at, at CAA, I mean, that's their point. It's just like, if we're to accept that government can tell someone that a grown adult can choose To smoke a flavored cigar that is only marketed for that adult, then why wouldn't they be able to regulate us and prevent us from smoking these that we do like?
And that's the slippery slope argument that becomes really problematic and that conversation is what made me even come around because I never cared really about what happened with flavored cigars because I don't smoke them. But if they can do that with flavored cigars, then why can't they do it with anything that we
**Gizmo:** like?
And I [01:01:00] think that, you know, another slippery slope too, Rooster, I'm looking at you. Obviously around the holidays you love to smoke a pipe. Right. And a and a lot of pipe tobacco flavored, you know, is flavored. And, and we know a lot of the guys at our lounge at 10 86 and we all love the aroma and we love the aroma and they really enjoy that as a companion piece to their, their regular cigar.
Maybe it's something different or it, it requires a little less time. Is that the next step that we're gonna band? You know, we're going to ban, uh, tobacco for pipes. I also,
**Senator:** by the way, your coffee analogy, I'm the next time I meet with the CAA folks, I want them to start using this. I mean, the reason I say this, just think about this, apply this to kids.
You got to give him
**Bam Bam:** credit. I just did. You better give the CAA guys credit. That's gizmo. No, no,
**Senator:** it's, it's brilliant. But, but here, here's why, right? I want to connect this back. You were just talking about flavored pipe tobacco and I want to go back to the coffee analogy. I mean, think of how silly this is.
Everybody would say that little children should not be drinking coffee and [01:02:00] having a lot of caffeine, right? No one is giving a 10 year old coffee. No. Right. And so coffee is marketed toward adults. But there are kids, of course, who try to have coffee. So are we going to say that we should ban flavored coffee?
Now, again, I don't consume much flavored coffee, but there's nothing wrong with grown adults having a French vanilla roast or a hazelnut roast or all these different flavored
**Gizmo:** coffees. Forget all that loading up with sugar, right? My stepson works at Starbucks. He comes home and sometimes will tell us some of the orders that come through like people order like a, like a, like a Frappuccino with like 19 pumps of syrup.
**Bam Bam:** That beverage is over a thousand
**Gizmo:** calories. And with the, like, it's crazy what these people add to it. So maybe it is a better energy than I even thought. Which I would argue is more dangerous
**Senator:** than any cigar that course it is. It's true.
**Gizmo:** There are also some of the energy drinks that kids are into. Oh, it's awful.
There's a lot of caffeine in them. And, and soda? You know, teens love going to QuickCheck and 7 Eleven, getting the big gulps, you
**Senator:** know. That's why the operative [01:03:00] thing from a regulatory standpoint, we're not sitting here saying nothing should be regulated. Obviously, there is a purpose to some regulation.
The point is, it shouldn't be marketed toward children. And as long as it is marketed toward adults, adults should be able to choose whatever they want.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. And the onus is on the retailer to make sure that they're not selling to minors. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. That's where, that's where the, that's where the line
**Gizmo:** gets crossed.
And I think, you know, I've personally, I've been in a lot of cigar shops. I know we all have. Have you guys ever seen a child in there? Have you guys ever seen a 20 year old? No, no. 25 year old
**Senator:** even. I mean, it's just outside of myself at 20.
**Gizmo:** Well, you're a little different, but I mean, it's just not part of our culture.
It's not part of our culture. You know, it's like. I just think about, you know, the way your taste buds develop moving from adolescence into young adulthood into adulthood, I don't even think you can appreciate black coffee or a cigar until your brain is fully developed. Your, your palate [01:04:00] is fully developed where you're not walking into the, into the grocery aisle, looking to pick up candy bars on the way out.
I mean, it, it, you have to be a little older to do that. I just don't think that what we do here is. Falls under that same thing. Not at all. You know, which is unfortunate. So what's nice too, I was just reading that it has bipartisan support. There's five Democrats, five Republicans who. Are into this bill.
So we'll see if it passes. I doubt it will, like you said, Senator, but, um, it'll be interesting to see what happens, but hopefully, you know, the push keeps happening that the FDA has overstepped its bounds. And I, I'll be honest, I think it has better things to do than worry about what adult men and women are smoking.
In the privacy of their own lounges or homes or garages like we're in tonight, whatever it may be, you know, so boys, we're into the last third here of the adventura, the navigator in pain zone, the reboost. Oh, I gotta say, we're about an hour five into this episode tonight. Yeah, I feel like this [01:05:00] reboost. Oh, has smoked pretty slowly.
Yeah, for 10 bucks for 10 bucks.
**Senator:** I think it goes to your point. You said there's a lot of tobacco in this cigar, which Again, at a 10 price point, I'm sure the temptation for them was to not really pack this all that much, right? That would be better for their business. They clearly have, and they've delivered a pretty complete smoking experience, which I appreciate.
And again, the construction, I mean, I've looked at everybody's cigar all the way through flawless. Yes. Agreed.
**Gizmo:** And it kind of forces you to. smoke slow. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think my draw has a little bit of resistance, which I think is good too. That helps, you know, which, which helps, you know, if it's a wide open Robusto, you're going to blow through this thing in 45 minutes.
And it won't be good. Exactly. No. And I mean, the Oliva V Lancero, which we've raved about, and I know so many listeners have emailed, by the way, I don't know if I told you guys this, told you guys this, so many listeners have emailed saying the Oliva V Lancero has been a revelation. It is a revelation. Like it has for us.
Yeah. Yeah. But for a Lancero, that cigar smokes pretty quickly for me, you know, that's probably an hour, hour [01:06:00] five for me when I smoked that Lancero, which compared to, let's say the Millennium Lancero from Davidoff or some of the others that I smoked, they, they last a little longer, but for five bucks or eight bucks or whatever you get it for, it's an incredible value.
So it's, it's nice that this 10 Robusto is giving us quite a bit of time value tonight. Which I think is important. So speaking of value, I wanted to bring this up cause Rooster's here and he's a little hot tonight. So this is a good one. So Rocky Patel has now shipped a 100 cigar to retailers. That's a great value.
His newest brand I'm still out is called Conviction and it comes with a price tag of a hundred dollars per cigar. Of course it's presented in extraordinary packaging. And he says it's made with the oldest tobaccos that he's ever put in a cigar. All of the leaves are grown on his own farms in Nicaragua, including stuff going all the way, you know, 10 years back, [01:07:00] it's got his oldest filler from both of his farms in it.
It's a 52 ring gauge cigar by six and a half inches, 10 cigars per box, a hundred bucks. Per cigar. That is crazy to me. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, Rocky Patel
**Rooster:** is known for budget cigars. That's
**Gizmo:** what his whole
**Rooster:** portfolio is all about. Right. So for him to come out with a hundred dollars cigar, not even a Padron.
Comes out with that, you know, maybe
**Gizmo:** until now, now, yeah. That's a frantic collaboration though. I think that's on the same, they, they have nothing. I mean, their, their top cigar is like 50, 50 bucks. Yeah. So
**Rooster:** for Rocky to come out with that, I mean, it's, it's, it's a little absurd. I mean, unless it, it's really like, it's an incredible smoke.
I mean, I, I kind of doubt
**Gizmo:** that.
**Senator:** I would just love to meet. The person that's going to go out and buy that cigar. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry. If you're going to spend a hundred dollars on a cigar, I would almost pay just to meet the person that [01:08:00] says, you know where I'm going to spend a hundred dollars on a cigar on a Rocky Patel.
It just doesn't make sense. I
**Pagoda:** have to support my Indian brother, buddy. Hey.
**Bam Bam:** I'm with you, bro. So here's,
**Pagoda:** you know, I think 20 bucks each, we'll get one cigar.
**Bam Bam:** You know, uh, can you pass it down?
**Gizmo:** Everybody take a puff and we'll pass it around. Yeah. You know, to Rooster's point though, it's like, you know, Rocky, the ALR, I forget what the price on that was.
I think it was 18 bucks or something like that. To me, that's kind of a higher end of his range. To, to put that at a five X multiple, like you're saying for 10 years, age tobacco, which by the way, let's just point out again, we go back to Padron all the time. Family reserve is 10 years age, uh, Nicaraguan tobacco, not a hundred dollars.
It's closer to 30. How do you go from an 18 or 20 cigar to a hundred makes no damn sense. I think the point Rooster's
**Bam Bam:** making that it's a little suspect because Padron has many, many years of experience putting out age cigars. Yeah. Rocky doesn't. [01:09:00]
**Gizmo:** Well, it's
**Rooster:** also probably about marketing and packaging. You know, the packaging is probably worth like half the price
**Gizmo:** of that.
**Pagoda:** Please don't worry. It'll be sold for 75 percent
**Gizmo:** off. I just don't understand his mentality. Why not put out a cigar at 50 and in a couple of years, like start to ramp up what your brand perception is. Yeah. Why jump to a hundred? Build up to it. Yeah. Over time. Is it a reaction to the market? Is it a reaction like we talked about with the Fuente Padron thing a couple weeks ago?
Is it a reaction to what the Cuban pricing has done or, you know, global pricing has done that it's like, oh, there's an opportunity here, you know, for me to put out something super premium, that's still a discount versus what you pay for a high end Cohiba. You know, exactly. It makes no sense.
**Rooster:** Maybe he's looking at the Cohiba market and saying like, well, if they can charge like 150 for a cigar, why can't I do the same thing?
I mean, but you know.
**Senator:** Yeah. I think the hard thing, I mean, it goes back, you got to know [01:10:00] your customer, right? Anybody who's buying an expensive Cohiba cigar is 99 percent are not smoking any Rocky Patel
**Gizmo:** cigars. No, never. Of course. By the way, I don't think I've ever seen anyone at our lounge smoking a Rocky Patel.
Same. Even the LR.
**Bam Bam:** Honestly, I go to a lot of lounges. I never see a Rocky smoked. Yeah. I haven't in a very long time.
**Gizmo:** You know, and, and he's notorious for being, you know, he's a clearly, you know, Pagoda and I were talking about this the other night with, with some folks in our lounge, like he's a high volume.
I mean, he's, he owns a significant percentage of the U S market by volume and I think dollars, but it's a lower. It's the lower end of the
**Bam Bam:** market. It's a good business model. Stick to it. Of course. Just stay with that model. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So to see, to see a hundred dollars cigar come, you know, coming out, it makes absolutely no sense to me.
No sense at all. Can
**Senator:** we talk more about where to smoke these cigars? No, I say that because, so Ben mentioned Arnold's name [01:11:00] earlier. Yeah. I don't think we've discussed this, but you saw the Arnold Schwarzenegger, uh, interview with Marvin Schenken in Cigar Aficionado. I, I personally think Marvin Schenken is not a good
**Gizmo:** interviewer.
He's the worst interviewer of all time. Right. He's
**Senator:** riveting. I mean, the Michael Jordan interview, that, that is literally had the potential to be one of the greatest interviews of all time. And it was a complete dud. He just doesn't know how to go about probing on things that are going to be interesting.
The Arnold interview, what I will say, I'll give credit. There were a few moments actually that I thought were really interesting, but we were just having the conversation about. I mean, we're sitting here smoking in a garage, right? We're big proponents of garage smoking. My favorite story from the whole interview was when Arnold was governor of California, he would go to the Capitol very often there in Sacramento to meet with all these lawmakers, right?
Trying to get legislation past the hillside. And For a guy who's a cigar smoker like him, what better way to have conversation and bridge this divide than over cigars? [01:12:00] So he was told very sternly, it does not matter that you're the governor of California. You cannot smoke cigars inside the Capitol here.
So what he did so cleverly. This was publicized by the way. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. He had his team look into the law and it's a certain number of feet
**Gizmo:** from the Capitol. I think it was 25 or 50 feet or something. Yeah. A hundred feet or something.
**Senator:** That you have, it might've been 30 for some reason sticks in my head.
So if you're saying 25 to 50, maybe it's 30. 30 feet from the building that you could smoke. So he had people build a tent. That's right. However many feet from the Capitol that became his like office, essentially, when he was there at the mobile lounge. I mean, it's a desk. He did. And there are, there's photographs of all this when he would meet with legislators there and light up cigars and negotiate over legislation.
And Arnold, in the interview, he says, He said it was game changing. He's like, I would have people on both sides of the aisle sitting there next to me smoking cigars and we could just get down to it. What can we agree [01:13:00] on to make this work? And it was just such an amazing story to me. So it's like, you know, you gotta love the garage setup works.
You can build your own tent and enjoy cigars in them. We saw the other day there was an article about. A truly mobile cigar lounge that's basically like one of these big buses or like RVs that they've like retrofitted into a cigar lounge. Brilliant. That you can hire to come to like an event where let's say you have a significant number of people who don't want to be around cigar smoke.
Don't want to smoke
**Bam Bam:** cigars. That was our idea.
**Gizmo:** Rooster and bam. That's right. About 10 years ago, we had many ideas
**Bam Bam:** never executed,
**Senator:** but I mean, it's, it's a brilliant model to like hire something like that, to come out to an event. Especially if you think of like these events, like you're cooped up indoors in like a big convention center.
Obviously you can't smoke there. Mm-Hmm. . And imagine for people who wanna have a cigar, if you could just kind of dip out and go into this mobile cigar [01:14:00] lounge, enjoy a cigar. I thought it was a brilliant idea. As their business is doing well,
**Gizmo:** I would love it too because, you know, when I go to a concert, I, I'll give you an example.
I went to the Metallica concert at MetLife. Which was a Friday, Sunday, you know, everything that Metallica is doing was two shows this past year. And I think next year, but anyway, it was at MetLife stadium. Obviously I went with a bunch of my friends, a lot of us smoke cigars and it was, it would have been amazing to have something like this where in the MetLife parking lot.
That's what they do at concerts, at sporting events, Jets game, Giants game, whatever they pull up, you rent it. You know, you can go in, smoke some cigars with your friends, hang out. Like, to me, it's the ultimate tailgating experience. Totally agree, dude. I mean, it's unbelievable that that's an, that's an option.
It's called Smoke and Mirrors, R V I P, by the way. And they're out of Smokes and Mirrors, they're in New Jersey somewhere, I don't know where. Atlantic City, I believe. Somewhere in New Jersey, but they'll go to like, you know, the stadiums or wherever. They'll go to your house and pull on the street if you want.
To your [01:15:00] point. I mean, that to me is I'm not a guy who goes to a Jets game or a Giants game or an Eagles game in my case and tailgates. That's not what I do. But if there was a mobile cigar lounge where I could have a few cigars before the game, enjoy the game, come out after the game, have a couple more cigars.
That's heavenly. Yeah. And as a
**Bam Bam:** Jets fan, I wouldn't leave that van.
**Senator:** What's the
**Bam Bam:** point of watching the van. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no football that day for me. No. Not
**Gizmo:** at all. So, Giz, your parents have an RV. Yeah. I don't think, uh, I don't think, uh,
**Bam Bam:** let's, let's trick
**Gizmo:** it out. I don't think that into a lounge. I don't think mom Duke's is going to go for that.
You know what though? I'll give her, I'll give her, you can have her phone number. You can call her and see what you can get done. Good luck with that. But to your point, Senator, I think that, you know, in our lounge experiences is a good example of this, right? This thing of ours, as we always say this, you know, this thing that we love this lifestyle, how many.
impactful, interesting conversations where [01:16:00] our perspective has changed. You know, where you're sitting with folks who this common denominator is the cigar in your hand, who maybe has a different viewpoint than you do on an issue, political or not forgetting even politics in Arnold's cases you brought up, but think about how many times you've sat down with someone and had a really memorable, impactful conversation over a cigar that changed your point of view.
It's like, it's perfect. For, you know, with what Arnold said, that he had this tent that allowed him to get things done because of the shared enjoyment of the cigar, for sure, which is the nature of what we're doing.
**Bam Bam:** And we've talked about this a lot. You know, the, the combustion of a cigar for me, it creates this relaxing environment.
It just, just melt away. And when you have that discussion with, with, with another person, regardless of what the topic is, it just, the discussion flows
**Senator:** beautifully. The other thing it's like, you know, this is what's also common in all of this. You know, a cigar takes time to consume [01:17:00] and how many times have people been in a conversation where they don't like what they're hearing and they just get up and leave?
They have 15 minutes of conversation. I disagree. Okay, I'm out of here. You can't, you're not going to put down a good cigar. No, you're going to spend at least an hour with that cigar. And you think of like some of the more contentious conversations that you can have with a person obviously negotiating policy and You know in a political context as contentious as it can arguably get in california in california You're going to finish that cigar and you're forced to really sit there and talk it all through.
And that, uh, there's brilliance to that.
**Bam Bam:** Yep. Arnold, we love
**Senator:** you. I also, that, that mobile cigar thing. I, I, at some point I, I really hope they, I hope they're at like, there's no reason I guess to be at PCA, but I want to see this thing in action. It's called smoke and mirrors. I have nothing but love for their business.
And you even think of some of the utility, like I'm looking at what they say, sports events. We obviously talked about that's a great utility concerts, concerts,
**Gizmo:** golf, [01:18:00] golf,
**Senator:** weddings. It says weddings. And the funny thing I'm thinking about, I'm like, you know,
**Gizmo:** I would miss the ceremony,
**Bam Bam:** but it's smart because I would miss the Jets game.
**Pagoda:** You know, I'm thinking it'd be great for Indian weddings where you're not allowed to drink. And everybody, everybody in India on the wedding day. Goes out by the parking lot and drinks out of the back of the car.
**Rooster:** They load up their cars.
**Gizmo:** So you
**Bam Bam:** get one of these. Is that a real thing?
**Gizmo:** Every single car. Like
**Rooster:** they open the trunk and it's like a full bar.
And
**Bam Bam:** all the men are hanging out there. Oh, I love it. Imagine adding cigars to that.
**Pagoda:** How great.
**Senator:** You even think about weddings. Like I was thinking about, I'm like, that wouldn't really help. In my case, my wedding, it was obviously indoors, but there was an outdoor component and we were able to all smoke freely, thankfully on the grounds there, but let's say it rained.
Yeah. Yeah. I would have been screwed having something like this. I absolutely would have called if I saw the weather forecast a few days before would have had that mobile RV there in a heartbeat. I [01:19:00] mean, there's just such great utility for this. So I would love to see this in action.
**Gizmo:** I think the key component too, to this for me is weather, you know, like you're saying, if it rained, but if it's in the summer.
You're going to a concert or something. It's 80, 90, 100 degrees outside. You're going to this air conditioned Think of Vegas. I mean, it's a hundred and something degrees in the summer. It could be like a hundred, five,
**Senator:** hundred and ten. No one wants to stand
**Gizmo:** outside and do that. Yeah, it's a really, really good idea.
So, we support this. So, Smoke and Mirrors, our VIP. Check it out, especially if you're in the northeast. I think they travel quite a bit. They'll they'll drive to wherever you are. Um, it's a great business model. Do they have multiple RVs? I'm not sure of that. I'm not sure. They present as if they're pretty busy.
So yeah, they very well may. But I think we might have to do this. We might have to do a concert or something at You know, in the summer or something and have these guys come out and
**Senator:** yeah, it says city to city, state to state. You call us, we show up. Wow. Sounds like they'll
**Gizmo:** go anywhere. Wow. So speaking of going anywhere, we've [01:20:00] talked about this on the podcast before.
I have to say it because it's been again, another iteration of a real incredible Revelation to me is wonder is back. So we've talked about this in the past. Wonder is a, is an amazing restaurant business model where they license, you know, I think it's 15 or some odd restaurants, really, really high end restaurants, recipes, chefs come in, train their people on what to do.
They used to show up at least in our area here in, in New Jersey and New York. They used to show up in a Sprinter van and whatever you ordered on the app, they would cook outside of your home, your parking lot, whatever it may be in a Sprinter van. That model didn't work. We got really depressed. It's coming up on a year, by the way, since they stopped doing that.
I think it was January of, of 23 here. It worked well though. It worked really well, but now they have. Iterated again, and they have open brick and mortar locations in the city. Some of us, for
**Senator:** the record, held out
**Gizmo:** hope and some of us did not. I got [01:21:00] to give you credit. I was a little negative Nancy here on this one, but.
It
**Senator:** could only get better. That was my premise.
**Gizmo:** And it has. So they opened a location near our lounge. It's about a mile and a half away from 1086 Lounge in Hawthorne. They opened in Midland Park and. I have ordered there maybe six times in the last seven times in the last two weeks. It is unbelievable to get a Bobby Flay steak and the sides for 45 bucks, sit at our lounge, smoke a cigar, drink whatever we want, wine, you know, bourbon, scotch, whatever it may be.
And it just enhances this experience of
**Bam Bam:** ours. Yeah. It's a brilliant business model. It's just brilliant to be able to access all that food from one location,
**Senator:** right? That's the thing. There's like two big differentiators because I feel like if you, if you're not familiar with Wonder, you'd sit there and say, well, what's so different about ordering takeout from a thousand other restaurants that are near me?
This is different. The two things, number one, as Bam was saying and Giz, to have 15 different [01:22:00] Cuisines and restaurants in one place. I think Pagoda and I were chatting the other day and he's like, you know, you think about your kids and they always want different things from different places and you're kind of battling to figure out how to, you know, find a happy medium.
You don't have to worry about that with wonder. I mean, one kid can want Italian. The other kid can want, you know, Mediterranean and you're going to get it all right. Chicken tenders and you're going to get it all in one place, pick up. Done. Yeah. So that's a huge thing. And the other thing is huge. You know, there's always everybody would agree.
There's a huge distinction between going to a restaurant and getting a restaurant quality meal at a restaurant and getting takeout. Takeout never lives up to a restaurant quality meal. And I think wonder has done the best job. Of delivering restaurant quality food for takeout. I mean, you get a steak there.
If you put that on a plate, you'd think that you either had to have cooked that in your own home or somehow got that from like a really nice high end steakhouse, like just every [01:23:00] little detail they do, I think really well. They
**Gizmo:** do. And I think the other distinction too, is the price. You know, for me, I order a 10 ounce filet from the Bobby Filet Steakhouse.
I'm able to order sides from the other various restaurants. Forget sides. Start with the steak. Just the steak. I mean, it's incredible. It's 32. For a 10 ounce filet. It's
**Senator:** outrageous. perfectly every time. Any steakhouse, that's going to be 50 to 65 for that same 10 ounce steak.
**Gizmo:** Absolutely. Yep. And the quality is What you'd get in another steakhouse.
It's not dry age. So that let's separate what you'd get at a dry age place. You know, that that's another distinguishing factor, I think, on the quality of a steak, but it's unbelievable to get what you get at the price and then to be able to mix and match as we're talking about ordering sides from other restaurants.
To put together a meal for 45 or 50 bucks that at a place where you're sitting down, you can't smoke cigars, you're adding on the cost of alcohol, wine or whatever you're, you're drinking, it's a third, maybe even a quarter of the price of what you're [01:24:00] paying to, to not be able to smoke a cigar along with it.
You know, so it's, it's been a real revelation and the guys at the lounge are freaking out because it's,
**Bam Bam:** it's everybody's ordering it. It's so unique. Right. To get that. Like I said, the, what's most compelling for me is to be able to mix and match from multiple
**Gizmo:** restaurants. Yeah. One order, you cover everybody in the house, you can get barbecue, steaks, pizza,
**Senator:** everything.
And sorry, the other thing I should have mentioned, it's not just that it's. So many different restaurants and different cuisines. They're really well known, like famous restaurants that you'd have to go travel to that city to go and experience. And good luck
**Gizmo:** getting a reservation.
**Senator:** Correct. That's true.
Right, like there's a place we were talking about, um, there's a place Maidan on there. That is a Michelin star restaurant in D. C. I'm in D. C. a lot, so I've eaten there. The food's unbelievable. If you don't live in D. C. and you want that experience, to be able to literally get that in New Jersey or some other state, that's an incredible thing.
There's so many places on there like that, which is awesome. And they license, basically, their recipes to [01:25:00] Wonder to replicate that for other people.
**Pagoda:** And they do a great
**Bam Bam:** job. Yeah, the
**Gizmo:** execution's excellent. Yeah, it's so consistent. Every time I've ordered It's perfect every time. And the value is just excellent.
It's got
**Pagoda:** to be so easy for Bam, because as we know, he tends to eat three meals at a
**Gizmo:** time. He can order from three restaurants
**Bam Bam:** at the same time. You're not wrong, and I'm proud of it. You are not
**Gizmo:** wrong. So boys, we're coming to the end of our evening here with the Adventura, the Navigator in Pinzone, and the Old Forester, 1910.
What are you guys thinking on the pairing, on either, on both? What do you think?
**Pagoda:** I've enjoyed the pairing, actually. It's really interesting. Uh, um, I don't know, the average rating may be, uh, different, but, uh, overall, I think it's worked for me. It's, uh, I'm not sure whether I'll go and buy either of the two, but, uh, it's kind of worked.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, that's where I'm at is like, I'm interested to see where the ratings end up because I haven't found anything in, in, in [01:26:00] either of, of, of our pairing tonight that is going to make me want to go out and buy them. But it worked. It worked. It was a great experience. I understand why people like both, but for my palate, neither of the two have, have really done it for me.
Yeah. I mean, if somebody gave it to you, you'll smoke
**Rooster:** it. Yeah. You know, or like there's nothing else. You would pick it up and have it. It wasn't bad.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's good.
**Senator:** The same with the old Forester. That's why I think like when Pagoda says, It's good. The pairing really worked. I, I think it does like they're neither, there's nothing offensive to me, at least about either of them.
There's nothing spectacular about either of them, but you know, for just an average night, you, you don't have access to a whole lot and you just want a bourbon and a cigar. Would I be fine having these?
**Gizmo:** Sure.
**Rooster:** Yep. I mean more and more aware of the Cuban prices are going. You're always looking for something.
Well, that's, that's true. Something, you know,
**Bam Bam:** it's funny. You
**Gizmo:** say that satisfaction
**Bam Bam:** out of a new world. Standing in front of my tower, looking for a cigar to pick for tonight.
**Senator:** You're you're unlit tower. By the way, we just [01:27:00] learned this today. Gizmo, you miss this. Can we avoid, he has not put the led lights in
**Gizmo:** all this time.
We need to talk about this. Okay. Come on. You don't have, all right, hold on. We got to end the year. We started the year with the bam, bam and accountability hours. So let's continue. The final episode. And I'm just learning that you don't have the LED lights in your tower. He's got a flashlight on top of the tower.
Takes five minutes to put
**Bam Bam:** them in. It's embarrassing. Pagoda, I'm gonna, I need to have a discussion with you on the side. I'm just too nice. I offer too much information. I gotta keep stuff to myself. I mean, you're not wrong. I do agree with that. What am
**Gizmo:** I doing? How long would it take you to put the lights in?
About 20 minutes. Less. And you haven't found any time in the last 52 weeks.
**Bam Bam:** I haven't. Honestly, I haven't thought about it. The room that it's in, it's really well lit. Um, I have no issues, although I looked at your tower when you opened that door, beautiful, it's beautiful. Thank you, Ben. So I gotta, I gotta get to it.
You gotta get to it.
**Gizmo:** I gotta [01:28:00] get to it. It changes, here's what I'll say about the lighting. It changes the container that your cigars are in from just a piece of wood or a storage container. Turns it into a piece of furniture. Well, everything's illuminated turns it into something that for me, Mrs. Gizmo comes in and goes, you know what?
That looks really nice. Like she's, she's really impressed by it. So it reduces the amount of painful conversation that we have when I buy cigars, because I'm like, look at how good it
**Bam Bam:** looks. Can I get to my point though? I was avoiding not, I tried to not to avoid, I try to avoid going for as many of my cigar.
Inventories as I want now because of the price. Yeah, same here. Yeah, I go from more new worlds recently. And occasionally I'll grab a Cuban. Is it because you can't find them? Because it's so dark?
**Gizmo:** No. No, I mean I'm doing the same thing, Ben. Yeah. I mean, that's why the Oliva V. Lancero at the rating that we gave it was.
I mean, that's entered, I think, all of our daily rotation. I think I've seen each of us [01:29:00] smoking that three, four times a week at least. That's right. Like, that is a regular rotation cigar for five bucks. It points to your, you know, that's to your point. It's like The value is just unbeatable. And for me, I was telling you guys the other day, I think I was telling, I think it was Pagoda and Senator at the lounge.
I'm just, when I look at my, my collection, my D fours, even money twos, I'm just reaching for them less where I used to reach for them on the daily basis. It's now the cost of replacing those cigars and
**Bam Bam:** finding them. It's totally changed. Yeah. And the, you know, the moral of the story, the cigar does have utility.
It does.
**Gizmo:** At least the 10 bucks. Yeah, for sure. All right, boys, it's time to do the formal liquor rating on the old Forrester 1910. Bam Bam, you're up.
**Bam Bam:** So I'm gonna give this a seven. Uh, I liked it. You know, I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me. Okay. Pagoda.
**Pagoda:** Seven for me as well. I'm not a, as you know, I'm not a very typical bourbon drinker as well.
But I think it's very serviceable and, oh yeah, very drinkable.
**Gizmo:** So for me, I'm giving this a six. I've not been impressed at all. [01:30:00] I don't think it has any legs for me. I think the price is unreasonable for what it gives me. Um, I didn't put that much ice in it. It just, it was not for me. I was not impressed at all.
Senator.
**Senator:** I'm with Pagoda and BAM in that I'm going to give it a seven. And the, the biggest factor for me, why I would drink it again, I'm not going to pursue it aggressively, but I, you know, if someone poured me this, I would happily have it. Sure. Because. It is on the drier side of bourbons, and why I don't pursue bourbon all that often is because they're usually very sweet, which is just not my palate.
Overtly sweet. Exactly. And so I really liked in this the like, woody notes, and it wasn't, you know, the funny thing is, I say I like the woody notes, but there are some bourbons I've had. Where it's like so aggressively woody and earthy that it's almost unrecognizable as being a bourbon and that I actually don't enjoy.
So I think it's really well balanced for what it is. Um, I can't imagine drinking this. Neat it [01:31:00] definitely needed ice. Oh, yeah, and I don't disagree with gizmo that you know There's not a ton of body here But you know for even as much ice as I've had if you look at when I moved a little bit of the spirit That's left in its glass a little bit of light.
There's viscous. There's some viscosity.
**Gizmo:** I think you see it in the glass though I don't think you get it on the palate on
**Bam Bam:** the palate. It's light It's very light. Yeah. But you know, look, I think the word balance does make sense here because on the finish, I get that earthy smoky finish, which I love on the front for this, for me, I did get a little floral, which is a pretty good balance.
Soft recommend
**Gizmo:** seven. Yeah. So boys, the former liquor rating on the old Forrester 1910 is a 6. 8, which is really 30 points less than the Weller we referenced earlier. So, yeah, you know, we gave that almost close to a 10. Yeah, that was great. And that, you know, it's MSRP is. 40 percent less than this, you know, how much was that bottle?
Well, on the MSRP, I think it's a 30 or 35 bottle. Yeah, this is like
**Bam Bam:** [01:32:00] 49 and change. Wow.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, it's time to do the formal lizard rating of the Adventura, the Navigator in Pine Zone. Rooster, you're up. Yeah. So, I
**Rooster:** mean, I, I didn't really like the first, like the beginning of the cigar. It was hard to pick out the notes.
And even like later on, like halfway through. Um, you guys were saying you're getting some mocha and stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's like a sweet chocolate coffee note that I was getting. It wasn't really, really pronounced. And I kind of felt like in the last third that kind of dissipated for me.
**Gizmo:** So I
**Rooster:** couldn't really pick out like distinguished notes out of the cigar.
So I'm at a seven.
**Gizmo:** Senator,
**Senator:** I'm also at a seven. You know, I think I mentioned before in Pagoda said he liked the pairing and I'm in the same boat. I think they're both a seven and it's a seven because would I smoke it again? Yes, there was nothing offensive to me in this cigar. Even when I was confused like [01:33:00] rooster in the very beginning of just not getting any particular flavor notes.
It got better and it opened up and I did like the kind of cocoa coffee notes that were prevalent through most of it. I wish all of it. Um, but to Gizmo's question earlier, like where would this slot in? It, it doesn't crack my rotation because for those notes, there are cigars that deliver those far better than the cigar does.
Um, you know, why it also though, you know why I give it. Some why I'm lenient with it is 10 is a phenomenal price point. Yes, it is Yeah, you know the cigars that I'm saying beat it for those flavor notes, right? We're talking about like a Davidoff Millennium and the cocoa notes I get and that's like a 28 cigar We're talking about a Padron Exclusivo and that's like a 15 cigar.
So I have to give it credit for 10 bucks It delivers A, an enjoyable experience, just not enjoyable enough to crack my rotation or something that I would pursue [01:34:00] outside of being in a cigar shop, having to buy, and if I saw that and not one of my usual suspects, I would pick
**Gizmo:** that up. So I'm in the same place.
I don't need to, you know, reiterate what you guys just said. It's a seven all day for me. I thought the cigar was interesting. I, I, I thought it was a little muddled in the fact that we couldn't pick out those distinct flavor notes. I do like the fact that it was 10. I think if it was 15 or 20, my rating would be significantly less.
Factoring in value there, you know, it's like, I have to factor in value versus the cigar we had. I do like the amount of tobacco in it. I like the length of the smoke. I thought the combustion was very good for even having a resistant draw on a Robusta like that, which is a little unusual for. Non Cuban, New World cigars, you know, to have a resistant draw, to have the kind of combustion that we did where we didn't have to fight it and the time value of it for 10 bucks, that's why I'm definitely at a seven.
I don't, I haven't
**Bam Bam:** seen anyone, no one relit that cigar. No. No touch ups at all. I don't think
**Gizmo:** there was [01:35:00] a single touch up all night. Not at all. Yeah. It's a merit.
**Pagoda:** Yeah, so I'll give it a seven as well. And I thought, like I mentioned before, I think the pairing was, I think very, very, uh, it kind of worked really well.
And, uh, the two things I would like to say, uh, is that if ever, you know, there are a lot of, uh, people I end up meeting who smoke cigars and they're trying to understand distinctive flavor notes and how you smell. This is one cigar. If you really want to get an idea of what barnyard really smells like, Put this, put the foot on the nose, smell the cigar, and you will know distinctively that it's very barnyard ish in smell.
The wrapper, yeah. Yeah, and the other thing is, I think about an inch and a half in to close to two inches, you'll find a very distinctive The sweetness and the coffee flavor. And then obviously I think in my case also, it kind of dissipated a bit, but yeah. Meaning in terms of the overall construction and the burner was fantastic.
Mm-Hmm. The middle. [01:36:00] The middle of the cigar was enjoyable.
**Gizmo:** It's very enjoyable. Yeah, it was. That was the best part of the cigar. Yeah. Yeah. Bam,
**Bam Bam:** bam. Yeah. I think it's sevens all around. Honestly, the mocha in this was different than most other cigars provided When they, when they do provide a mocha flavor or aroma.
And for me it was compelling enough to give it that rating. And it did finish off pretty nicely, it was smooth, not a single rough edge. The first third though was pretty tough. I didn't enjoy that, but you know, we got through it and pretty enjoyable
**Gizmo:** cigar. So yeah, so boys, the formal lizard rating on the adventura, the navigator in pin zone is a flat 7.
0. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Mild recommend. And I like what Pagoda said, you know, a lot of, this is a great cigar for a starter. Guy or a gal just getting
**Gizmo:** into the hobby, you know, it's something we haven't talked about And Pagoda makes a really good point is using a cigar like this, but you know, like you said it's a mild recommended seven, right?
But using a cigar like this to develop your nose develop your palate Yeah, it is a [01:37:00] really interesting kind of point to say, you know what? These guys talk about barnyard all the time. Yeah, you know Puba jokes about the the What, what's at the, uh, the bad end of a horse at the, at the track or something.
That's what you're getting on the wrapper of the cigar more distinctly, maybe than anything we've ever gotten. So that's a really good point from Pagoda is like using a cigar like this to develop your nose and develop your palate. What's
**Bam Bam:** compelling about the cigar is the rate of smoke. So you got to watch how quickly you go through this.
And if you take your time with it,
**Gizmo:** you'll like it. I mean, yeah, we're at an hour, almost an hour 40. Yeah. And it's like to get that out of a Robusto is pretty shocking actually. And there are a lot of.
**Senator:** I would just really emphasize what Bam said there, because I actually think I've never had a cigar that is as sensitive to how quickly you're smoking it as this cigar is.
I mean, we say with every cigar, you need to take your time to fully appreciate the flavor. That's just a tenet of smoking cigars. When you do, when you smoke too fast, [01:38:00] with any cigar. Sure. You, you notice the flavors start to get muddled, but you still get some notes. I mean, with this, if you smoke too fast, you're just going to get nothing.
It's just tobacco. Yeah. You, I've never had to so purposefully slow myself down to fully appreciate the cigar. Absolutely. And that can be frustrating, but I just think, I mean, it's worth it in the sense that there are good notes you'll get out of it, but it's just really important for the listener to keep in mind if you try this cigar.
Yep.
**Bam Bam:** It's a good learning tool for a lot of guys and gals getting into
**Gizmo:** this. Yeah. For only 10 bucks too. I mean, you can't beat it. Right. Great. Can't beat it. I also, the last thing
**Senator:** that's surprising, we talked about the barnyard note on the, the wrapper. I got no barnyard in the actual flavor. Zero in note.
Zero, zero, yeah. Which I was happy about. So like, this is where Very true. I mean, Grindr loves barnyard and cigars. I, I honestly don't, I I
**Bam Bam:** kind of too a little bit really. I just a touch
**Senator:** of it. I was glad I didn't get any on the actual draw.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I'm glad. Well, for how. Pungent it was. I'm glad it didn't translate.
Horsefoot? Horsefoot. I said horsefoot. This was a [01:39:00] horsefoot cigar. If you want to know what Poobah's talking about when he says horsefoot, this is the cigar for you. Just on the wrapper. Just on the wrapper. Not on the actual smoke itself. All right, boys, a great night. So on the Old Forrester 1910 Old Fine Whiskey, we had a 6.
8. And then on the Adventura, the Navigator in Pinzone, we had a flat 7. 0. Great night. Good way to end the year. And next week, we'll see everybody for our New Year special. All right, boys, we'll see everybody next week. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website.
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 [01:40:00] at Lounge Lizards Pod.
We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.