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LGP 78 - Martin Kove's Prodigal Son
8 Plays9 hours ago
This week, we find out if Martin Kove's Prodigal Son can stand on it's own, or if it's just another celebrity cigar!
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Transcript
Episode Introduction and Technical Issues
00:00:00
Speaker
hey everybody welcome back to let's get pairing um sorry about that technical issues all night it seems um this is episode 78 and tonight we're smoking prodigal son the prodigal son not sure what the proper proper term for it is but this is the martin cove cigar you know he's the bad guy from uh from karate kid That's Martin and Cove.
00:00:26
Speaker
If the name doesn't ring a bell, we'll talk a little bit about him. We'll talk a little bit about what we can about the cigar. there's not a whole lot of information on this one. And then as always, we'll get us some pairing, but for now, grab yourself a drink, grab yourself a cigar. Let's get pairing.
00:01:05
Speaker
um it might it might yeah all right we're back i'm very curious well uh well you'll you'll find out everything we know soon enough um welcome back everybody this is episode 78 of let's get pairing i'm your host trip here in the lgp south studio um and with me as always from the cold dungeon of darkness doom and non-working cameras is dennis how doing brother hey It was an experience getting you into the Zoom tonight.
00:01:34
Speaker
it It was literally, it was like, it was it was I felt like I was in Swordfish, where the gun's to my head, I have to remap this entire algorithm to launch within two and a half minutes. it i was Yeah, but you didn't have Halle Berry thing going on at the same time. no, no, no. no no um But...
00:01:52
Speaker
I was literally, I was in the terminal. I was cursing in multiple languages in the terminal, typing ferociously, multiple tabs open in the terminal, running different things in different places to kind of unfuck my Linux machine to get the camera to work.
00:02:07
Speaker
Bro, you just described most of my week. Fucking. For 12 hours a day. i i rebooted much to my chagrin, you know, because I... I haven't rebooted this thing in so long.
00:02:19
Speaker
And I have all these tabs open. I have all this stuff like different projects I'm working on, different things, different files. I didn't save a goddamn thing. I just hard reset that bitch and hope for the best. And here we are.
00:02:34
Speaker
So. All right. We'll see what happens. And there's a blizzard outside. So that, you know, that's another thing. Yeah, that'll that'll help too. um All right, so let's talk about
Prodigal Son Cigar and Comic Series
00:02:44
Speaker
this cigar. What little we know. So this was launched last year as a partnership between, of course, Martin Cove, the guy whose face is on it, and Pauly DeSilvio. If you haven't heard of Pauly DeSilvio, he owns a shop called La Casa Grande Cigars, um think in New York.
00:03:05
Speaker
can't remember where it is. know he's from New York, but I don't know if that's where it is. should have looked that part up. Eggs on my face. But Pauly previously and ah previously partnered with Chaz Palminteri to launch the Bronx Tale cigar with him.
00:03:20
Speaker
um So he's kind of got like, you know, he's starting to get a stable of of celebrity cigars under his belt. Now the Chaz Palminteri cigar, um I think is fine. It wasn't great.
00:03:31
Speaker
um It was just nothing special. This one I've heard pretty good things about, so I'm very curious about it. um So Prodigal Son, Martin Cove, if if you've ever watched Karate Kid or the more recent um Cobra Kai, he's Kreese in that. John Kreese? Is that his first name?
00:03:54
Speaker
um i think it's... But he's the leader of Cobra Kai in the original movie. um And he he's always been a cigar guy and he finally decided to start his own cigar company.
00:04:07
Speaker
Now, I don't know if it's Paulie's idea or coincidence that these both happened. Bronx Tale obviously is a reference to Chaz Palminteri's movie, A Bronx Tale, um which was kind of his, it was simultaneously his big break kind of thing and also ah movie that he like did everything for. Like this movie was about him and it was, he had a lot of irons in that fire.
00:04:34
Speaker
Now Prodigal Son is actually a four part comic book series. Um, that came out last year and a little bit, I think the first issue came out late 2024.
00:04:46
Speaker
Um, but I know the rest came out 2025. They've said that it's going to be a TV show at some point, a live action show, but I haven't seen any actual like concrete news on that.
00:04:56
Speaker
I've just seen that, uh, Martin said that he is interested in doing it and there's interest in, in making that, um,
00:05:09
Speaker
I don't know if that's ever going to happen. I tried to get my hands on the comics, but they're hard to find and I couldn't get them here soon enough. But I am interested in reading it It's like a four part series about, uh, this, this here bad guy played by Martin Cove in a comic book.
00:05:24
Speaker
Um, that, you it's like a kid Western kind of thing. And this is the bad guy trying to get revenge. Something like that. But it's planned to eventually be a TV show.
00:05:36
Speaker
Maybe. Um, That's all I know about Prodigal Son as far as the comic
Cigar Flavor and Pairing Discussion
00:05:42
Speaker
book goes. Now, what I know about this cigar is even less. This is an undiscused blend coming out of Sanj Patel's factory in the Dominican Republic.
00:05:51
Speaker
Sanj Patel makes the Sanj brand. um I met him at PCA last last year, I think. I smoked a couple of his cigars. This reminds me of one. I know there was one that he talked about, like a funky tobacco that was in it.
00:06:06
Speaker
And I'm starting to wonder if that's in this. Because is an undisclosed blend. It is blended by Sanj. um And there's some funk to this.
00:06:17
Speaker
why don't Why don't we move into that since there's not much else to say about this cigar. Oh, and it's a 6x52. That's the other the other concrete fact that I have about this cigar. Everything else is up in the air.
00:06:29
Speaker
What do you think so far, Dennis?
00:06:33
Speaker
you know Off the first slide, I'll say I didn't like it. couple of minutes in, I'm actually starting to like it. And I'm trying to pinpoint what this this sort of this funky part is. I'm not sure. There's like a funk to it. There's something to it It's not like, it's not quite in do you funk. It's a little bit richer than that.
00:06:51
Speaker
It's to your point earlier, this this barnyard thing. um Almost like a a chocolate, kind of sour chocolate, like a like a Hershey's milk chocolate. You know how get the sourness?
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely got a little bit of that. It's got something going on, but I really like it. And, you know, I almost also wonder, to your point again earlier about the tobaccos, that maybe not all the tobacco is cigar tobacco, specifically cigar tobacco. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm wondering is if there's some pipe tobacco or something like that in here. Something in there. Yeah, man. that It's really interesting. um It could also be, like you said, it does remind me of Unduyo, but with, like you said, more richness, more intensity than Unduyo typically has.
00:07:38
Speaker
It's really interesting, and I'm very curious how it's going to work, especially with my first pairing. I don't know if I'm excited that I'm finally smoking a cigar because I've been sick and i'm still congested. So my whole...
00:07:49
Speaker
All my stuff is messed up. My face is messed up. I'm still coughing stuff up every morning. It's been now over a week. I'm still pretty sick, but this is the first cigar I've had in a couple weeks, and I'm really very excited, so i wonder if maybe my excitement's getting in the way in this just cigar.
00:08:05
Speaker
If you gave me anything, I'd love it. I think the fact that you even called out Anduyo, if it is, I don't know whether it's Anduyo or not, and I'm um' i'm in the same of the same mind as you where it reminds me of Anduyo, but I don't think it's Anduyo.
00:08:19
Speaker
um well But the fact that you could call that out means your palate's doing fine. but We're going to carry a big stick at PCA this year, and we're going to hit some knees. See if we can get some info out of these these cats.
00:08:31
Speaker
Good idea. Good idea. I'm very curious. I wish I remembered what that weird tobacco Sanj used in a cigar he gave me.
00:08:42
Speaker
But I can't remember what it was. It was while ago. Yeah, it was a year ago, so I don't... Oh, yeah. have been anything. It was at PCA. All right.
00:08:54
Speaker
I bet it's probably the same tobacco that's in this cigar. That's what I'm thinking, but I can't remember what it was. I'll dig through his website and see if it's been ah if it's a thing that's actually been released.
00:09:06
Speaker
It's possible he gave me this cigar. and He didn't tell me what it was, and it didn't have a band on it. He just told me it had a weird tobacco in it um and explained the weird tobacco, but I can't remember what made it weird.
00:09:17
Speaker
Something about fermentation or processing or something like that that was different. Anyway, if I figure that out, I'll let you guys know. But for now, it's time to get pairing. question Quick question for you. Go for it. Do you get a bit of greenness on the cigar?
00:09:33
Speaker
Just kind of a hint of it. In in terms of like a little bit little bit too young to smoke? Mm-hmm. Okay. alright I just want make sure it's on my palate. but it It can be hard to tell because a lot of times that that style can be intentional to give it like extra strength and intensity.
00:09:50
Speaker
it's kind of a you know That's a shortcut a lot of people use ah go to make a cigar go from medium body to full body is use younger, slightly under-fermented tobacco. It's not always a bad thing, but it's not always a good thing either.
00:10:07
Speaker
We'll see how it works with this one. Because I think you're spot on about that. All right, let's get into some pairing. I was teasing Dennis in the in the green room that I have um some Polish funk here.
00:10:21
Speaker
So it comes from a brewery. If you've been watching long enough, you've seen this brewery on here. I just love their stuff, so I keep buying it when I can. Bizarre Brewing. They were founded in 2022 by a couple named Derek Brown and Colette Boilini.
00:10:35
Speaker
um and they met while working at a brewery they later both left to go to a different brewery which is actually uh one of the breweries that worked on a beer that i have coming up uh and in 2022 in seattle they started uh bizarre brewing to be just their own thing right like and i think from everything i've tasted from them they are killing it they do they tend to do very classic um when they can't obscure styles and try to put a little twist on it.
00:11:08
Speaker
Still keep it classic, but have enough of a twist that it's it's it's making it their own a little bit. um So, like, from them I've had their London Flood Brown Porter.
00:11:20
Speaker
I've had their, oh, they had a smoked corn lager that I really liked. um I've had a couple from them. that I've really enjoyed and they've always got a little bit of something different.
00:11:33
Speaker
This one is very interesting. I'll hold up the beer first. It is, it it looks like Budweiser on camera to me. i can never tell because my, you know, my screen may be more saturated than yours or something like that. It looks a little less filtered than Budweiser.
00:11:50
Speaker
It's definitely less filtered. um But it's actually like a very pale yellow, like, ah like lemonade color. Okay, so a little little more pale than when it comes off on camera. So this is a light so dim, Grudzicki-style smoked wheat ale.
00:12:09
Speaker
So let's start with Grudzicki. A light so dim.
Traditional Ales and Pairing History
00:12:13
Speaker
A light so dim. I've been called worse. ah So Grudzicki is a classic Polish style of beer that is sometimes referred to as Polish champagne.
00:12:24
Speaker
um traditionally it's very light bodied very low alcohol highly carbonated and the most interesting piece made with 100% oak smoked wheat oh dude it's okay so it's the wheat i okay you continue but this is a this is a wheat beer all of the wheat has been smoked for this version um they use mostly German imported oak smoked wheat But they actually had a bit of beechwood smoked barley.
00:12:55
Speaker
Kind of put their own twist on it. The hops are Mandarina, Bavaria, and Herzbrücher. Herzbrücher. um Which are German. um And then they open ferment this cold in their cool ship with their house coal sheath.
00:13:16
Speaker
And it clocks in at a staggeringly low. I don't know that I've ever had beer that was considered actual beer that was at 2.9 abv god damn like that's very very low yeah so i i was gonna say three four maybe three two not uncommon but uh wow two nine i mean it must be like wild i'm guessing it's kind of like near beer in poland maybe um where it's something you drink
00:13:48
Speaker
earlier in the day you have a couple of these with lunch and you're not hammered when you get back to your desk or you uh you know when you're 18 you can have a couple of these at dinner and ah well i guess when you're 16 probably because you can probably drink at 18 in poland um but it's it's very interesting the nose on it is crazy like it smells like
00:14:18
Speaker
It smells like tortilla chips and an ashtray. But like an ashtray that's been cleaned, but it's still got a enough smell that you can smell it.
00:14:32
Speaker
Good Lord. Okay. um I'm expecting very smoky. But I haven't taken a sip yet. So i'll I'll let you talk about your first pairing, and then I'll take a couple sips of this and see how it is and how it pairs with the prodigal son.
00:14:46
Speaker
if it helps bring out any of those those funky flavors than prodigals i i'm actually uh switching my first pairing live as we speak but i was going to say as i do this let me tell you what i'm thinking for this particular style that you're drinking because of the low alcohol the other thing it makes me think of is uh couple styles actually but we talk about farmhouse ales table beers saisons beers that generally would be whatever was available to the farmer or the region, that's where you made beer from. You didn't have a shop to go to. You made your own beer most of the time, especially if you were a farmer working in the fields.
00:15:21
Speaker
What you had is what you used. And so you ended up having this thing that was a lower alcohol, but was always at every table. And so if somebody would come over your house, you would have a growler of this stuff just hanging out on the table or in your cellar you'd bring out.
00:15:36
Speaker
And you can enjoy, and that was sort of the, in a sense, the farmer's pride to showcase. This is what I grew. This is what I'm growing. This is what it tastes like. Hence, lower hop value.
00:15:47
Speaker
Really heavy focus on a single type of grain. In this case, in your case, it's wheat, right? Smoked wheat. Mm-hmm. So I think that's that's probably it. I likely have had some of this in Poland many years ago. and and It's apparently very popular in Poland still. And probably forgot.
00:16:05
Speaker
Because the thing is, when you go to Poland and you end up drinking, even if you only drink beer, guaranteed you will not remember what happened. I can see that. i see And I didn't go crazy or anything. And I can tell you, I remember very few things about Poland.
00:16:20
Speaker
The things I remember are really great, thankfully. But But, uh, yeah. you know You know, I have a guess of of where this, like, ah you were talking about kind of the history of this, and i my suspicion is that the history is you're making your table beer and you don't have enough wheat.
00:16:41
Speaker
You're like, shit, I don't have enough wheat to make my wheat beer. It's gonna be, it's gonna taste like garbage. So you brew it, and it ends up this light, and you're like,
00:16:54
Speaker
You taste it and you're like, it tastes like deer flavored water. It sucks. So then your next batch, you smoke that wheat and you can use less wheat, have less alcohol and have higher flavor.
00:17:08
Speaker
that is ah That is a great point. And also, Kolsch, right? Kolsch yeast, you're going to end up, it's going to yield a generally, i don't want to say clean like Pilsner clean, but you're going up with something that's fairly clean, a little rounder.
00:17:22
Speaker
I love Kolsch yeast because you can do so much with it depending on the temperature you ferment at. It's a really wonderful yeast, but you're not going to get a heater. You're not going to 6% beer necessarily.
00:17:32
Speaker
You could, but then the yeast would get really stressed out and would have a lot of off flavors. So keeping it at the lower alcohol, I think is a really great choice to showcase kind of the profile. Now, is it sweet at all? you get any sweetness? Not really. it's It's pretty dry. It's got just like a hint of sweetness.
00:17:49
Speaker
um I did get like, there's a little bit of like almost a lemony kind of sourness not sourness but like a my mean brightness okay like you don't it's not enough for you to taste sour but it's enough for you to taste that like that peak of flavor that you get from from lemon um it is very smoky very very smoky that's exciting which is delicious um
00:18:17
Speaker
And it's it's very, like, there's a lot of layers to this, which I'm surprised by, because at first I tasted it and I was like, oh, it's just all smoke flavor, but then I started getting that lemon, got that little bit of sweetness, there's a really nice, like, ah cracker breadiness to it, being ah wheat beer.
Tonewood Brewing and Celebrity Cigars
00:18:36
Speaker
um It's also very bubbly, I can see why they call this the champagne the champagne yeah of of Poland. Like, you can kind of see the bubbles moving around in there, but It is a lot.
00:18:48
Speaker
There's a lot of bubbles solid bouncing around in there. um' ah I'm quite bubbly myself, actually, and and quite light as well. Similarly light. so I switched my first pairing.
00:18:59
Speaker
um Now, what I'm drinking, finely poured and drinking, comes from a brewery called Tonewood Brewing in New Jersey. Let me get my notes fixed here. Tonewood isn't real. properly What's that?
00:19:13
Speaker
Tonewood is not real. It's not real. guitar terms. What? Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah Okay, sorry. saying. Just but going on the record. Sorry. Yeah. No, Toner's not real.
00:19:25
Speaker
Definitely. um However, Toner Brewing is very real. And they were found in 2016 by Ryan Smith and Doug Brown. Located today in Oakland.
00:19:38
Speaker
Oakland as in L-Y-N, not Oakland. Like, I guess Oakland, California, I suppose. But ah yeah, Oakland, New Jersey. They have a second location in Barrington, New Jersey, which I think is by me. I don't... Some of these towns I'm not sure about, man. But that location opened 2019. And and dude They have a fantastic facility. It is such a cool place to visit.
00:20:04
Speaker
It's very similar, it's just a giant warehouse, but they brew ton of beer. And now, so to your point, yes, Tonewood, to be clear, their whole thing was they, it was the reference to like tonal properties for different instruments like guitars.
00:20:17
Speaker
They wanted to take this Tonewood concept and make it a metaphor for what they were doing with beer. And so they're focused very particular styles of beer. They're, You know, the the the base bodies of the beer to them are those tonal qualities.
00:20:33
Speaker
And so generally what they do is they kind of do these really hop forward beers, certainly very technical. And if you go there and you look at their facility, if you know anything about brewing,
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah. They have a lab section. They have multiple areas for different types of brewing. You can tell that that they're really actually putting a lot of effort into what they're doing.
00:20:56
Speaker
So what I'm having today is actually not one of their crazy hopped or fruited or anything, nothing wild. I'm having this this lovely little can. It's kind of a cute label, too. There it is.
00:21:07
Speaker
Lumberyard. there it is
00:21:11
Speaker
lumber yard Oh, you can read it. Okay, because it's it's backwards. Yeah. Tonewood Lumberyard. Very fun fun little label. it's and um It's listed as American lager coming in at a solid... Oh, where is the ABV? It was just on here.
00:21:27
Speaker
Solid 5.2%, which is fine. ah Brewed with solar energy, by the way, which is snazzy. And they consider this their Helles lager.
00:21:39
Speaker
So it's brewed with Tetning classic Pilsner and Carahel malts. So kind of not entirely far from what you're drinking is like cousins, maybe cousins we'll call them in in sort of in sort of the style of what they're doing. But the idea for this is they really wanted to make something that was an American craft inspired ah this sort of like classic bohemian beer, but Americanized, which is fine. We see this all the time, right?
00:22:11
Speaker
But essentially what we're talking about is this clean profile for fermentation, crisp, fairly light, not too heavy on the alcohol, not too heavy on the malt. So you're not getting this blast of sweetness that that intense industrial sweetness you get with some of these rums.
00:22:28
Speaker
It's not like that. Yeah. Yeah. And actually it's become a very popular style. And generally speaking, this part of Jersey, I'd say, I don't see a lot of people drinking this style of beer. So either people are drinking macro beer, which is fine. You know, they drink the macro brews.
00:22:46
Speaker
Or if they're going craft and they're going to local breweries, they're they're getting the milkshake stuff. They're getting the fruited sours. They're getting the stouts. I don't see a lot of love in IPAs, obviously, but I don't see a lot of love for the classic stuff. Maybe it's coming back now to a degree, but Pilsners, weeded beers, the lighter styles, kind of the more classic Bavarian styles of beer, we really don't see a lot of them.
00:23:14
Speaker
This one definitely is pushing its way ahead. And it's nice to see it. It's in just about every shop I go to. Every store that I've been to has this and it has another, they have another beer from them, which is an IPA.
00:23:27
Speaker
So they're doing a great job, man. um it's It's nice to see, especially because Jersey's overrun with breweries. we I think today we have something like 200 and, ah God, Matt's going to kill me if I get this wrong.
00:23:42
Speaker
200-some, it's a lot. It's a huge number of breweries. lot of breweries. In the state of New Jersey. It's not a small state, but at the same time, it's a lot of breweries, man. Considering there's no real distribution for many of them.
00:23:53
Speaker
They self-distribute or they're just on-site. got to go on-site. got to get the beer on-site. So it's good to see. Tonewood's been around for a while, and I think they're going stick around. They know what they're doing. and And, man, this is a great beer with a cigar.
00:24:10
Speaker
How's that pairing for you? Oh, it's going really well. um I think these two work together really well, partially because of the lightness of the beer and the intensity of the cigar. This is kind of as we were alluding to before. This is a very intense cigar.
00:24:27
Speaker
lot of flavor going on. um Like, I would call it very full-flavored
00:24:36
Speaker
solidly full body, maybe medium plus or minus kind of scale. Um, but it's got like a ton of intensity to it. Those, that funk that I can't put my finger on is, is definitely still there, but it's also gotten more spicy, more earthy, a little more chocolatey.
00:24:57
Speaker
Um, and that's working really well with the like light crispness of this very smoky beer.
00:25:05
Speaker
Works really well. I'm really digging the cigar. I have to say, I'm so pleasantly surprised I came into this not knowing what to expect. I was not a big fan off the light. And something about this I really like, it's still not sort of that full body, heavier cigar that I generally prefer.
00:25:24
Speaker
But I really, there's some flavors in here that I really, really enjoy. And I'm enjoying smoking it so far. I had a memory that just popped into my head a few minutes ago. The cigar Sanj gave me had like a, almost a cardamom kind of flavor to it. Like it was very, it reminded me of curry, like going into an Indian restaurant, smelling all those, all those aromatics that they put in food.
00:25:53
Speaker
I don't think that tobacco is what's in here. It could be a mix of couple different things. I don't, I don't know. I can't figure it out. I hope that we figure it out before the end of the show or at least have a better description of it because so far this is a lot, like Dennis said, a lot more impressive than we expected it to be.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah. um I'm getting Allspice. If I had to pick a spice, a singular spice, I'm getting Allspice on this thing. Which is a weird thing to describe because it's not quite... i don't even know how you would describe Allspice, but it is distinct enough where if you've had it enough times by itself, you kind of get the the profile...
00:26:31
Speaker
That's what I'm getting. That's just my palate. And again, I'm just coming off of getting sick. So, you know, take that with a grain of allspice, if you will. So far, I'm definitely surprised by how much I'm enjoying this cigar. Yeah, man. Yeah, me too.
00:26:46
Speaker
um As I think it said with just about any review of a celebrity cigar, you come in with pretty low expectations, right? Like, um it's...
00:26:57
Speaker
It's impossible to tell, especially when there's only one cigar in the in the line, how much commitment they have. Is this somebody who just wanted to slap their name on something? Is this somebody who cares about cigars a lot but doesn't know what a good cigar is?
00:27:14
Speaker
Or is this somebody who put in the time to find the right person to make the cigar for them that they really liked and that that cigar person said, yes, this is a good cigar?
00:27:27
Speaker
um Because, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of room in the middle there for for bad cigars to happen. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and you never know. it's And it depends on the partnership, the intent. the There's so many different factors, especially when you about celebrity cigars.
00:27:43
Speaker
Never mind when we get into the realm of, like, you know, a white label limited release for somebody that may not want to put their name on it, but is still putting it out. Then you have your shop stuff, which is a whole different beast altogether.
00:27:55
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, I think there's there's a lot of room for interpretation. Traditionally for me as well, same kind of vibe. I haven't really liked a lot of celebrity cigars. There was a... What was a Ditka cigar?
00:28:08
Speaker
Some football guy. Is that a football guy? Yeah, Mike Ditka had a Camacho, right? Mike Ditka. that I think I liked that Camacho, I don't remember, but I think i i didn' I didn't hate it. um The Guy Fieri stuff, I absolutely love.
00:28:21
Speaker
I mean, the Guy Fieri stuff is just objectively good cigars. It's very good stuff. But yeah, other than that, I really can't think of anything else where I went, wow, this is this is cool. There's some other cigars that I think, and we're not going to bring them up, but I think consensus-wise, we can say, if I can even use the C word on this show.
00:28:39
Speaker
course.
00:28:42
Speaker
We really didn't like. Yeah. they They were not as as cool as the celebrity that they were for. Yep. That's always the problem. They weren't as punchy, if you will.
00:28:56
Speaker
Well said. um Speaking of celebrity cigars, though, we could do a ah kind of a double feature thing. and do did you get it Did you get a package from Mr. Coop this week?
00:29:11
Speaker
Oh, I did. Yeah. We could do the Conor McGregor cigar, but I have such low expectations for that one. I'm not sure it's worth doing a show about it. um I think... the weekend of the week Maybe we'll think about it.
00:29:25
Speaker
For the spirit of what we do, the spirit of of just being... as reasonably objective as possible as we can be as as individuals and try to speak the word of like what this is all about, I think it's valuable to do it regardless of how we feel. All right.
00:29:41
Speaker
So we'll do that. Back-to-back celebrity cigar weeks. I will say, if it is anything like that fucking awful whiskey put out. Yeah, that stuff was rough. What a shame to to the nation of Ireland and the good people, the hard-working people of Ireland, for him to put that garbage out.
00:30:00
Speaker
Honestly... Fucking awful. I liked it more than Jameson, but that's not saying a lot. I hate Jameson. I know a lot of people love it, but I can't stand it. So it's not the worst Irish whiskey I've had.
00:30:13
Speaker
teach three Oh, what's the... i Dare I ask? what's the The least favorite is Jameson. I don't know if I've ever had a... Yeah, i hate Jameson, man. Like the... Some of the... um Like the Black Barrel or whatever it was called, the one that was aged in stout barrels was was better.
00:30:30
Speaker
A couple of the fancier ones are better, but like... I didn't like the APA. That was fine, I think. Orange orange is not bad. I had a lot of friends at an old job who... ah You know, Jameson was their lifeblood, man. they were If we went out to a bar, they were they would do a couple shots of Jameson and then sip on Jameson on the rock.
00:30:50
Speaker
Like, they love Jameson. I tried it the first couple times and I was like, so real I hate this. i I'll just have a Jack Daniels. Like if I'm going that low, I'll have a Jack Daniels or a Jim Beam or something. Like it's so much better.
00:31:07
Speaker
irish I like Irish whiskey, but not that one. Not that. No, no. You're like Bushmells. You're like a Tully. Yeah. Everybody likes Tully. Give me any of those. Row and Co. All right, let's move on.
Wayfinder Brewery and Local NJ Breweries
00:31:20
Speaker
So next up, I have a beer from this is another brewery that you guys have seen a lot on here. Sorry, I keep repeating breweries. The problem is I don't have access to a lot of great breweries, but I do have access to a couple of great breweries that are in my old home of Portland um and Seattle.
00:31:40
Speaker
So I get that stuff when I can. And otherwise, it's slim pickings down here. There's a lot of decent beer. There's not a lot of great beer. And what I like is great beer. So this from Wayfinder. They were founded in 2016 by the former co-founder of Double Mountain Brewing in Bend or Eugene, Oregon. I can't remember which.
00:32:02
Speaker
um And a couple of restaurant owners um in East Portland, Central East Portland. That means Portland has a bridge down the, or ah a river down the middle.
00:32:13
Speaker
You're either on the west side or the east side. This is just on the east side, kind of in the middle. So Wayfinder has a 10 barrel brew house that they started with. They've expanded since then.
00:32:27
Speaker
um They mostly focus on lagers and they like to do a healthy mix of just straight up classic beers.
00:32:37
Speaker
And classic beers with like enough of a twist that it's barely a classic anymore. um But almost all in the lager zone. You know, they'll do a couple of IPAs, especially cold IPAs. They like to do those.
00:32:51
Speaker
But most of the time they're doing lagers that have something interesting about them. I've had a rice lager with, I don't remember what it was, some kind of berries. It was incredible.
00:33:03
Speaker
Tonight, I have satanic panic. Oh, yeah. so You've had this before. Yes, I had i had one of these a a couple weeks to ago. Yeah, dude. cool I didn't have it on the show, but I did try it at home.
00:33:17
Speaker
I sent you a picture. Oh, maybe that's what it is. I saw it from the picture. Okay. um yeah Look at that artwork. they have They have the same guy do pretty much all their artwork. Whether you like it or not, that's great artwork.
00:33:30
Speaker
that's right it's It's super cool. um I saw it and I was like, I gotta try this one. So this is a Keller beer, a French Keller beer, as they call it.
00:33:41
Speaker
um So Keller beer translates to cellar beer. um It was a French German style that is essentially the same as a Helles lager, but they typically serve it younger. So they don't they don't ferment it quite as long. They don't, I don't remember what they call it they don't steel barrel it as long before they can or package.
00:34:05
Speaker
um so typically doesn't you know in the old days they you would make a hellas and it would sit in the in the cellar for a month or two this would be a hellas that you are drinking straight out of the out of the cast um you know people come over you pop open the the newest one you have the freshest one and so this was kind of like a fresh unfiltered hellas lager um And like i said, it was typically served directly from the cellar.
00:34:37
Speaker
It also is a, uh, another term that's used for it is Zwickle beer. ah A Zwickle is the port that you can sample out of It's like, you know, the little pull tab on the side of a, uh, or like a, like, it looks like a tap on the side of a, a fermenter or a, I guess, I guess fermenter is the word.
00:35:02
Speaker
or beer storage because you know they'll they'll finish fermenting a beer and then stop fermentation and put it in a storage vat for a period of time before they package um but the the zwickle is that little that little tap handle that's on there um i think i have a theory this was released as a lead up to zwickle mania have you ever heard of zwickle mania ah It's a Portland thing, so probably not. I'm just saying... um So it is... ah It happened yesterday, coincidentally.
00:35:38
Speaker
That's why when I looked this up, I was like, oh, gotta talk about Zwicklemania. It's gonna be my only chance, because it was yesterday. um So Zwicklemania is a Portland beer open house.
00:35:49
Speaker
They have a bunch of breweries all over the state. Portland is the biggest concentration, so it's like in and Eugene and Ben, there's probably five or eight in each.
00:36:01
Speaker
Portland, I believe, had 21 breweries this year that participated. And it's basically, you can show up to the brewery between 11 a.m. m and 5 p.m., and they are doing all-day-long brewery tours and samples directly from the vats and special beer releases and stuff like that.
00:36:19
Speaker
So I have a theory that this was released um as a preview for what they were going to do for Zwicklemania.
00:36:27
Speaker
Zwicklemania is super cool. If you ever... Happened to be in Portland the right weekend in February. ah It's a very cool experience be able to go check out a bunch of breweries. They even have shuttles between breweries.
00:36:38
Speaker
A lot of the breweries do special non-alcoholic menus, like non-alcoholic beers or mocktails for designated drivers, if you have one of those, because they are expecting you to get hammered because you're going to...
00:36:51
Speaker
sometimes up to 21 different breweries all in one day and having at least a couple little glasses of beer at each one. um But it's also just, you know, but you kind of get that.
00:37:02
Speaker
It's a condensed version of that experience we got at Koffner. a few quite a few years ago now in Fort Lauderdale um where you get to like taste what beer tastes like when it's not even done yet it's still being finished it's got enough it's done enough that you can taste it but it's not done enough that they're ready to serve it and that's kind of the idea that this beer is based on um is it's not quite ready to serve but they serve it anyway um So this is also a collaboration with Holy Mountain Brewing, which I talked about. The ah the founders of Bazaar worked there for a period of time.
00:37:40
Speaker
um And the name, Satanic Panic, the the name might be my favorite part of this beer. It's the best. It's the best. it says i lay all label Well, the story behind it. So the reason that they called it that is because they Wayfinder received an email ah asking, are you a satanic brewery?
00:38:00
Speaker
And they said that made them feel a little bit sad that somebody would think that. and that person might be going through a little satanic panic in their own life. So they decided to make this beer for them.
00:38:12
Speaker
but Which is hilarious. Just a little just a little nudge at that whoever that person was to be like, no, but yes. but We're not satanic, but ah we might as well be because you're not going to buy it anyway.
00:38:29
Speaker
You know, not today, but let's do it tomorrow. Fuck it. Exactly. Let's live dangerously. We'll do it tomorrow. um So this is their kind of their ode to the French-German style Hellas. I talked a couple, can't remember when, I talked about how there are, there's a region of France and Germany that is in the mountains and borders each other.
00:38:54
Speaker
And there's a lot of crossover there. So it's like German food and French food mixed together, German beer and French beer mixed together. And that's where this comes from. So this is kind of a style of beer that that became typical of that area of both France and Germany.
00:39:10
Speaker
don't know why they just decided to call theirs French, but who knows? i was I had to mute myself as I was violently sneezing and coughing. And as you said, there's ah the the what what do you say there's a region in France.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah. I immediately, my brain went, there's a place in France where the naked ladies dance? Yeah. A Steel Panther song? i don't I don't know if it's ah if it's on the German side or not, where the naked ladies dance.
00:39:38
Speaker
of Depends on the market. Well, how's the Euro doing? Depends on the Euro's doing. So the hops in this are, I'll try to say this, Strasselspalt, Strasselspalt, and Aramis.
00:39:53
Speaker
Strasselspalt. Strasselspalt? That could be correct. i don't know. it's probably Strasselspalt. um And this clocks in at 5.3% ABV, almost double what my last one is, which is hilarious.
00:40:07
Speaker
Before we move on to yours, I forgot to talk about Sam is smoking a Grand Habano, Habano number three. His first pairing was Drum Shambo Gunpowder Gin. my man, we are big fans around here.
00:40:20
Speaker
Absolutely. His second pairing is Ramune Melon Soda. I love that stuff. Oh, yeah. Fun fact, fun fact. Ramune. You know where that name comes from?
00:40:32
Speaker
Sailor Moon. Ramune. It's the Japanese soda where you pop the marble in the top. No, no, I don't i know. i've've I just had one that long ago. But do you know where the name comes from? No, no. and Why it's called Ramune.
00:40:43
Speaker
It's a very interesting story. So it comes from um Okinawa, which is where one of the main military bases, American military bases was after And the after world war two and in okinawa it was there's a lot of like interesting culture uh culture share between the u.s and japan specifically in onal okinawa because it was americans living there eating their american food and stuff like that but some of them were curious so they would go off base and sometimes they would trade with the locals oh and so that's where um there's a
00:41:25
Speaker
delicious dish called okinawan fried rice or Okanagan taco fried rice. um It's basically Japanese fried rice with taco meat, taco seasoning, and shredded cheese. And it is unbelievable.
00:41:38
Speaker
It's so good. so it's Hawaiian bodega food. Basically, but from Japan. That's amazing. It's so good. so good um But one of the other things that came out of that is ramune. So ramune was named because the American soldiers in their in their ah their rations, their MREs,
00:41:58
Speaker
they had lemonade powder. And so they would trade away the lemonade powder, and then that became popular in Okinawa. But because of the language difference in the way English and Japanese work, Japan doesn't really have a sound for the L at the beginning of a word.
00:42:17
Speaker
So when they changed it. They can't say lemonade, so it became Ramonade. And that's where that's where the name came from. It's it's the inability... for the american or for the English and Japanese languages to meet up at that L sound and the D sound.
00:42:34
Speaker
um And I just find that completely fascinating. sorry Sorry to go into story time for you guys, but now, Sam, next time you have a Ramune, you'll think about Well, I was, you know, it was reminding me of Pacari Sweat.
00:42:49
Speaker
Have you had Pacari Sweat? Yeah. So it it sounds disgusting when you translate it in English, but it's basically like Gatorade. It's kind of this hydration thing, right? It's it's Japanese Gatorade.
00:43:02
Speaker
It's actually really good. It's it's lovely. It's a good citrus flavor. um The Japanese name is not, I'm not even going to try to say it because I don't want anyone to call me out on it.
00:43:15
Speaker
but if If you, in English, try to say Pacari Sweat with a Japanese accent, that is how you say it in Japanese. Oh. So I'm not going to say it. the the japanese I found the Japanese language really interesting. It's the same words. It's basically the same words, but with an inflection of Japanese that seems almost rude.
00:43:34
Speaker
So I'm not going to do it. That being said, Okinawa. Hold on. oh i well One thing about Okinawa, because we're talking about Martin Cove, right? We're talking about martin Cove. We're talking about the Karate Kid. We're talking about a lot of movies that he was in, which is significantly more than just the Karate Kid. There's a movie that I wanted to bring up, a couple of movies. like i mean, he was in a movie I watched recently. um talked about it on the show. I'll i'll tell you in a minute.
00:43:59
Speaker
yeah You go first. yeah Okay. Well, I was going to say, you mentioned Okinawa. Great for Ramune and also great for, obviously, Miyake. ah try Absolutely.
00:44:13
Speaker
So I have some interesting facts about some of Martin Kov's background in history, particularly from the movie Deathmatch, which is hot garbage in so many ways, but it's so iconic for the era.
00:44:26
Speaker
um You know, what's what's his name? Matias. Oh, God. Matthias, I'll remember his last name. He's been in every single action and sci-fi movie for the last probably 40 years.
00:44:43
Speaker
Big, blonde, Norwegian guy. what's that norwegian Oh, that guy. um Yeah, that that guy. ah but The only movie I can remember him specifically from is he was in the... Hughes, Matthias Hughes. The awful Punisher movie with Thomas Jane.
00:45:01
Speaker
Probably, probably he was in there. Yeah, Matias Hughes, Ian Jacklin, else is in this film? Oh man, really?
00:45:11
Speaker
Benny O'Keefe, yeah. Like all all these people like back then were huge martial arts. They were on magazines. You could buy magazines with these people's faces on it. And Matias Hughes was in there and it was just such a ridiculous film, but excellent in so many ways.
00:45:25
Speaker
And with that segue... Oh, he wasn't the guy in in The Punisher. I was wrong. Oh, no, the big dude that got stabbed? No. Yeah, the big blonde guy that got stabbed. That's an MMA guy. okay. he's He was in Puppet Master, The Littlest Reich.
00:45:41
Speaker
That movie was amazing. Matthias was, yeah. Matthias Hughes was, yeah, yeah, Puppet Master. He did a bunch of sci-fi stuff, bunch of pseudo-horror things, and then a ton of but like but kind of martial arts just odd action movies where people just got beat up and strange ways with styles that were not very good.
00:46:02
Speaker
You know, if it made Chuck Norris cringe, then probably he was in that film. And, you know, again, Chuck Norris is one of, he was one of not many world champions in a small handful of styles.
00:46:16
Speaker
Anyway, so, speaking of styles. So mine was, I talked about a movie called Killing Mary Sue a couple weeks ago. about Dylan McDermott's... No, Dermot Mulroney's trying to kill his his stepdaughter.
00:46:32
Speaker
And Martin Cove was one of the bad guys in that. he He was. He was. ah Shit, I was just looking at his IMDb. I noticed that on there. Good for him, man. That movie rules.
00:46:43
Speaker
boom He's still staying relevant. My sinuses are... I'm starting to get stuffy again. It's going back to shit. But let me introduce you to my next pairing.
00:46:55
Speaker
which I just poured as well. um It's another Jersey brewery, and it's brewery that I think it's worth... Another one I think it's worth visiting just for the experience, just for the people, the locals that hang out.
00:47:07
Speaker
You get these, like... i don't want to call them brewery rats, but you get your locals, like any bar, right? And you get these people that probably never go to any other brewery. They just super fan in one spot.
00:47:20
Speaker
Whether the beer's good, whether the beer's bad, they're just there. And it's so cool because... they are just kind of sharing the love of whatever that brewery is. And even even a a brewery that makes beer that you don't like, I think is still a cool place to see and visit and experience because if nothing else, you walk away from from that meeting people and having a probably a great conversation. So definitely check it out. So this one is Eight and Sand Beer Company, located in Woodbury, New Jersey. Eight and Sand.
00:47:51
Speaker
Eight and Sand. going to get into it. I know it sounds familiar. Aiden Sand, founded 2015 New Jersey, Kind of a nod to the old railroad terminology.
00:48:02
Speaker
I didn't know about this until i looked it up, but apparently this goes back to old railroad slang. So eight and sand refers to the speed control where eight would be the highest ah the highest speed marker that you could put a train in. But when you put the train inside speed marker, they would do is they would actually have a sander in front of the train that would spray sand onto the rails.
00:48:27
Speaker
for better traction and and to help reduce slippage. So you say aid in sand, that's basically, if you get the order for aid in sand, that means you crank it, put the sander on and you're gonna- That means you're going pedal to the metal in that thing. Pedal to the metal, but also you could be going up a hill.
00:48:42
Speaker
You could be carrying heavy loads. You want a little bit of that extra traction. And you know people often wonder why trains don't go off the rails. It takes a lot to derail a train, a lot, a lot.
00:48:56
Speaker
trains I know, I've tried. I bet you have, man. Jesus Christ. ah Yeah, so it does it does take a lot to derail the train, but also the way the wheels the wheels sit on top of the rail. It's kind of cool.
00:49:11
Speaker
The shape is cool. So if you're interested in in trains, check it out. It's really fascinating. And I take a train pretty much every day to work with like a long rail. Yeah.
00:49:23
Speaker
And boy, they go, sometimes they go real fast. and i and And the shaking and the jostling, and I almost wonder, is this the day? Is this the day I'm going to be on the news? I don't know. Is this the day I find out I'm Bruce Willis from Unbreakable?
00:49:38
Speaker
Oh, God. i Let's hope not. Let's hope not. but for you know For my wife's sake my kid's sake. But um yeah. Anyway. What I'm drinking tonight is a really fun beer from them. I had to buy it because, you know, as you are, as I am, we shop with our eyes first, then with our pallets, and eventually with our wallets.
00:49:59
Speaker
If we like something, then the wallet takes over, and it's like, no, no problem. I'll pay whatever that price is. I want that. That's very true, especially with beer. Like, whiskey, I'm definitely more critical.
00:50:13
Speaker
When I'm buying something new, you know, I'm not going to spend $70 on a bottle because it's a cool bottle. I'll think about it, but I'm going to do some research first. Beer?
00:50:25
Speaker
I'll buy ah a four or a six-pack of beer based on looks alone without even thinking about it. You got great packaging, I'll probably buy your beer. At least once.
00:50:36
Speaker
Well, perfect. I suspect you'd buy this can as well. So I'm drinking an American lager. It's coming in at 4.3%. four point three percent Reasonable. But the can is where it's at, dude.
00:50:47
Speaker
Check this out. The price is long.
00:50:53
Speaker
It's just really... it's i you know i couldn't i couldn't not buy this. I had to get this. This great. Yeah, you gotta buy that one, right? Very cute nod to, of course, Happy Gilmore 1996, a classic film.
00:51:05
Speaker
And Bob Barker famously was in there in this brawl. Uh... where Happy Gilmore said to him, the the the the price is wrong. Yeah, and then he punched him.
00:51:16
Speaker
Was it the price is wrong, bitch, or was it Bob? I forget. One of those two. I was trying to remember that, too, because I'm like, it's one of those two, but I can't remember which. I think Bob said the bitch part, and he said just Bob.
00:51:29
Speaker
but be Could be. Anyway, really interesting ah label, fun label, but the the beer itself, pretty... Pretty standard, man. American lager, clean. Not what you think of a lager when, I think, when you talk about American lagers, people tend tend to look at, like, something like a yingling. They go, oh, yeah, that's that's sort of the lager that I'm thinking about, right?
00:51:52
Speaker
You expect something a little bit darker. But, no. this is This is, I think, a you know, pretty typical standard for an American-style lager. Less filtered.
00:52:03
Speaker
So, you can't even... they just You can't even see through it. The lighting is not great. So it looks neon. It's really not that that bright.
00:52:14
Speaker
But it's good. It's clean. It's crisp. I think it works well with the cigar because the cigar still to this point is not... um It's not a... It's got a body, but it's not a in-your-face, thick, palate-coating kind of cigar. So a lighter beer, I think, works really well with this.
00:52:34
Speaker
If I had an IPA, definitely would have blown this out of the water, I think. I wouldn't have been able to smoke it. Yeah, I think something on the like the much lighter side of an IPA, I can't even think of one that counts as an IPA that's at that level, but like something that's maybe one of those hazies that's not really that hoppy, because hops works with some cigars, but I don't suspect this would be one of them.
00:53:02
Speaker
Yeah, same. I feel the same way. Maybe a pale ale, depending on what, to your point, maybe like hazy little thing might work. From, who's that? That's Sierra. Sierra Nevada.
00:53:14
Speaker
I think that you know that might work. Sierra Nevada. Sorry, guys. Sierra what? What now? Nevada, not Nevada. i was i always correct myself in my head, even if I don't actually say it right.
00:53:28
Speaker
So it's not Oregon? Oregon? or regan It's actually pronounced oregano. Oh, oh I see. Well, that's what everybody smells like in that state.
00:53:39
Speaker
Oh, the devil's lettuce going around. There's a whole lot of that over there. i do actually do want to go out to Oregon. I'm very excited. You would love it purely because of the breweries. there's ah there's a like I think you would have to see it to believe what the grocery store is like there because it's like...
00:54:00
Speaker
a Walmart has like a bunch of really good micro brew beer. And like, like every store has just a lot of really good local beer.
00:54:11
Speaker
Um, more than anywhere I've ever seen before. You can just buy local beer everywhere. Right. Uh, all right. Titanic panic.
00:54:23
Speaker
Um, as you can tell, I am enjoying this beer. This was full before. oh Man, this has like a really light fruitiness.
00:54:35
Speaker
I don't know if I was influenced by reading the label or not, but it says forbidden spring strawberries are one of their flavor notes. um And it is like an almost
00:54:49
Speaker
like a a wafting of a strawberry, like just the smell of a strawberry. Like it doesn't have that much sweetness. It's got a little sweetness. Um, it's got lemon.
00:55:00
Speaker
It's got like a man. It's that first beer is like bubbling up inside me, dude. Burping like crazy. It's usually me. I'm by this point in the show. That's usually me burping up a bunch of stuff.
00:55:14
Speaker
Yeah, I know. Um, but this is really delightful. It's like got a little bit of, uh, you mentioned Saison before it's got like a little bit of Saison influence while having,
00:55:26
Speaker
a lot of Hellas lager influence, which is one of my favorite styles because it's such a clean, crisp style. But this is like a Hellas with a little bit of funk added to it.
00:55:38
Speaker
With that lemon, that little bit of fruity fruity sweetness kind of going on. um It's delicious. And it's it's working well with this cigar, but not as well as that first pairing did. i was really I'm really surprised by how well that smoked low-alcohol beer works.
00:55:54
Speaker
with the flavors in this cigar. It could be the cigar changing more, but I'll know more when we go back around the table. What about you? How's pairing number two doing for you?
00:56:05
Speaker
You know, mean, I think it's it's working ah really well, but also when I say really well, It's not taking away from the cigar. So I like that it's not a beer that I necessarily need to think about.
00:56:18
Speaker
This is a cigar where I'd like to just focus on the cigar itself and not have to worry about my pairing, not have to worry about, you know, thinking about a cocktail or trying to drink a seltzer in between, you know, in between drinks or or s sips, if you will. But yeah I think it's it's good. And it's a lighter beer. Lagers, I think, are they seem to work well with the cigar.
00:56:43
Speaker
The further I get into the cigar, the more I think that it might be that tobacco in the cigar that you gave Oh, the one that you had last year. I think it was an Indian tobacco, and it was like thrown with saffron next to it or something weird like that.
00:56:59
Speaker
There's a sweetness to it that I can't fucking place. It's driving me nuts. Me too. But for now, we'll go on to our last pair. Finish talking, though. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
00:57:11
Speaker
No, no. Listen, man, I like it. I'm very curious what's in this. I wouldn't be surprised necessarily if there was a bit of pipe tobacco in this. But maybe if not, I'd love to know what what kind of cigar tobacco is in this. What kind of priming? like where the Where did this come from? What are we doing with it?
00:57:28
Speaker
ah Because it's so different. Whatever it is, it definitely reminds me of pipe tobacco. like It's got a little bit of that going on. Yeah.
00:57:38
Speaker
but in in a subtle enough way but I think if you weren't... I think if you... I'm trying to think of how to say this.
00:57:49
Speaker
I think if you didn't have as much experience smoking pipe tobacco cigars, you might not even notice it, or as much experience poking smoking pipe tobacco at all.
00:58:01
Speaker
like You might not think about it, but to me it like screams pipe tobacco or one of those... alternative process methods like Nduyo or one of those. Yeah, exactly. exactly and and And I would say are yeah arguably, this might sound weird, but if I were to give this cigar somebody in the subway in New York City to smoke, just random person, probably the first thing they would say is, man, that's real smooth.
00:58:30
Speaker
And you know, I absolutely hate, i hate the word smooth. I hate the word premium. it It's very upsetting. for i don' It's built into my Soviet nature of that nothing is ever a fucking premium, nor is it ever smooth.
00:58:45
Speaker
However, I think in this case, I think I'll give it a pass. I think probably you can consider this something that people would say, yeah, it's that's pretty smooth. I like that, meaning it's accessible. you know The way that I'm thinking about this is it's an accessible cigar for ah a wide variety of smoker. even Even someone who's never had a cigar before, this probably could be not a bad start.
00:59:09
Speaker
um and Sam is smoking Gran Habano, right? Yeah. He's smoking a Gran Habano. One of the first brands of cigars ever. this is ah you know I smoked through so many Gran Habanos.
00:59:23
Speaker
I've smoked a lot those. When first started smoking. And i loved I loved everything about them. It was it was just a thing that got me hooked. Yeah, they're wonderful. um And his final pairing...
00:59:36
Speaker
ah I feel like I should have seen this coming, but I didn't even think about it. Is the Drunchambo gin mixed with Ramune Melon, one-to-one ratio.
00:59:49
Speaker
That sounds like a nice little nice little cocktail. I love a one-to-one ratio on a gin cocktail. Because for me, a gin and tonic, a lot of times in a bar is going to be too tastes like little gin.
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah. So I usually do a one-to-one ratio at home. um Not because I want to get hammered faster necessarily, but because I really like gin. And I want to taste the gin. I don't want it to be slightly gin-flavored tonic.
01:00:19
Speaker
I want it to be gin with enough tonic to balance the flavor out and and really be enjoyable. anyway like i'm a I'm a big fan of physis for that reason. i think you get the body from the egg wipe and then you can either play with tonic, you can play with with the ah mineral-based water, so either club soda or if you want to get down to really funky territory and do like really specific regional mineral water.
01:00:45
Speaker
can be really interesting and fun. um Man, Tripp, I got some stuff for you when I see you. I'm going to bring some mineral water that I think is going to make most of the guys the Meta House vomit. But you and are going to get down I think you're going to love it.
01:00:59
Speaker
But it is rough, rough stuff ah from the deepest cockles of near Siberia. It is pure. The only thing they do is get the sediment out of this thing and they put it in a bottle.
01:01:12
Speaker
All right, I'm in. Let's try it. Talk about licking a rock. We're going to test that theory. ah can't wait. It's great. Sam Fennel says, spirit forward. Yeah, we're fans of Spirit Forward cocktail for sure. Oh, absolutely. absolutely absolutely Speaking of spirits, my last pairing of the night, I do.
01:01:32
Speaker
Oh, good. Okay. I went with McCarthy's Oregon Whiskey. I felt like I'd been having too much beer on the show lately. um I only have a little bit of this left, but I love it.
01:01:43
Speaker
um So this is... ah McCarthy's was first released in 1996. Um... um making it the oldest single malt in America, oldest American single malt, rather in America.
01:01:58
Speaker
Um, it is made from 100% peat malted barley, which, you know, we love, uh, which is imported from Scotland. It is aged three years in Oregon Oak casks. So they don't use any, uh, classic American Oak. It's Oregon grown only.
01:02:16
Speaker
um, And it's made by Hood River Distillers in Hood River, Oregon, which is, it's distilled for Clear Creek Distillery, um which is, I guess, part of Hood River Distillers.
01:02:30
Speaker
Comes in at 42.5% ABV. You know, they they they do the whole bottled on batch number thing here, which is nice. That's a really, really nice label as well.
01:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very, ah I think it's a very elegant label. I'm very curious if they've changed this part. Because this was bottled in 2021. Way before Widmer Brothers stopped brewing in Portland.
01:02:57
Speaker
Interesting. So they're ah their mash is fermented or was fermented at Widmer Brothers Brewing. um Which I think is probably more common than most people think it is for small distilling operations.
01:03:11
Speaker
To have a brewery just do your your mash for you because... you're yeah up until you distill it you're basically making beer right yeah yeah well absolutely absolutely and i think um the other the other thing that's really cool is if you're up and coming and you're very small and you want to get your name out there the best thing you could possibly do is to partner with with the local business local brewery that's one part of it the other part of it is also most people that get into distilling have been brewing for a while these are beer people
01:03:43
Speaker
And if they're not beer people, they want to be around beer people to understand really, because the mash is so essential. Everyone talks about stills, and that's important as well. And the finishing is important.
01:03:53
Speaker
But also the mash that goes into it, the yeast that you use, all that stuff. like that's i mean, that's where it all starts. You're building your, yeah, exactly. You're building your your flavor profiles there, and then you're narrowing them down. You're taking off, you're cutting, you're trimming off. It's like a brisket. You're trimming off the edges before you do your final cook.
01:04:10
Speaker
And you have to be be really particular about it. That's a really good analogy, dude. Good job. I just pulled that out of my head. But i in my mind, that you know that's i think about this every time I trim a brisket and go, I suck at this. i can't I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. i I've been doing it for years now, but I'm still, every time I learn something different and I reach out to somebody and go, hey, talk to me about this. And I don't talk to people that make brisket.
01:04:36
Speaker
I talk to people that are butchers and that that understand meat and that understand the variations, then it can understand regional qualities about different meats. Same kind of thing with brewers. They'll talk about malts.
01:04:47
Speaker
What malt is available? What's fresh? What's good? What might work for your final product? Anyway, yeah, we'll put that in the annals if you will. Well, I'm gonna drink some McCarthy's while you talk about whatever you've got up there.
01:05:00
Speaker
Yeah. That's a lovely question. I was actually trying to figure out what i'm drinking for my last pairing. Hold on. i mean Let me queue my notes here. Here we go. All right.
01:05:11
Speaker
So this is the one that i actually started drinking before. but was this one going to be your first pairing? Yeah, this was going to my first pairing. At the top of the show, I get into it. I was really digging it. But as as good as it was at the very beginning, i really wanted to see how the cigar would hold up to this particular style. And this is a beer. Now having a beer.
01:05:34
Speaker
I just poured the rest of it. All right. So... me see Let me take you down um to a trip, little trip down into a world called Trippin Animals Brewing Company. Nice.
Highlights of Tripping Animals Brewing
01:05:48
Speaker
Yes. You and I, we both love it. we It's it's it's a really, it' truly a beloved place by so many people. ah It's so exciting to be there every time, and not just because you can sit outside and smoke cigars and nobody will bother you.
01:06:01
Speaker
This brewery checks all the boxes, man. They got food. Yep. They got great beer. They're kid-friendly. That is all over the place. Their beer, they got sours, they got barrel-aged stouts, they got IPAs. Whatever you're looking for, they have something.
01:06:16
Speaker
They're kid-friendly. They'll let you smoke there. like and Oh, and the last box, great packaging. Oh, the packaging is so awesome, man. and Excuse me, I'm so congested.
01:06:33
Speaker
Founded in 2018 in Doral. Now, you're a Florida man now. Is it Doral or Doral? Doral. Doral. We're going down to Doral, Florida. Doral. So Doral is where we were last year. We went, I picked you up at airport ah for Lozano Palooza.
01:06:50
Speaker
We went to, but was it Matador Cigars? Is that the name of the place? And that breakfast spot, that was in Doral. That breakfast spot, holy balls. Dude, that Colombian breakfast spot ruled.
01:07:02
Speaker
It was so good. that is Now, I think that is that is the like progression. Breakfast spot, go go to the little cigar shop, which was great. All near the airport, which is really nice. so yeah this This is in Doral. and Doral is also like the the cigar hub of Miami. like I mean, we looked at a map when we were looking for a cigar shop to go to, and it was like within three blocks were of us, at least, they're like in a radial, were like AJ Fernandez, Aganorsa, my father, couple others. everybody's down there.
01:07:37
Speaker
Like everybody's in Doral. Doral's like the up-and-coming spot right now. for cigar offices. that's kind of part of the cool thing is when you go out to a place like this where you they have a seated area outside, they're they're kid friendly as well, they have stuff for kids, but you can also sit outside and you can bring cigars, man.
01:07:53
Speaker
You can get some food, which by the food by the way, the food is really great as well. And you just hang out and everyone's welcome. And I love this. This is like the Miami vibe that love is just about everywhere you go, you're gonna get great food and probably can smoke a cigar.
01:08:10
Speaker
Wait, am I misremembering or did we go to two different tripping animals locations? We did. We went to two. we went We went this year. We went to two. We also went to... Oh, yeah, because we weren't planning on going to the one in a in Fort Lauderdale, but then we ended up that way and we're like, all right, let's go there.
01:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. and I'm wearing my voodoo shirt. Nice. ah Very proud. Very, very proud of that. About that. um Anyway. So Tripping Animals is really cool brewery founded by Venezuelan-born brewers Ignacio Montenegro and Daniel Chacron and couple of other people that helped to get this this you know business going, which is tough. It's really expensive to get brewery started.
01:08:51
Speaker
Now, they're known for, you mentioned a bunch of different styles. They're really known for a lot of their sour stuff. Mm-hmm. theyve They focus on the sour stuff, the hazy IPA stuff. And honestly, I will say this very frankly, the beers that are really hard to make, well, you can make them.
01:09:09
Speaker
They're going to be garbage for the most part until you finally hit that gold. And it's so hard to brew this kind of stuff. Good on them for keeping with it because at that scale, a small mistake, it's it's so he's made so much money.
01:09:25
Speaker
when When most of the beer you're making is sours, it's a very dangerous thing because sours have such a fine line between great and potentially deadly. Like, there's not a whole, there's not a thick line between, like, infected and good.
01:09:46
Speaker
um And so so you really have to have your processes down to a science to be able to get sour beers right every single time.
01:10:02
Speaker
Did I lose you?
01:10:06
Speaker
Dennis just froze. I suspect he'll be rejoining in a moment. um He may have been offended by my my talk about Sowers. wondering if his power went out. Let me make sure I have my phone.
01:10:20
Speaker
If his power went out, I'll talk to you guys for a little while. Finish up my thoughts on the cigar. But I want to wait and see what he says.
McCarthy's Oregon Whiskey Overview
01:10:52
Speaker
Well, while we're waiting, going to talk about McCarthy's. McCarthy's, I love this whiskey. I've talked about it before. I'm a big fan. It reminds me of...
01:11:06
Speaker
If Lagavulin was willing to sell you a three-year Lagavulin, it would remind me of this. It's got that heatiness, but not overpoweringly so. So if you hate Petey Whiskey, this may still work for you.
01:11:21
Speaker
may not, but it it might. um And it's kind of got that ah very similar, I think, to Lagavulin. It has... that level of sweetness and richness that kind of balances out the, the amount of Pete in it.
01:11:40
Speaker
Um, and keeps it from being like, you know, uh, as much as I love both of them, Laphroaig and Ardbeg are like over the top PD. Ardbeg tends to be, um, about the same amount of PD-ness as Laphroaig, but freud with less body, Laphroaig tends to be both full bodied and super PD.
01:12:02
Speaker
this is a lot closer to something like a Lagavulin. um But, you know, theyve if you hate Pete, this or Lagavulin should be the one you try. Don't go straight for the Laphroaigs and the Ardbegs and stuff like that because it's going to blow out your palate entirely.
01:12:23
Speaker
um As far as pairing with the cigar, i think it pairs okay, but to me... it might be after drinking like, uh, my 2.9% ABV beer and the Keller beer, the heat on this is affecting the flavor of the cigar for me.
01:12:45
Speaker
Um, so because of the heat of having a spirit, it, um, the intensity overpowers the cigar a little bit. Um, Oh, all right.
01:12:57
Speaker
I'll keep talking. Dennis just texted me that his power went out, but it's back on. So we'll we'll give him a couple minutes while his Wi-Fi boots up. um Let me set... Change of setting here.
01:13:12
Speaker
Turn off the waiting room so he can get right in. ah Yeah, the the pairing isn't fantastic. The cigar, on the other hand, i am... I'm having a hard time explaining how impressed I am by the cigar.
01:13:26
Speaker
It's so different. um We've talked about... perhaps some some interestingly grown, interestingly fermented tobacco, maybe pipe tobacco, which of course is is processed completely differently from from any kind of cigar tobacco.
01:13:46
Speaker
But to me, this doesn't taste like... It tastes like there's more than just cigar tobacco in there. But I can't quite figure out what... We may have to grill Sanj about it, even if he won't let us tell anybody, because we need to know.
01:14:04
Speaker
ed's Ed's chiming in about Zwicklemania. Ed, you I don't know if you missed it earlier, but I talked ah earlier in the show about how Zwicklemania was yesterday, because I have what is technically a Zwickle beer tonight from ah from Wayfinder.
01:14:21
Speaker
He says he only only made it to eight breweries this year because he had his kids with him. That's how it goes, man. When you got kids, it's it's a little harder to get around to all the different breweries. And and also, you know, um when you're in charge of children, it's not great to to drink too much.
01:14:38
Speaker
I try to avoid it at least.
01:14:43
Speaker
Dennis may be coming back shortly, but we'll find out
01:14:53
Speaker
it's ah I just can't believe Ed just... I assume he wasn't watching earlier since he just brought up Zwicklemania. But I really did mention it earlier and I talked about it. I explained what Zwicklemania is and how awesome it is.
01:15:07
Speaker
um um you I'm going all Northwest tonight. I've got... ed if you're just joining, I've got McCarthy's Bazaar from Seattle and a Wayfinder from Portland, obviously.
01:15:23
Speaker
Man, if you've never had McCarthy's single malt, you're missing out. if you like If you like the peat. If you don't like the peat, give it a try. But maybe don't buy a whole bottle if you can avoid it.
01:15:42
Speaker
Trying to ponder on this cigar more.
01:15:49
Speaker
Man, I can't figure out this flavor. It doesn't remind me too much of anything, but it's definitely, it definitely doesn't remind me of cigar tobacco. Like obviously there's a lot of cigar tobacco in here, but there's one note that I can't place.
01:16:07
Speaker
And as far as I haven't read a bunch of reviews or anything of this, but I haven't seen anybody else saying that there's anything other than cigar tobacco in here. so I'm curious what other people think. I'll look up reviews later. That's usually what I do. I try to avoid...
01:16:22
Speaker
having preconceived notions of a cigar before I i get into it.
01:16:37
Speaker
Ed says we should have a conversation about Steve McCarthy one night. I would love to. we We will make that happen at some point. I don't know him, but I'm curious what you have to say, as always.
01:16:50
Speaker
I'm going to go back through my pairings because ah we're still waiting on Dennis to come back.
01:17:05
Speaker
And you guys get to watch my process this time because I don't have Dennis talking at the same time. This is going to a very boring segment of the podcast. I may have to edit it down a little bit
01:17:26
Speaker
Man. right. So I just, I just tried again. Light so dim from bizarre brewing. sorry. Hold on one second, guys.
01:17:42
Speaker
I turned off the waiting room, but I didn't allow him to join anyway.
01:17:56
Speaker
Please hold.
01:18:15
Speaker
Oh, I know what happened. I'm going to put you guys in the waiting room for a second because I had to kick Dennis earlier because he was the meeting
01:18:26
Speaker
And now he's blocked from getting in the meeting. So be
01:20:48
Speaker
right, we're back. i had to start a new Zoom meeting because I kicked Dennis out earlier.
Dennis Returns and Zwicklemania Experience
01:20:53
Speaker
So, Dennis, what you missed that I thought was really interesting is ah Ed came in. You know Ed.
01:20:59
Speaker
And he said yeah that ah he said Zwicklemania was yesterday. It was a blast. And I said, oh I was just talking about Zwicklemania. Yeah. um So he he says he only made it to eight breweries this year because he had two of his kids with him, his boys. That's okay. That's formidable. Exactly. I think that's still so impressible.
01:21:18
Speaker
Oh, you went to Zoigle House. I love Zoigle House, dude. ah it was It was right by my old house. um You picked some of the good ones, man. Hopworks, Living House, Great Fur, Oh, Berlick.
01:21:35
Speaker
Sam Fanel says, is it Ometepe? It could be Ometepe that's in this cigar, but it doesn't remind me of Ometepe. It's got a little bit more funk to it. i was trying to I was talking about right before you said you were blocked and I had to go figure things out.
01:21:50
Speaker
um I was saying that it reminds me of type pipe tobacco, but it might not be pipe tobacco. It reminds me of...
01:21:59
Speaker
Anduyo, but it might not be Anduyo, but it to me, there's an element of this cigar that is not cigar tobacco. Or at least not typical cigar tobacco. And and um I'm just very curious what it is. I hope Sanj will tell us when we meet up with him.
01:22:18
Speaker
Hopefully in... New Orleans in like a month and a half. Yeah. um um ah I'm looking forward to it. So, for you know, funny enough, my my Wi-Fi is still down. i am literally running off of my yeah my cell phone right now.
01:22:32
Speaker
Well, it looks just as good as normal. So you got you got a good cell phone there.
Wi-Fi Issues and Storm Aftermath
01:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, but goddamn. So for a second there, what what what happened, I was talking, the light started to flicker. And then i looked outside, there were flashes of light outside, like a lightning storm.
01:22:49
Speaker
I've been there. The whole room just lit up with light from the outside and ah finally died. Now I'm thinking in the back of my head like, oh God, I wonder what wonder what died. Because most of my circuits are not well protected. i never got around to that yet.
01:23:06
Speaker
I'm thinking about what finally shit itself. I know my server definitely died. That was the last storm.
01:23:15
Speaker
But ah kudos to this computer for still kicking it, man. I was up and running in like two minutes.
01:23:23
Speaker
Nice. Not bad. So, yeah. So why what was I said? We're talking about. ah or We're talking about um but your pairing tonight. you were You were telling us about tripping animals.
01:23:37
Speaker
And you didn't tell us what you were drinking yet. Ah, yes, I never get around to that. Okay, so Trippie Nile's really cool stuff. What I'm drinking tonight is a really lovely beer. It's a fruited sour, and it's something that that you and I both had that was, the you know, I think had an um impression on us.
01:23:55
Speaker
Certainly everybody that I've shared this with has loved it. This is their Jungle Pop. I still have a can of this. Let's see if I can, there we go.
01:24:07
Speaker
So apparently that looks like a LeBougou. It definitely does. I mean, it's kind of like a ah mix between a Lububu and Mario wearing his Tanuki costume. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The ah raccoon Mario.
01:24:22
Speaker
Flying raccoon. don't know if it's supposed to be raccoon or a Lububu. it's It's unclear. Now, this is... it I don't know if Lububus have tails, raccoon tails. I have no idea. They might not. I don't think they do.
Fruited Sour Beer Features
01:24:34
Speaker
This comes in at 6%, and also this this is a sour ale conditioned with passion fruit, yuzu, strawberry, and pineapple. Called Jungle Pop.
01:24:45
Speaker
And it looks like a Jungle Pop when you look at it. Oh, wow. It's just thick. I don't know if we've ever poured this into a glass, but it is chunky.
01:24:57
Speaker
Very chunky. um but it's so good. It's so delicious. It's so excitingly sour and accessible.
01:25:08
Speaker
Generally, you know, the sours that you drink, sours that I drink, the ones that we really love, are the kinds of sours that people going spit out. Probably never talk to you again if that you make me drink. We like some real funky stuff. Real funky.
01:25:24
Speaker
Oh, but this is great. So the best way to put this... is if you've ever had strawberry banana orange juice, you know that flavor? Chambacana? Exactly. that That's exactly what this tastes like. 100%.
01:25:40
Speaker
And it's very good with the cigar. Very, very impressed. I think it's better now than it was. Now that it's warmed up a little bit, and it's actually better now than it was when I first lit the cigar. Wow. I'm glad that I so i switched the pairings out.
01:25:55
Speaker
I have already gone back through my pairings. I've already talked about my final pairing while you were gone. Sorry about that. um I still haven't decided what my pairing of
01:26:11
Speaker
the is. You asked me if if we got nuked. And like, dude, as soon as I got that message in on Messenger, the the sirens went off. oh god so do you know Do you have this thing down in Florida, the the fire sirens?
01:26:26
Speaker
No, I don't think so. Okay, so firehouses where I live. if We had that in Connecticut. I grew up like a block. like I mean, it wasn't a block because it was in a neighborhood.
01:26:38
Speaker
um I had probably an eighth of a mile of woods and fields behind my house as a kid. And on the other side was the town firehouse. And so at noon every day and anytime there was a fire, would go,
01:26:52
Speaker
where
01:26:55
Speaker
and just be howling and it became kid one of those things as a kid that was like background noise right like well not for me because I'm a kid from from Brooklyn man when i when you hear sirens like that in Brooklyn we did we didn' shelter drills like bombshell drills so when I hear that siren I go fucking the raid's coming we're done everything we're fucked especially now I live in Jersey with with all the different nuclear sites and a new data center that's being built in my in my city that's going to be backed up by by a these... They're like nuclear trailers, like portable... Whoa.
01:27:36
Speaker
It's like portable nuclear generators, and they're going to backed up by those things. And, ah you know, people are pissed off about it, but but ah yeah.
01:27:46
Speaker
Fun stuff. Here we are.
01:27:49
Speaker
love that glass, by the way. Here we are. Very nice. Yeah, um... I've had these like ah at least 15 years, these Varsteiner Pilsner glasses, and I try to use them any chance I get. This this smoked light lager thing.
01:28:09
Speaker
um What do they call it? Grodowski. Grodiski. got to look this up because I feel like i i should be able to I should be able to pronounce this.
01:28:21
Speaker
G-R-O-D. What's the... Z-I-S-K-I-E. Grzyski.
01:28:30
Speaker
Grzyski. Yeah, I guess. I mean, yeah, that sounds right to me, but that's... You never know. I mean, it it might have, like, a weird inflection. Grzyski, Grzyski, something like that. I don't know. I don't know any Polish.
01:28:42
Speaker
I know zero Polishes. And, I mean, I suspect speak a Slavic language, so I should be able to fucking say it, but... but you were gonna just get Yeah, nice he's not you oh guess.
01:29:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's like it like, you know like, it should be its yeah, a lot of Russians will say but like Polish people will say yes there's a there's a little bit of a, there's a little more of a fu yeah. on there Okay.
01:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So it seems like this is the same. Oh, this roads this kid oh it's fucking hard to say. Goddamn. I mean, it's Polish. the Polish is not easy to speak, man. I know that i know enough to know that much.
01:29:31
Speaker
Homie, you should try speaking Ukrainian. It's like fucking Cajun Russian. but It's literally like Cajun. I'm not even kidding. you ask any russian and Ask any Russian person what what or Ukrainian person what Ukrainian sounds like. It's Cajun Russian, basically.
01:29:44
Speaker
It's wild. I mean, that's um that sounds about right
01:29:52
Speaker
All right. Um, my pairing of the night, I think is, is it's going to the. ro this yeah Um, so oh very good the this is a smoked, smoked Oak Oak smoked beer, Oak smoked wheat beer from bizarre brewing in Seattle.
01:30:17
Speaker
Um, we at only 2.9% ABV, which, you know, um most people would just overlook that because of the ABV. um I think it's fantastic. It's got enough smokiness that it's like, it's absolutely there, but it's not an aggressive smokiness.
01:30:37
Speaker
It's kind of on the milder side. I prefer oak. Personally, when it comes to smoked malts, I generally prefer oak to beechwood. Yeah, I think the oak makes a big difference between beechwood. Beechwood has that like... It's a bit acrid.
01:30:51
Speaker
Let's be real. Yeah, nobody else is going to know what I'm talking about. It's got that ah Lebanon bologna style of smoke where it's like this very acrid, like it was smoked with hot garbage.
01:31:04
Speaker
And it still tastes great, but but it's like you can almost taste burning plastic in the you know smokiness. It's very ah aggressive kind of smoke.
01:31:18
Speaker
And Beachwood has some of that. Oak smoke, on the other hand, is like that well-rounded barbecue-y kind of smoke um that I think makes it work really well as a beer.
01:31:34
Speaker
Sorry, my internet connection is unstable. That's not the only thing that's unstable in this room right now, motherfucker. God damn it. um Yeah, so I'm going to bring you... you think the boys will like little bit of a Seltzer's Double Smoke Bologna?
01:31:50
Speaker
I think... At the media house? I think Kupal will love it. Well, the one year I brought... What did I bring? I brought Irish Potatoes from Philly. Oh, yeah, and Kupal lost his mind.
01:32:02
Speaker
Those are good. Those were really And maybe I'll bring Coop an actual proper bagel because he doesn't seem to know what bagels look like.
01:32:14
Speaker
ah I say that lovingly. I poke him about bagels all the time. but We have this almost inter-fewed on bagels.
01:32:24
Speaker
I love that stuff, man. I haven't had it in like a year. Do you have access to that as well? Yeah, so we have an Amish grocery store that has like half the store is imported from oh wow like Northwest Pennsylvania um from that region. That's incredible. So it's like it's very accessible. Like anything that's Amish is very accessible to me. it's a It's a chain of Amish run and own grocery stores that carry a mix of strictly local stuff and stuff imported from the Amish in Pennsylvania.
01:33:00
Speaker
um And all of them have a I think all of them, maybe a couple of them don't. Most of them have that's an Amish furniture store attached. and they have like buses that, that shuttle the Amish from wherever they are in Florida to these grocery stores so they can do their shopping.
01:33:19
Speaker
um The, the only employees that are there, i Yeah, surprisingly. the The only employees in the store that aren't Amish are the people running the cash registers.
01:33:31
Speaker
It's crazy. you know like the whole being in that place Being in that store is wild. But I can buy Lebanon Bologna. Dare I say. Dare I say. i You know, when you call an Amish guy on the side of the road his hand up a horse's ass, a mechanic.
01:33:51
Speaker
That's a good one. ah I just i just yeah told that joke to somebody the other day. Anyway, yeah, that's cool. So we'll figure it out. We'll you know we'll get some good stuff out for the boys to to try.
01:34:03
Speaker
you know and in i am going to reach out to Cooper and see what he wants from from up north as well. Little kind of sweet treats or something that he might dig. Definitely not bringing that... what whatever what's What's that thing that he loves from Wawa? The the Thanksgiving thing. The turkey mouillet. Something like that.
01:34:24
Speaker
and fucking that sandwich. I think it's called the Gobbler. but I was thinking of it as as Turkey McGaugh. had it years ago. fucking It's fucking awful. um Anyway, we'll get down some good food. I'm looking forward to that.
01:34:36
Speaker
And now, talking about pairing, i think my pairing for the night is going to be the sour from Trippin' In. Really? I can see that kind of working well with this because... i Honestly, I think it works really well.
01:34:48
Speaker
Because the cigar has like that funk to it, that little bit of... almost smokiness, which is, it's weird to say, but ah most cigars don't taste smoky.
01:34:59
Speaker
This one's got a little bit of smokiness. Maybe there's fire-cured tobacco in here. I can't figure it out. And it's driving me crazy. I'm going to lose my mind. I don't know. I don't, you know, ah dude, I would be surprised if there was any fire-cured tobacco in this. I don't think it's fire-cured.
01:35:17
Speaker
But it's something that is not normal in cigars. I'm convinced of this. But either way, um this is a good cigar.
01:35:29
Speaker
um It's not going to not go to blow your socks off. It's not going to your new cigar of the day that you smoke every single day or anything like that. But I didn't expect coming into this episode to give this cigar recommend. You should try this.
01:35:48
Speaker
like it is It is a solid cigar. that has some, uh, a little bit of lateral difference from typical cigar.
01:36:01
Speaker
But for the most part, it's just a solid cigar. It's got that little bit that Dennis and I have been trying to put our finger on and he disconnected again, but that's fine. Um, it's got that little bit that, that I can't quite put my finger on that. I can't figure out, um,
01:36:19
Speaker
but the rest of the cigar is just a solid, uh, very good cigar. Um, like I said, nothing, nothing super, it's not going this isn't a change your life kind of cigar or anything like that, but it's got, uh, it's got flavors that are good. It's got a well, mostly well fermented tobacco. I think Dennis was onto something. We said he thinks it's a little young.
01:36:42
Speaker
i think that's my guess is that that's intentional for the strength aspect. So it doesn't have to be just 100% Lajero to get the strength they're going for. That's pretty normal.
01:36:55
Speaker
Have a little bit of under fermented tobacco in there to boost the strength. um Yeah, and that you know that that makes complete sense. I i like the band. The band is really... yeah the band is very nice.
01:37:09
Speaker
Band up there. Like a little Red Dead kind of thing going on. Yeah, a little Red Dead Martin Kreese.
01:37:19
Speaker
I mean, Martin Cove. Yeah, man. Not Martin Kreese. Other Kreese. Which Kreese? That Kreese. Okay, I got it. Kreese is his character. um Yeah, I guess that ah that brings us to pretty much the end of the show. Dennis' internet is shitting itself as we speak.
01:37:42
Speaker
The power grid is on the fritz. I can smell it. Well... Ed, I would not call it any marzipan. There's no marzipan in this cigar.
01:37:53
Speaker
He asked if there's a... Oh, no, actually, yeah I thought about that as well. I think he's joking on us saying that things taste like marzipan. No, I don't know about the marzipan.
01:38:07
Speaker
Well, you know what? Sometimes the marzipan really does come out. Sometimes it's a real flavor that comes out, which is a weird flavor to reference because not a lot of people know what marzipan actually tastes like.
01:38:18
Speaker
It's like white pepper. What does white pepper taste like? Black pepper? No. I don't exactly know what white pepper tastes like. You have to try it.
01:38:27
Speaker
Right. I know you do, but I'm just saying a lot of people don't. It's unique. Yeah, definitely. All right, before we finish up, couple orders of business.
01:38:39
Speaker
Sam's pairing of the night is his gin and melon Ramune that he had. um Dennis's was the sour. Mine is the light. So dim.
01:38:51
Speaker
Grudziski. I may have said that 30% of the way there. um check out Martin Cove's cigar, the prodigal son. It's, um, it's pretty solid. $14 is the new normal these days.
01:39:08
Speaker
So it's not like it's a super expensive cigar, but it's not like it's cheap. Um, it's kind of in the, I would call the middle ground of where, where the higher end of premium cigars are like,
01:39:24
Speaker
ah there There are still $10 cigars out there. Most of the new stuff is, is in the 12 to $16 range. And this puts it right in the middle of there. Um, but it is a, it is a solid cigar that I would recommend trying.
01:39:38
Speaker
Um, of course our one for the road is, is our last order of business. So let's do the one for the road. Sam's one for the road. He says he was inspired by Dennis for this one.
Meat Church Praise and Movie Recommendation
01:39:51
Speaker
His Meat Church on YouTube, Matt Pittman is awesome. Oh, i love Meat Church. Yeah. Hell yeah. I have not watched this. I'm going to to check it out. I love Meat Church, man. i I have a container of the, I think it's called the Holy Gospel Seasoning.
01:40:08
Speaker
I have some of that. I use that on some venison cheesesteaks that I made the other night. Oh, that sounds tasty. Compound butter, baby. gotta use a little dill, a little compound butter, a little French salted butter with some... Anyway, we'll talk about it. But it's good.
01:40:25
Speaker
Alright, my one for the road.
01:40:30
Speaker
I thought about taking a Martin Cove movie for this. if if we're If we're going Martin Cove, watch... watch Cobra Kai on Netflix.
01:40:40
Speaker
Good. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. It's solid. I haven't watched the last season, but that's on me. But my actual one for the road. Yeah, I always got it. I always have two. I don't, it's not even on purpose.
01:40:51
Speaker
I just felt like I missed out on not having a Martin Cove related one. But mine is Predator Badland, which is now on Hulu. So this is a very different kind of predator movie lot of people were really upset by this they said it was too disneyfied um it's from the director of prey the previous one with the native american girl that was fantastic but this is like a the complete opposite end of the predator spectrum
01:41:24
Speaker
Um, it's also directed by Dan Trachtenberg, just like Prey. but this one is kind of like a, an adventure action movie starring upper predator.
01:41:36
Speaker
So it's like completely different from every predator movie we've ever seen where our protagonist or our antagonist is now the protagonist. So it's a predator who is, uh, not having a great time in life.
01:41:51
Speaker
and wants to go for this mythical beast that nobody's ever killed. And he goes to do it and things don't go great. and it turns into like a an adventure buddy cop kind of movie with him and Elle Fanning playing a android.
01:42:08
Speaker
She awesome in this movie. She's so funny. She's so entertaining. There is ah ah a cute little guy. which is why everybody complained that it was Disney. that The Disney movies always have the cute little sidekick guy. This one has like a little animal thing, little alien creature.
01:42:28
Speaker
It's all cute. The whole movie. It's fine. I don't think, I didn't think it took away from the movie too much, but I can kind of see why people complained about it. Um, but I thought it was a blast.
01:42:39
Speaker
Like if you are down with checking out a predator movie, that's not, uh, It's like Predator historically is always like a not quite horror, but very horror adjacent movie.
01:42:54
Speaker
This one is, it's straight up action. This one is like a fantasy action kind of movie, completely different thing. But if you're up for that, it's a lot of fun.
01:43:04
Speaker
And I think fan and crushes it, this movie. um So check out predator badlands on Hulu.
01:43:13
Speaker
That sounds awesome, man. I had to check that out. Yeah, it's it's worth watching, I think. All right, what's yours?
01:43:21
Speaker
Mine is a movie that was a remake. I didn't know it was remake from a 2003 Korean film that I just recently watched. 2025 came out at the Venice... My man. You know what I'm talking about?
01:43:34
Speaker
Yep. The Venice International Film Festival came out in August and then it hit theaters in the U.S. in October. It's movie called Begonia. with Emma Stone and what's his name? um jesse Jesse Plemons.
01:43:47
Speaker
Jesse Plemons and a couple other cool people are in there. And the concept is these two guys are convinced this super corporate executive person is an alien from another planet and they kidnap her.
01:44:02
Speaker
And kind of the story that ensues, it's a very interesting, satirical, dark comedy thriller type of a film It's really cool because it's these two guys who are, one of them is neurodivergent and he's been led by his brother to believing his conspiracy.
01:44:22
Speaker
His brother is a conspiracy lunatic who's convinced this high-powered CEO is an alien. And he's going to prove it. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. And he does it with a lot of conviction.
01:44:35
Speaker
And then you find out that there are like layers to this story where there's a whole backstory about why he's convinced he's evil. And it's, I thought it was a really good, really weird movie.
01:44:49
Speaker
It's, you know, God, I can't remember the guy's name. Yorgos. Oh, the director is Yorgos. Yorgos Lanthimos. Yeah. one thing to most um He makes a lot of super weird movies.
01:45:02
Speaker
um I have hated most of his movies. This one, I think, is his best, most mainstream movie yet. He also made Pretty Things, which was a big deal a couple of years ago. But I think this is better.
01:45:18
Speaker
This is fantastic. This movie completely blew me away because I had a rough idea of what I was getting into, and then every scene in the film...
01:45:30
Speaker
tore me away from any preconceived notions, and I was not sure what was happening. And but even to the very end, until the very end, was just like, God damn, this is wild.
01:45:42
Speaker
the You know, there's some if things that happen, practical effects, stuff that was little wild. Um... um just If you want to get down into some funk, like I think this is that movie. you If you want a sour beer of a film, this is it. is it is It's such a weird movie, but then it has like these unbelievably good performances. like These are... i don't i don't remember what they were nominated for, but there were nominations around this movie. I think Jesse Plemons was one of the ones that was it was snubbed.
01:46:20
Speaker
for one, but like the performances in this movie are in incredible. Like, incredible. Jesse Plemons is so, so good.
01:46:34
Speaker
Yeah, man. Check it out. It's 118 minutes long, so not a very long watch, but I think you'll be satisfied when you're done. It's different. It's different than everything else that's out there, which is really cool.
01:46:46
Speaker
Take a break from everything that's going on in the world and just watch something that's a little bit Weird. I mean, i you know, I don't say weird in a derogatory way. Weird in a good way. Ed Ryan says, what's the deal with begonia? Is that like when everybody told me to watch Pi? don't think I've seen Pi.
01:47:02
Speaker
No, haven't seen it either. Well, no, so it's it's probably like when everybody told you No, it's not going to be like Pi. I have seen Pi. I forgot about this movie.
01:47:15
Speaker
um No, it's nothing like this. I hated ah I hated it so much. Begonia is really interesting because it's a
01:47:26
Speaker
a art house movie that doesn't feel art house-y and it's like a performance movie like an Oscar bait kind of performance movie that doesn't focus as much on the performances.
01:47:39
Speaker
like it It's actually got a super interesting storyline and some twists and turns and of kind of you're wondering what's going on the whole time and and there's a lot of tension to it it's it's it's different than pie but
01:47:59
Speaker
good one i like that right guys i guess that uh that finishes up tonight's episode uh of let's get pairing this was episode 78 um um And we absolutely recommend checking out the prodigal son from Martin Cove, Holly DeSilvio, and Sanj Patel.
01:48:18
Speaker
um
01:48:20
Speaker
It's good. Try it out and see what you think. I want to know if you think there's a weird tobacco in here or not, if you smoke this cigar. But let me know. And with that, I guess we'll catch you all in the next one when we will...
01:48:35
Speaker
uh maybe thankfully maybe regrettably be smoking the notorious cigar from conor mcgregor we'll see yes sir um we're gonna we're gonna buckle up i'm i'm gonna i'm at least thinking at the moment about bringing a backup cigar in case it's so bad i don't want to smoke it but i've never had a cigar that i couldn't at least smoke through on the show even if it was pretty bad um at worst most cigars are boring ah But we'll see. maybe maybe Maybe Conor McGregor has that swag walk of a cigar for us that we're going hate.
01:49:09
Speaker
um But for now, simply everybody have a ready have a better week than I've had. And we'll talk to you on the next one. Dennis, do the catchphrase. We will get out of here.
01:49:20
Speaker
Thanks, everybody, for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you to drink less.