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LGP 76 - CAO Arcana Stokk
27 Plays8 days ago
This week, we try out Stokk from CAO's Arcana series!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 76
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody! Welcome back to Let's Get Pairing. This episode number 76. And today we are smoking the CAO Arcana Series Stoke.
00:00:12
Speaker
Uh, very, very nice looking band here, but Dennis took a minute to agree with me that it is obnoxious, the size of it. I really like the band, it's just, could have made it 50% of this size, and it would still great.
00:00:28
Speaker
Um, but it wouldn't take up the entire cigar. Anyway, we'll tell you all about the the Stoke by CAO, what it's all about, let you know how it pairs with a couple of our various pairings this evening.
00:00:40
Speaker
But for now, grab yourself a drink, grab yourself cigar. Let's get pairing.
00:01:01
Speaker
And welcome back. Welcome back, everybody. I'm your host, Tripp, here in LGP South, and this is Let's Get Pairing, episode 75, with the CAO Stoke. With me, as always, is Dennis, my co-host with the MoHost.
00:01:15
Speaker
Dennis, how are you doing this evening? I like most. I think it works, man. Good, dude. Very good. I'm excited about this cigar because I know a little bit about the the stuff that's in it.
00:01:29
Speaker
And for me, it's exciting. It's different. it's I always like seeing cigars that have blends that are kind of odd or unique or have ingredients that are really not typical.
00:01:41
Speaker
And I like that it traverses not just the cigar industry, but also to a degree, i think, pipe industry a little bit and has some tobacco that you and i tend to love fans very, very much. Very, very big fans of. So I'm excited for that.
00:01:55
Speaker
All right. So this is the CAO Stoke. As I said in the intro, got that giant, nice looking wrapper with a cool logo or sorry, band. It's almost the the wrapper of the cigar.
00:02:08
Speaker
um Arcana series. very foily. I love the font that they used for Stoke. It's very cool, but, uh, this is going come off very soon because it's, you know, almost touching the foot of the cigar, which, know, I'm, I'm not a fan of that. I'm a guy. I like, I got sweaty hands. Sometimes i like to leave the band on as long as I can.
00:02:29
Speaker
um to avoid sweating up my wrapper. And, you know, that's not an option on this cigar.
CAO Arcana Series and Stoke Cigar Discussion
00:02:37
Speaker
You basically got to pop that thing off immediately. um So before we talk about the Stoke, let's talk about CAO Arcana series.
00:02:45
Speaker
So it started off with the, in 2021, with a cigar called the Mortal Coil. um And the be kind of, kind of like you mentioned already, the idea of the Arcana series is that they're they're using non-traditional tobacco ingredients.
00:03:01
Speaker
So they're trying to just highlight different methods, different ways of doing things, different places to grow tobacco. And they're they're very slowly working their way through a bunch of different styles.
00:03:13
Speaker
So it started off with the Mortal Coil 2021, which used Dominican and Duyo tobacco, which is in this one, followed by the Firewalker. The Firewalker, the Mortal Coil, I thought was a really good cigar. The Firewalker...
00:03:29
Speaker
I was kind of of, you know, I just didn't love the blend of that cigar. They used volcano fermented tobacco. So that was where they actually, um they bury the tobacco in volcanic soil to ferment it.
00:03:41
Speaker
And it's apparently a very old traditional method of fermentation. It just isn't really used anymore. So they experimented with that cigar, which is, you know, I applaud. But ah I didn't love the cigar. The third release was the Thundersmoke, which I did actually really enjoy, which had tobaccos from three distinct African countries.
00:04:03
Speaker
um I can't remember which three. I think it's Cameroon, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, maybe? Yeah. But with this one, they're shaking it up a little bit. They are doing the pipe tobacco cigar thing, which we have seen before in the Deadwood series, in the Natural series, in Steve Saka's Stillwell Star series.
00:04:28
Speaker
There are many other companies that have done it, that have experimented with, you know, putting a little bit of pipe tobacco in a cigar. But this one does it a little bit differently. um So this one... The blend has, in the first half of the cigar, has Anduyo tobacco in the blend, and then in the second half, they replace that Anduyo tobacco with Cyprian Latakia.
00:04:52
Speaker
i don't know what's Cyprian about it. I didn't do much research on the term Cyprian, but apparently the name of the tobacco, I guess, because from what I've read, we don't know what country that's grown in.
00:05:03
Speaker
um And that tobacco... As if you're a pipe guy, you would know by the name. But if you're not a pipe guy like me, you wouldn't recognize that stoke is short for stoke-a-bye.
00:05:16
Speaker
is that Is that how you say that? that is least how you think some some doing Yeah, some people say stoke-a-bye. Some people say stoke-a-bye. it It depends on kind of where you're from.
00:05:26
Speaker
they'll They'll kind of say it that way. um So this is a partnership with Peter Stokobai Tobacco, which is also owned by STG, coincidentally. you know Makes it ah easy to source, I guess.
00:05:39
Speaker
um And I just think the half and half thing is really interesting. I'm hoping it it really comes through. We really taste the that change. like There's a sudden moment where we're both like, whoa, it changed.
00:05:52
Speaker
But we'll see. Wrapper on this is U.S. Broadleaf.
00:05:59
Speaker
I've said it before. I'll say it again. i assume that means Pennsylvania broadleaf. Could mean Connecticut, but usually if it's Connecticut, you say Connecticut, not U.S. broadleaf these days. ah But who knows?
00:06:10
Speaker
Binder is Nicaraguan. Fillers are that anduyo, the Cyprian, Latakia, and Honduran. um MSRP on this is $13. I believe they come in boxes of $10, but I didn't put that in my notes.
00:06:24
Speaker
um Let me find the size because I forgot to put that in my notes. What do you think of the cigar so far while I find that? it's It's just ramping up—I just lit it—it's ramping up a little bit. The Cyprian part, thinking about it, knowing a little bit of Latakia in Syria, and kind of Latakia tobacco coming out of Syria.
00:06:45
Speaker
um Cyprian is pretty much just the Cyprus version of that, which is fire-cured tobacco produced in Cyprus. Oh. Makes it Cyprian, but in terms of the process, I'm not entirely certain what the you know how that process changes from Syria versus Cyprus. And it may be a little bit more subtle, I suspect.
00:07:06
Speaker
Cyprian makes sense. yeah yeah I haven't smoked a lot of specifically Cyprian Latakia. I'm a big fan of Latakia for pipe tobacco and I have been for a long time but I've never really gotten down into the weeds on Latakia from one region versus another so I can't really tell you much about the you know the differences of the profile.
00:07:27
Speaker
Okay. I got a happy medium when I pulled my band off. I went to pull my band off it really um' happy with that it works I took mine completely off. For the rest of the details, this is a 6.5x52 sort of bellicoso. It reminds me more of the... What cigar was it? The Tatuaje Black Ronagorda.
00:07:53
Speaker
you ever had that, it has like kind of a... It's kind of a traditional cap, kind of like slightly pointed version of a traditional cap. I don't know I would call this a bellicoso. Yeah, it's not a traditional bellicoso.
00:08:08
Speaker
Just got a little bit of a you know nipple on the head. As you know we all wish we could. a rounded nipple. if you Actually, add is I guess it's a rounded nipple if you put it that way.
00:08:19
Speaker
There go. um These are also in boxes of 20. So I misspoke when I said I thought it was 10. um It smells great. Available now. Yeah, that and do you on the room note? It smells so good.
00:08:32
Speaker
<unk>s It's this like, it' it's the, if you've had Speculous, if you've had a Speculous cookie or Speculous spread, it's got that like, what would you call that kind of a gingerbread? we're like a Yeah, that like gingerbread sort of gingery. Little chocolatey action going on.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, almost chocolatey, kind of brown sugary. um This is a lot more black pepper than I expected. I smoked one of these.
00:09:06
Speaker
I smoked one of them, like, I think in the car on my way to pick you up in Miami. Oh, that's why your truck smells so lovely when I came in. Probably. Yeah.
00:09:19
Speaker
But other than that, I haven't smoked this. And that was like, it had only been there a couple days, and I just had it in my box. I was like, yeah, I'll try that. um And I was driving, so I wasn't super thinking about it. But I don't remember being like this black red pepper spicy forward, um which is not characteristic of Unduyo. Unduyo typically has kind of that, I don't know, almost like...
00:09:45
Speaker
over fermented kind of flavor like it's very sour creaminess or creamy with a tang to it for me at least yeah that's kind of a good way to put it i think it's got like some some twang to it um if you're not familiar with and do you it has been used in other cigars the uh la aurora adn of course the andalusian bull and other uh there's the andalusian bull in the golden ball from florida and kaa both have it You know, it's been in a number of cigars.
00:10:17
Speaker
um And it's really interesting. It's where basically you roll tobacco in leaves to turn it into like this six or eight foot torpedo looking thing.
00:10:29
Speaker
And then you ferment it that way. And you end up with like a block of tobacco, like a solid lump of tobacco that has to be chopped up and shaved in order to make it usable.
00:10:42
Speaker
They call those, uh, Yaguas? I believe it's Yaguas. is the You might be right. The Palm Leaves, Palm Real. Or Palma Real is the, i think it's Yaguas, if I'm not mistaken.
00:10:57
Speaker
You may be right. You may be wrong. I wouldn't know right now. So with that, we'll move on to our first pairings of the evening. um But so far, so good on the CAO Stoke. I think so far, it's one of the better CAOs I've had in the last few years because um we've been very hard on CAO leading up to and after the departure of Rick Rodderick, just as a whole. Yeah, that's ah it's a fair statement, I'd say, generally speaking. The CAO has not been, for me, hitting a lot of home runs in the last five or six years.
00:11:36
Speaker
Maybe more than that. Maybe seven or eight years. It's been a while since CAO really like did something that wowed me. And so far, I feel like this might get there. But we'll see.
Exploring Drink Pairings: London Porter and Macallan Whisky
00:11:45
Speaker
So I'm going to introduce my first pairing tonight.
00:11:48
Speaker
Sam says he has a theme has themed pairings tonight. So I can't wait to hear about the theme and learn more about that. But for now, going to tell you about what I've got. So I am drinking from Wayfinder Beer. They were founded in 2016 by the former founder of Double Mountain ah Brewing, which is also in Oregon, Charlie Devereaux, along with two restauranteurs he had met.
00:12:15
Speaker
um And they decided, well, we'll start a little beer place. They started a 10-barrel brew... Oh, man, I can't talk. They started a 10-barrel brew house which mostly focused on lagers and classic styles.
00:12:29
Speaker
um And they've they've grown since then, and they really still focus on lagers and classic styles. But they try to either... They kind of have two two styles of beer that they do side by side and work very well together, but they do like super traditional and then super traditional with a twist.
00:12:51
Speaker
So like I had a... um
00:12:58
Speaker
I'm trying to remember what it was. It was like a Czech Pills or something like that. You know, like a very light, crisp lager. um that was brewed with black pepper, which is, you know, they just had this very, very light, creamy, crispy kind of lager that you finish off a little bit of black pepper because it's interesting.
00:13:17
Speaker
um So they'll just they'll just do some some weird stuff like that. This is one of the more traditional ones.
00:13:24
Speaker
I also a huge fan of their packaging. I don't know what this means, but it's called Crow Show. I tried to do some research and figure out if I could figure out what the reference is, and I have no idea.
00:13:36
Speaker
You know the reference that Crow Show London Porter is making here, because I don't. I don't know whose face that is. I don't know why it's an hourglass. Reminds me of a 60s movie, but a lot of their, like a 60s hammer horror movie, but a lot of their packaging reminds me of it.
00:13:52
Speaker
So that that could just be standard. This may not be a reference at all. But this is a very traditional London porter brewed just to taste like a classic London style porter, five and a half percent ABV.
00:14:07
Speaker
That's about all the information I have on it that they'll give me because they're they're not always the most forthcoming like some of the other breweries are. But I'm going to take a couple sips of this brown London porter rather and see how it fares with the ah stoke.
00:14:23
Speaker
What do got up first? I was trying to figure out what the crow show was. I was very curious. I couldn't find anything about anything called crow show or anything like that.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, there was nothing. i don't know. Maybe as the c crew as the crow flies it from London Tower, maybe. um but Right? so the with The Raven at the Tower of London as Jim Crow. Like, no, that doesn't seem right based on the image on there. It could be anything, man. I mean, I think my my guess is just that it's like 60s Hammer Horror style.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's probably just what it is. And it's not like a specific reference. It's just more of a stylistic reference. Yeah, a lot of their stuff is like specific references that you have to know.
00:15:12
Speaker
But some of them are just, know, what you see is what you get. um Daniel Lance tuning in. Daniel, good to see you. Thanks for watching, brother. Appreciate you. um And Sam says, I think I already know, he says he has themed pairings tonight.
00:15:28
Speaker
And he says his... He's smoking a CAO Flathead with a Voodoo Ranger Tropic Force. I think I know what your theme is going to be tonight. Just guessing.
00:15:38
Speaker
Oh, my God. ah Sam, we got a lot to talk about, man. We got a lot to talk about, but not right now, because now I'm going to bring you back. I'm going to start, I think, I don't want to say at the top and go to the bottom. um I'm just starting in a place that's very different based on my thoughts of the cigar that I've never smoked before, knowing that there was an Induyo in there, knowing that there was a lot of Kia thing going on i wanted to hit this pairing first instead of leaving it for the end because frankly i didn't want to i didn't want to miss out on some more subtle flavors the cigar for me is still pretty light it's got the pepper but it's not it's not a lingering pepper i don't know how it is for you trip but it's not sitting on the palate it's not sticking to the palate i should say yeah for me it's very like spicy and aggressive but you're right it's just gone after a few seconds
00:16:25
Speaker
There's not a ah long finish to this cigar at all it's like It's like the phyllo dough of spice is what I'm getting right now. It's that subtle. You taste it, but you kind of have to take another bite to really get more of it. Carolina Reaper infused phyllo dough. That's what you're saying.
00:16:42
Speaker
Like you bite it and it's really spicy, but then it just evaporates. It's gone. I would argue ghost. It has that subtle build. Maybe not less body than a ghost. Anyway, I digress. Let me tell you more about this thing. I want to i didn't open it yet. I wanted to unbox this live because ah it was a purchase that I normally don't make unless i'm really unless I you do my research, I make a plan, I find a place that has it.
00:17:09
Speaker
I get into it. i know where I'm getting. This time, this was sort of off-the-cuff. I saw it on the shelf. It looked cool. I didn't know anything about it. I made a gamble. I decided to get in on this, and now what I'm talking about comes from a distillery that you and I love and we've loved for many years and a lot of people love, which is McAllen.
00:17:29
Speaker
ah The McAllen Distillery, founded in 1824 by Alexander Reed. And let me grab my box as I give you some of my talking points and notes here. So alex alex Alexander Reed was a barley farmer and a schoolteacher by trade. and that was this but This box is ridiculous, which is another reason why I wanted you to see it. um So he was one of the first people in Scotland to actually obtain a legal distilling license under the excise tax of 1823.
00:17:59
Speaker
Back then it was called the Wash Act, and the act was essentially—it reduced excise duty on whiskey and made it like made it legal for—hold on, find my words—made it legal to distill for profit.
00:18:14
Speaker
curbing the dominance of illicit whiskey stills, which was kind of a kind of progressive for that time, right? For them to to put something out and and try to forcefully legitimize businesses that wanted to to distill whiskey for profit. It was kind of cool and nice. Now, originally, this distillery was called the Elkies Distillery,
00:18:35
Speaker
which is named after the the nearby Easter Elkies House, which was this home built back in 1700. still stands today, as far as I know. And it's kind of this, like, icon of the brand.
00:18:48
Speaker
Now, the McAllen comes from Speyside, which is a region, i think, it's almost more more storied and more contentious than even Islay. I would absolutely agree. we like ah There's a lot of history in Isla. Obviously, there's a lot of cool stories about Isla, but I think Spayside is this this like proving ground where you have people on both sides of the fence coming in and arguing for or against Spayside whiskeys because they do vary in so many different ways. Now, they're not peated, not classically by any means, but they have such a wide variety of flavor that you have people from either side coming in saying, this is good stuff or, nah, this sucks.
00:19:29
Speaker
This other thing is better. Can give you my take on that? Is that Isla is so divisive because you either love it or it's off offensive.
00:19:41
Speaker
Right? Like, you either love it or it is offensively off-putting for you. You never want to smell or taste that again kind of stuff. um Because that peat smoke is just so intense for a lot of people and for their palates and a lot of people just can't ah and get past that.
00:20:06
Speaker
Space side, on the other hand, it's either you love it or it's boring. And that's, I think, the difference is that one of them is like either it's for you or it's not. I mean, both of them are for you or for not.
00:20:23
Speaker
But if it's not for you, it's just because it doesn't it's not exciting enough. And the other one is because it's, ah you know, it it's too exciting. It's a roller coaster that has too many loops.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, actually, that's a really great way to put it, man. And, you know, and classically, they're really famous for they're they're really famous for using very sherry-forward stuff. They're really big on European sherry casks. They do actually also use ex-oak bourbon, you know.
00:20:52
Speaker
second-use bourbon casks, which is really cool. But their focus is really on that sherry side of the house, which sets them apart from a lot of distilleries in in in the Speyside region, which is really interesting as well. And I've been a big fan of that.
00:21:08
Speaker
There's a lot going on. Before I tell you more about this, let me let me try to show you what this box looks like. It's wild. So tonight what I have is this a Night on Earth, which is the third The third iteration of a series that came out, this one came out in 2024, and it's called the Yeres. The Yeres being a classically, I would say, i would argue it's it's one of the most important, one of the more important Sherry Cask profiles anywhere.
00:21:38
Speaker
There's the box. Let me move my mic here. All right.
00:21:44
Speaker
Big old box. Wow. It's got this funky shape to it, right? And when you open it, and this when I opened the box, i I had to show you this. So when you open the box, this is what it looks like.
00:21:57
Speaker
Classic, classic Spanish tile. And then it has this section that you open up, ah which is really pretty.
00:22:09
Speaker
And there's a retainer for the bottle at the top. See if I can pop it out for you. So the retainer says, hold on. For new beginnings with old friends.
00:22:21
Speaker
It's got this little... Very nice. Very nice, nice little thing that's unnecessary, but kind of nice little thought that they put in as I throw into my garbage pile.
00:22:33
Speaker
um And it has this beautiful interior. Let's see. There we go.
00:22:42
Speaker
Very, very pretty interior. There's more flavor text. There's a ton of flavor text on the back So let me let me read this to you real quick.
00:22:53
Speaker
So for this release, ah hold on.
00:22:59
Speaker
Well, this is the artist text. Hold on.
00:23:03
Speaker
Give me one second. let me find Let me find the regular text. out All right. In many cultures around the world, the year's end is a time for togetherness. A night to be with the people we love the most, to reflect on what has passed, and to toast what is to come.
00:23:18
Speaker
With this celebration comes tradition, traditions and rituals that have been handed down from generation to generation until they become part of the soul of a place. The Macallan A Night on Earth in Yeres de la Frontera is a limited edition single malt scotch whisky, wi wishke matured in exceptionally sherry-seasoned oat casks, and inspired by the urine traditions in the home of sherry wine deep in the heart of the Andalusia in southern Spain.
00:23:48
Speaker
Or of Andalusia, sorry. Not the. But in Andalusia of southern Spain, which is really cool, is a beautiful box. I love how complicated it is to open and close. the it's It's lovely. And you and I are both sherry fiends. we I think we revel in the magic of what sherry can do to a whiskey. 100%. Whether that's a single malt, whether that's an American. and american i don't know how to open this, actually. but Hold on.
00:24:18
Speaker
um There's no obvious way to open this.
00:24:24
Speaker
It's just, it's not a it's not ah it's not a twist off. It doesn't twist. you need a knife. Maybe it's like ah i mean a wine wine bottle where you gotta... So I would say this is, it's solid. It's solid. it's um It's not foil. It's like a solid thing. It's made out of metal. Oh, wait, nevermind. I got it. Hold on.
00:24:46
Speaker
I figured good it out. I figured out the secret to get this elixir out of here. Hold on. And this was also, this came out on the, on the, um what's the word? What's, what's the, what's the proper term for this?
00:24:59
Speaker
200 year anniversary was the bicentenary, centenary. Bicentennial. Bicentennial, 200 years? Yeah. Right? They called it something else. They called it the centenary.
00:25:14
Speaker
Oh, wait, i don't know if you can, They didn't come up. Yeah, my mic didn't pick that up. um and I think Bicentennial is 200 years, but maybe I'm um um'm bad with words like that.
00:25:28
Speaker
So it was one of the first distilleries in... to they They basically branded themselves as this luxury single malt thing. There was a strategy they pumped out in the 1980s, and it stuck.
00:25:39
Speaker
And now, if you look at the Macallan, you look at the releases they've had over the years, Limited Stuff, it's they have this McCallum that was, what year it? It was like a 70, wanna say 72 year old release that they put out in 2018. It was the oldest whiskey ever released by the distillery. was priced at $60,000 a bottle.
00:26:03
Speaker
And now the McCallum, classically is this luxury brand, like you go see you go to an airport, you stop somewhere internationally, you see Davidoff everywhere. The other thing you see is McAllen, everywhere.
00:26:15
Speaker
And you see these really interesting expressions that are hard to find, that are rare, that are considered, you know, not just hard to get, but also incredibly, incredibly expensive.
00:26:26
Speaker
This one is a $223 MSRP single-month scotch whiskey from Spaceside by the McAllen. I picked this bottle up for, i want to say about $160. $160 in New Jersey, which is not bad.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, just doing a little bit of looking, it looks like they may have overproduced that one a bit. Because, you know, it's it's around for like the one fifty s to one seventy s
00:26:57
Speaker
I was curious because yeah it sounds like a bottle that going to want to try. Pending your have to get you' here assessment. Yeah, man. I mean, this is 43% ABV.
00:27:12
Speaker
It's got a really, you know, on the nose, it has this really intense sherry Sherry kind of chewiness. A lot of times we talk about that chewiness we get from Sherry.
00:27:23
Speaker
Generally, it sits on the palate, but in this case, it I'm getting it on the nose immediately. Of that, like dried fruit, orange peel, little spice, but just thick. It seems thicker on the nose than what I'm normally amused to. It's almost like an abunad in that way.
00:27:41
Speaker
Oh boy. you're speaking my language. it's wild. yeah ah but And I should have mentioned also, Yeres de la Frontera in southern Spain is basically, you could argue against it, but i basically is the epicenter of sherry production.
00:28:00
Speaker
It is the place. If you're talking about sherry, that's where you're going. And it has influenced McAllen over the years for a really long time. They've certainly leaned into it. They have a great partnership with with that area.
00:28:12
Speaker
And they really try to bring out those flavors. So it's stuff like Oloroso, there are other sherries that come out of there as well. But you end up with a lot of things being seasoned with this this particular Spanish oak.
00:28:26
Speaker
Not just sherry, but they'll take like a sherry cask and they'll put ahll put wine into it, they'll put something else into it, they'll put like a homemade, someone will go out and buy a barrel, and then a family will just put their own homemade stuff that they make.
00:28:41
Speaker
which is kind of cool. That's awesome. I want to do that. um want to put, don't know, mac and cheese in one. First thing that came to mind. I don't think mac and cheese and sherry would work well.
00:28:53
Speaker
Just saying. So bicentenary, that's what it is. a bicentenary celebration. I just scrolled through my notes. It's the Noche Vieja, which is New Year's celebration.
00:29:05
Speaker
a celebration of the year that just passed and kind of what what will come in the coming year. Okay, so Sam was right. Sam said it's just the English and Spanish term for 200 years.
00:29:15
Speaker
Bicentennial versus Bicentennial.
00:29:20
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah, Bicentennial. Excuse me for a second. I just took a sip of this. It's a lot like this cigar.
00:29:30
Speaker
Actually, it's thinner than I expected, and it's just got that punch in the face. Spice. I can't wait to hear about it. going talk about my my London porter for a minute.
00:29:40
Speaker
um Kind of as I expected with this beer, um it's pretty boring. um Like, this tastes like... think I've said that about porter's before. It tastes like when you go into a bar and you say, I want the dark beer.
00:29:59
Speaker
They have a light beer and they have a dark beer. You say, I want the dark beer. Pick it up and you take a sip and you go, wow, that's good. Like, it's not bad, but it's it's just kind of what you expect when you're when you're just ordering a dark English style beer.
00:30:15
Speaker
Let me see if I can get some notes.
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's got like a little bit of graham cracker, a little bit of chocolate, little bit of almost like
00:30:30
Speaker
almost like coffee, just kind of a hint of it. um it's It's a very good porter. just like It's just very standard, which for me so far is not working with this cigar because this cigar has a lot going on So porter is a really interesting style as well because it much like brown ales, it gets this bad rap of people end up More often than not, you end up just getting something that's um middle of the road, just it's fine, but it's really not impressive. It's not one of those, you don't hear people going, hey, I had this really great brown ale or had this really great porter.
00:31:11
Speaker
I love it. Maybe porters to a greater degree now with the craft beer movement, but generally speaking, no one would go, oh man, this porter is awesome. You gotta to try this thing. yeah but i So what's, for me at least what does it for you is the question.
00:31:26
Speaker
I mean, this kind of does exceptional. um Well, so that's the thing. Exactly what you're talking about. middle of the road. And i think that's just kind of the point of Porters and Browning.
00:31:39
Speaker
Like they're supposed to be just very well balanced, not super happy, not super sweet. Just kind of right down the middle ah with some, you know, kind of elegance going on, I guess.
00:31:56
Speaker
where there's no flavors that are too punchy, and it makes it less exciting. But, I mean, that's kind of what I was saying about Spaceside, is that, you know, um not being exciting is kind of where the exciting part happens. I mean, think of... um It's also the same as, like, a Pilsner.
00:32:14
Speaker
Pilsner, the best Pilsner in the world, what makes it so good is that it's very boring. Right? Like, that's just... That's just what makes Pilsner so good is it's crispy and boring.
00:32:27
Speaker
There's no off flavors. It's hard nail down. Well, and that's what's amazing about it is the only way it gets that boring is when you do it perfectly. And I feel like Porter's and Brownells are, well, Brownells to a lesser extent and Porter's sort of to a lesser extent are kind of in the same boat where if you don't nail it, you're going, man, there's like this weird...
00:32:49
Speaker
Can't figure what out what it is, but ah like it's like ass. Can't figure out. And this doesn't have that. Fair. That's a fair point.
00:33:03
Speaker
All right. How's that scotch working out after my you know middle of the road, but very good order?
00:33:12
Speaker
It smells like if I were to buy a cologne that was meant to smell like a cognac, It's like drinking a cognac cologne, essentially. It's it's so intense and more than I expected.
00:33:25
Speaker
It's not that it's boozy. It's intense in that it it's it's a, what's the word? It's like, inextractive of flavor within a spirit, within a neutral spirit. that That's kind of the vibe that I'm getting from it.
00:33:39
Speaker
And so that citrus is really coming out. The barrel is coming out. The sherry is intense. But it's not chewy like classically you get with sherry. You kind of go, oh, that's got some more flavor on the back of the palate. This is all front of the palate completely.
00:33:53
Speaker
Interestingly enough, I'm very surprised. How does it work with the cigar? Oh, I think it's great. I think it's wonderful with the cigar. And in a sense, you know, the first third of the cigar is kind of similar in that same profile where it's, you have flavor, but it's a little bit thin and it's thin enough where you can transition from one thing to the next. You can go and drink your, you know, whatever you're pairing with. You can have a drink, go back to the cigar, go back to your pairing, and it's not taking away from one thing or the other.
00:34:23
Speaker
So in that sense, I think they're complimentary in that they're not kind of overbearing in the flavor from one thing or the other.
00:34:32
Speaker
Sounds fantastic. and Ed Ryan says, you agree Deschutes Black Butte is the standard for a good porter. I absolutely agree for American porter. um American porters tend to be, for me, I would say half maybe maybe a little closer than halfway between a London porter, which is this, which is very low in ah low and hops, low in bitterness, um comparatively, and a like Baltic porter, which is like IPA-level bitter.
00:35:05
Speaker
Black Butte and American Porter is kind of like, you know, a couple notches away from being in the middle, but closer to the Baltic Porter side. But yeah, Deschutes Black Butte is like the Porter.
00:35:17
Speaker
If you're drinking a Porter. I figured it out. I know what it is. I know exactly what this is if you take If you take something like an abunat or something that's similarly very intensely sherry and has that juiciness and the has that chew on it, if you put it over ice and you let the ice melt and now you've diluted this with water, that's what this is.
00:35:40
Speaker
And not to say the flavor is diluted, the body is diluted. So the flavor is completely there, but the body of it, that that like thick body, is broken down. So you can drink it and it's...
00:35:51
Speaker
There's no bite to it. There's no, um you know, not yeah the alcohol bite, there's not there. it's There's not a flavor bite either, which tends to happen with certain older scotches.
00:36:03
Speaker
It's just very, i don't want to say smooth. I avoid saying smooth when it comes to the spirits. I hate it because it means nothing. I think it is, instead of saying smooth, I'm going to say that it is very gentle on the palate.
00:36:17
Speaker
If I gave this to somebody who's never had scotch before, they would be really intrigued by scotch. And they'd want to drink more. and i and And they would spend the entire bottle drinking through it, still not understanding what scotch is.
00:36:29
Speaker
But they'll enjoy it. but If that makes sense. I like that. It's easy, it's like, it's the iced tea of scotch in in the McAllen line. Of all of these limited releases, I've been fortunate to have, I think now six or seven, this is probably the seventh one that I've had over the years for these limited releases. And it is out of all of those, it is absolutely this bomb of just like iced tea.
00:36:55
Speaker
That's it. It's good. That sounds delightful. as you know and As compared to what we had, you and I had this, I think I got you a bottle of... What was it? Oh, the... I had it out here, but I think I put it back in the liquor cabinet.
00:37:12
Speaker
ah The forest. The forest one. Oh, yeah. Tale of the Forest. Tale of the Forest and like that.
00:37:24
Speaker
One of the glens. Oh, I'm sorry. No, that was Glenmorangie. That was Tale of Forest from Glenmorangie. Sorry. It was none of McAllen. um They also do the limited stuff once a year, so that's my main draw.
00:37:39
Speaker
But they're similar in in certain ways, certainly. This is good scotch. It's really good scotch. good i'm gonna I feel guilty saying it because I kind of want to get more, but I think I'm not going to...
00:37:52
Speaker
Probably not going purchase none of the bottle. Pricey bottle, yeah. At that price point, you know, it's fine. I think it's a decent price if you can get a $160. um But at that price, I can get the High West mid Midwinter Night's Dram. Yeah. know, that price point.
00:38:11
Speaker
midwinter night's dream yeah you know at that price point ah Rob Goodhart says, i think it depends on what you're looking for in a porter. I think that was in reply to if the shoots is the standard. I do think the shoots is like the best standard, like regular porter I've had.
00:38:30
Speaker
He says it's kind of partial to Yingling Porter, which I have not tried it, but I think that's enough a recommendation that I'm going to tra have to try it now because it's very available around here because we're just a couple hours away from their southern brewery.
00:38:48
Speaker
Yingling Porter, I think, also sits in a really interesting place because it's it's a it's a good halfway point between classic American, now their classic, sorry, I should specify. Now we can say classic American porters because there's been a movement, and there's been a trend, people have been developing a flavor that is you know indicative of what we call now an American porter.
00:39:10
Speaker
But it's a mix between that and it's a mix between the the classic European porters. And when I say European, I mean, generally speaking, um central Central Europe. Eastern Europe is going to be kind of a different porter experience altogether, but it's like Central and Western Europe have a unified vibe of when you talk about porter.
00:39:32
Speaker
it's It's certainly a lot more malty. It's a little sweeter to some degree, you know, from the malt, but also just profile wise. um It's not like the American porters are are in your face. They're thin, but they're in your face. They're little bit more intense, more pronounced.
00:39:49
Speaker
The European versions are softer. And they're longer, the finish on your pal is a lot longer with the European porter, in my experience, than it has been with with an American porter. Now Yingling, you know they do they do a really good job of finding a balance because you can give that to anybody.
00:40:08
Speaker
And even if they've never had a porter before, they'll say, okay, I can drink this, it's fine. If you give somebody an American porter, they're either gonna like it or they're hate it. It's like um American pilsners. Everybody loves pilsners, generally speaking, but if you give somebody American pilsner, it's not expecting it, they're not gonna like it.
00:40:28
Speaker
And similarly, if you give somebody a European pilsner that's not used to European pilsner, they're gonna complain that it doesn't have enough of a bite or enough of a pronounced flavor profile. So, yeah, it's it's it's somewhere in between. i think it's good. Now, how is the body on that?
00:40:45
Speaker
Is thin and bubbly? No.
00:40:49
Speaker
Fairly flat, like mid-range carbonation? No, it's got, um it's almost got like that nitro bubble thing going on, like tiny bubbles. So it like hits your tongue and almost foams up a little bit. So you get that kind of creamy, velvety kind of mouthfeel.
00:41:08
Speaker
I mean, it's it's a very good European-style porter.
00:41:13
Speaker
And the bitterness. What do you think on IBUs if you were to throw some a number out there? How do you feel?
00:41:21
Speaker
Let me see if it says on the hand, but I would guess like 15, maybe 25 at the most.
00:41:32
Speaker
Which is, I think, it's it's a reasonable amount for most porters. about 30, I think, but you hit 40, 40, 40 plus, it it's, you're either going to love it or you're going hate it. Yeah, that's when you're getting into, like, the, the you know, like it like you said, the what is now traditional American porter style.
00:41:56
Speaker
All right, I guess it's time to move on to our our next offering.
Exploring the Voodoo Ranger Series and Unique Flavors
00:42:01
Speaker
um I am going to be jumping into, I'm suspecting, ah into Sam's little, what call it his theme here.
00:42:14
Speaker
You jumping in as well? I mean, I showed you what I was drinking, but I think I'm landing in his theme, which I believe Voodoo Ranger. You gave me this
00:42:24
Speaker
um you gave me this i I can't say famously because I don't know how many people actually how many times I've actually said it on the show. I just completely avoid them.
00:42:37
Speaker
I hate pumpkin beers. I don't like pumpkin spice. That's why I gave it to you. and Yeah, you subjected me to this, but I have not tried it yet. Let's talk a little bit We've been talking about them a lot, but it's, you know, especially since Sam is is doing a pairing with at least one of their beers, we'll talk about New Belgium a little bit.
00:42:59
Speaker
New Belgium is kind of one of the classic American microbreweries. um They were founded as a mostly Belgian-inspired brewery and nineteen eighty eighty eight in Collins, Colorado,
00:43:13
Speaker
um They didn't actually make their first batch of beer until 1991. I haven't been able to find much info on that, but I'm guessing it's more that, you know, you but you start the company, you start you name the thing, and then it takes you a couple years before you have some beer that somebody can actually make, or some that beer that you can actually sell, rather. Like, yeah ah you know, you end up having some home brews,
00:43:41
Speaker
Some of them you know you're happy with, but they're not quite what you think will scale and you know that sort of thing.
00:43:49
Speaker
But in 1991, they first released Fat Tire Amber Ale for over 30 years until about 2018. um Fat Tire was their flagship bestseller just from the very beginning, um which is interestingly a story you don't hear often in the beer industry. a lot of times breweries come out and they say this is goingnna be our flagship beer.
00:44:12
Speaker
They start making it and then they're, they're what they expected to be their fit bestseller starts out selling it and you adapt. That becomes your, your flagship because your flagship is just what people want the most. Right.
00:44:26
Speaker
Um, but fat tire really was their flagship. Um, they would frequent, very frequently have limited edition stuff that was ah almost always in the Belgian style, sours and Abbey ales. and Um,
00:44:42
Speaker
I'm trying to remember some of the other styles, doubles, triples, stuff like that. lot of Belgian stuff from them. But Fat Tire, which was, again, Belgian-inspired American Amber, um was their bestseller. Until 2017, when Voodoo Ranger came out and absolutely exploded.
00:45:03
Speaker
Like, just... Voodoo Ranger went from being, hey, we should make an IPA. to being the number one selling IPA and being like, I thought it was in my notes, but I don't see it here, but I think it was like 40 or 50% of their sales within two years was Voodoo Ranger.
00:45:26
Speaker
Like it was crazy. Um, It's now probably about 80 or 90 percent of their sales because Voodoo Ranger is everywhere. You can get it at every gas station that sells beer. You can get it at every Walmart. You can get it in um many bars now. It's it's absolutely exploded.
00:45:45
Speaker
um In 2022, they also launched Juice Forced, which was the biggest launch of a craft beer ever. I loved it so much. I still do. It's it's amazing. I'm a huge fan.
00:45:57
Speaker
I think what they mean by biggest craft beer launch ever is it went from not existing to having distribution literally everywhere um in a matter of weeks. like It exploded. It was crazy. um and you know in like If you go into a gas station that doesn't even have beer, but they have an ah a liquor license, they'll probably have some juice for them. It sells like hotcakes.
00:46:22
Speaker
Um, so, you know, to because of that, Fat Tire was relaunched as a lighter, crisper ale. I don't think it'll last forever. Um, I'm sure eventually we'll see a classic version of Fat Tire come out for all us old guys who really liked the original version.
00:46:39
Speaker
Um, but for now, like, you know, their, their focus is just on Juice Force and Voodoo Ranger. And for that, i have Voodoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin, Spicy Release,
00:46:53
Speaker
um I looked into it. They don't actually have a, like just a special release version of this. It's just the spicy release. Oh, is it all spicy? Yeah. They only make the spicy version.
00:47:05
Speaker
Um, there is, I'm pretty sure. Um, um But this is a pumpkin ale with cinnamon and habanero pepper. They also have, I think it's only available in some like multi-pack, you know, variety pack kind of stuff.
00:47:23
Speaker
um But they also have Imperial Atomic Pumpkin, which is a spicier and slightly sweeter version with obviously more alcohol. This one is only, what was it, five and a half?
00:47:34
Speaker
Six and a half percent. 6.4%. I stand corrected, sir. It appears that there's only a spicy version of this. Yeah, which is crazy. um But the spice is great. I love the spice on And honestly, i haven't even tasted it yet, but good for them for making ah ah pumpkin beer that's not just a pumpkin beer. But I'll know more in a few seconds because I've never tasted this, so I don't know if I hate it or if I'm going to start turning into a human fountain or what.
00:48:03
Speaker
Oh, it smells like... okay It smells like Fireball.
00:48:10
Speaker
That's what i'll start with. It smells like Fireball. Okay. Yeah. Go for it. We got to see you experience it. Oh, you want to see the experience? All right. Yeah. I'm not going to talk. So the camera's on you. You talked and the camera didn wasn't on me.
00:48:25
Speaker
It's good. That doesn't taste like pumpkins. It doesn't taste terrible like a pumpkin pie or a pumpkin spice latte. It tastes like a beer with like a um It doesn't taste like an IPA.
00:48:44
Speaker
It tastes like a c cream ale to me. Like a cream ale with cinnamon and just enough jalapeno or habanero where you taste the spice. It's not like spicy, spicy, like too spicy kind of thing. But I'm surprised.
00:49:01
Speaker
I like it. Oh. And it also has... i think you were right that this is like... I've had a lot of spicy beers, and a lot of times they're either spicy enough that you barely get a tingle on your tongue, like you barely even notice they're spicy, or they're like habanero sculpin, where...
00:49:23
Speaker
It's almost like ah having a shot of hot sauce dumped into your beer. Well, Ghostface Killer was another one that was like wildly spicy. Yeah, and and those are the two that I've had. I've had like barely spicy.
00:49:36
Speaker
No, there's a couple there's a couple good ah pepper beers that I've had. But for the most part, they're either very, very spicy or just not at all spicy.
00:49:47
Speaker
And I feel like this is the perfect middle ground where it's like it's enough that like you feel that heat. But it's not going to blow anybody's head completely off. Like, my mom wouldn't wouldn't enjoy this because it would definitely be too spicy.
00:50:02
Speaker
But anybody who enjoys beer and any amount of spice, would this would be fine. This isn't going to kill you.
00:50:12
Speaker
I'm really surprised by how much I like it. ah And I was as well. I something else in my notes, too. Oh, 10 IBUs. Generally. Which, that's surprising. 10 IBUs is not a lot. And, you know, I was really surprised as well because for me, generally speaking, I go for things like...
00:50:32
Speaker
ah Southern Tears Pumpking. That's my de facto go-to pumpkin beer. I avoid Shipyard. I avoid... i don't dislike them. i just kind of don't go for them.
00:50:43
Speaker
If I see Southern Tears Pumpking on a draft list somewhere, I will always get it. That and their their Warlock, which is the Pumpkin Stout.
00:50:54
Speaker
Those are like my my two go-tos. And this one kind of changed the profile a little bit because it's not as strong. You can have a couple. It's not overbearing. It doesn't leave a weird taste in your mouth. And it has a little heat, which I like.
00:51:06
Speaker
I mean, it's it's nice that it it has, it's it's again, smells completely. Like, if you put this in front of me and I just smelled it, I'd be like, oh, yeah, that's Fireball.
00:51:18
Speaker
It's Fireball with a little bit of pumpkin flavor. Pumpkin scent, I guess. But on the palate, it's a really nice amount of cinnamon. ah And a really, really nice amount of spice.
00:51:34
Speaker
And just enough pumpkin flavor where you taste it, but it's not like overpowering you, which I feel like is kind of the point with most pumpkin beers. is that Well, it doesn't taste Yankee Candle.
00:51:44
Speaker
Yeah, it tastes like Yankee Candle or like you're you're just eating a piece of pumpkin pie, which I hate.
00:51:55
Speaker
Man, this beer's getting to me already. ah What do you mean? I feel the bubbles inside. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think you you nailed it on the head when you said creme ale. It's very close to a creme ale with some spices in it and a little heat.
00:52:09
Speaker
I think that's fine. it' Certainly in the body, it's like that. Certainly ABV, it's like that. Yeah. It's approachable in many ways, but you have to like heat. I think, to your point, this is not a beer that I would give someone who doesn't enjoy any kind of spicy beer.
00:52:24
Speaker
any level of spice, even very basic level spicy, they're not going to like it probably. If you're going for the extra mild at Buffalo Wild Wings, this isn't going to be in your wheelhouse. If you like the mild yeah or the medium wings at Buffalo Wild Wings, this this will be fine.
00:52:39
Speaker
It'll be all right. Um, I say that mostly if in case anybody's interested in trying it next year, when it comes out, like, don't be scared of it. It's not, it's not that spicy. yeah's They make it sound a lot spicier than it is, but it's, it's a very nice amount of spicy. I think I am blown away by balanced the heat level is on it because you feel it, you get it right here.
00:53:04
Speaker
ah But it's not like, it doesn't feel like you're going melt or anything. You know, I, you know how much hot sauce I eat. I am a fiend for spicy. I will eat the spiciest thing on the menu, no matter where I am.
00:53:18
Speaker
Uh, maybe not every time, but I'm, I would be willing if you got the spiciest thing on the menu, I would be willing to get it too. Um, but I don't like spicy drinks that much.
00:53:30
Speaker
Like, the Just the way that spice works in a drink, I don't like going overboard. with alcohol. Yeah, especially with alcohol. Like, a spicy Bloody Mary. I love a splicicy spicy Bloody Mary.
00:53:44
Speaker
um But if you're putting, like, you know, a ton of ghost pepper sauce in there so it's, like, actually, like, burning my face off, like, I can't drink it. and don't like it.
00:53:54
Speaker
And same thing with soups. Isn't that weird? I like soups. They're crazy spicy. You're not a big soup guy, I feel like. you're not no Not too much. um I'm a big soup guy. I like everything soup. Everything should be soupified.
00:54:08
Speaker
Exactly. yeah Isn't that the newy Disturbed album? Soupified? Soupified. Yeah, I think so, man. but i or yeah And I understand, too. i I think you know I would probably i'd probably get down on a Bloody Caesar with with ghost pepper in it.
00:54:26
Speaker
i mean, I'm not saying don't give me one with ghost pepper in it. Or like ah a full habanero. Not a sauce or just like just a chop up some habanero, throw it into a Bloody Caesar. Great. Big fan of Bloody Caesars. That's my go-to if I can get it. Most people don't know what they are. don't know how to make them. It's a whole problem.
00:54:45
Speaker
Just a clamato. Well, it's Kalamato and gin. It's not, you know, we're not doing vodka over here. And for for a Bloody Mary, that's a red snapper. Just ask for a red snapper, and the bartender or waitress will look at you like you've ordered something that doesn't exist, and you say, I'll have a Bloody Mary with gin.
00:55:06
Speaker
They go, okay. That's what I always get. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. Listen, not everybody knows about that stuff, so I don't knock, especially if you're like an Applebee's. don't Don't go asking for Manhattan's up. You're not going to get that.
00:55:20
Speaker
Unless a red snapper's on the menu, I'm never asking for a red snapper to anyone other than when my father-in-law's making it. ah That's fair. a um Sam says his second pairing is Voodoo Ranger Juice Force. That's the one I'm curious what you're going to think. Does it taste like Red Gatorade? Does it taste more like beer?
00:55:39
Speaker
I don't know. We'll have to see what Sam thinks. Wait, and what was his his first? His first was, I thought... His first was the... Tropic...
00:55:51
Speaker
Oh, Tropic, okay, yeah, yeah, Tropic Force, you're right, yeah, yeah. Which, believe, as far as I know, Tropic Force is a more traditional IPA than Juice Force. Tropic Force, I think, is just like a tropical style IPA, you know, where you're using hops that have that more tropical aromas.
00:56:09
Speaker
um Juice Force has concentrated Gatorade in guaranteed. Alright, what do you what do you have up next dennis before i start ragging on famous drink choice You know what? going to have to preface this and say that this fight was not rigged in any way.
00:56:28
Speaker
Nobody can be... You and me, Sam, we did not communicate in any way. This just kind of happened organically. If we're being honest, I forgot. I had a very busy week. I didn't realize it was Sunday until this morning.
00:56:43
Speaker
I didn't even tell Dennis what cigar we were smoking, even though we had talked about it last week. Usually I check in on like Thursday or Friday and I'm like, hey, this is the cigar we're smoking this weekend. um I haven't even sent him a message since like Tuesday.
00:56:58
Speaker
But here we are. We figured it out. What you got? But I'm guessing that you're in on the theme too, huh? A little bit, little bit. um I got a variety pack. I was really excited when I saw it. Small can variety pack.
00:57:09
Speaker
I am going with the Voodoo Ranger Hard Charged Teas. And this one is the Pineapple.
00:57:19
Speaker
Okay, Pineapple Tea. Sounds good. right This is the iced tea with with little pineapple flavor. It is incredibly drinkable. And I know we've been in kind of New Belgium and Voodoo Ranger to death a little bit.
00:57:32
Speaker
Now, these come in at 7%. So they're quite, actually, they're they're quite high when it comes to ah spiked tea or like a tea beverage. i don't want to say malt beverage, but in general, like a tea alcoholic beverage. It's it's quite high.
00:57:48
Speaker
Um, but these came out, these really kind of launched in 2023, but in the last year or so have solidified themselves in the market where I see them everywhere in stores. I've seen them at bars.
00:58:01
Speaker
I've seen them at bodegas in New York city, uh, in, in Jersey, it's a little bit different. So you can't like walk into a gas station and buy alcoholic, anything can't buy beer in a gas station in Jersey.
00:58:15
Speaker
You have to go to a store. and Generally, the stores in Jersey will sell both beer, wine, and spirits. Pennsylvania is a little different. So is that like a liquor store situation, or is that like a at a oh grocery store you can get all three? ah Grocery as well.
00:58:33
Speaker
Yeah, you can go to supermarket. No, i'm sorry. Supermarket, you can only get, i think, some wine, and you can get beer. Okay. Okay. That's it.
00:58:43
Speaker
That's how it is here. And and that's how it was in Orient. You have to have a separate store for spirits. Yeah. Yeah. Unless it's like a joint store, like like Total Wine has that that joined section.
00:58:55
Speaker
Sometimes where they have those certain Total Wines will sell like cheeses and meats and things. Yeah. So it's kind of like that where a certain certain supermarkets will have a separate section just for beer. They'll have a separate section for wine and spirits. It's not common.
00:59:12
Speaker
Generally speaking, but definitely in Jersey, it is a no-go. You have to go to a liquor store, which will sell, you know, all three. And then, you know, in New York City, you can get... Now, actually, interesting enough, I saw 7-Eleven that sold Fireball nips.
00:59:30
Speaker
Yeah. And also sold beer, which we didn't have. When I was growing up in New York, we didn't have that. You could get maybe Steel Reserve, Budweiser, Corona at 7-Eleven. That's about it.
00:59:44
Speaker
And now you can get Voodoo Ranger. You can get Goose Island. You can get um there's there's another brand. I forget what it is, but it's it's a fairly large brand. Ah,
00:59:57
Speaker
ah shit. Trip, with it what's the brand? Do you know the brand? I don't know. it' um Sam Adams. Well, Sam Adams really doesn't count because they're kind of in the bigger market, but...
01:00:10
Speaker
But being able to see Goose Island, being able to see things like Voodoo Ranger, ah it's really interesting. And you still have the Four Loko without the caffeine. You still have that. But these are hard-charged, so they are made with real tea, so they have caffeine. it's not They're not made to have caffeine necessarily. It's not like a caffeinated alcohol beverage.
01:00:30
Speaker
They're not adding extracted caffeine. yeah Correct, yeah. They're not adding caffeine to it. they Whatever caffeine is naturally derived from the tea that they use for the drink, So they were able to bypass that law back in, don't even remember what year. was it twenty seventeen Was it 2017? 2018? where they outlawed um the the Four Loko.
01:00:53
Speaker
and you know it would have been earlier than that. It would have been like 2013-ish. Oh, was it? Yeah, because I remember where I worked. lot far loo And I remember when they when they banned Four Loko and the guy was complaining about it. I would go to this place to get my rock stars.
01:01:12
Speaker
At the time. Those were my my three or four a day rock star days. It was too much, man. Three or four a day? Yeah, dude. It was bad.
01:01:24
Speaker
Where I was like, I would start feeling tired at like two in the afternoon, so i would just pound a rock star and then I would still be tired, so I'd just go get another one. no I feel like amphetamines are cheaper.
01:01:34
Speaker
They probably were. but Jesus, dude. That's wild. Yeah, I'm surprised my heart didn't explode. This, I'm glad it didn't. This thing is really good. I really like it. However, it's too sweet for me.
01:01:50
Speaker
The pineapple, at least, I've i've had other ones. They were fine. This one is particularly sweet. Almost cloyingly sweet.
01:02:02
Speaker
But it's good. But it's still good. It's got it's got the fresh tea thing going on. Good for them. Probably citric acid. I'm sure they had citric acid. That's what I would do. from ah you know From a homebrewing standpoint, I'd probably add citric acid to get some tartness there.
01:02:15
Speaker
Yeah. right. Let's get back to the cigar for a minute. What do you think?
01:02:22
Speaker
The moment where I hit the Latakia, almost interrupted you. was when you were talking about your second pairing. um The moment where I hit the Latakia, like all of a sudden, was... Was it Latakia?
01:02:36
Speaker
Am right? I think I just hit it. Yeah, Latakia. I think it just, um i' venture how far in your cigar are you? About the same. Okay, no, I'm a little ahead of you, so that makes sense.
01:02:50
Speaker
Um, cause I lit mine like 10 minutes before you. And I can smell it. i can smell the difference. It's so distinctly different. I hit it and it was all of a sudden very full bodied, very spicy, ah just a lot more flavor than I was getting in the first half. And then that subsided pretty quick for me. So now I'm back to a kind of a, you know, a more, more, uh, mellow experience with those same flavors.
01:03:13
Speaker
The, you know, that, that just unique funk that comes from fire cured tobacco. I love, you know, in the pipe scene, when you talk about these kinds of tobaccos, you talk about a lot of Kia, and then lot of Kia with some preak and some other things. You talk about this, the guys will talk about um this sort of ketchup flavor.
01:03:36
Speaker
You know, when you have some ketchup in it, that the back end on your on your palate, it leaves this particular note that's sort of tart and... And and and very sweet.
01:03:47
Speaker
I get exactly you're It's sweet, it's also very savory. And Latakia mixed with a lot of different things for me ends up being like that as well. And um' yeah from all my pipe tobacco, the majority of my pipe tobacco is very Latakia forward.
01:04:03
Speaker
And i love I love the tobacco so much, but I've never had the chance really outside of a couple of cigars to experience it in a cigar format. It's a very different smoking experience.
01:04:14
Speaker
Yeah, and it's... I don't know, it's it's very interesting and a ton of flavor going on that I'm trying to wrap my head around. I like it, man. I like it a lot. I do have to say it's working well with this ah this Atomic Pumpkin.
01:04:30
Speaker
um Like, just the... kind of the relative clean crispness of this beer. The...
01:04:40
Speaker
Those cinnamon notes and the spice, like, really works with the flavors in the cigar right now. It doesn't taste like a Yankee candle, which is a big thing for me with spiced beers. I hate that, for whatever reason, they decide they need to make it taste very intense and taste very sort of... They almost kind of make it to be more evocative than it needs to be. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. is It's that they...
01:05:09
Speaker
they're even Even beers that aren't artificially flavored, when you overdo it to a certain point, it might as well be. like you're not You don't feel like you're tasting the thing.
01:05:19
Speaker
You're tasting so much of it that it feels like it's overpowering all the other other flavors that are naturally there. Ask me about the time that I got my calculations wrong and and added too much natural blueberry flavor to a beer.
01:05:35
Speaker
And it was hard. It tasted like paint. I bet. Yeah, too much too much natural flavor is the same thing as too much artificial flavor, right? I mean, and you know, any any kind of flavor, with see you blow out the palate. it's it's yeah And its certain compounds will stick. So if you do natural versus artificial, going to get a different... um What's the word? Hold on.
01:05:59
Speaker
Ionization. Ionization. of the compounds, the volatile compounds, will somehow decide to meet. So if you fuck it up, all the bad compounds are going to say, hey, let's be friends. And when they're friends, now you have a problem.
01:06:14
Speaker
Now you're eating a meatball of shit. but but Or drinking a meatball of shit, I should say. And I've experienced that firsthand. All right. how How's the, ah how do your hard-charged lemonade work with this cigar so far?
01:06:28
Speaker
Dude, you know, it's good. So this one is not it's not the lemon one. they have ah They have a half and half. This one is just all tea, but it's it's pineapple. Do they have one for people like me that's just tea-flavored?
01:06:43
Speaker
they I feel like that's always the hardest flavor to find is just nothing. Just tea. Yeah, they do. Actually, yeah. yeah they have a ah
01:06:53
Speaker
There's a can hiding on my my floor. It's an empty can here. that I didn't throw away yet. It looks very dejected and crushed and empty, but it is just the regular tea, so they do have one. i may I may pick up some of those at some point. And it's good. to give a shot. It's not... The only thing is I will say, and you're also a liquid death person, so don't go into it expecting it to have the same the same tartness as a liquid death tea.
01:07:23
Speaker
Okay. Like the Grim Leafer or or the you know the Green Tea is one of my favorites. It's not like that, it doesn't have that tart bite to it. Yeah, I know exactly what makes sense you mean.
01:07:36
Speaker
It's a lot sweeter, more subdued, but it's a good tea. And you know it's on par, I think, to something like a if you've gotten Arnold Palmer from Twisted Tea or like those brands. it's kind of more It's more like that, except this is not not produced in the same way. Trying to find a way to say it.
01:08:00
Speaker
Arguably slightly better ingredients going into it potentially, but just they're different. I would say they're different ingredients, so the profile's a little bit different. Not to shit on anybody one way or another because I think what you know those guys do a good job of what they do. All right. I am dying to move on to my last pairing because I got this in this week this weekend.
01:08:20
Speaker
i'm nervous. No, earlier this week. For your last pairing. And I've been excited to try this one, but I was like, I can't not experience this one for the first time on the show. So this comes from, as you as I'm sure Dennis expects, and everybody else probably too, ah this comes from Freem Family
Freem Family Brewers and Innovative Beers
01:08:35
Speaker
Brewers. Of course. What else? Yeah, exactly. They were founded in 2012 by Josh Freem and two of his friends. He started out working for a couple of other breweries.
01:08:44
Speaker
um There were food breweries in particular where he kind of put them together in terms of lagering and brought them from being a IPA pale ale kind of place to having like, uh, loggers that people talked about.
01:09:02
Speaker
Uh, so he decided to start his own in hood river, Oregon. Um, after a couple of years of kind of focusing on the beers, he didn't want to make like IPAs.
01:09:13
Speaker
Um, he didn't make ah a wit and a blonde IPA. He was kind of going, you know, If all you're going buy is is wit and IPA, I'll at least make them interesting to him.
01:09:24
Speaker
But then he started releasing Pilsners and the rest was history. um After that, around 2014 or 2015 is when they started their barreling program, which has grown and grown and grown to the point where they now have, at any time, they probably have three or four seasonals on shelves that are barrel-aged um because they do everything barrel-aged.
01:09:47
Speaker
I had earlier, I had their spontane, which is a lambic, aged in cool ships, and then... or sorry, fermented in cool ships, and then aged in foaters. Did we have that together in Miami?
01:10:00
Speaker
We had the fruited version. The fruited, okay. Yeah, that was fruited spontane, and it was very nice. um This I have from the other side of what they make. One of the ones they they have this week... Let me get my little...
01:10:17
Speaker
a little sheet that tells me what was in the box. But one of them is their, I can't remember, i keep getting the Distiller's Cuvée and the Blender's Reserve confused. um Because the Blender's Reserve is, they took three of their of their barrels, you know, as you're aging and bottling, you're tasting stuff from the barrels, and they picked three different beers where they said, is one of the best barrels of beer we've ever made.
01:10:44
Speaker
And they took three of them in 2025 and mixed them all together. And so they have a release that is just three barrels mixed together. There's no, um you know, this isn't a large batch. You know, typically when you're barrel aging stuff, you have 20 or 30 barrels.
01:11:01
Speaker
You're not doing one barrel, seeing how it turns out, and then bottling it to sell all over the place. um yeah You're doing it at scale. And these are from those 20-ish barrels that go into a regular production. They picked one and said,
01:11:15
Speaker
This one's very special, but that's not the one I'm drinking. um ah Well, neither is the other one that I'm about to read you, but it's the Distiller's Cuvée, which they described as, don't call it a pastry stout. it's their first attempt at just kind of going over the edge of flavor because it's just not something they normally do, but I thought it was really interesting that they did um Again, they are all over the place with the barrel program and with all their beers, but everything I've ever had from them is fantastic.
01:11:45
Speaker
um This one, I saw it and I was like, I'm very curious. So this is their vermouth aged rye imperial brown ale.
01:11:57
Speaker
So this is Hold on. Vermouth aged rye imperial... There's a lot going on in this. I'm going to wrap my head around this. Okay. So this is an imperial brown ale made from rye that spends 10 months in sweet vermouth.
01:12:16
Speaker
That sounds It can really well. It sounds crazy, and that's I'm like, I don't know this going to be awful or great, but I can't wait to try it. Yeah. um I mean, it's an imperial brown, but it looks as black from that side as it does from this side.
01:12:32
Speaker
is It's just black. It's on point for an imperial brown, I feel like. that's yeah But yeah, I think it's probably what imperial browns look like.
01:12:43
Speaker
um It has, as with most frames, the bottle is not very interesting. It's just got their standard tag. I do like that it's purple up here on the little neck tag. where it says what it The branding has always been so good and so clean and just, it pulls you in. I love Freem. It's very classy. I loved Freem.
01:13:03
Speaker
Even before I ever had the beer, I've loved what they were releasing because you you would always have the bottles. And then when I finally had a chance to try a lot of Freem stuff, I loved it even more because what they're doing, what they have been doing for a long time is beyond just good-looking bottles. I think they're making really cool beer and and beer that's going to sustain itself 30 years from now. We're still going be drinking frame beer.
01:13:28
Speaker
Yeah. I suspect. Yeah, I think what they do is great, especially the barrel-aged stuff, and especially that, you know, the barrel-aged stuff is not just, you know, Goose Island, pretty much all the barrel-aged stuff is just stout in different barrels.
01:13:45
Speaker
um And Freem really gets out there and and experiments with what you can do with barrel-aging, ranging from stuff nobody's ever done to very old, traditional European, old-world techniques.
01:13:59
Speaker
so I'm going to take a couple sips of this. see how Oh, I did forget to give you the rest of the details. This is 11.4% ABV, 55 IBUs. And I can already tell you, I took just a little sip, and it's vermouth-y.
01:14:17
Speaker
So vermouth-y in which way? Is it the sweet side or is it the bitter side? The sweet side. um Okay. So it's got, like, the sweetness and that...
01:14:29
Speaker
That red wine intensity that red vermouth has, like, red wa or a red vermouth to me tastes kind of like a
01:14:39
Speaker
a reduction of red and white wines mixed together. No, not quite like Campari. It's not usually that bitter, I don't think. At least not to me.
01:14:51
Speaker
But it definitely has, like, that flavor. that taic flavor Okay. of yeah Of red wine. that's That's pretty intense. And I definitely get that off this.
01:15:04
Speaker
There is kind of like that, a little bit of that Campari bitterness.
01:15:10
Speaker
But I can't figure out what what herb it would be that's in there.
01:15:19
Speaker
But it's delicious. I'm going to figure out how it pairs with this cigar. You tell us what you've got up next. but What you've got a blast.
01:15:31
Speaker
Well, I don't want to disappoint anybody. So my last pairing is another can for my variety pack of this hard-charged tea. And I got it because the variety pack specifically had this, and i this is what I wanted. But I wanted it in smaller cans.
01:15:49
Speaker
And it is... let me Let me grab this can. What size smaller cans we talking about? These 12-ounce cans? They're 12 instead of the... Instead of like the 19, No, those were 24s. Those are 24s, yeah.
01:16:03
Speaker
That is a lot of... ah well like and Well, it's 7%, you know? it's all It's quite a bit. Yeah, like... i don't know. it's I don't usually have like two 16-ounce cans, two pints of the same beer at home.
01:16:20
Speaker
And so the thought that I'm going to want 24 ounces... is kind of a lot, I think. Exactly. that's That's the same way that I feel. So I wanted to have 12-ounce scans and easier to share, certainly.
01:16:36
Speaker
This one is the Tiger's Blood. Another really cool can. And you know, I love my Tiger Camo in general. I'm a big fan of Tiger Camo. Everything, i i get as many things in Tiger Camo as I possibly can.
01:16:52
Speaker
ah But this is Tiger's Blood, and Tiger's Blood is an interesting flavor that came around in the 1940s in Hawaii for shaved ice. And it's watermelon, it's a little coconut, it's a little strawberry.
01:17:03
Speaker
It's a funky blend, it's really interesting. Not to be confused with the Tiger's Blood of Charlie Sheen, which was some weird thing that happened when he was going nuts. and Yeah, not not the same thing.
01:17:16
Speaker
It's different Tiger's Blood, ah but it's you know for shaved ice, it's a great flavor, it's one of my favorite flavors for shaved ice. And I think they nailed it completely.
01:17:28
Speaker
Absolutely in every way they nailed it. They made a tea out of it. It tastes exactly like that thatft flavor for shaved ice. And it's my favorite one so far that I've had from the hard-charged... It's hard to say. Hard... Hold on.
01:17:45
Speaker
I'm salivating excessively. Hard-charged tea.
01:17:50
Speaker
Now, if we spoke a different language, it might be a lot easier for me. But English, not so good. Late at night, after a couple of drinks, ah um All right, so this ah vermouth barrel-aged rye brown ale, I'm trying to dissect it still.
01:18:13
Speaker
First off, the mouth feels great. Like, it's very, very ah almost nitro bubbles kind of bubbles. Like, very small... delicate bubbles, but it's ah it's a more viscous beer.
01:18:28
Speaker
So you get that kind of, you know, that foaminess when you swish it in your mouth a little bit.
01:18:38
Speaker
right. It starts off pretty sweet. It's definitely very sweet. um You know, I think part of that comes from the beer. Being an Imperial rye-based... Oh, for sure.
01:18:50
Speaker
Brown... Brown nails are typically on the pretty malty side. That's kind of the point. ah But then also the added sweetness of sweet vermouth makes it very dessert-beery.
01:19:10
Speaker
And then it has like that...
01:19:15
Speaker
This is the first time I've taken a sip and waited this long before going back to the cigar.
01:19:23
Speaker
You definitely get that... um Have you ever drank just red vermouth? Just to try it? like Unfortunately, yes. yeah It's not my thing, but yeah. Me neither.
01:19:35
Speaker
But it's got kind of that like... Grandma's purse kind of thing going on. Right? Like... I don't know if it's more like... That's a weird to put it, but yeah, get it. I don't know if it's more like old books or old lady perfume or musty, that's what it's always reminded me of. There's a mustiness to it.
01:19:59
Speaker
Like the aftertaste of vermouth, and this has that. Like, after you have a sip, after a couple minutes on your tongue, you're like, there it is. But it's a it's more pleasant than it's ever been with vermouth before.
01:20:13
Speaker
which is nice.
Pairing Cigars with Beers: A Flavorful Experience
01:20:15
Speaker
um Man, this is a weird beer, but it's very good, and it's working really well with the Latakia in the second half of the cigar.
01:20:25
Speaker
I love the second half of the cigar, man. I'm really impressed with this cigar. um i don't know if I made it to the Latakia the first time I smoked it. I don't remember how much of it I smoked or when it was or anything. think it was in the car, but I don't know. you were sitting in traffic, stressed out, trying to get to me.
01:20:41
Speaker
I'm probably just puffing and puffing on it. But like the Latakia in this is delightful. I thought the Anduyo worked really well with this blend. um I talked about how this is an American broadleaf wrapper. It's very light and modeled for an American broadleaf wrapper. So I'm guessing it's a lower priming, which you don't usually see as a wrapper.
01:21:03
Speaker
But it seems to be working very well on this cigar. um I'm really impressed with this cigar. I think they also purposely didn't want to go high priming to to not take away from the the the body and the quality of the Undu and also Latakia.
01:21:19
Speaker
Something that's a little more subdued would would work better, I think. High priming probably would knock it out. Yeah, I think you're right. It would overpower. Because as it stands with this cigar, the blend that we got, like it's a it's a decent enough blend that I think if you took out the lotta kea and The Anduyo would still be an enjoyable cigar.
01:21:43
Speaker
But it's a tame enough blend that it's not overpowering the flavors of either of them. It's letting them shut be the shine, be the star of the show, rather.
01:21:56
Speaker
My office smells like Polish kielbasa right now, which is amazing. it's I mean, well talk about the the scent of it, right? The room note. but We're talking about pipe tobacco anyway, right? So so Room Note, it smells really good. It doesn't smell like a classic cigar where someone that doesn't like cigars would walk in and scoff.
01:22:16
Speaker
they They might go, oh that's really interesting. What is that smell? It's yeah that smoky, be like fried bacon and and that like Polish kielbasa kind of thing going on, which is really nice.
01:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely smells like has the that fire cured thing, like where it even though there's not meat in it, the fire the fire curing process is basically the same thing as smoking meat like bacon or sausage or brisket or whatever.
01:22:44
Speaker
And so like it ends up triggering those those points in your brain. So it does like when I just sit back and and smell the room note a little bit, I'm like, yeah, it does smell like I've been smoking some sausage in there.
01:22:57
Speaker
ah or bacon. And it's great. And it's so different. It's so different for a cigar. It's really interesting. And again, if you're sitting in a, ah the the like one thing we don't talk about, we sit in in our own studios and we do our own thing.
01:23:11
Speaker
But generally, when we're not doing the show, we're hanging out in local spots. We're going out to a shop. We're sitting with other people. And sometimes somebody walk into a shop and go, oh, what is that? It smells great. What are you smoking? It smells yeah awesome. Tell me more about it. And this is the cigar that's going to elicit that reaction.
01:23:28
Speaker
And exactly. So this is one that will absolutely elicit that reaction and give you a chance to talk to somebody, meet somebody new, maybe. Um, yeah that, that's kind of the, it's kind of the point.
01:23:40
Speaker
It's kind of nice. It forces you to talk to somebody and, and share some knowledge and learn a little bit about the other person and what they like. So from that standpoint, I think it's a really good social cigar.
01:23:52
Speaker
Yeah. think you're probably right. Um, man, this is a good cigar. Um, I keep looking at it and then meaning to bring it up and we're in the middle of conversating. um Sam's last pairing was Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA, the classic.
01:24:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah. right. one that started it all. Cool, man. um Man, Voodoo Ranger's pretty good. we're We're obviously big fans around here. I didn't love that ah that Tropical... No, the Juice Force one.
01:24:22
Speaker
Oh, you didn't like Juice Force? I mean, it just tasted like red Gatorade, man. Gatorade, yeah. And that's that's the only problem I had with it. like It was a good IPA, but it tasted like somebody spilled Gatorade in my IPA.
01:24:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, tasting, I think the mineral profile for that that brew was amped up. the And so you're getting that that same same kind of vibe as Gatorade.
01:24:46
Speaker
And Sam says he thought it tasted like tangerine and grapefruit, but he says he hasn't. had a red Gatorade in a long time. So he has no idea if it tastes like red Gatorade. And maybe that's it is that my wife, uh, I mean, she doesn't drink it that much anymore, but for a while it was like her drink.
01:25:06
Speaker
And so, you know, every once in a while when we're in a gas station, she'll get a red Gatorade. And so it's just kind of a ah flavor that's always been in my head. Yeah. Um, and it could be just tangerine and grapefruit together.
01:25:18
Speaker
And my my mind inflates that to that's red Gatorade. But either way, that was the one problem I had with that one. But everything else I've had from them is like shockingly good.
01:25:31
Speaker
Like better than it should be for something you buy literally anywhere. You know what's red and tastes like blue paint, right? red ba Red paint? Red paint.
01:25:43
Speaker
Red paint.
01:25:47
Speaker
it's It's kind of like that I get the Gatorades. After the first couple of sips, it it just they all taste the same. Yeah, true. All right, I guess it's time to talk about our pairings of the night.
01:26:02
Speaker
Mine, against all odds and reason, is the Atomic Pumpkin. It just works so well with this. It's so good and works so well with this cigar.
01:26:14
Speaker
um They just play off each other in a really nice way, especially that cinnamon. um Like, it's not like Fireball where there's like, I hate, again, like, for me, one of the worst things a beverage can do is overpower you with the wrong flavor.
01:26:34
Speaker
um And for me, Fireball does like I hate Fireball because Fireball is just like it tastes like ah Fireball candies soaked in whiskey and I hate it. It's too sweet, too cinnamon.
01:26:47
Speaker
This has just the right amount of cinnamon. This is if Fireball was a whiskey that tasted more like this, I might actually like Fireball. Probably still wouldn't because I just like whiskey.
01:27:02
Speaker
It's a monumental moment for the show and for you because historically you are not into this kind of pumpkin stuff. Spiced beer is not your thing, generally speaking. um And I feel good knowing that I was able to get this in your hands, have you taste it, to have you go through it, force you to go through it, really.
01:27:21
Speaker
And you coming out with a positive experience is really cool. i'm I'm blown away, man. I'm really surprised. I thought I was going to hate this. I had another beer on deck just in case. Really just in case? Yeah, I had been eyeballing a beer over there and I was like, if if this one's awful, I'm just going to take one sip and dump it.
01:27:43
Speaker
Unsurprisingly, Sam Finnell's pairing night is the Imperial IPA, the classic Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA, which I think makes sense. like The flavors... the the flavors Like the tropical one, the fruit forest for most people are good.
01:28:00
Speaker
um But the the classic one is just better.
01:28:05
Speaker
All right. ah what's your What's your pairing of the night?
01:28:11
Speaker
Oh, my. i I'm going to lean on the tiger blood. I think that's tiger's blood, I should say. it's ah It's all the things that I really like. And I think it works works really well with the cigar. Now, the Scotch is great, but I think day-to-day, if something is more accessible, I think that this is a lot better than the Scotch because it's easier to get. It's more affordable in a lot of ways.
01:28:37
Speaker
Scotch was good. I think probably there's another cigar out there that would work best. That's what I was going to say. The ADN maybe. my with adn with that scotch my immediate thought with this cigar but like when and when i was doing my pairing lineup because i had already smoked this cigar least somewhat i drove it while upset and in traffic i'm sure um man that was a long drive i was stuck on the wrong side like on this side of florida for like an hour and a half longer than i normally would be it was awful um
01:29:10
Speaker
Anyway. Sorry, and thank you. It's all right. For picking me up I had to get there either way, so. um I don't remember where I was going with that. Oh, ah that I had some context for what the cigar was like, and I knew the Latakia was in there, and for me, Latakia says beer.
01:29:29
Speaker
Like, Latakia and any fire-cured tobacco just works really well beer, particularly IPAs, which I didn't actually have one tonight. I thought the Atomic Pumpkin was going to be closer to an IPA.
01:29:42
Speaker
but it's not as close to a cream ale, I think. But either way, the I'm really impressed with the cigar. i think it's got a lot of pairing potential. I think, at least in my opinion, this is the best of the Arcana series, which has been, you know, had had some hits and misses.
01:30:00
Speaker
um But this one, I think they're just doing something really interesting. I hope they do more in this... vein maybe a stoke too with some other pipe tobaccos or thing like that um And also the the transition where you just we switch halfway with tobacco is in there. It's it's kind of fun. It was very noticeable and it worked really well for the cigar.
01:30:25
Speaker
I feel like most of the time that's more of a gimmicky kind of thing, but it actually worked here.
01:30:37
Speaker
ah Sam says he tried all of his pairings earlier this week and paired them with an H. h Upman Banker Day Trader and a Podomo Legacy Maduro. And he thought they he loved them all.
New Belgium Brewing's Expansion and Music Recommendations
01:30:51
Speaker
You're not wrong. They're they're very good beers. That one Gatorade note hits me too hard with Juice Force. But other than that, I think it's a great beer, and I think the others are are also great beers.
01:31:03
Speaker
Shout out to New Belgium for... Just continuing to make good beer, even though... Staying alive. Yeah, like, they're... Without fat tires. huge. They're huge now. It's crazy. It's crazy to think how huge they are. That, like, when... The first time I had their beer in... Around 2005, 2006.
01:31:25
Speaker
think it was 2005... five maybe two thousand six i think it was two thousand five Um, the first time I had their beer, it was not yet distributed on the East coast.
01:31:37
Speaker
And now you can get at anywhere. You can buy a beer. If you can buy a beer, they probably also have some kind of, voodoo Ranger. It's crazy.
01:31:50
Speaker
I'm good for them. Good for them. Living the American dream. All right. I guess that brings us to our one for the road segment where we tell you about some kind of media we've watched or assumed or listened to or read the past couple weeks.
01:32:05
Speaker
Dennis, I'm going to let you go first this time.
01:32:10
Speaker
Mine is really not that exciting, but it's it's just, I've been going through a lot of different music lately and trying to, Discover new stuff, listen to different things. And there's a band that that kind of stuck out to me that I was listening to that's a little bit hard to... I don't know how to nail down like this style. It's it's sort of in American folk style, if you will, like old folk.
01:32:39
Speaker
multiple and Multiple instruments, they have some people come in, they have guest... like guest guest performers come in and and work with them. And it's this like really hard roots driven style of music. But at the same time, it's evocative of in lot of ways, not just country, but also punk.
01:32:58
Speaker
So it's like punk country, but it's not, it's sort of not what you would think punk country would be. It feels old and cozy and happy, but they're really not that old. This is a band called Shovels and Rope.
01:33:13
Speaker
And they've been around for you know a decent amount of time. they've been around for a while, but they really didn't, I don't think they really hit it until the mid-2010s, somewhere around there.
01:33:28
Speaker
They didn't really hit it and and become really popular. They've been doing music for a while. They recorded an album back in 2008, they recorded an album. and officially became this this joint project which was known as Shovels and Rope. And it was all these different performers were all friends that got together and played a bunch of music.
01:33:48
Speaker
And Tripp, after show, I will introduce you to the sound. I've already got a cued up, but I will let introduce me after we get off the air. I love it because it's folk, but it's it's a newer kind of folk music. And when you listen to it, it feels very approachable.
01:34:06
Speaker
regardless of what you like, if you like country, if you like roots rock, if you like this folk rock or Americana, that's fine. It doesn't feel like distinctly any one of those things.
01:34:18
Speaker
It just feels approachable. And if you like any one of those things, that you can kind of get into it and it in the background, and it it fits. It's a very interesting, very rare experience when you have a newer band that has music where you can have us, which are younger, kind of, I guess, you know, late 30s, younger.
01:34:38
Speaker
You have someone older in their 70s and 80s listening to this. And then also I can give it to my sister who's 19. and And she would dig it and say, like, oh, that's cool. That's interesting music. I like it.
01:34:50
Speaker
And so anytime there's a band like that that I come across that's that traverses all of these different um generations, really, musically speaking, I think it's worth listening to. Even if you don't like it, you've learned something new about sort of what what the scene looks like today.
01:35:07
Speaker
So highly recommend Shovels and Rope. And I think they've been touring as well recently, been pretty extensively touring across the U.S. Okay. I'm going to have to check them out.
Hobbies and Entertainment: Lockpicking and Movie Review
01:35:19
Speaker
Sam's one for the road lockpicking lawyer. Hell yeah, brother. Hell yeah. That's our guy. I'm a devoted member of the open organization of lock sport tool.
01:35:32
Speaker
Um, I know Rob Goodhart is on there as well. He's probably still watching and listening and, uh, he is as well. We get down on lock sport to a degree that is very fun and cool. And, uh,
01:35:45
Speaker
I always push this on anybody I can. Go learn. Go watch. Lockpicking Lawyer, Bosnian Bill, all these people, they do great stuff. And you learn something fun. You learn something practical.
01:35:56
Speaker
And it's different than sitting down and you know playing a game or or or doing something else. it It kind of touches a different part of your brain. So that's a great recommendation.
01:36:08
Speaker
It's also fun, I think... um Lock picking is obviously not as easy as to make it look in the movies, um especially with modern locks. Like modern locks are so advanced. They're pretty they're mostly pretty hard to pick.
01:36:23
Speaker
um But if you get a padlock, you'll probably pick it. Like lock pick padlocks are pretty easy to pick. But the like the learning process of learning to pick a lock is really fun.
01:36:34
Speaker
And the puzzle aspect of figuring out a new lock is really fun. And then also getting to know a lock is also really fun, where you can have one lock and just unlock it over and over again.
01:36:46
Speaker
and you get to this point where you're like, you know each pin and where it needs to go. And it's it's a very gratifying experience. Definitely recommend learning some lockpicking.
01:36:57
Speaker
We got my 13-year-old lockpicks last year. Oh, hell yeah, man. Hell yeah. That's cool. Maybe for his birthday. I don't know. he we bought We bought him lockpicks about a year, year and a half ago.
01:37:09
Speaker
And so he's he's spent a little time learning. He's not as good as I am, but I told him, like, I i spent years doing this when I was a little older than you, and... Just for fun.
01:37:20
Speaker
yeah so it's it's It's not a skill that is easily picked up, but you know it's it's got a lot of muscle memory to it, and it feels really rewarding. yeah It's very rewarding in a lot of ways.
01:37:32
Speaker
Great recommendation, as always, Sam. Alright, mine is, as usual, a movie.
01:37:44
Speaker
A movie that I watched ah maybe a couple weeks ago, but I thought thought I knew what to expect. And i was expecting it to be bad, and instead I was kind of blown away by how good it was, which is the remake of The Running Man.
01:38:04
Speaker
I thought there was no way this was going to be a good movie. Oh, I was so nervous about this. I mean, so i mean listen listen to it at least on paper. You've got Edgar Wright writing and directing who made Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
01:38:18
Speaker
and Good movies. A couple other good movies. um But he's kind of gotten to this point in his career where he's moving away from that like classic comedy and he's just kind of directing blockbusters.
01:38:33
Speaker
um starring Josh Brolin and Glenn Powell as the two leads who are both great. um Glenn Powell is, if you don't know who he is, you probably saw him in Top Gun Maverick.
01:38:47
Speaker
um Yeah. And he's like, he's really interesting because he's a you know, a very good looking actor guy who's very willing to be the butt of every joke.
01:39:01
Speaker
he He's made a career out of making himself, putting himself in stupid costumes and acting like goofy-ass characters. um That's kind of been his thing. He does a little bit of that in this movie, but he really kind of... ah gets to be, i don't know, I feel like he kind of gets to show his range in this movie where he's, um, he's kind of our action star, our, uh, the whole point of the movie is that he's doing this death game, ah so that he can pay for his sick daughter to get medicine.
01:39:36
Speaker
Um, I thought it was really interesting and compared to the original, which I don't think... Man, it's been forever since I watched The Running Man, so I apologize if I am off off base here.
01:39:51
Speaker
But I think in the original... I will correct you. Don't worry. I think in the original, it didn't show as much of like the producer of the show and why he was doing it. Yes, correct. Yeah, there was no backstory. Not really. This one, the producer is really like...
01:40:08
Speaker
Man, he's he's so slimy, played by Josh Brolin, where he is very like, listen, you got this, man. like There's no reason to back out because you got this. You can do it.
01:40:20
Speaker
It's not a big deal. um When in in reality, all he wants to do is make... brillions of dollars making this. um But I thought the like the action was really good. The characters were really funny.
01:40:31
Speaker
There are a ton of really surprising cameos. um Like, all of a sudden, William H. Macy's in the movie. And then way later, all of a sudden, Michael Cera's in the movie, who I haven't seen in a while, now I think about it.
01:40:48
Speaker
And there's a couple other people that you're like, oh, that's a weird bit part for this person. Michael Cera, since the last time he slapped, it was a Rihanna's ass in that one movie. Yeah. Where he was playing pool and starting coke.
01:41:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I miss Michael Cera. I think he he really did. He was very good in this movie. He played a crazy yeah like excited conspiracy theorist. um like i I was blown away. I did not expect much from this movie, and I thought it has a really good heart to it. It had really fun action. It's just funny.
01:41:20
Speaker
like The original one is not actually a comedy. It's very funny, but it's not actually supposed to be a comedy. This one is like... a sci-fi action thriller comedy um all mixed together. And i was I was just really impressed with how good it is.
01:41:36
Speaker
I just remembered a different movie, but I'm kind of glad I didn't recommend that one because that one's too weird and kind for normal people. Anaconda, one. The remake. I'm dying to watch that one. I haven't watched it yet. I'm so excited. it's ah ah I watched a movie called
01:41:52
Speaker
Killing Mary Sue, which is like...
01:41:57
Speaker
It's like a film nerds thesis kind of movie, but an action movie. So, all right, I guess I'll get into it. I wasn't even going to mention this movie. was going to tell Dennis about it in the green in the green room after the fact.
01:42:14
Speaker
um So a Mary Sue... is a character, typically a female, who doesn't have to work for anything. Everything just works in their favor every time, and they have no true obstacles in the story.
01:42:28
Speaker
One of the famous examples is Rey from the first new Star Wars movie, Rey. Oh, yeah, okay. I can't even remember the name of it.
01:42:41
Speaker
But how she basically gets plucked from obscurity for no reason. Yeah. And turns out, oh, yeah she is the chosen one. So, you know, it's... She's got to roll with it. Yeah, she she just has to go with it.
01:42:54
Speaker
This is a movie about a meth-using son of a ah senator who parties all over the world. She's like a messier Paris Hilton in the early two thousand Um, and she's like 18 or so 20, maybe 25. don't know. She's pretty young.
01:43:16
Speaker
Um, and she's always getting into trouble. She's always in the tabloid and she's always on the, in the wall street post is what an embarrassment to the Senator she is. Um, But for her, everything just seems to work out.
01:43:29
Speaker
And her name is Mary Sue. And the the movie is started by like a title card that has the definition of a Mary Sue. So the whole point of this story is that she is a Mary Sue, but she is the ultimate Mary Sue.
01:43:42
Speaker
And her so her father played by...
01:43:49
Speaker
God, I can never... There was a ah video many years ago about Dermot Mulroney... First,
01:43:59
Speaker
Dylan McDermott, and I can never remember which one is which now. Dermot Mulroney. That's who it is. Dermot Mulroney plays the father. That's a hard name to say. It is. It is Dermot Mulroney, right?
01:44:14
Speaker
Let me double a check. I now can't remember the name.
01:44:27
Speaker
Sorry, everybody. Yes, Dermot Mulroney. Dermot Mulroney is the father. um So he's her stepfather. He married her mother and he's the mayor of whatever city they're in. or No, he's a senator in whatever state they're in.
01:44:41
Speaker
um And he's running for governor or something like that and decides that she is the reason he's going to lose this campaign.
01:44:53
Speaker
So he calls b the most dangerous assassin coordinator in the world, played by Martin Cove, of course.
01:45:05
Speaker
ah all Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense now. And says, my my daughter needs to die. And so these guys show up to kill her in the middle of the night, but she is a Mary Sue.
01:45:16
Speaker
So there is like... Every time somebody shoots at her, she just kind of leans a little bit and it doesn't hit her. She, there's a whole storyline about, she plays a lot of Fortnite and he's like, oh yeah, auto aim. And she just takes a gun and just doesn't even look and just starts shooting.
01:45:34
Speaker
And just every shot hits, hits the bad guys. And damn but this whole movie is just like a hilarious take on sort of John Wick-esque action.
01:45:45
Speaker
But what if John Wick didn't even have to try? There's kind of fourth wall almost. Yeah, it's very, it's a very like fourth wall breaking kind of movie. That's cool. Yeah, I thought it was so much fun and it's, it's one of those movies that's like really dumb, but it's so much fun and there's a bit at the end that I thought was so funny. There's a lot of bits in this movie that are really funny. Like, she's a, you know, the meth is a whole thing and it's It's good.
01:46:16
Speaker
It's called Killing Mary Sue. It's on... think I watched it Amazon Prime for free or Tubi or one of those. I need to check it out. It's definitely free. It's called Killing Mary Sue. um it's It's dumb, but it's a lot of fun.
01:46:32
Speaker
It's really fun. So check it out. Oh, also Jake Busey. He's another person who's in it. There's like... Oh, that's right. I forgot about Jake Busey. And her... There's a flashback at the beginning with her dad who's played by Jason Mewes.
01:46:46
Speaker
um What? Who's... That's an odd choice. Jay from Jay and Silent Bob. Yeah. It's a very strange choice. That's an odd choice. Very strange. I mean, I like him, but it just seems interesting that he be is there.
01:46:58
Speaker
he He doesn't last very long, but he's very, very like the circumstances of why he's there are very, very fun. Yeah. so it's a classic Jason Hughes character. Yeah, exactly.
01:47:14
Speaker
Damn. All right, guys. Good recommendation, man. I'm going to check that out. Yeah, I do recommend that movie and The Running Man. More so The Running Man. The Running Man, I think, is actually a really good movie. Killing Mary Sue is um is just a lot of fun.
01:47:30
Speaker
It's just a fun movie. if I'm so surprised that you say running Running Man as a recommendation. If you say it, I'm going to go watch it. Dude, it's a good movie. previously Previously, looking at the trailer, knowing about the film, knowing indeed loving the original, I almost said I'm willing to pay to avoid seeing this. new ah ah I thought it was going to be awful. Don't make watch this shit. but it was like If you liked it, then I think i I will like it as well. We have very similar tastes. Yeah, I think you'll enjoy it. it's it's it's It is actually very good.
01:48:02
Speaker
um The rumor is that it's supposed to be on Paramount Plus next week, so if but if it's like $20 to rent, don't rent it yet. Wait like yeah eight days or whatever until it shows up on Paramount.
01:48:13
Speaker
I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what I read. um So better than than Dread 2, right? right Because I hated Dread 2. Which one was Dread 2? Was that the one that was a remake of The Raid?
01:48:28
Speaker
Where he's in the apartment building. It was a remake of Judge Dredd, the original, with Sylvester Stallone. And i know love the actor that that played the role. But was that the one where it was just a knockoff of the movie The Raid, where they go into ah an apartment building and have to fight their way floor by floor to the top?
01:48:47
Speaker
No, it was close to it. Or was that
01:48:53
Speaker
like the first Dredd? With Sylvester Stallone? I'm trying to remember. No. Oh, no, yeah, so Dread. Dread, the movie with Carl Urban. Okay, yeah. That is the one that is a is just a knockoff for the most part of raid. So, yeah, it was a very close. I didn't like it because was it was far removed from the classic Judge Dread with Sylvester Stallone, which I loved.
01:49:15
Speaker
And i love Carl Urban. He's great, but and he did a great job. However, the movie didn't do it for me because I grew up with... The classic Dread, you know?
01:49:28
Speaker
Yeah, Dread had its moments, but it was a pretty bad movie. I think Running Man is much better. It was hot garbage. I think, you know, listen, going back on it, Sylvester Stallone's movie, Judge Dread, the original, hot garbage, but I loved it.
01:49:41
Speaker
Every moment of it, I loved Yeah, it's great.
01:49:47
Speaker
All right, everybody. um that wraps it up for tonight. Thank you guys for hanging out with us. thanks for Thanks to Sam for telling us what your pairing and what your one for the road is.
01:50:00
Speaker
as always, guys, feel free chime in with your one for the road, even if it's after the fact. um And we'll give you a shout out the following episode because we I think those that's a really fun segment that ah more people could get involved in. So feel free to drop a yeah comment. And we also consume we consume that stuff. like Give us recommendations. We love that stuff. We consume it. It's good for us. It's good for you when we share our things. So, yeah, keep them coming.
01:50:26
Speaker
Absolutely. ah All right, guys. Thanks, everybody, for hanging out. Dennis, hit him with a catchphrase. We will see you guys on the next one. Thank you, everybody, for watching and listening. And remember, wanted to drink better, but we wanted to drink less.