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LGP 72 - Knuckle Sandwich Off-Menu
17 Plays1 month ago
This week, we try out the latest from Guy Fieri!
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Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
and yeah Hey everybody! it Man, you said I'm ready and it kicked the camera of you and said hey everybody. Every time. so sorry. Hey everybody! dragon Welcome back to Let's Get Pairing. It has been a little while. We took a little break there so that Dennis could be sick like dog.
00:00:18
Speaker
um But he's he's feeling mostly better now and we're ready to get our pairings on ah So this is episode number 72. And we are smoking the Espinosa Knuckle Sandwich Off Menu. ah exciting Exciting new release from Espinosa Cigars.
00:00:37
Speaker
We'll tell you all about it. ah we'll We'll get into it, tell you what's going on, what makes this cigar special, where you can get it and stuff. But for now, grab yourself a drink, grab yourself cigar. Let's get pairing.
00:01:10
Speaker
Alright,
Hosts' Personal Stories and Experiences
00:01:11
Speaker
and we're back. Welcome back, everybody. I'm your host, Tripp, here in LGP South, as we're calling it for the moment, with me from the dungeon of dark Dickensian doom.
00:01:25
Speaker
Ooh, Dickensian. I don't know what makes it Dickensian, but, you know. It's Dennis. Dennis, my co-host. Dennis, how are you doing? it's It's a ceramic teapot that's sitting in the background. You can't see it. It's off to my right. Well, off off to my, yeah, stage stage left.
00:01:40
Speaker
um Yeah, man, it's good. I was so sick, so brutally ill. We came back from Miami and this thing hit me and I recovered kind of. And then my, you know, my boss got sick and came in and got everybody else sick. And and we were all just like, you got double hit.
00:01:59
Speaker
We got that office flu, man. We were all dying. Oh, boy. And so, you know, that rebound, especially as the weather changed. As you know, we had some snow up here, which is crazy because we had snow where I live in in South Jersey. We had snow, and I got um up into the office. I'm like, yeah, man, we got we got snow down right now. It's snowing by my house. and they're like, what are you talking about?
00:02:20
Speaker
Really? Wow. people People in New York City were like, it's sunny out. It's fine. What are you talking about? Snow. And I said, yeah, man, we got we got snow. It's snowing right now. and the battle that's how far That's how far I live.
00:02:33
Speaker
Down south. but um Dude, I'm so happy. and I'm happy because we're doing this cigar. because This is a cigar that I've been really excited for. So excited, so excited that I put it. You know put something in a safe place and you go, it's be safe here. It's going to be fine. Yeah. The hard part is remembering where the safe place is.
00:02:54
Speaker
So I forgot where the safe place was. And I had spent all this time running around trying to find this cigar. finally found it in all the different humidors and the like travel cases and all the things that I have.
00:03:04
Speaker
finally found it. I'm jazzed. We're doing this. But also, you look fantastic. I love that shirt. Let's talk about that shirt, man. I got my ah my Boba Fett Hawaiian Christmas-y shirt going with the his blaster. we got Boba Fett. We got some... Somewhere around here, there's some... they're There they Yeah, oh yeah, man.
00:03:25
Speaker
Or Mythosar skulls, if you're if you're talking the... Proper language. The proper language that has been retconned. um All right, so we're getting into the knuckle sandwich off menu. Oh, and also you said I look good. I should mention i have a battle scar here from where I was clawed by the talons of my one-year-old.
00:03:46
Speaker
That was from your one-year-old? Yeah, dude. She's got sharp little claws. She she can dig them in. She was trying to pull my glasses off. You know what? People don't talk about this often unless you have kids. And you know, kids, as they get older, young kids, they're nails, man. When they come out... Because they're they're little.
00:04:03
Speaker
they're They're tiny little fingernails. They're thin like razor blades. Little little angry razor blades. They'll slice right up. And, you know, I've gotten cut with my kids a couple times and damn, it is no joke.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah. The shreds, you say, is is what comes to
Espinosa Knuckle Sandwich Cigar Exploration
00:04:21
Speaker
mind. ah Jay Davis' is exciting release that only 60 retailers out of 4,000 get. I don't want to break any news, but ah you know there there may be hope on the horizon for that. We'll talk about why he said only 60 retailers out of 4,000 get it in a moment. um Let's talk about Knuckle Sandwich off menu. so This is the TAA release for this year for Espinoza. just launched.
00:04:46
Speaker
It's available from your your nearest TAA retailer. Like Jay said, not a whole lot of them, but they're out there. um what makes this cigar different from the regular Knuckle Sandwich and all of the other offshoots? So the Knuckle Sandwich series, a lot of the releases have been kind of different wrappers, and this is a wrapper that I'm trying to remember if Hector said they had never used this wrapper before at Espinoza, or if that was a different cigar he was talking about, but I know that it hasn't been in the Knuckle Sandwich line, which is Pennsylvania Broadleaf.
00:05:23
Speaker
um So this is a Pennsylvania broadleaf wrapper on Nicaraguan binders and fillers. It is a six by 54 box press. um And it comes in at 16 bucks, 20 count box. Like I said, TAA exclusive.
00:05:39
Speaker
There are only 1,250 boxes made for now. um But maybe maybe someday we'll get to see more boxes. ah Dennis, have you lit the lit the cigar up yet?
00:05:50
Speaker
i have I have not yet. i i do need I still need to light up, but I will say the press on this is awesome. And it's, again, Vitola that, for me, is ah Of the cigars, of anything that I smoke, if I see something like this, I almost always pick it up in a shop, even if I've never had it before. It's it's just kind of like I know it's a Vitola that I will always enjoy.
00:06:14
Speaker
It always smokes great for me. And, dude, also the bands, we haven't really talked about the bands necessarily, but the bands are really, they're good looking. they I think they did such a great job, as with the other the other cigars in the series.
00:06:31
Speaker
It's very nice. And again, I always love, I love skulls, so I'm kind of partial. That's true. And off menu, of course, is a reference to ah when you're familiar enough with a restaurant
Coffee and Cigar Culture Connections
00:06:44
Speaker
to order off the menu.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yes, sir. Which, you know, is a kind of a cool thing to do. I didn't realize, but I did that today at the coffee shop. Oh. oh what So what did you order? Well, we we went to Dutch Brothers, which... What's that? it's ah It's what I refer to as a coffee shack.
00:07:03
Speaker
um so there're What's a coffee shack? They're different here. It comes from Oregon. That's where they were started. ah And they're everywhere there. There's 50 different brands of coffee shacks.
00:07:17
Speaker
But a coffee shack is a little... little box on the side of the road, usually in a parking lot, sometimes just on the side of the road in a, in a dirt parking lot. Um, but it has windows on both sides. You can drive up to either side, you know, opposing directions, order yourself a cup of coffee. Uh, and they do like espresso and stuff like that.
00:07:39
Speaker
Mixed espresso drinks. Um, but I've been ordering the same thing from them for like 10 years. So I get a 911, which is six shots of espresso chase with ah Irish cream.
00:07:53
Speaker
And then I like to get it with white coffee. They do white coffee, which is under roasted coffee, like very under roasted. Tastes like peanut butter and has like 30% more caffeine than regular coffee.
00:08:05
Speaker
Delicious. um I didn't realize neither of those are listed on the menu. The 911 and the white coffee aren't listed on the menu. okay oh They've never given me shit for ordering it. Um, They were on the menu years ago in Oregon, and I just... It's what I like, so I just order the same thing.
00:08:20
Speaker
Jay says, I love Dutch Brothers. One close to his house and close to the store. Hell yeah. Oh, cool. All right. Yeah. ben you I think it is... In my opinion, it is the best coffee chain.
00:08:31
Speaker
There is no better coffee chain than Dutch Brothers. Fight me. It's high praise. i I would say, you know, I i was the thinking about a trip, actually. i was coming back from...
00:08:42
Speaker
Somewhere. I don't know if it was the Dominican Republic or a Pro Cigar or something else. And I was at the Miami airport and I was in between flights and I went over to the Starbucks and I ordered my coffee order was basically an eight shot latte. I remember this.
00:08:58
Speaker
um Whatever size. I don't know. The large. What's what's the large? The grande, right? Venti? Venti? Maybe a venti. Yeah, maybe a venti. I can't figure it out. It was a big size. so I said eight shot latte. The lady behind the counter said How many shots do you want? I said, I want eight shots.
00:09:14
Speaker
And I ordered it, and i got my you know I got my order. And then after that, somebody came up to me and said, you smoke cigars? He gave me that look, like, you're a cigar smoker, right? I said, yeah. And actually, I think it from the trade after the trade show many years ago.
00:09:30
Speaker
um This was the guy that approached me. It was Mr. and mr Red Bull. I think it was on the way back from either Pro Cigar or... Some other trip to to down there, yeah.
00:09:42
Speaker
But ah this guy was like, yeah, I'm the guy that made the Red Bull cigar. you You know me. And i unfortunately, I didn't actually... I wasn't sure who that was, but he mentioned... Yeah, it was the cigar with the energy cigar, with that like the caffeine cigar. Yeah, the caffeinated cigar.
00:09:56
Speaker
um But it's funny, when you meet cigar folks and you're out and about, and you kind of... Depending on your coffee order, you can almost tell... that that someone else is a cigar smoker and like, yeah, I just came back from an event smoking 20 cigars a day.
00:10:10
Speaker
i need a proper heavy duty coffee, right? Yeah, you need a heavy coffee. Not just a normal human coffee, superhuman coffee. So it's it's funny, you know, where you go, how you meet other cigar folks. It's interesting how that happens.
Virginia Distillery Company Deep Dive
00:10:26
Speaker
Jay says he agrees. Dutch Brothers is the number one. He says demise and quality of Gloria jeans over the last 25 years. ah I'm not familiar with Gloria Jeans. Oh, yeah. No Gloria Jeans, actually. If if their quality's gone down, he says he says, Dutch Brothers is now number one.
00:10:43
Speaker
good ah Good on you, Jay. I'm glad you have one near you and you can experience the glory. They just opened it here like two weeks ago, three weeks ago, maybe. And we've been going every time we drive near.
00:10:55
Speaker
i' love I would love to get down on this. I've never seen this chain. I would love to try it out. I can say I'm very fortunate that my producer at work is a Cuban cat who loves cigars. He has a humidor at his desk. He's like, hey, man, there's stuff in there. if you want a cigar, come by. Grab a cigar. We'll go smoke a cigar during lunch. And he comes in, and he does Cuban coffee at his desk and just walks around and gives people...
00:11:20
Speaker
Little cups of coffee. Isn't that the best? It's that rocket fuel. It's that like proper Miami Cuban rocket fuel. Yeah, I love it. I love it. all right, let's get to some pairing.
00:11:31
Speaker
Jay had some predictions. He said Pennsylvania Broadleaf. I expect rye or some scotch with pee. Not quite, but you're not too far off. um I went with something a little different because I am doing a a a vertical with a right angle in it.
00:11:50
Speaker
That's what I'm doing tonight. um And I think because of that, I'm going to introduce my pairings in 1-3-2 order, but drink them in 1-2-3 order. I was going to say vertical with the right angle. It's very Masonic of you. Maybe maybe it's a maybe it's it's a vertical with a loop.
00:12:06
Speaker
It's still a vertical, but it loops around little bit. Yeah, but yeah um All right, so first up, I have a whiskey from Virginia. My parents ah happen to be... They had to go up north for a wedding, and they happened to drive near this distillery and went to check it out and brought me back a couple of bottles. So this is from Virginia Distillery Company.
00:12:28
Speaker
Oh, wow. And this is an American single malt whiskey. So Virginia Distillery Company has a really interesting... albeit pretty short history.
00:12:40
Speaker
They founded in Lovingston, Virginia in 2011 by an Irish immigrant named George Moore, very Irish name, um as a, they were founded as single malt only. He's an Irish guy who ma who likes scotch and he wanted to make single malt only, nothing else.
00:12:57
Speaker
Um... I think they probably have some other stuff, but their whiskeys that have their brand name are all single malts. um After he sold his tech company for $650 million, dollars a company called Targus Info,
00:13:12
Speaker
If you've ever bought a computer bag, you've probably seen the Targus logo. They did security stuff. They're a big theyre big deal.
00:13:22
Speaker
um So he had started that apparently in Virginia and lived in Virginia for a lot of his life after moving from Ireland. um Unfortunately, this is the sad part of the story. During the construction of the distillery in 2013, Moore had a heart attack and and passed away.
00:13:40
Speaker
um after he passed uh they paused construction and definitely while his wife kind of figured out what to do like he had this huge investment into a distillery that wasn't even done being built yet um and his son gareth said i think i think believe his son was like 19 20 at the time Um, and he wanted to see that what his father had been working on. So his, uh, when he came in for the funeral, his mom took him to the distillery and he kind of looked at it and was like,
00:14:13
Speaker
huh, I could do this. I could finish this. um So it was it was a couple of years before they like ah continued on the construction with figuring stuff out with the dad's estate and things like that.
00:14:25
Speaker
um So they didn't finish construction until 2015 and started distilling in their two 10,000 liter. That's a big still, boys. 10,000 liters Scottish made copper pot stills.
00:14:38
Speaker
So they bought these stills from Scotland. They're using all Scottish malted barley. um So all of their barley is imported from Scotland after malting. um Since opening, they've received a bunch of awards, includ including both Distillery of the Year and Whiskey of the Year in 2023 at the London Spirits Competition.
00:15:00
Speaker
Um, and they, they're focusing on their, their single malts there. And they're, I think they're doing a pretty good job there. Um, they basically, from my understanding, this is one of those ones where you don't like get a whole lot of info into the recipes, but when it comes to scotch, there's not usually much of a recipe.
00:15:19
Speaker
It's you just make the same thing and stick it in different barrels. um And that's what they do. So they um they have just normal virgin whiskey casks that they use, you know, unused, previously unused whiskey barrels.
00:15:35
Speaker
um And then they do a whole lot of finishing. So this is their their they're kind of classic American single malt whiskey. As you can see there, Blue Ridge Toasted Barrel Finish.
00:15:48
Speaker
um So what they do with this one is, come on, focus. They take the ah the single malt. They age it in first fill bourbon barrels.
00:15:59
Speaker
So these are he's had bourbon in them one time. And they have only been used once. So they're importing those, or not importing, but getting them from other distilleries ah that make bourbons.
00:16:14
Speaker
Then they finished them in virgin toasted oak barrels from oak harvested in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, which, you know, that old country road song, Blue Ridge Mountain, you know that thing? That's super cool. The fact that they do that first fill and then go into something that's completely unused, yeah I bet gives it a body that's that that's out of this world.
00:16:37
Speaker
It's very different. I can say that much. So they bottle this one at 93 proof. That's 46 and a half percent ABV. ah Price point on this is around $35 or $40, I think.
00:16:49
Speaker
um And as you can see, it's it's got some good color. Looks like a whiskey. I'm going to take couple sips, nose a little bit, let you know what I find.
00:17:05
Speaker
what What have you got up first, Dennis, while I give this a shot? So I'm, i'm ah just quick thing on the cigar. I lit the cigar. I'm just getting into it. Oh, we skipped tasting notes, didn't we? Because you lit cigar.
00:17:16
Speaker
you know, for first date first taste, it is, it's quite intense, I will say. It is not your, dare I say, not your father's cigar in that regard.
00:17:31
Speaker
It's got some power to it, and I don't want it to i don't wanna that seem like bite or bitterness or anything else. I think it's it's really lovely and sweet, very dark cocoa flavors, little bit that coffee note.
00:17:42
Speaker
um Leather, not so much. I was kind of hoping there' would be a little bit of a leather leather note on the you know off the first light, but Again, you know me, I'm not... The first third generally is kind of what i consider a throwaway.
00:17:56
Speaker
You're not a big fan of the first third of most. It's getting warmed up. It's almost not fair sometimes, I feel like. Unless it's cigar that I really know and I'm comfortable with. I almost don't want to say anything about the first third because it's it's just getting there. Especially with cigar that I've never had before.
00:18:12
Speaker
It's just warming up.
Chainbridge Distillery and Unique Spirits
00:18:13
Speaker
it's that The flavors are starting to develop. Now, I think it is very perfect with my first pairing. exactly for that reason, with that intensity that I mentioned, and also that that note that I got from it.
00:18:29
Speaker
ah Let me, excuse me, let me talk to you about something that Tripp, you and i we discovered together recently on our trip in in Miami when we traveled out of bounds, we traveled out to the Fort Lauderdale area.
00:18:44
Speaker
I call it out of bounds, Broward County, somewhere near Fort Lauderdale really. Davie, Florida, some may call it. And we were out there with our good friend on and we' we're kind of exploring stuff and it was great.
00:18:58
Speaker
And we stumbled upon this distillery, which I think blew us all the way. the three of us were. I mean, it was it was shocking. wild. You don't expect to walk into a place and have everything they make. be Yeah, as it was.
00:19:12
Speaker
Dude, it was wild, and it was also crazy to me that there wasn't a lot of people, there was nobody there actually when we showed up. More people showed up as we were leaving, but there was really nobody there. But, you know, it really, it it kind of really inspired me in a lot of ways because I got to see Eastern European folks bringing something to a populace that generally is not used to this kind of yeah Eastern European spirit and that style of spirit really as a whole.
00:19:41
Speaker
in In the U.S., we're kind of used to our very specific things. We kind of may stray ah ah it to one side or the other for things like scotch. We might stray away for things like mezcal, regional spirits, rums, of course, from the Caribbean, from Central and South America. We get into that stuff.
00:19:57
Speaker
This distillery, awesome, man. And so this is Chainbridge Distillery out in Davie, Florida. They were founded in 2019. So they had not been around for a really long time, but it's two brothers that came together, Adam and Attila Lenczysz.
00:20:12
Speaker
Hopefully I did not butcher the name. um My Hungarian is not as good as it once was, but Lenczysz, potentially if you want to get more Polish about it, but they kind of specialize in this old Eastern European style. And when I say that, I mean things like palinka. And palinka is a style of fruit brandy that is massively popular Central and Eastern Europe. It's a big deal. Everyone's making this stuff out of different fruits and things. And traditionally, this was made, ah you know, your grandma would make this in the backyard. And it was like a family thing. And every family in every neighborhood would have their own
00:20:53
Speaker
kind of version of it. So everybody generally would do things like plums. That's a very, very popular ingredient. But every family's recipe tasted distinctly different. And this was a very cool thing because historically what you would do is you'd make this thing or your grandma would make it whoever in the family would make it.
00:21:11
Speaker
And you would go out to things like Christmas parties and you would bring a bottle of your own thing, very similar to mezcal. Mezcal was discovered in this realm of families having dinners and meals and hanging out.
00:21:24
Speaker
It wasn't an industry until it became an industry. And people would bring their Mezcals to their other families and share their kind of insights and recipes and things, but they were all distinctly unique. And now we see this in the US with a lot of, I don't want call it single origin, but essentially individual village expressions.
00:21:45
Speaker
where people in small villages have access to larger companies that allow them to run the distillation, to bottle it, to to ship it out, get it to people in the hands in the U.S. and people in in ah you know outside of the U.S. as well.
00:22:02
Speaker
So now, their whole thing, they came in, they wanted to do something that was classically Hungarian, go back to the roots. And they really wanted to focus on the agriculture of Florida, South Florida specifically.
00:22:15
Speaker
So everything that they produce is completely local. There are no additives. There are no flavors. They use no neutral grain spirits either, which is kind of a big deal. And ah and I think in the world of... They're basically, from our understanding from what she said, they're distilling water with chunks of fruit in it.
00:22:33
Speaker
That is it. There's nothing else being fermented there. Correct. And so what they do is they mill, ferment, distill, and bottle everything on site. So that little space that we saw is where everything is being done and everything that they use is locally sourced.
00:22:51
Speaker
They don't use any syrups or extracts or anything else. Completely locally sourced. And what they do is they follow a traditional recipe from Hungary for the distillation of essentially what you want to make is ah is a brandy. So...
00:23:06
Speaker
It's a double distillation, traditional pot stills. They go through that process. They use a ton of raw material, so a ton of raw fruit, raw ingredients. they They do, you know, fruited stuff. They do, we had the beet.
00:23:21
Speaker
bees and which The the carrot. The carrot as well. um which was wild. And again, they're kind of very sustainably focused. So they're pushing back to anything that's spent that can be shared. They're they're selling it off to to use as animal feed. They're kind of giving back to the farmers that they're they're sourcing from, which is really cool. Now, what I'm having from them this evening, and and i'll I'll be fair and I'll say I'm kind of doing a vertical for for this this distillery tonight.
00:23:52
Speaker
The first thing I'm having which was lovely for my you know first pairing, I think, was this distilled beet. Now, look at these bottles. These bottles are really nice. 375 milliliter, really nice, classy bottles. Very, again, kind of very apparent European growing up. This is the kind of thing that I saw, except that's this nice label. It would be these kind of like slender bottles that somebody would bring with like a little paper label on it or something scratched on it with a knife. Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
I'm like, hey, you know, he's a masking tape with marker. Yeah. Yeah. Uncle Bob made this thing. Obviously, in the Soviets, we don't have bobs, but it'd be like Uncle Vyacheslav would make this thing and bring it down. So this one is from Beats, which is really cool and comes in at 40 percent.
00:24:41
Speaker
So a lot of their stuff is actually 40 percent, including the brandies made out of fruits and Which is kind of atypical to what we see in the U.S. Generally, when you go to the store and you you pick up a brandy, you're looking at maybe 25 to 30 percent, something like that, maybe 32.
00:24:58
Speaker
The European style of brandies, when anything is involved with fruit, they end up making it at least 40. And I've seen a couple at 45. Wow. wow So this stuff is wild because when you drink it, it tastes like beets. It tastes like if you take a beet, you pull it out of the ground, you rub off the the dirt off the outside of it, and you cut it open, you bite into it like an apple.
00:25:23
Speaker
This is what this tastes like. Or that is what this tastes like, say. It's true. that And you've you've had it too, right? Yeah. oh yeah it's and it's It's intensely earthy in such a wonderful way.
00:25:35
Speaker
And now I think it pairs exceptionally well with the first third of the cigar as it's ramping up with the intensity. And I should say, I wanted to wanted to point out this this lovely glass that I have.
00:25:50
Speaker
Oh, there you go. I've got my my cigar glass courtesy of my wife. She got me this lovely thing. I can put my spirits in there and it can hold my cigar. And this is a cigar that's perfect for this glass. It's like the right size.
00:26:04
Speaker
So it's, you know what? She knows me. She knows me very well. How's your first bearing going for you? ah Great. um I mean, this single malt, it reminds you of scotch, but it's not trying to imitate scotch. It's got a little more...
00:26:24
Speaker
little more cereal than most scotches have. A little more spice. Like, kind of ah almost, like, maybe Jay put this in my head, but a little bit of, like, a rye spice kind of on the palate.
00:26:38
Speaker
A little bit of that baking spice kind of thing going on as well. So what you're saying is you you probably are getting essence of that second barrel, that fresh barrel, untouched oak. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's definitely that, like, that oakiness to it. You know, those...
00:26:55
Speaker
kind of resiny kind of woodiness almost. Do you know what i mean? Like a little bit bitter. He's smiling at me. it's a particular It's a particular body that when you have a fresh cask untouched and you put something in there, especially if it's had some age on it,
00:27:14
Speaker
it very readily readily picks up the flavors of that fresh wood. And it becomes that, it's it's almost to your point, kind of resin-y. It's the chewiness of it.
00:27:24
Speaker
It increases the body quality of that spirit. Yeah, it's kind of got an oiliness to it. Yeah. little bit, like some scotches do. Yeah. Yeah, it's working really well with the cigar. The cigar is very, um like you were saying, very punchy, very spicy.
00:27:41
Speaker
um A lot of earth. Like, this is a very intense cigar, as you were saying before. it's it's It's punchy. Punchy is the right word. The cigar, ph you know, for me, it reminds me, there's an umami quality to the cigar that reminds me very much of a tonkatsu ramen.
00:27:58
Speaker
When you get the tonkatsu ramen, generally, it's not for everybody because people complain that it's a little bit too oily. There's too much fat in it. There's too much kind of intense flavor. i think that cigar embodies that flavor.
00:28:11
Speaker
Man, that's the intensity of the tonkatsu ramen. That is a long pull from like the back shelf. But it's spot on. What do you think? No, I get I think you're spot on. um It does have like that... Again, kind of like this this whiskey does. It kind of has like ah an oiliness to it.
00:28:30
Speaker
Almost. And the retrohale is fantastic. It really is. fan of retrohilling cigars. I know not everybody's into it, and it's it's one of those things. It's almost a... um What's the word? it's it's a It's a touchy subject for a lot of guys to smoke cigars.
00:28:48
Speaker
but Potentially divisive, yeah. But I think if if you are somebody that retro hails the cigar that you'll love for that experience, because you can smoke it and then you can retrohale it after and you can get a secondary experience that's similar but very distinctly different.
00:29:04
Speaker
Uniquely different. Yeah, absolutely. Oh,
00:29:10
Speaker
um yeah well oh I was like, there was something I was going to say, but I forgot what it was. How is the beat the beet juice working with the cigar? The earthiness of the beets?
00:29:23
Speaker
in the spirit because it's so clean and and and you know exactly what I'm talking about because you've had it as well on site when we were there. The earthiness works so well because it doesn't take away from the cigar, but it leaves this sort of this base where when I take a sip and then I take a draw from the cigar, it kind of accentuates the cigar's quality without taking away from it, which some spirits tend to do with cigars.
00:29:48
Speaker
As we've talked about, certainly Scotches kind of have that... that certainly Some Scotches don't work work well with certain cigars. And we know absolutely certain spirits don't work well. But it's really it's really good and it's really clean. Alright.
Bourbon County Stout and Beer Culture
00:30:04
Speaker
So for my second pairing, I have a long story about my third pairing. ah to kind of give you the background. Who's on first kind of situation, I understand. Sort of.
00:30:15
Speaker
ah So my third pairing, I'm not going to tell you what my second pairing is, but my third pairing yeah is our good friend, Bourbon County Stout from Goose Island Brewing. Bam.
00:30:26
Speaker
Bam. what can I say about Goose Island Brewery? They're a a classic in terms of barrel aging, uh, because they were, uh, supposedly the first to do it with, with stouts at least.
00:30:41
Speaker
Uh, barrel aging was a thing for a long time in Europe because, uh, for a long time beer existed, but kegs didn't only barrels did everything happened in barrels. Um,
00:30:52
Speaker
So barrel aging was a thing, but it wasn't really, ah you know, you weren't you weren't aging a spirit in a barrel and then aging beer in that barrel to give it more flavor. ah If that was happening, it was because you were out of barrels, but you had a barrel that used to have some kind of whiskey or something in it.
00:31:09
Speaker
So anyway, Goose Island Brewery, founded by John Hall in Chicago's Lincoln Park, neighborhood in 1988. ah John was inspired to start his own brewery after he spent some time in Europe and was like, wow, the beer culture here is so cool. How there's a pub everywhere.
00:31:26
Speaker
um You know, there's there's... You can go to a little town and there's a little brewery there that makes their own beer. You can't get anywhere else. And he was like, this is this is what I want to do. So he started his own ah pub room, or tap room rather, and brewery.
00:31:40
Speaker
ah I won't get too much further into the history of the company because there's a lot of history to talk about on bourbon county stout so goose island officially says this is the official story that uh the first release of ah bourbon county brand stout was released in 1992 or brewed in 1992 um but i found a very well researched version where they spoke with some brewers and uh some former employees of bourbon county and uh even greg hall himself uh who admitted that when he when he put the 1992 number there he was kind of like it was somewhere it it wasn't 1991 and it wasn't 1996 so it had to be somewhere in between there let's go 1992 i suspect this is pure speculation on my part that they used the 92 number because somebody else maybe made a
00:32:38
Speaker
Carol H stout around 93 or 94 and wanted to make sure that they were, were known as the first to do it. Uh, but either way, they were absolutely the first big guys to do it. Like the first ones who got, put it on the map.
00:32:53
Speaker
Um, So from the story that is well-researched, backed up by a couple of records, 1994, John's son, Greg, had become head brewer at Goose Island.
00:33:06
Speaker
He was kind of running event stuff for them, being kind of the face of the brewery for events um And he attended a beer, bourbon and cigar night in South Bend, Indiana, also in attendance from the bourbon side of the house. I want to know who was in attendance from the cigar side of things. only imagine. ah Because I've never heard of a story of anyone who was there. So if anybody knows, let me know.
00:33:29
Speaker
um But also in attendance from the bourbon side was Booker Noe, Jim Beam's grandson. Wow. Damn. And master distiller at the time at Jim Beam.
00:33:39
Speaker
ah The two became quick friends. You know, they're sitting around a campfire kind of thing, smoking cigars, drinking whiskey, enjoying, enjoying life, just telling stories.
00:33:51
Speaker
um Greg basically said, like, Booker, what do you guys do with all those barrels? You can only use those barrels one time. The hell do you do with them after they're empty? And he was surprised that most of them are shipped overseas to make rum, European spirits like scotch, or you know any number of other of other beverages, wine, Irish whiskey, all sorts of stuff is used as ex-bourbon barrels.
00:34:18
Speaker
um But he also told them about what he calls brewer's tea, which is where they basically take, they empty the barrel. It's still got a little bit of a whiskey juice in there.
00:34:30
Speaker
So they fill it up with water and then tap that into some glasses poured over ice. And, uh, they have what they call brewers to you, which is, you know, kind of a very lightly whiskey flavored water, which sounds delicious. And I want to try that.
00:34:44
Speaker
Um, Greg started joking around about the possibility of aging beer in a barrel and decided that with the legal landscape at the time, um basically the ATF was regulating beer at that time. It was before the, uh,
00:35:01
Speaker
What is the the regulatory body now? BTTB? Well, for spirits. No, there's one for beer, too. i thought it was BTTB, but it may may go by a different name. Either way. um
00:35:19
Speaker
Spirits and beer were regulated very differently at the time. And he was like, it would be a nightmare with ATF regulations to put something into a whiskey barrel, have minute amounts of whiskey in there. You know, technically you're selling beer that has whiskey in it and that's not okay.
00:35:35
Speaker
um But the idea was born nonetheless. About two weeks later, UPS guy shows up at the brewery with a single saran wrap barrel on a pallet and a handwritten note that said, thanks for a great dinner from book.
00:35:51
Speaker
um And this is the barrel that was used for the pilot batch of of Bourbon County barrel stout. Bourbon County brand stout. In 1995, the first batch was released.
00:36:05
Speaker
So whether it was brewed in 92 or 94, it remains up in the air. But the consensus is generally that it was actually brewed in 93 or 94. It was released as their thousandth beer release.
00:36:19
Speaker
um And it it changed the world. Bourbon Barrel Stout would not be what it is now without Bourbon County. like Bourbon County was the original one to do it. Since then, it's been released for about the last 30 years every Black Friday.
00:36:38
Speaker
actually exactly 30 years because this year was the 30th anniversary yeah yeah it was a big deal um they've always had special release versions where they're doing something else extra adjuncts different barrels um different just finishes on the beer um and you know the bourbon county is its own beast now uh we happen to know a guy this is my last bottle We were talking about our friend on in Miami. Shout out to on.
00:37:06
Speaker
He he's a collector of this. He's the guy, man. Talk about Bourbon County. He is the Bourbon County man of Florida. um So the brewery grew very quickly after releasing Bourbon County Stout. In 2006, they sold a steak to Widmer Brothers Brewery in Portland, Oregon.
00:37:26
Speaker
back where I used to live, um which allowed them to hugely increase their distribution. That was about the time when I started seeing Bourbon County hitting the shelves in Portland, which I didn't realize they had been owned by partially by Widmer at the time, which makes sense.
00:37:41
Speaker
um In 2011, they were bought entirely by AB b InBev. um Oh, wow. i didn't know that. Oh, yeah. ah But, I mean, to their credit, AB InBev has taken the Diageo approach here.
00:37:53
Speaker
They're expanding distribution. on They're not messing with the product. Like, the beer is still as good, I think. There are some complaints because recently they switched to, I think, 12-ounce bottles.
00:38:04
Speaker
yeah from Yeah, the bottle's not smaller. But to be fair, 12-ounce bottles were what they had years ago. before Before they had this style where it was embossed. Yeah, when they first launched. They had kind of a paper label. I mean, not even when they first launched. I think 2008 or so was last time I remember seeing one of those bottles. Oh, was it? Okay. It was like a craft paper-looking label.
00:38:26
Speaker
And, ah you know, those were 12-ounce bottles. It was only in 2014-ish, maybe, 2013-ish, that they switched to 16s. um And to be fair, to be fair, to be fair, ah this is a strong beer. You don't need 16 ounces in this beer.
00:38:44
Speaker
it's It is a beer that when you open up, you want to share it with somebody. Absolutely. I happen to share it you know As is most barrel-aged beers, generally speaking, you're going to want to share with somebody because, number one, I think your palate is going to get blown out if you if you go through a whole bottle yourself. Number two, I think it's one of those things that almost with the higher alcohol content, you kind of naturally want to share it with someone and split a bottle three ways or two ways or whatever, it with somebody. But that's the magic of barrel-aged stuff.
00:39:17
Speaker
yeah It's intense, it's unique, it's funky, and when you meet your friends that kind of really like that same sort of funk, it lends itself well to the community that loves this kind of beer.
00:39:27
Speaker
Because generally those are the people that when you when you're out somewhere, they go, hey, I got some stuff, you want to try it? And it's almost always going to be at least, well, in my circles, it's a sour, but most circles, it's it's a barrel-aged beer.
00:39:41
Speaker
Even if it's most usually a sour, there's probably going to be a barrel-aged beer not far behind it. okay Because barrel-aged beer is is just made for sharing. You're right. Absolutely. um All right.
00:39:53
Speaker
Now, to circle back to my second pairing, Virginia Distillery, has a series they like to call ah the Brewers Coalition, where they do various finishes partnered with different breweries.
00:40:07
Speaker
um And this one that my dad happened to grab me. I don't think my dad even knows what Bourbon County brand stout is, ah but this is the one he got. It's Bourbon County stout finished American single malt whiskey.
00:40:22
Speaker
That's cool, man. So, this is... ah This is the ah presumably the same, uh, mash bill, hundred percent. It's got a Scottish malted barley.
00:40:34
Speaker
Um, so the spirit going in that theoretically I'm guessing be pretty much identical. Uh, but instead this time they only had 20, uh, they were able to get 20 goose Island barrels.
00:40:46
Speaker
So this was a pretty small release. This is the second time they've released this edition. um
00:40:53
Speaker
aged in ex-bourbon barrels for five years, over five years, then they finish it in the Bourbon County barrel. um So it looks the same, but like on the nose...
00:41:06
Speaker
you really can smell that bourbon. You get that vanilla, that chocolate, that kind of coffee vibe going. And the reason I wanted to switch it is because bourbon county is such an intense stout.
00:41:18
Speaker
I feel like it should actually go after whiskey and not before it because it's so heavy on your palate. It's such a rich, flavorful beer that ah I feel like I wouldn't be able to taste this after after drinking some. Yeah.
00:41:36
Speaker
And speaking of sharing it, I did i poured my dad a glass of each. Yeah, so what what did he say? here I didn't get a chance to to find out, so I get to ask after the show. find All right. um thats And just for for the edification of Dennis, I put some of this in little bottle swing.
00:41:54
Speaker
Oh, hey. All right. All right. So that'll be that'll be heading your way pretty soon. I'm jazzed. Now that I've told you about both my second and third pairings, but I'm only going to try the second one for now.
Palenka: A Cultural Exploration
00:42:05
Speaker
tell us about your second part. Oh, man. So, you know, I mentioned going through this vertical with with Chain Bridge. i I really wanted to showcase this distillery in a lot of for a lot of different reasons, specifically because it it kind of blew me away. I've been to a lot of distilleries around the country and a lot of distilleries around the world. I've been very fortunate to experience this.
00:42:29
Speaker
very small distilleries and very large scale distilleries and kind of see what they're doing, how they're operating, well you know, the different types of stills, which is a crazy science in and of itself.
00:42:43
Speaker
when you When you finally get to a point when you understand enough about stills, when you come in and you see a still and you go, man, that's 1950s, roughly, Germany, northern Germany, you can pick that still out. And you know there are only three companies that make those stills.
00:42:57
Speaker
And sure enough, they bought a still from that company, custom-made. It's that kind of thing, right? When you get really kind of nerdy about it. Oh, yeah. I wanted to focus on these guys because I loved so much of what they did, all the different expressions. But I mentioned they're from Hungary. And in Hungary, there's ah there's a spirit that is essentially considered the... It's it's basically the the the spirit of Hungary.
00:43:23
Speaker
It's the way we consider mezcal and tequila coming from Mexico. Hungary is known for palinka. And palinka, as I mentioned earlier, is this fruit brandy thing. It's distilled from 100% fermented fruit. There's no added sugar. There's no added flavoring.
00:43:38
Speaker
There's no neutral alcohol added. It's just fruit. They ferment fruit and they distill it. That's it. It's kind of like if if if whiskey is to Scotland and Mezcal is to Mexico, then Palenka is going to be to Hungary.
00:43:52
Speaker
Wow. It's that legit. And when I say that legit, I mean there's some teeth to this because there are specific rules and it's protected under EU law. So under EU law, if you call this Palenka, it has to be produced in Hungary or a couple of different Austrian regions. Primarily, it's going to be Bergenland Austria.
00:44:15
Speaker
But what they do is they distill whole fermented fruit mash, no sugar, no additives, nothing else. There's a minimum. So it has to be bottled at a minimum of 37.5 ABV.
00:44:26
Speaker
And it must be technically, officially, if we're talking about this, this is going back to the whole mezcal thing with the agave. It has to be distilled from fruit grown in Hungary. Now, this one is fruit sourced from Florida. So you You can argue that it's not really Palenka in that. You could say it's like Palenka, but you're not allowed to legally say that it's Palenka.
00:44:47
Speaker
Yeah, you you know, in the U.S. I think it's not on the label. Yeah, but with Palenka, it's a little bit less serious in the U.S., I think, because it's not as a well-known thing. Like mezcal, for example, if somebody's producing mezcal in the U.S. and they say, oh, I'm making mezcal, they're going to get shut down real fast. Oh, yeah.
00:45:06
Speaker
You can't do that. Now, going back to Ponca, it's really cool because it goes back to the olden days, the 14th century, which was originally made from grain and kind of used like an aquavit.
00:45:19
Speaker
Like it it was just a every man's type of spirit. And it was really what you had on hand. Whatever the farmers had on hand is what they made the spirits from. and the spirits ended up providing secondary income during the colder months when they were not selling their their fruits or grains or whatever else they were producing.
00:45:38
Speaker
Oh, that makes sense. Initially, started the grain. Now, fast forward to the 1700s, they went full fruit. 1700s, full fruit. You had your farmers and your people, your local people doing this thing. But it became so popular that eventually, around the 1800s, Polinka became a household staple. and as I mentioned earlier, this was something that every family, every household, some member of the family was producing.
00:46:06
Speaker
um You know, even within one neighborhood, you had every family was making the same kind of thing from the same plums from the same farm that was local to them. but It was a little bit different.
00:46:17
Speaker
was a little bit unique and it was special. And because it was special, they use it for things like weddings, for harvest festivals, even funerals, believe it or not. it It was the traditional thing to share and it was highly respected.
00:46:32
Speaker
Eventually, there was some legality that came around this when the EU came in and they kind of put some rules around what this could be, what it could be called. Now, I mentioned double distillation on everything they do.
00:46:46
Speaker
Generally, when you talk about double distillation, you're looking at a stripping run and you're looking at a spirit run. So you do your stripping run, you get most of your kind of not great stuff out and then you run it again.
00:46:59
Speaker
And when you run it again, the second time you're really pulling up things that that the, the, the, the congeners that you really want. The ones that are going to give you good taste, but also the ones that give you a little bit of an aroma.
00:47:14
Speaker
And now, generally speaking, aging is not really a thing. Some regions will do aging. They'll throw some stuff in a barrel. They'll kind of age it in in like mulberry or oak casks.
00:47:27
Speaker
Mulberry is an interesting choice. Very you're Eastern European. very um But generally speaking, that's not the common thing. The common thing is like, yeah, do a clear clear spirit, white spirit, if you will.
00:47:41
Speaker
Straight from fruit. The one that I'm having for my second pairing is, let me get this bottle.
00:47:49
Speaker
Is the, where's my can now? Here we go. Let's see if it comes up. Plum brandy. it's the It's the plum brandy. And again, one of these really cool, slim 375 bottles.
00:48:03
Speaker
This one comes in at 40% as the other one did. And to me, it you know, i and you were there when I was talking to the lady there.
00:48:14
Speaker
To me, it's it's so reminiscent. I have this nostalgia because when I lived in Prague, I drank a lot of Sliva Vice. And Sliva Vice is basically the same thing. is plum brandy, Czech Republic.
00:48:27
Speaker
I drank a lot of that stuff. And I experienced Palenka from Hungary and Sliva Vice from Czech Republic. Well, it turned out she had lived in in Prague too at some point, right? She did. She did, yeah. Not not far from where I lived, actually.
00:48:45
Speaker
And it is one of the those those things that to me is so ingrained in my mind and my experiences. You know, when you go into a bar you've never been to before and you don't know anybody and you sit down and you have a drink and somebody goes, hey, what's your deal?
00:49:01
Speaker
And you start chatting. And eventually what happens is they end up saying, you know what, let's have a drink. We're going drink the the local thing. And sure enough, in the Czech Republic, it's always almost always going to up being Sliva Vista.
00:49:16
Speaker
they They bring it out, this is plum brandy, and you share that experience. And markedly, in the Czech Republic, at least when you when you do Sliva Vista shots with somebody, and it's someone that you are friendly with and you've built some kind of rapport with,
00:49:31
Speaker
You don't say cheers or to your health or, you know, but all the things that are said around the world. You don't say that. In the Czech Republic, you say ciao. And ciao is goodbye.
00:49:43
Speaker
And it is you are cheersing one one another because you may never see each other again. And this is the last moment you're going have together, potentially. So you say goodbye. And it means it means really good fortune, Godspeed in your travels.
00:49:57
Speaker
We may never meet. And if we don't, good luck to you. That's cool. And it means a lot. And Sliva Vitsa and Palenka and all these things, because they came from the they came from these farmlands and these small villages, there's a lot of meaning behind that.
00:50:14
Speaker
When people say that to you, that's that's a term of endearment, and that's really special. You're not going to get that from some random schmo sitting at a bar that's like, oh, let's have a drink. It's not like that. Somebody does that for you, that means they respect you, they like you,
00:50:30
Speaker
And they want to share this moment because this is probably your last moment together. And it's beautiful. So I'm drinking this this ah proper Palenka classic style. Generally served, actually I should have mentioned this served without ice.
00:50:46
Speaker
Almost never. Like if you see this ice. That's the best spirits are. Well, there's a reason for it too, because you want it to be a little bit warmer around room temperature because you want to get that aroma. You want to be able to smell the fruit.
00:50:59
Speaker
And there's a ton of fruit on the nose that you may may remember from our time in in Florida recently. There's a ton of fruit on the nose. But also once you drink it and once you exhale and once your palate kind of starts to break down what was going on, you get this back end of really intense fruit.
00:51:18
Speaker
Most people go, God damn, that's that's like break cleaner, right? It's really intense. But then the back end of it is plums. And it's it's a really interesting, almost divisive in that sense, freshness that that comes out. Now, this particular thing is consumed regularly.
00:51:39
Speaker
you know Depending on the country, generally speaking, it's been consumed before a meal. So this is what would will be what would be considered a like pre-meal palate cleanser.
00:51:50
Speaker
An aperitif. Almost an aperitif. I almost don't want to go into the aperitif state because it's... Not technically. It's a one and done. Like an aperitif, you kind of sip on right? This, you hit it, you put down your shot,
00:52:06
Speaker
And that's it. And we're starting. And that it starts the rest of the meal. It starts the beginning of the meal, I should say. And, you know, because of that, it's considered something that you would want to consume during celebrations and something that if you want to, for example, if we're all hanging out together and I want to make a toast to somebody and say, hey, man, I i appreciate you had a baby or you had a promotion or something else in your life that was really nice. I'm going to celebrate that. We're going do this thing.
00:52:34
Speaker
And it starts and finishes. And this is the thing that I think makes it different than an aperitif because it has a finish. yeah meaning Meaning an end. I should say meaning an end.
00:52:44
Speaker
An aperitif sits on the palate. It lingers. it's An aperitif kind of keeps that that wetness of the palate going for you to want to eat something. This is one of those things where it's like you hit it, you do your thing, that's it.
00:52:59
Speaker
All right. I like it. And it's beautiful. Okay. How was your second pairing for you? It's great. It's working really well with the cigar. it's like It really has the essence of Bourbon County Stout.
00:53:14
Speaker
is Like I said on the nose, those chocolatey flavors, that like roasty char kind of bitterness that you get from those toasted malts, specifically on Bourbon County, um is there.
00:53:32
Speaker
um It finishes with some heat on the palate because I forgot to mention, and may not be bottled in Bond, but this is 100 proof. Because they really want to... They want you to get as much flavor as you can out of it, you know?
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's really good. And it still has, like, those baking spice, rye spice kind of notes up front, which is really interesting because for the for the briefest moment...
00:54:00
Speaker
These whiskeys taste almost the same when they hit your palate. And then after a second, you start getting all those darker, more intense flavors in this in this stout finished version.
00:54:11
Speaker
Man, great. and And again, you know, I think when we when we try spirits specifically, I think there's a beauty to it that if you've ever spent any time with...
00:54:22
Speaker
um any distillers or or or you know folks that are involved in distilling world in Scotland, they always kind of emphasize opening your mouth. Keep your mouth open, like let your your nose breathe, and when you taste something, you are tasting it as much from your nose as you are tasting from your from your mouth and your tongue and the back of the palate.
00:54:44
Speaker
For that reason specifically, because you want to get the whole essence, and the essence comes on the back end. Yeah, there's kind of a... Not talked about enough, like a lot of things we talk about.
00:54:55
Speaker
ah kind of You can kind of retrohale a spirit. You don't want to blast whiskey out your nose. But if you do the the same muscular exercise as retrohaling a cigar while you have whiskey in your mouth, you get a little bit of that on your in your nose, and you can like i don't know you can pick up more flavor. You can taste
00:55:18
Speaker
because you're using those olfactory senses as well. Absolutely. I should have mentioned also, you know, i talk about the Czech Republic when we say chow.
00:55:30
Speaker
they They say, didn't say we, but they say chow when you have Sli Bovice. Now, Palinka in classical Hungarian culture, they actually have their own specific toast, which I'm going butcher because my Hungarian is not great.
00:55:48
Speaker
But, Ege Shege Dre. Right? Ege Shege Dre. Dre, Dre, Dre. It's hard because it's my brush and comes out and it kind of ruins it. But, Ege Shege Dre is like a, it's stands to your health kind of deal.
00:56:06
Speaker
But it's only used for Palenka. Nothing else. You can have whiskey, you can have anything else. You don't say that. And if you do it, you're going trouble. but But the Achesie-a-dry thing is it comes out for Palenka, and it speaks to the the special quality of it. It's kind of a really special spirit.
00:56:27
Speaker
um And now, you know how we talked about gypsy brewing many times on the show with beer? The cool thing is in Europe for a long time, especially in Hungary, they had the a kind of next level of beer.
00:56:43
Speaker
gypsy thing where if you were a farmer and you had fruit, every once in a while, there'd be a truck that would come by. And you come in and you bring your baskets of fruit and they give you a ticket.
00:56:55
Speaker
And you leave and you go home and you come back Truck comes back in a couple of weeks. They come back. they give you your you you you you You trade in your ticket for a distilled spirit. they distill They used to do truck distilling in Hungary. i don't know if they still do it, but historically they would do this thing. It was really cool. and It's kind of like this gypsy brewing thing of I remember in late 2000s, if you were a home brewer and you were making beer, all you had to do was put your beer in a keg.
00:57:24
Speaker
And you can bring it to a truck, literally on the side of book of a bodega. There'd be a truck. You bring your keg to the truck. You pay whatever the fee was. And they would um they they they would ah can all your beers for you. yeah And it's wild.
00:57:43
Speaker
and's It's one of those things. It's cool. That's awesome. I think you just came up with a business idea. We could do that in the U.S., go around distilling people's fruits. Let's do it. Drive all over the country.
00:57:54
Speaker
I think MGP's got you beat, baby. Probably. I'm sure they do. All right. how was How was your last pairing? How did work with the cigar? This is my second pairing, baby. Sorry. I'm i'm getting hey now turned around because I did mine in a weird order. How's your second pairing working with the cigar?
00:58:14
Speaker
Yeah, man. It's good. I think... I think really for me personally, and and again, this is just my background, my Eastern European background. I have a kind of a pout for this kind of stuff already. So maybe I'm a shoo-in for for these kinds of spirits.
00:58:30
Speaker
But it's working really well. And I think distinctly different from the first. The first one was very earthy, very intense on the beats. The plum is...
00:58:42
Speaker
what you would consider a classic clean spirit. So for example, ah the if I were to put in perspective, the first one would be something like, um oh boy. The first one be kind of like a high rye. Okay.
00:58:59
Speaker
A high rye whiskey. The second is something closer to a mezcal.
00:59:06
Speaker
In terms of kind of the the way that it sits on the palate. And I think it works really well with the cigar because now the cigar's warmed up. I'm probably a little bit further than you. ah Just about the same.
00:59:19
Speaker
Same? Okay. so I might even be a little further along, but I will smoke mine in like 15 minutes. you know Where the cigar is now, I think it's a really good place for something like this plum brandy, especially at 40%, because it holds well to the cigar, but again, it doesn't take away from the cigar.
00:59:37
Speaker
I can also see it working well because it's got like... I mean, the I remember that plum brandy not being like super sweet, not candy sweet or anything, but it's got like a a so a richness...
00:59:50
Speaker
of sweetness to it a little bit. um Like, it's not, i don't know, it's not unsweet, but it's got some sweetness. And the cigar to me is like almost not sweet at all. There's almost no sweetness for me.
01:00:04
Speaker
It's got like dry cocoa. um Like, think of that like 100% cacao kind of cocoa. Like a little bit bitter, barr ah very rich, but no sweetness whatsoever.
01:00:19
Speaker
There's a dustiness to it that I think works really well. There's a dustiness. There's still a ton of spice going on. Which, generally, to be fair, I think the you know the dustiness for me of drives me nuts, and i and I almost always hope that it goes away after the first third.
01:00:38
Speaker
But in this case, i yeah um I'm um embracing it. i think I feel like it works pretty well with this one. Yeah. And again, the Vitola itself is really fantastic because of that that press on it.
01:00:50
Speaker
It's very nice.
01:00:53
Speaker
um True, true. Alright, I'm going to move on to my last pairing, which, as I said, i don't have a whole lot to say about this one because it's Bourbon County Stout. um I have a bottle of 2021 vintage here. Trying to find the ABV. It's high. I know that much. 14%.
01:01:09
Speaker
That's lot. Do you remember... that's a lot so now what do you remember if well Do you remember what your first barrel-aged stout was? Was it Bourbon County? Was it something else?
01:01:21
Speaker
Do you recall? The first time as a young beer drinker when you experienced barrel-aged beer, it was probably very intense, as as it was for me. It kind of threw me back, and I didn't know what to do with I believe it was Bourbon County Stout. Was it? Okay. i It was like I had heard about it, but I'd never tried it. This would would have been...
01:01:46
Speaker
2007 or 8. I worked at Yahoo at the time.
01:01:53
Speaker
and And we did a thing called Beer Fridays where we would, on Friday, we would go to the grocery store buy a beer, bring it to work. It was great.
01:02:05
Speaker
You fancy tech folk, you. yeah it was it was This was a time they eventually started talent saying, you know how about how about How about no one more no more beer Fridays?
01:02:17
Speaker
Because it became a thing. Like a bunch of people were doing it. For a while, it was just my team that was doing it. um But like, you know, on 4th of July, they would have hot dogs and beer. that they would This was a call center, and they would they would roll a cart around, be like, grab a beer, grab a hot dog.
01:02:33
Speaker
Roll up, and you're on the phone with a customer going...
01:02:38
Speaker
Trying to mute yourself in between bites was great. you know You know what happened to me a couple weeks ago? I walked in with with some members of my team for a meeting. I walked into a conference room, a large conference room. I walked in and we're like, it smells delicious in here. What's going on?
01:02:54
Speaker
It smelled so good. It smelled like if you've ever been to Nathan's in new York City, that smelled distinctly of that that hot dog smell, right? And it turned out it was somebody's cologne? No. So it turned out that before I was in that room, we were in that room for that meeting.
01:03:10
Speaker
Members of the IC team, um they they had purchased this like portable hot dog cooker thing. It looks like a toaster, but it's for hot dogs.
01:03:23
Speaker
I've seen that. And you load them in there. You load them in there. right you push the thing down and they pop up. yeah So they were hanging out for lunch and they were cooking all these hot dogs in this conference room.
01:03:35
Speaker
And it just was so pervasive. It just stuck to the walls. And it was great because that room generally does not smell. It smell usually smells like farts. So anyway, I remember somewhere around 2007 8,
01:03:52
Speaker
I'm trying to remember if there was any other barrel-aged stouts that I had, or bourbon barrel-aged beers that I had before that. But I think this was the first time. And i I had been in this grocery store, and I had seen this $14 bottle of beer.
01:04:09
Speaker
And I was like, got this cool, papery label, and... I don't know anything about it, but it's 14 bucks, which is crazy. That's how much, that's more than a six pack of lot of like a double, double IPA or something like that.
01:04:26
Speaker
And I just kept walking past it and seeing it and being like, it's still there. And then I remember reading or hearing about like Bourbon County Stout. People are going crazy for it. They wait in line on Black Friday and I'm like, oh, that's the one that there's been a bottle of sitting on the shelf at the grocery store for three months.
01:04:44
Speaker
So i was like, oh, sure, I'll try it. And I thought it was bad. I thought it had gone bad. I thought this beer has somehow, against all laws of science, this beer turned into soy sauce inside this bottle.
01:05:01
Speaker
Maybe they accidentally switched it at the Kikoman factory, and and we got soy sauce instead of beer in this bottle. But I i i probably had four or five sips, and I was like, this is not for me.
01:05:15
Speaker
It's just too intense. too much fla Too many flavors I don't like at maximum volume. i've had like I've had a couple of barrel-aged stouts at like 18 or 19% that first sip was Just kind of like a gag reflex of, oh, I don't know. You do one of those? This was pretty early on in my exploration of beer.
01:05:45
Speaker
So I knew I liked IPAs, and I was just kind of trying other stuff. And ah yeah, Bourbon County was not a win for me at that point. ah But obviously, I've since come around on it.
01:05:59
Speaker
I think my palate was not ready for the onslaught that is this beer. Like, this beer is more intense than... mean, there's probably half a percent of beers that are on the level of this one that are like, they're so intense, so powerful that they can be off-putting um to even seasoned drinkers of of similar stuff. Like, if you love barrel-aged stouts, there's no guarantee you're going like Bourbon County because it is it it is more intense than most in its in its class.
01:06:38
Speaker
You know, to to a degree, I kind of almost felt like that that that sort of similar way about Prairie Bomb when I first had it. And i you know I think I didn't like it as much at first because when it was served to me, it was served in a small small glass, but it was really cold. and when I think that was probably actually part of the problem with this Bourbon County is because I drank it icy ice cold.
01:07:06
Speaker
you can't You can't do that. It's going to bite you. I didn't know at the time. This one, i like I said, I've since learned this one spent 20 minutes in the fridge. I tossed it in for 20 minutes. I took it out for probably 20 minutes before I even poured it So it just got a little bit of chill to it. A little cooler than room temperature is what you want.
01:07:24
Speaker
yeah Ice cold is no good for this stuff. Because I feel like it... In contrast to what most... Like what chilling most beer does, like chilling Bud Light, it covers up all those those unpleasant flavors. yeah And all you get is that crispness.
01:07:44
Speaker
With this... You get a little bit of sweetness and you get like that bitter, ah like that charcoal-y kind of bitterness.
01:07:55
Speaker
And that's all you get on your palate. Nothing else. um You can't taste like the, you know, the the coffee, the chocolate, the vanilla, all those other flavors that are in this beer you lose out on if it's ice cold.
01:08:10
Speaker
Absolutely. Agreed. All right. What's your last pairing while I drink some more of this? i don't know, actually. What what is my last pairing? don't know what and um While you figure that out, but ah I'll talk about some comments because I've been falling way behind on that. So Jay Davis' is pairing tonight was a test blend from the Dominican Republic with Corojo wrapper for YoYo98 binder, Esteli, San Vicente, and Allure in the filler.
01:08:38
Speaker
Goddamn. that That's a fancy That sounds different. um Man, Esteli and Allure together is a combo you don't see very often. And he paired that with a triple espresso with a dab of heavy whipping cream. My man.
01:08:51
Speaker
You know my language, Jay. um he ah He also was talking about... he He tried some brandies from the Napa Valley wineries. Oh, cool. Okay. That were similar to the stuff you're talking about. Like the... the <unk>ka um that were like 135 proof. His wife loves them.
01:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, they're lovely. and And you know, it's interesting. So my third pairing from them is something that is markedly not Hungarian. It's very much Italian. It is an Italian... is an italian i almost want to call it Amaro, but I... It's not actually there. yeah I don't know if the Italians would call this an Amaro officially.
01:09:35
Speaker
So I'm not going to do that. But the my final pairing, let me see if I can get this on camera for you.
Nocino and European Folklore
01:09:42
Speaker
Hold on. I would put this in the Digestivo range. It is, yeah, very much Digestivo, yeah. this So this is Nocino.
01:09:52
Speaker
This is Nocino produced by this distillery, same distillery, Chainbridge, down in Florida in Davie, Davie, Florida. um Hold on, let me see what the... This comes in at 34%.
01:10:05
Speaker
thirty four percent
01:10:08
Speaker
And now, classically, Nocino is a... It's almost like an introduction to Amaro's, I think. it's It's a good way to probably that's say it is... That is a good way to think of it.
01:10:20
Speaker
It is something that's been around for a long time, and it's very specific, but it's also very light and kind of sweet compared to a lot of Amaro's or Amari that you can get in Italy.
01:10:32
Speaker
This is entirely walnut-based. So this is a walnut herbal liqueur. It's made by steeping fresh green walnuts in high-proof alcohol. And, yeah, and then they add some sugar to it. They add some spice to it.
01:10:46
Speaker
There's a little little bit of flavor that comes out on the back end. Now, traditionally, what they do is they ho they harvest while the husks are still soft. So they're soft enough where you cut them with a knife.
01:10:59
Speaker
They pop those open and they use that for their ferment and eventually for their distillation. um It's considered also really not kind of a commercial Amaro because...
01:11:12
Speaker
generally people kind of make this at home. It's a, you know, like Limoncello. Limoncello is made at home. It's it's a homemade thing. Yeah, there are brands that sell Limoncello, but generally Limoncello is a thing that somebody makes and brings to the party kind of stuff.
01:11:27
Speaker
Yes. And now so there's some paint there's some cool pagan roots to this. um Some roots to St. John's Eve as well. The whole thing about the Feast of San Giovanni,
01:11:41
Speaker
was a big deal. And so they would harvest all these things and and make this during that time. And it was meant to be more of a ritualistic beverage. It was a beverage that was tied to some kind of greater thing that was happening, some kind of religious ritual, some kind of celebration.
01:11:58
Speaker
um
01:12:00
Speaker
There's some weird folklore to this as well. So the four of the the old Italian folklore so says that women would harvest the walnuts barefoot before dawn when the dew was believed to seal in the walnuts magic. And so you had to harvest this during that time. Right, right. Yeah, where you had to squeeze it in, right?
01:12:21
Speaker
um But now this concept of Nocino has traveled around the world to Australia, to Argentina, to the US, popularized in California and the Midwest, which is wild.
01:12:32
Speaker
And it's now it's a thing, it's and it's a big thing. The cool thing with this, the green walnuts, why do they use green walnuts? Predominantly, it's because they have high citric acid content, the tannins are massively strong,
01:12:46
Speaker
And the husks themselves really are, because they're still soft, they're full of juice. And so that juice goes into that final product that goes into what the ferment really is.
01:12:58
Speaker
And it's really kind of maceration. Ultimately, what happens is they add things like cinnamon and clove, ah lemon peel, vanilla bean, sometimes coffee beans, depending on the region that you're in.
01:13:10
Speaker
and More so, depending on the specific region, sometimes they add black pepper and cocoa nibs and baileys, things that are kind of really interesting in in their flavor qualities.
01:13:22
Speaker
And um what they do is they they put it in a jar, they kind of shake it up, because the spirit's already done, right? But you want this thing to ferment a little bit. You want it to cook, essentially.
01:13:33
Speaker
And they put all that stuff in a jar and they shake it up and they just let it sit on the table until it gets dark. And dark... I guess I can't really see. Hold it up a little bit more.
01:13:49
Speaker
There we go. It's kind of darkish, but what happens is they put this in a jar. It all sits. It macerates over time. Generally, you're looking at about 40 days, 40 plus days for for this kind of thing.
01:14:00
Speaker
um And then sugar's added on the back end to kind of level it off, if you will. Palatize it a little bit. Yeah, to palatize it a little bit, um you know what they say is realistically the the the best point for a Nocino is about a year in terms of aging.
01:14:20
Speaker
A year gives it that smoothness. it It mellows the flavors out just the right way. Some people like to age it longer than that. But again, this is something that's done family to family. So everyone has their own process.
01:14:33
Speaker
And it's just it's it's kind of a cool thing. you know Different regions do it a different way, but you always get that really intense walnut flavor. And you know sipping on this, to me, I'm thinking, well, I want to use this in a cocktail. Well, maybe Black Manhattan will be great with this.
01:14:50
Speaker
oh Yeah, i feel like that can be used kind of in place of any kind of sweet ingredient. um Like i mean a Manhattan...
01:15:03
Speaker
Manhattan, I don't know. Manhattan, maybe you use it in addition to the grenadine, or the grenadine, vermouth, as the sweet element rather than the sweet vermouth.
01:15:15
Speaker
um But you could also use it ah in place of orange liqueur I don't know, ah like ah an old-fashioned that has orange liqueur, because you don't usually use it, but sometimes you.
01:15:28
Speaker
There's a name for that, but I can't remember what it is and and And this again, going back to the spirits of of classic Europe and and the lore of Europe, if you go get down into kind of like the weeds, this was considered something that you would have to drink to ward off the evil spirits, especially if it was made on St. John's Eve.
01:15:50
Speaker
When is that? Do you have any? I don't recall. No problem. wouldn i didn't expect i wouldn't expect anybody to know that. When is John's Eve? Oh boy, there are people that know it. I don't remember. ah June 24th. Okay. Around there, yeah. Because the Feast of St. Giovanni is St. John the Baptist, right? So during that time...
01:16:14
Speaker
They would do the harvest and then this would be consumed later in the year. So you would age it up until like Christmas time, the winter time and winter time generally being a time when the fields are barren and the harvest is not fruitful.
01:16:29
Speaker
You would consume this as a way to protect against the evil spirits so that you can go into the spring with a good sort of a protective seal over yourself, essentially.
01:16:40
Speaker
Makes sense. but But again, you know these spirits that we love, there's so much story behind them. There's so much lore behind them. And there's this element of community behind all this stuff and culture.
01:16:52
Speaker
And it's tons of people that did this and cared about this thing, did the thing. And whether you're into it or not, it's kind of cool because to them it meant a lot. And it had a purpose in their life cycle of...
01:17:07
Speaker
life, really. When you look at things like the harvest season, the the way that, you know, in the U.S., we we look at holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving, and then we have Christmas and we have Easter. and These holidays follow these different solstices that, yeah in their own way, provide one way or another or force us to provide Things like the wintertime, right? In the summer, you do your harvest so that the wintertime is solid.
01:17:37
Speaker
You do your pickling. You do your your preserv preservation of different root vegetables. And then you have something to feed your family during the wintertime. And then once that you come out of that,
01:17:49
Speaker
So it makes sense. I i could absolutely see this. my Myself being a farmer, you know, in the in the but Eastern Europe somewhere, ah getting ready for the wintertime, beat the cold, doing the hunting, doing the preparation, and then just sort of warding off the spirits so that I can get to that new harvest in spring.
01:18:08
Speaker
So in that sense, a really cool spirit, but it's really cool that they did this because they are not Italian in any way. But I think coming from Hungary and having the roots of something like Palenka, they really respect and appreciate someone else's culture.
Unique Gin Flavors Discussion
01:18:24
Speaker
And they respect and appreciate the meaning of doing something like going off of the land.
01:18:31
Speaker
Yeah. And making something cool. So again, that... When I brew beer, it's the same kind of deal. I'm going to be distilling soon as well. um Unfortunately, not legally able to sell, but I might be able to share some with certain people here and there, and we'll share some stuff. Personal consumption.
01:18:51
Speaker
I'm not going to tell you I'm making a New Jersey mezcal, but I might be making a New Jersey mezcal in the fire pit, roasting my piñas in the fire pit. The only thing is I don't have a donkey to help me roll through everything, so it's going to be all by hand. Yeah, you gotta get a couple donkey feet.
01:19:08
Speaker
Slap them onto the bottom of some boots. In the cigar industry, what do we we call that the rolled on the thighs of yeah nice ladies. Or maybe you could you could make a big stone wheel. Have the kids pull it around. like Make it a game.
01:19:25
Speaker
There you go. how roman How Roman of you. Oh boy. you so You're so cosmopolitan. What are you doing? Um... I also want to mention, I gave that ah Chainbridge gin another try. oh dude, it's wild.
01:19:42
Speaker
It's wild. It's so good. I figured it out. I gave it to my father-in-law yesterday or the day before, the day before yesterday. um And I handed it to him, and I said, there's a flavor in here that you've never tasted in a gin that is gonna, you're not gonna be able to put your finger on it, but I want to see if you can try. So I gave it to him, and he took a couple sips and was like,
01:20:03
Speaker
It's, uh, no. It's, no. It was like, it's it's clove or cinnamon. And I said, i I put my, I tasted it at the distillery and I was like, there's something so interesting about this, but I can't figure out what it is. And I brought it home and like, just last week, I tried a glass yeah and immediately i was like, that's what it is.
01:20:31
Speaker
It's ginger. That gin is very ginger forward, which is such a unique note for gin, but works the sp so well. Like, yeah, it adds a spiciness to it and a brightness.
01:20:43
Speaker
And man, ah one of my favorite gins that I've ever tried. I can't wait to get more of that. You and I are, I think, ah of the few people that I know, actually out of everybody know, you and I are probably the only ones that I know that love Jyn in the way that we do and kind of get down in the weeds and get nerdy about it. There's not a lot of Jyn lovers left in this world.
01:21:07
Speaker
And i've had so many I've been so fortunate to have so many gins from around the world, and I've had friends travel from other countries and bring in gin to share from local places that they don't even sell. It's just like someone's grandma's making this stuff yeah in the backyard.
01:21:23
Speaker
And, you know, there's so many cool things you can do with the gin. And because it's a clear spirit, it's not barreled, generally speaking, well,
01:21:34
Speaker
Old Tom gin and everything else aside. Generally speaking, it's not barreled. So what you get is what what you have is what you get, essentially, right? So whatever you put into it is what you're going to get on the back end.
01:21:47
Speaker
And some of these gins have been so cool and so fantastic and so different. And, you know, when we talk about on the show about cigars and we say this has black pepper or this has white pepper,
01:21:59
Speaker
It's distinct, and you don't realize it until you try those flavors on their own to then be able to come back and say, wow, I recognize this profile. It reminds me so much of white pepper, because a lot of people don't get that. They don't understand when we say black pepper, white pepper.
01:22:15
Speaker
What's difference? I mean, i don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but I know somebody who said, who once said on a show, not too dissimilar to this, notes of white pepper, not that white pepper is actually a thing.
01:22:26
Speaker
And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. White pepper's absolutely a I know exactly who you're talking about. Well, yeah, and so, you know, a white white pepper is a thing, but then again, you look at other other things that go into it, like the cloves.
01:22:40
Speaker
You look at things that, like star anise is a big, big ingredient in a lot of countries in Asia that produce whiskeys and other things, and they and they use those ingredients. Those are local ingredients to them, and it's part of their culture and their flavor profile and their experience, and they put that into the spirit. And so that's what i' love about gin is because it's a very – um regional specific spirit.
01:23:05
Speaker
I would call it gin is open-ended. It's very open-ended. Absolutely. like if There's one ingredient that you need to put in there, which is juniper. Everything else, just do whatever you want.
01:23:18
Speaker
There's no rules, really. Now, you know, I i actually have i have um some juniper berries and that are So if you look at the tree, the berries are covered. They become white on the outside, and it's kind of a mold or yeast, if you will, that grows on the outside of this berry. And I have a bunch of these berries, and I've been meaning to make a juniper soda out of this thing. And that yeast is actually really awesome.
01:23:48
Speaker
it's It's super cool. I want to use it for a bunch of different things. I want to experiment with it. You know, I might make something in the next couple weeks. but I was going to say a gin fermented with juniper berry yeast would be interesting if the yeast can stand up to that.
01:24:03
Speaker
i don't know if it can. Probably not. but oh you know could be That could be an interesting starting place. If you homebrew, really, the it's a sensible step next step to to do distillation.
01:24:16
Speaker
True.
01:24:19
Speaker
uh all right before before we move on i want to highlight uh sam finnell's comments sam sam did as he usually does a little pairing of his own um so he had an espinosa laranja which is a great oh yeah yeah um and he did uh gosling's rum which i have right over there ah three ways he did a rum and coke a dark and stormy True Dark and Stormy.
01:24:44
Speaker
Gosling's Rum. it's only goslin It's only a Dark and Stormy if it has Gosling's Rum in it. That's right. um And his third pairing was Gosling's Rum Neat. And he chose ah Gosling Neat as his pairing of the night.
01:24:56
Speaker
um I thought that was very... ah That's very Let's Get Pairing of You. to to do With the La Range, no know less. What a great cigar, cigar we love.
01:25:07
Speaker
Yeah. Rest in peace. the the The Ranja, if you can buy them, buy them now. um who Yeah, you're never going to see them again. I mean, you might, but it but it might be a while. There's some supply issues that Espinosa announced at the Lizana Palooza, which we haven't even touched on. I just realized we didn't even talk about this. We haven't even talked about it. We'll finish our pairing, then we'll talk a little bit about...
01:25:34
Speaker
ah Lizana Palooza because it was great as always but we took three or four weeks off because Dennis was well because first we were on our way back and then Dennis was because sick like dog so for the pairings the original Virginia Distillery single malt is great After going back to it, I'm finding it's more... I mean, I think it's ah a contrast that's bringing this out.
01:26:07
Speaker
um A lot more sweetness to it. um It reminds me of like a more intense Macallan. Macallan, if it was spicier and and a little hotter.
01:26:25
Speaker
um As far as like alcohol goes. Spicier, not younger, is what you're saying. um Or both maybe both? Maybe both, actually. Okay. um But it it has like... Let dip it again.
01:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's got kind of those like floral honey, honey notes. of something similar to a McAllen, like a Highland. um But just a little more aggressive, which I like, because I don't love Highland Scotches. As much as I love Scotch, I rank Highlands as my my my lowest, generally speaking.
01:27:08
Speaker
There's a lot of variation there. um The Brewers Coalition, going back to that one, that is... as I mentioned before, but in case you missed it, aged in Bourbon County Stout barrels, um
01:27:23
Speaker
it's like Bourbon County Stout stilt. Like, it has all the flavors that are there in Bourbon County Stout except for the... um Like, it tastes very dry in contrast to the Bourbon County Stout, which is crazy because Bourbon County Stout is like...
01:27:42
Speaker
I'm trying to think a word other than dry, but it's a very dry beer. There's very little sweetness. It has a little bit of that like candy syrupy sweetness, but it's kind of like licking a candy and then licking an ashtray. You barely taste that sweetness because there's so much else going on there.
01:28:01
Speaker
It's got that toothpick thing, too. If you chew on a toothpick, you get a little bit of astringency on a toothpick when you bite into it. It's kind of like that to me, at least. Yeah. um But it's it's interesting because in contrast to the Brewers Coalition version of this whiskey, the Bourbon County South tastes like maple syrup sweet almost, especially in contrast to the cigar, which is the last thing I'll get to. Yeah.
01:28:31
Speaker
I guess I'll get to it now, because don't have anything else to say about the Brewers Coalition. This cigar is exceptionally dry. If you hate Pennsylvania broadleaf, this cigar is probably not going to change your mind. It's kind of got that typical Pennsylvania broadleaf.
01:28:44
Speaker
Very, like, very in-your-face, punchy, intense, on the spice, the earth. um A... A not intense, but definitely not...
01:28:59
Speaker
ah negating the bitterness. There's a bitterness to this wrapper that comes through on the palate. It's a barnyard quality almost. Yeah, there's kind of a barnyard-ness.
01:29:11
Speaker
To me, the story is really earth, spice, bitter, bitter cocoa, but almost no sweetness. um And in contrast to that, Bourbon County tastes like maple syrup.
01:29:25
Speaker
Like, super sweet. Yeah. it's which is crazy because again, this beer is not sweet. If you taste the lineup of barrel aged beers, this is going to be the least sweet of all of them.
01:29:38
Speaker
Um, it's man. It's, it's interesting because this cigar like brings out a new dimension to bourbon County stout, which I've had a hundred times and I've loved all, but one of those times, which was that first one I mentioned earlier.
01:29:53
Speaker
Um, Rob wants to know if I stole one of Dennis' shirts. No, this is from the Joe Graham collection. We kind of wear similar similar clothing. Yeah, it's funny because I don't wear... i typically am wearing a t-shirt on Sundays because I'm home most of the day.
01:30:14
Speaker
um And most days I wear t-shirts. But if I go out to a family function or to dinner or something, I'm probably wearing a weird Hawaiian shirt. um with, you know, I've got that blue one with flamingos on it. I've got one with TIE Fighters on it. I've got my brand new my wonderful bloody Art the Clown one. Oh, I love that shirt, man. I've my, like, AI horror nonsense one that my dad gave me that I love.
01:30:42
Speaker
It's just got the covers of a bunch of horror movies. Oh, that's cool. looked like AI'd as hell. like some of the faces don't look like the right person and stuff. It's weird, but it's so cool. I love perfect.
01:30:53
Speaker
Exactly. It's right on my own.
01:30:58
Speaker
Anyway, yeah, this is the this definitely I think Jay hit it on the head when he asked if this was Joe Gross shirt um because it's ah it's a Joe shirt. um I like Star Wars and Hawaiian shirts as much as Joe does. Yeah, I just don't have, you know, I work from home, so I don't have a reason to wear Anything that has buttons or collars most of the time.
01:31:22
Speaker
Or underwear, for that matter. No, i'm pretty I'm pretty strict about that one. Surprisingly. um All right, what's your pairing of the night, Dennis? Mine is Bourbon County brand style.
01:31:36
Speaker
Purely because this cigar like changes the beer in a meaningful way, which is really interesting. The other two are great and work really well with this cigar, but the cigar like changes this beer in a really interesting way, which like the the beer ends up adding some sweetness to the cigar, and it works really well.
01:31:56
Speaker
You know, for me, talking about the Nochino that I just had for my final pairing, The Nocino works really well with the final third of the cigar, and it has a place. However, I would not go for that Nocino from the beginning of the cigar.
01:32:11
Speaker
I think really my my, if I had to pick a pairing, and again, when I think of pairings, if I had to pick one for the night, it would be, what would I drink start to finish? If I only had that one drink, what would work the best with that cigar start to finish?
01:32:25
Speaker
And I really have to say, it's going to be this Palenka. prop When I say Palenka, mean proper Palenka as in the plum brandy. Legally distinct Palenka. Legally distinct Palenka, yeah. ah And it's... I think it hits on all of the notes, but again, it also doesn't take away from the cigar, which is really important for me. I want to be able to, when I sit down with a cigar...
01:32:48
Speaker
yeah especially if it's cigar that I know and I really enjoy, i want to make sure that I can still experience the cigar and not have whatever I'm pairing with. And sometimes it's only seltzer. It's not like a spirit or a beer.
01:33:02
Speaker
But I don't want that to take away from the experience of the cigar. And I'm okay if my pairing is kind of in the back end. It doesn't have to be special. doesn't have to necessarily match whatever I'm smoking.
01:33:15
Speaker
Once in a while, there's a pairing that kind of hits that note that works great with the cigar, and that's great for me.
Lizona Palooza Reflections
01:33:22
Speaker
But I understand and I respect that sometimes, most of the time, actually, it doesn't really happen.
01:33:27
Speaker
And so for me, for tonight, at least, I would say the Palenka was fantastic. Now, I have a seltzer as well, and which i opened foolishly I opened. I never even consumed.
01:33:38
Speaker
let me Let me try this real quick. There may be there may be time to do that. While we talk about our trip to Miami a little bit. Yeah, let's do it. So we were in Miami like a month ago, a hundred years ago, feels like, for Lizona Palooza, where I forgot to mention they gave out these cigars, which is where we got them, kind of at the same time they were releasing to retailers.
01:34:02
Speaker
um Man, Lizona Palooza is always a blast. It's like a party where ah you get to see people you haven't seen since the last time you went to that party. Yeah.
01:34:15
Speaker
It's, uh, man, it's, it's just a good event because it's just hanging out. That's what's so fun about it is that a lot of events are very structured and Lizana Palooza Lizana Palooza is an event that is just spend time, make merry, uh, talk to people, trade some cigars, have a drink with somebody.
01:34:37
Speaker
um you meet new people every year. You see old friends every year. it's always a blast. Um, The final dinner is always something special with the, you know, Hector giving out the cigars after three days of hanging out with a bunch of people, yeah which is not at all his wheelhouse.
01:34:59
Speaker
um It's always kind of fun to see him in that predicament. um Eric singing the same songs he sings every year is always fun. Yeah.
01:35:11
Speaker
It's special. I mean, you know, he sings, he dances, he does his thing, and it look it's very much... It is very much Eric, but also it's very much Eric in the sense that there's a community around.
01:35:23
Speaker
Well, and and that's what that's what the event is all about. like The event is all about like everybody here loves Espinosa cigars, and that's what brings them together. um And so every year, a bunch of us make the pilgrimage to Miami so that we can hang out and see each other and smoke some cigars, drink some drinks.
01:35:42
Speaker
um It's a great event. We didn't only go to the event. We did some other stuff in Miami. Dennis, you want to hit some of the highlights? Oh, dude, we... wi what can What can we talk about? um Well, you know, listen, we coming out Coming out of the airport, getting picked up.
01:36:02
Speaker
Thank you again, Tripp, for your any time awesomeness in in nice driving. I still think should explore you landing on this side of Florida just so that ah we can hang out for an hour and a half. Put to Gorda. Where's the airport near you? Put to Gorda.
01:36:18
Speaker
oh is that the name the We have an airport as well. um There's also Fort Myers. Fort Myers is a little further. Oh, Fort Myers nearby. Okay. But it would still be like either of those airports, I can pick you up on my way to the Everglades.
01:36:29
Speaker
And then we drive through the Everglades and in Miami. And that just gives you a time for an extra cigar or two on the ride. So maybe we should explore that for next year. Yeah, man. Hey, I think we did a really, we have a system now. I think we've been so many times we have a system.
01:36:46
Speaker
I love our system because it is always this exploration of breweries and places to eat and things. And coming out of the airport, what I was saying is we've come out of the airport, go, Hey, but let's go get some somewhere to eat breakfast.
01:37:00
Speaker
And I had just like, I had literally just Googled breakfast. near Miami airport and looked at a map and I was like, all right, well, this place is a 4.8 on Google maps.
01:37:13
Speaker
Um, and it sounds good. Well, let's try that. And that's where we went. We consumed so much coffee, so much good food.
01:37:23
Speaker
You know, the Murcia that morning was, it hit me right in the, in the right spots that I needed that day. Well, and I hadn't realized that AJ Fernandez's office, AJ Fernandez Cigar Company office, was in the same parking lot as this place, yeah which already says, like, you're going like this. Yeah, man. um You know, and the experience, going out to all these places, really great. Experiencing Stone Crab for the first time was fantastic. Finally, we got we got down on some Stone Crab. Yes, we did.
01:37:54
Speaker
um But also, in classic places, pairings mode we we went to all these breweries and distilleries and all these places that that had some cool stuff to cocktails even cocktail bars awesome stuff man and i think that's what this is all about it's always a special experience for me to come down and it's not just the event now lazona blues is really great because it's all catered you have great people you have great cigars All the people you want to see. We we ah definitely had a really good time there. But also we had a great time doing other things. The downtime was great. Yeah.
01:38:33
Speaker
Downtown was wild, man. We went out. We had we had some experience. I mean, I was saying the downtime ah from Luzon. Oh, downtime. I keep telling people about that that cocktail bar we went to that had like incredible food and the weirdest cocktails.
01:38:51
Speaker
It was right up our alley. it was It was the Goliath Grouper ceviche and it was the Gator Bites and and the cocktails and all these things. And the oysters. We had oyster shell infused gin.
01:39:07
Speaker
Oh, that was good. um that was good yeah There was another weird ingredient in there that I can't remember what it was. Yeah, there was something else. But we had some funky, funky cocktails at this place called, ah what was it called?
01:39:20
Speaker
Updown? No, that's a cigar shop. Oh. don't recall. It was something like bottom top, top bottom, upper, lower. Bottoms up, maybe? i No, that wasn't it. That's that's definitely the name of a bar in a sitcom.
01:39:37
Speaker
Now, the highlight, I want to say one of the highlights is we went to Churchill's, and if you're in that Miami area, if you understand what this is all about, went to Churchill's. churchill And Churchill's, we we got to see a bunch of bands play ah i very in quality.
01:39:55
Speaker
I don't know what you would call it, but it was... it was i don't know. well they were one of the One of the bands was billed as noise. Their genre was noise. Right, they were noise. But I would call it sewer punk.
01:40:08
Speaker
Yeah, sewer punk, gutter punk, something like that. ah Gutter punk. It was interesting, but the venue itself was so fucking cool. That place was right up both of our alleys, dude. Yeah. like and And from $4... What is
01:40:28
Speaker
it called? PBR. No, the the crispy things. that I can't remember the name of all of a sudden. The crispy things? Oh, croquetas. Croquetas, yeah. Croquetas, thank you. I kept wanting to call them chicharons, and I was like, they're not chicharons.
01:40:42
Speaker
Croquetas. Oh, yeah, croquettas are Cuban mozzarella sticks. Yes, but filled with ham, which is even better than mozzarella. It's jamón. Jamón, Excuse me.
01:40:53
Speaker
um like Man, Churchill's was an experience, dude, and it is the kind of place that we are going to be at every year that
Dive Bar Experience at Churchill's
01:41:01
Speaker
we're in Miami together. Oh, absolutely, dude. Absolutely. Because it's what it's just such ours kind of spot, like um a punk bar,
01:41:09
Speaker
that is trash. Like, it's a divey place, but it's a really cool place. But, you know, divey place and cool place are kind of the same thing for us. yeah um A lot of people are scared of dive bars, but we're like... that That's where I feel most comfortable having a drink, you know?
01:41:25
Speaker
Dive bars are my thing. It was an experience, man. And, and you know, also, i really want to go back to the cigar experience, too, because we had a chance to smoke some really great cigars and...
01:41:39
Speaker
A lot of times, you may have a cigar that's in your mind, cigar you've had before. You may say, ah it's it's it's a my daily cigar. I may smoke it during the afternoon, whatever.
01:41:49
Speaker
These cigars were so much better because of the people we were around, where we were, what we were doing. All those cigars were excellent because we were together and we're hanging out and having a good time. it was really special. Coop was out there as well, and we had a great time with Coop.
01:42:07
Speaker
And... It was just nice, again, to your point, talking about hanging out with old friends, people we don't get to see unless we're at an industry event or somewhere else once or twice a year. But then we finally get together and we have a cigar and it's awesome.
01:42:21
Speaker
Yeah. And it doesn't matter where you're smoking because that cigar is going to be awesome because the people you're around. Well said. And also, ah oh, what's his name?
01:42:33
Speaker
um Toby, Toby Kurtzinger. was there this year. Oh, the Whiskey Heist guy. mr Mr. Pappy Heist himself, if you watch the documentary, Toby Kurtzinger was on site at Luzonapalooza hanging out with people, talking about stuff. they They actually played the documentary there as well, which was wild. It was just like, you know, for us nerds in in the spirits world,
01:43:02
Speaker
It was super cool. Man, just you just made me realize we even get a chance to talk to that guy. We should have spent some time talking to him. Yeah, he was very busy. but um like This is what it's all about, man.
01:43:14
Speaker
Yeah, ah if you if you ever get the invite, don't turn it down for Lizotto Palooza. um I will say that We do some coverage of it, but it is... it should be noted, it is an invite-only event.
01:43:27
Speaker
yeah if ah I'm going plug Eric here for a minute. If you are on social media posting your Espinosa cigars all the time... um essentially the invite system works as if they notice you if you're smoking enough espinoza cigars and posting them and tagging uh eric and all the people and if you're posting enough that they're like wow this guy loves our cigars you're getting an invite um otherwise you're shit out of luck hopefully um you you can get invite at some point but you know if you love espinoza post your cigars
01:44:06
Speaker
They'll reach out, and you'll you'll be able to make it to the event. ah And if you do get the invite, it is worth going to, man. You get ah handful of cigars for free included. Like, there's no charge for the event. It's got food. It's got beer. It's got booze. It's got coffee. yeah They got a great guy that gives haircuts, a great barber. I didn't have a chance to get my haircut this year, and I'm ashamed take my hat off in front of people now.
Espinosa Family and Community
01:44:32
Speaker
Because usually every November, I'm looking...
01:44:35
Speaker
lit after getting my haircut there uh but i didn't get my name on the list in time this year uh they have a swag shop where you can buy some t-shirts some jackets some cigars and hats some all sorts of stuff every once in while guy fietty shows up like it is it's a great event man and and again the gala dinner is just a blast i want to highlight the fact that listen at the end of the day The fact that Eric and team put this on, it is a lot on the back end.
01:45:06
Speaker
It takes a lot to do all of this for this amount of people between the food, the spirits, everything else to get people organized. They work really hard to make this happen and they care about it. And every member of the team, and when I say team, I mean family, really.
01:45:22
Speaker
They are truly ah a proper family, most cases, literally speaking. they They bust their asses, man, to make this happen for everybody because they love everyone that is jazzed about what they're doing and their cigars. And they kind of – you almost feel like you're family when you come by.
01:45:42
Speaker
Everybody's happy to see you. Everyone treats you really well. um It's so nice, and it's a nice way to experience the cigar industry that isn't like a you know an industry event. A ticketed event.
01:45:56
Speaker
A ticketed event, yeah. or Or an industry event. For us, for us industry events are a thing, but for normal people, you know they don't go to industry events. They go to a of great smoke or something like that. This is a much more intimate experience. You're going to to out with people.
01:46:09
Speaker
it's Man, and it's great. It's great. You're going to to hug Eric Espinoza. have him probably make fun of you. You know, it's great. it's It's so magical in so many ways. you And I love i love the Espinosa family so much, and... and ah You know, I was never really that big into Espinosa cigars until I was.
01:46:33
Speaker
And I realized that I got into Espinosa cigars because I had a chance to meet everybody and talk to people and experience the cigars, the the you know, what goes into making these cigars as we talk about the cigar industry.
01:46:46
Speaker
you meet people and you talk to them and you hear the story and you hear what the level of effort is that goes into all these cigars. It's awesome. And it makes that cigar so much better. So when you light that cigar, you feel that.
01:46:58
Speaker
You feel the effort, you feel the family, you feel the care. it's their It's their entire lives. To them, this is how they live, but also this is how they breathe. They're not just making cigars to make money, they're making cigars to live. And that's, I think, a a really important distinction.
01:47:15
Speaker
just to you know to mention in the cigar industry, because we have so many cigars out there today, so many brands out there to get today. People care about this stuff, and they care at a level that they hope the consumers will care at as well.
01:47:30
Speaker
And you know I think I would say I'm i' absolutely one of those. I care at that same level. Hell yeah. I could not have said that more poetically than you, not even that close. So with that, we will wrap up.
01:47:43
Speaker
our Espinosa After Dark segment of the show. um We're going to get out of here, but first, as always, we have our one for the road, where we tell you about some kind of media we've consumed recently.
01:47:55
Speaker
i have a lot of options because we've been laid up for like three or four weeks now. um Man, there's I have too many options. There's an audiobook I've been listening to that's top-notch crazy really audiobook i mean i guess i'll tell you about that even though it's not my one for the road my one for the road up there is uh alton brown cooks food oh yeah so alton brown has returned to the food scene good eats is no longer ah he's no longer employed by a major corporation
01:48:34
Speaker
TV network. um He's now making his own TV show. Well, sort of TV show cooking show for YouTube called Alton Brown cooks food. um It's basically good. It's got in his own kitchen um with less a little less production value, but it still looks fantastic. Like it still looks like you could watch it.
01:48:55
Speaker
on TV with commercials and all that. Um, but it's just him making great food. Um, I am, as I'm sure many are a huge fan of Alton Brown. Um, he is the, the every man's chef TV chef, uh, because all he really cares about is how good the food tastes.
01:49:15
Speaker
Um, and he experiments until it tastes the way he wants it to, and then tells you the recipe and fantastic. So Alton Brown cooks food on YouTube, on Alton Brown's YouTube channel.
01:49:29
Speaker
It's worth watching. There's only three episodes so far, but they're doing, i think, every Saturday for a period of time. They haven't said how long. But so far, there have been a couple really good-sounding recipes that I'm going to try um with, of course, as you always get with Alton Brown, the the science behind it um and and methods that you don't normally consider.
01:49:54
Speaker
but he has carefully figured out to let you know about. Check it out. Alton Brown Cooks. The book that I've been listening to is crazy. Called Dungeon Crawler Carl.
01:50:08
Speaker
And it is a... It has one of the wildest ah setups of any media I've ever considered. So this is the setup.
01:50:22
Speaker
There's a guy... His girlfriend is actively cheating on him. She is out right now with another dude and he's pissed off at three in the morning and the cat jumps out the window. And so he walks out in the snow with no pants on to get this fucking cat.
01:50:37
Speaker
And then every building car structure standing above ground level on the entire planet flattened instantly.
Audiobook and Podcast Recommendations
01:50:48
Speaker
one Everything flat. Just flattens. If you're in a building, you just get squished. Everything flattens. The only survivors are people who happen to be outside at the time.
01:51:00
Speaker
His neighbor actually gets decapitated. She stuck his her head out the window and said, Carl, what the hell you doing out there? And her head just rolls onto the ground. okay Gnarly. Turns out there's an ancient civilization of aliens that loans bio data to Tens of thousands of years ago, this alien civilization came to Earth.
01:51:23
Speaker
They planted humans here. They came back. They left for a thousand years. They came back at some point during, like, caveman times um and got what their lawyers agree was an amicable agreement that the loan would be repaid in a period of time.
01:51:40
Speaker
And ah they came back and the loan hadn't been repaid because generations and generations and generations had no idea that this loan exists. So they collect. And their collection is flattening everything in the world, mining as much material as they want, turning the planet into a reality show.
01:52:01
Speaker
So Carl and his cat... ah there's a giant loudspeaker that pops up everywhere all over the whole world. Tells everybody, proceed to the nearest staircase.
01:52:13
Speaker
So you find a, there's a big glowy staircase with a bunch of neon lights pointing at it. You walk down the stairs and you are now in a dungeon of an RPG. You have levels, you have magic, have magic,
01:52:25
Speaker
You have character classes and all that shit. um His cat gets upgraded from a companion to a character because of some random RNG kind of randomized thing that happens.
01:52:40
Speaker
She can now talk. She's actually more powerful, more smarter, and more charismatic than him. She has more abilities than him. And it's just this like this bizarre video game style thing where this dude is is playing this rpg game that is actually a reality show for aliens that they just they've been doing this spiel for thousands of years where they they uh agree on a loan with a civilization that has no understanding and then collect on the loan to to to make a reality show uh for thousands and thousands of years so this is like season 10 000
01:53:21
Speaker
So to me, this in a lot of ways, that to me, this sounds like a combination of the Golden Compass by Philip Pullman and Ready Player One.
01:53:32
Speaker
It kind of is. Yeah. It's a mix of both. It's yeah you just like that. It's got very heavy Ready Player One vibe. And the Golden Compass series and and all that stuff I loved.
01:53:45
Speaker
If we can circle back to about 11 years ago.
01:53:51
Speaker
The very first contact I ever had with you was a cigar trade on on our cigars. And I sent you my copy of Ready Player One.
01:54:05
Speaker
Oh, shit. Oh, oh fucking hell. um Goddamn. That's a weird yes as a weird circle back. Yeah.
01:54:17
Speaker
bye You know, i think we we reminisced about this a little bit in Miami. yeah we our Our sort of experience of of how many years has it been, how long have we known each other, how long have we been doing this thing together, and the things that we've experienced, things that we've seen, things that we've done together in multiple countries at this point is wild.
01:54:42
Speaker
yeah it's It's so wild to think about that You know, two guys that really dig cigars and really dig beer and spirits and things ended up on this adventure together across multiple countries for all these years.
01:55:01
Speaker
Almost two decades worth of back and forth. And ah it's amazing. Yeah, we've been to at least four different countries together.
01:55:12
Speaker
Yeah, dude. It comes back to the leaf and it comes back to... The experience. and And I think, you know, new new cigar smokers get into cigar smoking. i remember when I got into cigar smoking, i I didn't know anybody. I was just like, I i might like cigars. i don't know if I like them. I'm going to try some.
01:55:30
Speaker
But when you meet cigar smokers and guys have been smoking for a lot of years, they have that that feel about them, that feel which is that community and that sense of something more.
01:55:42
Speaker
And when you experience it, you know it. It's not about just smoking a cigar. You can do that anytime. But when you have an experience and the locks in it and cigars are involved or spirits are involved and you have that that kind of bond,
01:55:58
Speaker
it's It's the reason why guys go out to shops and sit in shops on the weekends and they go to tell their wives, I'm going to go hang out for a couple hours. I'm going sit down. It's not about the football game on the screen.
01:56:10
Speaker
It's about being there, doing a thing. And sometimes it's about you doing a thing by yourself, but you're there with other people that feel the same way and enjoy that thing. And it's an incredible journey.
01:56:24
Speaker
You know, coming back to cigars and spirits and all this stuff. that and there's a story to it. You know, we all have a story, each of us. And when you walk into us, it's why I love going to lounges because every guy that I sit down next to has a story and I want to hear that story. yeah And when I want to experience the magic of where they were and how they were and why they were more than anything else. It's the why.
01:56:53
Speaker
Why are you here today? Tell me. you're 30, 40 years older than me, but you're sitting here and you're smoking a cigar. And we shook hands. And now we're, in a sense, connected in in a way.
01:57:07
Speaker
um That is the magic that I think people don't get and people that shit on the cigar industry or the spirits industry or the beer industry or whatever, they don't get that magic. There's so much more to it. It's not about a product or a piece of leaf that sits on a shelf.
01:57:24
Speaker
It's about the community, right? The connection and the community that you have and the fact that you get to experience your humanity, you yourself experience your humanity in a real way and you share that with somebody else and that is vulnerable right we make ourselves vulnerable because we are there uh that's cool man and again going back to the zone palooza that that is that is my jam you get together with cigar folk you may not remember somebody's name but you always remember a handshake you always remember a conversation you um you always remember a moment
01:58:03
Speaker
You always remember that time when your cigar was canoeing and you're mid-conversation and you go, God damn it, I got to go pull my lighter out and fix this thing. a hand just pops out with a lighter, right? You remember you remember these things, man.
01:58:16
Speaker
Sometimes a lighter shaped like a D. up um Well, not everybody not everyone knows that story, but but long story short, I have it very far away from me, but it's over there. I'm looking at it. very It's a penis.
01:58:30
Speaker
it's It's a penis. I'll say you that. It's a lighter, single flame torch. It's penis. When you open it up to light it, um it vibrates violently.
01:58:41
Speaker
And it scares the hell out of people. And it's so funny because they're freaked out at first like, oh you're handing me a dick. And then you give it to them and you're like, just light your cigar. Come on. Don't don't be a baby about this.
01:58:52
Speaker
And then they flick it open and they go, nope, I'm out. And they just walk away. Great.
01:59:00
Speaker
Those were those guys.
01:59:04
Speaker
All right, what's your one for the road my you know besides the community of cigars? So, yeah, so besides that, I think, you know, for me, my commute, for those of you that don't know, my daily commute to work is about, on a good day, it's about eight hours round trip. Hellish.
01:59:25
Speaker
With weather, with whatever else, it's more than that. It can be. I've i've had 10 and a half hour commutes some days, but I commute really far for work. And so I'm sitting in my car and um'm I'm driving for a portion of it. I take a train after that as well. But um I listen to a lot of different podcasts and things. I consume a lot of that kind of auditory media.
01:59:49
Speaker
But really for me, i just want to recommend the last podcast on the left. I think Tripp, you're a big fan as well. I'm huge fan. i love I love what they do if you're into anything morbid or anything slightly goofy and crass, but also and informative.
02:00:08
Speaker
They do a good job of mixing all those things together. And some days, man, I'll tell you, when i'm it's like 5 o'clock in the morning, I'm in the car and I'm driving and it's cold and I'm listening to the last podcast. I'm listening to the stories and the silliness of the situations, right?
02:00:26
Speaker
ah To me that that gets me, that gets me to my next point of origin. It gets me to to where I'm going. And I can't recommend Last Podcast on the Left enough.
02:00:38
Speaker
I listened to some other podcasts. I listened to Morbid. And i listened to actually a podcast from um George Knapp and the other guy whose name I can't remember that I recommended last time to you.
02:00:50
Speaker
podcast is called weaponized. If you're into UAP stuff, if you're into anything extraterrestrial, these are the cats you want to listen to. They talk about a lot of cool stuff and and just it's interesting. It's just something to get your brain going and and think about something different.
02:01:08
Speaker
Something other than, you know, oh, I got to make this meeting or oh man, I got to come home and cook for my kids. It gets you out of that and brings you into a different realm so you can be you.
02:01:19
Speaker
um Whatever that means. I will give a warning. Last podcast on the left is not for everybody. Yeah, i will. Yeah, thank you. That's a warning. It gets real dark. um If any trigger warnings apply, you should probably just avoid it.
02:01:35
Speaker
If you're not easily offended like myself and Dennis, and you can find humor in the darkest places, it is absolutely for you. ah because That's a good way to put it. Yeah, it's yeah I mean, it's it's a podcast about the depravity of of humanity, right? like that That people can get pretty bad, but then kind of ah not necessarily making light of that, but ah mostly making fun of the idiots who ah but put that kind of stuff into the world and who are not good people and ah kind of laughing at them and
02:02:14
Speaker
ah also exploring their their depravity and and just yeah just how gross they are as people. ah I will say... it's And it's hilarious. if If you can find humor in darkness like that, it's there's nothing funny. i I did pre-order the book from Harputlian.
02:02:38
Speaker
The Dig Me a Grave, the story about... What was his name? Pee-wee something, serial killer. Oh, Pee-wee Gaskin. Yeah, yeah, Gaskin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So i I did pre-order that book because I listened to that episode with Ed Larson that interviewed ah the prosecutor on that case, and it it was wild. The story was wild. Oh, yeah.
02:03:05
Speaker
Great episode, but also I think the book is going really interesting, and if that's your jam, get down on it, man. and there's There's some good stuff out there. Yeah, check it out. iss it's a It's a... If you like comedy and true crime, which is a strange point of intersection, man, it's so good.
02:03:30
Speaker
Good recommendation. Alright, guys. I guess that brings us to the end for this one. I will highlight before we go, Sam Finnell's one for the road is Fallout Season 2.
02:03:42
Speaker
coming next Wednesday, I believe. Oh, is it coming out? already i'm excited Oh, yeah. I'm excited. I'm excited for it. i have I am a lifelong fan of the games. I have been playing the Fallout games since there was only one of them.
02:03:56
Speaker
It was all text. Well, text and 2D elements, but like there was no voice acting or anything like that. The old And i've I've been a fan of the content of the source material for a long time.
02:04:12
Speaker
ah But the show, to me, like opens it up so well to normal people um that my wife has maybe heard me talk about the video games a few times and maybe watched me play 10 minutes of one at one point.
02:04:29
Speaker
um And she loves this show. Like... If you have any interest in the Fallout show, check it out. If you have a lot of interest in it, but you're afraid your spouse won't, have them watch at least the first episode anyway, because it's captivating enough, and it's well-written, well-performed enough, and just interesting enough that if you're unfamiliar entirely with the source material, you can still get to enjoy it. yeah Yeah, absolutely.
02:04:58
Speaker
There's no dependence on, you know, this isn't know. This isn't the Lord of the Rings TV show where it's like you have to know a bunch of history be able to enjoy watching it. um You can just jump right in and it's a blast.
02:05:12
Speaker
um is It's a very fun show. It's so good. I can't wait for season two, much like Sam. He also says he'll be buying more Laranja tonight now that he's heard they're going away. Oh, yes. Absolutely. please Please buy it up, man. It's such a great cigar and absolutely well worth it.
02:05:32
Speaker
alright guys. That brings us to the end of the show, I guess. So thanks, everybody, for checking us out. We missed you guys um in our our three or four-week absence, however long it's been.
02:05:44
Speaker
We should be back next week, assuming Dennis doesn't get sick. As I come. Stay tuned on that one. um we'll We'll figure out what we're smoking. We have a bunch of options at this point.
02:05:58
Speaker
um So everybody have a great and safe week. Dennis, hit him with a catchphrase. We will get out of here and play him a little theme song. yeah Thank you for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want to drink less.