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LGP 49 - Espinosa Murcielago Shikaka
12 Plays4 days ago
This week, we are trying out Espinosa's latest TAA cigar, the Murcielago Shikaka.
For the first time, the Murcielago gets a Shade-Grown Connecticut wrapper in this Ace Ventura-inspired LE.
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction to Episode 49
00:00:00
Speaker
buddy Welcome back to Let's Get Pairing. ah We got Dennis back this week. ah This is episode 49, and we are smoking the Murcielago.
00:00:12
Speaker
got get This is one cigar where I just got to get the but zoom on it, the the focus. The Murcielago. This
00:00:23
Speaker
is a Chicago. Look at that beautiful band. We're going to get into it. We're going to talk about the cigar. We're going to tell you about our pairings. ah But for now, grab yourself cigar, grab yourself drink. Let's get
00:00:49
Speaker
And we're back. ah Welcome, everybody. This is Sharon. Let's get pairing. ah um no forty nine I almost said it. It's been forever, dude. I have not made that mistake on this show, and I almost did it.
Hosts' Reunion and Show Banter
00:01:03
Speaker
I'm your host, Tripp, here in the Casa de Monte Cristo studios for a little while longer with Dennis. Dennis, how are you doing in the dark dungeon of doom and evil? The Purgatory Palace.
00:01:15
Speaker
the yeah The primordial palace, if if you will. The primordial palace of Purgatory. There we go, I like that. Triple P, very important. ah Yeah man, I'm good. i'm I'm happy, I'm happy to be back.
00:01:28
Speaker
I feel like more often than not, ah I've been saying this, or you and I have both been kind of saying this, that it feels good to be back, it feels nice to just kind of get at it again. Because we've missed, you know, we've we've had a couple of spots here and there and haven't been able to get on the show. And it's just good, man, to end the week or to it really start the week.
00:01:46
Speaker
Going into the work week.
Tobacconist Association of America and Exclusive Cigars
00:01:47
Speaker
Yeah, feels it feels more like a start to the week than an end of the week for me. Yeah. Which is good. And I'm excited for this cigar as well. Very pumped. Me too. You lit it up yet?
00:01:57
Speaker
No. I am i'm about to light. I will give you all the details why while you light it up. This is the Chikaka from... Espinosa Cigars, the Marcielago Chicaca.
00:02:09
Speaker
um Some of you may recognize that name. but ah So this Espinosa's TAA Cigar, the Tobacconist Association of America. um They're basically a group of tobacconists across the country.
00:02:24
Speaker
um They have limited spots. So like if one of them leaves the organization, a new company can come in or a new retailer can come in. um But they're pretty, pretty limited on it. But it's basically all these shops meet together.
00:02:37
Speaker
They have a private meeting with a bunch of manufacturers to buy their cigars for the year. um They get good deals that way. They bring you good deals that way.
00:02:47
Speaker
They get lots of interesting cigars that way. And one of the best things is that they get TAA exclusives where not all the companies that are involved in the TAA do this, but a lot of them make an exclusive cigar available to TAA retailers only each year.
00:03:04
Speaker
um some companies that do this are tethwahe every once in a while um it's been a while since he had a taa a couple years two years i think um and they're always like a year or two late which i think is why we haven't seen them regularly lately um there's a couple other companies that do it crown heads has the angels anvil taa and then espinosa has done a couple this year.
00:03:32
Speaker
Their selection is the Chicago. um So anybody who doesn't recognize that name, go watch Ace Ventura to Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. um There's a release under the Murcielago line, of course, as you can see from the band and it says Murcielago on the sides.
00:03:49
Speaker
um And this is a ah ah little change up to the Murcielago. but Rather than the normal Mexican San Andreas wrapper, this gets an Ecuadorian Connecticut shade grown wrapper.
00:04:01
Speaker
ah And it's it's named after the great white bat from Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Great white bat. Murcielago means bat. You know, you get the connection. This is the white version of the bat.
00:04:13
Speaker
yeah And Chikaka just made sense. It makes me smile every time I see it. Do you know that the shikaka is actually a now it's real thing? Is it? Are you aware? Okay, so. No, I'm not aware. Quick little segue.
00:04:27
Speaker
um There is a white bat ah from, want to say from Ecuador. That was the only white bat at the time. um And then shikaka became like an official full bat when it was discovered at the Denver Zoo.
00:04:40
Speaker
It was a leucistic, basically a seabish short-tailed bat. So it's kind of a small little snub-nosed thing. um But it was leucistic,
Murcielago Cigar Technical Details and Tasting Notes
00:04:50
Speaker
which means that the pigment didn't fully form and develop. And this was litter of bats came out. And the zoo said, this is shikaka. It has to be.
00:04:58
Speaker
and that's And this was recent, like fairly fairly recent. kind of a cool fun fact. That's very cool. I love the Chicago. All right. So on the cigar, not the bat, the cigar version of the bat.
00:05:12
Speaker
Uh, rapper, like I said, is Ecuadorian Connecticut. First time, Murcielago has had an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper binder and filler are all Nicaraguan. It's not quite clear. I could have, uh, gotten this information, but I didn't want to bother anybody.
00:05:26
Speaker
Um, it's not totally clear whether this is the same Murcielago blend or a little tweak and a wrapper change. um But I think it's probably pretty close to the original Murcielago blend.
00:05:39
Speaker
Factory for this is San Latino, which is AJ Fernandez factory in Nicaragua that Espinosa cigars frequently has worked with over the years ah because Lizona is very, very capacity limited. limited um So a lot of their cigars are coming out of San Latino, which is a great factory.
00:05:59
Speaker
This is a 6x54, and it is in... You can't really see it on camera too much. There you kind of can. It's an oval It's got the squish. It's got the squish. It's the squish. I love the squish.
00:06:10
Speaker
This uses the same style press as the famous San Latino ovals um that were made in that very same San Latino factory from AJ Fernandez. $15 per cigar.
00:06:22
Speaker
They only released 1,000 boxes 20 bottles. um And of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention the master blender behind this creation, Hector de Alfonso.
00:06:35
Speaker
ah it's So thanks, Hector, for blending a good cigar. What do you think so far, Dennis? Now that you're getting into it a little bit. I love this white pepper sweetness and this intense cedar like a like a wet cedar. If you go into a sauna and you've got the cedar walls and they've been kind of sweating for a while, it's it's that kind of like that chewy cedar rather than that dry cedar that kind of bites the nose.
00:07:00
Speaker
I wanted to make sure that that was distinctly right said, because sometimes you get cedar. lot of times you get cedar. It's pretty dry. which is fine. um But the white pepper on the retro hill is really cool and and a bit of sweetness too.
00:07:13
Speaker
But it's not as light and subdued as I kind of expected it to be, off the off the light at least. Yeah, it's ah it's pretty intense for a cigar with a Connecticut wrapper, which is a nice change sometimes.
00:07:25
Speaker
um I'm
Pairing Cigars with Drinks
00:07:27
Speaker
getting kind of kind of exactly what you're getting. little bit of ah
00:07:33
Speaker
um like a ah mushroomy kind of funk to it. Just a little bit. Your favorite kind of thing, obviously, mushrooms. I mean, I don't mind the flavor. It's more the texture and the thought of mushrooms. Oh, that's right. It's like octopus.
00:07:46
Speaker
Similar texture for you. Dude, that octopus that I had in Vegas. I've never eaten anything with that texture. It was terrible.
00:07:57
Speaker
What, at PCA? Yeah, at that Italian place that we went. um Oh, that was not good. Somebody got roasted octopus or flame-grilled octopus or something, and I had a piece, and I swear to God, I was chewing on it for 15 minutes.
00:08:10
Speaker
Like, just... That might have been the foreskin of the octopus, actually. It's little chewier. It might have just been a piece of rubber that fell in. ah Because it was it was rough. Maybe it was a toy octopus.
00:08:22
Speaker
You know, they have those like toy snakes that are made of rubber. That's right. Maybe it's like one of those. um But yeah, that that white pepper, black pepper mix that's going on in this is fantastic. It's got some serious spice to it.
00:08:35
Speaker
For a cigar with a Connecticut wrapper, which you don't expect. Bear wants to know, how's the lactose? Not getting a lot of lactose on the palate. More so on the retro.
00:08:48
Speaker
I love Bear so much. ah ah You didn't even have an answer. I love... you lost stop laugh i Oh, we'll talk about that later on the show because there's going to be a conspiracy.
00:08:58
Speaker
No doubt that what I'm drinking tonight is full of lactose. Possibly. Possibly. I'm ready to discredit that. Bare rubber like Goodyear. Reminded me of a chunk of tire. Oh, the Michelin Man. Horrific.
00:09:12
Speaker
ah From Ghostbusters. He was made out of ah the state-puffed marshmallow man. That's what it was. State-puffed. Yes. All right. And with that, we're going to get in into pairing. Um...
00:09:23
Speaker
I mean, let's get pairing. That's what I meant to say. That's what I said. I didn't say get into pairing. I said, let's get pairing. Yeah, that's what I definitely said. Let's get into first up.
00:09:34
Speaker
oh I tried to go with a theme this week, which is just a little funky. I want to go too funky. I may have a, I have a bonus pairing on deck if I decide to get very funky.
00:09:47
Speaker
But for now, I'm just going a little bit funky. I have ah juice box. Oh, dude, I absolutely love that juice box. We got some of these when we were in Miami.
00:10:00
Speaker
ah So this is Maneki Wonko, which is Lucky Dog. Maneki is, Maneki Neko means Lucky Cat. It's like that cat you see waving, right?
00:10:11
Speaker
That golden cat you see at Chinese food, Japanese food places. um Sometimes Korean food places. yeah i've even seen it at indian places and thai places actually so it's all over it's kind of universal very popular um but maneki neko part of the reason it got that name is because of the just the sound it makes maneki neko how it's got that you know neki neko at the end um for this maneki wonko wonko means uh you bark Wan-ko, cute bark or bark cute.
00:10:44
Speaker
I don't remember which is which. um So, Maneki Wanko is kind of ah just a different way of saying lucky dog. But neither of the words actually mean what they mean.
00:10:55
Speaker
Maneki means something else besides lucky that corresponds with the cat. um So, this is kind of a play on words in a language that we don't understand. Just to...
00:11:08
Speaker
There's a name for that, and i forget. i forget It'll come to me at some point, but there's a name for that when the words, the root the the root parts of a word don't actually mean what the actual word itself up meaning. There is a word for that.
00:11:21
Speaker
I don't remember it is. I forget. Someone much smarter than myself will probably chime in in the comments and let us know. Probably Sam Finnell. He's watching. He's a very smart dude. Sam knows his stuff, actually. He's very smart. He's drinking a Guinness Zero right now with Don Pepin Blue.
00:11:35
Speaker
That's a buts a good pair. Man, the Guinness Zero really grew on me. Just quick. Is it good? I haven't tried it yet. Yeah, it's not bad. Not bad. All right, so this Maneki Wanko, Lucky Dog Sake.
00:11:49
Speaker
That's about all the information I have on this. ah There is very little information on the internet about this. I know that it is
Treehouse Brewing Features and New England IPAs
00:11:57
Speaker
brewed in the Hyogo Prefecture, which is kind of the part of Japan that they say is widely known, widely considered as the historical heartland of sake.
00:12:07
Speaker
where it comes from. I know it's 13.2% ABV. And after ah little bit of research, I believe this is one of the brands of, oops, I just spilled sake all over my table.
00:12:20
Speaker
Uh, I believe this is one of the brands of sake that you can pretty commonly find in Japan in vending machines, which is rad. I would love to buy one of these for three bucks out of a vending machine, dude. Just walk around the city.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah. The little juice box. There's something nostalgic and fun about seeing brands today doing the Tetra packs and the similar juice box things for for wine. for um haven't seen haven't seen any any carbonated stuff, but I've seen ah ton of cocktails as well.
00:12:51
Speaker
Me too. um But I'm going to take couple of steps and see if I can decide how this pairs ah with the cocktail. While you talk about your first pair.
00:13:04
Speaker
What got for us? Let me make sure. Hold on. Let me make my cigar doesn't go out as it tends to do. I've been so nervous to smoke this too fast because I saw this crack just forming at the foot.
00:13:15
Speaker
and um I don't want to push it too hard. All right.
00:13:25
Speaker
Oh, man. So I was at a wedding in Grafton, Vermont, which is a really beautiful place, last weekend. Awesome spot. If you've never been in super small town, just a cool place to to visit. It is quite far from where I live.
00:13:39
Speaker
ah As you know, it's the reason why I didn't make it last last week for the show. I was stuck in traffic everywhere. Connecticut, never drive in Connecticut. New York City, don't bother driving in New York City.
00:13:52
Speaker
North Jersey, just equally as awful. um But now going up. On my way, I did pass a really cool spot, and I think it holds this very sweet lore in the in the community of craft culture for craft beer.
00:14:07
Speaker
They are, i mean, completely self-sustaining in that they do not distribute. They produce everything in-house. You can only buy in-house. um One of the few breweries of of their size that still exists that only do in-house, which is super cool. You have an idea who I'm talking about?
00:14:25
Speaker
I don't think so. Massive cult following. Treehouse Brewing Company. Treehouse, man. And i you know i've I've always known about Treehouse. I've always heard stories of of friends going and and doing day trips to go there and buy stuff and take orders from friends. ah Matt Ross, actually, I think he still does that.
00:14:44
Speaker
He might. yeah He was doing that for a while. He might still be doing that with the New Jersey crew. um So I had a chance to stop at Treehouse and just pick up a bunch of random stuff. and Very exciting because I have not had a whole lot of treehouse in my time.
00:14:58
Speaker
Let me show you first what it looks like just to give you an idea of bare mentioned lactose. We'll talk about that a little bit, but... For those of you that might be a little bit older, you might remember something called an Orange Julius. I'll get into that as well.
00:15:13
Speaker
um But Treehouse was founded in 2011. It was founded classically, as it always is with a brewery of this size. Bunch of friends that kind of wanted to make some beer and just loved beer They weren't necessarily in the business.
00:15:27
Speaker
um Nate Lanier, Damien Goudreau, and Dean Ron started it. Lanier was a musician and a teacher. So basically just a bunch of buddies came in and said, hey, we're to make a brewery. Let's do this thing.
00:15:39
Speaker
So when they started, the operation was fairly small. Their official flagship opening was in 2017.
00:15:46
Speaker
And that was in Charlton, Massachusetts. Since then, fast forward to today, the location that I visited, Deerfield, opened up in 2021. And they have a bunch of other locations. So they have four, they have five total.
00:16:02
Speaker
They're in Manson, ah ormonson Massachusetts, Woodstock, Connecticut, and Tewkesbury, Massachusetts. I love saying Tewkesbury. It's very silly. ah tospere but good name the I can tell you the Deerfield location that I visited I rolled up it looked like a corporate campus for a massive some kind of massive company I walked in it took me like 15 minutes to walk from the one entrance to the other side of the building and down into the the whatever you want to call area open space area where I could get the beer to to to try out
00:16:36
Speaker
It's massive. So I found out actually used to be an old marketing company's corporate office. And they closed and these guys came in and said, hey, buts let's buy this space. It's massive. Campus, of course, lots of space for parking and all of that.
00:16:51
Speaker
So they have a cult following. and Everybody loves these cats. And they've been producing a lot of really interesting. When we talk about the haze craze on the East Coast and we talk about all these really intense milkshake IPAs,
00:17:06
Speaker
A lot of people will say, okay, lactose, fine. But they are still one of the few that were part of that early kind of movement that weren't that big into the lactose.
00:17:17
Speaker
They were doing other things. They were using, like, chloride-heavy waters. They were using um flaked oats to soften the the the profile of the final beer. And a ton of hops.
00:17:30
Speaker
So many hops. think as far as I know, kind of tired hands... another one and cane were kind of like the the big three when it came to northeast ipas in the beginning
00:17:43
Speaker
they were yeah the northeast ipas we're going to leave out um we're going to leave out heady topper and alchemist brewing because i think that's a different yeah it's a different kind of world all in itself right very different type type of style of beer ah So their capacity is also pretty massive. i just want to point out 60,000 barrels per year, which is a ton of beer.
00:18:09
Speaker
That's wild. And they're not distributing anything. They're not distributing anything. And they're selling only at their, the five locations that they have. That's cool. Which is incredible. And again, i think it's cemented their status as one of these white whale breweries that people just want to go to and,
00:18:25
Speaker
park in front of when they have a release and sit there in a chair for 12 hours and hope to buy one single 16-ounce bottle for $50 or whatever it is. Too many crisps.
00:18:38
Speaker
its It gets expensive. It gets expensive. But they also have their own coffee roasting operation, which is awesome. I didn't have a chance to to pick up any coffee, but I know it's it's pretty popular from what I hear. People really dig it.
00:18:49
Speaker
ah But the coolest thing, I think, my opinion, the coolest thing as a home brewer and kind of a beer nerd, ah now getting into the chemistry side of the house, ah they have their own lab, like their own full-size quality lab. It monitors all the yeast health. They do the microbial stability testing.
00:19:08
Speaker
To ensure that everything is absolutely as perfect and and consistent as possible across all their beers. So, with that said, where's my can? Here's my can.
00:19:19
Speaker
Check this out It's kind of pretty can. I'm drinking one of their flagship beers called The Julius. I've always wanted to try that beer, man. It's one of those, like, yeah you know, i um I've just never been within 80 miles in one of those breweries.
00:19:36
Speaker
ah but which makes it kind of unobtainium. it's It's hard to get in there, man. um I was very fortunate to finally make it out. This Julius is considered one of their flagship beers.
00:19:47
Speaker
Comes in at 6.8%, and it is a typical kind of what you would consider we'll just call it an American IPA. You can argue that maybe it's not as American as some would like, but I think that's an East Coast versus West Coast argument that you don't necessarily need have. Yeah, I think it's decidedly a New England IPA, right?
00:20:04
Speaker
yeah it's decided Yeah. I would say decidedly New England IPA. The water chemistry, um calcium chloride, very heavy on this, which is really nice. I love brewing with it as well.
00:20:15
Speaker
um They do a ton of hops. Hop additions, they order so many hops that they have specific ingredients It is very much like in the cigar industry where you go to a farm and you say, listen, i need i need consistency and I need to make sure that I have a promise of crop for the next two seasons or three seasons or whatever.
00:20:33
Speaker
And you just put the money down and you you build a relationship with with someone that's producing this this raw material for you. They do that with several growers out in um and Oregon.
00:20:44
Speaker
wow And I think also, that actually, Washington State as well. Very likely. Oregon and Washington are kind of two of theirre the bigger producers. Yeah.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah.
Homebrewing Challenges and Techniques
00:20:55
Speaker
So i but I mentioned Julius, Orange Julius. Do you remember what an Orange Julius was? Of course. All right. Oh, because you're an East Coast kid, right?
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Fair enough. There's still one in the mall I went to as a kid. What? yeah Still? I thought they shut down. Oh, maybe they did. it was there the last time I was there 10, 8 years ago, something like that.
00:21:19
Speaker
So, you know, they named it after a cat that was named Julius. It had nothing to do with Orange Julius or the fact that it's as thick and orangey as an Orange Julius was.
00:21:32
Speaker
It had nothing to do with Orange Julius, that the the drink. which is crazy, which was invented in 1926. I should have mentioned that by Julius Fried out in L.A. and he had a stand and he was just taking orange juice and he couldn't really drink it. It was giving him, you know, gastric issues.
00:21:47
Speaker
So he added a whole bunch of stuff, sugar and i think egg whites were in their milk and came up with this this drink that i mean, it's basically ice cream with orange juice. Yeah, pretty much. It was the the the old like the the classic um orange creamsicle kind of flavor.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yep. And this does not disappoint, man. It is so close to that. The hop quality is so gentle that it's not... If you hate hops, you would never even notice the hops in this, I don't think.
00:22:19
Speaker
It's lovely. Even though there's a ton? ah There's a ton of hops in this, yeah. Hops are expensive, by the way. Just, like, man, homebrewing is is getting it's getting up there.
00:22:32
Speaker
And you're putting in five pounds of hops in a single batch. Yeah, home home... I mean, not homebrewing, just hops in general can get real expensive. I think part of it is that, you know, it's it's one of those ingredients that, like, for for some breweries, they use it like saffron, right? Yes.
00:22:57
Speaker
They're sprinkling it a couple of hops into their kettle. And that's that's what you need um for their recipes. And some you're dumping bucket full. Like 55-gallon drums full.
00:23:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah, man. ah And it's just, you know, it's it depends on the flavor you're going for. But there's certain flavors you can only get from those buckets full of hops.
00:23:23
Speaker
And it has to sit, too. Some of those hops you think, oh, it has to be fresh. I remember in two thousand around 2012, the hop craze was going around. People would get so pissy going into a store looking the bottom a can saying, man, this thing is like six days old. I'm not buying this.
00:23:39
Speaker
It was a a weird time. Now we're going back a little bit. Now it's like, right, it's fine. We want the hops to kind of die out a little bit to mesh into the beer better, to not be as abrupt and and kind of age.
00:23:51
Speaker
I mean, imagine if those guys knew how long fermentation takes.
00:23:58
Speaker
Well, yeah. Your beer's been sitting for weeks before it gets even close to that camp. Dude, I, you know, I have a five-gallon keg sitting in my bedroom right now conditioning in secondary four especially for, supposed to for 100 days. going keep it for a year, I think.
00:24:15
Speaker
But it's a Flemish Red. It's got to funk up. It's got to sour up. going to do its thing.
00:24:21
Speaker
so yeah So tell us tell us a little bit about your first pairing. The little juice box. um I love it. I haven't smoked a cigar with it, so I'm curious what your thoughts are. Sake is kind of tough with a lot of cigars. I think this cigar would would work really well.
00:24:35
Speaker
I think it's working okay. Okay. The only problem is really that the sake is so clean. Like, sake is such a clean beverage that um it doesn't have much of a finish on your palate.
00:24:49
Speaker
So as soon as you smoke the cigar, it just... ah The sake is gone from your palate entirely. um It's like coconut water. it's got that coconut water essence to the body of it.
00:25:01
Speaker
that Dude, I kind of get what you mean with that. little bit. It's like got a similar viscosity and a similar amount of flavor, I think, to coconut water where it's very delicate.
00:25:13
Speaker
It's not like the cigar doesn't demolish the flavors. There's a little bit of fruitiness, a little bit of sweetness in this one. I can't figure out what the fruit is. It's almost like a honeydew melon or something like that.
00:25:27
Speaker
Oh, it's lychee. lyny Yeah, kind of lychee-esque. I mean, there's no actual fruit juice in here. No, no. It does remind me of lychee. You're right.
00:25:40
Speaker
um But it it works okay. I mean, this stuff is surprisingly delicious. I'm kind of a snob when it comes to sake, and I like this. I like the format, too. it's I think it's a good good serving size.
00:25:53
Speaker
I think so, too. The best part... What I found online from this is that this is the single serving size. The like family size is it looks like a carton of orange juice.
00:26:04
Speaker
Like one of those cartons that has the screw top. Poke it out the side. It's a carton. my God. That's amazing. Does it come with a giant straw? Because that'd be fantastic. Like a bubble tea straw. I hope so.
00:26:16
Speaker
That'd be so cool. But yeah, the sake doesn't work great, but it's it's not an off-putting pairing. It just doesn't do a whole lot with the cigar. There's not a lot of interaction.
00:26:27
Speaker
How about that Julius? How's that working out? You know, I'm thinking about it. I'm still... First sip was awesome. I really loved it.
00:26:39
Speaker
I think the beer is starting to coat my palate to a degree where I can't really taste the cigar as much. ah That spice, that cedar... It's intense in a different way. I think it's not so much the hop quality of it. I think it's the the the haze and the cream of it, if you will, even though it has no, there's no lactose. There's no lactose whatsoever. The sweetness is from the malt.
00:26:59
Speaker
Again, depending on the yeast that you use, they used a pretty standard yeast for this. um you can just back off your yeast a little bit and pull it off when you're done, not hit it to your, you know, whatever the target is and keep some of the residual sugars in place to get that kind of, let the mouth feel and a little bit more of a body.
Cigar Blending and Audience Engagement
00:27:16
Speaker
If you yeah let your yeast eat through all the sugars, you're to end up with a much drier product generally. Yeah. So it's just cool. There's so much nuance. You can take the same beer. You do it so many different ways and end up with so many different, unique kind of varieties and products. And again, I'm going tie it into tobacco.
00:27:33
Speaker
There are only so many leaves in the world that exist, but if you take different leaves and put them together in different ways and ratios, we end up with different cigars, man, that have their own kind of, their own characteristics to them.
00:27:46
Speaker
You just gave me a really interesting idea for like a, a collaboration, I guess, to, I don't know how interesting it would be, but it would at least be an interesting experiment to have like two or three blenders use identical tobaccos but in different ratios that they choose and vitola same or different vitola same vitola same vitola that's i would leave out change they get the same ingredients but they can mix them however they want um i would be curious how that would work it could be interesting it could just be three the same cigar
00:28:27
Speaker
You know what? We know some people. We can make a phone call. That's true. Maybe we should try that. Phone a friend. You and me versus any master blender.
00:28:40
Speaker
Hey, man, I would be so happy to do a a single origin type vertical for beer and just like nail down a list. Actually, I was going to do this with Jason at some point and and with you. I think you were part of this as well.
00:28:54
Speaker
We talked about taking the same ingredients and then just doing our own take on on a recipe, man. yeah we't talk that Yeah, we should do that someday. Someday I'll get my brewing stuff back together.
00:29:06
Speaker
um Going back to the comments for a second. Bear is grilling out before he goes traveling tomorrow. He has no El Oso Fumar takes. Took me a minute to figure out what EFT stood for because El Oso Fumar to me has always been E-O-F-T, not EFT. Yeah, same.
00:29:23
Speaker
ah But he's drinking Portaleza, which is a ah ah tequila that he was telling me about when he was on this show, I think, a couple months ago. um It sounds fantastic. With a La Barba Ricochet Crumex's Soul, which is a fantastic cigar. I bet that's good pair. What were you going say?
00:29:45
Speaker
I have no idea. Oh, EFT versus nft t ah You can tell how old somebody is if they talk about EFTs or if they just only talk about NFTs. ah I don't know if I know what an EFT is.
00:30:02
Speaker
ETF?
00:30:05
Speaker
Electronic funds transfer? That's the only EFT I can think of. yeah Anyway, I'm to move on to my next pairing now and see how it goes. After pouring this one, I'm not so sure about it but this is...
00:30:17
Speaker
golden roads brewings mango cart uh mango wheat ale the golden road let me find my notes i lost them here while we were talking uh golden road well you got it i was i was gonna cover where you look for your notes they're founded by meg gill and tony yanau in 2011 in los angeles california um pretty early on in 2015 they were purchased by ab inbev um Meg Gill is still leading over at Golden Road while Yan'al walked away um and is involved in the restaurant business somehow.
00:30:52
Speaker
Currently, Golden Road is the largest brewery in Los Angeles. Los Angeles. um City of Angels. they They distribute their beer all over the place. So I can even get it at the grocery store here, which is kind of nice.
00:31:06
Speaker
But, ah you know, that's the AB InBev machine at work. Yeah. This is, like I said before, mango cart. It is a wheat ale with mango. Comes in at a nice, minuscule 4% ABV, which I always appreciate. A nice, low ABV. This is the beer that I always keep on hand to give out to guests.
00:31:29
Speaker
When it's hot out, when we're cooking ah on the grill or whatever, always have this because people love it. They probably never had it. I don't have to keep a bunch of Budweiser or Bud Light or Coors Light around.
00:31:42
Speaker
um I can keep something that I like to drink and goes over well with pretty much anybody who wants a beer while they're at my house. um It does pour ah little bit hazy with ah quite a bit of particulate in there, which I'm guessing are little chunks of mango and ah and yeast. So I'm going to take a couple sips, see how this pairs. I don't know how it'll do because this cigar is a lot stronger than I was expecting ah when i when I chose these pairings.
00:32:11
Speaker
We'll see
Treehouse Brewing Methods and Experimental Beer
00:32:12
Speaker
how it goes. So as I pour this, because, you know, I got to do it. and We got to do it live. um As I pour this, I'm very curious. So that is the standard mango cart. It is not a... It's not one of the... Okay.
00:32:25
Speaker
All right. And I was going to say, mango cart is, I mean, a fantastic series, but I purchased a um a variety box that had it was like salted lime there was a spicy mango cart which i loved it was actually kind of spicy just enough where it was like if you remember prometheus drinks back in the day i don't think i do it looks it looked like a snapple and but it was it was basically snapple kind of like fruit snapple but with with capsaicin oh yeah and it was called promethe prometheus springs that's what it was
00:33:00
Speaker
Going back to 2008. Weird culture for spicy stuff. All right. I'm talking about this really cool beer. Scream of the Living from Treehouse.
00:33:11
Speaker
Not surprisingly. It's got this really cool... I like their i like their packaging. It's just clean. It's very understated. but A whole ton of flavor text that... um Dare I say nobody wants to hear me talk too much, so I'm not going to read too much into it. But it...
00:33:28
Speaker
um but It's a beer that that kind of meant a lot to them when they put it out, and certainly the the fan base has grown really heavily around this, just like the Julius. Oh, I should have mentioned, 8% Imperial IPA, or we'll call it a Double IPA.
00:33:46
Speaker
Now, another point of contention for a lot of people is we say, well, a Double technically is before an Imperial, but... Did doubles exist before Imperials existed? And is Imperial truly the next stage of ah of an IPA when you talk about, you know, single, double, what we call triple IPA, right?
00:34:04
Speaker
Is it Imperial or is it triple? I call an Imperial any amount of multipliers. Imperial is double, triple, or quadruple.
00:34:16
Speaker
Imperial just means bigger to me. um Typically, I think it's used interchangeably with double though. And I have felt the same way for a really long time. And at some point, Imperial had changed because the it was ABV specific.
00:34:32
Speaker
It was like back in the day, if you hit 8% on an IPA, it automatically became Imperial. We saw the shift happen with the stout world as well, right? Imperial stats kind of shifted to the right a little bit with the intensity and what they were called.
00:34:49
Speaker
Now session IPAs are like 6%, man. It's wild. Yeah. Absolutely wild. This is another beer that looks crazy on camera. Whoa. And also in person.
00:35:01
Speaker
so That looks like a lemonade slushy. It does, man. it in And again, it's very similar style. Stylistically, it's very similar in that it's it's very hoppy.
00:35:13
Speaker
Obviously, it's much stronger. But it's very hoppy. It has that. I'm like salivating so much from the mouthfeel of it. It's so smooth and so creamy. And you would say, this guy this definitely has lactose in it.
00:35:26
Speaker
It does not, which is really cool. And I love that. There must be a lot of flaked oats in A ton. I think they use a ton of flaked oats. It must be something exorbitant. But I wanted to say what what I love what they do with their with their yeast profiles is, number one, they don't use a single yeast strain. So they use a blend.
00:35:45
Speaker
Most of their beers, are thing they use different, um they take parts of different colonies of yeast, strains of yeast, if you will, and they combine them. And they can kind of coexist. Certain strains don't really like each other. and they Not that they fight, but they kind of fart each other out, if you will.
00:36:01
Speaker
um But they find certain kinds of different strains of yeast. that produce different ah different flavor profiles at different temperatures. And so they're blending their yeast to get a different effect. And part of the thing that they're doing is also not pitching with aeration.
00:36:18
Speaker
So traditionally, when you pitch your yeast, you want to aerate the wort. You want to make sure that there's enough oxygen in there to feed the yeast and give it an opportunity to start up and start replicating and multiplying and continue to chew through all the sugar.
00:36:33
Speaker
What they like to do is they pitch it without air and they purposely stress the yeast. And because the yeast gets stressed at the right temperature, it releases different types of esters. And the esters will give you those nice fruity flavors, the nice kind of fruity notes on the nose.
00:36:48
Speaker
like the melon, the orange, the that's coming from the yeast, not from the hops. Which is mind-boggling because the process is technically it's very simple, but also, number one, it's at scale, and number two, it's actually pretty complex what they're doing.
00:37:04
Speaker
Well, I think the thing that makes it complex is they're getting... specific flavors that they want out of it. That's the part that makes it complex. If you just toss the yeast in and let it do whatever it does, you'll get a bunch of flavors, but they're not going to be as pronounced. They're not going to be as pinpoint as they get them using science, which is neat.
00:37:25
Speaker
I have to tell you, since we're here and we talk about horror and zombies and things, I have a zombie. My neighbor and I had ah some yeast left over and some hops left over, and we had I had a gallon of wort left over from the Flanders Red.
00:37:39
Speaker
And we were going to dump it and thought, hey, we got one of those iGulu things, right? A little, you know what I'm talking about? ah google iGulu. little desktop gallon fermenter for beer.
00:37:52
Speaker
Oh, okay. Okay. So we threw it in there. I thought you were trying to say Igloo. No, no, no. It's called the Igloo. Okay, yeah, I got you now. They changed the name. Yeah, it was a Kickstarter thing. I finally got it eight years later. ah Anyway, so we put a gallon of beer in there. We put random yeast in there.
00:38:10
Speaker
ah Like a fistful of hops. Whatever random hops that were just laying around and available. And we had Thai food for lunch. So we had a container of Thai chili flake. Threw it in there.
00:38:22
Speaker
And just let it funk itself. But because the yeast doesn't come out, right? It's just one vessel. It's been sitting on this decaying yeast, and the decaying yeast has started to sour. Oh, wow.
00:38:34
Speaker
And so it's a zombie type A with a little bit of heat on the back, and it's fantastic. We're never going to make it again. Zombie type A. love that. That's a name, man. You got a name. I'm working. I like the names. I like making fun names. So...
00:38:47
Speaker
Let me wrap up on my second pairing. I think it's actually working a little bit better than the first for whatever reason. It's a little bit stronger. It's a little bit more intense on the hop quality, but it's not as... um It's not as... as the Coat palating.
00:39:02
Speaker
but Pallet coating. Coat palating. English is hard. In Russian, it would make sense. Even for those of us who speak it every day. Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
So the oats are not as intense and it's not covering the palate and blocking out the cigar, which I think is nice.
Hoppin' Frog Brewery and Unique Shandy Tasting
00:39:21
Speaker
Nice. What you feeling over there? ah The Golden Road mango cart works pretty well. i I think what we've found over the last year or so that we've been pairing with it once in a while, um mango cart goes with pretty much any cigar. It's just got kind of the right amount of sweetness.
00:39:39
Speaker
um agreed The right amount of like well-roundedness to work with cigars. um It's like, it's very mango forward, so it's got nice light body with mango and then a little bit of breadiness.
00:39:52
Speaker
Not much hops, but just enough that you taste that little bit of that hint of bitterness. um It's just a really well-balanced beer that works really well with most cigars. This one in particular, I think it kind of brings out a little bit of extra sweetness in the cigar. um And I find it kind of... ah I don't know. It just plays really interestingly with that super intense white pepper note that you were talking about at the beginning.
00:40:20
Speaker
I think this is a very interesting pairing. Here's how my last pairing is going to be. Because this is the funkiest one yet unless I go for the bonus pairing. I'm excited. I feel like you need the bonus as well.
00:40:33
Speaker
You've got to hit the bonus. I will go for it. But for now, I've got one that I've had once on the show before, Hoppin' Frog Peanut Butter and Jelly Turbo Shandy. Oh, my man. All right. I remember you ah the first time you had it on the show, and it was an interesting response.
00:40:49
Speaker
This is a funky beer, man. So Hoppin' Frog Brewery. They were founded in 2006 in Akron, Ohio, by an electrical engineer named Fred Karm. He'd been home brewing since 1994.
00:41:02
Speaker
um And just, you know, he was one of those guys who was brewing weird stuff And he would brew it for his friends and they would all go, man, that's really cool. um So in 2006, he decided to start a brewery and retired from his electricoral electrical engineering job. um His focus is all over the place.
00:41:22
Speaker
um But specifically, he likes to get weird. He likes to have interesting ingredients ah for beers like their Fruit Smash Blonde series, which is like a way over-fruited blonde series. So it's like a super blueberry blonde or strawberry or mango or what have you.
00:41:42
Speaker
ah They have a funnel cake ale. They did a chocolate-covered raisin porter. ah And their Shandy line is their most successful. um So Turbo Shandy means it's a...
00:41:56
Speaker
not quite an imperial shandy but it's a shandy that's ah amped up a little bit a little plus on there yeah a little plus on there so it's seven percent abv which is crazy for a shandy because typically a shandy is going to be half like lemonade half some kind of ale but i'm not sure exactly what kind of beer they usually use and in shandies um But what they say is this peanut butter and jelly Tarbo Shandy is crisp and refreshing while capturing the essence of a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich.
00:42:32
Speaker
Last time I remember it being very peanut buttery, which I really liked. And weirdly so weirdly lemony. um So I'm going to take double sips. Oh, I remember the lemon. See how it goes while you talk about your final pairing tonight.
00:42:44
Speaker
And I'll go get my bonus pairing at some point. Yeah, man, I remember that you were talking about the lemon just on the back end coming out, which is really interesting because peanut butter in general is...
00:42:55
Speaker
The peanut flavor is so hard to nail. It's either a taste fake or, ah well, because the oils in in even peanut powder, man, powdered peanuts are still really tough to brew with because you have all that oil you need to fight. So you can either extract it in some way, but then you end up losing some of the the natural nuance and the the aroma and flavor.
00:43:17
Speaker
Well, peanut butter anyway has like this bizarre, for lack of a better word, because it kind of comes in into play here with what i'm about to say fluidity of flavor have you ever warmed up peanut butter or put it on like a hot um like toast or a waffle or something yep ah and it completely changes the flavor of the peanut butter oh yeah like when it get when it liquefies like that it tastes completely different you haven't cooked it or anything but just a little bit of heat changes the flavor i think that's part of why it makes it so hard because like
00:43:54
Speaker
Peanut butter, the temperature determines what it's going to taste like. And so what happens when you completely remove temperature from it and you're putting it inside of a liquid?
Castle and Key Distillery Whiskey Pairing
00:44:05
Speaker
um Yeah. It becomes unpredictable, I think. With this one, though, i think they nailed it. But I'm going to let you talk about your your final pairing before I get too far. Dude, to this is the single heaviest ah cork cap that I've ever experienced for a bottle of whiskey. It's a amazing.
00:44:22
Speaker
Hell yeah. If I mean if i gently tossed it at you, it would hurt. If I just underhanded, like, just a little, like, here you go. Ah, fuck, it would hurt.
00:44:34
Speaker
So I had a sip of this pre-show. I'm just curious, but now I'm going to really get into it. Let me show you the bottle first. It's a really, really pretty bottle. I love this bottle so much. Have you seen this before? No, like the bottle.
00:44:48
Speaker
castle and key distillery this is a custom custom shaped bottle that they they made just for them they have this really nice little neck tag metal neck tag that's the metal neck tag this topper is metal and solid it's just i love a cork like that uh aviation has one very similar uh no let's gin has one similar ah couple whiskey brands out there it's just so cool when you go all out with the topper like I love those, man. And i it's hard to see in my camera, but it has it it just has the name on there.
00:45:23
Speaker
um Castle and Key Distillery with this with their with their logo, which is really nice. um Though that being said, I think that probably adds $5 per bottle at least.
00:45:36
Speaker
But, you know, that's the that's kind of like the... ah the The thing, you know, cigars having nice bands or nice boxes, like even though it really doesn't add to the flavor itself, it adds the experience, which matters.
00:45:50
Speaker
It matters so much, man. and And people get pissy about this, especially people that I think often get into, start getting into whiskeys or or beers, craft beer, craft whiskeys, certainly cigars.
00:46:03
Speaker
They get and they say, wow, this price of ent entry is really high. What am I really paying for here? Well, to a degree, you're paying for the ingredients and the the process what's the ingredients. It's the process, the time that it takes to get those ingredients to the place where the final product is ready.
00:46:17
Speaker
But then also it's the experience of... like ah opening a coffin for a cigar is, is kind of cool and fun. And even tubos, I love the, uh, uh, was the synchro that came out, right. Those, those was like squared off tubos. I love those things.
00:46:34
Speaker
So cool. And just add it to the experience. Similarly, a bottle like this, you look at it and it's got the, the, you know, the, the shape to it. You can hold it texture to it.
00:46:45
Speaker
It's cool. I dig it. I'm willing to pay a little extra for it. and MSRP on this, for me locally, at least, is $54. fifty four dollars That's actually not terrible when you've got a bottle like that, especially if the whiskey's decent, right? like Yeah, man, I'm going to take a quick sip.
00:47:06
Speaker
Go for it. For $50, I'm expecting ah whiskey that's pretty good. It's not going to be perfect. It's not going to blow your mind. um But it's going to be something that's very, very good for sipping.
00:47:18
Speaker
You can s sip it straight, no problem. And it, you know, has a decent amount of flavor. And this one is... man. Okay. ah a Quick thing, this also comes in at 102 proof, which is really cool. It's a straight bourbon whiskey.
00:47:35
Speaker
Castellan Key Distillery today is owned by, and I'll explain why I say today. Today, they're owned by Will Arvin, along with his partner, Wes Murray, who purchased this back in 2014.
00:47:46
Speaker
This dist still distillery, I'm salivating heavily from the phenols, hold on.
00:47:52
Speaker
All right. ah This distillery used to be the old Taylor Distillery, if you recall. Oh. Mr. E.H. himself. Yeah. So they basically went on this massive project.
00:48:05
Speaker
and They bought it in 2014. They went on this massive project to restore it and And opened up back back to the public ah in 2018, September 19th of 2018.
00:48:16
Speaker
Both of them are kind of entrepreneurs that have been in and around Kentucky. They have always had this passion for the the history of Kentucky and distilling. And as many of us know, Kentucky is there was kind of this mecca for distilling, particularly because of its limestone-rich water.
00:48:32
Speaker
It has been the place... if If you're somebody that wants to do some cool stuff and distill something awesome, that's where you go. there's There's a great level of knowledge, historical knowledge of the people and the experience. And certainly it's the culture of the spirit, not just the spirit itself that I really love.
00:48:53
Speaker
So they went out, they did this thing, they finally opened up, they started reproducing things. It used to be the old Taylor Distillery. That was founded in 1887 by our good old friend, Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor Jr.,
00:49:07
Speaker
And that distillery was designed to look like a medieval castle. Basically, they just wanted tourists to come by and look at it, and there were gardens everywhere. it was just one of those things that someone wanted to do something fun and incorporated that fun thing into into their their business, their distillery.
00:49:25
Speaker
Unfortunately, as we know, Prohibition came in, and a lot of distilleries shut down or at least were put on sort of this layaway, if you will. Yeah, there were a handful of breweries. I remember it's like 12 or so that had medicinal licenses.
00:49:42
Speaker
They were able to keep brewing medicine or distilling medicine during Prohibition for those 10, 12 years. um But most distilleries, like, you couldn't do anything anymore.
00:49:57
Speaker
You just had to close. um And going, you know, 12 or whatever years, 10 or 12 years without any money coming in to be able to pay the rent or any kind of overhead made it very difficult for a lot of those distilleries.
00:50:12
Speaker
So generally speaking, most of the ones that survived were those ones making medicine. And I think only a very small handful survived also from making other things, distilling essences and things like that, non kind of non-alcoholic, non- what's the word I'm trying to say?
00:50:33
Speaker
um Non-recreational? Yeah, sort of non-recreational, not liquor specifically. Yeah, things like salves and shit like that. Exactly, exactly. But very few survived doing that because unfortunately a lot of people were already doing that at the time.
00:50:48
Speaker
So they were kind of coming into a market that was already fairly saturated. So, yeah, post-prohibition, as this happens, this is like the age-old curse of any distiller distillery, which is why I will never open a distillery.
00:51:03
Speaker
ah It's exchanged hands. It just went from one one company or person to another company and person. It eventually ended up in the hands of National Distillers in 1935. They operated that until 1972.
00:51:14
Speaker
they operated that until nineteen seventy two kind of the demand for bourbon started to go down. People weren't really getting down on bourbon the same way they used to. We talked before. 70s and 80s were were a low points. It was weird time.
00:51:26
Speaker
It was a very strange time for whiskey. ah And so... It just kind of sat. 1972, it sat until 2014, just decaying, just this decrepit old building. And these guys came in, had enough money, right all that venture capital, no doubt. They came in um and started doing some cool stuff and and and trying to bring back the the life of what used to what this used to be.
00:51:53
Speaker
And so Castle and Key is a nod to the history with E.H. Taylor. And the grounds that were kept yeah essentially restored to where they were before to some degree.
00:52:05
Speaker
ah This is, I should have mentioned, 73% white corn, distinctly white corn, 10% rye, and 17% malted barley. I mean, if you bought tacos or chips in the last 20 years, yellow corn is getting harder to come by.
00:52:22
Speaker
White corn is what it's all about these days. White corn is, and I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan as well. It has a lot of great, especially from a distilling standpoint, you can really get a lot of cool flavors out of it.
00:52:35
Speaker
um So I did mention, yeah, this is at, what was it? 102 proof, which is is kind of cool. Aged for a minimum of four years.
00:52:47
Speaker
In this case, specifically four years. Should be aged for minimum of two to be a straight bourbon officially. In their case, they did four. ah But there is no official age statement on the bottle.
00:52:59
Speaker
Never mind the rest. Sorry. Very small. I'm getting old. I have bad vision. so I hear you.
00:53:08
Speaker
This particular bottle came out last year. This particular badge, I should say. And I honestly, for the price point, it's between 50 and 60 bucks for something like this. Wait, what's the age statement? You said there's an age statement, right? Oh, yeah. Four years. Four years. Okay.
00:53:23
Speaker
Four. Yeah, yeah, But it is a straight straight ah bourbon, which has to have a minimum of two.
00:53:31
Speaker
And this, I never, i didn't show you guys. Check that out. That's the front of it. It's actually green. It looks blue on on video. Is it really? that It looks totally like royal blue to me It's green. it's like a It's like a... What's the word?
00:53:49
Speaker
It's like Civil War green.
00:53:52
Speaker
Which is funny. I've never heard Civil War green before. that's Yeah, I have a... Noodler's makes an ink. i I like fountain pens. Noodler's makes an ink that's called General of the Armies.
00:54:04
Speaker
And it comes out kind of green, this this sort of green, but as it dries and ages over time, it becomes blue like the blue that you see here. Interesting. Yeah. That's weird.
00:54:15
Speaker
um But anyway, dude, great price point. I think it's working really well with the cigar. It has this awesome jabbiness that reminds me of... um Abunad.
00:54:26
Speaker
It has that same Abunad. It sits like a Werther's original in the back of your tongue.
00:54:36
Speaker
And I love it. How's that working with the cigar? Fantastic. I think it's it's such a great pairing with the cigar. Hell yeah. Because again, it's it's thin enough. It's sticky, but it's compared to the beer, there's no carbonation. So you don't have to worry about the bubbles necessarily. But I like that it has the alcohol helps to, to cut through both of the flavors of the cigar and the whiskey itself.
00:55:00
Speaker
Sounds good. I should have paired this with a whiskey. Unfortunately, I went almost all beer, all brewed beverages. sake is brewed not distilled but what's the verdict on this lemon flavor man dude the hop and frog is legit man um it reminds me of like first of all i don't know that i've ever had a beer that nailed peanut butter quite this well Yeah. um And it manages to be, you know, by virtue of it being a Shandy and having that grape jelly flavor as well.
00:55:34
Speaker
um It's like a peanut butter with brightness, which is weird. um It reminds me it like it definitely reminds me of Wonder Bread, peanut butter,
00:55:50
Speaker
And, uh, I don't know if I've ever had a grape jelly that actually tastes like this because of that lemony kind of that shandy note that's in here.
Murcielago Cigar Wrapper and Pairing Conclusions
00:55:58
Speaker
Um, if you got like a, some kind of a sour lemon or sour grape jelly or lemon grape jelly might be a thing somewhere.
00:56:07
Speaker
Um, I think it would taste exactly like this. Like it's got this um and it's enough lemon that it's not puckery, but it it's bright on your palate. You know what i mean? Like, it's not like, Ooh, that's sour.
00:56:19
Speaker
It's more like, okay, there's a little brightness there. Little hit of, of sour. Um, I forgot how much I like this beer. It is also very sweet. This is the kind of beer that I don't know if I'll finish this whole glass because it's just very sugary for me.
00:56:38
Speaker
But that peanut butter note is working so well with this cigar. um And I've got little pieces of wrapper on my finger. I um made a classic mistake.
00:56:50
Speaker
I mean, I don't know if it's a mistake, but when I clipped the cap, it cracked down the side and that crack has expanded. yeah But what it has revealed is that this is, i think, the thinnest Connecticut wrapper earth.
00:57:03
Speaker
It is... like micron level thin. It's crazy how thin the wrapper is on the cigar. I've never seen a wrapper quite this, this thin, um, which, uh, for Connecticut is, you know, that's a, that's a thumbs up when it comes to Connecticut wrapper.
00:57:24
Speaker
The thinner you can get at the better, generally speaking. And I, that kind of explains how like, it's got this very sheen smooth look to it. on the cigar, and I think that's because it's just as thin as it is.
00:57:40
Speaker
I think the cigar is fantastic, Ben. i and it i'm I'm really liking it. i i I didn't know what to expect. I never know what to expect with this type of a blend. Sometimes I really love them, and in other times i just...
00:57:53
Speaker
it It kind of falls short. Not that I dislike them. I think that just sort of fall short. This has been such a great smoke, and i and I'm just kind of happy with my— and maybe just my happiness with my pairings. I dig my pairings. I'm excited to be back. I think there are a lot of good, happy feelings that are coming into my perception of the cigar.
00:58:12
Speaker
And again, it's environment. It's the experience. It's not any one thing. It's not just the tobacco and the cigar and the Vitola. It's where you sit, who you sit with. What you enjoy or don't enjoy with it.
00:58:27
Speaker
All right, my bonus pairing has arrived. And I've tasted it. so And it is indeed funky. You've you've had this one, though. This is Destiel spicy pickle sour.
00:58:40
Speaker
Sweet mother. Made with sucker punch pickle brine, which I don't know what that is. ah It is a sucker punch pickles are up. You can buy them on the store. It's like mass market. Okay. I've never seen them. So this is they're pretty good a goes combined with spicy good but garlic pickle brine from sucker punch.
00:58:58
Speaker
And it tastes like all those things. um It is a little spicier than I expected, but not like not super intense. It's spicy enough that like you feel it going down.
00:59:11
Speaker
um Wait. didn We had this together, right? We bought it together. We didn't try it together. Okay, we didn't try it together. but Is this your first first try? This is my first try ever. Oh, oh my. People wouldn't talk to me.
00:59:30
Speaker
It's very, very funky. It's intensely funky. um i don't I'm not sure I'd recommend it. I'm not sure it goes with a cigar. i would cook with it.
00:59:45
Speaker
You know what I would do? Cook some broths in it. Cook. Yep. Cook some kind of meat or, or dare I say, I'm going to be that person and say, maybe add some of it.
00:59:57
Speaker
Um, You know, with with like... ah My brain's farting into Russian. Hold on. um Mashed potatoes. Garlic mashed potatoes with milk and a little bit of this stuff added in.
01:00:10
Speaker
I could see that working. Just to funk up the potatoes a little bit. Get a little bit... Because the other way to do that is you can add sour cream, and you can add a little yogurt, and you can... Right? To give it a little twang. That would be the right amount of twang, I think, for for a mash.
01:00:22
Speaker
And Rob Goodhart says brats, clams, either one of those I think would work really well. clams. Great choice. Like... Crawfish, man. Oh, crawfish would be good. Like, this is actually a decent beer.
01:00:35
Speaker
The way you told me about it, was expecting it to be horrible and off-putting. It was actually hard to put down. It was hard to put down warm. Okay. Warm, I could see. Because it's really... ah you there You really get a lot of pickle.
01:00:50
Speaker
Like, it is it is kind of like you took a Goza, which for for anyone not in the know, Goza's kind of a... Very, very medium sour kind of beer.
01:01:01
Speaker
Maybe even light sour. little bit of salt. Um, very little bit of coriander. Think it's got enough sour to have that lemony brightness that I was talking about actually with the hobby frog.
01:01:18
Speaker
Um, but not enough that you're going like, Oh, that's too sour for me. Like a ghost is not really too sour for anyone. It's about as sour and as refreshing as like a lemon Gatorade.
01:01:31
Speaker
Oh, that's a great way to put it. Actually. I've always struggled to describe ghost as to people who never had them. I'd never thought about it that way. It's, it's, it reminds me a lot of lemon Gatorade though. Like a little bit, little bit sour, yeah little bit of salt, little sweet, um,
01:01:46
Speaker
But then there's that very intense spicy garlic pickle. Sucker Punch is not bad. Some crushed red pepper, a big helping of garlic, and a lot of dill.
01:01:59
Speaker
That's what's in here. Check your local supermarket next time you go. Go to the pickle aisle. You'll probably find it at Walmart. You'll find it at ah whatever your local supermarket is.
01:02:11
Speaker
I've never noticed Sucker Punch, but i' I'll keep an eye out because I do love a good pickle.
01:02:17
Speaker
All right, that was my bonus pairing, which I wasn't expecting to be good, which is why canned it. um But then Dennis convinced me to bring it back just to try it. And it's actually not as bad as I thought. It doesn't go with the cigar, though.
01:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't think it would, man. I can't see this stuff working with literally any cigar on the planet. Not as well as this cool, crisp, liquid death, dead billionaire. Mm-hmm.
01:02:42
Speaker
but Fresh iced tea, baby. Yeah. God, I wish I would get a sponsorship with them. I keep sending them. i I think they've blocked me because I keep sending them like ah basically songs about liquid death, but lyrics for songs about liquid death, but in the style of different metal bands.
01:03:01
Speaker
And keep sending them this shit. I love it. Hoping that somebody will eventually open up the email and go, this is actually pretty good. Let's like call this guy and see what's going on. um One day. One day they'll call you.
01:03:12
Speaker
Nothing. but Rob Goodhart says, you unsponsored product placement.
01:03:19
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. You get it. Man, I don't but have any idea what my pairing of the night is. I've just realized. You know what? and i think it's I think it's the the peanut butter turbo Shandy.
01:03:36
Speaker
Wow. Which is shocking. it's just I think it's mainly that peanut butter flavor that just works really well with the flavors in this cigar. that That intense white pepper, those kind of classic creamy flavors from the Connecticut wrapper.
01:03:52
Speaker
um And there's there's a ah healthy amount of earth to this cigar as well. um And kind of all of those just work really well with that specific peanut butter note and the sweetness and the brightness of the beer. Don't hurt.
01:04:07
Speaker
They help little bit. What about you? What's your pairing of the night tonight? I've just been going through mine and, and as much as I love the beer, I'm going have to pick, going to have to pick the castle and key.
01:04:20
Speaker
going to have to try that whiskey. It sounds delightful.
01:04:25
Speaker
I'm desperately trying to find the data on this of what the... Oh, excuse me. and MSRP is $42.99. Not too shabby. At Total Wine.
01:04:36
Speaker
You can find it at your local Total Wine. I was about to check the Total Wine website. What it called? Castle and Key? Ah, crap. Hold on. They have others at $42.99. Castle and Key.
01:04:49
Speaker
The one that I have, excuse me again, small batch bourbon whiskey, ah is 55.
01:04:58
Speaker
But still, but you know, between 50 and 60, it's fine. Oh, small batch bourbon. Yeah, that's 58 around me. Okay, sure. ah They make a weeded bourbon. I love weeded bourbons very much.
01:05:09
Speaker
They make a cask strength weeded as well. It's 65, which is cool. It's out of stock on my entire side of Florida. Yeah, dude, because it's popular. Yeah. They also have a gin. They have a gin?
01:05:22
Speaker
Rise Seasonal Gin and also Roots of Ruin Gin. Both of these sound like I gotta find them. they yeah They have like a whole series of gins, which I can't wait to try.
01:05:36
Speaker
I'm gonna have to hunt down some of their stuff because it sounds great. Man, check out Castle and Key, guys. Sounds like they're legit. I'll let you know when I try. It smells so good. not so good I want a candle that smells like this.
01:05:52
Speaker
Rob says, need to pair that with a shot of Chica Cheetah peanut butter tequila. Dennis turned me on to it. oh Oh my God. How have I never heard of this? Weak mother of God. Okay.
01:06:05
Speaker
I got to talk about this real quick. Chicka-Chi-Tay. Yes. Okay. Peanut butter tequila. Really good. But i ah I think I've turned on people to it as like a goof because it's not awful. It's surprisingly really good.
01:06:18
Speaker
But for whatever reason, the people that I've encountered that drink it are the same people that love Fireball. And screwball and mix fireball and screwball. And like, not to judge you if you drink fireball or screwball, whatever. I have a bottle of screwball sitting around somewhere.
01:06:35
Speaker
Um, but it was one of those things. Like, I think nobody was ever sipping on it. No one was ever just doing like a Paloma with it or something like a funky Paloma. Well, it does say in the description on total one, cause I was already on the website. So I figured why not look it up?
01:06:50
Speaker
It says it's perfect for sipping neat or mixing in cocktails.
01:06:57
Speaker
um I don't know. I get enough shit for sipping. i when I go to my local spot, my thing is i sip on a High Life or a Coors Banquet and a old granddad neat.
01:07:09
Speaker
Bonded, I should say. I like the bonded. um But I get so much shit for drinking granddad.
01:07:16
Speaker
It's really funny. Bump it up to Grandad 114, and then nobody can talk shit. That stuff's legitimately amazing. Well, yeah. it is It is very good. It is very good. um Yeah, Chickasheeda, if you can find it, get it.
01:07:29
Speaker
It's, I don't think, too expensive. Probably $28, $35, something like that. Yeah, $25. is that Is it like crazy sweet, like screwball? Because that's what I hated about screwball.
01:07:41
Speaker
No, it is not very sweet at all. Certainly not compared to Screwball. Okay, i will I will give it a try then. It's more like peanut flavored, like, remember craft vaping was a thing? Vape juice was oh crafted vape juice, barrel-aged vape juice and stuff.
01:07:57
Speaker
It was like, there was a company called ah Cosmic Dust or something like that, and they were making peanut butter and jelly flavored stuff, and it's like that. It's that dusty, dried um peanut butter powder.
01:08:10
Speaker
flavor. Rob also says better than screwball. So maybe I will try this and I'll i'll i'll bring a ah glass of it onto the show. We'll see how it goes.
01:08:22
Speaker
All right. Well, I guess that brings us to the end of our pairing. My my cigar exploded, but that doesn't defy the fact that this is an incredible cigar. um
01:08:33
Speaker
I wish I had more of them because they're hard to find now. yeah it's It's really good though. Um, any final thoughts on the cigar before we move on to one for the road? I really dig it. And MSRP on this was 16 and change 15 bucks.
01:08:50
Speaker
Okay. Which I think is pretty reasonable. Yeah. Uh, it's a nice big six by 54. um and, uh, you know, a Connecticut wrapper, which you know is expensive. Um, but this is a, an intense cigar with a Connecticut wrapper, which is kind of a nice combination for once.
Comics and Media Recommendations
01:09:10
Speaker
All right. Time for one for the road, I guess. My one for the road is one that I can't remember if I've done before.
01:09:19
Speaker
I'll do two. How about that? there I may have done both of them before, but I don't remember. so I'm going to go for it. ah There are two comic books. Both of them are different books that are ongoing that are written by James Tynion in the fourth.
01:09:34
Speaker
I think he is currently the greatest working a comic writer in horror and horror adjacent. um One of them is something is killing the children.
01:09:47
Speaker
This is a comic about ah
01:09:54
Speaker
a secret collective of assassins that fight children's imaginary of creatures.
01:10:05
Speaker
What? So the way that this works is if a kid thinks he sees something under the bed, if a kid thinks he hears something in his closet, if he thinks he hears a monster out in the woods behind his house, um some of these thoughts in children can manifest into an actual monster that adults can't see.
01:10:26
Speaker
Only children and very rarely adults can see them. And this this cabal of assassins exist like the men in black they hunt down these creatures they save as many kids as they can and they come up with excuses for local law enforcement to explain why ah three or four children were found ripped to pieces in the back of the woods wow um it's it's a very intense comic um that deals with a lot of death but it's really really good and interesting the main character is kind of this uh anti-hero kind of heroine
01:11:05
Speaker
who um she's been doing this thing but doesn't always follow the rules. And she she has quite the backstory that you get to know slowly over time. And they also have a spinoff um that specifically follows some of her and the Cabal's backstory.
01:11:23
Speaker
um It's super cool. The other one, which is...
01:11:30
Speaker
very slightly parallel, but completely different in every way, is called The Department of Truth. ah this is Oh, yes! Like I said, also written by James Tinian, the fourth.
01:11:43
Speaker
ah And it is about... It's also got like this... Both of them have like this really interesting ah manifestation kind of thing. So this one is...
01:11:58
Speaker
Conspiracy theories are real, but they're not really real. They're only real because people give them power by believing it. um So I won't spoil who runs it, but the Department of Truth is a government organization that is trying to corral the beliefs of the planet into not manifesting bad conspiracy theories.
01:12:21
Speaker
Because the way it works is and spirit conspiracy theories don't exist. But if enough people believe in it, it history and the fabric of time change, the fabric of reality change so that it becomes true.
01:12:39
Speaker
So like one of them very early on is that um the earth is flat. And if you get to the edge, there's a giant wall of ice. And ah enough people start believing that, that if you fly to the edge of the earth, all of a sudden now there's a giant wall of ice there.
01:12:56
Speaker
um And it's, it's very interesting. And so it's this guy who um is, is not particularly that interesting, but he gets recruited to work for the department of truth and is kind of trying to wrap his head around all of this, these insane ah conspiracy theories that turn out they're actually true because enough people believed in them and put weight behind them.
01:13:22
Speaker
It's super interesting and super fun. um I've been reading both of those for years and I'm i'm a big fan of both of them. Wasn't Marcus Parks from Last Podcast Network was a huge... like He just praised Department of Truth for so many years and I think Henry also...
01:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, so I listen to that podcast too. Were they that in some way? No, not at all. Okay. They're just fans. And I don't remember which one. i don't have any of the trade paperbacks. I buy them all digitally because ah don't need books to lose or ruin in my house.
01:13:57
Speaker
You can even get common books anywhere. they They sell out so quick. I was so pissed off. I couldn't get any of the last podcasts podcast stuff like... Soul Plumber. Soul Plumber. That's what it was. I couldn't get any fucking Soul Plumber.
01:14:11
Speaker
Yeah. didnt name I don't buy many comics anymore. um When Walking Dead ended, that kind of ended my my comic book buying for the most part. i still have I still buy comics once in a while. but For the most part, I ah just read them because that's what i'm interested and more than collecting them and I have enough already in my collection.
01:14:31
Speaker
Uh, but anyway, uh, there was, they last podcast did a interview with James Tinian while ago. This was like a year or two. That's what it was. It was like a couple, it was, it was not too long after I'd started reading both these comics and I was like, oh cool. There's an interview with that dude.
01:14:47
Speaker
Um, and then I know one of the trade paperbacks for anyone not familiar with comic book lingo um comics come out every month they're 26 pages and uh you know whatever happens in those 26 pages is as long as that comic is then you wait another month for the next issue trade paperbacks are where they take storylines that are usually five or six comics um and they combine them into one book that you can buy usually at a bookstore rather than a comic book store yeah um but on one of those there was a quote from marcus from last podcast
01:15:23
Speaker
You are not kidding. My cigar cracked, and I pulled some some of the wrapper off, and holy shit, this is the thinnest fucking wrapper I've ever seen in my life. Dude, it's crazy. have no idea how they put it on. I don't get it. I don't understand why it's so thin.
01:15:35
Speaker
I mean, I understand. You know what I mean? I know why it's thin, but it's so wildly thin. It's like half the thickness of rice paper. Mm-hmm.
01:15:49
Speaker
It's crazy, crazy thin. Wow. All right. Before you get to year one for the road, Sam says his is he's watching the Americas, um which for anybody who hasn't watched this, I've only watched a tiny bit of it.
01:16:01
Speaker
ah But my mother-in-law was telling us about it and how we have to watch it. It's basically that show Planet Earth. Is that the David Attenborough show? Yeah, yeah. Well, Planet Earth, Blue Planet.
01:16:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's basically one of those shows that focuses on America and specifically kind of the wilderness of the U.S., which is pretty neat. lot beautiful shots.
Sports Preferences and Entertainment Critiques
01:16:24
Speaker
And the first FC Texoma franchise game.
01:16:28
Speaker
Guessing that's a football club, soccer. But I don't know enough about sports that have balls in them. I like tires and punches. ah So I'm not going to comment on that.
01:16:40
Speaker
But if you're into FC Texoma, check out there their franchise game. but is you You like tires and punches? Tires and punches. you Like boxing, slash UFC, MMA, and racing.
01:16:52
Speaker
Car racing. Those are the only sports that I'm getting into. Well, and I guess wheels in general, because I also like skateboarding. I watch skateboarding at the Olympics every year. It's an Olympic sport now.
01:17:05
Speaker
um Have you watched the medieval UFC? No, you've told me about this before and I keep forgetting that it exists. Dude, you gotta watch crash Crashed Ice and Medieval UFC.
01:17:18
Speaker
Crashed Ice is basically rollerball on ice. It's a Red Bull thing and the other thing, I forget what it's called, but it's it's good stuff.
01:17:30
Speaker
I'm putting both of them in a tab right now so that I don't forget. look so i I think I dream at some point, I had a dream the other day, where we'll have a section available that'll be accessible 24-7 of all the One for the Roads, and people can go back into this archive of all this ridiculousness and just...
01:17:52
Speaker
kind of experience, you know, what was that thing I heard? Instead of having to listen to the episode scroll through, just go in there, episode whatever, and and have one day some kind of some kind of info.
01:18:04
Speaker
You know, one day we'll do that. You know, this is ah certainly ah marathon, not a sprint by any means. And we've progressed so much over the years. I think that there's just so much more cool stuff that we're going to get into as we, you know continue on this journey, going through this together with everyone.
01:18:22
Speaker
Yeah. Um, Sam says armored combat league. That is one of them. I remember that one. That is yes. The other one is M one medieval.
01:18:34
Speaker
Um, cause I look at that up. It sounds awesome. I'm going to watch some of this tomorrow while um'm while I'm, while working and it's going to awesome. ah Anyway, what's your one for the road?
01:18:46
Speaker
ah There I was laying in bed, unable to sleep. And thought, let me see what's on TV. Maybe there's something I can watch on ah Netflix. I went on Netflix and I'm like, yeah, what's new?
01:18:59
Speaker
What's exciting? Oh, Craven. Surely it's not the Craven that I know of. Have you seen the film? I have. You have thoughts? Okay. all right. I know you have thoughts because I i have thoughts as well. But but like realistically, remembering very little from the olden days of Kraven the Hunter
David Blaine's New Series and Approach to Magic
01:19:18
Speaker
and the whole comic series and the Spider-Man universe and everything else, watching the movie as ah as a Russian native speaker, first of all, Russell Crowe can go sit on a cactus.
01:19:31
Speaker
ah we all we all We all feel this way about him in general. his He's just off horrendous. But the movie, I thought, was kind of like... I thought it was well done. CGI sucked because somehow in 2025, our CGI today is worse than Jurassic Park was in the 90s.
01:19:47
Speaker
I mean, to be fair, Jurassic Park took like eight or ten years to make. um Okay fine And they had a ton of practical effects that were spliced into the CGI But still still it's kind of inexcusable I do agree i was like watching the Chronicles of Narnia With these wolves and bears and things pop And I was awful um Anyway So I thought the film was really cool. I loved the Russian. I loved that the subtitles couldn't capture some of the truly native Russian words. Really? but
01:20:19
Speaker
Going back to the beginning of the show when we talked about, you know, there's a word where you look at the root and it doesn't mean what it on paper it's supposed to mean. It means something else. there was so much chatter like from the clearly Russian native speakers that just added stuff. They said, just do some Russian shit. Just say something in Russian that kind of fits the scene and we'll just subtitle it in.
01:20:42
Speaker
and it was awesome. I love that. i love the, the action, the storyline with, uh, was it the right of but Rhino, the Rhino, the original Rhino. Yep. The Rhino and the chameleon and,
01:20:54
Speaker
It was cool. It was it was cool. It was endearing. ah really dig it. But today's a big day for me. Today's March 23rd. It's not my birthday. It's not my anniversary.
01:21:05
Speaker
It's a big day nonetheless. Today is the season premiere of a new sort of, in a sense, miniseries by David Blaine. Oh, yeah.
01:21:16
Speaker
it's I'm so jazzed. I'm so, so jazzed. Living in New York and certainly i working at the shop that was around the corner, the magic shop that was around the corner from where David Blaine lived, ah and just being... All the things he did in New York, ah every one of the different things that he did out in public, I would go and visit. I would go see. like He was hanging in the park. He was in Columbus Circle in the and the sphere underwater.
01:21:45
Speaker
I got to see him in in Baltimore, which is really cool. Absolutely love David Blaine. And he has a new series out where he's traveling the world, and it's called Do Not Attempt, where he travels the world to different countries.
01:21:58
Speaker
every Every Sunday, they're going to release two episodes. I think there are six in total. And he goes to a different country in each episode. and Where are they playing? but What are they on? Oh, ah it's going to be on...
01:22:14
Speaker
The following day, streaming is going available on Disney Plus and Hulu. Okay. Premiering on National Geographic, which is really cool. David Blayton has had an actual connection with National Geographic for a really long time, so it's great to see that he's back with them.
01:22:30
Speaker
um But you can check this out on on Disney Plus tomorrow when when ah it finally pops out over there. Tonight, Brazil and Southeast Asia are airing. So what he's doing is he's going there.
01:22:41
Speaker
He's meeting performers. He's meeting ah it all kinds of different people that are involved in different things. So whether they're doing street work and stunts or they're doing um sort of like esoteric stuff.
01:22:54
Speaker
Like, I have a toad. It has fangs. It's going to bite you. You're going to go sleep for a couple of days. Right? It's stuff like that. he goes and sees how far you can push the human body, which has been his shtick for a while. I know it's far removed from his early days.
01:23:08
Speaker
It is, but it also, like, it's great man so... ah It's so connected with kind of what his method is and always has been, which is where, like,
01:23:22
Speaker
no magician puts their body on the line in the same way as him. You know what i mean? Like, uh, I'm, I know you're, you've, you trained magic. I am just a magic nerd, uh, where I just love the, the methods and the craft.
01:23:39
Speaker
I'm terrible at it, but I love it. Um, nobody has done the kind of things he does to make his tricks work, at least not at the scale that he has.
01:23:51
Speaker
Um, he's, he's done some wild stuff that, uh, just to, just to do a simple trick so that he can do a trick that completely blows your mind because you're like, there's no way that's possible.
01:24:06
Speaker
Um, but it's because he spent two years working on it and worked on it every day and now he can do it whenever he wants. price It's the level of... And I think... ah ah Part of the reason why I really respect him because i is is because I really had a fascination for... Now we call them carnies, but really...
01:24:29
Speaker
I think today, carny is less of a derogatory term. We can say carny. But really, back then, there were these vaudeville performers that were doing stuff. And there were so much more than just kind of carnies. In the average layperson's mind, they go, carny is like, you're going to do some fire stuff. You do some sword stuff, whatever.
01:24:46
Speaker
Maybe human blockhead if you're like really into it. But these people were the original people. Well... To a degree, I think, in Americana history. They were the fruit the the first group of people that were really pushing their bodies in a public way repeatedly to where they became really good at it and honed their skills and decided to share them, which I think is is really cool.
01:25:08
Speaker
But... Yeah. Super cool. That's my... i had no idea that was coming, and I am excited to watch it because... is going so lovely. This is to be lovely. It'll be even more interesting if you watch it backward.
01:25:22
Speaker
true that's true just like anything david played does it's more interesting backwards man these uh these sour beers are getting to my stomach man ah all right well i guess that brings us to the end of the show check out what's the david blaine show called again um it's called oh god what is it called oh david blaine do not attempt to do not attempt Do not a attempt. to yeah On National Geographic geographicic tonight or on Hulu tomorrow.
01:25:51
Speaker
And Disney Plus. yeah And Disney Plus, yes. Because now Hulu and Disney Plus are basically the same thing. Yeah. yeah Even though they're still separate subscriptions. Isn't that weird? like Funny how that works, eh?
01:26:04
Speaker
Anyway. check out James Tinian's work in the comic book world. Uh, you can buy physical issues or, ah you could buy trade paperbacks or you can do what I do and get a, uh, app on your, on your iPad so that you can just kind of read it whenever you feel like it.
01:26:23
Speaker
I, I buy most of them on Amazon, Kindle, and, uh, you can just download the latest issue and read it, which is sweet. Um, yeah, check it out.
01:26:34
Speaker
James Tinian's work, ah Something is Killing the Children, which is very dark but awesome.
Closing Remarks and Upcoming Events
01:26:39
Speaker
The Department of Truth, which is also very dark and awesome. um And then, like Sam said, check out ah The Americas.
01:26:47
Speaker
And also, oh yeah he said he fought in the SCA, which, as far as I'm Googling, is the Society for Creative Anachronism. And it is an armored combat sport, which sounds fucking sweet.
01:27:03
Speaker
That's cool. We may need to get Sam on here to interview him at some point about that, because that sounds really interesting, and I want to i want to learn more. um But for now, I'm going to go watch some armored combat on YouTube first thing in the morning. Maybe laying in bed tonight. We'll see.
01:27:21
Speaker
um Depends how the baby's... ah But check out the Espinosa or Cielago.
01:27:31
Speaker
ah It's very good. It really is very good. I highly recommend you all try it out ah if you can find it. And, you know, I guess that brings us to the end. We'll be half of us will be at the PCA in about two weeks.
01:27:46
Speaker
um Dennis can't make it, so you won't see him on camera or anything, but he will be behind the scenes. back at the but home base. Um, so we should have some cool content for you guys.
01:27:59
Speaker
Um, so keep an eye on, on, you know, socials and stuff, especially a lot of stuff we're going to be posting as a cigar coupe is that way, uh, we get more reach. Um, absolutely. If you haven't already followed cigar coupe, I know some of you watching have at least most of you, um,
01:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that brings us to the end of this thing. So Dennis, hit him with the catchphrase, and we will come back next week smoking a different cigar. Thank you, everybody, for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.