LGP 83 - El Pulpo by Artisano del Tobacco

Transcript

Speaker: hey everybody welcome back but let's get pairing uh this is episode number 83 and today we are smoking the el pulpo not the not the the pulpo el pulpo exactly el pulpo we're smoking the bellicoso grande uh we'll tell you all about it we'll tell you what we're pairing eventually but for now grab yourself a cigar grab yourself a drink let's get pairing

Speaker: Welcome back, everybody. We're back. We're back. Now I'm going to bring it up. Now I'm going to bring it up. We're going to talk about it right now. I'm going to do the thing thing. I'm going to tell you about some...

Speaker: um You talk about the LL. This is not LL, which is not to be confused with the airline LL. I don't think they're around anymore. i think it was a 90s thing. 70s 90s or 80s to 90s. Or Kal-El.

Speaker: If you know, you know, if you don't, read a comic book. Exactly. Or least watch the Superman movie with Bradley Cooper as Kal-El. I'm sorry, what?

Speaker: In the new Superman movie, Bradley Cooper as Kal-El. Crazy. No, he's not. That movie's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you serious? Yeah. I'm never watching. I'm never... Okay.

Speaker: I'm retiring Superman from my mind. Forever. so That sounds horrid. yeah He's barely in it. It's not really... Jesus, fuck. And it it makes sense in context a little bit that ah you know Superman was a baby when he came to Earth, so Kal-El, the only time you see him is in the video... daddy's a fuckboy? No, it's a video of his fuckboy daddy...

Speaker: when he When he was like, oh shit, my planet's blowing up, better shoot this baby off into space. And he left a video that, you know, said, Superman, you're be super cool, don't be a dick, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker: You know, very very new age Superman. Let me shoot this off real quick, it'll be cool. Just fire this kid off into space and he'll be fine, hopefully.

Speaker: And he walks, and he saves- is that How many parsecs is that? just want to know. Okay, I'm good. Thank you. Welcome back to episode 83 of Let's Get Pairing.

Speaker: I'm your host, Tripp, here in the LGP South studio, with me as always from the Dungeon of Darkness and Doom. As we've already heard from his Dennis, Dennis, you know, how's it going? I mean, we've already been shooting the shit, so-

Speaker: You're sick of hearing from me. You already heard from me. Hey, man. Good. It's good to see you. We missed last week. There was some chaos. It was a little bit busy of a weekend, unfortunately, with work. I wish.

Speaker: I'd much, honestly, I'd much rather have been had been smoking a cigar and it was sad that we couldn't get together. But we are doing it tonight. I'm excited for this. And dude, I just lit this up and i talk about this all the First light impression to me is is huge. And I generally tend to avoid it because over the years I found out that I, especially as fast as I smoke, I need to give cigars a chance to develop a little bit.

Speaker: yeah And I'm generally not a good kind of, I'm not good at perceiving a lot of flavor and getting ah a sense of the cigar off the first light, but this one, and every now and again, I have one cigar just like this one that sticks out off the first light. Damn, that's cool.

Speaker: I'm interested. I'm excited. I'm in for the ride kind of thing. and And when I lit this cigar, it was that experience for me. Yeah, this cigar, um not only does it pack a punch, but it just has a ton of flavor.

Speaker: Like, this cigar is very in-your-face, as is kind of the norm for cigars from A.J. Fernandez. This is an A.J. Fernandez blended and and produced cigar, um which, as soon as you taste it, makes total sense.

Speaker: It's one of those classic A.J. cigars that's very heavy, very peppery, very rich. But let's talk about Artesano Del Tobacco for a little bit. Man, I'm glad I got that off. I was nervous about saying Artesano Del Tobacco because, Dennis, you have seen me do this many, many, many times.

Speaker: I flubbed the name of this company over and over in the interview, like four times, five times maybe. And I just had to like start over and be like, this is Billion Guests.

Speaker: They work at... What, this this company specifically you mean in general? No, Artesano Del Tobacco. That was the one that, like, that was the one I couldn't say. It's strange because it doesn't sound that complex, but when you're in the moment, and and I totally get it, man, when you're in the in the moment and you're trying to say it, it's not easy.

Speaker: The thing that breaks my brain about it is, like, the cadence of phrases like Artesano Del Tobacco. like i kept My brain kept going, no, Artisano. And then it was like, but then the rest of it doesn't work.

Speaker: and but If we ever release the B-roll, we'll see that. Artisano Del Tobacco. They even talked to you about them tobacco Artisano. Artisano. Artisano. Yeah, dude, I get it. Artisano Del Tobacco was launched in 2019 by Brothers Billy and Gus Fakke.

Speaker: Fakke? Fakke? F-A-K-I-H. I never got their last name when I was interviewing them. They're very awesome dudes. We had a blast. Bucky.

Speaker: Bucky.

Speaker: Okay, is what I'm going to say. I'm not commenting on this. I'm going to roll with it. um We'll ask them next week. This week, actually. absolutely um Their names may not be recognizable to anyone. Billion guests.

Speaker: um I'm not even sure if a lot of people would probably recognize their faces, um but not everybody in the cigar business. But what you will recognize is that they were the owners of Cigar Inn.

Speaker: Dennis, you ever been a Cigar Inn? Which one? The one in Manhattan.

Speaker: That is now a JR, I believe. Wait, it's JR now? I know it's owned by JR. I don't know if they rebranded it or not. um Yeah, I've been to Cigar Inn a bunch of times. Not recently. It's been a while. I think the last place I've been to Soho Cigar. but So Billy and Gus were the guys that started it They started Cigar Inn and ran it until it was sold to JR in 2015.

Speaker: um And when they sold it, they started working with... um with AJ on a cigar and launched their own brand. um So in 2020, in 2019, I guess, when they, when they first launched the brand, they launched Viva La Vida, which um people probably seen that cigar. It's got a jester on the band.

Speaker: ah Their second regular production line released in 2023 was this one, El Pulpo, which is Spanish, of course, for the octopus. They've got ah an octopus with a top hat on the band, which is very cool.

Speaker: i don't I hate to see like an in-person octopus. You know me, Dennis? They they scare the bejesus out of me. um You get a thing with cephalopods in general. Yeah, I do like the iconography of a of a cephalopod. They look good on like labels and logos and stuff like that um like the thought of it yeah yeah i just don't want to think about them actually existing or being near me um they've added a couple sizes each year i actually smoked their two newest sizes in the last couple weeks which is the eel which is their lancero and the fry which is a a great name for their um

Speaker: they're kind of They're shorty. they're It's like a 4.5 by 46. 4 by 46, maybe. Comes in a ah very nice little magnetic box. one of those One of those cigars that you can, you know, buy ah buy ah one of those little five packs, stick it in your pocket, stick it in your backpack, and have have some little short smokes for the road.

Speaker: um This is one of the original sizes that we're smoking, which is the Bellicoso Grande. It is a 5.75 by 58 press. if you can kind of see the box press there this is one of those cigars that like you know box press rarely shows up well on camera um wrapper mexican san andre binder and filler very simple all from nicaragua um all of that probably sounds fantastic to you if you're out there and you haven't tried this thing before aj fernandez mexican san andre

Speaker: All Nicaraguan filler and binder. The downside of it, everything's got to downside, right? is This is a $17 cigar, so this isn't on the the low end. um It's kind of firmly and in premium territory, I would call it at this point.

Speaker: ah You know, the premium is what I would call like the $13 to eighteen dollars rate That's stuff that like you know you're not necessarily buying every time you go for a cigar.

Speaker: But ah you know some if you're feeling a little squirrely, want something a little more special, this will be in that price range. So Dennis, you've already told us kind of your immediate thoughts. any Any other thoughts now that you're getting into this cigar a little bit?

Speaker: You're digging this, huh? I can tell by the look on your face. but So I was digging a cigar, and then I got into my first pairing, and my first pairing completely shocked everything about my palate. My brain just kind of exploded and fell apart, and this is something you can expect to experience for yourself ah at PCA because, man, I have probably six of these left that I will bring.

Speaker: um i need you all to try this at the media house because it's fucking wild, but... Going back to the cigar, I love that it has this, it's that, when we talk about baking spice, there are different types of baking spice in the sense that some of them are a little bit drier.

Speaker: Some of them are that, like, on the front, you need to think about kind of like nutmeg, which is front of the palate. It's a little bit dusty. It's a little dry. To me, this is on the back end of that, which is more of that cinnamon, that warm quality. that lingering baking spice that just sort of sits on the palate.

Speaker: And it's very subtle. It's not like, ah you know, we talk with spice bombs. This is not a spice bomb in that sense to me. There's a little black pepper, but it's it's not as intense as what you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, this isn't super spicy. It's more that it's super rich. Yeah, exactly. It's that richness that comes through that's really cool.

Speaker: and And again, i the size is is awesome. I really dig the size. And a little press on it. you know i'm i I'm always a fan. More often than not, I should say, I'm a fan of a good press.

Speaker: And i it's just a kind of a nicer experience for me. I'm used to smoking just classic round cigars, right? So when I have ah a little bit of a press into a cigar, I just find myself sitting there and just sort of kind of fiddling with it a little bit.

Speaker: Yeah. Makes sense. um Yeah, I'm tasting kind of a lot of the same flavors. Really, that baking spice that you talked about is kind of the the star of the show right now.

Speaker: There's like a... There's a meatiness to this cigar. Like, it reminds me of... charred beef fat.

Speaker: You know, like when you get a ah nice, like, ribeye or something and you get that, like, charred fat kind of flavor. It's got that, like... char and butter and those kind of flavors all mixed together and this kind of has that to me like that intense richness there's a lot of earth going on there's that little bit of of black pepper spice just like kind of a kind of a background note of black pepper spice uh lot going on in the cigar i'm enjoying it so far i haven't smoked this size before

Speaker: And it's smoking great, I should say, as well. it's it's For me, it's smoking fantastic and great retrohale on this, too. With a nice kick of spice, I was very surprised. don't think I've retrohale. It doesn't taste like it until you retrohale, and then you go, man, it's got some power to this thing.

Speaker: It's really nice. I like that that duality of it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's like... it's kind of very different on the on the retro hill.

Speaker: ah What's up, Sam? Sam's watching. I watched a Sam sent me link to his video. He could sent him one of our our uniform shirts for PCA this year. It's kind of a thank you for being a big fan of of us in the Scar Coop coalition.

Speaker: um And he posted a video of him unboxing it, which was fun to watch. But he said his name, and I've been saying it wrong for years now. Sam Fanel.

Speaker: So I'll never get it wrong again, Sam. Oh, shit. Oh. Okay. Thank you for letting us know yet. Damn. um Yeah, I would have never thought about that. But but ah now we know.

Speaker: Yeah. Sam Fanel. That's good. He is smoking a Perdomo Legacy Connecticut. Great cigar. um And his first pairing is Torres 20 Spanish Brandy. That sounds nice.

Speaker: um We've got some weird pairings going on tonight. Let's get right into that. I'm going to start with the weirdest of my pairing,

Speaker: which, Dennis, I gave a little teaser. Multiple times. was that first pairing? Yeah, of course. I can't put a sour as my my third pairing, right? So this is west book Westbrook Brewing Company's Key Lime Pie.

Speaker: um So Westbrook um is is a legend in craft beer. If you haven't heard of them, you should try... a particular beer that I'll talk about in a moment. So during college, this guy named Edward rest Westbrook tried a Guinness during a trip to Spain.

Speaker: He was on a trip to Spain. He saw Guinness on a menu and he thought, I'd never tried that. I'll try it out. um He started drinking this Guinness and was like, is this what I've been missing with beer? Because he had been like like you know like like many of us age during that college age period.

Speaker: um When you first turn 21, you're excited about drinking beer. You're buying Bud Light, Budweiser, and Coors Light, and Coors Banquet. um And you're just buying mostly whatever's cheap.

Speaker: um Especially at those you know college beer parties where you gotta get 500 beers or whatever for all these kids. Um... You're just going with the cheap stuff. And he was like, it was an eye-opening moment for him. Like, wow, Guinness is what I've been missing about beer. I didn't know beer could be like this.

Speaker: So he got home a week or so later, immediately bought homebrewing equipment and started brewing. um His first batch, he said, turned out way better than he was expecting.

Speaker: And he was so happy with it that he... within a week of buying this brewing equipment, well, maybe not a week, within a month, I would guess, once his first batch was done, he was brewing multiple times per week.

Speaker: So, I mean, you can imagine, i don't know if he lived in a dorm or if he lived in an apartment or a house or what, um but I bet it was full of carboys, just carboys everywhere fermenting because he was hooked on brewing immediately.

Speaker: So in 2010, ah Edward, along with his wife, Morgan, um founded Westbrook Brewing in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

Speaker: um They started off with a small tap room. They immediately went from him brewing five-gallon batches of beer to brewing 1,000-gallon batches.

Speaker: um So it was, it was ah he said that was a big change for him because ah as I'm sure you can attest, maybe not attest, but as I'm sure as you know, You can't just take your recipe for five gallons of beer and multiply it until you get to a thousand so that you can just make it bigger at scale.

Speaker: um Beer recipes change. it's not that simple. There's a lot of stuff going on, and ah you have to make significant changes to a recipe in order for it to scale like that. You can't just scale it up and down.

Speaker: The only way to do that is with the back to Guinness, the Guinness, like with the export stout stuff. That's the only way you can do it is by making the concentrate and then you can scale it that way.

Speaker: um And it's still not going to be entirely consistent. But anyway, so they were founded in 2010. In 2012, in two thousand and twelve They released Goza for the first time. It was a callback to a classic German style.

Speaker: And it was an instant hit. um It is Westbrook. I didn't know this. Not their Key Lime Goza, which they're very well known for now. um Their original Goza, their classic Goza, their American Goza, I'll call it. Yeah, very good.

Speaker: It was the first. It was the first Goza to go mainstream in the U.S. So it literally started the the trend of of, you know, the...

Speaker: Not necessarily, it it it was kind of a precursor to the sour trend that we're in now. um But it truly started the Goza trend, which is kind of like the half sour. The Berliner Weisses, the stuff like that that's a little bit sour, but not super sour, super fruited. Yeah. They were able to to take something that was very popular outside of the U.S. and to to build a following to really kind of bring it to the mainstream at the time when people were not drinking that kind of beer at all well and and get people interested.

Speaker: As far as I know... that beer was not popular outside the U S it was in a, you know, a lull at the time. Um, that I don't, I don't know how the ebbs and flows of popularity of Goza has gone over the years, but my understanding is that they were pretty hard to find even in, in Germany and Belgium.

Speaker: Um, but if you've never had a Goza, let me pitch it to you. Um, Goza is a very light beer. They're typically very low in alcohol. Most of them are between 3.5% and 4.5%. Usually 4%. 4% is kind the standard. And they're just...

Speaker: usually four four percent is kind of the standard um and they're just a hint of sour. They're sour enough that you know it's sour, but it's not like that.

Speaker: If you've ever had a sour beer and you've been like, wow, that's way too sour for me, a Goza's probably not too sour for you. yeah um It's closer to something like I don't know, like a McDonald's lemonade or something in terms of sourness. Actually, it's probably less sour than that.

Speaker: it's It's certainly less sour, and I think the focus there is also on that clean minerality from the salt. So not to say that it's salty, but really when I say it's salty, it's kind of more of a minerality from the salt rather than a like bracing saltiness. It's not salty, it's salted. else Yes, exactly. Whereas most beer has zero salt, this beer has just a touch, just enough that you can taste it.

Speaker: um and Goza is like the Gatorade of beers, man. There is literally no better, there is no better beer to drink on a hot day. When you're hot and you're sweating, Goza is like, you know, water from the, from the gods.

Speaker: It is where it's at. It really does feel good. It's so wild. It's the best. Um, and this was, ah you know, that was around the time when I started be becoming aware of Goza. Um,

Speaker: In 2016, they released their first batch of Key Lime Pie Goza, which has gone on to even greater popularity than their classic Goza.

Speaker: um It is a Key Lime Pie Fruited Goza. It also really started the ah a widespread trend in Fruited Gozas, which if you see a Goza these days, it's probably going to be Fruited.

Speaker: There's a lot of Fruited Gozas out there now. um Finding a standard Goza is a little harder to do these days. um But that is like, Key Lime Pie Goza from them is like, that is their gold standard. It is also the gold standard of fruited Gozas.

Speaker: um But it's their, that's their most popular beer widely. um Closer to home, you know, at the brewery, they have a couple of other beers that are kind of their their actual core lines.

Speaker: um But the Gozas are what what they're really truly known for. This is not that beer. This is similar, but this is not that beer. um So because they became known as kind of the Key Lime Pie Brewery, um in 2020, they started doing a little celebration for Pie Day every year. March 14th, 3.14.

Speaker: you know You know how it goes. ah My wife can repeat like 20 decimals or 30 decimals or something of pie. It's crazy to me. I don't know how deep it goes, but it's a lot. Like, she can keep going, and it goes longer than I... Like, I know... ah I know 3.14.

Speaker: I know there's more numbers after that, that if I hear them, I'm like, yes, that's right. um But I can't name them off the top of my head. She can she can go for it a little bit. um This one is their Key Lime Pie. This is Key Lime Pie Sour Ale, they call it.

Speaker: um It doesn't have, or actually I think they call it ah pastry sour. Key lime pie pastry sour. It is definitely distinct from their classic key lime pie goza.

Speaker: It is more sour because it's actually a sour. It's not. Goza's like, goza's in between a beer and a sour, like lager or a light ale and a sour. um This is in sour territory.

Speaker: um So inspired by Pi's rational approximate approximation, i had to look this up because I didn't know what it was. um But the rational approximates approximation is 22 over 7, 22 divided by 7. If you don't want to do math with decimal points, you can you can do 22 divided by 7 in place of Pi, and that basically gets you close enough.

Speaker: um So, inspired by those numbers and the roundness of key lime pies, they've infused every seven barrels of this beer have 22 actual, full-on, big ol' key lime pies. They didn't say where they saw it.

Speaker: Actual pies. Full pies. um They also are adding, of course, additional lime puree and vanilla to a really make sure you can taste it because um I think if you just load it up with like 22 pies per barrel or 40 or 50 pies per barrel, you would probably get to a point where you're not really making a beer anymore.

Speaker: You're just fermenting pies. There's something to be said about that, right? Well, they do have a version of this called Key Lime Pie Squared.

Speaker: The color of it is the color of the cream in a key lime pie. This one is is is more beer colored. The other one looks like almost white, painted yellowish green.

Speaker: Like it looks like key lime pie filling. And they say that that one is this beer, but they include exponentially more pies per barrel. So I don't know what that means. They don't specify how many pies are going in each barrel. it's fantastic.

Speaker: But that sounds like a lot. um wanted to read their little flavor text because on the website, they have a description um that really, I think, says a lot about this beer. To create this delectable dessert delight, we started with our base sour beer and employed an extremely advanced, complex brewing stock brewing technique called buying a bunch of key lime pies and putting them into the beer.

Speaker: ah So they they just went to the store and bought a bunch of key lime pies, tossed them into the beer, and yeah. Very nice. Bob's your uncle. So I'm going take a couple sips of this key lime pie beer with actual key lime pies and see how it pairs. I'm not sure how it's going to pair, um but I am sure that it's going to be delicious.

Speaker: Sam Fennel says pie doesn't stop going. That's correct. You're right. Pie never stops. Yeah, that's that's that's a fair point. um yeah man i you know as you were talking through then that's a beer that i know very well and i love i haven't had the pie version of it i you know i i know the classic version that i kind of what you and i in a sense grew up with uh in our in our beer exploration over the years i i went what i'm having p-lam goza brought me from being a beer child to a beer adult right like dude it's i grew up on that beer in terms of beer

Speaker: and And in many ways, it was it for me at least, it was a jumping point for – well, I shouldn't say that, I think. It was the gateway to Sours for most people. Flemish Reds for me were my gateway into Sours, but as a result of the Flemish Reds, I was also exploring stuff like Goza and all these other sort of side side ah side styles or adjacent styles, if you will.

Speaker: What I'm having tonight, i dude, the whole time we were talking, I desperately wanted to – finish this i poured this can into a pint glass and in one sip i hit probably 75 this pint glass i just gulped it down it was so good oh boy it was so good it it it ah man if you didn't tell me what this was i you know i i would drink a gallon of this and then have a probably rough night it's that good So what I'm drinking tonight is something that comes from a brand that's been around for a really long time. And I i suspect you've probably had some some of their stuff. If not, then at least you've heard of them.

Speaker: You familiar with Nectars at all? Fruit Nectars? Like in in one of those like Tetra Pak. Yes. Tall Tetra Pak things, right?

Speaker: Generally, they're from like Mexico or some other country, some like Central South America country. Once in a while, you get something from Europe, but it's not common as much unless you go to a Russian store. That's where I experience a lot of this stuff.

Speaker: But this particular thing that I'm drinking tonight comes from a brand that's been around for a really, really, really long time. They were founded in 1961 by Eugenio Lopez Rodaya in Mexico City, and this brand is called Jumex.

Speaker: I've definitely heard of them. I've definitely had some of their so some of their drinks. So I have always called them Jumex because I was like, i don't know. It's Hugo and Mex. and like you know It wasn't until later that I finally went like, why am I calling it Jumex if it's Hugo? It's Who-Mex. Was it Who-May? No, it's Who-Mex officially.

Speaker: i looked it up. Don't worry about it. I got it right. It's Who-Mex. J-U-M-E-X. So as as in and as in like the juice of Mexico, a a transposition of the words juice in Mexico. Yeah, exactly. Google in Mexico. And really, they kind of started their whole and ah their whole business really was not alcohol. it was They had a fruit processing operation.

Speaker: It was a Lopez family agricultural business that ended up going into just purely fruit. And and they essentially became like the dole of Mexico. You know, in the U.S. we have dole. They're everywhere. They have so many different things underneath their brand, so many facings under their brand, really.

Speaker: And Humex in that sense became that. They were like the dole. They are the dole of Mexico. It's who goes to Mexico, and that's their core.

Speaker: And now eventually around 17, late seventy s to, sorry

Speaker: 1970s, late 1970s to early 80s, they started to do vertical integration the supply chain. So they started controlling the the sourcing of the fruit, the processing of the fruit, the packaging, distribution, the entire thing, right?

Speaker: Full scale, large operation. And that's when they really started to expand outside of Mexico and into the really kind of the U.S. Hispanic market that was at the time just exploding like in the eighty s Mid 80s to probably 1992 was this boom of everything was coming from Mexico, man. Fruits, juices, we were getting avocados coming from Mexico. Now we're used to it, but back then that wasn't a thing. And so it was kind of a big deal and people were talking about it.

Speaker: um So now, Humex is known for their nectar. They have these, you know, the containers we talked about. It's the juice, and they have nectar from mango and nectar from guava and all these different cool things. Pineapple, coconut is one of the nectars that they make, and they're all chunky. They're like nectar, nectar. You know, it's not just fruit juice.

Speaker: What makes them different is that generally they contain 25% to 50% fruit pulp so they was going to ask what the difference is between nectar and nectar. And juice. Yeah, so the the the nectar contains a significant amount of the pulp itself, but the way they process the pulp is, i don't want to say homogenized fully because it's really not, but it's standardized. In other words, they take the pulp, they blend it through, they blend it with water, they blend it with an additional amount of sugar as well.

Speaker: but So what you end up getting is this really viscous, thick, It's not pulpy like when we know we talk about pulpy, think of high pulp orange juice. It's not like that.

Speaker: High pulp orange juice is very much pulpy and then it's orange juice, and you have that separation. This is more of the, ah going back to homogenized, it it's this very much uniform, thick Yeah, they get a uniform consistency to it.

Speaker: and they So they did this on purpose. This was to kind of play on the senses and... really be unique to the profile of you know what they're trying to do. So eventually, this is very cool, what they ended up doing is, like everybody else, but I'm glad they did, they were like, hey, people are drinking seltzers and they're drinking all these boozy things. Hard seltzer became a thing. Hard tea became a thing. They were like, hey, let's do this. We we got the stuff. We got the base.

Speaker: Let's throw some alcohol in there, some neutral kind of what you would call Now we call malt beverage, right? But that's just the nature of the fact that they use basic sugars. They ferment the sugars out to get some amount of alcohol, and they put it in. That's fine. That's not a knock on them. I think malt today is it's a different connotation than it once was.

Speaker: It's come a really long way in terms of flavor. It's come huge way, man. in In terms of flavor, in terms of utility, in terms of mass kind of a mass adoption, back then, if you drank anything that had malt in the name, it was they were like, oh, you're just you living on the streets, man. You're like coming out of Skid Row or whatever. People really kind of frowned ah on all that stuff. Unless it was Zima.

Speaker: Well, hey, now, Zima was a different thing. We're not going to talk Zima. So what I'm drinking tonight, very excited about this. Let me get my camera up Is this Humex Strawberry Hard Nectar Baby. 5%, only 5%, which is fantastic. Comes with lovely thin can.

Speaker: Your classic Red Bull style can. It is a 12 ounce can. And dude, it is fucking beautiful. You gotta it you gotta to shake the can. It's non-carbonated.

Speaker: It just It's literally just blended up strawberries with a little alcohol. alcohol ah Man, you don't you don't see a lot of narn non-carbonated beverages these days.

Speaker: Oh, it's so good. It smells... Oh, it smells like...

Speaker: You ever get like strawberry syrup on ah on shaved ice? You know, like Hawaiian shaved ice with strawberry syrup over the top? Like almost like a tiger's blood minus the coconut in the watermelon. But it's got that sort of syrupiness to it.

Speaker: This is pure strawberry syrup magic. And it's it tastes good. It doesn't have a weird finish to it Normally malt beverages have that like malty, the bite to the spirit.

Speaker: even if they're low alcohol, and this has nothing. It tastes like juice, dude. I drank the majority of this in one gulp. That's all I have left. And let me tell you, it does such a great job for the cigar because it pulls in all of those really great spices, and like baking spice.

Speaker: That intense richness of the cigar sits on top of that sweetness from the strawberry. And to me, it's it's just really, it's been perfect so far.

Speaker: What about for you? That really kind of describes the experience that I'm having with lime pie pastry sour. um First of all, this beer is incredible, man. Like, it is... This is what I would imagine if you told me that there was an imperial version of Westbrook's key lime pie goza.

Speaker: Oh, wow. So this is more sour, like heavier on the sour, much heavier on the key lime pie flavor. And it's also got like,

Speaker: trying to decide what kind of bubbles these are. Seltzer-y? They're in between seltzer-y and champagne-y. You know what I mean? Like very high bubble content, but they're not quite those tiny ones.

Speaker: They're very sharp. um there's They're sharp, but they're not those, like, champagne-style ones that are almost creamy on your palate because they're so small. It's like Liquid Death, ah like a Grave Fruit from Liquid Death, kind of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, similar to that style bubble um that really makes it, like, sparkle on your palate, you know?

Speaker: um I love this beer. I wish I had gotten more cans of it. um And it works with the cigar the exact same way you said, where that sourness, that sweetness hits your palate, and then you take a draw off the cigar, and it almost cuts, like, kind of the earthier flavors out, and you taste a little bit more of the...

Speaker: ah those baking spices, little bit more of, like, the actual, like, black pepper spice, a little bit more of the...

Speaker: I guess woody qualities, I would call it.

Speaker: it's It's interesting because it turns it into a different cigar while you're while you're drinking this. Yeah. Which sounds similar to to your Humex. Yeah, absolutely. All right.

Speaker: I guess it's time to move on to pairing number two now. um I have an old favorite. Maybe not old. It's been a favorite for a little while, but not too long.

Speaker: Founded in Lovingston, Virginia in 2011 by Irish immigrant George Moore um as a single malt first distillery. Actually, um up to this point, it has been single malt only.

Speaker: After he sold his tech company, Targus Info, for $650 million, dollars this is Virginia Distilling Company, um I need to make an order from them because they just released a cigar blend that is a blend of like, I don't know, six or eight different casks of all different types um that is, you know, made to go with cigars, which is fantastic.

Speaker: um So they founded this company in 2011. They started, it and it was kind of a A slow-moving beast, I'll call it.

Speaker: um They didn't have any product in 2011. He was just founding the company um so that they could start the build-out of their distillery. In 2013, during the construction of the distillery, ah he actually passed away of a heart attack.

Speaker: um and the distillery construction was just paused when he passed away. His son, Gareth, um from from the story, it was kind of during um wrapping up loose ends and stuff, trying to figure out, like, you know, what are we going to do with everything Dad was working on and stuff like that.

Speaker: He wanted to see what he had been working on at the distillery. He went and checked it out, and he immediately saw, like, I have an opportunity here to finish this half built distillery and make it my own.

Speaker: Um, so in 2015, Gareth oversaw the the completion of the construction of the distillery, um, and started distilling. Um, they had two, well, they still have two 10,000 liters, Scottish made copper pot stills.

Speaker: Um, it's long been talked about how, uh, George was an Irish immigrant. um Obviously, he had a much more appreciation for scotch than he did Irish whiskey because he wanted to make an American single malt distillery.

Speaker: um And like i said, to this point, they're only doing single malts. They don't make anything else. um Since they launched, they've received a number of awards, including both Distillery of the Year and Whiskey of the Year in 2023 at the London Spirits Competition.

Speaker: um The one I'm drinking tonight is from their their high-end range called Courage and Conviction. um purge and conviction is their their kind of i guess high end range is the way to way to put it um they offer both standard and single cask and cask strength releases um The Courage and Conviction brand is the most awarded single malt American single malt rather in the world in America.

Speaker: You don't really need to say in the world. um So I am drinking the Cuvée single cask, cask strength. um which is aged in wine barrels, red wine barrels, for four to six years that have been shaved and recharred. We talked about that last week, the week before last episode.

Speaker: Rechar, dechar rechar, which is where you scrape all of the all of the charred bits off, rechar it, you're getting that fresh char flavor, but you're also getting the influence that the wine had on the rest of that wood that that remains. Yeah.

Speaker: This of course, as with all of their whiskeys, uncolored, unchill filtered. This one is cast number 1251, bottled at 59.2% ABV.

Speaker: This one's got a little bit of heat to it. It's up there. um And then, as I always show off, they have this nice little brass fitting on the front that has like a little little challenge coin that has your cask number on it. Oh, yeah. On a little magnet. I love that. That's cool.

Speaker: I think that's such a cool touch. um With many of their casks, you can actually look it up on the website. I wasn't able to find this one. I don't know. My dad got it directly from the distillery, so it might have been some super limited one that because it's only available at the distillery, they don't bother putting it on the website because there weren't very many of them.

Speaker: um I think it's really cool that in the Courage and Conviction line, so this is the cuvee cask, which is the wine barrel. um They also have a bourbon barrel and three different sherry barrels, PX, Oloroso, and Fino.

Speaker: um and then they kind of have a couple of mixes of those where you can get the i think it's i can't remember the name i think it's the courage and conviction um just the courage and conviction standard single malt uh which is a mix of all of those the wine the bourbon the cherries you can get each sherry single cask or you can get one that is all three sherry casks blended They also have a program where you can pay not that much of a fee on top.

Speaker: So you can, I think it's like most of these are $60 to $80 a bottle. I think you can pay somewhere around $70 for $80.

Speaker: And you can get a custom blend. You can say, I want 15% sherry, 30% bourbon. That's really good deal. It's super cool. And you can get, you know, engraving and stuff like that on it.

Speaker: um I'm going to take a couple sips of this. I'll show off the color. This is a nice, like, dark amber, i would call it. A little bit of a reddish hue. um I'm going to take a couple sips, see how it pairs with El Pulpo, and let you tell us about your second pairing tonight.

Speaker: um I haven't opened my my ah second pairing yet. I've been sitting on it. Because as as i am told on the side of this can, it says... And it's actually upside down, so you have to flip the can over and read it. It says, flip it, flip it, and rip it.

Speaker: Real fruit juice separates. So you got to flip the can upside down, hold it for 10 seconds as the instructions state, then flip it back up, and now open it. So let me open it with you and tell you what it is.

Speaker: What I'm having is from a kind of a – originally was a craft brewery that opened up in 2008 in Virginia, of all places. um and was founded by Steve and Heidi Crandall.

Speaker: And they are called, you may have heard about this place, Devil's Backbone Brewing Company. Are you familiar with this place? Yes, I am. Yeah. Well, i you you you've been around been around town. You've been in Virginia.

Speaker: I have. um And so, yeah, Devil's Backbone got into distilling at some point later on. Give me one second. Let me have to take little sip.

Speaker: Oh, okay. oh Oh, my.

Speaker: I normally don't like to do live because at least if it's not great, you don't have to see my face. oh I'm not saying this is not great. There's a lot going on, so let's let's break it down.

Speaker: Now, I mentioned they were a craft brewery that opened up in 2008. They ended up like everybody else in the 2010s. What happened was everyone was going into ready-to-drink cocktails. That was the big thing. This was...

Speaker: That big push, it started in in like 2012, 2011, roughly. And then throughout that decade, it ended up exploding when we got to COVID. And it's weird. That's the timeline now that we're talking about, like pre-COVID, post-COVID.

Speaker: it It made sense. I think they they didn't realize that that was you know what was going to happen like a lot of other companies. But ready to drink. exploded into the mainstream during COVID when everybody was home, couldn't get out to the bar, and wanted something that was evocative of what they experienced, you know, in their local bars.

Speaker: And, you know, some some local bars, sure, they were doing to-go cocktails, which was really cool. But if you lived in an area where you couldn't get access to one of those, you ended up going to the shop and seeing, you know, what they had at the store.

Speaker: So they were... Devil's Backbone Distillery, now distillery, were acquired by AB InBev. I know.

Speaker: Don't cringe yet. AB InBev in 2016 with the benefit of, of course, like everything else, the promise of distribution scale. And at the end of the day, mom and pop shop, even if you're really popular locally, if you're popular in your state,

Speaker: To get that level of distribution control through a company like InBev is the reason why they own so many of these kinds of companies. yeah And the reason why they keep acquiring them. It makes sense.

Speaker: You're passionate about what you do. You want to own kind of the craft, if you will, but you don't want to deal with the logistical overhead. So somebody like AB InBev comes and says, hey, we got the market. we got We got the transportation hubs. We've got the distribution hubs.

Speaker: Give us a percentage, you know whatever it is, or we'll give you a percentage back. We're going to own it. um But then you don't have to worry about this overhead. Like, yeah, man, that's great. Because at the end of the day, if you really care about what you're doing, right you just want to get it into people's hands.

Speaker: So what I'm drinking tonight is it's quite an interesting thing and and kind of contentious, I think. We can talk about this a little bit. So what I'm drinking is bourbon smash blackberry lemonade.

Speaker: Comes in at 7.5%. It has actual bourbon in it. It's not like a... Love to see that. It's not like a malt spirit or whatever. like proper bourbon. It's in there. There's fruit juice. There's bourbon.

Speaker: you know There's some sugar. there's There's proper herbs and citrus. And kind of the smash, I think, you know historically was... It was like the poor man's, the every man's sort of julep in the sense that you didn't have to be so exact. You can kind of throw some fruit together with some bourbon and some sugar and sit whatever citrus you had. and You kind of had a, you could call it a smash.

Speaker: You smashed it all in a glass. You poured some stuff over it. Sometimes you poured some seltzer over the top, right? And you ended up with a smash, essentially what became a smash.

Speaker: um Now, the origins of the smash, you could argue back and forth specific dates, but really you're looking at mid-19th century. Probably the first, we could argue, probably the first mention of the smash as we know it today came from Jerry Thomas' 1862 cocktail guide.

Speaker: I think it was called How to Mix Drinks. And that was really the first time we saw a smash officially mentioned. And it was pretty simple. it was like, hey, you need a spirit. You need sugar. You need some kind of an herb, usually mint, and then citrus, whatever you know whatever citrus you had.

Speaker: So, it dude, it you know it works. We've experienced this with a lot of different things and cocktails, and the the beer culture has also evolved to appreciate the the the concept of blending. You have your base spirit, your base flavor, and then you add.

Speaker: Some kind of sugar, you add some kind of an acid, you add some carrier liquid, whether that's a still or sparkling liquid. um You know, really, this is the almost like the cocktail equivalent of, I don't know if you're familiar with the book, ah Salt, Acid, Fat, Heat.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. All So it's kind of like that where you're you're really playing off of all of those different elements, the umami with the salt, and they they play off of each other to bring out the characteristics into one consumable body, if you will.

Speaker: So there's lot to be said there. Questions? No, I was just going to say Devil's Backbone scratched my brain a little bit. i've i've I've had a bunch of their stuff because I have family that lives in Virginia. When I go to Virginia, they have Virginia beer. so Devil's Backbone is one that my uncle likes a lot, so he's always got something from them.

Speaker: and it's it It scratched my brain a little bit because I remembered my my dad's cousin came over to my uncle's house last time I was there. This was About a year ago. It was last Easter.

Speaker: um And he brought some old beers. um He had Let's see what it was.

Speaker: One of the ones was an Imperial Stout called Dark Hollow aged in bourbon barrels that was bottled in 2016.

Speaker: motion um And he also had Danzig Baltic Porter from Devil's Backbone pre-acquisition. Those like from 2014 or 15 that was in the old packaging and I drank one and it was it was killer.

Speaker: But yeah, it I was like, I swear that's where one of those those old beers was from. And yes, it was. I love – going back real quick to the to the concept of the cocktail, the smash. If if you are – if you drink bourbon and you are open to drinking bourbon in a cocktail and maybe you're sick of drinking Old Fashioned, you're sick of drinking your like – whatever else, whatever you like to drink. If you're sick of that, consider doing a smash if you go to ah a decent spot that has fruit, that's like fresh fruit, like a berry. Specifically, I recommend Blackberry. Blackberry smash is usually pretty good.

Speaker: Blackberry has this really wonderful, the fruit itself has this really wonderful tannic quality to it that it's almost like it emulates a barrel quality to it without, so my point is you can take something that that's kind of a less high quality, less high end bourbon that normally you wouldn't drink necessarily neat, but if you put it with blackberries and the tannins from the blackberries in a little acid, you end up with something that's Fantastic. Yeah, you jazz it up a little bit. it

Speaker: well Well, we're going jazz it up on on PCA. um what What fruit was in that version you're drinking? Blackberry. Okay. Nice.

Speaker: Yeah. But I love Blackberry because this is what a Blackberry Smash should be. If it were to be ready to drink cocktail, I think they they nailed it. Oftentimes when you hear Blackberry Smash, you go to a bar. When I go to a bar and I see that on the menu,

Speaker: Unless it's a cocktail bar, I don't bother. Like if I go to a dive bar and they have a blackberry smash, nope. Because I know it's going to be some kind of syrup. It's going to be... yeah It's not going to have the tannic quality of fresh fruit that's that's muddled properly.

Speaker: And it's not going fresh herb. It's not going fresh citrus. It's just going mix of shit that I don't want. It's all sugar. yeah um they I think they did a really good job in that it's not very sweet.

Speaker: It's actually just very... um good carbonation to it and it's very much blackberry and bourbon forward. So you can taste the bourbon in this, which is great.

Speaker: I know some people are not going to really dig that. Some people get the cocktails because they don't want to get that in-your-face bourbon punch. But dude, 7.5%, again, that's kind of hard to nail to get the flavors just right.

Speaker: i think they that great job meant I think what you just said, that some people don't want a booze-forward cocktail. um is kind of the, that's kind of what makes, I think, a smash really nice, is that it's a good middle ground between, like, a fruity cocktail and ah mostly bourbon cocktail, like a Manhattan or oh yeah an old-fashioned.

Speaker: It's kind of a nice middle ground. It's a really good muddle ground, even. Oh. Oh. I see what you did there. Good one. I dig it.

Speaker: Yeah, man. So tell us more about your your second pairing. How's that going for you Oh, it's wonderful. um I know I sent you a little bottle of this. You gotta try it sometime.

Speaker: Oh shit, did you? I sent you a bunch of little bottles. i haven't seen any of them pop up on the show. Um... Now I completely forgot about them and and And they're here They're here in the cave of wonders That makes sense but The cave wonders This is like the door in Peacemaker where He goes in and it's just a bunch of shit And it's like you can't find anything That's where I'm at right now um I will look for it I will note I'm using my wonderful lighter from El Polpo Dude that is that is super cool

Speaker: yeah fantastic Have you seen this one in person? I can't remember if i brought this to my internet. I've never seen it. Okay. but but Check this out.

Speaker: Got got a little light. Has a push button. so you it's it's usb usbc charging you just tap the button and it lights triple flame fantastic lighter man like and i just that's i was like um billy that lighter is very nice and he's like oh you want it i was like yeah i would love one he said come back when we're closing down and we'll give it to you um and he made good on that I would highly recommend it. I'm going to on full weasel technique this year, and um I would get myself one of those. That's super cool. but It is probably my favorite lighter.

Speaker: um Just because, like, you you don't have to, like, go through that. I mean, you know, I have a lot of lighters. All lighters eventually are going to do the thing where you you click it, and it won't it won't light all the way. You're just click click, click, click, clicking it.

Speaker: That one lit every time, of course. um And this one, when you hit it, it hazes, like it zaps like eight times.

Speaker: So it's even if it misses on that first one, it's going to catch. It's going to hit it. Yeah, that's super cool, man. It's very nice. It's impressive. USB charge, man. That's really scary. Yeah, it's got USB-C on the bottom. It has a little punch on the bottom. i I love this thing. This is my, like, if I can only bring one accessory, I bring this one everywhere.

Speaker: I think it's a really great size, too. I've only had it for a year and it's getting all beat up. i This thing's going to be silver one of these days. but And I'm still going to use it until this thing dies.

Speaker: I love this lighter. Shout out to Gus and Billy for making a great lighter and great cigarettes. Yeah, good good job, Gus. Sam Fennell is pairing with a Mulligan Stout, which is Aldi's take on Guinness.

Speaker: I'm very curious, how is that, Sam? Because they're they have a a German Pilsner that is made by... Urkel.

Speaker: Who's the big Pilsner maker in Germany? Who's the what? Who's the big the big beer company in Germany? Hopra House? No, it's it's one of the other big ones that's like, it's kind of a mass market German pilsner, but it's very good. But they have a German pilsner that's made by Carlsberg.

Speaker: They have a German pilsner that's made by Carlsberg for them that is fantastic. I thought Carlsberg was from the other country.

Speaker: Is it? No. Carlsberg is in Carlsberg, Germany.

Speaker: I thought Carlsberg was made in fucking Holland. Maybe I'm wrong. Let's see. um Oh yeah, it's made in Denmark. So maybe it's not Carlsberg. Maybe it's owned by Carlsberg. Either way.

Speaker: Wait, Carlsberg's made in Denmark? It's Danish. Yeah, Denmark is Danish. It's made in Copenhagen. Copenhagen, eh? Copenhagen. um But I think it's made by Carlsberg, but it says made in Germany.

Speaker: don't know. Probably owned by one of the made by one of the breweries they make. It's one of the big ones, yeah. um Either way, it is a great lager. Like, it is an incredible German lager, I think.

Speaker: um And for like 10 bucks for a four-pack, which is a steal for a decent beer. So I drink those all the time, but I've never tried Mulligan. So Sam, let me know how Mulligan is.

Speaker: um Anyway, back to Courage and Conviction. This whiskey is incredible.

Speaker: You really taste a little bit of that wine influence. It's a very... um

Speaker: This is very much notch not scotch. I'll put it that way. Um... it's closer to a bourbon in flavor, but scotch in character, maybe like it's, it's got definitely some scotch influence, but it's a little more of that, like, caramel-y kind of bourbon-y, um, almost maple syrupy kind of flavors that you get from, from bourbon.

Speaker: Um, it's very good and and it's working fantastically with this cigar. Uh,

Speaker: Trying to think of more specific notes. i don't know if I have any. But i'm I'm absolutely loving this cigar. And I'm loving this whiskey. They work together really well. But they don't...

Speaker: Neither of them brings out a ton in the other. They just both work really well next to each other. um So we'll see how my last pairing goes. How's your smash go with the cigar? Yeah, man. It's surprisingly very good.

Speaker: So far it's been really good. Nice. All right, on to my last pairing. um I got ah a note about a little shipment coming. Probably it's it's scheduled to land anytime between 16th and the 23rd, which is all of the days that we will be away out of town at PCA. Actually, i think it's like one or two days that I'll be back. But my new frame order is coming, my new seller club.

Speaker: So I figured I'll polish off another bottle from the previous one. Iterations. Freem, I've talked about it a bunch of times, founded in 2012. They're in Hood River, Oregon.

Speaker: um Josh Freem, the main founder, he founded it with a couple buddies, but they put his name on it because he was the guy that was going to be making the beer. um He loves lagers, absolutely loves lagers.

Speaker: He designed his entire brewing system specifically for lagers. Unfortunately for him, it was at a time where lagers were not very popular. So they had to focus on making IPAs and pale ales, blonde ales, stuff like that for the first couple years.

Speaker: Then they released their lagers and everybody went crazy for them. So now they have become known not only for their lagers, but their crazy barrel aging programs um where they do... I mean, if if we're just counting the stuff that they put in the in the seller club, they're doing 24 barrel age releases a year.

Speaker: And that's only the stuff they put. that's That doesn't include everything. That's not all their barrel-aged stuff. but So they've got you know probably closer to 30 barrel-aged releases every year, which is nuts.

Speaker: They're barrel-aging a ton of beer. They're using the Cool Ships. They're using the different kinds of barrels, Hogshead, stuff like that. They're mixing. they're They're grinding. They're doing all sorts of stuff.

Speaker: um The one I am drinking tonight, let me see if I can find it in my notes because I swear I have it in here. Okay, i don't have I don't have much on this one. I am drinking barrel-aged maple smoked porter.

Speaker: So this is a smoked porter aged in bourbon barrels with maple syrup. um It has a ton of malts. I put in my notes too many malts to list, but Beachwood smoked malt is included.

Speaker: because there are a lot of different malts in this beer. I'll hold up the bottle. It's typical frame, white label, little neck band that shows you what beer it is. um They use Chinna Cops in this. It is 9.1% ABV, 45 IBUs, and I poured this before we started the show, over an hour ago, and you still got a little bit of head there.

Speaker: um which is good. I'm going to see how it tastes, see how it pairs with El Pulpo. I'll let you talk about your final pairing of the evening. What do you got up for us, Dennis?

Speaker: Oh, well, you know. I think you know. I'm going back into Jumex land. Nice. And for those of you that don't know, Jumex actually operates one of the largest fruit processing processing facilities in Latin America, all of Latin America.

Speaker: And they essentially handle hundreds of thousands of tons, a lot of tons of fruit every year. They are massively huge to the point where they actually have an art gallery, which just sounds crazy, but um they they, more than one gallery, excuse me, they founded Museo Jumex, which is a series of contemporary art museums all over Mexico, which kind of wild and crazy.

Speaker: um but But really, they have solidified their name in so many different ways. They are the de facto standard. Kids growing up today and kids growing up 30 years ago and 40, 50 years ago know the brand because they've seen this. They've grown up with this. They've consumed this on you weekends with family. and And as I have also growing up in in my own kind of realm, going through like the Eastern European nectars, And then also experiencing the Mexican fruit nectar. Well, I was going to say, like um at least in my experience, like those Mexican fruit nectars, they are in every bodega in Manhattan.

Speaker: And probably in Bronx and of Brooklyn and everywhere. they like Everywhere, baby. like That humak stuff is all over the place. And it's so good. And so I'm pouring.

Speaker: I'm pouring another one. I'm very excited about this. So what I had before was strawberry. And what I'm having now, is mango. Nice. Goddamn. I love... I was... You know when you see a brand that you really know and you love and you see them doing an alcohol project?

Speaker: It's exciting. So, like, I was excited when I saw Topo Chico doing their hard hard seltzers. I was really excited about that because I wanted to see what the minerality would be like with with the spirit backbone.

Speaker: And so I have this mango. It's, dude, it's wild. Like, look how thick that is. It's just juice. That looks like that beer I sent you a picture of the other day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It looks exactly like that. It's just, it's it's thick. It's viscous. You can see the chunks of fruit pulp on on the sides of the glass.

Speaker: It smells wild. It just smells like it squeezed mango. That's all it is. It's great. Oh, yeah. Man, I talked and it took the camera off of you so we didn't get to see you guzzle 12 ounces of mango juice.

Speaker: This is I don't want to call it, the year just started. I don't want to call it too early, but this is one of my most, to me, the most exciting discoveries of the year in terms of like ah a spirit or a can or, you know, a beer thing or, you know, some kind of alcoholic beverage that I picked up at my liquor store.

Speaker: This to me so far this year. Blows me away compared to everything else I've had. I didn't expect this. And it's good. And it's clean. And it tastes really nice. And it's low alcohol.

Speaker: If this was like 8% or 10% or whatever, probably wouldn't like it as much. I like that they kept it just 5. That's it.

Speaker: Keep it 5. Let people you know drink a couple. No problem. If it was eight, it would be like gas station sort of... you know Yeah, it would be that like get hammered as quick as possible kind of stuff.

Speaker: yeah um which is Which is not what I'm after. that I think that's one of the reasons I don't typically gravitate towards stuff like this. Is because i can taste mango nectar by drinking mango nectar.

Speaker: Can't taste whiskey by drinking anything but whiskey. Yeah. Well, you know, you have a good point. That's why for me, like, um um I don't gravitate towards very fruity cocktails.

Speaker: And when somebody says, like, even when I was, I don't know, 21, it drove me crazy when people would be like, you got to order this cocktail, you can't even taste the alcohol. And I'd be like, yeah, I don't want that. i mean It was an interesting time, right? I don't want that.

Speaker: I don't want to not taste the alcohol. If I wanted to not taste the alcohol, I would just not drink alcohol. But I've never been the type to... to My goal is never to get hammered. You know?

Speaker: Well, you want to experience it. You want to taste the thing. different. You and i very similar similar kind of vein, which for me, I find it really fun when you and I get together and we're traveling somewhere and we can stop at a local spot. We can experience things like that tequila mezcal joint in in Vegas that I love.

Speaker: that That was a fun experience because we got to get down on the details. We got down on like the grasshopper salt and all this stuff. It was really fun. I was going to say, you reminded me of an old an old adage. I think this is a ah very important proverb, if you will, to remember that you know you can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a cow's ass. But sometimes it's better to just take the butcher's word for it, right?

Speaker: I like that one. I've heard that one before, and I like it. me boy Oh yeah ah Sam says his third pairing Is from a local brewery named Say Wen And he's drinking Cowbell An American strong ale at 11% ABV That sounds delightful I love i love a say strong ale That's such a cool name for a brewery Say Wen It really is say when it's so It's so cool that's ah you know Maybe I'm showing my age now How excited I am about it But it's it's fun

Speaker: So interestingly, with my my final pairing, the the barrel-aged maple smoked porter, um again, that is smoked porter aged in bourbon barrels with maple syrup.

Speaker: um I remember the last time I had this. I was like, this is just too sweet. It's overpoweringly sweet, um at least for me, for for a beer of this style.

Speaker: Something like the the, it's less sweet than the key lime pie. But that tastes like key lime pie. That's supposed to be sweet. This is like a dark, stouty beer.

Speaker: Well, portery beer. And portery yeah and the the sweetness for me is just a little overpowering. But it really works with this cigar. That sweetness goes so long so far in the way of melding with this cigar and bringing out... like I hadn't thought about it until this pairing.

Speaker: Yeah, but this ah this is a very sweet cigar. It's got a lot of like... There's a little bit of chocolate influence, but it's really more of like a...

Speaker: I feel like this is the one I always go back to when it's kind of generic sweetness, but like donut glaze kind of sweetness to it. It's like an intense, glazy kind of sweetness um on the palate.

Speaker: And interestingly, that this Smoked barrel-aged porter maple, whatever it's called, um is sweet enough that it almost cancels out the sweetness of the cigar and adds, like, a new dimension to the cigar because you're tasting all those other flavors without the sweetness, um which is, like...

Speaker: ah a complimentary style of pairing that rarely happens for us, like where you get those flavors that are actually canceling out other flavors rather than making you taste the off flavors.

Speaker: um It's getting rid of one of the good flavors, but bringing out all the other good flavors. um This is a good pairing. It's really working very well.

Speaker: I'm curious to go back through my parents. I'll, I'll start doing that in a minute. Um, how about your, how's your mango working? Oh dude, it's, it's lovely. It's so, it's so nice. Um, much like the strawberry. I, I love that. It's just, it tastes like just mango juice.

Speaker: It's got that thickness of, of a classic nectar, which for some people, it's not their thing. I get it. Um, but if you did grow up with that kind of thing, like I did and a lot of other people, um,

Speaker: It's that nostalgia of you always you always get excited for that that glass of nectar. that like it's It reminds me of that particular style of IPA.

Speaker: um there was yeah ah For a time called Milkshake IPA, it's not a Milkshake IPA because a Milkshake IPA is a different thing, but that style of IPA that has so much pectin in it that it's syrupy.

Speaker: it's syrupy It's just thick and syrupy, yeah, exactly. And that's what that always reminded me of like those those fruit nectars that would come in the the Tetra packs.

Speaker: Man. Now I want to drink that Chicken Feet beer again, because that's what that reminded me of. That, uh... Oh, shit. All Chicken, No Feet, whatever it is from... Was that an Evil Twin? Evil Twin.

Speaker: Evil Twin or over other half. I think it's Evil Twin. have one more. Do you have more? you know I have one left. i am going to bring it. Because I know you can get that beer. Me?

Speaker: But, well, I mean, it's Evil Twin. They're in New York. shit man Exactly. That's the thing. is Evil Twin, like when they release a beer, it's just it doesn't exist anymore. like it's just They release it, and and then it goes away, and it's into the ether forever.

Speaker: but I will bring that because I know that you won't be able to get it. You could hit all the Evil Twin shops in the in the state, no and you're not going to find it. um so Because that's how Evil Twin works.

Speaker: I live close to Philly, and and there's another half in Philly. There's another half location in Philly. There's one in Brooklyn, the OG locations in Brooklyn. I work in you know New York City and then i I live down here, but I can tell you even other half stuff, I struggle to get it.

Speaker: Like what you see and what you might be able to get is is probably not stuff that I can get. Yeah, it's Evil Twin and it is called Fresh Feet and No Chicken.

Speaker: ah It's a crazy beer because... It sounds... it sounds i they They call it a milkshake IPA, but it's more of like a smoothie sour to me.

Speaker: It was crazy. like I drank it expecting it to just be an IPA, and it was it was like mind-boggling. So I'm definitely going to bring that, because it's crazy, and you have to try it And again, I know i know that it'll you can stop at Evil Twin in New York City.

Speaker: They're probably not to have it because they're going have whatever's coming out next week, and then they're going to be sold out of that.

Speaker: um Yeah. it's That's the way their beer works. I get it. um So I will bring that to you. we will We will drink it possibly on camera because we do have a couple of after show kind of stuff.

Speaker: ah on the docket. um I don't want to spoil anything, so we'll let it be a surprise, but we'll we'll see you guys from Vegas. or from vegas From New Orleans, rather.

Speaker: That's next year, baby. It is next year. It's weird because as much as I was excited to get away from Vegas, yeah, I'm excited to go back. It's been a while. we can ah I discovered the best new restaurant there that we're going to have to go to, and it's going blow everybody's minds. Hot spot?

Speaker: um No, it's called Best Friend. So it is an L.A. chef that does Mexican-Korean fusion.

Speaker: And i think I ate the best meal you can eat for 115 bucks or whatever it was. That's not bad for Vegas. Exactly.

Speaker: and And this was like a crazy amount of food. I didn't finish all the food, if you can believe that. Unless unless you go to the one hot pot spot that I know, it's like 40 bucks, all you can eat sushi, hot pot, off strip. It's like 25 minutes off strip.

Speaker: So this tts man this is like not necessarily like fine dining. This is high-end food that is...

Speaker: $99 for the chef's menu. And the chef's menu is off the charts. It is the best meal I've had at that price point in Las Vegas, which is a lot because, know, we've eaten anywhere $20 meal to a $300 or $400 meal in Vegas. This the bang for the buck, man.

Speaker: a twenty dollars meal to a three or four hundred dollars meal in vegas this is like the bang for the buck man um So we got to go to best friend. They got great beer there.

Speaker: um I had some. ah Poto Chino. which is a hoduchino i think uh i can't remember if i'm pronouncing that right hochi tono hoduchino i think is how you said hido chino hido chino that's the one the beer the beer incredible japanese brewery um it is a fantastic brewery they make fucking awesome beer i love their beer and i saw it on the menu and i was like well i gotta get one of those um and it was so it was great um but they have a seven course

Speaker: non-tasting menu. This is a full-on seven-course meal, including of course like salad, ah four different kinds of grilled meat, rice, and not just rice. It was kimchi fried rice with a fried egg on top.

Speaker: The fried egg was raw enough that I could eat it. that's how That's how raw that egg was. um It included dessert, which was like nine scoops of ice cream. It was a ridiculous amount of ice cream.

Speaker: An insane amount. An insane amount of ice cream. I'm, like, getting way off topic, but I don't give a shit. um and Best Friend is, like... Best Friend is the spot, man. It's in the park, which is the... Well, so part of the reason we didn't know about it is because it's in MGM... Park MGM, which is the newest casino on the southern end of the Strip.

Speaker: I don't think they were even there the last time we were all in Vegas together. No. um I think it was still the...

Speaker: what used to be there was it the mirage or is the mirage further up they got rid of the mirage okay so yeah it was mirage it used to be mirage they blew up mirage they didn't actually blow it up they just demolished most of the inside and they replaced it with park mgm um i think it was mirage that's one that was in between aria and cosmo and new york right yeah um yeah so it's you go through new york new york to get there um But it was it was the best meal I've had. it is, unfortunately, this is the one huge downside.

Speaker: This is the one casino on the Strip where you cannot smoke a cigar. It is a no-smoking property. um at all at all there's nowhere on the property that you're allowed to smoke but it's worth it for this food because it is incredible well'll i'll I'll send you some pictures after the show tonight I got kicked out of the Cosmo for smoking a cigar really one year i sat in the Cosmo for like four hours with June and Aaron from developing palates and

Speaker: Yeah, under the chandelier. Normally you can smoke there. but Yeah, we we smoked right under the chandelier and nobody said shit. They were both worried about it and I was like, they tell us to leave, we'll leave. But if they don't tell us to leave, we'll just be here smoking cigars and ordering cocktails.

Speaker: So going back to your point, how we got to this this place in the conversation, there's some exciting, not secret necessarily, but some special stuff that that it's in the works, I think.

Speaker: we say that We say it every year, but we will be going live at least once. Dare I say, dare I say, a Media House pairing will be curated by yours truly.

Speaker: Please, yes. Bear and I had intended to do it last year. We got the pairing and we had to do it on his show instead because we ran out of time. This time we have set aside time where we will be live for you guys hanging out in the Media in the media Compound.

Speaker: um It's now really the Coalition compound, I guess, but what we still call it the media compound. It's very it's very exciting. But we we'll be live. We'll talk to you guys from PCA. We'll let you know what we've seen, what's exciting, what's super cool, what's disappointing, all that kind of stuff. Daily highlights kind of deal. yeah Yeah, I don't know if we're going to every day, but we're definitely going to do a couple of highlight kind of things where we're talking about just what the stuff is that we thought was cool.

Speaker: um Or that what we smoked that day, who we talked to that day that was interesting, or we met that we never met before. It'll be fun. We also got a couple other things planned. not Conor McGregor.

Speaker: i I really hope we don't see Conor McGregor. We might meet Conor McGregor. um fucking i won't tell him how our episode went. On our episode, I think, between you and I, we demolished his whiskey and his cigar. You may not. I mean, it's no longer his whiskey, so he probably won't be but too pissed about that. He sold it for like a bajillion dollars.

Speaker: um But the news broke a couple weeks ago on the the interview I did with, I guest co-hosted with Coop to interview Joshua Burski.

Speaker: Oh, you were there. Yes, I was there. I'm an idiot. um But he said that Conor McGregor is hosting a party. Yeah, he's got a massive party. And I think we're going to try to at least show up at that party for a few minutes.

Speaker: I don't know if we will or not because... ah Most of our team is over parties. We're we're still down to hang, but most of our team is not interested in partying.

Speaker: um So we skip most of that stuff because we have guests that we have to entertain ourselves. So we'll see how it shakes out. um But I would like to see if we can we can say what's up to Conor McGregor and say that he shouldn't have thrown that trolley, that dolly through a bus window into a man's face.

Speaker: But, you know.

Speaker: um Trip, if I give you $100, do you get sucker punched by Connor? No. It would cost us a lot more than that.

Speaker: Okay. It would cost a lot more than that. If you pay me $10,000, yeah, I'm in. We'll discuss. We'll discuss. Bitcoin and it'll take. Yeah. um yeah So did you do pairing of the night?

Speaker: I know I said mine was my smoked maple porter. Well, shit, I didn't. I didn't, but I'm going to say the who mix. I'm going go back. I love the mango, but the strawberry knocked my socks off, man. I love the strawberry nectars, guava nectars, papaya, all those things. I really love that strawberry and the quality of the flavor was so good.

Speaker: It didn't taste like it had alcohol in it. It's kind of dangerous, but also fantastic. And I just... My mind goes to, well, I can take this. I can put this into a cocktail. I can mix this with something else and make it something different, something unique, something cool. Use it as a base for something not typical. Like, I would i would take that strawberry and and maybe mix it with with something that's like, I don't know, maybe little Montenegro, a little Frenet.

Speaker: Yeah. I would i was going to say... Pineapple and Campari. I was going to say pineapple Campari. po canut one Make like a ah ah jungle bird kind of concoction with that. That might be delicious.

Speaker: Well, they have a pineapple coconut one in the box. Okay. I haven't tasted it. That going to bring it down. I'm going get down. ah And if it works with Campari... um I'm down to like run to a shop and pick up some Campari and just throw it together at the house. And maybe that's going be the house pairing.

Speaker: And then we'll you know we'll do our little mini house pairing thing. We still have to figure out the cigar and some of the logistics, but I think we'll find something. We'll find a cigar sooner or later. Yeah, man. All right, guys. I guess that ends our final episode of Let's Get Pairing until PCA.

Speaker: um PCA is always exciting. We can't wait. Yeah, PCA is in five days, man. It's... um oh yeah, it is five days, Friday. I always tell people it's the hardest we work all year. it's It really takes the takes the life out of you. Walking, you know, nine miles a day when you're used to walking 2,000 steps a day.

Speaker: On a low day, it's nine miles. Probably. It's it's it's tough. But we're not here to complain. We're here to give you coverage of the PCA show.

Speaker: Our coverage is going to be a little different this year, which we're really excited about. um

Speaker: Nice, Sam. I'll get to that in a minute. um But we're going to be covering. We're going to be taking pictures, taking videos, taking all that stuff. We can't wait. Oh, man. I'm so excited to see everybody to actually hug people I like.

Speaker: Man, it's going great. um I didn't make the shirts. I fucking can't wait. We're going to have the PCA shirts available after the fact once I figure out the logistics on the back end. But the design is ready. It is to commemorate PCA 2026 in New Orleans and specifically for Let's Get Pairing.

Speaker: um And all I can say is it's, it's, let's get jazzed, man. Yeah. Let's get jazzed. I'm feeling jazzed already. I, I will have Dennis. This is, I mean, i don't know why I'm saying this. Maybe someday I'll, I'll make a bunch of them and sell them.

Speaker: But this hat is like falling apart. I have actual glue, actual Velcro. I have one that I'm making for you this week. Um, and I'll have it, I'll have it for you, for you there in this, this fancy, like neoprene or whatever it is kind of style.

Speaker: Um, and we also have a whole bunch of stickers as well. And, uh, so at some point soon, Tripp are going to discuss some details and probably put together sticker pack for some people. I mean, yeah, we'll, we'll at least at the very least, we'll probably end up sending a sticker pack to Sam because he's he's been a loyal viewer and we appreciate you, buddy.

Speaker: Um, Because we don't have polo shirts that we've made. But we got the coupon. Anyway, it's time for One for the Road, which is where we talk about some kind of media that we've consumed, something that we've consumed. I guess, you know, it could be anything.

Speaker: um And we tell you all about it. It's just kind of our time to to give a little review of something non-cigar related. ah Sam has one. I lost my window here somehow.

Speaker: Sam's is school spirit on Paramount plus starring Peyton list. Um, this is a cool show. I haven't watched season two. I need to watch it.

Speaker: I don't know if I even finished season one, but it's a cool show. I know what this is about. So I can give a little summary. It's about a girl in high school who is murder. She gets murdered and, um, comes back as a ghost and has to,

Speaker: try to help solve her her murder.

Speaker: I thought it was a pretty neat show. I enjoyed that. At least the, whatever I watched of it. I don't remember how many episodes I watched.

Speaker: Dennis, you want me to go first this week? I got a weird one. Well, so I have a i have a short one. let me Let me run through my short one real quick because I don't actually consume that.

Speaker: Well, I mean, I listen to podcasts while I'm driving and I have hours and hours and hours of different podcasts and things, most of which I've already showcased. But lately, watching-wise, we've been watching Jury Duty Presents. Yes, so this it's so good. If you remember Jury Duty. was going to be my my one for the road last week.

Speaker: Oh, okay, okay. ah Yeah, man, it's kind of a cool show on on the the heels of what was jury duty previously, where they basically bring someone who is not in on the shtick and everyone else is an actor. And they're just kind of filming this person's natural reactions to these situations. They basically have like a whole storyline planned out.

Speaker: They have an entire storyline planned out, and this person just lives through it. And unknowing that they are the only real person that's part of this. Everybody else is an actor.

Speaker: Literally everyone they interact with is an actor. And... and It's crazy. Anyway, go on, Dennis. I didn't want to interrupt you. It is. no, no not at all, man. it it It's so wild. And so this season brings us into um it's a person who who is a temporary worker who believes he's been hired to work for a legitimate job, which is a family-owned hot sauce company called Rockin' Grandma's Hot Sauce, right? And then they go to an annual off-site. It'll knock your socks off, by the way.

Speaker: fucking mayhem unfolds and it just films his you know reaction to the the craziness of what's going on it's kind of cool and uh and kind of fun that's that's the one thing but the big thing that it came up to me today it's not out yet so i can't necessarily i haven't seen it i know what it is doesn't exist quite yet but there is a crowdfunded documentary for blood sport have you heard about this Oh, I thought you were going in a very different direction. I have not heard about this. No, no, no. So it's called Fight to Survive, The Legacy of Bloodsport. And this is ah from the guys that did the documentary, The Story of No Retreat, No Surrender. you remember that movie? Oh, nice. So it was The Untold Story of No Retreat, No Surrender.

Speaker: They co-directed that and a bunch of other projects, things like Last Action Heroes and a few other things. And so now they're working on a project to cover the legacy of Bloodsport, the story of Bloodsport. Like literally Bloodsport in so many ways, people don't realize that when they filmed it,

Speaker: The scene where he's going into – to go to the Kumite, he has to go through this like underground city. That city was a real place, and that was a real thing that people lived in for a long time until it was demolished in the late 90s, I believe. They finally – they moved everybody out of it, and they demolished it. But for a period of time, it was the most densely populated city basically in the world.

Speaker: And it was this. why That's wild. fucking Fucking, like, no windows. well What you see in the movie is not a stage. That was the actual place. That was the literal place. Things dripping, the lights, the interior intensity of it was all real.

Speaker: And, you know, this documentary is trying to to to to kind of distill all of those experiences from the movie into... Kind of like, hey, this is nostalgia, let's talk about it. Like, for example, when he did he did the Death Touch, right? The Dim Mach.

Speaker: When Jean-Claude Van Damme did the Death Touch and break that he broke the last break at the bottom, m hopefully I'm not ruining the movie for anybody, but if I am... I mean, the movie's four years old. If you haven't seen it, go watch it.

Speaker: yeah Even though you already know about the Dim Mach. When he broke the bottom break, he actually did that. And it was not planned. Really? really It was not a planned thing. He just, he he did that. I mean, some of it was was, there was preparation involved, but nobody thought that it would actually work kind of thing. So the reaction of when he did it, of the everyone was so impressed, that was that was a real reaction.

Speaker: That rules. Just as, you know, one of many nuggets from that film. That's very cool. So where i now Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker: Go ahead. Mine is a tangent. it's It's crowdfunded now. 20 days left to go. They're almost at their goal on Kickstarter.

Speaker: So check it out. They have a trailer for it. They have a bunch of original cast members in in the documentary planned. Some of which they've already talked to for the trailer. So yeah, man.

Speaker: Check it out. With the way Kickstarters are these days, I think they've probably finished the movie. They're just trying to get back-end financing figured out. they and Yeah, I wouldn't be i wouldn't be surprised. because They have a ah solid list of people already involved. Because movies are very difficult to make.

Speaker: Surprisingly. You might not believe this. Movies are very difficult and very expensive to make. And even after you've made the movie, like, once you've made the movie, you still need a bunch of money to actually make the movie, the rest of the movie, happen. So they've probably shot all the interviews, I would guess, but they still need to edit, they still need sound, they still need narration and all that shit.

Speaker: Well, look at look at our buddies for Hand Rolled, right? like Yeah. The Hand Rolled project is People don't realize how much goes into it until they sit down and watch and go, holy shit, this is like a real, this is a real thing. Well, and like for hand rolled, at least when you're watching it, you're watching 1% of the footage.

Speaker: Like, yes you're not watching 70% of the footage that that they've shot. they've You're watching the the best 1% of the footage that they shot. It's crazy how much work those guys put into it. Shout out to ah Jesse and Steve from Hand World. We'll see them next week. Can't wait.

Speaker: I'm excited, man. I can't wait to see the new Hand World. um and So where I thought you were going to go, have you finished Jury Duty yet? Company Retreat, rather?

Speaker: Presented by Joe dude? Not yet. A couple episodes in. I think probably three or four episodes in. There's a reveal at the end. that is not like it's not like It's not part of the thing.

Speaker: But they made a documentary about the making of the show. And they made a talk show hosted by James Marsden. As like an after show.

Speaker: These aren't out yet. Okay. But they they have produced like behind the scenes footage and full on interview with everybody who was involved um that is going to be released shortly, which is really exciting.

Speaker: And dude, just rolling back to that, like, i don't know how, The people who make these two shows or this show, season one and season two, they're so good at choosing the right person because it would be so easy to like pick a person who you would do this to and they would have an adverse reaction. Some of the stuff that happens in this show...

Speaker: If you reacted in a certain way, that could be, like, career life ending. You know, like, it could be, like, the kind of stuff where you get canceled over something you said as part of a prank because it was put on TV.

Speaker: um And they managed to find the most understanding, genuine, sweet people. like Especially in season two, like the guy in company retreat is just the sweetest person that I think has ever existed. Like he's so empathetic towards these other people in these literally made up situations that he thinks are real.

Speaker: And he's just, he's just trying to be his best self and make everybody happy. And like just the, the kind of character that that guy has is rare.

Speaker: And I think that's part of what makes this show so great is that you constantly get to see what a dude this guy is. He's just such a guy, man. Like, such a person that just...

Speaker: just takes the bizarreness happening and in front of him and just supports you anyway. Like he says he's, he's just supports you no matter what bizarre shit that doesn't even make sense is happening around him.

Speaker: Um, and yeah, that guy, that guy rules. I saw a post on Reddit that somebody went to high school with him and said he was, he was very cool. That was all they said.

Speaker: um But i'm I'm excited to see that follow-up series that's coming shortly. Yeah, man, that's awesome. That sounds fun. Alright, so my one for the road is one that, like, this is the kind of thing I just need to get off my chest, you know?

Speaker: Oh, boy. So watched a movie last week called The Bride. This movie has gotten abysmal reviews. Awful reviews. um It's... It's movie, man. It's...

Speaker: So the way that I was thinking to explain this is imagine if David Lynch,

Speaker: Quentin Tarantino, who's the guy that made Edward Scissorhands? What's his name?

Speaker: so Tip my tongue. Tim Burton. Tim Burton. um The Tim of Your Tongue, yes, I know. And, man, I can't even think of another name. Somebody somebody who makes musicals.

Speaker: If those people had a baby, and that baby made a movie, it would be The Bride. okay Really? it's such a It's such a profoundly bizarre movie.

Speaker: I enjoyed the shit out of it. It is so much fun. such movie. A profundo of a movie. um it's for smoke It's so incredibly weird, dude.

Speaker: Like, it starts off with Mary Shelley just yelling at you. Like, just yelling at you. She's just yelling at you about stuff in this, like, way over-the-top British accent.

Speaker: Or, sorry, Cockney accent. is it Is it like um um the fucking...

Speaker: The rock opera. The rock opera? The rock opera. ah the Repo the genetic opera. reap Repo the genetic opera. like that?

Speaker: Bro. i was telling him I was telling a buddy, and I used the same analogy, but I included a director that normal people don't even know who he is. Named Darren Lynn Bousman.

Speaker: He directed Repo the Genetic Rock Opera, man. he did? but um Yeah, I don't know who directed it, but I really enjoyed that movie. I'm a huge fan of him. ah It's definitely got some of that in it.

Speaker: um Like, this is a movie that is simultaneously like a Chicago gangster nineteen thirty s kind of thing.

Speaker: But also Frankenstein. Also, there's a dance number that goes like full-on thriller with Frankenstein and the bride dancing. a bunch of random people in the background jump in and are doing the dance along with them. Cops show up. They start shooting cops.

Speaker: it's It's crazy. This movie is insanity. It's just... It's way weird. It's so out there. Um...

Speaker: But it's the kind of movie that, like, if you if you are expecting a certain type of movie when you go into this, you're going to be disappointed almost no matter what. If you're expecting a specific type of horror movie or horror adjacent or creature feature or um anything, any expectations of this movie are going to be dashed immediately.

Speaker: ah If you are willing to just be along for the ride, this movie is a um Jessie Buckley is so over the top because she plays dual roles. She plays Mary Shelley in um old school horror geek thing moment here.

Speaker: um In the original Bride of Frankenstein, there's at the beginning, Mary Shelley is telling the story of the Bride of Frankenstein to her friends. um In this one, Mary Shelley is just yelling the story of Bride of Frankenstein at the viewer.

Speaker: um But Jesse Buckley plays both the bride of Frankenstein and Mary Shelley. And like, it's it's this weird, like black and white, very starkly lit.

Speaker: She's just yelling at you about this is the story. It's very crazy. um That's awesome. It's so weird, dude. i would like that It's so weird. I would really enjoy it.

Speaker: It's one of those movies that if you can roll with the punches, you're going to have a blast. If you have expectations, they will be just demolished. Because this movie is crazy.

Speaker: the the The storyline is insane. um the The writing is crazy. Like, Jesse Buckley's the bride. The bride just like... When somebody says a word to her, she yells out synonyms. It's almost like, you know that um that British rhyming thing?

Speaker: You know what i'm talking about? With like the british the British slang that comes from rhyming. I'm trying to remember a word from that. But it's like it's this this style of English slang that you say the word, then you say a word that rhymes with the word, and then you say a word that rhymes with that word.

Speaker: And that's what becomes like the the code word for the thing you're talking about. um And she does like a lot of that. Like somebody will yell, like somebody will say, i don't know, person to her. And she's like, person, personal, person, Aubrey.

Speaker: And she starts yelling out all these words that are vaguely similar. And it's so, so weird. um But, you know, if again, one of those things, if if you are willing to just be along for the ride with this movie, you're going a blast.

Speaker: um i think it's right up your alley, Dennis. I'm to watch this on the flight coming down to PCA, and i will report on the ground what think. Please do. i'm I'm excited to hear your thoughts because watching this movie feels kind of like you're going crazy. It's a bizarre movie that is so profoundly weird.

Speaker: that I had to talk about it. And I don't know if I recommend everybody watch it. Like when it's free, watch the first 20 minutes when it's on Netflix or whatever, watch the first 20 minutes and see what you think. But this isn't the kind of movie that I'm like, go, oh you, you gotta go see this movie in the theater.

Speaker: Um, this is just not that kind of movie because a lot of people are going to dislike this movie as, as since the, the box office has shown.

Speaker: Um, Well, you know, that that was kind of like Eraserhead was kind of like then and then the other movie, which was, what was it? a How would love to how we Learned to Love the Bomb. Yeah. You know it's that sort of vein of direction. It's that vein of of movie. Yeah, absolutely. That's why David Lynch came to mind. um Because it's it's just so weird.

Speaker: It's so weird. And it has like a message that's great. um the the art of this movie. like The direction, the cinematography is incredible.

Speaker: It looks so good. um The character design, like, Jesse Buckley's the bride, as a distinction from the classic bride where she has like that tall hair with the lightning bolt. Yeah, same thing.

Speaker: They made her, she has like this this stuff that they have to fill her with in order to bring her back to life and she coughs and it splashes all over her face she has this black mark across her cheek that's very distinctive um and it's just stained there and it's it's a very cool little thing that like is is just a a weird thing that somebody came up with and was like that would be cool to have so they make that part of it bill Yeah, I forgot to mention that. You have Jesse Buckley playing this insane character of the bride, along with Christian Bale, like who is probably method acting this whole thing as Frankenstein. I always knew he was a monster.

Speaker: Well, and it's it's weird because, like i in my opinion, the performances kind of work. like Jesse Buckley is just all over the place. She doesn't know if she's in a comedy or a horror movie.

Speaker: And she just bounces back and forth all over the place, being funny and being terrifying and being scared and all this stuff. And Christian Bale, he is just a dumb monster who's in love.

Speaker: And that's the way he plays it. And it it worked for me. Um... that's But I feel like that's another one of the things that might not work for people is that it's so disconnected. Like his very grounded performance as this monster who's been alive for 200 years and is so depressed and upset and has a hard time existing with this manic girl with her hair all crazy.

Speaker: um Man, it's such a weird movie. I can't wait to hear what you think of it if you in fact make it through. Well, I'm going to watch it on my flight, baby. So we'll see. We'll chat on Thursday.

Speaker: I will see you on Thursday, and I'll see everybody else. Not next weekend, but the following one. We'll be back one on the next one, which will be not next weekend. Let me let me look at a calendar right quick.

Speaker: um The 26th. We will be back April 26th. um We should theoretically have a big old pile of new cigars to try out. um We'll see how that goes.

Speaker: So everybody, have a great and safe couple of weeks. We will talk to you from PCA in beautiful New Orleans. um Yeah.

Speaker: And so we'll we'll catch you on the next one. Dennis, hit him with the catchphrase, and we'll get out of here. Amen. Thanks everyone for watching and listening. And remember, we want you to drink better, but we want you drink less.