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The lizards pair the Cuban Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2 in a tubo with 12 year aged Aberfeldy scotch. Poobah gives some history on Hoyo, the guys discuss an upcoming book project on modern Habanos, and Poobah airs a grievance with Gizmo.
Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast. 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, and tonight I'm joined by Rooster pba, Senator Pagoda, Grindr, and bam bam, a full house of lizards.
And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some scotch, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 18th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan to meet us here once a week. We're gonna smoke a Cupid cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating.
Puba will touch on the history of oil. We'll discuss an upcoming book project on modern ha, bonos, and Puba will air a grievance with yours truly all among a variety of other things for the next hour. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair the OYO Day Monterey epicure number two with 12 year aged Aberfeldie Scotch.
Another classic rib robusto [00:01:00] tonight from Cuba, the Hoyo de Monterey epicure. Number two, I think a, uh, definitely when you, you know, if you get the rib robusto selection from, uh, haos, this is definitely one of the five that's in there. A, uh, 50 mil, uh, millimeter by 4.7 eighth inches long. A rib robusto, of course.
Um, and I think this is very cool that this is our first tubo that we've done. So this is the first, uh, cigar on the pod that we've done that, uh, actually has come out of a tubo, which we could talk about. But first, I think, uh, let's cut this thing and see what we're getting on the, uh, on the cold draw the wrapper.
I used to smoke a lot of these. I don't smoke as many anymore. Same here.
**Poobah:** I like the, I like the i, I stored these out of the tubes. I mean, people have different, sometimes people take the caps off, sometimes people off the tube [00:02:00] and store them with the cap off. Sometimes they stored them in the tubes. I actually took them and bundled them together and just tied a ribbon around them.
Just, I figured it couldn't hurt. Um, cuz I was running outta room in the tower and I just to save room so they wouldn't just fall. I just kind of wrapped the ribbon around them and I, I got 15 of these two bows, um, maybe a year ago. And what did, did you get
**Gizmo:** the, they come in like a five by three, right?
Like five packs of three tub bows? Or was it in a box of
**Poobah:** 15? No, it was in a box of 15. Got it. Okay. Uh, Tubo cedar? No, but it's a, yeah, there's cedar. It very cedar tasted. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, that's definitely, it's a heavily cedar, I guess. Is that from the tub? Yeah. Yeah.
**Poobah:** That's a nice cold draw. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah.
Hoyas always taste great. And the cold draw ,
**Gizmo:** just after you light it, it gets a little questionable sometimes. No,
**Poobah:** sometimes.
**Gizmo:** Let's, let's light this thing an open mind. Let's light this thing. Afternoon. Smoke. Yeah, it's good. In the afternoon, the Hoyo day, Monterey [00:03:00] Epi two. We'll call it again. A robusto. I'd say a
**Bam Bam:** good morning smoke too.
Yeah. I've had this in the morning. Now I like this with a coffee.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, me too. This is a good one with a coffee. So, uh, Puba said that these are, uh, they've been in his humidor about a year, year and a half. So they're pretty young. 1920.
**Bam Bam:** Um, you know, the, the rapper is pristine on these sticks. Yeah. Very beautiful looking cigar.
I guess Poopa knows what he's doing.
**Gizmo:** It's funny. These, these really do. in the quality of the rappers that you'll get. I, I'm sure different guys in here have gotten various qualities of, you know, at least the aesthetic on the cigar. I have a, a cabinet of these that, of 25 that are very rustic and kind of gross looking.
Honestly.
**Bam Bam:** Honestly, I've never had a beautiful oil.
**Senator:** Yeah. Well, yeah, that, that's what I was gonna say. I, I, I think it's just a rustic style. It's very, but Ramon Ionis, like, or you know, some of those other brands that these happen
**Gizmo:** to look really good. Yeah, these are nice. Yeah. Right.
**Senator:** It's still a little rustic, but, but I think this [00:04:00] is probably one of the best looking Epi two s
**Gizmo:** I've seen, and I'm wondering if they pull the nice looking ones for the tubo.
Cuz some of these get sold in retailers. It's like single sticks. Mm. You know, so maybe they,
**Poobah:** I don't think it's bad. I just think that sometimes the tubo for re you know, for a retail situation and they have to travel a long way, obviously to get to us. I think you'd be surprised. Paying a little bit extra sometimes, depending on what you, um, what you're looking for and what's available.
Sometimes the tubo is a nice way to go. I got a bunch of E two s and Tubo. Why? Because they're not a, they just, for a long time, the, the, the, uh, the semi boy nature boxes weren't available. Yeah. They just weren't, you know, they were available intuos and people weren't picking 'em up at that little bit more premium of price, but guess what?
They were great. Yeah. They, they, they were really nice because they like really keep their shape and the cedar lens a little bit and you take 'em out, you can, and then how your storm's up to you. But
**Gizmo:** so on the light, I mean, this is really nice so far. [00:05:00] It's very
**Bam Bam:** pleasant. Yeah. Uh, surprisingly, yeah,
**Gizmo:** the draw is perfect.
**Bam Bam:** Another surprise that no one's having a problem.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. Really nice. Yeah.
**Senator:** Good draw The, uh, combustion is actually really good. Producing a good amount of smoke off to
**Gizmo:** a great start. And I think you
**Bam Bam:** can see the ash is bright white.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. . So, uh, to go back to your point, Puba about tubo and storing them intuos, I mean, obviously there's, there's various different, you know, different meth methods.
If you get a bunch of tubo, what you can do with them, you know, like you said, you can store 'em with the cap off. You can take them completely out. Um, what, what have you found in your experience with Tubo or other guys too? Like, do cigars, you know, keep better in them? Do they keep worse? I mean, obviously mold problems happen sometimes for folks.
**Poobah:** I, people do different things. I mean, I don't know, I
**Gizmo:** don't
**Poobah:** have the answer . I, I, you know, I take them out of the tubes just because, so serious ,
**Grinder:** I
**Bam Bam:** don't know.
**Gizmo:** I mean,
**Poobah:** I, [00:06:00] people talk about a lot of different things. I, I, I ha I prefer to take them first, take them if I get, I do get tubes, some tubo sometimes I like to take them out, inspect them all, look at 'em, check, check if there's any mold.
Cuz mold can can happen. Um, And then sometimes I take some out and I let 'em, you know, I'll smoke one or something, let 'em acclimate, smoke one, and then sometimes I'll take them all out. And then I have a bunch of Royal Coronas I bought in tubes too, that I just take, I took the caps off. You know, you just play around with it and see what works for you, I guess is one way to look at it.
So there, I don't think there's any hard and fast rule
**Gizmo:** about it. Yeah. I just take the caps off of mine cuz I want to pull the humidity down usually. Yeah. You know, versus when they come in, but Yeah. Um, but it
**Rooster:** also protects the cigars, like, especially if you're getting it from overseas and stuff. Yeah. I mean, you want inspect it, but if you keep it in the tubes, it does protect it in your, you know, in your tower or your humid or whatever.
And a great way to travel
**Gizmo:** with, because they don't, it turns into [00:07:00] like a little cigar, you know, travel, uh, case for, you know, if you're carrying a single stick. Like, I think we talked about it like buying a D four, I, you know, Grindr mentioned that Padron actually makes placebos in a, a tubo, you know, going to a wedding, you throw one in your pocket, you know, you have the tubo.
It's, it's a great. Tool to keep the single cigar. Are those, those E two s in a tube? Those are, oh, they're great. They're fantastic. E twos. Yeah. We're talking about the parus E two s. Yeah. Parus e Yeah.
**Poobah:** Yeah, they're
**Gizmo:** great in a tube. So these also come, uh, in a, uh, a five by three cardboard pack out Tubo. Uh, so 15 cigars, uh, in five cardboard packs of s They come in a slide lid, cedar box of 25, and they also come in a slide lid box of 50 cigars.
**Bam Bam:** Uh, I've Cedar box, I've, I've only ever got these in a slb. Me too. Yeah. Slide
**Gizmo:** lid box. This is my first one. That's what you want. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** absolutely. Yep. And I'm getting a lot of, uh, I'm getting a mixture of floral and cedar on my cigar here. Very, very, A lot of cedar. Very pleasant. [00:08:00] A bit
**Gizmo:** of floral. I'm getting the floral too, just a little bit.
Yeah. Which makes
**Bam Bam:** it great.
**Gizmo:** Great flavor. It's satisfying so
**Poobah:** far. Kind of woody and mild and, and good. Um. . So Hoyo is one of those legend, you know, it's one of those kind of legendary brand names. The name is Ubiquitous, not only, um, just to cigars because they obviously have the, the Hoyo brand name that's out of, they make, I believe they make cigars out of both the Dominican Republican also outta Nicaragua and other places.
Um, and that, of course the, the trade name was, was, uh, was brought out of Cuba after the revolution. Um, So some of this stuff started if we want to just do a little quick, quick, you know, two minute brand history here or less. Uh, Don Jose [00:09:00] Janeer, um, he immigrated to Cuba from Spain around 1830. Um, when he was a 13 years old, he worked on his uncle's plantation in uh, Volta Bajo.
Uh, and then 20 years later, uh, he opened his own cigar factory, uh, in Havana and began producing a cigar line. And we know this name cuz we see these pop up once in a while, um, called CEP in 1865. So there's a connection there. So that was the first, that was the first brand. That Don Jose, uh, Aire produced, um, and then he used the money he made, um, from Las Sep to acquire, um, one of the premier tobacco farms, uh, in, in Walter Bajo, which is the premier growing region.
Um, and he named it Hoyo de Monterey. And the translation of that is whole of Monterey, so it's in this valley. And so, uh, apparently the soil [00:10:00] there is very, very, very good and, and rich for growing tobacco. Um, and it's favored by, uh, growers of premium tobacco. Um, brand became super popular, um, in Europe, um, and the factory became one of the largest factories in Cuba.
Um, he eventually passed away at the turn of the century in 1900. Um, . Uh, and then his daughter took the business over for a little while, and then the family sold the cigar brand, um, to focus more on sugar cane farming. Sorry, I'm taking a draw here. Good cigar. Yeah. Um, oh yeah. And, um, and then, uh, the fir, a firm called Fernandez, uh, PIO, uh, bought the Hoyo, uh, de Monterey and Las Brands, and then added them to their already impressive lineup, um, which included Punch and Belinda.
[00:11:00] Um, and then in the forties, the La Jolla series was launched, um, along with the Chateau series, which would be later used to create the Davidoff line. Um, uh, and then of the, the time goes by, you start to get to the late fifties, and of course, the, the gov, the, you know, the revolutionary government, um, , it takes over and that's kind of the end of the story.
And yeah, it gets folded into the, folded into the registry, um, which eventually becomes Cupa tobacco, habana, and, and all the rest of it. And then the brand goes off the island and then stays, and then,
**Gizmo:** yeah, the rest is history. So like you said, this is one of the six, uh, ha Bono's global brands alongside Cohiba, UPK, Montecristo RGUs and Romeo Julieta.
So this is one of the ones these guys sell a ton of cigars. Um, I think every Cuban cigars smoker has probably had one of these, or is wants to have one of these. [00:12:00] And I, I gotta be honest, this so far may be one of the best Epi two s that I've had. I've had a lot of disappointing Epi two s over my time.
Razor sharp burn. The flavor is bready creamy. Um,
**Bam Bam:** very accurate. Very
**Gizmo:** accurate. Yep. Yeah, same here. And I, I'm kind of surprised at, like you said, the ash and, and the burn right now is, . Kind of surprising.
**Bam Bam:** I think we're all gonna have structurally sound ashes on these two gar today.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So it's my guess. So the tubo is definitely a way to go.
Any, any amount of spice on this? Not like I'm getting a little pepper. Like a little pepper. Little pepper? Yeah.
**Senator:** Yeah. Like, like white pepper though. It's not really Yeah, it's like a black
**Gizmo:** pepper. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. These are really nice puba. I think the tubo definitely benefited these cigars. Maybe.
**Poobah:** Maybe.
**Gizmo:** Has anybody had an aged epi two?
**Rooster:** You have? I've had one, but it was a wild back. Okay. I mean, I'm talking like, you know, 15 years back and it was one of the best hoyo [00:13:00] DeMare cigars ever. Yeah. Other than maybe in hdc, the, uh, the double Coronas. So with the Hoyos, I mean, I find like they're not very consistent sometimes, so, and lately the epi two s have not been, very satisfying.
Yeah. But this is one of the better ones. Yeah,
**Senator:** I, I'm, I'm really glad that this is working out well because this is what a good epi two tastes like. I'm enjoying this so far and it just, it always frustrates me because I've had some really, really, really enjoyable Epi two s and then so many that are nothing like them and either burn horribly or the flavors really just totally muddled and not at all what you would normally get out of this cigar.
But this one really, really nice flavor. And I think, like Gizmo said, you know, a good morning, afternoon smoke, I mean, you'll remember we were at Rooster's house once, uh, sitting out on your deck nice day. And I lit one of these in the afternoon. That to this day is the best Epi two I've ever [00:14:00] had. It was randomly, I think I got like a, a 15 packet.
It's like they have those small boxes. I dunno if it's like five in a box. Yeah, five by three. Yeah. And it was so. Ama. I mean, GIS was sitting next to me. He's like, what did you just light up? It just felt like it was wafting all over the deck. Yeah, it was there
**Gizmo:** that day. It was, it
**Poobah:** was awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it was.
You really enjoyed the cigar that I remember the day specifically. It was. It was at Rooster's house. Yeah, I
**Senator:** remember that. And I've been chasing that ever since. And this is the closest I've come to that. Is it
**Gizmo:** me or is early Spring day, wasn't it? Probably, yeah, it was fairly early.
**Bam Bam:** Is Puba subdued today?
Gotta get you up. What
**Poobah:** you want to, you want me to turn, I need some
**Gizmo:** animate. I need
**Grinder:** to From
**Gizmo:** Florida. I need the animated. Yeah. Before we came on, air was teeing off on me, and then as soon as I clicked recording, oh, turn the, oh no. Professor Puba now .
**Poobah:** Well, I mean, I think that your belching has a problem. . Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. So you know, so [00:15:00] Gizmo, our esteemed, illustrious. Producer, um, who has so many redeeming qualities, has some qualities that are, that are, that we could call them. I don't know, deplorable, how would you characterize 'em? Just slightly quirky. . Um, uh, he eats salads while driving, actually, I think. Which is so odd.
I mean, I would, I I've never eaten a salad box. Who the fuck does that? He told, he told me the other day, he, oh yeah, he belched last, last session. We recorded. Well, I tried to get it out before we go on air and I mentioned something, you know, what's, what's going, like, what did you eat? Like, like, because I'm, I'm detecting can't air to a
**Senator:** medical doctor.
**Poobah:** right? Like, like the belching. Cause he, he just, he doesn't cover his mouth. He doesn't like do the thing where he chokes the belt. He just, he just belches it out and he goes, he goes, oh, I just, I, I ate a salad in the car, .
**Gizmo:** I go, you, I do like what I
**Poobah:** do.
**Gizmo:** I go,
**Poobah:** I go, you eat a salad [00:16:00] in the car?
**Gizmo:** I mean, think about trying
**Poobah:** to do that and drive.
It's not like a crunch wrap. Supreme. I have two hands in a you
**Gizmo:** just
**Rooster:** Christmas defense here. Yeah, he does drink a lot of seltzer.
**Gizmo:** I drink a lot of seltzer. I mean, he pou
**Rooster:** like much a
**Gizmo:** gallon of seltzer. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. A lot. Every hour. Yeah. Like I'll drink like six of these. What are they? I don't know if they're leaders.
What are.
**Poobah:** until the, see there you have a
**Gizmo:** whole, see there it is. One liter. I drink a, I drink about five or six of these liters a day. Wow. Like just
**Poobah:** move to like mineral water. Like pepper. I'm good. It's less B bubbles. You don't burp as much.
**Gizmo:** I listen, I just, I try to get it out before we come on air. I'm trying to be considerate to the listener.
I mean, you guys are the, you know, you take the brunt of that. No, I understand.
**Poobah:** And I'm fine with it. I mean, we're, we're friends. . It's okay.
**Gizmo:** Well, well, and until that point, you know why father it, embrace
**Poobah:** it
**Gizmo:** when you can burp it and taste it. . . What?
where did that come from? But go to strikes again. Oh [00:17:00] yeah.
**Bam Bam:** I think he just struck at the entire
**Gizmo:** group. Oh my God.
**Poobah:** My fly for it. Taste. Taste. We just burp
**Gizmo:** it and taste it. Oof. . Oof. I wish you were that easy. Like, oh boy, Bart, you know.
**Grinder:** Fart or burp
**Gizmo:** on demand. Yeah. You like you could choose. Yeah. .
**Poobah:** I can do that.
This is a pretty mild score though. I'm, I'm really Did you just do that? That was not
**Gizmo:** me. Who was that? I think that was Rooster. I, no, he said Can you do it on, uh, you know, on demand? On demand? I can. So you did what? Oh God. Oh Jesus. Oh boy. This is gonna be, subscriber numbers are gonna be the without sub subtitle.
The burping up. The, the burping up. You know what that
**Bam Bam:** is? That's all the soy bur bur .
**Poobah:** I dunno about you guys regret bringing up this whole topic, .
**Gizmo:** I am, uh, I'm really enjoying the cigar. Honestly. You know, Leslie, we talk about the, you know, pub has mentioned several times the Battle of the Ribos and kind of going through, [00:18:00] uh, the, the Cuban Ribo wine.
And we still have quite a few to do, but, uh, I, I was a little, uh, not hesitant, but like, like Rooster said, and I think Senator said too, I've, I've ha I've had some really. Unsatisfying recent Epi two s that I just, I have a cab of these in my humanoid, I just haven't reached for 'em. So like, when it's co you know, we're coming up on what we're gonna pick for the pod.
A year ago, I would've said, man, I'm really excited to do the epi two. We were talking about doing this. I, I, I wasn't excited to come in here and smoke the cigar today, you know? Oh, this
**Poobah:** specific, you know? Yeah. I said it, like I said, on the, I think on the text string, I, I have no idea how these are gonna be, um, because I just hadn't touched them.
Yeah. You know, I, I think I smoked one when they first came in and I probably ditched it halfway through, but it wasn't acclimated and that was a long time ago. Yeah. So I think time and who knows that when cigars sit in a humidor for a while, you know, you give them, you know, 8, 9, [00:19:00] 10, 11, 12 months and you just let 'em sit there, you know, only good things can happen.
Yeah. Only I don't think negative things are gonna happen, you know? Well, I think,
**Gizmo:** I think you're, we're certainly seeing the fruits of that. with the cigar.
**Grinder:** I, I've, I've had a lot more positive experiences than negative with the cigar. Yeah, for
**Gizmo:** sure. Well, I, I just wonder, you know, to your point, I just wonder if the box that I had gotten, that that cabinet I had gotten was just not a good cab.
**Grinder:** It's one the cigars, it's definitely the one like this and the especial I always buy, I always have those cigars. I don't have many cigars, many Cubans that are on hand, at least not as much as you guys. Uh, but this is a box. I always, you know, this and the pec, I always have these on hand. So,
**Senator:** so I, I, sorry, I just really wanted to, I talk about what Grinder just said there, cuz I feel like there's a huge debate among lovers of Oyo between the epi two and the epicure.
So I'm just curious for guys that have smoked both of them, and I think [00:20:00] most of us have, which is your preference and, and how you would even distinguish. But two them, cuz you looked this up online. I mean, people are going to
**Grinder:** war over this . Really? I didn't, I didn't know that. Oh yeah. I. I mean, I, I like, I love both, you know, it's like one or the other, A or B.
I'll take a, you know, A and B any day .
**Bam Bam:** I tend to like this one
**Gizmo:** better. And the ESPEC is a little bigger, right? I have, I have a, uh,
**Grinder:** I think this size,
**Gizmo:** it's a little longer, right? It's, that's when it's a little longer. A bit. Let me pull it up here. Oh yeah, it's thinner. The ESPEC is gauge. It's 50 by five and a half, so it's a little, so this is a 4.78 eighths.
Yeah, eight. Exactly. And it's, this is the same ring. I think SCL has a little bit more strength.
**Senator:** I agree. That's how I would describe the difference. You're
**Gizmo:** actually, you're right. You are right a little bit more.
**Senator:** Yeah, I think it's got a little bit more flavor and true, a little more strength. But I've had a lot of consistency issue, uh, issues with that cigar where this, I, [00:21:00] it's still a problem.
I've had more enjoyable experiences smoking an epi two than I have the Asbe. Me too.
**Gizmo:** That's
**Poobah:** same here. Yeah. But, but did, but, but Senator didn't you have a couple that were like, that blew you away, that made you buy more The Asbe? Yeah. Uh, and then you, then you had a bad experience and you're just like, fuck it.
**Senator:** Yeah. I mean, I had a bad box where I just had to like waste basically a box of these. Right. Um, but my best Epi Asbe doesn't top my best Epi two I've ever had. So when they're at their best, I, I have to give this cigar the edge. So
**Grinder:** I'm,
**Gizmo:** I'm in the EPI two
**Poobah:** camp. So Rooster, uh, rooster, I procured some and I think we got, I procured some and GA and Rooster, I think I gave you some of them.
Or I got, maybe it was two boxes. No,
**Gizmo:** I don't, I don't think it was the epicure number. It was EPI one. I went in on, I went in
**Poobah:** on new. It was the Epicure one number. Yes. One. Yes. And
**Gizmo:** those was the L C D [00:22:00] H. Wasn't it? No, no. We, we went, we went in on
**Poobah:** once. Right. And, and they weren't good. Right out of right away.
But maybe if you look at pick 'em up six, that was a number of months ago. That was,
**Gizmo:** we were, that we were still at the, we were still
**Poobah:** the labs last year. So I mean, I bet if you revisited one of those at some point over the summer in and just check 'em out, I bet they'll smoke better victim them.
**Senator:** Yeah. The, the thing that surprised, oh, sorry.
Just quickly, the thing that surprised me with the epi one, I feel like it's not as, it doesn't have the sweetness that the Epi two
**Gizmo:** has, it's definitely more earthy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah,
**Grinder:** no, I was just gonna say epi versus espe, both Cigars are, are cigars. That for me, mean a lot because when I first started smoking cigars, again heavily, I always wanted to have a Cuban cigar.
And I couldn't get, I didn't have the channels as it were that I have now. And I have a really fond memory of like 2012, 10 years ago. I was on a business trip with my [00:23:00] boss. Uh, we went to Paris and we were there for a day. We were actually in London working, but we went to Paris. We took the train over and were there for a day.
We had left a business meeting, and we were like, before we get on the Eurostar, let's go to the eel tower and let's smoke a cigar. And we picked up two Hoyo specials and I had this awesome, awesome picture underneath the Eiffel Tower, just smoking a cigar. Oh, that's awesome. And it just ca and like from any, any, anytime this and the, you know, anytime these kind of, these, these hoyos come up, I'm always it, they could taste mediocre and I'll still, you know, appreciate them.
**Poobah:** I have
**Bam Bam:** a connection to, and here's a question for all of you. Um, you know, we have inconsistent in incon inconsistency issues with the Monty two like we do with this cigar. Yeah. Which has more inconsistency issues in
**Grinder:** your,
**Senator:** in your opinion? It's just my opinion, but my personal experience has been, hoyos have been more inconsistent than Monty's have by far.
**Poobah:** Okay. But, but with Monty number twos bringing up the rear. relatively close in, [00:24:00] in my, some of my experiences, but again, everyone hasn't had that same experience, so Oh, I have, um, yeah. Uh, some people have had better luck than others, but, um, this is certainly, I mean, my cigar is certainly burning pretty well.
No corrections really so far. Yeah, mine too. Um, delicious.
**Senator:** And I don't know what it is. We've talked about this before, but I, it's so satisfying when you have a cigar with a bright white ash. Yes. It's a weird thing , just the contrast between the darker wrapper and the, the white ash and, um, there are not a lot of Cubans that that
**Gizmo:** happens with.
**Poobah:** Yeah. Magnesium in the soil. Yeah. It, it makes it whiter. Um, this
**Gizmo:** cigar more than any other Epi two I've had is reminding me of the, uh, the, uh, 2018 double Coronas that we have, um, the long ones, right. In flavor. Yeah. Just in flavor and also in, in a little bit of the white ash thing. I, you know, the, the couple of those that I've had,
Um, I've gotten really nice bright white ashes on [00:25:00] those. And flavor-wise, they've been very, the, you know, at least the first two thirds is very creamy. Obviously the end picks up quite a bit, but it could be
**Bam Bam:** reminiscent of that. Yeah.
But
**Gizmo:** I think it's more, it's, it's definitely different fuller flavor on the htc.
I, I find that to be very, I guess in the satisfaction department, right? That is a satisfying cigar to me. And this is definitely doing it right now. Just don't call it a fune. Okay.
**Senator:** bam. Flipping the script. .
**Grinder:** I missed something there.
**Gizmo:** every chance I get. Yeah. Bam. Always, uh, says that cigars taste like fundies fuck you's to kind of, kind of become a running joke that anytime you let fun, that's the fuck. Harden. . .
**Bam Bam:** Fuck Harden.
**Senator:** Don't get me started. .
**Gizmo:** It's been a fucking lousy day.
**Poobah:** Yeah, construction.
See, it's like a nice, that nice little, um, the, I askeded it and look, it's got that nice point, which means, um, . The, the, well, the, the, the, the filler isn't [00:26:00] outpacing the wrapper.
**Rooster:** It also means that you, you've kept them at the optimal condition,
**Gizmo:** you know? Yeah, yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Your tower must be spectacular right now, as far as the conditions are concerned.
Cuba, it's like
**Poobah:** 63. Yeah, something like that. That's good. It's between 63
**Bam Bam:** and 64. You know, honestly, if these were consistent, this is a great cigar to start your evening. .
**Senator:** I think it's great Sarah to start your day with. Yeah,
**Gizmo:** that too. Of course. Yeah. I think this is first cigar of the day.
**Bam Bam:** Started doing day.
If you're doing a cigar, sit down with the guys and you're gonna smoke three or four or five. This is a good starter. Yeah. If it's good and consistent like this one is tonight.
**Grinder:** I I love that we have our own like barometer of like just a normal 3, 4, 5 day
**Gizmo:** like this. Five, five cigar sessions. It's great.
Yeah. I mean, most people smoke one to two cigars a week. Maybe. We're, we're fucking demented. Especially
**Rooster:** when you guys hang out till like, till the sum comes up. You guys,
**Gizmo:** I love you guys. Yeah. You've been there. Yeah. You guys, you don't remember it, but you've been there rooster. [00:27:00] Be careful. Good
**Bam Bam:** point. You may get choked
**Gizmo:** out today.
The sun was coming up. Oh man.
**Poobah:** I love matches. I
**Gizmo:** love using matches. I was gonna ask you Puba. So Puba has got really long, nice. Uh, uh. Matches that he's been lighting cigars with tonight. And, uh, I'm curious, why, why are you so into that? It seems just
**Poobah:** convenient. Think when you light. So when you, when you look, just try 'em tonight, now your next cigar.
Okay. When you light a cigar with a match, I just feel like the first, when it first, when you like that first part of it, it's just much more satisfying. Like it just doesn't, there's no fuel . No, it's not that There's more fuel, like a soft flame if you're in indoors like we are. Um, it's always great to use a match.
Where did, where did you get that match? Like back when I was at the lounge. Where did you I always use, I always would use the match inside the lounge because why not use the match? Um, uh, but I don't like short matches. I like long matches. Yeah. Um, but I find that like sometimes like off the initial [00:28:00] light, if, if you heat it up too much, it can just be a little.
Bitter and you can get a really good light with a magic. I lit this with one match. Really? Yeah. Not two matches, one match, but just burn
**Senator:** perfectly. I would love for you to explain this to Rocky Patel because I've told this story before when I was in a Rocky Patel lounge in Pittsburgh. Yeah. And they told me Rocky Patel does not believe in matches, which is why in their cigar lounges, there are no matches to be found anywhere.
I don't see why that It is fucking
**Gizmo:** ridiculous. It is ridiculous. Don't see why that would be a thing.
We
**Poobah:** just lost half of
**Gizmo:** our, if you could , but if
**Poobah:** you, well, it might fluency. I mean, you're taking a soft flame and you're, and you're, and you're, it's natural and you're just gently letting the cigar. I just don't see how that, as long as you, you know, you heat it up properly and you, and you, you know, believe me, you toasted a little bit and.
You rotate the cigar like you should properly, and then you take a couple puffs and it just ignites. It's just magical. You're preaching
the
**Senator:** choir. I, this is the [00:29:00] only place in America I've ever seen that says we don't have matches and calls himself a cigar. The whole thing doesn't make sense. Maybe they
**Poobah:** wanna sell lighters, he likes to sell a lot of stuff.
That guy, no, but you need
**Gizmo:** good matches. You know what to sell. Lot love
**Poobah:** that. I don't know, maybe he probably has Rocky Patel gold plated lighters.
**Gizmo:** That's true. That's probably
**Grinder:** true. That's probably very true. You know, because that, because that, that's, you know, he's, it's an opportunity to sell a high priced, you know, cheap,
**Poobah:** lighter, Hey, listen, I respect the hustle.
He's very commercial, which is great. Very commercially
**Grinder:** oriented, which
**Poobah:** God bless the man he's on. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** But yachts and boats. And boats and yachts
**Poobah:** and got vacation
**Gizmo:** and you got a boat. Big old watches. Do you know him? Do you know him in the boat?
**Poobah:** Community dock in the same
**Gizmo:** docking space? Is that what you call it?
A dock lot dock. Ah, . I've heard of like a, I don't know what the term would be, like, an old, uh, I don't wanna say old. I, I, it's like an old wive's tale, but about [00:30:00] cigars that there's like an old school rule of like, to the lightest cigar, you need two matches. That's, I've, I heard that, I've heard that a couple times.
Somebody told me that's, well, you
**Poobah:** may, you may
**Gizmo:** need three. It's just, you know, like a two match rule, like how do I, a cigar with two matches? It
**Rooster:** depends on the length of
**Gizmo:** the match, I
**Poobah:** guess. Yeah. It depends on the length of the match, the quality as well. ,
**Senator:** draw bit sulfur, poor little butane on the match before you light up.
You'll be just like, or the cigar.
**Poobah:** can,
**Grinder:** this will lit up, not tequila. I'd like to see
**Bam Bam:** that.
**Poobah:** Well, we're halfway through and I've really, I, you know, I'm very happy. I'm really actually enjoying this rub. Robusto.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, it's
**Bam Bam:** really nice. I think we're all right there with you, man. Surprisingly good. It's
**Gizmo:** very creamy, very smooth.
Try, try doing one thing. Try
**Rooster:** and blowing through the cigar, and then
**Gizmo:** take a, Purging it. Yeah, purging it. Right. I always purge, I was talking to, actually, we had this conversation the other night, love that I always purged my cigar. Like when I toast it, I'll toast it first and then I'll put it in my mouth and [00:31:00] purge it and then I'll light it.
There is, especially the
**Rooster:** new cigar that's not aged cigar so much. It, it's a good idea to purge it. So
**Gizmo:** let all the, honestly, I've never smoke,
**Bam Bam:** I've never done that.
**Gizmo:** Uh, if there's any ammonia in there, I'll get rid of that. I don't see the value
**Bam Bam:** in that, but okay.
**Gizmo:** I've read it for
**Rooster:** some
**Poobah:** new cigars. I'm joking. If you let a cigar, uh, well, what it does is it can blow some of the carbon carbon out.
If you, if you take a cigar and let's say you put it down and you go to flip some steaks and then your mother-in-law comes and she starts some big, long conversation that you don't wanna have with her . And then you go back and you get back to your agenda, which is really probably having a cocktail, growing a steak and having a cigar, avoiding your mother-in-law or something,
Um, and then you light your cigar back up. . Um, it's always a good idea to, uh, to purge the cigar cuz it gets, like, when a cigar goes out, it gets all kind of carbonized, you know, around it. Yeah. So tastes like, I tend to purge it when I let [00:32:00] it go. I don't do it necessarily. Like Rooster was talking about that often.
Sometimes. Yeah. Um, but particularly if I've got one just kind of go out on its own.
**Grinder:** Hmm. There was a, there was a, um, a cigar shop in Arizona. Two guys that had a, uh, a, a YouTube channel together. They worked for a, like a brick and mortar in Arizona, but they had a pretty well followed YouTube channel and it was a big guy.
And, um, he had, uh, he still sells cigars. I don't, it used to be like Cigar Daily or something like that on YouTube. Um, and he would always, you know, you know, he was trying to evangelize the world on doing the, uh, what do you purge? The purge. Yeah. Pur every time you light, light purge. And then, You know, uh, inhale, or not inhale, but take it in.
**Gizmo:** Hmm. I don't know where I, I don't know where I learned of it. I don't think it was, uh, from him on YouTube, but very well could have been. Do you know, do you know who I'm talking about? I know, I know of him. I've think I've seen clips, but I don't,
**Poobah:** he's the [00:33:00] guy know the name. He's the guy who's, he's very hyper.
He's very enthusiastic. He's very hyper. Hi. I'm, yeah. Somebody's gotta Google him. Uh, Jeremy, Jared hold up Cigars daily. He's very hyper. They have a retail operation website that they run and they, they sell all new World cigars and he, hi, I'm Tim. I think his
**Grinder:** name's Tim. Mm-hmm. . No, Tim is the other guy.
Tim's the smoking
**Gizmo:** fucking, oh, I know you, I know this guy. Yes.
**Grinder:** They were, they were, they were buddies and then they split up. Maybe they're still buddies, but they were, they
**Gizmo:** worked together. This guy still, he put out a video eight hours. , but I think it's just him now. Yeah.
**Grinder:** No, it's ju it's been just him for like a year
**Gizmo:** or something.
It's Tim. It is Tim. Tim, yeah. Tim Swanson. Tim
**Poobah:** Swanson. He's got a, I mean, cousin of Ron Swanson running a good, I mean, they're running a good business off that, off that, uh, website. So good for them. All
**Gizmo:** right, boys, let's talk about our scotch pairing tonight. It's
**Bam Bam:** very good. Very good. [00:34:00]
**Gizmo:** Who's got the details on the aberfeldy?
What, what is this a 15 or a 12? Looks like a 12. It's a 12 Aberfeldy. 12. Um, let's sip this thing and see what it's like. It's delicious. Yeah. Very good. Yeah, I actually think it
**Senator:** pairs really well with this cigar because I get honey notes from the scotch and I feel like it pairs well with the creaminess of the Epi two.
**Gizmo:** Yeah,
**Poobah:** totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just picked it up. Um, Yeah. What is it in there? It's velvety, it kind of, or is it, it like coat your mouth that's like sweet and kind of vi is viscu. Yeah, that's a, a, uh, grinder word. It's, there's some visco, there's some viscosity. .
**Gizmo:** There is, is this the wrong word to say that it has a little bit of a bite to it?
No, I, could I get a bite? Is that, sorry. Like, I'm getting a little bit of like an
**Senator:** ooph to it. No, it's funny that you say that because, and this is what happens, right? When we put a, an, an ice cube or two in this, I, I've become [00:35:00] a little puba like, and that I now like to really taste this before we get on, on air.
And it, it does, it does have a little bit of a bite to it. Um, but as the ice is melted, I mean now the bite's gone and, and it's all that water that's in there with it. But if you have this need, or even just if this were a big cube that was melting really slowly, there is a little bit of a bite to it.
It's not a, it's not that offensive. It's not a bad scotch, but you can tell it's, it's not as, Well matured as certain other, you know, 12 year
**Grinder:** single malts. Where, where is what region is this? Because like it definitely What, yeah, what
**Senator:** is it? So
**Grinder:** Highland. Yeah. Do you know what, just
**Senator:** Highland? Yeah, yeah. Well you asked the region that that's the region.
Think Central Highland or something. Yeah, I don't know. So the distillery's located in
**Gizmo:** Aberdeen, New Jersey.
**Senator:** uh, it's near lte, uh, near the center of Scotland. So it's not far from space side, but it's technically in Highland. That's what they say on their website.
The fascinating [00:36:00] part of this scotch is, I just was quickly looking this up. Uh, doers. I don't know if they still own it. They do, but at one point they did. Okay. So they still do, and doers uses Aberfeldy in as the, the main component in a lot of their blends. So they're like doers, white label. A lot of it is, I don't know that it's Aberfeldy 12, but it is some aberfeldy that they use in it.
That's interesting. Yeah,
**Grinder:** it's a majority
**Gizmo:** cool fact. It says it's distilled in pot stills from a hundred percent malted barley produced only at, uh, one distillery, obviously.
**Poobah:** You know, I guess I can see that a little bit now. Probably none of you have had a sip of doers in recent
**Gizmo:** history, but I actually have, my father-in-law really likes it.
Yeah,
**Poobah:** yeah. My dad, my dad, um, will sometimes have doers or j and b with a lemon, and
**Grinder:** it's such an old man drink. My dad drank it. Uh, doers
**Poobah:** on the rocks. He's gonna be 78 at the end of the month. [00:37:00] That's,
**Gizmo:** mine's not too far,
**Poobah:** so too far behind. You know, he, uh, he gets a dispensation from any , any
**Gizmo:** kind of judgment from everything whatsoever.
Listen, his cat's name Macallan, so it's okay. Everything that's correct, but like,
**Poobah:** he'll still drink like a lemon. He'll take like a, like a lemon twist, you know? And, and it's
**Gizmo:** class, class, class, class. So I wanted to, uh, I just wanted to give a shout out. We actually didn't talk about this. I, I put, I did send it out in the chat, uh, at one point, but I am all in on, uh, this new release that's coming out.
So we often reference, and I think it's kind of the gospel of Cuban cigars, Cuban cigar website.com. It's a simple website, has everything you could possibly want to know about a cigar that you're smoking from, you know, being able to check if you have authentic bands and, and presentation and, and different facts about cigars.
And they have everything that's ever been released. And the curator [00:38:00] of that website is going to be releasing a really nice, uh, book, which is gonna lay out everything about Cuban cigar. over the last 20 years, which is kind of the follow up to Miran
**Poobah:** NE's book. Yeah. Prob well, let's, that's a big comparison in terms
**Gizmo:** of, uh, Miran has actually endorsed this.
Oh, he has? He's friends with him, yeah. Oh, he is. It's, it's very legit
**Poobah:** because people, um, in the community that, that, that we, um, that we socialize with somewhat know the guy who runs Cuban cigar website. And, uh, I've, his name escapes me, but it's been mentioned before. Uh, but I think this is a great thing to do because Miron NE's book one is super expensive, and two, it's outdated a little bit at this point, although so comprehensive in an unbelievable book.
But it would be really nice for someone to do
**Gizmo:** something. So yeah, Miran ne kind of covered the post-revolution until [00:39:00] about 2002, and this book is gonna cover, uh, 2002 to present. , and it's called El Hao Moderno Cuban Cigars of the Modern Era. And if you go to cuban cigar website.com, there's a Kickstarter.
And to give you an example of how well this is doing, uh, his original goal to fund this book was 28,000 bucks on Kickstarter, Uhhuh , and in only, I don't know, two weeks, he's almost at $156,000. Oh, that's wonderful. So I, you know, I think putting it out there, I'd, I, I bought the highest level that I could.
That was reasonable. I mean, there's like an $8,000 level. I didn't do that. But there's one, there's different versions, collectors editions. You can, you know, the books are gonna be really nicely bound. They're coming in like a cigar box. There's a Kickstarter edition and there's gonna be a retail edition you can buy at, you know, retailers and whatnot.
It's fabulous. It's really, really nice. It's really well done. And I encourage all of our listeners to go to Cubans our website.com. Click the little banner. With the blue and red book and check out what, uh, what [00:40:00] is coming here because this is going to be a, a great resource for guys like us and, and our listeners who are really into Cuban cigars.
Cool. So check
**Bam Bam:** it out. Wonderful. So that other book that you mentioned, is that
**Poobah:** available? You know the Miron Knee book? I mean I know Gizmo has one. I have one. Um, but they're, can you get it? You can find them, but they're super
**Gizmo:** expensive. You can only buy them secondhand.
**Poobah:** No more than that. For more than
**Gizmo:** that.
Yeah. A lot more than that. Yeah. They're about a thousand bucks right now on eBay. Wow. There's a guy who was
**Rooster:** selling one recently. I, uh, German edition though. German,
**Gizmo:** yeah. German edition. Yeah. The English wanted the English edition. The English edition is about a thousand. It's not helpful. Well grind.
**Senator:** Yeah.
Grinder could translate it for
**Gizmo:** us. Oh yeah. He could . Yeah. So they're very hard to find and, and what's unfortunate about it is he only did really one pressing min run knee. Um, He only did one pressing and, and the versions you find if you get one in decent condition, you're lucky. Um, it's a big thick book, you know, hundreds of [00:41:00] pages really nicely done, like Puba said.
And I think this is filling the gap. It kind of stops at 2002. So it's really, uh, a history. But cigars you can buy today, only cigars like the Epi two that have been around since that, you know, very long time. A lot of cigars have been canceled and whatnot. So it's not a resource for that, but it's uh, it's cool.
Canceled culture. It's just outrageous. Yeah. It even affects ho Bonos, even ho Bonanos . So what are you guys getting, uh, on the FB two right now? It's great. It's tasty. Yeah.
**Senator:** I would say at the midway point it picks up just a little bit in strength. Yeah. Are folks getting that? Just a bit? Yeah.
**Grinder:** Agreed. Yeah, I think so.
**Poobah:** In a nice way. Yeah. Very nice. Oh yeah. In a great way. In a nice way. And, and, and it's, it's a really mellow, kind of, so pleasant, a mild and pleasant. Cigar. It's one of the
**Gizmo:** better Epi twos we've had in a while. Oh, totally. Yeah, no doubt. It's, I'm
**Poobah:** very happy about
**Gizmo:** that. I mean,
**Senator:** the thing I'm taking away from this is if I'm willing to give [00:42:00] Oil another shot, it's maybe to go to the Tubo route like you did pba.
Maybe.
**Poobah:** Maybe
**Gizmo:** I, I have, I will say I have heard like many cigars that the 20 ones of these are really, really good.
**Bam Bam:** How are the, uh, 2020 twos? . ?
**Gizmo:** We'll find out when you, uh, when you share them. That's all. That's all. You smoke No. ?
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I'm flying down to get them as soon as they roll 'em right off the farm.
**Poobah:** Yeah.
This is nice. Right? It's, it's. , it's kind of relaxing. And, and, and you can, you could, I think you could bookend this, you could, you could start your evening with a cigar like this. If you've had a number of cigars, you could end your evening with a cigar like this. You could start your day. So it's pretty versatile.
I mean, it is not a defor in terms of strength that even close. Um,
**Grinder:** it's, it's one of, it's one
**Gizmo:** in five in the five cigar lineup. It is, yeah.
**Poobah:** I, I, you know, it, it's, it's distinctly different from the, the, you know, the other [00:43:00] popular ribos. Um, so it has a lot of merit. So they're
**Gizmo:** good. A box of, uh, 15 of these two barss right now on, I have, I have, uh, is gone for 2 35.
Uh, a box of 50 is going for six 60, uh, 6 55 in a sliding lid box. So you're looking at what, 10, 11 bucks? 12 bucks a stick? 12 bucks a stick bin. So that's not too bad. . I would take the RAs over that. Yeah. Yeah. I
**Grinder:** think that's a good
**Senator:** 50
**Gizmo:** capital. That's a, that's a price, but honestly that's fair price. It's a very fair price.
And especially we're talking right now, the prices are way up. Yeah. I mean, you know, I was getting these for nine, 10 bucks a year ago, so I'm gonna piggyback
**Bam Bam:** behind Senator. I'm gonna get two bows and try them again.
**Senator:** I, I didn't say I was gonna buy them. I said if I did, I would get two bows. Two bows.
**Gizmo:** I'm gonna try 'em.
You got 'em. We'll try them . Look, I like the
**Poobah:** way you think Rooster. It's one of those things if you're on, if you're, if you're, if you're on, if you're buying, if you're in that mode, I go in [00:44:00] phases where I always a little bit. So if you're buying and it's like, you know, I think for me it's like I really didn't need, uh, you know, I don't really want 25, you know, I just don't want 25 of them cuz I'm not gonna smoke them that, that often.
And um, you know, the tub boats, the tub boats are there and they're just available and. What I, you know, what I chose to, to, to pick up. So
**Grinder:** I think it's important to have a, a collection of two bows, no matter what for, for emergency purposes. To your point, stick it in the, in the breast pocket. Hop in the hop in the truck,
Go, go to the wedding, go to the golf course. You don know cuz you're, you don't want it to get all fucked up and wrangled and put it in your
**Poobah:** pocket. Totally. And totally. And I, I like the E two tubo, the, the D four tubo. Yeah. It the, I keep, uh, I don't always throw away all the tubes. I just throw 'em in a box and just keep 'em there.
So if I grab a D four or if I grab, and by the [00:45:00] way, any robusto will fit in the thing. Yeah. Who cares what, you know, it doesn't have to match. You could fit a D four in this tube and it would work. The only
**Senator:** thing I will say about the Oyo Tubo and bam, had it happen to him before we went on air. For whatever reason, this is all the Oyo Tubo.
Cause I've actually, I have bought some Oyo Tubo before, happened to Puba as well. They, they, they, they don't stay together. They, they, they open so easily and it makes me nervous because the whole point, you, you, you love traveling with a tubo. You can throw it in your pocket and it's not gonna open or.
It's gonna be safe. And it really opens very, yeah. So the
**Gizmo:** interesting thing, if
**Bam Bam:** there was a click they happened. No, that
**Poobah:** would be nice. A lot of these cub,
**Senator:** because RGUs makes a tubo and their tubo stays can shut
**Poobah:** shut. Can I tell you why it stay shut? It it stays shut because the RGUs Tubo has a matte finish.
Oh yeah. These are glossy and these are super, super glossy. Yeah.
**Grinder:** It also, the part is Tupo also has a click like a, there's a raged bevel on the side. That's why
**Senator:** I think you're right there too. That like kind locks it in place. Yeah,
**Poobah:** that locks it in place a [00:46:00] little. But there's that too. I love,
**Bam Bam:** I love the technicality of this conversation.
Love it. .
**Gizmo:** Fucking awesome. . Come on. New nerds. We're gardeners.
**Bam Bam:** Where else? Where else are you gonna hear this kind of detail? . Come on listeners.
**Gizmo:** Pay attention, . Well, I'll tell you, I'm, I'm hoping that, uh, Puba doesn't mind if I keep this because I will of. You know, I, I, he's given me a, he gave me a, a d four tubo that I have actually used going to a wedding.
I've, I just throw another cigar in it and go, yeah. You know, and the other
**Poobah:** great thing about Tubo is they make great gifts. Ah, yeah. They make great handouts, you know, it's cool, you know, so if you're going somewhere and you have some cigars, whether you're going to a wedding or a social event, or wherever, you know, when you give somebody a tubo, even a, like a, a RGUs or a Hoyo or a Boulevard Tubo, you know, a royal Corona, they, they, they go, they go, Ooh, this is kind of, and then for that person who may not have a hum or a dude, you can, like, you'd be surprised you can keep a cigar and a tubo Yeah, yeah.
For like, a long time. Like, like, and it'll [00:47:00] survive.
**Grinder:** Yeah. They, they give me like, so many flashbacks of gone to like the Munich golf course, and they have like, totally the, the, the, the r and j, the Dominican r and j, and these like tub bows that are in ne right next to the acids. And in this like small little glass.
Case.
**Poobah:** No, totally. You know what I mean? Totally. And, and, and like the patron, what's the petron that comes into tubo?
**Gizmo:** There's two. There's the soran and the presidente thee also the 90th, the 90th, the 90th
**Poobah:** nineties. So I have a 90th tubo that I just keep, and it fits an EXI in there perfectly. Mm-hmm. So if I go to the gu, if I go to play golf and I need an, and I put an exce and I pop it in that tube, you throw it in your golf bag, you wherever, and you're ready to like, you're ready for action.
So tubes are great. They are,
**Gizmo:** but again, to the listener, I, I have to repeat it. I, if you're getting, if you're ordering tubo is when you get them in, the best thing to do, just to make sure that you're controlling humidity and acclimating them, is either take them out of the tubo or at minimum just take the lids off [00:48:00] and store them in your humidor with the lids off.
That's, can you, uh, the best way to pre prevent
**Grinder:** molds, can you get. . Um, acclimation. Ster In the tubo, though?
**Gizmo:** I would think so, but I don't know. Well,
**Poobah:** I, I know I've seen and heard about people. They get tubes, they check 'em, and then they just put 'em in the tube and then just put 'em away. Really?
**Senator:** Yeah. Yeah.
Because they're not, it's not tightly sealed. So humidity definitely gets inside of that tubo. They're not sealed tight. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Tuba, how did you store these? Were these I showed you in the text? They were out and he banned them. Oh, oh.
**Gizmo:** He, he bundled '
**Poobah:** em together like a 25 track. Yeah. Like I took a, a, a band from a cabinet that I had.
Cool. You put some work in. Now I like it. And then I just, I stacked them up, uh, together. Awesome. And very cool. And, uh, and, and wrap them up and just put 'em in the back of the humidor. Awesome. Very enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Pretty good. All right, boys, let's, um, let's do a liquor rating. Ooh. On the Arael D 12. The formal liquor rating.
Former formal liquor. [00:49:00]
**Grinder:** It's very formal. . This rating .
**Gizmo:** It's so formal. It's the most formal rating we have. I don't know why I said that on that first in drone. We've just kinda stuck with it. Should
**Poobah:** I? Should, I should. Hold on. We're gonna take a quick break. I'm gonna change in the
**Gizmo:** black tie. We'll be
We'll, we'll lend Gizmo. A tux. Yeah. I have a tuxedo. I'm. Look at you. I do. When did you procure a tuxedo? Uh, do you really want me to tell you for a funeral? Oh, yeah. All right. When I went to the Grammy Awards, I was Grammy nominated and I bought a tuxedo this Oh, yeah. Had it tailored
**Grinder:** one
**Gizmo:** fact about our producer, Grammy nominated Gizmo, Grammy nominated artists, lizards are in good shape.
That would've never come up had it not been for tuxedos. ,
**Bam Bam:** you
**Grinder:** arrogant asshole. We would've, we would've found a way
**Senator:** that that was actually the sweetest, humble brag I've ever heard. I love it.
**Gizmo:** That's why you jumped on that pretty quick. Of course I did. How can I not, how can I not? That's true. There's not many openings like that or that are, that are gonna [00:50:00] happen.
Many people that were nominated
**Senator:** for a Grammy. That's true. Well, you, you were nominated for a Grammy and I was recently nominated for, uh oh yeah. guy and Oscar for, uh, my, my
**Gizmo:** line of work. It's been wonderful. I can't
**Senator:** wait to more like a razzi . The, uh, the lizards are gonna have a table there.
**Gizmo:** It's gonna be excellent.
Excellent. I will put on the tuxedo for that. That's big time.
**Bam Bam:** That's big
**Grinder:** time. That would be so awesome. We would like. Totally troll the fuck out of that thing. ,
**Gizmo:** we would get kicked out of there so fast. This table . It would be bad. We would light up right at the table. Oh yeah.
**Grinder:** It's, it's, there's, so, there's so little context about what we were just
**Gizmo:** talking about.
I know. We should probably cut it, but . All right boys, let's do the formal liquor rating on the afe 12. All. You're up. I'm at an
**Bam Bam:** eight. Eight. Mm-hmm. . Very good. Tasty,
**Poobah:** delicious
**Gizmo:** grinder. What do you think of Aberfeldy?
**Grinder:** Uh, I'm at a six.
**Gizmo:** Hmm? I'm a seven. Okay. Pagoda Senator.
**Senator:** I'm right there with
**Gizmo:** pagoda. I'm at a seven.
I am also at a seven. I'm right between Grindr and [00:51:00] BAM seven here.
**Poobah:** Yeah. I'm at, I'm at a seven too. I, I really like it. Um,
**Senator:** Is alcohol
**Gizmo:** I resent. Well said.
**Poobah:** Very formal. Very formal. Very formal. I re I resent the implication, but, we'll, we'll move on to Rooster Score. . .
**Gizmo:** How's your
**Senator:** Starbucks rooster? 10.
**Gizmo:** The, uh, Starbucks is a 10 Starbucks. 10 Starbucks is a 10. All right. So what's the, uh, what's the formal liquor rating here? The formal liquor
**Senator:** rating is very simple.
Seven.
**Grinder:** Seven seven flat.
**Gizmo:** Ael. D 12 with a seven. How much was this bottle? I bought it and I don't remember, I think it was about 50 bucks. No, it's cheaper. I think around
**Senator:** 38 bucks or 40 days. It's 40 to 45 bucks. Yeah, I bought it. I mean, the thing, just for some context, I think we should all talk a little bit about why we rated it what we did.
For me, I think it's a good everyday scotch. Like if I was just casually just hanging out and gonna pour a scotch, I, I would pour a bottle of this, um, you know, [00:52:00] for, for. Hosting friends and a, a night out, I, I wouldn't necessarily pull for the, I wouldn't reach for this bottle. There was nothing overly offensive about it.
But there are some rough edges. It's a very straightforward scotch. I don't think there's all that much complexity. And so for those reasons, for me it's a seven. I would drink it again, but I'm not gonna reach forward for any
**Gizmo:** sort of occasion. Yeah, there's a great value.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, it's good value. So I gave it the highest score in the room and I gravitated toward the honey notes and little sweetness, and I really enjoyed that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Poobah:** Nice balance. No, I think the characterization that, uh, you made senator's pretty accurate. It's very pleasurable. Is it, is it, is it outstanding? Um, not, not really, but it's good. It's really very good. I, I think it's
**Gizmo:** a solid, I think it's a solid scotch. It's not memorable to me in any way.
It's a good score. I would never reach for it, but I can't, you know, it's good. It's just I would reach for 10 other things before I, yeah. And I would reach for this. The
**Senator:** last thing I'll say, just to give it some credit, I mean, for that price point, which is a very difficult price point for a single [00:53:00] ball.
How much is it? It's 40
**Gizmo:** bucks. That's pretty good. 45 at
**Poobah:** bucks. It's, oh look, I mean, so it's, it's cheaper than, uh, little Bay. Yeah.
**Senator:** Which is little. I went up to like 50,
**Gizmo:** 52, 55 even
**Poobah:** someplace, but, but a better scotch. I, I think it's a, uh, I
**Gizmo:** don't know about that. I now would reach for
**Bam Bam:** this over, I don't know about that.
Yeah, I
agree.
**Poobah:** I agree. But maybe I gave the little bay though. A, I could have to go back and see. But this was very good. I mean, I would, it's, it's, it's a good pleasurable drink. There's nothing offensive about it. It's just not as complex as something that would get a higher score, but it's very good.
**Gizmo:** So, uh, we're in the last third here on the FB two guys, what are you, uh, how are you feeling about it?
I am getting
**Bam Bam:** more pepper now and that white pepper's accurate and that's just ramping up for me. Same. Yeah. But still very enjoyable.
**Senator:** I actually like the last third the best. It's really nice. Right now it's because there's more flavor. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. It's the last hood for some, but nothing other than now[00:54:00]
**Poobah:** Yeah. You are. Yeah. It's kind of, it kind of like, it has its own, it has like its own thing. Yeah. So I think like, it, it, it has merit or in that maybe what it lacks in strength and what maybe what it lacks in some, some, like heavy spice is a virtue in terms of. It is and represents and where it fits within the Havana se catalog within all the rub robusto.
I mean, it kind of has a place, like there's a place for it, you know? Um, so I think that's a virtue.
**Senator:** And to your point, I, I have, I've yet to have any oil, any Cuban oil that's really full in flavor. I think their sweet spot is a medium cigar.
**Rooster:** Yeah, like a
**Poobah:** mild to medium. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It really is a mild to medium smoke.
Um,
**Gizmo:** what do you, I I, I mean not to compare, but uh, from a flavor standpoint with the [00:55:00] Ribos other cigars in the Haos catalog, what would you put this near in, in, in flavor? Cuz it, to me, and I, the reason why I'm asking is I'm sitting here thinking about different ribos that we've had. It's the Oliva, the D four.
uh, the Royal Rub, Robusto from upk, the ra, the ra. Think the Cohi. The Coro. I would guess maybe it's the closest would be the, the Cohiba, but I don't even know if I'd say that. Don Dunno know that.
**Bam Bam:** I think this is one step below those,
**Grinder:** those
**Senator:** robos. It's the mildest I think of any of the popular Cuban River.
That's rights. That's right. That's
**Gizmo:** right. I placed it.
**Bam Bam:** But it has merit and
**Gizmo:** it's respectful. Which is a virtue in the
**Poobah:** cigar. Yeah, I
**Grinder:** think it has its place, it has its place in that Rob Robusto portfolio.
**Gizmo:** It does it, it
**Poobah:** really does. You know, in the morning, if you first wake up, .
**Grinder:** I love, I love that. I do. I love that.
Love that morning cigar so much. And you note in the mood for the 90th, it's so, it's the best .
**Gizmo:** Why not ? Why not ? I think that this would go really well. You know, remember we had that, that bagel set up with locks and capers and onions. [00:56:00] Oh my gosh. Rooster. Rooster
hook
**Grinder:** us up on that hook up. That was pheno.
And I'm not a lox guy. And I was like, that thumb, that was,
**Bam Bam:** I missed that. I
**Gizmo:** regret missing that. That was a good day. You do it again. That was a great day. This would've been a perfect cigar with that. And coffee. It's true. This would've been perfect. Yeah. For, for breakfast.
**Poobah:** Well, yeah, like a little salmon or, or if you were to lox,
**Rooster:** parings with cigars.
**Gizmo:** But by the way, if you Official, official lizard locks, pair . Formal locks. Rating
**Poobah:** formal locks. Yeah, sorry. Formal locks rating. Yeah. But this with like, if this With a bloody Yeah. With a bloody in the, in the, in the morning with a little smoked salmon like some nova. You know, or whatever. Or early in the evening.
I don't know. I don't know
**Grinder:** about, because the blood's so strong. The flavor
**Poobah:** goes so good with the tobacco. Goes good with
**Gizmo:** like
**Senator:** tobacco. Oh, I'm with pba and I say this as a recent convert. I, after reading the book of Puba on Bloodies , and when I started making these at home and lighting up a cigar with it in an early [00:57:00] afternoon, or even morning, it does pair surprisingly well.
I was very skeptical. I gotta say, I gotta give it to him. He's exactly
**Grinder:** right. Yeah. How many shots when you do like a 12? A 12 ounce bloody How many shots?
**Gizmo:** It's a very personal question, , because I found, I found it's alcohol. I've written,
**Poobah:** I I, I'd like to invoke my fifth amendment for privilege on the advice of
counsel.
**Gizmo:** Think it's equal amount of tomato juice and vodka . That's aggressive.
**Grinder:** I've been in those scenarios where I was like, that was little that didn't gimme enough oomph, you know? Didn't
**Bam Bam:** gimme
**Gizmo:** enough kick.
**Poobah:** Yeah. I mean, uh, go ahead, pba. You saw,
**Gizmo:** did you I did see your video, yes. Did you see the video tutorial? Did you
**Poobah:** see the video?
What did I say? I, when I, when I did the mix, I forget. I just, I poured the vodka and I said, I, I said, yeah, add the, you add this, this, this, this. I was doing the alternative [00:58:00] to the Dimitri's mix. Yeah, the homemade. And I said, and you add the vodka. I like copious amounts.
**Grinder:** Yeah, it's the personal preference.
You're right. Yeah. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I, I do think with the pepper, the pepper flavor of this cigar, I, I do think it would pair well with the bloody, I, I just
**Grinder:** got, the last time I had a bloody, I put too much of that Dimitri in and it just, it rocked my world. It was like so
**Senator:** strong. No. Oh, can you need very little, like just a, like tablespoon?
I know. You're, I met that.
**Grinder:** That's it. I messed it up. I totally,
**Senator:** that's it. Rooster loves spice, so I had a bloody rooster made four or four ounces. . Yeah. He, he, he just dowses that I was literally coughing. I just had like pepper in the back of my throat. I couldn't get rid of.
**Poobah:** I like a little more. So if you're putting the, if it's, if I put it's about a third if you're cut.
I, I, so if you have the glass and the ice, I, I generally go like just under halfway in with the vodka and then top it off with the, because the viscosity of the tomato juice. And once you do the whole mix up and mash up, it just, I don't [00:59:00] know, for me, It's just personal, but
**Senator:** you like the, the thing I will say with, when you make a bloody, with a very generous pour of vodka.
it adds like a sweetness to the bloody, like, you know, you have like the, the acidity from the tomato juice, right? And I, I'm vividly thinking of when I'm on airplanes and I order a bloody and I've got a flight atten, you know, some will just put one thing of vodka and a lot of them will put two. And when there's that second little airplane bottle in there, it just has this wonderful.
Balanced quality about it. So I, I'm very much in favor of a liberal poor because it just, it balances out so well. I really love the taste.
**Poobah:** Yeah. I had a, I had a Mr. Tease on, I, I, I said I'd like a bloody Mary make it a double. And they mixed it up and they brought it to me on Delta and I, and I, and I drank it.
And it just, with the Mr See, this is why the Mr. Ts is actually serviceable in the pinch because it's not that spicy and there's [01:00:00] not so much horse radish in it. Like, it's not trying to be more than what it is. It's just like spicy tomato. It's like flavored tomato juice. What, what's your, what's
**Gizmo:** your,
**Grinder:** what's your, like perspective on or position rather on using a straw?
Don't you need, you need a straw for the, to get the, the spice at the bottom of the glass cuz it falls down.
**Senator:** I'm antis straw with the bloody
**Poobah:** Yeah, me too. I, I don't personal, my personal agree, I don't do that unless, unless I'm faced with. A golet in a restaurant,
**Gizmo:** of some sort, some sort
**Poobah:** of ridiculous golet.
Uh, yeah, you know, , yeah. You get a goblet. A
**Gizmo:** goblet. I've never gotten a goblet. I've never ordered a goblet. But,
**Poobah:** you know, those clearly aren't going to the booie restaurants. Those, those, those, those huge. But generally those buddy marries are awful. Yeah, I can, I can imagine they are, most of the time, I'd say 75% of the time when you go into a restaurant, maybe 80% I'm dissatisfied with whatever bloody Mary they serve.
**Grinder:** Yeah. I'm just always impressed with the, with those restaurants that make a bloody like an [01:01:00] event and they have like the, the stick in it with like, the slab of bacon and like the shrimp and the fucking mozzarella ball and, you know, God knows what else. And then a celery stick,
**Poobah:** just for good measure. So the only place I've ever really seen a, a true bloody bar is at the Longboat key.
In Long Bo Key Florida, where they just put out tomato juice and they have old bay celery salt, black pepper, bacon, celery, carrots, fucking the little, the the little pickles. What are they called? Come on Senator. You know what they're called? Uh, corny Shs. Yes.
Course. He knows what they're called. I did. Are we, are we in
**Gizmo:** bougie hour now? Oh, look at that. Listen. Bam, bam. You talked about detail. This is detail. I know where it go. It's,
**Poobah:** look, I know where to go for this kind of information. . So, so, so they have everything kind of laid out for you and you just make your own body.
Mary. It's a covid. Is it covid measure? No, no, no, no. It's a body Mary, no [01:02:00] bar at the breakfast
**Senator:** set. You know where else you can get exactly what you described. And I absolutely love it. Buckle up. Yeah. The American Airlines flagship lounge at jf. Of course, of course.
**Gizmo:** I swear to you. Of
**Senator:** course they have one of the best bloody merry bars you can possibly find.
It's exactly. Are you on the payroll? Describe,
**Gizmo:** right, exactly. He's on the
**Senator:** payroll flagship lounge.
**Gizmo:** Terminated at jfk. Go. Well this, listen, this validates an earlier conversation that we had about bloods. Love it. And we have to put the Sunday Bloody Mary pod recording on the calendar for early spring. That would be great.
We have to do it. That'd be great. Let's do it. So we gotta, uh, we gotta start thinking about that and, uh, and, and get to it because there's obviously a lot of good opinions about bloods and I don't really know much about them. I try to, how
**Poobah:** do I forget when the wor shear, we can't make a bloody without Worcestershire sauce or you're fucked.
Okay.
**Grinder:** This is a great, this is a great like Springtime Master Sunday. Exactly. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. We gotta, let's do a Master Sunday Bloody. [01:03:00] Extravaganza and then we'll make some pimento fucking sandwiches and just call it today. Oh, and just go for it. That'd be great.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. We're gonna do it.
I
**Senator:** did this every year since I had the privilege of attending the Masters. Always do that. Here I will gladly host. Let's do it. Oh, there we go. We're doing it. And we will drink from Masters cups that I've collected from my ears. I love pimento
**Grinder:** cheese. It's so good on wipes. It's it's wonderful. It's fit, it's fancy.
**Senator:** You know where you can find pimento cheese with good spread Whole Foods. Where Whole Foods Bingo. Yep. Whole Foods. They have, uh, says great pimento cheese. You, you know who makes it though? It's not Whole Foods. The brand. If you've ever spent any time in Charleston, South Carolina, it's from Cali's Hot Biscuit, which makes the best hot biscuit in Charleston.
It's
**Poobah:** awesome. Yes. And the varsity in Atlanta, Georgia. And the varsity, uh, is that a in aclu? No, . It's a
**Gizmo:** hamburger . The pimento sandwiches
**Poobah:** strip club. They put, they, they put pimento cheese on their burgers. Oh, that's,
**Gizmo:** that's
**Grinder:** a nice touch. Yeah, that's a great touch.
**Gizmo:** I love that.
**Poobah:** Absolutely.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, we're coming to the end here of the, uh, [01:04:00] Hoyo de Monterey epicure number two.
It has, it is time for the, uh, let's make it formal, the formal lizard rating. You're up, rooster. Go. All right. So,
**Rooster:** uh, for me, the score is a seven. Okay.
**Gizmo:** Puba?
**Poobah:** Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm right there. Um, it's between a seven and an eight, I think, just based on the performance of the cigar and like from, it's really tough.
It's not,
I think I have to give it a seven. Um, as much as this particular one. It, it performed pretty. . But for me, I, I, I, I, I, I'm, if I could give it a little bit higher than a seven, I would, um, if I could give it a 7.5, I would, but I'm, I'm, I'm gonna give it a seven.
**Gizmo:** I'm gonna give this an eight. I, I'm very sat satisfied with the cigar.
Um, I'm very [01:05:00] satisfied with, yeah. I, I'm very happy with these two bows. It's making me want to dive into my 25 cab that I have at home and I haven't touched yet. Um, so yeah, definitely an eight for me. I'm, I'm really enjoying the cigar,
**Senator:** so I'm right there with Rooster at a hard seven.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, I'm a seven
**Grinder:** as well.
Okay. I'm a, I was between a seven and an eight. I'm gonna go the other side, give it an eight. Okay. Bam. Bam. I'm at
**Bam Bam:** a seven, but piggybacking wa Puba said I'm right smack in the middle between seven and eight. Okay. Right off the, right off the initial draw, for sure. Yeah. If I could give it a seven and a half.
Agreed. Agreed. .
**Senator:** All right. The, uh, composite lizard score, a 7.3.
**Gizmo:** That's a good score. I think that's perfect. Recommend score, I think, yeah, I think that's perfect. 7 36. Yeah.
**Poobah:** Was it seven? Nice. Cigar. Really is a nice cigar. It's a good recommend.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. It's definitely a, a recommend. Uh, I was, again, I said this earlier, I was totally expecting to come in here based on my recent experiences with the cigar and give it a five or a six.
Yeah. I really was see, like in
**Poobah:** the last third. I think it's just, it, it's telling [01:06:00] in, in the last third here, like down to the end. It didn't get like really, really, . Crappy. Yeah, . Um, it didn't, it didn't really get crappy. I mean, could it use some more time? Because we, we've been purchasing it for sure. Yeah, yeah, we've
**Gizmo:** been purchasing it.
So. All right boys, A 7.3 for the Hoya Epi two Very good score. Recommend and, uh, yeah. We'll see you next week. Keep spot. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. Hope you enjoyed it. 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 Lounge Lizards Pod, p o d, that's Lounge Lizards pod@gmail.com.
You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next [01:07:00] week.