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Episode 26 - My Father Fonseca MX
4 Plays11 months ago
In this episode, the boys smoke the Mexican San Andres-wrapped Fonseca, the Edition MX!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Cigar Selection
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to Let's Get Pairing, this is episode 26.
00:00:05
Speaker
We are smoking, in contrast to what I apparently told Dennis last week, because we had picked a cigar.
00:00:10
Speaker
I forgot what cigar it was, and I thought it was this one in my mind.
00:00:14
Speaker
It wasn't, but we're smoking this one anyway, and we'll be back with the Mildias Limited Edition next week.
00:00:21
Speaker
This is the My Father Fonseca Edicion MX.
00:00:26
Speaker
uh we'll get into it we'll talk about all the details where it came from what it smokes like and of course what it pairs with but for now grab yourself a cigar grab yourself a drink let's get parents
00:00:51
Speaker
And we're back.
00:00:52
Speaker
Welcome back.
00:00:53
Speaker
Episode 26.
00:00:54
Speaker
Let's get pairing.
00:00:55
Speaker
I'm your host, Tripp.
00:00:56
Speaker
Here in the Casa de Monte Cristo studio, as always.
00:00:59
Speaker
Thank you to Casa de Monte Cristo.
00:01:01
Speaker
Check out your nearest one.
00:01:02
Speaker
They've got a billion locations.
00:01:04
Speaker
Actually, I think it's about 30.
00:01:07
Speaker
Great shops.
00:01:08
Speaker
This is the Fonseca Edition MX, which we'll talk about in
Studio Setup and Fonseca Brand History
00:01:12
Speaker
just a minute.
00:01:12
Speaker
But for now, Dennis, how are you doing this evening?
00:01:15
Speaker
You seem jazzed.
00:01:16
Speaker
You seem like you got that good energy.
00:01:18
Speaker
I like it.
00:01:19
Speaker
I'm so jazzed.
00:01:19
Speaker
Well, I also forgot to turn my light on.
00:01:21
Speaker
So I was like secretly trying to get this light figured out.
00:01:26
Speaker
I've run out of names for my pseudo studio.
00:01:29
Speaker
My pseudo studio as well.
00:01:34
Speaker
But the cave of, what do we call it?
00:01:37
Speaker
Cave of Temperance, I think is the right way to call it.
00:01:39
Speaker
Cave of Temperance.
00:01:41
Speaker
God damn, I thought I was ready to go and I sat in this room for a couple hours every day for this entire week to work out of and damn near almost died from whatever toxins are in this room.
00:01:54
Speaker
Maybe we call it the I'm trying to think of a name, the Dank Dungeon of Disinfectant.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, well now I'm coughing up the mold spray that I used
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:12
Speaker
The Dank Dungeon of Mold Disinfectant.
00:02:15
Speaker
I like it.
00:02:16
Speaker
I think it's fun.
00:02:16
Speaker
Could be a good name or an album name.
00:02:20
Speaker
For now.
00:02:21
Speaker
I'm going to let you light up the cigar while I talk about it a little bit.
00:02:24
Speaker
So Fonseca, some people may or may not know.
00:02:28
Speaker
I feel like a lot of people don't know Fonseca is a Cuban heritage brand.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:32
Speaker
You can still get Cuban Fonseca's.
00:02:33
Speaker
They're still out there.
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:36
Speaker
But it's never been kind of one of those brands on the Cuban side that's gotten a whole lot of recognition.
00:02:42
Speaker
I'm surprised.
00:02:43
Speaker
On the non-Cuban side, I couldn't get much information about them, but I think it's because it's the cigar business and...
00:02:54
Speaker
Records don't go back that far.
00:02:55
Speaker
People's memories do.
00:02:56
Speaker
I'm sure if I interviewed certain people, I could get the information.
00:02:59
Speaker
But around 1974, the Quesada family started producing Ponseca for another family that was Miami-based and owned the trademark.
00:03:11
Speaker
So Ponseca was made by Quesada for about 20 years before somewhere around 1998, they purchased the rights
00:03:24
Speaker
for the name in the 90s.
Fonseca Edicion MX Cigar Details
00:03:27
Speaker
So since the 90s, Monseca has been owned by Quesada.
00:03:31
Speaker
In 2019, the way that I read the story is that Yanni Garcia was on some kind of trip traveling with, crap, I can't remember her name, Manolo's daughter.
00:03:48
Speaker
I can't remember her name off the top of my head and I didn't put it in my notes because I wasn't going to go into the story but essentially they were on this trip Yanni came up with the idea and negotiated the sale of the Fonseca brand to my father so my father bought it in 2019 and
00:04:04
Speaker
um in 2020 they came out with the new version that was kind of a revamped very my father looking this is i mean you can see the band it's very my father style um much more fancy and elegant than the the old Fonseca's which i thought were really good cigars i really enjoyed Fonseca's for a long time um
00:04:23
Speaker
And they released a Nicaraguan puro with the name Fonseca using a Corojo wrapper.
00:04:29
Speaker
All the tobaccos were grown by the Garcia family, which is, you know, of course, a big deal to a family that started with a tiny cigar factory and is now making cigars entirely out of their own tobacco.
00:04:42
Speaker
For this version, which just launched this year at the trade show, this is the Mexican San Andreas version.
00:04:48
Speaker
They call it the Edition MX.
00:04:51
Speaker
It's weird because in some of the press releases and stuff, it says, you know, Addison with a C. On the band, it just says Edition MX in English.
00:05:03
Speaker
So this very likely keeps the same blend, though both...
00:05:09
Speaker
Fonseca's from my father are undisclosed binder and filler.
00:05:13
Speaker
They just say it's Nicaraguan from the Garcia family farms.
00:05:18
Speaker
And of course, this one, they swap out that wrapper for a Mexican San Andreas.
00:05:22
Speaker
We are smoking the Toro Grande, which is six and a half by 56.
00:05:26
Speaker
This is a big, big boy cigar.
00:05:30
Speaker
Big old slobber knocker.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, slobber knocker.
00:05:32
Speaker
That's the word.
00:05:34
Speaker
Clocks in at about 13 bucks.
00:05:37
Speaker
Which isn't too crazy.
00:05:38
Speaker
I think that's pretty average these days as far as price goes.
00:05:43
Speaker
What are your thoughts on the cigar at this point now that you've got it going?
00:05:47
Speaker
All of the things that I love.
00:05:49
Speaker
All of the flavors that I love of San Andreas.
00:05:52
Speaker
the and we often talk about this is that i know you're a big fan as well so that earthy richness there's a certain richness to it that's distinctly like you can pull this apart from a lot of other tobacco especially rapid but you can pull this out that that spice is also when we talk about the spice it's not a i usually don't get a black pepper spice from it i i end up getting a red pepper spice from it i i completely agree
00:06:17
Speaker
It's a very subtle difference to some people, but there's noticeable punch that's different to it that I really, really love.
00:06:26
Speaker
Now, again, I mentioned Slobberknocker.
00:06:27
Speaker
This is basically the limit of what I would be willing to pick up and smoke.
00:06:31
Speaker
This is a big boy.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:34
Speaker
When I was buying these, it was between this size, the Robusta, which I think is 5.5 by 50, or the Gordo.
00:06:42
Speaker
I picked this over the Gordo.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair.
00:06:45
Speaker
As I will pretty much every time.
00:06:47
Speaker
I would have done something.
00:06:48
Speaker
I do think it's smoking well.
00:06:50
Speaker
Like you said, it starts off with that kind of signature My Father's Super Spicy pepper blast.
00:06:56
Speaker
But in this case, you're right.
00:06:57
Speaker
It's red pepper more so than black pepper.
Wine and Drink Discussions
00:07:01
Speaker
It has that dusty, earthy, chocolatey San Andres thing going on, which I'm really liking.
00:07:08
Speaker
I'm curious if it's going to work with my parents because it may or may not.
00:07:12
Speaker
And that dust is almost tannic in the sense that the way it sits on your panel, it kind of dries out your palate.
00:07:18
Speaker
I don't want to say that it's drying, but it sort of has a similar quality to it.
00:07:22
Speaker
I agree.
00:07:23
Speaker
You know, speaking of Tannock, I went to a... When we bought this house, our realtor gave us gift cards for this winery, Cooper's Hawk Winery and restaurant.
00:07:36
Speaker
And so we went there for dinner last night and we had a flight.
00:07:40
Speaker
We actually ordered two flights to kind of share on the table.
00:07:46
Speaker
Between eight wines, like one of them I thought was any good at all.
00:07:52
Speaker
which was kind of sad.
00:07:54
Speaker
Not every wine can be Pete's super secret once a year release wine.
00:07:59
Speaker
I mean, that's true.
00:08:00
Speaker
I did end up, I mean, it was a gift card, so, you know, it wasn't my money, but I ordered a bottle of the most expensive wine on the menu, which weirdly at a winery, the most expensive bottle they had was 70 bucks, which doesn't seem like a lot, but I don't drink a lot of wine at restaurants.
00:08:15
Speaker
I'm just used to seeing like, you know, 125, 150, $200 bottles of wine on the wine list.
00:08:21
Speaker
I don't know.
00:08:23
Speaker
This is one of those moments where we should have kept Tony Bellotto on the line.
00:08:26
Speaker
Phone a friend, question, get a wine question, let's call him up.
00:08:30
Speaker
What's the deal with these wine prices?
00:08:32
Speaker
Because from what I hear, once you hit about a buck fifty, it's kind of diminishing return.
00:08:37
Speaker
Similar to what we talk about bourbons.
00:08:38
Speaker
Bourbons over fifty bucks are like, yeah, at that point you're buying because you're collecting or you're looking for something specific.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:08:48
Speaker
wow uh good evening sam finnell thanks for watching uh he says he's drinking a gin and fever tree and smoking an itc emerald uh that gets the thumbs up man fever tree is the stuff how it comes to gin and tonic um i gotta know what gin you're drinking though so let us know in the comments and we'll get back to that in a couple minutes um for now i guess it's time to start pairing on our side huh damn skippy
00:09:14
Speaker
All right, I'm going to start with one that people have been watching for more than a couple weeks will recognize at least.
00:09:20
Speaker
Maybe not familiar, but you've had this on the show before.
00:09:23
Speaker
This is Mango Cart from Golden Road Brewing.
00:09:25
Speaker
I'm not going to go too deep into it because you know more about them than I do.
00:09:30
Speaker
But it was founded by Meg Gill and Tony Yano in 2011 in Los Angeles.
00:09:35
Speaker
It was kind of immediately upon opening the biggest...
00:09:39
Speaker
brewery in Los Angeles.
00:09:43
Speaker
I saw a lot of chatter about how they think they were kind of engineered to sell, which they vehemently disagree with.
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:53
Speaker
And just kind of say, you know, we were just investing what we had and doing the best we could.
00:09:58
Speaker
And it got on somebody's radar, I guess.
00:10:01
Speaker
They were, of course, purchased by AB InBev in 2015.
00:10:04
Speaker
Meg Gill still leads Golden Road.
00:10:08
Speaker
while Yano walked away and is now kind of involved in a group of restaurant investors in LA.
00:10:15
Speaker
They're still the largest brewery in LA.
00:10:18
Speaker
I thought it was interesting that just kind of reading a little bit of background on Meg Gill,
00:10:23
Speaker
There was I read an article that I thought was really interesting where the author has an autistic daughter and talk to Megan found out she has an autistic daughter, too.
00:10:33
Speaker
I happen to also have an autistic daughter.
00:10:36
Speaker
And, you know, I just thought that was kind of interesting.
00:10:39
Speaker
um and how they they kind of bonded over that which i thought was cool um what i'm drinking tonight of course you know it pretty well dennis is mango cart uh this is their mango wheat ale uh it's only i didn't realize it's only four four percent abv which is like very nothing scale right yeah like crushable reasonable
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:05
Speaker
Like, you could drink 10 of these, maybe.
00:11:08
Speaker
I might have to experiment with that and get back to you.
00:11:11
Speaker
You got enough of them, for sure.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:11:13
Speaker
I was telling Dennis in the green room, I mean, I wasn't on the hunt for this beer, but it just caught my eye in the grocery store, and they were buy one, get one free 12 packs, which is crazy.
00:11:25
Speaker
Distributor must be blowing them out or something, but, you know, that was reason enough to buy a couple.
00:11:32
Speaker
So I'm going to take a couple sips of this and find out what your first pairing tonight is.
Mango Cart and Mezcal Pairings
00:11:37
Speaker
Let me pull up my, there's my site.
00:11:39
Speaker
I got a side view camera site so I can properly see what's going on now.
00:11:45
Speaker
Well, I'll give you a guess.
00:11:46
Speaker
You want to take a quick guess if I just show you?
00:11:49
Speaker
What do you think that could possibly be?
00:11:53
Speaker
I mean, there are many things that could possibly be.
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:57
Speaker
But I know you pretty well.
00:11:58
Speaker
I would say that could be maybe mezcal, tequila, gin, but I think it's probably Soviet liqueur.
00:12:05
Speaker
We're so close.
00:12:06
Speaker
So close.
00:12:09
Speaker
No, it's a mezcal, man.
00:12:11
Speaker
I should have known.
00:12:12
Speaker
That was my first guess, and I thought it was probably one of those Soviet liquors.
00:12:18
Speaker
It's, you know what, it's close.
00:12:20
Speaker
Usually I have some.
00:12:21
Speaker
Rob Goodhart has the right idea.
00:12:22
Speaker
He said some sort of Eastern European liquor.
00:12:25
Speaker
That was his answer, too.
00:12:27
Speaker
It can be, right, usually.
00:12:31
Speaker
Check this out, man.
00:12:32
Speaker
It's a really cool bottle.
00:12:33
Speaker
Malbien, it is legit.
00:12:36
Speaker
If you can see that official sticker, legit mezcal from Mexico.
00:12:45
Speaker
And this one is really, this whole brand is really cool and exciting because if you look at the bottle, it's hard to tell on the camera, but that's just masking.
00:12:53
Speaker
That's literally, it's not even just a pretty thing.
00:12:55
Speaker
I was wondering if it was cut that way.
00:12:58
Speaker
It's like masking tape or what?
00:13:00
Speaker
Um,
00:13:02
Speaker
is literally... But it's just actual masking tape that they're printing on?
00:13:06
Speaker
It's just legit masking tape that they printed.
00:13:10
Speaker
So they had... I guess they took a roll, stretched it out, printed a bunch of stuff, and then...
00:13:17
Speaker
and then just stuck it on the bottle.
00:13:19
Speaker
So this is a really cool homage to the way that families would share mezcals with each other, even tequilas really, but would share mezcals with each other at family parties, at like group gatherings for the neighborhood.
00:13:31
Speaker
If someone's grandma made a mezcal, they'd sort of put it into a random bottle, put some tape on it, scribble, this is whatever I'm making from the mezcalero.
00:13:41
Speaker
And yeah, these guys, man, are particularly, particularly cool because they launched in 2015 with the idea that they would start taking these really authentic, very local, almost just family name mezcals that really are not official, even official distilleries.
00:14:00
Speaker
Some of them are just families that were making stuff at home that these guys found and said, hey, do you want to, if we help you with getting the gear, do you want to
00:14:09
Speaker
start making some go legit yeah like do you want to go legit and then we can take your stuff and we can you know they they opened up distribution to share that with uh people in the u.s and people outside of mexico that don't really have a chance to unless you go there and you visit and you go to oaxaca you can sit there and travel the mezcal trail unless you can do that it's a great way to experience mezcal kind of uh you know from from the seat of uh comfort of your home that sounds like my kind of hike mezcal trail
00:14:40
Speaker
There's a whole train that goes all throughout Oaxaca and other regions in Mexico that cover mezcal, tequila, all the states, which I always forget.
00:14:49
Speaker
I can never remember the however many states.
00:14:52
Speaker
I think it was five or six states.
00:14:54
Speaker
I believe it's six, but my memory is as bad as yours.
00:14:57
Speaker
Unless I have it in my notes, I'll probably forget.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah, there's some interesting stuff out there.
00:15:03
Speaker
And again, I mentioned traditional stuff.
00:15:06
Speaker
Another reason why it's traditional is because they still use the old school stone mills, the Tohonas.
00:15:13
Speaker
It's this giant thing that's pulled by a horse.
00:15:18
Speaker
And it crushes all the pinions.
00:15:20
Speaker
It's really fantastic.
00:15:22
Speaker
I think I've seen pictures of that.
00:15:24
Speaker
It's a big stone wheel that they pull around in a circle.
00:15:28
Speaker
Those are cool.
00:15:29
Speaker
Exactly, man.
00:15:30
Speaker
And I should have mentioned that for those of you that don't know, there is a distinction between mezcal and tequila.
00:15:38
Speaker
Tequila is made exclusively from blue agave.
00:15:40
Speaker
Mezcal can be made from a bunch of different agaves.
00:15:42
Speaker
In this case, this is megey.
00:15:45
Speaker
And megey is the most popular, the most widely used type of agave for mezcal, pretty much.
00:15:53
Speaker
I should have mentioned also...
00:15:56
Speaker
They did scribble with a little bit of marker, 45.5%.
00:15:59
Speaker
And this particular family comes from Lucio Morales Lopez.
00:16:04
Speaker
And Lucio passed away back in 2021, I believe.
00:16:07
Speaker
But his son, Oscar, is continuing the tradition, which is really cool.
00:16:12
Speaker
That's very cool, I think.
00:16:15
Speaker
You know, packaging up mezcal from a family distillery and, you know, putting it on the big screen.
00:16:21
Speaker
Well, I think it works really well.
00:16:23
Speaker
You know, we're so used to, it's almost kind of cheap when you say, oh, like Uncle Bob came to Christmas and brought his like hooch, whatever it is that he makes from Everclear and crappy juice from the store.
00:16:37
Speaker
But for these people, and much like in the cigar industry, this is a pride, this is a tradition.
00:16:44
Speaker
This is a part of their family that they share with others willingly and happily.
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:16:50
Speaker
I got to hunt some of that down.
00:16:51
Speaker
That sounds like a very cool Mezcal brand to get into.
00:16:56
Speaker
About $38 a bottle if you see it in the shops.
00:16:59
Speaker
Definitely worth it for a Mezcal.
00:17:00
Speaker
Not terrible.
00:17:02
Speaker
No, not at all.
00:17:04
Speaker
All right.
00:17:04
Speaker
I'm going to let you sample that.
00:17:05
Speaker
I'll talk about mango cart a little bit.
00:17:08
Speaker
Um, man, this beer just has such a good balance.
00:17:11
Speaker
Um, it's like light and refreshing Hefeweizen with the sweetness of them.
00:17:17
Speaker
I don't know, mango juice, mango, whatever they're using in there.
00:17:20
Speaker
Um, but it just, it just kind of has a nice balance, very easy drinking.
00:17:25
Speaker
Um, the sweetness I think makes it pair pretty well with a cigar, which I think you had talked about previously.
00:17:31
Speaker
Um,
00:17:34
Speaker
I think it just works surprisingly well.
00:17:36
Speaker
It's got kind of a dual use as it works as like a palate cleanser at the same time that it's actually working well as a pairing.
00:17:44
Speaker
It's kind of different.
00:17:45
Speaker
It is very nice, man.
00:17:48
Speaker
I think I was surprised by how well that beer worked with a lot of different cigars.
00:17:53
Speaker
This is my first time having it with cigar.
00:17:56
Speaker
It really just kind of, I don't know, it brings out like kind of some bready notes, I guess, in the cigar a little bit.
00:18:03
Speaker
Maybe really just more earthiness.
00:18:08
Speaker
But it's working really well with the cigar.
00:18:11
Speaker
Similarly, I should say, I did forget to mention also, this is Espadini.
00:18:19
Speaker
There it is.
00:18:20
Speaker
Espadin meaning it goes straight from the still into the bottle.
00:18:25
Speaker
Oh, is that what that means?
00:18:26
Speaker
I never knew that.
00:18:27
Speaker
There was no... Well, sorry.
00:18:30
Speaker
No, that's not what it means.
00:18:31
Speaker
It's Hoven is what it means.
00:18:34
Speaker
Young.
00:18:35
Speaker
Hoven goes directly from Espadin is the... Ah, okay.
00:18:40
Speaker
My bad.
00:18:42
Speaker
Because I got lost thinking about all the different states.
00:18:46
Speaker
I get it.
00:18:47
Speaker
I get it, man.
00:18:48
Speaker
How's it pairing with the cigar?
00:18:51
Speaker
It's wild.
00:18:52
Speaker
This is what I love about Mazzucola.
00:18:54
Speaker
Sometimes you can drink it and you get pure smoke.
00:18:56
Speaker
Other times when you have a cigar with it, you would think, oh, the smoke is going to fight the smoke.
00:19:00
Speaker
We talk about scotch is a great example.
00:19:03
Speaker
Heavily peated scotches will, depending on the cigar, they can overpower the cigar.
00:19:08
Speaker
And in this case, man, I really think it's working incredibly well.
00:19:14
Speaker
A lot of citrus,
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to ask, is it kind of more on the fruity side or more on the earthy side or more on the smoky side?
00:19:22
Speaker
Because that's kind of like the different camps that mezcals tend to fit in for me.
00:19:26
Speaker
I'll tell you what, it smells like beef jerky.
00:19:27
Speaker
It tastes like dried orange peel.
00:19:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:34
Speaker
And it finishes kind of salty.
00:19:37
Speaker
It has the minerality to it that we talk about sometimes that coats the palate.
00:19:41
Speaker
And I think it's actually pulling out the minerality from the cigar.
00:19:45
Speaker
Interesting.
00:19:46
Speaker
At first, I didn't know if you were messing with me, but that does sound like a real nice mezcal.
00:19:52
Speaker
No, I was... I try not to get too crazy with my descriptions, but again, it's hard when you say, oh, I get salt from this thing.
00:20:00
Speaker
You're crazy because there's no salt in it.
00:20:03
Speaker
Agreed.
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:03
Speaker
But it's evocative.
00:20:04
Speaker
It feels crazy to talk about.
00:20:06
Speaker
It's evocative of salt.
00:20:07
Speaker
I'm not saying literally there's salt in this.
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:10
Speaker
I know what you mean.
00:20:11
Speaker
Well, I know.
00:20:12
Speaker
But, you know, some people out there
00:20:14
Speaker
All right, I'm going to move on to my next pairing.
00:20:18
Speaker
This one is something special.
Cascade Brewing and Creek Beer
00:20:21
Speaker
This is Creek from Cascade Brewing.
00:20:23
Speaker
This is a 2016 vintage.
00:20:26
Speaker
It's wet because I stuck it in the freezer for an hour because I...
00:20:30
Speaker
Just thought about pairing it kind of at the last minute.
00:20:33
Speaker
But the reason I wanted to pair it is because earlier this week, Cascade Brewing closed their doors, which I'll get to after I talk about a little bit of history.
00:20:43
Speaker
So they were founded by Art... Man, did I not put his name?
00:20:49
Speaker
I'm blanking on his name now.
00:20:51
Speaker
I've been reading his name for hours.
00:20:53
Speaker
Art the Clown?
00:20:55
Speaker
What?
00:20:56
Speaker
Is it Art the Clown?
00:20:58
Speaker
Yes, Art the Clown.
00:20:59
Speaker
That's the one.
00:21:02
Speaker
Man, I lost his name.
00:21:04
Speaker
Art something.
00:21:05
Speaker
Art.
00:21:07
Speaker
Artisanal.
00:21:09
Speaker
Art... Larence.
00:21:12
Speaker
Larence, that's his name.
00:21:13
Speaker
Sorry, everybody.
00:21:14
Speaker
Art Larence.
00:21:16
Speaker
Art had previously founded Portland Brewing Company in 1986.
00:21:20
Speaker
They became known for McTarnahan's Ale eventually, which is kind of gone these days.
00:21:29
Speaker
Um...
00:21:30
Speaker
But in 1986, he founded that brewing company.
00:21:33
Speaker
There were three other breweries in Portland that had been founded in the preceding couple of years.
00:21:41
Speaker
And all four of them got together and worked to lobby...
00:21:45
Speaker
for, uh, laws to allow brew pubs to serve the beer they make there.
00:21:50
Speaker
Uh, it worked.
00:21:51
Speaker
They passed those laws in, I think, 1987, uh, which really kind of set the stage for where Portland ended up these days as, uh, you know, especially 10 years ago as, like, the beer capital of the U.S. Um, there's still tons of breweries there.
00:22:07
Speaker
COVID hurt a little bit, and I think just the general, uh, the general downturn of the beer market, uh,
00:22:16
Speaker
a little bit has contributed to a lot of breweries closing over the last few years.
00:22:21
Speaker
Anyway, in 1988, Art Lawrence founded the Oregon Brewers Festival, which has gone on to become one of the biggest beer festivals in the country, especially in the Northwest.
00:22:32
Speaker
In 1996, he was reportedly, he says he was fired from Portland Brewing Company because he was the voice of dissent.
00:22:41
Speaker
Whenever they wanted to change things and grow, he wanted to focus on doing weird stuff.
00:22:48
Speaker
So in 1996, he founded a place called the Raccoon Lodge in Beaverton, Oregon, which is just west of the city.
00:22:56
Speaker
And incorporated Cascade Brewing for the first time at the same time, but didn't really do anything with it.
00:23:01
Speaker
So he was making beers at this little pub.
00:23:04
Speaker
He hired a guy named Ron Gansberg, who became the head brewer at Cascade and a partner,
00:23:12
Speaker
Around 1998-ish, they started barrel-aging sour beers and using the name Cascade Brewing for these.
00:23:20
Speaker
Kind of over the next 10 years is when they really went from experimenting with this to turning it into this is what we're going to do.
00:23:28
Speaker
Around 2006, they opened a brewery called Cascade Brewing.
00:23:35
Speaker
And that's when it really kicked things off.
00:23:38
Speaker
By 2008, they had their flagship beers, including Creek, which is this one, and Apricot.
00:23:44
Speaker
They kind of became known for hating Britannomyces and using only ever lactobacillus for their sour fermentations.
00:23:54
Speaker
In 2010, they opened a dedicated sour brewery in Portland, in southeast Portland, which is on the other side of the river from where their other facilities had been.
00:24:04
Speaker
And so this was the first place in the country where they brewed, barrel-aged, and served pretty much exclusively sour beers.
00:24:11
Speaker
Anything they made that was not sour was being made at one of their other locations.
00:24:18
Speaker
2019 is kind of when turmoil started.
00:24:21
Speaker
Art apparently fired Ron, but no reason has ever been given.
00:24:26
Speaker
In 2020, Cascade Brewing was sold to a group of investors who also had stakes in other local breweries.
00:24:34
Speaker
But that... And that... I'll get to that.
00:24:40
Speaker
Nobody knows exactly what's going on with that deal or what happened.
00:24:44
Speaker
In 2020... Sorry, in May of this year,
00:24:47
Speaker
Art passed away suddenly just about a month ago.
00:24:52
Speaker
And suddenly the details of that purchase got a lot more clear and also confusing.
00:25:00
Speaker
So apparently they had a phased purchase plan where essentially they would inject cash into the business and Art would give them pieces of ownership.
00:25:13
Speaker
Unfortunately, he died while he was still a majority shareholder.
00:25:18
Speaker
That ownership went into a trust with his family that his daughter is managing.
00:25:22
Speaker
Apparently, she had no idea he still had anything to do with the brewery.
00:25:26
Speaker
She thought he had just given it up and sold it completely.
00:25:30
Speaker
So she was kind of shocked by that.
00:25:32
Speaker
The liquor license was still in his name, which expired 10 days after he passed.
00:25:37
Speaker
Suspicious?
00:25:39
Speaker
I mean, well, it's unclear whether it was set to expire 10 days after he passed or whether there's some kind of law in Portland that once the owner of or the licensee of the license expires, the license expires.
00:25:57
Speaker
Um, so we're not really sure what's going on with it at this point.
00:26:01
Speaker
We know that it's closed because his daughter says there wasn't enough money to keep the business running in his, in his trust.
00:26:10
Speaker
Um,
00:26:11
Speaker
But the future is unclear at this point.
00:26:14
Speaker
Somebody may come in and help them out.
00:26:16
Speaker
They may kind of take some time to recover and figure out what they're doing with it.
00:26:22
Speaker
But for now, Cascade is gone, which is really unfortunate.
00:26:25
Speaker
It's kind of known as the...
00:26:29
Speaker
original sour brewery in the u.s um they were really way ahead of the curve on that one um making sour since way before it was cool um yeah man it's true and people who love sours know that name and know that they are one of the best to do it they were they were beloved they still are by everyone that's ever had a the experience of trying some of their beers
00:26:54
Speaker
And I just, when I thought about that, I just had to break out a bottle that I've had sitting in the cell.
00:26:59
Speaker
This is a 2016 Creek.
00:27:02
Speaker
Dirty bastard.
00:27:03
Speaker
The Creek is, yeah, this has been in a bottle for, what is that?
00:27:09
Speaker
Six years?
00:27:11
Speaker
Um...
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, about six years it's been in the bottle.
00:27:15
Speaker
Uh, so the way that this one works is it is a blend of red ales.
00:27:19
Speaker
They, they make a bunch of different red ales, blend them together to, uh, you know, Ron's taste, I guess, cause he was still there when they made this, uh,
00:27:29
Speaker
They aged that for around or up to 17 months in oak wine barrels.
00:27:37
Speaker
And for this batch, they used more than, they don't say exactly how much more than, but more than 16,000 pounds of Bing and Sour Pie cherries.
00:27:48
Speaker
That is a ton of cherries, my man.
00:27:51
Speaker
That is a lot of cherries.
00:27:53
Speaker
Is that four tons, actually?
00:27:56
Speaker
I think so.
00:27:56
Speaker
Four thousand pounds?
00:27:57
Speaker
Is it
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, 4,000 pounds is about a ton.
00:28:00
Speaker
About a ton, right?
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, so that's about four tons.
00:28:03
Speaker
Goddamn.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot of cherries.
00:28:08
Speaker
And, you know, it's a very sour red ale that has a lot of that cherry influence.
00:28:16
Speaker
But I think it's kind of cool that with this one, they really accent the sourness of the lactobacillus fermentation with more sour from the fruit, since these are sour cherries.
00:28:32
Speaker
man, I'm excited to take a couple sips.
00:28:35
Speaker
I should also mention this is 7.4% ABV.
00:28:36
Speaker
So, you know, not super strong.
00:28:44
Speaker
It was much stronger when it went to the barrel, but since these aren't like whiskey barrels that are getting extra alcohol out of there, they kind of settle down a little bit with the fermentation still going on in there.
00:28:57
Speaker
And I would show you the color, but it's just kind of lightish brown.
00:29:01
Speaker
I mean, that's typical.
00:29:02
Speaker
Typical for a lot of beers.
00:29:03
Speaker
It's not to say it's bad.
00:29:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:29:05
Speaker
So I'm going to take a couple sips of this and see how it pairs.
00:29:11
Speaker
Oh, Sam Fiddle says 2,000 pounds to a ton.
00:29:13
Speaker
So that's eight tons.
00:29:14
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:29:15
Speaker
Thank you for the question.
00:29:16
Speaker
That's a lot.
00:29:17
Speaker
That's a shitload of... That's a lot of cherries, man.
00:29:20
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:29:21
Speaker
All right.
00:29:21
Speaker
I'm going to take a couple sips.
00:29:22
Speaker
Tell us what your second pairing tonight is.
00:29:24
Speaker
I'm really digging this.
00:29:25
Speaker
I'm digging it so much, and I'm so happy I made this decision.
00:29:29
Speaker
And I'll tell you later kind of why I made this decision, because it's not why you think.
00:29:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:35
Speaker
All right.
00:29:38
Speaker
Sorry, I had to wet the palate first.
00:29:40
Speaker
Let me take you on another journey.
00:29:43
Speaker
Wet the whistle.
00:29:44
Speaker
Yeah, wet the whistle.
00:29:45
Speaker
Wet the whistle.
00:29:48
Speaker
Let me take another journey.
00:29:50
Speaker
Talk about mezcal.
00:29:51
Speaker
We started about mezcal.
00:29:52
Speaker
We started about COVID.
00:29:54
Speaker
And I thought, you know, there's another mezcal I've been drinking lately that I'm super jazzed about.
00:29:59
Speaker
Really, really love it.
00:30:00
Speaker
And the story is fascinating.
00:30:02
Speaker
So let me show you what it is first.
00:30:05
Speaker
Found it.
00:30:06
Speaker
And you can't see it because I drank a whole bunch of it, obviously.
00:30:08
Speaker
But La Escondida.
00:30:11
Speaker
La Escondida Mezcal.
00:30:13
Speaker
The mermaid.
00:30:15
Speaker
There was a mermaid there.
00:30:16
Speaker
Let's see if I can get it to focus.
00:30:17
Speaker
Does Las Conditas mean the mermaid?
00:30:19
Speaker
Is that right?
00:30:19
Speaker
No, it means the hidden lady, but there's a story behind this, and I'll explain that to you in a second.
00:30:25
Speaker
40% Represado, which I'll get into a little bit later, but founded by Juliera Campos.
00:30:31
Speaker
Juliera Campos made this, founded this in 2013.
00:30:42
Speaker
My brain's farting so hard.
00:30:44
Speaker
So I'm so jazzed about the story.
00:30:46
Speaker
So Mezcal, did you know there was a time in history when Mezcal was illegal?
00:30:51
Speaker
I did not.
00:30:52
Speaker
Reign of the Spanish crown in the early, about early 18th century for almost a hundred years, I feel like maybe just exactly a hundred years.
00:31:00
Speaker
Mezcal production was illegal in Mexico.
00:31:04
Speaker
You could not do it.
00:31:04
Speaker
So what happened, of course, as anywhere else you ban alcohol,
00:31:08
Speaker
People said, well, fuck it, we're going to keep making it.
00:31:11
Speaker
And they couldn't distribute legally, officially, right?
00:31:15
Speaker
So there were certain groups of women that took it upon themselves to start distributing all of this illegally produced mezcal at the cost of basically being murdered by the Spanish crown for breaking the law.
00:31:29
Speaker
Sorry, the Spanish crown, I should say, for those that are confused by the crownage.
00:31:38
Speaker
these women would go out, they would share this, sell this mezcal and spread the love that is mezcal now as we know today.
00:31:45
Speaker
They really kept it alive during that time when realistically, I think without them, some would argue that mezcal may have really either disappeared or had maybe come back in a very different way that wasn't true to the kind of the traditions to this day that we see, like the horse-drawn, right?
00:32:06
Speaker
The horse-drawn process, all of that.
00:32:08
Speaker
The actually the pits that they use to roast the pinions.
00:32:13
Speaker
They're just pits, man.
00:32:14
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:32:15
Speaker
And everyone does it a little bit different.
00:32:16
Speaker
So all those traditions we may have lost potentially.
00:32:19
Speaker
And so this brand started La Escondida.
00:32:22
Speaker
La Escondida means the hidden lady.
00:32:24
Speaker
And this is these women that were in the dark, so to speak, traveling around selling mezcal to keep this tradition alive.
00:32:32
Speaker
Now, the mermaid thing, we're going to take you back to an old Mexican legend of La Escandida, which is a little bit, it's related, but not directly.
00:32:42
Speaker
So about 1543, there was a legend about a pirate, Andrew Drake, and he fell in love with the bay and he came over there and basically he kidnapped, he and his crew kidnapped a young Mexican princess.
00:32:57
Speaker
You see where I'm going with this now?
00:32:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:00
Speaker
So she escaped.
00:33:01
Speaker
And this lady's name, they say, was, was it Josepha?
00:33:07
Speaker
Josepha?
00:33:07
Speaker
Josepha?
00:33:09
Speaker
Oh, I don't know.
00:33:09
Speaker
But Josepha was her name.
00:33:11
Speaker
And she escaped.
00:33:14
Speaker
And after that point, after her escape, because she was so well-known, she had this great beauty, as they all do in all these stories.
00:33:21
Speaker
Fishermen would have seen her in the Pacific Ocean as a mermaid.
00:33:26
Speaker
And they took it upon themselves to say, wow, this is our protector spiritually.
00:33:30
Speaker
This protective mother, this woman that's there.
00:33:33
Speaker
And they named, actually, they ended up naming a really famous surfing beach in Mexico.
00:33:40
Speaker
It's Puerto Escondido, the hidden harbor.
00:33:43
Speaker
Oh, interesting.
00:33:44
Speaker
Which is down in that area.
00:33:46
Speaker
This is made in, I should have mentioned, Oaxaca.
00:33:49
Speaker
And this story, I love that they connected this story of
00:33:54
Speaker
this mermaid princess and the fact that women were smuggling secretly and almost really never got any credit for it.
00:34:02
Speaker
This is the first that I've heard of, I think, for women and their role in Mezcal, specifically in Mezcal.
00:34:12
Speaker
Like Julieta Campos that came out and made this and started to spread the love and the knowledge that there's a lot of cool history here.
00:34:18
Speaker
And again, check that out, man.
00:34:21
Speaker
Wait, there we go.
00:34:22
Speaker
Wow.
00:34:23
Speaker
Oh, you got it.
00:34:24
Speaker
Oh, I love it.
00:34:26
Speaker
Little sugar collection.
00:34:28
Speaker
It's just really nice, man.
00:34:30
Speaker
It's really classy.
00:34:32
Speaker
And you know I love a good story.
00:34:34
Speaker
I love good branding and marketing, but
00:34:38
Speaker
History of things.
00:34:39
Speaker
I like old things with a lot of old history.
00:34:41
Speaker
I think it's part of the reason why we love cigars.
00:34:42
Speaker
We love scotch, beer.
00:34:45
Speaker
Cascade is a great example.
00:34:46
Speaker
Cascade took techniques and recipes and ideas and inspiration from things that were done for hundreds of years without people even realizing what they were doing because it did a funky thing.
00:34:58
Speaker
They put some stuff in a barrel or in a clay pot and it turned into something they can enjoy and refined that over the years.
00:35:06
Speaker
I love that.
00:35:08
Speaker
Right.
00:35:08
Speaker
It's so cool.
00:35:10
Speaker
Tell us about Reposado.
00:35:12
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:35:13
Speaker
Reposado.
00:35:14
Speaker
Quick thing.
00:35:14
Speaker
Very, very simple.
00:35:15
Speaker
Reposado is agent and barrel oak barrel.
00:35:18
Speaker
There is no distinction if it sorry, there is no specific rule against it being second use.
00:35:23
Speaker
It can be first fill.
00:35:24
Speaker
It can be second filter or whatever.
00:35:26
Speaker
But it is an oak barrel minimum of two months between two months, a minimum or a year maximum.
00:35:32
Speaker
to be considered a reposado.
00:35:33
Speaker
And you'll see this sometimes with tequila as well.
00:35:35
Speaker
I say reposado tequila.
00:35:37
Speaker
I think the term is very familiar for a lot of people that drink tequila.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:45
Speaker
Man, this Cascade beer is so good, dude.
00:35:48
Speaker
I bet it's amazing.
00:35:49
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:35:53
Speaker
It reminds me a little bit of... I'm trying to compare it because I don't think...
00:35:58
Speaker
To me, this doesn't strike me as the kind of sour beer that if you hate sour beer, you'll automatically hate it.
00:36:08
Speaker
I think to me, it's got like a sourness that reminds me of maybe like a sour apple, sour cherry, obviously, but
00:36:18
Speaker
Something like that.
00:36:19
Speaker
It's like a fruit that's got a lot of sweetness, but also has that sour bite to it.
00:36:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's like this tartness more than this super sourness.
00:36:32
Speaker
And it's just really well balanced with the kind of complexity of those cherry flavors and the maltiness of those red ales.
00:36:41
Speaker
And man, it just is fantastic.
00:36:44
Speaker
And for the cigar, it surprisingly, for being such a sweet beer, brings out a lot of sweetness in the cigar.
00:36:52
Speaker
I get more sweetness.
00:36:53
Speaker
I get more minerality.
00:36:54
Speaker
I'm not getting as much spice as I got before, but that may be the cigar kind of calming down a little bit, the pairing covering up that spice.
00:37:02
Speaker
Yeah, the spices similarly died for me, but I'm getting a very savory, intense earth flavor.
00:37:08
Speaker
And no doubt from the mezcal, specifically the reposado, a little bit of the oak profile.
00:37:14
Speaker
That's popping out.
00:37:15
Speaker
Man, I wish I could share this beer with you right now.
00:37:17
Speaker
It's just so good.
00:37:19
Speaker
Just rub it in, man.
00:37:21
Speaker
I haven't seen a bottle of that in six or seven years, I think.
00:37:25
Speaker
Easy.
00:37:26
Speaker
You know what's wild about living in Oregon?
00:37:29
Speaker
I bought this at Costco.
00:37:31
Speaker
That's crazy to me.
00:37:32
Speaker
I don't... And it was like... It was like, I don't know, $10, $12 a bottle.
00:37:39
Speaker
It was like a good deal.
00:37:41
Speaker
Normally, it was an $18, $20 bottle.
00:37:44
Speaker
And so I had bought like six bottles.
00:37:46
Speaker
I think I still have a couple left.
00:37:47
Speaker
Come visit and you'll get them.
00:37:48
Speaker
Don't threaten me with a good time now.
00:37:52
Speaker
All right.
00:37:53
Speaker
I'm going to move on to my last pairing.
00:37:54
Speaker
Actually, how's the mezcal working with it?
00:37:57
Speaker
I got to ask you first.
00:37:58
Speaker
Fantastic, dude.
00:38:00
Speaker
Can wholeheartedly recommend.
00:38:02
Speaker
I'm also starting to sense a theme in your pairings that you might have taken the MX in this cigar to heart.
00:38:11
Speaker
No, that's I was going to talk about it.
00:38:13
Speaker
It was accidental.
00:38:13
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:38:16
Speaker
All right.
00:38:16
Speaker
Well, I'm going to move on to my last pairing and then you can tell us.
00:38:20
Speaker
Serenade you with my story.
00:38:21
Speaker
What your last one is.
00:38:23
Speaker
Uh, this is Lagavulin 16.
00:38:24
Speaker
I mean, just a classic.
00:38:27
Speaker
So I won't go too far into it, especially because there's just, they don't have like a super interesting history.
00:38:33
Speaker
So Lagavulin, um, the beginning I think is pretty interesting in 740, 1742, not 742.
00:38:37
Speaker
Um,
00:38:42
Speaker
that's when the records go back to the first illegal distillation, uh, at the site.
00:38:48
Speaker
They call it the site, the area where Lagavulin now is.
00:38:51
Speaker
Cause back then it was just, you know, a hill near the water.
00:38:55
Speaker
Um,
00:38:57
Speaker
Around 1742, there were approximately 10 illegal distilleries on there.
00:39:03
Speaker
The first two legal distilleries in the area were constructed in 1816 by John Johnston and Archibald Campbell.
00:39:12
Speaker
Essentially, from what I've read, there are... Some people say that John Johnston took over Archibald's distillery.
00:39:22
Speaker
Uh...
00:39:22
Speaker
Some people say the opposite.
00:39:23
Speaker
So kind of... And Wikipedia says nobody knows which is which.
00:39:27
Speaker
One of them took over the other one and they were partners.
00:39:31
Speaker
They basically merged and became what would eventually become known as the Log of Olen, which means the hollow mill.
00:39:39
Speaker
just for translation's sake.
00:39:42
Speaker
Since then, again, this is 1837.
00:39:46
Speaker
Since then, there were like so many ownership changes that I started to list a couple of them, and then I was like, that's too many.
00:39:53
Speaker
I can't just sit here for 20 minutes talking about who bought Lagavulin in what year, because it was a lot.
00:40:00
Speaker
There were a lot of ownership changes, sometimes through families, sometimes through purchases.
00:40:05
Speaker
sometimes through conglomerations, like merging with other businesses in the area.
00:40:14
Speaker
But 1925, they joined the Distillers Company.
00:40:18
Speaker
and became a partner in that.
00:40:19
Speaker
Eventually that would lead to Diageo through Distiller's Company was bought by Guinness, I think it was, in 1985?
00:40:27
Speaker
1980-something.
00:40:32
Speaker
And then in 1997 was the big merger when Guinness and whatever the other company, the European Liquor Company or whatever it was called, became Diageo.
00:40:43
Speaker
So they're still owned by Diageo today.
00:40:47
Speaker
Everybody knows about Ron Swanson, so I won't go too deep into that, especially since his face isn't on this particular bottle.
00:40:53
Speaker
Juan Ronson, man.
00:40:55
Speaker
Juan Ronson.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's all I got.
00:41:01
Speaker
I didn't want to get too deep into the history that we've gone over 30 times because I had a lot to say about Cascade.
00:41:07
Speaker
So I'm going to take a couple sips of Lagavulin 16.
00:41:12
Speaker
I should mention this is their classic expression.
00:41:17
Speaker
The 16 and the Distiller's Edition are kind of their core line.
00:41:23
Speaker
They frequently have much older bottlings available, but sometimes they switch those out sometimes between 18, 23, and 25.
00:41:34
Speaker
Just every few years, they'll kind of switch it around depending on, I guess, what's tasting good to them.
00:41:42
Speaker
But this is their kind of core offering that's been around for about 50 years.
Lagavulin 16 and Pairing Insights
00:41:47
Speaker
So I'm going to take a couple sips and do what I think of pairing this with the Fonseca MX.
00:41:53
Speaker
Oh, I should also mention 86 proof.
00:41:56
Speaker
You know, that little bit of extra, that 43 that Scott likes to do.
00:41:59
Speaker
A little bit of a bite really does make a difference a lot of times, especially when you go into the second, third, or the final third of a cigar.
00:42:08
Speaker
Sometimes that makes a difference between a cigar that you have to put down and a cigar that you keep smoking.
00:42:12
Speaker
The way that it cuts through the palate and breaks apart some of the stuff that we talk about the palate being coated on the back and on kind of the sides, that I think helps to break down some of those flavors that stick to your palate and refreshes a little bit.
00:42:27
Speaker
Not a true refresh, not like we would do with seltzer, but I think there's some merit to it.
00:42:34
Speaker
What's your final pairing?
00:42:36
Speaker
And why is it not Mexican-themed?
00:42:38
Speaker
I'm so excited.
00:42:39
Speaker
I'm so, so excited.
00:42:40
Speaker
And it's Mexican, but there's a story now.
00:42:42
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:42:42
Speaker
So there was a theme.
00:42:44
Speaker
Well, no.
00:42:45
Speaker
So the Mexican thing is not the theme.
00:42:47
Speaker
It was by going into the cigar, knowing a little bit about the cigar, expecting a certain profile.
00:42:54
Speaker
We talked about the minerality and that salt.
00:42:55
Speaker
That's the trick that I was kind of trying to nail in.
00:43:00
Speaker
What sort of what things could I pull from that cigar, from this cigar that I really love that I tend to find very often with San Andreas and things like Mezcal and even things like certain scotches, it really pulls out that great minerality and that salty quality to it.
00:43:20
Speaker
So things like Laphroaig 10.
00:43:22
Speaker
For me, Laphroaig 10 and something really heavy San Andreas, I love it.
00:43:28
Speaker
I think that makes sense.
00:43:30
Speaker
That sort of blend of the minerality, the earthiness is really cool.
00:43:35
Speaker
Now, speaking of earthiness, this is where my kind of pairings all connect.
00:43:39
Speaker
This is non-alcoholic.
00:43:41
Speaker
I got to show you this.
00:43:42
Speaker
If you haven't heard of this, if you haven't seen it, launched in 2020, it's called Delicae of the Street Tapache.
00:43:51
Speaker
This one in particular, this tapache is watermelon jalapeno.
Exploring Tepache and Flavor Profiles
00:43:56
Speaker
Huh.
00:43:57
Speaker
And so, Tepache is really, really cool because it dates back to pre-Hispanic times in Mexico.
00:44:03
Speaker
Traditionally, they used corn, but over the years, they've kind of transitioned to using corn, different kinds of fruits.
00:44:10
Speaker
This one in particular is pineapple based.
00:44:12
Speaker
So basically what they do is they take
00:44:15
Speaker
Pineapple rind.
00:44:17
Speaker
They take filoncio.
00:44:18
Speaker
Filoncio is this dark, unrefined sugar, unrefined cane sugar.
00:44:24
Speaker
They take filoncio, spices, cinnamon, clove, whatever spices you have, and then water.
00:44:30
Speaker
They put that all together, and the yeast that's on the rind of the pineapple starts to ferment just a little bit.
00:44:37
Speaker
So it's not meant to be fully alcoholic, but you'll get 2% to 3% out of it sometimes.
00:44:42
Speaker
There's a little bit of fermentation juice going on.
00:44:44
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:44:44
Speaker
Fermentation juices will happen.
00:44:48
Speaker
And it's really cool because, you know, you talk about probiotic stuff like kombucha as an example, which is one example of many, many things that are very cool in probiotic and fizzy.
00:44:59
Speaker
Similar to kombucha, it has this really, really cool profile to it and a really great vehicle for making a refreshing drink that is uniquely different, but also has those earthy qualities, those qualities of something.
00:45:13
Speaker
If you ever had a
00:45:15
Speaker
Certain fermented drinks, they have that kind of raw nature to them.
00:45:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:20
Speaker
That raw quality that's really cool and I love.
00:45:22
Speaker
And I had never had this one before.
00:45:24
Speaker
And, man, you saw the first sip in the green.
00:45:26
Speaker
You lit up, dude.
00:45:28
Speaker
Like a Christmas tree.
00:45:30
Speaker
You look more excited than I've ever seen you when you took a sip of it.
00:45:34
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:45:34
Speaker
I should actually read the back and see what the hell is actually in this, huh?
00:45:38
Speaker
It would be helpful if I read that.
00:45:41
Speaker
Carbonated water, watermelon juice, jalapeno juice, agave, lime juice, lemongrass.
00:45:49
Speaker
All right, fine, fine.
00:45:51
Speaker
Cinnamon, yep, see?
00:45:53
Speaker
Black pepper extract.
00:45:55
Speaker
Oh.
00:45:55
Speaker
Pretty cool, man.
00:45:57
Speaker
Some cool shit in this.
00:45:58
Speaker
But anyway, really cool kind of soft drink that is very deeply classic, especially if you don't drink and you want to experience like a
00:46:10
Speaker
I don't want to say margarita, but if you want to experience something that's different and kind of suits Mexican culture and food really well, tapache is fucking fantastic.
00:46:21
Speaker
You go to anybody's house, most people will make this at home.
00:46:24
Speaker
They have a grandma that makes tapache and it's in a big vat and just they pull some off and they add some more water and some more rind to it.
00:46:30
Speaker
They pull some more off and it's just this constant fermentation that's happening.
00:46:34
Speaker
Interesting.
00:46:35
Speaker
I'm going to have to track some of that down because it sounds like something my son would really like.
00:46:38
Speaker
It's so really into like funky drinks.
00:46:41
Speaker
He's been like anytime we go out to restaurants like restaurants have really picked it up a notch with the mocktail game.
00:46:49
Speaker
Like almost every restaurant now has a bunch of non-alcoholic cocktails.
00:46:53
Speaker
And my son loves getting a non-alcoholic cocktail and feeling like an adult, you know?
00:46:59
Speaker
Well, I love also because the, listen, let's be real.
00:47:02
Speaker
As adults, as older, slightly older adults now, we've been drinking for a long time.
00:47:07
Speaker
And, you know, we talk about this on the show, right?
00:47:10
Speaker
We want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.
00:47:12
Speaker
And sometimes that means don't drink at all because there's so many great options there.
00:47:17
Speaker
Now we're in a place where it's cool to go into a bar, a cocktail bar and order a non-alcoholic cocktail because it's just as exciting and unique and interesting as a alcohol cocktail.
00:47:28
Speaker
Yeah, I just find it really interesting that people, that bartenders put so much thought into them.
00:47:33
Speaker
Like, they're really well thought out, I guess.
00:47:38
Speaker
And well executed, of course.
00:47:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's not vilified, right?
00:47:41
Speaker
The way that it used to be, where if you walked in and you asked for a mocktail, a mocktail, you would get mocked for asking for a mocktail.
00:47:47
Speaker
Because they'd say, well, we got some syrup.
00:47:49
Speaker
We got some green shit syrup here.
00:47:51
Speaker
We got a little seltzer water.
00:47:52
Speaker
Put it together.
00:47:53
Speaker
Throw a lime in it.
00:47:54
Speaker
Give him a maraschino cherry.
00:47:55
Speaker
Go fuck yourself, right?
00:47:56
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:47:57
Speaker
That was the cool idea.
00:47:59
Speaker
Now, it's great, man.
00:48:00
Speaker
I'm very excited by this.
00:48:02
Speaker
Options are great because it gets people through the door.
00:48:06
Speaker
That's at the end of the day, you can share something cool with people, and that's the point.
00:48:10
Speaker
Agreed.
00:48:11
Speaker
Agreed.
00:48:12
Speaker
Man, they had one, the winery we went to yesterday, my son wasn't there with us, but they had a, it was almost like, I didn't order one, but I saw it on the menu, and it's like a mojito recipe with jalapeno that sounded right up his alley.
00:48:26
Speaker
Anyway, Lagavulin, man.
00:48:29
Speaker
Lagavulin is officially hard candy in a bottle.
00:48:33
Speaker
Like, it is just delicious candy with, I would say a little bit, but not a little bit.
00:48:39
Speaker
A lot of smokiness.
00:48:43
Speaker
Not for everybody, but if you like it, it is like...
00:48:46
Speaker
just so perfectly balanced and so good and working really well with this cigar.
00:48:51
Speaker
It reminds me of the flavors I get from Lagavulin are caramel hard candy, like the grandma candies and the gold foil, whatever those are called.
00:49:03
Speaker
Werther's Original.
00:49:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's the one.
00:49:06
Speaker
Werther's Original, Sour Apple, and Smoke, like Campfire Smoke.
00:49:14
Speaker
The best.
00:49:16
Speaker
It's one of my favorites.
00:49:17
Speaker
And like, you know, people argue a lot about Lagavulin versus Laphroaig versus Ardbeg.
00:49:25
Speaker
And I just love all three of them so much.
00:49:27
Speaker
They're all fantastic, man.
00:49:29
Speaker
And if you love Laphroaig, they do actually specifically make Laphroaig 10 caramels.
00:49:36
Speaker
Really?
00:49:37
Speaker
Excellent.
00:49:38
Speaker
I need to track some of this.
00:49:39
Speaker
They're really hard to find.
00:49:41
Speaker
You can probably get them online, especially around Christmas time.
00:49:45
Speaker
That would make sense.
00:49:46
Speaker
But they're great, man.
00:49:48
Speaker
Man, the richness of Lagavulin is just going so well with, like, that rich, earthy, spicy, slightly sweet, chocolatey character.
00:49:56
Speaker
I mean, dustiness went away, too, I think, for me, at least.
00:49:59
Speaker
What about for you?
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's more of a rich, dark chocolate.
00:50:04
Speaker
Like, my, uh...
00:50:07
Speaker
My uncle was in Italy for like, or not just Italy, like all over Europe for like two months.
00:50:15
Speaker
Went on this crazy big vacation.
00:50:17
Speaker
But he brought me some Italian chocolate.
00:50:20
Speaker
I think it was called cold processed chocolate.
00:50:22
Speaker
Made from real Italians?
00:50:23
Speaker
Made from real Italian stuff.
00:50:25
Speaker
It's the best thing.
00:50:27
Speaker
So much of this in there.
00:50:29
Speaker
Just that little... But I think he called it cold processed.
00:50:34
Speaker
It's apparently chocolate chocolate.
00:50:35
Speaker
that is, it goes from cocoa bean or cacao bean, whatever they're called, to a bar of chocolate without ever being heated.
00:50:46
Speaker
And because of this process that they use, it doesn't melt.
00:50:51
Speaker
And it has like this texture that's not quite dusty, but it's like... Chalky.
00:50:59
Speaker
What?
00:51:00
Speaker
Is it chalky?
00:51:02
Speaker
Not quite chalky.
00:51:03
Speaker
Dark high cacao.
00:51:06
Speaker
Content chocolate bar?
00:51:07
Speaker
No, it's different.
00:51:08
Speaker
I'm trying to remember exactly what it reminds me of.
00:51:10
Speaker
It reminds me of like a Rice Krispie where it's got like that flakiness to it.
00:51:17
Speaker
It's got all these tiny bubbles in it.
00:51:20
Speaker
Oh, it's aerated chocolate.
00:51:21
Speaker
Yeah, all these tiny bubbles and it's got like it looks like a chocolate bar but when you bite it, it has this crunch.
00:51:28
Speaker
and it is just so good.
00:51:30
Speaker
And it's like really dark, rich chocolate that doesn't have that melty kind of vibe that you get from like those, like you were saying, like 97% cacao chocolate.
00:51:43
Speaker
But it still has all that chocolate flavor.
00:51:46
Speaker
And that's what this is reminding me.
00:51:49
Speaker
Chocolate without the, it's got the rich, dark chocolate, but not the powderiness of like a
00:51:56
Speaker
You know, like that chocolate powder that I used to eat when I was a kid because I thought, hey, it says Hershey's on it.
00:52:02
Speaker
I didn't know it was 100% cocoa that had no sugar.
00:52:07
Speaker
But it's in between that and like the 99% bar or whatever.
00:52:11
Speaker
It's good.
00:52:11
Speaker
It's a very rich cigar.
00:52:12
Speaker
I'm a fan of the Milka's.
00:52:14
Speaker
Milka makes an Aero bar, which is really cool.
00:52:16
Speaker
It's aerated.
00:52:18
Speaker
It has those bubbles in it.
00:52:19
Speaker
It's awesome.
00:52:20
Speaker
What do you think of the cigar at this point and the pairing with that very fruity drink that you got?
00:52:26
Speaker
It's a, you know, I thought it would be more fruit forward than, than it.
00:52:32
Speaker
Oh boy.
00:52:33
Speaker
Thunderstorms are coming.
00:52:34
Speaker
That's 24 hours a day here.
00:52:36
Speaker
You know, it's almost like Florida is not meant for people to live in.
00:52:40
Speaker
Like all of a sign.
00:52:41
Speaker
What's the gators, the it's not welcoming to any human being.
00:52:46
Speaker
I don't think.
00:52:47
Speaker
And yet there you are.
00:52:49
Speaker
Here I am.
00:52:50
Speaker
A glutton for punishment.
00:52:51
Speaker
You dirty girl.
00:52:53
Speaker
Um,
00:52:54
Speaker
Yeah, so the watermelon, it's there, but it's not a... And I'm very happy that it's not a, like, candy-sweet watermelon flavor like a Jolly Rancher.
00:53:03
Speaker
It just tastes like... You squeeze the watermelon into a glass of seltzer or something.
00:53:09
Speaker
It's very like the jalapeno on it.
00:53:11
Speaker
That jalapeno, holy shit, if you don't like spice, this is not going to be your thing.
00:53:15
Speaker
Oh, it's got some, like, actual heat to it?
00:53:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's got some proper heat.
00:53:19
Speaker
And then, so drinking the mezcal, as you know, alcohol plus...
00:53:23
Speaker
capsaicin, that baby burns real good, which is nice.
00:53:27
Speaker
I think it's going really well with the cigar.
00:53:29
Speaker
Nice.
00:53:31
Speaker
And what are your thoughts on the cigar at this point?
00:53:33
Speaker
It took me a little bit.
00:53:34
Speaker
I think it took me about 15 minutes to really get into it, but I've been really digging the cigar.
00:53:40
Speaker
Even size aside, you know, I complained about the size in the beginning.
00:53:43
Speaker
I actually really like this size, which is weird for me, too.
00:53:48
Speaker
It's unusual, but I would absolutely buy this and have a couple on hand at least.
00:53:53
Speaker
Yeah, I really like this cigar.
00:53:56
Speaker
It kind of, to me, it still retains that Porojo kind of sweetness that the original Fonseca has, but then it has that, you know, that super complex, earthy, spicy from the San Andres wrapper.
00:54:12
Speaker
Yeah, man, especially on the retro hill.
00:54:14
Speaker
Yeah, the retrohale is still pretty spicy.
00:54:16
Speaker
Rob Goodhart says he's made that 100% chocolate mistake too.
00:54:20
Speaker
Man, I still remember when I was a kid, we had a cabinet where we kept all that kind of stuff.
00:54:26
Speaker
And I would see that pan that says Hershey's on it.
00:54:29
Speaker
And then I ate a spoonful one time and it was like, nope.
00:54:35
Speaker
Nope.
00:54:36
Speaker
Just all it tastes like is bitter.
00:54:39
Speaker
Yeah, just not good.
00:54:41
Speaker
Don't recommend it.
00:54:42
Speaker
It's like the truffles that are rolled in the powder.
00:54:45
Speaker
Yeah, but it's just the powder.
00:54:47
Speaker
None of that sweet, delicious truffle-ness.
00:54:49
Speaker
I think it's actually exactly what they eat.
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely would recommend this cigar to anybody.
00:54:56
Speaker
Yeah, same.
00:54:57
Speaker
And I still love the original Fonseca.
00:54:59
Speaker
I'm not sure...
00:55:01
Speaker
I'm not sure I like this more, but I think I like it as much as I like the original Fonseca from my father.
00:55:08
Speaker
It's just nice that it's kind of
Fonseca Edicion MX Review
00:55:10
Speaker
a different vibe.
00:55:10
Speaker
That's the early afternoon.
00:55:12
Speaker
This is the evening version.
00:55:15
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:55:16
Speaker
100% evening cigar.
00:55:18
Speaker
I've always really liked my father in general.
00:55:22
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a big fan of my dad, too.
00:55:27
Speaker
You couldn't resist.
00:55:28
Speaker
I know.
00:55:28
Speaker
I would have done the same.
00:55:29
Speaker
I could.
00:55:30
Speaker
I could.
00:55:31
Speaker
All right.
00:55:32
Speaker
Well, I guess that wraps up our kind of review of the My Father Fonseca Edicion MX or Edition MX.
00:55:41
Speaker
Do you have a pairing of the night tonight?
00:55:43
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:55:46
Speaker
Where was I?
00:55:46
Speaker
You're going to be surprised, but the Mont Bien, even going straight from the still to the bottle,
00:55:55
Speaker
being a young mezcal, if you will, I really love the green apple aroma to it.
00:56:01
Speaker
I love the minerality, a bit of salt at the end.
00:56:03
Speaker
It's got enough of that bite to carry through the cigar toward the end.
00:56:09
Speaker
The other mezcal I had was 40%, a little bit less.
00:56:13
Speaker
Sometimes 5% really does make a difference when you look at a spirit.
00:56:18
Speaker
You can have two that are exactly the same ABV and one's very hot and one's super drinkable.
00:56:24
Speaker
It's just the processing more than anything.
00:56:28
Speaker
For me, I'm tempted to go with the Cascade.
00:56:31
Speaker
Art and Cascade, rest in peace.
00:56:33
Speaker
For now, at least, Cascade.
00:56:35
Speaker
Art's not coming back, but Cascade might.
00:56:39
Speaker
I hope they do.
00:56:39
Speaker
I really hope they bounce back.
00:56:40
Speaker
I hope so, too, because I love their beer.
00:56:42
Speaker
I can even buy their beer here.
00:56:45
Speaker
Like, Total Wine down the street has a couple of cans of Cascade at all times, which I think is wild.
00:56:53
Speaker
It's $25 for four Red Bull-sized cans, which is a little much.
00:56:59
Speaker
Ah, it's cheapish.
00:57:00
Speaker
But, you know, it's Cascade.
00:57:02
Speaker
They don't make cheap beer, period.
00:57:05
Speaker
For me, it's Lagavulin.
00:57:06
Speaker
Lagavulin just works so well with this cigar.
00:57:09
Speaker
That richness against the richness of the cigar really goes together.
00:57:13
Speaker
And if the smoke isn't too overpowering for you, it's definitely a pairing I would recommend.
00:57:18
Speaker
All right.
00:57:18
Speaker
I guess that is the end.
00:57:20
Speaker
Time for our...
00:57:22
Speaker
one for the road i'll go first this time because i've been making you go first lately dennis um mine is kind of a no-brainer i think if if you haven't been already watching this what are you even doing uh but the bear season three came out um
00:57:39
Speaker
The Bear, if you haven't watched it, it's an incredible show.
Media Reviews: The Bear and Daemon
00:57:43
Speaker
It's about a guy who is in the fine dining business and comes home because his brother passed away and takes over his shitty neighborhood restaurant that everybody loves and all of the dysfunction in there that he has to deal with.
00:58:01
Speaker
And eventually...
00:58:03
Speaker
makes some changes to it and, uh, is on, on a cool path.
00:58:08
Speaker
Uh, season three, we finished it last night.
00:58:10
Speaker
I didn't think was as good as season one and two.
00:58:13
Speaker
Um, I thought it was awesome that there, you get so much backstory in the season that it's fantastic.
00:58:19
Speaker
Um,
00:58:20
Speaker
And you really like, you get to know some of the characters that we didn't know as well before.
00:58:26
Speaker
But the larger story of what has been built up in season one and two goes almost nowhere during the season, which definitely sucks.
00:58:35
Speaker
But more seasons are coming, so hopefully they give us a little bit more meat on that bone next season.
00:58:43
Speaker
Dennis, what about you?
00:58:44
Speaker
What's your...
00:58:45
Speaker
I think maybe a little bit apropos for the times that we're in now, there's a book that I recently revisited called Damon by Daniel Suarez.
00:58:56
Speaker
Ah, great book.
00:58:58
Speaker
Released in 2006.
00:58:58
Speaker
You know the book.
00:59:00
Speaker
Those of you that don't know, it's a science fiction thriller novel.
00:59:04
Speaker
It's basically this computer programmer dies and his death dies.
00:59:09
Speaker
kind of unleashes a virus on the world.
00:59:14
Speaker
It's yes, it's kind of like a virus in the world, but it's a thing that has a series of events happen after his demise related to this program that's activated that affects like the financial markets, people, different computer systems around the world.
00:59:30
Speaker
And so a bunch of law enforcement and other people and hackers get together and try to figure out what the hell this thing is doing and how to stop it.
00:59:39
Speaker
And it gets violent really quick.
00:59:41
Speaker
But it really does talk a lot about what we're seeing now is artificial intelligence, decentralized systems, this sort of the surveillance, the world of surveillance and the cyber systems that we are in now.
00:59:55
Speaker
is really cool.
00:59:56
Speaker
And you know, this is kind of near and dear to my heart because I have been neck deep in the cyber world.
01:00:02
Speaker
I live in it professionally and personally and cannot escape it.
01:00:06
Speaker
I can never escape the matrix, I think.
01:00:08
Speaker
But yeah, man.
01:00:10
Speaker
It knows too much about you.
01:00:12
Speaker
It does.
01:00:13
Speaker
It really does, man.
01:00:13
Speaker
Simulation really is there for us sometimes.
01:00:17
Speaker
But yeah, it's a fantastic book.
01:00:19
Speaker
There's a sequel to it called Freedom.
01:00:21
Speaker
Came out about four years later, which I actually am about halfway through.
01:00:25
Speaker
Holy balls.
01:00:26
Speaker
It's so relevant.
01:00:28
Speaker
And it came out in 2006 where looking at where we, back then, how we felt about computers and the age of technology and where we were going in the future, we are somewhere very different than we initially thought we would be.
01:00:41
Speaker
Certainly 2006, but even 1996.
01:00:41
Speaker
Wild.
01:00:45
Speaker
Yeah, good book.
01:00:46
Speaker
Good recommendation.
01:00:47
Speaker
Alright, guys.
01:00:49
Speaker
Thank you, everybody, for hanging out.
01:00:51
Speaker
You know, I'm actually going to wait to close out the show for a second just because I want to tell a little story that has nothing to do with anything.
01:00:58
Speaker
But it's just weird, and I've been wanting to mention on the podcast about how weird it is.
01:01:02
Speaker
Oh?
01:01:03
Speaker
Well, I mean, it's not like... It's not big news or anything, but it's just something that happened to me that's weird.
01:01:11
Speaker
And it's relevant to the podcast.
01:01:13
Speaker
The Matrix.
01:01:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:15
Speaker
I listen to podcasts when I fall asleep, right?
01:01:17
Speaker
Like, a lot of times, as you know, I listen to the last podcast on the left.
01:01:23
Speaker
I listen to movie podcasts.
01:01:25
Speaker
I listen to cigar podcasts.
01:01:26
Speaker
I just like having that talking helps me get in the zone to fall asleep.
01:01:33
Speaker
Every once in a while, I will wake up and this show will be playing in my ears in the middle of the night.
01:01:39
Speaker
And it is so fucking weird to wake up and have my own voice saying things I kind of remember saying back to me in my head.
01:01:48
Speaker
Like, it's just such a weird feeling and so strange.
01:01:55
Speaker
But I just thought I had to mention it.
01:01:57
Speaker
It is an interesting feeling, no doubt.
01:01:59
Speaker
I agree there.
01:02:01
Speaker
I felt like I got to be subscribed to my own podcast, right?
01:02:07
Speaker
But then now it comes up in the middle of the night while I'm listening to something else.
01:02:11
Speaker
I forget to hit the snooze button so that it will turn off after I fall asleep.
01:02:16
Speaker
And I'll wake up at 4.30 and hear me going, yeah, this Lagavulin is pretty good.
01:02:24
Speaker
It tastes like potatoes and
01:02:28
Speaker
It's just super weird.
01:02:29
Speaker
And it's happened to me a couple times now.
01:02:31
Speaker
And every time it feels like I'm in like a fever dream camp because I'm reciting my own memories back to me, basically.
01:02:38
Speaker
I've had, that's happened to me a couple of times where I've popped out of bed and my brain immediately goes to like, oh shit, I forgot my second pairing.
01:02:46
Speaker
What was my second pairing?
01:02:46
Speaker
I'm like, it's six o'clock in the morning.
01:02:49
Speaker
There's no pairing.
01:02:52
Speaker
But for a solid maybe 10 seconds, I'll have this oh shit moment of, did I get something?
01:02:57
Speaker
Did I bring it up?
01:02:58
Speaker
Is it here?
01:02:59
Speaker
Do I know what I'm talking about?
01:03:00
Speaker
I totally get that.
01:03:02
Speaker
I totally get that.
01:03:04
Speaker
It's the funniest thing, man.
01:03:06
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:07
Speaker
That'll happen to me sometimes too, where I'll wake up in the morning and be like, I forgot to do my notes.
01:03:11
Speaker
Oh wait, we're not on the show right now.
01:03:15
Speaker
And that's the end of it.
01:03:15
Speaker
Anyway, we're always on the show.
01:03:18
Speaker
That's true.
01:03:18
Speaker
That's the trick.
01:03:20
Speaker
That is the trick.
01:03:21
Speaker
Thanks everybody for watching, for hanging out with us.
01:03:24
Speaker
Um, for listening to the podcast, if you, if you listen to the podcast, um,
01:03:31
Speaker
Everybody have a good one.
01:03:32
Speaker
We'll talk to you next week.
01:03:34
Speaker
And we'll be smoking a cigar and pairing some stuff with it.
01:03:38
Speaker
So we appreciate you guys.
01:03:40
Speaker
Dennis, do the catchphrase thing, and then we will be out of here.
01:03:45
Speaker
Thanks, everybody, for watching and listening.
01:03:47
Speaker
And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.