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LGP 32 - Crowned Heads Blood Medicine
10 Plays8 days ago
This week, we're medicating our palates with the 2024 Blood Medicine from Crowned Heads!
Note: We are going through our upload backlog, now improved with video on Spotify and other podcast catchers with video!
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Transcript
Introduction and Cigar Talk
00:00:17
Speaker
What is going on everybody welcome back this is let's get pairing I'm your host trip as always here in the Casa de Monte Cristo studio I didn't uh I'm supposed to not lead off at that part this is supposed to be kind of a cold open uh but today we're smoking the blood medicine from crown head cigars uh i'm pretty excited about this one we'll get into all the details a little bit before we get started dennis doing this week hey man i'm good i see you're in the uh the overlook hotel today i are you enjoying your stay
00:00:48
Speaker
my house has been some sort of some form of a halfway house for the last five days people coming and going and staying and lots of cigars and lots of it's it's fuzzy most of it is pretty fuzzy there's some whiskey involved there's some brisket involved which i'll tell you about later but yeah it was great man nice uh i'm just i'm just over here living that baby life still uh she's almost eight weeks old and it's uh She's getting some okay sleeps at night. don't know. It's been pretty fun.
00:01:20
Speaker
ah Anyway, we're to be smoking the blood medicine. We'll get you all the details, tell you about what we're pairing. But for now, grab yourself cigar. Grab yourself a drink. Let's get pairing................
Trip's Timberline Lodge Experience
00:01:46
Speaker
And we're back. That was not caught. ah Your little comment there. Oh, no. not it's mouth Yeah. but The way I said that might have sounded like you said something super racist or something right before I rolled back in.
00:02:02
Speaker
Something truly. But no, you said so many cigars this weekend. And I just want to let you know that it wasn't caught on camera the first time. But now that we've talked about it, it's very highlighted. It's a good thing it wasn't something super racist.
00:02:14
Speaker
No, I was going to comment on your cold open and say every now and again, excuse me. Oh, choking now. Every now again. I don't know why choking. Every now and again, you want to crack open a cold one. I guess I'm dying. Hold on.
00:02:27
Speaker
Well, while you die over there, I'm going to introduce the show a little bit. So try not to try to like survive this a little bit. ah Y'all can't see it, but Dennis is often having a coughing fit.
00:02:39
Speaker
ah Welcome everybody. This is let's get pairing episode number 32.
00:02:45
Speaker
uh blood medicine by crown heads uh here's the blood medicine right here excited to tell you all about this cigar and smoke this cigar i've uh enjoyed a couple of these um anyway i'm your host trip here in the casa de monte cristo studios with my co-host as always dennis in uh the overlook hotel this week um which i don't know if i've told you this dennis but i have been to the actual overlook hotel oh um that's cool uh in uh it's not it's not the interior the interior was all i believe it was all uh set in a be lobby uh it does kind of look like an ikea it looks like an ikea lobby oh but i think it was all sets but the outside all of the outside shots of the overlook hotel are uh i can't remember the name of the place right now
00:03:37
Speaker
It's something lodge or something like that. Timberline lodge, uh, in, I don't remember if it's in a township, but it's on Mount hood in Oregon.
00:03:49
Speaker
Uh, and it's a cool place. It was very cool to be there and like, just be like, man, this is the overlook hotel. Like I'm, I'm at the overlook hotel. You walk in, it's completely different. It's like ah an old, uh, 1800 style hunting lodge kind of place.
00:04:04
Speaker
um but the the outside is straight up overlook uh which is rad it did there was a fire there a couple years ago uh right after i moved to florida uh somebody wanted me to come back no just uh just like a structure fire in the attic what a shame i know it would have been uh foreboding sorry it is uh if you're ever there folks uh check it out it's a very cool place to go hang out in the winter you can ski ah In the summer, you can actually, it it is ah it's at the Timberline.
00:04:36
Speaker
Like, that's, the name implies, it's at the Timberline, which is where the trees stop growing the rest of the mountain. um And so, like, there's snow there pretty much all year. So you can take a ski lift kind of thing from where it's 90 degrees up into the snow, which is pretty cool.
00:04:52
Speaker
That's cool, man. You can, like, mountain bike there. It's a rad place, man. It's a long drive from Portland. It's about two hours. um and Most of that you're driving up into the hills. So it's a you need a you might need some traction going up there some days.
00:05:08
Speaker
um Even in like the fall and the ah spring, it gets cold up there. Anyway, I got sidetracked, man. ah Where is smoking the blood medicine? ah The blood medicine is, if I can find my notes here.
History of 'Blood Medicine' Cigar
00:05:22
Speaker
The blood medicine is, ah it was originally called the snake oil released in 2015. made at the My Father Factory. They pretty quickly renamed it because ah
00:05:36
Speaker
I can't remember who it was. Somebody had a trademark on snake oil already. um So the first release had snake oil boxes, but after that they changed the name to Blood Medicine, which a cool name.
00:05:47
Speaker
And it actually has some history in Nashville, which is where Crown Heads is based. um I had to do some digging to find pictures of it, but there's a it It was originally three-level pharmacy and then eventually turned into a hotel open in like the eighteen hundred um And I think it's from when it was a pharmacy. There's a, you can't tell what the brand is because it's kind of like they built floors on a wall that used to be like a warehouse. So it says something blood medicine on the side of the stairwell and you walk up into this bar.
00:06:21
Speaker
It's very cool looking. um But that's, Hubert named it after kind of that sign and ah That it was, you know, calling back to a piece of Nashville history. ah It's very cool. If you want to look up the place, it's called the, I have it in my notes here.
00:06:38
Speaker
The something building. The merchant's restaurant is what it's called now or merchant hotel. um Look up pictures of it It's pretty neat. So 2015, they released this sort of cigar as the snake oil.
00:06:53
Speaker
Eventually it was renamed as the blood medicine. It's always been an event only exclusive, um which has been pretty hard to get. I've had one or two of them over the years. Um, But I don't know that I've ever really found... I don't i don't know that I've ever really been to a Crown Heads event where they had them.
00:07:11
Speaker
um I think it's only a and I think it's only if Miguel or Puber is there. um So they've been pretty rare over the years. um They have been re-released a bunch of times. A couple of different factories. Originally my father, then eventually they switched to...
00:07:27
Speaker
Pachardo Factory, Takaniksa. um That's where these are made. This for the first time this cigar is getting has gotten a wide release this year, so you should be able to find them right now. There was only 1,500 boxes um So they're not super available, ah but they are out there now.
00:07:44
Speaker
um Widely released this year, $1,195. I assume this is going to be kind of an ongoing limited edition that will be coming back every couple of years. This is a new size and blend for the blood medicine.
00:07:58
Speaker
um So it's actually different from the one that came out a few years ago ah at the My Father Factory. I believe both of the Pichardo versions are the same, though. ah But yeah, it's been super elusive and now has a nationwide limited release.
00:08:14
Speaker
um So you should be able to go check them out if you want. The blend on this, I think, is a little bit interesting.
Cigar Blends and Flavors
00:08:19
Speaker
um Nothing groundbreaking, but it is a Ecuadorian Habano wrapper with an Ecuadorian Connecticut binder, which I don't know that I've ever seen before.
00:08:29
Speaker
I can't think of... Connecticut's pretty rarely used as a binder, so I'm curious what that's going to add to the cigar. um Fillers are all from Nicaragua. Like I said, $1,195, 1,500 boxes of 12 cigars released.
00:08:42
Speaker
um Now that we're we're getting into the cigar a little bit, what do you think of it so far, Dennis? Before you do that, I'm going call out what our our our viewers are smoking right now. We have Sam Finnell smoking a Podromo 30th Anniversary Connecticut with a Monster Mean Bean.
00:08:58
Speaker
And Peter Janet, Janetatos, Janetatos. I'll say that right. so Peter J. Smoking a knuckle sandwich 56 with benchmark 8. That sounds like a nice one.
00:09:10
Speaker
Cool, man. I like that cigar a lot. I haven't smoked 56. I had the 55. I need to track down some 56. What do you think of the cigar so far, Dennis?
00:09:22
Speaker
There's an interesting brightness to it that I um i can't nail down, so I've been like power smoking it for the last five minutes. A lot of baking spice. It's a lot more subtle in the the sort of the mouthfeel is full, but it's not it doesn't seem punchy.
00:09:38
Speaker
But the retrohale on it, that's got some kick to it, man. Yeah, really absolutely. Retrohale. To me, this has like really the classic Habano flavors that I think of, like that sort of a little bit of coffee, a little bit of cedar. Yeah.
00:09:54
Speaker
and then adding that a little bit yeah A little bit of peanut buttery kind of flavor and then a really bright kind of sharp black pepper spice. um Yeah, i'm I'm digging it so far. And then I do, I think I do taste a little of that Connecticut wrapper. it like, there's like that smooth creaminess with a little bit of that that kind of newspaper on the back end. Yeah.
00:10:17
Speaker
Yeah. I'm liking this cigar so far. I do have, I did develop a crack in mine somehow. i wonder if i dropped it. More likely, I probably smash it a drawer in my humidor. I do that constantly, man. So many times.
00:10:29
Speaker
Makes me crazy. Well, I have the slats in my wine door. I have, ah you know, the slats between drawers. And I won't notice. The cigar will slip in between. So when I go to close it, it'll just smash the cigar in half. Yeah.
00:10:42
Speaker
and And sometimes you don't notice that you've done it. Yeah. Which is even worse. Oh, Peter says I had great pronunciation of his name. Hell yeah. All right.
00:10:55
Speaker
hydrating a little bit with my, uh, my first pairing here. Yeah. I'm, I'm into this cigar so far. I gotta say, I love the band on this guy. Like it's got that, like when you think of the term, the word or the phrase blood medicine, this is what I think of like old timey pharmacy, external use only on there.
00:11:16
Speaker
Good for man or beast. Uh, yeah, I dig it. All right. Let's talk about pairing a little bit. Um, I got something that I've never had before and is a little bit different from my first pairing.
00:11:31
Speaker
Oh. This
Sapporo Black and Beer Reviews
00:11:33
Speaker
is Sapporo Black. and but Dude, I am so excited to hear what you have to say about this. I've tasted a little bit and I'm um'm definitely into it. So Sapporo is... Let me start by saying these cans, they're so cool.
00:11:46
Speaker
but you're happy the shit That angular look, like you cannot crush this thing, man. like i know you're a can I know you love crushing your beer cans. This one would give you a run for your money, dog. Well, no, I don't crush it like Macho Man or or Stone Cold Steve Austin, right?
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, you just give it the squeeze. I give it a squeeze so I know if there's a dimple in I know that I'm i'm done with that can. This one, I can't even put a dimple in. This thing is sturdy.
00:12:15
Speaker
um All right, so Sapporo. I did a little bit of research on Sapporo, and they're a more interesting beer company than I was expecting. Fascinating. yeah um So Sapporo is the oldest beer brand in Japan, um which crazily, like, you know, Western cultures had beer for thousands of years.
00:12:37
Speaker
It came to Japan in 18... I have it here somewhere. 1876.
00:12:45
Speaker
They've had it for 130 years, which is wild. 145 years. ah So it's a story very similar to Japanese scotch, Japanese whiskey.
00:12:58
Speaker
um A guy named Sebei Nakagawa um left Japan after kind of finishing his education at 17 to kind of just explore the world, I guess. I couldn't find much details on kind of why he left, but he ended up spending about $1,
00:13:13
Speaker
seven years in england everything i read said that he was uh living in poverty the whole time um 1870 1860s were not a we're not a super fun time in england as far as i know um after spending um oh man those sewers in in london were bad oh yeah there were no joke uh after about seven years in england he moved to berlin um and kind of got a a line of inspiration from, I didn't know his name because I couldn't pronounce it, but a guy who eventually became the foreign minister of Japan.
00:13:49
Speaker
And he was basically saying, I've been spending some time in Germany. You should check out beer. It's pretty cool. And so he went and took that inspiration and got a job at Berlin Beer Company and started to learn how to brew.
00:14:05
Speaker
About three years later, he returned to Japan. as the first ever certified brewer in the country of Japan. um I should also note, this was a time where ah leaving Japan at all was very frowned upon, and they were very isolated. You couldn't, you know, there was nobody going on vacation to Japan.
00:14:26
Speaker
There was nobody ah doing heavy amounts of trading with Japan. They were very closed off ah until, like, the nineteen twenty s um So he got home and found out that the government was already kind of starting to consider creating a brewery to research beer production.
00:14:47
Speaker
um And he got hooked up with that and ended up working with the government to establish the Sapporo brewery in Hokkaido in 1876, which I thought was just a super cool origin story for Japanese beer, very similar to Japanese whiskey.
00:15:02
Speaker
um They send people out to learn how to do something and then they do their best to do it better than they did. um These days... The majority of the time, right? Yeah. I think it's really the cool that they do such a great job when they bring it back that that people come back.
00:15:16
Speaker
and Japanese whiskey is a great example. The Scots came back and said, you know what? You can call the Scotch if you want. It's so good, you can call the Scotch. Yeah. And they don't out of respect, which is amazing on both ends.
00:15:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's awesome. ah These days, Sapporo is the number one selling Japanese beer in the U.S. um They started in the U S in the eighties. So they've only been here for 40 years or whatever, 30 years.
00:15:41
Speaker
Um, the, over the years they have purchased number of breweries, especially in the last 10 years or so they bought stone, which I, I didn't realize they own stone.
00:15:53
Speaker
I'm not surprised. That was a couple years ago, I think, right? Yeah, I think it was like 2019-ish. ah They also own Anchor, and ah years ago, they bought Canadian beer conglomerate Sleeman Brothers, so they own a bunch of Canadian brands as well.
00:16:09
Speaker
Sleeman, yeah. How about the Sleemans? The Sleemans. And they've used kind of that to... change where they're brewing beer so a lot of their brew their beer is brewed in canada by sleeman owned uh breweries um they are doing a very heavy amount of you know the the water reconstruction so they're trying to make the water where they're brewing it match as perfectly as they can to the water in japan and at the brewery that's awesome that way you can replicate the flavor and you can have ah
00:16:46
Speaker
significantly lower shipping costs and much fresher beer than shipping in millions of gallons of beer by ship or something, um, all the way from Japan. Uh, Sapporo black in particular is actually brewed in Vietnam, which I think is pretty cool.
00:17:02
Speaker
um they They have one of their biggest breweries in Asia is in Vietnam. So most of the beer in Asia is now coming from Vietnam, if it isn't coming from Japan. Sapporo Black is a black lager.
00:17:15
Speaker
um It's basically just a multified version of their classic lager. um It's interesting because... In Japan, Sapporo Black is a completely different beer because they have a black label. And so the kind of classic Sapporo has been called Sapporo Black Label for a long time in Japan. ah But this kind of their their black lager, 5% ABV, comes in this big old, what is it, a half liter-ish can? 22-ounce can.
00:17:48
Speaker
twenty two ounce
00:17:51
Speaker
yeah I'm going to take a couple sips, see how it pairs with the blood medicine. don't you talk about your first pairing? What you got going on? I got a lot things going on. I actually, I'm, as you were talking about Sapporo, I was sucking down my my first pairing and I think I almost drank the whole thing.
00:18:10
Speaker
so Apologies. ah we'll We'll try to get through the story a little bit if I can. So let me show you what I've got first. Oh, boy. green screen thing is happening.
00:18:22
Speaker
It looks like a very similarly colored beer to mine. There we go.
00:18:28
Speaker
There it is. um Yeah, so it's a very, very dark beer. Dare I say ruby. Very dark ruby, not a black beer. distinctly different the reason why i say that very specifically is because this is a um this is a guinness clone that uh my my neighbor so my neighbor and i when we brew together brews one beer i brew another beer so this is the beer that he brewed on the last brew day i believe he called it um maybe guinness i think that's the name of the maybe guinness maybe guinness i
00:18:59
Speaker
Could be. um But it was meant to be completely reconstructed from the water profile to the malts and to the just everything that should go into a Guinness, theoretically to recreate it even to the point where he's got a nitro faucet.
00:19:16
Speaker
Wow. So this beer is serving on nitro. I poured it on nitro. It's a little bit early. ah It was kegged. I'm trying to think when was kegged. Well, just recently, a couple days ago, so it still needs a little bit of time in the in the keg to get to a good place.
00:19:32
Speaker
But um something about this beer, man, I had it last night by the fire. And and maybe the I had too many scotches, let's say. um Maybe I drank too many scotches and had too many cigars by the fire last night, but I thought it was a great beer.
00:19:45
Speaker
And Guinness is one of those, I think for a lot of us, that that if you drink Guinness, you really love Guinness. And Guinness has a very specific, special something to it. There's a memory attached to it. There's ah there's a fondness that ah when you have a Guinness, you go, man, this is good. You feel happy suddenly.
00:20:02
Speaker
don't know if you drink Guinness. Oh, yeah. I feel like you do. Okay. Definitely. I love a Guinness. But Guinness also has a really cool history. We've showcased Guinness in the past and on the show, um even fairly recently, as probably 10 episodes ago or maybe a little bit more. Yeah, on St.
00:20:21
Speaker
Patrick's Day, I think we both had different Guinnesses, and we kind of talked a lot about their history there. There's some cool stuff. So I'm i'm just going to go through some of the fun facts that I've i've really appreciated it over the years.
00:20:32
Speaker
ah Founded in 1759 by Arthur Guinness at St. st James Gate Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. That's like right at the baseline. We know that. Most people know that. He signed a legendary lease.
00:20:45
Speaker
This is legend legendary. hey It has to be legendary. 9,000-year lease for the brewery. Which is incredible. but it's like Legitimately, for someone in 1759 to sit down and say, you know what?
00:20:59
Speaker
I feel good about this. yeah Put me down for $9,000. I feel like the next 20 generations are still going need to use this land. So I'm just going to put that $9,000 year lease on it.
00:21:12
Speaker
Lock it in.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah, man. It's crazy. And so now, actually, Diageo owns Guinness. As they do. I mean, i yeah yeah, I guess they own Guinness. They really merged and became Diageo.
00:21:28
Speaker
Yes, they're a part of... therere They're not a sub-brand or a... What's the word? Subsidiar. Yeah, so they're not subbed officially under Diageo. They are part of Diageo from the merger.
00:21:45
Speaker
Which is pretty cool. I mean, holy shit, Diageo has now... taken most of Europe by storm and has certainly made a huge impact in the United States. So good for them.
00:21:58
Speaker
Definitely good for them. I mentioned the the color. Guinness is not black. Everyone looks at Guinness and goes, man, that's black. It's so dark. It's just dark. ah It's like a dark ruby.
00:22:09
Speaker
I mean, if you spill some on a counter, you'll see. It's yeah pretty light for the way it looks. Yeah, you can tell. And for me, you know, when I talk about Guinness, I always, I like to bring in the fun fact of Guinness has a funk to it. Guinness has funk that's very, it's very similar to the funk that you get when you eat Hershey's milk chocolate.
00:22:29
Speaker
Hershey's milk chocolate had that funk because at the time in those giant vats of milk, some part of that milk started to spoil and go a little sour. And the sourness that went into the the milk chocolate gave Hershey's chocolate that iconic flavor That's the signature flavor, yeah.
00:22:45
Speaker
It's that signature flavor, right? So Guinness does that with acidulated malts. So to a degree, they're kind of like the the Hershey of of beer, in my opinion, and not in the chocolatey thing or the whatever. It's just in that weirdly unique sour aspect.
00:23:01
Speaker
Yeah, part of their signature flavor is actually it spoiling, going bad, but having bad things happen. um But they do it in a very controlled way now because they've it's become part of their part of the flavor.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah. And in the 1920s, they had a slogan, which is really, really popular and famous. And you remember the two cans and all those things. Their slogan was Guinness this is good for you. They literally went and out and and made ads that said Guinness is good for you.
00:23:29
Speaker
We make beer. It's good for you. I mean, to be fair, I assume science had proven nothing about it at that point. um But in the last 20 years, science has proven that Guinness is actually one of the better beers for you.
00:23:45
Speaker
ah Not only in calorie count, but in some of the some of the vitamins and stuff that are in there. And ah also the well sure sure the testosterone production that happens in men, at least, ah when you drink a low alcohol beer with a healthy diet.
00:24:01
Speaker
ah it can like It can actually be healthy for you. It can actually be good for you, which is crazy. Dare I bring up the story of porters and the manly men that were traditional porters back in the olden days and were drinking porter beers and were eating hearty meals and physically active. And those were those were the you know the old, like what do you call it, the bookcase. the The big dudes like a bookcase, or like a refrigerator.
00:24:27
Speaker
Not that they had refrigerator. This is one of my favorite sayings big shout out to shooter mcgavin from cigar federation back in the day oh boy love you scott uh boy i remember built like a brick shit house was one of his favorite sayings and that's the the guy you're talking about the guy that's built like a brick shit house Shooter McGavin, wow, it's been, you're ringing me back now.
00:24:56
Speaker
um Dude, so last, I want to, like, one really cool, one last fun fact about Guinness, I think, is wild, is that over 10 million glasses of Guinness are consumed daily around the world.
00:25:11
Speaker
It's still one of the most consumed beers anywhere in the world. Now they're on a like a Coca-Cola sort of program in parts of Africa and other but you know parts of Europe where they just send the syrup. and it' just like You add water you carbon and you carbonate.
00:25:27
Speaker
Well, not just that. You ferment it, which is the crazy part. like the yeah there's Almost all Guinness in the entire world is brewed in Ireland at the Guinness Brewery.
00:25:41
Speaker
And then it is fermented all over the place. Everywhere. Like, yeah i think I think the list is like 150 countries or something like that. It's the Coca-Cola beer. It's amazing.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah. and Another thing that I learned when we did our research a few months ago is that in a lot of those places, the brewery that is that is fermenting the Guinness syrup will also mix in some of their own beer to give it their own flavor.
00:26:10
Speaker
um Oh, yeah. So you actually do have varying flavors of Guinness all over all over the world due to that, um which I think is super interesting and cool.
00:26:21
Speaker
I'd love to have a glass of Guinness in Somalia at some point. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt they have Guinness down there.
00:26:30
Speaker
But it's it's yeah, it's great. And so any any country I visit, I always, I go, have to try games. I have to try. There are certain things that I know that I'm curious. How is it, know, what's it like here? There's always a subtle difference. Like you're going have McDonald's in Europe somewhere.
00:26:45
Speaker
It's going to taste different. I can tell you McDonald's and in Prague, very different. Actually, arguably, I would say so awful because, you know, my my American pig dog, my my palate.
00:26:57
Speaker
I'm so used to like the American shitty McDonald's. I went had like decent McDonald's, you know, arguably decent. And I thought this is not right. Something's wrong with this thing. I don't like it. It's not shitty enough.
00:27:09
Speaker
it's It's too refined. But yeah, so my first pairing, Guinness, because, you know, Guinness people say is a really heavy beer. Actually, Guinness is a very light beer. light, it's light-spirited. I don't want to say light-bodied because it does have a lot of full flavor to it.
00:27:25
Speaker
but Yeah, it's got a ton of flavor, but it doesn't have... cigar with again yeah it doesn't have a ton of alcohol. um As we kind of mentioned, it doesn't have a lot of calories. it
00:27:37
Speaker
Guinness is a very light beer on your stomach. that's what That's what people mean when they say it's it's a very it's a surprisingly light beer. And it doesn't take away from from a cigar.
00:27:49
Speaker
Where a lot of other stouts, you're drinking Imperials, you're drinking adjunct stouts, barrel stouts. They're going to impart a flavor that's going to stick to your palate and it's going to take away from your cigar. A Guinness, you know, you could take a couple of draws and that flavor is gone and the cigar is back.
00:28:06
Speaker
And I think that's that's always fantastic. Yeah. um Speaking of Guinness, Chris Healy wanted to know if this Tapporo Black tastes like a stout. um It's really interesting.
00:28:17
Speaker
So it's, I mean, can you see that its it's a little more brown than it is black? But as you can barely see it on the bottom there. Kind of a real dark amber.
00:28:28
Speaker
um It's a really interesting beer because it kind of has the flavor notes that you would get from a stout or a porter. but it's much lighter in body it doesn't have that syrupy kind of heaviness um it's not as intense on the hops as most stouts or porters um it's kind of a really nice well-rounded beer a nice amount of sweetness um and then a lot of those like coffee chocolate uh
00:29:02
Speaker
ah what's the word I'm looking for? Those dark flavors. It has the flavors. used Maltiness. It's really just the roastiness that I get more of than the maltiness, the roastiness of those roasted malts.
00:29:18
Speaker
um and So it does like, it kind of tastes like a stout or a porter, but it doesn't have the body of a stout or a porter. It's still a lager. And so it still has um that kind of more loggery body.
00:29:33
Speaker
it's It's a really interesting beer that I think drinks really well. And i would recommend to anybody who likes dark beer. It may not be as intense as a stout that you're looking at, but it has a lot of those flavors. It's going push a lot of the buttons that a stout pushes, right?
00:29:51
Speaker
I'm curious. So you you still have some in your glass, right? You still have a little bit? Okay. I'm curious. Leave some in there. Let it sit throughout the duration of the show. Come back to it when it's warmed up. I'm very curious because I had a weird fever dream experience with it where I really liked it when it was cold.
00:30:07
Speaker
And as it got warmer, it I got into this like territory of more refined steel reserve. Really? Which is not to knock Sapporo because i I really enjoy all of the things that they that they're involved in.
00:30:20
Speaker
I love the history and the brand and all this stuff. But... That one in particular, Sapporo Black, for some reason, like, me. I think I could see that because, but um like, as I'm drinking it, it's tasting sweeter and sweeter.
00:30:35
Speaker
It does have, like, that really sweet malty backbone. I think the best way to describe this is it tastes like an amber lager with flavor notes of a stout.
00:30:48
Speaker
So it's got all it's got a lot of the flavors of a stout, but it's really closer to an amber lager. Yeah, man. wholeheartedly agree on that. I'm trying to think of an amber lager. Like a Yingling. This this is in between a Yingling and a Guinness.
00:31:03
Speaker
Jingling and Guinness, out yeah. I do like it, though. It's pretty good. How's your how's that Guinness clone working with it? It's lovely. and the The fact that I'm drinking it basically not fully carved, it's, well, you can't really tell, but it's almost flat.
00:31:21
Speaker
Is that because that's the same glass that you were drinking last night? You just had ah mug that you fell asleep next to? And I just let it sit? No, no, no. many Man, I can tell you, it was a battle zone of multiple bottles of scotch just were disappeared into the ether. I don't know what happened to them, but cigars disappeared, scotch disappeared, ah 20 cords of wood probably were burned.
00:31:46
Speaker
i am it was It was an event. well yeah so No, this is a fresh pour. I had it last night in my stupor, I guess. I ah really enjoyed the flavors. and I'm excited to see where it's going to be once it's fully carved and it's on nitro. and Getting that proper nitro pour to see how it stands up to the classic Guinness. I feel the backbone is there, so I'm i'm very excited for it.
00:32:11
Speaker
Nice. That's awesome. ah
Whiskey Features and Reviews
00:32:14
Speaker
All right. On to my next pairing. this i haven't gone back to this one in a couple months. This is TX Blended Whiskey. um As the name would imply, this comes to us from Texas.
00:32:26
Speaker
um TX Whiskey was is a the name of the distillery is Firestone and Robertson Distilling Company. It was founded by Leonard Firestone and Troy Robertson um who met because their kids were friends.
00:32:43
Speaker
They would, you know, um we both have kids. I'm sure you have those kids that have play dates and you're, you know, you have the parent that you're like, hey, or you see him at a birthday party and you're just, you chat about, don't know, whatever.
00:32:57
Speaker
used have a neighbor that we would talk. He liked thriller movies. He wasn't a big horror guy, but he was always looking for thriller recommendations. So was always tossing him his way. um But so they kind of knew each other.
00:33:11
Speaker
ah One day, Troy went to a distillery for a tour somewhere in Texas. I'm not sure where, but ah he got to chatting with the owner and the guy said there was another Fort Worth guy that is coming here next week. And he he pestered him a little bit and found out that it was this guy, Leonard. That's his kids, dad, his kids, friends, dad, um,
00:33:34
Speaker
And he called Leonard later that day and was like, hey, so I was on this brewery tour and they said you were going to be there next week. That's pretty interesting. um and found out that they both kind of had dreams of eventually opening their own whiskey company.
00:33:51
Speaker
The next day, they kind of had lunch together and came up with a plan and were like, yeah, let's do this. um So in 2012, they started distilling after moving into a warehouse in downtown Fort Worth.
00:34:05
Speaker
um In 2014, that led them to buy the Whiskey Ranch. um Over about three years, from 2014 to 2017, they converted the clubhouse of this giant hundred and twelve acre golf course into the largest uh distillery east of the mississippi that must i must have put east when i meant west there's no way fort worth is east of mississippi um no i don't think so the largest distillery in the western part of the u.s um
00:34:40
Speaker
And they've gone on to, you know, become kind of a powerhouse in Texas distilling. In 2019, they were acquired by Pernod Ricard. um Yeah, so this is their they Texas blended whiskey, which is their entry level.
00:34:56
Speaker
um They have a couple others. I haven't had the pleasure of trying any of them. It looks so red on camera, but I promise you it's not it's not ah the color of cheer wine.
00:35:08
Speaker
But it is it is still very pretty. It's a very nice color. Yeah, it's a very nice color. My saturation just makes it look crazy. It looks the same color as the Monte Cristo logo behind me.
00:35:19
Speaker
Doesn't it? Is that just my my screen? little Anyway, yeah this is px Blended Whiskey. It's 82 proof. It's available all over the U.S. And the the last thing that I want to point out.
00:35:33
Speaker
Oh, also, it's about $35. Oh, the the yeah, the tops. I love the tops. The tops, just so cool, man. ah So this is a wooden cork. Actually, i believe it's a synthetic cork, but it has this wooden ring around it, and they have this whole process where they buy leather scraps, top them up into these little one-inch rounds, and then they have this wood ring that fits onto the cap to kind of hold the leather in there.
00:36:00
Speaker
So every time you buy a bottle of this, you're getting a unique piece of leather, Mine happens to look like it's a fancy cowboy holster or something. It's beautiful. I love that everyone is unique.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah, so you're always going to get a unique one, which I think is a really, really interesting touch. um And it makes me want to, like, next time I'm in a liquor store, just dig through and see if they have one that's cooler than the rest.
00:36:26
Speaker
Because I feel like there could be some cool ones. I just grabbed this one. I didn't even notice it when I was buying it, that they were different. But it's super cool. So check them out. I'm going to take a couple sips, see what I think of this TX Whiskey with this blood medicine, while you talk about your second pairing of the night.
00:36:44
Speaker
Tell us about it. I have to preface. I have to really, I think I didn't i didn't do a good job of prefacing exactly what was happening. ah So because of the chaos last couple of days, things were busy. I had some some friends were staying and and and visiting. and Actually, Steve Ludington, who is a huge fan of our show as well, is a good friend.
00:37:04
Speaker
he stayed for a couple of days. And so he and I smoked cigars and drank beers and whatever was around. We drank so much. I really wanted to, for tonight's show, I wanted to stick to pairings that were sort of evocative of of that weekend of just casual booze. This isn't fancy stuff. You know, I had a couple of really nice special booze.
00:37:25
Speaker
I thought that was leading up to we drank all the booze in my house, so I'm just drinking whatever I can find at this point. but No, well, I have, you know, all the scotch. tell you what, all the scotch is gone.
00:37:38
Speaker
um every every Every Glenn Morangy special like annual release that I had, the Tokyo's gone, the Tale of the Forest is gone, the McAllen is gone. that was my fault. Man, you were busy.
00:37:53
Speaker
We were very, very busy men. lot of discussing and a lot of smoking. lot tobacco was sacrificed. Hell yeah. The gods. um But we spent a lot of time at places that I really enjoy. And in one of the places that I spend a lot of time at, I just, it's kind of a dive bar, tiki bar place, but they don't have anything fancy.
00:38:12
Speaker
But I can sit there and i can smoke a cigar and I can bring my laptop and and just do my thing. And I lately, for whatever reason, but lately saying the last six months, have really gotten into Miller High Life.
00:38:25
Speaker
Really? That sounds weird. I don't know. But let me crack open this can. I'm definitely a little surprised. um I'll drink a Miller High Life, but I've never like... It's never been a ah beer that I've been tempted to buy.
00:38:40
Speaker
ah I used to go to a barbershop where... you would come in and you sit like as while you're waiting, they have somebody who gives you a Miller high life, which is dope.
00:38:51
Speaker
Like, Oh, I've been to shops like that. Yeah. Usually have yaor shop Brooklyn. Um, but there was one, their whole there, all they had was Miller high life. Uh, you would, you know, check in and then while you're waiting, they get you a Miller high life. They'll get you another one while you're getting your haircut.
00:39:07
Speaker
Um, Those are nice shops. I've been to a couple like that. If I'm at a bar that doesn't have a good selection or I just... I mean, was going to say you ever feel like, but I know you feel like sometimes because you've been doing it.
00:39:21
Speaker
Like when you're at a bar and you're just like, I just want a shitty beer. I don't want an IPA or fruited sour. Put effort into it. I just want a ah beer beer. um Miller High Life fits in that situation.
00:39:33
Speaker
Or if I'm... Of course, Banquet. Or Coors Banquet. I have friends who used to drink Miller High Life a lot. I'll drink it in that situation. But it's never I've never like bought a six-pack of it in my whole life.
00:39:48
Speaker
I don't know what it man. Now I started keeping it on hand if I'm doing some sort of a task outside. It's like you know people talk about having their their yard cigars. It's a yard beer. are that That you don't particularly care about. you can smoke something because you want to smoke something.
00:40:06
Speaker
Similarly, I would have a rack of Miller High Life specifically, not light, and or Coors Banquet. And it's just like, yeah, I don't have to. If I let it sit and I forget about it and gets shitty, I don't feel bad about dumping it.
00:40:21
Speaker
Yeah. And for some reason, I've gotten this taste for it. so I mean, that being said, there is a little something special about Miller High Life. I don't know if it's still their tagline, is it?
00:40:33
Speaker
The champagne of beers? ah No, I think they got rid of that because of, um oh, I should have thought about this, actually. Yeah, they got rid of that recently.
00:40:43
Speaker
Okay. They're not allowed to call it the champagne of beers anymore for some some strange reason, but they were introduced in 1903. The curiosity that I can get a hold of is it was founded in 1855 by Frederick Miller, who was a German immigrant.
00:41:01
Speaker
and so Between 1855 and 1903, when the beer actually finally hit and of the the shelves, if you will, the pubs, I wonder what happened. I wonder what what all was going on. so Maybe it was just a trying to source ingredients. and This is one of the only beers that I know of. Isn't that like 50 years?
00:41:20
Speaker
Didn't you say 1855 and 1903? eighteen fifty five and yeah nineteen know three that's a yeah It's it's a lot of time. It sounds more like it was a small homebrewing kind of operation He was making beer for his friends and family.
00:41:34
Speaker
He had taught his son how to make it, and they were making it. And then he taught his son how to make and he was like, you know what? I could make a lot of money doing this. it's It's possible. Again, also, maybe it was just so like he he put in he put in the registration tip officially in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
00:41:50
Speaker
He put the registration in for that beer and was making it and didn't really get to fruition until many, many years later. Potentially. Yeah.
Miller High Life Discussion
00:42:00
Speaker
Anyway, so 1903, which is pretty wild to think about, they are one of the only beers that I know that actually admits to using corn syrup.
00:42:10
Speaker
Really? They use corn syrup, man. They use corn syrup, malt, hops, yeast, obviously, water, obviously. I didn't realize they were the only one that would admit it.
00:42:20
Speaker
That's interesting. The only one that I've seen so far, I'm sure others do it, you know, just by taste. You can say, well, this kind of comparatively speaking, and it's got that light body to it, that quick but quick fermentation.
00:42:32
Speaker
um And again, because of that effervescence is one of the reasons why it became the champagne of beers. That was their slogan. They were one of the first breweries to release a clear bottles. One of three at the time.
00:42:44
Speaker
Wow. Which is crazy. At the time, everyone was making dark bottles because, again, dark bottles protect from the sunlight. degradation of of the the hop character. You don't get that skunkiness.
00:42:56
Speaker
But they started ultra-pasteurizing, or don't want say ultra. It's not ultra-pasteurizing. They found a technique to pasteurize the beer in a way that would allow them to sell it in ah clear bottles.
00:43:08
Speaker
Without it getting worse. Which is different now, very different than what Corona does with their clear bottles, because they put a a preservative Oh, really? Who else is a clear bottle? Landshark.
00:43:23
Speaker
they use They use preservatives today. Oh, I never knew that. always assumed that they were using clear bottles just for aesthetic purposes, and who cares if the beer is not as good as it would be in a brown bottle?
00:43:37
Speaker
Well, potentially you would get some of that Hershey effect. I'm want to call i'm going to tag this officially now. We're going to call it the Hershey effect. and Where bad things happen, but they make it taste the way it's supposed to taste. but Yeah, but they they kind of make it the way you expect you want it to taste.
00:43:53
Speaker
um And so today, they are now owned by Molson Coors beverage company. um So that was the merger of Coors and Miller back in 2008.
00:44:05
Speaker
Which is crazy because they operate internationally. So these beers are getting out to people all around the world and people are actually drinking them. So imagine somebody in Germany that has access to really great local beers that goes, man, I'm going to have a high life because the American culture, it's there's ah there's a niche to it that's like it's exciting.
00:44:25
Speaker
Um... And they survived prohibition to their credit. They were one of the very few breweries that survived. but Whiskey aside, spirits aside, there was a different demographic at the time.
00:44:36
Speaker
They were able to get away in um in many ways by surviving in pharmacies. um During prohibition, you can get alcohol. You can go to your pharmacist and get whiskey for your toothache. And it was good whiskey, usually.
00:44:51
Speaker
um Beer, not so much. majority of breweries, they they just shut down. They couldn't survive. words braid They couldn't sell alcohol, technically. so So what they did in their case is they sold other malt-based products. So they would sell things like oh malt syrups and concentrates and things that were used for other... Think of like your molasses.
00:45:11
Speaker
Interesting. Interesting. And they made it through, man, which is much their credit good for them. They made it through. ah You know, the branding was always meant to be very classy and, and again, champagne of beers.
00:45:23
Speaker
The effervescence, I suspect, comes a lot from that corn syrup. It really jacks it up. Yeah, you're very likely right. As much as it is, I think they're adding the corn syrup at the very end.
00:45:34
Speaker
I don't know that they're using it. It wouldn't make sense necessarily to use it for the for the body of the beer. Yeah. i it's one of those It's one of those beers. so i My point is I've had many with cigars.
00:45:47
Speaker
It's not a great pairing, but in the moment when you're at some shitty dive bar and you have a cigar and you have a high life, it's kind of special.
00:45:59
Speaker
Nice.
00:46:01
Speaker
Alright, so the TX blended whiskey. I'm going to tell you about how my pairings are going. Um... It's working really well with this cigar. like This whiskey has a...
00:46:13
Speaker
um It's very sweet whiskey. um it's not It doesn't have that syrupy-ness, but it does have kind of the... What's the flavor note I'm thinking of?
00:46:28
Speaker
Caramel.
00:46:31
Speaker
Maybe a little bit of maple syrup. Maybe a little bit of... The toffee thing? Yeah, maybe kind of a toffee flavor. Candy. Candy, I guess, is kind of what I'm thinking. it's it's It's ah got a little bit of that kind of hard candy sweetness to it.
00:46:46
Speaker
um But with a really nice spice on the back end. um I think this is a really solid whiskey that's actually working remarkably well with the kind of ah super Habano-y flavors in this cigar.
00:47:01
Speaker
that That spice, that very light earth... um Man, light earth is the right term for it. It reminds me of like that light-colored dirt. You know? Sandy kind of dirt.
00:47:14
Speaker
The earthiness. Interesting. Okay. I know exactly what you mean. ah
00:47:22
Speaker
There was another thing I was going to say. ah Oh, cedery. this This cigar definitely has a good amount of cedariness kind of to it. um Man, it's it's just working really well with this TX Blended Whiskey. How's your...
00:47:38
Speaker
Actually, hold on. Sam Finnell, quick breaking update. He says, Siri says that Miller High Life still uses Champagne of Beers.
00:47:51
Speaker
don't know. Yeah, I just saw that I responded. The Millennium Falcon of Beers is fantastic.
00:48:03
Speaker
My man. It's fine. I think it's good. And I think when we talk about pairings, it's very easy to get lost in the sauce of, oh, man, I need to pair. I need to find something really nice to pair with this cigar that I care about.
00:48:15
Speaker
Sometimes the pairings are not meant to be very. we talk We have that show that we've done multiple times now is is a low-falutin show. Yeah. You can pair things that are not necessarily refined in a particular way.
00:48:27
Speaker
that maybe you haven't thought about pairing, but they work because, again, you are you have some bubbles. You get the bubbles on your palate. You have a little bit of scrubbing. and You have a little bit of ah something else for the cigar flavor to sit on top of.
00:48:41
Speaker
Something like a Miller or a Coors, not a whole lot of flavor. right They're pretty light beers, pretty kind of easy drinking beers, but they provide maybe, and I think this is kind of like holding your when you coat your pan with oil before you cook,
00:48:54
Speaker
you're allowing the thing that you're putting in, which is the cigar, the flavors of the cigar, to exist and stay there and not fade out and get right and and you kind of get lost in the sauce, if you will.
00:49:07
Speaker
Man, that's ah that's a good way to say that. I think. I i don't know, but that's kind of the way. No, that makes sense to me. and i've And I've tried both, the same cigar with or without that one pairing. And for whatever reason, that thing coats your tongue and gives you the ability to kind of hold on to some of those cigar flavors. And so for this, man,
00:49:29
Speaker
it's the spice. I keep chasing the spice. I'm burning it way too fast. I'm smoking way too fast. It does have a really nice, like that that black pepper spice yeah man is really nice on this cigar.
00:49:40
Speaker
um Just like like I said at the beginning, classic Habano flavor.
00:49:49
Speaker
All right, you ready for me to move on? I want to know, actually, you tell me before we go on, what how do you feel about the cigar at this point? I love this cigar. ah Like I said, classic Habano, like this is right up my alley with just the the right flavors in a Habano.
00:50:08
Speaker
um It's got, it's very medium bodied, but it's got that black pepper spice. It reminds me of a lot. ah the The style of this cigar, I think probably on purpose reminds me a lot of Don Pepin cigars where it's got that intense kind of black pepper that really sticks to your palate.
00:50:25
Speaker
Really got that spice, including the retrohale that like that punchy retrohale. I'm into this cigar, man.
00:50:36
Speaker
What about you?
00:50:41
Speaker
I like it very much, but also I'm struggling not with the cigar, but I'm struggling with myself because i there's a flavor that I can't pull out. It's that baking spice, but there's something more to it.
00:50:52
Speaker
So you mentioned that newspaper equality to it, and That part is sticking for me on the palate after the fact for, you know, a couple of draws later. That may be smoking it a little fast.
00:51:04
Speaker
Because I notice on Connecticut Wrapped Cigars, if I smoke them too fast, that that newspaper, burning newspaper bitter-y kind of flavor oh this is i really sticks out This is the better version of that. this is oh like okay Oh, crap, this sucks because it's burning like newspaper. This is more of what there's a...
00:51:25
Speaker
i but the English word, I don't know. There's an English word for it. There always is. There's a flavor that I'm really enjoying that's papery. Okay, papery like the skin of an almond.
00:51:37
Speaker
It's got that. Yeah, I think that's, to me, that's Connecticut because that's a flavor I usually get from Connecticut.
00:51:50
Speaker
I think my cigar has accidentally revealed the draw test mark. you see that? Oh, interesting. There's like a little crack and I can see the binder and it's like black under there.
00:52:03
Speaker
Is that not from your snaggle tooth? I don't think so. Maybe I got a dead tooth and i didn't know about Dying the cigar. ah But I'm assuming that's a Sharpie mark.
00:52:15
Speaker
i'll I'll dig it out at the end of the show when I'm done with the cigar. Sharpie mark. What? A Sharpie mark. Yes. For anyone who thinks that's weird, it's very common in cigar factories ah to have a draw tester.
00:52:30
Speaker
ah There's a name for it, but I can't remember what it is. Like draw master. Yeah, draw master. Yeah, draw master. Big one. you You bunch the cigars. Once the cigars are bunched, before the wrapper goes on, usually before the... ah before they go into the mold but sometimes after they go in the mold um they stick it in the draw tester it kind of forms a vacuum and it checks to see how much air can be pulled through the cigar um a long
00:53:01
Speaker
maybe eight years ago, ten years ago, they there were three factories, probably, that had them in each country. um These days, they're very, very, very common, um which is why we see less draw issues, I think, than we used to.
00:53:15
Speaker
um But a lot of times, they will draw a line on the Sharpie near the head of the cigar if it passes draw testing, which is why I think that's a Sharpie mark. um Yeah, it's very possible.
00:53:29
Speaker
Good catch. i'm just I'm just curious now if that's what it is or if it's just blackness under there. Anyway, um I'm going move on to my last pairing and stop pondering about the Sharpie mark that may or may not be there until I'm ready to dig it out and find it.
00:53:45
Speaker
um ah got a good one. A blast. High West Campfire. ah Look at that beautiful bottle. I love Campfire. That is my go-to for High West. I love it.
00:53:57
Speaker
High West is is just a great distillery, I think. They've gotten a lot bigger than they were years ago, um but I think they're still putting out fantastic whiskeys um they were founded they were the first licensed distillery in utah since prohibition um pretty much i mean it's it's crazy to think that come on camera it's crazy to think that uh come on man there we go it's crazy to think that uh for like 70 years
00:54:31
Speaker
Utah didn't have a single distillery, but that's kind of how ah the mid the middle of the 19th century was. Until the distilling wasn't really ah thing that you would do um because there was not very much demand for distilled products.
00:54:49
Speaker
no like what whiskey was selling scotch was selling ah you know gin and vodka were definitely selling in the 80s and 90s but nobody was starting brands very much because there wasn't a demand for small small batch you know uh craft made products in that segment yeah well certainly not in utah at the time yeah ah Definitely.
00:55:14
Speaker
So in 2006 in Park City, Utah, a former biochemist named David Perkins ah did ah a tour of a whiskey company um in Kentucky with his wife. They were on vacation and he was like, yeah, I'll go on a tour of this place. That seems cool.
00:55:31
Speaker
And walking around, he was like, man, this is exactly what I do at work. This just like biochemistry. it's just different. Yeah. So with that, he decided, I'm going to start a distillery, and he did.
00:55:44
Speaker
ah And ever since then, they've been making great whiskeys. They've, I mean, for pretty much the whole 20 years, they've been using these hand, what they call hand-blown bottles from Mexico.
00:56:01
Speaker
They're beautiful bottles. They're just such nice bottles, and it's crazy that for $40, you can get a whiskey in a bottle that nice. And you can't really see on camera the bubbles that are in in the glass of the bottle.
00:56:13
Speaker
Yeah, they use almost like carbonated glass because it's got all these tiny little micro bubbles that just give it a texture that you don't usually see in a bottle, which is great. um And, you know, hearkening back to the name, the imagery, like, this looks like a bottle you would find in a saloon in Westworld or some shit, right?
00:56:36
Speaker
Like, It just looks like the bottle that you would see. love those bottles so much. We have one of our Infinity bottles. So they make a one and a half liter size bottle for their bourbon.
00:56:50
Speaker
and And my neighbor now, we have an Infinity bottle but that we use. that That's the bottle that we use for our Infinity bottle, which is awesome. Nice. It's nice to pick up. but they They look great.
00:57:02
Speaker
old-timey, to your point, the saloon thing. and And I think there's still, to this day, there's still the only um ski and distillery in yeah Utah. Which is very nice.
00:57:14
Speaker
Very cool, yeah. You could ski right up, get a glass of Campfire, and ski right out of there. Which is awesome. Alright, so at some point, I couldn't find what year this happened.
00:57:26
Speaker
But at some point before Campfire was a thing, David and his wife were on vacation in Scotland. ah They visited the Brook Lottie distillery and they kind of did this experience where they, I don't know who it was they were staying with, but they stayed with some, with a woman in like a little cottage and she would make meals for them and stuff like that, which sounds, it sounds like ah a very small bed and breakfast, like a one room bed and breakfast kind of place, kind of place you see in movies, but I've never, I favorite i don't know anyone who's actually been to.
00:58:01
Speaker
but I've been... Have you to a place like that? That's neat. In Nantucket, an old bed and breakfast by a very, very old lady that I felt bad. I was like, man, you don't need to bring that. Just leave that there. oh I'll go get my own food. Thank you.
00:58:17
Speaker
Actually, I'm a liar. I just realized when I got married, my my cousins, the ones that I've talked about them on here, they come to visit us down here per Easter usually.
00:58:31
Speaker
um But for my wedding, they stayed in like a big house in Oregon. Like ah it was it was like a log cabin kind of place, but they did have, it was a woman's home and she would make breakfast, lunch and dinner if you were there and snacks and stuff. So I remember we were sitting out drinking whiskey and smoking cigars and she like cut up a bunch of strawberries and dip some of them in chocolate and stuff like that.
00:58:54
Speaker
was neat.
00:58:58
Speaker
ah Anyway, he was in a place like that. ah near the Bacolati Distillery. And his hosts, they were, after after dinner, you know, having a glass of whiskey, relaxing.
00:59:10
Speaker
The hosts simmered an entire bottle of heated whiskey down with sugar and created, like, this this sweet, peaty, scotchy syrup and poured it over honeydew melons.
00:59:25
Speaker
Oh. Which, I don't even like melons, and that sounds amazing. And that kind of gave him the idea, like, I could do something about this.
00:59:36
Speaker
Like, i could I could do something with that same idea, but with whiskey. um So he came up with the idea of coming up with a blend of rye and bourbon, or rye, bourbon, and scotch.
00:59:48
Speaker
um So this is an MGP distilled rye and bourbon blended with an undisclosed blended malt, heated scotch. I love when they do that, though. I hated it in the at the beginning, but I kind of love the mystery of, well, let me think about what Scotch this could be. It's it's kind of a fun game.
01:00:06
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, the easy assumption is Broglatti, right? like Based on the story, potentially, but I know they've built relationships with other distilleries yeah over the years. So it it could be a handful, maybe one of four or five.
01:00:19
Speaker
Easy. Yeah, definitely. um And yeah, I do. it is It does add like a little air of mystery where when I'm drinking this, I'm always like, is it more like Laphroaig or more like Ardbeg?
01:00:34
Speaker
Is more like Braglati or more like Lagavulin? And I'm trying to like decide what it could be. Braglati is the easy answer though, because I mean, legally you're not allowed to say what's scotch because when you mix When you're doing a blend, scotch forbids yeah any kind of ah revelation about where it's coming from, if it's a blended malt.
01:01:01
Speaker
Yeah. so um I guess Brooklottie, but it could be any of the Isla distilleries. Yeah, potentially.
01:01:11
Speaker
ah Chris Healy says, so what's the flavor of High West whiskey? Tastes like peat or just smoky? Sadly, not available in Canada. That's a bummer. um oh I'll let you know. I'm going take a couple sips, and I will let you know what it tastes like.
01:01:25
Speaker
Go ahead, Dennis, and then tell us about your last pair. Chris, i'll I'll reach out to you. We'll talk. If you need to get your hands on some some some the good stuff. You'd love it. it's ah So I would say the peatiness is not my own experience with it. And this was ah this was a whiskey that a friend of mine would come over and you bring a bottle.
01:01:44
Speaker
And between the two of us, we drink through the whole bottle and just sit all night and hang out. And it was always my go-to. And it was always very affordable. It used to be about $38 a bottle. Now you're looking at, if you're lucky to find it on the East Coast, it's about $69, $70. Yeah, paid about $70 for this one.
01:02:01
Speaker
yeah i think i paid about seventy bucks for this but so That's about right for the price. um It's not cheap, but it's not crazy. like It's in that kind of like ah premium mid-range, I would say. Well, at 38 bucks, it was a steal.
High West Campfire Whiskey Review
01:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But whiskey has changed a lot since then. mean, think of how much much does it cost to go for you to go to the grocery store now? I bet the answer is way too much.
01:02:31
Speaker
It's crazy. ah But that's the way the world is going right Well, with kids, especially with kids now, right? It's different... my God. Dude, one time, this was... ah It was actually for Easter. I mentioned my family that visited for my wedding. They were visiting this Easter.
01:02:48
Speaker
And my wife and put together a shopping trip to go, like get all of the the meal supplies and stuff like that that we needed. We went over the item limit of the Walmart register.
01:03:04
Speaker
What do mean item limit? There's an item limit. We bought so much shit that i he register said you can't scan any more items. You need to do a separate transaction.
01:03:17
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, it was crazy.
01:03:21
Speaker
That's still... ah Well, that was probably close to the most expensive shopping trip, but it it it's close to what we spend like you know in a couple weeks these days, which is crazy.
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, listen that's it adds up cost so Everything's gone up. Beer has gone up. um Even cheaper beers. even you know I had the the Miller High Life. Even that's more expensive.
01:03:45
Speaker
Unless you go to a a local dive bar like mine and they charge you know only $3 for a can instead of $7 anywhere else. You go to the city, it's about $7 a can.
01:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's crazy. PBR is $8. But if you if you make it 10, you get a PBR on a shot, right? And that's like that's how they get Yeah, that's how they get you. Which, whatever. Enough complaining about the economy.
01:04:11
Speaker
Let me get into my last my last beer. that This is going to be really divisive. I will say this. I can't wait. I'm not a fan of this beer. I don't i don't really enjoy this beer. I...
01:04:23
Speaker
Don't buy it. are you testing Are you testing for science right now? Is that what's about to happen? This is all for science because this is beer that that I happen to have because of the, you know, hanging out with people and I ordered i' not order i bought a couple of different beers.
01:04:38
Speaker
And I do not go to a bar and buy this ever. You will never see me drinking this beer. It's like we talk about cigars. This one is not for me. But let's talk about it. Let's get into a man. nineteen Sorry, 1896. Here we go. Oh. Michelob Ultra. So Michelob Ultra is not from 1896, but in 1896, Michelob was introduced um by Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company.
01:05:07
Speaker
This is pre-InBev days, right? This is like the early, early Anheuser-Busch. This was a draft-only lager. They were a baby conglomerate at the time. They were very much baby conglomerate, absolutely.
01:05:20
Speaker
um Adolphus Busch is one of the founders of Anheuser-Busch. He named this, interestingly enough, he named this after a ah ah town in the Czech Republic, which is Miejalupe.
01:05:31
Speaker
Miejalupe is is like a very small town, and for whatever reason he named it that, because I guess he wanted it to have a traditional like strong... right like When you name your child a strong whatever name, it was kind of like that, I guess.
01:05:47
Speaker
um But as we know today, ownership is a little bit different. So Michelob is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Basically, the largest, i dare I say, I think they are the largest, right? The largest conglomerate, truly a conglomerate that that has been eating up everything that they can possibly find. I mean, certainly the largest conglomerate in the beer industry.
01:06:08
Speaker
and the Well, yes, in the beer industry specifically. We're talking about beer, yes. They have over 500 beer brands, which is incredible to even fathom. Yeah, that's crazy, man.
01:06:20
Speaker
I had never thought about that. oh my God, that's so many brands. It's a ton of brands. And again, you know it's ah it's a very ah kind of liquid portfolio where they you see brands show up and then disappear and they kind of throw them back in the water after they're done.
01:06:35
Speaker
doing what i I have opinions. I'm going to keep them to myself about AB and Bev. I mean, you don't need to. we're We're not sponsored by them or anything. No, we're not, but hey, imagine if we were. Fair enough.
01:06:49
Speaker
So, basically, after almost 60 years of being only draft, they finally bottled for the first time 1961.
01:06:56
Speaker
And once it was bottled, that's when it really took off because up until that point, it was kind of like you had to go to your pub. you You really you didn't have access to those beers in towns that had just the one store and the one bar and the bar couldn't afford took to pay for the tap.
01:07:10
Speaker
to have an extra tap of that beer, they didn't have that beer. It wasn't until the stores finally were able to get bottles that people were really getting their hands on this stuff. And back in 2002, around that time, they had a resurgence of this whole beer has to be healthy. we have I mean, it it was 2002 would have been like the height of the Atkins craze.
01:07:34
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. 100% height of the Atkins craze. Everything's got to be low carb. yeah And I'm watching my sugar alcohols and shit like that. yeah the the the The university I went to in in Brooklyn founded that the first light beer was produced there. with The first low-calorie beer.
01:07:53
Speaker
Wow. So what we call light, like now it's kind of light with with quotes, but it's the local the first low-calorie beer was developed there. um And so they came up with Michelob Ultra, which gave people a chance to have a lower-calorie, lower-carb option you can still...
01:08:11
Speaker
they At the time, they marketed it as a healthier option. it's still It's not particularly healthier, I don't think. Sure as shit, it gives me awful headaches. just I mean, it's it's got, like, the the selling point of it when it first came out was that it had less calories than any other beer and less carbs.
01:08:29
Speaker
Yes. It had less ah unfermented sugars. That was basically the point. Yeah, it it, you know, that's part of it. And the other thing for them, maybe a ah thing that I appreciate and kind of I can respect is they they were one of the first truly large breweries to focus on sustainability.
01:08:50
Speaker
So wow practices in producing that beer, there are one of a handful, there were only probably five or six at the time that even cared about doing that. They were one of them, which is, you kind of cool.
01:09:03
Speaker
You can sort of appreciate that, I guess. That being said, anyway, another beer, I think that it's one of those, like if you have a cigar and somebody invites you to a party, you bring your own cigars. But whatever beer is available, it's at their mercy.
01:09:17
Speaker
you're You're at their mercy. So chances are you're going to pick up a Landshark. Maybe if you're lucky, you get a Yingling or something else. Generally, you're going to drinking Budweiser, Coors, Michelob.
01:09:28
Speaker
One of the lights. Yeah, PBR potentially to some degree. So it's, I think, in an exercise of exploring the possibilities, what happens if you bring a really great cigar to a party that only has these kinds of things to drink?
01:09:46
Speaker
What do you do? What's approachable? How do we approach those things? Because I can tell you, Budweiser, I wouldn't go with a Budweiser for a cigar. Certainly not not this cigar. Because I think the Budweiser flavor would take away from, it would adulter the flavors of the cigar.
01:10:01
Speaker
Dude, I think I'm trying to remember. i think the last time i had a like the the classic, you know, just a Budweiser, not a Bud Light or a one of the other offshoots.
01:10:18
Speaker
I think the last time I had a proper Budweiser, i was probably 16 years old. Wow. Because I remember I drank a couple sips out of a can at my friend's house that we stole from his dad.
01:10:31
Speaker
And it was like, I hate it. I don't, I never want to drink that stuff again. And for a long time, I didn't drink any beer. Uh, and, uh, I mean, obviously now I love beer, but, uh, I haven't gone back to Budweiser a single time since. Maybe I should revisit it someday, but maybe not.
01:10:50
Speaker
Maybe. You're not missing in a whole lot. I think my opinion, when i and I drank a lot of Budweiser over the years for very different reasons. Mostly I'm just curious if it tastes as bad as I remember. Yeah, well, it might. I think of it as bubblegum and rice.
01:11:05
Speaker
Like the flavor the flavor of like classic bubblegum, like the really like classic pink bubblegum. Double bubble. like Well, double bubble is giving it too much credit. i'm thinking like Bazooka Joe. With rice. Oh, okay.
01:11:16
Speaker
Like that Bazooka Joe that you got on Halloween. was way too hard. That's from maybe two years ago that's like you bite it and it shatters. yeah Or actually, actually, this might be better. This might be better. Not Bazooka Joe.
01:11:31
Speaker
The gum that came in a pack of baseball cards. Oh, yeah. Where it was like a piece of glass. You would bite that thing and it would just shatter into a billion pieces like safety glass.
01:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, I remember that. Awful stuff.
01:11:48
Speaker
Are done telling us about Michelob?
Michelob Ultra and Drinking Culture
01:11:51
Speaker
Yeah, you know, we can get into it, but I think I want to leave out the AB InBev part of it. We can leave that for a separate show and we can really dive into the dirt because there's much dirt for AB InBev. I've been secretly collecting.
01:12:05
Speaker
Dare I say, you know, I don't want to get Boeinged here, but I've got some dirt on those cats. We're talk about another episode. Nice. I love it. How's your final pairing going for you?
01:12:17
Speaker
Oh, it's great. Um, all right. So high West campfire, um, somebody was asking, was it Chris? Yeah. Asking about the flavor. Um, it's definitely Petey. It's not, uh, I mean, it's as you would expect, it's nowhere near as Petey as like a Laphroaig, a Lagavulin, Ardbeg.
01:12:34
Speaker
Um, but it has hints of those flavors. Um, The core of this of the flavor of this, I think, is really the rye. You get a lot of that, like, that rye spice, baking spice, chai kind of flavors.
01:12:48
Speaker
um And then you get the sweetness of the bourbon. um Those, like I talked about before, vanilla, caramel, those kind of flavors.
01:13:01
Speaker
And then yeah it finishes with a
01:13:07
Speaker
Not a hint. I mean, it's not a hint of peat, but it's a it finishes with kind of a ah layer of peat coating your tongue, like that peat and the salt is there.
01:13:19
Speaker
um But ah it's it's more subdued than it is in most of the peated scotches out there. um And I think it's really well balanced with the rye and the bourbon.
01:13:34
Speaker
If you hate peat, this might not be for you. If you've never had a peated whiskey that you liked, but you're open to them, this might be right up your alley.
01:13:47
Speaker
I think if you, especially if you drink higher proof bourbons in general, I think there's a, there's a pathway to experiencing this where you might find something you like. That's my, that's another part of it. I think is, is, is outside of the peat part.
01:14:01
Speaker
Yeah, I don't... It's a little bit higher proof. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't remember if I noted that it's 92 proof. um So it's a little little higher little on the higher side, but not too crazy.
01:14:14
Speaker
Yeah. I love it, man. That's that's that's my favorite. my go-to from High West. Man, it's fantastic. I hadn't had a bottle of it in years, and I saw it on the shelf, and I was like, yeah, I got to get that. And I'm so happy I did. I love this whiskey.
01:14:27
Speaker
I think it works really well with... um It works like especially well, I think, with this cigar because this cigar is kind of medium bodied. I think the last time I paired it was with something a little stronger.
01:14:38
Speaker
um So I didn't get as much of the Pete. But I'm really I'm really liking it with this cigar. The Pete just works really well with with kind of the medium bodied notes of the cigar.
01:14:51
Speaker
Man, this cigar is looking rough Yeah, me too. mine is Mine is cracking and falling apart. i so Like I said, I assume that's my fault for smashing it up a little bit because my humidor is kind of overstuffed right now and in the area where I keep these.
01:15:07
Speaker
um So <unk>t I don't think badly on the cigar because the first time in three of them or something that I've had problems like this. um This might be my first.
01:15:19
Speaker
I can't remember if i this is my second one or my first one of the cigar that I've had. I would guess your first one. I can't remember if I sent you one or two, though. I had i had a couple.
01:15:30
Speaker
I've had a couple in my humidor, and I don't remember if I gave them away or if i smoked them.
01:15:40
Speaker
right, I'm going to go back through my pairings here. um How's your Michelob working with it? I assume not great, but I'm curious to hear. Oh. It's not great. This is one of those situations where the company really brings life to whatever it is that you've got in your hand.
01:15:56
Speaker
right It's the it's the what you're doing, who you're with, what you're smoking that makes the experience really great. And so from a pairing standpoint, from my own palate, I would say very low. It's very, very low on the scale of, will I try this again?
01:16:11
Speaker
Probably if I have to, if I'm in that situation where there's nothing else, sure.
01:16:18
Speaker
But I can't... How many of them are still in your house? Uh... About 12. Okay. So we'll be seeing this come back. Well, i got i got people I got people that like this stuff that I can give to, so it's okay.
01:16:34
Speaker
Man, for my pairings, the Sephora Black, I'm still liking a I see what you mean by the Steel Reserve thing. Like, that sweetness really... just a bite to it i think that um yeah yeah it's got like that intense sweetness and then a little bit of bite on the finish for the sapporo black once it's warmed up to room temperature a little bit um that's a not as good it's not bad but it's not as good as it was cold i think this is a better a better cold beer uh which you know that's that's how beer works right like the flavor changes
01:17:07
Speaker
That's why most, not most, a lot of beers have a suggested serving temperature range. Because the flavor is different at different temperatures. I, dare I say, spending spending so much time in my younger years,
01:17:26
Speaker
in these like really shitty, seedy, basement-converted Japanese, just-like-skewered barbecue joints, where the beer was ice cold when you got it I get it.
01:17:39
Speaker
They serve you that beer because it's ice cold, because once it gets into your mouth and shocks your palate and kind of numbs it out a little bit, then you can not notice the fact that, you know, those intestine skewers that you got, got a little funk to them. You're not going to taste it as much or the hearts or the livers or the gizzards or whatever you're eating. And, in you know, when you're out with friends and you're drinking, those places are great because it's all seasoned and savory. And you really don't care if you're chewing on a gizzard.
01:18:05
Speaker
And the beer washes down nicely. So I get it. For like certain such situations, it's really great. Dude, I love an izakaya, man. like that yeah That kind of place you're talking about is my... Dark and smoky because there's no ventilation and they're they're working on charcoal or wood fire. Yeah, they're charcoal roasting those skewers.
01:18:24
Speaker
That's great. And it's super loud and you can't talk to anybody at the table. and Oh, by the way, the chairs are chairs from a kindergarten. Those are my favorites. That's what every drunk person needs at the end of a night from a you know year the ah the night of drinking in concert and cigar smoking. And you go sit down with those little kindergarten chairs and up you know like get some liver in you, get some heart in you.
01:18:48
Speaker
All right. I revealed it It is, in fact, the Sharpie mark. Yes, sir. wow You got the the golden ticket there. Yeah. Cool. Alright, so my pairing of the night, I don't think to be any surprise after I've been waxing on about it.
01:19:03
Speaker
ah It's High West Campfire. Hell yeah, dude. like the Like we talked about the Sapporo, I poured a little more from the can and it's better cold. um And like you said, like pretty much all Japanese beer is made to be served ice cold.
01:19:19
Speaker
That's just the way it's designed. um It's still good. It works really well with this cigar. but the high West just works perfectly. The TX blended, um, is a great bourbon.
01:19:34
Speaker
I don't think it's even technically a bourbon. I think it's just a blended whiskey bourbon style whiskey. Um, but it just pales in comparison. Like when I drink it next to the high West, the high West, like the, the combination of those three different whiskeys, um, works together so well and just has so much, so it's such a layered flavor.
01:19:54
Speaker
uh that the the tx blind dude can't stand up to it what about you what's your pairing of the night um oh boy this is hard i'm gonna get slaughtered for this probably um so the guinness i'm gonna pick the guinness I say slaughtered because originally my brain went to high life because when I'm drinking something, I don't care and I just need a beer in my hand and I'm busy doing other things. The high life is my go-to.
01:20:26
Speaker
Certainly my local dive bar that I am a regular at, that It's always the high life. I don't think about anything. They have other options and I can get a nicer beer, but generally it's high life. So it's become ah in a weird way of like kind of a big part of my non connoisseur sort of sometimes you want to get a beer. You want to sit on a curb.
01:20:47
Speaker
and And you want to just drink something you
Guinness and Cigar Reflections
01:20:51
Speaker
don't have to think about. But the Guinness, I think the Guinness phone is fantastic. And I'm excited to see where it goes once it's fully carved, once it has a proper nitro pour, and then revisit it with a cigar. Because I think um it's really evocative of what classic Guinness that has that fullness to it. But also it is a drinkable, a very easy to drink beer.
01:21:14
Speaker
I would always recommend Guinness, certainly, especially the the nitro cans. If you can find a nitro can, get that. I mean, I think they're all nitro cans now. Are they all nitro now? um Did they convert? Because I remember there was a time when you had to really look for those cans. Yeah, I believe now all of them are nitro cans and all the bottles are nitro bottles other than ah the export.
01:21:36
Speaker
Like the the Guinness Classic, I think, I don't think you can get it carbonated anywhere, at least not in the U.S., Because if you get it on tap, it's nitro. And if you get it in a can or a bottle, it's nitro.
01:21:50
Speaker
I don't know if they still make the bottles. The bottles had those rocket ship style widgets, which were always neat. haven't seen one of those in a while. I'm sure they make it somewhere for some other markets. I haven't seen it in in my area in Jersey, at least. Yeah, I see the like, I don't think there's 16 ounce, but the 16 ish ounce cans.
01:22:08
Speaker
um yeah That's what I usually see Guinness in. um And those are dump cans, by the way. so why like Those are dump cans. so yeah many Many people will get those cans and they only do that the 45 degree pour and the gentle pour and then they go, well, this sucks.
01:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, you got to slam that bitch. like Just hammer that stuff out as fast as you can into a glass. Crack it super hard and just flip it over and that's it. That's all you got to do. You don't have do anything so Crack it and flip it over.
01:22:37
Speaker
um It does the rest and it's amazing. Yeah, it's like, man, the technology of Guinness is so cool. Well, the future is now, they say. Exactly. What do you think of this cigar?
01:22:50
Speaker
Any final thoughts on blood medicine? Oh, dare I say, I really like the cigar and I would love to see this blend in ah in a smaller Vitola. So not by much. I think that could be really good. I think the original ones were somewhat smaller, like a four and a half by 50 or something like that.
01:23:11
Speaker
I don't remember what they were. I almost want to to 48 territory with this. Just my own kind of palate and curiosity, I think it could do really well, and some of those spicy qualities might really pop more.
01:23:23
Speaker
The original version was a 5.5 by 48. No shit. All right, here we go. um I do think it's pretty likely that we'll see this cigar coming back. I do hope that they do...
01:23:37
Speaker
what uh crown heads has done this quite a bit so i think that it's not outside of the realm of possibility that next year we'll see another version of this cigar in a new size um hopefully something closer to that 48 46 i think that could be really good for this cigar uh yeah i'm i'm a fan of the cigar it's got i've broken record i'm always a broken record on these shows man i just keep saying the same shit uh classic habano flavors um this is not reinventing what a habano is it's not giving you i smoked romacraft aquitaine the other day it's not giving you that super intense habano this is just a nice middle of the road very elegant kind of habano experience which i really like
01:24:29
Speaker
I'm a fan as well. I've always been a fan. And that's where I really started when I first started smoking cigars. That that was where I loved being that that space and that tobacco. And it's nice to see that that's becoming kind of, well, hopefully it's more of a norm.
01:24:44
Speaker
I know it's been experimented with and there are other really cool variations, but yeah, man, Class Cabano has got something special for a lot of us. Agreed. All right. I guess that brings us to the
Entertainment Recommendations
01:24:55
Speaker
end. It's time for One for the Road.
01:24:57
Speaker
uh dennis you want me to take the take the first one here yes sir all right uh i got a lot of options one that would be easy to pick but i haven't finished watching it so i'm not gonna pick it is the new grand tour special uh are you familiar with the grand tour dennis the grip the grand tour the grand tour of the uh so the grand tour is the continuation of top gear from the uk oh yes okay yeah i forgot the name of it this week actually last week rather i think it was on friday they released the final episode of the grand tour which was their their show after jeremy got in trouble for punching a producer for saying some something to him um
01:25:45
Speaker
They got canned at BBC and they got hired by Amazon and they've now released their final episode. And it's called One for the Road, which I thought was really appropriate, but I haven't finished watching it, so I can't recommend it yet. So what I'm going to recommend is something a little different.
01:26:03
Speaker
It's a video game. ah Star Wars Outlaws. Uh, so this is, it's for like available for all the platforms, you know, PC, Xbox, PlayStation, whatever you got.
01:26:16
Speaker
Um, dude, this game has gotten mediocre reviews all over the place, but it is so good. Like, It is the, you basically, you're this girl with a little adorable lizard puppy thing that follows you around and helps you.
01:26:33
Speaker
You can like, if a dude has a key card you need, you can send him over there to steal it, which super cool. But the main thing that's so cool about this is that it feels like you're in Star Wars. Like you're flying around, you're meeting seedy characters and they're going, you know, I need you to go, so steal this thing from this guy. And then you get there and you steal the thing from the guy and somebody is there to steal it from him, so he tries to steal it from you, and you got double-cross the people you made the agreement with in the first place, and it's like, in every mission in this game, at the end, you have the option of screwing over the people that hired you and and giving the intel or whatever the MacGuffin is to somebody else, and then, like, constantly in the game, you you know you finish this mission, and then it turns out the person that hired you was expecting you to get killed,
01:27:25
Speaker
so that they could take the treasure, so they try to kill you at the end, and you have to, you know, kill them or whatever. Sounds intense, man. It's just very, like, it's very scoundrelly.
01:27:36
Speaker
Like, I've never played a Star Wars video game where you got to actually be a scoundrel. It feels like you're always, like, a Jedi being good or choosing between good and evil, and in this one, you're just kind of like... Or a space drug dealer, like Han Solo.
01:27:50
Speaker
ah No, this one, you're, like, basically Han Solo. Like you're flying around the galaxy in your ship, just taking jobs and doing what you can to make a little money and get in good with these, these street gangs. Like there's all these different factions that you have to like, if you, if you do this mission, it'll fuck with this faction. So you have to do another mission for that faction to make them happy because they won't let you into their area anymore. Cause they're so mad at you.
01:28:19
Speaker
um It's just super cool. If you've got PC or Xbox, I think you can get it on ah ah whatever Ubisoft's thing is so you don't have to buy the whole game. You just pay the subscription until you finish it.
01:28:31
Speaker
um If you have a PlayStation 5, you gotta buy it. Sorry. But it's it's good. I really enjoy it and it really is like... It's the most immersive Star Wars video game I think I've ever played where I like feel like I'm actually howling around in the world screwing people over, stealing stuff.
01:28:49
Speaker
It's awesome. all right, what's your one for the Red? Oh, boy. i There's an album that's very special to me that I always go back to throughout the year.
01:29:01
Speaker
Every time, if I need if i need a like a cozy, I call it cozy. It's really heavy metal music, but it's cozy. If I need some comfort music that I really dig and I want to put in the background, it always makes me happy.
01:29:14
Speaker
Iron Maiden's Power Slave. if you're familiar with this. September 3rd, 1984 is when it was first released. It's their fifth studio album. and Man, everything about that that album is is super cool. I love the Egyptian influence, which is exciting. and eddie Egyptian Eddie is a pharaoh coming out, kicking it on stage.
01:29:37
Speaker
The artwork is really cool. Every song in that album, i really it at the time, I don't know if they've done this before after that, but at the time, That was the only album that they produced exclusively of just band members contributing to the making of the of the music. so Really? The writing of the songs, it was just the band members and nobody else.
01:29:57
Speaker
They didn't call on anybody else to help and and produce or do anything didn't use any songwriters or anything like that. Yeah, from the creative part of it. which is really cool. There was also the first use of synths in, uh, at least for maiden.
01:30:11
Speaker
That's when they started playing with since there was a call, a song called the dualists. They use synth. I made a new synth. Um, they just had a lot of cool stuff. and there was one song that was really long. It was, uh, what was the song that was really long?
01:30:26
Speaker
Oh, rhyme of the ancient mar Mariner. It was like 14 minute long song. Wow. I didn't, I didn't realize that song was 14 minutes. Holy shit. It's not only long, but they also have a section of the rhyme of the ancient Marin in the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which was awesome. The spoken word, like in the middle of the song stops and just spoken word of the poem, which I thought was, you know, in high school, that's like, that's badass, man. That's cool. That's pretty cool.
01:30:56
Speaker
So yeah, I've been listening to a lot of power slave. I love man. So if you haven't listened to it, go out. If you if you love Iron Maiden, go back and revisit Power Slave. There is a song, I think, for everybody on that album.
01:31:10
Speaker
Nice. ah Sam Finnell, as always, if you're watching live, we we implore you to tell tell us about your one for the bruds, so I can shout them out. Sam Finnell has been listening to M-Cubed, which I don't know what that is, but I'm going to check it out like I always do when you recommend something. going to check out after, too. And he's been re-watching Band of Brothers.
01:31:30
Speaker
Love that show. I started rewatching it a couple months ago and and just moved on to something else after the first episode. But I should i should finish watching that because I've been meaning to watch The Pacific.
01:31:42
Speaker
And I watched that when it first came out, but I haven't seen it at all since. And I feel like both of those deserve a rewatch. ah So I got to go back to those. I've been watching a lot of TV lately, man. I got a lot of One for the Roads queued up in my my hopper up here.
01:31:58
Speaker
Alright, everybody. Watching lot of brisket videos. but How do you cook a brisket? How do you trim a brisket? What's the best way to do it? It's very complicated, huh? For anybody wondering, my first brisket went very well, I think. i was So I was told.
01:32:12
Speaker
or and i think that's shocking. my My first brisket was awful. And my last brisket was also awful. um Like, it was the...
01:32:24
Speaker
the ah I smoked it overnight. So I started it at like midnight, I think. And then I took it out at noon or something like that. So was like a 12 hour or whatever.
01:32:36
Speaker
Maybe I took it out at two and it was a 14 hour smoke or something like that. um And it was dry as hell. Like I had to chop it up into little cubes to make it edible. And I was like, I don't know what happened. It doesn't seem like the grill overheated.
01:32:50
Speaker
It just cooked twice as fast as it should have. Brisket is scary because of the investment you have to make financially. right Dude, right? A brisket's like 60 bucks now. Crazy.
01:33:00
Speaker
Easy 60 bucks. Yeah. Well, for a small brisket. Yeah. yeah ah A full-size brisket is like 80, 90 bucks. Something like that. It's too much. But you do get 10 meals out of it.
01:33:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. ah Which is good. And it's so delicious. I love a brisket. almost 14 pound brisket in less than 12 hours is basically, well, twenty now 24 hours is almost gone.
01:33:29
Speaker
There's a fistful left of meat. I guess the good sign.
01:33:35
Speaker
That does happen.
01:33:38
Speaker
uh oh chris healy says watching mayor of kingstown but now he wants to watch band of brothers uh i wanted to watch mayor of kingstown but i haven't given it a shot yet uh it's on my list yeah it's it's on my list of things to eventually check out the other thing i've been watching which i haven't again haven't finished yet i usually try to recommend stuff i've finished but dude i've been watching uh gangs of london oh yeah It's on Netflix now. there was For a long time, there wasn't really a place to watch it. So this is a TV show directed by Gareth Evans. He's the guy who, if you've ever seen The Raid, ah which is an incredible, wow incredible Indonesian movie.
01:34:23
Speaker
um This is the guy that made The Raid, making vaguely... ah a vaguely ah What's the guy's name?
01:34:33
Speaker
Guy that did Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. I can't remember his name right now. don't remember either. But whatever his name is. God, it's going to drive me crazy. to have to look it up after the show. But anyway, it's like watching a British crime movie, but with Gareth Evans doing the directing and the action scene. So it's got all these, like, crazy, crazy fights.
01:34:57
Speaker
And it's really cool and really brutal. irish Guy Ritchie. That's the guy. Man, I can't believe I called him the guy and couldn't remember his name. The guy. why where the guy Yes, Guy Ritchie.
01:35:10
Speaker
It's like watching a Guy Ritchie made movie made by Gareth Evans, and it's it's really good. So that's a bonus one for the road for you guys. ah And it's on Netflix. I love recommending stuff that's on Netflix because Netflix is the one thing that almost everybody has.
01:35:25
Speaker
no i Actually, i didn't actually i watched something. I completely forgot because the middle of the night and I watched Axel F. oh Did you? Was it any good? ah It was fun. If you like the first three films, if you like those movies, there's some fun stuff to it. I think it's not their best.
01:35:46
Speaker
But for a super fan, if you're a super fan, you'll be happy. but Otherwise you go, my this movie's okay. I'll check it out at some point. i'll ah It'll be one of those movies I put on while I'm doing work.
01:35:58
Speaker
While I'm working here on my laptop. I'll just put it on in the background and enjoy it as I can. Alright guys. This was a long episode. We went a little bit long, but I don't mind that.
01:36:14
Speaker
My wife has probably texted me or something right now. But I'm just going forget about that for the moment. Yeah, my wife, Lagavulin. ah My wife as well. on My wife is Lagavulin. My wife is also waiting for me.
01:36:30
Speaker
ah All right, guys. but We will get out of here. Thank you, everybody, for hanging out with us. It's been an absolute pleasure. ah i Check out the blood medicine if you can find it, man. Yeah, man. Really solid cigar.
01:36:44
Speaker
Also check out Sapporo Black High West Campfire. And if you can get your hands on it, Dennis's homemade Guinness. Come on down.
01:36:55
Speaker
My door is always open. All right, Thank you, everybody, for watching. We appreciate you guys out there watching, listening, subscribing, liking, commenting, or ah watching watching in the future, watching the replay.
01:37:08
Speaker
Hopefully not watch while driving, but you can listen while driving, so please do that. Shout out to Ed Ryan. I know he watches while driving. Hell yeah. All right, guys. Everybody have a great evening and a great week. We will be back with you next week. There was a cigar that I picked that I was like, we're going to smoke that next week.
01:37:26
Speaker
Oh, I remembered what it was. The Stolen Throne, Brook of the Crown, five-year anniversary. ah It's the the original blend of the Crook of the Crown in a Corona.
01:37:38
Speaker
We're going to be checking that thing out. ah So I'm excited. Tune in for that next week. Dennis, before we get out of here, hit him with the catchphrase. Thanks everybody for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.