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Released every Tuesday, the LOUNGE LIZARDS podcast helps listeners navigate the experience of finding and enjoying premium cigars (both Cuban and non-Cuban) and quality spirits. Episodes are normally around 90 minutes long and feature a variety of different topics including food, travel, life, sports and work.
The podcast features seven members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
**Gizmo:** [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast presented by Fabrica5. 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 Pagoda, Senator, Grinder, 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 146th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. We're going to smoke a New World Cigar tonight, share our thoughts on it, and give you our formal lizard rating. We discuss the similarities between Honduran and Cuban tobacco. We answer a listener email about smoking in your 20s and finding your own lizard smoking crew.
And we share our thoughts on the Olympics, all among a variety of other things for the next 90 minutes. So sit back, get your favorite drink, and Light up a cigar and enjoy as we pair Nika Mia Gekyo single malt whiskey with the Bond Roberts Petit 109 Linea D No. 6. A Petit 109 on the pod tonight from [00:01:00] Honduras.
It's the Bond Roberts Linea D No. 6. And it's a 50 ring gauge cigar by 5 and 7 eighths inches long. And boys, this is our first cigar tonight. From Fabrica 5 .
**Bam Bam:** Oh yeah. Honestly, it's a beautiful cigar. It is. It's really beautifully made. It's a
**Gizmo:** beautiful cigar. I'm, there's almost a very, very
**Bam Bam:** happy we're doing this tonight.
Almost a glistening to the wrapper. It looks great. I don't,
**Grinder:** I don't notice a glistening, but I noticed the, uh, it's
**Bam Bam:** there.
**Grinder:** It's very firm, firmly. It feels like a hard cigar.
**Bam Bam:** Well constructed. Yeah, beautifully made, looks like.
**Senator:** Densely packed, for sure. I have to state the obvious. There are bands. Yeah, the, uh,
**Gizmo:** No boxes, no bands, no bullshit goes out the window tonight, boys.
Only no bullshit remains. Not just one
**Senator:** band.
**Gizmo:** Two bands. Two bands.
**Senator:** A foot band.
**Gizmo:** A foot band that says blended by Hamlet. And the main Bon Roberts band. Which is cream colored and gold. And these come in boxes of 25 cigars. Which are really, really nice. They're very, they're like slide [00:02:00] lid box for like from Cuba.
Black with gold, um. Really? Detail, yeah. Really, really nice looking. So. Nice. But first boys, let's cut this thing. See what we're getting on the cold draw on the wrapper. So I had this cigar about a year ago now.
On the tasting panel.
**Pagoda:** I'm just having a tough time getting the foot band off. Oh, you guys are going to laugh out loud.
**Bam Bam:** Pagoda's not wrong. This foot band is, it's no joke. Mine just came right off. It literally just slid right off. Yeah, mine did too.
**Senator:** Sorry, mine. I think it's a user error, I just saw it off. Oh yeah, yeah, Pagoda, what are you doing?
This is easier than you made it
**Pagoda:** sound. I don't even understand the purpose of foot baths. He's not a technician. It's to protect
**Gizmo:** the foot. He's a man. Oh really? Yeah.
**Pagoda:** That's not decorative. It's got more of a purpose.
**Gizmo:** Bam, give the people what they want.
**Bam Bam:** This cold draw is fruit all the way. It is. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong.
It absolutely is. It's outstanding. Definitely cedar.
**Gizmo:** [00:03:00] And I want to point out, because Grinder was talking about how packed the cigar felt, how good the draw is. For how much tobacco is in it. It's very well constructed.
**Bam Bam:** I'll be honest this. I don't think it's a dry fruit It's it's like a fruit of some kind I get almost like a raspberry similar to me that we got on the scene compromiso
**Gizmo:** Ah, it's
**Bam Bam:** very similar berry that strong berry note that I get on that cold draw.
I get here, too I
**Senator:** agree completely. This is I mean,
**Bam Bam:** yeah,
**Senator:** I don't even need to like this to enjoy this It's really good cold draws just that flavorful Rob, are you
**Bam Bam:** adding flavors to these
**Gizmo:** things? Spraying them. Sweetener. Alright boys, let's light this thing. The Bond Roberts Linea D number 6. The petite 109.
The first cigar from Bond Roberts. Again, it's a 50 ring gauge cigar. By 5 and 7 eighths inches long. Manufactured in Honduras at Oscar Valladares factory. [00:04:00] Actually an offshoot on his property there. The Fabrica 5 factory run by Hamlet Perretti's.
This cigar was blended by Hamlet Perretti's and Rob Isla. Of course of FOH and Bon Roberts. And this cigar of course carries the namesake of the very, very successful and I guess now about five years running. Online cigar auction house, spawnroberts. com, where all of us have certainly purchased some great
**Bam Bam:** cigars.
Well, right off the bat, it, it does differ than what I was getting on the cold draw. Not getting as much berry on the draw, but nice. It's
**Pagoda:** very creamy on the light. It is. Yeah, the, the draw is pretty good, actually. I was a bit worried because it seemed really densely
**Gizmo:** packed. Yeah, my draw is just slightly resistant.
Which is perfect. In a really nice way. I took a very, very little bit off the top.
**Senator:** After [00:05:00] a few puffs though, Bam, I'm, I'm now getting the fruit notes. Yeah, I think after a little bit, it comes right back. Fruit cream, cedar. Definitely cream. Nuts, and even like a faint bit of coffee. I get walnut
**Bam Bam:** a touch. And I definitely get that nuttiness. Faint berry in the back, maybe. It's creamy. This is nice.
**Gizmo:** Maybe like a little bit of like a, like a salty sourdough. Touch of salt.
**Bam Bam:** On the very front.
**Gizmo:** So do we know when these were made? These have been manufactured now. I guess they've been working on these for about a year and a half. I believe that they were rested somewhere around six or eight months before they shipped.
**Bam Bam:** Okay.
**Gizmo:** And they're just coming out now. So they're about two years old roughly.
So I think, [00:06:00] well I think the tobacco is, you know, several years aged. Oh wow. But these were rolled, I would assume, sometime at near the end of 23 or beginning of 24.
**Senator:** I gotta say just the size of this cigar is perfect. It is. The 109 is just a great, great, great ring gauge. Feels
**Bam Bam:** great in
**Gizmo:** the hand.
**Bam Bam:** It feels elegant.
It does, and it looks elegant. I mean this wrapper, that very light brown creamy color to it and with the Bit of sheen is beautiful.
**Grinder:** I'm getting a lot out of the right now. The, the aroma. The aroma as it were,
**Senator:** it's, it's actually quite creamy. I also, this is a cigar where if this were blind, I mean, I could very easily think this is a Cuban cigar.
**Bam Bam:** Let's talk about that. Where would you go with it if you were blind tested here?
**Gizmo:** I think that I would put this somewhere in between a, I would, I would [00:07:00] say between three things.
Ramon Ionis. Romeo. Mmm, I hate Romeo, so I'm not cool with that. Well, we all do. Yeah, there's no Romeo in this. I would say, I would say Ramon. Pardigis and Uppin would be my three that I would kind of It'd be between Ramon
**Bam Bam:** and um, Porlo and Yaga.
**Senator:** Mmm.
**Bam Bam:** Between those two. It is very Cuban esque. Yeah. Pagoda, what are you thinking?
**Pagoda:** Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's been very pleasant. I think I get a little bit of the cedar and creaminess and, you know, a little bit of nuttiness. I did get in one of the puffs a bit of the saltiness in the, in the front of mine. Mm hmm. Tongue, but that was just fleeting, fleeting. It was like, yeah. Um, but let's see how it develops.
It's easy to smoke though, isn't it? Very easy to smoke. I think, uh, while the draw is a bit resistant, uh, the smoke output is great and it feels good in the hand for sure.
**Senator:** Yeah. I think on the, the Cuban markets that this [00:08:00] is reminiscent of, I'm very much with you on Ramon. And up men, but I don't get part of this and this.
**Gizmo:** Okay. Why? Because part of this, you'd expect something that has a little bit more. Yeah.
**Senator:** There's so much creaminess on this up front that keeps this so firmly medium that, um, and there's not like. The, the baking spice is so dessert like in this that reminds me more of Upman than, like, Partagus is like baking spice on steroids to the point that, like, there's, like, so much cinnamon sometimes.
He forced cinnamons forward, for sure. So I, I, I think the, the Ramon and the Upman comparison is very good here. A good experience right now. And the tobacco also definitely tastes aged. It definitely does, doesn't it? I mean, I don't get this level of creaminess
**Bam Bam:** on any cigar without some age. The finish is really quite nice.
I get a lot of dessert [00:09:00] note kind of on the finish, which I love. Very different.
**Pagoda:** It's definitely leaving some kind of, you know, sometimes with creamy cigars that leave a little It's like a signature, man. Yeah, like on, on, on your palate leaves a creamy filling of, like I come and say, coating. It coats the mouth.
Yeah, it coats the mouth. It's, it's really pleasant.
**Gizmo:** So the Bon Roberts line of cigars. Like I said, manufactured by Fabrica 5 is the sister line to what we've been talking about on the ads that have run on this program. Other cigars we've talked about, the Puro Desnudo and the Mofo, which is the tasting panel cigars.
This is the sister line to that little bit more age in these cigars and obviously, uh, attributed to the Bond Roberts line. These are releasing internationally now so they'll be able to purchase. And this cigar has Honduran and Nicaraguan tobacco in it primarily. Nicaraguan tobacco? There's a little bit of Nicaraguan and some Honduran.
Yep. Interesting. Wow.
**Grinder:** Maybe part of the binder and filler. The [00:10:00] retrohale and the aroma are, there's just a lot, there's a, it's a bouquet of like sweetness, floralness. That's, that's a word for all in this room. It is for me. And, um, we don't, uh, we don't punch on grammar here. And I'm thinking like, unless it's you, like, I'm thinking like overripe blueberry, like, you know, when a blueberry gets like, Oh, just like a little overripe and it gets super sweet and mushy and jammy and a little jammy, but not too jammy.
**Gizmo:** I actually really liked that, especially on the finish. On the
**Grinder:** finish, I can see that. That's really good call. But I was looking for it and I just couldn't, I just couldn't find it. But for me, it's. It's, the finish is not, it's not singular. It like transforms over the course of a few seconds and I don't like it at first.
So I just wait it out and it, it, it's a lasting finish though. Um. [00:11:00] Long finish. And I would say it's, it's, I'm having a hard time equating it to any other cigar or class of cigars that I've had. He's got a point there. Um. I don't, I wouldn't, I don't, I don't see the Cuban comparison. If I see a Cuban comparison, maybe it's a young Cuban.
I don't see the age in this. But that doesn't mean it's not good. I think it's, I think it's a good cigar. Um, yeah, it's just very, it's very unique cigar for me right now.
**Bam Bam:** You know, I think it's, for me, it's closest to a Ramon alone. As if the Ramon was a step down. Okay. Step it down and body. I think it's, it'd be pretty close.
**Senator:** I mean, I just love there's clearly complexity. Oh yeah. I think Grinder's point about the finish is almost changing each puff as you're smoking. you get a lot of very different and distinct flavors in this. Yeah. Which again, for me, the signs of age, when I'm getting complexity, age usually brings that out.[00:12:00]
When I'm getting creaminess, age usually brings that out. And I haven't gotten any rough edges yet. I mean, the tail will always be the final third. So I'm not going to, you know, draw any conclusion yet, but at least on the light. I don't get any rough edges at all.
**Gizmo:** I'm kind of really stuck on that blueberry note that you called out.
I think that is incredibly accurate, incredibly accurate. Yeah. It's really sticking with me.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So I've had these in the humidor for, I would say about two months now, just resting, which is what Rob recommends when they ship, give them 60 to 90 days before trying them. And, you know, of course I wonder what these would taste like with, you know, six months or a year on them.
You know, and I'm curious, like you said, in the last third, how that's gonna show itself. And if it does,
**Bam Bam:** you know. Pretty nice burn line. Ash looks great. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** It is
**Bam Bam:** actually pretty good.
**Gizmo:** And how much are these? I think these are gonna be right around 20 bucks, a little under 20 bucks. Right, it's not bad. Yeah.
It's a good price. Yeah. [00:13:00] And the sister cigar to this, the, uh, Actual, you know, the 1 0 9, this is the petite 1 0 9, which is gonna be the Linea D number one, which is gonna be closer in size to the Lusitania with a, you know, a double Corona with a 1 0 9 head on it, like this one, the rounded top. Wow. And that cigar is phenomenal.
That's gonna be cool. Yeah, and that's gonna come out later this year. Nice. Internationally.
**Senator:** That's always a scary proposition, particularly on this podcast for a long format cigar, because you can't get bored. I mean, the cigars that we've been frustrated with, I think the Ramon Iones Gigantes, it didn't have enough complexity.
It didn't change enough where we all got really bored with that cigar. If this can maintain this complexity all the way through, then I'm really excited about that. I think that that'd be a great thing. Uh, addition to their lineup.
**Gizmo:** So as you can hear, and I want to just knock this out right now, uh, on the podcast, you know, Bon Roberts, Fabrica 5, they [00:14:00] are our sponsor, right?
They've been presenting this podcast for quite some time. Now, this conversation that we're having has not been. Heated up by any messaging, any warnings, any conversation inside the room or out of the room. So I want the listener to understand that we are approaching this review. We are approaching this conversation.
We're approaching smoking this cigar tonight as we would any other cigar from any other manufacturer. And I know for our listeners out there, that's really important for Rob Isla. Who's a listener every week and really supportive of the podcast. It's important to him to hear an honest representation of how the cigar smokes tonight.
And most importantly for us in the room and our integrity, uh, that's how we roll. So yeah, we will
**Bam Bam:** not be pulling
**Gizmo:** punches. There will be no punches pulled tonight. You're going to hear a very accurate representation. And of course the tell is if you go out and try one of these cigars and have a wildly, dramatically different experience than we do, which, which is great.
I don't think any listener has probably ever had when smoking a cigar that we've talked about, [00:15:00] at least not that I've seen in the email or messaging. Um, we're going to give it to you how it is. And, uh, you know, we're not going to pull any punches like Bam said. So I just want to tell the listener that now, obviously this is a cigar manufactured by our sponsor, but that is not affecting how we're smoking tonight.
Absolutely. All right. Now, now that that's out of the way, I hate this cigar. I'm kidding. I am really enjoying this. I love the resistant draw. I think for a cigar like this, you know, like I said, packed so densely to have that kind of perfect draw, which is just a touch bit resistant, kind of like a good Cuban roll, like that you would get in a Corona Gorter or something like that.
It's really,
**Bam Bam:** really good. This is getting better and better for me. It's becoming biscuity now for me, biscuity and the creaminess is continuing. I kind of lost that fruit, which is okay because that biscuit. No, with a little bit of baking spice, I'm kind of getting that. I'm digging it. It's really good.
You're talking [00:16:00] about
**Grinder:** an American biscuit or
**Bam Bam:** a British biscuit? American biscuit.
**Grinder:** No currants in the, uh I'm getting more of a British biscuit.
**Bam Bam:** Some currant in there, maybe? Some English breakfast tea. But no, uh, no salted butter? Clotted cream. Clotted cream.
**Pagoda:** Of course. What about the Indian biscuit? I think we've discussed that in one of the boards as well.
You guys have biscuits over there? Curry, curry biscuit. Of course. All right. Listen, listen, listen. Biscuits are cookies over there.
**Bam Bam:** So if the listener was in the room, he'd see uh, Pagoda, he or she would see Pagoda laying down practically right now on the couch. Yeah, Pagoda's in rooster seat tonight. You are absolutely comfortable, you're reclining, feet are crossed, belly's proudly pronounced there.
You look like a
**Pagoda:** king. That's how kings should, uh, that's how you roll, man. It is a sign of prosperity. Correct. That's exactly right. Abundance. All I need to do is get a ball. A lot of abundance going on over there. A lot of abundance. [00:17:00] But I feel, I feel very honored to be sitting in Rooster's, uh, little, uh, couch.
What, what do we call it? It's like, uh. It's a love seat. It's a love seat. It's excellent. I, I sit on something like, I sit on a stool all the time. It's true. I feel like. I've really graduated. Thank you, guys. I do
**Grinder:** think Rooster has one of the best seats in the house. He definitely does.
**Bam Bam:** He's got the whole damn love seat to himself.
**Grinder:** He does. Although, technically, you're not in the seat, because he's always
**Pagoda:** on the other side of
**Grinder:** the
**Pagoda:** couch. Why do you think I sat on the left side? He is fragile, you know, so he does need the left seat. That's correct. That's true.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, it's time to do our Lizard of the Week email. This one's going out to listener Lizard Chris.
He writes, Dear Lizards, my name is Lizard Chris, and I want to thank you guys for producing such a wonderful podcast. By the way, if you notice the trend here, people who win Lizard of the Week always compliment us. You ever notice that?
**Bam Bam:** Well, they compliment the production. They compliment Gizmo. The production.
**Gizmo:** I have [00:18:00] nearly listened to every episode, and the amount of knowledge I've gained is unbelievable. You hear that, Pagoda? If you listen, you learn. You know, if only I had a memory. I do listen. I believe I am one of your youngest listeners. I just turned 21 recently. Wow. And I've been smoking cigars since I was 15.
**Bam Bam:** Are you serious?
**Gizmo:** Pretty wild.
**Bam Bam:** I've got an associate. That's right. Who has a son that smoked that early as well. That's right.
**Gizmo:** We talked about him. Yeah. Lizard
**Bam Bam:** Hollis.
**Gizmo:** Lizard Hollis, that's his name. Again,
**Grinder:** nothing on Grinder though.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, Grinder started early. I really enjoyed the conversations about how virtually no people in my age group are actively looking for and enjoying premium cigars.
I am probably one of the only exceptions to that statement, but I have made it my mission. To introduce my friends, colleagues, and virtually everyone I can to cigars to give them a proper experience. Submerging myself in this incredible hobby has greatly improved my mental health, allowing me to take life slowly and live in the moment.
Which, by the way, that is the most perfect
**Bam Bam:** statement as far as [00:19:00] being a cigarist. Repeat his name? Lizard Chris. Lizard Chris, you're a kid, as far as I'm concerned. That's very insightful commentary. Well done. Kudos to you. All very accurate. That's why we, we smoke these cigars and sit with each other to disconnect and shed the
**Gizmo:** stress.
Exactly right. Shed the stress. I have always had good taste in cigars, but since starting to listen, my palate has developed exponentially. You guys have also been a fantastic outlet for trying the finer sides of champagne. Tequila and scotch. I absolutely love he puts a parentheses. I absolutely love Paul Roger BAM I think you and I could take credit for the Paul Roger.
Correct? Correct. Most of most of the time I'm the youngest person in any lounge by about Correct. No, what's it called? Paul Roger Roger Paul Roger. Yeah famous cowboy My question to you is what is the youngest person you've spoken to or seen in a lounge that actually knows what they are doing? For example, I once saw someone that was about my age light up a New World Partagas backwards, leaving [00:20:00] the band on and smoking it down to the nub.
It was completely unbelievable. Anyway, thank you for your time, gentlemen. And if you have any questions for me as well, let me know. Lizard Chris. All
**Bam Bam:** right.
**Gizmo:** I love hearing from young lizards out there. I do too. You know, I just think about, for me, when I was that age, I don't think my brain was even remotely developed to the point that I would have been able to enjoy there.
So the maturity, for what he's saying, to actually sit down and kind of let time slow. Yeah. Like my, I was just, I was an adult. I was an idiot. I mean, in fairness,
**Senator:** you were a late bloomer. It took meeting this group. You were a late bloomer. That's also true.
**Gizmo:** I don't think Gizmo had
**Grinder:** a drink until he started hanging out with us.
**Gizmo:** No, I actually didn't drink until I was out of college, if you believe it. Wow.
**Bam Bam:** I can't believe it. I definitely believe it. We do believe it. So to answer the question from my point of view, Lizard Hollis I met at another club, not too far from where we are now, at 1086, in Hawthorne, New Jersey. Um, he [00:21:00] was a. I think a sophomore in high school in the club wearing a black rim hat, white button down, black vest, jeans, white shoes, lighting some Davidoff, because he's a big Davidoff guy.
I love how he remembers his entire outfit. Yeah, yeah. No, I was really blown away. And then I got to meet his dad. And, you know, I think a lot of this, I'm curious if his dad smoked cigars and got him into it, because that's how. That's a really good question. A lot of younger guys get into it by their, That's how I did.
**Grinder:** Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah.
**Grinder:** Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** And I think Grinder as well.
**Grinder:** Indirectly. Indirectly. He's a cigar
**Bam Bam:** smoker, but he provided. And you were in that environment, right? Mm hmm. You're a country club boy, aren't you? Yeah. You were a country club guy. He facilitated. You're a country club boy. Do you want to say it again? I like it. Okay.
I actually like it a lot. Say it again.
**Gizmo:** I mean, for me, I, I don't think age necessarily is, is correlated to someone, you know, being Being successful [00:22:00] or not, or knowing what they're doing, quote unquote, or smoking good cigars or not, I don't think that really has anything to do with it. I think it's just the depth of curiosity someone has about the hobby.
I think it's age irrelevant, because I've met plenty of 60 and 70 year olds who are complete idiots as far as cigars go. And I mean that very seriously. Like, well, my brother lighting this again, cigar backwards or taking a cbra Yeah. And lighting all three cigars at the same time. I'd love to see that. . I kind of wanna do that though.
**Bam Bam:** I
**Gizmo:** know, right? . But you know, like, like it, it's age irrelevant to me. I, I think it's just, it's, it's a curiosity thing. Mm-Hmm. that's really driving success with, you know, how your cigar experience is gonna be.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. And who you're around. Who introduces it to you. Mm-Hmm. . I don't think most people are walking into a cigar shop for the first time, never having had a cigar ever.
So there's always someone that's a bridge, I think, to the cigar world, I think.
**Senator:** I think all of the above is true and I think it's also just being like purposeful and intentional about it. There's countless people who just get a [00:23:00] cigar to smoke on the golf course. And they're not thinking about the cigar.
They're not thinking about what the flavors they're getting. They're playing golf. You know, it's just something to add a little bit to what they're already doing, which is not there, which becomes really their primary focus. So I think whenever you sit down, like I think of when I was in college and, you know, Probably the first few cigars I had, I wasn't really thinking very much about them.
I said, okay, this is cool. This is interesting. But once I started getting interested enough that I would just like sit on the porch of my fraternity house and smoke a cigar initially by myself. And then over time, you know, my other fraternity brothers got interested in wanting to try. That those moments where you're just by yourself or just with a very small group and you're doing nothing other than smoking a cigar is when you really start to think about what you're experiencing and the flavors you're getting.
And while that was dramatically different from that cigar, why is that? And I think that's when you really start to go deeper down that rabbit hole, where I think for most people, when they start, it's so social that they're just in a [00:24:00] huge group. Everybody's quickly smoking a cigar. You're not really thinking about it very seriously at that.
That's true. All true.
**Pagoda:** I also, um, you know, considering for somebody young to get into cigars, I wonder how many people actually go to a store and for the first time just buy a cigar on their own. I think most people probably have been introduced to it. As I noted earlier, there's usually a bridge. Yeah, a bridge.
That bridges you into it. That's exactly.
**Grinder:** Let me put it. I think, I think you learn. You have, there's a lot to learn about cigars and the more you learn, the more you appreciate it. And I think correlating with age for a long time, you had to learn from others. You had to learn from old people who were been smoking cigars a long while.
Now there's, it's, it's just so easy to learn about anything. Like, go to YouTube, find some Jamoak who's talking about cigars, and then, boom, you're hooked. And then you go down the rabbit hole, and uh, then you join a lounge. Are you calling
**Gizmo:** us Jamoaks? No,
**Grinder:** we're not on YouTube. Oh, we are. Speak for [00:25:00] yourself, Grinder.
**Bam Bam:** Honestly, I think the most meaningful, um, leap that you take in this hobby is when you're in a club, and you're interacting with members that are smoking other cigars, and you learn from them. And that's really meaningful, and it's fun. Um, it's expensive because you're typically upgrading what you're smoking.
Totally. But, um, those are really meaningful moments. I wasn't
**Grinder:** a Padron or Davidoff guy until I joined The Lounge. Yeah. And I remember being in The Lounge smoking. Rocky Patels. And, uh, Not that there's anything wrong with that. Some people were like, oh, interesting, that's cool, whatever. And they were, they were polite.
And then, I was, I was like, why don't you try this cigar, why don't you try this Davidoff. And then I was just like, absolutely hooked. And then we'd talk about it. So we're smoking, we're talking about it, that social element that as we're talking about as Senator mentioned, I think that kind of just amplifies interest and amplifies the passion and then, [00:26:00] you know, here
**Gizmo:** we are.
**Pagoda:** And that's what we're doing over here, right? We're just talking about it, we're just smoking and talking. Once a week,
**Bam Bam:** baby.
**Gizmo:** And I think too about the, you know, the conversations you have when you, you find this group of friends in a lounge. And I think to your point too, you know, including the internet, there's plenty of guys who don't have access to lounges, but have found zoom communities, zoom hearths that they get on with each other each week.
And they do this digitally, you know, and they're, and they're sitting with headphones and with a camera on and on zoom smoking cigars together. The thing I think that, that kind of enhances your experience in doing that aside from the friendship and community is. I know I felt this as, as I met you guys and I started going to the lounges like you have to show up.
Correct? Like you have to come with some level of preparedness mentally, like to participate, right? I mean, this is a big acknowledgement. Yes. and a college shirt. , not a college shirt. I disagree with that. No. No throwing bouchard chocolates around. Little no. That, that. That would, I was fine with that.
**Bam Bam:** I actually enjoyed that.
[00:27:00] Plenty of
**Gizmo:** folks participated in the chocolates. Let's
**Senator:** just say if Puba were here and you showed up to the grand Havana roof, throwing around chocolates, you may be asked to
**Gizmo:** leave. There's a lot of A list celebrities over there. Oh yeah. But you know what I mean? Like, like you can't, you know, when you're showing up to that, that event or that, that meeting that you have, or like we're doing now, like, You're, you're coming prepared,
**Bam Bam:** correct?
**Gizmo:** You know, you're coming with a stack of cigars or you're coming with your rotation, you're coming with things to share and talk about. And it's like, it elevates the entire experience versus smoking by yourself and ordering, you know, um, factory seconds all the time off of cigars international and not expanding beyond that.
It's like that, if that's part of your rotation, fine, but you need to. You need to try the other stuff out. Yeah, you're limiting yourself. I mean,
**Grinder:** there's like a group of cigar smokers that that's their life. Like the CI discount bundle. Of course. And, and they're, they're so into it. And I just think that's great.
That's great. [00:28:00] But you're missing out. Like you happy idiot. Like, can't you? That's a good point. Yeah, honestly. Just learn a little more and then you'll realize like you're basically smoking me. Scraps. Yeah. Right. And, uh, there's so much more of a world out there, uh, literally and figuratively for cigars
**Gizmo:** to me.
It's like, you know, someone is someone who, you know, I compare that to, you know, like a, like almost like a TV dinner, right? You know, if you're, if you're, if you're microwaving your dinner every night, great. But sometimes you want to elevate that. You know, once a week, once a month, whatever you can afford, whatever time you have, whatever interest you may have in it, but there's more out there than that, and I think that create, you know, finding and creating a community like this helps you do that and what we've found, I think through the podcast here is you can do that without it necessarily being a crazy price cigar.
I mean, we've all added sub 10 cigars to a rotation just in the last six months. I just want to say one
**Senator:** thing. [00:29:00] The cigar lounge obviously is important. to anyone's kind of growth in this hobby. But at the same time, I have a slightly different perspective in that. I, I really think it just takes one, it takes one person, right?
Like you may not have access to a cigar lounge with a bunch of members near wherever you live. You mean one other person? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, truly, like I think back to, you know, when I lived in DC, at a college and I'll never forget, I was smoking a cigar. On the rooftop of my building, which then was allowed, obviously now, uh, you can't anywhere really in DC and any major city.
And I'd be up there every night. And all of a sudden I noticed this one other guy that would come up there. And he'd smoke a cigar and we, we both would kind of, you know, stare at each other like, wow, from a distance, from a distance, it's like a sailor always knows a sailor from pretty much, you know, it's like you had a lighthouse in the fog, this apartment building with God knows how many people.
And for however long I was the only one that would ever [00:30:00] smoke a cigar up there and you see another guy and he's saying to himself, I'm usually the only guy up here. Who's this? And the two of us finally, was there a rendezvous? There was, we started chatting and you know, when I say it just takes one, it's like, you start sharing things that you enjoy with that person and trying things that you haven't tried.
And if you think about, you know, even all of us, you know, even the journey we've gone on across the board here. I mean, champagne was something that most people in this room wouldn't even touch.
**Bam Bam:** That's exactly right. And, you know,
**Senator:** thankfully there was a willingness and a curiosity to try and certainly a persistence on my part.
Yeah. And I love this. And now,
**Bam Bam:** now we all have bottles. And now we all drink it. Multiple bottles now.
**Senator:** My point is like some of these things may, may not even happen in a lounge and it just takes like that one person and you know, a boss of mine, um, out of college who was a huge cigar guy. It only took him to take where I was, which was really interested in cigars and someone who really enjoyed cigars and then dive into Cuban cigars.
And this, [00:31:00] he's a Cuban American. And so even if you don't have a lounge, like I really think it takes one person. And for the guy or girl who is buying, you know, cigars, even from CI, we all know what we know at a point in time. And it typically takes a person coming along and saying, you know, here's something else like, you know, for the non wine people in the room, like the red wine that you were probably drinking before and the red wine you're drinking now, very different things.
And It just takes someone who happens to be passionate about that thing that, you know, maybe you don't know enough about at that time to learn the same way. For me, it was other people that with wine really had me try things that I was blown away by to then go deeper down that rabbit hole, then pay that back with, you know, knowledge I gained.
So. I just think looking for even one person who is curious about a hobby you're interested in can open up Pandora's box to then a lounge and hopefully more people that are interested
**Bam Bam:** in it. [00:32:00] I found myself at multiple lounges wanting to recommend and critique and maybe edit what they're smoking, but I don't know them.
So it'd be uncomfortable. Sure. Um, but that one person you're referring to will likely be someone that You know, or someone else knows and you're sitting together and can recommend without embarrassment or without any, any type of, uh, conflict. I think that makes sense.
**Senator:** Or you don't know. Yeah, maybe you never know.
It's true. I've sat in lounges before and someone random will just come up and strike a conversation and, Hey, try this cigar. Have you ever had it? And, So let me, let's test the photographic memory. Do you remember what he was smoking? I do. Uh, it was, uh, I do. It was, uh, an Arturo Fuente, uh, that, that like Chateau.
Okay. Uh, it was in the morning. We were both having a morning cigar and he loved this. It was like a milder cigar. It's nice. Um, but yeah, that, that's what he was smoking. That's cool. And honestly, for that person, you know, the funny thing is we were both early in [00:33:00] our cigar journey, but he was very much still in the mild part of his cigar journey.
And I actually started on the fuller side. I mean, the first cigar I really fell in love with was the Aroma de Cuba Mi Amor, which is really good. That's right. We talked about that on that episode. Exactly. And so, for us, what was fun, was he was sharing milder cigars that I hadn't tried or appreciated. And I was sharing fuller cigars that he thought initially would be way too much that were smooth and just more flavorful that he could appreciate.
And that's what's fun about the journey.
**Bam Bam:** Absolutely.
**Gizmo:** So it's a great email from Lizard Chris, obviously prompting. This great conversation discuss this. I could, yeah, I could talk about literally on another two hours. And, and so I appreciate that. And we're going to send Chris some stuff from us out of our humidor.
So we appreciate it. Congratulations on winning. Lizard of the Week, and you out there listening to this, you can win every week, send us an email, send us a voice memo, write a comment on YouTube, or on our Instagram, and uh, we'll select one each week, and uh, you can win some free stuff, but yeah, thank you Lizard [00:34:00] Chris, and uh, thank you for listening, and for the support, and uh, congratulations on finding this amazing hobby so early in life, because you've set yourself up for a long life of joy, you know, I mean, I, I can't even imagine having, you know, been able to start at that age.
I wish I did because, you know, you'd be that much further along in the journey.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. I find myself wondering what I would be doing if I wasn't smoking cigars.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. I think
**Bam Bam:** I'd be in for a time to, yeah. Or beating up people in prison.
**Gizmo:** So boys, we're coming to the end of the first third here on the bond robber. It's linear D number six, the petite one Oh nine. From Honduras. What are you guys thinking? I'm
**Senator:** very happy. It's getting better and better. I'm very happy. And I, I just, uh, you know, there's almost a guilt in how much I'm enjoying this because this is, uh, this is a cigar from our sponsor.
I'll, I'll start by saying one, if you pull up our composite lizard scores, I'm definitely one of the [00:35:00] toughest graders. You don't say? Yeah. And so I'm not, I'm not shy about being shocked. Um, and two. You know, we've had countless brands that have offered to sponsor our pod and send us cigars. And if we don't believe in what they're doing or what they're making, we're not going to entertain that.
And so, um, you know, the fact that we obviously, uh, have fabric of five as a sponsor, we do, uh, we do believe in what they're doing and we know that they make some good stuff. So it's not a coincidence that this is performing really well, but honestly, for me, The flavors that we were getting in the first third are just picking up and becoming more concentrated.
I am right there with him. I am
**Bam Bam:** too. It's unbelievable what's happening here with this thing. It's delicious. That biscuit thing is still there for me. I mean, dare I say I get a taste of it. a little bit of banana. It's creamy. It's really something else. I feel like I'm
**Gizmo:** getting a little raisin right now.
**Bam Bam:** Raisin. Yeah. Whatever you want to call it. It's that fruit. [00:36:00] There's definitely a, you could say it, Ben. Well, fuck you.
That's not an edit. It's a dried fruit. Honestly, there's a, there is, there's a dry fruit there.
**Grinder:** And there we go. It's just the way you try to skate around it though.
**Bam Bam:** You know what's funny though? A few weeks ago, everyone was skating around. It was like, I started laughing out loud, but uh, yeah, it's definitely there.
And there's, it's, it's all enveloped with this creamy experience. It's quite good.
**Grinder:** I think the, the finish has not, the finish before was a little longer. It was transforming right now. It's just jumping to the end. And. I think you said it was more concentrated. I would say it's rounded out. I don't know if it's concentrated, it's, it's rounded out and it's a little smoother than it was, than it, than beginning for me.
And I'm really enjoying it now, for sure.
**Gizmo:** I'm getting a very Cuban esque flavor on the finish. It, it tastes, [00:37:00] you know, it's, it's, it's like a cousin of a Cuban cigar to me. And we've talked about this before with Honduran tobacco. Um, we've talked about this with other, uh, fabric of five cigars. We've smoked off the podcast, just, you know, internally here.
But I think, you know, Rob's intention here, Hamlet's intention with going to Honduras and seeking out tobacco that's as close to Cuban tobacco as they can find. I think they've done it here with this because we've said this before, Honduran tobacco is the closest you can get to Cuban, and this is an excellent example of just that.
It has the complexity, it has a little bit of the saltiness, it has that sourdough thing. There are real elements of Cuban tobacco in this, and at a price that's at a fraction of what you're getting a Cuban cigar for.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, and for me, like if I'm gonna relate it now, because the experience is changing, it's a little bit like a punch punch, a little short the punch maybe, kind of in that world for me.
Uh, it's, it's pretty unique. Pagoda,
**Gizmo:** what are you thinking?
**Pagoda:** Yeah, like, for me, I'm [00:38:00] not, uh, I think on my palate I was really enjoying the creaminess and you know, uh, certain flavors, obviously I was getting a bit of the saltiness in the beginning, which was fleeting, but now what I'm getting towards the back end is a little bit of, uh, Tobacco flavor, like a little bitterish tobacco.
So I don't know whether it's, uh,
**Bam Bam:** how far along
**Pagoda:** are you smoking too fast? Maybe I would slow down, but I'm right
**Bam Bam:** there with him and I'm not letting this heat up. I'm not getting any of that.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. So I'm getting a bit of that. So I just want some time to really think my recommendation
**Gizmo:** also is if you didn't take enough off, do a second cut, you might be, you might've not taken enough off as possible.
Just take a touch more.
**Bam Bam:** It's overly concentrated. Could be.
**Gizmo:** So boys, let's move into our pairing tonight. We are back to Japanese whiskey from Nikka. This is the single malt Miyagikyo. Say that again?
**Bam Bam:** Miyagikyo. [00:39:00] That's actually pretty close. What do you think it is? Miyagikyo. Let me see.
**Senator:** It sounds better when Bam say it.
I have to say. Me a geek yo.
**Grinder:** Me a
**Senator:** geek yo.
**Grinder:** I think it's me a geek yo. Me a geek yo. No, no, not a geek, but a geek. A geek. Okay.
**Pagoda:** I guess, but you don't have to tell everybody you're a geek. It's all good. Or the G
**Bam Bam:** could be silent, it could be me a geek. They know. Maybe the G's silent, it's me a geek yo. Could be ko.
**Gizmo:** So this is a single malt expression from Nicka. This is the third
**Bam Bam:** Senators getting, uh, enunciations of the, uh, pronunciation .
**Grinder:** I'm worried we're butchering this, so I'm trying to look up how you pronounce this. Or it might be Maya. Maya Gigo. Oh, I like that. That's nice. I like that. Let's, that's nice.
**Senator:** Pronunciation boys.
**Grinder:** Ya. Oh. Oh gosh. That's so
**Gizmo:** repeat.
**Senator:** ya.
**Gizmo:** Are you sure this? Yeah, he, Cole . I, I think, I
**Senator:** think I got it. I think I got it. I have to say, [00:40:00] actually, I, I don't think we're far from the correct pronunciation. There's an article I'm reading that says the word Miyagikyo comes from the, uh, perfect shirt Miyagi and Kiyo.
Mr. Miyagi? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Miyagikyo. It says the, the, this latter word refers to the Miyagikyo distillery steep mountain valley location. The site was chosen by Matsutaka Takasura because of the excellent water and ideal climate. So we're not far.
**Gizmo:** Have you guys sipped this yet? We're gonna do it now.
**Senator:** Let's do that.
**Gizmo:** So I'm drinking mine neat. Uh, me too. I think we all are. That is very nice. I like it. Long finish. Yep. Very long finish. Oh yeah. But it's, it's a thin single malt, which I'm, I'm happy about given the profile of the cigar we have today. It doesn't have much viscosity, but it's
**Bam Bam:** pretty enjoyable. Thin
**Senator:** but flavorful.
Very flavorful. That's what's shocking. I mean, when I poured this, I think I commented out loud that it, the [00:41:00] color of it almost looks like, um, Glen Levitt 12, which is like a very light single malt scotch. This, despite not having a ton of viscosity and being light, is extremely flavorful. Are you getting any lemon peel
**Bam Bam:** or orange peel type of thing?
I'm getting one or the other.
**Grinder:** If I were to equate it to a scotch on the finish, if I were to equate it to a scotch, I'd say Glenmorangie. 12. Yeah, that's a
**Senator:** good call out. Yeah. I mean, I'd go as far as saying even the notes, some of the notes you get in Glamorange 18,
which actually now that I think about it, I mean, you know, most 18 year scotches are darker in color and more concentrated, but Glamorange 18 is pretty much this color. It's light, but it's really flavorful. And that's kind of how I would describe this. And I think the flavor notes, there might be a little citrus, but I actually get like it.
Yeah. Some berry and floral notes in this. Floral, for sure. But some sweetness as well, like It pairs [00:42:00] nicely with the cigar, I think. Almost caramel on the finish. It's, it's complex and it's good. I'm getting
**Grinder:** mostly honey. I think honey is a good call
**Gizmo:** because of the way it, the way the finish is. Yeah. It lingers like a, like a honeywood.
That's actually
**Senator:** better. It's
**Bam Bam:** not
**Senator:** caramel, it's honey.
**Bam Bam:** How much, how much is this bottle? Now
**Gizmo:** that's the problem.
**Bam Bam:** Ah.
**Gizmo:** 90 bucks.
**Bam Bam:** Oh my
**Grinder:** lord. Oh my lord.
**Senator:** 90 dollars. I would pay 90 for this. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I have to say, I don't think 90 is unfair. I just, I just
**Gizmo:** think about it compared to all the single moths that we do in love.
Oh
**Senator:** yeah. I know. This is
**Gizmo:** 35, this got, this has 35 dollars on the, on the Balvenie.
**Senator:** I'll just say this, I think that this is more complex than a lot of our like standard everyday run of the mill single malls that are like 12 year scotches. So for me, that complexity is always what commands a higher price point.
So I really don't think that 90 bucks is unreasonable for this.
**Bam Bam:** I think this also forces you to slow down a bit on your, on your drinking here and taking very small sips during a [00:43:00] journey of a cigar, which there's value there. Right. You don't need so much of it. And I also
**Senator:** think if check the bottle, but from what I'm reading online, this is 45%, it's 45%.
Yeah. So this is 90 proof. Most of the single malts we drink are closer to 80 proof. That's true. And the fact that we're all drinking this neat, I don't think this needs ice where honestly, there are a lot of 80 proof scotches that I do like, at least a chip of ice that I think can sometimes, you know, have a bit of a bite.
So I think it drinks like a refined spirit. What I like
**Gizmo:** about this is the lack of heat. Ah, so
**Grinder:** maybe on the front, just the touch on the preview. I did mention that I, I took a preview sip and it was like a
**Pagoda:** touch, but I don't mind it. No, for me it was, it was, there was a lot of heat. Yeah, I, I put a chip of ice, but, well, I'm the ice man.
No, but I think with the chip ices, it really does open up a lot and I think it's fantastic.
**Bam Bam:** So what are you getting with Ice? So you must be getting some more pronunciation. So, and
**Pagoda:** to, you know, you talk about, uh, you talked a little bit about the orange, rind kind of flavor. I'm getting that orange peel [00:44:00] on the back, a little bitterish citrus, orange peel, which is nice.
They were very nice.
**Bam Bam:** It's, uh, um, would you categorize this as the more of a spring, summer or winter, fall? Oh,
**Pagoda:** with a chip of ice, uh, in the summer. Summer. Yeah,
**Grinder:** I can see that. Yeah. The only whiskey that I seasonalize is probably a Petey Scotch, and that's like, for me, winter. Like a winter drink. Absolutely.
When it's cold. Every other Scotch, I'm game. All year. 11 months out of the year, he's drinking
**Pagoda:** it. But we do, like, we drink Belvenie throughout the year, I think. Yeah. There are a couple of, uh, You know, the normal go tos, which we drink throughout the year, but this one feels very, very flavorful and light bodied.
And you know, it's not a very, it's not very, uh, viscous, you know, the viscosity I think is just, it's very balanced and I'm really enjoying it.
**Grinder:** I think it pairs well with the cigar.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Senator:** I think it pairs really well. And I'm also going to say, I agree with the summer [00:45:00] conversation, but I also think that this would drink great year round.
And I say that because. Again, you got to drink a lot. This is complex. So you got to, it's like this cigar. You, you really have to drink a lot of it to pull out all the notes I even get on the finish. I always mentioned McAllen 12 has this like bizarre, like chocolate note that you get on the finish.
There's very few scotches. I get that in. And I'm telling you, if you drink several sips of this, there's like a cocoa On the very back end of the finish that I think gives it some, some more body. I, I, this to me is very versatile. I'm like shocked. I'm kind of weird,
**Bam Bam:** but like a white chocolate. I
**Senator:** know. I don't know.
**Grinder:** I get a dark shot. I'm getting a Milano cookie. That's what I'm getting.
**Bam Bam:** We're going off. The reservation. No, but I mean, that's a dark, that's a darker
**Grinder:** chocolate. It is a darker, it's creamy and chocolate with the, with the chocolate, the little bit of chocolate. That's what I'm getting.
**Gizmo:** I will say, you know, to a point Ricky often [00:46:00] makes, you know, as you take a few sips, your palate adjusting to it, your brain adjusting to that, it's every sip, it's getting more and more enjoyable.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's really settling in nicely. I liked that. It's neat. I like the temperature. I like it with the cigar. Like I do too. This whole pairing right now is really, really working for me. Like I'm very relaxed. Yeah, it is. I feel very good right now. Yeah,
**Grinder:** I agree. I'm going to feel, I'm going to patent, uh, for the sake of Pepperidge farm, honey, Milano cookie.
There you go. All right. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** You should patent it and then sell it to them.
**Bam Bam:** That's the
**Gizmo:** idea.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. One other observation that I make when we're a bunch of us are drinking in the club together or when I'm gallivanting doing espionage here and there,
**Senator:** For the listener, that's when Bam decides not to come to our home lounge here and ventures off to other lounges in the area.
Maybe we should explain too that we're not idiots. Are we going to really do this now? No, no, no, but we're not idiots saying,
**Gizmo:** we are [00:47:00] purposefully saying. Espionage. Instead of espionage. Instead of espionage, because the proprietor of our lounge here, who we love to death, whenever he sees Bam Bam and he finds out that Bam Bam has visited another lounge.
**Bam Bam:** Espionage! He
**Gizmo:** very loudly screams in his Italian American vernacular, espionage!
**Bam Bam:** Right.
**Gizmo:** Espionage. Espionage!
So that's what we're referring
**Bam Bam:** to. I notice a lot of guys when they're drinking, they take down their sips very quickly. I've honestly, having time with Chef Ricky, I've learned to kind of keep the spirit in my mouth just a little bit longer. Let it kind of settle in before I take it down. Transforms the experience.
You're really getting a lot out of every sip. I think that's good practice.
**Gizmo:** And like he's talked about too, letting it roll off the sides of your tongue. And
**Bam Bam:** like letting
**Gizmo:** it envelop your entire mouth.
**Bam Bam:** And all of your taste buds kind of capture the whole, the whole sip.
**Pagoda:** But listen, when, uh, you know, when you're coming a bit lower, just put it at your [00:48:00] price.
I think it's definitely worth it. It is. It
**Gizmo:** is. Today's episode brought to you by Mr. Freeze. Correct.
**Pagoda:** Mr. Freeze. The Iceman. The Iceman. No, it is, uh, I think it, uh, transformed into something very nice, which I really enjoy, so.
**Gizmo:** So, from their website, the Single Malt Miyagikyo is a range of single malt expressions from the Miyagiko distillery.
As Senator mentioned before, Nick is founder. Masataka Takatsuro chose a valley in the Miyagi prefecture as the site for his second distillery and started its operation in 1969. He aimed to make a complete contrast, which I think is accurate, and I want to talk about that, between these two distilleries, Miyagiko and Yoichi, with different natural environments and production methods.
So the other two that we've had, the coffee. Series from Nika are manufactured at the other distillery. Yeah, and they were both good. And I think they're very, very different [00:49:00] than this. They are. Would you guys
**Senator:** agree with that? I agree. I think that's more, um, We're using the kind of seasonal references. I think more In line with something that you would drink in like the fall or the winter where it's got more body, more viscosity and the flavor notes are more like dried fruit instead of fresh fruit.
They're more, um, just rich. I don't think you get any floral notes like I do get some of in this, um, so it's a different style. Yeah,
**Bam Bam:** agreed.
**Gizmo:** So this spirit is made from light peated and non peated malted barley. Whiskies are distilled in pot stills heated by indirect steam and they express what he says is a signature fruitiness and delicate mouthfeel.
What's interesting about these, I think similar to the coffee series that we've done two of, there's no age statement on this. This version was released in 2016 as a permanent product that showcases the elegant style of coffee. Of [00:50:00] Miyagikyo malts, while all age statements were discontinued in that year.
So this came out in 2016, and they stopped all age statements at that time. But this drinks like a, like a well aged whisky. Well, I think
**Bam Bam:** Senator said earlier, I completely agree. It's, it, it does drink like a sophisticated spirit. And I think it could be an acquired taste for some people when you're not, if you're not ready for this.
I think everyone should try this. I think it's absolutely worthwhile.
**Senator:** I'll just say, honestly, I don't think it's an acquired taste to like this. I think if you like the flavor notes, we're calling out fruit, floral, honey, a little chocolate, little chocolate. I mean, these are whiskey notes that I mean, even cognac notes that I think most people.
A majority, a clear majority of people pursue. So to me, I struggle to think of, even just my own friends, if I were to pour this, I struggle to think of friends who would find this to be a crazy departure or would in any way be surprised by it. I just [00:51:00] think what's remarkable about it is it's complex in that usually half of the notes that we just talked about You get in a single 12 year spirit and to get all of these notes, to me, this drinks more like a 14 to 18 year spirit.
Which, honestly, I mean, in the scotch world, is, uh, especially at the high end, at the 18 year end of that, is way more than 90 bottle, right? At least,
**Gizmo:** yeah. 200 bottle? 200
**Bam Bam:** bottle. Probably. Yeah, more than double. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** So this is interesting as well. It says this bottling has estuary aromas generated by carefully selected yeast strains along with distinctive sherry cask influence.
So I picked this up based on the fact that I saw sherry cask because I thought, you know, obviously given our Experience here on the podcast. We like Sherry. We like Sherry cask influence stuff. So I picked it up based on that. I don't know if I'm necessarily getting an influence from Sherry cask. But I think it's interesting to note here that that was, that's part of the production process.
**Pagoda:** I'm definitely not getting it. [00:52:00]
**Senator:** So I'll say this, uh, from what I've read, it's partially aged in sherry and partially in, uh, regular American oak, uh, ex bourbon barrels. I do think the sweetness that we're getting, that we're describing as honey, I mean, that's coming from the sherry casks for sure. That's true.
And the crispness is coming from that American oak for sure. That clean crispness. It's like a Doublewood, you know, the difference is like to me Balvenie Doublewood while I love I think it drinks more straightforward than this does and I think this has more complexity, which is why to me 90 is very fair.
Yeah, good point. I'm just, I would totally
**Grinder:** agree. I don't, I think the, I didn't catch the sherry distinctly, but I can kind of see it with the honey comment. Yeah, that's where the sweetness is. Yeah. And especially if it's not, you know, aged. Uh, a hundred percent and sherry, maybe it's just a faint, like a
**Pagoda:** little short
**Grinder:** burst,
**Pagoda:** a little
**Grinder:** sploosh,
**Pagoda:** as
**Grinder:** you'd
**Pagoda:** [00:53:00] say.
Yeah. But typically with Sherry, so easily identified. It's uh, I'm not getting the, those distinct. I'm grasping for straws. I think it's the subtleties
**Senator:** when it's complex, that's where the
**Bam Bam:** complexity comes out. Yeah. And
**Senator:** when it's not a hundred percent aged and sherry. I mean, I think that's the thing. And, and also, I mean, even for the, the Balvenie double wood, I mean, sure there's Sherry notes, but it's not overpowering like Abel or 12, which is I think a hundred percent agent Sherry.
That is just a Sherry bomb all the way through. And we like that as well. We do. But I think for the, the single malts that are partially agent Sherry, you get it to varying degrees. And I think here, They've done it in a way that the Sherry is not meant to overpower or, um, lose the complexity of flavors that they're trying to deliver, which I think is a very good thing for what this is doing.
**Gizmo:** So boys, we're just beyond the halfway point here on the Bon Roberts, Linea D number six, the petite 109. What are you guys thinking? [00:54:00]
**Pagoda:** By the way, Giz, thank you for telling me to cut a bit off. It's completely changed everything and now it's, you know, it's gone back to what I was getting, um, in the beginning, but it's all coming together, um, and it's, it's really, really, really good.
Yeah. So, before I take a sip, it definitely goes and coats, you know, the upper palate of, uh, my mouth. It's very Cuban esque. I, like, if, now I can say that if it, if I had a, you know, blind, blinders on, I would, I would definitely think it's very Cuban esque in nature. It is fantastic. I'm, I mean, I'm
**Senator:** thrilled. I just, it's this cigar for me.
It checks a lot of the flavor notes that I pursue in cigars for my palate. So for that reason, I'm extremely happy. I also have to say, we haven't talked much about it, but the construction on this cigar is very, very good. Very good. Honestly, it's pretty flawless. I've looked at everybody's [00:55:00] cigar. The ash has been razor sharp, razor sharp burned.
I, you know, the funny thing about it not being Cuban tobacco, you actually get some bright white ash on this, which I like, I have had no draw issues at all, and even when I've been talking a lot sometimes that I've needed to relight it, which I think has only been once. It's just as delicious on the re light, which doesn't always happen with every cigar.
This is true, it gets
**Bam Bam:** bitter usually.
**Senator:** So the
**Bam Bam:** construction, I always have to say, A plus on this cigar. I blasted through the second third because it was absolutely delicious. I'm a bit, I think I'm ahead of all of you. It, now in the final, the tip of the final third, it gets earthy. Um, I think there's a deeper dark chocolate that I'm getting on this, just a slight hint of that.
Um, and it's much richer, and no bitterness for me at this point.
**Grinder:** Do you, um. Is there any equation to other Hamlet cigars in this? Any other Hamlet DNA, as it were?
**Gizmo:** To me, I think, and we could talk about some of the other F O, you know, [00:56:00] the Fabrica 5 cigars that other guys have smoked and you've smoked. To me, this cigar, out of all of the ones I've tried on the tasting panel with Fabrica 5, the Puro Desnudos, the Mofos, both Bon Roberts cigars, including this one about, you know, a year ago, eight months ago, whenever that was.
I think these are the Highest level of all of them. I think with the age I think these are the cigars that they're the most proud of I think these are the best of what Hamlet has done I you know Hamlet's obviously a famous You know revered Cuban roller having had success with Partagas at the Romeo factory very Successful in Cuba came out of there was Rocky Patel's blender for quite some time then went off on his own a few years ago now is working I think almost exclusively for and with as a partner with fabric of five So this is this is all Hamlet Yeah You know and and Rob giving him those notes and I think on the bond Roberts cigar the Fox [00:57:00] family is also involved in that as Well, but you know this I think is the best of what they're doing and definitely You know, I, I think is rounding out the entire series of cigars.
And that's why I was happy to start with this tonight on, as, as far as a review cigar on the pod. It's an excellent
**Bam Bam:** choice. Yeah, I, I've only had two of the other FOH cigars, the Ninfa and the Pyramid. I really like the Ninfas. Yeah, I do too. But I'm kind of fighting between which of the two that I like better.
This is edging it out for me a little bit, just a touch. Um, but that Ninfa was delicious. I got a lot of what I like in a cigar. in that Panatella, if that's the Vittola that it comes in. The Pyramid, for me, it had a lot of coffee and it kind of went back and forth into earth tones. It was nice. This is, I think, a much more sophisticated cigar than both, my opinion.
**Gizmo:** I think this edges all of them out in complexity. I've only had two. And the length of the finish, I think, is, this one takes the cake. Wait till you get to
**Bam Bam:** the beginning of the final [00:58:00] third. You guys aren't there yet. It is really,
**Senator:** really good. So I'll just say this. I've, within the past week. Started diving more into the fabric of 5 Line and I definitely think this is the most complex cigar I've had, uh, that they've made.
And I also think that you can clearly see this is aged tobacco. And I say that not because, you know, I think the other cigars smokes very young, but there are points in those cigars, not so much the Nympha. So I have to give that cigar a lot of credit. You don't really taste youth in that cigar, but I think some of the others I've had at some point or another.
You'll notice a little bit of youth and time is gonna like the pyramid
**Bam Bam:** for sure. I think the
**Senator:** pyramid needs time and and the Robusto actually when you asked about the Hamlet DNA I don't I can't say I've smoked a lot of Hamlet cigars But what I definitely see parallels in is I had the fabric of five Robusto And that cigar, especially the first half, you get a ton of [00:59:00] fresh fruit and floral notes, like a schwa supreme and the fruit and floral notes that started with this cigar were reminiscent of that same DNA that I got in the Robusto.
So I do see very strong ties into some of the other cigars in the line. And I think even some elements of the Nympha, this clearly has a More aged tobacco in it where at no point it's almost no matter how quickly I smoke this or slow I do there's not a rough edge really to be had so far That's what's interesting
**Bam Bam:** about this because I am blasting through this thing because it's, it's, I'm, I'm really enjoying it.
Not a rough edge yet.
**Pagoda:** A part of me thinks for me, the second half is, especially after the cut has become so much better. I mean, I was really enjoying the first half, but the second half is. It gets a bit bolder. Yeah. And that's up your power alley. So yeah. And it's, uh, yeah, I'm enjoying it so much. It's like, I don't want it to end.
It's fantastic.
**Senator:** And I agree with what [01:00:00] Pagoda said. I, I do think from, I would describe this as kind of a two act play in the sense that the first half, I think the flavor notes remain somewhat similar throughout, but I think the first half kind of starts mild medium, and I think the second half really picks up where it is firmly medium.
And just delivering some of those notes in a much more concentrated way together. Yeah. Yeah. Which is what I enjoy. I mean, I, I love a medium, even medium full cigar. And so I think the second half absolutely delivers on that.
**Grinder:** I think the, the turn happened halfway for this, through the cigar for me. I wouldn't split into thirds.
I think the, um, rounded outness continues. It still persists in the back end of the cigar. I think the creaminess. is for me, contrary to what I would expect, has gotten, it's gotten more creamy.
**Bam Bam:** I agree.
**Grinder:** I do too. It's insane. It's unusual that that creaminess
**Bam Bam:** [01:01:00] consists all the way down.
**Grinder:** I think I, which is usually not the case with any cigar.
Usually there's, it kind of towards the end, it gets a little more, you know, astringent maybe is the right word, even though it doesn't. You know, it's just some level of stringency. This is just getting creamier. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** Um, and I'm, you're not, so what you're trying to say is you're not getting minerality, which I equate to as stringent, that extreme stringency I get, I experience, I'm, I'm
**Grinder:** specifically burnt tobacco is what I'd say.
'cause when you get at this stage, yeah, there's just less channel for it, for the smoke to, to kind of cool down a little bit. The retro hell now is really splendid. Mm hmm. I don't know if you guys are doing that. It's pleasant.
**Gizmo:** So you're saying the absence of that stringency or burnt tobacco combined with the creaminess or whatever is making it I work for you in the back half.
Absolutely.
**Grinder:** And, and now I'm, the retrohale is better. Like I'm getting more diversity in the retrohale than I was prior. What are you getting on the retrohale? [01:02:00] I'm getting, it's hard to say. It's kind of like a woody retrohale. It's like, I mean, if I were to, if I were to smoke this in a campfire, I feel like this would have a home.
Um, it's got this like, kind of earthy, woody, retrohale, which again, it's not as, it's not expecting, but there's a, there's an element of that buttery ness that kind of cools it
**Bam Bam:** down. Oh, I, I, I think the buttery, that just like rang a bell for me. I think that's very accurate right now. And it's unusual so far into a cigar to be getting that.
**Grinder:** It's very, it's, it's bizarre, frankly. It's, um,
**Gizmo:** the, the retro hale for me reminds me of some of the best of up men retro hale that I've had. Bingo. Yeah. Bingo. It's, it's a very up man, retro hale. There's
**Bam Bam:** up men to this here a little bit, and I would
**Gizmo:** argue, I would argue this senator, I know, I would argue aged up men.
I'm getting aged up men through the retro health [01:03:00] specifically. The Robustos Anahatos from 20 Thank you. There you go. Thank you. Is that 2011 or 2016? 2011. 2011. That cigar, I'm getting that through the RetroHill. Now that
**Senator:** you're saying it, it's very reminiscent of that. So, you'll notice, I specifically asked Rynder what he's getting on the RetroHill.
Because I retro'd on this, and I wanted to compare Hold on, hold on. Stop the show. Everybody out there playing Lizard Bingo, Senator RetroHill. And I also, I'll even preface this by saying, I would at least feel somewhat vindicated that we were, and Gizmo was present for this, we were in the lounge the other day, and Lizard Henry looked over at me, and then looked over at the group, and he said, Senator just retro hailed.
He saw the smoke coming out of my nose. I just thought you were, I
**Gizmo:** just thought you were angry.
**Senator:** I think lizard Henry was
**Gizmo:** shocked.
**Senator:** And I say that because as I've maintained all throughout, I unintentionally retro hail, it happens. It's just not something that I was there for that man. And bam was there as well.
We were all very, I saw some smoke
**Pagoda:** come out of the year as well.
**Senator:** [01:04:00] So
**Grinder:** Senator,
**Senator:** let me ask you this though.
**Grinder:** Did I pass the test?
**Senator:** You did. So the funny thing I'm getting some of the, the earthy Woody notes you are, but the big thing I would just add that I'm getting, and that's why I said bingo when Gizmo said Upman, and then I can't believe it's literally like you just took the words out of my brain when you said Upman on a hot house, the nuttiness in this cigar gets so accentuated on the retro hail.
And that, uh, Upman Anahatos, and I've probably smoked more of those than anybody in this room. Yeah. That is as nutty a cigar as I've ever had in my life. And the retrohale reminds me of, just like you said, Giz, reminds me of that. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I think the buttery thing that Grinder called out is very accurate in that retrohale as well.
It's like a buttery, nutty
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. A little
**Gizmo:** saltiness. Sourdough. Yes, like a salty sourdough type thing. It's outstanding. It's really, really
**Grinder:** good. Really, really cool. It's like, it's like breakfast. Puttin some Rob, you're killing us here
**Bam Bam:** with
**Grinder:** the cigar. Puttin some, uh What is that butter from Ireland? [01:05:00] Kerrygold on some toasted rye bread.
**Bam Bam:** Woo! Look at this guy.
**Gizmo:** So boys, I can't believe it, and I'll tell you why in a second, but the Olympics just wrapped up. And you know, when I was a kid, the reason why I say this is when I was a kid and the Olympics were happening, my mom was obsessed with the winter Olympics and the summer Olympics. She loved everything.
But for me, I felt like they went on for months
**Senator:** with
**Gizmo:** how they existed in my house when I was a kid. Like I felt like they went off for three months. I can't believe that it's over already. Like, I don't know if it's as we're getting older, time is flying or my perception of time as a kid or what was happening is distorted.
I felt like this 2024 Olympics in Paris was really, really good. I thought it was a great, excellent, great presentation across the board.
**Senator:** Despite them, the only flaws were them screwing up the scoring for those three. I [01:06:00] think. I'm pretty sure all were women gymnasts. Yeah. Gymnasts where they had to appeal at the end.
And then basically they find that yes, the appeal is valid. And so they strip the bronze from someone and they give it to someone else. And Charles, the American gymnast, she ended up getting the bronze. And then all of a sudden they say, no, the appeal was filed four seconds after the like 60 seconds they have to appeal.
I mean, that's gotta be the most absurd. The point of an appeal should be to get it right. The point of the appeal is not whether the appeal was filed four seconds after a minute from the score. I mean, it is absurd to me that that happened. So that's the only stain on the Olympics as far as I'm concerned.
But outside of that, overall, everything was just incredible. Would it be an
**Grinder:** Olympics without. Controversy in the gymnastics section, like there's always some kind of controversy with Russia
**Senator:** out. We needed something. Yeah, it's true,
**Pagoda:** but us did win right with 40 gold. No, I think we
**Senator:** tied with China. We tied with golds, but the tiebreaker should be the [01:07:00] overall metal count.
And we had the overall metal count. We kicked ass.
**Grinder:** There you go. I just, we can't the diving. The Chinese diving, did they not, did they win every medal? Yeah, I think 8
**Pagoda:** out of 8, probably, yeah. It's
**Gizmo:** amazing when you look at the duo, and they're diving together. When you look at them from the profile, you see them dive together, it's as if there's one person diving.
That's how locked they are. It's brilliant. It's
**Senator:** brilliant. If my life depended on it, like I'm sure theirs did, I'd dive at the exact same time as Gizmo if we were the pair. Like, I'm sure there's been,
**Grinder:** we should try it. The thing that struck me though, they never showed happiness about any of their dives.
Yeah. I was like, to my point, like, aren't you like, you just fucking aced it. Aren't you elated in the Olympics? And he just like casually like whatever, you know,
**Bam Bam:** so I'm I'm a big international wrestling fan. Yeah So the the Cuban [01:08:00] heavyweight winning his fifth gold that was a big moment
**Gizmo:** and he was is he in his 40s?
I don't know how old I think it's 42. I if I'm I may be incorrect Yeah, I feel like he's 42 years old,
**Bam Bam:** but he is recognized now as one of the Best Olympians of all time, regardless of the sport, because of how difficult it is to get a gold in that discipline. Is he, is he, uh, is a Greco Roman wrestler. Is he, is he like, training in Cuba?
Training in Cuba, yeah. And you know, I think there's a state program in Cuba, like they had in Russia back before the war. Pre Soviet Union, and they make sure that they have the very best of food and training and so on. But, um, yeah, so he was, he was training Cuba. Sure. One
**Grinder:** of the coolest things for me in the Olympics was, and I don't know how much it was talked about, but the, um, Olympic road race, bike, bicycle race for women was won by an American like that came out of the blue.
She's like Harvard grad. She's got like a PhD. That's right. From somewhere.
**Gizmo:** We don't celebrate Harvard grads. And she's, and [01:09:00] she's,
**Grinder:** Harvard had a great Olympics, by the way. They did! Amazing Olympics. They did. She's like a banker. She's got this amazing pedigree of this like super high powered American and she's just casually entering the Olympic road race, not as a professional, just something she does on the side.
Obviously she raced in prior, like, events when she was younger and stuff, but I don't know, I thought that was pretty cool. And that's, like, the spirit of the Olympics and just, like, totally out of the blue. No one was expecting it. She beat all the Dutch women. She just crushed it. It was,
**Bam Bam:** it was awesome.
True amateurism at its best. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** It was awesome to see both basketball teams. Right. Do well. How did the soccer team perform? Well, yeah, the women's women's won the gold. They won the gold. Yeah. I mean the men were obviously not, not anything. Did they even qualify? I don't think the men even qualified. I mean, the track events were great.
They were, there were some really great, great performances.
**Senator:** The other thing that was fun for me, I mean, [01:10:00] team USA across the board obviously had an unbelievable Olympics, but I also enjoy Particularly when you look at these small little Caribbean nations that have a fraction of the resources that countries like America or any of these European countries that perform really well in the Olympics, um, or, or China, you had in, uh, running, there was, uh, a Dominican woman who won the first gold medal in any sport for the Dominican Republican, uh, Dominican Republic ever, which is amazing.
There was a, another girl from, uh, St. Lucia. Who won, I think the first medal period at St. Lucia's. She won a gold. She won a gold. Won a gold. I mean, that's amazing. The Cuban wrestler that Bam mentioned, I just, I love for these like small Caribbean islands that don't have the resources that these large nations have.
Yeah. To hear their anthem played. That's pretty cool. I thought
**Grinder:** it was Dominica, not Dominican Republic. No, no. It was definitely Dominican Republic. Well, there was [01:11:00] also a story about Dominica and, um, uh, I don't know if she was a track athlete, but she was like the, it was like the first gold medal for the country.
**Pagoda:** Well, the Botswana with the athleticism, like on track with the Botswana, let me double check. We'll come back to Pagoda. Just leisurely lay there. Did anyone watch synchronized swimming? No, that was great. I just talked about that with the Chinese swimming, not the diving.
**Grinder:** That's my wife's new favorite thing is like the artistic swimming. Yeah. Which is interesting.
**Gizmo:** And we have to of course, talk about Simone Biles, which is just, she's incredible. I mean, Just stuff that that woman does is just it's mind boggling. Unbelievable at what she's able to do. Greatest
**Senator:** gymnast in history.
**Gizmo:** No doubt. She's like a cannonball. She's like 4'7 or 4'8 or something. 4'11. I don't even know. I mean, it's just it's unbelievable what she's [01:12:00] able to do.
**Senator:** And we also have to mention Katie Ledecky in swimming. Yeah. I mean, that one race where the camera pans out to see where everyone is, and the only one in the entire frame is Katie Ledecky.
That's how far behind everybody was. It was insane.
**Pagoda:** I think we need to send some of these coaches to bloody India. Good luck, Pagoda. Well, we're sending them everywhere else, apparently. I'm not, I'm not
**Senator:** sure coaching's the problem, Pagoda.
**Grinder:** It's a vegetarian diet. You don't have enough water there to fill Olympic sized pools.
1. 4 billion people and like three medals
**Bam Bam:** or some bullshit. Yeah. That woman, that Indian wrestler, the woman, she got disqualified because she didn't make weight the next round. Yeah, we like to eat. I know.
**Senator:** Oh, and we have to mention the American ambassador to the Olympics, [01:13:00] Snoop Dogg. Oh, yeah. Oh, dude. He was amazing. He was incredible. He was everywhere. Amazing. He got paid half a million dollars a day. It was what? Smart man. Plus expenses to be there. And he delivered.
**Gizmo:** I got to tell you, the thing that impressed me most about Snoop Dogg.
Listen, he's getting paid a ton of money. Sure. But if you think about his history, his career, how he made his name, where he started, where he started now, he's made his name several times over, you know, he moved into advertising a few years ago, he's a cultural hit now, but to see this guy walking around in full jockey outfit, like during the horse events, I was like, I couldn't believe it.
Like this guy totally. Oh yeah. Self deprecating, totally cool with it, didn't care. Almost Bam Bam like. Very Bam Bam like. You know, but he really, really bought into it and I think really delivered for NBC. And obviously setting up the LA, you know, uh, Olympics in 2028. He [01:14:00] performed at the closing ceremony.
And he performed, yeah. With, uh, Dr. Dre. Yeah, with Dr. Dre. Can't wait for LA. Yeah, it's gonna be good. I, I really thought the Olympics were, were really good. And don't forget Flavor
**Pagoda:** Flav. I actually
**Grinder:** forgot about. Oh, he was there as well. He was, yes he was. Did you forget about Drake? I forgot about Dre .
**Bam Bam:** Flavor Flav was a sponsor of the water polo team.
He was. Oh really? That's actually true. That's incredible. Really? Oh, yeah.
**Pagoda:** And he sponsored an athlete who didn't have enough fun to That's right. That's exactly right. It's uh, this is awesome. It's incredible. Fla You have
**Bam Bam:** fla.
**Gizmo:** Yeah. So I, I think the world should be very proud of. Yeah.
**Grinder:** Boy.
**Gizmo:** well done, Deb. Nice.
Ba can we, can we, can we. Like we can clip that. You got to clip that. Yeah, we'll clip that. And I'll put it in. We're going to start every episode. I'm
**Senator:** not
**Bam Bam:** sure about that.
**Senator:** We should play that only when a cigar scores a 10.
**Gizmo:** Here we go, Bam. Practice it. I'll tell you when. Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast presented by Fabrica5.
**Grinder:** Yeah, boy.[01:15:00]
**Gizmo:** Oh, man. Yeah. So the world should be very proud. I think the Olympics were fantastic this year, you know. Did you guys see, did you guys
**Grinder:** see the one, there was a guy dressed up as Kim Jong un. Yeah, Kim Jong un. He was like taunting, he was taunting the North Korean meds. Oh, that was epic.
**Gizmo:** I'm shocked they let him in.
I
**Senator:** know. Yeah. I was surprised to see that. We have to talk about cigars at the Olympics. Yes. We almost forgot about that. That's right. How could we? So when the women's basketball team won the gold. Kelsey Plum. Kelsey Plum lit up a cigar. I was shocked to learn she has her own cigar line. That's cool. Big cigar smoker.
That's very cool. And, uh, Steph Curry on the men's side, after they won their gold, which they should have, yet they acted like they just had the greatest feat of all time, um, he lit up a cigar. Yeah. It was nice to see. Very cool. He lived up in
**Gizmo:** Montecristo. I don't know if it was a Cuban or a non Cuban. The pictures I saw were [01:16:00]
**Senator:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I couldn't really figure out what it was. I think it might have been a Cuban, but I'm not sure. But it was cool. It was definitely a Montecristo. I don't think he knew what it was.
**Bam Bam:** Probably not. He was surrounded by fans, on the street, outside the venue. It was a very cool scene. I mean,
**Senator:** I say that because, uh, he was in Cigar Aficionado recently, and I think he said his favorite cigars are like Oliva and Monte Cristo, and I got the sense that it was New World Monte Cristo.
But he also loves,
**Gizmo:** apparently he loves Bajique 56. He does have, he does have a Cuban plus, for sure. That's good to see, too. He definitely has access to Cuban cigars. Well, he can afford the Bajiques. Yes, there's no doubt about that. Yeah, he only makes 50 million a year. Only. Only. What'd you do? By the way, Habanas is about to price him out.
Ha, ha,
**Senator:** ha.
**Grinder:** Would you favor the Olympic, the Winter Olympics or the Summer Olympics?
**Gizmo:** Honestly, I, in the past I probably would have, but this one really, I was really engaged in this Olympics this year. I think I'm kind of in. I'm, I was happy with like NBC, you could watch everything live and then they, they did the prime time cut up with Mike [01:17:00] Tirico at night where they cut out all the who did a great job.
He did a great job. Mike Tirico is awesome. He's awesome. Yeah. And you know what I like about Mike Tirico? He waited his turn. You know, he, he left ESPN quite some time ago, went to NBC, sat second chair to Al Michaels. Obviously he was a big NFL guy. Oh yeah. Sat second chair to him, sat second chair to Bob Costas.
Like he waited his turn and, and he's, he's really delivered. He's, he's definitely the face of, uh,
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. Love him.
**Gizmo:** I, uh, I, I really thought it was a great Olympics, but I, to answer grinder's question, I think it's kind of 50 50 for me on winter versus summer Olympics. Like I'm in, I'm in
**Senator:** on both. I'm in on both, but I, I've always loved the summer Olympics.
I mean, I'm a big basketball fan and. You're an island man, please. That's right, that's right. And I think especially this year, I mean, there was just, in so many sports, there was just so much excitement for the American side. Like, I mean, I was watching, also, how can we not mention, we didn't mention beach volleyball.
[01:18:00] Oh, beach volleyball. Yeah. Don't get me started, dude. That is, I didn't
**Gizmo:** hear from Bam Bam for about two weeks. Quite the display. I almost, I almost became Canadian.
**Bam Bam:** Oh
**Pagoda:** my Lord. To coin a pagoda phrase. No, I was just about to say, you're talking about men's beach volleyball, right? Just to make sure. That's a no.
**Grinder:** I missed this. I'm looking up Canadian. Yowza. What was the deal there? All right, Grinder's leaving the pod now.
**Gizmo:** Yeah, it was a great, uh, it was a great presentation this year and, uh, like you said, it was nice to see some cigars present. Oh,
**Bam Bam:** yeah.
**Gizmo:** I also
**Senator:** have to say the sportsmanship all around was pretty impressive.
I mean, there was controversy when Simone Biles and maybe it was Childs, you know, kind of bowed to the Brazilian who ended up winning one of the events. You know why?
**Gizmo:** Right? Because she trains with her. I think, I think she trains at a similar facility in Texas or wherever they train. I think they're very close friends.
So another American coach. Yeah, I think so. [01:19:00]
**Senator:** But even so, it was like, you know, if you look at Simone Biles interviews, they're just saying like that Brazilian gymnast is unbelievable. Yeah. And it's just, you know, game recognizes game. Like I think that was her third Olympics
**Bam Bam:** that she was in. Yeah.
**Senator:** They respect and appreciate others that can compete at that level.
I think in most sports, you saw a lot of that, which was cool. Ironically, volleyball is actually where I think you saw the opposite. There were, I forget the two countries, uh, it was women's volleyball and they were screaming at the net at each other. It was like a whole, something happened. Yeah. Yeah. They were not happy.
**Gizmo:** The ref was involved. Yeah. We don't know the countries. I don't know. I forget the countries.
**Pagoda:** Yeah. Let me go to that one. Well, I wanted to just say one more thing. I said, what about, uh, table tennis or ping pong? Because we need our Olympics with, uh, uh, Mr. Rooster. Oh, that's correct. The Lizard Olympics needs to start.
**Bam Bam:** Yes, we should do that. I'll be wrestling both Senator and Gizmo simultaneously. Can we forfeit? By the way, can I do
**Gizmo:** an [01:20:00] advance for you? Forfeit they're wearing
**Bam Bam:** singlets and then you and rooster will play ping pong. Can we
**Gizmo:** smoke a cigar while
**Pagoda:** we wrestle?
**Bam Bam:** Correct.
**Pagoda:** And what about the, the pole Walter who's long came in the way and yeah,
**Bam Bam:** that was awful.
**Pagoda:** The 250, 000 he's getting from a pony. Oh my, this was a really exciting Olympics. Canada
**Gizmo:** and Brazil, Canada and Brazil were the two that were beach volleyball teams. Yeah. Yeah. They were not happy. All right, boys. What do you think of the last third here on the Bon Roberts Linea D number six from Honduras.
**Grinder:** I'll go first. Yeah, I am very pleased with the cigar. I think it got better towards the back end. Um, when I first lit it, I There was some, I think there was just a lot going on for me. And I was trying, I was trying to, to, to like place all the different tasting notes and I think it got there. [01:21:00] But once you like, once the brain has that recognition of like, Oh, that's what that is.
Then it's just, it all started to blend together and it was beautiful. I think the. The creaminess that I mentioned, uh, persisted, which was beautiful. Um, I really liked the retrohale on the end there at the beginning. It was just, again, it was just a little, it was a little weird, not in a bad way. Just that, you know, struggling to find the flavors, um, the construction.
Is so, is so good. It's so good. Yeah. The ash was phenomenal and I like the size of cigar. I mean, it's just pleasant. This is more of a summary commentary, uh, than, than a, than a final third. But I mean, I can see myself smoking this to the nub.
**Pagoda:** Well, we have somebody older at the nub. ,
**Gizmo:** yeah. Yeah. Bam. Bams on the, uh, on the, the perfect draw.
Yeah. The roach
**Bam Bam:** clip, I have to say, like taking this cigar down all the way down to about less than an inch. Now it's the creaminess is persistent. It honestly got [01:22:00] more nutty for me, almost peanut buttery to a degree, and the retrohale is still very, very pleasant, but that peanut butter there is pretty pronounced for me right now.
Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I think, I think the unique thing about this cigar, and you know, obviously I experienced it last year on the tasting panel, but in the room tonight, the thing that's very unique to me about the cigar coming into the, the end of it here is. how much better it is at the end. And we don't experience that with a lot of new world cigars.
Also, I mean, we've had a bad run of Cuban cigars the last few weeks, but you know, often the last third is. Bam wasn't here. The last third is often the weakest part of the cigar. And it's, it's funny how I don't want this to end. No, I really do not want this cigar to end.
**Bam Bam:** All the flavors typically concentrate at the end.
Right. But we're not getting that. Deep minerality that's offensive sometimes, or that harshness, it's not
**Senator:** there at [01:23:00] all. My fingers are burning, uh, at this point. I think, Bam, your call out of peanut butter at the end, for me, like, the nutty flavors have just picked up and it's gone from like walnut to like, a peanut, like a real peanut butter.
It's weird, but it's there. And, um, I'm
**Grinder:** super impressed.
**Senator:** Yeah.
**Grinder:** I think that was, I mean, I had, I was getting, I was getting butter from like the second half. And you, and you were getting
**Senator:** It's a nut butter. Yeah. And, and I also want to say at this point now, I think this is a three act play. I don't think it's due.
I agree. Yeah. I do
**Gizmo:** think it's changed again. I agree.
**Senator:** This last third is just that much more concentrated. And the last third I would say is medium full. Um, so for me, it starts like, Mild, medium, firmly, medium, and then ends medium full. And I think that the experience you have in each of those thirds is different and all of them are great.
**Gizmo:** You know, what's interesting too, about you saying it, getting to medium full is I [01:24:00] think that for how it's picked up a little bit in its body and strength, it's still maintained what I feel tastes like a Cuban cigar to me, which is unique in that I don't think many, if. Any Cuban cigars at the end, you say this is medium full and it still retains that kind of complex, creamy, interesting, little salty flavor that we're experiencing right now.
Like it's crazy to me.
**Bam Bam:** It's crazy
**Gizmo:** for and for a cigar. That's, you know, I'm actually, I
**Bam Bam:** wasn't expecting any of this. It's crazy. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, before we move into the ratings, let's go over a couple of feedback emails we have, and then, uh, then we'll get into the ratings. First, from Lizard Drew, he says, Giz, I wanted to give you guys a couple comments on the Davidoff episode, as you had discussed a few of them.
I highly recommend trying the Anniversario, especially in Robusto. It isn't nearly as mild as the Signature or Grand Cru, it's a step below the Millennium, and is easily my [01:25:00] favorite regular production cigar from them. I don't have nearly the experience that you guys have with the Zodiac series, and we've talked about the year of the releases that, uh, Davidoff has done.
We've not been very happy with them. Senators had more of them, I think, than, or maybe Senator and BAM have had a bunch of them, I'm not sure. And Rooster. And Rooster. Having only, he's only had the Rabbit and the Dragon, he said to him, the Rabbit was fairly mediocre. The Dragon, on the other hand, is probably the best Davidoff I've had to date.
**Bam Bam:** I agree
**Gizmo:** with that. You like the Dragon?
**Senator:** I do. You
**Gizmo:** Did you have the drug? Bam said that.
**Senator:** I didn't. I, I've been trying these for years and I finally gave up and it looks like I maybe gave up at the wrong
**Bam Bam:** time. Maybe. That, that, that's an evolution, that cigar. It's a long stick. It does. Is
**Gizmo:** that the one that's like a, it's almost like a double Corona.
Yeah. It looks cigar. It looks like a
**Bam Bam:** double Corona. There's a lot of almond in that and it's very creamy, but there's also some cherry and dark chocolate. All right, Bam's going to bring those next pod. I don't have any. I wish I did. Well, call Rooster. He definitely has
**Gizmo:** one. He
**Bam Bam:** does.
**Gizmo:** I encourage, he says, I [01:26:00] encourage you to seek out the dragon if you could find them and definitely try the Anniversario Special R.
He also recommends the Colorado Claro line. Until next time, Lizard Drew.
**Bam Bam:** I do like the Colorado Claro line. Haven't had one in a very long time. I'm the outlier on that. I've never had those. I don't like the Colorado Claro. The Double R is nice.
**Gizmo:** I like the Claro. Is that a, is that a mild cigar?
**Grinder:** Yeah. Is it
**Gizmo:** chill?
**Grinder:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** I've never had any of those. And finally, this one surprised me boys. This is a comment on Dunbarton. We mentioned, uh, I think Senator mentioned Dunbarton earlier. This was a YouTube comment from user Jibby Jabba TV. I gave up on Dunbarton after trying the original Sobremesa and Mi Querida. I feel that both of these offerings were missing something that would have made the cigars great.
**Bam Bam:** What?
**Gizmo:** I was surprised to hear that. I am shocked. I am
**Bam Bam:** too.
**Gizmo:** I really have enjoyed everything
**Bam Bam:** we've had from, from Sokka. I think he's need to, he needs to try that uh, Sincorbe [01:27:00] Miso as well. That's an excellent cigar. So good. I also, if that's
**Senator:** the experience, there could be a humidity issue. I'm not sure where he got them.
The retailer could have kept them at way too high a humidity level, which would muddle the flavor. I just, I say that not because of my own experience, but every person that I've handed one to has bought them on their own. And I've talked about it with, I've yet to meet someone who Who hasn't enjoyed those cigars, especially the Sober Mesa.
Yeah, that's a delicious cigar.
**Bam Bam:** And I think Senator's point, I think should be well taken. When you buy a cigar from a retailer, you've got to step down the humidity over a few weeks in your own environment, take the humidity down and then go into the cigar. Don't buy it. Smoke it right after the purchase.
**Senator:** Yeah, because actually a great example the the sober Mesa Brûlée the milder version another good cigar though great cigar We have that coming up on the pod in a few months. Oh, yeah I mean that cigar when I first had it and [01:28:00] I knew it was too early But I just wanted to see how it previewed but I knew the experience would not be what it should be It was too wet.
And so some of it, I got the notes I was supposed to, and I enjoyed, and some of it I could tell it was just too wet. And I wasn't able to, it got muddled. I wasn't able to get the flavors. I let that sit for weeks and then I lit it again. It was a whole different experience. Got a dry box for a bit.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Senator:** Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Got to take the humidity down. All right, boys. So that's the, uh, that's the email from this week. It's time to move now into the ratings part of our program. We're going to start with our pairing. The Nika single malt Miyagiko. Bam, bam, you're up.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah, I, I think this is a very sophisticated, complex spirit.
You know, 90 a bottle, it's expensive, but honestly, you're getting a, a lot for your dollar here. I'm at a nine. It's really quite delicious and beautiful and it complements this cigar beautifully, but I think it'll complement most [01:29:00] medium bodied cigars. I think it'd be a great pairing. Nine.
**Gizmo:** All right, grinder.
Wow.
**Grinder:** I'm giving it an eight. Um, I think it was very pleasant. I think the, I really liked the light. composition of it. Um, the sweetness was, was nice. It was just a, a tint of sweetness. Um, I think we pretty well surmised it came from just a bit of the sherry cask. Um, overall, the finish was wonderful, uh, and extended.
And I think it paired really nicely with the cigar. I would definitely pay 90, 90 dollars, 90 bucks, 90 dollars for this. Um, Um, this got, this whiskey rather, and, uh, I think it would be pleasant in almost any setting. Um, you know, I think it's summertime, springtime, fall, winter. You can, you can put it in a little ice on the beach.
You can have it at a happy hour. You can have it at night in front of the fire. [01:30:00] Everything. Uh, definitely. I mean, I think it's, why, why not a nine or a ten? I just think there's a lot more scotches that have a lot more complexity that really ring my bell just a little more. Um, but, uh, very good, very good whiskey.
**Senator:** All right, Senator. I'm at a strong nine. Uh, this is for me one of the best Japanese whiskeys I've had, period. I think it's one of the most complex single malts I've had. I'm including scotches in that I love the balance that this is struck between like fruit and floral notes and Some of those dessert notes that we get from a lot of sherry casks finished single malts I think the price point is very fair I think it drinks like a very refined premium spirit and you know I think to get this experience with single malt scotches, you're paying usually more than 90.
Yeah. And not a single chip of ice. Yeah. So the funny thing is before my rating, I quickly threw one chip and I've been drinking this neat the whole [01:31:00] time. And I'm sorry, Mr. Iceman, but I prefer it. I think it's still, it's good with ice, but I think it's great without, I don't think it needs that. And I say that because You know, most of us, and we're, and just being honest, I think when we drink single malts, we have a chip or two of ice.
We do. The overwhelming majority of the time. And for this not to need it at all. And I actually think it's better without it. That's a refined spirit. And so, uh, for me, I would definitely buy this again. I would recommend it. And I think there's something about it really, that anyone who enjoys single malt whiskey period, We're appreciating the spirit.
So for me, this might shock you guys. This is a 10. All right. I love it. I won't lie. I debated between the two. So I love the
**Bam Bam:** same. I'm not shocked.
**Gizmo:** This is the best Japanese whiskey I've had for sure. Now, I haven't had a ton. I think this might be the fourth or fifth. Third. This is the third from Nika, but we've had some others.
[01:32:00] Yeah. We have. We've had Hibiki. We've had some others. And some have been duds. Abysmal. Yeah. Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** The Hibiki was very good. The
**Gizmo:** reason why I gave this a 10, and I debated it based on price between a 9 and a 10, but the reason why I gave this a 10 is that every single sip It got better and better and better and better.
It kept getting better for me. I drank it neat the entire time. It paired brilliantly with this cigar. I think it would work great with almost any cigar that we smoke on this podcast. At any range from any origin. Uh, I, I just think it's a really great cigar. Really brilliant whiskey. I'm absolutely going to buy it again.
I'm not going to drink it a ton, obviously, because it's 90 bucks, but I really think that this is a great expression. And I think this is some of the best of Japanese whiskey that you can find out there based on what I've had right now. I, I just, I think it's great. And I do think it's better than the other two expressions we've had from Nick.
Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** All great points, you know, so
**Gizmo:** I'm very, very happy at a 10. I'm honestly [01:33:00] surprised I'm the first, but uh, yeah, that's it for me. Pagoda,
**Pagoda:** uh, it's a nine for me. Um, I, the, so the way I look at it is when I did have a need, I thought it was a bit hot for me, and then when I put a chip of ice, it became very vibrant and, you know, got those, you know, um, the, the floral, uh, note and a bit of the orange rin in the back, the bitter.
And now it could have been a little bit of the chocolate bitterness, I don't know. Uh, but there was an, it was just overall really good of, of. The flavor profile is fantastic. It is complex, for sure. And then towards the end, I went without ice again, and it does become a bit sweeter without ice. Um, it's a nine for me.
Um, you know, for 90 bucks, I don't know, I really like the Hibiki. I do like the Nikka coffee. Um, So I think it's a very comparable, I just can't, you know, remember all the flavor profiles to be able to, you know, compare all three, unless I'm having all [01:34:00] three right next to each other, but it's a strong nine for me.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, that puts the formal liquor rating tonight on the Nikka single malt Miyagikkyo at a 9. 0. It's perfect.
**Bam Bam:** That's a nice score.
**Gizmo:** So let's compare that to the other expressions we've had from Nikka. First was the coffee grain on episode 36. I can't believe it's that long ago. We gave that a 9. 2 and the coffee malt, the sister to that one, on episode 123, also scored a 9.
2. So this is just edged out by both expressions. In the coffee. We messed up. We did. I like this better
**Bam Bam:** than both. Honestly. Hey, I didn't mess up. Hand up. I did not. I do like this better than both expressions that we had previously. This is, this is really quite something. It's so satisfying after two glasses.
If you want to call it a night, you're very satisfied. That's a nine's a great score, but it could be higher. It could be. I think the
**Gizmo:** thing that factors in Yeah, it could be higher. And I'm the Listen, I [01:35:00] gave it a 10. I think the thing that factors in here is price, right? The coffee expressions are both, uh, quite a bit cheaper than this, I think.
I think they're 60 and 70, respectively, or something close to that. So I think price factoring in, I think that's fair, but I do think this is a better spirit.
**Bam Bam:** It's much more sophisticated. Not much more, but it's more sophisticated than the other two that you mentioned. Yeah. Yeah, the Nikka coffee green is 65.
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
**Gizmo:** Alright boys, it's time to move into the formal Lizard Rating now, on the Bond Roberts, Linea D No. 6, the Petite 109, for the first time ever.
**Bam Bam:** Here
**Pagoda:** we go, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, the pressure is on. Pagoda, you're up. I will rate it a strong 9. Alright. No, so, um, the, uh, uh, I really enjoyed the cigar at the light.
Uh, you know, the, uh, the beginning was great. And then right before I got into the second half, I think I was experiencing a little bit of, um, tobacco, but that may be because of the way I'd cut the cigar. I'd cut it very light. Uh, the draw was really good. Um, [01:36:00] overall, the construction is fantastic, meaning I think, um, the white ash, I had about two inches before I dropped it the first time.
So the construction, construction is fantastic, especially because I was a bit worried about the draw because the cigar is feels really hard. Um, and, but it, it's got a good feel in your hands. Um, the second half, I think, just became really, really good for me. I think it became a little more bolder. Um, I, uh, was enjoying, obviously, uh, the creaminess on, on the top of my palate.
I experienced a little bit of the saltiness and a little bit of the Cuban esque, which I call Cuban esque, and we have discussed that in an episode before. Um, there's a certain flavor that I get. Which I was totally getting in this cigar. And you know, if, uh, in a blindfold, I would have thought this was, would have been a Cuban.
Um, it's a strong nine for me.
**Gizmo:** So for me, this is no surprise to anyone in this room. This is [01:37:00] a 10. I love this cigar. Um, I, I actually thought coming in that I'd be at a nine tonight, uh, based on my experience smoking this about a year ago, I think with time, I think these cigars have gotten better. I think this is a.
Wonderful expression as close to Cuban tobacco as you can get from a new world manufacturer. I, I would be very proud to hand this to anyone who likes Cuban cigars and say, Hey, this is a Cuban cigar as close as you can get to it. I think they'd buy it. I think we all did in the room tonight. I think the saltiness, I think the creaminess, and I think really as comparing it to the, the, the rating I just gave on the pairing.
Every single draw, I thought it got better throughout the cigar. And I think that's very, very rare. I did expect a little bit of harshness in the last third or the last quarter. And there wasn't any of that. I took it all the way down to the end. I just think it's a really, really good cigar. I've thought that since I had it and it's even gotten better since the last time I had it.
So for me, it's a 10. I really, [01:38:00] really love this cigar. Senator,
**Senator:** I'll start by saying what a fantastic night I had. The pairing. Perfect. Outstanding. The cigar was excellent. I've been going back and forth between a nine and a 10. I'm going to go at a strong nine for me. The merits of this cigar. Number one, it's one of the best constructed cigars we've done.
Period. I have not one complaint. Ash burned perfectly all the way through the draw was flawless. The flavor, a lot of notes I pursue in Cuban or new world cigars in this stick. So a huge merit, um, complexity. I mean, we got so many distinct flavor notes. I mean, grinders pulling aged blueberry, essentially. I mean, like, I mean, we're getting all kinds of stuff in the cigar, which is Unbelievable.
I think for me, the only reasons that I didn't give it the 10 and [01:39:00] I think whether it's age that, that eventually, uh, you know, we revisit this someday and I do give it a 10, I, the, the second, third was unbelievable. Like for me, Perfect. An absolute 10. The final third. I loved the way it started. I actually think the flavor was so great.
I just wanted more. I, if it would have had a little more body to it, I'd be at a perfect 10 and age may do that. So that's why I say, I think this has a potential to score a 10. Um, I'll definitely smoke this again. I'm definitely going to buy this cigar. I love the shape. To me, it was just the perfect size.
There wasn't a single moment that I got bored or felt, you know, this was going on for too long. So, um, and then last thing I'll say, I think there's something for everybody in this cigar. Uh, yeah, I think if you're a new world cigar smoker. That's a really good point. For sure, there's wet
**Pagoda:** fruit, there's dry fruit, there's He's not wrong![01:40:00]
Aged fruit!
**Senator:** Aged fruit. But truly, I struggle to think of a cigar smoker that wouldn't find something to appreciate in this cigar. And I think even for, you know, smokers who like, uh, A cigar with more body. I think that the second third, and especially the last third really picks up, um, in a way that someone could appreciate even if they like, uh, a fuller smoke.
So, um, a world of credit to what they've done. Um, I think this is. Who, I think Grinder said he wouldn't compare this to any cigar in particular, and I do agree that it is unique and differentiated despite all the times that we've tried to draw parallels to other Cuban cigars or even New World. It stands on its own and that's also a huge merit.
So, um, I'm excited to smoke another one of these. Yeah. All right.
**Grinder:** Grinder. I mean, you guys took the words out of my mouth. I think, um, uh, for me, it's a strong nine as well. I would [01:41:00] say everything, every, all those points are very valid. The start of the cigar for me was, I think because it was so unique for me, I was just, I was just searching and maybe that was, I wasn't enjoying it as much as a result.
When it shifted, it really shifted in a, in a great way. And um, you know. I think we all like cigars that we can equate to some, some other previous experiences. This was a, this was a unique experience for me. Um, and, and that's a good thing. Um, I do want to get more of it. I do want to, um, smoke these more often.
And it just, it, I think to Senator's comment, if we just had a little more of it, there's so much there. Uh, maybe it's the size, maybe it's the, the same blend in a different size or something like that. Uh, we could get some of that, those expressions of the cigar and this. this unique tobacco in that way.
Um, and I did get some of those Cuban hints that we were talking about. The saltiness wasn't as strong, but it was there. Uh, [01:42:00] the Cuban twang was, was, was twanging. And, um, yeah, I mean, nine's a good score for me. I, I, I really enjoyed it. Good job, Bob slash Rob Bam Bam.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. So you had me on the cold draw.
Honestly, that's the shirt. Hello. We got to get a
**Grinder:** shirt. You had me on the cold draw. A love note from Bam Bam.
**Bam Bam:** Love you, Rob. The cigar. Rob, you had me on the cold draw. The berry forward on that cold draw was just for me outstanding. Now after the light, honestly, that initial eighth of an inch is that initial draw right after the light.
I didn't like it very much. But. It evolved beautifully, like a half, about a half inch into it. And that second third was just an explosion of flavor. It felt like it matured. It really, as you, as you go, so that again is a mark of a very complex cigar, as it evolves, as you're smoking it. And for me, it got better and better and better.
I took it all the way down to about a [01:43:00] half an inch. And so has Pagoda, I can see. You know, When you're getting nutty, peanut buttery on the very end of the cigar and toward the middle of it, you're getting a lot of different, I'm getting, it evolved from raspberry to blueberry, dare I say a little bit of banana, which I mentioned earlier, and it was creamy all the way through.
That was, I mean, it was just a delicious cigar. I am at a nine. Very creamy. It was nine.
**Pagoda:** And it left a very pleasant, I think, coating on the palate. But yeah, but if you guys pursue it, meaning that's fantastic.
**Bam Bam:** So that mouth coating you get on very, on almost any Cuban cigar, that's got a lot of flavor to it.
So that's where, for me, the Cuban esque experience kind of came through. But I'm at a nine. That was, that was quite the experience. Nine.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys. So that puts the formal lizard rating tonight on the bond. Roberts, Lenny, a D number six, the petite one on nine at a 9. 2.
**Bam Bam:** Excellent score.
**Gizmo:** That's a great rating for the cigar.
Yeah. And I really listened. I gave it a 10. Like I said, [01:44:00] that last third, not getting to the point, the grinder made about stringency, not getting weird, continuing to enhance the creaminess, the flavor. It was. Really, really surprising, honestly, to me.
**Bam Bam:** And what you said earlier is true. You wanted
**Senator:** another
**Bam Bam:** one
**Senator:** after you were
**Bam Bam:** done.
**Gizmo:** I want another cigar.
**Senator:** And I'll say, I mean, even giving it a nine, I don't know that I've ever rated a new world cigar at nine and said, I would be really interested to age it. And then I think it can get a 10. I've only said that about Cuban cigars. And so I can't wait. I mean, truly, I'm going to buy some of these and I want to just tuck them away for another year.
Same. I can't imagine with even just an extra year, let alone years, what this thing will smoke like. I think it'll be spectacular and it already is an outstanding cigar.
**Gizmo:** All right, boys, that's it for tonight. Great pairing again on the Nika single malt Miyagiko. We had a 9. 0 and on the Bon Roberts Linea D number six, the petite one on nine, we [01:45:00] had a 9.
2 congratulations to lizard. Chris out there, uh, winning lizard of the week. We're going to send him some stuff. Of course you can win as well. Just send us an email, a voice memo, some type of comment. We're going to give something away each week to a lizard. And of course, thanks to Fabrica5 for supporting the podcast and we'll see everybody next week.
Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, LoungeLizardsPod. com. That's LoungeLizardsPod. com. Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you want to reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us.
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