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LGP 77 - Hiram & Solomon Cornerstone
15 Plays1 day ago
This week, we try out the Cornerstone from Hiram & Solomon Cigars!
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Transcript
Welcome Back to Let's Get Pairing
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody! Welcome back to Let's Get Pairing. We took a couple weeks off there. Some interesting happenings happened. But we'll get to that in a few minutes. For now, we are smoking... This is episode 77. I forgot to say that.
00:00:14
Speaker
And we are smoking the Hiram and Solomon Cornerstone tonight. oh Which Dennis should know a thing or two about, but I made notes just in case he doesn't know all the things. So grab yourself a drink.
00:00:25
Speaker
Grab yourself cigar. Let's get pairing. Let's get pairing.
00:00:45
Speaker
And we're back.
Surviving the Storm: Dennis's Tale
00:00:46
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. This is Let's Get Pairing. I'm your host, Tripp, here in the LGP South studio. um Joining me, as always, the survivor of last week's Class 3 killstorm is Dennis from the Dungeon of Darkness. Dennis, how cold are you right now?
00:01:07
Speaker
Damn, that was such a good... um I'll tell you what, Connor. I didn't even rehearse that or anything. like I didn't have it written down. That was just right off the dome, dude. I felt good about it, though, too. Thanks thanks for the appreciation.
00:01:21
Speaker
You'd be a great commentator on a death match of some kind. um Dude, it is 37 degrees in my dungeon of dank darkness. No longer dank, necessarily. but All the dankness is priced over.
00:01:36
Speaker
my my heater My heater died, my split air unit died, so it is super, super cold in here. I've been running a space heater, so now with the space heater, it's 37 degrees Fahrenheit. Before the space heater, it was 31, 32, it was like around there.
00:01:52
Speaker
Not good. And I've been running this thing for at least eight hours today, so it is quite nipply, raw man. And the winds are kicking up as well on the East Coast, the Ice Coast, if you will.
00:02:04
Speaker
The winds are kicking up, so we are all just kind of frozen, little cranky, perhaps, a little getting sleepy. And if you are on the East Coast and you are getting a little bit excessively sleepy, just make sure you're not dying, because that's the thing that happens.
00:02:20
Speaker
Yeah, don't don't breathe carbon monoxide. poison Don't die. Good to hear ah that you're alive, I mean. Not that... people and You know, you know what I mean?
Hiram and Solomon Cigars
00:02:33
Speaker
All right, let's talk about this cigar, the Hyrum and Solomon Cornerstone.
00:02:37
Speaker
These were procured by you. I'm usually the one running around finding cigars for us to smoke. um you have Do you have details on this? Do you want me to go off of my notes? but So I want, I would say, do your classic, run through the details on the cigar, the background little bit thing there, and then I can fill in some gaps. And throughout the show, what I'd like to do is also talk through sort of what the, you know, the idea of the cornerstone, but also what the whole thing with Freemasonry.
00:03:06
Speaker
There are some interesting stories out there, ah some lore, some potentially false information, if you will. um It runs the gamut. It's a little bit wacky. So run through the cigar first, introduce it for everybody, and then we'll get into kind of the details after.
00:03:23
Speaker
All right. So Hiram and Solomon, um they've moved factories a couple times in the last few years. Currently, most of their stuff is produced to PDR cigars in the Dominican Republic. The whole idea behind the company is kind of to be the Freemasons Cigar Company.
00:03:38
Speaker
It was started by a guy who's a Freemason who loves being a Freemason and wanted more people to enjoy being Freemasons and have their have cigars that celebrated that. Yeah. So what they've done in the last few years is release cigars kind kind of to commemorate and usually in collaboration with them, um, people who achieve, you know, uh, a high position in Freemasonry and, they want to, they're interested in having their own cigar.
00:04:06
Speaker
Um, Ironman Solomon can help them out with that. And, you know, these aren't private label cigars. These are cigars that they can be involved in the creation of.
00:04:17
Speaker
um And then Hiram and Solomon sells them to everybody. they're It's not like this is a a secret club cigar, um which I think is really a cool way to do it because that way people like me who aren't familiar with Freemasons, it gets people a little more interested. It's kind of, ah you know, a multifaceted um kind of...
00:04:40
Speaker
multifaceted purpose for these cigars. They're both for Freemasons and for people who just are curious about what Freemasonry is and think it's neat and likes to like the imagery, which typically is not a thing you're allowed to do.
00:04:52
Speaker
You get in trouble if you wear a shirt that has a Freemason thing on it and you're not a Freemason. You know? Um... So this one is one of their latest cigars. It was released at PCA 2024, and it commemorates Bradley R. Phillips, who is the Provincial Grandmaster and Grand Secretary of Masons for Arkansas.
00:05:15
Speaker
I can guess what some of that means, but I don't really know what any of it means. um But to the important part for me, ah let's get to what the what this cigar is. So this is an Indonesian Sumatra wrapper.
00:05:29
Speaker
which can be hit or miss in my opinion. um Initially, they reported the binder and filler is undisclosed, but the official website now says that it is Dominican binder and fillers from Brasilia, Brazil, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.
00:05:46
Speaker
As I said before, um this is made at PDR Cigars by abe Flores in the Dominican Republic. I believe there's only one size, if remember correctly, which is the one we're smoking. Six by 52.
00:06:00
Speaker
Comes in at 16 bucks, and they only released a thousand buck of the boxes of these. my My guess, you may know the answer to this. I'm not sure. My guess is that that means a thousand boxes to the public, and probably if you or have a Mason Lodge, you could probably order as many as you want so that you know the Freemasons can keep on getting But I could be wrong there. That's just a guess.
00:06:27
Speaker
right. What'd I miss? What am way off base on? ah No, you're not. You're not off base at all, I don't think. um You know, that the concept of a Well, there's there's a lot to unpack, and I think...
00:06:43
Speaker
There's only so much we can talk about in a single podcast. Essentially, I would say, if you if you think about a grandmaster, generally, at least, and we're gonna talk about just within the United States, when you talk about masonry, you talk about like a grandmaster, number one, no, it's not like the the the great dragon or whatever the you know certain certain hate groups have. It's not like that.
00:07:06
Speaker
but but It is... It is the person that's responsible for all of the districts within a particular state, the jurisdiction of a particular state. So it's state by state. Every state will have a grand master. Within that state, you have different districts.
00:07:22
Speaker
and there are delegates within each district that communicate up back to the the the Grand Master. And it's done that way to communicate certain pieces of informed important information to push out stuff like you know Masonic education programs, different things that Masons do, things like charities to coordinate across charities.
00:07:44
Speaker
And it's kind of like, I don't know, what what's the word? um What's the English word? It's not the mayor. It's the governor of a state? Is that the... Yeah. It's kind of, yeah. Governor's the guy in charge of this whole state, yeah. The governor of the state, but from the Masonic side of the house.
00:08:06
Speaker
they They sort of cover that. And, you know, they have their own... ah There are other people underneath the Grand Master and the kind of the... the the grand line, if you will, that have other roles like the grand the grand secretary, the grand historian, there are different roles. They also support the state. so It's said on the website that this guy is the provincial grandmaster and the grand sector secretary.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So the provincial stuff is a little bit interesting because it it pulls from the United Grand Lodge of England. Historically, they run it a little bit differently. So it's a nomenclature thing more than anything else. But essentially, as far as I know, I'm not familiar with Arkansas Masonry very well. but Yeah, of course. i'm assuming I'm assuming it's just a slight change of name. And again, because we have individual...
00:08:58
Speaker
We have individual delegations state by state. Masonry in New York is going to be slightly different than masonry in you know Florida and Arkansas. Every state does it a little bit differently. So, um you know, in a sense, the core tenants are the same always.
00:09:14
Speaker
that's That's the rule. The way that those are presented can change state to state. So oftentimes, I'm in New Jersey we'll go to Pennsylvania. Certain pieces of ritual, certain pieces of ceremony and the way we produce information is slightly different. But at the base level, the concepts are exactly the same.
00:09:33
Speaker
You know, some of the words may change, but you know, if you know, you know kind of thing, like you you can tell what it's meant to evoke, what what the what the message is supposed to be. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:09:45
Speaker
Sorry for anybody who just lost video. I'm trying a new button that I made, and it works in Zoom, but it didn't work in the the stream. I was trying to get it. I'll have to do more testing. I'm trying to get it so we can both appear on screen at the same time, like side by side.
00:10:01
Speaker
um And I can also switch back to this view. We can see things nice and big and ah not necessarily need to see a guy just taking a sip of liquor. or whatever he's drinking.
00:10:12
Speaker
ah But it seems to be broken. Shout out Jason from Cigar Box in Las Vegas for that suggestion. He mentioned it, and I was like, you know what? I bet I can do that.
00:10:23
Speaker
And I thought I had, but it didn't work. So, we'll we'll we'll try again next time.
00:10:31
Speaker
Alright, and with that... and one go ahead One last thing until we move on to the next segment, just one thing to marinate on, which is kind of cool in my experience with it. These cigars, and I'm only speaking to New Jersey, I'm not really familiar with how other states do it and what their relationship is with Ironman Solomon.
00:10:49
Speaker
But I know in New Jersey, generally, the incoming Grand Master will work with Herman Solomon to to blend a cigar. That's going to be their cigar for the year.
00:11:01
Speaker
It's kind of a really nice thing because ceremonial ceremonially, once they become officially inducted as the Grand Master for the coming year, they will share that cigar with people. People will go out and smoke and hang out together. And it's, you know, I think cigar culture is very much ingrained within masonry as, ah as much, if not, maybe even a little bit more than typically what you would see out in a kind of the general public, which is really nice.
00:11:28
Speaker
Yeah. That makes sense. i you know, you said that, and it makes me wonder actually, if a lot of times these cigars are out within the Freemasons, like, you know, the the new Grandmaster comes up with a cigar and has his it's his cigar, I wonder if he gets it for, like, a couple years before they release it to the public.
00:11:50
Speaker
Because that would kind of make sense if it's, you know, there's some period of time that they kind of have the exclusive before it's publicly available.
00:12:01
Speaker
but that You know, it's giving away something special. You know, it's it's possible. um <unk> Certainly in in other states, I think it's it's possible. But also keep in mind, realistically speaking, um if you go on the Hiram and Solomon website, you'll see coarse set of cigars, which are obviously mason-related in some way.
00:12:25
Speaker
um This one, obviously, the cornerstone is is readily available across the country. Anywhere Hiram and Solomon cigars are available, you can get it. um the, I believe it was last year, or year, but probably last year, um those cigars were made, but they were sold at the Grand Lodge event, which is the Grand Lodge is kind of like when it's a, think of like the PCA, but for Masons, happens once a year, Masons within the state get together for a couple of days, go through a bunch of stuff and spend time together, and those cigars are for sale there. I don't know if they're sold or distributed outside of that,
00:13:03
Speaker
My experience has been, if I'm there, I can buy the cigars. And then if not, then, you know, and again, some of them become core lines. So like the Shriner cigar, that's a pretty core line. I think the Cornerstone has become a core line for them.
Cigars in Freemasonry Culture
00:13:19
Speaker
And a core line meaning in this case, a little bit different than classic meaning. In this case, it's readily readily available in shops across the US. Now, the the past Grandmaster, or you know, the grand last year's Grandmaster,
00:13:33
Speaker
his cigar likely is not gonna get distributed outside of Jersey. it It may not be available you know in that same kind of ready way. So, but that's a good question for them. Next time next time I see Farwood and some of the other cats there and Alex from Hiram and Solomon, I'll see what they say.
00:13:53
Speaker
I'm curious. Yeah, me too. Let me know let me know ah what the answer is. um And with that, what do you think the cigar so far? I am... like I don't know how I've smoked almost to the band. Maybe it's an illusion because this band is so big. Me too. okay okay so um because Mine has a slightly tight tighter draw than I'm used to, which I think causes me to draw on it more often to try to make sure it stays going.
00:14:22
Speaker
But I am getting like Some very kind of light, earthy wood. a little bit of spice. A little bit of sweetness. For me, this is a very medium-bodied cigar that's kind of got a lightness to it. It's not aggressive on the palate as a very short finish.
00:14:42
Speaker
What do you think? Which I think, actually, I might have picked the right pairings tonight because I thought these were going to wrong pairings. um And I was going to have to grab a bonus pairing to pair or anything decent. but think i think Honestly, i I think you hit it exactly. It is a very light cigar.
00:14:57
Speaker
and um you know what but Smoking and smelling it, ive I obviously smoked a couple of these already, but for me, this is a cigar that if you're just getting into cigars or if you've been smoking cigars for a long time, you can pick this up and not get blasted in the face with pepper and spice and all these intense flavors. lots It has those flavors, but they're just very...
00:15:19
Speaker
Very mellow. Yeah, man. Very... They're approachable. You search for them a little bit. You do. You do. And I think, you know, for us, it's a little bit different because we smoke so many cigars and we smoke so many very intense cigars.
00:15:33
Speaker
Complex, strong, peppery, that kind of thing. But this is more of that if someone comes to your house and you want to share a cigar and maybe something a little bit special, you can share this and they're not gonna get blown out of the water. They can have a drink and not get sick.
00:15:49
Speaker
In that regard, I think it's it's really great. um I want to just say for me, because it's so cold in my office, my humidor is below 40 degrees.
00:16:00
Speaker
right Yeah, that's probably not great for the cigars, so but they should be okay. Not the best. which It's fine. it's it's there you know It hasn't cracked i mean anything like that.
00:16:13
Speaker
Most cigars are frozen before they leave the factory. Not all. Some fumigate, some freeze. um Most guys who buy Cubans toss them the freezer for a couple weeks before they smoke them. Oh, yeah. yeah um So it's not like freezing them is going to kill your cigars.
00:16:30
Speaker
um You have to worry kind of more about... the humidity changing that quickly or yeah the, ah you know, your humidor damaging itself by the stress of contracting that far.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah. And so i I pulled mine out a couple hours earlier and I dry boxed it just to, just to make sure if there's any humidity change, anything weird temperature, not so much, but I think putting it an empty cedar box, especially in the cold, if there was any issue with humidity, it would level off.
00:17:03
Speaker
And now my humidity on the humidor now is 63. ah sixty three That's pretty good if it's that cold. it's not It's not terrible. It's not terrible. No, that's very good if it's that cold because humidity is directly affected by temperature.
00:17:19
Speaker
i would have expected it to be in the 30s or 40s. Honestly, I have no idea. i have I have no idea how it stayed that way. i have a big old sock with heartfelt beads in it.
00:17:31
Speaker
I had two socks, actually, one of the bottom, one of the top. So and maybe that that kind of helped a little bit because they are two-way. So maybe there's something there to it. But, um yeah, you know, generally speaking, listen, it's a – want to call it mild, but I think that it is – it's like a mild plus.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's probably about right. I would call it medium, but a lot of people would call this mild plus. But that's not a bad thing. it's it is It has pleasant flavor.
00:18:01
Speaker
I feel like it's actually pairing pretty well so far because I've taken a couple sips of my first pairing here. um And I guess that means it's time for us to get into a pairing. It is. Before we do, Sam is smoking the H. Upman Banker Day Trader.
Beer Pairings and Craft Breweries
00:18:15
Speaker
Pretty good cigar. I enjoy that one. um I'm curious to see what he's pairing with it because he says, hello from Texas. I'm on the mule train. I wonder if he's having a you know Moscow Mule variations today.
00:18:30
Speaker
We shall see. He likes to pair along with us. so I'll go ahead and introduce my first pairing. I've talked about them a lot, so I'm not even going bother with the history. Cream Brewery in Oregon, based in Hood River, Oregon.
00:18:44
Speaker
um ah guy used to work for a bunch of breweries. He made a lot of lagers and did well with it and started his own lager company. um Now they're renowned mostly for their loggers, pilsners, well, lager slash pilsners, I guess.
00:19:00
Speaker
And the barrel age stuff, which I'm a huge fan of. As I've talked about over and over again, I'm part of the barrel age club and I decided to do a horizontal vertical. I'm going to call it.
00:19:10
Speaker
Um, I like that. Maybe it's more of a horizontal than a vertical. I don't know. Um, But this is three beers made using the starting as the same recipe.
00:19:25
Speaker
They did not end as the same recipe, but they all started and they all started like this one. That's this looks what is that a little more orange than it is in person, but in person it is.
00:19:39
Speaker
ah Are you familiar with orangina? Yeah, I love Orangina. People think I'm like crazy when I bring it up. This looks like Orangina, where it's like that more natural orange juice color, you know, with a little bit of water in it.
00:19:53
Speaker
um like it's It is that bright yellow, but it's not glowy kind of bright yellow. It's a paler bright yellow. Back when I knew her.
00:20:06
Speaker
Back when I knew her, she was Orangina, but here we are. I almost brought that up. This is their spontane, by the way. I won't hold this up in front of the camera while I tell this story. um There is a show that I wish I could remember the name.
00:20:20
Speaker
It was on in the 90s on Comedy many Central. And it was it was theres the Brothers something or the brother Brothers Fen or something like that.
00:20:32
Speaker
I've never been able to find video of this shit. um Well It might be out there I haven't looked in a few years And you know YouTube's always growing ah But it was a sketch comedy bit Where A guy is An old woman is checking out At like a convenience store in New York Bodega She walks in and she says, I'll have an Orangina, please.
00:20:57
Speaker
And the guy goes, whoa, you mean an Orangina? And she's all offended and she gets all angry and she's like, I can't believe you would say that to me. It's pronounced Orangina. That's disgusting.
00:21:08
Speaker
If you were owned Orangina, now I can't remember which way. Orangina, you probably would have named it after your pinus. but
00:21:19
Speaker
Every time I think about Orangina, that's what I think of. ah ah Yeah, we used to call it that. I mean, it's a good, it's a great thing. If you've ever seen a store, just buy it. It's fun. It's fun to try. It's good. It's like a carbonated, ah more natural lemon juice than lemon. It's called soda and orange juice, basically.
00:21:38
Speaker
Basically. All right. But what I have here. is a Spottin' A. So this is ah a wheat ale inspired by traditional Belgian lambics. So it is a basically a lambic, but with a little twist.
00:21:51
Speaker
It is brewed with locally grown Pilsner malt, cash-up unmalted white wheat, and cash-up pale... Wheat pale malt. um They hop it with, interestingly, aged whole leaf noble hops, which, you know, typically we see fresh hops or freeze-dried hops or pellet hops.
00:22:12
Speaker
But this is aged fresh hops. So they were fresh hops, and they aged them for a while. So they pitch it with wild yeast cultures ah before they cool it down in a little old thing called the Cool Ship.
00:22:29
Speaker
I know Dennis knows all about these, but not everybody does. Um, cream built their cool ship a few years ago. I, I knew what year it was, but I didn't put it in my nose. Cause it's not really, it doesn't really matter.
00:22:40
Speaker
Um, there's is a 30 barrel. So 30 barrels is 30 times 30, like 900 gallons.
00:22:51
Speaker
Um, ish, a little more than that. Almost a thousand gallons. Right. Uh,
00:22:58
Speaker
it that many? It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a whole lot. um So it's a 30-barrel steel vessel that is rectangular, and it is just open-top. It looks like the biggest steel sink you've ever seen.
00:23:13
Speaker
um And what they do with the Cool Ship is they pump the hot water into it, so they go through the normal process of making beer, ah boil the water, add your ingredients, get it going,
00:23:25
Speaker
um instead of cooling it down like most do in, and you know, there's various different methods of cooling, right, Dennis? But CoolShip is kind of the most interesting one because you pump it into this big, flat vessel and you let it just sit there for a whole day, sometimes longer than a whole day. But Freem does 24 hours for this one.
00:23:47
Speaker
They actually have a time lapse on their website. or on YouTube rather of, of them using it for the first time, or at least their first production that went into it. Um, so it sits there for 24 hours until it's cooled down to room temperature.
00:24:01
Speaker
um just absorbing all the funk in the air with beer as, as anybody who's ever made any amount of beer, whether you've done like a Mr. Beer and made one of those little one gallon things, or whether you've actually done production brewing or anything like that,
00:24:19
Speaker
Everywhere in between those two, everything needs to be meticulously cleaned. If you get any bacteria in there, any mold in there, it can completely ruin your beer.
00:24:30
Speaker
Cool ships are the antithesis of that, where you keep everything as perfectly clean as you can, but you want yeast that just is in the air. You don't want surface yeast from anything, so you're cleaning that cool ship really well and stuff like that.
00:24:46
Speaker
but you let it sit there and you can watch, like I said, they have a video of this, a time-lapse that's like eight minutes long or four minutes long or something like that. And you can see they're, they're putting beer in and out of barrels. They're moving stuff in and out of the warehouse. They're canning things that they're doing all sorts of stuff while this beer is cooling.
00:25:04
Speaker
And all of that movement, you know, is is kicking stuff up in the air and you get little bits of yeast that land in there. That's what gives it the funk. um So after they cool it, they then actually add some additional Belgian yeasts um to ensure proper fermentation.
00:25:20
Speaker
Then they pump it into some French folk oak foders. Foders. I love foders, man. Foders. It's a fodder. It's a fodder. Yeah, it's good.
00:25:31
Speaker
I love those things. They're awesome. So they put it in photos for fermentation. Then they ferment it in there, and then they age it in wine casks. White wine casks for this one.
00:25:44
Speaker
um So this beer is a blend of 14-month and 24-month casks. So what they're doing is every time they make a batch of this, they're brewing...
00:25:56
Speaker
two batches of this ah Belgian Lambic, and then combining them that are, one's a year older than the other. um So you get a little bit of that slightly younger vibe, you get a little bit of that slightly more aged vibe.
00:26:11
Speaker
um And so far, I am loving this stuff. Man, it looks like Pang on my screen at least. It does, man. don't know if that's what it looks like for you. It's a intense orange color. But it's it's not that orange. I think my saturation might be up a little too high.
00:26:27
Speaker
It looks great, man. and's how you know I love... I was just going to say, I'll tell you all about it when I come back. um Okay. I did want to note, it's 6.6% ABV. What were you going say before you get into your pairing?
00:26:41
Speaker
I have no idea. Oh, um you know, i was going to say the the blending process. Never mind the the how long it takes, the the level of care that it takes to get to that point where you can finally blend.
00:26:55
Speaker
But then to sit down and actually blend and blend that scale is really, really hard. And, um you know, I almost would liken some parts of it to blending tobaccos where you have tobacco from different years and you have tobacco from...
00:27:10
Speaker
you know, different processing that you finally sit down and have to decide, like, at scale, this is good as is, but how do get it to where I can produce something at scale that's gonna have that same effect? You can't just take a bunch of leaves and put them together and say, you know, if I'm producing, don't know, let's say a thousand cigars, five thousand cigars, whatever it is, all of them have to taste exactly the same. You have to that in. You have to figure it out. the goal, right?
00:27:38
Speaker
You know, and... at that level, you know flavors will change, materials will will change as well. And that's why i say different aging's will change. let's say 12 months is great, but that's today.
00:27:52
Speaker
Two weeks from now, that 12 months is gonna be a little bit different. A month from now, it's gonna be a little little bit different, right? And when you start combining things, you have to look forward to, well, six months down the line, what is this gonna taste like? Is it gonna be better? Is it gonna be worse? Is it gonna be the same? Likely not, right? So to have that level of skill to sit down and do that, and again, because at that scale, it's expensive, you can't make a mistake. You can't really afford to make a mistake.
00:28:20
Speaker
It's wild. Yeah. And the beer's very good. i'll I'll give you some tasting notes and how it's pairing, but what do you have up first, I guess? oh
00:28:35
Speaker
I'm almost done with this cigar. I don't know what happened. I i just lit this. at I lit mine after you, and I'm almost done with this cigar. Yeah, just for just for the clarity of being specific.
00:28:46
Speaker
I lit mine... ah 36 minutes ago, Dennis lit his about 30 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm, this thing burns quick.
00:29:00
Speaker
Roughly there. Yeah, definitely quick. Um, All right. So let me talk to you about my first pairing of the night. It's a brewery that that that actually is it's really cool and and near and dear to me.
00:29:13
Speaker
They're about, let's say, probably about 30 minutes away from my house drive up in Glassboro, New Jersey. If you don't know where that is, you may know that it the town where Rowan University is located.
00:29:24
Speaker
Or maybe you don't. I don't know. But it's ah it's a large university. It's a college town kind of thing. They're... I suspect they're probably walking distance from the dorm building for for the university. could walk to the school from from the you know from the brewery.
00:29:38
Speaker
um It is called Axe and Arrow Brewing Company. They were founded in 2016. Let me get this can for you as well. So they were founded in 2016. in Glassboro, New Jersey, and really fit well with around the same time Rowan was starting to expand. So it made sense. They had more facilities, they had more dorm buildings built.
00:29:58
Speaker
um It was a good time for a brewery in a place like that with a lot of young people that had access to now like very local beer, right? Very cool stuff. It's located in this sort of, almost like a commons, if you will.
00:30:12
Speaker
Like a little, you know, is is that what is that what people call it? A commons? I call it a commons, but it's like a... think so. Like a common area. A square. Like a yeah town square type thing, right?
00:30:24
Speaker
Benches, like a little park thing. The benches. Across from that, from the brewery, directly across from brewery, is actually a comic book shop that does game nights. And they do they add these sell some pretty cool comics as well.
00:30:38
Speaker
And interestingly enough, next to the brewery, there is a cigar shop. Cigar sort our lounge club. it's it's a little It's a private thing. but I guess you can buy cigars. I've never really had success.
00:30:52
Speaker
It's not like you just walk in and buy a cigar. I don't think. Maybe they've changed it. but and You walk in, they ask you for the password. And then if you don't answer, they slam the door. I never see anybody there. It always looks closed. I don't know what the deal is with them. but Oh, it could be like one of those places. so um I know there are, I mean, i don't know how it is there.
00:31:13
Speaker
So I have, I have seen places that have a front area because they have to, but it's actually a private lounge. So they have a back room because of laws where they were located. You can't have people smoking. It's probably, yeah it's probably only have them in the back room.
00:31:31
Speaker
The other thing I've seen is a similar place where if you're a member, you just get a key. Um, Maybe you've just been there on days where nobody's been smoking there. It's possible. it's I've seen people smoking outside, ah but like next to the brewery, but wasn't clear if they were from there if they were just happen to be you know smoking a cigar outside because that happens as well.
00:31:53
Speaker
um Now, anyway, Axan Arrow Brewing Company. I haven't shown you the can. let me show you this can. It's pretty cool.
00:32:03
Speaker
Check that out, baby. You know what that is? Those are what appear to be atomic churros. Yes, sir. so this beer is called the Cheeto Churro, and Cheeto is kind of slangish for for like cool or like awesome, you know.
00:32:21
Speaker
Cool, awesome. So this one is a white stout with vanilla, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Comes in at 5.5%.
00:32:29
Speaker
And now, so Axanar has been around for quite a bit. Their taproom opened in 2016. I moved down here, I think, 20, 21, something like that. I didn't really discover them until about 22, I'd say.
00:32:45
Speaker
It's been about four years, i remember when roughly you found them, we were doing the show, and you kind of started to feature them, and you were like, i've found this cool place. The one with, like, magic cards and stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah, so the cool thing with them, they're their whole thing when you go in there, when you get a beer, I don't know if they still do this, but I remember when I first came in there a while back, every beer had a, if you if you were to order a flight, you would get your flight, and in front of each little pour, you'd get a card, and looked like a lot, in a lot of ways, like a magic card.
00:33:20
Speaker
So it was like, it had attributes, it had like, ah you know, the special abilities, it had a little backstory, a little flavor text, fun image for the beer, and that was your introduction to what that beer was all about, just kind of cool.
00:33:32
Speaker
And recently, they had, and recently I say probably last year, I wanna say, they brought back Magic Nights. So they'll do like draft nights, I think it's called, Drafts and Drafts, maybe, something like that. that would make That would be a fitting name. they do They do a thing where, I think it's once a month, I've never been to one, but I think it's once a month where ah people will get together and they'll bring their cards, they'll they'll theyll have they'll play Magic and hang out, drink beers.
00:34:02
Speaker
It's really fun, so they kind of lean into that. I believe the owner is a really huge Magic the Gathering fan. as well, so that, that ah you know, it would track. Yeah.
00:34:12
Speaker
It would track pretty well. um You know, they started focusing on this limited edition stuff really around pastry. Well, how would I say it? guess pastry stouts, but also they do a lot of cool milkshake IPAs.
00:34:29
Speaker
So they've branched out into this really interesting niche where they're doing this that a lot of breweries are doing, but also then Other breweries are not doing it at this kind of very small scale. It's a very small footprint. The brewery itself is tiny.
00:34:43
Speaker
It's tiny, tiny. when i When I say small brewery, you're probably imagining a place that's four times bigger than this. They're insanely small, which is really cool. And ah you know I love the staff over there. They're great people, and they make a lot of cool beer. So this one is, as I mentioned, this kind of this churro. It's a play on on a look like classic churro.
00:35:06
Speaker
which is really fun. ah And 50-50, right? Sometimes it they're great. Sometimes they, so yeah, pifty-pifty. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's shit. But oh there's a lot of fun stuff in this, and it's really simple. It's not, I like a pastry stout. I like the the the dessert stouts, I should say, specifically, that are not going to blow your face out.
00:35:32
Speaker
Yeah, they've got like an element of decadence to them, but they're not like overpoweringly rich, right? Yeah. Where, yeah, after a couple of sips, you don't want any more. That you can only have a couple sips, yeah.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So at least, ideally, at least you can have a can, maybe two cans, whatever. But you don't want to take away from everything else. Now, generally, this is released around the colder months.
00:35:54
Speaker
um I believe they have actual churros when you order this on site. I've never had it on site, on tap, but I guess they they serve it with churros. would make sense.
00:36:07
Speaker
Kind of like yours, but a little bit... little bit orangerer. Yeah, it's little orangerer. It's a little more brown to that orange.
00:36:19
Speaker
It's like if you let your orange juice sit for a little bit and gets a little brown. it's kind of like that. But, dude, it is a fantastic beer. And more so, the beer is as subtle as the cigar is. And so it doesn't take away from the cigar. It, in fact, allows the cigar to shine, I think. And it's a very surprising, very happy surprise first pairing for me.
00:36:39
Speaker
That sounds really nice. Really pleasant. um Sam is, in fact, drinking a Moscow Mule. Oh, nice. Okay. as his first variant. I actually, i considered doing, so because I am doing, like, I started to talk about it and I forgot to. I'm doing this spontane, and I'm doing two different fruited versions of the same beer.
00:37:04
Speaker
Um, so they all start as this beer. Um, And i was going to do something else, and I almost did mezcal mule because my son got some really good Fentiman's ginger lime or ginger beer with lime, which is like oh you add some mezcal or whatever you prefer, mezcal, gin, whiskey, vodka, whichever you kind of mule you prefer.
00:37:28
Speaker
You just add in your spirit to a bottle of that, and you're set. It's awesome. um What if, what you know, what if we take the botanicals of a gin and we we ferment them and in ah smoke them in the same way that we do piña from mezcal?
00:37:50
Speaker
Oh, that could be really interesting. It could be interesting or it could fucking hot garbage. Because juniper berries, I don't know would handle that smoke really. i think they would absorb... Too much of the astringency from the yeah from the smoke, potentially. Well, maybe we just light all the botanicals on fire and then mix the burned botanicals in there.
00:38:14
Speaker
I don't know. i mean No, that's a much worse idea. That was a joke. No, well, no, no, no. I say this because like you know burning rosemary is a thing. You could... Sage, rosemary, the classic smudging spirits. this the Sorry, smudging you know botanicals.
00:38:30
Speaker
Maybe. Maybe it's a thought. I mean, if anybody's listening to this or watching right now and you have access to this kind of equipment and want to beat us to the punch, by all means, let's collaborate. Do it. Make it happen.
00:38:44
Speaker
Put it out there. We'll and we'll join you. All right. So this is spontaneity. I should note... Dennis, maybe you know what this is, but I didn't notice it until i was already on the show, so I didn't Google it.
00:38:57
Speaker
Crafted in accordance with Method Traditioniel standards. I don't know what that is. I'm guessing it's something Belgian. um Some kind of Belgian brewing standard for Belgian-y beers. No, I don't know of anything. i did There's really no... As far as I know, there's no real formal standard for, like, when talk Belgian.
00:39:18
Speaker
um What's the... what's the ah Hold on, what are you drinking? what's What's the style of beer that you're drinking? Spontane is what they call it. it's Well, officially, a fit okay, what so what they call it a spontane, but like what what is actually the official...
00:39:34
Speaker
Okay, so, because spontaneity is a subset of Lambic, but when it comes to Lambics, there's no real traditional particularly thing. There was at some time believed to be a traditional thing because of the monks.
00:39:46
Speaker
And at some point they realized that it was more of a marketing thing than anything else. I think because we've been so far removed from the classic traditions of the monks. So now they say like, oh, it's produced by Trappist monks.
00:39:59
Speaker
like No, I see what it is. yes Yes, but it's not official now. So is there something for the traditional method? Yes. So it is... it the voters? It is... It refers to spontaneously fermented lambic-style sour beers brewed outside Belgium that strictly adhere to the traditional time-intensive methods.
00:40:20
Speaker
The keys to this process that are turbid mashing, long boils, aged hops, cool ship, and multiple years of oak barrel maturation. Oh, so it's it's so it's the cool ship thing. So it's kind of ah a combination of all all the bits.
00:40:33
Speaker
90 to 100% of hops must be aged at least 12 months. The grain beal bill typically will contain 50 to 65% malted barley and 35 to 50% raw unmalted wheat.
00:40:47
Speaker
They have to be aged one to three years, um and they should be blended. That's not part of the thing, but it says that typically they're blended.
00:41:00
Speaker
um When I first google Googled it, for wine, it means that they are bottle fermented, or at least bottle finished. Oh, that makes sense. Okay. Okay. Secondary fermentation in the bottle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
00:41:14
Speaker
We've worked that out. I didn't even notice that the first time I looked the spirit. I like the neckband on it too. I think it's really classy when they put the neckbands on there. It looks good. It it just, it's nice. it It creates like a really elegant consistency between like this bottle and this bottle.
00:41:32
Speaker
Like they're almost the same and it just, they they look very nice, I think on the shelf. And there are words, right? There are words on the neck bottles. Yeah, the neck. this one says That indicate what it is. It says which beer it is. This says humbly offered, proudly crafted.
00:41:50
Speaker
Jeez. Somebody call Fuente because I think Fuente could learn a thing or two from these cats. Oh. they They have, to be fair. Not just using colors, but fucking put some words down so I know what I'm smoking. To be fair, they've gotten better yeah literally in the last four months.
00:42:07
Speaker
like Until the last four months, they've been not great at it. But the launch of, like, the Templo de Oro, Sangre de Bull... Okay, Sangre de Bull, fine. Okay, I'll give you that much. i know that The Toymaker stuff is still, like, ah you know, once it's out of that box, it's just an Opus X. You don't even know it's special.
00:42:27
Speaker
But at least those two have... Oh, and the Don Carlos 90th. All of those have purposeful, specific bands.
00:42:39
Speaker
um that clearly let you know what they are in comparison to the thousand other Fuente things on the shelf. Yeah, and I love, I'm a big fan of Fuente stuff, and I say this as a loving poke to them of, for fuck's sake, if I go in my humidor, I have no idea, if I don't track things and write them down, i don't know, but like, what the fuck am I smoking? I don't, it's good, I like it. Well, like, which Chateau is it? There's a hundred of them. Which Don Carlos is it? I don't fucking know it.
00:43:08
Speaker
It's impossible to tell sometimes. Don Carlos, I think, is the hardest one to keep track of. Ah, it's fucking awful. But like the Chateaus is, you know, there's three or four different colors in the Chateaus series, and it's just that line.
00:43:23
Speaker
That one line on the band is a different color. um And you have to know which color it is, and you have to know which size it is. Otherwise, it's just a random cigar, right?
00:43:36
Speaker
Yeah, if you know, you know. If you don't know, go fuck yourself. And that's not a great way to sell cigars to the modern mar market, right? Agreed. the mo Anyway, I digress. Anyway, back to the sponsor. Let's get into your second pairing. I didn't even tell you about my first pairing yet. It's delicious. Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry. Go ahead. It's a little bit hoppy.
00:43:53
Speaker
It's very bright. It's got, like, a lot of, like, lemony, orangey notes. Not even, like, not even to say anything about the very orangina-looking color. Yeah.
00:44:05
Speaker
But it does have like kind of that acidity, that brightness, that lemon juiciness. That's awesome. You can taste those aged hops. It's got like that, um you know, that kind of smoothish mouthfeel that you get from a wheat ale.
00:44:22
Speaker
um Well, a wheat beer, I guess this. No, this is an ale. It's not not a lager. um Man, it's just a really fantastic beer. So I'm going to move on to my next one.
00:44:35
Speaker
which is, actually I already showed it to you, but it is a Frambosan. So this is... Frambois? What? Frambois.
00:44:46
Speaker
Oh, is that how you say that? Frambois, yeah. Dog, I never knew. My man. I knew when it was Framboise, you know, like some of them are. fra f With the O-I-S-E at the end. I knew that was Yeah, no, it's fine, it's fine. I didn't know that Frambosan was Bois.
00:45:03
Speaker
Oh, is Bozen is E-N at the end? B-O-Z-E-N. Frambozen. Oh, it's a Framboise with something at the end.
00:45:14
Speaker
Is it? Dude, Framboise. Hold on. Well, tell us about the beer. Maybe I can discern some information. i would love to. So this is their Framboise, Frambozen, whichever you prefer to say, I guess.
00:45:30
Speaker
well that one is definitely frambozen but uh i thought it was a like a framboise anyway okay well this is a raspberry version of basically the same lambic as the spontaneity um they may have dialed back the abv a little bit so maybe a slightly different recipe um but it you know it still is goes through the cool ship it still um is barrel aged this one this time for nine months um
00:45:56
Speaker
Or no, sorry. This one, it is the same base with a couple of slight changes. So they change out the wheat pale malt for red wheat. And they skip the school the cool ship for a modern heat exchanger for this one.
00:46:11
Speaker
um So they can keep it a little more standard. um They age it in French oak barrels for nine months again. Then they add 2,200 pounds.
00:46:25
Speaker
of fresh, local locally grown raspberries. That's like two tons? Yeah. Something like that, right? Well, I think that's i think that's like one metric ton-ish.
00:46:36
Speaker
ah No, that's exactly one metric ton. Okay, that's a lot. That's a fucking lot. Yeah. So the ratio for that is 3.2 pounds of of raspberries per gallon.
00:46:50
Speaker
That's like... you Like, how much would 3.2 pounds of raspberries... Like, how much volume would that take up? In my mind, it would take up almost an entire, like, gallon.
00:47:04
Speaker
as ah It's 3.2 raspberries per gallon, you said? 3.2 pounds of raspberries per gallon of beer. Okay, 3.2 pounds of raspberries per gallon...
00:47:17
Speaker
ah to ah let's let's let's convert this to raspberries let's see raspberries per square inch let's do a little math here hold on now ah it looks like wait it's about it's not helpful it's per square meter I got meters i got square meers fuck it my math is wrong um
00:47:52
Speaker
All right, well, I'll finish telling you about it. Let me some conversion here. 3.2 pounds per gallon of beer, um and then they put the beer back into the barrel. So it sounds like they actually are adding these raspberries directly to the barrels because they then age for an additional two months before bottling.
00:48:10
Speaker
um This one is at a slightly lower ABV of 5.7. It just... um it is just Ruby red, man. Like, it looks a little brown on camera.
00:48:21
Speaker
From my end, this is like, it's Kool-Aid red. They don't add any color to this. This is pure raspberry color that's going on. Wow, that's beautiful.
00:48:32
Speaker
It is straight up. Let let me... I lost my phone. Let me do this. I know you always get a better look. That's what color it is.
00:48:43
Speaker
like That's the actual color it looks like. it's It's just bright Kool-Aid red. um um We're looking at 1.8 raspberries per square inch per gallon of beer.
00:48:57
Speaker
Okay. So per square inch... for For an average, but we have to average, right, for size of raspberries. Like raspberries will vary in size, but if you're looking at like a 3-gram raspberry, you're looking at 2.4 per square inch. If you look at like a 5-gram raspberry, which is uncommon, you know, it's 1.4. So 1.8 is kind of the average middle ground for your typical, you know, for for variation between raspberries. But yes, 1.8 raspberries per square inch is fucking wild.
00:49:27
Speaker
Okay, so that means that they... They didn't just add a metric ton of raspberries to to the batch of this. They added actually one metric shit ton.
00:49:41
Speaker
Yeah,
00:49:46
Speaker
I would agree. I would absolutely agree. um On the palate, it is a man Raspberry City, dog. like Move over Flavortown. so jealous. so jealous.
00:49:59
Speaker
Raspberry City is on its way.
00:50:03
Speaker
Going to war with Flavortown. Alright, what do you have up next? Will I take couple sips and see how this pairs with the Cornerstone? are the a weird I have a weird thing that I picked up at the store the other the other day and I really liked oh i can't wait the flavor of and I strongly, strongly recommend Trip if you've never seen this, if you've never had it if you run into it at the store, at the at the store store, if you go to your if you go to your local store and you see it,
00:50:31
Speaker
um do yourself a favor, man, and buy it because Hot Jambalaya, this is like, when you when you talk about ready-to-drink cocktails, this is really cool. It doesn't have that aftertaste that a lot of ready-to-drink cocktails have.
00:50:47
Speaker
ah you know And dare I say, I think you know what I'm having now can be misconstrued as a seltzer. It's not a seltzer. can't wait to find out which celebrity owns it. Well, nobody, technically. Oh, really?
00:50:59
Speaker
Bernard Ricard, Picard Ricard's not really that kind of a celebrity. but and that Yeah, I wouldn't call that a celebrity. Classic sense. Cocktail. um I just feel like every single, like, every single canned cocktail these days that I see at the store, I later find out. i Like, I see it at the store, and I'm like, oh, that sounds kind of interesting.
00:51:21
Speaker
And then I Google it when I get home, and it's owned by some celebrity.
Trends in Ready-to-Drink Cocktails
00:51:24
Speaker
I'll tell you what now. If Walton Goggins came out with with a ready-to-drink cocktail, I'd buy it. I'd buy it once, at least. you know And I generally do. I think you and I, we tend to shop in that kind of way where we go, hey, I've never tried that. Let's try it.
00:51:39
Speaker
If it sucks, fine. At least I know a little bit more. and And if you hate the first one, you have a couple more left, you can just give them out to people. yeah Somebody inevitably will like it. Walton Goggins Gaga Jungle Juice.
00:51:51
Speaker
That's what calling it. It'll be a canned cocktail. It'll taste like jungle juice. I like it. I mean, 25% ABV. So, I mean, to be fair, Walton Goggins is a very interesting cat. Like, he's the kind of guy that would come up with a Campari-based cocktail that's really off-piste, like, fully off-piste from what anyone else is doing. Because he's the kind of guy that will go to a place.
00:52:17
Speaker
You know this about him at all? Like, the way he, wentt like, when he travels? No. His proclivities, so when he goes to visit a particular location, he is huge into traveling, but he's also really huge into history. And so when he goes somewhere, he he will dress kind of the way the locals do, the way the locals would historically. And I don't mean like wearing a sombrero costume, right, if he goes to Mexico, not like that, but but just like with the culture of the times, anywhere he goes, he tends to to look kind of sleek and just fit in.
00:52:51
Speaker
and car where he's just elevated just a little bit above the average person, but not so much that you kind of have to, you you like, you have to, you turn shoulder like, oh, what's going on over there?
00:53:03
Speaker
he He looks nice, but not Hollywood nice. Right. So it's nice and kind of fitting for the region, for the area, that kind of thing. Anyway, let me tell you about this.
00:53:14
Speaker
I don't think he drinks, though. I'm not sure, but I think I remember hearing he doesn't anymore. He seems like the kind of guy who who got into some trouble drinking over there. Yeah, he seems like a guy that should never drink again, lest we we have a problem on our hands.
00:53:31
Speaker
All right. That's what I got now. dylan's Dylan's Small Batch Gin Cocktail. This one is Blackberry Lemon. and It's got a little bit of... Is it elderflower? Yeah. With ah a dash of elderflower, as they say. So this is a refreshing Blackberry Lemon elderflower cocktail.
00:53:53
Speaker
Cocktail with a splash of soda. Not too sweet, but a little bit of soda in there. So it's not really a seltzer necessarily. It is carbonated. Just want to make it clear. It's absolutely carbonated.
00:54:03
Speaker
um So now Dylan's small batch distillers, they were founded in 2012 in Beamsville, Ontario. I almost said Ontario. I had to fix that. I keep saying Ontario as a joke.
00:54:15
Speaker
It's Ontario. I know. And then you're stuck. But Beamsville... I'm stuck. It's awful. ah Yeah, it's awful. yeah Beamsville, Ontario, which is around the Niagara print Peninsula wine region to the by a cat called Jeff Dillon.
00:54:30
Speaker
Um... So his idea for Canada at the time, back then, like these ready-to-drink things were not a thing necessarily. Not like today. in today's world, we have the White Claws, we have all these different brands, to your point, celebrity brands as well, which have been really huge.
00:54:47
Speaker
The goal for this was to use 100% Ontario-grown grain. and produced in small batches. And also what they do is they do transparent sourcing. So whatever whatever they whatever goes into each product that they release is completely clear. You can you can look it up on their website. That's actually really cool because it's so uncommon in ah in in the alcohol industry. like Oh, we' all it's awful. It's awful with the ready-to-drink stuff. Beer and wine.
00:55:19
Speaker
um You can add anything and nobody's ever going to know it because you don't you don't have to put it on the label. um So a company that is willing to actually put their ingredient list on the label, even if it's like, you know, there's a lot of ah breweries, not a lot, there's several breweries that will have like water yeast hops fault on their... Yeah, and that's it. Yeah, and that's it.
00:55:44
Speaker
And that's all you need, but the fact that you just don't tell us what's in it always makes me a little uncomfortable, right?
00:55:53
Speaker
Sorry. Oh, Trip. It's... getting off trip It is... I just... I took another sip. I had this the the last... Earlier this week, I had it. And I was thrown a back, like, blown away by...
00:56:06
Speaker
how good, how pleasant this was. It it it is only, i believe it's only 5%. Let me tell you, for sure. But I believe it's only 5%. Where is the fucking thing?
00:56:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's 5% alcohol by volume, which is awesome. You can hammer a couple of these, no problem. um But they use real gin, and they use copper pot stills. like that's That's our whole thing. They focus on they they produce a rye whiskey. They produce gin. They produce neutral spirits. For this, they specifically use gin.
00:56:40
Speaker
um They want to make sure they use the real spirit.
00:56:44
Speaker
They don't, you know, it's not like when you see some of these brands come out and they say like, hey we're do we do this cocktail thing and it's some random grain shit that maybe from rice or from something else. what What I really have a hard time with and what kind of has driven me to usually just stay away from canned cocktails is I feel like so often they are um not necessarily deceiving about it,
00:57:14
Speaker
But it's pretty hard to tell at a glance that they're using malt liquor, not actual spirits. Yeah. Because it's, you know, for the last 30 years, it's been so common for any canned cocktail to just be malt liquor based that spirit kind spirit based canned cocktails are fairly new in most parts of this country.
00:57:36
Speaker
And I feel like you don't see a whole lot of them out there. No, unfortunately not. i i I really hope that we see more of this. and So, you know, when they launched in 2012, they were really just producing gin and rye.
00:57:50
Speaker
They were producing spirits. They were distilling, they producing spirits, bottling those. It wasn't until much later that they decided to get into this canned cocktail game and they were using the spirits that they, you know, rested their laurels on.
00:58:03
Speaker
Now, this one, I'd say, you know, I think it's an accurate way to say this is very close to a gin bramble in a can. What flavor was that? It's like raspberry? Lemon blackberry plus a little bit elderflower.
00:58:16
Speaker
Yeah. um It is insanely delicious. It smells awesome. It doesn't have that like industrial alcohol scent to it because it doesn't have any of it.
00:58:29
Speaker
And you can always tell, you know, when you have one of those drinks, they taste good up front and then you get that finish and you go ah that's oh, that's that industrial alcohol shit. And you know, this one doesn't, it doesn't have that. And I just randomly discovered it was hidden all the way in the back of my local liquor store. i've never seen this before.
00:58:47
Speaker
i barely found it today and I knew what I was looking for. I barely found it. And Trip, man, you gotta get down on this thing. This is super, super good. They have multiple flavors. so This one is the blackberry lemon. I think the variety pack has four, wanna say four flavors.
00:59:05
Speaker
All right. I will look for this then because I love gin. Awesome. <unk>s any Any kind of gin cocktail I'm a big fan of. um I very frequently, the reason I said gin in a Moscow Mule, I don't know if that's a thing anybody does, but it's something I'll try because I love gin.
00:59:22
Speaker
I think gin just is vodka with flavor because I just, I feel like vodka is... it It feels weird because i i drink often, but I don't drink a lot is what I usually tell people.
00:59:36
Speaker
Like, I'm not, you know, I'm not out here drinking a 30-pack a weekend or something like some people I yeah knew when I was kid. Same, same, same.
00:59:49
Speaker
For me, it's about flavor. It's not about alcohol. So to me, vodka seems like just a shortcut that I don't need. Like it's typically not always. There are good vodkas out there and there are vodka cocktails that I like.
01:00:03
Speaker
But like a vodka martini to me is just a way to to get wasted. Right. Like I want the flavor. I want I want the flavor to be backing it up. no No shade to anybody who does enjoy a vodka martini because they're fine.
01:00:17
Speaker
um And it's not like you're just drinking straight vodka. They actually, you know, they have flavor. But to me, that extra flavor boost of gin is so worth it.
01:00:28
Speaker
That's what I'm trying to say. um you You and I are probably the only... i've I've never really met anyone outside of you. Maybe one other person that I can think of. But... that that would drink a gin straight and neat.
01:00:41
Speaker
No ice. Oh, yeah. Constantly. it's it's and and i And I do that to explore the flavor profile because want to experience that. i want I want to get into the gin because it's so exciting and I love how, for example, the gin from ah from Florida...
01:00:56
Speaker
that was It was so uniquely different. It was so good and so cool. And to be able to experience that and talk about it, I you know i think it's great. And again, it also gives you an idea of where you want to use that spirit potentially in a cocktail in the future.
01:01:10
Speaker
right you you It's kind of like cigars. You you taste individual tobaccos. you smoke your individual tobaccos, you go through it and you kind of get a sense of the flavor profile and you go, well, I think this works with this other thing. Let's put them together and see how that goes.
01:01:25
Speaker
And it's that blending that we do as spirits, consumers, and and it's connoisseurs of, you know, different alcoholic beverages, yeah even with beer, like to your point, you're, you're, you have a horizontal vertical today, basically. Right.
01:01:41
Speaker
Um, that process of blending is really cool and it's fascinating. And sometimes we do it ourselves. Like remember when but Prairie bomb came out with their, with their, uh, Oh yeah. de Deconstructed version, which was really cool.
01:01:56
Speaker
I very fondly remember that. If, if you guys want to go down a a down memory lane, ah search Prairie bomb,
01:02:07
Speaker
sharing our pairings, probably you might find it on YouTube. There's an episode that Jason and I did where we, we paired the deconstructed cherry bomb with, uh, some cigar. I don't even remember what it was.
01:02:20
Speaker
Um, and we tried to, we did our best to try to recreate cherry bomb. Um, and at one point we accidentally recreated very spicy cherry but or prairie bomb. Yeah.
01:02:32
Speaker
Yeah. Alright, so Sam says his second pairing was a Kentucky mule, a Moscow mule with bourbon, and he asked if one with gin would be an English mule. Definitely either an English mule mule or a London mule.
01:02:46
Speaker
One of the two. um I guess, it yeah, it would depend on the type of gin that you use. If you go extra, extra dry, you're going to end up with the London. That's true, good point.
01:02:57
Speaker
Um, but I, I may need to try that at some point, especially because I didn't even think about it, but that, uh, Fort Lauderdale gin is like crazy ginger forward, which would go really well with, with a cocktail like that.
01:03:12
Speaker
All right. I didn't really talk about my framboisen, frambozen, however you say it I couldn't find anything about the name other than it's just a unique name. It's not like a process, it's style. It's just what they wanted to call it, yeah it seemed like.
01:03:27
Speaker
But it's a classic framboise in that sense, you know, Raspberry Forward. Yeah, and this is... This is Raspberry Forward, man. Like, you...
01:03:39
Speaker
You could not get more raspberry flavor into this, I don't think. It is so intensely raspberry flavored, but not, like, super sweet, which is so interesting.
01:03:49
Speaker
And I think that's because when they add the raspberries, there's still some fermentation going on, so it probably ferments out at least some of that sugar. um But it's, like, it's it's really interesting, and I...
01:04:02
Speaker
As Dennis knows, and a lot of our our viewers probably aren't aware because I don't like talk about it all the time, I don't eat fruit. like I don't eat fruit because I'm allergic to it.
01:04:12
Speaker
Because of that, I don't really like the flavor of most fruit. um Fruit to me is just overly sweet. And this is like that perfect middle ground where it's like...
01:04:23
Speaker
eating an entire bowl of raspberries in every in every sip, but without all that sugar. It's so good. Yeah, we it's almost like you're getting to drink the smell of raspberries without having to eat them or drink them.
01:04:38
Speaker
That's exactly what it's like. like this isn't and That's the weird thing, is this isn't more sweet than the spontaneity. Um, it's the same level of sweetness, but with that crazy raspberry richness, that kind of tannic quality that you get from raspberries.
01:04:54
Speaker
Um, I'm, I'm so impressed with this. This is the first time I've had this one and it is so good. The one thing that is kind of surprising is you could tell me this wasn't aged in a barrel at all. And I would believe you much less. It was aged in a barrel for 11 months.
01:05:13
Speaker
Um, and i'm so I'm surprised that it doesn't have a little bit more barrel character, but I think part of that is that we're used to tasting charred barrels, and these are yeah yeah French oak barrels, which are not typically charred at all.
01:05:29
Speaker
If they are, it's just a little bit. um and You definitely do get there like some of that woodiness. They're typically not like... You're not looking at a fresh...
01:05:41
Speaker
Especially when you look at photos, like, they get they get reused. It's not a... Yeah, this is probably a healthy beer, wine, maybe something else over the years. Well, and even even if it's the same beer at the same time, when you talk about a folder, you really want that the... the What's the word? what's the i mean, it's more about that smoothness, right?
01:06:02
Speaker
Like... It's the... Rounding out some of flavors. Fuck. The local colony, the local colony of funk, when you talk about the the souring effect that you get from a fodder, it's much more subtle.
01:06:15
Speaker
It's still there. It's definitely sour, and and you can certainly over-sour, but you have this subdued local colony that develops from batch to batch to batch, and eventually, multiple generations forward through multiple batches, you end up at this, in a sense, you you could try to wash it out, and it won't go away.
01:06:34
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And it's that. It's like the essence. It's not to your point about the raspberries and what I said earlier, too. um you're not It's not like you're eating the raspberry itself. You're experiencing the essence of that raspberry and the flavor of that raspberry.
01:06:49
Speaker
And with the sourness of the fodder, you're getting... Similarly, kind of the essence of that sour quality and that body to it. It's not as in-your-face as, let's say, a kettle sour would be where certain American blended sours might come out or even Flemish reds.
01:07:06
Speaker
Certain Flemish reds that are are like like goose. is a ah Goose is a really really good example as well. Those are puckeringly sour sometimes.
01:07:16
Speaker
Meanwhile, they they also use voters. So it it I think it really comes down to... the Oh, excuse me. The process, the duration, the base ingredients that you put in.
01:07:30
Speaker
And fruit is one of those things. Like, fruit is either going to screw you over when you brew with it or it's going to be... Good Lord, excuse me again. I keep burping this the fucking thing. It's not that carbonated, but it's very burpy.
01:07:43
Speaker
um Fruit will either bless you or will curse you for forever. when you brew with it is generally not very forgiving. yeah And if you ever feel like it is forgiving, you end up with a product that is essentially not fruited at all. And you go, man, I put all the, all this fruit in there and it doesn't taste like anything.
01:08:03
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's what I've learned with, I mean, just reading descriptions of like a beer like this, like we added 2,200 pounds. Um, you're reading stuff like that really hits home. The point that like,
01:08:17
Speaker
there's almost no such thing as too much fruit when you're adding fruit to a beer because you need so, so much to actually for that flavor to come through um that, you know, you, you have to add way, way more than you would think.
01:08:33
Speaker
And so that's why 2,200 pounds sounds like crazy amount, but it's actually like, I think kind of a high end of reasonable amount based on the flavor of this.
01:08:47
Speaker
Yeah. It's not even that much. If you break down 3.2 pounds per gallon, it's not... It's really not that much. I mean, but think of like... It's a lot, but it's not that much.
01:08:57
Speaker
One of those trays, like, you know those trays you get at the farmer's market? It's like that green tray that's like, they come in a box and there's like four of them. But sometimes you have the little ones too. Where I live, they just call markets.
01:09:11
Speaker
Okay. Markets. But like those little green plastic trays, I believe the big, big ones are usually like five pounds. So like two thirds of one of those would be about three pounds.
01:09:29
Speaker
That's still a lot. Like think of putting that into ah a gallon of milk. Like it would take up like half, maybe a third of it. um Which seems like a lot, a lot, like a shit bug.
01:09:43
Speaker
um But, know, not all that flavor comes through, I guess, even when you're mashing them up. Fish them up! ah Yeah, well, also, again, and remember, it depends on where you add them in the in the in the process, like the fermentation process.
01:09:57
Speaker
That's true. If if you're fermenting them, it's very different end result. You have to compensate. Yeah, so you have to compensate for loss because of fermentation, and even if you're looking at secondary fermentation, a top-fermenting ale yeast will still produce...
Beer Fermentation and New Releases
01:10:12
Speaker
You're going to lose a lot of the really delicate flavor. No, that's a good point. Top fermenting. um Because raspberries, after after two months, they'll probably be... They'll be floating.
01:10:26
Speaker
You think so? i I would think that they would sink for most of the time. Okay, maybe you're right. ah my My raspberries in the past have floated.
01:10:37
Speaker
Generally, I mean, but it depends on how you're, if you're fermenting at a warmer temperature, yeah they're going float. um You know, colder temperature, maybe eventually they'll kind of sink. It depends on the temperature also because of the ability of the liquid to keep CO2 in solution. But again, that's one side of the house. If you have a closed vessel for fermentation, that's different than if you have fodder that's open.
01:10:59
Speaker
yeah Everything just goes up. And because it's going up and out you're going get those berries pushed up. If you're a little colder and you're in a closed vessel, you're going to have gas going into solution and then everything's going to sediment down eventually.
01:11:12
Speaker
So, subtleties, man. Yeah, man, it's a lot to think about. So this has been Beer Geek Corner. It's not over yet, though, because we'll probably get back into Beer Geek stuff in a couple minutes.
01:11:25
Speaker
um Just one more word about the Frambozen. It's... ah I went back to the Spontane just to compare because they're very similar beers at the beginning.
01:11:38
Speaker
Um, the Spontane way more sour. Like, that Cool Ship, uh, adds a whole lot of flavor. A whole lot of funk, whole lot of sourness, whole lot of those, like, lemony kind of notes.
01:11:49
Speaker
Um, it's surprising how much more sour it is. So, with that, we can move on. Um... And we'll circle back in a little while for our one for the road. So I will move on to my last pairing of the night now.
01:12:04
Speaker
Some of you have probably been waiting that for waiting for that for a while while we geeked out about beer. um So this is ah a similar bottle, you can see, the normal frame bottles, but it's the black label. So the black label means that this is for Freemsters Union 541-541.
01:12:24
Speaker
That means that hey man this beer is exclusive to the beer club that I'm part of now, um where there's a very limited beer. Sometimes you can get it in like limited drops at the brewery and stuff like that, but typically it's only going be limited to people who are in that club, um meaning not a whole lot of it is made.
01:12:44
Speaker
This particular one, don't know you'll be able to read it, but this is their Estate Creek. So this is a creek. Anybody who doesn't know what that is, I'm sorry. You've been missing out.
01:12:56
Speaker
Creeks are... ah i think Creeks is kind of like one of the highest expressions of Belgian style of beer. Like, it is a Belgian beer made with cherries, and it's typically, like, super, super complex and really delicious.
01:13:13
Speaker
It's almost like a sparkling wine, kind of, with the amount tannins in there. Creeks are amazing. um So... This is their estate creek. They do also have a regular creek, um but this is their estate creek, which is limited to, in 2016, they planted 40 of their own tart cherry tart pie cherry trees at the farm that ah the farm of some of their friends, some of the people they've become friends with, with an amazing name called Idiot's Grace Vineyard and Orchard.
01:13:50
Speaker
Nice. Idiot's Grace is such a good name. I love it. It's located in Mosher, Oregon, which is about seven miles east of the brewery. um Since adding, ah planting those trees in 2016, they have added some new cherry varieties.
01:14:08
Speaker
Um, but none of those are in this. This is this version. The next year's estate Creek will probably have some of their additional, um, you know, sour cherries, sweet cherries, different types of cherries.
01:14:22
Speaker
Um, this one is only those tart pie cherries. Um, because those other trees haven't matured yet. I couldn't, I haven't been able to figure out if this is the first release, but they made it sound like it is.
01:14:36
Speaker
but I'm not certain. Um, this does use the same beer at the base. of spontane. um They, you know, it they're using the same mash bill as with the spontane.
01:14:51
Speaker
They're doing the cool ship. um They're adding it to those photos with the ah additional Belgian yeasts. And then after, don't know if they say how long this one is aged, because usually they do.
01:15:08
Speaker
This one doesn't specifically say. um In which case, you know, with with Frame, we assume i assume a year. um It could be two or three because this is kind of one of their fancier beers. But they say during the last few months of aging is when they added all those cherries.
01:15:25
Speaker
um They haven't said how many... bottles of this were made or how many barrels or anything like that. But being a club exclusive means that it's probably a pretty limited release um for them.
01:15:39
Speaker
it It comes in at 5.7% ABV, the same as the Spontane, again, based on the same mash bill and that process. It has like this... that's pretty it Again, i it looks really i have to do some like testing with my camera or something to see if I can get colors to come up right. Because my hat looks right.
01:15:59
Speaker
My background looks mostly right. Other than that red on the El Triumphador. I may have to desaturate reds a little bit or something. Because this is like a peach color for my eye.
01:16:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's what it looks like for me. Okay. On my screen, it looks like red or orange. Or like bright red. Yeah. Yeah. this This is like a very, very light peach. It reminds me of like a rosé wine, like a sparkling rosé. If you served this to somebody as a sparkling rosé, they'd probably believe you, at least for until they took a sip, and then they'd probably freak out.
01:16:36
Speaker
um But yeah, I'm going to take a couple sips this, see how it is. um I'm very curious how it compares to the others because this is kind of their like their fancy one that they've been working on for years and years, almost a decade, and they've finally been able to start releasing it sometime within the last few years. old I'll see while you talk about your pairing if I can just confirm how many versions of the Estate Creek have existed.
01:17:06
Speaker
um But as far as I know, this is the first edition of it. I don't know if they planted those trees from when they were tiny or what. So let us know. What do you have up tonight? God, I'm like nubbing this cigar already. I'm at the the very end of it.
01:17:20
Speaker
um ah So my last praying of the night, because it it is kind of Sunday going into the work week, really didn't want to i didn't want to hit
Sour Beers and Surprising Flavors
01:17:31
Speaker
it too heavy tonight. I wanted to kind of take a take an easier night. So it is non-alcoholic, but it is something that I brought up many, many times. It's something that you and I connect on often. i got my neighbor.
01:17:45
Speaker
but he spends, I don't know how much he spends. ah um Hundreds of dollars. Sorry, that was very sour. Shocked me. What, it's sour? It's got a lot of sour. well I'll get to it. ah it just like It's eye-wateringly sour for me and upon the first oh the first sip.
01:18:03
Speaker
Oh, wow. ah wow okay and You like some funky sours, just like I do. it just This was surprisingly intense. Especially, I think, compared to my last one. That's amazing. I wish I had some. yeah man so you know My last pairing is I'm going to say, shout out to Liquid Death If you're out there, if you're listening, if you're watching, I've been calling
Liquid Death: Branding and Expansion
01:18:29
Speaker
you.
01:18:29
Speaker
I haven't sent you emails. I'm to start sending postcards because I think we need to talk and get together with this show for some kind of a deal because I love Liquid Death. I know you do as well.
01:18:41
Speaker
Remind me after the show. i have I have some news for you about that. Go ahead. All right, I'll just put it out there. My nipples are hard. Don't tease me now. I'll give you the censored version because there's somebody who I can't blow up their spot.
01:19:00
Speaker
um Oh, fuck me. Okay. ah I'll tell you after. i just don't want to put it out there because that person is very secretive. I know a person who did a deal with a ah liquid death collaboration one of their recent collaborations they did a deal a sponsorship deal with them because they have a relationship with that company and i talked to them and i said there anybody you can put us in touch with liquid death and they said i have people way more successful than you who have like twitch twitch streamers with thousands of followers tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of followers yeah they can't get a call back from liquid death dude i don't know what is up with those dudes
01:19:45
Speaker
All right, all right. You know what? I'm pulling card out. want to pull my card out. We're going to call after this. You and I, we're going to phone with Guy Fieri. We're going talk to him, see what Guy wants to say. Maybe he can reach out.
01:19:58
Speaker
Put good word in for us. Hot damn. So Liquid Death is my is my final pairing for the night. Now, Liquid Death, if you don't know what it is, You probably live under as trip like say you probably been living under a rock. What have you been doing?
01:20:11
Speaker
Liquid death has been around since like 2017 Founded by Mike Cesario and I believe ah also his wife actually at the time He's a former net netflix executive director not exactly. He was creative director. Sorry creative director for Netflix and He just was like, hey, if water looked dangerous more dangerous than beer, what would it look like as a joke?
01:20:39
Speaker
If we made water scary, how can we make it scary? What do we do? How do we make it like look aggressive and interesting and different? And it was kind of a goof because when he pitched it, there was no product. There was nothing to sell. there was It was an idea.
01:20:55
Speaker
And you know, it got funded. Back then it got funded and they said, yep, this is great. Love it. Go sell it. And so he decided at that point, like, oh shit, now I have to make this. Okay, how do we make this? What do we do?
01:21:08
Speaker
um Now, from 2017 today, It is such a wild ride because from then, when they started as just a concept, officially launching in 2019, they really exploded.
01:21:21
Speaker
During COVID, it was kind of wild because it really exploded during COVID at a time when a lot of businesses were struggling. And because they exploded in that way at that time, they got the attention of a lot of different people, a lot of different celebrities, a lot of different brands.
01:21:38
Speaker
They collaborated with a ton of people, man, like Tony Hawk, Ozzy Osbourne, Steve-O, all these people doing all, and countless other awesome people in the music industry, in the kind of skateboarding world.
01:21:53
Speaker
in the pop culture world, artists, musicians, those kinds of people. And they went from just water, like they they went from still water and sparkling water to now they have flavored sparkling water. They have, you know, obviously they still have the regular water as well.
01:22:08
Speaker
um They have tea, they have ah energy drinks now, which are slightly better for you energy drinks, I guess.
01:22:20
Speaker
I mean, that's what they call it. um And I do, I appreciate that on the box, they have like... Very transparent, kind of. Feels like a coffee, not like an electric chair. Guys like you and me, we're looking for the electric chair, right? Like, we want that electric chair feeling when we drink that much caffeine. Yeah, well... But, you know, for the people who like and an energy drink but don't like coffee and but think an energy drink has too much caffeine, I do get it. Because I know people who, um when they drink an energy drink, they'll drink a third of it.
01:22:53
Speaker
And then they'll put a ah lid on it and put it away in the fridge and drink anne the next third the next day because they are sensitive to caffeine. People like that, but you know i get it. That's okay.
01:23:04
Speaker
But I do wish they had a a ah you know ah liquid death like with death wish kind of version. Like a plus. Yeah, like a plus like ah a version that had triple or quadruple the caffeine that was a crazy...
01:23:19
Speaker
Liquid Death style version. i Hot take. i I actually don't... I have two cases that I'm struggling to get through. i don't quite care for them that much. cause Really? i don't like the aftertaste.
01:23:30
Speaker
I don't like... I don't know what it is. The aftertaste kills me every time. The orange flavor definitely has a funky aftertaste. The cinnamon with an apple one or whatever it is, I think is delicious. It's good. I like it. I have i have cinnamon apple and I have so i have strawberry.
01:23:46
Speaker
But anyway... I have this stuff on subscription. The one that I'm having tonight is the Grapefruit, which is a grapefruit sparkling water, which is really nice because it is made... Well, no, it's not a pompa mousse, but you know why? Because it's it's a little too sweet.
01:24:06
Speaker
Pumplemousse would have been like a little bit more red grapefruit versus American grapefruit sweet sort of kind of deal. um Less bitter. it's It's less like that Italian you know that italian bitter grapefruit. It's not like that. Pumplemousse, what I get, it generally ends up being kind of that bitterness, which I really love.
01:24:26
Speaker
It's not that. So this has agave nectar in it. What else is in here, actually? Come to think of it. um Stevia leaf extract, which is, I guess, fine. I should have mentioned also they produce sodas.
01:24:40
Speaker
which are you know versions of popular soda. Think of it like your Dr. Pepper, your root beers, your colas. They do that kind of stuff. I don't care for them much because of the aftertaste. Not my thing. But the tea... Yeah, I agree with that. The sodas are kind of um halfway between seltzer and a soda.
01:25:02
Speaker
like that's That's the the flavor that it gives you. like Think of if ah LaCroix a partnership with Coca-Cola, and it was supposed to taste like Coke, but have the body and the sweetness of LaCroix. That's kind of where their sodas are.
01:25:22
Speaker
um And yeah, it they're fine for a drink, but they're not like... It's weird because they have... about as much flavor as a stelter, but with the flavor of a soda.
01:25:35
Speaker
But if you're trying to replace a soda with that, like, it it is not satisfying in the same way. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough.
01:25:43
Speaker
Yeah, man, so, you know, Liquid Death, a big I'm a big fan. i I have a subscription. I get cases of different things every month on a regular subscription come in.
01:25:54
Speaker
Absolutely love them. They've done some really cool collaborations. I really liked the, I think you've had the the black can. The spicy one? Oh, yeah. I still have some of them. That was... When I first had it, I was amazed about ah by how spicy it was.
01:26:12
Speaker
I didn't think it would be that spicy. It's like... It's that level of spicy where you feel... We're just surprising for that. You definitely feel it, and it lasts.
01:26:24
Speaker
But it's not like that burning your mouth off spice. for For me, which, you know... No, no, no. I'm the wrong person to ask if something is spicy. I'm fully aware. I think for your for your average person that doesn't get down on spicy stuff like you and I do...
01:26:40
Speaker
I think that would be very
Pairing Seltzers with Cigars
01:26:42
Speaker
abrasive. little much. Very difficult to consume. A little much. Now, that being said, the Fruity Loops collaboration that they did was official. Official Fruity Loops collaboration. That, absolutely. Out of the park, man. Cocoa Pebbles.
01:26:58
Speaker
What? Fruity Pebbles, rather. We're both wrong. I'm so sorry. You said Fruity Loops. I said Cocoa Pebbles. Fruity Loops. Fruity Pebbles. We mean...
01:27:09
Speaker
We'll meet in the middle. Yeah, yeah, I meant Fruity Pebbles. That's what I meant to say. Thank you, Troop. Good stuff. It's it's it's really good. and And I think, you know, with cigars, we talk about seltzers. We talk about sparkling waters. Even if they're a little bit flavored, they tend to, especially because of the bubble, the the the quality of the bubbles, they're a little sharper. They scrub your palate really nicely, refresh and reset your palate, and you can go back to a cigar, and I think it's really...
01:27:37
Speaker
interesting to do it in between thirds. If you really wanna go on the on the third game, I'm a little, I'm kinda 50-50 these days with thirds and the and and the distinction of the third. I think there's a leeway. Once you have, I think once you go through a couple of ah iterations of a cigar, meaning if you have a cigar three or four times, ah wait, if you have a cigar, if you smoke the cigar a couple of times at least,
01:28:05
Speaker
you start to learn a little bit more about that cigar, that Vitola, that blend, how it works, and you can distinctly pick out where those sections are. But
Cigar Flavor Evolution
01:28:15
Speaker
off the first light for the for the first time smoking a cigar, you can't always tell where that... You can't just say, well, it's the it burned this much. This is where it's going to change. You don't always know.
01:28:26
Speaker
But if you do get to that place and you know when that shift is going to happen and you have a seltzer next to you, you have a sparkling water next to you, mineral water even, which is even better, I think, you can take a sip of that in between those sections and you really kind of You can re-experience a cigar. It's almost like you're smoking it for the first time, which is kind of fun.
01:28:45
Speaker
So I always recommend seltzers, especially if you don't drink alcohol. I think seltzer is a really cool way to you know pair with a cigar, still get some unique flavor experiences, blending with the ah you know some of the flavored seltzers.
01:29:01
Speaker
it's It's certainly worth a try, and Liquid Death has been doing a really good job. I fully agree. You know I love a seltzer with ah with a cigar. that That scrubbing bubbles effect cannot be overstated for me.
01:29:16
Speaker
Sorry. All this Belgian beer is starting to get hows here How's your final pairing? um It is fantastic. The cigar finally reached the end. Yeah, mine i I just put mine down. it's I couldn't smoke it anymore. There's nothing left.
01:29:32
Speaker
That first sip of this creek is such like a blast of the combination of a funky, you know, pool-shaped, voter-fermented sour lambic with the addition of pretty fresh sour cherries.
01:29:56
Speaker
like, that combination of sourness really comes together on that first sip and shocks you. After that, it's it's still got some sourness, but it's not like the super pucker factor kind of sourness. It's just a...
01:30:13
Speaker
um
01:30:17
Speaker
I mean, I guess, kind of like I said, like it's ah it's um it's mostly that that lambic kind of Belgian sourness you know, of, of a Belgian, a proper Belgian sour, like not a normal Belgian beer that has a little bit of that element of sourness. Like this is a Belgian sour.
01:30:36
Speaker
Um, and the fruit kind of, as your palate acclimates to it, dials back a little bit and you taste more of those cherry kind of flavors it does have a i'm noticing a long finish on that sour note right on the center of my tongue um i did do a little bit more research the first release of this was 2020 and those those trees forty ah cherry trees They got a total of 27 and a half pounds of cherries.
01:31:08
Speaker
So that was why this started as a the club exclusive because they had a very tiny amount of cherries. um Like that's probably not even one barrel. Like it says just, it says they committed all that fruit to one prized barrel, but that was probably not very cherry forward that year.
01:31:31
Speaker
I'm guessing this year they've done, i don't know, five, ten barrels maybe at the most. And they have a lot more cherries than they did back in 2020.
01:31:45
Speaker
in And it's hard because I think they're also not really macerating. Certainly when at that scale um and for what they're making, a maceration wouldn't make sense. So you just, yeah, you can...
01:31:57
Speaker
My understanding is that my understanding, based on just some of the reading that I did about the raspberry one, was that they add it directly to the floaters or barrels, whichever they're using, casks, whatever you want to call them, yeah wooden barrels, and they kind of mash them in the bottom of the barrel.
01:32:20
Speaker
Just to break it up a little bit. They're not doing like full blend style, you know, where they're putting in a slurry of fruit. um But they do want to they do want to break them up a little bit so they're not just whole fruit floating in there.
01:32:34
Speaker
getting old and gross. Well, also from a timing standpoint, you want it to break down slower over time. If you were to, let's say if you take the cherries, put them a blender and drop them in you've already lost a significant portion of your the volatile compounds that are going to be essential to the flavor profile at the end of the product, right?
01:32:52
Speaker
So I'm assuming that's probably what they did. Mashing it down, you're just increasing surface area, but you're not significantly changing the... Yeah, i think I think the goal... The goal, based on what I read, is that they they really just want to break the skin.
01:33:08
Speaker
Like, if you have an impenetrable but and anderable barrier there, two months is not a lot of time to break through. Impenetrable. Impenetrable. Two months may not be enough to to get those fruit to actually start breaking down when they're surrounded by liquid that is...
01:33:26
Speaker
not doesn't have very much bad bacteria in it it's all good bacteria um that's not good at breaking stuff down like that um so i think the goal is to kind of smash them mash them up to break the skin a little bit let them let the beer do its thing from there
01:33:47
Speaker
um yeah We should get
Sensory Experiences with Cigars
01:33:50
Speaker
back to the cigar. I feel like we we both finished our cigars. We got way off track, man. We've been talking about beer for an hour and a half here. cigar at all. um Alright, so a note that I found that I meant to bring up maybe 45 minutes ago or so.
01:34:04
Speaker
um Good timing. Was that the cigar, like as soon as it hit the second half, went from that medium min medium plus, or sorry, mild plus that you were talking about To like a medium, a solid medium. Like it really ramped up the flavor. The flavor and intensity really ramped up there. It started getting way better to me.
01:34:27
Speaker
um Not that it was bad at first, it was just it was that style of cigar that you could be smoking and not not paying much attention to because you're not noticing the flavor. This is the difference between smelling a croissant and tasting a croissant.
01:34:43
Speaker
Yes. Yes, absolutely. Um...
01:34:48
Speaker
God, we're weird with analogies. I i speak for myself. most We always are, yeah. I think sometimes we talk about shit and I hope that people, I hope it resonates with people and they get it because it's it seems ridiculous but also day-to-day life, we don't think about these things. ah you know We often overlook these things.
01:35:06
Speaker
but it makes kind of sense when you think back on it, like, oh yeah, I guess. You walk into a shop and you smell that croissant, but then when you bite into it you taste it's that, but it's also slightly different, but it's also kind of the same. It's more of the same, but in more an intense way, more pronounced.
01:35:24
Speaker
And I think some cigars for me tend to be that way too, where they they develop over time, where I don't really enjoy the cigar as much. I like it, but I don't enjoy it as much until it hits like halfway.
01:35:36
Speaker
Yeah. And then halfway in the final third, that's that's my favorite part. Some cigars. Some cigars I love off the light. And I love them off the light into the second, third, and that's kind of where my point and it starts to get a little bit too much. Yeah, i'm I'm typically, most cigars, I'm like first, third, second, third are are the better parts of the cigar. They're the your favorites, yeah. This one, I got your experience where like, in the first half, I was like, it's good, but I'm i'm really struggling with the fact that I have to like...
01:36:05
Speaker
i have to I have to close my eyes and I have to think every time I take a puff and think, okay, I'm getting this flavor, that flavor. um And at the as soon as it hit like the halfway point, those flavors ramped up and it was in your face a little bit with those flavors. And I didn't have to think about it in search for it as hard.
01:36:27
Speaker
um But yeah, but speaking of the cigar, let's talk about pairings of the night.
Favorite Pairings of the Night
01:36:31
Speaker
We finished the cigar now, so we can't go back. So I saw that coming. So I went back through my pairings ah yeah as I was pairing.
01:36:39
Speaker
um Man, for me, kind of surprisingly, I think, because typically I like. If you have a menu that has any type of fruit and raspberry, I'm probably going to pick something that's not raspberry.
01:36:56
Speaker
ah But for me, that Frambosan Frambotsan Frambosan Framboisan However you want to say it I don't know how to pronounce it Whatever it's called it was very good um Like the kind of Intensely, oh my god
01:37:16
Speaker
Chunks? You got them chunks. Yeah, there's those those those pounds of cherries. Like, it is no longer... it looks red on camera. It is, like, almost brown.
01:37:28
Speaker
It's, like... looks brown to me. Sorry, raspberries. I know that brown. of raspberries in there. um like know that brown. There is some raspberry sediment going on here. um But the the just the, like, roundness of the flavor of this, it had that intense... It's intensely raspberry-flavored...
01:37:47
Speaker
but not overly sweet, not overly sour. It's like just the right balance of things with that high raspberry intensity made it really good and made it pair really well with kind of the, um this cigar, I would say as a reasonable amount, a noticeable amount of spice.
01:38:07
Speaker
Um, but mainly it's kind of the earth mineral woody kind of flavors that are at the core of this cigar. And those flavors worked really well with that that super raspberry-forward flavor of this beer.
01:38:21
Speaker
that's my pairing of the night. What about you? i yeah You know, man, i I had to go back and forth between the gin cocktail and the... that churro beer, that that white stout from Axanero. And arrow anda honestly, I think the white stout with a little bit of the cinnamon, it was so subtle and it was so drinkable.
01:38:42
Speaker
It was almost like, it was almost the perfect amount of desertiness without being overwhelming. And I could drink that thing. i could have multiple of those. that beer sounds awesome.
01:38:53
Speaker
lower you know It's a lower alcohol as well, which is helpful. um and Lower alcohol and not very intense flavors, but just enough where you get that essence. Where a cigar like this that requires maybe a little bit more subtlety and in approach when you're pairing, I think it really benefited from a similar sort of spirit or a pairing, I should say. um Yeah, man, I think that's going to be my pairing for the night.
01:39:19
Speaker
It's churro beer. It's great. And it's not... oftentime And you and I have had churros in a lot of different countries together. Surprisingly, we um We've definitely had churros in a minimum the U.S. and Dominican Republic.
01:39:36
Speaker
U.S., Dominican... ah I had churros with with Surgeon in Cuba and in Nicaragua somewhere. I forget where it was. was like and and you you end up Because it's a fried thing, you end up tasting the...
01:39:52
Speaker
the essence of the region from the oils. And so typically churros are- Whatever other weird stuff they're frying in that oil, for sure. Yeah, whatever else is going right? So you get this heaviness that comes with, it's inherent with the churro.
01:40:07
Speaker
And for them to take that profile and to level it out, smooth it out, make it a little more subdued, really worked well with the cigar and kudos to them for making that beer. Because for me, if I sat down tomorrow and tried to build a recipe to make that a similar kind of beer, it would be hard.
01:40:25
Speaker
I can't even imagine the the getting it just right to taste that way. So if you're in Jersey, if you ever had a chance, you know definitely check out Axan Arrow in Glassboro, New Jersey.
01:40:38
Speaker
Good stuff, man. Nice. ah All right. Sam, his last pairing was what he called a Cuban mule, ah which is basically dark and stormy.
01:40:49
Speaker
It's just a, ah yeah you know, rum with ginger beer and lime. But basically a dark and stormy. He says that was his pairing the night. I don't think that's a surprise. I paired with that a couple of times and I'm a big fan.
01:41:02
Speaker
As you guys probably know. um You like, I mean, I think you and I both are are fans of Agricol more than anything else. Absolutely. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Outside of Florida Kanye, Florida Kanye doesn't count. It's a different beast in and of itself when it comes to the rum game.
01:41:19
Speaker
But yeah, Agricol
Encounters and Experiences at Cigar Shops
01:41:21
Speaker
is awesome. Now, I do have, I will say, a nice Jamaican estate rum. I will... prefer sometimes but generally those cocktails are very specific i have a very specific list of cocktails where i want in a state rum like that and that's not agricole and agricole stuff is going to go into the more subtle things like little ice maybe a couple bitters that's it yeah you know i want i want to experience the subtle subtlety of the flavor but uh yeah good choice man definitely i like i like the vertical for the mules that's cool
01:41:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. It's very, it's very, uh, he's, he's really taken on the spirit of the show, I think, which I like. Um, right, well, we've still got one for the road. I did want to note, I, I did not meet, but I saw James Hetfield this week.
01:42:12
Speaker
It was a wild, like, just in my own head, it was a wild experience. A lot of people, my wife, my mom, my friends, everybody's giving me shit about not running up to him and trying to get him on the show or something.
01:42:24
Speaker
And I'm like, listen, James Headfield is a very famous man. And one, i don't want to be the guy who, you know, he's he's a guy who walked into a cigar shop and bought some cigars and then left.
01:42:41
Speaker
I don't want to be the guy that ran up to him and bothered him. i don't want to be, um if if nobody else recognized him and he walked in there and I recognize him, i want to give him the gift of being able to feel like a regular guy, just walking out of that building without being harassed by fans.
01:43:01
Speaker
um If he had been harassed by fans already, I probably would have jumped in there. um But I'm a big believer in if if people are leaving a celebrity alone, just join them in the solid area of leaving that celebrity alone, because celebrities don't often get to feel like normal people, right? Like, that's my thought on it. So I feel like it's it's kind of a gift to let them just continue being a normal person.
01:43:26
Speaker
ah instead of surrounded by by yeah yeah Yeah, it's totally... But it still was very cool. It was like... i it feels like a life-changing moment. Nothing about my life has changed because or since that moment. Yeah, it's exciting. It's exciting because you got to experience something and it's almost like you're behind the veil. You got to see something behind the veil that...
01:43:50
Speaker
ah You know, you get a little little sneak peek thing. That's true. Into the real life of a person who you never imagine. When we look at celebrities like that, we don't imagine them as regular people like us. We imagine them as, you know, these celebrities, these big entities. And ah they're just people at the end of the day, right? They they i mean do the same things that we do.
01:44:11
Speaker
It's kind of cool. To be honest, having coexisted in the same room. as James Hetfield. And not like a big room. Like a pretty small room.
01:44:23
Speaker
It's pretty exciting. It's a very small room. It's a very small room. Like most people who have existed in the same room as James Hetfield, that room has been an arena. um Yeah. And I can say that room was a pretty small cigar shop. Like well the best cigar shop but in Vegas.
01:44:41
Speaker
But not like a ah giant place. It is. the but You know what? It is very cool. I'm going second that. It is the best cigar shop in Vegas. I love that place. i When I come to DEF CON, I bring people from DEF CON to that shop.
01:44:57
Speaker
And I have been able to meet you know so many cool people just hanging out at that shop. Every time I go there, I was there. I had i had a um I got kicked off, of not kicked off, of I got bumped off a flight basically. And I had like eight hours to kill.
01:45:13
Speaker
So a friend of mine and I, we, ah I don't know he might be watching actually, Rob rob and I, we we came out to Cigar Box and we got a bunch of food. We got so much food, in fact, that we ended up leaving half of it there for people to eat.
01:45:28
Speaker
um and And just to be clear, yeah Cigar Box is not a place where you're where you order food. Like they don't make food there. No, no, no. we So yeah, we ordered food to be delivered there. Uber East or something.
01:45:39
Speaker
Yeah, we ordered like dumplings and bao buns and all kinds of crazy shit. and And our eyes were much bigger than our our bellies were at that time. But just a cool place. and and And I love that. When you can do that and you have almost like a a second home where you know if you walk in, yeah you feel comfortable, you're welcomed.
01:45:58
Speaker
It's such a great shop. I highly recommend. If you're ever in Vegas, check out Cigar Box. It's awesome Absolutely. He specifically told me... um listen, i'm not I'm not hanging out with you, so I'll get the plug. And I told him, like, or I know you're not. I'm not hanging out with you for free cigars, but we like hanging out with each other. It's the love, man. And I'm going to give you a plug anyway, Jason. love the yeah Because we love your shop and we want you to have more customers.
01:46:23
Speaker
So, yeah, next time you're in Vegas, check out cigar box. It's like an eight-minute Uber ride from pretty much any hotel you're in if you're on the Strip. um it's Yeah, it's it's very accessible. It is right off the Strip, but it's one of those right-off-the-Strip things where, like, you have to get on a highway to get on a side road to get on the service road to get on the road that it's actually on.
01:46:44
Speaker
um God, driving must be a nightmare in that city, man. But yeah, check check out Cigar Box. They have a they don't have the biggest humidor in town, but I have always said they have the best humidor in town. Like every cigar in there is going to be a banger and you're going to be happy with whatever you get. And the staff rules, you can get beer, you can get whiskey, you can get coffee. There's an exceptional selection of, so I would say, yeah, Trip, to your point, i want to second that too, is the the selection is exceptional.
01:47:11
Speaker
you have such I mean, it's not huge, but it's curated. Like, they only have stuff that's good. You can't buy a bad cigar there. Maybe you can, but not very much. No, I mean, i it's it's it's great, man. and And you're on the staff. If you walk and you have no idea what the hell you're doing, someone will be able to guide you through it, and you will have a good time.
01:47:32
Speaker
yeah that's That's the cool thing about it, too. It's not just like a go fuck yourself, pick a thing, pay me money. That's it. It's so much more than that. And that's what I love. One of the things that i love about that shop. Yeah. Check check out Cigar Box. If you're ever in Vegas, I know a lot of people don't travel to Vegas for work as much as we do.
01:47:49
Speaker
um But I end up there once, sometimes twice a year. That's my spot, man. I love that place. And the more business they get, the happier I am. Not that they're struggling at all.
01:48:02
Speaker
They're doing okay. Um, but I just, I just wanted to give you guys a shout out. Thanks, Jason. Thanks, Kelly. Thanks, Craig. All the guys over there. Um, Craig and Greg.
01:48:14
Speaker
Um, yeah. All right. That brings us to our one for the road segment where we talk about something that we consumed in the last three to five weeks, however long it's been since we had an
Challenges of Podcasting Consistency
01:48:25
Speaker
episode. It's been a while.
01:48:26
Speaker
It feels like with the, uh, your class three kill storm and, uh,
01:48:34
Speaker
One of us was sick at one point. I think I was sick. I think it's been three yeah probably three weeks. yeah my My brain is fried because last week I sat down to do the show and then I found out that Dennis wasn't going to wasn't goingnna be able to make because the power went out.
01:48:51
Speaker
And so I like edited ah an old episode because I'm still behind. i got up from my desk. I went inside and finished packing and then went to Vegas. I got home yesterday and then sat down here to do the show.
01:49:06
Speaker
So I like, my brain is just a little fried because I've been everywhere. Yeah, man. That's okay. That's how it goes. Yeah. Here we are. Anyway, one for the road time.
01:49:17
Speaker
You want to go first, Dennis? No. Yeah, man. It's going to be pretty quick. It's kind of an interesting
The 77s and 90s Pop Punk Nostalgia
01:49:24
Speaker
thing. And again, want to say, should say, rather, this is not related to Freemasonry in any way. It'll make sense once I bring it up. But it's a band. It's a band that truth be told, was driving earlier today. It popped up on my... Generally, I listen to...
01:49:49
Speaker
my my favorite songs on Spotify. Anything that I favorited, I just kind of, um what's the word? nott loop, it's a shuffle. Thank you, Tripp. I shuffle through my favorited songs on Spotify, because there's so many. And this one song this one song came up by a band, and it's kind of apropos, but I want to make it clear they are not a Christian contemporary music kind of band. they're not It's not their thing.
01:50:17
Speaker
Maybe you can call them like theological rock. I don't know. It's like Striper. You know, Striper, I'd say Striper is probably more religious. I was going say Striper is a pretty religious band, man.
01:50:31
Speaker
But they're not, but they're really not that, that like, um I have seen, I have them literally watched Striper live at a Christian, like the Christian version of what is now Coachella.
01:50:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, I know, I know. They're very Christian. Listen. I know. I've been to 12 or 13 striper shows in my life.
01:50:56
Speaker
I'm a huge fan of striper. I've seen the grown men beat each other half to death over Bibles with striper stickers on them. Yeah, that sounds about right. They're hailing Jesus the whole time. It's fucking wild.
01:51:08
Speaker
It's fucking wild. But this band is kind of interesting and fun if you've never if you've never heard of them. Do you know this band called the 77s? Oh, yeah. I've seen them, too, at the same festival. Yeah, dude.
01:51:19
Speaker
Okay, so 77s, it's super cool to me growing up in the 90s, growing up in the you know skateboard culture, the songs that are in the background. It's that we grew up with movies like American Pie and all these films that had this, i don't know what you would call it, this sort of like punk style.
01:51:37
Speaker
punk premium vibe to it. Mainstream punk in a sense. I would call it the early days of pop punk. Yeah, maybe, yeah. Okay, the early days of pop punk, alternative underground, if you will.
01:51:50
Speaker
So this band came out in 1987.
01:51:54
Speaker
And you know what, the religious aspect of a lot of their stuff between the name of the band, 77, was to like, you talk about biblical numerology, was not really my thing, but I know some people kind of lean into that. It's like 77 is radical excessive forgiveness and yeah that that kind of thing.
01:52:13
Speaker
ah Their style was mostly just, hey, we're gonna do this this punk thing, but really we're sort of like, ah almost like a Christian rock band, but not really.
Passion for Comic Books and Collecting
01:52:25
Speaker
um they They don't lean too too heavily into it. You could read into it if you will. But otherwise, it's it's ah kind of a raw, almost punk-leaning type of band.
01:52:35
Speaker
has some fun songs. If you did grow up in the 90s or if you experienced the 90s and you experienced movies like I mentioned American Pie as an example, when you hear this, you go, yeah, I get it. I know. It's like, what's another band from that era that was not Smashing Pumpkins, not Blind Melon,
01:52:57
Speaker
um I'm trying to think of a similar band. Like the very early days of Blink-182 or Green Day short is what I'm thinking of.
01:53:08
Speaker
But they're a little less like actual punk than that.
01:53:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like that. I mean, it's it's not very heavy stuff. It's not overly... like hey g A little more like bulky punk, maybe? might want to call it Sort of, yeah. A little bit subdued subdued punk. um
01:53:30
Speaker
It's going to drive me nuts because I can't remember i can't remember the name Oh, shit. and Literally, there's a song, in American Pie, that sounds in that sort of realm if you will a song from american pie oh third eye blind that's what i was thinking of oh yeah yeah's like that's the perfect analogy actually it's kind of like that right it's got that that sort of vibe so when you hear the song you just sort of it brings you back to that era at least for me in the 90s as a young kid my skateboard and trying to figure out the world and
01:54:15
Speaker
kind of pissed off, but I don't know why I'm pissed off and I'm struggling because I'm pissed off and not pissed off I'm pissed off again. like that The hormones and everything else going on. Yeah, it's cool. So check it out. If if that's kind of you if it seems like that's something you might like, it's worth a listen and in a worst case, you lose 30 seconds of your life listening to something you don't like.
01:54:35
Speaker
But you'd be better for it regardless because then you'll know yeah what to avoid. Man, I might do a last minute substitution. oh Trying to decide.
01:54:47
Speaker
Or should I do the thing where I talk about like three things and then only choose one of them? I would say go go with the first thing that comes top of mind. Like the first thing that popped into your head is the first is what you have to talk about.
01:54:59
Speaker
So i'll I'll start with Sam Finnell. His one for the road is Garen Noon, who is an Irish YouTube TikTok guy who he says is very funny and a great singer.
01:55:10
Speaker
His catchphrase is, I'm delicious. I didn't say it like him. I said it more like Ron Fudge's. I'm delicious. Darren Noon. How do you spell Noon? Is it? N-O-O-N-E. Like Tom tom Noonan.
01:55:24
Speaker
Oh, okay, okay. Noonay. Yeah, Noonay. um I'm going to have to check that out because I'm curious. All right, so...
01:55:35
Speaker
right, so my one for the road then. i wasn't going to do a comic book. but I'm going to do a comic book, not a new one, even though I have a new one that I've been reading. Um, but I'm going to go with nail biter.
01:55:48
Speaker
This is a comic book that ran from about 2014 ish to 2018 ish. And then they had a spinoff that ran in 2020 and 2021 or so sequel, I guess.
01:56:03
Speaker
Um, it's 30 issues of the first one.
01:56:10
Speaker
15, 10 issues of the, of the sequel. Um, and you can get them on Amazon. You can get them in digital. You can get them in whatever format you want. Um, in compendiums and stuff like that. They have a, uh, I think it's called the murder edition or something like that, that there's, there's three of them. So they're 10 issues each.
01:56:32
Speaker
You can do the old school trade paperback style with five issues each. They have a compendium that had just has all of them. um All right. So this, this book is about a
01:56:46
Speaker
ah serial killer goes on the, you know, goes on the, on the thing and is killing people. He's killing people by biting their fingernails until They have literally no fingernails left and then murdering them because all he cares about is the fingernails.
01:57:03
Speaker
This guy's obsessed with shooting people's fingernails. Is he a collector or no? Is it for support? No, it's he's obsessed with fingernails. He just wants to eat people's fingernails.
01:57:16
Speaker
That's all it is He doesn't have enough fingernails to eat. So he's got to find other people whose fingernails he can eat. um But it turns out the guys who caught him, it's these two guys.
01:57:29
Speaker
One of them calls the other one and says, listen, I figured out this guy was from a small town in Oregon called... Shit, I can't remember the name.
01:57:40
Speaker
Boonsuckle or something silly like that. Beaverton. No, it's like it's a made-up name. Buck... Buckmeister? Buckaroo. Buckaroo. Buckaroo, Oregon. Buckaroo, Oregon? Yeah, it's a made-up town. um So he's from Buckaroo, Oregon. oregon is correct And this detective is there.
01:57:58
Speaker
His friend who has been with the ah FBI or CIA for a while, um he calls him and he says, I figured it out. There are 16 serial killers that grew up here in Buckaroo, Oregon.
01:58:13
Speaker
And I know why. Buckaroo is creating serial killers. His friend gets there and he's missing. Um, so it is the story simultaneously of a couple of different things.
01:58:25
Speaker
It's, it's this guy trying to figure out what happened to his friend. He meets the sheriff. Her old boyfriend was the nail biter. Um, in high school, she dated the nail biter and he ran off after prom and she never saw him again until she saw him in the news as the nail biter.
01:58:43
Speaker
Um, The nail biter on the other hand was released from prison and is living in his old house in town. Um, so they are trying to piece together this mystery of why is this, why has this town graded 16 horrific serial killers over the last 80 years?
01:59:03
Speaker
Um, and what is the connection? And it, I just, it's such a good story. um, And so many interesting characters and so many cool twists and turns.
01:59:16
Speaker
It's very comic book-y. if you're If you're looking for something super grounded, maybe maybe shy away from it It's not like totally supernatural, but it's got a little bit of that kind of like things that it can't happen in the real world kind of stuff.
01:59:32
Speaker
But it's very good. I like the artwork. I'm looking it up right now. I really it's like it. It's really good. It's super gory in a fun way. um It's I was I could not put this book down.
01:59:43
Speaker
Like I just read through issue after issue of it. Yeah. You know a comic book nerd. i have to I have to tell you, know I grew up i grew up not really exposed to comics much.
01:59:58
Speaker
And so my concept of comics for a most of my life has been, certainly from my youth, it was very much... Like, yeah, comic books existed. There was some stuff in there. Okay, cool. I never really appreciated them or understood them because I wasn't exposed to them.
02:00:14
Speaker
It wasn't until I got much older in, like, late 20s, early 30s where I started – where i started just going like, I'm gonna go a comic shop and I'm gonna buy a thing that looks cool, I'm gonna go through it.
02:00:27
Speaker
And I loved it. And I and i love, i I realized how many different things you can access with comic books. There's something for everybody and you know the artwork is really cool, the stories are great, the fact that somebody has to draw that and write that and conceptualize it and fit it into a certain size, which is really cool. So there's all this effort that goes into it.
02:00:50
Speaker
um And then you you meet other people that are really excited about this stuff. That makes it even cooler. Because now there's this... You have you you have some people you can talk to.
02:01:01
Speaker
So i love I love comics now more than I ever have. And I'm getting much more into that rabbit hole. I feel it, man. I have... When you were ready to read some comics, I have a lot of recommendations. My like comic journey was... like When I was a kid, my dad worked a lot.
02:01:20
Speaker
Every once in while, he would come home and he would bring me a comic book. And he'd be like, here, this is for you. And it would be like, you know, a Superman. I remember at one point I was very into Cable. um Or... ah God, I can never remember the name.
02:01:37
Speaker
Something the Terminator.
02:01:40
Speaker
I can't remember his name right now. He was a very similar character to Cable, like a bounty hunter kind of dude. Okay. But it was always like Superman, Batman, those kind of characters. Cable and... ah think it's Destro the Terminator, but that doesn't sound right. I think Destro's the guy from G.I. i Joe.
02:02:00
Speaker
But either way, the term whoever the Terminator guy was, um those were like as edgy comic books as I had when I was eight or whatever. um Then when I was 10 and I was living, actually when I was like 13, I was living in Connecticut and we had a comic book shop that I could walk to right up the street.
02:02:22
Speaker
And I would walk up to the comic book shop and hang out with the guy buy some magic cards. And then I started, you know, getting back into comics. And that's when I read stuff like, uh, Sin City and spawn. And I started getting into like the, that was when I kind of learned that there's like a darker side to comics that interested me way more. Cause I was like, you know, Spider-Man and Superman and Batman are cool, but I don't I don't need to know what's going on with them every month.
02:02:52
Speaker
Um, so that's when I started like checking out those darker comics, the stuff from vertigo. Um, right. i don't know. I might've been in high school. It might've been a little bit, might've been near the end of high school where I started reading like the Alan Moore stuff, like the Watchmen and V for Vendetta. And that's when I was like, wow, Watchmen comics can actually be like a full on art form.
02:03:19
Speaker
um And then the one that like sealed the deal for me was The Walking Dead in 2000. did. I did read that. In 2003 or four, I started reading Walking Dead and I was just hooked because it was like a adult oriented comic book that.
02:03:41
Speaker
I would actually... you You'll appreciate this. I had pull list at Midtown Comics in Manhattan. Oh, no shit, man. I mean i was always a Forbidden Planet kind of girl myself, but...
02:03:55
Speaker
Midtown Comics was close to Grand Central. That's why. Yeah, and I know. I know. That was my my gateway to the city was Grand Central. So if I was going into the city, I would always stop at Midtown Comics. I eventually set up a pull list where they would be shipping me.
02:04:08
Speaker
Every month they would ship me all the comics that were on my list, um which I still have right on the other side of the wall. um And I got, wild I got hooked on the walking dead and I still remember it was, peace no well, not PCA, IPCPR. IPCPR back then. 2019 or 18. It was one of those where we were there and the final issue of the walking dead came out and
02:04:41
Speaker
I'm sure there are a lot of people who can't understand the feeling, but The Walking Dead, he had always said ah he knows how how the book will end, but he doesn't know when it will end.
02:04:53
Speaker
And the final issue came out, and at the end it said, this is the end. This is the last one. And nobody knew it was coming. Nobody knew it was going to be the last issue until the day it dropped. So it was like completely shocking. um it was It was awesome.
02:05:08
Speaker
And man, that's a memory I'll always have. I remember being in an Uber with you guys and being like, man, the last issue of The Walking Dead came out this morning. I was probably half asleep. I'm sure you were.
02:05:21
Speaker
I have this thing with cigar travel, especially because we're out. it's it's There are long days. You're out. You're smoking cigars. You're chatting with people. you get i could you know i For me, at least, I get really tired. I get really sleepy. yes I was going to say, um what you were talking about is Deathstroke, The Terminator,
02:05:38
Speaker
by Marv, ah who's a Marv Wolfman. Was it Deathstroke the Terminator? And the character looks hilarious because it's a mix of like the Flash, ah Black Panther, Deadpool, and i I don't know what those boots are. I may be thinking of the wrong the wrong Terminator then.
02:05:58
Speaker
Deathstroke the Terminator. Because this guy didn't have a mask. This guy looked like Cable. He a dude with gray hair. Yeah, okay, this is not the guy, but this guy looks really funny. It still actually could be Deathstroke the Terminator. There's so many things going on. And I love... this was This is what I love about comics is that... I have it here in my... my You found it?...digital comics.
02:06:23
Speaker
I... You know, and and for me, i would i would go out and buy comics. And and same thing with books. i buy i buy physical copies of things because I want to... I want to...
02:06:35
Speaker
Turn a page. I want it to be a deliberate act. Okay, it was Deathstroke the Terminator. It's just Deathstroke Zero, as they call him. Oh, Zero? Yeah, where he doesn't have a mask.
02:06:46
Speaker
So it was Deathstroke the Terminator. Oh, okay. I still remember he was fighting a lion on the cover of the one my dad got me, and I was like, this is the coolest comic I've ever read in my entire life. Deathstroke the Terminator Zero. um Yeah, you know, i love physical...
02:07:03
Speaker
Oh, boy. That's a look. Dude, there it is. I found it. Deathstroke the Terminator number 26, 1991. That was the one my dad gave me that I never forgot. That was the comic book. That's Solid Snake's grandpa.
02:07:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it is. Basically. um what i So what i want to say is like physical media I think is really cool because unlike pressing a button, unlike swiping a screen, when you make the choice to turn a page, you have to get the page, right? There's there's there's a deliberate act of of doing the turn.
02:07:37
Speaker
There's a sound associated with a feeling associated with it. It is a sensory experience that when you're that enthralled into a story, you... You know, you you feel it yourself. You can tell how fast you turn it, the sound it makes, the crispness of the paper, the, you know, different publishers will have different papers, different finishes on the paper, that kind of thing. Like, and...
02:08:00
Speaker
You also know when you have something that you revisit that has been sitting on your shelf for 10 years, probably 12 years, 15, whatever it is. And I do this with books too. old My old books, I love going through them. yeah And sometimes I don't even read them. I'll pick them up and open them and just go through the pages. And I just want to experience it because in my mind, it's ingrained that experience. when I first read this, I remember this paper was brand new. This book is brand new, you know assuming it was it was a you know new purchase. But I remember that first experience that I had with it.
02:08:31
Speaker
And now when I turn the pages, it comes back. Those memories come back and the pieces of the story come back. And you don't even have to look at the words. You just know where you're at. You you remember it. And that's kind of really cool.
02:08:44
Speaker
I love just going back to basics, man. I think it's special. I do agree with that. But I have, I had... i You like digital media. I know it's fine. like digital media as well. Worse than that. There became a point where I had a problem.
02:08:59
Speaker
The problem was i had collected ah couple thousand comic books. And I was still adding that to that collection, the new comic books I was reading.
02:09:09
Speaker
Yeah. But if I read them, I might get fingerprints on the pages or I might get a crease in it. So what I started doing, this was this was way back during the original run early on in Walking Dead, like after they'd only been out for a year or two.
02:09:29
Speaker
Chopsticks? Like people with Cheetos chopsticks? No, stickks no. Nerdier, maybe nerdier than that. Maybe less nerdy than that. i would I would buy the comic, put it in a sleeve, put give it a put a backer in put it in my box, and read the digital version.
02:09:46
Speaker
I wanted to have the physical version. But I didn't want to ruin it by opening it. which Which I feel like is worse. but You know, I get shit from a lot of people.
02:09:58
Speaker
Not a lot, but a couple of people give me shit from my magic cards. like when when i get Even cards that not that important, like lands. My lands, I still put them in a sleeve. When I get it when i get a new card, i i put it in the sleeve. I like it in the sleeve. I like it there. Don't fuck with my sleeves now.
02:10:14
Speaker
Yeah, see, that's the thing. is like there There was a time in my life where I was buying like bulk packs of comic book sleeves because I was like, I need to just protect every comic. Luckily, luckily I had all those sleeves because one time we had, this was when we lived in Oregon.
02:10:31
Speaker
ah During a freeze, it burst the... ah the spigot. i can't remember what they call it. The bib or something. Um, there's like a line right behind the hose bib.
02:10:42
Speaker
No, but there's a line right behind it. That goes into the pipes and that line burst. And so in my office, I had like a wall like this right behind my desk.
02:10:53
Speaker
And I had my comic boxes stacked right here. And I came back from lunch and there was an inch of water on the floor. It had soaked those boxes.
02:11:03
Speaker
Luckily they're all in bags. So I didn't have to worry about it. But there was a time where I was like getting orders of 4,000 comic book bags and then I would sit there for hours with
02:11:18
Speaker
ah yeah sliding every comic into a bag. and um I'm a dork. I get it. um I agree. That's okay. That's all right, I get it. I get it too, man. Dennis, when you're ready to get down on some modern comics, I have some definite recommendations for you.
02:11:34
Speaker
Oh, hell yeah, man I'm excited. that i'm a be I just have to be able to take physical copies. I can't do digital. ah Yeah. um I think physical copies can be hard because a lot of comics have ah one printing.
02:11:47
Speaker
Like, I mean, that's how Walking Dead was back in the day. they They've since changed that where... I think they actually just finished or about to finish Walking Dead Deluxe, which is a colorized version of Walking Dead. It's always been a black and white comic.
02:12:03
Speaker
And after it ended, they started releasing each issue in color. um But most comics, the issues come out and they just do one printing.
02:12:14
Speaker
That's however many of them, and they're all bought up, and then they're gone. Trade paperbacks are the way to go. You can buy them on Amazon. You can buy them at a bookstore. You can buy them at a comic book shop. You buy them all over the place, and they're like collections of five or six issues, depending on how the story arcs land.
02:12:29
Speaker
um If you like physical media, that's the way to go, I think.
02:12:35
Speaker
And then you're not paying, like, collector prices for stuff, because... you know You don't have to pay $400 for a comic. Just so you can read the first issue and not miss the context in the second issue.
02:12:47
Speaker
It costs $4.99. i try it was It's so hard now. I try to get comics from ah some of the stuff that the like the guys from Last Podcast and Left came out with and I could not... The shops just didn't have them. that That was one where I set up a pick list because I'm ah i a long-time comic book nerd that knows how to do that.
02:13:08
Speaker
Um, and so that way every month when it comes out, so when they do the ordering, if you said, them sorry I'm getting way into the weeds here, man, set up a pick list for stuff like that.
02:13:19
Speaker
Pick list means that they know you want it. You all, they already have your card number. They have your address. If you're, if you have a local comic shop, they can do a pick list and they'll, they'll bag them up for you in like a manila envelope.
02:13:33
Speaker
Um, and you just come in whenever and pick them all up. So the way it works is a pick list means that comic book shops order a number of comics.
02:13:45
Speaker
They order them months in advance. So it'll be like two or three months before the comic book comes out. They will say, all right, well, i need to i want to have this many on the shelf, but I have this many pick lists. um And so the pick lists get priority.
02:13:58
Speaker
They say, I have 35 people who want it. I'm going to order those 35 copies plus the normal 15 or 20 copies that I normally get. If you walk into a comic shop and try to buy it, that's much more difficult.
02:14:10
Speaker
But if you get on a pick list, then you get first come first serve. um And actually, no, the pick list is more like pre-ordering because then the comic book shop pre-orders it for you.
02:14:24
Speaker
So that's the pro tip. If you want to get something like that on first run. For the for those those particular, the Soul Plumber, that was another one where all six whatever issues, i i picked them I picked the first one up just... No, I picked the second one up just at a shop that I was in.
02:14:42
Speaker
And so then I found somebody who had a variant of the first issue and I ordered that one. And I got on a pick list for the rest of the issues and they shipped those to me.
02:14:54
Speaker
but I have all of them. I read them all digitally. Every one of them. All six. um Because, again, i don't want to mess up my comics. I want to have them, but I don't want to mess them up. It's an annoying problem to have because I feel like I should be able to just read them, but I'm afraid that my greasy-ass fingers, I'm going to open it in 10 years and there's going to be like black fingerprints all over it.
02:15:17
Speaker
That's okay. It's part of the experience. That's true. Man, I love comic books. We'll talk about that on another show. For now, time for us to head out because we went double overtime here.
02:15:30
Speaker
um so everybody have a great and safe week. We'll talk to you next week. I know it's going cold all over the place. So stay safe out there, driving on the ice, living with possible power outages and stuff like that. Hope you guys do well out there. Dennis, hit the catchphrase. Let's get out of here for tonight.
02:15:49
Speaker
Yeah, man. thanks sir Thank you everybody for watching and listening. And remember, we want to drink better, but we want to drink less.