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The lizards smoke the Cuban Punch ManTua Italian Regional for the Holiday 2021 episode.
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 Wizard podcast. So good to have you here. It's a leisure and lifestyle podcast founded on our love of
premium cigars
as well as whiskey, travel, food work, and whatever else we feel like getting into. My name is Gizmo, and tonight I'm joined for a holiday episode by Rooster Senator Ann.
Bam bam. And our plan is to smoke a cigar, drink some scotch, talk about life, and of course, have a few laughs. So take this as yet another invitation to join us and become a card carrying lounge lizard. Planet meters here once a week. We're gonna smoke a Cuban cigar tonight. Share our thoughts on it and give you our formal lizard rating.
We'll also discuss holiday
**Rooster:** meals and BA's history of cooking, questionable bolognese among a variety of other things for the next hour. So sit back,
**Gizmo:** get your favorite drink, light up a cigar. Enjoy as we smoke the Italian
**Rooster:** Regional edition Punch Mantua.
So a beautiful, [00:01:00]
**Gizmo:** uh, Italian regional Cuban cigar tonight from punch, uh, provided so kindly by Rooster. So tell us a little bit about the Punch
**Rooster:** Mantua. Well, first of all, I'm expecting a Venmo from all of you guys. . Okay.
**Gizmo:** I deleted Venmo. .
**Rooster:** So this cigar is called the Punch Manitou. It's, it's a thin stick. It's a Panatella six inch by 38 ring gauge pigtail Panatella, known as the Lato number two in Cuban cigar factories.
It shares, it shares its dimensions with regular production cigars as the Cohiba Corona Espec, and the Monte Christo, especially number two. And you guys mentioned that on a
**Gizmo:** previous podcast when we did the, uh, 1935. We talked a little bit about that. I didn't realize it was this thin though. Yeah. I knew the Cohiba was, but I didn't realize this was the same dimensions as that Mon.
**Rooster:** Yeah. [00:02:00] I think the size wise, it's the same as the Lgc M D O number four, right? No, I 38 M D O was a little thinner than this. Shorter and shorter. 36. This is 38. Yeah. So the Punch Manitou was named after Reid in Pinard Del Rio in the Western province of Cuba, known for growing tobacco. The manure was founded by a shipwrecked group of Italian sailors.
Hence the historical connection to. And only 2,500 box of the boxes of the punch Manitou are being released. How many of them do you think Rooster has? ? I have one. There's
**Gizmo:** 2,400
**Rooster:** It's very possible. So it's just a little background on these, on these sticks. I
**Gizmo:** gotta tell you, you know, we've, we've talked about sticks to shape before. I know. You know, I'm, I'm a sucker for a small ring gauge, certainly a, as I've fallen in love with the funded Doris and some of the other thinner cigars I, I.
It's a beautiful cigar. A cigar, this thing. Yeah, it looks like. I [00:03:00] really do. I really do. And this is, uh, like we said, it's a special cigar for the holiday. It's, it's really wonderful. What are you, so what are you guys getting on the. , it's, it's very fla
**Rooster:** uh, uh, fragrant for how small?
**Senator:** It's, yeah, very aromatic. I, it is, I feel like a number of spices I'm getting that I can't place.
I feel like if Grindr were here, he would be able to pick these out, whether it's Caram mom or Saffron or whatever the hell, white
**Gizmo:** pepper. Maybe getting some petro core ,
**Rooster:** just getting any pepper. Procore, I love what pba by the
**Gizmo:** way, not to call back and, you know, but when
**Rooster:** Puba goes. . Nobody has any fucking idea what you're
**Gizmo:** talking about.
**Rooster:** Oh my God. It killed me. Killed me. This is a,
**Gizmo:** a great little stick. I love the pigtail on it too. I do too.
**Rooster:** Um, but it smells great on the nose. Mm-hmm. very,
**Gizmo:** very, like, very fragment, but
**Rooster:** not specific. I can't floral, little floral. Any floral notes? Yes. Little bit. Are these aged rooster, do you know? No, this is, uh, 2019.
Okay. So it's not like AAHA tobacco. It hasn't been out that long, so, okay. All right. Let's cut it boys. [00:04:00]
**Gizmo:** The punch. Mana Italian regional, limited to 2,500 boxes. They come in a 50, uh, 50 cabinet selection box.
**Rooster:** Tight
**Gizmo:** on the draw. You have a tight draw bit.
**Rooster:** I'm step now. I'll tell you in a second. Mine's got a perfect draw.
Oh boy. I only cut the, the pigtail. Yeah, mine's
**Gizmo:** a little tight.
**Bam Bam:** Mine's a bit a bit. When it lights it might
**Gizmo:** be okay. Yeah, we'll see.
**Rooster:** Bastar.
**Gizmo:** I am
**Bam Bam:** getting a very faint floral, uh, note on the draw, on the cold draw,
**Senator:** cold draw. Now I'm getting like baking spice. I'm just amazed for this little cigar just on the nose and the cold draw. It just seems like it's bursting with flavor. I can't wait to light this.
**Rooster:** Yeah, I mean, that's
**Gizmo:** certainly a misconception I had as an amateur smoker was that the smaller cigars were less flavorful.
You know, the small way they got the less [00:05:00] there was. And I, I feel like that's, it's the exact opposite, you know? Certainly once we had that robia from 11, getting a
**Bam Bam:** little last minute reading in here, it's known as a medium bodied cigar. Okay.
**Gizmo:** You guys ready to light it up?
**Rooster:** Yeah, let's do it.
**Gizmo:** The punch man.
Two, uh, 2019 gizmo. How's your draw? It's, it's a
**Rooster:** little snug. More
**Gizmo:** snug than I would like. Certainly. Me too. But we drew the short straws, the other two. .
**Rooster:** Nailed it. Yeah. This one is perfect. Yeah, same. My draw is excellent.
**Gizmo:** Very nice. Oh, very, very nice. Velvety, very smooth. Velvety, ve right? Yeah. Rich smoke,
**Rooster:** creamy coat your mouth.
Hmm. But I, I would say it's medium body,
**Senator:** I would say so. But still a good
**Rooster:** amount of flavor, definitely. Mm-hmm. definitely. We just let it so it's gonna build. Yeah. It's really nice. I think I. Are you getting
**Senator:** a little spice on the finish? I feel [00:06:00] like my taste buds are dancing a little bit. Wow. The smoke
**Gizmo:** is really lovely.
Notices
**Rooster:** A little bit of spice. Hmm? A little coffee bean. I don't know. Espresso beans, like dark black coffee.
This is like a great cigar. After
**Gizmo:** like a little Christmas meal mid-afternoon.
**Rooster:** It's unlike anything we have had. Yeah, it's different, right? It is,
**Senator:** it is. Cuz I'm, I'm actually struggling to pick out the exact flavor notes I'm getting from it. I like what I'm experiencing. Yeah, I know. It's true.
**Rooster:** It's like floral, little bit of spice, little espresso beans, little uh, you know, smooth, velvety, like you said, creamy.
**Gizmo:** It's a very good cigar. Very complex.
**Rooster:** And
from
**Rooster:** 2019, you can imagine if these sit for like five years, what they're gonna be
**Gizmo:** like.
So
**Bam Bam:** what you paid your, uh, you're [00:07:00] vindicated ,
**Rooster:** very expensive. The 50 cab, so these average out somewhere
**Gizmo:** between what, 28
**Rooster:** and 35 at Stick? Yeah. About that. Which is a high price for, uh,
**Gizmo:** a cigar this size, but obviously it's a, uh, it's a regional and rare.
Um, this is very delicious. So it comes, it has the, uh, it has a really nice punch band on it, you know, uh, closer to the head of the, the cigar. And then it has the, uh, exclusive o Natalia, uh, regional band on
**Rooster:** it. The red and silver, this
**Senator:** punch band. Is this an old band that they used to use? Cuz it's certainly not the
**Rooster:** current one.
I
**Gizmo:** was gonna say that, I don't know if it's special for this or if they've used it in the past, but
**Rooster:** it seems fancy. I. . It looks great. It looks really nice. I almost wish they still used it. Yeah, it's like black and gold. Really, really nice.
Wow. The
**Senator:** [00:08:00] aroma of the smoke. It's awesome. When you puff on this cigar, it is still good.
**Gizmo:** Unbelievable. It really is. And you know, we've talked about this before with smaller ring gauges, but you know, you really need to be patient in between draws with this. , you can't blow through something. This whole, yeah, you gotta take your
**Rooster:** time with this.
Yeah. Cuz you'll really, so this, it's a vintage band. Mm-hmm. . Very cool. Yeah. So Rooster, what other stuff from Punch
**Gizmo:** have you had and do you enjoy? I know we've all had the Punch. Punch, which is there, what
**Rooster:** would you call that? A Corona. It's super Corona, maybe? Yeah. It's a little longer than a Corona. Yeah.
Yeah. The punch. Punch is the most I've had from the punch. What else have I had? I've had a couple of regionals that are Okay. Uh, there's a punch, duke, I think that's a Mexican regional. That's, that's pretty good. It's a, it's a bigger ring gauge, kind of like an upk, uh, 54, 56 ring gauge. Very good.
**Senator:** Also, this smoke output [00:09:00] for a cigar of this size, really impressive and it just coats the inside of your mouth.
I feel like when you draw this ci. You get
**Rooster:** all the flavor.
**Gizmo:** I'm gonna say something crazy and you could tell me if this is bonkers, but I'm getting like a, I'm getting a vibe between funded Doris 8 98 and Robia, the Vegas Robia Classica. Like, if it's like, it's like the, there's a little touch of all three of those in this.
I don't think you're wrong. And they're all, it's all the best. That's fair. I think very fair.
**Bam Bam:** I agree. You know, this is really quite an elegant cigar. And it's true. You gotta take your time with this. You do.
**Gizmo:** You can't, you can't, you can't
**Senator:** rush this. Oh yeah. To, to build on what you're saying there, gi, I feel.
it has the elegance and grace of a fundi. It has some of the flavor that the 8 98 brings and it has some of that creamy finesse that the Robia has. So I actually love your comparison of, it's got a little bit of all three of those, cuz I can definitely see different elements within this cigar. You [00:10:00]
**Bam Bam:** know, you two guys belong at a podcast, you
**Gizmo:** do great.
**Rooster:** if, if you put
**Gizmo:** this in front of me with no band on it, like if this was a. All day. I would've said that this was a
**Rooster:** RGUs of some sort. I would've guessed. I
**Senator:** think I would've that this is a, an aged fundee actually, if it was blind. Okay.
**Bam Bam:** Okay. Yeah. I think what senator has said earlier, it's hard to place the cigar.
**Rooster:** It's true. Just, just because of the shape. Well,
**Gizmo:** I'm just getting some RGUs kind of flavors. I guess that's why I went to the eight ninety eight call out. You know, the fundi definitely in its elegance. , you know, but it has some of that flavor as well. But I'm, I'm kind of leaning more towards RGUs.
**Bam Bam:** I'd, I'd lean more toward the fundi
**Gizmo:** on this one.
Yeah.
**Rooster:** For me. Okay. Are you guys getting any, like, it's like rich toasty tobacco. Mm-hmm. ? Yeah, I think so. You know, here's my question. Glass pepper. Let me ask
**Gizmo:** you a question on the flavor notes for a second. It drives me bonkers when they put tobacco as a flavor note. . What is tobacco?
**Rooster:** What what? That doesn't help me.
It's toasty tobacco .
**Bam Bam:** It's a pack of, what does that mean? It's a pack of
**Gizmo:** camels. Okay. .
**Rooster:** I, I mean, [00:11:00] I never understood that yet. Well, I'm, I'm reading something off of Friends of Havanas, right? So the first third from these guys, apparently experts, rich toasty tobacco barbecue, char, good draw black pepper burn, ESCU.
Espresso grounds. Cedar burnt almond spicy on the tongue like cayenne, but smoother water. Does water have
**Gizmo:** taste? Great? That's a great,
**Senator:** this is ridiculous.
**Rooster:** Chalky, salty, raw. I'm calling bullshit right now. Absolutely. Toasted nuts.
**Gizmo:** I will say on the water note, this is gonna sound stupid as well. Oh, Jesus.
**Rooster:** You're getting water notes. No, no, no, no, no. I do
**Gizmo:** get a weird kind of water taste sometimes. When I'm smoking my Mag 46 s, it's like a, like a, it's almost, you could taste the water that they watered the plant with. Magnum 46. Yeah, the Magnum 46. I get that sometimes.
**Bam Bam:** Can I take you out back and flog you? . .
**Gizmo:** I [00:12:00] didn't
**Rooster:** say Petor.
Water has no taste, right? No, but
**Senator:** you know, I wanna know what you're smoking with
**Rooster:** that Mag 46. No, you, you know, you get like,
**Gizmo:** like if you have city water, it has like a taste
**Rooster:** to it, you know, like northern, northern
**Senator:** jersey.
**Bam Bam:** Yeah. City water has metallic notes in it. Okay. Right. Okay. And
**Gizmo:** chlorine. Yeah. There you go.
**Rooster:** I'm, I'm, I'm, you
**Gizmo:** know, I do get that sometimes, but there's certainly not in this. and he mentioned, uh, whoever that was mentioned, cayenne pepper. I'm not, I'm not getting
**Rooster:** any of that. It's not, well, I got a little bit, it's the, it's the pepper, like the spice.
**Senator:** That's the thing. When, when we started, I said I was, I asked if anyone was getting spice.
I, I just, my taste buds were tingling from like a pepper and I could see even like a little bit of cayenne pepper. But as I'm going through this, That has pulled back and now I'm getting sweeter creamier notes as I'm going along.
**Bam Bam:** I'm, I'm definitely in a sweeter creamier camp. Yeah, I am though it's changing a little bit on the finishing, I am getting a hint of maybe a light pepper, white pepper, maybe, which I love.
Right. It gives it nice complexity. Very nice.
**Rooster:** So all of you guys did a straight cut and I just pinched [00:13:00] off the pigtail and the dry is perfect, even with that little tiny hole.
**Senator:** Sure. I took very little, very little off the,
**Rooster:** I took very little origin. and it was very
**Gizmo:** soft. What was the
**Bam Bam:** last cigar that we had a pigtail on in here?
**Gizmo:** Uh
**Rooster:** uh, the Oh, the, uh, yeah, the D
**Gizmo:** pig. I pinched
**Bam Bam:** off the skin on that and the draw on that was fabulous. Yeah, I think from cigar to cigar, you, you'll have a
**Gizmo:** different draw. I gotta imagine these are hard to roll, man. There, there's a lot of tobacco in these little things. One little twist of the hand, I mean,
**Rooster:** Actually there's probably isn't a lot of tobacco, right?
I mean that's just, I'm saying relative to its size. Maybe one or two leaves like rolled. I would think.
**Bam Bam:** You know, rooster, I don't care what you paid for these, I think they're worth every dollar. It's a luxury cigar. Very luxurious. You said it beautifully elegant. The Trinidad funded Doris also worth every dollar you pay for it because of the shape and how it feels.
This is very reminiscent to that, so
**Gizmo:** you get a
**Rooster:** free [00:14:00] box worth every buy My remming. , it comes with a box of the manura. What's
**Gizmo:** the
**Bam Bam:** used price on the
**Gizmo:** Remington? ? $400, like you said. Done. Okay. Just
**Senator:** add a, add two zeros, , . I'm coming back to this again, but the combustion on this cigar. Mm-hmm. . So I I've had a long week.
This is you and I both, I mean, the holidays are a stressful time and I, I'm still, if I'm being completely. I am growing to appreciate smaller ring gauge cigars, but I can't honestly say I'm yet there. Where I wake up on a Saturday morning and I crave a small ring gauge cigar. I'm not there yet, and after the week I've had, I wanted to light up a big 60 ring gauge cigar that just produces clouds of smoke.
and I'm stunned that this little rain gauge cigar is putting out as much smoke as it is. I'm so satisfied right now, and I it is impress
**Rooster:** expect this. It [00:15:00] is impressive. No doubt the flavor out of these little sticks is unbelievable. I think most of us were not into these little sticks and more and more as we smoke a lot of Cuban cigar.
and I'm very intrigued and very impressed by the 38, 36 ring gauges. You know, Pellas lawns tales, they're amazing.
**Senator:** I have to give a crazy guy in the cigar business credit because I think all of us, if not most of us, Attended an event with San Pariah at a lounge that we were at. Um, and the guy is a very polarizing figure in the cigar industry.
If you look him up, uh, I think his name's Aaron, who, who runs San Pariah. Um, he's all over YouTube and he must have given us. 10, 12 cigars to try that night. It was the most ridiculous thing because there's no way you can get through 10 or 12 cigars. You were taking a few puffs of each and just moving on to the next, and [00:16:00] plenty of sticks even went wasted, which was unfortunate.
But one of the cigars he gave was this Carlotta, I still remembered. It was a small, thin cigar like this, and I was very skeptical because. Didn't smoke anything like that. That wasn't usually part of my rotation, and I was so impressed with how much flavor that that wrapper puts off, and that was kind of the first inkling I got that, wow, these smaller ring engaged cigars can actually be extremely flavorful and really enjoyable.
and I'm glad that Rooster and others have started to procure a lot of these smaller ring gauge cigars. Cuz I feel like I'm starting to again grow my appreciation for
**Rooster:** them.
**Gizmo:** Right, right. Agreed. And my, you know, my experience with small ring gauge cigars was almost in the application that we're kind of intending to, to put this bonus episode out, which is short smoke.
You know, you have 30 minutes, you pull a part, a short, you pull a patron 35, you pull an up in half, Corona. , you know, you're [00:17:00] pulling short stuff, small stuff out.
**Rooster:** Whereas this, it,
**Gizmo:** it's serving a greater purpose to me than those cigars do in flavor, in elegance. It's certainly gonna meet the time requirement that we're looking for.
I, I would be looking for in this setting, but, you know, this is a really, really, really special little cigar, which is obviously why people are freaking out trying
**Rooster:** to find it everywhere. Right. You know, I mean, when was the last time you had a 2019 stick of this ring gauge? , but this kind of flavor now it's say maybe a funder door was like very close to that.
We had a great uh, 2019
**Gizmo:** box.
**Bam Bam:** Yes. How old was that Maduro one that we, our very first episode. That was a 20 18 15. 15. 15.
**Gizmo:** But that's Robusto. That's right.
**Rooster:** But I mean, uh, in this size. Yeah. That's a Robusto bag. Oh, true. Never in a panatella or Lawnsdale. Yeah. To have something that young, to get that kind of flavor out of it.
So I think these. age beautifully. I'm
**Senator:** also amazed that this is not a [00:18:00] heavily aged box yet. It's, no, it's 2019, so it's so smooth. Yeah.
**Rooster:** I do wonder like an aged box, but I do wonder though if
**Gizmo:** e even if they don't announce it, I wonder if some of this tobacco was sitting around for a while
**Rooster:** aging and they, you know, but usually the regional sticks, they do put some little, you know, a little bit of age tobacco and it's also the better pick of the litter for a better word.
For lack of a better word, but also the ELs when you get the limited editions, uh, liata, those get, a lot of those get some age. The tobacco is definitely aged in those, so
**Gizmo:** I think that that's, you know, this could be three or four more years than it. Even the band has, you know, the, the box state has on it, but they're just pulling that
**Rooster:** tobacco out of the warehouses and,
**Gizmo:** you know, wrapping it.
But I gotta say, I mean, if, if, I've seen a lot of guys talking about the COHEs from the last few years that they really need more. Yeah. You know, the, the guys are smoking the, the, the nineteens, twenties, even the eighteens, and [00:19:00] they're saying there's 75% there. You know, they need a couple more years. So it is nice that, you know, you pick up a stick like this and it's ready to go.
**Bam Bam:** I love the, um, bright white
**Gizmo:** ash I'm getting here. Yeah. My ash is still
**Rooster:** holding on here,
so
**Senator:** it's Christmas time. I want to know what are guys eating? What are guys drinking? What, what are you usually having
**Rooster:** for c.
**Gizmo:** I'll tell you what I'm doing this year. I was telling you the other day, Senator, for the first time I'm gonna make Beef
**Rooster:** Wellington, I got
**Gizmo:** really turned onto it.
There's a Gordon Ramsey video on YouTube of him making beef Wellington and I've probably watched this video like a hundred times cuz it's just the most incredible thing watching this guy cook. And um,
**Rooster:** that's made in pastry, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's almost
like
**Gizmo:** a uh, like almost like a pie crust around a tenderloin.
I don't know. I'm a little scared of it. Senator told
**Rooster:** me not to be, but that's definitely what I'm doing. I told him not
**Gizmo:** to be because
**Senator:** I think, um, rooster and, and BAM will remember this, Grindr last year made a beef [00:20:00] Wellington for the first time and sent a photo to us and it actually looked fantastic.
**Rooster:** It did.
I remember. And he nailed it. Mm-hmm. , it's like a Jamaican meat patty.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Bam Bam:** are you having the roasted soy ball for
**Senator:** Chris's? What's on the meat? Uh, vegetarian menu, uh, rooster.
**Rooster:** Oh, choices. Limitless choices. There's so many, so many choices. So for the holiday, are dinner? I don't know. There's so many like, it's like, it's like a Thanksgiving. . So only the Turkey is the only meat, basically.
Right? I mean, all of your side dishes are basically vegetarian, which can be made vegan. So that's what we do. It's a lot of side dishes and normally we get a holiday roast at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's and it's all, you know, stuffed with whatever cranberry and all that good stuff. Not my, I'm not a huge fan of, Fan of that, but I like the sides.
I love the leese potatoes, the, the, you know, [00:21:00] all the kind of green beans, asparagus. So it's all good.
**Gizmo:** I like it. What are you doing, senator? Are you gonna do your big menu, print it out and everything? Yeah,
**Rooster:** they'll,
**Senator:** there'll be, there'll be a big menu.
**Rooster:** So, dude, you, you are a masochist now. You
**Gizmo:** Yes
**Bam Bam:** you are. You ma That masochist this past meal,
**Senator:** Thanksgiving, I was a little over ambitious.
It, it all worked out, but boy, I was exhausted after. , but Christmas there, there's always sort of two staples. I love seafood and I love a good steak, and so usually Christmas Eve is all seafood. I'm not even Italian and I just love this whole like feast of however many
**Rooster:** fishes. We do that, we do that in my house, the seven fishes.
I, I
**Senator:** actually just, I love it because it, it just forces me. I'll do like a seafood chio pinot with a whole bunch of shrimp and clams and muscles and all kinds of, I may do some caviar to start that counts as a fish. It comes from sturgeon, which is a fish . Um, so that, that's usually Christmas Eve, a lot of seafood.
And then Christmas day, I'll almost always make a [00:22:00] Chateau Brian, a nice roasted beef tenderloin. , um, like a horse radish cream sauce. Um, it, it's, it's delicious and a lot of
**Rooster:** wine. Yeah. Have you started tasting
**Gizmo:** the wine for the holiday? Have you picked your wines out?
**Rooster:** I have. I know that's a whole
**Senator:** process. I have.
I, I, I'm almost there. Okay. I'm almost there. . All right. Some of the
**Rooster:** staples that you're, we're, we're
**Gizmo:** glad, we're glad to try. Any that you need to, you need to start trying. We're ready to finish some bottles. Bam. Bam. What are you doing for the holidays, food wise? I'm gonna attempt a rack of lamb. Nice. Ooh, yes.
In the oven, on the grill. What do you doing in the oven? Any
**Bam Bam:** oven. Yeah. What? Mint jelly? Uh, no mint. I'm not a fan of mint with lamb. I love the gamey flavor of, of lamb.
**Senator:** A little bit of it if this comes out. Well, I want your recipe because if there's one thing that I'm actually a little bit intimidated to make, it's lamb, but I love a rack of lamb.
Yeah. You're gonna have to share this. Yeah.
**Rooster:** So you do the, uh, the
**Gizmo:** crown.
**Bam Bam:** Uh, we'll do the crown, I don't know. Seven, eight section. And it's a, there's a [00:23:00] bologne, not a bolognese. Um, hello? Oh, a red wine is a red wine, uh, recipe that I want to try. So I'll go through it. No fucking bolognese, . I will never try to make that again.
**Gizmo:** All right. We
**Bam Bam:** gotta tell the story. If I do, I won't
**Gizmo:** tell you. Fuckers. You gotta tell the story. Go
**Rooster:** ahead. Just no pictures. . No. So ba bam was making bolognese
**Gizmo:** one day. Apparently it wasn't bolognese, and he sent
**Rooster:** me a picture. So, first of all, He said, he said, what did you start out with? Why
**Gizmo:** did I
**Rooster:** bring this up?
I mean, first of all, you know, you gotta, it's, you gotta start with the mepo, right? The mepo is basically the holy, okay, Italian, holy Trinity. You start with the onions, the celery, and the carrots. Mm-hmm. . But they have to be equally, perfectly diced.
**Bam Bam:** And you criticized my dicing.
**Gizmo:** I know.
**Rooster:** Yeah. Because they, they're gonna cook.
They were too big. They're gonna cook. My hands are at
**Senator:** the same time. Bam. Took his to it instead of a knife.
**Gizmo:** That's exactly right. But
**Rooster:** knife stick. Are you, are you cutting it with your hand? I mean, you're using a knife to [00:24:00] find I am using a knife. So use a, use a knife. So they gotta be perfect. And then the meats, you gotta have, what did you have?
It's gotta be three. It's gotta be beef
**Gizmo:** and pork and
**Bam Bam:** veal. And veal. I didn't, I had beef and that. ,
**Gizmo:** bam.
**Rooster:** Bam is so, it's so
**Gizmo:** dejected right now.
**Bam Bam:** I am, I'm not happy right now, ,
**Rooster:** so it's not a true bolognese.
**Bam Bam:** You know, I'm usually happy to provide comic relief, not now. .
**Rooster:** This has been a, a running, I'm sure it for a long time.
I'm
**Bam Bam:** sure it taste. I like it. My favorite, it was good.
**Senator:** My favorite after that was there was some Apple commercial that was on TV for a while. Some guy is desperately trying to make bolognese in the kitchen and he's like throwing the sauce all over the walls in the kitchen. and rooster just text all of us saying there's Bam.
Trying to make bologna. . .
**Bam Bam:** I am actually a very clean cook. Very clean, very organized.
**Rooster:** Well, that's good. Yeah. So bolognese takes a long time. Mm-hmm. . You know, you made, you're talking like three to four hours. What are we smoking
**Gizmo:** next, guys? , [00:25:00]
**Rooster:** smoke bolognese.
**Gizmo:** You know what I, I will say, I was telling Senator the other day, one thing that's made my life a lot easier is the Traeger Grill.
I love that thing. The Plic Grill. Oh yeah. Grinder used that when he made the, uh, brisket for us that one time. I want one of those there. I'll tell you, man, there. And listen, I'm not a grill guy. Lizards out there don't blast me for what I'm about to say. But I love that my grill connects to wifi. , I can watch how many pellets are in it.
I can sit on my ass and smoke a cigar and drink some scotch, and the meat is cooking. I don't have to worry about it. It tells me when the probe is done. I love it. And the stuff comes out perfectly every time. Yep. Every time. The Turkey I did for Thanksgiving was unbelievable on the
**Bam Bam:** Traeger. Everyone I know that has done a Turkey on that thing, it's come out beautifully.
My
**Gizmo:** mom freaked out. Yeah, when she tried that Turkey. She's like, she's 70. Best Turkey she's ever had in her life. How many hours did you smoke it? Dude, I did it for, uh, I did it for two hours at 2 25 to get some smoke going. Then I did, I guess another two, [00:26:00] two and a half at like four something. Did you stuff it prior to it with anything?
Yeah. Yeah. I got some stuff from Mrs. Gizmo. She made like a stuffing and stuff. I put it in there. Oh yeah, it was great. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it was nice. Wow. Yeah, it was, uh, she's gonna make, she's gonna love that. I just called her Mrs.
**Rooster:** Gizmo. By the way, can you make gravy? , you can make
**Gizmo:** whatever you want. You can make pies on it.
You can make veggies, soy chops on it. You can make bologna. Well, not bam. Soy balls will work in there. Yeah.
**Senator:** How, how does tofu roast on the Traeger back at your rooster, say 10. So, back to this
**Rooster:** stick. Yeah, back to the stick. It's still so good
**Senator:** for me. It's picking
**Rooster:** up in flavor. Me too. It is me too. And,
**Gizmo:** and the draw is actually opening up for me a little bit now.
Me too. Versus where it was. Bam. I know you guys are having, didn't have any challenges for. This cigar is phenomenal voice. It is. It is. I'm really enjoying it. Has it changed for you guys, what
**Bam Bam:** you mentioned earlier, starting to get me the pepper note on the tongue, but smoother right at the tip? I'm getting same.
It's quite nice. Exact same. Yeah. Very nice. Now I didn't get that on the initial first third. [00:27:00]
**Senator:** What I will say though, the flavors, this is not a three act cigar, and I like. and I'm maybe in the minority, or at least we're, we're kind of divided on whether we want a cigar to change its flavor profile a lot throughout, or we want consistency.
And this cigar for a Cuban, I'm actually very surprised because I feel like a lot of these higher end Cubans, they can really shift and change and take you on this journey, which I know some of the lizards really love. But this has been very consistent. It's just built in strength as I'm smoking. and just here and there.
Certain notes are becoming accentuated, but it's not changing fundamentally the profile of the, of the flavor profile of this cigar, which I really like.
**Rooster:** So would you guys, uh, source these sticks
**Gizmo:** from
**Rooster:** you? Well, not from me, but I'm just saying in general,
**Senator:** the jury's still out for me, but I'm, I'm thinking
**Rooster:** about it.
Wow. Yeah. I'm, I'm with
**Gizmo:** you. I mean, it, it, it's just a high price, you know? It's a, [00:28:00] it's a high price stick for what it is. It's really delicious. .
**Bam Bam:** So I'm the only lizard in a group that doesn't have a tower. It's true. It's coming once my tower, six months. I know that once my tower arrives, I would probably buy these and keep them cuz they're so expensive and it's, and they're, they're very special.
Right. Exclusive luxury cigar. And have these on a special occasion. Exactly.
**Gizmo:** Yeah.
**Rooster:** So it comes in a cab, it's a 50 cab. Right, right. So even if you have like five sticks in the whole year. Mm-hmm. , you're talking, you'll have it for like 10 years. , you know, it's a special stake. It's not, it's not an everyday
**Gizmo:** stake.
**Bam Bam:** What I'm realizing, though, without a tower or a means of properly preserving them, it's not worth buying.
**Gizmo:** Well, I
**Rooster:** d I don't know
**Gizmo:** about that man. I mean, there's plenty you can do in, in Tupperware and whatnot. I mean,
**Bam Bam:** I'm not good enough personally to do that.
**Gizmo:** Okay. I'm really not. That's just a management issue.
But there's plenty of lizards out there. Are rocking as good or better. Humidity situations. You're right. Storage. Yeah. [00:29:00] In really good Tupperware than even that we are doing and, and I know I'm. You know, crazy about watching my humidity and stuff. Mm-hmm. , I know, I, I think Senator is too. I don't know.
Rooster gave me the kitty letter back, so I don't know if he even cares about it. But , um,
**Rooster:** I don't care about the kitty letter, but yes, I do, I do maintain the Rx . No,
**Gizmo:** but you know, I think that I, I I don't think that you need a tower to Yeah. To me the tower is just convenient and when you're standing there deciding what you're gonna smoke for the day or the week, it just makes it a lot easier than digging through tub
**Rooster:** about i's jealous that I don't have a.
it's easier to find stuff. I mean, it's right in front of you, although I'm kind of having an issue because digging through boxes to see where the box is, but it's in front of you, right? It's vertical as far as Tupperware is sorted. There's, you know, they're stacked up. You need to dig through the boxes.
You don't know unless you got a label, you know what's in there. And, uh, I don't know.
**Gizmo:** The only, the only thing I experienced with Tupperware that I didn't like, and it was just because of mismanagement, was, you know, when you have [00:30:00] a, a sealed situation like, That there's absolutely no air movement until that lid opens.
Even if you have BDA in there, they run hot. So if you have a 62 BDA in a really tight Tupperware situation, it may actually be running in the 64 65 range to no fault of theirs. I mean, it is what it is since there's no air movement, but there's nowhere for it to escape. You know, even if you have beta, it's gonna be a challenge.
So that's what I like about the tower, is it's kind of. Perfect in between of a desktop humidor that leaks a little bit of humidity and a situation that, you know, like a, like a tupper, where you could see what's going on, but it's presented nicely in front of you. So
**Senator:** I want to go back to the, the f the, the cabinet.
This comes in a 50 cab, some of the best cigars in the world common. A 50 cabinet, 50 sticks in a nice, beautiful cedar sliding lid box. , my frustration at this point with a [00:31:00] dress box, right? Those like cardboard boxes for the listener that are nice and colorful and all that, but I just feel like don't.
Contain the flavors that the cigar puts out and sort of marinates in as it ages over time. It's incredibly frustrating. I wish every single cigar brand would only make cedar boxes. I don't care if it's a small little 10 box, a 50 cab, 25, but I just, my frustration, I, I, I feel like every cigar that I've had that comes out of a, of out of a dress box just doesn't.
as impeccably as a box that's stored in cedar in a cabinet.
**Rooster:** Well, I think there's another
**Gizmo:** component to that too, aside from aging and flavor, but I think it is that what I find with most of the 25 count boxes that, that come in the, uh, the dress box as opposed to cedar or the 50 cab or even a 25 cab, or I got those Magnum fifties the other day, they're a little coffin, uh, [00:32:00] cedar coffin of.
Three, four and three, you know, uh, top to bottom, really nice. The thing about the 20 fives that I've found in those dress boxes, let's compare. All right, so let's compare Lutan, Parus, Lutan. They come in a 25 dress box and they come in a 50 cabinet. You
**Rooster:** get
**Gizmo:** that dress box at 25. Those things are stuffed in there so tightly, they're so tightly stuffed that there's no way that you're gonna have perfect.
on all 25 of those cigars. It's just not physically possible. Where if you buy a luan cabinet of 50 cigars in that cedar box, you gently pick it out. You slide the cigar out, every cigar is shaped
**Rooster:** perfectly. I think
**Gizmo:** that's a major component too. RAs the same way the Ramon onus, uh, especially selected. You see so many guys that buy the dress boxes of those and pull them out.
The 20 fives almost look box. where you buy the 50 cab and they're just a normal round rub robusto that stuffing them in a dress box [00:33:00] is absolutely affecting your
**Rooster:** ability to
**Gizmo:** smoke. Well,
**Bam Bam:** do you need to let a cigar that comes out of a dress box sit
**Gizmo:** longer? I
**Rooster:** don't even know
**Gizmo:** if it's about sitting. I mean, to me, if you age either, I think they're gonna do better in a cedar, but to me, I think it's more a factor of you're stuffing too much stuff in, in a, in a, in a, a casing.
That's too. and you're the, the tobacco is drying and aging as it leaves the factory in
**Rooster:** not ideal conditions. I agree. At this
**Senator:** point, just about anything I get in a dress box, I'd rather just take out and store loosely in my tower than I would keep them in there. Just super packed in it. It just frustrates the hell on me.
I mean, I just, I, I got a box of the H Chapman. Aha. , that's a very good cigar. I mean, I enjoyed it. That's why I've got two boxes of that now. I hate that it comes in a dress box. It really bothers and upsets me. They're packed in [00:34:00] too tightly. The draw is not the same on every one of those cigars. It's great smoke, but I feel like it'd be a whole lot better and a whole lot more consistent if they would just put it in a damn
**Rooster:** cedar box.
And why
**Gizmo:** are they putting an Ana hato, which is right in between a regular production cigar and a liata, or regional, whatever you wanna call it, as far as price. and what the experience should be. Why are they putting that in a cardboard box? Why is partica shipping high-end, uh, l cdh cigars in cardboard
**Rooster:** boxes?
You know, cardboard is for
**Senator:** shipping, not for storing cigars. Exactly. Well, I al I also wanna say on cigar storage, all of us as lizards started with a desktop humidor. Every single lizard sitting here had a desktop humidor, eventually multiple desktop humid. and then we all hit that sort of critical decision point where we don't have the space to store as many cigars as we'd like to purchase and and age ourselves or just have on [00:35:00] hand.
And I remember going through this where I said, you know what would probably be ideal for me is a coffee table size cabinet that I can store maybe 500 cigars. And as I'm looking at this online and you see the price point for something like that, and then you look at these big floor to ceiling towers and the value for those is actually really, really good.
And the thing that people don't realize is you're rationalizing, well, am I really gonna spend that much for a tower? You're able to buy boxes of cigars when you find a good deal on whatever you like to smoke. Doesn't matter what it is, but when you find that. , you're able to stock up and buy five, 10 boxes so that over the long run, I mean, I feel like we all enjoy the fact that the savings that we achieve by being able to buy in bulk and in quantity over time paced for the price that we spent on any of our
**Rooster:** tower humidors.
Let me
**Gizmo:** ask you a [00:36:00] question. What cigar that we smoke since we've started smoking them, has gone down in price to re to replace them? The answer is none. They're all. Bonkers and
**Rooster:** price. And also if you compare to, let's say, a nice. Desktop humidor like a Daddy Marshall. I mean, uh, you're talking like seven, $800 for a nice humidor, right?
That's gonna hold like a hundred, 150 sticks. That's a rooster. Humidor. .
**Senator:** Well, I'm talking like Marshall, my not $700 .
**Rooster:** I know it was, it was probably an Ellie Blue, but , I got mine on cigar bid. So I'm saying, you know, a decent. Desktop, he will cost you that much. And you can go and buy a tower like Senator did.
He was the first one to acquire the tower, and it was under around a thousand dollars with the, with the Oasis. So, and you can, it holds how many 2000. 3006, 3000 sticks.
**Senator:** So I don't think they're accurate. With [00:37:00] 3000, I'd say it's probably closer to 2000, but still a lot of things.
**Rooster:** 3000 petite Coronas and, uh,
Yeah, .
**Gizmo:** So bam, bam. I think by episode, what maybe by episode a hundred,
**Rooster:** you'll have this sorted out . He's getting it. It's
**Senator:** coming. Well, BA's, BA's gonna ask Rooster and I probably a hundred more times for the link to the tower and then no, no, no. At that point he'll do that. We've got
**Bam Bam:** that covered. So I got a question for you.
I am gonna need some, I need to source a few pieces of equipment for you from you guys though. I want that fan
**Gizmo:** equipment. I'll make you a fan. I'll And the l e d light. . Oh yeah. Yes.
**Rooster:** I think you'll get the tower before you Per, before you Perfect. The, uh, bolognese. . .
**Gizmo:** That's a fact.
**Rooster:** That's a fact.
**Gizmo:** I said I'm never making bolognas again.
I'll take you over on that. .
**Rooster:** So what
**Gizmo:** are you guys getting in the, the last third of this stick?
**Bam Bam:** You're gonna think I'm crazy, but I'm getting very slight. This is not almost Maple. Something in that category. A little bit, a little bit of sweetness in that category. I'm getting. , [00:38:00] I
**Senator:** can see that. Hmm.
**Rooster:** It's, I'm getting a little bit
**Gizmo:** of sweetness and definitely a little more spicy
**Rooster:** than it was for
**Senator:** me. Yeah. It's really picked up in strength. Oh yeah. Like this is getting borderline medium
**Gizmo:** full in a nice way though. Totally. The
**Rooster:** flavors like what we were getting in the beginning, it's like all of that, but more enhanced stuff with a little bit of sweetness to it.
Right. Right. Yep. All right. You guys ready to give it the, uh, formal lizard? I think so. All right. Rooster, roo first. You're up. All right. I think this is, uh, gonna give it a nine, I think a few more years. This is a 10, but right now it's a nine,
**Gizmo:** I think for what this is. I'm absolutely in
**Rooster:** the same place. A nine.
**Senator:** That's gonna be three of us. I'm also giving this a nine.
**Bam Bam:** I'm right there with the three of you. It's a nine.
**Gizmo:** All right. Rookie score, 9.09
**Rooster:** point. . You know, I, what's interesting is,
**Gizmo:** and I know we're not gonna, we're not [00:39:00] supposed to compare, so I don't wanna get yelled at, but I mean, well, we have, I, I rated that, um, the, the Maltese 1935, very, very controversial for Puba that I gave it an eight.
But to me, uh, this is, this was way more enjoyable of an experience for me, uh, for what it is. I, it's a different cigar to me, but I'm not saying that I'm not, I understand that, but this hits me. I enjoyed this more than I did the
**Bam Bam:** malice. It was really quite a tasty cigar, I guess. Very,
**Gizmo:** very good. My point, again, I, I'm not, what I'm saying is that I've enjoyed this stick more than I did that stick.
I'm not that, that's my only point
**Rooster:** in saying that
**Senator:** with a nine. Yeah, I mean, I'm interested to hear why everyone gave this a nine for me. This earned a nine because it's a very refined, complex smoke. The smoke sort of coats your mouth. You get some really nice flavor notes. , there's just, it, it, it's a perfect, I, you know, the, the holidays I can, this is a perfect [00:40:00] cigar.
After a nice meal, after a nice time you're spending with family and friends and it just transports you, I feel like, somewhere else, maybe to Italy where, where the cigar is, you know, the regional four. Um, so for those reasons, I, I found it really nice. The reason I didn't give it a 10 is I think to rooster's point with age, it will be even more complex and even more interesting.
but it just peaked my interest in curiosity enough that for me, it's right at a nine.
**Gizmo:** Agreed. A
**Bam Bam:** nine
**Gizmo:** is an excellent score.
**Rooster:** That's a great score. Yeah, but it, it has the potential to. You know, once it ages, he put like 3, 4, 5 years on the stick.
**Gizmo:** Will
**Bam Bam:** that box last three years in your humidor? Hell no. fucking a It
**Senator:** won't.
No. In three
**Gizmo:** years he'll have a hundred more of those. Hum. Smoke
**Bam Bam:** through and he'll be living out of his car.
**Rooster:** Well, this was a, he's just kidding.
My wife might [00:41:00] listen to this. This was a very enjoyable stick. Might be living in the Remington. .
**Gizmo:** Oh, that might be my coffee. . That's a
**Rooster:** great idea. Put it sideways. It's multipurpose. Perfect. Go burn me down with those fucking sticks. End of life
**Bam Bam:** plan. Love it.
**Rooster:** Rooster. This is a great stick, man. Thank you for this.
Happy man. Oh yeah. All right boys. See you next time. Thanks so
**Gizmo:** much for joining us tonight. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any comments, questions, if you wanna reach out, say hello. Tell us what you're smoking. Email us
**Rooster:** Lounge lizards
**Gizmo:** pod P o d lounge, lizards pod gmail.com.
**Rooster:** I really appreciate your time and, uh, we'll see you next week.