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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 eight members: Rooster, Poobah, Gizmo, Senator, Pagoda, Chef Ricky, Grinder and Bam Bam.
This is not your typical cigar podcast. We’re a group of friends who love sharing cigars, whiskey and a good laugh.
Join us and become a card-carrying lounge lizard yourself! Email us at hello@loungelizardspod.com to join the conversation and be featured on an upcoming episode!
Gizmo: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Lounge Lizards podcast, presented by Fabrica five. It's so good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of premium cigars, as well as whiskey, travel, food, work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo. Tonight I'm joined by Rooster Uba, Senator Pagoda, and bam.
Bam. And I plan us to smoke a cigar, drink some whiskey, talk about life, and of course, have some laughs. So take this as your 184th official invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Plan a M news here once a week. We're gonna smoke a cupid cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard brain.
We revisit the only cigar this market produces. We answer a listener email on a retailer's impact on Cuban cigar prices. And we discuss inventory management all among a variety of other things for the next two hours. So sit back, get your favorite drink, light up a cigar, and enjoy as we pair. JP Wisers, 18 years old, blended Canadian whiskey.
With the Diplomáticos number two, a Cuban pyramid on the pod tonight from [00:01:00] Diplomáticos. It's the Diplomáticos number two, and it's a 52 ring gauge cigar by six and one eight inches long. And boys, if you believe it, not only is this the only Diplomáticos INR regular production at this point, this is the second time we're doing diplomatic oaths, and it's the only diplomatic we've ever done.
The diplomatic oaths number two. Correct. And, and what's the age BRM? October 24. So this is a fresh cigar. We're comparing this to a cigar we did on episode number 44, which was from the same factory, the La Corona factory from January of 2020. So this is almost five years of difference in runs. So we'll see how this one performs tonight.
Bam Bam: I, I remember the, the wrapper on the original being a bit more elegant than this. This is very, very toothy.
Gizmo: And you know what I remember about the first one too, bam, is it was lighter in shade and it did have a sheen.
Bam Bam: It did. Mine's not too bad though. Yours looks good. I can see it from a distance that you've got a sheen.
Pagodas looks good too.
Rooster: This one's got [00:02:00] a little sheen.
Bam Bam: Yeah. No, I've got all sandpaper here.
Pagoda: You were the last one. No, no. My mine does feel like sandpaper. Yeah, it's a little rough and very veiny. No veins here for me. It's fine,
Poobah: but that, but that can work out okay. That's true. My mine is veiny too. This is super rustic.
Yeah.
Gizmo: All right, boys, let's cut this thing. See, we're getting on the cold draw and the wrapper.
This was one of the final entrance, if you remember when we did the Battle of the Pyramids quite some time ago. That was cool. That was fun. Almost 150 episodes ago. We recorded this one. Let's go through that in a little bit. There's some de dessert notes. How's your draw? Pva?
Bam Bam: Perfect. Mine's got a little resistance, which I like.
Gizmo: Mine's got a slight bit of resistance as well. Mm-hmm. I'm getting a little bit of salt on the
Bam Bam: tongue initially. I'm getting like a pudding, dairy pudding, the type thing happening.
Gizmo: I'm
Bam Bam: getting a little cedar.
Poobah: Yeah.
Bam Bam: No, none of that for me.
Poobah: Yeah. I like, I like this. I like the cold draw. We'll see what [00:03:00] happens.
Rooster: I might, my draw is a little tight. Yeah. I just cut a little bit more.
Gizmo: Yeah. And
Rooster: how much are you guys cutting? I
Gizmo: cut. Uh,
Rooster: yeah, I'm about the same. Yeah.
Gizmo: A quarter of an inch maybe.
Bam Bam: Yeah, that's yours. You look like you're about an eighth. Three 16. So I'm a, I'm a quarter full. Quarter. Yeah. Little bit more than you.
Gizmo: All right, boys. Let's like this thing, the diplomatics number two from Cuba. Again, this is a revisit, a redux, as we're calling it, of the diplomatic codes. Number two, it's a pyramid 52 ring gauge cigar by six and one eighth inches long. The box code again on this cigar tonight is BRM October, 2024. That's the La Corona factory.
October, 2024.
Bam Bam: Gimme about a half hour and my cigar will be lit. Look at this. It's like a baby flame. Whatever
Gizmo: you got going on with that
Bam Bam: lighter bam is not great. I, I need the proper [00:04:00] tools to adjust the volume of flame coming outta this thing.
Poobah: See, it's working and now it's not working.
Gizmo: We're all suffering with lighters here in the room.
It's ridiculous. Before we hit record, everybody was, uh, suffering a little bit
Rooster: tight draw.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Pagoda: Yeah. Your mine's a bit resistant as well, but, sorry,
Rooster: I'm thinking maybe cut a little bit more.
Senator: Yeah, I would take more off. Yeah. Mine. I don't dunno if I got lucky. My draw's perfect.
Gizmo: Mine has just the perfect amount of resistance.
Like I, I feel pretty good. Yeah, me too. Me
Bam Bam: too. I like that.
Gizmo: This is very nice on the light.
Bam Bam: Little spice. It's actually quite delicious. This is, I'm getting like a sesame seed, little salt. Mm-hmm. Little caramel and caramel vanilla type thing happening. Yeah, it's, this is very, very good. Yeah, I'm, I'm very happy with this on the light.
Wow. Wow. Even the aroma is really nice, extremely balanced at such a early stage.
Pagoda: I'm getting a little bit of the sweetness of
Senator: course,
Pagoda: and
Senator: a little bit of saltiness. [00:05:00] It's, I actually think this is very good.
Pagoda: Oh, yeah. And
Senator: I have never been a fan of this markup, but it's, uh, sweet. I get milk, chocolate cream.
Poobah: Yep.
Senator: Little nuttiness there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's very good. I mean, this honestly reminds me of like a. A better Monty too. Well, you're smoking the entire catalog right now, because that's all they make. That's all they make. Well then we did one of their cigar, we we did this exact cigar. Yes, we did this exact cigar on episode four.
Okay. So I was like, I know, whatever I've had, I, I was not a fan of.
Gizmo: So for listeners out there, especially ones who have been with us since the early days, uh, we are revisiting some cigars from Cuba that did not perform very well. So this is the second or third, I guess, in the series of revisits from a long, long time ago.
And then of course, the point of all this is trying a different run. So again, this is almost this, you know, a five year age difference, uh, versus the one we smoked in, uh, in 2022, which was from a box right from early [00:06:00] 2020 pre Covid.
Rooster: Isn't that amazing? This is a 24 cigar and it's. So far it's better than the one we smoked back then.
It is on the light
Gizmo: off the bat. It's delicious. This is already
Senator: better delicious. This is younger than the one that we smoked. This is Sure is not even six months old Senator. If you would've told me that this was five years older than the one we smoked, I would've believed that you're not wrong. This is so smooth.
There's no rough edges, and all I'm getting is flavor. I'm shocked. This is this young.
Bam Bam: Yeah, the retro. The retro hale's delicious. The aroma on the foot is outstanding.
Gizmo: You know what's even better about this boys? Guess what the price on this Cuban pyramid is $27, $23 and 50 cents today.
Bam Bam: Okay.
Gizmo: Pretty damn good price.
Five 90 for a box of 25. You can find it. I
Rooster: guess Haos
Gizmo: missed
Rooster: the, uh, increase on this one.
Gizmo: Well, maybe that'll happen this month. Well, because the market,
Bam Bam: because the catalog of the market is so small, they just passed over it.
Gizmo: Let's all just give it a four. So [00:07:00] boys, we did this cigar originally, like I said, in September, 2022.
So as we've been doing, I want to take us back in time with some popular news stories and big, big stuff that was happening when we reviewed the cigar last time, which was again September, 2022. So the first big one, of course was Hurricane Ian hit Florida, if you remember that. That was a pretty bad one.
Uh, in Florida, Serena Williams and Roger Federer both played their final match in competition.
Bam Bam: Wait a minute, in tennis, was this
Gizmo: the
Bam Bam: microfiche episode? No, that's episode one. No, that was Medvedev. That was me. That was, that's right. But actually
Gizmo: against Djokovich, you're right. That's who he
Bam Bam: was playing. DA
Gizmo: and Nick Cannon had his 10th child.
In September, 2022. Jesus kids, he's got
Rooster: 20 now.
Gizmo: Can you imagine, bam. Going to, you know, BA's grocery games. Can you imagine the grocery bill? Oh, yeah. Having 10 kids in the house.
Bam Bam: I can't imagine what a nightmare
Gizmo: that would be. It's, I [00:08:00] wonder if you can name them. It's
Poobah: not all the same woman in camp. No, no, no, no, no.
There's, there's a, a lot of moms going, going on Elon Musk, the two of them, Scotty Pippin, he just writes checks.
Gizmo: And then of course, the big news story from this month was Queen Elizabeth died in September, 2022. King Charles took the throne and then, and even bigger death in this room, Coolio died. We remember coolio.
Yeah. Died at 59 years old. Little gangsters Paradise. Oh yeah. Classic track, correct. We lost coolio on September 22. Taking
Bam Bam: me back baby.
Gizmo: The shadow of death.
Senator: Where's Lizard J? When we need him.
Gizmo: Even my mama
Poobah: thinks that my mind is gone, but go in his backyard.
Pagoda: I've been trying to grow up my hair that way. You remember?
Gizmo: Yeah. Coolio. Uh, this was a hit track. Remember this? Oh, it was, it was And then weird out. Did [00:09:00] the Amish Paradise Correct. Copy of it. Oh god. Very cool. So that was what was going on in September, 2022 when we reviewed. How did it die? The diplomats number two. I don't know the answer to that. I'm not sure. So boys, this cigars off to a great start.
It
Rooster: is
Gizmo: very, very happy with this. I'm
Rooster: loving the aroma off the foot. Me too. It's so good.
Senator: Burn wine's Good. Yeah. Getting some smoke and I'm now getting like a salty twangy kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Again, similar to a good Monty too. Mm-hmm.
Gizmo: It's interesting you say that. Senator, we're gonna talk here a little bit about Diplomáticos again.
We probably did a little history back on episode 44. This is the only cigar they have in regular production at this point. We'll talk about that in a second. Diplomáticos was introduced in 1966 as a cheaper, mild diversion of Monte Cristo. And it was targeted at the French market. So this is kind of the little sister of Monte Cristo.
Mm-hmm. And I would say in theory is kind of like a cousin [00:10:00] of Kay Dorsey. Yeah. In its efforts to target the French market. Mm-hmm. This is really interesting to me too. When I was reading earlier, so the range originally mirrored the numbered monocrystalline in names and sizes. So there was a mono Cris, you know, a, a diplomatic one through five, completely imitating the monocrystalline, I guess.
A little bit interesting. Softer in power. Yeah. And now the only one remaining is this pyramid, the number two. So they canceled all of the other four. And I believe there's also a diplomatic cost number six and seven as well. But now they're done to, to just one. I would just
Senator: love to understand what could possibly be the rationale of cutting every single cigar.
In your entire line except one or why bother keeping the mark at all at point at all? I, I just don't get it.
Gizmo: I'll tell you a, a story about an upcoming cigar from these guys. But, uh, before that, this brand is classified by Haos SA in their other category of portfolio brands. It used to be a local brand, but it was [00:11:00] moved to other, and this was interesting as well.
The mother factory of this brand is H Up man, which made no sense to me given that it's the sister to Monte Cristo, most Monte Cristos coming out of La Corona. It's interesting that they made the H Up man factory strange. The mother for this one. So, like I said, there's only one cigar at this point in regular production.
There are quite a few that are used.
Rooster: A lot of regionals. A lot
Gizmo: of regionals are coming out of Diplomáticos, uh, including the very famous 1 0 9 called the Busto, which was a double re robusto 50 ring gauge by seven and a quarter inches from 2014. That cigar is highly. Sought after. People still talk about that run.
And of course that came out of 2014, so it's not surprising that people really love that cigar. That was obviously a very good run of qubit cigars. And to bring up, uh, your point about what are they doing with this marker? They are introducing a new robusto this year, coming out in 2025. Apparently it's a [00:12:00] centeno, which is a 52 ring gauge by five and one eighth inches long.
It's called the concierge. So I guess they're
Senator: departing from the Monte line now at this point. It's a little bit
Gizmo: of a departure from the Monte line for sure. And apparently the pictures that have been seen show these cigar to have a pigtail rooster. Oh boy. So, uh, we shall see what comes out. Um, there's definitely some confusion around that according to Cuban cigar website, but that is it for diplomatic oaths.
There's really not a lot going on here, uh, with this Marco. And, uh, like I said, there's a new cigar coming out this year. I was definitely very
Senator: confused by
Gizmo: it.
Senator: Yes,
Bam Bam: same.
Senator: That's really surprising. Just the pigtail piece. I mean, outside of, like, outside of the hie, who else has put a pigtail on like a rab robusto sized cigar?
You're, you're gonna
Bam Bam: get Rooster very upset now.
Senator: No, no. I'm trying to think what else, what other Cuban cigars done that
Gizmo: Yeah, the only ones that I know. The Eros. Yeah. The, you know, think anything like long and skinny [00:13:00] sometimes has a pigtail with Yeah.
Rooster: Trinidad. I don't know if Trinidad has it on the,
Gizmo: so all of these cigars coming out of Trinidad do have pigtails, every single one, including the Smeraldi, which is the Robusto extra we did on the pod to hold, do we know 53 by five and three quarters, but every single cigar of theirs.
Senator: Does
Gizmo: have
Senator: a pigtail. Okay. It's just weird. It's like the two, you know, premier Marcos at a crazy price point and then like a budget mark is the one that's also in their company. That's just really odd. I don't get it. It's Cuba. Yeah. Be in Cuba.
Pagoda: We'll wait till the prices come out that my price, and at the very premium premium that pigtail,
Senator: that pigtail is gonna add another 10 bucks.
Gizmo: So what do you guys think at, at this point? Would, would you be comfortable? I know that we're early on here, but I, I mean, compared to the, a lot of the other cigars we smoke at $23 and 50 cents, it seems like a good price for a cigar of this size that tastes as good as this does right now is obviously, we'll see how this gets, if we could
Rooster: get this flavor right now, this, this is delicious.
At $23, [00:14:00] I mean, we would be in for multiple boxes Absolutely. Before the prices go up. Again.
Bam Bam: I, I think I agree. This is an extremely well balanced cigar.
Rooster: I just don't know if they will all be like this, you know what I mean? I know. Yeah. You just don't know. But the current batch, I mean, everything we, we have smoked, that's boxes from 2324.
They've been good. Very good. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I'm glad we are redoing some of these.
Poobah: Oh yeah. The combustion is good. There's a little resistance, but it's not bad. Yeah.
Rooster: My draw's tight too, but it's not, it's not, it's not terrible. I like it even with taking some off, it's still, it's gotten better, but it's, it should be a little bit more open for this size.
Bam Bam: Mm-hmm.
Rooster: So, I mean, it's gotten better.
Gizmo: I took a little bit more off Senator, and mine is still, it really hasn't changed the. The draw here. Mine's still just a little bit more resistant than I'd [00:15:00] like. And I have a feeling I'm gonna need to snippet again because of, you know, as I add saliva to it, as we smoke it down, try pressing in the bottom.
Like let it you squeeze it out a little bit. Squeeze it
Rooster: out. Yeah,
Senator: no, it's helpful to know because I, I feel like I got very lucky where my draw's been perfect from the start, but it goes to the quality control of, if most guys here are not having that experience, I mean, it tells me that it's not like I can just buy a box of these and expect that they're all gonna draw great.
When I am pinching
Gizmo: the head though, it is helping quite a bit, getting better, you know, it's opening right up, so I think they should
Rooster: make a boost to, instead of a pyramid, the problem would be solved. Just send a memo. You so buy the new one coming out this year. Yeah,
Bam Bam: send a memo, pigtail and all pagoda. How you doing with your scar?
Pagoda: Good. It's, it's excellent. And you know, like, um, but Cuban twin I stat aisle one,
Senator: luckily it's perfectly contained. That's true. Senator lost his ash. Well, there it goes. And it all made
Poobah: it in the ashtray. Correct. Construction
Rooster: is good.
Bam Bam: No [00:16:00] kale on the sneakers at all.
Pagoda: Yeah. I love the fact that it leaves a very, very pleasant, you know, flavor profile on the top of my palette. I, you know, I seek that out. And a lot of the Cubans and even now, some of the Hindus you getting, have you, are you getting into sweetness on this at all? It's reduced it initially. I think for me it, it was reasonably sweet and I was getting a very, very good flavor.
Yeah. I think the sweetness has subsided for me. Wow. But a little bit of the minerality and, you know, the, the salted, so I, the floral salty is done, salt and minerality,
Bam Bam: but the balance of the sweetness is still very strong for me, which is. The ultimate experience for me. I
Poobah: mean, it, it tastes Cuban. Yeah, it does.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Cuban, you know, it's good though. It's very
Rooster: earthy now. Right now, I guess. Well that's, maybe that's what you mean, the morality,
Bam Bam: but balance that with a little, like this sweet cream thing happening for me. Yeah. It's still, it's still a little bit little sweet, but it's a great experience.
Pagoda: It was sweeter in the beginning though.
Like that flavor is what I like. I wish it would've continued. Yeah. But you know, it's just pretty early in the game, so. Mm-hmm. [00:17:00]
Gizmo: Is anybody else seeing the parallel that Senator pointed out? And obviously we just talked about two Monte Cristo. The only thing that I would tie to Monte Cristo right now is just a little bit of that salty twang, but I'm not getting you's about it.
I'm not getting a lot of that mono Cristo flavor profile. So on Monte, like the, the, the chocolatey thing that you get in, you're not getting milk chocolate outta this right now? I'm not, no, not, I'm not gonna, no chocolate. Mine is like
Senator: straight. Milk chocolate, like maybe they accidentally threw Amani two in yours there.
Seriously, it's like to the point that this is like even chocolate milk, like milk, chocolate milk. No,
Bam Bam: as I noted, for me, the sweetness is coming through in like this honey cream type thing, not cocoa. It's strange. I have the honey cream, but then there's also layered in no cocoa for me. Wow. Oh, that'd be great.
Honestly, for me, the Moni is a cocoa graham cracker. Right? Yeah. For me, those two things have to be there for the ultimate moni experience.
Gizmo: And don't forget the salt, the little course. Of course
Bam Bam: those, well that's, that's where the balance comes in, right? Yeah. It's
Poobah: more of a, it's more of a dark chocolate
Pagoda: in, in fact, for me, I think when we started, I think I'd, uh, you know, I [00:18:00] was smelling the wrap and it was all milk chocolate for me.
I think I'd mentioned that at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. No, it's, I, well, if that flavor comes through, yeah, it'd be very, very, right
Rooster: now for me it's like, it's a little bit of cedar, a little woodiness that
Bam Bam: I'm getting that now, just a little
Gizmo: bit, but still balanced nicely. I do love the smell with the burn wine as well.
Yeah. Very aromatic. This is a great cigar so far. It's actually a
Rooster: little floral almost.
Gizmo: Yes. Right. I agree. Yeah, there's a
Poobah: lot of things going on. Um, let's see how it develops. Yeah.
Gizmo: So boys, we have an interesting news story to talk about today outta Cuba. I found this, uh, pretty wild. We talked about this very briefly on the chat, and this is pretty impactful, especially for a American people traveling to Cuba for a variety of reasons.
Obviously, American tourists cannot stay in government owned properties, you know, eat at government owned restaurants, et cetera. Airbnb has paused services in Cuba impacting Cuban [00:19:00] hosts and tourism there. So apparently more than a thousand Cuban. Accommodations and experience hosts are listed on Airbnb, but this vital segment of the country's private tourism sector now faces a serious crisis.
They can no longer receive payments within Cuba. So there's two very distinct things we need to say here. There are Airbnb hosts that live in Cuba, are paid in Cuba by Airbnb, and there's another segment of Cuban hosts who have. International connections, either via family, friends, et cetera, who take the reservation, take the money, and then distribute it to them directly.
So you know, there's two segments of these listings that are on Airbnb. Airbnb has now stopped all direct banking relationships with Cuba and the Cuban nationals there who WIS on Airbnb. So it's like, how
Rooster: can we choke the economy a little bit more? No, I don't think that's, how can we like, you know? I don't think that's absurd.
Well,
Poobah: we're [00:20:00] not choking
Rooster: the, no, I don't think, I mean, not us. It's a Cuban government that's like, you know. Yeah. The way destroying the lives of people who have a little bit of earnings from the Airbnbs and even that they want to take
Bam Bam: away, well, yeah. Reputable global companies like this don't want to do business in a country like where the government is hostile to their own people.
Well, especially when you're public. Yeah. But who's getting hurt? The people, right? Of course.
Gizmo: So in early 2025, several Cuban hosts received a message stating that all pending reservations, including those not yet fulfilled, would be paid out immediately to the hosts soon after calendars disappeared from the platform.
And all experiences were labeled as pause. So there are, you know, I don't know if you guys are familiar on Airbnb, there's things called experiences where not only are you able to book a room, but you're able to book tours or experiences, you know, go see things. All of that has been paused. So the only listings that remain in Cuba on Airbnb are those that are hosted by people who are technically not inside Cuba.
So. [00:21:00] This is definitely a big panic thing that's happening according to El Toque, which is a Cuban newspaper and Havana Times, uh, an independent newspaper. There, they're saying that it's, it's created a lot of panic for Cuban Airbnb hosts. 'cause those folks there, this is a main source of income that has not been, you know, tied to, um, transactions that are happening on the ground.
These are transactions that are, you're able to count on in a way. So, yeah, it's an interesting time. So I would, uh, caution anyone who's planning to go to Cuba or thinking about it or might have a reservation on Airbnb, definitely check out your Airbnb app and make sure that, uh, you're protected there.
'cause you don't wanna be showing up in Cuba and have a reservation and in fact you don't. So you want to be very, very careful with that.
Poobah: Yeah, I wish that the, my only criticism of, of the cigar right now is that, is the combustion. I wish it was just getting a little bit more str, you know, more smoke. Is that because of the draw?
Yeah, like the draw's a little tight. Yeah. I think it's because of the draw. Yeah. Like I have to double, kind of double, yeah. Double puff it. Um, too [00:22:00] much where I'd rather
Gizmo: I just took off a pretty large chunk. And you're good, huh? And the draw is exactly where I want it right
Bam Bam: now. So Poo, you may want to take a bit off of that.
Maybe
Poobah: I'll take a little bit more off.
Bam Bam: But I'm happy to sacrifice combustion for flavor and extraordinary burn line poo. I would ash that first. If you Oh, you're gonna be weird.
Pagoda: Yeah, it's gonna go all over. You're gonna pull up pagoda.
Poobah: It's not falling though.
Pagoda: It wasn't me. Correct. But with the cut it will trust
Senator: me.
I made this mistake too many times.
Gizmo: So boys, let's go into our pairing tonight. We have a listener scent, 18 years age, Canadian blended whiskey. It's called JP Wisers. And, uh, very, very kind listener. Jack Danny sent this into us. And, uh, was it Jack Daniels
Pagoda: or
Gizmo: Jack Daniel? It's not Jack Daniels. Just wanna make sure.
Jack Danny. Very nice guy. Cheers boys. Cheers. JP Wisers. 18 years aged. Cheers. [00:23:00] So I actually got an email, uh, and I couldn't find it this morning because I must have archived it or moved it or something, but I got an email that I wanted to throw out to the group, um, as we take our first sip here. And the question is, why don't we drink a lot of whiskey with Cuban cigars?
Most of the time we're not pairing a scotch, a whiskey, et cetera, with a Cuban. I wanna throw that out as we take our first sip.
Poobah: So I had that exact conversation with, uh, a colleague of mine over the weekend who's a big bourbon drinker. And, uh, I just think the high, I, I think sometimes the high proof as, as complex as bourbon can be and as, as, as much as I like it on its own, I think sometimes it just, it overpowers, uh, particularly a Cuban cigar.
It can be overpowering and. Sometimes doesn't pair up that well. Then depending on your taste, this is a mild cigar. You know, I, I'd like a, almost like a more sherry [00:24:00] forward, sweeter spirit with it. But again, let's give it a chance.
Rooster: I don't know. To me
Poobah: this is more like a
Rooster: medium bodied cigar. Yeah. A I agree.
Mild mine is firm medium. Yeah. That's
Poobah: fair enough. I mean, yeah, yeah. No, it's not light. Mm-hmm. But it's more medium bodied. But the scotch is, is, it's not a scotch. This bourbon is, is, it's not a bourbon, it's a Canadian whiskey. What the hell is this? Whatever it is, it's higher proof is what I'm trying to say.
Senator: All right. I feel the complete opposite. I, I find this to be incredibly smooth, super drinkable. I think it's. Light to medium and body sweet. I think it pairs perfectly
Bam Bam: actually with the cigar. What I'm, I'm getting a little butterscotch in the background. Yes. Little honey. Yeah. You know, um, a bit, but on and on a front.
It's, it's a little tingly, which I like. So it keeps your interest pretty balanced.
Gizmo: I'm loving this with the cigar. So I, I just wanna say, so, you know, Jack Danny Lizard, Jack Danny, who sent us this, [00:25:00] sent us this probably about a month ago, and I put this aside 'cause I was like, I think this being a 40%, 80 proof Canadian blended whiskey, it did not seem very viscous in the bottle.
So I was like, I want to, you know, earmark this for a Cuban cigar. And I'm glad I did because I actually think this is quite complimentary for the cigar that we're, that we're having right now. I mean,
Senator: that, that's the style of Canadian whiskey. I like it. There's no Canadian whiskey out there that's like super, you know, high proof, full body.
It's like the opposite of bourbon. I mean, most Canadian whiskeys are. Like blended to be a softer style. Like that's how Crown Royal got so popular in the US at whatever point. Yeah. That, that took off. It's like super easygoing. Um, so I'm not surprised by that, but this is really good.
Poobah: Yeah,
Senator: I mean, I, I would sip this with just about any Cuban cigar.
Poobah: Sure. Actually, as it opens up, I think when it first hit my palette, maybe I
Bam Bam: was, I could see a Ramona alone pairing beautifully with this. I [00:26:00] would do an E two with this. I think a D four would go great with this D four pretty good. Um, yeah. Yeah,
Poobah: yeah. No, no. I'm changing my tune a little. I, I think the first sip I took maybe was just a little, you know how Chef Ricky talks about you just need your palate to just adjust for a second.
Mm-hmm. It's a little different.
Bam Bam: It's unique. I haven't had anything like this that's as similar as this. I'll say, I
Gizmo: don't know. The last time I had Canadian whiskey, my father loves to drink Canadian club. He loves a Manhattan made with Canadian club whiskey. That's his thing. Um, but aside from sipping his Manhattan that he makes, I have never, I don't know the last time that I had Canadian
Bam Bam: whiskey, I just dunno.
The last time I got butter scotch on. A scotch or a whiskey, more of a rum thing for me.
Gizmo: What do you guys think of the 18 year age statement on this? Do you taste that age in the spirit? I do to
Senator: the extent that it is super, super smooth to me. Smooth. Mm-hmm. I wouldn't even think about putting a chip of ice in this.
That's how smooth it is. That's very
Pagoda: nice. Totally agreed. I think for a, [00:27:00] a blended whiskey, initially I was thinking not even you. Oh. Does this need club soda? Doesn't need ice. No. Spoosh. It needs nothing. Nothing. Not a slo. All right. Yeah.
Gizmo: So let's talk a little bit about JP Wiser. This Canadian whiskey brand was founded in 1857 by a guy of course named John Philip Wiser.
It's one of the oldest, continuously produced Canadian whiskeys and is currently owned by Corby Spirit and Wine Limited, which is affiliated with Pau Ricard, which I guess is a massive, you would know this, right? Do you know any of the other spirits that they own? Panomic car? Oh, they own a lot. They own a lot of stuff, right?
A lot. So Wisers is produced at the Hiam Walker and Sons Distillery in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and is one of the largest distilleries in North America. So the mash bill on this is primarily corn with rye and mar malted barley as well. It's column still. Distilled again, 18 years aged minimum. And the A BV on this is 40% 80 proof.
It's aged in a mix of used Canadian [00:28:00] and American Oak bar, oak barrels and likely ex bourbon. Of course, it's chill filtered. And uh, the coloring is, they're saying that it's not added, but there is some caramel coloring likely added, which, uh, I guess is a standard for Canadian whiskey regulations. That's, it needs to be a certain color, I guess.
That's disappointing to hear. So there's only a little bit of of color.
Senator: So, sorry. Just when we say Pino Ricard owns a lot just on Scotch Avalor. Glen Levitt. Oh boy. Shivas,
Gizmo: uh
Senator: oh. Uh oh. Mm-hmm. Valentine's. In Champagne. Perue a number. Oh, Irish whiskey. Green Spot and Jameson. No shit. There you go. Jameson's a big one.
Green spot's awesome. Vodka, absolute tequila. Avion rum. Uh, the, uh, Havana Club outside of Cuba, the Dominican, so they own a lot.
Gizmo: Wow. And this bottle, by the way, uh, Jack Danny, very kindly sentenced to us. Uh, this bottle is $65 pre tariffs. Pre tariffs.
Senator: [00:29:00] Yeah, pre tariffs.
Gizmo: So, by the way, for this, of course, Jack Danny is gonna be our Lizard of the week.
I mean, great bottle of whiskey here. We're very appreciative. Any listener out there can win Lizard of the Week. As you know, you don't have to send us anything. Just bribe us. Just bribe us. But all you have to do is send us an email, a comment on YouTube, Instagram. We're gonna go through some great emails, uh, here in a bit.
But, uh, we very much appreciate all of our lizard listeners out there. And, uh, especially thanks to Jack Danny for this wonderful pairing tonight. And I gotta say, as I continue to sip this as we're talking here and smoking, I'm really loving this paired with this Cuban cigar. Great combination.
Senator: I, I mean, I, I could thi this is
Bam Bam: a, a whiskey that you can drink in volume.
So, I was about to say, you can have a long session. If I had another one of these cigars, I'd do four or five glasses.
Poobah: Yeah. This smoothed out for me. My initial, when it first hit my pout, it was, it, it felt hot. Mm-hmm. But it, it, it adjusted.
Bam Bam: I still do get a touch of heat, but it just dissipates very quickly.
But I enjoy it right on the tongue and it kind of dissipates [00:30:00] beautifully.
Senator: And the thing I like particularly pairing with this cigar, 'cause I think we've all talked about like cream being like a, a kind of a sweet cream, a note in this cigar. The, the whiskey, when it sits on your palate, the finish is very creamy.
I think like the pairing could not be better with the cigar. Yeah, it
Poobah: is. I totally agree. I changed my tune and my initial evaluation was wrong. Well done. This is, this is very good.
Gizmo: Had anyone heard of this brand? I've never heard of this until Lizard Jack, Danny emailed saying, have you guys ever tried this?
And we, I said, no, we've never, I've never tasted it. I don't know if any of the guys have, but we certainly never reviewed it. Very skeptical before
Bam Bam: we started.
Gizmo: Sure. And, and of course I, once I saw the 18 years age statement on it mm-hmm. And saw that it was blended, I was like, and 40%, I was like, let's try this with a, with a Cuban.
So it's, well, well priced for 18 year whiskey. Yeah. 65 bucks. Alright boys, let's go to some listener email. We have some feedback on the conversation we [00:31:00] had around champagne. A couple notes here for Senator as, uh, Senator called out listener suggestions for Sub $40 Champagne. So we have some emails here that I wanted to share with the group.
This one's from our friend Lizard Peter in Nottingham, England. You might remember Lizard Peter. He won Lizard of the Week. A little while back he says, hi lizards in response to Senator's request for listener's suggestion for sub $40 champagne. There are a couple I have tried at just under 30 pound Sterling, which I can recommend.
Number one is Brute Day Tradicion Blanc De by Michelle Guill. Well done. Write that down. And the brute majeure from ala. I don't know if that's Rob Ala of Friends of Albano, uh, but brute majeure from ala. He says I like a champagne with some body and flavor and a bit less acidity. So I tend to prefer a Blanc Deir.
You can read more on these and the other producers and other sparkling wines on the website of a UK supplier [00:32:00] from vineyards direct.com. Incidentally, the Alce Alce Al Alese Al Alese, I can't do French Alese Region of France produces some good sparkling wines. Remont de Alese at modest prices. Best wishes Lizard Peter from Nottingham.
We have another one here from Lizard Pot Pest. He says, guys, great episode as usual on the topic of Kava, I'm a huge fan and I went down a rabbit hole a few years ago where I was trying everything Spain had to offer Picture below was a few orders I put into the time and he sent a picture of about 20 bottles here of different kava.
I guess he tried. I'll get some info together and send in an email with some recommendations. Spanish sparkling wine can be very high quality and is also a fantastic pairing with Cuban cigars. So that is from Lizard Pop Pest. Senator, I don't remember if we discussed this, but have you had a lot of Spanish sparkling or
Senator: kava?
Yeah, no, kava iss great. Um, so the funny thing, I mean this is everywhere now and the [00:33:00] problem is, is like it took off, the quality went down. So like a kava that really hit it big is, uh, ravita. You can find it at like. Anywhere that sells anywhere large, that sells alcohol. Years ago when that first kind of like became, started to become known in the US market, the quality was very, this is like a $10 kaba.
It was awesome. I used to like stock up a case of it just for like mimosas, like brunch, like a perfect kind of mixing sparkling, or if you were gonna just like drink in volume with friends on a weekend, perfect for that. Then they, and this is the, this is the lifecycle of every brand, right? So in, in spirits or wine, so.
It starts to get super popular. They completely change the branding. This is the same thing by the way that happened with OB Braun, which used to have a different brand, different label. Then they switched it. I think the quality went down a bit, [00:34:00] um, still, you know, a serviceable bottle, but it was not what it used to be.
And Seuss, now I think I isn't as deceptively a refined experience as it once was. Like, you, you know, there's rough edges there. It's drinkable, but you're not going to in any way fool yourself that, um, it's something nicer than it is. So that was kind of my light bulb moment that Spanish kavas were really good.
And one of the years I was out, uh, skiing in Whistler. I forget the name, but I had tried a couple of different Spanish kavas at, uh, APRE Ski at this restaurant, um, a Roxy in Whistler Village, and they were great. I actually wish I would've written them down because it would definitely be pod worthy, but Spain knows what they're doing with sparkling.
You know what I like about a lot of Kavas? None of them are particularly sweet. So it's like, you know, in the American market, when you buy an American sparkling, you're fighting to find something that's not sweet because it is so obviously not anything like champagne that [00:35:00] you're so limited in kind of what you can search for.
In Spain, that's not the issue. Most of them lean a little dry, nicely balanced. It's just finding something that delivers like, you know, a kind of finer bubbles that have like a MOUs like quality that champagne does. That's the hard part. But, um, you'll never find anything overly sweet there, which is great.
Gizmo: You know what's interesting about your point about American sparkling? I, I actually went to two weddings, I guess in the last four to six weeks. And of course, you know, they crack sparkling and, you know, everybody at the table has it. And it's almost, for me, it's so sweet. It, it, it was like a little nauseating.
Like I, I don't know if it's designed like that to cater to an American palate, to cater to people who are drinking other types of wine that are a little sweeter, cheaper stuff. I don't know, but I don't understand why that decision is made to be so sweet.
Senator: Like, what is that? It's two things. It's one because they think that that's what the American palate wants, but it's also too, because when you have a shitty [00:36:00] sparkling, the way to just completely erase all the imperfections is just to add a bunch of residual sugar.
And you're like, this is sweet and easy drinking, even though it's not particularly great. Not at all complex. So that's why they do it a lot. And it's the same thing in red wine. When you have a red wine that's oddly sweet, that shouldn't, you can immediately kind of tell it's artificial. They've added a ton of residual sugar so that the tannins and the harshness are not so pronounced, and you don't realize that, and then you feel shitty the next morning.
So it's sad, but this happens across the board. That's also
Gizmo: what Mrs. Gizmo does at Starbucks, by the way. She takes the coffee and just dumps sugar into the sugar container and creamer. It's like, do you want some coffee with your Correct.
Senator: Your heavy cream? Do you remember years ago when we recorded the, back in the days of recording the pot at my, uh, my garage, one of the guys, I, I, I forget who was going to Starbucks on their way here.
And one of the guys said like, I'll take a caramel, 15 pumps of fucking French vanilla. That [00:37:00] was macchiato. That was poop's order. This, that, the other. And what of you guys actually brought it I to the lounge? Yeah. Brought all of that. Edit it. It was
Poobah: hysterical. Correct.
Rooster: So you out on asis po
Poobah: uh, yeah. No Sugar Cube man.
Come on. It's old school. You, you're out on fri.
Gizmo: That's better than, uh, what, what Rooster just said. So boys, we're coming to the end of the first third here on the Diplomáticos number two from Cuba. What's everybody thinking? It's
Poobah: so good, man. It, it's, it is good. And I, and I, I think the commentary about the wrapper and the con and, you know, oh, it looks rustic, but like my burn line's perfect.
Bam Bam: Yes, it is.
Gizmo: For me, the most important thing and you know, is the flavor. Right now, the burn line is great, but I am blown away at how young this cigar is and how well it's performing compared to when we remember smoking that Diplomáticos two on episode 44. Two and a half years of age on it. Yep. Yeah. I think that, and we suffered through it.
Yeah. I [00:38:00] think, I think you put it down.
Bam Bam: Yeah. I mean, I think it got a, a six or a seven. Yeah. It didn't perform well, but this is light lights out. Yeah.
Rooster: I mean, if you can find cigars, Cuban cigars at this price point mm-hmm. 2024 Fresh. Yeah. Smoking like this,
Bam Bam: go after '
Rooster: em. Cool.
Poobah: It's a home run, you know, maybe a, you know, maybe there's a focus, you know, they, they, they, they pair the line down and maybe there's a focus on making a better.
Dip two, maybe, you know, maybe there's more, more of a focus on, so let's focus on doing one thing well, as opposed to doing well. It's the only thing you're doing multiple, multiple things. Right. You know, and, and running into the law diminishing returns from trying to do too much. So, I mean, they do a bunch of regionals.
Bam Bam: Mm-hmm.
Poobah: Yeah. But when, when was the last time we had a regional that was any good? Yeah, that's true too. Pagoda, what are you thinking about the cigar right now?
Pagoda: The, the only thing I'm seeking is a bit more of the sweetness. Mm. Uh, but I think, uh, having a few sips of these, [00:39:00] you know, and the pairing is working wonderful.
It's providing the sweetness more so from the Interesting. Yeah. From the, uh, blended biscuit. Wow. Wow.
Senator: So I, I'll just say the consistency then really concerns me because. I'm having a completely different experience than everybody in the room and it's, it's obviously negative. No, his is super positive.
It's excellent. He's
Rooster: smoking a Monte too. I am. I
Senator: mean, I'm not kidding. This tastes like a carbon copy of some of the best Monty twos I've ever had. Wow. I have been getting sweetness. All the way through. There is nothing dry about this cigar at all. No,
Bam Bam: I agree.
Senator: And I've been getting cocoa all the way through, and that hasn't happened for most of you guys in the, I'm
Rooster: not getting, I'm not getting any cocoa.
But the sweetness is there. It's, it's there. It's a little faint, but there's a baking spice also that's coming through. I don't know if it's not my That's correct. That's the thing, like he's saying faint.
Senator: He's not getting any sweetness. Really. Yeah. He's just getting it from the, uh, from the whiskey. And all I get is like pronounced sweetness.
It's [00:40:00] unusual. I'm still getting a very nices switch. Let's swap. Yeah. Right.
Gizmo: Well, it's also everybody take your cigar and pass it down. One guy to the left, you know,
Poobah: I, I, I do think too, depending on maybe w what you ate today or what's, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. You know, or, or like where your pal's at, like what you had for dinner or what you didn't, can.
Can kind of influence. What'd you ask? Are these little subtleties about What'd have dinner there about
Pagoda: come? We had breakfast. I really did. Well done. No, but I, I
Gizmo: think, you know, to senator's point here, I think we're, we're talking about a cigar that's not a, you know, a really a sought after cigar. Clearly there's some inconsistency even in the room here.
I mean, it is just a matter maybe of, of one buncher doing it a little different than the other buncher and these subtle differences are happening.
Senator: I also have a theory, if we think about this. I'm the only one that had a perfect draw on my first cut.
Bam Bam: Mm-hmm.
Senator: I didn't have to take anything extra off. This thing is wide open, I mean like a padron wide open.
And so I have to imagine, you know, with a tighter [00:41:00] draw, naturally the cigar heats up more 'cause you're fighting to just get air through that smoke that's possible and smoke. Correct. And so it could be, you know, altering the flavor profile a little bit because of a, a poor role where in my case I'm lucky this thing's wide open, that it's probably just burning cooler and I'm getting more of the
Poobah: sweetness.
Exactly. I cut mine just a little bit more, I mean like another eighth of an inch and it's, it's doing fantastic.
Bam Bam: Yeah, I have no complaints at all. I still have that sweet cream going all the way through. Consistent from beginning to the midway point.
Poobah: Yeah. And it's very good. It's been, it's been kind of a one act play, which I'm fine with.
Same,
Rooster: yeah. For me, the sweetness is kind of like the baking spice sweetness that I'm getting. I'm not getting so much, much of that. The nutmeg nut, I could see it's, it's not Meg, it's also a little floral. It's still like earthy and woody also,
Poobah: it is when you, when you, when you retro hale it, you get that, you get a little bit of cedar.
Yeah. You get a little bit of, of, of sweetness. You get a little bit of minerality. It's, it's, I really like it. I think it, it's [00:42:00] way more complex than I, than I expected. It's an excellent cigar so
Bam Bam: far.
Poobah: And nutmeg's a
Gizmo: good call out rooster. Agree. I agree. I actually get a lot of it right? Correct.
Bam Bam: Yep.
Gizmo: I'm fine.
I just, at, for me right now, I'm having fun smoking the cigar. It's a very pleasurable smoke. Yep. It's complex and interesting. What are you getting? I'm getting a mostly what you are getting. I wish I was getting a little bit more of what Senator was getting.
Bam Bam: You don't like what you're getting now?
Gizmo: I do, but I'm, I, I'm envious of what senators saying it's different.
He seems like he has like a, it's dessert number two plus. Yeah, it's different. Yeah. I think there's
Bam Bam: just a different version of dessert here. Yeah. It's
Poobah: desserty for me. I agree. It's very approachable. I mean, it's, it's,
Rooster: but we're not getting that cocoa that senator is getting. Mine's a little more tart for that.
Mine's a little more tart.
Bam Bam: Yeah. No tart you're
Senator: saying. Sweet. Sweet. Mine's a little bit more tart. My cigar is so sweet. It's sweeter than the whiskey we're drinking. Jesus. What? That's
Bam Bam: crazy.
Senator: No joke.
Bam Bam: That's crazy. I think pagoda needs experienced that, you know. No, I did, I I give a drawer too.
Pagoda: I did get the sweetness in the beginning when I, I know you said.
Yeah, and that was it. After that, it just became very faint in the overall layer. Okay.
Poobah: [00:43:00] But I'm getting like a sweet, I'm getting a sweet. On, on the front of the pallet and then like a little bit of a dry finish. And I kind of like it. It's, it creates a balance and uh, I haven't had to make one correction.
Bam Bam: No, same. Yeah. I don't think anyone has any room. So, you know,
Poobah: so you know, when you look at the wrapper and you're like, you're like, oh, it looks a little rustic. It doesn't look like it avid off or something. Right. Uh, but that's not always a detriment. You know, you smoke, you, you pull out a Ramon Malone and that wrappers pretty rustic.
Rustic. Of course, they're, they, they always are. But that's not always a
Rooster: bad thing. And there's no spice in the cigar. But if you smell the burn line, you, it hits your nose with a little bit of spice. Yeah, it's definitely a spicy burn line, but I, I'm
Bam Bam: not getting that on the draw. No, I hope it continues like this.
'cause the rating will be great for me.
Poobah: I mean, it's holding its ash really well.
Bam Bam: Um, and I think the combustion in the room's actually quite good.
Poobah: It really is. Yeah. And it's very [00:44:00] Cuban esque. It's, it's clearly Cuban, you know, it has that kind of d it has that DNAI, I'm, I'm, I'm very pleasantly surprised given our's, given pre given our pre, you know, given our
Gizmo: previous experience.
Previous experience. And, you know, two weeks ago we did that Hoya to Monterey, that 10 years age cigar, that performed very well. So, coming into this cigar tonight, which has about six months of, of age on it since it was boxed, I mean, it's, uh, it's nice that we have a $23 cigar in our hand from Cuba. That's right.
But I'm not getting performing at this, at this, this rate. I'm not getting ammonia. Zero, no. Oh zero. No. There's zero youth here at this point.
Rooster: Yeah. I don't know if it's, if it's, if it's a better crop in 20, 23, 24, or if it's a better blending decision. Yeah. Or more fermentation, you know?
Poobah: Yeah.
Rooster: Or impossible.
Or a
Poobah: combination. Right. Yeah.
Rooster: Like they're, they're rolling these cigars that are ready to smoke. You know, you don't have to wait. In the past, every single Cuban cigar, it [00:45:00] needed time. No matter what box you got, you had to let it sit for maybe a year or two, you know, at least. But these are, I mean, these are just ready.
Poobah: Yeah. And, and this opened up just sitting here. This Canadian whiskey opened up for me. My first impression when it first hit my palate, it was just. Was, it was different and it just felt hot, but it's totally not. And yeah, really it's softened style like an Irish whiskey. It totally is.
Bam Bam: In fact, pass that bottle down, Senator.
Yeah, I'm, I'm getting refilled, but I also had
Poobah: a couple sips of tequila pryor, do you know what I mean? So like, oh, we know. And then relax. Um, Hey guy, I'm observant. You know, what are we doing like a fucking press release here? I don't work for the school newspaper, you know, you know, Adriana, what do you work for?
The fucking school newspaper. Um, but, uh, it's very nice. It's a really nice spirit [00:46:00] and it, and it's pairing up very, very well. I'm very happy.
Gizmo: So boys, we got a lot of comments on our Behi K 58 episode we did four weeks ago. I wanna read a couple of those. First comes from Lizard Ant. He writes The tropical chef with a bunch of exclamation points.
LOL. Of course, chef Ricky was tr talking about various tropical fruits that we were debating. He says, LOL. Great episode fellows. Keep it coming. Senator, you need to learn how to retro hail and stop whining. LOL. Only kidding. I can
Bam Bam: wait till that listener.
Senator: I'm gonna preview something. I can't wait till that listener hears one of our interviews from PCA.
Yes. With a very respected member. We're gonna clip that. We're community. I'm
Bam Bam: gonna cut that out. No Retro hill preview.
Gizmo: He says, I'm only kidding. You guys are great. It's the best cigar pod out there. Here's another one from lizard Ed. He says, good evening [00:47:00] lizards. I was very pleased to hear this week's episode.
Reviewing the Bihi K 58 and more. Relevant to my wallet, of course. Cigars $700. The Santiago de Duba Rums Santiago eight is available in the uk easily. The uk This is crazy to me. I'm, I'm envious about this. That's unbelievable. The UK's largest supermarket Tesco stocks. It
Senator: Wow.
Gizmo: You can walk into a supermarket in the, yeah.
Guess what that's
Senator: gonna cost there? What do
Gizmo: you think that's gonna be? A hundred bucks. Did you say Costco?
Senator: Not for the eight year, but the 11 year has gotta be a hundred bucks
Gizmo: there.
Senator: Yeah.
Gizmo: And he says, not only do I tend to find it both extremely easy drinking and a good match for most medium new world and cubit cigars.
He's saying he can get it as as cheaply as 21 pounds a bottle. Wow. Wow. So what's that like 40 bucks us? Something like that. 25 or 28? 20. Wow. Five. There you go. It's incredible.
Pagoda: 28 deflation.
Gizmo: Correct. I'm looking. It's hit Europe down. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the Sancho Panza Besos, and look [00:48:00] forward to smoking.
Along with you guys, I've saved the Sancho Panza Beso for the experience. Fingers crossed for an enjoyable and salty time. Sancho Ponza. VSOs costs around 32 pounds each year in the uk And while you can in theory walk into any hano specialist and buy them, it is commonly said that Sancho Ponza makes up half a percent of Cuba's output.
So good luck finding a source for that. So in practice, along with Juan Lopez and diplomatic os, like the cigar we have in our hand, they can be hard to come by. And I've heard that actually from a lot of listeners. When I put the Diplomáticos number two on the intro thing, you know, I say, here's the cigar we have coming up.
A lot of folks asking us where, where you can find them, because so few retailers now, especially for our listeners in the US or shipping to the us, so unless you're on FOH 24, 24 I havanas Cigars of aos, they all, they have them, but they're not shipping here. So you have to hit it on, uh, 24. 24. Best wishes to you all.
Lizard ed and another one. Now this one's from Lizard [00:49:00] ZI. First off, why haven't you guys done the Sir Winston yet? This is the third email we've gotten from on the Sir Winston in the last three, three weeks. He says, wow, come on. Highly controversial question for the group here, with the increase in the price of cubit cigars to these absurd levels, one thing which comes to my mind often, which no one seems to be interested in discussing, is the retailer's responsibility in all this.
I work in a business where relative margins are pretty thin. It's not much of a secret that most retail is keystone priced at 50% profit. IEA $300 box sells retail for $600. Or around there. Our only advocates for price are the retailers. Most of all of them are just throwing their hands up. But why?
Because they are making more money than they ever have in this whole thing. The retailers are to blame as much as Hano say, could I have and COH have shut down the US 10 years ago, no, because they were only making [00:50:00] 50 to $200 a box, and now they're making 300 to a thousand dollars a box. So it's easy to throw up the middle finger to the USA and consumers instead of trying to talk cents into haos.
Before we jump to this, Asia has always bought a lot of stock. Look at Miran NI in the. Of the encyclopedia. He wrote about talking about a small collection in Hong Kong being 10,000 boxes and 40 to 50,000 being quote unquote normal. And that was over 25 years ago. I'm not against profit at all, but should we be looking closer at the retailers who are cozy with ramming us while telling us they're trying?
Yeah. Trying to not get caught high fiving each other behind our backs, making a ton of money. I'm passionate about this, which is why I bring it up. Clearly Fabrica five is one answer from a truly great, great retailer, which I've always thought Rob ala to be. Oh, and on the bhi K 58, no one who appreciates and loves cigars will smoke that cigar.
I agree with him on that. $700 a cigar is crazy. It's $7,000 a [00:51:00] box of 10. It could be a roll of maple tree leaves. It doesn't matter. It's only a flex. Cheers. And as always, look forward to the pod lizard Z. Good email. So a long email here. Long email, but implicating the retailers.
Poobah: Yeah, but he brings up a good point.
Um. And I don't know. I, I, I think by geography you're probably looking at, there's tariffs, uh, particularly in the u in the, in the uk. And it's like based on weight. They're just different regulations. Um, and I don't know, I don't have enough insight into how things are being done now with these price increases.
But it used to be a situation where, you know, you could get these master cases and the more standard production cigars that you moved out the back, the retailer moved out the back door, the more access they would have to, the more allocation they would have to limit [00:52:00] and, and, and, and higher end, higher end stuff that they can make really good margin on and, and, and, and fill out their retail, uh, store in a way that's.
Elevates them. Do you know what I mean? Uh, in terms of selection and, and, and, you know, the clientele that's gonna come in there. So I don't know how much of that is happening now. You know, moving to some d fours, moving some standard stuff, you know, Hoya's out the back. And, and then getting more allocation, you know, putting those onto the gray, you know, 'cause that's what they do.
I mean, but
Gizmo: I mean, I think that has changed certainly from the supply side because there's just not a ton of stuff sitting on the shelf that they wanna move out the back door.
Poobah: Yeah. Correct. And I think,
Gizmo: I think the thing that's important for, for my perspective here on this, you know, in other industries that I've worked in where, you know, distributors and retailers have, you know, relationships with a very powerful manufacturer.
Haos SA being that [00:53:00] manufacturer in their retail and distribution agreements, they agree to sell the cigars at the minimum advertised price that the manufacturer deems necessary to keep it level, which is why we have seen the Cuban cigar prices level worldwide, including Cuba, including in Hong Kong, including in the uk, including what we're seeing at on FOH.
Of course, Rob would love to price those cigars less. He's doing what he's agreed to with Haos. He has to price those cigars a certain way. Of course, there they have to be leveled, so. I don't disagree that the retailers are making more money today selling less cigars. There's no question about that. But I don't think it's up to the retailer to price the cigars how they want, because they would be in direct violation of their agreement with their distributor, whoever that is in the world, and ultimately with Haos sa.
Bam Bam: Makes sense.
Gizmo: Does that, does everybody agree with that? I agree that perspective. No, I
Senator: agree a hundred percent. And it totally correlates with like the tax in all these markets. Correct. I mean, you look at [00:54:00] like, I mean, I can speak to, you know, I'll never forget buying cigars in Singapore. I mean, the taxes on everything in Singapore are insane.
It's like a $50,000 car here is a hundred thousand and they're, and that was like five years ago. I can only imagine how bad it is now. Five years ago, I was buying a Monty two for 55 US dollars. It wasn't like Europe didn't catch up to that until, because the tax is aggressive there, but not as aggressive until.
Several years later than that. Still a good value pagoda.
Pagoda: So, so there, what, what they have is, um, their income tax is very, very low. So Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I think it's reasonably flat. I think 15 or 20%. Really?
Senator: Yeah. Sadly, it doesn't make up for it. That is the most expensive city I've ever seen. I It is, it is.
Pagoda: It's an expensive city. I couldn't
Senator: find lunch for two people cheaper than 200 bucks. Really? I'm not kidding. 200 us us. That's for Caesar salad. Yeah, that's a Caesar salad. A diet Coke and no, no grill chicken. I mean, a good lunch. I'm not saying McDonald's in fairness, but like,
Poobah: no, Singapore [00:55:00] is a legit like.
Super expensive. Yeah, of course. Everything, everything.
Gizmo: But I, I think the point here to take this onus off the retailer's back is that the leveling that we've seen price-wise worldwide is because of Haos dictating and, and exerting their power over their, their entire supply chain over the entire retail chain.
I mean, I think the reason why we saw I Havana's come up and other gray market vendors is because some of those direct retailers with AOS created these quote unquote gray market sites, move things out the back door, allow what UBA is saying, and then discounted accordingly and kind of disconnected themselves for the business.
There's no question about that, that they were doing that and had it been figured out, of course they would've been in violation of their agreement with Habana. So I don't put it on. The retailer at all? No, neither do I I put it on Hano. Well, yeah, Hano,
Senator: but I, I'm also, the only layer I'm adding is also governments that have increased taxes like crazy.[00:56:00]
I mean, this is true in Europe is true in Asia's. What? That's what
Poobah: I said before. Yeah. Even
Senator: in the us look at New York state, what they did increasing the tax on tobacco years ago and everything skyrocketed. I mean, we're lucky to buy tobacco here in New Jersey because it's way more just right across the border.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Look at that D off Maduro that I bought upstate. That was $68.
Gizmo: Yeah. You know, what's that? 35, 40 here? No, no, 50 here. Oh, 50.
Bam Bam: Excuse me. Still, still. That's a pretty big
Poobah: increase. Yeah, but it's a, but that's a cost delta. That's significant. I mean, very.
Pagoda: Yeah. Why go to Singapore when it can just go to New York?
You spend all your money. Yeah.
Poobah: Well, they'll, they're gonna, you know, you're talking about the, the, the, you know, New York State, New Jersey, California, you're talking about the highest tax states. In the country, in our country, and they're gonna, they're, they're gonna squeeze every, every bit out of it that they can and they'll continue to.
And, uh, you know, I was walking through Newark Penn Station the other [00:57:00] day, and, and, and, and that place, when you talk about a, a, a facility that now for the listeners, Newark Penn Station is a, the Acela speed, you know, trained, you know, you, you can take it from Boston, um, all the way down to, to DC um, with stops in Philly.
And, and it's, it's a great experience, but. On the train itself. But, but, but when you go into getting to the train, but when you get, when you go to New York Penn Station, it, it, it is a, it is a, you're on hell street shit show. You're, it's a shit show in terms of like, literally there, I, there was a woman that was complaining about the body odor.
It's a ubiquitous body odor smell. And, and, and I mean like throughout the entire train station, it smells like body odor. And [00:58:00] I walked in before I picked up my train to go down to Philly on Thursday. But before I, I, I, I go, you know, I'm gonna just use the laboratory real quick before I go up to the platform.
Oh, that's a big, that was a big mistake. Big mistake. You know? So I walk in, I don't get three steps up. He got more than he bargained, by the way. I, this is when I wish we had a film crew, just senator following poop around. Senator, you've senator seen this. Uh, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Um, I'm, I'm, don't drop the soap.
No, I, I, I, I walk three steps, you know, there's a hallway that goes into the bathroom. I walk three steps in. There's a guy shirt off, pants down. Doing a full on body wash shower. Right. And there's, and there's a newer, so he's
Gizmo: not the source of the body odor clearly. That's good. Well,
Poobah: like I
Gizmo: said, don't drop
Poobah: the soap soap on a roll.
Well, exactly. So, so, so I walk and there's, and there's a newer cop that's standing five feet away from the entrance. [00:59:00] 'cause that's where he stands. I walked, I walked three steps in. I see this guy shirt off, pants halfway down. He's, he's rubbing himself down. And I walked out and I said, there's a guy in there with no shirt on and his pants are halfway down.
And the cop looks at me and he goes, okay, great. You know, and he, and he walked in there and did his thing. And then you walk up on the platform and there's, there's potholes on the platform and they have no, and I mean, literal potholes, like you're, you're, you're, you're, you know, you're like, you break an ankle type of pothole.
Yeah. Like you can trip, you can, it's, it's, it's crazy. All the tiles are uneven on my way out, coming back in these tiles. Look level, um, I almost tripped on one of these tiles 'cause it was so raised. Do you know what I'm saying? These big, you know like two by two like big square tiles almost tripped on one of those.
You get, the minute you get out of the car, you know your car service, it is just [01:00:00] pot. Like it's just pot everywhere. And I'm not against pot, but like, you know, you wanna smoke the weed as Stephen A. Smith would say, smoke the weed. But you're getting in more trouble for smoking a cigar or a cigarette outside of Newark Penn Station than you are smoking a joint and it's just a disgrace.
And they have all these people sitting in the train station with no ticket just hanging out. It gets worse in the winter and you know, 'cause they just go in there and these newer cops, their hands are so full. I'm just saying the capital improvements that are required, they have probably, I don't know, a hundred new trains sitting for two years because they haven't improved the tracks and [01:01:00] done the infrastructure work that they need to accommodate those trains.
And they're just sitting, they built the trains, but they can't build the track to accommodate these new trains. So it's just New Jersey. Um. Mismanagement of government money and in, and infrastructure development and, and it's a problem, you know, not to, not to take the conversation in a totally different direction.
No, I'm just, I'm, I I'm just, I'm just saying as it relates to that Amtrak tobacco tax No, I, I'm, I'm laddering it. No, but I'm laddering it back. I'm laddering it back to taxes. I'm laddering it back to all these taxes, all these tax increases. New York State, New Jersey. All these increased taxes on, whether it's tobacco, property tax, whatever it is, you know, who knows how this money is being managed.
And you look at, we talked about Newark, you know, we talked about what's going on at Newark Airport, which are more of a federal, federal thing, [01:02:00] but like, that's a disaster. So these, these kind of capital improvements that need to be made, it's, in terms of transportation, it seems like is, is, is, is not, not an issue.
Gizmo: It seems like two or three decades of cascading and domino effect of infrastructure is hitting us pretty hard right now. And, uh, yeah. I mean, it's crazy to, to live in this area of the world here in near New York and it's the tri-state area. Yeah. It's just a complete shit show. Yeah. You know, I mean, think about a, a lot, a few.
Um, of the New York hub, right. Hubs for travel right now are just a complete mess. Thankfully, LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy in New York, the airports, they did a beautiful job improving those. They're really nice. But yeah, they did. But, but Newark is a complete mess. And as you're saying, some of the train stations are as well.
And you know what a good solution, by the way, for the body odor problem would be, is to let cigar smoking back. Correct. That'll clear it all. It'll clear it right out. Built in Ashra, built in ashtrays. Correct. Little cigar smoking. Correct. You won't smell a thing. Nice aroma. Exactly right. [01:03:00] Exactly. Exactly right.
So boys, we're coming to the end of the second, third going to the last third. Now on the Cuban diplomatic post, number two, the pyramid. What's everybody thinking at this point?
Bam Bam: This is an excellent cigar. I can't say enough about it. I am blown away.
Gizmo: I'm loving it.
Bam Bam: Yeah. It's, it's really quite delicious. I would
Gizmo: argue mine has gone on a little bit of a journey here.
It's picked up a little bit of strength. Strength, a little bit of strength. I agree. In the final third. Sure. I love how the complexity's kind of taken a journey. Um, it, I am getting a little more sweetness now than I was before. Not as much as, as Senator was saying, I'm getting a little bit more sweetness, but there's still a very earthy kind of quality to me.
Bam Bam: You know, Poopa said it earlier that the consistency of one act play, I'm getting that, but it's been, it just changed a little bit, but I'm still getting a sweet cream earthy balance, which is really unbelievable. It picked up
Rooster: in strength
Bam Bam: for sure. A touch. Yeah, definitely a
Poobah: touch. Yeah. A little bit a touch.
It's outstanding. It, it, it's, [01:04:00] it's. Yeah. It's, it's, it's really, I'm surprised mm-hmm. Based on what, you know, our, our review from two, three years ago.
Gizmo: Yeah.
Poobah: Yeah.
Gizmo: Pagoda, what do you think about yours right now?
Pagoda: Yeah, it's just picked up in strength. Uh, but, you know, I wish it was a little bit sweeter, but overall very, very pleasant and it's been very good.
I've really enjoyed the flavor profile. It has left in my palate and, um, it's, it's been fantastic. Well,
Poobah: how about the build, how about the construction? Yeah, it's great. Excellent. It's incredible.
Pagoda: Yeah.
Bam Bam: Everybody's ashes not one,
Poobah: not one touch,
Bam Bam: no. Yeah. Yeah. And the burn line's been razor sharp. Rooster, how
Rooster: about you?
Yeah, same. I mean, I think the, uh, smoke output has gotten much better. Yes. From the beginning. Sure has. Yeah. And cigar is absolutely burning Fantastic. All throughout the cigar. I have noticed every time I ash it, there's a beautiful cone. Yes. And that's when, you know it's a well constructed cigar.
Senator: Yep.
Bam Bam: Correct.
Senator: Totally. So the funny thing for me in the final third, [01:05:00] because my draw has been wide open, it definitely heated up. I was gonna ask you if it was getting hot. Yeah. And I lost the sweetness. That's only natural though. Which is why I think, you know, with a tighter draw, you guys weren't getting as much sweetness.
It was burning hotter 'cause as mine all of a sudden got much hotter. I lost it. Um, it got earthier in the final third for me. Yeah. Which I didn't experience at all in the first two thirds. It definitely picked up in strength, like GIZ mentioned. Um, I still like it in the final third, but I really love the first two thirds, so it's like a little bit of a disappointment for me.
But it's still, it's still good. It's still satisfied. It's good. We've been smoking at last all along. Yeah. But when you look at your
Poobah: cigar and the pace at which you smoked it because of the open draw and then mine, um, night and day. It's night and day. So poop's got double, more than double the cigar I have left.
Exactly. So pacing, I think pacing, you know, is a thing, but if your draw was more open, you know, it could have burned hotter for you, you [01:06:00] know? Yeah.
Gizmo: So boys, before we get our tour, our ratings tonight, I have a couple more things here for you. I got an email on the lizard email from a company, I guess they're like an SEO company or something called pods, SEO, which I thought was funny.
Obviously this is spam, but I thought this was hilarious. It says, hi there. When listeners search for the term quote, drug ring. On Apple Podcasts or Spotify Lounge Lizards, A Cigar and Lifestyle podcast appears as result number one. So somehow we have become the number one drug ring podcast. We're a drug lifestyle bus busted.
Pagoda: Finally,
Gizmo: it also says, did you know it's also ER result number one for cigar brands and result number one for food and lifestyle? Obviously, I think this is all bs, but I thought it was hilarious that we got an email saying that we're the number one drug ring podcast in the world. Yeah, that's funny. So thank you to the people at Podio, and I have one more email.
This is actually from our Lizard of the week. The gentleman [01:07:00] who sent us this JP Weiser's 18 year aged whiskey. He says, Jens, I'm loving the pod lately. Chef seems to be a great addition to the group and I love how he is able to dissect flavors. Couple of questions for you on inventory management. What does everyone use, if anything?
I have about 90 boxes and I know what boxes I have, but I'd like to be able to keep count of how many cigars remain in each box as I smoke and rotate through things. Any suggestions here would be appreciated? Put them on a wing machine.
Bam Bam: Well, there are apps where you can upload your collection and actually count down every single in every box.
I don't do that.
Rooster: I don't have the time or the patience to do that. It does take
Bam Bam: work. You gotta input every, every detail.
Rooster: Plus we have towers. Which has glass doors. It's visible. What boxes are there.
Bam Bam: Some of us don't have triple wide towers like you do, so we have to go outta the tupper door. But
Rooster: you know, you do have a tower [01:08:00] and tupper doors.
True. So, you know, maybe get another tower. Yeah. Maybe. Or another
Senator: tupper door. I have news for you. The guys with the, the double wide towers also have tid doors. That's true. That's true. How do you know that? Yeah. Do you have any inventory management, Senator? What do you do? Absolutely not. I mean, to me it's, it's, it's just a silly exercise.
I mean, I. I don't even think it's ideal to have it, and I say that because there's nothing more fun than, you know, the stuff. When you have a, a glass door in your tower, obviously you see what's immediately visible, but boxes is tucked behind that front row. You don't know what's back there. Right. And nothing excites me more than.
Every however many months when I finally start like moving some stuff out to see what's behind there and they're like, spot a box I haven't had in a while and I light one up and it just sat for so long. Because Are you saying you forgot what you had from time to time? Well, exactly. Oh, no. Does that actually happen?
Oh no. To rest of y'all. Oh no. What we all know, whether we can see it or not, is that we have a lot [01:09:00] of cigars. Yes. Well, right. Like, like specifically what we have. We trying to make a point, forget a little detail. Trying to make a point well to, we all know we have a lot of cigars. Yeah. We never
Poobah: pretend otherwise.
Well, to the point to, to the point before about, you know, the Sir Winstons, how, why haven't we reviewed more? Well, one, they're hard to procure, but from
Pagoda: the tower he means like they're so, they're so buried. Dug in, they're buried
Poobah: in the back. Correct. You can't get them exactly like, you know, that's on purpose.
Right. It's on purpose. You don't reach for him every
Gizmo: week.
Senator: Well, right. It's true with the Sir Winston, because that cigar needs a lot of eight absolute. So none of us are regularly pulling a young, sir Winston, you tuck that in the back and leave that for years. You know, I just don't wanna replace
Rooster: it.
Poobah: No.
Yeah. I don't wanna replace that box. No. Nope. So when I pull out, like I, I did, I actually, for me, which is a, a, a milestone, I did reorganize my humidor recently and did some work on it and. Got things just a little bit more in shape. Is it
Gizmo: as fastidious as Senators?
Poobah: No, of course not. Oh, it's not, not alphabetical.
Not anymore. No. [01:10:00] No. With the shade of wrap.
Gizmo: It's he, his color matched.
Poobah: I mean, no, no, nobody. Trades are
Gizmo: color matched. And
Poobah: Mrs. Senator, leave me alone. I got something to do here. Senator Senators Virgo, and he is very fastidious in terms of his organizational, um, capabilities. Do you have like a lu row in the tower?
Um, I heard that's how you introduce yourself, Lu 14. My name is Uba. Uh, um, from SoCal, correct? From SoCal?
No. Inside Jokes. That's not at you Pupa, that's a New Orleans Inside Jokes. Okay. Correct. PC eight. Okay. So, so anyway, so, you know, I was like doing some stuff and I'm like, holy shit. Like I got two boxes of Sir Winston back here. Then I got back there and, and you guys remember. Back in the Daff off lounge days, um, I bought two boxes of eight, nine eights.
I just tucked 'em away, do you know what I mean? And, and like I haven't touched [01:11:00] those, I haven't done anything with those. And they're just, they're just down. They're ready marinating, they're, yeah, they're probably ready now. They may be ready now. Uh, but, but again, like I was going through, I'm like, oh my God.
Like I got, I've got stuff in here that's like, that's been resting. Do you know what I mean? For years, that's just in the back, you know? It's in the, it's in the, in, it's in the back part of the shelf.
Senator: Um, when are you
Rooster: going to Florida again?
Senator: No, no. It's perfect timing. I heard, uh, Rob Island Hamlet are coming next weekend.
Correct. You should break those out. Yeah.
Poobah: Well, I think I, I think I did a pretty good job of breaking stuff out. Did well. Yes you did. You did
Bam Bam: fantastic. Yes, you did. You know that photograph was incredible. Oh, oh, you weren't there. I was not there, but the boxes he brought incredible.
Gizmo: So, by the way, so let me lay this out for the listener here.
Yeah. So number one, a lot of our listeners, you know, some of you just listened to the Cuban episode. Check out our interview with Rob and Hamlet. It was a great conversation. And what s referencing is actually, uh, he came, [01:12:00] uh, we were hanging out one evening, a bunch of us with Robin Hamlet and Rob Fox from, um, James J.
Fox in Dublin and, and in London. And Uba actually brought Vegas Albania Classicos from 2011 Wow. And handed them out to the lounge. It was a beautiful, beautiful cigar and a great gesture. And, uh, we had an awesome experience that evening. It's great smoking. The Vegas remaining classicals.
Poobah: It, it really was because I, I I, and I'll say this to the listener, like, you can hoard cigars.
You can, you can. And, and, and I do. To a certain degree, but also in certain situations. I mean, there's really, for me personally, nothing more satisfying. Nothing more satisfying than. Saying, fuck, you know, kinda sharing it. Let's just all have, let's just all have a good time and let's just enjoy something that's really, really good together, the rarest, most incredible Cuban
Gizmo: cigar
Bam Bam: ever [01:13:00] made.
Gizmo: And it's, you know what I will say as an outsider, you know, I'm not, you right, you brought this box in, but to sit there and watch this holy grail box that we all love, for you to open it, and for everybody that was in the lounge, able to experience that moment together, that to me is what this whole thing is about.
Everybody. It's what this whole thing is about. It's, it's everybody in the lounge, it's, it's everything. Like, yeah, we had a great time's. Awesome. So the
Poobah: return on investment, like you, you can't think about it. Like, I'm just gonna hoard these things forever. Well, have they peaked? Have they not peaked? Like the longer I'm gonna sit on 'em, I mean, how long, how much longer do you need to lay these 2011 Vegas for being your class goes down, or do you just.
Spread the love and I, and, and, and I do think that sharing special cigars and a special machine, ba baam, are you listening?
Bam Bam: I'm just,
Poobah: is is
Bam Bam: he? I had a box of eight, nine eights in the club a day or two ago.
Poobah: So, and no one else was there. And none of us were here. That's, he was [01:14:00] all alone.
Senator: Was all alone. Ma'am, it is eight, nine.
Eight. Yeah. He gave out Not true. He gave out two,
Pagoda: he put it up for sale at only two
Poobah: people there. But, but the point is, the point is, is that, is that.
Senator: This
Poobah: hobby is a social hobby.
Senator: And, and by the way, the only reason we knew there was a box of eight 90 eights is because Gizmo spotted them at the photo that you sent.
That's correct. And he got a retort right away.
Poobah: I zoomed in. No, because, because it, it, it's a, it's a consumable product. And, and, and, and what's better than, uh, for me personally, the return on investment for me is the experience, but also,
Rooster: also the fact that. When we were in that room and there were like maybe 15 of us, there were a few guys who had probably never even heard of the Vegas Robina Classico.
I mean, we have all had it. Sure.
Poobah: There were more than a few. More than a few. More than a few. And all a guy sitting
Senator: next to me said, what's Vegas Robina? And I almost fell outta my seat. Like, you shouldn't be smoking this. If you have [01:15:00] to ask that question, don't name names. This is the holy grail. Well,
Poobah: that,
Rooster: well that, that, that is true.
But it's also like, I mean, they'll remember that forever. Forever. Oh yeah. They'll remember it forever.
Gizmo: It's forever. That's what's beautiful.
Bam Bam: Yeah. Yeah.
Gizmo: That's what's beautiful. And for, you know, Rob and Hamlet and, and Rob Fox to have a cigar that they probably haven't had in 15 years. I know. I, they all said it like it's been so long since they had that cigar.
For them to have that and be able to experience that in the lounge with us, it's just fun. It was awesome. It's just fun. It was awesome.
Poobah: It's just, it's, you know, so what are you gonna do? Live your life in a cubicle? I mean. You, you're gonna think about money. I mean, it's, it's not about that. It's about, yeah.
Was nice. It's about community and it's about, it's, it's about sharing and, and creating an experience. It's experiential. This, yeah, it was a great, great, great night, this hobby. And, um, it's, to me, it's, it's not, it doesn't, it's not about generosity, it's about, [01:16:00] it's about, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's about the experience, sharing the experience.
It's about sharing the experience together as a group and appreciating that experience as a group. And the, I think, I think the ROI there. Is, is outweighs cost or outweighs rarity, you know, in that special time, in that special place where the time is right. You know?
Gizmo: Yeah. It made sense.
Poobah: It, it, it to,
Gizmo: and it, to me, it rounded out a great day, a great weekend, a great evening.
It, it was just, it was awesome.
Poobah: Yeah. And, and that's, I think that that's what this hobby's about.
Gizmo: Yeah. I completely agree with you. Well done. Well done, you know, and thanks for that and thanks for your generosity.
Poobah: It Well, no, it's not, but it's not about that. It's about being together,
Rooster: you
Poobah: know. Can I also
Rooster: get a thank you for the punch, punch story.
Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah.
Gizmo: I was getting there. Oh yeah. The love protein [01:17:00] was Rooster pulled out. 2014. Punch. Punch that followed up. So Rooster needs some
Pagoda: love. Yeah. Thank you. Ba.
Gizmo: All
Poobah: right, so you know what, this is not nice. So
Gizmo: I want to answer. Uh, lizard Jimmy, lizard. Jack Danny's question here on inventory management.
I di I will say that when I moved from one tower to another, I did create an Excel spreadsheet that I unfortunately haven't updated. So to all of your points, it's kind of become pointless now. But I did update what I had, uh, at least boxes that were unopened. How long ago was that? Um, this is probably three, four years ago when I got my new tower.
So. I mean, I haven't even updated. Things have changed. Updated, yeah. A lot of things have changed. So, um, that's the way I would do it is an Excel spreadsheet. If any listeners out there want that template that I have, I'm happy to send it to you. Just shoot us an email and ask for it. I'm glad to, uh, send over my template of, uh, inventory management.
But again, if you don't stay on top of it regularly, especially as you smoke and crack boxes. It's pointless. All right, so let's go on [01:18:00] to another question here from Lizard Jimmy, or Wizard of the Week. He says, any thoughts to bringing on a guest lizard? Maybe monthly? Ooh, maybe the lizard of the week smokes a cigar with the guys on the pod via Zoom.
Yeah, well
Bam Bam: take care of the airfare too.
Gizmo: So listen, I, here's what I'll say. Car, car, car service. You have to go through the ELA at Newark. You have to experience the Newark Penn Station. Uh, here's what I'll say for the listener out there. We've had a lot of folks ask about joining us on the pod and whatnot.
Um, listen, it, it's tough enough for us to get together. Uh, and, and coordinate our recording nights and, and get together and make this happen. You know, it's, it would be nearly impossible for us to do this on any sort of consistent or regular basis. It's not a slight to anyone out there. Uh, it's not a slight to any of our passionate lizards, but, um, I just don't think that could ever,
Rooster: I don't know, you could Venmo us $2,500.
Maybe we could, uh, look into it.
Gizmo: Alright, so let's move on here. Another question from him, [01:19:00] as you guys are revisiting previously reviewed cigars, like the one we have in our hand tonight, the diplomatic post. Number two, are you able to review ones from the same box you pulled from the first time to provide feedback on aging potential?
Or are you purposely looking for a newer production box? And the answer to that is very clear. It's the latter of those two options. We are looking for something that is of a completely different run. So let me give you an example. We smoked this cigar at two and a half years, aged in September, 2022.
We're having a very different experience with a cigar that's almost five years newer with only six months of age on it. We're having a night and day experience right now. Absolutely. Which is the whole point of this exercise in revisiting some of these cigars
Senator: For sure. And for the listener. There's a lot more value in us doing it this way because if we have a good experience with a recent run.
There's a chance that a listener can go out and actually procure it. Correct? Exactly. Right. If we've held a box for five years and pulled the same cigar out of it, yeah, I mean the chance, there's no value that a listener's gonna find that same [01:20:00] year. Sure. It's very slim.
Gizmo: And we're reviewing cigars. We're revisiting cigars that didn't rate right as well as either A, we hoped it would.
B listeners are telling us, you guys are crazy. You need to try this again. It's a great cigar. Like this one we have in our hand. We've had a lot of listeners saying, you guys got that wrong, or you got a bad box, try something else. So that's really the whole point in this exercise. We're not gonna be re-reviewing for the purpose of it.
Cigars that rated, let's say eight and a half, nine and above. We're just not gonna be doing that.
Rooster: Yeah. You wanna smoke cigars out of the fresh 20, 24 boxes. You don't want what we smoked before. You
Poobah: want these, I mean, this is the type of cigar, and I'm getting down to the end here. This is, this is this, this type of cigar, this, it's like a preview.
Think about if you, if if you bought a box of these and you smoke eight or nine of them and then you laid the rest down, boy, oh [01:21:00] boy, thi this, this previewed. So, well, I in a few years it could be exponentially better, potentially maybe, or worse. It's already good. Or, or, or worse it's right. But, but, but it could, you know, so as you go through your collection, you know, pull things out incrementally and, and, and, and, and, and, and try them, you know, try, you know, four months, five months, six months,
Bam Bam: I think it's a great point.
Go in, I did that the other night, you
Poobah: know, go in and just see has anything changed? Yeah. And then if nothing's changed, you know, fine.
Senator: And, and I'll just say cigars do peak. Absolutely. They do peak. I mean, this is gonna be a controversial statement. I'm gonna say that I think our classicos have peaked.
That's right. I, I totally agree with you that classico we lit that night was outstanding. They all, they're all outstanding cigars, but I'm not gonna lie, that is [01:22:00] just a slight notch down from the last was four years ago. Last Classico, not four years. No, no. 'cause I lit one within the last maybe year and a half.
Okay. A slight notch down from the last classico I had, which tells me they've peaked you better and it would be a mistake for us to wait not to not start smoking these and enjoying them. Interesting. Because they're not gonna get any better. Yeah.
Poobah: I totally agree with that statement. Which is, which, which went into my that, that actually.
I couldn't agree with you more, Senator. It went into my mind. It was totally in my mind. I'm saying these aren't getting any better. They're not getting worse necessarily, but they're not getting any better than they were two years ago. Um, so why not just fucking smoke 'em? Do you know what I mean? Smoke 'em.
Yeah. Why not? Why not just consume them at their [01:23:00] peak? Yep. Because how much better is that cigar gonna get? And that's a cigar at a
Gizmo: 99 point cigar. That's a cigar by the way, that I think all of us have kind of held onto very closely course because you can't get them anymore. Of course. So that exercise that you shared with us, that that, that that generous passing of the box showed us that, you know what, we need to dive into those boxes and start smoking 'em because if we wait another five, seven years, that might drop from a 98, 99 point cigar down to a 92, a hundred percent.
It very well could happen. 'cause they are very old cigars. There's no question about that. A hundred percent. So that's a, that's a very good, uh, that's a very good point there. So let's wrap it up here on Lizard. Jimmy Jack Danny's email. He says, I'm excited for the Sancha Panza Bella COSO episode. A lot of folks are saying that to us.
I can't wait to smoke those with you guys. He said he just had one tonight when he sent this email and he loved it until his fingers were on fire. Have a great weekend and I look forward to every Tuesday. Cheers lizard. Jimmy Jack, Denny. [01:24:00] Lizard of the week. So a great email from him. And I, I hope you all answered all of his questions.
And, uh, like I said, we appreciate hearing from all of the listeners out there who, uh, were very kind to write us One more email here, boys, before we move into the lizard ratings tonight. This one's from Lizard Shawnee Bro on YouTube. He says, I think the bro, uh, Brooke Laie Classic has a blue bottle. So we were debating the scotch, uh, the, the, uh.
Brooke Laie Classic Laddie. Uh, we were debating why that bottle was like teal blue, if you guys remember. Then he says it has a blue bottle to denote that it's a lighter in peat than their usual offerings. Basically, it's a gateway smoky scotch that won't scare away the people who typically lean Sherry Hyland space side only.
Your typical Laro or Ardbeg would scare the bejesus out of most folks, including your friend here. Lizard Gizmo. Yeah. Ardbeg is, just
Poobah: forget about it.
Gizmo: I, I, I feel the same about Laroy too.
Poobah: Hmm.
Gizmo: Um, I had some laroy. It was like gasoline to me. I'm [01:25:00] just not in that PD zone yet. Mm-hmm. You know, but, uh, I haven't tried it in quite some time.
Yeah. But Talisker iss good. Yeah. But Talisker is like a little, little p we rated that very highly as well. We like that the Talsker 10. So, so thanks to, uh, wizard Shawnee, bro. So boys. We're coming to the end of our evening here on the JP Wiser 18 year aged Canadian blended whiskey and the Cuban Diplomáticos number two.
What are your guys' thoughts on the pairing at this point before we move into the ratings? Any final thoughts here? I
Bam Bam: think
Gizmo: overall delicious. I'm very happy with how they complimented one another tonight. Yeah. And I think the ratings will reflect that.
Senator: Yeah. I mean, there's truly nothing that I would rather be drinking right now with this cigar.
Yeah. That's how good I think the
Bam Bam: pairing is. That's a huge compliment. It is. And I would like to have this with a few other Cubans that I noted earlier. For sure. Yeah. The
Pagoda: pairing worked really well for me, so it did, you know, provide me that extra sweetness that I was seeking, so it kind of really worked.
Gizmo: Excellent. Alright boys, it's time now to move into the formal liquor rating tonight on the JP Wiser 18 [01:26:00] years aged Canadian blended whiskey. Bam. Bam. You're up. Yeah. I'm
Bam Bam: at a firm nine, I think this is delicious. Um, easy to drink. There's that touch of heat that I noted earlier that dissipates. It's very enjoyable.
That butterscotch finish for me is outstanding. And at the price, I'd like to get a bottle of this and have it as an option. I think it's a great. Great bottle nine.
Gizmo: Pagoda, you're up.
Pagoda: Yeah, I think I'd rate it as a nine. Uh, so what I really liked about, uh, this, uh, blended whiskey was initially when I saw it, the blended whiskey, I thought, hey, maybe this needs a little bit of ice and maybe a splu ship soda, but really it didn't need anything.
The other thing is like in terms of just, uh, overall viscosity, you know, they're like, like in the rum, like if, um, you know, when we had the Flo Cana seven, it was one of those rums which was slightly less viscous, but provided this really good, um, you know, alternative, uh, where you could actually drink this rum at any [01:27:00] given point in time of the day.
I think there was a lot of versatility in it, and I think, um, this blended whiskey, I think felt very similar and I think it's versatile from that perspective. For me, the combination, it really helped me, uh, you know, get the sweetness I was seeking. Um, you know, in the cigar. So it, the, it really complicate, complimented the cigar really well.
And I think, uh, I, I really enjoyed it. It's a nine for me.
Gizmo: So it's also a nine for me. I, I found this whiskey number one to be a surprise. I came in, I think Bam mentioned this. You mentioned this. I came in a little hesitant on a Canadian, Canadian blended whiskey. Of course, we drink a lot of single malts.
Um, we drink a lot of different kind of whiskeys here. But to see Canadian blended whiskey, um, I was a little hesitant, but I found the spirit to be almost familiar to me. Like it almost was like a familiar friend in a way. Really. It was so easy to drink. It was accessible.
Bam Bam: It's a little different than anything we've had.
But
Gizmo: what I mean by that is it wasn't off putting in [01:28:00] any way there, wasn at all, wasn't anything about it. That was. You know, kind of left of center for me. Agreed. Agreed in, in a bad way. I, I really enjoyed, I love the sweetness component. I think it really elevated the cigar. I think they worked very, very well together.
It was delicious across the board, very smooth. I think the price at $65 Sure. For an 18 years age spirit is very, very fair. Um, I love the presentation of the bottle. I think it looks very classy. I, I also like that
Bam Bam: the, the viscosity is not very heavy. Right, exactly. Right. So, makes it easy to drink. Yeah.
Yeah.
Gizmo: You know, a lot of times, as, as a few listeners have pointed out to us, we don't pair whiskey a lot with Cuban cigars, especially whiskeys that are a little hotter than what this is at 40% 80 proof. So I, I think this is a great whiskey for Cubans. And I think finally, for anyone out there who maybe hasn't jumped into whiskey, certainly blended whiskeys of any kind, I think this is a great gateway whiskey for Cuban cigar smokers.
I think it was an excellent pairing, and I think we noted a bunch of the Cuban cigars. This would [01:29:00] probably pair very well with, I think most of the catalog from Haos. This would pair very well with. So for anyone out there kind of on the fence of true, do I wanna try whiskey with my Cuban, I think this is a very good one to try at a very low risk price point.
So for me, it is also a nine senator.
Senator: Uh, I'm in lockstep. I'm also a nine. I, I agree with, you know, uh, most of, if not all, the commentary versatile is the. Biggest merit that this whiskey, uh, has. I can't think of a Cuban cigar that I wouldn't drink this with, that it would in any way fight with or clash with.
I, I don't think that's possible. I think it's super easy drinking, really nice flavor, um, an accessible enough price point. There's a lot to like about it, you know, I think for someone who likes a fuller bodied, you know, whiskey, this is definitely, you know, not the choice for them. I think with a fuller bodied new [01:30:00] world, this would definitely not be my pick, but I would absolutely drink this again.
And, um, I'm glad this listener sent this because I, none of us had heard of this brand before. No. And clearly they, they make a really nice whiskey, um, that's super approachable. So I think, you know, uh, gizmo mentioned a, a gateway. Um, I think this is very much that for, for whiskey, um, that you can enjoy with really any.
M mild even and medium Cuban cigar.
Poobah: Mm-hmm. All right. Uba. Yeah, I, I would echo all of that. It's approachable. It's, I, I really enjoyed it and, and, and, and it brought out the best in the cigar. Um, so I don't really, I, I, I would just echo everything everybody said. I, I, I don't have much additional, I, I give it a nine.
Um, it delivered sweetness. It's balanced and it's, and it's, and it was way more com I mean, I think that there's a, a merit in it and that it's [01:31:00] more complex than, than I expected. I agree with that. There, you know, there was a complexity to it in terms of it's very tasty. It, it, you know, in terms of the finish, and it's, it's balanced.
It tastes great. It, it, it, it can pair well up with, with almost any cigar. So. Again, I would echo, I would, I would echo the, the, the previous commentary and, and I'd give it a nine. I, I really enjoyed it.
Gizmo: Alright boys, that puts the formal liquor rating tonight on the JP Wisers 18 years age Canadian blended whiskey at a 9.0.
I think that is a perfect score for what we had tonight. A great value, great gateway whiskey, and paired very, very well with the cigar we had tonight.
Pagoda: Will the 65 Canadian or will the 65 us?
Gizmo: 65 us. This listener's actually in the US and he actually acquired it, I believe in Michigan. So he was able to get it here in the us So that was, uh, so that was great.
Alright boys, it's time now to move [01:32:00] into the formal lizard rating tonight on the Diplomáticos number two from Cuba Rooster Europe up.
Rooster: Looking at the cigar, you know, the, the cigar was really rustic, right? I mean, there are a lot of veins on it and I was, I was a bit skeptical about the cigar having, uh, had one, you know, when we first time we recorded it.
But the, this cigar, as you lit it. Beautiful construction. I smoked it all the way down to the nub. Not one touchup, not one touchup, not a single one of us. Um, the only issue I had was it was a little bit tight on the draw, but I did recut it couple of times to cut it down a little bit further, and that helped.
But halfway down the cigar, it did get much, much better. The draw really opened up, but I really enjoyed the flavors from the cigar. You know, the, the sweetness in the, in the beginning, then the cedar. The, uh, earthiness. Somebody said minerality. Uh, it was, it was woody. [01:33:00] It even had a floral note. I didn't quite get the cocoa that Senator was getting.
I think, uh, he was probably the only one in the room that got that cocoa note. But nonetheless, I mean, the, the cigar was delicious. I think it's a, it's a great blend. I don't know if they've tweaked the blend since the last time, but I don't know what it is. But everything out of these fresh boxes is really, really performing well and, uh, really smoking well.
This, uh, cigar is well priced. It's one of the anomalies in the, in the entire probably haos, uh, catalog that, you know, at like 23, 20 $4 a, a cigar. It's, it's well worth getting a box and I really, really enjoyed it. Um, I'm gonna give it a nine. I.
Gizmo: All right. Very nice Uba.
Poobah: Uh, I'm in lockstep with everything, um, that Rooster said.
I, I, I have no additional commentary. I, I completely agree with that analysis, so I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna repeat that. I, it's he's, you know, you're spot on [01:34:00] in terms of, uh, how the cigar performed, uh, the, the build, uh, regardless of the appearance, um, with the wrapper and kind of that skepticism at the beginning, this not one touchup.
And there, there was no ammonia, there was no, it, it didn't taste fresh. It didn't taste aged, but it didn't taste fresh. Um, and I, I really enjoyed it. So I'm gonna give it a nine.
Senator: Okay. Senator? I'm, I'm with, uh, I'm with the group so far. I'm at a nine. I'm just so pleasantly surprised. I mean, you know, the last experience we had with this, uh, this cigar in this market was disappointing.
This was a complete 180 for me. I think it was, mine at least, was a two act play. I think the first two thirds were really sweet cocoa creamy, I [01:35:00] think the last third picked up a little bit in strength, introduced some more earthy notes. Um, had a bit of a drier finish, but not in a bad way and in a pretty good way.
I, I think there was, you know, a fair amount of complexity throughout the cigar. Smoke output for mine was very good all the way through. Um. Yeah, I think there's a ton of merit and I, you know, I can think of so many different occasions that I would slot this cigar in. So I would call it versatile. I can see smokiness in the afternoon.
I can see smoking this in the evening. Um, there was never anything harsh or aggressive about it to really deter me, really, from a certain occasion or time of day. So, um, you know, if they can consistently make a cigar with this profile, I would absolutely buy one. I think the price point is what most cigars in the Haos catalog in this size should [01:36:00] be.
So, um, you know, a, a huge credit to them for being able to deliver that.
Gizmo: I totally agree. Uh, I'm also at a nine, I, I was very. Impressed with this cigar tonight. I think I'll piggyback on your last comment there, Senator. I mean, if you look at the mon two, the pyramid, you know, the, the part goss, uh, the P two, the P two, you know, you're talking five to $10 more per cigar mm-hmm.
For the exact same dimensions. Mm-hmm. And ultimately the same tobacco coming out of Cuban than what we had tonight. So there is definitely a price discrepancy here with a delicious experience. And this experience was excellent. Yeah. For all six of us in the room tonight. Correct. So I, I will say this was night and day.
Versus the last Diplomáticos. Number two. I had, of course, we reviewed that one in the pod. I did have one after that out of that same box that did not perform very well. So it's definitely a case that it's a different run, different blend. A fresher, a fresher cigar. I don't know what it is. This run that they're on right now is very, very good, and at this price, I don't think it can be beat.
I love the [01:37:00] sweetness, but it was balanced. It had earthiness, it had a touch at the beginning of that saltiness. We love so much calling it kind of the little sister of the mono Chrystal, number two. But as we finished the cigar, I found this to be as pleasurable, or even in some cases, more pleasurable than a lot of the mono number twos.
I've been smoking. Mm-hmm. I think this performed. At an excellent level compared to other Cuban pyramids. I
Poobah: mean, mon, I've had so many bad Monte Krista number twos, I can't even count it. I I would be, be curious about
Rooster: doing a fresh Monte two now. Yeah, yeah. We should revisit
Poobah: that. The current club. That's true.
Yeah. Yeah. We should revisit that. Yeah.
Gizmo: I think, you know, all in all, I think this stands up to some of the best of the Cuban pyramids. It had great burn and combustion. I will knock it a little bit for deconstruction. I had to take three or four cuts off of it to get to a point that it was finally a consistent place.
Yeah. But nothing that will affect your rating.
Poobah: Yeah, of course. But, but that's okay with the pyramids. Sometimes you need to, sometimes it's tightly packed, you know, [01:38:00] you know, down at, at the, uh, at the head, you know, so. There's variability there. So I, I, I think having to take an eighth of an inch off or something isn't, Amer isn't a demerit.
Th these are, these are handbuilt things.
Gizmo: So I, I think the cigar also has great aging potential based on what we smoke tonight. And it had a great price. I mean, it, it, as we've talked about several times here, 23, 20 $4 a cigar, I think for the value. Uh, and the, and the smoking experience we had tonight for an hour and a half, hour, 45 minutes.
I just think the value is there. Great. Retro hail, great aroma at the burn line. You know, I, I just, I just think that this is a very, I. Versatile cigar, as Senator said, great for the morning. I can have this on a Saturday morning with some coffee, afternoon, start an evening with this in a sit. I just think it was awesome.
So, uh, a, a very, very good cigar and I can't wait to see how it does with a little bit of time. Uh, so for me it's a nine I. Pagoda.
Pagoda: Yeah. Uh, for me it's a nine as well. I did, uh, contemplate an eight for a bit and then a nine. [01:39:00] And then, uh, but um, I'll give you my reasoning here is, uh, that I really enjoyed the cigar, the light.
I did get a little bit of the sweetness in the beginning, which was. Very, very like it, you know, when you have the saltiness and the sweetness and everything's coming together, it feels so good. It's phenomenal. Uh, but for me, the, uh, sweetness ki kind of diminished. And then, you know, it maintained a very, very pleasant profile.
In fact, I think I discussed it over the life of the cigar, that it created a very pleasant flavor profile within my palette. And that is something, you know, I also seek. And, and that continued all the way through the end. The only reason that, you know, um, that it, it might have, uh, dropped down a a, a bit.
Like in terms of the rating to a nine would being there it was a bit resistance. Um, there was a bit of a resistance in the beginning, which I think some of us did experience. The other thing was my cigar did have two really thick veins and it was really interesting the way they were burning and the way it was [01:40:00] leaving it off.
But it had no negative impact in terms of the flavor profile and, uh, considering the price, I think what a fantastic purchase. Meaning like, uh, like I will go and buy it right away, you know, for that experience and getting a Cuban at, at those prices for a significant, sizable cigar. I think it's a, it's, it's a fantastic value.
So it's a nine for me. It's a,
Poobah: it's a buy.
Pagoda: It's a buy.
Gizmo: It's a buy for sure.
Bam Bam: Correct.
Gizmo: Alright. Bam. Bam.
Bam Bam: Yeah, I think a nine is a great score for the cigar. Um, I had that sweet cream and earthiness right from the get go and it continued all the way through. It was a one act play for me that last two inches did ramp up in body a little bit, but it was a very, it was very enjoyable.
It added a little dimension, but definitely a enjoyable cigar from beginning to end. And what a shock. Nine.
Gizmo: Alright, boys, that puts the formal lizard reading tonight on the Cuban diplomatic host, number two also at a 9.0.
Bam Bam: Great. Great night.
Gizmo: So let's first say, I think [01:41:00] we came in tonight, you talk about judging a book by, its by its cover.
Ah, we were very skeptical, I think on both entrance to our pairing tonight. We came in judging both of them on the presentation. Correct. And how both of them shocked us. Yeah. Both ending up at a 9.0. Well, yeah. '
Poobah: cause they're kind of, 'cause they're kind of outliers. Probably hard to find these boxes. There's, and.
This Canadian whiskey. I mean, I don't know where you would find it. I'm in a retailer around here. Maybe it's distributed here. But yeah, it's, it was a good experience.
Gizmo: So to me, you know, judging the book by the cover and then the results ending up like they did to me, it, it proves the, the importance of doing what we're doing and revisiting some of these cigars.
You know, let's compare this to the first time, and the only other diplomatic o we did on the pod was on episode number 44. We did this exact cigar. From a January, 2020 box and it scored a 6.2. Wow. Yeah. [01:42:00] So this is 28 points better than the last cigar we did. And at the time, the other thing I wanted to point out, when we reviewed that cigar, the price on the cigar was $18 and 20 cents.
So in all this time for the crazy price increases, to point out what everybody here has said, this one has somehow avoided the insane pricing increases as so much of the rest of the catalog has experienced. So. Definitely if you can get your hands on some diplomatic ghost. Number two. Yeah, let's out.
Let's not,
Rooster: uh, release the episode until we all buy a few boxes.
Gizmo: All right, boys, A great night tonight. Again, on both pairings we had a 9.0 on the JP Wisers, 18 years age Canadian blended whiskey and the Cuban diplomatic US number two, both did very, very well. Tonight we have to thank of course our friend Lizard, Jimmy Jack, Danny, who sent us this 18 years age bottle of whiskey.
We really appreciate that. He's our lizard of the week. Of course. Thanks to all the lizards for writing us. We really appreciate hearing from everyone. And of [01:43:00] course, anyone out there can win Lizard of the Week, as I said. And finally, we have to thank our sponsor, our partner, Fabrica five. They help us make this possible, so go try some of their cigars.
We really, really appreciate them as well. So great night tonight, boys. Great pairing. And, uh, we'll see everybody next week. Keep smoking. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for joining us. You can find our merch store and ratings archive at our brand new website, lounge lizards pod.com. That's lounge lizards PO d.com.
Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello, tell us what you're smoking, email us hello@loungelizardspod.com. You can also find us on Instagram at Lounge Lizards Pod. We really appreciate your time and we'll, uh, we'll see you next week.